Liebstered

Apologies one and all! Life rather suddenly become busy for me and something had to give for a while, which ended up being this blog; it wouldn't quite work to stop playing WoW but keep blogging about it now would it.

In an effort to bring me back into the fold the guild leader of my WoW guild - Frostwolves (Saurfang) - nominated me as one of her 'Liebster' victims. The way it works is that a blogger will give 5 other bloggers 11 questions to answer. Those nominees must then answer those 11 questions, provide 11 facts about themselves, and then put 11 questions to 5 other nominated bloggers. I'm not sure if I know any other bloggers to nominate but at the very least I can do the first two parts! So here we go, the 11 questions from Navimie of The Daily Frostwolf:

1.  Who is your favourite villain and why?

I think my favourite villain would have to be Agent Smith from the Matrix. While never truly evil, he is hell bent on riding the Matrix of its human interlopers. This coupled with his ability to evolve and adapt make him one of my favourites.

2. What sport do you wish you were really good at?

Basketball. This could be in part from watching some basketball anime recently, but it is also a sport where there is both significant teamwork, and opportunity for individual excellence. On top of that there is the capacity to out-think and out-play an opponent. Otherwise it just looks like fun!

3. Tell me who is your favourite Disney character and why?

Rapunzel from Tangled. Apart from just being an excellent movie I like her boundless optimism, her adventurous nature, her non-judgmental acceptance of people, and her abilities with a frypan!

4. If you were granted one wish of anything you wanted, what would you wish for?

Invulnerability. I would want the ability to go anywhere, do anything and not be harmed by it. I would also want to live for a long long long time. Both of these stem from the fact that I want to know what is out there in the universe, and to explore the depths of our oceans. Both are unknown and full of potential wonder, however both have huge risks involved. The pressures in the deep ocean are immense, and if anything goes wrong death is the likely outcome. Similarly out in space if something goes wrong no one will be out there to help, you are on your own. Also space is huge.  There are suns out there that would take over 1000 years in a jumbo jet to circle, so even if we could currently explore the depths of space, it would be an exploration as a species, not as individuals as the time frame is just too large.

5. What is the dumbest thing you have done in regard to your computer?

I was building my computer from parts for the first time, and had just finished screwing everything in. Sam and I plugged it in, flicked on the power, and nothing happened. In my ignorance I thought that maybe the switch on the power source itself needed to flicked as well. So I flicked the switch, there was a pop, a smell of smoke, and the sinking feeling that that I had just made the problem worse.

6. If you had the ability to go back in time, who would you want to meet and what would be the one burning question you would ask them?

I've never really thought about this kind of thing, which is might be stange given that I did a history degree. If I had to choose I would probably want to speak to Terry Pratchet, and to ask him how he developed such an interesting way of viewing the world.

7. You have won a Nobel Prize! What do you wish you won the prize for?

Creating a successful model for a world government. Following on from question 4, if we were to ever colonise other planets we would need a structure that allowed for the whole of the human race to be governed - the reason for governance being that if we wanted to maintain our societies ethics and morals while such vast distances from Earth it would be necessary to have governments in place. As our species spreads further and further national boundaries and governments would become mroe insignificant, and governance on a global scale would become more efficient and necessary. In order to achieve something like this without conflict would require huge obstacles between cultures being overcome. There are obvious ones such as Isreal and Palastine, or the USA and China, but there would also be future concerns such as how does Africa fit in to something like this. Should they ever rise from their third world status would the be mechanisms to afford their representatives a say, and the influence they deserve. The EU is an interesting prototype in this regard, and how they come out of their own financial difficulties will be telling on the underlying strength of their model.

8. Which would be more devastating, loss of hearing, loss of vision, or loss of both hands.

I think the loss of both hands would be the worst. I prefer doing things to talking to people, and I like a level of independance. Should my hearing go I could still write, type, paint, and play computer games, it would just be a less fulfilling experience. In the case that I lost my sight I could still play music with others. However if I lost my hands I could no longer paint, type, play music, or be independant - I would have many more difficulties in every day chores such as cooking and cleaning, or even hugging my girlfriend. I think the loss of both hands would easily be the worst.

9. In World of Warcraft, who would you like to see as a boss encounter one day, and how would you design that fight.

I would love to fight Genn Greymane, the faction leader of the Worgen. Every time I see him on the loading screen he makes me want to play Worgen, so it would be fun to fight him, and to get loot that could make me look like him!

While I'm not sure on the specifics I think I would want the fight to involve the worgen curse somehow. I'm thinking that it would be a no tank fight, whereby DPS has to manage threat in a way that allows pretty much the whole damage portion of the raid to be attacked by Greymane at some stage. I think I would achieve this by having Greymane place a stacking debuff on a player he aattacks, maybe once every 5 seconds. While Greymane himself would only do nominal damage, this debuff would reduce healing by 15% or so per stack, and if you reach 5 stacks you are transformed into a Worgen, essentially being mind controlled and attacking your allies.

The way to beat this fight would be to use tools such as fient, feign death, BoP, vanish, tricks of the trade, misdirection, and others, to transfer threat from player to player. You would also need to make good use of personal defensives for the later stages of the debuff. For normal I would not make the DPS requirement too high as inevitably the weaker DPS classes may end up being benched for a  fight like this, but I think threat is something that has become fairly irrelevant in today's WoW so this would be a chance to explore it again as a fight mechanic.

