I have no Willpower apparently.

Bestbuy-60 bucks, me-60 bucks of stuff.

Got the super-dee-duper version of Lemony Snicket, the deciding factor was that it came packed with the first book in the series and I had wanted to try it out for a while, so this way I can try both and see if I care to continue at all like I did with the Harry Potter series. I also got 2 budget dvd's(Harlem Nights for 7 bucks, loved it as a kid, and Lock, Stock, and 2 Smoking Barrels by Guy Richie, I like this movie and Already had Snatch, so for 10 bucks I couldn't pass it up) and Dr. Dre's "The Chronic" That may seeem like an odd choice, based on the bit about the books above a bit, but I was still in middle school in the early 90's when this thing was big, got really into some of the songs and had long since forgotten how much I enjoyed them. Enter grand theft auto: san andreas. This game has a damn decent soundtrack, hours and hours of music and humor all packed into a game that is good enough that it doesn't even need them, but they still added all that great 90's music. It made me nostalgic for that time period and those songs, so if I enjoy this cd enough I'll most likely buy "Doggystyle" by Snoop, that has some classics also(pre-Girls gone wild Snoop was pretty slick...now he's kinda silly)

Hmm, the whole music thing reminds me of the fun I had yesterday with my mp3's. I have a 20-gig mp3 player(nomad jukebox 3) and since upgrading my pc late last year, I hadn't installed the drivers or anything, so any new music I had since then wasn't on my mp3 player, and all the music from the mp3 player(13 gigs worth) wasn't on my pc. I like having them on both in case one fails or if one isn't available, I can have access to the other. So I spent a while transferring things back and forth and am happy to say, my entire music collection is in both spots...besides this new cd...so I guess the process never ends! Also, I decided to pass on the survivor season 2 set, I figure eventually, if I watch everything I have on dvd, I can go and buy those as a last resort, and they will likely be much cheaper by that point...

And what was going to be just a short "what I bought" post turned into another essay, I hate how I do that...

Confessions of a Shopaholic.

I have a serious problem: Buying Things. I have a problem going into a store on new-release day(tuesdays for dvd's, books, and cd's. wednesday or so for video/pc games usually) and not buying something, even if it's not new. It's not necessarily new-release day, per-se, since I have the same problem on days without new releases, but I am in the stores in new release days more often. I have trouble going into Bestbuy or Circuit City without buying something, I have such a compelling urge to purchase things, and it may not be a bad thing to have the urge, I succumb to it too often.

I own over 400 dvd's, over 150 pc games, over 100 console games, over 200 cd's, over 100 novels, over 10,000 comics. I have enough to keep me occupied. I own over 100 dvd's I've never plopped into a dvd player, over 50 of those I've never seen before in any format. More than 75% of those games I haven't completed. I have read all of the novels and comics, and listened to all the cd's, so I don't feel quite as bad about those...but it's just crazy. My lack of interest in doing things half the time will have me sitting here chatting or surfing the web for hours, or playing one of those damnable MMO's, for hours and hours instead of playing one of the other games, watching a dvd, or doing who knows what else with my life. And it's not like the things I'm not doing I don't want to do, there are plenty of things I don't want to do but those aren't included, but I'm basically too lazy/apathetic to want to do them. Scary and sad, eh?

I mention this all because, surprise, tomorrow/today is release day. Now, some things I plan ahead on buying, days weeks or months in advance, others I buy as an impulse because I am either on the fence or....because I have nothing else to buy that day. Tomorrow has a very light list of good things, only 2 things have me tempted at all. The Lemony Snicket movie(kids movie with Jim Carrey) and the second season of Survivor(the outback season) I have never seen Lemony Snicket and have heard mixed reviews of it, it looks mildly entertaining, if not a little depressing. They have a regular edition and a super-duper special edition, thankfully released at the same time to avoid double-dipping(buying something multiple times based on multiple releases that add features/quality) but the difference in price is $11 bringing the price to $28 for a movie I've never seen. If I do end up buying it, it will be for both the chance to see it, and just having access to the extras if I did choose to watch them. It has at least 2 commentaries and I have to say, I am quite the commentary whore, I love sitting down and watching/listening to a good commentary and I also love dvd's that have commentaries as I feel it extends the value/life of the movie. So, I don't know what the heck to do about that, I want to see it eventually because I hear it's visually impressive, but is it worth $28... Ok, other dvd is survivor: outback, I have seen each season of survivor so far and know how they all end, but the nice thing about such a bad memory, I can't remember without a little help. So these dvd seasons of shows are a great way to sit down and both relive the enjoyment I had originally, plus almost get a new experience and get something new out of it maybe. It's been about 4 years since this season originally came out, and it had some great cast members and some memorable moments, but will I get enough out of it and are there any extras? I don't know and I will have to decide that before tomorrow.

