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Ohai!
I was reading through our realm forums when I stumbed upon a topic concerning the disappearance of 25 man raiding. As I continued writing a reply to express my opinion on the matter, I realised I went on more and more of a tangent, to the extent where my reply bared no significance in as a reply to the original thread. As a result, I've copied and pasted what I wrote here to share a few quick, vague thoughts on raiding in general.
As we know there are many guilds who've changed from 25 man raiding to 10 man raiding during the past patch. Within these guilds, some people claim that they'd personally turn back to 25 man raiding if there were any benefits for doing so (further loot, achievements, different mechanics etc). But for the majority of raiders, there aren't.
Although I have very little to say concerning the 10 vs 25 matter and I'm rather indifferent when it comes to my personal raiding size, the arguments that I read on various forums often make me wonder why we raid in the first place. What is it that we seek in raiding and has it changed since when we first began raiding?
After a while, raiding evolves from something done solely for giggles into something seemingly more serious, something done for recognition. At this stage, certain things are no longer regarded as "worthwhile" nor "fun" as they yield no extra merit, atleast on paper. For example, maybe you were intrigued by a mine you didn't know existed in Elwynn Forest back when you were at level 7, so you explored the area out of curiousity. Several levels later you may have seen a cave that you've yet to explore, but this time you may not bother checking out what's inside as "your quest does not require you to". This would be a prime example of how wow players develop the more they play WoW, and how their ideaologies, ambitions and perception of entertainment change.
Things seem repetitive after a while, so we seek different ways to make things feel 'new'. As this process repeats itself over and over, we seek bigger, better things. Seldom do we as wow players settle for less when we want more.
We often perceive something significant in WoW to be something that others can appreciate. We tend to forget that often our favourite moments playing WoW consist of those experiences that cannot be tracked, nor yield any further merit for anyone other than ourselves. Some may call the process natural, being ambitious and wanting to achieve bigger, better things, while others may see it as contradicting the reason we started playing this game in the first place: plain fun. I'd imagine very few of us intended to raid when we started playing WoW, I personally thought that stealing a candle was an achievement in itself, and I still remember myself doing so for the first time back at level 4.
I find it rather sad that we feel the need to seek glory in order to make our time feel worthwhile. Gone are the days when you may log into WoW for an hour to kill some kobolds, steal some candles and mine some tin. It is as if one perceives prestige to paint an otherwise drab canvas into a colourful painting filled with purpose, as if we need recognition in order to discover values in our own actions.
In the end, these pixels and figures will disappear into the abyss of teh interwebs, just like many of which will slip away from our memories too. However, the experiences and personal achievements we were part of linger in the mind for many years to come. It's a shame we just don't realise this most of the time, or it'd save us a lot of effort.
- Sylux. Miawr!
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This post is coming to be as today marks a week since the end of my visit to Spain! And also because I forgot to post something I promised a couple of people earlier on in the week I would...
Essentially while in Spain, I learnt a lot, met some amazing and lovely people, really embraced the culture and atmosphere.... but I also did some stupid stuff too, here is a list I compiled...
(A gaspy gargoyle I found.. " ")
En Salamanca, Rhys managed to:
1. Down a muffin. Here's the picture leading up to the wondrous occasion:
2. Accidentally go to the women's toilets TWICE, and after coming out of the cubicle finding a lady waiting and giving him odd looks – wonder why?
3. Take a piss in the dark as he was worried the bright orange switch would set off some alarm for help - So he pushed open the door, memorized the location of the urinal and ran towards it, before starting to take a slash in the darkness 
4. Eat octopus despite the fact he cannot eat fish. Following this picture being taken I throbbed several times. It was far from pleasant, I mean look at the juice in the plate *shivers*
5. Fall and hurt his coxxis while sliding around on a slippery floor in PINK FLUFFY SOCKS. Yessums, you heard correctly.
6. Write a legend about a guy who stopped the welsh recession several centuries ago by having national drinking sessions. I then tried to pass it off as a traditional welsh legend that is celebrated every year on the 1st of April.
7. Shout if anyone wanted to buy my 'cocaína' in public .... next to a frikking police station.... *facepalm*
This was taken as we were messing around beforehand 
8.“Break” his i-pod within the first hour of travelling towards Spain, only to have his dad fix it within 10 seconds of returning home by purely whacking it on a table. Seriously.
