Thoughts and The Coolest Intentions

Inspire

2012-01-22T15:17:00.003-05:00

I've found it's impossible to save the world or change it on a global scale.
But focusing on being a very good friend to a few people at a time, perhaps I've changed their worlds and changed their paths for the better.

Perhaps still I have or will inspire someone to go on and do things that could make change I wouldn't be capable of.

That is a more valuable contribution to society & humanity than wasting time behind action-less causes.

Paradoxical Traits of the Creative Personality

2012-01-20T17:50:00.003-05:00

I read this article and every last word describes me.
A little creepy, like the time I read that article on synesthesia and realized I wasn't alone in the world.

The guy who wrote it says he's been studying creativity for 30 years. Some of what's written sounds like generalities [I'm jaded by things like palmistry & fortune telling since I know they're based on widely sweeping generalities so as to draw the customer in]. Even so, it's very accurate to me.

Hacker

2012-01-20T17:39:00.002-05:00

This is a good article, describing that "Hacker" is a mind-set, not a stereotype.

http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html

First Snow of 2012 in the City.

2012-01-09T18:42:00.006-05:00

SNOW!

It started snowing early this afternoon and continued thru the early evening. It's started to stick on grass, bushes, parked cars, and rooftops (I can see those from my apartment window).
Snow, like Christmas, makes me feel like a kid again. It's almost magical. ;-)
Since starting working in DC I've been looking forward to the day when I would walk out of the office to walk to the Metro and it would be snowing on me. That day is today! I was all smiles walking out of the office, and again walking from the Metro to my apartment.
Not driving to/from work = big win!
I'm also enjoying it because even tho the air is frigid, I can breathe like a normal person, and deeply! No more asthma that I had had since I was a kid, and that is awesome.

At first when I put my headphones in while walking my thought was "I don't have a snow/winter playlist yet" and then I thought "Skyrim soundtrack". That's perfect -- Skyrim takes place in the cold, snowy north of Tamriel; and an orchestrated soundtrack to me is always good for walking in the city. B-)

Just wish I had brought gloves... brrrrr.

But still: happy dance!

The picture above was taken a block from my office, the Christmastime snowflakes are still up on the light poles. =)

Reflection on 2011

2012-01-01T11:27:00.000-05:00

At the beginning of the year, instead of making trite New Year's resolutions, I make a list of all the good things & positive experiences & events & jazz from the previous year, roughly in month-order. This way I can see all the wonderful things that comprised my life, and be thankful for.

TL;DR version:
This year has a short list; the first half of 2011 was pretty sucky and I was unmotivated to do anything. IT support during tax season for a financial institution for the 2nd year in a row (altho I wasn't doing IT, but co-managing the order processing dept so the work wasn't bad but the company/treatment was). Then I got deathly ill for a week in May. Then I got better and decided to stop cruising through life and finally set and accomplish my life-goals & write my own destiny. And I did!

Here we go...!
*Had a blast out to dinner & drinks with Steve & Andrew on my birthday, tons of laughs. Then Steve & I filmed a short parody magic trick using cars instead of cards --> blog entry with vid.
*Brought Steve down to Raleigh a couple of times, for Lego conventions; my cousin & I introduced him to our NC friends.
*In April I moved out of my apartment and in with Andrew at his house -- great experience, lots of fun.
*Cirque du Soleil TOTEM was awesome; perhaps more than KOOZA was. Reminded me of the time I did sound for Cirque when they did a cabaret party at our bar, and we got to hang out with them at a diner after. ^_^
*I got terribly sick in May, and part of that included a return of asthma which I hadn't had since I was a kid. Went to the doctor for the first time since high school, was prescribed 2 inhalers and 3 types of steroids. Lost my voice for 2 days (a first!). Got better. And I didn't realize until 6 months later, while walking in the cold, that my lung capacity is now fully normal! No longer am I short of breath while walking in the cold; something I've experienced all my life. I am cured!
*Took the biggest literal step in my life, as silly as it sounds: took a commuter bus into DC for a job interview. It left from Columbia MD at 7am and I had to drive 35+ min from Owings Mills MD to get it on a Tues morning, skipping work. The distance traveled + the high stakes of what it meant felt like the biggest most important thing in the universe that day. In fact, in my universe it turns out that it was. It was daunting, it was worth it.
It seems silly now because of the leaps & bounds I've been making since!
*Left my crappy call center "help desk" job and got an awesome, hands-on IT job at an awesome company in DC -- which was my exact goal. I feel fortunate and lucky every day: I made a transition to a different & better & better-paying job during a bad economy, and I blasted myself so far forward doing it; both career-wise and personally.
*22nd annual family vacation at LBI. I came a day late because BrickFair was that weekend. I think it was the best family vacation yet. =)
*Excitement & adventure in DC during my first earthquake (August, 5.8 Mag) -- a city full of people standing around outside the buildings!
*Lived at my sister & bro-in-law's house for the first 3 months of my job, during the weekdays; I was commuting via commuter bus from Columbia into DC each day. I'm really glad I was able to live with them, I feel it was a great bonding experience! (My dad lived with his sister & Fam in MD for 3 months before we moved from NY way back when.)
*Moved inside the DC Beltway; downtown Silver Spring, 1-bedroom apartment to myself in a very nice building, with garage parking for my car.
*Tony Stark for Halloween -- with authentic light-up arc reactor in my chest. B-)
*My sister had her first baby; I became an uncle and the Godfather. Finally the title I've wanted since I was a teenager. >:-] I'm also humbled by having Luc's middle name named after me. ^_^
*Big huge Fam'ly party at my parents' house the weekend before Christmas. Reminded me of ones when I was a kid. Family should be together at the holidays!
*City life. Walking everywhere. Love it!
*I met and made friends with so many great people; decent human beings.
*Rediscovered love for magic & performing. Part of my rejuvenation with my new life, rediscovering the hobbies I have passion for! I'm looking to get a new Wacom tablet for digital drawing... maybe a come-back tour of webcomics...??
*Lots of video game playing -- including the sequel to American McGee's ALICE: ALICE Madness Returns. Was just as good as the original, I thoroughly enjoyed the return to the dark, twisted Wonderland...
Minecraft provided many hours of creative fun; especially lloonngg late nights playing with Steve via Skype. Crazy! It's popularity proved what I've always known -- a good game is good because of the gameplay, NOT the graphics.
And Skyrim. Oh yesssssss... Fus Do RAH!~~~
*Expanded my music collection and variety like crazy. Awesome. (Now at 49Gb of music.) Bought an iPod Touch 4G. I've always hated the previous iPod's scroll wheel, but this is basically a mini-iPad. hehe.
*Rang in the New Year with my sister, bro-in-law, and baby nephew at their place. Low-key fun evening of laughs & sushi & sake.
Cheers to a new year and a new life!

I'm always amazed / By what can take place / Within the span of three hundred, / Three hundred and sixty-five days! [Mighty Mighty Bosstones, "365 Days"]

I told you my reasons for the whole revival / Now I'm going outside to have an ice cold beer in the shade. / Oh, I'm gonna listen to my 45's / Ain't it wonderful to be alive / When the rock 'n' roll plays, yeah / When the memory stays, yeah. / I'm keeping the faith / Yeah yeah yeah yeah keeping the faith. [Billy Joel, "Keeping The Faith"]

Coin Sleights on the Metro

2011-12-24T10:30:00.002-05:00

I love the cool/cold weather because I like wearing jackets. In every jacket I always keep some coins in one pocket. That started way back when ;-) when I used to pay cash for things and get change. Where to put it? Then it became smart to keep some coins on hand in case I bought something that came to a few pennies over an even dollar amount -- if you pay with just bills you'd get 98 cents in change; who wants to carry that the rest of the trip?

So when I'm standing on the Metro going to/from work (I generally prefer to stand, it's not a long trip anyway) and put my hand in my jacket pocket I sometimes fiddle with the coins.
If I feel a quarter, I instinctively want to play with it. So what I've been doing lately is pull it out of my pocket, usually hidden, then magically produce it with a sleight. Then vanish it. Then maybe do a coin roll. then maybe a couple more vanishes & productions, then put the coin back in my pocket (or if I made it "vanish" then I just put both of my hands in my pockets again.

I don't draw attention to it. In fact, about half the time I'm practicing these sleights I'm not even looking at my hand (which are about at my waist). To me, I'm just fiddling with a coin and doing so via sleights I know. What I hope is that someone sees it and thinks "Oh my gosh, there's a magician on the train" but again, I don't want any attention. I just want it to be a piece of curiosity and interest to a random person.

/shrug

Luxzaterna

2011-11-26T10:01:00.001-05:00

Luxzaterna: the autobiographical origin story of a Death Knight.

My life before my undeath is fragmented bits of memories, filled in by my inquiries. I was born on Draenor, which means I'm younger than many Draenei extant. Strong and full of brawn, I naturally took the role of a Paladin, wielding The Light and a powerful swing of my mace. Perhaps this is what drew the interest of the Lich King when my corpse was laying on the battlefield. I was named "Lux" which means Light, not an entirely uncommon name for a Draenei.

When we fled Draenor and our ship exploded into the sky of Azeroth I was in the chapel section with a few others. That section of the ship was blown much farther than the rest, and we were not able to reconnect with the rest of the survivors. From what I've been told, we met a group of followers of The Light and to gain their favor we joined their ranks to fight the army of the Scourge.

That didn't go so well. Had I known then of the full power of the Lich King's forces, I would not have joined that cause. The first battle we fought ended in our slaughter: the Lich King himself was fighting. I've been told that when the Lich King resurrects a Draenei, that our bodies nearly fall apart and our minds are not intact, such that we can only become "Ghouls" or zombies -- mindless corpses. However perhaps because of my Paladin teachings, or that connection with The Lich King's former profession as a Paladin, he was able to resurrect me, body & mind.

My once vibrant, bluish-purple skin is now as the pallor of the grave. Decay even had begun to eat away at my cheeks and tendrils. My undead breath is ice cold; I am as cold as a corpse, and almost as emotionless.

I was clothed in the traditional Death Knight initiate's plated robes, with a hood covering my face. I was taking orders from the Lich King himself, he branded me one of his personally chosen Death Knights to reign destruction upon his enemies. I was powerless to do anything but follow his command.
I had retained my free mind, but it was as if there was a puppeteer guiding my actions. If my masters ordered me to slaughter a town, I did so immediately. And it felt good. I quickly learned that Death Knights, as a curse, are addicted to pain and suffering. We must inflict this upon the living to be satiated. Being of a race that follows The Light and practices good, I am now an unfortunate, and uncontrollable, abomination.

Once our master and the strongest-willed of us Death Knights broke free from the control of the Lich King, we joined Azeroth's factions in the campaign to vanquish him. And it was done.

With free will I have sided with my Draenei brothers and sisters with The Alliance. I have taken the name "Luxzaterna" which means Eternal Light. A name to remind myself to never lose all hope.

DC Life

2011-11-26T09:53:00.002-05:00

I'm really enjoying my new life style.
My apartment is a good sized 1-bedroom, with a good layout. I like being on the 8th floor, I have a wide view of the sky and all the buildings in downtown Silver Spring (I can even see the Metro). The walk from my apartment to the Metro is 5-10 min. The Metro ride to Metro Center is around 15-20 min, and the walk from there to my office is only another 3. And walking everywhere feels great.

I don't have my car with me (it's at parents') because I'm on a waiting list for the garage parking at the apartment, and there's no close place to park it 24/7 (just free weekend parking). Honestly the only major thing I need to have a car for convenience is going to my parents' and/or my sister's houses. For Thanksgiving I took the train from Union Station (DC) to BWI and my Mom picked me up.

UPDATE: A month later I now have a parking permit for the garage. Car is with me in DC and it's in the garage so I won't ever have to worry about weather/snow! =)

Goals Completed

2011-11-17T18:10:00.001-05:00

All of the goals I set for myself about 3 years ago have been completed, step by step.
I took a crappy call center "help desk" job just to beef up my resume. As it turned out I was able to shift into the order processing sub-department and rise there, providing extra XP for a boost.
For the job, I moved NW of Baltimore, not my ideal spot, but perfect Suburbia (if you're into that...) with every kind of suburban shopping and fast food within a mile in each direction.
I found an excellent job in DC and nailed it right off the bat.
And now I've moved to Silver Spring, MD. Yes it's a Maryland zipcode, but it's inside the DC beltway and, truly, is DC.

The final goal -- to work and live in DC -- has been realized.

Now what? ':-)

Everyone knows I want to get married and have a family. I'm old school Irish-Itaian -- of course I do!
But I'm in no rush, and want to enjoy the DC nightlife.
I got a taste of it last Thursday, company-paid happy hour, and following that a few of us went to Lima, which had live trance DJs. Cool. B-)

The Change, part 4.

2011-10-09T09:58:00.002-04:00

Been at the job now for just over 2 months -- still love it. I'm actually doing and feel accomplished. The company and the way they go about business and treating their employees is the exact opposite of the Hell That Was T. Rowe Price Help Desk (and I hear that TRP HD policies are actually getting worse but I can hardly believe it).

I'm securing a 1-bedroom apartment in Silver Spring all for myself. Move-in date is a few weeks from now. Then my commute turns into a 10-min walk to the Metro, a 15-18 min Metro ride, and a 3-5 min walk to the office. EASY. No driving.

Still to come:
* Move into the apartment
* Get settled in it.

2011-08-30T07:06:00.002-04:00

Yes, that was me you saw walking downtown yesterday.
Yes, we should probably contact each other.
No, you most likely won't try.
Curiosity killed the Cat?

':-)

Got the world in the palm of my hands...

2011-08-29T22:36:00.002-04:00

Some people think I'm blessed, and the non-religious think I'm very lucky. Overall I've had a great life! Most of the time I've just cruised thru, enjoying what comes my way and traveling where the wind takes me.

It's only been recently that I've been setting goals for myself and *attaining* them such that I get things my way. And everything is going my way. It's very invigorating and makes me smile every day. I'm writing my own destiny. I have more plans, and they will be fulfilled.
Muhahahahahaaaaaaa!

Good stuff

2011-08-27T15:50:00.005-04:00

Been at the new job for 3 weeks total. AWESOME. Love the company, love the job itself. Stuff I do as a hobby I'm now getting paid to do. Almost no stress at all. Fun company with a great setup. Also my co-techies are great people.
Currently staying with my sis & bro-in-law in Columbia during the weekdays and taking the [very nice] commuter bus to/from DC each day. The bus ride is about an hour, sometimes a little longer if there's traffic. Then I have about a 10 minute walk to my office -- and that is nice. I've actually started to lose a little weight (a little)!

I'm still in the process of looking for apartments near DC. I've mostly decided on Silver Spring, MD. It's inside the DC beltway, but a Maryland zipcode, so I don't have to fuss with changing my driver's license and car registration to the District. And there's a redline Metro stop in Silver Spring, so I can commute easily via the Metro each day, and not have to drive to fun stuff on the weekends. The city is mine! ...will be once I get a place.

Tuesday, 8.23.11, we had a 5.8 earthquake. Felt it strongly at work in downtown DC. They evacuated all of the buildings downtown so that official people could inspect for structural damages.

Making the change, part 3

2011-07-21T00:09:00.002-04:00

Tuesday I took the bus into DC and had an interview with my top-choice company: LivingSocial.
I interviewed with 3 gentlemen from tech support separately and had a very good feeling afterwards.

I spent the rest of the day in DC; had lunch with my dad, then I popped into the Air and Space museum after. Then relaxed at a Starbucks for a while, keeping cool, waiting for the time when the commuter buses started their afternoon rounds.

Today I got a call from the manager and he offered me the job and I accepted!

Stage 3 complete.

Still to come:
* Start working for the new company and get acclimated.
* Step 4 -- Move into an apartment in DC (1 bedroom, by myself).
Stay tuned!

Synesthesia in Vibrance

2011-06-28T01:07:00.002-04:00

My background in Synesthesia.

Today my color-grapheme Synesthesia was heightened, much more vibrant than it's been in a while. I don't know why. It was accompanied by a dull headache all day.

I first noticed that the normal green & purple auras around some letters in text were green & red, a first. On top of that change, there were more red auras than there are purple on any normal day ("normal" as defined by my world). That faded by the end of the day back to my normal.

Additionally, groups of numbers were also getting a per-group aura. So at work when I saw a cost center number of "20157" the entire grouping of numbers had a red background/aura to it. It seems the 5 took dominance. Similarly the number "20138" appeared as green blending into yellow, due to the proximity of the 3 and the 8. Both of these had a little bit of blue on the left, due to the "2" to start. Sometimes I see a color aura, sometimes the numbers are actually in the color.
This all makes sense to me, and I documented the colors I usually see for single digits as follows:

1 - sometimes yellow, sometimes nothing distinct
2 - blue
3 - green
4 - orange
5 - red
6 - no distinct color
7 - no distinct color
8 - yellow
9 - usually reddish
0 - no aura, but in my head the digit 0 appears white

Planning for a change, step 2

2011-06-25T00:53:00.002-04:00

Step 2 is now in full swing. Resume is beefed up and polished; I've applied to a few tech support jobs in DC.
Today I had a successful phone interview with my top-choice company. It sounds like everything I'm looking for. They want to set up a face-to-face interview for some time late this coming week!

If I'm extremely lucky, everything will fall in place quickly and smoothly. I find that most things that I feel are "meant to be" happen that way.

