Christmas Maokai, Snowmerdinger, and How I Feel When I Win at LoL

Merry Christmas everyone!

I was going to post a picture of Chrismas Maokai here since I've been playing him quite a bit in Dominion mode on LoL, but apparently the screenshots I've taken have magically vanished. So here's a picture of Snowmerdinger, i.e. Heimerdinger in all his Frosty the Snowman glory.

I've been winning a fair bit at Dominion, more than I am accustomed to, and after a long losing streak that put me 10 wins below my losses, I started doing better. And now I'm 9 wins ahead. Hell, I queued for a regular Summoner's Rift game with some friends and didn't completely suck.

This is a bit novel for me.

My reaction to winning or losing usually translates into the following in real life:

When I win

When I lose

I've been told by people I know in real life that I'm too hard on myself.

All that aside...may all your holidays be happy and your New Year be full of stuff you like doing.

Antisocial or Lazy?

//obligatory apology for never posting//

So this upcoming Friday offers a number of activities on the campus where I work/used to go to school that I can engage in that will bring me into contact with people I know or at least can identify after ten minutes of conversation while my brain tries to figure out who they are. These activities and the probable happenstances of said activity are, respectively:

1. Friday Night Magic. However, the format is Standard. I don't have a Standard deck. Actually, I don't really have any decks at the moment. If I had a Commander deck I could theoretically play with all the other non-tournament players, but I am really sans inspiration on the deck front. I might conceivably have a cannabalized Angel deck I could reassemble, but that sounds like work. And there's a chance there will be nobody to play with me/that will play with me. I will eventually feel like an automaton mimicking human behavior and I will ninja out early.

2. Geology Trivia Night. I could go, exchange cordial greetings with the current students and professors and realize how much I've forgotten/never remembered. Food and/or wollanstinite may be involved. Feldspars in all their potassium/plagioclase glory will put in an appearance. I will eventually feel like an alien miming human behavior and I will slither out and not be missed.

3. LAN Party. I only know two people offhand who will be here, one of which I spent an entire office in a summer with and--while sitting back-to-back--communicated via Facebook. I will show up with my sorry little laptop and buy giant cookies from aforementioned friend before giving up and vanishing in a cloud of incredible shyness and possibly shame.

4. Or I could stay home, play LoL, play RS and watch Charmed, play some more LoL, play RS and watch Charmed, play LoL because my fiancee has come home from Magic and wants his Xbox back to play Skyrim and I won't be able to watch any more Charmed, end the night playing Minecraft and drinking some concoction of booze from my dwindling supply of alcohol.

The choices, the choices.

DominateDominion Interview

So...I got an interview with the founder, otherwise known as TheFeedski, of the recently created DominateDominion.com site, a website dedicated to LoL's new game mode, Dominion.

Bacon & Betelgeuse: Why did you decide to start this site?

TheFeedski: I played a decent amount of Dominion during beta and got the hang of it pretty fast. When it was released, I felt that I was ahead of many of players I was playing with/against in public games. When I looked at the League of Legends Dominion forum it was full of people complaining or trolling, like usual, and I had a hard time finding a competitive team to play with. That's when I got the idea of making a strictly Dominion site. Thought it would be cool if I could make a place to host tournaments, find teams, write/read Dominion champion guides, etc.

B&B: Why go with paid hosting rather than free?

TheFeedski: As a broke college student, I originally made the site with free hosting. Then I started thinking, if this thing takes off, free hosting won't be able to handle it. So I figured I mine as well bite the bullet and pay for my own hosting. Plus, there aren't any ads. As of yet... Hope it stays that way, but if this starts to take a large chunk of change out of my pocket I may have to add a couple.

B&B: Tell us how you got into LoL.

TheFeedski: My room mate during Freshman year in college played it. He told me how the game works and I decided I would try it. From then on I loved it. And kept playing it.

B&B: Now, I've got to ask: Dominion or Summoner's Rift, and why?

TheFeedski: Depends on my mood. If I am feeling in the mood for some ranked, then Summoner's Rift. That mood doesn't come often though, so Dominion. I like the fast-paced feeling of Dominion. Getting your build rather quickly, being a sneaky sally and back dooring, I just enjoy the overall game play more.

B&B: What champions/roles do you prefer?

TheFeedski: I love me some Heimerdinger bottom lane. He's a beast. Or Ryze, Yorick, Gangplank, Xin, Tryndamere. I play a lot of people really, but prefer to be bottom. No homo.

B&B: What do you do when you're not on LoL?

TheFeedski: What do I do, or what should I be doing? I try to study and get ahead, but that's never fun. So usually I just smoke a bowl and relax. I'll get all my stuff done, but I'm a great procrastinator, so it won't be until the day before it's due. I also try working on this website. I use to make Youtube videos before I got in college and reached 10,500+ subscribers and got partnered with Youtube, but I stopped doing that. I should probably pick that up again.

B&B: Anything else you'd like to add?

TheFeedski: Thanks for being a member of the site and wanting to interview me. I'm in the process of finding someone to make a script for an unofficial Dominion ladder system. Hopefully that is coming soon.
 
B&B: Thanks for letting me interview you! Best of luck!

