Drake Wurrum's Blurbs

Tesla predicted cell phones

2012-01-29T19:42:00.003-06:00

It is intended to give practical demonstrations of these principles with the plant illustrated. As soon as completed, it will be possible for a business man in New York to dictate instructions, and have them instantly appear in type at his office in London or elsewhere. He will be able to call up, from his desk, and talk to any telephone subscriber on the globe, without any change whatever in the existing equipment. An inexpensive instrument, not bigger than a watch, will enable its bearer to hear anywhere, on sea or land, music or song, the speech of a political leader, the address of an eminent man of science, or the sermon of an eloquent clergyman, delivered in some other place, however distant. In the same manner any picture, character, drawing, or print can be transferred from one to another place. Millions of such instruments can be operated from but one plant of this kind. More important than all of this, however, will be the transmission of power, without wires, which will be shown on a scale large enough to carry conviction.

Just sayin. This man was a genius, and well ahead of his time. He wrote those lines in 1908. He predicted the existence of cell phones about a century early. All of the work he did helped build us up towards modern day cell phones, and he even predicted it happening - the only thing yet to happen is a world that is provided with free non-wired sources of power.

I personally believe world peace would be possible if mankind were to set up this "wireless transmission of power" successfully and reliably.

Sexism, Racism, and being different in general

2012-01-22T14:59:00.006-06:00

So, to start off this random rant of mine, I have a link to share: http://tinyurl.com/6m5fkwg

And really, I think I've finally snapped:

Really, our society is getting just plain ridiculous. On that particular article, I have only this to say: That kid's parents are going about it all the wrong way. I can understand their reasons for doing it, but I still think it's a terrible idea. There's nothing wrong, inherently, with being a stereotypical male. There's also nothing wrong with being stereotypically gay, or stereotypically African-American, or any sort of stereotype.

What's wrong is discriminating against it, or discriminating against others because of it. And they should have instead tried to raise their child to understand that, rather than treating him like some kind of experiment. There is nothing wrong with fitting a stereotype. In a way, those parents are discriminating against the stereotypical male, perhaps even stereotypes in general, and teaching that child that it's wrong to be a stereotypical male.

Which leads me on into the rest of the rant that has been brewing in my mind for a while: I can't take feminism seriously.
I can't take any of those social movements seriously. You know, the ones fighting for "equal rights" between two social groups? Whether it's about sexism, racism, or the LGBT movement... I can't take it seriously.

You know why that is? Because we have become a society of vengeance.
What I specifically mean by that can be easily explained:
"It's only sexist if men do it."
"It's only racist if a white man does it."

And that little phrase is pretty much the basis for my whole rant here. Society accepts that, apparently. Society seems to think that just because men have a history of treating women as the inferior gender, it's okay for women to respond in kind. It's used it as justification. That's called revenge. Which is something nobody should support. The only thing worse than instigating a conflict, is "finishing" a conflict. Hopefully I don't have to explain my meaning here.

I'm perfectly willing to admit that not everybody who fights for equal rights is that way... but way too many women that support the feminist movement, are women who literally hate men, and discriminate against men. Which means they're not fighting for equal rights at all.

It happens in the other movements as well, but you just don't see it as much. In the case of racism, it's much more subtle these days. Whether you're willing to believe it or not, everybody is perfectly willing to accept sexism against caucasians, simply because of the history of slavery.
That, again, is not justification - that's vengeance, and it's just as wrong.

To put it all together, however... there's nothing inherently wrong with being different. Fighting for equal rights does not mean we should fight for everybody to be like sheep. If we want to treat others as being equal, we first need to respect what makes them different.

Random Update

2011-03-30T16:34:00.002-05:00

So yeah, I've come to the realization that this blog thing is still here.

I guess I haven't really described how my life has been going since like... late 2009? With a few sporadic extra posts tossed in here and there? So at least a year since I posted anything really about me. But then, since this blog has always just been my "blurbs" I've kinda covered the simple fact that things I post may not have anything to do with... well... anything. And could just be me blurbing out my random thoughts.

Long story short, practically nothing has improved since the last time I actually posted about my life. Since my last post, I've had a job working at Maxim Integrated Products making computer chips. Total flop. The hours were unbearable, and it got so outright exhausting that... well. I'd like to say that I quit.
But I'm smart enough to realize, at this point, that I shouldn't quit a job just because I can't take it. I should try to find another job first, let my employer know that I'm quitting, etc.

But that's not what happened. You see, at Maxim, I worked in a clean room environment. That means suiting up to keep particles out of the air. Now, according to them, that should take like 5 minutes. And, hey, usually it did take me about 5-10 minutes. I always gave myself time for that, keeping in mind about how long it took me. I always showed up an hour early to work as well, to make DAMN sure I wouldn't be late. I made good use of that time in the cafeteria, making sure to wake up. Sometimes I'd stop by McDonald's on the way, and boy did that help make my mornings. (Yes, believe it or not, I still enjoy McDonald's "food")
But still it wasn't enough, because you have to clock in AFTER suiting up. So despite the fact that I was always one of their hardest workers, and never late enough to actually justify action (according to THEIR rulebooks), I ended up being fired for attendance reasons. They never even gave me a warning. Not even joking. They specifically said in their employee handbook thing that, if an employee is having attendance problems, they will receive a warning first to let them know they're slipping. I never got that. I was never even aware that I was clocking in too late.

Not that I'll ever tell that to a potential employer. I'd considered suing, but then figured it would be WAY more hassle than it's worth, and that it would be wiser to just cut my losses and find a job that has more reasonable hours. They don't want me working there, and frankly, I didn't want to work there. I didn't realize until about 2 months in that it was WAY too exhausting of a job for me to be able to work there and also take college courses. I couldn't figure a way in my brain to work the two around each other.
12 hour shifts? Never again. Not on a regular basis anyways. I might be willing to work 12 hour shifts once in a while because of heavy workload, but I'd rather avoid it altogether.

And let's be honest, I still like to play WoW. If I pay people in-game gold to give me game cards, it doesn't cost me anything except time. Well, at the time I'd started that job, my old guild had fallen apart anyways... so I just kinda stopped playing WoW for a while. With 12 hour shifts on a daily basis, I couldn't fit in much more than work, eat, sleep, repeat.

Since I'm unemployed, I have taken up raiding again. Cataclysm seems SO much better than Wrath already (maybe I'll post some random WoW-centric things at some point, just to have a place for my ramblings... other than the forums, where people jump on you like packs of rabid dogs). I just have to hope I can manage my time in such a manner as to be able to raid with the guild I'm in (hey, it's a pretty decent guild, and they actually raid with working people in mind!), work at whatever menial job I find, and still attend/pass college courses. And still make time for LJ of course.

I refer to her as LJ in these blogs, right? I can't remember...

Oh, I need to mention this I guess. For once, I actually went and applied for Northwest Vista. Summer semester, obviously. My parents said they'd be willing to pay for a handful of college courses. Why should I turn that down? I can take one or two classes, start off a bit slow to see what exactly I need to re-learn.
I'm still not sure if I should stick with computer science. I mean... I'm good at it... I certainly enjoy it. And I can't deny that I still have a passion for entering the game development industry.
But maybe I should consider the option of a literary career. I enjoy reading books... and while I haven't taken the time to do any amount of writing in years, it's something I could see myself enjoying.
Part of the reason I haven't, however, is that I have to start from scratch, thanks to my old laptop dying on me.

I had EVERYTHING on that laptop. Resume, old literary works, dozens of saved images and Photoshop works, probably hundreds of different desktop backgrounds (some of them I made myself!), dozens of photos of LJ (biggest loss right there), etc etc.

So, basically, I'd have to start the whole thing from scratch. Sure, I was wanting to start it over again anyways, but I really wish I could have access to my original ideas so I could build on them and make them work. All that time spent writing now feels like... a total waste.

Anyways, yeah. That's an option. However, I'm a very stubborn person, and I really would rather work towards a more stable salary-type career, instead of being, say, a book author, living off royalties from book sales. Besides, how many authors out there, out of your favorite authors, actually have a degree in creative writing or something like that?
Hell, I've read books from guys who had degrees in like... geography. And still wrote fantastic stories. So maybe writing is just something I can do on the side and try to slowly work my way back into.

Well damn, look at how I've rambled on. Good thing this is just a Blurb post and not something truly meant to be professional.

So ummm... I guess that describes overall how things have gone. I'm unemployed right now, all over again. I have no money on my person. Oh yeah!

I defaulted on my federal loans. Yeah. That's so much fucking fun. You don't even know. Which means that my tax return was probably withheld and automatically applied to that. Which, I think, also means they can garnish my wages, once I get a job again. Oh yes, so very fun.
I mean, sure, a large amount of the money I earn will be going to these debts because, let's face it, it's too late to just say "I'll worry about it later and focus on my immediate problems!" like I've been trying to do. It's an immediate problem now. But it's still frustrating that I don't get to decide for myself how much money I'm going to be putting away for other problems.

Yeah, I still don't have my own car. I'm a loser like that. I'm still stuck living with my parents. Oh yes, I can't seem to handle the real world. Fun stuff.

I still refuse to do the military option. It's just... it's not me. The reason the military is willing to wave a magic wand and make all your big problems go away is because they will OWN you. Pretty much literally.
And I still absolutely loathe the "easy way out." I don't care if it's hard, I want to deal with things my way and actually own up to my mistakes, not have the government magically make them disappear in return for losing my freedom for a few years.

It doesn't help that my parents are constantly threatening to kick me out. In fact, I'm pretty sure they'd kick me out, oh, TOMORROW, if I can't get my shit together. As if I can just snap my fingers and make everything work!

Sigh. Whatever. I've rambled and ranted on, and I'm not even sure where I'm going with this post. I still am uncomfortable with the idea of blogging.

StarCraft 2... the story has a big flaw. Or a lot.

2010-08-15T01:51:00.003-05:00

I'm going to copy-paste this from the SC2 forums because, frankly, it's much better written than I could ever word it, and I've been thinking the same thing for a while.
In general, I LIKE the SC2 story. By itself, it's perfectly fine. But like this poster from the forums, there's a lot of discontinuity from SC1 that just makes no damn sense.
It's a long read. So I figure those of you who care absolutely nothing for good story-telling...won't read it. The game is good. It's perfectly fun.

It's just this one, extremely detailed problem that bothers me, and is bothering thousands of other SC2 players as well.

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Disclaimer: I want start by saying that I loved the shorter mission length, upgrades, mix of old/new units, balance, and (though deeply flawed) more non-linear story. If Blizzard or fellow SC fans reads this, I am not a troll simply here to stomp on the hard work the writers put in. I am a true fan that was deeply impressed with the game itself, but deeply disappointed by the glaring errors in story. I have beta tested most of Blizzards games (including SC and BW) and assure Blizzard that I am here to voice my legitimate criticism as only a true friend can.

In this post I attempt to address what I see are major errors and missteps with regards to SC2's storyline. I intend this post to be extensive, as such, this will be a long post, and despite living in a world of tweets, I write in (more or less) complete sentences and paragraph structure… if you don't want to read something like this, don't. Because the post is so long I have broken it into multiple sub-posts under this one for the convince of the reader. I have also provided a rough outline so you can jump to a section you are interested in. Finally, I have, whenever possible, quoted original source material to demonstrate that my concerns are legitimate and not simply from memory or the ramblings of an angry fanboy. NOTE: This posts contains major spoilers to SC, BW, and SC2.

I. Treatment of the Overmind in SC2 and Humanizing the Zerg

II. Apparently Brood War didn't happen

a. Kerrigan & Raynor

b. Whatever happened to the UED?

III. Broken storytelling

IV. The Protoss and their Past

V. The Crutch of Prophecy

VI. Conclusion

I. Treatment of the Overmind in SC2 and Humanizing the Zerg

The Overmind was my favorite character in SC, and I always felt it was a mistake to kill such a wondrous villain. Yet I accepted its death because it makes sense given the facts of the SC universe. That is not the case in SC2. The Overmind in chains presented in SC2 is absolutely ridiculous. This is ret-conning of the worst sort.

The Overmind has to be free of the Xel'Naga for SC to make sense. Recall the Overmind rebelled: "The Xel'Naga having kept a constant watch on the Overmind, were horrified to find that it had actually severed their psychic link, effectively hiding itself from their view." (SC Manual pg 53). The Overmind then slaughters the Xel'Naga fleet even assimilating them into the Zerg: "As the greater whole of the Xel'Naga race was consumed by the raging, genetic whirlwind of the Zerg…" (pg 53). How does it make ANY sense that the Overmind, which was capapable of destroying the "greater whole of the Xel'Naga race", is also their slave? One would think that while installing the magic psychic command to hunt the Protoss (major plot point in SC2) the Xel'Naga ALSO would have added the psychic command "don't kill us". Alas the hyper intelligent godlike Xel'Naga didn't think of that… for some reason. Zeratul confirms: "The Zerg were indeed created by the ancient Xel'Naga… But the Overmind grew beyond their constraints, and has at last come to finish the experiments they began so long ago." Zeratul Protoss Mission 9.

It is also clear in SC that the Overmind wishes to assimilate the Protoss, NOT because it is under the Xel'Naga sway, but because it has read the manual. The SC manual states that the Protoss are perfect in form and the Overmind is perfect in essence (pg 51). As the Overmind explains: "For upon this world of Aiur shall we incorporate the strongest known species into our fold. Then shall we be the greatest of creation's children. We shall be... Perfect." (SC Zerg mission 9). This is a real high water mark in writing and SC lore in general; I love this section of SC. Also in Mission 10 the Overmind ends the Zerg campaign with these words: "Now shall the events set into motion so long ago be made complete. For the Protoss too, were created by the Xel'Naga. They were the first creation, gifted with a purity of form. And we were the second creation, blessed with a purity of essence. Indeed, our two species are but opposite facets of a greater whole. Soon shall our two races be made as one. Thenceforth shall all feel the wrath of the eternal Swarm... For the hour of judgment is come!"

As a Cerebrate the player is an extension of the Overmind, as it explains in Zerg Mission 5: "Truly all that you are lies wholly within me." If the Overmind is tormented and rebelling against the chains implanted within it by the Xel'Naga (which the Overmind slaughtered) then the Cerebrate player would know or experience in some way because the player was contained wholly within the Overmind—the player was a fraction OF the Overmind. Yet at no point in the campaign do these supposed chains manifest or does the Overmind rage. Even with Zasz death (Zerg Missions 6-7) the Overmind does not rage, even when part of its own mind is destroyed it still remains even. Rather than an raging monster in chains the Overmind remains from start to finish cold, confident, and inevitable.

The Zerg under the Overmind represented a personification of nature. The Zerg are obsessed with strength, refinement, and assimilation. Just as evolution seeks to filter out the weak and create the strongest organisms for a given environment, the Overmind's Zerg seek to create simply the strongest organism that can exist. The Overmind wishes to be perfect and perfect the Swarm. That makes for an engaging, terrifying, and fascinating foe (and ally during Zerg missions!) To try and humanize the Zerg (even under Kerrigan) to being in chains and sympathetic is not only a silly error but also counter to the storyline setup by SC. The Xel'Naga are not strengthened by weakening the Overmind, for, assuming SC2 writers do not change this as well, they created the Overmind. The Xel'Naga are unbelievably powerful as they were: that strength is paradoxically weakened by weakening the Overmind. It also makes them look a little silly that they let the Overmind slaughter them but somehow could still control it to attack the Protoss: not exactly a genius god-like move.

II. Apparently Brood War didn't happen

Brood War seems to be pretty much ret-conned out of existence. Rather than provide several examples of the elimination of BW, I'll pick (in my opinion) the two most egregious examples.

a. Kerrigan and Raynor

The question of Kerrigan's humanity was left unanswered in SC. In Zerg Mission 4, Kerrigan spares Raynor's life telling him to leave: "It is certainly within my power [to kill Raynor]. But you're not a threat to me, Jim. Be smart. Leave here now, and never seek to confront the Zerg again." The line is delivered with a certain sympathy and compassion, leaving the player to wonder how much of Kerrigan survived the transformation into the Queen of Blades. This theme of how much of her survived is the primary story of Brood War. Throughout the BW campaigns it seems the Kerrigan, now free of the Overmind has "changed" and is human-ish again (BW Zerg Missions 1-4). Yet Zerg Mission 5 is the game changer, as Kerrigan so elegantly puts it in mission 10 she is "the Queen @!!#@ of the Universe". The entire point of the BW was that Kerrigan had reached the point of no return. Recall, she did not inherit the Zerg, but rather bent the Swarm to her will. It was not her choice to be transformed and infested BUT it was her choice to assume the role of the Queen of Blades ruler of the Swarm (BW Zerg Campaign). The point of BW is that Kerrigan is dead; only the Queen of Blades remains. The Zerg missions in BW confirm that she is irredeemable. So the redemption at the end of SC2 feels more than a little hack.

Additionally the writers of SC2, by ignoring BW, failed to properly grasp Raynor and Kerrigan's relationship. It was BW where Jim sought to redeem Kerrigan. He frequently trusts her even when others do not. He constantly remembers that she spared him on Char. BW is the game that Jim doubts and hopes that she can be redeemed, it is BW that birthed that story arc, and it is in BW that that story arc comes to an end. When Kerrigan kills Fenix in Mission 5, Raynor states, "…How many noble souls do you need to consume before you're satisfied? How many more people need to die before you realize what you've become?" It is with this line that Raynor gives up any hope of redeeming her. And it is his next line that ends the will he/won't he story arc: "…I'll see you dead for this, Kerrigan. For Fenix and all the others who got caught between you and your mad quest for power! … It may not be tomorrow, darlin'. It may not even happen with an army at my back. But rest assured: I'm the man who's going to kill you some day." Why the writers of SC2 suddenly decided that this ending to the Kerrigan-Raynor story arc was less powerful then the trite/cliche love wins out in the end of SC2 I do not know. But in Brood War, Raynor made his choice: why he then is suddenly in doubt and conflicted is just poor writing.

b. Whatever happened to the UED?

I knew the game was in trouble when the opening voice over during installation explained the events of SC and then glossed over BW. The opening installation superficially states that the human colony ships that founded the Korprulu sector went off course. This is the story in the SC Manual (which is told from the perspective of the colonists) on pgs 28-30. Yet, the Brood War Terran campaign is told from the perspective of the UED. It is revealed through their campaign and BW manual that the Earth allowed the ships to crash and had the Korprulu Sector constantly monitored (BW Manual 9-10). This could be viewed as a ret-con in BW but it is not. SC Terran campaign was told from the Korprulu colonists perspective. They believed they were cut off from earth. BW was told from the UED's perspective who only let the colonists believe they were cut off. Even if it is a ret-con it at least has some contextual support rather than the ret-cons in SC2. The installation voice over who knows what mix up would be excusable if the Korprulu Sector did not know that the UED had been monitoring them the entire time, but the problem is that the UED kind of sort of INVADED THE DOMINION! So now the Korprulu Sector and Dominion knows that Earth at least is aware of their existence and that all contact with Earth has not been lost. I would think that this revelation would play a bigger role (or at least SOME role) in SC2, but apparently this was inconvenient and rather than craft the story to the facts, new facts were made to fit the story.

III. Broken storytelling

The non-linear storytelling was a bold and interesting choice from Blizzard. Unfortunately, it often failed to provide a cohesive storyline. Characters, rather than evolving, randomly jumped in attitude and mood. On my play through I saved the colonists from the Protoss' attack. Raynor, after the mission, was upbeat and "back on the right track" as a "good man." Matt specifically complements him on making good decisions. My next mission ended with Raynor in the bar, Matt explaining that Raynor hasn't been the same in a long time, and that when Raynor figures out who he is he should tell the crew! It's a good moment (both scenes are) but both are cheapened by the storytelling whose philosophy seems to be Raynor's this way, now this way, now that way! Rather than evolve and grow he wildly jumps about. Rather than see him advance, as we did in SC, Raynor is a disjointed broken mess (and not in a good way) one mission to the next--100% gloomy on mission then 100% happy. Rather than humanize Raynor, it makes him out to be suffering from a horrific case of manic-depression.

A similar situation occurred when I choose to press the Dominion by outing Mengsk secrets. During the campaign, players work to destroy not just Mengsk but the Dominion itself. I completed all missions prior to Char. Because of my actions, rebellion and protest were spreading throughout the Dominion against Emperor Mengsk. Yet, in my dealings with his own son, Valerian, seemed to go along the lines of "I'm gonna be emperor when I grow up! I'm gonna be the bestest emperor ever! Let's look for artifacts. Weeeee!" All the while, my actions are seriously throwing into question if there will even be an emperorship for Valerian to assume. Even assuming Valerian hates Arcturus, the cognitive disconnect between the way Valerian treats the player and what the player is doing to the fundamental existence of the Dominion is a demonstration of shockingly poor writing and character development.

Blizzard once had a philosophy of what can be done well should be done to perfection, and what cannot be done to perfection should not be done at all. Branching story arcs are an interesting idea, but if they cannot be done well (as was the case in SC2) they should not be done.

IV. The Protoss and Their Past

The Protoss are, in more ways than one, the opposite of the Zerg. Where the Zerg were the personification of the cold, indifferent, relentless inevitability of evolution and nature, the Protoss in SC were equally cold and indifferent to life because of their strict insular society, technology, and unmatched power. The Zerg are the fear of nature personified, the Protoss are the fear of technology personified.

Having slain the Xel'Naga and descended into a crazed orgy of violence and carnage documented within the Aeon of Strife (see SC manual pg 72-73) the Protoss fear what they were. The point of the Khala is a strict code meant to control (SC manual 74-5) the "unbridled ferocity of the Protoss at war" (SC Manual pg 80). The Protoss are so terrified by what they were that the Dark Templar are considered a bigger threat than are the Zerg (SC Protoss Missions 2, 7, 8 and BW Protoss Missions 3, 7). It wasn't just a plot point to draw out more missions that the Conclave constantly butt in during the Protoss campaign in SC, it was the point of the Protoss! They are so horrified and hate their former carnage that they could not see or fear anything else. It isn't just hubris that drives them: it is also terror of loosing control. So it was shocking that in SC2 Zeratul just casually summons the Protoss Colossi without any fear that the Protoss were reverting to their old chaotic ways. The barely contained rage, deep regret/shame, and fear that is so prevalent and central to the Protoss psyche in previous games is absolutely absent in SC2. Any trepidation the Protoss may have for summoning some of their worst weapons of war is non-existent. It seems the lesson of the Protoss from SC was lost to the writers of SC2 because the ancient race has suddenly changed!

Additionally, I (as the player) controlled the Zerg invasion of Aiur (SC Zerg Missions 9-10). I fought for the Overmind, and I then fought to destroy the Overmind (SC Protoss Missions 9-10). If the Colossi were on Aiur why is it that I never saw them in either the defense or assault? Why where not the ultimate Protoss weapons of war used then—if they were to be used at all? And if the colossi were held back for the reasons sighted above (the fact that the Protoss fear themselves more than any external threat) why then were the colossi so casually used THIS time rather than when Aiur was in her darkest hour?

This is just one of the more obvious and stark examples of the ret-conning of the Protoss for the worse.

V. The Crutch of Prophecy

I knew things were in trouble when I heard Zeratul announce, "The Zerg Swarm came, as was foretold…" This line really crystallizes so much of the attitude of the writers of SC2 for what was created by the writers of SC. Simply put, no. No the zerg swarm was not foretold. IF the Zerg Swarm had been foretold, maybe the Protoss would have had a better solution than annihilating entire planets. IF the Zerg Swarm had been foretold by the Dark Templar, then they would have warned the Conclave. For, despite the ill blood between the Conclave and the banished Dark Templar, the Dark Templar still "relentlessly strive to protect their race and the ancient secrets of their Tribes." (BW Manual pg 13) In fact, the SC manual makes specifically clear that the Protoss were taken by complete surprise by the Zerg (77-78). So it is clear that the Protoss were not the ones doing the foretelling!

Perhaps it was the Xel'Naga that were foretelling, and the Protoss discovered it too late. Again, this is poor writing. If the Xel'Naga were so good at foretelling one would think they would have foretold that the Protoss would rise up against them, they would move to another world, where their next creation, the Zerg Overmind, would slaughter the "greater whole of the Xel'Naga race" (SC Manual pg 53).

There was no prophecy in SC. There is no mention of it that I can find in the game scripts or SC or BW manuals. Why include a mechanic like prophecy in SC2 when it has no precedence? The "prophecy" in SC2 feels like such a trite plot gimmick to forward information without any real effort on the part of the writers. It is simply a lame crutch that dumps information on the player in a way that the writers could not come up with an actual clever way to do so. It feels so borrowed from other non-starcraft universes: Warcraft has prophecy. Diablo has prophecy. Starcraft should not.

VI. Conclusions

I didn't expect everything to be explained in the story; I understand certain plot points and ideas will change, but I expected that the basic coherency of the SC world would be continued. I expected a story that pays respect to the works that came before rather than the expedience of ret-conning and sloppy writing for what will come next. Starcraft is one of my favorite games, and remains so. I love the technical aspects of SC2, but it is deeply flawed by expedient writing. I easily looked up the script and manuals for SC and BW, but it seems that Blizzard did not. I take the Starcraft lore seriously because I enjoy it; I wish that Blizzard had done the same. Blizzard can tell a better story than SC2, and SC fans deserve a better effort than the story presented in SC2.

I thank any that read even sections of this rather lengthy mess of an essay :P I also want to thank anyone for comments.

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If any of you actually READ this, and you play SC2, I hope it gave you something to think about.

Pokemon > WoW

2010-02-19T05:36:00.005-06:00

Yeah. You heard me. I consider Pokemon to be more fun than World of Warcraft.

Maybe I'm biased, because I grew up on the original Pokemon games, and I watched Nintendo add more and more versions (let's face it, they went too far, but that's a rant for another day).
But I am convinced that a Pokemon MMORPG, if it were designed right, would actually prove more popular and more fun than World of Warcraft.

For one thing, it would have a larger player base to pick from. Children today still are obsessed with Pokemon, and because of how old the franchise is, even older generations of people would love the game, which would only increase over time. Those of us who grew up with the old GameBoy, playing Pokemon Red and Blue in the back of the classroom....we hold fond memories of the game.

Could you imagine? You'd pick one of a handful of starting Pokemon...maybe it would be the classic three, but I think it would be wiser to expand the list of what Pokemon you start with. The same way you pick race/class in any other MMO. You'd pick to start in the starting town of one of the four Pokemon regions (from the various Pokemon games: Kanto, Johto, Hoenn, Sinnoh) and you start travelling around. There'd be Pokemon leagues with the gyms and the badges, players able to battle each other all they want. All 493 Pokemon could be in the game (obviously of various rarities), catchable in the various regions, and you'd have your Pokedex.
There could be a Pokemon Stadium, the way WoW has the arena. There'd be that....what is it they added, Pokemon appeal? I personally think it's a ridiculous thing to add, but maybe some people would be more into that than battling, in an MMO.
Pokemon already has a set up for players setting up little home bases and private homes, so players could get their little private homes to decorate and whatnot.
There'd be Bicycles for travelling, and you could use your Pokemon to Fly between cities and surf around, and use moves like Cut and Strength to explore and get places.
And the game already has some pretty deep battle strategy going on, what with how many types are in the game, all the different moves and weaknesses and strengths, and the items you can use in battle, status effects, and now Pokemon can carry a single item into battle, like berries or a small piece of equipment, and there's multi-pokemon battles rather than just 1v1, and Pokemon have built-in passive powers that activate "in a pinch"...it's a surprisingly deep game for how simple the concept is.

I'm just ranting at this point, but you get the idea, it has a lot of possibilities for being an amazing an MMO if Nintendo were to put forth the effort to make it happen. And if they do it right, keep it well-maintained, and update it frequently with new features, maybe new regions, releasing a new Pokemon for people to collect now and then (let's face it, they'll do that on their own...no way is Nintendo ever actually going to stop adding new versions), making balance changes..it could beat WoW. It would be more popular or at least compete with it. Not even Warhammer has been able to compete with WoW (even though everybody claimed it would before it was released).
The best part about the game, as far as PvP balance goes, is that you get to have six Pokemon on your team, and EVERY Pokemon has weaknesses and resistances. So there wouldn't be such a thing as an OP Pokemon. Every Pokemon has it's major, well-known weaknesses to exploit. Unlike in WoW where, if you're a class that gets destroyed by a certain other class, you're screwed. You can't just switch to another class and defeat them. To make things more crazy, it's not easy to predict what moves a Pokemon can actually use. For example, Jolteon typically learns the Pin Missle moves, which is actually a bug type move...and is super effective against Psychic types. So if you have a Psychic pokemon against Jolteon and didn't know that, you'd be in for a painful surprise!
And even then, Pokemon can still surpass those weaknesses with the right setup. So what if that fire pokemon is super effective against you...your sleep powder is keeping him in check, and the trainer has no Awakening!

I think it would be a fun MMO...and would be more popular than WoW. Hell, I'd play it.

Just cause I like messing with techie stuff...

2010-01-14T10:24:00.003-06:00

Hint: mouse-over the image.

Droning On

2009-10-20T09:25:00.003-05:00

Well...life drones on as always, and Drake is stuck in the same place as always. Seems I just can't get my life back on track. It's harder than ya think. Especially when you want to keep who you are...well...the same person. I shouldn't have to change the way I approach life, and follow a path that I simply do not believe in, to be able to succeed in life. Obviously not all methods work equally, but I should be able to accomplish enough to make my life comfortable.

But apparently job hunting is difficult when your credit history and job history both look like crap. At least, I'm assuming that's the problem. And whenever I explain this to my family, all they have to say, "Then your only choice is to join the military." Fuck. That.
I'm not doing it. I don't care how far I fall, I ain't doin' it. I shouldn't need to resort to that anyways.
If they would just be patient, I'll manage to get a second job soon enough, or at least get promoted at Sea World. Which I'm starting to doubt will happen, seeing how they've yet to call me.

I'm trying at all sorts of places, and it's only a matter of time before one decides, "Hey, let's give this guy an interview and see what happens!" I've just gotta keep trying. I only wish my parents had that same patience.

I know I've been working at it for a while now. Getting my life back together and having it fall apart. I keep saying "If I just get this job" and then the job doesn't work out, and perhaps some of you wonder "Hey what, you're still having trouble?" But hey...I honestly didn't see it coming when Sea World's summer season ended, and they stopped opening during the week. Well, I saw it coming, but I didn't realize it would have THAT much of an impact on my income. I was steadily making money until then, and I could have paid off certain money owed with the money I'd saved, if summer hadn't ended when it did.
In the case of kgb_, I didn't see it coming when they fired me...and I'm still not sure what it was all about. I wish things could've gone differently in these past job attempts, but it's like I'm cursed or something.
If I can just find the one job, whether it's minimum wage, or pays $12/hr, that I can stick with long enough, without screwing up...without having to worry about seasons. Just a good, full-time, 40-hours-per-week job, I can save up money and start taking care of the shit that needs taken care of. Overdue payments, saving up for my own car, a better computer...if the job pays well enough, I'll be able to get my own place.
Like that Toyota job here in SA, pays $12.47/hr? If I get that job, I'd make like $2k a month before taxes and before any overtime, if OT actually happens. With that wage, I could pay for a cheap-ass apartment, with utilities, AND a car, AND internet, AND afford food...and probably still have some on the side to start slowly paying off overdue payments.

And sure. I don't expect to get the perfect wage. I'm not the kind of guy that gets so lucky as to get the very PERFECT thing he needs to get where he wants to go. WoW has taught me that much, because I never get anything rare or special. MY real-life /roll never goes over 30. That doesn't mean I can't be hopeful. Besides, Toyota is still grunt-level work, they just happen to pay nice...I can still hope, right?
Even if I don't get that job, paying that much money, I just need something that can allow me to save up money instead of losing it. Sure, that's not going to work for getting my own place, but I could at least use that to get my own car and pay off money I owe...right?

On another topic, I don't want to jump the gun and jinx myself...because I've been doing too much of that over the past couple of months. And I don't want to get myself excited about it, only to be disappointed all over again. But I feel like things are about to get better in my love life...not just things I've been told, and seeing the way things have played out, but...it's just a feeling I have.
Maybe my life is too screwed up for my gut instinct to work. Too deep in the ditch to properly listen to my 6th sense, and it's just wishful thinking. Could be.
But then...Maybe I'm right, and things are about to turn for the better. I can only hope I'm right.

If things go the way I'm hoping they will, I'll need to look for a job in Tulsa soon enough...but I don't think Toyota has a Tulsa plant. If I search for jobs up there, I may need to turn to fast food again...assuming they let me keep my hair long.
Because a certain person would totally refuse to let me cut it.

Not good at this...

2009-09-09T05:15:00.000-05:00

I guess I'm just not good at moving on. Is there a malfunction with me, that I can't be "selfish" and simply ignore her feelings in this, and move on for my emotional well-being?
Or is it everyone else who has the malfunction, in focusing on their needs above anybody else?

It would be easier to figure out of the rest of my life wasn't also in pieces. If I hadn't dropped out of college and left my somewhat-decent job with a possible future in it...would it be easier to figure out? If my love life were the only thing going wrong, maybe it would be easier.

But it's not...and since my love life isn't working out, it's making the rest of my life hard. And I know it's not all one-sided...I'm not so naive. It's just that, when things don't go right, people like to have something reassuring to fall back on. Something to help them feel like, "It's all right, I'll get through this and things will get better, just you wait."
But all I've got to fall back on is WoW. And a very small handful of friends, most of whom aren't in my peer group to begin with. So that makes it hard to stay positive.

Right now, I'm not jobless. I work a seasonal job at Sea World. Unfortunately, Sea World isn't open very often, and even when it was open all week long, I didn't get a full 40-hour week. I need more income if I want to get out of this mess.

My parents keep trying to push me to take classes at Northwest Vista, one or two, and they say they will pay for it. But I'm just not comfortable with trying to rush forward again. It's rushing forward that burned me out to begin with. And I just don't feel like I'm at emotional state where I'm ready to go back to my college classes. I know that I need to, and that I should, but I can also realize that it would be a mistake to go for it too soon. Else I will just run into the same problems all over again.
What I want to do is just get on my own feet. I won't feel comfortable with my life until I'm capable of taking care of myself, without having to leech off my parents. I just...I feel wrong. I feel like I'm broken or something because I'm not capable of taking care of myself. A guy should never have to feel like he's broken.

And that's what I want to fix first. I know I'm not going to get a high-paying job that will make all my dreams come true, but I know I can find a job that will allow me to pay for my own apartment, my own food, my own car...live a cheap, and simple life. I don't need to live a high maintenance life anyways. I've never needed anything fancy. All I need is an internet connection, a mediocre computer, food, and water, and I can be comfortable with my living arrangement.
Once I get back on my own feet, without relying on my parents, I'll feel comfortable with returning to college. And maybe then I can actually have a successful relationship again...

Is that so much to ask for? A simple low-income life to get me started?

I Hate Drama

2009-09-05T16:39:00.005-05:00

You know...drama sucks, it really does. I always do my best to avoid the "high school drama" kind of situations everywhere I go. I'm the kind of guy who likes to go with the flow, rather than fight against it and make things difficult. Sometimes people make a big deal out of nothing....but I'm not one of those people. I tend to realize when it's nothing, rather than something.

And yet I still can't seem to have a drama-free life. One of the things I've decided lately is that I can't be friends with a certain girl, so long as she's dating a certain douchebag.

Is it really wrong of me to do that? She and I used to date, and I admit that I would jump at the chance to get back with her in a heartbeat. Fuck the consequences, I'd do it. But she doesn't want to be with me anymore, she wants to be with this other guy.
And you know? That's fine. I don't mind that. I just want her to be happy. If I'm not making her happy, then I don't deserve her.

