Lightning Does Strike Twice

With the latest Arnold Drinking session 10 days ago, I promised to get the latest rule-set up and running. So, without further notice, here it is:

Drink whenever:

• Arnold is first seen, at the start of the movie (that means: not chronologically).
• The title of the movie is seen or said. In honor of “End of Days“
• Arnold says “HU-ARRRHHEEH”, or variations thereof.
• Arnold has violent (the definition of “violent” is up for discussion) PHYSICAL pain.
• Someone humanoid is killed. Large amounts is drunk continuously. In honor of “Total Recall“.
• Arnold makes breakfast (double, if it’s in a blender).
• There is a reference (has to be accepted amongst the crowd) to another movie (double, if it’s with Arnold). In honor of “Last Action Hero“.
• Arnold meets/sees/whatever himself in any possible way. In honor of “6th Day“.
• Someone (double, if it’s Arnold) says/yells “get down!” or a variation thereof.
• There’s an explosion (minimum-size is up for discussion).
• There’s a car chase.
• Arnold changes weapon (unarmed included). Weapons only counts if used, thus it doesn’t count as “unarmed” if it’s from one weapon to another.
• Arnold changes vehicle (same properties as the rule above).
• A fence or a variation thereof is mentioned/used/plowed down, in any way possible.
• A party is mentioned (double, if it has any connection to Richter).
• You call out a rule, and the crowd disagrees (You lack discipline! You can already drink when you want – don’t make people drink under false premises without getting away with it).

Empty the bottle/glass whenever:

• Arnold yells “GET TO DA CHOPPA!”
• The bad guy dies. Again, in honor of “6th Day“.
• Arnold dies, shuts or melts down, or anything else that renders him “un-functional”, for the rest of the movie.

As a special something, I had prepared a minor warm-up (with rules), since Arnold had been present at the Climate COP15 Meeting in Copenhagen (where I, as you might know, live). Naturally, it was originally in danish, but I took the effort and made a translation. Don’t worry, the links to the videos are fine, nothing is in Danish (however, if you want, you can see the original page in Danish here), so everything should be good.

<<< PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENT FROM THE GOVERNATOR! >>>

In the following video-clip below, use these rules, and refer to the original rules for reference.

DRINK WHENEVER:

• The word “climate” is heard.
• The word “Copenhagen” is heard.
• An applause is heard.
• 2 words, decided by the people, is heard. (I think these ended up being “global” and “green”)

EMPTY THE CLASS/BOTTLE WHENEVER:

• One of the normale rules would have effect (let’s not get into the latter ones…).

“I’M AT COP 15, YOU IDIOT!”

Enjoy – and cheers!

Eventhough I explained the origin of the Gnub-name some time ago (which is now basically 1,5 year ago), it gets to stick, and you occasionally stumble upon versions of the word you hardly knew existed.

The occasion of these that brought me out of my cave, and made me do this post, was from everyones stable source of the savior of strange vocabularies: Urban Dictionary (cheers for the laugh, Julian), which reads:

gnub
Same as nub, but, the G letter is actualy a 1337 typo wich originaly was: fucking nub, but the spacebar was pressed a bit too early and it ended up: fuckin gnub. Since “fuckin” is a legit 1337 way to spell fucking many people mistake gnub for a totaly new word.
So in short – gnub = fucking nub

And yes, I’m stronly considering getting the T-shirt. It’s simply too awesome, and a great case of self-irony, that already should be showing from the domain name.

Besides that, I went and looked up “Nub” on Wikipedia (something I havn’t done yet, strangely enough), and found more funky meanings of the word:

Nub or NUB may refer to:

1. A variation of newbie, noob and nubby.
2. King Nub, character from the Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine video game.
3. ISO 639-2 code for the Nobiin language of Nubia.
4. Northern University, Bangladesh.
5. Nub, third track off of Goat (album) by Jesus Lizard.
6. Nub City, nickname given to Vernon, Florida by film director Errol Morris.

