Eve Online

I’ve been up to all sorts lately, hence the rather long gap since my last blog entry. Just too busy to write it all up - gigs, exhibitions, parties, talks … and, rather embarassingly, a minor foray into playing computer games.

Eve Online is a pretty spectacular game, though. I was introduced to the game by a work colleage, who pitched it as being “an up to date version of Elite”. That was all I needed to know. Here’s a link, in case you had better things to do twenty years ago: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elite_(computer_game)

The handsome bloke above is Jack Hamm, my alter ego in the game.

I was particularly tickled by the player creation screen that allowed me to tweak Mr Hamm until he was a reasonable likeness of me. I’d have had him looking into the camera a bit more if I had realised before I pressed the button that I wasn’t going to get another chance to change the way he looked.

Jack got his name from the cover of a book about how to draw that was on my desk at the time I created him. I guess any name would have done but Jack Hamm sounded very solid and respectable. A shame he is actually a sneaky sort who blows up spaceships and loots the abandoned cargo afterwards.

Still, the other guys got their revenge when I foolishly engaged them in battle and watched as my shiny new spaceship got blown to pieces. It took a lot of laser mining of asteroids to build up the cash to get it back. Lesson learned.

Fortunately, I do still have a real life outside of the computer. It just doesn’t involve flying across galaxies, blowing things up and trading in space minerals. Although, I guess narrowly missing being mown down on a zebra crossing this morning by an idiot in a black bmw came close in terms of excitment. Sadly, not really the kind of excitement I want, of course, but a whole lot more realistic.