What's For Dinner?

I've put a bit more thought into the dinner problem, and I've come up with an idea. I thought I could create a website with a dinner sign-up list - inspired somewhat by the WoW dungeon queuing system. Only people who I've approved can sign up to dinners, but I will allow for some sort of vouching system, since I want to meet new people, too. Once you've signed up, you can make a party with other people who have signed up and "queue" for a dinner. Party size can be anywhere between 1 and 3 (because if you count me and MrMan5.5, that leaves 5, which is the magic number).

The first person/party in the queue will get a dinner invite. They will get an email saying when dinner will be, and get a chance to reply. This is when stuff like dietary requirements and things like that can be sorted out. If the party can't make it, I will either try to fill spots with smaller sized parties, or try with whoever is next on the list. You can't re-queue while you're currently in queue, and you don't leave the queue until the dinner is over. The purpose of this is to stop spam queuing. I'm not really expecting these dinners to be all that popular, but as QC pointed out, it is free food, and I don't want people who are only interested in a free meal. The point of this is to get feedback.

If nobody is interested, then that is also fine, MrMan5.5 and I will eat alone - which is probably what would have happened anyway. As gale mentioned, an important addition is the "If you do bad stuff, you are banned" rule. Bad stuff is up to my discretion, but something I wish the WoW dungeon system did have was a blacklist option. I say this rather than a feedback for others option, because I think the feedback system can be rigged if you just get your friends to thumbs up you, or thumbs down someone else. So you can create a blacklist of people you don't want to have dinner with (which only the system can see), and it will never group you with that person. That way nobody will have to find a nice way of telling me they don't like someone.

Hopefully the blacklist system will encourage people to play nice. If you are on a lot of blacklists, then it is unlikely that you will be invited to fill holes in other groups. Of course, you can circumvent that by simply always queuing in a group of three, but that may not be so easy depending on who you are friends with.

One problem I see with the blacklist idea is what if someone blacklists someone who wants to party with them? Since you can only queue once, and the system should never allow someone to be grouped with someone they've blacklisted, they would never get invited. The only reason I can see this happening, is if someone doesn't want to group with someone else, but is too polite to tell them to their face. I figure that is their problem and not mine. Is that fair?

There are a few things I'm unsure about how to solve, but I think it's easier to explain with an example:

We have some friends: Alice, Bob, Carol, Dave, Eve, Fran, Gordon, who may or may not be trying to send or intercept encrypted messages, but one thing they would like to do is have dinner at my house. Since I know them all, they are all approved to sign up. Alice is fastest off the mark, and she invites Bob and Carol to form a party. However, until Bob and Carol accept, they cannot join the queue. So in the meantime, David realises he hasn't seen Gordon in a while, so he forms a party with him. As Gordon is online at the same time, he is able to accept instantly, and so they are the first in the queue.

Eve doesn't know anybody else who has signed up, but she does know me, so even if she ends up with people she doesn't get along with, she can still catch up with me. So she queues alone. Fran is looking to meet new people, so she also queues alone. Bob and Carol finally get around to accepting their group invites, so they are queued with Alice.

Current queue: [Dave + Gordon, Eve, Fran, Alice + Bob + Carol]

I decide I want to try cooking chicken pot pie. I pick next Wednesday as the next available time and enter the details into the system. As Dave and Gordon are first in the queue, they are invited. I can accommodate for three people, so Eve is also invited. Eve is busy that day, so she declines the invitation, and Fran is invited in her place. Dave, Gordon and Fran accept. Dinner happens, they leave the queue.

So one part I'm undecided about, is what to do with Eve now. I think it's stupid to expect that everyone is keeping their schedule free for my dinners, so it seems only fair to let Eve stay at the head of the queue.

Current queue: [Eve, Alice + Bob + Carol]

Here's where I encounter my second problem. Eve is at the front of the list. The only other people on the list is a group of three people. I can either temporarily allow a party of four, or skip Eve again and only invite Alice, Bob and Carol. Let's just say I allow for a party of four, everyone is available, and we have dinner. Eve spends the entire time trying to get between Alice and Bob, which as you would expect, pisses both of them off. So dinner ends, and all are removed from the queue, but Alice and Bob blacklist Eve.

Bob is going away for work, so Alice queues alone. Eve and Carol had fun together, so they queue again. Gordon and Fran hit it off so well, that they decide they want to try it again and queue again. Dave doesn't really care who he has dinner with this time, so he also queues alone.

Current queue: [Alice, Eve + Carol, Gordon + Fran, Dave]

Alice is first, so she forms the party. Since Alice has blacklisted Eve, neither Eve nor Carol can join. So instead, Gordon and Fran get the next invitation. Gordon and Fran are invited. Fran is free, however, Gordon is not.

So the next decision I have to make is what to do with Fran and Gordon's group now? My first idea was to leave it up to Fran and Gordon. Are they OK with splitting the party up? In which case, Gordon leaves the group, and Fran is left in the queue on her own (I believe this is what the WoW dungeon system does).

Current queue: [Alice, Eve + Carol, Fran, Dave]

Dave fills the remaining gap, so Alice, Fran and Dave are invited.

So one thing it does seem to favour, is smaller groups, as you don't run the risk of the rest of your group being slow to reply. I think what I will allow, is for you to retract your invites if others are slow to accept so that you can try to form a new party if you want. However, once you are in the queue, if you decide you don't want that party, and you disband it, and queue again with a new group, you will be placed at the back of the queue (this is also what WoW does, and seems fair to me).

If there aren't enough people in the queue to fill a party, then I guess a smaller party is also fine. I think that covers all of the bases, is there anything else I didn't think of?

Whose Fault Is It Anyway?

It has been a question that comes up every single time I go back to playing WoW. When someone dies in a dungeon, whose fault is it? So in typically MMOs, you have the holy trinity of tank, healer and DPS (which stands for Damage Per Second, which somehow means a damage dealer, but I guess DD was taken for things like double damage).

The tank's job is to take the damage, usually this involves knowing fights in order to position bosses to reduce party damage. The healer's job is to keep everybody alive. This usually involves casting healing spells, or buffs to reduce damage - though priests get a skill at level 85 which pulls someone towards them, which can help save someone from being stomped on, or something like that (I haven't hit 85 yet, so I don't really know how well it fits into my current toolkit). DPS are required to do lots of damage, and occasionally they will have a skill that lets them disable a monster, which they might also need to use.

During the week or so after the release of Cataclysm, the general consensus was that things were much harder than Wrath of the Faceroll. Things like crowd control are actually important, at least in heroics, and everyone has to pull their weight or the group will probably wipe. I've found that healing is actually a challenge now, and there have been a few times where I've felt like I've done everything I can, and it's still not enough. I took a bit of a break for a while, in order to farm up better gear, and things seem not so dire at the moment (although there was a hotfix that buffed priests not too long ago - I'm not sure what it did, but healing seems much, much easier now. It was kinda crazy, there was a poll on MMO champion about which healers people preferred. At the time I checked, 82% of people preferred paladins, and I forget the distribution between druid and shaman, but only a measly 3% of people preferred priest).

Previously in WoW, when a group wiped, unless it was really obvious someone else had done something absurdly stupid, the blame typically went towards the healer. If you send a letter, and find out later that it never arrived, it makes sense to assume something is wrong with the postal system. It would never occur to you that perhaps you addressed it incorrectly, or you might have completely forgotten to mail it in the first place, as these are usually unlikely events, and who blames themselves anyway?

As I mentioned, one of the big changes in Cata is that it's not just the healer's responsibility to keep everyone alive. As Olek puts it, the most important thing to learn in this expansion is it "stay out of the hurty shit". If you don't move out of the lava, you will die. If you don't keep adds crowd controlled, and the healer can't keep up with the damage, you will die. If you don't move away from the falling rocks, you will die (*cough, cough*).

Not too long ago, I came across this situation in a dungeon.

(If you don't understand what's going on: the warrior (brown - Nag) is telling the druid (orange - Dat) to focus on the mob marked with skull. The druid is saying he did, but the warrior said he was using an area of effect skill which was causing the druid to gain threat on other targets, and so they'd go and beat on the druid and he'd die. The druid said that what he was doing was fine, and if the warrior was any good, he would be able to hold aggro even with hurricane.)

Add to this, later I get a message from the warrior:

Thinking back towards the roles I described earlier, is the tank at fault for not being able to hold aggro over the druid's pitiful hurricane damage (I don't actually know how much damage he was doing) so that the mobs would attack him instead of the rest of the party? He purposely assigned an attack target so that he could build up enough aggro on that target not to have to worry that it would change targets. Holding a lot of aggro on multiple targets at once can be difficult, because while you are trying to build aggro on another, the DPS classes are unleashing everything they have on the marked target, so unless your threat can keep up, someone is going to get their face smashed in. At the same time, the tank can't completely ignore the other targets, as healing causes aggro on all mobs, so if the tank doesn't get at least some aggro on the others, eventually they're going to decide to beat down on the healer.

Is the druid at fault for.... doing too much damage? So as a DPS class, his job is essentially to deal damage, and lots of it. Also, they should crowd control where possible to ease the stress on the healer (druid wasn't able to do anything that pull). If he doesn't do enough damage, eventually the healer will run out of mana (it happens now, it's so great!), the tank will run out of health, and you'll all die (unless you're pro like Rob).

