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tiedyedaveRight. So, the month of June has seen some minor but interesting developments in my life.
Air pump on bed successfully replaced. I called Select Comfort to request a replacement, fully intending to mention that it was probably damaged by electric shock if they asked. They never asked. The rep I talked to ran down his "try this, try that" checklist, and at its conclusion, said "Ok, we're sending a new one, and a prepaid UPS shipping label so you can send the old one back". Free. I win.
As I noted in a comment on a previous entry, my DSL connection is also fixed. Only a replacement NIC was needed; apparently the modem is fine. I now have a new surge protector, which also shields the phone line, and has a $(more than enough) warranty in case of lightning damage.
I have semipermanently ceased to play World of Warcraft. I had become very tired of it by early June, logging on only to play the occasional round of CTF. Concurrently, my younger brother had reached 55 with his rogue char on my account, and furthermore had convinced our parents to let him get an account of his own. He wanted to move his rogue over to the new account when he got it, so as not to lose his hard-earned progress. However, the game mechanics don't allow inter-account character transfers. I immediately thought of a solution that would satisfy both of our needs.
My younger brother now owns my account, instead of buying a new one of his own. He'll be paying the monthly on it starting in August. He has free rein over all of my existing characters, with the caveat that he's not allowed to sell their soulbound items (they aren't worth much, they took a lot of time to get, and some are not replaceable), and he has to ask me before he resets their talents. Now, our positions are reversed: whereas before he had to ask me for permission to use the account, now I have to ask him :). After I set my characters' affairs in order and sent him all the extra gold I had, I basically stopped playing the game. About two weeks ago, I uninstalled it completely, and packed the physical game away in the closet. When I go home in August, I'm handing the hard copy to him, so I couldn't reinstall after that even if I wanted to.
There is One Condition under which I would buy a fresh copy of the game and start playing again: 4 other people start new characters (possibly even new accounts), and we play as a party of 5, with voicecom, on a PvE or RP server. By agreement, those characters would be barred from intentional XP gain or questing when we aren't all playing, to avoid desyncing the party. This would still permit independent tradeskilling, auction-housing, housekeeping, etc. The others would also likely roll different characters to play independently of the main party (though I wouldn't). The appeal of this play setup in my mind is that it would be mutually limiting, and perfectly set up for a voicecom party-based, quest-oriented casual climb from 1 to 60. In my mind, that's one of the two setups where World of Warcraft shines brilliantly. (The other is a coordinated, equally leveled 5-10 player PvP squad with voicecom.)
I played Secret of Evermore from start to finish, completing it only a couple of days ago. What a great game! The combination of Squaresoft RPG mechanics, the use of actual, idiomatic English, and a heartwarming humorous streak made for an excellent experience. It's strange; many of the elements of the game taken in isolation seems lackluster. It's their confluence that shines. And that's basically my favorite type of anything.
In my experience, it was on-par with Secret of Mana, and maybe even a little better. As![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
creidieki pointed out, that's sharply in contrast with canon, and I imagine that's mostly due to my experience of such games being abnormal. Verdict: Your mileage may vary. But I definitely recommend that you play it some time.
Edit: Oh, and the music is excellent. Jeremy Soule ftw.
I'm trying vegetarianism (not vegan, since I love milk and baked goods way too much to try). I've been vegetarian for about two weeks now. It's something I've wanted to try for a while, for a multitude of reasons:
1. Something different. I got tired of thinking of meat as a necessity. I had fixated the idea of a meat-based main course with items assembled around it as canonical for most food preparation and consumption, and that had begun to bother me, on the basis that it was unnecessarily constrictive.
2. Friends. I have friends who are vegetarian, and I want to understand that way of life. Walter is the most notable example, followed byomega697 (also eats fish, iirc) and buoren (also eats fish), among others.
3. Environmental (suitably described here). I like the idea of managing my ecological footprint; it jives nicely with my belief in doing more with less, and getting by with as little as possible.
