IWD Message

In response to my post about Settlers of Catan, Ephant wrote some great points, which I think you should read if you're interested in improving your game.

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Happy International Women's Day.

In an odd turn, I would like to spend IWD talking about me being a man. I hope I don't offend anybody with this post, as that his not my intent at all. It's just something that I've thought about on and off.

It started as an offhand comment, I was curious at what someone's reaction would be if I told them I used to be a man. While I'm not going to claim that I can read their mind, after the shock of my comment wore off, and there was a little bit of doubt, but I also felt like there was a feeling of, "Oh, suddenly it all makes sense". I do many things that are typically male-dominated: work in the finance sector and the technology sector, play computer games, play chess, enjoy fantasy and sci-fi fiction. These are also the biggest aspects of my personality, and often not many people get to see the "girly" things I do, like yoga, pilates and zumba. Sometimes I get the feeling that the people around me are wondering what's wrong with me.

Since that comment, I started thinking a little bit more about it. It would be nice to be automatically included in the office discussion on the new Star Wars trailer, and has lightsabre technology gone too far?! It would be nice when going to a LAN cafe not to have people wonder if I'm actually there to play games, or if I'm just the girlfriend of one of the others and only there to watch (disclaimer: nobody has actually said this out loud, so I don't know if anyone actually thinks this). It would be nice when meeting other teams at work to have people not assume that I'm the project manager or business analyst, and that yes, I'm the developer (although sometimes that worries me, because then it means I get all the tough questions). It would be nice to be able to use the in-game voice chat in Dota without sounding like a 13-year-old boy.

I know, I know, first world problems, and if that's the extent of the issues I have with being a woman, then perhaps I should just suck it up. All in all, there are worse problems out there, but I can't help but feel like maybe there is something wrong with me. What if somehow, a man got trapped inside my body, and rather than live the rest of his life pretending to be a woman, he has decided to just be himself?

Then I realise all of that is ridiculous. Other than making an easier initial impression on people, I don't think being a man would improve my life all that much. I know that all the "manly" things that I do can just as easily be done by a woman, and I know that because it's what I do every day. I don't need to change physical aspects of my body in order to do what I do, and nobody seems to have an issue with it (again, other than initial impressions).

I've done the opposite, and gone through phases of trying to be more "girly" and all of my attempts failed pretty miserably. The best advice around this that I've been given is to find the things that I enjoy doing, and do them, regardless of what stereotype it belongs to.

That's my message of empowerment, to people of every type of difference - do what you enjoy (as long as you don't hurt anyone in the process), and don't worry so much about what society says you should or shouldn't be doing.

The Social Network

The problem with pre-writing posts is that the posts won't line up with events. Since it'll be after New Year's Day when this is being read, I should have done a New Year Resolution write up, but since the year hasn't finished as of the time of writing it feels strange. But it's close enough to over than I think a wrap-up would be appropriate.

My New Year's resolution from last year was to be more social and meet new people. I think I did pretty well - and this is probably the first time I've actually gone through with my resolution for an entire year. I've met so many people. So, so many people.

Pretty Girls Club
(Note: This is my own name for them, they do not call themselves this at all!)
So this year, I made it into the PGC. No, they don't sit around the office putting make-up on and talking about how wonderful they look. They're just a bunch of girls who regularly eat lunch together, despite working for different teams, and I think they're all really pretty, so I just nicknamed them the PGC. One of them is a former gamer (though LoL instead of Dota), and she is incredibly nerdy. I really like her, and I feel like she's the kind of person I'd like to be some day. Despite the fact that she used to play games far more than I ever did - her longest gaming session was 28 hours, I think - she really has her life together. She is incredibly intelligent, has a stable job, owns 3 properties, has a good relationship with her boyfriend, she is very well liked by everyone she meets, and she really takes care of herself.

I'm really glad that I met these people. I enjoy spending time with them, and since becoming friends with them, I've really pushed myself to become better.