Am I at fault for letting the druid live? That doesn't seem to make sense, as it's my job to keep people alive, so letting them die seems counter-intuitive. I had a discussion with Julian ages ago about how to spot a good healer. DPS have damage meters, but using healing meters to judge skill doesn't quite work. I can make my way to the top of the healing meters spamming heals on random people all fight, but if half the raid is dead at the end, does that make me a good healer?

Knowing your class well is something that makes someone a good player in general, and I have read a lot about priests in Cata, and one of the things that crops up the most is holy priests are the best (unlike the other healing classes, priests have two healing specialisations - discipline and holy). I am a huge disc supporter. Other than a brief period in WotLK when I had disc for PvP and holy for PvE, I have always been disc for PvE (I was 31/30/0 in TBC, and that meant I was "hybrid", but I count that as disc as I had one point more in disc than holy!) and although the reason behind that might not be the greatest, it's something I want to stick with. According to the number crunchers, this is the less-than-ideal path.

This makes me worry that I might not be carrying my weight. Maybe I'm just feeling this way because after wiping on a boss many, many times, they managed to kill him after I was kicked from the group. MrMan5.5 says that it wasn't my fault, but if you look at the common element in all the failures that wasn't present in the success, arrow points to me (and all the random players who left as they didn't have the patience to keep trying, but it seems like they were just replaced with more of the same people).

The other pandemic that is spreading is the trigger happy vote-kickers. It seems that rather than give someone a chance to learn, they'd rather kick them from the party and hope to get someone new who is good. I understand that it is a waste of time explaining to someone how something works and possibly dying because they're still learning the encounter, but everyone was in that boat not too long ago, and someone was kind enough to explain it to them, so why don't they do the same to others?

I've read some stories about people who have waited in queue for over 40 minutes, only to get kicked the moment they join without any explanation (which is another problem, when you kick someone, you are required to give a reason, yet the person who gets kicked never finds out the reason - although the reason can be "asdf" and they'll still get kicked if the vote is passed). That is why I'm really reluctant to kick someone, especially a DPS class who has another long wait ahead of them.

I'm not sure if I'm doing the right thing though. It's unfair to the rest of the party to die over and over just because I'm happy to be patient and teach someone new. As I said, I'd be happy to pay for people to repair their armour, but you can't trade gold across realms (I did offer to give the DK the loot I won so that he could sell it for gold, but he ignored me). But it's not just gold, it's also a waste of their time. That being said, the vote kick system would still allow the person to be kicked even if I voted no, assuming everyone else voted yes. It also punishes people for votekicking people too often, which is why the DK had to ask me to do it, as I'm guessing he has tried to kick too many people.


QUICK WoW DUNGEON QUEUE EXPLANATION
There are many different dungeons in WoW, and can be completed in parties of five people. Previously, you had to find the other party members yourself, but now you can just pick a dungeon (or a random) and tick the roles you can fulfill (tank/damage/healer) and wait in queue. The system matches people based on roles, puts you together in a party, and off you go! There is a shortage of tanks and healers compared to DPS, so they typically have short wait times, with the average DPS wait time sometimes getting to over an hour (compared to the instant - 1 min wait times for tanks and healers). =/

The good/bad thing about it is that it can match you with people from other servers, so you can be a complete asshole to everyone else and probably never see them again!

Beep, Beep

Big event happened in my life! I was driving Graham home, this woman was crossing the road really slowly. I was ages away from her when I first saw and by the time I reached her, she was only halfway across the road. Since there was plenty of time to stop, I stopped next to her, and she didn't even notice, just continued at her snail pace across the road. Graham said I should beep her, and I did! It was the first time I had ever beeped someone on purpose since I got my license.The only two other times I have beeped my horn was when I accidentally sat on the steering wheel while trying to reach something in the back.

I think it says something about my personality. When people swerve into my lane, or do stupid things on the road, I would much rather just get out of their way than honk my horn and potentially get into a fight with them. Anyway, MrMan5.5 was saying it wasn't something worth celebrating, but I think it is.

Also, to Peki, I am not into beastiality!

(while in Arathi)

(this is what it was about)

The End

Phew, last post for NaBloPoMo 2010! I'm starting it at 10:40PM, will I make it in time?!

In order to come around a full circle, I thought I'd link my failed attempt at NaNo 2010. I've learned a lot about what I like to read based on what I wrote. I'm not a big fan of paragraphs spent describing the surrounding area, nor even descriptions of the people themselves. Most of my focus is on the dialogue, rather than actions between people. As I mentioned before, my dialogue is quite stilted and unnatural, so that is the thing I would like to work on the most before trying NaNo again.

The main character was really bland. He wanted to become a mage, but that was pretty much his only character trait. He didn't seem to have any interesting relationships with anyone else, and was a bit of a loner. He did have friends, but I didn't really know what I was going to do with them, so they also ended up being quite two-dimensional.

So the basic plot would have been that a mage came to take Jarrod away for use as a conduit. She was a light/time mage, and quite famous for her work in the war. She explains that while shd did medical magic during the war, it wasn't because she condones the war, but because people were hurt. She tries to tell Jarrod that there are more important things that becoming a mage and fighting in the war.

It turns out that she is his mother (while she didn't give birth to him, she developed a technique to transfer his unborn body into his birth mother - who ended up marrying his father - as she didn't want him), which he figures is the reason he was never able to become a fire mage - or any mage at all. He learns a lot about the different schools of magic as the two of them travel together, but at night he constantly has dreams leading him to a specific place (he can't remember what happened when he went to see the spirits, but they are able to send him messages in his dreams). He finds that he is a very capable conduit for light, time and fire magics, but because of his extensive study at the academy, he is fairly adept at the other elements.

The two of them travel to the place in his dreams, and find out a man has worked out how to use untrained magic-sensitive children as magical conduits, boosting his power to incredible proportions. He wants to use his powers to wage a new war, while the soldiers are busy fighting their current war, but he hasn't managed to find enough children. He meets Jarrod and finds him interesting. Jarrod's personality is a bit of all of the elements, and the man realises that would make him an incredibly strong conduit, as he is able to manipulate all the elements, as opposed to most conduits who specialise in one or two.

Jarrod and his mother realise that using the children as conduits leads to them being unable to attain runes, which explains why there is a magic block in the area - the spirits are having trouble communicating with the children because they are not on the path of rune acquisition. Jarrod tries to warn the man, but he doesn't listen, and so Jarrod and his mother are forced to travel back to Istvar and try to convince the king that he needs to deal with the situation. The king says that they can't spare any troops from the front lines for some unfounded story, and dismisses both of them.

Jarrod comes up with the idea of using the academy students to fight. He says that they have magic inside them, they just can't shape it properly like a mage, but if you have enough of them, then they can act as conduits for the teachers of the academy who are magi, effectively amplifying their power. Jarrod's mother points out that this is exactly what the other guy is doing, and it may lead to these children never becoming magi either. Jarrod decides that he will ask the students of the academy to volunteer for the fight, arguing that at least he's giving them a choice in whether they want to eventually become magi or not, whereas the other guy is just forcing the children into being conduits.

While they are doing this, Pietro joins them and says that he heard what was going on through the air mail, and he wants to help. He ends up recruiting people who had studied with them at the academy to fight.

Most of the older academy students decide to help out, as they want to help save the children who are being used. Jarrod decides this is the best that he's going to get, and launches an attack. During the first moments of the attack, many of the students collapse, unconscious. Jarrod and the other magi are slowly being driven back. Then all the students who had collapsed awaken with runes - as the spirits saw their demonstrations of likeness during the fight, and saw fit to grant them their first rune. This turns the tide of the battle, and eventually, they win.

Jarrod decides he wants to see more of the world, and continues his travels with his mother in order to help people.

So that's my entire NaNo story in less than 800 words!

Game Idea

I was thinking about writing an MMO where you can be any character in the MMO. The only NPCs would be the animals/monsters around the world that you could kill (or not kill, if that's how you choose to play), and while there would be an in game currency, how much things are worth is entirely up to the players. So the player can be the blacksmith that repairs weapons, or the hunter that collects pelts, or the banker, who stores items and holds onto currency (though they would have to gain a lot of trust first).

Players start out completely from scratch, and they can choose to join a village, or build their own up (by gathering the materials to build buildings, and then attracting other people to come to their village). Everything would be entirely player-enforced, if someone stole something from another player, it would have to be sorted out between the players (who may decide to involve people from their village to help them resolve it).

The most important part, is that players wouldn't have to be players, they could choose to be the boss NPCs in games. One of my biggest hates about MMOs with PvE (player vs environment) encounters is that after someone has figured out the encounter, it's easymode. Instructor Razuvious was a wall for a lot of guilds in Naxx, as he one-shot all the tanks, until someone realised you could mind control his students, and use the students to tank. After that, any guild with enough geared players to clear the trash up to Razuvious was smashing him.

