Whimsical.nu

Welcome to a Whimsical Blog~

Hi, I'm Angela, a girl with a blog on five different psyches:
girl, geek, reader, writer, gamer
Choose your poison ♥

Typhoon Ondoy (Ketsana)

I find it difficult to write about events such as this. What is there to write about? Cold hard facts you can get from anywhere, and they change as the days pass, even as the hours pass. Yesterday, there was a hundred confirmed dead; now the toll is up to 240. My family is safe in the south, but the same cannot be said of many, many others who live further north and were affected by the heavy rains and flooding caused by Typhoon Ondoy/Tropical Storm Ketsana. Reports are also around that there is one, two typhoons still coming after this. Only days after.

Phonebooth becomes a makeshift boat by rembcc

Phonebooth becomes a makeshift boat by rembcc

We are a small country, and maybe we brought this on ourselves by the poor state of flood prevention mechanisms available, the pollution, and whatever else–God knows Taft flooded a bit everytime there was a storm when I was still in college. But no one deserves to go through this disaster, losing all possessions, losing friends, losing family, and even possibly losing their lives.

Shot from V. Mapa station, street flooded at depths between 4-5 ft., by rembcc (n.b.: yes, that is a man trying to keep afloat)

Street flooded at depths between 4-5 ft., by rembcc (n.b.: yes, that is a man trying to keep afloat)

Please help, if you can. Prayers, good vibes, or something more tangible. The Yahoo! Philippines Answers team are compiling a list of ways to donate and help out, if you are so inclined.

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The state of hobby-coding

This is something I’ve talked about for quite a while already on my personal journal, but never really mentioned in public. Hence it’s probably no surprise to a number of you–or maybe even to all of you, as I’m sure it’s been obvious that development on Enthusiast, and pretty much all of my other linkware scripts, have stalled. Being rather out of the loop recently with anything fanlisting-related, I actually have no idea if anyone’s still interested ;) but I would like to explain a little about what happened behind the scenes.

I enjoy coding. I enjoyed it many years ago when I made my first website from scratch, and I continue to enjoy it today. I especially enjoy making things that I can use but make it so that other people can use it, too. I like finding out that something I made is useful for others. That’s the whole reasoning behind all of the linkware scripts that I have done.

And then, Enthusiast happened. For whoever of you who have no interest in the fanlisting online community, you probably have no idea what it is. Enthusiast is a fanlistings and fanlistings collective management script, and a pretty damn good one (at the very least, back when I was active in the community). I have no idea where fanlisting scripts stand nowadays, but I’d like to think Enth is holding its own even if it’s old and “clunky”. I started writing the earliest versions for myself, prettied it enough to make it downloadable, and in no time at all it was huge (figuratively and literally).

It’s still my baby. I loff it the same way I loffed it before. But after months (a year? more?) of hemming and hawing, I’ve decided that I needed to step back from it, maybe temporarily, maybe permanently. Enth has affected my life a huge deal, in many different ways.

The good things:

  1. The no-brainer: easier fanlistings management! I love fanlistings, they’re cozy and cuddly. But they can be crazy in droves! But Enth has really pulled through for me on this.
  2. I learned a lot about PHP coding from making Enthusiast. A lot, from things I researched myself, and things people taught and showed me.
  3. I’ve met a lot of people via Enth; from users to fellow coders. A number of them I’ve grown quite close to, even if we’ve all slowly moved away from fanlistings.
  4. I can’t begin to imagine how much time I’ve spent on Enthusiast, but the time spent with it has been, on the whole, very enjoyable.

Enth’s popularity does have its downsides, such as:

  1. Enth’s slowly morphed into something almost unmanageable. I’ve felt a bit of pressure with doing this and doing that simply because, well, it’s what users want. While generally these are things that I do want somewhere down the line, it’s just slowly gotten to the point when my hobby project has become a bit of a burden and yet there’s this pressure to work on this, to fix this, to add this feature.
  2. The pressure related to this has affected my participation in the fanlistings community. I’ve felt guilty working on my fanlistings when Enth (Enth4 specifically) is still not done. I haven’t applied for any fanlisting in ages because of the same.
  3. People’s expectations seem to keep rising and rising. I have no idea what people expect now, but that’s because I’ve purposely avoided knowing what they are, now. I want to make Enth better so much, and I have a lot of ideas on how to do that; but can you imagine how many will complain about what happened to this feature, or why is this doing this now, or I’m not moving because it’s a pain to upgrade. These are certainly all part and parcel of getting a script up for others to download, but little ol’ me feels overwhelmed.

