News Archive

2nd February 2003

Time to report in again I suppose. Not a great deal has been happening really. I have been playing a lot of Medieval: Total War, which is a top game. Dougie's Higher exams approach at a great pace, David is enjoying his new job and of course Christopher remains out of contact.

Apart from Medieval I have gotten around to doing some more work my next module for Neverwinter Nights. This one is set in Marsember in the Forgotten Realms and I've got about maybe 10% of it done. It's a bit easier to do this one since I don't need to learn the coding language as I go. Hopefully it will be better than Brightwood which incidentally continues to get good scores.

22nd January 2003

It's my birthday :)

13th January 2003

Happy New Year to all our readers :)

It was a fairly quiet New Year, with only the one party and not a great deal of drink was taken. I did manage to play quite a few computer games though over the break, including a couple of games of Civ 3 and a revisit to Deus Ex and Fallout Tactics. I can't wait for Deus Ex 2 to come out later this year. It's about time another Fallout title was produced as well. Come on you Black Isle chaps, get it in gear.

David's new car and job are going well, Christopher is still cheffing away and Dougie will be sitting prelims soon. Holiday in USA is now booked for later this year. We will simply fly there and then drive around. Hopefully we will see the Grand Canyon, LA, San Francisco, Universal Studios, Yosemite and Scorponok. Should be fun. I will be demanding that Scorponok capture me some dangerous beasties so that I can view them whilst we visit him.

Not a lot else happening really.

24th December 2002

It's Christmas Eve! Again, already. The years are fairly flying by. Went to see Lord of the Rings Twin Towers last night. Excellent stuff, highly recommended. All presents are carefully wrapped (not) and soon we will get to open them all up and start the 4 hours of cooking the meal which will be eaten in about 20mins.

David's car may well have finally packed in, so it's just as well that we got a new one for him the other day. Delivery soon I hope. In other news I got hold of a copy of the Civ 3 add on "Play the World". You won't be hearing from me for some time I feel. All Civ games are just too addictive, keeps me up to the wee small hours.

Scorponok is here for a brief visit, so some catching up to do before he goes back. Merry Christmas everybody.

9th December 2002

Gosh it's only a couple of weeks until Christmas. I suppose I should start thinking about getting some presents. If anyone is interested I'd like the expansion to Civ 3 and Masters of Orion 2. No need for any fancy wrapping or anything.

Gone back to creating another module for Neverwinter Nights. That will keep me busy for a month or two I should think.

In other news David started with the Inland Revenue today, a regular job at last ;). Trouble is he'll need a new car to travel to work in since his current one is getting a bit clapped out. Oh, well every cloud as they say.

25 November 2002

Some small alterations to Brightwood have been made. Nothing major just one or two small bugs which don't affect things too much. Thanks to Scorponok for pointing them out.

Creation of the new module has had to take a back seat because I am playing Icewind Dale 2.

19 November 2002

By popular demand, well one person had a problem so I though I would do it anyway, I have written a walkthrough for my NWN module Brightwood. You can download a Word version here or a text only version here. (Right click and choose "Save Target As.." to download)

10 November 2002

There is no more news. Ok, there was bonfire night and we all went up to Nicola's place and about 6 adults set off a large number of fireworks for the benefit of 2 small children, one of whom kept her hands over her ears the entire time. Mrs Zacchaeus has decided we should go to America on holiday next year. Scorponok has been warned.

Have begun planning another module for Neverwinter Nights. "Brightwood" has so far been well received, however there have been no calls for a walkthrough so I won't be doing one, unless of course I get a few requests.

1st November 2002

Yes I know, it's been a very long time since there have been any updates and I can explain. I know that there are lots of fans out there (that's you Sheila) who have been just itching for more stuff to be posted here and well, at last here it is.

So what's been happening then? Well back in July we (that is Liz and I) paid a visit to the Tates in the New Forest. You can see some photos of that expedition here.

Also in July it was our Silver Wedding anniversary. Yes she has stuck with me that long much to her amazement. For various reasons the Anniversary Party didn't take place until much later but you can see some pictures here. Note: Some pictures have been withheld and it will depend on how much I get paid over the next few weeks as to whether they get published or not.

Completing a busy month I considerably upgraded my computer.

From August until now various things have happened including birthday's for Liz, David and Dougie. David also managed to get a job and now brings a works van home to clutter up the street. A couple of weeks ago the handbrake failed while it was parked outside and it rolled down the hill and demolished a neighbour's hedge and fence. He was not popular that day.

Congratulations also to Scorponok (from mIRC) who landed a job in the States and is now working there as a computer programmer. Well done that man and also to all the other chaps on mIRC who got their degrees over the summer.

