Saturday, 25 February 2012

The Wasted Journey

So there's me, champing at the bit, getting all excited about picking up The Last Story today... and, when I got back to the shop with which I placed my preorder, I learned that their stocks had been cancelled. Not just the Limited Edition, either. The game, it seems, is unlikely to ever be stocked there.

Undaunted, I tried another shop... Same story.

I was advised to very quickly order the Limited Edition online, so I came straight home and did just that - thereby wasting my train fare completely - but it seems that HMV might have had it in stock... Which is a bit of a bugger, as it means perhaps I could have been playing it now, rather than whinging about not having it because the specialist retailers have had their allocations withdrawn.

In other news, my PC's external powered speakers have been getting increasingly flakey - the power button won't stay depressed. Thankfully, I have a couple of other pairs knocking about - not to mention headphones - so it was just a case of swapping them out. Of course, my powered replacements have a similar, push-button on/off switch, so it may only be a short time before they're knackered in exactly the same way. That said, the button is on the top, rather than the front, so it's less likely to be accidentally jarred.

On the downside, they lack the 'bass boost' function, leaving my PC's output sounding sometimes a little tinny, but that's bearable. I think I can adjust the PC's audio output to compensate somewhat...

In other news, it seems I was needlessly worried about my dubious boiler. Each time it dropped from 1.5 bar to 1.0 bar, it took about 30 days to do so - no shortening this time round - and now the weather seems to have improved, I've actually had the central heating off for a few days, so it's functioning just as it was during last year, when I only had it on for hot water. Good news, since the last thing I need at the moment is to have to shell out for a new boiler, or even further repairs.

On the subject of boilers, though, I was woken up early this morning by the sound of drilling. Turned out to be next door who, by the looks of things, are having a new boiler fitted. And possibly a new gas meter. Nice of them to warn everyone that noisy would would be taking place first thing on a Saturday morning.

Just started watching the old comedy version of Casino Royale... I remember catching the very end many years ago, and I still haven't seen the very beginning - switching on about 15 minutes in - but I'm already struck by the number of exceedingly dodgy Scottish accents... That, and SMERSH attempting to destroy Sir James Bond's 'celibate image'. Har har...

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