Morning Folks,
{slurp}
Last night I picked up 2 XL Double Doubles from our local Tim Horton''s. I brought them home intending to drink them both when a brilliant idea dawned on me. Why not save a coffee for tomorrow so I can muse. Then an even better idea came to me. Why not copy and paste all my old musings (pre-maillist musings) into one big musing and call it Reheated Musings with my Reheated Coffee? :)
{slurp}
I used to write once a week prior to my daily musing. It was for my guild in DAoC and I would post it every Friday morning. Below are those musings, I hope you enjoy them.
{slurp}
December 22, 2004 Musing
Good morning HEXE. Normally I do a musing or rant on a Friday, but since I don
''t work the rest of the week after today, I''ll just do it now Smile
So here I am at work. I was LATE today Smile It would seem my son (who slept i
n our bed last night) decided he didn''t like the song that was playing on my a
larm clock this morning. He disliked it so much, in fact, he reached across me
and turned the volume all the way down. For those who don''t know, when the al
arm "fails" to go off, the volume turned all the way down is a tell tale sign
it was my son Smile It''s the only way he knows how to turn it off.
So there I am, sleeping. I sleep and have wonderful dreams of my Warlock on La
ncelot. Except in my dream I''m killing my Armsman (interesting) over and over
again. The damn guy doesn''t know when to quit, and everytime he releases he''s
back out there again right after. I start to admire the Armsman''s dedication t
o death.
Anyway
I was over an hour and a half late for work this morning. Luckly for me, there
were no service calls between 6 and 7:30 Smile I get to work and I''m tired, c
old (-15 Celcius this morning) and just plain don''t want to be here. I was get
ting ready for the jokes and ribbings about WHY I was late. There was this guy
who used to work for us.. he was late all the time. Everytime he was late he''
d call in with a new excuse. One of the times when he called in, he said his c
at unplugged his alarm clock. Another time he told us his wife (now ex-wife) h
ad thrown a knife at him. Well, come to find out the latter did happen, but we
are still trying to figure out how the cat could have possibily pulled the pl
ug on the alarm clock. Just picture about 5-6 people standing around the cube
farm trying to mimik cat paws and clawing at the imaginary plug in the wall. I
t was quite a sight to behold Smile
Anyway, when I told my co-workers (all 1 of them since everyone else is on vac
ation) MY excuse.. you could almost hear the entire office breaking out in lau
ghter. I deserve it.. I should have thought of something witty and possible du
ring my drive in. Unfortunatly, when you basically wake up , get dressed and d
rive to work, your brain hasn''t totally fired up yet.. My entire drive to work
consisted of.. red light, green light, coffee, coffee, coffee and car.
Enough of my witty banter about my morning so far (I''ve been up an hour so far
today). Is everyone ready for Christmas? If you don''t celebrate Christmas, ar
e you ready for everyone else except you to celebrate Christmas? Wink I''d like
to say my wife and I have been ready for some time now. There is always somet
hing that comes up that you didn''t expect to happen and you end up spending a
little more cash than you wanted to Smile Then on Christmas day you tear open
all the cards hoping to find a cheque or cash shoved in there to help offset t
he extra costs of Christmas Smile My mother and my step-father (we''ll call the
m Mike and Moe for now), decided they would buy a wood pellet stove as a gift
for both of them. This pellet stove didn''t come without a lot of credit Smile
I think the total after taxes price was somewhere in the neighbourhood of $3,1
00 (CDN). Anyway, my sister came up with this brilliant idea to have each of u
s put some cash together and send it off to her to help them pay for this gift
they bought themselves. In the end, we came up with $1000 to send them. I rec
eived a call from a misty eyed mom the other night thanking me for the wonderf
ul surprise. Hell, listening to her almost brought a tear to my eye. Its a nic
e feeling when you can think back to everything your parents did for you and h
ave the opportunity to give just a small portion of that back to them. Needles
s to say, that cash went right on the debt they owed for the stove and they ar
e nearly done paying it entirely off now.
BRB.. need more coffee...
Ok, I''m back... don''t you just love pre packaged office coffee??? I mean, coff
ee in itself isn''t good for you, just imagine what coffee in little freeze dri
ed packets that you slap into a machine and {POOF} hot coffee comes out the bo
ttom will do to you Smile Luckly I limit myself to no more than 3 a day and mo
st days I don''t drink it at all.
Its hot
So Christmas is right around the corner Wink I''ll admit I used to hate Christm
as. My parents split up right before Christmas back in ''93 and it really affec
ted me. The next year, I didn''t really celebrate Christmas.. and it got progre
ssively worse until Christmas 2000 (my son''s first Christmas). I remember Kati
e always trying to turn me around.. I remember her sayingif you''re going to be
grumpy during Christmas, do it in private. Don''t let our son (later to be the
kids) see you.
I learned a very valuable lesson that day and never again did I hate Christmas
. I actually quite look forward to watching my kids open presents and get all
excited Smile It is also a good parenting tactic to threaten your kids with Sa
nta''s naughty and nice list Smile I have been on Santa''s naughty list for the
last 11 years and I''m loving every minute of it Smile "Spank Me Santa!!"
Anyway.. just got weird there didn''t it?
We said it wasn''t going to get weird.
/sigh
Well, I think I might cut this a bit short today. I have a ton of crap to get
done and this is my last day until next Tuesday. I leave you now with this lit
tle piece of advice...
Keep Your Stick On The Ice! Smile
Salute
/bow
======================================================
December 30, 2004 - The Return of Something Different
{slurp}
Good morning again. Yes yes, I know it isn''t Friday yet, but this is the last
day of work for me until next year so I figured I''d get it done while it''s slo
wer than a three toed sloth with only two toes today.
{slurp}
Before you get excitied, I feel I should explain the {slurp}. No Dave, get tha
t nasty thought out of your head! You too Bill Wink The {slurp} signifies ever
y time I take a drink of coffee. Since today I have been drinking an Extra Lar
ge Double Double from Tim Horton''s, it will be an extra special Musing over Co
ffee with {slurp}s Smile
Everyone have a great Christmas (or whatever holiday you celebrate)? I know we
had a fairly good time at our place and I''m happy things went off without too
many issues Wink My sisters and I tend to rub each other the wrong way someti
mes (that''s sick Dave) and getting together for a holiday supper usually ends
up with some mello-dramatic incident causing someone to leave and/or get their
feelings hurt.
{slurp}
Christmas day was no exception Smile Started off great, got up nice and early
and watched my kids destroy the paper wrappings on their gifts. Now, when I sa
y destroy, I MEAN destroy. I don''t even think Unicron could have done more dam
age (any old skool transformer fans?). Well, after our morning was done and ov
er, we took a walk over to my sister''s place. Both of my sisters live together
along with my oldest sister''s hubby (aka Nodrol/Usono/Nus/etc/etc/etc). Well,
we walked in the door and the first thing I asked was "Where''s Megan?"...
CUT!!!
Here is a brief run down on my sister Megan. She was born sometime in Septembe
r (the 8th seems to stand out in my mind for some reason) in the year of our L
ord 1983. She just turned 21 years old and has the world figured out. I love h
er to death, but sometimes she can be more pig headed than a man.
ACTION!!
My sister then responded, "She went to a movie with her friend.".
