Lyrics

A-Z Lyrics is a pretty cool lyric site. It's not overloaded with ads like so many other sites. Seems to be largely user edited, so it may not always be correct, but it should be good enough for anyone who's already consigned themseves to a lyrics site.

My guild seriously rules

Today, on our 4th attempt, we got Al'ar to 2% before he enraged and wiped us. We have come so far so fast. We have all of Serpentshrine Cavern (SSC) clear except for Lady Vashj. And by the end of January I expect to have SSC and Tempest Keep (TK) on farm, and making shots at Mount Hyjal. I'm very proud of our raiders. Don't tell them I said that.

A while back, when we were struggling, I asked a friend in a more advanced guild, what he thought we were missing, what we could change to possibly do better. His answer was kinda funny: "You're all too nice, you need a 'bad guy' sometimes".

He was right, we have always been too accommodating, and our members were taking advantage of almost no repercussion for poor performance. In response to this, I decided to play the bad cop. I really like it actually. If the raid doesn't seem to have enough focus, I get mean and make it know they had better perform. It's an interesting little amateur psychology experiment seeing how people react to being yelled at for performance in a video game. About 90% of the time, they start performing substantially better.

If people screw up with anything other than legitimate mistakes, I rip them apart. I was once so mean that I got a guild member to quit the guild on the spot, and about a week later, the game. In my defense, he was being superbly stupid, and nobody really liked the guy. His mistake was that he was trying to save his own life, at the cost of EVERYONE else in the raid, including himself. I definitely overreacted, and in hindsight, should have handled it differently. And I've learned from that.

But our guild is now progressing rapidly, and it feels good to make significant steps forward. We should have people in full tier 5 soon, and a few pieces of tier 6 not long afterwards.

Crazy work hours

I work from 1 am to 9:30 am, which are hours I love. Wednesday through Sunday, with Monday and Tuesday off. But it leads to some oddities.

It's really strange to drive to Beatos for lunch, and pass a few of those insane early morning joggers. Here my day is half over, and they are doing the 5 am complete-lack-of-common-sense-jog. Do they know it's 5 am? I feel an urge to purchase some inexpensive watches to hand out so they don't have to exercise at such stupid times. And it's winter! You should see them all bundled up, moreso than I've sometimes prepared for snowboarding.

Another wierd part of working these hours is my interaction with other humans. Of paramount importance is how this schedule affects World Of Warcraft (WoW). What I do is go to bed soon after work (ok, so I will usually do the PvP-daily and then go to bed). Then I get up at about 6 pm on raiding nights (Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday), and run an instance with the guild (BTW, we are now on Vashj!) Then, after the raid, I will try to get another 1-3 hours of sleep before work. It really feels like I'm living just to work and play WoW, which is a shame. I should just be living to play WoW. I need a "sugar mama" to facilitate my need to play WoW unhindered. Or maybe find some way to play WoW professionally, and then I can have a normal wife. Of course, I don't want a "normal" wife, I want a wife that plays. We have a few couples in our guild that play together. It's seriously full of win.

Sadly, one of my days off (Tuesday morning) is on WoW weekly maintenance. That's 7 hours, in the middle of my "day", that the servers are offline. It's seriously boring. I usually play Guild Wars or organize music or something. The real problem is that servers come back online just about the time I should be starting to sleep. "But my arena points just rolled over! I can't go to bed NOW!" This leads to miserable Wednesdays at work.

But one of the nice aspects of this life is that when I get off work, everything is open. All the stores, banks, etc. So it's really easy to get chores done, I just do them after work, and I have the entire "normal" workday to get them done. It's like potentially having every day off in that regard (if I'm willing to sacrifice sleep, which I am). And even though I work on Sunday, all I have to do is go home and put on a tie, then I'm ready for church. But often I go home and fall asleep, unintentionally or not.

All in all it's a great schedule for me. The positives outweigh the negatives, and it's uncommon which makes life interesting.