But she's not happy. All this time that we're "just friends" I listen to her complaining about this guy. Saying how much she hates the way he is. Whenever she puts up a status message, it's about her being unhappy with him. You would think, once in a while, she'd say something nice.
I know I'm not going to be told everything, but you would think I'd hear something nice about him once in a while. But...I don't.

And I cannot put up with that. It hurts enough that she and I broke up to begin with. It hurts enough that she wants me to be no more than a friend...that I'm basically a "back up" in case this guy doesn't work out for her.
But the guy she's dating does NOT treat her the way she deserves, and she still "loves" him over me. And I can't stand that.

I feel pretty miserable from day to day, whether I show it or not, just thinking about her. Having to talk to her makes me feel even worse. Having to be reminded that she's dating this guy makes me feel like complete trash, on top of all the other "emoness" I do. But I still don't mind being her friend, because I care about her well-being, and I want to be able to support her instead of being a total douchebag about it all. If it makes her happier to have me as a friend still, then I feel like it's worth it, because her happiness is still important to me. I can respect why she's made the choices she has, to an extent.
But this...is just too much. I can only be so selfless. It's obvious to me that staying friends with her through all this nonsense is only going to make me and her both more miserable.

Even forgetting my own feelings, her boyfriend knows all about me. And he's not at all comfortable with her talking to me, being my friend, with us hanging out and doing stuff together. I don't blame him, but it makes their relationship more difficult than it already is.

So in the end, I don't help her in the slightest, and she doesn't help me. In the end, we both just hurt each other more, whether it be caused by memories of happier times, or the unhappy present.

And I cannot just smile, nod, and say "Yeah, sure, let's be friends."

If she was happy with the guy, if he was a proper boyfriend and made her truly happy, and was respectful enough of her choices to be fine with us still being friends...then I'd go for it.
But none of that is the case.

Am I really in the wrong here? I can't, in good conscience, feel like it's good to be her friend. And I feel like it's time I move on, because she's made her choice...and is being stubborn about it.

I'll always be here if she wants to come to me, if she wants my friendship, or even if she wants more than friendship...but I can't stand it so long as he is in her life, making her miserable. And there's nothing I can do to bring a smile back to her face, so long as she's with him.

Randomness

2009-08-29T03:38:00.004-05:00

I know I don't really post anything...but I'm sure this has come to be expected of me. I'm known for being an infrequent blogger at best.

Just a short and dirty update I suppose: Still stuck in San Antonio, still running into money troubles. Been working at Sea World since May, but now summer's over, and Sea World San Antonio is still a seasonal park. In other words, they only open on weekends now, so I need a new job for weekdays. I'm hoping something will come my way soon, as I was actually, slowly, gaining money. I was getting very close to the point where I could feel comfortable going back to my college classes, and hopefully living on my own again. The longer it takes to find a second job to replace my lost hours at Sea World, the further away I'll get from that goal.

Anyways, the main reason I felt like posting a blog is that I wanted to share this bit of randomness an old friend of mine posted in a Facebook note. I can't help but agree with it, and feel we're slowly approaching the very last phase:

"A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's greatest civilizations from the beginning of history has been about 200 years. During those 200 years, these nations always progressed through the following sequence:
From bondage to spiritual faith;
From spiritual faith to great courage;
From courage to liberty;
From liberty to abundance;
From abundance to complacency;
From complacency to apathy;
From apathy to dependence;
From dependence back into bondage."

So before you do any voting on anything political, think about that.

PvP Rant

2009-08-07T01:06:00.005-05:00

Okay....this is mostly directed at WoW, but this is something that will apply to all MMOs in general: PvP is NOT harder than PvE, nor does it take more skill. It's a common misconception that PvE is easy because it's too predictable, whereas PvP is unpredictable.

The entire CONCEPT of succeeding against a human opponent is predicting what they will do, and then planning out how you can counter their plan of attack. In the case of World of Warcraft, this is EASY to figure out even before engaging your enemy, simply by figuring out which spec and class your enemy is.
Basically, a Warrior is always guaranteed to fight just like every other Warrior.
A Rogue is guaranteed to fight just like every other Rogue.
A healer-specced Paladin can be guaranteed to heal just like a every other healer-specced Paladin.

You see what I mean? When you put it that way, remembering how to counter a specific class/spec, is just as easy/hard as remembering which instance bosses require which specific strategies.

Not to mention that humans, in general, are extremely predictable. We are creatures of habit, and we all know that habits are hard to break, whether they be good or bad habits. When you figure out how a Warrior will attack you in PvP, you will learn how to win against said Warrior, provided your class/spec has the tools to counter said Warrior. And so long as you know how Warriors in general work...you will know, in general, how that specific Warrior will attack. You know what he does.

At least in PvP, you do not have to coordinate the efforts of 25 people. That's some pretty epic teamwork skills there, if you ask me.
Now don't get me wrong. Don't jump to conclusions. I am NOT saying that PvE is HARDER than PvP. I am NOT saying it takes more skill.
I'm just saying they're about equivalent.

On a non-gamer note: I'm feeling super emo about my love life situation right now, and I'm not in the mood to go into specifics. Suffice it to say that I really wish I were in Oklahoma this weekend...to be with a certain cute goth girl. It's bad enough that I refrained from actually playing WoW today. Not that not playing WoW is a bad thing, but I think it's significant that I didn't even want to enjoy my usual source of stress relief.
If you message me, *maybe* I'll tell you more details...but then again, maybe I don't trust you with such info and keep it to myself. Don't feel offended if I don't share.

Wise Fools

2009-07-20T22:20:00.005-05:00

I suppose I don't blog much anymore. If you ask me why one day, I'll either say that there's not much to say, or that there's specific people in my life who'd probably see it, and they happen to be people that I don't want reading my blogs. I need to be able to express my thoughts without certain people in my life judging me based on those thoughts...because I already know my lifestyle just doesn't match theirs.
But it's mostly that I have little of interest to blog about. My life is slow, dull, and rather...mundane.

Anyways, I have something to blog about today. Have you ever noticed that, no matter how wise we get, we can never be very wise about our own life predicaments?
I mean, for example...when you give out relationship advice to your friends. You sound utterly wise and profound. People listen to you, nod their head, and agree with you. And whether or not they take your advice...your advice is good advice. If they listened to you and took your advice, they could be happier.
But then you get into your own relationship problems...and suddenly you're clueless. You either don't know what to do, or you're doing all the wrong things. We've all been there, I'm sure. I know I have. It doesn't help that I'm a stubborn scorpio who prefers to learn things the hard way, rather than take advice.

But this isn't about me. This is about a very close friend of mine...who's running into that very predicament in this stage of her life. I won't name names...some of you probably know who I mean, but I'd rather not come right out and say it.
She's given me sound advice before, though I stupidly ignored it. She was the first one to tell me that Leslie was a mistake. I should have listened to her, because in the end...she was right. I wish I could've seen it, cause it would probably have avoided everything that's been happening in both our lives lately.
And now I'm saying the same thing to her. I've been saying it to her since November...her current relationship is a mistake. And now it's getting worse for her. It's getting more and more obvious just what a terrible and selfish person this guy is...it's even gotten to the point where he will sometimes try to kick her out, they will fight, and then he'll feel all "regretful" afterwards and change his mind. Even this guy is starting to see how bad their relationship is. But she still refuses to part with him, claiming she loves him, even though 80% of the time...she's complaining about him, and talking about how terrible he is. The other 20% of the time doesn't involve conversation about him...stuff too personal for me to openly talk about, if you catch my drift.

Maybe it's just that she never tells me about the good things, and thus my viewpoint is skewed. It can happen. Who rants about the GOOD things after all?
But normally we hear little tidbits of good tidings. Or see MySpace/Facebook status message of good times, at the very least! And honestly...all I'm seeing and hearing is bad things. Terrible things. I won't go into details. But she knows what I speak of, if she reads this.

It hurts me. It hurts me deep...to see this close friend of mine in such a relationship, to see her hurting so bad. Emotionally...and physically. And she's a smart girl, too. Practically a genius. I can guarantee she knows this guy is horrible.
But her emotions are getting in the way...
I used to think I loved Leslie. I learned otherwise. It was something else entirely. But the whole time, I *thought* it was love. I should've been smart enough to know she was a mistake, but my mind and body were befuddling my thoughts. I let my emotions get in the way, and now she's making the same mistake.
It may not be the exact same for her. I don't think it's the same "something else" at least. But it's definitely not love...and I'm hoping that she sees it very soon, and does something about it. Because, as far as I can see and hear...he's done nothing to deserve her love.

I can't really do anything about this...at least not for a long long time, not with my life being screwed up as it is right now. I'd like to help, but first she has to be able to help herself.
And I'm hoping she makes up her mind soon...what to do about her situation. Because she deserves to be much much happier than she is right now.

There's always a choice. There's always an alternative to your lifestyle. You just need to MAKE the choice...and stick to it. I've made my choice...I made it a long time ago, and I'm going to stick to it.
I'm still waiting for her to make her choice.

Random Thought of the Day

2009-05-23T07:45:00.003-05:00

Scientology may be a load of bull, but it certainly points out an interesting bit of logic. Following the viewpoints of a book, however true you may be believe the content to be, is not necessarily the most intelligent way to form a religion.

It seems to me that whatever supreme being looks down on the Earth as a god would place down Scientology amongst us with just such a lesson in mind. Many of the things that are described as happening in the Bible are just as alien, foreign, and simply unbelievable as the things Scientology claims to have happened. Not that I've read about this other "religion" mind you, but I've heard some things about it.

I suppose some people would simply say it was the work of the devil, rather than of god, but I've always taken the belief that a god would encompass both the good and the bad of existence, rather than be intrinsically good. Neutrality, as it were. Balance is, after all, a major deciding factor in the universe.

My One Big Beef with 4th Ed D&D

2009-05-18T13:12:00.007-05:00

All right, I know I said in a previous post that I disliked the apparent lack of benefits for dual-wielding. My main problem is that, in 3e, any class could dual-wield, with the right feats. It was even possible to dual-wield crossbows, though you couldn't reload them without a free hand. In 4e, only certain classes benefit from it. Namely, the Fighter (if he takes Tempest Technique, and really only with light weapons) and the Ranger. You don't see Rogues with two daggers, or Swordmages running around with two enchanted swords. They also frown upon dual-wielding anything that isn't a light weapon, in general. One of the few things about WoW that I find rather clever, is that Warriors, (by taking the very final Talent, Titan Grip, in the Fury spec tree), can wield a two-handed weapon in one hand. This allows them to grab a shield as well, or wield two two-handed weapons. Imagine dual-wielding Greataxes! I think it would be fun, in D&D, if there were level 30 Fighters who could do the same thing, or if anybody could, with the right feat.
I honestly find this all a limiting factor in 4th Ed, and wish dual-wielding was a bit more flexible so that any class using a melee weapon could have the option. And so you weren't so limited in weapon options, either.

But that's not the thing that really annoys me. I can work past that, and just list it as a minor complaint. The game works perfectly fine as is.
What really annoys me is the skills system. Now, I want to get this straight: I really do like 4th Edition, and if it's up to me, I will always pick it over 3rd. I love the combat system, and I always focused on combat in 3rd anyways.
The skill system of 4th Edition, however, feels totally wrong to me. Let me explain the differences, for skills, between the two editions.

In 3rd, you would get skill points based on your Intelligence, and you could spend those points into any skill you wished. Class skills cost 1 point to rank up, whereas cross-class skills would cost 2, thus causing you to need to choose your skills wisely. Whether it was in a Knowledge skill, or a Craft skill, or the stealthy skills, or Bluff, even Jump, you could become quite...well...skilled, in any skill you wanted to fit to your character. Every class was even more customizable than their combat skills, feats, or spells, allowed. For example, one Rogue might be a master of Bluff, Disguise, and Diplomacy, beguiling their way through fights that could otherwise prove certain death. Another rogue might instead choose to be a master of traps and picking locks, as well as stealth, so that they can scout ahead in the dungeons and clear the way for the rest of the group. There are many such examples among the other classes, and some classes had more skill points than others. Sorcerers would often be skilled in Diplomacy and Bluff because of high Charisma, but they could just as easily choose other skills, (Spellcraft and Concentration were certainly quite important to spellcasters).

In 4th, there are no skill points. Instead, every class starts with a number of skills they are "trained" in from among their class skills. Class skills only limit your choice at this first level, so beyond character creation, you can forget about it. You can grab the feat Skill Training to further increase your skills, but you can only get trained in a skill once, (that is, you can't take it twice for Thievery. You can get the feat for ALL your skills if you want, one skill at a time). All this skill training does is give you a +5 on your skill. So throughout all 30 of your levels, you only get to add +5 to any skill, if you choose to take the feat, (or if you chose that as a trained skill at 1st level).
After that, there are only two factors that increase your skill check bonus: your level, and your ability modifiers. Oh yes, it's been simplified like crazy. To determine your skill check bonus you add the ability modifier for that skill, 1/2 your level, and then +5 if you have training in it.
This seems like a good thing at first. Everything is simplified. You don't need to spend a long time choosing your skills when you gain levels, and your party isn't screwed when you don't have a Rogue. Wonderful concept.
So why do I hate this system? It's quite simple. At 30th level, a Fighter will have at least 15 ranks in Thievery, without ever having to specifically train in it. Then you can add the Dex modifier. I should point out that some Fighters will actually have a nice Dex modifier, especially if they're a Tempest Fighter, (because they typically wear light armor or chainmail). This means that, not counting the Dex modifier, (which is never going to be an insanely large gap by itself), a Rogue will only be better at Thievery than any other class by 5 ranks.
So then what is the point of bringing a Rogue? In 4th Ed, the entire choice between classes is now their abilities in combat. No longer is a Rogue's trap-handling skills a major factor in class selection and party make-up. You can have the Fighter do his job!
You can say the same thing for the Arcana skill, or the Bluff skill, the Nature skill...etc.

Some people will argue, "Well the Thievery skill is a broad term. Whereas the Rogue would pick at the lock with his tools, a Fighter will just smash it, or a Wizard would cast a spell to open it." Yes, your logic is clever, and it sounds nice. But the skill is called Thievery for a reason folks! It's not just disabling traps and opening locks in the dungeons. It's all about being an expert thief. Sleight of Hand and Pick Pocket are included in the general skill of Thievery. That line of logic, presented in the quotes above, just sounds like a cheap excuse to make it work, rather than working to find a better way.
"Oh, but with the Fighter watching the Rogue work through so many adventures, he must have picked up a few tricks!" No. This assumes that there is a Rogue in the party to begin with, for starters. Second: Your TV repair man, the cable guy, the computer repair guy, the plumber, the electrician...and any other such professional you hire? You don't pick up their trade by watching them work. Most of the time, you may not even be able to reproduce their solution for your specific problem, if it pops up again, because it would require a higher level of understanding and training. Sometimes people will attempt to pick up their trade like this, and it only leads to accidents about the home, shoddy jobs, and similar results.
A Fighter deciding to try his hand at disabling a trap is like you deciding to rewire your TV to pick up better reception because you saw the TV repair guy fix it the other day. The Fighter is just as likely to set off the trap and kill himself (and his companions) as you are to electrocute yourself.

I'm hoping that WotC will realize this flaw with their skill system in 4th Ed, but it's rather unlikely. Either I'm going to have to live with this, or I'm going to have to try and get my D&D groups to homebrew it so that we use the old 3rd Ed skills setup. Of course, I want to keep the streamlining of the skills in 4th Ed, (Thievery including disable trap, open lock, pick pocket, and sleight of hand, for example), so it would need fine-tuning and perhaps mean that we get less skill points. But I think it would be worth it.

I couldn't care less about Craft and Profession being removed. Item creation seems a little too easy to me, as well, but it's not an aspect of the game I ever became particularly enchanted with. I always found better items by going through the adventures and the dungeons, so item creation felt pointless. Plus, you feel a sense of pride in retelling the story of how you acquired your fancy magical sword by killing a drow weapon-master in single combat, rather than telling somebody that you made it yourself. Or that you bought it.

I hate big decisions

2009-05-12T12:58:00.004-05:00

Everybody has choices to make in their life...but it seems that several choices have been laid before me, after spending so much time thinking about what I want to accomplish, and how to accomplish it. I have discarded many, added some of mine, missed some entirely due to hesitation. And life goes on, while I stagnate, trying to make a decision.

I don't want to say what the choices are, not just yet...I'm not entirely comfortable with telling people even what I want to do, let alone discussing how I could do it, because I feel like most of the people in my life have wanted me to turn away and give up. And while I understand the reasoning behind the advice, while I can see that it is one way to approach my situation and still enjoy life...I just can't say that it's the way I would enjoy. And, frankly...a certain person doesn't want me to let go, either. That guarantees that I would regret my decision, if I did. I don't like to give up, and I'm stubborn as a mule. I think Liz finds this annoying, but I'm not sure.
And it's more than that I want this particular goal...more than that I need to achieve it, or something similar to it, for what I want out of life. But the other person involved wants, maybe even needs, me to achieve this goal as well. Since it's impossible to know the future, neither of us can say how things will turn out. The best we can do is to go with what feels right, and hope that the gods didn't see fit to give us a broken instinct.

But that's not what is bugging me. It's the how that's bugging me, more than the what. And I am seeing too many options to be able to decide if one way would work better than another.

How often in life have you made a truly life-changing decision. And I mean the kind of decision that really completely changed where you would end up in life. Not just "Oh, should I date that person or this person?" or "Which college should I pick?" because those don't cause you completely miss out and lose something from your life, in return for something else. Whichever college you picked, you still went to college, you still worked towards your degree as hard as you would have at the other one. Whichever person you dated, you still dated somebody, and you still ended up having a great or a terrible time, and you still ended up taking things to the next step with one specific person eventually. Neither decision really changes all that much about where your life goes, and there's a million choices like that in our lives.

But what about the big ones? I don't want to give away my thoughts on this just yet. I'm not so comfortable doing so, especially with certain people in my household having access to this blog. But I can assure you this is one of the bigger decisions, because depending on which I choose...it will lead to a drastic change in my life, including a change of locale. It would mean leaving what I have known for my whole life and abandoning it for good. It does include a choice of college, but that's not the important part, because the choice here, if I think only about my career, is obvious.

But...would I be happy, prioritizing my career in making my choice? Does the road to happiness truly focus entirely on a successful job, and making lots of money?
I have friends who are now married, even having kids, and they're no older than me. Sometimes a bit younger. On the one hand, I bet they are very happy with their lives. I know I'm not happy with where I am, especially considering that I've done some back-stepping. I want to go back to moving forward. But even if I HAD been moving forward all this time, most of my old friends are going through their lives far faster than I would have. And I have to wonder...not so much who would have been happier, or who is happier. But I have to wonder if it's really worth it all, to rush through life, as society is pushing us to do, and to take the designated path. Specifically the path that my parents are believing I should take. (I should add that I almost automatically throw out any life choice that originates from them)

It doesn't help that I've read novels where boys become men at around the age of 16, whereas in modern society, we are considered men at 18 and don't drink until 21. That I've read about 15-year-old boys marching off to war, being called the King in the North, and routing entire armies with their strategems. Reading about how intellectual they are, about how charismatic and strong-willed they are, at such a young age.
Granted, these is fiction that I'm reading. But I look around me...and though it's not on the same level, I see people of those younger age groups as sometimes being quite intelligent. To the point that I feel envious, and wish I'd been like them at their age. I see people that I once considered my peers years ahead of me, making all the "right" choices and certainly being happy with how their lives are going. In places I hadn't imagined myself for another half a decade, give or take a year. Am I maybe setting my milestones to cautiously? I look to people who are younger than me, and think...that they're very close to where I am, mentally, spiritually, intellectually. Maybe not as far as society is concerned...I've been to college, they haven't. But I think you see where I'm getting at: I feel slow. And I can't help but hate it, though I know it's silly to do so.

Sometimes, when you really want something...you have to risk things for it....you have to struggle against hardship, and struggle through whatever pain may come along the way. Is something really worth acquiring if you don't have to fight for it? Do I want to give up the easier road, the safer road...admittedly the slower road...or do I want to take so long to get somewhere, that my destination no longer exists?
I guess this is about setting my priorities straight. And I can't help but think that the perfect job, the perfect path towards getting the job that you want...isn't what should be top priority. Is your job, financial security, what life is about? Is putting career first really the way a person should want to live his life?
I know people who gave up working, gave up their career, in order to help care for the family. To help raise the kids, and be there for them in every way possible. It's still working, it's just different. And I see people who made the opposite choice, though often for a lot of the same reasons. And I wonder if there even is a right choice.

I've made tough choices before. One of the toughest I ever made was to move back in with my parents, when I realized I was headed to financial ruin, with no way to stop it on my own. Not while having to pay for rent, food, and transportation all at once. Not while lacking my own car. I look back at the choice NOW, and see that I did have the option of staying, but it would have meant to struggle and fight, to make some sacrifices, to push myself forward along a path strewn with rubble and sharp rocks. Did I mention that you walk through life barefoot? It's true.
I can honestly say now that I regret not having taken that harder road. But does that mean one choice was wrong, and the other right? I don't think I made the wrong choice. I just think I should have made the other choice, cause I would have felt better about the choice. That doesn't mean the choice I did make was wrong...just different.

I am cursed, as I see it, with the ability to see things from beyond my own viewpoint. I can put myself in your shoes, and understand why you believe what you believe. Why you did what you did. Rather than just saying to myself, "I would never do that," I see why YOU did it, and can agree it was a good choice for you.
As a result of this, it is easy for me to see the differences between tough choices and agree with both of them. Such as the example above that most mothers are forced to make: family vs job. I can understand both choices, and see the good in both choices. I don't see either one has inherently right, or wrong. Just different. And both lead to good things AND bad things, in different ways. If presented with that choice myself, if I were a father needing to make that choice, I don't know which I would make.

And so in the choices I have laid out before me, as the paths I can take to move forward, rather than continuing to stagnate, I can see the good in either decision. And I don't know which "benefit" I really want to go with. I already know what my own family would say, because they are decidedly close-minded and narrow in thought. I already know what my closer friends would say, because I know they want what's best for me, and don't want me to risk losing everything...what little that "everything" represents, at least.
But in the end, what matters is what I say...because it's my life choice, and it changes the way I will live my life. The problem is...I don't know what to say to myself. While I certainly do listen to what other people have to say, I can't seem to decide what it is that I say...and I don't want to blindly pick a road. I was educated to do better than that.

What it may come down to in the end, is which decision I would regret the most. Though many of you may not like to hear it, I think I would regret the riskier choice the most. It's a choice even bigger than deciding to move back in with my parents....cause this new choice involves reversing the old one. Involves finally moving back out, something I've wanted from day one.

Heh...people say you do crazy things when you're in love. Are they inherently bad things, though? Or just illogical?

D&D 4e: Why Powers System Works (And a small addition to the last rant)

2009-05-11T19:17:00.006-05:00

I had noticed online a random suggestion, from a random person I don't know, another use for healing surges: to spend an amount of them to regain the use of an encounter or daily power.

At first, many people might think this to be a good thing. You get to use your most powerful spells more often. That's exciting! And it works well, because you expend a limited resource to get your powers back.

Or so you think. Hold up for a moment, you D&D 4e fans out there, before you get excited about this idea, and let's talk about why the powers system works well, and why it is capable of replacing the old 3e system of spells.

Vancian spell-casting works well for a specific reason: you have a limited supply of spells. This causes you to cast your spells more strategically, and to actually think carefully about your next move. This is the way spell-casters are *supposed* to think, or at least how people perceive they should think. They're supposed to have higher intelligence, and thus be smarter than your average fighter. So they are supposed to think ahead about the battle, in much the way a skilled chess player imagines the next dozen or so moves of play. Sorcerers aren't quite like that, of course, because they use in-born magic talent, but this was portrayed through the old 3e system of spontaneous casting (and high Charisma).

The new 4e system, (using powers that are limited to encounters, once per day, or once per round), works for the same specific reason: you have a limited supply of abilities. It's just *less* limited, and now we're able to apply it to everything, not just spells! In fact, I dare say, 4e is STILL using the Vancian spell-casting system, if you look at it hard enough. How else do you explain what happens with your daily attack powers? You forgot it. It isn't expressed that way in the D&D books anymore, cause it makes you sound like a lackwit. It's merely stated that those powers are so powerful that they exhaust your mind and body, and thus they can only be used after an extended rest. But that's just a fancy way of saying that you forget your daily powers once you use them. Technically, all the old spells were daily attack powers, every single one!

And so using a healing surge to regain the use of an encounter/daily attack power is a bad idea, and severely unbalances the system. Granted, you can do this with action points, (using certain Paragon Paths and Epic Destines), but action points are much more annoying to acquire, and you have to give up your extended rest, (which recharges your encounter/daily powers and your healing surges), in order to get more than one each day. Thus doing this with action points isn't so bad. Doing this with healing surges, on the other hand, turns D&D into an MMO, (which I thought D&Ders don't want!). It turns a healing surge into the equivalent of a mana point.

This is the main thing that differentiates D&D and MMO games. In an MMO, you DO have limited resources...but you can spam your most powerful spell all you want, at least until you run out of mana. In D&D, you don't really spam anything. Okay, I admit, you spam your At-Will Attack Power. I would hope, of course, you don't; I would prefer that you utilize ALL your attack powers, choosing whichever one would best fit whatever situation you happen to be in. But you don't spam your most powerful abilities. You can't! Because you can only cast them once per day. Or once per encounter, as the case may be.
This means that you don't have as much strategy in an MMO. This is why WoW PvP has always been so open to casual gamers: it requires no real amount of thought. You don't need to be a genius to totally "pwn" your enemy. This is also why I had always enjoyed raiding more than I did PvP: it involved tactics and strategy.

In D&D you have to think about how to apply your resources. 4e has basically made only a small change. Instead of spamming your basic attack repeatedly, in the case of people who attack with weapons, you will more likely use your at-will powers repeatedly, and choose from encounter/daily powers for more strategic applications. You might knock your enemy prone, you might force them to move into a different square, you might blind or stun them.
In the case of a caster, you now have the option of using a repeatable ability every turn; in 3e, casters didn't really have that option so much, unless you were a Sorcerer. Why else do you think Sorcerer was more popular than Wizard? At least, it was in my book, and I doubt most people disagreed with my opinion on which was better. I HATED having to prepare your spells each day. I never played a Cleric because of this; I always used the Favored Soul instead. Anyways, this allows casters to retain their strategic application and wide variety of spells, while giving them something that is repeatable, when they're in a certain kind of mood that day.

This also allows for different playing styles to emerge within each class! You might be a Wizard and use your Encounter/Daily powers often, controlling the enemy ranks as strategically as you can, and truly you would rarely use your at-will powers. This means your party will need to rest more, or else not utilize you to your full potential, but it's certainly a playing style that would still be effective.
But you might also prefer the ease-of-use with at-will attack powers instead. You might not think quite so much about how to set up the positions of your enemy just right for your party. Or maybe you just hate the limited nature of Encounter/Daily powers, and hoard them like a packrat for emergency use. (I do this with curative items in console RPGs: I often go through entire Final Fantasy games without once using the limited supply of Ethers, because I'll be worried I will direly need one. But at the same time, I will often let myself die, instead of giving the cleric an ether so he can heal the group. Backfired logic, for shame!) Whatever the reason, you're essentially always using At-will powers, and never using the powers that make you more versatile.
The second option isn't necessarily an ineffective way to play your Wizard, it's just a different way. And you can now have these alternatives with a Fighter, or a Rogue, or a Monk. Whereas before, those classes were all fairly simple to play, now more thought can be applied to them. Especially Fighter. It is rare to find a D&D player who did not get bored with the hack-and-slash Fighter.

On the flip side, you can no longer, as a Wizard, memorize Fireball half a dozen times, and then memorize a lower spell-level of it for each lower spell slot that you were able to. Wizards COULD spam spells: if that was the only spell they have.
You can't do that with Daily Attack Powers, (not without action points), for which I am quite glad.

Maybe it's this specific aspect of the game, that make people cry about D&D being like an MMO: the fact that you can now "spam" abilities.
The irony is, you always could spam them. Wizards could prepare a Fireball multiple times. In fact, they most certainly did. They gave up spell slots and their advantage of variety to spam it. Sorcerers gave things up, too. But they gave up their spell uses per day, rather than the spell itself.
Fighters were all about spamming in 3e. How many times did the Fighter attack monster X with his sword in a specific battle? I lose count. That's spam if I ever tasted it.

The only thing 4e did was allow spell-casters to spam, and let Fighters stop spamming. Is this regime change, this freedom of choice, really such a bad thing?
It's not like an MMO. The whole point of this wasn't to allow wizards to spam Fireball. The whole point of this was to give all classes more options. You now have the option to spam as a Wizard. You now have the option to not spam as a Fighter.

...and isn't options what everybody wants in D&D?

An addition to the earlier D&D rant

2009-05-09T20:45:00.001-05:00

I was scouring some random online resources, and this thought just randomly popped into my head...about how there is an MMO called D&D Online. I began to think about that, because it came out before 4e was ever released.

So I went to their web site and gave a skim over the way their game runs, and it is even now based entirely on 3.5e rules! So much for 4e being too much like an MMO, I say.

Hypocrites, every one of you.

D&D 4e vs WoW

2009-05-09T00:30:00.027-05:00

I guess I rarely post here, at least lately, about non-personal things, but I have had Dungeons & Dragons on my mind for the past week or two, and I feel like I should post something, somewhere, that expresses my thoughts.

Specifically, I've been thinking about the fairly new and still unfinished 4th Edition of the popular tabletop game. A LOT of veteran players seem to hate the new edition, and they have various reasons for this. I personally find most of their reasons to be trivial. I mostly find that they're simply resisting change, a common trait of all humans. (Oddly enough, D&D does NOT express this! Humanity, though easily adaptable to any situation, is actually a race that dislikes change, and often resists it. I wonder what D&D players, and WotC especially, would think about that fact.)
Now, I could try and go on to express why I think everybody is complaining for nothing, arguing against each specific reason, but I'm lazy. And I'm also absent-minded, and tend to ramble in my rants. I am likely to forget details here and there.
So for now, the sum of all complaints about 4e is the following: "Boohoo, I can't have godly power anymore!"
If you want godly power, go play WoW. Blizzard's philosophy is "you can never have too much power."
If you want a challenging roleplaying game, stick to D&D. WotC DOES believe in too much power.

The only complaint *I* have about 4e, is that I don't see any real benefit in wielding an off-hand weapon. The only time I can see this being beneficial is if you have a power that allows you to make attacks with both weapons, and I think that mostly limits this benefit to rogues and rangers. Maybe just rangers. Otherwise, it seems a bit useless, since you can only use a basic attack each round with one weapon or the other. What happens to races like the Thri-keen, which is a race of mantis-like humanoids sporting four arms? They can wield four one-handed weapons, two two-handed weapons, or two double weapons. Do they get extra attacks?
This isn't so much a "Oh no, now I can't get more powerful by wielding two weapons" as a "Why should I customize my character to be wielding two weapons?"
Fortunately, the Tempest Fighter build was offered in Martial Power, so now Fighters can choose to dual-wield, but I am still confused about this. There are some small benefits, from feats and a few class features, but they are small. Whatever happened to extra attacks? Why *can't* we attack with both?
I can get why they removed attacking multiple times in one round because of having a high attack bonus. That makes sense. But not attacking with both weapons while dual-wielding? What ARE you doing with your second weapon in those six seconds, while you're attacking?
Here's an example to emphasize my point: Take one of your kitchen knives. Maybe a butter knife for safety. Make extra careful not to cut yourself, anybody near you, or any objects nearby. I know a friend who happens to own a machete. Maybe you can just grab that and go outside for a few moments to exercise this. Slash this blade through the air. Just once. Now think about how long it took you to perform that simple maneuver. That was a basic melee attack of D&D. It took you, what, 2 seconds tops? Sounds about right. There's your standard action. Now you could take your move action, which is usually about 30 feet per round, for a human. Making a quick 30 foot movement in a single round would possibly take 2-3 seconds. Especially in a battle, since you're probably not just walking, but dashing quickly about. I think it's about twice the width of my bedroom, and that takes 1, maybe 1.5 seconds to cross. So that basic melee attack, plus moving 30 feet, took me 4 seconds or so. So there's your move action. I have 2 more seconds to my "round." I suppose that would largely be reserved for minor actions, but think on this: I have a second blade in my other hand. You think maybe I should attack with it?

I will admit that the concept of a six-second round is a bit of an abstraction. Real combat doesn't take place with six-second turns, obviously, but the D&D rules are attempting to put these battles into pencil and paper form. Six seconds is about the amount of time it takes for one "moment" of battle in D&D.
Those of you who have read about Drizzt Do'Urden: how many times in the books did he slash his opponent with both weapons? I suppose you could express some of those moves as Martial Powers, but it happened far too often to not have also counted as a double melee basic attack. Drizzt is obviously a Two-Blade Ranger, (among other things, but primarily this) in D&D 4E...but he only can attack with one scimitar every six seconds, besides his melee attack powers? Drizzt could hit you six times in six seconds as a standard move, simply because of how dexterous and fast he is. That wouldn't be an at-will power for Drizzt, that would be part of his melee basic attack! It stands to reason that somebody of average dexterity, like me, could at least get in two hits in six seconds. Artemis Entreri was on par with Drizzt, and though he was also amazingly dexterous, he was also human. So it's not beyond the realm of possibilities.
This isn't something that turns me off from 4e. This is just one aspect of the new edition that grates on me, and seems to make no logical sense, not from a roleplaying perspective OR a mechanics perspective.

That rant aside, I want to touch on my biggest pet peeve that has evolved ever since I first heard it expressed: the complaint that 4e D&D is a lot like World of Warcraft.
It is nothing like WoW! Not in the slightest!
Where did ANYBODY make that connection? Point me towards a SINGLE mechanic of WoW that has a perfect clone copy in D&D, I dare you.
Yes, 4e gets rid of Vancian spell-casting. I understand why so many D&D players are attached to that system, since it has been around from the beginning of the game. I can understand that some of you even preferred Vancian spell-casting to the new 4e system of powers. But that doesn't mean we adopted a WoW system of spells and abilities!
WoW uses mana and cooldowns numbering in the mere seconds.

4e D&D uses At-Will Attack Powers, Encounter Attack Powers, and Daily Attack Powers. For every class, including fighters and rogues, not just wizards and warlocks. This allows Fighters to do more each round than, "I swing my axe. I swing my axe again. I swing my axe again, but this time I move 5 feet to the left. I swing my axe again."
Now, Fighters can use powers of Martial prowess. They don't just swing their axe, they use a trained combat maneuver with their axe, designed to unbalance the enemy and push them a few feet away by knocking them off-balance. I just described the Fighter At-Will Power Tide of Iron. I didn't even know the power, I made up the description first then looked for one that matched it.

WoW does none of this. Nothing even like it. In fact, most abilities in WoW don't include knockback effects. WoW also deals with a list of something called threat, to decide who AI monsters attack. None of this "marking" stuff that D&D fighters get to use. (Honestly, I think this method is better than threat, but WoW needs threat to code their AI effectively).
All of your abilities in WoW are pretty much At-Will powers, and you can use far more than one ability in a six-second round. Some have longer cooldowns than the six seconds that is a D&D round, yes. Some of them might be able to have the label of an encounter power, but that's a rarity, like a Shaman's Elemental totems, (and those Elementals suck anyways, nobody uses them seriously). But D&D 4e is not a cleverly-disguised WoW, like all the conspiracy-theorists want you to believe. Powers in D&D are not fueled by Mana, Energy, Rage, or Runes. There is no fueling system present in D&D mechanics. It's just how often you can use that power. Once per round, once per encounter, or once per day. In fact, this is the precise reason Vancian spell-casting was originally used in D&D! Whoever originally started up D&D, Gygax and the other guy involved, didn't want to use the unoriginal concept of mana. Instead we got Vancian spell-casting. The new 4e system of using Powers is simply an alternate method of not relying on Mana for spell-casters, or Rage for Warrior types, or Energy for Rogue types. At the same time, the new system admits, "You know what? It's STUPID that wizards forget their spells!"

