That being said, I am now the owner of a pair of fishnet stockings and all I can say is, why do they have to make my legs look like pineapples when I take them off? T_T
Tuesday, 1 December 2009
Something Fishy
MrMan5.5 and I have discussed fishnet stockings a few times recently, and I believe they are for prostitutes (although I bet in saying this, one of my friends is going to pop out of the woodwork and tell me how they love to wear fishnet stockings because they're so airy or something). Not to mention the fact that if you want to rob a bank and hide your identify, they'll make you look like a dork if you wear them on your head. I have rarely seen anyone wear fishnet stockings in public, and the only person I know who has worn some had to wear them for a cabaret. So I guess maybe I should adjust my opinion. Fishnet stockings are for prostitutes and cabaret dancers. Or if you're Shikamaru and you wear it as a shirt.
Wednesday, 18 November 2009
I Wear T-Shirts
But she wears short skirts, I wear t-shirts
She's cheer captain and I'm on the bleachers
Dreaming bout the day when you'll wake up and find
That what you're lookin for has been here the whole time
-You Belong With Me, Taylor Swift
I bumped into a high school friend the other day, who reminded me that we're due for our 10 year reunion in 4 years (really scary, now that I think about it, considering I feel like I still haven't really done anything with my life). We started talking about the people we went to high school with, and I was reminded of my first high school crush.
I asked him out in year 11, and it was one of the hardest things for me to do. Though I was rejected, one thing I'll always remember about him was how I asked if he could tell me that he already had a girlfriend or he was gay to make me feel better, and he told me he was gay. To be honest, it didn't make me feel all that much better at the time, but right now I think it was really nice of him.
The reason why I liked him so much was because we had so much in common. Of all the people in high school, I'd say he and his best friend would have been the biggest geeks I had ever met at the time (then I decided to do Software Engineering at uni, and the people I've met since have completely blown them out of the water). Although I think he had a bit of a cruel streak, he was funny, nice and a geek, what more could you want from a guy? The crushing part was when I found out later in the year that he had datedsome bitch a slut Nicole Lemonhead (that wasn't her actual name, but that's what people called her. I didn't get it at the time, but in retrospect, I can see that she was so sour). I hated her, we were complete opposites and I can't remember what it was, but there was some class where she asked me for an answer to something, and I pretended I didn't know it, and from that point onwards, she called me dumb (although she changed schools in year 9, so it wasn't a long lasting thing) despite the fact that her clique would call my clique "squares" since we were the typical Asian students. I think if anything, they would have been the trailer trash, Britney-esque clique, which might seem cruel, but from what I've heard about how most of them ended up, not so far from the truth. =/ (*meow* claws come out? No, that's about as mean as I'm going to be, it has been almost 10 years since I've seen her. Besides, it's not nice to fight someone who isn't going to fight back.)
OK, blast from the past over, the bit I never understood was why he dated her and not me considering the fact that Nicole and I are so different, and if we're going to play the "Similiarities Game", I think I would have won by a landslide. Then of course, I heard the Taylor Swift song at work, and I thought to myself, "What guy wouldn't choose a short skirt-wearing, pom-pom-shaking, hot chick riding up and down on him over a T-shirt wearing, geeky girl who wants to co-ordinate a reaver drop with him?"
One big difference between being friends with someone and being in a relationship with them is the physical side of things. There are exceptions (ie. FWBs), but in most cases, there are things you just don't do with friends that you would only do with someone you're in a relationship. Personally, I think kissing someone you're just friends with is a bit weird, but that seems to be really common in Western cultures. (Although there was this one time I went out with some WoW people, and one of them offered me a beer. I drank it and was feeling weird, so I said I wanted to go and they said they were leaving, too so we all left and I ended up kissing one of them goodbye, but Charmleon dragged me away, so I'm glad I didn't do anything else! =/ So maybe it's something that's common in beer drinking cultures?) So if you really had to choose between the two, you could have the best of both worlds and date the hot one and be friends with the one who likes the same things you do.
Again, I'm going to bring up that thing Julian said to me ages ago, about friends being people that you have things in common with, and your partner being someone that complements you. So while I did have so much in common with that guy, I don't think that meant we would work well together in a relationship, just as friends (although I haven't talked to him since my 21st (my actual 21st, not my 22nd and 2/3), so I guess not) and maybe Nicole Lemonhead had somequality characteristic that made her better suited to him (probably the fact that she would fit a cheerleader outfit better than I can).
Still, I'm happy in the relationship I'm in now, and I think I have the best of both worlds, (someone I'm both physically and mentally attracted to, though I have yet to see MrMan5.5 in a cheerleader outfit) so it all worked out well in the end.
T-shirts for life!
She's cheer captain and I'm on the bleachers
Dreaming bout the day when you'll wake up and find
That what you're lookin for has been here the whole time
-You Belong With Me, Taylor Swift
I bumped into a high school friend the other day, who reminded me that we're due for our 10 year reunion in 4 years (really scary, now that I think about it, considering I feel like I still haven't really done anything with my life). We started talking about the people we went to high school with, and I was reminded of my first high school crush.
I asked him out in year 11, and it was one of the hardest things for me to do. Though I was rejected, one thing I'll always remember about him was how I asked if he could tell me that he already had a girlfriend or he was gay to make me feel better, and he told me he was gay. To be honest, it didn't make me feel all that much better at the time, but right now I think it was really nice of him.
The reason why I liked him so much was because we had so much in common. Of all the people in high school, I'd say he and his best friend would have been the biggest geeks I had ever met at the time (then I decided to do Software Engineering at uni, and the people I've met since have completely blown them out of the water). Although I think he had a bit of a cruel streak, he was funny, nice and a geek, what more could you want from a guy? The crushing part was when I found out later in the year that he had dated
OK, blast from the past over, the bit I never understood was why he dated her and not me considering the fact that Nicole and I are so different, and if we're going to play the "Similiarities Game", I think I would have won by a landslide. Then of course, I heard the Taylor Swift song at work, and I thought to myself, "What guy wouldn't choose a short skirt-wearing, pom-pom-shaking, hot chick riding up and down on him over a T-shirt wearing, geeky girl who wants to co-ordinate a reaver drop with him?"
One big difference between being friends with someone and being in a relationship with them is the physical side of things. There are exceptions (ie. FWBs), but in most cases, there are things you just don't do with friends that you would only do with someone you're in a relationship. Personally, I think kissing someone you're just friends with is a bit weird, but that seems to be really common in Western cultures. (Although there was this one time I went out with some WoW people, and one of them offered me a beer. I drank it and was feeling weird, so I said I wanted to go and they said they were leaving, too so we all left and I ended up kissing one of them goodbye, but Charmleon dragged me away, so I'm glad I didn't do anything else! =/ So maybe it's something that's common in beer drinking cultures?) So if you really had to choose between the two, you could have the best of both worlds and date the hot one and be friends with the one who likes the same things you do.
Again, I'm going to bring up that thing Julian said to me ages ago, about friends being people that you have things in common with, and your partner being someone that complements you. So while I did have so much in common with that guy, I don't think that meant we would work well together in a relationship, just as friends (although I haven't talked to him since my 21st (my actual 21st, not my 22nd and 2/3), so I guess not) and maybe Nicole Lemonhead had some
Still, I'm happy in the relationship I'm in now, and I think I have the best of both worlds, (someone I'm both physically and mentally attracted to, though I have yet to see MrMan5.5 in a cheerleader outfit) so it all worked out well in the end.
T-shirts for life!
Monday, 9 November 2009
If We Ever Get Married....
Short blog today, exam tomorrow. T_T I always wondered why it was a big deal to invite someone you're dating to a wedding. Apparently it's a stage you get to in a relationship, and inviting someone to a wedding has certain implications about the seriousness of the relationship. I guess if it's a family wedding, then there is the whole meeting the parents, siblings and entire extended family (which is never a good thing - hi cousins Andrew and Simon!), but what if it's one of your friends who is getting married? That shouldn't really matter, right, because you're just bringing along a date so that if you get stuck at the table with your friend's grandmother who doesn't speak English very well, you know you're not going to be sandwiched on the other side by your friend's aunt from Romania who thinks it's appropriate to yell at people and give them the evil eye. You're also gauranteed to have someone you find interesting to talk to.
That was what I thought until i went to Julian's wedding, which MrMan5.5 was also invited to. It was a good wedding (if you ignore the random Asian tourists that kinda crashed it T_T), and I'm glad MrMan5.5 was there, but it did change something in our relationship. After the wedding, we started joking and saying things like, "If we ever get married, we have to have ________ at our wedding." A few of the things are things we thought were awesome at Julian's wedding, but there are other things that have popped up that are just random things.
I don't think it's a bad thing, I actually like that we're comfortable enough with each other to be able to make jokes like that. We're not getting engaged or anything, but I can kinda see now how that could have a bad effect on a relationship if one person thinks the relationship is more serious than the other does.
That was what I thought until i went to Julian's wedding, which MrMan5.5 was also invited to. It was a good wedding (if you ignore the random Asian tourists that kinda crashed it T_T), and I'm glad MrMan5.5 was there, but it did change something in our relationship. After the wedding, we started joking and saying things like, "If we ever get married, we have to have ________ at our wedding." A few of the things are things we thought were awesome at Julian's wedding, but there are other things that have popped up that are just random things.
I don't think it's a bad thing, I actually like that we're comfortable enough with each other to be able to make jokes like that. We're not getting engaged or anything, but I can kinda see now how that could have a bad effect on a relationship if one person thinks the relationship is more serious than the other does.
Saturday, 31 October 2009
Gaming Gender Wars, Revisited
Reading about the whole Junglist/Good Game/Hex controversy (cliff notes: Good Game is a gaming show on the ABC, which was hosted by Junglist and Bajo - 2 guys. Junglist was cut from the show, and he claims the reason was because they wanted a girl (Hex) on the show for "mass appeal", but ABC claims it's because Junglist wasn't performing well behind the scenes. Most fans think Junglist is the most credible presenter on the show, and are boycotting), and one of the comments on this article, was:
Some of the comments said that it shouldn't matter what gender the presenter is, it's their content that matters, but I don't realy think that's true. I think one of the weird inconsistencies in gaming stereotypes is that if you imagine a male gamer, you'll probably conjure up the image of a skinny pale guy, or a fat pimply guy, who probably speaks with sentences where the average syllable count per word is four or higher. So gamer guys are typically seen as nerds/geeks, with all the social inabilities that go with it. Why then, do we seem to have the female gamer stereotype being a hot, typically Asian, girl, who either spends all her time "playing" Imagine Catz, or follows her boyfriend around as a healbot in an MMO? Occasionally you'll get one that is a pro FPS gamer, but MMO and simulation games seem to be the female gamer's forte. I remember someone telling me about what happened to a girl from SEE at
a party. Some guy decided to go around guessing what games various
people played, and when he got to her he said, "The Sims!". Said girl does happen to be a gamer, though I haven't had the chance to play with her very often. One of my fondest memories of her was in a game of DotA where she had Furion. She sprouted her teammate QC (surrounded her with trees so she couldn't escape for a few seconds), and left her to get killed by us. It's a good strategy to avoid dying!