Harry Potter

Driving to work today, it was cold and the ground was misty, like a low fog was rolling through. I immediately knew what this meant.... DEMENTORS!
So that means I finally finished the Harry Potter series. Really good books, though I didn't read them, I listened to the entire series on my iPod.
My first experience with Harry Potter was from the first movie, and in hindsight, that was unfair to the series. After finishing each audiobook, I would watch it's associated movie, and they really don't do justice. Such is the case with most books converted to movie.
As good as the books are, there are lots of issues that I have with them. The first is with Harry. He's too emo. Although he's portrayed overall as being fiercely loyal, his faith in his friends and family falters too far and too often for my taste. James (his father) and Albus Dumbledore seem to bear the brunt of this more than most. There are points in the 6th book that Harry goes so far as to hate Dumbledore (even with all the failed occlumancy and other external influences aside). There were times I just wanted to slap the little punk. You can't have it both ways. You can't have a young man with amazing strength of character that later loses all faith in one of his dearest friends. I would have preferred if he dealt with his misgivings in a less "emo" way. This was just a way of trying to show that he's "human".
Rowling uses "incredulous" far too often, by the 5th book it was bugging me. She seems to have backed off the word a bit at the 7th book. I also didn't like how dreary most of the 7th book was. I know this was meant to be a dark time for the series, but it was too much. Maybe this was partly due to the change in narrator that I had for this last book. My greatest problem with the books was my own idiot fault. I kept reading Wikipedia articles to get more information about things that I had missed or misunderstood, and kept reading spoilers. So I highly recommend that nobody read anything until done with all the books.
My favorite characters were Luna, Ginny (3rd book and later), and most of all, Kreacher the house elf. I think to really appreciate this character, you would HAVE to listen the Jim Dale (the US audiobook) narration of the Order Of The Phoenix. There were times when I laughed out loud. His voice was PERFECT, and his mumblings were even better. If I had read the books, I would not have done Kreacher the justice that Jim Dale did him.
I can't say enough good things about Jim Dale's work on the audiobooks. He has a very good range, with few character voices "overlapping" in traits (the younger characters being the rare exception). For book 7, I listened to the British audiobook narrator, Stephen Fry, and was rather disappointed. Hermione sounded a bit like Ron, almost every adult female sounded the same, and Kreacher wasn't nearly as fun to listen to. I would go so far as to say that Jim Dale is probably responsible for 40% of my enjoyment of the series. Had I listened to the first audiobook narrated by Fry, I might not have gone on to the second audiobook.
So, if any of you are interested, I've got the first 6 books by Jim Dale, and book 7 by Stephen Fry, that I could get to you (all in digital formats). I'm going to try to get book 7 by Jim Dale as well. I really need to listen to Kreacher's part in that book done properly.

WoW on Linux

I was able to get World Of Warcraft running under W.I.N.E. under Ubuntu Linux v7.10 tonight (this morning). In OpenGL mode it looks as good as it does under Windoze. But I still don't have audio working right now. Hope to get that going after work later today.

More about the new jorb

Ok, so the description that I previously gave about my new job is a bit off. The equipment that I'm supporting is NetApp storage systems. I'll be a support tech for OnTap storage devices. These are computers that manage large hard drives for companies that need a lot of storage (several terabytes), and needs it to be very fast (firbre channel drives) and very safe (fast backups and restores, mirrored servers). They run an OS very similar to Unix, but the OS will not be the focus of the support. The OnTap software is what most calls will be about.

Some of NetApp's clients include the US government, Yahoo (mail), Google, and the LDS church (genealogy). The portion of the market that they cover is the mid-high end. They don't try for the absolute top-end, nor do they focus on the lower end.

I work directly for Convergys. NetApp will be sending us support calls, and NetApp is doing the first 3 weeks of the 5 week training. The training that I'm getting now is very valuable, so I'm really excited. This sort of experience is very desirable for many employers. And I will probably take the certification tests at some point in the future.

I got the job

I got the job, I got the job, I got the job, I got the job, I got the job, I got the job!

It pays double what I'm making now, so I'll go from barely being able to live, to having some extra cash left over after bills are paid.

My boss thinks I'm destitute

So, at work I've mentioned more than once that the current job isn't paying the bills. I did this in order to set my co-workers and bosses up for my eventual departure, but today I realized that my boss thinks it's worse than it really is. Embarrassment is when your boss offers to share her lunch so you can save money.

But you have to know her to fully understand the situation. For family members, imagine my mom in her place. There you have it. She even looks about the same. So the offer was with genuine compassion, the way a mother would care for her child. She really does seem to consider all of her employee's not unlike her children.

Anyways, I have an interview tomorrow that could lead to a better paying job. This job is for Unix tech support, so it will look better on a resume. Wish me luck.

Most embarrassing way to lose a job

We had a guy work with us for about 2 weeks. He asked us to call him "Thorn". We found out soon that His 'full' name was "Thorn Briar". This is not the name his parents gave him, it's the name he and his D&D friends use when they play Dungeons and Dragons. Yes, old-school D&D without a computer. Nerds sitting around a table spinning a tale of adventure!

