Glieuaeiel's DJ

Quests Galore

I decide to play an old Harry Potter game for nostalgia's sake. I finished the main plot long ago, but there are a bunch of bonus quests that never did finish, and none of them are easy. You have to save up a lot of gold before doing them. After collecting some money, I try starting one of the quests that I've heard is particularly hard--not because of difficult battles, but because the quest is sort of a mystery and it's hard to guess where you're supposed to go next. Indeed, a glob-like creature rises out of the darkness, eats most of my gold, and vanishes without a trace. Well, that got me nowhere. So much wasted time gathering that gold.

I decide to give one of the other quests another try. It involves defeating a ghostly horse-riding warrior. I've tried it before, earlier tonight, and I know that he does a lot of damage, but at least the objective is straightforward. I ride down into his canyon lair and we immediately start fighting, repeatedly charging down the canyon and passing each other like we're jousting with swords. If I hold down one of the trigger buttons on my controller (like the R2 button on a PS2) it will charge my attack, so that if I release the button at the right time, the slash of my scimitar will do lots of extra damage. The trouble is, he's doing the same thing, and we're both losing health at about the same rate. In fact, I'm about to die!

Hurriedly, I pause the game and try to find a health potion in my inventory. While looking around in there, I realize that I also still should have Armageddon's Blade, an epic weapon that I received for completing the main storyline all those years ago. I drink the potion, unpause, and run away from the ghostly warrior to give myself time to search for the sword. I'll also have to ensure that I'm suitably fireproof so that I don't kill myself as well when activating the sword's epic power.

Somehow I end up in a village with a friend of mine, a girl, accompanying me. While I'm talking to some NPCs, she sets off to do a different quest. The NPC remarks upon her departure, saying in a commiserating tone of voice that "women are ever unfaithful." Irked by his sexism, I try to explain that women are people too, and this one just happens to be busy at the moment: "There are only ten slots in our inventory, and we're each trying to do about twenty quests at the same time," I say.

Circumlocution

I'm hanging out with my dad's friend's son, whose father is there as well. The father makes a casual remark that I respond to at face value--then I realize that between the lines, he was actually saying that his son is gay and he thinks I ought to start going out with him. Apparently he thinks I'm gay as well. I'm impressed that he can say this much without actually saying any of it outright: it's the only logical interpretation of his comment. [I can't remember the exact wording of the comment, but presumably it wouldn't make as much sense in waking life anyway.] I add something to my previous response, hopefully making clear that now I understand his second meaning and I'm actually not interested in guys. The son does indeed interpret it that way and hurriedly responds, "That's fine." I suppose he probably feels a bit uncomfortable about his dad's attempt at matchmaking.

Previous hours:
Feb 20, 0:00-8:31
Feb 21, 3:40-8:30
Feb 22, 0:25-8:33; frag: doing touristy stuff

Cave Channeling (6:58)

Rand al'Thor is in a giant cavern, being attacked by a fairly weak enemy creature. He tries to use the One Power to make its brain explode inside its skull. The first one or two tries are unsuccessful, and in the meanwhile, the creature is hurting him. But eventually he succeeds.

At another time, someone is trying to levitate a giant rock and drop it on his head. But he manages to deflect it and send it into the depths of a chasm.

There is a dock in this cavern that seems suspicious. Rand does something to it, and a round, apparently dead fish pops out of the water and lands on the wood. After making sure it won't suddenly come alive to attack him, Rand takes the fish back to the place he's made his camp, wanting to cook it. It seems like too much effort to conjure an entire stove to heat the fish, so instead he just warms up one patch of the rocks.

At another time, there is some kind of confrontation on a rock platform jutting out from a wall. The camera for this scene is level with the platform, but a great distance away. You see a woman run from the platform into a doorway in the wall, followed by a man. A heartbeat later, the man comes flying back out and slides backwards along the platform as though punched with considerable force. A few moments after that, there is a burst of fire from the doorway and the woman comes running back out, crying or screaming or in any case in desperate need of healing. I'm impressed by the creativity of the cinematographer, to shoot the scene from such an unusual angle as that.