Anyway, that's why I think regardless of what people say, even if Hex managed to win the WCG title for every single game (I'm pretty sure there isn't an Imagine Catz/Dogz category), people would still believe in the back of their heads that Hex spends her nights hoping the epic healing trinket she has been trying to get for months will finally drop and if that pally tries to outbid her, she'll offer to send him pics of her boobs if he doesn't bid her up.
There doesn't seem to be as much of a stereotype for male gamer games. Well, except lack of pink. I think that if a guy admits to playing an overly pink game, there will be a few raised eyebrows (<3 Atticus). And ponies. Can't have ponies. Unless they're dwarven ponies. For dwarves. That you don't get to comb.
The thing is, they're stereotypes. Real people aren't necessarily like that. T_T
Then there are all the people going on about equality. They seem to think that the fact that Junglist got fired for a woman is acceptable, because that happens to women all the time in the workforce (being fired/looked over for promotion for men). Which is stupid, how is that equal at all? Though I'm getting off-topic, the comment that made me want to write out this blog post even though I need to be awake in 6 hours for work is this one:
[22:15] <+Fried_Tofu> monkeyfodder is a gender neutral nick, right?
[22:15] <%Rangers> yeah
[22:15] <+Fried_Tofu> hmmm
[22:17] <+Fried_Tofu> why do i get random people adding me on hon? T_T
[22:17] <%Rangers> they can sense ur a girl
[22:18] <+Fried_Tofu> -_-
[22:18] <%Rangers> its the internet
So the first thing I have to work on is using less emoticons. I remember a lot of people thinking Saiyumi was a girl because he used emoticons a lot in chat. It's just like an automatic reflex for me now though. T_T I think emoticons make it easier for the other person to know how to respond. For instance:
My grandmother died.
Could be good or bad unless you had prior knowledge of whether I liked my grandmother or not.
My grandmother died. :(
Indicates that this is a sad thing for me. My grandmother probably taught me how to make won tons, and stayed up late watching the Super Mario Bros. Super Show with me when I was sick. She would always tell me off for kicking the couch as it's disrespectful to our ancestors (I never found out if this is actually true or if it was something that she made up just to stop me from kicking the couch all the time), and let me play with the radio in her bedhead.
My grandmother died! :D
Indicates that I'm an ungrateful bitch who should be happy that my grandmother survived the war and immigration to another country so that she could meet my grandfather, and have my dad, who would then meet my mum and eventually have me. Or that I didn't like my grandmother. (Note: my grandmother was never in a war, as far as I know, but I really liked my grandmother.)
Anyway, ACTION ITEM 1: USE LESS EMOTICONS!
I think my next big problem is listening to people. Guys never do that, right? I was doing a daily group quest with this guy, and we started talking about stuff. He was telling me about his life (though I don't know how much to believe, I gave Julian a summary and he called bullshit), and somehow he ended up offering to give me gold and helping me run instances (he's stupidly geared compared to my normal TOC/quest blues crappy gearedness. We ran a heroic together, and it was one in which you get blocked out of the fight if you don't run in when the boss engages, which happened to me and I was the healer, yet they still managed to kill the boss. T_T) and generally making me feel like a WoW whore (although in my defense, I ended up selling him my titansteel CD, so it wasn't as though I was getting money for nothing. I don't even know why he was offering me money anyway, I have enough gold to buy all the stuff I need, and I don't even need anything right now except a gem and a few enchants! Though if MrMan5.5 doesn't want to borrow gold to buy his epic flying mount, maybe I'll save up for that 3-seater mammoth mount. Mammoth mounts make me look less small, which is always important! So my original point for this part is that guys don't listen to people talk about their lives, so if it happens again, I should swiftly change the topic to sport/cars/boobs, and I should be all good, right?
ACTION ITEM 2: STUDY UP ON SPORTS/CARS/BOOBS
I need to be more manly and aggressive. I prefer playing support heroes in HoN/DotA, and even when I random a carry hero/tank, I always prefer to play them in a supportive way. I think that is partly due to the influence of Mooicules when I first started playing DotA. Soulcry commented once that he seemed to always get Mekansm (Astrolabe in HoN), regardless of what hero he was. I guess I must have stored that little tip away somewhere, because I was a bit like that for a while. I thought it was essential to have a HP regen item at all times, and that seemed like a good one as it also gave you a slight stat boost and you could heal yourself if you needed to (although +250 HP really isn't much, now that I think about it). Played a few games of HoN with Redact, and watching him play Blood Seeker/Hunter, it was completely different to how I play him. I just don't have the confidence to go and hunt people. I prefer to gank in groups, which is a bit overkill when you can 2-shot someone.
ACTION ITEM 3: BE AGGRESSIVE. B. E. AGGRESSIVE
And there is my guide on being a girl who is not a gamer girl!
"BRING BACK Junglist! What¿s does Hex play? Probably hello kitty island adventure. Junglist you be l337 son!"Which I thought was funny as the most pro gamer I know (Atticus) was playing Hello Kitty Island Adventures a while ago. I think he also got SEE people into Hello Kitty Online where you get your own Hello Kitty email address and everything! I have to admit though, that I haven't watched the show, and so I can't really comment on whether Junglist was better than Hex. Could download a few eps now, but I should really sleep since I have work tonight. Anyway, reading the comments made me think about girls gaming. I know I've talked about this topic a lot, but since playing games takes up a large portion of my time (sleeping and watching Antique Bakery are close competition though), and I am female, I'm dragging out the horse (mule? I can't even get my proverbs straight. Dragging out thing to be flogged!) again.
Some of the comments said that it shouldn't matter what gender the presenter is, it's their content that matters, but I don't realy think that's true. I think one of the weird inconsistencies in gaming stereotypes is that if you imagine a male gamer, you'll probably conjure up the image of a skinny pale guy, or a fat pimply guy, who probably speaks with sentences where the average syllable count per word is four or higher. So gamer guys are typically seen as nerds/geeks, with all the social inabilities that go with it. Why then, do we seem to have the female gamer stereotype being a hot, typically Asian, girl, who either spends all her time "playing" Imagine Catz, or follows her boyfriend around as a healbot in an MMO? Occasionally you'll get one that is a pro FPS gamer, but MMO and simulation games seem to be the female gamer's forte. I remember someone telling me about what happened to a girl from SEE at
a party. Some guy decided to go around guessing what games various
people played, and when he got to her he said, "The Sims!". Said girl does happen to be a gamer, though I haven't had the chance to play with her very often. One of my fondest memories of her was in a game of DotA where she had Furion. She sprouted her teammate QC (surrounded her with trees so she couldn't escape for a few seconds), and left her to get killed by us. It's a good strategy to avoid dying!
Anyway, that's why I think regardless of what people say, even if Hex managed to win the WCG title for every single game (I'm pretty sure there isn't an Imagine Catz/Dogz category), people would still believe in the back of their heads that Hex spends her nights hoping the epic healing trinket she has been trying to get for months will finally drop and if that pally tries to outbid her, she'll offer to send him pics of her boobs if he doesn't bid her up.
There doesn't seem to be as much of a stereotype for male gamer games. Well, except lack of pink. I think that if a guy admits to playing an overly pink game, there will be a few raised eyebrows (<3 Atticus). And ponies. Can't have ponies. Unless they're dwarven ponies. For dwarves. That you don't get to comb.
The thing is, they're stereotypes. Real people aren't necessarily like that. T_T
Then there are all the people going on about equality. They seem to think that the fact that Junglist got fired for a woman is acceptable, because that happens to women all the time in the workforce (being fired/looked over for promotion for men). Which is stupid, how is that equal at all? Though I'm getting off-topic, the comment that made me want to write out this blog post even though I need to be awake in 6 hours for work is this one:
'Hey, "girl gamers" as you guys call yourself. Stop calling yourselves that. Like your sex makes you any different with regards to gaming. I really am sick of you people announcing yourselves as girl gamers. It's almost as pretentious as calling yourself a hardcore gamer.'I am guilty of that, and I feel bad about it. I think from now on, I'm going to try to be less "girly" in games (which is kinda funny, because of all that effort I put into trying to be more girly). I don't know if it's just me, but nobody else seemed to have mentioned it, but I get all these people I don't know adding me in HoN. I don't add them back, because for me, the point of a friends list is to make it easier for you to play games with your friends, and if I started adding randoms, then it's kinda like just playing pubs, so that defeats the purpose. Most of them are from games that I've played in, and at first I thought maybe it was because they thought I could host (which doesn't really apply in HoN, because games are hosted on their servers, so anyone can create games), but they have invited me to join games they have created, so they must know about that.
[22:15] <+Fried_Tofu> monkeyfodder is a gender neutral nick, right?
[22:15] <%Rangers> yeah
[22:15] <+Fried_Tofu> hmmm
[22:17] <+Fried_Tofu> why do i get random people adding me on hon? T_T
[22:17] <%Rangers> they can sense ur a girl
[22:18] <+Fried_Tofu> -_-
[22:18] <%Rangers> its the internet
So the first thing I have to work on is using less emoticons. I remember a lot of people thinking Saiyumi was a girl because he used emoticons a lot in chat. It's just like an automatic reflex for me now though. T_T I think emoticons make it easier for the other person to know how to respond. For instance:
My grandmother died.
Could be good or bad unless you had prior knowledge of whether I liked my grandmother or not.
My grandmother died. :(
Indicates that this is a sad thing for me. My grandmother probably taught me how to make won tons, and stayed up late watching the Super Mario Bros. Super Show with me when I was sick. She would always tell me off for kicking the couch as it's disrespectful to our ancestors (I never found out if this is actually true or if it was something that she made up just to stop me from kicking the couch all the time), and let me play with the radio in her bedhead.
My grandmother died! :D
Indicates that I'm an ungrateful bitch who should be happy that my grandmother survived the war and immigration to another country so that she could meet my grandfather, and have my dad, who would then meet my mum and eventually have me. Or that I didn't like my grandmother. (Note: my grandmother was never in a war, as far as I know, but I really liked my grandmother.)
Anyway, ACTION ITEM 1: USE LESS EMOTICONS!