I feel it’s sad that the reason why I worked on Enthusiast (that is, fanlisting) became something I avoided or felt guilty about doing because of Enthusiast.

I’ve gone through months and months of agonizing about this. The fact that I do have other things on my plate doesn’t help with the indecision and the pressure that I was getting, too. When I finally made the decision to put Enth on hold, I finally felt that I could breathe easier.

And thus, there you have it. Enthusiast is officially on hold. All development is stalled, I haven’t looked at any Enth code in months. It doesn’t mean to say I will never go back to it, but it won’t be for a good while. :) Maybe when I can get back into the fanlistings world, eh?

If you have any questions, concerns, or any general comments about Enth (or anything else dev-related I have done), please feel free to comment and ask. (Don’t ask me for troubleshooting support though ;) that doesn’t change, haha!)

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Patch 3.2.2 on live servers this week!

Saw this today, and just can’t help but post quickly about it — World of Warcraft patch 3.2.2 will be on live servers this week. Sadly, I’ve not been able to actually try Onyxia before this patch is out, though I’ve been meaning to. Oh well! I’m quite excited about this patch, more because there are a number of arcane mage changes that are coming:

  • Arcane Blast: The buff from using this ability now stacks up to 4 times instead of 3, and each application increases mana cost by 175% instead of 200%. In addition, the duration of the buff has been reduced to 6 seconds.
  • Arcane Missiles: Casting this spell while both Missile Barrage and Clearcasting are active will cause only Missile Barrage to be consumed.
  • Missile Barrage: The effect from triggering this talent now removes the mana cost of Arcane Missiles. In addition, the chance for Arcane Blast to trigger this talent is now 8/16/24/32/40%. All other listed spells continue to have a 4/8/12/16/20% chance to trigger it. This talent no longer has a chance to be triggered when spells miss.

These are quite interesting changes, as they affect arcane mage playstyle–for better or worse, I’ve yet to decide. Basically, arcane playstyle has always been around mana management and finding the right moment to replenish mana as well as when to blow all your cooldowns. I find that I like this about arcane as it’s not as “reactive” as I find Fireball or Frostfire bolt specs to be (on initial tryouts of the specs). I know that the theorycrafting around arcane rotation is that you cast arcane barrage when you don’t have a missile barrage proc, but with my latency I cast arcane missiles at every 3-stack of arcane blast. Slightly lesser damage per second but higher damage per mana.

With those changes, it looks like the rotation would be arcane blast to four stacks, and hit arcane missiles if missile barrage procced, but otherwise keep doing arcane blast until you get a missile barrage proc. It looks relatively static; a number seem to like the changes as it’s making arcane more competitive, but a number don’t as it looks like it’s dumbing down arcane too much. I’ll reserve judgment for later, when I actually get to play ;)

In other patch news–damn that Pandaren Monk is cute :D Want!

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The Art of Undressing

I recently read The Art of Undressing, by Stephanie Lehmann, which I got at a book sale last year. I’m not really into chick lit, but this was quite enjoyable, and I did a second reading after I finished.

The story revolves around aspiring pastry chef Ginger, who has to deal with: her outrageous ex-exotic dancer mother named Coco; her culinary school instructor Jean-Paul chewing her out every class; her distant father and thirteen-year-old step-sister; and what to do about Tom in class who seems to send out mixed signals, when he seems spoken for by the teacher’s pet?

Reading that paragraph again, it sounds so horribly superficial. That paragraph does the book no justice, because for all the outrageousness of some of the characters, they feel quite real and likable (except when they’re supposed to be not-likable). It’s hard not to like Ginger, and to not feel a connection with her as she battles her low self-esteem as a result of being overshadowed by her flamboyant, liberal, and sexy mother (especially when your own boyfriend seems to prefer her, too). Almost oddly, I did like Coco as well, who has such exuberance and vivacity that it leaps through the page and makes you forgive her for overstepping every so often.

