Raithe

Yeah, the whole.. wonder of the natural world tends to be more of a specific single feature rather then the sort of.. expansive area. I tend to think some place like Iguazu Falls which spreads out and consists of many features.. sort of falls into what I'm thinking of.. While Everest or the like are places within the area..

On a different level of news for those interested in mmo crafting related matters.. this came up in a gamespot news report..

Yeah, the Nile would be one. I was thinking more of the natural features/locations then man-made ones... Victoria Falls maybe.. And it was bugging me that I couldn't put a proper "classification" as to what I was thinking about Edit: Plus the man-made place like Machu Pichu, The Pyramids, Angkor Wat while grand in one sense don't have the same... sprawling, epic-ness . And yes, it really bugs me when I can't verbalise my thoughts properly

For a truly random thing... I was just pondering on those places that could be considered famous locations/areas but aren't actually something specific to a country.. Those places that you can say the name, and it immediately conjures up the image/idea of the place. ie: The Congo, The Amazon, The Black Forest, The Himalayas, The Sahari Desert... possibly the Golden Triangle (but that's an artificial one..) Which led me to trying to consider how many places like that there are in the world.. but my minds pulling a blank. So I thought I'd sit down and try some google-fu and wiki-fu to see what might be there..but then realised I didn't have an accurate way to describe that type of subject to search for. I'm curious as to how people would consider describing that collective group.. or suggestions as to other places that might fall in that type of list....

Hruff. Having that momentary crisis of confidence after going nowhere with some work today. Gives you that total feeling of being a fraud when you have one of those days where your mind just won't grapple with the work properly. Leaves you with the whole "Dang it, I can do this! Why aren't I getting it??!" mental cry. Mayhaps a good nights sleep will see my mind finding the right angle for it manana. I'd just like to be able to get in some work that actually produces something. Still, had some scampi for dinner, then got some reading of the new wheel of time book in tonight. So that was some to the good.

There are good points and not-so-good points about the House of Lords.. Technically, it should provide a certain buffer again knee-jerk, mob driven politics of the short-term variety based on winning popularity..... On the other hand..it can be a certain..heavy opponent of any change. And doesn't provide any real guarantee of competency. Then again, very few elected officials seem to have much competency beyond winning votes and backroom deals. Or maybe I've just become a bit too jaded and cynical about politicians and government buraucrats..

There's always the : "You've helped me work my body.. now how can I help work yours?" approach.... For the high note start to the day...some mysterious person (otherwise known as my sister) accidentally shut the dog in the front room all night.. so there are now two puddles that needed cleaning.... and said canine has reverted to extremely nervous and quiet behaviour...

It's to the south of the Vegas Strip.. the entrance is a manhole cover in the guard booth of a carpark up against a mountain.,..

Nah, I'd kept Westside safe and secure.. and supplied with water.. I had Helios One AND the Hoover Dam supplying power.. I'd basically gone with a lot of good karma, idolized by nearly every group.. but if I have a massive army of Mark 2 Securitons enforcing the peace..and ensuring chaos and loss of life is minimal in the New Vegas area.. even if you're not talking just the Strip.. It's not a huge thing, just ..seems a little jarring that it jumps from "time of chaos was short, loss of life was minimal" to the whole.."massive chaos and people needing treatment swamped.."

That kind of feels too..immediate. They've always seemed to push the long term view of consequences rather then the "immediately after" view. Of course, that's just my perception.

Yeah, I think the Powder Gangers depends on how you deal with the part of the gang that moved into the Vault.. um. 34 was it?

Hm, I got specific mention of how the chaos was minimilised and there was little loss of life around New Vegas one moment.. then it followed up with how Freeside became one of the safest places in the area but outside it was quite dangerous.. followed by how the Followers of the Apocalypse at Fort Mormon (which as you may all recall is in Freeside).. was swamped by the surrounding chaos and troubles and hurt people... Little things like that.. which felt just a tad contradictory to me... Edit: Although I'm wondering if the last has something to do with whether you get Gannon to embrace his past rather then focus on the doctoring side of htings...

Now I really really liked that they did the improved endings for the various factions, locations and characters.. It was one of the missing elements that was such a flaw in FO3... but the trouble is..having seen how they don't always match up with each other.. (ie, one thing saying you minimised chaos in an area causing this effect..while 2 seconds later another faction in the same area has to deal with the utter chaos...) Between that, and that I picked up the Explorer perk at the last..and there were only about 10 or 15 places I hadn't found.. I just can't get into the mood to have another playthrough.. its nearly a week since I finished that first playthrough and I just can't find the oomph to go back again...

The Mind Boggles. Although one part of me wonders just how hard it would be for someone to hack Hansard to do this as a joke.. but yes.. paranoia can run rampant..

