Shoop shoop

I'll start by this: when I woke up this morning, this was the song that played in my head.

You know when you click on a link in FB and end up looking videos in Youtube? And one video leads to another? And then maybe hours later you are looking at some video that has nothing to do with the original one? That happens to me a lot. Last night it happened again and I finally ended up looking at these videos about how does a guy know when a girl likes him.

"Does he love me I wanna know
How can I tell if he loves me so"

Women usually wants to know if the guy loves them but I think that is quite simple. If you feel like he loves you and he tells you that he does - problem solved - he does. But knowing that someone likes you is much harder. So I'm going to try to list few things I know I as a woman do, and also some of my friends have been seen doing. I'm not saying that these always apply or that even most women does these kinds of things, but they might be helpful for someone.

In no particular order, here are some tips how you can know if a girl likes a guy.

- She looks at you and when you notice she does, she might blush and smile, but she most likely begins to look at her feet. But she probably still keeps smiling, because seeing you looking at her makes her happy.

- She wants to see or makes excuses to touch your hands. I can't explain why, but this is what we girls do. She might want to see how much smaller her hand is compared to yours or foretell from your skin folds your future, most likely love life.

- She might try to hook you up with another girl to see if you like her back. If you refuse the "hooking up" she is more certain you like someone else and hopes it's her. This is also a way for her to try to know your preferences on a girlfriend or are you already engaged to another relationship.

- She plays with her hair, her ring, her necklace or anything available. She fixes her outfit or maybe even says something negative about it. That might be also fishing for a compliment. If you like a girl, don't be shy with the compliments, it can be something very small and menial, but if you show her you noticed something about her, she will like you even more.

If you're in the virtual world you might not see the girl if you don't video chat or things like that, but you can still see signs if she likes you. If she talks about sitting in front of the computer half naked or fresh from the shower, that can be a very good way to tell that she wants someone to think of her naked. She asks you when you are logging in or out. She might ask for your help with something she could do by herself. She sometimes takes the conversation to more private place, like whisper or private messages. Those are little hints you can pick up on. And I think we all should remember that even in text form, sincerity can be very loud thing. So don't be scared to say what's on your mind and ask questions you wish to get an answer to. One of those things could be "Are you into me?". Because you can't rely on physical aspects, you have to be more direct.

I also watched a video where this "relationship coach" told tips on how to make you seem more romantic to a woman and make dates memorable. The woman in the video was quite irritating and she made her case based on The Batchelorette, but she had some valid points. I can't find the video anymore since I hopped from one to the next, but what I remember is that she said there are little moments you can take advantage of to make the girl really remember you. One of those things was that if it starts to rain, you shouldn't look for shelter, but you should stay stand in the rain with the girl and kiss her.

Another thing was that if you are with a girl in a crowded place like someones wedding or something, you should make her forget about the rest of the world by stopping at some point, looking deeply into her eyes, say something nice like telling her she is the most beautiful person in the whole place and then kiss her. I know not all the girls fell for that kind of Hollywood-crap but I know I sure would.

And lastly, here is a pretty good video I stumbled on. These kinds of videos are for teenagers mostly but I can't say that they wouldn't apply for adults too. Romantic adults at least. Enjoy!

Bugs and booms

This was written on a Saturday 27th of October 2012:

I just had a fun time in a random dungeon. The tank DC'd in the middle and the rest of the party stayed to wait. That's rare even as it is but we talked a lot too. A shadow priest asked me to dance with her pet to get a screenshot. So there I was, posing in moonkin form with her little moonkin pet like for a tourist. Such a casual athmosphere sure creates a good mood.

When the tank returned, he made his apologies in the saychat that usually tells me the player is a noob, but I think his partychat might have been bugging. A guildmate of mine had that happen to him when his computer froze up in the middle of something and coming back online the partychat for somereason didn't work anymore. All this happened after the new patch. The chat will work after a while without any notice and we haven't yet figured out why.

