Monthly Archives: November 2009

“The King Beetle” or “Be utterly consumed by Fire”

As the moon rose and the hour grew late
The day-help on the coconut estate
Raked up the dried leaves that fell dead from the trees
Which they burned in a pile by the lake

The beetle king summoned his men
And from the top of the rhododendron stem,
“Calling all volunteers who can carry back here
The Great Mystery has been lit once again”

One beetle emerged from the crowd
In a fashionable abdomen shroud
Said, “I’m a professor, you see, that’s no mystery to me
I’ll be back soon, successful and proud”

But when the beetle professor returned,
He crawled on all six, as his wings had been burned
And described to the finest detail all he’d learned
There was neither a light, nor a heat, in his words

The deeply dissatisfied king
Climbed the same stem to announce the same thing
But in his second appeal sought to sweeten the deal
With a silver padparadscha ring

The lieutenant stepped out from the line
As he lassoed his thorax with twine
Thinking, “I’m stronger and braver and I’ll earn the king’s favor
One day all he has will be mine”

But for all the lieutenant’s conceit
He too returned singed and admitting defeat
“I had no choice, please believe, but retreat
It was bright as the sun, but with ten times the heat

And it cracked like the thunder and bloodshot my eyes
Though smothered with sticks, it advanced undeterred
Carelessly cast an ash cloud to the sky, my lord
Like a flock of dark vanishing birds”

The beetle king slammed down his fist
“Your flowery description’s no better than his!
We sent for the great light and you bring us this?
We didn’t ask what it seems like, we asked what it is!”

His majesty’s hour at last is drawn nigh
The elegant queen took her leave from his side
Without understanding, but without asking why
She gathered their kids to come bid their goodbyes

And the father explained, “You’ve been somewhat deceived
You’ve all called me your dad, but your true Dad’s not me
I lay next to your mom and your forms were conceived
Your Father’s the light within all that you see

He fills up the ponds as He empties the clouds
Holds without hands and He speaks without sounds
He provides us with the cow’s waste and coconuts to eat
Giving one that nice salt taste, and the other its sweet

Sends the black carriage the day death shows its face
Thinning our numbers with kindness and grace
And just as a flower and its fragrance are one
So must each of you and your Father become

Now distribute my scepter, my crown, and my throne
And all we’ve known as wealth to the poor and alone”
Without further hesitation, without looking back home
The king flew headlong into the blazing unknown

And as the smoke ring hurled higher and higher
The troops flying loops around the telephone wires
They said, “Our beloved’s not dead, but his highness instead
Has been utterly changed into fire”

Why not be utterly changed into fire?
Why not be utterly changed into fire?
Why not be utterly changed into fire?
Why not be utterly changed into fire?

/*—————–// //—————–*/
What do you think about this song? What do you think it’s about?

I Kissed a Girl and I Liked It (World Of Warcraft)

Meet Bulywlf:
Bulywlf, a level 14 Human Warrior

Bulywlf, a level 14 Human Warrior

He’s a level 14 Human Warrior in World of Warcraft. He’s played by me. That’s right, I now play World of Warcraft. No, I’m not addicted to the “warcrack” or am large, overweight, pimpled-face man living in his parent’s basement. That’s just silly, cause my parents don’t have a basement.

Anyway, I’ve heard about this game for a while (it’s been launched for 5 years now) and I’ve always wondered what it’s like. I mean, there’s a 11 million people playing (and paying monthly) this game, there’s got to be something people find entertaining and worthwhile in it. So I signed up for the 10 day trial and gave it a shot.

Needless to say, I lasted about a 5 days before I bought the game. And the first expansion. And the strategy guides for both the core game and the expansion. Okay, that’s kind of stretch of the truth. It was all in one box and was the cheapest option from Amazon. (Side note: the one-day shipping from Amazon is something amazing. It’s worth it’s own post. It’s that cool).

So the game play is like this (so far):

  1. Find someone who has a quest.
  2. Do the quest.
  3. Get rewarded.

The quest can be simple as go talk to this person (usually quite a ways away), or kill this many monsters, or pick up this many things the monsters sometimes drop, or something completely different that I can’t think of right now.

Combat is fairly simple. It’s not a “hack-n-slash” type of game where you control each swing of your blade and each block of your shield, but it’s more of a point and click kind of game. You walk up to the monster and right click on it and you’ll just start hitting it with your sword. Damage is based on number crunching, like old school Dungeons and Dragons, but you do get to control when your special attacks are used. These are the fun part and bring out the strategy of the game. Like managing your energy level and choosing whether to hit the monster with a stronger attack or boost your health to take more damage.

The other part that makes World of Warcraft popular is the fact that it’s a MMORPG (lofmalow!!!1!! [link]). A MMORPG stands for Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game. And I’m pretty sure that acronym set the tone for the rest of the game acronyming everything else. So you are not playing this game by yourself, you are not just playing with your friends, you are playing with strangers. Who for the most part ignore you, but sometimes are really useful and have saved my “life” a few times. And sometimes they’ll hang out with you and help you complete your quests, and you’ll help them complete theirs.

It’s surprisingly fun. Lindsey even enjoyed the time that we played together. Not enough to buy it, but enough that she didn’t cry and scream “No, no! I don’t want to play that game! Please don’t make me play that game, you’re so mean if you make me play that game” when I suggested we spent another evening tele-dating over the game.

And the other thing I’ve noticed is that LFG is much funnier now that I know what it’s making fun of.

And that’s that. Comments? Questions? Just leave them below.

The ZOO!

On Halloween, my lovely girlfriend and I went to the Oakland Zoo. It was a great time and served as a reminder to always (ALWAYS) travel with your camera. Otherwise you’ll have to make do with your silly 2.0 megapixal camera on your iPhone…

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Giraffes!

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More Giraffes! (the second one’s kind of hard to see…)

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Elephants. If you were there, you might think this was a video. Cause they did NOTHING! Except eat a chain. That was weird.

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A monitor lizard! She was feeding it, and making it walk all over. It was funny.

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Flying foxes. I think my favorite part was (is) the teddy bear. It’s some how both morbid and cute at the same time.

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Turtle. Turtle, turtle. Am I not turtlely enough for the Turtle Club?

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A Chilean Rose tarantula. Scary, but not as scary as Tarantism.

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She’s cute!