Ze end has come!

Welp, this will be my last post here. I finally got a blog working on my main site sonofwau.com. So all future updates will be there.

Just a word of warning about the site, the RSS works, but not for chrome. I don't have safari to test that, but I assume since IE and Firefox work that Safari will.

As for the old posts here...I'll probably move them over to the new blog slowly. At least the important ones, wow ones and really random ones (like the ones where I whine about not posting enough) I might not move.

Anyhoo, new post up at the new blog. And...

~joe/ish out

Whee

Okay, my website is now up and running. The only problem is the RSS isn't quite working yet...But there is an awesome first post there!

~joe

Oh noez!

The end cometh soon! It looks like I finally have my website almost ready to actually blog on, which means I can consolidate it all in one spot! Woo!

For reasons I find somewhat hard to explain it'll be very happy to blog on my own website. =D

In other news...not much other news. School goes on, work goes on, I play random games for a few hours in between school and work...Yup, life is good.

Hopefully you'll see more posts coming soon!

~joe

Bleah or Yay

So I can run 2.1mi in 29min. I'm not entirely sure if I'm happy about this or saddened by it. On one hand that's a lot more than I could do earlier this week...on the other hand that's a long way away from 1.5mi in <13min (the end goal).

Also to clarify not all of that is running. 4min walk, 8min jog, 4min walk, 8min jog/run, 3-5min walk back to the apartment. Next week is 4/9/4/9/3-5. And then the week after that (finally) will be 4 walk/13 run/3-5 walk. After I do that for a week I start picking a day of the week and try to improve running speed.

The ideal goal would be to do a 5k sometime next spring in <20min. Failing that I wanna do it in <25min. I mean, Rusty can do one in <30 and if someone that old can do it a youngster like me should be able to whip it out in no time.

Also: overall blog changes coming soon! They'll be shiny!

Stats de Joe

So, in response to a pseudo challenge from Dammerung and just because Rusty keeps posting his here is a rough breakdown of what I do:

5mi bike ride in the morning (five miles kinda sounds impressive, but it's not.

23 pushups in one minute (my wife wasn't there to insure that I was perfect form but I think I was)

1.5mi run/walk in ~20min

I'll probably start posting other sorts of stuff now too. But until then: school takes lots of times, the whole real life thing outside of school takes lots of time, and Civ5 is amazing at filling in that in between portion.

~joe

WoW and Time

Ah how things can change in a year. This time last year I still thought of myself as a WoW player (though a very passive one). Two years ago and I was a heavy player!
And now? Now I rarely think of it, unless someone brings it up in conversation. And even then I don't miss the game. I miss the people, but not the game itself.

What brings this up? Well, I decided to clean up my blogroll. While a number of them were just gone (like Nas's blog), others I just didn't care about anymore. Actually I think pretty much all the ones I removed were by people who weren't posting. Except one where the link was broken and had gone unfixed because I didn't care.

Why bother with a past that I don't care about, and practically no one who reads this cares about? Well, that's because I'm a sucker for things nostalgic. Give me enough time and I will miss even the crappiest of jobs, or even friends (though I've had blessedly few of those).

Hmm, I need to update my google reader for Scott's new blog, dang people and their blog moving! *shakes fist*

Anyone curious about the rambling nature of this post? Well, mostly it's 'cause I'm at work and have no work to do. At all.

Oh! One last call out, if anyone reading this is really familiar with linux holler at me. Working on setting up my computer with Suse and having some issues with it.

Adios!
~joe/ish

P.S. If anyone has beaten Starcraft 2 on hard holler at me. I'm stuck on the last protoss mission.

Comments on relationships

Sooooo, it's been awhile since I've posted here. So I thought I'd throw in a random post! A friend of mine recently asked me: "I have heard a variety of opinions about what boundaries a couple should set on their physical relationship while they are "dating." What are your thoughts?"

Here's is my reply (warning, it's something of a rough draft):
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Person I'm Replying To,

Sorry about taking so long to reply. I've been busy with a few things the last few months and kept forgetting, except when I was busy.

Personally I think physical limits are rather subjective as to the relationship. With me and Hannah we didn't hold hands for the first month, and tried to always stay in public or around friends when hanging out.
I believe in general you won't run into any problems so long as you don't look for a line or border. While that may sounds wrong at first let me explain the thought process behind it.

If you have a line you will walk right up to it on a regular basis. And once you're right next to the line you will really want to step over it. Once you step over it you'll usually rationalize it, and redraw the line. And when you're not with the other person you won't be right up against the line, and you'll feel really good that you have boundaries set on your relationship to keep you safe. It can also cause you to become very tempted to judge others.

