is right here
Enjoy.
So, I'm killing level 172 demons in the Edgeville dungeon. I'm only level 76, so it is a fantastic feat Labels: lobsters, rants, runescapewhich practically anyone with my level and enough good food can do. And I'm able to kill three before I run out of sharks. One drop is a mithril kiteshield. Not the best drop, but not a bad one either. Then I get dropped a lobster. An effin lobster. wtf. I spend all that time and food killing a demon for a lobster. And on the third one I killed? I just got the minimal gp dropped. wtf.
I've noticed this trend too. Jagex thinks I haven't, but I'm onto their game. When I kill things that are of a considerably higher level than me, and I'm spending all of that time, food, and even money killing them, I'm only getting shitty drops. Whereas a level 129 player kills 'em with a couple of wacks of the ol' Abyssal whip can kill them pretty quick and come out of it with something halfway decent, like a rune something or other, which is respectable and will fetch a fair amount on the G.E.
It seems to me that the drop you get is based on your capabilities. I know it sounds crazy, but I suspect that if I had a higher level account, I would get better drops. I mean, three shitty drops in a row. Come on.
RuneScape Update Labels: college, food, runescape
So, I now have a combat level of 76. (Yay!) It's taken for ever, but it's finally happened. My attack and defense levels are at 60, so I can now wear and wield dragon. I've been looking forward to this for so long now. And once you wear dragon, you are no longer a noob. (Yes, I am this excited over this. Thus is my losery life.)
I am very happy with the circus distraction/diversion. As previously mentioned, I hate training mage, agility, and ranged and that distraction/diversion allows me to train all three! My mage is now 48. Less than a month ago, it was only like 33. So, I'm happy with that.
I think I could take an Evil Chicken now. I can beat a level 149 TzHaar-Ket. An Evil Chicken should be easy peasy.
College
I'm now a drop out, but I make it look cool. Aaaaaand, now I can devote my time to writing. So yeah.
Food
Isn't cabbage disgusting? I think so.
My New Obsession: Gavin & Stacey
Lately I've been extremely obsessed with this new British show called Gavin & Stacey. It's about two people called (obviously) Gavin and Stacey. Gavin lives in Essex and Stacey lives in Barry. They met through exchanging phone calls between their respective work places and, after several months, decide to meet in London.
Stacey brings her best friend, Nessa (who is a chain-smoking, leather wearing, street-wise gal), with her. Gavin brings his best friend Smithy, who has a girlfriend. The four decide to go to a club, Gavin and Stacey (of course) hit it off, but surprisingly so do Nessa and Smithy. The two couples rent a hotel suite and you can guess what happens there.
It's really funny, because you get to see the culture clash between people from eastern England and people from south Wales, which Gavin and Stacey are oblivious to, because they're sooo in lurve (and that's all I can say without spoiling the whole thing).
I highly recommend this show. It's positively brilliant and this is the one show that I've managed to stay completely spoil-free from. I am free from spoilers. I've resisted looking it up on Wikipedia even. And that's a rare thing for me -- I'm always spoiling myself. But with this show, I find that it's best to take the journey WITH Gavin and Stacey and not just plainly watch it.
And Conversely, I've an Old Obsession: Lucy, The Daughter of the Devil
I have been watching this show for a long time now and demand to see new episodes. It's been ages. What is taking so long? Is it canceled? grrr.
That being said, the show is really good. It has a lot of the people who were involved with Home Movies in it. The voice of Coach McGuirk (H. Jon Benjamin)is Satan. Satan has a daughter named Lucy (voice of Melissa Bardin Galsky, who is, essentially, the anti-Christ. Lucy dates DJ Jesús (pronounced in the Spanish way as "hay-soos") who is the second coming of the Messiah (and also incredibly full of himself). So, the premise is already pretty funny. Satan pretty much tries to destroy the DJ and all the while, the Holy Fathers (two priests and a nun from the Vatican) are running amok trying to kill the anti-Christ.
I miss this show. I want to see more of this show. And I want it now.
