The non-existent argument

A bad combination:

My aunt isn't particularly good at abstract thought or accepting the assumptions given in an argument (not to agree with them, but to accept them as the basis of the current discussion).  This leads her to say stupid things or misunderstand things into a non-existent disagreement.  Meanwhile my brother and other aunt and uncle love to discuss things and challenge ideas.  The result is something that isn't heart-shaped butterflies, but is not a screaming match and will not turn into one.

My mom hates arguing.  According to the second aunt (the one who likes discussion and is her sister), when they were younger family arguments were a less cordial affair, tending to involve real political disagreement and hard feelings.  With that in mind, it is understandable that my mom would be wary of arguments.

But it's been quite a long while.  Surely by now it is not unreasonable to expect that she'd have figured out that she's not at her childhood home.  Surely it is not unreasonable to expect someone to have some stage between no indication of a problem and screaming about arguing.  Maybe ask nicely to stop 'arguing', but do so before she's borderline enraged, since the "I asked nicely" idea is complete bullshit when you're one word away from hysteria.

I might have some sympathy if there actually was an argument.  If someone came to our house saying Obama is from Kenya, it would be entirely justified to get angry at them, maybe more.  But this wasn't that and never is.

Merry Christmas...

Is it plugged in? Idiot.

If you're the sort of person who remembers this sort of thing, you might remember that a bit back I had some random crashing issues related to Civilization V. Fun stuff. I decided it was due to the RAM. So I did the logical thing:

No of course I didn't run a RAM test. That takes too long! Instead I pulled one one of the sticks and replaced it with two older ones. Yea, wrap your head around that. I'm just that good. At first things seemed better. And then not. This suggested that it was either the other stick or something entirely different.

I went with the third option: ignore it and just start playing Civ IV again.

Then one day I went poking around again and noticed something odd: one of my replacement RAM chip wasn't fully seated. Huh. So I gave it a good shove back in, checked all the others, and for good measure, stuck back in the "bad" stick.

No more crashes.

So no, it was not plugged in.

At least that's not quite as dumb as my headset with the non-functional microphone. I mean, duh, of course I want "mute" set to off. Months later I flipped that switch and have not stopped talking since.

Apparently there was a Christmas yesterday, which would explain why people kept giving my boxes wrapped in strangely flimsy paper and why I had a strange compulsion to put perfectly usable items in similarly oddly-wrapped boxes. Short version: I have Firefly and Serenity DVDs, a lot of tea, and some nice dress shirts, as if I were not classy enough already. Next to me, Trump looks like a barbaric pig, and not just because that's because what he is.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have ten thousand cookies to eat.

I don't think I like Christmas much

Don't get me wrong, I love Christmas, I just hate being involved in it. Despite my pro-social attitudes, I'm not really a people person. Social interaction beyond more than a handful of people quickly tires me out. Guess what Christmas has a lot of? Yea, family parties. Then there is the gift-giving. At times I wonder if it exists solely to remind people like me just how bad we are at thinking of other people. What is this person's life? What else do they want? Need? That I can afford? Sadly, paying off mortgages and law school loans are not within my means.

Sometimes I feel like an alcoholic who's been asked to stop drinking and gets that ultimatum: If you loved us you'd stop. Yea, if I loved my family I'd get them gifts they'd love. But dammit, maybe love and buying thoughtful gifts don't always go hand in hand. I'd love it if I could just "stop being bad at buying gifts". But that's just not how my brain is wired. I do the best I can, but please understand that the itunes card isn't because I was lazy, it's because I don't know much about music and have no ability to pick out CDs.

There's always the sociopathic/loner route, but fuck that. What's a world alone, without family, without friends? At that point a person might as well just die and save some time in being forgotten. That sure was cheerful.

On the flip side, I often can't fully enjoy gifts. I tend to just feel bad that the exchange was clearly unequal. In my favor, but that's not the point. In some imaginary world, by now I am fully capable of affording and finding the nice gifts that people give me. Which on that note, all I really want this year is either a job or to be young enough to play with legos again. Obviously not everyone can get me a job, or possibly anyone, so said list would just be one of those irritating ones that offers no help at all to lost searchers.

