A Wandering WeyrCat...

SQUEEEE! A girl and her moa. Guild Wars 2 was released last Tuesday (Aug25) and I'd been doing my best not to stalk it. I loved Guild Wars, have all but the Norn expansion (yay college) and a variety of stuff I probably shouldn't have spent money on but can't really bring myself to regret it (yay gamer magazine vanity pets)! It's gorgeous, even with my graphics turned as low as they go (seen above). They took out the instancing , which I'm kind of upset about. It seems to mean that there WILL be competition for quest mobs... except.. if you walk up on someone killing your mob, you automatically join in the "event" and get a participation rating (that I think probably alters your xp, but I'm unsure). You can participate in the event as many times as it happens, but I'm unsure about repeat xp. I really like it so far. I miss certain things from GW, but I'm honestly still in the starting zone where they teach you how to do things. ...

Mr. President, Why is it that so many of the members of the Congressional Science Committee seem to hold opinions in direct opposition to what is agreed upon by the majority of the scientific community; and what could be done to rectify this? We have recently seen Akin, who was also recently removed, make a "scientific" statement that could only be "cutting edge" in the 14th century. An article on motherboard.vice.com lists several of the Republicans sitting on the board and statements they have made that disagree with current science. I understand that not every scientist holds a degree in every science, but it is disconcerting to see persons having jurisdiction over non-defense federal scientific research and development have so little grasp of today's scientific landscape. Could we see members of this committee who, instead of having a science-based degree while being wholly devoted to politics, are currently active in the scientific community? Than...

Woops! I did not notice that my posts were getting stuck in "draft"! Here's what been published late: 20120805-11 Curiosity and News . News: KY Evolution, Medieval Germanic War . In Life: Img Src School has started again and I've got four classes, Organic Chemistry I, Genetics, Introduction for Teaching, and Introduction to Technology for Educators. For those of you of my generation let me emphasize that the latter is "intro to, technology for educators" and not "intro to technology, for educators". If you don't know the difference: instead of teaching me "Intro to Tech" (typing, how to use word, excel, etc, all that jazz) I'll be learning the programs that educators tend to use nowadays to organize students' grades, build digital classrooms, work through how the law pertaining to teaching interacts with the law pertaining to technology, etc. I'll be keeping two blogs for the class and uploading my final projec...

Summer is over and school starts tomorrow. Here's what coon in my world today! Kentucky lawmakers shocked to find evolution in biology tests. - ArsTechnica . After dictating that schools in the state include tests based on national standards, the state lawmakers were shocked to find that evolution made a prominent appearance on the science tests. The legislators apparently asked ACT whether it could create a Kentucky-specific version of the test; one that, presumably, would be a sort of formal recognition of the state's distaste for mainstream science. They were told, however, that doing so would be prohibitively expensive. "I would hope that creationism is presented as a theory in the classroom, in a science classroom, alongside evolution," the Lexington Herald-Leader quotes Senator David Givens as saying. Givens is apparently unaware that creationism is not a theory, and that the Supreme Court has ruled that teaching it is a violation of the establishment c...

This blog turned out a little longer than usual, mostly because of Curiosity. This is really the second half of the "Summer" post, which started with our trip to see friends in Miami !     We've let Diablo II dungeon crawl it's way back into our day (but it never really left our hearts)! In Fitness:     We've started a walking habit: 3.1 roundtrip (or 2.5 with the dog). Hoping to find a nice breakfast/lunch place near the midpoint and go once a week!     I've hit the next stop on my Hobbit Walk! Taking much longer without fitness classes, must work something out... Started the NerdFitness 6 Week Challenge for Aug-Sep. Not doing so hot: why'd I start a fitness challenge that included the one week I have of actual vacation? Because that's when it officially started. I won't do as well as I hoped, but I can certainly make good on most of it! Going out to eat so much has really put me behind! In the world:

