So here I am, sitting at my computer, waiting for a delivery. I find that most deliverys take forever when I have to sit and wait for them. It's annoying. I would take a shower, but I know as soon as I walk in, the door will knock. So instead I sit, with quiet music (Loud music will end up with me missing the package). So yea. . .
I have been playing Mincraft, quote an addictive game(?). I find that it's like playing with 3d legos, which is probably what makes it so addictive. So far I have created 3 homes, a beach city, and a massive underground mine that I had to create a raidroad to get through faster.
Over all bored, waiting for monday so I can go to school. Thats really all i have. Also Kingdom Hearts Birth by sleep is Awesome!!!
I went into Gamestop today and bought a PSP, I figured I would give it a shot. I mostly wanted one because of Kingdom Hearts: Birth By sleep, which is pretty good, but i have only just started. I also picked up Star Ocean Second evolution, which is a remake of Star Ocean 2 for the PSX. I am actually playing that more than KH because I get very nostalgic playing it, and it's a blast.
Other than that nothing else to report. School is starting next week so im trying to get my sleeping back on track so I can begin. It's strange that my school begins so much later than My friends University, but it is a Community College, so I guess the standards are lowered, or they rush the material so they feel like they can skip a couple of weeks.
Anyway Ill try to post more often, but like I said, busy busy busy.
So I've cancelled all my game preorders from now till December, deciding that nothing looked that good to me. It all looks like more of the same, Ill wait till I see some games that have innovation.
The following were cancelled.
Halo:Reach - Not a big fan of halo in the first place, so I'm not sure why I placed the order, but It all looks more of the same with some new stuff, but it feels recycled from Call of Duty.
Fallout New Vegas - A friend once called New Vegas "A glorified Expansion" and the more I read, the more I agree, nothing new is added, graphics look the same and the guns are basically the same minus a couple new ones. Nothing that interests me enough to pay 60$
World Of Warcraft Cataclysm: I am free of wow. That is all I really need to say. But I admit I will probably pick this up in the future after being mildly impressed by the beta, but it does feel like more of the same and 5 years is enough murloc killing for one lifetime. Cancelled preOrder either way.
So now for my very short list of games I put on pre-Order
Deus Ex 3 - It looks amazing, and the more I hear the more I like, so I'm gonna give it a shot when it's released.
So I was reading through my junk, a collection of random thoughts or essays, or reply's I had written that I felt I needed to save (You may have seen some I have posted XD) when I cam across something I wrote about 6 months ago, Im not entirely sure what possessed me to write it but I did, and looking back I can't see why I saved it, so ill post it up.
It was supposed to be n outline of a web style series of shorts I wanted to do If i ever had the means to produce such a thing. This is a very rough outline, that is in the style of David Lynch, so I guess It's suppose to be more than it alludes to be and purposefully cryptic. Enjoy.
This series is about a man alone in a room, but the audiance clearly hears more than one voice, but nothing is in the shot aside from the lone man.
This series will allude that there is something else in the room but the room will appear empty making it up to the viewer whether the man is crazy or not. There will be subtle hints there may be a presence in the room with him but will never be stated clearly.
out of context the story will make very little sense, and it will be up to the viewer to decipher a meaning to the story.
___________________________________________________________________________________
Room 1 - Episode 1.
[Camera focus's in on a man on a couch, Trains can be heard in the background. It is dark with only enough lighting to show the man.]
(Black and white?)
Unknown: What was her name? (Played in reverse) (very quietly)
Jim: Jane?1
I found out.
Unknown: Found out what?1
She was In the room.
Unknown: I see.1
It will be night soon.1 [Lights fade a bit]
I will be there,1
This will end.1 [white noise at its peak]
Everything is fading.1
I am detached. 1 [white noise stops abruptly]
Are you coming? 1 [turn head slightly to the left looking at the wall]
___________________________________________________________________________________
Episode 2:
unknown: Yes that her name, where is she?
She went away.2
At the party.
unknown: Go on.2
I was blind. See what?2[Camera loses focus, during this phase a Black image can be seen in the background]
She will be sleeping. 2
waiting.2
She should have known better2
Shadows everywhere. 2 [red filter for rest of episode here]
There will be no more laughing. 2
____________________________________________________________________________________
Episode 3.
[as the final episode begins the room is much darker than the previous two episodes and white noise can be heard at excessive volume]
really
Unknown: why?3
They all laughed at me.
unknown: yes they did?3
I know What I should do.3
Alone. 3 {As he finishes this un comprehensible whispering can be heard.}
they won't laugh anymore. 3
I looked like a fool.3
It's Dark now. 3 [Eyes now appear black with no soul.]
[As he says this he gets up and proceeds out of the scene.]
