Wissenlust

I am experiencing something not completely new and yet uncommon.

Desidre for greater knowledge; for every possible piece of knowledge man can have. Especially if it doesn't belong to my specific field.

There is a sick joy in suggesting a better word for a translation about chemistry, and a sick displeasure in noticing that after all, I don't know exactly how brain works.

For five years of high school I've been pampered with the idea of the "absolute man" who could master every knowledge. Now, I want more.

Therefore, I am going to study some more right now.

Munin

Phlogiston: noun, a substance believed in earlier times to exist in all xombustible matter and to be released in combustion; the observed effects were subsequently found to be due to oxygen.

From Foyle's Philavery, a treasury of unusual words

As always in life, "soon" comes much later than the worst expectations.

Things changed again, a new semester started and eventually I found it was time to write.

Part 1 - Verschiedenheit

Vaasa is a nice city - at least it appear

s so when covered with snow. It is much more heimlich than Lahti to me, I like the happier accent they have, rather different from the dull etelä suomi accent. I loved the casheer that greets you with a "hej då".

Same goes with the university; a very small university as student number, though with the services and location of a prestigeous university (for italian standards). Freed

om of subjects and lots of entertaining activities for students. And how much is the fee? 0.00€

Now some trivia that non-finnish reader may find interesting - if there are any!

Cold related trivia:

- your nose: when temperature sinks below -10, you will feel it. Or actually you won't feel at all. With such temperatures, I experienced l

oss of sensitivity and, after longer exposition, a little pain in the exposed parts. Moreover, the steam naturally produced by breathing needs shorter time to get liquid. Actually, after some time outside, I found water coming down my nose all the time.

 

- The ghosts: smog produced my vehicles, for some reason, doesn't fly away, but remains for quite some time close to the ground, between 0 and 30 cm approx. These small cl

ouds move close to the ground, and move as other cars approach; they stirred my immagination and to me they look like smoke ghosts.

- The day when the snow melted in Vaasa I f

elt as if everything had changed. Roads looked different, and people felt "closer".

- There is an entire road in Vaasa city centre which is warmed, so that snow never covers it. 

Non-cold-related trivia:

- Not only Finnish students love to drink and

 sing ominous songs while they do it: they also wear overalls in such occasions. I know that students are sometimes called "the workers of knowledge", but isn't this a too lit

eral interpretation?

Part 2 - Ma maison c'est la meilleur, car elle a une porte e des fenetres...

A new semester has come. Study again, lectures, and some of them are even pleasant. My last semester it appears to be... for the time being; of the future I do not know!

I started writing a short essay called "Pride is Prejudice" which by the way has nothing to do with Jane Austin. We had another D&D session and we are waiting everybody to be back, for the "incredibly funny thing" the master has promised us weeks ago.

The world is sinking down at hyper-speed; world economy is crumbling as a dead golem.

I don't like to boast, but I said it. Who has

 known me for some time knows that since when I was 14 I am expecting a world catastrophe, showing the crazyness of the whole system we built. Social Darwinism is the exc

use european (and therefore also american) race* has used for a long time to justify aggression and violence towards other people, and now it seems we europans have totally failed with this economic system. Schade. Perhaps people will learn how to "feed on dry tubers" or perhaps not. Nothing in the universe is stubborn as a human being.

Myself, I find much pleasure in books, lectures and games. Useless things are the greatest creation of human mind. Nobody but us could create the Beowulf or Blackgammon.

And now, to pamper your eyes, a random picture.

The meaning of life - Gaming

Gaming has probably nothing to do with the meaning of life, or perhaps it's its real kernel. By the way, today I will not publish more of my finnish diaries, but write about... well, gaming, I guess you understood by now.