 In that very instance an elemental shaman left the dungeon in the second room and the same thing happened in the last dungeon too. It's always so confusing when someone leaves without saying, but I like to think it's because an heirloomed shaman felt bad for losing to a boomkin in dps. And a shame it sure is because I'm usually in the bottom of that list.

One of my IRL friends have just started to play WoW and she has the weirdest bugs. Quests doesn't work, mobs don't trop loot, controls don't work, etc. I wasn't surprised about all the cursing when there's bugs on every finger. But bugs weren't my point here, it was the thought of what's the best first character for a new player. Last summer I said to a friend of mine that a druid would be a good char to be rolled. Afterwards I was sorry I've said that because it's not the most easiest with all the skills druids gets. So for a first character I would suggest a hunter. Or a rogue or a warrior could be good for they are easy at low levels. Would be nice to hear other thoughts about this, what do you think is the best character for one to start with? How about for a player that has played MMORPGs earlier but never WoW?

By the way, I think Blizzard is very smart with the customer service. For the first time ever I transferred a character from realm to another and it was said in battle.net that it usually takes an hour but one should be prepared for days for it to go through. 20mins later my character was good to go. It's good to be prepared for the worst and be positevily surprised when it's less.

 Now I have to get back to school work! That I obviously do while in a queue for a random :)

Sorry about all the typoes. There's something wrong with the spellcheck. Oh well, you'll just have to live with it. Or point them out to me.

The faire of the dark moon

This post was written on a Thursday 11th of October:

I find myself becoming increasingly worried about the situation the world is in. Especially the state Finland is in. I know it has to do with he upcoming elections, but I can't help but thinking that the things that are now brought up, aren't any less valuable for the timing.

I've read sad news about daycare and justice and others from the deep dark dephts of Internet. Facebook can be very depressing place if you keep clicking the most boring looking links. And you might actually have to think about stuff. And we all know how knowledge increases pain.

There's a proverb that states a sausage to have two ends and so has society: conspiracy theorists. Third end in this Fukushima sausage is the governments official publicity. So remember guys, what ever you read, take off those rose coloured glasses and put on your deep dark ones. Be critical and think for yourself. Conspiracy theorists can come across total whack jobs, but it doesn't mean that they don't know even a tiny bit of the truth. And if the officials seems honest, doesn't mean that they don't advocate someones personal interests. The question is, is it yours, your children's or your elderly parents interest too?

For making this little more casual and lighter, here's a link for that http://www.shakespearesden.com/disappearing-coffee-mugs.html Meanwhile when you in the future drink from the cups that makes dinosaurs into fossils and watch Night at the Museum, you can ponder is it alright to show historical characters understandable in modern standards. I'm pretty sure that we couldn't understand a person from hundred years and all their cultural behaviour. Or someone from even further in time.

What kind of comic relief was that all about! Apparently there are too heavy thoughts in the air to be light even in the end.

Happy DFM for everyone equally!

PS. Here is an inspirational music video from Killwitch Engage. 
Can one be charged for agitating the people if no-one reads the agitation?

Sometimes I feel like I only wrote the stream of my consciousness. Hopefully this will get better as we go along the year.

On a more serious matter

This was written on a Thursday 4th of October 2012:

I thought about writing about more serious matter today. I'll start with this: in the kingdom of Sweden slavery was forbidden since the year 1335. So this applied to Finland too. In the other words, explaining in plain, here where I live having slaves has been illegal for almost seven hundred years. Puts American history into a perspective, doesn't it?

Let us imagine the ancient Greek talking about putting an end to slavery. Great wise men would gather to talk about the matter in hand and there would be arguments for and against. Those men for ending it would argue about value of human life, equality and other ethical efforts. Those men against would be afraid for their living and also those who would be afraid the slaves would just end up being slaves for the barbarians if freed. They would say, that the slaves in Greece would have better quality of life so it would be better for a slave to be one in Greece than with the barbarians. This situation is totally hypothetical situation and exaggerated to the maximum.

Imagine how absurd it would be if anyone would argue that keeping slaves today would be a good thing or in anyway morally right thing to do.

Well, let us change "slavery" to "fur farming" and keep the conversation in today's perspective.

