A long time ago (early-mid 2002) Damien, Trav, Stephan and I participated in an open beta of manga-themed Ragnarok Online. The game is (very basically) a Diablo-style MMORPG where you clickity-click and bash evil monsters to death with whatever weapon or spell you happen to prefer.

For some reason, the game was a great time waster and rather enjoyable. We sunk a reasonable amount of time into the game; after a while, the game’s popularity increased rather a lot, and things such as cheating, rude players etc. made the game a little less enjoyable. None of this mattered, since shortly after, the open beta closed down as the company prepared for the Korean release of the game.

Fast forward to now and the International server has been in play for quite a while (probably more than a year or so). The International server is basically a catch-all server which is not tailored for Korean or Japanese players. Among the issues the company running the game are facing is that is apparently quite easy to “hack” into the servers and modify characters to your liking, or posing as GMs.

Anyway, this all leads up to what this post is actually about. Me playing more Ragnarok. I recently learned that somehow, people have gotten hold of the server software (or perhaps built their own, but I doubt it) and created their own servers! As a result, there are a number of free servers floating around for people too cheap to pay for the game (i.e. me). One such server is called the “Mob Ragnarok Online” server, and is the one I decided to try out.

After downloading about 700MB worth of files, and another 100-200MB worth of patches, I created a character and gave the game another whirl. Things were (almost) exactly as I remembered, though there was much, much more than there had been when we played. Interestingly, the largest number of people I have ever seen playing on this server is 300. I seem to remember numbers of 2000+ on the official servers. This means that the game is a lot less crowded, which equals less annoyances and more fun!

Justine and I played for a couple of hours last night, and quite enjoyed ourselves. The server we’re playing on also has set the XP level to 5 times the official server’s level. This means that it’s a lot faster to level up which makes the game more gratifying (at least in the short term).

Someone at work is doing a computing course of some sort (Certificate II in IT or something); most Thursdays, they talk with me about what they’d learned the night earlier (since the course takes place Wednesday nights).

Generally, the conversation ends up being them saying something like, “We learned about pins and jumpers” to which I responded with a dodgy way to make jumpers. Another example was in regards to CAT5 patch cable; he said “You need to put the coloured wires in a very specific order.”. My reply? “Bah, as long as they match up at both ends it’s fine”. Another discussion related to anti-static straps and the fact that I’ve never used one, and never had anything blow up (that I know of) from the lack of use of said strap.

There are other examples, too, but I won’t bother going into them. Today, there wasn’t much discussion of what he’d learned, but there was a short discussion on what he’d discussed with the teacher. The teacher had told him that I am a cowboy. Cool!

So now, I’m thinking of myself as the IT Cowboy. The guy who comes in, doesn’t do anything by the rules, but God damn it, I get things done. John Wayne, eat your heart out.

So, I am still working on a certain project involving signing in and out of out contractors. At the end of April, I’d been asked to ensure that this project was ready for testing on Monday 24th May at 9am. At that point, features were locked in (and out) and I started working to ensure it was all going to be ready for it’s “big day”.

Yesterday was that day. The project was completely ready for testing (a few minor things weren’t working, but since they were never actually asked for, I don’t consider that to be a big thing) at 9am. At around 11:30am, I began getting a number of calls from one of the people involved in the project.

Her questions were all “how does it do this?” and “does it do that” and “what if…”. Considering the last time she’d spoken to me about this project was the day we locked in (and out) the features, I was wondering why she hadn’t taken a little bit more time to ask these questions. Furthermore, none of the people involved in the project who were supposed to have organised the testing had written up any testing plans, nor had they even decided how the plans were to be run.

Makes me wonder why I even bothered getting the software ready when we’d agreed. No one will be using it; it’s not going to even start testing until Friday at the latest. The guy who is the main proponent of the entire project (and who wanted the testing this week) is going on leave next week. What’s the point of organising a large rollout and testing when you aren’t even going to be here? Ugh.

</rant>

Update: That should have read “it’s not going to even start testing until Friday at the earliest.”, obviously.

Today something happened that I had been dreading for more than three weeks. The results for the ITIL training arrived.

The pass mark for the examination is a pretty low 26/40. I didn’t do spectacularly well — I passed with 31/40. Apparently that’s around the average for our trainer (the average average is around 28) so I suppose I did well enough.

Three weeks of looking at my pigeon hole at work, and stressing over the envelope sent from the UK has finally been replaced with relief. Mainly because my boss had paid for this course, and also attended with me. If I didn’t pass, I knew I’d never be able to live it down. My boss hasn’t received his yet, but I suspect it will arrive today or tomorrow in Hicksville Geelong.

I didn’t really kiss the teacher (thank God).

Update: I have scanned in a copy of the ITIL certificate for those who may be interested. I have blurred out some bits in case someone, somehow finds this site and tries to pass the certificate off as their own.

Certain people have mentioned they are having trouble deciding on presents for my birthday. Personally, I don’t care what the present is, as long as it’s thoughtful. Although I love stuff, I can really live without more so don’t feel like you’re compelled to get me anything.

Only get me something if you want to; if you are still having trouble deciding, this list may help.

Since Justine’s birthday is coming up soon (along with mine, my Dad’s, and Justine’s Dad’s), I thought it was time to get her the present I’d been planning on getting… her. Because I usually get badgered around present-time until I tell her what she’s getting, Justine already knew she was getting an ice cream maker (ours is a Breville, but appears to be the same model).

The machines are sort of dodgy, except for the really expensive (i.e. $500+) ones. Basically, they consist of a big bowl that you put in the freezer, and a churning attachment. Once the big bowl is frozen, you pour the pre-made ice cream mix (that you make yourself, from real ingredients; it’s not a packet mix) into the cold bowl as it’s churning. Even then, the only real difference with the expensive ones is that they have a freezer unit inside them instead of the bowl you put in your freezer.

And since we couldn’t wait until June 9, we decided to make ice cream yesterday. Well, I decided to make ice cream yesterday.

I made some lemon sorbet using some lemons from the tree in our back yard and some strawberry ice cream using strawberries from … the store. The lemon sorbet turned out pretty well, except that it was quite a lot sweeter than we’d anticipated. Next time we’ll use a lot less sugar (1.5 cups in 1 litre). The strawberry ice cream turned out really well though. Perhaps a little too egg-yolky flavoured but otherwise really nice.

Hopefully it will cut down our ice cream costs, which seem to soar into the thousands every year.

Last night, Justine and I saw Van Helsing. Because of all the bad reviews it had been getting we simply decided to download it and watch it. The time and effort spent downloading it was probably not worth the effort.

The file was much too long (over 2 hours) and really just went in circles. The story was silly, and the whole thing was barely worth the effort. I’m glad we didn’t spend the cash to see this stinker — clever title, don’t you think?