Alathonia

I turned 20 yesterday (31st of March), hurray ;) I'd elaborate some, but I'm off to go cook Mexican food for the family which will be here in a few hours.

Warning: This post is full of whine

When things go wrong for me, they generally do so all at once. So when I got an SMS from an ex-fling that I hadn't spoken to in a few months, about needing to see me urgently, I mentally prepared myself for "Bad Stuff". However, I didn't expect this much.

Summary of the last week, culminating in the worst New Year's eve I've ever had:

1) Girlfriend and I broke up. Over the phone.

2) Ex-fling is 27 weeks pregnant. With my child (DNA test still pending, but it almost certainly is mine). Despite being on the pill, and taking them properly. What are the odds of that? About 1 in 100,000 or so. This presents somewhat of a problem, beyond the obvious fact that I'm 19 and not exactly in the best situation to be a father to a child. I wasn't speaking to ex-fling, because she happens to be a compulsive liar and ended up screwing my life up pretty bad back then. So getting into a relationship with her, in order to take care of the child, is not an option at all. Which leaves giving the child up for adoption, or getting an illegal abortion performed.

3) Come New Years day, a friend called and told me that the party we were going to attend is cancelled. Apparently the girl hosting the party is also a compulsive liar, and lied about owning a 500m2 house - Leaving 50 people with no place to eat dinner, and 150 people without a party, mere hours before.

4) Due to various circumstances, I was sitting in a train, alone, and annoyed, at midnight new years eve.

5) After coming home, I found out I was burning up with a fever, and am now lying in bed with a mixture of a very, very bad hangover and a semi-serious fever climbing up to critical levels. My throat is burning, because the food I ate during dinner decided not to stay in my stomache, and I'm constantly nautious and have a very painful headache, despite being drugged up on painkillers.

Life 1 - Me 0

It's been a month now, I think. It's been hard to keep track of time, I think something is wrong with the clocks in the Complex. Every time I look away from a clock, it seems to garble up the time completely. I can just spy it happening out of the corner of my eye, if I pretend I'm not looking at it. I wonder why the clocks don't work.

And there's no day- or night-time here, either. Sometimes the sky is clear and it seems as if I can look on forever. And sometimes a great mass of land fills the sky, but there is still plenty of light all around.

I wonder why the sky changes so much. Oh well, time to move on. I've been given a mission by the Complex, it promises me that it's important. I've been rewarded with some odd contraption of a gun that spits out this green stuff; it seems to make the Rats I've been asked to exterminate just disappear in green smoke. It's weird; it's almost as if the rats run around just trying to be exterminated. I don't remember them being there before, but when I got this gun, I just started seeing them everywhere.

All that keeps me sane around here is this writing. I wonder why I have a pen and some paper, anyway. No one else seems to.

Signing off to go rat-killing,
PIC: AAAA-1.0

Hello, citizen! The Complex has written this greeting specifically for you, so that you may feel more comfortable with your surroundings. In order to feel a sense of personal attachment, past or other emotional situation, the Complex has decided that it be prudent to begin with who you are.

You are a test-tube baby. And really, saying baby is a bit of a misnomer; You are at the prime of youth, a youth that has been extended to an abormal length thanks to the Programmers. For convenience, your features have been randomly generated and are expected to be completely unique, at a probability of 1:622,335^3. Should you mistakenly believe that you have seen someone who looks like you, please check yourself into a local Refurbishment Clinic for correctional advice. Remember, the Complex does not lie.

On your wrist you will find a Personal Identification Code. This code is unique, and represents your generation. It is requested that you have your PIC visible at all times. Should you come across an individual who does not, please help them to the nearest Refurbishment Clinic for assistance, or file an Unhappy Sighting report at any terminal in your vicinity. Remember, carrying your PIC visible is your privilege as a citizen of the Complex.

We hope your stay at the Complex will be enjoyable! To increase your fun level, the Programmers constantly alter the world around you. Unfortonately, side-effects occasionally occur from the Complex re-balancing itself. Rest assured that the Programmers have all adopted a Rapid Release Cycle, and any side-effects resulting in blurry vision, illness, malfunction, deformation, nausea, headaches, exploding body parts, death or other are only temporary while a patch is being worked on. The Complex cares about you!

If you find yourself lost, remember that the Relocation Device we've embedded into your spine is your friend! Just talk to it, for more information on where you are, and where you want to go. Or talk to if you are lonely. While the outer areas of the Complex are constantly being expanded and patched, the center of the Complex, The Core, is already finished as of Revision 3.1415926535.

Enjoy your time at the Complex!
Hal

Time for another divert, this time its Raph Kosters blog. Raph Koster is always looking to... dive into the intricacies of the why, how and when within MMO worlds. He does this in a way that some find completely non-sensical, and others find extremely stimulating.

I'm of the latter school, and as such I present the following article he wrote yesterday:

http://www.raphkoster.com/2007/03/27/exploiting-the-space/

This presents some really interesting possibilities, and certainly has inspired several additions to BMUD already.

Enjoy!