Introduction (aka about this journal)
Hello and welcome. This is, fairly obviously, my online journal / blog / whathaveyou. Come, put up your metaphorical webtravelling shoes; won't you have a read for a while?

I also, like 12 million other people, play World of Warcraft. My main characters are:

  • Shukeralle, unguilded level 80 night elf druid (server: Aggramar)
  • Donda, level 80 tauren druid, also on Aggramar. Is in the "Hordes of Hell" giuld.
  • Annekah, a troll druid-to-be.
  • ...and an army of alts.

If you see me saying something really weird about racing rams, having horns, and/or turning into a kung-fu bear, and think I've gone off my rocker, see if the "wowic" tag is on the post first. "wowic" means World of Warcraft, In-Character.
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May. 23rd, 2012 @ 06:36 pm Instant water, just add Dillo
Current Mood: *hoorgb*
Well greetings and met, fellow humans! We are making the noises with the air holes at each other! Good, good! As you humans say, this is the hot storks!

*Hoorgb*

In other, less incomprehensible news, I am playing City of Heroes again. I stopped a couple of years ago, around the time of... Issue 13, it might have been. There's been a lot of new things to get a handle on.

Including Dillo, everyone's favourite incomprehensible pint-sized alien saviour.

I may throw out "thoughts of a returning CoHer" entries from time to time.
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Apr. 11th, 2012 @ 09:37 pm Another quote from young nephew Finn
Current Mood: d'aww!
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Some time ago, [info]markpoa asked me, "What's the best thing about being an uncle?"

A couple of months ago, young nephew Finn said, "Steven is my friend!"

There. That right there.
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Apr. 11th, 2012 @ 09:34 pm Where I've been, and a rant or two
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Where I've been:

At the beach, for the (now) traditional Scougall get-together and Easter Egg Hunt. At which young nephew Finn is an eager attendant. He's come very far! For his first Easter Egg Hunt, he didn't even know that you could open the brightly coloured "aigs". Not until we showed him. For his second and third, he knew all about the easter eggs and how to open them. :)


Rant #1: To the fellow who sent the first video question to Q&A on Monday 9 April 2012

First of all, you asked an astrophysics question about the beginning of the universe, and Richard Dawkins is a biologist.
Second of all, when you held your fingers right next to each other, that was not "nothing" in between your fingers, that was air. When you spread your fingers out, that was not "nothing" either. That was just a lot more air. You were actually getting "something" from "something", not "nothing" from "nothing".
The true nothing when the Big Bang occurred was just that - absolutely nothing. And you know what? The universe isn't expanding *into* that nothing, that nothing is still outside the universe, being pushed along as the universe expands.
Third of all, the way you asked your question strongly implies you obviously don't believe in the Big Bang. The Big Bang is currently the best model that explains what we have scientifically observed about the universe. Astrophysics can't prove exactly how there was a little dot of "something" in the middle of a whole lot of "nothing", which then exploded, but hey, that's one of the big questions that it's currently trying to work out.
(As I understand it anyway, but I'm not an astrophysicist.)


Rant #2: About the election result of the recent state election

Two and half weeks ago, Queensland went to the polls to elect a new government. It was an absolute massacre. The Australian Labor Party went from a 50+ majority (can't remember the exact number) to only six or seven. Me being a leftie, this rather depressed me.
In the time this new government has been in, it has done quite a few things, including:
1) Cancelled the Premier's Literary Awards. To save money? It only cost $250,000! That's not much of a saving!

2) Instated Peter Costello, former conservative treasurer of Australia, to review and advise on Queensland's finances, in what seems a lot like a gravy train and giving a good deal to a mate. Costello's salary in this position? Would it perhaps be $250,000?

3) Is preventing the Opposition (the aforementioned six or seven members of the Labor Party) access to Parliament house. Hey guys! They might be vastly reduced, but they're still the Opposition, they're still Parliamentarians, and they're allowed to go into Parliament House and use the facilities provided for the Opposition!

I frigging HATE the new government already. Unfortunately we're probably stuck with them for at least two terms.
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Feb. 25th, 2012 @ 11:56 pm Skyrim done. (Sort of)
After over 200 hours over a whole bunch of characters, my main character Anneth Grove-wood has finally defeated Alduin the World-Eater, thus completing Skyrim's main questline.

There's a whole lot of extra sidequests that I can get to, but I think I'll give the game a little rest for a while.

As Anneth is level 64 and able to kill dragons in just a few hits with a sword, further sidequests will probably be done on secondary characters.
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Feb. 6th, 2012 @ 06:34 am Now he knows his ABCs
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Young nephew Finn now knows the Alphabet song.  Sort of, as he has some 3-year-old-boy edits, substitutions, and pronunciations.

A, B, C, D, Doodle!, E, F, G,
H, I, J, K, L,M,N,O,Poohs!
H, I, J, K, L,M,N,O,Poohs!
Q, R, S, T, U, Bee,
W, X, Y, and Poohs!
Now I know my ABCs,
Won't you come and play with poohs!

Despite the substitutions, this is the first time we knew he knew the alphabet song.
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Feb. 1st, 2012 @ 01:07 pm Finally unsubscribed
I haven't been playing World of Warcraft for a while now, and have no compulsion to return... so I finally did it. I am now unsubscribed from the game, with my paid time running out sometime in April.

