Life’s been interesting, which is to say, it’s been up and down like a rollercoaster but never fails to beat the tedious drudgery that I’d experience without the chaos. My programming projects have been put on temporary hold lately as I’ve been focusing on World of Warcraft and my electronics project, suffering the relentless and thoroughly unwelcome, oppressive heat of the summer and other associated annoyances that come with this most loathesome of seasons, and both pondering and happily resolving a few confusions and points of contention regarding relationship-related matters. I don’t usually mention much related to my love-life on this blog for a number of reasons, but let me assure those of you who care about my mental stability that things could not be better right now on that front.

Oh, and I walked face-first into a street sign that was far too low yesterday, because the sun was in my eyes and making it hard to see where the hell I was going. Normally I wouldn’t admit this at all, but I know for a fact that people are going to ask what’s with the cuts and bruises, and I’m not nearly manly enough to be able to lie and say it was the result of a bar-fight, and you should have seen the other guy.

In conclusion: Life rocks, and my face is pretty much okay. That is all.

I don’t think any of us wanted it to end like this, saying goodbye to the Horde cities one last time before we faction-transfer over to join our other friends on the Alliance side, but it honestly feels like there’s no real choice anymore. The faction balance on European World of Warcraft realms — the PVE ones, at least — is absurdly biased towards the Alliance, with most being outnumbered by three or even four times, world PVP objectives such as Wintergrasp and the older Outland areas such as Halaa are what I bitterly refer to as perma-blue, a state where the Alliance simply swarm in with superior numbers every time the Horde make any attempt to capture, and time and time again, Blizzard have shown no particular willingness to even lift a finger to change the status quo.

Worse, the people we know who play the game are split across factions, some of them clinging vehemently to the Horde side with the Fluff guild, others occupying the Alliance as Steel Vanguard, both sides too staunch to change their position until now. With raiding possibilities looking bleak due to dwindling numbers and PVP being little more than a joke as the larger-sized Alliance faction facerolls everything with glutinous fury, it’s harder and harder to find reasons to keep playing Horde. I’ll miss being a Tauren and I’ll miss Thunder Bluff, Orgrimmar and the Undercity — never did like Silvermoon much — but I won’t miss being the underdog time and time again, and having the odds stacked so heavily against me.

It’s not just this, though, but any occurrence of this inexplicably dull sport which seems to evoke the most primive and violent natures from these already low-brow plebians. Going anywhere near a public place before, during, or after any kind of match which seems to hold some ridiculous significance to these simians is practically a death sentence, due to their unfortunate nature to riot furiously and violently if “their” team loses the game, a haze of bloodlust hanging over them like a cloud. Similarly, if the team they “support” — and I use that word in the loosest manner possible — wins a game, they seem equally overcome with primal fury, destroying and fighting everything in their path as their uncontrollable wrath leaves broken windows and empty beer cans in its wake. This, perhaps, is the most bizarre aspect of the whole experience, as if every fan is simply a ticking time-bomb, waiting for the moment to explode in bestial anger regardless of the game’s outcome!

I can’t even begin to understand why sports of most kinds tend to bring out the worst, most primal and aggressive natures of ordinarily air-brained yet harmless peons — though it mostly seems to focus around the more physical of sports, ones that involve a lot of running, since I’ve rarely heard of a chess riot, or police being called in to deal with enraged snooker fans.

Truth be told, though, that’d be quite hilarious to observe.

(Image courtesy of my blogging compadre, Gorse.)

Quick energy shot review that I really shouldn’t be writing at all because I’m late for meeting people in town, GO!

Sporting a “mere” 80mg of caffeine — I think the Monster Energy Shot has spoiled me in that regard — and the usual mix of bizarre and incomprehensible chemical compounds (taurine, glucuronolactone, inositol, niacin, pantothenic acid, vitamins B6 and B12), Red Bull seems pretty middle-of-the-road and tediously average as far as ingredients are concerned. While I’m sure I’m going to be stepping on a few toes by saying this, however, I’d go so far as to say the same could be said for the ordinary, canned version of the energy drink. It might  “give you wings”, but it’s about as unique as a grain of sand in a desert.

Let’s crack this thing open and oh dear god I once had to take a urine sample for some medical test, and both the vial provided and the end result looked a whole lot like what I’m staring at right now, except perhaps for the garish label. Thankfully, the odour bears no similarity; it smells like a sweeter version of the regular canned Red Bull, almost bordering on Monster’s turf in that regard.

