Online Role Playing - Or - I Hit It With My Axe

Besides the fact that the title of this blog is a reference to an online video series that chronicles the ongoing adventures of a group of porn stars attempting (and succeeding quite awesomely) to play D&D, it also references something that my friends and I do quite often...well...almost. It references a new way to do something that we do multiple times per week. I am, of course, talking about role playing. "Duh" I hear you cry, "You called it Online Role Playing for a reason, I assumed." Well you can take your attitude, mister smarty pants, and leave! The rest of you fine, glorious, and slightly moist people can stick around and listen to me espouse the virtues of this activity!

Role playing is, at the heart of it, very very much like acting. Only, without the script. Improv! Role playing is, at the heart of it, very very much like improv. You have a character who you embody - that character has a backstory, a personality, and so forth (much like Holtarrion in the journal I have been keeping - Yes, yes, I did only start doing that last week, but the person who pointed that out can join their friend in the hallway, thank you very much - I will see you both after the class has finished) and you create their future by interacting with other players or non-player characters. In the case of more traditional role playing games, the success or failure of your actions is determined not by how well you can play the character, but instead by a series of dice rolls (it's just like Maths: The Game, I love it!) Online role playing, however (as well as the offline free form varieties, like the Murder Mystery party I held a while back) rely solely upon your ability to pretend, to immerse yourself in the other world, and to play nicely with others (something those two in the hallway just don't seem to understand, apparently.)

For the purposes of keeping everything nice and together, Laura (who I haven't really mentioned in this blog, but who will be cropping up more and more frequently, I imagine) has created a Facebook group which houses several posts, each of which represents an area in the fictional world. To interact with the world, you simply post your actions as a comment on the thread, and everybody kind of feeds off what you do. This, of course, means that you don't have to have anybody else online with you for your to participate - though in this situation you might be waiting for anywhere up to a couple of hours before somebody responds to you, it means that you don't have to worry about everybody being together at once.

The story we have going at the moment is, brilliantly enough, being written by everybody as we go along. There is no over-arching plot, there are no goals that we have to achieve, there isn't any big bad who is going to come and slaughter us if we don't go training. We do what we want. We write how we want. We make it up as we go along. Really, the only rule with this is that as long as you respect the other participants, and as long as you respect established continuity (once something has happened it can't unhappen...) then you're fine. It's brilliant.

So I guess then, that you're wondering the big question of "Why?" (and it's certainly not the first time I've had that question asked in my classroom, I'll tell you!) Well besides the fact that it's fun, and that it exercises your creative muscles, it's a pretty cool social activity. I mean, sure you're not technically interacting with other people as yourself, but you are playing a game with them, and games are one of the most social activities out there.

The More You Didn't Care To Know, Part 1

It occurs to me, sometimes, that I am considered a font of knowledge for many different areas. These areas, and the knowledge contained therein are, of course, mostly completely irrelevant and thus I'm not particularly helpful, per se. But still, it is nice to be considered something of a polymath. The best thing, of course, about the word polymath, is that if you have to ask if you are one, then you aren't. It's like a self-fulfilling prophecy, only the prophecy is about smug self-righteous intelligence. But enough waffling! You came here to be educated (because it's Tuesday, and that's what happens on Tuesdays!!) and so today I thought I would explain the differences between some words - words that are, of course, commonly confused. There would be no point in explaining the difference between the word 'pancake' and the word 'Tuesday' because the two are connected in no particular way (other than, of course, Shrove Tuesday, but that's just because I was thinking about delicious food...)

Then vs. Than

The confusion that exists between 'then' and 'than' strikes me as somewhat odd. Once you know what the two words actually mean, then hopefully you should agree that they are quite different. It's kind of like the words 'dead' and 'deed' - sure they only differ by a single letter, but I'd rather much have many deeds than many dead. 

The word 'than' is a comparative term. It is used to compare two objects, expressing the fact that one of the objects experiences a certain quality in greater abundance (man it's difficult to define that word without using it...) Correct usage of the word 'than' should be limited to sentences of the following nature: "Nathan has more money in than bank than I do." or "The red ball is smaller than the blue ball is."

The word 'then' is a temporal modifier (for want of a better term.) It is used to indicate that an activity or event is to take place later than (and there's that word again) another activity or event. Correct usage of this word should generally be limited to times when you want to express a chronology. For instance, if I were to say "I'm going to go to the shops, and then I'll return home." then this is correct usage of the term. You may have noticed I just used the word in another context - this is because 'then' can also be used as a conjunctive (meaning roughly 'in the situation that the preceding or following is the case'.

Less vs. Fewer

The difference between 'less' and 'fewer' is actually quite small, but it is still something that, on occasion, irks me. I can understand, for instance, if the average person says that they have less raffle tickets than their friend. This is a pretty common misconception, and the two words do carry the same vague meaning. What I have trouble ignoring, however, is the glaring grammatical error that stares at my any time I am in line at the supermarket. The sign that offends me so reads "12 Items Or Less." and, besides the fact that ever letter seems to be the start of its own little sentence, their misleading of the public disgusts me.

Traditionally (if it's appropriate to call language traditional, and I don't see why it isn't...) the word 'less' should be used only in conjunction with an item that is uncountable - for example 'hair' as an overall concept. One could correctly say "I have less hair than you." The word 'fewer', on the other hand, was designed to be used with countable objects - for example 'hairs' (this time, though, the individual objects that sit on your head, instead of the mass as a whole.) One could correctly say "I have fewer hairs than you." As I said before, the difference is small, but if you want to exercise your mind then attempting to differentiate between these two can be good for you.

