Jan's Latest Version

It isn’t front page news that certain things are more expensive in Europe comparing to USA.  Couple “cute” observations.

Gas is more expensive, it is almost 4.9 PLN (2.85 PNL to 1 USD) for 1L (~3.5L per gallon).  Guess what?  Cars are smaller, on average burn much less gas.

Cell minutes are priced higher, no one calls just to bullshit and chit-chat, most of the time you call for a reason rather than to fish.  Text-ing (SMS-ing) is used much more even by adults and work, business circles.

Soda is more expensive, comparing to food, that and more walking (higher gas prices) better diets and most people are pleasant to look at?  Decent taste in cloths does help too… Opinions?

I was in Poland two years ago.  Major difference, people smile less and look at their feet more.  More SUVs and some weight fluctuation.  It is worry some… Warsaw > NYC any day of the week and twice on Thursday.  This needs closer investigation…

The ten steps I need to take to fix my Life.

Step 1: …?

We get so much more stale as we grow up.  Body mass increases and the sugar supply’s are no longer enough to get us going for the whole day.  It is a sad thing, but can we do anything about it?  We get called irresponsible and childish!  But we all miss it.  We rebel buy sport cars, drive fast, just to get the feel for the thrill we once felt as kids, just running around…

… cute but not saying much.  The reason why it is so easy for me to judge women by character first, personality second, and looks last, has a lot to do with where I grew up.

I have been back to Poland for two days now and I already have a serious neck injury.  All that head turning is killing me…

All most all are in good/great shape, tall, with “cool” hair-do’s, tastefully dressed with great use of accessories and color accents… etc

Most importantly they all have a flare in their eyes, something you can see in untamed predators.  It is refreshing but problematic as such.

The trouble is that my selection rules which worked great in NY/US (Filtering 99.37% as unsuitable to pursuit) are barely setting a bar to most random strangers I see in Poland.

Based on what I see: the way people walk, carry themselves… I should be asking every other female my age out.  If I get lucky and I can hear them speak or I know what they are reading I can get down to about one in six…

Damn to many choices, Poor me!  I missed Europe.

I’ll be off to bed soon.  I have to say I enjoy going to bed earlier (before midnight) then I used to (4-9am).

I thought about my last post and I think there is a need for a minor clarification.  Couple minor points really and I promise I will be quick… ^.^

One, I really am that good, ask anybody on Maelstrom US.

Two, regardless how useless or vain playing a computer game (on a professional level 50+hr/week) may seem to most it was something I made a decision to be good at.  Succeed!  To play World of Warcraft not much skill is required and one could learn the basics in an hour or so, but to play it at the “progression raiding” level the learning curve is very, very steep.  Unless you are able and willing to make the sacrifices necessary to master the system you will not be able to do it.  Not to say that unless you spend 65+hours a week playing and thinking about the game you won’t enjoy it.  You can play an hour a week and still have as much fun as anybody else, but the difference is between like trying to climbing out of your crib and walking on the moon.

Three, I rarely find myself bored.  I never am not curious about things.  I hate to stand still.  Unless I’m improving in something I will be “sad”.
I try my best to find projects and keep feeding into my need of knowing.  A lot of my time over the past year was spend playing WoW and managing two raiding groups and 7 apprentices (mentoring in warrior tanking), aside of good-at-it I enjoyed it and I was improving, learning something, checking details, comparing data, drafting equations etc.   At this point I know almost everything about my class/spec/role combo, unless RNG (random number generator) or someone does something “really” stupid I have a good control over what will happen.

Here is the caveat for “Three”.  At this point only way to improve is to be expected to do better in 10/25 man raids.  To be expected to do better is to be required to do better because there is a pressing need to be better.  My group turtled at the same level they have been since the 25 man raids got established several moths back.  Not much has changed.  Till there was an improvement in quality of people attending the raids (natural selection) I didn’t mind the distraction in the voice chat, the random comments about PvP (player versus player) from people that wanted/wished/pretended to be good at it.  I was O.K. with most of it, even in game stupidity such as running ones avatar into a angry dragon and ultimately killing the whole group…  I gridded my teeth, and wished for the old days, where such actions would merry benching if not firring of said individuals.

This attitude of general stupidity and lack of care, effort spread to the 10 man groups which where much more elite (much more selective, and much better).  For several weeks it bothered me, and finally I was done.  If some one disrespects me in RL (Real life) I either walk away or plot stone cold revenge.  And so I stop playing, trying to avoid guild drama and not letting people know why the MT (main tank, me) is leaving them.

