Salmon Pasta

Boil a handful of pasta, preferably spirals in a small pot.
When done el dente, tip out all the water. They will cook some more while mixing.
Return to the stove and turn the heat to minimum
Add 2 spoonful’s each of olive, capers, sundried tomatoes. Or whatever seems best.
Also add in a drained tin of salmon. Then stir through
When mixed turn of the heat and add some Parmesan cheese, stirring again.
My saucepan is small enough that I can eat this meal directly out of it.

Leaving the heat on whilst stirring, helps dry off the preservatives from the fish and veggies. This is supposed to be a dry dish, not a sloppy one. The good thing about it is that it is easy to make enough for only one person and all the ingredients can be left in the cupboard until opened, but then need to be refrigerated after use. If I haven’t finished off the olives and things in a week or so then everything goes into spag bog.

Languages

A language changes the way that you think. I really enjoyed the book “Sophie’s World” because it was translated to English and is about philosophy. Some cultures have concepts that are really hard to translate into English, purely because there are no words to describe any of it. So for a long time I have thought wouldn’t it be cool to speak a foreign language. But in my early years of schooling I kept changing languages, French, then German then Indonesian. All Indonesian did was make my English spelling go from bad to worse. And so by the time I finished school, all I can really do is count to ten and say Hi.



Arabic sounds musical and looks very arty when written, but there doesn’t seem to be many interesting things in Arabic culture. Like most of the countries that speak it have been at war for centuries and I don’t think I’d have much reason to speak to those people. Maybe the Turks would be interesting. I like the stories of Lawrence of Arabia, Aladdin and Sinbad the Sailor.

Russian I like because I got romantic ideas of the country from reading “War and Peace” when I was in primary school. Also before that we had a game called Troika, that was a series of puzzle games. None of it was in English and that made it more fun than it otherwise would have been.

Spanish, I could be like Zorro, or Don Quixote. One day I plan to do that pilgrimage where you walk across Spain but I don’t know when. I also still like fencing. So there may be opportunities to use this language in the future and it be useful. Maybe I could go and see Carlos in Columbia, the bloke I boarded with at Uni.

Japanese has only recently become interesting. Mainly because of anime but also because of my old SNES games. Part of the allure of them is the foreign language and the alternate fantasy settings, their spirituality is nothing like ours. Subtitled is definitely better than dubbed and I’ve picked up the odd word through repetition. This is probably a language I can use with computer games. Plus Brother Jo is quite good at it, so I have at least one person to practice talking to. And using a skill like this is the only way to keep it. I have learnt quite a few programming languages not that I have never used once I learnt them. It seem like a bit of a waste of effort now.



These are the ones that I have been more interested in. German and French are a bit too familiar for my liking. Particularly German I seem to be able to guess what topic people are talking about from a paragraph or two. There are enough words that sound the same. Also these languages use the same Cyrillic alphabet and my Indonesian experience tells me that my spelling and grammar will get worse from reading it.

There is also ancient Greek and Hebrew. If I decide to be a Lutheran pastor a part of the training includes reading transcriptions of the original translations, Dad and Brother Levi can already do this. But there would not be many day-to-day uses for either of these languages.

Oh and there is chemistry, that qualifies as a language too, although I’m getting a bit rusty in it of late.

Why am I still interested in learning a new language? I like learning; I still think it’s romantic. It will also be useful in the eighth continent, the internet, when playing computer games. I believe everybody in the world should be able to play games together, League of legends is a good example of this, or at least it was. I remember trying to talk to people in Spanish.

I also have a fondness for fantasy, LOTR, TOME, ADOM, SLASH’EM, those sort of acronyms. It’s nice to hear where a culture was developed and how they base their outlook on life. Some cultures fundamentally believe in Original Sin, they need to work hard to learn to be good. Some believe they are destined to be god, if only they work hard enough. Some that there is nothing after death but the decaying flesh and so we should enjoy it while it lasts. For some people their ancestors are sacred, for some it is sportsmen, some have holy ground and others holy relics. Note that your philosophic outlook on life is fundamentally tied to your parent’s religious beliefs. The way that you express yourself and communicate is colored by the means that you use to communicate.



So when will I get the motivation required to fluently speak another language? Can I find someone somewhere to practice enough to be fluent?

What was PNG like?