I think my next big problem is listening to people. Guys never do that, right? I was doing a daily group quest with this guy, and we started talking about stuff. He was telling me about his life (though I don't know how much to believe, I gave Julian a summary and he called bullshit), and somehow he ended up offering to give me gold and helping me run instances (he's stupidly geared compared to my normal TOC/quest blues crappy gearedness. We ran a heroic together, and it was one in which you get blocked out of the fight if you don't run in when the boss engages, which happened to me and I was the healer, yet they still managed to kill the boss. T_T) and generally making me feel like a WoW whore (although in my defense, I ended up selling him my titansteel CD, so it wasn't as though I was getting money for nothing. I don't even know why he was offering me money anyway, I have enough gold to buy all the stuff I need, and I don't even need anything right now except a gem and a few enchants! Though if MrMan5.5 doesn't want to borrow gold to buy his epic flying mount, maybe I'll save up for that 3-seater mammoth mount. Mammoth mounts make me look less small, which is always important! So my original point for this part is that guys don't listen to people talk about their lives, so if it happens again, I should swiftly change the topic to sport/cars/boobs, and I should be all good, right?
ACTION ITEM 2: STUDY UP ON SPORTS/CARS/BOOBS
I need to be more manly and aggressive. I prefer playing support heroes in HoN/DotA, and even when I random a carry hero/tank, I always prefer to play them in a supportive way. I think that is partly due to the influence of Mooicules when I first started playing DotA. Soulcry commented once that he seemed to always get Mekansm (Astrolabe in HoN), regardless of what hero he was. I guess I must have stored that little tip away somewhere, because I was a bit like that for a while. I thought it was essential to have a HP regen item at all times, and that seemed like a good one as it also gave you a slight stat boost and you could heal yourself if you needed to (although +250 HP really isn't much, now that I think about it). Played a few games of HoN with Redact, and watching him play Blood Seeker/Hunter, it was completely different to how I play him. I just don't have the confidence to go and hunt people. I prefer to gank in groups, which is a bit overkill when you can 2-shot someone.
ACTION ITEM 3: BE AGGRESSIVE. B. E. AGGRESSIVE
And there is my guide on being a girl who is not a gamer girl!
Wednesday, 28 October 2009
20 bucks
Oh, wow. Not related to today's blog post at all, but I found out Lou Albano is dead. For those of you who are wondering why I'm interested in a wrestler, well, he actually played Mario in the Super Mario Bros. Super Show, and did the Mario. RIP. T_T
I should really be doing my assignment, but I thought I'd take a break (although I can't really call it a break, since all I've done so far is run a factor analysis, with a lot more to go). So I was reading World of Chickens by Nick Earls, and a particular part made me wonder about something.
When I was in grade 3, I had the best pasta I've ever had in my life. It was cooked by Caterina Zampogna, who taught 2/3 as well as Italian (which I wasn't allowed to learn, because my school offered Chinese and Italian, and because of my nationality, I was forced to learn Chinese). Being only 7 years old, I didn't think much of it at the time, and I knew I'd be able to have it again the next year at Italian Day. What I didn't know was that the school was going to close down, and I never saw her again. Even if I did manage to track her down, I don't know what I'd say. 'Hi, you taught me for grades 2 and 3, can I have your pasta recipe?' I don't even remember what type of sauce it was (although I do know it was tomato based). I just know that it was the best damn pasta I've had, and nothing I've had since compares.
That's the other problem though, since it was so long ago, the actual memory of the taste is fading away, and all I remember is that it was delicious, so over time, its reputation will grow, and I don't think it'd be possible to live up to expectations, even if I did manage to track her down.
OK, did more work, and have finished the first part, so break time again.
I think the same thing would happen to the Nev guy (though he never features in the book again, as far as I can recall), in that nobody will ever measure up to that one experience he had with the transsexual, and even though he doesn't want to go back, a part of him always will. I had dinner a few hours ago and now I'm hungry again. I wonder if there are any places that sell pasta at this hour.
At uni at the moment, and I have to say, going to the toilet is always an interesting experience. Someone had written on the door:
"I don't know where the penis goes."
To which someone else replied:
"Wrong toilet love, look for the <male toilet> sign."
I don't know why, but I was reminded of a conversation I had with a lesbian friend of mine. She said she thinks penises (penii?) are sad and wrinkly and she doesn't like them. I think given my history of older guys, I can say I've had wrinkly, but I think the whole point is to fix the sad part, right? If it's happy, then it's less wrinkly, although if it gets too happy, then it goes back to being wrinkly again. =( I wonder how wrinkly AG is now. Actually, I don't want to know. *shudder*I heard he's engaged now, or something. I wonder if she thinks about how wrinkly he is. I don't think I ever did, well, not at great length anyway. So I don't know why I can't get over it now. T_T
I feel a bit sad, because there was a lecture I was looking forward to, about serial killers but it turns out it was on yesterday instead of today, so I missed it since I was in class when it was on. =( I also frantically gave a shift away so that I could go, thinking it was today. T_T I've put some thought into maybe doing further study in criminal profiling, but I really don't want to write any more essays at the moment, and the more I think about it, the more I'm starting to convince myself it's a dangerous career pathway. I see enough angry people at work, and I know I'm protected by security, and with a press of a button, my table will be surrounded by security if something does go wrong.
Today was my last day of classes, and if all goes well, it'll be my last day of undergraduate classes!
I should really be doing my assignment, but I thought I'd take a break (although I can't really call it a break, since all I've done so far is run a factor analysis, with a lot more to go). So I was reading World of Chickens by Nick Earls, and a particular part made me wonder about something.
'Nev's older than Dad and ... he's famous for one thing, and it's not tree lopping... There was this big philosophical bind he got into. There was this one time when he paid twenty bucks for a blowie on Brunswick Street and then he found out he'd got it from a trannie.' He stops, raises his eyebrows in a how-about-that kind of way.As I've mentioned before, it seems like the majority of guys wouldn't go there, knowing it was another guy on the other side. What I was thinking though, was now every other time, you'll be thinking about how good it was.
'I don't see the philosophical bind yet.'
'It was a blow job the like of which he'd never had befoer, the eye-roller to end all eye-rollers. So what's a man to do the next time he's got a lazy twenty in his back pocket? ...and the story gets worse, too.... the trannie had lost his front teeth going over his handlebars when he was a kid, and for an extra five bucks, he'd take his plate out.'
When I was in grade 3, I had the best pasta I've ever had in my life. It was cooked by Caterina Zampogna, who taught 2/3 as well as Italian (which I wasn't allowed to learn, because my school offered Chinese and Italian, and because of my nationality, I was forced to learn Chinese). Being only 7 years old, I didn't think much of it at the time, and I knew I'd be able to have it again the next year at Italian Day. What I didn't know was that the school was going to close down, and I never saw her again. Even if I did manage to track her down, I don't know what I'd say. 'Hi, you taught me for grades 2 and 3, can I have your pasta recipe?' I don't even remember what type of sauce it was (although I do know it was tomato based). I just know that it was the best damn pasta I've had, and nothing I've had since compares.
That's the other problem though, since it was so long ago, the actual memory of the taste is fading away, and all I remember is that it was delicious, so over time, its reputation will grow, and I don't think it'd be possible to live up to expectations, even if I did manage to track her down.
OK, did more work, and have finished the first part, so break time again.
I think the same thing would happen to the Nev guy (though he never features in the book again, as far as I can recall), in that nobody will ever measure up to that one experience he had with the transsexual, and even though he doesn't want to go back, a part of him always will. I had dinner a few hours ago and now I'm hungry again. I wonder if there are any places that sell pasta at this hour.
At uni at the moment, and I have to say, going to the toilet is always an interesting experience. Someone had written on the door:
"I don't know where the penis goes."
To which someone else replied:
"Wrong toilet love, look for the <male toilet> sign."
I don't know why, but I was reminded of a conversation I had with a lesbian friend of mine. She said she thinks penises (penii?) are sad and wrinkly and she doesn't like them. I think given my history of older guys, I can say I've had wrinkly, but I think the whole point is to fix the sad part, right? If it's happy, then it's less wrinkly, although if it gets too happy, then it goes back to being wrinkly again. =( I wonder how wrinkly AG is now. Actually, I don't want to know. *shudder*I heard he's engaged now, or something. I wonder if she thinks about how wrinkly he is. I don't think I ever did, well, not at great length anyway. So I don't know why I can't get over it now. T_T
I feel a bit sad, because there was a lecture I was looking forward to, about serial killers but it turns out it was on yesterday instead of today, so I missed it since I was in class when it was on. =( I also frantically gave a shift away so that I could go, thinking it was today. T_T I've put some thought into maybe doing further study in criminal profiling, but I really don't want to write any more essays at the moment, and the more I think about it, the more I'm starting to convince myself it's a dangerous career pathway. I see enough angry people at work, and I know I'm protected by security, and with a press of a button, my table will be surrounded by security if something does go wrong.
Today was my last day of classes, and if all goes well, it'll be my last day of undergraduate classes!
Wednesday, 7 October 2009
Time For Something New
It seems that more and more people are starting to recognise me at work (players, not staff) and I'm starting to get scared that some day I'll be walking around and some person who I took $10k off will recognise me and want to beat me up. While I did go to that one krav maga class with GP, I really don't think that's my preferred course of action, as I don't like to get beat up, and I have very little confidence in my ability to win. T_T So I've decided to take up running, because I'm good at running away. Well, that's not true, which is why I've taken up running, but I'm good at being a coward. I went for my first run with Graham on Tuesday, and ended up with the flu on Wednesday, so maybe it's my body telling me that exercise is bad and that I should stop doing it, but I think getting bashed up is worse.
I have nothing to do during my breaks at work, so I've picked up lots of books to read, but unfortunately, my favourite authors can't write fast enough so I've run out of their books. T_T I started reading some other books from the genres I like, but most of the books I've tried so far have been pretty poor. :( Olek and Goaty have mentioned the Ender saga, so I'm going to try and find those books, but last time I was at the library, I could only find the 4th book in the series. I've started reading another Orson Scott Card book though, and I'm liking it. For some reason, the name sounds really familiar, but looking through his listed works on Wikipedia, I don't recall having read any of his other books, so maybe he's just one of those famous authors that you know you should read at some point, but never get around to.
Mum wanted me to buy an apartment, as it'd be something I could rent out later in life, and I could also live there in the meantime, as rather than paying rent, I can slowly pay off the apartment. We got into an argument because I wanted to use my savings to go to Italy and she wanted me to buy a property. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately), even with my savings and help from mum, the bank won't lend me enough money to buy one, which my mum got really upset at me for. The woman at the bank was really nice though, and she suggested I put my money in a term deposit rather than just let it sit in a bank account, and I thought it'd be a compromise for mum, even though it makes me a sad panda now that I won't be able to go to Italy until at least after April.
