linterry's blogger

omfg, today while i was at the sheng li superstore (which pretty much sells anything you can think of as long as it's made in china),

A TAIWANESE GIRL TRIED TO HIT ON ME

does it sound like bragging? of course it is! who the fuck wouldn't feel like a million bucks after being hit on by a girl? so here's the situation. my gf is somewhere else shopping for whatever it is she was shopping for, i go around looking for anything mildly entertaining, and I find a rack of dumbbells in the corner of the store. just to let you know, between WoW and making music, my muscles have basically atrophied - to the point where lifting a weight felt so goddamn awesome... kinda like the feeling of dribbling a ball after not touchign one for a month... something like that.

so there I am, lifting a 16pd weight (stop laughing, you goddamn jocks), and all of a sudden this young girl comes out of nowhere, and says "hi there, how heavy is that?". to which i just say "16 pds". now here's the thing. i'm not gonna fool ya, the first thoughts that entered my mind at this point where:

WHO THE FUCK IS THIS?
WHY AM I BEING INTERROGATED?
WHAT THE HELL DOES SHE WANT?

but then I look at this girl. she's not that great looking, but she ain't fat either, she seems like a decent person, doesn't wear a shitload of disgusting makeup, at least i can see the freckles on her face. so i continue the conversation. no pretense. i tell her exactly what's going on, i do too much work at a computer, my muslces are aching, so I'm just using these dumbbells for some mild exercise. she inquires at my work (music), then my age (25), then my astrological sign (virgo). i keep answering these questions but there's still this one nagging thought:

UMM... IS THIS REALLY HAPPENING? NO FUCKING WAY!

this pretty much prevented me from asking her any questions, cuz half my mind was like in disbelief, the other half was busy enough just answering her barrage of questions. where was i from? what did i study? where did i live? and then here's the clincher! she pulls out the cell phone and says "hey you're a pretty interesting guy. can i have your number, if you don't mind?" at this point, i was like:

UH OH, I DON'T THINK I SHOULD GIVE OUT THAT KIND OF INFORMATION.

but the freckles were just too charming. or maybe i just didn't know how to reject her. so i gave her my number, but really i was hoping that this would be our last encounter. that's the good old honest truth, cuz this was a bit too sudden for my taste. all of a sudden her phone rings:

WHEW A FEW SECONDS A RELIEF.

it's her friend, who's also in the store. she tells her friend "hey i just met a shuai ge, i'm in the back". for those of you who don't know what shaui ge means, it's pretty much the same as leng jai for the HK dudes, but of course that's so overused here (shopkeepers will call you that all the time) so it really has little meaning. her friend comes over and they talk about me a bit, and then her friend asks the most important question that prety much saved my ass "Are you here alone?" (no with a friend), "don't tell me, that's your girlfirned?" (... yeah it is).

Hah, ok so then the girls pretty much give their polite escape goodbye and i try to walk away from the scene as calmly as possible. except i'm anything but calm. i run up to my gf and like the dude who just reached third base for the first time, i'm like giddy as a child, telling her the whole story of how i just got hit on by a girl in the store. her reaction? just a little bit shocked. i guess she's kinda immune to this kind of shit seeing as how i always tell her how much i would like a threesome with her sister.

i bought the 16pd dumbbell. it's right next to me.

yeah so i may not seem like an outright asshole in real life, but how much of real life is actually real and how much of it just seems like an acting rehearsal. anyways i have contemplated my actions on world of warcraft recnetly and it has occurred to me that i'm pretty much the biggest of assholes that you could possibly meet - online at least.

example: the other day i spotted three alliance questing at lake nazferti in strangehorn vale. this is with the 37 rogue. now usually i would just go on merry way but for some reason (i'm assuming out of boredom) i just wanted to cause them misery. so i did. i kept ganking the shit out of them and usually i would die after the first kill (35 druid, 37 warrior, 37 hunter so the odds were kinda against me). but the graveyard was fairly close so i just corpse rezzed like it was no big deal. anyways, would you believe it, at one point i got lucky and while they were medding up they got two adds by accident. i instantly added to their dilemna and successfully wiped out the WHOLE GROUP.