HOW, WHEN AND WHY DID I START GAMING

I am not a veteran, but I've been gaming for... 20 years?
I guess I figured out the concept of "playing" at, perhaps, 10-12 months after my birth, and I never stopped thereafter.
As a kid, I played with parents, with my brother and occasionally (rarely) with friends. But playing and gaming are different things. When have I started gaming? I cannot be sure what came first, wether the "adventures" with my brother, "Space Quest I", or Monopoly, but indeed very early. And why? I am strong and healthy (sort of) and I like hiking, climbing, swimming... no sports, but the normal stuff. Nonetheless, I admit that the mind gives me more pleasure than the body, and what better than games to stir the mind?
Backgammon is said to be 5000 years old, and therefore gaming goes along with civilization. Gaming is filling your afternoons with something different than hunting or mating or sleeping. Perhaps gaming is the most human thing.
In my 20 years of gaming, many things have changed. I did not notice at the time, but they happened indeed.

BAD POINTLESS SUMMARY ON THE HISTORY OF GAMING

Before the great war gaming was chess, cards, gambling, Go, Backgammon. Good stuff indeed, but games of chance and randomness, games for gambling, games for spare time.
After the war, we created the nerd. And nerds are the creators of many things we now have: Wizard of the Coast, Lord of the Rings, Microsoft, Linux, File Sharing, Google. But not only: nerds created gaming as "lifestyle".
Now it's 1974 and Gary Gygax (hope you are in a heavenly dimension, buddy) and Dave Arneson (the other one everybody always forgets) created Dungeons&Dragons. They created the Roleplaygame. And the world... didn't change, but geeks did.




ROLEPLAY I.E. MENTAL HOSPITAL

Many people ask me what a Role Play game actually is. I believe it is the highest accomplishment of humam mind abstraction. Abstract art or poetry are bullshit, compared to RPGs; Philosophy... you don't want me to talk about philosophy now, do you?
RPGs are about imagining that you are a character that you are not, and imagining this character in a world that does not exist, not painted, nor filmed, and in this lands, he fights creatures that do no exist and talks to people that do not exist, to save the world that does not exist, with clearly unreal weapons or spells. And this makes you happy. Now, is this mental? sure it is.
You might think that afterwards, gaming got even better, evolved, or just stayed as it is. I think it moved backwards. I realized it when, yesterday, I've seen D&D accessories named "D&D - miniature game"
Miniature game? What the fuck? Yes, miniatures and cards nowadays sell more than "imaginary worlds" and therefore, back we go.
What do gamers have today more than yesterday? More stuff, but not more spirit.
Yesterday there was Monopoly and Risk, today there is Monopoly, Risk, Carcassonne, Agricola, War of the ring.... etc.
And this is great. There is an entire world for gamers, for geeks. Board games, RPGs, Computer Games. All kind of games. And this is great. But I cannot stop thinking, that geeks have been transformed, from "socially different" to a commercial target. They analized geeks, understoof how they work and created something they can buy. Like Emos, Punks, Rappers etc.
And are they wrong? Geeks used to read books, to think more than act, to speak like Oxford teachers and such. Nowadays in geek stores I see only school kids and pre-adolescents with Magic cards.

ME AND GAMING = A 100% BORING STORY
Now, me and gaming. As I said, I've been in gaming for a while. What can I tell?
First of all, lack of gamers. When my parents became too busy for board games, I had only my brother. Then he became too old and I had to drop board gaming. I had been computer gaming since I was very little. Am I a very good gamer now? Indeed, I am not. I quite suck at games usually. I like the feeling they give me, I don't like the winning per se. I like the stories. Yes, for me computer games are essentialy movies.

And computer games were, at the beginning, activity oriented: they were based on doing something, i.e. driving a car or shooting monster. They were hard, but fun.
Then PC games evolved, and the trivial arcade, almost abstract ideas (is pong a simulation of tennis or an abstract game?) became, with the help of sound and image, simulations.
I don't have memory enough to describe the history of computer games, but when the internet came, I got randomly involved in RPG by Forums. That changed quite a couple of things....

See you in the next episode!

In the pictures: chess, D&D logo, Carcassonne board game