God, what am I doing? I have no idea what's going on these days. I've been so damn busy my days are sort of running together. Today is my daughter's 13th birthday and I'm very, very scared because ... well, because she's a TEENAGER now! *le gasp* I've managed to keep her alive into her teenage years. Well, now that the easy part's over... hahaha.
We're about to get a new couch. This one is completely broken down, to the point where I can barely even climb out of it when I want to stand up. Tuesday, woo!
Got back in touch with an old friend, went to see her last night. Felt good. I missed you, babe! Sorry I've been so busy!
There are a ton of games coming out and a ton more I've just discovered are coming out that I want to play, but can't afford *any* of them. Worst - with a 1 year WoW subscription you get DIII free, but I can't afford the stupid monthly charge (which is why I haven't played in... 8 months or so). Rawr!
Um... my son's almost 2, and sometimes he acts like a 4 year old and others he acts his age. It's a little disconcerting to have a baby who I have to keep reminding myself is only a year old so I shouldn't expect so much of him. Sarah was the same way, though. Geez it's hard having smarty-pants kids. o_O
James has had several days off (yay for PTO) and has been working on the kitchen for me. He's done a BUNCH of dishes and cleaned off the stove, which was CAKED with stuff from I don't even know how long ago, and is going to clean the counters. I still have to do the floor though, haha. Thanks James! *MuAh*
So I just saw this thing on cultural diversity and stereotyping for Halloween and I'm just blown away by the ignorance of some people. The whole debate is whether or not some costumes are racially insensitive (geisha, arab terrorist, etc) and my opinion is this - IF IT'S NOT YOU THEN WHY DO YOU CARE WHAT STEREOTYPE SOMEONE IS MAKING FUN OF FOR HALLOWEEN? I mean, does anyone REALLY think that anyone who dresses as a stereotype for halloween honestly believes that it's the way ALL people of that particular culture are? No. Fuck off. Grow some balls. A spine. SOMETHING, but quit getting all fucking crybaby because you're Japanese and someone's a samurai, or ninja, or geisha, or what-fucking-ever.
The end!
Showing posts with label world of warcraft. Show all posts
Showing posts with label world of warcraft. Show all posts
Thursday, October 27, 2011
Thursday, August 25, 2011
Tattoos part 2 - Games
Yesterday (the day before?) I wrote a blog about music tattoos. Today's blog is going to be about gaming tattoos - specifically, why I have 2 already (even though one desperately needs fixed, because the guy who did it wasn't very good) and why I'm getting at least one more.
My very first tattoo, gotten 2 days after my 18th birthday, is the Vampire: The Masquerade ankh. Very small, purple (black outline), and on my left breast (BAD idea if you're still an adolescent, by the way... never get a tattoo on a fatty area before you're done developing!!!!). At the time, V:TM LARP was a VERY important part of my life - it bonded my husband and I, and introduced me to people who I could relate to at that time. I was a veritable social butterfly in the gaming world when I LARPed, and even though my first LARP was actually Werewolf: The Apocalypse, V:TM brought me an active, fun-filled, charmed and charming life, and fulfilled a sense of belonging I needed at that time, that I'll forever appreciate, even if it was considerably temporary.
My second gaming tattoo (but by no means my 2nd tattoo, I actually have 5 right now) is the Nobody symbol from the Kingdom Hearts series of video games; it's on my right leg just above my ankle, and is the one I need fixed. For those unfamiliar, Kingdom Hearts is a Disney and Square Enix collaborative effort begun in 2002, and revolves around a boy who has to save his friends, and all the worlds (including Disney worlds), from an organization of beings called Nobodies. There is, of course a LOT more to it than that, and the series of games spans many years and many lives, but the gist is the same nonetheless. The Kingdom Hearts story is one of the most involved I've ever seen in a videogame (or anywhere really, there are very few storylines as epic as the one presented with KH, even in book series), and a good many of the characters are ones you can relate to. The character development and growth is stunningly presented. The reason I have a Nobody symbol (as opposed to other symbols of the Kingdom Hearts franchise, such as the heart, crown, or heartless symbol) is because once you look past the surface of Organization XIII's motives (OrgXIII are the main antagonists in the primary KH story), they only want what everyone wants. To be whole. To feel complete, instead of the empty shells they are. (Not to mention, two of my favourite fictional characters ever are both Nobodies, and the progression of one of them from Nobody to Somebody was astounding.)
