(too mild a word, but) dislikes.

while playing rs i come across enough people who fall into the category of 'annoying and insufferable', two words (like surreal, for example) that i've found too much cause to use recently.

i never did find cause to hate them, though. i don't usually hate people. it doesn't quite seem possible.

only things i've actually ended up hating are ideas. subjects. disciplines. that sorta thing. (yes this is another rant, so you might like to bail now before the smoke gets thicker...)

in no particular order, these would be the things i despise, sometimes, some of them most times. (i'm not about to argue the usefulness of a subject, that's been drilled into me enough times. i may intellectually know it's useful, and has a point, but that doesn't mean i don't have the freedom to hate it.)

chemistry. particularly, atomic theory.

physics. why must you say precisely why this thing happens this way? it just is this way.

basically, branches of science dedicated to explaining the obvious, or predicting what doesn't need predicting.

locations aside, much of physical geography.

philosophy. i enjoy philo well enough, but when religion explains it all, and religion can't be brought in for religious purposes, all the theories and imperatives those poor guys spent years sweating over seem nothing more than glorified posturing. it's at those times that i don't think much of it, but it's more useful a tool than i could ever have imagined when faced with friends, people, who don't think much of religion, at all.

too many aspects of trigonometry.

statistics. accountancy. i don't know how accountants survive. even with excel those little numbers're enough to drive you over the edge.

basically, mathematical proofs that set out to prove the obvious, or topics (think, congruence, symmetry etc) that require you to prove the obvious.

scales. if they're meant to be important, why am i only forced to learn them the first time i take an exam? if i'd known that, i'd have told them they needn't have bothered. for a sheet of paper (fine, two sheets), it doesn't hardly seem worth it.

my mother tongue. (to go into specifics might entail being sued. it's possible. believe it or not.)

to those people who call "everybody's mother tongue" the most beautiful language because it's the language of their most treasured memories and innermost thoughts; amid answers like gaelic, french, chinese, greogrian, farsi, german...
you obviously haven't been forced to learn this language. it also stopped being the language of my innermost thoughts a long time ago.

to those who'd call me derrogatory names for a pro-western non-westerner...
i've got news for you. being anti-my-mother-tongue ≠ being anti-asian ≠ being pro-western.
heck, even anti-asian ≠ pro-western.
i'm fine with every other asian culture, i'm fine just about every other culture, and every other language. besides english and that bit of german, all the other languages/bits of languages that i know are asian. i'd sooner learn korean and farsi (beautiful script) than another western langauge. don't you dare generalise to the point that you'd pin that on me.

to those people who'll look scandalised at that revelation, and start spitting in outrage...
i learnt to read, speak, and write the language before i could make the conscious decision to condescend to learn it. i would have condescended to learn it anyway, not least of all so those as inflexible and wont to judge a person by their culture as you would shut up. after all, it's people like you who simply cannot be less blind who drive me to despise this language in the first place. so bugger off.

bearing in mind, again, that this is my considerably flawed opinion, incomplete in the sense that i dropped most (sadly not yet all) of these subjects as soon as i was able. and though i may know why i shouldn't have, and should not when i do get the chance, i'm not about to argue for the opposition. i also don't think much of those arguments at all.

bearing in mind, also, that i wouldn't have hated those things if they hadn't been forced on me. so let them exist, but don't force me to have any unnecessary, overt contact with them.

that's just superficial though, isn't it?

what would count as something i'd genuinely hate is evil.

hate's an ugly word. i was wondering whether it'd be right to hate evil, i googled it, and came across this. it's strange, really. the general message is hate isn't necessarily a bad thing. it's a matter of what you hate. that to hate someone that's gone beyond anything remotely decent or human; that would be the type of hate that ends wars.

i don't know.

it makes sense, and in a way, it doesn't. i'll stick by proverbs 8:13. "to fear the Lord is to hate evil".

and in the meanwhile, i'll try to figure it out.

mistaken identity.

i've had my skiller mistaken for a macro more times than i'd care to count.

i've tried...

1. talking excessively. actually starting conversations, believe it or not. i tend to keep to myself when playing, and since may, virtually never say a thing unless i've been talked to in a manner i can't ignore. that's why it's a nightmare when i start playing on my main, but forget that i'm playing on my main and not on my skiller...

2. starting off by raising stats no macro would ever raise. namely, the most boring, useless stats that i don't even actively train on my main (not that i actively train anything, really...) because i simply don't see the point of it. namely, firemaking and rcing. i got firemaking up to the hiscores sooner than i did any of the other skills. after that came runecrafting. hardly any bots seriously rc on f2p servers, after all, if it's nature runes they're after.