In Finland there's a collection of names for a citizen petition going on. With 50 000 names the parliament has to take the matter in the hearing for closing down the fur farming. This is been a debate in many places including with me and my friends. I can see the point of fur farming being someones living and loosing work is always a scary thing. I understand the point, that if fur farming is shut down here, the fur would be brought from some other country where the conditions for the animals could be worse. The point "here they at least get water" is very clear and not invalid to me.

But let us look at the bigger picture. Will it ever end if the ending doesn't start at somewhere? How can it end if  the western "civilised" countries don't see the importance of shutting it down? The animal can't choose to move somewhere else where fur farming is illegal. We don't really need fur at this stage of industrialism. We have other means to be warm, other fabrics that even looks like fur. Fur is a fashion product, not a vitality. Is there any good reason to keep the fur farming going on?
Don't get me wrong, I haven't yet signed the petition - lazy as I am. I also have my grandmothers godknowshow old fur hat that I'm not giving up. It's so warm and lovely, and I get cold so easily. And if I were to throw it away, the animal would have died in vain. Every day in Finnish frost I wear the hat thankful for it's purpose until it's too worn out to be worn. Reminding me that a living being has died for my comfort - probably in better conditions than today's...

That hat will most likely last from generations to the next. When I give it to my child in the future, I will remind him/her for those times there were slaves in Finland. Slaves that couldn't help build a better society and civilisation, but slaves whose carcasses hanged around rich peoples necks. Slaves whose lives where lived and wasted for nothing.

The petition got enough signs and now the government is trying to figure out a way to wiggle out of it. Let's see how it goes.

About pet battle

This is from 1st of October, 2012. I skipped one text because it was total rubbish not that this is any better. Here it goes:

Meow and rawr!

Best times to write in here is of course when your character is busy making netherweave bags. Some sillybeans were selling the cloth so cheap that I can make many, many, many gold pieces with them. With the new expansion, selling bagspace has been financially very beneficial, if you know what I mean. Can't complain even though MoP has brought up the bad in tanks. They're in so hurry to get to the end-game so it makes them run through dungeons and pull their asses off. And then there's me, trying to keep up with that pace and heal. It's good to remind yourself it's just a game when the tears start to make their way out of the eyes. And there's always the option to go get some rest and do pet battles.

If pet battling isn't that familiar yet, I really suggest to get to know it. It's good way to waste time when waiting for a random dungeon or a battle ground group to pop up. One of the best part of it that it's account wide activity, especially from the perspective of an altoholic. I'm not super excited about joining all the achievements and titles because there is less content to do. No point on grinding the main faction reputation now but just for the discounts. Never been so poor I needed to do that much work for that little copper. Grinding titles sounds like fun to me, grinding discounts sounds too much like real life. Who would want to go into a virtual world to do the same you can do outside in fresh (read: bloody cold) air, rain and darkness?

Ahem, trying to stay on the subject here. The old companion pets have turned into battle pets and with those you can take over the world battle by battle. You can battle with other players, NPC's or critterlike creatures in the nature. The battle pets in the world you can try to capture into your own collection - what I've gathered they get randomly a rarity, so you might wanna battle the same kind of pet until you get one with the blue rarity. You can only have three pets the same kind but you can always do a good deed and release the ones you don't need back to the nature. How humane, Blizzard!

 My first impression of pet battling is that it's quite simple but all the stuff around it might get confusing. I had ten horde balloons and another bunch of alliance balloons when the account wide combination came along. Too bad you can't battle with them, would be fun. If this is your first time with battle pets, I highly recommend checking out the quests. They really make things clearer and the rewards from them were fun. Especially an RP'er could enjoy the cookies that makes your pet double the size.

What are you staring at this anymore, go battle!

Something concrete

I know I said I would translate the finnish posts but today I felt like writing about something new. Yet again I'm coming out of a long relationship and preparing myself for the dating world. Because I'm in that age that usually people my age are married and had children and overall settled down, I keep wondering what it is that I want out of my next relationship. Dating would be so much easier if I had a list of what things to look for. I could freely enjoy the singlelife while looking for the spesific person and then pursue it when I do. Sounds simple enough? Wrong!