Actually the other day I got very mad at WoW and did a rare and regrettable ragequit. Not even on a PUG, but a guild group. That was a few days ago and since then I've logged in twice: once to empty my bank alt's mailbox of failed auctions and another to send a couple Christmas gifts to friends, who happened to have been in said run.

But the point was the legos. I really miss playing with them. Creating directly from my imagination. That didn't happen this time. Instead I was confused, because I had forgotten my organizational system and because last time I touched them I had slightly changed it to fit all the creations I was deconstructing. So I was lost. But it was a good system, so I figured it out (Resume: strong organizational skills: check out my legos, I had those organized even when I was a kid). But then my mind was just blank. Well, not fully blank, I had some vague, ethereal idea for a heavy fighter. This wasn't uncommon back when, but it was usually enough. Ideas would grow in my mind, shaping and becoming more certain as I built. That didn't happen. Instead I stumbled through a half-built fighter that I had to partially deconstruct to make the cockpit close fully. It had no elegance, but it did not have any blocky utilitarian theme either. It was just a bunch of crap stuck together with a dusty lego guy jammed in the cockpit with no control panel.

Not much like a bicycle, I suppose.

Tree Weirdness and How Netflix Saved Christmas

Tree Weirdness

My family has its own vocabulary. Words like exuberance and surprises, rather than indicating positive ideas, are for us, negative events. This is not due to any sort of cynicism or negativity, but instead because these are the chosen words to describe a couple dog problems. Incidents you might say.

Dog God rest her soul, a few years ago my family had a dog named Lily. She added her own phrase to the vocabulary: tree weirdness. We've seen it in no other dog. Nothing even similar.

Picture a mix German Shepard and Doberman (or perhaps Rottweiler). Now picture a Christmas tree in the living room, covered in lights, bulbs, and really awful ornaments made by my brothers and me as children. Back to the dog: she's slowly, ever so slowly, with the utmost caution and silence, circling. She does not notice us or the other dog. She can be shaken out, by a literal shaking out, or a lot of noise. She does not look at the tree or away from the tree. Instead her head is slightly lowered, facing ahead, and slowly, slowly she circles.

Like clockwork, it would start when the Christmas tree was at home and vanish when it was away. That was tree weirdness.

How Netflix Saved Christmas
'Round this time o' year a few brothers were in a panic. They searched boxes and crates. They searched this house, that house, an attic here and a basement there. Everywhere. Nowhere to be found. Where where?

Oh the holiday could be lost, for tradition itself was at stake! A holiday film, a capture of the season, a heartwarming tale of heroes and villains and lots of snow. Where where? Every season it must be watched or else can we call it Christmas? I think not!

Where oh where is Die hard 2? What you ask, a Christmas movie? Well of course! Of course.

But where is it? Oh have we misplaced that old VHS for the last time? Perhaps. Oh no. Is there no Christmas?

But a thought, an idea, the youngest had, an idea that could save Christmas. Netflix! No, silly, it won't get here in time. But what if it was instant? And in an instant, it was! We watched and laughed and joked and cheered, for with a Wii and a wireless and a webstreaming video we'd finally survived without a VHS. Technology!

And that's how Netflix saved Christmas.

Merry Christmas, Americans. Happy Christmas, Brits*. Happy Holidays, Atheist Europeans. And have a happy winter, or summer depending on hemisphere, to all the rest of you, known as most of the world.

* That goes for the Welsh too. I don't know if it's at all realistic, but we do love A Child's Christmas in Wales.

P.S. Today I learned Wales it its own country. I found this to be a silly idea.
P.P.S. I have no idea who sent this box of tea and chocolates, but thank you, if by some remote chance you're reading this. And if you didn't send it, I ask, why not? Hm?
P.P.P.S. Yes I opened what appears to be a gift early. I wasn't sure what it was. If it was a mail bomb it certainly makes sense to have it go off before Christmas, so as to not ruin the ever-important Christmas morning.
P.P.P.P.S. Mystery solved. Let's just say it's a good thing I didn't eat the chocolate yet. And my initial guesses were only off by one.