The thought process I would encourage isn't based on a line that shouldn't be crossed, but rather two polar opposites. The world is made up of gray, there is rarely a distinct line between what is good and what is bad, almost every good act has some bad aspects to it, and the reverse is true as well.
So instead of trying to imagining that there is some line in the sand between good and evil, imagine that you're climbing a hill. At the top is perfection, spiritually and physically, and at the bottom is anti-perfection. Instead of finding a comfortable ledge to hang out on, keep climbing towards the top. Will you slip? Yes, but not as far as if you were just standing on the ledge, and since you're in shape from all that climbing you'll regain what you lost faster.

Okay, so practically how does this work? On a regular basis evaluate why you're making the decisions you're making. Are you putting your arm around her because you love her and want to show that or comfort her, or are you putting your arm around her because it feels good. The action is the same but the cause is different, and because the cause is different the actions that come after will be different.
If you are merely trying to show your love sex will very rarely be a reasonable avenue, flowers and home made food do it much better. If you are doing it because it feels good, well, I've met someone that doesn't think sex does/will feel good, and so that's a reasonable path to take.

Now this will lead to limits, but it will not state them. Also, it's not always bad to do something just because it "feels good." But it does mean you need to be very careful how you tread, especially when that good feeling involves someone else.

I hope this helps you somewhat. I know it doesn't give a definitive answer to your question, but I don't necessarily believe there is one. Everyone's relationships are different, and everyone's beliefs are different. And unless you feel called by God you shouldn't (in my opinion) judge other people by your standard (remember, some people believe it's wrong to eat pork).
If you have any other questions or need a clarification on what I said please feel free to write back. I'll try to get back in a more timely manner (like, within 24hrs).

Sincerely,
Joseph
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Any thoughts on my thoughts?
~joe/ish

Awesomeness comes in pairs

So I have happy news! The first is I rode from my house to work (2.5mi) this morning in 7min! This is awesometime.
As best I can tell this is due to my fixing my gears (now I can get up into my top ones). Soon, hopefully Saturday, I'll have road tires for my bike, supposedly that helps a lot.

Happy news #2! I have my mancala game working! At the moment it doesn't have the best of graphics, but it'll install, and run. Switch between players, keep score of wins/ties, say when someone wins (and reset the board), keep you from trying to move empty places...And many other interesting features!
Or at least some other features. Hopefully soon I'll take away the move buttons and have people click on the actual numbers (or better yet the series of dots!).

That's about it for now.

~joe/ish

Calling all Bikers!

And not motorcyclists, I want real bikers. The ones that use their feet (and some fancy machinery) to get them from place to place. Preferably commuting sorts, though anyone with experience is free to pitch in. Or those people with strong opinions, they're okay too. However, if you have no experience, have no strong opinions, and are easily cowed by words...DO NOT COMMENT! Or go ahead and comment, really not to worried about it.

Anyhoo, here's the deal. Right now I ride 2.5mi to work, and sometimes 2.5mi back (lately it's been in the 100s so my wife has been giving me the truck on our lunchbreaks).

A problem? I ride a well used mountain bike on pavement. From my understanding I couldn't be much less efficient, unless I got a trick bike. Either way it's not that big of a deal, only 2.5mi. However, rather soon (in Dec) there is a decent chance I'll be living further away, at which point I'd want a real bike.

Also, I kinda want something I can carry stuff on. Like, grocery runs and such. And I don't think I've ever seen a hookup for one of those back things that you strap stuff to for a mountain bike.

And now to the point: Does anyone (I'm looking at you Dax) have advice for what to get? Or personal experience that says street bikes aren't really that much better on streets than mountain bikes (I would find that hilarious)?

Any other general bike commuting advice would be appreciated as well. Oh, and right now I use a $10 walmart satchel to carry stuff to/from work, so I'm open for suggestions for that too.

Adios!
~Joe/Ish

P.S. And did you notice what I did with the post?

Orphans of Success

So I flat stole that title. Bite me Jason Peters! That or come join me for a cigar and bourbon.

On to things that make sense. First off I'm due to start the fall semester in a whopping 12 days. Go go work and full time school! I am looking forward to it though, I'm hoping to have some interesting and challenging classes.

Besides, after I graduate things get hard. I have to find a real job. And do real work at it. Though hopefully I'll be able to grab one in Waco.