Today, I Met a Nobel Prize Winner & I Didn't Stab Any Computers Or Perform Any Other Acts of Violence

Title.

All right, I'll try to make a story of this.

This gainful employment manages to cut into my Times in all sorts of ways...my Runescape Time, my League of Legend Time, my Watching-Movies-on-Netflix Time, my Thinking-About-Exercising Time, my Studying-for-GRE Time, my Snuggling-With-LOML Time...

Back to the title story. Please note that since I'm tired that the sloppy Paint illustrations will be representing things that probably did not, in this dimension, happen.

So, after a long day of assembling maps on a computer that somehow escaped the meteor that wiped out the dinosaurs and getting visited by a stabbing headache for the last half hour of work, I finally slithered up to the university cafeteria where the 2011 Nobel prize winner for Physics was speaking. I showed up 10 minutes early and the place was like the proverbial can of Sardines and the kids' game all rolled into one. I had to overcome my hesitation of talking to people to inquire as to whether a seat was available because I really did not dig the concept of standing.

Okay, so maybe this one did happen.

They eventually started shunting the mob to another room in another building on campus, but since I had a chair I stayed put, surrounded by strangers...The talk only started 10 minutes late, which was a bit earlier than I was expecting, seeing how these things tend to go (especially on my campus). After all the cheering and whatnot throughout the thankfully brief introductory speech Dr. Schmidt proceeded to take the entire audience from Earth, through the concept of Light, through the concept of Doppler Effect, to the curvature of space-time and why the universe appears to be accelerating. Oh, and he ditched meeting the Queen of England because he had already arranged to talk to us.

During the course of the talk, the following did not happen.

And after the talk I joined the time to say hi to the guy.

I asked a question I couldn't bring myself to ask during the Q & A as it would have meant I'd have to yell over two-thirds of a room of crowded people, and got a picture with the guy

Pretty good day, all things considered.

Still Alive...-ish

It's been nearly a month since I posted here. Yes, I'm still alive, but now I have been gainfully employed and it's amazing how much less free time I have now that I'm working 40 hours a week.

LoL Dominion is fantastic--maybe I'll try to do a piece on it in the future. I really appreciate the fast-paced action and the fact that last hitting isn't important.

Runescape has had several great quests lately--Branches of Darkmeyer and Ritual of the Mahjarrat.

My job has involved a lot of data downloading, and apparently I have to go work on a report that's due by the end of the month.

Take care all!

What's in a Name

If I had to choose my pseudonym now, it probably wouldn't involve Dragon, because after ten years of being on the internet I think it's definitely one of those cliched names. And Rebel's probably another one...I mean, who honest-to-God puts Rebel in their internet moniker if they're not making a point of saying, "Hey, look at me, I'm a rebel. Rawr." Putting them both together is just...um...pretentious?

But it's really highly personal to me.

The name, Rebel Dragon, didn't evolve for me until sometime in 2005. I was living in Pennsylvania at the time and started writing a story. This story was about someone a lot like me who kept phasing into this other world that involved technologically advanced elves, homicidal squirrels, and a time-traveling fairy. In the first chapter the main character gets chewed by a dragon but manages to kill the dragon from inside it's mouth with a pocketknife, and in the process is transformed into a weredragon. In the nature of all antihero stories, the character fights against turning evil and manages to have lots of adventures.

All this evolved after I had seen Lord of the Rings in 2002, but about a year before I learned how to play Magic and D&D and all the remaining trappings of standard fantasy. If I had, this world of mine may have turned out differently...for one, I was not aware of shapeshifting and intelligence being standard properties of most dragons.

I think at that time the dragon was something I both wanted to be and was also my inner monster that I was striving to be in control of. Much like any werepredator in pretty much any story ever that has any sense of moral decency struggles to not turn into a murder machine. Hence the Rebel.

I referred to the weredragon character as my alter ego.

In 2005 when I made my first Runescape account, I was trying to decide on a name and I tried for Rebel
Dragon. It was taken already and I wasn't able to rename my account that until they implemented the name changing system years later.

If I was to rewrite that story today, it would be different. For one, I wouldn't try to cram all the marvels of my created universe into it at one go.

At the end of Part 1 of the book, the main character dies.

In Part 2, the character is reborn.

But in the Intermission between the two parts, we meet the Dragonling.

Most of the Intermission and Part 2 hasn't been written. I don't know if it ever will be.

The main character has changed. I may have changed.

But Rebel Dragon does not change.

Why God Died

"And, behold, the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom; and the earth did quake, and the rocks rent (Matthew 27:51" 

Most of you are probably familiar with this particular tenet of the Christian faith--God sent His Son Jesus to earth, where he was crucified and rose again, leading to the salvation of humankind.

Traditionally, veil reference in the above verse is seen as God allowing humans to come closer to to Him...but what if that's not the case? What if, instead, it symbolizes God coming closer to humans?

According to the Bible, up until this point, the one thing separating God from humans was that He hadn't died. It's one thing to be a great, omnipotent being with complete control over your creation, and it's another for the same being to become a copy of it's creation and live through the daily struggle of being human.

Death was the ultimate separation. Normally, it's been seen as a negative for us--death separated us from God. But what if it was more--God's absence of death is what kept Him from humans?

