Distilling February: A Review

Tis Friday today - and over the weekend I have friends coming over (shock horror! cleancleancleanclean), then on Monday I've got training on how to pick up and put down a patient (Did you know if you fall over in a hospital, the staff are instructed not to catch you?). Consequently, it will be March before I know it and I won't have had a chance to review February like I did last month.

So, here we go:
Topics this month have been very much on the Guild Wars horse. Its been a big month in gaming for me and I've managed to force it down your throats more than a demented Grandfather, desperately trying to buy a four year old's love with Werthers Originals. We had Human Week - which was punctuated by sentimental Hollywood determination on the part of the Human race - then came the Dervish Update, and now, just breaking its back, is Norn Week. I've mused on the nature of gaming, and talked about my favourite characters from over the years. There's also been a fair amount of ARG-y stuff going on, and I've bigged up da Old Soldiers massive, as well as introducing Tarot by Saranna into the mix.

Most Popular Post for February 2011 were:

1. Guild Wars 2: Human Week Summary
2. Top 5 Black Ops Commentators
3. Marble Hornets #34/35 - Aka - Why I need new Trousers
4. Norn Week: To the Mead Hall!
5. Marble Hornets: Entries #28-32

Top 10 Search Terms for February 2011 were:

1. marble hornets 35
2. black ops commentators
3. blue mace lady
4. best black ops commentators
5. marble hornets 33
6. dcuo medieval style
7. marble hornets unfiction
8. best black ops youtube commentators
9. good black ops commentators
10. nudekatyperry

I get 5 or 6 people every single day finding their way here by searching for "naked katy perry" or the like. They must be so disappointed. On the other hand - free traffic for me! Maybe I should name each post after a naked celebrity! Next week: nuddy Carol from the weather on BBC news!

Video gaming time has been split as follows:

DCUO: 10%

Minecraft 10%

Black Ops 40%

Guild Wars 40%

DC Universe Online was my big purchase this month, and as you can see - I wasn't overly impressed. My review will be coming soon, but I've just not felt attached to the game. I've levelled a couple of character for 14+ and then just lost steam. I don't think I'll be renewing my subscription.

Minecraft. Yes, I caved. I bought it. The gaming sensation. You should see my sandcastle, its going to be immense. This game is every bit as good as everyone says it should be, I just want to get into the multiplayer aspect and get some real creations done - can anyone suggest a good multiplayer server?

Black Ops. This game still has a great amount of appeal, and still takes up a lot of my time. I'm on my 7th Prestige now, and have pushed my Kill/Death ratio up from 1.22 to 1.25. Not a lot, really, but its something!

Guild Wars. Old faithful. I managed to max out both Luxon and Elonian Cartographer over the past month, now a lot of my time is spent idling my time away in the Guild Hall whilst I browse the Internet, using YouTube videos as timers and every minute popping back to chug another eggnog. I'm at 3750 minutes now and plan to reach 4000 by the end of Sunday. As I say, I WILL have GWAMM by Guild Wars 2 release!

In ARG terms, there are three main games which I'm playing at the moment:

Tarot by Saranna is a blog-based ARG which I covered a few weeks ago. Its interesting and Saranna is a friendly and engaging character to play with. Its quietened down a fair amount in the past week or so, hoping it will spark up again soon. uF thread here.

Old Soldiers is still running, and faster than ever. There have been leaps and bounds from the start of this game. We've now met the ever sardonic Sigyn, Loki's partner in crime; and the tenacious Special Agent Curran - who is pursuing them. We are currently working through some really brain busters and hope to crack them over the next couple of days. uF thread here.

F.F.E.Y-T is a game which is currently running mainly through Twitter; although every indication is that tomorrow it will all kick off. I'll be posting a full summary of where we stand either Monday afternoon or Tuesday morning. Currently, the PM is playing his cards close to his chest and releasing ever more cryptic clues to his intentions. Can't wait to see what he has in store *grin*. uF thread here.

Interesting blogs I've come across this month:

•  Benny's Adventures: a wide range of topics approached in an engaging and interesting way.
• Darkmatters: regular movie and games reviews from Matt. Funny and insightful. Brill.
• Steam me up, Kid: I don't think I've laughed quite this much in a while.

