Nicks Rantz

Wht?! No more free porn?!! Save the internet! Support Net Neutrality!

2008-08-25T02:07:00.001-07:00

Some of you may already have heard about this, but for the last few years internet activists have been fighting to support something called 'Net Neutrality'. Net Neutrality is what allows all websites available on the internet to be equally reachable by the consumer. This means that u can access large sites like Google with the same quality of bandwidth as you could with some other random sites like say.. purepwange.com or worldofraids.com. Now this is all fine a good, however, a few years ago some information had leaked out about ISP's around the world planning to eliminate Net Neutrality for larger financial gains.

How are the ISP's going to make money from the elimination of Net Neutrality? Well.. Large companies like Google will pay the ISP big money to give their subscribers high bandwidth when connecting to any Google website but if the subscriber wishes to connect to a smaller website that does not pay the ISP the same kind of money, the ISP reduces the available bandwidth to this website or blocks the website entirely. It is in the ISP's interest to encourage their subscribers to use the Google websites instead of other websites that are not paying them and it is in Google's interest to pay the ISP money for this service because they will get alot more hits. Please have a look at this video for a better explanation:

I know what your thinking: "that ridiculous!" "that can't happen!" "Arent there laws against this?". Well yes, it IS ridiculous, it CAN and already IS beginning to happen (try looking up Virginmobile and net neutrality) and NO there are currently no laws to protect the internet. If a company like Virginmobile starts this trend and begin to make some money out of it, other companies are going to follow suite! If we let this go on, the internet as we know it will cease to exist. ISP's will still provide web access in a sort of package, like when your signing up for Foxtel. There will be only a small bunch of websites available and if you want to access a website outside of the ones available to you in your package you will probably need to pay extra for it. They did it to TV they have done it to the Radio and now they are trying to commercialize and own the internet.

Think about it! All small and private website designers have no incentive to produce a website because nobody will be willing to access it! That means NO websites like purepwnage or Athene! No more podcasts! No more worldofraids! you won't even be able to get PORN anymore! and of course..... NO MORE BIT TORRENT OR MININOVA!!!!! THINK ABOUT IT!!!

Are you scared? you should be! However, there is still some hope! You may have heard about the Save the internet website, for the past few years they have been fighting to promote net neutrality and put the idea into US congress. Thankfully they have succeeded in letting them know that it is an issue that concerns everyone on the planet!! The reason i write this post is because I recently found out that Democratic Senator Barack Obama is in support of Net Neutrality and plans to put it into law when he has secured his position as the President, YAY!! However!! Senator John McCain of the republican party is against Net Neutrality to "reduce piracy" (wht a DOUCHE!!). Didn't really care about who becomes president? Well now you got something to care about!!

It's like a 50/50 chance the internet lives or dies! A 50/50 chance our lives will change for the worst or remain the blissfully free internet children that we are! Vote Obama!! Get the troops out of Iraq! Save the Earth from global warming and most importantly SAVE MY INTERNETS!!!!

Should you be ashamed of being a gamer?

2008-07-01T00:15:00.000-07:00

Computer games are pretty popular these days. Nearly everyone has either a gaming console or computer which they play games on (if not both) and if they don't have one, I'm sure that they've at least played on someone else's. In 2007 the computer and video game industry was worth $18.85 billion dollars and it was estimated that on average, 9 games were sold every second of every day of the year. When it was released, Halo 3 earned $170 million dollars on the first day, beating Spider-man 3's entire opening weekend ($151 M) and the first day of sales for the final book in the Harry Potter series($166M)

I'm sure there are more figures I could throw out there, but you get the picture. Computer games are big. Everybody plays, at least the younger generation anyway. But why is it that I'm ashamed of being a gamer? Surely I can't be the only one that enjoys playing computer games. Yet whenever I go out and meet new people we talk about going out, clubbing, shopping, sports or studies and never about how I totally pwned two mages and a rogue in WSG (I totally did btw). Fact is, normal people don't really want to hear that shit because for the most part, gaming isn't cool unless you're a gamer. Chances are that chick at the party won't care that you headshot n00bs in CS and you can bet that putting down "OT & DPS in MC, ZG, BWL, AQ20, AQ40" in your resume won't help you get a job.