The lightness of the book also comes with gold nuggets inside, as it’s not only a story about Ginger coming into herself but also about accepting people, living your life to the fullest, and determination in the face of opposition.

One thing I also enojoyed in this novel is Lehmann’s writing style. I’ve never read any of her other books, admittedly, but I found the writing and the personalization of the characters interesting and pleasurable, putting me in that tenuous space between knowing I am an observer of their lives and being right there in their lives and sharing their thoughts and emotions. The balance was well-done, and the writing unique enough to make it stand out to me. I so love distinct writing styles!

Observe:

I guess I should’ve warned Tom that I was spending the evening as a woman. Because when I opened the door to the apartment he stood there in the hall and gaped at me like I was an alien from outer space. Come to think of it, from a Martian’s point of view, I was an alien from outer space. I certainly felt like one.

“Hi,” I said. “Are you okay?”

“Wow. Is that you?”

“Theoretically.”

“You look different.”

I couldn’t help but respond with a tone of dread. “I know.”

He didn’t look thrilled, or not thrilled, just confused. … “You look great,” he said. “I just have to adjust.”

“Don’t bother. I’m not about to do this every day.”

I was somewhat aware that this was not the sort of thing one was supposed to say when one was presenting oneself in a new, supposedly better light.

That there is definitely something that would probably happen to me in real life, with the odd remarks and the odd thoughts floating around. It makes the book quite alive, outlandishly alive. I’d definitely recommend this book, especially to chick lit readers, but even to those who just want a quick enjoyable read.

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Saving the world …of Warcraft

This category has gone entry-less for the longest time as I’ve had difficulty deciding on what to write for a first entry. I’ve never really blogged or talked about the computer games that I play; but I suppose you never really blog about playing Bookworm or Zuma, eh? Well, that’s changed a bit since I’ve been blogging (though I still play those), so I suppose the only way to start off this category is to talk about what I’ve been doing recently on the gaming subject: World of Warcraft.

I’ve always been very interested in RPGs, but also very wary of the way it just sucks me into the game. I don’t know how many hours I’ve spent on Diablo II, Neverwinter Nights, some Final Fantasy games, The Sims, etc etc when I was in college. That said, I’ve only started playing this game late last year, as I was avoiding it. Well, it came to my house (or I went to theirs?) now that I’m renting a place with a couple of friends; one of them plays WOW.

So now I’m hooked.

Eilonwyn the Explorer

Eilonwyn the Explorer

I have a raiding 80 human mage, Eilonwyn, who is my first toon. I raid as arcane with Mad Prophets, a casual raiding guild on the Dath’Remar Oceanic server. Yes, her name comes from Eilonwy in the Chronicles of Prydain story; I just added an “n”. (Also, I have a lowbie human paladin named Tarann, and another lowbie human warlock named Achrenn.) I also have a 70 draenei priest named Bituin, who I plan to go discipline heals during endgame. Heals is scary for me at the moment though, so she’s not seeing a lot of action at the moment.

I’m not entirely sure which player strata I fall under; I play regularly, dedicating time to join raids and making sure my character (or toon, in WOW lingo) has enough to get by and a little extra, but I’m also relatively casual in the sense that I don’t want to raid all the time, or do PvP/achievements/leveling all the time, either. Somewhere in the middle, admittedly slightly more on the hardcore side than the casual side.

I tend to sometimes be quite caught up in the odd things, like the time when I made up my mind to get the Explorer title; everyone seems to prefer getting Champion of the Frozen Wastes but meh, Explorer is so much cooler. (And yay for alliteration!) Or, spending a lot of my time grinding the Timbermaw faction (on my first toon, and not even maximum level yet). Or, fishing for Old Ironjaw and Old Crafty (sad note: I caught Old Crafty, but hit my cast button, and didn’t get to loot Old Crafty. I haven’t had any luck again so far).

I’m also a bit of a UI geek; I like customizing my UI and making it pretty–and functional, of course. The original UI is good, but more organized information where you need it is always good, from a raiding perspective. Plus there are those which is just plain fun. I’ll get a screenshot up sometime.

