Thursday, July 01, 2010

Asleep in the Desert

Another sultry night, but with a bit of a breeze and some high cloud to take the edge off of the heat this morning.

Sad to hear that Christopher Hitchens has been diagnosed with cancer of the oesophagus and has had to cancel his book tour. Still, if anyone can spit in the eye of the grim reaper it is Hitch. If you need reminding of just how good a writer he is, have a look at this piece in Slate where he lists all of the places in the world, from the Punjab to Northern Ireland, where people of the same cultural and ethnic backgrounds are prepared to go to war and commit genocidal atrocities over the most footling differences in religious belief. That should surely tell you something of how religion really does poison everything.

Interviewing at work today. Irritatingly, one candidate never showed up for his interview (and didn't have the courtesy to call to explain). The other person listed his hobbies as including 'Chess, cycling and juggling' and I wondered if that was all at the same time. We're still looking for developers in Leeds if anyone out there is looking for a job.

In games news, I have another backlog of games building up. I downloaded Settlers, Driver and Red Alert in the sales from EA and Gameloft recently, and it's only Driver that I have had more than a quick look at. Interesting that games which required a reasonably beefy pc (or a Playstation) to run back in the day now run quite happily on a phone. I've also downloaded the latest episode of the Doctor Who games - Blood of the Cybermen - but not started with that yet.

Maybe at the weekend.

Or maybe I'll just play Red Dead Redemption online. I had an ace time last night shooting up a Mexican village full of rebels alongside a taciturn stranger in the middle of a thunder storm, and finally leveling up enough to get a decent horse to ride around on instead of the asthmatic burro that you get to start with. I really need to rustle up a posse to have a go at the new co-op missions though. Faroon? Choobs? Anyone? Beuller?

In family news, number one daughter is home from uni for the summer, which feels a bit weird. We'll not mention the entire car full of tat that I collected from her flat this evening. Watch this space ...

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