Words On Wednesday

I’m interrupting the regularly scheduled second week Book Report post to give an update on why I haven’t posted since 21 November. I didn’t mean to miss a week. I had posts scheduled a few weeks out, back in early to mid-November. At the time, I figured I would have a few weeks to catch up on some things, and I would be able to write something before the first empty Wednesday passed. Unfortunately, that unscheduled day came and passed without any opportunity for me to write even a decent post. Then the next week came and went. And here we are, on the third week, before I publish anything. Thing is, I’ve been really busy lately. At work, at home, I just haven’t had the time to write. I still love writing, I just don’t have the chance right now. Therefore, I’m officially stating that Words on Wednesday will not be an every week thing, at least not for the next little while. Does this mean I’ll go a few weeks without posting, and then pick right back up writing every single week? Does

The mobile version of Runescape recently entered beta release, and I was so excited to get into the program and try it out. Runescape mobile (not Old School RuneScape, as that was ported to mobile several months before the RuneScape 3 mobile beta) allows players to access the game through a genuinely mobile platform, rather than my unconventional access via remote desktop. With this release, there are some improvements over remote desktop access, but also some surprising shortcomings. Having played now for a few weeks, I have an informed opinion on the abilities and limitations of the mobile beta. I’ll go through a few of the elements for each platform, and evaluate which is better, or which I plan to continue using. First, the mobile beta is currently only accessible to paid members. Fortunately, that includes players who purchase membership through bonds as I do, but I did not have an active membership when I got into the beta program. I was already planning on using a bond agai

After I finished Bram Stoker’s “Dracula,” I asked my local library for recommendations. Jess from the Multimedia & Fiction desk suggested  either “The Woman in Black” by Susan Hill, “By Gaslight” by Steven Price, or “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde” by Robert Louis Stevenson. As the title of this post reveals, I decided to go with Stevenson. “Jekyll & Hyde” references are nearly everywhere, in numerous different platforms for fiction. As with “Dracula,” I figured that it might improve my appreciate of these allusions by reading the original source material. Furthermore, I could get a .txt file of “Jekyll & Hyde” from  Project Gutenberg to supplement the audiobook, in much the same way that I did with “Dracula.” The format of “Jekyll & Hyde” was surprising. From all of the representations I’ve seen in other media, I expected a sort of omniscient narrator that saw both Jekyll and Hyde, as well as the transition between the two. Instead, the story i

What is NaNoWriMo? November, for the uninitiated, is National Novel Writing Month. Realistically, anyone can write a novel at any point in the year, requiring as much time as they want. To participate in NaNoWriMo properly, however, you must write at least a 50,000 word novel entirely within the month of November. As such, it’s a little late to start for this year’s NaNoWriMo, but you could always start planning for next year. Source: https://nanowrimo.org/ As Kristian Wilson explains, there are numerous different ways that writers can approach NaNoWriMo. Most notably, there are people who plan a story and characters in advance, and there are others who begin writing at the start of November with very little forethought. Wilson describes these individuals as “plotters and pantsers” (Wilson, 2018). Either method is acceptable, per the official rules of NaNoWriMo. “I want to write a novel one day,” said many a would-be author at some point in their lives. Frankly, I’m sure a lot

Fireball is weird. Not the whisky itself, but rather the culture around it. The legend of Fireball Cinnamon Whisky (or “Dr. McGillicuddy’s Fireball Whisky” as it was originally known) begins in Canada. It seems to have been a mostly local beverage until closer to 2007 when it was rebranded as the Fireball that we know today. The spike in sales and expansion from small town secret to global hit appears to have happened somewhere between 2011 and 2013. It’s amazing what good marketing can accomplish. My first exposure to Fireball was probably around 2010 or 2011 in the early days of its remarkable growth. A friend and classmate absolutely loved Fireball, second only to Southern Comfort. (Or maybe Fireball and then SoCo? I actually don’t know which she preferred between the two.) As I have discussed before , I bought a bottle of Southern Comfort on her recommendation and absolutely hated it. Hence, I decided that anything Megan liked, I would probably hate. I wrote off Fireball as