If you had player controlled raid bosses, then it wouldn't just be a matter of "At 60 seconds, X casts Supernova, so everyone has to move to this side. Then 45 seconds later, X summons a skeleton that has to be killed right away." It becomes a bit more like PvP where the person you are fighting is unpredictable. They might be good, or they might be terrible, but it isn't just like dancing to the same music over and over again. They will cast stuff to target the weaker players, so it won't be as easy to be carried if you suck.

I want it to be somewhat like the Anubian guards in AQ40, where you don't know which skill they have until you are fighting them, and then everyone has to quickly prepare themselves based on which skill the guard has. So each "boss" can choose which skills they are going to level, and if there are enough skills, no encounter should be the same (although I get the feeling that people will start posting "optimal builds" and so eventually you will end up with cookie-cutter bosses).

Although, raid bosses aside, I think the game resembles too much of real life. There is too much of a grind to be able to do anything. You don't start out with any money, so where will you get money from? You sell stuff to people who have money. But where do they get money from? I'm not sure if it would go so far as to have someone who is the mint and they mine metals in order to turn them into money, and people trade their goods in exchange for the coins. What if a village has no miners and no mint - does that mean they can't have any money?

Also, what happens when people go to sleep for the night? This would only work if you had a huge number of people playing at the same time. It would suck if you traveled for half an hour getting to a new village, only to find out that all the merchants are asleep, and there is nothing for you to do there now.

I realise this game sounds a lot like Minecraft with an economy and raid bosses, but I want to add that I've never played Minecraft and I did come up with this idea before. The success of Minecraft means that my game could work in theory, as people seem to enjoy building stuff, but I don't know how I would handle griefers, which seems to be a big problem. Would people enjoy being able to raze another village? Well, if you're a griefer, obviously the answer is yes, but if you just wanted to play the game, I doubt a lot of people would be able to build up the motivation to rebuild a village if the first one got destroyed so easily.

I like the idea of being able to take on roles other than the role of the adventurer/hero, but I don't really want to play Eve Online, which a lot of people have recommended to me. I played a bit for Pandy when he went to China and had no Internet access, and the game didn't really appeal to me (well, the fact that Pandy didn't let me go anywhere in case I died might have had something to do with it, but the game itself and the mechanics don't really sound like my thing).

I've always want to play a game where the things you do actually have an impact on the world around you. I like how in Baldur's Gate II, there is a mission where you can save some people (depending on your class), and then you gain control of a headquarters and can make decisions for the people living there. I like how people react to you differently based on the things that you have done. There is no real punishment for being an asshole in MMOs. Sure, people can spam chat/forums that you're a ninja/moron, or put you up on wowjackass.com, but there are so many people playing that even if some people refuse to group with you, it's not that hard to find someone else to group with.

Probably needs a bit more thought before it is a playable game though.

More Friendship Algorithms

(somehow I feel like I've written a post almost identical to this before, but time is running out and I can't really check.)

QC said that I don't spend enough time with her and that I am possibly avoiding her, but as I said to her, and as I have said before, my personal policy for deciding what to do is based on first come, first served. I think it is the most fair, and the least messy algorithm to decide how you are going to spend your time.

It used to piss me off quite a lot during vanilla WoW when one of my guildies would say, "Hey, Anna, do you mind healing X for me?" and when I put together a party and I made my way over to the instance (because nobody ever wants to help summon unless someone is already there), said guildy would then turn around and say, "Oh, actually, I might go and play some XBox." While he is well within his rights to change his mind, there are four people who have gone out of their way to help him out, and now we are left stranded. He was the tank, which is the hardest party member to replace, so it wasn't even like we could do the instance ourselves and make something of the trip out.

I think it's acceptable if you have something else that can't be put off later, like you need to pick up your parents who got too drunk when they went out, something comes up suddenly, but in most cases I will try to stick with my original plan even if a better offer comes up. I have agreed to do something with someone, and they are expecting me to be there.

Still, I think QC is right when she said that I do prioritise certain people over others. My hierarchy pretty much goes family > MrMan5.5 > other friends. I will drop pretty much anything for family stuff, because even though I don't feel all that close to my family, they are my family and I love them (but usually the only time I have to do stuff for my family involves driving Amanda around when Mum has work, or taking Mum to the hospital). I'll usually only drop something for MrMan5.5 if it's an emergency. He understands that I have other people that I want to spend time with.

FCFS isn't perfect though, as there is a way to abuse the system - simply spamming requests pretty much ensures that you get to do as much as you possibly can with the person. I don't think there's anyone out there who wants to spend that much time with me though, so I don't really worry about that.

I think if you approached events like a stack, then it would just lead to a mess. Alice asks you to play Starcraft 2 with her, but before you start, Bob asks you to go and see a movie with him so you do that. However, before you get there, Carol asks you to have dinner with her. Before you make it to dinner Dave invites you to go bowling, etc. You can't really go last in, first out, because people may feel rejected that you chose another offer over theirs. So you end up just leaving behind a wake of rejections and probably have a few people you have to apologise to later.

What does make sense is a priority queue, which may end up being better off for you, but I think is less fair than FCFS. I guess I already do use a priority queue, as emergencies tend to jump to the top of the queue, but what I mean is, having a queue of offers, but if an offer appeals more to you, then you can shift it to the front. So Alice asks you to join her for dinner, but Bob calls you and says he bought the James Bond DVD collection and is marathoning them, which you think is more fun than having dinner with Alice. So you cancel on Alice, and spend time with Bob instead. Your personal enjoyment goes up, but like with the stack algorithm, you might cause a lot of people to get angry. I think this system is also unfair, as it biases certain people.

There's a lottery system, where you can allocate "tickets" to each offer, giving more tickets to the offer that appeals to you more, and then pick a random number to determine which "wins". I'm not sure how this system is supposed to work for asynchronous offers though. I guess at best, it could wait until the last possible moment before picking a winner. I think is unfair, like the priority queue, as there is a bias towards certain things/people - since you are the one who allocates the "tickets". It does have the random factor though, so it can be slightly more fair, depending on your algorithm for allocating tickets.

There's shortest job first, which I guess could be the equivalent of agreeing to the shortest events so that you can pack more into your day. The throughput is high, but it sounds kinda weird, and it's quite difficult to pull off successfully, as you might have to cut events off short in order to make it to the next event. It makes me think of those people on ABCotD who line up multiple dates for one night, and end up pissing off their date who finds out about the other dates. Again, like with CPUs, this suffers from the "exploit" that you could just get spammed with lots of short events and so someone could effectively hog all of your time (although that depends on whether you rate the time based on how long the event takes, or rate the time based on time spent with a person - the latter would lead to someone being unable to schedule a series of short, sequential events.

Though if QC is complaining that I am not spending enough time with her, then I guess it means something has fallen through the cracks and I should put more effort into trying to fix that. Still, that doesn't change the fact that I'm busy Christmas Eve. =(

Daggy Love

When I first heard the term "Love Triangle" I couldn't work out how on Earth it was possible. I was in primary school at the time, and I got as far as: Girl A likes Boy, but Boy likes Girl B. Then I couldn't get any further, because the only logical conclusion that would make it a triangle was if Girl B liked Girl A, and in primary school, girls like boys and boys like girls, but girls don't like other girls and boys don't like other boys.

Later in life, I learnt about sexuality, and that sometimes boys can like boys and girls can like girls, and then I managed to make the love triangle work, but only with bisexual people. Girl A likes Boy, but Boy likes Girl B, but Girl B likes Girl A. Now both Girl A and B have to be bisexual, because Boy wouldn't like Girl B if he had no chance of getting with her (ie. she was a lesbian), and Girl B wouldn't like Girl A if Girl A was straight, because she would have no chance of getting with her. My reasoning was, that if you realised that you had no chance with someone (ie. they were the wrong gender, or you're the wrong gender, or they are already in a relationship with someone else) you would work on getting over your emotions and try to move on.

So that's when I came up with the concept of a love directed acyclic graph (DAG). This doesn't pose any constraints on anybody's sexuality, because Girl A -> Boy -> Girl B is a DAG, and they could all be heterosexual or bisexual, but the point is, the graph still holds. QC mentioned having a 2nd floor web of love or something like that which sounds like a funny thing just to see what has happened in the past (and how incestuous 2nd floor relationships are), but maybe you could use it for the future as well.

If Facebook had a feature for love DAGs, then things would be easier. If you are listed as in a relationship, you drop off the DAG. You can secretly list who you have a crush on, and they will add those arrows to the DAG. If the person you have a crush on lists you in return, you both get a message and the magic can start (and you both drop off the DAG)! If the person you have a crush on doesn't return your feelings, then you can be happy with the feeling that you have an extra arrow leading off your vertex on the DAG. It's a win-win situation.

When (er... I mean "if" *cough, cough*) you break up, then you can rejoin the DAG, and try to find your next victim! In the event that you end up with a huge DAG, maybe I can do another poll and maybe get something published in a journal! Win-win-win situation. :)

Fodder and the City

After I started watching Sex and the City, I always wondered if I wasn't somewhat like Carrie, in the sense that after I go out and do something with my friends, I will usually come home and blog about it in order to digest my day. I'm not quite so fancy as to have a weekly column in a newspaper, but whenever I do go out with friends, I usually have something new to think about when I get home.