Affect vs. Effect

There is quite a handy mnemonic device that one can use to remember the difference between the words 'affect' and 'effect'. If you simply remember the word RAVEN (standing for: Remember Affect Verb Effect Noun) then you should generally be fine. As a verb, affect usually means to influence, alter, move emotionally, or (when speaking of an illness) to harm the body. As a noun, effect usually means the result/outcome of an event, though it is also seen in 'special effects', 'sound effects', and so forth.

There is a slight difficulty when it comes to very specific (and rarely used) definitions of the words, in which effect can actually be a verb and affect can actually be a noun. These cases are, however, quite rare. As a verb, effect means simply 'to bring about' (i.e. "He effected a change in the policy.") Affect, on the other hand, has a noun usage which seems to have fallen almost entirely from the common vernacular, being defined as emotion or an external display there-of (i.e. "The Doctor was void of affect as he finished off the Daleks".) Still, it's not hard to tell when one should use affect and effect in common speech.

And Finally...

So I think that should pretty much wrap it up for this particular entry in 'The More You Didn't Care To Know'. There are a couple of other discrepancies that I wanted to highlight, however I think that would do for next Tuesday, or at least one in the near future. I have decided that, to square off the list, I am going to include a list of words that people consistently use incorrectly in either context or spelling that don't deserve a full explanation.

Bold, when used in the context of someone without hair, is incorrect. The correct term is bald.

Horny when used in the context of any inanimate object (i.e. "The porn your mother starred in is really horny") is not only incorrect, but downright silly. Inanimate objects cannot, by definition, experience emotion, and thus cannot feel horny. What you mean to say is either the object made/makes you horny, or that the object is/way erotic.

A Whole Nother when used at any time, is incorrect. What you mean to say is A Whole Other.

Peruse when used in the context of quickly looking something over, is incorrect. Peruse actually means that one takes one's time and carefully inspects things.

Rediculous is not spelt as such. It is correctly spelt ridiculous.

Ironic. You know what? Don't even bother trying to use irony correctly - you're probably not going to...(But in case you wanted to know, it is only used to describe outcomes that are opposite to the expectation. For example, a giant banquet being eaten at the funeral of a man who died of starvation.)

Reviewing The Caanoo

So today I'm telling you (albeit briefly) about the GP2X Caanoo - the most recent version of their 'cover-all' hand-held device. The Caanoo, which can be purchased from ThinkGeek (amongst other places, I'm certain, but I got mine from ThinkGeek, because I'm a well-behaved nerdling...) costs about $150 US and, given the features that it boasts, I think it's well worth it.

The Caanoo is marketed as a handheld console that runs on Linux. And is open source. Yup, that's what they sell it as...Everything perfectly legit. Okay, not really. Yes, technically the Caanoo is an open source hand-held that runs Linux, but as if that's going to pull the big crowds. No - the draw card that they use on you is that it is capable of running an emulator for virtually any console in existence before the N64. That means that you can now play Sega Master System games (Hello Alex Kidd...), SNES games (Hi There, Link To The Past), or MAME games (Why Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, I almost didn't notice you...) amongst a swathe of others. That is where the console really comes to power.

As far as retro gaming goes, the Caanoo is (in my opinion, of course) just brilliant. I mean, sure, it can't yet (yet) run Nintendo 64 games, but really I think that's more a limitation of the dev community than anything else (okay, yes, you'll have to overclock it and do a really good job of optimising everything, but still, I think it should be do-able...I mean, they've gotten PSX games working on an overclocked Caanoo...) The emulators that you can download for it (no, it doesn't come with them pre-installed, but it's not like they cost any money...) run smoothly and I've yet to experience any real hiccups with them. I did have to configure the SNES emulator to allow transparency so that I could actually see the game I was playing, and also to allow me to save properly, but that's a community developed software problem, as opposed to a hardware issue.

The graphics are, for me, clear as liquid crystal, and the touchscreen is reactive and hard to damage. The sound quality is pretty decent, considering the speakers that it is coming from, however I do have the issue that the speakers are back-facing, instead of pointing towards the player. Still, if you're not using headphones to play then you're probably not too worried about sound quality.

The battery is advertised to last about 4 hours, which (in my experience with the handheld) is accurate. This is long enough for, say, a small car trip, or use at work, however given that it only charges via USB, it probably won't suffice for a return train trip to Sydney (3 hours each way, give or take 30 minutes.) Still, given that it knocks off a full direction of travel if fully charged, it's much better than nothing.

The other nice thing about the Caanoo is that it has a host of third-party applications developed for it (although you admittedly have to pay for most of them.) Included on the device itself is a media player (which handles both audio and video), an  eBook reader, and various other nice little extras.Oh, and you can play multi-player via Wireless, as well...

So basically, if you've got some disposable income, and you are a fan of retro-gaming on the move (instead of at your PC) then I'd recommend the Caanoo to you. It doesn't have many down-sides other than the price. Oh. And, I suppose, the fact that well-known games won't really keep being released for it. But then, I guess that's what the developer community is for...

The Journal Of Holtarrion Oaksbane, Entry #1

Entry The First

Good day to you, new journal! Ah - The first words written in a brand new, leather bound book - a pleasant greeting. Yes, that feels right. Much better than those that marred the first page in my last one. "Hello World." I mean, yes, I was greeting what will surely be a rather captive future audience who no doubt wait with baited breath at my every penned word, and sure I was using the standard wording for a test message - you can't be too careful after all (must make sure these things aren't cursed when we begin writing in them, don't want our personality transferred into the paper. Or worse.)