I'm very excited and anxious to make this happen. I'm trying not to hype myself up in case of disappointment, but I can't control it. I'm cautious that way in my brain, but my heart always takes over and directs my actions.

In case you're curious:
Step 3 -- Nail the Face-to-face interview, land the job
Step 4 -- Move into an apartment in DC (1 bedroom, by myself)

Preparing for change, stage 1

2011-05-17T22:48:00.004-04:00

I was sick all last week with a nasty sinus infection and a return of Asthma, which I haven't had since a pre-teen. I had to see a doctor for the first time since I was a teenager, and he prescribed 2 inhalers and Prednisone for the inflammation, and said I needed to rest, a lot.
This gave me a lot of downtime at home (all week), but with no energy to do anything remotely involving concentration (move, play video games, etc). I haven't logged into WoW for 2 weeks now (whoa).

In that dead time, I was not unproductive. I searched and bookmarked a few IT jobs in DC. I also bookmarked a bunch of apartments in DC.
One afternoon I did a financial analysis to see how much money I make, less my bills, less my housing costs (both at the apt and now at Andrew's). Then I reverse-engineered my spreadsheet to determine how much money I would need to make (roughly!) in DC to afford apartments at a couple of price points. Very exciting! Very expensive, but very exciting.

Tonight I nearly finished my new resume. I just have to throw all the Order Processing jazz I do/am responsible for in, and then polish it all up and I'm good to go. I've got my references available (thanks!) with one more I'd like to get in touch with.

I'm very motivated to change my life entirely, uproot from suburbia, plant down in the middle of the city, even change aspects of my lifestyle. =)

Let's get the hell out of dodge!

2011-05-04T20:22:00.004-04:00

I need to get out of this town. Now.

Suburban life gives you the convenience of every type of shopping you could want within 2 miles. And no culture.

A corporate job in a suburban environment means my day can be summed up thusly:
Get up > Go to work for 9 hours > Come home > Eat dinner > Chill out > Go to bed
Repeat 5x/week. Six if I'm unlucky.
The problem is the "chill out" section involves nothing productive -- there's nothing to go do in Suburbia; nothing to get excited about with friends. So I just play video games, or read. Time gets wasted, life gets wasted.

I'm stagnant.
I have been for a long time now.

I can't remember the last piece of art I created!! According to my deviantArt page, it must have been the character portraits I did at the beach last summer. That's sad. That hurts my soul.

I need out. I've focused my sights on the city. DC is feasible, and has lots of museums & culture and I'm familiar with it. Also, even though Manhattan would be the ultimate goal, DC is close enough to my family, and they mean everything to me.

I Like Coffee

2011-04-10T10:06:00.004-04:00

Coffee addiction may be grounded in genes
This explains why I like coffee so much. My dad drinks a ton of coffee. I enjoy many varieties of coffee, and I dig "coffee culture" (my own phrase, involving an affection for designer coffees from Starbucks and Caribou Coffee, etc).

(Thanks, sis!)

Moved

2011-04-03T23:15:00.002-04:00

This weekend I moved out of my apartment and into Andrew's townhouse. Let the good times roll. =)

I was getting a bit stagnant living by myself for 14 months, so it'll be nice to have some daily companionship.

The thin, squeeky ceiling at my apartment was fine for the first half of my tenency; the single girl who lived above me was quiet as a mouse. But then she graduated college and moved out.
Then this couple moved in with a newborn. She's a skank and he's a hick & a mouth breather (literally, and he reminded me of an ogre), and it's very obvious that he got her pregnant and both kicked out of their families. I don't care, except they were *not* light on their feet, and had very loud, yelling/screaming fights once a week (again, literally). They smoked in the apt, with the baby in there! I could go on, but let's let this die. ::partial memory deleted::

Now I'm at Andrew's and it's such a nice quiet neighborhood. It's just on the other side of OM, not far.
He and I get along famously. =)

This weekend, with help from Steve today, we moved my bed, computer jazz, dresser, and some clothes: The Essentials. I spent the first night Sat night, and I slept well in my new bedroom at my new sanctuary.
It's important for my home to be a place to retreat, relax, always have fun, and definitely be safe & sound. My homes are always my sanctuaries. I always felt that way about Jason&Megan's house too, and my sister's.

A bunch of stuff will be stored at my parents' (I don't plan to stay at Andrew's terribly long... I've got goals and other plans). The rest of the clothes and misc jazz will migrate over. I have all of April to move stuff out. The only issue is my huge leather couch...!

Mmmm, it's thunderstorming now. ::happy Dave::

The negative side of my job

2011-03-29T21:16:00.005-04:00

"Help desk analysts are the Rodney Dangerfields of the IT world. The people answering the phone on the help desk get no respect from clients or other IT professionals. They are expected to solve as many problems as possible at tier one but are not paid the wages befitting that level of technical expertise. When the phone rings, there is almost always an unhappy customer on the line. Help desk analysts take unwarranted verbal abuse for circumstances beyond their control and are rarely recognized for their efforts. Their performance is typically measured... not exactly a formula for friendly verbal banter, low stress, and thoughtful problem resolution. Respect? Even Rodney Dangerfield got more respect without the added stress."

From: TechRepublic
(Thanks, Brandon!)

Strange and vivid

2011-03-21T00:22:00.002-04:00

I had a strange and very vivid/realistic-feeling dream last night. The type such that in the morning you have to stop and think "Was all that made up, even the background it was basing itself on??"

In short, I had traveled to NYC alone, not with Steve as I've recently been. The weekend trip was supposed to be all fun, no plans. But then I was commissioned, by some unnamed shady underworld employer that apparently I dealt with frequently enough, to track down the whereabouts and goings-on of an ex-girlfriend of mine. Who knows why. And so I went to several bars and lounges where she & I used to hang out, and a couple that I remembered that she used to go to without me in NYC. In most places I was friends with the owners, so information gathering was easy enough. Never found the girl.

Here's what's odd... the girl I was tracking was a real life former girl friend. I've never been to NYC with her, I'm not even sure she's ever been there. But the dream felt so real that I was questioning my past!

Death Knight

2011-03-01T00:21:00.005-05:00

After leveling a Worgen Druid from level 1 to about 53 with heirloom gear and guild perks (a total of +35% XP gain!), I kind of got bored with being a ferocious cat. I really enjoy the feral druid's shape shifting, and was anxious to get to lv60 and learn to shift into an eagle-like bird to fly, but I got bored with the cat/rogue attack style.

Not wanting to go thru those levels again from scratch, I instead started a Death Knight. They are a "hero" class and start at level 55, and after their starting area you end up at lv58; ready to go straight to Outland (the first expansion pack).
I've played a few Death Knights in the past. On the old server Steve & I were on, I leveled a DK to 70. On the Horde side of realms, I've created DKs just to boost my starter characters' cash, since DKs, after their starting zone, will have about 30gold. That's a lot if you give it to your level 1 noob character.

And the Death Knight starting zone is my favorite, well, second to the Worgen one now I guess. It's a toss up.
You start as a slain hero of whatever race you chose, but with glowing, light-blue eyes and a pallor of the grave. You've been resurrected to be an undead servant and warrior by & for The Lich King, and your will is not your own. The bulk of the starting area quests involve assaulting a town, driving the people out and also killing quite a few. Then the elite Death Knights and yourself are told to go somewhere and defeat the defenders of The Light. During that massive brawl of undead minions vs holy warriors, it is revealed that the Lich King sent you all on a suicide mission, expecting you to die the final death. The Death Knight leader regains his own will, and the holy paladin fends off the Lich King, who retreats. The DKs decide to rally against the LK and break free of the LK's control. So they form a new faction, dedicated to his demise.
It's very good, lore-wise. You start by feeling like a wicked bad guy, then you feel betrayed and treated like a hunk of meat. Then you feel empowered. And you ARE empowered. =)

So, I specced Unholy. I'm like a cross between a warlock and a warrior. That means I get a ghoul as a permanent companion, and during a fight I can empower him and he temporarily transforms into a beasty undead monster. I can also summon a gargoyle to fight with me temporarily. I have a couple of "spells", can apply and spread diseases, and carry a big sword or axe for serious melee damage. And I wear plate armor for max protection. >:-]
I named him "Luxætera", after the song from Requiem For A Dream. Latin for "eternal light" and that kinda fits.

WoW, post-Cata, early 2011

2011-02-04T00:08:00.001-05:00

Cataclysm has been a great expansion pack so far. I very much enjoyed the leveling experience from 80-85. It was full of good lore, without many tedious, grinding quests like in the past. The updates to the 1-60 quests removed a lot of tedium and added a lot of things of interest. Without going on and on, I give it 2 thumbs up.

So my main, Ixmucane, a human Warlock, is 85. But I haven't felt like doing much in the way of dungeons to gear up to do Heroic dungeons at the moment. And the serious raids always seemed too serious, too much "work". That's not why I play.

I've been starting alt characters and seeing if any other classes are interesting enough to take all the way to 85. I like Death Knights that are spec'd Unholy because they are basically melee Warlocks. >:-]

I leveled a Worgen shadow priest to 40-something. "Absenthe", green glowing eyes. Very much like a Warlock without a pet, so not super exciting. I love shadow form though, it looks so cool.

Then I leveled a Worgen rogue to 26. "Valintyne". Rogues are the WoW archenemies to Warlocks in PvP, and they play very much the opposite, so that's been fun and refreshingly new. Plus rogues can go into stealth mode and sneak around, and they kill stuff FAST! But they are very 1-dimensional, with very repetitive gameplay.

So this week I got it in my head that I'd like to play around with a Druid again. I have a level 20-some Druid on the old server, so I'm a little familiar. So I started a Worgen Druid (good lore there!) and am spec'd for Cat form. Meow! =^..^= Druids shape-shifted into Cats play like rogues, with similar stealth ability and jazz. But being a hybrid class (multiple forms emulating other classes), Druids also have spells and self healing spells, which makes them more appealing then a straight-up rogue, yeah? I named him "Elunar". Elune is the moon goddess that the Night Elf Druids follow, so it's fitting.

I LOVE the Worgens' starting zone. Maybe you could tell? Good lore, good variety of gameplay for those first ~12 levels. You start human and are defending against the Worgen (werewolf) invasion of the city, get bitten and later on, after an awesome cutscene, you wake up in the stocks AS a werewolf. It isn't until some time later that you meet the Night Elves who assist in teaching you to control your inner animal so that you can become human again... and then transform at will. =) Love it!

I now have 3 pieces of heirloom gear to give my alts, giving me a total experience gain increase of +25% and the higher leveled guilds my characters are in give an extra +10% XP gain, so leveling is going very fast...! =)

Magic Vid - The Ambitious Car.

2011-01-30T11:42:00.003-05:00

After a night of drinking with Andrew and Steve, Steve & I went back to my apartment to chill.
He told me about this weekly Saturday Night Contest at Theory 11 (this one in particular, for last night) wherein you had to film yourself doing a magic trick with a card magic plot, but without any cards.
Steve had this silly -but brilliant- idea to use cars instead of cards, using the Ambitious Card plot where the card, lost in the middle of the deck, keeps rising to the top of the deck.

We talked about some options (to the head of a line of cars, to the top of a parking garage, etc) but at that time the contest would be over in just over an hour.
Probably it was the resident booze in our system, or just the full-of-laughs night we had had, but we spontaneously went outside, hopped in my car, and moved it to the visitor section, and went to town with the idea.
Steve filmed it on his Droid X at 720 (HD) and we slapped it together and uploaded it to my YouTube acct with plenty of time before the deadline. We didn't win, but then again this really was just a JOKE. Brilliant, hilarious.
Later I spent 20 min and put together a slightly more polished version which I uploaded to my Vimeo account.
Enjoy!

Reflection on 2010

2011-01-09T15:41:00.002-05:00

At the beginning of the year, instead of making trite New Year's resolutions, I make a list of all the good things that I experienced in the previous year, roughly in month-order.

*Moved into my own, all-by-myself apartment. Cooking and cleaning and taking care of myself, just as my parents had raised me to be well rounded. Cut my commute to <<10 min. =)
*Learned that I enjoy cooking just like I enjoy creating art and building Lego models.
*Expanded my digital painting skill, so that it looks quite painterly
*Started dual monitors for my computer
*Started reading a lot more, now that I have a comfortable place.
*A friend sewed and made me a neat shower curtain (from fabric) to match my Steampunk themed bathroom
*LAN parties at my place!
*Surprise birthday party for turning 29. My cousin Joe super-surprised me by being there, up from NC.
*My sanity survived The Blizzard of 2010 where we got ~50" of snow
*Officially took Lindy Hop lessons and learned the proper way to do many things I had already been doing, plus more
*Bought a 2005 PT Cruiser convertible! Something I've wanted back since the tragic accident which destroyed my PT Cruiser a few years ago now. LOVE IT. Modded it a-plenty, to make it look more retro, more hotrod. =) Lots of topless driving followed...
*Survived tax season while working tech support for a financial institution (yikes).
*Drove to NC at the last minute to join a Lego convention, put on by our friend Joe Meno. It was a success, and Joe (my coz Joe) and I gave 2 of our lectures on how to make stop motion animation videos with Lego
*Bought an iPad. Used it that next weekend while in NC to remote into my PC in MD and email Joe (sitting next to me in NC) the finished PowerPoint presentation of our lecture.
*Received random acts of kindness in online games. ^_^
*An incident made me reflect on the great friends I've had for years and how much I really do appreciate their friendship, even if I don't see them frequently.
*Late night parties at my place, plenty of booze, video games, YouTube vid sharing. Then late night runs to diners.
*The owners of the Chinese restaurant I frequently get take out from totally love me. They call me Mr. Dave. ^_^
*Starcraft II was released. Played it online frequently for a while with friends, learned to use Skype too.
*Topless drive to the beach for a full week with my family! I drove my sister & bro-in-law. This was the 21st annual trip. Even though it rained/was chilly the first days, it was still glorious as always. I had plenty of free time in the evenings to stay up late and sketch on my iPad. I wish I could do that all the time.
*Several trips to Manhattan with Steve. Got to hang out with a magician friend one of those evenings. The first trip kicked off a realization: I need to live in a city and get out of suburbia.
*Got the Droid X phone. After the 1st half hour I couldn't understand how I had lived without it. I find it's better than the i*hone because it's customizable, not locked down to what the creator-company wants. Customization, flexibility, almost flawless voice searches, and all the misc jazz -- good stuff.
*Went back to Illusions a year later.
*Bought a pair of grey jeans which I thought we just normal and slight stylish, and they turn out to be my Grey Jeans of Attractive Power, with +13 to Luck!*Was hit on by a college-age girl, who was acting very cute and very much like a star-stuck schoolgirl (and no, I hadn't done any magic or anything impressive).
*Bought a black Wii on Black Friday. Hack it 3 weeks later to put the HomeBrew channel on it to play old ROMs. >:-]
*Spent Christmas weekend at my parents' -- my sister & bro-in-law are living there for a few weeks before moving into their new, 1st house. Hail, hail, the gang's all here.
*Hung out with Steve at Illusions on New Year's Eve. It was nice to be out, and also nice to be low-key. I was remembered by patrons.
*Made many advancements in my IT career experience (beefed up my resume).
*Made lots of new friends!
*Played lots of WoW, and the 3rd expansion pack was released in Nov.
*Was definitely appreciated, loved, and missed. =)

"Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind." --Dr. Seuss

Christmas & New Year's Eve

2011-01-01T13:38:00.008-05:00

CHRISTMAS 2010
I worked Christmas Eve -- one of four people on call. It was quiet and relaxing at least; nice to chat with a couple of my coworker friends. We closed at 4.

Then I came home, packed, relaxed, and drove to my parents' house for the weekend. My sister & bro-in-law are living there for a month until they move into their new (first) house in Columbia so it was a lot of fun -- the family all together.
I didn't sleep in my old room or in my old bed -- I preferred the larger space of the pull-out couch in the study upstairs. Very squishy, but comfortable. I'm used to a big bed now. =)

Went to bed Christmas Eve around 11pm -- I was so exhausted from the week and the past couple of days getting up an hour earlier for work than normal. :-/
My sister woke me up at 8:30am on Christmas and we opened our stockings as like every year. Except this year we didn't get to then wake our parents up -- they were already up!
Quick breakfast, unwrapped presents galore. Then showered & dressed & went to church.
After coming home, Mom made us bacon & me eggs. =)
Aunt Alice & Uncle Bill came over in the afternoon and a good time was had by all. Big turkey dinner (Thanksgiving all over again). My uncle & I devised mischief in the form of creating Cesium explosions, creating ball lightning in an old microwave, designing a Vortex Ring gun, and well... other fun dangerous projects. >:-]

The day after Christmas we went to Arundel Mills mall and I got a migraine, as chronicled in the previous post.

NEW YEAR'S EVE 2010
Again I worked all day on New Year's Eve. It was fairly quiet, so it wasn't too bad. Got out at 6 as usual.

Steve met me at my place, and I changed my clothes & shaved and we headed out.
Ate at Chic Fil A (my girl wasn't there) then Steve drove us into Baltimore: Federal Hill.
We spent the evening hanging out at Illusions Magic Bar & Lounge. [Brief recap: our best friend owns Illusions. We helped him build it; run it; and we worked, tended bar, and performed there for a few years.]
That was fun, although we knew it would be busy on NYE so we didn't get any time to just chill & chat with our friend Spencer. Ah well, The Hot Shots will have to get together another night.
We met a guy in the Army Res. who spent the summer in Iraq and learned a few card tricks. He was extremely excited to meet real magicians, and Steve obliged by showing him a couple of tricks with the guy's own deck of cards.