[Option 1 the Money shot] About 30 seconds passes. [A black shadow appears to get up from the couch and approaches the camera]
[Option 2] [As Jim leaves the room he leaves the camera running, it goes into a power saving mode and returns on to see that Jim is crying on the floor in a ball, covered in blood]
[camera stops]
fin
____________________________________________________________________________________
So there it is, I don't know, kinda stupid, but I think it has potental if I worked out some of my ideas a bit better, but this is suppose to be surreal horror, so I guess I don't have to.
Thought I would post this, written about a year ago while I was in school, it was my final for English (got a B for it). I find it pretty relevant so ill post it up.
Does reading an online article make a person less intelligent? Well, no but what it does do is make us lazy and antisocial. The arrival of internet has yielded many great things. The largest benefit being the ability to have all the information in the world at our fingertips. The downside to this being an information overload. Too much information on too many topics ready to digest at a moment's notice but the reliability of this information may not always be accurate and occasionally will be downright deceiving . Having all this information on hands is proving to be a dangerous matter because as we look up topics we find that our brains are shifting rapidly among topics, not having enough time to absorb the information we are reading. So it should come as no surprise that some columnist's like Nicholas Carr are complaining how they seem to have a shortening attention span, not being able to make it through heavy material they once were able to. If prolonged use of the Internet leads well read columnists to lose interest in long books or articles then those who are most vulnerable and malleable will become affected in the largest way. For todays youth growing up in the digital age steals them of the ability to think critically about what they are reading in favor of looking for the first article to feed their already short attention span. This change in thinking not only affects how children and teens read and write but it can also affect how they behave in a society.
Children and teens are increasingly being raised by their computers, and because of this most will spend most of their time on social networking sites, or on Instant messengers, all of these encourage skimming through your friend pages, or writing short quickly paced sentences back and forth to their friends. In school when assigned a book they would much rather read the synapses on Wikipedia. In regards to the novel as an art form and how books might be a dying format, John Keilman said in his article "Is the novel too much for the tweet--addled brain?" "Not many people pine for the daguerreotype or the epic poem these days, so who's to say the novel (at least, any novel that doesn't feature boy wizards or a hottie vampire) has not become an equally obsolete art form." (Keilman.) What he is saying is that we may be approaching a time where the modern novel is becoming a relic of the past. This observation is none truer among today's youth who if asked to read a classic like "Romeo and Juliet" would turn their faces and rather ask for a quick summery.
Teenagers are not even absorbing what they read from synopsis online or in their friends blogs. In "Google is making us stupid." author Nicholas Carr, points out a study conducted by the University College of London that found that as people used who popular Internet research sites they "Found people using the sites exhibited "a form of skimming activity," hoping from one source to another and rarely returning to any source they had already visited." (Carr.) In other words what this means is that the subjects that took part in these studies were not properly absorbing the information they were taking in lowing their understanding of what they were looking up through skimming and never looking back at what they had read. This observation is also true of most teens today who naturally have a tendency to try to finish something quickly. Teens skim through a lot of what they read, but when you have a technology that encourages this behavior, it should come as no surprise that it will become part of ones natural way of thinking.
John Keilman writes about how, like Carr, he has lost the ability to finish long pieces of literature. He also points out his attention span is not limited to only books and articles but to television shows as well "I cannot make it through half of a TV drama or three inning of a baseball game before I grow restless."(Keilman.) He observes that his loss of interest is not limited to only literary activities, but rather it extends to his viewing habits. This would aid explanations that the rise in popularity of websites such as Twitter and YouTube, which offer ten minute video clips and one sentence thoughts. These websites only show how Teens, the popular demographic, have flooded those sites. They cannot sit through an hour on television anymore without the need to check what some random celebrity on Twitter is thinking.
This technological change is not just limited to how we read and write but it can also affect how teens behave socially. The Associated Press reported on concerns being brought up by UCLA psychologist who states that prolonged exposure to the Internet and other technology can alter how our brain operates. He argues "When the brain spends more time on technology related tasks and less time exposed to other people, it drifts away from fundamental social skills like reading facial expressions during a conversation"(Associated Press.) I agree because Kids today relate better to their computers than they do to actual people, and would rather send a text message then call someone. This increase in using computers in their lives would lead them to become socially awkward because if most of their time is spent in isolation away from society they lose the ability to relate to real people. The brain it is used to social interaction to develop, replacing a computer with that interaction would cause it to adapt to better suit it's environment, causing the adolescent to become awkward socially.
Some people may question this movement and ask whether the entire issue is being blown out of proportion. As the associated press points out John Rowe, 19--year old Internet enthusiast, who stated that he feels he is doing just fine despite being online most of the time.(Associated Press.) Although he thinks he is just fine I question whether he would be able to make it through a novel or if he would lose interest and go back to browsing online forums. Just as Socrates once rallied against the written word because he feared it would bring about the end of our ability to retain memory, it would seem some 4000 years later this same thing is happening except rather than the written word, What are we as a culture going to be when we cannot fully absorb any big articles or fully comprehend what we are reading. It appears to me as we would turn into sheep, believing the first thing we read and never question its importance. The ability to read deeply into things is our gateway into understanding motivations and increases our ability to critically thing about important issues.