#1 is obvious, as it was meant as the origin, so that one didn’t catch me by surprise.
#2 “Le Roi est mort, vive le Roi!”
#3 While the ISO 639-2 code is always useful, I found it more noticeable that there’s a whole language in “my” name, and seemingly a region of Egypt too. Pure awesome.
#4 Well, it was bound to happen. Some cleverness still lies behind the Nub.
#5 While it’s a piece of music, it’s a fact that a goat resembles a gnu somewhat. Slightly smaller, but never the less similar.
#6 Somewhat in the same category as #3, but still quite nice.

All in all, I’ll still wear my name as my badge, and code of honor.

Time flies, but perhaps it’s more correct to express it as: “it goes faster than I expected” (or “another speed than expected” – case in point: the copenhagen minute). Both good and bad sides to that, but that’s sidetracking the main subject. The thing is, I just realized that I havn’t written anything for the past month – the horror! Thus, it’s time for a totally random thought of the time that is called now.

TV series is one of those things I look forward too every week, with The Big Bang Theory being one of my “newly” found favorites. It can’t really be compared to the all-out awesome Scrubs, but it’s still all-out awesome in its own (slightly geeky) way.

The Big Bang Theory introduced a very nifty version of the classic “Rock, Paper, Scissors” (Season 2, episode 8), which is a game where most should be familiar with the rules. If not, here’s a short recap of the simple rules, which follows three easy-to-remember “c”-rules:

rock > scissors: crush!
scissors > paper: cut!
paper > rock: cover!

Instead of the 3 classic combatants, they introduce 2 new to the battle field: the lizard, and Spock, thus changing the rules to the following (keep in mind, this can’t be kept into neat “c”-rules):

rock > scissors: crush!
rock > lizard: crush!
paper > rock: cover!
paper > Spock: disprove!
scissors > paper: cut!
scissors > lizard: decapitate!
lizard > paper: eat!
lizard > Spock: poison!
Spock > rock: vaporize!
Spock > scissors: smash!

It might sound tricky at first, but it’s actually a really good expansion to a game which has – according to Sheldon – too big a chance to result in a draw. See for yourself (yes, it’s an old episode, I know – but it’s still awesome).

Pretty much since World of Warcraft’s third expansion – Cataclysm – was released, it’s not uncommon to come across a forum post or the like that includes people that has no clue about how a storyline works in a MMO-based game, and what the difference between adding and modifying content is. What makes people so confused, is the fact that the content of the first 60 levels (of the current 80 total) is going to be redone, as the world is torn apart, as Deathwing enters the show, once agan. During this post, I’ll attempt to explain what my view on all of it, which should be correct as well.

When did the Cataclysm happen?
The common misunderstanding is that new content is always happening after previous content. While this is indeed true for highlevel content, it’s certainly not true for all of it. We can use a good example from each of the existing expansions to support the claims I’m going to be doing.

Burning Crusade: Races was added, taking lore with them to explain how they joined their respective factions before or during the starting areas. As the levels progress, Emissaries are often spotted throughout the capitals, to represent that they had indeed “just” joined, and was seeking to aid their factions, in what way they can.

Wrath of the Lich King: Death Knights, the new class, was added – champions dying at the plaguelands, meant to be raised as The Lich King’s new order of Death Knights – and joins the respective factions at the time when the Dark Portal opens, and steps into Outlands. As the Draenei and Blood Elves were part of the factions, they could naturally die at that point in the timeline alongside the other races, and be raised. They could not be fallen of the Third War (Warcraft III), as Draenei wasn’t in Azeroth at that point, and Blood Elves weren’t aligned with the Horde yet.

Now, as said, the main point is to figure out when the actual Cataclysm takes place. Since it affects the world that the first part of the content happens, people will experience it already at level 1 (the two new races even seem to have a small time of their quests before, prior to “normal” WoW timeline). They can choose to be Death Knights as well, which meant some of them died and was raised before Arthas was defeated in Icecrown, and since they had already waded through the cataclysmed world, it must’ve happened before the whole of WoW’s storyline.

To back it up, the first few sentences of the Cataclysm Trailer, is as follows:

As the terrible war against the Lich King continues, the proud defenders of Azeroth fight to secure a lasting peace. But there can be no peace, when the world itself is devoured by rage.

