It’s the dain bramage, I tell you!

I’m feeling so completely funky.

Last weekend, I hardly slept at all.  I’m not sure why exactly.  I just know that I just never felt tired.  I would pretty much just stay awake until I felt sleep.  That would generally be around 5 AM.  I would then be back up and moving by 7:30.

So, by the time Monday night rolled around, I was exhausted.

When I got home from work Monday afternoon, I started messing around under my computer desk trying to reach the cables so that I could change out a buggy KVM switch I have been using with a new one I picked up.  As I was backing out, I thought I was clear of the desk.

I wasn’t.

I bet I lifted the entire desk a half foot off the ground when my head hit it… and my desk is not light.  I don’t have some particle board desk.  Mine is made out of solid oak and weighs a good solid ton.  At least, that’s how heavy it feels when I have to move it.

After I whacked into the think, I ended up just laying on the floor for a while cursing my seemingly endless clumsiness.  I finally got to my feet when I realized that I was bleeding because I didn’t want to get blood on the carpet.

I have had a number of concussions in my life due to my clumsy nature so I can kind of recognize the signs.  I knew it wasn’t a bad one, but it was a concussion nonetheless.  Because of the number of concussions I have had in my life and because I fractured my skull when I was 20, head injuries are a little more dangerous for me than they are for other people.  While I had the normal dizziness, queasiness, and ear ringing sensation that I was familiar with, I also knew that other symptoms could sneak up… which is why doctor’s generally tell you not to sleep for 24 hours after suffering a concussion.

Monday night was hell.  I slept for less than 4 hours the entire weekend and now I had to stay up all night and go to work in the morning.

I made it, but I was one cranky bastich at work on Monday.

Monday night, I couldn’t sleep again.  My head was pounding and my ears were ringing so loud that I just couldn’t seem to fall asleep.  I finally dozed off around 4, but I was back up by 5:15.  Tuesday night was a nearly identical scenario, but I think I fell asleep at 2 and was up at 5:30 instead.  Wednesday night, I almost got a normal night’s sleep, but I was still just freaking exhausted.

Then, I got called in for server maintenance last night since we had a server more or less crash yesterday afternoon. 

I arrived back at work last night at around 11 and left here around 4:45.  I had to be back here at 7:30, so I didn’t even bother going to sleep last night.

Today has been one endless string of powering down the caffinated beverages, laughing uncontrollably for no apparent reason, and losing my temper and launching into a string of endless swearing for earth-shattering events like my pen falling into the floor.

This post has absolutely no point for being whatsoever.  I just found myself falling asleep at the desk a few minutes ago and needed something to do to help me wake up a bit.

And I took you along for the ride with me.  We hope you will enjoy your stay in crazy-land.

The Grim Reaper Commeth

Last night, I was off in the Thundering Steppes slaughtering centaurs and furry little woodland creatures when one of the guild officers asked if I wanted some company.  Her main is a warlock… a class that I have not played, so I don’t fully understand what she meant here.  She said that she needed some crystals that she could get by casting spells and so by mentoring me and helping me, she would be helping herself.

So, we group up and start killing things that I, quite honestly, couldn’t have done myself… giants (which are still really cool looking), griffons, and large groups of gnolls.  After a bit, and a few deaths, another guild mate comes out and joins us and the killing definately picks up in tempo.

Then, it happens.

I’m fuzzy on how exactly it happened because I was busy looting.  I still need to work on my disarm trap skill a bit.  Plus, I was collecting parts for the giants Lore and Legend quest as well as totems.  So, we would pull 4 or 5 mobs, kill them, and I would do the looting while they looked for another train.

So, when “it happens,” I am referring to the really ugly pull that included at least 4 triple elite heroics and 1 triple elite named.

As this massive train of death and destruction charges into us while I’m busy clicking away picking up the items and disarming the chests, one of my group mates shouts out at me, “EVAC!  HURRY!”

It was then and there that a few more of my guild mates learned just exactly what type of a person I am.

I replied, “Fuck that!  We got ‘em!!!”

It was, as the situation would prove, a blatant lie.

It made me laugh though.

The Internet is for Porn

I may not like the game itself, but I have to admit that some of the videos coming out of it are hysterical.

