Been about a month since I updated this…once again completely forgetting that I should be posting something now and then. Maybe the title should have been something more along the lines of “Absolute Forgetfulness”, though this one works out.

So what has happened since my last update? Well, I did get paid before the wedding. I took the money and used it towards a new camera, the HV30. I also purchased another battery and a few more tapes. I’ve also already finished and actually brought the dvd in with me to work today. He hasn’t stopped by to pick it up, so I’ll probably end up just dropping it off at his desk in a little bit. I get kind of nervous before giving someone something that I’ve worked on…makes me feel under pressure. I feel like he’s looking for more than he paid for, which is funny because I do not charge enough to warrant something like that. That’s not to say that I don’t put hard work into my video projects, it’s just that I’m a one-man crew and it probably shows.

The new camera works much better in lower light than my old HV20. That’s not to say that it works great in super low / dark rooms, and that shows (exactly the reason why I cut out any of the dancing that took place in the dark). The throwing of the bouquet happened while the lights were still turned off for dancing, which made for a very very dark scene. I turned it black and white with Looks (as I did with the garter belt tossing, though the lights were on by that point), but it was still super dark. It’s one of those “it can’t be helped” moments though, so they’ll have to deal with it.

I’m quite pleased with myself, though I still have yet to see what Bill and his wife think of the video. This puts two weddings under my belt, video projects in the past, and also got me a new camera (and a nice backpack to store all my stuff). I don’t want to do weddings for the rest of my life though. They’re a decent source of a quick buck, but also a lot of work. It’s helping fund videomaking for now, we’ll see how that goes.

It snowed a ton on Sunday night / Monday morning. When I woke up Monday to head off to work, I opened the door to see what it was like outside…it was just snow everywhere. By the time I was ready to leave, I had to shovel a path to my car, to the car blocking me, and from the cars to the road. I also shoveled the snow off my car, it looked like it was a foot deep, it was pretty crazy. There were only about 10 people at work when I got there, with a few saying they were leaving by noon, and some coming later in the day filling in their spots. It was an incredibly busy day despite the weather.

The new season of Lost has definitely become my favorite as of yet. The 3rd season was my original favorite, showing more of the Others and delving deeper into the happenings of the island. This season sort of mirrors the 3rd season in that it’s actually giving answers to what is going on in the story. Sure there are still tons of questions being given every episode, but at least more information is becoming available instead of just questions. If the show continues on this path, the rest of this season will turn out to be the most informative, entertaining season of all of Lost. That will lead us into the final season 6, hopefully tightening the story even more, or at least leading up to a movie or something along those lines. I could go on forever about theories and my thoughts up to this point, but I’ll leave that for a later time.

Schenectady New York, a Charlie Kaufman film starring Philip Seymour Hoffman and Catherine Keener, was absolutely breathtaking. At times I was watching the film in complete awe, taken aback as to what was actually happening on my monitor. Such intense acting, such an incredible story with the mastermind of Kaufman at the wheel, driving us into a world that only a genius (or a madman) could come up with. This movie takes you everywhere you want to be, and just when you think you’re finally there, you’re taken somewhere else without warning. I’ve got to watch it again, there’s no question to it. And beyond that, I can only recommend it to everyone who is not only a Kaufman fan, but even if you only enjoyed Eternal Sunshine…or you just want to watch a new, interesting movie.

I also watched Son of Rambow last night. Adorable and quite a fun movie. I’m not the best at writing reviews persay, but I’m all for discussing different topics. Maybe I’ll make a post that includes some random discussions I’ve had on my guild’s forums at some point.

I saw Chris over the weekend. It’s been years since we’ve seen each other and really had no communication (besides a facebook message or two) since he first left for Japan. Gavino had originally called me saying that there was supposed to be a comic book convention in Asbury at the Convention Center. At first I was hesitant to go with him, but he said that they (him and April) wanted to check it out, so I said sure. At the time I was heading home after visiting mom on Friday and only had a little bit left to do for the wedding video, but I figured why not.

By the time I got to his house and we were on our way, he got a call from Chris saying the convention was lame. So I suggested we go get something to eat, great idea. Him and Gavino complain about where to go, finally settling on Houlihans (god only knows if I spelled that right). We get there and Chris is at the bar. After a few pleasantries (including one involving Carl being invited), we move to a table. We get a few menus, Carl shows up, and the conversations start. Things turn from normal -> to bad -> to worse pretty quickly, ending with us being in the car after lunch (which really was just a few beers and some appetizers), driving back to G&A’s apartment, with Gavino being pretty pissed at Chris for what had gone down. Without going too into it right now, we’ll just say that Chris said some stuff that Gavino really didn’t agree with.

Not much else going on. Arena Tournament realms opened up last week. We’ve been hopping on them off and on, checking out the teams and playing a few games. It’s really interesting to see what sort of players there are out there and how we stack up against them in the best possible gear. Having everything available to choose from is actually pretty cool, it also let’s us figure out the best makeup to choose, with specs that work closely together to give us an edge over our opponents. We’ve still been doing live arenas and whatnot in between, though they haven’t all been going too well. Haven’t played 2s on the paladin in quite a while, dropped down to around 1960 in 3s, though 5s finally hit 1800, so that was nice. Druid’s 2s got up to 1710 or so, which is nice as well, but 3s and 5s are lacking currently…could probably fix that, but we haven’t really focused much on alt teams just yet.

That’s about it for now. I won’t make any promises about posting or anything like that, I’ll just hope that I remember to more often (especially now that I’m free for the time being with video projects).

I just dropped in to see what condition my condition was in.

I cancelled my Gamefly subscription a few months ago, if only I could do that with WoW, lol. I haven’t turned my xbox 360 on for a long long time now…figure the last game I played through and beat was Fallout 3 and just recently they released the expansion for it. I think that if we didn’t raid at all until Udular came out, it would offer me more time to not think about WoW. I could hop on certain nights for pvp (arenas and BGs) with friends, maybe the occasional heroic here or raid there, but not much besides that. Nowadays, raid nights just feel like they drag on and on for me. I know that a few others probably feel that way, at least 2 people that do. But PVP keeps me coming back for more, what can I say.

I’ve been drinking more tea on my own again. It usually was any time I went to mom’s house that I would have a few cups of tea, or the rare times it was offered to me at home. But ever since I got dad and Carol the Keurig coffee maker, I’ve been making tea like crazy, and it’s awesome. However, I still don’t think I’ll ever be a coffee drinker.

I forgot to update last night. The thought even crossed my mind, but I blew it off. Sure, by the time I got to bed it was like 3:30AM, but for some reason I just wasn’t in the mood to log on and post something. I did finish the last half hour of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button however. I enjoyed the movie, I agreed with the whole “it’s like this generation’s Forest Gump”. I did feel that the movie could have had less sex scenes (they weren’t exactly nudity and full on sex, but just making out and falling down in a “sex position” of sorts, with the “putting on clothes” scene afterwards). This would have shortened the movie by at least 15 – 20 minutes, still leaving it over 2 hours. Though being 2 hours didn’t seem bad, the story carried the viewer across the time quickly and never really tried hard to be over-dramatic just to get tears or smiles/laughs. Someone asked me if I liked it better than The Wrestler. No, not at all. I did like it better than Seven Pounds though…I should ask the same person that question.

I’ve had two bagels today. They’re so delicious. First one was just a quick one around noon since I knew I wasn’t going to get lunch, just with plain whipped cream cheese. Second one was around 3:35-ish, toasted with some butter. Both amazing in their own ways, what a great invention the bagel is. First one I enjoyed with a Sprite, this second one was devoured while drinking tea.