What if God had to die so He could truly join with His creation? Maybe He had to come to this world as a human, live and experience life as a human, and, ultimately, die like a human, so He could truly understand us?


What if Jesus' death and resurrection was to bring God closer to us?

RS: 99 Mining

 I haven't talked much about Runescape lately, although it's probably what I've been doing the most of.

This also gave me 2300 lvl overall.

 

Now on to smith and craft.

The Journey, a Poem

Please note that I am open to comments or suggestions concerning my poetry. I'm hardly a professional.

The Journey

Some think that living is made of starts, some when your goals are done;
It’s the glow of a bud, it’s the flush of a win, it’s the burn of a falling sun;

But I think the living is in the path, in what lies over yonder hill:
It ain’t the mountains you have climbed, it’s the ones you’re climbing still.

It’s that moment afloat in time, the space between death and life,
It’s the joy of the chase, it’s the scent of the kill, it’s the moment of the strife;
When the war ain’t over yet, and you’ve got naught but your will,
It ain’t the battles you have won, it’s the ones you’re fighting still.

It’s that moment before the prize, it’s the chasing of a dream;
It’s the fall of a star, it’s the rise of a soul, it’s the fight of a scream;

Before the end of everything, before your visions are fulfilled;
It ain’t the road you’ve traveled by, it’s the ones you’re traveling still.

12:16pm 7/30/11

Interview with Counting Pennies

Recently, a friend of mine has decided to go public with her blog. I asked to interview her as a way of introducing her blog to my readers. Her blog is at Counting Pennies. Check it out!

Bacon & Betelgeuse: Why Counting Pennies?

onelovingsister: Let's see. I have a thing about pennies. My boyfriend and I would always exchange pennies. Kinda random. Anyways, I was thinking I would probably be doing a lot of waiting in the next few years....and you know how when you're trying to make time pass....like to go to sleep or whatever you start counting things? Like counting sheep? Except pennies instead. :) My mom suggested it actually and that's why I decided to go with it.

B&B: Describe yourself; who do you think of yourself as. what is your self identity?

onelovingsister: I am a girl who has a lot of dreams and a lot of potential. What I want and what others want for me rarely line up. Sometimes I feel I lose myself in the struggle to be what I SHOULD be according to everybody else and what I WANT to be when the day is done. I love to write poetry, but I'm not that good at it. I love cooking and kids and best friends. Math is one of the things that keeps me going every day....math...and my mom. That is my biggest goal in life. To be a mother, but we shall see. I would say the single most defining aspect of my character is my faith. Jesus is the single most important person in my life and I hope to keep it that way. Always. Also, I am a hopeless romantic and I am in love.

B&B: Why did you decide to start a blog?

onelovingsister: Last fall, when my bf transferred schools and subsequently broke up with me, I found myself really struggling, emotionally, academically, even physically, to cope with my feelings. I spent a lot of time very very depressed. My grades started to suffer and I ended up needing to spend a lot of time talking to some close friends, my mom, and one of my professors. I realized that, for me, verbalizing how I felt helped me work through my feelings, a little bit at a time. I posted my stuff on Facebook at first, but then I felt a little bit uncomfortable with that because many of my posts were pretty personal. That's when I decided to start a blog. It's my own little place to bare my heart to the world.

B&B: Speaking of personal, why have you recently decided to make your blog public?

onelovingsister: I don't really know. I'm still not ready to have it on Facebook. I guess I just feel like it's time to...hmmm...move on? Perhaps that's not quite the right way to put it. As I mentioned earlier, this whole blog thing stemmed from personal issues I was dealing with. I guess I had always thought they were sort of short term issues? Things I would get over pretty quickly. That I would be able to resume my "normal" life soon. Well, I've come to realize it's not going to be like that. I'm in love and I'm waiting and I think I'm going to be doing that for quite a long time and it's okay to acknowledge that and accept that and share that. It's not something I need to cover up or hide from everybody or be ashamed of. It's just how it is. Yes, most of my friends think I'm stupid and crazy and I completely understand where they are coming from, but this is something I feel God is calling me to. So I guess I'm just ready to open up a little bit. Besides, I like to share. :)

B&B: What do you do when you're not writing?

onelovingsister: Ahhh....now that's easy. When I'm not writing, I am working or sleeping or eating or cooking or working out. :) Work consists of studying for school, doing math research, or lifeguarding at my school's pool. I usually do not get enough sleep. I generally eat to much. I love to cook and bake, but only for other people. I do not like to make food for myself. I love to turbo kick (you should try it!) and actually recently got certified as an instructor. I also love swimming. Sunshine and water make me happy. :) However, my number one favorite thing to do when not writing is going to the beach with my friends and family. I love to hang out with the people I love and the beach just can't be beat. :D

B&B: Anything you'd like to add, or any questions you would like to be asked?

onelovingsister: I would like to add that you are one of the reasons I first considered blogging as my "outlet" and that I really enjoy reading your non-gaming related blog posts. :) Oh! And readers should never hesitate to comment! Even when my posts seem pretty personal or sensitive or whatever. Comments are fun.