3. dressing tastefully. not that macros don't ever do that, but i tried dressing something radically different from the usual combinations.

4. showing off items a level 3 character shouldn't have. not showing off in the explicit sense of the word, seeing as i can't quite afford that many items. not wearing items worthy of of much attention, like trimmed robes or rares. wearing items that are quietly expensive, rather. common items that you wouldn't give a second thought to, but items that just don't belong on a level 3, as most would think. exemplified by coloured gloves, holy symbol/power ammy (prefer the holy symbol), fire staff...

5. not following a set routine. using lumby tele sometimes when mining near the lumby swamps, but walking to draynor other times. not following a set pattern when banking, or mining at certain rocks. changing clothes between bank runs. and so on.

i've tried all that, and still i get that "macro!", "macro?", "macro or friend?"...

well. at least that's a start...

live from world 139

edit: sigh. i take a cue from keywords. you get onto world 139 by clicking "deutsch" in the language sidebar. and if you speak german, you'll know where to go from there.

another foray into the german servers, another macro encounter.

weirdly enough, on a german server, i end up speaking chinese. it's surreal. i'm overusing that word, i might as well get used to the reality of it.

usually most of my proper conversations on world 139 start with "sprechen sie english?" to which most people answer to the affirmative. they're met with an altered enough rendition that the censor won't react to of "that's great. mind if we converse in english then? my german sucks."

it sucks enough that it takes two tries to secure the mysterious box's dematerialisation, but not enough that i get ko'ed by the sandwich lady.

this guy in question, anyway, looks like almost every other crafting guild macroer you'll meet. level 8, in default clothes, a chinese name that means 'i'm not civilised'.

the difference is he actually speaks. another player's trying to sell something, i gather, and is more persistant about it than most. to his german the borg returns answers in the range of fundamentals like "yes", "what?", and culminating in "nonononono". to which the player unceremoniously departs.

seems too fun an opportunity to pass.

me, out of characterly: sprechen sie deutsch?
macro: what?
me: do you speak german?
macro: *insults collectively specific areas of my mother's anatomy in chinese* (if it wasn't for this i might've seriously doubted his macro-ness. was only on my skiller account, after all.)
me: ni shi hua ren ma? (are you chinese?)
macro: *says 'what the-' in chinese. this i actually had to google to find out it's meaning. last count, i've learnt 2 new insults and 1 new vulgarity...*

after that we have a pleasant conversation during which he breaks the personal details rule several times over. it's interspersed with basic english when i can't quite get what he's trying to say. after the more genial inquiries "ni duo da? (how old are you?), "ni shi na de ren? (what's your nationality)", "ni shi nan de ma? (are you a guy?), i find he's from zhejiang.

i don't know why he bothered, and come to think of it, (beyond mining being the only skill he's maxed out and him being online whatever time i log in) i wouldn't otherwise have had much cause to think of him as anything more than another person, that as anything more than a mundane conversation.

in the meantime, i might as well properly figure out what "qq" is (a "lian xi fang fa (means of communication/interaction)" he tells me), or even start an account on what seems to be china's equivalent of msn. all the better to take him up on that offer the next time he asks.

maybe even exchange views about macroing, if not actively persuade him otherwise; or at the very least, make a new friend.

a friend i'm sure will prove more scintillating than the level 29 player who came up to me that same day, putting 14k up in the trade window, declining, and after he'd had his fill of boasting what he obviously thought was his comparative wealth, inserted that choice uncensored four-letter insult. i mean, fine, insult me, but at least try to do it in style.

just, an annoyance.

there aren't very many things i explicitly love. there aren't very many things i hate either. confronted with most things, i register apathy.

not altogether the best of attitudes, or ways of life, but i've become quite good at convincing people i'm passionate about things i don't quite give much of a damn about.

one thing i am passionate about is figure skating. it's not that i don't love it, but sometimes everything gets so annoying. the one rink i go to has a monopoly, charges exorbitant prices, far as i'm concerned, and all in all burns a hole in my pocket. not even counting lessons, mind you. that whole quandary again, i know i'm meant to save money, i know i need money for other things, i know it's obscene to spend this much on something that's just, recreation.

it's just annoying. and it annoys me that it does.

end rant, such as it is.

accounting.

was looking through my bank account (something that took all of 30 seconds), and while it's not quite the best load of stuff you ever will see (more likely to take the prize in the opposite category, actually), it's got it's own fair share of sentimentality.

how it's organised, and such. how do you organise your banked items? every screenshot of a bank account i see doesn't seem in the least bit messy. after this one incident, there came this period when i got somewhat neurotic about my bank account. neurotic because i'd insist on spending five minutes clicking and clicking and clicking, in the days when i hadn't yet discovered the purpose of the insert button (not so long ago, really. something like two months. whoops.) and in moving something from place 30 to place 1, would have to go through all that 30 to 29. 29 to 28. 28 to...

