任是无情也动人

So we got Windows 7 installed on a VMWare partition on one of our lab servers (gotta love corporate licenses) and I got a chance to briefly browse through it.

- Display format is Vista... that seems to be the main downside as I really don't like the way the new My Computer works to find directories.

- The built in picture viewer IS THERE. It's got a different name but it does the same thing as the Windows Picture and Fax Viewer. It will flip through pictures in the directory with the page up/down buttons like normal, so reading manga is not going to be a problem.

- You can run applications as Windows XP/2000/95/etc. compatibility-mode. I'm not sure if you can install apps in compatibility mode, as we didn't have any older apps which we know can only be installed on an older OS, but tentatively speaking, it doesn't look like most apps will have problems running.

- My colleague swears it runs much faster than Vista. I haven't played with Vista much so I'll take his word.

*pokes cashew* - Let me know if there is anything else you want me to verify on it. Not sure I can attempt to install GW on it since I don't think it has full access to the internet from the lab. But I can probably test install small local apps if I remove it before I logout.

~ Intro ~


( cut for size )

Fandom related rant concerning 75 slash and various 焦剧 related fanfics...

( fandom related rant )

So as a matter of curiosity I was googling for slash references in Chinese history, and I stumbled on this link.

乾隆x和珅
...
Remembers 《宰相刘罗锅》
...
*is ded*

More articles...
中国古代同性恋排行 - Lots of examples from Han; a bit from Song, Ming, Qing. Surprisingly little from Tang, despite the fact that it was a really sexually liberal dynasty...
历史上哪个朝代盛行男风
古代中国为什么要盛行“男风” - Article in last comment.
古代“男风” - Seems to mostly concentrate on pre-Tang

Took a skim through GWiki since I realized the Halloween event should have started by now. It looks like they added new quests for Halloween. Takes place in UW with custom PvE skills. Pity they're all solo quests though. I don't find UW pretty enough to go through the second longer one, but I might give the first quest a whirl.

Also a long list of henchie bar changes. Boo on the fact they removed Charge! from all of the warrior hench, now I don't have that extra speed buff to run new characters through Imperial Commendation farming. :P Non-earth ele henchies still suck. Monk henchies dropped their touch skills which is good. Rit spirit spammer henchies is good. EOTN henchies got secondaries which is...interesting. I'm kinda ambivalent about a lot of the changes to Ranger/Mes/Nec. Can't really comment about Sins and Dervs.

http://www.mitbbs.com/article_t/SanFrancisco/32644365.html

Yes we all know that Journey to the West is a political commentary. So no big surprises on the numbers here. It's still some interesting info. And gotta admire the JttW geeks who took the time to compile it all.

Funny stuff: 大侠就是我
蝶梦(穆杨) 焦版杨宗保

Also, want the mp3 version of this song: 只如初见. So far all I can find is the shorter female sang version.

( *** Ignore the rest *** )

Misc refs...
BLD prequel ep guide

Email sent to customer:

"Is this the only LMS server that you have, or do you have another server that is in a master-slave relationship with this server?"

I really should not be reading slash fic while I'm working. XD

http://sparklette.net/food/mooncakes-2009/

Mmm...

Looking for a good video quality download of 国庆宴会 w/o having to bt it myself. *hinthint*

Also want mp3 versions of the new songs...
eg. http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMTIyNTY4MTU2.html

复兴之路 Menu (need something that can stitch mp4's together)

复兴之路 04 曙色 (彭丽媛)
毛阿敏 呼唤 复兴之路
宋祖英 大漠深处 复兴之路
歌曲《走向复兴》指挥：李玉宁 复兴之路

Why is my friend's page blank under the 21st?

From Best Buy website:

Asus $589.99
4GB RAM, 2.1 GHz dual Intel core CPU, 320 GB HD
14" screen, 1366 x 768 resolution (lol, whut? o_O)
7 hr battery life; 4.7 lbs, 1.3" thick
Comes with facial recognition software, apparently o_O

Toshiba Satellite $899.99
4 GB RAM, 2.0 GHz dual Intel Centrino core CPU, 500 GB HD
14.1" screen, 1280 x 800 resolution
5.5 hr battery life; 5 lbs, 1.2" thick
built in bluetooth

HP Pavillion $749.99
4 GB RAM (expandable to 8 GB), 2.1 GHz dual Intel core CPU, 320 GB HD
14.1" screen, 1280 x 800 resolution
6 hr battery life; 5.1 lbs, 1.6" thick

HP Pavillion $499.99
AMD Turion processor, 4 GB RAM (expandable to 8 GB), 250 GB HD
14.1" screen, 1280 x 800 resolution
5.1 lbs, 1.6" thick

Others with 4 GB RAM, dual proc, 14.1" screen, ~5 lbs, ~3 hr battery
Toshiba Satellite 649.99
HP Pavillion 649.99
HP Pavillion 649.99

Circuit City - I checked the site and its laptops are much more expensive. And most of them aren't 4 GB RAM. So I wouldn't bother with it.

Saw this avvie on Gaia... Image got changed

Might do better with the white cat cosplay, but definitely an "Aww" moment.

Bibbles the cat isn't available on tektek yet, unfortunately.