(let me just interject here and say that a rogue is indeed the most annoying ganker ever. just one rogue who's devoted to ganking can cause an entire questing party grief becuase while the rogue can afford to just sit there and wait, the party must continue questing. it's more a psychological thing, because if you just sit there togehter waiting for the rogue to come out again, yes you won't get ganked, but you won't be getting any of your quests done either. basically you've allowed one annoying asshole to delay the progress of multiple people. so the party continues questing, but thanks to a rogue's stealth, he will turn any bad questing situation into a wipe)

anywyas from that point onwards, i proceeded to corpse camp and I just dominated their rezzing attempts. apparently it seems they lack the coordination to all rez AT THE SAME TIME. people are usually very pissed off when they die not expecting to die and generally lose their rythym soon after. first the druid thought he could be clever by corpse rezzing and instantly shadowmelding. too bad that shit shows up in my combat log. the hunter was just downright lazy and corpse rezzed assuming I wouldn't be such a jerk. he assumed wrong. the warrior at least tried to run some fair distance and medded, but he was a goner too. i must have wiped out this group at least two or three times after the intial wipe, one by one. they never had the teamwork or coordination to all rez at the same time.

would you believe that after a while, this whole party seemed to disband and everyone headed in different directions. i purused the 35 druid all the way across the river, at which point he aggored a crocodile and was forced to fight him. thanks to mr. crocolosk, i got one last kill, which was planned to perfection as i took down his health to 10%, stood back, typed /wave, and let the crocolisk finish the job.

my girlfirend was watching all this and you know what she said? well, basically that i was such a total ass. she told me to leave the druid alone, let the druid go away, you've done enough already. but i coulnd't. i wanted to give people misery, and I don't know why. and yeah maybe now i feel a little bad about it, but when i think back to those times it's really more chuckling than remorse.

this kind of jerk play goes all the way back through my online gaming history. in war3 it was always trash talking after the opponent lost and said "gg". I would say "umm...gg? you guys were too goddamn easy. i wasn't even entertained". in quake2, it was camping the rocket launcher/railgun and doing nothing but that to rack up kills. it was so bad that i was banned from several servers for doing so. in counterstrike... well... it's not really easy being cheap in counterstrike, so I loaded up the autoaiming hacks and did my best to pretend like i didn't have one.

so yeah i think deep down inside, i'm not a decent person. i mean if you go with the online gaming persona. i don't respect my opponent and i just LOVE cheap shit that stacks the odds against the opponent. i guess i just like winning more than anything else. i can't stand that saumari shit where they both bow down before a match. if i could i'd throw my sword at the opponent while he's bowing.

i hate getting calls on my cell phone. it's always either work related family related or something equally annoying. it's never a girl or anything. it's always something annoying. evertime i hear my cell phone ring i go "WHO THE FUCK IS IT THIS TIME".

i hate getting calls on my cell phone. it's always either work related family related or something equally annoying. it's never a girl or anything. it's always something annoying. evertime i hear my cell phone ring i go "WHO THE FUCK IS IT THIS TIME".

i'm reading a new book "the paradox of choice". it's great stuff. in fact remember how i used to always talk about that dy/dx happiness theory, well... it's all in here. very layman, non academic, a little bit shallow, but great stuff nonetheless.

just now the for the past hour i grinded my pve mage rino to lvl55. as i was frostbolting mob after mob, i realized just how BORING it has gotten to interact with computer characters. the only pleasure that is derived from this monotonous activity is knowing that soon enough, you will reach a new state of power. it's basically all novelty. you reach new levels, you can get new skills and wear more items, and by killing monsters you can possibly get good stuff.

yes it was fun at one point. when i first played this game, everything was so fresh, everything was so new, it was a mindbending experience to take my first wind rider flight. but now everytime i think about tkaing another flight path, i groan. "why don't they give you an option to teleport to your desitnation immeidatley" is what i say to myself. there was a day when i used to stare and admire the scenery, now i alt-tab to my desktop and surf the web instead.

novelty wears thin. pleasure derived from novelty is so short lived - it almost makes you wonder whether the effort was worth it to obtain the novelty.