Steve & I left Illusions around 1am and went back to my place. We started drinking and playing Super Smash Bros Brawl on the Wii. I popped the requisite Dave-and-Steve-late-at-night-drinking-at-Dave's-place kettle corn popcorn(TM). ^_^ Around 4am I was falling asleep, so I went to bed.

I never feel like midnight between Dec 31st and Jan 1st means anything. It's not until I wake up the next day (Jan 1st) that feel like "Happy New Year!"

At Illusions I got spotted by a few patrons who remembered I used to tend bar there & do magic at my bar -- hell, one gal remembered my name! (And I hadn't seen her in about a year and a half, and only really met a few times!)
I had forgotten how powerful magic can be for a layperson. Especially to people who aren't exposed to it or the performing arts continually. When it's our way of life, we definitely take it for granted.
For a while at Illusions last night Steve & I were sitting at a high-top table in the back, overlooking the whole room. I love being the quiet, semi-mysterious guy in the back corner overseeing the operation. Like the Godfather. Very cool, very old-school. So one girl notices and asks us why we're special and get to sit up higher than everyone else. We just smiled and then she said "You're magicians!" So we spilled the beans, and she begged us to do magic for her. ;-)

Stay tuned for my Reflection on 2010, where I post all the good stuff that's happened in the past year instead of making trite resolutions!

Occulus Migraine #2

2010-12-28T00:02:00.000-05:00

Sunday, the day after Christmas, my sister, bro-in-law, and I went to Arundel Mills mall.
While waiting on line at Best Buy and talking to Frederic, I noticed that his shirt seemed to be "moving" in my vision. I dismissed it as my eyes playing tricks on me: the fluorescent lights were harsh, there was a lot of movement in the store, and I figured maybe I caught the "sunspots" after effect of looking at the bright lights directly. Fine.
We walked out of Best Buy into the mall proper and a couple walked by me and their shirts at chest level seemed blurred/not clear to me. Hmmmm... :-/

We popped into the Levi's store and while Frederic was looking around I noticed a bit more of my vision was getting fuzzy: a full crescent along the right side of my vision. I asked my sister if she had any pills, and she did: ibuprofen. I swallowed a pill without any liquid (ew, I hate that feeling) and explained why I asked. A little bit of pressure was developing around my right eye, behind my skull, but no pain.
When we walked out that store it happened: the fuzziness of my vision on the right side turned into sparkles and I couldn't see in that area at all. Just sparkles. Think silver tinsel all over the right side of your vision, that's a good way to describe it.
If I closed my eyes, I got dizzy and could tell I'd get nauseous after a moment, so I couldn't get relief that way.

We went to another store (Five Below, the reason I wanted to come to the mall) and I bought a Wiimote attachment: the Magnum gun shell. I had to read the packaging with basically one eye disabled, but I was okay.
By the time we left Five Below my brain directly behind my forehead felt like it was trying to push out of my skull (it didn't hurt per se, but there was a lot of pressure). I bought a vending machine 20oz Cherry Coke and downed it. By the time we walked back to Best Buy my vision was back to normal, I just had the headache pressure in my frontal lobe.

I'm pretty sure this migraine was caused by tiredness and eye strain, due to not getting much sleep for 4 days in a row and being off my normal sleep schedule.

Most of the day today I had a weak headache or moderate pressure in my frontal lobe. Been wearing my glasses since yesterday afternoon.

No flourishes today

2010-12-14T23:02:00.006-05:00

I was looking at playing card flourishes on sites like Decknique and thought "Man I'm old" because they all look like kids (well, kids & teenagers) just showing off and being hyper. I started to realize that flourishes like those extreme crazy ones shouldn't mesh with magic in a magic trick performance.
They I realized I'm just taking the mature, theatrical stance. In my mind I hate doing 95% of the magic tricks I'm exposed to or even know. I don't ever want to say that cards have personalities, or that you can spell the name of a card to locate it after a deck is shuffled, or that red & black cards are like oil & water and will automatically separate, or that a coin might go up my sleeve - across my chest - and down the other sleeve to get from one hand to another 'secretly'... no no no: I hate that superfluous trite!
Entertaining? Sure.
Looks good? Maybe.
Closest as theatrically possible to real magic? No.

That's why the past couple of years I've been leaning toward straight-forward effects. Effects, not tricks. The presentations I've been developing have been more about perception, imagination becoming reality, and illusion. The fewer "props" that need to be used, the better.
And so whenever I start thinking this way, all of my paths start leading toward Mentalism.
I like the slower-paced style; taking time to build an effect and engage someone's mind. Then make it explode.

BTW, I can do a lot of fancy card flourishes and multi-packet cuts that you see on those flourish sites. That's just a side-interest, something to do with a deck of cards in my hands. Not something I incorporate into a performance.

Dec, 2 weeks before Christmas

2010-12-14T22:42:00.003-05:00

My sister & bro-in-law have settled on a house and have all of that in progress!
Saturday I hung out at their apartment for the last time. We found a very good Thai restaurant not far from Columbia and had a tasty dinner. Then back at their place we watched The Sorcerer's Apprentice [2010, Nicholas Cage] and Despicable Me. LOVE both. Wish I had gotten to see them in the theater, but nobody loves me. ;-P

Sunday Steve invited me over, and so for the first time I headed over there. Fun! The buildings he's already built for next BrickFair knocked my socks off. =) I plan to build a few buildings by then to add to his display.

And you know last week the new expansion for World of Warcraft came out: Cataclysm. It. Is. Awesome.
This is my first expansion from release day. Fun times. I picked up my pre-ordered copy from Gamestop at lunchtime and installed it as soon as I got home from work. I was 1400th in queue to log into the server I play on, which is a high-population server. Took an hour to get in. You have to figure, 12 million players (however many bought the xpac on release day) spread across 100-some servers... The next day I only had to wait 5 min, and since then I haven't had to wait (and that's good & normal).

I'm taking my time leveling my main, Ixmucane, the warlock. He's almost level 83 (from 80, pre-expansion) and the level cap was only increased to 85. Steve hit 85 in, what? two days? He's already running heroics (heroic dungeons, the harder difficulty versions). See, he likes the raiding content. I enjoy leveling and being part of lore. The revamped Cataclysm quests are much more story-driven and motivated, so they are more fun to get into. More enjoyable. I like dungeons with a good group, but I have to be in the mood for it and have no time-constraints. Later on Fri/Sat nights are good. It's always fun to be raiding at 3-4am, bleary-eyed and half-asleep just pushing buttons to attack... all just until you finish the last boss, for the team!

So instead of leveling my main, I've been leveling a worgen. A rogue in fact, which is pretty much the opposite in terms of gameplay to a warlock. I'm enjoying it. Being able to transform from human to werewolf at will is fun. They have British accents. Named mine Valintyne. ^_^

Magic Vid - Twisting The Aces

2010-12-05T18:15:00.010-05:00

I want to start putting up short vids of myself doing magic.
The idea is to allow my magic friends (like Steve, Jason, etc) to critique and brainstorm over the internet via Comments.
Aaaaaaand everyone else who reads my blog (all 3 of you?) can maybe be entertained.
Vimeo lets you password-protect vids, so my ideas and presentations can stay within my world and not be subjected to the randomy filth & exposure on YouTube. The password is at the end of this post.

This is my presentation for the late Dai Vernon's Twisting The Aces. The "astronaut" line/display is from my good friend Jason Geist; it's much more fun than 'neck-tying' the deck at that point.
[It's very quiet cause I filmed it on my Droid X phone, so turn up the volume! Also, go full screen cause I filmed it at 720p.]

Password: vernon

The Godson -- drink

2010-12-04T10:21:00.003-05:00

As a former bartender (master of mixology, naturally), I have a few custom drink concoctions. Once you get a feel for how liquors & flavors blend, it's not too difficult to create new mixes for a patron who wants you to surprise them because they don't know what to order (usually women).
I've been told I make the best chocolate martinis. And that's true! Several years and much experimentation has lead to the perfect blend of flavor, that goes down smoothly. A delicious dessert martini.
This is not that recipe.

THE GODSON
A "Godfather" is scotch & amaretto. This is a sweeter version, almost like a jocular, kiddie version of the original. And so I named it after the movie The Godson, a Rodney Dangerfield parody of The Godfather. This is for people who like a bit of whiskey/bourbon, but also want something very sweet. I've had waitresses tell me it smells like gasoline; it doesn't, but I've since thought of calling it such.

Ingredients:

1 oz Southern Comfort
1 oz Amaretto

Preparation:

1. Build ingredients over ice in an old-fashioned (rocks) glass.
2. Stir well
3. Serve with a swizzle stick, so the consumer can stir frequently to keep the mix even and cold.
Can be garnished with a cherry.

Adventures In Manhattan, Magic Edition

2010-11-23T23:13:00.001-05:00

Saturday Steve and I took the Megabus to NYC.
It was a very good day.

We arrived at the Whitemarsh Park & Ride at 7:30am for the 8am bus. There was NO parking. And the lots are assigned, so there's no leeway. I was forced to park at the Ikea parking lot across the street and pray it would be okay there until we got back at 2:20am... It was, but I didn't like it.

The Megabus is a double-decker, and has free wifi. But the Bolt Bus has more comfortable seats, with more leg room, amd friendly bus drivers. The only thing that's "better" with Megabus is that they have buses like every hour around the clock, whereas Bolt Bus' last departure is 8pm.

We got in Manhattan a couple of blocks from Times Square, predictable. Got our requisite corner cart hot dogs and started walking south. Then we jumped on the subway and went to Battery Park. Very windy, with a nice view of Lady Liberty, since the park is at the southern tip of the island. Steve bought a "Movado" watch for $20, talked a Nigerian down from $40. =D I took a great b&w photo of the metal sphere sculpture that is now there, having been damaged and recovered from in front of the Twin Towers. Very cool, very steampunk. 8:-) Also right there is the American Indian Art Museum, which was used as the art museum in Ghostbusters 2.

We then walked north, popped into Trinity Church to see the architecture, woodwork, and the cemetery. Continued to walk north, passing Wall Street on our way to Ground Zero. They've already got the frames & floors for 2 very tall buildings going up, many many stories tall. I love tall buildings. They make me feel small, and give me a sense a wonder at their grandiose scale.

Then we continued north to Canal Street, passing thru Chinatown. Got McDonald's there, the jumped on the subway to Herald Square. Macy's Christmas window displays were all set up and in motion, and the area was being set up and decorated for the Thanksgiving Day Parade.

Steve had talked to a magician friend of his the day before and arranged to meet at Tannen's magic shop on 34th there (a regular stopping point for us). I got to meet Tony Chang, underground NY magician who has a few effects/sleights published on Theory 11's webpage. Nice guy! =)

We hung out at Tannen's until they closed at 4pm. Then Tony took us to a pizzeria around the corner for a laugh: it's where the "old school" magicians in NY hang out. By old school I mean the non-progressive, lame, old guys... well, I won't rant (that's another blog post). Anyway, we met a few of these guys and later laughed about 'em.
Left there and the 3 of us walked north the Rockefeller Center -- Steve wanted to check out the Lego store. The big tree was up, with scaffolding all around since they were still putting all the Christmas lights on it. We hung out on a bench there, telling magic stories for a while.

Then Tony made a suggestion that aligned with the reason I wanted to stay in Manhattan late: go to a bar. We went to a small bar downtown in Tribeca where he knew the barmaids. The 3 of us got a booth and a few drinks, and had playing cards all over the table. That's pretty normal for a group of magicians. ;-P We spent all that time drinking, telling jokes, a showing off card tricks. Perfect.

Steve and I caught the 11pm Megabus back to Whitemarsh and got home at my apt around 3am. I actually slept on the bus! In fact, I slept for about 3/4ths of the trip. I wasn't too comfortable, but at lease we had gotten the back seats so we could recline them a fair bit.

Chatting and jamming with Tony was great -- I miss doing that frequently like Jason, Josh, and I did back in college 2+ days a week. I spent most of Sunday watching magic DVDs, reading magic books, and playing with cards.

A Needed Day Alone

2010-11-14T02:21:00.000-05:00

Today was a good day alone. No plans; for once a good thing.

I got up at a reasonable time, 10:30am. Toasted some chocolate chip Eggo waffles for breakfast, then checked the various blogs and jazz on the net which I follow; took my time. That's always nice, because during the week I rush around in the morning doing my morning routine before work, with very little spare time built in to dilly-dally.

Then I took a shower and put on clothes. Following that, I updated my laptop's version of Ubuntu Linux to the latest, 10.10, released 2 weeks ago.

Researched some ideas for an articulated arm & wall mount for my iPad. I want to put it on the wall just above my computer monitors so that it would be easily accessible. That could be great for Skype (iPads have built-in speakers & a mic), and using the iPad as a jukebox, especially with Pandora radio.
So I headed out & about for a while, driving to various stores looking for at least *something* that might be viable. I checked out Target, Staples, Best Buy... no dice. Closest thing I came across was a small TV wall mount with a swinging arm... but it cost $90! That's about 1/5th the price of my iPad. No.
But it was 69 degrees so a good day to drive around with the top down. Might be the last warm day for that until Spring...

Came back to my apartment, looked thru the Ikea catalog to see what else I want to put on my walls (floating shelves? art? giant clock?) and killed some more time reading online.

Then I popped out to Caribou Coffee and got a dark chocolate mocha with almond flavor. Yum! I then went next door and ordered 2 rolls of salmon & cucumber sushi. The drink and the sushi go very well together; I suggest you try it.

Took the food home and watched the last 2 episodes of Warehouse 13 which I hadn't gotten to since the season ended. Good stuff!
Following that I logged onto WoW and played for an hour or so. I did the quests relating to phase 3 of the cult & elemental invasion, ran a random dungeon, and did a few daily quests while testing out my secondary spec: Affliction.

After that, started researching apartments in DC. Spent the rest of the night doing that while drinking Scotch.

In the past month I've been working on my resume, researching jobs and apartments in NYC. If the stars align and my coz Joe and I could each get jobs and start about the same time and get an apartment together, it could work. It would work...
However, by myself, it would be a huge stretch, even if I was making more money to compensate for the higher cost of living. A little disheartening.
So I've moved that goal back a bit in my head. For now.
My current job eventually might require that I work from home, that is, remotely. This would at least give me more freedom in where I live... I could move to DC and still get the city life that I want. DC is a bit smaller than NYC, but still a fun city. I know, I spent a couple of years hanging around DC 4-6 days/nights a week. ;-)

Stuff

2010-11-09T23:13:00.003-05:00

Yeah, stuff. A memory dump [from RAM? heh]. This won't be eloquent.

Lately I've been pretty discontent. I'm comfortable in my life and where it is. But I'm not satisfied. I endeavor to change that...

I need to create art. It's been a couple of months. I've got images in my head that need to get out, and my creative impulses need to run free for a bit.

Bought grey jeans, which I've been searching for for over a year. They are perfect. I can never find jeans that are comfortable & look good, so I always just buy darkish blue jeans in the loose/baggy style. Not very fashionable, but comfortable. These grey ones are I think "relaxed" fit, boot cut. I like baggy in the legs, but they look damn good on me, IMHO. ;-P

Also, when going out last Wed, I was hit on by a college girl (age I assumed 18-19 cause she looked young) and she invited me to a concert at the Power Plant Live in Bmore the next night. The whole time I'm thinking "Aw, you're acting so cute, you have no idea." A little condescending in my head, but I did love the attention. I know where to find her for future interactions. >:-]
It must've been the jeans; that was my first night wearing them.

So that Wed night, Steve & I headed to Denny & Lee's magic shop to see Aldo Columbini lecture. Italian magician -- hilarious! His wife, Rachel [she's English] also does some magic and lectures. I was in on one of those tricks, and afterwards she gave me the "props" of that trick (a 1-way force deck and a gimmicked jumbo card), said I seemed really nice or something like that. ;-)
Rock on, my Grey Jeans of Attractive Power, with +13 to Luck!

A couple of weekends ago was my sister's birthday. She, my bro-in-law, and I went up to Lancaster PA for the outlet shopping and then the Amazing Maize Maze, which we did at night with flash lights. Going up there is an annual Fall tradition. =) It started with us and 2 of our cousins before they moved to LA a couple of years ago. =( I didn't buy anything this year, no real need, but it's always a fun day.

Halloween at my parents' -- I discovered a technique to keep Cali (their female yellow lab) quiet when the doorbell rings! Standing behind her and straddling her while holding her collar (she's big & powerful) is the normal way to restrain her. But she's a loud barker. She doesn't want to attack, no not at all. She wants to jump up on you and lick you in the face and show affection and have you pet her until your hands go numb. ;-P
What I discovered is if I leaned forward and placed my free hand on her neck, just below the collar, she released her tension and didn't bark at all! It was as if this was a signal to be quiet/calm.