This one is old and most people have probably seen it, but it definately deserves another viewing.

Small disclaimer… the video itself is not offensive, but some might find the song offensive, so use caution if listening at work.

Brave Sir Robin ran away

I’m something of an unusual person when it comes to MMO’s in that I don’t fear death at all.  Back in the train days of EQ, if I or someone in my group made a bad pull, I didn’t run away.  I just stuck it out and fought until the end.

I have always been very bad about killing myself… if not intentionally then certainly recklessly.  I’ve died multiple times so far in EQ2, for example, trying to test what exactly the limits are to my level of safe fall.  If I survive one jump, I climb a little higher and try again.

Years ago, the day that The Sleeper was released on my server, I racked up 37 deaths and ate them all without a rez.  Why?  I wanted a screenshot and bastard Kerafyrm kept blinking.  So, I kept running back and trying again.  I think I lost 4 levels… and I thought it was totally worth it once I got the screenshot I was after.

So, last night ended up being something totally foreign for me.

Each night that I play and for all the years that I have been playing MMO’s, the only really important thing to me has always been that I log off at the end of the night with the feeling that I had accomplished something.  That “something” could have been making a new friend or gaining a level in crafting or gathering some supplies that I can use for some future crafting session.  There doesn’t have to be any actual level progression for me to feel satisfied at the end of the night.

Last night was one of the rare nights where I logged in with the intention of doing nothing but questing.  I wasn’t going to tradeskill any and I wasn’t going to take on new quests.  I was simply going to sort my quest log by level, start at the top, and see how far down I could work.

I logged on… and that’s when things started going downhill.

My first quest was to kill a named Bloodsaber down in The Vermyn’s Snye.  I knew right where he popped and I knew that he was about 3 levels lower than me, so I didn’t figure it would take too long.  I ran to his location… and probably went through 15 rounds of placeholders.  When he finally did spawn, I was somewhat surprised to discover he was a triple elite heroic level mob.  Sure, he might be 3 levels lower than me, but a triple elite mob 3 levels lower than me can still kick my ass.

That didn’t stop me from trying of course.

And kicked my ass was.

So, I decided to come back on that one some other day and moved on to the next quest.  The next quest involved killing the rat queen in the same zone.  She wasn’t too far away, so I moved off to her chamber.

And there I found a level 70 ranger camping her room who told me to go away.  I asked if we could group for 1 kill simply so I could get the quest update and he again told me to go away.

The next quest was to kill some mobs in Stormhold.  I know full well that I can’t solo there yet, but I thought I would run and see how badly outmatched I was.

Let me tell you… the “badly” factor was high.

I left there and decided to run out and kill Holly Windstalker’s Ghost… just, you know, because.  I had her down to about 20 percent when I got jumped by 3 giant bears and I was dead.

When I logged on last night, I was 9% away from hitting 27.  It had now been just over 4 hours since I initially logged on and I was still 9% away from level and now had a 5% experience debt.  I was getting frustrated.

My next quest was in The Thundering Steppes.  I had only been to this zone once and that time, I just stayed on the path to Bridge Keep.  I grabbed whatever quests I found along the way, but I didn’t deviate from that path.  So, I didn’t know the zone at all.

Frustrated and annoyed, I zoned in.  I was to hunt antelope.

I run down the hill and around the first turn.  Low and behold, there was an antelope.  I targeted, stealthed, and attacked.  I was wailing away at this cute little bambi thing when my health started dropping fast.  I scrolled out to see what was hitting me and saw that bambi had 7 big brothers and they were all grouped.  It wasn’t until then that I realized bambi was a heroic encounter.

So now, I was still 9% away from 27 and had a 10% experience debt.  That was when I started doing things so uncharacteristic of my personality… I started running from bad fights.

And let me tell you… I ran a lot last night.

I was killing a gnoll, got an add, and I ran.

I was killing a snake, got an add, and I ran.

I was killing a hawk, got an add, and I ran.

I suddenly realized that it was nearing midnight.  I had been online for just about 6 hours now and I hadn’t accomplished a single thing.  I hadn’t completed a single quest, I hadn’t successfully killed a single mob except for the Bloodsaber placeholders earlier in the night, and I hadn’t gained a single bit of experience.

