The Empty Blogs

Ah, sometimes it feels as if i'm talking to myself. Two blogs, both mostly devoid of followers - specially my aiki blog. But that's alright. It's not even about having others to read your jibberish, as much as i've found that posting these things is more helpful for me. Sometimes it's simply nice to be able to write out the things in your mind - organize them.

And hey, if someone reads it then all the better! I certainly can't be the only one that feels this way - as i'm subscribed to a lot of fairly empty blogs. ^.^

Cara Hides

Cara is our black cat, our skittish cat. Our "go away and leave me be" cat. Most of the time she loves nothing more than for us to just stay very far away from her. It upsets us, but we haven't been able to coax her out much. She has gotten better in hte past year, coming out rarely and letting us pet her for a minute before running back under the bed.

The thing that gets me is..she absolutely loves us in the bathroom. Anytime we go in there, she's fine. She'll follow you, rub against you, etc... she becomes very affectionate. But outside of there, she acts terrified of you.

Lights go up pre Belt Test

Thanksgiving is over and our christmas lights are going up. We've got a tree up and it is lighted, I can't say the same for the rest of our decorations. We've been too tired for that. I had a belt test last night and passed, entering into the realms of Shodan. I've posted more on that on my other blog so I won't talk about it here. :-p

Anywho, lights are up (sortof), and we're all gearing up towards Christmas. I have to say that i'm a bit of a scrooge when it comes to christmas music. When did Christmas become a month-long holiday I wonder? More importantly to me - when did it become MORE than a month-long holiday? Two days before Thanksgiving, I heard christmas music on the radio. I was annoyed... I turned it off. Christmas decorations and sales were going up before thanksgiving even got here... enough is enough. This is just getting ridiculous. I threatened to my wife that I was going to get together a group of people to all call in radio stations and request christmas songs.... in february. I may be a scrooge, but if i'm annoyed then I can't be the only one.

Coconut Tofu Keema

Coconut Tofu Keema

I made this last night, and it was delicious! A wonderfully delicious curry. There are some good suggestions on the recipe page; the most important one (I think) being to cut the tomato sauce from 6 cups to 3 cups. (one large can). Very easy and delicious recipe.
Prep Time: 20 Minutes

Cook Time: 45 Minutes Ready In: 1 Hour 5 Minutes

Servings: 10 (these serving sizes always trip me out. I don't know who could get 10 servings out of this, not if it's all your eating anyway. And it does make a complete dinner. We got 5 servings from it.)

"Peas, carrots, and tofu are simmered together in coconut milk with spices, creating a warm, savory Indian favorite, easy to make and exciting to eat. Serve over hot rice, with yogurt on the side, which may be added to taste to cut the heat and add sweetness."

Ingredients:

1/4 cup olive oil

4 cloves garlic, pressed

1 medium onions, minced

1 (14 ounce) package extra firm tofu, diced

1 (16 ounce) can coconut milk

1 tablespoon ground cumin

1 teaspoon curry powder 1 1/2 teaspoons ground ginger

1 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon red pepper paste

6 cups tomato sauce

1 1/2 cups frozen peas, thawed

1 1/2 cups chopped carrot



Directions:

1. Heat olive oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. Stir in garlic, onion, and tofu; cover, and cook, stirring occasionally for 5 to 10 minutes. Stir in coconut milk, cumin, curry powder, ginger, salt, and red pepper paste; bring to a simmer. Stir in tomato sauce, peas, and carrots; simmer, covered, about 30 minutes.

Thanksgiving Cake

I'm gearing up for Thanksgiving. I don't normally do a great deal of baking, but i'm going over to my parents house and I thought that I would bring a cake. So, this week i'm trying out a new cake recipe - to see if it's any good before I make one for Thanksgiving. It looks good, at least. And I do love Tiramisu.

Tiramisu Layer Cake
Cook Time: 20 Minutes Ready In: 2 Hours

Servings: 12
"Fancy taste without all the work. This cake is wonderful for a get together or just a special occasion at home. Using a box cake mix as a base it's a real time saver!"