Went to Illusions Saturday night. Spencer had fallen from a strait-jacket escape Friday night during the show and busted open his forehead. Thought it was finally time to pay him a visit. Sadly, it had been a year since I was last there, and last saw him. =( We've tried to get together in the past year to hang out, but we're on opposite schedules entirely. I used to be on that bartender's schedule of waking up at 1-2pm, going to bed at sunrise.
They've rearranged the layout of the place. Moved the leather couches downstairs and the formal tables upstairs. Built a new stage on the far back wall, it's nice. Should've been designed that way on Day 1... [ahem]
Jerry did the show that night, it was also good to see him. We reminisced about the 3 of us on the road trip doing magic at that trade show in Binghamton, NY two (3?) Februarys ago. Good times. Ahhh, the stories of my life could fill a book. =)

Been playing a bit a WoW lately. Almost daily, at least for a little bit. Catacylsm, the big expansion, comes Dec 7th, and there are pre-expansion events going on in the world, more each week. A cult has moved into the major cities, and Elementals are invading. The in-game earthquakes have gone from tremors to larger quakes... all in preparation for Deathwing to burst out of the ground and sunder all of Azeroth. Here's the intro cinematic for the expansion that'll kick it all off. Awesome! Makes me want to log in and kick some ass every time I watch it.
I was leveling a Draenei Shaman with heirloom gear for a bonus 20% to XP for a while. Really fast leveling, I liked it. Last week I started an Undead Rogue on a new server entirely, cause I like the Undead lore and Undercity, and I want to get familiar with Rogues. Rogues are the anti-Warlock (my main is a Warlock you know), and I've decided that come Cataclysm, I want to level a Worgen Rogue. >:-]

Why does spell-check flag "grey" expecting it to be "gray"? Checking the dictionary, "grey" appears to be the British/Canadian version of "gray"? Somehow in my mind, G-R-E-Y is the proper way to spell it.
/shrug

I always use the Oxford comma. It bugs me that almost no one else does. Then again, I've observed that American grammar has gone down the tubes in the past ~5 years, so I'm not surprised. People need to remember their "forms of Be" and match the plural subjects with plural verbs!
It should be "they ARE" and never "they is"!
...and such.
I can't blame this on the youth growing up with IM and email and txt msging shortcuts, cause adults, even non-technology-inclined ones, are speaking worse and worse.

First Migraine

2010-10-28T00:16:00.001-04:00

Friday night I had a new personal experience: an occulus migraine.

I had spent most of the evening playing World of Warcraft, but not intensely because I had Ghostbusters playing on my TV. Mostly in-game I was hanging around one of the main cities and chatting with guild members. Around 1am I was getting noticeably tired, so I got up to adjust my thermostat, put on PJs, and get ready for bed. When I sat down at my desk again and started to read the latest lines of the chat, I noticed I couldn't see the very next word after the one I was actually reading, until I looked at it. Kind of like if you look at the sun and see sunspots. Except I hadn't...
Anyway, over the course of the next 5 or so minutes, I lost about 60% of my vision, mostly in my right eye. I wasn't seeing black nor colored lines, just a kind of blind spot, a waverly distortion. Best I can describe is like a turbulent puddle of water or mercury even. A pressure headache was developing across my entire brain. I popped 2 Advil (only meds I have) and climbed into bed, lights out.

I txt'd my sister and we txt'd back and forth a couple of times, but after a short while I was unable to see the keys on my cell phone to txt! Fortunately my Droid's features saved me: the speech-to-text function works remarkably well. After about 30 minutes since I first noticed it starting, my vision quickly faded back to normal. Tension headache was still there, but I fell asleep knowing my vision was fine.

My Mom has been getting full-on migraines since she was a kid, and my sister for many years as well. I also dated a girl for a couple of years who got them intensely, so between all of them, I know what to expect and how to deal with it. I'm 29 and this was my first. It wasn't scary, in fact I was fascinated by this new experience, but it wasn't desirable.
We ran the gamut of questions as to what might have triggered it... But nothing has been out of the ordinary for me; my diet is normal, my stress level is normal, etc, etc.

However since I've been thinking about it, I have noticed an element of my synesthesia has been more pronounced the past few months. When I read black text on a white background, particularly serifs text (like Times New Roman, and not so much Arial), on either a computer monitor or even on paper, I see green and purple auras to most of the letters. Prior to a few months ago, these were very faint and only on about half of all letters (almost exclusively lowercase, and letters with tails up or down; examples: d, b, q, p, h, t, y; and also rounded hump letters: n, u, and m). Now it's almost all letters and more vibrant.
I previously blogged about my synesthesia, when I discovered it was an actual pathology and not just my overactive imagination, here:
http://coolestintentions.blogspot.com/2009/09/synesthesia.html
This is all for my own record keeping/journaling, but if you want to read some personal info about me, go read that blog entry... However, don't expect me to bring it up in casual conversation.

6 Bucks

2010-10-11T18:46:00.002-04:00

I don't eat out all the time since I enjoy cooking, but I do eat out frequently. It seems that where ever I go I'll end up spending 6 bucks and change.

Subway: the subs I'd get are 6 bucks and change.
Chic-Fil-A: two 8 piece nuggets, 6 bucks.
Chipotle/Qdoba: burrito, 6 bucks and change.
Tacobell (rare): two chicken quesadillas, 6 bucks.
McDonald's: 10 piece nugget meal, almost 6 bucks.
Panera Bread: sandwich for almost 7 bucks.
Etc, etc.

Sushi will run me 9 bucks, as will Chinese food like orange chicken or sweet and sour chicken.

Economically it's of course cheaper to cook. I can get like 8 large chicken breasts for about $10, and one is big enough to fill me.
Or a tasty personal sized DiGorno 4-cheese pizza for just $3 and that will nearly fill me.

Droid!

2010-10-10T23:37:00.003-04:00

After contemplating it for a couple of months, I finally upgraded my Rogue to a Droid X.

I played with one at a Verizon store in Manhattan and now that they run Android 2.2 and I was able to get it online from Verizon for a good price (I had a few upgrades and deals stacked), it was a good decision.

This phone is awesome. It's comparable to the iphone; a mini computer in your pocket. Not to sound like a Linux snob but I like it more than iphones: it's more customizable.

Naturally I've downloaded a bunch of great apps (all free of course) and rearranged the layout of things. I do like to customize my things.
Synching my email and contacts is great; I've never owned a smart phone or Blackberry before.

And I LOVE the Swype keyboard!!
Aside from the standard touch-screen keyboard to tap on like every other device that doesn't have a physical keyboard, the Swype keyboard let's you slide your finger across the on-screen keys without lifting your finger off the screen. It uses some A.I. with word predictability and I guess pattern recognition to determine what word you want.
I wrote this entire entry on my Droid using the Swype keyboard! It makes "typing" really fun, like a game. =)

TL,DR version: I got a Droid X and it's awesome.

Manhattan

2010-10-10T00:04:00.004-04:00

Last Sunday Steve & I took a day trip to Manhattan.
We took the Bolt Bus from Baltimore and it was perfect. Features: plenty of leg space, power outlets, and free wifi, $20 each way. If you buy a ticket in advance, you're guaranteed a seat. Good deal.

So we did a lot of walking all around the city. Hit Chinatown, walked up Bowery, subway from Lafayette&Houston to Times Sq, walked north up 5th/6th Ave (there was a Polish Parade on 5th), went to the NY Public Library's upstairs (to the room that Ghostbusters was filmed in), misc stores along the way, Rockefeller Center (Lego store!), then walked thru about 2/3rds (!!) of Central Park and came on out the west side, walked down to Columbus Circle and took a subway back to Times Sq-area, got dinner and caught the 8:15 Bolt Bus back to Bmore. Somewhere in all that we hit Tannen's and also Fantasmo magic shops (David Roth was demo'ing at Fantasmo!).
Steve & I were also on fire, we met 3 separate chicks around our age; each I felt I would ask to hang with me/us later that night even after very brief conversations... except it was Sunday and we were going back to Bmore: a different world.
Got home around 12:30am, which was kind of late for a Sunday, but totally worth it.

While eating dinner & relaxing before heading for the bus home, I came upon a revelation: I need to live in NYC.
Need to.
Now, certainly I've felt that I don't belong in MD for a long time. That's pretty standard when you grow up somewhere with noticeably different culture traits than where you're forced to have moved to. I didn't chose to live in MD; and I'm only here now due to circumstance & convenience.
But this came as more than a thought -- it was a feeling. I'm feeling it with every fiber of my being. I want to make this happen.

After texting that night and then tonight talking with my cousin Joe, he's on board. We're each going to start looking for jobs in/around Manhattan; as well as apartments.
Joe said something that activated the rebellious nature in me. He said that it feels like our respective parents have kept us from moving/living/working/going to school in NYC. That's kind of true, and it's probably because they did grow up in the city (in Ozone Park, Queens).
I want to chose where I live. I choose NYC.

Also, the fortune in my fortune cookie this week read:
" Discontent is the first step in the progress of a man or a nation. :-) "

My Infinite Improbability

2010-09-21T23:52:00.000-04:00

I've been living alone in my apartment for close to 9 months.
My biggest -- and really only -- fear of living alone was that my Inner Voice, coupled with the freedom of loneliness (yes that makes sense) would release me from restraints and I'd go off the deep end/do something crazy/get into trouble...

But the professional responsibilities of my job ground me to normalcy -- I can't, for example, dye my hair blue like I've always wanted.
Going over to my parents' house about once a week also grounds me. I consider it one of my highest priorities to live up to the high standards with which they raised me, and never cause them shame from me. That is a son's responsibility.
And talking and hanging out with my sis & bro-in-law frequently also gives me a normalcy perspective. So does talking frequently with Steve, be it via Skype while playing Starcraft II or in WoW.

However, in my next life, I'm going to be a digital artist. Stay up all night creating art. Slaving over the need to create. Blue hair (prob streaks at first), micro magnet in a fingertip, crazy awesome ideas. Freedom of expression and all that jazz. I've had a taste of all this separately in the past, but not combined into one life.
I know that if I had never moved to MD from NY when I was a teen, that this is the path I would have been on... straight to Greenwich Village man. For better or for worst... who knows?

Power Outage - Adventures in Apartment Living

2010-09-09T18:20:00.000-04:00

When I drove home after work (all 5 min of it) and got on to Reisterstown Road I noticed a streetlight was out and there were cops cars at the intersection. That is odd, but then I saw more cop cars along the road and BGE trucks... Uh oh.

I pulled up to my parking lot and at the end of it there are two service trucks connecting a generator-looking device to the huge switch box over there. (10pm now and it's still there).
I noticed fewer than normal cars parked for 6:15pm on a Wednesday...

I walked up to my building's front door and there was a pink piece of 8.5x11 paper taped to the glass door, circa 5pm. It stated that the power is out and BGE roughly estimates that it will be fixed by 6pm. I groaned audibly because... it was already about 6:15.

I was planning on cooking chicken for dinner, something spicy with cheese on a bed of nachos, and watching last night's episode of Warehouse 13. There goes those plans! Instead I grabbed my iPad and blasted to Panera. I really enjoy 1 sandwich there, which is filling, a full meal; it had been a while since I'd eaten Panera; and they have free Wi-fi. So I spent a little while there. Found BGE's website and the page showing where power is out and how many affected customers. For Owings Mills it was 1600 people. Ugh. That page auto-updates every 10 min and I saw 2 page refreshes. Left there and went to Office Depot further down the road. Didn't find much.

Drove home, power still out. I have an LED lantern that's a crank-to-charge, but 30 seconds of cranking yields maybe 3-4 min of bright light before it quickly dims out. Yes that's a good conversion factor, but still annoying. So I headed to Target (2 min up the road) and called Mom. Good ol' Mom always knows best. She recommended candle types and to get an actual flashlight.
I bought two 8-packs of 1.4" votive candles, an LED flashlight that also has a lantern mode (100+ hours on 1 set of 4 AAs), and a neat LED "glowstick"/flashlight (200 hrs on its watch size batteries).

Got home, 9:15-ish, power still out. Even fewer cars in the lot now. Saw a mom-dad-kid family get into their car and leave. Wonder if they're planning on spending the night at someone else's? Adam is just up the road from me and he has power. Honestly it's a little creepy at how dark and how quiet it is, except for the night bugs like crickets chirping. And that no one's around...

Got in and grabbed my flat metal baking sheet and wrapped it with aluminum foil, set it on my coffee table then lit one 8-pack of votive candles, along with the one largish vanilla-smelling candle I already had. This provided good light in my living room. But after 30 min I noticed the temperature getting warmer near my couch area. My thermostat reads 76, and to me that's noticeably warm as I like it to be 70 or so, 68 even sometimes.
The flashlight-lantern is quite bright so I blew out the candles and just have that on my coffee table. There's not much breeze but it's going down to 60 degrees tonight so that should keep me cool.

It's 10:30pm now and still no power.
Obviously I'm writing this on my iPad in Notes so I can upload it to my blog later.
66% battery left on it. I guess I'll listen to mp3s on my Sony Walkman with my new Skullcandy blue Smokin' earbuds before going to sleep early.
Haven't decided if I want to sleep in my bed, warm (not so great air circulation in there), or on my comfy leather couch (comfy yes, but not nearly as much space of course) with the 2 big windows open to stay cool...

Addendum -- power came back on at 1:20am.

Beach!

2010-08-29T14:33:00.005-04:00

Spent a week at the beach (LBI, NJ) with my family. A tradition that has gone on for 21 years now. =) A much needed escape from Reality.

The first couple of days were rainy & cool, so we didn't get to actually hang out on the beach itself. =(
But then it warmed up and got sunny the last few days so we thoroughly enjoyed it. As usual I did a ton of body surfing (who needs boogie boards? wimps!) which is the closest thing to superhero flying. =D

Didn't have wifi up there (and I knew that), so I could only check my email & Facebook via my phone (ick), so I didn't do that too often.
I did bring my iPad, which is my portable entertainment center. ;P I had a lot of free time, particularly later at night, so I was able to just chill out and draw, digitally, on my iPad in Sketchbook Pro. Very therapeutic, I don't seem to ever have enough time to just sit & draw.
Three of the better, more polished, pieces are on my deviantArt gallery now:
The Queen of Bubbles
Franco Whimsik
Out of My Way NOW

I have plenty of Salt Water Taffy if anyone wants to come over & partake of it's sugary goodness.

Starcraft II

2010-08-14T10:58:00.004-04:00

After, wait, 12 years?! Blizzard finally made the sequel to Starcraft. I was on the fence about buying it (in my mind most RTS games just boil down to having a larger army than your opponent) but on launch day I got swept up in the hype and got it.
Adam & I went straight from work to Gamestop and each bought a copy. Once we got back to our respective homes we started installing it and txt'ing back & forth about the loading screens, recap movie, intro movie, etc...
Exciting!

Steve also got it, and my coz Joe bought the Collector's Edition (which I wanted). I've started the Skype group, and we've all had fun playing playing co-op teams against the computer in skirmishes. Maybe someday we'll get decent enough to take on human opponents.

What makes SC2's multiplayer better than other RTS games' is the variety in each of the 3 races. Truly none are similar in any way. And there's much variety in the units that can be created for each race, so many many strategies abound.

I'm quite good at Protoss. I have a decent early game and a killer mid-late game.
However, I really prefer Zerg because they're so wildly different from anything in an RTS game ever. It's just that they are more challenging to play. So I'm working on 'em.
Terran to me is basic, and boring. ;P Steve's got a good Terran mid-late game.

2010-07-31T12:43:00.002-04:00

"Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind." --Dr. Seuss

That's about as 'inspirational' as I get with quotes. But I like this one.
=)

Today, a stream of consciousness poem

2010-07-24T12:40:00.001-04:00

Today
Today is a day.

Of "to".

Or is that too?
Or two?

Tooday. Also a day.
Twoday. A day so long it feels like two.
Twosday. A day for couples. Or twins?
Tuesday!

But it's Saturday.

Guild-ed

2010-07-24T02:02:00.002-04:00

I was considering creating a guild for my leveling priest. My idea was to invite pretty much anyone I came across (that didn't have an immature name, I do have standards ya know, even in my zanier schemes) and have a massive guild of players of all levels. Deep down I just wanted to make an active chartroom (guild chat) and make some easier options for grouping.

Well, tonight as I was again talking to Steve about it and tossing around guild name ideas and playing with the create a tabard interface, I was invited to a guild.
I immediately looked up the guild in the WoW Armory online and saw +230 characters in it; many lvl80s and many leveling characters as well. The GM was friendly with her invite, so I accepted.
Perfect.
She then ran me & another new recruit thru the Stockades just to get us more XP and for fun, with plenty of jokes in the party chat. Later she had her brother craft us some upgraded gear. Very nice!
Then the brother joined a couple of us for a dungeon, all the while we were chatting.

Talk about fulfilling my needs...!

(That's what she said!)

[There Steve, I updated my blog!]

2010-07-12T21:54:00.001-04:00

The world is more mysterious and your attitude is more sinister if you put your hood up.

Just a black hoodie, hood up.

Muhahahahaaaa! >:-]

WoW, just wow...

2010-07-04T01:00:00.004-04:00

Steve has been hangin' at my place on Friday nights, crashing there as we've been staying up very late.
Fun stuff: movies, YouTube vids, magic, WoW, plenty of booze & silliness. The past 2x we've gone at 1:30am to the new 24-hour diner up the road from me. Fun times. =)

Well, when talking about the bill last night, I was going to pay with my card and Steve only had 20s (the bill wasn't split). One of us mentioned paying me back via gold in World of Warcraft. Hehe. Or me buying gold off of Steve.
Then we were joking about it as we walked up to the register and the guy behind the counter said "Gold? Like World of Warcraft?"
Naturally our eyes lit up. '8-)

After talking with him, not only does he play WoW and is a cool guy from Albania, but he levels characters and sells 'em. He had WoW up & going in the backroom. Neat.
He gave us 10% off the bill and said anytime we come in he'll give that to us! =D
/geekout

Also, the Chinese food place up the street from me that I always get take out from has a guy there that plays WoW.
How do I know?
Once when Steve & I were there for a pickup, we noticed behind the counter was the Stormrage novel. Nerdnip, not something you'd just pick up at the library. ;P
Then today I was wearing my Alliance logo T-shirt (which I got on clearance Friday at Hot Topic for $5 down from $20!) and one of the guys smiled when he saw it. It was a knowing smile; even though he didn't say anything about it to me. ^_^

Say goodbye to Hollywood...