I wish I could draw. I knew about and have read Hourly Comics long before the ex, so when I saw she posted one, I felt a mixture of anger/jealousy/frustration. Anger because it felt like she had shuffled her way back into stuff that I enjoyed (though she talked about Waltz with Bashir like she could care less, so that’s good…great movie, so she can suck it). Jealous because as I mentioned I wish I could draw. Of course, there are a few people, especially the originator of hourly comics, who don’t really draw to draw well, just to draw. I should have done that…didn’t even think about it. Though what would my Feb 1st comic have been like? Frustration because I still read her fucking comic, I still read her FUCKING comic. Why do I do that? Why do I enjoy causing myself pain? Well, I guess it’s not really painful unless I see her mention her current boyfriend. I need a girlfriend. It’s very frustrating that the girls I’ve been meeting online have all been crazy. Sure, people might take a look at that and say “well maybe it’s not the girls, maybe it’s you?”, but guess what LADIES, it’s not me alright? I’m not going into the list of failures right this moment, but the most recent one just continues to prove that it’s a fucking nightmare trying to find someone to be with.

XM Radio is going to be charging me extra a month to listen to their service online soon. What a stupid idea, of course it’ll make them tons of money, but it’s so dumb. I’d be better off now just bringing in my boombox that has the XM radio attachment and hooking that up. Maybe I will…might as well save myself some money eh? It’s just so easy to hop on the website and toss on the radio rather than go through all that trouble. Whatever, by the end of the month, I’ll lug that shit into work and do that.

Tonight is the newest episode of Lost Season 5. I’m pretty pumped up to see it, it’s always fun to get excited for something and then actually being satisfied by the end. Sure the show is filled with questions and constant twists and turns, but it gets people talking. I’d rather talk about Lost than just listen to people babble on and on about football or their kids or animals and all that boring nonsense. I guess that’s a bit selfish, but who cares. Isn’t that the whole point behind making social contact with people? If you’re not interested in the same stuff or have anything to talk about, then you really have no reason to talk to that person or group of people. But once you find some solid ground, then you can have enjoyable conversations and skip all that fubar, filler nonsense that they can discuss with other people who would be more interested.

Once Bill pays me for the wedding video, I’ll go head back to Circuit City and pick up that Canon HV30. It uses the same batteries, same tapes, and will work just like my HV20, just slightly better. What a great camera my HV20 is: light, reliable, great quality…perfect little piece of technology. So I figure the new HV30 is about $720 – $500, I’ll take the $220 bullet and soak up the knowledge that I will now have a 2nd camera to do everything that I do…not only weddings, but personal projects once again. It’s going to be interesting seeing how I’ll work with 2 cameras at the wedding though.

It was nice and snowy yesterday and last night. My cell phone takes decent photos, not the highest quality, but good enough to capture a moment. Sometimes when I leave work, there are perfect sunsets, incredible moon and stary night shots, and I just wish that I could have my camera on me at all times. At some point I’ll make enough money off weddings to buy a sweet digital SLR camera and I could bring it with me wherever I go. The snow was so sparkly last night, this doesn’t show it completely, but it’s still nice. I love the snow.

Snow outside work

Anyway, I think that’s all for now.

Listening too long to one song, listening too long to one song.

So, it was nice to finally update for the first time in a while yesterday. Only thing I forgot to do was remember to post last night so I could start getting into the swing of things. Sure I do get some time at work here and there, but I cannot think of it that way. I need to collect my thoughts at the end of the day and post it then, and if I think of things during the day, then I could jot them down to add in my entry at night. So I’m going to make a short post now in case I do end up forgetting to say something tonight.

Let’s go backwards and see how that goes: The night ended late with me winning a warsong gulch on my druid (spec’d boomkin). I originally rolled the druid in BC to get into some arena teams with friends back when resto druid / anything was the way to go. Luckily paladins have come into their own in this expansion and this arena season specifically, so I had been playing the paladin more. Having already grinded all the gear I could with honor and arena points available to me (only having a weapon/shield/libram left to get before I’m pvp gear capped), I decided to level the druid and do it all over again. I’m leaning towards still being a healer, but for now, I’m boomkin and enjoying it.

Before that, we were running Brandon (one of Goochy’s friends) through The Nexus and Azjol’Nerub. He recently hit 70 and we thought it’d be cool to run the instances on our available level 70 toons with him…but after some problems in Utgarde Keep the night before (last boss), we decided it’d be easier to just run him through with 80s and be done with it (except Jace who was on his DK). Right before helping him out, we had finished a Wintergrasp and AB, which gave me enough honor points to snag up my hateful neckpiece.

Recently we had regrouped our 5s team HUGAG with Carl (Grizzlylimon – DK), Jace (Errand – Holy Paly), Goochy (Hunter), Will (Ret Paly), and myself (Holy Paly). We did our last few matches for the week last night, starting with a match where Jace was actually bugged out with a death grip. It was in everyone’s favorite buggy arena map, Orgrimmar Arena. The pillars that come up and go down now and then will cause people to disconnect from the game if they are feared near them, or in my case just walk near them to get out of LoS. Jace however was death gripped and somehow pulled down into the elevator that normally brings the teams up to the actual arena. It was the first time that I’ve ever been in a 47 minute long match, and the reason we took it out that long was because the last patch put into place the “45 minute rule”, meaning any matches that reach that long will automatically cause both teams to lose 16 points. Why it went over 2 additional minutes is beyond me (I guess the initial minute pregame and for the elevator to rise up?).

Ugh, I can’t stand some of the people I work with.

I have a few movies I’d like to watch this week, at least one tonight after raid. Last night’s The Big Bang Theory wasn’t too bad, I always enjoy Sheldon and Howard, they’re my favorites. Ooh, I was able to use my Circuit City gift card last night after work. I got a pack of 4 tapes for my camera, ended up being like $19.50 or something, so the entire card paid for it, leaving a whopping $0.50 left! They had an H30 at the store (my camera is an H20) for like $720-ish. Not a bad deal if I do say so myself, but let’s go check Amazon…Hmm $615-ish. Maybe I’ll wait to see if the price goes down anymore. Either way, If I do or don’t pick up the camera (which I would really like to, especially since I’m getting $500 for the gig anyway, it’d be a nice investment), I’m gonna need additional batteries (ran quite low last wedding). And if I do get the camera, I’ll need to not only still locate the attachment piece to my current tripod, but purchase another tripod for the new one. I could theoretically use one on the tripod (new cam) and the other on my shoulder mount…that wouldn’t be too bad.

Ahh well, that’s it for now.

*listening to The Bird and The Bee – Again & Again*

I need to get back into updating my blog. It’s been about 3 1/2 months since my last entry, and I haven’t gone back to read them all yet, but I’m saddened. I’m saddened by the fact that I was able to actually update the thing from July of last year to mid-October (2 1/2 months), but not keep up with it. I think if I can even try to post *something* each night, I’ll be able to get back into the whole thing and actually have it as something to do, something I stick with. That’s not to say I don’t stick with anything, it’ll just be nice to have something that I constantly update.

You don’t know the amount of times I’d either think about coming back to my blog to make a post, or how many times I’d actually come back to the blog just for the links section to check out some webcomics and whatnot. What actually got me back into it? Nothing persay. I was about to skim through my old entries and figured I’d stop being so lazy and finally update it. Mom said she’s had journals for a few years now…the fact that she can keep up with it for that long makes me think that I suck for not being able to even make it HALF a year, let alone a full year or multiple years.

