dragoon1376

So, I know that Republicans seem to be the bane of all things fun in the world... so why the hell are these bills being proposed by Democrats?! Putting aside my personal ire that people immediately get pissed off at conservatives, particularly the oxymoron of "social conservativism" (it's an oxymoron since conservatives have pushed for LESS government, not MORE which is what this kind of social engineering requires to be effective. Chew on that for awhile), but tend to ignore the attempts of social legislation that comes out of the liberal/democrat camp. So, what am I taking about?

1. In NY, a state Democrat and assmblyman, recently proposed a bill that would, and I quote, "Prohibits the sale to minors of certain rated video games containing a rating that reflects content of various degrees of profanity, racist stereotypes or derogatory language, and/or actions toward a specific group of persons." Soooooooo, talk about opening up a subjective can of worms. People drop the race card almost constantly, or so it seems. If a villain is a minority, is it a negative stereotype that is being enacted? It almost seems to me that this is opening up a whole realm of lawsuits that can erupt from various overly sensitive groups using this bill as their basis. I'm also getting a distinct South Park feel.... watch the episodes Cartoon Wars if you haven't already.

2. In South Carolina, another Democrat (I find this highly amusing), has also proposed a bill that would outlaw profanity. It would prevent you from swearing outloud or printing/creating anything that "exhibit or otherwise make available material containing words, language, or actions of a profane, vulgar, lewd, lascivious, or indecent nature." I think the real reaction to this is just wow. Wow. Morons.

3. In Congress, the Democrat Representative (CA) Joe Baca, is advocating that health warning labels, akin to those on cigarettes, would be placed on video games. His reasoning is that video games can and do contribute to increased aggression in players... which has been a disputed, and mostly debunked, assertion since crazy Florida lawyers have been running around claiming video games were murder simulators.

Seriously?! In many ways I'm annoyed that these idiots have the gall to waste taxpayer money over something that is ultimately frivolous and un-Constitutional. If they're attempting to appeal to the "Save the Children" crowd and garner more votes by restricting choice and the whole concepts laid out in the Constitution, then this is a prime example of the idiocy and improper use of government funds that I think is inherent in our politicians. There is no change in Washington D.C. or any other political legislation, it's just business as usual under a new regime.

I've been kinda jonesing for a new album. I've tried the digital download but there's something *special* about having the CD/vinyl as a physical presence. That said, I think my birthday present to myself is going to be DriveByWire's new album, Between Oceans. Oh, and a tshirt as well.

Rant 1: There are some things that just strike me as utterly pointless because I know someone out there is purchasing these items and they need to be stopped. What's is this target of my ire? They're called snuggies. I know, you're wondering what the hell is this thing? Basically, it's marketing angle is that covering yourself with a blanket on the couch while reading or watching TV is such a great inconvenience. The blanket may shift and expose you to cold (oh dear!) or your hands may be entangled within the blanket when you go to change the channel to Oprah (oh my!). Seriously, we're wasting fabric on something that looks akin to a bathrobe without the inherent wardrobe malfunction (it's never fun to be flashed by an overweight woman in your apartment hallway. Trust me on this, I still have nightmares).

Rant 2: The other thing that has been bugging me recently is the Armageddon....errr, History Channel's obsession with all things pertaining to the end of the world. As we begin the inevitable slide into the magic date of December 21, 2012 (the date that the Mayan calendar ends and the world supposedly ends for those of you not in the know), there seems to be frenzy of television specials driving home the fact that we are indeed fucked. The one thing that I find funny is that I've always considered myself pretty cynical (some of you may say negative but that's not the point) and I'm here thinking to myself that these people really need to knock it off or we might as well all go jump off a cliff. You know, like lemmings.

Oh, not to make this post a complete downer: Cinder's constitution seems to be improving and I'm hoping that once the antibiotics is over that her medical woes end as well. More on the fart-tastic kitten later.

see more pwn and owned pictures

And it all begins with a three hour wait at the emergency vet to take care of Cinder. All in all, she's okay but she has an urinary tract infection that needs to be treated with 10 days worth of antibiotics. She's also on dewormer to see if that helps her other chronic issues... joy.