9.Say 'adios' instead of 'hola' before buying a souvenir at a shop. This to me, was probably the most embarrassing thing.
10. Leave the city with more money than he had started, somehow - I'm none the wiser either. Mayhaps I stole someone's monies somehow.
11. Get beaten at “Go Fish” four times by someone who had never even played the game before.
12. Make friends with a very nice and happy chair.
Oh and P.S: Never cheer when an english football team scores against a spanish football team while in a spanish bar full of spaniards in Spain. Many fist shaking and words I couldn't understand were spouted before I swiftly ate my cake and left.
Oh, and here's a picture of me acting while in mah slick shades liek.
Before I leave too, I feel I should give a picture that actually proves I was in Spain and not randomly in Wales, so here's the plaza mayor ^_^
Adios, y me gustaría volver ahí ahora
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Before you bother to read the following, be aware the post includes some very abstract views, opinions and logic, that will likely not be clear or decisive – not serve any true purpose in this blog section.
A couple of things struck me as odd recently when I considered the principles of both dreams and reality, which for the purpose of this post will be referred to as alternate state of minds. According to popular believe, a dream is an artificial state in which we imagine scenes and actions as if it be an alternative world which shares no direct bearing on 'reality'. Reality however is regarded as something more serious and linear, where actions may have direct consequences and results. The general impression is often that dreams are something trivial, with little purpose or significance, something spontaneous that has no real bearing on reality, what we regard as the true, superior state of mind.
However, have you ever considered the similarities in principles between both dreams and reality?
Both Begin and End at Specific Points. We were all born, and we shall all inevitably die – even if there be doubt as to when the latter event shall occur. The same principles can be put to dreams, even if they be more spontaneous. Noticeably in their nature of beginning and ending at 'random' points that are not pre-determined.
Life. We take the form of animate objects.
The Elapse of Time. We follow specific paths in both, ones that can rarely be re-written, that continue until the shared gift comes to an almost abrupt end.
Consciousness. Despite varied states of mind in both dreams and reality, we remain in 'the driver's seat' controlling (or at least being aware of) what's happening around us, throughout.
Imperfections in Memories. It is estimated we remember a mere 1/3 of what occurs in our dreams once we pass back into reality. Emphasises that once phased back, the majority of what “occurred” is forgotten, or put aside. The same patterns can be experienced while under the effects of a dream, rarely being able to recall what 'just happened' back in reality, and the disability to relate or remember the extensive memories you grasp in reality.
Freedom. Regardless of given situations or emotions, we have the ability to create opportunities and experiences in both states of mind. Although limited in many cases, even if you were to dream of (or even in reality) being on death row, you would still have your freedom of thought - for example.
Same frames of mind. In both states of mind we share (for the most part) the same characteristics, knowledge, and ambitions. Our ambitions and lust in reality are believed by many to have direct impacts on the settings and 'purposes' of dreams, which supports the idea of a strong conjunction between both states of mind.
Despite very similar principles, why is it that dreams are often treated as something more insignificant, and shorter in time? In reality, we have no grasp of how long we are 'truly' conscious in our dreams . It's possible time fluctuates either slower or quicker while dreaming, we can only estimate once fully “awake” of how long in reality's time we have been away.
This confuses me greatly, and also why that we as humans can remember specifically when we've had a dream, however, while in a dreaming state we cannot remember specifically when we began, and when we were last “in reality”. We know for the most part that we follow the same people, the same lives, the same surroundings, general figments of our imagination that are both familiar and friendly. Yet we forget about everything that has come to be before, and we rarely look forward to the future, favouring a living in the spur of the moment lifestyle.
In our dreams, we often live in the present. Living as things happen, or reacting and creating things as we wish, while we can. It's sad that these factors that are often encouraged in life – yet scarcely utilized – occur in what people see as something irrelevant, a dream. A factor that I often question in different states of mind is our audacity. From my personal experience of dreams, I recall being more confident and generally less tense than with reality. If we were able to know when we were dreaming, and maintain consciousness while doing so, it would be fully understandable to be much more reckless and uncaring - as one would be fully aware of the present temporality, and mostly the fact it were to end and we'd still have 'reality' afterwards. However we have no means of assataining this information, which beckons the question of why we are less afraid to act in a dreaming state of mind than in reality?
