Time.

Time. What a bitch. I realised this past week how exhausted I actually was after my "holiday" and how I couldn't bring myself to do a damn thing.

To add to my despondency the sun was beating down all week and if you have ever been to England that is not a gift horse you look in the mouth. That and the Portuguese plague I managed to bring back with me.

As well as this I waited until Friday morning at the door for my wedding invite but it seems Harry forgot to send me one. Those kids are so up there, William forgot as well!

I was going to plot out a decent little quest but, I then realised that 35 years ago today was the day I left school. Where did that shit go?

Couldn't watch this back then though....



In that short period I feel I've seen so damn much. The birth of the internet, the birth of the home computer, cars that talk, robots that walk, the fall of the Berlin wall, the man on the moon, the death of a princess, John Lennon, the Pope and Ronald Reagan being shot and the Falklands war plus shit loads more I could mention.

Out of all the things the time changes with its new inventions and discoveries and changing policies of governments and fall of regimes the one thing that has never changed is music.

I can't bring myself to adapt to the absolute shit of the day. I first noticed this evil change in the mid 80's when I first heard a record come on the radio in 1987, Mars, Pump up the volume.

When I heard that I knew music had some sort of terminal disease and was doomed for the rest of eternity. I feel for the kids of today (I swore I would never say that...) with their constant drum beat with some crap bass "riff" following it and some guy with a dodgy pretend accent rapping over the top. Good luck with that.

When I mention that I like punk and rock, the answer I get is "I can't tell what they say". Are you fucking kidding me? I have a daughter with a mixed up music brain and I've tried to listen to that rap shite on several occasions and not only after 20 seconds do I want to smash up the speakers I am convinced that they are speaking in tongues. 

So, next time you want to tell me you don't know what the Clash are singing about or you can't understand the lyrics to God save the Queen realise one thing, you are a dick and its never been cool to be a dick and never will be. Don't start a new trend.

Countdown

The world cup is coming in a month and I find myself already checking all the groups, the teams and then re-checking them again.

It's the only sporting event that I actually enjoy and I will as always watch every single match, changing my allegiance from game to game.

I generally go through the lists of countries in each group and pick one out that I will support, even if they're the major under dogs.

Group C will have me drinking Fosters and singing Waltzing Matilda while Group F will have me screaming for those tiny South Koreans against the beefy Germans.

All good fun.

Saturday will see the royal wedding. Anyone actually care? It's not that I dislike the royals, far from it but I do dislike the media. People all around the world will be glued to their sets for hours on end just to see who made all the dresses and suits they can't afford and perhaps another shot of Pippa's arse.

I'm still suffering the aftermath of my break in Portugal with a wonderful cold that was kindly given to me by the mother-in-law. How thoughtful. Next time I get one I'm going to fly over there and cough on everyone.

Anyway, back to Morrowind.

Here are some Blacksmith tools I released last night. As always. Use and abuse.

As for the Modathon I think everyone is being overwhelmed with the amount of mods being released. I've hardly had time to check any out because as soon as I do, another one pops up!

The one I've downloaded today had to be Cosair's "The Stone Halls of Solstheim". Looks awesome.

Anything that improves the content of Bloodmoon is fine by me.


Random. But I love this guy.

Mega May Modathon

It is with a joyful heart that I see the amount of people joining in this May's Morrowind Modathon.

Some great stuff to!

From utilities to models to quests to updates and upgrades. The whole range has been addressed.

I especially liked Aleist3r's Simple Name Generator as will anyone that makes mods themselves. Be careful! You can get a Dim Tim :D

Melchior's Magnificent Manuscripts are really good to. I saw those in the making and was liking those before release! I also have to mention Null Cascades Happy Harvesting mod which I have yet to test with Morrowind Rebirth but I am confident it will be compatible to a point.

I have to say of all the mods released the one that struck me as the most adventurous was Merlord's
Frostwind - Well worth checking out.

I had already discussed this mod with Merlord but I had no idea he was so close to completing it and absolutely no idea he was going to release it for the Modathon. If it wins overall I would not be surprised.

The achievements badges really have hit it off. Now I understand Steam, it really is a sneaky ploy!

They're a bit like a diploma in modding. As a modder I know that we don't seek approval from the masses or any kind of ego boosting, head swelling comments (and mostly we get critical messages to be honest) so these achievements really do make a difference. After working your fingers to the bone for the sake of the community it is quite nice to get a pretty little badge to slap on your work just to say; "I'm not half bad at this".

Now I'm back I may or may not release something for the modathon. My inspiration is there but my imagination is not. Our Caldera wont be ready before the 1st June and all my efforts and thoughts are going into that instead of side tracking myself into something completely new and different. Knowing me  though....you never know.

Here's a random picture of a bridge I took in Portugal. This will for sure appear as a model at some point for somewhere!

And here's another random picture of me and a lizard I seem so excited to have caught.(We don't have them here).

That has to be the brightest hand in history.

Looking forward to going back there (but only to the country. I hate the city) to see if I can't catch a snake next time. I found some snake "holes" but they refused to come out no matter how much I jumped on them.

Added some new in-game snaps of Caldera with a new texture set. The Caldera Experiment

Until next time. I'm off!

Home, Sweet, Home.

Arrived in Blighty, Her Majesties realm, home to crumpet-stuffers, red coats, pohm's, lobster backs, limey's and wankers. It's good to be back.

Perhaps the thought of Portugal conjures up such things as roasting hot sun, Sangria and sandy beaches. I suppose it does if you are on a lads week away in the Algarve but certainly not when you are in the capitol with plans for family weddings and birthday parties...