So here's the question. Should you be ashamed of being a gamer? I think the answer is... No, but yes. I say no first because I believe that there's no logical reason you should be. Playing a computer game is no more ridiculous than having to hit a ball with a racquet in a way so that it bounces twice before your opponent can hit it. That's not to say that you shouldn't play sports, but I'm just saying that playing computer games in themselves aren't something you should be ashamed of doing. It's just something you have fun doing, same as everyone else.

That being said, you should feel a little ashamed to be a gamer. Or at least be discrete about it. Not because of video games themselves, but the way that they make everyone else feel. I'm sure you've seen that guy, the one who keeps talking about video games whilst all the normal people look awkward and start heading for the door. Don't be that guy. If you are that guy, stop being that guy. I hate that guy. Not because I don't understand, or even empathise with him, but the exact opposite. I like games, but he's making them more uncool than they already are. And I want games to be cool.

But until they are, I think I'll be the 21 year old uni student who likes going out and playing squash instead of a Lvl 70 4/5 veng w/ s3 weap hunter.

Word of the week: Schadenfreude

2008-06-21T04:08:00.000-07:00

Hello there kiddies, it's JT here with your word of the week.
Today's word is Schadenfreude. Schadenfreude is a German word which basically means enjoyment taken from the misfortune of others.

Sounds terrible doesn't it? Feeling happy about shit that happens to other people.

Well kids, I have a confession to make. I do it. And you know what? It makes me feel great! But I'm not a horrible person, really... I'm not. I don't go out and cause other people misery just to make me feel better, but let's face it: If a fat kid slips on a banana peel and falls on his ass whilst his ice cream happens to land on his face, I'm going to laugh. If not out loud, I'll at least giggle to myself.

Oh don't look at me like that, chances are that you all do it. All of you. I challenge you all to go to this website, go through all of the pictures and not laugh. If you do, either you are a saint or you're just broken.

Schadenfreude is good, clean, low-fat, all natural, environmentally friendly fun. Knowing someone is worse off then you makes me feel just that little bit better about myself. Besides, at least if you feel good about another person's misfortune, at least someone gets to benefit, and maybe that's happier than nobody getting to feel good at all.

So enjoy Schadenfreude-ing today!

Are you really happy?

2008-06-20T20:42:00.000-07:00

Think about this.. What are you trying to do right now? What are your goals? and most importantly why are your trying to achieve these goals? Well i suppose the answer in pretty obvious when its put out to you like this, the answer to these questions is 'Happiness'. Happiness, ultimately is what we all strive to achieve, its the final goal of any human being. We get to uni and study for exams so that one day we can earn enough money to keep us happy. Everything we do now and do in the future should be to achieve happiness, unfortunately the reason i write this entry is because I've noticed something. I've noticed that there are many times in my life where i do things that don't help me progress to this final goal. There are things we all do that don't make us happy, we do these things for other reasons. What i want to know is.. why?

I once knew a guy back in high school, i can't tell you his name but i'll tell you that his passion has always been in cars. His files were always covered in pictures of cars, he'd often have a car magazine in his bag and he used to tell me that his 'dream' would be to run his own garage some day. However these things, to him, were always just going to be dreams... The reason for this is because, being brought up by a very Asian family with very Asian values he felt obligated to go to university. The problem here lies in the fact that my friend wanted to be a car mechanic, which is something that was only taught at tafe. This to him was simply out of the question, he had to go to university. In the end my friend did end up going to uni, and he graduated with a bachelor of science, geology (apparently a 'booming' industry in W.A). Instead of doing something he loved, something that made him happy, he felt that he had to diverge from this path and do something because of his obligation to his families values.

Have you ever found yourself doing something that you didn't really want to do? Have you gone clubbing with your friends only to get bored standing around doing nothing, cos 'that's what the cool kids do'? Did you, like my friend go to uni because its what society has expected you to do? Did you go to uni and not really know what course you wanted to study, but enrolled into something anyway because "as long as you get to Curtin or UWA, everyone is gonna think your alright?". I'm sure many of you (including myself) have once looked down upon tafe students just because you feel they maybe in one way or another inferior to your 'powerful university status'.