B&B: Well, I've run out of questions. Pleasure interviewing you, and may your blog receive many hits!

onelovingsister: haha. thanks! :D

Well, there you have it. Check out the blog at Counting Pennies and see for yourself.

P.S. If any of you other blog writers want to be interviewed for this blog, either post in the comments or email me at baconnbetelgeuse@gmail.com

Playing Games at Playing God

If you've watched any number of movies or read any number of books, you're bound to run across this situation. The good guy has a chance to kill the bad guy, thereby saving any number of innocent lives and millions in property damages and says something to the effect of, "I will not kill this Evil Bad Guy, Slaughterer of Cities and Eater of Babies, because I am not God, and it is not up to me to decide whether this man lives or dies."

That is bullcrap.

So maybe the good guy isn't supposed to shoot Mr. Evil Bad Guy in the brainpan and eliminate the need for seventeen sequels, but the whole "I-am-not-God-I-don't-make-this-choice" is complete horsepucky and an insufficient excuse for not saving all those innocent lives from serving as Mr. Evil Bad Guy's cannon fodder.

We are God every day of our lives. Every day, we choose to not stab those closest to us. We choose to not run over that stupid jaywalking pedestrian who chooses to cross the road directly in front of us. We choose to not walk into our place of school or work and blow up the place. In the last case, it may be due to a lack of access to explosives but the other two situations are easily encounterable. While we may be horrified by the thought of plowing over said stupid pedestrian, it doesn't mean the power over someone's life did not rest in our hands in that moment of time.

We do play God to other people. We just tend to choose that they should live--to play the gods of good. Sure, there are consequences in this society to choosing that they should die, but if we did make said choice, the target of our decision would still be dead, and we would have chosen death for that person.

Psychos and other murderers and abusers are those who choose to play the gods of evil.

But we're all gods. At least, when it comes to life and death and other people.

The Point of Vampires, and Why Twilight Fails

Vampires appear to be one of the favoritest, sexiest, and most mimicked monsters to haunt modern culture. We can buy books by any nineteen billion authors at the local bookstore, all with their own variations and spins on the vampire myth. We can watch TV shows, usually showing some vampire we can get really empathetic with. We can watch shiny, big-budget movies in the theaters with really spectacular special effects. We can dress like them. We can get together with other people and pretend to be vampires in roleplaying sessions. We have this fascination and desire, on some level, to be like these nonhuman, monster-souled, undead creatures that like to nom humans, usually in grisly and spectacular fashion.

And then there's Twilight.

When Twilight first infiltrated mainstream teenage female culture under the guise of sex for little girls a romance novel, most people, myself included, completely failed to notice it. Other people did, however, and after the first movie came out I went with some friends to the dollar theater to see what the fuss was about.

I really wish I hadn’t.

I could rant at length about the absurdness of immortals who would willingly keep going to high school, or Edward’s stupid “you can’t love me because I’m awesome” speech, or the fact that the villains are so much cooler than the good guys, or the fact that Bella is a complete frigging idiot who shouldn’t be trusted to write the alphabet in correct order. But it really comes down to this: Real vampires don’t sparkle.

I could (possibly) get past the sparkly skin if it wasn’t for the fact that the author of Twilight seemed to rather miss the whole point of vampires.

Or points, rather.

Vampires have evolved through a series of roles over time as humanity has been able to approach and find new ways to deal with the inner monster. In the beginning, i.e. Dracula, the monster is something that exists outside of us and seeks to corrupt the weak without needing permission to do so. Over time though, more and more protagonists have been turned into vampires, and we are allowed to acknowledge the price of success (immortality, super strength, etc) at the cost of our humanity and our ability to walk in the light of day.

There can be good vampires. If you’re going to be a good vampire, though, it’s going to be hard. You’re still going to want to nom humans, and, depending on who is writing, animal blood may not be sufficient. Even if it is, it isn’t enough. Hunger is the main driving force in a vampire’s existence, and to have the self-control to say no to that hunger is a major element of a good vampire’s existence. Plus, the older the vampire becomes, the more likely it will be harder for said vampire to connect to their past existence, and then to humanity, making it easier to get all egotistical and superiority-complexed when it comes to humans. It seems as though many good vampires romanticize being human, forgetting that humans can be complete bastards all on their own without supernatural assistance, just like those of us who don't consider ourselves normal envy those who are until we realize they're completely boring.

I suspect vampires are easy to emphasize with because most of us are able to acknowledge the inner monster that lurks inside of each of us. We’ve been rejected through no fault of our own or unable to associate with normal humans. There are thoughts that slither through the dark corners and alleyways of our minds that evaporate in the sunlight.

Twilight’s vampires are monsters who are unable to acknowledge that they are monsters. Just like some people are unable to see the monster lurking inside of them. The whole series is a fantasy of becoming the monster—without realizing it is a monster they seek to become.

Or, as has been said...

P.S. Apparently, Mozilla Firefox won't let me make posts anymore, but Internet Explorer will. It's a shame, because I like Firefox. *Sigh* Hi, Internet Explorer, longtimenosee. I have a favor to ask...

Physically Speaking

Long time no see, hopeful readers of this blog.