I will admit right now that we do not know everything about what is changing in our brains during this technological shift, or even if this shift is indeed for the worse and not to our benefit. From the place we sit now I would say it is a negative effect, you can see this on any web page that allows comments to be posted, and you will see comments that display rapid thinking, bad grammar and poorly thought out sentences. Also looking at teens who play too many video games or isolate themselves, instead preferring to communicate with someone 3000 miles away making them socially awkward because they have not spent enough time socializing with real people over text based personalities. Looking at the these habits will make one aware of the changes we are going through in society through relying on the Internet as our main source of information and socialization.
We have gone through many changes in thought throughout the time we humans have been on this planet, from the invention of modern language, to the printing press, and now the digital revolution, this could just be growing pains as we learn to adapt and live with this new form of communication. But if society continues down this path what will the world look like when the average American cannot read anything past a few hundred pages, or how will they be able to understand complicated social if they are merely skimming the surface to get a general idea of what the writer is saying, not bothering to read any deeper. Where will society be if the average teen is attached to his modem, isolating themselves indoors lacking the social interaction of face to face communication in favor of few sentence texts and ten minute viral videos. In the end it comes down to how much of our humanity is society willing to give up in support of convenience?
Works Cited
The Associated Press. "Scientists: Is technology rewiring our brains? " Telegraph -
I figured i would post this response I made to some spam e-mails I was receiving, it was about how this country is a Christian Nation, The national day of Prayer, and how Obama is a Muslim devil.
Note: I have no Political affiliation, so Im not pro Obama, nor am I anti, but i do respond to baseless assertion and criticisms that hold no weight.
For starters, I just need to say this country was not founded as a Christian nation. To the contrary it was founded as a secular nation in which there was a clear separation of church and state look no further than the First Amendment which states : "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion,". In fact many of the founding fathers were self described Deists and even what would be considered Humanist by today's standards. it's true they may have shared in some supernatural belief but they were by no means Christians(1). Aside from the Christian nation drivel, there should have never been a national day of prayer to begin with (In my opinion) as the "Holiday", enacted by Truman, was created to widen the divide between the United States and Communist Russia, who was viewed as a Godless country, and we as Americans looked at ourselves as a god-fearing people of that age. This was viewed as the main distinction between our cultures (not government's) and so the event was created (However this is speculation strangely. However, It fits with the Pledge which I address later so it makes sense).
That being said, the national day of Prayer did occur on May 7th, 2009, only difference being the current President decided not to openly take part in this fastidious event(2). He was not however, the first President to do so, in fact Clinton during his 8 years never attended the event and Former presidents Bush(Sr) and Reagan only attended one during their terms.(3). As far as Muslim prayers being used as a National day of prayer, that too was false a Muslim organization (Having been inspired by Obamas inauguration speech) sent in a letter asking to pray for Americas soul and it was granted and was attended by thousands (not tens of thousands as the message would have you believe.) and televised on CNN(2). Of course the implication of this E-mail is to misinform and villianize the current president as a Muslim, which of course is verifiably false(5). However, I do not see why his beliefs would come into play. Because as detestable and ridiculous as I find the Muslim religion, I find Christianity to be equally offensive upon reading the doctrine when followed at a fundamental level but at a moderate level is quite harmless to others (However willful ignorance, or lack of honest investigation may be harmful to yourself).
Muslims may glorify virtues such as self sacrifice and death for apostasy, but Christianity are, in many respects, exactly the same way ( Main point being that Fundamentalist Muslims do believe everyone who does not accept Allah will go to hell and needs to die, in the same way that Fundamentalist Christians believe that we need to outlaw science and in extreme cases kill those who advocate the teaching of verifiable natural science. Even the moderate Christians still believe that rejecting their one true book results in eternal damnation while they look down with joy. This last part is interpretation based but ive been told personally this will happen to me and I guess they are happy looking at people being burned forever as this (to me) would be a most horrible sight for anyone). As they are both based off of the Abrahamic Religions of the Bronze Age desert, both share various similarities and borrow from other myths in history that go beyond the scope of this article. But the Difference between this country and a Fundamentalist Theocracy like Iran is that we live in a Secular Nation where we don't have a state religious government telling us how we need to live our lives and what we need to believe. And yes, im damn glad he declared this was no longer a Christian nation (However given the misinformation spread throughout this e-mail I would not doubt that that too is false, only wishful thinking on my part.)
Lastly, I also must wander if we are REALLY suppose to live by the 10 commandments (as supported by the end of the e-mail), including all the other Old Testament rules like Stoning people for working on the Sabbath ext, ext, ext.
