Yeah, I know my game play is sub-par.

Readers of my blog rejoice with me!
This is an auspicious day. This is a day to be remembered. On this day I have survived an epic zealot rush. I did this with only a single siege tank and two fully loaded bunkers. My use of supply depots as walls (and yes it’s an old tactic I should have started using years ago) gave me the edge I needed to send those zealots packing.

Of course they came back with a parcel of High Templar and a Zerg Queen and did a bit of damage but with Eric’s fleet and mine we finished off our 6 opponents.

By the way….Starcraft II is coming out. You should be excited, you should watch the trailer, and you should be even now planning attack strategies based on the Terran and Protoss game play trailers.

And in the faces you meet, you'll see the place where you'll die

I have thought a lot about funerals. I think I posted on my blog early on about my general dislike of them. I am not sure I even want to have one. I was talking about it with Ryan and he made the point that funerals aren’t for the person who kicked it anyway, which is true. I think my biggest objection is that when someone dies no one seems to be able to view the person objectively. Everyone is so afraid to say something bad even if it’s true. That’s why I have always been somewhat opposed. I know my failings and they are fairly large and I want in my death for people to be able to be honest about them rather than try to pretend I never had them. The other thing is I don’t want to have a bunch of people hanging out being miserable; funerals tend to be too formal and to rigid for me. When I go I want the service, since I am sure it will happen, to be short. I only want one person to stand up and speak, that person being Ryan Sey. Elaine has already agreed to be my speaker for the dead and to take it upon herself to say all the things I never was able to or took the time to say in life. I trust her to be totally honest and I know she knows more about what I feel than anyone else. I only want two songs to be played, no more. The first being Some Will Seek Forgiveness, Others Escape by Underoath and the second being Come, Lord Jesus by Andrew Peterson. I already decided to go the route of cremation and I would rather not have anyone do the whole distributing of the ashes thing. I have had to do that myself for grandparents and it’s not something I recommend. Elaine can dump that stuff in the ocean in a manner of her choosing accompanied only by those she selects. Eric mentioned that he sort of wants to leave a written note to be read by somebody. I think it’s an interesting idea but honestly I would only be inclined to write something irreverent. “Since you’re all hearing this I guess I snuffed it and that kind of sucks. Anyway since I am dead I suggest the open bar, go on get lit, it's what I would have wanted.” That or place a profanity at the end so as to force the reader to swear in front of the assembled crowd. If anyone can work up a good eulogy lament based entirely on Starcraft and or World of Warcraft then they should throw that out there too. I just don’t want it to be a huge depressing, stiff formal, event where people lie about what my life was. Keep it short, let Ryan do the talking, give those who came access to good food plenty of alcohol and by all means keep it light and have a good a time as you can. Dying is far from the worst that can happen, after all what waits after death is closer to life then this ever was. And even if, though I don’t believe it, death brings oblivion I am at least content with the way I spent life.


















Now before you all are horrified by the picture I put up of death with a kitten I need to make one thing clear. First I can't seem to remove it and second this is Death, as in Death the character as conceived and written by Terry Pratchett. His version of death is one of my favorite of his characters, anytime death speaks its allways in all caps. Here a just a few quotes to illistrate.

"I meant," said Ipslore bitterly, "what is there in this world that truly makes living worth while?" Death thought about it "CATS," he said eventually, "CATS ARE NICE.”

"I MUST SAY THESE ARE VERY GOOD BISCUITS. HOW DO THEY GET THE BITS OF CHOCOLATE IN?"
-- Death has a snack (Terry Pratchett, Lords and Ladies)

"DON'T THINK OF IT AS DYING", said Death. "JUST THINK OF IT AS LEAVING EARLY TO AVOID THE RUSH."

"DID YOU SAY HUMANS PLAY IT FOR FUN?" "Some of them get to be very good at it, yes. I'm only an amateur, I'm afraid" "BUT THEY ONLY LIVE EIGHTY OR NINETY YEARS!"
- Death discusses the difficulties of bridge

You have caused confusion and delay.

I randomly get the urge to mess with people. I haven’t ever done it but I am always inclined to. What I mean by that can best be explained by a few examples.

