| Update? Murr? |
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| 01:08pm 01/02/2010 |
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Doh.
I've kind of neglected here for Functionally Huntarded and fleshing out the ideas for two more lil' bloglets, and neglected that for school levelling my Paladin.
My final semester (of undergraduate work) has begun. I love one class, I really intensely dislike and dread going to another class because the professor strikes on about every pet peeve and annoyance I have on the matter, and my third class is a dreadful pile of intriguing work that will hopefully pay off with generous rewards.
I suppose I should write more.
*hugs LJ* I remember that I have a blog here! It's okay! :3 |
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| While I'm thinking about it. |
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| 10:39pm 02/01/2010 |
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With The Many Deaths of the Black Company coming out January 5th (TUESDAY!!!) and finally wrapping up the whole damn series (zomg) ... soexcited ... (I seriously have not been this jazzed for a book in ages, and have loved this whole series the whole way through except for the largely abysmal The Silver Spike) ... I think it's time to spend the ~$60 of bookstore giftcards I got for christmas, so a shopping list:
Glen Cook - The Many Deaths of the Black Company *SPAZZZZZ*
Glen Cook - Sweet Silver Blues
Glen Cook - Passage At Arms
Robert Chambers - The King in Yellow
Exalted Player's Guide
Look into:
Ted Allan - The Food You Want To Eat
The various Tyler Florence cookbooks
Might pick up my own copy of
Matthew Stover - Shatterpoint, too. |
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| A second blog? (nerdery ahead) |
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| 03:36pm 31/12/2009 |
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A second blog!
I'm moving a bunch of my WoW stuff from over here to my new one, Functionally Huntarded, over nyah.
Feel free to read it if y'all want. ^_^
~~
A note for me for future bloggy posts:
*Hunter / Surv / Marks / BM flowcharts (*are you obeying the Hunter flowchart?* Yes: then XYZ No: FIX THIS)
*I/O Psychology and Guild Leadership
*Record of the Guild Drama War
*On Officering
*Enchanting Mat Entitlement - Why it's BS (sorry, Enchanters).
*Why I am excited for Cataclysm - and why most of the detractors' points lack validity beyond BAWW THEY CHANGED IT NOW IT SUQQS*
*relationships are joint ventures / "what is a guild?" / "what is a raid guild?"
*Keep a record of experiences with the new guild, BoO.
*"Poor, Confused Little Hunter."
* |
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| A short retrospect. |
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| 03:38am 29/12/2009 |
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I /gquit Pride of Victory (my WoW guild) tonight. The details are fairly tied down, I kind of said I wouldn't make it public. That was mostly regarding that I wouldn't say, in Guild Chat, what I said in Officer Chat - if you care enough to ask, I'll tell my side of it, and try not to spin it like it's all the tale.
I mention this because, in retrospect, it seems like the second most momentous decision I've made this year.
The first being deciding to push back my graduation from Winter 2009 to Spring 2010, which I spent a month or more agonizing over.
This was a long time - months - in coming, but lately it really felt like things were turning around. Except they didn't, at all. I had grown to like a lot of the people, and I was used to their presence in my life and talking to 'em a bunch.
...
... I did get out a cool sort of final line, though.
Me: "So. This is hard to say..."
Harbinger: "It's another woman, isn't it?"
Me: "I WISH it was another woman. Then at least I'd be getting pussy out of this."
Hah.
Sigh.
Lok'tar Ogar. Good hunting, and fair winds be at your back.
The rest of the year, while eventful, has done little to disrupt my patterns in life, except for the mounting frustration with these patterns - but it seems I am not one for rash decisions. Maybe those will change, too. |
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| Been a while since I posted. |
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| 04:06am 06/12/2009 |
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mood:  thoughtful
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Quoting myself form the Psych Prejudice/Hate course forums, figured I'd share.
I think that to say "revenge won't make a person feel better" isn't particularly accurate. For those of a particular mindset, it probably wouldn't, and maybe as more time passes after the fact of the vengeful act, that mindset might fit in. However, I've witnessed far too many people personally, and just through the course of history, who go on feeling fine or even feeling good about having taken revenge personally, or witnessed vengence secondhand - especially when it is under the guise of "justice" (such as the death penalty) - to believe that it's a universal case that revenge won't make you feel better.