WoW also has nothing similar to even the simplified 4e skill system. WoW has skills, yes, but they're either professions or weapon skills. If you recall, Profession is a 3e skill, which does not seem to be present in 4e anymore. I haven't read enough about the new edition to figure out where it went, because I can assure you item creation is still existent. I just have to find it.
To clarify: Weapon skill in WoW affects how well and how hard you can hit with the weapons you're wielding. So that makes it quite similar to a combination of attack bonus, weapon proficiency, weapon focus, weapon specialization, and other such things.

In WoW, your armor, and your various other defenses, are also worked differently. Armor can be expressed in the thousands, reducing damage by a percentage, rather than being a "how hard it is to hit me" mechanic. Dodge works more like D&D AC than Armor does, and even then, that's a percentage chance to avoid melee attacks. Magic resistance is a separate stat that is a percentage chance to completely resist the effects of a spell. I think. I was never too sure on magic resistance in WoW, and I think it's actually mostly level-based. Surviving spells in WoW is more about interrupting spells, or simply absorbing them by having thousands of HP.
D&D actually simplifies AC so that it works for both spells AND melee attacks. There are also Fortitude, Reflex, and Will defenses, usually reserved for power effects rather than damage. All of these defenses represent a number that your die roll (plus any bonuses you get from a number of places) must beat, in order to land your attack (whatever the result of that attack would be). You don't reduce the damage of an attack by the number of your AC. Armor doesn't work that way in D&D. It only provides avoidance, as opposed to damage reduction.

D&D has to provide fancy rules for moving in combat, too. You get move actions, and standard actions, and minor actions, and it all works together in a manner that makes logical sense. In WoW, most of the time you don't ever think about that. If you're using a spell with a casting time, such as Lightning Bolt, then you can't move or the spell is interrupted, and you have to cast again. A lot of abilities are also instantaneous, or you have one ability that makes others into an instantaneous ability. Movement in WoW is more chaotic and more random, while D&D puts movement more into tactics and strategy. A lot of combat in WoW is more about timing when you hit your abilitiy's hotkey, than about any strategy or tactics. In fact, a lot of the time, I use my abiltiies in conjunction with rapid mouse movement, so that I use an ability in mid-air, facing backwards. You can't do that in D&D! Well, maybe you could with an appropriate Acrobatics check. But the point is, WoW doesn't have any skill check involved with this, and it's entirely related to the actual player's ability to dexterously manipulate a computer mouse.

I can't think, right now, what else I could possibly cover to try and argue that D&D 4e is nothing like WoW. I'm spent. My rant is over.

If you play D&D, or at least dabble into it, feel free to comment. Feel free to argue or agree. Either way, my opinion is expressed: Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition is absolutely nothing like World of Warcraft.

Seeing people honestly believing that it IS like WoW...really ticks me off.

I shall finish by saying the following: if anybody around in San Antonio, those few of you who happen to read my blog posts, would like to play D&D, either 3.5 OR the new 4e, I am totally game. I already have something set up for Sundays, but I am open to ideas.

I can say that I find myself attracted to 4th Edition, and the more I read about it, the more I want to play a 4e campaign as a Genasi Swordmage. It's rules seem so much more balanced, even if all the customization options are yet to be released. Who knows, maybe I will even dabble into DMing.

Habit of mine

2009-04-29T01:05:00.004-05:00

Everybody, at least once in their life, runs into uncomfortable information. The kind of thing that upsets them to the point of wondering about the hows, the whys, the what ifs. I know I'm one of those people, though I'm not going to give any of the specifics on what's been bothering me lately. Sometimes things keep me up at night. Sometimes they drive me to do irrational things, risky things. Things I really shouldn't have ever done in the first place, but jumped into too quickly to stop myself. I think some of the blog posts from the end of 2008 are evidence of that, though I wouldn't say that's the only time I've done something crazy. Maybe the craziest, but certainly not the only time.

Most people...I wonder to myself if most people deal with such things differently than me. Honestly, I can't imagine it matters much how you deal with it, cause what happens...happens, whether you can accept it or not. No matter how you approach painful truths, you have to accept it, or deny it, however it may affect your life. However easy that may be for you.

Me? I guess I distract myself. I can't think of a better way to say it. I try to find something else to focus on, to take the more painful thoughts off my mind. After all, I know myself well enough to recognize that the longer I spend thinking about a painful subject, the worse I'm going to make it out to be...and the more hurt I'll get about it. The more stressful it will become. I don't like to be stressed. I strive to have a stress-free life, because it's my opinion that if there is a lot of stress in your life, then you're not happy, and you're not living your life the way you should be. And you should be happy! Because the whole point of life is carving out your own happy corner of the universe and enjoying it. The whole point of life is finding happiness, whatever it may be. That's what life is to me.

Usually, I'll turn to a video game. Obviously I'm a gamer, it's what I love to do. But sometimes I turn to games for reasons other than just for fun. It helps keep my mind off other things. I can think about orcs and goblins instead. I can think about how to make "my guy" more powerful, or about the next challenge I have to overcome, and it won't be a stressful challenge. It'll be one of those "All right, a challenge!" sort of challenges, instead of the one that makes you want to tear a hole in the wall.
Or I read a book. I always love to get lost in a good book. The really good books, the ones that I love most...the ones that I list as my favorites? Those are the books where I can fully lose myself in the story. I can read page after page, and the next time I look at the clock, several hours have passed and I didn't even know it. I might even skip dinner, because I was too focused on the book.
Maybe I watch a movie. Sometimes that works. Others it doesn't. This is mostly because lately a lot of movies just don't cut it for me. They are packed with so much action and momentum that you lose the story, and time passes by too quickly. The movie ends and you'll think, "Wait, that's it? I just sat down," even though it took you two hours to watch. Of course, I do find some movies that I can lose myself in, so I tend to watch movies, or at least re-watch them, fairly often. Maybe I can shed some tears about somebody else's sad story, instead of my own. Internal tears, of course, because guys don't cry.

Do I stop thinking completely? Do I basically forget about whatever was bothering me? Of course not. Hell no. I can't get it out of my head, why else do you think I turned to the game, or the book? That distraction really, in the end, just forces me not to focus so narrowly on the subject. The thoughts are still there, going through the cogs of my brain, and no matter how well I distract myself, it's like there's somebody sitting next to me, whispering about it into my ear. Reminding me again and again, "Hey, this thing is bothering you, stop watching that movie!" Even now, writing this up in an attempt to distract myself, I'm thinking about it! It's nagging at the back of my brain like a carnivorous earwig. Granted, it's not the best distraction, since I'm talking about it somewhat, but it helps me far more than nothing.
Sometimes it gets so bad, I just rant to the first person around, who I actually trust with my emotions. Usually I just rant out loud, or at least to the cat, because there isn't always somebody around that I would actually trust that freely. Back when I was still playing WoW, I'd go rant to Tristan, because well...we were, and I think still are, kindred spirits. I can't explain it other than that. I have never met her in person, and even now I still only know her through MySpace, but this is a person I would trust with my firstborn child, if I had one. I suppose I could always send her a message on MySpace and talk with her about stuff, but I really hate to bother people. And when I look at the things bothering me lately, it feels like it's the same problems I had a year ago. Different person, same problems, though it still bothers me. Maybe it bothers me even more now than back then, because it involves somebody much closer to my heart.

It helps to distract myself, in most cases. I honestly don't know if it's the best way to handle those situations, when I just get stuck on things like that. Especially since it seems to be happening more and more of late.
Am I avoiding the subject? I honestly don't think I am. Because I am still thinking about it. I go watch a movie, hoping to distract myself, and all throughout the movie, it's like I remind myself over and over of what I'm thinking about. Do I do it on purpose? No. I just do it. I can't stop from thinking about it, I just have to hope I don't get insanely worked up over it.
But at the same time, I wonder if maybe I should force myself to think about it, or at least write my thoughts down and read over them. At least then it would all run it's course, right? Maybe I'd get it all out of my system, and then I can actually enjoy other activities?
I don't think it would work that way for me. I don't think these things "run their course" not until the source of the problem is dealt with. And right now...there isn't anything I can do.

That's what bothers the most in the situation I am right now, in everything that's happened since even before I left Austin. I'm helpless. I'm utterly useless, and there's not a damn thing I can do. And as much as I want to do something, want to change what I fear is starting to happen...I can't. And the next thought that pops into my head is "Maybe I shouldn't anyway." It's the kind of situation that frustrates me to no end. I want to tear down the very room I'm sitting in, just to prove to myself that I can actually do something, even if it's destructive instead of productive.
I know I just put up a blog about keeping calm, not being afraid, but this is just one of those things that nags at you, again and again. I was talking more about being afraid of the latest media-hyped crisis, than personal troubles.

With that in mind, I'm seriously considering rejoining WoW, just to give myself a place to escape to and relax this troubled mind of mine. Now, escaping, hiding, avoiding...that's not how you should react to stressful problems in your life, I know. I think I know. I'm not so much escaping, as trying to get my mind under control. Because I don't want to stress myself to the point that I just want to throw myself through a window, or purchase a plane ticket, or anything else that might come to mind!
Even though I promised a very important person that I wouldn't rejoin WoW unless she rejoined with me, I just might have to break that promise for my own sanity. I say sanity because of a WoW addiction, because of a gaming addiction? Not at all. Though I admit that I really miss WoW a lot, and every time I think about the game, I sorely wish I could log in and have some fun like when I first signed up, it's not that desire to play that's driving me up a wall.
It's everything else in my life that is. It's my family, my job situation, my money problems, but most of all...it's my love life. And out of all the areas in my life that I seem to be unable to properly handle, this one stands above all of them. This is the one that makes me pace back and forth in my room at night, when I have nothing to do, and when I can't get to sleep. This is the one that makes me talk to the cat when nobody's around, causing me to wonder if I already lost my sanity long ago. Who talks to their cat after all? I guess I should be fortunate I don't talk to my computer, but is it all that different?

Maybe you could call it relaxing. Finding something relaxing to do, instead of fretting and wondering and fingernail-biting, is surely healthier...right? I'm not avoiding the subject. I'm not hiding from my problem. I'm just trying to relax, so I can think more clearly. That's not the wrong to deal with things, I think.

I guess I'm just ranting right now, trying to clear my mind. Using my blog in much the same way I would use a video game, to simply relax myself, though in a slightly different fashion.
In the end of all the ranting, all I can say...is that I look around at my life, and I'm not anywhere near where I wanted my life to go. And as I look down the road, I can honestly say, it's getting even farther away. The bad news just keeps on coming.
Where's the good news?

I guess just to let people know: the attempt at B&N was a flop. I tried for Hollywood Video again soon after, but they filled up the positions they needed before I could get my second interview. Looks like I'm stuck with Sea World...least I convinced them to put me somewhere that didn't involve heights.

People are too damned paranoid

2009-04-27T14:41:00.003-05:00

The title says it all, and I know several people in my life who really need to worry less about things. But, for now, I'm speaking mostly of this supposed outbreak of "swine flu" that the media has people worrying about. I don't know anybody personally who is actually worried about this specific thing, but I'm trying to give more of a general message.

Yes, there are people that actually catch it. I'm not saying you're paranoid because I don't think it's going to happen. I just think you're worrying for nothing. Worrying about it isn't going to change things. It's either going to happen, or it's not, and unless you go entirely closet-case, "I'm gonna run around with a mask to make sure I don't get sick," then there's nothing you can do about it. People honestly have very little control over how the future turns out, most of the time.
Maybe I'm biased, because as far as I can remember, I never get sick...but it's all in the mind. It's just part of the way that the human subconscious works. If you're afraid something is going to happen, and constantly worry about it happening, then you're going to subconsciously work towards making that possibility happen. Whether you mean to, or not, that's what will happen.
And maybe you do catch it. It might happen, I don't know. But so what if you do? You keep reading about "Oh my god, this thing killed people in Mexico!" Seriously, so what? That was Mexico. You're not in Mexico, and things are different here. The most important thing about getting sick is not to start thinking "Oh my god, I'm going to die." Your immune system will respond to that in a very negative fashion. Just relax, get your rest and nutrition, maybe take tylenol or some sort of cold medicine, and you'll heal up just fine.

Stop worrying about things so much, de-stress yourself, and just enjoy your life, whatever that means to you. Does that mean you should just throw caution to the wind? No, I'm not saying that. I'm just saying you need to stop worrying so much. People have enough to deal with in their lives without panicking about the latest media scare. Stress causes a lot of health problems and obviously weakens the immune system. What is so great about your life if you're constantly stressed about something? That's not the kind of life I want to live, and it's not the kind of life you should want to live.

The past is gone, and the future isn't here yet, so just live for the present.

'Bout time

2009-04-03T17:57:00.005-05:00

Well, finally, something might be changing for the better. It's been over three months, but I've finally got an interview with Barnes & Noble tomorrow. I wouldn't say it's glamorous work, but we've all got to make money from somewhere. I've always wanted to work at a bookstore, and B&N is one of the better places to work at. Books-A-Million never bothered to call back about my multiple applications, so it's their loss.

I've basically also been "hired" by Sea World to do something involving climbing up into rigging and controlling a spotlight...I think that's what they said I'd be doing, at least. But that's for their Summer Night shows, so it's not for a while now. I will have to cut my hair as well, even though there's no way anybody will be seeing me. It'll be night, the uniform they gave me is all black, and I'll be working big spotlights above the show that people are watching. I can understand why they want such conformity, but I certainly don't agree with their logic. I don't have piercings or tattoos anyways, and I've seen guys working there who looked way worse than I do in terms of family-friendly appearance. Just 'cause I'm a guy who grew his hair out, doesn't mean I don't meet their company image. It's probably the case that they want to be fair to the employees who do have to meet customers.

I'd honestly prefer to not work for Sea World, haircut or no, but I get the feeling I'm not going to have a choice in the matter. The very first question the interviewer asked me is if I'm scared of heights. I don't have a phobia of high places, but honestly, does anybody really want to have to work a job where that's the first criteria of the position? That just makes me nervous. Being asked that makes me start imagining falling from up in the rigging down into the big Shamu pool, and I'd rather not imagine it or experience it. Chances are I'll end up developing a fear of high places once I start working this job.
If this job with B&N falls through, there's not really a need to work for Sea World, is there? Right? Could I maybe do work that doesn't involve climbing way high up?

Maybe if I make the decision to move back to Austin, I could find a B&N branch up there I could work for. I wonder if that sort of transfer is possible. I suppose it wouldn't work out that way, though. The plan is still to find a way to get my foot back in that door with Blizzard, or possibly with NCSoft, though I bet it'll be a year or two before that's possible. I'm still amazed that the company running Lineage, City of Heroes/Villains, Tabula Rasa, Guild Wars, and Aion: Tower of Eternity, have offices in Austin. In case you don't know, all of those titles are MMOs. I believe BioWare is also in Austin. They're the folks who made Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter Nights, both of which are favorites of mine. They're also currently developing some Star Wars MMO, right from their Austin offices. That city is turning into quite the MMO gaming hub.
I know I've been set back quite a bit, but I've still got the same plans I've had since high school. They're getting more defined, since I have options to pursue only 90 minutes away.

For now, though, I'm gonna keep hoping for that B&N job, even if I end up working at their cafe, serving coffee. (And I am not a fan of coffee...)

Still no luck

2009-02-26T14:34:00.005-06:00

The title really says it all. I've been out hunting for work for months now, and still absolutely no luck in getting one. When I tried with Hollywood Video, they even told me that they're fully staffed and not actually hiring; they just always have the "now hiring" sign up because of high turnover. Why do I get the feeling I'm running into the same problem in all the other places I've been applying? This is extremely frustrating without having to add the fact that my parents are constantly getting on my case about it. I seriously can't wait to get the hell out of this house. If I could get them to agree to it, I'll take the truck off their hands until I can afford my own car as well as an apartment.
I have been going around to the other Hollywood Video branches besides the one over on Tezel, but I'll have to call at the right time to try and get their manager and see if I have any luck. Going to try for the Culebra+1604 branch. I guess working at Hollywood Video is about as good as working at, say, Barnes & Noble.

I recently decided to check out a 2-week trial for EVE Online. Looking at the screenshots, I thought it was just artwork, but the game is seriously that beautiful. The game is also amazingly complex, so I'm really enjoying it so far. If I could afford a subscription, I could really get into this game. I've always loved the whole "fly a spaceship around the cosmos" sort of game, and EVE Online does it extremely well. It's just plain awesome.

Anyways, I seriously hope I land a job soon. This lack of money is getting unbearable, and I'm not talking about being unable to afford MMO subscriptions. I miss having a car and paying for my own gas.

Oh, and here's my dragon page. My eggs and hatchlings change rather constantly, so it seems kinda pointless to post specific eggs:

Shameless Plug

2009-02-15T23:23:00.000-06:00

Click them! D:

....please? *puppy dog eyes*

A Birthday & Zodiac Signs

2009-02-13T01:51:00.011-06:00

I'm actually going to post about two things. The first, and I think more important, is that today, Friday the 13th, is La Jeanna's 19th birthday. This is a very important day on my calendar, because this person is very important to me.
So although I suppose you few people who read my blog don't know how to reach or contact her, and don't really know her very well yourself, you could at least comment here with a polite happy birthday. Everybody deserves a happy birthday, even on Friday the 13th!
And she deserves it most of all. Life hasn't been all that wonderful for her, and I think anything that could possibly cheer her up is worth a shot.
So a happy birthday to La Jeanna! May you have many dozens more. :3

So I found something interesting while randomly browsing the internet. Consider your zodiac sign. You are your sign because the sun was "in" that sign the day you were born.

Think about this though...the signs were decided 2200 years ago. And the Earth "wobbles" on it's tilt! This is a phenomenon called precession, caused by the gravitational pull on the Earth by the Moon.
So it may be that your sign is incorrect!

Using where the sun is *actually* at on your birthday, the signs would be as
Capricorn - Jan 20 to Feb 16
Aquarius - Feb 16 to Mar 11
Pisces - Mar 11 to Apr 18
Aries - Apr 18 to May 13
Taurus - May 13 to Jun 21
Gemini - Jun 21 to Jul 20
Cancer - Jul 20 to Aug 10
Leo - Aug 10 to Sep 16
Virgo - Sep 16 to Oct 30
Libra - Oct 30 to Nov 23
Scorpius - Nov 23 to Nov 29
Ophiuchus - Nov 29 to Dec 17
Sagittarius - Dec 17 to Jan 20

So supposedly, I am actually a Libra.

Click on the title of this blog for more information.

Unrelated news: one of my hatchlings matured, and a second is almost there. As such, I have adopted three new eggs! Please click on them so that they can grow up, too. D:

Hatchlings!

2009-02-10T21:40:00.006-06:00

This is such a totally random and pointless post, but I'm happy for all my dragon eggs successfully hatching. I think I'll hold off naming them for now, until they mature into adulthood.

My User Page

And let's not forget LJ!
Imani's User Page

Almost forgot!

2009-02-08T23:27:00.008-06:00

I can't believe this slipped my mind. Click on LJ's eggs too! We can't let her little babies die, now, can we?

Read LJ's Scroll!

Don't think about it. Don't ask questions. Just click on the eggs already!

I've noticed *one* of my eggs got a slight crack, so at least some people out there are helping out...
But there's still 7 other eggs to hatch, with 7 baby dragons inside waiting to grow.

I know. I know. This is ridiculous, because they're just images and aren't real.
My response: so what?

On a somewhat related note, I have found yet another dragon adoptables site, so here is another dragon egg under my care. O.o

Meh...

2009-02-06T03:38:00.007-06:00

I suppose I should post something. Nothing's really changed much, though, so that's why I haven't bothered to post anything.

Well, okay. I lost my job about a week before Christmas, and so far have had no luck in getting a new job. I couldn't even go back to my old spot at McDonald's because they have a new manager. Hopefully something will pop up soon. Not only do I need a paycheck, but I'm sick and tired of being pressured by my family, when I'm already doing everything I can. It's not like I *want* to be a jobless bum.
I also wish they'd get off my case about the way I dress and the way I have my hair. Firstly, I don't go to job interviews in clothes like this. Secondly, if potential employers are choosing not to hire me because of the way I dress, then they must be psychic, seeing as the majority of places I apply require an online application. This includes McDonald's, Hollywood Video, Marshall's, Sears, Best Buy, Books A Million...and I can't even remember most of them. Not to mention the fact that when I had in my job applications, it's always to a random cashier grunt who isn't manager. The manager never gets to see what I'm wearing when I apply!
I'm not saying these are the best clothes for a job, or the best look for a job. I'm not that stupid, and I'm tired of everybody treating me like I am. The whole POINT I am trying to make is that employers should still be hiring me even with these clothes.
It's my shitty job history that's causing me to have such a hard time with job hunting, and for no other reason. The fact that the longest time I ever spent at a job is 6 months scares off employers, though it would be nice to get the chance to CHANGE that. Short of lying on my job application, there's nothing I can do. Hell, some job applications force me to sign a document saying I give permission for former employers to talk about me in order to apply at all, though I'm not sure if such a document is even legal.

Anyways. In a fit of late-night boredom before going to bed, I have given in to a strange internet phenomenon. I've adopted dragon eggs:

Basically, people click on the egg images, and they eventually "hatch" into little baby dragons. As more people click on the hatchlings, they will eventually mature into adult dragons.
But, if the eggs don't hatch within a week of being adopted...they die. Don't let the dragons die!

Determined

2008-12-07T17:34:00.008-06:00

After my trip to Tulsa...I have learned things, received contact from certain people.

For starters, I do not feel La Jeanna is lost to me. She is confused right now, struggling to become part of the real world. I think she just needs time to take care of herself. And thinking about things, perhaps I need time as well. If I have gained anything from this situation, it's that she forced me to wake up from a slumber and focus on things that I need to do.

Perhaps this will be good for us, whether it is temporary or permanent. The thoughts running through my mind is that I now need to push myself. I need to better myself. I am worried for her safety...a friend warned me that she recently tried to kill herself by choking herself, and another person managed to stop her. Apparently she promised not to try suicide again, but she has knives hidden in her room, and she has taken to the habit of cutting herself. I want to do something to help her, but right now all I can do is watch and hope somebody else can help her. For the law is preventing me, now, from saving a life. What am I supposed to do with that?

*sighs*
People keep telling me to put her out of my mind, but I cannot. I love her, I truly do, even through all this trouble I have gone through. For thinking about it, she has become the victim here, not me. Not only was I not being a good boyfriend to her, ignoring her in order to play these addicting online games, but now I have caused her this trouble with the restraining order, and other guys who are after her are proving to be not so worthy.

Right now, my goal is to make myself worthy of her attentions, assuming I can get rid of this restraining order. Speaking of which, I found something out. Although La Jeanna is the one who filed it, it is because her parents, and her now-ex-boyfriend's parents forced her to. They threatened her with no longer being able to see this young man, they cajoled her saying "Protect the family, you will be a hero!" I am thoroughly convinced her family is a despicable lot. They were the ones who feared me. They feared for their own skins, not for hers. And if they knew what sort of person I was, they would know that I am a threat to no-one. She doesn't want, and never has wanted, that restraining order. She was forced into it, and she wanted to handle me her way. Now she has to deal with this crap.
I hope the judge takes that into consideration, and I hope that LJ remembers to mention that she doesn't want it. Why does nobody ask what the young people want? Why is it ALWAYS the case, that the older generation knows for a fact what is "best" for us? What is best for one person is not always best for another. But no, they don't listen.
So my first goal, right now, is to get this restraining order squared away somehow. I hope my parents will help me with that...not only because I want to see LJ. Not only because I want LJ to have her freedom back. But because I also don't want employers noticing this on my record in the future! It would cause problems. I refuse to leave this sitting over my head. It damages my identity, and I would have it be undone. If I have to waste the very last of my money to fly or drive up to Tulsa again, to attend this hearing, and defend myself without a lawyer, then I will do it. With, or without, my parent's help. I only hope I can do this with their help.
My parents need to understand that a person can only be helped if they allow the help. You can only help a person do the things he wants to do, unless you can convince him to do something.
Right now, I want to defend against this restraining order, and prove to the judge that it was unnecessary. I am asking for help, for once, with this...but my parents seem loathe to give that help. Why is it, when I ask for help that *I* know I need, help that I want, nobody will give it, but people try to help where it is not welcome?

Once that is clear, I will get a second job, and take as many hours as I can to save up money. Firstly, I will get a car, then an apartment, and then once I have done that, I will feel confident about my ability to survive college on the second attempt. The first two might take around 4 to 6 months, I estimate. Hopefully sooner.
Also, I will push myself to get in shape, as well. I mean, really, if I cannot love myself, how could I expect anybody else to, let alone LJ? I have always wanted to be physically fit again, anyways, so now I have something to drive me.
Yes, that is a vague description of what I am planning to do. I have thought this out with a lot of detail. I have, for once, come up with imaginary numbers, supposing to myself that I couldn't possibly get a lower second wage than McDonald's, and find that the numbers fit for what I believe I will need for a used car, insurance, gas, food, and rent.
I will find out how true my guesses are when I get to that bridge. It will be easier to make decisions when I have possibilities open before me.

I am concerned about my home situation now, as well, for my parents refuse to understand me. It's not that they are not trying. But I have long seen that they would not be able to understand me. Half the time, I don't understand me, and they see the world in black and white. I can't always give a black and white answer. Some questions require me to actually THINK about it, instead of know instinctively.
In fact, my own mother seems to want me out of the house, refusing to accept I am her son. Does that make it easier on you, mother? Since you don't understand the changes I have gone through, don't understand the way I think, don't understand my heart, it is easier for you just to say I am not your son, than to give me a chance?
No, you are wrong. I care a lot. Why else do you think I shut you guys out? I was sick of hearing your disapproval, and I wanted to shut it out, and you never once attempted to encourage me. Maybe encouraging me to be myself, instead of encouraging me to be you, would have led to better things? I don't know. Because you never tried it.
Even before college, I wanted to change my appearance, I wanted to explore other looks, be a different person. I never got to be myself in high school, because I kept worrying about how YOU would react. You stifled me! You stifled my intelligent mind, and my desire to be unique!
Of course I go and hide in my room, slouched over a computer, seeking approval from peers I never meet.

My parents are, of course, convinced I need professional help. I don't believe this. I talked to the people I needed to talk to, got out the feelings I needed to get out. I will go this far though, since they have threatened to kick me out if I don't see somebody. I will agree to go see some "professional" who thinks he can help me, without fully appreciating all sides of the story I am only a small part of...on one condition. If they will agree to help me get this restraining order off my head. And that would only entail attending this hearing in Tulsa, on the 16th. If I fail to defend myself, whether using a lawyer or not, (I don't think I could manage without one, but don't the courts provide one if you cannot afford one?), I won't ask for appeal. I just want this one chance to undo what damage I can. That is all the help I want, for now. I do still want help from my parents with these things...don't get me wrong. I just want to do things my way, otherwise I will only get more confused. Otherwise I will only feel helpless, and rushed, and out of place. For once, I want to belong.

What still rankles my mind is LJ's safety. She cuts herself, I know, though she at least has not done anything serious. Except for one incident where she attempted to choke herself. I want to rush to her side, hold her tight, and comfort her with sweet nothings, as I would comfort a child. I don't know if that would help, but it's better than watching her slip into depression. For now, I will have to believe she finds the help she needs from the people still able to help her. I have to believe, and I have to hope, or I have nothing left. Everybody else has given up on me. My parents pretty much have, from what they have said. I have Eileen and her daughter and her husband, at least, who seem to believe. But I have very few people left who believe in me...and that one song from Staind, Believe, comes to my mind.
Of course...there is only one person I want to believe in me, to trust in me, and that is LJ. Maybe she does believe, and she is just wanting me to prove myself for once...but I cannot know that, cause I cannot have contact with her for now. She cannot tell me what she thinks for now.
And worst of all, I keep thinking that this is all my fault. If I had kept my mouth shut, even flying up as early as I did, there would be no restraining order. I would have met with her, we could have crawled the mall, unable to buy anything but still having fun. I could have afforded a movie theater perhaps...or bought her food that she will actually eat. Not that she is doing much eating...another thing that worries me. Her figure is amazing now, but she doesn't eat! I hope she feels good enough to eat soon.
I was freaking out, Saturday night, as I *tried* to go to sleep...about how this was all my fault. That she has tried to kill herself because I ruined things with my short temper. I keep thinking she would still be happy with Dustin, if I just had not said anything rash to him. If I had just kept my mouth shut...
But I cannot blame myself. I am not the only one who made decisions, and caused things to take place. I have to believe that things will get better. It is all I can do right now, or else give in to despair. I would rather believe.

I did find out one thing, recently, as well. She has re-initiated her idea of a "death date." In other words, she sets a day, years in the future, where she plans to die. Where she plans to kill herself. I am guessing it will be her 23rd birthday, or her 24th...I only hope I can convince her to give up on it before it is too late. Or I hope some professional helps her through it. I don't want her to die.
Especially...if she does go through with it, I will have nobody to blame but myself...

I did get to speak with her, once, before the restraining order was officially served to me, though. Before it was made valid. What nobody seems to understand is that LJ has not completely abandoned me. She still wants me in her life. She wants to call me friend, now, and she is actually considering dating me once more. Admittedly, not immediately. Not now. She needs time to be herself, and time to explore. How much time, she doesn't know. Nobody does. But I will give her time to choose. She has asked me to wait, because she still holds feelings for me, and maybe she thinks I will change and get better because of this. So I will wait, for the time being. In 6 months, maybe a year...as soon as I can, I still want to move to Tulsa. If I am living in Tulsa, it will be easier for LJ to be able to try and date me, and we could get to know each other in person.
No, I am not throwing my life away. I am not betting my whole life on this one girl. I would like to, but I am not. I am driving myself for her, yes. I will better myself for her, yes. But the goals I have are not so damaging as you would believe. Ignore that a girl is involved, and the idea is sound, other than I am moving to Tulsa. Though...consider that OU is in Tulsa. I saw the campus myself. I would not mind giving them a chance. Once I was somewhat familiar with the area, I was actually comfortable driving around. Now my curiosity, like the insatiable wanderlust of a kender, is urging me to explore this world more, the world LJ has lived in most of her life. I always did want a good adventure. Why not there, in that quiet little town?

No, I am not deluding myself. I know that La Jeanna is likely to choose another guy and move on from me, continuing to say I'm just a nice friend, but I missed my chance. And I am prepared to accept that. For now, I see that the door is still open. She is a feeling person. Just because she is with another guy, maybe goes through several others guys, does not mean she does not regret leaving me. Does not mean she has stopped caring, and given up on me. She doesn't know if it was the right choice or not, from what I could understand from her. She just feels this is something we both need.

And I don't deny that. Already I am determined to improve my life. I can see that, as depressed and self-loathing as she is, she will try to improve her life as well. So some good will come of this, and as such, I can feel confident as I wait, that it is right for me to wait and see what comes to pass.
I am determined. I will better myself, if for nothing else than because I love a girl. In the end, what matters is that I get better and improve and learn.

Besides, you all know the saying. "If you love them, let them go." I didn't do a very good job of letting go, but I will do so now. She needs her freedom, freedom to make her choices. And I do love her. So all I can do is hope that, some day, she may return. She may not. I get that. I don't know why everybody feels the need to repeat that. I'm not THAT dense, so LJ may tell you I am.
The difference is, I can recognize that there is still a possibility. Realistically, there is one. It is not a delusional, desperate hope. I see it's possible.

All is not lost. I thoroughly believe that. I ask only, of my friends and family, that you don't give up on my dream either. Because you don't know LJ the way I do. Few people do...and even I have a lot to learn. I am not going to throw my life away for her, no. I am only going to keep trying for the door, as long as it is open. And it IS still open.

I don't know what else to say. Peace.

Gone

2008-12-04T15:00:00.005-06:00

So she's gone...really, truly gone from my life. I feel so empty now. You never know how much you need a person until they are gone.

She told me to stay away and never talk to her again...and all I can do is obey that.

I only hope she can take care of herself and stay safe. And try to be happy for herself.

Because that would make one of us.

Goodbye, LJ, if you read this blog. Hopefully it doesn't last forever...but I won't delude myself. You never want anything to do with me, ever again...and it's all my fault.

And no, I'm not making myself out to be the victim...everybody has been hurt by this, LJ most of all. That doesn't make it hurt me any less though.

Please, LJ, if you read this...don't let this last forever. Take as long as you need, keep me away as long as you want, but I still want friendship with you. I'll wait years, if I must.

You're an amazing woman...I just hope you can see that one day, too.

And now it's time for me to go wallow in misery, until my plane flight comes. Then I can go wallow in misery back home.

Relief

2008-12-01T14:03:00.005-06:00

Although the pain and suffering is not yet over, I am feeling relived...and the pain that was gripping my chest, and causing me unusual physical weakness, seems to have finally lifted. LJ has finally spoken to me again, and has expressed that she does want to see me, although everybody else in her life has expressed that they dislike it. Knowing that she still cares for me, and sees me as a friend, means so much to me, that I think I can continue with my life in high hopes for the future. Specifically, hopes that maybe this bad situation will turn back around. I will always hope that someday she will take me back. I won't expect it to happen, but I will still hope for it.

It still seems so odd to me that I had felt almost as though I had a cold, or worse...until LJ finally contacted me. I would sleep restlessly at night, soaked in sweat, and during the day I was always too cold or too hot...I was always congested, with headaches, and felt extremely weak, sometimes even dizzy. I think I understand, now, that this was a sickness of the soul. I never imagined that it could affect you physically, at least so strongly, but well...there are still mysteries to discover in this life. The moment I finally got LJ's answer, that she does want to see me when I go up to visit tomorrow...I felt better. I can't explain it any other way than that this was emotional torment, tearing at my soul, rather than my body. And now being relieved, and feeling less troubled, I have healed.

She did have to remind me that she cares for everybody, and that she cares for Dustin above all others right now. That I shouldn't let it get to my head. That hurts more than words can express. She used to care for me so much, that she would spend hours staring at the computer screen, waiting for me to come home. I never wanted her to forsake all her friends for me, but I miss that I once meant that much to her. And it hurts that now she cares for him that much...that she already trusts him to do sexual things together. (I should mention here that, though I know that they have, and are, doing such things, I will never hold it against her.) It hurts that I've been replaced so abruptly, and before I could see it happening.
For now, I will just have to respect her wishes, and her choices, and hope that one day she can change her choice. I only hope that all her family, and Dustin and his family, can respect her that much as well. For it is HER life, not theirs. If she chooses to be my friend, Dustin will just have to accept it. And if one day, she does somehow separate from him, he will need to accept that as well. Just as I will respect her wishes if she chooses to remain friends with him afterward.
And no, I'm not saying this all WILL happen, although I will hold that belief in my heart, always. I'm just talking possibilities. If I cannot hold this belief and hope, then I would have to give in to pain and depression. And I cannot allow that to happen to me again.