Besides dvd's, music, and books I have to think about games, those are released later in the week so I have to budget myself accordingly. Do I want to buy any games this week or next week and if so, what? Considering games are in the $40-50 range and dvd's are typically $15-30, I have to worry about those less and can play it more by ear, the games are a bigger investment and require a bit more planning and research. Plus the fact that I have so many dozens of great games I really want to play, that I look forward to playing eventually because of how much I enjoyed trying them originally, I have no idea why I buy new games besides just keeping up with the times so I don't miss things... I've bought about 15 games, pc and console, since the beginning of the year. I haven't completed a single one. But I still want to buy more. I wonder how many dvd's I'd have to give up to get therapy...

Monday, the day after Sunday.

I had no specific title imagined, so I went with something mildly obvious to all but the non-english speakers, and why the hell would there be any "reading" this anyway?

So, I finished my Amazing Race marathon yesterday, and it just renewed my opinion of how great of a show this can be. Take 10 or 11 separate teams of two people with an existing relationship per team(family, friends, dating, etc) and give them clues that send them around the world. Saying each team is 2 people is a bit of a misnomer just because each team also has a cameraman and, I believe, a sound man to take care of any issues that arrise and to record all that I guess. Now, the teams are racing around the world in various countries, perpetrating the whole "americans are stupid jerks" stereotype, which is a problem in and of itself, but it's also quite exciting(or edited that way at least) to see what happens next. It's not like all those other reality shows with their "voting to kick people off" sort of thing, this is a race, last in is kicked out(usually...) Each episode typically consists of a "road block" and "detour" and a few hops in between to various clue spots, some episodes have them traveling through multiple countries or sometimes it's all within one. A Road Block is one of the 2 people has to complete a challenge of some sort by themself(each race has about 12 roadblocks, so no person can do more than 6 since in one season, a guy named Chip did all but I think one challenge and he and his wife eventually won that season's race) A Detour is when they are given 2 tasks to pick between, sometimes it's not even a guess which is easier, sometimes it's a bit up in the air. After they do those in whichever order the producers pick for that "leg" they get a pit stop at the end, to rest for 12 hours before the next leg, and they leave in the order and times in which they came in for the previous leg. So a good head start should conceivably help out, but they usually have "chokepoints" where everyone ends up getting stuck for hours until a place opens.

So that's a basic rundown of the show in general, sometimes they mix things up, but this season they are doing it more it seems like. This season has had a decent mix of people(last season had 3 or 4 teams of "model/actor" people for the pretty-factor) with a lot of variety between the teams, but some teams have stood out(for good or bad) and they are:

Lynn and Alex, the 2 most stereotypically gay men on the planet. It's almost makes you think they will implode into a black hole of gayness. I have no problem with homosexuality at all, so this isn't meant to insult them at all, but it's almost like 2 actors "playing" gay at times... They just got kicked out in the last episode I watched, but they did make it to the final 5(of 11) teams.

Meredith and Gretchen. Old couple, in late 60's and early 70's. Meredith is the guy. That's enough right there, but damn Gretchen is loud. Every episode, she's running through the streets and buildings of some country and screaming at the top of her lungs for various reasons, either to maybe her husband or maybe if she's looking for something. Maybe she doesn't realize it and needs a hearing aid... A few episodes ago she fell and actually bruised and bloodied up her face a bit, she had blood streaming down her face and had to get a stitch or two. They are the least competent "old person team" in any amazing race I've watched, but they've made it farther than any "old person team" and are currently in the final 4.

Rob and Amber from Survivor. Fun couple, she doesn't seem that into him at times but they are a very competent couple. He does backstab and lie quite a bit, ala survivor, but they get the job done and have come in first several times so far on legs this season.

