Dungeoneering Pure

Apparently I don't have enough to do. I know this to be incorrect, but considering what I'll randomly do...

This is Elf Sphinx, my new Runescape character. No, I'm not going to stop playing Rebel Dragon.

Elf Sphinx exists because I want to see what a Dungeoneering pure would look like...a character who spends the entire time of its Runescape existence inside the dungeons of Daemonheim. So far, the bosses have been Astea Frostweb (level 3) with the exception of this thing:

At my pitiful combat level of 3, there didn't seem to be enough heim crabs in the world for me to kill this thing, although it came close.

At the end of the night, I had reached complexity 3, doing three complete dungeons while skipping out on the behemoth, with the following stats:

All in all, not bad for a first night.

Daddy's Shirt

Daddy’s Shirt

Little girl wrapped up in Daddy’s shirt,
Waiting for Daddy to come home.

Today is your birthday, Dad, and I really wish you were here;
You broke my heart when you left, dear Dad; I haven’t got any more tears.
I lie, I lie, but they’re all inside, all stoppered up in a fractured bottle;
I have some words, but they are scarred, all shattered and twisted and mottled.


Little girl wrapped up in Daddy’s shirt,
Wondering when Daddy’s coming home.

The world died the day you did, the rocks shattered under my silent screams;
I think of you under bright-sun days, I meet with you in my dreams,
Always happy, so happy, and you can’t understand why I’m sad;
With you gone, the world is worse, and some days, it’s just plain bad.

Little girl wrapped up in Daddy’s shirt,
Wondering if Daddy’s coming home.

I’m going forward ‘cause I can’t go back; I go, for I cannot stay;
But on days like today, when you should be here, is when the saltwaters come out to play.
I gotta believe that you’re alive somewhere, and that you’re still here with me;
It hurts too much, for you to be gone, my heart stranded on the saltwater sea.

Little girl in Daddy’s shirt,
Crying for Daddy.

4:16pm 11-3-07 © Jamie S.

Dear Dad

Dear Dad,

I nearly forgot your birthday.

I might have forgotten it if Sister hadn't texted me asking what day it was--today or tomorrow? It's November 3rd, I told her.

You would be 52 years old today...exactly twice my age. I would be calling you to wish you Happy Birthday, and tease you about how ancient you were getting. Which would remind me how old I am getting. Time has a way of shuffling on, doesn't it? I'm thoroughly engaged in a life of perpetual studenthood and you...what would you being doing? Would the fertilizer business have taken off? Would the vending machine business have expanded to the point where you didn't have to do yard service and hauling (I know those were getting harder for you as you got older)?

It's hard to know.

How different would life be if you were still here? Would Mom be retaining some semblance of sanity? Would you still live in that place we built, that place we built as a family, with our hands? Would you even still be with Mom? All I can say is that you were a stronger person than I would have been, staying with someone who wouldn't let you make her happy for years and years. Would Grandpa and Grandma seem as old as they do now? What would you think of your first grandchild, Brother's son? What would you think of LOML? Would you two get along as fantastically as I think you would?

If there was anything I could have done to make you stay, I would have. I'm sure if your own pain wasn't so great you might have stayed longer, given tomorrow another go.

The nightmares seared on the underside of my eyelids don't return as much as they used to, and I don't see you in my dreams so much anymore, with you not understanding why I'm so sad when I see you, or trying to convince me that the whole thing isn't real and you're just a phone call away.

You want to know the ironic thing? For years I struggled with depression. I'm sure you didn't know. I took pains to not let anyone else know.  It was five years. Five years of feeling the world collapse in on me and pushing the walls back. Finding a reason for tomorrow.

Then those feelings started fading. It felt as though I was coming out of a cave. Tomorrow was worth living for, but today is also.

Three months later, you succumbed to the depression and to the physical sickness the doctors couldn't name, and you shuffled off this mortal coil.

I don't blame you for what happened. I don't blame God for what you did. I might blame Mom a little, frankly. I'm sure it wasn't easy for you, either. Maybe there's no one to blame, and what happened, happened, and that's the way of things.

Just want you to know I love and miss you and I plan to see you again someday.

Love,
Jamie

Runescape Behind the Scenes November

Well, this appears to be a promising month for Runescape, on several levels.

The Warped Dungeoneering floors are being released. I won't be able to use this update when they come out due to them starting at 95 Dungeoneering, but it's nice to see a skill being finished. There are eight new challenge rooms being released that will be available on all floors, and I'm more excited about those. The rest of the tier-11 equipment is also being released, and some of the new rewards (scroll of cleansing, anyone?) look like they could be useful.

The Herblore Habitat I'm not so sure about. Is it a minigame, or Distraction and Diversion? I like the promise of a new Construction area, but as a rule I don't do minigames unless I need something out of them. I hope it proves worthwhile, and isn't just another place in RS  that is forgotten after the first month.

Another master quest! I hope any combat isn't mind-numbingly difficult, like Nomad, because Nomad took me forever (like 6 months) to finally beat. I like a good epic boss fight but I prefer to not fail twenty times before beating it. It will be interesting to see how they tie the desert quests to Ape Atoll. I hope it doesn't come off as a cop-out just to finish up the Monkey Madness series because that storyline has the potential to be truly epic. IMHO.

Bank Op and Equip Screen Update (BOAESU) looks like it will be a possibly gameplay-changing update--being able to equip weapons or fill pouches while having your bank tab open will make certain things, such as Runecrafting, faster because there will be less clicks. Also, eating food and drinking potions while having your bank tab open? Someone's going to complain about eating a pumpkin or half wine, guaranteed, but it also seems like a promising aspect.