It's not in my interest to insult this blogs readers (very few readers) but I put this point across to you because i want you understand the choices you make in your life. Make your choices upon what makes you happy, forget about what society is going to think of you. Life is too short to be messing around with what everybody else is going to think of you, in the end we are the ones that gotta live with the choices we make. I know a lot of the time these choices aren't easy to make, just don't sacrifice your happiness for just anything. Live life on your own terms, 'keep your eye on the ball' and most of all... Be happy! :D

It's OK, I'm here!

2008-06-17T08:07:00.000-07:00

Let's see how this works... I just type in here right? OK well here goes...

Hi everyone, my name is Justin (otherwise known as Jaytee), Nick's long-time partner in crime and lookin' to get myself into the whole blogging scene. Not really too sure why... but I guess like Nick I get a lot of random thoughts in my head and want to share them with all you lovely people out there.

Anyway, I don't really have anything to say at the moment, just popping in to say hi and introduce myself. Hopefully I'll get around to posting up something proper in the next few days so make sure you all keep checking the site. That's right, all 3 of you that actually come here. You know who you are.

It's Okay To Be A Slut!!

2008-06-06T03:20:00.000-07:00

Today I would like to highlight a great injustice and a lack of foresight on the part of all my bro's and sistas alike out there. First off i wanna make clear to everyone that sex is an activity that is enjoyed by everyone! well.... enjoyed by those of us that has access to it.. What i'm trying to say is... Whether your a boy or a girl, whether your gay, straight, bisexual or even an "other"! Everyone likes having sex! Don't feel bad about, it's natural, its a sign that your a healthy person and God himself told us Himself to "Be fruitful and multiply" Genesis 1:28.

Now that we have that out of the way i'd like to present to you my thoughts on a particular matter that has been bothering me. This injustice is something that all of us are guilty of, what I'm referring to is the way ppl always call girls sluts because they sleep around, or cos they are "easy" or maybe even just cos they are wearing a short skirt at the time. What i wanna know is WHY? Why are you all using the word "slut" like its a bad thing? Like i told you before "everybody likes to have sex!" So why do you tell girls off for having sex and enjoying sex with other people? Just cos you have sex with the same person every night and she has sex with multiple ppl throughout the week doesn't mean u have to tell her she's a slut in a derogatory way. People have different values and beliefs and it is not our place to judge. We accept the way Muslims or Christians wish to live their lives, it's time we give all the Sluts out there the same courtesy. Besides! sluts increasing the amount of sex going around and you should be glad that she's doing it.

When guys sleep around everyone praises them for it, calling them "player" and such. When girls do it they are looked down upon by everyone and called sluts like its a bad thing? Thats just wrong its prejudice plain and simple, we need to change our minds for the new age and give the girls, "sluts" a fair go. If girls choose to be pick up artists we should let them! and not only let them but praise them for it like we do to their male counterparts. The word "slut" should be used in the same way as the word "player" is used for guy. So next time you hear that the chic sitting in the back of the class is abit of a "slut" i want to smile at her and say ":D Hey slut!" like shes your best friend.

AoC - Updates!

2008-05-29T04:20:00.000-07:00

My assassin has reached lvl 30 and i re-rolled a Conquerer, hes now lvl 23 and i plan to abandon the sin and just roll with the conquerer from now on. Something about wearing big heavy armor and swing around giant 2 handers that is very appealing to me. My interest in wow has pretty much completely disappeared and at least for now my account will not be active. I might log back in to see wotlk but right now i just don't feel it.

My previous concerns about AoC have failed to keep me away from the game and as of late i've thoroughly enjoyed my time in Hyboria. Not sure if it'c cos i switched to the most OP class in the game or cos i got over the fact that the world isn't how I'd like it to be (read preview entry) but for now AoC is looking up! at least in my books it is...

I know this post is different to my other entries, its all very light hearted and lacks sense of purpose and thought provoking issues that i usually like to put into my blog but i decided to put it up anyways! Hopefully i come up with something a little more insightful for my next entry but for now we should all have a read of Jassie's most recent post about why ppl still play wow after so long: here!