Self-Righteous Sunday: Love is in the Air

Ha.

I did the holiday boss trio yesterday. The pet dropped. The winner immediately offered to sell it for 1.2k gold. Eventually he went down to 500g and said he was being nice.

I didn't think nice meant rolling need on something you don't want, just to sell it right back to us. I thought greed was for greed rolls.

Someone who already had the pet was rather critical of him. I don't remember if he had rolled or not. If he had, what was his plan, to only charge 400g?

Love.

Ha.

This is the unloving, uncaring, unemotional PUG that Elnia spoke of.

What a glorious celebration of love! We steal and bribe and wish never to see each other ever again out of the belief that if we avoid that group we can avoid that sort of person while we carrying on being that sort of person and claim self-interest.

People turned into little goblins, went undercover on a quest. Then they went to Ulduar and farmed bracelets to sell. How art imitates life. An arbitrary holiday makes us feel compelled to do strange things, give strange gifts, in hopes of reward which may never be gotten and may be worth nothing at all; and someone finds a way to profit from it.

How appropriate for it to be depicted as a disease, a plague, a chemical agent sent out to weaken us, make us lambs to be slaughtered. We set out to cleanse ourselves of this, to destroy the source, and are rewarded with candy and slutty dresses. We do it again the next year.

We waited endlessly for candy, clockwork on the hour. Sometimes we didn't get what we wanted. We didn't like that. We don't wait anymore. We go to Ulduar.

Healers are nice people.
They might not love anyone, but they must love everyone.

My priest did her transmute and alchemy research. She made some cloth bolts. She queued for randoms and eventually left because of unresponsive idiots. No one listened to her.

Prayer of Mending is amazing.

We noticed in Nexus that the DPS warrior was afk following the mage. I tried to vote kick, but it kept saying I can't kick shortly after combat. Apparently a minute is shortly after combat. Eventually he came back after what was apparently ten minutes. Bad timing, since I'd just thought of several ways to get him killed since I couldn't kick him. I mention this and how 10 minute unannounced afks are for emergencies. Not smoking a bowl and "wtf guys why didn't you say anything on vent?" Smoke your bowl, I don't care. Go afk to do it, fine. Go afk for half the instance and leech xp the whole way. Fine! Just fucking say something, don't randomly vanish. I called him an inconsiderate ass, the 80 tank and lolret started defending him and then kicked me.

Huh?

The person who doesn't go afk half the instance without saying anything is the one who gets kicked? I can be abrasive, but am I rude to anyone who hasn't already revealed himself to be a total jackass?

I requeued, got an instant group. Someone left the moment I joined. We didn't requeue. I asked about that and got promoted. I didn't understand how the other person found it easier to right-click me and promote to leader than to hit O and select "yes". We got a replacement. The tank ran straight into a pack of spiders and I got covered in the poison that increases mana costs. That pack can be avoided without any sneaking, you just have to not run headfirst into it. I left, frustrated and annoyed with humanity.

Perhaps I lack the unrelenting love needed to be a healer. Perhaps all the love has left everyone and is just floating in the air as a choking, mind-numbing perfume.

I got a dwarf rogue!

I was camping outside the Alliance inn in Dalaran and I saw another dwarf coming out. As I was standing I got annoyed and started complaining in gchat: "hunter... DK... paladin... wwwwwwww" And finally I caught up to it and nailed it with the turkey shooter that I'd stuck on one of my bars. I was prepared and it paid off.

The dwarf rogue was MINE.

Now I have two shooters left and only need Horde rogues: troll, orc, undead.

And I've cooked up the food for the next four days worth of dailies, so I can start at TB and work my way east.

Turkinator was tricky, took some patience to find a spot and time with no competition. My advice: don't be persistent. Give up quickly so you're not getting in the way of other people. Then they can finish and get out of your way. Eastern Tirisfal seems to work well, I guess people are too lazy to run over there, especially northeast. Actually I got the buff a second time while farming turkeys for the cooking.