Now, for the last one, the one I don't have but I want very badly. Yes, this labels me as a huge dork or geek or possibly nerd in the eyes of some, but I don't care. I want the Horde symbol from World of Warcraft tattooed on my back. I played World of Warcraft for a few years, and even though it's been awhile since I've been able to play due to lack of funds, I still have an active interest in it. One of the few things I'm actively interested in these days, actually. But as a member of the Horde faction, I joined a guild, the same one James was in when he convinced me to start playing, and in that guild I found a level of camaraderie and cooperation that I've never seen in my adult life before or since. I fully believe that were it not for WoW I wouldn't have become as close with Magus as I am, and that Gary and I wouldn't have become actual friends (as opposed to acquaintances), and I wouldn't have made several other friends that I have today. Being a member of the Horde, and of the guild, brought the same sense of belonging as an adult that I felt I needed as a teenager, and for that I will be forever grateful.
I'm sure in the future there will be others, something geeky or music related, something non-spiritual (the other tattoos I want are primarily spiritual symbols), but for now I'm content to make myself a walking advertisement for the things I love and have a deep appreciation for.
My very first tattoo, gotten 2 days after my 18th birthday, is the Vampire: The Masquerade ankh. Very small, purple (black outline), and on my left breast (BAD idea if you're still an adolescent, by the way... never get a tattoo on a fatty area before you're done developing!!!!). At the time, V:TM LARP was a VERY important part of my life - it bonded my husband and I, and introduced me to people who I could relate to at that time. I was a veritable social butterfly in the gaming world when I LARPed, and even though my first LARP was actually Werewolf: The Apocalypse, V:TM brought me an active, fun-filled, charmed and charming life, and fulfilled a sense of belonging I needed at that time, that I'll forever appreciate, even if it was considerably temporary.
My second gaming tattoo (but by no means my 2nd tattoo, I actually have 5 right now) is the Nobody symbol from the Kingdom Hearts series of video games; it's on my right leg just above my ankle, and is the one I need fixed. For those unfamiliar, Kingdom Hearts is a Disney and Square Enix collaborative effort begun in 2002, and revolves around a boy who has to save his friends, and all the worlds (including Disney worlds), from an organization of beings called Nobodies. There is, of course a LOT more to it than that, and the series of games spans many years and many lives, but the gist is the same nonetheless. The Kingdom Hearts story is one of the most involved I've ever seen in a videogame (or anywhere really, there are very few storylines as epic as the one presented with KH, even in book series), and a good many of the characters are ones you can relate to. The character development and growth is stunningly presented. The reason I have a Nobody symbol (as opposed to other symbols of the Kingdom Hearts franchise, such as the heart, crown, or heartless symbol) is because once you look past the surface of Organization XIII's motives (OrgXIII are the main antagonists in the primary KH story), they only want what everyone wants. To be whole. To feel complete, instead of the empty shells they are. (Not to mention, two of my favourite fictional characters ever are both Nobodies, and the progression of one of them from Nobody to Somebody was astounding.)
Now, for the last one, the one I don't have but I want very badly. Yes, this labels me as a huge dork or geek or possibly nerd in the eyes of some, but I don't care. I want the Horde symbol from World of Warcraft tattooed on my back. I played World of Warcraft for a few years, and even though it's been awhile since I've been able to play due to lack of funds, I still have an active interest in it. One of the few things I'm actively interested in these days, actually. But as a member of the Horde faction, I joined a guild, the same one James was in when he convinced me to start playing, and in that guild I found a level of camaraderie and cooperation that I've never seen in my adult life before or since. I fully believe that were it not for WoW I wouldn't have become as close with Magus as I am, and that Gary and I wouldn't have become actual friends (as opposed to acquaintances), and I wouldn't have made several other friends that I have today. Being a member of the Horde, and of the guild, brought the same sense of belonging as an adult that I felt I needed as a teenager, and for that I will be forever grateful.
