Alachia

Had to share this dream my brother had the other night that exemplifies what an ego he has. It’s not just an act, it’s deep within his psyche.

So in his dream, he went to work and they said they were going to lay off the bottom 18 people developers in the company (he’s a programmer). And he was told he was in that group and that he would be laid off.

He was like “F- that! They can’t fire me! I’m one of their best devs.” etc. So as he was walking out of the building, he said to himself, “no, this is impossible. I could never get fired. This is a dream. I’m going to fly.”

And then he heaved himself into the air and started flying.

LMAO.

This book is by the "dog whisperer" and was given to me by my brother once I got Daisy. He had already read the thing start to finish. At first, I was pretty skeptical because all his puppy examples really showed just positive outcomes but what I wanted to learn was how to deal with the ones that don't respond to the lessons.

A couple of 5am reading sessions while up with Daisy and I learned quite a bit about the way we handle dogs. The most important lesson is that dogs are not toddlers. Cesar basically explains that if you treat your dog like a 2 year old, you will get one that acts like a two year old. You have to treat your puppy like a dog. It's an animal and its learning instincts are based on animal behaviors.

As a loving mommy of a uber uber uber cute puppy, it's difficult, but I have to stop myself from being the adoring mom and act like the pack leader. My discipline and training usually involves mimicking what would be her mother through repetition, silent stares, and assertive dominance.

So far it works but there are times I slip up and want to just reason with her like a four year old. It really sucks that she's so cute sometimes.

They say you aren't supposed to just get a puppy to fix your life but I couldn't help it. I fell in love as soon as I saw her.

I found her last weekend online while surfing for Morkies after spending all day with Winnie. I've been thinking about her ever since I saw her picture. Finally Friday night, I couldn't resist anymore. That'll teach me to skip my therapy session.

She's ten weeks old and weighs 1.5 lbs. She is playful, loves cheerios, and is the definition of adorable.

You can tell she's mine cuz she's down with the Sunkist. lol. I put the can there to give scale. I'm not sure how big she'll get. She's probably going to be about 5lbs I think.

I know it's strange but she reminds me a lot of Qtpi. Her mannerism is very similar even though her size is not. Yesterday she got introduced to her cousin Winnie. Although she's only a quarter of Winnie's size, she ended up freaking her cousin out and chasing her around. It was the opposite of what we though would happen. Great, I'm raising the bully. lol.

Hopefully, they get used to each other and learn how to play nicely so that I can have some chillax time again. Right now, potty training is my first priority.

FYI, she did not drink any of my Diet Sunkist but she is being given sugar water to help prevent hypoglycemia since she's so little. So it's kind of like she's drinking soda water. :) That's my girl.

I might not have enough hard drive space for her pics.

Days are dark for me now. No, dark isn’t the right description because the world around me is so full of light. I just feel the constant pain of guilt. It has torn through me and my conscious until I just can’t bare to think anymore. I feel guilty for being miserable and sad. I feel guilty for the moments I am happy as well as sinking. I feel guilty for being alive because I don’t appreciate it.

You get to this point where you know that reality around you feels like it’s distorted but then you know that it is really only in your own mind that things are out of place. I feel like this darkness clouding all the beautiful things around me, including all the people I love. And I want to be their happiness but I don’t know how.

They say when you are depressed, you are unable to think for yourself but I didn’t quite know what that meant until recently. I’m always thinking, my head is always full. The problem happens when the the under-toe comes and the structures of your emotions start to collapse. You don’t get to control anymore your effect, your will, or your logic. Everything in that moment is lost to an idea in your mind that is fixated on the misery within. It’s not logical, it’s not thinking. It’s a suffering to a part of yourself that you wish didn’t exist.

And it has a horrible effect on the people around you which only furthers the guilt. I feel guilty for not being able to fix myself, be happy, and just walk the paved path of human existence that comes so naturally to those around me. That’s why you end up faking it as long as you can because this collapse doesn’t just make you feel helpless, it makes everyone who cares for you feel helpless too.

It is heartbreaking to hear those I love ask if they are the cause of my unhappiness. If there wasn’t something they could be doing or should be doing. If maybe it’s their effect on my life that has driven me to this temporary madness. And beyond anything, they want to see you better because your happiness is so tied to theirs.

But I can’t deliver and I can no longer pretend either. So instead I feel guilty that I can’t find solutions and feel more alienated from the world than ever. And a part of me wants to escape from that feeling so badly at times that I wish for an eternal numbness. Of course, this makes me feel the most guilty of all. I hate the paradox of being human. Life is both astonishingly beautiful, wonderful, and hopeful as well as it is complex, burdensome and often tragic.

I used to love to read when I was younger. I would dive into books and read for hours and hours. I loved escaping into the stories and allowing the music playing in the background start to effect the entire mood of the book. There are still some soundtracks that will take me back to certain chapters of books.

But after grad school and being forced to read thousands of pages of stuff I hated, I grew a very strong distaste for reading all together. It was hard to shake that discomfort of physically reading after that so I kind of stopped all together.

I've tried several times to pick up a book but after the first page, I'm filled with anxiety and boredom (the overwhelming feelings I had when reading essays for grad school). I'm starting to think I'll never be able to read a book again which is kind of sad considering I remember how much I used to love it.

I also can't really justify buying a nifty e-reader in the future if I don't start reading again. :)

The other day, I was killing time at Borders book store before my therapy session and was perusing through the self-help section. There are so many books on how to fix yourself but none of them really made sense to me. I don't know what qualifies people to write most of this nonsense.

Like this one book my mom gave me called "The Power of the Subconscious Mind" where the author tells you to plant the seed of thought into your head. He then tells you to nourish the seed and let it grow in your subconscious.

One of the examples he used was of a student in his class who really wanted a car so she used the power of the subconscious mind and planted the seed in her head. She visualized what the car would look like, how she would feel getting into it, and even how it would smell. Every day she worked on this visualization and low and behold, one day her uncle died and she inherited his car.......

yeah... I was like wtf?

Anyhow, after giving up on the self-help books, I walked over to the fantasy section and saw Terry Goodkind's Wizard's First Rule. I've been meaning to read this book ever since watching Legend of the Seeker. My brother considers it one of his favorite all time books. And I've only heard great things about this series in particular.

So I figure I'll pick it up and make myself read at least five pages every day (starting really small so I don't give up fast). I'm hoping that after the first chapter, I'll have rebooted my love for reading. I will say the first five pages are already interesting to me as they didn't begin with a six paragraph description of a leaf blowing in the wind (sorry Robert Jordon). It'll take me some time to work my way back to trying The Eye of the World again.

I don't know why but I consider escaping into a fantasy world of books a lot safer than the fantasy world of games. Right now I'm too afraid to get back into gaming for fear that I might lose myself completely to them. The desire to escape or run away from my own emotions in real life are very great. I have to be careful. Books seem like a safer alternative to gaming as they are far less emersive.

I wasn’t sure if I was actually going to go through with it but as I walked through the Therapist’s office door, I thought to myself “whatever. let’s just do this.” And then I wasn’t sure if I was even in the right place. There was no receptionist, just a foyer with some chairs and magazines that led into more rooms. I wondered around a bit wondering if I was in the right place.

She finally came through the door and introduced herself to me. She brought me back to one rooms attached the main foyer and sat me down on an oversized lounge chair. I couldn’t get myself to lean back in it though and was pretty much on the edge of my seat the entire session (just the initial free consultation).

First thing she asked me was if I was able to find the place okay and then jumped right to “so what’s going on?”

I don’t even know what I said for the first few minutes but I do know that it all added up to something about having hidden my erratic mood levels including depression for over a year and how it ruined my relationship and crippled me as normal human being.