So do I go through what happened in the last few months before I continue on? Well for one, I’m not going to continue on in *this* post persay. Mainly because I could probably add a decent entry (hah, yeah right) and don’t really feel like typing that up right now, but I’ll add one for maybe what I did over the weekend later tonight.

But to say what happened since mid-October to the beginning of February? Well, we have a new president, Barack Obama. World of Warcraft came out with it’s 2nd expansion, Wrath of the Lich King. I finished my first paid wedding video and am actually preparing for my 2nd one soon (14th). I’m a bit nervous for it, but we’ll go into that at another time. Tried to get to know 2 girls in that span of time, both I met through OKCupid, and both didn’t work out. Hmm, anything else I’m forgetting? Saw a plethora of movies, which sucks cause I would have liked to have typed up something for them, but I definitely won’t do that right this moment. Maybe when I do my nightly blog update, if I didn’t watch a movie that night, I’ll review a movie I had seen since then as a little bonus to myself. Yeah, that’s a good idea. Oh, and last but not least (since it just occurred to me), Lost season 5 has started up and it’s been amazing as expected.

If you can’t guess, WotLK (Wrath of the Lich King) had taken most of my time up since my last update. Obviously not between mid-October / early-November, but once it did come out, it was like an obsession. I didn’t stop doing everything else in my life, but I did play the game a lot more than I had hoped I would. Up until the expansion’s release, I doubt I was really doing anything that exciting with my life anyway, but now that the game is in a lull again, I can and will hopefully tranverse other aspects of life. Not that I will be going to clubs and bars and “doin’ ladies left and right”, but I’ll hopefully be getting myself out and maybe coming up with ideas.

I mention that because my resolution to myself this year was to come up with, shoot, and edit my own short film that I could possibly submit into a film festival. Sadly I wouldn’t be able to make it into this year’s Asbury Park film festival which I believe is in April with submissions being due a few months ago, but just to be able to create something from my own mind…that’d be incredible. Not that I haven’t ever filmed and edited anything on my own, but this is more of a personal project that I would like to do, something that would make me feel like film is my path in life and that I won’t be JUST a wedding vidoeographer for the rest of my life (or work at this engineering company for the rest of my life either).

I’ll end this post with what I need to do very soon: I need to go to Circuit City and use this gift card that Matt & Brenda got me for Christmas ($20) before that place goes completely out of business. Sure it won’t get me much, but I could pick up a pack of tapes for my camera. Speaking of which, since I’ll be getting paid before making this next wedding video, I’ve been thinking of investing in an additional video camera. Before that, I need to clean out my car and see if I can find the damn piece that attched my cam to my tripod. That way I can have one stationary camera filming something and a second camera filming from a different angle (mainly for things like the ceremony and family dances). With that I’ll need to pick up a few extra battries as well. Then after the wedding (if I can’t muster up the strength to start it now) and after I finish and give them the video, then I need to work on the Halloween video that I filmed last year. I also need to pick up some nice DVD cases so that I can make the video somewhat more presentable.

That’s just a taste of what I’ve gotta do in the next two weeks. Anyway, I’m out for now.

-John

We’ve got nothing to worry about, we’ve got nothing to worry about.

Let’s see how this entry turns out. I have from last Monday (6th) to Sunday (12th) to go over. It seems like so much longer than that has gone by, but then when I write about what has happened, I realize that for the amount of nothing I did, it’s surprising that it feels that way.

Monday (6th): I honestly cannot remember anything from this day. This is the exact reason why I said I should update more often, daily even, like I used to when I started this blog. *sigh* It’s funny to look back and think “How many days have gone by, forgotten and lost forever”.

Tuesday (7th): We did the usual BT rush to Mother. Wanted to get some Council shots in so we’d have less to worry about on Thursday, but we sucked it up on Mother for some god awful reason. It was going really well too, 1 shotted everything up to her. Ah well, we’ll get a 1 night clear of BT some day.

Wednesday (8th): The guild thought it would be fun to go do Vashj and Kael to get vials for those who didn’t finish the quest 800 years ago when we were still doing tier 5 content. So, we headed into SSC and smashed our way to Vashj easily and pretty quickly. Then we proceeded to wipe about 6 billion times, finally downing the stupid bitch close to the end of our normal raid time. It was really sad and ridiculous, but what do you expect when everyone wants to bring their alts. The only reason we finally downed her was because most of the people who WERE on alts (me included) hopped on their mains. Soon as that atrocity was finished, I went to bed.

Thursday (9th): Going to talk about what happened at work first. Because I do not wish to really go over it again (due to the fact that I explained it to everybody a billion times), I’m just going to post the letter that I had to type up after everything happened:

To Whom It May Concern,

After checking Ocean County College’s website, I found Joyce Ann Lamparello’s extension (Ext. 2383). I gave the note she had written and transmittal to Mike Giuliano upon returning to the LGA office. Looking back, the only person who gave me any problems was Joyce Lamparello. She was very rude while I was there and I felt as though she thought I was wasting her time being there. I tried to explain that I had arrived half an hour earlier than the bid opening, but she just kept shaking her head and saying “Too late, too late”. Everyone else was helpful, although they gave me incorrect information, which led me to be late.

Very ridiculous all in all. Funny thing, this was 2 1/2 pages originally, until I was asked to revise it and include more details. I had the new stuff in bold, but then I just figured I would keep it all normal and not pretend like I was asked to do more than needed.

After the fun day at the office, it was time to finish off Council and Illidan in BT. We didn’t have the best makeup for Council (a lot of healers missing), so like the day before, we had a lot of alts. After a few wipes, some healers started getting on finally and we were able to normalize the fight once again and continue on. Illidan went down after one or two attempts and I was able to call it a night after that.

Friday (10th): Still on edge at work, figuring I’d get fired at any moment. My boss felt it necessary to tell me that he was getting his ass chewed out (multiple times) by the higher-ups. Fun stuff.

After work I headed over mom’s for Terry’s birthday. I picked him up a card and gift certificate for Home Depot on the way ($25, mom already picked up the $40 heater, so with the card and whatnot, it was about $70 total). We had dinner (Joan was there), then played cards afterwards. Terry enjoyed his gifts, and in the end, mom realized we never sang “Happy Birthday”. No political discussion (amazingly), so it was a good night

Came home, hopped on WoW. We did some arenas (3s – my paly, jace’s warrior, carl’s lock). Wasn’t too bad, though I really hope that when WotLK comes out, I can work some arenas with people where we’re getting points every week and actually trying to be decent. I hate being stuck in the 1500 – 1650 bracket.

Saturday (11th): Planned on going to Gavino’s early today, but I wasn’t feeling well. I got up around noon-ish and got ready finally. When I got to his house, we watched some stuff on the computer and then headed out to Collingswood auction to see our asian media friends from the Rt. 18 mall (recently moved down here). After hanging out there for a bit and buying 2 dvds a piece (gotta love $10 movies), we headed to the mall for some bubble tea. I got delicious coconut and Gavino picked up whatever for him and April. We headed back to his place, he got a phone call to do some maintainence work (of course the day we hang out he’s got the phone, when is that different from normal) and headed out to take care of it. I played some Castlevania: Symphony of the Night and April came home. After a little more playing, I said we should play Castle Crashers…so we did. Gavino came back finally and after hours of trying to decide on where to eat, we picked Panera Bread.