First of all, the war against the Lich King has lasted pretty much since Warcraft III. Second of all, it’s not stated if the cataclysmic event actually happens at the time where we – the heroes – fight the Lich King. He’s merely the biggest immediate threat after the Legion had been pushed back in Outlands, and removed from there.

With the time aspect covered, the obvious question pops up fast: “But what about Deathwing?”. You see, Deathwing is smart. He didn’t strike at once, as he would otherwise had to deal with the Legion and the Lich King – so he plots his plans, while we do the dirty work. On the way, we have however already crushed some of his plans: The Twilight Dragonflight (a subject I’ve discussed not one or two, but three times), seen over 3 notable places. First, there’s the Netherwing-area of Shadowmoon Valley. Next, the events of Night of the Dragon. Third, the death of Sartharion in the Obsidian Sanctum. With these events spanning over the Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King, while Deathwing was “hiding” below Grim Batol… further supporting that the Cataclysm must’ve happened before the final parts of the battle against the Lich King.

While all of the above is pure speculation, I’m wondering how it could be any other way, and still be presented in a believable matter. I’m surely looking forward to every small tidbit of information about it all at least.

It’s been a while since I’ve posted about the updates of any of my Elemental Shaman-project for World of Warcraft; the PHP-based damage calculator Thunderstruck (heck, even posting anything WoW related, in fact). While I’ve been in Mexico, I had some time to get some ideas written down, some pseudo-code written both in the real thing, and with pen and paper.

So far, I can tell this much: I’m continuing to re-doing it, which on the bad side is making it take ages until even a viewable result will come out, but will make it work a lot better when coming to figuring out priority-casts, how the overall damage done is affected by triggering Heroism/Bloodlust, as well as skills like Elemental Mastery, and how they’ll work out will set-bonuses like the upcoming Tier 10 one that removes a second off the cooldown every time a Lightning Bolt is cast.

Besides that, the major reason for pretty much starting over the last time, was because I wanted stat-weighting values, because honestly – who cares how high your current potential DPS is, if you can’t figure out what to go for to improve it even further?

Anyway, this is basically just meant for a post to ensure that while it might seem like I work incredibly slow, it’s just not on top of my priority list. That doesn’t mean I have abandoned it, or even considering it – it’s too exciting to work with, and will hopefully be useful for more people than myself, when it’s eventually done.

The trip is soon coming to an end, with today being the last “real” day in Oaxaca. Yesterday was indeed quite eventful, and I still feel somehow the same as after the previous entry (read: utterly annihilated). Thus, I’ll describe yesterday in that style.

Monday – October 12th (Today we’ve seen…):

• A very, very, very, very… very… VERY big and old tree (Árbol del Tule)
• A weaving-factory (old classic Mexican style)
• The Petrified Waterfalls (Hierve el Agua)
• The City of Mitla
• A Mezcal-factory (“El Famosa”)
• A part of the Spanish internet (ordered tickets “home” to Guadalajara)
• The ceiling of the Hostel
• Our pillows
• The Sun burning us with 30+ degrees of Celsius for every point except the previous 3.

Today was meant to be a trip of around the same length as Monday (8 hours!), but something went wrong. Long story short(er): We were picked up by the wrong Tour-company, and thus only got to see Monte Albán – which we were actually quite happy about in the end, even though it waas quite a confusing series of events. We didn’t realize that it was another company until we got back to Oaxaca, since the company we though we were going with also had a small tour with only that destination. Add the quite apparent lack of information, and… yeah… So much for attempting a short version of the story.

