Degrees of Time Legends

Daily Ramble 4: Degrees of Time Legends

One thing I’ve enjoyed working on over the years is something I call my Six Degrees of Blogging and I’m gonna try to fire that up again during #BlaugustReborn. In a nutshell, my Six Degrees segment looks at blogs that are within 6 jumps from mine to see what’s going on in the blogosphere around me. With Blaugust I’ve got a whole slew of new blogs to look through and explore. And not just their content but anything on the blogs that are connected to them and those connected to those ones, and so on…It’s a neat way I like to get to know the blogs around mine but it can also be a lot of work. So this time around I’m gonna take things easy and not give myself any big sets of rules…just have fun.

So along with my Six Degrees exploration today I also am gonna start my look at The Wheel of Time by reading through the Prologue of The Eye of the World. There’s so much juicy stuff just in that section alone!

Finally, I bring home my rambling by taking a look at my recent relatively decent play in League of Legends. Hopefully it’ll continue but regardless, I’m working on it.

Six Degrees of Blaugust Reborn – Going Commando

Shintar over at Going Commando brings up some good points about why blogging is still king in online content…in my view. As she looks at blogging in comparison to streaming or video making or even podcasting I appreciate her analysis and pretty much agree wholeheartedly.

Reading a blog provides me with something substantial that I can bookmark, search, load into my feed reader, or even save offline to Evernote or Instapaer for later reading or reference. Many times, particularly during Blaugust, I’ll even save things off to Instapaper and have them read to me on my iPad by Siri. Sure, it’s kinda like listening to a podcast but I actually get the entire transcript of the post rather than just some vague desription about what the podcast is talking about. And I’ve already got over 100 podcasts that I listen to semi-regularly. Unless a new show is good and relevant to me for more than a single episode, I usually drop it pretty quick. For video and streaming I just can’t deal with the fact that I pretty much have no reference to anything said/shown after I watch it.

So yeah, I prefer to consume my media via blogs and I enjoy the fact that the information is more permanent than video of audio.

Long Live Blogging!

Wheel of Time – Reading the Prologue

Ok, so I’m gonna kick off this reading of The Wheel of Time with the first book of course…sure there’s some kind of prelude book but that was written quite a bit after The Eye of the World so I’ll cover that another time.

The Prologue takes a look at Lews Therin Telamon, also known as the Dragon and the events leading up to the creation of the Dragonmount. We start off with Lews in quite a state of confusion and insanity to the point where he can’t even recognize his own home and family. They’re all dead and it turns out his is the hand who wielded the power that killed them. It takes his rival/nemesis Elan Morin Tedronai, The Betrayer of Hope, to bring Lews to his senses and cure him of his craziness.

He heals Telamon not out of any caring or generosity but because he wants Lews to know who killed everyone close to him and who it is that finally bested him. But as Elan uses Shai’tan’s power to heal the Dragon he also allows him to seek atonement for his sins. As the two continue a conflict that has raged since the beginning of time and Lews suffers in agony over his crimes, he reaches out for the True Source and travels away from his home. Away to a flat and empty land where he calls down lightning of such ferocity that the air turns to fire and molten rock flies into the air and all that is left of Lews is a mountain rising miles into the sky.

Obviously this fight has been going on a long time and while there appears to be a temporary hiatus I figure the rest of the 14 books will tell the story of how this fight continues. Lews may be gone but it seems Elan is still around and is gonna be seeking revenge for the victory that was stolen from him in this prologue.

A Bit of League and I Feel I am Playing Well

It’s been a while since I felt like I have been playing League of Legends well, but I think I am headed in that direction. I’ve been trying to focus on playing support and working with Morgana, Zyra and Fiddlesticks and I think I am coming to know how to use these champs fairly well…at least for a Silver level player. There’s plenty more to learn but right now I’m focusing on trying to roam from the Bot lane.

I’ve started picking up Boots of Mobility to get the Enhanced Movement speed that shoots up from +25 to +115 when out of combat. That allows me to run across the map pretty well and make my presence felt in more places.

Usually I start out slow and stick to lane to make sure that my ADC is competent. If they are decent we’ll usually zone out the enemy or even pick up a kill in the first 5 minutes or so which let’s me feel more confident that I can roam a bit. Then once I buy my boots I start looking for opportunities to head into the jungle or mid to cause some trouble. It’s been working out well and the boots also help me to get outta trouble better than the Sorcerer’s Shoes I’m used to selecting.

In any case, with 3 solid wins with this new strategy I’m gonna keep working on refining it and getting better. I know I can improve on my Silver ranking but I also know it takes time to climb the ranks.

Daily Ramble 4: Degrees of Time Legends