Weekly Update #10

Weekly Update (12th – 18th October)

The worst possible thing has happened to me this week; my laptop has crashed. I would settle for being station bound but no such luck, planet bound it is. I am getting my EVE-fix via blogs and the Capsuleer app on my I-pod, and get to do some drawings for my fiction story. My laptop should be returned to me by Wednesday if there are no further complications. Until then I’ll ninja the wife’s laptop to blog.

A quick shout out to the 4 new followers I have gained since my last reference to it, bringing the total to 17! I have also managed to sign up to Google Analytics which has been insightful. I have been told that is unlikely to show all my readers and neither will it show the I-pod Capsuleer readers. But it’s a start. At least it gives an indication what posts’ have been popular and where my traffic has come from. Shame I didn’t get it any earlier.

It will not be a surprise that working with Mynxee on the EPIC CDM has boosted my ratings too. To give you an idea; nearly 50% of my hits have come through her post on the events. It begs the question how many hits Mynxee gets in one day? 1000? 2000? More?

Another neat feature of Google Analytics is that it shows the Google searches people made to get to your site. ‘Kestrel of Doom’ has landed me 6 hits, ‘Voers Fitting Tool’ has been searched for four times and ‘eve invention vexor Ishtar skills’ apparently leads the way to my site too?!?!

The highest referring site other than Google and nearly matching it is Mynxee’s class blog. To my surprise Kane Rizzels blog gave me 45 referrals in the last 7 days too, surprising only because our CDM was a fair few weeks ago...

Other than that I just wanted to spur on more people to join the in-game Bloggers Channel. Whether you write a blog yourself, want to write a blog or just want to say ‘hi’.

Celebrity Death Match
This week finally saw the completion of CDM#17 the long awaited and overdue re-match with Kirith Kodachi. It’s never nice to lose but kirith beat me well and outsmarted me. The blow of the loss has also been softened by the fact I have also secured a Battleship duel. A fight I have been craving for for some time. Rules for this have not been established and thus please keep suggestions coming.

I had hoped to get the blogfather Crazy Kinux to offer me this opportunity but CK is impossible to find in-game. Clearly our on-line times missing each-other. CK is as rare as Morphite in high sec. =)

Pirating
This week saw my Bastard application accepted! Big news for me as I have been following all Bastard related Blogs and stories available. I have been flying with the Bastards for a fair few weeks and have had a great time doing so. The crew is great to hang around with and are professional but above all; fun. I can see myself settling in for the long haul as I have been made to feel right at home. Special thanks to Happy San who has helped me settle in and has also being my mentor and recruiter.

As new recruits come in, unfortunately some of the older members move on too. Gorgoleon has by now indicated he is leaving and his colourful FC’ing will be sorely missed. I am grateful for him dragging a small bunch of us around the other day scoring some class-A kills; including a Cerberus, Raven and a Loki.

I am now also recognised by CONCORD as a criminal as my Sec status dropped to -6.2. Helped along by a few pod kills I must add but hey; can’t make an omelette without breaking some eggs.

Another great feature of the Bastards is their ranking system which strives one to be better and get involved. I have, with the help of the kills I made in the last few weeks, got my first promotion to 1st Luitenant and if my laptop would still have been with me this weekend I am confident I would have made it to Captain before this post. The curve upwards after this is steep however but my goal is to be at the top one day.

For those of you that read my first fiction story and particularly the last chapter can imagine my excitement when I joined a bastard roam in my Crow Interceptor and a Charon Freighter got scanned down by Happy San. I simply had to be involved and after a first fail with 2 interceptors to get a lock, Happy managed to scan him down again.

I was the first one there, eager for the ransom or kill. On landing and warp bubble collapse my primed point started to lock... Point! Point! Point! I shouted over comms. My excitement replaced by frustration as the freighter disappeared from my overview. WTF?!

Corie did a logofski. We waited around in neighbouring systems for some time and I made the decision to log off myself in the place where Corie disappeared. The remaining gang returned home to Evatie and fell asleep. Asleep long enough not to notice Corie logged back on and made a safe get-away.

I sighed with frustration but my mood picked up when Corie was spotted in a belt of the system we had come from not long before. Clearly bait in his Drake and with an Apocalypse Battleship as backup. Still angry with the poor sportsmanship of logging off whilst under attack, both fell to our firepower and that eased my mind a little. The strangest thing is that although they where baiting neither one of their ship had a point fitted...

We followed this up with a Wormhole raid where we killed 2 Stealth Bombers and tried to ransom a T2 Destroyer. I say tried as we held our fire to allow our victim to pay as he offered to pay on his own accord. A minor delay allowed him to slip out of the wormhole itself with me and me0de hot on his tail. Both of us in our haste to catch the SOB jumped into a 0.5 system.

It appears I am no longer welcome there but managed to warp around the system and back out the way I came with just my structure intact. me0de was not so lucky unfortunately and had to go home in his pod.

In other news
My industry Alt has been parked up in a wormhole for some time now but I rarely log him in anymore. I feel the CORP he is in deserves better than that and so I have tendered my resignation.

I have not built anything for some time; in fact the last thing I built was the carrier in which he sits. My extreme spending spree over the last 2 months has seen me blow 4 billion isk on booze, woman, poker, CDM and some ships.

I have come to the conclusion my 3rd account is now too much for me to handle and it’s time to sell him to recuperate some isk. For those of you interested please contact me in-game, leave me a message on my blog or email me on nshhkdvr@gmail.com . Please note that although he comes complete with a Carrier he is not a combat pilot.

That’s it for now...