Latest hobby - cross stitch

Here I go again, off chasing a new dream.

After many years of looking for and trying out different creative outlets, I'm giving cross stitching a go. I've tried writing (I like the idea of it, but have no passion so all my writing comes out flat), drawing (also like the idea of it, but don't practice enough to improve), music (both digital and on physical instruments - digital came out extremely simple and synthetic, physical I don't practice enough to play properly), making stop-motion video (with LEGO - fun product but requires a lot of time and effort), actual video (I suck in front of the camera and suck at convincing others to get in front of the camera) and artisanal stuff (woodworking, metal working, a touch of painting - all have the same issue: not enough funds for tools / supplies and more importantly no work space).

So now I'm giving cross stitching a try. It's something that (so far) has been relatively easy for me, but it's time consuming and requires patience so it can look impressive to others. I've only completed two small projects so far (cheap little all-included beginner kits) and I had fun putting them together. I currently have five ideas that I'd like to put together, but we'll see how I go.

Went shopping today for supplies and bought a quantity of string (sorry, the proper term is "floss") in a few colours. I have some patterns saved that I used some free on-line tools to go from digital design to pattern (may need to print them out). Next step is getting a hold of some cloth, without breaking the budget.

Like most of my projects, I just need to focus on doing a few smaller things first to improve my skill and get better rather than trying to go all-in on an overly complex single piece and then not finishing it. We'll see how I go! 

Ingress Prime

 By way of quick introduction for those who are not familiar with it: Ingress Prime is a GPS-based game made by Niantic - the same company that made Pokemon Go (PG). Ingress was their previous game, and is easily summed up as "a world wide game of capture the flag".

Ingress was their original "go out and find virtual stuff" game and it had players from across the world submit locations to be places of interest. Niantic was then able to use that map to create the map for PG and make it the "instant success" that it became.

I started playing Ingress as it uses basically the same map as PG and my wife is a PG player so we could go out and play at the same locations.

What I've found from Ingress after playing for a few weeks is that it's good for exercise, but not so good for playing as a game. Unless you want to dedicate your life to it, and have a large team of players. how it works is that you go out and capture places of interest for your team. You can join the places together and when you join three, the triangle in the middle gets filled in and becomes your teams' "territory".

The more territory you hold, the more points your team gets.

The downside is that the places that you control start "breaking down", and go back to neutral after about a week. You can go and revisit and recharge them to keep them in play, but you need to be visiting them at least every six days or better yet every day. So the more territory you control, the more time you're going to be spending running around doing maintenance. I haven't done the math, but I'm sure there's a limit you'd reach where you'd be spending all your time recharging and have no time to create new ones.

Here's where it is handy to have teams - you can charge each other's territory, and you can focus on controlling larger areas. But that requires coordination and, you know, friends.

At the moment I think I'll be mainly focusing on just doing it on occasion for fun rather than seriously trying to win points. It's a fun thing to do while out jogging around the suburbs, but not something I'm willing to jump into the car and race across town to go collect or protect territory. At the moment (as far as I can tell), there's only about a dozen active players in the Darwin area so there are plenty of neutral points of interest which can be captured and controlled.

Wet season!

 Well, this wet season certainly feels a lot wetter than last year. I don't know how it actually is, I haven't looked up the numbers. I think the difference for me is that this year I am into GeoCaching, and the rain is stopping me from going out. Actually, the rain isn't stopping me from going out - up here the rain is warm and more of an annoyance rather than cold and miserable like it is down on the south side of the country. No, it's wanting to make sure no water gets into the caches that is stopping me. Would be mighty rude to open one up and it gets a heap of water in it!

I can't remember how much I noticed the rains last year. I don't recall any times where I was looking out the window wanting to go out. Possibly was too busy with my head in my phone rather than paying attention to what else was going on around me. Or maybe it rained less? Let's go with that.

Movie madness

 And by madness, I mean the prices!

It's been a long time since I went to the movies, and longer since I actually bought tickets. Out of idle curiosity, I looked up some prices at my local cinema to see the prices of going to the movies.

Twenty three dollars! Per person!

And on top of that, it wanted to tack on a three dollar "booking fee". What on earth? Why is there an extra charge for them to do less work? I know cinemas don't exactly have huge profits at the best of times (and they would have taken a hard hit with Covid) but I think FIFTY DOLLARS for two people to go see a 90 minute film is outrageous. And that's before snacks. And for a couple only - how bad is it for the families with two or three (or more once you add in friends!)?

That's a very hard pass from me.

For $50, we can go down to the local shops, pick up a DVD (or an older movie on blu-ray) and have $20 left over to go buy a bunch of snacks from the grocery store.

No wonder they aren't as popular as they used to be. And then they get all shocked and dismayed when people prefer to go on the dark webs and pirate stuff.

Eerie

At the airport, getting ready to fly home after holidays and it is very strange seeing a plane parked up at every gate. We're on an early morning flight, but it still seems very odd. Never seen that before.

Geo-jog

Currently in Adelaide, and just got back from what I think is my most succesful geocaching jog yet. Covered just over 12km on foot, found 14 caches with a fifteenth that was a DNF.

Not too bad for one morning's jog. There are loads more caches in Adelaide with a heap near where we are staying, but only so many that I can reach on foot.

I doubt I'll go out again too much more while we are here, except for targets of opportunity if the situation presents itself.

Busy Saturday

Nine and a half hours later, the CB and spotties are mounted on the new (fresh) car. Could have done it faster, but get a better result being careful and running cables in neat out-of-sight spots rather than just draping them and letting them hang.

Still on the to-do list; polish up the headlights to get them looking sparkly and clear again. Most everything else has been taken care of. Doesn't look like I'm going to be getting much rest this weekend.