Ok... I don''t know about your families, but on Christmas day when you have fam
ily coming over to visit, you DO NOT fck off to a movie with a friend.
Anyway, while she was at the movies we sat down and began enjoying our day. Al
l was going quite well, then Megan came home. OH NO... let the semi-entertaini
ng melodramatic fun begin!! I started bugging her about going to a movie on Ch
ristmas day while she had family here waiting for her to return. It was not my
intention to make her feel bad, just to give her an old fashioned brother to
sister ribbing about fcking up. Well... like most women, this didn''t go over a
ll too well. We ate supper which was really good (my older sister made it) and
then went into the living room to get ready for presents. Of course Megan is
still a bit pissed off at my comment earlier stating I was giving her a ''lectu
re'' about how she should live her life. Listen drama queen, here''s a fcking pr
ozac get over it! Then things turned into a bit of a pissing match which led t
o Megan going upstairs crying her blessed eyes out and me getting my coat and
boots on to go home.
BUT WAIT!!! What about the presents???
{slurp}
Yeah, I would have left without opening a single gift, but luckly my loving an
d beautiful wife with the sweet sweet ass decided to head up and calm Megan do
wn. Megan came downstairs and we started opening gifts. As you may remember, t
his is the same sister that bought me the XBox for Christmas. Wow, don''t I fee
l like a dumb shit when I open her gift.
Anyway, long story short, we made amends and the day went on.
What would Christmas be without a good family drama story? Smile
{slurp}
I feel so much closer to you guys after sharing that.. I think I need to go fo
r a freakin'' smoke...
{puff} {puff} {puff}
I''m back.. the Tim''s coffee is officially gone (/cry) but I have returned with
our office blend coffee in a packet. Mmmmm... phear the flavia packet coffee!
!
{slurp}
Yeah.. just isn''t the same Sad Anyway.. speaking of bad coffee, I was watching
a show on Discovery last night about technology advancements. There are some
scientists over at NASA who have come up with this handy dandy little machine
which will take matter and convert it to coffee. Not sure what kind of matter,
but it somehow will break it down and "simulate" the flavor of coffee, cream
and sugar. The machine is about the size of a 3/4 ton truck and has a touch sc
reen LCD panel where you can pick the size of the coffee you want and drag and
drop cream and sugar. The guy who was being interviewed made a coffee from th
is amazing machine and took a sip. I am guessing by the look on his face it ta
sted pretty bad Smile
Its amazing to watch how fast technology advancements are being made. I was 8
years old when we got our first computer; the commodore Vic20. Wow.. 20k of me
mory and basic programming language Smile Now most of us have at least 512MB o
f memory in our systems with the odd person with over a Gig. Our hard drives w
ent from 1meg up to over 100gig. And this is just in the last 20 years. Seems
like technology is moving a such a rapid pace that we are bound to hit a wall
sooner or later until the next big discovery.
{slurp}
Anyway, this coffee tastes like ass so I''m going to sign off for now. If you''r
e interested, you can drop by my site and check out my blog of useless informa
tion and rantings at http://ralic.fiendz.net I just redid the site so there ar
e bound to be issues and bugs Smile
Have a safe and happy New Years!
Cheers,
=============================================
January 7, 2005 - 2005 Edition of Nothing
Morning gang
{slurp}
Hope everyone had a great New Years.
So here it is, January 7, 2005. Wow, hard to believe that Transformers the Mov
ie took place in this exact same year Smile Speaking of which, there is a rumo
r going around that they are making a movie called Transformers using CGI tech
nology. Not sure how many of you here remember the ''REAL'' Transformers (none o
f this Beasties, Energon BS today), but I grew up on the stuff. I remember the
first time I watched ''The Movie'' where Optimus Prime dies as well as some of
my other favorites (Prowl, Ironhide, Wheeljack, etc)... it was sad to watch, b
ut cool at the same time Smile
{slurp}
Anyone here know anything about SSL? More specifically, SSL integrated with Ap
ache? Well.. about 3 days ago my boss comes to me and asks why our call tracki
ng system (which is web based) isn''t secure. I turned to him and said, ''Define
secure''. Smile I love doing that to my boss.. sends him for a loop everytime.
Anyway, he was talking about the SSL component. I told him that it had been HI
S decision to scratch that project about 6 months ago because we had nobody ar
ound that could do it. Well, nobody meaning nobody else but me Smile
Anyway, he said we had a few customer concerns regarding the ''lack'' of securit
y (SSL I think he meant) and wanted it implemented yesterday. That was well an
d good.. so I jumped in my time machine and went back in time a day to impleme
nt the SSL component on our web servers. It was a pain in the ass to setup and
configure as we are running Apache2 here at work and passing certain requests
through to Jakarta on the backend which serves out our java applets. For thos
e who know Jakarta you will know it generates a dynamic apache config file (mo
d_jk.conf) which Apache will read so it can setup the aliases and VirtualHosts
for the applets.
{slurp}
ANYWAY... long technical story short, I got it setup and configured and when t
he day arrived (again) my boss asked me about the security of our web call tra
cking system.. I told him to define security (I love that look on his face)...
then ended the conversation by saying, "Sure, I''ll get on that right away"...
sat back and did nothing for 2 days and then yesterday sent out an email sayi
ng it was done Smile I love time travel.
{slurp}
edit sweet sweet ass (for Dave)
{slurp}
So WTF! Mythic is giving us a subscription increase to play their game?!? I ca
n''t believe this! For those who have read my ''Meh'' thread, you can pretty much
get a feel for what I think of this BS.
I won''t delve too deep into everything, but I''m not near as pissed off as I wa
s yesterday Smile I fired up my Skald on Tristan last night. He is level 42 fo
r those who don''t frequent my sig line. I logged in and typed /gu Hey gang and
was greeted by about 10 ''Hey Ralic''s and ''Welcome back Ralic''s... Fenris has
been a good guild to me over there. They understand that I play Mid when I''m f
eeling bored/tired of Albion. They let me stay in the guild regardless of my a
ctivity over there. I have to admit, getting a free level every 2 days is very
appealing to me Smile I almost want to roll my Warlock over there and watch h
im climb fast. I would also like to finish off that Skald.. but whatever Smile
{slurp}
You know gang... I love this game... I''ve played all the other games out there
.. even gave EQ a try during a 2week trial I was setup with. I''ve tried SWG, W
oW, Lineage, Lineage 2, The 4th Coming, UO, EQ, Guildwars, Planetside, etc, et
c, etc, etc... there are so many games out there right now.. something to appe
al to almost everyone. I must admit though, DAoC by far out shines them all. S
omeone on the VN Boards made an interesting comment the other day (after the p
osting of the monthly fee increase). She (well, we assume its a she) made the
comment that the only reason she stuck with DAoC was because it was cheaper th
an any of the other games. Now that the game was being brought up to what the
standard MMOG subscription fees were, there was nothing keeping her.