Now, usually when you go out to eat, you go out to fucking eat. Well, when we got there, I was told I should order first since I already decided what I wanted. Should I have asked if we were eating there? I figured, since they both said they WANTED TO EAT OUT that we’d be EATING OUT. Many times we brought up the idea of ordering in, but it came down to going out to eat…UGH…not that I mind, I love to eat out…but okay ==> So, I go up to order, move to the left to get my drink, and then they go up. I hear them say “to go”, and I say “what the fuck?” (not exactly, but I give them the look and say “Um, we’re not eating here?”). They both start laughing and tell me to quickly say I want it to go to the woman putting my food together. After all that nonsense (there’s more, but I really don’t feel like going into it), we head back to their place? Of course not. April wanted to go to Toys R Us. So we went there, checked out the board games (which is cool, she probably wanted to buy one since Gavino told her how we were checking out the sweet board game store in the mall). Of course, we didn’t buy one, and they proceeded to walk around for another 6 hours.

Finally we headed back to their place. I started to eat my soup (which was all kinds of delicious – cheese and broccoli) and noticed I didn’t have any extra bread to eat it with (besides my sandwich). So I asked if they had any bread, went in the kitchen to get some, came back and proceeded to smash my soup to the floor by accident (obviously). After cleaning it up and deciding we had time to watch a movie, I started eating my 1/8th of a soup and sandwich (still amazingly good). We tried watching 2 movies, but Gavino’s had no subtitles and my first selection had LITERAL TRANSLATION (worst thing ever…”WE ARE ESCAPE!”). So, it’s time to take those back. But before that (and not until some other day), we watched my other choice: “I’m a Cyborg, but that’s OK”. I really enjoyed it, and they did as well, so it was all good.

Gonna do Sunday another time, gotta leave work!

Sept 30th (Tues) – Oct 5th (Sun)

Sept 30th (Tues) – Work as usual, though this week was pretty ridiculous. Jackson Woods stuff finally came in, so we were overrun with tons of prints and whatnot to do all week. After work, I got home and hopped on WoW. We did the BT run up to Mother to set us up for later during the week (in case we didn’t do too well in Sunwell). Went fine for the most part (from what I can remember), so not much new there.

Oct 1st (Wed) – Wednesday, the usual “head over to Gavino’s for podcast and hanging out” day. We missed the previous 2 due to him cancelling, and with work being a bit crazy and just not being in the mood to drive all the way down for nothing, I said that I wouldn’t be able to make it. It gave me time to relax, watch some stuff (this week I’ve been watching 30 Rock and Little Britain [wanted to re-watch it since they had the new show coming to the US]), and play some video games. I hopped on WoW and we proceeded to kill Gruul as is the norm on Wednesday off nights. I ended up winning the roll for the pants on my paly (was going to use as ret gear), though the master looter (stupid, stupid Fatweight) gave them to a priest (wrong class even), because the stupid priest rolled on the wrong loot. And although I talked to a strange GM about it and the priest said he/she put in a ticket, I never received the pants. Ahh well, whatcha gonna do.

Oct 2nd (Thurs) – Time to head into Sunwell again. We cleared trash pretty quickly again, even with the big event going on: The 2008 Vice Presidential Debate. Now, I’m not going to go into it here, I’ll just post a link to the debate and leave it at that. There was enough debating going on Friday between me and Terry to make me not wish to worry about it at the moment.

Anyway, so we wiped numerous times on Kalecgos, getting him to around 50-ish% again a few times, but not much more than that. So, we finished off the night, after trash respawned, by heading back into BT to finish what we had left in there. We killed Council after a few problems and then proceeded to have a wipefest on Illidan. So, we pushed that to Sunday and called it a night.

Oct 3rd (Fri) – Headed over Mom’s after work as is the norm. Brought her a DVD with Mamma Mia! on it and some episodes of Little Britain for Terry to enjoy (hadn’t seen it yet, though he’s heard of it). We ate some dinner, debated (or as I like to call it “had Terry yell at me, saying I’m stupid for what I felt or believed to be true, and ended up just saying ‘yes’ / nodding until it was over”), and so on. We ended up playing Spinners instead of the normal UpWords. Spinners, a variation of Dominos, was actually pretty fun. It didn’t take much longer than a normal game of UpWords, and we had a lot of laughs.

When I got home, I finally bought and got to play Mega Man 9. What an amazing game it is. All the nostalgia of the original 2 Mega Man games, mixed with some sweet new stuff (new enemies that are really cool, new puzzles to get past, etc). Within the first 30 to 45 minutes, I had played every board, getting to some end bosses, sometimes not. I put it aside for a bit to play some Silent Hill: Homecoming that had arrived for me, but ooooooooh my god, scary shit right there. I got through about 10 minutes of the game and said “that’s it, back to something that won’t scare the hell out of me”. *laughs* Sadly, I really never played any of the Silent Hill games by myself for very long, which is probably the reason it took me so long to beat them. Although, I think this one is aiming to be a pretty damn good, creepy version of the series. It’s probably because it’s a lot darker than the original few tended to be…that may be because I turned the screen a bit darker for the occasion? Who knows, all I know is that I have to beat it sooner or later (well, at least play it, lol).

Oct 4th (Sat) – Noone was on WoW Friday night, so I wasn’t really too in the mood to hop on very much Saturday and Sunday. Saturday I woke up a bit late due to the fact that I didn’t go to bed until pretty late the night before (watched some stuff, I can’t remember if I watched Primer that night or some other time). Played GTA4 for a few hours. Finally decided that I bought the game months ago, only played the multiplayer with some WoW friends, but barely played the story. By the time I was done playing Sunday (stopped playing before raid), I had finished a decent amount of the game (as far as I can tell). I was pleased by how the story moved along, and the gameplay was pretty fun (as to be expected), although I was a bit miffed by the mini games they put in, such as pool, bowling, darts, and some weird arcade game. They’re neat to have, but really…kind of pointless. And anyone else who says that they’re cool is just too lazy to call up a friend and see if they want to do them in real life (and I don’t want to hear the excuse that you don’t have money, especially when you buy video games).

I also played more Mega Man 9. By the end of Sunday, I had cleared up to the first Willy stage (all the 8 bosses). I wanted to try and kill as many of the bosses as I could without using any special weapons, and I was doing good for a while, then when I had 3 bosses left, I couldn’t take it anymore. I think I started using special weapons first on Plug Man (that bastard). I’ll end up going back and playing the game again, trying to beat it as I wanted to in the beginning, and then trying to see how fast I can do it the 3rd time around (the time attack videos I’ve seen are pretty awesome, gotta try it myself someday).

Oct 5th (Sun) – Again, not much going on this day. I was stupid this weekend and didn’t watch any tutorial videos like I usually enjoy doing. Instead, I played more video games and just hung out around the house. Gavino ended up calling, saying how he thought I hated him, that he didn’t hear from me in a while, how he wanted to get back into making viral videos (as a joke to put out that he wanted to go back to filming), yada yada yada etc. I told him that I liked watching anime again with him and that we should do it again sometime (to try and put out that I didn’t want to just sit around and talk about making videos).

