Frivolous Profundity

Well it’s been a blogless month or so since last I poked my head in here. External circumstances have not changed at all – I am still what they call “in between jobs”, still for the most part rudderless, and still trying to somehow backhand my soul into waking up from it’s long cowardly nap.

Internally however, all is not lost – I continue to ruminate, introspect, analyze, and ponder with the best of them. I’m sure I have more internal dialogues and debates before 9am than most people do all day – it’s what I do (quite literally, it is what I do, nearly all that I do). The topic for these past few months, from before my unfortunate “letting go” but nicely appropriate to it, has been work. Not work specifically in the sense of “What job should I do?”, though that’s a part, but more in the sense of “What do I do with my life?”.

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I’m unemployed, 0 money coming in, no promising job leads, and depressed – however, I’ve not been completely idle.

Here is a video clip (~39mb) of my first World of Warcraft character to hit level 60.

Take that, cold and uncaring universe!

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So I got fired last week.

It kind of took me by surprise, as I’ve never been fired from a job before – I don’t recommend it to anyone, it sucks and makes you feel stupid. Three years ago, when I was moving back here to Massachusetts from Georgia, this company I was sacked from was kind enough to offer (it was their idea, not mine) to let me work from home…so in total I was with them for about 5 years. Overall, they were fantastic to me.

Unfortunately, for the past few months I’ve been in Heavy Funk Mode (as separate from my Chronic Funk Mode). I knew it was affecting my work, but I was hoping I was keeping it together and that things would eventually turn around.

Nope.

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Wow, already into the second week of 2006! I’ve had plenty of introspective days and lots of fodder for writing, but so far I’ve managed to avoid actually writing anything – apparently I’m in ‘Vacation Mode’ still. And speaking of, I leave in just about 12 hours for a week long visit with my folks and sister, so I will be incommunicado until about January 20th – no Mook at The Mook.Net, no Scaramanga at the Kill-a-Rama, no Spyte at Argent Dawn, we’re all going to be away. I’ll catch up on the message boards and scores of email when we return, until then enjoy the new year and relentlessly pursue Truth.

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Ugh.

I have been felled by the deadly disease I alluded to in “House of Plague”.

I have dubbed it “Explosivomirrhea” for reasons best not elaborated.

Woe to us all.

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Howdy folks,

I just made a post on the “World of Warcraft” forums (the official Blizzard ones, not TheMook.Net ones) showing off the interface I use for the game, thought some of you here might be interested as well. Click on the pics below for the full size images.

No Target:

With a target:

Bags open:

Quest log open:

The complete list of AddOns I’m running (not all are visible in the pics of course):

AF_Tooltip
Atlas
AutoRepair
BankItems
CharacterProfiler
CleanMinimap
Confab
CooldownCount
CooldownCountDiscord
CT_BagMod
CT_BuffMod
CT_ExpenseHistory
CT_ItemBuffs
CT_MapMod
CT_MasterMod
CT_PlayerNotes
CT_QuestLevels
CT_Viewport
DepositBox
DiscordActionBars
DiscordFrameModifier
DiscordLibrary
DiscordUnitFrames
EnhancedTradeSkills
EquipCompare
FishInfo2
FlightMap
Gatherer
goodinspect
GroupButtons
GuildProfiler
ImprovedCamera
ItemRack
MetaMap
MinimapMenu
MobInfo2
Mobs2Level
MonkeyQuest
MovableBags
MozzEasyMail
MozzSmartCast
myModel
myTargetModel
NameCycle
Notepad
PerfectShot
PvPLog
QuickLoot
Rauen_PetAttack
Rauen_PetDefend
Rauen_PetFeed
Recap
sct
SellValue
SmartPet
TackleBoxSA
TalentReminder
Titan
TitanAlarmClock
TitanDurability
TitanEmoteMenu
TitanFriendsX
TitanMainMenu
TitanNameToggle
TitanPetXp
TitanPVPinfo
TitanRecap
TitanRegen
TitanSkills
TitanXPStatus
TrackerAssist
VendorBags

I love a game where YOU can decide how you want your screen to look!

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My niece was sick, explosively and projectiley (?) sick, from last Wednesday to about Sunday. Then my sister succumbed from Monday until Wednesday, fetal position and all. Last night my nephew got up at 2:00am to vomit prolifically on the kitchen floor.

It stalks me. I am not safe.

…

And now for something a little, but not completely, different:

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Tried out something interesting late last night with World of Warcraft after reading a few forum posts – I set my laptop up next to my desktop, like so:

In this picture the black keyboard standing upright beneath the monitor is USBed into the laptop; the white keyboard, mouse, and Nostromo Speedpad are hooked to the desktop (my normal setup). So, I then logged the laptop in to a WoW character I have on my sister’s account, logged the desktop in to my own account and one of my oh-so-many cool characters, and after grouping the two characters together I played my own little mini-party for a while, controlling both characters simultaneously! It definitely took some getting used to, but I had a blast – the desktop tanked and the laptop provided support. I’m not sure how fun this would be in an actually hostile area (we…um, I…were just bopping around the Undead newbie zone), and it’s not like I expect this to become the normal way I play the game (too hectic, not leisurely enough for my hippy streak) – but it was definitely a cool change of pace.

I eventually realized that 99.5% of the time I never move my hands off the speedpad and mouse, so I swapped out my desktop keyboard for my laptop keyboard, saved a lot of hassle. With some practice I was actually able to run (as in jog) both characters simultaneously, using my left hand and the speedpad for the desktop character and my right hand and the keyboard arrow keys with my right hand. Now that feels weird!

Anyway, just thought I’d share the love!

(In case you’re wondering, no, this is NOT against the Blizzard Terms of Service – go ahead and ask ’em. I’m not using any kind of bots or hacks, only a few of the macro functions already built into the game, and both accounts are legal and paid for. It’s also not unethical, as anyone else with a laptop/second machine and a friend’s account can do the exact same thing … true, not everyone has those, but then not everyone has the one computer necessary to play at all, and I don’t see people giving up their WoW accounts in protest because some folks out there don’t have a computer.

So there.)

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And now for something completely different:

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Um…oops.

So, I got my latest games from Gamefly last week – “Shadow of the Colossus” and “The Matrix: Path of Neo“. I tried “Shadow” first, but I kept getting a ‘Disc Not Recognized’ error, so I set it aside and played “Path of Neo” instead.

Fast forward about a day and a half – by this time I’ve beaten the Matrix game (which was a lot of fun, I had a blast!) and am looking to move on. I check the “Shadow” disc – a few scratches but I’ve seen much worse. Try it again, still errors out; wipe the disc (remember kids! ALWAYS clean an optical disc from the center out, NEVER in a circle!), still errors out; blow a little into the Xbox to make sure there’s no wayward dust, still errors out; clean the disc with Windex, still errors out.

*Sigh* Okay, it’s rare, but every once in a great while I’ll get a bad disc from Gamefly (or Netflix) – disappointing, but I’ll survive for the two days it takes them to send a replacement. I go to the Gamefly site, I log in to my account, I choose “Report a defective disc” …

… and then finally notice that it is a PlayStation 2 game I’ve been trying to play in my Xbox.

DOH!

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Starting a new category – I had a random thought today and, as I usually do, wrote it down on some convenient paper, in this case a pink sticky-notes pad. Here ya go:

“For a long time, I played SoF2 [Soldier of Fortune 2] for about 2 hrs/day almost every day – and look how good I got at it. Now, what if I had been writing for 2 hrs/day instead?”

Thank you, that is all. Move along. Nothing to see here.

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