EDIT: Ah-ha! It's up on Tektek now!

While I was in my yahoo email, I saw a notice about geocities closing. I don't think I have anything in my geocities site. But the psydai site will definitely be affected.

So.. er... do we care if it's going to be down? After all, all the actual fics are backed up on both IJ.

I got an invite from Gordon... So I finally cracked and got on the facebook network.

*stares at sky*

*pokes cashew*

Join me? (I'm using my yahoo email at the moment for registration.)

Man, I didn't even remember to look at the Nicholas thing from last week and it was an easy one. Oh well.

In other news, there was a skill update.

Assassins got buffed (much to the surprise of anti-Shadow Form guru folks, I'm sure). Several skills got recharge decreased and now there are two more AoE attacks aside from death blossom. In other news, I bet Golden Phoenix + DB/MS is the new bomb in PvE.

Dervs are... 0_o sand shards.

Eles got slightly buffed. The afflicted elementalists and margonite sorcerors are going to be more annoying, I can see. Mind blast was untouched so I'm happy.

Mesmers got nerfed. *rolleyes*

Monks got buffed... I wasn't aware that shielding hands was underpowered before but whatever.

Nec - masochism got changed and that's the only relevant change.

Ranger - BEASTMASTERY BUFFED IN PVE!! ZOMG THEY FINALLY MUSHED COMFORT & CHARM TOGETHER!! *cough*

Paragons - got ignored
Rits - Nothing nerfed from the previous buffs, and completely left off the list this time :p
Warrior - no changes, surprisingly.

*****

Still no drive to go back to it recently though. Maybe I'll give it some more time. And why has Warband of Brothers still not come up yet on the Zaishen mission bounty? Gr.

I dunno, maybe it's the hour, or maybe playing with muses on MUD had inspired me, but I wrote up a poem for the third account's profile. The poem is sort of based on the avatar image, of course, and partly on the name.



Arete Serenitas
by: me

When darkest before dawn
Pray of Eos to herald the end of the night
When in the tempest rage
Pray of Iris to herald the end of the blight.

When endless bloodshed flows
Pray of Irene's guidance to end the fight
When lost in unknown wilds
Pray of Luna and the stars' guiding light

Endless prayers through time are given wing
To which no god e'er descend their height
Yet unlooked for, the wonder within
The human virtues and human might

Of all the ills from Pandora's box
Was Hope gifted last of Man's birthright
Leaders, creators, peacemakers, all
Dream for mortal-kind wings to take flight

*****

Footnotes:

1. OK, it's kind of meh, but what do you expect at almost midnight while I'm on meds.

2. Only two items on that avatar costed over 3k. The staff was 7k and is actually a hand down from my main account. The wings is around 20k.

3. Also, I did a search for Chinese literary references to nightingales (for my main account). I came up with the two following by western authors:
The Nightingale by Hans Christian Andersen
The Chinese Nightingale by Vachel Lindsay
Would be nice to find some references from Chinese authors, although that would involve a lot of reading through Chinese sites. *sigh*

http://www.savefile.com/files/2169438

Walked a new account through the tutorial to show how it's done.

News the first. I'm getting wisdom teeth (2 of 'em) removed tomorrow morning. I've already put in for PTO Friday and next Monday. So I'll possibly be around online, if it's not too painful to... >.>

IJ - pokes cashew. Um... is it me or is the image on the left side of my journal gone. The one on top is still there. Did the site that host it lose it (looks like imageshack)? You don't have any copies by any chance? (I think I may have backups at home but I'm not going to be able to check until I get back tonight -_-)

Dragonswords - all the new alts are lvl 18 now. Still a little bit to go before they hit where your guys are (22? 24?). One thing I need help on is that I still need 3 ruby gems. The freaking place won't repop.

Incidentally... (1) The amount of wis/prac points that monk needs is insane... unarmed combat is 10 pracs per rank wtf?! and it's only 2 levels away from enhanced damage which is 4 pracs per rank. Even if the race was sprite I don't think there'd be enough to go around. As it is, I'm neglecting training both int and dex to get those two up 10% per level. (2) Why does my knight have such low hp? It's only 50% than the druid. The monk on the other hand is almost twice the amount of druid. She was the one doing most of the tanking even though she had by far the worst AC (due to no pracs to train dex, no rubies for rings, and no secondhand weapon or shield slot).

Gaia - New getup combo *pic uploaded to previous post*. I got the qipao cheap off of auction when I lucked out and caught one that was selling for almost 2k under store price with only 1 hour left on the auction. Muwahaha. Anyway, let me know how it looks and compares to the other two.

Also, signed up for Discover card for the 7k gaia cash. *stares at sky* I figure it's not that different from the Amex card I got suckered into signing up for in front of the Cal student store when I first came to Cal. I didn't actually get around to canceling that card (or using it) until we were moving this time around. So I figure the Discover card can sit there and gather dust until I get around to canceling it. In the mean time, that's about $70 worth of gaia cash. o_O

Which looks better?

( cut for images )

Uploaded daytime image.
In other news, finally broke through the 10k gold mark. Not bad considering I just spent most of my gold to buy the bamboo background two days ago.