Valkyrie's Page of Wonder

September 11, 2008

This is not the end...

...This is not the beginning of the end...

From Eva:R:

What we perceive as our end, we now see as merely a new beginning. A new place from which hope springs forth and the greater glory of human existence has yet to be achieved. A chain with no bound and no birth, stretching into the infinity of possibilities that exist within the space of a single breath.
A feeling, love and hate, desire and anger, loneliness and despair, merging together as one.
An absence, a void left behind where there was nothing before. A sense of lacking in even the most compassionate of spirits.
A presence, a soul deep within,bringing hope to impossibility.
Odds mean nothing. All possibilities exist. All universes are real. All voices are one, singing together in a powerful noble soliloquy.
Join us in this final prayer for all of humanity.
We will not conceed.
We will not be silenced.
We will not run away.
No one can stop this chain of events, for it has already begun.

March 17, 2008

Willpower

"The ability to exert one's will over one's actions"

I thought I had this whole entry laid out in my head, but after reading that article, just about everything I had is gone. So instead you get a lovely, uh...gimme a sec.... Stream of Consciousness entry, which I'm sure will end up on many different tangents as I go along. Anyway, back to the topic.

I like to play WoW, World of Warcraft in case you didn't know. I think it has become one of my favorite games of all time. Probably has something to do with how in depth it is, or the massive amount of configurations all the different items allow. There are hundreds of quests to complete and several large scale, multi person dungeon things to attack and conquer. One in particular that has caught my interest lately is called Alterac Valley. It's a battleground which allows for Player vs. Player action (PvP), but in this case its 40 on 40. The main premise is to attack and kill the opposing side's main boss, but there are several other side things to do as well. There are towers to capture, good guys to save, parts to collect and turn in for extra rewards, and on top of all that fun, you earn 'Honor Points' which allow you to purchase more/better pieces of armor and weapons.

One of the things I like about battlegrounds is I don't have to find a group, meet somewhere, find an opposing group, and start fighting. I just click that I want to join a battleground and within minutes it has matched me up with 79 other people that wanted to join a battleground, 39 for my team 40 for the other. This is made even easier by allowing 'Cross-Realm' players. From my understanding each realm is part of a Battlegroup and when I want to join a battleground I can join with anyone else in that Battlegroup regardless of which realm they are on. For example, I play on the Draenor realm which is part of the Cyclone battlegroup. When I join a BG(Battleground) I'm not limited to the Draenor realm but all realms inside the Cyclone battlegroup, expaning the player base by several times. All this makes it a lot faster to get into a BG, which in turn reduces downtime, increasing fun.

Um...where was I? *scroll* Oh yeah, Favorite games and willpower. It has been mentioned that I might like this game a little too much, that I might be addicted. And while I highly doubt that, there is always that possibility. Plus most addicted people don't usually see themselves as addicted. So in an effort to prove to myself mostly that I am not addicted I plan to not play WoW for a week, starting now. In fact I plan on doing zero WoW related things. That includes visiting WoW websites, looking up WoW item information and the like. Now I can't not think about WoW simply because it's something I like so much, but if I can control my actions and not act on those thoughts, I think I can prove to myself that I am not addicted.

To help with the not playing of WoW, I plan to start working on my story more, which is coming along pretty well I must say. My single 'Fallen Angel' novel, I realized, was too much story and spanned too many years to be contained in one book, so at the moment I have it broken into three. Why three? Because three just seems to fit everything else in my little universe. Three major factions: Good, Evil, Balance (Good and Evil being relative terms). Three sections of Xannon's life: Rise, Fall, Rebirth (Which happen to be the subtitles of the trilogy). The number of sets of wings that Archangels have, which Xannon turns out to be. And I'm sure a whole bunch of other stuff that I can't really think of at the moment. Plus there are the triangles. Triangles are supposed to be the strongest geometric shape, and I can see why. They don't suffer from shear, they can't really be squished. They just work. I used a triangle for the symbol of Gi'erth(the name of the planet my characters live on), with each point representing one of the major forces. The sun represents Good (Creation and Life), Fire represents Evil (Destruction and Death), and the tree represents Balance. I also have a triangle key chain which reminds me of that symbol and my story every time I see or touch it.

I think I got off track again... Oh yeah. One other thing I plan on doing to keep from playing WoW is to start drawing again. I did a little drawing after I got home today and realized my skills, to put it bluntly, suck. That doesn't mean they can't be improved on. Granted I was focusing on figure drawing, in particular a person sitting with their head in their hands. I was studying the pose to hopefully make use of it in a piece I want to create for the song lyrics I posted a while back in reference to Xannon and Sarah, Letter from the Departed. It's supposed to show Xannon/Valkyrie sitting either at his desk or perhaps somewhere outside while Sarah in ghosty form hovers behind him, perhaps giving him a spooky hug or something. I haven't quite worked out the details. If anyone reading this lovely brain spewage(brain spewage? Don't ask it just came out) wants to create this lovely piece of art for me, it would super cool. If not, well...I guess I'll do it. *shrug*

If I'm not writing and not drawing I don't know what I'll be doing. Maybe watching TV/Movie, maybe playing some neglected PS2/Xbox games, preferably ones that don't crash on me like X-Men Legends 2 does. Which really sucks cause it's right near the end before fighting the final boss. I'm tempted to exchange it, but at this point I don't think it's worth it. I've already tried cleaning it to no avail. Hey, maybe I'll use some of the extra time to hang out with Chris and bust out my awesome plastic guitar shredding abilities, also known as Guitar Hero. He recently (last week on...Thursday I believe) got an Xbox 360. He picked up Guitar Hero III Legends of Rock (and since when is Tenacious D a Legend of Rock?), the Lego Star Wars saga, and Sonic, which I think is more for his fiancee Wendy. I figure since he owns the game he should be able to catch up to my awesome skill pretty quick, right? I guess we'll see.