but one thing that DOESN'T wear thin, is meaningful human interaction. it's a pleasure of a different type, that has a certain immunity towards our tragic ability to adapt and normalize. this is why grouping in an instance is always more interesting than playing solo. or why ganking (or being ganked) evokes such powerful animalistic emotions. if you kill a mob and get no experience, it's a total waste of time. but if you whack a human character in pvp, the act in itself is the reward. you gain nothing material in either case, yet there is a world of difference in psychological satisfaction.

like today, i was ganking as usual in redridge with my 32 rogue, and i caught another 32 rogue by surprsie. the idiot panicked and after the stun wore off he proceeded to jump off the edge of a hill hoping to escape. i eviscerated him in midair and when he landed he died from the fall damage. my girlfriend and i couldn't stop laughing and it was just downright hilarious. i made 5 consecutive ganks in a row after that and i was feeling soo good. then a 38 druid shows up out of nowhere in the middle of one of my ganks and tries to play gestapo. he roots me and starts to spam moonfire, i hit vanish to break root and then i just started whacking him up close with SS and landed a 4pt CB evis. drank a healing potion, and miralce of miracles i killed my ganker with like 8% health left.

yeah, an expeirence like the one above is also just pleasure, but based more on human interaction rather than sheer novelty. the big difference here is that i can keep ganking over and over and it doesn't wear thin nearly as easily as plain novelty. in fact, it ursurps novelty. ever since i've discovered ganking in duskwood and redridge the desire to level my rogue has all but vanished. i get enough kick out of ganking there is no pressing desire to level up my character, particuliarliy since it's less meaningful to gank ppl that are TOO low in level.

what about the real world? we derive pleasures from both novelty and human interactions in the real world as well. pleausre from novelty is mostly material possessions. like buying a BMW after owning a Camry, that's novelty. buying antother pair of shoes when you already own five, that's novelty. it makes you feel good but only for a exceeidingly short time. does that not remind you of proserpous first world countries? North American culture is pretty much all about uninhibited consumption, read more books, buy more CD's, drink more lattes until you feel sastified. but do you really feel sastified? only if you can keep finding more and more novelty. but as each novel thing wears off, it gets harder and harder to keep your spirits high.

up to now there really has only been one single source of pleausre that has seemingly never run dry (as of yet), and that is my gf. i am so used to being around machines and toys that sometimes i look at her in the same way. i think to myself "What does she provide to me?" and the answer is simple: meaningful, intimate human interaction. she provides this almost every day because she lives with me and we spend a lot of time togehter. this kind of pleasure has not worn thin even after three years. but after three years how many games have i played, how much music i have listened to, how many movies i have watched, that i will never touch again, because too much of the pleasure was simply novelty.

i guess what i am trying to say in this long winded post is that novelty is nice but it cannot be the foundation of your happiness. the one thing that should be the foundation is meaningful human interactions. ok, i'm out, peace.

what's better than ganking with a shaman?
ganking with a rogue

now i've had pretty negative impressions of the rogue up to the 30's, mostly because, well, it's difficult to find viable gank victims when you're less than 30. but now that i've hit 32 and got cold blood and a freshly upgraded eviscerate+sinister strike, i've taken the alliance to town in duskwood and redridge.

here's the thing. when you get ganked by just about any class, it's like ... "wtf". except the rogue. when a rogue ganks you, you take out the "w" and the "t" and you're pretty much just left with "FUCK". it is the most psychologically disturbing thing to be taken out by something you never saw.

i'm going to digress a bit and say this: it's ironic that most of the time when you get ganked by any class, you never saw it coming, so then we gotta ask ourselves whether stealth even served a purpose. rogue cheap shots you, or hunter aim shots you, it all gets you by surprise. but the thing is... the vicitm knows the rogue was stealthed, and that's what makes it annoying. it just pisses me off to know that he was stakling me in invisible mode all the time.

the other thing is, is that stealth naturally induces terror and doubt in your mind. if you believe a rogue is in the area, you will be constantly plauged with thoughts such as "is he still following me?" "am i safe now?" it breaks your rythym and you are taken out of your element. it's a lot easier to panic and stop thinking clearly in these kinds of situations.

another thing to mention is the cheap shot sound effect. it's loud and scrunchy, and it basically reads something like this = "YOU'RE FUCKED". personally the sound induces images of your stalker taking a pair of pliers and twisting your testicles into a knot. yeah, you're fucked.