Well, surprisingly similar to home actually. Since the main reason for the trip was to see my baby sister we didn’t really do much touristy stuff. It was king of more a bum around my sister’s house than an overseas trip.
After a while if figured out what made everything seem familiar. It’s the power points. They are the same as home. Then from this things like the Urn and TV were exactly as you should see in Perth. They also had similar TV stations and I was in the same time zone. Locals still have competitions with their neighbors as to who has the best lawn in their front yard. There were lots of things that felt familiar.
It was sort of a cross between Cambodia and Murray Bridge. I only got out and about much in Madang. So the Villages may feel different. Strangely enough the whole country seemed more civilized that the aboriginal communities that I have been to in Australia. Eg. I felt underdressed when we went to church.
When we were in Gaubin we stayed mostly in the hospital complex. But on our trip up the mountain we did see some nice wooden housed that made it feel more like another country. Also the fences were interesting. Mostly they were a series of saplings stuck in the ground. Nothing bigger than a mouse would be able to get through them. I don’t know what happens when the trees get big.
I don’t really feel like giving a blow-by-blow detailed diary entry on the trip. So some of the other highlights were:
PtMorseby Flight getting delayed a day. Chatting to an English couple, both called Alex, who helped organize a stopover in Lanbada Hotel. Pretty swish.
Getting heatstroke in Madang from walking between all the marketplaces.
Spending an entire day on a copra boat to get to Karkar island.
Sleeping on a couch, listening to German primary school classes most mornings.
Snorkeling most afternoons (apparently the weather was terrible).
Walk up a volcano, 5 hours to get there, 1 hour sleep at the top while the guides tried to start a fire, 3 hours to get back down.
2 big, bring a plate, feasts for tea. This after Nicole put us onto her starvation diet.
Each night, going to bed later and later because, we were getting better at playing 500.
Actually learning how to play 500, along with Kristina and Nicol, Levi was the teacher.
Skipping with the school kids, haven’t been skipping for years.
New food, always a highlight, although I didn’t take many photos. Also cold hotdogs with mayonnaise instead of cheese are terrible.
Being a German missionary for a week.
Hospital tour. Seemed like they can do nearly everything there and they see patients quicker and have more spare beds than any of the hospitals at home.
My flippers were nicked on the last day in Gaubin.
The last day in Madang I got a rash allover my back or bed bugs or something, was all scabby for a week after. These were the low-lights, but still noteworthy.
People
People make the place after all.

There done all written up, this took me about an hour to write. But I tell a similar story in only ten minutes somatically. Now all I need to do is add some photos and bung it on the blog. I may proofread it, maybe not.
Turns out I'm not motivated to put any pictures up after all.

Dimitri

Turns out that while I explained the origins of Anoikis and Skyzer I haven't mentioned Dimitri at all. I dont think Dimitri is as old as Frog, I seem to recall searching Dads flash bookshelf that stood at the entrance to the manse for the book "War and Peace" to check the spelling. We only got these books after grandpa died. But I don't remember exactly when that was. But that makes it ~2003 when I started to use the tag Dimitri Raskalnickoff frequently. The problem with frog is that such a short easy to remember name is often taken by other people. So I wanted something new that I could be unique in using. Occasionally it has been too long to fit as a username but I do use it a lot still, eg here. I wonder if VRBones prompted my search for a unique name to use? I dont think I knew him then, but he did motivate me to make it my own.

Other that that back in primary school I read War and Peace, I enjoyed it but didn't really figure out who the characters were until near the middle, how the various stories related to each other and all that. One of the characters had the name Raskalnikov or something like that, although after a quick google maybe the book was Crime and Punishment? At any rate I used the name with the phonetic spelling of what I remembered. Dimitri was added where a first name was required.

And so now when I google Raskalnickoff I am pleased to see results only about me and the places that I have been.

Are kittens evil?