Looks to be an exciting month!

Weekends, Or, When the World Starts Turning

I've discovered a curious side effect of leading a life full of the responsibility of work and school and relationships.

I go through the entire week of class-to-class and class-to-work and work-to-school routine and it's all very Tab A into Slot B, really. I get some variations in what I do in the times around Tab-A-into-Slot-B but inevitably I go to bed and then start Tabbing A into Slot B all over again.

But around 3pm on Friday afternoon, as I walk to the most distant school parking lot where I park my car and meet up with Roommate, there's this little feeling. And sometimes I don't even notice it.

We make the ten minute drive home and I hurriedly start packing stuff into my backpack--dice,  Magic deck, playmat, Monster, water bottle. We then all pile in LOML's car and head away to the gaming hall.

And there's the feeling.

And then I realize: it's like the world has started turning.

Sunday night I'll hear the squeaking of the world slowly winding down to a standstill and it'll be back to Tab-A-into-Slot-B again, as I run around doing homework and other things that must be got into line for the tabbing of A into slot B. But until then, the world is full of magic. And evil vampire lords. And death-defying acts of heroism.

 And dragons.

Antarctica

Something I wrote for my geography class. I got 10 out of 10 possible points for it.

Antarctica, A Tale

Let me tell you a tale of a world, a world that’s carved in ice,
I will tell you the fate, this fate we hold, and of this future’s price;
I speak to you of Antarctica, the land of the southern sea,
The place it was, and the place it is, and the place it might yet be.

So about one upteen bajillion years ago (or forty mil, if you prefer)
Everywhere was all one great big place we call Gondwana land,
Back then it was all tropical and a bit balmy ‘round the gills,
Until Everywhere left it there, this place the name “Antarctica” commands.

Now, here, in the present day, it’s the coldest place on Earth;
A daytime temp to freeze your blood, a nighttime temp to freeze your soul;
The whistling of the frozen plains, the bubbling of Erebus’ pool,
The click and clatter of ice-chilled matter as you approach the Southern pole.

It took us awhile to find this place, like till 1820 A.D. or so,
But what with it being a land a mite inhospitable, a land of frozen chill,
People didn’t want to come and stay until after World War 2,
When suddenly it appeared to be the hotspot of scientific thrill.

But we’ve gone and left our mark on this place; that’s what people do,
With trash lying in gulches and gullies and dumped out on the shore,
“More than just footprints [are] left and more than photos have been taken”
And if we don’t take care what we leave there will taint the future evermore.

The future can be starry bright but it’s haunted by our past,
It’s a stunning brand new day, but there is the taint that is mankind,
Us, the creature that creates and can destroy,
Our hopes and dreams, our future schemes, best done with eyes not blind.

10:37 pm, 10/13/10

Mimic My Infection

Roommate was kind enough to put together an Infect deck for me to play in Friday's Standard Magic tournament. Here is what the decklist turned out to be after I borrowed a Hand of the Praetors and two Skithiryx from another player:

Creatures:
4 Blight Mamba
4 Hand of the Praetors
4 Ichor Rats
4 Plague Stinger
4 Putrefax
2 Skithiryx

Other Spells
4 Doom Blade
4 Mimic Vat
3 Untamed Might
4 Vines of the Vastwood

Land
13 Forest
10 Swamp

Sideboard
3 Acidic Slime
2 Mold Shambler
3 Naturalize
3 Pelakka Wurm
2 Windstorm
2 Wurmcoil Engine


Round 1 I was paired against a black/red deck that heavily utilized Act of Treason, Mark of Mutiny, and Fling, as well as several sac outlets. I lost Game 1 due to my infect creatures being stolen, used to attack me, and then chucked at my face. Game 2 I was able to put Putrefax on Mimic Vat and relentlessly whale on him. Game 3 was the same with Putrefax-onna-stick with the variation that he got Sarkhan the Mad out and staved off the end for a few turns by sacrificing his small creatures to get dragon tokens to block with.


Round 2 was against a Darksteel Lich deck. I got manascrewed on game 1 with two Forests, but that didn't stop me from doing a Turn 3 Vines of the Vastwood pumped Blight Mamba, doing five poison counters. If I had another Vines at that time the game would have been over by turn 4. I didn't however, but I eventually did draw more land for the eventually winning of. Game 2 the first two creatures (Blight Mamba and Plague Stinger) got Mana leaked, but I eventually played more creatures than he had  had counterspells and Vines saved my creatures long enough to rabble in for the win.

Round 3 was against blue-white-black control. Game 1 I kept a hand with no early creatures and ended up paying dearly for it, getting pummeled to death by a Grave Titan. Game 2 I drew 3 Swamps, 1 Plague Stinger, 1 Hand of the Praetor, 1 Skithiryx, and 1 Mimic Vat. I got Hand of the Praetor on the Mimic Vat and won by casting Blight Mamba with a Hand token in play. Game 3 all my early creatures were manaleaked and I didn't draw a Mimic Vat.  Got beat to death by Baneslayer and Grave Titan.

Round 4 was against another infect deck, which played with Duress, Sword of Vengeance, Grasp of Darkness, Tumble Magnet, and Ichorclaw Myr, and did not have Putrefax or Skithiryx.I won both both games.


The sideboard definitely needs some work. I'm going to try putting in some Memoricides, Marsh Casualities, and Tectonic Edges. I'll let you know how it pans out.