Archive for November, 2007
why do you ask?
Actually, I probably would have posted something allegedly interesting, but when I woke up yesterday morning, the ‘net was down. It was down ’til about the same time this morning, so.
Anyhow, as I was cleaning out my primary email address’ inbox, I came across some more odd subject lines…
– non-chalantly tomato
– almost pork chop
– yenom-pi [This sounds like something from FFXII]
– Become a sexual magician in a new year! Increase your stick! [Er, 'sex' and 'stick' don't really go together...]
– besnow [No!]
Posted in 
Dear Fellow Adventurers:
Hi. Look, Vana’diel is a big place, right? I mean, it spans several continents and even has tunnels and caves and empires and stuff.
It’s big enough for Bastokans and Windurstians and Sandorians and Yagudo and Orcs and Sagahins and Goblins and Mamool Ja savages and Gigas and Trolls and Ghasts and Jellies and things.
There are hundreds of thousands of people, animals, chocobos, and insects. There are thousands of millions of items. There’s millions upon billions of Gil in the world.
Besides the usual Adventurer Vs. Beastmen fighting, there’s all sorts of other stuff to do — fetch quests for random citizens; Pankration; Ballista; Burning Circle; Garrison; and Besieged, just to name a few. Then there’s all the crafting you can do, from alchemy to fishing to leatherworking.
You have no problem grasping these ideas, nor do you have difficulty in readily suspending your disbelief and getting into the game. However, there’s one small concept you -do- seem to struggle with, dear fellow-adventurers, and that is the idea that NOT EVERYONE HAS TO PLAY EXACTLY LIKE YOU DO. (Or, in fact, just the way that the strategy guides/play guides recommend.)
Repeat after me:
– “Just because someone has an unorthodox job/subjob combination does not mean they are doing it wrong.”
– “Just because someone is playing a Paladin and said Paladin is using a polearm does not mean they are doing it wrong.”
– “Just because someone is playing a Monk and said Monk is using a staff does not mean they are doing it wrong.”
Notice a theme? Good!
Now, I will happily agree that, IF someone is looking to join a party, they should probably use a job/sub combo that is most beneficial to a party — in which case, Paladin/White Mage or Paladin/Warrior would be a better choice than PLD/NIN.
I would also agree that, IF someone is looking for a party, using a job-standard weapon is more beneficial to the party. It’s more fun for everyone involved if the tank doesn’t die every other encounter because s/he decided that now would be a good time to level their axe skill as a Red Mage… (Also, a really good way to get kicked from a party is to get everyone killed more than once. Not Cool.)
(As a brief digression, I’ll point out, AGAIN, that if PLD’s were “not supposed to use” polearms, most (90%) would NOT be labled “Job: DRG/PLD/DRK” and sorting the Polearm category would return ‘No applicable entries.’ as it does when a PLD sorts the Katana category by Job. See Also my rant about monks with sticks.)
However, the “helpful” people I’ve encountered — the ones that cheerily tell me how I “should” be playing, not that I ASKED, mind you — don’t seem to -care- that I A) am NOT in a party, B) am not LOOKING for a party, or C) trying to recruit them to my party. In fact, I am playing SOLO. On my own. ALONE. Not in a group. Singly. As a unitary entity. By myself.
Again, that’s s-o-l-o. Not only have I NOT asked you for your advice, I’m not trying to force anyone else to take on my PLD10/NIN05-that-has-a-Bronze Spear-equipped. I am not asking anyone to join me, nor am I waiting to be invited to the Valkurm Dunes to chain Sand Hares.
Please stop “helping”. I didn’t ask, I’m bloody /anonymous, and I don’t want to hear it. For crying out loud, I’m not telling YOU how to play (other than demanding that you leave me alone), am I? No. Please return the favor.
No love,
Me/Ave – PLD/NIN; NIN/RDM; NIN/PLD
New post up at Dirty Sheets, but I don’t recommend it to anyone. How sad is it that, when I _finally_ get around to writing the sex I promise in the announcement post, I don’t like it at all? Guh.
Oh well. Writing’s writing, and now maybe since I got some of the crud out of my system I’ll go back to writing decent stuff.
Hope everyone had grand days and good food, surrounded by those they love best.
Strange Subject Lines Galore:
– leads left behind chives, at Vista D’oro
– emopathy
– High-quality fashion goods for you and your folks!
– We specialize in the sales of brand-name quality
Not spam, but still marginally amusing:
– Don’t let your leftovers feel left out! (Albertson’s circular)
– A video of an orchestra recording a new piece for Super Mario Galaxy (I think that’s what it is — based on the very few seconds of sound and footage at the end of the clip, anyhow)
– Field recordings of ambient sounds (city noise, children, stream, etc) Interesting post on BoingBoing about this; Mark can talk on the phone and still do art-stuff, while I can’t talk and paint at the same time. I can paint and _sing_ (and music’s a prerequisite, actually), but I can’t write and sing at the same time, which is a bit annoying. (I also can’t read and carry on a conversation at the same time… I hear the conversation like this: “Okay, today we need to [fzz fzz fzz fzz fzz]…and go to the bank, okay?” To which I invariably reply: “Okay… Wait, what are we doing besides going to the bank?” Other Person: “AAARGH!”)
– Creepy! Sea-Scorpion was larger than average human. …It doesn’t really look like a scorpion to me, though, more like a ridiculously oversized shrimp. Mmm, shrimp…
– SpokenSkills is a website apparently aimed at adding another layer to ESL instruction via the web. Interesting idea! Speaking of ESL, I discovered a couple of emails that I’d sent to my grandmother about using the Slingerland Method with ESL students… I’d completely forgotten about them. It also reminded me that my grandmother promised me a copy of the grammar book she’d been collaborating on and I still don’t have one… Hmm.
I don’t understand the fuckwits in the comments that claim that it couldn’t possibly be what it looks like. I guess they must not have children OR imaginations, the former excusable/understandable, the latter merely tragic.
Cranky, rank, and bitchy. Cut to spare the uninterested.
My NaNo project in ten lines:
“Hokage-sama!
“Hokage-sama!
Hokage-sama!
“Monster?
“Naruto-kun?”
“Naruto-kun…?”
Naruto looked around.
Naruto waved a hand.
Naruto thought fast.
Naruto nodded and waved a hand.
Spam subject-lines just keep getting more and more bizarre. Take this one, for example:
Now your penis can serve as the lighthouse in the open sea.
While I _know_ what image they _want_ you to see in your mind’s eye, it’s not the _first_ one that pops up (…er…) in mine.
This one isn’t so much bizarre as it is rude (and misspelled):
are you going to pass up an opportunity to get a humungous penis? really?
And then there’s the almost-but-not-quite-right word-choice problem:
make her buckle and moan all night when you…
Other than maybe having their knees buckle once (or twice), I wouldn’t want that to happen at _all_.
…I read this story, once, that involved magic sticks. It was perfectly acceptable to read in public to mothers with small children. This spam? Not so much:
Make your magic stick very very big.
I thought the point of these mass-email campaigns was to let us know that we could have the body of a (young) God at little to no cost… Not according to these people, though:
do not save on your health
Hmm…
Say “I can have sex all night long”!
Okay, now what?
This is what I get for not cleaning out my gci.net inbox for a week and a half. Not like doing so really changes the rate at which or amount of spam it accrues, but eh.