Age of Conan - First Impressions

2008-05-26T04:30:00.000-07:00

Woo!! A new MMO just came out and it's supposed to be a "wow killer". well in any case nobody is gonna be killing wow with a game that requires such phat system specs. Just to install the game u need 27gb of free space and at least a 8 series Nvidia or ATI equivelent video card to run the game at a decent frame rate without having to dull it down to a plasticy uglyness.

System specs aside the game looks freakin fantastic on my rig running a 8800gtx. The character models and world textures are very detailed. Theres an amazingly far view distance and even mountains and giant temples in the distance show detailed bump mapping of the structures.

When creating your character, AoC boasts a large a diverse choice of character cusomization where u can design you characters face and body in a similar way to that available in the Sims 2. Along with this you are able to add various different types of body markings and facial features.

Moving on to the meat and potatoes of the game, AoC runs a very unique combat system which i find to be alot more fun and more interactive than that of wow, yet at the same time less complex and a little more mindless. I say this because the system works by the use of combo moves where in order to execute an ability the player must attack in a series of directions ( left, middle or right) in a particular sequence, after the sequence of attacks is complete the character will perform the ability. This new combat system is enjoyable to play with and makes grinding mobs a much more fun experiance. However i cant see this evolving into very many competitive pvp situations, simply because it really does become a spamfest of of combo abilities. Maybe it's due to my class choice but when i encounter another player we jsut stand facing each other chaining combo abilities untill one of us die. In wow pvp, positioning, mana/rage/energy efficiency and control seems to become a much larger factor in combat than it does in AoC. However having said this i have only reached level 24 in AoC while i've played wow for 3 years, i plan on playing AoC to 80 before passing solid judgment on its combat system.

Another issue that really gets me with the game is that the world is not all in one piece. What i mean is, In wow you can run from ashenvale to the barrens then right through the barrens and take an elevator down to thousand needles. If you wanted to you could run from the top end of the eastern kingdoms all the way down to the very bottom, it would take you forever but as you make that run you really feel like theres a world that exists and lives around you and your just a small beinging among many other beings inside the same world. Even to cross continents your character is required get on a boat inorder to travel over seas. It mimics real life and puts a twist on it to make it fun and create a feeling of wonder and thats a feature in an MMO that makes the genre so appealing to me. Unfortunately in AoC the entire world is instanced or zoned into different segments of areas, in order to get to another area you needed to talk to an NPC which would teleport you to the new location. This is all very convenient but it really seems to take the life out of the world. All of a sudden it feels like your just playing a game rather being part of an entirely new world. It's hard to describe but heres a diagram to help you understand my reasoning:

Other than these few things the games launch has been very smooth and i personally have not encounter any game breaking bugs. I've been playing wow for the past 3 years and spending time in Hyboria has has been very refreshing. The innovative combat system makes grinding fun and the games graphics make it a pleasure to sit back and watch my assassin tear out a guys throat. However I still can't see Age of Conan as a real wow killer, but its still has a long way to go we'll just have to wait and see....

E-Peen and You

2008-01-24T00:40:00.000-08:00

Why do you really play wow? and what keeps you playing the game for so long?

As I've said before, playing the game in its intended way usually means doing something over and over again in a very repetitive and unenjoyable manner. So why do you play it? what are the rewards from all your hard work and what are you working so hard for?

I've come to understand that the drive to keep going and the apparent "Addiction" to wow comes from this one thing....

E-PEEN!!

Yes, its all about the e-peen. Imagine a wow that was single player, where your guild mates and arena partners were all just NPC's and your opponents in the arena were just computer generated scripted battles. It's still difficult to get your rating to 2100 and its still hard to get Illidan down in BT. All the rewards are the same in the game and you can still own lesser geared characters. My suspicion is that nobody would play this crappy game! cos wtf is the point of wasting all your life on your character and not even be able to brag about it right?!!

The entire game is pretty much based upon being better than the guy standing next to you, you farm those primals for weeks so that you can be better geared than you were before and the grind continues until the end of your days because blizzard keeps putting out more and more stuff for everyone to keep chasing. And if you ever stop chasing! then what! ZOMG!! The dude next to you is gonna be better geared than you in a week and your gonna lose to him in the next duel!! and therefore his E-PEEN is gonna be bigger than yours!

