Updates

Random updates and links. Be warned!

Adam Savage: My quest for the dodo bird, and other obsessions
Very interesting, sounds like the man has a bunch of interesting hobbies. Might need to start saving all of the interesting crap I find online for my future projects.

Like these.

http://colorschemedesigner.com/
Helped finalize the color scheme for the new look.

Unofficial World of Warcraft Papercraft blog. I love the full size gnome... Would so love to have one of those. I need to make that happen.

Slax, one of the reasons I wish my dinky linksys router was still working. Trouble shooting the latest Slax 6.1.1 on a super old laptop that Aaron gave me.

Stumbled across Blender last night while I was fiddling with Slax. When I first came across it, I wasn't that impressed, because I was being taught how to use 3ds Max. But now... I might start fiddling with it again. 3d modeling was the only time when I was at AIH where I felt like I actually was creating anything of my own, instead of modifying what other people had created.

Experience

"When analytical thought, the knife, is applied to experience, something is always killed in the process. That is fairly well understood, at least in the arts. Mark Twain's experience come to mind, in which after he mastered the analytical knowledge needed to pilot the Mississippi River, he discovered the river had lost its beauty. Something is always killed. But what is less noticed in the arts--something is always created too. And instead of just dwelling on what is killed it's important also to see what's created and to see the process as a kind of death-rebirth continuity that is neither good nor bad, but just is."

-Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

Workspace Planning

With the move just around the corner, I've started to cull all of the useless and unnecessary junk from my apartment. This has made me question why I even bothered to purchase a lot of my possessions.

So, I've been selling books, giving away clothes, hauling trash bags full of once valued junk to the dumpsters. And then I turned my gaze toward my poor jumbled computer desk.

I spend way too much time in front of the computer, sitting in odd positions to reduce back pain, muscle fatigue, etc. Unfortunately, I can't get rid of the computer desk or chair yet, and I do plan on bringing them with me. But the situation has made me really think about what I need and want out of a desk and workspace.

Browsing Lifehacker, checking out people's desk setups, looking at furniture stores. I think I know what I want. I want to be comfortable, be it sitting or standing. Ergonomics and all of that.

Then I found this ergonomic workspace planner, which I'm eager to put into use.

I find myself walking, more pacing really, when I do any serious work/thinking. And I feel my workspace should reflect that. So ultimately I think I need to make/buy a desk that will adjust from sitting to standing height. Having two seperate desks would be impractical to say the least.

Exactly

Perfect example of me before coffee. Courtesy of garfield minus garfield.

Intents

1) Fix the blog's layout
2) Update with new content
3) Blatantly steal ideas from everyone else
4) Pet the warm kitty on my stomach

Various free MMORPGs

Let's see, within the past week I have downloaded and tried two free mmorpgs and am working on the third download/install.

Dungeon Runners
Cheesy low poly graphics with the old school charm of Diablo set in the 3d world. You have a handful of classes that you can play, I picked the ranger. And as soon as I disabled the mouse-click to move feature I was able to stand in one spot and send arrowed death to my foes.

All of the dungeons are random creations, in fact the first real zone where you kill stuff is a 5 level dungeon with a rapping rat as the final boss. All of your quests take place inside the instance, with a nifty scroll of teleport letting you poof back to the start zone to sell junk. Nice feature about this, which I still haven't played with yet, is that when you use your teleportation scroll, you can port back into the instance exactly where you left. No more running back through 3 levels to pick up where you left off slaughtering various baddies.

The game has an interesting sense of humor, your starting weapon is usually made out of cardboard. Think I was using a cardboard crossbow, not really sure how that works, but I still managed to kill things. Diablo and WoW fans will recognize the suffixes on armor and weapons, "of the whale, of the hawk, etc" is still live and kicking.

You can pay for extra features, a bigger bank, better armor, potions to stack. But why? True it's only $5 a month for those features, but that defeats the purpose of the game for me. I wanted something that I can pick up, spend half an hour clearing out a dungeon, grabbing loot, selling stuff and log for the night. This suits my needs. And makes me smile while doing it.