4. Health. I need to lose some weight. I came to CMU weighing around 145; I left weighing about 160. I came to Austin at 160, and got up to just over 175 by the end of the spring semester. No appreciable change in height or muscle mass over that period of time; the only nonfat source of added weight was my hair. I still look about the same, but that's mostly because the extra weight is around my midsection, and I'm in the habit of wearing loose shirts. It's not a surefire cure, but ascreidieki conceded, it's a "first-order approximation". Additionally, one of the consequences of paying attention to what I eat is that I pay attention to what I eat.
5. Budget. Not eating meat costs a little bit less. In terms of grocery shopping, the impact is not particularly large, since I wasn't preparing elaborate meat-intensive dishes to begin with, and veggie burgers are slightly more expensive than regular burgers anyway. It mostly comes up when eating out, and it increases the pressure for me to bring lunch from home (which is inherently cheaper) since veggie options aren't as immediately available near my cubicle.
6. Ethics. I haven't come to a firm conclusion on this one. All I can say for sure is that I no longer hold the consumption of meat to be ethically bulletproof (as one could with, say, a "cows don't have souls" argument). Mostly, I would like to be certain that if I ever do come to the firm ethical conclusion that one should not kill animals for human consumption or usage, I could enact it without heistation. Of note: I'm also avoiding gelatin, animal rennet, and lard at the moment. Only gelatin has been noticeable so far, since it shows up in some types of candy. I might also avoid buying leather, but that's vacuous for the time being since I don't anticipate any major accessory purchases.
7. Change of tastes. This isn't a motivation per se, but it's helped the process. Over the last few years I've become steadily less fond of certain kinds of meat (beef, some pork) and steadily more fond of some helpful alternatives (hummus, felafel, black beans, refried beans, tofu, different kinds of vegetables, and indian cusine in general). Additionally, I very recently discovered that I like veggie burgers better than regular hamburgers.
I actually can't point to any of these reasons individually and say "that's why I don't eat meat". It was really the confluence of all of them that brought it about.
I'll see how it goes for a while, and may eventually progress to eating meat only rarely (maybe 2-3 times a month), becoming a "flexitarian" (I had thought about this approach before I read about flexitarianism, but I'm glad there's a word for it). This would still be largely consistent with the motivations given above, especially since the ethical motivation is flexible.
Air pump on bed successfully replaced. I called Select Comfort to request a replacement, fully intending to mention that it was probably damaged by electric shock if they asked. They never asked. The rep I talked to ran down his "try this, try that" checklist, and at its conclusion, said "Ok, we're sending a new one, and a prepaid UPS shipping label so you can send the old one back". Free. I win.
As I noted in a comment on a previous entry, my DSL connection is also fixed. Only a replacement NIC was needed; apparently the modem is fine. I now have a new surge protector, which also shields the phone line, and has a $(more than enough) warranty in case of lightning damage.
I have semipermanently ceased to play World of Warcraft. I had become very tired of it by early June, logging on only to play the occasional round of CTF. Concurrently, my younger brother had reached 55 with his rogue char on my account, and furthermore had convinced our parents to let him get an account of his own. He wanted to move his rogue over to the new account when he got it, so as not to lose his hard-earned progress. However, the game mechanics don't allow inter-account character transfers. I immediately thought of a solution that would satisfy both of our needs.
My younger brother now owns my account, instead of buying a new one of his own. He'll be paying the monthly on it starting in August. He has free rein over all of my existing characters, with the caveat that he's not allowed to sell their soulbound items (they aren't worth much, they took a lot of time to get, and some are not replaceable), and he has to ask me before he resets their talents. Now, our positions are reversed: whereas before he had to ask me for permission to use the account, now I have to ask him :). After I set my characters' affairs in order and sent him all the extra gold I had, I basically stopped playing the game. About two weeks ago, I uninstalled it completely, and packed the physical game away in the closet. When I go home in August, I'm handing the hard copy to him, so I couldn't reinstall after that even if I wanted to.