Or if we are to follow the Pledge of allegiance that was prior to the Cold war
"I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands; one nation indivisible with liberty and justice for all."(4)
Ironically "Under god" was added in the 50's, about the same time that the national day of prayer was instituted.(4)
Basically what this e-mail boils down to is spreading doubt and misinformation to a vulnerable demographic who will generally buy into anything as long as it fits within their little bubble. This blind attitude against others is what leads to extremism, as in if someone feels that these messages are accurate and true, they might turn militant and extremist. After all our beliefs inform our actions, especially those that are held close. This can be seen in recent cases such as people suspecting the government is being taken over by a New World Order because they read a very convincing e-mail and decided to barricade themselves indoors, rather than do some objective research to see if the claims made are true or false, like in this case im positive of the millions this has been filtered to many people will read it and take it to heart and get their guns ready for a Muslim Holy war or some such nonsense. All over a Spam message that was, from start to finish, all FALSE.
Now I realize this is kind of a blanket statement and a radical hypothetical statement, but I feel it necessary to reply to this Spam message as I have a lot to say about the subject of Misinformation, and propaganda among people of faith and the blatant cherry picking that goes on in one's own beliefs not only about politics, but also Religion and what you decide is true or false and how we come to that decision.
Although It must make one wonder if they are only spreading deceit and lies then what is their true intention.
Anyway I hope you enjoyed the read, even if you didn't agree with my little rant I hope it made you ponder what gets sent around here on the internet.
Chris H. (and yes I wrote this entire article)
Anyway as a side note I hope everything's going good up there are you guys are keeping in high spirits!
Now for some RELIABLE Sources. (Something people should use more of!
1. Iron Chariots - Website dedicated to debunking a lot of the wild claims made by Christian Apologists.
America is a Christian Nation - http://wiki.ironchariots.org/index.php?title=America_is_a_Christian_nation
2. Muslim Prayer Day Sept. 25th - http://www.factcheck.org/2009/09/muslim-prayer-day-sept-25/
3. National Day of Prayer - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Day_of_Prayer
4. Pledge of Allegiance - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pledge_of_Allegiance
Notice: Ive been supporting everyone yet, no one is supporting me, minus a couple of people. Now I get that im not commenting but I am supporting. Either way It's understandable because I have not posted anything new in a couple of days while I am recovering. I will try to be more active this week but I will be busy and I am still sick.
Uhg, sorry for not updating sooner, but I have come down with something, and so my energy level has been pretty low. Im typing this up and going to bed. I have been throwing up and well, the whole 9 yards but you don't wanna hear that. The good news is, however I have been doing my daily rounds, but not commenting because of my lack of energy to type to you. I wanna thank everyone for their support and I will continue to support everyone even in this condition.
I will leave comments as soon as I start to feel better.
Thanks guy, have a good one.
I might post videos to keep up new content while im recovering so here you go!
Okay I was watching a video put up by (http://kyrre2010.blogspot.com/)(or if your too lazy to check him out (http://zionica.com/2010/08/31/ooopers-ev olutionists-let-the-truth-slip/) it was about "evolutionists"(Whatever the fuck thats suppose to mean. I believe in gravity am I a Newtonist?) saying the word design and everyone acts as if this somehow discredits 200 years of scientific research, but that's fine, I can laugh at how dumb the presumption that because you can twist someones word you can change biology and biological science. Where I raged was in the comment section for 2 MAJOR reasons.
1. Like all religious sites they censor criticism, I hate how they complain about America losing freedom of speech or telling everyone Christians are champions of free speech, but then if you try and point out the obvious fallacy's to them, they delete you and turn a blind eye. Their version of freedom of speech goes one way, their way.
2. The total lapse in logic and the lies. Case in Point there is a guy who claims to be a professor in Biology but he states obvious flaws in his arguments and doesn't even state any science he just uses the title as an authoritarian position to gain leverage in his arguments. Like me saying "Im a Physics professor and the earth is flat, but we should really try to understand god and the bible" All I did was state a position to establish im better, therefore more knowledgeable and then spew bullshit using my "rank" to force you to believe my fact, then indoctrinate you into my personal belief system without any evidence, just assertions. BULLSHIT!!!!
100 people, and out of that a solid 30 that check up, I just want to say thank you to all of those who have participated (copy and paste included). I look forward to the next 100 with another series of random posts! And again thank you to all those kind comments.
Special shout out goes to
http://blackholeearthconsumption.blogspot.com/
for being my 100th follower, she has a bunch of very awesome and sexy pictures, so check it out if your in the area.
remember (Stronger supporters builds better communities - meaning the more reliable your supporters are the better the community as whole will be.)
So with my nearing 100 followers I want to make everyone aware of my supporters who have been with me from the beginning.
If you have time, check these guys out and if they return the favor (which they don't have to, but it would be nice) then we can start to fill out a community. I have a feeling in about a week 50% of our population of new blogger's will be weeded out and only those of us who were able to network a connection of supporters will be around. We need to work together so those of us who are actual bloggers are not left in the dust or remain unknown.