Ingredients:

CAKE:

1 (18.25 ounce) package moist white cake

mix

1 teaspoon instant coffee powder

1/4 cup coffee

1 tablespoon coffee flavored liqueur



FILLING:

1 (8 ounce) container mascarpone cheese

1/2 cup confectioners' sugar 2 tablespoons coffee flavored liqueur



FROSTING:

2 cups heavy cream

1/4 cup confectioners' sugar

2 tablespoons coffee flavored liqueur



GARNISH:

2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder

1 (1 ounce) square semisweet chocolate



Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour 3 (9 inch) pans.

2. Prepare the cake mix according to package directions. Divide two thirds of batter between 2 pans. Stir instant coffee into remaining batter; pour into remaining pan.

3. Bake in the preheated oven for 20 to 25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. Let cool in pan for 10 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack and cool completely. In a measuring cup, combine brewed coffee and 1 tablespoon coffee liqueur; set aside.

4. To make the filling: In a small bowl, using an electric mixer set on low speed, combine mascarpone, 1/2 cup confectioners' sugar and 2 tablespoons coffee liqueur; beat just until smooth. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate.

5. To make the frosting: In a medium bowl, using an electric mixer set on medium-high speed, beat the cream, 1/4 cup confectioners' sugar and 2 tablespoons coffee liqueur until stiff. Fold 1/2 cup of cream mixture into filling mixture.

6. To assemble the cake: Place one plain cake layer on a serving plate. Using a thin skewer, poke holes in cake, about 1 inch apart. Pour one third of reserved coffee mixture over cake, then spread with half of the filling mixture. Top with coffee-flavored cake layer; poke holes in cake. Pour another third of the coffee mixture over the second layer and spread with the remaining filling. Top with remaining cake layer; poke holes in cake. Pour remaining coffee mixture on top. Spread sides and top of cake with frosting. Place cocoa in a sieve and lightly dust top of cake. Garnish with chocolate curls. Refrigerate at least 30 minutes before serving.

7. To make the chocolate curls, use a vegetable peeler and run it down the edge of the

Bleh, I feel worse

Eh, pizza. I love the taste of pizza, but i've found that I probably shouldn't eat it very often. It's not good for me, and i've noticed that sometimes after I eat it I feel rather bad. Not in a indigestion sort of way, but rather - I feel sickly, or dirty. It isn't surprising I guess. I've become more and more mindful of my health and body of late, through conscious effort.. and to have put something so greasy inside me, I suppose it isn't surprising that I feel a little funky.

But that pizza sure did taste good. ^.^

New Aikido Blog

Well, i've put up a new blog. I will continue posting here ofcourse. I simply noticed that I had begun posting a great deal about aikido in here, and that isn't really what it was originally for. Thusly, i've created a new blog for my thoughts on aikido, budo, and japan in general.

Go forth and behold the wonders of my empty cup! http://emptyteabowl.blogspot.com/

So Far Out There

I wrote a new poem the other day.. it has a dog. o.O

So Far Out There

I saw out there the yellow dog
Which stood on hill so far.
That as I mused on what it minded
It seemed quite as a star.

"Behold! There is a watchful pooch
So far out on the plain.
So far, in fact, that as I walk
I'll never see that dog again."

The wind picked up and weathered me
As I strode across that plain.
I glanced once back from the sinking sun
And there I spied that dog again.

"Closer now, than was before
That dog upon the plain.
The later light ill favors it
I wonder if it has a name?"

Regardless, I am busy.
It is far and so I move again.

As time went on and light grew dim
I found myself frequently
Looking back upon my path
And upon those hills I see -

"That accursed dog, ye' damned pooch!
Closer now, yes I see!
Faster I walk, swifter you pursue
Why do you insist on following me?!"

The dog stood there, it watched and stared
Then drew so close to me.
To my surprise its maw opened wide
And the dog began to speak.

"You wandered long and toiled hard
A world you did not see.
Yet here we are, swiftness for nought
Time still brought you to me."

Spirit tired, so there I rested
And the dog sat with Eternally.