I'm sure in the future there will be others, something geeky or music related, something non-spiritual (the other tattoos I want are primarily spiritual symbols), but for now I'm content to make myself a walking advertisement for the things I love and have a deep appreciation for.
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
Prototypes, The Ramones, and OMG BANANAS!
This morning Sprout (the preschool TV network) has Sean, the only male host, on the "Sunny Side Up Show", the network's weekday morning show. Well, Sean was playing a "lullaby" for a baby chick, turned on the radio, and THE RAMONES starts blasting from the radio. Blitzkrieg Bop, to be precise. Total holy shit moment here, folks. The motherfucking Ramones were on SPROUT. AHAHAHAHAHA. It only lasted for about 5 or 10 seconds, but that was enough to make me love this channel forever. That's better than when Kelly (another host) got stuck in Chica's (squeaky bird puppet) nest. Muahahahahaha.
Joseph followed me into the kitchen while I got my 2nd cup of coffee, and demanded a banana. He brought me the entire bunch, and yelled NUMMY NUMMY at me. So I give him a banana, peel it, and he starts breaking off the peel as he's eating it, so the living room becomes full of banana peel bits that I have to get Joseph to bring to me so the dogs don't decide peel = tasty. Hahaha. (Now, I'm not entirely sure why I felt Joseph asking for bananas was noteworthy enough to blog about.... I just did.)
Sarah's first day of school was yesterday (second being, uh, today, duh) and she's very excited about her schedule. She's got creative writing, performance, and communications as her electives and couldn't be happier. Combine that with Advanced English and she's about as happy as a mouse in a cheese factory. I'm really excited for her. Looks like the year's not going to be as bad as she thought. Hehe.
I've started working on my building on Magus' sister's Minecraft server. I made a prototype on our home server (which I'm not done with yet), but making it on the big server's going to take about 4x as long, since there's no flying there, but our home server allows flying. Gonna have to be extra, extra careful, and /superjump is going to be my best friend for awhile. Magus is making MUCH more progress with his Nobody castle; good god it's like half done already. It's both impressive and terrifying. In comparison, my 'house' is more like a hovel, and my epic structure is going to be sort of... lame. Toothpicks next to the Eiffel Tower. Oh well, I'm sure I'll figure it out.
Still trying to find time and energy to play a plethora of other games (mostly console) I want to play. and I'm seriously considering picking WoW back up for at least a month, to check out all the new content. There's quite a bit of it, from what I understand. Still up for debate, though, as I don't know if I'll want it for longer than a month, and I don't know if we'd be able to even afford it for longer if I decide I want to keep playing. So we'll see, I suppose.
Again, boring blog is boring.
Joseph followed me into the kitchen while I got my 2nd cup of coffee, and demanded a banana. He brought me the entire bunch, and yelled NUMMY NUMMY at me. So I give him a banana, peel it, and he starts breaking off the peel as he's eating it, so the living room becomes full of banana peel bits that I have to get Joseph to bring to me so the dogs don't decide peel = tasty. Hahaha. (Now, I'm not entirely sure why I felt Joseph asking for bananas was noteworthy enough to blog about.... I just did.)
Sarah's first day of school was yesterday (second being, uh, today, duh) and she's very excited about her schedule. She's got creative writing, performance, and communications as her electives and couldn't be happier. Combine that with Advanced English and she's about as happy as a mouse in a cheese factory. I'm really excited for her. Looks like the year's not going to be as bad as she thought. Hehe.
