Merry Christmas!!!

Okay, so Saturday Night is the Staff Christmas Party at my job. That's right, four months from the actual event, we're finally having our Christmas Party. And on Easter Weekend, no less. I was told that I ordered steak, though I don't recall ever being asked if I wanted steak or chicken, and even better, if you didn't choose one of those two, you get vegetarian lasagna, though I didn't find any of this out until yesterday at work, which is much too late to fix anything. Let me state quite simply that I am morally against the killing of plants for the purpose of eating. I think it's cruel to eat something simply because it can't run away, nor show signs of pain. So if I end up with the vegetarian lasagna, I will walk out of there without a second thought.


In Azeroth, Noxx attempted two dungeon runs this week, both which ended up featuring much higher level players running the rest of the group. In the first dungeon, a level 70 mage proceeded to attack everything, not with her spells, but with her dagger. My guess is that she didn't train with dagger much, because I was repeatedly able to steal aggro (enemies) off of attacking her and to then start attacking me, which resulted in numerous deaths on my part. She then proceeded to lecture me on watching my threat generation (Threat which is too high causes you to steal aggro). Now, if there's one thing I became intimately familiar with when playing Aneska, it's how to watch threat generation, and to make sure that no one overpowers the tank's threat level and thus steals aggro. We made it through this dungeon, but it took about half an hour longer than it should have.

The second dungeon run was led by a level 58 DK (Death Knight [read; Dumb Kid]) who proceeded to stand around and do nothing, resulting in a four man dungeon run by those too low in level to attempt it. Once the rest of us died, the DK would then begin attacking the enemies resulting in us not receiving experience points. This group I dropped out of along with one other person (others anted to stay) and signed on with Aneska and ran the other guy through the dungeon without a hitch. Noxx had made it through this dungeon in the past, so only went for the experience points. I think in the future, until I reach higher levels with Noxx, I'll start cashing in on favors owed to Aneska by having them run Noxx through those dungeons.

PUGs (Pick Up Groups) are hell, and more so when either the tank or the healer have no clue what they're doing.

Heroic Utgarde Pinnacle

Aneska Update:

After Dozens of attempts, I have finally been able to beat Utgarde Pinnacle on Heroic Difficulty. Every other time I've tried my group either had insufficient DPS, or Skadi the Ruthless would glitch and restart itself. The glitch is a known issue, and has been since people first started running this dungeon as a Heroic. Yet Blizzard has been unable to fix this issue in over four months. Now, I understand that there are going to be issues with online games, but when you've got a bug as severe as this one (you can't complete the dungeon without going through this guy) it should be one of the top priorities to fix. Sadly, the sword I wanted didn't drop(only an 18% chance), but with this success I'm confident that I'll be able to go back at another time to get it.

Meanwhile 3.1 is still due to come out, it was supposed to be back in January, however they're still in testing with no release date yet given for the new changes or the new raid. From what I can tell about it, you still won't be able to fight the Lich King, which seems kind of odd, considering the expansion is called Wrath of the Lich King, yet here we are months later, and still no word about taking him to task. I'm beginning to think he's just too scared to face my awesome tankadin skills.


Tankadin: A Protection Specced Paladin. Basically a self healing meat shield for the rest of the group.

A Work in Progress

I haven't left, I'm still here. Yes, I can hear the groans of despair as some of you realize this. The fact of the matter is that I don't post as much as I'd like to, because I like to wait until I either have something to say, or something I feel is worth sharing. Blog Father Harvey makes a good point that a blogs name says who you are. While I do consider myself a guardian of honor, I don't feel that such a thing is necessarily proper for this blog, as the subject matter tends to deal with other things entirely.

My weight is starting to drop, though I do still crave Dr Pepper like you wouldn't believe. Moving strictly to water with an occasional juice is hard to do, particularly since most businesses when you eat out don't offer much to drink besides soda and alcohol, and only with soda do you get free refills.

In the gaming world, I've been playing World of Warcraft for the most part. I've started working on Noxx a Night Elf Druid, and have to say that I find the class quite enjoyable. I started playing the game while I was driving the edit truck for Supercross during Spring of '08 as a way to avoid dealing with the people who were around the truck all day. I was expected to be on hand in case anything went wrong, even though the only things which might go wrong were things which I couldn't fix. And so I created Aneska, a Draenei (Drah-Nye) Paladin. And from there, I've been playing off and on ever since.