Hiragana

Eh, it's writing right? I'm still endeavoring to learn Japanese. Step by step and brick by brick. Now i'm focusing on learning hiragana, primarily because my japanese book has stopped being in English. That's right, the remainder of the book is written in Hiragana.

Sucks for me, but i'll persevere. I thought my English penmanship was bad but no, my penmanship for japanese is horrenduous. Nevertheless, i've gotta learn to write right? And i'm sure my english penmanship blew when I was six and first learning to write the letter "A".

Shodan?

Been quite some time since i've posted on here. Eh, i've been busy..and haven't had a great deal to say. I'll get things recapped and more up to date in the near future.. but for now - SHODAN!

No, I haven't reached Shodan yet. :-p I've got about four more weeks until my belt test. And, as always - about four weeks before my test one of my sempai finally looked at me practicing my testing materials and went "hm, no that's wrong. Here, let me 180 it for you so you can spend the next several weeks relearning it."

Blah. It's the way of learning I suppose, but I really do wish we had a seperate "Advanced level" class, so that I could find these things out a little earlier. Could be worse, they dropped a bomb like that on me on one technique that I was practicing when I was preparing for my Ikkyu test. Except, they did so about two days before the test. Obviously, I still managed to pass. But still - it's not good for my nerves.

Ofcourse, it's not entirely their fault. We don't have a plethora of black belts and there isn't room in the scheduling for a seperate class - even if sensei had the time for it. Eh, I miss my old training partner - we could meet up outside of the dojo to practice.

Anywho - i'm rambling and being down today. On an upbeat note, FOUR WEEKS!!!.. until Shodan test. *dark vader pose and fist grip* "There will be no one to stop us this time."

Been a while

Been a while since I posted on here so i'll just post a bit of an update. I've been kinda busy...work and all that. Studying..working out, going to aikido, etc. I made some tasty Sangria last week, and last night I made my first attempt at homemade Pizza. It was pretty good. :-p Anyway, that's what i've been up to..yup.

This Dark Reflection Cast Aside

I cannot bear it, this hallowed thing
It tears at mind and soul
These things which others cherish dearly
I simply cannot swollow whole
Assailed on all sides by other's light
So bright that I cannot hide
Raging despair that I simply cannot bear-
This dark reflect cast aside

Behold the voice of salvation
Behold the dreaming fool -
Behold all those which do not know
Yet speak as though they do.
Yet then are there any that do?
All things are relative and so I ask -
Are there yet any here that do?
This train of thought does wear me down
So..this dark reflection is cast aside

I cannot bear it, and so must wear it -
This dark reflection I must abide!
The questions keep coming,
with all certainty crumbling,
From this trouble I simply cannot hide!
Is the world full of fools, or is he greater yet -
who bothers not to accept?!
All doubts come raging as an inbound tide -
This dark reflect cannot be cast aside!

The Dark Dream?

Alright, so I decided to post it. **Warning: the following content may creep you out, arouse you, disturb you, make you hunger pancakes, or any or none of the above. You have been warned.

The Dark Dream?
An etheral moan escapes her lips
The demon lays the woman bare
A tremulous gasp fills the midnight air
As tendrils bind arms, breasts, and hair

Its glossy flesh, blacker than void, reflects within her stare
All time is lost as there she lies -
Filled with more than simple despair

Her panting breaths warrant its carress
She begs as it moves within-
A throbbing sensation for the night's darkest celebration
With her rising culmination -
and a screaming exultation
She delights to embrace it again

New Poem

I wrote a new poem the other day. I had this idea as I was walking about..for an experiment of sorts. Three words grew inside my mind... erotic....nightmare...poetry. Sounds horrific yes? Sounds creepy yes? But does it sound...intriguing? I thought so, so I gave it a shot. Heh heh. According to my wife it was simultaneously creepy and oddly arousing. I said to her "yeah..I wanted to write something that was creepy, arousing, and made you feel a little bad about enjoying it." Seems that I succeeded. Now..whether or not to actually post it.

Mm Enchiladas

I made beef enchiladas last night, and i'm having the leftovers for lunch today. It's a newer recipe that I found but it's by far the best enchilada recipe i've ever made.