He was rarely seen without his D&D "sourcebook", which is a book about the size of a large magazine, that outlines all the rules. He claims that anything you can imagine actually exists. He also claims to regularly have out-of-body experiences, and is working on personal levitation through rigorous meditation. When he was young, he turned into a white Siberian tiger and mauled a friend so bad that the friend nearly died. Oh, and he claims to be a "Pixie". Maybe he meant to infer that he was a member of the 80's-90's alternative band.

Anyways, Thorn had BO that would gag a European teenager! This guy was rank. You couldn't be within 10 feet of him without wanting to move. Tabletop gamers, and to some extent all gamers, are notorious for not bathing enough.

So, our boss politely asked him to bathe, which he did, and the next day was fine. But that was possibly the last time he cleaned himself. About a half week later he was punishing our noses again. So the boss told him that he has to bathe regularly, which he refused to do, so he was asked not to return.

I thought that his reason for no longer working there was stupid office rumor, but two days ago we were talking about him with the boss, and it was confirmed.

Now I know that I'm not entirely "mainstream". I embrace the title of "gamer". But how out of touch with reality do you have to be to not have social basics down, like bathing?

Greeceland

I wore my "Greece" shirt on Friday. Not a single person laughed or commented on it. Do none of them know the Union Jack, or is my shirt not as funny as I think it is?

Ding!

My mage ding'd 70 a few days ago. This makes 5 World Of Warcraft characters at level 70 now.

Lunch at work

At work today, I ate lunch outside with some of the employee's. One of the ladies there is in her mid 20's, has been married about 6 years, and is expecting her first child. She's due in January, and has only been "showing" for the last week or two.

About a week ago I got the impression that I should say something nice about her looks. You see, her complexion has broken out recently due to the hormonal changes she's going through, and I could tell by the way she dresses and carries herself that she is feeling self-conscious about her appearance. I didn't say anything, for fear of sounding flirty towards a married woman. Now I know a possible reason for that impression.

Last night, her husband told her something along the line of not being attracted to her anymore. Both her complexion and her weight gain were reasons, with other possible reasons. I guess it was the second time he's done so.

When I got outside, one of the other ladies said "let's ask Adam and see what a man thinks". So I was asked by one of the other ladies if it's ok for a man to say something like that to his expecting wife. I said "of course not", and then went on, hopefully redeeming myself for not acting a week earlier.

I sad that I feel that I've been given a gift. I can see the beauty in almost anything. Not just that, but I can see through things that might otherwise hide beauty. I told her that no matter what her pregnancy may do to her body, she has a beautiful face and an attractive figure. Her husband just may be one of the guys that can't see past those things.

She started balling after that, and one of the ladies consoled her. I presume she cried because she was appreciative of the comment or moody, and not because she was again mad at her husband. I didn't feel like I had crossed any line of decency, so I'm chalking it up as having done something nice.

Work

So, not one of the many resumes or interviews that I've gone on have worked out. I blame you all for not praying enough for me.

Now that culpability has been established, I'm not giving up on getting a good job, but I've had to pick up temp work to pay the bills. I went to Manpower, a temp agency, to fill out an app and see what they had. Let me make this clear, Manpower doesn't mess around. About 10 minutes after filling out the application, they were telling me about my new assignment that I would report to the following morning. I was expecting a few days at least.

The job is simple manufacturing for a craft company in Orem, QuicKutz. The work is bearable, and the people are nice. But the time is horrid! Work starts at the inhumane hour of 7 in the morning! That means I have to get up at about 6. Six AM for a gamer is about the equivalent of 2 AM for the rest of you. A half hour lunch means we are done at 3:30 PM. At least that leaves me a good chunk of the day to game like humans are meant to.

Oh, and my Druid hit 70 last week, so this should also be a "ding" post. Most of you wont understand that last sentence, and I encourage those who don't know to research for yourself what it means. A lvl 70 Druid is very fun to play. You should all try it sometime.

Jobs

I had 2 interviews yesterday, hope they turn out.

Texas

I went to Texas with a few friends from my WoW guild, Panda Attack, last week. We had a blast. I wasn't going to be able to go, but Dan (Weshea is his in-game name) wanted me to be there and was willing to buy my plane ticket for me.

The night we got there a group of us went to Ihop. Dan and I were there of course, but so was Jason Salsbury (Jase), Jeremy (Hitsuji, who came all the way from Japan), Angie (Miranda) Kurtz, and Scott Kurtz (Skull), the leader of our guild.