After several days worth of travelling via a most fantastic steam-powered gondola down the river from Turtleback Ferry where I managed to...shall we say "acquaint" myself with some of their more unusual customs, in return for availing myself to them to aid with their ongoing restorative efforts - turns out a rather nasty something-or-other created quite the issue their dam, leaving a large portion of their town mostly destroyed. Still, a rather nifty place, that Turtleback Ferry, with a rather cool looking fort - met a nice, if somewhat unhinged, alchemist there - learnt a bit about restoratives and potions. Nice chap. Loud explosions. Still, eventually time pushed itself forward, and I had to move myself onwards.

Oh my - I was halfway through a sentence up there, wasn't I? I do that sometimes, but you'll grow to accept that this happens, and hopefully embrace it - you are recording my thoughts after all, and they don't exactly always go just where I want them to. Tricky things thoughts - like trying to pin down fireflies at times, what with all of the jumbled nonsense going on inside my head. Oh look - that man is trying to bully that lady, I could help her out - or I might be better suited to curing the sick for the church of the glorious order of Vink today - or mayhaps I should instead spend my time arranging flowers in a pretty shop instead. It is a cacophony of good intentions. Still, better than being boring now, isn't it.

So yes, after several days travelling lazily down the river, with not much to do but read through my old journals (having recently filled your direct predecessor) I arrived at the port in Magnimar - a lovely sprawling town Magnimar, with many...interesting areas. I, of course, opted to stay in an area where my expertise could be put to rather good use - the Marble District, I had heard rumours, was certainly somewhere were the gentry enjoyed the luxury of enough coin to pay someone else to perform even the most menial of tasks for them, and a man does have to eat. But before I settled into my cosy inn room for the night, I opted to excitedly explore my surroundings take a jaunty perambulation (as I am want to do...) finding myself in one of the more suspect areas of the city.

I was greeted, as I stepped over what almost appeared to be a physical threshold to Lowcleft, with something you will no doubt become quite used to me writing about - trouble. It is somewhat traditional, you see new journal, for my most incredible self to find myself in consistent spots of bother - sticky situations, if you will - I do so enjoy jam with my toast. But I digress (how unlike me - ahaha) and should instead by telling you of what occurred in Lowcleft. It turns out, you see, that I had stepped directly into the path of what initially felt to be an oncoming carriage. Upon collecting myself, however, I noticed that, running rather quickly away from myself was an unusually dressed man with what could loosely be described as "art" attached to his back. I say "loosely" because even someone with my limited capacity for the finer aspects of oil painting could likely have done better - still, there's no accounting for taste in some people, I suspect.

Following significantly less expediently after him, I quickly noted, was a watchman clearly from one of the more upper-class areas of town, where this kind of blatant thievery 'art liberation' was uncommon. He yelled something along the lines of stopping the villainous bloodsucker, and before I knew what was happening my legs had decided to assist. They do that sometimes. My body parts, that is. Always going off with minds of their own, doing whatever they feel is right at the time. Blasted moral compass must have slipped out of my head again, and into one of my shins. Still, my legs wanted to give chase, and who would I possibly be to argue with them?

I don't suspect, new journal, that you know what it's like to need to catch up with a professional thief, what with your being a book and all. I can't really explain what it's like for most people, to kind of careen swiftly through the streets at blazing speed, using their tremendous physical strength or alarmingly sharp dexterity to wind their way around their obstacles. What I can tell you, however, is that when I put my mind to something it tends to kick my other senses out of the way to let it do its thing. Suddenly every corner, each drainpipe, the most insignificant apple cart, and the largest snoozing vagrant appear to me as a series of trajectories - equations fill the air - I can see what I need to do in order to best launch myself off a building. Until a very short time ago I was entirely certain that this is how the rest of the world saw everything, but apparently it's just me and...well...the people like me.

Long story short, new journal, I managed to catch him by beaning him on the head using a clever trick I picked up in a small mountain village, involving some stones and a rather keen aim. Of course, in this situation I had to make do with lemons, but you know the saying, new journal (or rather you probably don't) "When life gives you lemons, use them to knock a criminal unconscious." So I returned the stolen painting to its owner, apparently it is some kind of modern art, and it's not supposed to look good (or, as I think it was put when the painting was created - it looks like absolute rubbish but if you tell someone that it's the latest thing, they'll have to have it.) Now I fear I must retire, as I have quite exhausted myself.

Until the next time, my dear new journal, when adventure abounds once more.

Tasting The Rainbow - Or - Miracle Fruit Tablets, Ho!

A couple of weeks ago, when the Australian dollar was incredibly strong against the US market, some friends and I decided that we were going to make a bulk order from ThinkGeek. I say incredibly strong, I mean that we were up to around $1.10 US (which is much better than we were when I was younger, when I can recall being at around 70c per dollar...But, like an ageing gentleman who has nothing better to do than ramble uncontrollably and incoherently, I digress.) Kylie bought a couple of bits of clothing (including the "Meh" hoodie, and a "Soft Kitty" t-shirt), Encey got herself a crazy USB robot owl, and I got a couple of things including a Caanoo (which you can read more about on Monday.)

The thing that I was most excited about in this order was not, however, the prospect of a new handheld toy. It was, instead, the reason the package took so long to get to us in the first place. That's right - I ordered something that caused my parcel to not only get flagged as a risk by Customs, but also by Quarantine. After a rather lengthy (and somewhat worrying) couple of days, which involved many calls back and forth to various areas of the country, attempting to get everything cleared without being burnt "for safety" (because fire is the cleanser, after all) I arrived home to discover a rather sizeable package had arrived for me. I tore open the box with fevered anticipation, and discovered that yes, my quarry had made it through the "parcel immigration" process just fine. The Miracle Fruit Tablets were mine.