A timid, cursory sip reveals a surprising similarity — the brackish flavour is largely masked by the fairly light, sweet, Monster-esque flavour which bears little resemblance to standard Red Bull. The rest soon follows down my throat with surprising ease; while I hate to use a phrase like “for an energy shot”, it seems like the only way to go — it’s not exactly stellar, but for an energy shot it’s remarkably pleasant and manages to result in a surprising dearth of aftertaste, aside from a vague lingering.

So before I put on my boots and run out of the door like a whirling dervish, I’ll conclude by saying that I’m pleasantly surprised, with Red Bull taking its place alongside Monster and LSV as an energy shot which is actually fairly pleasant, and doesn’t cause self-mutilating urges. Two thumbs up, Red Bull!

That’s what got me thinking about gaming as a whole, and the bizarre system of effort and reward that we as gamers seem to impose upon ourselves. Of course achievements in games like World of Warcraft or on systems such as the Xbox 360 and Steam — or a rose by any other name, such as “trophies” on the PlayStation 3 — are the perfect example of this mentality in action, I feel it’s only a relatively new coat of paint on the surface of something much older. Remember when you were a kid hanging out in the video-game arcades of the 80′s and 90′s, marvelling at the high-score tables populated and dominated by those elite few with the seemingly unattainable skills needed to occupy such a throne? Or as a more domestic example, something every gamer should be familiar with: The urge to beat the level, defeat the boss, to press onward and explore new territory, or simply to beat a score and achieve some measure of satisfaction from the knowledge that your skill and dedication could be quantified by digits glowing on a phosphor screen.

This, I feel, is something endemic and intrinsic to the gamer mindset, and yet the intangible appeal fails to make any logical sense in my mind. We push ourselves to incredible lengths for the sake of achievement and improvement in an artificial system which exists solely for the sake of providing challenge where there would otherwise be none. An extreme case of this would be the Korean gamer who quite literally killed himself by playing too much StarCraft; more common examples can be seen all around us. Who out there wearing the moniker of “gamer” can honestly say they haven’t spent a weekend or more shut away in a darkened room, hunched over a screen, thoroughly absorbed in one of these faux-simulacra?

Is it simply human nature to constantly push ourselves further, so desperate for self-improvement and so eager for accolade that we are inherently drawn to such a medium? The overwhelming popularity of gaming as a whole on a worldwide scale would seem to imply a certain truth in this logic, though I can’t help but feel as though something is missing. Can it really be that simple? In the end, are we still just a bunch of apes who’ll push a button all day long if it means we’ll get a bunch of bananas and a pat on the head?

Back to the familiar safety of random numbers again, this time die Maschine came up with 14 a second time, making me question the supposedly random nature of the numbers. The joke’s on the RNG, though, since I delete each choice as I go along and shuffle the list up to fill the gap, this time making 14 the rather pleasing choice of Twinings Ceylon. Shut up, I have a lot of Twinings.

On the upside, I was hoping for a black tea sometime soon, so I could review something a little more traditional and commonplace, something your average Joe is slightly more likely to recognize. While not my absolute favourite of black teas, Ceylon is fairly easygoing and pleasant from what I recall, so I’ve got no qualms with today’s choice.

For those who don’t know, your average “builder’s brown” kind of tea tends to consist of a blend of different tea leaves grown in different places around the world, combined to produce a specific flavour. While there are somewhat more upmarket variants of this idea — such as the yet-to-be-reviewed English Breakfast and Traditional Afternoon (also from Twinings), it’s all the same principle; blend a combination of leaves in such a way as to produce a final, intended flavour.

For purists — or simply for people like me, who are cursed with insatiable curiosity — it’s also possible to find ‘pure’ types, which are all from leaves grown in one specific place. Assam, one of my favourite types of black tea, is one of these types, as is Ceylon, grown in Sri Lanka.

We’ll start, as I usually do, with the bags: The familiar, earthy scent of black tea is somewhat milder than one would expect, but otherwise unremarkable. After all, despite not being a ‘blend’, this is still merely black tea, with no fancy tricks up its sleeve. The finished product, however — hot water and all — is where the scent truly shines, a surprisingly light smell almost reminiscent of green tea, while still maintaining the heavy feel of black. Regardless of what I’m about to say, I think Ceylon is probably the most pleasant-smelling of the ‘standard’ black teas, while not counting the more fancy versions like Chai or Earl Grey.