The problem is, Carrie's friends never complain when she writes about them, even though they do read. And Carrie's circle is enclosed enough that she can write about her friends and pretty much nobody outside that circle of friends would have any idea who she is writing about. However, when I write, though I do try to keep people's identities a secret when I feel it's appropriate, there is only so much I can say about a situation before it becomes pretty obvious who I'm talking about if you happen to know the person.

For instance, I was going to write about P and N today. How I found out that P is going overseas, and when she gets back, N is going overseas, so I'm not entirely sure why, but they decided they were going to break up. Now not everyone who knows P and N would work out who they are, but pretty much anyone who has spent more than 5 minutes with either of them in the past week would probably know who I'm talking about. I wanted to do a big dissection on their relationship, but I wonder if somehow they stumble upon my blog, would they be pissed off that I am writing what I'm about to write?

So when I first heard that they were going to break up because they were going to be on holidays away from each other for a while, my first impression was they were doing it because they wanted to try out the exotic wares while away. There's that whole postcode rule thing as mentioned in Role Models (it's not cheating if you are doing it in a different post code), and while I don't believe in it, it's what some people seem to live by.

I think that's a pretty strange reason to break up. If you pretty much know that person is going to do the dirty while they're away, and you're OK with it, why bother breaking up? Just so they can say that they haven't cheated? But if they were planning to get back together again after they both returned, then does that mean they were only separated in name, but not in spirit? If that's the case, they might as well just stay together and be in an open relationship.

Now that I think about what she said, I got the impression from P that she wasn't entirely sure that they were going to get back together after the holidays were over. She never said that they were having problems, and from what I've seen of the two of them together, it doesn't seem like they are having problems, so the break-up seems so sudden to me.

I don't really want to ask either of them what's going on, because it's really none of my business, but I hope it works out well for both of them.

It's Showtime

Today is the last day of NaBlo, and I have a whopping 6(!) blogs to catch up on.

I saw The Social Network today, and I think one of the nice things about it was how refreshingly different it was to most of the movies I've seen lately. I think I'm starting to develop more of a taste for shows/movies with good character development rather than good plot twists or great action sequences.

I read an article about the proposed Hollywood remake of the Millennium Trilogy, where the the author was wondering why Hollywood was bothering to remake movies that already exist (albeit with subtitles). From what I recall reading at the time, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo performed pretty well during its release, especially for a foreign movie, however, it didn't make the blockbuster amounts of money that Hollywood is expecting it to make if they add Daniel Craig to the cast list.

Watching the trailers for the movie today, made me wonder if Hollywood has run out of ideas. There's this movie where Angelina Jolie whisks away this random guy and they end up being chased by people who want to kill them. Sound like her movie The Tourist? Actually, that's the plot to her movie Wanted, released in 2008. Yeah, I couldn't see the difference, either.

Book adaptations, superhero movies, sequels to previously successful movies, modern adaptations of old stories (e.g. Shakespeare), zombie movies - that's pretty much what populates the "Now Showing" for the entire year. The movie industry keeps blaming pirates for losing so much money - which I do agree, does cost them money - but at the same time, all they are doing is repackaging stuff from a few years ago, giving it a fresh coat of paint, and charging us $15 to watch it. While advertising repackaged stuff from a couple of years ago, so that next year, we'll go and pay $16 to see that.

I guess now is a good time to get back into the classics. The acting might be sub-par, and the special effects non-existent, but good stories, and good writing will have to make up for that. I think it's a lot like games - older games don't have the awesome graphics or multiplayer capability to capture your attention, but they still managed to entertain, so there must be something there.

I think the movies and TV shows I remember the best are the ones with good writing, and good characters. Actually, I lie. I seem to have liked a lot of crappy TV shows with terrible characters and terrible dialogue. I'm trying to think about what I liked about them. I guess a part of it was that I wanted to be like them. I wanted to be a planeteer, or a power ranger, or one of the Mario brothers. Now I want a nice job, and a house, and a huge kitchen.

At first, I thought that maybe my priorities have changed. I don't want to save the world from alien invasions or nuclear waste anymore, I just want to be able to live comfortably. I am sick of movies with a happily ever after, because in real life, there rarely ever is a happily ever after. But then again, I really loved Toy Story 3. Despite being a kids' movie, I thought it was well executed, and without giving any spoilers away, I didn't feel like I was cheated out of a proper ending just because Pixar didn't want parents complaining that their kids went home crying their eyes out.

Maybe that's what has changed. I'm now an elitist movie-goer, who demands more than sparkly vampires and CGI-car chase scenes that are put in everything these days in order to cater to the masses.

Rarely Seems Very Patient

I got an invitation to an event on Facebook for an event that is a while away. Not even 10 minutes after receiving the invitation, I get an SMS from the organiser saying, "Don't forget to RSVP, would love to see you there!" I wasn't sure if MrMan5.5 was free, so I didn't RSVP that night. In the morning, I woke up to another SMS reminding me to RSVP. Then three Facebook messages. At this point, I'm pretty sure it wasn't just the host thinking I was forgetful. I might be forgetful, but over the span of a day, do I really need 5 reminders? So the messages were probably directed at everyone. It just made me think that I'm really not suited to being a housewife if it involves sitting around doing nothing until there is a big event.

What I would like to know is whether there is still any need for an RSVP for some events. What do you learn when people RSVP?
-who plans to attend (and from that you can work out how many people plan to attend)
-who received your invitation
- who you should avoid inviting in the future because they're notoriously hard to contact, and never show up anyway.

When it's something like what QC did for her birthday, then I think it makes sense to need to know numbers, because there is only a limited number of places, and so if people say they aren't able to attend, then you can invite someone else who is. For things where a booking is required, or you need to purchase tickets beforehand, numbers are also important. But when it's a casual house party, is it really necessary?

You could argue that numbers will tell you how much food to buy, but everyone just seems to overbuy anyway, and with the wonders of modern refrigeration, it means you won't have to cook for the next few days or so! (Maybe it's just an Asian thing, but we always seem to have so much more food than is ever needed. I was eating food from my 21st for the week after - and that's taking into account that half of it was offloaded at my party. Mmmm, spring rolls.)

To be honest, I am finding it annoying that I am getting pestered so much. I don't really want to go for that reason. I forgot who it was who reminded me of the quote, but it's from Street Fighter (the JCVD movie), where Chun-Li has been captured by Bison, and he says to her, "For you, the day Bison graced your village was the most important day of your life. But for me, it was Tuesday."

Let's Talk About Sex, Baby

(break from stats for a bit)

Kelso: Dr Reed.
Elliot: Mr Murdoch was admitted with a COPD exacerbation, he responded well to antibiotics, bronchodialators, but he did develop a rash on his... ummm... private area.
Kelso: Sorry, on his what?
Elliot: His peepers.
Kelso: Excuse me?
Elliot: His schwing schwong.
Kelso: Dr Reed, it's bad enough that you run out on a patient in the middle of a pelvic exam, but you are a doctor and you need to be able to say simple, clinical words, like penis, or vagina, or anal.
Elliot: Anal is not a dirty word, sir.
Kelso: Tell that to my wife.
-Scrubs, My Dirty Secret

A friend of mine who suddenly has significantly more time to game with me had me wondering what the change was. He said that his usual gaming partner was busy doing something else, to which I made a few inquiries as to what said activity was, and he was pretty vague about it. I made the obligatory porn comment, and my friend replied, "He doesn't watch porn."

As an aside, I should add that it seems silly that there's an expectation that all males watch porn and all females don't. However, there are many, many females who are quite vocal about their porn watching habits and applauded for being so open, so why is it that when a guy states that he doesn't watch porn is he instantly called a liar?

Anyway, I was filled with disbelief, and asked how my friend knew his friend didn't watch porn. His reply was that his friend just didn't seem interested in sex. I asked him how he knew, and he replied that his friend just never talked about it, or mentioned it, or did anything to show that he was interested in it.

While I don't want to fall into the automatic assumption that he is watching porn because he's a guy, I don't find the reasons for him to be uninterested in sex to be enough to convince me. I think there are a lot of people who just don't want to talk about sex, maybe because it makes them feel embarrassed, or uncomfortable. Sometimes I wonder if I write about or say things that make people feel uncomfortable. I try to give people warning when I can, but I don't always get the chance. Am I being oversensitive? I know Graham would probably feed them a spoonful of cement and say, "Harden the fuck up" (ah, the fond memories of Jello ).

Personally, I have various levels of comfort when it comes to talking about sex. Like Elliot, I tend to stick with certain terms for various body parts, although I am more from the clinical school and go with penis and vagina. I was discussing writing erotic fiction for NaNo with Olek, and I mentioned how I just can't bring myself to put "cum gun" or "love stick" into a story, or even most of the stuff listed here (wtf, "Moisture and heat seeking venomous throbbing python of love"). "Cock" I could use, but it makes me feel weird.

In primary school, there was one guy who would always tell me not to say "dirty" words. When I asked to borrow his rubber, he would look at me like I was crazy, and say that he didn't have any condoms. So I started using the word "eraser". When I asked to borrow his sharpener, he teased me and said I just wanted to see how big his "pencil" was. I started carefully choosing my words in order to avoid coming across words that he had marked as being bad, and sometimes I wonder if my conversation with friends growing up has suffered because of it. To think all of that happened in primary school.