Furthermore, I would go from there to posit that "revenge actually DOES make you feel better" seems to be a basic human impulse - that it is only with sufficient learning and value upon principles contrary to this that we establish the sense of right and wrong that gives violating that more weight (and the negative feelings of consequence) than the feeling good from revenge would have. However, despite being basic and true, that doesn't necessarily make it right, nor is it a justification for wrongfully vengeful acts (is it the motive of vengence that makes an act inherently wrong, or are they still wrong when they're wrong act?). I just feel that the powerful lure of self-considered positive feelings derived from revenge might be a big factor in how we end up with so much hateful, vengeful acts.
This reply has, I'm afraid, turned as much into philosophy as psychology, for which I apologize, but I think that we do a disservice to human psychology and lose part of the motives for hateful acts, which I feel should be examined, if we posit that there are no sustainable good feelings associated with revenge.
I would very much like to point out that, despite believing that in many cases base revenge will make people feel better, I am very much against such actions, even if, perhaps especially if, people would feel better because of it. Revenge as a motive strongly violates my sense of right and wrong, which is distinct from believing that, at least for some or many people, it will make them feel better.
Which, actually, I'd go on to note (veering father into philosophy from psychology), is actually a large component of my sense of general outrage towards revenge - I don't believe in causing pain and suffering to, or in killing others, just to gain a benefit to myself, be it satisfaction, or closure, or a sense of justice being delivered.
I dunno, I like it, and wanted to share my thoughts. There's no OP to really post, it was basically "revenge won't make you feel better." Leave it to Fuggle to not let a simple statement barely related to the main topic that he intensely disagrees with to not get a multiparagraphical response.
A real update soon, I promise. :)
With music on in the background, a couple songs (Hollywood Undead -Young, and VNV Nation - Genesis) it makes me think: "we will fight / or we will fall / until the angels save us all", and "with you I stand in hope / that god will save us from ourselves", and I think, and I say, NO. We must not depend on a messiah, we must not wait for angels, nor for god, nor for deliverance from above or from beyond.
My 'locus of control' may waver from internal to external, depending on my mood or upon the situation, but ultimately, although there always external factors, we must save ourselves. I must save me, you must save you, we must save ourselves individually as individuals, and altogether the whole, together.
Man shall save man. Man must save man. |
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| Numbers are fun? |
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| 02:40pm 10/11/2009 |
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mood:  tired
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Or I'm just weird.
It's October 10th, 2009. As us wonky americans write it, 11 / 10 / 09. This sort of date sequence only happens ten times a century, and by American reckoning, next year will be the last in my lifetime unless medical technology just blows our minds, which would be awesome.
Happy countdown day, everyone!
*zooms around* |
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| Things to do today. |
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| 03:12pm 09/11/2009 |
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Though item 4) will probably get bounced to tomorrow.
1) Write two brief things for Industrial Psych (job description for my ideal job, written of the quality and character as if it came out of the Dictionary of Occupational Titles) and
2) Translate my notes on the back quarter of Chapter 8 into a narrative for HAT, and review the narratives of two of my fellow group members, for our group presentation on Chapter 8 wednesday. God, I hate this segment of this class, have learned far too little, and pray it will soon be over and we'll be back to a "lecture with a bit of discussion" format soon.
3) Review notes in Sporpsych 'cause I'm skipping it atm to work on 1) and 2) (break time!).
4) Discuss "important matters" regarding my thoughts on and place in the guild today with the rest of management. This is very much unlikely to end "well", but has been a long time coming. I have come to peace with whatever is to come, though hopefully people will actually listen to me. Remember, self, there's cool people everywhere.
5) Attend Gamers @ TSU meeting from 7-9 fuck yes! Mondays don't suck anymore!
6) Sleep. I would like to net more hours tonight than I did last night (late to bed + insomnia + early morning to drive back to San Marcos = fuzzy brained fuggle)
7) Maybe play some Borderlands or try and get my Shaman to level 74.
eta: 8) disregard No Shave November, restore proper grooming procedures and habits. |
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| Hm. |
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| 12:46am 09/11/2009 |
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mood: thoughtful
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Things change. The center, as they say, cannot hold. It is a fundamental consequence of time. This is no disaster, nor is it necessarily the end, only an end. The end is the end but an end is also a point of transition. Transition is not bad - but more than that, it will happen: if you fight it, THEN it becomes disaster.
It's better to grasp that things change, and to find how the center shifts. Go with it. |
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| Holy crap, youtube of the caroling! |
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| 01:18am 03/11/2009 |
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I knew it was coming, but still. XD
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=poqFyk3xkzc
Warning: we do not sing well =p
Also, holy crap, I found the game club and anime club at TSU today. Wish I had a year ago or so, but still - holy crap, being a bit social. GASP.