There is One Condition under which I would buy a fresh copy of the game and start playing again: 4 other people start new characters (possibly even new accounts), and we play as a party of 5, with voicecom, on a PvE or RP server. By agreement, those characters would be barred from intentional XP gain or questing when we aren't all playing, to avoid desyncing the party. This would still permit independent tradeskilling, auction-housing, housekeeping, etc. The others would also likely roll different characters to play independently of the main party (though I wouldn't). The appeal of this play setup in my mind is that it would be mutually limiting, and perfectly set up for a voicecom party-based, quest-oriented casual climb from 1 to 60. In my mind, that's one of the two setups where World of Warcraft shines brilliantly. (The other is a coordinated, equally leveled 5-10 player PvP squad with voicecom.)
I played Secret of Evermore from start to finish, completing it only a couple of days ago. What a great game! The combination of Squaresoft RPG mechanics, the use of actual, idiomatic English, and a heartwarming humorous streak made for an excellent experience. It's strange; many of the elements of the game taken in isolation seems lackluster. It's their confluence that shines. And that's basically my favorite type of anything.
In my experience, it was on-par with Secret of Mana, and maybe even a little better. As
creidieki pointed out, that's sharply in contrast with canon, and I imagine that's mostly due to my experience of such games being abnormal. Verdict: Your mileage may vary. But I definitely recommend that you play it some time.Edit: Oh, and the music is excellent. Jeremy Soule ftw.
I'm trying vegetarianism (not vegan, since I love milk and baked goods way too much to try). I've been vegetarian for about two weeks now. It's something I've wanted to try for a while, for a multitude of reasons:
1. Something different. I got tired of thinking of meat as a necessity. I had fixated the idea of a meat-based main course with items assembled around it as canonical for most food preparation and consumption, and that had begun to bother me, on the basis that it was unnecessarily constrictive.
2. Friends. I have friends who are vegetarian, and I want to understand that way of life. Walter is the most notable example, followed by
omega697 (also eats fish, iirc) and buoren (also eats fish), among others.3. Environmental (suitably described here). I like the idea of managing my ecological footprint; it jives nicely with my belief in doing more with less, and getting by with as little as possible.
4. Health. I need to lose some weight. I came to CMU weighing around 145; I left weighing about 160. I came to Austin at 160, and got up to just over 175 by the end of the spring semester. No appreciable change in height or muscle mass over that period of time; the only nonfat source of added weight was my hair. I still look about the same, but that's mostly because the extra weight is around my midsection, and I'm in the habit of wearing loose shirts. It's not a surefire cure, but as
creidieki conceded, it's a "first-order approximation". Additionally, one of the consequences of paying attention to what I eat is that I pay attention to what I eat. 5. Budget. Not eating meat costs a little bit less. In terms of grocery shopping, the impact is not particularly large, since I wasn't preparing elaborate meat-intensive dishes to begin with, and veggie burgers are slightly more expensive than regular burgers anyway. It mostly comes up when eating out, and it increases the pressure for me to bring lunch from home (which is inherently cheaper) since veggie options aren't as immediately available near my cubicle.
6. Ethics. I haven't come to a firm conclusion on this one. All I can say for sure is that I no longer hold the consumption of meat to be ethically bulletproof (as one could with, say, a "cows don't have souls" argument). Mostly, I would like to be certain that if I ever do come to the firm ethical conclusion that one should not kill animals for human consumption or usage, I could enact it without heistation. Of note: I'm also avoiding gelatin, animal rennet, and lard at the moment. Only gelatin has been noticeable so far, since it shows up in some types of candy. I might also avoid buying leather, but that's vacuous for the time being since I don't anticipate any major accessory purchases.
7. Change of tastes. This isn't a motivation per se, but it's helped the process. Over the last few years I've become steadily less fond of certain kinds of meat (beef, some pork) and steadily more fond of some helpful alternatives (hummus, felafel, black beans, refried beans, tofu, different kinds of vegetables, and indian cusine in general). Additionally, I very recently discovered that I like veggie burgers better than regular hamburgers.
I actually can't point to any of these reasons individually and say "that's why I don't eat meat". It was really the confluence of all of them that brought it about.
I'll see how it goes for a while, and may eventually progress to eating meat only rarely (maybe 2-3 times a month), becoming a "flexitarian" (I had thought about this approach before I read about flexitarianism, but I'm glad there's a word for it). This would still be largely consistent with the motivations given above, especially since the ethical motivation is flexible.