Son and Mother team. Don't remember their names, but at first they seemed quite a nice little team, a Sweet late 40-something mother and her gay son. But as time went on, he just turned into this whining little ass, always wanting to quit. But she was also a bit pushy with him, and I can see why since he was being a jerk, but at other times she didn't even seem to be compassionate or considerate at all of his feelings and it was just such a weird vibe coming from them...I would hate to see their home life if the show was any indicator of that.

There are other teams that are doing a great job, like Uchenna and Joyce(she shaved off all of her hair to not be elimated in the last episode, she cried some but was adamanet she wanted to do it, which is really amazing and I respect her being so brave doing it) who are kicking some ass this season, or rob and kelly who seem to be slowly falling apart at the seams with their relationship. But it has been as enjoyable as always.

In other tv news, I am actually looking forward to the end of this season of 24, I started losing interest several episodes ago when they kept going from disaster to disaster and it is a never-ending cycle. Fun to watch early on, when you don't know what's happening and it's a big mystery, but this season has just kept trying to one-up the previous problem and it is getting to the point where it's just silly. I do watch it and enjoy it to some degree, but eh, they went off-track this season I think. Lost is good, and I'm sure I'll have a post about that at a later date, many-much rantings about that possible.

Guess today I'm in a tv-mood, that's the problem with having so many interests, some days you just aren't in the mood or really are, and it's hard to work around that sort of thing to do what you are really in the mood for. I sometimes envy the people with just one main hobby who can just sit down and do whatever that is, say watching movies or building things, and that's all they need and they never go "but I could be doing this other thing" the whole time.

The Subjectiveness of "Early"

Everyone has their own definition of Early, it varies depending on what is going on in your life, what kind of job you have, even what day of the week it is. Some people love being up at the crack of dawn, or even before, and some people are forced to be up then for their job or kids or disposing of evidence, whatever. I have a slightly offbeat sleep schedule, and it can vary from day to day, it works fine for me most of the time, though some days I do go around on less than 3 hours sleep, nothing horrible though.

Today I woke up just before noon, I don't know why my body chose then to wake up, didn't have to rush to the bathroom and it wasn't 90 degrees in here, and I didn't hear any commotion that might have waken me up(though that doesn't leave out a single-instance loud noise that could possibly have waken me up, it's impossible to really know about those...) So, here I am at say 11:30 or so, on a Sunday, with nothing at all planned for the day besides sleeping in a bit(for me) and then maybe having an Amazing Race marathon(more on that later) This sucks! I don't want to be up this early, I spent the rest of the week getting up before 11am because I had to, now on my day off I can't sleep in? After about 30 minutes of hoping I'll fall back to sleep, I resign myself to the fact that yes, I'm up for the damn day. Hooray for me. I'm sure there are people out there(if they were reading this...) that "there are plenty of people who wish they had it so easy" and I'm sure there are, thankfully I am not them or I'd complain even more.

So what to do with a full day of nothing... I have a Tivo, I find it amazingly convenient and it means I never miss my favorite shows, even if I forget them. Great! It also means that I end up putting shows on the backburner for a while until I get around to watching them, not as great. Some shows I just tivo and watch that night, can't wait to see them and I just watch them when I have nothing to do, right before bed. Other shows I leave on the tivo for a time when I'm really in the mood to watch something, for instance my current 5 episode, 6 hour long run of The Amazing Race. I love this show, most enjoyable reality show on television to me for a number of reasons, I won't get into them but it's just a cut above all the other dreck that is out there these days(I only watch the big 3 of Big Brother, Survivor, and Amazing Race) Last season I did the same thing, I ended up having 7 or 8 episodes saved up(guess I started earlier in the season) and I wanted to be able to sit down and watch them all and not be distracted at all, to be able to enjoy them on my terms instead of being rushed to catch up for next week. This has made it tough since I do have a couple friends who watch, and I like chatting about the various shows like that, but this makes me enjoy the show more, knowing I have a marathon of it waiting for me. So it looks like that will be my day today, but that won't take up near enough of it...

To me, Early is anytime before Noon. To me, Late is anytime after 4am. This is my life, it ain't perfect by any means, but who can say theirs truly is(and yeah yeah, you "happy family" people can just keep it to yourselves, I don't want to feel worse about it!)