Runescape Progress Report:
I now have combat level of 75. My summoning level, which was nonexistent last time I wrote, is now at 23 (which is still low, but an accomplishment, given the mount of time). I can now wield and wear dragon, which I've been looking forward to for FOUR YEARS. Wheee. I'm excited. My next goal is to get more money. I've spent several million on various things and I need to build that back up now.
Here is where I rant:
I Hate It When People Type Like This. Why would you EVER capitalize the first word of every letter in the English language if it's not the title of something? It makes no sense. Some people actually Type Like This. I don't understand how or why they would ever do such a thing and it annoys me to no end. I am a writer and I think that everyone who has graduated elementary school in this country should know better. It's sad when people from non-English-speaking countries can type in English better than the average American. Seriously.
Another thing I would like to rant about is the fact that our mall stocks clothes that make us look like hookers or, at best, terribly out of fashion. It's like wtf. Just because this is Alabama doesn't mean we have to dress like crap. I find better clothes at the local Target than I do at our supposedly trendy department stores. Again, wtf. Target's well and good and all. I like Target. It's one of my favorite stores. I'm pretty much just going there or to thrift stores nowadays.
Aaaaand...why is there never any chocolate in the house when one is on their period? (Yes, I'm writing about my period in my blog. Sue me.) Must. Have. Chocolate. Blah
And here is where I take my leave.
I've been playing Runescape for four years now. I remember my sister and her ex discovered it and started playing. Then one day they showed me, which perhaps they shouldn't have done, because I got hooked. Big time.
Before I go any further, perhaps I should explain the nature of Runescape a little bit. Runescape is a very user-friendly online multiplayer adventure game. (It is free to play, though you can pay and have more access, which I will get to later.)
The first thing you do is create a character. This character is kind of like an avatar, so to speak. They are your tool to move about the very expansive virtual world. You can dress your character any way you like and make them look like you (or not). I opted to make mine look like me and so did my sister. Consequently, it made our characters look pretty much the same, though she wore all black and my top was burgundy.
Your character has an "inventory" in which to put their belongings, which might include coins (also known as "gp" for "gold pieces", the currency of Runescape), food, runes (used for casting spells and where "Runescape" got its name), weapons (used for killing the nasty beasties that live in those parts) and all sorts of other things. I haven't counted the exact number of items in the databases, but I estimate it to be in the thousands. It's a very richly woven world. Every little detail is there, including flora and fauna, which you can "examine" by right clicking.
You fight monsters and work on "skills" (such as cooking, crafting, magic, runecrafting, slayer -- even farming) to raise your player level. And to get certain levels you need to do "quests", which for many is the whole fun of Runescape.
potions that you otherwise would not be able to, even though your skill level might be high enough).
The world of Runescape kind of mirrors our own, in a way. It is set in a medieval-like time period, mixed with creatures present in fairy tales, like fairies, elves, etc. The world is completely mapped out, further added to it's concreteness. In the far east, there is the land of Morytania. Morytania is the Runescape equivalent of Dr. Frakenstein, has tried to create a man out of dead body parts). Morytania is a land of evil and gloom and kind of represents the evil god Zammorak.
Due west of Morytania is the kingdom of Misthalin, ruled by King Roald. The capital is Varrock, the largest (and in many opinions the most important) city in Runescape. Varrock is the center of trade and home to the Grand Exchange, which is where players trade each other with exchanges controlled by the game. I remember the days before the Grand Exchange, the bad old days. Back then, users traded through actions with each other. Trading was not controlled and people were often noob), I couldn't use it for a long time. But I could use the money. So, I decided to trade it for coins. But it didn't work out that way. Someone offered me (at the time considered to be the best leg armor) dragon platelegs for it, which was very generous and just a little bit over the asking price. The problem with the old trading system was that if you weren't paying attention, someone -- at the very last minute -- could take away what they were paying with (in this case dragon platelegs) and swap them for something else or even nothing at all. And if you weren't being vigilent, you were getting crap for a very expensive item. In my case, the user swapped the dragon platelegs with red dragonhide chaps (used for the
As previously mentioned, the G.E. (as it's known in the Runescape vernacular) is a controlled form of trade. There is a set price range certain items are worth. The standard price is known as "market price". This is the mid point in the range and considered to be the "safe price". Many people utilize the G.E. to "buy low and sell high", as they would in the stock market. You buy items for as low as you can (some are sold at the minimal price, just because they're so hard to sell at market and higher) and you either wait awhile and then sell them again at a higher price or you turn it into something more expensive and sell it at a higher price. For instance, you might buy a cut emerald at lowest price. Then you would turn it into an emerald ring and sell it for as high as you can. This is a time-consuming way to make money and I wouldn't recommend it as I'm not sure about how much profit one would actually make by doing that. After all, in the world of Runescape, some things are actually worth more in their most basic forms. Supply and demand is a very important part of the Runescape economy (which is very intricate and complex), believe it or not).