So keep chasing that carrot fellas! you don't want to stunt your e-peens.....

The Grind

2007-12-15T00:58:00.000-08:00

Item	Honor Required
Vindicators Ring	15300
Veterans Ring	11934
Vindicators Neck	15300
PVP Trinket	16983
Heavy Cloak	7548
Vindicators Bindings	11794
Vindicators Belt	17850
Vindicators Boots	17850
Gladiator Gloves	16500
Gladiator Shoulders	11250
Gladiator Pants	14500
Gladiator Helm	14500
Gladiator Chest	14500

Total (No weapon/2nd trinket)	185809

Currently que times for Alterac Valley on BG9 are at an average wait time for 1hour and 15mins so only Warsong Gulch, Arathi Basin and Eye of the Storm are concidered.




Pugging these BG the average game time for these is approximatley 15 - 20mins long, for further calculations I will assume each game lasts only 15mins and for a win you would get about 167 honor.




If we assume that we will win every game we play and that they last only 15mins each then these are the results we would get.




Number of Winning Games	1112.628743

Total BG Time
Mins	16689.43114
Hours	278.1571856
Days	11.58988273

So if you didn’t eat or sleep and there was zero time in between que's then it will only take you 11 and a half days to get all the honor you need, well that’s not actualy true.. Because you will still need to grind up and extra 27,000 more honor for a Season 1 arena weapon and if you want a trinket in your 2nd trinket slot you will still need another 30,000 more honor for the battlemasters trinket. Further more your still only going to be running around in SEASON 1 gear so after all this you will be able to compete in the arenas but still at an unequal level to everyone else. It would seem the only way to play at an even level would be to save your points up this season and maybe you can compete on even ground next season... So enjoy your grinding or go and delete WoW.

What's up with all those greenies??

2007-12-10T06:24:00.000-08:00

Why is it that people care so much for the environment? Setting aside theories that predict the end of the world (ie global warming and climate change) what is it about the trees and animals that people care so much about? Whenever some big entrepreneur decides that he wants to build a casino in the middle of the forest or a resort on the coast there is more often than not an uproar of people that protest its development. But really, what do these people lose by the development of a resort in a remote location far away from where they live? If species X goes extinct how does this effect your life and your standard of living?

I ask this because in all honesty i AM one of these annoying greenies, but i don't know why?! No, im not just a greenie because the adds on tv told me that i should be and no i don't like the animals just because they can be all cute and cuddly, but when i hear about the affect on environment due to some kind of anthropogenic effect i still feel that it isn't right. When i hear that an animal might be going extinct i feel like the world has lost something. Why?? i mean it dosen't really change anything, if it helps us to advance as a race then is it a good thing? Aren't the greenies standing in the way of human progression?

All i know, is that every time i learn about the life that exists in our world i am always amazed by it and that i have a strong feeling that killing everything on it probably isn't a great idea. I mean if we did just look at everything in black an white then i would expect the world to be a pretty boring place and we all may as well just be robots.

What the cool kids do

2007-12-08T06:36:00.000-08:00

So i went out last Wednesday to a night club called the leederville , now clubbing isn't really my thing but i went along with it cos i was bored at home. Anyhow we rocked up there and met up with a few of my friends mates but really we din know each other too well so after a few simple and shallow conversations we left and din see them again for the rest of the night. After having a look around and finding a good spot to just chill i looked at the all people around me and at the risk of sounding like a jackass, i would now like to talk about what i think these people are really doing here...

Now i'm just an average 21 year old male living in the metro area of Perth, W.A, The only thing that might be different about me to the people i saw around me that night is that i play WOW and im happy to tell anyone about it. The majority of the guys at the club, go to the club in the hope that some sexy babe will walk up to him and tell him she wants to go home with him. I don't have to tell you that this never happens so most of the time the guy is just standing around trying to look cool with his drink in his hand and pretending that hes having the time of his life, when in fact! Hes pretty bored and would probably prefer to be at home playing games on his xbox.