MMO's or: How I Learned to Stop Playing and Love My Real Life.

MMO's stands for Massively Multiplayer Online(games that have monthly fees typically, and most are roleplaying games, but they have hundreds or thousands of people per server) and they are both a great thing and also something that has just made me waste so much time.

A little history, first. In September of 1997, Ultima Online hit pc's. It was part of the long-running Ultima series, but it was online and had a monthly fee(you could also only play online and if you paid) Quite a many people scoffed at this idea and figured it would die off quickly, with so many other games out like quake and diablo(think it was out at launch, but substitute doom if not), there was no real reason to pay for a game like this. The company even had low expectations for it, I don't remember their initial numbers that they expected, but they were surpassed quite quickly. I heard about it for the first time in november of that year, picked it up to play on my P120 with a whole 16mb of ram! I thought it was a neat concept, so much to learn and see(the game didn't even ship with a manual, to keep it "surprising" I think) that I just couldn't believe no one had done this before, a fully realized world online to do things in. Over the next several years, more games of this type, with variations here and there in gameplay or graphics, came out and more and more people kept signing up to each. Everquest came out about a year-year and a half after uo and it very quickly surpassed UO in subscriber numbers, most MMO's afterwards tried to stick fairly close to the Everquest-style gameplay/look, they still do to this day(after 7 years now...)

I was with uo exclusively from november 97 until october 2002(tried a couple beta's and free trials, but never more than a day or two) At that point, I started playing Dark Age of Camelot because a couple friends went over to play it, figured I'd tag along. The problem with that type of game is that it doesn't lend well to casual gameplay and you really need to sit down for hours to get some decent experience(XP, the thing that allows you to get "better") Ultima didn't have any form of "messaging" system or "email" built into the game for quite some time, and it still doesn't have anything like the "chatboxes" of today's mmo's, so everyone used ICQ or various other instant messaging programs(but icq was the main one, 90% of people used it, most still do) This allowed people to keep in touch even outside of the game, say if you couldn't play or one(or both) of you quit. I think that's a reason why, after leaving Dark Age of Camelot(DAOC) in april of 2004, I don't have much contact at all with any of the friends I made, besides the few that went on to other games with me. At that point, I still had my UO accounts active but never played, just would log in to try to remember what the good times were like(at that point, nearly all friends I played with regularly had quit and moved onto either real life or other games, though I do keep in contact with many via icq) and a new game came out that I had been hearing great things about in the beta, City of Heroes. I started that up and shortly after the game launched, quite a few Daoc players from my guild there came over, the most recent daoc expansion had alienated quite a few people, so we had a very active little guild of friends in city of heroes. I eventually cancelled my unused but active UO accounts, I was spending so much money on just keeping the memories alive there, it just had to end. I didn't "officially" quit daoc until about a month after city of heroes' launch date, but I was playing so little that I didn't recognize half of my guild when I did log on. By the way, I know I am very spastic with capitalizing proper nouns and acronyms, I apologize.

The great thing about City of Heroes is the fact that it's great for a casual player, you could log in and do things for 30 minutes without any problems, you can solo effectively as most of the characters(no "forced grouping" with 7 other people to get anything done) and the "missions" are designed to be completed fairly quickly. That's when I realized how much time I had wasted by playing the "12 hour stuck in your seat" raids that it involved at times, this was a great revelation to me that I could actually play this and accomplish things elsewhere in my life! The game does end up being a bit tedious, in their pursuit of a casual friendly game, it made it very hard to have enough depth to keep the "hardcore" gamers happy for very long. I'm not quite a hardcore gamer, but I'm not a casual gamer all the time, either. So for me, the tedium didn't really set in until about september or october I guess, which happened to be when World of Warcraft open beta began... Long story short(er), most of the COH people moved over to World of Warcraft(WoW) and are still there nearly 6 months later. I played it and enjoyed it for a while, but the "high level" game, often referred to as "endgame"(which is ironic, since these type of games have no end at all, until they shut the servers down and the game is canceled...) is more of that butt-numbing "raiding" that daoc had. I became disillusioned and took a nearly 2 month break from it.