For instance: in the herblore skill, there are several herbs which can be bought and sold in the G.E. for various sums of money. Irit and Kwuarm are higher level than Ranarr, but Ranarr is far more vauable, being worth roughly 5.3k at the present. The value of Ranarr went down just the other day, in fact. In my opinion, there are two reasons for this: Everyone suddenly got let in on the secret that Chaos Druids (a type of low-level baddy) drop (meaning that when you kill them, along with their bones, prizes and valuables are left behind) herbs more than anything. Sometimes they will make two drops at once, which is rare in Runescape. They will do this at a higher frequency than any other monster I've fought. Furthermore, they're very easy to kill. They are level 13. I am now a level 70. They only take 20 hits to die (a hit is a measure of how well you are beating your enemy). I can hit them 12 times with just one wack with my scimitar (the swords the guards carried in Aladdin). This means that people are flooding the market with Ranarr, making them less valuable than before.
Another new thing coming up: Jagex, the creators of Runescape have announced they are bringing "PKing" back (which I will explain in due course). Because of this, players are stocking up on things that will be useful for them when that change is brought about.
So, if you're still reading, you're probably wondering what PKing is. Pking means "player killing". When I first started playing, players could kill other players in the area named "The Wilderness". The Wilderness is the area to the north, even further north than Varrock and Edgeville. It is the most dangerous place in Runescape, and the danger of the Wilderness increases the further north you head. Back in the day, higher level players would lure lower levels (aka "noobs") into the Wilderness, kill them and claim all their belongings. This happened to me once.
I had just become a member (which, as previously stated, grants more access to various parts of the map and certain items and quests). I was only about a level thirty. I'm still not entirely sure what happened, but I made "friends" (in Runescape, you have a buddy list much like AIM or MSN where you can talk to your "friends" and they can help you out, keep you company, etc). This friend asked me if I wanted to see something cool and I said, "okay". We were in Ardougne and I followed them for a moment. Next thing I know, we're in an entirely different place, which must've been the Wilderness, because he was killing me. He was a level 76. It was easy for him. The place was pitch black and I had no clue where I was, so I couldn't really run. I had full rune armour (the level down from dragon), which would be worth a couple hundred thousand gp. And next thing I know, I'm in Lumbridge, the place in southern Misthalin where everyone respawns (or is reborn, if you prefer) when they die. I had no armor. No money, no nothing. And I had to start all over from scratch.
I must've been tele-othered (a type of teleportation) to have been in the Wilderness so quickly. Not entirely sure how he did it to this day, even though I've become much more savvy.
As I said, Jagex is talking about bring PKing back sometime in the not-so-distant future. The article I read on the Runescape site mentions that they will have special "PKing worlds", as previous incarnations of PKing haven't gone very well. According to the article, before I started playing, people used to control territories of the game through might. I'm glad not every world (meaning gaming serving) is going to be PKing. I'm just not a fan of it. PKing cheapens the game. And I'm not just saying that because of what happened to me. I just know how players are. They'll go nuts with it.
That brings me to how vile people can be in Runescape. Even though PKing is non-existant at present (even in the Wilderness), people are very mean. The average Runescape player, in my estimation, is probably a 15 or 16 year old boy. The game attracts a lot of women and girls too, and there are a lot of adults who play (I am by no means anywhere close to being the eldest Runescape player), but the average player is definitely a teenager. And being someone who was fifteen five years ago, I remember quite well how mean kids that age are.