2 pounds of ground beef 1 white onion, chopped
2 cans of enchilada sauce About 1/2 bunch of chopped cilantro
1 can rotel tomatoes with green chiles
12 8-inch tortillas 6oz mexican crumbling cheese
garlic salt (about 1/4 teaspoon) Vegetable oil (2 tablespoons)

Preheat oven to 350
Mix together the ground beef with the onion, brown the meat. Drain off the grease then mix with the tomatoes, cilantro and garlic salt.

Heat vegetable oil in skillet. Lightly fry one side of tortillas (putting in more oil when necessary), then lay in 9x13 baking dish and fill with meat mixture and cheese. Cover enchiladas with enchilada sauce, then bake for 20-30 minutes.


P.S. If anyone says Yum-O, I kills them!

So it begins

And it has begin, we've gotten into the second week of Aikido training now. We've finally given the white belts enough to do so that we can begin to work on our own training, at least a little. It helps that we get to class about half an hour early, just early enough to run through some of our stuff before hand.

I'm quite rusty, heh. A several week break isn't good for my training. I think that next interim I ought to try to set up a couple out-of-class meetings with some others to continue training. I'm not nearly as rusty as my partner, but it's been about four months for him. Ha. But so far we're doing alright, focusing on our beginning techniques and re-refining the basics for ourselves. Next stop, O waza ju pon.

Focus and the new training

Classes are about to begin again. Starting next week I will return to the mat. Better yet, my old partner will be back in town all summer - and so we've planned a rigorous schedule to rock the mat hard this summer. ;-) We both need to focus ..and so that brings me to the subject of this post - focus.

In my cat's supposed broken english: Focus: U doin it wrong. I learned some interesting things over the past semester - mostly about instructing others. But I did spend a fair amount of time observing my juniors and in doing so, discovered some ways to improve my own performance of certain techniques.

However, all in all, my own abilities diminished somewhat while my partner was gone. This isn't his fault, rather it is mostly my own fault..though not entirely. It's a matter of focus. My aite and I have always managed to maintain a fairly decent level of focus in our training - meeting regularly and focusing on our own techniques: the important ones, not often deviating into various "more interesting" techniques. Yet, with him gone, I spent an entire semester wandering about with no consistent partner.

Also, without the concern of any impending test, I let myself spend the majority of my time helping my juniors prepare for their tests. This did teach me several things, but I think that the most important thing that it taught me was - well, the importance of focus.

Focus is what helps us to reach truly great levels of understanding. Without it, we may learn techniques but we will never come to fully understand them. And so - this semester we will be a bit selfish. We need to focus on ourselves. Certainly, if someone approaches me needing help I will take the time to show them, but I won't be going out of my way to find and assist them - I have some catching up to do. We will be there bright and early before classes start - and the room will be filled with the sounds of our mat falls.

A move and a party

I'm moving! Hooah. My wife and I are looking at some apartments, a nice little 1br. It's a little smaller than I might wish but they didn't have any 2br apartments available. Also, my old aite is coming back in town for the summer and so we're throwing a sort of combined, dual-celebration, party.

I've planned the drinks, i've planned the activity, now..I just have to decide on food. *Puts chef's hat on*

Need more training

Eh, it's a sad thing for me that our dojo has to stop meeting in-between semesters. Our classes meet at the University of South Alabama and as such we are bound by their semester schedule. When the semester ends - so do our classes for about two-three weeks.

It's frustrating, particularly since my training partner moved to Illinois before the beginning of this past semester. Otherwise, he and I would likely meet during the off-time to continue our training. I've spent all of this semester roaming between partners, helping kohai with prepare for their tests - and i've noticed a general decline in my own ability.

I've learned quite a bit, to be sure - particularly about guiding others as well as having learned how to correct some of the issues that I had been having with certain techniques. But, all in all, without having had as much practice at the basic repetition of movements for those techniques, my body has forgotten some of it. The time draws nearer for me to start getting concerned about my shodan test, and as such - I need to start training more diligently for myself, and a steady partner wouldn't hurt.