Java Club
Along with Grad Paul, I've formed a Java Club at work. We have so many developers, but would you believe me if I told you very few of them talk to people outside their own team? I have my own ulterior motive for starting the Java Club, as there is on developer on my team who seems to care very little about the coding standards we have within our team. Not only that, but he has checked in broken code (although he didn't write any unit tests for it, so the automated build didn't flag it as broken - it wasn't until I wrote some tests that happened to cover aspects of his code that the breaks came up). I tried talking to him about it, but he just brushed me off as a standards nazi.

I understand that there are people who value working code over processes and procedures, and that's a large aspect of the agile methodology, but I personally feel like some of the processes we have in place are to ensure that our application doesn't fall over when the wind blows a little too hard, and that it's easy for someone else to maintain the code long after the original programmer has left.

Anyway, the point of the Java Club was for people to talk about the things that their team does, which might help other teams learn about a new way of doing things. It started off pretty slow, at around 30 members, but by the end of the year, we now have almost 350 members. As one of the leaders of the club, I've had to deal with various people in the industry, to try and convince them to speak at our events for free (someone at PayPal said he'd pay $2000 to speak at our event - that's pretty cool, but at the time, we had to turn him down as we thought there might be a bit of conflict of interest).

The weirdest thing is that I'm finding I have the confidence to talk to senior and executive managers to ask them for things, and they're listening...sometimes. There are developers out there who seem to think I'm really passionate about programming, because I decided to start this club, but also because I started making some Java brainteasers. That's gotta be a good thing, right?

Social events in general
I think the biggest thing that has come out of last year's resolution is that I am no longer intimidated by going to an event where I don't know anybody. I've gone to events with 300+ people, where I haven't known another attendee, and I've learnt to push myself to strike up conversation with someone I don't know. In fact, I met the person who will be making our wedding cake this way. So much of my life is dominated by gaming that I often forget that there are other parts to me. Now that I'm learning to talk about these things, I find that I'm a lot more approachable.

In fact, this has helped a lot with other people in my team as well. There are only a few gamers on my team, but I've found that since learning to talk about other topics, there are a lot more people who will come over and chat (see joining the PGC). It's strange, as I organised a team Christmas lunch, thinking maybe 4 or 5 people would show up, as I didn't think anyone would want to spend their last lunch before break with me. But I had 20 people who accepted by invitation. Was a bit of a struggle to find a venue that big!

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This isn't really a wrap of my year, as a lot has happened. We finally had engagement LAN, we've set a date for our wedding and honeymoon, I've decided that I'm going to sit the Java certification exam, but on that note, I've also been seriously thinking about doing something other than being a developer. All in all, I think I had a good year.

Meeting, Bloody Meeting

I've never been a very outgoing person. I'm not the stereotypical awkward nerd (although at times, you probably would think that I was), but I still find myself crossing the road to avoid having to talk to someone. But it's not really about disliking other people, sometimes it's because I feel like I am putting them in an awkward situation - especially at work.

At work, I play this "game" where I have to tell myself someone's name when I see them. Through the social committee, I've met a lot of people and I try to remember as many as I can because I think that's good customer service (even though my job isn't really a customer service job, I think a part of maintaining a good reputation at work is to treat people well). I've found that in quite a few situations, the person that I'm talking to doesn't remember me even though I remember them from one of the committee events. So I feel bad putting them into the awkward situation of having to pretend that they know who I am even though it's pretty clear that they don't.

Now that I've left the committee, I don't feel obligated to hang around at the social events. I do show up, but I'll only hang around for an hour or so, and then go home. I thought that was OK, because at least I was making an effort, but a couple of people on my team have mentioned it like a bad thing, so I guess it's not as acceptable as I thought - especially considering one of those people is my boss.

To be honest, I don't really understand why it's such a big deal. How can my early departure effect their enjoyment of the event? It's not like they have to leave when I leave, they are completely welcome to stay, and usually do, so what's so bad about me leaving?