Next year, or for the hell of it, I'm retooling my costume a bit. Losing the lab coat and just going in a suit, gonna get a colorful band (well, somber, but a splash of color nonetheless) for the tophat (maybe a dark purple?), pick up a cane with a skull on the tip and make a small gas mask for it (if I could) ... remember gloves... and perhaps a lei of small skulls. I wonder if I could get my hands on cheap, sterile-bleached mouse skulls to use something real. I might also put some fake blood spray (red for the look and a hint of being fresh, or brownish red for authenticity and the hint of it being old?) on the mask, too.
I also need to write some Bob Rivers style carols - the tune of christmas carols, but with lyrics bent towards the morbid and macabre. |
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| Weekend. |
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| 02:03am 02/11/2009 |
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mood:  amused
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So! Halloween. Caroling had its ups and its downs and we argued a bit over what was a fitting song for caroling.
But still, the second year of this tradition was off-key, off-key, and off the wall hook Was bitchin'.
Didn't get pictures of me / us in costume; but a couple people video taped us, and it seems we'll be up on youtube. And I'll be getting back in costume to get some pics in a couple days.
We had some good chili, some alright wine (I got tipsy) and watched I Was A Zombie For The FBI (since I couldn't get my hands on a rental of Dog Soldiers), had cookies, watched two episodes of Phantom Quest Corp and one of Comic Party, chilled, BSed, and good times were had.
And then when it went from 1:58 ... to 1:59, to 1:00, I started singing, and at least half the people joined in.
It's just a jump to the left ... / ... And then a step to the right~
*hum hum hum huuuum* LET'S DO THE TIME WARP AGAIN~
And then we entered the proper shift for time again. Oh yeah!
If it weren't for my glasses getting broken (t.t), it would have been great. And even then, it was frustrating, it was a headache, but it was still a positive weekend. :D
I'll also have to get some pics of my new glasses, too. |
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| Random Thoughts. |
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| 03:12am 16/10/2009 |
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mood: thoughtful
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I now have two "excellent ideas", one of which one professor thinks has a lot of potential to research, one of which the professor thinks would make an, I quote, "excellent master's thesis." This is on top of my two or three other ideas I really want to research. Aw, application and pure theory science why must you both be so my loves?
That and a whole theory to read into because if I understand it leaves out a whole possible range of ways of being due to the possible problems of a linear spectrum.
This pleases me.
Well, 'Law-Abiding Citizen' is out. Hopefully now the commercials will stop, and stop making me feel sick. :/
I wonder if there's something resembling symbolism in the weight of a gun.
What was the original problem with my guild got solved, yet 90% of my discontent remains. Interesting. And yet still it remains fascinating from an Industrial / Organizational Psychology standpoint...
Infidel Castro remains determined to encourage me to transfer to his server. If it wasn't a pvp server, and wasn't alliance, I'd be pretty close to doing it. Now, though, the idea takes some getting used to. It's a couple big shifts, and hey, Alliance sucks. ^^;
Hell - if even one of those two was different, I'd almost be sold. |
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| Fear my ideas! |
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| 02:08pm 10/10/2009 |
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mood:  devious
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I have a great, if kind of specialty / "novelty" idea.
I really am starting to think I should pursue it.
Probably patent the idea (though I'm not quite sure I could do that).
And I'm not sure how I'd make them at home, I'd probably need to outsource production. Well, I could possibly make them at home but it'd take a lot of work to get it set up.
And then just sell it online.
AGH, so many QUESTIONS and I don't know where / who to go to / to ask / google. Mrrr.
:( |
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| I think the universe is telling me to write. |
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| 10:19pm 06/10/2009 |
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mood: amused
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Saturday or Sunday: Was listening to a burned cd of mine, and with two songs back to back I realized they were pretty good at describing the relationship between two characters at that point in the story (albeit with the genders reversed, and one representing more his interpretation of her actions than a real representation) ... Since I know people're curious: 'Save Yourself' by Stabbing Westward, and 'Angels' by Within Temptation.
Yesterday: I saw two girls on the bus. Now, I mean, I see a lot of women at Texas State (har har) - but! These two were special (in my attention) - each looked about 80% like the same character of mine, and between them about the only things 'missing' were hair color, hair style, eye color, and the fact that neither's quite built like her in physical conditioning. It was weird. o.o |
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| "Don't believe in me, who believes in you. |
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| 02:47am 04/10/2009 |
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mood: thoughtful
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Don't believe in you, who believes in me.
Believe in yourself, who believes in you."