Are kittens evil? Well that makes for an interesting pun in Japanese because Kawaii (cute) sounds just like Kowai (frightening). So even though Ratman may work for an “evil” organization, they still play with kittens. Thus the heroes, the so called “good guys” will end up being pompous, arrogant self-righteous fools. Then there will be the good natured klutz that always makes things worse even though they have the best of intentions.
It’s just a small change of viewpoint required to allow a “good” nation to declare war on an “evil” one. Once you have those distinctions it is easy to justify breaking any on the Ten Commandments, and say “I am excused”. They are my evil enemy so it’s OK for me to steal, kill, rape and pillage. When you have done that enough to be the winner then you can wright the history books and tell the whole world how “good” you were. After all isn’t it obvious that they suffered more from Original Sin than me?
Then what are “good” and “evil” but labels? They might easily be replaced with "Us" and "Them". The protagonist is always "good" they are one of "Us". Tales are always told from the point of view of the winners and of course they will portray themselves as the good guys.
After changing to “us” and “them” you can use the power of Empathy to transmogrify the titles to “them” and “us”.  Now with a change of perspective the “good guys” are evil. They are powerful bullies that blew up my home and destroyed my business. All my friends and business associates are in their prison and I no longer have a safe place to raise a family. They are a chaotic force that upset all my plans and go out of their way to make my life miserable. I’m also curious about how we decide who is “Us” and who is “Them” But I’ll muse more on that later.
So what do you think; Are kittens frighteningly cute? Or are they the embodiment of evil overlords hiding under a fluffy coat?

Dungeons: A Review

Dungeons seems to be remarkably similar to Notorious, the heroes are the source of the most deviation, as they actually die. The dungeon has a crystal heart and minions that you can assign tasks to and you place Gimmicks about rooms to change their function. You establish contracts with monsters and geolocate their spawn sites.

At first I jumped straight into the campaign but I was baffled as to what to do first so I had to resort to playing the tutorial. Your psyborg tries very hard to maintain her “Suspension of disbelief” and muses about what she might do next, she also talks to herself a lot and uses the royal “we”. I actually felt a little but sorry for her seeing as I broke her out of prison only to bend her will to mine. There is a goblin called Mr.Sidekick who reminds me when I am getting attacked, most of the time I didn’t know as I was busy building things elsewhere in the dungeon. Deo found it amusing that I was so absent minded as to need this prompt.

Unlike dancing, having completed the basic steps in the tutorial I feel like I have mastered the game, so now all I have left to do is follow the parody of lord of the rings and rinse and repeat the same game mechanics. In dancing though I suppose there is only one mechanic “move like you know what you are doing”. Once you find out how to do a particular set of dance steps and they mesh with your partner and the other people on the dancefloor; Then you can start work on improving your finesse and efficiency (everything I better with a high score list). But before that happens I get distracted by another dance, still the same mechanic but the steps are different or I have a new partner and they move differently.

I wonder if Notorious will be as complex as dancing? It’s not simple a scaled up version of Dungeons as there are several extra mechanics. Eg you have to establish contracts with minions as well as provide them a home. The whole rumor system. And you never totally control anybody, they may always do something unpredictable.

My first impressions have me continuing with the game, it’s nice that I can go to the loo without any adverse effects so I’ll probably play this one whilst I’m making tea, just like the sieges in M&B:Warband. I like Dungeons as a step along the way even though I think Notorious sounds a little too feature heavy to be able to pull off.

Skyzer the Skraeling

Skyzer the Skraeling, Playing Progress Quest there is a race called the Skraelings. I couldn't help but call that character Skyzer. Then I went to look for where the name came from. According to Wikipedia Skraelings are the people that the norse Vikings called barbarians. That is to say they are the barbarians, barbarians. Although they were happy to trade anything for milk & honey. That seems like a very biblical thing to do to me. Apparently 23 verses mention milk and honey, but none are in the 23rd psalm. 20 of those verses refer to “ A land flowing with milk and honey” the other three are SoS 4:11, 5:1 and Isaiah 7:22 these ones fit better with Skyzer I think. There would be no point in obtaining more milk and honey if there were already rivers of it flowing through your country.

So that makes Skyzer a barbaric savage who doesn’t own a goat, but I am a bit of a romantic fool and a mercenary when it comes to the finer things in life.

Recently I found Skyzer the Squire in Dungeon Defenders and once he picked up a katana I knew I had found my weapon, although I must say that mostly I've been upgrading the attack speed of my towers.
All in all this is a decent game for psizomijitsu, but its a bit disappointing that only 4 technomancers can play at any one time. There is DLC to double that but none of us have picked it up as yet. Ive already been playing as Anoikis, the healthy monk. Seems to me that i need two high level heroes to help my friends, one for towers and one for melee. and since Deo is talking to me that is all I will write now.