19/06/2002-20/06/2002 @01:07:54 ^02:02:28

The ladybird incident

So I'm in the garden and there's a ladybird on the fence. It's a funny colour; they're usually red but this one was kind of orange. I'm like "you don't want to be on the fence" so I stick my finger down next to it, hoping it'll climb on and I can put it in some flowers or something.

What does it do? It starts sucking my finger! I'm standing there and it's sucking my finger! It was so weird. Felt really odd, like a very slight tickle. Don't ask me why it was doing this, possibly because it was just after breakfast and there was sugar dust on my finger or something.

Anyway it decided it liked my finger and eventually jumped onto it. Of course now I wanted to put it on a plant but it wouldn't jump off! Eventually I managed to gently shove it off, but only as far as the bathroom window sill.

A while later I looked back and it was still there. For some reason I didn't like this, I thought "you should be in a flower or something, you like sugar after all". So I managed to move it again onto this little shrub thing in the garden, and it climbed about for a while then went back to sleep. I kept looking for a while and it didn't move much, but this time I decided the poor thing had probably had enough excitement for one day and I left it alone.

Anyway I looked back a couple of hours after lunch and it had gone. Probably found another source of sugar. I hope it's okay. I hadn't seen one for ages and certainly not of that weird colour. And it did suck my finger(!)

Doom maps and stuff

Invictus (textfile): Episode 1 style thing. Pretty much stylistically correct, complete with obligatory nukage run, outdoor area with chaingun in corner etc. Like most maps it starts off hard (few resources, all monsters) and gets easier as you kill monsters and find more stuff. Definitely harder than original E1.

Into the breach (textfile): Construction is a typical multiarea Doom 2 level. Wood, stone, grass, stuff like that. Lots of fairly obvious traps. Prefers the larger monster types and in quantity. Care is needed but it's not impossible.

Okay I have to stop writing map reviews in this haphazard fashion! If you are wondering about the links I'm using Doom Underground's mirror script. To get a map into the archive you supply it in a zip and with an accompanying text file with credits and play information and so on. The official ftp site doesn't allow many users but there are mirrors which seem to keep moving so the mirror script thing was made and I'm leeching off of it:-) But read the textfiles they're sometimes worth it.

Also on the forums there was this thread about the nature of the monsters. I love this sort of thing. The argument goes between keep it mythical and magical, or shall we be scientific, or whatever. Teleporters in stomachs indeed. There's a more scientific sounding page on the monsters at doom2.net. I never said it was actual science(!) but you can tell they're trying to sound authentic and yeah that's all good.