Which also means I've lost all motivation to go to work, but seeing as it's my only source of income, and my midnight pizza cravings will never go away, have to keep taking money from old ladies. I guess I could just keep saving and saving until the term deposit matures and go on some mega trip, but I can't do that! So I started thinking about what it is I really like, and to be honest, the obvious things like games, programming and pizza passed me by, and the thing that I ended up with was movies. I love movies, and TV shows, too (although there are many, many, many movies and TV shows that should never have seen the light of day). Sure, I could go on a spending spree and end up with a massive DVD collection, but then mum would yell at me some more (I wanted to get dad a DVD for Christmas, but she got angry at me because she didn't want a DVD, which somehow means he doesn't want one...? I don't understand mum-logic). Anyway, and this is probably influenced by Graham and Dante getting me to watch The Guild, I've been putting some thought into making some sort of online series, or maybe a movie.
I have to admit though, I have no concept, no experience, no actors and well, the list goes on. Still, I think it'd be a fun new project, and it'd be something to do over the Summer holidays at least. I really need to get out of the house more, and while the job hunt still continues, I don't want to spend all of my time playing WoW/HoN, going to work and sleeping. I need a hobby, something that I can put a lot of effort into and get a feeling of satisfaction at having accomplished something. I was wondering if anyone else was interested in joining me. Would be nice if you knew something about production, but it's probably something that we'll pick up as we go! Or any ideas/feedback would be helpful. How hard do you think this will be? :S
I have nothing to do during my breaks at work, so I've picked up lots of books to read, but unfortunately, my favourite authors can't write fast enough so I've run out of their books. T_T I started reading some other books from the genres I like, but most of the books I've tried so far have been pretty poor. :( Olek and Goaty have mentioned the Ender saga, so I'm going to try and find those books, but last time I was at the library, I could only find the 4th book in the series. I've started reading another Orson Scott Card book though, and I'm liking it. For some reason, the name sounds really familiar, but looking through his listed works on Wikipedia, I don't recall having read any of his other books, so maybe he's just one of those famous authors that you know you should read at some point, but never get around to.
Mum wanted me to buy an apartment, as it'd be something I could rent out later in life, and I could also live there in the meantime, as rather than paying rent, I can slowly pay off the apartment. We got into an argument because I wanted to use my savings to go to Italy and she wanted me to buy a property. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately), even with my savings and help from mum, the bank won't lend me enough money to buy one, which my mum got really upset at me for. The woman at the bank was really nice though, and she suggested I put my money in a term deposit rather than just let it sit in a bank account, and I thought it'd be a compromise for mum, even though it makes me a sad panda now that I won't be able to go to Italy until at least after April.
Which also means I've lost all motivation to go to work, but seeing as it's my only source of income, and my midnight pizza cravings will never go away, have to keep taking money from old ladies. I guess I could just keep saving and saving until the term deposit matures and go on some mega trip, but I can't do that! So I started thinking about what it is I really like, and to be honest, the obvious things like games, programming and pizza passed me by, and the thing that I ended up with was movies. I love movies, and TV shows, too (although there are many, many, many movies and TV shows that should never have seen the light of day). Sure, I could go on a spending spree and end up with a massive DVD collection, but then mum would yell at me some more (I wanted to get dad a DVD for Christmas, but she got angry at me because she didn't want a DVD, which somehow means he doesn't want one...? I don't understand mum-logic). Anyway, and this is probably influenced by Graham and Dante getting me to watch The Guild, I've been putting some thought into making some sort of online series, or maybe a movie.
I have to admit though, I have no concept, no experience, no actors and well, the list goes on. Still, I think it'd be a fun new project, and it'd be something to do over the Summer holidays at least. I really need to get out of the house more, and while the job hunt still continues, I don't want to spend all of my time playing WoW/HoN, going to work and sleeping. I need a hobby, something that I can put a lot of effort into and get a feeling of satisfaction at having accomplished something. I was wondering if anyone else was interested in joining me. Would be nice if you knew something about production, but it's probably something that we'll pick up as we go! Or any ideas/feedback would be helpful. How hard do you think this will be? :S
Thursday, 27 August 2009
Timetable Stuff, Sem 2, 2009
Subjects |
| · 512320-Research Methods 3 · 512322-Industrial/Organisational Psychology 3 · 512360-Personality and Social Psychology 3 |
| Time | Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu |
| | 95% full | | ||
| | 95% full | | ||
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Sunday, 16 August 2009
What's In It For Me?
I had a discussion with Gary Paul about altruism, and whether it truly exists. Mostly it was something I had blogged about before, but to save you (and me) the trouble of going back to find it, he mentioned how people who do "good deeds" may do them for the good feeling that comes from doing something nice, and not ask for anything in return, but if you think about it, that in itself is a reward for the deed, so in a sense, it's like they are getting something, so it's not entirely altruistic. Also, they may be doing the deed to help out a friend, in which case, their reward would be perhaps a future favour from the friend, or an increased standing in that friend's opinion.
I am one of those stupidly optimistic people in the sense that I believe people can be genuinely altruistic. Sure, a good deed may come with some sort of reward, but if you think about it, that reward may not nearly make up for the cost of doing the deed in the first place. If that is the case, then the altruistic person would be incurring a cost for doing the deed, and the overall gain for that person would be a loss, even if they managed to get some reward. When I had more time to bake things, I would sometimes drive out to people and give them whatever it was I baked. Most of the people I went to visit were at least 20-30 minutes away from me. Who is to say that the feeling I got from bringing someone something that might potentially poison a friend (I'm so evil) outweighed the time I lost during the delivery process, or the cost of the ingredients of said baked item? (Although, for the record, I haven't felt like it wasn't worth it for me in the past, so even though I don't see it as an altruistic act, I still hold the belief that one exists.) In this case, I'm working with a modified version of the word altruism in which the act is one in which a person does something that results in a net loss (or at least no net gain) for them.
I was reading a book about game theory, and in the book, the authors discussed a game called the Ultimatum Game. In the game, there are two players, A and B. They are to split some money between them, let's say $10. A can choose the amount that each person will receive (say $6:$4), and B will choose whether to accept or reject. If B accepts, then both players will receive the amount stipulated by A, but if B rejects, then both players receive nothing. If you look at both of the expected payoffs, you would think that B should accept whatever A suggests (except in the case of $10:$0, in which case it doesn't really matter to B whether they accept or reject because they'll get $0 either way, but they might reject just to "punish" A for being so selfish) as B is better off with whatever value A decides to give than with nothing at all. You would think then that it is in A's best interests to offer something like $9.90:10c to B, because A knows that B gets a better payoff from accepting that offer than rejecting it. However, the authors of the book, and other studies have found that A players tend to offer 50:50 values, and have attributed this to people's sense of "fairness".
There are obviously other things that can be attributed to A's seemingly generous offer, such as A's belief that B will reject anything that seems unfair to B, even if it means they both end up with nothing, as A believes B would rather end up with nothing than end up in a situation where A gets more than he should. There were more studies done with a variation of this game called the Dictator Game, in which A's role is the same, but B's role is simply to accept whatever A offers, so A is the "dictator" and decides who receives what. They found that A players still tended to offer 50:50 deals, even though there is no chance that B could reject it at all. I think this shows that people are willing to do what they think is "right" even if it results in no gain for them, and they even end up with a loss.
On a side note, they did some studies looking at how cultural backgrounds changed people's responses in the dictator game (this is all second-hand from the book, it was a reserve book from the library, so I had to return it, and really can't be bothered looking up the references now). They had women of Western backgrounds play with men from countries where women were believed to be inferior, and even though the women were offering 50:50 offers ,the men tended to offer 80:20 offers, believing that women do not deserve more than 4 times what a man receives.
I'm trying to think of a "truly" altruistic act, and just from the things that Gary Paul stated that make most seemingly altruistic acts not altruistic, it's hard. In order to negate the positive feeling that comes from doing something for someone, you'd have to either be the kind of person who doesn't get a kick from that kind of thing (in which case it would be not altruistic due to a personality difference rather than "truly" altruistic), or you would have to not know about it - or at least the good that came from the act. Then to negate the change of opinion in the good deed's recipient, or any other witnesses that happen to be there and who also think that it was a good deed, you'd have to make sure nobody else knows about it, including the beneficiary. My first thought was for you to set up a trust fund in which money was given to someone chosen by a third party, of whom you are unaware of, so you don't get to see the result of your action, but then you would have the good feeling of having set that trust up in the first place. So you would need to have the money there, and someone able to access it, but without your consent, or knowledge. Then a recipient has to receive your money (and be in need of it, since giving money to someone who is already filthy rich isn't really a good deed???) without knowledge that it's from you. Though if you use the second suggestion, then are you really doing a good deed, since this requires no action on your part (other than perhaps acquiring the money)? Maybe the good deed comes from your not complaining that some of your money has gone missing, but it seems strange that a good deed would result of inaction rather than some sort of action. If a large chunk of my money suddenly disappeared, I'd like to know what happened to it, so if it happened to me, I'd probably launch an investigation and end up finding out who the recipient of my money is and potentially be able to see the change in their quality of life since receiving the money and consequently gain a good feeling from it.
If you look at it from another point of view, is the good deed being done by the third party? They are acting as kind of a Robin Hood, stealing from the rich and giving to the poor, and even though they're doing something bad to the first person you might think that the negative feeling that came from the loss of money for the rich guy would be less than the positive feeling that came from the gain of money for the poor guy (although I've never been rich, and I really don't know what it's like to lose a lot of money, I just know that losing $100 is a lot to me, but seems to be nothing to Julian - although that might just be due to his increased threshold of pain (to losing money). Not that I'm saying Julian is rich, I'm just trying to illustrate that losing various amounts of money has differing effects on people).
I am one of those stupidly optimistic people in the sense that I believe people can be genuinely altruistic. Sure, a good deed may come with some sort of reward, but if you think about it, that reward may not nearly make up for the cost of doing the deed in the first place. If that is the case, then the altruistic person would be incurring a cost for doing the deed, and the overall gain for that person would be a loss, even if they managed to get some reward. When I had more time to bake things, I would sometimes drive out to people and give them whatever it was I baked. Most of the people I went to visit were at least 20-30 minutes away from me. Who is to say that the feeling I got from bringing someone something that might potentially poison a friend (I'm so evil) outweighed the time I lost during the delivery process, or the cost of the ingredients of said baked item? (Although, for the record, I haven't felt like it wasn't worth it for me in the past, so even though I don't see it as an altruistic act, I still hold the belief that one exists.) In this case, I'm working with a modified version of the word altruism in which the act is one in which a person does something that results in a net loss (or at least no net gain) for them.
I was reading a book about game theory, and in the book, the authors discussed a game called the Ultimatum Game. In the game, there are two players, A and B. They are to split some money between them, let's say $10. A can choose the amount that each person will receive (say $6:$4), and B will choose whether to accept or reject. If B accepts, then both players will receive the amount stipulated by A, but if B rejects, then both players receive nothing. If you look at both of the expected payoffs, you would think that B should accept whatever A suggests (except in the case of $10:$0, in which case it doesn't really matter to B whether they accept or reject because they'll get $0 either way, but they might reject just to "punish" A for being so selfish) as B is better off with whatever value A decides to give than with nothing at all. You would think then that it is in A's best interests to offer something like $9.90:10c to B, because A knows that B gets a better payoff from accepting that offer than rejecting it. However, the authors of the book, and other studies have found that A players tend to offer 50:50 values, and have attributed this to people's sense of "fairness".