So why do these guys go out every friday or saturday night? Is it because they have awesome fun getting drunk and "chatting up the ladies"? Or maybe it's because they just like to dance? probably not! I can tell you why they go out every weekend... its because "thats what all the cool kids do" yep, they're all just a bunch of POSERS! so yeah, you might tell me im a wow nerd but at least i actually like what i do in my free time! Keep telling yourself that your one of the "cool people", you think your awesome when you turn up at work on monday telling everyone that you got "totally smashed" on the weekend? every monday you go to work and you say the same thing. Let me tell you a secret... NOBODY thinks that your awesome because you stand around in nightclubs PRETENDING to be something your not....

YOUR the ones that need to get a life! So next time, before you make fun us for doing something we enjoy doing, think.... wouldn't YOU prefer to be playing wow too?

Update!! ----> WoW Accomplishments VS RL Accomplishments

When Zombies Attack

2007-12-02T19:37:00.000-08:00

So i was wondering around the interwebs today when i stumbled across a forum that was discussing what you would do in the event of a zombie attack. Now i know all you skeptics out there must think this is a stupid notion and would never happen in real life but you didn't think September 11 would happen either! and global warming IS real!! so it cant be that hard to believe that zombie attacks COULD HAPPEN!!

So what would you do when the zombie invasion starts? i suppose most of you might be thinking about getting as many guns and weapons as you can gather and attempt to go somewhere where you think you might be safe. I guess this is a valid strategy, however you may need to consider into your calculations that everyone in those zombie movies also seem to think the same thing and we all know how that turns out....

I guess when considering your weapon of choice, many might suggest a kind of huge machine gun or something but chances are we won't know when the zombie invasion is going to start and it is unlikely that we will be carrying around machine guns while we carry out our daily activities before the start of the invasion. Another thing to consider is how long will the ammo in your gun last? Probably the most common weapons that will be available to us when the zombie invasion beings is blunt objects and commonly found tools around the house like shovels, rackets maybe baseball bats or cricket bats. You wouldn't want to take knives with you or anything because it would probably just get stuck in a zombie and you wouldn't be able to take it out, even if he had a knife in him he'd probably keep hobbling after you anyways. What I would like to suggest is that everyone go learn some kung fu in preparation of the incomming invasion that. Have you seen resident evil? that chic kicks ass! and she always turns out okay in the end rite? so if we all learn kung fu im sure we'd be fine :D

The other thing we need to think about would have to be where we are going to go when it all starts. I guess going to the local shopping mall where you have lots of resources might be a good idea, but then again i guess it would have to depend on what day and what time the invasion begins. If it all starts on a week day during the middle of the day then the shopping centre is going to be packed and anywhere that is packed is a potential hazard in terms of the spread of infection. What we would need to do is go somewhere that is a little more secluded and away from the general population. Somewhere where the zombies are unable to get to us, somewhere far away from major cities and large populations. Probably on a boat somewhere in the middle of the ocean, unfortunately many of us aren't lucky enough to own a boat and even if we were it's probably not capable of accommodating us and our friends and family along with enough food to last us until the invasion is over. It is very likely that we will still need to make it back to land to replenish out supplies, but i guess thats when the kung fu skills will come in handy :D

Lastly I would like to predetermine whether or not we would keep it a secret if we knew we were bitten. Now im not sure how long it will take before you turn into a zombie after you have been bitten but i wanna know if your one of those ppl that will keep it a secret from all the other survivors or will you go and kill yourself for the good of all humanity. Now we all know the logical option will be to kill yourself or sacrifice yourself to help your fellow survivors but when it comes down to it will you really do the right thing?? I would like to hope that i would but when thrown into such a situation, ppl can be very unpredictable things.

Now after having survived the invasion having followed these key points, we would then need to hope that the zombies will eventually starve to death so that we can try and rebuild the world. This would probably involve alot of corpse disposal and if we are lucky enough to still have a government in place to keep order then thats great! but otherwise we could end up with a whole other situation living in a world of anarchy, then what would you do!? All in all this whole situation doesn't really seem to have a happy ending so maybe it would just be better to be give up from the start and save ourselves the trouble...

Urine Tests For The Poor!

2007-12-02T01:46:00.001-08:00

So i got my pay slip today, when i opened it i had a look at the tax i've payed over the year and at first i was slightly annoyed that the government would gib me of a few dollars that i could have spent on a new monitor instead. Then i thought about why the government needs it more than me.

