I'm not sure what is up with me these days. Back in May/June I had a period of time where I was very much focussed on playing games and Let's Playing but now I just don't want to do anything. Maybe I'm just tired. I've been working a lot lately and on July 16th I'm about to get even busier as I picked up a second job.
I still have a small pile of videos I need to upload but even uploading seems to be bothersome at the moment. Before, I actually liked uploading videos. Like, just the act of uploading it was satisfying. But right now it feels annoying. In the free time I have I'm so bored and have nothing to do. Yet I have no energy to Let's Play as I don't feel like speaking. So instead I've been playing games on my own yet even in that I've been... strange. I keep installing new games from my steam/gog library and playing for about one or two hours before quickly abandoning the game. None of them can hold my interest for long. Rather sad as I have a library of over 150 games when you count all my steam, gog, and retail games.
I love tower defense games so I bought Defense Grid: The Awakening today. Played 65 minutes. Just stopped. Not that it wasn't good or anything. Just suddenly felt apathetic towards it. Played Syberia for 82 minutes yesterday. Don't feel like going back to it. Again, not that it isn't good or that I didn't like it... just feel apathetic. This behaviour isn't that new to me though. This is like 70% of the reason that I LP: to help me actually finish a game. But it feels even worse than usual. Especially considering that I don't even feel like LPing these days.
Avernum 4 and Dungeon Siege 2 are two games that I've actually gotten a bit into despite this mood. Even so it's hard to start to play them. Once I start I'm good for those two but it's terribly annoying to make the decision to start. Also, my stupid OCD habit of making sure I get the most out of everything is driving me insane. For example, making several trips back and forth in Avernum to get all the loot and sell them all... even though the item is only worth 1 gold; making sure that I uncover every little speck of blackness on the map so I know I explored every single tile; back tracking because I get the nagging feeling that I missed something but then end up simply wasting time. I almost LPed Avernum 4 too. Thank god I didn't. For one. this mood wouldn't let me play the darn thing if I was LPing it and two, the above behaviour would be extremely irritating to watch, to edit, and/or to restrain.
Red Orchestra: Ostfront 41-45 is done downloading. Time to go play that for an hour or something. Whatever this mood is, I'm giving in to it.
Edit: Well, that game lasted barely 10 minutes. I thought it at least had some campaigns or something but none that I could see. Good thing I didn't actually buy that game but rather just got it as a part of a bundle.
Thursday, 12 July 2012
Thursday, 5 July 2012
The Forest Laird: A Tale of William Wallace
I just finished reading The Forest Laird: A Tale of William Wallace by Jack Whyte about 5 minutes ago... before I go on though I must warn that this post will contain a serious spoiler for the book so if you are interested in reading the book then don't read any further. I will point out when I'm going to say the spoiler but I'm afraid even so it'll be too obvious what it is.
Today I went to work and everyone noticed a certain air about me. Someone thought I was sick; another asked me why I look so tired today. I was, in fact, tired but that wasn't why I looked so horrible at work today. The reason was this aforementioned book.
The book tells the tale of William Wallace: a figure a lot of people know from the Hollywood movie Braveheart. He is actually a historical figure though and while various accounts of him exist, a certain shroud of mystery still revolves around him. It is said that most accounts of him were written by his enemies; it's not hard to see how those might be biased. I'll be completely honest and say that I neither knew of William Wallace before nor ever watched the Hollywood movie. This book was the first time I had ever "encountered" him.
It is written from the perspective of Jamie (James) Wallace, William Wallace's cousin. I'm pretty sure this character is a fake one... it's hard to say really since there's just so many different accounts of WW's family on the internet. Jamie is "writing" the book in memory of his cousin Will so that he does not become twisted and misrepresented (like he ended up becoming in real life). Anyways, Jamie and Will grow up together and Jamie eventually becomes a priest and Will becomes a verdurer (a person who is in charge of regulating the forests and their bounty on an estate). Certain events lead Will to become a rebel who defends Scotland against the English. I won't go into what events... that would take far far too long.
Even though this book is about William Wallace, I never felt very attached to Will as a character. As strange as this may sound though, I think that is a good thing. William Wallace is like a legendary figure, a hero. Jamie strives to show William Wallace as human but you cannot regard him as just that. You feel the distance between you and Will and somehow it feels appropriate. Like as if you're a peasant and William is a king. Instead you bond with Jamie which is a lot more "appropriate" as Jamie feels like he's on "my level" of status. Even though I bond with Jamie while reading, I never really felt anything for Jamie and this I attribute to the fact that nothing serious happens to him. Instead he's just a vessel through which you experience Will's story because you're too common to actually get the story first hand from Will's point of view or even just an omniscient narrative. Part of this non-feeling for Jamie also comes from the fact that I know he's fine. He's the one writing it! I know he survives to tell the tale.
Between these two characters are... well, a lot of important yet minor characters. You don't ever really bond with the other characters. Sure, I like Ewan but you don't really get to know him well. Bishop Wishart? Again, too distant. Andrew Murray? You hardly ever meet the guy.
Then there's Mirren Braidfoot. Or Marion Wallace. William Wallace's wife. Now, historically, I don't think it's clear that Will ever had her as a wife. I say "I don't think" because I'm not sure really. As I've said, I didn't know anything about William Wallace before and what I know of him now historically come from short little searches on the internet. In the book though, Marion Braidfute is named Mirren Braidfoot and marries Will pretty early in the story. At first she's just someone Will is smitten with and then Will's wife. You never get to know her well either. Much later on in the book, as Jamie himself gets closer to Mirren, you finally get to learn more about her. You learn that she's a very strong willed, no non-sense type of woman. I didn't like her very much. Probably because at the beginning she didn't really like Jamie and Jamie didn't particularly like her much (only due to the fact that he didn't know her well and she appeared to dislike him) either.
*SPOILERS FROM HERE ON OUT*
Mirren bears a child for William (named William after his father and called Willie) and later gets pregnant again with their second child. Disaster strikes though and Mirren, now heavily pregnant, must go to her mother but Will cannot go as he must see to his rebels. So instead, Jamie and Ewan, among other rebels, go with her. Things go horribly wrong on the road though and Mirren and Willie become captured by the English while Jamie gets beaten badly to the point of broken bones all over his body. While Mirren is being transported, Willie dies. One of the rebel archers found him in the forest at the side of the road where the English chucked him after his death. He was only a year and a half old.
Now, this is the beginning of the part which truly affected me in this book. It mystifies me because I thought I felt so distant from Will. Putting that aside for now, let's go on. Mirren gets taken to a prison where she is raving like a mad woman because Willie is dead and was left behind. Not only that but her mother is dead as well. I never really liked her much but here I could not help but feel intensely for Mirren. Jamie described the events of that day as something like a nightmare where he can only watch helplessly and cannot stop; can only live through it and be subjected to it without any power. Strangely enough, reading this, that is exactly how I felt. I felt such horror for Mirren and felt so helpless and powerless.
But the horrors had only begun for Mirren. At the jail, the cruel guard hits her over the head to make her shut up. She falls to the ground, no doubt completely dazed by the blow... then the guard gives her a hard kick to her belly. Her pregnant belly. She goes into labor due to the blow and the baby comes out still-born. The guard feeds the dead baby to the pigs. Mirren, herself, is lying on the floor in a bloody mess. No one helped her through the labor and no one helps her now as she continues to bleed. The jailer checks on her before leaving for the night and she's still on the floor. Later, he checks again and she is dead.
All this time I felt distant from the characters yet suddenly here I was, in utter horror at this part of the story. No, not just horror... I was affected. Moved. I felt such despair. I felt helpless. I wanted to make it not have happened. To rewind time back to when she was alive, back to when Willie was alive. I felt like Jamie: grieving for Mirren and the children and feeling absolute sorrow for William. Perhaps you might think that I'm just "being a woman". You know, women tend to get very upset over the idea of pregnant women being abused, losing babies, babies dying, etc. But no... I actually do not care for babies/children and things like this in other books or movies have not bothered me so much. At most they got a cringe out of me at the cruelty. But it is rare for me to grieve so for a character I did not feel attached to. That part of the book left me very depressed and somehow insecure. Like as if things could go wrong at any moment like it did for Mirren and Will. It made me want to go and gather my loved ones and hold them tight to feel safe.
I'm still confused as to why it affected me so. I think a part of it might be the knowledge that although this is a work of fiction, the base plot of the story is derived from historical events. The English invasion of Scotland *did* happen. People like King John Balliol, Robert Bruce, and King Edward were real and the political figures were mostly real. I know full well that the account of Mirren and her death is complete fiction but I can't help but feel that similar cruelties must have happened in real life. Probably still do happen in some places in the world. It's not even that I am blind to the cruelties of the world. In fact, I'm one of those people whose YouTube related panel is filled with news stories of cruelties because I've watched so many of them as I jump from one video to the next in a continuing cycle of "what the hell happened here? I must know!" I've heard of real life news stories of babies being killed by their own mother and dumped in the garbage without so much feeling as I felt for Mirren.
Shortly after reading this part of the book I went to work where I was utterly stone faced. Stone faced yet inside I still felt volatile. Coincidentally, someone whom we were serving ran off with the entire tip jar today. I think I had left over emotions from the tale of Mirren as after that happened I felt like crying and felt highly vulnerable. It's like as if the incident proved to me that sometimes you're just a victim of misfortune and people can be cruel. I'm not so naive as to think that someone making off with our tip jar is a big deal nor to think that it's a great act of cruelty. There was, at most, ten dollars in there and what I personally lost is probably around 75 cents at most. It was more of a symbolic thing. There are people out there who are victims of injustices and cruelty that happen just as spontaneously as that guy running off with the tip jar. Except those victims lose not 75 cents but maybe their livelihood, their life, the life of a loved one... Perhaps I should add here that I have a long, on-going issue with anxiety. Perhaps that contributed to my gloom and doom feeling today. In any case, The Forest Laird is now one of the few books which has made me feel like I wanted to turn back time and make everything right again.
Today I went to work and everyone noticed a certain air about me. Someone thought I was sick; another asked me why I look so tired today. I was, in fact, tired but that wasn't why I looked so horrible at work today. The reason was this aforementioned book.
The book tells the tale of William Wallace: a figure a lot of people know from the Hollywood movie Braveheart. He is actually a historical figure though and while various accounts of him exist, a certain shroud of mystery still revolves around him. It is said that most accounts of him were written by his enemies; it's not hard to see how those might be biased. I'll be completely honest and say that I neither knew of William Wallace before nor ever watched the Hollywood movie. This book was the first time I had ever "encountered" him.
It is written from the perspective of Jamie (James) Wallace, William Wallace's cousin. I'm pretty sure this character is a fake one... it's hard to say really since there's just so many different accounts of WW's family on the internet. Jamie is "writing" the book in memory of his cousin Will so that he does not become twisted and misrepresented (like he ended up becoming in real life). Anyways, Jamie and Will grow up together and Jamie eventually becomes a priest and Will becomes a verdurer (a person who is in charge of regulating the forests and their bounty on an estate). Certain events lead Will to become a rebel who defends Scotland against the English. I won't go into what events... that would take far far too long.
Even though this book is about William Wallace, I never felt very attached to Will as a character. As strange as this may sound though, I think that is a good thing. William Wallace is like a legendary figure, a hero. Jamie strives to show William Wallace as human but you cannot regard him as just that. You feel the distance between you and Will and somehow it feels appropriate. Like as if you're a peasant and William is a king. Instead you bond with Jamie which is a lot more "appropriate" as Jamie feels like he's on "my level" of status. Even though I bond with Jamie while reading, I never really felt anything for Jamie and this I attribute to the fact that nothing serious happens to him. Instead he's just a vessel through which you experience Will's story because you're too common to actually get the story first hand from Will's point of view or even just an omniscient narrative. Part of this non-feeling for Jamie also comes from the fact that I know he's fine. He's the one writing it! I know he survives to tell the tale.
Between these two characters are... well, a lot of important yet minor characters. You don't ever really bond with the other characters. Sure, I like Ewan but you don't really get to know him well. Bishop Wishart? Again, too distant. Andrew Murray? You hardly ever meet the guy.
Then there's Mirren Braidfoot. Or Marion Wallace. William Wallace's wife. Now, historically, I don't think it's clear that Will ever had her as a wife. I say "I don't think" because I'm not sure really. As I've said, I didn't know anything about William Wallace before and what I know of him now historically come from short little searches on the internet. In the book though, Marion Braidfute is named Mirren Braidfoot and marries Will pretty early in the story. At first she's just someone Will is smitten with and then Will's wife. You never get to know her well either. Much later on in the book, as Jamie himself gets closer to Mirren, you finally get to learn more about her. You learn that she's a very strong willed, no non-sense type of woman. I didn't like her very much. Probably because at the beginning she didn't really like Jamie and Jamie didn't particularly like her much (only due to the fact that he didn't know her well and she appeared to dislike him) either.
*SPOILERS FROM HERE ON OUT*
Mirren bears a child for William (named William after his father and called Willie) and later gets pregnant again with their second child. Disaster strikes though and Mirren, now heavily pregnant, must go to her mother but Will cannot go as he must see to his rebels. So instead, Jamie and Ewan, among other rebels, go with her. Things go horribly wrong on the road though and Mirren and Willie become captured by the English while Jamie gets beaten badly to the point of broken bones all over his body. While Mirren is being transported, Willie dies. One of the rebel archers found him in the forest at the side of the road where the English chucked him after his death. He was only a year and a half old.
Now, this is the beginning of the part which truly affected me in this book. It mystifies me because I thought I felt so distant from Will. Putting that aside for now, let's go on. Mirren gets taken to a prison where she is raving like a mad woman because Willie is dead and was left behind. Not only that but her mother is dead as well. I never really liked her much but here I could not help but feel intensely for Mirren. Jamie described the events of that day as something like a nightmare where he can only watch helplessly and cannot stop; can only live through it and be subjected to it without any power. Strangely enough, reading this, that is exactly how I felt. I felt such horror for Mirren and felt so helpless and powerless.
But the horrors had only begun for Mirren. At the jail, the cruel guard hits her over the head to make her shut up. She falls to the ground, no doubt completely dazed by the blow... then the guard gives her a hard kick to her belly. Her pregnant belly. She goes into labor due to the blow and the baby comes out still-born. The guard feeds the dead baby to the pigs. Mirren, herself, is lying on the floor in a bloody mess. No one helped her through the labor and no one helps her now as she continues to bleed. The jailer checks on her before leaving for the night and she's still on the floor. Later, he checks again and she is dead.
All this time I felt distant from the characters yet suddenly here I was, in utter horror at this part of the story. No, not just horror... I was affected. Moved. I felt such despair. I felt helpless. I wanted to make it not have happened. To rewind time back to when she was alive, back to when Willie was alive. I felt like Jamie: grieving for Mirren and the children and feeling absolute sorrow for William. Perhaps you might think that I'm just "being a woman". You know, women tend to get very upset over the idea of pregnant women being abused, losing babies, babies dying, etc. But no... I actually do not care for babies/children and things like this in other books or movies have not bothered me so much. At most they got a cringe out of me at the cruelty. But it is rare for me to grieve so for a character I did not feel attached to. That part of the book left me very depressed and somehow insecure. Like as if things could go wrong at any moment like it did for Mirren and Will. It made me want to go and gather my loved ones and hold them tight to feel safe.
I'm still confused as to why it affected me so. I think a part of it might be the knowledge that although this is a work of fiction, the base plot of the story is derived from historical events. The English invasion of Scotland *did* happen. People like King John Balliol, Robert Bruce, and King Edward were real and the political figures were mostly real. I know full well that the account of Mirren and her death is complete fiction but I can't help but feel that similar cruelties must have happened in real life. Probably still do happen in some places in the world. It's not even that I am blind to the cruelties of the world. In fact, I'm one of those people whose YouTube related panel is filled with news stories of cruelties because I've watched so many of them as I jump from one video to the next in a continuing cycle of "what the hell happened here? I must know!" I've heard of real life news stories of babies being killed by their own mother and dumped in the garbage without so much feeling as I felt for Mirren.
Shortly after reading this part of the book I went to work where I was utterly stone faced. Stone faced yet inside I still felt volatile. Coincidentally, someone whom we were serving ran off with the entire tip jar today. I think I had left over emotions from the tale of Mirren as after that happened I felt like crying and felt highly vulnerable. It's like as if the incident proved to me that sometimes you're just a victim of misfortune and people can be cruel. I'm not so naive as to think that someone making off with our tip jar is a big deal nor to think that it's a great act of cruelty. There was, at most, ten dollars in there and what I personally lost is probably around 75 cents at most. It was more of a symbolic thing. There are people out there who are victims of injustices and cruelty that happen just as spontaneously as that guy running off with the tip jar. Except those victims lose not 75 cents but maybe their livelihood, their life, the life of a loved one... Perhaps I should add here that I have a long, on-going issue with anxiety. Perhaps that contributed to my gloom and doom feeling today. In any case, The Forest Laird is now one of the few books which has made me feel like I wanted to turn back time and make everything right again.