Let’s go into this for a second. He’s a great friend as I’ve discussed before, and although I know already that I have my faults, he’s got his own that can sort of bother me sometimes. Sadly, though I told him that it was a joke when I said that he wasn’t invested enough in our project, and it was at the time, it kills me to think sometimes that he really isn’t. There have been numerous times he’s stated that he was going to do things to help out, but they just disappeared as soon as the word were said. Gave him some audio to extract from the H2 and send to me for the first time we were out filming for Julius, never happened (at first I asked him to cut it up and send it, but then shortened it to just taking it off and sending it, neither happened). Gave him some storyboards to work with and write up some ideas, and I even rewrote most of the first and second episodes in front of him with the storyboards. He said he was going to use them and come up with stuff, never happened. He said he was going to work on the device that would be used in the second episode, never happened. So, you know how sometimes you hear someone say that they’re going to do something or that they want to do something, and it just goes in one ear and out the other since you know that it’s not going to happen? Well, that’s sort of where I got to with filming when it came to him.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I don’t hate the guy for it. I just don’t know what to do anymore. This was the main reason I cancelled out on Wednesday, and although I didn’t “ignore” his texts like he said that he thought I was doing (I actually replied to 90% of them; which is funny, because when I send him a bunch of texts and receive no reply and mention it, I get the “I was busy” or “I don’t usually read texts, I like talking on the phone more” response), it moved into the weekend and why I didn’t ask to hang out. It’s sad sometimes, I don’t know what to expect. If I put a lot of time into the project and expect to get things done, like hanging out Wednesday (to discuss what we will be filming and hang out) and one day on the weekend to get things done (film for a few hours, prepare episodes, etc), it works out for a week or so, and then the excuses start piling on. Maybe it was just because I was glad that we started filming on a schedule and he complained that he wanted to “hang out instead of work for a change”. That was pretty upsetting, because for the most part, all we ever did was just hang out. We only did a small amount of filming (I’ve got the tape to prove it). For the most part, we would just sit around and ponder what it is we should be filming, instead of actually doing anything.

Anyway, I’m really debating on what to do this Wednesday. I’ve got the choice of heading over there like we used to do 4 weeks ago and seeing how it goes (with the possibility of either just sitting there and discussing what we could do and then watching movies or some stupid tv show), or I cancel and continue to think about what I really want to do with the whole project. It’s come to the point that I want to work on a documentary of some sorts, something that will take some time to work on, but something that I can plan out and put together over a few months…that will be something amazing once it’s finally put together. I wish I had the support or people to work with on this, instead of one day a week, if that, to film for 15 – 30 minutes. I know everyone wants to say that they’re tethered down to their job and their relationship and whatnot, and maybe because I’m currently not in a relationship I don’t see it, but if that’s the case, then just don’t feed me false hope that things can and will get done.

Ugh, life is such a fucking complicated thing sometimes.

Oh, and we 1 shotted Illidan on Sunday, then wiped a billion times to finally down Archimonde that we bought from some guild (helm finally dropped and had less points than Zomm, jioqthatatalhklh).

Now it’s 15 minutes after I should have been out of work, but I’m finishing this up. So this week I’ve got whatever we raid on Tuesday, whatever I decide to do on Wednesday, whatever raid we do on Thursday, dinner and cards with mom/terry/aunt joan on Friday, and then whatever my crazy mind can come up with this weekend.

Peace.

So, the economy is going down the drain and banks are being bought left and right. With the 2008 Presidential Debate last Friday and things like this and this, it’s definitely been a very interesting few days since my last post (and I use the term loosely
when discussing the debate…it only got interesting after I started drinking).

Well, we have a lot to cover. There’s last Tuesday, the 23rd, up to yesterday, the 28th. I hope you’re all ready for an explosively massive torrent of informative and exciting blogging action!

23rd (Tues): We ran up into Sunwell our second time together. We were much better with trash, the push to Kalecgos went much smoother than our first time in there. Once we got to him however, due to most of the people still having not read the R&R or knowing at all what to do on the fight (we have some pretty slow people / raiders who obviously just want pew pew instead of strats), we didn’t do too well. People freak out with new stuff and act like they can’t figure things out on their own when put in a new situation. You see a portal in front of you that will take you to an alternate realm with a demon, you wait until a tank and healer are in there…pretty simple. Having people still say “DRRR, I WAS IN THE PORTAL BUT GOT NO HEALS” pisses me off. Anyway, we probably got them both down to around 50 – 60%-ish, nowhere near the 10% “real fight”. We finished the night (after trash respawned, which was after about 3 – 5 attempts), by killing up to Shade of Akama in BT.

24th (Wed): Was supposed to go over Gavino’s for some podcast fun and discussion times, but he cancelled again. I’ll delve more into things going on with him towards the end of this post. Edit: I was going to go into things that bothered/annoyed me about the whole situation, but I’ll push it to the side and not discuss it at this time. I think to myself that I’m the one being immature about the whole situation, and then I realize that we’re all to blame, so I’ll just forget about it for now (this has more to do with Sunday instead of Wednesday). So, we rescheduled for what Gavino called “real filming on Sunday”. I don’t really remember much of what I did on Wednesday, probably did some WoW. Ooh, come to think of it, we did Gruuls, and it sucked! High King Mulguar wasn’t a problem, but we wiped like 5 times on Gruul…on fucking GRUUL. We finally got him down, and I think since everyone was upset about the nonsense, and I was just upset in general, we didn’t plan much after that.

(I just noticed that doing a search for certain keywords will bring up my blog, and I realize that they scour the internet for things…but I guess if they find and read my blog [I wanna say without consent, but it's on the internet], then I guess they deserve to read it)

25th (Thurs): We went into BT to finish what we left off, which was Bloodboil (wiped a billion times, gg healers), Gorefiend, RoS, and Mother (shoulders are never going to drop, so I believe making the haste shoulders was still a good idea). Wasn’t really much else going on, at least not that I can remember (main reason why I have this blog, should start having entries every day like I was trying in the beginning; going back, I had pretty consistant posts…I may have to go back to that).

26th (Fri): This is where the meat of the week started. After work, I took mom and Terry out to Red Lobster for dinner, in celebration of their anniversary. It wasn’t too bad, some light political discussion on the way and at the resturaunt (who woulda guessed?), delicious food and drinks at the place, and some tea with after-dinner discussion when we got home. I made it in time for Kara, only a few minutes late (starts at 6 server). Oh, did we start with Kara immediately? Of course not. First we did some BGs. Not that I’m complaining, they were actually pretty fun. I don’t mind BGs when I’m doing them with people I can enjoy the with. It’s when I’m doing them alone, just as a grind, that they start to become really boring (especially when I’m just healing). I think in the expansion, along with more consistant arenas and whatnot, I may get more into PVP (I’m on a fucking PVP server for christ sake, lol). Carl came on and we did some 3s (with Shiyo) and some 2s. After that, I called it a night.

27th (Sat): After some BGs on the paladin, it was time to take dad and Carol out for their anniversary dinner…at…YEP, you guessed it…RED FUCKING LOBSTER. LOL! Who goes to Red Lobster twice in one week, let alone twice in a weekend? Well, I’ll tell you who: THIS GUY! Anyway, it was a much different atmosphere, but it was alright. I got the Ultimate Feast when I took mom and Terry out. I indulged in the endless shrimp deal they had going on when I took dad and Carol.

When we got home, I finished up Bone. Great story, though sadly I wish it had a slightly different ending. Good stuff though, very cute, would definitely recommend to everyone. Next thing to do is print out The Watchmen and read that, or read this Software Piracy Exposed book that Walt gave me. Didn’t do too much after that. Played WoW later on in the night, did some more 2s with Carl, and went to bed.

28th (Sun): Big filming day! We got like 5 episodes done, right? NOPE! Went to mom’s early to get in the area, help her take out their air conditioner, and have some breakfast before heading over Gavino’s. Mom said it was too wet out due to the rain to worry about the air conditioner that day, so we just did the breakfast thing and picked out pictures for the October calender she wanted me to make. Afterwards, I headed over to Gavino’s place.