I was wavering before in my determination to stay true to her, even as she dates other guys, but I know for sure now that I will. Maybe that is what was tearing me apart at the soul. That I wanted to remain true to her, but that it was starting to look as if I would not be able to. However, I shall always remain as her guardian, and her protector, even if I can never be more than a friend to her. To me, that is true love and true devotion...choosing to love somebody unconditionally. How many people can claim that they love their boyfriend/girlfriend, or husband/wife, without any condition whatsoever? How many can claim they would remain true to the person they love in a similar situation? If she were to tell me she hates me (she has done so in fights in fact!) I would still love her. Can any of you out there say you would still love such a person? Can any of you claim unconditional love of your partner, to that degree? It may seem foolish to most people, but I think I'd rather be a fool than a sage, if this marks me as a fool.

I just know that I would be happiest in my life if I remain true to her this way. I will continue to count my blessings, instead of bemoaning that which I have been denied, and that which I don't have. And I will continue to hope, and believe, that good things will continue happen to me. For I will always love her this strongly. I refuse to let it go, and it is my choice to keep that love in my heart.

It strikes me as amusing that LJ once told me she is more like Usha from Dragonlance, than any other character from that series. She mentioned this once, when I said that I seem to be a lot like Caramon, and even more like Tanis. I tried to imply that she was like Tika in some ways, and in a lot of ways like Laurana as well. Her retort was that she was more like Usha, and that she had just finished the War of Souls series, as though to seal the deal. Now that I am finally re-reading those stories...what sticks out in my mind is the time Usha did not remain true to Palin Majere. In the end, though, Palin was her first and truest love, and even if she did not love him for a time, they did reconcile and get back together. So I am hoping for now that she is more like Usha than she realizes. Not that I can expect it...but I can hope for it. What's wrong with hoping? Humanity thrives on hopes and dreams.
And though it may take some time to shake the notion of me being similar to Caramon and Tanis from my head, I am reading about Palin again. Maybe I am just being a romantic, but hey, something's gotta keep me going. Palin also has qualities that remind me of myself, and he is just as young as I am. And also just as not-so-physically inclined, though he was at least well-built and largely built.

Judge me as you will. A fool, or a hopeless romantic, or whatever you may be thinking. This is my choice...and this is the way I want to live my life. It will definitely bring happiness to my life, even if that happiness is tinted slightly with sadness and pain. For I will always hold out the hope that my patience and devotion will one day be rewarded. And even if it's not...well, there's always the next life. Just as I choose to devote myself to her, I will choose to be happy with what I get. Whether it's only her friendship, or if one day she can love me once more.

So yeah...my hopes restored, I think I will continue making plans to move to Tulsa. But maybe I'll consider waiting until she's at least 19, though I wouldn't mind being able to celebrate at her birthday party. And hey, if her friends, or even her boyfriend, do not throw her a party, by god I know I will. I think I would enjoy such a life. I think Liz would miss me being at her 15th, but I know she'd understand.
I've looked at some potential jobs already, and apartments up there, but it is too early to think about that, cause positions don't usually remain open for so long. But I am hoping and believing that I will also find the right kind of job up there for me, not that I care what I get. Hell, I saw a job that was offering pay at $10-20/hr...and was totally in my ballpark skill-wise. When I finally move up there, if I can find anything remotely as good, then I think I will be able to carry out my life up there as I want. For I'm not giving up on a college education yet. I've just had to postpone it a little. If it means night classes at an Oklahoma college, that's what I'll do! I'll do what it takes to stay near LJ, so that I can carry out my promise of being there for her as guardian.
I can promise I'll at least wait until early February as my earliest move. Three months, no less, all right? I will also promise this. If LJ expresses strongly that she doesn't want me to move up there, and live nearby her, (even though she expressed many times in the past that she wanted me to do so), then I won't. It's her choice, after all, as to whether or not I get to be a part of her life. But if she will accept me as guardian and friend, I will take up that position gladly, and with pride. Just because I can't be her lover, doesn't mean I can't be there for her.

Why do I promise so freely to be there for her, when I could probably find another girl much more easily? Because I care that much about LJ. How can there be anything wrong with caring? I want to make sure that she is always taken care of. Sure, Dustin may be there for her right now, and she just might be in good hands. But I just want to be up there to make sure. Especially if I need to catch her. And hey, if she actually asks for my help with something, I'll be quick to say yes. I've got to protect my kitten, especially now that she is growing up. Well, she may not be my kitten any more...but that doesn't mean I'll stop protecting her. I will never stop protecting her, unless she tells me to.

So please, even if you don't agree with my choices, respect that these are my choices, and what I am wanting to do with my life for now. If you don't agree with it, sure, share your opinion on the matter, tell me what YOU think. But don't try to tell me what I "should" do, or anything similar. Don't act like you know what's best for me. Don't get too pushy about it, especially. Just as I will respect her choice to be with another boy, (I refuse to call him a man until he shows maturity and responsibility to me, and he has yet to do so), besides me, I ask that any who read my blog please also respect my life choices.

Not much more to say without being ridiculously repetitive. Peace out.

Miserable

2008-11-30T19:23:00.005-06:00

I have never been more miserable, or felt more defeated, in my entire life. I have been betrayed before, but none of them has ever really hurt me, thinking back on them. But this...this hurts me to the core of my being. It will be with me, and affect me, for the rest of my life. I never even got to say goodbye to her...

I am willing to accept at this point that I will never be with her again, and I am willing to accept that she doesn't want anything to do with me, but...

I want to be able to say goodbye. I don't know why everybody is against me saying goodbye, but I want it so very much, I would sell myself into slavery for it. I don't care what I have to do, what I have to give up, I just want to say goodbye to her. And nobody is willing to grant me that!

At the very least, I want her to tell me to go away, and to stay away. Cause the last time I heard from her, she told me she wanted to be my friend. And that she was willing to keep in touch with me. If things have changed between us since then, I at least want her to tell me that much. I won't even respond to what she says, I want to hear her say it to me. Or I want her to send me an e-mail saying as much, at the very least!

I don't know why I can't even get this much...why is it such a big deal? I don't understand what's going on anymore, and why everybody is taking such big steps in this. I regret what I said to Dustin...so much that I have actually considered just letting them beat me to death.

But...my god, I have never been brought to tears more than this, and I am not usually a person who cries. I always fight them back, but I can't this time. I have never been more willing to humiliate myself, and more willing to slave myself to others, than right now. I understand, mostly, they want me to stay away, but is it really so much to ask that I say goodbye? That I get the chance to have her tell me herself to get away and stay away?

I just...I want nothing more than that. I hope for nothing more than that. I have even given up on my dreams of moving to Tulsa. I was originally going to move up there, and even stay away from her permanently while living up there, on the hopes that I can actually be THERE for her if she ever decides to come back to me. But I see now that it's not ever going to happen.

I don't blame her for it, either...everybody in her life is interfering to the point that it's hurting her more than helping. And I'm a horrible person anyways, unworthy of being loved. All I want...right now...I would gladly give my life for it...is to say goodbye to her. Because I know I'll never see her again. I want to be able to hold the memory of her face in my mind for all eternity.

I don't know why everybody is making such a big deal out of one pathetic, lovesick fool...all I know is that I will never be able to love anybody else, ever again...

I am feeling so miserable that I can't sleep. I can't eat. My body is sweating in the coldest weather, but my skin has goosebumps, and I am shaking and chattering and clattering. I can barely hide this from my parents. I can't think about anything but her. Not only can I not eat, but I can't even taste my food. All of it tastes vile, and disgusting, to my tongue. Even if I didn't quit video games, I can't enjoy them anymore. I can't enjoy a book, because my eyes just tear up and get blurry, before I can read more than a page. It brings me no joy anyways, because I keep thinking about her. I am constantly getting headaches, and meds bring no relief to me. Because these headaches come from the soul, because this pain and sickness comes from my soul, no physical help will heal me.

I don't know how to cure this malady...I don't know if anything could. I don't know what to do! All I want is to say goodbye...all I want is some closure, and everybody is treating me like some sort of horrible criminal because of it! Why is this such a big deal?! Why can't I say goodbye, when she means so much to me! I would accept ANY conditions these people would put on me, if they just allowed me to say to her the one sentence, "Goodbye, La Jeanna...I will always love you." Once I have said that, I will never try to contact her ever again, and I will never set foot in Tulsa again.

Please...LJ, if you're reading this. I know you don't want to talk to me. I GET that. But I beg you. I BEG you. Give me this much. Give me the chance to say goodbye to you. Or tell me yourself, even if it's just an e-mail or a Facebook message. That you never want contact with me, ever again. Please...it's all I need to be able to get through this. Please help me that much? I know you don't hate me...I hope you don't. Please, just help me get through this, and I will leave you alone forever. Please, I am begging you...

I know anybody who reads this will think I'm pathetic, and that I probably even deserve to die, but she has beat me down that painfully...I feel like I'm pathetic, so I'm not going to try to argue that point. I just know that this is the worst pain I have ever felt, and that I will never truly recover from it. I am just hoping I can say goodbye, and see her face one last time. I'm even willing to stay 20 yards, or even 30 yards, away from her. If I have to shout it to her across a big grassy field, or if I have to say it to her through a dozen gigantic bodyguards with guns, I would accept that. ANY condition...any chance to say that one final sentence, and I will go away. Forever. Never to return. Just because suicide is part of that plan, shouldn't mean that I don't deserve the chance to say goodbye.

At this point, I'm feeling like death would be more merciful than the pain I am suffering right now. The only thing preventing me from going through with that is the love of the only two friends I have in the world.

All I want is this small bit of closure...she doesn't even have to answer me, or look at me. She can pretend I'm never there, and she can choose not to hear me say it. I just want to be able to say it to her. I'll do it at the airport, before passing through the metal detectors even. You can have her surrounded by armed police. Anything. Just let me say goodbye.

I don't care how pathetic I am sounding...I am desperate...I love her still, so very much...and I have never hated myself more, for not seeing this coming.

Just so you know

2008-11-29T20:04:00.005-06:00

Considering what I once heard LJ mention, and now this anonymous blogger comment, I feel I need to explain myself a little bit.

Although I have said, many times, that I want to hurt this boy that LJ is now dating...the truth is I never would. I can't bring myself to hurt another person, for one thing. For another, I care a lot about LJ. And she has somehow decided she cares for this boy. That alone prevents me from ever laying a hand on him, because I don't want to hurt her by beating him up.

I am just hurt and upset, and I am speaking without thinking. We have all been there at one point in our lives, I'm sure. I think you know exactly what it's like to be too angry to not say such things. It doesn't help that she let him goad me on and talk about eating her pussy to make her squirm all over the bed and insult me repeatedly. Yes, the part about him eating her out is an almost direct quote. If you want the direct quote, I can go grab it for you. I don't know what sort of legal ramifications goading people on in the hopes of being threatened happen to be, but I can promise you he was talking shit to me before I was talking shit to him, and I have the archives to prove it.

Just because I have expressed desire to hurt this guy, doesn't mean I'll actually carry out such wishes. I may despise Dustin, but I am going there to be a friend to LJ, not to be an enemy to Dustin, if that makes any sense to you. I am going there to see her face. To hear her speak. Hopefully to hug her. I wish I could kiss her, but I know she won't go for it, and so I won't even try. I also need to show her who I am. I need to show her that I am a good person, and that I will try my best to be a good loyal friend to her, even if this guy is exactly where I want to be.

You don't need to get the cops involved, unless you believe that he will attack me first. If I am able to claim self-defense, your situation will turn out bad for you, and not for me. So don't get the cops involved unless you're afraid for my safety. Because I will not be throwing the first punch. In fact, I won't throw any punches. If he attacks me and I don't respond, I can get him sent to juvi for assault. So look at it from that angle.

In the end, I just want to see somebody I care about with all my heart and soul. And, more than anything, I need this chance to see the truth, and give her a chance to see the truth in my heart.

I meant what I said in the response to your comments in the last post: call me, and let's talk about this like adults. I would have called you a long time ago, in fact, if I hadn't lost your number. Give me a chance to explain myself, and what I hope to accomplish, and let me show you that there is nothing to be afraid of.

Correction: I have since found the number again, after much effort, and even called...but I still would like to talk more about this. I just want my side to be understood for once...because I am not a bad guy, and I would never ever do anything to hurt LJ. She means more to me than my own life. I would sooner kill myself than lay a hand on her. I am just hoping to get some closure and peace of mind, without any trouble. Is that so hard to ask? She has already expressed that she is willing to be my friend and talk to me about things...so let her make this decision. She is a grown woman now, even if mostly naive. I just need to see her one last time, before I can move on.

Decision

2008-11-29T10:26:00.006-06:00

For the first time in my life, I have felt true terror touch my heart. I've lost friends...I've failed in life multiple times..I've lost loyal pets, and family members. And none of them really touched my heart. I was sad, a little, but I moved on without a second thought. I don't know why they never affected me, and it confused me, but that's the way of it.

But now, something has touched my heart so painfully, that I think I may have had a heart attack or two as a result. I'm not completely sure, but my chest is constricted and painful. La Jeanna, the girl I love more than the rest of the world combined, has actually left me for another boy. A boy a year younger than her, and shorter than her even, if I remember correctly. Emphasis on boy, rather than guy or man, because he has not shown any maturity in this situation.

I feel terror for her, more than I do for me. Cause I can recognize that this is a mistake, even if she can't. I've made my share of my mistakes, so I know a thing or two about 'em. I feel terror that she will be hurt, that she is going through this trial in life, and I might not be there for her to back into. Maybe this other boy will be somewhat protective of her, but there is no way he can replace me in that role. I want nothing more than to be by her side, providing her support for when she feels weary of her path in life. And I feel terror for me, cause I can do nothing but watch from the sidelines. I want so much to be there pushing her on, catching her when she falters, giving her a shoulder to lean on when she starts to limp.

But I'm not going to roll over and take this...I can't just give up this easily, when this is the one thing in my life that truly matters. She means more than the world to me...I can't just move on from this. So I'm going to fly up to Tulsa soon and talk to her in person.

As much as this hurts, I don't feel any anger towards her...nor any hate. I just feel loss, and I feel compassion, because I see that she is also hurting. Even though she is happy with this guy, she has told me in her own words that she doesn't know what she's feeling or what she wants. That she feels empty and numb. And my heart aches for her, knowing that, because I want to help her so bad. I want to support her and be her strength. I want to be her knight. I remember she once called me her Dark Knight...

I am willing, for now, to stay just a friend...and though it pains me to have to go through that, I cannot make myself abandon her completely. I know that this will end badly for her. I don't just hope or wish that, I know it will. Now that I've calmed down from the initial shock, and taken the time to mull things over, I can see that this won't end well for anybody involved.

So I'm going to give up video games for good now. It's been a long time coming, and I should have done it a long time ago, when I realized how much it bothered LJ. Instead I will force myself to get back into daily exercise. I kinda miss it, to be honest, and I wouldn't mind being fit and trim once more. And once I get back from Tulsa, I'm going to force myself to get a second job and make as much money as I can, as fast as I can. The more money I make, the sooner I can move to Tulsa.

Yes, you heard me. My ultimate goal from this day forward is LJ. I will devote myself to her, even if I can't be anything more than a friend. Some people say that's stupid, or wrong, or immoral. But what greater good can there be but to give yourself completely to somebody you truly care about, even if you're just a friend? The days of chivalry and honor may be long gone in this world, but this girl means more to me than life itself. I will be there, in person, waiting, for when she falls, and I will catch her, and hold her in my warm embrace once more.

I realize now my mistake in pressuring her to come down to Texas with me, when I should have been thinking about moving there. This means moving to Tulsa, ASAP. I plan to pull this off before her 19th birthday, so I've only got a few months to save up money for the move, and for the interval where I don't have a job. Hopefully I can save up the needed money to also purchase a used car, so I don't have to rely on public transit, but that's not as essential. In fact, I will consider pulling out a loan for the move. More debt is bad, yes, but you have to understand that I would sell my soul to the highest bidder to be there for her. I will try to not stoop to a temporary loan, but it's an option I am considering.

And once I'm up there, if I find I can afford it, I'll also be sure to start taking college classes once more. Not exactly the best schools, no. Not exactly the best plan to get my life in order. But this is something I have to do. I must prove myself to her, even if it means waiting for this other guy to get out of the picture.

I have never been more sure of my feelings for her, and for once, the path before me is laid bare, and I know what I must do. I know what I must strive for, and what my goals are. Surely that is a good thing.

I admit that there are more fish in the sea, but this is my decision. This is my choice. I would never forgive myself for abandoning her, when things fall apart for her, as they once did for me. For I see myself in her, back before I'd moved back in with my parents, so I know how she feels. I also know that no matter who I end up dating by then, if I ever do, I will end up hurting them. For if I see that LJ is hurt, whether she dumped him or vice versa, I will have to go to her. I can't devote myself to anybody else for fear of causing people more pain and suffering. It is my one condition about my relationships: I have to be able to give myself completely to that person. LJ is such a big part of me, placed in the most vital parts of my heart, that I cannot give up on her.

And so, for better or for worse, do I quit video games. I admit, I might keep playing still, for the moment, but after this trip to go see her, when I pledge this to her with my own voice, on my knees, I will give them up for good. And for better or worse, do I push myself to my limits. I will force my body to be as fit as it once was. I'm no athlete, but I'm going to burn off the fat college decided to gift to me. The moment I get back from my temporary trip to Tulsa, I am grabbing a second job and working as hard as I can, if it fucking kills me. Because I have never been more sure of the road I want to take than I am now.

Not much more to say about this. Peace.

Possible mistake?

2008-11-25T05:08:00.004-06:00

I have spoken at length with someone I hold dear to my heart, and she has said many things that drive deep bleeding wounds into my heart. But I have never been more sure of my love for her than I am now, and I refuse to give in so easily. I will prove myself to her, and prove that I am worthy of still being loved, if it kills me...if I have to kill someone myself. I would gladly walk the deepest parts of Hell for this love.

Many will say I am being a fool, and that I should have let go, long ago. But the things that have happened between us, the trials we have been through, are too great in order to just let go. I see this as our final, greatest trial, or else we are doomed to forever separate. For this time, as opposed to all the others, she is doing the unthinkable - she has fallen for another, or so she claims to believe, and now sees me as just a friend to care for. But I know my mistakes, and I know the person I am supposed to be, and I will not give in to this failure so easily!

Though I may lose her no matter what...though I may have already lost her, irretrievable, I will make every effort, and struggle through any obstacle, to try and win back her heart. She is trying to deny it. I can hear it in her voice, and in the way she hesitates, and how hard this is on her already. She still feels for me, deeply, but she treats me as though I am not who I should be.

I do not think I could properly explain the situation in words, but I hear a voice inside me, something pushing me forward. I know that I must at least try. At the very least, for my efforts to fail, I know I will have tried! There is honor in that, at least.

And so I make plans to purchase a plane ticket to Oklahoma, and possibly a hotel room, depending on the circumstances with people I know in that area, to ensure I have a place to sleep. This may be a fool's quest, but I have to do this. If not to win her back, then for simple closure.

I feel very strongly for her, and I cannot fully explain why, but it is there. My soul burns for her, and I long to comfort her sorrows and pains so that she may be at peace with the world around her. If I can prove to her that I am worthy of her attentions, this trip will be worth all the effort, all the risk...and the suffering this past year will have finally been for something good.

If she is truly lost to me, I fear my heart will shatter for true this time. I know I cannot take this. I have made such dire statements before, I admit...but this time I can feel it. My heart is on the verge of collapse, and I cannot seem to sleep for the thoughts running through my head. Thoughts of what I must do to get to her, what I must say to her, whether I should hurt this Dustin, how to get her to turn away from him, if it's even possible to accomplish my greatest hope...it's a never-ending stream of plotting and planning and predicting.

Believe me, when I say, though I have cared for other girls, there is something about this one that makes my blood burn and my soul itself cry out. It is only when you have lost that which keeps you together, that you truly realize how important it is. My eyes are fully open, and I see now, if I never saw before. And I see that this girl, this LJ, is my very lifeblood, my very drive for existence. My very purpose in pushing myself onward to a better life.

I am afraid, without her love and support, I may fall into so deep a darkness as to never crawl out, no matter how many people try to drag me back into the light.

It has been said that there comes a time a person must risk his life, nay, his very soul, for something he truly believes in.

If I believe in anything, I believe in my love of her...and I want nothing more than to give her this love to the end of my life, however soon or far that may be.

Judge me as you will, it matters little to me. It is only the judgment of this one soul, this one girl, that means anything to me. And it will make me...or it will break me.

le gasp!

2008-11-16T20:41:00.003-06:00

For those of you who actually read books, the way I do, and love George R. R. Martin's work...

click here

Yes. Let your jaw drop.

Friendships Lost

2008-11-16T20:34:00.002-06:00

Stumbled across this poem at work that, after reading through it only once, truly expresses the way I'm feeling right now. I was originally thinking I could try writing a new poem for the first time in...well, forever, as far as I can tell. But I couldn't write it any better than this.

link

Friendships Lost (Scars That Can Never Heal) © 1996 Bronwyn P

I see your smile
I know your mind
No words need be said
I understand.

Focused on each other
We listen and we care
Laughter ripples like water
Together, we are.

Others are here, yes,
And we value them, yes,
But a special bond remains,
A line between us two.

Each friendship is special
Each is unique
And so is ours
We know.

And then time begins to roll
and rear it’s ugly head
Change begins
Now a little less than before.

Slowly, surely,
Not knowing why
Faster, stronger, without care
Our world shifts and shimmers and splits.

Shattered shards cascade down
Spurred by angry, lashing words
Contorted faces, stone deaf ears
Outside the whirlwind,
We die inside.

The scars run deep
Jagged clefts in our souls
We have suceeded in hurting
And hurt ourselves.

So you move on
And I remain
We keep on living
Turn our faces apart.

Now I glance across
At you from outside
Shaded eyes dry with tears
New friends, new life.

Laughter, smiling (clenched teeth)
The flippant toss of the head
The enclosure surrounds you
I cannot come near.

From behind my glass window
I know more than those within
I see the hurt in your eyes
I know the pain in your smile
I have been there before - I love you
Why do you pretend?

I hate to see your pain
And I cry inside
Tears deep within my soul
I cannot help you anymore.

What we had once
We can never have again.

The scars run deep,
But I still care.

You were my friend.

Full Circle

2008-11-15T06:54:00.003-06:00

And so I come full circle, in the world of MMOs, right back to WoW. It was totally spontaneous, but it seems I'll be playing World of Warcraft again, now that the expansion is out. May as well get to 80 and see what's changed, eh? I got nothing better to do. I might just quit again after reaching level 80 anyways.

But logging back in again, for the first serious attempt at playing the game in weeks, brings up a lot of old feelings to the surface, and breaks open old wounds as though they're still fresh.
Seeing my guild mostly deserted is not surprising. I expected it, and welcome it. It failed even before I stopped playing. It's part of the reason I stopped playing to begin with. Either the people in WoW are all total idiots who don't deserve my patience, or I just don't know how to run a guild. It's probably the latter. It feels like I'm missing some important quality that guild leaders possess. All I know is that I could never get people online when I needed them to be online, and I could never recruit the people I needed to recruit. As much as I may envision dreams of glorious raiding with a guild at my back, I must give up on that dream and disband the old Hordecore Pwnstars.
It was never really my guild anyways. It was always Leslie's guild. Perhaps that's why it failed. But more than that, it was my first fun guild, where I had real friends to play with. I still miss those days, because I had genuine friends in the guild that I could talk to. If I gained a level, announcing it in guild chat but congratulatory cries. If I needed help in an instance, or some sort of advice, or just to talk, I could find somebody, assuming I was online at a normal hour. That's what made WoW fun for me in the early days.
God do I miss those days...it's amazing where Internet drama can take you. Leslie has a new guild now, at least, so I feel less regret in disbanding this one. Her new guild even has a name that's not stupid.

But just being reminded of Leslie's existence makes me feel miserable. It brings up the old feelings and the old memories, of things that happened in the past 14 months. Not a very large amount of time, but a lot certainly happened, and a lot changed.
I both remember when she and I were close, and remember the old feelings of betrayal. It creates a very confusing mix of depression and hatred within me that I just don't know how to deal with. One thing's for sure: I still can't bring myself to try befriending her again. The wounds still feel fresh to me.

I may go so far as to transfer to another server. Is that the smart thing to do, or does it mean I'm running away from my pain? Is it wrong to run from it, or should I confront it? Am I truly in error in the end, and should I just forgive and forget? I doubt I could do that. Just being reminded of Snorri, and I get reminded just by being reminded that Leslie exists, makes me feel this miserable. It doesn't make sense to feel this way, but I do, and I can't change it.
I've been on this server so long, it feels like home. I wonder if the misery caused by Leslie and her boyfriend is enough to run me out of my home.
But then, is it really even home? Tristan is my only real friend on the server anymore. Hakuro and I are still friendly, if not friends. He and I were never big on socializing though, and I doubt he'd miss me much. I have no guild worth mentioning. And I doubt I could find a guild I would truly enjoy being in. The one guild that would work for me, if it weren't for the guild leader and her boyfriend, is not one I'll ever consider. I'm even going to make it a point of contention to never play with any member of that guild, with the exception of Tristan. I can trust her, at least.

It seems even after all these months, I can't get over what happened. It's probably the case that I still care about Leslie, somewhere...somehow. Otherwise, why would it bother me to know she got the collector's edition of the expac right away? Why would it bother me to know that she's leveling in Northrend with her boyfriend at her side? Why would it bother me to know that he still logs onto her account to do the things she doesn't want to do? Why would my mind be buzzing to know if she actually did go to Blizzcon or not?
If I do still care, it's being thoroughly covered up by the pain of my sorrow and hatred. I don't know what that means anymore, but it's certainly frustrating. I was hoping that I could be as passionless as metal when faced with Leslie leveling through the same zones as me. False hopes, of course. It seems like I won't ever move on from this. Maybe there's a way, but I do not think there's a way that I'd be willing to try.
Why am I so disappointed to find them still together? The 30th of this month will be their 7th month anniversary. Why does that bother me? Why do I bother to remember the date at all? More false hopes. I must be an expert at hurting my own soul.

Sigh.

I know news involving WoW is dull and boring to most of you people who ever bother to read about boring old me, so...well, there's not much more news beyond that I guess. My life is pretty uneventful, you see. I suppose I can ramble on about *something* though.

I have been trying for the past week or so to arrange for LJ to visit me for Thanksgiving, but it seems it's just not going to be able to happen. Not for lack of LJ wanting to come down, but it seems her mother still has some amount of control on her life and her decisions. A real shame, cause her mother is rather demented. At least I spend less money this way, but that doesn't make me feel any better.
The main reason I was hoping to bring her down is the concert on the 26th. I mean, seriously, who could pass up Staind, Seether, and Papa Roach all on one stage? Since I've never been to a concert, this seems as good a time as any to experience my first one. And may many more come after that.

It doesn't help that LJ may be slipping through my fingers. For once, it seems she's showing interest in other guys. Only a little interest, and probably a bit my fault since we haven't been getting along exactly perfect. But she has still admitted it. Just more salt in the old wounds of my mistake in leaving her for Leslie to begin with. Ironic, ain't it? That after I finally get hurt by Leslie, and limp back to LJ like a dog with a broken leg, that LJ does what I'd been trying to get her to do since I met Leslie. The fates really are cruel to me, it seems. My romantic life must be the butt of a cruel joke. But all I can do in the face of this is hope and pray that I don't lose LJ that way. I don't think what's left of my shattered soul could really take it.
I certainly would prefer to stay with her. After all we've been through...if we really can survive this mistake I made involving Leslie, then we can surely get our relationship through anything. Right?
Maybe I'm worrying for nothing. After all, she's confused, and she's struggling with life as much as I am. I'm sure there's nothing to worry about...besides, trust is important in a relationship. As is communication.

Other than that bothersome drama...yes, my romantic life is very melodramatic it seems, and somehow it all mostly happens long distance. Fate really is that cruel to me. Or maybe I'm just cruel to myself!
Other than all that drama, the rest of my life is sluggishly moving forward. I'm working at my job, probably one of their best employees, and still no promotions. I *would* be considering going out to get a used car with the money I've made so far, perhaps having enough to pay off half of it now and the rest over time. But I have a $1152 debt to pay off to Longhorn Landing, so my car-purchasing plans must be pushed back a bit. Not sure when I'll get the guts to go through with it again. Maybe I should do the smart thing and start up another job search, hoping to find a place with better pay.
And who knows when I'll actually get my own place to live! There's no way I can afford an apartment on my own, with this meager wage. I'm still largely counting on getting LJ to move in with me to be able to get a place outside of my parent's home. But with how her mother reacted to the idea of a Thanksgiving week visit, I'm not sure how soon that will be possible. Not to mention LJ's own inner doubts and fears, which are very strong factors in most of her decisions.

All I can do is keep pushing forward, keep trying. I refuse to take college classes again until I have my own place to live. I don't want my parents breathing down my neck anymore, because it's become very stifling. I realized way too late it was a mistake to leave Austin and my job up there. I should've just set down like a soldier and pushed myself forward when I was up there. I had a cheap apartment, after all, and the job paid well. If I'd opened my eyes, I would've seen that I was even enjoying the job. My only problem was my inability to acquire a driver's license. And I should've been able to deal with that.
I guess I just felt too defeated after everything that happened with Leslie. Far too defeated to think straight, or even care. And matters only got worse in the months after leaving Austin.

Too late now. I need to stop thinking about the past and move forward. Otherwise I may get too depressed to even stand still. If I remember how hurt I'm really feeling inside, I'll lose the courage I need to keep moving forward. Giving up will just seem too wonderful of a way out.

But I really can't ignore the past, when it keeps rearing it's ugly head at me again and again in the present...what's a Scorpio to do?

It's a shame, really...I know that anybody who happens to read this will look at it and think me incredibly stupid. And think that they know what I should do.
Well...let me remind you that it's not easy to do what you should do, because it is rarely what you want to do. It is never easy to do what you should do. I've run into that problem so many times since graduating high school...
I can only hope that one day, someday in the future, I can find the happiness that makes all this misery worth the trouble. The universe is supposed to be balance...it's the main driving force in the universe. Or so that's what I've been believing. I have to keep believing that...

I think I'll stop here for now. Not much more to say that isn't repetitive ramblings of my brain. Peace out.

Space and beyond

2008-11-09T06:32:00.002-06:00

I was thinking, rather uncharacteristically I should add, about worldly problems this morning, while going about my morning routine. I found myself thinking about oil and gasoline and how it's a non-renewable fuel source. I had a sudden realization about it, that I also realize few people seem to think or worry about.

Most people, when they think about gas being non-renewable, think about how it means we one day cannot rely on gas to fuel our cars. But the problem is a bit larger than that. One day, we cannot rely on gas to fuel our airplanes or space shuttles. It's obvious nobody is working on that problem, because nobody has been spouting news stories about research airplane fuel technologies. Well, maybe one or two involving algae, but nothing that anybody really paid attention to.

Not only will we not be able to drive to work tomorrow, or deliver grocery stock to stores via 18-wheelers, but we won't be able to fly from Chicago to Japan, or even to California or anywhere. You people who have used gas-powered generators before, for those major power outages? Those will be gone, because there won't be any gas.

And then think about the space shuttle. I haven't done my research on this, but I'm pretty sure they measure their fuel by weight, or possibly mass, rather than in gallons. Because they need a lot of gas just to get into orbit. And let the thinking continue, off to Mars. Not only would it take a lot of gas to get humans there, but it would take a lot to get back as well. Think about it: what if we try to colonize other worlds and discover there's no oil? No way to make gas at all? Wouldn't we end up being stranded? It's probably why nobody has bothered to try a moon base, or to send a human expedition to Mars: fuel.

It's certainly a big problem that I think we need to pay more attention to. People are worried about saving endangered wildlife and deforesting and stuff. But the bigger problem is gasoline. It would also probably prove beneficial to those problems as well, if we could replace gasoline, since we would no longer need to drill for oil, (that's the idea at least).
Forget all this talk of hybrids. Coming up with hybrids only prolongs the problem. People need to do some real work on coming up with cars that need no gas whatsoever, and the sooner the better.

The sooner we do that, the sooner we can stop funding terrorists by buying their oil.

Anyways, time for me to go to work, so maybe I'll talk about more personal stuff later. Peace.

Thanksgiving Week

2008-11-01T03:36:00.002-05:00

So I'm actually very much looking forward to Thanksgiving this year. Not necessarily cause of the holiday, but two entirely different reasons.

Firstly, the day before it, there's a concert in town. Staind, Papa Roach, and Seether, three of my favorite bands right now, will all be playing, plus a fourth I've never heard of. If they're playing on the same stage as those three, they can't be all that bad either. Sad to say I'm so socially inept, but I've never been to a concert before, and I'd prefer to enjoy the experience at least once, especially with such an awesome collection of rock music talent in one place on the same night!

Secondly, I'm desperately hoping that everything comes together for LJ to come down for a visit that week. Maybe longer than a week, if I have my way. Not only would we be able to go to the concert together, but she'd finally get to meet Liz and her family. Those two are so creepily alike, the only way I'll be able to tell them apart is that they're in differently aged bodies. They're like long-lost twins, except Liz was born blonde.
Just from their similarities I know they'll be great friends. And LJ can goth Liz up for fun. I bet they'd even look alike, if they went and died their hair the same color. THAT would be an amusing Halloween costume. "Twin" goths. Creepy, yet attractive.

That is pretty much it as far as what I'm looking forward to for Thanksgiving. The biggest events at least. With LJ down here, I can have a lot more minor activities to do with her while she visits. Some of which...probably aren't a good idea to mention, since SOME of the people who read about my pitiful life are under legal age of consent. Not that I'm saying such things will happen, I just know LJ well enough to guess some things.

The trick is, of course, finances...and getting my parents to go along with it. In the end, I have the option of asking Liz and Eileen to put LJ up for the visit. Don't worry, I haven't had this idea without asking them about it first! She says she'd be happy to do that if we needed to, but I would honestly prefer not to have to rely on another person's hospitality. I already have to put up with my parent's, and I'm sick of other people's hospitality and charity.
It's not that I don't love getting help from other people who genuinely care enough to give it. I just feel so shitty about it, and I feel like I'm incapable of caring for myself at this point. I have a sense of pride ya know!

Anyways, not much else to say. I've been working, sleeping, playing City of Heroes, spending time with what few friends I have, going to bible fellowship...
Oh, not sure I've mentioned that much in the past, have I? I've been going to the bible fellowships with Liz' family. Surprising I suppose, but even if I don't exactly join their religion, or follow their beliefs completely, looking into other spiritual beliefs really helps one think about things. And also to understand people better. So, we'll see what we'll see.

Oh, I have bee driving the F-350 all week. That godawful truck scares the crap out of me, but at least I'll be running over other people instead of vice versa. I seem to be handling the vehicle surprisingly well though. Maybe all that time driving the Prius improved my driving ability. I would like to think so. Regardless, the sooner I get my own normal-sized car to drive, the sooner I save my own sanity. And the sooner I can avoid a genocidal rampage on my immediate family. Don't doubt my words!

Unfortunately, Longhorn Landing has finally caught up with me and is demanding I pay my debt to them. Bad timing, old chap, but I suppose it can't be helped. I owe them $1152. I won't have that amount until next Friday. Now I have to consider my options. I want to buy LJ a plane ticket, and I want to buy concert tickets. It's been suggested that I write a letter to these people saying I don't have all the money now, but I can pay half of it, or something like that. It's either that, or I have to put up with the possibility of not being able to see LJ until Christmas. Not that I loathe the idea of her visiting then either, but I would just about kill to go to this concert, and both she and Liz have just been gushing with emotion about going to a concert to see these awesome bands. So I'm hoping and praying and hoping some more. Even a broken man can have dreams, right?