I might go back, depending on what Mists of Pandaria is like, and to see what the Monk class is like, but then again I might not.
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Jan. 18th, 2012 @ 07:05 pm While I'm on the topic of recent games
I recently finally finished Deus Ex: Human Revolution.

The game does allow for multiple approaches, in much the way the original Deus Ex did. But with a couple of problems:

a) The run-and-gun-and-duck-behind-chest-high-walls style of play doesn't award nearly as much experience points as the stealthy-ghost-stealthily-knocking-out-all-his-enemies-with-non-lethal-melee-takedowns style.

b) I tried the run-and-gun-and-duck-behind-chest-high-walls style. It was really boring. The opponents were not very smart, and threw a grenade at me exactly once. All other times I could just duck behind my chosen chest-high-wall and poke my head out occasionally to shoot someone in the head. It was like a shooting gallery, not a tense struggle of life and death.

c) (Bonus third reason) I much prefer being a pacifist and not killing anyone. Admittedly, their 'pacifist' approach is still very violent. Nobody dies though!

DE:Human Revolution has one other notoriously horrible problem, which is the boss encounters. You have to engage in gunplay against them, which can be quite a shock if you've been using the stealthy-ghost-stealthily-knocking-out-all-his-enemies-with-non-lethal-melee-takedowns style.

And then I found out how to game the system: The Stun Gun + Typhoon combo. The stealthy-ghost-stealthily-knocking-out-all-his-enemies-with-non-lethal-melee-takedowns style means you have oodles of experience points and can easily get the Typhoon augmentation. It does huge damage, and while it's recharging you can keep the boss stunned with the Stun Gun. It feels almost like cheating. But once you die twenty-six times to the same boss, such an exploit feels less like cheating and more like a lifesaver.

All-in-all, a very fun game.
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Jan. 18th, 2012 @ 06:47 pm "I used to play WoW, like you. Then I took an arrow to the knee."
Current Mood: arrowed
I used to play World of Warcraft a lot. But I haven't played for any length of time for a while.  What happened?  Other games, basically.

Especially Skyrim.

World of Warcraft, lately, has been taking away choice.  You want to play a berserker-type character?  You have to play as a big dumb fighter clanking around in heavy plate armor that gives you extra strength and stamina (yet you're still oddly squishy), and be a whirling dervish type character dual-wielding two weapons.  The main choice you get is if you want the two weapons to be two big weapons, or two REALLY BIG WEAPONS.

If you want to play a warrior character who wields one REALLY BIG WEAPON, then you are locked into being the soldierly-type of warrior, focusing on training and discipline.

Woe betide you if you want to be a lightly-armored berserker type character wielding a single REALLY BIG WEAPON.  The game doesn't allow you to break the mold.  There are thirty (or so) molds that you can choose from, but each one is very specific about the type of armor/robes/weapons/gear/talent choices you have to take.

Enter Skyrim.

I decided I wanted to resurrect an old Neverwinter Nights character I used to have and constantly tweak with.  I found that I could very easily create a character from the northern wastes, lightly armoured and wielding a REALLY BIG WEAPON with a bow as a backup and capable of picking locks on the side.  I could tweak her face to an amazing degree.  And then I found I could also be an alchemist *and* a blacksmith *and* an enchanter, all at the same time.  Though I might have to choose which one I want to specialise in.

I have choice again, and it is awesome.

Even if I did take an arrow to the knee.
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Jan. 4th, 2012 @ 12:46 pm Is where Steve corrects himself
Hm. It seems I've been counting the Mayan Calendar all wrong, and starting from ones instead of zeroes. 21 December 2012 doesn't mark the end of the 20th baktun (that is, 20.20.20.18.20), but the beginning of the 13th baktun (13.0.0.0.0).

Some people believe that the Mayan Long-Count calendar is supposed to end at that point (leading to all the crazy doomsayer theories about THE END OF THE WORLD OH NO), and some believe that it will continue on, with 19.19.19.17.19 being reached on October 12 4772.

So the Mayan calendar doesn't run out of numbers on 21 December 2012 after all! Possibly.

Apparently the Mayans believed that the beginning of a baktun was a time of great change. This is possibly best exemplified by the beginning of the 12th baktun, in 1618 AD, when the last great Mayan empire, the Itza, accidentally brought the wrath of the Spanish down upon their heads and the Mayan civilisation ended. Oops.

Thanks to aberranteyes, for pointing this out, and the following sources: http://www.mayan-calendar.com/ancient_longcount.html and http://www.fourmilab.ch/documents/calendar/.
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Jan. 1st, 2012 @ 10:25 am HAPPY NEW YEAR
Welcome to 2012! The year in which the world will end!

(Well, really, the Mayan Long-Count Calendar just goes up to 20.20.20.18.20 and then stops because it runs out of numbers. 22 Dec 2011 would just be 1.1.1.1.1.1, if the Mayans had had the foresight to use six numbers instead of five, but really, their calendar lasted long enough for them so the only people who need to worry are the doomsayers.)

But I digress. As I do. Happy New Year everyone!
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