I told her that it seems no connection I ever have is good enough or strong enough for me. So much of my sadness is feeling like I just can’t connect. I said I didn’t understand why I keep longing for more than there is. What am I seeking?

She nodded and asked me about my relationships and my past history. She asked about school and work and my childhood. When I started to relay it all to her she seemed a bit confused at first at the amount of history. I think she had assumed I was younger so she finally asked me my age. Once I told her, it seemed to make better sense to her.

I talked a lot about how I fell out of love with my profession. I talked about my struggles with parents about life views and their influence over me. I talked about how angry I had been and how much blame I put on the people I love.

I basically stated I had reached a point where not even the things that should make me deliriously happy did. I didn’t see a point to anything. Simply put, nothing has meaning for me anymore. I have reached the pinnacle of existential absurdity.
I told her I had thought it was only a matter of me fixing my life at first but now know that the problem is deep within and up until a few weeks ago, I was totally in denial that I was depressed.

I see this state as weak. Crying is weakness. Not having control over your emotions is weak. I used to be so good at faking happiness. I used to have the mental capacity to compartmentalize my feelings. That’s all gone. I don’t even like to go out too much anymore because I often just tear up at the most inappropriate times. I try to pass it off as allergies but I think they know.

My biggest problem is that there will be moments where I am up and think I’m fine and okay again. I floated on that for awhile but then the lows would hit me without warning and I’d find myself downing. I never thought of it as an illness because I just assumed they were random fleeting moments. The thought of having a real mental illness was something I didn’t want to accept.

But there’s only so long you can float in and out without noticing you’re destroying the world around you, the people you love the most. I was alienating my family and friends and all my chances at happiness. I just can’t stand being around normal people when I’m like this so I shoved that world far away from me. I still find myself unable to be real with them. I turn myself “on” just so they don’t have to feel helpless about me. The rest I’ve just pushed away probably destroying some of the best of relationships in the process.

“I’m broken. I realize that,” I told her when she asked me if I was aware I was depressed. I thought it was an odd question for her to ask but maybe she was wondering if a part of me was still in denial. Because of my extreme highs and lows, lack of need for sleep, wild productivity spurts, and abnormally high sex drive, I’m pretty convinced I might have bipolar disorder.

I admitted to her that I didn’t really understand therapy. How is a stranger supposed to help me? There is no way she’ll ever truly know me the way I know myself and others know me. 

She said that it was because she was a stranger and removed from my life that she’d help me analyze my life better. She also said that it would make it easier because I’d be able to tell her things that I might not want to tell my family or friends. That last bit I was skeptical about since I’m so guarded with my layers. I’m not sure how much I’ll be comfortable revealing. Who knows, I might surprise myself.

The funny part was when I had to mention to her about my online world. I told her it was pretty important for me to have someone who wasn’t going to be quick to judge people who spend a great deal of their socialization on the Internet. I said quickly that I know I’m not addicted to the Internet (count one).

She asked me where I spent most of my time online. I said it used to be gaming but now it’s mostly just in social networks. She definitely raised her eyebrows when I said “gaming”. She asked me if I played “wow”.. she actually said WOW not World of Wacraft (impressive)! I was like, “yeah. but not as much as I used to but I was never addicted” (count two).

Then she mentioned that there is a 12 step support group for WoW players in the Austin area and explained how there were studies that show people who are addicted to WoW experience the same symptoms as those who are addicted to heroine. I nodded but quickly said, “yeah, I read the same thing but I’m not addicted to WoW.” (yup three times I said I wasn’t addicted) I’m not sure she bought it but perhaps later she’ll discover that I am addicted but probably not what to she thinks... I’m addicted to connection. I know this is a problem and I don’t know where it stems from, my compulsive need to be connected or feel connected. I still can’t figure out what I’m hoping to find.

Anyhow, after denying my addiction to video games for a bumbling five minutes, she spoke to me about how she works a lot with dream analysis. She believes a lot in the psychological study of Carl Jung and the theories of individuation. I’m not sure what to think of it to be honest. I think I’m mostly curious about the study of the subconscious mind having obviously failed at comprehending the conscious one.

So now I have to keep a journal of my dreams which luckily for her are crazy and vivid. She was actually surprised to hear that I remember my dreams a lot. I wonder what she does for people who never remember what they dream. SOL?

I’m going to have to keep a journal by my bed though because the dreams fade super fast after the first moments of waking. The last couple of nights have been pretty colorful and having to try to remember them make me wonder a lot what they could mean. I used to think they were just residual images compiled from too much visual stimulus in my life...ie. movies, magazines, the meta. It’ll be interesting to see if they mean more than that. I’m a bit skeptical of course.

She also told me to start taking some Flax Seed Oil or Fish Oil (Omega-3) to see if that helps. Apparently Omega-3 has has some success in treating depression and bipolar disorder.  I did some quick research on the subject and found some interesting studies on how the deficiency of Omega-3 results in the body using Omega-6 instead which produces cell membranes that aren’t able to cope with neurotransmitter traffic.

Omega-3 is a fatty acid you need but your body can’t make so you have to consume it. It is a component you naturally get from seafood so they said depression in places like New Zealand where only 40lbs of seafood is consumed per year is like sixty percent higher than Japan where there is over 150lbs of seafood eaten annually. Crazy huh?

So I went and got some Flax Seed Oil that day from the People’s Pharmacy (apparently their drugs contain less mercury). I opted not to get the Fish Oil because people say the after taste can get nasty. She says if it is effective, I should start to feel a little different after just three days or so.

At the end of the initial session, she asked me if I’d like some time to keep fishing (npi) for other therapists. She said it’s all about finding someone you feel comfortable with and believing they can really help you. It’s important to fit. She says for her, she feels like she has the capabilities to help me but it would only work if I felt she was a good fit for me too.

I told her I didn’t really want to fish around. The truth was that at this point I’m willing to try anything so I scheduled our first real session for later this week. I’m going to give it two sessions and see if I think it’s helping any. She’s already told me that I have a long ways to go (she says she senses a lot of complexity) so I think that translates into quite a few sessions. I’m not sure how people afford this stuff but I guess if it works then it’s worth it? Oh well, at least now I can begin all my sentences with “My therapist says..”

THE CHALLENGE
Take a photo that completes the phrase Democracy is… and share it with the world.
http://www.democracyphotochallenge.america.gov/about.html

I had a hard time thinking about this challenge which seems like it should be rather easy. For most Americans, it is ingrained that Democracy is Freedom. However that’s just the pre-programmed grade school response. Is it true? Well, unfortunately like most grown up answers, it’s never a simple yes or no.

The cynical side of me would like to say “Democracy is an illusion” or “Democracy is at the expense of lesser nations which we exploit”. Or I’d like to say “Democracy is expensive”.

But then I sit back and think about it and that’s where I realize I have done what a lot of people do and mix up capitalism with democracy which unfortunately in the US are often viewed as the synonymous. There’s a valid but pitiful reason I think it is hard for me and others to visualize democracy. Most of don’t practice it! I’m guilty of it for sure but the structure of our government hasn’t exactly been promoting it either.

Can you name any of your State’s representatives of the House or Senate? What are all their stances on alternative energy? What was the last thing they voted for? How many things did they not bother to vote on? What about your local government?

If democracy is our reality, then why does barely 50% of the population bother to vote in our Presidential election? Or if we say screw national government, what is really important is local government, then why do most of us know nothing about those issues? Can you name any of the members on your city council? What’s the name of your mayor? What’s on the agenda this year for them to vote on?

The truth is that most of us are too indifferent as individual citizens and the government isn’t nearly transparent enough for us to really be practicing a solid Democracy. So maybe I was right. Democracy is more an illusion than anything, offering us the “ability to be run by the people” but also be set on autopilot if we choose not to bother.