10. What is the most embarrassing thing you've said to someone you wanted to impress?

Thankfully I seem to have erased most embarressing things I have said from my memory, but one embarressing thing I've done that springs to mind involves when I was first getting to know my now girlfriend.  We met playing in a youth band together, it was auditioned each year so I hadn't met her previous to rehearsals starting for the year. After a couple of weeks we started hanging out after rehearsal (after 9:30pm) before heading home. In the second week of this I was feeling particularly energetic and in the mood to impress and I suggested we climb a tree.

So up I went, climbing particularly well I must say, and we ended up sitting on a branch roughly 3m off the ground. We sat up there for 30 minutes or so, swapping stories and such, and then decided it was probably about time to head home, so we needed to get out of the tree. I was still feeling particularly bold and thought this would be a good opportunity to further impress with a smooth, athletic dismount off the branch. It was only as I started swinging under the tree that I realised this tree had quite large thorns! In my haste to ascend the tree I had managed to miss this crucial fact, and it was now quite an issue.

As I swung underneath the branch, with my hands and legs over the top holding me on, I managed to get some of my clothing caught on thorns. Initially I had planned to release my legs, hold on with my hands, and then drop the reduced height to the ground, being careful not to roll my ankle on the roots at the base of the tree. These thorns caused me to hesitate, and wonder how I was going to dislodge myself. My as yet not girlfriend asked, with a mixture of concern and humour, if I needed a hand getting down from the tree. As some of you males out there may understand, this was like a red rag to a bull; there was no way I was going to accept any assistance getting out of this tree! I spent a couple of seconds seeing if I could dislodge my clothes easily, but nothing was willing to move.

Now I swear this was a case of my brain skipping my conciousness and sending directions straight to my limbs, but rather than continuing to work my clothes loose my body decided that the best course of action was just to completely let go, so thats what I did. In front of the girl was trying to impress I failed to dismount elegantly from the tree, and instead clumsily fell like a stone, straight onto my back from a height of about 3 metres. Thankfully I didn't have to endure the ignomy of injuring myself on top of all this, and in the end it all worked out, but that would be the most embarassing thing I can think of doing while trying to impress someone.

11. You've been chosen to go onto a game show! Which game show would you go on?

 It would have to be the Block. While I have no particular interest in going on a renovating show, my girlfriend is dying to go on it, but I don't wish to apply until I actually know something about renovating. So if I had the choice it would be the Block, because while I have no particular game show I want to go on, I would be in trouble if I chose differently!

11 Things you didn't need to know about me.

1. I'm a Law and History Graduate, recently returned from a year in the UK and currently  looking for law related work

2. I've been in a relationship with my girlfriend for over 6 years now. She was the first girl I ever worked up the courage to ask out, and despite her being the only girlfriend I've had I have never wondered if the 'grass might be greener' so to speak.

3. I don't drink carbonated beverages. Ever since I was young I have always retched at the feel of bubbles on my tounge. Testing of this occured in the form of coke being left out for three days to go flat; no success, it tasted as bubbly to me as a freshly opened can. For some reason this also applies to guiness, which my Irish friends assure me has no carbonation. This preference of mine has led to my girlfriend canvassing my family and friends to see whether I should be forced to drink champagne at my wedding; its a losing battle for me but I shall endure until I prevail!

4. I don't really know how to make friends without my twin brother around.

5. I love reading, thought it tends to be in a fantasy genre. My favourite authors include, Robert Jordan, Terry Pratchet, J.R.R. Tolkein, Branden Sanderson, and Terry Goodkind.

6. I enjoy reading rules. Whether it is different class abilities in WoW, Army and Rule books in Warhammer, or a 200 page D&D supplement, I love thinking of the different ways rules can interact, and on a surface level, what combinations are strong.

7. I am currently learning how to play the saxophone.

8. I prefer Alliance to Horde. My very first character was a dwarf, and my favourite two races are Dreanei and Worgen. I've always been more of a 'good guy' kind of person, and while I hold great admiration for characters like Thrall and Cairne, and have very fond memories of them from Warcraft 3, I still prefer the Alliance. However, despite this preference, I have been a member of the Horde faction since Wrath of the Lich King. Initially all my real life friends were Horde players so I swapped over, and since then I have just ended up in Horde guilds.

9. I like looking at the stars and just taking in the moment.

10. I think very factually; I don't tend to believe a persons story on face value, and like to know the circumstances surrounding it. This is odd in that I also tend to automatically trust what people say, and struggle to disbelieve them. I guess the two can be reconciled with point 4; While I think the best of people I also know they can get things wrong, thus any inconsistencies are honest (as opposed to malicious) mistakes, so while no one is actively lying, often people are incorrect despite their best intentions.

11. I worry about being a nuisance to others - I normally won't push my own interests for fear of creating inconveniences to others. This also transfers into job-hunting - my base assumption is that people don't need any more employees and that me dropping in applications is annoying for them. Looking at it objectively I can see that there are huge holes in that methodology, but I still cringe initially when thinking about it.

Questions for others

1. Dogs or Cats?

2. Are you a grammar Nazi?

3. Is skydiving your kind of thrill, or is it just a foolish way to risk death?

4. Lawyers; societies leeches, a necessary evil, or welcome members of the community?

5. Where is the best place you have ever visited?

6. What is the appeal of clubbing?

7. What would you prefer - money, fame, or power?

8. If the Prime Minster of Australia came to you offering to give you his or her place in government (and the relevant party had no objection etc etc) would you become the Prime Minister of Australia?

9. Do you like being the bad guy/girl?

10. Karaoke; Super fun or a mortifying experience?

11. What song title best describes you?

Nominations

I'm afraid I don't have any specific nominations, however instead I would invite anyone who reads this blog to answer the questions, and then post in the comments section with a link - it's up to you if you want to participate, and I would be very interested to see anyone's answers!