I've heard people disparaging manual labor--a lot of them college students. As if breaking your back to work in the out-of-doors is somehow reserved for peasants. Although I'm sure many college degrees are required for some hard laboring in the out of doors (I've applied for a few). Probably due to the fact that as a kid my dad made money doing hard, manual labor (and as a result, those were the first jobs I did), it completely fails to hold the same terror for me as it apparently does for a lot of these snobby, soft-handed snobs college students and others who never had to dig a hole for pay in their lives.

Honestly, there are worse things in life. Dishwashing comes to mind. Actually, there are things worse than dishwashing.

I've spent the last two months since getting done gradumacated and guess what? It's a really bad time to be an ex-student. At least as a student I could get jobs at the college and I was on financial aid to batter back the really expensive expenses that come with being an adult. As an ex-student, though, all I have is a shiny degree which seems to have the same effect as scooping a cup of water out of the ocean. Less, even, because now I'm actually overqualified for stuff now.

So guess what? I'm digging holes. Yes, it's a one-time thing. But for the first time in a few years I was actually engaging in hard, sweaty, dirty work.

I forgot how much I -- enjoyed isn't really the correct word, but in the absence of others, it will do --it. The burn of muscles as I slam a pickaxe into ground that has more in common with basalt flows than dirt and the cheer of accomplishment from the voices in my head as another tree is set properly into place.

But the cool thing is, while your body is creating a finished masterpiece of yardwork or whatever, your mind can be off gallivanting and thinking. And thinking. And plotting. And scheming. 


It can really be quite stimulating, when you get down to it.

An unfortunate side effect seems to be every bit of my body aching in new and interesting ways, but it can suck it.

A Year of Blogging

So it's been a year (and two days) since I finally decided to alleviate my boredom during my summer internship by vomiting the contents of my head out onto the web via a blog page for the whole wide world to see.

Happy birthday, Bacon & Betelgeuse!

Happy Independence Day!

...what the title says. To all of my American readers; otherwise just have a good day!

I hope that everyone finds the freedom to be themselves, and hope that the 'themselves' are generally good people and do not have conniving hearts of darkness and evil...

Because if you do have the conniving heart of evil and darkness you do not deserve to be free...

Here are some patriotic kitties!

I Win!

I entered an online contest on the LoL forums to win an Explorer Ezrael skin. Here is one of the shots I entered:

And I won! I win at something! Woohoo. I will have to try more of these contests in the future.

And this is what I won:

LoL: Learning Alistar, Part II

Well, I have learned something.

When you play Alistar, you are expected to tank.

Even if you are a bit of a newb and have been informed that tanking is a rather advanced art/skill/something-I-probably-don't-have yet.

There's nothing for it but to learn how to tank.

So I ended up switching from this build:

to something like this:

It seems to be working a bit better. I'm still trying to iron out some of the kinks, i.e. perhaps I should ditch Shurelia's Reverie to Frozen Heart or Sunfire Cape. Or maybe go for some other item altogether.

Also, I seem to be getting better at certain things...such as headbutting a Katarina away from my fleeing almost-dead lanemate Janna, or flashing in behind Ashe, pulverizing, and then headbutting her into my turret. I think my initiation timing is improving...but seeing as I started with a sense of timing so bad, I've needed to improve just to have a merely bad sense of timing, this may not be saying much. Abyssal Scepter's passive (reducing nearby enemies' MR by 20), plus the MR and AP it adds, seems to work quite well.

For those of you luckless enough to have found this page by googling "alistar build," please note I am a newb at this game. If you have suggestions or comments please feel free to leave them below.

I am linking to LoLReplay files for some of my games. Comments (hopefully constructive) on obvious flaws in my playstyle or things I should watch out for would be appreciated.

Alistar 2nd win
Alistar 5th win
Alistar 6th win

Something Lost

Recently, I was using Stumble! and ran across this cool site that gives 80 journal writing prompts for the writer's blocked writer. I bookmarked it because I figured I could use it to 'grease the wheels' when it comes to writing this blog.

Question 1:
Name something you lost or gave away that can never be replaced.

Well...Where do I start? How does one even begin to answer that sort of question?  What hasn't been lost or grossly mutated in some way as to no longer be recognizable?

'Innocence,'maybe? Or the concept of it? I remember back in the day I used to think people were generally honest and good-hearted and--if they were Christians--did their best to be like Jesus Somewhere in my late teens I started suspecting and came to the realization that most people are inherently selfish and they're just going at it for what they can get out of it. Me included. I don't remember just when this happened, though. Now I've settled on the position that most people have varying degrees of good and evil in them and they tend to be so thoroughly mixed it's impossible to separate them completely.

My childhood? My mom threw out all my toys before I hit 10. Dolls and toy animals were 'graven images' or some such shit. My siblings and I were extremely isolated from other children our age, and even other people. When we were finally in a church setting where there were other children, my sister and I were kept from playing on the grounds that it was 'unladylike.' To this day relationships of all sorts tend to be difficult for me, and I don't know if this is due to my natural levels of antisociality or if because I missed out on all the 'socializing' I should have been getting while growing up.

What haven't I lost?

What have I gained? That might be the better question.

LoL: Learning Alistar, And the Return to Normal Mode

Ah, conflict and failure. Both are things I shy away from. Both are key components of League of Legends.

