wasted weekend

Not wasted as in alcoholically, wasted as in potential squandered.

As I cynically predicted on Friday I spent a hell of a lot of time playing Anno. The problem (if it is actually a problem) is that I've finally got myself a game where I'm not wanting to abandon it and start again.

It's actually in the sandbox (free play) mode and I've finally got it sorted in such a way that I can build up the entire map. In other words, I'm well on the way to doing all the cool stuff like building the Cathedral and Mosque.

I've gotten close to these before, but found myself in a situations where I'd not quite planned it out properly and needed to completely trash and restart some islands. The net hassle of which would have been less than restarting altogether, so I did. But now I think I'm in a situation where I can go to the "end" and build a complete world.

Trouble is, the bigger things get, the more complicated it is and the more time it absorbs. Indeed, this weekend I did little else, even to the extent that my shoulder began to ache. I may have to lay off it for a bit, just so that I don't end up with shooting pains down my arm again.

I also played Super Mario Brothers on the Wii a bit, but more on that later.

The other major thing at the weekend was the weather.

A large part of Cumbria is now under water it seems, and while I don't live in a real flood risk area my part of the country has also been suffering with some severe weather.

On Sunday morning it was actually so loud it woke me up. Very little can wake me up when I'm in deep sleep, but this did. Although the weirdest thing was that it was like a burst of wind.

It seemed to be doing that quite a lot - it would be relatively calm (it was even sunny at a couple of points) and then suddenly there would be a huge burst of wind and mad driving rain with dark skies and then just as suddenly it would all calm down again. It was a little disconcerting actually, and you almost didn't know what to do.

When I went out on Saturday morning to get some shopping in (it was a big one as I'm entering my "buy tonnes of stuff now so that I don't have to do any shopping at Chrimbo" phase) I wrapped up preparing for one of these monsoons, but I overheated because it was actually rather mild. But then as I was coming out of Tesco's the heavens opened and in the short dash to my car I got drenched.

The prospect seems to be that it's going to be a very wet winter. I don't mind that so much, so long as it means it's also a mild winter. The last few winters have been terribly cold, which has cost me a fortune in heating. A mild, wet winter would therefore not be a bad thing for me.