The goal is to balloon this to get everyone supporters only.
so the following people have been and continue to be exceptional supporters, I have them all in my Morning Coffee browser and will help them anyway I can.
Big shout out to most of you guys who actually comment on my articles and encourage me to continue! Most of these guys are criminally under followed considering some have great content!
Also
http://djmidnyt.blogspot.com/
has a great list of other people who could use a hand.
If you missed your name then either a) I missed your name (happens) or B) I don't see you supporting me, I support those who leave a comment daily, as I usually check their boards quite often.
Remember if we can work together then those of us that are serious about content can band together and form a community!
It's not all seriousness today though I wanted to post some of my funniest pictures.
When I first saw this I laughed for an hour at least. If you played Pokemon you will get it.
Never fails to make me smile at least.
Another that was very funny.
Well thats all for now! So get out there and read some good stuff!
For steak (note this is just cooking it on the stove top - as far as spicing it, it's a work in process)
Oh man, I can smell it from here.
So if you go to the local store and pick up a nice 1 inch sirloin and you don't have a grill (which I prefer to stove top) Your gonna have to cook it over the stove, so here is what you will need.
1 - Fry Pan (Duh!)
1 - Spatula (Duh!)
1 Tbsp Olive oil (Vegetable oil has a bunch of stuff that's not good for you, plus I like the taste the olive oil adds)
Any amount - Your chosen spices - everyone will be different.
So first thing your going to do is heat up the pan, put the stove on a medium/high or 6.5 - 7 if you have a number gauge up to 10
Once the stove is heated, put oil in the pan. This way the metal in the pan has been allowed to stretch a little (reduces chances steak will stick to the pan from what ive been told by my uncle who is a chef)
Place the steak in the middle of the pan.
-Let cook for 3 - 5 minutes
-After 3 - 5 Turn the steak over.
-Let the steak go for another 3.
( To check readiness press into the meat, if it feels like the mushy park of your palm it's rare, if it feels like the area under the thumb it's medium, you don't want it on longer otherwise it has a risk of drying out. )
About perfect for most people.
- for the final 2 minutes (providing it's still undercooked) take 1 Tbsp of butter and melt that into the steak(this will ad a bit of sweetness to it and it will be a great addition.)
Well there you have it, this is how I always cook steak over stove top and it comes out perfect every time. Like I said I just need to work on my spices.
Enjoy
Also enjoy this really annoying yet strangely addicting video (it's kinda freaky how it has 50million+ views, but I can't stop listening to it!!!!)
So, a lot of people have wondered why I am an Athiest, mostly because of my post about glenn beck, so I thought I would share the story here. It was written to a friend awhile ago and I figured I would keep it and share it every once in awhile, so there you go. Also big thanks to everyone supporting me.
I was raised Lutheran, brought up in the church, and I moved when I was 12 and attended a Southern Baptist church, which I honestly enjoyed. I had a good time, made some good friends did charity work and eventually was baptized at the age of 16.
Although I never really had thought of my "Faith" at that point I considered my self a Theist and fit into the category as much as anyone else, not extremely casual, but not fundamental either. It remained this was for awhile until I decided to get serious about what I believed in and started researching my faith along with other religions, viewpoints ext. What I found was some similarity, but most glaring of all is that (In the bibles case) we have no original copy's, no authorship and no way to subjectively determine the validity of any of the books, along with no contemporary accounts to back up storys in the bible from art, writings and literature of the time it reduced the entire book to legal hearsay. Adding that to the number of censored books of the bible that are considered to be either to violent, dark or generally insane.
This was the case with all of the religions I researched. So I was curious as to why that was. I had to consider why I had believed in the first place in something that I had never read to begin with so I decided to read the bible to see what was in it. Reading from an Objective standpoint (that is to say any point in the book that is worded in the Literal meaning I read literally, and points that were meant to be metaphor I read as such as well. I did no cherry picking talk to any True Fundamentalist who agrees with the literal interpretation that's how I read it.).
In my modern moralistic viewpoint (That is to say the views most of us are brought up to believe are wrong, Slavery/Murder/Rape Lying ext ext ext) I was amazed how bigoted, vindictive and utterly silly the bible actually was (Not just the whole noah in a boat or the other story about being swallowed by a fish, but the gruesome stuff like god sending a pack of bears to kill children, eliminating the entire world twice, sending armys to slaughter/rape millions, and of course new testament dooming everyone to hell who does not take an arbitrary action such as belief, with slave killing, fig cursing, and rambling Revelation story. Not to mention how utterly useless god is in all of this he is portrayed as a complete failure unable to fix anything. He Creates Adam and eve = Fail banishes them and has to destroy the world with the Noah storyFail 2, then he has to send army's to kill everyone who doesn't believe in him reducing the effect that "free will" would have. Fail 3. then he has to send himself to be sacrificed to himself so that through blood sacrifice everyone who takes an arbitrary action will be okay = Fail 4. but thats not enough since we have to count revelation now the world has gone to crap yet again! and god has to wipe out the world AGAIN! Fail 5.,sure there are more but seriously if this god is real he deserves no worship.)