Regardless, I'm tired, and my mind is reeling with the idea of bringing LJ down to Texas for a holiday visit. Who knows, maybe I could convince her mother to come down too? I doubt that's a good idea, but I've considered it. Maybe her mother needs companionship and a new city as well. And parents meeting each other, while a dreadful thought, isn't something that's *never* going to happen...so...sooner rather than later, aye?

Time for sleep. Peace out.

I feel all heroic!

2008-10-20T16:48:00.004-05:00

Okay, so I decided to go ahead and renew my City of Heroes/Villains subscription and try playing that for a while again. I still have Guild Wars as an option on days I don't feel up to heroism OR villainy (which I imagine I'll switch between quite often, since i seem to be so bipolar). Fortunately Guild Wars has no subscription, thus why I was so quick to choose to play it. Even if I end up not playing it in favor of some other game, I can always go back to it without worrying about a subscription.

So, off I go to throw lightning at evil villains. Or possibly to stomp on some heroes, we'll see. All with my trust female sidekick. Or minion. I think villains have minions rather than sidekicks, right?

Peace out.

...meh

2008-10-18T08:33:00.007-05:00

Well, I've been insanely bored lately. I know, I know, big surprise. Plus I'm sure you're also thinking "Hey, he hasn't posted in a month, and that's all he has to say? He's bored?"

Not much has really been going on though. I've mostly been going to work, then doing random stuff at home. I think part of my lack of posting is also due to the fact that I haven't played World of Warcraft for nearly a month now.

I know, I know, big shock. "Quit WoW?!" Well, I've just been kind of disenchanted with it lately. It's fun and all, at times, but there's a lot of problems with it for me. I spend too much time looking for a group to do something and not enough time playing the game. You can only do so many Battlgrounds on your own before you get bored.
What does it for me, in WoW, is the raiding. I seriously love to raid and take on those raid instances with a large group of players all working together.
It's the together part that's hard though. It seems as though there is a lack of interest in serious raiding.

This was before the expansion Wrath of the Lich King was announced for November 13th, I might add. Once it was announced, interest in the game seemed to die for everything. It's like everybody important decided to go into stasis until it was released.

Which, admittedly, makes sense. By now the Burning Crusade has been out over a year. People have seen basically all there is to see of it. They're sick of it, and they want something new.
Especially those of us who recognize how horrible the class balance is in player vs player combat. The game is remarkably well balanced when it comes to player vs environment. That's why raiding is so fun, because of the effort of bringing a group of players together to work through these challenges the developers have placed for us. And because everybody has something important to contribute that helps the whole group move forward. In PvP, it's more of an "every man for himself" mentality, and the classes that can't keep up (such as non-disc priests and non-healer shaman) just fall behind and suck majorly.

Unfortunately, most people just want to get gear, and as easily/quickly as possible. Nobody cares about playing the game, that's apparently not the fun part. Apparently getting stuff is the fun part for them.
Ya know, I like stuff as much as the next guy, but what's the point in having all that gear and all those items? You use it to play the freaking game. I most enjoyed the game when I was still undergeared and the game was hard for me. Before I got into serious raiding, I was doing Battlegrounds to get the (now obsolete) Season 1 PvP gear. I have lost all but one piece of that gear since I got it, replaced by Season 2 pieces and one Season 4 piece. When I was raiding with Nonlinear Dynamics, the first time I was raiding, it was all new material to me. Most people were probably there for the gear, but I was there to enjoy the instance. And just going through the content and struggling to beat it was fun for me. (Believe it or not, first time against Shade, I MOVED IN THE FIRE. WoW-junkies will know what I mean, and I am ashamed at this. Hey, I didn't have DBM at that point, so I have an excuse!)

I still enjoy raiding Karazhan, but you really gotta have a fun group in order to enjoy it. You can't have people acting like total jerks, and you can't have people goofing around and intentionally wiping the raid. I'm at the point where, at least as a DPS class, I could run through Karazhan blindfolded, without the benefit of Ventrilo. Tanking it is a little more involved (and for me difficult, because being an undergeared tank is apparently some sort of unforgivable sin), but take me through on Matuk, I'll get ya through to Prince. I know that place like the back of my hand. I'm about as good with Zul'Aman, but lately when people tried to take me I was busy with other things.

So, here I am in WoW, not exactly amazingly geared, but my skill combined with the gear I do have makes me an Enhancement Shaman that can impress. More than once people have complimented me on my ability to deal the damage, and I am quit proud with what I have accomplished in the game.
But I've hit some sort of brick wall in progress ever since Epic Liberation Front stopped raiding. We were so close to Archimonde attempts, but then the raid leader just gave up, cause he was sick of having problems finding good tanks.

Since then I've been attempting to build up my old guild Hordecore Pwnstars into at least a low-level raiding guild, doing Karazhan every week. Rather, I should say I was doing that until I stopped playing. But nobody was coming together to try and make it work. It was like me and two or three other people from the guild who actually put forth the effort, and we had to add random non-guildies to get a raid group going.
It certainly wasn't for lack of people, we had plenty of people in the guild who could raid, and I'm not talking about the lowbies. I set up a web site, Hakuro set up a Ventrilo server for us (which I organized rather beautifully if I don't say so myself), I scheduled days to go raid and made sure to let people know when I want to raid. I very much encouraged people joining the forums so that we could share information, especially times that people were available to raid. I worked hard on gearing up Moonspirit, because I wanted to tank my guild through Karazhan. I did manage to get to the point where I could main-tank Kara, and I just needed to get every pull down pat. Pulling successfully in any instance is something of an art, and I still hadn't perfected it when I stopped playing. As far as I could tell, and nobody was telling me any different, except for the people who hate my guts, I was doing everything I needed to do in order to have a successful raiding guild. All the pieces were in place.
But most people wouldn't show up for a raid. Almost nobody signed up on the web site. Half the time, when a level 70 player joined the guild, he would quit a couple days later because he didn't see us doing anything. Some officers/recruiters (won't give any names) were still recruiting lowbies to the guild, even though I wanted to get nobody below level 65. (I understand that some people in the game are amazing enough to level their character to 70 super quick and get into raiding to support the guild, but most people aren't like that and in fact suck major ass). I would get people saying they would show up, and sound all enthusiastic about raiding, but then they wouldn't even be online. I was passing up bear runs through Zul'Aman, with Lustrius I might add, in order to get these raids together. Now I feel like that was a mistake.
Frankly, I grew disappointed with the WoW community. And now I just don't know what to do.

I want to do amazing things with a guild, and lead it on to raid instances and massive PvP efforts, but it's impossible if I'm the only one trying to make it happen. If everybody else is just along for the ride and expects me to do all the work, my efforts are going to fail. Raids and PvP premades are group efforts...and unfortunately, the WoW players tend to care only about themselves and how they can get gear with the least effort. Self-centered bastards, each and every one, and I have some personal experience with a certain WoW player who's the epitome of self-centered.

So I kinda just stopped logging in without saying anything. The only regret I have is abandoning my good friend Demina, but I have no other real friends in there. Acquaintances maybe, but not friends. And certainly plenty of enemies. Maybe I'll try playing again after the expansion comes out, but I'm going to give that a month or two first. Blizzard is notorious for very buggy launches. Plus, I don't want to deal with being killed by hundreds of Alliance players. Enhancement shaman are going to be slightly weak until they get new gear cause of some major changes to how their stats work, leading to less attack power from Strength.

Admittedly, I've been annoyed with PvP in WoW ever since I first tried it. I'm a Shaman. Cynicism and bitterness comes with the class. Because Shaman, with the exception of Priests, are the weakest class in PvP. Especially the spec I happened to pick as my favorite, which is Enhancement. The game is simply not balanced for PvP, and I've ranted about this more than once.
Admittedly, Blizzard is attempting to take steps to fix that, but they have no idea what they're doing.

Ironically, the game I've been thinking about switching to is Warhammer Online, which was released September 18th. I've heard a lot of good things about it, mostly in reference to it's Realm vs Realm style of PvP and Public Quests. Most people say it plays like WoW when you first start out, but then you start to notice the differences. What I have heard has very much impressed me, and I just might very well start playing it by Christmas time.

With the WoW expac coming out in less than a month, I feel kinda bad about letting WoW go, because I look forward majorly to the changes of the game, but I've just been too jaded lately. The game may change, but the people probably won't. If I do go back to playing WoW, it won't be until 2009 at the earliest.
For now, I went and bought Guild Wars, because it doesn't have any subscription fee, which means it's a cheap way to feed my gaming addiction until I can garner the guts to go after the bigger fish of Warhammer Online.

Okay, so I've pretty much just been rambling on about WoW as my thoughts come out. I feel kinda bad now, because I know a lot of you don't play WoW and never plan to, and thus have almost no clue what I'm talking about.

Well, hmm...I could mention that my brother totaled the Intrepid. He's not hurt, but the car is gone. Of course, two days later my dad went and bought a used car for him, with the intention of my brother paying him back. I swear, I never get that kind of treatment. Of course, I'm just the son that dropped out of college to them. Never mind that I'm making progress to undo that and get back where I should be.

For now my plan is to save up enough money to at least start paying for my own used car so I can stop relying on my family's vehicles. Admittedly, I've thought about going down to the bank and trying to grab a car loan, cause I probably have enough for a down payment already. But I really don't want to rush things, especially any big financial decision. Rushing is what got me into this mess to begin with. Now if only my parents could stop rushing me.

Once I have a car I should be able to get my own apartment, since I'll be able to drive myself around town without relying on anybody's charity. The problem with that is I'd be paying insurance, gas, rent, and food at that point. Plus I'll need to start paying back some of my old loans in February. I haven't taken the time to calculate all that, because I have no idea how much insurance or gas will cost until I get the car. Rent will be $600-700 a month, which is probably more than half my paycheck at this point, so I'm obviously going to need some help with my expenses.
This means I'll need to find some sort of housemate to share my apartment with, which will probably end up being LJ. I don't really know anybody else in town well enough to trust them as a housemate. It needs to be somebody I can get along with after all. And at the very least I can trust her to pull her own weight, cause she has too much pride to live off me. Not to mention the fact that I look forward to being able to spend the night with her!

I could probably type up more things, more plans and thoughts and all that junk, but I'm at the point where I feel like I'm rambling about stuff randomly. Trust me, I have more ideas in my head I could ramble about, but I think I've stretched this blog post to it's limit. Maybe I'll share more later.

Peace out.

P.S. Once I get my own apartment, I am totally shooting for this: clicky

Was bored at work today

2008-09-19T16:59:00.004-05:00

Work is kinda boring right now. I'm hoping this will change before long, so that I'm at least not being paid to sit in a computer chair and literally do nothing. I'm not joking, we are literally doing nothing at work right now. And I've been there only a week.

Anyways, I spent the day browsing the internet. For a few hours I was reading the news. Something I only do when extremely bored. I really don't give two shits about news in the world, after all.

Anyways...I could go on to describe the things I read about...or I could just link you to the articles in my typical lazy-man style and be done with the matter.

I read several news articles, from hybrid cars that car companies are developing, to stuff about the upcoming election...but I mostly stuck to the tech & science articles. The following two, and some of their related articles, caught my interest in particular:

Internet’s assault on teen America continues!

Don't blame Miss Bimbo!

It seems the parents of the modern generation have a habit of not taking proper responsibility for their children, or for admitting when they've fucked up in the rearing of their children. Struggling with the concept of making a mistake, they turn to the easiest scapegoat of all: the Internet.

Back in the day, parents blamed television. Now all those kids, who were corrupted by the evil electric box, are parents themselves. The "television" these days actually comes in two flavors! Internet, and video game. The particular flavor involved in this blog is Internet.

Yes. It's the Internet's fault. Just like it's the TV's fault they're all bad parents, right?

Yeah, that's all I got for now. I vaguely fancied the idea of ranting about Dungeons and Dragons, namely about 3E v 4E and how people are really stubborn, but...I figure most of you people who would read my blog, wouldn't really care much for tabletop RPG.
I'll give you a hint though: I like 4th edition.

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood

2008-09-14T23:40:00.004-05:00

Well, I suppose I may as well post some things, and try to push back the memories of depression. Though they ever haunt me, it shames me to see how far the depression can sometimes take me, and it's not something I want to be known for.

However, I will say this. To those of you who see that I am so stricken with inner turmoil and troubled brooding, or are told that this is going on by those more perceptive at least... I often feel as though my heart is torn in twain. When you read those tales of high fantasy, where the hero must be given the choice between something wrong (but with gain) and something right, they make it out to be a tough choice.
I, however, look at such choices with envy, for those are the easy ones. When you choose between something obviously wrong and obviously right, no matter what you would gain from either choice, the choice should be fairly obvious, whether you wish to take the right path or the wrong.
Furthermore, I am no hero. Just an ordinary, boring young man, who seems to have made many poor life choices. Hence why I am hesitant to make yet more choices that would alter my life too drastically.

Such choices are never the ones you must make in the real world however. Often you must choose between two, sometimes even more, paths that are both right and both wrong, for very different reasons down each path. What do you do, when you are presented with two choices, both rife with hardship but both ending in a path of contented happiness, at least as far as humanity's limited ability to foresee the future can reveal?
You deliberate. Some more than others. And eventually choose one path. But you will always wonder what the other path held, and will always regret not knowing. Not that you regret choosing the path you did. But truly, in life, you regret the things you did not do. Such is the curse of all humanity.

Suffice to say, though the paths change with time and strife, they are still presented to me as clear as ever before. The people involved, though pain has been caused on all sides, (except for this one newly revealed path that has yet to stand the test of time and thus no chance to cause true pain), still hold a place in my heart. I want to add "some more than others" but I no longer trust myself to make such a judgment. My heart is hiding feelings even from myself. Or perhaps there is no difference in feeling and am merely hoping to fool myself, though I cannot explain feelings for any of the people involved.
Such are the workings of the heart. Those we hold close, we not why we do so. We just do. Because it feels right.

Many people give me sound and wise advice on the choices I "must" make, or the choice that is the right choice to make. However, even amongst this advice, there is no strong pull down one particular path. Perhaps it is merely that everybody is lacking one perspective or another, for none know the full story in truth. Even I do not know the full story in truth, but I am in a position lately where I feel as though I know more than the others involved. Perhaps I am just talented in getting information from people, when the need arises. High charisma? I wish.

I don't wish to be told which choice to make either, for is it really my choice then? No matter what happens, this is a choice I must decide before too long...or else certain paths will erase themselves altogether and the choice will have been made for me, due to inaction and deliberation. I could choose the easy path, the one most natural, and simply be satisfied with that.

I will never truly be satisfied, however, at having never taken risks and never chosen the tougher road, or the longer road. When I play video games, where there are multiple paths to reach the same end, I often backtrack and go through the other paths, clearing the entire area, before I continue as I should. You cannot do that in life. You cannot turn around on the path of life and "try out" one aspect of your life beforehand. Just has life has no reset button, you are not able to explore the landscape that is presented to you as your life journey.

But enough of this babble. You do not wish to hear the pining of a damaged heart yet to choose its' path.

To events of true import, I have acquired a job. "Finally!" I'm sure you're thinking, if not actually saying aloud. Yes, I see you there.
To put it bluntly, I am now a "text agent" working for a company called kgb. They used to be INFONXX. In Europe, they are simply known as 118.

As far as I have been able to make out in the past week, they are a company that answers questions. Any question. Call them up and ask them for information, and they must answer. Of course, there are things they cannot or will not answer. They must maintain a professional business demeanor.

It seems they are currently trying to launch a text version of this, where you simply text in the question to their service and you get a response. It need not necessarily be a question, but simply a request for information, such as movie times or when a train runs, or even a dictionary definition.

I find that this particular position suits me well, not just because of my previous position working for Blizzard up in Austin, but also because there is no real conversation with these people. If you reply to the answer you receive with a second question, it is sent to a completely different, completely random person. This is even less face-to-face than I was getting at Blizzard!

Okay, truly, I miss working for Blizzard and the work I did there. While I hate phone conversations and I hate discussing serious matters in general, doing it through a text conversation is something I've become quite natural at. Working at Blizzard only honed such talents.

This shall have to do for now, and perhaps I can see what possibilities arise further down the road. For now I will settle for making $7.25 an hour at this simple job, which is rather unrefined still as it is a new product for them. My primary goal is to acquire my own housing, my own apartment, though I would not mind sharing it with one or two close people I am comfortable with.

There are other goals I have in mind beyond that, things I wish to attempt which may prove impossible due to mistakes I have made in the past year or past three years, but I will not know how impossible they are until I make the attempt.

I shall not bore you with the details. I have rambled on enough, and I'm sure your curiosity is sated. Peace.

And randomly, I shall include a poem which fits well with the thoughts currently tumbling about in my mind:

Robert Frost: The Road Not Taken (1915)
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth.

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same.

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Sigh

2008-09-04T12:48:00.002-05:00

You know, I give up on this. I was going to add to this blog because it feels incomplete, but I don't know what to add, and I'm not sure if there is anything to add anyways. I just hated the idea of posting something so completely depressing and emo that I wanted to balance it out a little bit. But, I can't seem to get myself to add to this, and it's kinda long anyways. I'll just put this up as the rambling thoughts I was experiencing one night.

It wasn't last weekend, but the weekend before last, on Sunday night. I was sitting on a friend's couch, after midnight, and couldn't get to sleep because I couldn't stop thinking. I was thinking about certain people, and what they've done...and what I wish had happened. Things like that.

Don't worry too much about what's written here, I'm mostly over it. I am still depressed most of the time, about the stupidest things, but not this bad. This is just something I ended up typing out when I was in one of my worst moments.

__________________________________________________________________

I suppose many people have come to realize that I am typically a very depressed person. To the annoyance of many people, I am well aware. I was once good at keeping that hidden within...I think. But I guess I just can't pull that off anymore. Certain people have taken notice of it...people who typically don't notice such things.

It shows, I have been told. Perhaps in the way I carry myself. But these are not the kind of things you tell people...not normally. Yet still, my soul craves to spill out, and I'm wondering if maybe I'm losing myself.

Perhaps I have...and I just haven't figured it out yet.

Don't ask me why I am so depressed. I don't know the reason myself. I ask it of myself each night before going to sleep, and I can never come up with a concrete answer. You may find me late at night, laying back on my bed, or couch, just staring at the ceiling. Wide awake. I don't even know how far back such feelings go. Sometimes I feel like they've always been there.

Maybe there's just something wrong with me.

I don't know what to think of the world around me anymore, either. It all seems so very alien, and I feel like I have no place to call home, to call my own. The only true belonging I have is my laptop, and even then it is just a machine. What joy is there in that? It is a mere escape, some over-the-counter medicine for this hurt in my psyche.

Many people have heard me say how I miss being young. How I would love to be at a simple age of eight, or twelve, or ten, or even younger than that. The world was simple back then, and my mind was focused on what truly matters: having fun each day, as much as possible, in the ways I know how. I look back at the way I was then, and though I think I was such a fool, I was at least happy...

At least I think I was. I have to think I was once happy. I can't remember things very well, but if I do not think such a thing...well, what kind of person spends their whole life in depression? Such weakness is not to survive in this world where the strong climb over the weak in order to achieve their own desires.

Some people are better than that. Some people... but they are few and far between. I guess I just don't trust people very well anymore. I have some good friends... Though sad to say, only a small handful within physical reach. I wonder, perhaps, are they too late to save me from my own depression? Or is there anything even worth saving?

It's a silly thing, to lose all confidence in one self. Yet it happens...

Sometimes I feel like I've forgotten how to feel. Like my heart is numb. That's a weird thing to say though, for obviously I do feel.

When I smile...I have to force it, for the sake of those who would see. I can't seem to feel happy.

I have to tell people I love them, for I know I do...I know it's not gone. But I can't feel it anymore, and it isn't a pleasant feeling. I don't even act as though I do anymore, because my heart doesn't have the feeling with which to act.

Even anger is something beyond my reach these days. I know there are people I hate. I know that certain people should get on my nerves, when acting a certain way. But I don't feel the anger. I can't fake anger very well, though I guess some people don't see the mask.

I have to put on my mask again. I did it once before, but then it was to protect myself. Now it's because I don't want people to know how empty I am inside.

That's the perfect word to describe how I feel...empty. Hollow.

People tell me I'm a great person all the time...I'm not bragging, either, because I don't believe in it. I just know that people tell me all the time that I'm awesome, or that I'm a great person.

I have to stop myself from just staring at these people incredulously and ask “What the hell is wrong with you?”

Confidence in one self...believing in one self...they are both important things for surviving in this world. Then why do I lack it, and yet still live? I always tell people they have to believe in themselves, before they can believe in anything else. Perhaps that is why I don't believe in anything anymore.

I really just feel that empty, that numb. And I don't even know what caused it. I can't remember the last time I was really happy. I mean...really, truly content. I don't think I'm meant to be content.

You know when somebody anesthetizes you for a shot? Or maybe when a dentist numbs up your mouth for, perhaps, a root canal? It's just like that. You know it's still there. You know that you're still whole. But you can't feel it, and the only reminder you have is when you feel it with part of you that is not numb, or see yourself in the mirror. But you can't touch your own soul. You can't see your own soul. So how am I to know that it's still there?

There's other people in my life. Close friends. Friends who, maybe once upon a time, I'd hoped to get closer to. Friends who I no longer talk to, or even see, due to the circumstance of my life. Friends who I talk to almost daily. And I don't feel very close to any of them, however it may seem. I feel distant from the people around me, as though I'm not even here.

I don't even care for my family anymore. I seek to get away from them. The only goal I can visualize in my life is to leave my family and get back to surviving on my own.

And yet I don't want to be alone. That is the one thing for sure, out of all this confusion in my head. I can't stand the idea. I'm a solitary kind of person, and yet I don't want to be alone. Quite the paradox, I'm sure you are thinking, but that's the way of things. I could even claim that I'm afraid of being alone, these days.

But at least if I could get away from my family, survive off my own hard work, then I would have less conflict and less stress in my life. Even if only a small amount.

But then what? Am I just surviving to keep surviving? I don't want to end my life, far from it. I couldn't imagine doing such a thing. But what's the point in living just to keep living?

I've made it this long in life because I've always had some sort of purpose, some far-distant goal in reach, hoping that everything goes right. But I've lost my purpose, and everything went wrong. So what am I supposed to do?

I thought I could live on by living for another, giving my all to make the people I care about happier, make their lives less stressful. It worked for a while, but things continue to fall apart. Things just get worse, no matter what I do. So what am I supposed to live for? What is my purpose supposed to be?

And as much as I try to be unselfish, I still want other people to give their all for me as well. Over time I feel bitter about my so-called “friends” because for all the times I share with them, I still see them being self-centered, asking for more and giving little to nothing in return. It's hard to be selfless when you feel so embittered by the truth.

Perhaps I'm too much of an idealist, to want to have a purpose in life. I read much fiction, of all sorts. And always the characters have a purpose. But what sort of purpose can I have in this world, lacking such wonder and amazing things? There is no adventuring in the way that I crave. There is no magic, nothing to set me above being a normal every day human being. No special power. I'm just human, with my own flesh and bones to apply to the world.

Is that why I feel the way I do? I don't feel special? I can't even begin to fathom if that is the reason.

Everybody is the protagonist of their life...but don't protagonists have goals? Through all their character flaws, and their bumbling, they're supposed to find something good, something worth finding. What have I found? Nothing but pain, heartache, and loneliness. Nothing but failure.

I am still young, this is true. But it seems I am not so determined a person as I had once believed. What is supposed to keep me going? Hope itself? I've lost such a feeling.

It seems I have made friends who pray for me, who care for me, and genuinely wish good things on me. I don't feel I deserve such friends. Is it that these friends are supposed to keep me going?

How can that be the case, if I feel I don't deserve such treatment?

How can I find my hope once more? I've hoped, and hoped, and hoped...from one thing to the next. I've been through many hopes in my life, and I think I've spent all my hope. A man can only be beaten down so much before he loses sight of why he should get up.

I love heroics. Anytime I watch a movie, or play a game, or read a book, where somebody gets all heroic...you might catch me tearing up, as though I just saw the most beautiful thing in the world. I crave such things in life. I want to be the hero. But why can't I hold true to such heroics?

Heroes never give up. Heroes keep on going, against all odds, because they believe in their cause. Because people believe in them. Because if they just give up, they would be nothing.

Thus why I feel like nothing. I feel like the heroic adventurer who has been battling through hordes of undead minions...and now stops in the battle to wonder if there's an end. If the goal is even attainable. One who has forgotten the goal, and now knows only the fighting.

Umm...small update?

2008-08-26T07:43:00.002-05:00

I actually have a rather large blog somewhat written up, but it follows my rambling thoughts of a few nights ago, so it doesn't entirely make sense or all fit together. As such, expect something big and revealing about me coming soon. But for now...

I just felt like I should post something. O_o

I kinda feel distant from reality lately. In several ways. I really don't get why, either. I just know how I feel, not why I feel.

I spent the weekend over at Liz's place in Somerset, so it was good to be away from my family and hang out with people who seem to actually care. It's a weird thing, to feel more comfortable with your friends than your family.
We like to joke about them "adopting" me. Of course I am 21, so that sort of thing couldn't happen, but hey! We have fun with such things. Liz's sister, Emily, already seems to think of me as a brother. At least, I think so, considering how I can't get her to stop hugging me. ><

Then I had a jury summons on Monday and I fortunately didn't get chosen to sit in on a courtroom. Pretty boring day after a rather good weekend. That's life for ya.

Anyways, I have some things to go do today and can't type more, so...I'll see about posting the real blog post later. Peace.

sudden crash into a dusty old room

2008-08-13T07:22:00.006-05:00

Umm...yeah hi, I was hoping to make a more discreet entrance. Guess that really can't be avoided though. I guess this will also be ported to my Facebook, and I'm too lazy to care about that. I guess nobody else would read my blog otherwise.

I'm mostly writing this right now just because I kinda want to get back into the habit of writing in my blog again, perhaps because it helps to get things off my chest that I would otherwise never tell people. But I really don't even know where to begin.

I guess I could play some catch up...

I am no longer living in Austin, or working for Blizzard, in case you were not aware. I realize that the last time I'd posted a blog entry, I'd just started the job. God, thinking back to those first weeks of training...to be perfectly honest, I would kill to go back to that job. But I'm getting ahead of myself, as I typically do.

Around the start of the new year, things were starting to go bad for me. For one, I had started feeling very bitter about my job. I think I hated how useless my life felt, especially since I didn't have a car I could drive. Nor a license, but that's besides the point.
See, not too long after I got the job I moved to Longhorn Landing to the apartment Brett and Keith lived in. And, partially, Scott, since he was often over there anyways. It was interesting getting used to their mannerisms and quirks.

Now, I was still taking the bus to work, but now the bus ride was a 2 hour trip, and that was only one way. I'd later discovered a route that would take only about an hour, but I discovered it a tad bit too late to save the inevitable ending. Once Brett got a job there, (honestly, that caught me by total surprise), we started taking cabs to work so that we could actually afford to sleep at night. Let me tell ya, sleep is a precious commodity in the modern world. I'd never realized how easy I had it in my school years until I got this job. If you're young enough to still be in high school, and you're reading this: enjoy your sleep while you can!

I discovered that cabs were expensive. Who'd have thunk it?! I'm apparently terrible at money and judging just how much an expense eats into my income. These cab rides would cost $50-$60 a day. Most of the time, I was the one paying, because Brett was spending his money elsewhere...I won't say what exactly, as that's his deal, and I only have a small clue as to what anyways. I didn't think to complain, because in my state of...I dunno what to call it other than downright loathing at the state of my life, I didn't really give a shit.
I should also explain that in those months I was, quite literally, living off pizza and mountain burn. I learned that heartburn is fun.
Yeah, at $9/hr, that can really eat into your paycheck, even with overtime. I kinda wish I'd paid more attention to that.

Around near the end of January, I realized the size of my checking account was shrinking, not growing. I was also greatly depressed on a deeply emotional level.

I don't want to get into the details...mostly because I am ashamed by my own weaknesses, and also because it's somewhat annoyingly complicated to get into the full story. The short, rudely simple version is that LJ and I were having some rocky times in our online relationship. Somewhere around September, I'd met another girl online, through the World of Warcraft. (This is a dangerous pattern of mine, online relationships and all. Is that unhealthy, or is it just me?). Her name is Leslie. Maybe some of you more attentive folks on Facebook noticed some of this stuff going on.

Things happened. Lots of things. Things I won't go into. A love triangle is more complicated than outsiders are capable of realizing. Let's just say that all three people involved were hurt in several ways, and many times I took a hard blow. And I still feel a lot of them.

But right around the end of January, everything culminated into a rather big, non-stop depression on my mind. I was unhappy with where I was in life, I felt unsatisfied and injured in the realm of romance, and to top it all off I felt like I had no friends left in the world. I at least had a friend in Brett. Again, something completely unexpected, because he tends to hide his true self from the outside world. At least, he did back then. Maybe he's different now. All I know is I only had one good friend I could rely on. One friend is better than none, but it's still depressing.

After a rather long morning walk all the way from Riverside up to the UT Austin campus, (that is a very long walk to make when you haven't showered or slept yet...) with many things on my mind, talking with Brett about stuff I thought I'd never express to anybody...I came to a decision. Looking back on it now, it was a bad decision. Never make a life-changing decision when you're feeling down in the dumps, people. The only way to make a worse decision is if you're drunk at the same time. (I have no experience in that, so don't get any ideas).

So at the beginning of February, I left Blizzard, and moved back to San Antonio to live with my parents...I'm still there, sadly. I didn't think it would last even a month, but I was wrong. And believe me, they remind me they want me gone on a daily basis. Sometimes even more often.
And by "left Blizzard" I mean I stopped going to work, and they called me up to say that they will consider it as my voluntary resignation. Stupid thing to do. I have a habit of doing stupid things.

I spent probably a week living off whatever food and money I had left, doing nothing but playing WoW...and thinking. Trust me, when you're really depressed, you don't do much else besides think.

And um...not much has happened since I moved here, but I hate it. My pride is thoroughly, and utterly, destroyed. I am, as a Scorpio, a prideful man. It's in my nature. But what have I got to be proud of anymore?
Well, some things have happened, of course. I spent the first month looking for work, desperately hoping to avoid McDonald's. A most futile effort in the end. I ended up going to work at McDonald's about at the start of April. I honestly didn't try to hard to find a different place to work, though I hated working there. I just...I felt like I didn't have the time. I guess I sort of did have the time, but I still didn't have my license. Humiliating, and also restricting.

About near the end of that, I did get my license, so I can finally drive around in the crappy 11-year-old Dodge Intrepid that has radiator problems. Better than nothing I suppose. I did manage to find another place near the end of June to apply to. It was some call center job. I figured it would be similar to my job with Blizzard, so I figured I could handle it...

But I couldn't stand to even finish the initial training. Something about that job just felt completely wrong to me. Some people don't understand instincts and feelings in that sense, but that's basically what it comes right down to. I could've probably stuck it out, suffered with T-mobile tech support for a while, but...something was just screaming at me that it wasn't right. It's hard for me to ignore a gut feeling, no matter how much trouble it will get me in.

To do a little back-tracking, back about April 30th, about a month into working for McDonald's, guess what happened? Leslie got a boyfriend. He's a 6 foot tall blonde-haired, blue-eyed 18 year old (or maybe he's 19, I can't remember...) from Iceland. Oh, his family is also loaded. Yeah, fate loves me. I mean fate really loves me. She couldn't even get the guts to tell me until two weeks into their relationship. In fact, she told me about it the day before something else happened, that I didn't find out about until a couple days later when I pressured her to tell me. I won't say what, as that would be rude. If you can put 2 and 2 together, you can then understand why I've been so depressed for the past three months. I thought I could handle it, wait it out. "Maybe it won't last, maybe something could still happen, maybe I don't have anything to worry about." I was wrong about that. Dead wrong. Three months is about my limit, apparently, because I just can't take it anymore. I don't think I can even stand to have her as a friend, or to even talk to her. I still have feelings. I can't help it. Maybe it's cause I'm a guy, or maybe it's cause I'm a Scorpio, but there will always be some feeling for her inside. But right now I just feel bitter, and hurt. And it really doesn't feel wonderful, when added to the loathing I feel for my family right now.

Yeah, did I mention I don't get along with my father at all since I'm apparently stealing money from him? Sure. He's paying for what bills I have at the moment, and I don't feel wonderful about that. But does he really have to rub it in all the time?

I'm jobless now. I quit that call center job I mentioned two weeks ago this Friday. I don't think I even have $100 to my name right now. I am trying, once again, to desperately avoid McDonald's. Because it would mean cutting my hair again, and I want to grow it back out. It also would mean putting on that stupid freaking hat. I really have a bad luck streak when it comes to finding employment, so my outlook is decidedly grim.

The one bright ray of light in the past year or so has been making a new friend at a book store. I suppose she wouldn't like me giving out her name, so we shall call her Moonshine. I was at Books-A-Million, mainly with the intention of applying for a job there, but I felt like perusing the books at first. I noticed her almost right away. She looked to be about 17 or 18, fairly attractive as well, and her hair was cut short like a guy's, except that her bangs were left about to cheek-length. I want to say it's because of the way she was dressed, but there was something else. Something about this girl felt... familiar, in an inexplicable way. And though I normally avoid people in general, I had the strangest urge to try and talk to her and find ways to meet her again in the future. We did spark up some conversation a bit, and found some kinship in our reading tastes. But I started feeling awkward after a bit, the way we reclusive Scorpio tend to get in social settings.

I ended up leaving the book store without even getting her name, but I did learn how to apply at the store, and bought a book. I did some things, had to save my car from dying in the Texas heat with a fresh bottle of anti-freeze/coolant, and ended up at Taco Bell later. Lo and behold, who did I see sitting at the nearest table after ordering my food? Yes, the cute girl (I did mention she was cute right? O_o) I'd seen at the book store, apparently having finished eating. We just kinda stared at each other at first, with that expression on our faces that just cries "Omg...YOU!"
Creepy I must say. I don't know if fate was choosing to play a cruel trick on me once again, or if she perhaps was showing me some reprieve for once. Alas, I did learn that her age was 14, but I still wanted to be this girl's friend. Mind you, I still have to remind myself every so often of how old she is. It's harder to remember than you would think. And don't worry, I ain't gettin' any ideas...I'm not like that, honest!
We ended up sitting down at Taco Bell, talking about stuff, such as music (we seem to share musical tastes quite a bit), books, and other such things. I'm not quite sure how it happened. I dunno if it was just dumb luck or if I'm actually capable of getting people to trust me, but I ended up with her e-mail address and cell phone number. Her mother, who is actually a very cool person and was naturally accompanying her, also gave me her e-mail.

I will not lie to you: I suck at describing people. I just downright can't do it. You would have to meet Moonshine if you want to know what she's like...but she really reminds me a lot of LJ, back when I first met her. Yes, when LJ was 14. Both girls are Aquarius. I don't normally put much importance on the zodiac, but that's just...both amusing, and creepy. Also very fun.
For her age, she gives off a feeling of being much older both physically and mentally, as though she should be finishing high school rather than starting it. It's disconcerting in many ways, but I think I've learned to deal with it. I should mention that she's home-schoooled...I'm not sure why, but I think that's awesome.
She kidnapped me this past weekend, though we'd really known each other but a week, and I crashed at her place about an hour outside San Antonio. Very new experience for me, I admit. I've crashed at friend's houses before, but not at the house of somebody 7 years younger than me. I was honestly very nervous about what I was getting myself into!
I tend to worry. I get it from both parents. You may even think me to be paranoid. Trust me, it's normal.

