General

Dorah learns there’ll be no more scooter rides in the cemetary Work is hell. I’ve been coming home late from work, and the last thing I really want to do is log in EQ1 and go to work again. Raiding every night is either stressful or boring, and grouping for experience is just boring so much that it puts me to sleep. The Serpent’s Spine brought back that most hated of game mechanics, the Experience Grind. Grind for the AAs, grind for the Mark II spells, grind to make enough money to pay for the crafted armors… it’s a beautiful expansion but I just can’t take the grind anymore. It isn’t fun! ...

I promised Atlas hearts and smiles when he finally began working. Got all the email issues sorted, wrote workarounds so the salespeople could still read their email and I am being very careful with him. He’s earned his name; he really does have the whole world on his shoulders. The security guard didn’t like the name “Atlas”. He wanted to name the server “Jessica”, so he could say, “Oh, Jessica isn’t feeling well today,” or “Jessica is very busy this morning.”. I mean, come on. It’s just a machine! And my little wookums would never complain if he was busy now, would he? Come on, give momma a hug! ...

(I wanted to head this rant with a picture of my trusty little mail server, Atlas, but he and I are not speaking at the moment, and the digital camera was out of power. So for no real reason, a gratuitous picture of Dina as a Square-Enix heroine.) About two weeks ago, our email provider, ABAC.com, decided not to allow us to send mail to people within the company from within the company. No reason given, and they accepted mail from outside the company (for awhile, anyway) no problem. ...

Do my shoulders look fat in this armor? No, really. Be honest. Be cruel. I can slice you. I can turn to the left – sssssssstt – and the right – ppphhhhwwwwitt – and my shoulders will take you out. And if you come after me, my shoulders will fly me away from you. I have a ferret living in my shoulder-wings. His name is Nibbler. He is taking all your money while you stare at my shoulders. ...

My sister, Hillary (I need to make up a fantasy name for her. Dad called her Mint. Actually, Mint was just short for a much, much longer name, which could be embarassing, so I won’t write it here. My nickname was Scrub. I guess he saw me on my hands and knees scrubbing floors or kitchen sinks, which were some of my chores when I was a kid. Vallerie was Weeds, and Jennifer was G-g-g-g-Ginger. Kinda straying from the point… but it’s weird we all had botanical nicknames. From now on I’ll refer to my sisters by their nicknames, to preserve the fragile anonymity that this very post ruins.) ...

Wordpress blogs get plenty of spam. But you know, sometimes I just need that little virtual hug when someone sends me a message saying, “Good job! Love your site!”, and then asks me to visit their porn/gambling/illegally-sold drug website. Not into those things, guys, but damn, it’s good to know you like my site! I get a lot of folks who apparently write entirely in Chinese. West Karana is, of course, one of the world’s premiere Chinese-language sites. ...

Saw these guys in Barren Sky while I was finishing a quest and nearly fell off the chain laughing. I also won a Relic Chain Coat last night! It’s rare to begin with, and I outrolled the other chain wearers to boot, so it just goes to show - sometimes one-in-a-hundred chances do actually happen. O RLY? YA RLY!

I love twinks. I love seeing them in my character select screen, in their gleaming armor and sharp weapons, their stories waiting to be told. There’s nothing like making a new character and fitting them out with the most awesome gear possible. That’s why I spent a few hours a couple nights ago making armor, weapons and jewelry for Arioma, my contact in Qeynos for buying items that are cheaper there than Freeport. She was still in her Isle of Refuge gear. I haven’t logged her in for about a year or so. but now that my last two good side characters, Tipa and Verd, have betrayed, she needed to come out again. ...

I was originally going to do a few blogs; one for gaming, one for Linux/IT/work stuff, and one just for personal stuff. Instead it all got glommed into this one! Probably a mistake, but whatever… I was reading an article on Linux.com about some guy’s experience with Gentoo and why he moved to Debian. I recently moved from Gentoo to Kubuntu for many of the same reasons. Nazguul, a guildie from EQ2, asked me why I stayed with Linux when it gave me such frustration. I said the first thing that came to mind – I programmed in BSD Unix back when I was working for Digital Research and just loved how easy and obvious everything was. Great community as well. Using Linux now reminds me of those old days a decade before the Internet went public. ...

I promise, I’ll get back to fun EQ2 (and EQ1!) stuff soon. Just… well, I usually prepare and write the blog entries on Baphomet, whom you may remember as my Linux computer. Ever since I accidentally updated a file I didn’t mean to update, Baph has been getting sicker and sicker. First Amarok wouldn’t play my music anymore. Then the sound engine gave up the ghost entirely. The fonts got all screwy after a ill-considered move to modular X (the graphics subsystem). Lately, KDE (the window manager) has been freezing. In a Linux system, that doesn’t mean the computer stops working – I could still get into it through the internet or my LAN and do things – but it made it a lot less useful for the purposes I built it. ...