This is the "is it better" -game, that I play constantly in my head. They might be things that I never get an answer for. It's not exactly gaming, but let's play anyway. ("SO" is significant other btw ["btw" is by the way fyi ("fyi" is for your information)]).

Is it better to have your SO as passionate about something as you are, like music, or have one that let's you choose everything you two listen to? Is it better to find someone who likes something as much as you, let's say chocolate, or better to be with someone who can't understand why you like it and thus let's you eat it all?

Is it better to have a SO that farts in your face but doesn't mind you doing the same or one that can't stand polluting the air from either one?

I want kids so I think about should I have a SO that is younger and foolish and still believes everything will end up fine or an older SO who is sceptical enough to want other things from life than selfishness?

Is it better to have a SO so rich that there'll be nice life ahead of you or to have one that understands the struggles you've gone through and you can struggle together?

Are more intelligent people less passionate? Would it be good to have a little dumber SO who would be more open to feelings  than cold calculating brainiac? Could I ever be the smarter one in a relationship?

Is it better to throw yourself in the wind of feelings or stay grounded and check if your CV's of life matches with the person you are considering?

Does superficial things matter? And what are just superficial things and what are actually more significant?

Am I going to waste my time and at some point finally see that there isn't such thing as love after all?

Can a human being be 100% sure about anything?

And this question to show that not all of the things are even close to serious but they are still ok to be wondered about: Does it really matter how long hair the other one has?

I had a dream last night about a man who was caught having... umm... carnal relations with a beautiful woman and the husband of this blond beauty caught them and was furious. The men had been fighting for a while and the cheater was hanging from the balcony all beaten and bloodied. Both men were getting exhausted of all the fighting but the husband got strength from somewhere and started to beat the man hanging from the railing. He wasn't able to hit that hard anymore and the cheater could've make it if he just had hanged on a bit more. But he just suddenly gave up and let go.

And was smashed to the concrete road four storeys beneath him.

Wonder what Freud would say about that.

Mondays

It's maintenance day in the eu-realms if you're wondering "why doesn't this person have better things to do but keep posting crap here".

This was written on a Monday 24th September 2012:

Happy monday everyone!

...and it sure feels like one. You probably know the mornings when everything sucks and you just feel bad and depressed. If I could come up with a good reason to stay home and not attend to classes today, I would. Blah!

I was thinking that to celebrate the new expansion, I could reminisce some memorable moments of my wow-gaming-history. This also always makes me feel better when I'm down.

I remember the first day I started WoW. It was right before Cataclysm and I was moving from Runes of Magic to Azeroth. Few of my irl-friends showed me around and also all of their mounts and pets. That's just how it goes.

The first character I truly played was actually my third character. A troll hunter. I remember one time a guild recruiter answered my polite refusal, and it shocked me so much that I rode my dinosaur to a fountain. I ended up in the same guild, but sadly it got disbanded for hollow drama. So I kinda stopped playing that character.

I even had a twink once. A nelf hunter. With that character I had many fun times in BG's and random dungeons. I liked to play that char in BG's so that left my pet down in the flagroom and myself went to the roof and shadowmelted. Then I watched the minimap for incoming badguys and laughed at their surprise after they actually noticed something was wrong. I also like to drink an in-game drink that shows to the opposite side so they could thin "oh gawd, not that crazy hunter again". Once I also was the battleground leader for some mysterious chance and I was so proud of myself when I got the team to play together and leave the bickering behind. We won that match and some even thanked me, can you believe it! Another fun moment was when me and a holypaladin (who kinda took me under his wing) decided to go to the center to mess around. I didn't have much time to look what buttons I was pushing, just kept strumming the keyboard. The two of us could keep five-six players in that battle. A druid got the flag and a rogue kept our base, easybreazy! We won 3 to 0 and it might have been the fastest BG I've ever been.