Gaming Console of the Future?

First heard about it here, the original post is below, with the link before it. This pretty much sums up my thoughts on Onlive quite well, usually I'd comment on an article rather than just repost it, but there's really nothing I could add to it.

Ctrlaltdel-Online

So obviously OnLive is causing a pretty big stir in the video games community, and with good reason. It's a fascinating concept that could revolutionize gaming. However it also stirs up a lot of fears and concerns and doubts that are all perfectly legitimate.

The implications and possibilities (and possible failures) of a system like this are too numerous to explore completely here (at least within a reasonable amount of time), but I do want to share some of my thoughts on it, as well as concerns and what I've heard.

When it was first announced, my initial reaction was "Wow, that's amazing" followed immediately by "But I don't want to give up that much control over my games.". And I don't. I don't want to rely on so many X factors to access and enjoy my games. I don't want to rely on the OnLive service functioning, as well as the internet service to deliver it. What if I wanted to travel somewhere that doesn't have internet? I could take my console. With OnLive I'd be completely cut off.

I don't want to not "own" the game I'm paying for. I know more and more things are going digital these days, but there's still a lot of comfort in owning a physical copy of something you paid for. You know it's there when you need it. I imagine it's the same reason people purchase the Ctrl+Alt+Del collection books even though all of the comics are available for free online. Sometimes you want tangible stuff that you know can't disappear with an internet outage or a corrupt hard drive.

I also don't like the idea of losing control over a game that I've bought. While I cannot honestly think of a time in recent memory where I chose not to patch a game because I didn't agree with the patch changes, I'm not sure I want to relinquish that option. I'm not sure I want to start playing a game, and then have it disappear because the developer decided it wasn't selling well enough.

So those are some of the things, right off the bat, that turn me off about the idea. They mirror some of the general concerns I've heard murmered about the concept.

"What about lag and internet/service outages?" Exactly. OnLive says they've developed new tech that all but obliterates latency but... honestly, haven't we all heard that before? The bottom line is, the service will be prone to hiccups and lag. Now most of us have come to accept this as a fact of life when we play multiplayer games online. But do we really want to introduce this variable into our single player experiences as well?

Additionally, not everyone has great internet speeds, and not everyone has uncapped bandwidth. These are additional speedbumps the service has to deal with.

However, there is incredible potential for a service like this. It's huge for people who can't afford the top-end gaming PCs, or who can't afford three different consoles just to play all the available games. That would be a fantastic advantage. Imagine it, having all games available through one service. How convenient would that be?

But who says there's only one service? Yes, OnLive is the first, but does anybody honestly think that, if this actually works, that other companies aren't going to launch their own versions of the service? Of course they are. And then this idea of a utopian, console-free, one-stop video-gamescape goes right out the window, because we're back to different services competing for subscribers, and competing for exclusive rights to various games. Want to play the new Call of Duty? Sure thing, it's on this network. Oh, but you want to play the new Starcraft? Sorry, it's exclusive to this other service.

And that's not even mentioning all of the companies who have built their business around asking us to purchase new hardware every few years. I cannot see nVidia or ATI lying down while a service says "Hey everyone, you don't have to buy a new graphics card, we'll run the game for you!". I can't see Microsoft saying "Sure, don't buy our console, we don't want the revenue from XBL, etc anyway."

I won't pretend to know the architecture of the intricate web of licensing and exclusivity deals that ensares the entire games industry, but I do suspect that some pretty strict arrangements would start popping up between developers and the console manufacturers. And I also know that a lot of development studios are owned by console manufacturers, or other publishers. I doubt Microsoft spent so much time and money acquiring a lion's share of the industry to turn around and let Bungie's new Halo game show up on a service that costs them console sales.

And Nintendo... Nintendo shits money and they've had an incredible case of explosive diarrhea for the last few years. What incentive do they have to license their titles to a start-up service that, once again, doesn't sell their hardware?

I agree that OnLive is a really novel idea. A streaming version of the all-in-one console we've all dreamed of. But it's an idea whose fate ultimately rests entirely in the hands of developers, and there are a lot of considerations and loyalties (and legalities in some cases) some of these developers have to come to terms with before they license their games to the service.

And the console manufacturers aren't just going to pack up shop, either. If anything, all OnLive will accomplish will be adding a fourth "console" option to the market. Which is actually really great, because as mentioned, some people miss out on some games because they don't have top-end PCs, etc.

