Thomil's Random Ramblings

Day Five - The day of departure. Once again, the alarm clock goes of far earlier than I’d like. I had done much of my packing the night before, so all that was left now was to throw a few bits and bobs into my suitcase and camera bag after breakfast. And of course, I couldn’t help but take another few photos of the breathtaking vista outside my hotel window. After a leisurely morning, I make my way down to reception to drop of my keycard, and then head off towards the Metro station. The train is mercifully empty, and the ride to the airport passes pretty quickly. Once I arrive, I’m once again struck by the sheer size of that airport. Even the check-in area is large enough to fit all of Dublin’s Terminal 1 and 2 in there and still have room to spare. The exercise indicator on my Apple Watch fills up to just under 50% just by walking to my counter. My ride to the airport. Not the bus, the metro in the background. I'll really miss this view! Check-In is a breeze, and t...

Interesting Scenario? - Check. Developers that worked on the Civilization series? - Check. Original Soundtrack by Christopher Tin? - Check! Offworld Trading Company had my attention from the very first moment I spotted it back on the old Steam Greenlight service. Still, it took some time for me to actually buy this game, not least because Elite: Dangerous and Cities Skylines were taking an absurdly large amount of my free time back on my gaming PC. When I finally bought it, the game ended up on my MacBook Air, rather than on my gaming machine.. And while that notebook has seen more hardware intensive games, Offworld Trading Company still demands quite a bit of it. The premise of the game is as simple as it is compelling. In the near future, Earth’s resources are nearing depletion. At the same time, government funded attempts to set up a colony on Mars have failed spectacularly, leaving behind a number of small outposts on the red planet that are barely surviving. In a last-ditch ...

Day 3 in Dubai - My Alarm goes off way too early, apparently that flight, plus the initial exploration yesterday took more of a toll on me than I realised. Getting out of bed is a bit of a challenge, as is getting showered, everything seems to take longer than expected. This includes getting to Club Rotana for breakfast, but then again, that is 59 floors down, and even with gravity doing it’s best to assist, that takes a bit of time for the elevator to cover. Still, having breakfast separate from the main hotel restaurants is quite nice, especially since it is rather quiet. I’m not sure how I feel about the turkey bacon, though. After a nice breakfast, and some coffee, it’s back upstairs to plan my day. The plan is formed pretty quickly: Spend the first part of the afternoon exploring the Palm Jumeirah, before checking out the Dubai Marina in the late afternoon. Before I leave, I take one more good look at the amazing vista from my hotel room. I just can’t get enough of that. ...