Merry

Eat, Drink and be Merry. Words to live by. And celebrate Holidays, no matter whose they are!

The Edward

Resetting the World

I noticed something very odd the other day. I was playing this game online, on a test server, when I noticed the oddness. On this test server, people were going to very dangerous places, trying out all sorts of stuff that they do not normally do within the game. I admit, I was swept up in this and tried it too. I found that a lot of what I was doing I would have considered impossible to do in the real game, though it was actual quite easy on this test server.

See, the test server is a copy of the virtual world where the game developers let people test out the latest changes to the game before the "go live" in the real game. They run these for about 2 weeks at a time, and anything that happens within this test server game has no impact on the characters one has in the real game. This is why people try stuff that they normally wouldn't, this world is reset and cleaned, while the live world remains untouched.

The odd thing was that people would try new things, because they had no fear. The question became for me, "Why did they have fear in the first place?" See, the online game only lasts as long as one pays a monthly fee. In reality, at some future point, the "real" game will be gone as well, and yet people play very conservatively there. There is no reason to, since neither of them are real - people should be pushing their characters to the limits all the time, since there really is no downside. And yet most don't.

This applies to our world as well. This world will reset at some point, either as a whole or for each person one at a time. And yet do people live like that? Most do not. Most live like this current snapshot will be the way things are forever. Advancing slowly, careful not to step too far in case of Consequences. And yet in the long run, the only consequence is that one didn't get to explore the whole world because they were too conservative.

My advice - don't assume that what you have is a stable point. Reach for things. Try risky things that have a good chance of failure or bad consequences. If you succeed, you will be much further ahead! And if you fail, you will have had fun, and you can always try again before the reset when it all gets wiped anyway.

The Edward

Ugly 17

I heard the news the other day - shocking news! Bernie Ward, a long time liberal talks how host, "was indicted by a grand jury on three federal counts of Internet child pornography" according to wikipedia. I was shocked, as stated in the first sentence. I didn't agree with many of his opinions, but I still listened to him at nights sometimes. Now I have to burn my ears.

See, because even listening to someone who is alleged to have possibly possessed child porn should be just as much of a crime as possibly having owned it. Now, by having listened to him on occasion, I am no better than a catholic.

I still find it so hard to believe. I mean we all know that "anyone" under the age of 18 is just pure vile ugliness, and to think that anyone could possibly consider such a being attractive in any way is just perverted beyond the beliefs of hardworking Americans. I mean, until that magical transformation happens on a person's 18 birthday, the day that they become a real person, they are just not worth even looking out less the retching begin again. Yuck.

And to think that sex, that inherently disgusting evil act foisted upon us by the Lord of Darkness Himself, Satan, was possibly also used in some of these alleged images that he owned... wow, shocking. That perversion that we all shun because of its shear vileness that we call sex, to use that on a vile creature and to take a picture of it... they should lock those people away for a few lifetimes. But the worst of them are those people who freely download such filth without giving any money or encouragement in anyway to the people who created these monstrosities, and to possibly use these images for their own pleasure... Imagine that, people getting pleasure from an image rather than a thought, and to get pleasure from something that we object to... and because we know without a picture these thoughts would never have happened - these image seekers' immortal souls could have been saved. Oh the humanity!

I know I stand in good company, the company of people who have never once looked at someone who hasn't see this planet go around the sun at least 18 times and thought, "wow, that person might possibly be attractive." So I am glad that we have a police and court system willing to spend our hard earned tax dollars ridding us of these types of people, people who have done nothing but bring wakes of pain in their passing. And host highly rated talk shows for a few decades or played for The Who. Bastards.

The Edward

A Tip for the Working

Just stop it - and here is why:

I have some liberal friends (as well as some conservative friends, though I am neither - a friend that is) but this is about those liberal ones. Well, a specific subset of them, not all of my liberal friends are this way, though it is funny to think all liberals are this way. I was enjoying a meal with these friends at a local restaurant where the service and food were amazing. Everyone agree, spectacular.

Over the course of the meal, I was hearing stories about the homeless people and people without enough money to pay their bills, etc. They were telling stories of how they gave tons of money to help these people. It was a good cause, they were telling me. The people who were getting this money were out of work and had real needs. I have heard all of this before, and agree with some of it. Overall, a fine lunch with interesting conversation.

Then the bill came.

It was around $25-$30 per person. Well, one person's was actually $24.50, not $25 and he argued that he shouldn't have to pay more than what he owed, so he wanted to throw in $24. The shocking part for those who haven't been following along was that he had just been talking about giving tons of money to the people without jobs. Now, here was a person who had just done a great job for him, bringing him some great food, etc. Now, giving this person an extra 50 cents was a deal breaker. (any overage goes directly to the server)

This is a trend I have noticed over the years, and I do not like its impact on me. Because if I throw in some extra to help out these working people, then the total bill always seems to be correct, which means some people didn't throw in enough. And since the total is correct, it is a hard argument to make that some people really should be throwing in more just to cover their meal. So, I try to be as exact as possible until the bill is settled.

So there are two points here. 1) If you are a working stiff, those liberal people don't care that much about you. Somehow by actually doing something to contribute to society makes you less of a person. Remember that when you vote. 2) If you make at least 2x over your server, and most people I know probably make at least 10x over, and you think that person did a good job, the best way you can help out society is to help out those people directly. Don't wait for the government to help them. An extra buck a day per person can make a difference in these working people's lives.

Be a big tipper, there is no downside.

The Edward

I Like Pie

If you are here reading this, which I guess you have to be in order to be reading this sentence, and had been wondering, "Gosh, what profoundly exciting thing will The Edward regal me with after six weeks off. I bet his first new topic will be mind-blowing! I can not help but wonder what it be, in a forward tense kind of way!", well here you go: I Like Pie.

You are probably thinking, "Wow, what a let down. That's it?! Where is that keen sight into what makes our world such an abomination in the eyes of The Arcane World? Where is the funny? What a minute, this is The Edward we are talking about... maybe he means this in the more rude sense, as in he likes hair pie? That's got to be it!"

Sure, I'll admit that I do enjoy hair pie, though without so much hair, but that is not what I meant. Thank you for trying - your thoughts on this were much more clever than was I was thinking of. My thoughts were much more simple: I Like Pie.

I have an Apple Pie in my refrigerator right now. I have only ever bought a few pies in my life - mostly as gifts or to bring to friends' houses. But this past weekend, I bought a pie to share with some friends, and I realized something: some people like pie. I had just never considered it. It is kind of like in one blog entry from a long time ago about music in restaurants. I suffer through music there and always thought others must as well, until I realized that others must like music or restaurants wouldn't spend the money on having it just to annoy customers. Same with pie.

I always thought of pie as something one buys as a gift or to share, but not something that one could say "I like that" about. It just was. So, the next day, after the group of friends had left the building (they actually left the shortly after the pie, but this part of the tale happens the next day), I decided to try a piece of that pie in the silent solitude of my house, and to have no preconceived notions of pie. And I must say, it was a darn tasty pie. That is when I realized, I Like Pie.

The Edward