However a lot of people seem to see this heralding a complete overhaul to the gaming industry, practically overnight. The "Death of the Console", and I just really, really doubt that. To be honest with you... I'd be surprised if it gets past being the Netflix of gaming. A great service, a great alternative... but not the end-all of gaming platforms.

Obama Gives England the Finger

No, he didn't absentmindedly flip the British off, but he did remove the bust of Winston Churchill from the Oval Office, which England gave to us after 9/11 to show that they were with us, and has in fact returned it to the English. "But when British officials offered to let Mr. Obama to hang onto the bust for a further four years, the White House said: 'Thanks, but no thanks.'" What sits in the place of Churchill? A bust of Abraham Lincoln. Guess no one told him about the letter Lincoln wrote where he would have allowed Slavery to continue. . . But then, they don't teach the true history of the Civil War in the North.

Could someone please explain to me how a man who proclaims Lincoln for as one of his heroes then go against much of what Lincoln stood for?

As if that wasn't enough, Obama decided to give the British Prime Minister Gordon Brown a DVD box set of America's great movies. Too bad the Prime Minister can't watch them though, you see, their DVD players can't play most of America's DVDs (They use a different style of player over there). Primer Minister Brown gave America a "pen holder fashioned from the oak timber of HMS Gannet, a Navy vessel that served on anti-slavery missions off Africa." Which of course goes great with the Desk they had already given us, made from the HMS Resolute, which symbolizes British-America goodwill (The queen has a twin to our desk, minus the door placed on by FDR to hide his wheelchair). The other gift is a framed commissioning paper of the HMS Resolute, the significance of which was previously mentioned.

Barak Obama's actions are nothing short of arrogant, and the audacity he has to treat America's long standing friends the British should not be overlooked. Obama needs to apologize to Great Britain for his actions, not that the Obamessiah would ever do such a thing.

If you wish to send a message to the embassy in America, they have a facebook profile which you can find here.

Farewell

I got rid of my Nintendo Wii, traded it in to Gamestop for store credit. I don't play it anymore, there are no games out for the system that I want to play anymore. . . I'm actually kind of peeved about the whole thing. I mean, I've known about Nintendo's decision for a while now, but I didn't really focus on it. I think the Wii is a great system, and Nintendo came up with a great concept with it's Wiimote, the mii's, and a few other things. What peeves me about it is the fact that Nintendo said a big, "Screw you," to it's gamer base and has started coming out with titles exclusively for the casual gamer. Now people who would never have otherwise picked up a video game have done so, which is great, but at the same time, Nintendo is pretty much churning out garbage. I've seen the wiifit, and it's great that people are actually using it to get into shape, but it's a rather low quality product, much like most everything else that comes out for the system these days.

But again, what peeves me the most about the whole thing, is that I've supported Nintendo since I was a 5 year old kid playing NES. Through the years of Super Mario Bros, Legend of Zelda, these were the titles I kept coming back to even when technology far surpassed them. I have owned every Nintendo console to ever come out at one point or another in my life, stubbornly stood by the Gamecube when others said it wasn't that good. And then Nintendo came out with the Wii, and it very quickly became evident that Nintendo no longer wanted us.

I understand that in some ways I'm comparing a video game company to an ex-girlfriend, and I understand that there are more important things to life that video games. But there's also a decent chunk of history in my life that Nintendo was a part of. I still remember unwrapping the box on Christmas day and seeing the NES, which was the fist console I had which was actually mine. (I had an Atari for a while, but that belonged to my Grandpa, he let me borrow it for a while.) I still remember playing Duckhunt in my living room, and placing the gun directly onto the screen to try and shoot the ducks in the higher levels. I think I even still have my Nintendo gun at my parent's somewhere packed up.

Well, tonight was the end of my friendship with Nintendo. I don't imagine that I'll be supporting any of it's products in the future. It may happen, but I don't think it will be too likely.

End of the Vacation

Well, I'm back in Michigan after a week in Maryland visiting my family. I'm not quite sure I'd call it a vacation, but it was paid time off of work, and I got to catch up on some sleep, though I still have years left before I'm completely caught up. I think I'll be dead before that happens. I very much enjoyed Rush Limbaugh's first ever televised address to the nation (look lower for the links) I hope to see more of them in the future. I originally saw it in the airport waiting to get on the plane from the Washington DC Airport, amidst a few liberals who looked disgusted, and a few of my generation, perhaps a bit younger or older, who were actually paying attention to what he had to say.