As far as flavour goes, I’m afraid my uncultured palette suffers greatest here, as it’s difficult for me to distinguish Ceylon from the more commonplace blends, though it’s got a somewhat more light and clean flavour, albeit with an ever-so-slightly bitter edge. It’s a flavour that doesn’t linger at all, instead seeming to vanish almost as soon as it arrives, which I think would make it a good accompaniment for a meal. It’s certainly more refreshing and uplifting than most black teas, though a terrible choice for something to relax with — I disagree entirely with Twinings’ claim that it has “calming undertones”, instead suggesting that it’s more bright and invigorating than subdued and calming.

Discrepancies aside, Ceylon is an overall pleasant — if unremarkable — experience, and worth trying for anyone who enjoys black tea.

What annoys me is the short-sightedness and general lack of intelligence that the voting majority seems to display; my fleeting faith in my country has been once again dashed against the rocks as the familiar voting tropes emerge once again. The depressingly droll predictability as Ireland primarily votes for the Irish party and much of Wales votes for the Welsh party, Scotland seem to have their heads on straight with a remarkable amount of yellow on the map (though it counts for little due to few constituencies) and — of course — there’s a fair chunk of support for the Scottish party. I’m not even going to fault Ireland, Wales and Scotland for voting for their own parties, but it seems like in the end results, it’s missing the big picture; that being the mouth-breathing general public of England, which makes the vast majority of the overall result for UK elections.

And then we see the tedium of voting tropes: There’s the “stuck in their ways” short-sighted toolboxes who blindly vote for the same party year after year — whether it’s red, blue, yellow, or another — with no regard to situation and policies on the table. There’s the kind of people who voted Labour the last time because the Conservatives fucked up before, and consequently voted Conservatives this year because Labour fucked up before; the short-sighted flip-flopping between the two, I think, accounts for a depressing amount of the final result. I feel foolish for even thinking that the Liberal Democrats — the little party that could — would actually have a chance for once, after the general public are largely disillusioned with the monumental fuck-ups of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, though apparently we as a people are unable to look back more than a few years, and thus forget just how much of a colossal mess the Conservative Party have made in the past, and their unashamed favour towards the rich and powerful elite minority. Still, even despite my dislike for the Tories, Gordon Brown isn’t exactly someone I’d trust to watch my back while I was sleeping in a knife factory, if you know what I mean.

Now, I’m not saying that the Lib Dems are a shining jewel of democracy and the last best hope for civilization, able to stop both the impending cyborg apocalypse and the underground ninja rebellion, but if they had managed to get in, it’d show both that the voting public are capable of remembering further back than about two years, and that there’s a chance that future elections would have a chance of more than a toss-up between the lesser of two evils, being that the two major parties are both deeply flawed in their own ways — it doesn’t help that New Labour are almost as right-wing as the Tories these days. More importantly, I think, Nick Clegg is likely the only one of the big three who has any vested interest in pushing forward proportional representation, something I support whole-heartedly over the ridiculous system we have in place today. I can’t speak for all voters, but I feel it’s likely many supporters of the Lib Dems this year are in the same shoes as myself — choosing the third option, because both of the “main” two seem like poor choices at best, and because it’s the only hope for anything even resembling left-wing.

Final thoughts, though: It pleases me to see that both the UK Independence Party and the British National Party — better known as idiots for the former and fascists for the latter — won a grand total of zero seats in parliament, while the adorably quixotic Green Party won what I believe is their first ever seat, perhaps proof that sheer determination and persistence do eventually pay off. Still, once again Britain does not fail to disappoint, and whatever the results of the political wrangling and backstabbing alliances, we’re sure to see another five years of poor leadership and unbalanced farce politics. Business as usual, I suppose; but at least the BNP didn’t win any seats, so there is still some small hope for the country.

I think @sp4nner sums it up better than I ever could, though: “Britain you stupid fucking cunts. All you had to do was not vote Cameron, and what did you fucking do? Also, who the fuck votes BNP?! :C”

Edit @ 6:20pm: Why is our voting system so ridiculous? I think this Twitter post from @hang_em sums it up nicely: “It took 35,021 votes to elect each Conservative MP; 33,338 for each Labour, and 119,397 to elect each Lib Dem MP.” Now look me in the eye and tell me our political system isn’t a farce.