This is a problem because our work Christmas party is coming up, and I had planned to just show up and leave after an hour. Grad Daniel said that I should stay and leave after two hours, just to prove my boss wrong, so that is the goal that I'm setting myself. It's not really work-only though, as people outside of work have said similar things. So I've been trying to make an effort at other events. Plus, one of my work-related goals is to get better at networking, so mastering the art of meeting new people and making small talk can't hurt, right?

I went to MB's 30th birthday party, and I found I enjoyed myself there despite the fact that I only knew the host and his partner (though I think I left after a couple of hours... progress!). I also went to X's Melb dinner and..... made a really bad mistake as apparently I had met someone there twice before this dinner, and forgotten him last time and this time. So much for my "game"! But at the dinner, I lasted 3 hours. :D

Still, I am making it my early New Year's resolution to try to be more social and meet new people - though I think I will limit myself to at most one thing per week, as I don't think I'm ready for that much social interaction yet.

Social Sim

I realised that my posts are pretty formulaic. They start with an anecdote of some sort (occasionally related to my life, but sometimes something I've read/heard). Then comes some discussion on a topic, usually related to the anecdote, but only just barely. Lastly, some question asking how I can improve myself based on what I've realised.

So, story time. When I played The Sims (the original), I played Michael Bechelor - mostly because I couldn't be bothered controlling multiple sims - and the AI in the original Sims was pretty poor, so if you left your sims unattended, their free will would usually lead to them doing stupid things. Pretty quickly, I maxed out all of his stats, he became really rich, and over a period of time, I managed to get him to the top level of each of the different career tracks. The only problem I had with him was his social meter. The fact that he lived alone meant that he was a sad social panda most of the time. And his long work hours meant that he barely had any time for socialising (especially when he was on the graveyard shift for various careers), but in order to climb the political ladder, I dosed him up on coffee and forced him to have social interactions until the wee hours of the morning.

When I got around to playing Bob and Betty Newbie, I noticed that keeping the social meter up wasn't nearly as hard. I think the biggest contributor was the fact that there were two people in the house. They could interact with each other to boost each other's social meter, and my sim didn't have to call in sick in order to invite people over at a reasonable hour (unsurprisingly, if you called a sim at 3AM, they get really angry at you).

Now that I've been living with MrMan5.5 for a while, I find that my desire to see my other friends has dropped pretty low. I think like in The Sims, my social "happiness" is fulfilled just by talking to MrMan5.5 and I guess I don't really feel the need to meet up with other people very often. Plus, my team at work is pretty cool, and I get some of that social energy out of talking to them, too.

Because of this, I feel like I've becoming more of a Socially Awkward Penguin than normal. I bumped into Olek at the supermarket recently, and I just couldn't think of what to do. Was I meant to walk around with him, shopping and chatting, even though I had already picked up all the things I wanted to buy? And even though DotA2 is pretty much on my mind all the time now that we've signed up for another tournament, talking about the game in the supermarket seemed really strange to me. It's weird, because I feel like I'm pretty close to Olek, but I couldn't think of anything that I wanted to say to him. So I did the SAP thing and disappeared with my shopping.

I feel like I'd be perfectly OK if I saw one of my friends once a month (i.e. every month I met up with one person other than MrMan5.5). I know that it's a really bad thing, because friendships are like plants. If you don't care for them, they wither and die (oh, speaking of withering and dying, I should really give Michael some feedback on his monsters). But I also feel like this is one of those other big transitions. Like when you first start high school, you catch up with your primary school friends regularly (if you didn't go to the same high school as most of your primary school friends, like I did), but then that drops off. Then you start uni, and eventually stop seeing your high school friends as often. Now that I've permanently joined a team, I feel like I have to spend time getting to know them, and between that, MrMan5.5, ice skating, Coursera, and the DotA2 comp, I feel pretty drained of energy. I wonder if seeing uni friends will also start to drop off.

Although, a lot of the other ex-grads seem to catch up with their uni friends quite often, so maybe it's just me? Even Person still goes to SEE events sometimes, along with the hundreds of other social events he gets invited to, and he's doing a Masters at the same time, so it's not like he has plenty of spare time.