“ Metroid ” is an action-adventure game released on the Japanese Famicom and North American NES in 1986. Spawning a series that now spans more than three decades, the game was certainly good enough to generate a sequel or 13. Does the original hold up to the test of time, or have sequels improved on the concept to the degree that the first game has lost its luster? Story - 7/10 The story of Metroid is shallow, but motivational nonetheless. Samus Aran is a bounty hunter sent to destroy the parasitic metroids before space pirates can use them for destruction. (S)he must explore the depths of the planet Zebes (which I’ve always pronounced like the city of Thebes, Greece ), gathering suit upgrades and weapons, and defeating powerful monsters. Ultimately, Samus destroys Mother Brain and (nearly) wipes out the metroid population. After the player manages to escape the exploding planet, it is revealed that -gasp- Samus is female. As the only real character with any sort of backgroun

It’s been quite a few weeks (months, actually) since I last posted about Runescape. Since that time, I’ve accomplished quite a bit and gotten banned again. Without further ado, an update on the current state of my Runescape account. To follow up with the final thoughts of my most recent post , I did manage to get the remainder of the golem outfit pieces and combine them into a full Magic golem outfit. Between Trahaearn hour Harmonized runite mining and Seren stone daily challenges, I did a lot of mining. Since level 99 mining yields double Gemstone golem fragments, I was getting roughly 200 fragments every 5 minutes. I already had several pieces of the outfit, and more than enough fragments to finish it out. The only missing requirement was level 20 invention. I got that pretty quickly after getting 99 fletching, but unfortunately before I discovered that you can disassemble noted items. That’s right, I disassembled loads of unnoted unstrung maple shieldbows, 28 at a time, all the

I figured Bram Stoker’s “Dracula” would be fitting as the first reoccurring Book Report post, being the first book that I’ve read (listened to) in a long time. Considering this single novel is the basis and origin of most modern vampire lore, I’ve always been interested it. I remember playing Castlevania as a kid, even though I knew nothing of the novel then. Basically any modern representation of vampires uses Stoker’s work in some form or another as reference material. Source: https://audiobookstore.com/audiobooks/dracula.aspx My first exposure to the actual text of “Dracula” was in a “Topics in Language and Literature” class at Upstate. The class was a neat fusion of literature and technology, and easily the most interesting English class I’ve ever taken. For one assignment, we had to “not read” a Victorian novel . In short, it was an exploration to  learn about a novel of our choice without actually reading it. For the assignment, all we had to actually read was the first

I frequently have gun envy, but I’m really eyeing the 9mm or .40 caliber carbine from Hi-Point. Now before you start pointing your finger and pitching a fit about how awful they are, hear me out. There is a reason why I’m interested in a gun with such a bad reputation. Source: https://www.academy.com/shop/pdp/hi-point-firearms-995ts-carbine-9mm-semiautomatic-rifle-113885116 I didn’t even know Hi-Point made a carbine until I came across a meme that a friend of mine recently posted on Facebook. I’ve long heard the echo chamber about how bad Hi-Point guns are. Unreliable, ugly, bulky, inaccurate, and any number of other adjectives that people use to hate on firearms. Honestly, though, I feel like most of these tales are exaggeration and hearsay. Most shooters that I know don’t own a Hi-Point, and few if any have ever even shot one. But oh, “those things are just awful” they say. Are they really? Source:  https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=429538197575166&id=2452845

To me, Scotch has a sort of classy aura that many other spirits lack. I’m not going to claim to be a connoisseur, as I have tried very few variants of Scotch, but Costco’s Kirkland Signature Blended Scotch Whisky is a solid distilled spirit at a reasonable price. It certainly doesn’t compete with the higher end Scotch offerings available from Costco or other liquor stores, but it holds its own, and I would say it is undeniably drinkable. Basically any Scotch, or “Scotch whisky” if we’re being proper, is known to have flavors of smoke and peat. Honestly, I didn’t know what peat was before looking it up, and I still don’t know what it smells or tastes like, but I do recognize some common properties across the Scotch brands that I have tried. The smoke flavor is undeniable, and seems to be the biggest hurdle to those trying Scotch for the first time. Coming from the sweet molasses flavor of rum or the mostly inert flavor of vodka, Scotch has a bold and strong flavor profile that can