You see largest portion of tax money goes to welfare payments these are payments that might go to the people listed below:

widows of war veterans
Old people
people who cant find work
single mothers

List goes on, its basically the people that need abit of help getting on their feet. Unfortunatley we don't live in a perfect world and my tax money also goes to people that i think don't really deserve it.

It is well known within the community that a number of these welfare payments go to people that are just leeching off the government because they don't want to work, these people are affectionately known as "dole bludgers" These are the people that don't do anything for society, they are often found getting drunk in the street or getting high on what ever they can get their hands on. I'm very happy for my tax money to go to the people that really need it but if its going to someone thats gonna use it to damage themselves smoking pot or getting smashed then im not going to be so obliging.

What i would like to suggest is this, why don't we make all welfare people take a urine test before they receive their payments? maybe just one urine test every 1 or 2 months? this wouldn't be expensive for the government to pay for and aside from the minor inconvenienced of pissing into a cup once a month (because your too poor to get your own money) we could separate those that really need the money from those that want to just get high. This might even help people out of their habits, because if they don't sober up then they won't get any money and die!!!

Offcourse with every brilliant idea there are always downsides. One thing i can think of is a bunch of druggies robbing people for money instead. Another thing might be the number of homeless people in the streets might rise because they don't have the money to pay rent since they want their alcohol more. Its a difficult problem to solve, but for now ill have to be satisfied with the fact that i don't earn enough to pay tax anyway :P

Racism In WoW

2007-12-01T02:50:00.000-08:00

One thing i've noticed while adventuring through wow is the lack of people playing darker skinned human characters. I have played wow for about 2.5 years now and on a number of different servers for an extended amount of time. The only "black" character i can remember seeing is a bald paladin that was leveling in STV. I was unable to find any statistics that show the number of black human characters, but according to the wow census its found that the most played race is actually human.

This information might suggest that of the number of people that play the game, there must be a large number of these that play human characters, and of these players there always seems to be very few players that choose the darker skinned character skin. Being a minority in a predominantly white country i would like to believe that racial equality exists all around the world (of warcraft) and not just in Australia. However, the evidence suggest that this isn't true! Why don't people like playing black characters as much as they like to play white characters? Whats even worse?! Of the number of African Americans that play wow, surely the statistics suggest that most of you prefer playing a white character too!!

Another truth i would like to present is that in the character creation screen of wow its very difficult to try and make an asian human. Yes, you can fiddle around with the skin color tabs and think "yeh thats kinda like asian skin" but when you try and choose the right face you can never get the right one. I myself am asian and most of my friends are too, my friend ovaltiney attempted to roll an asian paladin. He did his best on character selection but we were never really satisfied with the overall asian representation that was available. What the real problem here is... WHERE ARE MY SQUINTY EYES!! If you saw me in real life you might say that one of my defining features are my very asian, very squinty eyes and i have to say, im very proud of my squinty eyes, but if i tried to represent myself and my people in wow? well... its just not possible.

So.. What does this all mean? is racial equality only in existence to keep up appearances when we are out and about? but when we go to our private homes, on our personal computers the real truth comes out.... NONE OF YOU WANT TO ROLL A BLACK CHARACTER and even if u wanted to YOU CANT ROLL AN ASIAN CHARACTER EITHER! your all racist on the inside but if you want to keep up appearances in wow too, just roll undead, they dun have much skin!

P.S why cant i roll a black gnome?!

WoW Addiction?

2007-11-30T07:43:00.001-08:00

According to blizzard, the company responsible for the globally life consuming game that is World of Warcraft, there are currently over 9 million active subscribers to the game world wide (including myself) and its affects on the people that play the game are widely know. The majority of people belonging to the older generation will consider the act of playing computer games like wow for hours on end every day to be abit abnormal and probably unhealthy. The concept of wow addiction has come into the medias eye a number of times. I live in Australia where a prominent current affairs program aired on national television a case study of an individual that was apparently addicted world of warcraft. Being on television they made this guy look like a real loser, when he tried to tell the reporter that he had met real people online through the game and made friends with a few of them, many of us avid wow players will understand what he means. He probably met these people through a guild in the game and had run raids and spoke to many of them on third party communication software like ventrillo or teamspeak. However, to many older viewers it may look like this kid is making friends with small animated characters created by the game developer. Obviously if this were true the kid probably does need some help, but to the people that know whats really going on, this doesn't seem abnormal at all. Offcourse there are also a number of other reported cases of more extreme cases related to wow. this extract taken from www.theinquirer.net

"GAMES COMPANY Blizzard is facing a lawsuit from Chinese parents who claim that its fantasy game World of Warcraft killed their son.