One of the funniest moments happened few days ago when me and some other guildmates were doing random WotLK dungeons and a rogue happened to join the group. I think his head was lacking brains and instead filled with nutwax. At the last boss our tank was already so irritated that when this super hero ran to battle without us, we just stand by to watch him get the last rites. The rogue kept crying why we didn't help him and we tried to explain that he had misbehaved, but those who do don't ever want to hear that they do. Apparently, according to his words, we lost the best dps and all that crap. Surprisingly we were able to clear the boss without the rogue and in concert we decided to let the dead rogue think what he had done. The feeling of righteous judgement was filling all of us - and a tiny drop of remorse being so impolite not to ress.

Memorable was also the moment when I in an RP realm stumbled on two worgens, really close together, without clothes, on a very isolated cliff without talking or moving. Because I was on the horde side then, something possessed me I just couldn't help my self to jump around them for a little while. Childishness doesn't has no boundaries, right?

 I've been to dozens of dungeons where in have came and gone more than ten people only me being the one who started the actual run. I remember once telling to a newcomer what had happened in that run and he asked me to stop after a while because according to his words it was getting hard to play with laughter-tears in his eyes. (Too bad I don't remember anymore all the fun stuff that happened in that run.)

Once me with a goblin character participated in mass-world-pvp by cheering our side and hugging the enemies. Even thought it was fun too, maybe one day I will be brave enough to actually participate with a max level char to those events. These may seem ordinary events to most players, but I can't say I really remember those situations when something epic has dropped and I certainly don't want to remember doing the achievement for Ambassador right before the everything became account wide... That title doesn't mean anything anymore if it's on a low level character so total waste of effort. Best moments have been those when something an expected has happened and those moments I've enjoyed the most.

Have fun trying out the new pandas!

I did try pandas too and can't say they're my favourite race. They look awesome when I see them around the game moving so smoothly, but can't play one myself. Also I like that not every race and character has to be skinny and pretty. They can also be fluffy and cute. Like me.

Dawn rises at the battlefront

My shampoo and conditioner smells like kids chewing gum. You know the ones that have way too much sugar in them? For all the stalkers out there, if you ever wanna know how I smell like this is what you need to do: Buy a pack of Hubba Bubba, strawberry flavored. Put someone else to chew it (why should your teeth suffer for what your nose wants to know) and stick your nose in that persons mouth. Tadaa! It's like me fresh from the shower. Enjoy!

This was written on Saturday 22th of September 2012:

These days it feels like I always wake up earlier than I really should. Like today, I could have stayed in bed sleeping sweetly and long, but after six hours of sleep my eyes just wouldn't stay shut. So there I am, all drowsy, sitting infront of the computer, desperetly running around Outland trying to find few lousy nodes. But that usually gives me time to think. Winamp plays a Finnish band called Turmion Kätilöt (roughly translated: the midwives of destruction) and a song called Liitto (union). It makes me grinch to listen to the words. "Bring food / without mouth the masses yell / and changes dinner / to guns and material" and of course the part "union lasts and the masses whore".

I don't know what the guys were thinking making these lyrics, but to me it really sounds like a social statement. Many times I find myself thinking about "social contract" (as a philosophical term) and how hard it would be to break it. We are stuck in the gears of the system, where only the few have a mouth and even less have the voice of reason. The mental image of a politician is a fat, puffy man, staring at his own belly. Give me everything I can grab- attitude is the label in many polticians foreheads. There's no screening when it comes to parliament, any kind of hobo can get in and people keep voting. Don't get me wrong, I understand nothing about politics. But doesn't it tell something that a regular joe like me feels this way?

So. How to get rid of social contract? How can you resign from it, if you don't want to be a standby-person when bad things happens? Everyone of us is tied to the nation we live in, it's difficult to go anywhere else and comparing to lot of countries, Finland is a safe place to live so I wouldn't want to leave. I love this nation, I could even call myself some kind of nationalist. Not an extremist, more like modern and peaceful lover of the nation. Here I am then: loving a country where the decision-makers puts the money in their own pockets or wastes it somewhere else.