But the most important thing Democracy is that makes it stand as an amazing governing concept is that it is an enabler for us to have a voice, to have power, to have an effect on the world we want to live in. That is, if we want it. The problem right now is that “DEMOCRACY IS... Untapped Power” but the good news is that the card is still available for play if we want to use it... for now. :) [Insert some Magic the Gathering analogy of a player card stealing ability here]

I'm still struggling to find a decent photo option though. Obviously, I won't be using the Magic the Gathering Mock up. I just don't really know how you visualize untapped power.

You have your good days and you have your bad days and then there are days like today. It’s hard to explain when you sink so low that you past the point of feeling. I think it’s a defense mechanism of the mind to turn off your emotions before you self-destruct. At this point, nothing matters anymore except breathing through the pain.

I’ve tried to self-analyse myself over and over again. I’ve tried to dissect my life and so that I can reverse engineer happiness into my program. I’ve had little success but today while reading an article about Internet Addiction and Depression, I think I gained some clarity but not how you might think.

I found the article because I was researching a therapist (good luck finding one that isn’t booked for months in this fucked up world) and Dr. Brooks seems well in tune with the culture of a meta-integrated person (cyberpsychology). The article in a nut shell basically states that despite the promise of technology and our ability to connect online, it lacks the ability to make us happy the way real life social interactions can. He says it goes against our biological evolution of being social animals and conflicts with our natural growth as humans via human interaction.

I agree. I get it. I’m not so buried in the meta that I don’t understand the beauty of flesh. There is nothing online that has ever been able to replace the way it feels when your fingertips come in contact with another person’s skin. And no amount of amazing chat convos will ever be able to come close to what it feels like sitting across from someone and watching them laugh and you laughing back and then the look they get when they acknowledge you’re laughing too and on and on.

And so I’m nodding my head and say yeah, that makes sense. But now I’m conflicted. I understood a few months ago that my immersion into the meta had created an instability and imbalance in my life. I was too invested in connections that are to this day still AMAZING, powerful, and wonderful but in the process abandoned and neglected ALL real life interactions.

So I did step away quite a bit. I did take the time to develop time in re-immersing myself into the real world. I traveled, saw incredible things, and spent a lot of time with humans in the flesh. These were all things that should have given me comfort or made me feel alive again..happy even. But it didn’t. I still remained sad and lost.

This has sunken me into further depression as now I really don’t know where my place is in the conscious world of the living. I can’t find solace and my place in either the digital realm or the world of the flesh. Where the hell do I belong? Where will I find stability?

After crashing down and down and down, crying for a few hours, I came to a realization today that maybe no therapist would ever be able to have seen for me. I’m broken. Period. There is nothing anyone is going to be able to say to me or present to me that’s going to make me want to smile when I don’t want to or dance when I just want to disappear. No amount of love is going to make me feel whole. Even the best human connection in the world won’t forever satiate the internal pain that consistently emerges within me.

I simply don’t see a purpose to life. I get that you can make up distractions, give yourself goals but in totality, life just has no meaning to me. And I get so upset when my head goes into this place of indifference. I’m incredibly healthy. I have heartbreakingly beautiful friends both in the meta and real life.

It’s not like I ever have to be want for love or care. I see that. I have the perspective to see all that I should be seeing but for some reason, I’m still crippled. I don’t feel like I belong to this world or to these wonderful connections. I get angry at myself for not being able to get past the sadness to really embrace it to make me happy.

I’m so fucking rational. I have all the puzzle pieces in front of me and yet I can’t make it fit. It’s infuriating. And all I can do is compartmentalize the pain, pretend I’m okay at times, and go through the motions of being normal. I get scared sometimes at how low I get otherwise. At times, only the thought of my brother’s happiness keeps me here.

And the only thing right now that allows me to be distracted, free from pain, and gives me a temporary form of normalcy is creating. When I’m producing, creating, writing or organizing there is a peace that washes over my mind. Digital or RL format, I love to produce and make things. Maybe that’s why I find photography so therapeutic. I noticed that as soon as I start to write or take pictures or audio blog I feel more in sync with my mind. But this frightens me too. I can’t just keep only living in my head. I’m too much into my head and I know that.

But for now my goal will be to set up a schedule to be active in production and creating on a regular basis. Less searching and soaking and more doing like I’ve always gone on and on about.

But who knows, maybe by tomorrow that theory will have failed and I’ll be struggling to unravel the mystery of human misery again.

This is my favorite scene in Vanilla Sky. I remember how it was one of those scenes that jolts you to your core because you realize how awkward and strange it is and at the same time powerfully sad. Not being built with appropriate emotional responses, I remember I laughed while watching him scream “Tech Support!” all over the building.

I wish my life was like this where you get to scream “tech support!” out loud and then you get helped by the corporation taking care of your mind and body. They come to you and tell you that this is just a dream and that one day you’ll wake up when you’re a better person and the world is better for you. But unfortunately, life isn’t a really surreal Tom Cruise movie.

Sometimes I wonder if taking photos can turn into something of an unhealthy lifestyle. Photography or amateur picture taking as most would say is something I enjoy very much. I love to capture moments, pieces of things that interest me, and of course memories.

The only problem is wondering whether or not you miss a lot when you aren’t seeing the world through both your eyes. If you’re too busy trying to set up the right composition or always pausing to take in something you find intriguing, it becomes a lot harder to just soak in the moment right?

It’d be much better if we just had memory recorders in our head I guess. There’s something about the need to personalize certain images just as you see them right then. I know for sure there are images of places and buildings that I will never be able to take a better picture of but I want my own personal snapshot of it. Why is that?

Even if I’ve taken a million pictures of the same types of food I eat, I often find myself taking yet another photo of it. And even if I’ve gone on a specific photowalk of a route, I still bring my camera “just in case.” Inevitably this leads to me stopping and trying to take a better picture than I did before or grab a different light on the same damn tree.

And sometimes I wonder when you’re just hanging out with friend or family if it’s not just as rude to spend time taking pictures when you’re spending time with them as it if you were on a cell phone. I often use the camera as an excuse to be anti-social because I don’t know how to will myself to interact. I love being behind the camera but I still worry about why it’s so hard for me to say “no more 3x5s.”

"Didn't have a camera by my side this time
Hoping I would see the world through both my eyes
Maybe I will tell you all about it when I'm
in the mood to lose my way

but let me say
You should have seen that sunrise with your own eyes
it brought me back to life
You'll be with me next time I go outside
NO more 3x5's"- John Mayer, 3x5

I think I spent a lot of time when I was younger trying to visualize my future. I always wanted to know the shape, feel, and look of my Tomorrow. And I was rarely satisfied with my Todays.

I’m not sure why I’m so obsessed with trying to control my future so much. It’s not like it’s something you can really ever get a handle on and it’s certainly never quite the product you spend so much time molding it to be. In other words, I set myself up for disappointment all the time.

But often now I wonder if I just don't have some kind of mental incapacity for happiness or sustaining a mentally stable mindset. Most of the time now I find myself searching for an answer I thought I'd find on this side of the mirror. And the thought that terrifies me the most is wondering if I'll ever find it.

It's the never ending mental loops and never finding an answer that troubles me the most these days. Shouldn't you know by now is the question I find myself asking over and over again.

Some days I’m borderline normal and I can sort of pretend like I resemble my former self and other days I’m just about to hit bottom. It’s strange how I used to be able to escape from the RL into the meta but now escaping just seems stupid. And I find that I really miss any sort of grounding.

This will make me sound loopy but I sometimes regret not going to see a professional awhile back when I started to hit bottom more often than normal. If it turns out that I’m simply mental then I’ll be really pissed at myself for wrecking my life for something that could be solved with some pills. You know?