Back on the platform, there is a discussion going on. One of the Forsaken, Sammael, is lying to a main character. He claims that he's not Sammael. There's another person from the Age of Legends present on the platform who knows the truth of Sammael's identity, though. That person frowns at Sammael whenever he lies about himself, but doesn't immediately say anything to the main character.

Asmodean and Sammael get to talking, and eventually it comes out that one of them is gay. He turned to the shadow mainly because of the difficulty he had in admitting this fact, and also because the other one didn't return his feelings. While watching this, I think wonderingly that it really has become cool to include gay people in all the new TV shows. I also hope that somehow having had this important discussion, the two of them will make up and get together and join the good side.

Passing the Time with Lanfear (6:58)

[Major spoiler for book five of WoT! Also, this dream involves sex.]

Spoiler for Passing the Time with Lanfear:

Lanfear, clad only in black underwear, is lying on a table, masturbating. She's in her headquarters, somewhere, and I guess this is what she does with her free time. I'm sad to learn that she's still alive, since that means Moiraine's sacrifice was for nothing. There are about three men in the room with Lanfear. One of them walks around and gets in a position to have sex with her from behind. I assume he's doing this without asking her, so chances are when she notices him, she'll blow him to smithereens, or something. But to my surprise, she doesn't do anything right away. Only, a few moments later, the man simply disappears, then reappears dressed in a woman's outfit, complete with a wide-brimmed, white hat with a flower.

At one point, Lanfear says something, and suddenly her underwear disappears. Somehow I suspect this was a trap laid by Rand. She triggered the trap a while ago, setting the weave, but it didn't do anything noticeable until just now, when one of the words that she just said set off the effect. Clever. She gets up as though about to go somewhere, and I wonder if she means to do it naked.

Gendered Web Browsers (6:58)

I'm talking to my grandma when she says something about web browsers "for girls." With an internal groan, I try to explain to her that web browsers aren't gendered. I realize that she's from an earlier time, where the distinction between the sexes was more marked, but I have to do what I can to advance the cause of gender equality. I expect to have to repeat myself a few times, since she's hard of hearing, but to my surprise she understands me pretty well. I look at her ear to see whether she's wearing her hearing aid. Her ear looks strange--it's more like a cavity in the side of her head than a projection on the outside of it--but yes, the hearing aid is in. Well, good for her.

Grandma takes me to a room full of computers to demonstrate her point. All of the computers are showing the desktop, and most of the desktop backgrounds are pictures taken by the computer's user. The pictures tend to feature moments from family history--birthdays, vacations, that sort of thing. Admittedly, a lot of these pictures look like they could only have been taken by a female. Grandma sort of has a point, but I still feel like there's something she's not understanding.

Urine (6:58)

Someone from my family is trying to shoot a pet video about a dog. We're all outside in the back yard. They try to get it to do some cute tricks and then howl for a while. They're going to autotune the howling into a cute melody. [Actually, while I'm watching them shoot the video, the howling is already autotuned. It's like I'm half watching-them-shoot, half watching-the-video.]

Later, there's a pet rat sitting at the top of the hill. It's about two or three feet tall. Its trick is that it can pee on command. When I learn that Mom and Dad are planning to have it do this trick, I try to dash out of range, but I'm not fast enough. It feels like I've been hit by a sprinkler from behind. That rat has demonically good aim, and it always makes sure to hit absolutely everyone in range. Well, crap. Now I'm going to have to take a shower.

I look around to see how fared the rest of the family. Mom's not wearing any pants or lower underwear, and she's peeing while standing up. [For some reason, I just take this in stride.] I start walking back to the house, carrying a jar of the rat's urine. My sister is saying something about how we should have collected more urine to donate, and my mom is disagreeing with her. She says that the place accepts only a small amount of urine with each delivery, so there's no point collecting more.