So we come to the reason for the large gap in updating this site. One word explains it all, Neverwinter nights. What do you mean, I don't understand? Neverwinter nights (let's call it NWN) is a computer game like no other really. In fact to call it a game does not do it justice. It is a tool which enables you to create modules for Dungeons & Dragons. You can make scenes using the graphics editor and fill them with people, monsters and window dressing of all kinds. You can give the characters in the game conversations, create puzzles, magic weapons and much much more. It is all hung together with a scripting language related to C++. And it is simply brilliant. Starting in early August I began to learn the language and how to create a module and over the next few months I did just that, and I finished it last night. You can learn more about this great piece of kit at the Bioware's site and read a review here. The module is called Brightwood and you can download it here. I will in due course provide a walkthrough, watch this space.

27rd June 2002

Hooray!! The conservatory is finished. I've even managed to get some of the furniture into it. See more here.

23rd June 2002

At last, I've taken some Warmaster pictures and posted them in the Gallery section. You can click here to go directly to them.

22th June 2002

It was Gala day today and Liz was parading with the children in her class. Managed to sneak a picture of her in her party dress. Also a hearty congratulations to the chaps on mIRC (you know who you are), who all got their degrees yesterday. Particularly to Colen for getting a 1st. Well done that man.

21th June 2002

Phase One of the conservatory is complete! The foundations, brickwork, floor and step are finished. That's it until Monday when the joiners will arrive and start putting up the walls, roof etc. Looks good. See pictures here

20th June 2002

Work progresses on the conservatory. Visitor counter has now been fixed through the efforts of the nice people at Site5.com. Preparations for a trip to Southampton to visit friends started. It's nearly summer holiday time, hooray :D.

18th June 2002

Building work has started on the conservatory. Weather permitting it should be finished in a couple of weeks. See a pictorial record here. Visitor counter and random amusement at the bottom of this page are not working and haven't been for a while. Looks like server problem, not me :)

7th June 2002

Morrowind is out and I've been playing it for a week. See my review here. I had to upgrade my graphics card but it is well worth it. In other news one of my hard drives stopped functioning and I had to replace it. Had to be the C drive of course, so once again I have had to reinstall operating system, drivers, software etc etc. It's getting boring now. I must have installed Windows 5 time in the last 4 weeks.

29th May 2002

Changed things around a bit again. Put the latest news here and left the older stuff in an archives page. Added Warmaster to the games section. Must try and get some pictures of the miniatures. Trouble is that they are so small they may not be very visible. Also added a 'back' button to all pages so that they could be linked from other than their respective menus. Corrected a few spelling errors that slipped through the net previously. Shows how much I've come to rely on spell checkers. They can catch the obvious but not 'hoard' instead of 'horde'. Decided to stop smoking this weekend. Wonder if it will work this time.

24th May 2002

Got fed up playing Dungeon Siege, see a review here. Pleasantly surprised that the Orc Warmaster army is coming along nicely. I have painted nearly all the miniatures I have. Will need to send away for some more so that I can complete the army.

19th May 2002

Web site declared complete although I am thinking of adding some games reviews, just for fun. Started playing Dungeon Siege today and painted some more miniatures for Battlefleet Gothic. Hauled out some unfinished ones for Warmaster again. Orc army. I hate painting Orcs so progress is likely to be slow. Still you never know.

16th May 2002

Added a bookmark button to the menu, changed some of the welcome text and added a random quote of the day. This latter required me to have the welcome page as a .shtml document so I had to find and replace all the links. Hopefully with the power of EditPlus all links have been altered correctly. It also meant having to upload all the files again. Also altered the contact button to include a subject in the email. Neat.

And in other news David had interview for Inland Revenue today. I'm also thinking of changing my car.

15th May 2002

Finished up some more pictures and tidied up one or two other bits and pieces. Too tired to do much else

14th May 2002

Spent the day (when I wasn't sleeping that is) taking pictures of miniatures! I cut, cropped and resized in Paint Shop Pro and got several pages up and running. Tidied up a few more bits and pieces, changed a few font colours here and there, mainly cosmetic things. Considering adding a guest book since one is available on the server. Also added a Dungeons & Dragons page and the Links page as well as making the contact link do something. Not a great deal to finish up now and I have to say I am pleased with the result. I seriously need some feedback though from neutral observers.

13th May 2002

Complete revamp! Slideshow was far too slow to be of any use and I had problems with counter. The latter could not update if a link reloaded the main page. I was also a bit fed up with the menu system which required the full URL for every file it called and all needed files had to be in the same directory, which made things messy. So cut the number of frames to just two, completely revamped the menu system and redid all the links. Putting the counter on the static menu bar sorted that problem. Got rid of the slideshow and revamped the pictures page. Great stuff, now a lot happier with the way things look.

Stayed up all night working on it but that was ok because David and Nicola came back from holiday at 5.30am and I was picking them up from the airport.

12th May 2002

Added this page, which was not in the original design concept. Added a counter and tidied up some other bits. Still to take some pictures of miniatures for the gallery.

11th May 2002

Most of the files completed, uploaded to server and tested. About 90% of the work according to the original concept has been done. Slideshow is a bit slow.

7th May 2002

Site construction began. Found a good source of Java Applets and downloaded a few. Mainly ones to control menus and a cool slideshow.