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.
Monday, 19 December 2011
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.
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