There are obviously other things that can be attributed to A's seemingly generous offer, such as A's belief that B will reject anything that seems unfair to B, even if it means they both end up with nothing, as A believes B would rather end up with nothing than end up in a situation where A gets more than he should. There were more studies done with a variation of this game called the Dictator Game, in which A's role is the same, but B's role is simply to accept whatever A offers, so A is the "dictator" and decides who receives what. They found that A players still tended to offer 50:50 deals, even though there is no chance that B could reject it at all. I think this shows that people are willing to do what they think is "right" even if it results in no gain for them, and they even end up with a loss.
On a side note, they did some studies looking at how cultural backgrounds changed people's responses in the dictator game (this is all second-hand from the book, it was a reserve book from the library, so I had to return it, and really can't be bothered looking up the references now). They had women of Western backgrounds play with men from countries where women were believed to be inferior, and even though the women were offering 50:50 offers ,the men tended to offer 80:20 offers, believing that women do not deserve more than 4 times what a man receives.
I'm trying to think of a "truly" altruistic act, and just from the things that Gary Paul stated that make most seemingly altruistic acts not altruistic, it's hard. In order to negate the positive feeling that comes from doing something for someone, you'd have to either be the kind of person who doesn't get a kick from that kind of thing (in which case it would be not altruistic due to a personality difference rather than "truly" altruistic), or you would have to not know about it - or at least the good that came from the act. Then to negate the change of opinion in the good deed's recipient, or any other witnesses that happen to be there and who also think that it was a good deed, you'd have to make sure nobody else knows about it, including the beneficiary. My first thought was for you to set up a trust fund in which money was given to someone chosen by a third party, of whom you are unaware of, so you don't get to see the result of your action, but then you would have the good feeling of having set that trust up in the first place. So you would need to have the money there, and someone able to access it, but without your consent, or knowledge. Then a recipient has to receive your money (and be in need of it, since giving money to someone who is already filthy rich isn't really a good deed???) without knowledge that it's from you. Though if you use the second suggestion, then are you really doing a good deed, since this requires no action on your part (other than perhaps acquiring the money)? Maybe the good deed comes from your not complaining that some of your money has gone missing, but it seems strange that a good deed would result of inaction rather than some sort of action. If a large chunk of my money suddenly disappeared, I'd like to know what happened to it, so if it happened to me, I'd probably launch an investigation and end up finding out who the recipient of my money is and potentially be able to see the change in their quality of life since receiving the money and consequently gain a good feeling from it.
If you look at it from another point of view, is the good deed being done by the third party? They are acting as kind of a Robin Hood, stealing from the rich and giving to the poor, and even though they're doing something bad to the first person you might think that the negative feeling that came from the loss of money for the rich guy would be less than the positive feeling that came from the gain of money for the poor guy (although I've never been rich, and I really don't know what it's like to lose a lot of money, I just know that losing $100 is a lot to me, but seems to be nothing to Julian - although that might just be due to his increased threshold of pain (to losing money). Not that I'm saying Julian is rich, I'm just trying to illustrate that losing various amounts of money has differing effects on people).
Monday, 10 August 2009
Leaving the Nest
In July last year, MrMan5.5 put a dead spider on my sister as a joke, and she completely freaked out and got really angry at him. Not long afterwards, she stopped talking to me. For some unknown reason, she started talking to me again a few months later, and everything was back to normal, she seemed to have forgiven MrMan5.5, and all was good. Then at the start of this year, I was leaving to go to MrMan5.5's beach house with Sharon and Graham and while I was in the shower, I heard Anjelica asking my mum why MrMan5.5 was here so often. Mum replied that it was because he was my boyfriend, so it was understandable that we'd want to spend a lot of time together. After I got out, I confronted Anjelica and asked her why she didn't want him here, and she said that she was still angry about the whole spider thing. It had been over 6 months since the spider thing happened, and I thought that was a stupidly long time to hold a grudge, so I raged at her and then left with MrMan5.5. We stopped talking again. A couple of months ago, mum told me that the fact that Anjelica and I weren't talking to each other was causing her a lot of stress, partly because Anjelica was having trouble with her schoolwork, and mum had planned for me to help her with Year 12, so I went to Anjelica and tried to work things out with her, but she didn't want to. We're still not talking.
Not long ago, she started complaining about MrMan5.5 being over and the fact that we make too much noise and she has trouble sleeping at night, so I asked him to stop coming over. Last night, we went to see a movie, and as it finished so late I suggested he stay at my house so that he wouldn't have to wake up as early to go to work the next day. We didn't make any noise, and went to bed as soon as we got home, yet, she still woke up and started yelling and screaming that she couldn't live like this anymore, and ran off. Dad went to get her, but I decided that it would probably be better if I didn't live with my family anymore, so now I'm temporarily staying with MrMan5.5's family until I find somewhere else, I guess. I told mum that I would go home and try to talk things over, but considering the hours that I work, it's impossible for me not to come home late, and seeing as she is in her final year of high school and trying to get into uni, it's unfair to her if I make so much noise coming home at 4AM.
To be honest, I was mostly in a shock last night after I left my house. I was reminded of those team-building exercises they make you do where they have a list of items, and they put you in a situation like there's a bush fire approaching your house and you have to leave, what would you take with you? I know it's not the same, as it's not like I won't be able to go home, but it also kinda felt like I had to pack the rest of my life into two bags, and I thought I would be more sentimental, but I didn't take any photo albums or the box of every Christmas card, birthday card and personal letter I've ever received. All I took were clothes, chargers for my phone and PSP, DVDs, toiletries and uni stuff. I think part of me is still hoping that after all of this blows over, I can just go back home and everything will be back to normal, but the rational part of me is scared that now that I've done this, I'll never be welcome in my home again. I'm really relieved that MrMan5.5's parents are OK with me staying at their house though.
A few months ago, I told my mum that the only graduate position I applied for was in Canberra. She got really upset saying that I was leaving my family behind and that I didn't care about them, and started yelling at me. I didn't have the heart to tell her that the only reason
that was the only job I applied for was because I had been too slack and that the other deadlines for applications for jobs I was interested in or qualified for had passed and this was the only job left. =/ She would probably just have yelled at me more anyway. But that was when I started thinking about moving out, and how I would go about it. I imagined spending months trying to find the right place to live, going to inspections and fighting with other potential renters. Going out and looking at furniture and buying all the crap that you take for granted as being in your house like a fridge, washing machine and dryer. Having a housewarming where your friends get to Christen your new house with vomit all over the carpet.
I guess I understand how Korsair feels now. I thought about moving out with him the first time he told me he had been kicked out, but it wouldn't work, seeing as he needs to live away from the city, and I need to live close to it, for work and uni. I mentioned in the past that Graham has wanted me to move out with him, but he has moved in with friends recently, so that wouldn't work. I could live alone, but I don't really think I could afford it, and even shifts at work have started becoming mainly just weekend shifts, with people fighting over any spare shifts on other days.
Speaking of work, seeing as my incredible graduate applications (that really shouldn't be plural, but it makes me feel better) have turned up nothing, and my career as a student is coming to an end at the end of this semester, I've been thinking about whether I want to keep working as a dealer. I know for sure now that given the choice, I'm definitely going to pick poker over baccarat even if it means players will pee on me, because I can wash pee off, but the guilt of taking enough money to buy myself a new house in one hand is something I don't think I can get over so easily. I told Matty my reasoning and he said that if I had such a guilty conscience, then I'm working in the wrong place.
It's kinda strange that when I first started, I hated it when people won a lot of money at my table, it meant so much more work for me. I knew 1, 2, 3 x 17 and 35 off the top of my head, but anything higher than that required mental dexterity that I hadn't yet achieved, and so it was a strain. I was also more of a section spinner and didn't know how to get out of the zero-section, so "Zero Gamers" would flock to my table and crowd around like crazy. Now I can usually work out most payouts in a second, and the huge towering stack of chips isn't daunting anymore, but I can't seem to section spin anymore, and so the ball goes all over the place, making my newfound mathematical abilities kinda useless. Contrary to their beliefs, I want them to win, and it's really hard seeing people who look like my grandma losing a pile of chips just because my ball went haywire.
I miss my computer, I really want to play WoW, TF2 and HoN, but I had to leave my computer at home because I share it with Amanda and dad, and it wouldn't be fair to Alex to take it with me. Speaking of Alex, I bought him a G15 keyboard for his 21st, but so far, the only thing he has used it for is a table for resting things on (it's still in its box). Maybe I am really out of touch with my family and moving out is a good thing.
Long post means only one thing - I have something due tomorrow and I don't want to start it. Can't escape it though. =(
Not long ago, she started complaining about MrMan5.5 being over and the fact that we make too much noise and she has trouble sleeping at night, so I asked him to stop coming over. Last night, we went to see a movie, and as it finished so late I suggested he stay at my house so that he wouldn't have to wake up as early to go to work the next day. We didn't make any noise, and went to bed as soon as we got home, yet, she still woke up and started yelling and screaming that she couldn't live like this anymore, and ran off. Dad went to get her, but I decided that it would probably be better if I didn't live with my family anymore, so now I'm temporarily staying with MrMan5.5's family until I find somewhere else, I guess. I told mum that I would go home and try to talk things over, but considering the hours that I work, it's impossible for me not to come home late, and seeing as she is in her final year of high school and trying to get into uni, it's unfair to her if I make so much noise coming home at 4AM.
To be honest, I was mostly in a shock last night after I left my house. I was reminded of those team-building exercises they make you do where they have a list of items, and they put you in a situation like there's a bush fire approaching your house and you have to leave, what would you take with you? I know it's not the same, as it's not like I won't be able to go home, but it also kinda felt like I had to pack the rest of my life into two bags, and I thought I would be more sentimental, but I didn't take any photo albums or the box of every Christmas card, birthday card and personal letter I've ever received. All I took were clothes, chargers for my phone and PSP, DVDs, toiletries and uni stuff. I think part of me is still hoping that after all of this blows over, I can just go back home and everything will be back to normal, but the rational part of me is scared that now that I've done this, I'll never be welcome in my home again. I'm really relieved that MrMan5.5's parents are OK with me staying at their house though.
A few months ago, I told my mum that the only graduate position I applied for was in Canberra. She got really upset saying that I was leaving my family behind and that I didn't care about them, and started yelling at me. I didn't have the heart to tell her that the only reason
that was the only job I applied for was because I had been too slack and that the other deadlines for applications for jobs I was interested in or qualified for had passed and this was the only job left. =/ She would probably just have yelled at me more anyway. But that was when I started thinking about moving out, and how I would go about it. I imagined spending months trying to find the right place to live, going to inspections and fighting with other potential renters. Going out and looking at furniture and buying all the crap that you take for granted as being in your house like a fridge, washing machine and dryer. Having a housewarming where your friends get to Christen your new house with vomit all over the carpet.
