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Decisions Decided April 27, 2008

Posted by Sharny in : Life, School, Thoughts , add a comment

That big ol’ decision has now been made.

After speaking with the band it was made quite simple. They are serious about Opium Toad and want to try and get somewhere with it and after presenting my predicament they pretty adamantly told me to stick around, in as many words.

That was it really. Nottingham it is.

More than that, I have now gone through the accepting and declining of offers process, there is no going back now, no way to change my mind. If the band collapses tomorrow I will still have to live with the decision. If they decide they are better off without me during the five or sixth months I’m going to be away then Nottingham will still be where I’m going.

For better or for worse, so long as I get my grades, I won’t be leaving Nottingham (save for sixth months in the US of course).

That’s that then.

Over a year or What this blog is really for April 23, 2008

Posted by Sharny in : Blogs, Internets, Life, Thoughts , add a comment

I hadn’t realized that I started blogging that long ago and of course I’m very glad to say that no one is reading this blog still.  I never set out with the intentions of becoming some big blogger, not at all, I don’t really know why I started other than perhaps because I’ve always loved writing and at the time I had no outlet for all the thoughts and opinions buzzing around in my head.

More recently I’ve come to realize that actually the point in this blog is quite simple.

It documents my life in these nuggets of text but unlike an actual diary it’s on the internet so it’s at least possible for people to read it.  Because of that fact, I have to organize what I write into something internet friendly but perhaps more importantly I can’t write anything really stupid that I would never want to read again.  That’s the massive risk with me and diaries, massive exaggeration of feelings and events so as to make myself look unbelievably stupid if anyone (or even myself) where to read them.

So yes, in twenty years I can look back at the posts in this blog and remember the chunks of my life I am experiencing now, the things I might forget such as the fun of my first gigs with opium toad or my feelings approaching my A level exams.

That’s what’s important to me about this, the fact that it’s on the internet just means I can use it to maybe get things indexed on google…

Guild based mayhem April 4, 2008

Posted by Sharny in : Entertainment, Thoughts, World of Warcraft , add a comment

A couple of days ago I logged into WoW only to notice after about 30mins that I was completely lacking a guild.  More than that, my realm (EU-Ghostlands) was completely lacking my guild.  That evening a discovered from a friend (who was friends with my guild leader when he played WoW) that the guild leader had disbanded the guild and transfered realms.

This left me in something of an interesting position, I had been considering leaving the guild in search of a more progression based one for a while due to little hope in even seeing Kara again as our raiders seemed to be leaving just as we had enough for a trip.  Now I could try and join any guild I wanted to, I have reasonable gear, mostly purples and blues with 3 greens that I haven’t managed to replace yet, nothing special but good enough for a kara guild.  So I quickly made my mind up to apply to a guild that I found that were currently kara on farm and ZA 2/6 with a view to start 25 mans.  Currently my application is being looked at and I’ve been told I will be contacted in game although no communication has arrived yet.

The real problem emerged when I logged on to see if I would be communicated with and saw, to my horror, my guild leader + 2 other high level members sitting in Darnassus with our guild tag under their names.  When they saw me I immediately got a guild invite with the leader whispering to say that after a small breakdown she was trying to get the old members back together.  I was left really not knowing what to say just looking at the guild invite.  I ended up sending back a bit of an uncomfortable message saying I had applied for another guild and that I didn’t know whether they were going to accept me or not, with a confused smiley.  She replied with an “Oh…” (or along those lines) and then logged off so I don’t really know what to think.

Now if I can get into this new guild then that would be great, it would give me a good shot at progression and a chance to do the thing I’ve wanted to do right from the start of playing but there is a decent chance they won’t accept me, they’ve had applications from better people and they don’t need more holy paladins. I’m hoping that my application form filling in skills haven’t failed me (in a previous MMO I was an applications officer in my guild so I should know how to write an app myself) and that I will get on based on a sort of “gear can be gotten easily, personality and skill are harder to find” sort of a basis.

I’m really not the guild hopping sort (aforementioned previous MMO I stuck with the same guild from as soon as I got into the guild scene to when I retired and am still a retired member when I last checked) so I can’t really be sure if I’d ever be up to actually doing the deed and leaving my old guild.  As with before I was with them from level 15 or so right up to 70 and into kara (albeit only for 2 runs).  Because of this I really saw the disappearance of my guild and its leaders as a blessing because it was really a chance for me to get out and experience more of the game, something I promised myself I would do.

It could definitely be argued that the previous MMO really got boring at the end because the game sucked and the guild just weren’t progressing (it was a PvP based system there but we were essentially a mediocre guild for the entire time and probably still to this day) and I don’t want that to happen again in WoW because there is so much more to do at endgame.

Given that I listen to WoW podcasts and read WoW blogs all talking about endgame I don’t really think it’s unfair that I want to experience that for myself even if it means leaving my beloved old mostly-social guild behind. I hope I’m making the right decision.

The Cause of Global Warming is Irrelevant October 22, 2007

Posted by Sharny in : Environment, Essay, Rants, Thoughts , 2 comments

Ok. I’ll admit it. I am a bit of an environmentalist. I am concerned about the future of this planet. I am worried about the amount of fossil fuels we use and the wasteful attitudes of our society.

But if there is one thing I am really sick of, it’s this on going fight between lazy assed people and hippies about what the cause of global warming is. I’m here to tell you right now. IT DOESN’T FUCKING MATTER.