I hope that people will start actually paying attention to what people say, as well as what they do. The tendency we have today is to just ignore whatever is around us that isn't good, unless we are cynical, in which case we tend to ignore the good. I try to see both, though with my history of customer service, I lean more to the cynical.

Amidst trying to figure out how I'm going to break things off with one girl, my mom has been working at setting me up with a different girl. While I haven't actually met her in person, I have talked to her online and we'll see how things go.

Tomorrow is going to be my first day back to work in over a week, we have new BP/Pulse and Temperature machines that were implemented while I was away, as well as SOP changes that I learned before I left but have since forgotten. I understand that we need to go over them, but 90% of what I read of the changes I end up forgetting about two days later, unless it was a change to an SOP that doesn't yet apply to me, in which case I forgot about 5 minutes after the fact. Much of the time they either change one word to another which means the exact same thing, or they add something to it which either A. doesn't apply to our center, or 2. It's a change which our center had already implemented. My job becomes increasingly mundane each day, which doesn't help someone who becomes rather impulsive when they're bored. I don't think there's anything more dangerous on this planet than an impulsive human who has become bored.

Twitter

I don't know who came up with the name twitter, maybe there's some kind of internet lingo behind it or something. I don't really feel like looking it up, it's not that important to me. I do have twitter now, I'm not quite sure why, but you can find me here:

http://twitter.com/Arthuus


It almost seems like they took the whole facebook status bar and made a website for just that.

Rush Limbaugh @ CPAC

Much of what I believe about this nation, and what I believe politically, is covered in this speech given by Rush Limbaugh. I know it is not very likely to happen, but in 2012, I would love for this man to run for President of the United States of America.

An End

How do you go back to just being friends? I started a relationship with someone I had been friends with for a while, and now I realize that I just like her as a friend. It's still a fairly new relationship, but I really have no experience in ending things amicably. Any suggestions on how to talk to her? (Obviously it'd be in person.)

I had thought about buying her a copy of He's just not that into you, the book the movie is based on, and then highlighting the appropriate chapter, but I'm really not the kind of guy who'd do something like that.

Weighing In.

Currently I weigh somewhere in the neighborhood of DAMN! My goal is to lose the weight by the end of the summer. I'll be changing my diet up to help accomplish this. I've cut out soda except for once a month. I've limited myself to water (purified from Brita) and Sobe or V8 splash (does not taste good). I won't be eating out quite as much, no matter how much I might crave an Oreo Sundae Shake from Burger King. I'm also adding in exercise, speed walking and stair climbs, which will be in addition to the walking I do while at work. My short term goal is to enter the Fifth Third River Bank Run, It's only going to be the 5k, but it's also in May, which is 3 months away. Longer term goals include entering the Grand Rapids Marathon. While running in these is merely a step, the main reason I want to do this is that I am sick of putting it off. I let myself grow too far out of healthy shape, and I'm tired of it.

Out With a Bang?

I think a real feather in the cap for Bush's final day in office would be if Osama were captured before the end of the day.

Go to urbandictionary. com and type in your answer to each question in the search box, then write the definition it gives you.

1) Your name?

Andrew

The boy's name Andrew \a-nd-rew, an-drew\ It is of Greek origin, and its meaning is "man, warrior".

2) Your age?
25

The age at which one can finally rent a car in the United States without being charged enormous amounts of money and without having to sign thousands of papers for that matter. So, a half-blind 70-year-old just got his license, rents a car a kills 5 people is more acceptable than a 24-year-old who has been driving for up to 10 years without an accident.

3) What should you be doing?
reading

The act of defiling one's eyes to malicous, or mind-boggoling content.

Did you see how red John's eyes were? He must have been reading.

4) Favorite color?
Carolina Blue

The name used to describe the school color of the University of North Carolina.



5) Hometown?
Raleigh

(2007) population: 367,995=Cultural center, andCapital city of North Carolina in Wake County. Home to many research firms due to it's proximity to Research Triangle Park. Home to Singer Clay Aiken, Rappers, Petey Pablo, Small World(of DTP) and Brolic D of DTP. Home Of NC state University, Shaw, Meredith, and Saint Augustines colleges.