Eh, guess i'll go do some more breakfalls in the grass and toss my wife about some more. -.-

Five Cardinal Rules for MMOs

Five Cardinal Rules for MMOs
From a long disgruntled gamer

I. CHALLENGE AND REWARD THE PLAYERS, NEVER PUNISH THEM

This ought to seem self-evident right? Well apparently it isn’t. Punishment to players comes in a wide variety of forms – from excessive grinding, to forcing players to spend tons of money just to respec or alter their own characters, etc.

Players enter into an MMO for several key reasons, the two predominant ones being
1. To meet and play with new people and
2. To escape into a fun world where they can genuinely enjoy themselves.

A MMO should never resemble work, but how often is it that MMOs end up seeming like just
that, work? Gamer designers often seem to have this notion that they have to include all different forms of grinding into games in order to force the players to play for longer amounts of time. This is silly, however, because then players get burnt out and decide to stop playing those games. Grinding XP for levels is something that exists in every game, but ideally it shouldn’t feel like work. Challenge your players with various different means of obtaining the things in the game that they really want. Tasks should be difficult, attainable, and fun – not simply require one to hit the attack button for three hours. If there is an item that players will want, then include more than one method of getting that item so that players with different gaming styles can still attain the same end goal – and most particularly, never put something in the game that is so “uber” that it gives someone an unfair advantage and then also make it impossible to attain except for someone willing to pour in hours of effort grinding for it.

I’m about sick to death of people who can’t invest 12 hours a day in a game getting left behind because they simply cannot or will not waste all of the effort involved in gathering together gear powerful enough just to be able to get the item(s) that they really want. Grinding XP, grinding gold, limitations on respeccing characters: these are all punishments to the players. Players ought to be rewarded for their efforts, creativity, and dedication: all in the forms of XP, “gold”, items (both useful and fun), and special events.

II. KNOW AND CHERISH YOUR COMMUNITY

How many MMOs have I played where it seemed like the designers didn’t actually much care what the community wanted? Most of them, actually. The two greatest exemplars, so far as I’ve seen, for games which actively cater toward their community’s wants are Guild Wars and City of Heroes/Villains; most other game designers don’t seem to bother.

Your community is your lifeblood, they pay the bills. Their happiness equals your financial happiness – and they are the ones who know what they want in the game. Therefore, you ought to cherish and cater to them, not only to your own desires for what the game will look like. The greatest crime that you can commit against your community is that of money grubbing. If you begin making more money than the community thinks is just, considering the amount of work that you put into expanding and improving the game, then the players will grow jaded and negative sentiment towards the game designers will increase. For some this will be enough to simply stop playing the game, and for others it will simply lessen their enjoyment of it.

So how do you come to know and cherish your gaming community? Three words: Ask, Act, and Surprise. Ask your community what they want. Take in their ideas and opinions, honestly consider how viable they are as well as how many people seem to want the same thing and then consider how you might implement them. If viable, even include players in the think-tank process for the concepts implementation. Act on their ideas. If you listen but never include player ideas then the players will soon realize that you don’t actually care about their desires. Lastly, surprise your community. Pleasant surprises come in several forms. Players want in-game surprises for rewards, special events, etc. that they did not know were there: don’t just throw everything in a game-guide and hope that people don’t find out if they don’t want to know, some things should be random and fun – even if very few people ever have the pleasure of stumbling across it. A secret place or item, a hidden event – all of these things increase peoples enjoyment of the game. Surprise your community with events that they didn’t know about, or new aspects of events that they were unaware of.

III. PROMOTE CREATIVITY

Don’t just allow creativity, actively promote it! The game designers create the constraints of the game, therefore unless you are actively promoting player creativity then you are, in fact, limiting it. Players want to be able to have an impact on their world – they want the characters that they worked so hard on to leave a lasting impression. It becomes quite discouraging when we work on leveling and building our characters for so long, just to end up with no tangible impact on the world. By the way, having NPCs that randomly yell out “we love you Mr. McTitan!” is not sufficient.