I've started working on my building on Magus' sister's Minecraft server. I made a prototype on our home server (which I'm not done with yet), but making it on the big server's going to take about 4x as long, since there's no flying there, but our home server allows flying. Gonna have to be extra, extra careful, and /superjump is going to be my best friend for awhile. Magus is making MUCH more progress with his Nobody castle; good god it's like half done already. It's both impressive and terrifying. In comparison, my 'house' is more like a hovel, and my epic structure is going to be sort of... lame. Toothpicks next to the Eiffel Tower. Oh well, I'm sure I'll figure it out.
Still trying to find time and energy to play a plethora of other games (mostly console) I want to play. and I'm seriously considering picking WoW back up for at least a month, to check out all the new content. There's quite a bit of it, from what I understand. Still up for debate, though, as I don't know if I'll want it for longer than a month, and I don't know if we'd be able to even afford it for longer if I decide I want to keep playing. So we'll see, I suppose.
Again, boring blog is boring.
Tuesday, August 2, 2011
Router, YOU FAIL
My router is going out. In a BAAAAAAD way. The guys here connected directly by cat5 don't have it nearly as badly as those of us who are wireless. It's a fucking shocker I can ever get anything done online with as often as the router simply refuses to transmit. At first I thought it was my NIC, on my old laptop, but when other people began expressing they were having the same problem, I came to understand swiftly that my NIC was just fiiiiiiiine. Then we thought it was the modem, since my hubby was "directly connected to the modem" (which I believed, and went with), but the cable company said they'd been monitoring the connection for awhile solid and there were no problems. Then the tech told me the modem only has a single ethernet port, so I went to check... lo' and behold, the cat5 from my hubby's computer went where? Directly to ----- THE ROUTER! Yes, his "direct connection" was to the failing router, NOT the modem! So I've been watching the modem for awhile, and sure, it's still sending and receiving like a boss. It's all the router.
DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW DIFFICULT IT IS TO GAME ONLINE WITH AN INTERMITTENT CONNECTION??!! DO YOU???? We had a problem with our connection with Time Warner, because of the lines to the house. Made playing WoW a real bitch and a half. Groups are not supposed to have to stop every room to wait for a member, especially an important one (DoTs ftw!), while in a dungeon. So, we switched companies. The new company is pretty good; no real problems except the occasional download flag. Ugh, but what can you do, worth it for an underground fiberoptic connection. Things have been great until the router started going out. Now I simply can't do ANYTHING. Connection lost. Connection lost. CONNECTION LOST. Connection. Lost. Connection timed out. Retry. Those words make every fibre of my being vibrate with frustration.
Know what's worst? It'll be at least a month before we can get a new damn router. That pretty much eliminates anything important or entertaining I want to do online. It's a heap of bullshit until then. Google. Webcomics. Fucking Facebook.
Shoot me now.
DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW DIFFICULT IT IS TO GAME ONLINE WITH AN INTERMITTENT CONNECTION??!! DO YOU???? We had a problem with our connection with Time Warner, because of the lines to the house. Made playing WoW a real bitch and a half. Groups are not supposed to have to stop every room to wait for a member, especially an important one (DoTs ftw!), while in a dungeon. So, we switched companies. The new company is pretty good; no real problems except the occasional download flag. Ugh, but what can you do, worth it for an underground fiberoptic connection. Things have been great until the router started going out. Now I simply can't do ANYTHING. Connection lost. Connection lost. CONNECTION LOST. Connection. Lost. Connection timed out. Retry. Those words make every fibre of my being vibrate with frustration.
Know what's worst? It'll be at least a month before we can get a new damn router. That pretty much eliminates anything important or entertaining I want to do online. It's a heap of bullshit until then. Google. Webcomics. Fucking Facebook.
Shoot me now.
