An excellent day for burying bad news if I had any.
The news is (apart from the deaths of Farrah Fawcett – no surprise – and Wacko Jacko – uh-oh! hype tsunami; I see The Guardian has a picture of him when he still looked normal) that the boys from CRE came round yesterday and packed up my kit. Twenty-five boxes this time, not all of which can be blamed on trying to take as little with me as possible when I actually depart. Out of ¥2000 I get ¥98 change. This is why goods and chattels such as chests-of-drawers, heaters and bookcases aren’t really a good idea. Two years ago when I arrived in Chengdu I had eighteen boxes and the move from Fuzhou cost ¥1100.
I’ve read that id software has been bought by ZeniMax, who own Bethesda. Various informed people have suggested the ties between Splash Damage and Bethesda’s new project were probably a hint of some such alliance. Perhaps id will now be forced to do it when it’s done a little more rapidly because somebody is standing over them with a big stick +2. Also, it’s been announced that EA has merged its various RPG franchises. [15.01.14. Since then, Bethesda does seem to have waved its stick, making id go back to the drawing board with Quake V or Doom IV. I did predict when Doom III came out that it would take until about this year to see the next id game. I think that was optimistic. Rage came and went without leaving a ripple. John Carmack himself has also jumped ship after turning his attention to Oculus Rift.]
I’ve been making a little more progress with the weird and wonderful world of the music industry. I got my Dad to send me scans of various albums by Telemann. I looked through the rest of the music to see what else I needed. I discovered that the tracks from the fourth disc of Telemann’s Tafelmusik had labels for Wassermusik and that the names of the tracks and titles of one album by Vivaldi were totally at odds with each other. On the other hand, I managed to find a listing of the tracks on Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas. I’m sure that the album should’ve come with a list of tracks and the lyrics. In fact, I’m sure it did.
The hit count for GB has gone a bit wild this week, with over 1200 visitors so far. The overall hit count for the blog smashed through the 56,000 barrier without blinking. I don’t know why I’m suddenly Mr Almost Perceptible Popularity again. Most of my hits are come from Windows Live searches (unless this actually means Bing), but I have no information about what’s bringing most of them here.
Green Bamboo 