6) Month of your birthday?
April

a female of wise words. Often regarded as a "panda" person. These types of females are very energetic and friendly, and when you see these types of girls down, you feel down too.

7) Last person you talked to?
Mary

one who is seemingly innocent. Mary is commonly known as a good girl, for example: the virgin mary ... however Mary is a bad girl who never gets caught. person1: ...christian cheerleader? a Mary?!?! person2: yeah, at practice and church is a goody good... but you should've seen her at the party.

8) Your Last name
undefined currently

9) Your most recent car.
Dakota

The worlds largest hell hole. -"My parents are moving to Dakota" -"you poor fuck.

Another Trek Through Insanity

And so it is that, after knowing Anessa (no where near her real name) since we both worked at Meijer a little over three years ago, I have officially journeyed back into the realm of insanity known as dating. I've found that the trek is different each time.

Fire Breathing

Okay, first, I want to caution everyone who isn't smart enough to realize this already, but firebreathing is extremely dangerous. Equally important, don't tell Boudicca's kids about this post.

Since I've moved back to Michigan, I have; either at Ren Fairs, or at Swing dancing (not sure what fire breathing has to do with swing) seen numerous examples of good fire breathing. I've also seen some really bad examples of it at a bar not to far from here, where in one case the side of a guy's face caught fire because he did not wipe the excess fuel from his face after breathing it.


I have decided that this is something that I want to learn how to do, as it seemed a natural step from making campfires become towering infernos of fire. My first few attempts have been great successes, or rather, they didn't end with me in the hospital or badly burned. In talking with some performance artists, I have picked up the basics and can only say that it's a technique that's both easy and dangerous in it's simplicity. While rather exciting to do, I initially found in my first attempts that having a flame that close to my face is also a little scary.


When I feel that I am good enough, I'll be sure to post video of my attempts.

A Riddle.

There are four men in a room sitting around a table. Scattered around the room are 53 bicycles. One of the men has been shot. Why?

Most Memorable Event

I think the most memorable event from my trip was traveling through the mountains of Montana with zero visibility during a snowstorm. It got to the point where I thought about risking driving into open air to pull over to the side of the road. At the worst part, I could no longer see the road, the rumble strip wasn't making the rumble sound, and the safety markers were completely covered in snow and thus perfectly camouflaged. What makes this truly memorable during the worst of it, a wiggle wagon passed by me, and I was able to follow its tracks the rest of the way through the worst part of it and to the next truck stop. Needless to say, once my heart finally settled back into place I slept really well that night.

A good joke

"See, there were these two guys in a lunatic asylum. . . and one night. . . one night they decide they don't like living in an asylum any more. They decide they’re going to escape! So they get up on to the roof, and there, just across the narrow gap, they see the rooftops of the town, stretching away in moon light. . . stretching away to freedom. Now the first guy he jumps right across with no problem. But his friend, his friend daren't make the leap. Y'see he's afraid of falling. . . So then the first guy has an idea. He says, 'Hey! I have my flash light with me. I'll shine it across the gap between the buildings. You can walk across the beam and join me.' But, the second guy just shakes his head. He says. . . he says 'What do you think I am, crazy? You'd turn it off when I was half way across.'" -Joker (The Killing Joke)

A bad joke

a pirate walks into a bar with a paper towel on his head. The bartender, seeing this, asks why it's there. The pirate answers, "Arrr! There be a Bounty on me head!"

I'm Back

Suffice to say, it's been an odd year for me. I spent most of 2008 on the road with AMA Supercross, effectively placing my social (and blogging) life on hold while I drove a truck so that those who enjoyed watching it on TV could actually do so. Needless to say, I've learned a lot from that trip, some of which I'll share a little later on this week and on down the line. An additional deterrent from keeping up to date with my blog was a lack of internet at home, due mostly to a lack of interest in getting internet, as I had many books and games to catch up on, as well as getting back in touch with friends, and a lack of ability to access blogger while at work. Suffice it to say that my life has settled back to a semi-normal reutine, and that I will be able to better devote time to you, my reading public.

Also built into this time were two complete uprootings of my life and moving down to Georgia, then deciding to move once more back up to Michigan. So now I'm back in Grand Rapids, living in a much better apartment than I was previously, and will be much better about keeping the dust off the blog than I have been in the past.