Oh, and I beat StarCraft2! All in all a very fun game. They totally revamped the way the single player works, and it's totally awesome. People called Dax should play. And others as well if they're still alive and kicking. Like Malcolm, but I know he's getting pretty up there in years. ;)

And finally, hmmm, well that's about it. I take my final for philosophy today, which is cool. And not just that I'm getting done with it, my philosophy class itself was pretty stellar. My teacher did an excellent job of presenting both sides to every argument.

Oh! For those of you curious about Jason Peters, or more curious why I brought him up today, he wrote an excellent article here. As best as I can tell it's fairly bi-partisan in nature (not the whole site, but that post in particular), and I'd say fairly spot on.

Hi ho silver! And away!
~joe/ish

p.s. Anyone here played Agricola?

Updates and things

So for my many fans and readers I have updates! And by many I'm pretty sure I know all of you somewhat personally. Except Malcolm. Him I know not! And as a reward for finding out how he found my blog/who he is, you can name/givemeatopic for my next blog post!

First of all school...Finished Gov/Tech Writing with A's. And now I'm working on Music Appreciation (pretty much impossible to fail) and Philosophy (right now I still have hope for an A, but I'm really going to have to pick up the studying pace).

The reason for music appreciation being so easy are the tests. There are 10 of them, all of which are multiple choice, all of which are open now, and will be until the end of the semester. And all of which can be retaken as many times as I wish, until they close (at the end of the semester).

Philosophy on the other hand is a whole different beast. First of all it doesn't have a traditional school book with everything nicely grouped and page headers and theories that are easy to find... No, he uses a novel. This means I have to actually understand the concepts he's talking about, and not just be able to find them.

And even though there is a fair chance I'm gonna get a B in philosophy, because I'm not used to teachers who care about their students actually thinking about what they're taught (at least not in 1301 classes everyone has to take), I'm still fairly glad I chose it instead of one of the other options. School should be about learning us how to think anyways, not how to recite someone else's opinion.

Also, I rediscovered my love of Civ3 these last two weekends. Which saddens me somewhat because I'll be to busy to play for a looong time. And I have a really good game going. Playing on an England map I own all of the Scottish mainland and a fair portion down into the English lowlands. Once I discover tanks I'll probably finish steamrolling the last of it (someone fetch me pictures of steampunk tanks!).

And away!
~joe/ish

This sums it up rather nicely:

I mean really?

Some people amaze me:  http://tinyurl.com/24wmts7

Although honestly I, like many of my coworkers, am suspicious of the honesty of the mistake.

~joe

Life, the Universe, and Everything

Arg! School is evil! I've got just over a week left on my first summer semester. Then comes summer 2, and with it Philosophy and Music Appreciation.

Sadly these are the easy times. This fall will see me working 20hrs a week or so while taking 18 upper level hours. Ideally this will see me graduated by this time next year.

In other news I finally got into Diablo 2. Suvon tied me up and made me play with him, turns out once you get past 30 it gets pretty awesome. Also my wife started playing with me not to long ago, so that's pretty interesting.

And finally, I may have asked this before, but does anyone know of really good two person table top games? Preferably not uber competitive like chess. Ideally something cooperative that has a point (legos don't exactly have a point or campaign to them).

And away!

~joe/ishvi

Blog fail

That's what you call a blog fail.

persuasive letter

asdf

Because it's awesome

These are actual google walking directions from Southampton, UK to Edinburgh, UK

No Explanation Needed - Redux

Needs No Intro:

Lets play a new game everybody!

And we'll call the game: Waiting for the Starcraft 2 Beta to download.

Also, both me and my wife love Arcanum. She'll turn gamer yet!

And that's about it.

~joe/ish

Corrections are needed

  I saw a post on Two and a Half Orcs I felt the immediate need to correct. Before anyone gets any ideas. Dammerung and Wulfa do not, in fact, live in apartment, despite what they might wildly claim.

  You can now go back to your regular scheduled…stuff.

Thank you,

~joe/ish

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Seanchan > everybody else except maybe the borderlanders, at least as far as countries go

 

 

  Also: Playing R:TW on hard is waaaay different then easy.

 

  First, I’m almost imperial and I still haven’t conquered Gaul.

  Second, those small armies I was running around with? Ha! I now have two armies, both with upwards of 1k men and I’m getting ready to start a 3^rd one once I hit imperial and get new units.

  Third, can I have some of your denarii? I’m po.

  Fourth, the brutii and scopii get better temples then us Julii, it’s not fair!

  Fifth, the Spanish will be dying as soon as the Gaul are “pacified”.