Once I realized I was no longer a Christian I began to think about if there was any actual supernatural entity out there, and after studying cognitive science a bit I began to gain a bit of understanding as to why people might be inclined to believe in these things. Currently Im trying to approach it from a cultural stand point after all in another culture you might try and convince me of Allah/Zeus or Thor. From this understand the root need for religion/belief in an entity. My goal is not to abolish but to understand, which is why i am more curious in What you believe and why as well as how long so we can learn from another and come away with a better understanding of our world views rather than one ignoring the other.
Now of course everyone's life is different we all have different levels of evidence we accept to be true and I wouldn't expect you to drop what you believe based on what im writing or even that you feel secure enough in your own beliefs to have them challenged. Everyone has their own comfort level, im perfectly content with people challenging my beliefs and I continue to rework my viewpoints based on information I get. Maybe one day we will discover proof of a supernatural entity, maybe it will be the God of the bible, or some other entity we would have never thought of, but until that day arrives I see no point.
So, Ive been playing a lot of Star Craft 2 recently and I have a build order down Pat for Terran. So I thought I would share it really quick and see what you guys think and see if you have any advice on how I can raise my APM, or some Mid and Late game Build orders.
This is pretty much how it goes for me as Terran in Late Game
So my early game goes like this, and keep in mind im only Bronze leage placed 20th in 3v3 which is what I play the most.
9 supply - SCV
10 - SCV
11 - Supply depot
12 - Supply depot
13 - barracks
14 - gas Reactor
15 - scv
16 - Marine
17 - 22 (SCV)
22 - 28 Barracks, give one a tech lab and the other a reactor
29 - Engineering bay, followed by 5 marauders and 6 marines
After this I push out with 5 marauders and 5 marines for inital econ harass
This is effective, but I am lost after that. I have a good opening but I kinda wing it from there which is bad cause others get a hold on me fast.
WARNING: This post is about my time in world of Warcraft, from 2006 - 2009 as such it is very long, but full of nostalga!
Just a Warning this is going to be a *VERY LONG POST*! Written because I felt like writing about something and I couldn't sleep.
When I had first picked up World of Warcraft, I, like many others had no idea the kind of adventure we were getting into. For me, it was the kind of quest that would see many hardships, good times, friends, enemies, and families. It was in the beginning a new experience for me, a huge open world environment with some great music to accompany it. A sprawling community where many laughs would be had and many arguments fought (People of the barrens know this all too well.).
But as time moved on the game and how I played it evolved. The game went from wonderment, to a game which revolved around repetitious routine and frustration at times, to a game that revolved around stats and how to obtain the best gear and spell rotation. This is my story of how I came to see my play style and the way I see the game change. This is the story of a Casual WoW player.
I started playing WoW In the first iteration, now referred to as vanilla, back in those days I had never played an MMORPG before and of course the idea of paying money to play it seemed out of the question, but the idea of a massive world bigger than anything I had previously heard of intrigued me enough to buy it. After picking it up, installing, and patching the game I created my first character in what is now a library of over 20 fully developed characters spanning 3 accounts. He was a Troll Rogue on Scarlet Crusade(RP), rolled because I had a friend who had a Undead Warrior, and he told me the Rogue could go invisible and I loved the idea of sneaking up and killing my enemies.
Back in those days I was lucky to get a solid 3 hours in without crashing or on some occasion, a server shutdown, it seemed that the first 3 months of wow were a real test of patience waiting for Blizz to iron out all of the problems, but persist I did. In those days I never thought of gear or what stats I had, I just wanted to look cool and kill stuff(specifically people). I remember vividly the first instance I joined after being asked to join, it was RFC and the experience blew me away. Five people working together taking down groups of enemies, the experience was like no other, there were no damage meters, no one arguing about DPS, Tanking, or healing. There was none of the repetition I would later feel grinding out Heroics or repeat instance runs for a piece of gear. Just five people chatting about how cool they're new ability was or where to go for this quest or everyone's favorite topic, complaints about the servers. This really set the tone for what my first year of playing was.