2010-07-04T00:31:00.005-04:00

Sara & I are no longer friends. Quiet permanently.

Over the past 4 or so months I've noticed her changing. Kind of becoming more immature and selfish. And spending a lot less time with me, or talking to me, and just seeming to not care about me at all. And any promise she's made since my birthday hasn't been kept. Very odd behavior. The few times going out were all about her & what she wanted to do.
When trying to call her out this change a couple of times, each time she'd get extremely mad and then try to shift the focus as if I was the one who has been changing. Irrational behavior.
This culminated in her not talking to me for several weeks in a row (her immature way to not dealing with a situation; whereas I, being mature, want to talk it out) despite my attempts to contact her with friendly words.

Then I find out last week from a mutual friend (and coworker, Adam, whom I'm becoming good friends with) what's up: she's been dating an old friend of hers: an alcoholic, ex-druggie! WTF?! She's gone off the deep-end.
As Adam put it: she's off her rocker, and she's delusional. Heh.

Fortunately for my sanity, Adam was seeing what I was seeing: her changes, her irrational behavior/attitude, etc, etc.

Then Monday after not talking to me for weeks on end, she said she wanted to come over to pick up her Wii. The days she suggested to do this were ones I already had plans (like swing lessons, etc). I remember how she acted with Spencer and taking her gifts to him back, and at this point I plain didn't want her near my pad, so I went out of my way to bring it to her after work.
After I got out of my car and handed her the bag with the Wii in it, she turned to walk away up the driveway. As she did, I politely asked her to delete my family & friends' contact info from her phone & email and then she blew up.
Yelling at me on the lawn, she couldn't even finish a sentence without jumping to something else -- things she said were completely irrational & untrue. Basically she was acting like a 5 year old throwing a temper tantrum. Complete with "I hate your guts!" Really? Yes. Reason? No idea. I hadn't done a thing.
I lifted up my sunglasses so she could look me in the eyes, and I smiled all the way through it, turning the other cheek & holding my tongue. I was in control and slung no mud back at her. She was out of control.
A good comparison would be Star Wars Episode 3 when Padme came to visit Anakin towards the end, and the continuing banter between delusional-Anakin and Obi-Wan. Sara was acting like Anakin, and I was the clear-headed Obi-Wan.

It's such a disappointment that what seemed to be a great friendship was destroyed by her attitude.
Oh well, a small blip on the time line of my life. I was just disappointed & annoyed. Otherwise I don't really care: if that's who she has become, then she has no place in my life. I'm mature enough to move on.

It does remind me how thankful I am to have good friends, ones I can always rely on being friends. Even if I don't see some of them very often (Jason, Megan, Spencer...) I'm still glad for them!

"So many faces in and out of my life / Some will last / Some will just be now and then / Life is a series of hellos and goodbyes / I'm afraid it's time for goodbye again."
--Billy Joel, Say Goodbye To Hollywood

Moving On

2010-06-20T18:07:00.004-04:00

Dear Rezzed, Blueshifts, Sweetxhearth, and Rancherowrap, and Zanasha:
I've moved away. Went to Mannoroth. Followed Mentalist & the guild. It's actually a lot better here: 4x as many players and more Alliance than Horde. We actually win Wintergrasp in the daytime here.
When patch 3.3.5 drops we'll be able to chat cross-server.
Until then,
--Vordacjinx.

And following that I've gotten 5 achievements in an afternoon (cleaning up the unfinished ones).
Finally, finally, finally dropped my lvl440 Tailoring and lvl 320 Enchanting, neither of which were doing anything for me. Picked up Alchemy & Herbalism: profitable and easy & quick to level up.

"Name change and I'm a new man now." ;P

Virtual/Digital Kindness

2010-06-16T21:56:00.006-04:00

Somebody... gave me something? Online?

I don't know how to react; truly selfless acts of kindness.

On my DeviantArt gallery, someone I have had no interactions with gave me a llama badge. This is basically a neat little gift within DeviantArt that's displayed on the profile.

When I was leveling my Undead Priestess in WoW a few weeks ago, and she was only ~level 10 so very new, I grouped with another player with a character of a similar level so we could finish a quest we had in common. That only took 5 min. Afterward s/he used his/her tailoring skill to make my character some upgraded cloth armor pieces... for free. S/he was just being nice.

Maybe,

Just maybe,

There is hope for humanity.

Nah.

Horde For Life, ay ay ay

2010-05-17T22:52:00.003-04:00

Horde For Life music video parody of T.I & Rihanna's Live Your Life.

Friday night Steve came over & spent the night for a little WoW LAN party. We created Horde characters on Smolderthorn. My goal is to level a Horde character before the next expansion, Cataclysm, is released which will sunder the world and change almost everything. I want to experience the Horde's "old world" content.
Picked Smolderthorn cause we know people IRL on it, so we may run into them. Also there's a 1:7.2 Alliance:Horde ratio. Heh heh.

I don't know what it is but I think the Horde side is cooler. Instead of ships to go between capital cities, Horde has Zeppelins. You actually ride them if they are taking you to a place that's on the same continent.
The NPC's greetings talk about honor and duty, instead of just "see you next time." Kinda Klingon-like. "Ka'pla"? ;P
I like the gothic-yet-neon look of Undercity. Nightmare Before Christmas or Corpse Bride's underworld gothic.

Stevo & my characters are lvl12 (him a troll Shaman, me an orc Warlock). He's already bored with leveling! He likes raiding, I like leveling (except it is sometimes too slow).
The goal was to play together only with these 2. But I wanna play more! So last night with nothing better to do I created a Death Knight. Leveled him from 55 to 58 and out of the DK starting zone in just 3 hours flat. Ended with 35 gold too! So that is a little bankroll for my Hordies since I don't really care about the DK.

I said Hordies, plural. Today (3 day weekend cause I work Sat) I started a new character: an undead Priestess. She's fun to fight with. Already level 9 in ~3 hours /played. She's got a fireball-type spell, healing spells, and a shield I can put up every 15 secs (lasts for 30 or until it absorbs max damage).
She's going to be my DPS shadow priestess. >8:-]

May the Fourth be with you.

2010-05-04T23:35:00.001-04:00

Installed new tail lights on my car tonight. Need to find a nice place and a sunny day so I can take some pro photos of my car, now that most every exterior mod I wanted is done. Just gotta debadge the sides (that means take off the chrome letters "PT Cruiser") and then attach the chrome script "Streetrod" emblem on the back hatch.
There's one more major customization I want to do. A bit pricey and totally worth it: black flames on the hood. But that can wait a while.

Showed off the iPad to my parents. Had a lot of fun zipping around the Google Maps app to our vacation spots, our house in NY, my parents' houses that they grew up in. Then my Mom noticed that you can drop a pin and accidentally initiated the street view. Awesome! Panning around on the iPad was great. So I jumped to a few neat places after we scoped out our old house in NY... I showed her The Strip in Vegas. Then after seeing the Eiffel Tower in Vegas on the street view, I jumped to the real one in Paris. Awesome. Then Stonehenge.
Then the town of Voltaggio in Italy. Then Catalafima in Sicily, where the Voltaggios emigrated from to America about a hundred years ago. Very neat.

Evolution... like the dinosaur

2010-05-04T00:06:00.000-04:00

I bought an iPad.
Yep. Me.
As you know I'm not a fan of Apple -- it's just a trendy version of Microsoft. Yet people think MS is evil but Apple is "cool". Sure. And I'm also a big fan of Linux for the indie computing.

The iPad is a worthwhile toy. And a step into the future.

I got to play with Jason's Sat night and it is fun. So after some research later that night, I went out Sunday to the Apple store in Columbia mall (good day for a topless drive and I actually got sunburned a bit) and was in and out in 5 min. Seriously!

Aside from games and Internet & email, I also am using it as a digital and portable sketch book. I downloaded Adobe Ideas, vector-based drawing, as well as Sketchbook Pro for a few bucks. SBP has many different brushes, options, and layers. =) Plus the file can be saved as a Photoshop psd project file...

I also set up a few things like I'm used to at work so I can remote into my home PC using the iPad. That could be useful when I'm out & about... ;P

The keyboard is nice. No more typos than I get with a normal keyboard.
Yeah, I typed this entry on the iPad.

More impressions of it to come...

Just dance...!

2010-04-28T21:37:00.005-04:00

I feel so empowered right now. Tonight was the last of the 8-week Lindy Hop lessons. Sara didn't come because she got great seats to the Yanks-vs-O's game from work (she's taking me tomorrow). That didn't stop me from going.
Yeah traveling 35-40 min alone kind of sucks. But it was so worth it.
The last class was a review of things we learned. In the style of "remember this, this and this? Do just those moves to music for a few minutes" ...then "remember this & this? Add those to it, freestyle". And on and on. Very empowering because we could do it.

Then, and this was great, they taught us how to Lindy Hop to fast music. She put on music a little faster than what we learned to for a minute, then switch partners and a slightly faster song... etc, etc... until we got to "Shout and Feel It" from the Swing Kids soundtrack (you KNOW how much I love that song baby!).
At that point I was dancing with a gal who gets it like I do, and we busted out a couple of high speed, high-energy swingouts that felt perfect. Unfortunately the instructor stopped the music just a bit after it started because apparently no one else could keep up with the speed. Slow pokes! ;P
[Well, that song is around 200bpm (beats per minute)...!]
I think I'm going to take the next class, with or without Sara...

Full moon, beautiful cool night. Happy Diavo. =)
For the first time in a few years I'm as close as I've been to getting back into swing dancing. This time around I'm aiming for the social scene, and not "putting all of my eggs in one basket" so to speak by only training/dancing with my girlfriend-at-the-time.

A couple of girls in my class have told me I should come to the Monday night swing dances. I plan to now. It just sucks that it's on the other side of Baltimore and inward, so any way I go it'll take 40-45 min to get to. And on a Monday, not a weekend. >:-P

I miss Glen Echo. ::sigh::

Also, I find swivels very attractive. ^_^

Waltzes just don't have feeling / Nor does ballet my friends / You know in the end / That you and your gal / Need to swing, and swing, and swing / Cause you love that sting that's SWINGS!
--Big Tubba Mista, The Sting That's Swing

Wii

2010-04-18T13:52:00.003-04:00

I was planning on buying a Wii this weekend. Something better happened: Sara lent me hers indefinitely. ^_^

Steve's is set up at the house, so she hasn't used hers since she moved in over the summer. Last night after work (last Sat working for a while) I popped into Best Buy... then Toys R Us... then Target, looking for the Ghostbusters game. No dice. Fortunately all 3 stores are within a mile strip on the same road as my apartment; I didn't travel far. So instead I bought my second choice: Star Wars The Force Unleashed.

I played a little of it at Jason's on the Xbox360 so I knew it was fun. But man-oh-man, the Wii controls make it awesome.
The right hand's nunchuck controls your character's right hand as it uses force powers. Z-button activated Force Grip (telekinesis) and moving the nunchuck in physical space, as well as the joystick on it maneuvers what- or whomever you're levitating. Without the Z-button pressed, the control stick moves the your character. And just thrusting the nunchuck forward instantly throws out a Force Push. >:-]
Left hand, the Wii-mote, controls the slashes of your lightsaber: left, right, up, down, stab forward.

Tax Season Complete.

2010-04-15T22:57:00.004-04:00

Well, I got my tax returns back this week. Deposited 'em today at lunchtime. My Dad did my taxes without me asking -- I intended to do them with him double-checking me, but he asked me to give him my forms and he went ahead and did them & mailed 'em in.
I must have misheard him when he told me how much I was getting back, I thought he said $500 and $100.
Instead I got close to $1200 total!
W00t!

Time to order those chrome smootie hub caps... and new tail lights for my car...
Also, I'm probably going to buy a Wii this weekend. On Tuesday a new game comes out, Monster Hunter Tri, and a few of us at work want to play it together co-op. ^_^

And today was the last day of tax season. We actually weren't crazy busy at work like I expected for this week. Thank goodness!
After I left work, popped into my apartment to change, then over to Sara & Steve's. They were chillin' in the 2 hammocks so I joined 'em for a bit. Steve was going to make his yummy mac & cheese but then realized he's out of cheese. Sara heard that today for tax day PF Chang's was giving 15% off meals. So we went to the one in Towson. "Herro prease." Yum!
Then, food coma.
*happy*

Car & magic... and magic

2010-04-11T22:52:00.009-04:00

Love my new car. =)
The weather was great last week for having the top down. We actually had 2 record highs Tues & Wed: it got into the upper 80s!
I love the feeling of leaving work, putting the top down, then crusin' on the beltway without traffic to Sara's [especially if it's Wed and we then head into the city (Canton-area) for Lindy lessons]. "Freedom!"
I bought & received the black outline gauge flames. And from the same company, I bought custom vinyls for the ugly air bag warning stickers on the sun visors. It's PT Cruiser car color-matched metallic blue with silver text: "BLUE BOMBER" which is what I named her. B-)
I have blue fuzzy dice, curb feelers, and the metal script "Streetrod" emblem which should arrive tomorrow.
Next: the chrome smoothie hub caps. (Smartly after another paycheck or I get my tax returns back)
Then: 3-D tail lights.
Then: black flames on the hood.
Still on the fence about the chrome front grille. Leaning toward no. Especially if I do black flames on the hood. >8:-]

Haven't played much WoW since I got the car... getting excited about the third expansion pack (Catacylsm) that comes out in [probably] a few months. Some major, major changes will comes along. Whoa.
Popped on tonight to check my mail. Want to do some "light" raiding with the awesome guild I'm in. Also really want to level my Druid -- it just... takes... so... long sometimes.

This morning Stevo called me to say that in an hour Daniel Garcia was lecturing at The Magic Warehouse, a magic shop 5 min from my apartment and 30 seconds from where I work here in Owings Mills. I leapt at chance. We were thinking of seeing his lecture at Denny & Lee's on Fri night, but I've got to work Sat 9-5 so I wouldn't be able to stay out late and would be anxious to leave to get to bed as soon as it was over. Bleh.
This was perfect: Sunday afternoon, extremely close location, air conditioned, without most of the usual bleh magicians that would be at Denny's. Also, we got the last 2 seats because we didn't have reservations. Those were 2 front row seats, on the side!
The Magic Warehouse is a nice magic shop: clean, air conditioned, with rooms of stuff. It's all on shelves in display boxes so you can pick up items and look at them; not behind glass or behind the counter.
After the lecture Steve & I impromtu-ly got Chinese & ate it back at my place, and jammed with cards for another 2 hours or so.

My coz Joe spent the night Friday -- came up from NC, met me at Sara's during her own hosted birthday party. Fun times that night. He's coming back tomorrow and just spending the night. Sara's supposed to come over after work too. Gotta give her the bday present I made (I'll prob put up a pic afterwards).

Bleh: this week is going to suck at work. It's the last week of tax season. I predict a lot of desperate people trying to log on to check the tax forms for their various financial accounts and thus needing password resets, and trying to download those forms into Turbo Tax at the last minute. Fools.
Or suckers.
Not sure which applies better.
It's like in college and you write a paper the night before it's due and go to print it out at like midnight and the printer is out of ink. Don't do important stuff at the last minute!

I bought a PT Cruiser!

2010-04-04T21:31:00.002-04:00

Last Friday night (3/26) I bought a 2005 PT Cruiser convertible!
It's electric blue, with dark gray interior, and a black ragtop. B-)

I put a down payment in, and the dealer took my Saturn for a decent price (more than it might've been worth in my opinion) and financed the rest.

Here are some initial photos I took at my parents' last weekend: coolness.
It came with aftermarket chrome gas door, side spears on the lower doors, and chrome tail light covers.

So far I've already put a K&N air filter in and modified the stock airbox for a little more power. And I added a chrome tailpipe. Naturally my blue dice shift knob is on.
This afternoon Frederick & I installed a black Sony Xplod stereo (with aux input of course) that has blue lighting. I took off the antenna (I don't listen to the radio) and put a silver screw in it's place.
The only issue with the car is that the 2 cigarette lighters don't work. Gotta check the fuses for 'em when I get a chance.

Of course I've already made a build sheet for what I want to do to my new baby. Just a few additions/alterations.

EXTERIOR
Full Moon Hollywood hubcaps (chrome smooties like I had on my old Cruiser)
3-D retro tail lights (maybe these)
Chrome front grille (maybe)
Remove the PT Cruiser logos on the sides
Affix chrome "Streetrod" script lettering on the rear hatch
Curb feelers
Black flames on the hood and maybe behind the head lights (eventually...)

INTERIOR
Blue fuzzy dice
Gauge flames (neat)
Blue neon lights under front footwells

Dance Muscles Powered Up

2010-02-22T23:31:00.005-05:00

So, an hour of dancing 2x a week for a couple of weeks and I think I've managed to revitalized my "atrophied" muscles to nearly-full restore. The only real way to test it would be to dance full on with my ex-partner/ex-girlfriend, and that certainly isn't going to happen.