Following from my last post, I managed to do four 30 minute exercise sessions this week, so the penalty fund is still at $20. Julian said that as long as the Salvos continue to help people, then it shouldn't matter that they don't support gay people. Joe came up with a good counterargument for giving the money to charity, as I would feel "good" about it, and could use that to justify not exercising! So maybe the Salvos is the best solution, as I don't think I'd feel good about giving to them, but they would probably still do some good with my money. Joe's other suggestions included hosting a board games night, or buying gifts for friends/family - just anything that puts the money out of my hands and won't lead to it coming back to me in the long run.

Negative Reinforcement

I can't remember how long ago it was that GP told me to read the 4 Hour Body book, but I finally started reading it today, and it sounds pretty interesting. One of them was to do just 30 minutes of exercise 4 times a week. Seeing as unfortunate scheduling leaves my skating classes on both Saturday and Sunday (as opposed to both on the same day as previous terms), I'll get at least 30 minutes on both days, which means I only need to do 30 minutes twice during the week.

I think I could stick to some sort of weight loss program if I really tried - I mean, I'm the kind of person who can grind stupid achievements that nobody really cares about. The biggest problem for me is motivation. If I died tomorrow, the fact that I didn't manage to lose weight would probably be really low on my list of regrets. So it tends to drop pretty far down on my list of priorities. This is one of the things the book tries to work on. The author says that "The decent method you follow is better than the perfect method you quit."

MrMan5.5 has been trying to get me to stop eating KFC for so long. I think it was last August or September that I last had it, and the main motivator for me is the fact that the last time we went ice skating, Sharon commented on how the fat figure skater looked so out of place on the ice compared to all the other really thin girls. I definitely feel that way in my classes. Technique-wise, I was probably the best in my class last term, but I still felt like I was the worst because I felt like a lumpy. So that's what I'm reminded of every time I feel a craving. Plus, Grad Daniel and his gym-frequenting-marathon-running lifestyle makes me feel bad whenever I bring eat fast food in the office. Although, Grad Daniel is gone now, so he is no longer a motivating factor. In fact, Intern Daniel is a bad influence, as we are always talking about eating challenges and I am pretty sure he is going to talk me into another Pounder Challenge soon.

Anyway, this suggestion from the book is basically to use some negative reinforcement. If I don't manage to do four 30-minute exercises each week, then I will face a punishment. I haven't entirely settled on the punishment yet, but I've decided that for each week that I miss, I'm going to put $20 into a penalty fund (as I am rather attached to my money). If I miss multiple weeks in a row, then the amount doubles (so if I miss 3 weeks in a row, I'll have to put $140 into the penalty fund - $20 for week 1, $40 for week 2 and $80 for week 3). I think I shall trial this for a year - so until the 21st of July, 2013

I haven't decided what I'll do with the penalty fund yet. At first I thought maybe I'd use the money to take someone out for dinner (selected randomly somehow). But then I thought that might end up being a positive thing, as I'd be willing to give up exercise for a week and just take someone out to dinner.

My next thought was to donate it to the Salvation Army. I picked them because I am opposed to their views on homosexuality. That's a pretty good motivation to exercise! But just the thought of having to donate to them makes me sick, and the fact that I started this two weeks ago and I've already missed a week means I will have to donate. I guess I'll just put it aside for now, and work out what to do with it later.

Current penalty fund: $20.

In the Reeds

I've been feeling bored lately, mostly because I'm starting to get pains in my wrist - I think caused by too much Diablo 3. I've decided to take it easy on my wrists for a bit in order to be ready for the Company of Heroes game with A1 and A2 over the weekend. I signed up for Amazon's MTurk today - which is where people can submit HITs (Human  Intelligence Task) and people are paid to do them. Most of it is pretty boring stuff, clicking on stuff, and you only get paid around $0.10 per task. Plus, since I don't live in the US, I can only get paid in Amazon gift certificates.

