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'My Corduroyed Life' - Mark A's Journal
I do love irony...
I drove to Halfords to buy a Satnav on Saturday. I got lost on the way there... twice.
Hehe!
Have fun,
M x
Current mood:
amused.Current music: Take Me To The Hospital by The Prodigy.
Apparently the number of worldwide WoW subscribers has just exceeded 11.5 million.
This means that we are roughly 0.17% of the whole world population. Or, indeed, 1 in 580 people in the whole world play WoW.
It also means that we have more players than there are people in Greece, Cuba, Belgium, Portugal, Czech Republic, Austria, Switzerland, Jordan, Norway, Ireland, Jamaica, Samoa and Israel. In fact, there are more players of WoW than the population of 149 countries. If we formed our own country, we’d be the 72nd largest population in the world (only 50 places lower than the UK!).
Seriously though, when you think of the implications of this unprecedented, concrete number of people playing World of Warcraft, it brings into question the traditional stereotypical image of freakish, emotionally stunted, socially inept, subversive loners being roleplayers/ gamers/ internet aficionados. When you think that there are more WoW players than there are Greek people, and then think that it’d be a horrible and racist thing for someone to accuse all Greeks of being freakish subversives, then perhaps WoW players should no longer be seen as freaks and loners any more than all Greek people should be. Just a thought…
Have fun,
M x
Current mood:
contemplative.Current music: Set Me Free by N-Trance.
This one is the real one - the other one was the more generic, restrained version for work colleagues...
Dear everyone I care about
Seasons’ Greetings!
As I have done for the last few years, I’m not doing paper greeting cards for a couple of significant reasons (beyond the fact that I’m a bit lazy!). Without wishing to sound too right on or a bit of a recycling nutcase, it is better for the environment to send an electronic card rather than chopping down trees to say what can be said here. Beyond this, as always, the money I save by not paying for paper cards is given to a charity. This year, I have decided to buy a goat from the Oxfam Unwrapped website. So you may not have a pointless card from me that you’ll throw away in January, but you do have part ownership of a goat! That’s pretty damned cool, eh?
Go tell your friends that you own about 0.5% of a goat! Hooray for you!
Another thing that using this medium allows me is the opportunity to write a lot more than I’d ever be able to write on a card. Also, new for this year is a lovely theme tune: check out the Death Metal version of Silent Night on my myspace profile.
Now that I am 30, I look back at my life and see that I probably could have done more with it and that I probably could have tried harder to achieve important things. But that simply isn’t me, and as you know me, I’m sure you know that. One thing that I have achieved that I am extremely proud of is a network of truly amazing, fantastic friends. That’s you. I am humbled that I can consider so many decent, wonderful, and diverse people my friends. Thank you for being one of those people that make my life amazing.
I’m very cynical about people who feel they have to buy huge presents to prove they care for someone, and I value friendship much more than trinkets. Thank you for giving me something I really value that money can’t buy.
So all that is left for me to say is that I genuinely hope you have a relaxing and enjoyable seasonal break, and a prosperous and happy New Year.
Big love,
Mark x
Current mood:
good.Current music: Death Metal Jingle Bells - Yay!.
Seasons’ Greetings!
As I have done for the last few years, I’m not doing paper greeting cards for a couple of significant reasons (beyond the fact that I’m a bit lazy!). Without wishing to sound too right on or a bit of a recycling nutcase, it is better for the environment to send an electronic card rather than chopping down trees to say what can be said here. Beyond this, as always, the money I save by not paying for paper cards is given to a charity. This year, I have decided to buy a goat from the Oxfam Unwrapped website. So you may not have a card from me, but you do have part ownership of a goat! That’s much cooler, right?
So all that is left for me to say is that I hope that you have a relaxing and enjoyable seasonal break, and a prosperous and happy New Year in 2009.
Mark x
Current mood:
good.Current music: Something appropriately seasonal!.
Okay, here’s a challenge…
I challenge anyone to find anything on the whole of the tinterweb that is cuter than this:
http://www.funtim.com/dgb.html
Awwwwwwww!
Have fun,
M x
Current mood:
pleased.Current music: Slam by Pendulum.
This year, like last year, I am doing two electronic greetings cards on my blog. The simple reason is that I need one that is vaguely formal, and one that is more intimate for my friends.
The vaguely formal one will be up later this week, and the more intimate one will be up the week after.
M x
Current mood:
okay.Current music: Doctor Online by Zeromancer.
I am possibly the most mature person in the world…
Whilst browsing desperately for Christmas presents online, I came across this:
http://www.gonedigging.co.uk/products/UnusualGifts/UGProduct.aspx?pId=359&?source=reactnov08
Do you think I can buy this and then name a star Cunt?
Have fun,
M x
Current mood:
amused.Current music: Game Over by Hadouken.
[sigh]...
I went down to our archives yesterday, and I was greeted with 'fuck you faggerts' written on the door.
If you're going to insult us, do you have to add injury to insult by misspelling the derogatory term you use to describe us?
Glad to see that these people seem to almost deliberately wish to further reinforce the theory that those who are prejudiced do so out of ignorance and stupidity...
Current mood:
annoyed.
I am lost for words!
To say I'm pleasantly surprised is an understatement! Perhaps I need to stop being so jaded and cynical and dismissive of people: I never believed in a month of Sundays that the American people would vote in a black president. This is something pretty damned fantastic!
:)
M x
Current mood:
pleased.
Did anyone ever doubt?
As I’m sure you know, I play World of Warcraft. WoW is split into realms as there are far far too many players for everyone to be living in the same game world. In fact, there are over 350 realms in Europe alone. On each server, only one player can claim each character name: as such every character name in each realm is unique in that realm. However, people on other realms can have the same name as you. The WoW website has a facility called The Armory to allow players to look up statistics and information on their own and other players’ characters in the game.
My character is called Glittergem because I am both silly and camp. I looked her up on The Armory, and I discovered that I am the only player in Europe that has that character name!
http://eu.wowarmory.com/search.xml?searchQuery=glittergem&searchType=all
I wondered if this was a rare occurrence, so I had a play, typing in various names into the search and didn’t find a single other instance where there was only one person with the character name! I am unique! Huzzah!
I did however discover the following:
There are over 100 people with the remarkably dull and predictable name of ‘Spartan’.
http://eu.wowarmory.com/search.xml?searchQuery=spartan&searchType=all
There are 17 loons who are silly enough to call their character ‘Ieatbabies’ and one of them is in my guild!
http://eu.wowarmory.com/search.xml?searchQuery=Ieatbabies&searchType=all
Over 100 chocaholic people are addicted enough to call their character ‘Chocolate’.
http://eu.wowarmory.com/search.xml?searchQuery=Chocolate&searchType=all
To my great surprise, only 7 people picked the uber-cheesy (in a bad way) name of ‘Legolas’!
http://eu.wowarmory.com/search.xml?searchQuery=legolas&searchType=all
And finally, 68 people are delightfully childish enough to want a character called ‘Bum’.*
http://eu.wowarmory.com/search.xml?searchQuery=bum&searchType=all
Have fun,
M x
* Edit: I am childish enough to want this too - I may create a character called Bum tonight. And then it'll be 69 people! Hehe: 69!
Current mood:
pleased.Current music: Shadows by Vixtrola.