Getting stronger again


This morning I went for a swim at my friends’ pool, and managed to do nine lengths. I had considered doing 10, but after nine I felt quite wrecked, and in any case, 9 was a record (and 50% better than when I started a couple of weeks ago). Slightly shakily, I got dressed and went to the shops to buy bran and fruit.
I had a quite relaxed Sunday; I did some more painting on my second team of Blood Bowl players; my orc team, the Red Stripe, are in playable condition so now I’m working on my human team – name to be determined, colour scheme an attempt to homage the Philadelphia Eagles – and so I spent a couple of hours painting the metal bits of each one and then applying glossy black ink to the armour and metal. They are starting to look like a proper team, although it’s chastening to see them in daylight. I normally paint in the evenings and the light doesn’t reveal all the flaws in my technique, whereas in the day I can see more easily gaps in paint and failures to undercoat properly. Still, on we go. I think they need maybe three or four more colours and then I’ll have enough teams for people to play Blood Bowl. I still need to find people to play Blood Bowl, but that’s a different kind of problem.

I also played a couple of games of Blood Bowl online: firstly my league game, which I lost 2-0 but broke my record for fouling (14 fouls in a single match) and caused a lot of injuries to the opposition. Since my team has never shown much talent for winning games, I’m concentrating on what they do best. I had a follow up game but the Blood Bowl server died and so we had only a single turn – something to pick back up in the week. So then I played two matches on the Xbox – but the AI is so bad that although it’s a boost to the ego to win so easily, it’s winning too easily for it to mean anything.

Finally, with the server live again, I got a match against somebody who’s played around 400 games, winning about 50% of them. (For reference, in the 56 games I’d played, I’d won one and lost 48, so it was pretty clear what was going to happen.

Except, due to a series of very lucky dice rolls on my part, I beat him 2-1. I tried not to crow – there were gaps in my strategy that he should have taken advantage of, if his luck had not been so bad. But now I’ve won 2 out of 57 games (plus one game I’ve won on tabletop). Could this be the start of a renaissance for me?

I don’t know. I went out and did some more pull ups instead. Today I managed 33 plus a few partial ones, and I managed at one point to do 7 without stopping. I am not sure if it’s the bran, the triumphs at Blood Bowl, or the death metal I listen to, but something seems to be working. Now to remain strong so I can manhandle the kids when I see them next.


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