I had to give a talk to about twenty people this evening. It lasted about an hour. I used to get pretty nervous doing this sort of thing, but I am getting much better at it and this one went very well. I think it helped that I was very comfortable with my topic, but it also seems that my self-confidence in this sort of setting is increasing.

I had been wasting a large amount of my free time lately on a computer game called Spellforce. It's a realtime strategy game set in a fantasy setting. You have a main avatar who advances much like a roleplaying character, focusing on either fighting or spellcasting, and you also build armies after collecting resources. I finished it up after some 23 missions. Beautiful graphics and a decent plot. You control up to 80 something troop members at a time and the amount of detail is amazing. Troops who are idle shift their feet and sway in place. Trees have leaves that sway in the breeze. Wandering dogs stop to lick themselves. You can go from a wide out view covering a large segment of the map to focus on just your main character. It is beautiful at every level. Even with my high powered machine I had to tone down a few features so the frame rate was ok.

So I finished it and now I have no excuse not to get back to doing other things, like practicing my keyboard and getting outside a bit more. Of course it was down in the teens last night, but as usual I barely register it. It is only supposed to be in the 30s this weekend, but I have promised myself a few hour hike on Sunday.

No work tomorrow due to Veteran's Day. Yippee!