So right now I’m sort of playing this game called spin the bottle on the future because the OCD (obsessive compulsive) method of planning and expectations just doesn’t seem to yield the results I want. I don’t know what I want and worse, I don’t know who I am. This next year I think will be a lot of running into walls, falling into potholes, and wandering around aimlessly.

You capture a piece of yourself and you try to hold it in your hand without destroying it but you find that’s just not possible. The second we try to secure ourselves is the moment we begin to crush our own wings. That’s the scary thing about life. We just have to let it flutter around and maybe that means only being able to appreciate the beauty of something for a brief moment but trying to hold onto it makes things worse.

Life is organic and wild. I’m sure there’s some kind of complicated algorithm to it but I just know I’ll never figure it out in my lifetime so I’ll just have to chalk it up to being to unpredictable to my insignificant human logic.

Sometimes when the I’m overloaded with things to process I go into my stages of “loops” in which I continually cycle my thought processes over and over again until I start to filter through some clarity. In these cycles are all ranges of scenarios, emotions, and possibilities. I go through the worst case, the best case, the most unrealistic case, and the emotional impact on all ranges of emotions from elated to suicidal. This is how I composite life and I’m not so sure it’s that healthy.

Like I said, it’s like I’m trying to take too much control of my own life. It was how I was raised. You plan for the worse, expect the best, and somehow your plans for life just roll out accordingly but as I’ve learned, this is not reality. It may have worked for the previous generation but it doesn’t seem to work for this one... Things move too fast, information inflation changes our perspective not on a yearly or monthly basis but I’d say hourly.

Because so many things have changed so quickly in my life in the past two months, I’ve found that I’ve been every which way lost. I can’t simply return to how things were and yet I’m not prone to cower in my own sense of self destruction either. I have to figure out who I am sans the dream of the girl I used to be or tried to be.

I need a sabbatical, a way to change my perspective and look at everything differently. Nothing fits here anymore and continuing to go through the motions just make me drift further into the darkness of my mind. I’m a little mad that I can’t return to my place, especially here in the meta but my RL requires a lot of reworking first.

All my loops have returned a [Life Invalid] response and I need a serious reboot before I crash into a permanent blue screen.

Earlier this month, my brother, Taint, and Tivi got a Morkie puppy. Her name is Winnie as in the Pooh. What I love the most about her isn't the fact that she's adorable as hell or that she's super smart or that she has a ton of character for such a small puppy. I think she's awesomesauce because she's accomplished something very few living creatures can do, wear my brother down. lol.

All while growing up (my brother and I are 5 1/2 yrs apart), I had to take care of my brother a lot and entertain him. He'd never run out of energy just like the damn Energizer bunny. Going, going, going, going. I suppose if it was present time, they'd have drowned him in Ritalin but nah, he was just one of those kids who could never sit still and never tired out.

And now Winnie is his payback. mwahahaha. I love it. Right now she's sleeping in small spurts which is the cutest thing ever. But when she wakes up, it's like a nuclear explosion. She hops, darts, and runs around like crazy like in those puppy commercials. Add in the fact that she's fearless (even my Qtpi didn't phase her) and my brother has his hands full.

He's bitching a lot now though because all these strangers try to pet her and touch her while they are outside. I'm like "dude, have you seen your puppy? What person is going to resist petting her? That's why they call these types of dogs chic magnets."
He was like, "man, if I had known this, I'd have picked up a puppy a long time ago." [Insert Tivi /slap here]

Maybe my mother was right, I just drown myself in negativity too much. Just decide to be happy and you will be? Can it really be that simple? Am I really skilled enough to delude my own mind? Do I want to be deluded?

I don’t know. The way I see it, my mom and dad simply can’t handle a grey world. Like most of the people in my RL, they appreciate the ideology of black and white. It is so ingrained in them that they stake a lot of claim on happiness based off of the integrity of those belief systems. And they are so faithful to it, that for people like my parents, it’s hard for them to see you as being able to be happy or have a good full-filling life any other way.

For them, I gave up the perfect Facebook life right? All those things other people look to see in your profile to gauge whether or not you’re okay, successful, and happy... I had those checked. It’s surprising though, how little those profiles really tell you. I found out yesterday that someone else in my meta world is going through something similar. I was like, seriously? I never would have guessed. His life seemed so together, his relationship appeared so solid from the outside. It’s an incredibly fragile thread we weave through the ideology of happiness it seems. One slight tug and we find out how insecure it all really is.

Human connections are all held together like this though which is why it’s hard to find truly strong ones. Most people don’t realize it’s all faking. We do it so that we can be perceived as normal so we can keep functioning as a society. I mean, if I did what I wanted and didn’t put up the pretenses, I’d end up alienating myself into pure seclusion. And that’s the biggest difference between RL and the Meta for me at the moment.

It’s funny, they all made fun of my meta family and friends. Even this weekend, I was on my laptop quite a bit and my mother was like “so... you’re on your computer all the time then? That’s not good for you.” (funny thing I wasn’t even socializing online, I was trying to format and install Win 7) But she thinks Internet friends are bad because they aren’t real and my brother thinks they are imaginary. They belittle the meta existence because they don’t see the tangible value in it. “What good are people you can’t have in your real life” they ask.

What I find absolutely ironic is that it was my RL connections that faltered to reach me during all this. It is by no means their fault because I tend to be self-isolating and I tend to push people away. I don’t blame them for my solitary state. I know half of them really do care about me in their own way but none of my RL connections could figure out how to interface with me. And of course the other half are just gawking at me from a distance like a bad traffic accident.

Surprisingly, it was actually the meta family I built, people I have never met in real life, who figured out how to break through my isolating barriers. They know my medium of thought and what tethers to follow me back through. And even though I can’t yet figure out how to respond appropriately yet, they did reach me and I was profoundly effected. They were the ones who didn’t try to fix me or judge me but kept sharing, kept letting me know they were still there waiting with open jacks for whenever I’m ready to reconnect.

And here’s the thing that someone dear to me always says, “The world if flat.” We don’t live in a world anymore where virtual can’t be reality anyhow. If we just look at the twittersphere of our gaming network, it’s staggering to see how many people now maintain RL connections with each other. Just three years ago, most of them were complete strangers, then they became meta friends through the podcasting community or WoW, and now they can meet up and go out to lunch like it was nothing. It’s incredible how fluid ties formulated online can translate into the RL because of how pure they start.

I’m sure some people would scoff but it is the seemingly insignificant and small points of connections sometimes that return us to feeling human and to help us figure out better how to rejoin the flow of living. Maybe not everyone can get how sharing a song, poem or posting a picture online is really connecting but I find it much more powerful and intimate than a hug. I know I can’t stay virtual forever, I’ll have to resolve the RL soon and stop hiding. But no one will ever be able to convince me of the lack of value in the meta now.

So iTunes feels it needs to brand the owners of music. It irks me to no end like the annoying mom who sends her kids to camp with every sleeping bag and piece of underwear labeled with their last name in black sharpie. As if music should ever really be owned but that’s a whole other fundamental issue I’m sure I’ll rant about later.

I think there’s a way to compensate artists and still share music through micro-transactions as I’ve said before. Metadata about the creator of all appreciated art will become increasingly valid and valuable in the future as we evolve more digitally.

I recently discovered via @strumpet101 that some music I shared with her had my RL identity tagged to it. This isn’t a huge problem to the few people I share music with because I really do trust a lot of my close bindpoint family. However, this becomes a huge problem for me when that music gets shared via them to other people.

My RL identity and privacy are major concerns for me not just on a personal level but on the future integrity of the world I’ve come to love (oh sweet metaverse). I’ve been following a lot on the progress of identity in the meta and am closely observing the culture of change towards transparency. I see this is a big problem for the our online culture if we aren’t allowed to keep a lot of this in big wide grey areas. I think for it to fundamentally flip one way or another would be a bad thing.