  Sixth, Woooo! (more details on that later)

 

  Lastly, anyone have any experience with installing wine on openSuse(11.2)?

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Prince of the Ravens

  Well it turns out the large D is worth something after all. I need to make a correction to my last post. I was calling each unit battalions(6-700), but in fact they’re closer in size to a company(60-100).

  So in fact…Most of my armies are really more of battalions, and small ones at that. I don’t think I have a force over 500. Well, I take that back, I have two that might be over 500, barely. Though they’ll all be seeing some major growth since it turns out if you have over 50k denarii you start running into corruption in your generals, and I have upwards of 90k.

 

~joe/ish

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Rome: Total War

  So Dammerung/Malkais/The Large One posted about R:TW the other day. I thought I’d add my general thoughts to it.

 

  First off, it’s pretty fun. It provides a nice tactical game, and lets you wonderfully slaughter badly balanced forces. (See: 2 battalions of heavy cavalry on a flat plain vs 3 battalions of sling throwers and 5 bat. of light infantry vs 1 bat. of light horse archers)

 

  Second, it’s the first RTS game I’ve played where terrain could *really* hide troops. I mean, like, you’re walking along and BAM you have two battalions on your flank that just came out of nowhere and are slaughtering your Velites(like archers, only they throw spears). (See: 3 bat. medium infantry, 1 bat. Velites, 1 bat. heavy cavalry (general’s guard) vs a freaking buttload of gaul on an insanely wooded mountainside).

 

  Third, influence? It makes towns happy. And makes people happy. And makes the senate like you and vote you into positions. Other than that? Junk. It’s one of those things that’s useful for those crappy relations that you’re never, ever going to give an army to so they just sit in town.

 

  Fourth, the greek phalanx thing. I hate them. I can’t break them with a charge of cavalry, they’re hard to kill with arrows, and I tend not to have archers, and they’re hard on infantry as well. The only thing that makes them tolerable is that they can’t really charge, just walk slowly forward, or backward.

 

  Fifth, cavalry. I’m not a *huge* fan of cavalry as a rule, namely because they’re not as much use when in towns. I do, however, really want one bat. or so in every army. Why? They can run people down while they flee. Breaking an army is great, annihilating an army so that you don’t have to worry about it again is awesome. My poor infantry just don’t run fast enough.

 

  Sixth, my usual army makeup. You’re probably not that interested, but as a rule my armies will have 2-4 bat. of medium infantry and some sort of ranged unit, either velites or archers, Or horse archer mercenaries in one lucky case, and the heavy cav that surrounds my general.

 

  Seventh, momentous battles. One of the best parts about RTW is probably the glorious defeats. For example, when you’re moving a battered group of cav or infantry and you get ambushed by vastly superior forces (best one yet was 25 light cav vs about 350 peasants and light inf). Retreat of course isn’t an option I’ll take. So what do I do? I harry them! I ended up taking about 200 down with me before the last remnants finally were slaughtered or fled. While that isn’t as good of a ratio as some battles, the fact that I managed to do that much was pretty nice. Had they been horse archers I think I could have won.

 

joe/ish

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I Blame....That Guy

    So here we are again. I may well post more than once a month at some point, who knows! Ducks could fly, pigs could swim, and elephants could gather together and bind the Tellan warren around them in such a way as to live immortally and wage eternal war against the giraffes.

 

    Well, Dax decided to ask some questions, so that will set the tone for today’s post. How’s married life? Any kiddos on the way? How far down that honey do list are you? And….discuss!

 

    Hmm, married life. Well, it’s married, and different. Some things are quite what I expected, the costs, the fact that I don’t seem to have any time, and the fact that I’m eating far more. Though I didn’t expect to get my first gray hair so soon! (I have one! She said I do!)

    Other things I didn’t expect so much, and I don’t know why. First, we seem unable to communicate some times. It’s amazing how hard it can be to say “hmm, there’s a fair chance I’m wrong, so I’m not going to continue this argument over <insert some topic that totally doesn’t matter at all>”. So far I think just about every argument we’ve had has been over things that don’t really matter and we honestly agree over we just can’t understand each other.

    Overall? Totally worth every pseudo-argument and lack of computer games. Though I do have her playing risk with me now on the PC AND Wing Commander: Prophecy (I might have mentioned that one before).

