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!
Monday, 12 March 2012
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.
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