I guess I understand how Korsair feels now. I thought about moving out with him the first time he told me he had been kicked out, but it wouldn't work, seeing as he needs to live away from the city, and I need to live close to it, for work and uni. I mentioned in the past that Graham has wanted me to move out with him, but he has moved in with friends recently, so that wouldn't work. I could live alone, but I don't really think I could afford it, and even shifts at work have started becoming mainly just weekend shifts, with people fighting over any spare shifts on other days.
Speaking of work, seeing as my incredible graduate applications (that really shouldn't be plural, but it makes me feel better) have turned up nothing, and my career as a student is coming to an end at the end of this semester, I've been thinking about whether I want to keep working as a dealer. I know for sure now that given the choice, I'm definitely going to pick poker over baccarat even if it means players will pee on me, because I can wash pee off, but the guilt of taking enough money to buy myself a new house in one hand is something I don't think I can get over so easily. I told Matty my reasoning and he said that if I had such a guilty conscience, then I'm working in the wrong place.
It's kinda strange that when I first started, I hated it when people won a lot of money at my table, it meant so much more work for me. I knew 1, 2, 3 x 17 and 35 off the top of my head, but anything higher than that required mental dexterity that I hadn't yet achieved, and so it was a strain. I was also more of a section spinner and didn't know how to get out of the zero-section, so "Zero Gamers" would flock to my table and crowd around like crazy. Now I can usually work out most payouts in a second, and the huge towering stack of chips isn't daunting anymore, but I can't seem to section spin anymore, and so the ball goes all over the place, making my newfound mathematical abilities kinda useless. Contrary to their beliefs, I want them to win, and it's really hard seeing people who look like my grandma losing a pile of chips just because my ball went haywire.
I miss my computer, I really want to play WoW, TF2 and HoN, but I had to leave my computer at home because I share it with Amanda and dad, and it wouldn't be fair to Alex to take it with me. Speaking of Alex, I bought him a G15 keyboard for his 21st, but so far, the only thing he has used it for is a table for resting things on (it's still in its box). Maybe I am really out of touch with my family and moving out is a good thing.
Long post means only one thing - I have something due tomorrow and I don't want to start it. Can't escape it though. =(
Wednesday, 22 July 2009
Laying It Down
I was reading about Tigule's (Jeffery Kaplan) discussion about some of the problems with WoW's quests, and started reading the comments. One comment that caught my attention was this, by WildDanimal,
Secondly, and this is probably because I'm female, but personally, I don't think it's something worth bragging about, and to be perfectly honest, a guy like that is a real turn-off. If you think it's something worth bragging about, then chances are, you're not getting it very regularly, or you're an ass, which probably explains why you're not getting it very regularly.
I was reminded about another tidbit of conversation from Barrens chat, where a guy said that he told his roommate that he was tired and going to bed because he wanted to play WoW instead of going out to a pub. A few people laughed at that, which was to be expected, but then a few more people chimed in saying that going out and getting drunk was overrated.
I think it's awesome, that WoW geeks can admit to being geeks, rather than feeling like dorks for not having a social life - or at least the social life that go-out-and-get-drunk people consider a social life. Before MrMan5.5, I thought maybe I could meet someone at a bar, but I was so uncomfortable there, that the possiblity of being with someone who considered that their primary form of entertainment, and still enjoying my time with them seemed pretty improbable.
On a completely unrelated to guys, but related to MMOs note, I've been trying to think about what makes a good MMO. I guess this is the topic of discussion for a lot of people, considering the new MMOs that are in production at the moment, and it seems WoW gets a lot of crap from players of other MMOs, but you can't argue with the fact that it does have a very high subscriber base. Whether or not some of those subscribers are just people wanting to play both factions on a PvP server is irrelevant, it's the fact that people are still coming back for more.
One thing I always thought contributed to it, was the way which it allows people to come together, and interact in an environment without it being too overcomplicated. In my opinion, the best MMO would be one in which the players are allowed to play the part of anything, and there would be no NPCs, kinda like the way EVE is run, but you get the problem in that nobody wants to play the boring characters, just like how if you really had the choice, would you prefer to be doing the job you're doing, or be out there in some other glamourous job? There was a slashdot post about how one of the players in EVE was entrusted with an EVE bank, and he was actually stealing money from the in-game bank (money that belonged to other players), and was selling it to players in exchange for real money. I'm a crafter at heart, and so I'd like to be able to sit in a city and craft to my heart's content (Charles keep yelling at my for fishing instead of levelling my priest, but then he heard that there's a water mount that you can only get by fishing - so there!), but I'm terrible with selling my stuff, so I don't think it's something that's sustainable without having to go out and farm materials.
I imagine an MMO without the level grind would be awesome, except for the fact that the level grind teaches you how to play your character. Tsuruya was complaining about how most people don't even bother to level in instances anymore, so when they group together with others for end-game content, they're usually noobs who have no clue what's going on. Unfortunately, I hate the level grind, and I'm so terrible at it. I level so slowly, it took me ages to get my shaman to 60, and even now that I've started playing on Barthilas again, I still can't seem to be able to get my shaman to 70, even though I know where all the quests are and stuff like that. In Guild Wars, there's an option to create a level 20 (the level cap) character as a PvP-only character, which I think is cool, except you can't get all the spells possible, because some spells are only attainable through PvE experiences, and you only start out with a small number of spells, and the only way to unlock more is to have another character unlock them through PvE. I guess one of the benefits to this, is that you can try before you commit hours of your life levelling the character up. Also, I've mentioned this before but GW needs to have jumping. T_T
Player interaction is important, and I know I haven't levelled a PvE character to 20 in GW yet, but one of the things I noticed was how hard it was to find the other people in your party. When they're outside your minimap, your UI doesn't display their location at all, and it requires some combination of either of you pinging and drawing lines all over the minimap, or a poor attempt at describing your location, in order for you two to find each other. Not to mention the fact that you never bump into people outside of cities (both a good and bad thing). I can't even begin to recall the number of times I've been saved by a wandering healer in WoW who decided to chuck a heal just as I was about to die from having pulled too many mobs, but there's no chance of that in GW - which I guess means you should be more careful, but I like the idea of saving someone (maybe that's why I prefer to play healer classes, so I can be the hero! >_>)
Anyway, I think I've given my blog fingers a bit of a stretch, so I'm going to continue this later, if I'm not lazy!
"This is the main reason why I don't play WoW any more. It gets to be a pain in the ass and sucks way too much time for not enough actual enjoyment. Even I don't have time for that, just because I have classes to go to, and I can actually get laid sometimes."Something I've noticed that seems to occur in most WoW discussions - including the Chuck Norris-ridden ones in Barrens chat, is that someone inevitably ends up gloating about the fact that they can get laid, and always that term, gee, be more creative, at least! First of all, this is World of Warcraft we're talking about, if you're going to brag about anything, brag about some new purple you just got, because otherwise, most people aren't going to care - and even if you were to brag about that, I'm pretty sure most people wouldn't care anyway, unless you were the first one on the server to get it, etc.
Secondly, and this is probably because I'm female, but personally, I don't think it's something worth bragging about, and to be perfectly honest, a guy like that is a real turn-off. If you think it's something worth bragging about, then chances are, you're not getting it very regularly, or you're an ass, which probably explains why you're not getting it very regularly.
I was reminded about another tidbit of conversation from Barrens chat, where a guy said that he told his roommate that he was tired and going to bed because he wanted to play WoW instead of going out to a pub. A few people laughed at that, which was to be expected, but then a few more people chimed in saying that going out and getting drunk was overrated.
I think it's awesome, that WoW geeks can admit to being geeks, rather than feeling like dorks for not having a social life - or at least the social life that go-out-and-get-drunk people consider a social life. Before MrMan5.5, I thought maybe I could meet someone at a bar, but I was so uncomfortable there, that the possiblity of being with someone who considered that their primary form of entertainment, and still enjoying my time with them seemed pretty improbable.
On a completely unrelated to guys, but related to MMOs note, I've been trying to think about what makes a good MMO. I guess this is the topic of discussion for a lot of people, considering the new MMOs that are in production at the moment, and it seems WoW gets a lot of crap from players of other MMOs, but you can't argue with the fact that it does have a very high subscriber base. Whether or not some of those subscribers are just people wanting to play both factions on a PvP server is irrelevant, it's the fact that people are still coming back for more.
One thing I always thought contributed to it, was the way which it allows people to come together, and interact in an environment without it being too overcomplicated. In my opinion, the best MMO would be one in which the players are allowed to play the part of anything, and there would be no NPCs, kinda like the way EVE is run, but you get the problem in that nobody wants to play the boring characters, just like how if you really had the choice, would you prefer to be doing the job you're doing, or be out there in some other glamourous job? There was a slashdot post about how one of the players in EVE was entrusted with an EVE bank, and he was actually stealing money from the in-game bank (money that belonged to other players), and was selling it to players in exchange for real money. I'm a crafter at heart, and so I'd like to be able to sit in a city and craft to my heart's content (Charles keep yelling at my for fishing instead of levelling my priest, but then he heard that there's a water mount that you can only get by fishing - so there!), but I'm terrible with selling my stuff, so I don't think it's something that's sustainable without having to go out and farm materials.
I imagine an MMO without the level grind would be awesome, except for the fact that the level grind teaches you how to play your character. Tsuruya was complaining about how most people don't even bother to level in instances anymore, so when they group together with others for end-game content, they're usually noobs who have no clue what's going on. Unfortunately, I hate the level grind, and I'm so terrible at it. I level so slowly, it took me ages to get my shaman to 60, and even now that I've started playing on Barthilas again, I still can't seem to be able to get my shaman to 70, even though I know where all the quests are and stuff like that. In Guild Wars, there's an option to create a level 20 (the level cap) character as a PvP-only character, which I think is cool, except you can't get all the spells possible, because some spells are only attainable through PvE experiences, and you only start out with a small number of spells, and the only way to unlock more is to have another character unlock them through PvE. I guess one of the benefits to this, is that you can try before you commit hours of your life levelling the character up. Also, I've mentioned this before but GW needs to have jumping. T_T
Player interaction is important, and I know I haven't levelled a PvE character to 20 in GW yet, but one of the things I noticed was how hard it was to find the other people in your party. When they're outside your minimap, your UI doesn't display their location at all, and it requires some combination of either of you pinging and drawing lines all over the minimap, or a poor attempt at describing your location, in order for you two to find each other. Not to mention the fact that you never bump into people outside of cities (both a good and bad thing). I can't even begin to recall the number of times I've been saved by a wandering healer in WoW who decided to chuck a heal just as I was about to die from having pulled too many mobs, but there's no chance of that in GW - which I guess means you should be more careful, but I like the idea of saving someone (maybe that's why I prefer to play healer classes, so I can be the hero! >_>)
Anyway, I think I've given my blog fingers a bit of a stretch, so I'm going to continue this later, if I'm not lazy!