Now dancing for an hour barely makes me tired, and my upper body strength (for lifting, throwing) is strong again. I'm barely out of breath and I am mostly only because I'm trying to sing and/or whistle the song while dancing.
This is definitely a good thing to counteract all the sitting around I do at work 8 hours a day. >:-P

Poor Sara, she can't keep up with me... she wimped out after only half an hour tonight. ;P
I need to find me a girlfriend with stamina baby, yeah. >8:-]

Razer Naga

2010-02-16T22:41:00.004-05:00

Yesterday I had lunch with Stevo and we hit Best Buy. He wanted a new headset for WoW... I wanted new electronics with an eye toward mice. While Steve was looking at headsets, I was reading reviews on a couple of mice via my cell phone's internet browser -- smart.

I bought the Razer Naga. 17 buttons, a grid of 3x4 on the left side. Fully customizable of course.

It glows blue with LEDs along the mouse wheel, and each number in the grid (1-12) lights up, and there's a slow pulsing Razer logo that gets covered by your palm. If I want to I can turn the logo or the other lights off.

The mouse feels good in the hand. All of those buttons don't get in the way, and they aren't super-sensitive so they don't get accidentally pushed; the thumb can rest comfortably on them. The main buttons (classic left and right) have a resistance-free "bounce" to them; light to the push. The wheel isn't flimsy and has a good springy resistance.

The mouse is lightweight which is comfortable, and has an incredibly high DPI sensitivity range -- I have it set to 2,000 DPI and it can go all the way up to 5,600 DPI!

After playing WoW yesterday afternoon and this evening with it, customizing most of the buttons to special spells & jazz, I can definitively say this mouse rocks my world. ^_^

I also want to customize my Freelancer Discovery keys to map onto the mouse... ooh baby. Actually, I could probably map all the buttons I actually use onto the mouse in Freelancer...
Then maybe map my most used tools and jazz in Photoshop for max efficiency. That way I'd only really need the Wacom pen in my left hand and my mouse in my right -- talk about max control! >8-]

Photo of it on my desk, taken with my cell phone in a rush:

Unfulfilled

2010-02-15T23:08:00.003-05:00

I felt so unsatisfied tonight:
After an hour she was exhausted & couldn't take it anymore.
I barely broke a sweat: I could've gone for several hours more.
We didn't even do anything complicated.
I've got such stamina. ^_^

Of course I'm talking about dancing. ;P

II. Blizzard 2010

2010-02-11T14:15:00.004-05:00

We got another 20-something inches from Tuesday afternoon thru Wednesday night.
The untouched snow, like on the grass areas, is nearly up to my hips.

I added more pics of this snowpocalypse to my Blizzard 2010 gallery.

Oy.

Synthetic Alcohol

2010-02-08T16:23:00.002-05:00

Alcohol substitute that avoids drunkenness and hangovers in development (via Telegraph.co.uk)

Whaaaa--? This just can't be as good. ;P

I. Blizzard 2010

2010-02-07T13:52:00.005-05:00

Friday Feb 5th through Saturday Feb 6th we got between 2 and 3 FEET of snow.
It started around 11am on Friday, but didn't start sticking until the temperature dropped that 1 degree around 2:30pm.
We were let out of work early, at 4pm once the market closed.
By the time I went to bed ~11:30pm we had about 4 inches of snow; not bad.
By the time I woke up Sat morning (~7:30am since I had a conference call at 8am for work) there were at least 2 feet of snow, and it continued to snow until about 3pm.
I haven't measured it exactly, but I hear it's ~28".

The apartment maintenance team impressed me -- twice Friday night, twice, they had a snow blower and cleared the walkways, then again Saturday afternoon. And the parking lot was plowed.
Unfortunately, the back of the lot where I park is like 3 inches of ice, and our cars are plowed in.

I wasn't able to acquire a shovel in the days prior to Friday, so all I have to work with is a dust pan. The snow is a little icy, so that little plastic dust pan literally isn't going to cut it.

Reisterstown Road had 2 lanes plowed clear. But the road out of my neighborhood is bad; compacted snow. A taxi was stuck and some people were pushing it but couldn't get it free. Other cars that tried to move from their parking spots were also getting stuck just trying to maneuver.

As you can infer, I took a walk around the apt complex. I had the notion to take a walk up to a store and maybe see if I could buy a shovel, but there aren't any walkways carved for pedestrians on Reisterstown Road, plus those steeps hills, and the lack of open stores... not worth the hike.

Here is my little Blizzard 2010 photo album -- a few pics I snapped during my stroll. I particularly like the snowballs that rolled down the hill.

zOMG -- Birthday Surprise Party!

2010-02-06T12:45:00.004-05:00

January 30th, 2009. I turned 29. Best birthday weekend ever!
It was a snowy day, and all afternoon long I held out the hopes that my birthday night plans of going swing dancing at Glen Echo with Sara & Stevo would not get dashed. However, the snow continued to the early evening, and the roads were terrible.

[Note: one of the saddest situations I could ever be in would be to be all alone on major holidays: my birthday, Christmas, Halloween, NYE, etc...]

I jumped at the chance when Sara offered to have me come over anyway ~6pm, just to hang out; which meant I would at least have Sara & Steve (the other Steve) to be with and we would drink & have a grand old time.
The trip to Sara's in normal traffic takes me ~20 minutes, almost all highway so it feels faster. It takes closer to 15 min without traffic. 795 > 695 > 83. That night it took about an hour. Crawling at 20mph on 695 -- the roads were BAD. The only reason I drove was because I couldn't stand being alone on my birthday.

I got to Sara's safe & sound. When walking up the driveway I saw a mostly snow-covered black station wagon with NC plates. I had the brief thought of "Huh, my coz Joe has a black station wagon with NC plates," but that thought passed because Steve has many random friends from many places, so it was likely to be one of them I haven't met yet.
Besides, I talked to Joe just a couple of hours prior, he was in NC: he was telling me about the snow in NC.
I came in and Sara gave me a big hug (typical) and I said hi to Steve who was on the couch playing Dr. Mario on the Wii (typical).
Then around the corner walks my cousin Joe!!!!
I was nearly knocked off my feet. My jaw hung open for 30 seconds easily as time seemed to hold still with my disbelief, then I gave him a huge hug (pretty typical actually, heh). Best birthday surprise ever. [Well, until Sunday.]
Joe had come up to MD Friday night, staying at my parents' house Fri night.

Sara had decorated the house with various swing/jazz pictures I had in my old bedroom which I hadn't yet retrieved from home. She had been planning a surprise party for that night for 2-3 weeks, and the previous Sunday was at my house planning with my Mom. Of course the terrible snow canceled the party, but I was 100% fine with that -- the surprise of Joe being there was certainly enough.
We hung out all evening, played some Rock Band (Joe's first time), drank a bit, watched the latest Star Trek movie. Joe was so tired there was no way he could drive back to my apt, so we both crashed at Sara's.

Sunday late morning we get up and Joe & I drove to my apartment. I thought the plan was to head there, chill for a bit, take showers, then go to my parent's and then meet my sis & bro-in-law at Applebee's in Columbia.
Heh.
Wrong.
So I had offered to have Sara either come back with us, or we'd come back to pick her up if she wanted to come along with my family birthday dinner. It was the least I could do to offer; and also a fairly big deal in my world. She accepted. So Joe & I headed back to "pick up" Sara ~2:30pm.
We walked in the door and a deafening "SURPRISE!" nearly knocked me off my feet -- again.
Most of my friends, and all of my MD family were there! I was absolutely shocked, a second time.

I don't even need to type any more details: it was awesome. Best birthday ever.
I would never had made such a big deal of my own birthday, I don't need copious presents; I just simply don't want to be alone on it.
But wow. Just wow.
Sara wins.

Also:
Stevo's txts both Saturday and again Sunday were so perfect and natural that it helped contribute greatly to the surprises. Good job!

Also also:
Pictures can be found at my sister's Facebook album of the event.

Digital Painting

2010-01-30T00:43:00.004-05:00

I've always been so precise when drawing... that's why it would take me several hours to do each comic back when I was actively drawing my old webcomic.

It wasn't until I started studying the loose line style of Jhonen Vasquez's comic Johnny The Homicidal Maniac and assimilating it into my own style that I began to get loose with my line work. Less precise. Less perfect. For better art.

The casual, imprecise digital painting style has always eluded me. Tonight I did some researching online and read a few tutorials, and examined some digital painting works. Then I tried my hand (and my Wacom tablet of course) at the loose style of digital painting.

Basically it's all about low opacity & low flow brushes. The tablet takes care of the flow by pen pressure, so boiled down it's all about using low opacity brushes and overlaying strokes.

Here's a marble I made ;P

Rockin' & Rollin'

2010-01-27T22:47:00.008-05:00

She wants to go out for drinks & night life afterward.

Heh.

I don't think she realizes how exhausted we might be.

Well, we always were. I guess the physical exertion Saturday night won't be quite at the level the few of us got used to a couple of years ago. Then again, we aren't nearly in as good a shape as back then. Heh, or as young. ;P

On a related note, I shared the 3 swing dance jams videos of me & my ex with some of my co-workers and my supervisor (she dances). That was uncharacteristic of me, and I wouldn't have shown off except the topic came up about me dancing & Glen Echo & such, and they were intrigued that there were videos of me dancing online. Compliments came my way, and I'm glad they enjoyed the vids.
I watch those vids with a heavy critiquing eye nowadays -- certain things never had the form they should have had (the start of the pretzel makes me cringe every time!) -- but we had the spirit. I endeavor to get better this time.
I want to do it with Lindy Hop.

Dancing to me is a celebration... of music, of life, of happiness.

Heard about sex but not enough / Found you can dance and still look tough, anyway, / Oh yes I did.
[Billy Joel, Keeping The Faith]

2010-01-19T22:07:00.001-05:00

Life is good. =)

(It just had to be stated.)

Reflection on 2009

2010-01-19T22:03:00.002-05:00

19 days later than I intended (took a while to remember everything/most of it), here's my reflection on 2009 list.

Instead of trite New Years Resolutions I make a list of all the good & positive experiences & events & jazz from the previous year. This way I can see all the wonderful things that comprised my life, and be thankful for.
This isn't everything (not all of it goes public, hehe)...

*Got a full-time career!
*Got myself my own apartment!
*Got a new desktop computer, quad-core.
*Installed a car stereo into my Saturn, with lots of help from my bro-in-law
*Went to new clubs/bars in Baltimore
*Stayed in bars/clubs till nearly-dawn, after hours parties (Russian and otherwise)
*Had a crush on a girl and felt like a schoolboy again.
*Went to Manhattan, for the first time in many years, with Stevo
*Did sound for Cirque du Soleil at Illusions
*Saw No Doubt in concert with my sister
*Had Sara over on 4th of July, with my Aunt & Uncle and sis & bro-in-law... then she & I spontaneously went to DC and just missed the fireworks
*Went to the beach with Stevo, stayed at his friend Corey's place
*Moved my website from the now-defunct Geocities to Angelfire
*Learned about my synesthesia
*New cell phone: Samsung Rogue
*An Autumn afternoon in Georgetown
*Tried new (foreign) foods -- yes, me, really
*Did a show with Spencer & Jerry in Binghamton, NY -- magic road trip!
*Saw my Uncle Dan whom I haven't seen in 6-7 years at a big Fam party (Mom's side)
*Freed myself of a "ball & chain" ;P
*I blushed, in public
*Made new friends
*Made new drinks
*Got lots of hugs
*And a few kisses from strangers :-*

Cooking!

2010-01-12T19:56:00.004-05:00

Everyone knows I love creating things: art, stories, music, Lego models.

After 2 nights of actually cooking in my apartment for myself I've discovered I get the same satisfaction from cooking as I do when creating art, or music & such.

I have a big wok, and that's perfect for cooking chopped up chicken breasts with other "stuff".
Last night I mixed in dried chili peppers with some sweet-&-sour sauce, then canned pineapple chunks at the last minute (so they didn't cook much). Yum.

Tonight I added stir fry sauce, soy sauce, chili powder, a bit of lime juice, and a little sweet-&-sour sauce -- yum! It was just missing a bed of rice. I soaked up the extra sauciness on my plate with raw baby carrots. ^_^

Next I need to work on making more than 1 dish at a time. ;P

Rockin' & Rollin'

2010-01-10T22:28:00.005-05:00

I'm now rockin' dual monitors on my desk!
I bought the DVI cable this morning so I could use that for my fancy 20" wide-screen flat-panel LCD, and the standard VGA monitor cable for the standard 15" flat-panel LCD that used to be my sister's.
Then I downloaded a program called DisplayFusion to have different wallpapers for each monitor.
I can finally have an entire (and wide) screen for Photoshop's canvas space, and all of the toolbars/palettes/layers & history lists on the other monitor. And of course I can play games (WoW) and have other programs (Firefox!) up on the other monitor. ;P

Had a mostly successful trip to Ikea today with my sis & bro-in-law. I got a 2 drawer "nightstand" for next to my desk, to hold office supplies. I also got the big square-with-swirl metal edges mirror for over my dresser, and 3 tall skinny wavy mirrors for my "hallway" (the wall just inside the door).
I intended to buy a largish bookshelf, but they were out of stock.

I'm decorating and converting my bathroom as a Steampunk style. For a birthday present Sara's making me a Steampunk-y shower curtain (we picked out fabrics Fri night). I have some ideas for decorating with gears in there... >8:-]

Also, I made the perfect Kraft mac & cheese tonight. I love having a gas stove & range. ^_^

And yes, I am a bit of a bookworm. I've been reading a whole lot more since I got into my apartment -- having the solitude [when I'm not out with friends] and a comfortable place to lay & read [my cushy leather couch] is a good set up for reading books instead of the monitor [monitors now!].
By the time I own a house, I want one whole room to be lined with bookshelves, all full of books I've read.
A trip to The Book Thing of Baltimore, a free book "store" (more like small warehouse actually), is in store for my near future. Perhaps this weekend.

My Apartment

2010-01-06T23:02:00.002-05:00

Yes I'm "here ...at my apartment."
It's stocked: dishes & glasses, pots & pans, utensils & all the necessary kitchen stuff -- a new large bed with the perfect mattress for me & new dresser & nightstand all from Ikea -- a big comfy leather couch for a perfect price -- other necessary furniture including a 1950's diner style kitchen table with stools.
I really only need bookshelves now... and I have lots of books.

On Jan 1st I fully moved into my apartment, sleeping there & all.
The next day my cousin Joe came down from NJ on his route back to NC (Sunday) and spent the night. Stevo also came over as I hosted a "World of Warcraft" party. The intent was to geek out and play WoW all night... and we did play plenty of WoW. I also had several movies playing: Ghostbusters, Spaceballs, Hook, Something-something Darkside, etc...
As party favors, I was planning on making WoW Hearthstones from clay and painting a swirl in 'em but I just did not get the time beforehand, so the idea is still in my head, waiting for some free time.

My commute has gone from 35-55 [variable, the worst part] minutes down to ~10 minutes, and that has done my psyche lots of good. Baltimore's beltway traffic is just as stressful and annoying as any major city's -- even despite that fact that I can keep it cool. The only thing I miss about the time is having that time to sing & be isolated, although going to and from work isn't any enjoyable time for that.
I do very much enjoy the long (4.5 hours, now 5) trips to/from NC when I visit Joe. That kind of traveling on the open road with the music playing and nothing to do but enjoy the easy drive, sing, and get lost in my thoughts is very enjoyable.

I started my annual list of good things that happened to me/I experienced from the previous year, but getting a full-time career job and my own apartment overshadows just about all of everything else that happened in 2009... stay tuned for the list.

LFG Heroics

2009-12-20T13:00:00.007-05:00

Well, it snowed for 24 hours straight and we got ~22" of soft powdery, Christmas joy. This also canceled the plans of my sister & bro-in-law moving most of their stuff into their apartment. Thus I had nothing to do all day Saturday and nowhere was I going. So, WoW.

So I spent the afternoon off & on and most of the evening playing WoW.
I recently created a new character to be my Auction House auctioneer and banker. That means I won't be leveling this character, her only purpose is to check the Auction House periodically for deals for reselling & such, and my other characters will mail her loot that can be sold. She thus holds on to the bulk of my gold and stays parked in the city.

Meanwhile I decided to make use of Patch 3.3's new Dungeon Finder in-game tool with my main Warlock. It allows you to queue for groups of your level across servers. Awesome.
I started with random WotLK regular dungeons since I never did most of them while leveling, was unsure if I was geared up enough to do the Heroic versions (they tend to be 30-50% harder -- ie, mobs have up to twice as much health and hit that much harder), and am out of practice for raiding. So I played several normal-mode 5-man instances. I got lucky and ran thru some of the new Ice Crown Citadel instances (3 runs total) and got 4 pieces of upgraded gear -- iLevel 219!
Then Stevo & I got on Skype and he convinced me to do Heroic versions and I did -- and rocked 'em! >8:-]
I was able to acquire 45 Emblems of Triumph throughout the evening and at the end of the night bought a sweet pair of pauldrons, major upgrade. I socketed 'em and threw an enchantment I bought with WG's Stone Keeper Shards on 'em.

