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Sunday, August 03, 2003 Today I am feeling: glad I'm not a bird 
Books I am reading: Beacham's Sourcebooks for Teaching Young Adult Fiction: Exploring Harry Potter E. Schafer Games I am playing: Asheron's Call [online RPG] Asheron's Call 2: Fallen Kings (free trial) [online RPG] Ok, this is a long one, grab a cup o'coffee or whisky or whatever ya drink. First off, the inevitable happened today: cats will be cats. Or, if you let your cat watch birds, sooner or later, it'll decide watching is not enough. My cat loves to catch stuff (bugs are her favorite) and today, I heard her characteristic "jingle jingle" as she came into the house and I said my usual "Hi, Kaia!" as she entered my room ... with a big mourning dove in her mouth. Ugh. I told her that was not nice, catching the poor birdie, even though I knew she was just bringing me a present (gifts from the cat means she loves me, officially, right?) So, I tried to get her to drop the poor bird. Nope, uh uh mommy, my birdie (meow mouth full meow.) Ok, then, I shall pry thy mouth open, foul beast! So I did, and took the birdie out, but not being one endowed with 4 hands, the bird got away and I had to use the two hands I do have to catch the cat before the bird was dinner. I managed to get the cat and put her in another room, then tried to figure out how to catch a very frightened bird without hurting it. I looked around aimlessly, not knowing what to do, and finally just grabbed a towel and kinda uhm ... tossed it over the bird and grabbed it in the towel and wrapped it up so it couldn't get away. Poor birdie. I looked at the bird and why I'll be, not a scratch on it. No typical broken neck, no bite mark punctures in its neck, no broken wings, no plucked eyes, nothing. Well, except for maybe a hundred or so feathers strewn across the room. Eek, ok, so it didn't come out of it totally unscarred. Anyway, took the birdie outside, tried to figure out where to put it where a cat couldn't get to it, decided, huh, maybe it can fly, so I opened my hand and whee, off the birdie flew! Anyway, I hope this is the last time she brings me bird offerings, but at least I can be thankful she didn't hurt it. Kind of amazing, too, considering she hasn't quite learned the "no teeth when biting" rule yet. Ok, uhm ... I am taking this online class through Barnes and Noble university on how to teach Harry Potter to kids, well I have no kids, I just took the class cuz it's free and covers some topics like mythology and archetypes in relation to the Potter books that I thought would be fun. Anyway, while reading stuff on the boards, someone said (yeah I know I should state names/sources but I'm too damn lazy to dig through 100+ posts to find the right ones) that the snitch Harry uses in quidditch is symbolic of some egyptian symbol (a winged "sun") which symbolized uhm ... something like a spiritual goal or something (enlightenment sorta) and that Harry's position on the team, seeker, is uhm ... symbolic. I always thought he was a "seeker" for a reason but I'd not made the connection with the snitch being a goal or a "holy grail" or something (or even a secret, like "snitch" means informer, or someone who knows, as another poster said.) Anyway, reading the boards for this class makes me think damn these HP books are deep. Hehe either that or put a few intellectuals together and they'll read all kinds of things into stuff that's not really there (although the author, J. K. Rowling, has stated she puts a lotta symbolic stuff from other sources in her books.) Hehe. Anyway, the course is kinda neat, they're offering it again soon, and a couple of the people in the class have taken it before and like to uhm ... participate so they'll probably be there again next time. The instructor is pretty well-informed too, which is nice. And, thirdly, about a week ago, I re-activated my Asheron's Call and promptly got bored again so I decided to try the "free trial" of Asheron's Call 2. I beta tested AC2 about a year ago and it sucked bigtime. But I figured, time, money, and a few monthly content updates would fix it, right? Uhm ... well ... lemme just say this, the first night I played AC2, there were fewer people playing in the entire game than on ONE server in the original Asheron's Call. The game is still pretty much the same: Same launcher bugs, same graphics glitches, same lockup-the-computer-on-game-exit, same hideously slow performance (hey, maybe even worse than in beta, but it's partly my fault, my computer is below minimum requirements, which have interestingly been raised since beta.) But hey, there's new content! They added some "bloodstones" for