I mostly figured, I spend so much time clicking stuff in games for free (or in some cases, I pay to click in those games), why not make it something profitable. The tasks themselves aren't that taxing, the only boring part is filtering through all the crap tasks, and tasks that don't seem all that ethical (one task was to block a certain result in the Google search results, which I'm guessing is a competitor of that company). I think I made about $1.30 today (assuming the tasks I did get approved). Though I know I'd make more money if I was doing work at work and claiming overtime for it, so it doesn't feel that amazing.

One of them was kinda fun. Someone had a list of company executives, and you had to find out whether they still worked for the company, and held the title they had listed. Albert and Grad Daniel keep calling me a stalker because I can find information about people. I don't really consider myself stalker-like anymore, as I don't spend time looking up information about someone or something unless someone else is after the information (the exception being Grad Daniel, before he started, because I wanted to make him feel welcome, so I read his blog). I don't think my Internet searching skills are all that amazing, though I'd like to get to Tom Gale's level some day. I just think that in comparison to the less technical minded people I know at work, I am more adept at navigating the intranet and looking for things with Google. Plus, my first rotation was in a support team, and I had to learn how to find/contact other people in order to resolve issues. 

Add to that what Albert calls my "freakish memory", which is not really amazing memory, but the fact that I don't see a lot of people outside my team very often, so I tend to remember the few things I learn about the people I meet. I'm starting to get the feeling that he is a bit scared of me. I also say things to him that I now realise are quite mean, even though my intention was just playful teasing.

So inspired by Darren's One Year to A Better Me challenge, I've decided to set a little challenge of my own. I'm trying to go 30 days without saying anything mean to anyone. I've already failed twice (yersterday and today - once with Intern Daniel, once with Grad Daniel, I'm so weak during lunch. T_T). So I'll start the countdown again tomorrow. Wish me luck!

Wash It Like It's Hot

Continuing from yesterday's topic, I was at a men's health seminar at work and he asked what's the one thing that's guaranteed to get your wife hot. Nobody offered an answer, and he replied, "An oven." Then he added a washing machine, lawnmower, making the bed in the morning. Someone said that it's known as "choreplay". I did a Google search and found Chore-play: Motive your man. The basic idea being that you reward your husband for doing chores with sexual favours as a way to motivate him to do more around the house. This is one of the comments that stuck out for me:

 According to "Men are From Mars" writer, John Grey (and personal testimony from myself and friends) Women work on a "pre-pay" system, while men work on a "post-pay" system. Have you ever felt like you do SO much for him and he just doesn't seem to give as much back? That's because he thinks your "paying him" for something he's already done! He doesn't know what he did - but it must have been good because just look at how great you're treating him!

I am not sure whether that is true or not, but I guess if you can see that applying to yourself, then maybe you should try to pay more attention to how you are treating your partner. This isn't limited to chores, I think it is good to find out what is and isn't important to your partner. That doesn't mean you ask them to give you a list of what is important, and you just promise to do those things. Firstly, who carries a list of all the things that are important to them. Secondly, that list is likely to change, as things that are important to you right now, might not be of the same importance tomorrow, or in a few month's time. Lastly, and this is the important one, if you need to be told what to do, then it means you don't care enough.

You could argue that you do care, because you are willing to do all the things on the list, but the difference is that you are doing those things because you were told to, not because you realised they needed to be done of your own volition. It seems like a strange concept, and nitpicky, but I guess it's a bit like playing HoN. You can have someone watch over your shoulder, and tell you exactly what to do, but if you really think about it, the person watching over you is really playing, and you are just an input device (and probably a bad one at that). However, if you learned how to play, learned the mechanics, item builds and strategies, then it would be you playing.

That being said, a game like HoN is a very hard game to pick up with no prior experience. I've tried to keep this as gender neutral as possible, but it's a lot like the complaint that women don't come with instruction manuals. While guys may not know how to "operate" us, I don't think it's entirely their fault if they get it wrong. Good software is intuitive, and anything that doesn't make sense right away should have a tooltip or guide on what to do with it - and that should also apply to us.