I think that some people who seem uninterested in sex may not be uninterested, just unable to get over the psychological taboo of talking about it. I was definitely in that group once, and I think finding someone I could talk to about it, and blogging helped me a lot.

More Stats

Doing all of this in Excel makes me realise how much I miss SPSS. Thought about installing R, which I might end up doing next time I do stats related stuff and have the bandwidth.

WoW players and sexual activity

As many people have said, losing your virginity isn't the same as being sexually active. As Graham put it, you only have to lose it once to get kicked out of the V-Club, so as people get older, they are more and more likely to have lost it. If this were a longitudinal study, I would expect everyone to have lost it eventually. So with the same 38 people, here are the stats with sexual activity instead.

22 WoW players, 9 of which are currently sexually active.
16 non-WoW players, 6 of which are currently sexually active.

Chi-Squared test showed no significant difference (X^2 = 0.047, p > .05).

Hardcore vs single/multiplayer

Seeing as I didn't make that part of my survey compulsory, I did have one missing value, which I've decided to just delete. I've had a few comments about this question, the most prominent being that certain people prefer different types of games depending on the mood they are in. I'm not too sure how I would change that if I were to run the survey again, but keep that in mind when you read the results.

So we had 37 results.
24 defined themselves has hardcore gamers, 5 of which preferred single-player, and 19 of which preferred multi-player.
13 defined themselves as not hardcore gamers, 6 of which preferred single-player, and 7 of which preferred multi-player.

Chi-squared test showed no significant difference between the two (X^2=2.6, p > .05).

World of CasualCraft, the Follow-Up

I've closed the poll now, and have started calculating some results. I had a total of 38 people respond to my survey. I didn't take any demographic data, which I probably should have, but it is too late now.

Quick note about my survey. Yes, I was only looking at whether being a WoW player affects whether you are a virgin, but I also asked a few other questions because it felt weird to just outright ask whether someone is a virgin or not. I think I am going to try to look at what some of that other data says, but I just have to work out how I'm going to do that first!

So the first part, is there a relationship between WoW and virginity?

Number of WoW players (this includes ex-WoW players, as well as current): 22
WoW + Virgin: 10
% virgins: 45%

Number of non-WoW players: 16
Non-WoW + Virgin: 7
% virgins: 44%

I guess I wasn't all that good at guessing after all. =(

I ran a Chi-squared test and found that the results show there isn't a significant difference (X^2 = 0.14, p > .05) between WoW players and non-WoW players and virginity.

Interestingly, if you look within the WoW players, dividing between current and ex-WoW players, you get a different result.

Current WoW players: 7
# Virgins: 1
% virgins: 14%

Ex-WoW players: 15
# Virgins: 9
% virgins 60%

Chi-squared test shows that this is a significant difference (X^2 = 4.04, p < .05)! Does that mean that playing WoW and then stopping means you're less likely to lose your virginity? I did get data on whether players are currently sexually active, so that will come in a further post!

[EDIT] Eric points out that this more likely means that people who have lost their virginity are less likely to quit WoW, rather than what I said - which makes much more sense!

I guess the biggest problem is the whole time factor, that I didn't include in my survey - ie. whether it was lost before or after playing WoW. But it still goes with my personality theory, maybe people who are WoW-quitters (!) have a certain type of personality. If I was to continue with my World of CasualCraft assertion, vanilla WoW, and perhaps BC were far more hardcore than WotLK is, and so hardcore players would have quit long ago.

The other things I want to look at:

-whether hardcore players tend to prefer single-player or multi-player games
-whether hardcore players tend to prefer certain genres
-whether WoW playing and current sexual activity are related
-whether it's not just WoW, but MMOs in general

In the Stars

The WoW/sex poll must have really awakened the psych student in me, because here's another psych related post! Brookie and I were talking about personality tests in guild chat, and he linked me a description of INTP to read (I'm guessing the test he took was here). The two times that I've done a Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, I have been told that I'm an INTP. Graham did one and tried to answer as though he were me, and he got ISTP, which is only one letter off.

I read the PDF that Brookie linked, and I found that a lot of the terms described me pretty well:

-they see everything in terms of how it could be improved, or what it could be turned into
-they are the "absent-minded professors"
-they're very tolerant and flexible in most situations, unless one of their firmly held beliefs has been violated or challenged, in which case they may take a very rigid stance

are just a few from the first section.

Then Brookie told me what he got, and he said that he has the same personality type that I do. Not that it's a bad thing, but I've always felt like Brookie and I are pretty different people. We do share some common interests, like helping other people out, and achievement whoring, but the way that we talk, the way that we play, it seems like we approach life in a different way. Then again, he said himself that he doesn't think INTP describes him at all. However, he did a few tests, and they all told him the same thing, so something has to be wrong!

One of the things we talked about was "innate" personality vs. "situational" personality. The idea is that everyone has a personality that usually becomes fairly static after childhood, and this is someone's personality deep-down. The situational personality being the type of person you become in different situations - e.g. you might be lively and talkative when with friends, and sullen and quiet while with family.

In biology class, Mr Hanna once said that he refuses to believe in astrology because it's something some idiots created based on stars that have now moved to completely different locations, and only another idiot could possibly believe that such a thing dictates their life. Sometimes I wonder if personality types aren't a little bit like star signs as well. The only reason Brookie was doing the tests was because he had to do it for work. He said that depending on the results, he might be moved to another department better suited to his personality.

I understand that companies pay heaps to train people up, and at least they would rather find him a better placement than fire him outright, but why move people just because some test said they'd make a better X than Y? One of the important things I remember from I/O psych was that diverse groups can be quite strong, if they can get over their diversity, because they can draw from many different types of experiences, rather than just the same experiences over and over again. Maybe that problem of diversity is the reason some companies are so reliant on personality tests, but if someone has been working there for a few years, and has a proven track record of being able to play nice with others, it seems pointless.

Plus, there is no guarantee that the person taking the test isn't lying for the sake of social desirability anyway. More importantly, it might not be accurately measuring their situational personality. I wonder what will happen to me when I start work, especially as an Aries, INTP, moderate on openness, low conscientiousness, low extraversion, high on agreeable, and moderately neurotic?

Cover Fire

(from Stuff No One Told Me)

As I mentioned before, I started playing SC2 again with Teekay (and occasionally Olek). Teekay usually plays Zerg, but tonight he decided to play Terran for a bit. Most of my Terran/Protoss games have been play with Julian (some with Charles, but all he ever wants to do is proxy rax/gateway, so it doesn't count as a proper game), and tonight it made me realise how much I'm used to playing with him. By mid game he usually has plenty of tanks with siege mode out, and is probably teching for battlecruiser, so when I remember, I try to go phoenix to back him up. In my last game with Teekay, we were able to engage in middle, and they were setting up tanks, so I was waiting for Teekay to bring his along, too, so we could set up and fight. And waiting. And waiting. And they never came.

Despite the fact that they both have the Kerrigan portrait, Teekay isn't Julian, and his play-style is almost completely different. I know I should have looked to see what stuff he was building, but I guess I was too used to relying on a Terran partner to build certain stuff.

"Amazing discovery Anna, but how does it relate to us?" you might ask. Well, I think it says a lot about relationships, too. When you're in a relationship, after a while, you'll find that you tend to rely on the other person for certain things. You tend to expect certain things from the other person without even having to ask anymore. Whenever I have a jar or a bottle of water, I usually end up giving it to MrMan5.5 to open, and almost all of the time, he's waiting for me to finish my failed attempts at opening it so that he can give it a try.

Just as I find it so much easier to play with people I'm accustomed to playing with, I wonder how much of people's relationships are based on the fact that they are just used to being with whoever they are with? I admit, one of the reasons I was reluctant to give up AG was because he was a known entity. If I tried someone else, they could be better, but they could also be worse. I didn't want to have to go through all of the getting-to-know-you stuff again.

That's probably one of the reasons I'm not all that interested in meeting new people. You never know what kind of things might offend them, and even though they might be a friend of a friend, they doesn't mean they like all of the same things that you do. I went DVD hunting with QC at Highpoint a couple of months ago, and she invited her friend Social Anxiety David. I call him that because that's how she described him to me. After she said that, I wondered if I had to be extra careful around him, because I didn't want him to have a full-blown anxiety attack in front of me (I know, I'm a terrible person, I'm probably scared of epileptics, and I know someone else who also has social anxiety, and I didn't even find out she had it until a few years after I met her. She didn't seem any different to me at all).

At one point during our DVD hunt, I wanted to see if JB had an Arnie movie collection, but I didn't want anyone to steal the Arnie DVDs that I had already found, but hadn't paid for. QC had disappeared somewhere, so I had no choice but to ask David to hold them for me. I spent quite a while debating with myself whether he'd be OK with me asking him, and in the end, I just did it, and he seemed to have no problem with it. In fact, he was a really funny guy, and didn't seem any different at all. Plus, he found Pumping Iron for me and he likes Arnie, too.