They Don't Really Taste Of Anything...It's Like Semi-Sweet Chalk

Quickly I jumped onto MSN to ask Spud if he could take me shopping for a variety of foods. He whipped around in his car with Encey, and the three of us went on the most magical of adventures. We bought three types of cheese (feta, goat's cheese, and a double brie), some vegetables (including, but not limited to: carrots, pickles, capsicum, and brussels sprouts), fruits (apples, limes, strawberries, lemons...), and various other things that I can't exactly recall right now (I know there was maple syrup, and some juice of some variety...and an onion! Can't forget the onion!!)

Our Selection Of Food, After We'd Been Chowing Down For A Bit

Before I go any further with this, I should let you know what Miracle Fruit Tablets are. Basically they are a small pill, roughly the size of an ibuprofen tablet, that you dissolve in your mouth. Once your tongue is sufficiently coated, the tablets dull your ability to taste various things (such as sour or bitter) leaving many foods tasting quite sweet. The tablets reportedly work at varying levels depending on the person, which is something we definitely noticed, however I'm pretty sure if we were doing it with the actual fruit (called the Miracle Berry, funnily enough) or if the tablets were slightly fresher (I mean, they did take about a week to get to us - and who knows what Customs did...) it would have been slightly more profound.

Encey Demonstrates The Correct Way To Eat The Tablet (As Well As The Taste...)

Oh well - the evening was fun, nonetheless, with myself, Spud, Encey, X-Man, Elmo, Kylie, Squiggles, and Emma chowing down on foods that we might normally have avoided. The highlights of the night were most definitely the lemon (which we were actually taking bites of - no sourness at all, it was like eating lemonade) and the goat's cheese (which tasted like one of the nicest cheesecakes I've eaten.) Notable mentions should also go out to maple syrup, granny smith apples, strawberries, pomegranate juice (which I normally despise), and limes. We noticed that some foods changed for certain people, whilst for other people they stayed the same. All in all, it was quite a strange experience, and something that (money permitting) I might do again...But really only if I could get my hands on some of the actual fruit.

So here are some pictures from the night, captioned for your pleasure. If anybody out there has tasted the tablets I'd love to hear about what foods you guys liked whilst eating them, and any ideas for things to nom nom down on next time we try this crazy venture would also be greatly appreciated.

X-Man Tripped Out Slightly

Every Takes Their First Bites

Emma Was Kind Of Scared, But Squiggles Protected Her

While I Ate A Raspberry, X-Man Was Throwing Down The Wasabi Challenge

Encey, Having Just Eaten Half A Birds-Eye Chilli, Agrees To The Wasabi

Hello Again, Old Friend

The Strawberries Turned Squiggles Into "Seductro" (His Alter-Ego)

Elmo Enjoyed The Granny Smith

Onions...Still Tasted Like Onions...

Spud Agreed With X-Man. Onions Remain Very Oniony

Nothing Would Ever Make Pomegranate Juice Palatable For Encey

"I Feel Like Maybe This Whole Thing Was A Giant Trap..."

On Eating Habits

Breakfast, I have been told, is the most important meal of the day. I understand the reasoning for this - you need something to get your metabolism going if you want to function at your physical and mental peaks. Still, I also know just how difficult it is to actually feel like eating when you've just been forced to get out of a brilliantly comfortable bed, and you are faced with the prospect of a hard day sledging away at rocks with a pickaxe. Or is that coding? I may have just confused my work-day with a past life as a miner on the planet Metebelis III.

Because I am friends with a large number of students, as well as a fair number of programmers, I get to see some fairly...um..."interesting" eating habits, when it comes to breakfast. I'm not exactly sure why I'm so intimately aware of certain people's eating habits, and yet here I am about to discuss them on The Internet. I know that Spud, for instance, has tea - every morning. Some mornings he may have toast, some mornings he may not eat anything at all - but he always has tea (and I know that English Breakfast (or 'red box'), Earl Grey (or 'yellow box') and Irish Breakfast (or 'green box') are amongst his favourites, too...) Shibby, on the other hand, is more of a cereal kind of gal (did I really just say that?) eating one of the relatively healthier cereal option, like something along the lines of All Bran.

I Heard What You Said

For me, however, breakfast is relatively large. I would like to make it the largest meal I eat, but I just can't seem to overcome the need to have a big lunch - baby steps, I guess. Because I am, truth be told, a gigantic flipping weeaboo, I've taken to going the Japanese route for the majority of my meals - this means that my breakfast typically consists of some rice (white at the moment, but I'm going to try to move to the unprocessed stuff in the coming weeks), a portion of smoked salmon, a handful of pickled vegetables, and a bowl of miso soup. People, upon hearing that I'm basically eating dinner at breakfast time, initially take the "What the hell are you doing?! Aren't you trying to lose weight?!" route when attempting to discern what my thought process is when choosing food. What various individuals fail to grasp, however, is that people tend to have this whole eating thing backwards and, in the same way that when dancing you have a big fish, a little fish, and then a cardboard box to wrap it all up, when planning your daily meals you should have the largest meal at breakfast, then a smaller meal at lunch, and finally your smallest "wrap up" meal at dinner time - oh, and you should include lots of fish, too...but you could probably leave the cardboard out, unless you're really starved for fibre.

I Couldn't Find A Decent Gif To Explain BF LF CBB, So I Found One Of Pokemon Raving Instead...