Friday, 3 July 2009
Oh Noes, Died. Who Will Carry On?
Agents Simon has gotten me hooked on boingboing, and I came across this article about how to ensure someone will be able to access your encrypted data once you've died (there's a link to the actual article in the Guardian there). This has occured to be in the past, and it probably occurs to anyone who had a password for anything sensitive. What will happen to it if you suddenly died before being able to tell anyone the password? Even though I don't really have anything important that I need to store, I think I do have a safeguard, that I won't mention here, because the security of that safeguard will be compromised if I do mention it, but it really makes you think about how hard it is to do something like this. The author's initial solution was quite convoluted, and really, it came down to how much you trust your significant other.
Whenever I think about how much I could trust someone I'm married to, I think about Mr and Mrs Bristow from the TV show Alias, in that they were both secret agents, but during their marriage, he was unaware that she was sent to seduce him in order to find out his secrets. In later episodes, they are forced to work together, but there is always this underlying sense of whether they can trust each other - as they must in order to complete the mission, but the one who betrays the other is more likely to come out alive than the one who gets betrayed.
On the other hand, if you can't trust someone you consider your significant other, then who can you trust? The first solution that occured to me was to give it to someone who wouldn't know what it was, and so wouldn't be able to use it against you. But then you come against the problem that if they don't know what it is, then how will they know to use it if you die? Not just that, but if they don't know how important it is, what is to stop them for throwing it away/forgetting it/telling other people? Not to mention the problem of updating, in the event that you change your password. "Hey, remember that word I told you last month? Well, I just thought of a better word: s923id0!jd}#5da1+5jsxpf5." Yep, smooth. If you change your password regularly, then updating it with your keeper would become an increasing security hazard, as something like that would appear suspicious. Especially considering that picking someone close to you would be bad, as they would be the natural target of someone looking to break your code, but if you suddenly started regularly visiting your cousin twice-removed that nobody really likes, but gets invited 'round for Christmas every few years, someone's going to wonder what's up.
Also, relationships tend to phase in and out for me. The people that I couldn't be separated from in primary school I never see now (although I still talk to one on occasion). The friends I grew up with in high school aren't nearly as close as they were at the time. My friendships at uni seem to grow and fade as their lives move to intersect with mine on occasion, or pull away, as our interests and hobbies change. Other than family, I don't really know anyone that I've kept in constant contact with in my life. Family is difficult. I can't be sure that my parents will outlive me, and even though I know I'd do anything for my siblings, lately I really can't tell if the feeling is mutual.
I do know of one solution that does work, but isn't very practical: have nothing worth hiding, which is how I'm operating now. And in case I do drop dead tomorrow, this blog will be in the hands of Dante, although since he doesn't want to post any more, I guess it'll have to suffer the same fate I did - which I don't think is that bad, as the blog was meant to be a way for me to get my thoughts down, and if I'm dead, well, presumably I'm not having any new thoughts.
(And that was meant to be the end of the post, but as a slight aside, I was reading about how blogs actually make money, and obviously, there are billions of blogs that fade into the ether never to read any kind of level of prominence, but apparently the biggest moneymaker for blogs (other than getting a book/TV deal/other misc. job out of it) is to sell stuff through them. There's the whole issue of blogger's integrity, but if you think about it, a few cents for the however many minutes of entertainment you manage to get out of a blog post is a good price - and it's not even out of your pocket. That being said, if I were to start selling stuff on my blog, well, I wouldn't even know what kind of stuff I'd sell, and I don't even have the audience for it anyway, but maybe I'd sell Heinz Big Red Tomato Chips! Though I don't want money in exchange for people clicking links, I just want more chips!)
Whenever I think about how much I could trust someone I'm married to, I think about Mr and Mrs Bristow from the TV show Alias, in that they were both secret agents, but during their marriage, he was unaware that she was sent to seduce him in order to find out his secrets. In later episodes, they are forced to work together, but there is always this underlying sense of whether they can trust each other - as they must in order to complete the mission, but the one who betrays the other is more likely to come out alive than the one who gets betrayed.
On the other hand, if you can't trust someone you consider your significant other, then who can you trust? The first solution that occured to me was to give it to someone who wouldn't know what it was, and so wouldn't be able to use it against you. But then you come against the problem that if they don't know what it is, then how will they know to use it if you die? Not just that, but if they don't know how important it is, what is to stop them for throwing it away/forgetting it/telling other people? Not to mention the problem of updating, in the event that you change your password. "Hey, remember that word I told you last month? Well, I just thought of a better word: s923id0!jd}#5da1+5jsxpf5." Yep, smooth. If you change your password regularly, then updating it with your keeper would become an increasing security hazard, as something like that would appear suspicious. Especially considering that picking someone close to you would be bad, as they would be the natural target of someone looking to break your code, but if you suddenly started regularly visiting your cousin twice-removed that nobody really likes, but gets invited 'round for Christmas every few years, someone's going to wonder what's up.
Also, relationships tend to phase in and out for me. The people that I couldn't be separated from in primary school I never see now (although I still talk to one on occasion). The friends I grew up with in high school aren't nearly as close as they were at the time. My friendships at uni seem to grow and fade as their lives move to intersect with mine on occasion, or pull away, as our interests and hobbies change. Other than family, I don't really know anyone that I've kept in constant contact with in my life. Family is difficult. I can't be sure that my parents will outlive me, and even though I know I'd do anything for my siblings, lately I really can't tell if the feeling is mutual.
I do know of one solution that does work, but isn't very practical: have nothing worth hiding, which is how I'm operating now. And in case I do drop dead tomorrow, this blog will be in the hands of Dante, although since he doesn't want to post any more, I guess it'll have to suffer the same fate I did - which I don't think is that bad, as the blog was meant to be a way for me to get my thoughts down, and if I'm dead, well, presumably I'm not having any new thoughts.
(And that was meant to be the end of the post, but as a slight aside, I was reading about how blogs actually make money, and obviously, there are billions of blogs that fade into the ether never to read any kind of level of prominence, but apparently the biggest moneymaker for blogs (other than getting a book/TV deal/other misc. job out of it) is to sell stuff through them. There's the whole issue of blogger's integrity, but if you think about it, a few cents for the however many minutes of entertainment you manage to get out of a blog post is a good price - and it's not even out of your pocket. That being said, if I were to start selling stuff on my blog, well, I wouldn't even know what kind of stuff I'd sell, and I don't even have the audience for it anyway, but maybe I'd sell Heinz Big Red Tomato Chips! Though I don't want money in exchange for people clicking links, I just want more chips!)
Sunday, 14 June 2009
Sucker
I'm one of the believers of getting what you earn, and I'd like to think that were I ever to hold a position of power in a company or something like that, that I would hire and promote people based on merit rather than how much I like them. However, judging from the stories that I hear at work, and the things that I see, things definitely don't work like that at my new workplace. I've heard a few stories about people who are sleeping with pit bosses, and who are now a little higher up the ladder than they should be (in order to become a game supervisor, you need to be trained in three games, and you usually get one game per year, but some people have managed to get two games in one year, putting them just that little bit closer to promotion).
The part that annoys me the most is that I've worked with this awesome supervisor who I found out tonight has been there for years, and yet from what I can see, she seems to be getting passed up for promotion. The thing I love most about her is that she doesn't take crap from anyone. The highlight of my shift was seeing her, this short Asian lady (shorter than me, even!) go off at some guys who were being idiots. She's not one of those customer-service oriented supervisors, and since she has been around for so long, she knows all the retards. She tells me about the regulars so that I know what not to do in case I piss them off (like there's this one guy who apparently went crazy at the dealer because the dealer spun the ball before he was ready - and if he hadn't been laying as much money as he was on the table, he'd probably be lumped with the retards, but since he is loaded, he gets special treatment).
To be honest, I really don't know what I want out of work. Since I lucked out and got roulette, which is apparently the fast track to moving up (the usual route is roulette -> baccarat, and having baccarat is supposedly the biggest money maker, so they must treat their dealers well), if I hung around for a bit, I might make some decent money. If getting a job stays as hard as it is, well, that might end up being my only option. The thing is, I'm not a suck-up, and I don't want to be one. Considering how annoyed I get at zero-gamers, dealing baccarat would be like that only ten times worse, so I'd actually prefer to get poker, even if it means I'm going down the non-super fast promotion route (although, only people trained in poker can be poker pit bosses, so that's one advantage to having poker), because I can handle drunk guys much better than I can handle people who don't speak English.
(Although, I had this guy come up with what I'm guessing he thought was a brilliant pick-up line, "Hey Anna, I know you're single, so let's go and get some tea together!" I don't know why that pick-up line would be good since my first thought upon hearing it was, "Well, gee, thanks. So I don't look like I'd ever be able to have a boyfriend..." So maybe drunks aren't so good. =/)
I had Julian-supervisor for a bit today (his name isn't actually Julian, he just looks like Julian. I want so badly to ask him to say "sick life", but I can never bring myself to do it), and I was asking him about someone who trained at the same time with us, but who quit after working there for a couple of weeks. Julian-supervisor was his buddy, so I'm guessing the guy who quit talked to him about his reasons, and I just wanted to know what he said. I had to wait this long because I think he's normally busy with BJ, so I never really get a chance to speak to him. Anyway, when I heard what he said, it didn't sound right. Apparently the reason was because he wasn't able to get time off for exams, but someone from my training group was in the exact same course as he was, and he didn't have any problems, so I don't really know why he wasn't able to get the same treatment, especially since the guy from my group didn't apply until after the other guy had quit.
The thing is, everyone from his training group and my training group all said that the quitter-guy was an ass, and that he exaggerated stuff all the time, lied a lot, and that you should never really believe what he says. He never seemed that way to me, so I usually tried to defend him. Though I'm compelled to believe Julian-supervisor was telling the truth, which means quitter-guy lied to him about his reasons, and so maybe he lied about other stuff, too. It didn't occur to me until I was on my way home that maybe I am a really bad judge of character.
There is a friend of mine who I sometimes play TF2 with, and there was a game that he was playing with a bunch of our friends, and I joined the game. Upon joining, I heard him saying that he wanted me to "go suck on the other team" which I thought was a joke, so I stayed on his team (due to auto-team balance, our friends were split over both teams) and ended up getting MVP, which I thought was funny, because it meant I did more for the team that round than he did. Later I heard that he wasn't joking about wanting me on the other team, which I tried to verify through our other friends, but nobody I asked said they could say for sure, and it was too long ago for me to even remember who else was playing in that game now. Anyway, in the past, people have said bad things about him, and I've sometimes defended him, but lately I've been feeling like maybe that isn't worth my time, considering how he seems to feel about me - which I would like to add that I was willing to be on his team when he was terrible at DotA, although now I would rather not if I can avoid it.