Tuesday, 3 July 2012
Catching Spiders
Okay, more like *killing* spiders. I have no qualms about admitting that I kill spiders if I can. All things that have more than 4 legs scare the bejesus out of me. I'm not talking a little "oh my there's a spider!" kind of thing ... more like sitting and staring at it in trepidation with a cold tingling going down my spine.
So how does one so afraid of spiders go and kill them? Trust me, each time is a little horror story in my head. Often I get the instruments of spider destruction out in my hand and merely sit or stand there staring at it, unable to move my hands. These instruments of spider destruction vary: vacuum cleaner, fly swatter, fly zapper, cup and paper, a shoe... etc.
I've had some bad experiences with some of those instruments. Vacuum cleaners aren't always strong enough to suck the spider from wherever it might be hiding; if it's out in the open then it's hard to aim the rather small nozzle right on top of it and god forbid I miss and it starts freaking out and crawling insanely. Fly swatter / shoe, again, if I miss then it'll be hell to make that thing stop crawling. Fly zapper isn't flexible enough; I get so scared that the spider will simply crawl out from under it because it's a flat plastic disc. Cup and paper: I am so terrified of sliding that paper under the cup because the spider might escape, then lifting the cup and paper afterwards is horrendous. I've had spiders escape from the cup and paper so many times I no longer trust it.
Today I developed a new way to capture and kill spiders and I think I'll be using it for a while. It still fills me with terror to do it but it's the safest way I've found so far. Sadly it'll only work if it's on a vertical surface or the ceiling. It's kind of like the cup and paper but different. You need a cup (clear one so you can see what's going on inside), maybe some plastic wrap, and some sticky and/or viscous fluid such as lotion, bath gel, liquid detergent, or honey. Today I used bath gel. First, I put the plastic wrap in the cup so that it lines the cup and still comes up and over the lip of the cup. Then I put my bath gel inside liberally. This next part is the part that terrifies me but then you put the cup over the spider and hold it tight against the surface the spider is on. Still pressing tightly against the surface to make sure there is no gap through which the spider can escape, move the cup around so that the spider is compelled to move. Sooner or later the bath gel will ooze its way towards the lip of the cup and sooner or later as you keep the spider moving the spider will end up in it. Give it a little while to thoroughly encase itself inside the liquid then carefully remove the cup in a scooping motion to catch the liquid. Gather up the sides of the plastic wrap, twist, and now you have a little baggie that you can toss in the trash. Alternatively, you can skip out on the plastic wrap and just rinse out the cup with water and send the critter down the drain.
The reason I like this method is because it puts a stop to what terrifies me the most about spiders: their crawling. Especially when they are scared and scuttling around really fast, it gives me the creeps. Also trapping the spider under the cup is a lot easier than smacking it with something as you can be as slow as you want, guaranteeing precision. Only down side is that you probably will get some of the crap you used on your wall/vertical surface.
I just realized that if you have a tile/laminated floor you can still use this method. Just let the liquid drip down and eventually encase the spider and then scoop it up with a paper towel once you're sure it's dead or immobile.
The one I killed today was a pretty big one. Not by world-wide standards but of the ones I've seen in my room it's got to be one of the biggest. It had a white stripe down the middle of its back. So glad it's gone... I know in all probability it wouldn't have done anything to me (that goes for most bugs I encounter really) but it still freaked me the hell out. I have had spider bites before though so I will show no mercy. Besides... I'm too scared to show mercy. Can't transport one live.
So how does one so afraid of spiders go and kill them? Trust me, each time is a little horror story in my head. Often I get the instruments of spider destruction out in my hand and merely sit or stand there staring at it, unable to move my hands. These instruments of spider destruction vary: vacuum cleaner, fly swatter, fly zapper, cup and paper, a shoe... etc.
I've had some bad experiences with some of those instruments. Vacuum cleaners aren't always strong enough to suck the spider from wherever it might be hiding; if it's out in the open then it's hard to aim the rather small nozzle right on top of it and god forbid I miss and it starts freaking out and crawling insanely. Fly swatter / shoe, again, if I miss then it'll be hell to make that thing stop crawling. Fly zapper isn't flexible enough; I get so scared that the spider will simply crawl out from under it because it's a flat plastic disc. Cup and paper: I am so terrified of sliding that paper under the cup because the spider might escape, then lifting the cup and paper afterwards is horrendous. I've had spiders escape from the cup and paper so many times I no longer trust it.
Today I developed a new way to capture and kill spiders and I think I'll be using it for a while. It still fills me with terror to do it but it's the safest way I've found so far. Sadly it'll only work if it's on a vertical surface or the ceiling. It's kind of like the cup and paper but different. You need a cup (clear one so you can see what's going on inside), maybe some plastic wrap, and some sticky and/or viscous fluid such as lotion, bath gel, liquid detergent, or honey. Today I used bath gel. First, I put the plastic wrap in the cup so that it lines the cup and still comes up and over the lip of the cup. Then I put my bath gel inside liberally. This next part is the part that terrifies me but then you put the cup over the spider and hold it tight against the surface the spider is on. Still pressing tightly against the surface to make sure there is no gap through which the spider can escape, move the cup around so that the spider is compelled to move. Sooner or later the bath gel will ooze its way towards the lip of the cup and sooner or later as you keep the spider moving the spider will end up in it. Give it a little while to thoroughly encase itself inside the liquid then carefully remove the cup in a scooping motion to catch the liquid. Gather up the sides of the plastic wrap, twist, and now you have a little baggie that you can toss in the trash. Alternatively, you can skip out on the plastic wrap and just rinse out the cup with water and send the critter down the drain.
The reason I like this method is because it puts a stop to what terrifies me the most about spiders: their crawling. Especially when they are scared and scuttling around really fast, it gives me the creeps. Also trapping the spider under the cup is a lot easier than smacking it with something as you can be as slow as you want, guaranteeing precision. Only down side is that you probably will get some of the crap you used on your wall/vertical surface.
I just realized that if you have a tile/laminated floor you can still use this method. Just let the liquid drip down and eventually encase the spider and then scoop it up with a paper towel once you're sure it's dead or immobile.
The one I killed today was a pretty big one. Not by world-wide standards but of the ones I've seen in my room it's got to be one of the biggest. It had a white stripe down the middle of its back. So glad it's gone... I know in all probability it wouldn't have done anything to me (that goes for most bugs I encounter really) but it still freaked me the hell out. I have had spider bites before though so I will show no mercy. Besides... I'm too scared to show mercy. Can't transport one live.
Thursday, 14 June 2012
Tomb Raider: Anniversary - Review and Reflections
Some parts of this post is on my final TR:A video but the whole post did not fit in the description box so I am posting it in its entirety here. This is a loose review of the game.. loose because I'm not formally reviewing it but just addressing certain things. It is also a reflection on my experiences with it and why I did some things the way I did.
Enjoyability:
First off I want to clarify my statement that this has been one of the best games I've ever played. I feel like I'm going to get some people saying this or that about it. I say it's one of the best games I've played based on my personal enjoyment of the game. I'm well aware of its faults but I genuinely enjoyed this game so much that it takes a place among my top most enjoyed.
This was my first Tomb Raider game so maybe all TR games have this vibe but I loved the feel of accomplishment in this game. Not only does it make you feel good after solving something but it makes you feel like you're actually DOING something. A lot of the times, I find puzzle games annoying because I just don't get the point of the puzzle (why it's there, why the heck I would do it) or the actions involved in the puzzle are really boring (like pick this up, put it there, run back and pick something else up, put it else where). I really liked the fact that I was solving puzzles so Lara could GET somewhere. Not sure if I'm making myself clear but I really connected with Lara and liked getting her to her destinations.
Inconsistencies with the original TR:
I'm aware that this game isn't an exact replica of the first TR game. I know it left out some things or added this or that. The specifics I do not know but personally it makes no difference to me. Those who have a gripe with it do because they were expecting everything they saw in TR. As a TR newbie I really had no problems with this flaw.
Graphics:
I'm very glad they made TR:A because to be honest, I probably would never have experienced any part of TR 1 otherwise. I'm not exactly a graphics whore (I don't really care for crazy detail or life like textures... I don't drool over the graphics of Crysis 2 or anything) but I don't particularly like old 90's era graphics (Another reason I probably would never have played TR 1, unrelated to graphics, is that I hate old school controls). I really liked TR:A's graphics. They weren't up to today's standards but I liked the feel of it. It was modern enough yet had its own... personality to it. Weird as that sounds.
Combat Controls:
You've heard me say SO many times in this LP that Lara is sometimes hard to control in combat. You're probably tired of hearing it since I bitched about it so much! But I looked around at some reviews of this game and it turns out it's not just my personal inability that made it seem like Lara wasn't doing what I told her to... it's a real problem. Other people have said too that the camera and directional controls were really awkward during combat and I will definitely agree. I mean, it's not fun clicking the mouse to continuously shoot for 30 minutes of a boss fight because that's the only way I can get the camera to cooperate and therefore the only way I will get Lara to go the way I want her to most of the time.
The headshot thing was an interesting idea but it did not execute well. Reason being what I just described above... Lara does not go the direction you think she will unless the camera is just right. So outside of boss battles if the game threw me an enemy with headshot inducing abilities I could not do it because I hadn't readied the camera for it.
Poor introduction of some mechanics:
This game's beginning was nice; it was a little tutorial area with little pop ups telling you how to do things, etc. But later in the game it introduced new elements without actually telling you about it. The perpendicular wall jump off the grapple was crazy hard for me simply because I didn't know HOW to do it... Never mind that, how about the fact that I didn't even know it was possible in the first place? Even after accomplishing it in that room where I first encountered it, I still didn't know how to actually do it. It's only near the end of the game (that room with tons of pillars where I inserted two pieces of the scion) that I finally figured it out. What about the speed jump off of poles? I had no idea I could do that until I discovered it by accident in the Obelisk of Khamoon when I just happened to tap space twice. Even then I didn't know that you had to be pressing the direction she's going until that huge water room much later.
Was it all in Croft Manor? I have no clue. Either way, a player isn't guaranteed to play CM first anyways so mechanic introduction should be in the main game.
Reflections:
Even with these faults though, I really enjoyed the game. Not only was this my first TR game but it was my first puzzle platformer. I understand that a lot of viewers probably got pretty frustrated at me at some points because I just would not a see a simple solution; but my counter to that is a psychology based one. I have never played a game like this before so all these puzzles are new to me. Even if someone plays this game for the first time, if they have experience in other games of the same genre, then they have a "schema" in their mind for what to expect in certain situations. Most puzzles aren't 100% unique but take traditional puzzle elements such as "pull a lever and something, somewhere will happen". Now, that particular schema I obviously had... but other more complex ones I did not.
It was interesting to myself to see my own progress. When I first started this game I found it hard to get into because everything was new to me. I had no previous experiences to relate to; therefore, that meant more brain power; therefore, it was something my brain regards as work. It was only half-way or even 3/4 through the game that I truly started enjoying it as much as I said I did because now I had all these experiences that told me what to look for, what I could expect, what a probable solution might be, etc.
More Tomb Raider?:
The day after finishing TR:A I downloaded TR: Legend (from Steam, silly) because I felt my fun with Tomb Raider was just beginning. TR:A laid down some basics for me and at the end I was really starting to get it. I didn't want it to end there so the adventure continues in TR: Legend (which, btw, I am happy to find is a lot like TR:A). I thought about LPing TR: Legend as well but decided against it. I want to experience a TR game without the recording going on. Believe it or not, it does make a difference. With a recording going I'm less likely to try a variety of things and more likely to miss things in my desire to not waste time. That's actually true of all my LPs. I won't speak definitively for other LPers but that's probably the case for a lot of people.
Not only that but the reason it took me so long to finish TR:A is because of the editing involved in the TR videos. Even though I try to not waste time, it's a puzzle game... I'm obviously going to have to stand around gathering information, trying and failing, etc. I have to go through the videos and try to balance things out so the video isn't TOO boring. I need to leave in parts where I explain my thinking and parts where I try something (and either fail or succeed), cut out needless repetition due to death or jump fails, and make sure that if anything new happens, it's shown in the video. It can take anywhere from 10 - 60 minutes to edit a TR:A video. The finale took me about an hour to edit... which is longer than it took to record it. It'll be nice to just go through a TR game without gaps where I'm editing.
Enjoyability:
First off I want to clarify my statement that this has been one of the best games I've ever played. I feel like I'm going to get some people saying this or that about it. I say it's one of the best games I've played based on my personal enjoyment of the game. I'm well aware of its faults but I genuinely enjoyed this game so much that it takes a place among my top most enjoyed.
This was my first Tomb Raider game so maybe all TR games have this vibe but I loved the feel of accomplishment in this game. Not only does it make you feel good after solving something but it makes you feel like you're actually DOING something. A lot of the times, I find puzzle games annoying because I just don't get the point of the puzzle (why it's there, why the heck I would do it) or the actions involved in the puzzle are really boring (like pick this up, put it there, run back and pick something else up, put it else where). I really liked the fact that I was solving puzzles so Lara could GET somewhere. Not sure if I'm making myself clear but I really connected with Lara and liked getting her to her destinations.
Inconsistencies with the original TR:
I'm aware that this game isn't an exact replica of the first TR game. I know it left out some things or added this or that. The specifics I do not know but personally it makes no difference to me. Those who have a gripe with it do because they were expecting everything they saw in TR. As a TR newbie I really had no problems with this flaw.
Graphics:
I'm very glad they made TR:A because to be honest, I probably would never have experienced any part of TR 1 otherwise. I'm not exactly a graphics whore (I don't really care for crazy detail or life like textures... I don't drool over the graphics of Crysis 2 or anything) but I don't particularly like old 90's era graphics (Another reason I probably would never have played TR 1, unrelated to graphics, is that I hate old school controls). I really liked TR:A's graphics. They weren't up to today's standards but I liked the feel of it. It was modern enough yet had its own... personality to it. Weird as that sounds.
Combat Controls:
You've heard me say SO many times in this LP that Lara is sometimes hard to control in combat. You're probably tired of hearing it since I bitched about it so much! But I looked around at some reviews of this game and it turns out it's not just my personal inability that made it seem like Lara wasn't doing what I told her to... it's a real problem. Other people have said too that the camera and directional controls were really awkward during combat and I will definitely agree. I mean, it's not fun clicking the mouse to continuously shoot for 30 minutes of a boss fight because that's the only way I can get the camera to cooperate and therefore the only way I will get Lara to go the way I want her to most of the time.
The headshot thing was an interesting idea but it did not execute well. Reason being what I just described above... Lara does not go the direction you think she will unless the camera is just right. So outside of boss battles if the game threw me an enemy with headshot inducing abilities I could not do it because I hadn't readied the camera for it.
Poor introduction of some mechanics:
This game's beginning was nice; it was a little tutorial area with little pop ups telling you how to do things, etc. But later in the game it introduced new elements without actually telling you about it. The perpendicular wall jump off the grapple was crazy hard for me simply because I didn't know HOW to do it... Never mind that, how about the fact that I didn't even know it was possible in the first place? Even after accomplishing it in that room where I first encountered it, I still didn't know how to actually do it. It's only near the end of the game (that room with tons of pillars where I inserted two pieces of the scion) that I finally figured it out. What about the speed jump off of poles? I had no idea I could do that until I discovered it by accident in the Obelisk of Khamoon when I just happened to tap space twice. Even then I didn't know that you had to be pressing the direction she's going until that huge water room much later.
Was it all in Croft Manor? I have no clue. Either way, a player isn't guaranteed to play CM first anyways so mechanic introduction should be in the main game.
Reflections:
Even with these faults though, I really enjoyed the game. Not only was this my first TR game but it was my first puzzle platformer. I understand that a lot of viewers probably got pretty frustrated at me at some points because I just would not a see a simple solution; but my counter to that is a psychology based one. I have never played a game like this before so all these puzzles are new to me. Even if someone plays this game for the first time, if they have experience in other games of the same genre, then they have a "schema" in their mind for what to expect in certain situations. Most puzzles aren't 100% unique but take traditional puzzle elements such as "pull a lever and something, somewhere will happen". Now, that particular schema I obviously had... but other more complex ones I did not.
It was interesting to myself to see my own progress. When I first started this game I found it hard to get into because everything was new to me. I had no previous experiences to relate to; therefore, that meant more brain power; therefore, it was something my brain regards as work. It was only half-way or even 3/4 through the game that I truly started enjoying it as much as I said I did because now I had all these experiences that told me what to look for, what I could expect, what a probable solution might be, etc.
More Tomb Raider?:
The day after finishing TR:A I downloaded TR: Legend (from Steam, silly) because I felt my fun with Tomb Raider was just beginning. TR:A laid down some basics for me and at the end I was really starting to get it. I didn't want it to end there so the adventure continues in TR: Legend (which, btw, I am happy to find is a lot like TR:A). I thought about LPing TR: Legend as well but decided against it. I want to experience a TR game without the recording going on. Believe it or not, it does make a difference. With a recording going I'm less likely to try a variety of things and more likely to miss things in my desire to not waste time. That's actually true of all my LPs. I won't speak definitively for other LPers but that's probably the case for a lot of people.
