There’s my hunter Aralena, the first (and only) character to make it to 80 on my account. Playing Aralena in grouped boss fights is throwing out every shot I have, and then it’s basically a race to see how soon I can hit a button after it comes off cooldown. If I hit my initial abilities in the right order, it all works. On trash pulls, it’s a case of throwing misdirect on the tank and then volleying down anything that blinks. There’s not a great deal of finesse involved and it lets me put out some awesomely awesome numbers in the dps meters while I look around at the scenery.

This is why I prefer playing my resto druid (for haelzor!) Telaru, currently at level 53. The tree thing is fun. Playing Telaru is either very straighforward (rejuv, let it tick out, rejuv, YAWN, imma dance now) or scary as all hell (regrowth rejuv swiftmend ohshit ohshit ohshit nature’s swiftness healing touch CRAAAAAP OSHIT HEAL TRANQUILITY DAMMIT THERE GOES MY 8 MINUTE COOLDOWN), depending on whether the tank is boring (pulls less than 5 mobs at once) or insane (pulls three patrolling mob groups with a healer and a caster in each group). I prefer the second – insane pulls that keep me on my toes and that test my reaction time better than trying to hit something as soon as it comes off cooldown. I like having to think about what button to hit. I like playing a healer, rather than dps. I like the challenge.

Or at least, that’s what I thought until today’s LFG fun and games on Telaru. Turns out that sometimes, if the tank isn’t pulling fast enough, the dps will just go sick and pull stuff all on their own (no, I’ve not been guilty of this yet). When you have a DK tank with twice as many hitpoints than anyone else but still can’t tank multiple mobs and loses threat when someone else sneezes, this is a bad sign. When the pally with only 3K hitpoints decides that he’s going to pull extras because the main tank is going to slow, and then the main tank can’t pick up the aggro, this is an exceptionally bad sign. This is about when I should have left the party and said sayonara, adios, bye-bye.

But, I didn’t. Fool that I am, I remained. I remained through trying to heal three tanks at once. I remained through spamming heals on the squishy who couldn’t do anything without pulling aggro. I remained through the aimless wandering that convinced me, more and more, that our tank had no bloody clue what he was doing. Eventually, 45 minutes into what should have been a twenty minute run, everyone else just… left. It was me, and the tank, and the whistling wind in Blackrock Depths. At that point, I chose to keep hold of my remaining sanity and bugger off. Given my inability to learn from my mistakes, though, I went right back in later with another, equally nuts group.

If you find my marbles, can you please give them back?

I also don’t get women who wear makeup so heavy that it looks like you’ve rolled your face in spakfilla, spritzed a bit of cheese powder on top, and then taken to your eyes with a sharpie marker. I understand that a lot of folks still subscribe to the “bronzed deity of your choice” aesthetic, but folks – if you bought your foundation when you were brown from the summer, don’t wear it when you’re pale from three months of cool and cloudy weather. Use tanning moisturiser. Same goes for smoky and sultry eyes – there can be too much of a dubiously good thing, so go easy on the eyeliner. Otherwise, you risk looking like you went face-first into a vat of cheese and bacon balls for breakfast and picked up two black eyes on the way.

Just so you don’t think I’m picking on my fellow women exclusively – white guys in Gangsta fashion. I really, really don’t get this. As a white Australian male you have access to government sponsored healthcare, a good education system, and relative freedom from oppression. Why, then, does this subset of “white Australian male” choose to mimic the dress, speech, and action of a demographic from halfway around the world, who may only be two or three generations removed from slavery and thing-hood, who still have to face prejudice and disadvantage in everyday life? I know that a lot of these white Australian males are from poor families with low education, but still – it seems like a big leap. Why the adoption of a violent American culture rather than a continuation of boganism? If you have any research on this topic, then by all means let me know.

So, maybe I’m just out of touch, maybe I’m a sartorial heathen, or maybe I just don’t understand being a slave to fashion. What don’t you understand?

There was this fellow called Jean-Jaques Rousseau who once said that citizens of a political state give up certain perks (like the right to own stabby things, say) in return for the maintenance of order (in which one is less likely to be punctured unnecessarily). He was the guy to who defined the social contract (given that this is what he named his book and all), but certainly not the first or the last. Hobbes and Locke are another two to check out. Anyway, by time everyone has weighed in on the topic we get to the conclusion that if either side breaks the contractarian promise then they get punished; the individual by police actions, or the state by delegitimisation and eventually being removed from power. Without this “contract” between citizens and the state, we are at risk of having lives that are, as Hobbes said, “nasty, brutish and short” which doesn’t sound like a great deal of fun.

So what does social contract theory have to do with speed cameras? Well, the state (the actual State of South Australia, in my case) has decreed that certain roads will have certain speed limits for the maintenance of good order and so that the citizens of this state are at a reduced risk of pancaking. Break the rules, pay the price. If I were writing a 19th century political treatise, it would go something like this:

“We, the citizens, who require the state to maintain and enforce such laws that are necessary so as to maintain peace, prosperity, and a supply of slurpees for all, shall abide by these rules in return for this supply of peace, prosperity, and iced drinks. If any of us is to break one of those rules, that citizen shall find themselves stripped of certain rights and liberties as both punishment and to serve as warning to others who are tempted to gainsay such rules as the state has seen fit to set forth as being necessary to peace, prosperity, iced beverages, &c” (Yeah, I just wanted to use the “&c” abbreviation).

So, if you break the law then you’re either deprived of liberties (such as the freedom to go wherever you want, given that jail isn’t exactly a contiki tour) or rights (such as the right to not give the gub’mint extra money but instead blow it on beer and Smiggle stationery). This is what separates us from shrimp, folks. Shrimp don’t have Smiggle. This applies for every law, for (as the old phrase goes) if law isn’t enforced then it’s not really a law at all.