When I got there, it was pretty dark inside. He had woken up later than usual, and by the time I had put my stuff down and was getting ready to sit down, he was saying his back was hurting. Playing right into it, I asked him if he would rather not film that day, if he wanted to just relax and hang out. Of course, after agreeing that would be for the best, we ended up spending the day lounging around, watching Evangelion, and talking about random things. April got home, we talked a bit more, watched some stuff on the computer, then headed out to pick up Chinese food. We watched the new Simpsons, some ridiculous show about the 80s and 90s actors / actresses, and whatnot. I could care less about both of them TBH, though the Simpsons (even though I don’t follow it like I did when I Was younger) was funny. After that, I headed home (wanted to get home in time to watch Family Guy, but I knew it wasn’t going to happened, so I asked dad to record it). Hopped on WoW and saw they were still doing Council (it was already 6:30 server [9:30PM]). I watched the new Family Guy and leveled up my drood’s herbalism and mining a bit more. I was asked to come in and do Sunwell, but by the time I got there, we wiped two or three times on stupid shit and called it pretty much immediately. So I logged off, played around a bit more on the computer, and jumped in bed (around 3am, ugh).

That’s about it. I ended up finishing the calender that mom wanted me to make for October. She called today and said she loved it. I always enjoy hearing people say they like my work, whether or not I get anything else out of it. She also told me that Terry’s tests came back with no trace of Hep C, which is amazing. Now he just has to pretty much keep doing the shots and taking his medicine for 30 some odd weeks more and it might be a good outlook.

Today (Monday, might as well knock of off the list), was one hell of a day at work. Busy as all hell and yet the time didn’t go by as quick as I had hoped. But at least work is over and it’s time to head home.

Plans this week? Tonight I don’t have anything planned. I might watch a movie and play WoW as usual. Sent the two Gamefly games back (Tales of Vesperia and Lego Batman) in hopes that I’ll get the next two on my list: Star Wars The Force Unleashed and Silent Hill Homecoming. I have a few more up there, like Mercenaries 2, Fable 2, Fallout 3, Animal Crossing city Folk, Harvest Moon Tree of Tranquility, My Japanese Coach, and Kirby Super Star Ultra, but most aren’t out yet (cept for Kirby & Mercs 2). Guess we’ll see! Tomorrow I think we’re pushing Sunwell. Wednesday we’re supposed to film after work, but 2 Wednesdays in a row tell me otherwise. Thursday will depend on how we do in Sunwell on Tuesday. Friday is mom’s for the usual. And that’s all I can think of! Nothing interesting, but whatcha gonna do?

Hopefully I’ll start just updating this every night before I go to sleep like I used to, since it’s a lot harder to update after 5 – 7 days since the last entry. Later!

We were all a bit upset about last night’s raid, but we have to look back at the good times we spent in Hyjal. The togetherness that such an epic fight only as such could bestow upon us must be seen as a reward, not a burden.

We should be able to look back at bosses like Rage Winterchill, and see that there is reason to the chaos in the world…that death and decay are all around us, and that we need to do everything in our power to protect future generations from the hatred and greed that we portray to each other.

We need to take into account that the trash waves aren’t only a means to give the instance substance, but to only show the demons inside ourselves that we deal with every day. How many times have you yourselves felt like an abomination in one way or another. Or felt like your only desire was to just put up a wall against all incoming threats in the world, much like our banshee friends we all know and love.

And if it weren’t for bosses like Anetheron, how else would we learn to never listen to rules that were given to us? When we are young, we are taught by our parents about what is right and wrong. Bosses such as Anetheron teach us that it may not be in the best intrests of our fellow men to pay attention and do what is right, but to go against the grain, to stand out, stand tall, to go against all odds and prove that we can do what we feel is best for ourselves alone!

What of our dear friend Kaz’rogal? If it weren’t for him, would we ever truely know what it feels like to be completely drained of one’s soul? We look at others and try to feel remose and pity, but until we can step into the shoes of those less fortunate than us, how can we ever understand the pain they are going through every day. It’s one thing to be marked by society as an outcast, to be shunned away from the group because we may be different, but working together and giving it our all as a team…we can move mountains.

Again, we must venture forward. But in our ongoing progress through this world, we cannot forget what experiences have brought us to this point. Azgalor taught us, as we all know, to do everything in our power to stand strong against all opposition, whether or not that place is in between something we may fear and those who support us. We find out the hard way that putting ourselves in such a position can rain down depression, anger, and additional feelings of guilt and suffering. Only when we can stand together as a group, maximizing the distance between ourselves and that which we can only fight as one, will we finally understand the meaning of our lives.

And finally, we shall carry on, finishing the extravagant tour with our beloved Archimonde. For it is in he that we all see the corruption and grip that society puts on us every day. This grip, if not taken off as soon as possible, will only deteriorate us slowly, withering us away as each tick of shadowy chaos eats away at our very being. Beyond that, there are many more things that we can take away from our time with Archi. Again, we must prove to ourselves that we cannot fear that which we do not understand, lest we be tossed into the fires of doubt. Do we wish to doubt ourselves? If we fill ourselves with doubt, we will never be able to rise to the top. I believe that, as a people, we can fly…fly higher and higher in our goal to be the best that we truely can. And if we fall, then we must hold onto the tears of our brethren, and carry on, floating gently to the ground, picking ourselves back up, and pushing on once again.

That, my friends, is why we CANNOT simply look back at the Battle for Mount Hyjal as something to be scorned and loathed, but as a life changing, and ever important time in all our lives.

Thank you for your time.

/cry. It’s been way too long since my last post…well, 7 days to be exact. Was the reasoning behind my lack of the week & weekend posts due to the fact that I was super busy, productive, and the like? Doubtful.

Tuesday (Sept 16th): I made my previous blog entry on this day. That night, I believe we ran a train on BT, downing Mother as our final boss of the night. Gavino saw episode 1 and enjoyed it. I’ll mention some of the changes that need to be done towards the end of this post. Tuesday wasn’t anything too special enough to remember.

Wednesday (17th): Was supposed to go over Gavino’s after work as usual, but he had to reschedule for reasons unbeknownst to me (he mentioned that it might happen earlier during the day, so I figured it would end up happening). He had suggested Friday, but I told him that we wouldn’t get decent light to film anything outside since I wouldn’t be there until around 8PM. Didn’t get a response, moved on with my day.

I think we did some Gruuls and Mag that night, both which were entertaining (BoPing Supermassive at 2%, hah). Then we did some ZA. Ring and trinket have both dropped (on separate occassions) and Sukuyan won the rolls…but I wonder if I get him back? Muwahahahaha!

Thursday (18th): Back into BT we go! One shotted Council, which was an achievement for the guild. We charged into Illidan’s room with confidence, however…we wiped around 7 times before finally downing the bastard. The caster staff dropped, and low and behold, look who has more points to spend on it! Yeah, that’s right Sukuyan, the staff is MINE!! MUWAHAHAHA! (foreshadowed that laugh in the previous paragraph, tee hee).

I also hit around 2045 shadow damage during the fight, which I thought was pretty sweet:

I had a few items on that would proc and give me additional damage, so I figured I’d see how high I could get. After I won the staff, I tossed my haste gear on and pumped my haste up to around 165-ish (something like 10%). Was a pretty good night all in all.