Around the time I was level 25 I had ventured into Hillsbrad doing quests. (Back in those days I had not yet heard about thottbot, and there was no quest helper, so the quests really felt like quests, ones I needed to read to have an idea of where to go.) Upon arriving I viewed what I imagine a lot of us witnessed in those days, Tarren Mill being raided. I had no idea what was going on, but chat was lit up with people talking about PvP, who was fighting who, and how famous alliance X was on the server for being in town raids. in those days there were few 60's and the rest were scattered levels. I naturally engaged in the town raid, finding someone my own level and getting killed repeatedly, but it was challenging and it allowed me to learn more about my class and adapt strategy. Later when BG's were introduced I would put what I learned to good use, but for the moment it was amazing to be a part of a raid group full of every level, skill, and gear set-up fighting off a common fow just because the town needed defending. It was there I joined my first guild and made two friends (who I would later lose contact with, but it introduced the major social aspect of the game, guilds)
The days were not always great, back in then it seemed as though the communities were more attentive to matters on their servers. Around level 44 I had done a mara group and I had ninja'd a Dagger, unintentionally it was wrong I admit it. Word of this spread to the server forum and my name was all over general chat for a week. It was strange how I had gone from relatively unknown to blacklisted, but I also had people I had partied with in the past sticking up for me in chat. There was a real sense that each server was it's own entity like a little town where everyone knew each other. Eventually the ninja experience was cleared and became a thing of the past but I learned from that, and never needed anything off hand again.
Life at 60 for me was boring I must admit. I had not yet heard of Raiding, and pvp was all I chose to do, wanting to do Alterac Valley the most, because it was a server event, organized on the forums on certain dates and would last hours, but it was always epic. I spent most of my non pvp time exploring the world because that's why I bought the game and so explore I did. Most notably I went into the Caverns of Time when it was still a Starry Cave, Hyjal before they blocked the entrance, and AQ before the Gate event. But overtime they became boring and my guild had broken up so I wandered around Org most days, until as chance would have it, I joined another guild and learned about Molten Core.
A 40 man raid was something I had indeed experienced in AV, but Molten Core was different, it was an instance where we would have to work as a group to take down some pretty fearsome bosses. I was once again awestruck going into MC for the first time. 40 people attacking molten giants, it had a feeling I couldn't describe, but as fun as the pulls were, the boss fights were something else entirely. Fights that required everyone to be on the top of their game. Wiping and having to adjust your strategy was frustrating and exhilarating at the same time, but the pay off was something that many know so well, and it's the feeling I've been chasing since those days. Downing your first boss is something I couldn't begin to describe with words. The explosion of "woots!" and " OMG YES!!!!" not to mention the deafening screams on vent as your humble guild downs it's first boss. It's a feeling I would like to think every raider has experienced, and one that I rarely see anymore.
Of course downing the boss, as exciting as it is, is usually trumped by your first piece of Tier 1. Yes back in those days gear was indeed hard to get, with bosses only dropping 2 - 3 pieces of gear, with 40 people to compete with, also getting that 1 piece to drop, it was really a big deal when your first piece goes into your bags your on cloud 9. I remember mine vividly, Nightslayer Chestpiece. I had friends over watching me raid and we all shouted like animals when I won it. I felt like I had accomplished something and that all my hard work had meaning.
Unfortunately the guild was hit with drama and soon disbanded after our progression had reached Ragnoros. I left the server and rolled a paladin. After leveling him I raided now and then but never got into a solid raiding guild, mostly due to inexperience, gear, and the fact that I never really grinded instances. This was the way things were for the rest of vanilla. I took a couple of breaks usually lasting a month at a time, but I always had someone to talk to and a good guild to just bs in. Then Burning Crusade was released and ultimately the way I viewed wow changed forever.
When BC was released I was determined to reach 70 and start raiding. At this time I still had no interest in stats, a Purple was good and you needed blues before you could get purples, that's all I needed to know. I played for about a week straight and got to 70 pretty quickly with help from my friends. exploring the new content had actually taken a back seat now compared to my determination of getting geared and ready for raids. My guild had leveled pretty quickly and we went in to Kharazan and wiped the floor on the first boss(horsemen). This was discouraging to most of the guild who had been going through most instances getting their blues thinking they were good enough to take down the first boss, but it took a surprising amount of strategy then what they were used to. Quickly after this the guild disbanded and me and my friends went our own way playing in the arena. Now this was something I highly enjoyed when it first came out. Everyone for the most part was on equal footing and we won about 3/4ths of the arenas we played, but we were not constant about it and over time we lost our edge and quickly were past up.
Also during this time I discovered a very annoying yet fun thing, botters. I was farming in Nagrand when I would see a character repeating the same movements over and over, later in the week I observed this toon was still in the same spot. I whispered him, but was met with no answer so I went on my way. A couple days later I noticed he was still there so I started tagging kills and he would kill them and go on the same circular path. Later I decided to kite a mob, and to my amazement he followed! I kited him to the alliance and after killing the mob, he turned and ran into a wall for about 25 minutes, after that a mob came up to him and beat him to death walking into a wall. It was hilarious, but also introduced me to wow biggest underground problem during BC. I started seeing them everywhere, reporting everyone I could confirm as being an actual bot. Bots in wow really killed my sense of accomplishment seeing as anyone could turn on a bot and get PvP gear or level 70, I saw little reason to play at all if what I was doing was rendered meaningless. This combined with guild drama started my first major break with wow. (Some time later I learned the program used *wowglider* had been sued by blizzard and forced to shut down. since then I have not seen any bots, although im sure there are some out there.)
