Are You the Author?

Was invited to a barbie the other night. Brilliant it was too. Venison burgers, a bottle or three of good lager, great company, great conversation, bonfire, kids enjoying themselves and even the odd Pink Floyd track to enjoy – it was just brilliant. Best barbie ever.

Later on, around midnight, while a few of us laughed and chatted around the bonfire, a stranger came up to me and asked me if I was George Maciver the author? No strangers have ever asked me that before and I was taken by surprise. We had a great old chat. Certainly made my day rather special.

My Latest Photo

It isn’t often I have pictures taken, which is probably because I’m usually alone when I’m out in the hills. But I enjoy my own company. I’m very comfortable with who I am and I’m quite content with both what I’ve achieved and where I’m going in life. Anyway, here I am in the hills. I sure love summer!

A new Computer

Bought a new PC a couple of days ago. It’s a nice machine, duo core, 2 Gb of RAM, Geforce 8600 GTS and other nice things. Tomb Raider Legend with all the next gen features turned on looks and plays absolutely amazingly. It’s so good I keep stopping, just to look around in astonishment at the environments.

Pity about Vista though. It’s not just a case of switch on the PC and everything works, like XP, not at all. Most of my old software won’t even install! Well, okay, some of it is kinda old, but that’s hardly an excuse, is it? It still works fine on XP. I’ve even had to buy new hardware as my old wireless stick won’t work on Vista either so I can’t get online. It’s all about making money eh? Forced to throw away perfectly good software and hardware and buy new stuff.

Hmmm, I wonder if Bill Gates is going to heaven? If he does manage to sneak in by accidentally getting born again, my guess is he’ll be in the kitchen washing pots and pans and taking out our rubbish for eternity.

Now compare these two screenshots from the same area of Croft Manor in Tomb Raider Legend. The first one is without any next gen special effects while the second one has all the effects turned on. Quite a difference!

Mother Deer and Fawn

Driving home after a day in the hills and a more gorgeous evening you couldn’t imagine. Left the main road and took a single track road through the hills to enjoy the Highlands. As I crossed a bridge over a stream I spotted a mother deer lying on the opposite bank with a fawn.

Stopped the car for a better view. The fawn was not long born and as I watched, it struggled to its feet, shook his ears a few times and then took his first baby steps. Mom just lay there watching me while her fawn said hello to the new world. They were less than 40 yards away, down on the banks of the stream. What a moment.

Unfortunately I don’t have a zoom on my phone cam so this was the best piccie I could get. You can see mom on the right and her fawn is just to her left.