Anyhow, I looked at a few articles regarding stripping away the “purchased by” and “account info” meta data branded by iTunes on all my paid songs (http://www.wmatomp3-converter.com/guide/Remove-personal-info-from-itunes-plus-downloads.html). They are all annoying ways to strip the data off, who want to have to re-import using AAC??

So the other day, I was tethering through iTunes functionalities and found this “Create mp3 version” option. You just select the song or songs in your library and hit “create mp3 version” and wallaaah!!!!! Then you just grab the mp3 version from the folder and share that instead of the invasive m4a file.

I found a box labeled "memories".. so you can imagine my organizing efforts came screeching to a halt. It's interesting reading shit you wrote over a decade ago.

I notice some fundamental shifts in my thought pattern when I entered grad school compared to early college. I think it showed that I was coming into serious conflict at the time with my life choices.

I found it actually comforting to read my thoughts and realize I had always been at conflict with myself for a long time. It helps me in my resolve that something was never in sync with my life no matter how much I tried.

I'll share some of the journal pages later.

Today was one of those annoyingly hard days. So I’m externalizing, compartmentalizing. I spent a lot of time peering into windows and glimpses of other people’s lives and guessing what their evening was like.

It’s fun to wave and smile at people sitting and talking to each other on their balconies. It’s wonderful, you know. I realized how simple little things like smiling and waving really do make you feel more human. And although I know it’s superficial and maybe even synthetic, it’s just cool that total strangers can /wave in RL too!

I had to go to the permit office again and waited two hours to see someone only to find out that I needed to go to another building entirely. Oddly enough, I wouldn’t say that two hours was a complete waste. There were these two men sitting next to me and they had this enormous chat the entire time and of course, with my stalker genes, I was intrigued. (Mark was sitting on the other side of the two so I didn’t get to ask him for a picture of his sneakers)

One of the men was the client and the other was probably the contractor he hired. From the looks of the plans and paper work he had, he’s planning on building a Filipino Asian Mart in South Austin. He started out by explaining why he wanted to name it Filipino and Asian because of the diversity of the market food that would be available beyond the specific country specifics.

Apparently, his wife is Filipino because I heard him say, “You think that marrying an Asian woman is nice because they’re supposed to be so gentle and nice but she’s Filipino and has that Spanish blood in her.” The other guy then made a joke about the guy being funny and how it shouldn’t be allowed to drink this early in the morning.

This lead into a conversation about how the contractor guy was sober for two years now and that he was actually in the middle of a divorce. He said that him finally getting sober made him realize that his relationship was too silent. He said they were still good friend though and that he sees his son every day and is thankful for the clean separation. I remember he turned to the guy and said, “yeah, I waited to years after I got sober to make sure I was thinking level headed. But life’s too short and we weren’t happy.”

I thought the whole conversation was surreal. The client went on to talk about what he’d do if this venture is successful. He said he’s actually a song writer and performer and has some hits in Europe apparently. I could tell that this was his real passion in life but obviously he realistically couldn’t pursue with the family to think about etc. He talked about how expensive it was to produce a CD etc and promote it.

Apparently he knew a lot of famous people like Michael Stipe from REM who he asked to join his band a long time ago. Stipe declined at the time because he was too shy, go figure. They remained acquaintances though and that’s how this guy got some songs in Europe and hung out with REM when they headlined Austin City Music Festival. He mentioned that he had a studio at his house where he can jam out from time to time with local musicians.

I actually think I found the guy on youtube because he mentioned he had jammed out with this famous guitarist named Tolo. He said that you could see all these youtube videos of Tolo jamming with all these famous people and then in with the mix is a video of the guy playing in this man’s living room. So I used my google skills and found a guitarist named Tolo Martin and sure enough, I found a video of him playing guitars with this guy on his living room couch.

So to Mr. Craig Franklin, here’s to your Asian Mart and musical career... it was nice stalking you.

Music Lovers. This might be promising for us. Google buys Simplify Media- http://techcrunch.com/2010/05/20/google-buys-simplify-media-to-power-music-syncing-for-new-itunes-competitor/ At least the product is in good hands but I agree with one of the comments "shouldn't Google of all companies be able to develop cloud sync without BUYing it?"

And the only reason I have an issue with the Google buying power is it scares the shit out of most users. Big companies generally tend to stifle competition and creativity. Luckily with Google's business philosophies, this is the exception....for now. I haven’t been a fan of Google multimedia apps or the directions in which they take them…Picasa was one of the biggest disappointments for me. However, after seeing the direction in which they’ve taken products like Google Docs and Calendar, I think they get how we like to interact with each other, collab, and share.

http://www.zazzle.com/bleeding_heart_i_bleed_music_tshirt-235840220443522738 (I Bleed Music) I bought this t-shirt after talking to @Azyxa about what's in our blood. :) I'm pretty sure a lot of us who love music and the ability to share music on a personal level are going to be watching the direction Google takes this technology.

Music appreciating and distribution has come a long way in the last decade but not enough. I’m hoping it continues to shift back more in our direction. I wrote this silly “call to arms piece” ten years ago after the collapse of napster, Lars the Douchehead, and the whole RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) suing 35k individual music listeners. I remember being so livid at how backwards it seemed that an industry was going after its own customers in fight that wasn’t really about piracy but about adapting to new technology.

It’s embarrassing but remember I wrote it ten years ago during the time when MTV had the largest grasp over popular music and Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera vs Hanson was as diverse as it got. And while we have come a long ways, I still feel like it applies because we haven’t utilized technology enough to exercise our consumer power (just read how much artists have to pay itunes to put songs up on their site…gag me):

Call to arms. The music revolution is here. We can no longer sit back and let the corporation dictate what we desire. How long will we be the dress-up dolls of "American Pop Culture"?? How long will you be a mindless child? You let them tell you what you want to hear, you let them tell you what you should look like. How long will you let them tell you how much you should have to pay for music you've never heard of?

Why hasn't the music industry caught on to technology? Why? Because they are still the greedy, money basking corporate hogs they've always been. We all know that cds don't cost a lot to make and that the technology exists today to combine many types of artists. In fact, we can make our own compilations.

How much longer will it be until they realize that we don't want to pay sixteen dollars for twelve songs of the same artist? Very few cds have come along where the entire compilation is worth every cent. Far too often, we've been forced to buy eleven so-so-maybe-listen-to-once songs for that one hit song we bought the damned thing for in the first place. I would have to agree that five dollars would be worth buying a cd full of artists I want to hear. NOW, here they are taking away my free forum of music.

Am I supposed to weep for the all mighty corporation who refuses to mold to the changing technology? Am I supposed to weep for the artists who makes more money than god for just dressing up like a barbie doll? We are the masses. We are the collective society who you feed off of.. I do not weep for you.

I feel we should protest the music industry. Do you they think that we actually believe that the only good music produced today is by broadcasted on MTV? How many countless number of artists are there out there that haven't been given a chance. What of those who don't believe in compromising their music? What of those who will perform simply because they love music? Don't fall for it at all. Don't give in thinking that the only music in the world comes in the form of a plastic wrapped cd case! BRING THE MUSIC BACK to the PEOPLE.

We have just advanced too much in my opinion to not be able to distribute and share music more easily between artists and music lovers. As I said in the Flattr post, micro transactions and flexibility with how we distribute appreciation is becoming more and more available. It is well within our hands to begin to shape the arts and distribution of the arts.

The top-down approach to distribution offers little sympathy to most artists these days because of the mistrust we have of the music industry. After the iTunes revolution and single song service, we have seen a bit more diversity but little improvements in how we share music (simplify media being a huge exception). Dropbox is a giant step towards music appreciation but then ignores the rights of the artists to be paid for their work. Currently, there is no balance because neither side has really devised a mainstream technology to address our desire to share the fuck out of the music we love.