Six Months later I returned. I rolled my third character after looking on the forums for guilds that were recruiting for raids. I noticed a reroll guild ad, so I went to the server and met with the leaders and decided to roll a warlock. This stage in wow is where I really improved, I began to take the game seriously and learn all about my class, the stats I needed, rotations, and Spec. It was also the best time I have ever had with a guild. We were an upstart reroll guild, it was just five but later went on to 10 members. the core 5 of us ran heroics every single night, not to get badges, but to talk and have fun. I had many laughs with those guys and we were together for about a year. Kharazan runs were tons of fun, even if thats the only raid we actually had because of our numbers. I had, from these runs forged real friendships with people, but I had also geared my Warlock very well and honed my play style to a science. I was no longer a player who went through the motions I was a real contender in runs for DPS.
unfortunately all good things must come to an end. After being swallowed by a raid guild because the majority of us wanted to see the illidan fight we lost contact pretty fast, not ready for a major raid routine of wipes to learn a raid, a lot of good friends quit the game, and soon the guild like many others I have been in had broken up as well. It seemed I was back at square one. I had a well geared character now, but no guild and no recruiting guilds. After this I took my second and longest break from wow. One that would carry my into WoTLK.
Like many people I think I started back into WoW to try the Death Knight. I leveled him to 80 and joined a guild. I did some research into specs, but not rotations. As a result my DPS was mediocre and overall the class was boring to me. I raided Naxx with another upstart guild, but I lost the feeling I had with both Vanilla and BC. I pondered if it was just time to quit. and so after two weeks I did just that I left again.
After 3 months and some personal RL issues, I was once again pulled back in. I decided to look for a reroll guild, because having had personal success in my last attempt I figured it was worth a try. So I rolled on my current Server Grizzly Hills. The guild was full of elitists and stat calculators who knew most of the fights in wotlk at the time. They had rerolled on GH to show there superiority and pass up everyone in progression. It's no surprise that they ultimately failed. Not enough of them were patient enough to gear, the other half were off in their own little world, no one ever talked and it was a disaster.
Some good did come out of it. Some of the members were from top 100 guilds before rerolling and were actually helpful to me, I picked up a lot from them, including raid macros, strategies on healing (I rolled a restro druid) gearing priorities ext. Once I had reached 80 on my druid, the guild thrust me into action, I was healing for them all the time, and learned how to heal in some intense situations. They also moved at a breakneck pace, only concerning themselves with their performance and how fast they could finish instance X. It was literally like WoW bootcamp with them, and I attribute a lot of my skill to them. but as with most of my luck, this guild never stood a chance and disbanded after I had obtained all the gear I could get (badge loot).
With no place to go I again left wow, and again returned 3 months later, once I had heard of the New Instance system. I joined a Trade Chat guild ad and just did randoms for badges. To my surprise the guild was full of really friendly, active people. I Found myself on vent again talking with them, having fun doing runs with them and generally enjoying the game again. Although I have found that I too have become a little elitist. The other members in my guild were awful. Specs were all over the place, gear was good, but rotations were bad. It was a mess to put bluntly, but I think unlike many people I did not chastise or belittle them, or leave the guild because of this. I asked them if they needed any help, and offered to coach them with specs, and rotation. After research I helped the DK's, about 4 of them, raise their DPS from 2.5k when they started to 4.5 - 6k as well as some warlocks and paladins. I felt like I found a new home, they appreciated everything I was doing, and I loved helping them out and seeing / hearing there amazement about how much they had improved.
As good as this was I was getting bored, and soon decided to start the raid game again. I apped for my current guild and joined the same day as a healer. Leaving my previous guild was not really a big deal because I have 3 characters in the guild and it feels more like a family than a guild, where I can bring my healer to their raids if they need my help and im always welcome there, so im happy about that. But my current raid guild, im very pleased with.
This guild is the closest I have come to recreating the awesome feeling of BC raids. Chat is full of BS and good times, and at the same time we are serious, but not elitist. Last night I went in and cleared up to Lich King in 10m and im doing ICC 25m tonight. It feels like the right amount of challenge for my healing and the runs are fun and funny, It's exactly what I want out of wow right now, and until something happens to change that, I will stay.
I sometimes reflect about my time spent in this video game, it means different things to different people and indeed has meant different things to me during these last 5 years. Whether im out exploring the land, PvPing in an arena, or sitting around during a raid chatting it about of various phallic devices in emotes, I will always find some new experience in this game and maybe thats why I, and many others, keep coming back. Not for the gear, but for the journey to get that gear.
Anyway this post is too long as it is, so im going to cut it off here.
Here are some old screenshots
This was me dicking around on my paladin, ironically this random guy died from area damage that Sylvanis did I guess