I can't help, then, but wonder what makes up a "usual" daily dietary routine. I mean, I eat my breakfast before I leave for work (at 8:00am, in fact.) I have some rice crackers at 10:30, to tide me over until lunch (which either happens at midday or 1:00pm, depending on when my friends are eating) and I chow down on an apple when I get home from work (at about 5:00pm - though I really need to start having my apple a bit earlier in the afternoon.) Dinner is my biggest issue at the moment - some nights I don't have it at all (though really that was because I was kinda sick and didn't feel particularly hungry.) When I do have dinner now it's just some more miso soup and steak, with some veggies in there for good luck (well, good nutrition really I guess, but that doesn't sound anywhere near as good...Do you feel like a big man now, having ruined my linguistic fun?)

What do normal people do when it comes to foodenating? I kind of assumed that the typical person male (whom I shall address as Bob) eats either a bowl of cereal, or some toast with bacon and eggs. To drink I think that Bob has some orange juice (ick) or coffee  - I don't see Bob as a tea drinker, and I doubt he eats fruit in the morning. Bob's female counterpart (who I shall name...uh...Bobina...) most likely has some toast, a piece of fruit, and a cup of coffee as she runs out the door - I'm not certain as to why, but that's the only visual I can get when I picture Bobina's morning ritual, I mean, sure Bobina would like to sit down and enjoy a nice meal in the morning but there's just no time what with her having to take the kids to school, and then she has that high-powered business meeting that she has to attend. How can you expect her to eat right under those circumstances? Jerk.

I don't think that Bob has morning or afternoon tea, and I'm pretty certain that he only has a couple of sandwiches for lunch (unless it's Friday, in which case he goes out to lunch with his colleagues.) Bobina has a muesli bar and some fruit for her between meal snacks, but she has a small lunch made up of some kind of canned fish and sliced vegetables (or fruit, masquerading as vegetables - I'm looking at you tomato and cucumber) on some wheat thins. Overall, I wouldn't rate their daily meals as overly satisfying or healthy, but it's what they have to make do with given the time that they have. Dinner is most likely the same for both, and I'm pretty sure it's something like spaghetti bolongaise - heavy on the meat and pasta, low on the vegetables.) Still, you can't really blame Bob and Bobina for their eating habits, I guess...

I Tried To Find A Picture Of Someone Literally Eating A Habit...But I Couldn't - Have A Red Panda Instead

The moral of this story is that, when you think about effective weight-loss dieting on the way to work, you will probably write a blog on food. This also has the tendency to make one quite hungry and, given that I ate whilst writing this, I'm going to assume that it's actually a thirst response, and not legitimate hunger. Stupid need for liquid pretending that it's actually a need for solids. It's a coward, that's what it is. Well, I'll show it. I'm off to buy some water.

On How Things Change

Sometimes, recently especially, I find it kind of difficult to be spontaneous in my blog posts. This has come about for a number of reasons - not least of all because I have been so very gosh darn busy lately. But still, I have been reminded of the fact that I owe some kind of debt of favour to the universe, and that my continuing existence appears to be contingent upon me delivering content to the world's fevered masses, and their increasing hunger for something thrown together with a loose train of thought. These reminders, coming to me in the form of (as I have said before) emails and IMs, had kicked me in the pants, and sent me into a writing frenzy for a week...But it was then that the business kicked in once more...And so I am writing this post to let you know that...

I'm not giving up.

No, I'm not leaving the blog business just yet, although I did think (briefly) about it. But the blog means something to me that it probably doesn't to you guys. For me, this is a way to allow me to process thoughts which would otherwise just float about in my head. As I sit here, mashing away at my keyboard like a spasmodic monkey, I think about stuff that I don't type about - thoughts about what I did on the weekend, or how I feel about various events flow through my mind and get neatly sorted into their correct place, so that I may address them later. Ideas for things I want to do - both related and completely non-sequitur - rampage through my mind so often that when I take the time out to put anything down here...well...they seem to calm. Sometimes a notion will fall forth from my head, and onto the page, and you'll get some pseudo-random linguistic nightmare that entertains and informs.

What I'm doing, instead of leaving, is changing the format of the blog. Making it a bit more predictable, as it were. Of course, we all know how well I stick to plans about this sort of thing. Remember "Fiction Friday"? Or how about those challenge posts? What about that list of 100 100 lists? Yeah, neither do I. And so, without further needless dancing about the point, I present to you the updated format for One Hundred Hundreds. Let me know what you think in the "Comments" section below.

On Mondays I shall be reviewing things. Many things. Varied things. The last Monday post I made was a review of the film Thor, and that is what inspired me to continue this trend. I really enjoyed writing my thoughts down about the film, and sharing them with the public, instead of just bouncing them about between my friends (as I would continue to do anyway.) Each Monday I'll tell you about a show I've been watching, a film I saw, a device I've tested, or any number of other things that I can try and convince you to do/see/hear/experience.

On Tuesdays (excepting today, of course) I shall be providing wisdom in the form of a weekly factoid. This might be a "Word of the Week" (which is what the idea was initially conceived from) or perhaps a mathematical curiosity. As long as it furthers your (so called) education, then you'll see it on a Tuesday. Perhaps I'll give you a piece of breaking news (or news from the distant past...) I could treat you to a geographic fact...The possibilities for me are virtually endless - Knowledge Is Power (and knowing is half the battle!)

On Wednesdays you'll be treated to a rant in the same fashion that I usually perform my posting obligation (well, I say obligation, I guess I'm not really obliged to post anything, though I really do enjoy doing it, and if I don't know what I enjoy, then I'll just become...some kind of...Boring McBorington or something...) I'll basically use this as a space to talk about whatever is on my mind at the time. It could be the fact that the automatic doors no longer open for me, or it might be the fact that I'm pretty sure space monkeys are secret trying to lure us to our doom using fantastic astronomical images. It probably won't make sense. But I'm sure that you've come to expect that from me, by now...