I see a future where all music is tagged with a shit ton of meta data that links back directly to the artist, creator or its distributor. So say if you found this awesome remix of a song, there would be software integration with your player to send them a piece of cake :)

We’re all going to have to shift how we think of pay/per as I’ve said before. The old model of the shopping cart/checkout isn’t going to hold. Just look at the post @Jemimus made about NOT being able to pay for something he appreciated due to outdated international copyright laws. Seriously, we’re too wired to be this globally stunted.

Maybe we can be a generation of digital tips instead. Can the world turn on tips? Would you play for tips? I think a lot of people would and it’s why I’m closely watching the micro transaction market and will do whatever I can to promote a fundamental shift in our online economy. I truly believe it’s the key to promoting more growth of doing in the meta…well hell, in the world.

I went out to the permit office again today to drop off some drawings. As usual, it took forever only to end up me handing my drawings to some lady who said “thanks and you’re done.” However, while waiting I discovered two things. The first was that one of the three signs hanging on the door had been modified by hand.

The “how to prevent flu” sign had a few cute modifications which I took a snapshot of and wondered how bored someone must have been to get up and do that. I was tempted to keep modifying it myself if there weren’t so many other people waiting around.

The second involves this guy I always see every time I go to the permit office. I noticed him immediately because he has these awesome grey sneakers I really want. Today I noticed he was reading a book so I peered over to spy on what he was reading..a William Gibson novel! I almost LOL’d outloud. At this point, I was tempted to ask him to let me take a picture of his book. I could say I knew a bunch of people would would really appreciate the humor in the fact that I was sitting next to a book written by an author that cost me -300 geek points. I think the particular book he was reading was called Idoru. I was just about to gain enough courage to ask but then he put the book away and started to make calls to his office. Through my stalker skills I obtained that his name is Mark. If I see him there again next time, I’m fucking going to get a picture of those sneakers if it kills me!

Afterwards, I met Flipmax for lunch at BJs. While I was in the bathroom there I took a few pics of the pictures in the women’s restroom. They have these pictures of large floral prints and then men with totally ripped abs in between them. I always laugh when I see them because I try to imagine what the pictures in the men’s restroom looks like. I’m going to send Flipmax in next time to take pics.

Because it turned out they didn’t have spaghetti with meat sauce available and I had to order the Toscana instead, the manager said my meal was free! And because I have such a weak will, I let Flipmax convince me to order a pizookie even though I did my best to resist.

I then stopped by the post office to mail off some wowcast pens that I had promised to send like two months ago! Finally can check that one off my list! When I got home, I noticed my mom had sent me a package from Amazon. It’s a book called Love Yourself and Let the Other Person Have it Your Way. /facepalm. It’s a book she says she recently read and changed her life drastically. From what she explains, it sounds like one of those pay it forward type philosophies.

I’m a bit skeptical of course. I read the segment on Sadness as it definitely applies right now and there’s this stupid line that reads “Could you say “Yes” to the remaining sadness and just let it come up and out? Continue repeating this exercise on the sadness until you are at zero on the scale with regard to sadness.” What..the..fuck. What does that even mean? At least give me a hammer or something and tell me to bash my head in, something constructive. I mean, I get the philosophy but seriously? seriously? I need like you know...something concrete to work with here. I’m a robot for god sake, need processes to run or something.

Anyhow I’ll try to get through more of it just so I can tell her I tried. ....omg. just read this part: “The only one that can make you happy is you and the only one that can make you unhappy is you. Once you know that, the problem of relationships is all over.” This is seriously dellusional shit man. Come on. If this was really true, we wouldn’t need a fucking other person in this world. Why do we even need to make friends then? What’s the point of any relationship then? If we’re good enough on our own, we don’t need anyone else. I can tell getting through this book is going to probably stress me out. lol.

I’ve been delving into the ideas of creating a forum for DOING. There is so much online that is all about inspiring thought and ideas but for me, the next step is in the doing. And it’s so easy in the culture of the meta to just sit back and absorb. I’ve been doing it for years and years.

As a meta society, in order to stay user driven and be able to continually form and shape our own world as we like it, we’re going to have to really start the DOING now.

One of the things I always say to people is JUST DO IT! I know it’s Nike’s logo but you don’t need fancy footwear to create anything. All of us are self conscious and unsure of the format for which we should produce anything. I see us all looking at each other for inspiration or guidance. That’s a totally valid way of kicking down the door to creating.

CREATE content, CREATE events, CREATE flow. Flow is huge for me as a concept in the meta culture. The problem with the RL is that there is little organic flow of how we communicate, exchange, or distribute. Everything has been so top down and motivated and manipulated by power. Most of the transactions of production and economy are all designed by the power of marketing and NOT inspiration and true value.

For example, I have this Rem Koolhaus book on my shelf that I bought in college called Mutations. At the time I bought it, it was hella expensive.. like close to eighty dollars. It was a trend going around in the studios so I felt like I needed to pick it up too. All the cool kids were reading it etc. It turns out the book, while has some interesting points about architecture in developing cities, was totally over-rated.

A few years later, I came across a web article that pretty much summarized the book but with more valid inspirations as to how to think about the future of how we build cities. I would rather have contributed to that online article than the over-hyped/well packaged Koolhaas book.

And that’s how I feel about a lot of the individual user-generated content online. That Flattr concept is really about distributing the flow of economy in truly organic way based on interest and use and not on brilliant marketing ploys. What I like about it is that you can see it as a true system of free flow meta economy.

For example, I can see myself giving a cake slice to someone who wrote a blog post on geocaching and sparked my interest in creating my own geocache user account to start my own adventures in the RL sharing/exploring game. I see myself wanting to give a bunch of cake slices to davek4981 on youtube because his cover of Iambic 9 Poetry on the Eigenharp brought me immense pleasure in my life.

I’m not a fan of monetization for profit sake for online content. I think there is a huge danger in doing something for only money. It ruins, in my opinion, the authenticity of love for creating. But that has always been the limitation of meta distribution right? I’m intrigued by this idea of a continual and renewing flow of creating value to intellectual, artistic, and plain life sharing data.

It’s a way of showing value to something which has been hard to quantify until now. I know it’s a small start to the DOING movement but for me, it’s a good start. I hope it doesn’t get abused or manipulated by marketing or meme trends. I just think it’s an amazing way for us to start generating a culture of user-rich content.

I can even see it as being something small like wanting to give a cake slice to someone for showing me their grocery haul or sharing their newest haircut from the salon or teaching me about HDR photography :D With a flow of giving/sharing, learning/inspiring, doing/thinking we continue to grow on each other. I don’t see the monetary trend of a true system like this being mono-directional but flowing crazy like a the veins in our body…constantly renewing and refreshing.

I’m immensely thankful people are starting to evolve towards the meta. These are exciting times.

Time to start doing. GO!

To whomever may be still following this blog. Holy shit dudes. Talk about persistence OR you seriously need to clean your RSS feeds. lol.

So I thought I kind of nerd raged too much at my last raid this week (muted of course) but apparently a few moments of yelling at the screen is nothing compared to the guy who tried to strangle his mother. That’s nerd raging to a whole new level.

I hesitated on posting this or even commenting on this because it obviously has nothing to do with WoW in particular except he happened to be playing the game while the incident occurred. The guy was drunk and obviously has some issues. The whole incident was beyond absurd.

I just HATE news like this because this is where people get really really misleading impressions about the gaming culture. There’s rarely a news article about how WoW united a family or helped a group of friends stay in touch. The media has to report what happens but I’m afraid that’s all non-gamers tend to see and it severely mars the image of those whose lifestyles revolve around gaming.