A Perfect Blood by Kim Harrison My rating: 5 of 5 stars It is so wonderful to finish another book in a loved series. /comfy sigh/. Number 10 in the Dead Witch Walking series, Witches and demons and vamps and weres, a deadly sword-weilding pixy with a creatively vulgar volcabulary, a and a main character who thinks like I do... Gun fightin, spell throwin, dagger wielding, mouthin off. So much fun. My favorite part of Rachel is how closely I identify with her; she's like my rash thoughts turned to action. It's why she's in trouble a lot, but also why she's so exciting and fun to read. I was on pins and needles waiting to get to read this (I have to wait for semester breaks) and I started it the day after exams... and finished it 36 hours later (I had to work)! I loved it. The pacing is perfect. The characters are changing a little, but in understandable ways. There's not a jot in the book where I went "Hey, that doesn't make sense" and unless ...

Atheists Sue Over World Trade Center 9/11 Cross: Should Christian Symbol Be Removed? Yes. Yes it should. This is a suit that was filed quite a while ago, actually, and news of it has popped up again as things change here and there. Silverman, of American Atheists, posted about it against our thoughts. Here's mine. I decline to add other articles about this, because some are so dripping with venom against anyone for the suit or separation of Church and State that you'd think everyone with a different point of view was lobbying to sacrifice babies and enslave the poor Christians. I'd laugh if I wasn't choking on the irony. A: Christian monuments belong in Christian places. This is the site of a tragedy, where many people of multiple faiths lost their lives to the lunacy of another faith. If you want a monument to represent the people who died there and what they died for erect a stone with the names of the dead and an American Flag. They died because a jihadist mu...

In school: I got a 54% (108/200) on my Chem2 final. Average was 98/200. I got a B (3.0) in the class. Officially have an A in the Lab. Husband graduated with his Bachelor's in Science of Mathematics, Summa Cum Laude. He chose not to walk. Seriously, it's $200 for the garb, and no one would be able to go anyway! From Nursing to Teaching:     I'm now studying for my teaching program's entrance exam; it's on the 15th! Wish me luck! I have officially put in the paperwork to switch my major (you may remember I was kicked back onto the waiting list for the Nursing program last year). I'd decided to be a nurse a few years back for the wrong reasons: yes, there's job security in being able to find a job where-ever my military husband ended up, there would also be good pay, an interesting and challenging work environment, and I'd be helping people! All these things I want, but I'd honestly decided to be a nurse because I didn't know what ...

20120812 What I learned in Week 1 of the NerdFitness 6 Week Challenge: It's so easy to go down the warp tube and just skip all the swimming levels... -I comp'd myself the hour of study on the 6th because I took my final that day. It was a decision I made a week before the challenge started, and I even ended up making up for it the next day (studied twice the minimum amount). I also said I would allow myself to go over 1500 (to binge, essentially) on Date Night as long as I made up for it via PT. I didn't do it. But I found myself wanting, nay, actually altering my log to "even out" days when I'd binged on one day but had a good deficit the next. I was filling in potholes. I was cheating! Maybe in another challenge it'll be "have a negative overall calorie intake for the challenge" but that's NOT this challenge! My challenge here is to stop BINGING. -I also found myself "filling in potholes" for my study time, and for these c...

(Cross posted from the NerdFitness archives for posterity) 6 Week Challenge - August 6 - September 17Rangers Every story has a beginning. It winds along through trials and triumphs, like a living, breathing, thing. Accomplishments beat the cadence of a heartbeat, and failures paint the tracks of its tears. The difference between life and a story, isn't as great as you think. You may not be able to rewrite your beginning, but you can always write a new chapter. The past does not concern us, only the future. Chapter 2, Reboot. WeyrCat, half-elven child of man. Curious from a young age she settled on no craft and no skill, content to learn a little of everything but mastering none. For this she was given the forest-name Preabadh Fhiaigh, Bouncing Raven. Now in her adulthood she finds herself in the middle... an injury barely healed and recovery still ahead of her. The strength she had has waned, and she feels so behind in everything that she tries to gather her old hobbies an...