But things are cool, and she's an awesome friend, who very much enjoys Dungeons and Dragons. Maybe I'm still a geek somewhere inside, because I've always loved Dungeons and Dragons. I could spend hours reading about it and not get bored. I somehow got myself involved with s D&D group that will now be meeting twice a week...
She also studies karate at a dojo not even ten minutes from my house. I've actually started to get into that as well, but I'm taking it slow. I still feel out-of-place there, after all.

Okay, yes, I spent a lot of text writing about this new friend. But hey, making a friend is important for me! It's not like I know anybody else around town either. For somebody feeling lonely and depressed, making a friend like Moonshine is very...special.

Okay, I should shut up. I'm getting that feeling I get when I talk too much and I'm rambling, so umm...yeah. I think all that information will catch you up from the last post to now. More or less. I could probably go into more details...but that's what comments or for! Not that...anybody comments. Lonely feelings again. :(

I can't make any promises as to the frequency of my blogs, but I will seriously make some sort of effort to post now and then. Once a week is something worth attempting, yes?

...peace out.

Wai hallo thar! LOLwut?

2007-10-17T06:56:00.001-05:00

Everybody please remain calm. I can assure you that I've not fallen off the face of the planet!

Yet.

Okay, but seriously, I'm here, I'm doing all right. Mostly. I've just been painfully busy these last three-ish months.

You all know how I started that new job the last time I posted? Some of you may even remember how I did some back-pedaling and even removed any reference to where I actually work, (shh, sooper secret). Well, that pretty much defines my last three months. I've not done much else, that's for sure!

See, I work from 9am to 6pm, with a non-paid lunch at 1pm. However, I have no means of personal transportation...because I'm a dimwit like that. (That's right, I still don't have my license. A bit hard to get one when you work so much...wish I'd figured that out before I got a job. Even then, I can't exactly afford a vehicle.)
What does this mean? I ride the bus to and from work. In the morning, I wake up at 6 and leave by 7, and I could actually leave as late as 7:20 if necessary, (I'm lucky to have this luxury, I used to need to leave as early as 6:40). With that, I show up about 15-20 minutes before my shift, and even get to stop by Wendy's for breakfast on the way.
I don't get home until 8ish, sometimes even as late as 8:30. It's even worse if I'm held for mandatory overtime (at least I get paid extra for that), though that hasn't happened in a couple of weeks.

Don't get me wrong, I love working where I do, even though I deal with unruly customers so often (I typically get through 50 people a day, if I'm not slow, and my quota is actually supposed to be 80 a day, or 10/hr). It's just the bus ride that pisses me off.

Other than that, I really have been doing much else but sleep and play World of Warcraft. I really don't have enough free time to do anything else, or think about anything else.

Oh, here's something to think about. I'm turning 21 soon. You know, for some of you, that's a big important birthday. "Oh my god you can drink now!"
I honestly don't care. Drinking does not interest me in the slightest, and I don't care what you think about it. It's my choice to make.

Also, I've found out how the whole holiday thing goes at my job. There's the "Big 3" company holidays: Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's Day. I get to take only one of those off. I *might* get more than just that exact day off, but it's not guaranteed. Also, it's not guaranteed I'll get the one I want, though supposedly saying that "I'm traveling to visit my folks in another city" should guarantee both of those things. And right now, I'm thinking what would be nice is to get the whole week for Christmas off (not likely, but I like having high hopes, thank you) and then...I could see if it's possible for Kitiy to come down with me when I visit my folks. I can't help but feel it's only right my parents at least get to meet the girl I want to settle down with...

Well...Kitiy, yeah. She's been having it pretty rough, even though it's really just the same old story as it always is. Doesn't get along at all with her parents, has to deal with a sucky school, always bored cause she has nothing to do, always miserable because she is always incorrectly guessing that people hate her...(that pessimism game is never a good way to do things)
I guess it doesn't help that her Internet access has been very heavily limited by her parents, ever since they basically stole her computer, and now, though she has the computer back, her computer doesn't seem to acknowledge their wireless router. So that leaves the two of us with very few ways to A: communicate and B: do fun stuff together and C: not fight (yeah, seems short tempers are bad for limiting situations).

Though, she did recently get Internet back onto her own computer, so I think she can get on when she wants now. We'll see about how that pans out...
So now she can at least play online games again. In fact, after asking her about it of course, I went and even decided to buy WoW for her, and pay for her subscription for now, (hey, I don't pay for-...nevermind, I shouldn't mention that.). I'm going to do it through the pre-paid game cards though. This way, the account is still officially in her name and she can take over payments if she ever wants to do so.
But honestly, I don't know if that will really be enough for her. She claims to not have ANY friends. Apparently all the guys, and most of the girls, just care about dating her rather than really being her friend, even though they all know about me. Her closest friend moved out to Georgia to live with her own lover and start college, so that's not exactly pleasant.

It's getting more and more bothersome that she's up there in Oklahoma instead of here. We keep talking about her moving down to live with me, but we're pretty much going to have to wait until her last year of high school is done. Hopefully that all works out nicely...because she really needs to get out of Oklahoma. It seems to be a very stressful environment for her.

But... I think I'd rather have her talk about what's going on with her. It's *her* life, and I can't tell it from her perspective...because I don't completely understand why she's so miserable, and there are many things I disagree with her on. I suppose that's because I always try to make do with what I have, rather than letting things get me down (not that I'm never depressed) and she seems to be more interested in finding a reason to be miserable.
If any of you are wondering at all, Lyr Lomn Serion on Facebook (fake name, still...she's stubborn about that I guess...or maybe her parents are) happens to be Kitiy, if you haven't quite deduced that on your own. Not that I'm suggesting you contact her. Even if you really do have serious intentions of being her friend or at least trying to be friendly, she may very well just ignore you. Antisocial people do that ya know. Never hurts to try, I suppose, if you feel like it.

Well, it's late, and I'm still trying to give in to a demanding girlfriend who is never satisfied. So...with that in mind, I'm gonna get back to my weekend. Or rather, what's being called my weekend. I sleep so much on the weekends, and all I do when awake is play WoW...so it's really all just a waste of time.

Though...lately, I've been worried she'll try to push me away again. She's been acting that sort of way too much recently. And, I guess...though none of you would see it, since you don't know her, she's changed a lot. She didn't used to be all depressed and miserable, really. She used to be the opposite.
Well, yeah, she still got depressed a bunch. I mean that she just actively fought that. She did her best to be happy and not let things affect her ability to have fun. Somewhere along the line...she seemed to give up. Sure, she wasn't preppy...but she was kinda...bubbly with joy. The sort that just makes other people around happy, because even if she didn't try...somehow knowing she was smiling and happy would just brighten your day.
And....knowing she lost that about herself just hurts me right here in the chest. Like a constant squeeze, you know. It's really like she's lost who she is.

What could affect one person to the breaking point like that? To just give up?

Body Betrayal

2007-08-07T00:08:00.000-05:00

Well....again, work is going well. Work is going very well, in fact. I think I'm going to like it here.

This week we're actually getting practice at helping customers, though for now we're working in groups. I feel like I'm having to direct the people I'm working with, though, so I'm starting to feel like I might be a natural at this job. We'll have to see, though. I won't go into specifics, because...well, really, I can't at the risk of losing the job. :P

The only trouble I've been having lately is that today I woke up at 7:56am. That's one of those panicked, rushed mornings. Luckily, my ride is cool and she didn't leave without me. She woke up at 7:20 herself, and so she was at my place at 7:30am. I so thought she ditched me, but she's one of those rare good people that wouldn't do that or else feel so very guilty. So I was only mildly late to work as a result, though I skipped a real breakfast, and brushing my teeth, and I took a 5-minute shower. >.<

Let me tell you, it's not easy to have to argue with your mother that you can afford to take their 10-year-old car for yourself. I've got a job now...I'm in training still, but I've got the job. I have my schedule, and I'm going to be making $360 a week. That's about $1400 a month...sometimes 1800, for those months that have 5 paydays instead of four. After rent and food, that leaves plenty of money left over to pay insurance, gas, everything else. After all, the car is over 10 years old and completely paid for. I also still have money left over to pay the interest on those federal loans, because I KNOW my parents want to push that onto me, though I don't understand why they think it's so important.

I'll just have to deal for now, because other than the fact I don't have a personal means of transportation, this job is absolutely perfect for me. And...well, that's a problem because I have horrible sleeping habits. Hence me being awake right now. So...I'll post more later, I suppose.

Pride is Easy to Choke On...

2007-08-02T21:58:00.000-05:00

Not much to say at the moment, really. Work's going well, except that I was over an hour late today because I slept in to 7:40. Hopefully I can get a carpool set up, or possibly manage to threaten Scott into giving me rides, though I'd rather not. >_>;

Especially for when I finally move out later this month, most likely down to Riverside. One hour bus ride is hard enough to deal with, but two? That's going to kill me, seriously. I need a ride or my own car, somehow. If I can't get a carpool set up, I think I'll just have to swallow yet more pride, and throw more money out of my bank account, to get my license and bring the Intrepid up here. Yay, gas and insurance money?
Really, if it's really a hassle, I wouldn't mind paying for gas money, either, or perhaps paying for meals so often a week? I dunno.

Anyways, beyond that...I recently had to swallow my pride and beg my parents for some cash to help with this one last rent check. I dunno how I spent $20k over the course of a year, but I did...And I thus feel retarded. But, for now, I'm glad to have rent covered and to be eating something other than ramen (and drinking something other than tap water). We'll see how things go...

Now if only things could go better with Kitiy, as it seems things are rough between us at the moment. She's really the only reason I can find the motivation to go through with work and school and all...If I lose her somehow...it sounds stupid, and perhaps naive, but really I will lose sight of why I'm bothering to even live. I've never really had suicidal thoughts ever, but if anything were to drive me to it, that would be more than enough. :(
She's just that important to me. *sigh*

Eh...but enough rambling from a lovesick fool...I'm going to bed now and hoping not to sleep in again.
And, I guess...if Kitiy reads this: You're the only one I've found who seems capable of pulling me from my spiraling fate of decay, so...I hope you won't ever give up on this sad excuse of a man.

Agent Drake is On the Job!

2007-07-30T18:37:00.000-05:00

Well, my first day at work was actually exciting, with the exception of the painfully long bus rides to and from work, and the fact that I skipped lunch, for various reasons. I'm definitely going to enjoy this job and I just hope that I can keep this job at least until Spring, if not through the rest of my career...or until I manage to apply to a company I want to work at even more.

However, I would like to make a request of everybody who knows exactly what my job is...I would appreciate it if you don't spread the news, or even mention who I work for. If you have to tell people who I work for, please just say that I work customer support, and if they do ask for a specific company (doubtful, but ya never know), just say that you don't know, or (if you'd prefer not to completely lie) say that I work for Volt. Okay?
I've already edited my blog not to specifically mention these details, as well, and I'm about to do it to my Facebook's imported notes.
I went and signed a non-disclosure agreement on this, and it is okay to tell my family and friends as long as the info doesn't spread out and become public knowledge. As far as you know, I'm a secret agent for the FBI.

That is all.

Old friend(s)

2007-07-29T09:34:00.000-05:00

Tomorrow is when I finally go in for my first day at my new job, assuming my body doesn't betray me and cause me to sleep in. I plan to go to sleep at, say, 9pm just to be positive I can't sleep in too late. I need to be ready to go before 6am, because, I've found that if I leave at 6:30 the bus won't get to the site until 7:56. The bus system irritates me right now.
Seeing as I can't afford to be late, this means I have to leave at 6am, and I'll be getting at the site at 7:17am. I was told they don't open until 7:30, so I hope I can entertain myself for long enough before I go in search of the room I need to be in.
Better to be cautious than sorry, I suppose. I doubt I can get to the room in 4 minutes, let alone find it since I haven't been to the site before. I'd rather be looked at weirdly for being there 45 minutes ahead of time than be fired for not even showing up to my training on time. Though maybe being early earns me theoretical merit points in the mind of my employers, so it can't be a complete loss.

Anyways, job shit aside, I somehow managed to get convinced to be fed by Amber, a friend of mine from back in high school from Academic Decathlon, who was looking for an excuse to cook apparently. I don't even remember how the conversation turned in that direction. I remember it started with her poking me over IM, and eventually she's offering to cook food for me. I think I may have mentioned that I was eating ramen in mid-conversation, but I'm not sure.
She'd thought to invite Matt, but apparently he couldn't come. So Amber and I hung out a bit, talking about things...old friends, new friends, what's happening in our lives...We ended up eating some hamburgers by the way. Much better than ramen, I must say. Then we spent several hours channel-surfing the cable TV and looking through some webcomics together. No wait. We looked through the webcomics before food. I showed her pics of Kitiy and some other nifty things on my laptop.
All I really have to say after that fact is that it's nice to meet up with old friends just for the hell of it. And now back to your regularly-scheduled blogging.

It's sad that I already miss playing WoW, when I only had a 10-day trial. It just goes to show that Blizzard really knows how to make a game perfectly addictive to the point of physical need (seriously). I've tried logging into my old Flyff account to merely pass the time, and it just doesn't fill the void. I was going to dabble in Rappelz, since I already have it installed and have never used it, but I got waylaid by Kitiy's demands before I could even start. Ah well. I think once I get started on this new job, and thus get some income, I'll set up a WoW account. Joy.

I recently felt the urge to check up on my old favorite MMO, City of Heroes, which my laptop doesn't want to even run. It's been a couple months, so I figured maybe some update somewhere would now allow me to play. Sadly, I was wrong. I went and posted a new thread in their forums asking for help on this, as I did months earlier, and I'm pretty much seeing that it will get me nowhere, but I may as well play along to see what happens. At the very least, it can be an outlet of frustration.
I went to laptopvideo2go and tried installing their latest drivers with the modified INFs. I tried several of them before I realized I won't be getting anywhere with it.
This frustrates me especially since CoX has been through two major updates (they're now on I10) since I last played. Granted, they were just about to release I9 before I got my new laptop and I had these problems, but that's still two major updates.

So...I guess there isn't really that much to talk about then, after all? Me with my random blurbing on about MMOs and stuff going on in my life.
Well...hmm, it seems Kitiy has a fever at the moment, so she's feeling unfortunately miserable. It's times like these that I wish I could be up there with here to help her through this...even if the best I could do is chicken soup. But, for now, we'll both have to deal with our lives as best as we can.

Well, yeah, not anything else for me to talk about. I'll fill you guys in on how tomorrow goes, at least, and hopefully the next couple of weeks will go smoothly for me. Wish me luck and all, because I probably need it with my poor sleeping habits.

Moo. There, are you happy now?

2007-07-27T17:51:00.000-05:00

Well, starting next Monday, I'm going to be going in for training as a customer support rep it seems. Oh joy. Well, it is good news. I'll finally have a job again, and I desperately need one. This just happens to be the perfect one for me. I'll be working for a gaming company, right here in Austin, and the pay isn't half bad. Yeah, sure, it's a grunt level position and I still get paid hourly, but I'm okay with that. I consider that a win in my book. And all I need to do is get a personal mode of transportation, and I won't even be able to complain about how far it is. That won't be hard, actually...I just need to take the initiative to finally take my driving test. Aren't I slacker, eh?

Now the trick is to pay rent on the first, since I probably won't get any paycheck until August 6th. At least, so I hope...the sooner I get money the better, and surely they can't expect to not pay me during their two week training period. If there was ever a time for eBay to pull through for me, now would be it. At least, if I have to, I can beg my parents for a small $200-300 loan, which I could easily payback in a paycheck or two. Of course, nobody wants to do that. And I certainly don't need another stab to my ego or my pride, which are both at record lows.

Anyways, my 10-day trial period for WoW expired yesterday. Yes, I did take a whack at playing World of Warcraft. I figured I should at least do the trial to see if it's really all it's cracked up to be. I can safely say I got myself addicted on the first day and that I want to keep playing. I have friends, (you know who you are *peers*), who have told me that WoW sucks. You know, I only managed to get a character to level 15 during my trial period, so I haven't fully experienced the game, but I don't see how anyone can say that it sucks. It is a very fun MMO to play; not only are the mechanics simple enough to not confuse people , but they're also complex enough to make for very rich and diverse playing styles, and the storyline underneath the mechanics is definitely deep enough that die-hard fans can delve into very deeply (hell, people wrote fanfictions on the original RTS of Warcraft, so uh...I'd say the story is pretty deep).
They even have RolePlay servers if you're into that sort of thing, which greatly shocked me. Of course, I don't think anybody who plays WoW is into that. I mean, I wasn't even level 10 before I heard somebody ask another guy "So what's so great about the RP servers?" I just wanted to bang my head on the desk. At least the option is there, and you get enough material to easily roleplay your character effectively, if you can just find other people intelligent enough to follow through.

Of course...I haven't played any MMO since I stopped playing Runescape back in middle school...so I've been a bit out of the loop I guess. I almost started playing Lineage 2, because it does look great. I've at least looked through MMOs, and I even researched through a bunch intending to start playing precisely one (which, to me, means I have to take my time and choose the one that would best suit my playing style). I never actually went through with getting into any of them, though, partially because I realized I should worry more about money and grades, and partially because I've got one person who demands lots of my attention very convincingly.

Well, I was originally going to play around with an Undead Mage, then I somehow managed to go for Tauren Druid. I don't completely remember why...I think it had something to do with convincing Kitiy to join me in the 10-day trial period, and we thought it would be fun? I'm not sure I recall the details exactly.
But, yes, I have a Tauren Druid named Moonspirit, who I got to level 15...and now I am merely waiting for the free subscription from my employers to continue playing.

I have to say, once I get financially secure in all the things that matter, I intend to dabble into the other MMOs at least a little, to compare and contrast and try to see why some people hate WoW and say that other games are better.
For now, I've had a lot of fun with the Druid class. I honestly didn't research the classes much more than a simple glance at what they can do (well, some were certainly obvious, but you know what I mean), but I've found the Druid to be fun simply because of how versatile it can be. While the Shaman seems to be the true "hybrid" class (wowwiki said this, not me!), and there are other classes that can fulfill more than one role depending on how the player specializes that character, the Druid seems to be a unique hybrid in that he can change roles fairly easily.

I originally wanted to play a spellcaster class, and so that's why I considered Undead Mage. But then I dabbled with my race a bit and came up with the Tauren Druid. Druids can focus on being an offensive spellcaster (like a Mage) if they want, as they do have a branch of skills devoted to that sort of thing. A Druid can also focus on being a defensive healer/buffer (like a Priest) in his party, and has the best healing-over-time spells (again, according to wowwiki). Both kinds of Druids, if they specialize in one or other of those spell-casting paths, can achieve a very special shape-shifting form to enhance those particular abilities. ('Moonkin' for offensive and 'Tree of Life' for defensive)
However, the Druid, as he/she levels up, changes in gameplay, just a little. At level 10 they get the Bear shape-shifting form, which basically turns the Druid into a melee tank (aka Warrior) with an entirely separate set of skills. At level 20, the Druid can acquire a Cat shape-shifting form, which basically turns the Druid into a melee damage specialist (aka Rogue), with yet another entirely separate set of skills.

Now, those of you who play WoW probably already knew that, and those of you who don't play WoW probably don't actually care about that. But, to me, the way the Druid works is very interesting, and very unique when it comes to an RPG class. Party needs a damage dealer, but no Mages or Rogues are available? No problem, I've got spells or I could be a cat! Need a tank? I can be a bear! Need somebody to heal you, but all the Priests are taken? I can do that too!
I can basically fill any role I need to in a party, and can change roles fairly quickly if I have quick reflexes. That...that just impresses me. The only downside I've seen so far is how Druids really need to specialize into one of their roles to be properly effective within that role (and this may cause problems when people are looking for party members, as you can never tell exactly what a Druid is good at), but the Druid can still perform the other roles on a mediocre level if the party needs something in particular.

Oh, by the way, I think I've managed to work my way around the jury duty. It seems if I mail in a particular piece of the summons with my signature on it, I can claim disqualification from the summons as not being a resident of Bexar county, and don't need to show up in person to get it notarized. Seeing as my only method of sending mail is the post office a short bus hop away, I'm hoping that it applies to me, as the jury duty would interrupt my job training, which wouldn't look too wonderful in the eyes of my employers.
I also apparently have 60 days from the day I was supposed to show up, so there's no hurry either.

Anyways...I think you're sick of hearing about me, my new job, and World of Warcraft, so I'll go off to eat some ramen so you can get back to your own much more interesting lives.

And so the monkey threw a wrench...

2007-07-17T22:43:00.000-05:00

GOD FUCKING DAMMIT! This is really the worst possible timing. Can you believe I've been summoned to jury duty on August 2nd?

Ugh! I'm just...god, I'm pissed, and that's hard to do.

Let me put this into perspective. I've applied for this customer support job, you all know. I've gone to the interview, and I think I have a good chance. What I've been told is that the "starting date" will be the 30th, if I get hired. So, I'm sure you already see the problem.

To top things off, I currently don't have the money to pay for rent on the 1st. I've got some things I've been meaning to sell on eBay, so it shouldn't be an issue, but after that I need a damn job to get by. And that monkey up there chose a good wrench to throw at me, too.

This might cause problems with my potential employer, and I'm hoping to hell that it doesn't. Because I seriously need this job. This is like...the turning point for my downward slope. If I can do this one thing, I can turn my life back around and stop being such a fuck-up. It really is that important.

But now, to make things that much more problematic for me, I have to go down to San Antonio on August 2nd. That's only two days after I'll start. VERY bad timing. So let's say it's not a problem, and I can still get the job, and everything will still work out nicely in that respect.
It really really doesn't look good to any employer to have things happen this way. One job requirement is 100% flexibility. Which, sad to say, is not good for when I start up college classes again, but that's not an issue right now.
I'm willing to bet that, even if they will still hire me, they can't help but frown that this happens. My first week on the job, I already have a day where I can't work? Wow.

To top it all off, this isn't going to be pleasant for my parents either. This means they'll have to drive up on work night...then the next day give me a ride to and from this thing (if it's even possible, and I bet it's not!), and then drive me back that night to be up here for work! Forget the stress that's gotta cause them and me, think about the gas money and the lost sleep! >.< style="font-style: italic;">plastic and buried him in the backyard under some rocks. Am I the only one who sees how fucked up that is?
I went up there only a week or two after he'd died, and both Kitiy and I tried to convince her mother to cremate the beloved feline, but she either was being stubborn or is just too messed up in the head to see how important this is to her daughter.

I even offered to pay all $145 for it! It's that cheap to do! She'd just need to drive her daughter and the remains to the cremation service, and there! Mostly happy daughter, grave-free backyard, and things are better. You even get to keep his ashes, too. How could you hesitate to do that?

Kitiy still has...episodes, I guess you would call them, where she just completely loses the will to live. She hasn't ever tried to do anything drastic, and I'm hoping that she never will...but it still hurts to see and hear her like that. To make things worse, I feel like I can't do anything to help. I can barely even be a shoulder to cry on, since I'm only over IM as things are. It just makes me feel so useless as a boyfriend.

I still wonder...if it's possibly to still cremate Tramp. I don't see why not...it'd just be a matter of getting his partially-decayed remains to the cremation people, right? And money I guess...but that's not too big of a deal. We can find a way to deal with that easy.

Well...I guess I'll let you go back to your own problems now. I'm sure you've got enough to worry about without worrying 'bout me and my love.

Please excuse the language in this one, but...I'm REALLY not in a good mood right now.

Out Of Character

2007-07-17T04:23:00.000-05:00

Okay...now, I'm really only just now considering playing WoW, but I've played WarCraft 3 a bit, and I got pretty into it. Now, if you know anything about me, as a gamer, you should know that I live for rich, in-depth stories. I place it as a priority above the gameplay. It's like a book that you watch and where you control the characters to some degree. I live for it.

So, on that note, there is one big big thing about WoW (with the expansion they've released for it that is) that really ticks me off. Why are the Blood Elves with the Horde?!
Yeah, yeah, I know, from a gameplay perspective: who gives a shit? After all, the Horde has been wanting a "pretty" race for all the elf-lovers, and Blizzard needed to make sure there were equal numbers of races, naturally, for each side. But, I want to say...there are so many better choices that they could have made.

Just bear with me...it's merely a rant, and it's not like anything is gonna change anyways.

Let me share some facts with you, which you may or may not know.

Blood Elves hate hate hate the Undead. Why? The Undead caused them to lose their home and their beloved magical Sunwell. Yeah...you're right, these Undead are actually Forsaken and not associated with the Lich King anymore. But are the Blood Elves going to care? These are still the Undead, spreading the curse of Undeath across the lands. The Blood Elves are people with short tempers.
The Blood Elves once helped the Draeni, back on Outland! Yeah...it was mostly a coincidental "Oh, you're fighting these demon-controlled orcs, too?" But they did technically make an alliance with Illidan, who now leads the Blood Elves on their quest for magic.
The Blood Elves were once noble High Elves. Guess what? High Elves hate hate hate the Trolls, and also the Orcs I do believe. Elves, and Humans, and all those goody races warred against Trolls a lot. WarCraft also used to be all about the Humans-Elves-Dwarves siding against Orcs back in the older versions...no other race or faction. While the Blood Elves aren't High Elves, they once were and should share the same hatred.
Also note that the Draeni hate Orcs, and if the Blood Elves aren't traitorous bastards and actually keep up with their alliances, then they should fight against Orcs as Draeni allies.

The only good story reason that the Blood Elves have for siding with the Forsaken is that they both fight against the Lich King...but, technically speaking, both the Alliance and the Horde are against the Lich King, so that doesn't count.

If Blizzard were to stick to the story books, the Blood Elves would be Alliance...it feels to me they just kinda picked a random race/faction and decided "These will fight for the Horde!" in order to give the Horde another race since they gave the Alliance the Draeni.

The Nathrezim would've made more sense, in my honest opinion. While they sided with the Legion, the Legion has, for now, been driven off. There were probably several Dread Lords left behind who now are stuck there. Possibly. At the very least, they could have been left behind to once again attempt at preparing for an invasion of the Legion by continuing to plant the seeds of war and chaos, by fighting against the Alliance.

Or what about Satyrs? Satyrs make plenty of sense, because they are sworn enemies of the Night Elves. That's all the reason they need to be added as members of the Horde, I think.

Yeah...I'm probably an idiot for ranting about a game I haven't played yet, but hey...this has irked me ever since I first heard about it.

Extended to All College Students

2007-07-16T23:43:00.000-05:00

I agree whole-heartedly with the following comic page, but I also wish to extend it to all college students, especially CS students.

CLICK

Helping Foreign Countries

2007-07-15T22:37:00.000-05:00

You know, I just had a sudden thought. Which is odd, I know. I rarely think at all, let alone about politics and foreign affairs. I was talking with Kitiy about stuff, and things we want to do with our lives. Somewhere along the lines she said "12 kids and 6 African kids." I'm not sure just how serious she was being, but somehow my brain caught onto the "adopting 6 African kids" part and started ranting through my mouth (well...okay, hands in this case, but hey, it's the Internet). You know, that program thing where you "adopt" a starving kid by sending them $2 a month to help feed them and you get notices about how they're doing?

But bear with me. America right now is still dealing with all this Iraq stuff, when we really only recently got done with Afghanistan just before it all, where we've set up their whole democratic government for them, trained their troops, helped get their economy going, and basically set up their entire civilization using a formula that (so far) has worked well for us.

So...why can't we do that for the starving African people? You've seen those commercials, right? You've seen those documentaries, and read articles, and probably even donated money to countless funds by now. There's even a special program for adopting those starving children, to help them get better lives.

Why can't we do for them what we did for Iraq, just without the bombs and killing? I think we've got our priorities all fucked up. We're so busy making enemies and dealing with potential threats that we can't stop to help the people that are actually asking for it.
It would cost us a lot of money, and require a lot of manpower, but our government, Bush in particular, didn't seem to mind all that when we were dealing with the Taliban and Saddam, did he? Let's just go down to Africa and start with the small things. Start out by building up farms and houses and a water supply and medical supplies and so on. Start with the basics, and move up from there, and make sure, every step of the way, that those people are involved and satisfied.

It wouldn't be easy, that's for sure, but whoever said it was about doing things the easy way? Sure, at least Iraq already had cities and modern technology (to a degree). These people need the more basic necessities: food, water, medicine, homes, a whole freaking civilization. But we can't expect things to improve by tossing food, which only was acquired because people pity these hungry Africans, and by adopting their homeless kids and such....Let's do it the right way and build up their lives instead of hoping their problems will go away.

Again...it wouldn't be easy....and I sure as hell don't want to start this kind of movement, because I wouldn't know the first thing about getting things done. But hey...we're not looking for easy, and easiest isn't always the best either. At the very least, I think this idea is much better than Bush's idea of a War on Terror at least. Don't you think? What would you rather spend taxes for? War? Or helping another civilization get on it's feet?

Of course, I'm probably wrong, aren't I? Maybe they're doing all this and I just need to do my research?
I still think the government should focus on this and not war, though.

Feelings on E3

2007-07-15T14:35:00.001-05:00

Okay....while I am happy at some of the new things coming out, this rather nicely sums up my feelings on E3.

That is all.

Wai halo! Didun see ya thar!

2007-07-07T21:25:00.000-05:00

Excuse my horrible abuse of the English language in the title, but I guess I just love that phrase due to various webcomics I'm addicted to. Anyways, it's been forever since I last blogged, eh? A month today, actually. Jeez.

And, ye know, it's sad to say much has really happened in the past month. It makes a person feel pathetic to realize that, but then again, that's what happens when you got no job, no school...no real responsibilities beyond the lazy "Oh, here's my rent" sorta thing.

So, anyways, I think I've basically thrown out the idea of movin' up to Oklahoma temporarily. I mean, sure, I'd so love to just go live close enough to Kitiy to date her in person, but then, we're both reclusive people anyways. Of course, then I'd have to deal with transporting myself and stuff, and uh...Tulsa's bus system sucks ass.

So, I've spent the last month technically just bumming around my apartment. I did stop back in San Antonio to live with my folks for a week, for various things I dun even remember I guess, but mostly because my parents don't want to drive to Austin on a work night and I fell asleep mega-early on Sunday. But, eh, it was nice to chill in a real house again and to see the pets and such and to get to play the Wii again (though my brother needs to get some real games dammit..he also doesn't have a Wii Classic Controller. Course...they have a sucky macro GC controller still...ewww...least I played me some Ocarina of Time while I was there). Jake also went off to Germany while I was there. Actually, he should be getting back by this week or next. I wonder how his trip went. *shrugs*

Well, though I would like to say I went out to apply for at least one job every day, I really didn't. I didn't even try. I'd tell myself that I need to, but never actually do it. To tell ya the truth, I guess I'd already given up and decided to head back home to live with my family again. *sigh*
Not that I was looking forward to it or anything. Sure, they have a Wii and a real house and I wouldn't have to pay for food or rent, but that's not enough compensation for having to put up with them.

So...let's see...basically I've been playing my various PS2 games, the ones I haven't beat, and touching at some of my PC games. It seems I've lost interest in DotA ever since the clan basically died. Well...not so much lost interest, but that I've not been playing it lately and had a hard time getting back into it. Maybe I won't ever, who knows? I still haven't been able to play CoH, either, since Windows Vista officially sucks ass in my book. GalCiv 2....I just can't get into cause of the constant crashes. C&C3...I'm not really in the mood for RTS lately. Diablo 2 is too old to enjoy. Defcon is too predictable. And Supreme Commander...I just outright suck at.

Am I losing interest in gaming? It's probably something deeper than that somewhere. Probably related to why I fucked up my last three semesters so bad.

On a related note, I've started playing Flyff. It's a neat RO-reminiscent MMORPG, in full 3D, and you get to Fly For Fun (Flyff is sorta an abbreviation). I managed to get Kitiy hooked onto it, which is not something easy to do when it comes to things involving lots of people.
Well...not so much hooked on it in the way a gamer would normally get hooked on a game, but she plays it with me. I'm usually playing it with her, actually, rather than alone or with random people. It's really been a lot of fun, because we've kinda been lacking a way to do fun stuff together, that we both enjoy. I think there may be other MMOs that would be more fun for her, though, so I should try looking.

Actually, it seems to me like Flyff doesn't actually have much in the way of community. I mean, yeah, there's a friends list thing, there's guilds, you form parties. There's forums and fan-made forums. But I don't think I've really seen networks of close-knit friends. It seems like everybody's out to be able to gloat about how their character is godly and wants to be able to solo the whole game. It seems like everybody just cares about getting their level the best of the best of the best. While that's understandable...can't they do that without just focusing on grinding constantly? Flyff is a beautiful enough world that you can relax when you play it and just enjoy talking to people after all. I really really really want to find a graphical MMO that is roleplay-enforced. Or...at least encouraged. ORPGs are really much more fun that way, seriously. Just try it.

Also, the people behind the game don't seem to care much for fixing bugs but releasing new features that aren't smart. Like their PK system which is coming out next version. I'd prefer not to horrify you with the details, but it's bad enough that almost everybody complains about it and is trying to get them to change it back to what the current version is.

Anyways, in very recent news, I recently applied for a customer support job. I'm doing it through this company called Volt, though, because that's where the job posting was. So Monday I need to go see some Volt people.
Basically, it'll be a 90-day contract where I'm paid $9 per hour to deal with customer questions, to deal with technical issues and other questions and concerns. If they like me after that they'll hire me full-time. Even better, the place is open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and 365 days a year. So, basically, though I've gotta work 40 hours a week, I can work it around my schedule (when I actually manage to be busy with something anyways). Though I may sometimes gotta work on holidays. Maybe. I wonder if they draw straws for that?

The only problem with the job is that, if I land it, it's an hour-long bus ride from where I currently live. Imagine if I move down to Riverside after August? It's over where 290 meets 183. So yeah, a bit out of my way. But hey, other than that, the job is perfect for me. After all, I might work my way up from the grunt position to something...not so grunt-like? Now if I just had my own car to drive it wouldn't be so bad.

Of course, it's only going to get worse if I move to Riverside to room with Keith and Brett. It'd be cool to room with buds, though, instead of people I just know. Will's all right, but...you know. Keith and Brett and I hang out with each other because we can have fun hanging out doing just about anything, especially if you add Scott to the group. If I room with people I get along very well with, I think it may be better for me than if I went to room with a random person for less hassle with work. Emotionally speaking. Ya know, good for the morale and all.
Actually, going through the bus schedule I'd have to take for, say, clocking in at 10am, it would take a full two hours to get there from Riverside. I don't think I can find a bigger reason to say "ow" that doesn't involve physical injury or damage to my laptop. But I seriously doubt I could find a place to stay near that area anyways... =\
Of course...if I had work right after classes...there's an hour-long ride still. It would just mean two hours to get home, and a necessity of not missing the last Crossing Place bus.

Oh, wait, there is an apartment complex RIGHT next to that location, and several more in the area. It's very likely the pricing won't be agreeable enough to go for it, though. Also, from reviews I've found online, that's a bad neighborhood to live in, so I'll stick with Riverside and my peers.

All in all, the distance is the only problem I have with the job, and it's only because I don't have my own car. If I (finally) get my license, my parents still have the Intrepid back home...sure, that means then I have to pay for gas and insurance, but hey...that would be about a 20 minute drive to work (from Riverside...yay for country roads?). Of course...then it's kinda like...I stay up here because I could make more money...only I have to spend more money to stay up here. Meh. This particular company would look MUCH better on my resume than saying I worked for Walgreen's, wouldn't you say? That much at least would be worth the hassle of long bus rides.

Well, first I gotta get the job. Naturally. Things will smooth themselves out. The universe supposedly works like that...right?

Fish Out of Water

2007-06-08T20:31:00.000-05:00

Well, I went out to do some things earlier today, after I finally forced myself to get out of bed and shower. I need to get in the habit of a proper morning routine or something. Otherwise I don't see how I'll be able to handle a job when I finally get one.

