Infinite State Automaton

Sometimes my dreams solve problems for me, but most of the time they are just random trips through the warp. This dream was a weird conglemeration of Donut King, Tanking, alcohol, my trip to China, and wanting to fly again.

I am driving a Donut King tank. The dream is from the outside perspective, so even though 'I' am driving the tank; my view is as if I am watching a movie. My brother Warren is also in the tank. Through careful application of rum, we are able to make the tank fly. At that point we believed us both to be hallucinating, but later events show that it really happened. We fly the tank from Ireland to an odd island named 'Blue 5'. Then we fly it back again. We land in the middle of some medieval Pagan festival. The tank and Warren promptly vanish. I follow a dark haired girl who is showing me around the village. She shows me the two tanuki that my Auntie Dianne had given me years ago. What are they doing here? I had given them to an English girl named Jesse ten years ago, who had needed the luck more than I did. I fall over. I wake up in the Sydney airport with the people who went to China with me, minus a few faces that I didn't like, and a few new random people to replace them.

My passport is stamped with so many places that I haven't been in RL, most of them signed by the Director of the facility at work, and some by my brother Warren. Blue 5, of course. Ireland. Polynesia. China, again. America, again. Some other places I can't remember.

I go outside of the airport and, oh wait, I am actually in China already. I have forgotten my phrase book so I wander the streets of Wuhan looking for a phrase book shop...never mind that I don't have money to pay for it. As I am walking down the street, I encounter a small group of Chinese girls who are in strange foam animal costumes selling some...thing? Of course I am self conscious (they are cute!) and I realise I am wearing trashy clothes, haven't shaved or combed my hair etc. I say so, the girl says "It's ok, we sell pants, you need pants right?" Of course I need pants! Pants are required at all times, especially when out doors. I know how to say "how much does it cost?" and "I don't understand!" and many other things in Chinese, but not "I don't have any money" so I am lured in to the store.

Aside - you can really piss of Chinese people by greeting them in Japanese, and presumably vice-versa. It's really dangerous for a foreigner to think "Oh that person is Chinese" by looks alone. Always try to listen to them speak first to know for sure.

The store is filled with animals. It's clear that the store doesn't sell pants, it sells clothes made from animal fur (not skins). They have a video of a baby koala (so cute!) growing up and then they - seriously - carefully give the koala a hair cut and use the hair to make the clothes. The Chinese girl is arguing with her manager, but I can't understand what it is about. They ignore me as I wander about the store, and find some children teasing the snakes.
The signs are written in several languages including English.
"Warning - venomous." Over each snake are the species name. "Tiger Snake. Taipan. Cobra." Each of these are, truly, venemous and nasty, angry creatures. So it is with some distress that I am watching children putting their hands in and gleefully being bitten. One of them is walking around with some form of sea snake draping out of his pockets.
A mother of the children happens to walk past and scolds them angrily for misbehaving, blissfully unaware of the mortal danger her children are in. She places her hand on the top of one of the glass cages and the taipan bites her on the hand. I help remove the snake from her limb (it got jammed somehow), then tell them to get to a hospital, and then I wake up.

Anna and I talked briefly about PVP gear in Warcraft last night. She is playing battlegrounds! Awhile back, Kim, Anna and I had some plan to play in the Arena but due to one reason or another *coughexamscough* it never happened. It's really a big cooincidence, but I had just started talking about it yesterday, too. Part of the problem for my character is that there is no PVP reward items for tanks. WoW PVP is focused around doing as much damage as you possibly can in the shortest amount of time while limiting the damage you take. My Paladin can take ridiculous amounts of melee damage, but barely any spell damage and has one of the lowest damage outputs of all characters. If I want to play seriously in a team, I need to change him around a bit. Unfortunately respeccing costs in-game gold. After I finally buy the netherwing mount, respeccing more than once a week becomes viable, but until then I am sticking with protection spec. I enjoy tanking and people always need a tank. I am enjoying being the battlefield medic, too. Even my limited healing ability has turned the tide, and some of my attacks actually work better when I am in 'heals mode'.

Ian from work talked to me more about his guild on Friday. He asked me to transfer my main character over to their server, but I declined, explaining I planned to rejoin my old guild on Area 52 eventually. I said I would roll a new character on Suramar and asked what their guild needed. "Heals and DPS" he said. After some more discussion, I decided on a Shaman. I said I wouldn't start playing until after my assignment was done. More than damage and heals, they need people. They want to run 25-mans. They have finished Karazhan and made some runs in to Zulaman, but he said Zulaman is far too hard without the equipment from Gruul/Serpentshrine Cavern/Magtheridon's Lair to make any appreciatable progress. They did down the first boss so there is some argument that they could farm it for gear, but they don't want to waste the whole guilds time just so one person can get one item once a week.

Well, I should do my assignment. I'll write more later. Bye!

OK, back.

Simple spheres is the result of my assignment. No, it's not finished yet, I still need to add more shapes and the user interface. However, that is showing that my light sources, materials, and polygons are working. I still didn't get the transforms working yet.

I have been taking my camera to work. During the Morialta bush walk, I borrowed my brothers camera. I managed to spot a kangaroo on the way and took some photos. Apologies for the size.

Kangaroo 1
Kangaroo 2
Kangaroo 3
Kangaroo 4
Kangaroo 5
Kangaroo 6
Kangaroo 7

Last Thursday was spectacularly hot, and I spotted a family of magpies taking a break under the shade of a table.

Magpie Family from left to right, mother, baby, and father.

Shot 2

Magpies 3

I also came across this teenaged plover. It's an older version of this little fellow. He was so hot he was trying to hide under some columns, and eventually he gave up and went into this tree.

The photos aren't of very good quality because I am not a very good photographer. I hope with practice, and Ben's advice (for he is a very good photographer) it might improve.

Next time I will photoshop pictures down to a more manageable size.

Some people have said they can't see the kangaroo in those pictures. He is right in the middle of all of them. If people still can't see it, I'll circle him.