In other news, I just need to finish Naxx 10 before I can say I've finished all of the end game raid content in WotLK. We took down Malygos a couple of nights ago for the first time. When we first started it, the fight was immensely difficult and we couldn't push fast enough to get to Malygos's third phase with enough time (it is a dps race after all). We gave it another go on Tuesday. With each subsequent try we got down our strategy and finally took out Malygos a few seconds after he enraged. It was by the skin of our teeth but it was a great kill.

A very belated season-oriented greetings is required: Merry Christmas. Hopefully people have had a lot of fun this holiday and whatnot. I might as well throw in a Happy New Year now since I'm not sure if I'll actually remember to post anything before hand.

As a side note, I did end up surviving my classes with a B+ and A- for the semester. I know I could have done better but at this point, I'll take it... mostly because I'm ready to get out of college after eight freakin' years.

So, as I've mentioned before I've been spending a lot of this winter just recuperating and playing video games. I've been working on getting Tuonela geared up (which has been going pretty well) though I'll need to work on my alts before long since they are the ones with the necessary gathering professions to make my whole WoW cottage industry work. It sucks having to purchase gems, herbs, etc off the auction house when I know I can get around to making those things myself. Ugh. Instead I've been pugging a lot, hitting Naxx 25 and OS 25 to ensure a chance at decent gear. We also tried Malygos for the first time tonight... which completely and totally sucks.

I turned in my last paper yesterday and I've gone in serious veg mode since then. I'm looking at this holiday break as a chance to catch up on the large number of games I had been amassing and getting Tuonela prepped for the 25 man Naxx runs that are going to start in January.

Currently I'm spending my non-WoW game time working on Fable 2. I haven't progressed all that far into the game (though it's supposedly a fairly short game if you follow just the main quest) since I find myself constantly being distracted by one major issue: the need for gold. Unlike most other RPGs, in Fable 2 you don't have to go out slaughtering hordes of evil critters to build up your cash stockpile. Instead what you get to do are jobs within a town, whether it be working for the blacksmith or chopping wood. Glamorous, I know. After earning a decent amount of gold, which immediately went towards the purchase of gear, I stumbled across one of the other unique means by which you earn gold in Fable 2: you can purchase stalls, businesses, and homes which will continue to generate a profit for you as you run around questing. The profit rolls in every 5 minutes and carries on while you're not playing. Talk about an absolutely fantastic turn of events in a RPG! Well, in terms of making gold. But since I'm playing my character as generally good, I find myself in an amusing situation: when I first arrive in a town plagued by bandits or what have you, I immediately scope out the businesses/residences to check the prices before buying. If they're cheap enough, I add them to my real estate empire before going out to relieve whatever evil burdens the town so they ultimately rise in value. Oh, and one other thing about Fable 2: it is the first game that I have bought condoms in. Yes, condoms.

The WoW status report is that I'm currently just killing time as our healers very slowly and painfully make their way to 80. Outside of what is available in Naxx, Tuonela is pretty well geared at present. She has two pieces of tier 7 gear and a number of crafted epics that should be helpful initially in Naxx 25. Other than one more item that I want from the emblem vendor, I'm currently just spinning my wheels until the rest of the guild catches up. She also has her black war bear mount which I'm going to have to post pictures of some time.

Even though I should be working on my paper (Word is currently on the task bar of my laptop, the cursor blinking relentlessly at me to start it), I find my mind constantly wandering about listlessly as I kick around the topic of my paper which is this: Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon helps to define and perpetuate a myth of what the Orient/Asia/China is to Western audiences ("mythologies" is an approach by a structuralist critic by the name of Roland Barthes. Pretty much what he does it isolate the ideology that attempts to link two ideas, such as pine scent and cleanliness, together and how it is perceived to be a truth by the audience, e.g. my kitchen smells like a pine tree (or orange/citrus nowadays) so it must be clean) as a land that is simultaneously supple in movement but painstakingly rigid as well. This Western myth of the Orient was further consumed by Ang Lee in his film and fed back to an Occidental (Western) audience as Chinese correction/re-appropiation of this particular film sub-genre. Sounds fun, yes?