 

    Any kiddos on the way? Well, that depends on how you define on the way. If you’re asking it from the same point of view as “Is Starcraft 2 on the way?” and “Is Diablo 3 on the way?” then yes, quite a few are on the way. If you’re asking it like, “Will Dammerung’s hairline recede further this year?” then no, we aren’t buying a baby carrier yet. Though when we do buy one I plan on rigging it up to fly, have shields, and launch up to eight small fighters with which to pacify other small children.

 

    How far down that honey do list am I? I’m pwning it greatly. The only thing I have left, that I know of, is the need to build a cabinet between our two wine cabinets for a little more storage and plate holdage.

 

    And….discuss! I won a game of Risk last Saturday, first real game for me to play in years and the Blue Empire rained chaos and destruction from Europe until all was pacified and brought to heel. Except South America where my wife ruled, them I merely disarmed and gifted large estates.

 

    In other news…I’ll post again later!

 

~joe/ish

 

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Ah, How The Mighty Have Fallen.

    So here I am once again, with only one post in a whole month! I think anyways, I haven't honestly checked my own blog for awhile...I'm such a sad little blogger. (/wrists)
    In happier news I've been kickin' butt at my job. Last week I over doubled the tickets completed for any other tech! Though one of them honestly probably did more work than me, just she had harder tickets that take more time.
    The funny part about this? I can't read my book between tickets anymore, nevermind that I was doing the most! Which is understandable honestly, they don't pay me to meet a quota, they pay me to work. But on the flipside here I am and I have nothing to do, and no-one to call, for the moment anyways.
    Oh, I started play Red Alert 2 again, somewhat, I've played a few skirmishes which have honestly been just comp stomps, I need to turn up the difficulty from easy, or play on harder maps.
    Wanna know something cooler than that? I got a copy of Wing Commander: Prophecy! AND my wife wants to play it with me, so long as I don't play way ahead of her and start to "advise" her every little move. What can I say, I'm a helper!
    But other than the super coolness of playing with my wife it also means I won't devour the game like I normally do, so more game for longer!
    I promise I'll get some photos of the dining room/wedding up at some point, just don't have any yet to post. =D
    Welp, time to go root around to see if theres someone I can call about something, laters!
~joe/ish

A new decade! (Don't believe the title, the post isn't about the new decade)

    So as Dax pointed out it's January and time for another post. Maybe after I get internet I might start posting more than once a month...who knows what crazy things are possible!

    Alrighty, now what new things have happened since my last post...Well for starters I graduated with my associates in computer programing. I think I mentioned it in my last post, but it hadn't actually happened yet. Oh, I also found out that I graduated with honors, and they had bagpipes and snare drums at the ceremony! Man I love me some bagpipes and snare drums. Makes any party better.

    Then my parents came up for Christmas, that was pretty fun. Got to see people, such as my new nephew who's awesome and FAT. Man he's tubby, but it's great, ya know why? Fat people are happy people! My nephew is very much so, quite content with whatever happens. And I made fudge for said family which was apparently pretty tasty.

    So what happened after Christmas you ask? What great deed was done on the 27th of Dec by chance? Why I got married of course. =D =D =D So yes, much rejoicing there.

    The ceremony was beautiful, our poor minister actually started to cry when he started to do the wedding itself. It a very "aww" moment. The flower girl (aka Orclette) also wasn't a huge fan of actually throwing the petal down, she just sort of played with them and carried the basket. As far as pictures go they'll end up on facebook at some point, or at least some of them will. Personally I'm far to lazy to actually post them in more than one spot.

    We did our honeymoon at Lake Brownwood state park. Beautiful park, very nice stone cabins, ours had a view of the lake as well as the insanely beautiful sunrises over said lake. Downside? I started puking around 1am Sunday night/Monday morning and kept it up roughly hourly until some point Monday evening. After I started to get better my wife started with the runs, which thankfully only lasted a few hours (like, 8-12 I think) but still left her feeling really crappy.

    So we ended up cashing in our figurative chips and coming back on the 31st instead of the 1st like we'd planned, but it was still nice. Got some of the apt set up and woke up for the new decade, kissed, and went back to sleep like a good little married couple, we were both still pretty pooped.

    We've spent most of our time since then getting the apt set up and everything organized and put away. We're still short a bookshelf but we're just about completely put away. Oh, and we still need to hang pretty much everything that goes on the walls.

    Last but only possibly least I managed to switch shifts with one of my co-workers! I was working 10a-7p while Hannah worked 7a-3p (which made both rides and seeing each other a pain). BUT now I work 6a-3p so we're pretty well set up the awesome. Fo'shizzle.

    Welp, that's it for now without making this post waaaay to long, so here's to trying to post more often!

~joe/ish