Not every player is rude. Some of them are cool. But most, however, like to call everyone lower level than them a "noob" (meaning you're new and an idiot), which is a huge insult in the world of Runescape. A person could lack 300 experience points (known as "xp") from being the same level as the other person and still be called such. Of course it's due to immaturity, but still. It's a huge annoyance. I'm rarely called a noob these days (level 70 is finally starting to get in the big leagues, though there are people who are level 135).
The reason such importance is placed on levels is because it takes a lot of work to reach the next level. Say you are working on your fishing skill. You start off fishing shrimp at level 1. When you reach level five, you can catch sardines, which is your first fishing milestone. 53 fishing levels later, I am now able to fish the likes of swordfish and lava eel. Each fish you catch, gives you a certain amount of xp. Currently, the most prestegious catch you can catch is the manta ray, when you reach level 81 in fishing. I have been fishing for four years in Runescape and I'm only at level 53. It takes a lot of dedication and tediousness, for fishing is quite tedious. Out of all the skills, it is the least involved. You sit there while your player fishes. I am acctually fishing as I write this.
Since it takes so long to level up, every new level I reach feels like an accomplishment of sorts. And it unlocks more fun things to do in Runescape. I like quests a lot. I'm trying to level up so I can do more. I've done all the ones I can do at my level. For the most part, I have high skill levels for a level 70. So, in many cases, I have all the required skills needed for a lot of quests. However, many of those quest require that I fight monsters that are way stronger than I (in one case level 194). So, I have to bulk up and enhance my combat levels. It's definitely possible to beat a monster higher level than you. You just have to get to a level where you're in a close enough range to beat them (and carry good weapons and a lot of food).
My three least favorite skills to work on are ranging, magic, and runecrafting. Out of the three, I prefer magic and have recently started trying to level up. For someone of my combat level, my magic level is very low. I'm more of a fan of melee.
Ranging is even more boring than magic. My level is even lower in that, thus it takes forever to even kill guards (which are roughly 50 levels lower than me, give or take). And I don't enjoy killing guards anymore. Because my level is so much higher, I need a bigger income than I did previously. Now, the 100 gp worth of stuff I might get from a guard on a good day is essentially chump change. It's not the kind of money I need to be making in order to buy dragon armor, which is my current goal (so far, I have a scimitar, plateskirt, and boots). But I will keep working at it. It is pretty pitiful my ranged is so low. I see everyone at my level carrying around magic long bows and here I am with my humble willow long bow.
Runecrafting is my least favorite. I liked it at first when I was a low level player. It brought in a small but steady income when I sold the runes to the runeshop. Also, in mining for the "rune essence" (the base with which to make the runes), I gained some considerable mining xp. Now, however, my runecrafting is a meager level 27. That is extremely low for a level 70 player. The main reason for it being so low is that rune crafting involves a lot of walking around the world which I hate doing. That means, I do all that walking for only 28 runes and then have to find the closet bank to the rune alter (which pretty much always looks like stone henge combined with the theme of whatever rune you are crafting, for instance the inside of the body alter kinda looks like the insides of a person). The walking is time consuming and, as with real life, time in Runescape is money.
Being a level 27, I can craft Cosmic Runes. Frankly, I don't feel like going to the Cosmic Alter like that. I know I should build my level up, but it's just a ridiculous ammount of travel, when my time could be so employed as working on my slayer task or killing Chaos Druids and making a good chunk of change.
As I write, I just advanced to level 57 cooking. I can now make mushroom and onion toppings (for potatoes, I believe). Cooking is a very important part of runescape. When you fight, your hit points recieve damage. Essentially, you are injured. Instead of applying bandaids and taking oxycontin, Runescape players eat food to heal their health. The better the food, the more you heal. When I'm fighting a high level enemy, I take some sword fish with me. It'll cure what ails ya and better still, I can fish it, so it's no cost to me. It's a win-win.