On Thursdays you'll be treated to an update of the adventures that I've been having with my friends. I have one that I've been saving up for this Thursday, where we bought some potentially mind-altering substances from ThinkGeek (all legal, duh) and performed a usually rudimentary action in a rather nifty way. Other than that I may tell you about our trips around the town, or whatever. It will be like that time I made up a story about my laundry, only better. Or not. Whatever.

Finally, on Fridays, I will provide you with some fiction (woah, deja vu...) This time, however, it will be the adventures of a character who I will be playing in Spud's D&D game soon - Holtarion Oaksbane (known usually just as Holt.) My current character in Spud's game (Tetch, an assassin...) is still going strong, so I won't be actually telling you anything of the events of that game until Holt steps in, rather I will be writing a series of diary entries leading up to his meeting the group, and replacing the dapper tengu Tetch. I hope that you enjoy them.

The moral of this story is that change can be quite scary. Change can, however, also be a mechanism for good. A tool that prevents stagnation, and stops me from going crazy...Crazy? I went crazy once. They locked me in a rubber room. I died. The buried me in the ground. Worms live in the ground. Worms like to eat dead things. So do rats. Rats! I hate rats!! They drive me crazy. Crazy? I went crazy once...

On Things That Are Confessional

There are, occasionally, some things that I want to get off my chest. There are, occasionally, some things that other people would also like to get off their chests, however there is just...always something in the road. Perhaps you don't wish to burden people with your concerns or feelings. Maybe now just isn't the right time. Or it could just be that you fear the repercussions. I mean, I don't blame you for any of those things - I'm guilty of them myself, after all, and I certainly do my best to remain hypocrisy free. So I decided, a little while ago, to do a blog where I could let myself, and the people I know, just kind of...get stuff off their chests. Anonymously of course.

What follows, then, is a collection of random thoughts from myself and my friends, in no particular order. It's not just confessions, either - it's like a collage of thoughts, ideas, pictures, and everything. If you ever have a thought or something that you'd like added to the next post like this then please email it to me, and I'll be sure to include it in the next one of these that I do...That is, of course, assuming that this post is popular enough to generate those emails...But...whatever...

-- The Ten Commandments Need Asterisks For Extenuating Circumstances --

I still like to believe that Pluto is a planet

 I Love You

No Matter How Fucked You Think You Are

Always

My thought is for everyone who takes themselves too seriously
Take a look at yourself and laugh at yourself,
Feel comfortable with yourself before you criticise others
Because only when you can laugh at yourself
Should you be able to laugh at others

I've Had Beethoven's 7th Running Through My Head Ever Since I Watched 'The King's Speech'

5 Minute Chocolate Mug Cake

Makes 2

• 4 Tblsp Flour
• 5 Tblsp Sugar
• 2 Tblsp Cocoa
• 1 Tsp Baking Powder
• Pinch Of Salt
• 1 Egg
• 3 Tblsp Milk
• 3 Tblsp Oil
• 3 Tblsp Chocolate Chips (Plus 2 Tblsp Extra)
• Small Splash Vanilla Extract
• 2 Microwave Safe Coffee Mugs

1. This recipe makes two mug cakes and therefore is made in two separate mugs. You can mix the entire thing in the mugs and therefore avoid any extra dishes except for the egg which I whisk lightly in a bowl. Add dry ingredients to the mugs, and mix well ensuring the there is no flour stuck at the bottom.
2. Pour in the milk, oil, chocolate chips or flakes and vanilla extract and mix well. Whisk egg lightly in a bowl and pour half of the egg in each mug and mix well. Add the extra tablespoonful of chocolate chips or flakes on top of the batter. Cover with glad wrap.
3. Do one mug at a time. Put your mug in the microwave and cook for 1 minute on medium heat. Then microwave for another 30 seconds on medium heat. Check on the consistency-it should be cooked but still moist and gooey. If it is still not cooked, microwave on another 30 seconds on medium heat. Remember, it will cook further on standing.
4. Allow to cool a little and serve with ice cream.

A Favourite Quotation

Insanity: A Rational Adjustment To An Irrational World

-- R.D. Lang

On Corruption And Collections

I like Doctor Who. In that statement is possibly one of the largest understatements of my life. I really like Doctor Who. A lot. So great is my love for Doctor Who that...well...it surpasses my love for many other non-sentient entities (and even some of the sentient ones.) This is, I feel, a rather important piece of information for you to know before I begin to relay to you the tale of Sunday night.

It Was A Dark And Story Night...

There we were, huddled around the TV, watching "Day Of The Moon" (the latest offering from the Doctor Who universe) being generally frightened by the enemy in question (although if I name them before it airs in Australia, Shibby will murder me) and having our minds completely blown by the ending (the spoiling of which will definitely get me killed.) It would not, of course, be a session of watching Doctor Who if it weren't for those two events. It was also, however, quite monumental as we finally convinced Elmo to start watching Doctor Who, to try and "get into it" as it were. Admittedly he will only commence his viewing from the first episode of the new series, but I know when to not push my luck.

This Contains Almost All Of The Info For The Spoiler I Wanted...It's A Hint At Least...

So I switched the media server over to my Sorted Live Action drive, in an effort to bring up my monumental collection of Doctor Who only to discover it wasn't there. This has, of course, happened before - the server software is known for being somewhat cantankerous, and occasional restarts of my PC and the PS3 are required. Still, nothing would have prepared me for what was to go down on this fateful night. As I restarted my computer, waiting for windows to load, I noticed a screen that never appeared...a disk check - something had corrupted, and files had been orphaned...I watched as it listed them before me...hundreds of files...all in one folder (well, not all in one folder, but the vast majority of them...) I logged into my PC, and quickly checked my drive. It was gone. Missing. Kaput. I had just lost my entire Doctor Who collection to Hard Drive Corruption. I also lost some Muppet Show, and maybe some other things. But most saddening of all was the Doctor Who.