Tomorrows trip back to Guadalajara is going to (or well, will most likely be) alot more relaxed and short, as it’s a direct flight to Guadalajara. For now I’ll do my very best to drink away my roasted red skin, with the help of cold drinks…

Additional rant-note (22:30):
I hate beggars and people that insists on selling you unnecessary crap – while you sit at an outdoor restaurant. It gets annoying and frustrating when you have to say “No Gracias!” once per minute (and that’s not even exaggerating). Worst is the children that often almost lie themselves on the table and the old people that underlines the “insist”. Getting back to Denmark will be great, in regards to that – but probably only that…

First things first: Oaxaca is great! Quite small city (or at least the center of town seems very compact), and quite different atmosphere than the much much larger Guadalajara, as it’s very obvious that Oaxaca has more tourists. It’s hard to point out the differences completely in point-form, but it’s definitely there. Anyway, the trip here (Saturday and Sunday) deserves a story, as it was quite an experience…

Saturday and Sunday – October 10th and 11th (Silly French!):
Just before getting on the airplane from Guadalajara, we stumbled into two French, of which one Charlotte knew from some weeks back. We found out we were heading on the same plane, and had the same final destination… and thus the epic journey started. Upon arriving in Veracruz, we got a bus-ticket at around 22 (7 hours drive to Oaxaca), which meant quite a few hours to spend in Veracruz.

Around 5 hours, dinner at the beach, lots of walking, and stocking up for a party at around 5 in the night (the time of arrival in Oaxaca) later, we got on the bus. Semi-comfortable trip, that left me with a slightly hurting neck (stupid “comfortable” chairs) and a convinced feeling that “Mean Machine” is indeed a better “popular sports-star gets busted for heavy drunk-driving, thrown into jail, where he forms a team of the inmates (including the “cool prisoners”, and the “chained insane beast”) to beat the guards’ team”-movie than “The Longest Yard”. And no, it has nothing to do with the fact that it was a Spanish-synced version I saw.

Anyway, we arrived at Oaxaca around 5, and joined the French and their friends for a few hours until we decided it was time to crash a hostel for some sleep (from 7 to 13 approximately). Needless to say, we didn’t get much done during that day, except drifting around a bit in the city, looking for things to do Monday/Tuesday, got a bit to eat… and semi-stoned a bit more, until joining the French again during the evening. To sum up the evening up fast: the French are (some of them at least) silly, insane and and a nice bunch.

Interlude:
I wrote earlier that I couldn’t quite put my finger on any exact differences between Guadalajara and Oaxaca. I found one – but it might be because of the close proximity to the center of the city: People are honking their car-horns like horny young rabbits on speed during mating-season. Combine that with the fact that houses are NOT isolated from sound here, and my frustration should be logical [insert large amounts of creative swearwords, colorful curses and not-for-the-weak terms of disgust here].

As a closing statement for Sunday, I would like to add that the addition of “You’re hot/sexy” at the end of every sentences (when speaking to a female or male, respectfully), is very splendid for the “King’s Cup” every drinking game.

As “promised”, yet another retro-active post. This one is slightly more than the part 0-ones, as I have no idea if this will be online a few days late (internet should be possible to find in Oaxaca), or in a week (15/10 note: 5 days late, as there was indeed internet in Oaxaca, but I didn’t really have enough time to write in all the stuff).

Never the less, we’re currently on our way to Oaxaca, and in this moment sitting in the national part of Guadalajara Airport, set to board a plane to Veracruz… where we’ll (either tomorrow or later) take a 6 hour bus-drive that’ll bring us to Oaxaca (the city, that is). Should be exciting and very beautiful. Which leads me to what happened yesterday…

Friday, October 9th (Language Barrier!):
A busted camera, at the worst possible time (as the trip to Oaxaca lies virtually just ahead), and in the worst possible way (almost), as I got an unintended push, and – possibly out of surprise – dropped the camera. At first, it didn’t look like anything had happened. The “shell” hadn’t even gotten a single scratch, but the lens was “bend” (the camera was turned on when dropped). Good thing it is insured, but I’ll get to that when I get back home.

Besides that, the evening was really good. We met up with alot of the other exchange students (or well, more appropriate to call them our friends) in order to have dinner and see “Inglorious Basterds”… To say the least, going to a sushi-restaurant in Spanish is mildly confusing on many different levels. First of all, the mix of Spanish and Japanese names is confusing. Next, it’s food, which makes it even harder. Thankfully, we found an English menu-description, which made it a lot easier. Even better was the drinks (nom nom Appletini)!