I think that MrMan5.5 and I are currently in stage 4 (comfortable), and while things aren't always perfect (we've moved into stage 5 a couple of times lately), I think we have a good thing going. We both have our own hobbies and we are no longer at that stage where we feel we have to share everything (like when you are in the honeymoon stage, and are perfectly happy to see that chick-flick, or sit around watching your partner play a game). But we still have things that we do together, and most nights before we go to sleep, we talk, and laugh, and that's the time I feel like we are reinforcing our relationship. (Though I think I'm letting the team down, because I spend a lot of nights gaming until right before I need to be in bed.)

The last time we went to stage 5, I was really angry at MrMan5.5, because I felt like he wasn't doing nearly as much as I was. I didn't want to be a nagger though, so I kept quiet about it (sound familiar?). But then I'd get so mad that I'd start becoming really cold to him. I'd eventually tell him one of the things that made me angry, but not all of them, so it wouldn't be long before the whole cycle repeated itself. And like in the video from yesterday, things that normally wouldn't bother me would start to bother me because I was already so angry.

So even though it was a men's health seminar, I think the presenter said something that applies to both genders. "Anger is for violence. When you are angry, your heart starts beating faster, to prepare your body to fight (or flee), and that is not the best time for rational thought."

I do recognize that in myself, which is why I prefer to withdraw into myself when I'm angry, because I need time to cool off, and let rational thought return. But you don't always have that luxury. The presenter suggests making both  hands into fists and then taking a deep breath, and opening the fists as you say, "Stuff it!"

The next part is to realise that it takes two to tango. Whoever isn't angry might feel like they did nothing wrong, but if that were true, then why is the other person angry? It might be one of those irrational why-can't-you-read-my-mind angers, but that is a sign that there is a breakdown in communication. I got really angry that MrMan5.5 didn't put dirty dishes in the sink, and so he'd end up with a bunch on his desk. I decided that when I was washing the dishes, I wouldn't pick up his bowls and just wash everything else instead. He never took the hint, and so I got even more angry, which was the wrong thing to do. I told him to put them in the sink, and now he does.

Eyjafjoellfodder

I've finally caught up to the latest posts in A Bad Case of the Dates, and a lot of the dates on the site seem to involve a date that is going perfectly fine, and then the other person (for reasons unknown to the submitter) has a complete personality transformation - usually where they become incredibly angry over what should be a minor thing. There is usually at least one commenter who says, "Bullet dodged" in reply to those dates, which I normally agree with, only I realised I do the same thing to MrMan5.5. I don't think I'm a bad girlfriend, well, occasionally I am, but overall, I think I'm doing OK.

First of all, what is a bad girlfriend? It's something I've asked before, and I never really worked out an answer. Based on movie and TV show characters, who are the girlfriends everyone loves to hate? They typically have characteristics like:

• is controlling
• nags a lot
• complains about everything
• talks about things their partner isn't interested in
• ignores their partner's wants and needs

While everyone has their own preferences, these are some of the things I think make a bad girlfriend. However, I'm guilty of all of these things: I set rules for opening Christmas presents, I nag about doing the laundry, I complain about work and bad games of HoN, I talk about things like Stargate that MrMan5.5 hasn't seen and doesn't care to see, and I regularly play HoN for hours at a time and completely forget that MrMan5.5 said he wants to join the next game and queue without him.

I don't want to be a bad girlfriend, and I don't think MrMan5.5 currently thinks I am a bad girlfriend, which hopefully will remain the case for the rest of our relationship. So occasionally, I will catch myself about to nag MrMan5.5 about the laundry and stop myself. Then I give myself a congratulatory pat on the back for not being a bad girlfriend. Everything is good!

