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Five Things Make A Post
1) Winter in Perth means I'm dealing with cold hands, cold temperatures overall, and chronic sinus whinges. I swear my family pretty much single-handedly props up the profits of Kleenex, and I'm doing my bit to keep the manufacturers of "Fisherman's Friend" brand cough lozenges afloat as well. Mind you, given the other alternative is burst eardrums (my cranial plumbing is a joy to live with, I tell you), pass the Fisherman's Friend and the tissue box, and keep up the supply of hot liquids.
2) re: the Jessica Price thing exploding all over Twitter: On the one hand, I'm very grateful to the management and CEO of ArenaNet games for reducing my choice paralysis regarding future MMO product choices (I won't be bothering with their stuff). On the other hand, seriously, guys, you've just emboldened the worst of the worst, and you're teaching them their tantrums will be rewarded. Think on your lives, think on your choices, and think about the sorts of people you're encouraging here. The comment she made wasn't particularly nasty as far as the general run of "IT types annoyed by pointless back-seat driving" comments go (and trust me, I've seen a few of those), and the bloke she was replying to was sea-lioning so obviously I'm amazed he was able to type all of it so neatly with flippers.
3) I've given up, to a large degree, on my plans regarding "edumacating myself in the inter-semester down time" (which basically consisted of "taking notes on PDFs I'd downloaded for research and then decided weren't quite what I was looking for" and "trying to get through Baudrillard again"). One of the side effects of the afore-mentioned sinus issues is that I wind up with my brain wanting to curl up in a corner and not play, so I've decided I'll just stick with trying to keep up with transcribing recipes from magazines and cookbooks instead.
4) On the subject of MMOs, I've been re-starting "Villagers and Heroes" over the past month. Basically, I've been playing this one off and on over the years, and I'm now able to put a bit of detailed effort into it, and actually get a character fully started up and running properly. I quite recommend this one as an MMO if you're after a community which is pretty friendly, and which doesn't run to griefing (no PvP, which is a Good Thing as far as I'm concerned - entirely PvE, and a heavy emphasis on crafting and such). It's free to play, and it's also pretty much free to win (in that the paid elements are purely cosmetic - extra mounts, fancy gear sets). You can buy things which reduce the amount of time you're spending on crafting, restore HP/MP, give boosts to stats and such, or which give you a bit of extra storage space, but you're also able to get through the game pretty straight-forwardly without needing to buy any of them - basically you pay in time, rather than cash; the choice is yours. There's a couple of main quest lines (one legacy, one storyline), and a bunch of "bounty bosses" which give you extra experience and extra cash; and it's all pretty straightforward. I'm finding it something very relaxing to spend time noodling away on in between reading fanfic.
5) What else have I been doing? Reading fanfic, working my way through crosswords, a bit of baking, as much housework as I can handle before the whole "freezing cold house" bit drives me back into my room (where the heater is running pretty much constantly - I am *not* looking forward to the next power bill), and largely engaging in one of my periodic phases of agoraphobia, where I don't leave the house unless there's a very good reason. If I were warmer, I'd call it "hibernation", but at present, in the current temperatures, it's agoraphobia.
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