Of course, to start with, no one knows what is the cause of this increase in global temperature that we are having. The systems of this planet are very complex and we have difficulty really knowing what the fuck is going on with them. Ultimately it doesn’t matter what side of the line you stand, you still don’t know. I personally think it is a bit too convenient a coincidence that as we start releasing a load of locked up carbon and destroying the things that get rid of it the world starts getting hotter. But at the same time, I perfectly understand that this is by no means proof and really I don’t want to discuss the whole are we/aren’t we causing global warming.

If we are the cause of global warming then our burning of fossil fuels probably comes top of the reasons for this. All we really use this stuff for is fuel: to make our electricity; to run our cars and to cook our meals. Perhaps one of the biggest worries for some of us westerners is the ever increasing price of oil and how much of an effect this can have on our lives.

Now, no matter how you look at it, this is a simple issue of supply and demand. As more nations industrialise and populations increase demand (as it currently stands) can really do nothing but go up. On the other hand, supply is constantly going down. There is most definitely a finite amount of fossil fuels. This means that the price of this fuels will rise over the long term.

On an individual basis

Most of the things the average person can do to reduce what is currently becoming known as your “carbon footprint” involve saving energy in many different ways. A lot of these things are very easy and can be done without some massive overhaul. Ok, lets see less energy used = less money spent. As the money required for energy goes up this is going to be more noticeable in terms of the chunk coming out of your pocket.

Lets recap: Easy ways to save energy -> less energy used -> more money to spend on other things.

Now, I don’t even see how global warming needs to come anywhere near this. It’s just common sense. Yet for some reason lots of people object to the mere suggestion of this. I know you’re stubborn and demand for everything to be your way but this really has no downside. Well, it might cut 1 minute out of your day that you could be spending reading motivational lists on self improvement blogs. Damn, wouldn’t that be a shame.

On a national level

Ok, so I’ve covered why the causes of global warming are irrelevant and in fact why global warming needn’t even play a part in this stuff. Now its time for coverage of this irrelevance at a national level. Again, we mostly rely on fossil fuels and they will run out, some of them potentially within my lifetime. This leaves at the point - what are we going to do when the fuel all runs out? Renewable energy of course. Now, given that potentially we are the cause of global warming, wouldn’t it make sense to get on with the whole renewable energy plan before we actually run out?

So the idea is simple. America - end the war in Iraq, it is costing you millions upon millions every single day. Not only is it a waste of young life out there in the army but that money could be used to treat the sick, to get scholarships into college, to end hunger and make the world a more stable place. So, with all that money you save you can start researching ways to produce energy without the need of any fossil fuels.

Many solutions already exist. It is already very theoretically possible to power the whole of the UK on a series of wind compressing turbines out in the sea. Good because compressed air is easy to transport, easy to store and also good because some pompous middle class woman in a country village somewhere can’t complain about those “ugly” wind turbines ruining her view. Relatively inexpensive changes by the government could pay themselves off very quickly in terms of energy saving.

A further bonus for governments of acting on this crisis is that it would greatly lessen the hold that some countries influence on the west due to their sources of fossil fuels. Really, it’s our reliance on these things that makes us weak in our opinion. It would really take very little to bring the west to its knees, just take away it’s energy. You’re worried about looking weak to terrorists? Well guess what, you already look weak because you rely so heavily on something that’s running out.

Conclusion

If you want to keep up this pointless argument just because your ego makes it that important then you can. But ultimately, stop using your lack of “belief” in global warming as an excuse for your laziness. Get off your ass and make some changes, you are effectively throwing away money. Get off your ass and put pressure on your government to make changes to the sources of its energy in order to have indefinite energy and greater security due to not needing foreign oil. No, this is not someone else’s job. This is for you to do and I am sick of everyone pretending that it’s not.

Edit: Just stumbled on an interesting post that has done some of the maths along the lines of what I outlined (spending the money the US spent on Iraq on solving energy problems). Link: How Far could 68B go in securing our energy independence? Over here in the UK I think there is much more promise in wind energy rather than solar but for a country like the US (certainly large parts of it) there’s a lot to be said for solar power.

To be fair… September 21, 2007

Posted by Sharny in : Life, Rants, Thoughts, World , add a comment

After seeing a little snippet of a program on TV I figured I should add a little more balance to my arguments relating to the whole Madeline issue. Really, I don’t think that the parents were directly responsible for what happened (although I still think it was irresponsible to leave her on her own even when they were close by) and most importantly the Portuguese police seem to have been pretty useless at responding to what happened.

Both the crime scene and the car that was also part of the investigation were not taken out of the influence of outside variables. In fact, without even doing a proper forensic analysis of the room she was taken from other people were staying in it. That’s pretty damn shocking really and as this TV program pointed out, making the mother a suspect takes the focus off their very shoddy policing and generally distracts people, a technique that is quite powerful and is in full flow with this “war on terror”.

As I said in my previous posts, my real objection to this situation is the injustice in the amount of attention that is paid to these people when much worse atrocities than one girl going missing happen all the time. Similarily I’m sick of seeing all these posters around the place begging people to report information or witnessing of this girl when realistically, no one is going to have any information, it didn’t even happen in this country for reason’s sake.

Unless something major happens, this will be my last post on this subject. The whole thing has just gone on too long and it’s a pretty narrow piece of subject matter.