Anyways, job hunting was what I went out to do today. I also stopped by the CVS Pharmacy to drop off a disposable camera and to buy a lighter (for the incense Kitiy got me).

I started by going to my favorite eating establishment: Which Wich. They've had a "Now hiring" sign for a while now, and I figure if it's my favorite place to eat, I should apply. Though, honestly, I would love to completely avoid working at a food joint. They were out of applications today, though, so I'll have to go back another time. Not that I mind, seeing as I love their 'wiches.
Ironically enough the only other place I applied was TCBY, down on MLK. If I have to work with food, it might as well be frozen.

Yeah, I only applied to one place actually, after stopping in on two. The heat today was just that unbearable. I was walking down the street, eating my TCBY Shiver, and I was sweating through BOTH shirts, not to mention I'm out of shape...I walked from the CVS to campus to begin with. I was physically exhausted, and the sun was not helping. Maybe I should've worn less black? Probably...but I'm still a wimp anyways.

I'll continue my job hunt Monday, though, or possibly even later. It seems it's been decided that I'll go down to San Antonio tomorrow to visit my folks. I'll get to do my laundry free and shove off my old laptop onto my brother, who's going to Germany on Wednesday and won't be back for a month, (I'm sure he'll regret using the laptop in the end as I doubt it will survive a trip to Europe).
I'll also be picking up my new cell phone, seeing as my mom decided to get a better cell phone plan and order everybody new phones (I chose to go with one of the models we can change to for free, and it's definitely like three times better than my current phone).

Anyways...I need to eat, so I think I'll make some Mac n Cheese with tuna and peas stirred in...and then I'll see about getting the rest of these photos scanned in.

...but seriously. I really don't belong in Texas. The summers just kill me, and the rest of the year ain't much more pleasant for me. I'd love to work for Microsoft just for the chance to live in Seattle.

All the more incentive for me to move up to Tulsa for a year. Sure, it's only one state north, but Texas is a big state. It would be at least 10 degrees further north (latitude scale thingy, not temperature :p). Okay, so Austin is at 30.16 and Tulsa is 36.09. So it's more like 6. But that's still a big difference for somebody as anti-sun and anti-heat as me.
Tulsa was unbearably hot one or two of the days I was up there, but I'm not moving anywhere until August...summer will be over by then, so it won't be so bad.
I think they actually get snow, too, so that will be fun. This "live in Tulsa for the next year" idea is really sounding better and better to me.

Reluctant Return

2007-06-06T15:48:00.000-05:00

Well, just in case anybody is wondering, I am safe and sound back in Austin. Once more, nothing of real import happened on the trip back, unless you count almost sleeping through the bus's stop in Austin. Fortunately, the bus driver was going through the bus asking for people's tickets and managed to wake me up with little effort.

Anyways, I suppose I should go through what little occurred on my last day in Oklahoma. First thing I should mention, Kitiy fortunately did not do any sort of attempt at running away. I'm hoping this will last, mostly because she does need to finish high school. I still want to be with her though.

Anyways, I started out my day with a continental breakfast and a shower, as all days should begin. Well, all days should begin with a full-fledged breakfast of several helpings, but I only think this because I absolutely love breakfast food.

I got to packing when that was done, being that her dad called me and said he'd come by at about 11am. I was just about done when Kitiy knocked on my door. All I really had left to pack up was my laptop. At least...so I thought. But I'll get into that later.

First thing we did, I think, was stop at the Army Surplus store for the hell of it. And because I've always wanted to buy myself a katana, and they apparently have several of the real deal for sale at low prices. Hell, they even have had two flails, a pair of sai, a battleaxe, a morning star, and two claymores. They even had a sword in the style of Ichigo, from Bleach! I will make a visit and purchase some sort of blade someday, but I'm attempting to hold back on money-spending as best as I can.

Anyways, we stopped by Walgreen's to get one of my disposable cameras developed to be picked up later. It was the one that I still had from that Project Graduation about two years ago. I think the age might be bad for such cameras, because it seems like some of the photos that I took aren't there, and the negatives do include two blank strips.

Anyways, we went back to her place then and ate some food. She decided to make some sort of special snack for us involving honey and peanut butter. She put that onto a slice of regular bread and toasted the other side, then put it together as a sort of sandwich. Definitely tasty, and messy.

We let the food settle for a bit, then for some reason we decided to make a visit to the neighborhood pool. Neither of us are very socially inclined, but I recall that she suggested swimming at one point. Well...she'd wanted to go to one a tad less populated by people. So we went there and did some swimming for an hour or two. I remember her her complaining that she was starting to get a tan from all of our outdoor activities. Yes, she likes being ghostly pale.

By that point we only had a couple hours left together. My bus departure time was 5:55pm, which meant I had to be there at around 5pm or so. It was about 4pm that we discovered I'd forgotten to take my bus tickets with me when I checked out of the hotel. Oops! x.x

Well, we went to Walgreens and picked up my photos, and then decided to check the hotel just to be sure. Naturally, the room had already been cleaned and my tickets were not to be found. So I had to spend $88.50 to buy new tickets down to Austin. How troublesome.

So we waited at the bus terminal until it was time for me to leave, chatting a bit. I made sure to thank her dad one last time for being so very hospitable about me visiting his daughter. He said that I impressed him a lot in doing this, which I find to be a bit of surprise, but I am pleased. I think, all in all, this trip was a great success, and certainly very enjoyable.

So the clock got to about 5:40pm...and they finally announced to start boarding my bus. I shook her father's hand, hugged Kitiy goodbye...well, actually, she hugged me very tightly goodbye. And by very tightly, I mean it was almost painful and my eyes might have bugged out a bit. It wasn't a very long goodbye, but we hugged for a bit, saying our dramatic farewells, and then we parted.

Trust me, it was a bit of a struggle for me to actually walk onto that bus. I didn't want to have to leave her after we finally met in person. There will be other times...and someday we won't have to part ways. But for now, I've got a cat in Austin to care for, an apartment to pay rent for, and a temp job to find. I want to be in Tulsa so badly.

I have barely been gone from her for 24 hours and I already want to go back. A part of me is still hoping she does decide to run away with me...not that it's the wisest life decision a person can make. Maybe if she just lasts until August I'll be able to move up there to an apartment and be with her for her last year in high school. I'm already going to be out of college for one semester, since I'm on academic dismissal...so maybe I should go ahead and take the whole year to just chill out and get my life together?
It seems like a good idea to me, but it'll involve quite a bit of work. At least I have until August to figure things out.

Well...after the bus departed 20 minutes late, I was off to Austin. First passing through Oklahoma City, then Dallas, first. The bus left late because some lady with 6 kids was apparently moving and had a shitload of stuff to load. Very annoying, and very crowded, but oh well. Once we got on the move things weren't so bad.

The one thing that worried me on the trip down was that my luggage would be lost or something. Somehow, I just couldn't trust that my suitcase would be automatically transferred buses at each stop. Fortunately, my worries were unfounded and my bag was waiting for me in the terminal.
My body was quite happy to be off such a cramped bus, but at least I had a whole two seats to myself for the last two hours. Maybe that's why I'd managed to fall asleep.

At first, I had planned to take the city bus home to my apartment, but then I figured I should at least give Will a call to see if he'd be all right with giving me a ride. After all, I was not at all familiar with the particular bus route I was set to take. Fortunately, though I'd woken him up with my phone call, he was indeed willing to give me a ride back. Yay!

So...I managed to stay awake long enough to unpack, back in my messy apartment room, before I realized, though I wanted to stay awake, that it was impossible. So I just kinda passed out at about 8am.

And so ends my trip to Tulsa, Oklahoma. Hopefully I'll get to make many more such trips, and perhaps adventures to more interesting parts of the world.

For now...I'm going to rest my body for this day before going on the painful search for a job, or going about the painful process of cleaning my room. It's in sore need. Hopefully I can get a job in less than a week, because I sorely need to be making monies.

Important Thoughts

2007-06-04T21:50:00.000-05:00

In some ways, today was a somewhat big day...momentous perhaps. In other ways, it was a nothing day...a simple day where a boy and girl spend their day together as best they can.

Well, the day started out rather dull. Take a shower, eat breakfast, get dressed, etc. Normal routine. I even played (or attempted, what with how the game doesn't like my video drivers) GalCiv 2 for a bit. It's a match I want to finish, because it's been pretty tough, what with two other civilizations declaring war on me much earlier than I was prepared for. Somehow I've been winning against them militarily, though my military is weaker.

Anyways, I played that for a while, before it finally crashed due to an "out of memory" error. Le sigh. I wish I could get that fixed and fully enjoy the game. About the time it crashed, Kitiy woke up and messaged me in Yahoo. We chatted for a bit, waiting for her folks to be ready to deal with us and play chauffeur. Eventually, around like...1pm I think, her dad finally showed up with Kitiy in tow. She came up to knock on my door and we hugged as usual, and off we went for our day.

The plan was for us to do some roller blading that day, and pay respects to Tramp, Kitiy's beloved feline companion throughout her life, recently lost. So, first, we went to a place where they sell fresh-cut flowers fairly cheaply. We got three bunches of flowers for only $10. One group of red roses, one of white tulips (or maybe it was white roses? I'm no flower expert) and one of mixed flowers (purples, yellows, various colors).

We went off to the house of Kitiy's mother in Tulsa (her dad and step-mom are in Broken Arrow) and paid our respects to Tramp. I never knew the cat, but if he was important to Kitiy, he's important to me, so I was there with her and helped her to arrange the flowers. She still wants to have him cremated, but her mother is against it...and it may even be too late for that now. It's been about two weeks, and I'm not sure what sort of time limit on cremation there is. At least we could do the flowers. That much helps a bit. I even took a photo of the grave with the flowers arranged all around it.

We then went off to the roller rink they have in Broken Arrow, although Kitiy wanted the one in Tulsa. We got there only about an hour before they would close, though (who the hell opens at 11am and then closes at 4pm?), so we decided to do it the next day instead. My last day here.

We ended up getting towed off to a couple of other shopping places with her dad as a result, including Lowe's I believe. We at least managed to get some washers for the collar we picked out, so now the studs should be able to fit. Maybe I'll do it myself tonight and wear it for her tomorrow. It looks like they'll be just right, too.

Well, we eventually got back to her place, after picking out a swimming top for her at Wal-mart. We had decided we could go swimming. Unfortunately, her neighborhood pool was closed, and her dad wasn't willing to take us anywhere else. So we gave up on that idea, (with a rather ticked-off Kitiy I should note about how the day was not going as planned at all), and went with sprinkler and water balloons (there were a lot left after all) for passing the time. It's not a bad way for lovers to spend time together at all, I think, though I would've preferred the roller rink. That way is less cold and less wet.

For dinner, her dad grilled burgers and hot dogs, and we had baked beans as a side. And soda from the fridge as drink, of course. It was a good dinner. Afterwards we played more with the water balloons, and generally had a good time getting each other wet. We even decided to be nice at one point and have an impromptu contest to see who could throw the water balloons farthest. It wasn't as easy as it sounds, as if you throw too hard, you might break the water balloon from squeezing it when you throw.

Anyways...yeah, it was a bit of a short day compared to other days. We did at one point go down to the neighborhood pool to make doubly sure that they were closed. Sadly, they were actually closed. After that we went into the bathroom to scrub to make sure we didn't get bitten by something called chiggers, which I've never heard of. According to Wikipedia, they're actually the larva of harvest mites, but whatever.

What happened afterwards...I'm still entirely sure what went on. There was some sort of tiff, it seems, between Kitiy and her step-mom...probably not even something too major. All I know is that it put Kitiy into a very bad mood very quickly, and her dad is certainly not of any help.

We'd changed and become remotely dry by that time, so we were sitting on her bed. I just kinda sat there holding her hand and listening to her rant and vent about how much she hates it there, not saying too much. Not just because of her step-mom, but her dad and mom, too. You know...to be completely honest, they're not even her real parents. She was adopted from birth, so...there are times when that is very much an issue brought to mind.

When she finished venting her steam...she just kinda collapsed onto the bed and started crying. There wasn't much I could do but to put my arms around her and hold her tight. I've only known her folks for a week....I've only seen a small glimpse of her home life for the past week, and even then, you know they're going to act slightly different when I'm around. But I can see why she hates it here still, and it's affected her this badly. She's broken down and crying when I'm not even sure what exactly happened. Some small tiff, from what I saw and heard, but maybe there was something more.

This...this is why I'm really here. I came up here to finally meet her, to have fun with her...but I'm mainly here because of this kind of pain that she's been going through. She barely has any friends, and none of them very close. She needs somebody like me to talk to and be close with, and I want to be there for her.

I'd been thinking heavily on all this stuff for so long...and I finally got around to putting into words, telling her myself. I told her I wouldn't mind going to live up there in Tulsa/BA for the next year, after my current lease ends. It would mean putting off college for a full year, rather than just the semester from academic dismissal, but she means more to me than any college degree. That's probably the sort of thing my parents might not understand, but it's the truth. Besides, in CS, the degree doesn't mean anything in comparison to experience.
I could get an apartment up in Tulsa, or possibly in BA (either one would work, considering she has homes in both places), and find some sort of hourly wage job to work at for a good year, while I spend my free time with her as much as possible, helping her through the last year of high school.

I know that's the kinda of thing she needs. Somebody to be there who won't judge like her parents will. They've apparently outright called her evil before, them being of Christian faith. I don't think it would be so bad, even, though I know my parents would be pissed about it. All they want from me lately is to finish college with super good grades and to get rich with a high-paying career job. Le sigh.

Well...you know...things kinda went like that for an hour, maybe longer. I don't even know how long. I just know I was there on her bed, holding her in my arms while she cried her heart out, comforting her the best I could. With her saying things, and me saying things. It was a lot more dramatic and emotional than I make it out to be, but I'm not good at detailing things so much.

I had an idea at some point...and I thought hard about it. It's actually a thought I've had for a long long time now...I've never really put too much stock into it, but...it's always been there in the back of my mind. I told her then that...if she wanted to run away from her folks, I'd be willing to help. All she'd need to do is give me a call. I'd go up to her right away, be it Greyhound or some other method, and be there as fast as possible to help her. I would drop everything to do that and not care. All that would matter is that she'd need me.
And...from there, I told her I'd take her with me if she really seriously wants to run away from her folks. It sounds like one of those things you say when some very intense emotions are flying around and it just bursts out, but I really did mean it, and I still do. It would mean a very hard life, among other things, but I'd go through with it for her, whatever it takes.

I would even be willing to take her back home with me tomorrow, if she really wanted. It's something that would worry me so very much, and I'd be very nervous in doing it...and I could be made out to be a pedophile or kidnapper or something as bad with very little effort on the part of her folks, as untrue as that is. I dunno what she would do about her senior year of high school if she did such a thing, but I'd go through anything for her. I think...I think even some of my friends would be willing to help us, if it came to such. At least I would hope so.

I'm being serious about all of this. I'm a bit shocked at my conviction myself...it's just that, after this week with her, finally meeting her after all these years between us...I know she's the one for me, and she says she feels the exact same way. I know...she's still a 17-year-old girl who might not be entirely in her right mind, but such is the way of things. I'd do anything to help her get through things in life, and if that means helping her run away from home, I will do it.

I'm sure some of you are kinda surprised by these things. It's not like I told many people about this girl that I care for so much in all this time. But it's true...we've only met about a week ago, in person, but we've known each other for so long, we've talked so much for so many years, through mic and long distance phone calls and IMs...we've been through a lot, and we're already so very close to each other after only having seen each other physically for a week or so. Hell...I'd propose to her if she was old enough to marry, and I know she'd say yes. It's just that strong of a relationship.

A part of me hopes it doesn't come to her running away with me...but another part of me would welcome it. The first part is probably the part of me that worries, and tries to think about how things *should* be done. The way things would go if everything was ideal. The second part is probably the part of me that loves her and cares about her...a part that's probably thinking that everything would be better just because she and I would finally be together, even if not in the best of circumstances, and finally away from that household of pain centering around her parents.

It seems to me that she and I have a lot of thinking to do...and I hope we both come to the right decisions...whatever those may be.

Quality Time

2007-06-03T23:19:00.000-05:00

Well, yesterday was another fun day with Kitiy. We didn't really even do much that was special, we just managed to have fun. She's decided she finds ice skating boring. Her dad was going to take us bowling, (yeah, not the way a couple normally spends the day but...eh, I kinda like bowling), but not only does Kitiy hate bowling, but she got a bit sick after eating lunch, so we just did some random stuff.

We went to this dollar store place where we bought water balloons...then we decided to buy some guy's swimming shorts for the both of us. Yes. We were going to get good and wet that day. It doesn't sound like much of an event with your girlfriend, but it WAS fun. But we'll get to that later.

We also went to Hobby Lobby nearby and looked around. She wants to make me a cloak like the one she made for herself. It sounds like something I'd love to have, and I have always wanted a cloak. So we looked around at fabrics, but we didn't buy any. She apparently has a lot of people wanting her to make cloaks for them, and she plans to save up money to buy some good amount of fabric. I told her I wouldn't mind buying the fabric for mine, but she can be quite stubborn and persuasive.

Anyways, we ended up just buying some things that she wanted for making herself a cat-like collar. Some kinda fuzzy thingy and some bells make up her materials for it. You get the idea. I dunno when she'll make it, but I bet it'll look cute on her. I just hope she doesn't use the second bell to make one for me. I wouldn't mind wearing a bell collar, I just don't want the fuzzy stuff. That's a bit much for me.

Anyways, we went back off to her house after that, while her dad decided to work on their old house, (they apparently recently moved to where they are now). So we went to the backyard and found a hose and started filling up a bunch of water balloons. We got soaked just doing that, partially because we kept splashing each other with water just for fun. We didn't use all the water balloons, (they've gotta pay for water after all).

Naturally, we then used the water balloons. Tossing them left and right at each other and getting downright soaked with freakin' cold water. It's a good thing we bought swimming shorts. And I wear undershirts. This means that, though I got soaking wet, I didn't get all my clothes wet. I had time to dry off anyways, but still. When we were done with the water balloons, her mom drove off to pick up some pizza for dinner, leaving us alone for a short time.

By the time her mom got back we were mostly dry, so we went inside to eat some food. I know for sure I was hungry. I've noticed Kitiy never is able to eat all that much in one sitting. She couldn't finish two slices of pizza. I don't think she's anorexic, especially since she thinks it's ugly to be too skinny, but it still bothers me that she can't eat much.
Though, she did seem to be a bit sick today. We ate lunch earlier at a Mr. Goodcents, which is a sub sammich shop that's pretty good (not as good as Which Wich though ^.^;), and she got a bit sick eating there. I don't think it was the food, though. She just seems to be a bit...delicate perhaps.
I'm not sure what the problem was exactly. All I know is that, in the car on the way back to her house, she leaned against me, clinging to my arm. It feels good to know that I'm comforting.

Anyways, after the pizza, we just spent some time hanging out in her room after our fun. You know, most people might think it's not to special, but to me, just being able to spend time with her at all really means something. The more time I get...I just wish it wouldn't ever end.

Anyways, when it got to around 9pm, it was time to go off and meet her mother, who took me off to my hotel before taking Kitiy home. Well, we stopped by Best Buy to get her a new mic (she kinda...broke her old one throwing it across the room).

She always hates having to do that, and so do I. Taking me back to my hotel, I mean, and having to spend our night apart. I want so badly to be able to just fall asleep with her once instead of having to spend our nights apart. I don't think I'll get my chance with this visit...but I still wish I could. I'm just one of those people who enjoys the cuddling...and when I hold her in my arms, things just feel right.

Well, the next day, which was today, I woke up a bit after 9am, (which meant no continental breakfast for me). I then waited until about noon for Kitiy and her mom to be ready for the day. Well, more the both of us waiting for her mom to be ready to take us out to this other mall called the Promenade. They apparently like this one better than the Woodland Hills Mall that we went to the other day.
Yeah, yeah, I know....another place to spend money at. I should be trying not to spend too much money on this trip, but...eh...you know.

Let's see...first we at lunch, as we were both very hungry. We got some pizza from this place called Sbarro there in the food court which makes big New York style pizza.
Then we went to one of Kitiy's favorite stores, a place called Romancing the Stone. It's a pretty neat little shop with all sorts of shiny things and neat-looking knickknacks. She decided that I should get myself an incense burner and some incense, which should help with any smelly smells at my apartment. It made sense to me, so I went along with it. Who knows, maybe I'll like it and keep buying incense now and then.
She also insisted I get a little pendant with my horoscope symbol on it, so I decided to go with the Chinese calligraphy for the Tiger (rather than the M-looking thing for Scorpio).

After that we explored a little. We mostly looked through the shops, while I made myself not buy some of the neat things we found. We stopped by the Oklahoma Store not too soon after that. It's basically this little shop with stuff from right here in Oklahoma, rather than from other places. One of the neat things they have are these things called rose stones. There's apparently this area where stone grows in the shape of a rose in bloom, and it's only here in Oklahoma. She decided it would make a neat gift for my dad, so I figured "Eh, what the hell." and got one. Father's Day is coming soon anyways...
We also got some home-grown honey from there too, as Kitiy insists honey, peanut butter, and something else makes a delicious snack. We haven't gotten around to that yet, but we probably will before I go.

We explored a little more and then made our way to Hot Topic. It's another of her favorite stores, after all, what with her clothing style and such. We looked through the t-shirts and saw one I just had to get. If you're a fan of TMNT, you'd agree: A sketch of Splinter and the words "Splinter's Dojo" on it.
There were other shirts I probably could have gotten that I'd like, but again...trying to hold back on big spending, eh? I've got plenty of shirts anyways. She's been hoping to get me a Hot Topic hoodie, but we didn't see anything there that I could go for (in my size at least). I'm thinking I could go for a Zelda or a Bleach hoodie, if she so insists that I get a hoodie.

Anyways, we got that shirt, some new socks for her, and then some semi-permanent hair dye. She had plans to make use of it. One bottle of blue for me, and a bottle of green for her. Green's her favorite color, I should mention. We went back to exploring at that point. We actually didn't do so much shopping this time as exploring, which was pretty fun. We went into this one toy store place that had neat things, I remember, but we didn't get anything. Well...we stopped by a small stand that sold fudge. Tasty.

Also, we did stop by this place called Icing, apparently some off-shoot of Claire's. She wanted to get black eyeshadow and black nail polish, both of which with me obviously in mind. I sense tomorrow that make-up will be applied to my person. I already have black toenails, and she's already played with my face a bunch, but she can't seem to get enough of it. I don't mind, though. I just wonder how long I can go before I decide to let her get me a piercing...and a tattoo.

I insisted, at that point, that I buy something for her, as I just feel guilty when I buy things for myself and nothing for her. It took me a while, and a little exploring, to decide, but we headed back to Romancing the Stone and I got her a little gargoyle figurine. For some reason, she's been wanting a gargoyle. She liked it, I remember, but I wasn't satisfied with my gifting. We then went back to Hot Topic and I got her two new pairs of pants. She only has one pair of pants from Hot Topic, and she just loves their pants, so I figured it works.

We eventually went back to the food court once we decided we were hungry again. We didn't eat much food the first time anyways. I insisted that we had Chinese, though she said the only Chinese she likes is sweet n sour chicken. I had her try the orange chicken, but she didn't like it. Oh well. We had some ice cream from this place called Dippin' Dots that put a clever twist on it. What they do with ice cream is they have ice cream dripping down and then they flash freeze the drops, so they sell to you cups of what look like crumbs of frozen ice cream. We shared a large mint chocolate, and it was certainly very tasty. Very cold, too.

After that, we decided it was plenty shopping, and called up her mom for a ride. We made a short stop at the Candy Castle there for something to drink and a bit of a chocolaty treat, but then we went off to her house.

It was there that she did some hair dying fun. She tried the blue on me...she said it looked really good, but looking in the mirror I couldn't really see the blue. I guess it just kinda got absorbed a bit much into my hair? We did the green on her, but just on her bangs. It looks really good on her, I must say. We tried adding more of the blue stuff to me, but again it seems the blue isn't quite showing up. My hair looks a bit silvery though. Maybe if she applies what's left of the bottle to my hair it'll work...but my hair is pretty thick, and is very good at absorbing, so we'll see. If anything, we'll have learned that my hair would need to be bleached before trying to dye it.
Or maybe I just need to shower once and it'll come out better. I'm not sure. We didn't exactly follow the directions on the bottle after all.

After that, we mostly just watched anime from her bed in her room. Her door is apparently broken so that there's no door knob, but it can close. It just means that her mom can peep in any time she wants to. I was there for several hours, spending quality time for my lover. Her mom went out at one point for food. She got McDonald's...which wouldn't be my first choice, but I'm not really all that picky about things. It may not be all that healthy to have chicken nuggets, fries, and a small fudge sundae for dinner, but it's still food. I just need to make sure I try to get myself into exercising ASAP so I don't keep getting wider and wider. I definitely don't want to have to buy XXL pants. x.x

Well, though it seemed for a short bit that her mom kinda forgot I was there (which I would honestly like to have happened), at about 10 she said it was time to pack up and take me back over to my hotel. Sigh. Yet another disappointing goodbye to Kitiy as we go off to spend our nights apart. I have no idea what tomorrow will have in store, but her mom will be busy with stuff, so the plan so far is for her dad to pick us up and to go over there.

I was kinda looking forward to the zoo, but oh well. It might still be an option...but we'll see. Maybe I'll just end up spending the day in her room again. I don't care what we end up doing, so long as I get to spend my day with her. It's why I'm here, after all.

Two days left...I'll let you know how those go later, though I probably won't get around to that until after I make it back to Austin safe and sound.

Shopping can be...fun?

2007-06-01T22:11:00.001-05:00

Today was really a blast. In fact, I think it was more fun than our first day. Possibly. The jury is still out on that one.

Well, as I said, the plan was to head off to the mall for the day (most of it), which we did. I woke up at about 6ish and discovered that my clock was blinking, so there must've been a power outage earlier. For a second, being only half-awake, I was afraid I'd slept in to 1:42 pm. That's a fright to me. It would've ruined such wonderful plans.

Anyways, I slept another hour, woke up at about 7ish then and couldn't get back to sleep. That's when I was getting around to finishing yesterday's blog, actually, as I had nothing else to do, and Kitiy wanted me to publish it.

It wasn't until after noon that we got to head off to the mall, though. First, though, we went to a Coney Island shop, a place I've never been before, and we had lunch. Delicious chili-cheese hot dogs, I must say. Then we crossed a busy street to the mall and went on a fun day of shopping, with much of walking.

Let's see...first...first we went into this neat crystal jeweler's place where they had crystal figurines and fancy jewelry. We didn't buy anything, but we looked at this crystal dragon with a colorful metallic pearl, that the lady at the store even took out for us to see. It was absolutely magnificent, and I'd so buy it if I wasn't worried about breaking it in my travels. Not just travels between Texas and OK, but also travels between apartments.

We went to Hot Topic next. We had an amusing incident when we walked in and we set off the alarms. We dug through my laptop bag trying to figure it out and it turned out to be C&C 3, which I'd bought down at the Highlands Mall in Austin a month back or so. That explains now why I set off the alarms when I walked into a clothing store next door to buy Dr. Scholl's for Brett that day...
The kind lady working there fixed it for me though. :)

So, we wandered the store a little and bought me two pairs of pants. Heavy, baggy pants with chains on 'em and everything. They're the kinds of pants Kitiy almost always wears, and I like their style muchly. The hip pockets could stand to be a big higher-up and larger, but I likes 'em. Kitiy either didn't want something, or didn't know what she wanted, and we decided we might go back another time.
Oh, we also got a collar for me (that fits) and some studs to put on it, but it turns out the screws for the studs didn't quite fit. We'll fix that up with washers or better screws or something.

After that...we went to this place called Claire's, because they apparently sold some things for guys that Kitiy wanted to look at. She decided that I should buy a necklace with a dragon pendant thingy on it.
I don't know why we bought so much for me at first, rather than having me pile presents on her, but neither of us really minded. And it also seems much more even to me, and less selfish of both parties, that we both get things.

After that, I noticed a Marble Slab, so we stopped there for some ice cream. She got Cake Batter with rainbow sprinkles, while I chose the route of peanut butter with Butterfinger. She said it's just like the Coldstone we'd originally planned to get ice cream at, so she loved it. We went off to the food court to eat our ice cream, and fiddled with my collar while we did, discovering the problem with the screws then. The ice cream made us thirsty, so we went and just bought two fountain drinks from Sonic there at the food court. She insisted to pay for both the ice cream cones with her own money, so I decided to let her.

After a short restroom break, we wandered through some stores looking at things. I'm not sure which. She was of a mind to help me get a father's day gift, but we didn't get anything. Then she dragged me into the Build-a-Bear Workshop to get a bear for me. Yes. That kiddy place where you fill a bear (and now other kinds of stuffed animals) with stuffing, then fluff it up, dress it up, and name it? Well, she made me get one. I had to warm up the heart and rub it against my head and kiss it and everything.
She picked out the bear (white fur with blue streaks in it around) and then picked out the outfit for me. I probably looked like a lost puppy and was apparently obviously being dragged through it by her. I wanted to be sure it appeared that way too. >.>;

Then we saw a place called Candy Castle, that sold lots and lots of candy of all sorts. By this time our feetses were hurting a bit, but we kept on going cause we were having fun. Anyways, we got jelly beans and some sour belts (like sour power straws, but in a belt form), and then she needed another trip to the bathroom. We went right back, actually, and I decided to buy her a large stuffed cheetah. I think she decided to name it Monoh, rather than keep the name SuperSonic (Silly TY company). It didn't cost much, either, and she really really liked it.

Then we wandered a little, not really with a plan of what to do next. We tried a photo booth because I insisted, and that one was actually broken or out of printer stuff or something. Not sure, no pictures were printed. Don't worry, we found another later. Anyways, right next to the booth was a chocolate store and they sold chocolate-covered strawberries. I decided to go in and buy one for her and one for me. The big ones. They were like an inch in width and worth $4 each! Delicious, too. I've honestly never had a strawberry before today.

The chocolate made us thirsty then. It must be the sticky sweetness of chocolate and fruit that did it. Instead of Sonic, though, we decided to get a bottle of Mountain Dew from that candy store earlier. Went in there three times then. XD

I decided to buy her another gift, and it required a trip to Radioshack. On the way there we saw another photo booth and gave it a try. This one worked. We're now officially "Wanted for just about everything." I had such a cheesy grin, because I forgot that I'm not supposed to smile for photos, but oh well. It's the photo-taking that's the fun part I guess.

Anyways, we went into Radioshack, and I got her a small mp3 player, so she wouldn't have to deal with CDs anymore. It's the exact same one I have, too, so I was able to show her how to get music to it and all that when we got back to her place.

Well, by this time we'd been at the mall for three hours. So we called up her dad and let her know we were all set to go. I think all in all, I may have actually spent about $300 at the mall. It was a fun trip, though, and I don't normally enjoy shopping. Maybe it's because this was our first official date together. I know she had a blast.

After that we went off to meet her dad, who bought some things from Sears (trim being part of it, apparently, and probably a tool or something), and then I spent the rest of our day at her place.

She got to show me off in my new pants to her parents, and they commented on how neat the pants are and all. Her grandma commented later "I can hear you coming" which I just had to smile at. These pants really are quite noisy, with the chains moving around so much.

Well, then I pulled out my laptop and hooked up her mp3 player to it, and she started peering through my music collection. She added a bunch of music from my stuff to her mp3 player, mostly stuff that she hasn't heard before and rather likes.

We had dinner later, which her step-mom Lyn cooked. It was apparently sausage meatballs with a neat sauce added on for flavor, on top of rice, and it tasted good. We also had a small side salad, which I at least picked at.

I should note at this point that I'm walking around in one of my new pairs of pants, with strings trailing from the edge along the floor. In a house with cats. One cat followed me the rest of the night, randomly attacking me. It was cute, cause he's so delicate that he could never be vicious. Not to anything but string anyways.
We said grace before the meal, something I'm really not used to. I've done it before, I think, and I've seen it enough to know to hold hands, bow my head, and listen respectfully. I may be apathetic agnostic, but I don't wish to be rude to other people about their beliefs. It's their choice, their life, not mine.

Anyways, mini-rant to the side...We ended up doing some outdoorsy stuff after that. We played frisbee at first, and apparently her dad is impressed at how well I can throw the frisbee. We did that a bit, and even Clarence (one of her cats) joined in to play! I think Frank walked over too, just to not be left out of the attention. We ended up playing some badminton after that, too. I'm new to the game, but we had fun with it, and I did hit the birdie most of the time. I was able to properly serve this time. I just need work on hand-eye coordination. Depth and the like.

We also got out their leftover sparklers. Although I told her she should wait another month, since that's the 4th of July, her argument is that I won't be here then, so she wanted to do this now. It got very very smoky, and I learned the hard way not to stare at the burning magnesium stuff. Ow. Saw leftover light in my eyes for a little bit.

Once that was done, we went back to her room and fiddled with my computer, my music for a while, with the TV on Cartoon Network. Hey, there's nothing wrong with cartoons! We went onto her own computer (her parent's now, I guess) so she could read my blog from the first two days (as my laptop couldn't access their messed-up wireless network). She likes reading my blogs I've noticed.

I had to head back to the hotel at about 9 then. I didn't want the day to end, as we really had a lot of fun, but I guess that just means the day was worth the trouble of waking up and all that. It's not bad to end a day that went so well, I think. Said our good-byes, and then we went our ways.

Tomorrow will be more fun, though we don't quite know what yet. Maybe some ice-skating? I'd like that. I know she would, too. More on the adventure as it continues, if you care to keep reading.

The First Two Days

2007-05-31T21:35:00.000-05:00

Well, the first two days have been enjoyable. Though, for a couple reasons, the first day, Wednesday, was much more enjoyable. There are various obvious reasons that I'll describe later I guess.

Well, let's see...to begin...I need to think back a bit, it's actually a bit of a blur. I have random photos from here and there, so I can put up pics of my lovely girlfriend when I get around to developing the disposable cameras. And the...*shudder* photographic evidence of her playing around with my face. Not some of the really bad stuff though.

Well, first, Kitiy had her step-mom, Lyn, drive her over to my hotel to meet me for the first time ever and pick me up to go over to her house for the day. It was great to finally see her with my own two eyes...and after they were done fawning over my nice hotel room, and I was getting my laptop packed up, she couldn't resist giving me a fangirl-style hug. You know: squeal, rush, squeeze. ^.^

I dunno why...I didn't feel a dramatic feeling of elation like I'd expected. You know, the kind where you just feel like your heart will burst from joy? I just...I just felt happy, and a tad nervous. It was definitely a pleasant feeling. I think it would've been more enjoyable if it had just been us two, but things can't go our way all the time.
We went off to her dad's place down in Broken Arrow straight from there. It was kinda funny, cause she decided to take her GameBoy in the car and she asked for me to try and help her with KH: Chain of Memories. But that was just a small distraction...nothing special.

Had a small tour of the house by Lyn, she said I could help myself to drinks or food from the fridge if I needed, no need to ask, etc etc...

Anyways. I basically spent the whole day in Kitiy's room. We played random video games on and off, watched a movie. We kept stopping so she could play with my face. She'd grab some eyeliner...or one of her temp tattoos...or her spray-on hair dye. You get the idea. I have some photos she took of some of her handiwork, since you're probably interested. Fortunately, there are no photos of her handiwork the next day...but that's later.