Saturday, July 23, 2011
The Old Switcheroo
God, switching computers sucks. I do it every few years, and every time I forget what a damn hassle it is to get done! I'm on a new laptop (which is a hand-me-down and fortunately the previous owner, my friend and roommate M, left a few things on so I wouldnt' have to worry), and the HD is half the size of my old one. So there's not a lot I can do except store stuff on my external (which I am) until I either stick my external in here (hah, it's a laptop drive in a case, muahaha) or just get a new drive in general. It sucks having no space - my old laptop was a 250 gig, the new one is a 130 (130!!!!! How did my friend survive on 130 gig??!!), and my external is a 320. I'd really like at least a 500, so I've got room for not only my games (yeah, despite my last post, I *do* still own, and play, some PC games) but my music, pictures, videos, and at least a few movies so I don't have to stick them on my hubby's stupid-big 3tb (two 1.5tb really) drive.
Last night I was up until after 4am just messing with all my music, trying to get it into iTunes without all the damn duplicates (don't know why, but when I added my music it duplicated all 3,000 files, aaahhh!!!), deleting everything, re-adding everything, re-making my playlist, blargle blargle. I wish I could say 'fuckin iPod' but y'know, it would have taken more time with just my mp3's than with iTunes. Now I just have to do the rest! Whee!
Pretty graphics, though. That's one of the biggest reasons I switched out, even though this has a smaller HD, is because it's a faster processor with more memory and a better graphics card. All of this means it'll be so much easier to run my more graphics intensive games, like oh say WoW... Heeh.
Some time in the next year I'll probably be taking advantage of my hubby's work program, they have a partnership with Dell and for a 10% down payment you can finance a computer through the company instead of through Dell directly, and the payments are taken out of paychecks instead of your bank account. Awesome Alienware FTW. I Heart Alienware, and fully intend on getting one someday.
Uhmm.... I think I ran out of things to say. My son is being a whiny-butt and my daughter's playing the Xbox, my hubby's out doing yardwork and both roommates are sleeping. Rawr.
Last night I was up until after 4am just messing with all my music, trying to get it into iTunes without all the damn duplicates (don't know why, but when I added my music it duplicated all 3,000 files, aaahhh!!!), deleting everything, re-adding everything, re-making my playlist, blargle blargle. I wish I could say 'fuckin iPod' but y'know, it would have taken more time with just my mp3's than with iTunes. Now I just have to do the rest! Whee!
Pretty graphics, though. That's one of the biggest reasons I switched out, even though this has a smaller HD, is because it's a faster processor with more memory and a better graphics card. All of this means it'll be so much easier to run my more graphics intensive games, like oh say WoW... Heeh.
Some time in the next year I'll probably be taking advantage of my hubby's work program, they have a partnership with Dell and for a 10% down payment you can finance a computer through the company instead of through Dell directly, and the payments are taken out of paychecks instead of your bank account. Awesome Alienware FTW. I Heart Alienware, and fully intend on getting one someday.
Uhmm.... I think I ran out of things to say. My son is being a whiny-butt and my daughter's playing the Xbox, my hubby's out doing yardwork and both roommates are sleeping. Rawr.
Thursday, July 21, 2011
A Confession (of sorts)
I have something I need to get off my chest. A confession, if you will...
I am, contrary to popular belief, not a true gamer. I mean, I LOVE games, but I don't play them often, or many. I enjoy storylines, cutscenes, even some gameplay, but most games I'm interested in I'm only familiar with second- or third-hand.
For example - one of my favourite game series in the history of games is Kingdom Hearts. I love the story, the battle system, the puzzles, the leveling system, everything about it. How many of them have I played? One. I own all but one (in English, anyway), but I've only ever played the one (which happens to be 358/2 Days), and not even all the way through. But I know the entire series inside and out. Youtube and wiki are my best friends sometimes.
Another such example is Devil May Cry. Okay, so DMC4 I watched my husband play all the way through start to finish, but the others, I've never even picked up except to buy. I'm *going* to play them... someday. In the meantime, I'm content with knowing the story through other people and teh interwebs.