still i think it's a common misconception that the rogue is the most efficient ganker. i don't think that's true. if you asked me to show you a lot of ganks, i'd pull out the shaman. you run around in ghost wolf form, check your combat logs, and you will find gank targets quickly. the 20 yard frost shock snare means nothing is getting away. you can interrupt, snare, heal, you are totally ready for almost any situation. however, the rogue is more about instilling fear and terror and playing psyschological warfare games with your opponent. eg. you gank an opponent. you leave the area, stealth and come back. you can watch your opponent look around for you for 5 minutes, then resume questing. and that point you gank him again. the next time, you leave for 10 minutes, then return and if he's questing gank him yet again. the fourth time you'd better leave cuz the gestapo (nearby lv60 toons) are probably coming in to clean you up. at that point you find a very safe place to hide, wait 10 minutes again for the gestapo to get bored and leave, then you gank him YET again. total mind games. by this point your victim will have suffered more than just damage to his toon's HP, it will probably fuck with his real life brain too. yea and that's what makes the rogue so sweet.

oh yeah don't forget, when you're done killing, eat

some random music trivia for you

the flag song from the mario theme song (when you finish a level)

Cmaj (arp), Abmaj(arp), Bmaj(arp), Cmaj

the victory fanfare song from the final fantasy theme song

Cmaj (x3), Amaj, Bmaj, Cmaj, Bbmaj, Cmaj

all the same modulation chords. both victory songs. coincidence? hmm... one thing i've noticed about mario songs is that they sound so great on the piano. theory: with crippled syntehsizers, you need intersting musical ideas to make it sound passable. the abstract ideas behind the nes mario music are really great. or maybe it's just nostaglia, who knows.

on my recent trip to okinawa i have had some time to reflect a bit on life so far. there was no intneret no computers and above all no warcraft so basically it's like stopping drugs smoking and alcohol all at once.

what surprised me the most is that i found it difficult to enjoy the simple things. i still got a kick out of the great food but everything else pretty just seemed like "Downtime" to me. sitting in the car = downtime. sitting at home waiting to go somewhere = downtime. sitting in the back of the car while my gf talks to her friend = downtime. what used to be marginally interesting has turned into a chore. it was to the point where i really wanted to go back home, just to avoid all this unnecessary downtime.

i don't know when my life normalized to such an unhealthy impatient state. i think i pretty much share the same desires as a drug addict except i'm not on drugs, i try to sustain the pleasure through food, sex, caffeine and music. and when the effect seems to taper, i just add more of each until i get what i want = gratification. and if i am somehow unable to add the required amount, i start to fuss and get anxious. which is pretty much what happened in okinawa. i didn't have the means to gratify myself at the same level as my life in taiwan. downtime /= gratifcation.

although the story i give most people seems like a good one, a freelance music composer whose name appears on tv everyday and lives with a well-tempered japanese girl in a nice apartment, i'm pretty much as disgusting as disgusting can get. i am a gratification-seeking-machine, the only thoughts that enter my head from the moment i wake up until i sleep is GRATIFY GRATIFY GRATIFY. i try to gratify myself in all dimensions possible with all conveneintly available means. but i feel so guilty. everytime after i masturbate or eat another mcdonalds combo, i feel like i've given myself too much to the point where i can't even feel the joy anymore. i've become numb to the gratification.

and then we come back to shinobu's family, the okinawans, who have started to vex me with their ability to be so content with so little. a house with no computers, no intenret, and a *4* channel TV. yet they sit happily every night in front of said TV and it is simply... incredible. surely a testament to the power and danger of normalization. i believe it is healthier to not dream about this and that, but to simply take whatever is in front of you and say ok. just say ok.

yah got i'm bored why wont the goddamn servers come up

did you know that kylie minogue love at first sight is just three chords? i just love it when great songs turn out to be mystically simple.

Bmaj, C#maj, D#min all the way through.

yah it's tricky though that is the key of Gbmaj the one with most black keys, and it uses the 4,5,6 progression. like uhh, the braveheart theme song. yeah. i'm pretty sure about that. anyways that' spretty neat.