There are some people I would rather not associate with but the lack of improvement is something I will not tolerate.  Now I get to improve my cooking!  Maybe I will come back to WoW maybe not, I will defiantly keep my eyes open, there are some friends I left behind…

I’m…  There is this “funny” moment…  Imagine walking it a wall!  Nothing weird, you just missed the door by like 17 inches.  Face, plaster, paint… BOOM! face plant.  You step back completely confused and stare.   Looking at the wall, just there for a second, you wonder why did the wall hit you?

I had a moment like this listening to my brothers recital over the weekend.  It was a face palm in a first time on the internet style.

I have been enjoying World of Warcraft for about 15 months now (since I got back to the game).  I have a master level of expertise, in both theoretical and practical sense.  I have an intuition and understanding of how the game works and the inner workings of player based “interactions”.  I can pin point with great precisions most of current items used and pretty precisely guesstimate performance based on limited observations.

I have achieved certain level on skill in manipulating the games world with my avatar and I am considered to be one of the best players on my server in my chosen role.  I have spend massive amounts of time perfecting my abilities, learning my class and role, researching and theory crafting number trying to optimize this non-linear dynamical system.

I have notebooks full of calculations and pages of printed graphs and computer code I used to find the optimums.  Over a 12 month period I turned this game to a full time obligation.  Started green and couple weeks in I was starting to catch up to the best.

Side note.  I was lucky enough to find a group of people that I could play with, without them my chase after the mastery would be greatly hindered.

And so, 12 months and over 100 days played (that does not include about 15 hours a week of out of game theory).  Let me do the math, thats 2400+ hours, thats 50+ hours a week.  There are two stages of being the best (one: you’re the best, two: you don’t need to prove it anymore).  Some where along I crossed the line, but I knew I could be better.  I know my guild and raid group (24 people I played with) could be much better.  Yet I reached a glass ceiling!

There is only so much I can do on my own.  I noticed that my group started to be O.K. with mediocre performance, every one wanted results but…  It was a hassle to “tank” (what I do) in 25 man raids for a while, it was a job.  I didn’t mind, I had our 10 man group to look forward to.  We were decent in the grand scheme of things, we could have been better but it was a lot of fun.  About a month ago it started to be different.  I couldn’t put my finger on it for a while, then it hit me.  One night not to long ago we were attempting to “clear” (kill all monsters on sight) the citadel, and we couldn’t.  (Reminder, raiding is a team sport, alone you can’t do anything)  When we were asked how the 4 hour adventure went, leaders response was “… we didn’t as much as last time, but we had fun.”  That was IT!

For the record my response would be: “OMG, WTF??? FFS GTFO…::sad face::” (translation is not PG rated).

Something broke and I’m done caring.  For the most part I’m done playing for a while too.  I’m tired of people having no respect for other players, their time and not willing to show even slightest effort.  I miss the old days were one was benched for stupidity, talking about random crap during important fights and wipping the raid because you didn’t bother to look at the screen.

“I cannot care more than you care…”-my HS chem teacher, only lesson I learned there.

It has been so long since I wrote anything for the public…  It has been too long.  No inspiration, bad weather… pick something, your favourite to blame… I plead the 5th.

I’m back in Hawai’i…

There is nothing extremely hard about writing. I my case both the writing and typing (same idea, different mechanics) are plagued by the same monster called dyslexia. I think clearly and by looking around me, probably clearer than most or so I suppose. My demons are the guardians of the flood gates between my left and right hemisphere of my brain. The set of bridges that exist there in extremely high numbers for the “regular” people, in my case have been, are … they ain’t there. My thought process has gotten isolated from the section of the brain responsible for talking. I think and I can speak, yet connecting those two has been an issue for me ever since I can remember. I used to and still do, dread essay writing. And yet here I am….

Imagine, there is a black box between you and the people around you. Most of the things that you hear reaching those people are very far from what you thought you said or wanted to say. Thus you stop, correct yourself and explain what you meant. It is as if shifting through buckets of gravel just to find that one coin, diamond, a thought worth observing and noting. Every now and then, I think it is worthwhile to do the searching, I do occasionally have savvy things to say, most people do not listen, most people never listen… why should I be an exception.

There is some puritanical simplicity in the writing. I can play with the words, the meaning and I do not have to combat the sighs and looks when I ponder about a specific word choice. On the other hand I’m stuck with 3 dictionaries and 2 sets of “treasure things” to get what I need and spell it in a way you can read it. Oh, the fun of writing something meaningful.