Shaiya
Pure frustration for me for the first two hours. I rolled a fighter to run around hacking and slashing to get a feel for the game. Almost every UI component in the game can be moved, except for some key items. And it's those key items that bug me. You can semi-modify the key binds in the game, unfortunately not the ones I wanted to change either.

The ~ key is set to target the next mob and begin to auto-attack. Well, that's also my vent button. Tab switches between running and walking. Why you'd ever want to walk, I don't know. I could change the run/walk button, but not the target enemy button. And no explanation why. Even fiddling with the configuration files on my hard drive didn't help. Though, I was finally able to set a proper monitor resolution.

After I fixed the resolution, then I actually started enjoying the game. Doesn't help that I played it all last night with a crappy resolution. But that's ok.

The game does have several features that I do like though. The minimap and full map have color coded dots indicating where you can pick up quests and where you can turn quests in. Very nice when you're lost in the middle of the zone, looking for the next quest hub.

Levels earn you points which you can spend on your stats. On normal mode you get 5 points per level. I chose to dump 3 into strength and 2 into dex on every even level, then switch on the odd levels. But I could have put them into LUC (crit rating as far as I can tell) for a crit based fighter. You earn skill points which are used to unlock a skill or it's next level. Higher level skills have level restrictions.

Passive skills, active skills, buffs, specials all use the same skill points to unlock. Once you've spent your points you can't get them back. So any skill investments are really that, investments. I purchased first level ranks in a couple of skills that I will never level up. But even those first level skills are useful.

I can see myself playing this game for a while, probably not as much as I used to play WoW, but it does have a draw to it. Once I got over my preconceptions about it, it became an enjoyable game.

Runes of Magic
Installing it now. From what I've read and seen, this looks to be my new game, unless something just goes horribly wrong.

Dual class leveling game. Think I'll make a Rogue/Fighter, a Scout/Priest, or a Knight/Mage. Those combinations seem the most appealing to me without even playing the game.

Woots! It finally installed, off to see what I think about it. :D

...and now it's patching. *sighs* That's ok. I'm patient, right? >.>

Asleep at the wheel

So I'm going to counseling. I've been in a self-destructive suicidal spiral for about half a year now, ever since my grandmother died last Christmas. Not many of you know about my grandmother. I didn't really want to talk about it. I couldn't talk about it.

She was a headstrong argumentative bible thumper. But I loved her. She loved me too. Wasn't pleased with any of the choices I've made as an adult, and would explain in detail exactly what I was doing incorrectly. Last thing she told me before dying, was that I was fat. This I already knew, but thanks for the wisdom Grandma.

Life fell apart long before then for me though. I've been angry and bitter for as long as I can remember. Forced feelings toward my family, friends, co-workers, etc. I hated everyone and everything. Mostly myself. Especially myself.

I have so much that I want to say and apologize for, that I hardly know where to begin.

Let's start with the apologies.

I am sorry for my lack of respect towards my friends. I haven't treated any of you nicely, and it's been like this for too long now. I skipped Crystal's birthday party, even after I said I would come, because I was afraid. Not afraid of seeing my friends and having a good time, but afraid that I wouldn't meet their expectations of me. A fear of rejection by the very same people that I had already rejected. Crowds of people terrify me now. They might have always, which would explain my constant drinking. Liquid courage perhaps. Loss of brain cells, that could have been used to figure out the right thing to do.

I have missed and been absent from so many gatherings, I don't answer the phone because I don't want to be yelled at or cursed at. So instead of talking to me, people talk to Leslie. That tells me that I've failed in so many respects. You shouldn't have to talk to my girlfriend just to find out what's wrong with me. Fuck, I need everyone's support, just like you need me to be who I was. If you want to talk, call me or email me.

There was a time when I was a good friend. That too was so long ago, that I've forgotten how to be that person.