{slurp}
I don''t know about some of you, but for me this game was always so much more t
han a game. Its easy to sit here and say, "Guys, it''s only a freakin'' game"..
but it is SO much more than that. It is a community of players interacting wit
h the world and each other. It would be like looking out over the city you liv
e in and say, ''It''s just life''. This was something that used to make gaming in
teresting for me. I could be walking along and see two different characters fi
ghting with each other. Character one was from Japan and spoke very little eng
lish. They understood the game enough to know their roll in a group setting an
d did it well. Player 2 was from somewhere in Europe and spoke english very we
ll. I would join the two of them and we would play. What made it fun wasn''t so
much the game, but who I was playing it with Wink I will never forget these t
wo players as they (with many others) leveled up through the ranks at the same
time. We all faught in Catacombs together, Barrows, Lyonesse, hell.. even in
Salisbury Plains Smile You guys might remember the Japanese player named Jenny
Chan.. the other toon was Andur. Used to have a lot of fun together and did a
LOT of late night (for me) leveling all the time.
{slurp}
I don''t know where these guys are now, but I''ll never forget those times playi
ng a ''new'' game when entering Barrows was a new adventure, a new place to expl
ore Smile Man.. I remember having about 50gp to my name and wearing all Keltoi
Plate dropped armor in there.. (green to me).. I was level 32 or so..
{slurp}
Anyway.. the whole point of this is to say that paying extra for a game you en
joy is by far nothing to be ashamed of. Hell, I just went out and dropped abou
t $80(CDN) on 2 copies of Catacombs so my wife and I could try it out. Even th
ough we were thinking of pulling the pin way back then, we are still here toda
y. Chances are we''ll still be here tomorrow Smile It seems it is a constant ba
ttle (daily) to keep interested in the game. I don''t want to start over, but o
n the other hand, if I had my friends with me I would start over in a heart be
at to get that same feeling of "noobishness" back.
{slurp}
Time for a smoke.. boss just showed up and wants to go.. so I guess I go Smile
BRB!!
Ok.. I''m back Smile
Miss me?
Here is your word for today... Nark
What is a Nark you ask? Well, commonly the word is used today to describe a po
lice officer involved in investigating narcotics violations (ie Narc short for
Narcotics). But the actual word Nark refers to an annoying person or a stool
pigeon. It can also be used to describe an informant. So where did this amazin
g word come from?
Quote:
From Romany nak (nose). Ultimately from Indo-European root nas- (nose) that is
also the source of other words for nose: English nose, Hindi nak, Spanish nar
iz, French nez, and related words nuzzle, nostril, and nasal.
Wow, that''s cool isn''t it? Smile So, when you use the word Nark, I guess you c
ould also be referring to someone who sticks his nose where it doesn''t belong?
Smile Interesting...
Bleh
{slurp}
Anyway... I''m running out of things to talk about, so I''ll quit now while I''m
ahead Smile Hope everyone had a happy and safe New Years. I will leave you now
with a fun game idea that you can play with friends and family. I recently in
troduced this game to my family and we love to play it. Its a lot of fun and q
uite addictive.
30 Down
What you need
* People (more than 2 to get maximum enjoyment)
* 6 dice
* piece of paper and pen to keep score
How to play
* Start off by writing everyones names down and putting a score of 30 to s
tart. The object of the game is to be the last one to lose all your points.
* Get everyone to roll one dice. The person who rolls the highest will go
first. The turns will move in a clockwise direction.
* Roll all the dice at once. Your goal is to get at least 30. You can roll
as many times as you want, but you MUST keep at least one dice per roll. Exam
ple, your first roll you get a 6,5,5,4,3,3, You must keep at least one of thos
e dice and reroll the remander. Keeping in mind you are trying to get at least
30 (more is better). You have the potential to roll a 36 (all 6s) but you nee
d to get 30. So, lets say you kept the 6.. you reroll the remaining 5 and get
6,3,2,2,1. You would obviously keep the 6 in this case, giving you a score of
12 so far. Reroll the remaining 4 dice and continue on until there are no dice
left.
* Why do I need to get 30? Simple, for every point below 30 you roll, you
subtract that from your score. If you had a score 25 but only rolled a 27, you
would subtract 3 from 25 which would leave you with 22 points. Remember, the
last person remaining with points wins the game.
* This sounds kinda boring. Yeah, but heres the thing. You only need 30 po
ints to be safe from losing points Wink What happens if you roll higher than 3
0? Well, if you roll higher than 30, you are now in Attack mode Smile You will
start by attacking the next person in turn. For every point above 30 you roll
, you will be able to attack that person by rolling for that number. For examp
le, say I ended my turn by rolling a 32. I will now pick up all 6 dice and try
rolling for 2s (for 33, roll for 3s, for 34 roll for 4s, etc). For every 2 I
roll, I put it aside and the next person in line will lose that many points. S
o if I had managed to roll 3 2s my first roll, I would put those 3 dice to the
side and reroll the remaining 3. Keep doing that until you fail to roll the n
umber you want. In this example, I rolled 3 2s, so the next person in line los
es 6 points off their score Smile
* Oh, that''s cool! What happens if I''m attacking and I roll and get all th
e numbers I want (ie get 6 2s)? Well, in this case, if you''re attacking with 2
s and you roll 6 2s, you will pick up all 6 dice again and start rolling for 3
s. Keep doing this until you fail to roll the number you''re looking for.
This is a fun game to play when there isn''t much going on. You could even turn
it into a championship if you wanted Smile I wasn''t able to find a place on t
he net that describes how to play this game.. it was introduced to me from a f
riend at work who ''claims'' to have made it up. We play it on slow days here Sm
ile If you are having issues making sense of my instructions, drop me a PM or
email me @ ralic at shaw.ca and I''ll see if I can clear up any questions.
{slurp} ugh.. coffee is cold
Well, that''s all I have for today. Remember to bundle up cuz it''s winter out t
here. Watch where you walk as it may be icy. Don''t throw snowballs and handica
pped people, it isn''t nice. If you''re handicapped, don''t throw snowballs and n
on-handicapped people, they may throw back. Keep fit, have fun and see you nex
t week Smile
Cheers,
======================================
January 14, 2005 - TFGIF Edition
{slurp}
What a damn week this has been. I went from uber anti-Alb Mid to Winfiltrator
extrodinaire! lol I''ve been uber busy at work as well this week. Today is payd
ay for us!! Since this merger with CompuCom, we''ve had a LOT of changes come d
own. One of which is our pay. We used to get payed every other Tuesday.. now C
ompuCom has changed that to every other Friday. Normally this wouldn''t be a bi
g deal, but when you pretty much live from pay cheque to pay cheque, those ext
ra few days between when you normally used to get paid and to your new pay per
iod can be difficult. ESPECIALLY after Christmas/New Years. Ugh...
{slurp}
Been having quite a bit of fun hanging out with you all on MLF these past few
nights. It has been a welcome change to being basically by myself on Tristan o
r Lancelot. I still have plans to get at least one 50 in another realm before
I quit the game, so we''ll see what happens there Smile
{slurp}
The coffee is extra good this morning. Could be because it is -38 Celsius (-36
.4 Fahrenheit) outside with the wind. That is DAMN cold, but luckly my little
Camry started without a single issue and I was able to come in to work today a
nd write my musing for you all. Of course, I could have done this just as easi
ly from home, but then I wouldn''t have the ''good'' coffee; thus only a sub-par
musing Smile
{slurp}
Speaking of temperatures, I learned an interesting fact this week while me and
the other techies were standing around the water cooler (yes, people actually
do that here). Does anyone know why the temperature is measured in both Celsi
us and Fahrenheit? For you US folks, did they tell you in school at what tempe
rature (in Fahrenheit) water freezes? For those who don''t know, water will fre
eze at 32 Fahrenheit (0 Celsius). Ok.. with that said, does anyone know at wha
t temperature SALT water freezes? Smile
{slurp}
Yup, you guessed it right.. 0 degrees Fahrenheit (-17.7 Celsius). So, the Cels
ius scale was created to measure temperature based on the freezing of fresh wa
ter, and Fahrenheit created to measure temperature based on the freezing of sa
lt water. Pretty cool ? Not really.. but I thought I''d share since temperature
s seem to be on my mind atm. Trick Question: Without looking it up, what is -4
0 Celsius in Fahrenheit??
{slurp}
If you guessed -40 Fahrenheit, you are correct!!