the July "event" ... they put them right within a few clicks of the newbie drop-off point! Bloodstones are level 12+ monsters that will agro you from the edge of radar, hit you with about 50-100 damage in one hit (newbies have 100 hp) with magical spells, and run faster than you can, so there is no hope of running away, you foolish newbie you! How dare you think you can do that newbie quest at that newbie dungeon! Funny thing though, other monsters are extremely scarce now, I can run from Arwic to Cragstone and hardly see any, if I stay away from the roads that are sometimes used by the Bloodstones. Weird. No lowbie monsters, but plenty (well not really plenty) of big tough things no newbie could dream of killing. Oh well, at least there's that nifty "v" key feature now that shows stuff that's off your radar. Hehe. Ok, once I figured out that AC2 still runs better in windowed mode than fullscreen (just like beta) and got all the graphics things tweaked to as low as they'll go and turned off sound so the game is almost playable, I finally got moving leveling my character. I got her to level 11 the first day (luckily virtually all of the beta content is unchanged, only a few minor landscape differences, including a big giant opening in the mountain to get to that drudge camp that you used to have to climb the mountain and JUMP hoping not to bump walls on the way down. Hehe silly me, I still jumped, then saw the "easy" way in once I was down inside. Oh, well. There were a few areas where mountains that used to be climbable no longer are and a couple places where the roads to dungeons are now underwater, so you can drown if you're not careful to pop up to land once in awhile to revive your vigor/health. Who the hell thought of that idea? Yeah, let's drown newbies on their way to the Arwic vault (or was it Lost Wish, I forget, one of those newbie vaults.) One good thing though is there's LOTS more quests now, most of them very easy/quick to do. I did about 6 the first day and another 4-5 the second day and got to level 15 without even trying (and not even fighting stuff my level: the hardest monster I've fought so far are the level 7 drudges in Cragstone excavation, which are way too overpowered for level 7, but they only kill me if they gang bang me.) Crafting has improved greatly: newbies can easily find the resources to craft up to level 3 armor and weapons: I made myself a nice 32-53 bow at level 10 that I couldn't use till level 11 but hey at level 15 I'm still using it, mostly cuz I can't find many acid 40+ resources to master the level 3 bows so I can start learning the level 4 ones. Ah, well. I also made a ar 16 robe too, whee! I'm not maxed out on armor now that I'm level 15 but it's still adequate for most stuff, but I'll have to find better stuff once I head outta the Arwic/Cragstone area (as soon as I finish that stupid Cragstone Ex. quest, I had the stupid seal but accidentally hit the "F" key while it was selected which "used" it without giving me a warning or a "can't do that" message grr, I have 2 of the 3 parts for the seal but the stupid drudges won't give me the 3rd one and that dungeon is a bitch alone, even at level 15, so I'll have to go back tomorrow and try to find the 3rd seal and they use it on the right place hehe. Once I do that, I'm off to Rithwic and more fun there whee! Wow, was that a long paragraph or what? Uhm ...lemme see, what else ... hmmm ... still no job ... school starts in a month ... textbooks are out, might buy mine to amuse myself ... Mars is really big in the sky now, if you're up after midnight, go outside and look toward the southeast about 10-20 degrees above the horizon. I gotta get my telescope out one of these days so I don't miss it, but damn 1am is really late hehe. Oddly, every time I read an article about Mars being close to Earth, it seems it gets closer than in an even greater distance of time ... first it was closest in 1000 years, then 10,000, last I heard it was something like 70,000 years. Uhm yeah, k, we get it, it's not gonna be this close/bright/impressive again for a LONG time. It is quite impressive though, especially given that I'd just taken an Astronomy class last Spring semester and had to go out and stare at the sky all freakin' night and saw, oh yeah, there's Mars, and it is now, much, much bigger and brighter than it was in April, it's bigger than Jupiter! (Although not as bright, cuz it's a kinda orangey/coppery/goldish/silvery color.) Ok, I reckon y'alls are done with yer coffee er whisky now, so I'll jist shut my mouth, now, y'hear? L8r
[ 11:47:00 PM ]
Posted at the speed of blight by NONOBADKITTY!
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