Here I am, reading newspapers about people treating the elderly horribly, domestic violence, shutting down police departments and sharing dividends among the already rich. Here I am, reading and hearing comments that are racist, discriminating and sometimes outright crazy. All this talk about welfare state (finnish word is hyvinvointivaltio = well being state), but the people in it are not feeling well. It's a nation where poverty is factitious, alcoholism is ok, smokers are the cancer of the humankind, students should graduate and start working sooner and "the work" leads to the counter of employment agency. Here I am, in a country that doesn't have enough workforce, but discriminates by the age, face and race. Here is the nation that makes you believe overqualified can't do shitwork but they also say that there's always work for the hard working. Here is the nation, where traveling by train costs the same as traveling by plane. Here is the nation, where a dog can't do it's business in the woods and here's the nation where a pig lives a short and painful life before ending up in the counter of the leading chain. Just to give you few examples.

Then again, those supranational chains that encourages on wasting and spending gives steady jobs. So I suggest an "organic food benefit" for all the citizens from the government and support the lives of happy pigs. The choice is consumers, your nation is not going to do it for you. I'll try to buy a little more expensive organic meat and save somewhere else, like from Hollywood entertainment. 

This ended up to be a totally overwhelming babbling session, even though it was only supposed to raise up the question about social contract and when has the citizen the right to not give support to the governing side. Also this is my peaceful way of asking when it's a good time to start building barricades?

Think. You can always think even if you don't take part.

Must have been a bad day for me, but what can I say... It's never too late to start thinking!
Did you notice it was the second post and it's not about WoW? Bad blogger, bad bad blogger.

The first morning

For a year now I've been writing a blog in Finnish about World of Warcraft and some other stuff too, but I felt my audience was more likely to be able to read in English than just in Finnish. So I decided to translate some of the posts in English. After that is done I will keep posting in English. You should know that I am not a native speaker and as good practise as this is, there's gonna be a lot of mistakes. Bare with me!

This was written on thursday September 20th 2012:

Good morning world!
For long I've been wanting to write a blog but for some reasons or others starting one has been difficult. Not physically difficult, like I just noticed, but writing a blog seems like a lot of work. And it comes with certain responsibility too, I think. I started studying in the university and I thought writing would help me to upkeep the skill. So it was time to take action. All the Facebookchatlanguage isn't good enough anymore so here it starts: the fine art of carefully put words. Mostly, like the name states, I'm going to focus on blabbering about World of Warcraft, but I might get sidetracked to ponder about current events - or things like that (ahem ahem). The reason I wanna blog about a game is because many times when I'm gaming I get a feeling I'd like to share some fun times for a bigger public.

WoW fills in a certain level a more significant part of my life I - as a somewhat normal person - would like to admit. From the year 2007 I have had some problems with my right wrist and with working too much, it got so bad that at some point I couldn't tie my own shoelaces and just about everything hurt. Only thing I could do was move the mouse and gently press the buttons on my keyboard. Few years ago I had to stop working and ended up being on a very long sickleave. It was hard at first, I was ashamed to go out because I kept thinking "what if someone sees me? here I am going to the store but I tell them I can't go to work". It took a long time before I got used to the idea that my life couldn't stop only because my wrist did.

So,I filled my time gaming. WoW is a good game because you don't have to play it for hours straight, or that intesively. When you fly from place to place you can let go of the mouse and even get up from your chair to give your legs some blood circulation. I tried playing some first person shooters, but I noticed that I held the mouse convulsively... and you know how those times ended up. Badly.

These days I play light games while watching out for my hand. Summers are always better when it's warmer, so the upcoming long and cold winter scares me. Especially when last winter was hard in every way, but maybe more about that later. I'm happy to tell you that I can now tie my own shoelaces and order steak at a restaurant without having someone cut it for me. I can do short chores like cook, but writing (by hand) is a certain way to have pain the next day. This is why I am content on poking the buttons on my keyboard -  as if there is even more fun things to do than chat with your friends in a beautiful and smooth virtual world!

More of this coming up, stay tuned!