And since I love to inject a debate about morality into some of the most mundane objects, here's something from gamepolitics.com: apparently one blogger has taken objection to a quest where you have to torture a member of the Azure Dragonflight in order to find the whereabouts of a Kirin Tor sorceress. In a sense, I understand a bit of his concern since you, the player, are being asked to commit some questionable action in order to complete a particular quest in game. But is it something that should be truly alarming? Having leveled my death knight from 55 to 80, there have been numerous instances where I have been asked to poison a village (biological warfare), torture scarlet crusade lackeys, and slay defenseless members of my own race. The actions were part of the death knight starting area and I took them as an insight to the actions and mentality of the Scourge that my character was currently cooperating with. Many things have occurred throughout World of Warcraft that could be seen as either in a contentious gray zone of morality or just out right objectionable but I don't think the game is actively condoning the use of torture because these are isolated events that may not even register with the player.

Oh, and in case you haven't heard, Illinois' governor was nailed trying to sell Obama's vacant Senate seat. True story.

Seriously, there are times that I hate the news and the people that make it. Case and point: two young kids, ages 6 & 7 respectively, abused then lynched a kitten with a game controller. The means by which these two boys abused this poor animal is repugnant beyond belief. It speaks volumes about the lack of parenting that seems rampant nowadays. And, of course, it only gets better. The news media reports that they had also been playing Grand Theft Auto prior to this incident. Nevermind that the game is rated M for Mature (like fuck are those two even close to being mature). In defence of the game, there isn't rampant violence against animals: you pretty much screw over other people. But neither am I saying that the game isn't going to have some ill effects on a young player (there's a reason why we don't let kids watch A Clockwork Orange or torture porn like Saw). What is evident are parents that are wholly ignorant and irresponsible perpetuating a complete cycle of stupid breeders. What's more, these kids are on a path that scares the bejesus out of me.

Sorry, I've been a tad behind in updating since WotLK has come out... and school work and all that jazz as well. I know I need to find that whole sea kittens PeTA debacle and share my general frustration/amusement with those morons.

Anyways, this last Wednesday, Tuonela hit the new level cap. Just shy of two weeks after the WotLK release. I know, I'm slow.

PeTA's overly cute/cancerous sea kitten page

And a blog commenting on them that I found funny

WotLK has come. It roared to life in the wee hours of Nov 13th and I found myself twitching in anticipation to create Tuonela, my loveable huggable Death Knight. She is a blast to play and I've blown through the Outland grind to catch up with my guildmates in Northrend. Level 72 as of last night, I'm hoping to see the mid 70s sometime on Friday. But now, to get to work.

I'll post more later since I want to rant a bit about PETA's desire to rename fish "sea kittens." That's right, "sea kittens." I'll muse about this some more as I pet my newly named "fur fish," a.k.a. cats, later on tonight.

The meat loaf is delicious. That is all.

Migraines are never fun. For those of you who haven't experienced one, mine tend to feel like a cross between a vice and a heavy duty drill that's targeting a spot right behind my left eyeball. The pain is so bad that it's nauseating. Seriously, how often do you get to say I hurt so much that I'm going to puke? Nifty, ain't it? I think the worse part about my new job is that migraines are going to be the norm what with people's love of flourescent lighting. Their boon, my bane. So, I left work early yesterday and called in sick today.

Today I spent reading Morte D'Arthur which resulted in me thinking for a good portion of the day about how much of a tool King Arthur really was. The man was probably one of the biggest frauds in terms of leadership. For example:

Arthur: "Lancelot, I know you're banging the Queen but I also don't want to fight you but Gawain is making me."
Lancelet: "I know you don't but really the Queen was always true to you. She always said your name when we were together."
Arthur: "For reals?! Awesome! Well, the Pope says we need to make up he'll excommunicate the whole damn country. Oh, and Gawain is a mean poopie head."

And then in a contrive, holy W T F moment worthy of a Springer show, Mallory drops the big incestous secret that Mordred is really Arthur's son by his sister Morgan Le Fey and said child is interested in marrying his dad's Queen, i.e. Guinievere. Whoa whoa whoa. I think that just gave Oedipus a headache. And this was all done without the aide of alcohol? Really?

Seriously, going over this is making my head feel like it wants to explode. Well, I'm going to leave you with that wonderful scene of WTF Incest and go back to transferring movies to my iPod (legally mind you) and keeping an eye on the massive meat loaf I made today. If all goes well with it I'll update my blog... some time.

So, the election finally ended this week and for better or for worse Obama is President number 44. I'm not excited about this development but I'm hoping he doesn't screw up the country any more than humanly possible. Tempers are still flaring up and I think quite frankly people should remove their Whatever 08 stickers since this whole unity thing doesn't work with the "Pwn ur face" attitude people have over the election. Really, it's quite disappointing.

