I miss biking to work :( ... but I ingress

I do, really... it's funny, how it would make me tired, and everything, yet, now that I'm driving in the comfort of my own vehicle, I miss it.

Especially as the last few days have been exceptionally warm (like +1°C... not really warm, but warmer).

That, and the whole, I didn't get to call when the last day would be.  I still have to do a chart up for the summer's biking.



My only consolation to driving is that it makes it easier for me to check my portals while I drive to work.

You playing INGRESS yet?  Man, it's not a 'fun' game, but... think of it like 'tamogotchi', not addicting, but somewhat compelling to ensure you keep playing.  In Thunder Bay, I've found 11 portals.  8 of which are on my drive to work / near my office.  Speaking of which, I want to go do a quick bop around the block to check in on them.

Okay, so for those of you who don't know about Ingress...

Ingress

Ingress is a game by Google; called their "Niantic Project".  Or is that just what they want us to believe?

So the idea is you go and pick a side.  Your side (enlightened or resistence... I'm enlightened) and your job is to find these 'portals'; usually around fire stations, libraries and statues (you can also submit suggestions for more).  Around portals are XM... they're like 'health'.  As you get to a portal, you can 'hack it', which means you prod around inside it and get some goodies... I'll explain later.

If the portal is 'unowned' you can own it by placing a resonator on it (one of the things you can get from hacking).  You can place up to 8 on a portal; these act as shields to protect it.  Owned by you already, or a team member; you can recharge the portal's resonators.  If it is owned by a rival faction, you can attack using an XMP burst (another thing you can get from hacking).  Destroy all the resonators and you can then own it by placing your own.

Get 2 portals, and get a portal key for it, you can link 2.  Link 3 together and you can create 'mind fields'.

All of what you do comes at a cost of XM, so you need to ensure you're collecting more that 'radiate' from the portals, so you can continue to do stuff.

It's lame geeky stuff, but it's fun I think.  I drive by most of mine in the morning to check in on, then do a lunch walk to hack again and recharge and then finally on the drive home.

If I biked I don't think I'd be stopping in to hack a portal... you know, get out the phone from the pocket, load it up, ensure the endo app had paused, etc...

What's Google going to do with this info?  Who knows... better their maps?  Probably.  I don't care.  I don't think it's any personal info about me that they didn't already have before.

Irony

Hah... as I'm writing this, I got notice that one of the enemies destroyed my resonators.  Luckily it's outside my office so I went and checked and there was just one sole L3 resonator left, so I recharged it, and deployed new ones.  Almost lost it.

Fun!