Not only that but the reason it took me so long to finish TR:A is because of the editing involved in the TR videos. Even though I try to not waste time, it's a puzzle game... I'm obviously going to have to stand around gathering information, trying and failing, etc. I have to go through the videos and try to balance things out so the video isn't TOO boring. I need to leave in parts where I explain my thinking and parts where I try something (and either fail or succeed), cut out needless repetition due to death or jump fails, and make sure that if anything new happens, it's shown in the video. It can take anywhere from 10 - 60 minutes to edit a TR:A video. The finale took me about an hour to edit... which is longer than it took to record it. It'll be nice to just go through a TR game without gaps where I'm editing.
Tuesday, 12 June 2012
Skyrim Makes Me Sick
Those of you who either talk a lot with me, watch my videos, or interact with me a lot on the forums may know that I have not completely enjoyed Skyrim. I guess it was a combination of many things, one of which is that I did have high expectations and didn't really feel like they were entirely met. I don't have a phenomenal gaming computer (in fact, I have a MacBook Pro running Windows Vista on a partition) so the graphics settings aren't exactly great (but I can still run it at moderate settings fairly well) so maybe that's why, but I felt like the game felt... lifeless. It tried to copy real life so much that it lacked vibrance. Also factor in the fact that it takes place in the Nordic regions where there naturally is just a lot of white and brown and you get a rather... colourless game. The combat feels way too boring though some people have recommended playing a melee or bow character instead of my customary mage. As a mage, so far it's just pressing L&R mouse buttons together and just pointing it. I don't really feel engaged at all with the story and I just feel a bit lost as to who my character is. Usually I can just invent something and I get attached to my characters easily... but not so with Skyrim.
There. You have the bulk of my complaints with Skyrim. However, the biggest one is that Skyrim just makes me sick. Literally. When I play Skyrim I feel nauseous and the hollow between my eyes and brow bone start hurting. The first time I ever encountered a game I felt physically ill with was an LP I was watching on YouTube. I could not watch although I liked the game and commentator due to the fact that I felt so nauseous watching it. Since then I haven't had the problem. But alas, Skyrim enters my life and here I meet once again: another game that makes me physically ill. At first I didn't pair the game and the symptoms together but soon it became clear that playing Skyrim caused me to have motion sickness.
I felt a bit stupid. I mean really. It's a game... and I'm sitting here feeling motion sick because of it?! Of course the immediate thought in my head was "am I the only one who's sensitive enough to get sick like this?" A quick google search shows... no, of course not. In fact, there's a lot more people who suffer from video game motion sickness than I thought. It's not just the first-person-view of the game. If it was, I'd feel sick playing Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas too... but I do not. So what is it? A little article on About.com takes some guesses about the head-bobbing, weapon-bobbing, and lack of focal points but they freely admit their speculations are purely from their own experiences. I don't know what it is for me. I walk around without my weapons drawn in both FNV and Skyrim so it's not weapon bob. Do either of those games have head-bobbing? I never noticed it but perhaps Skyrim has it...? Google time.
Yep. In fact, the top results are people asking how to turn it off and one guy says his wife has motion sickness. It looks like FNV does not have head-bobbing, only weapon bobbing. So it's probably the head-bobbing. So after this revelation I have decided that I will no longer voice my opinions on Skyrim. It wouldn't be fair to the game; I would obviously be biased by the fact that whenever I play it I am in a state of physical illness. Obviously, I would not enjoy the experience and obviously that would taint my view of the game.
I just hope I can somehow overcome it or get around it so I can play what may be a quality game. I also feel very bad since someone gifted it to me =/.
There. You have the bulk of my complaints with Skyrim. However, the biggest one is that Skyrim just makes me sick. Literally. When I play Skyrim I feel nauseous and the hollow between my eyes and brow bone start hurting. The first time I ever encountered a game I felt physically ill with was an LP I was watching on YouTube. I could not watch although I liked the game and commentator due to the fact that I felt so nauseous watching it. Since then I haven't had the problem. But alas, Skyrim enters my life and here I meet once again: another game that makes me physically ill. At first I didn't pair the game and the symptoms together but soon it became clear that playing Skyrim caused me to have motion sickness.
I felt a bit stupid. I mean really. It's a game... and I'm sitting here feeling motion sick because of it?! Of course the immediate thought in my head was "am I the only one who's sensitive enough to get sick like this?" A quick google search shows... no, of course not. In fact, there's a lot more people who suffer from video game motion sickness than I thought. It's not just the first-person-view of the game. If it was, I'd feel sick playing Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas too... but I do not. So what is it? A little article on About.com takes some guesses about the head-bobbing, weapon-bobbing, and lack of focal points but they freely admit their speculations are purely from their own experiences. I don't know what it is for me. I walk around without my weapons drawn in both FNV and Skyrim so it's not weapon bob. Do either of those games have head-bobbing? I never noticed it but perhaps Skyrim has it...? Google time.
Yep. In fact, the top results are people asking how to turn it off and one guy says his wife has motion sickness. It looks like FNV does not have head-bobbing, only weapon bobbing. So it's probably the head-bobbing. So after this revelation I have decided that I will no longer voice my opinions on Skyrim. It wouldn't be fair to the game; I would obviously be biased by the fact that whenever I play it I am in a state of physical illness. Obviously, I would not enjoy the experience and obviously that would taint my view of the game.
I just hope I can somehow overcome it or get around it so I can play what may be a quality game. I also feel very bad since someone gifted it to me =/.
Tuesday, 29 May 2012
Pronouncing Words "Correctly" in English
Two months ago, I came across an LP video in which the player was playing as the Iroquois. I forget what game it was but it's entirely inconsequential to this post. In the video, the commentator was pronouncing the name Iroquois as "ir-ro-koi" which a lot of people do... but I tend to look at that as the wrong pronunciation. The name Iroquois is French and thus takes the French pronunciation rules; under which it would be pronounced "ir-ro-kwah". It's how it was taught in my school and by the word's origins, the correct way to say it. I left a comment about how it's pronounced the latter way instead of the former and the commentator responded to me with a "I know, I speak French." I did not further comment on it as I wasn't about to get in his face about it. After all, a lot of people DO pronounce Iroquois with "koi" rather than "kwah".
Then recently I got a reply on my comment which made me return to that video and those comments. I won't get into the reply I got as it turned into a mess of stupidity on which I do not care to longer dwell than I already have. In any case, I saw that someone had replied to the commentator's claim to speaking French and asked him, "then why do you pronounce it wrong?" to which he replied, "I'm speaking English so I will say things with English pronunciation." That is the topic of today's post.
His response kind of baffled me. It seemed rather... ignorant. Take some other words in the English language that have derivatives in other languages for examples. One such word is the word "debut". If you were anal in your insistence in pronouncing things purely in English, then that word would have to be pronounced much like the word "rebuttal" is pronounced: "dee-butt". Now doesn't that just sound silly?
What about the word herb? In England people DO pronounce it with the H but in North America it is pronounced "erb". In fact, I've seen plenty of people be very particular in this regard... almost to the point of making themselves look like an ignorant dumb ass. So does that commentator pronounce herb with the H? Seeing as how he's from North America, I kind of doubt it. How about the word milieu? We do not pronounce that "mil-li-u". Genre is not "jen-re". Lingerie is not "ling-ger-ee" or "lin-ger-ee". Chalet is not "cha-let"... and so on and so forth.
Now don't get me wrong. I'm not all worked up or anything... nor am I really arguing that everyone should pronounce Iroquois as "kwah" and not "koi". Sure, *I* think "kwah" is the correct way but if thousands of people pronounce it "koi" then whatever. My problem however was his response of "I'm speaking English, therefore I will say things with English pronunciation." That is truly a dumb thing to say when EVERYONE who speaks English goes out of the true English pronunciation for certain words. That is.. everyone who is not an idiot. So if "chalet" is to be pronounced "sha-leh" in English, why not "ir-ro-kwah"?
Then recently I got a reply on my comment which made me return to that video and those comments. I won't get into the reply I got as it turned into a mess of stupidity on which I do not care to longer dwell than I already have. In any case, I saw that someone had replied to the commentator's claim to speaking French and asked him, "then why do you pronounce it wrong?" to which he replied, "I'm speaking English so I will say things with English pronunciation." That is the topic of today's post.
His response kind of baffled me. It seemed rather... ignorant. Take some other words in the English language that have derivatives in other languages for examples. One such word is the word "debut". If you were anal in your insistence in pronouncing things purely in English, then that word would have to be pronounced much like the word "rebuttal" is pronounced: "dee-butt". Now doesn't that just sound silly?
What about the word herb? In England people DO pronounce it with the H but in North America it is pronounced "erb". In fact, I've seen plenty of people be very particular in this regard... almost to the point of making themselves look like an ignorant dumb ass. So does that commentator pronounce herb with the H? Seeing as how he's from North America, I kind of doubt it. How about the word milieu? We do not pronounce that "mil-li-u". Genre is not "jen-re". Lingerie is not "ling-ger-ee" or "lin-ger-ee". Chalet is not "cha-let"... and so on and so forth.
Now don't get me wrong. I'm not all worked up or anything... nor am I really arguing that everyone should pronounce Iroquois as "kwah" and not "koi". Sure, *I* think "kwah" is the correct way but if thousands of people pronounce it "koi" then whatever. My problem however was his response of "I'm speaking English, therefore I will say things with English pronunciation." That is truly a dumb thing to say when EVERYONE who speaks English goes out of the true English pronunciation for certain words. That is.. everyone who is not an idiot. So if "chalet" is to be pronounced "sha-leh" in English, why not "ir-ro-kwah"?
Tuesday, 8 May 2012
Fallout: New Vegas Troubles
My Fallout: New Vegas LP has been put on pause momentarily due to the fact that I cannot seem to get the game to load properly. It's very odd; it worked just fine then a week later I go to play it again and it will not work. First sign of something wrong was when it would not load my mouse once I launched the game. If you own FNV or FO3 then you know that if you click during the intro it skips forward to the menu screen. Well I could not do that which puzzled me. Once it got to the menu screen itself it didn't load the actual menu for a long long time. Just sat there with that picture of the character with the gas mask and revolver. Finally it loads the menus so I press continue and it takes me to the loading screen. Round and round the roulette goes, where it stops.... who the fuck knows. It just kept going for SO long that I ended up having to force exit the game. Even THAT was hard to do because it refused to minimize the game so I had to put my computer to sleep, wake it up, at which point it froze for a while then exit the game in the processes.
I am by no means a techie person but I doubt that I'd be able to figure it out even if I was. I replicated the above three times. No changes whatsoever. I know they say it's stupid to try the same thing over and over again but I find that an exception exists with computers... especially after rebooting the thing. But no, not this time. After some google searching I've got a couple things that I might try out but not at the moment. I just don't feel like messing with the damned thing right now. I'm just in that kind of mood where the prospect of dealing with something like that makes me just feel exhausted already.
I already liked Fallout 3 over Fallout: New Vegas but the number of glitches, bugs, and now this that I have to deal with with FNV makes me kind of tired of it and biases me against it more. Don't get me wrong, I'm still enjoying the game and think it's a good game... but it's raising Fallout 3 more in my eyes.
I guess the biggest issue I have with FNV right now is that I feel completely... objective-less. Fallout 3 at least still had a over arching motivation for my character: finding her dad, then fulfilling her parents' dream of pure water for everyone. But FNV? What the heck is my character doing? Gaining power? For what? The starting motivation of finding Billy who "killed" me is long since dealt with since I punched him to death in front of Mr. Happy-Go-Lucky.
Maybe I'll feel differently once I get further in the main quest or do some of the DLCs.
I am by no means a techie person but I doubt that I'd be able to figure it out even if I was. I replicated the above three times. No changes whatsoever. I know they say it's stupid to try the same thing over and over again but I find that an exception exists with computers... especially after rebooting the thing. But no, not this time. After some google searching I've got a couple things that I might try out but not at the moment. I just don't feel like messing with the damned thing right now. I'm just in that kind of mood where the prospect of dealing with something like that makes me just feel exhausted already.
I already liked Fallout 3 over Fallout: New Vegas but the number of glitches, bugs, and now this that I have to deal with with FNV makes me kind of tired of it and biases me against it more. Don't get me wrong, I'm still enjoying the game and think it's a good game... but it's raising Fallout 3 more in my eyes.
I guess the biggest issue I have with FNV right now is that I feel completely... objective-less. Fallout 3 at least still had a over arching motivation for my character: finding her dad, then fulfilling her parents' dream of pure water for everyone. But FNV? What the heck is my character doing? Gaining power? For what? The starting motivation of finding Billy who "killed" me is long since dealt with since I punched him to death in front of Mr. Happy-Go-Lucky.
Maybe I'll feel differently once I get further in the main quest or do some of the DLCs.
Monday, 12 March 2012
The University Dorm Life
No, I'm not talking about parties, having friends just next door, being able to do w/e the fuck because you're out on your own. Sure those things DO happen but so many times I see people who are about to embark on their new University Dorm life overlook all the variety of other things that come with the package. They just think about the prospect of being out on their own and amongst their friends all the time and get crazed about that. I've lived in dorm for almost two years now and dorm life is not as awesome as Hollywood movies make it out to be.
You truly don't know what you have until you've lost it... that is, home life. Even living in your own house by yourself is a pretty different experience from dorm life. Depending on your age, family situation, and/or parents' parenting style, the following will vary but you'll get the general gist of it. First of all is just the fact of not having your family there with you. Some people have absolutely no problem with this... and to be honest, I didn't think I'd have that much of an issue with it either. I've never been that close with my family yet being away from them sucks. I miss them all so much, not even for the things they do for me but just their presence. It's actually made me closer to my parents as we started to value each other more.
That's not to say that I don't miss the things my parents did for me. My mom did the laundry, made all the meals, did baking on the side, and went grocery shopping. I didn't need to worry about doing the dishes all the time (and not having things to eat with if I don't do them) and when I did the laundry, it didn't cost me. If ever I needed anything, it was all there. That sentence didn't exactly come out right... you probably think that I was fed everything on a silver spoon. No, what I mean is if I just bought a salad and brought it home and realized that they forgot the dressing packet for it, I'd have some in the fridge at home. In my dorm? Not so. True story as of 5 minutes ago. Bought salad today so I could have it for my late night snack... opened it a while ago and no dressing.
Living in dorm you get used to just not having certain things because it'd just be too much to all have. I'm not going to have a bottle of salad dressing in my room because I might need it one day. As you get more and more used to these small little incidents piling up you learn to kind of make do with what you have. Improvisation, if you know what I mean. I just had my salad with a strawberry and banana fruit smoothie for dressing. Strange, but again, improv. (It actually tasted okay) Another instance of something like this is when I was cooking in my room. I was making a Korean soup called kimchi gijae and then realized I needed sugar but had none. Without the sugar the soup was a bit lacking. So what do you use for sugar substitute? Coka cola of course. The chair they provided here is just a school-type plastic chair. It's too high when I sit on it and triggers my restless leg syndrome which exhausts my legs. Can't really go out and get a new chair, so what do I do? Put a cardboard box under my desk as a foot rest so my feet can lie flat. Out of cutlery/cups? Use and reuse plastic ones. Salvage plastic bowls from microwave dinners. Use and, yes, reuse paper plates. List goes on and on.
The above kind of sounded like I'm complaining, but I'm really not. I'm just saying I never foresaw these little circumstances that would come up as a result of being a single person living in a room only momentarily (8 months). Things would, indeed, be a lot different if I was a single person living in a room permanently... or even for 2 years straight. But living in a room for 8 months, moving out, then moving into a different room after 4 months home to live there for just another 8 months... rinse and repeat; it's... different, to say the least. There are just so many things I don't and/or can't buy because of this circumstance. Not to mention not having a car makes everything a pain in the ass. Even if I did have enough money for a car and owned one, how in the world would I manage it living in Kingston, Ontario for 8 months, then for 4 months in Vancouver, British Columbia. Where would I park it? Where would I put so many of those little things that I lack right now? I don't really think a lot of people pre-dorm life ever really think about these tiny things. I know I sure didn't.
This post kind of went off the rails of what I originally wanted to include... but I think I'll just stop here for today as it's 2:09 am and I am tired!
You truly don't know what you have until you've lost it... that is, home life. Even living in your own house by yourself is a pretty different experience from dorm life. Depending on your age, family situation, and/or parents' parenting style, the following will vary but you'll get the general gist of it. First of all is just the fact of not having your family there with you. Some people have absolutely no problem with this... and to be honest, I didn't think I'd have that much of an issue with it either. I've never been that close with my family yet being away from them sucks. I miss them all so much, not even for the things they do for me but just their presence. It's actually made me closer to my parents as we started to value each other more.
That's not to say that I don't miss the things my parents did for me. My mom did the laundry, made all the meals, did baking on the side, and went grocery shopping. I didn't need to worry about doing the dishes all the time (and not having things to eat with if I don't do them) and when I did the laundry, it didn't cost me. If ever I needed anything, it was all there. That sentence didn't exactly come out right... you probably think that I was fed everything on a silver spoon. No, what I mean is if I just bought a salad and brought it home and realized that they forgot the dressing packet for it, I'd have some in the fridge at home. In my dorm? Not so. True story as of 5 minutes ago. Bought salad today so I could have it for my late night snack... opened it a while ago and no dressing.