It's strange. Teekay and Lume seemed fine with having me on their arena team, even though I sucked so much and was usually the first one to die. Even though Teekay and I both did OS together, we've only met each other a handful of times, and Lume I only know through WoW. This other friend, I see fairly often (IRL), and usually end up playing games with when I'm not working, and yet he seems less willing to put up with my suckiness. Games have always been for fun for me, but I'm not sure I want to play with people who think I'm bringing them down, and the more I think about it, the more I get the feeling that there are other people who only play with me because I'm their friend and aren't willing to tell me how bad I really am.
I don't know if that makes them better or worse than my other friend, who was at least willing to say that I suck and should work on getting better. I would rather play with people who were happy to play with me than have the feeling that they're only putting up with it because they're my friend. =(
The part that annoys me the most is that I've worked with this awesome supervisor who I found out tonight has been there for years, and yet from what I can see, she seems to be getting passed up for promotion. The thing I love most about her is that she doesn't take crap from anyone. The highlight of my shift was seeing her, this short Asian lady (shorter than me, even!) go off at some guys who were being idiots. She's not one of those customer-service oriented supervisors, and since she has been around for so long, she knows all the retards. She tells me about the regulars so that I know what not to do in case I piss them off (like there's this one guy who apparently went crazy at the dealer because the dealer spun the ball before he was ready - and if he hadn't been laying as much money as he was on the table, he'd probably be lumped with the retards, but since he is loaded, he gets special treatment).
To be honest, I really don't know what I want out of work. Since I lucked out and got roulette, which is apparently the fast track to moving up (the usual route is roulette -> baccarat, and having baccarat is supposedly the biggest money maker, so they must treat their dealers well), if I hung around for a bit, I might make some decent money. If getting a job stays as hard as it is, well, that might end up being my only option. The thing is, I'm not a suck-up, and I don't want to be one. Considering how annoyed I get at zero-gamers, dealing baccarat would be like that only ten times worse, so I'd actually prefer to get poker, even if it means I'm going down the non-super fast promotion route (although, only people trained in poker can be poker pit bosses, so that's one advantage to having poker), because I can handle drunk guys much better than I can handle people who don't speak English.
(Although, I had this guy come up with what I'm guessing he thought was a brilliant pick-up line, "Hey Anna, I know you're single, so let's go and get some tea together!" I don't know why that pick-up line would be good since my first thought upon hearing it was, "Well, gee, thanks. So I don't look like I'd ever be able to have a boyfriend..." So maybe drunks aren't so good. =/)
I had Julian-supervisor for a bit today (his name isn't actually Julian, he just looks like Julian. I want so badly to ask him to say "sick life", but I can never bring myself to do it), and I was asking him about someone who trained at the same time with us, but who quit after working there for a couple of weeks. Julian-supervisor was his buddy, so I'm guessing the guy who quit talked to him about his reasons, and I just wanted to know what he said. I had to wait this long because I think he's normally busy with BJ, so I never really get a chance to speak to him. Anyway, when I heard what he said, it didn't sound right. Apparently the reason was because he wasn't able to get time off for exams, but someone from my training group was in the exact same course as he was, and he didn't have any problems, so I don't really know why he wasn't able to get the same treatment, especially since the guy from my group didn't apply until after the other guy had quit.
The thing is, everyone from his training group and my training group all said that the quitter-guy was an ass, and that he exaggerated stuff all the time, lied a lot, and that you should never really believe what he says. He never seemed that way to me, so I usually tried to defend him. Though I'm compelled to believe Julian-supervisor was telling the truth, which means quitter-guy lied to him about his reasons, and so maybe he lied about other stuff, too. It didn't occur to me until I was on my way home that maybe I am a really bad judge of character.
There is a friend of mine who I sometimes play TF2 with, and there was a game that he was playing with a bunch of our friends, and I joined the game. Upon joining, I heard him saying that he wanted me to "go suck on the other team" which I thought was a joke, so I stayed on his team (due to auto-team balance, our friends were split over both teams) and ended up getting MVP, which I thought was funny, because it meant I did more for the team that round than he did. Later I heard that he wasn't joking about wanting me on the other team, which I tried to verify through our other friends, but nobody I asked said they could say for sure, and it was too long ago for me to even remember who else was playing in that game now. Anyway, in the past, people have said bad things about him, and I've sometimes defended him, but lately I've been feeling like maybe that isn't worth my time, considering how he seems to feel about me - which I would like to add that I was willing to be on his team when he was terrible at DotA, although now I would rather not if I can avoid it.
It's strange. Teekay and Lume seemed fine with having me on their arena team, even though I sucked so much and was usually the first one to die. Even though Teekay and I both did OS together, we've only met each other a handful of times, and Lume I only know through WoW. This other friend, I see fairly often (IRL), and usually end up playing games with when I'm not working, and yet he seems less willing to put up with my suckiness. Games have always been for fun for me, but I'm not sure I want to play with people who think I'm bringing them down, and the more I think about it, the more I get the feeling that there are other people who only play with me because I'm their friend and aren't willing to tell me how bad I really am.
I don't know if that makes them better or worse than my other friend, who was at least willing to say that I suck and should work on getting better. I would rather play with people who were happy to play with me than have the feeling that they're only putting up with it because they're my friend. =(
Monday, 8 June 2009
Ghost of Boyfriend Past
I was driving home from se440 dessert today when I was reminded of YN. Back in high school, we promised each other that we'd take over the world together. He went on to do nanotechnology, and I ended up doing software engineering, a good combo for taking over the world, right? We could make little nanobots that target specific people and hold the world to ransom, or something like that. Anyway, ever since then, even though I still have the ambition to take over the world (it's my rightful place as the Supreme Ruler of the Universe, after all), I'm not really interested in doing it with anyone else, despite the fact that YN and I broke up years ago.
It made me wonder, how much hold does a promise you made to someone under different circumstances hold? There was this story in The Pig That Wants to be Eaten about a guy who shoots a candidate for the republic party. When asked why he did it, he says that 10 years ago, they were friends, and his friend once said, "If I ever become a republican, shoot me." So he did. One of the arguments in that book was that the person that made that comment was a different person to the person who was campaigning for the republican party. Just like how when you're a child, you want nothing more than to spend your days watching ABC Kids, but now that you're older, you're far more interested in going out to dinner with friends. The "you" as a child is different to the "you" that you are now, as you have differing (to some degree) personalities, and differing interests.
So the "me" that was dating YN is different to the "me" that I am now, but still, I feel honour bound to uphold the promise I made to him that I'd take over the world with him. We even divided up which parts of the world we'd get, although I think that "taking over the world" with him now would just mean I take over the world and give him the parts that we agreed he would get. I wonder if he would do the same for me if he took over the world?
I think I have a bad habit of dumping someone and never bringing it up again to find out how they're dealing with it. I don't know if that's good or bad. Towards the end, YN and I didn't talk that often, and we had mostly drifted apart (he ended up going to a different university to me), so after we broke up, we never really spoke again. In fact, the last IM I received from him was one of the acai berry spam messages, and the last IM I sent to him was one telling him that he had that acai berry spam virus. The part that I would have liked to resolve was the curiosity that was triggered when Steve (who went to the same primary school as me, and ended up in YN's class at uni) sent me a recorded message from YN saying, "I love Anna!" which he gave to me after we broke up, but I never asked if he was serious. I was kinda freaked out, to be honest. Although, I can't have been sure that it was YN, it sounded like his voice, but for all I know, it could have been some random guy who sounds similar, and for that reason, I never asked YN about it. Or maybe he was talking about another Anna - I mean, as much as I'd like to think I am, I'm not the only Anna in the world, much less than in Melbourne. Also, I would have felt terrible had it really been him and he had really meant it.
Well, one thing I did learn from the YN experience was that I am less inclined to go out with a guy who spends most of his time offline again. So hard to contact someone who is never on some sort of IM program. T_T It's kinda weird though, because I assumed since he liked games like Starcraft, Warcraft III, and Age of Empires 2, I thought he would be geeky and addicted to the Internet like the rest of us, but I guess I was wrong. Although one benefit to his being more of an RL person is that I can be fairly confident that he's not going to read this blog post.
It made me wonder, how much hold does a promise you made to someone under different circumstances hold? There was this story in The Pig That Wants to be Eaten about a guy who shoots a candidate for the republic party. When asked why he did it, he says that 10 years ago, they were friends, and his friend once said, "If I ever become a republican, shoot me." So he did. One of the arguments in that book was that the person that made that comment was a different person to the person who was campaigning for the republican party. Just like how when you're a child, you want nothing more than to spend your days watching ABC Kids, but now that you're older, you're far more interested in going out to dinner with friends. The "you" as a child is different to the "you" that you are now, as you have differing (to some degree) personalities, and differing interests.
So the "me" that was dating YN is different to the "me" that I am now, but still, I feel honour bound to uphold the promise I made to him that I'd take over the world with him. We even divided up which parts of the world we'd get, although I think that "taking over the world" with him now would just mean I take over the world and give him the parts that we agreed he would get. I wonder if he would do the same for me if he took over the world?
I think I have a bad habit of dumping someone and never bringing it up again to find out how they're dealing with it. I don't know if that's good or bad. Towards the end, YN and I didn't talk that often, and we had mostly drifted apart (he ended up going to a different university to me), so after we broke up, we never really spoke again. In fact, the last IM I received from him was one of the acai berry spam messages, and the last IM I sent to him was one telling him that he had that acai berry spam virus. The part that I would have liked to resolve was the curiosity that was triggered when Steve (who went to the same primary school as me, and ended up in YN's class at uni) sent me a recorded message from YN saying, "I love Anna!" which he gave to me after we broke up, but I never asked if he was serious. I was kinda freaked out, to be honest. Although, I can't have been sure that it was YN, it sounded like his voice, but for all I know, it could have been some random guy who sounds similar, and for that reason, I never asked YN about it. Or maybe he was talking about another Anna - I mean, as much as I'd like to think I am, I'm not the only Anna in the world, much less than in Melbourne. Also, I would have felt terrible had it really been him and he had really meant it.
Well, one thing I did learn from the YN experience was that I am less inclined to go out with a guy who spends most of his time offline again. So hard to contact someone who is never on some sort of IM program. T_T It's kinda weird though, because I assumed since he liked games like Starcraft, Warcraft III, and Age of Empires 2, I thought he would be geeky and addicted to the Internet like the rest of us, but I guess I was wrong. Although one benefit to his being more of an RL person is that I can be fairly confident that he's not going to read this blog post.
Thursday, 28 May 2009
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