It's one thing to battle against a computer--the computer doesn't have feelings that can be hurt (yet) or a self-image that can be damaged by you roflstomping it's ass. Which is why, once Co-op vs. AI mode came out on LoL, that was the only mode I played. From (I think) level 15 to level 22. I played several different champions and learned how to play fairly well...against bots.

But this was starting to seem boring and not challenging enough. I looked at all the pretty champions I owned (46), many of which I've never actually played, and formulated the following plan of action:

1. I will learn how to play each champion I own. Since I intend to eventually own all of them, this will hopefully mean I will learn how to play every champion with some level of proficiency.
2. I can only play a maximum of 10 Co-op games with a champion before I must start playing it in Normal games, against real people, on the Summoner's Rift map.
3. I must have at least 10 wins in Normal mode before I can move on to the next champion. I have not decided if I should also add 10 wins for Twisted Treeline or not.

 I will be proceeding in alphabetical order, which means I start with Alistar, since I don't own Akali. Here is a picture of the purple cow:

Why he is purply-blue, I have no idea.

I ended up dispensing entirely with guides since Alistar has had a recent update and many of the guides have not been updated to reflect this. Some have, but they weren't working for me. So I figured out what my problem was, which was running out of mana, and started from there.

My initial runes were health quints, followed by flat mana regen seals, cooldown glyphs, and magic penetration reds. I switched to movement speed quints after three Co-op games, because he seemed so slow. I also started building Boots of Swiftness to help with his movement speed. Once I started building normal games, though I would sometimes build Ionian Boots of Lucidity for their cooldown reduction.

I've been starting my games with two Fairy Charms and three health pots. It gives me mana for the spamming, which allows me to use my E constantly once I hit level 2. I then build into two philosopher's stones, which reduces my need to farm so much (I suck at last hitting, especially on melee champions). It gives me a lot of health and mana regen, which also help with the spamming. I try to get an AP item after that, either Deathfire's Grasp or Morello's Evil Tome. Then it's on to Aegis of the Legion, Frozen Heart, and if the game goes on long enough  or I need more armor, Guardian Angel Armor and/or Banshee's Veil.

So far, my games are looking like this:

Right now it's an even 50/50 win-loss ratio, which I find unacceptable. Games either go well or they don't; I either die a lot or I don't. There's nothing for it but to keep playing, I suppose, but I'm going to require some sort of winning streak before I move on to the next champion; winning ten games isn't going to be sufficient if I have to play 20-30 games to get those ten wins. I'm going to have to play this by ear.

Wish me luck! Also, pray to whatever deity you subscribe to that my improvement is rapid, for the sake of my teammates, if nothing else.

RS: The Fremenik Sagas

Runescape came out with the Fremenik Sagas on Wednesday. I headed over to try them out. Spoilers below.

First, I had to do a real dungeon to find a certain frozen Skaldrun. Since I had all the frozen floors done already I set my dungeon to a Small with a Complexity of 2, and three rooms into it, I found him:

I lit a fire by his feet and soon he was dancing a jig thawed out sufficiently to tell me he was a bit of a storyteller and if I could meet him on the surface, he'd tell me some stories, provided I could find the memories to trigger them.

Once Skaldrun skedaddled out of the dungeon (can't say I blame him--if I had to stare at the same wall for hundreds of years I'd probably have gone nuts too), a white bearskin obligingly appeared in the same room. It whisped to vapor as soon as I touched it. Seeing as I only was in this dungeon for Skaldrun, I exited and went to find his tent.

Skaldrun had set up in one of the nearby camps. I guess it would be significantly warmer than the ice block he'd be used to, but it was still a bit chilly.

I'm guessing centuries without good old UV radiation left him a little white around the skin cells. Anyway, he let me into his story of Three's Company.

Three's Company lets us see some of the fabled Signature Heroes in game for the first time:

Left to right: Ozan, Sir Owen, and Adriane

Ozan was your standard rascally ranger/rouge character; Sir Owen was a stolid, somewhat humorless paladin, and Adriane is a mage. A bright, witty, red/pink haired mage at that. They were busy chasing a criminal known as Carn, who is posing here with several of his pets:

There's always one not looking at the camera.

Our three adventurers stick it to the bad guy and then argue over what to do with the behemoth. I chose Adriane's choice, which was to study the creature and learn how Carn hypnotized it in the first place. I also think she trained it to be a lapdog once the quest was over.

I don't have as many pictures from the next two; I did the required floors to get the memories and then I set out to do Vengeance. First, we watch our irritable, doomed adventurers sniping at each other in the home room:

Front row, left to right: Ican Haz, Kay Thanxby, Lola Wut. Back row: Lotheria Seldorina

Ican Haz only used quickchat, and stole all the food off the tables in the beginning, refusing to share with his team. Lola Wut was snippish in general. They marched into the next room and proceeded to murder a bunch of guards, one of whom survives and sets out to kill all the adventurers one by one for killing her baby brother.

Thok it to 'Em was my favorite of the three sagas. For most of the time, you play a character named Thok who slaughters his way through a dungeon on a quest to find help for his injured older brother. His special attack seems to change every time it's used, and the dungeons are all labeled with how Thok sees them:

Don't mind the edges, its an artifact of fast image processing.