 Typically, the shortest month of the year does feel like its flown by. I'm hoping over the next few weeks there will be lots of stuff to talk about - lots of ARGy things like the FFEYT developments, more Old Soldiers stuff and a new Marble Hornets entry to build on the epication of Entry #35 - Guild Wars updates with the 7 Hero Build coming in - more info on Guild Wars 2 with the other races weeks and PAX East - and other such banterificatious events to titillate my blogging soul.

ps. I've also jumped from 2 followers to 5! Admittedly, one of them is me - not sure how I did that. But a big thanks to Matt, Pepe, Laughing Lemon and *checks spelling* Najwa Laylah!

Revolving at Nine Hundred Miles and Hour

Sometimes I feel I have to remind myself how terribly unlikely is my continued existence. Just the plonking together of so many chanced variables to create me. The same applies, of course, to you... and to Jimmy Carr, and my boss Alison, and Robert Mugabe and David Attenborough and everyone else on this Earth. Let me see if I can illustrate what I mean:

Here is a picture of the Universe:

Its not a very exhaustive representation, they don't make webpages big enough, but I think you get the idea. As far as I understand, the Universe contains a finite amount of matter - lots of different kinds stuff and crap which comes together to make other stuff and crap. Planets, Stars, asteroids, bicycle pumps, sellotape, coffee mugs, anchovie pizzas, cotton wool - everything. It just so happens that matter had formed to produce our solar system, just the way it is. Look, here it is:

Look at all the happy planets (I have included Pluto - whatchagonnado?) all whizzing around, and the big shiney Sun in the middle. Brilliant.

Now, the right matter has come together in just the right places to produce this working solar system, each planet is exactly where it is because of a number of cosmic forces working together and against each other to produce this dazzlingly complex system which just kinda works. In the vastness of the Universe, I think thats kinda cool.

And (yeah, I'm starting this sentance with AND, whatchagonnadoaboutit!?) ...and nestled somewhere near the middle is Earth:

Its just the right distance from the Sun, not too cold, not too hot. If the interplanetary calculations were off by the slightest bit, we would be an arctic wasteland, or an arid desert of noxious gasses - but nope, its just right, and then... BAM - toasters, marker pens, Tesco Clubcards, wineracks, staplers... everything! Although when compared to the vast Universe shown at the top of this rambling post, the Earth might seem like a speck on the shoe of existence, it is still pretty fricking big. And being so big (oh look, I did it again), it houses a great number of people. Last headcount I did we were around 6-7 billion. And out of those 6-7 billion it just so happens that two people met and did the sex. EW. I know, I thought I'd slip that in there nice and fast and hope you wouldn't notice (just like they did, eh? eh? Urgh, dirty Distilled). But the fact remains - thats pretty unlikely isn't it? That these two people, shown below...

...would find each other and make a baby, out of all the other people they could have (and may have!) made babies with, they made a baby with this particular partner and that produced you. Yep, thats right, out you popped. Ask your Mum, she probably won't say you just popped out, but she will probably confirm that the expulsion of you from her nether regions was as a direct result of the bumping of uglies betwix herself and your Dad. But, its not as simple as that, there is yet more unlikeliness and chance involved. Not only is it terribly unlikely that these two very particular people would meet and "make-a-de-babby", but it is also terribly unlikely that in "making-de-babby" the mixing of their respective mojos would produce exactly - you. Here you are:

Humans have 23 pairs of Chromosomes (drawing on A-Level Biology here, bear with me... RAAA!), and when we reproduce the sex cells contain a set of these chromosomes and half are drawn from the male sperm cell (go Dad!) and half are drawn from the female ovum (woo Mum, yeah!). But there are numerous combinations which could be produced from this super sexy sperm/ovum chromosomal love-in, there are recessive and dominant genes to take into account, and environmental factors, random mutations and unforseen complications. You could have turned out like this:

or this

or this

What I am trying to get at is that the likelihood of producing you is nothing short of a miracle. That all the matter in all the Universe converged on one particular spot and then you were brought into the world. I'm not saying its Divine, or the work of some creator, merely that there were so many chances over the millenia leading up to your creation for the whole plan to be derailed - the Earth could have been hit by an asteroid and blown up, we could have been just a few feet further from the Sun and spun out of orbit crashing burning and screaming into Mars, your Mum could have been at a different party in the 80s, wearing different leg warmers which didn't match your Dad's frightful 70's throwback moustache in both colour and texture - you could have so easily not existed.

Then again, you could also have so easily been born with LASERS FOR EYES.

Swings and roundabouts, really.