One cannot pick and choose which bits of law to enfore (Murder! Fraud! Theft! Really Bad Mullets!) and which bits we think should be ignored (Copyright! Speed Limits! Cannabis Posession!). Either strike the law, so there really is no law, or enforce it. If you have a law but do not enforce it, then the state went wrong somewhere. Either: the law is not necessary for the maintenance of good order, and so it should be dumped as an unjustifiable impingement on personal rights and liberties, or; it’s necessary, but the state fails in its obligation to maintain order by not enforcing it. And if (as some say) the current system is ineffective, we have two choices: either enforce it in such a way that it adds to the maintenance of order, or get rid of speed limits altogether.

Social contract theory’s pretty awesome. Basically, it’s a fancy way of justifying the state getting to kick someone’s arse if they break the rules. It can also be stretched to justify civil disobedience (if a law doesn’t promote the interests of citizens, it’s an unjust action on part of the state and therefore we can ignore it and do what we bloody well please) and revolt (bye-bye, Mr Opressive Junta Leader who buys lots of shoes with money that should be spent furthering the citizenry’s interests). Contractarianism stacks up well with the libertarian ideas on the minimisation of government, too; if a law doesn’t promote citizenry’s interests, then fare-thee-well.

I’ve been deliberately flippant at times in this post. if it’s got you fired up and wanting to argue, great. If you’re fired up enough to want to read the original text (which I have read in its entirity, by the way), then read Jean-Jaques Rousseau’s finest (and most famous) work: “The Social Contract, or Principles of Political Right”. You may have heard the words “Man is born free; and everywhere he is in chains” at some point in your life. I bet you heard it and thought someone was railing at the man. I’ll also bet you don’t know what comes next, right?

“One thinks himself the master of others, and still remains a greater slave than they. How did this change come about? I do not know. What can make it legitimate? That question I think I can answer.”

Rousseau set out to remark upon how political leaders (the master who is but a slave) hold a legitimate position in society. He did it well. Read it, and be a better informed citizen. Then, come back and argue with me about how blanketing the city in speed cameras is an unjustifiable cost that isn’t in the interests of the citizenry.

This is Telaru. She is a happy dancing cow.

Telaru is a resto cow. She enjoys healing, long walks through the Thousand Needles, and screaming at the tank to pull more than 3 but less than 8 mobs, tyvm. When she heals, she wears a moon on her head, yelling to all who will hear that “if you can’t see the moon, I can’t heal you!” This leads to occasional jokes about the healer mooning people. World of Warcraft is srs bzns.

But what’s this I see? Could it be a GIANT OWLBEAST OF PEWPEWLAZORBEEM BOOMBOOMPEWPEW???

Telaru uses BOOMKIN DANCE! It's super effective!

Today, Telaru got to level 40. She now enjoys healing, screaming at the tank, and nuking the crap out of anything that moves.

For more exciting news about Telaru, you can follow her RSS feed here, or you can follow the combined feed of Telaru and Aralena (my Hunter) here.

Let’s contrast that with the consumption of alcohol. If you take up drinking in your late teens (as many do, and again the legal age is 18 here in Aus) and keep going through your adult life, what’s your chance of dying from an alcohol-related cause? Well, according to the Alcohol and Drug Information Service, over 3000 people died of alcohol related causes. This, I presume, is everything from your liver packing it in, to being shitfaced behind the wheel and running into a stobie pole.  According to the gummint, hospitalisation costs $1,555.3 million in the 2004/2005 financial year.

So, about twice as many people die from smoking each year than do from alcohol-related causes. Smoking costs us a lot less in hospitalisation than alcohol does. You know what? About 75-85% of the country’s population over 14 drinks. It’s between 20% and 30% for smoking. So, smoking is about half to a third of the number, but kills twice as many people. It costs half as much, but if we convert that to a per percentage of population (using the lower end of the bracket for each) we end up with $18.3 million per 1% of the population hospitalised for alcohol, and $33.48 million per 1% of the population for smoking. Drinking costs about 55% of what smoking does, per person.

This is where we ask is it possible to consume either of these substances responsibly? Yes, or no? Well, yes for alcohol and a bit of both for smoking. If you drink responsibly you might be lowering your blood pressure and improving your wellbeing. For example, I have a glass or two of wine maybe two to three times a week before and during dinner, and I might have a very small bourbon (usually only a half shot) if I’m feeling really indulgent, but that’s maybe once a fortnight or when we have company, which is even less often. My “big night out” is usually Friday night, where we go to the pub, and I’ll have a pint or two of beer, and maybe a bourbon. We’re talking about 5 standards here: I’d call this responsible drinking. I have reformed much in the last few years. I’m not putting my health at risk, and I’m not putting my safety of that or anyone else at risk by drinking so much that I can’t make sensible decisions. Mind you (and this is where it all falls down) – a lot of people choose to consume alcohol irresponsibly. This is because they are nongs, and will always do things irresponsibly.

Can you consume tobacco responsibly? Well…. tobacco is chock full of carcinogens (just one example), and every time you smoke you’re raising the risk of developing cancer. I have been known to smoke the odd cigar myself, and feel that the risk I take of developing cancer by smoking a cigar every six months or so is comparable to that of being hit by an out of control bus when I walk down the street. In that sense, it is possible to consume tobacco “safely” – one cigar every six months is unlikely to kill me. It might, but it’s unlikely.

So, a glass of wine every other night? Probably not gonna kill me. If I smoked a cigar, or a cigarette every other day? That’s getting dangerous. And this is why, ladies and gents, tobacco and alcohol get treated differently.