There are few games I actually play that I enjoy. World of Warcraft I used to play *avidly* (unfortunate financial circumstances have prevented me from playing of late, but as soon as I have the extra moolah, I'm right back on US Kargath, baby! FOR THE HORDE!), Sengoku Basara 3 I really enjoy, even though it's fairly simplistic in both storyline and gameplay (but geez is it immersive), and there are some FPS I've enjoyed over the years. Oh, and Minecraft. I don't know if that even counts as a "real" game, but I FUCKING LOVE MINECRAFT. And I'm GOOD at it. I mean, yeah, what's there really to be "good" at, anyway, right? well, let's see YOU build bridges and minecart railways and grand towers of awesome all over the map while zombies are trying to eat your face and creepers are blowing up your shit! Chea, not so easy now, is it? O_O
A good, good friend of mine is trying to get me involved in the Diablo series right now; as soon as I make the switch to my new laptop we're going to co-op DII. That was the condition for getting the pc - I had to play DII with him. Okay, not a big deal. I'm sure I'll enjoy it immensely; I liked the first well enough. I'm probably also going to try my hand at SC/SCII, even though, y'know, I'm awful at strategy games. I'm always the first army out in RISK... planning is definitely not my thing.
But for all that, y'know what? I'm one hell of a critic. Most of the games I love I know so well, inside and out, that I can tell you what's good and bad about each of them. I can tell you gameplay techniques and strategies, Boss fight how-to's, and the best build for the type of character you're going for. I can tell you why certain games suck and others are the bomb, and I'm *always* up for learning about a new release/future release.
Games are INTERESTING, especially the ones with immersive stories. Which is why, even though I'm not a true gamer, I still enjoy the hell out of a wide variety of games.
So, that's my confession. That is all.
I am, contrary to popular belief, not a true gamer. I mean, I LOVE games, but I don't play them often, or many. I enjoy storylines, cutscenes, even some gameplay, but most games I'm interested in I'm only familiar with second- or third-hand.
For example - one of my favourite game series in the history of games is Kingdom Hearts. I love the story, the battle system, the puzzles, the leveling system, everything about it. How many of them have I played? One. I own all but one (in English, anyway), but I've only ever played the one (which happens to be 358/2 Days), and not even all the way through. But I know the entire series inside and out. Youtube and wiki are my best friends sometimes.
Another such example is Devil May Cry. Okay, so DMC4 I watched my husband play all the way through start to finish, but the others, I've never even picked up except to buy. I'm *going* to play them... someday. In the meantime, I'm content with knowing the story through other people and teh interwebs.
There are few games I actually play that I enjoy. World of Warcraft I used to play *avidly* (unfortunate financial circumstances have prevented me from playing of late, but as soon as I have the extra moolah, I'm right back on US Kargath, baby! FOR THE HORDE!), Sengoku Basara 3 I really enjoy, even though it's fairly simplistic in both storyline and gameplay (but geez is it immersive), and there are some FPS I've enjoyed over the years. Oh, and Minecraft. I don't know if that even counts as a "real" game, but I FUCKING LOVE MINECRAFT. And I'm GOOD at it. I mean, yeah, what's there really to be "good" at, anyway, right? well, let's see YOU build bridges and minecart railways and grand towers of awesome all over the map while zombies are trying to eat your face and creepers are blowing up your shit! Chea, not so easy now, is it? O_O
A good, good friend of mine is trying to get me involved in the Diablo series right now; as soon as I make the switch to my new laptop we're going to co-op DII. That was the condition for getting the pc - I had to play DII with him. Okay, not a big deal. I'm sure I'll enjoy it immensely; I liked the first well enough. I'm probably also going to try my hand at SC/SCII, even though, y'know, I'm awful at strategy games. I'm always the first army out in RISK... planning is definitely not my thing.
But for all that, y'know what? I'm one hell of a critic. Most of the games I love I know so well, inside and out, that I can tell you what's good and bad about each of them. I can tell you gameplay techniques and strategies, Boss fight how-to's, and the best build for the type of character you're going for. I can tell you why certain games suck and others are the bomb, and I'm *always* up for learning about a new release/future release.
Games are INTERESTING, especially the ones with immersive stories. Which is why, even though I'm not a true gamer, I still enjoy the hell out of a wide variety of games.
So, that's my confession. That is all.
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