I'm Sorry... I'm So, So Sorry

Spud, Squiggles, and Elmo spent a great portion of the night trying to restore the drive to its former glory, but to no avail - and it has since deteriorated further. Alas, it seems that this drive is on the last of its regenerations, and shall instead die until it is dead. That is, I suppose, what happens when one buys HDDs from a Computer Fair, and keeps that at near capacity for almost a month. And so, in my malaise, I have decided to allow my love for Doctor Who to rise, like a phoenix from its own ashes (not that it ever really died...) Yes, for you see whilst hardware failure may have struck down my passion, in doing so it has only caused it to become stronger than ever before.

I am, as some of you will know, quite obsessive when it comes to something I really put my mind to. I have a Minecraft project going, now, that will possibly take me into the depths of insanity. If I start collecting a manga series, then I will finish it. And if I set my mind to collecting every episode of Doctor Who, then I will damn well collect every episode of Doctor Who. But I'm sick of having them on my computer. I feel that the people involved in the show have given me so much love, and have earnt so much of my respect, that I will actually purchase every Doctor Who DVD that I possibly can.

All This, And More, Will Be Mine!

To this end I have started a Google Document that contains my progress on obsessively hunting down these DVDs. It will list my progress, and it will allow me to keep tabs on it in a nice, orderly, manic fashion. It will also allow you to see which ones I'm missing, in case you ever wanted to do something nice for me. I will have them all. They will be mine. Even the ones that were junked by the BBC. I will find a way.

On Performance Arts

I find that, when one is attempting to move house, everything else kind of gets kicked to the wayside as stress levels mount and all you can think about is how much crap you've accumulated over your lifetime. Seriously. How much stuff could I possibly need? And yet I appear to have kept items that I probably will never find a use for (including a very old Soda Stream, and a 180cm diameter table - would you like a very large table that possibly originally functioned in a Chinese restaurant? You'll have to organise pick up, but you can have it...)

Besides the blog, there have been a couple of other things that have been neglected since I started this whole "moving" process. One of the biggest, for me, and possibly for the rest of the group as well, was the ritualistic playing of Rock Band. Seriously - I didn't realise just how much I'd missed bashing away at a plastic guitar, and blasting out off-key lyrics to a song I only half know, until I picked it up again the other day. Since we last played, there have been a couple of songs added to the library that I quite enjoy (recently including Fleetwood Mac, which I am over the moon about) however it struck me that there are some songs that just feel like they're...missing.

People who play Rock Band as habitually as myself, and the rest of my little gang, would be well aware of the thoughts that enter your head as you listen to music that you know from the game - mostly involving "air-playing" with pretend Rock Band instruments, and moving your fingers in a pattern long ingrained into muscle memory. There is, however, a second class of though that occurs when you listen to music that is not included in the game - music of grand proportions, with spectacular guitar parts, blasting bass, smashing drums, kick-arse keyboard, or powerful vocals. Everybody who plays has had the thought. "This song should be in Rock Band." Everybody who plays has had the thought, but how many people actually do anything about it?

To this end, I have taken it upon myself to compile a short list of songs that I am entitling "Tiger's Pack", about which I will petition Harmonix themselves, as well as the recording artists (or as close as I can get to them) as possible. I shall endeavour to get these songs in the game, either as "Official Releases" or as "Rock Band Network" tracks, and then...then...if I am successful...I shall play them. And lo, it shall seriously rock my socks off. So today I thought I'd give you a small look at "Tiger's Pack", and give you the opportunity to perhaps add your own songs to it to...We could create the One Hundred Hundreds pack!!

Song #1

Title: Invincible

As Sung By: Muse

I want this song in Rock Band because it just makes me feel so good about myself - it's great to sing along to, and I can see if being great fun for the rest of the instruments as well - if not quite challenging for some of them! It's got great lyrical content, it has a brilliant vibe to it in terms of overall feel...and...well...it rocks.

Song #2

Title: You'll Be In My Heart

As Sung By: Phil Collins

This song, although from a Disney film (or perhaps because it is from a Disney film...) is really really powerful. There are some songs that I listen to on my PC, with friends around, where everybody sings along, and this is definitely one of them. It has a great drum part, you could probably do the strings on the keyboard, and you could get a really good harmony going with the singers.

Song #3

Title: Threshold

As Sung By: Sex Bob-Omb

The second my friends and I saw Scott Pilgrim, we knew that the Sex Bob-Omb songs had to be added to Rock-Band. Unfortunately, Beck is really really hard to contact, so I've settled for Bryan Lee O'Malley instead (okay, settled sounds really harsh there - it's just that I don't think he has any rights to the music...) This is probably the song I'm holding out for the most. Seriously guys. I'm in lesbians with this song.

Song #4

Title: Not A Love Song

As Sung By: Uh Huh Her

A great drum beat, biting lyrics, and a great combination of guitar riff and synthesizer. Rock Band is missing out on Synth-Pop and, given that it has Spongebob Arsing Squarepants on its tracklist, I really think they could afford to add some for us.

  

Song #5

Title: Oh My God

As Sung By: Kaiser Chiefs

 There are already some Kaiser Chiefs songs on Rock Band, but my favourite song of theirs of all time would have to be this one. It would be an excellent song for keyboard, the vocal part provides a good opportunity for some harmony, and it's just basically a really fun song to sing. Come on Kaiser Chiefs - make me happy.