Full Article on Tomshardware.com here--->

I just loved this tid bit on ReRollz.com featuring R.A. Salvatore:

Rerollz: What do you think is the most successful medium for delivering a storyline inside a MMOG? Is it text in a Quest Log window? Is it dialogue bubbles popping up from NPC’s on screen? Or is it perhaps voiceover work like with what they are doing at Bioware’s Star Wars game?

R.A. Salvatore: It’s definitely not the text bubbles. Of that I am certain. How many people read the text of a quest carefully, compared to those who just read the objectives to get it done? I think it’s a combination of a lot of things: some text, sure; voiceover helps, but even that can get tedious if it drones on too long (the opening of Culling of Stratholme…); cut scenes can do phenomenal things to evoke emotion in the player, if they’re done well; and finally, as I said above regarding Icecrown, the idea that your actions actually change the environment is probably the most powerful thing of all.

Read more Here --->

How cool is he!? So glad someone out there gets it. Of course, being one of the foremost writers in fantasy adventure, I suppose he would. lol.

Having pulled a crazy work week, I wasn't sure if I had it in me to hit up the photowalk this evening. I had just told Azyxa I didn't have enough brain juice to do it when I was going through IF to Stormwind to turn in some charms and came across this shot.

At that point, I was mesmerized and had to continue with the screenshots. I am beyond pleased with the photos of Ironforge. I think it has a lot to do with the lighting ambiance and textures in Ironforge. They give you the most amazing glows and shadows.

Out of all the sets so far that I've taken in Azeroth, the Ironforge ones are now my favorite. I have no idea what Catacylsm holds for Ironforge or if we'll even see any changes but I hope to see more areas like it.

One of the things that makes IF so intriguing is how autonomous you feel inside of it. There are just so many nook and crannies and room and shadows that you really feel like it's actual space you can explore. It'd be a great place to play virtual hide and seek for sure.

I also got to visit my old WoW room! Next week, we hit up Wetlands! Woot! I plan to massacre a ton of murlocs in the process!

What’s more annoying than having two attempts out of twenty left on a boss you were able to down in two attempts the week previous? It had been a long and frustrating night where everything seems to be going in reverse! However, second to the last attempt of Professor Putricide, we had worked out all the crazy kinks we were experiencing. People were finally moving where they were supposed to and focusing on what they were asked to and no one was dead by phase 3.

Just as phase 3 comes up, we get set in position and everyone is hard nuking him and he’s going down so fast (35% to 18%) in just a matter of seconds. He would have been defeated! As I’m loading up a chain heal, bam!!!! Stuck in place! OH NOES!!! Damn internet went out. NOOOOO.

Shatai, the other healer of the group, (holy priest) was able to keep everyone up until the boss was at 4% but then they had casualties. He almost lasted though! That would have been epic! But as anyone dies in that fight, Professor Putricide gains health back so it becomes a losing battle fast as soon as you have casualties.

Sucks. Found out today that there was a lose wiring in fitting that held all the cable wires. Every time the wind would blow, connectivity would go out. Damn wind had to blow at the worst possible second. If it had happened like twently seconds later, we would have had our much needed successful attempt!

Today's photowalk was in Badlands. I can't say it's that exciting of a zone. In fact, the rest of the Eastern Kingdom doesn't seem all that interesting until we hit Ghostlands. Kalimdor is where it's at I think.

I did manage to take some nice desert shots though throughout the Badlands. All I can think of in this zone is mining tin. lol. It's also one of the first places you get a trinket, [Nifty Stopwatch].

This is another zone that we all agree we won't mind if they completely overhaul. Sure would be nice to see an alliance town in this area as well.

Saurfang Carrying His Dead Son

Patch 3.3 is out and I once again tricked myself into thinking that we might be able to raid on Tuesday. And yes, I know it’s kind of stupid to schedule raids on a Tuesday but oh well, it works for us…except on patch days.

We spent a good hour and a half trying to get into the instances but all of them were borked and we could never get in. Most of the night was ganking horde trying to get inside and killing them at the instance gate and at the graveyard. lol. PvP servers do have their amusements.

Today we actually got inside Icecrown Citadel and tackled the first wing available for play. I’d say it was fairly easy. Most of the difficulty comes from just not knowing the mechanics of the fight. Even after reading up on the encounters, it never fully clicks until you see it live.

I don’t believe any of the bosses took more than three attempts. That being said, my impression of the instance was that it reminded me of being in an immaculate and cold Naxx type structure. I wasn’t blown away by the architecture or the bosses. I did however find it really nice that they put all the vendors at the front room of the instance. Always nice to see your potential gear before you head in. lol. I think the consensus is that the rogue’s got the shaft this time in terms of aesthetics.

Favorite fight was the airship battle. Two reasons mainly, I get to burn down and destroy the horde airship finally AND you get nifty cool rocket packs to jump from one ship to the other. It was hella fun playing around with that.

By far the BEST thing about 3.3 is the new LFG system. I actually feel like it stands a chance of really working. PLUS, the big bonus is the auto-transport system. As soon as you get a full group, boooooom, you’re instantly teleported into the instance. No more wasting your fucking time waiting around for people to fly their asses out to the instance. And then when you’re done with the instance, you walk out and it teleports you back to where you were before the instance. Great stuff.

As far as I can tell, it matches you up with even geared type players so it seems like the odds are much better now that you will have a successful group. Also, in my case, the fact that I can get matched up with players NOT on Boulderfist is a big bonus. It’s a win/win situation for me as the pugs on my server are of the lowest common denominator. Of course, I’m sure everyone says that about their pugs.

I’m looking forward to seeing how the heroic version of the Icecrown Citadel wing goes. I think the 28 day delay for the new wing is actually good. It gives my raid time to play catch up and maybe finally finish Ulduar (Algalon) in the meantime.

I saw a cute little twitter exchange between @hawkito and @kathunter about my /played. I have never really done one before so I sat down this morning and pulled up my list of sixteen characters including alt banks.

The total was about 328 days. This did not shock me at all. In fact, it seems like quite a reasonable number for some who has been invested in the game for five years come this Christmas. That's like an average of what? 66 days a year.

If you calculate that the average American works around 245 actual days per year, the truly scary figure is that I only got about 3.5 hrs of sleep on avg for the past five years. LOL. Of course that's ridiculously skewed.

The number I found the MOST fascinating is my mage's play time. 70+ days. That's close to 20 more days than my other characters. The reason it is so shocking is because I played her far less in terms of month spans than the other ones.

I think it's a great commentary on the nature of raiding and gameplay from 40 man hardcore raiding back in vanilla wow vs the 25 and 10man raiding from TBC and WoTLK.

In the few months I raided with my mage, I racked up massive amounts of /played. Compared to my shaman who I have raided with for about a year, I only raided with my mage for about 4 hardcore months. But I nearly put in 35hrs of raid time each week, roughly 4-5 hrs for four week nights and anywhere between 10-15hrs on the weekends.

You can click on the image to go to the flickr site to see the notes regarding which character corresponds with the /played.

Every time I find myself around the starting area of Elwynn Forest, I get very bored but also nostalgic. It's the starting character for a majority of my toons.. including the non human ones. I always get myself teleported here during the start of a new character.

Northshire Abbey, Fargodeep Mine, The Pumpkin Patch, and Hogger are very vivid in my mind as fun early experiences. I have since gotten bored of the entire area all together though... so I will not be too sad if Cataclsym rips the place to shreds.

I think more than anything, I miss being human in the game.

Posted by Quest Log Podcast on http://www.flickr.com/groups/oldazeroth/

Taking shots from places you can't reach
If you're a Hunter or a Shaman then your in luck, you have the ability Eagle Eye or Far Sight respectively. Like myself you get these abilities early on and forget about them. They allow to select an area and your viewport is moved to there. You can only use this ability outdoors of course. Just remember to zoom in so you don't get the so you don't get the swirling golden light effect in all your shots. And once again a shot I took with the ability.

