Useless fact of the day:

The naval rank of "Admiral" is derived from the Arabic phrase "amir al bahr," which means "lord of the sea".

Aha, so what relevance does this fact have to do with todays Blab? Why, none whatsoever ofcourse. That's why it's a useless fact. :)

Yes yes, I know I know... It's been waaaaay too long... Again... Not only with the Blabs, but also the main site news, and all my boily stuff. I can always throw in a few more excuses into the already growing pile. One of them being an unusual TA activety lately. Yes, I've been playing quite a bit again, and enjoying almost every second of it. I don't know if the updates and Blabs will ever increase, or decrease further (from what it was in the start), in frequency. We have no plan of any of this, but we don't have any plans of stopping, rather the opposite.

So, a general brush up, of what's currently happening in the TA world. I for one am enjoying TA these days. I am mainly playing with friends, so there are no mindless clashes there, no lamerness. The lag and disconnects are also relatively few, so I can actually stand playing for quite a while before running into any kind of stress element. Also, I now have the option of playing on a much faster computer, so TA is far more enjoyable now, and there's a few advantages with that. Among other, the fact that I can play in a higher resolution, and even there, the scrolling, building and mouse movement is faster and smoother.

The CBL4 is currently underway as well as I write this. Gnug615 is one of the arrangers, and so far, it seems it's been running along nicely. As late as last night, the Gnugs were basically faced with a choice, coming from someone on Zone. Either, the Gnugs are too good (whatever they meant by that) to be in the CBL4, or we were too sucky. As in, gone all rusty, and feared losing, or just facing some of the strong clans that participate in the CBL4. Choises choises... It can be hard to be a Gnug sometimes, and particularly when faced with choices like this one. Stuck between a rock and a hard place. I for one am getting awfully sick of all the presumptions and assumptions about the Gnugs, that occur a lot of the time. Can't we all just Gnug along?

The Gnugs aren't in this time, for many a reason. One of them is a general lack of interest from most of us, including myself. I won't go and explain for all the others, as they're are fully capable of that themselves, and are individual beings, that most likely don't have the same reasons as I have. I, for one, don't do scheduled matches very well. I might be a co-owner at the café, but customers take presedence, and I can't really come running and kicking some poor, paying, Everquest player off his computer, so I can play some silly scheduled match. Not that I would mind, hehe, I just think that my other co-owners wouldn't be to pleased. :)

Also, I don't really like the competitiveness that sometimes arises. People all of a sudden have something for REAL to gain, if they don't accept lag in a game, just to name one aspect that pops up periodically in tournaments. The need to add a certain ammount of rules is also a bit of an "endangerment" to the fun. The everneeded Disconnect rule, and the commander rushing rule are usually needed, but can cause some problems, as has been known in the past. Admittedly, the cheating aspect should be near eliminated with the recorder out, and experienced watchers in the game. But still, lamerness will usually always show up, in some form or another.

As for lamerness in the community, well, it will always be there, but that doesn't mean we should accept it, and just turn our back on it. Ofcourse, turning ones back on somethings, out of pure concern for ones own mental health, is always good, but I believe that if everyone took some time and effort into trying to make things work, run more smoothly, and just don't send so much crap around, the community, and who knows; the world, could become a much better place. What comes around, goes around, so the responsibility is everyones. So if you want to make the TA community a better one; Start with the Man in the Mirror, as someone (Michael Jackson to name one) would put it. And it does need improvement. First of all, it's fractured, and many experienced, or even just mediocre players, are often discouraging newcomers. Discouraging being an understatement here. Such discouragement is not only stupid, but it is also detrimental, unproductive and unfair, since you were once a newbie too. It serves ONLY a selfish-to-the-core purpose, and it will hit you right back in the face at some point. But hey, why am I saying this? This is all obvious stuff. :) It all can become too much sometimes, ofcourse, and things can really get to you. But if you need venting, I can recommend a few things: Thin air, a pillow, a brick or concrete wall (this may hurt, however) or perhaps the floor, pending that nobody lives on a floor below you. You might notice, that these are all physical, lifeless objects. Don't worry, I know that. There is no need whatsoever to throw any negativity at others. It is indeed unproductive, and will not lead to anything good. The sooner everyone realises this, and decided to put some effort into living it, the better. And no, this is not something I have just realised, and it is not something that's exclusive knowledge to me, or a few select people, and it is not something I concocted, or invented off the bat. It is just the obvious, and it has always been there. I just felt like stating the obvious, as usual.

A place where I actually have some saying in all this, is in #gnug. Together with the rest of the Ops in here, we enforce something that can be concidered a rather strict set of rules. We don't allow swearing, obscenety, fighting, spamming and all kinds of lamerness. On the subject of swear words and profanity, whilst enforcing against those, we've been accused of being silly, unfair, and even close-minded. But it is really quite simple; Swear words and obscenety usually have a negative nature, and are abundant. That's their origin. A lot of the useage of these words has effectively been immunized. But not to everyone. I for one am not really offended by them, but if someone is "able" to use those words, one should just as well be able NOT to use them. If not, then they've become a part of one, and it is something that is concidered negative and offensive by many, and one should atleast be able to show respect to everyone, out of simple human concideration. I mean, comeon; The rebellion is over, or rather, it has moved to a higher ground, so get with the program. One doesn't have to please everyone... But there's not need to run around displeasing everyone.

It's not as if anyone can't have a bad day or anything, but that happens. As soon as foul language starts sneaking into ones every day speech, without it being necesary, or if it is not a sentance or conversation where you express anger or negativity towards..... whatever, then you should know that you will be percieved differently by your surroundings. It is a tool to express negativity, hate, and as an enhancement to negative expression. But like I said; we have become immune to it. I mean, insults, what good are they? They exist purely to hurt others, morbidly pleasing yourself. Swearing is something that was "made" for insulting others, and expressing anger. But it has been abused, so that now it isn't used to what it was actually intended. It is also widely (over) used by lamers, and I for one would not like to be identified with lamerness. :)

I for one will not jump the boat, and take the easy way out by expressing anger in how I say it, which words I use, as opposed to what I am saying. That is.... when I do fall into expressing anger, which I would actually most of all like to avoid alltogether.

I had better quit while ahead... By that, meaning before I get too agitated and negative myself about all this. Before I sign off for today, I'd like to mention a phrase that I find myself being the victim of sometimes: "Do as I say, not as I do." While I do like to preach, in particularly through these Blabs... I do not mean to judge, or pass judgement to anyone, because I'm better or anything. On the contrary. And I don't want to be someone, that's running around playing Mr. Perfect, and correcting everyone for their mistakes, and pulling splinters out of their eyes, not noticing the Log in my own eye. But before I try to act all innocent and holy there aswell, I would like to mention, that I actually use this as a defence mechanism. I TRY to practice what I preach, because I feel that I am preaching something that is constructive. I expect others, and myself, to correct and rectify myself when I make mistakes. Simply because I want to make less mistakes, and try to be a better person. Everyone loses it once in a while, and when I do, I hope, and expect from my friends and surroundings to be there, to keep me at bay, and point me to the right thing again, which I have temporarily deviated from.

The world might not be a fine place, but it IS worth fighting for.

Yes, I stole that quote from "Se7en". :)

Gnug215 :)