I just realised that Social Anxiety David abbreviates to SAD. Oops. Anyway, he didn't turn out to be a crazy serial killer, so maybe getting out of your comfort zone isn't so bad - you might find some new people to laugh with.

Gobble Gobble

There's an achievement in WoW during the Pilgrim's Bounty (Thanksgiving) holiday that involves killing 40 turkeys within 30s of each other. It can be frustrating to try when the area is populated by other people trying to do the same achievement. You can be so close to a string of 40 kills when someone ninjas a turkey and there are no other turkeys within attack distance from where you are, so you have to start over again.

I figured the best time to farm the achievement would be later in the week, as the eager beavers will have finished with it, and you'd get in just before the people who suddenly realised the holiday would be over soon and wanted to quickly farm it before it ended. Then Brookie got it and told me Tirisfal was empty, so I ported over and tried my luck. HE LIED. There were so many other people farming at the same time I got the chain up to the 20s a few times before losing my turkey and starting over.

While I was grinding turkeys, I was thinking about how if you have a short chain (1-20 kills), are you're better off letting someone else finish their chain, and losing yours? If you do, that's one less person who is going to compete with you for turkeys. I had this idea that if two people came across a turkey, they could both say how long their chain was, and the person with the longest chain could have the kill. Or they could both play rock, paper, scissors, lizard, Spock and the winner would kill.

Though I imagine if you went by the longest chain gets the kill method, it would be really hard to get a long chain in the first place, because if you have to keep starting over, you're likely to come across people with longer chains than you, forcing you to start over. There isn't even time for the other two methods, as precious seconds will tick away while you sort out who should get the kill.

I wonder if all the people who threatened to quit WoW over this achievement, and other similar ones, actually did quit, would they put a serious dent in Blizzard/Activision's pocket?

Happy, Happy, Joy, Joy

So much of my blog is about doom and gloom and the fact that I wish I were more X because it would make me life easier. Today I've decided to just stop and smell the roses. I've been a lot more calm since I quit my job at the casino - probably because I don't have the guilt of taking people's money, as well as having to deal with incredibly stupid/drunk people who can't seem to listen to reason. It has been a pretty relaxing break, I like how I can just do things whenever I want rather than trying to plan things around my shifts and having to shift sleeping patterns constantly (although I am finding that I have trouble reverting to "normal hours" now that I'm on break).

I baked a cake for my dad on Friday, and I honestly forgot how much fun it is to bake. I decorated it with pink icing (because we only had pink food dye) and tried piping cream, and overall, I think it turned out pretty nice. I also got to try out my shiny new silicone baking tin(? Is it still a tin if it's made of silicone?). Reading through the blog where I got the recipe from, I've decided I want to try more things, like chicken pot pie, chicken kiev, savoury crepes, beer batter fish, rogan josh, shepard's pie. Most of them will probably have to wait until I move out and have the dinner parties that I've been planning (as mum and dad already cook more than enough food for us to eat that I think anything I make will end up going to waste).

Although in more food news, my silicone rolling pin should be arriving in the mail (hopefully tomorrow), so I can get started on my gingerbread cookies and truffles for Christmas! Going to see how vegetarian-friendly I can make my Christmas presents, as I believe Gale and Olek don't eat eggs or gelatin. Also will get around to buying ramekins at some point during my present hunt for family members so that I can try making crème brûlée.

MrMan5.5 has finished his exams for what will hopefully be the last time ever! I'm really happy for him, as this semester has been pretty stressful for him and he has spent most of it cramped up at home studying. We will be leaving for Japan in less than two months' time, and I can't wait to play all the gashapon machines! ^________^ I don't plan to buy all that much though (other than a kimono as a souvenir), so if anyone is after anything in particular from Japan, let me know and I'll try to find it.

I took Amanda out shopping today, and it seems she would like more clothes, but I think every time she goes out shopping with mum and Anjelica, she ends up getting dragged around and doesn't really get a chance to find anything for herself. As it seems that all hope of grooming her into the next pro-DotA player have disappeared (I still haven't managed to convince her to install War3 on her laptop), I guess I should be a good sister and take her out. I did say that I would buy her something if she got a good grade on her piano exam, and the thing we went to buy today she ended up paying for with her own money, so I'm planning to take her to the DFO or something so she can buy some new clothes for the holidays. The holidays where she'll hopefully spend time with her friends rather than staying at home watching Gossip Girl and Avatar: the Last Airbender. The last thing this family needs is another me.

I'm quite surprised at the response rate to my poll (although still not as many people as I had for my guessing exercise). Now that I have more than 10 results, I feel comfortable opening the spreadsheet, because it's pretty much impossible for me now to guess who made which response. I don't really care about any individual answer, because someone's private life is their own business and not mine. I'm still going to wait a bit before I publish any actual results, because I don't want someone to say something to someone who hasn't filled it in yet and bias the results. There are quite a few things that I find interesting though, and a few questions that I now have that I hadn't thought of before, but I will explain all of this in a few days! The psych student in me is actually quite excited to do some analysis - even if it is statistics.

After some prodding from Teekay, I've started playing a bit more SC2 lately. I'm finding that I'm a lot more relaxed while playing now. I think when I was playing with Julian and Charles, the focus was so much on winning the game, and now with Teekay and Olek, I feel like it's more about playing the game. If I misclick and click a zealot instead of a stalker, then I just shrug it off, maybe berating myself for it later if we lost. I don't feel like such a dead-weight for the team. That being said, I am currently playing much worse than when I was playing with Julian regularly, so maybe I know my skill is worse and it doesn't bother me when what happens in a game matches my expectations of my skill. In addition, when I do manage to play well, it's a pleasant surprise.

I just realised that I'm not entirely sure how to handle all of my data, so I just sent an email to my stats lecturer asking him some questions. It made me realise that I should study up a bit more on stats before I start the analysis. Yes, I know that I said this post was supposed to be something with me saying, "I need to be more X", but what can I say, I'm a chronic self-improver!

Dinner Time

QC reminded me of my plans to have people over for dinner once I move out. I still want to do it, but there is a problem of logistics that I never really thought about, and it was something that I'd deal with when it happened. I don't really know how I'd sort out who I'm going to have over when. I had this crazy idea that people would be lining up to want to come to my dinner parties.... but then I remembered that it's me cooking, and maybe people are going to be really cautious until I skill up.

I've mentioned before that I tend to segregate my friends. SEE people, 2nd floor people, WoW people, etc. Some people belong in more than one group, but everyone has one main group in my mind. What kind of groups would be interested though? I'm not planning to cater for a large group of people, maybe four at most, but two or three would be ideal. The problem with those numbers is that you end up having to decide who out of a large group would get invited.

I read an article saying that five is the ideal - so that you can break into smaller conversation groups of two and three. Three doesn't always work, as I explained previously (2 + 1). I'm guessing even though four is 2 + 2, and nobody is lonely, it doesn't quite lead to mingling. Does that mean that I should avoid inviting couples? Then which person from the couple should I invite?

Then you add in dietary requirements. I'm a mess enough as it is, but I think it would be wrong to constantly group Olek, Gale and RB just because they're all vegetarians/vegans. It's good that people have requirements though, it forces me to cook things that I wouldn't normally cook. I don't typically like Japanese food, but MrMan5.5 wanted to eat yakisoba, so I tried it out.

If I don't invite friends within a group, then you need friends that will play nice with other friends. I can imagine people meeting each other a few times, and then creating one of those blacklists. One of the things I hate most about organising group events is that some of your friends will have a secret grudge against one of your other friends. They won't say it out loud, but they'd prefer not to go to events the other person is going to. Rather than telling you this, they ask you who is going. Add to that, the fact that people will probably have a "required" list - ie. "I'll only go if X is going." Then you can't get a confirmation from anybody, because they're all waiting to see whether the others are going or not.

Or maybe everyone just hates me... T_T Either way, with so many comp-sci/soft eng types reading my blog, there must be some sort of algorithm for sorting out this mess!

Under the Bridge

In regards to my "research" from a couple of posts ago, I am told that my guessing isn't satisfactory, so there is now a poll to answer if you want to contribute! It's completely voluntary. I'm planning to leave it open for a week.

At Paul's 25th, QC called one of Paul's friends annoying. As always, this is something that I've tried very hard to decipher with no success. What is it that makes a person annoying? I think I've worked it out - it all stems from my inability to troll people. Yes, my complete and utter failure to troll has scarred me for life.

[For those who missed it, as I can't remember if I have posted about it before, a few years ago, Mesh and Kalg said that I'd never be able to troll, so to prove them wrong, I started a thread on the Blackrock forum. It was successful until people started arguing, and I felt bad so I was all like, "Stop fighting, guys, let's be friends!" Kalg and Meshu facepalmed, tried to salvage it, and were far more successful at trolling than I was.]

I've been following this blog for a while now, and it seems there are a few things I need to work on.

Invading people's personal space seems to also be an important factor, but I don't like people invading my personal space, so I don't think I can bring myself to do that to others.

Taking people's things is something I used to do. YN told me that he didn't think I was annoying, so I took his calculator so that he couldn't do his work. I thought he knew that I had taken it, but it seemed he didn't. I was expecting him to come and get it off me after school, but he never did and I forgot all about it until he called me at home and asked if I had it. I heard later that he had stayed at school until 5PM trying to find it. I felt so bad at the time, I don't think I could do that one either.