Living in dorm you get used to just not having certain things because it'd just be too much to all have. I'm not going to have a bottle of salad dressing in my room because I might need it one day. As you get more and more used to these small little incidents piling up you learn to kind of make do with what you have. Improvisation, if you know what I mean. I just had my salad with a strawberry and banana fruit smoothie for dressing. Strange, but again, improv. (It actually tasted okay) Another instance of something like this is when I was cooking in my room. I was making a Korean soup called kimchi gijae and then realized I needed sugar but had none. Without the sugar the soup was a bit lacking. So what do you use for sugar substitute? Coka cola of course. The chair they provided here is just a school-type plastic chair. It's too high when I sit on it and triggers my restless leg syndrome which exhausts my legs. Can't really go out and get a new chair, so what do I do? Put a cardboard box under my desk as a foot rest so my feet can lie flat. Out of cutlery/cups? Use and reuse plastic ones. Salvage plastic bowls from microwave dinners. Use and, yes, reuse paper plates. List goes on and on.
The above kind of sounded like I'm complaining, but I'm really not. I'm just saying I never foresaw these little circumstances that would come up as a result of being a single person living in a room only momentarily (8 months). Things would, indeed, be a lot different if I was a single person living in a room permanently... or even for 2 years straight. But living in a room for 8 months, moving out, then moving into a different room after 4 months home to live there for just another 8 months... rinse and repeat; it's... different, to say the least. There are just so many things I don't and/or can't buy because of this circumstance. Not to mention not having a car makes everything a pain in the ass. Even if I did have enough money for a car and owned one, how in the world would I manage it living in Kingston, Ontario for 8 months, then for 4 months in Vancouver, British Columbia. Where would I park it? Where would I put so many of those little things that I lack right now? I don't really think a lot of people pre-dorm life ever really think about these tiny things. I know I sure didn't.
This post kind of went off the rails of what I originally wanted to include... but I think I'll just stop here for today as it's 2:09 am and I am tired!
Wednesday, 29 February 2012
A Discussion on the Freedom of Speech
I used to love but now hate getting an e-mail from YouTube Service called, "Reply from [username] on [video title]". Really, when I got these I used to like having a chat with whoever it was who thought my comment worth replying to. Whether it was someone agreeing with, disputing, discussing, questioning, or adding to what I said or just joking around, it used to be an enjoyable experience. Everyone likes being part of a community and interacting with it. But now when I see "Reply from.." in my inbox I can feel the pit of my stomach slightly clench in a preemptive wince in preparation for whatever this person has said to me.
You can probably guess that this is due to the fact that as time has gone on, I've gotten more and more stupid responses from people. Stupid, ignorant, self-righteous, head-up-the-ass kind of comments that just make me sigh and wonder what has happened to people these days.
What strikes me the most is this need to voice opinions even when said opinions are not constructive criticism nor asked for. What happened to, "if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say it at all"? If you so dislike someone's video, then why leave a hateful comment? A lot of the times when I tell or ask someone these things they usually reply with something along the lines of them having every right to say whatever they please. Freedom of Speech. Though most seem to not phrase it as such. I won't pretend that I am of some old and wise generation; I am not. I am merely 20 years old and sit right with the generation in which these people I write about reside. But for the sake of this piece of writing, indulge me and forget who I am.
To those who invoke the right of Freedom of Speech, I highly recommend you take a moment to google that particular right of yours. I concede, yes, it IS your right. You DO have the freedom of speech and no one can take that away from you. But even a source such a Wikipedia should provide you with knowledge of how this freedom works. The freedom of speech comes with limitations. That's right. You do not get to say whatever you please. That's not what this freedom is about at all.
Let me quote your oh-so-trusty Wikipedia on the Freedom of Speech:
I was raised on the harm principle I suppose. You limit your freedom of speech so that it does not hurt others and so that you follow social etiquette. "Social etiquette" is just fancy speak for manners. Ah, manners: where have you gone? What has possessed this generation that manners seem to have been wholly thrown out the window?
It frankly quite disgusts me: reading what some kids have to say while wielding their faulty defense of "Freedom of Speech" when they know nothing of what that even entails. Words cannot express my utter disappointment and frustration at how the minds of our younger generation is being formed. To be blessed as to have had your ancestors fight for these freedoms for you then to turn around and practically defile the name of the freedom: it's... disgusting.
I take a moment here to remind you of my request for you to forget who I am because no doubt there will be some who read this who will be eager to point out any faults of mine. Instead, reflect on how this topic relates to you and how your actions have been thus far. Concern yourself not with me but with yourself (another huge topic which I will discuss another day).
The freedom of speech is for exchanging ideas, challenging ideas, fighting against injustice or wrongs, and yes, for voicing our opinions. But these are all subject to manners. When you see someone acting in a manner that is disagreeable to you, do not demean yourself by letting bitterness and hate be the flavour of your words. Either move on or approach them in a manner that is constructive towards the other. Also keep in mind that perhaps what is disagreeable to you may not be disagreeable to others. Especially in a place like the internet, there's more than enough room for you to remove yourself elsewhere and away from those who are disagreeable to you. If you should encounter one who would cause you harm through their speech, save your dignity and respond not in kind but with your manners intact or perhaps do not respond at all. If everyone could start to do these things then truly the world would be a better place.
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A post script, if you will: Now that my piece of writing is done I may now reflect on myself and how I relate to the above. I admit with absolutely no qualms that I have NOT followed the above perfectly myself. I do not fault you if you haven't either. The case where everyone acts as such all the time would be an ideal case... but alas, we are human! Add to that fact that I have a temperament of a camel and you can see how I might not have followed the above perfectly. But what counts is that I have been making the effort.
Just before writing this post I had received a reply from someone who was, if I put it lightly, a tad rude. My first instinct was to hiss like cat and spit back venomous words and I went so far as to type it all out. One good thing about me though is that I have a habit of re-reading what I've typed before posting things... and upon reading it over I sighed and deleted it. Instead I wrote a reply in which I simply pointed out how they mistook what I said and left it at that. Never mind the fact that I thought that interpreting my words in the manner which they did must have taken a great deal of ingenious stupidity. Keep thoughts like that to yourself and say merely what is necessary.
You can probably guess that this is due to the fact that as time has gone on, I've gotten more and more stupid responses from people. Stupid, ignorant, self-righteous, head-up-the-ass kind of comments that just make me sigh and wonder what has happened to people these days.
What strikes me the most is this need to voice opinions even when said opinions are not constructive criticism nor asked for. What happened to, "if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say it at all"? If you so dislike someone's video, then why leave a hateful comment? A lot of the times when I tell or ask someone these things they usually reply with something along the lines of them having every right to say whatever they please. Freedom of Speech. Though most seem to not phrase it as such. I won't pretend that I am of some old and wise generation; I am not. I am merely 20 years old and sit right with the generation in which these people I write about reside. But for the sake of this piece of writing, indulge me and forget who I am.
To those who invoke the right of Freedom of Speech, I highly recommend you take a moment to google that particular right of yours. I concede, yes, it IS your right. You DO have the freedom of speech and no one can take that away from you. But even a source such a Wikipedia should provide you with knowledge of how this freedom works. The freedom of speech comes with limitations. That's right. You do not get to say whatever you please. That's not what this freedom is about at all.
Let me quote your oh-so-trusty Wikipedia on the Freedom of Speech:
"In practice, the right to freedom of speech is not absolute in any country and the right is commonly subject to limitations, as with libel, slander, obscenity and incitement to commit a crime.
...
Limitations to freedom of speech may follow the "harm principle" or the "offense principle", for example in the case of pornography, religious belief or hate speech. Limitations to freedom of speech may occur through legal sanction or social disapprobation, or both."The harm principle:
"The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others." -John Stuart Mill
I was raised on the harm principle I suppose. You limit your freedom of speech so that it does not hurt others and so that you follow social etiquette. "Social etiquette" is just fancy speak for manners. Ah, manners: where have you gone? What has possessed this generation that manners seem to have been wholly thrown out the window?
It frankly quite disgusts me: reading what some kids have to say while wielding their faulty defense of "Freedom of Speech" when they know nothing of what that even entails. Words cannot express my utter disappointment and frustration at how the minds of our younger generation is being formed. To be blessed as to have had your ancestors fight for these freedoms for you then to turn around and practically defile the name of the freedom: it's... disgusting.
I take a moment here to remind you of my request for you to forget who I am because no doubt there will be some who read this who will be eager to point out any faults of mine. Instead, reflect on how this topic relates to you and how your actions have been thus far. Concern yourself not with me but with yourself (another huge topic which I will discuss another day).
The freedom of speech is for exchanging ideas, challenging ideas, fighting against injustice or wrongs, and yes, for voicing our opinions. But these are all subject to manners. When you see someone acting in a manner that is disagreeable to you, do not demean yourself by letting bitterness and hate be the flavour of your words. Either move on or approach them in a manner that is constructive towards the other. Also keep in mind that perhaps what is disagreeable to you may not be disagreeable to others. Especially in a place like the internet, there's more than enough room for you to remove yourself elsewhere and away from those who are disagreeable to you. If you should encounter one who would cause you harm through their speech, save your dignity and respond not in kind but with your manners intact or perhaps do not respond at all. If everyone could start to do these things then truly the world would be a better place.
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A post script, if you will: Now that my piece of writing is done I may now reflect on myself and how I relate to the above. I admit with absolutely no qualms that I have NOT followed the above perfectly myself. I do not fault you if you haven't either. The case where everyone acts as such all the time would be an ideal case... but alas, we are human! Add to that fact that I have a temperament of a camel and you can see how I might not have followed the above perfectly. But what counts is that I have been making the effort.
Just before writing this post I had received a reply from someone who was, if I put it lightly, a tad rude. My first instinct was to hiss like cat and spit back venomous words and I went so far as to type it all out. One good thing about me though is that I have a habit of re-reading what I've typed before posting things... and upon reading it over I sighed and deleted it. Instead I wrote a reply in which I simply pointed out how they mistook what I said and left it at that. Never mind the fact that I thought that interpreting my words in the manner which they did must have taken a great deal of ingenious stupidity. Keep thoughts like that to yourself and say merely what is necessary.
Saturday, 14 January 2012
Sinovera's Gaming History
Just a normal blog post today... though a lot has happened in Fallout 3. I don't think I quite realized how much I liked that game until I finished the LP of it and moved on to other games. In fact, I think it's safe to say that it is my favourite game at the moment. To be completely honest, I haven't played as many games as people seem to think I have.
I cannot really name my first game as my first console was the PAL SNES and my first cartridge was a 76 game pack. So any one of those games may have been my first. Some that I remember playing a lot are: Antarctic Adventure, Charlie's Circus, Pooyan, Twin Bee, and City Connection. I searched on youtube couple years ago and couldn't believe that someone actually had some videos up of that cartridge. Unfortunately, they didn't do all the games but they did do a couple of the better selections of the 76. Here is the playlist if you're curious what I'm talking about: 76-in-1 Rush Talkthrough. We also had the original Super Mario Bros. in which, I realized as I looked back on it, I never actually got very far. Didn't stop me from playing it for hours and hours though.
Then my dad brought back the North American SNES from his visit to Canada. He had gotten the promotional Donkey Kong + SNES package deal as a coming home present for me and my sister. We only had Donkey Kong. We only EVER had Donkey Kong. We never got any other cartridge. But being kids we were completely fine with that. We played Donkey Kong so so much. I remember the two of us being stuck at the Mine Cart Madness stage and me being awestruck when my sister finally beat it (she is 3 years older than me by the way). I think when I was around 6 or 7 my dad played Age of Empires and I watched, learned, and played it on my own.
The above is all prior to 1998 which is when we made our immigration to Canada. After the move I still played the two consoles/cartridges (same thing really lol) but I also played some games on the computer. I had no idea at the time (I was 8 - 10-ish) but these were games that were being emulated on our computer and were mostly originally for the Sega Genesis or NES/SNES. I have no idea how my dad got them on our computer way back then (around 1998 - 2000) but obliviously I played them. I don't actually remember a lot of these but Theme Park was one of them and Pocahontas. We had on CD-ROM the original Rayman game. Not sure when that was purchased. Somewhere in here I got a Gameboy Colour for my birthday and played Pokémon Yellow. We never got the full AoE 2 game but we had a demo of it which my sister and I played quite a bit. We were still young so we were fine with the demo for a while before we actually grew skilled enough to hit the demo's limits.
Then this brings me to something connected to a current LP of mine, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. I mention in that LP that Chamber of Secrets was my first 3D game and indeed it was. December of 2002, we were going on vacation to a cabin in Sun Peaks (a ski resort) with two other families. My parents didn't want us to be bored during the evenings there so we went out and bought Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets for the PC. I remember being the only one who really understood how to play the game and the other kids would hand the laptop over to me when they got stuck.
My single player game "career" ended there for a long time. I turned away from video games for couple of years and instead opted for online text-based RPGs. I was quite big in the community I was in, I eventually became the site Manager and Site Designer. Fancy titles but nothing really big as the "site" was an MSN group. I'm sure no one knows what the hell that is but it was kind of like a forum that MSN used to run ages and ages ago. In fact, our site had become the number one (based on activity rating) MSN group in the listings. Then when I was 14 I started blogging on MSN Spaces and through that met a friend who reintroduced me to video games.
Don't laugh... but my re-entry into the world of video games started with Gunbound. Though most of you probably have never heard of it. It's a cartoony style 2D multiplayer game in which you enter matches with a team. You're set on a stage and you adjust angle and power of your shots so that you hit the enemy and either kill them or make them fall off the stage. I was quite the pro Nak.
Then I met a friend on Gunbound who introduced me to MMORPGs. Silkroad Online to be exact. I was hooked on that game for about 2 years. Then I moved on to Rappelz for 1 year but I never really grew very fond of Rappelz. It rather had to do with the people. I missed my old Silkroad guild mates and I still do from time to time. Though I say I played Rappelz for 1 year, what I mean is that for 1 year that was the only game I played. Doesn't mean I played it particularly a lot. Also got Age of Empires 3 and played that a lot somewhere in these years. At this stage I was about 17. So as you can see, I've been a gamer for many years but haven't played a big variety of games.
When I went off to university at the age of 18 I was completely video game free. I had been so addicted to those MMOs that when I finally managed to quit it all I was actually quite intimidated at the thought of becoming addicted to gaming again. Which is why I bought a my MacBook. I had resolved not to play video games but just in case my will should waver I would be forced to be unable to play video games by incompatibility. It worked... sort of. In November my friend from Rappelz told me about Dragon Age: Origins which had just come out. He had gotten it and was just raving about how good it was. Once I got home for the Christmas break I had my sister buy it for me for Christmas and completed it in about 5 or 6 days. Needless to say, Dragon Age: Origins completely revitalized my love of video games and also showed me what a great single player RPG could be.
The rest of that school year I was still without means to game but I found another way to quench my thirst for video games. Yep, you guessed it: Let's Plays.
I cannot really name my first game as my first console was the PAL SNES and my first cartridge was a 76 game pack. So any one of those games may have been my first. Some that I remember playing a lot are: Antarctic Adventure, Charlie's Circus, Pooyan, Twin Bee, and City Connection. I searched on youtube couple years ago and couldn't believe that someone actually had some videos up of that cartridge. Unfortunately, they didn't do all the games but they did do a couple of the better selections of the 76. Here is the playlist if you're curious what I'm talking about: 76-in-1 Rush Talkthrough. We also had the original Super Mario Bros. in which, I realized as I looked back on it, I never actually got very far. Didn't stop me from playing it for hours and hours though.
Then my dad brought back the North American SNES from his visit to Canada. He had gotten the promotional Donkey Kong + SNES package deal as a coming home present for me and my sister. We only had Donkey Kong. We only EVER had Donkey Kong. We never got any other cartridge. But being kids we were completely fine with that. We played Donkey Kong so so much. I remember the two of us being stuck at the Mine Cart Madness stage and me being awestruck when my sister finally beat it (she is 3 years older than me by the way). I think when I was around 6 or 7 my dad played Age of Empires and I watched, learned, and played it on my own.
The above is all prior to 1998 which is when we made our immigration to Canada. After the move I still played the two consoles/cartridges (same thing really lol) but I also played some games on the computer. I had no idea at the time (I was 8 - 10-ish) but these were games that were being emulated on our computer and were mostly originally for the Sega Genesis or NES/SNES. I have no idea how my dad got them on our computer way back then (around 1998 - 2000) but obliviously I played them. I don't actually remember a lot of these but Theme Park was one of them and Pocahontas. We had on CD-ROM the original Rayman game. Not sure when that was purchased. Somewhere in here I got a Gameboy Colour for my birthday and played Pokémon Yellow. We never got the full AoE 2 game but we had a demo of it which my sister and I played quite a bit. We were still young so we were fine with the demo for a while before we actually grew skilled enough to hit the demo's limits.
Then this brings me to something connected to a current LP of mine, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. I mention in that LP that Chamber of Secrets was my first 3D game and indeed it was. December of 2002, we were going on vacation to a cabin in Sun Peaks (a ski resort) with two other families. My parents didn't want us to be bored during the evenings there so we went out and bought Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets for the PC. I remember being the only one who really understood how to play the game and the other kids would hand the laptop over to me when they got stuck.