Thok bullies a prayer door into opening without having the prerequisite prayer level, and screams "Chaaaarge!" alot. He defeats a Warped Gulega for the Pretty Lady:

Not pictured: Pretty Lady

They were all enjoyable, and a nice bit of Dungeoneering XP. I decided to do some more dungeons on my own so I can reset my prestige. It's a nice change from doing Barbarian Assault to fill my penance horn for mining.

I'm a Monster...Rawr

WARNING: Untranslated nerdspeak ahead.

As LOML could tell you (sadly shaking his head at my eccentricities), I like playing monstrous, odd, or just plain weird characters when I play roleplaying games. I also lean towards characters that don't depend on dice to do things during combat as my luck seems to roll towards the low end of the scale. Probably the weirdest character I managed to play was a Dracotaur sorcerer in a D&D 3.5 game...said sorcerer was male, shamelessly hit on the half-black-dragon female in the game, and had a consort who was half fae, half centaur, and they made little mutant faedracotaur babies.

Close runner up is probably the Dhamphyr changeling cleric of the Raven Queen I played in my last 4.0 game...

And then there was the Goliath bard...

I have an affinity for the unexpected, which probably explains why I like Terry Pratchett so much--the world suddenly looks fresh, and curious, and exciting if you take the absolute value of something and then flip it. I have all the sophistication of a lead brick being dropped from a great height, and deeply involved layers of intrigue make me want to grab a hefty-sized weapon to hack through the layers of BS...

It might be due to my upbringing, but I really prefer the world to exist in clear-drawn lines of good and evil, right and wrong, This-Person-Deserves-an-Ass-Whipping and This-Person-Does-Not-Deserve-an-Ass-Whipping. Even after growing up and finding out that most people didn't even try to be the person they wanted other people to think they were, I still try to live a life as an open book. Admittedly, you might have to turn several pages and the font's really big and I tend to snap on your fingers if you spill stuff on me...

Who am I kidding? I highly suspect everyone wants to think they are special in some way so they don't have to face the fact they are horribly ordinary, and I suspect myself of being the same way. And then I am faced with a awesome example of human stupidity, and I hope to God I'm not that idiotic. I feel like an alien when I make small talk to people and find that those people seem more at their ease around me because I did so. Some days when I was still working in the school library a little switch would turn on/off in my head and suddenly every other person looked alien/skeletal/put together weirdly and I have to concentrate so that spoken English doesn't devolve into a string of random syllables.

Has the How to be Human for Dummies book been written yet?

What I've Been Doing on Runescape

It's been awhile since I've done a Runescape post, but that doesn't mean I haven't been playing.

The big thing that I've been doing (and that I'm quite glad to have behind me) is getting all the Livid Farm spells:

I also made 94 farming, thanks in large part to Livid Farm:

Also 90 crafting:

So now that I'm done with Livid Farm (thank Guthix), I have returned to doing slayer with a bit of a vengeance.

With a bit of Herblore Habitat mixed in. Good times, good times.

I've Done It...

I've done gone and graduated. That's a Bachelor of Science in Geology for yours truly.

My education hasn't gone quite how I've wanted it to go--but that appears to be life for me. I thought I'd get degrees in Astronomy and Physics and a minor in computer science, but the financial aid ran out and it was a case of getting a degree or else.

What will I do next? Find a job so I can live in a house and eat food while LOML continues getting his AA, apply for grad school for planetary science and hopefully continue this getting educated business.

As far as for the day after graduation, I intend to sleep until the sun is well into the sky and then, until I find a job, I will clean house, sort the bajillion Magic cards that I suspect are breeding as fast as the cockroaches, play Runescape, get better at LoL and tennis, and...

I suspect I will not run out of things to do.

8 Realms Beta

I actually got into the 8 Realms beta, done by the makers of Runescape, which is the first time I've been in the beta of any game, so it is a new experience. Also, this is my first time playing a "social strategy" game. Sadly, I've only taken one picture of the in-game image, but here it is:

This is my first settlement in the Ancient Age. It looks quite different now (for one I'm in the Classical Age), but I can't take any more pictures on account of the server being currently crashed. It's happened quite a few times in the past few days and I've been reporting several bugs, but I guess that's why it's a beta. I don't get the "social" part of the game yet but I guess I'll figure it out sooner or later.

It's a good game to have open while working on homework or take-home finals or studying (like I've been) as it's not too demanding, for the most part. I've been a lovely strategist in that, when my armies get massive enough to cause a negative gold drain, I send them off to conquer some patch of resource and hope fewer of them return. Good times.

This game is a bit slow for my tastes, but if you play Farmville you might find this right up your alley.

Ding Dong...

...the bastard known as Osama Bin Laden is dead.

In case you've been living under a rock and didn't know already.

I don't feel particularly elated, or relieved, or...anything, really. The effwad got what he had coming. So sometimes there is justice in this world.

This, however, won't deter the rise of stupid, cruel people who consider human lives to be a numbers game and who will do awful things in the name of religion.

But it's good to know the good guys can win.