In real life we fear for the consequences of our actions, and feel remorse and regret as we make what we may regard as 'false' steps. Yet in dreams things often become more murky, despite the experiences being just as “real” as pertaining to any state of mind. However if one were to be able to counter this and control their own awareness of dream trances, it would most certainly be open to abuse. This would of course enhance the feelings of meaning and purpose in both states of mind, but would essentially equate to having two prominent lives simultaneously, and not one less prominent. This possibility does intrigue me however, as it has been to known to happen that one can be in their 'reality' state of mind whilst in a dream, which asks questions of whether it would be possible one day to be fully in control, as we're fully aware of it's random presence. Although I would fear this could lead to causes of insomnia and many worse causes, where preferences and ideals could take control over which state of mind is the “true life”, causing things to become unstable and uncertain.
The term 'asleep' being used in conjunction with dreaming is something that often bugs me. Being “awake” is supposedly a state of being “completely conscious”. However, how can we judge when we are for certain, fully conscious? After all, while in a dreaming state we tend to have control over our actions as we do with reality. It's entirely possible that life as we know it is the true 'dream', whereas what happens while we're 'dreaming' is our true calling.
Despite experts and scientists constantly researching the; causes, principles, priorities and meanings of dreams, it's likely we'll never be able to unravel definitive answers - merely varied interpretations by individuals, even if they be educated, and seen as unflawed in logic. It's a fact that the majority( if not all) of the writing above is flawed. We may ultimately only come to our own independent views on these ambiguous matters. However, as I've hopefully stated above, there are many abnormalities concerning the relation between dreams and reality that greatly intrigue me and I'd hope others as well – mainly the fluctuations in behaviour, time and awareness in both states of mind – that are likely never going to become any clearer. But to me this is one of the joys of life, the unknown areas that make little (or no) sense, that can likely never be truly explored or explained. It's these abstract points that bring diversity to what some could regard an often too linear life.
And to finish, briefly, as it doesn't justify another section: I feel that assumptions and presumptions are often mis-used, especially in conventional day to day conversations. Assumptions are rather obnoxious guesses that we've come to voice solely due to believing we're right when we have no evidence or strong implications to support our hypotheses. To me, they portray what is wrong with the majority of things in our world today, people that believe they know better than others – possibly experts in the specific matters - despite having no experience, confirmations or true attestations. We cover our worlds with the assumptions of our minds, feeling that we are superior and correct, despite there being clear uncertainty and no true evidence reinforcing our allegations. Presumptions are still guesses naturally, however they provide at least a certain grasp and understanding of situations.
So to quote the American actor, director and screenwriter Alan Alda;
Quote:| Begin challenging your own assumptions. Your assumptions are your windows on the world. Scrub them off every once in a while, or the light won't come in. |
- Ciao.
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Posting my own bloglink, http://sassen.blogg.se/ for some real life stuff reading.
Enjoy the day 
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Sat here enjoying a piece of fudge I decided to treat myself to, I remember going to Matlock Bath three or four years ago.
Walking down it's vibrant, motorbike invested main road we decided to go into the local fudge store.
We were discussing pets as we entered. Pets we may want at some point in time and when I casualy mentioned I might want an iguana someday, a booming male voice barked "No you don't!" from across the store.
It turned out it to be the shopkeeper. He was a burly man dressed in ragged clothing and wearing a leather jacket beneath his apron. Indeed a man who looks as if he should be riding down Route 44 on his chopper rather then make and sell fudge in a Derbyshire tourist town.
Not quite sure how to reply to him telling me what I didn't want I decided to go with "No?", at which point the gentleman pulled up 3 seats and put them in the middle of the store. Not wanting to be rude we sat down with him and listened as he regaled us with how he was a volunteer for an animal shelter and how so many people don't know how to care for iguanas and this and that and the other.
We spent about half an hour listening to his story untill he finished, gave us a few pieces of fudge for free and sent us on our way.
So, if you ever need advice on iguanas, the Fudge Man in Matlock Bath is the man you're looking for.
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