She couldn't quite get the hang of Seven Sorrows. She has played the other Gauntlets before, but Seven Sorrows is different from the others. In those you just had one attack really, maybe one that was merely slower rate of fire and more powerful. And you'd have magic and specials, yada yada. Well, in Seven Sorrows, each of the four main buttons do a different attack and you can use combos, and buy more with your gold. And the characters aren't really colored based on which color the player is (red, green, blue, yellow, for the four players). I think that throws her off too. It was still fun playing with her, though, and I'm sure she could get the hang of it.

I don't remember if she got a pic of it or not, but she originally tried drawing lightning trailing from the edge of my eyes with the eyeliner, in a nice blue with a black outlining, that looked really damn cool. We ended up wiping it off, but I kinda liked it. I'm thinking it'd be neat if I were to spend Halloween with her, partly for letting her play with my face. >.>;

She had fun with dying my hair blue. That was an interesting experience. It washed right out, so no biggie. I don't think it quite looked right, though. She didn't get all of my hair, just most of it, so I had brown and blue mixing together on my head. If she'd used black to replace all the brown, it would've looked really good I think.

We mostly behaved. We cuddled a bit, with her leaning against me and my arms around her. I've wanted to do that for so very long, and it felt so peaceful. I ended up kissing her later on, too, just once. It was short and sweet, but it was still enjoyable. Can you believe I've been waiting years for that first kiss? The first of many. Anyways, I'm sure none of you really care to read about this, so we'll move on.

What else...hmm. It's hard to really remember these past two days and describe them without getting too boring with it all, or mentioning stuff that shouldn't be mentioned, because I'm half-asleep right now.

Okay, umm...between this line and the last I actually went to sleep and then woke up the next day. Oops. Hehe. Anyways, back to the blogging.

We also did attempt at some outdoorsy stuff. She tried getting me to play badminton, frisbee, and catch. I don't think either of us are particularly athletically inclined, but she discovered I am definitely not designed for physical activity. Certainly not in my current shape, either. At least she didn't manage to completely embarrass me in some fashion. It was very humid out, and Kitiy loves to wear long-sleeved stuff when outside (she acts like a vampire a bit, so uh...she doesn't like sunlight much, and let's just leave it at that), so we went in after a short bit. We didn't really try to play a serious game or anything, just kinda goofed around.

I met her kitties, too. Well, two of them. Clarence and Frank. Clarence is so very frail and dainty, I was worried I'd crush him to death just holding him. He apparently has allergy problems. Frank I didn't see much of, as he seemed to like lounging on a chair on the back porch all the time, but he meowed at me a bit and let me pet him. They have another cat called Smokey, who apparently is the big mean one of the group, that I haven't seen hide nor hair of yet.

Later that day her dad got back home from work and I met him. He's taller than I expected. He also apparently always looks grumpy. He just seems to have a naturally grumpy expression, whether or not he really is. I should probably mention that he's a high school chemistry & physical science teacher. He's all right as dads go, but after having been at her place two days now, and after yesterday, I can see why she doesn't get along with him. But we can get to that later.

Well, he took us off to CiCi's for dinner that night. Yeah, not the fanciest place to eat, nor the kind of place you'd normally go to eat with your girlfriend, but Kitiy was the one who had the idea I think. Or maybe it was her dad. Either way, we ate pizza and talked about stuff. Before we went off to CiCi's though, we had a small crisis with me forgetting where I'd put my wallet. Turns out it was in my laptop bag the whole time, so I feel somewhat stupid.
After CiCi's, we stopped by a small snow cone place. She got this Root Beer & Bubblegum flavor that she says everybody is afraid of. I took a bit of hers and I didn't see what the big deal was. It tasted good. I went with a Cherry Limeade on my own, though.

After that, he took me back to my hotel. I wish I could have spent more time with Kitiy that day, as it wasn't even dark yet, but oh well. We'll have more time.

It wasn't until I got inside my hotel that I realized: I'd forgotten my power cord at her place. Yeah, I'd taken my laptop with me, partially because I might get around to using it for some reason, and partially because I never like leaving my laptop alone. I guess I just don't trust people around it.
Well, I spent my entire battery talking to Kitiy through Yahoo about stuff, somewhat involving how I plan to get down to Broken Arrow the next day since her dad is busy. The plan was for me to take a bus over to her dad's high school, where he'll be finishing up stuff for the end of their school year, and he'll drag her along so she can see me.

Well, I was looking at bus routes and everything, trying to get it all figured out before the battery ran dry. I mostly got it planned, but the battery dried up when I was in the process of double-checking. Damn.

Well, that night I decided to sleep with one of Kitiy's gifts. She apparently finds it to be very very wrong that I have no stuffed animals, so she decided to "lend" me one of hers. I haven't slept with a stuffed animal for so long, I don't even remember how old I was when I stopped, but I decided that night to do so. It's a white cat, that is apparently named Kiki.
But, before I went to sleep, I took the time to do my laundry. Something I've been needing to do. Fortunately, laundry is only 50 cents a load, and detergent (for one load) only costs a dollar at the front desk. I didn't actually get to sleep until about 12:30am as a result.

I woke up the next day at 5:40am. I didn't even really feel all that groggy. So I get ready for the day and then I rush out at about 6:30am to try and enact my plan for reaching Kitiy that day. Turns out the bus I had planned to take to Broken Arrow originally was heading to downtown from Broken Arrow and wouldn't head back until the evening. It's a good thing the driver knew her business. She pointed me to a different bus to take down to some hospital, where I could take another bus to get where I needed. Everything turned out all right though and I made it to the high school where her dad teaches, much much earlier than they expected, too. Not that anybody complained about it.

We ended up spending most of the day there, waiting for her dad to finish up with all the stuff his job needed him to finish. Meetings, grades, cleaning up the room. He had Kitiy and me help out, which I really didn't mind. After all, he's being so hospitable to me about coming up here, I think it's only right that I offer help where I can. He had a bunch of his students come in to clean up the room, but I can get to that later.
Kitiy and I got bored very quickly in that high school classroom. We were alone most of the time, waiting for her dad to be done with stuff, so that was kinda nice, but still bothersome.

She ended up getting into a really bad mood because of how long we were there at the school, especially when her dad's students came in. Preppy people just completely piss her off, and having to watch them goof off and nearly break things with ping pong balls while her dad wasn't in the room didn't exactly help things.

But, before that happened, we ended up going to Sonic together for lunch. I tried to pay for her food, but she absolutely insisted to pay. At least she didn't get much, just a hamburger and an ice cream cone. Looking back at it, you can kinda call it our first "date" in that we went out to eat by ourselves. Going to Sonic alone with her may not seem like much of a date, or that big of a deal, to some of you, but it meant something to me. It was really the first time her dad let us go off on our own, and it makes me feel good.

We finally got to go back to their house around 3 or 4 in the afternoon. Note that I'd gotten to the school at like 9 in the morning. Kitiy was really not happy about it, saying that the day was completely wasted. I don't think it was a total waste, myself. Sure...we were in a dreadfully boring classroom all day long doing mostly nothing, but we were together and to me...that's what matters. Whatever time we get together, I'm not going to take for granted.

And we still got to spend some hours together in her room. We didn't play video games at all this time and we watched some of the anime she's managed to collect. Quality time with my lover, naturally. It was only until about 8pm, though, before her dad took me back to my hotel. By that point she was in a bad mood...her parents have been steadily getting on her nerves the more the days go on it seems. It was the sort of bad mood where she just didn't feel like talking about it, so...I didn't really know what else to do besides hold her hand or hug her and just generally be there. I think I was some help, but it's hard to say.
She's been wanting to go off to her mom's house (being that her original set of parents divorced and all...eh, it's a long story) ever since, and it doesn't help that they seem to be ignoring her completely when she asks if she can.

Suffice it to say, I've seen enough of her home life in person now to understand why she gets so pissed off at them so often.

Well, now we have plans to go off to the mall for the day. I am in much need of purchasing pants that fit me comfortably, and well...it's generally a good place for a girl and a boy to spend the day together I suppose. Not necessarily the whole day, though. Some hours in the mall will be spent, and then we'll probably go on back to her house for a bit before her parents decide that it's time for me to go back to my hotel. I know I'm looking forward to it, because the plan is that her dad will drop us off and we'll call or he'll call later. Hopefully I won't end up spending too much.

I'll let you know how things go later. :)

Panic?

2007-05-29T15:18:00.000-05:00

Well, I sit here in Dallas, now, at 4 in the morning, waiting for a Greyhound to Tulsa to come at about 6am, and only a few people actually know of it. I don't have Internet access here, or a power outlet even, so I'm just typing this up in OpenOffice to post up later.

I haven't told my parents about this trip I'm taking, but...hey, if Jacob gets to go to Germany, with his girlfriend, for a month, I think I can go visit my girlfriend, for the first time ever, in Oklahoma for just a week.

Sure...I probably should still be telling them...just so they know and don't freak out about it later, but I really don't want to have to deal with them lately. I know they'd worry a lot, and maybe mom would get all teary about growing up...but I know I'd also get a lot of troublesome lectures, mostly involving money, being careful about people, how I should be applying for jobs right now instead and other shit like that.
But let's put that aside for now...

I left Austin at about midnight. It turns out that, since it happened to be Memorial Day, the Capital Metro buses decided to run on a Sunday schedule. Which meant that the buses don't run late enough at night for me to get to the Greyhound terminal that way.

I discovered this change in bus schedule when I was at HEB, having recently bought some cat food, waiting for a bus one hour after the last one was supposed to stop there. So I walked home from there...it probably wasn't that far. I think it took me 30-40 minutes. I honestly can't remember it that well, because I was running on no sleep for the past 21 hours when I started walking, and then I ended up walking a few miles...so I was exhausted in like 30 different ways when I got home. I immediately jumped into the shower to simply rinse the sweat off. Well...least I got exercise from it.

So...once I got home, at 10pm, I rushed packing up my things as fast as I could...with a mind and body that were so heavily exhausted, both from lack of sleep and physical exertion, that I was feeling heavy and sluggish, and I struggled not to collapse onto my bed.

I don't think I've forgotten anything important....if I have, it's too late now. I had to pick up my ticket about an hour before the bus left the terminal, at 11:30 or so. I could probably pick it up as late as when the bus is boarding at midnight, but it's best to be safe. So...I wasn't finished packing until 11:15pm. Yikes, eh? Not only that, but now I had to either beg a ride from Will, or call a taxi and hope for the best.

Luckily, though Will was asleep, having passed out unexpectedly, (for me and him), he woke up...and I explained the circumstances, and he was more than willing to help me out. He even waited while I got my ticket and everything before leaving. It's nice to have a roomy who's willing to help you out in times of dire need. Hooray for extenuating circumstances?

So...I found out that I was to take a bus from Austin to Dallas, and then from Dallas to Tulsa. So it's not a straight 12 hour trip. I'd actually have preferred the 12 hour trip, cause then I could've slept the whole way, even if my legs would get painfully cramped up. So we got in Dallas at about 3am. That kind of surprised me, actually, as the ticket said I'd get here at 4:30am. I don't mind, really. I couldn't get any sleep, though I tried like hell. I mean...I leaned back in the chair and listened to my music for almost the whole trip...and I closed my eyes and everything. My body just refused to really sleep in such a position...I guess my body got used to sleeping spread out as much as possible.

See...I claim I can sleep anywhere: a bed, the couch, the floor, the ground (as long as I have a blanket or something between me and nature)...but I have to be able to stretch out and spread out to be comfortable and really get some good sleep.

I think I did sleep a little. An hour or two max. But it never was that deep a sleep; I felt fully conscious of the passing hours for the whole trip. That was rather painful to endure....the passage of that much time doing nothing. Is that even called sleep? If so, I don't know how. I didn't enjoy it at all, and though I'm not on the verge of passing out anymore, I can still feel the shaky nerves when I lift my arms up. They literally are shaking, and it's not just cause I'm nervous.

When the bus pulled in close to Dallas, I just kinda stared at the buildings with the big glowing lights thinking, “Woah...what the hell is that?”

When I think about places I've traveled to...I like to think of it as places I went to, or made an attempt to go to. Not necessarily on my own, like this, but I mean...places where I wasn't just dragged along with my parents. I'm sure you get the picture.

Anyways, if you list the places I've traveled using those restrictions, I've never been anywhere in my life but San Antonio and Austin. So I've now been to Dallas in person, on my own and by my own will.

It's an odd feeling, to think that I'm traveling somewhere on my own, and even without my parent's knowledge. Though...don't tell Kitiy's parents that. They seem to need to have my own parents aware of this. I'll just say yes...and hope things don't go haywire. Apparently, her dad wants my parent's contact information in case of an emergency...I just pray he doesn't decide to call them and mention this little trip until after it's over.

Really...I think that's the one big kink in everything I'm doing here. I have to give them my parent's contact information, in case of an emergency. And I do agree it's a good idea. If something happens to me, they'll want to contact somebody who knows me, contact my own family. But...what if they decide to call and ask my parents directly, “Do you know your son is up in Oklahoma right now?”

I don't want to feel like a delinquent or anything...but I don't want my parents to have to deal with this knowledge right now. I've been torn on whether or not to tell them about this...about Kitiy...but I just can't make a decision.

I must say, my feelings about this entire ordeal are really...mixed up and confused. A part of me somewhere is panicking. I'm ashamed to admit it, but I'll admit it...this whole ordeal frightens part of me to no end, and I can't tell if I'm shaking from nervousness, fear, or just the lack of sleep. It's probably the emotional part of me, the part of me that actually feels the emotions, that is panicking. At the same time, I'm elated....what's about to happen is a very big thing for me. I'm going to meet my girlfriend, who I met online years ago, for the first time. Ever. In person. I'm looking forward to this so much....and yet I'm scared of it at the same time. It's not a pleasant mix, to be honest.

I keep worrying that something will go wrong...and I can't get it to go away. Panic and worry are not good to have in combination either. I'm so far succeeding on putting on a calm exterior...for the most part at least. Typing this up is helping to pass the time at least.

I just also...I dunno, I have such strong disbelief that this is really happening to me. It's just such a big event for me. Huge. Life-changing. Which is funny, because going to college felt like no big deal to me at all. I think a psychiatrist would want to make note of how different I reacted to those two.

A part of me wishes I brought someone to come with me...to be my support or something on the trip. But I don't want to be a burden to people. Besides...why would anybody want to go to Oklahoma? Everybody I know wants to get out.

So...those of you who think of me as a friend...those of you who care. Please wish me good luck on this trip. Good health and all those other kinds of good things...I think I need that kind of well-wishing right about now. I don't think I've ever been this nervous about something I personally made the decision to carry out, something I've wanted to do for a long time now. I'm not stopping or turning back. I'm doing this...I just wish I wasn't so scared of doing it. Did other people feel like this when they first went to travel away from home? When people I know went off somewhere for the sake of travel...were they frightened of it all too?

Okay, here's an update, now that I've reached my destination and even have Internet access. I am now staying in the kick-ass GuestHouse Suites, and it's about 6pm. Well, okay. After having giving a more detailed inspection, there are one or two things I feel aren't perfect, but I'm not that worried about quality. It's got enough quality for me to be satisfied.

The second part of the trip, the ride from Dallas to Tulsa, wasn't that bad at all. The bus driver was even cheerful and mildly talkative.

I still find Greyhound buses to be terribly uncomfortable, though. Your legs get so painfully cramped, and there's practically no leg room between you and the seat in front of you. I'm glad we stopped every now and then to stretch our legs.
Anyways, we made a couple of stops in small towns, where other people were to get off it seems, and eventually McDonald's for a 9am breakfast.

I didn't really feel tired for some reason. Mildly sleepy, but not tired enough to actually take a nap. Though I did end up taking small naps out of pure boredom. One can only listen to 2GBs of music for so long before losing interest in it. My mp3 player's battery also died about an hour away from Tulsa.

Once I made it to the Greyhound terminal, I grabbed my bag ASAP, and headed west on 3rd street. I knew that a major bus terminal was over on Denver and 3rd, so I headed towards that. I found it after a somewhat tiring walk.
I did have a small crisis upon remembering that bus fares were raised from $1 to $1.25 (they did this in Austin recently, and apparently across the board as well, but I never paid attention to it being a UT student), so I got change for a $5 bill from the change machines. I've got many quarters on my person right now.

Anyways, after that, I went on a rather confusing ride on bus 210 to get to my hotel, but I've rather obviously made it. It's nicer than most hotels I've been to. It has it's own kitchen for crying out loud!
Not stocked, sadly. No foods, I mean. But still. It's got a kitchen. If I were looking to stay here for a month and/or had thought to bring my own supplies, this would be really awesome. How many hotels have built-in kitchens?
What about a sofa?

Kitiy pointed out to me...that I really should tell my parents about this whole thing. I didn't want to. I really didn't want to. But she asked me herself over the phone...and she mentioned that her step-mom knew the truth, but that she didn't mind as long as I was about to call them.
Well...funny thing is, my phone wouldn't reach hers for some odd reason. It wasn't even a missed call, she just didn't get it. I could've left voicemail, but I never like dealing with that.

This is probably odd from someone who prefers contact through e-mail and IM, but voice mail just feels too impersonal.

Anyways...my mom is rather understanding about this. She is concerned...I did spend $700 to come up here...and I am going off to meet a stranger. She apparently is impressed that I was mature enough to undertake this trip all on my own...buying the Greyhound ticket and getting up here safely and everything.

Anyways...I'm glad that's out of the way. Now I don't have to worry about the whole "Do your parents know you're up here?" question.

It's been decided that she and I will finally meet tomorrow, rather than tonight. It's just that we wouldn't get that much time to sit and talk about things, since her dad has had to work all day today and he is kinda my ride (unless I want to call a cab...ugh)...so she decided we'll start off by her coming to get me at 9 in the morning tomorrow, have the emotional first meeting and the awkward introduction to/of parents...then go off to hang out and do stuff...yada yada. She apparently has lots of ideas about how we'll spend our time, so...I think I'll leave that mostly to her.

Ah. Finally! My food is here.
I've ordered Chinese take-out. :)

Well, sorry for the long blog...but, here I am in Tulsa. The adventure will continue after today. ^.^;

Drake's Island

2007-05-15T10:19:00.000-05:00

Is it just me, or am I getting worse at these blog titles as time goes on? I need more imagination I guess. Or maybe I just need actual direction in writing my blogs. Though...do personal blogs really need any direction?
Okay, nevermind. Once I actually write the blog, I can get a title. It's just, before that, I tend to put in something like "grr" or "sigh" or some other such non-informative non-creative title, and it bugs me every time.

Anyways. Things lately...they're pretty much the same as always: bad. (Now why am I thinking of South Park...? It involves a chef.)
Which reminds me. My diet sucks. And so does heartburn. Ginger ale is my friend. Being fat sucks too. I need to learn to love sweat...and fast.

Let's see...grades first, I suppose. Now...you think I'd have learned my lesson. In fact. Even I thought it. Well...not after the first month of the semester, I didn't, but you know...past tense is past tense. I just thought the minor improvement I had made was...well...less minor.
It seems I'll have two Fs, a D (I was hoping for C in 315, but I was obviously off...), and an Incomplete (which, uh...is probably just as bad as an F without affecting your GPA? I'm not sure).
I blame (most) of my bad 315 grade on Rohit. He's a great guy. Intellegent. Good at coding.
He just fails at following the direction for turning in point-worthy projects. Four times. Out of five projects. That's 45x4, which is 180 points (out of 1000). That's *almost* two full letter grades. 18% lost. That would be a high C or a low B. Also, if it weren't for those zeroes, I would likely have been more inclined to put effort into my puzzlers, which I only did half of really...less, since I did two. Out of 5. But those are 15 points each. That's only 45 points lost.
I went to *almost* every lecture. And missed only one discussion (the last one). I got 36/40 on attendance, which means I improved by a LOT from last year (seriously). I just feel kinda miffed...disappointed even. The one class I put effort into...and I did try...I get a frickin' D in.
My self-esteem cries out from this most recent wound of stabbity nature.

So, now semester's over. This means I have more free time than I know what to do with, obviously. Well, okay... I've got several video games I enjoy playing. I've got the Internet at my fingertips (literally at this moment...yeah, that was bad). I could also go chill out with my friends in person (*gasp* what a novel idea). I also have a cat (who really is quite a brat).
Of course, I'm the sort of person who would get bored with all of that, quite easily in fact. I obviously need something that makes me miserable first to properly enjoy the things I do in my free time. Sad the way the world works, ain't it?

I need a job. Yes, there's the money, but it's also nice to have something to do. But um. Hmm. I can't seem to get myself into action.

Part of it is that I still want to go up to OK and visit Kitiy...and it would kinda be best to do that while I still lack any real (immediate) responsibilities. I have worked out the plan, for the most part. It involves a Greyhound to Tulsa and a week at a hotel, if things are to go as planned. The trouble lies in three places: A) I need pants. (I'll get to this later) B) I need spending cash in my pockets. (for public transportation, laundry, and because I like using real cash more than plastic) C) I need to know her dad's address, or merely a place to meet with her, since she'll be there and not her mom's.

Speaking of Kitiy...things aren't going well for her lately...they're going rather horribly in fact. For one thing, her mom now has no money. A jackass of a boss causing lack of a job tends to do that to a person. And she's not at all like me, so she IS applying for jobs, she IS trying to be a responsible adult. It's just...nobody's hired her yet. It's hard to do that when you're on your own.
My own mom's had to deal with that sort of thing, and my dad too, but at least when it happened to them, the other parent still had a job and there was still some money saved up in the bank. That's better than no money, if you're not good with quantities.

This obviously means she's going off to live with her dad (and step-mom). She hates them, and they hate her (and her mom), and there's no secrets about it. She's not got much Internet access, either. I've mentioned this before, but her dad basically took Kitiy's computer when their's broke, and then put a password on it so she can't use it. So she has to beg for permission to go online at all. Which means I won't see her much, if at all.

On that subject, she told me she intends not to bother IMing anymore, since she basically only gets an hour of computer access per day (if at all) anyways. Which really saddens me more than these words describe. I'd rather take 1 hour than nothing at all. Some kind of contact. She's important to me after all...more important than Fiona and my computer by far.

Maybe it's just because I can't imagine life without the Interwebs. Sad, I know.

Oh, another thing to mention...it would seem that her precious feline companion, Tramp, is slowly leaving this world. Apparently he's nowhere near a state of good health. And by nowhere near, I mean they've already considered the option of putting him to sleep. It's not a pleasant thought. She needs Tramp. He's like her best friend. Ya know how hard it is to know your best friend is dying, and you can do nothing about it? I hope she doesn't do anything drastic. I need to give her a real hug soon, I think. She's going to need a lot of that sort of thing.

Anyways. The pants. As I'm sure you all are dying to hear of. The basic gist of the problem is that my waist has increased by an amount I've not yet properly measured. Suffice it to say, when I ordered medium-sized pants from Hot Topic, I had to exchange them for XL pants. However, difficulties have arisen. First, my printer's ink dried up. I was unable to print the return label, and am too much of a recluse to journey to campus and use the TAY basement printer (which I've honestly never used nor figured out how to access). So I ordered more ink from online, naturally. Should be here soon, but you know how things go sometimes. I'll have to request another return label thingy since it expired.

Also, they did ship the pants before I actually returned these. Problem is, I wasn't home the two times they tried to deliver. Maybe even *gasp* three. They manage to show up, always, without fail, when I'm on campus. Now, according to the tracking number, they are holding it at an as yet undisclosed FedEx location where I am expected to pick it up.
Frustration ensues. Will I ever again get to wear pants that fit comfortably and feel good (fashion-wise) wearing?! I refuse to wear jeans. I do not wish to go down to a normal store in person and buy some random baggy cargos either.

These pants I ordered cost $300 total after all. Spending more money for pants would be absurd. Yes. Five pairs of pants. $60 each. Do not expect me to shop at Hot Topic often, I must say.
But perhaps I will cave and request of Will a visit to Wal-mart, where they sell pants, and where I've bought pants most of my life. After all. Sometimes, you need to wear seemingly-normal pants. Hot Topic pants are definitely not something I'd wear to most jobs.

Okay...let's see....topic...topic...neeeed a topic...
Insomnia is not worthy. I only managed to stay up all last night in a meek attempt to reverse my backwards sleeping cycle. Nothing new. Sure...a can of Amp, more liver damage, but not really what I call worth blogging.
Which I apparently just did. Hmm.

I forgot my dad's birthday. And...I'm ashamed to admit...Mother's Day. I feel horrible. I apologized by e-mail. Explained how life just passes me by lately, as best I could. But you know, it's still there...the guilt.
Even if I never get along with my family. It's always talk of money, grades, what I need to do, and what I shouldn't have done. But still...it's the principle of the thing.

I feel so alone lately. Fiona is the only living soul, besides my room mate Will (who is really a bit of a recluse who usually stays in his room anyways), I've seen in weeks. You know. Physically encountered.
Unless the pizza delivery person (I try to not be gender specific, some have been female) counts, which I honestly don't. No offense to them, but...they're just bringing me food. It's not much interaction.

I dunno...I mean...I've always felt rather alone. Even among friends, I kinda just put on a face and try to be what everyone always sees anyways. But...you know...there's just not really anybody I've been able to get close with for years. Matt and Paul are good buddies and pals and fun to hang with, but recently, apparently, we've just kinda drifted to our own paths. Scott, and Keith, and Rohit...they're great fun, yeah. I even trust the first two rather well with things in my life I usually don't like to talk about. But...well...I still feel such a barrier. I also haven't socialized with them for a couple weeks. They weren't even at the end of the year officer party or LAN party! I still wish to chastise them for this. They even said they'd come. Bastards. I was bored for a good many hours and even entered into the Super Smash Brothers Melee tournament (I got second. I could never beat Buckley with ease, and I haven't played for over a year. Yeah, yeah, excuses, but hey...it's the truth).
I wanted to play Supreme Commander. A big match...but I only played thrice, when Tina finally showed. The first we didn't finish, because Daniel decided to join in. The third we didn't finish because we ran out of time, and I was even doing better that time. I almost killed a commander merely 20 minutes in. (and that's saying something)

Maybe this is why I've been told to see a counselor. The whole...loneliness..sporadic depression thing. Though it's lately not so sporadic and more constant.

Is every man an island? It sure seems that way.

End Plans

2007-05-04T01:39:00.000-05:00

Well...today will be the last day of classes this semester. Yippee! Not that I went to most of them anyways...kinda sad to say that eh? *sigh*
Actually, it's just one class. CS315's last class was Wednesday. And I stopped going to CS310 months ago. So it's just EDP310.

Anyways, I took the CS315 final a couple hours ago...and I did much better than I expected. I'll honestly be surprised to get more than ten points below a perfect grade. Actually...even that shall shock me. I don't want to say I expect a perfect score, but I didn't guess anywhere...and I wasn't even stumped on the programming problems.

Of course...with my luck, and my record in the world of jinxing myself, I will likely get such a low grade that I will want to give up on CS and become a liberal arts major (gag...).
Okay, I seriously doubt it'll be that bad. I just hate it when I get all hyped up for seeing a high (near-perfect) grade on a big exam, then seeing like...70% when I get it back. Cause that's painful.

So why am I awake right now instead of sleeping for my last class so I can go out and party (aka crash at Brett's place more and play mind-numbing video games while eating too much Taco Bell)? Simple...there's some kind of important project due on this final day of class that I've not put any effort into, so now I'm staying up all night to do just that. I think I may actually have a second assignment to do for it to fulfill some other requirement. Ah well...
And yet...here I am wasting time typing up a blurb...watching new anime episodes, freshly torrented...considering playing video games...
Just kill me now.

I may, after this week, visit Oklahoma. For most of you, the response is, "Wait, what...where'd that come from? And why Oklahoma? Nothing's there!". But, hey, Kitiy is there. I don't know how soon I may go through with this idea, but I've had it for a while now. Maybe for the whole week after classes end I'll go do this, while claiming to be swamped with studying for finals so I don't have to deal with my parents wanting to lecture or whatever.

Speaking of parents lecturing...I still don't know how the hell I'll get off easy with my new laptop. Yeah, I did need a new one all semester, everybody who spends time with me in person often knows how often I complained about it, or noticed how beat-up the poor thing was...and hearing about my various issues with the darn thing running (I do believe I blurbed that one day where my computer would auto-shutdown or whatever after only 5 minutes of running...and then just magically started working again). Yeah. All legitimate excuses for buying a new laptop, right?
Somehow, I feel it won't be enough for my parents. They'll see the number 1,600 and just won't be able to think about anything else.

I'm seriously considering cutting myself off from them completely, at least as far as dependency is concerned. Yeah...I've been doing bad in college for a while now, while still spending loan money on stuff my parents wouldn't want me to (gee, some expenditures may have been a tad excessive, but I had so much extra it really was ridiculous). Yeah...I don't have a job and am technically a bum. Yeah...all that...and my parents will probably want to pull me off to San Antonio to attend UTSA or Northwest Vista or something after this semester.

But you know what? Fuck that. I'm 20-years-old...yeah, I'm not successful. I've got life problems that are tough to fix. But going back to live with my parents isn't going to help. Seriously, how many success stories have you heard about involving living with their parents after the age of 18?
I need to get myself on track, not be pushed on track by money-focused family. If I have to go to ACC, okay, then I have to go ACC, but I'm not going to San Antonio. I have friends here in Austin that know me, and that I'm sure are willing to support me emotionally in ways my parents cannot. At least I get along with my friends and trust their judgment.

So, anyways. I plan to get an hourly-wage job ASAP that I can simply take a bus to, and work my ass off. 40 hours a week if possible. But, first, although I am hesitant to make such a big move, I want to go spend some time with Kitiy up in Tulsa/Broken Arrow. I just think it's something that needs to be done. So maybe...either next week, or the week after that, but definitely sometime this May, before I get a job, I'll hop on a Greyhound.
I want to say I'll be there for a week, but I do happen to have a cat in my apartment, and I'm reluctant to leave her in another's care. I'm probably just a tad over-protective in this though. After all...cats are the low maintenance pet. It's just that leaving her alone for a week feels like I'd be leaving a 5 year-old daughter by herself for a week.

I'll have to do it before I get a job though. If I go and find work it'll be harder to pull away to visit out-of-state. I haven't tried to go yet simply because of the measly two classes I actually attend, and the ACM events and such. I could've gone Spring Break, but I had to house-sit, so...yeah. The upcoming two weeks are the most perfect time for hopping on a Greyhound if there ever was one. I already took both finals, no more assignments to do, no more ACM events, and I shouldn't bother taking finals for classes I've barely attended. Besides Fiona, I'll have practically no responsibilities.
Okay...not exactly next week...ACM LAN party happens to be on Monday. But after that I'm good.

Hmm...I think I've typed waaay more than I intended...and there's no reason to keep going on about this topic either.

Eyelids Feeling Heavy...

2007-05-02T01:06:00.000-05:00

So, it's the last week of the semester...I'm SO looking forward to seeing just how bad my grades are this time. Yes, if you haven't guessed, my outlook is not hopeful in the least.

Somehow...I managed to, quite literally, sleep through Monday. I'm not sure how.
Okay, I think I woke up at noon and decided "Fuck that, I'm not rushing off to class, without a shower, just to bore myself to death, and then come back right back anyways, having learned absolutely nothing."
I remember playing Command & Conquer 3 for a few hours before I realized my eyes wanted very desperately to close...and my pillow was feeling unusually comfortable. Next thing I know I'm waking up at midnight.

Anyways. We don't have discussion section anymore, so I stayed home yesterday and played video games. I've been sleepy all day, too, and now suddenly...I can't sleep. No clue why. Dammit.

Last week I went off to Hot Topic at the...I don't remember which mall...High-something...with Keith and Nadia. Turns out they don't carry what I'm looking for, so I just gave in and decided I'll ship it off to wherever I'm supposed to ship it for exchanges. I decided to buy all XL pants (36-38 waist). I haven't felt fat until this day. T_T
We also stopped by GameStop while we were there...I feel ashamed. I couldn't resist buying some games (one of which was Command & Conquer 3). I also purchased a little game known as Shadow of the Colossus.

I started playing that today...and I honestly don't know why people say the game is so hard. I beat three colossi today...I don't know that's normal or weak or what, but I didn't really put in any effort. I did die once, but that's only because I messed up on the first colossi, while I was still getting used to the controls. He kinda stepped on me.
I hear lots of stories about people being intimidated by the colossal scale (oooh, yes, the puns) of this game's fights, but I just don't see it. I also have heard people tell me that it's complicated. From my first three colossi, I must say I disagree.

Well, maybe I've just played too much Prince of Persia. While you may not have to worry about the little pink circle that tells you how long you can hold on, it's still a lot of complicated climbing, jumping, swinging and shit, usually involving a long and painful fall to the death...and the traps. Ouch.

Anyways. I'm hoping I can get to my classes today on time instead of sleeping through them again. It's my last week after all. Why does my body do this now rather than next week, when I'll have some free time?

Though that free time won't last long. So I hope. I need to find some sort of hourly wage job. Both for the money, and to occupy my time with something other than sleep and video games.

Desiderata

2007-04-20T18:00:00.000-05:00

Before I get on to the main content of this note...I would like to point out, to those who do not know, that a desiderata is something that is considered highly necessary or desirable. Anyways...

I've posted this before in my Misc. Writings blog...which I haven't updated in probably a year (since it seems I lack not only motivation in life, but inspiration in my art)...but I think everybody needs to be reminded of this. This is also for those who have never read this.
I try my best to follow this desiderata in my life, and have been for probably all of my life, as far back as I remember. I originally saw this as a poster in the classroom of a really fucking awesome calculus teacher back in my junior year of high school, and I one day decided to write it down in my little notepad. I've always kept this in a .doc on my computer since then, and it's something I hope to always keep with me. I'm not sure why I follow this, or why I strive to do so, but...well, I guess it just feels right to me.

Go placidly amid the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence. As far as possible without surrender, be on good terms with all persons. Speak your truth quietly and clearly and listen to others, even the dull and ignorant; they too have their story. Avoid loud and aggressive persons, they are vexations to the spirit. If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain and bitter; for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself. Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans. Keep interested in your own career, however humble: it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time. Exercise caution in your business affairs; for the world is full of trickery. But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals; and everywhere life is full of heroism. Be yourself. Especially, do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love; for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment it is as perennial as the grass. Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth. Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness. Beyond a wholesome discipline be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should. Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you may conceive Him to be, and whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul. With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be careful. Strive to be happy.

When I was watching the second Lord of the Rings movie, one scene forever struck me so profoundly that I just had to write down the dialogue for future reference. I actually keep it in the same .doc file as the above Desiderata, so I feel I may as well quote this scene, as well, as they both address similar topics. I think this is in the second to last scene of the movie, as apparently I have documented in the .doc file.

Frodo: I can’t do this, Sam.
Sam: I know. It’s all wrong. By rights we shouldn’t even be here. But we are. It’s like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were. And sometimes you didn’t wan’t to know the end, because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it’s only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you, that meant something. Even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chance of turning back, only they didn’t. They kept going because they were holding on to something.
Frodo: What are we holding on to, Sam?
Sam: That there’s some good in this world, Mr. Frodo. And it’s worth fighting for.

A lot of people, including Kitiy, my love, have problems with life...and often wonder what the point of it all is. I know a lot of people who look forward to the end, because they just can't imagine life ever being good in any way. I have never been so depressed as to lose my will to live, my will to keep going...as bad as my depression has gotten before, I have never completely given up. And...whenever I hear about people's problems in life...whenever they seem miserable...whenever I hear people say that there's nothing good about life, that there's no point to living...I just want to tell them to never give up, to keep on going. I just wish it was easier to say encouraging words to people like this. I just...I dunno, I can't help but feel that they need somebody to be there...even if all I would do is listen to whatever they feel like talking about.