But a couple of days pass, and the laundry does not get done because he is too busy playing Skyrim. We need to cook something for dinner, but there is nothing in the fridge. MrMan5.5 is tired, so I say that I will go (I am such a good girlfriend, after all). I go to get changed, but the only clean pants I have left are my uncomfortable work pants - so it's either that, or my bright pink, Hello Kitty pajama pants. I decide if I put on a long coat it will cover most of my pants, nobody will look at them anyway.

Of course, on the way to the supermarket, every passing driver is staring at me, and every pedestrian is laughing at me behind my back - so it is a very embarrassing walk to the supermarket, a very embarrassing walk through the supermarket, a very embarrassing wait at the checkout, and a very embarrassing walk home. Why hasn't he done the laundry? All he needs to do is chuck some clothes in the washing machine and turn it on. IT'S NOT HARD!


This whole process probably takes about 15 minutes, and I have had the entire time to build up a nice case against him. That time he left the clothes in the washing machine without hanging them up, the fact that I've cooked breakfast the past two weekends, the fact that he misclicked his spell in HoN and let me die. Every single bad thing I can remember comes up, doubly so for all the bad things he did that I suppressed because I didn't want to be a bad girlfriend and nag him.

The list is pretty damn long, which means I'm in the right - he is a bad boyfriend and I am justified in this case of nagging. Not only that, but I am angry. I don't get angry very often, so it must be things are pretty bad if I am angry. I get home and I say to him, "It would be nice if you could wash some clothes once and a while!" then put the perishable groceries away and climb into bed. I don't want to talk to him right now.

(I don't actually see this part, because I'm in bed at the moment, but I imagine it going something like this: MrMan5.5 gets up in a panic. He can tell I'm angry, so he has a quick scan of what he has done recently to provoke me. His quick scan isn't very good, because he doesn't come up with any reasons - not doing laundry doesn't normally make me angry. He knows he has to do something to make it better though, so he starts cooking pancakes for me. I get a big plate of pancakes with maple syrup and ice cream)

OK, I lied, that never happens. What happens is that MrMan5.5 comes in and says that he didn't do the laundry because it has been cold and the stuff on the clotheshorse isn't dry yet, so if he does more laundry he will have nowhere to hang it. He can't hang it outside because it is raining.

That's actually a perfectly reasonable. My angry brain doesn't care! Despite the fact that my entire reason for being angry is now gone, it's too late. It's like a volcano about to explode - even if the town if innocent people disappears, the volcano still wants to explode. I still have to punish him so I turn to the ultimate weapon - the silent treatment. The only weapon I can actually use at the moment, because I can't really say anything in reply without admitting that he's right. Because he's not right. I am.

Eventually, I cool off (usually after a nap), and I return to my logical self. It's because I never said anything about the laundry when it first started bothering me, or all the other things I suppressed, all MrMan5.5 saw was a big storm of crazy. He probably writes it off as PMS or just a quirk I have where I occasionally get illogically angry over a tiny thing. He will never find out what is truly bothering me, and I will continue getting angry over it, which makes it a positive feedback cycle.

So that's my theory on why people (well, me, really, but it could apply to others) get angry seemingly out of nowhere. I realise that it is unhealthy behaviour, so I am trying to work on it.

Diversification

gwon made a comment on my post Fifteen Minute Cast Time where he said:

Something else to think about: you actually have an advantage because they are restricting themselves to not having girls on their team, while your team can actually have players based on skill and not gender.

I don't think they specifically chose not to have a girl, it probably never came up. I know Alex had a girl in his DotA clan for a while, but some of the stuff I heard gave me the impression that she was more interested in socalising than playing, and I think eventually she dropped out. So it probably gives a bad impression for any future females who want to join, as people tend to try and work out what went wrong and blame it on whatever difference they can perceive.

I spent an hour in a workshop at work where people were trying to discuss the problem of the lack of females in technology. I actually found it a bit boring, because it mostly involved women talking about how they can't work as much as they would like because they have kids. While there may be a gender agenda when it comes to corporate life, I don't think it applies so much to gaming. I definitely don't recruit people based on gender (though my requirements are a bit more strict, I only like to invite people who I know in real life, but I don't hold anyone else to that same requirement, so they are free to invite whoever they want).