As of now, I play both games(coh and wow) fairly infrequently, maybe once or twice a week when I think friends may be on to play/chat with. But you figure, that is 7 and a half years of off and on hardcore/heavy gaming, parts of those time I wasn't working and was playing over 14 hours a day. The silly amount of useful things I could have accomplished in that time is astounding and makes me a bit ashamed. But then, I do value many of the friendships I've made along the long and winding road of mmo's, I had some amazing memories(that I hope I manage to keep...) along the way. I love the concept of mmo's, but the fact that they need to make them "Addictive" to keep people interested, and the "raids" for the hardcore gamers(which end up producing items and abilities that often make it impossible for a casual gamer to compete in a player versus player situation) just really kills the idea for me. There are some casual mmo's out there, but having tried them briefly, they often feel shallow and boring...which I know is a catch-22, but I just think that maybe they are not for me(or maybe it's just a phase for me right now)

See, I just sat here and wondered if I had actually managed to stay mildly on topic and I was surprised to see that I was dead on target for what I intended, will wonders never cease... So I don't really know the purpose of this post, we will call it a rant/vent session, it's a very touchy subject to me and I'm sure it will be breached in various other ways later if I remember.

Boo-urns on HTML editing.

Well, what a pain in the ass. I toyed around with html back when it was "cool" and "hard" to do, before the whole flash/java/activeX stuff and I found it tedious, so I gave up on it. I never was big on creating sites, because of the laziness factor and the "make a single mistake and it causes big problems" deal, same with all "programming" Flash forward to now, having to learn all the various blogspot tags and such is quite a chore. And, oddly enough, Dust in the Wind by Kansas is playing now, hope that's not a sign of things to come for this blog...but I think it's just mocking me!

I do have to say, I like my XM more than I thought I would, which is surprising since I had such high expectations. I am hearing so many songs that I typically wouldn't without a peer to peer program or more money than, uh, a person with a lot of money. I'm sure Sirius is pretty good too, I just picked this one and I'm happy with the decision. I'm sure it will come up later, I play the thing all day at work and most of the time when I'm at the pc, so it gets a lot of my time.

Hmm, based on the first two posts I think there are 2 things that are evident. The first is that I use commas much too often(as well as using an ellipsis much too often...and parenthesis) and the second would be going on and on about basically nothing. I don't post on message boards because I just can't stay on topic, I wander from thing to thing and eventually, in the end, feel the need to reiterate my point so people remember what I was posting about(including myself) My grammar could also use a great deal of work, which I guess relates back to the first of the 2 "things" mentioned earlier. Also, I like pie(I occasionally add nonsensicals at points where I can't think of anything else, but think something should be said).

Boredom has led to some very interesting things...

I got off work and was just dead bored. I don't understand how this happens, I have an ungodly amount of entertainment options(and that's without having to leave the house.) Hundreds of dvd's, games, books, cd's, channels, and thousands of comics. But no, I'm bored.

I enjoy sitting and just talking, and I am sure that I've burnt out quite a few icq "buddies" that way. My mind wanders from topic to topic, even if I'm just thinking. Quite often I'll just be thinking about something and then 5 minutes later, I'll be on a totally unrealted topic, but that's where the game begins! With my awful memory, backtracking my thoughts to the original topic is quite the mystery, I think even Sherlock Holmes would have a bit of a tough time with the odd leaps I can make. Plus, having said awful memory makes it very convenient with movies, books, tv shows, etc. I eventually forget what happens, usually much quicker than most people seem to, and it keeps them fresh for me.

So, this boredom led me to here, I follow a few blogs here and there, usually humor is involved, though I'm not above reading a blog just because the writer is female........and yes, I know that is just sad, you don't have to tell me. I usually have tons of things going through my mind, usually none of them are very important and they all get jumbled together or forgotten, so this is my way of putting them to text before I forget them, or at least the attempt to.

I don't honestly know how often I will be updating, this has been something that has been brewing off and on for a while, it really depends on how much of a pain it is to update and how quickly I run out of topics. Plus, obviously, I'll use this as a means to vent/rant/emote about all sorts of things, so we shall see how that works out. If you do run across this and are still awake...I'm sure you have better things you could be doing, but thanks for visiting and Welcome to Juras....er...my blog!