I've tried talking really loud, but it just ends up being the volume of most people's normal speaking voice. I've also tried talking a lot, and I'm really amazed at the people who are able to do this, because I usually run out of things to say after a few minutes at most. When I write blog posts, it is usually done over a few hours, alternating with battlegrounds or TV shows. However, I think that is the one that I can work on - talking is meant to come naturally to females, right?

Breakfast at Tiffany's

Lucy commented that MrMan5.5 is lucky to have me because he doesn't have to buy me things like jewellery. I think it's strange to like someone because of what you don't have to do for them. I think I'm over my clothes phase. I realised that I probably spend more time interacting with people online than anywhere else, and they really don't give a shit (I snuck a swear word in, Olek, did you see, did you see?) what I'm wearing and which label it came from. Probably with the exception of Lucy, the friends that I see in person don't care all that much either - at least not enough to have ever commented on it. So what is the point in spending so much money when I don't care, and the people who care about me don't care?

In the case of MrMan5.5 being lucky, I think it's a case of "you get what you pay for". I'm not the kind of girlfriend that you can show off to your friends. I guess I'll always be more Betty Crocker than Megan Fox - I don't go to balls, or clubs, or really any of those kind of events where you can get all dressed up and show off. I don't know if that's what MrMan5.5 wanted out of a girlfriend, but since he doesn't seem to do those things either (except go to balls, I believe he went to ISSS(S?) ball one year), it probably means it's not.

His expenditure definitely went up since we started going out. Even though we usually split the bill, I drag him out to eat more often than he would if he were single. He picks me up from work/home, so he spends more petrol. I spend more, but I really don't mind. A lot of my spending, I justify in terms of movie tickets. It costs about $15 to see a movie which is usually an hour and a half, so an hour and a half of moderate entertainment is worth $15 to me. Spending time with MrMan5.5 is very entertaining, and so the cost of a meal or train ticket to see him really doesn't bother me at all.

Would it mean that he cared for me more if he spent a lot of money on me? The only thing I'd really like him to give me (a flying bison), he couldn't even if he tried. If he did buy me jewellery, it'd probably collect dust in my room.

[Slight tangent. I've never liked rings, the only one I remember was a mood ring which I bought because I thought it was cool that it could change colour based on your mood, but it never seemed to change. I found out that it changed because of your body temperature, which I thought was boring, so I either chucked it out or lost it. I think rings get in the way. Julian says I'll get used to it, but what if I don't? A while ago, I came up with a solution - I'd wear the ring around my neck on a necklace, so people could still see it and realise that I'm married, but I wouldn't have to wear it on my finger. Then [SPOILER ALERT] I saw an episode of Sex and the City, where Carrie gets an engagement ring, and she ends up wearing it around her neck because she doesn't want the commitment it comes with. That's not why I'd do it, but I don't want people thinking that. =( End tangent.]

I think it's silly to measure a relationship's worth in how much money you spend on each other - if you get married, you'll probably end up with a joint bank account, so in the end it doesn't matter anyway. It's far more important to consider whether you make each other happy, and enjoy being together. If MrMan5.5 ever bought me a ring from Tiffany's, I'd probably sell it on eBay and use the proceeds to buy WoW game cards or Arnie DVDs. I'm clearly the best girlfriend ever. *cough, cough*

World of CasualCraft, Part 2

So it seems I wasn't entirely clear about what I was looking for in my last post. Although I wanted to answer chaoticgood's statement about my WoW friends being more sexually active than your typical nerd, I wanted to go about it in a different way. What I wanted to show was that the kind of person who would play WoW is possibly more likely to be the kind of person who enjoys being in a social setting, and meeting new people. I know that isn't true about everyone (I know someone who played WoW and suffers from social anxiety), but I think compared to games such as Counter-Strike or Starcraft, World of Warcraft is more likely to attract a more social-minded audience.

Again, I need to add more disclaimers, correlation is by no means causation (so going out and buying WoW isn't going to get you laid!), my sample is biased, I am only looking at whether someone has lost their virginity rather than whether they are currently sexually active (which does make a difference).

So for anyone that missed it, since it kinda got eaten when I tried to post it, my "results" were:

Total WoW-friends: 63
Total assumed to have had sex: 45
% of total: 71.4%

Total non-WoW-friends: 75
Total assumed to have had sex: 34
% of total: 45.3%

I would do t-tests and stuff, but I'm kinda lazy, you can see the difference is quite large. I'd also like to emphasize that the sample was of gamers, so this doesn't indicate that non-gamers are less likely to have had sex than WoW players (which everyone seems to assume is untrue, I wonder if anyone has done a study on that...)! So going with these results, what are some of the reasons that could explain this?

As chaoticgood mentioned in a comment, WoW tends to be more of a social game, and this may attract more social-minded players. So rather than a game that prompts a "LOL, n00b, I pwned you" attitude, WoW and other MMOs tend to be a game where you build up a character and join a community to accomplish goals. While it's not impossible, it is quite difficult (and for most of your journey it will be lonely) to do a lot of the things in the game without having other people.

I read somewhere that WoW has a higher female:male ratio than most games, so perhaps it has a higher pick-up potential. I think one of the factors that caused a bias is that WoW is one of the games you can bring your partner to. MrMan5.5 and I have tried playing a few games together, but WoW seems to be the best game that we can actually play together. When we try to play TF2 together, we usually get separated, or one of us gets auto-balanced to the other team. When we played DotA/HoN together, it seemed like we spent more time in different lanes because of our different playstyles.

The reason for the title of this post though, is that WoW seems to be a really casual game now. It took me hours of practice before I managed to even make it to gold rank in Starcraft 2, and probably years of practice before I was half-decent at DotA/HoN. It seems that WoW doesn't have that great a skill curve. Sure, if you want to be gladiator, you need to be incredibly skilled, but to do normal stuff, it doesn't seem that way anymore. In vanilla WoW, healing seemed so much harder, because mana management was actually an issue. Now I heal without even looking at my mana bar. I joined Chris and Brookiee's ICC group one night, and they had managed to get to Lich King, the last boss. The warlock in the group was a complete moron, and yet he managed to get to the last boss of what is currently the hardest instance in the game.

It seems that in a game like WoW, where you can be carried by gear, and gear drops from trees, it attracts more of a casual playerbase. So people who prefer doing things on weekends that don't involve sitting in front of the computer may prefer playing a game that you can play for a few hours a week. I know that it seems weird for an MMO to be a casual game, but at the moment, you can play a little and still do reasonably well. Gone are the days of having to farm a lot each day in order to keep up.

Thoughts? Suggestions for more research? I would like to do a study on gamers and sexual activity, but I don't think anyone would answer me, because it's a bit of a dodgy question!

World of CasualCraft

Also, on a more personal level, given your average friend is a computer nerd who has had rare, if any contact with anyone other than his left and right hands (this of course is a broad generalisation, and I don’t wish to offend (I put myself in this category). That said, it does seem that you have a number of sexually active WoW friends).
-chaoticgood, on my post Advice Anna

I was thinking, why does it seem like my WoW playing friends seem more sexually active than the rest of my gaming friends? Now that Facebook doesn't seem to have any of those friend wheel apps anymore, I can't make any pretty graphs, but just off the top of my head, I would say that a larger percentage of my WoW friends have been in a serious (and let's just assume that implies sexual) relationship than my friends who play games other than WoW. I would like to be able to do a survey on this, but I don't know how open people are going to be if I ask them if they're virgins or not. >_<

Actually, before I start this, maybe I'll see if I can make some graphs. Disclaimer first: this is a small sample size, and biased, as they are all my friends, which means they all might have some quality that makes them want to be friends with me or something, so keep that in mind! I hypothesize that a higher percentage of my WoW playing friends will have had sex than my non-WoW playing friends.

I'm going to go through my Facebook friends, and list all the people that I know play games and group them into WoW players (which is any WoW player, regardless if they play any other games, and regardless of whether they still play or not), and non-WoW players (possibly sub-grouping them into smaller categories if there are enough of them). Then I'm going to take a guess at whether they have had sex or not based on what I know of them. If I don't actually happen to know, then I'm just going to assume based on whether they have been in a relationship or not, and my general impression of them.

OK, I have to leave in a second, so no time to make graphs. Just a quick summary of the people on my list:

Total WoW-friends: 63
Total assumed to have had sex: 45
% of total: 71.4%

Total non-WoW-friends: 75
Total assumed to have had sex: 34
% of total: 45.3%

Have to leave now, don't really have time to write this out coherently in an argument, but this is the problem Mars found in my "study". Will discuss later!