Then again, there are parents who picked up games like Grand Theft Auto x for their kids, even though they had the whole age rated mention on the game boxes. Picking up FONV and not seeing the shiney red 18 on the spine of the dvdbox is kind of silly. To me it seems that if parents would check what ratings there are on films before they get them as birthday/christmas presents or the like, they should be capable of checking a computer games rating. Think how many games come with the small "due to violence, gore, etc" warning these days. Sure, a lot of parents seem to be in the whole "computer games are for kids, so why worry about whats on them".. and then they turn around and complain about the corrupting effects games have on kids.. Why have a need to regulate whats on games in a harsher manner then is used to consider film and tv? There's a certain amount of.. nanny-state behind it almost..as if parents don't have the common sense to pay attention and regulate what they let the kids have.. or is it parents just not wanting to deal with that effort and wanting the government to have control so they have someone else to blame? (hm, my point is running all over the place....)

It's always been said both of them were under the effects. And she's always been firm that he was under the effects as much as her. On the one hand it caused a lot of problems to his life as well and he was a fairly decent guy although I didn't really know him that well at the time, and she was always quite firm on how shocked, surprised and kind of horrified over it he was... On the other, his parents and hers had been trying to push them together since they were kids, and he had wanted to be more then just friends. They'd gotten home safely from the party and when he called over later with the "hey, i've kind of got a blank spot over last night and I don't have the single condom in my wallet that I had.. who did I meet up with and what happened?" So I've always had that niggling suspicious edge over it about him. But that could be natural bias over it all.

There was a reason I told you I crawled into a bottle for awhile Wals. Actually I subsumed and compartmentalised a lot of it for awhile. The party had been at the end of September, I shut down a lot of my feelings and tried to be the moral support and help her deal. Hell, I even made it through the February when they ended up married. It wasn't until her daughter was born that I started to shred and lose control. You can get so far on stiff-upper lip and rigid self-control. That and a damn good amount of self-delusion and bottling emotions up and locking them away rather then deal with them.

Well, to overshare and try to compress a long story... the love-of-my-life went to a birthday party for one of her friends one night when I was working (back during my university days) and someone thought it would be amusing to spike the non-alcoholic punch with a few...chemical additions. Under the influence she and one of her best friends ended up sleeping together, she got pregnant, her and his families are seriously catholic...and both had been trying to push them together as a couple as they grew up together. I actually tried talking about the possibility of..taking the steps of marriage, but she cut me off before I could go anywhere with the run of "This might frack up my life, but I am not going to let it ruin yours". So in a very short amount of time it went from a heavy, serious relationship between us..to her engaged and married in about 2 months with what turned out to be a very..hard and troubled pregnancy. Then her family really didn't like having me around or involved, and shortly after she gave birth she went with the whole.. total cut off comunication levels to stop both of us having to deal with the emotional twistup and feeling crappy. Now x years later, she gets back in contact to apologise for having to do that, admit how much it hurt her to do, tell me she still has feelings for me but will never act on it because it would screw up her family, but she wants to be friends and know how i am.. and doesn't want the husband to know because he might still be a little jealous of how she felt for me back then.... (a few other twists and turns..but thats the basics) See, I told you I felt like some weird soap opera guy wrote some of my life...

There was a reason I stopped keeping tequilla bottles at the end of the bed..

Feeling much more recovered now.. the remnants of the aches and ick of the flu seem to be passing.. although the not-sleeping due to the chills and fevers the past couple of nights has my body clock out of whack..spent half the afternoon in that dozy recuperative state, half-reading, and managing a few things around the house... But going to try an earlyish night and see if that helps. Haven't got any FONV playtime in since the start of the weekend.. now I'm not sure if I've got the oomph to start up a new playthrough.. think it'll have to wait awhile for the mood to be back. On the side-note.. got an Ex who wants to talk with me (actually THE Ex, the consuming love interest, soul tagging, the one you find yourself thinking about 10 years on type of Ex) and keep the whole friendship thing running (and firmly at just the friendship level, nada more).. but apparently wants to keep it a secret from her hubby and family so it won't cause stress. It's.. complicated and a lot of history behind it all. There are times I feel as if my life was partially written as some warped soap opera.

Meh, it's the curse of families spreading sickness around.. as one gets over it..it naturally has to pass to someone else. Luckilly the worst of the chills and fever broke last night..leaving me with just the acheyness and throbbing head. ..That and the really drained tiredness of the lack of proper sleep due to it.. So pop a couple of ibruprofen, then sink into a bath after a fresh cup of tea and see how fresh and compos mentus it leaves me feeling..

Basically just got up to make a cup of tea and get fluid replacement..that and take more aspirin. Spent most of the night awake with the joys of chills and fever of flu. Resorted to the wet flannel over the face to get some cool from the headache. The half check on the family before disapearing back into bed... gah.

.. I've realised why I've been feeling so damnably cruddy this weekend. I've inherited the flu my sister was just getting over. When I mentioned that to her..she smiled..and did a "well, families are supposed to share" comment. So popping some meds and trying to ignore the joint aches, headache, tiredness and general blah. Edit: I am trying to decide if everything lately is the sign of a great start to the autumn/winter period....

The Canterville Ghost.. pre-Scream Neve Campbell and Patrick Stewart as the Ghost.. it's a semi-oldy.. but it's still a quite good adaption of the story.

Ahh, righty-ho...