Friday (19th): Went over mom’s for dinner after work. Gavino suggested that I come over, we have a few drinks and watch The Producers, sleep over, then the next morning we’d discuss filming, go out to lunch at the Japanese buffet near me, pick up my equipment, and then head back to film. Well, some of that happened…

Mom’s was fine, we had dinner, played UpWords (discussed getting Scrabble / playing Boggle for next time). Decent night, not too much talk about politics or anything to get anyone upset over. Afterwards, I headed over to Gavino’s place. We took a trip over to the store to get some alcohol. I got some Jager, Midori, and some Schnapps. Gavino bought this mini-keg of some beer called Dab. We got back, made some Midori sours and had some Dab…which was the WORST beer I’ve ever tasted. We cooked up some fried chicken again and proceeded to have a few shots, eat dinner, and watch The Producers. It wasn’t a really crazy night, and we were all falling asleep by the end of the movie.

Saturday (20th): Next morning, Gavino came in and told me that April was still asleep (it was around noon) and apologized for the plans getting all f’d up. It took us forever to finally leave to go get some Japanese deliciousness. I was glad that they lowered the prices, and the food was incredible as always. We still picked up my equipment, even though it was around 4:30, and headed back to Gavino’s (was 5PM by the time we got back). After discussing what we should do for a while, we finally tried to do some “leave the camera on and we’ll improvise the scene” action. We figured it was just for a scene where I needed to get up from the slap up episode 1 and transition into the “snack scene” of episode 2. Maybe one of the shots will be decent, I have yet to look at them.

We finished the night by watching some Escapist flash videos that they hadn’t heard of, watched Big Dreams Little Tokyo, chatted it up for a little longer, and then I was on my way home. Nearing the end of Bone, w00t.

Sunday (21st): Mom had discussed buying tickets for White Christmas. She called that morning because they were finally going on sale for non-American Express customers. After some arguing and her hating me for a bit, she finally bought them. It was also Terry and her anniversary, so I suggested I take them to dinner on Friday, since Terry might be up to it by then. He agreed, so we’ll probably be waiting for a table for 6 hours come Friday

The rest of the day was taken up by random WoW stuffs, some TV, and finally a Hyjal raid. The raid was the worst…thing…ever possible. It was told to be our last Hyjal, due to the fact that noone really needed anything out of the instance except for what dropped off Archimonde. AFKs, people not wanting to be there, and just a general hatred for the place caused us to wipe on some trash towards the 4th boss, and just fail at life. We finally got to Archimonde, but even pushing the raid time 30 minutes past normal still didn’t give us an advantage, and we ended up having to schedule a Monday Archimonde raid.

Monday (22nd): Work was busy busy busy. Went by as normal, not too quick for it being busy, but it was a Monday nonetheless. By the time I got home, I just wanted to put my head on a pillow and go to sleep, but of course I did everything but that. Conversed with the family while eating dinner, then hopped on WoW. Did some arenas with Larry’s warrior which weren’t too bad, I think we ended up being like 9 or 10 to 4 (switched between paly and druid healing). After that, we ran into Hyjal for what would be the most incredible night of wipes ever.

We literally wiped at LEAST 12 times, and that’s low balling it. Wipe after wipe after wipe. Thank GOD it was our last time in the instance. I needed my helm off the guy, but I didn’t need it that badly. Finally we got him down after our 4th tank (Elleara by that point) came in to tackle the beast. Chantal got her staff, and I got the fuck outta there (again, no priest/paly/lock helm dropped).

And that’s about it for now. It’s lunch time and I’m tired/hungry. Don’t know too much about the future…I think Wednesday we may film the rest of episode 2. I’d love to get at least 3 episodes done as soon as possible, then show the site to people, and even to sites like screwattack. We need to do some changes to the first episode, even though I do believe we’re pretty close to finalizing it. We need to reshoot the dance scene and come up with a better sound for the blue screen ending. I also should play with the audio a bit, it seems like Gavino’s audio is a bit off. Friday we’re going to try and see if Red Lobster is a possibility for mom and Terry’s anniversary dinner.

Okay, that’s it. I’m out!

Are you, really? I guess, depending on what the subject is that was, in fact, remembered.

Have you ever wondered if what you knew in life was important? I come across things, like Andy Warhol or Roy Lichtenstein, and I wonder…how many people these days know of or remember these men? Obviously, it’s something that only people that are interested in these types of things, such as pop culture (art, music, and the like), would know in depth about, but even just hearing the name…would it spark something in the brains of everyone when mentioned? Should it?

Sometimes I wonder: what exactly SHOULD be known by all and what exactly IS known. Then I think about it and wonder why people get upset when others don’t know what it is they’re talking about. Has it ever happened to you? Not using the example above, let’s use one that literally just happened: someone asks you a question related to the football game playing tonight, and you just stand there, eyes glazed over and look of confusion on your face. Is it my fault that I don’t watch football? Where is it written that all men (I wanted to say everyone here, but I say all men for another reason that I may go into) are supposed to be inclined to not only watch football, but know everything about the sport (hell, I know how to play, but fuck learning players names and teams and coaches).

It always makes me wonder how much people know about things, and of those things, what is actually useful to know and what is just fluff / junk / useless knowledge. I could go on forever about World of Warcraft, or independent (or even Japanese) music, or movies…but I’ll never admit that I know everything on the subject. Will I help someone who has a question on a subject that I know about? Yes. Will I have a discussion with someone who wishes to on a topic that I’m interested in? Definitely. Will I pretend like I know everything about something? Depends…but I wonder how many people do that as well. I try NOT to be elitist about something, pretending to know everything inside and out on one thing or another, but sometimes it happens. Maybe it’s the old “men trying to be better than others” or “wanting the newest, most expensive thing on the block”, basically showing off what you have (or in this case, know).

I guess it annoys me sometimes when people come off as irrational, elitist jerks. If the same person helped people who deserved to be helped, then I can understand that same person taking an elitist look on things when they believe someone is entirely incorrect in their thinking. But to just think one way and never listen to all sides, to never help others with the knowledge you hold, to never guide people to certain things and show them different aspects of life…it just makes no sense to me. And, though it’s the elitist in myself talking, it almost makes less sense when people could care less about the world around them, only engorging themselves in what they currently know.

Where did that all come from? I don’t know. I guess I get upset when I’m asked a question like “Don’t you know this” or “You don’t know that?”. Am I inclined to know everything in the world? I believe that what I currently know coupled with what I can and will learn/experience in the rest of my life, is and will be pretty damn good. I don’t know everything (and sometimes I wonder what the limit to one’s knowledge is…how much can the brain retain?), and I never intend to…but I also never intend to just sit back and let the world go by without picking up a thing or two that may be useful at some point in my life.

And with that, I’ll discuss my weekend!

Friday: Went over mom’s for dinner and such. Dinner was coupled with talks of politics as usual. I probably could have escaped a Friday night political discussion, because we hadn’t talked about it for a few minutes into eating, but I think something was on TV that showed Sarah Palin, and I had to open my big mouth. Before I knew it, I was getting everything I said countered by Terry and his Republican beliefs. And once again, it went from polite discussion to a bit of yelling on his end. Here is where I say “thankfully, it didn’t go on too long, and we went on to playing Upwords”, but it went on longer…epsecially after mom turned on The View and we had to be subjected to those idiots. It only fueled Terry to continue on his berating of Barack and the Democratic party.

We finished the night with some Upwords, which mom won. Then I headed home, hoping for some drunken something. Kara didn’t happen (at least not normal kara at the same time). We ended up doing some 5s however. I believe it was my holy paly, Luke’s ret paly, Supermassive’s rogue, Shiyo’s enhancement shaman, and Carl’s warrior. We actually didn’t do half bad, and although we ended up around 1600 by the end of the night, we had fun and our rating was higher than before (up from like 1450, hah…but that was our 4 rogues 1 warrior team). We agreed to do it again sometime. I finished up the night playing something…probably Braid (cause I think I played Castle Crashers the next day).