You know, if I believed in MYSELF even HALF as much as other people believe in me, I'd be fucking unstoppable. |
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| Plans for the morning: |
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| 01:53am 03/10/2009 |
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mood:  determined
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My current mornings during the week:
Previous night: Shower.
10:30: Alarm goes off. I hit snooze.
11:50: Get out of bed. Run out the door. Go to class.
12:30: Class.
My next step (next week):
Previous night: Shower.
10:30: Alarm goes off. Snoozing begins.
11:00: Get up.
~11:10: Eat breakfast (hardboiled egg, some sort of fruit, some sort of toast, and possibly some coffee or form of fruit or veggie juice).
11:10-11:45: Rest, dick around on laptop.
11:45: Leave for class.
My ultimate goal (hopefully by two weeks):
10:00: Alarm goes off. Hit snooze.
10:08: Alarm goes off again. Get up.
10:10 - 11:30: In some order, eat breakfast, be physically active for ~30 minutes (walk, then move up to walk-jog, then move up to jog, then move up to "push hard, walk, push hard, walk" cycles), shower.
11:30: Check e-mail, webcomics, various forumae.
11:45: Go to class. |
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| "But there's no sense crying over every mistake..." |
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| 03:34pm 24/09/2009 |
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mood: thoughtful
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"...You just keep on trying 'till you run out of cake."
"Keep on beginning and failing. Each time you fail, start all over again, and you will grow stronger until have accomplished a purpose - not the one you began with perhaps, but one you'll be glad to remember." ~ Anne Sullivan
Not entirely related to my last post, just something I've been figuring out lately. |
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| Lessons learned, eh? |
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| 03:28pm 24/09/2009 |
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mood:  hindsight should be foresight
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Things I learned today:
*What future IOP tests will be like.
*That details and specifics on numbers still trip me up, but I'm generally awesome.
*My belief that essay and short answer are better than multiple choice continues to be supported.
*Writing a full page essay on the Two Factor Model of Employee Satisfaction, along with four-ish paragraphs defining five other terms is murder on my hand.
Redheaded girl and I finished our tests almost in unison. I took a few quick steps and caught up with her on the way out.
*Her voice absolutely kills me. It's a sea-level voice (neither deep, nor high), and husky and oh GOD I almost fell over dead because I could listen to her just TALK.
*She has a boyfriend.
*She's noticed that I somehow seem to have all the answers in class even when I don't.
*Like me, she thinks she did pretty well without studying too much.
Finally:
*I always think of what I should have said AFTER the chance has passed.
"It sucks, I had tests in every class this week." And so I said, "geeze, that does suck - owch", not "oh, man, that sucks ... what were they over?" (aka 'what're you taking') ... and I should have gotten her name. And email. "You seem pretty smart, too. Can I get your contact info? It'd be good to be able to find out what all I missed if I end up missing class."
DOH.
So, for today: attempts at reaching out to another physical human being: mildly successful. |
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| What've I been up to? Well, since you asked... :P |
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| 05:49pm 23/09/2009 |
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mood:  content
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Gonna share a few random vignettes from the past couple days, getting some thoughts externalized and stories told.
I Learned A New Skill.
Namely, transmute oil to FUCKING FIRE. So - I was going to cook some steaks for me and my brother. I put the pan on the stove, turn the stove to high, and start seasoning the steaks and microwaving the butter since I forgot to bring it to room temperature. Pan gets hot, so I add the olive oil.
It looks weird for a moment and then the next moment, evaporates. I have a second to numbly go "... what the fuck" and for some wiser part of me to jack my body and I take a step back.
The next moment, my pan full of olive oil becomes a pan full of INFERNO. I panic for a moment and stare in shock, and then grab the lid and slap it on the pan to cut off the O2. Thankfully the fire goes out before flaming oil splatters somewhere else flammable, but not not before the kitchen is full of smoke and the alarm is going off.
On the up side, I pulled my shirt over my nose, got a new pan, and started cooking. Didn't turn it up so hot this time around. And you know what?
Those were some of the best steaks I can remember having. $30 Filet from a steakhouse? NOTHING on this Ribeye with nothing more than copious salt and pepper, and then a pat (pad?) of butter in the last 30 seconds or so. Melt it, shake the pan, and then tilt it up a bit to pool the juices, oil, and butter, and then baste the steak with that liberally before pulling from the pan. And don't forget your couple minutes of rest.
DELICIOUS.
Fucking Hormones, Or Goddamn Shyness.