Steve also introduced me to an add-on called GearScore. It shows me what my gear score (adding all the Item Levels of all of my gear), and adds the gear score to the tooltips so I can see everyone else's gear score. It also has a handy chart to show what instances/dungeons are around my level with that gear score! =D

I also learned some things about managing my aggro. That started when I was the overpowering 'lock in Halls of Lightning normal mode with a group of level 78-79ers. If I pulled aggro off the tank on bosses, we'd wipe. And we did. I had to DPS sslloowwllyy to avoid that.
Then Stevo tanked an instance just to mess around (it was late at night) and I hadn't updated my Recount add-on (which shows how much damage I'm putting out) so I only had Omen Threat Meter add-on to determine "how well I'm doing". I reasoned that if I'm pulling aggro off Steve that I must be putting out quite a bit. ;P He confirmed: 2700 DPS on one of the bosses. That's a new high for me. >8:-]

Ikea Shopping

2009-12-13T11:28:00.002-05:00

Saturday I showed my parents my apartment -- they were impressed & happy for me. Then we headed to my sister & bro-in-law's [who are signing the lease for their new apt in Columbia as I type this] and the 5 of us went to Ikea in White Marsh in 3 cars so I could do some shopping.
I love Ikea. ^_^

I was able to get everything I wanted (plus a few other things) -- a bed & mattress, dresser, nightstand, end table, coffee table. I also picked up a set of 6 cool glasses (perfect size to fill with ice and pour half-full for a perfect 2 oz. pour), a blue comforter with lines on it, and a few more kitchen gadgety things [knives! with black & white handles!].
We got back to my place in the late afternoon and hauled everything inside. Mom & Marie ran out to get pizza while Dad, Frederic & I started building. Dad & I also built the red retro diner table & stools which I had bought at a Target like 3-4 years ago because 1.) it's AWESOME and 2.) it was on sale for $30, down from $130 and the only one!

The next thing I need to buy is a couch. I've been looking at futons, so I can have a place for someone visiting to sleep on... but I have yet to find a futon that's A.) very comfortable, B.) sized well [many are too long in the seat] and 3.) has arms. None of the futons at Ikea were to my liking. There's one at Value City Furniture that looks cool, but until I sit on it I can't tell if it'll be comfortable at all -- most of them you can feel the springs when sitting. >:-P
Mostly likely I'll just get a "normal" couch... but then I'll get it shipped, and have to be at the apt when it arrives and... oy.

I also have to plan when to get the Verizon FiOS hooked up -- gotta be a weekend since I work all day during the week of course. I can just use my laptop, so I won't have to haul my desktop over before potentially sleeping there permanently -- home is where my computer is. >8-]
And I have to see how much the cable will be on top of the internet access... cause I can live without TV. The only shows I watch are the ones I watch with Jason, and I'd rather watch 'em with Jason & Megan than just by myself. Tho I can see having the TV on while playing on my computer just to fill all the silence... ;P

2009-12-08T22:49:00.001-05:00

Blogger glitched somehow and now I can't properly edit the previous post on Manhattan for typos or to post the link to the pics.

Anyway, a couple of pics I took from NYC are here.

Manhattan in the Rain/Snow

2009-12-08T22:14:00.003-05:00

Saturday, Dec 5th Stevo & I took a charter bus from his college (Stevenson, formerly known as Villa Julie, right near where I work) up to Manhattan.
Fun times!

The bus left at 8:15am. It was lightly raining in NYC when we arrived around noon. By 4pm that had turned to snow (big flakes) but never stuck to the ground, which was soaked.

We got dropped off at 46th & 6th, and Steve & I walked down to Herald Square (Macy's), as Tannen's Magic Shop is near there (34th).
Popped into Tannen's... nice to say I've been there now, but nothing special about it really ,except the history.
Steve wanted to take a cab from there to Canal St to Chinatown, but I convinced him to take the subway. That saved us about $20, and Steve got to get comfortable taking the subway.
We walked around Chinatown, Steve bought a couple of watches (haggled of course) and I bought the standard white "I <3 NY" T-shirt, for $3.
Then we wandered, with Steve's map, looking for the Ghostbuster's firehouse. We found it! =)
After that we got back on the subway (missed the 2 hour mark on our metro cards by just 2 minutes!) and took it up back to Times Square.

We met up with 2 Australian guys (in their late 30s?) whom Steve knows from his guild in World of Warcraft! The 4 of us were lounging in a coffee shop for somewhere between an hour and a half to 2 hours. At first it was a little awkward I think, but once we started talking about the common ground -- WoW -- the conversation was never-ending. ;P
On a side-note, I can't find the name of that coffee shop anywhere online. I thought it was something like Gregory's Caffe & Bakery, but it was only a few blocks from Times Square...

After that, we set off to walking around more... up/down (?) 5th Ave... we went to Rockefella Center to see the Christmas tree (by this point it was ~4pm and snowing) and I was able to snap a few good photos of the lit tree.

Then we headed to the south-west corner of Central Park, where the apt building used at the end of Ghostbusters is... That was neat to see.
Following that we backtracked and popped into The Shops at Columbus Circle, spending a good deal of time at Borders. At this point my hat was dripping wet. >:-/

We killed a hour or so in that mall, then headed back toward Times Square, looking for a place to eat dinner on the way. Decided on Applebee's if the wait wasn't too long, and it was only 10-15 min (and we only waited like 7 min). That was a mere 2 blocks from where the bus would pick us up at 8pm. Applebee's in Manhattan was much more expensive than anywhere else -- I didn't expect that... appetizers were 2x normal price, and entrees were +$8 or so above normal. Despite being packed, service was fast -- we probably waited less than ever for our entrees.

When we arrive back at 46th & 6th and saw a bunch of other people from the bus, we knew we had more fun than anyone else. ^_^ Of course, we were soaked thru-and-thru all day [I don't think I've been more wet, even in the shower...!!], but that's because we walked around all day in the rain/snow... and didn't wimp out and stay indoors/in cabs all day -- we had an adventure!
>8:-]

I was texting with my sister off and on all day -- getting her weather report of the Baltimore area, so I knew to expect to come back to 4-5" of snow. That was fun, everyone getting off the bus and scrambling to clean off their cars. And that wasn't powdery snow, oh no, it was icy snow. Safe drive home though.

Enchanted Hills

2009-12-07T20:55:00.011-05:00

Last weekend (a week ago) on Saturday, my sister & bro-in-law came over and borrowed my laptop downstairs to look at apartments in Columbia (where they are now moving to later this month) with my Mom.
I popped downstairs to see what sites they were on and casually asked them to search for apartments in the Owings Mills/Reisterstown area. We found a few in my price range, with varying reviews, and 1 that seemed perfect for me at a great price. I decided I'd do a little research during the week, then I went back upstairs to play WoW, knowing Stevo was on...
When Marie & Frederic were ready to leave, they asked what time I was coming over (they live Reisterstown), and I shrugged and said noon-ish.
They basically forced me into looking at this apartment... and when we were there the gal said there was a waiting list 6 people long for Jan-Feb move-ins. But one apt might be available for early Dec. So I knew my financial situation, so I applied for the apt.
By the next day (Monday) I got a phone call saying my application was approved, and the lady they were holding that apt for never answered her phone, so it was mine. I came in at lunch on Tues to sign the lease, then Friday I paid my deposit and first month's rent and got my keys.

Friday night after work Marie & I went to Target and a nearby dollar store (actually, almost every store ever is up & down the main road my apt is off of: Reisterstown Road), then met up with Frederic when he got home from work.
We got take-out Chinese food and took it to my [empty] apartment & ate on the floor. ^_^

Here are some of those pics from Friday night... [I swear no alcohol was involved!] The place is actually bigger than it looks in the pics (it's 850 sq feet), since the photographer [myself] takes up space even when backed up to the wall. You'll have to come over and see it for yourself when I get settled in! =)

I'm taking my time moving stuff in. I want to have a full Christmas at home...

Next weekend my Family & I are going up to Ikea and I'm buying a new bed (bigger!), dresser, night stand, and whatever fun [smaller] things abound.
I found a cheap-but-good futon I want for my couch (obviously doubling as a bed for someone to crash on) elsewhere.

Rain, rain, go away...

2009-12-02T22:29:00.000-05:00

I love the sound of rain on the roof as I lay in bed falling asleep.
But I'm so sick of driving in it!
When did monsoon season develop in freakin' Baltimore?!

C____

2009-11-27T21:41:00.002-05:00

I had my first candy cane of the season. It was... amazing.
There aren't words for that kind of satisfaction. =D

Herbalism & Alchemy

2009-11-26T11:34:00.004-05:00

Played WoW leveling my DK all evening. Stevo was raiding during the pre-midnight hours, and it's fun to get updates on what's going on on the other side of the world... of Warcraft [couldn't resist that one sorry, hehe]. I cleared all the quests in Zangarmarsh & got the achievement for that.

I started around 8:30pm at early-level 63 and leveled to 64 and 75% into it by ~1am. That's about when Steve was finished with raiding, so we got on Skype. Then we did a smash-&-grab thru Blood Furnace so I could complete 2 dungeon quests for that place. Then I was at 97% so as we B.S.'d around Honor Hold (town nearby) I convinced him to do it again till I hit 65. We did, I dinged. /dance

Then I was in the Scryer's Library in Shattrath (tho I hate blood elves... they're so pretentious, ew). There are bookshelves for every profession in the game, and my DK didn't yet have any professions (you can learn & train up to 2).
I wanted a 'gathering' prof so I could sell that jazz on the Auction House and make money. Herbalism (picking plants) or Mining (mining ore nodes for raw ore) would suffice, but being level 65 means to level a gathering prof I'd have to go to the starting areas and spending time leveling my character and only leveling the prof [professions are generally meant to be worked on as you level up your character].
I also wanted to have Alchemy, which allows you to brew all sorts of potions -- not just health & mana potions, but stuff like "underwater breathing" and "run speed increase" potions. I also get the Mixology feature, and at the max level you also get 'bottomless' potions for your use only. >8:-]

So, it was 2:30am and Stevo & I were chatting about professions and the benefits... and I grabbed Herbalism & Alchemy. Alchemy needs herbs & plants as ingredients to the potions, so I can level both back-to-back. I won't have to spend much money at all leveling Alchemy since most of my mats will come from my gathering.
Also, he pointed me to WoW-Professions.com -- a site that lists the most efficient way to level profs up! /smart

I spent the next 30-40 min making 2 loops around Elwynn Forest to level up my Herbalism, collecting plants. Stevo for a bit was also leveling Herbalism on his Druid alt in another area before we called it a night ~3:15am. ^_^

Happy Thanksgiving!

My new emoticon

2009-11-22T19:07:00.002-05:00

I just recently created this one, it's a mad scientist with goggles on his forehead:

>8:-]

I haven't seen it anywhere previously, so I claim it!

Oh, WoW.

2009-11-22T18:24:00.004-05:00

The new job has sapped a lot of my free time. Playing WoW got pushed aside for the first month and a half. That's a horrible coincidence since I stopped playing just when my coz Joe finally started.

I recently started playing frequently again, but just haven't had the desire to level a new character up from 1 all the way to 80... I had started a Druid (a shapeshifter class) when Joe did, except I'm still at level 16 and Joe's been questin' on & on and is currently 41. I definitely don't have the time or drive to push on and try to catch up.

So, in the interest of saving time AND trying something new, I'm leveling up a Death Knight. DKs start at level 55 (and you have to have a character that's already at least level 55 to create one), start in their own special beginning zone with lore and a back-story going on, kind of "predating" the events in the third [current] expansion pack. Very cool.

They're melee-based attackers, tho the spec I'm going with [Unholy] combines some spells and a permanent ghoul minion that fights with me. So yes, basically a melee-warlock wearing plate mail instead of cloth. >:-]
After you finish up the story leading you out of the DK starting zone, you arrive in the main city of your faction (I'm Alliance, so Stormwind city) and have to talk to the king. After all of that, I was walking through the city and a level 80 DK player asked me to sign his guild charter (to start a guild).
Doing so costs me nothing and I could leave right after the guild was created (after 9 "signatures"). Turns out these people are very friendly, so I didn't leave.
It's nice to share experiences and dings [level-ups] and achievements with a group again. ^_^

Now I'm level 61. Stevo has a Druid at 60, and at the rate I don't play, hopefully Joe will catch up so we can quest in Northrend together, post-68 [and post-Christmas?].

Late Friday night the 3 of us got on Skype while playing our characters separately. Tons o' fun. =)
Then late Sat night Joe (@lv41, Balance Druid) & I (@lv60, Unholy DK) ran thru Stormwind Stockades, a short level-30 instance in Stormwind city. I love a good smash-&-grab! >8:-]

CS4 + Graphire4 + TheCore4

2009-11-18T21:32:00.007-05:00

I've been sketching a bit in Photoshop lately. With my new fast computer and Photoshop CS4, there's no slowdown at all for me.
I remember back in Fall 2004 when I was in the Martini Art War with a girlfriend at the time, and I was creating digital martini art on my old 450MHz computer with a 16Mb gfx card [painfully slow] and bought myself a new laptop which ran at like 1.2Ghz...
Going from 2 processors at 1.4Ghz with an integrated-crappy-Intel gfx card on my more recent laptop to this desktop tower [I named it "TheCore4" -- a hommage to The Final Five in Battlestar Galactica, swapping alliteration for a rhyming scheme] with 4 processors at 2.6Ghz and a decent gfx card is like the same transition. ^_^
It took a little tweaking to get my Wacom Graphire4 tablet running well in CS4 under Windows7, but it's working and possibly better than ever -- it feels more sensitive. =) That might just be because my processors are processing the input faster, but either way it feels better.

I've uploaded a couple of new bits of digital art to my DeviantArt gallery, and this is what I did tonight (go to the gallery to see it in full, clear resolution and of course my commentary).

A Boy and His Ooze

Autumn in Georgetown, 2009

2009-11-16T22:02:00.006-05:00

After a bit of miscommunication with Sara, I decided to go for gusto & carpe diem and fended for myself and made plans to go to DC with my sister & bro-in-law on Sunday. We decided on Georgetown because they had wanted to see it all (having only been in that area once prior and not for too long) and I hadn't been there in a long time.
It had been at least 2 years.

Not too much has changed since I used to hang out in Georgetown. A few new shops in place of a few old ones maybe. Actually the biggest change was merely that the small park on the waterfront is gone and is currently a fenced-off construction zone. /shrug

It was fun being back there again, and going into all sorts of fun shops. A few are mandatory for me: Commander Salamander [an odd punk/indie clothing store -- used to have cool toys but no more apparently, boo], the huge Urban Outfitters [again, less fun toys than ever before], Dean & Deluca [but they didn't have any fresh apple cider in stock] and looking in the storefront window of an expensive antique shop at the martini shakers from the 30s-50s they always have on display. Surprisingly I didn't find anything I wanted to buy. Maybe the colored anodized-aluminum shot glasses at Urban Outfitters just for the cool factor, but I certainly don't need 'em.

Georgetown had its usual smell [which of course is difficult to describe, but each part of the city has a slightly different smell based on the stores/restaurants around + how much traffic drives thru] combined with that Autumn dead-leafy smell I love. Oh do I love it!

We drove in to Georgetown, via the Cabin John Parkway exit off 495 -- the same exit for Glen Echo. We continued on the road past the odd "U-turn" to Glen Echo and eventually that takes you around to the main drag thru Georgetown, although on the opposite side I'm used to (the Georgetown University side), it's not the Metro & Georgetown hospital side.

It was a good day -- I always enjoy walking around any part of DC in decent weather, and it was fun to do it with my sis & bro. =)

Yes please!

2009-11-13T19:26:00.001-05:00

www.emotiv.com

Leave the Torchlight on...

2009-11-08T10:44:00.009-05:00

I was able to acquire a new game recently: Torchlight. [official site] [wiki]
I had heard some buzz about it and was intrigued. It's an RPG by Runic Games, and partially designed by guys who worked on Diablo I & II.
To be honest the only way I can sum up the description is the same as everyone else: a single-player World of Warcraft as done in the Diablo engine.

It's an RPG, with randomly generated dungeons a la Diablo. There's 1 town to come back to. All the standard features are there (even the Town Portal spell and Identify scrolls). You can choose from 3 player types: melee DPS, ranged DPS, or spellcaster (mana-based ranged DPSer). Isometric view you can't rotate. Five points to distribute to Str/Dex/Magic/Defense per level.

The weapon names and art style are very WoW-like: that slightly cartoonish, colorful, "fat" look. Quest givers have the familiar yellow "?" from WoW, and when you take/complete a quest you're informed on the sidebar of how much Gold, XP, and items you'll receive. There are also 'talent trees' to customize your character's abilities (+1 point per level to distribute, and +1 point every time you level up your Fame rating). Inventory is done the WoW way: one item per slot (so no playing Tetris in the inventory bag). Even your gear has sockets to fit gems into. Boss fights every couple of dungeon levels.

A neat thing is that you always have a pet: you choose a cat or a dog when you create the character. The dog looks like a husky or grey wolf, and the cat looks like a small tiger/lynx in yellow-orange. That pet fights alongside you, has a pack that can carry as many items as you can, AND you can send him off to run back to town to sell off whatever is in his bag. That saves some trips back & forth from town.

The game is gorgeous and supports my 1600x900 rez, but it's not overly complicated in the gfx department so it would run beautifully on a lesser computer (like my laptop I surmise).

