The Quest for the Legends

What countries have you been to?

Let's see… Iceland, naturally; Denmark; England a few times; France twice unless you also count driving over from Switzerland; Italy; South Africa; Greece; Switzerland three times; Sweden; Singapore; Australia; Hong Kong; Vietnam; Spain; Canada; the USA; and now Germany to visit my brother.

…Wow. O,O

Let's see… Iceland, naturally; Denmark; England a few times; France twice unless you also count driving over from Switzerland; Italy; South Africa; Greece; Switzerland three times; Sweden; Singapore; Australia; Hong Kong; Vietnam; Spain; Canada; the USA; and now Germany to visit my brother.

That makes me immensely jealous.

Did you also fall in love with The God Delusion?

Oh, and excising (is that the write word? to remove by cutting?) any sentimental feelings, is it possible for you to change my name to Scyther here also? If you can, please do so. I don't like having fifty thousand aliases.

…And where does the alias, antialiasis, come from/mean?

Did you also fall in love with The God Delusion?

Eh, not really; it's his worst book in my opinion and its central argument struck me as the kind that makes perfect sense as an argument for not starting to believe in God but really doesn't work as an argument for somebody to stop believing in God, which is what it was presented as. It still makes a lot of good points, mind, and his writing is always great, and I actually liked it more on the second read, but if you're going to read Dawkins, go read The Selfish Gene and The Ancestor's Tale, which are both utterly brilliant and fascinating books. It also helps against the irritating misconception that he's a bitter old man obsessed with his own atheism.

Mind, by the time I read The God Delusion I was already in love with his books on evolution, so there was no need to fall in love with it. :P

…And where does the alias, antialiasis, come from/mean?

The word "anti-alias", which is a computer graphics term referring to the use of, for instance, gray pixels to portray an area that in a higher pixel resolution would be partly white and partly black, such as on the edge of a solid shape on a background or in a pattern that is too small for the resolution to capture it accurately. Not that the definition matters; I just liked the sound of the word after noticing it in Photoshop and ImageReady, and when I decided to make myself a unique username (i.e. something that would not be taken on Neopets), I figured it was as good an idea to start with as any. Just "antialias" was taken, so I decided to add another syllable at the end; "-is" both worked smoothly with the general flow of the name and is an ending that makes it into a process (just like "photosynthesis"), which I thought was pretty cool. And it was just fun to say (with an Icelandic pronunciation, anyway).

I might note that at the time I did not actually know what the word "alias" generally meant, so the fact this created an alias that sounds like it is against the very idea of aliases was completely lost on me, but now I think it's kind of fun, so. :P

I'll change your name after the new year; apparently my Buffy and Angel torrents exceeded our bandwidth limit for the month and therefore my Internet is a slug right now and I don't trust it to keep up a connection with the server for long enough to change your name.

If you had to kill off Alan, how would he die?

Also, can you write a few extras on Alan's adventure with the whole finding Rainteicune thing?

If you had to kill off Alan, how would he die?

Probably sacrificing himself to save everybody else. He's all heroic like that. Either that or I'd make it as crushingly pointless and futile as possible.

Also, can you write a few extras on Alan's adventure with the whole finding Rainteicune thing?

Preferably not. I'm trying hard enough to forget I ever wrote it in in the first place already.

If one of Mark, May and Alan's pokémon had to die which ones? (While we are talking about charecter death)

That would depend on the situation; generally I'd only kill off a character when it makes sense for that character to die.

If I just specifically wanted to kill off one of each of their Pokémon and would engineer the situation once I'd chosen the Pokémon, I'd probably pick Sandslash from Mark's team because he is nice and loyal and his loss would be tragic without being quite as downright cruel as if it were Jolteon, plus that he is the least interesting to write and so as the author I'd miss his presence the least. May would probably lose Spirit because I'm mean like that and it's the one that would affect her the most by far, though Floatzel would also be a possibility in that regard if I didn't want to give Spirit the axe, and Flygon would be a possibility if I wanted to go for the nice-and-loyal-and-didn't-deserve-it death. For Alan it would be Charlie, because he would be so utterly crushed and horrified and it would be adorable and fun to write.

You really love torturing your characters, don't you?

Yes. :P

Niiiice.

Eh, not really; it's his worst book in my opinion and its central argument struck me as the kind that makes perfect sense as an argument for not starting to believe in God but really doesn't work as an argument for somebody to stop believing in God, which is what it was presented as. It still makes a lot of good points, mind, and his writing is always great, and I actually liked it more on the second read, but if you're going to read Dawkins, go read The Selfish Gene and The Ancestor's Tale, which are both utterly brilliant and fascinating books. It also helps against the irritating misconception that he's a bitter old man obsessed with his own atheism.

Really? I like it. Maybe it's Just because my own parents are hardcore Christians ( I have to hide it.)

What breed of cat do you have? What makes you like your cat the most?

Well, I like it; it's just that his other books are so much more fascinating. In general, people tend to be more interesting when talking about something they love than something they dislike. He loves the theory of evolution, and he loves science, and he loves all the fascinating animals in the world, and damn it if he isn't going to make you love them too.

My cat is just a tabby mongrel, and I think I love everything about him in different ways. He's just really sweet and affectionate (to us, anyway; he doesn't much care for when some random kids start trying to pet him), purrs a lot, likes to come and sleep beside you when you're sick, is just really soft, likes to hunt my feet which is occasionally painful but also really adorable, has discovered on his own two "doorbells" to get in and out of my room (in by scratching at the rubber in the doorframe, at which point I immediately run to open it so that he will stop destroying it; out by dangling at the chess medals hanging on my doorknob so that it makes a lot of noise), etc.

Why is it that the only status effect you write about is paralysis (and love… stupid Charmeleon.)? Not intended to be picky, but it annoys me that paralysis works EVERY TIME just by coincidence.

Huh? Paralysis doesn't work every time by coincidence; Thunder Wave is simply a 100% accurate move that is known by both Dragonite and Jolteon, and paralysis is very useful, so of course Thunder Wave gets used, especially in the League. It is also the only status-inducing move any of Mark's Pokémon have, save Letaligon's Hypnosis (which she has used several times, though that tends to miss and Mark doesn't risk it often since it's only 60% accurate). May's Butterfree has used Sleep Powder plenty of times (in fact, at a guess I'd say she's used it, or tried to, nearly every time you've seen her), but of course you don't see as much of her because she's May's Pokémon rather than Mark's. Sleep Powder and Leech Seed have been used several times by Grass opponents; poisoning has happened although since none of the main characters' Pokémon are Poison-types it only happens when they happen to be facing Poison-type opponents (naturally, it happened most prominently with the Scorplack). Burns and freezings have happened on occasion, too, but since they're usually 10% secondary effects, it's only natural for them not to happen very often.

Garydos' Dragon Beam burned/froze(/paralyzed) a couple of pokemon somewhere.

That too, yeah.

If you could go to/back to any country in the world, where would you go?


Do you watch any fan-made videos, like on youtube?

First question: Probably somewhere I could meet some of my Internet friends.

Second question: No, not really.

Favorite aniamal, if you have one?

Is there anything you'd like to rant or ramble about at the current moment? Or deliver some well-written speech?