A couple of nights ago I went to BJ’s with some friends. It was really busy at the restaurant and they eventually seated us on the patio next to a 10 or 15 year high school reunion. As a result the patio was so loud we could barley hear each other. I personally wasn’t annoyed; I was actually sort of energized by it. What I wanted to do but didn’t was walk over to the reunion and try to pass myself off as part of their class. I figured I could accomplish this by outright fabrications or the equally effective misdirection. I just thought it would be fun, because making crap up is one of my specialties and it would also allow me to partake of their open bar.

Tonight I was at Claim Jumpers and when I walked into the bathroom there was this guy standing in front of the mirror alone in contemplation. What I wanted to do is walk over to him and say something like this.
“Hey, I am doing my best working the table. Now I’ve put in some good words for you and prepped it for you triumphant return from the restroom. But man I got to be honest, it’s a tough crowd. So it’s up to you now to get in there and bring this wagon home.” Then grab him by both shoulders and stare right at him and say “Good luck buddy” and then turn abruptly and walk into a stall before he can react.

Sometimes if I am walking past someone in a fast food line I have the urge to say as I pass something like; “I checked the meter like you asked me because you were worried about the parking here and I want you to know we are in the clear. The thing that you parked next to wasn’t a meter, so no worries.”

P.S. Thomas the tank engine is by far one of the dullest shows I have ever seen. Horrible does not even begin to adequately describe it.

We'll go out babe, drink moonshine

One hand must wash the other
Each man must be a brother
Band up and take cover
We'll go dancing, set fires
Tag buildings and slash tires
Drive go-carts like Shriners

We'll go out babe, skateboarding
Go looting, food hoarding
Whatever you desire

Understanding In a Car Crash

"Death hangs over thee. While thou still live, while thou may, do good."

I was driving back from work today on the 710 north and I very nearly was in major accident. I was lucky because it was close. The weirdest thing is that even as I watched what could have been my approaching injury and or death I felt nothing. I felt no worry or concern, my body didn’t even tense I just watched the car coming with a sense of bemusement so small it was practically nothing.

Here is what went down.
I was driving North on the 710 going between 55 and 60. I was relaxed and listening to Modest Mouse’s song Life Like Weeds so there was a good sized gap between me and the traffic in front of me. Traffic was heavier than usual but moving really well. Suddenly everybody slammed on their breaks. It was one of those 60 to 0 things that I noticed first as clouds of smoke announced the desperate attempts of the cars in front of me to stop. A couple of cars were even forced to swing into the shoulder to avoid collisions. I was humming along with the music and as I watched the cars in front of making panicked stops I remember thinking “oh I guess we are stopping now.” I laid my foot down on the break still humming and completely relaxed. I got my car stopped in time, mostly because I had left myself the room. I was almost touching the guy in front of me when I had got it stopped. I looked in the re-view mirror to see how the guys behind me were doing and saw that the guy behind me was in trouble. He had been going a little faster than me and when he had jammed on his breaks he had trouble keeping it in line. He was fish-tailing all over the lane first to one side then to the other smoke pouring from the tires the whole while. I just sat there watching him approach and I only thought “hmm, well look at that.” My body didn’t even tense. I only looked away because my peripheral caught the guy in front of me moving again. The traffic went from 0 to 45 in a tenth of a second, no indication why we had stopped. I thought to myself “interesting” and accelerated forgetting about the car behind me still slewing sideways across the lane. The combination of my moving again and his slight reduction in speed meant that there was no collision. Had traffic not started moving again that would not have been the case.

I didn’t even think about it after the fact until I went to merge onto the 91 East and the guy cut me off. Then it struck me that I hadn’t felt anything even as I was almost run down. It doesn’t bother me, it’s just strange. Honestly in that moment I probably could have watched a semi barreling down on me bringing death and had no stronger a reaction than to think “hmm, well now” with a almost complete detachment.