{slurp}
To learn more about Celsius and Fahrenheit and the history, take a gander at t
his site.
{slurp}
Anyway.. back to DAoC a sec.. I noticed Mythic has released a new contest enti
tled Guild Website Contest. For those of you who know me well enough.. you wil
l know I''m a web designer at heart. I design web pages (currently) as a hobbie
in my spare time. My father and I are actually in business together where he
makes the web pages and I host them on my server. So it somewhat runs in the f
amily (the creative touch).
{slurp}
So, after reading this contest on the herald, I decided to submit some of my w
ork Smile As some of you know, I am the creator of the Dark Age CMS (Content M
anagement System) which was a project I started over a year ago. It is a websi
te (similar to phpNuke or the like) that is specifically designed for guilds i
n DAoC. I''ve spent countless hours on this project and felt I should submit it
for the contest Smile As a working live version, I submitted the Hallowed Cru
saders website as it was my test bed for all new code and bug fixes. These are
the guys and gals who really put my code to the test and the CMS wouldn''t be
what it is today without them.
{slurp}
I''ve been doing a lot of thinking recently and I''ve actually decided to start
rolling on this project again. Who knows, maybe Missy will post the informatio
n about my CMS and my site may get more than 1 or 2 visitors a month Smile The
project is also registered on SourceForge and is entitled Dark Age Web CMS.
{slurp}
Anyway.. enough about that boring shit Wink As I posted in another thread, I a
m looking to setup a daily musing email list. If you enjoy reading my musings
every Friday, why not drop by and subscribe to the daily musings. I will only
write them on days I work as I just can''t be bothered on days I don''t Smile Th
is daily musing will not be specific to any one group of people. My mother wil
l be on the list, as well as some RL (non DAoC playing) friends of mine. You a
re all welcome to sign up to be added to the list. You can also unsubscribe at
anytime. I will be keeping a respository of all my musings on my website, so
if you missed one you can always go back and read them Smile
{slurp}
Why am I doing this? Mostly because I want to enhance my writing skills. Playi
ng DAoC has made me a ''lazy writer''. I don''t follow proper grammar and sentenc
e structure and my spelling is horrid! I also like to express myself and think
this blog will be a good outlet for me.
Interested? Navigate HERE and sign up Smile
{slurp}
Think I''m going to grab a quick smoke. It was a pretty brutal night lastnight.
{afk}
Ok..I''m back.. and that was a bad idea. Too cold outside to smoke.. brrrr..
So, last night.. yeah.. Well, with any relationship there is bound to be hard
times and trials that you must go through.. there is give and there is take th
at is needed between both parties. As many here know, my wife recently went th
rough a treatment on her Thyroid. It was quite serious for awhile as Thyroid i
ssues can sometimes be quite fatal. Problem is, there really are no tell tales
signs a person is having Thyroid issues and as a result it can cause strife a
nd problems socially. Luckly, we were able to catch it and get it treated. Now
she is on pills for the rest of her life to keep it regulated and ''normal''. T
ypically after a treatment as extensive as hers, you tend to go through severa
l phases where your thyroid can jump from very under active to very over active depending on the medication. As a result, you have to go back for tests freq
uently to ensure the proper medication is being perscribed.
{slurp}
85% of couples who have a Thyroid issue in the relationship will split up. Sad
part is, the majority of those couples have no idea there is a medical proble
m. Despite the hardships and pain we both went through for over 2 years before
we found out, we are still together. However, there are those times in a coup
le''s life where old wounds get reopened and things unsaid come out. I think mo
st of us have been there Smile
Folks, keeping shit bottled up inside is not good for your relationship; it al
so isn''t good for your own health and well being. Up until last night, the wif
e and I haven''t had any major ''incidents''. Life at home has been grand and I''m
very thankful she is getting better; I''ve noticed a big change in her.
{slurp}
Anyway, last night was the first issue we''ve had for quite awhile. One of thos
e nights where you''re tired and cranky and the little things come out in one b
ig blast. Not healthy and sometimes unavoidable. I love my wife more than anyo
ne else in this world (minus the kids of course). She has been my biggest supp
orter and hopefully I am her''s. We have had a lot of crap try and wedge itself
between us, but we have overcome everything up to this point. I believe our r
elationship is strong and I have every confidence we WILL spend the rest of ou
r lives together. She is my best friend. We have two beautiful children whom w
e would both gladly give up our lives for. Together, we are a family and I wou
ldn''t trade that for anything! We''ve laughed, we''ve loved, we''ve been angry wi
th each other... but over all our love still remains. I look forward to many m
any years together with her Smile
{slurp}
Man I''m soooooooo tired today.
This musing is taking forever to write today Smile People keep dropping by my
desk and asking me questions... I''m going to go check for a sign that reads ''H
as All The Answers''.. sheesh
{slurp}
Well, the coffee is officially gone, therefore my train of thought has left th
e station. I''ll sign off now with this quote:
"I believe there are no efforts without errors, that is what makes us humans.
But our ability to correct them is what makes us beings."
- Festus Ehinome Ayemere
Cheers,
========================================
January 28, 2005 - The Horse of a Different Color Edition
Hello again Smile
Well, it has been two weeks since I shared my thoughts with you all first thin
g in the morning on a Friday with a cup of Tim Horton''s coffee Smile
{slurp}
Oh yeah.. that''s the stuff Smile So how has everyones week been?
I''ve had a fairly good couple of weeks.. I''ve gone from uber frustrated to onl
y mildly frustrated with life and such. You know the saying ''Money can''t buy y
ou happieness''? I call BULL #$@! on that one!! Katie and I live pretty much fr
om paycheque to paycheque in our home. We do minimal budgeting which always en
ds up biting us in the ass later down the road. I want to go out and buy a pro
gram to help me manage my finances, but I''m too cheap to drop $90 on a decent
program Smile
I won''t lie to you and say I''m happy where I am in my job right now. I''m not t
erribly upset, but I wish I was doing more and getting paid better cash. I don
''t know about where you guys live, but up here a Senior UNIX Analyst makes aro
und 60k/yr (CDN) which converted into US currency would be around $48,516.21 (
based on exchange rates as of the writing of this musing). Pretty pathetic eh
(famous Canadian word)? We pay almost $1k/month for our little townhouse which
is about 30minutes outside of the downtown core here in Calgary. Now granted
the cost of living isn''t as bad here as it is in some places (ie Toronto, New
York, LA) but it still pisses me off Smile
{slurp}
Anyway.. not sure where I was going with that.. I''d love to find another job t
hat paid more.. but there isn''t a whole lot of jobs out there for a guy with 1
1 years Linux/UNIX experience... /sigh
{slurp}
So.... DAoC Smile I promise I won''t rant about the game this time. No.. today
I have a very special treat for you al!! Today, I''m going to walk you through
how to submit feedback via the Herald!!!