I was preparing to log in frustration.  I opened up my map and was shocked to realize that I had uncovered damn near the entire zone.  I had just been running all over the place trying to figure the zone out and it had just happened.

As I was standing there marveling at that fact, it suddenly hit me that right at my feet lay some griffon eggs.  That set off a memory in my mind, so I quickly sorted my quest journal by zone and found the quest that wanted the eggs.  Not only was it a blue level quest, it was also the quest that unlocks the griffons for the zone of Thundering Steppes.

Of course, I bent down to harvest the eggs and it broke my invis.

Griffons are generally not too friendly, but they get downright pissy and testy when you jack with their eggs.

I was running for all I was worth and waiting for my evac to fire off which it did just in time.  I hit the docks with 27 HP to spare.  I ran over and turned in the eggs to complete my first quest of the evening.

Things seemed to turn around from there.  It was like I had uncovered the entire map and suddenly, the pathing of the zone was less of a mystery to me.  I suddenly knew how to pull mobs without gettings adds and being out of the pathing route of roamers.  I started busting out quest after quest (I have hunting exp turned off, so I only get exp by completing quests).  After nearly 6 hours of frustration, I knocked out my experience debt, leveled and got 30% into the next level in about 30 minutes.

I logged for the night happy and with 1 thought and 1 question reverberating in my brain.  The thought was, “Holy HELL the giants in The Thundering Steppes are freaking cool looking!”  The question was, “I wonder if that is really James Earl Jones playing the voice of the Giant chief or just someone who sounds like him?”

Happy and content with my progress for the night, I decided to run back to my inn room to check my auctions.  I could have gated, but I like running and looking for items I need to harvest.

I was running along scanning the horizon and thinking happy thoughts… which is probably why I didn’t notice that the damn dragon was back up in Antonica.

I guess tonight I will begin the night by working off my new and improved experience debt.

Geek crimes

If you are a geek and you felt a slight pulling in your gut this morning… a pulling that made you feel depressed and slightly suicidal and you aren’t sure why, it was my fault and I apologize.

I was ordered by my company this morning to take the stock of old and out-of-warranty PC’s that we have, stick them on pallets, and mark them for destruction.

178 computers now sit in the back of a truck on their way to be crushed.

The morning wasn’t without some benefit though.  As I was piling up the PC’s, I commented to my boss, “I realize that the company has a policy to not give away or sell old PC’s, but it seems like a shame.  Some of these are still really good machines.”  I then snickered slightly and said, “When you go to lunch, I think I might sneak into the cage and snake one.”

He smiled and said, “We aren’t supposed to give them to the users because the bosses don’t want us to somehow get stuck into supporting home PC’s.  They didn’t say anything about us taking them.  If something goes wrong, you can support it your damn self.  Take as many as you want.”

Gleefully, I went dancing through the pile.  It’s not like I need another PC.  Hell, I already have 3 PC’s and a laptop and really only use 2, but that is beside the point.  They were PC’s… and they needed my help to survive!

It was like going to the animal shelter and getting that overwhelming feeling of needing to rescue all of the puppies.  I knew damn well that I couldn’t take them all, but maybe just 1.

I searched for the one that looked the cleanest, dusted it off, patted it proudly and started to carry it inside.

Weeeellllll, maybe just 2.

I went about my business for the rest of the morning doing this and that, but in the back of my mind, I could hear those poor PC’s out there whimpering knowing that their time for destruction was near. 

I just happened to be standing outside when the truck arrived to haul them off.  I felt the tugging at my heart at knowing what was coming as I wached the forklift raise them up 1 pallet at a time into the truck and I knew that geeks around the world would be feeling the pain of this moment.

Not able to take it any longer and in a moment of selflessness and bravery, I dashed across the lot through the gate to the loading dock and snatched another PC from the stack.

Now, I sit here shaking my head thinking to myself, “I now have 6 PC’s total?  What the hell am I going to do with 6 machines?”

Well, I’ll think of something I’m sure.  There are no shortage of “I wonder if’s” when I’m trying to think up a new idea.