My single player game "career" ended there for a long time. I turned away from video games for couple of years and instead opted for online text-based RPGs. I was quite big in the community I was in, I eventually became the site Manager and Site Designer. Fancy titles but nothing really big as the "site" was an MSN group. I'm sure no one knows what the hell that is but it was kind of like a forum that MSN used to run ages and ages ago. In fact, our site had become the number one (based on activity rating) MSN group in the listings. Then when I was 14 I started blogging on MSN Spaces and through that met a friend who reintroduced me to video games.
Don't laugh... but my re-entry into the world of video games started with Gunbound. Though most of you probably have never heard of it. It's a cartoony style 2D multiplayer game in which you enter matches with a team. You're set on a stage and you adjust angle and power of your shots so that you hit the enemy and either kill them or make them fall off the stage. I was quite the pro Nak.
Then I met a friend on Gunbound who introduced me to MMORPGs. Silkroad Online to be exact. I was hooked on that game for about 2 years. Then I moved on to Rappelz for 1 year but I never really grew very fond of Rappelz. It rather had to do with the people. I missed my old Silkroad guild mates and I still do from time to time. Though I say I played Rappelz for 1 year, what I mean is that for 1 year that was the only game I played. Doesn't mean I played it particularly a lot. Also got Age of Empires 3 and played that a lot somewhere in these years. At this stage I was about 17. So as you can see, I've been a gamer for many years but haven't played a big variety of games.
When I went off to university at the age of 18 I was completely video game free. I had been so addicted to those MMOs that when I finally managed to quit it all I was actually quite intimidated at the thought of becoming addicted to gaming again. Which is why I bought a my MacBook. I had resolved not to play video games but just in case my will should waver I would be forced to be unable to play video games by incompatibility. It worked... sort of. In November my friend from Rappelz told me about Dragon Age: Origins which had just come out. He had gotten it and was just raving about how good it was. Once I got home for the Christmas break I had my sister buy it for me for Christmas and completed it in about 5 or 6 days. Needless to say, Dragon Age: Origins completely revitalized my love of video games and also showed me what a great single player RPG could be.
The rest of that school year I was still without means to game but I found another way to quench my thirst for video games. Yep, you guessed it: Let's Plays.
Thursday, 29 December 2011
Let's Play Fallout 3 - Epilogue: Part 3 Going Down to Hell
This part describes a portion of the game which I played while being particularly vexed in real life. I first wandered around and discovered many locations... none of which were really consequential. There was one radio tower that was broadcasting a help signal in a near-by sewer but it turns out the signal was pretty old and the people asking for help were already long dead. Their bones were all that remained... and loot of course.
I decided to continue with the water caravan quest, the second part of which, called The Amazing Aqua Cura, is to determine what a ghoul named Griffon is doing with fresh water. He had been purchasing fresh water from Scribe Bigsley who isn't supposed to sell the water nor give them to ghouls but needs the funding. So off I go to the Underworld for the first time. I knew this place existed from the start not only because Gob in Megaton mentions he has friends/"family" there but because I had watched quill18's Fallout 3 Bastard Edition LP in which he played through a small portion of the beginning being a complete ass. However, I had never tried to find this place or really gave it much of a thought during my LP.
Once there, Griffon is out in the entrance hall selling his Aqua Cura. He is telling a group of ghouls that this amazing Aqua Cura will reverse the effects of their ghoul mutation. I buy one from him and then tell him that my pipboy 3000 detects radiation in the water. Of course he's all blah blah that can't be right blah. Don't quite remember how the conversation went but I was soon off to his bottling facility where I discovered that he saves the Aqua Pura to sell to humans and sells slightly irradiated water to the ghouls. Basically I force him to tell the people the truth and he is mobbed and killed by them.
To sum up my activities in Underworld, I kill Greta with a silenced 10mm pistol while she's out on her break for Ahzrukhal's quest (the silenced pistol wasn't really needed but I hadn't known she'd be out alone on break so I actually went back to a hotel where I remembered seeing the silenced pistol to retrieve it) which earned me Charon. Of course Charon kills Ahzrukhal once I acquire him which immediately endeared him to me. So now I have Charon with me.
I meet Mister Crowley who asks me to kill some ghoul haters but it actually turns out that's not the case at all. He just wants the keys that they have. Long story short I tell him that I'm going to keep the keys myself and find Fort Constantine. Later I kill Mr. Crowley as well which made Winthrop come running in to try to kill but but Charon gave him a shot to the head. Amazingly enough, no one else seemed to have noticed a thing. Carol, who was just in the room adjacent, didn't even hear a thing. I went and talked to her and she just blathered on about Greta. I haven't actually gotten around to doing that yet but along the way of acquiring the keys I met some interesting people and found interesting places.... Such as the Republic of Dave. I'm not sure if the inhabitants are just crazy or what. I was tempted to kill Dave but decided to see where his voting farce goes. Unfortunately, my game must have bugged out or something because the last woman just refuses to vote. Just stands there at the voting booth looking dumb for days. Yes, I actually waited days for her to vote. So I just left figuring I'd come back and check on them at a later date. At Dukov's place I freed Cherry and then killed Dukov and the other girl. The guy at Rivet City was not interesting in the least.
Now, Tenpenny is the last person that I had to kill and he basically told me to go kill Mr. Crowley when I confronted him. Instead, as soon as I got my 100 caps up front I sliced him up with Jingwei's Shocksword which gained me Karma. This actually surprised me and now looking it up on Fallout 3 Wiki, it says Tenpenny is an evil character. Some how he never really came across as evil to me. A bit foolish, yes, but not evil. Anyhow, this next part is why I mentioned that I was particularly vexed while playing... because upon exiting Tenpenny's suite I saved up, turned on Galaxy News Radio, and proceeded to butcher everyone in Tenpenny Tower... with Jingwei's Shocksword. After the massacre was over I gave Charon two bullets in the head. Then I headed over to Megaton. Yep. First person I visited was Moira. She got a shocksword to the face. Then all of Megaton's inhabitants were shot down, one by one. All but the children who I cannot kill... and Gob. At first I meant to kill Gob too but the bugger was so darn quick he kept going in and out of buildings and running all over the place. I said, touché, Gob... touché. After achieving the satisfying karma level of "Very Evil" and the title of the "Devil" I finally reloaded back to the save I made after killing Tenpenny. After all, killing all those people wasn't exactly what I wanted to happen. It was just a very fun stress relieving activity.
I decided to continue with the water caravan quest, the second part of which, called The Amazing Aqua Cura, is to determine what a ghoul named Griffon is doing with fresh water. He had been purchasing fresh water from Scribe Bigsley who isn't supposed to sell the water nor give them to ghouls but needs the funding. So off I go to the Underworld for the first time. I knew this place existed from the start not only because Gob in Megaton mentions he has friends/"family" there but because I had watched quill18's Fallout 3 Bastard Edition LP in which he played through a small portion of the beginning being a complete ass. However, I had never tried to find this place or really gave it much of a thought during my LP.
Once there, Griffon is out in the entrance hall selling his Aqua Cura. He is telling a group of ghouls that this amazing Aqua Cura will reverse the effects of their ghoul mutation. I buy one from him and then tell him that my pipboy 3000 detects radiation in the water. Of course he's all blah blah that can't be right blah. Don't quite remember how the conversation went but I was soon off to his bottling facility where I discovered that he saves the Aqua Pura to sell to humans and sells slightly irradiated water to the ghouls. Basically I force him to tell the people the truth and he is mobbed and killed by them.
To sum up my activities in Underworld, I kill Greta with a silenced 10mm pistol while she's out on her break for Ahzrukhal's quest (the silenced pistol wasn't really needed but I hadn't known she'd be out alone on break so I actually went back to a hotel where I remembered seeing the silenced pistol to retrieve it) which earned me Charon. Of course Charon kills Ahzrukhal once I acquire him which immediately endeared him to me. So now I have Charon with me.
I meet Mister Crowley who asks me to kill some ghoul haters but it actually turns out that's not the case at all. He just wants the keys that they have. Long story short I tell him that I'm going to keep the keys myself and find Fort Constantine. Later I kill Mr. Crowley as well which made Winthrop come running in to try to kill but but Charon gave him a shot to the head. Amazingly enough, no one else seemed to have noticed a thing. Carol, who was just in the room adjacent, didn't even hear a thing. I went and talked to her and she just blathered on about Greta. I haven't actually gotten around to doing that yet but along the way of acquiring the keys I met some interesting people and found interesting places.... Such as the Republic of Dave. I'm not sure if the inhabitants are just crazy or what. I was tempted to kill Dave but decided to see where his voting farce goes. Unfortunately, my game must have bugged out or something because the last woman just refuses to vote. Just stands there at the voting booth looking dumb for days. Yes, I actually waited days for her to vote. So I just left figuring I'd come back and check on them at a later date. At Dukov's place I freed Cherry and then killed Dukov and the other girl. The guy at Rivet City was not interesting in the least.
Now, Tenpenny is the last person that I had to kill and he basically told me to go kill Mr. Crowley when I confronted him. Instead, as soon as I got my 100 caps up front I sliced him up with Jingwei's Shocksword which gained me Karma. This actually surprised me and now looking it up on Fallout 3 Wiki, it says Tenpenny is an evil character. Some how he never really came across as evil to me. A bit foolish, yes, but not evil. Anyhow, this next part is why I mentioned that I was particularly vexed while playing... because upon exiting Tenpenny's suite I saved up, turned on Galaxy News Radio, and proceeded to butcher everyone in Tenpenny Tower... with Jingwei's Shocksword. After the massacre was over I gave Charon two bullets in the head. Then I headed over to Megaton. Yep. First person I visited was Moira. She got a shocksword to the face. Then all of Megaton's inhabitants were shot down, one by one. All but the children who I cannot kill... and Gob. At first I meant to kill Gob too but the bugger was so darn quick he kept going in and out of buildings and running all over the place. I said, touché, Gob... touché. After achieving the satisfying karma level of "Very Evil" and the title of the "Devil" I finally reloaded back to the save I made after killing Tenpenny. After all, killing all those people wasn't exactly what I wanted to happen. It was just a very fun stress relieving activity.
Monday, 19 December 2011
Let's Play Fallout 3 - Epilogue: Part 2 The Character of Sinovera
After finishing The Dark Heart of Blackhall quest I reverted to simply roaming the Wastelands and discovering the locations on my map. My goal is to eventually discover all locations. It can get a bit boring at times when you don't find anything but just ruins and minor loot but it also can be rewarding as you find little settlements you had no idea existed or just a little story tucked away in an obscure corner that brings the in-game world to life.
I don't quite remember what order I found these places or quests in but I suppose it doesn't matter. After I finished the recording of Point Lookout I actually reloaded back to before I leveled up by killing Desmond. Not because I regretted killing him but because I regretted the perk I took. I had thought there would be a lot more schematics which is why I took that perk but it had turned out I already had most of the schematics anyways and I'm not that big on making weapons anyways. So I re-leveled and to be honest I'm not even sure which perk I took. I think it was Action Girl, the one that gives you 25 more AP.
I discovered Girdershade (I think that's the name of it) with an amazing population of... two. The woman Sierra or something is a Nuka-Cola nut and collects memorabilia of it. She gave me the quest to bring her 30 Nuka-Cola Quantum. Since I already had 15 in my inventory (I never use them... I think I've used maybe two in my whole playthrough and only because I accidentally clicked on it) I gave them to her then and there... which I regretted as soon as I stepped out her door as her neighbour who apparently "watches out" for her asks me to bring him the Quantums instead so that he can give them to her and impress her... all because he wants to fuck her. Oh boys... the things you do to impress us silly and fickle women. Anyways, with my speech skill at 100 it was simple enough to convince him to pay me twice what the woman is paying me. Ah well. Later I rounded up about 7 more and gave them to him instead. Once I fulfill the quest requirements and get all that I can from them, I plan to kill them both and loot all her Nuka-Cola.
It's rather ironic I suppose that my character Sinovera has a Karma rating of Earthly Angel and Messiah. Ironic because that's not really what she's like at all. I tend to always play my characters with a certain personality and that is one of just self-gain. She does what she wants to and if it's an extreme important good thing then she'll do it because it's important for a large majority (and therefore herself as well)... but otherwise, any other good actions she does is simply for the sake of appearance. She has a reputation to keep. But when no one is looking or when no one really cares, she'll take liberty and try to get the most out of things. She has no qualms about threatening someone for their things or about stealing (though I admit that one is due to my looting craze) and if someone annoys her or pisses her off then damn bitch you better run because a bullet is coming for you (*cough* DESMOND).
I picked up a quest about the water caravans being attacked and it eventually led me to Wilhelm's Wharf where I had to kill a bunch of baddies who would have welcomed me into their money making scheme. My character might have plausibly went for it if not for the fact that it had to do with water. It was her parent's dream to have the pure water flow freely for everyone and these guys were trying to hinder that. So she held true to her parent's dreams... and killed those bastards. Now, there's an oblivious old lady named Grandma Sparkle who thinks that the raiders are a bunch of nice boys who clear the area of nasty monster or some shit like that. As soon as the raiders were gone though I found myself alone with just her... and she had a really nice fridge full of stuff. Naturally, she was on the ground in a snap and her fridge wiped clean.
A little boy named Bryan Wilks came running up to me all of the sudden here and asked for help in his home of Grayditch. It has been infested by fire breathing ants apparently so I set off to investigate... but not before persuading the boy to give me the keys to the stash his father kept for emergencies. I cleared the town of the ants then investigated into the Marigold Metro to get to the root of it. Turns out a crazy scientist had actually accidentally made these ants fire breathing. He asks me to just allow him to "turn them off" through some fail safe mechanism but to leave the Queen alive. But instead I opt for killing the ugly thing and then persuade him with my awesome skill of 100 speech that it was for the best. He gives me the reward and voila. Off I go. The boy though. I had to tell him his father was dead and that he is now all alone in the world. Of course he was devastated and was lost. Perhaps that struck a chord with my girl as she knows what it's like to lose your parents. So she decided to find a home for the boy in Rivet City with his aunt Vera Weatherly.
I think these quests really helped to solidify in my mind just what kind of person my character is. I feel like it wasn't very evident in my LP but I do like to give my characters some personality traits and try to act out some situations as she would. Though in other situations I did disregard her personality for the sake of seeing more content: for example, The Dark Heart of Blackhall. Though to be fair, the first time I did the quest I did it the way she would have: giving it to Obadiah then killing him then trying to go give it to Marcella as well. It's just a misunderstanding on my part that made me reload and do it differently.
I don't quite remember what order I found these places or quests in but I suppose it doesn't matter. After I finished the recording of Point Lookout I actually reloaded back to before I leveled up by killing Desmond. Not because I regretted killing him but because I regretted the perk I took. I had thought there would be a lot more schematics which is why I took that perk but it had turned out I already had most of the schematics anyways and I'm not that big on making weapons anyways. So I re-leveled and to be honest I'm not even sure which perk I took. I think it was Action Girl, the one that gives you 25 more AP.
I discovered Girdershade (I think that's the name of it) with an amazing population of... two. The woman Sierra or something is a Nuka-Cola nut and collects memorabilia of it. She gave me the quest to bring her 30 Nuka-Cola Quantum. Since I already had 15 in my inventory (I never use them... I think I've used maybe two in my whole playthrough and only because I accidentally clicked on it) I gave them to her then and there... which I regretted as soon as I stepped out her door as her neighbour who apparently "watches out" for her asks me to bring him the Quantums instead so that he can give them to her and impress her... all because he wants to fuck her. Oh boys... the things you do to impress us silly and fickle women. Anyways, with my speech skill at 100 it was simple enough to convince him to pay me twice what the woman is paying me. Ah well. Later I rounded up about 7 more and gave them to him instead. Once I fulfill the quest requirements and get all that I can from them, I plan to kill them both and loot all her Nuka-Cola.
It's rather ironic I suppose that my character Sinovera has a Karma rating of Earthly Angel and Messiah. Ironic because that's not really what she's like at all. I tend to always play my characters with a certain personality and that is one of just self-gain. She does what she wants to and if it's an extreme important good thing then she'll do it because it's important for a large majority (and therefore herself as well)... but otherwise, any other good actions she does is simply for the sake of appearance. She has a reputation to keep. But when no one is looking or when no one really cares, she'll take liberty and try to get the most out of things. She has no qualms about threatening someone for their things or about stealing (though I admit that one is due to my looting craze) and if someone annoys her or pisses her off then damn bitch you better run because a bullet is coming for you (*cough* DESMOND).
I picked up a quest about the water caravans being attacked and it eventually led me to Wilhelm's Wharf where I had to kill a bunch of baddies who would have welcomed me into their money making scheme. My character might have plausibly went for it if not for the fact that it had to do with water. It was her parent's dream to have the pure water flow freely for everyone and these guys were trying to hinder that. So she held true to her parent's dreams... and killed those bastards. Now, there's an oblivious old lady named Grandma Sparkle who thinks that the raiders are a bunch of nice boys who clear the area of nasty monster or some shit like that. As soon as the raiders were gone though I found myself alone with just her... and she had a really nice fridge full of stuff. Naturally, she was on the ground in a snap and her fridge wiped clean.