There was a girl that Julian and Char wanted to invite to the clan, but they left the decision up to me. Through random chance, we ended up playing in a game against her, our group of friends against her group of friends, and we won. I made the excuse that I didn't want to invite her because she wasn't very good, but I think I just didn't want a stranger in our clan. But maybe I should have invited her, so that we could train her up. I've invited people who aren't great into the clan (*cough, cough*), so it's not really fair to leave her out for that reason.

Anyway, back to gwon's comment. One of the arguments they always bring up when talking about the whole gender diversity thing is that when you bring together a bunch of people from diverse backgrounds it makes it easier to solve new problems, because you can draw from a wide range of knowledge. I think for things like gaming and sports, the opposite is true. When you are out there playing, you want to act like a well-oiled machine, you don't want someone rocking the boat. When our clan fields a team of five, we (mostly) listen to each other, and we've played together enough now to have a rough idea of each other's play style. We are not identical robots, but we are also not so different that we end up clashing in each game and not being able to function.

I think that in cases like these, diversity can be a problem, because you just end up butting heads too often to be able to function properly. But with computers being the great equaliser, I think people should be ranked based on their skill and experience.

As I discussed last time, there are so many variations in a game that it's difficult to create accurate models. So now when I say something like "1700 level Tundra", I'm not taking into account match-ups against specific teams, what I mean is that on average, in a 1700 level game, you will not play badly as Tundra (I know that is also subjective, but the gist of it is you don't die too often, you perform the role you want to perform (keyword "want": dps, initiator, support)).

Given a limited amount of time, you will acquire a certain amount of experience (represented by the area under the graph). How much experience you gain depends on your level of skill, and the level of skill that you play at. E.g. someone who has played a lot of RTS games in the past and starts to play HoN may pick up game concepts a lot faster than someone who doesn't have that background, so they will gain a lot of experience at the start playing against noobs, but after they start to play against more experienced players, their learning will slow down because there are so many little nuances to learn at this point that are game-specific and their RTS background doesn't really help.

So you have jack-of-all trades players, who have played a wide variety of heroes, and while they may have a few favourites, they tend to be fairly average at most heroes. They are very good with team cohesion, as they are able to take up whatever role is missing from the current line-up.

Then there are the specialist players, who tend to play the same few heroes over and over again, and are quite good at those heroes, but pretty poor at all the others. What the dotted line is supposed to indicate is that when you hit a certain level of skill, your overall game experience can make up for your lack of experience with that specific hero. E.g. you are an 1900 level player, and so your map awareness is high, your instincts are refined, and your knowledge of game mechanics is good. Even though you may not have played Myrmidon before, you don't die very often, you are aware enough to be in team fights, and you do your job. Basically, you are helping by not being a hindrance.

Of course, you are never stuck as one type or the other, it's a bit like WoW, you can chuck all of your talent points into a specific area (PvP spec vs PvE spec, for example), or you can try to go some sort of hybrid, where you may not be as good in that area as someone who has devoted all their time to that area, but you can still do what needs to be done. Unlike talent specs, it just takes a lot of time to change over.

Since my headphones have been almost broken, I haven't been able to play HoN with everyone else over Mumble, and it feels like I've lost a limb. I don't tend to talk very much, but being able to listen to what people want to do, or just what they are thinking really helps me work out what to do next. I was reminded of D2: The Mighty Ducks (spoiler incoming, if you haven't seen the movie), after their first game against Iceland:

Julie: Coach Stansson and his team knew everything about us.
Luis: Yeah, and you've just been driving around in convertibles talking with all those sponsor fools.
Fulton: And eating ice cream with the Iceland lady.

I guess I really don't know the people that I play with very well. I should really spend more time getting to know everyone's preferred styles, as I think it would make me a better support player. And I guess in the future, when I am deciding whether or not to recruit people, I should base that decision on how well they will fit in with the people who are currently there.

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?

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!

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?