The URL
Where can you go to submit feedback you ask? Well, the url for this semi-hidde
n feedback form is located at:
http://www.camelotherald.com/feedback.php
The Plan
If you''re going to submit a bitch rant about something that happened to you in
-game 15minutes ago.. please close your browser, shut down your PC and unplug
your keyboard and hide it. Please PLEASE do NOT submit feedback when you''re an
gry. This is probably the #1 reason Mythic doesn''t run their own Message Board
s and why we never see any GOOD changes happen in the game. When you write in
anger, you tend to use words that are inappropriate (more on this later) and w
ill get caught by Mythic''s spam/badwords filter. Be clear, giving examples and
logs to show the point you''re trying to drive home. For example:
Quote:
Dear Mythic Faggots,
If you don''t do something about these {sensored} Warlocks being about to drop
any character in 2 seconds, I''m going to close down all my {sensored} accounts
and tell all my friends to close theirs too. That''s 15 {sensored} accounts you {sensored} {sensored} {sensored} company will have to live without! And I gu
arantee it won''t stop with us you {sensored} {sensored} {sensored} {really bad
word here}!! I will make sure someone drops by your office with a {sensored}
gun and blows away everyone!! {sensored} {sensored} {whoa.. you talk to your m
om with that mouth?}.
- Iradarallthetime Whenmythicisntlooking
50 Sorceress
This probably isn''t the best way to get Mythic''s attention.. however if you''re
looking for some FBI exposure, this is probably the best way to get it Smile
Just don''t make any wise ''cracks'' about hiding something in your ass.. {shudde
rs}... I won''t go into why I know that.
{slurp}
So.. this feedback form is there for YOU to use. It is our ONLY line of commun
ication between the game and Mythic developers/decision makers. I don''t need t
o tell you that there needs to be a lot of changes made in this game. While I''
m only a player like most of you, I can understand why changes like these can
take some time. When you lack structure and direction it can be a difficult jo
b to iron out a Sorcerer crying nerf against a Warlock and a Warlock crying ne
rf against a Vampiir and a Vampiir crying nerf against a Sorc.. Who is right?
Who is wrong? What details and proof have each of these people given? Do these
people even know how to play their classes? What is the average skill level o
f players playing DAoC right now? How many new accounts have we had sign-up in
the last month? How many people have cancelled their accounts in the last mon
th? We need to release a new expansion!!! Oh, and tell the Copy Boy to throw t
he code for his puppy idea on Pendragon.
{slurp}
Ok, so maybe it doesn''t go down like that.. but what if it did? It would sure
as hell explain a LOT of dumb ass decisions/changes made by Mythic. I mean.. W
TF was up with Kilts?? Could someone PLEASE tell me what changes were made to
the game that could possibly affect kilts??!! Makes you wonder what other ''cha
nges'' were added to the game that affected other things.
NEW THINGS AND BUG FIXES
- Based on player feedback, all tank classes can now scale keep walls.
- Fixed a bug where Kilts could be taken off and waved in the air like a flag.
I mean.. COMEON!! lol
{slurp}
AFK a min while I go grab a quick smoke...
{slurp}
So I was talking to a CSR the other night. Fairly nice guy with a gal name who
was helping me out with a toon on another server (that I haven''t played for a
couple years) who was trapped in the old border keep. He/She was quite friend
ly and was able to help me out. My first surprise was how quickly He/She answe
red my appeal. I fired off the appeal, ran out for a quick smoke and came back
to a tell from the CSR. I kinda went down like this:
He/Her: Hello, this is CSR Catilin, I understand you are having issues logging in one of your characters.
Me: Holy shit that was fast
He/Her We tend to answer ingame stoppage issues as top priority, how may I hel
p you today Bigmanhunk?
Me: You wouldn''t happen to know a guy named Nick would you?
He/Her: No, I don''t know any Nicks, why do you ask?
Me: Nevermind, I was just reminded about something, that''s all Smile
Me: Well, as my appeal states, my character Radarswhenwet is trapped in the ol
d border keep. I haven''t played her since before New Frontiers came out and fo
r some reason she has been promoted guild leader to a guild on this server I d
on''t recall ever joining.
He/Her: Ok, I am able to move this character for you, which major city would y
ou like this character sent to?
Me: Well, that''s a good question. Define major city.
He/Her: Well, any city where you can start a character.
Me: Ok, how about sending her to Camelot?
He/Her: I would like to, but you should probably remain in your own realm, heh
Me: Oh! I''m such a dumb ass, this is Hibernia isn''t it. Sorry, send me to Aegi
r''s Landing, I know that place the best.
He/Her: Heh Aegir''s Landing is in Midgard. I would gladly send you to any majo
r city in Hibernia though.
Me: Oh.. I don''t know Hibernia, infact I don''t even remember starting this cha
racter. I hate Hibs
He/Her: Hehe I don''t like Hibs either. How about I send you to the capital cit
y Tir Na Nog.
Me: OK.. what kind of idiot came up with a name like Tir Na Nog... and why is
this freaky happy music still playing. I feel like I just walked out of an epi
sode of the smurfs.
He/Her: Hehe, I remember the Smurfs
Me: I''m sure you do... ok, so send me to Tir Na whatever
He/Her: Ok, please wait while I make the necessary travel arrangements Smile
Me: .... clever....
He/Her: Ok Bigmanhunk, are you ready?
Me: There''s no place like home, there''s no place like home....
He/Her: hehe
{WOOOOOOOOSH}
He/Her: There you go Bigmanhunk, is there anything else I can do for you today
?
Me: I appreciate the free teleport, but could you please move the character th
at is stuck? Smile
He/Her: Oh, I''m so sorry! Did you want me to put you back where you were??
Me: No.. I think I''ll walk back. Ever watch Space Balls?
He/Her: I''m not familiar with that show, is it funny?
Me: Something like that Wink
He/Her: Ok, I will move your stuck character for you now.
He/Her: Please wait while I make the necessary travel arrangement Smile
Me: Is there no end to your witty customer service skills?
He/Her: {blushes}
He/Her: Ok Bigmanhunk, your stuck character should now be moved to Aeigr''s Lan
ding. Is there anything else I can help you with today?
Me: No, I think that will be fine for now, you''ve been most helpful {snickers}
He/Her: Thank you for playing Dark Age of Camelot and happy hunting out there
Me: Yeah, you too.
{slurp}
Ok, so maybe it didn''t go down exactly like that Smile I promised Sher I would
do a CSR skit in my next Musing, so I thought I''d spice up a normally boring
conversation into something a bit funnier Smile Hope you all enjoyed it..
{slurp}
Today is going to be a short day for me... I don''t want to go into too much de
pth why, but let''s just say Katie and I suspect a new baby on the way and we w
ant to get that checked out. Its difficult to say with her Thyroid medication
as it has affected her a great deal. Unplanned pregnancies are always a shock
{looks at the picture of his two kids} but I wouldn''t change that for the worl
d. Kids are a wonderful miracle and if I could go back I wouldn''t change a thi
ng. I love my kids more than anything in this world and would gladly give up m
y life for theirs. As a kid I always told myself I would be a better father to
my kids than my father was with me... I feel I have accomplished that goal (t
hus far) and hope and pray my kids will look back on their childhoods and reme
mber the good times they had with dad, and strive to better me. It is every pa
rent''s dream to see their kids grow up and overcome the hardships of this worl
d. I won''t say I''ve done that in my own life, but I''m a lot better off than my
parents were at my age.