According to the Chinese news agency Xinhua, the 13 year old boy jumped to his death while reenacting a scene from the game.

The parents are backed by the anti-Internet addiction advocate Zhang Chunliang who has got 63 parents whose children have also allegedly suffered from online gaming addiction and plans to file a class-action suit.

Many Chinese parents contend that their children spend hours gaming in Internet cafes at the risk of their health, work, and school."

Incidents like these can be worrying to many people, but what about the people that play wow? we may simply brush these alagations off thinking "its not blizzards fault if some kids happen to be morons and kill themselves" or we might take these issues a little more seriously and question our own ability to stay away from the game, are we really addicted??

If you really look at the game and maybe compare it to other games available, wow is really a very simple game completing questing and gaining XP for them involves very repetitive and menial tasks like "kill this many murlocs" or "gather X number of seeds". Throughout ones wow career from lvl1 to lvl 70 hundreds of these quests are repeated over and over again, thinking about the game this way questions why so many people around the world enjoying spending their free time doing such boring repetitive things over and over again. If in real life we were made to do similar tasks im sure the majority of us would not enjoy it. What i think wow does to make people come back and grind xp this way over and over again, is that it taps into human natures need to progress, to become better and stronger. Alot of the time a player will not even enjoy the time they spend in wow, i for one know the pains of honor grinding, repeating the same thing in Alterac Valley over and over again. I hate this and yet i spend hours of my life grinding away at it so that i eventually can get a few pieces of imaginary clothing that will make my wowself that much better. But even though i hate grinding honor it still feels great to have achieved something even if it is only in a game. It is normal for humans to want to progress in their life but it is also much harder to fill this need in real life, it takes much more time and much more effort, but in wow these needs can be fulfilled with less time and less effort. Maybe having wow to fulfill our needs in this way has satisfied us enough to not bother with progressing in real life? Maybe thats why we have cases of people that have taken the game to the extreme where they really don't have any life outside wow. Has wow consumed me? i would like to think it hasn't, but addicts never admit they have a problem...

Recording My Thaughts

2007-11-30T00:26:00.001-08:00

So i was at work today when i considered how much time i spend at work doing nothing and how the majority of my time spent at work is spent thinking about random things that may or may not be worth putting down in this blog.

You see im a lifeguard at a local swimming pool, it has 2 large pools a slide and a smaller diving pool thats used primarily for bombies, its a pretty big place and for the most part of the day my job is to stand around one of these pools making sure nobody does anything stupid and in the rarest of cases jump in to pull someone out. Now this seems like a very cruisey job and you'd be right, it is! but its also crazy boring, in an average 8 hour shift i might spend about 3hours talking to other lifeguards or doing some menial task. The other 5 hours of my shift i stand around and im left to my thoughts as my primary form of entertainment while the time very slowly passes by. During this time i have had many strange and wonderful thoughts pop in my head and this is why i decided to start this blog. I cant be sure how long this is gonna last and i dont even know if ill keep posting after i put this post up but we'll see what happens.

One thing i need to mention now is that yes, im abit of a nerd and yes i play computer games. One of the games i play mostly is of course World Of Warcraft. For the last 2 or 3 years of my life this game has very much consumed me, along with a number of my closest friends. I would like to think that im not addicted to the game, that "i could stop if i wanted to, i just don't want to" but i've tried to stop once before and that only lasted about a month before i was right back into it again. The reason why i mention this is because i'd like to warn you that if i do continue this blog, it is highly likely that i will be talking about this this game for the majority of my posts. Hopefully i put this game behind me one day but for now, wow has wrapped it self around my life and it wont let go.