So, Tuesday. Industrial Psych. I notice this girl, with lovely copper-red hair, in this low-cut top. She's same row as me, but a couple columns to the right. As the teacher is to my right, I was sort of sitting oriented that way. She kept turning to her left, and bending over to get something from her backpack.
It was ... quite distracting. I feel bad for it, but I was pretty much ogling (though desperately trying to cover it) when she did so, an tuning the prof out a bit. :/
Fucking hormones, as I said! Quite annoying.
Despite there telling me to do so making no sense (because why would I? there's no reason to...), I've since been goaded by basically everyone else into trying to talk to her the next time I have a chance. Probably tomorrow, but tomorrow's a test, so we'll see. Nervous as hell, I tells ya - goddamn shyness.
But jesus christ she was attractive, and no I'm NOT saying that just because she looked like she had an epic and well-proportioned chest.
Plus she's a psych major, I think, so that's always good. Or bad. I can never remember which. Depends on how we use the Power of Psychology, I think.
I'd like to apologize for the ogling, but that just seems a recipe for being horribly awkward and disastrous.
( the next one is long, so the next couple are under a cut. )
Dr. Wheeler, However, I Do Disagree With
Same IOP class as the girl who kept leaning over in the tight, low-cut top. He ends the class, for some reason, with a digression into how he supports whatever means necessary for combatting terrorism, including torture and suspension of legal procedures, that he can't believe we would or should give them defense counsel and rights.
"Terrorists don't have rules of engagement. They didn't sign the geneva convention accords. They do have or care about civil rights. So why should we let such things get in our way of trying to stop them from hurting, or killing, me, or you, or the people we care about?"
I ... said nothing. I mean, deliberate act of will keeping my mouth shut. Because inside I was screaming, even though my inner voice was level.
What I was saying inside, what I should have said: "they are terrorists in large part because of those lacks, and that is why we oppose and condemn them. I would like to think, meanwhile, that WE are NOT terrorists. And it is our actions, how we comport ourselves, or don't, that defines us as such... or not."
...I do like him, though. He thinks I know everything. This isn't entirely true, though - I only know ~93% of everything, and half of that is just IOP is more intuitive than Social Psych, though SocPsy was intuitive once you assume a lot of it is counterintuitive. Still, it's good for my ego that every class period I can get one or two or three "good question / observation, Chris", and he will pick me if he wants someone to give him the right answer. :D I just avoid bringing up politics. ^_^;;
So yeah. I go from almost no updates to WALL OF TEXT CRITS READER FOR 99,999. ^_^; |
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| WoW Drama. Yay. |
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| 12:26pm 22/09/2009 |
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mood: psyching self up?
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Rave: Patch 3.2.2! Onyxia's back!
... Onyxon? Arrrruuu!
Rant? I just want to grouse about WoW drama. This is my guild lately: struggling to get the people together for 10s and raids falling apart if just one person has to go or has technical difficulties. And outside of raid nights (MTH 6:45 to ~11+ server), it's been a ghost town lately. There's three 80s, or one of the 80s, his sister, and her fiance, who granted are in Outland and maybe almost to Northrend, online. Everyone else is playing Aion. So there's no real guild chat (unless you want to hop into the Vent channel where everyone's on Aion 'cause they all made their own hilariously badly named guild there), and no one much to do anything with in-guild - can't even really muster a group for the daily heroic.
It's a dysfunctional, dead guild that keeps shambling on like some sort of zombie.
I could probably get a position in a more functional guild like *snaps fingers*, but this is my guild. I was one of the charter members and've been an officer since day one. Even though I've been a dissenting voice on most of the rules and the prevalent slightly leadership->member antagonistic attitudes in the guild, it's my guild, it's fun, and it's a point of pride. It wouldn't feel right to be on the server and not be a part of it. Besides, I'm top dps and we struggle with membership, I'd kind of shaft the others, many of who are friends, if I left.
But on the other hand, what really are the benefits of staying? It does have a nice raid schedule and a mostly good (occasionally asinine to the point of wall-bangingly frustrating) raid attitude, and good atmosphere WHEN PEOPLE ARE AROUND... I dunno.
I think I'll be leaving, at the latest, when someone skips raid to stay on Aion. We already stopped raid early last night and, if not for aion, everyone'd jumped ship to play over there PDQ.
I wanted to kill Arthas with these friends; but I seriously doubt that'll ever happen.
If they have more fun on Aion than WoW, that's fine! I'm not saying they should stick it out. Just that we're a zombie guild, and despite needing people I cannot, in good faith, recruit into this environment. |
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