habit never quite died. or perhaps it's just been tidy enough ever since that first sweep, thorough as it was. enough talking, anyway. on to the screenshot. the cut, pasted, edited, circled, low-quality screenshot.

sheesh. the quality's worse than i thought. but then again, i've only got this much space in my thumbdrive.

the bank account's become more of a closet, really. i just can't bear to throw those random event clothes out. zombie outfit was my first, by far. camo and leaderhosen took their time in coming, and it does seem such a pity, really. especially since i've traded them for default clothes, seeing as any hat makes you look bald, instead.

the screenshot's there, and there's organisation explained. the insert's things i carry on my person pretty much all the time. out of necessity more than anything. sentimental things (they're pixels, but sentiment kinda defies logic too, doesn't it?) you just don't bring everywhere with you.

on properly to sentimental things; they're the ones ringed in red. (the swap button too, yes. countless wasted clicks...) story behind every item, you might say, but the sentimental things have longer stories than most... (don't worry, i'm not about the go into all that. would bore me almost as much as it'll bore you.)

• the earth staff - my first staff. (replaced by the fire staff/skull sceptre, but whatever.)
• toy horise - from the days of 'ooh there's a toy horsie. wonder what it does...' and '150gp?? no thanks.' and 'w00t 150 gp to splurge... what shall i splurge it on...'
• tiara mould - my first tiara mould. a tiara mould costs 100gp?? *eyes bug out* now i just have to bank this... *clutches tiara mould tight and shuffles off to the nearest bank. walking in the wrong direction, of course.*
• chisel - my first chisel. wub.

things circled white would be things made and bought to be given away. a mith axe for anyone who genuinely needs help (those who genuinely need help usually appreciate a mith axe, anyway. to the rest, really, what makes you think i can afford anything else?)

a power ammy's a gift that's not too tacky, like the mith axe, and not exactly amazingly expensive, either. sure, it cuts you back 8k or so (never was a good enough merchant to find people selling it for any less) but it's worth it. in that the people are worth it. no, everyone's worth more than that. um. the encouragement (hopefully) it gives the person is worth it. or. i don't know what i'm saying, it's just worth it. the first example that comes to mind... it was varrock main bank, a crowded enough world. i wasn't about to open my mouth. but everyone else was intent on all that flashing, so...

player a: i was hacked i need free stuff.
player a: i was hacked i need free stuff.
player a: i was hacked gimme free stuff.
player b: i was hacked too, but you don't see me going around begging.

maybe it doesn't seem altogether spectacular a thing, but it was, to me. people just let it go on, around them, and it just fades into something like background noise. that attitude just seemed encouraging, somehow. even though the phrasing might've been a little antagonistic.

that's what power ammys are for.

i don't know if it makes a difference, but that brings me to events like today's. sometimes these things that touch you, they happen when you least expect it.

i've already ranted my share in an earlier post (so much earlier that it's slightly strange, reading it now), but now that i've progressed onto addy, it just gets worse. there're so few addy rocks around that some people just can't seem to bear to avoid competing for ores. (that's just the downside though. world hopping's more successful than ever with these ores.) usually i just leave it be, not least of all because my smithing's lagging a good 11 levels behind mining, and i only mine addy for the joy of it. (like wow, i mined addy? wow. kinda feeling.)

today's no different. there are two addy rocks that've timely respawned. a guy in full sara takes one, i take the other. he's done with it, and he moves on to my rock. as i shove off i tell myself i should've been desentised to this long ago, and head towards the mining guild.

i start mining the two rocks nearest the door. by this time, i've focused on the article response i'm meant to be doing, and that little incident has, as all of them are wont to do, become a non-issue.

until the blue text of "free add yon the grounf" interrupts those lines of black. he's standing right outside the door.

i take some time to figure out what he did say. and

i don't know what to say. i don't say anything.

he logs.

i add him to my friends list, and he's commenced world hopping. i still don't know what to say.

i wonder if it would be right to pm him. tell him thank you, thank you kindly.

by the time i've decided, he really has logged.

i don't pick the addy up, but thank you. thank you kindly.

the week ahead.

one last post before i try to keep away from this blog for a week.

try being the operative word.

you would've thought i'd have learnt by now that writing something off the top of your in response to anything at all gets you nothing but trouble, and the need for a longer, more organised and well thought-out reply.

i haven't, but i'm about to. just a few minutes then i've got to leave. no time to reply coherently now, so it's exile to blogging off the top of my head again. back on topic.

the week ahead...