A little boy named Bryan Wilks came running up to me all of the sudden here and asked for help in his home of Grayditch. It has been infested by fire breathing ants apparently so I set off to investigate... but not before persuading the boy to give me the keys to the stash his father kept for emergencies. I cleared the town of the ants then investigated into the Marigold Metro to get to the root of it. Turns out a crazy scientist had actually accidentally made these ants fire breathing. He asks me to just allow him to "turn them off" through some fail safe mechanism but to leave the Queen alive. But instead I opt for killing the ugly thing and then persuade him with my awesome skill of 100 speech that it was for the best. He gives me the reward and voila. Off I go. The boy though. I had to tell him his father was dead and that he is now all alone in the world. Of course he was devastated and was lost. Perhaps that struck a chord with my girl as she knows what it's like to lose your parents. So she decided to find a home for the boy in Rivet City with his aunt Vera Weatherly.
I think these quests really helped to solidify in my mind just what kind of person my character is. I feel like it wasn't very evident in my LP but I do like to give my characters some personality traits and try to act out some situations as she would. Though in other situations I did disregard her personality for the sake of seeing more content: for example, The Dark Heart of Blackhall. Though to be fair, the first time I did the quest I did it the way she would have: giving it to Obadiah then killing him then trying to go give it to Marcella as well. It's just a misunderstanding on my part that made me reload and do it differently.
Saturday, 17 December 2011
Let's Play Fallout 3 - Epilogue: Part 1 The Dark Heart of Blackhall
At last I have finished my LP of Fallout 3 and all its DLCs! I thank TheMonty646 for gifting me the five DLCs on steam. I have linked his youtube on his name so go check him out. He does some LP videos and game related videos.
At the time that this post is going up I'm still not done uploading all the videos but I thought I'd start this now while the game is fresh in my mind. These posts will cover things that I'm doing after the last Fallout 3 video. The reason I'm doing this is because I don't actually want to record my wanderings around the Capital Wastelands for hours but I still found some interesting stuff during my travels.
After I finished Point Lookout DLC's main quest and The Velvet Curtain side quest (the one with the Chinese spy) I spent some time just wandering around Point Lookout. At the end of it I said I felt kind of disappointed with the DLC and part of it was because I felt that it didn't have enough little details and things on the side. Now I can say that I'm feeling a bit better about the DLC. I only found The Velvet Curtain after I criticized the DLC but I recorded that so I won't go into it here.
I did, however, find another side quest. One that probably should have been recorded as it's certainly more interesting than The Velvet Curtain (which I felt was a little bit flat but that's just due to the fact that we're investigating the past). I was bothered by the fact that the map was so huge yet the locations covered took up so little. So with my trusty Explorer perk in hand I decided to explore the yet undiscovered locations. In case you're having trouble recalling, the Explorer perk is the one that lets me see all undiscovered locations on the map.
I first stumbled across the Disaster Relief Outpost where I was a bit confused. I wasn't sure if the outpost was an old abandoned site from the past or if it was one in use in the present. I certainly didn't find anyone there... but one of the tents had a name on it (Marcella's tent) so I guess someone lived there. In Marcella's tent, I hacked her terminal and read up on her suspicions about Obadiah Blackhall. Looking on my map there was a Blackhall Manor so of course that is where I next headed.
The old man, Obadiah seemed nice. He was very civil and asked me to retrieve a family heirloom for him: The Krivbeknih. It is a book but Marcella claims that it is evil. She also claims that Obadiah seeks to gain power through The Krivbeknih. At first I was some what skeptical of her due to the fact that she seems to belong to the disaster relief team... which, by the way, was there to cure a social disease called the "New Plague" the specifics of which I was skeptical about (I did realize later that she actually just took residence in those tents and is not a part of the disaster relief team which existed far in the past). However, I felt a certain characteristic about her. Just the way she looked and the way she talked... I felt that she was a good person and decided to trust her despite having absolutely no evidence that the nice, civil, old man in the manor is evil.
Now this is where I felt the quest lacked a bit: the retrieval of the book. I felt that the task should have been something that was hard... instead you're met with almost no enemies at all on your journey to get the book. Once you pick up the book and try to leave you have to fight through around 6 of the weird swamp people but they only come at you in one's or two's so it wasn't really a big deal. It just felt really anti-climactic to have this evil book that you just walk up to, grab, and go.
At this point I had two choices: return the book to Obadiah or give it to Marcella (who says she will destroy it). So naturally I decided I would do both. I went to Obadiah first and received my payment for it. I followed him down to his basement where it is clearly evident that he is, indeed, mixed up in some twisted stuff. After exhausting my conversation options with him (what little there is), I naturally pull out my gun and shoot him. By looting his body I got the book back and headed over to Marcella's place. But boy oh boy to my surprise, when I arrived I was greeted by a group of thugs. After disposing of them I headed inside the tent and found to my dismay that Marcella had been murdered by those thugs.
I thought that this was because I gave the book the Obadiah so I reloaded to before giving the book to him and this time headed directly to Marcella. Once again, I found the thugs and I found her dead. So it hadn't been caused by giving Obadiah the book after all. Listening to the holotape that Marcella left behind I received the second part of the quest: to go and destroy the book.
This is where the quest bugged out on me. The quest leads you back to the Capital Wastelands and tells you to go to the Dunwich Building. I had never heard of this place before but luckily the quest marker lead me straight to it! At least... that's the theory. I was very confused at the fact that the quest marker pointed me to Springvale. The only reason I knew it was Springvale was, once again, due to my Explorer perk. I had never been there before. So I thought that perhaps the Dunwich Building was located inside of Springvale. Off I went to Springvale and explored the town and the school but found no Dunwich Building. Utterly confused at this point I double check that my quest IS set to the right one and it is. I was so grateful for the Explorer perk because after scanning the numerous undiscovered locations on my map I finally found it... in the bottom left hand corner of the map near the rock tunnels we went through for Broken Steel. That experience ruffled my feathers a bit but nevertheless I didn't begrudge having to explore Springvale. I like exploring anyways.
The Dunwich Building was a giant mess of floors, rooms, collapsed rooms, ramps, stairs... Very confusing. I was just glad that after I arrived there and got the ChaChing! of the location discovery, the quest marker finally decided to behave and lead me correctly. The trek to the Obelisk where you are told you can destroy the book was rather satisfying. It really did feel like a difficult journey and at the end I felt like I really had gone through enough shit to consider it as an accomplishment.
I approached the obelisk and activated it to destroy The Krivbeknih and got some experience and good karma as a result. I was much more satisfied with this ending than the simple ending of handing the book over to Obadiah. It just feels so weird that if you choose a certain path with this quest it feels like a really boring quest but if you choose the other you get this full blown, adequate sized quest. The difference between the choices was just surprising.
So this concludes part 1. The other parts won't be quite so detailed as this one. I just felt like I owed Point Lookout this text "LP" at least to make up for dissing it before. I still feel that the DLC was a bit lacking. I just didn't feel any emotional response to it at all (other than being freaked out by the hallucinations); instead I felt a bit irritated by both Desmond and Professor and did the quest because it's the main quest. Otherwise I think I would just have said screw you to Desmond. He is one annoying, cocky, little bastard.
At the time that this post is going up I'm still not done uploading all the videos but I thought I'd start this now while the game is fresh in my mind. These posts will cover things that I'm doing after the last Fallout 3 video. The reason I'm doing this is because I don't actually want to record my wanderings around the Capital Wastelands for hours but I still found some interesting stuff during my travels.
After I finished Point Lookout DLC's main quest and The Velvet Curtain side quest (the one with the Chinese spy) I spent some time just wandering around Point Lookout. At the end of it I said I felt kind of disappointed with the DLC and part of it was because I felt that it didn't have enough little details and things on the side. Now I can say that I'm feeling a bit better about the DLC. I only found The Velvet Curtain after I criticized the DLC but I recorded that so I won't go into it here.
I did, however, find another side quest. One that probably should have been recorded as it's certainly more interesting than The Velvet Curtain (which I felt was a little bit flat but that's just due to the fact that we're investigating the past). I was bothered by the fact that the map was so huge yet the locations covered took up so little. So with my trusty Explorer perk in hand I decided to explore the yet undiscovered locations. In case you're having trouble recalling, the Explorer perk is the one that lets me see all undiscovered locations on the map.
I first stumbled across the Disaster Relief Outpost where I was a bit confused. I wasn't sure if the outpost was an old abandoned site from the past or if it was one in use in the present. I certainly didn't find anyone there... but one of the tents had a name on it (Marcella's tent) so I guess someone lived there. In Marcella's tent, I hacked her terminal and read up on her suspicions about Obadiah Blackhall. Looking on my map there was a Blackhall Manor so of course that is where I next headed.
The old man, Obadiah seemed nice. He was very civil and asked me to retrieve a family heirloom for him: The Krivbeknih. It is a book but Marcella claims that it is evil. She also claims that Obadiah seeks to gain power through The Krivbeknih. At first I was some what skeptical of her due to the fact that she seems to belong to the disaster relief team... which, by the way, was there to cure a social disease called the "New Plague" the specifics of which I was skeptical about (I did realize later that she actually just took residence in those tents and is not a part of the disaster relief team which existed far in the past). However, I felt a certain characteristic about her. Just the way she looked and the way she talked... I felt that she was a good person and decided to trust her despite having absolutely no evidence that the nice, civil, old man in the manor is evil.
Now this is where I felt the quest lacked a bit: the retrieval of the book. I felt that the task should have been something that was hard... instead you're met with almost no enemies at all on your journey to get the book. Once you pick up the book and try to leave you have to fight through around 6 of the weird swamp people but they only come at you in one's or two's so it wasn't really a big deal. It just felt really anti-climactic to have this evil book that you just walk up to, grab, and go.
At this point I had two choices: return the book to Obadiah or give it to Marcella (who says she will destroy it). So naturally I decided I would do both. I went to Obadiah first and received my payment for it. I followed him down to his basement where it is clearly evident that he is, indeed, mixed up in some twisted stuff. After exhausting my conversation options with him (what little there is), I naturally pull out my gun and shoot him. By looting his body I got the book back and headed over to Marcella's place. But boy oh boy to my surprise, when I arrived I was greeted by a group of thugs. After disposing of them I headed inside the tent and found to my dismay that Marcella had been murdered by those thugs.
I thought that this was because I gave the book the Obadiah so I reloaded to before giving the book to him and this time headed directly to Marcella. Once again, I found the thugs and I found her dead. So it hadn't been caused by giving Obadiah the book after all. Listening to the holotape that Marcella left behind I received the second part of the quest: to go and destroy the book.
This is where the quest bugged out on me. The quest leads you back to the Capital Wastelands and tells you to go to the Dunwich Building. I had never heard of this place before but luckily the quest marker lead me straight to it! At least... that's the theory. I was very confused at the fact that the quest marker pointed me to Springvale. The only reason I knew it was Springvale was, once again, due to my Explorer perk. I had never been there before. So I thought that perhaps the Dunwich Building was located inside of Springvale. Off I went to Springvale and explored the town and the school but found no Dunwich Building. Utterly confused at this point I double check that my quest IS set to the right one and it is. I was so grateful for the Explorer perk because after scanning the numerous undiscovered locations on my map I finally found it... in the bottom left hand corner of the map near the rock tunnels we went through for Broken Steel. That experience ruffled my feathers a bit but nevertheless I didn't begrudge having to explore Springvale. I like exploring anyways.
The Dunwich Building was a giant mess of floors, rooms, collapsed rooms, ramps, stairs... Very confusing. I was just glad that after I arrived there and got the ChaChing! of the location discovery, the quest marker finally decided to behave and lead me correctly. The trek to the Obelisk where you are told you can destroy the book was rather satisfying. It really did feel like a difficult journey and at the end I felt like I really had gone through enough shit to consider it as an accomplishment.
I approached the obelisk and activated it to destroy The Krivbeknih and got some experience and good karma as a result. I was much more satisfied with this ending than the simple ending of handing the book over to Obadiah. It just feels so weird that if you choose a certain path with this quest it feels like a really boring quest but if you choose the other you get this full blown, adequate sized quest. The difference between the choices was just surprising.
So this concludes part 1. The other parts won't be quite so detailed as this one. I just felt like I owed Point Lookout this text "LP" at least to make up for dissing it before. I still feel that the DLC was a bit lacking. I just didn't feel any emotional response to it at all (other than being freaked out by the hallucinations); instead I felt a bit irritated by both Desmond and Professor and did the quest because it's the main quest. Otherwise I think I would just have said screw you to Desmond. He is one annoying, cocky, little bastard.
Sunday, 20 November 2011
My Hotmail
My current hotmail account is one that I've had since September 20, 2007. I wouldn't know this date had hotmail not saved my account creation date. In fact, I wouldn't even remember the year. I had a different hotmail account before this one... but it was one that I had made when I was around 8 or 9 and of course had an embarrassingly stupid name. Ugh, fine, I will say it. It was called cherry_angel91@hotmail.com. Yep. Angel. I went there. Cherry is the name of my dog and 91 is obviously my birth year. I'd just like to take a moment and say that the angel part was wholly my sister's idea since she thought it was cool and had "angel" in her e-mail address back then too. So... Ha.
By the way, I refuse to call it Windows Live Mail or even Windows Live Hotmail. It will always just be hotmail. Same goes for Windows Live Messenger. No. It is MSN. I often wonder why it is that I do not move on to gmail. A huge number of people have done so. I even heard someone say on campus that hotmail is the past and that everyone has gmail now. *Raises hand* Hello? I use hotmail! But why?
Why not? What exactly does GMail have to offer me that hotmail doesn't? More space? Don't need it. I'm not a person who embraces change and so I stick to my hotmail. Perhaps if I ever feel compelled to change my e-mail address in the future I will move to something but for now I will be sticking with hotmail for a very long time. To be completely honest, I don't really use e-mail much other than to e-mail myself information or some files so I can access them at a different computer and to get YouTube notifications. I'm on MSN 90% of the time that I am on the computer. But here's the kicker, I stay invisible and I do not talk to anyone on MSN. I only log into MSN because it gives me a notification alert when I get an e-mail.
The real reason for why I stick around my hotmail and the real reason for why I felt compelled to write about my hotmail today is simply record and data keeping. I just spent the last hour finishing organizing my inbox. I say "finishing" because several hours prior I spent about an hour and a half doing the same. There is a total of 7, 056 e-mails in my hotmail account right now. In a couple minutes 3, 146 of those e-mails are going to be permanently deleted. The remaining 3, 910 e-mails are there to stay. They have now been sorted into different folders and for the first time in over two years my inbox = 0. Before sorting and deleting there was around 6, 500 e-mails in just the inbox. I didn't get the exact number. The rest were old old e-mails that had already been organized into folders.
Big shocker, 2, 970 of those e-mails are from YouTube: e-mail notifications I get when someone comments on a video, comments on my channel, subscribes to my channel, replies to my comment on a video, when I get content matched on a video, etc. Admittedly, as big a number as 2, 970 is, it's not as much as some more famous YouTubers might get... but dang. It's still a damn lot.
But the other e-mails? There's SO much of my life in there: flight booking confirmations, car rental confirmations, e-mails from old friends, old school work that I sent back and forth from home to school, completely random links that I sent to myself to save for god knows what reason (it was pretty fun to copy and paste the links and discover what it was), receipt of past purchases, beta invitations, validation e-mails to forums or websites that I completely forgot I ever went to and frankly still have no idea why I was there in the past, records of old group projects that I worked on and our conversations, important e-mails from the university, equally important e-mails for RESP, old correspondence between me and my parents the first time I left home for university.... the list continues on and on. It was certainly quite a journey to sift through all that.
...and THAT is the reason I'm sticking with my hotmail. Memories. What can I say? I'm a mush. I love keeping records of the past and revisiting them at a later date. To have this incredible database of events in my life just stored there is quite amazing and wonderful.
By the way, I refuse to call it Windows Live Mail or even Windows Live Hotmail. It will always just be hotmail. Same goes for Windows Live Messenger. No. It is MSN. I often wonder why it is that I do not move on to gmail. A huge number of people have done so. I even heard someone say on campus that hotmail is the past and that everyone has gmail now. *Raises hand* Hello? I use hotmail! But why?
Why not? What exactly does GMail have to offer me that hotmail doesn't? More space? Don't need it. I'm not a person who embraces change and so I stick to my hotmail. Perhaps if I ever feel compelled to change my e-mail address in the future I will move to something but for now I will be sticking with hotmail for a very long time. To be completely honest, I don't really use e-mail much other than to e-mail myself information or some files so I can access them at a different computer and to get YouTube notifications. I'm on MSN 90% of the time that I am on the computer. But here's the kicker, I stay invisible and I do not talk to anyone on MSN. I only log into MSN because it gives me a notification alert when I get an e-mail.
The real reason for why I stick around my hotmail and the real reason for why I felt compelled to write about my hotmail today is simply record and data keeping. I just spent the last hour finishing organizing my inbox. I say "finishing" because several hours prior I spent about an hour and a half doing the same. There is a total of 7, 056 e-mails in my hotmail account right now. In a couple minutes 3, 146 of those e-mails are going to be permanently deleted. The remaining 3, 910 e-mails are there to stay. They have now been sorted into different folders and for the first time in over two years my inbox = 0. Before sorting and deleting there was around 6, 500 e-mails in just the inbox. I didn't get the exact number. The rest were old old e-mails that had already been organized into folders.