Had I remembered how much of the movie that wasn’t in English, along with the fact that it was now naturally subtitled in Spanish… I probably wouldn’t have gone to see it. Add the comfortable chair, cold beer and the fact that I had seen it before, made me slip into sleep quite a few times, despite gunshots, explosions and other such loud sounds. As confusing and all as the day may sound, it was good.

First things first: While it may be a given, I’ve come to loathe mosquitoes even more these last days. It would seem that in the night between Tuesday and Wednesday, a few of them had quite a feast, as I was bombarded with bites … mostly on my feet. That’s rather weird as I really can’t imagine what would be so extremely tasty about them (then again, insects in general have rather strange taste in things). Nevertheless, the end result of that after trotting around for a whole day with mosquito-bites all over my feet, I was quite convinced that there should be NO mosquitoes alive in our room that evening – to great fun at my expense for Charlotte, who couldn’t quite take my killer-face seriously. Can’t really blame her, it’s hard to be serious about stalking around a small room looking for mosquitoes to kill.

… but even with my great hunting-skills, one got away, and I have an idea why (sorry in advance non-wow-players, but don’t worry, the point is easy to get by reading the descriptions): the mosquito in question was a rogue (sneaky thief-class). I had quite a few good attempts at killing the blasted insect, but either it evaded my hits, or vanished in thin air. Revenge is sweet though, as I got my revenge his morning, and got the bastard the first time I spotted it. Seems like it wasn’t Vanish, but rather Shadowmeld.

Anyway, nothing really exciting has been going on down here the last few days, as my better half has been extremely busy with study-related stuffs during daytime, which caused me to stay at “home” monday – thursday (except wednesday, as my mosquito-bite-covered feet clearly remembers) during the day. We still got to experience stuff during the evening however!

Cinépolis VIP (Monday – October 5th):
Seemingly a popular trend down here (and understandably so), it’s basically the way to watch movies. First of all, you sit in a nice armchair (adjustable, with leg-support), and there are waiters who can take orders of beer, small meals, hot beverages and likewise stuff. Also, the armchairs are in pairs of two, so you could turn them into a nice sofa, and sit in that with your partner. Also a nice bonus. So, all in all, it was a very enjoyable way of seeing Surrogates. So, if you’re ever down here, try it out.

Lucha Libre (Tueday – October 6th):
Being a fan (read, I love seeing it whenever I get the chance) of WWE and WCW, I found this a must to see. It would seem that every tuesday, there’s a few hours of mexican wrestling in downtown Guadalajara. To put it bluntly, it was far from as professional as WWE, but that was somehow to be expected as well. Never the less, it ended up quite decently towards the end when the big names (seemingly, I have no idea who and what they were – probably mostly because of the spanish language-barrier), as they could indeed do some funky tricks. Some got disqualified and a few got carried out after some pretty serious stunts (not as violent as a proper faceslide though). The most notable thing however, was the whole crowd-atmosphere that was going on. People were yelling all kinds of really harsh things to each other at random – and I won’t go into what exactly they said, first of all because of the mentioned language-barrier, but also because most of the stuff was something that would result in getting into serious trouble if you yelled it in a pub, or the like. Beer was a once again a given, naturally. Visit Arena Coliseo (where it probably is every time).

The last week of my time in Mexico will most likely be much more interesting however, and grant opportunities to take pictures (cameras wasn’t allowed tuesday), as we’re going to Oaxaca saturday to wednesday, to see ruins, mountains, and all kinds of stuff which isn’t behind walls, in the middle of a city, or such. Safe to say, I’m really looking forward to it! I’ll however probably do a post before taking off, as there should still be some stuff happening friday worth telling about. I hope.

Finally time for the first real post, as I’ve currently been in Guadalajara for 4 days. I thought it would be better to do “slightly bigger” posts, instead of the strange combinations of random stuff, found in the 3 parts of part 0. And yes, this post will naturally be posted in local time, as promised (to myself…). Naturally, the immediate impressions of Mexico was slightly overshadowed by the fact that I got to see Charlotte (my girlfriend, for those who havn’t figured it out yet) again after a bit over 2 months – and the more obvious facts that I had arrived at around 10PM local time, which meant it was dark outside and I was rather tired from being awake – and traveling – for 23 hours.

