Oof baboof it’s been a good while, huh? Well I can’t promise it’ll get any more regular than this but hey, here’s a post anyway! Obviously a lot of things happened during this long hiatus and I won’t be able to list everything - nor would anyone care probably - so here’s a few things from the top of my head.

Child stuff

Our gorgeous offspring is doing great, very healthy for most of the time and developing nicely. He’s had his first words already and he’s communicating well, it’s probably a matter of a few months until he starts making actual sentences. He’s very good at making connections, especially involving anything that is connected to The Simpsons. All things considered I think we’re doing a great job raising him but only time will tell.

Work stuff

I guess the main reason I have time and motivation to write an entry is that I’m sitting on a train going to Dublin to hand in my work equipment as today is my last day with the company. It’s been a mixed experience but the good outweighs the bad tenfold. I will miss my team greatly, they’ve been the best part of the job. In any case, onwards to new challenges, right? Having said that, starting right away as usual is always a bit awkward but excited for Monday.

Dev stuff

I reworked the engine for the strategy game about 3 times now but I’m learning new things and figuring out a lot of useful stuff still so I look at it more as an investment rather than wasted time. That and by increasing the versatility of the data structures I’ve added things became much simpler to manipulate so I can already feel the improvements.

Game stuff

Hard to sum up all the games I’ve played and even to give highlights but there’s a few titles definitely worth mentioning so here we go.

EVE Online

I’m back on it chasing the dragon I guess. Really enjoying it atm, just doing PVE (Abyssal Deadspace exclusively) and making a bit of money trying to min/max my shit.

Albion Online

I played a bit of Albion back when it was released but the very heavy PVP focus kinda turned me away from the game. Now a few years later the game is still very PVP-heavy but they’ve added tons of PVE and low-risk PVP content (meaning no full loot) which makes it a lot more accessible and fun even playing solo. I think Albion is probably my most played game as of recent, although I do have to say the state of the servers - especially in peak hours - is dog water and so I can’t really cope around that time.

Team Fortress 2

In March, on an absolute whim I signed up for the Newbie Cup in Team Fortress 2 and had a very good time getting back to the game and relearning it. Riding that high, I joined a team in RGL (the North American TF2 league) and we are currently on our second season. Due to some circumstances our performance is not as good as it could be but we’re currently working very hard to improve and we have coaching sessions now which helps a lot. I also joined an ETF2L team (the European TF2 League) where the general TF2 experience is fairly low on average but everybody’s very motivated to learn so we’ll see how that turns out.

Outies

I think these are the most interesting updates from my fairly boring life, other than these we’ll hopefully be able to move to a house where we can have our dog with us as she’s currently staying in a pet hotel for the last few months - the last move was VERY chaotic and unfortunately with that small a notice we couldn’t find a rental that allowed a dog. We’re looking forward to having her again, this last few months were just soul crushing without her even with the regular visits.

Well, in any case, I’m gonna stop now and publish this quick, toodles y’all.