But, we're getting closer and closer to the WotLK launch. I'm all set for the midnight release with most of my gold, mats, and pets all waiting in banks for Tuonela to take center stage. It did kinda sting a tad to see Marthe get demoted down to alt status on the guild roster but it was going to happen some time.

But, I was pretty damn bored this past week and decided to get this:

So, I voted. Now I'm ready for this damnable election process to be over. The negative campaign ads are getting to the point of being ri-goddamn-diculous. Seriously. Who the hell uses the term "carpet bagger" anymore? I was under the impression that that particular expression was dead and buried yet one particular group that opposes an initiative to prohibit affirmative action in government decisions resurrected it. Oh, and the pro-life groups need to stop buying so much damn ad time. If I hear another thing about an aborted baby this week I'll probably just go ape shit. No lies.

Which makes me appreciate the zombie invasion that hit Azeroth this last week. Going through portals led you into the hands of angry zombies that infected you. Entire sections of Stormwind were abandoned to the zombie onslaught. I spent a good 10 minutes on the Isle while my hunter was doing her dailies dodging a trio of PC zombies that were trying to infect me (Shadowmelding in the middle of NPCs so they attack your pursuers is awesome!). Anyways, here are some screens from that event:

Oh, where to start? Where to start? So much is happening this week that even my leisure time feels as overwhelming as my school time.

After having to deal with the deal of LittleBigPlanet (LBP for short) earlier this week because of some lyrics in a song that made Sony somewhat shy, they quickly pulled the questionable material and I currently have my own copy. The first iteration of my sack by was a moustached Elizabethan scholar. Then a lion. Then some weird skeletal pirate type thing. The number of combinations are just great and the game is cute yet challenging. Currently I'm just going through and unlocking stuff. I'm really looking forward to actually building levels.

Also, WoW has gone nuts. The WotLK lead in event is hitting full force. First it was zombies. Then it was plagued roaches and plagued rats have been popping up in the major cities (pop a rat/roach, catch the plague! oh joy!). Now it's this:



Funny, we get a huge undead invasion in a virtual world when the scourge of video gamers everywhere is finally disbarred. Happy Jack Thompson Disbarment Day everyone!

Since the patch I think I've seen that message many many times... and it has come to symbolize to me Blizzard's genius and ultimately evil dominance over the world. Achievements are the crack of the gaming community. We've seen this on XBLA where countless idiotic guys constantly flex their epeens in order to impress... well, I have no idea really who they're trying to impress. Maybe there's women that go for that kinda shit but I have yet to see them. What's truly scary are the women that have bigger epeens than their male counterparts.

But, yes, Halloween has hit WoW and I'm currently running around (well, when the server isn't being shook free of it moorings and drifting off into the internets) collecting all various random things, eating random things, doing dailies for gold, etc. Basically, it keeps me playing while I wait for my new shiney Death Knight. /joygasm

In a bit of depressing news, LittleBigPlanet has been delayed a week. The reason for the delay is something completely unexpected and very interesting to me. The reason for the delay is that a song in LBP contains two verses of the Qu'ran. The catch is the song isn't even in English. Quite frankly, I'm not even sure how this was discovered and what the necessary implications are though several people have commented that it is offensive for anything related to the Qu'ran to end up in music.

Here are a few more things that are worth checking out:

1. Microsoft class action suit
2. Obama campaign ads in video games

I've also recently been on a vanity pet and herb farming binge. For some reason I decided it was a good idea for me to go after the four little dragon whelplings as a way of christening my Death Knight upon her creation... something about that sentence strikes me as odd. Anyways, to make a long story short, six hours of effort yielded me all four whelpling as well as some WoW hate from friends. Apparently I wasn't all that aware that each one of these pets has a 1 in 1000 chance of dropping of very specific critters. People have farmed for a week just for one. Personally, I credit my luck to my hunter's wind serpent. White serpents are a sign of good luck in Japan.

But, I find it funny that gamers are already known for a less than fabulous physique when someone came up with Gamer Grub. Yeah, that's right. In four "fantastic" flavors: action pizza, racing wasabi, strategy chocolate, and sports pb&j. Makes you kinda wonder W T F?