Marstar says (4:41 PM):
so why do you want to survey who's not a virgin out of your WoW friends?
Fodder says (4:41 PM):
i just want to know
if my wow friends are more likely to not be virgins than my non wow friends
Marstar says (4:42 PM):
i think you'll find the numbers comparable
Fodder says (4:42 PM):
so you think playing wow doesn't make a difference?
Marstar says (4:42 PM):
shouldnt make any difference IMO
Fodder says (4:43 PM):
ah, i thought it would be less likely
but we'll see :)
Marstar says (4:44 PM):
there is no reason for it to be less likely ... losing your virginity is a once off event
and more than likely most of your friends (wow or not) would have lost it b4 they played wow
Fodder says (4:44 PM):
it's not about when they did
but more about the kind of person who would be drawn to that particular game
Marstar says (4:45 PM):
i.e. at the time they lost it ... WoW wasnt a factor
Fodder says (4:45 PM):
i think wow is somewhat of a less hardcore gamer game
than other games such as CS
so if you are a wow player
you are the kind of person who would play wow
it doesn't really matter when you started playing
the fact that you chose to play it defines the kind of person you are
to some degree
Marstar says (4:45 PM):
But you are seeing if WoW gamers are more or less virgins to non-wow gamers
Marstar says (4:47 PM):
youre survey won't show that though
Fodder says (4:47 PM):
why not?
Marstar says (4:47 PM):
cause most of the people who arnt virgins , but play WoW ... lost it b4 WoW
Marstar says (4:48 PM):
e.g. I lost mine a good 15 yrs ago
I then played wow
so who is to know ... if i would have remained a virgin if i played WoW b4 i lost it
Fodder says (4:49 PM):
well, there is the theory that someone's underlying personality will not change a great deal over the course of their life
Marstar says (4:49 PM):
what does personality have to do with Virginity? :P
sooner or later every1 loses it
Fodder says (4:49 PM):
a lot!
that is true
but with the exception of you :P
most of the people in my survey are my age
give or take a few years
Fodder says (4:50 PM):
actually, you're not the oldest
@_@
but either way
Marstar says (4:50 PM):
haha
Fodder says (4:50 PM):
to have lost it before getting married
requires a certain type of personality
and i think that playing wow might be an indicator of a certain type of personality
Marstar says (4:50 PM):
actually to keep it until marraige requires a certain personality these days :P
Fodder says (4:51 PM):
for instance, most CS players tend to have a different personality to most WoW players
it's just something i want to test :)
Marstar says (4:51 PM):
I don't see your survey as statistically significant though :P
Fodder says (4:51 PM):
of course it's not
hahaha
Fodder says (4:52 PM):
first of all, it is inherently biased
Marstar says (4:52 PM):
as in i dont see WoW and Virginity correlating at all
Marstar says (4:53 PM):
your survey ersult will just be : "i have more virgin friends who do./dont play WOW"
Marstar says (4:54 PM):
more than likely it'll be your personality that is being tested :P

Relationship Stats

MrMan5.5 and I were discussing who would cook once we moved out. I thought we were doing to take turns, but MrMan5.5 said I should cook because he thinks I'm the better cook (I think I'm better at making desserts, but he is the better cook). So assuming I am the better cook, is it logical for me to do all of the cooking? Since he's currently studying for his microeconomics exam, he explained it in terms of commerce terms.

So the private marginal cost to me would be that I would have to cook. The social marginal cost would just be private cost, as the cost to me is that I would have to cook, and the cost to MrMan5.5 is nothing, so overall, the cost between us is my having to cook. The same would apply if MrMan5.5 would cook, as you would then have the cost to me being nothing, the cost to him being having to cook, and the overall cost is him having to cook.

Where it differs is in the social marginal benefit. He says that if he were to cook, we would both have the benefit of not being hungry (as we will have something to eat). The same would be true if I were to cook, but we would also have the benefit of being able to eat something tasty, so there is an increased benefit if I were to cook. Therefore, it makes more sense for me to cook, as the social marginal cost is the same either way, but if I were to cook, there would be an increased social marginal benefit.

That's all well and good, from an economical point of view. So what happens when one person in the relationship is much better qualified than the other in all other kinds of housekeeping things? Are they then expected to take over all of those tasks, as it is logical for them to do so? That kind of thinking is probably what results in people who have no idea how to take care of themselves when the move out.

Still, that's OK, because all you need to do is snag someone who is able to make up for all of your shortcomings, right? Just keep in mind, that the next time you want to start an argument, the very first reply you're going to get is, "I do all the cooking/cleaning/etc." and then they're going to storm off in a huff and that will be the end of the argument. I think in this case, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. If you end up taking on too many things, then the private cost to yourself will start to include stress, and so the social marginal cost will start to increase faster as there is an increasing amount of stress as you add more and more tasks. So it would be better to share the load.

My Life is Complete

Phew. I was nearly 1000 points behind him, but I finally caught up!

Guy In Real Life

I am told that the girlfriend of one of my ex-WoW-guildies (let's call him PW for now) wants to meet me. It was something completely out of the blue, PW and I have barely spoken since I quit. Not that I mind meeting new people, and it's always nice to meet the partners of my friends, but usually that happens as a consequence of something else, like when we get together as a group and they bring their partner along. Not something that's pre-arranged for the single purpose of introducing each other. Stranger yet, why would she want to meet me? We don't live near each other, and are extremely unlikely to bump into each other or hang out together - I don't even think we have anything in common.

Then I found out the reason. I had commented on one of PW's Facebook statuses, and she found out I was one of his female WoW friends, and all of a sudden she wanted to meet me. Well, to be fair, of all of PW's female WoW friends, I believe he has slept with probably half of them (or wanted to), so maybe she just wanted to check if I was a threat? She just wants to meet me to see if I look like my level 26 blood elf priest, that's OK, right?

Wait, what? That's not OK! First of all, my main is an undead priest (and I wear shoes - actually, I lie, my UD priest doesn't seem to wear shoes either)! Secondly, what did I even do? Why am I travelling to the other side of the city to ease someone else's insecurity? I'm half tempted to do a QC and "like" everything on his Facebook, as well as commenting with love hearts or something to everything that he says. But I'm too lazy.

I just know that if I meet up with her, I'm going to overanalyse everything I say and do and end up stressing myself out. T_T

Sugar and Spice and All Things Nice

Was talking to Olek about being a drug dealer (so many of my blog posts seem to start with me having a conversation with someone about something). I said that I wouldn't be able to handle all the killing and bashing people up, but how can you be a drug dealer without that? Again, all of my knowledge of drug dealing comes from The Wire, so this may or may not have any truth to it at all, but seeing as I have nothing else to go on, that is what I will use.

Control within the chain of command is done by fear. There's a great quote in the show where one of the kids is trying to work out a maths problem for school, and he can't seem to do it, but his brother frames it in terms of keeping track of a drug stash, and he has no problem solving it. His brother asks why he can solve the drug problem, but not the school problem, and the kid says it's because if you get the stash count wrong, you get beat up. Leaders can't be seen as being lenient because it's a sign of weakness (although it seems they are allowed to be lenient towards family members).

I think fear is a very important element in keeping people in line. If someone arrives late to work, and they don't get punished, then they will have no qualms about arriving late next time. One day, they might not even show up at all! I thought maybe if you were nice enough to someone, they might show up due to a sense of obligation, but that only goes so far.

We used to have this policy of writing up damaged goods at the supermarket, so that they could keep track of lost inventory due to damage. But the staff eventually realised that they could use that to their advantage, and there were some cases of people feeling like a chocolate bar, so they'd take one and write it up as "damaged" and eat it. I think management knew, but they didn't really care. Eventually, there was one staff member who was stealing trucks of stuff from the store that was "damaged" (she was caught, in the end), and after that happened, management toughened up on the whole "damaged goods" policy. I think it was a case of too little, too late. The damage had already been done. My friend told me that we had lost thousands of dollars worth of stock.

Is it possible to be a nice drug dealer? Whenever I think of criminal leaders, the first person I think of is always Vito Corleone. He is very much a family man, but he also isn't stupid. He does business by garnering favours rather than simply bashing people up when he wants something. People do things for him because he did something for them. To give an example that doesn't spoil too much of the story, he helps a baker's daughter keep her husband from being deported out of the USA, and in exchange, the baker makes Corleone's daughter's wedding cake for free.

But the Corleone system isn't entirely without violence - there's the famous horse head example. Still, he does say that when he can sort something out without having to resort to violence, he prefers to do it that way, whereas the characters in The Wire are so trigger-happy they just want to hurt people whenever they possibly can. Does this mean I'm better suited for gambling and racketeering?

I think the biggest problem of trying to be a nice leader is getting people to follow you. In order to be nice, you have to make people happy. You can please some of the people all of the time, all of the people some of the time, but you can't please all of the people all of the time. Eventually there will be dissent. Someone will stage a coup, and it'll all be over.

On the other hand, if you want to control people with fear, then you have to give them something important, because when someone has nothing to lose, then they're not afraid to go up against you. For instance, one of the characters loses someone he loves, and he's not afraid to go shooting people up and stealing drugs.

I can theorise all I want, but the sad truth is, there are people out there who are living this kind of life, and there are people whose families have to live in constant fear that their sons/daughters might get killed in a gang war. I don't like that thought at all, I guess that's why I've been thinking about volunteering for gambler's help. Just doing my bit to make the world a better place!

This entire exercise reminds me of something Julian said to me once - that quality of life is hugely dependant on spawning point. I guess if you spawn into the life of a drug dealer, it's really hard to get out, so why would anyone seriously consider going into that life?