Song #6

Title: The Distance

As Sung By: CAKE

 Listen to that bass-line. How could you not want a song like this in RockBand, really? I mean, there are other CAKE songs that rock pretty damned hard, but if I can only pick one then it would definitely have to be "The Distance" - I mean, I'd like their version of "Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps" but it's hardly appropriate for RockBand, given that it's mostly trumpet...And "The Distance" is so fun to sing, and the bass...oh the bass...

Song #7
Title: Starlight
As Sung By: The Superman Lovers

I'm finding it difficult to describe why I want these songs in new and interesting ways, but I'm pretty sure that this line from the email I sent to The Supermen Lovers sums it up nicely: "I'm writing because RockBand has a distinct lack of awesome house tracks that contain brilliant baselines, sweet drum-tracks, brilliant vocals, and almost pornographic guitar riffs.
Of course, there is one song that could quite easily satisfy this gap - "Starlight"."

On Hulking Norse Men

It has been thought, in a couple of emails that I have recently received, that I may be dead. Well...whilst I can with great certainty say that I am currently not dead, I cannot say that I never was dead - and I most definitely cannot say that the way Death plays with you when you make a bargain with him for renewed life makes the Celestial Toymaker from Doctor Who look like a small child in a sandpit. I most certainly cannot say this because...well...because I was most certainly not dead. I was just a bit busy, and a bit tired following that. But it's okay now - I'm back - and you can all go on living your lives as though the past...however many weeks it has been...never happened. Oh, and before you think I forgot, yes, I will be keeping on with the challenge posts, but I'll be using them as filler (also I still haven't gotten the photos taken so...nyer...)

On Saturday night, instead of playing Spud's game (as he was tired and busy working on a management assessment that, I believe, may be due today) Squiggles, Emma, Kylie, Elmo, and myself decided to go to the cinema to watch Thor. I was fairly excited about this, as we had planned on going the week before, however the plan fell through (as it tends to do when it involves leaving the house and spending money, especially around holidays such as Easter.) So, as we drive ever closer to the impending Captain America film, and the increasingly titillating Avengers film, I figured I may as well give you a bit of a review of Thor (my mother's favourite Avenger...)

 My Mother Sings This All The Time

I must first, before I start to tell you of the film itself, get something out of the way. The version of Thor that I saw was in (to my initial unknowing naivety, and subsequent weeping horror) mind-destroying, soul-crushing, nausea inducing, satisfactory adjective escaping 3D. For the initiated, 3D tends to make me slightly queasy, and I feel that it doesn't particularly add anything to the film experience at this stage in its development - I'm there for the story, after all, and looking pretty is just a bonus. Thor, whilst looking exceptionally beautiful as far as visual effects goes, did not (in my opinion, of course) need to be shown in 3D - it made me feel as if I was watching the action through a view-finder, where everything is 2D, but at differing levels. Still, I didn't throw up (although I did have to remove my glasses several times), and I was able to kind of get past it to enjoy the visuals that were presented, which (as I said before) were really well done.

Grasping His Hammer

Still, there is no point seeing something that runs for 114 minutes simply because it is pretty - there has to be some substantial story there as well...And Thor does not disappoint. Basically, as with all of the pre-Avengers films that are coming out, Thor is an origin story...of sorts...I mean, it's the origin of how he came to defend Earth, but it's not really the origin of Thor from the beginning. You won't see him become drenched in hundreds of Nordic battles, for instance (although there are some really nifty fight scenes.) Instead what you get is the tale of a fallen god. A man who let his arrogance and vaingloriousness get the better of him, who defied the wishes of his father and king, and who was banished to Earth - devoid of all power - until he could learn a little bit of a lesson.

The acting was more than passable - I mean, it was a bit hammy in some spots, but when you're playing the godlike son of the Allfather, who could blame you for playing it up a little bit. Really, though, Chris Hemsworth does a brilliant job of portraying Thor (and he looks spectacular) and has certainly come a long way from his days on Home-And-Away. Natalie Portman does a great job of bringing humanity to the film, and the interactions between her character, Jane, and Thor are superbly done - funny when they need to be, touching when they want, and always engaging. As for villainy, Tom Hiddleston's Loki felt like he was simply made of slime and skeeze, and whilst I knew that S.H.I.E.L.D. were only looking out to protect the planet (or America, whatever) I still kind of wanted Thor to kick their teeth in, in a kind of barbaric Scott Pilgrim sort of way.

Continuity wasn't really broken so much, which pleases me. I mean, no mention was made of Thor's need to eat the golden apples to sustain his immortality, but this is possibly because he spent the majority of the film as a mortal, stranded on Earth (why bother telling someone about something like that, when they're going to look at you cock-eyed?) They kind of ignored the fact that Jane was actually a nurse for Thor's secret identity (Donald Blake), but making her a physicist was pretty awesome, even if it did remove the whole 'love-triangle but not really because they're the same person' aspect to the relationship (but it's a film, so it's not like it could be developed very well.) What I was really excited about (I believe I actually bounced up and down a little bit when I realised) was the cameo by Hawkeye - seriously, stuff like that really gets me going.

He Wasn't Quite So...Purple...Though

Without really spoiling anything, all I can say is that you need to go and watch Thor - especially if you are as into comics and super-heroes as I am. Sure, the plot is somewhat clichéd/predictable, but there are so many reasons for this that...well...they speak for themselves. I mean, for starters, it's a superhero/comic book story - it's kind of what they're for. Not only that, but it's a story that already exists (which may have tainted my viewing of it being predictable, admittedly). Finally - it's heavily influenced by Norse mythology. And still, the team working on the film managed to squeeze every drop of creativity that they could from this. Watch this film. Do it. Now.