I dream of Warcraft

So I had this dream last night and I have decided its worth sharing with the rest of you. No, it does not involve raptors, it is not inspired by Oreos, and in no portion does it include an animal pelt made of pure evil. But here it is anyway, submitted for your approval dream #4,568.37.
I dreamt last night that Ryan decided to help me out a little in the gear department by taking my level 51 night elf into a battle ground to get some honor points. I had gone to check on Elaine because we were supposed to be leaving for a trip of our own. She was still chatting with her folks even though we were running exceptionally late. We were running late on a level that leaves you pacing anxiously making little whimpering sounds and nervously wringing your hands. Since we wouldn’t be leaving the house anytime soon I went back to the computer to see how the leveling of my character was progressing. Arriving at the laptop I was horrified to find that Ryan had given up on my character and she was sitting in the middle of an active battle ground doing nothing tagged as away from computer. While I was watching an aura descended around my character accompanied by the text “fear and hatred envelope you” which quite clearly meant in the dream, as it would in real life, that all my teammates were ready to kill me for not helping them out. So I began to quietly fret and then Ryan’s character Sloppy Joe came running up to me all the while texting “Feign death! Feign death!” which really makes no sense as it is a skill Druids like my character don’t have. For some reason though in the dream I can do this and I did, thereby making it look like I got wreaked by the Horde which pacifies my team and doesn’t cost me a death with is pretty good for me. After that I headed out for the enemies base. On this particular battle ground there were a bunch of ambient animals just wandering around. They were the species used by the Draenei race as mounts and for some reason they all were hostile. I went for the base but was bum-rushed by a herd of elephants and had to tuck tail and run. Also the enemy’s base was guarded by a nice colony of Orc NPC’s. (A NPC is a non-character player for those of you with limited experience.) So I gave up on the idea of a frontal assault. After that I wandered around and came across a Troll rouge sneaking up on a Human warrior. I dropped into cat from and stealthed. I hit her from behind before she could go after the warrior and I got one shot off but when I went for my second strike Ryan had changed all the keys and so instead of smacking her I switched to bear form. Now in this situation bear form was exactly the wrong way to go firstly because its crap as strategy and secondly because of Ryan’s nonsensical key changes. On entering bear form I found that all my attack keys had new icons which was the same for each one. The normal icons depicting bear claws doing unpleasant things to a persons stomach had been replaced by a cartoonish image of a pig's smiling face. My attempts to use my attacks only caused a corny piece of country-ish instrumental music to begin playing and my character to hop around like she was having a seizure. The rouge I had been fighting stopped attacking me and emoted a shrug then ran off.

That’s right folks I had an anxiety dream about online gaming, I am the biggest nerd.

Performance anxiety
It’s not just for the bedroom anymore!

Lives

Everyone's afraid of their own life

If you could be anything you want

I bet you'd be disappointed, am I right?

I had just feed the Leafy Sea Dragons and was standing in the aquarium on the public side watching to make sure they all ate and I got to talking to this guy. He was pretty young and on his way back from a two week trip to Catalina Island. He worked at an aquarium store in Northern California. The point of this was that as we were talking it became apparent that he viewed my job and my participation in it as living the dream. It made me feel weird, because though I love my job I don’t feel like I am living the dream. It occurred to me that a good portion of other people would look at this guy’s vacation and his boat he took it on as living the dream. I wonder if to some degree everyone spends much of there life staring at the horizon. The Counting Crows say “If you've never stared off into the distance then your life is a shame” and it’s true but what are we to make of the obsessive focus on the next thing that reduces what we have accomplished to an unsatisfying interim until the next thing. I wouldn’t say it’s a “the grass is greener” thing, it’s more of a pursuing the horizon. This job, that degree all are ends to other things and so are unfulfilling in themselves in the meantime. It’s like we focus so much on the horizon the present is lost. To this guy I am living the dream. I love my job but my mind is full of the next steps to make a job like this a more permanent reality. He sees me behind the tanks working and I see the eventual December. It seems that this excessive forward focus and marginalization of the present is fairly universal. Its either that or people squander their lives by focusing on the immediate pleasure and one day look up to realize that their life is ending with nothing worthwhile or lasting attempted.

It’s scary to think that we could be living the dream, that this reality in the present is what we have to work with. It’s scary trying to pursue your dreams. The more effort you make the greater chance of failure. Apathy and small comforts will ensure a fairly painless and trivial life. I spent so much of my life afraid, and I’ll level with you, I am scared now. I keep moving forward in small steps. I know another more capable person given the same materials and experiences could have fashioned them into something far greater. Maybe the greatest challenge is to enjoy how far we get without becoming prideful or comparing ourselves to some non-existent standard of performance.