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/facepalm!!!!
I hate it when I read posts like this because it reminds me of how noobish I am when it comes to vanity type spells. For example, there are times where I forget I have sentry totem, underwater breathing, and far sight! Now I'm super excited to take pics next week during the photowalk! New perspectives!

Old Azeroth Photowalk was a lot better at 11am central today than at 9am. I was a lot more awake and able to function my brain. It also helped that we moved from Westfall from the last photowalk to Swamp of Sorrows.

It’s a much more visually interesting zone. However, as we strolled through the joint, it’s apparent there are still not many quests to be had out there.

We did stumble upon a few more alliance quests scattered about but not enough to make it worth coming out here to quest while leveling. At least, not enough to tempt me.

I’m unsure of this zone being touched during the great Cataclysm. Without this zone, Blasted Lands doesn’t have as much of a visual impact. It’s great being able to see the before and after of the area between the two zones after the Dark Portal and the resulting horde rampage into Azeroth.

Next week we head to the Blasted Lands. :)

11am central. Boulderfist PvP US Alliance. /join oldazeroth

I’m also starting to stream it on http://www.livestream.com/wowcast

To see the rest of the Old Azeroth collection:

http://www.flickr.com/groups/oldazeroth

Two people in our raid last night had gotten the Panderen Pet. One remarked that it was ONLY 10 bucks and the other (who I bought the pet for) said the 10 bucks was a bit pricey for the pet. However, both of them really enjoyed their pet and it got a lot of laughs from the raid.

I tossed a on them and super-sized them both. Man! First thing I thought of was what a shame Panderens couldn't be a race in WoW! Can you imagine the graphics of a panderen rogue? lol. awesome.

Anyhow, it was money spent and everyone who spent it was very happy and everyone in the game around the pets were very happy and amused. Was that not worth the 10 bucks? I spend 15 bucks on a second account I never access anymore so spending 10 bucks on something that actually does entertain in the game was well worth it for me. Would I prefer it for free? Heck yeah!! But I'm not opposed to cutting through the RNG bullshit of waiting on a boss drop (still bitter about the squashling) or buying 20 packs of TCG cards trying to get a Hippogryph Hatchling.

I guess it goes back to time vs money.

This is a film of Jeppy's panderen pet. I didn't buy one for myself. I got one for someone else so I haven't seen what it looks like. He set up in Stormwind and was doing free showings.

It's account bound so you can get it on all characters! It does kungfu, it's fucking awesome. How can ANYONE say this is not worth 10 bucks??? I might have to get one for myself!

sorry for the video quality. all I had was my cam.. can't find my fraps.

(played with a portrait poster for Flipmax)

Started playing around with printwarcraft.com (doesn’t work with Chrome FYI). It’s quite good and fun. I will definitely be making a few posters.

At first I thought I might want a landscape poster since they show off backgrounds more…but after trying it a bit, I realized Draenei are too skinny and tall for the landscape portraits.

The customizations are pretty neat. Lots of backgrounds to choose from although I did not see my floating isle in Nagrand. LOL. It would also be awesome if I could change the character name so I could get my original spelling of Alachia.

My biggest problem is deciding which will the be the final poster. I’m so picky and will probably spend a few days tweaking the different possibilities.

No doubt these will make awesome Christmas gifts for friends. I plan on ordering a few as stocking stuffers. The only issue will be with all those alt-aholics out there. hehe.

You would have thought I'd learned my lesson by now after missing the [What a Long Strange Trip It's Been] Meta achievement because of one stupid RNG drop.....you'd think.

But here I am on [Dead Man’s Party] doing this one as well. I guess the truth is I'm a glutton for punishment. It did help that this one is easy.

I went to the graveyard of MY racial faction capitol city. Danced with a lady named Catrina. Boom, achievement completed!

In addition, I bought the [Recipe: Bread of the Dead] and the [Orange Marigold]. I had already brought the [simple flour] and [ice cold milk] with me. I then made the bread, used the Marigold to summon the spirits, found the spirit with a quest and turned it in. Now I have a cute little [Macabre Marionette] pet which no one knows is permanent or not. I hope it is.

I put the extra flour and milk in the guild bank so other guildies can hopefully use it. Don't want it to waste :)

I used Astarte66’s guide on the wowhead comments to do my Trick or Treats of Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdom. Saved me a ton of time. These are the alliance flight paths. Made it easy for me to watch Sunday Football and do my achievements at the same time.

Alliance Kalimdor
1 Teldrassil, Dolanaar
2 Darnassus, Craftsmen's Terrace
3 Darkshore, Auberdine
4 Exodar, Seat of the Naaru (inside the inn, up the ramp)
5 Azuremyst Isle, Azure Watch
6 Bloodmyst Isle, Blood Watch
7 Winterspring, Everlook (careful if you are hated here)
8 Ashenvale, Astranaar
9 Stonetalon Mountains, Stonetalon Peak
10 Desolace, Nijel's Point
11 Feralas, Feathermoon Stronghold
12 Silithus, Cenarion Hold
13 Tanaris, Gadgetzan (careful if you are hated here)
14 Dustwallow Marsh, Mudsprocket
15 Dustwallow Marsh, Theramore Isle
16 Barrens, Ratchet (careful if you are hated here)
Take the boat to Booty Bay and start on Eastern Kingdom

Alliance Eastern Kingdom
1 Stranglethorn Vale, Booty Bay (carefull if you are hated there)
2 Westfall, Sentinel Hill
3 Duskwood, Darkshire
4 Stormwind, The Trade District
5 Elwynn Forest, Goldshire (do quests to put out the fire)
6 Redridge Mountains, Lakeshire
7 Ironforge, The Commons
8 Dun Morogh, Kharanos (outside of Iron Forge)
9 Loch Modan, Thelsamar
10 Wetlands, Menethil Harbor
11 Hillsbrad Foothills, Southshore (compleate quests at Southshore)
12 Hinterlands, Aerie Peak (inside, through the tank room, up stairs)
13 Eastern Plaguelands, Light's Hope Chapel

I am now only waiting on the damn RNG to go in my favor to get my squashling. Otherwise, I miss the meta achievement for whole year. :( *crosses fingers*

Found this nifty little farm during the Westfall photowalk today. I had never seen it before if you can believe that. I was told by @eljeppy that it's for a Paladin quest called Tome of Valor


So unbelievable that I've leveled in that zone for nearly 5 yrs and have just now discovered something so obvious!

to see more of the Westfall pics, check out: http://www.flickr.com/groups/oldazeroth/

Kicked off the first Saturday morning photowalk. It was sort of last minute so only a few people were able to join me. Also, smarty pants me decided to kick it off in Stranglethorn Vale in conjunction with Pirate's Day! GANK city.

I barely got my achievement before being massacred. I figured it's nice to get this zone out of the way though. On my PvP server, it's hell and hard to relax while taking shots of everything.

I'm doing these by zones every Saturday around 9am (although I'm questioning my morning strategy because I was quite the zombie today). I figure if I do them one by one, I'll be more likely to upload and tag all the pictures correctly as opposed to a massive undertaking and then trying to convince myself to upload the bulk at one time.

Thanks to @azyxa and @jeppy (Flipmax, Bearfus, and Felix) for taggin' along on the adventures here and there. It was nice not being the sole receiver of a gankage. lol.

I can't say I'll miss Stranglethorn Vale much. The parts I'll miss the most are the Goblin Statue at Booty Bay, King Mukla the giant king kong gorilla, and the Guribashi Arena. Other than that, I probably won't miss this slaughter zone if they plan to destroy it. With my luck, it'll be the one zone they leave in tact.