Right this very moment, as I was fishing, I was attacked by an level onehundred-and-something-very-high Evil Chicken and stupid me wasn't paying attention and got hitpoints knocked down from 57 to 27, which is practically death. Luckily, I had two swordfish in my inventory and ran off to cook them, healing myself. The Evil Chicken is a random event. Runescape is full of them. At any given time a random event can pop up. There are several, each with its own theme. The Evil Chicken is a minor one. It merely attacks you for no reason. Some random events take you away from your setting and place you in a sort of minigame (which it's technically a random event and NOT a minigame, which is entirely different). Yesterday, I was taken away from the Grand Exchange by Molly. She wanted me to capture her evil twin, using a claw like device and place her in a cage. I did it. I don't think I got rewarded, because my inventory was full (only holds 28 items, though some items are stackable). Usually, however, you get some rewards from a random event.
Later yesterday, I was taken away by Evil Bob (Good Bob, meaning just "Bob" is the Runescape Cat -- Evil Bob is his counter part) to Scaperune, which is the mirror world of Runscape. The object of the event was to help the other prisoner, Pete, find the three keys to unlock the portal, which were hidden in various balloon animals. You have to find the right ones, or else you get a "life sentence" of 23 hours and something odd minutes. I got the right ones and recieved uncut diamonds from Prison Pete in thanks.
Ignoring random events is a big no-no. There are consequences. If you ignore Dr. Jeckell and don't give him the herb he so desperately needs, he will feel the "change" coming on and turn into Mr. Hyde and start attacking you. Other random events will teleport you to some far away place or possibly even scatter your inventory.
I'm a definite fan of random events. Not only are the rewards a plus, but it's a nice retreat from dredging on in working on my skills.
My lowest skill is hunting. It's a member skill that came out during a time when I briefly lost my membership. I have no xp in that skill whatsoever. I intend to start working on it, as it is needed for certain quests. I just don't have much interests in it. It seems like it'll be boring.
My second lowest level skill is Summoning, which is actually quite useful. I have all the materials needed for it, I just haven't been working on it. It's level four, due to the fact I did the quest which unlocks it. So, that's on my to-do list as well.
After I'm done writing this, I'm going to go kill Cockatrices. They are my slayer task. I must kill 78 in order to get a new one, which is kinda blah. My last task was killing Cockatrices. I had been hoping for something more interesting and with better drops. The most common thing they drop is Limpwurt Root, which is used in potion making. I currently am not making potions involving that ingredient, so I pretty much just sell them in the G.E.
Looking back, this is a very long blog about Runescape. That's mainly due to the fact I've never written about it before. Any future blogs written about it will be much shorter -- I promise. But look for updates on my progress. They're more for me than for any readers I have. I'm interested to see at what rate I'm progressing. This month has been a month of growth for my character in the game. This is mainly due to unemployment and illness preventing me from making it to school on several occasions. But hey -- it works. I've gone from a level 62 to a level 70, which is the fastest I've advanced since I was low level. As you advance, you need more and more xp to reach each new level. Even though I criticized the over-killing of Chaos Druids, I do owe them my advancement in this respect. They're so quick and easy, it triples the time of leveling up.
And with that thought, I will quit writing. For now.
Au revoir, mon amie -- et bon chance!
It's getting that time of year again, the time of year where we pick up where our heroes last left off.
The premiere I'm most looking forward to is Heroes.
I must confess, I didn't watch much of last season. That was because I felt like it had deviated from the original vibe too much. I didn't like the heroes being separated from one another or certain plotlines. I couldn't stand Claire's relationship with whatshisname (the one who could fly like Nathan). And that's not just because I'm a Paire fan, but because it was annoying, boring, and had already been done to death by other shows.
But the new season looks promising. I'm intrigued by "Villains". After all, Sylar is delightfully evil, so I have no doubt TPTB will come up with some twisted new characters for us to love to hate.
I'm hoping that if/when Takezo Kensei/Adam Monroe comes back, he's more intense and interesting. I was kind of disappointed in him last season. As for the other villains, I haven't really read too many spoilers. So, I don't know much about it.