Friday – October 2nd:
Quite a bit of impressions to make up for a loss in one evening at least, as I was thrown head-first into social relations the next day, when we (with “we” meaning Charlotte and I) went to the University, as she had to attend to a lecture. And already here, a notable difference between Denmark and Mexico was shown: you had to attend every single lecture. Back home, it’s your own responsibility. As it didn’t seem too appealing to me to join in on the lecture, I was asked (or well, told, but I didn’t have any objections) to join a few of the other international students, in a perilous adventure by car through Guadalajara, to buy fútbol (soccer)-tickets for later. Quite an amusing trip as I had only spoken to the two I was going with for around 30 minutes, before being detached from Charlotte…

And what a game it was! Two local teams from Guadalajara at a semi-big stadium (probably room for 30,000 people). Even though the game seemed to be pretty one-sided at first, as one of the teams scored within the first 5 minutes, the opponents got it turned around and won 2-1. Really exciting. On top of that, add Sol (yeah, the beer), nachos, the lovely company of others and a hilarious half-time show (with hilarious slapstick-alike comedy of people tripping painfully in every possible way imaginable, being tackled by one of the teams mascot, etc.). Oh, and then there was the weather. Dark clouds were slowly spreading over the stadium during the start of the match. Thankfully, there was no rain, as the storm didn’t get close, but it gave some really beautiful background lightning strikes. Needless to say, I was rather happy. Even though the rest of the evening continued with more beer, more socializing and drinks, I wasn’t exactly off the jetlag yet, so the evening didn’t go on for that much longer.

Saturday – October 3rd:
The saturday didn’t really include many interesting things to tell, as most of it was spend trying to get Charlotte a new phone, get it registered, and getting money on the account. In Denmark, that would seem like a trivial task, but not down here. The language barrier didn’t cause much of the trouble – mostly because Charlotte’s spanish has gotten really nice while down here – but more the silly amount of the Mexicans needing to register every – single – thing, in all ways possible. The phone had to be bound to a person (including the passport number – what the hell?), even if it wasn’t an actual subscription. In the end, we succeeded and there was much rejoicing.

In the evening, we met up with quite a bit of the other international students, and had a nice dinnerparty with plenty of food, beer and general good times. Words of Pastafarianism were given, and pasta was eaten.

Sunday – October 4th:
Sunday turned out to be the cultural forefront of these first few days. We decided to go on a minor bus-trip to downtown Guadalajara, and take a tour-bus from there to Tlaquepaque, and see the stores and the general area. The ordinary bus-system is quite different from the “organized” system in Denmark. Besides being hilariously cheap (a ticket costing 30% of the smallest ticket possible in Denmark, can take you everywhere in Guadalajara, pretty much), there’s a quite different view on getting on and off. You can basically just wave wave at the bus, and it’ll stop. In the same way, when you press “stop” in the bus, it’ll most likely stop as fast as it can, instead of waiting till the next real stop. Rather nice instead, gives more freedom, and removes everything I hate about busses in Denmark (where missing the stop you intended to stop at, mostly means walking for quite a while). Basically, the advantages of caps mixed into the ordinary buses. On a related note, caps are cheap as well!

But, before we allowed ourselves to board the tour-bus that would take us to Tlaquepaque, I had to get some new shoes, as my old ones were in a rather sad shape (read: utterly devastated). A pair of funky Converse-shoes later, everything was suddenly right. The trip there was quite exciting in cultural way, as we got to see the various different parts of the city, and different important buildings. Tlaquepaque proved to be a galore of different shops with souvenirs and interesting things you’d want to have, but not as “touristy” as it may sound. In the end, I got a really nice sombrero (which I’m still wondering how I’m going to get home) and got to eat lunch while seeing/hearing a Mariachi-band with dancers and the whole thing.

… And I think I’ll leave it as that for now. Lots of exciting stuff coming up the next few days, so expect a new post soon – which is hopefully slightly shorter too, as it took me close to two hours writing this.