Even though my wife and I have been together almost twenty years I hadn't met most of her family and the ones I had met was only for a short period with the usual hello's followed by long periods of extremely loud Portuguese with hugs and kisses and a quick goodbye.

Having almost no family left myself I just felt exhausted meeting all these new faces, remembering foreign names and attempting to memorise each ones family tree.

Even though Portugal is in the West and only a few thousand miles away from here it seemed like I was on a different planet. The culture is so different and I will never get used to it no matter how many times I visit there.

My biggest all time hate is the waiting... Sorry. Waiting for no reason. I'm British. I can wait in queues better than anyone but waiting for the sake of it is too frustrating even for me with my immense amount of patience.

If you ever find yourself in Portugal and someone says dinner is at eight then go and eat something at seven and take a can of beer with you for good measure. They LIE! Dinner is not at eight. Meeting seven hundred people with hugs, kisses and pleasantries are at eight.

In England when you go out, the first thing we all do is hit the bar, order the drinks then check out the menu. In Portugal you wait. Then wait some more. You all sit around a table waiting for Manuel the waiter to turn up and then eventually return with your beer. Then they do it all again for the food... "Espera" is one word I will never forget.

The wedding was lovely as expected. Just like something out of Dallas (the 80's TV programme). I on the other hand, was sick as fuck. ALL day. I saw more of the back of a toilet door than I did the bride and groom, that, and the fact I had a suit and tie on in 28C weather didn't make my day at all.

The only bonus was my wife was a catwalk model for the day. Not bad for an old bird I guess.

My wife, Vitor and the mother-in-law (actually smiling! I must have hurt myself off camera)

The wife did seem to enjoy herself though. I guess it must be hard being away from your family when you are brought up like that.

For the British it is mostly very different.

This was not a holiday or even a break for me. It was exhausting and hard work with way too much waiting and way too much meet and greet.

We had decided to fly back Friday night the day after the wife's birthday and the airport was the same. Family came to see us off and after a good fifteen minutes of goodbyes we finally went on to the gate.

No such luck. Portuguese airports are not what I would call efficient.

Six hundred people in a line, waiting for two security areas. By the time we had got to the front of the queue they were announcing last call over the PA and to add insult to injury the alarm sounded as I went through...

Guess what. They made me wait. Standing there holding my jeans up in my socks for a good ten minutes before someone bothered to pad me down and nod at me. Of course, by the time we had collected all our items from the trays and found the gate it was closed! We had missed the bloody flight.

We are very fortunate of course to have friends, family and somewhere to stay and spoke the language but imagine if that was someone on a city break? I shudder to think what I would have done in that position.

Lucky for us after a brief display of Latina temper a quick phone call and we were being collected again by her Uncle. Next flight. Sunday. Damn Eurovision was on in Lisbon that very weekend.

I envisaged a miserable weekend with lots of family, listening to the wife telling our story over and over again but, the God's smiled up on us and we ended up 200 miles away from Lisbon at her Uncles country estate. It was the most relaxed I had been for a long time and her Aunt and Uncle were fantastic hosts.

Apart from the fair well wait we had to do on the tarmac at Lisbon airport before setting off, the flight was fine. I couldn't wait to see my daughters smiling face sticking out of the car window at Manchester airport and the short drive home, quick cup of tea and my own bed.

Here ends our Portuguese adventure...for the time being.


Now. Back to modding 😀

A lovely day to leave!

Last day in rainy, dull, cold, miserable England today. I'll be on the plane in several hours on my to...

It was nice to get a mod in before I left though and I may still be able to cobble together a furniture pack for release (just for fun) at the last minute while waiting for her to pack and re-pack the bags....again...

If you haven't entered a mod for the MMM then get to it! You have until the end of May to think something up and get it uploaded to Nexus. (Please scroll down a few posts for information and links)

Nice surprise this morning was the new "Achievements" you can win. I got two earlier and here they are;

A very nice job Melchoir has done with these to. AND you get to add them to your download description on Nexus. It actually feels like you've won something.

Check them out here; Modding for Morrowind

Quick release before I leave; Hlaalu Furniture Pack.

Mae Day! Mae Day!

Good morning fellow modders, grumpy old bastards and anyone else that reads this shit.

Happy birthday goes to my youngest (20) China Alanis. Have a great day sweetheart!

Also (and of course more importantly!) HAPPY BIRTHDAY MORROWIND!!

Morrowind is 16 years old today. It's now legal for it to have sex, get married, smoke and (hopefully not) multiply!

That's 16 years of mental modding from the community, 16 years of installing and uninstalling, 16 years of updating all those mods, 16 years of re-installing it on that new computer to see how much better it is or to see it with those new textures you couldn't use before.

Oh Morrowind. How we've loved you and hated you at the same time.

I would just like to say thanks to Morrowind for;

All those sleepless nights, all those mornings I was late for work after staying up until 4 am trying to get the Underground to work "this time", all the backache and eyestrain from sitting here hours after hour. All the beer I didn't drink because I preferred to stay in instead of going out.

All the women I didn't date (see above). All the meetings I cut short so I could get home and "finish that quest" and last but not least, thank you for helping me stay sane.

To commemorate such a great day we of course have the MMM. May Modathon Month. If you don't know anything about it then scroll down a couple of posts for links and video.

My entry this year is a small and humble one due to me having to fly away tomorrow to bloody Portugal for a family wedding (I knew I should have married and English girl!) so I wont be here for the month of May to add to the immense list of May mods I am expecting to flood in to Nexus.

My entry is; Modding for Morrowind by RubberMan

The link on this blog on the menu bar with the same name are supporting tutorials. I might even write a book on the subject......

Have fun!