The Line, a Poem

The Line

So once upon a time I went and drew my line in the sand;

Then I took a shovel, and dug, and dug, till I hit solid stone;

Then I took a pick, and beat away with my own bare hands,

Until I had entrenched that line, as mine—as mine alone.

So I set forth to meet the rising sun, and to conquer the waning moon,

For though the wind whisper in my veins, the fog chill me to the bone—

Although the monsters that I see leave souls and bodies strewn—

I shan’t fear, I shan’t take fright, for that line is mine—alone.

They told me I should heed them, they said I will need them,

And they would pretend my heart, my mind, my soul was theirs to own—

I gazed upon them, surprised, the lies, the evils beyond my ken—

I pointed them to face that deep-cut line, the line—is mine—alone.

They think they have the right to judge—but condemnation won’t be mine,

They have no power over me, or this freedom that I’ve known;

They would suffocate my soul, and bind me to a devil’s shrine—

They can’t take what I don’t give,

                                                and this line

                                                            is mine

                                                                        alone.

4.26.11 12:17am

Teemo...Now with 200% More Cuteness!

Teemo. Now with 700% more global taunt.

Who's an ittle bunny rabbit? You are!

Since LOML plays Teemo, I abetted him in his decision to purchase this skin. When we set to play our first game after purchase, the following conversation ensued.

Bunny rabbits for the win.

Announcing: LoL Resources Page

Just a quick note to inform you: I've added a new page. Right now there's only two things on it: the League of Legends Quickbuild Template I mentioned in a previous post has been uploaded as a PDF to Google Docs, so you should be able to view it anytime for your LoLling needs.

Second, LOML helped me compose a list of the champions by category, as I wanted a way to figure which champion I should grab to balance the team at selection screen.

So click on that page and check it out!

P.S. I promise to add more details and words to that page soon, but I'm sort of falling asleep on the keyadfskj;lllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllboard here.

On, Well, My Life...

So, if you haven't picked up on it, I'm not getting a lot of blogging done these days. This remaining month before the university I'm attending gives me a piece of paper with my name (and some other stuff on it) is going to be a doozy (or fricking insane). I'm expecting to do:

1. At least 3 papers
2. 4 presentations
3. Make a map of Green Sands beach area (this has been eating up my Saturdays like some ungodly monster from a cheap horror flick)

All this on top of the regular school and work schedule I have. Plus, LOML has been having serious tooth issues but since he needs to see an oral surgeon to extract it and that's expensive, we've been waiting for his MedQuest to process, and that is being a obstructionist bitch in its own right. But it's mildly hard for me to do, well, anything when he's in pain. He just got his antibiotics/vicoden prescription renewed so hopefully that'll last until he can get the tooth extracted.

Other than that, I haven't had much time to play. I do my farming route on Runescape while I have coffee in the morning, and I'm really liking the new Livid Farm, but I need to make runes for it, so I've dusted off my pouches and do that in the minutes when I'm not doing everything else.

LoL I've been doing even less of; I usually get a Co-op Vs. AI game in every few days, but since I'm not on as much as I like I feel like I'm losing whatever skill I had playing the game.

Well, that's my life. In case you were wondering why I haven't been posting.

Some Tsunami Videos

I realize this is coming long after most people have lost interest seen these videos already, but here are some cool (and scary) videos from the tsunami that happened March 11:



So I understand why this guy is there...but honestly...why is he there?



I don't think that house was in the bay originally...



Contrary to opinion, water does travel upriver...



Glad I'm not on that street...



Bad day for a boat ride...

Lack of Posts...

I apologize for my lack of posts lately. With school, work, and preparing for Spring Break (LOML and I are going to California), there is a good chance of no new posts for awhile.

Take care, all!

A Side Effect of Losing Weight

This past January when I went to the school's health center for my supply of ovulation-stopping pills, I weighed in at 171 pounds.

Now, that is precisely about 36 pounds more than when I arrived here in Hawaii in 2008. I saw a future of getting steadily fatter until I was horribly spherical in shape. Last January, all of my pants at the time had the unfortunate mishap to rip out the ass all within 5 weeks of each other. I did not want to go through that again. I had to buy all new pants, and I've mentioned how I hate clothes shopping.

Scary Thoughts.

I had already been eating my fruits and veggies like the doc recommended, and I decided to actually use the Student Life center I've been paying $75 per semester for, and starting using the gym there. I also badgered Roommate into taking walks with me on Saturdays.

Then I got sick, and found that food was this horrible, icky substance that made me want to throw up and/or have diarrhea.

A few days ago when I hopped on the scales at a friend's place (since I don't own one), I had dropped down to 159 pounds.

So far I'm feeling good about the weight loss, but I'm discovering that losing weight has some rather unfortunate side effects.

Namely, my pants are getting loose and trying to slip down my ass at random times. When I chose these pants a few months ago, I chose them to feel comfortable and to not be circulation-cutting tight.

Now I gotta keep pulling the bloody buggers up so my underwear doesn't show. I suppose I could get a belt, but right now my laziness is outweighing my modesty concerns.

Also, Scary Thoughts

Now I'm considering the consequences of losing another 10-20 pounds. At least a belt should be cheaper than a new set of pants, right?