{slurp}
Also as a parent, you need to watch your language and actions around them Smil
e Things like grabbing the wife''s ass when she walks by to cursing at the comp
uter screen when that elf does the stun - nuke - nuke - nuke trick... My son h
as heard quite a few bad words come out of my mouth and I''m sad and glad for t
hat. My parents sheltered me a LOT while I was growing up. Hell, I didn''t even
hear my first swear word until I was in grade 2. I remember the principal giv
ing me a spanking because I was using the F word in class. I didn''t know what
it meant and my parents never sat me down and explained it to me. I guess you
could say I learned the hard way Smile My kids know what swear words are and a
void them (most of the time). When dad swears at his computer, they let me kno
w Smile
{slurp}
However, this brings up a VERY good question and something that has been touch
ed on recently with a few of the members here. Who the hell defines what swear
words are? Why are swear words considered swearing? Well, I did some research
this week and found some interesting theories.
Origion of the F word
We''ve all heard this word and we''ve probably all said it a time or two or thre
e or million. Well, after doing some digging, one of the theories was the F wo
rd started out as an acronym. It stood for Fornication Under Consent of the Ki
ng. This started way way back and was supposedly tacked up over the doors of g
overnment "approved" brothels in early England. I found this quite funny and i
t explains a lot of about government Smile I also stumbled across some other i
nteresting facts about other words that were acronyms turned into words. For e
xample, the word cop which stood for Constable On Patrol. Posh which stood for
Port Outward, Starboard Home which was stamped on the tickets of first class
passengers on India-bound British ships who wanted their cabins on the "shady"
side of the boat during the passage through the tropics.
There is also another theory as to the origion of the F word, which actually c
omes from a book called Shakespeare''s Bawdy, which says that the word comes fr
om "foculation," meaning to engage in intercourse. I found this interesting as
well and had to look up the passage that contained this word:
Quote:
Evans: What is the focative case, William?
William: O, vocativo, O . . .
Hugh: Remember, William, focative is caret.
Mistress Quickly: And that''s a good root.
Caret (literally, "it is missing") equals carrot equals root equals penis equals f*ckative case. I don''t get it, but this is what it''s supposed to mean lol.
.
Anyway, whichever of these two origions is correct, we can safely determine th
e F word has been around a long time and it means so many other things today S
mile
{slurp}
Well gents and ladies... my coffee is officially gone and I''ve run out of thin
gs to talk about Smile Today''s musing was brought to you by the letter F (heh)
and the number 3 (which oddly enough is how many chambers Warlocks seem to ha
ve up ALL the time in RvR). To quote a famous Canadian comedian, "Keep your st
ick on the Ice"..
Cheers,
====================================
February 4, 2005 - The Oops Edition
At the writing of this Musing - Friday, February 4, 2005
- There are 330 days left in the year
- There are 230 paid working days left in the year (mon-fri no holidays)
- We are on day 35 of the year
Here I thought today was Thursday. You can imagine my surprise when I realized
it was FRIDAY!!!!!!
Meh
{slurp}
Some of you will remember our discussion last week about finances and having c
ash to pay bills, etc, etc. Well, this week I decided to do some things about
it. For starters, I opened up a new savings account to start putting away some
of my hard earned cash Smile This savings account isn''t that great (2.7%) but
it''s better than a kick in the head with a frozen boot.
{slurp}
Yesterday we had someone drop by the office from a Financial Institution here
in Calgary. He spoke with us about all the different things we can do with our
money to help it grow and mature over time. Things like investment loans, hig
h interest savings, RRSPs, RSPs, GICs, etc, etc. Most of the information was b
eyond my understanding, but this guy (with his charts and such) made everythin
g make some sense. Of course I don''t remember much today Smile But yesterday w
hile I was rattling this off to Katie after I got home; I felt I could almost
give the same speech.
{slurp}
Bottom line in all of this: I am going to be setting up an appointment with th
is guy to drop by our place sometime in the near future. Hopefully he will be
able to help us get our finances in order and start saving for our futures (ki
ds and us). In Canada, 91% of all retired people live in poverty. I don''t reca
ll off hand exactly what the annual income needs to be to considered ''In Pover
ty'', but I believe it is around 25k/yr or something like that. That''s 91% folk
s!! WOW.
{slurp}
Anyway... so we have a winter storm watch for our area today. /bleh I love win
ter sometimes, but after the last few days of really nice weather (15 Celsius/
59 Fahrenheit), I woke this morning to wet flurries and a temperature of 0 (32
Fahrenheit) degrees. Oh well.. I guess it was to be expected Smile They are c
alling for really cold temperatures and snow for the next 3 days. Should make
staying inside and playing DAoC that much more enjoyable Smile Let''s be honest
.. if it''s a beautiful day outside, the last thing most of us want is to be si
tting indoors playing video games... right? right? Comeon!! Someone back me up
on this!! /sigh... ok.. forget I mentioned it.
{slurp}
This week I have decided to make it a standard part of musing to include a tra
nscript of an /appeal in-game. I will dub this section of my musing ''The Appea
l System''. Smile Enjoy:
Our scene takes place in Albion... in a little village... somewhere... nerf wa
rlocks!!
[CSR]: Hello, this is CSR Spanktastic how may I help you today?
[Player]: I''m having issues understanding why the hell they gave us PIGS and g
ave the Hibs and Mids cool things to beat around with Herding sticks
[CSR]: Well, that really is something that should be directed at our feedback
forum. The url is http://support.darkageofcamelot.com
[Player]: Oops.. M/T heh.. I was talking to a friend about the new Harvesting
system. You kinda snuck up on me there.
[CSR]: Is there anything else I can do for you today sir?
[CSR]: Oh, heh. That''s quite alright. Did you have a question?
[Player]: Yeah, I just got this sword drop off a mob, but I can''t equip it.
[CSR]: Ok.. ahh yes, I am seeing this sword now. It appears to be a 2 handed w
eapon which your class is incapible of using.
[Player]: ?? What do you mean?
[CSR]: There are some classes in the game that are unable to wield certain wea
pons. In this case, your class is unable to wield a 2 handed weapon.
[Player]: I see... very clever of you guys to put that in there. In real life,
if I wanted to beat on you with my +10 to CSR Wacking 2 handed stick of Doom.
.. I could do it.
[CSR]: I''m sure you could Wink Was there anything else I could help you with t
oday?
[Player]: Yes actually. If I am unable to equip this 2 handed sword, would I b
e able to equip a 1 handed sword?
[CSR]: No, unfortunatly you can''t do that as a caster.
[Player]: Why not??
[CSR]: Because the game is designed to not allow casters to wield weapons othe
r than a stave.
[Player]: What about Gandolf? He carried a staff and a sword.
[CSR]: Gandolf is a fictional character Smile In real life, it wouldn''t be pos
sible for a wizard to carry a staff.
[Player]: You know a real wizard?
[CSR]: Actually, yes I do. His name is Jesus and he loves you very much.
[Player]: ....
[CSR]: ....