I would like to find out more about Adam Monroe's link to other heroes. I was reading the Wikipedia article on him today and it says that he went by "Richard Sanders at an unknown time". What does that mean? As most fans know, Niki's last name is Sanders. Is there any connection?
In 2007, I was convinced (before we knew that much about Takezo Kensei) that perhaps he was somehow linked genetically to other heroes. Is he a relation of Niki's? He could be. He could even be her grandfather. After all, he doesn't age. He could've produced thousands of descendants in his long lifetime. After all, the dude is like 350 years old. If he had a kid in the 1600's and his kid had two kids and their kids had four kids and their kids had eight kids...just imagine. Takezo Kensei could be the 14th great-grandfather of ALL the heroes, which brings me to a point I want to make about incest and pseudo incest.
In the first season, it was revealed that Peter and Claire, to we Paire fans disappointment, are uncle and niece. It seemed incestuous to many, for all they do is flirt. When it came out that Milo Ventimiglia and Hayden Panettiere are dating, many assumed that all that flirting we were seeing was just off-screen chemistry seeping through. That was until we saw a promo for season 3. Claire says to Peter: "I always loved you." And when she said it, it didn't sound like she was speaking to an uncle. That raises the question: Is he really her uncle?
I can't imagine Peter and Nathan not being brothers. And it seems like they have a lot of evidence backing up that Nathan is Claire's father. I don't want Peter and Claire to be uncle and niece. I view them as the hero and heroine of the show. But grimly, I must say, I think it is the case. And since it's the case, does that mean they're supporting incest? Will we find out that these heroic mutations are due to inbreeding? After all, when the gene pool is narrow, certain traits are bound to keep popping up. And if Takezo Kensei is everybody's ancestor (which hasn't been disproven and could totally be true, but is just a theory as of now) then that would mean that the heroes, even though for most of them it isn't illegal incest are still mating in a rather small gene pool. (Though in Peter and Claire's case, their degree of familial relationship would make it totally illegal in most countries.)
Only time will tell which is true. I wouldn't be surprised if Peter and Claire find themselves unrelated, however. After all, the fallout of what happened when it was revealed they were was pretty intense within the Paire community. I imagine the show lost a lot of viewers as many people watched the show JUST for prospective romantic relationship. If they are related, and those people aren't into incest, then it stands to reason that they did lose a certain amount of viewers (which may or may not be a large amount, as I'm speaking in very general terms and don't have access to statistics, etc.)
All of this being said, I can't wait for what they throw at us.
Here is where I give my opinion on various foreign shows being adapted for American consumption:
Kath and Kim
Kath and Kim was originally an Australian show about a dysfunctional mother-daughter duo, from what I've heard. I've read about it and I've got to say, the show seems like it will annoy me. Mother-daughter duos aren't interesting in their own right. There has to be interesting elements added to the mix, which was done perfectly in Gilmore Girls. I don't see that happening with this show. It's set in Florida (according to the Wikipedia article), for fuck's sake. That kinda annoys me too. It just seems like it'll be cheesy. And not the fun kinda cheesy but more like the annoying and sometimes slightly gross kind. I will watch it though, before I make further judgements.
Life on Mars
I was surprised to learn that they were doing a remake of this one. I highly enjoyed the original version via BBC America. I'm not so sure this one will be good because the original is so great. The only way I can see this working is if they get the right balance, like The Office did. I enjoy both versions of The Office. The American version added the right amount of originality without compromising the general premise. So, if the American Life on Mars can do that, it'll be great. But I doubt they'll use "Ballroom Blitz" for music. Ah well.
Worst Week
I occasionally watched The Worst Week of My Life on BBC America and thought it was funny enough. However, I see this one going much the way of the American Coupling where they basically used the same script and the characters come off more as poor imitations of the originals. I hope this isn't the case. I hope it might be better than the original.
(Side note: Sarah Alexander started in both the original series.)
Other Stuff
I will have more to say when the new episodes start coming out. I'll probably write my views on the new season of Degrassi when more is revealed (which apparently won't premiere until October!).
So until I can think of something, adieu.
P.S. I will write before October.
And will do so whenever I think of something of consequence to say.