Big shocker, 2, 970 of those e-mails are from YouTube: e-mail notifications I get when someone comments on a video, comments on my channel, subscribes to my channel, replies to my comment on a video, when I get content matched on a video, etc. Admittedly, as big a number as 2, 970 is, it's not as much as some more famous YouTubers might get... but dang. It's still a damn lot.
But the other e-mails? There's SO much of my life in there: flight booking confirmations, car rental confirmations, e-mails from old friends, old school work that I sent back and forth from home to school, completely random links that I sent to myself to save for god knows what reason (it was pretty fun to copy and paste the links and discover what it was), receipt of past purchases, beta invitations, validation e-mails to forums or websites that I completely forgot I ever went to and frankly still have no idea why I was there in the past, records of old group projects that I worked on and our conversations, important e-mails from the university, equally important e-mails for RESP, old correspondence between me and my parents the first time I left home for university.... the list continues on and on. It was certainly quite a journey to sift through all that.
...and THAT is the reason I'm sticking with my hotmail. Memories. What can I say? I'm a mush. I love keeping records of the past and revisiting them at a later date. To have this incredible database of events in my life just stored there is quite amazing and wonderful.
Wednesday, 16 November 2011
Density
Isn't density amazing? I always have a roll of plastic wrap in my dorm room. It's not for covering food though. Plastic wrap is amazingly useful when you're packing and want to make sure shit stays where they're supposed to. For instance, a plastic wrapped book will not get its pages crumpled and damaged in the traveling process; a bottle of toner won't open and spill if tightly wrapped in plastic wrap. As I live ~3000 km from home this plastic wrap is a necessity for me when packing. Who the hell knows that my poor belongings go through when it's being shipped or when it's being thrown around in my suitcase as it travels with me by air. But that's not the point of this post. What was the point again? Right, density. A roll of plastic wrap is very dense... and consequently very hard. It's so amazing though how something as thin and flimsy as plastic wrap can become so hard when rolled up densely. It's like the whole spider's web vs iron thing. Amazing.
Tuesday, 15 November 2011
The Quest for the Perfect Amount of Gas!
Carbonated drinks. Why do we have carbonated drinks? I understand that it makes the soda taste erm... fresher? more refreshing? whatever. But honestly, I feel like they carbonate it a bit too much. After a drink from a bottle of soda I find my mouth to be in slight pain almost and as I swallow it the sensation is most unpleasant as it fizzes down my gullet. After said gulp, I feel a strange sensation in my belly up to my throat. At this point I have to do some weird inner gut maneuvers in order to free the gas bubble that has formed inside: which of course has to come out as a burp. I apologize if this post has been so far slightly disgusting and the fact that I am a female probably adds to that sense of "wtf?" while reading this. I know. But it's true!
So one solution to this is to hold the soda in your mouth a bit longer so that the gas has time to escape before ingestion. However, this approach, while not as unpleasant as assisting yourself into a burp, is arguably more unhealthy than just swallowing the darn thing. The acidity and the sweetness of the soda is sure to cause some damage to your teeth every time you hold soda in your mouth for a prolonged period of time. If you were daft enough to not realize this and are in habit of doing this then I suggest you stop. It'll help your dental bills in the future.
Option two is to leave the bottle opened for a while. But this is annoying as I do not wish to wait to drink the soda I just bought. Option three is the best option that I can find thus far... First, safely open the bottle to release pent up gas. Drink one or two sips (suck it up and burp). Close the bottle firmly then shake the bottle slightly until you feel the bottle start to build pressure. Carefully open the bottle to allow gas to escape. Safest way to to open only until you get a little hiss of gas escaping. If you see the soda start to bubble up towards the top, immediately close, wait for the soda to calm the fuck down then continue. Once all the gas has been released, taste test the soda to determine whether it is to your liking. If not, repeat above steps. If you bought a can, then well you're fucked and have to use option two.
While option three works to reduce the carbonation I find that it somehow diminishes the taste a bit. The soda I like best is when I simply leave it out for a couple minutes to allow the gas to escape naturally. Unfortunately, I'm not sure exactly how long I should leave it out and in any case, as I've stated before, I do not wish to or have the time to wait for my drink to slightly flatten. I understand the extreme carbonation of 2 L bottles as they are kept longer and therefore need the carbonation to last longer.. but the 591 mL bottles? Why do you people insist on liking such extreme carbonation? It only gives you gas! I just wish I could find a delicious soda which is carbonated to perfection to preserve both taste, freshness, and pleasant drinking experience. Is that so much to ask?
Fun fact: In Canada (where I live), soda is more often referred to as pop. Eg. "Pop machine", "you shouldn't drink so much pop", "can you get me a pop?" I know, to Americans it must sound weird. I used to call it pop all the time and in fact thought that calling it soda was strange sounding. But as I grew up I grew out of drinking pop and in consequence I had no frequent occasions to refer to the carbonated drink. I only recently started drinking soda again when I visited America several times (I know, what a coincidence!) and drank a lot of rum and coke during my visits. From then on I started using the word soda more but the word pop still holds its place in my vocabulary. I tend to use soda for writing or more formal speech while using pop as a colloquial slang... which is actually what the word is. Canadians do not use the word pop in formal writing.
So one solution to this is to hold the soda in your mouth a bit longer so that the gas has time to escape before ingestion. However, this approach, while not as unpleasant as assisting yourself into a burp, is arguably more unhealthy than just swallowing the darn thing. The acidity and the sweetness of the soda is sure to cause some damage to your teeth every time you hold soda in your mouth for a prolonged period of time. If you were daft enough to not realize this and are in habit of doing this then I suggest you stop. It'll help your dental bills in the future.
Option two is to leave the bottle opened for a while. But this is annoying as I do not wish to wait to drink the soda I just bought. Option three is the best option that I can find thus far... First, safely open the bottle to release pent up gas. Drink one or two sips (suck it up and burp). Close the bottle firmly then shake the bottle slightly until you feel the bottle start to build pressure. Carefully open the bottle to allow gas to escape. Safest way to to open only until you get a little hiss of gas escaping. If you see the soda start to bubble up towards the top, immediately close, wait for the soda to calm the fuck down then continue. Once all the gas has been released, taste test the soda to determine whether it is to your liking. If not, repeat above steps. If you bought a can, then well you're fucked and have to use option two.
While option three works to reduce the carbonation I find that it somehow diminishes the taste a bit. The soda I like best is when I simply leave it out for a couple minutes to allow the gas to escape naturally. Unfortunately, I'm not sure exactly how long I should leave it out and in any case, as I've stated before, I do not wish to or have the time to wait for my drink to slightly flatten. I understand the extreme carbonation of 2 L bottles as they are kept longer and therefore need the carbonation to last longer.. but the 591 mL bottles? Why do you people insist on liking such extreme carbonation? It only gives you gas! I just wish I could find a delicious soda which is carbonated to perfection to preserve both taste, freshness, and pleasant drinking experience. Is that so much to ask?
Fun fact: In Canada (where I live), soda is more often referred to as pop. Eg. "Pop machine", "you shouldn't drink so much pop", "can you get me a pop?" I know, to Americans it must sound weird. I used to call it pop all the time and in fact thought that calling it soda was strange sounding. But as I grew up I grew out of drinking pop and in consequence I had no frequent occasions to refer to the carbonated drink. I only recently started drinking soda again when I visited America several times (I know, what a coincidence!) and drank a lot of rum and coke during my visits. From then on I started using the word soda more but the word pop still holds its place in my vocabulary. I tend to use soda for writing or more formal speech while using pop as a colloquial slang... which is actually what the word is. Canadians do not use the word pop in formal writing.
Sunday, 13 November 2011
I love it when your misfortune is my happiness.
Hello. Today my blog title sounds like a completely stereotypical emo kid's status message on facebook. But I must admit that it holds a certain ring of truth for me. You see, half of me is an utterly selfish person and has absolutely no regards for you or your suffering. If the end result entails me gaining and you losing, why, I could not be happier. I've recently had an experience in which that is exactly what happened but I probably won't ever tell anyone the details for sake of saving face. I'll give you a hint; it has something to do with this blog post. But probably not in the way you are thinking. You may have remarked upon the fact that I only attributed this characteristic to half of myself. So one must now ask the question of what the characteristic of the other half is. Let me make an analogy to make things clear. You see there's this family of three: a mom, dad, and a daughter. The mother and father are not getting along at all. So what do couples do when they are not getting along with each other? Have sex. With other people. At least the dad was in this situation. With the daughter. The mother knew but only felt horrible inside. She never did anything. The other half of me is that mother. That half just kind of sits there with all the worries but never does anything. In case you're wondering the analogy is referring to a movie called "The Quiet".
Is this blog post confusing? I hope it was.
Is this blog post confusing? I hope it was.
Tuesday, 1 November 2011
Cracking Your Brain
You know when you have a weird tense feeling in your shoulders/neck... and it's not exactly pain but it's uncomfortable? Then when you crack your neck it feels so much better? Well that's kind of what I'm feeling with my brain. Yeah. I wish I could crack my brain. It feels uncomfortable and I wish there was a way to relieve the discomfort like cracking your neck does.
I researched a bit into cracking your neck a while ago. It's one of my many habits; granted, I don't do it because of real habit but rather because it relieves the discomfort in my neck. Apparently cracking your neck is bad to do because the more you crack it, the more it increases the discomfort in the long run. It creates a cycle in which you crack to relieve but cause more discomfort so you have to crack again, and again, and again. Unfortunately, I happen to be one of those people in that vicious cycle. After reading that I tried to stop but honestly the discomfort gets too much to resist having that relief sometimes. The reason for the cycle has something to do with the big muscles getting relaxed and causing other muscles to have to shoulder the burden or what not. I kind of forget the specifics of it but that's the general idea.
Cracking your back however doesn't seem to have any proven negative effects. Of course if it is done wrong and with too much force it could injure you. If you couldn't guess, I crack my back a lot too. Another set of cracking I do is my knuckles and fingers. This one's quite the popular one as a lot of people believe it is bad to crack your knuckles. The belief is that it will hasten the onset of arthritis. Research so far hasn't proven this theory yet. One doctor even has a habit of only cracking the knuckles on one hand. Neither hand has shown any sign of having more or less negative effects than the other. It has been shown, however, that cracking your knuckles can decrease the strength of your grip. When I read that I was like zomg because I've noticed for couple years now how much of a pussy grip I have (cracking my fingers go back a long ways too).
One that I didn't research or come across is cracking your wrists. I'm not talking swiveling your wrists and having it make little clickity clack sounds. I mean pushing my hand down so it makes about an 80 degree angle with my arm. I don't get the wrist cracks as often as the other ones but I do get them more often than I would like.
I have way too many cracking shit in my body. Jeez.
I researched a bit into cracking your neck a while ago. It's one of my many habits; granted, I don't do it because of real habit but rather because it relieves the discomfort in my neck. Apparently cracking your neck is bad to do because the more you crack it, the more it increases the discomfort in the long run. It creates a cycle in which you crack to relieve but cause more discomfort so you have to crack again, and again, and again. Unfortunately, I happen to be one of those people in that vicious cycle. After reading that I tried to stop but honestly the discomfort gets too much to resist having that relief sometimes. The reason for the cycle has something to do with the big muscles getting relaxed and causing other muscles to have to shoulder the burden or what not. I kind of forget the specifics of it but that's the general idea.
Cracking your back however doesn't seem to have any proven negative effects. Of course if it is done wrong and with too much force it could injure you. If you couldn't guess, I crack my back a lot too. Another set of cracking I do is my knuckles and fingers. This one's quite the popular one as a lot of people believe it is bad to crack your knuckles. The belief is that it will hasten the onset of arthritis. Research so far hasn't proven this theory yet. One doctor even has a habit of only cracking the knuckles on one hand. Neither hand has shown any sign of having more or less negative effects than the other. It has been shown, however, that cracking your knuckles can decrease the strength of your grip. When I read that I was like zomg because I've noticed for couple years now how much of a pussy grip I have (cracking my fingers go back a long ways too).
One that I didn't research or come across is cracking your wrists. I'm not talking swiveling your wrists and having it make little clickity clack sounds. I mean pushing my hand down so it makes about an 80 degree angle with my arm. I don't get the wrist cracks as often as the other ones but I do get them more often than I would like.
I have way too many cracking shit in my body. Jeez.
Thursday, 20 October 2011
Half Way to Insanity
I feel like I'm half-way to insanity. Not because half of me is insane or going insane but because I am insane. I am also sane. It's a tug-of-war with myself. Won't anyone join me?
Monday, 3 October 2011
The Stage Hand
It is unfortunate that I am constantly banging my head up against a natural human characteristic. The tendency of people to not appreciate things that they don't necessarily see. Perfect example are stage hands and staff at plays. There is a LOT of work that goes into creating the set, manipulating the set, timing said manipulations, timing lighting, timing music, assisting the actors/actresses off stage with hair/makeup and costume.. etc etc. Without them the play wouldn't be what it is but we don't normally pause to think of them. It's because we don't actually see them doing the actions as well as because we take things for granted. All the results of a stage hand's job are things that we expect as the norm and therefore think nothing of. However, if they're not there or done badly we will remark upon it.I feel like an abused stage hand these days. A lot of it has to do with things that occurred on the Toegoff forums which I manage.
First was the whole drama incident where I felt rather insulted that people could complain about my efforts to make the community a safe, friendly place. If you honestly don't know then someone got banned for being continually disrespectful and making personal attacks on people on the forums. It was a bit of an express ban since he made it clear to me that warnings have no effect on him whatsoever. Anyways, the issue is that people started saying the admins banned whoever the heck we wanted if we didn't like them; saying that we're too strict with the rules and that we're restricting their freedom.
This really insulted me because when setting up the forums and the rules and guidelines for them I seriously took into consideration the fact that the rules may interfere with the forum experience. I made the rules in a way in which we could still enforce a friendly environment but not have people feel like we're breathing down their necks. Even in enforcing these rules we were so lenient that warnings were hardly ever given. That doesn't mean that there was no moderating going on though. Our moderating crew and I spend a lot of time just going through the forums. But no one sees that. Even if someone gets a warning, no one but the recipient sees that either. No one witnessed the amount of thought I put into making the rules or all the messages I sent to members regarding little ways in which they were toeing over the rules. In fact, there have been many many cases where if I was strict I should have given them a warning, instead I just wrote them a message about it. But no one really knows the number of these that go out except me.
Second is something a bit more specific as well as largely general. The Toegoff forums recently made the change from invisionfree to zetaboards. To do this I had to get a new layout since invision codes do not work on zeta. After everything was done, one guy says that he would like a different theme to be available for use since the one on there right now makes his eyes bleed. It's not really the insult to the layout that bothered me. Tons of other people have told me they like it so I don't really care that much about one dick's opinion on it. But rather how completely dickish that request was. First of all the layout took a lot of work from me. In their minds all I did was find a layout and paste the codes in. That's not what happened at all. I'll be completely anal and go through every single thing that went into making that layout what it is at this moment.
Of course the very first step is to find a layout. I am not a coder and have no knowledge of CSS at all; therefore, making my own layout is out of the question. This first step is actually one of the hardest. It's pretty dang hard to find a layout that looks good, as well as functions well, as well as matching your individual need. I spent literally over 2 hours picking a layout. When picking a layout I need to put aside my own personal tastes and consider the theme's appropriateness for the forum and its audience. I went through so many layout threads it's crazy. And then I found one that had a really cool feature of a menu at the top which has the options slide slightly when you mouse over it which I thought was a cool effect. I really liked this menu because it let you put a LOT of links at the top (up to 12) and I really wanted to have something like that. Unfortunately, while the actual layout was very well done and pretty to my eyes, it was... too pretty. It was kind of girl-ish and that's definitely not what fits the Toegoff forums. So I found another layout and with my complete zero knowledge of CSS put in that menu I liked at the top of this new layout. That process sounds so easy in a nice little sentence but trust me it was a lot more. I had to figure out where the coding (html) went in the headers. Then I had to go into CSS and find its corresponding coding (which is no easy feat when you have no knowledge of CSS at all) and put that in the new layout CSS. Unfortunately again, I wasn't pleased with the results. This entire project got scrapped.
After some more searching I finally found one that was clean, simple, yet still "styled". The process of finding this layout and then finding where the coding for it was is a story in itself. One thing that I didn't like about it though was that it had a designated box for the advertisements on the board. As someone who uses adblock plus and doesn't see the advertisement, the white blankness in the middle of the board just felt absurd to me. So I asked Toegoff to take a look at the CSS coding for me to see if he could take out the box. He succeeded but it changed the board's white cells to black. He then asked bobtherocket (another moderator) to take a look at the CSS (since bob is a website designer) and even he couldn't figure out a way to get rid of the box and maintain the same colors at the same time. He probably could have done it but we decided it would be too annoying and wasn't really worth it. So that's two other people's time poured into this layout that no one will ever know (well now you do since you read this but let's be honest here, who's still reading this crap?). And of course changing button graphics on those forums are fucking tedious as hell. The thing is I had to do this twice because I originally did all the fiddling around on a different private forum to make sure everything was ready. So I copied and pasted a ton of links from the layout code source to the private forum, then I had to later copy and paste again from the private forum to the actual forum. You'll probably think "what's the big deal? It's just copy and pasting." Yes, but it's a LOT of copy and pasting. My fingers were literally sore after all the copy and pasting. It's mindless, tedious work.