[Player]: Just got weird there didn''t it?
[CSR]: Just a little..
[Player]: Let''s not mention this to anyone else..
[CSR]: Agreed
[Player]: Is there anythin I can help you with?
[CSR]: No, I think I''ll go now. Here''s 1p for your trouble
[Player]: Ummm.. thanks Smile
[CSR]: Don''t mention it... and thank you for playing Dark Age of Camelot...
[Player]: No... Thank You Smile
{slurp}
Hail to the bus driver bus driver bus driver
Hail to the bus driver bus driver man..
{slurp}
AFK while I take part in my ''Musing over Smoke'' and see how bad this weather i
s Smile (Travis just walked in saying it was a blizzard out there.. now I must
go and see) Smile
A F K yo
{puff puff pass}
{slurp}
Ok.. yeah its pretty bad out there. Should make driving extra special this aft
ernoon.
This week a few co-works and I sat down and had a discussion regarding good an
d bad foods Smile Since the New Years, we have been on this kick to watch our
weight and eat properly. The dicussion was sparked over something I had heard
on the news that morning on my way to work. It ended with a lot of disgusted l
ooks and pale faces Smile One of the subjects we stumbled on was the differenc
es between Butter and Margarine (yes, there is a difference) as well as other
''processed'' foods we eat daily that we don''t even think about.
OF COURSE, this led me to do some research on the subject. I won''t make you al
l sick about what I found, but let me quote some information I found: "Margari
ne was developed in 1869 by a French pharmacist and chemist, Hippolyte Mège-Mo
uriés, after Napoleon III offered a prize for the formulation of a synthetic e
dible fat.".
YUMMY!!
{slurp}
"The name margarine comes from a minor scientific error. Mège-Mouriés was look
ing for a butter substitute, and so of course had to use animal fats, which ar
e semisolid at room temperature. The government refused to purchase it for use
in the armed forces. And, in an attempt to hold it to its true colors, some s
tates did not allow margarine to be dyed yellow (animal fats and vegetable oil
s are much paler than butter almost grey); the dye was sold separately and mix
ed in by the consumer."
Man: Honey I''m home!
Wife: Did you pick up some Margarine?
Man: Yes, but they were out of dye.
Wife: Fiddle sticks, the Petersons are coming over tonight and we need to colo
r it before they get here.
Man: I''ll head over to Frank''s and see if he has any dye left, be back soon.
We have always been led to believe that Margarine did less damage to your body
than Butter. Like all new things that hit the market, it is impossible to tel
l what kind of long term effects (if any) can be caused. For example, did you
know that Margarine is ONE molecule from being Plastic?
Lab Exercise:
For this exercise you will need:
1 tub of margarine (any size will do)
1 shaded area in a garage or outside
1 one microscope (optional)
Take the tub of margarine and remove the lid and place it in your garage or sh
aded area. Leave it for about a week and come back. You will notice a number o
f things:
1) No flies will be attracted to the margarine (not even fruit flies)
2) It will not rot
3) It does not smell any different
4) Nothing is starting to grow in it (mold, etc)
Optional Step: Now take a sample of the margarine and put it under a microscop
e. What do you see? That''s right, you see absolutly NOTHING! There is no bacte
ria, there are no living cells what so ever growing or moving in there.
BUT WHY??
Simple really. Margarine is chemically created. Since it contains no real nutr
itional value, nothing will ever grow on it.
{slurp}
Anyway, now that you can''t finish your toast with melted plastic on it, I thin
k its time for me to go Smile But WAIT! There is still some coffee left!
{slurp} ahhhhh
I know what I''m forgetting! I haven''t bitched about DAoC in this musing yet!!
Smile So this past week I accomplished 3 things. Got my Warlock to 40, got my
Pally to 40 and hit R3L1 on my Infiltrator. I even logged in Ralic this week a
nd did some PvEing with him. Shield Swipe is a pretty deadly style IMO Smile W
ell, in PvE anyway. I went into Barrows and pulled the entire Fallen Room (abo
ut 16 blues to a 50). I then used Shield Swipe on the mobs until I was out of
endurance. The ending result? All mobs were sitting at 10% life with the excep
tion of the mob I had targeted who died. After my end regenerated enough to do
it one more time, I wiped out the remaining 14-15 mobs in one hit. I''m sure a
Necro could do it faster, but as a tank I was quite happy with the result. Sh
ield swipe doesn''t do a lot of damage, but it made it a heck of a lot easier k
illing the room than the traditional single pull with adds. I ended up getting
about 1.5 bubs on the bot and getting a ton of drops which I salvaged on the
spot. The cash was nice too Smile Almost 1gp per mob (did they up the cash dro
ps in Barrows?).
{slurp}
BTW.. there is a secret message embeded in this musing. If you can get the mes
sage correctly, you will win a free subscription to my Musings over Coffee dai
ly mailing list (optionally you can click the link in my signature and sign up
for free anyway).
{slurp}
There we go Smile Coffee is gone and so I must run and attempt to find the mot
ivation to work today Smile Remember to /hug a warlock this weekend and /kiss
a keen. And PLEASE PLEASE keep your stick on the ice Smile
Cheers,
=============================================
February 11, 2005 - Spammers Etiquette Edition
Good morning once again my fine feathered friends.
{slurp}
I hope everyone had a great week this week because I sure as hell didn''t Smile
Let me start off by saying my work SUCKS!
{slurp}
Let''s get it on!
This has been a very trying week for me; both physically and emotionally. Phys
ically I''ve been very tired and worn down. This has resulted in making my immu
ne system susceptible to viruses. I can just feel this cold creeping in, waiti
ng to take over my body and ravish it with its germs. This morning I woke up a
nd nearly called in sick.. not because I wasn''t feeling well, but because I wo
uld have to come in and spend another day of work here. Lets begin with Monday
, shall we?
Monday
After a somewhat busy, yet uneventful weekend, I drove to work on Monday. It w
as cold! The roads were icy and I was super tired. I get to work in a half asl
eep stupor and begin to pick up my job where I left it on the Friday before. B
asically I sat at my desk and stared at my screen for about 30minutes before I
realized what I was doing. Then, two guys from our team resigned due to the i
ssues around this company ''merger'' we have been going through. I won''t go into
the finer details on why they resigned, but I will say this: Please don''t tel
l your employees they WON''T be getting overtime pay (something they''ve gotten
for the last 10+ years) when they work after hours and then turn around and te
ll them they HAVE to work overtime hours if needed (again, without pay). Peopl
e don''t like that, and your employees will quit pretty fast.
Tuesday
Ummm... yeah... I''m sure I was here on Tuesday, but nothing super eventful to
mention
Wednesday
I set off to do my budget for the next month. Oh boy, am I ever broke!! Smile
lol This on top of the issues with the merger.. and ... well... I''m looking fo
r other work atm. Went home and ended up getting in a huge fight with the wife
. Bad scene and I don''t wish to relive the events. Let me say for the record,
it''s all my fault.