monday's the day you most feel like dying. dead tired because you slept at 2.24 sunday night kind of dying.
tuesday's the day of most stress. skipping-lunch-and-dinner-cos-you're-rushing kind of stress.
wednesday's the day of scary timetabling. insane timetabling. scarily insane. insanely scary.
thursday's the longest day. the day that's stretched like taffy that's already been stretched like taffy that's already been stretched like taffy across earlier weeks.
friday's the day of unexpected length and unpleasant surprises. friday's traditionally the day of exams and dental appointments, last sightings and lost books.

saturday's almost worse, but by saturday i'll probably be back to rant about it.

have a good week ahead, y'all.

a regular day on pm, 92 point 5.

started playing again, after i got back last night, and because that just happens to be peak hour for america, on average i end up holding five conversations simultaneously. of course, none of them are friends. my real friends know by now when to leave well alone.

people are just so different. i don't believe it. i don't know what to believe. last night's five was a case in point.

(and this is excluding the normal, quite unanswerable pms like "!! guthix brings you balance!!", "wanna buy full zammy?", "u sed u wanted to be my gf!", "tell everyone to join zezima's chat!" etc.)

1. at fally bank, a guy's hankering after a single law rune. presumably for varrock tele or something, and i oblige. i give it to him free, and that part, maybe it was a mistake. "1 more. 1 more. 1 more." spams the chat screen. i leave the bank. he promptly 1-more'd me through pm. we discuss the merits of plain hard work, and the satisfaction it gives you.

once he's dealt with, i make the mistake of giving another guy mith ores. "more. weps and armour." he weps-and-armour's me via pm when i leave. i don't know where he got the idea that someone who hasn't consciously trained anything remotely melee-related for six months should be lugging mith and addy weapons and armour done to the mining pits. regardless. we discuss the merits of plain hard work, and the satisfaction it gives you.

it's vicious in its predictability.

2. a guy's been lobbying "f2p should get more quests and items!" again in fally. "follow me if you think f2p should get more quests and items!" it's not an extremely crowded world, all things considered, he doesn't attract very much attention, and thereafter resorts to (horror of horrors) pming innocent bystanders. we debate the fairness of jagex's decisions.

i don't see why people won't just play, and be grateful that they get so much for absolutely nothing. he's apparently been playing since rsc came out. it's rather futile, and we both realise it. we promptly move on to other things.

pking's hardly more edifying.

3. someone pms me from out of the blue (not that that's altogether unexpected) and asks what a whetstone is. i point out the search function, and promptly click search for him.

apparently it's a place where you sharpen rusty swords.

4. someone i'm positive has been hounding me ever since she discovered the fact of my existence strikes again. it's the same type of question every time. she starts off this time with "can u like, tell jagex to put me a mod!" as a prelude to whether it's "good" to help someone with a quest, whether it's "good" to report someone attempting to account trade, whether it's "good"... her definition of "good" being whether it'll get her mod status fast enough.

i'm still leery after the last encounter with the guy who initiated the let's toggle the pm settings! game. but this time i just can't help but tell her my views, incorporating all that about position, how to properly earn respect, right and wrong... she simmers. the moment i even mention "ignore list" she goes ballistic.

"ur mean! you're reported!!"

and to think, just the other day she was so surprised when i told her about the number of people who've reported me. was trying to say that reports don't mean a thing unless they're valid. i remind her of as much.

a silence, then she goes back to it again. "who r the people wit gold crowns?" only a matter of time before she gets back to the same form of asking.

i feel like screaming. (and if i did, one room over they'd be speculating tomorrow who presumably spent the night here.) i just log. it's easier to shoot yourself in the mouth than reason with people, it seems, sometimes.

i log in later to be faced with "yh do i always have to say hi y cant u do it]" i wonder if it's too cruel to tell her i delete her from my friends list everytime we're done conversing in hopes that we'll never have to again. initiate a conversation with her? is she crazy?

i stick with "i'm sorry, sometimes i need to clear my friends list when it gets too full, and..." then promptly initiate a conversation with her next i log in.

give me strength.

5. it seems someone really is listening. a person with a vaguely familiar username pms me. somehow we get onto the topic of family. we bond over standing around attracting randoms and talking about deaths of loved ones. he starts off, and in between i mention my friend.

we cover how unfair the world seems, how cruel things can be, grief, regret, time, meaning, religion, missing someone.

saying this almost seems like intruding on privacy. we talk about where we live.

it becomes a mundane conversation, and that's precisely what keeps me when faced with pms from the other four. it's coversations like these that remind me why i don't choose to keep private chat on friends.

four in five of every other person you talk to you won't particularly want to continue the conversation with, but that doesn't mean the latter kind of person doesn't exist.