So now I got my layout. Now I had to configure the board to match it. First of the matter was that the layout came with a banner which just said the theme's name on it. Obviously I wasn't about to use that. So I had to go into the CSS, find the URL of the background of the banner and multiply it about 12 times in photoshop just to have a backdrop for the new banner. Then I got to actually working on the banner. Looking at my list of fonts I had nothing very good. So I had to go online and browse a ton of shit fonts to find a couple that may or may not work. Installed all of them, then finally back to photoshop. Try out a dozen of these new fonts and found one that would serve well. Then I went through a lot of different effects such as metallic gradient in the font and a boarder around the word that has an inner and outer glow. Fiddled around with it for a while. Then finally settled on font, metallic gradient, bevel, settings to make it look metallic. Finally done. Up it goes to photobucket.
Next are the pips. The user rank indicators. I had no idea what to use for pips but looking around the new layout I found that the topic markers were little orb things that could serve as pips. So I open it up in photoshop but unfortunately there was no way to separate it from its background cleanly so I decided to make my own from scratch. Black dot, bigger white dot behind it with bevel, smaller white dot on top of it which is then blurred, put an even smaller white dot on top of the smaller white dot and blur this too. And there you go, you have an orb with a beveled white border. Save for web as gif, upload it on photobucket, put its link in the coding and now I have pips. But unfortunately invision's pip system was a bit messed up so in turn my old pips were messed up. I had to go in and edit every single tier and change it to use forum's default pip and set how many of the pips. Another tedious task. Then comes the issue of admins and mods who have 7 pips currently. Admins red, mods blue. Photoshop time again. Except this time with those colours respectively and instead of one orb I have to stretch it to 7 in the actual one pip. This goes up onto zeta as a badge and then I have to go into group settings for admins and mods and set each badge accordingly. There was the additional thing of making a hearts badge for pwnies but I won't bitch about that because it's a personal joke I played on him a long time ago.
Then came the menu links. This layout displayed them nice and large at the top (which is part of the reason the other menu code that I liked wasn't used). I wanted to add some personal links on that bar. So off I go into google and zetaboard forums to find coding for that. I find one and successfully put in a link to Toegoff's YouTube channel. Later on I decide that I want to add his Livestream link too. I add it and it completely messed things up. Adding the new link made the bar stretch too long and therefore it went to a second line. Needless to say, looked horrible. So then I had to go and find a code that lets me completely take control of that menu so I could take some stuff out. Had to go and get the links for the standard links like Search and Members: put those in minus the FAQ and Portal buttons which were useless then put the new ones in and finally everything looks good.
Even in that I left out some annoying shit I had to go through. I left them out because it was just a matter of stupid circumstance or mistakes on my part. I also left out all the new settings that I had to set after the conversion. But yeah, no one knows all that. No one even thinks about it. To them it's just "oh she just copied and pasted some shit into a box."
(Oh and the old doHTML tag was taken out which was how we were embedding videos. So I had to google how to do that in zetaboards. Then I had to go into the admin CP and enable that function. Then I had to write up a tutorial on how to do it for the forum ((and trust me, some people need tutorials that assume they're really stupid)). Not that big a deal but again, something that's taken for granted. Like honestly, I have things I'd rather do than write up a tutorial on how to embed youtube videos but I know that I should to let everyone know of the change and so that new users can be pointed towards the thread instead of having someone explain it to them every time. It's part of my responsibilities as a forum admin and I do it.)
And now finally back to the one guy and his one comment. See why his comment is dickish? Just because the layout isn't appealing to you, you want me to go through all that again? And you have the audacity to request this with an insult attached? Yes, like I'm going to waste my time pleasing your ocular senses. In any case, it wouldn't exactly work out right as the admin and moderator badges are just that... badges. Not pips. Therefore, they will not change with the theme change and will look very strange on a different layout. This comment had one good thing I guess though; it made me realize just how invisible my work on that forum is.
Another case on the forums where I felt a bit like a stage hand was a year ago for the community league of legends tourney. Sure, everyone said thank you to me for setting it up, etc etc. But no one but me knows exactly what a grueling task that damn thing was. Try organizing 36 mostly random people from the internet and getting them to be on at a specific time on a specific date. Not easy. I basically had to keep track of every single person and what times they said they can or can't be on. Once someone suggested a time I would have to make sure the other 3 all confirmed agreement to it. Not only that but things were made more confusing by the fact that people's forum names weren't their LoL names. By the end I had literally memorized who was who with a different name and everyone's partners for each round. And the biggest pain in the ass of all were the people who just didn't show up to set times or would come on the forum once in a blue moon to say "no, I can't that day." Then not check back for another forever. In total, I sent 53 individualized e-mails for the setting up of this tourney. Mind, those are just e-mails, not posts I made on topics or conversations I had on LoL PvP.net chat or on skype. I say individualized because... they were. What does that mean? It means it did NOT involve much copy and pasting but actual personal input from me to match that specific person's interests. I sent a variety of messages: asking them to please come on the forums and post their schedule, telling them that a date and time has been suggested and for them to confirm it, warnings for lack of participation, disqualification by lack of participation alerts, telling people on the stand-by list that they got in and had to respond soon or lose the spot and here was the thread and this was their partner... etc. But most of them were me telling people of the new suggested time and asking them to come and confirm it. But really no one knew how much time went into checking all this information for that person and then e-mailing them about it. If someone received one from me they'd probably not think much of it other than about the pertinent information at hand. They wouldn't think, "wow how many of these does she send out?" Yes, I got a pat on the back for this tourney but at the same time I don't think anyone really understands how much shit went into it. You have no idea how mind boggling it is to have 8 people discussing their available times in one thread while keeping in mind which 4 are together as well as the connection between forum name and LoL name and keeping track of who has or hasn't confirmed to what time. Then realize that there's 4 of these going on at the same time. As the organizer I literally spent forever organizing all those in my mind as well as on Notepad and making sure everyone has confirmed availability on the set date. It's not really something you can understand unless you try it. Especially with a group of people who don't really have a motivation to keep responding to you.
And that is the conclusion of my bitching about people not realizing how much work I do. I probably sound like such a bitch in this post but honestly I don't give two shits. This is my blog on which I vent shit. If I can't be a bitch on my own blog then that's when I know it's time to shoot myself. And see, now that all this has been recorded on this blog, that much more of these thoughts and feelings has left me. Isn't that just so wonderful about blogs?
First was the whole drama incident where I felt rather insulted that people could complain about my efforts to make the community a safe, friendly place. If you honestly don't know then someone got banned for being continually disrespectful and making personal attacks on people on the forums. It was a bit of an express ban since he made it clear to me that warnings have no effect on him whatsoever. Anyways, the issue is that people started saying the admins banned whoever the heck we wanted if we didn't like them; saying that we're too strict with the rules and that we're restricting their freedom.
This really insulted me because when setting up the forums and the rules and guidelines for them I seriously took into consideration the fact that the rules may interfere with the forum experience. I made the rules in a way in which we could still enforce a friendly environment but not have people feel like we're breathing down their necks. Even in enforcing these rules we were so lenient that warnings were hardly ever given. That doesn't mean that there was no moderating going on though. Our moderating crew and I spend a lot of time just going through the forums. But no one sees that. Even if someone gets a warning, no one but the recipient sees that either. No one witnessed the amount of thought I put into making the rules or all the messages I sent to members regarding little ways in which they were toeing over the rules. In fact, there have been many many cases where if I was strict I should have given them a warning, instead I just wrote them a message about it. But no one really knows the number of these that go out except me.
Second is something a bit more specific as well as largely general. The Toegoff forums recently made the change from invisionfree to zetaboards. To do this I had to get a new layout since invision codes do not work on zeta. After everything was done, one guy says that he would like a different theme to be available for use since the one on there right now makes his eyes bleed. It's not really the insult to the layout that bothered me. Tons of other people have told me they like it so I don't really care that much about one dick's opinion on it. But rather how completely dickish that request was. First of all the layout took a lot of work from me. In their minds all I did was find a layout and paste the codes in. That's not what happened at all. I'll be completely anal and go through every single thing that went into making that layout what it is at this moment.
Of course the very first step is to find a layout. I am not a coder and have no knowledge of CSS at all; therefore, making my own layout is out of the question. This first step is actually one of the hardest. It's pretty dang hard to find a layout that looks good, as well as functions well, as well as matching your individual need. I spent literally over 2 hours picking a layout. When picking a layout I need to put aside my own personal tastes and consider the theme's appropriateness for the forum and its audience. I went through so many layout threads it's crazy. And then I found one that had a really cool feature of a menu at the top which has the options slide slightly when you mouse over it which I thought was a cool effect. I really liked this menu because it let you put a LOT of links at the top (up to 12) and I really wanted to have something like that. Unfortunately, while the actual layout was very well done and pretty to my eyes, it was... too pretty. It was kind of girl-ish and that's definitely not what fits the Toegoff forums. So I found another layout and with my complete zero knowledge of CSS put in that menu I liked at the top of this new layout. That process sounds so easy in a nice little sentence but trust me it was a lot more. I had to figure out where the coding (html) went in the headers. Then I had to go into CSS and find its corresponding coding (which is no easy feat when you have no knowledge of CSS at all) and put that in the new layout CSS. Unfortunately again, I wasn't pleased with the results. This entire project got scrapped.
After some more searching I finally found one that was clean, simple, yet still "styled". The process of finding this layout and then finding where the coding for it was is a story in itself. One thing that I didn't like about it though was that it had a designated box for the advertisements on the board. As someone who uses adblock plus and doesn't see the advertisement, the white blankness in the middle of the board just felt absurd to me. So I asked Toegoff to take a look at the CSS coding for me to see if he could take out the box. He succeeded but it changed the board's white cells to black. He then asked bobtherocket (another moderator) to take a look at the CSS (since bob is a website designer) and even he couldn't figure out a way to get rid of the box and maintain the same colors at the same time. He probably could have done it but we decided it would be too annoying and wasn't really worth it. So that's two other people's time poured into this layout that no one will ever know (well now you do since you read this but let's be honest here, who's still reading this crap?). And of course changing button graphics on those forums are fucking tedious as hell. The thing is I had to do this twice because I originally did all the fiddling around on a different private forum to make sure everything was ready. So I copied and pasted a ton of links from the layout code source to the private forum, then I had to later copy and paste again from the private forum to the actual forum. You'll probably think "what's the big deal? It's just copy and pasting." Yes, but it's a LOT of copy and pasting. My fingers were literally sore after all the copy and pasting. It's mindless, tedious work.
So now I got my layout. Now I had to configure the board to match it. First of the matter was that the layout came with a banner which just said the theme's name on it. Obviously I wasn't about to use that. So I had to go into the CSS, find the URL of the background of the banner and multiply it about 12 times in photoshop just to have a backdrop for the new banner. Then I got to actually working on the banner. Looking at my list of fonts I had nothing very good. So I had to go online and browse a ton of shit fonts to find a couple that may or may not work. Installed all of them, then finally back to photoshop. Try out a dozen of these new fonts and found one that would serve well. Then I went through a lot of different effects such as metallic gradient in the font and a boarder around the word that has an inner and outer glow. Fiddled around with it for a while. Then finally settled on font, metallic gradient, bevel, settings to make it look metallic. Finally done. Up it goes to photobucket.
Next are the pips. The user rank indicators. I had no idea what to use for pips but looking around the new layout I found that the topic markers were little orb things that could serve as pips. So I open it up in photoshop but unfortunately there was no way to separate it from its background cleanly so I decided to make my own from scratch. Black dot, bigger white dot behind it with bevel, smaller white dot on top of it which is then blurred, put an even smaller white dot on top of the smaller white dot and blur this too. And there you go, you have an orb with a beveled white border. Save for web as gif, upload it on photobucket, put its link in the coding and now I have pips. But unfortunately invision's pip system was a bit messed up so in turn my old pips were messed up. I had to go in and edit every single tier and change it to use forum's default pip and set how many of the pips. Another tedious task. Then comes the issue of admins and mods who have 7 pips currently. Admins red, mods blue. Photoshop time again. Except this time with those colours respectively and instead of one orb I have to stretch it to 7 in the actual one pip. This goes up onto zeta as a badge and then I have to go into group settings for admins and mods and set each badge accordingly. There was the additional thing of making a hearts badge for pwnies but I won't bitch about that because it's a personal joke I played on him a long time ago.
Then came the menu links. This layout displayed them nice and large at the top (which is part of the reason the other menu code that I liked wasn't used). I wanted to add some personal links on that bar. So off I go into google and zetaboard forums to find coding for that. I find one and successfully put in a link to Toegoff's YouTube channel. Later on I decide that I want to add his Livestream link too. I add it and it completely messed things up. Adding the new link made the bar stretch too long and therefore it went to a second line. Needless to say, looked horrible. So then I had to go and find a code that lets me completely take control of that menu so I could take some stuff out. Had to go and get the links for the standard links like Search and Members: put those in minus the FAQ and Portal buttons which were useless then put the new ones in and finally everything looks good.
Even in that I left out some annoying shit I had to go through. I left them out because it was just a matter of stupid circumstance or mistakes on my part. I also left out all the new settings that I had to set after the conversion. But yeah, no one knows all that. No one even thinks about it. To them it's just "oh she just copied and pasted some shit into a box."
(Oh and the old doHTML tag was taken out which was how we were embedding videos. So I had to google how to do that in zetaboards. Then I had to go into the admin CP and enable that function. Then I had to write up a tutorial on how to do it for the forum ((and trust me, some people need tutorials that assume they're really stupid)). Not that big a deal but again, something that's taken for granted. Like honestly, I have things I'd rather do than write up a tutorial on how to embed youtube videos but I know that I should to let everyone know of the change and so that new users can be pointed towards the thread instead of having someone explain it to them every time. It's part of my responsibilities as a forum admin and I do it.)
And now finally back to the one guy and his one comment. See why his comment is dickish? Just because the layout isn't appealing to you, you want me to go through all that again? And you have the audacity to request this with an insult attached? Yes, like I'm going to waste my time pleasing your ocular senses. In any case, it wouldn't exactly work out right as the admin and moderator badges are just that... badges. Not pips. Therefore, they will not change with the theme change and will look very strange on a different layout. This comment had one good thing I guess though; it made me realize just how invisible my work on that forum is.
Another case on the forums where I felt a bit like a stage hand was a year ago for the community league of legends tourney. Sure, everyone said thank you to me for setting it up, etc etc. But no one but me knows exactly what a grueling task that damn thing was. Try organizing 36 mostly random people from the internet and getting them to be on at a specific time on a specific date. Not easy. I basically had to keep track of every single person and what times they said they can or can't be on. Once someone suggested a time I would have to make sure the other 3 all confirmed agreement to it. Not only that but things were made more confusing by the fact that people's forum names weren't their LoL names. By the end I had literally memorized who was who with a different name and everyone's partners for each round. And the biggest pain in the ass of all were the people who just didn't show up to set times or would come on the forum once in a blue moon to say "no, I can't that day." Then not check back for another forever. In total, I sent 53 individualized e-mails for the setting up of this tourney. Mind, those are just e-mails, not posts I made on topics or conversations I had on LoL PvP.net chat or on skype. I say individualized because... they were. What does that mean? It means it did NOT involve much copy and pasting but actual personal input from me to match that specific person's interests. I sent a variety of messages: asking them to please come on the forums and post their schedule, telling them that a date and time has been suggested and for them to confirm it, warnings for lack of participation, disqualification by lack of participation alerts, telling people on the stand-by list that they got in and had to respond soon or lose the spot and here was the thread and this was their partner... etc. But most of them were me telling people of the new suggested time and asking them to come and confirm it. But really no one knew how much time went into checking all this information for that person and then e-mailing them about it. If someone received one from me they'd probably not think much of it other than about the pertinent information at hand. They wouldn't think, "wow how many of these does she send out?" Yes, I got a pat on the back for this tourney but at the same time I don't think anyone really understands how much shit went into it. You have no idea how mind boggling it is to have 8 people discussing their available times in one thread while keeping in mind which 4 are together as well as the connection between forum name and LoL name and keeping track of who has or hasn't confirmed to what time. Then realize that there's 4 of these going on at the same time. As the organizer I literally spent forever organizing all those in my mind as well as on Notepad and making sure everyone has confirmed availability on the set date. It's not really something you can understand unless you try it. Especially with a group of people who don't really have a motivation to keep responding to you.
And that is the conclusion of my bitching about people not realizing how much work I do. I probably sound like such a bitch in this post but honestly I don't give two shits. This is my blog on which I vent shit. If I can't be a bitch on my own blog then that's when I know it's time to shoot myself. And see, now that all this has been recorded on this blog, that much more of these thoughts and feelings has left me. Isn't that just so wonderful about blogs?
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