The next day, we went to a LAN center to play WoW. It wasn't the best environment, but it was a fun experience just because of the 14 year old punks who spend their day there yelling obscenities at each other. My new favorite term is "homogayfag". One kid, who was upset with another kid, said "stop being gay" at least 8 times in a one minute span (I think the other kid was spawn camping him). After a few minutes our crew were all calling each other homo's.

So we left there and all setup computers in Scott Kurtz's living room. That was a good call, just because it put us all in a quiet environment (or at least one we control), and we had a great time.

Some of the other people who showed up were Becky (Naraktrako) and her husband Mike, Gary (Ghulof), and Gary (Xindaiel).

On the iPhone's first day on sale, Scott Kurtz and I went and got in line to try to get a phone for he and his wife Angie. It was pretty fun for a few reasons, I love gadgets like all the folks in line, I like "first day" kind of things, and Scott Kurtz is an entertaining person to hang out with. He told me later that he was thankful for the company in line. We got one for Scott and one for Angie, both 8 gig models. Those phones are very sweet, and I'm stoked that Apple upped the ante this way. It will force Nokia and Motorola to do the same. All the competition will be great for us the consumers, as prices will drop and feature counts will go up.

Hitsuji got each of us some swag from Japan, mostly just inexpensive toys, but all of it is pretty cool stuff. My stuff got lost when I was there, but the Kurtz's are going to mail it to me.

On the last day, we played a little bit, and then packed up for our flight. It was sad going, but we had a good time. I was kinda hoping our plane would be delayed because of the horrible rain we had, off and on, all weekend. But alas, I had no excuse to stay and headed back home.

On a side note, I got my Druid to lvl 61, and should hit 70 in a week or so.

Ding 70

Just ding'd 70 on my Blood Elf Pally.

Now to gear her up and maybe re-spec holy.

Don't count the PS3 out yet

Home is Sony's latest announcement regarding the PS3, and it looks like they may have done something right for once. I still think that console is doomed to fail, but I've considered buying a used PS2 just for Guitar Hero, and something like this could get me to splurge for it's bigger brother. Big Brother is such an appropriate term in this case.

Some changes

I updated to the new Blogger a while back, and am just now getting my links put back in. I didn't realize that this is the only place I had most blogs linked, so I haven't been keeping up on my friends blogs.

Anyways, I have a lot of reading to catch up on. You can get current with the links on the right side of this page.

Ding 60!

My Pally hit lvl 60 just a few minutes ago. Thought I'd blog that while flying to Falcon Watch.

My 15 minutes isn't over yet!

The Instance, one of the prominant World of Warcraft podcasts, mentioned me in it's latest episode as the "Uber Shadow Priest" who got an air to air kill.

Episode 50 has the info, and if you move forward to 43:34, that's when they mention it.

I'm immortalized!

A few hours ago, my guild leader was being camped (killed over and over by enemy players), and I came to help with Weshea.

We successfully stopped the camp, but the Alliance stuck around and took a few pot-shots at us. One of them was on his flying mount, about 50 yards in the air, just out of spell range.

So I flew up to him and then flew above him. I dismounted in mid-air and hit him with Shadow Word:Pain (a DoT, or Damage Over Time) as I fell (you cannot attack while mounted, so I had to dismount and fall). I tried to hit levitate before I hit the ground, but was too slow, and I took fall damage.

But the guy I dotted up was under 50% health now. When I flew back up, he went higher thinking I wouldn't dismount because of the fall damage. But I did, and I hit him with another DoT, and this time he died! Best of all, I hit levitate before I hit the ground, and took no fall damage. My first air to air kill!

But by far the best part of it all is that it's now immortalized in Scott Kurtz's Blog for today!

Ding

I hit 70 about 2 hours ago and already have my flying mount. Flying in this game is freaking amazing, I wish it wasn't restricted to just Outland.

Well, I'm helping other people level now, and am off to do that.

Update 2007-01-19

Now lvl 63, about 20% into lvl 64. Instance servers just crashed, or I wouldn't be typing this now.

Anyways, back to the game. Gonna level my Blood Elf Pally. She's lvl 8.

Update

Burning Crusade is out, I'm still alive (in RL). Back to the game, c ya.

No longer hacked

It only took them 4 week, but I got my gear back. Blizzard took their sweet time on this one. But I'm relieved that I'm back to normal. I can now test my new spec from the 2.0 patch, and get ready for Burning Crusade.