One major thing I like about Torchlight is that it's an RPG, but has difficulty levels. So I put mine on Easy because I just want to romp thru the dungeons and experience the content and have fun and not die... ^_^

I chose to play The Alchmist. Yep, the spellcaster. He's like a mix of mage & steampunk styles. Staff or wand in hand, big mechanical glove on the other hand, plus goggles. Love my goggles. I named him spontaneously, a variation of 'rascal' -- Raz Kal. I think that might be my new game characters' names. I named my pet cat Tigre (that's French for tiger, always made me think of a little kitty tiger).
So far I'm like level 10-ish, I can fire off 3 bolts of energy at once, a chain blast of lightning, and summon up to 3 permanent Imps to fight with me, and a small horde of zombies for a minute at a time (yes, I've taken the Warlock route a la my WoW character). >:-]

It IS only single-player, as the development time was under a year I think I had read. In another year or two they are planning on releasing an MMORPG based on this. If so, I definitely would look into it.

Check it out, it's $20 to download from the official website, else there's definitely something from TPB...

A little Mark on the Bench

2009-10-30T21:26:00.009-04:00

Did a little bit of initial testing of some games with my new computer and the ATI Radeon 4200 gfx card.

World of Warcraft
1600x900 rez, graphics all set to Highest (including View Distance!), shadows set to lowest

* 30-60 fps in Dalaran city (depending on player population & architecture) -- up from 2-5 fps on my laptop!
* 35 fps and no lag in the thick of a 20-on-20 brawl in Wintergrasp (PvP Battleground) among cannon fire galore -- up from like 2 fps on my laptop in those situations
* 45 fps average in Stormwind city with medium-high player population near the bank&AH area

Morrowind
1024x786 (max) rez, all graphics set to highest

Couldn't get the fps counter up in-game, but I used to get an average 9-15 fps in the game on my laptop, with the main open area of Balmora city dipping to about 7 fps.
Now, everything is perfectly smooth & fast with gfx cranked.

DOOM 3
1154x864, graphics set to High

35-60 fps, depending on architecture & number of NPCs/monsters.
My laptop ran at 5 fps with 800x600 rez and all gfx settings to lowest, ew.

Left 4 Dead runs perfectly smooth with graphics set high, though it has support for multiple processors which is very nice.
Still to test: Oblivion, Halo 1.

Update:
I installed Oblivion, maxxed out the graphics and can play it smoothly.
Also installed Halo 1, maxxed out the gfx and it plays fine. Halo 1 as a benchmark is more because its code is poorly written, causing it to be a resource hog. Not so much because the graphics are intense (they certainly look dated as compared to Halo 3).

Yes!

2009-10-30T20:09:00.000-04:00

Love it =)

New computer

2009-10-29T19:47:00.003-04:00

This week I bought a new desktop computer. It's an HP Pavillion.
Stats:
Quadcore AMD Phenom II 810 processors
8 Gb RAM
750 Gb HDD
ATI Raedeon 4200 gfx card (integrated, not bad but not all that great... I will be upgrading this in the near future).
Windows 7 Home Premium
It has a digital video output, and a built-in wireless card and came with an antenna that attaches to it. The computer is very quiet too. ^_^

I also bought an LG 20" widescreen flat-panel monitor. Very nice.

In the near future I'm going to dual boot the latest version of Ubuntu (which came out today actually). But first I want to get a little used to Windows 7.

Favorite Week of the Year (2009)

2009-10-25T16:35:00.004-04:00

This week is my favorite week of the year. The weather's nice & cool, the trees are changing colors, and Halloween is at the end of it and that decor abounds! =)

This week this year is going to be great because I'm going to buy a new desktop computer & a 20" flat-panel LCD monitor (for a good price too). I may need to upgrade the gfx card, but there's no rush on that (the only game I've been playing in months is WoW, you know).
I already ordered a nice new keyboard: the Saitek Eclipse II -- it's LED illuminated. B-)

And I just discovered that the new version of Ubuntu (9.10, which is released Thursday) supports my current laptop's wireless card! So I installed it over the old Ubuntu version I was dual-booting with. If I can get Photoshop CS4 and WoW to run in Linux under W.I.N.E. then I won't have any need for Windows... 7 or otherwise. ;P
I downloaded the 9.10 beta official .iso and burned it to a CD. Then I did a live boot from the CD to boot up into the OS to see what's new. It detected the gfx card settings and wireless automatically -- previous versions of Ubuntu weren't off-the-bat compatible with the Intel integrated gfx cards (ugh) and needed heavy tweaking to get the GUI up and running correctly. And a separate wireless program was needed to get the wireless card to work, and the set back with that program was that it didn't allow all cards to connect if the network has WEP on it. Guess what... yeah. :-/
All that's changed. =)
Now come Thurdsay all I'll have to do is automatically apply the updates and I'll have the full hot new version. Of course, I won't be caring much about this laptop, as I'll have a shiny new desktop replacing it. ^_^

Art Therapy

2009-10-18T18:11:00.007-04:00

Mmm... I created some new digital art today and suddenly feel... well, I don't know what feeling it is, but it feels good.

I haven't actually done anything productive [as in, produced anything or created something, or put work/effort into accomplishing anything] since I started the new job. And so I've felt that my free time [what little I have nowadays] was just flying by, used up by just relaxing. Ok, I did watch both seasons of True Blood, so while that is something to show for some of the time, it's nothing I created or did.

So, this piece isn't anything particularly stupendous and didn't take very long at all, but it's swell. In fact, it took me as long to make my Halloween playlist in WinAmp as it did to make this piece of art while listening to that.
Artist's commentary & full-quality version found where I uploaded it in my DeviantArt gallery.

No One Lives Forever (grunge wall)

Samsung Rogue U960

2009-10-11T21:11:00.003-04:00

Today I bought the Samsung Rogue.
It's quite nice... basically all the features of a Blackberry. It's full touch screen, with a full keyboard that slides out of the side (and the on-screen display rotates 90 degrees). That on-screen display is 480x800 and gorgeous.
This phone must have a powerful processor in it because when I call up new menus and stuff it happens instantly, no lag. My previous phone had that lag, it got annoying. ;P

It lets me surf the net in html format, not that puny "Mobile Web 2.0" that's on normal cell phones (and thus why it's more like a Blackberry).

The main screen is similar to the iPhone in that you can put icon shortcut to apps & jazz on it, tho you can arrange them anyway you want 'em; think of a computer's desktop screen. And there's also a fly-out sidebar that can hold 'em, which you can scroll thru. That's where I keep mine, on the sidebar, and then have the sidebar tucked off screen, with just a tab sticking out to summon it. ;P
And txt messages are threaded by person in the same way that Gmail threads emails! =D

Unfortunately since the Rogue only recently came out, there are very few apps available as of yet. It did come preloaded with trial versions of Need For Speed Undercover and Resident Evil Degeneration... and I was impressed at the graphics level.

I'm not allowed to check my personal email at work, during work, on my work computer. So this new phone will allow me to easily check it and easily write emails during my hour-long lunch, and two 15-min breaks.

T. Rowe Price

2009-10-09T20:17:00.003-04:00

By now everyone should know I got a job working at T. Rowe Price doing technical support.
Finally a full-time day job that pays well [quite well in fact]. I'm so happy! =)

Sara was able to suggest my name to Beth at Comsys when the openings came in that very morning. I had an over-the-phone interview later that week, and an in-person interview that next Monday. Everything flowed so smoothly; the process, the interviews, etc that I was destined for this. And thank you everyone who was praying for me!

The group of people I'm working with are all around my age, and are all friendly and helpful. The company is solid, and has a good culture and cares about their employees. This is great.

The transition has been a little rough but I'm getting used to it. I was used to going to bed whenever I wanted (usually around 4am) for the past year and a half, and getting out of bed whenever I felt like it (noon? 1pm? no prob!).
Now I'm working 9am-6pm M-F (with an hour lunch in there), tho it takes me roughly 40 min to get to work in the mornings and 45-50 min to get home, so a lot of my time each day is eaten up by the commitment to this job. Ick. :-/
Going to bed before midnight is new to me... in fact being in bed by 11 is almost mandatory to make sure I get enough sleep. I'm working on getting adjusted to the new sleep-cycle tho.

Hopefully by Feb 1st I will have located & secured an apartment in the Owings Mills/Reisterstown area and be moving into it. That will cut down my commute time drastically, down to only 5-15 min each way, depending on the exact location.
Before then, I'd like swap my car with something more enjoyable, and I've set my sights once again on the PT Cruiser.
After Windows 7 drops at the end of the month I'm going to buy a powerful desktop computer (then dual boot Ubuntu Linux on it).
And either this weekend or this coming week I'm going to buy the Samsung Rogue, the same cell phone Sara has.

2009-10-02T21:10:00.004-04:00

"Dear Die-ary,

There's nothing terribly wrong with feeling lost, so long as that feeling precedes some plan on your part to actually do something about it.

Too often a person grows complacent with their disillusionment, perpetually wearing their "discomfort" like a favorite shirt.

I can't say I'm very pleased with where my life [was] just now...

But I can't help but look forward to where it's going."

--Johnny, Johnny The Homicial Maniac

As usually, Nny & I agree! =)
A post on my new job is forthcoming...

Rainbow

2009-09-24T14:24:00.003-04:00

Amazingly bright & clear rainbow outside of Joe's apartment yesterday. [It was actually much more defined than my cell phone camera depicts here.]

I went down to Raleigh to visit Joe and while I was down there... I got the call that I got the job at T. Rowe Price I had interviewed for the previous Monday! =D

Vamps

2009-09-17T22:48:00.013-04:00

Everyone should know by now how much I love vampires and vampire lore. There are many reasons for that, some aren't obvious. ;P

I tend to like most of the 'original' lore, and severely judge any vampire movies'/shows'/stories' mythos against it, and my personal perceptions of what vampires 'should be like'.
I enjoy gothic, pretty vampires stuff (like Underworld), but I'm fascinated with the idea of intelligent yet monster-like vampires, like the ones in the movie & comic book series 30 Days of Night. Beasty.
Vampires that sparkle is a HELL NO!
Vampires in daylight without deadly effects is also a NO.
But I won't go listing everything out. Instead, some pop vampire reviews...

Buffy the Vampire Slayer was cheesy. Fun, but cheesy. I enjoyed it as much as I loathed it. Hehe, ironic ay? It was goofy at times, and often Joss Whedon's personal platform for expressing modern, fad ideas. But it was long running and well... Spike was awesome (at least, when he wasn't being wimpy in-love emo, blegh!).
Unfortunately, I've lost even MORE respect for Joss Whedon's "original" ideas after recently reading the comic book series Preacher by Garth Ennis & Steve Dillon. It's so blatantly obvious that Whedon got the idea for Spike's character from Preacher's own Irish-vampire-badboy-loner "Cassidy", which predates Buffy by a few years. Cassidy even goes emo-wimpy for a little while over the main chick in the books, much like Whedon would have Spike do many years later in Buffy.
[As much as I worship Firefly for being awesome, once you see Cowboy Bebop you'll lose respect for Whedon's "original" ideas too.]

I just watched the first episode of the new series The Vampire Diaries, which airs on The CW Network (ugh!). The first 10 min were so bad I almost turned it off and gave up. I'm kinda glad I didn't. It forces the high school scene on the viewer, undoubtedly to capture the attention of the young audience (and obviously anyone who enjoyed the movie Twilight). The acting is mediocre.
There are certain character traits and acting that reek of Buffy, and that's probably not good. The main chick acts and sounds a lot like Faith from Buffy (currently the main character of Dollhouse, FYI, who can only act one part regardless of her dress), and the main vampire guy looks and acts exactly like Nicholas Brendon (who played Xander -- imagine Xander as a vampire & less of a dork).

It was killing me to see the vampire in the daylight... no pain, no flame, no flinching... until near the end of the episode while talking to his vampire brother (who's a little sinister, yay!) it's revealed that they have rings that protect them from the deadly effects of sunlight. Yes!! You've explained why they can be in the daylight safely, and used an oft-referenced mythological trinket (a ring, a talisman, etc). This is good.
The brother, being more accepting of his state of being, feeds on humans, has a black crow follow him around, and conjures up fog. Classic vampire traits, good job!
They also showed the lead vampire unable to enter the lead chick's home until she invited him in; as well as being able to influence a person (a la Jedi Mind Trick hypnosis) -- both classic vampire characteristics.
The lead vampire has been repressing his urges to feed on human blood & such, and is sensitive to blood and seemingly other things... which start to revert him into "monster" mode. [The show is doing what Buffy did, vampire's faces go wrinkly/evil when they get the bloodlust.]
I think if I can suffer through the typical high school kiddie drama scenes I'll be able to watch & enjoy The Vampire Diaries. If it gets too heavy on the kiddie drama or goes too emo... it'll bomb for me. I'm perceiving it as Buffy-lite, without the cheese. ;P

After writing the above review, I watched the first episode of True Blood. This is based on a series of books, and airs on HBO, so it's more adult in the content (as typical of HBO shows, there was a sex scene in the 1st episode to remind you "We can do stuff normal cable shows can't." Heh.). Acting was very good overall. The accents & characters are perfectly convincing for a Louisiana setting. The plot develops slowly (it's an over-arching mystery series), which I'm fine with -- no need to throw every possible detail at the viewer in episode one.
Anna Paquin to me was not a good Rogue in X-Men. However as a blonde girl-next-door with mind-reading abilities in this, I can fathom.
Here, vampires can't be in daylight (this was referred to), drink only blood, are very strong (get stronger over time so elder vampires are strongest), and can't seem to enter a home without permission. Good, good.
Silver is debilitating to vampires in this mythos and burns them; normally that's a trait of werewolves. However, this was mentioned & explained as a weakness in the episode (even joked the comparison with werewolves, not that they exist here).

Two things bug me in True Blood:
1.) Publicly aware vampire organization... as if they are "mutants" a la X-Men. They're retaining the mystery of what they are & can do, but I'm not crazy about the idea of them being a "group" in society, asking for equal rights. That takes away the essence of their mystery of existence.
2.) The portrayed fangs are the wrong teeth. Fangs are the 3rd pair of teeth from the middle: the 'eyeteeth' aka 'canines' and not the 2nd incisors, as seen in this show. Yikes!

Synthetic blood developed in Japan is available at your local quickie-mart & served at your favorite bar, ensuring no vampires have to feed on humans. Ok, plausible idea if vampires are publicly known.
Vampire draining and selling the blood as a sense-enhancing drug is an idea I've seen before in Serenity Rose, a comic book, and also plausible. [In that comic book vampires are monsters/beasts and taking too much of a hit will turn you into a monster shortly thereafter.]

I'm definitely going to keep watching True Blood. It's not a riveting, attention-capturing show with cliff-hangers and major vampire actions abounding so that I havta see the next episode... but it is a curiosity for me, a glimpse into this little 'verse. Something interesting.

"Famous Last Words"

2009-09-11T13:15:00.003-04:00

By Billy Joel

Sitting here in Avalon, looking at the pouring rain.
Summertime has come and gone, and everybody's home again.
Closing down for the season I found the last of the souvenirs.
I can still taste the wedding cake, and it's sweet after all these years.

These are the last words I have to say, that's why it took so long to write.
There will be other words some other day, but that's the story of my life--

There's comfort in my coffee cup, and apples in the early Fall,
They're pulling all the moorings up, and gathering at the Legion hall.
Swept away all the streamers after the Labor Day parade,
There's nothing left for a dreamer now only one final serenade.

And these are the last words I have to say, before another age goes by
With all those other songs I have to play, but that's the story of my life.

And it's so clear
Standing here
Where I am.
Ain't that what justice is for?
Frankly my dear,
I don't give a damn any more.

Stack the chairs on the tabletops, hang the sheets on the chandeliers.
It slows down but it never stops, ain't it sweet after all these years?

And these are the last words I have to say, it's always hard to say goodbye.
But now it's time to put this book away, ain't that the story of my life?

Epics

2009-09-07T17:26:00.005-04:00

Happy Labor Day weekend?
Sunday night I was able to join my guild to run 2 quarters of Naxxaramas... a higher-end 10-man raid. Four of us were new to the place, so I'm glad the better players were nice enough to run us. They wanted to get us better gear so we'd be better for more raids.

I scored a new Epic ring, and a new Epic staff, which I really needed. =)
The staff is actually a floor candelabra with floating candlesticks... it looks like I stole a candlestick holder from the place! ;P

Then tonight I was invited (by our guild leader) to a group for 25-man Ulduar [currently the endgame raid!] but there were only 12 of us, and most of us were under-geared. However, each time we got the first boss, Flame Leviathan, down to 12% of his health... but we wiped every time. Should've done the 10-man version (which, obviously, would be easier)... as before long 1 person had disconnected, and another had to leave anyway.

Last week Stevo & I won a third of the 2-vs-2 games we played. That's a huge increase to losing every match! ;P

New website location

2009-09-05T14:09:00.003-04:00

I've used Geocities for my personal websites since high school... 1998. At some point Yahoo bought up Geocities, and started changing things, mostly integrating Yahoo crap into Geocities [yuck], like every big corporation does when they acquire a small company that runs well by itself.
Now Yahoo is closing Geocities entirely come the end of October. However, you can sign up for a limited access Yahoo web hosting for just $... ha, never will I ever... ;P

Friends of mine have been using AngelFire for as long as I've used Geocities [may it rest in peace: 11 years of good service], so I've moved my hub of a website over there.
Please update your bookmarks; ya know, if you actually have my site bookmarked. ^_^

http://coolestintentions.angelfire.com