Naturally, a chunk of my playtime is spent on raiding and dungeons. I like shiny loot and achievements just like anyone else–in fact I enjoy fiddling with Rawr (though far from really good at it) to mix and match what equipment I have and which is the best to use. However, that doesn’t take away from the fact that a big factor with dungeons and raiding is the enjoyment of playing with friends. Having only one 80, it’s still nice to relax and do fun runs, even if I don’t need the loot. I don’t raid lead, but I enjoy organizing fun raids (as long as someone else is doing the directing part!).

If anything, the biggest reason why WoW has stuck with me is the social aspect of the game. It’s fun to play with friends, and meet new friends too; I’ve met a number of guildies from the two guilds I’m in, and know more people in-game who I enjoy running with a lot as well. Oh, there are the jerks and the know-it-alls, but it’s usually better to just ignore them. :D

I was actually surprised to find out that a couple of online friends play WoW as well, as I’d never known them to before. Which makes things all the more fun! So if you play WoW, and you’re ever an ally on Dath’Remar, let me know! :)

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The mundane things

I’d been feeling rather “off” recently–feverish and generally achy all over. Not a very swell thing to be. But, my sisters did come two weeks ago for a weekend’s visit, which was fabulous. We had a rainy Sunday, but we still had a great time. Since they’d been here before, this weekend was really just more of a going-around-and-bonding type thing than a tourist-y thing (same with my parents’ coming over earlier this month).

Biel and the scientist

Biel and the scientist

I’d never been to the Science Centre before, and this seemed like a good time as any to go. We had brunch, then went on it and took two IMAX tickets, for Sea Monsters and Van Gogh. Just our luck — we ended up picking show times at just the times when they’d power up the huge Tesla coil for viewers. When we arrived at the Tesla coil room, Ate commented that she felt like she was playing Red Alert 2 again. Hee hee. I miss that game.

The exhibits were pretty good, though — the most enjoyable ones for me were the optical illusions, and the human body/virus/etc exhibits. We spent a good couple of minutes on the projected game were you use your shadow to direct cells (like macrophages) around and help make this little boy well. That was fun! The IMAX shows were good as well, although I found the Sea Monsters show more enjoyable than Van Gogh; I ended up yawning every two minutes with the latter. Ate got dizzy with Sea Monsters, however.

After that, we went on to Settlers’ Cafe, which I had initially planned for them when the whole family visited Singapore for the first time. I think, at the start, they felt a little shell-shocked with how noisy the gamers were (haha) but we had a good time; I especially loved the last game we played, a strategy card game called Dominion. Makes me want to buy it :D I almost did, but got over since there’s really no one to play with, anyway.

Up Poster

Up Poster

The next day was spent mostly in malls, and commuting in between. We watched the 3D version of Up in Iluma at Bugis; damn animated movies, making me cry. (Ahem.) It was really good though–Dug is my favorite. I wish translating collars are real XD

We had a nice lunch at Empire State (reminds me of NYNY), then went around a couple malls in Orchard Road. Biel found My Girl (the Korean drama) at one of the video shops; Ate was content with just eating and sampling all the food (though we ended up not getting anything remotely asian… go figure). I’ve never watched My Girl, so after a bratwurst dinner, we went home and watched it while Ate packed up some. They ended up asleep all over my bed, which left me no space <_<.

My Girl was quite enjoyable, though, I’m glad they got me to watch. I don’t usually go for asian TV dramas, although I have a soft spot for the Matsumoto/Mao Hana Yori Dango (yes, I am biased, because I love my Hanadan). Gongchan/Yoorin reminded me of Tsukasa/Tsukushi, although they’re quite different. It must be the comedy moments! I don’t know exactly if I find Lee Dong Wook cute or not; he definitely has his angles and his moments but a big chunk of that is probably the role.

All too fleeting, though :( I accompanied them back to the airport on Monday morning. I’ve had the whole family come visit one after another the whole of August XD which has prompted my officemates to ask why not just come all together. Yeah, why not? Tee hee.

It was certainly nice to spend a rather “ordinary” weekend with my sisters, and doing random, non-tourist-y things. I don’t suppose tourists would actually sit and play board games if they go to Singapore? And watch movies. But the mundane things are often the dearest things, the ones that I miss the most.

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