Another point, particularly in MMORPGs, is role playing. I’m sick to death of supposed MMORPGs that don’t actually do anything to support RP; emotes are not sufficient. This can come in many forms, from including locations suitable to varying sorts of RP scenarios to including fun and interesting ways of customizing your characters appearance. Even including modules that allow players to more fully describe their characters for other players is a wonderful step in the right direction.

IV. DIVERSIFY

This means just what it says – diversity is the key to watering down the grinding process. If players end up only being able to spend their time in one or two ways, particularly if there is only one way to obtain the items that they want or to grind to the levels that they desire – then they will get burnt out. As for grinding levels, different types of quests would be wonderful! Courier quests, kill count quests, objective quests – these have all become common fare. How about a puzzle quest or other problem-solving quest? Make people actually use their mind on occasion. Also, include other methods of gaining experience and increasing level.

In most games methods other than fighting and killing monsters (aside from the XP gained from quest completion) can scarcely manage to account of 1% of the XP gained towards your next level, but if there were more interesting ways to gain XP aside from questing and killing – even if those only amounted to 20-30% of the XP you needed would still help to break the chain of monotony that is grinding. Add into that some differing types of quests, bonuses to XP gain, etc, and you now have a system that allows people options; and options are what players want.

V. KEEP THE MYSTERY

I know I mentioned this before, but I feel that it deserves reiteration. Some people want everything spilled out to them in some sort of guide so that they can power through a game as quickly as possible and attain everything that their hearts may desire. That’s all well and good, and I suppose that those people have just as much right to have their whims catered to as the rest of us – but don’t give everything away. You don’t have to include every little surprise and nuance into a guide so that it ends up being common knowledge and ruining it for everyone who enjoys exploring and finding surprises.

When you think about it, guides actually hurt the game as they make it easier for people to rush through and thus, not have to play for as long. On the plus side, guides can make grinding a less onerous process and so I’m not entirely against them, I merely think that they should allow for aspects of the game to remain hidden so as not to infringe upon the desires of the rest of us. These don’t have to be crucial aspects of the game, merely small hidden surprises that help to enrich the game for those of us who enjoy that sort of thing.

VI. WHO AM I AND WHY SHOULD GAME COMPANIES CARE?

Who am I? No one important, just a gamer that has had many years to grow rather frustrated with the MMO industry. I’ve played Horizons, Guild Wars, City of Heroes/Villains, Planetside, Perfect World, World of Warcraft, Final Fantasy XI, as well as numerous free MMOs and assorted MUDs. I love the MMO concept, but have become utterly frustrated because I have yet to find a game which truly suited me. I adored Guild Wars because of the game designers and the community, but eventually found that it was too pvp based for me. I enjoyed many aspects of FFXI but the grinding was horrendous. City of Heroes is still a wonderful game, but I’m afraid it does occasionally get boring – but this is likely more due to the fact that I can’t get any of my friends to play it. Planetside was fun – but lagged horribly and eventually the community dwindled. World of Warcraft is still fun, some of the time. I have a love/hate relationship with WoW, in that I enjoy it for a while, then get sick of it, and overall I love to hate it. Mostly, I resent how much the dev team apparently cares nothing for large portions of the game’s community.

Out of all the things that I’ve mentioned here, I think that the most important is listening to and rewarding your community. Because if a dev team focuses on that, then the other aspects will often take care of themselves: at least to the point of becoming bearable. So now I leave this rant as it is, to go off and hopefully find myself a game better suited to me wants and desires – perhaps I’ll pick back up CoH, or perhaps I’ll spend another month complaining about WoW; time will tell.

O.K. I lied, one final thing. My top three favorite MMO games, ranked in order according to how well they cater to the things I listed above compared with how fun the game actually is.
1. City of Heroes: It’s a great game and the devs seem to care about the players.
2. Guild Wars: Terrific game – for a while. Dev team is absolutely wonderful.
3. World of Warcraft: It’s a fun game until I get sick of it and want to throw it out the window. The dev team ignores at least half of the principles that I stated above, but somehow I still manage to get sucked back, in part because I have friends on there I suppose.

Daniel Wilson
Disappointed Gamer
4/24/2009