Saturday: Relaxing day. Played Castle Crashers, Bully, and Order Up. Let’s go into them, shall we? Castle Crashers (which I’ve almost completed) is incredible. Besides it being an addicting game to play, it’s a flashback to the old Golden Axe / Streets of Rage days. There are obvious similarities (killing everything on stage before advancing, combo moves and magic, little things that steal stuff that you have to kill to get them back) and differences, but all in all, it’s a pretty damn fun game. The only thing I think I would like to be different is the weapon and pet system. They’re both pretty cool as they are, but it could be better. For one, when you want to check how poweful a weapon is, you have to go to the blacksmith, climb in this giant fish mouth, and walk over to each weapon you’ve ever used in the game. From there, it will tell you how strong it is, if it gives you extra defense, if it gives you extra agility, or if it has some other stuff added to it. And that’s the problem…there’s nothing that really explains all the extra stuff, like the icon that has a cloud and arms punching out of it. What the fuck does that mean? And usually, in a game, when it says +3 or any number, you usually think that means +3 more than what you’re currently using (like in RPGs, when you go to equip an item, it will tell you where it’s stronger / weaker by saying +/- a stat). But not in Castle Crashers. Every weapon just has a + or – next to a stat, sort of confusing if you ask me.

I mentioned the pet system as well. It’s not bad, but to have to run all the way back to the blacksmith, go in the wooden ship, and bring the pet to the chick (i’m guessing is supposed to be a vet of sorts) just to tell you that your stupid pet finds treasure…really? Then, unless you remember what your pets do (or you’ve collected different pets and hadn’t gone back to see what each did every time you got one), you have to walk the length of this hull (if it IS a ship) and walk into the animal you want to find information about, walk it back to her, and hope it’s good…or it’s back to choosing another pet. Ugh. I could do without pets if that’s the way it’s gonna be. Besides that, the game is one of the most enjoyable games I’ve played in a while. I’ve gotten to this part in the game, which I am inclined to believe it is near the end, where you are in this room and there are 5 doors, 4 of which are bubbled off by a force field of sorts. After completing one room, the next room opens up. It sort of reminds me of the mega man gauntlet. You basically burn through some trash and then a boss, then kill this crystal and that opens the next room. Anyway, that’s about where I got to on Monday, but I haven’t really discussed that yet .

Bully: Scholarship Edition isn’t the worst game, and it’s not the best either, by any means. I picked it up because all the games I wanted on Gamefly were “low availability”, so I figured I’d get that and a Wii game until the games were in stock. Rockstar, what can I say about ‘em. The melee combat is about what you’d expect from the game, maybe an extra combo or two. There are tons of weapons you can pick up (not guns or knives obviously, but stink bombs, eggs, and a slingshot to name a few) and you’re constantly being harrassed into beating someone up. Besides that, it’s a pretty decent game I guess. You have to be in class by a certain time, and you have to get back to your dorm by a certain time, otherwise you may be caught and sent there by one of the people roaming around, searching for you with a Metal Gear Solid-esque mini map showing you their Line of Sight. The classes were simplistic, easy to pass mini games, something you might expect to see in Brain Age, but a lot easier.

Order Up, hmm. It definitely gets a “hmm” if anything. The game starts off as you choose if you want the dude chef or the chick. After that, you go to this burger joint and they teach you how to make a burger and fries. Making the food actually is pretty fun, and it’s not too complicated. Once you get it down, you can basically do a few things at once without much effort. After the training, you get your own place and start doing your own thing. It goes well for a while, getting tips and sooner or later, getting a staff to help you out (cooking things that are mundane, or that they’re good at [like frying]). The only REAL problems I have with the game are: the constant health inspector that shows up and makes you wash dishes…kinda stupid IMHO. The fact that you buy spices because your customers won’t shut the FUCK up about them, but then the game doesn’t explain how to use them. It explains EVERYTHING else…EVERY fucking thing else, but when it comes to spices, the best tip you get is where to buy them. On top of that, you’re on your fucking own. I found a menu where they were, but never found out how to put them on.

Sunday: Headed over Gavino’s around 10:45 for some filming. We decided it’d be good to set aside a day to just film stuff. It sort of didn’t turn out that way. When I got there, Gavino was working on his computer. It wasn’t open and in pieces or anything, but his external hard drive was overheating and he needed to take everything off and format it. So the first hour or so was spent fidgetting over that. Then, after April got mad at Gavino because he suggested she use a certain type of torrent site (really? see one of my older posts when I talk about how stupid that shit can be), we started going over what we wanted in the first two episodes. So, the second hour or two was spent discussing what we would be filming, what scenes would go where, and ultimately, realized we would have to reshoot episode 1 in it’s entirety. It shouldn’t have been that much work, but of course, we ended up making it be more that it needed.

After I shot a few establishing shots of the scene, we started filming episode 1. We took out me blinking onto the couch in the beginning, since it sort of didn’t make sense with the theme of episode 2. Instead, I ended up tripping myself into the scene over Gavino’s legs. After another hour or two of adding new shots, scenes, and lines to the episode, we finally finished off the “hands” scene that would be the ending of the episode. It was a lot of work, and probably would have taken a lot less time if we were a bit more prepared and better at acting, but in the end, we had what we needed. Only things we didn’t have to completely finish off episode 1 was an opening (which i’ll discuss shortly) and the reshot dance scene. (because I’ve already got like 2k words, I’ll make this quick) On Monday I played with the old green screen dance that I had, and I’ll be using that to complete the episode preview until we refilm the scene itself. And the opening we want (which I’ll somehow record) will be some typing into DOS, errors, blue screens of death, into the footage we have of us breaking through the code (old green screen).

I know that’s a lot to digest, but somewhere in our heads it makes sense. Anyway, after that, we went to this hotdog place called Ross’. It reminded me a lot of the Windmill. Then we headed back to the apartment, watched some youtube stuff, talked for a bit, and I headed home.

That night, we finished of Hyjal, and then headed into Sunwell. Everyone was excited, new stuff! We actually did pretty decently on the trash to Kalecgos. It was a lot easier than I had thought/heard. Kalecgos however…was just as hard as I had heard and read about. We only had a few tries at him since it was late as it was, and the strat requires a lot of explaination. In the end, we got both the dragon and the demon to around 65%-ish. Hopefully we’ll get another shot at him soon.

Before Hyjal, I finished Braid, and all I can say is…WOW! I never would have guessed the ending. It was so incredible. I had to go online and read up a bit on different views of the ending itself, and it’s amazing what I found out. I may save discussion for this until a later date, hoping some people play the game beforehand. Then, maybe I’ll put some spoiler tags in case someone does read this one day. All I can say is…very, very cool stuff.

Anyway, that’s it. I went over some of Monday, so I can take that off the list. Only thing I don’t think I talked about was that I sent back the two Gamefly games, in hopes that I’ll get 2 better ones off my queue. Tonight, I don’t know what we’re raiding. I’d guess BT cause that’s usually on Tuesday’s, but who knows? Maybe back into Sunwell? Wednesday we’re going to try and film episode 2, which I was surprised that Gavino was the one to mention it. It seems like we’ll have a decent amount to film, maybe he just wants to get the scenes in the underground area first? That’s most likely it, and maybe some green screen stuff. That’s about all I can think of for now.

HUGE ENTRY!