So anyway, If you managed to make through that raging river (instead of a stream) of my thoughts and are still reading let me sum up the article for you: WoW = Like, Me != Addicted, .'. No WoW for a Week to prove: Me != Addicted, Copious Free Time used by Writing, Drawing, Other Gaming, Showing off my awesome plastic Guitar skills and making Chris feel oh-so-bad for oh-so-sucking. At least thats the plan. Only time will tell if everything works out like it's supposed to.

And before anyone asks, I don't want to cancel my WoW subscription because A) it's a pain to cancel and then reactivate, and B) I plan to play again. Plus C) $15/month really isn't all that much when you stop and think about it. I spend more than that on interest on one credit card(stupid interest rates).

So...um....yeah. I guess I'm done. I'm off to bed. Leave comments and let me know if thought this whole Stream of Consciousness(does it suck that I have to look up how to spell that every time?) thing was a stupid idea and should never do it again.

....um....k, laters.

Obama and his Church

In response to an email regarding a March 14 CBS report on Barak Obama's church's pastor and his statements saying we should blame the United States Government for the 9/11 attacks:

>"We bombed Hiroshima, we bombed Nagasaki, and we nuked far more than the
>thousands in New York and the Pentagon, and we never batted an eye," Wright
>said. "We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and black
>South Africans, and now we are indignant because the stuff we have done
>overseas is now brought right back to our own front yards. America's
>chickens are coming home to roost."

Hiroshima and Nagasaki were done after entering a war that was already
raging and it was also done with the purpose to bring about and end to
the war. Every major action we have taken has been in response to
something else. We did not start WWII by dropping nukes, we ended it (or
at least part of it). As for the Palestinians, that war (yes, it is a
war) has been going on for the better part of two millenia. Plus, as far
as I know, Israel is our ally, not Palestine(which appears to be more a
group of people than a nation anymore). Regardless: we attack person A,
we attack person B, and then person C comes and attacks us without
warning and for no apparent reason.

>"The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a
>three-strike law and then wants us to sing 'God Bless America.' No, no, no,
>God damn America, that's in the Bible for killing innocent people. God damn
>America for treating our citizens as less than human. God damn America for
>as long as she acts like she is God and she is supreme."

Not sure where he gets the "gives them the drugs" portion. Killing
innocent people is wrong, I agree with that. But if you want to quote the
bible why not bring out the part that has public stoning of adultery? Or
any of the other interesting punishments for crimes? Prison is a vacation
compared to what they should be getting. How many murderers sit in their
comfy cells with three meals a day, cable TV, and "recess" while the
victim's family cries for proper punishment? There are far to many crimes
out there where the punishment simply does not fit the crime. Life in
prison for murder? Far too soft in my opinion. The only thing he loses is
his freedom. They need to bring back the death penalty and properly
punish those that deserve it. Instead of building bigger prisons to hold
all the "lifers" just kill them off to make room for the new scum.
They're never going to leave anyway. Harsh? Perhaps.

But back on topic. This reverend person is stupid for even making these
remarks. Obama is right for denouncing these statements. The pastor is
only able to speak for himself. It takes other supporting him to give his
statements any weight at all. And Obama is not part of that. And I
applaud him for that. If I was in his position I might have done a little
more than denounce the statement but actually attack it. Bringing out the
flaws in the statements and letting everyone know without a doubt that I
do not support it.

Saying "No" is easy saying "No and here's the reasons why" is actually
saying something.

Bringing down the Price of Gas

In Reply to a Chain Email Letter about not buying from ExxonMobil to help bring down the cost of gas:

Gasoline Market Share in California

According to a 2006 Market Share chart of Gasoline in California, Exxon/Mobil had only a 6% market share. Assuming that hasn't changed too much in the past two years, and that this percentage extends across the US, we can determine that if this email reached the 3 million people it was supposed to, only 180,000 people of those people would actually be using Exxon/Mobil and be able to make a difference.

Lets now stop assuming and stick with California. If by some chance those 3 million people reached ALL lived in California and those 180,000 people ALL switched to something else besides Exxon/Mobil, then going off the number of registered drivers in California we can calculate a 13% drop in total sales for Exxon. Again thats only IF all 3 million people lived in California and IF they all decided to stop buying Exxon.

So to make this really work first we figure out how many of the 196 million drivers use Exxon. Lets be nice and say they do 10% of all the gasoline sales in the US. That means 19.6 Million people use Exxon. Now we decide how many would it take to really make a difference. I'd say 10% would be pretty noticeable and make them take action. So that means 1.96 Million people would have to stop using Exxon. And since we can't knowingly contact just Exxon users we have to let everyone know. And if only 10% of everyone uses Exxon then we are back to having to get in touch with 19.6 Million drivers.

Now this guy talks about reaching 300 million people assuming that everyone who gets it sends it out to 10 people who havent already got it. But how many people simply delete spam and not send it? And how many people send it to people that have already got it?

Chain Letters and Pyramid Schemes
According to a website by Chip Denman, only about 1 in 20 in his example sent out chain letters. If we apply that here and say only 1 of the 10 recipients will send out a rely we can see that this email will never really reach the 300 million it hopes.

Simply put this kind of tactic while sounding good is extremely hard to put into practice. This would have to be accounced on TV or sometihng to get any real change going.

March 07, 2008

Gary Gygax

xkcd - A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language - By Randall Munroe

The creator of Dungeon & Dragons and in essence the creator of Fantasy Gaming as a whole, died in his home this week. I only played D&D a few times, but when I did it was fun, but there are plenty of other works out there that I have played a lot that owe a lot to him.

Kinda makes me feel sorry for Death though...