Living in the United States’ Intermountain West as I do, Nevada and its legal gambling is but a hop and skip (no jump) away meaning a few times a year the brother and I will sidle over for a little real life Blackjack. Given our years of experience, we’re decent players. Though we generally don’t make money (we don’t count cards), we do force the casino to grind their income out of us. Having long since committed basic play to memory and developed a consistent betting strategy, we need only pay half attention to the game itself while collecting our free drinks, earning our player’s club bonus points and hobnobbing with the other players, dealers and pit bosses. It’s relaxing fun.
A few years back I commented to the dealer about the bad cards he was handing me to which he replied smugly, “Stop whining.” Surprised, I looked at my brother saying, “I don’t whine that much,” to which he replied, “Actually, you do.” Chastened, I resolved to whine less. A resolution that lasted nearly 15 minutes when in desperation I finally blurted out, “I’m sorry gentleman, I have to whine. If I can’t whine I won’t have any fun.”
Whine 1) The new docking transition gives me motion sickness. I’m not able to enjoy the absolutely gorgeous new station hanger environments when I’m intentionally looking away from the screen to avoid ralphing on the keyboard. Won’t somebody stop the madness?
Whine 2) Recurring Opportunities are dead. Shame as I got a lot of mileage out of them: Me and Opportunity, Mena Khanid & Daily Chores. Fortunately, my recently rehabilitated suicide ganker had plenty of time to daily up her four days of missing skill point training before mechanic demise.
Whine 3) The Penny Pleasure Market Mavens enthusiastically continue their win at all costs price wars meaning I continue to swoop in and buy them out for transport and resale in Jita. It’s proving an annoyingly effective way to make very big ISK.
::sigh:: I feel much better now.
CasualEve 
Nosy Gamer has opined that setting to the CQ prevents the awkward hanger transition. If only it came with the music queue’s of 1960’s Thunderbirds.
As for the Shadow of the Serpent – it looks like yet another Rubrik’s this time with some of the stickers missing. Since I like to think of myself a yogi of bears – I’ll stick my picnic baskets of the Damsel and Veldpsar.
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Oh Esky, I believe the Thunderbirds reference may have forever changed my experience of Eve. I’m not sure this is a good thing.
Shadow of the Serpent has me puzzled. As a casual player, the initial rewards system appears to take much more dedication than I’m willing to give (10,000 points via 100 or 500 increments? – ack!). That said, I like the structure they’ve set up and the point values can easily be tweaked into sensibility. In many ways, it all feels very CCPish. For reasons I’m unaware of they often mangle their very good ideas first time out of the gate but through dedicated iteration eventually hone them into sound game play. It’s an aggravatingly wonderful process.
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