I like what I do, the writing, the punning, the toying with words. I like to remember and give credit to my brain for storing, sorting and and not messing up the index. Wouldn’t a book “The Jan’s World” be a cool thing? Any other obscure title might do too…

I have been, again, reminded, today, early afternoon, of a simple cause and effect of my play. I have an audience. That is the double edge blade I have been thinking of swallowing the rest of the day time.  I need it but it will get in a way.  I want it but it comes with consequences.  I’m stuck but do I really care?

There are things I will not do but than again I will probably not be the greatest.  I feel that what I write is complex, serene and artistic in nature.  By all means I do not consider what I write to be great, good or even decent and I will gladly leave the job of deciding those matters to you.  What I refer to is the process of creating this… all of it.  The thoughts and the competence to write them down comes from the ether, comes in forms of inspiration.  They can come from everywhere or from me, my inside, and my digestions of my experience.  Having an audience makes you consider that which you hold dear.  I’m glad people are reading my blog and I am happy that they are able to make an connection.  I would be a waste to sell this out for a forced reconnection on my part.  I am Jan and I am glad you see my point cause I am to busy watching the clouds fly-by during the sunsets to…

I have been accused of being sexist before. Guess what? I am! Being raised in a society that splits permissions and reward very clearly between the two sexes leaves you being sexist before you even get your first kiss. Biology makes us different, mentality or sexual orientation if you will makes the whole jumble of needs and wants even more complex. So why do I proudly proclaim that I am sexist? Why would I not?

There is “sexism.” and there is “sexism!”. Those two terms are very different, they mean different things… it is the sort of mess I got myself into in High-School when I proclaimed to have gotten racist while attending Social-Studies. That one did not sit well with my teachers, not well at all. Since those two terms have some basic ideology in common and sexism is much less edgy (politicly) of a topic I shall go with racism, to try to explain what I mean. Quick thought though, when I say politicly-less-edgy I mean that gender equality is less tackled by politicians. I will go into the issues with both later.

So being in Social Studies, sitting there, taking notes made me become a racist. I have tackled this issue before in one or two blog entries over the summer (July 9, 2008). I feel that there is racism that is by its definition is the ability to see the differences between races, to be able to distinguish between them and to know how and why. However there is racism which is how one acts upon those differences, for example: defining one superior, better, etc than others. In High-School I saw the ability to act upon the difference you see (of race) to be racism. In some sense I was right, it s racist to separate people into categories, although race seem like a very obvious choice in most cases. But because of human nature one starts to compare, just as if they were fruit on a stand in your local supermarket, you look and you will compare.

There is a limited number of people who don’t, there is a limited people that do not care and there is an ocean and a quarter of people that chose one versus the other and attempt (or not) to make a logical argument about the quality of the two. With apples, the argument could be based on the ratio of sugar content to the strength of the outer skin. Most people are not that smart, they would not care, they look at the skin, the shine and unless one is obviously rotten the choice is still easy. You eat red apples your whole life, right?

Bach’s double violin concerto plays in the background on repeat, I feel I have to value and consider my words carefully here…

I feel that the racism or sexism, I am talking about, almost everyone is taking it for the racism and sexism they see on TV. There is a over pour of emotions, memories and pretension to even acknowledge my existence as a human, I’m just that dude that should be hanged by the jury without a trial. I see the difference between sexes would be kind of interesting to date if I didn’t. I see the differences between some races, ethnic groups, heritage based features, I see them and… ? There is nothing wrong in seeing it, at noticing them and at being able to point the differences, never been. Took me years to stop judging, and to start seeing rather than comparing. Here is the difficult part, one should never talk about those difference in a ranking order. There is exceptions to the rule, it is known that some groups of more recent descendent of Africa have a genetically based higher chance of developing diabetes, not much one can do about it. Racist? Yes, should you call the cops about it, probably not the brightest idea.

Assuming the anthropologists did their homework we all have roots in Africa, my family genetic tree shows that they have left the mother continent somewhere between 60 and 150 generations ago. After a long winter I am as white as a fresh painted wall, so? Due to how the predecessors mixed and lived my genetic make-up will be slightly different than someone’s whit a family that have lived in the same village, area for the past 4000 years.

Racism and Sexism, those which make my teeth grind are those which individuals use to argue superiority of one versus the other. I am a sexist, a racist, but I am also a humanist and I hope you don’t mind me assuming that your not a completely dull monkey just because you can read?