Thursday
Come into work and one of my co-workers shows me a bill he received in the mai
l. A bill which was previously covered by my old company before the merger. We
ll, we were told we would all be getting this bill (Our Alberta Health Care bi
ll) but not to pay it. Supposidly there were some issues regarding this merger
and us Canadians up here. For some reason, our new company doesn''t know what
to do with us. So some of our administrative people got in touch with ADP and
told them about it. As a result, ADP found numerious other ''issues'' around our
pay and such. YAY!! Sad
Friday
I''m hoping for a better day today. We (just us techs) have made arrangements t
o head out to breakfast together and just sit back and enjoy the morning. I do
n''t even plan on doing a lick of work all day today, other than writing this m
using Smile
Oh yeah, one of those days (probably the Tuesday) we had a visit from our new
Canadian Director for CompuCom. Oh boy.. talk about a lot of smoke blowing up
our ..... kilts! I mean come on!! Call a spade a spade for crying out loud! Th
is is NOT a merger, this IS a Take Over. I don''t care either way, but don''t si
t there and tell me things are NOT going to change and then change everything
under our noses. I mean, we stand to lose about 5-6 (minimum) more guys in the
next couple weeks, plus the 2 who already left. You can''t tell me something h
asn''t changed. Hell, due to Canadian business laws and such, we''re not even le
gally allowed to use the name CompuCom up here. Our company name is something
like 0983292210352094 Nova Scotia Company LTD. LOL.. Try answering the phone w
ith that and see how quickly the person hangs up on the other end.
Meh
{slurp}
Anyway, that was my week.. on with the musing Smile
{slurp}
As the title would suggest, this is going to be my Spammers Etiquette Edition
of the weekly coffee musing. After viewing a few recent threads on these board
s, I felt it was something that needed to be brought up Smile I really should
have called this the Spammers Netiquette Edition, but I thought I''d lose Dave
on that one, so I decided to stick with real words (/hugs Dave).
{slurp}
Ok.. basically, if you''re going to be using the internet and sending emails, p
osting on boards and other various forms of public communication; there are a
few rules to keep in mind.
The Basics of Spamming Netiquette
1) URLs and linking to other sites.
We''ve all done this! Our post is something like:
Quote:
Hey guys, check this out
woot
The PROPER way to post something like this would have been:
Quote:
Hey guys, this is a site dedicated to the Sweet Sweet Ass:
woot
Quote:
SWEET
SWEET
ASS
Go check it out Smile
{slurp}
{snickers}
Ok, pretty basic and easy to follow. If you are going to be linking to another
site, ensure you do some form or quoting or posting why you''re linking. Links
are used for:
a) Showing pictures/movies/shelas
b) Backing up a story/theory with websites you used during research
c) I''m full of shit
2) Anon posters
Anyone who has been to VN has seen the term ''anon poster''. This is usually dir
ected at someone who takes the time out of their day to create a new account t
o post something hateful to someone else. Or, someone who forgets to login and
starts posting on a general public board Smile These are anon posters and are
considered spamming the net. the world would be better without them Smile
{slurp}
3) Make sure people know what you''re talking about EARLY
Last thing you want to do is start a topic somewhere and nobody having a sweet
sweet clue what you''re talking about:
Quote:
So
What''s
Everyone
Else
Talking about?
Someone
Watch me
Else I
Erase my
Toon because
Alan is
Such a
Super sassy guy
Ok, read the first letter of each line to figure out what I was trying to say
See? Now consider each one of those lines was a new post Smile Not only did yo
u just increase your post count by 14, you made people scroll back up. Not a g
ood idea. Your post should flow properly keeping the readers interest and also
not making them go back and look up information. Refer to point #1 Smile
{slurp}
BRB.. Need to have my Smoke of +3 tobacco
{afk}
BACK
Anyway.. having proper Netiquette (or Net Etiquette) is something we should al
l keep in mind when posting. I''m sure I''m missing some key points here, but my
head hurts and I just can''t find the right words this morning Smile
Sooo... Dark Age of Camelot (or as we call it here at work, Dark Age of Career
).. last night was the ONLY night ALL week I actually enjoyed myself. I had to
send an apology to Dave for my attitude earlier in the evening (I was NOT fee
ling very good at all), but later things turned around nicely. Travis and I to
ok his brother''s new toon out to AC where we PLed the crap out of him Wink The
goal was level 20 so we could have some BG fun later. Once we got him to leve
l 20, we headed out to Thid for some stealther ownage. Travis has a level 23 I
nfiltrator and his bro was a level 20 Infiltrator. Myself, I brought out Ralsh
ot for some much needed fun. I just just finished leveling Ralshot to level 24
the other day and was all twinked up and ready to play (still needs SCed armo
r though).
I ended the night with 22 kills and gained one whole realm level Smile I also
gained about 5 bubs exp, but I''m not interested in leveling out of Thid yet..
want to enjoy it TO THE MAX!
The Scout is a really fun character. I can see why Dave loves to play his. I w
as able to pop assassins out of stealth quite frequently and never once was I
snuck up on (only MoS 1 and 13+5 stealth). I had so much fun, in fact, that I''
m thinking of taking him up a little higher Smile First I want to get my main
bot to 50 so I can /level on that account. The I will roll a new bot on that a
ccount and take it out and level it with the Scout.. My goal is to have a leve
l 39 bot for Molvik, and a level 24 bot for Thid.. and of course my 50 bot for
regular RvR. Should be fun, and I''m really excited about the prospects Smile
Being someone who has never really played the ''stealther'' game before (prior t
o my Infiltrator anyway), I am finding it easier and more enjoyable than the r
egular ''visible'' game.
Yes.. I''ve been brought over to the Dark Side!
{slurp}
The Appeal System
Today''s episode of the Appeal System takes place in Midgard where a nice littl
e Warlock is exping:
[CSR Warlocklover]: Hello, this is CSR Warlocklover, how might of be of assist
ance today?
[Iwinallthetime]: Hi there, that was a pretty quick response. I only appealed
about 5 seconds ago
[CSR Warlocklover]: We try and provide the highest level of service we can for
our new classes. Especially the Warlock ones.
[Iwinallthetime]: Great Smile I''m having a problem. I walked up to this camp w
here these other people were camping and now they won''t leave. I am having iss
ues leveling up this character because of this.
[CSR Warlocklover]: I''m sorry to hear that Sad Let me see if there is somethin
g I can do to help you in this matter.
{enter the dragon}
[CSR Warlocklover]: There, I think that scared them off, did you want me to dr
op the hit points on this dragon so you can kill it for the loot and exp?
[Iwinallthetime]: That would be great Smile yes, thank you
{kills dragon with one chamber}
[Iwinallthetime]: Ding 45, 46 and 47 Smile Looks like I have a free level to 4
8 Smile Thank you so much
[CSR Warlocklover]: you are most welcome, is there anything else I can help yo
u with today?
[Iwinallthetime]: Actually, can you do something about the Infiltrator and Nightshades? They just kill us way too fast in RvR and I''m having difficulties Iw
inning
[CSR Warlocklover]: I''ll submit your request to our design team Smile I unders
tand your frustration in this matter. I too play a Warlock and am having simil
ar challenges. It will be address on the Herald shortly.
[Iwinallthetime]: Oh thank you Smile You''ve been most helpful
[CSR Warlocklover]: Thank you for playing Dark Age of Camelot. Have a great ni
ght.
meh
{slurp}
Awww.. the coffee is gone Sad I guess it''s time to head out and do something .
.. else Smile I promise next weeks Appeal System will be a bit funnier Smile I
was drawing a blank today for some reason.
Take care guys.. and keep your stick on the ice!
Cheers,
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