Bleh, I hate the rain

Ok, thats not entirely true.  I dont hate the rain.  I do prefer not to get wet though.

I share an office with a coworker, and her taste in music is, well, shitty by my standards.  So when Im trying to write (which is what I do for a living), I prefer silence or music that doesnt suck goat balls.

My music of choice?  Linkin Park or Audio Slave.  The problem with listening to Audio Slave on a drab, meloncholy day like today should be obvious to anyone thats ever listened to their first album.  The result?

Yet the Expectations Remain

Yet the expectations remain,

free from you, the

guilt you taught me

remains

Forever not good enough

never what you wanted

Always shy of perfect

"What about the other three percent?"

 

Running away,

not finding myself

hiding

from all that you made me

Never far enough

to be free of what

you made of me

Longing to be free

yet always,

the expectations remain.

 

Thats right, you guessed it.  Shitty poetry, thats what.  Let this be a lesson to all.  Dont have the blinds open on a rainy day if you have the window seat, and certainly dont listen to Audio Slave if you do....

ah yes, Part 2 of the Tauren Chronicles is written and being edited, but Ill post that tomorrow.  Economy of effort and all; why post more than one thing a day, besides it means I dont gotta do shit tomorrow.

 

Later,

 

Plato

Posted by NorthernPlato @ 12:50 pm EDT | Permalink | 0 Comments

Tauren Adventures

Well, I was meandering around the shores of Tanaris last week, hunting turtles for their scales.  I can make turtles scale armour now, thanks to a friendly Tauren in Camp Mojave.  She is quite the master leatherworker, I must say. 

At some point during the hunt, something hit me, like a bright flash of light I was struck by an epiphany.  I felt I could relate to the faithful mounts of the Tauren; the mighty Kodo.  I ran back to the dust bowl that is Gadgetzen and hopped a Manticore back to Thunder Bluff.  I checked in quickly with my lifemate, MinasTora, and she as well had experienced that same epiphany I had.  Now, I had promised, in what seems a lifetime ago, to purchase her mount for her when the time came.  Unfortunately, I was wasnt finicially prepared for such an outlay of gold at this time.  I, of course, did not relate this to her though, as all in clan Minas are known for their stubburness and pride.  Needless to say, I was more than pleased to find that I had received money from my namesake cousin, HunterTaz.  Hunter, as we call him (for obvious reasons, I assure you) had managed to find a rare ring at the bottom of Lushwater Oasis, and managed to sell it at an auction for an obsurd amount of gold. 

I was waited for Tora to make her way back to Thunder Bluff and then to Bloodhoof Village, I meandered around the Kodo dealership.  The Kodo salesman was a pleasant Tauren, kind enough show me around andlet me browse what he had for sale.  I was taken immediately with the Great Grey Kodo, but the salesman (and the riding trainer) both assured me that was not yet ready to ride such a magnificent beast yet and that I showed seriously consider one of the two econo-models they had for sale: the grey kodo and the brown kodo.  To push the idea that I was not yet ready, they told me that the great kodos were currently being sold for 1000 gold each!!!  Well, I know when something is out of my league, and I started to inspect each of the kodos.  I was alittle put-off that I couldnt try out the kodo, or even just sit on the harness for a bit, just to see how I looked as many other vendors let their customers try on equipment before purchasing.  While I waited I met several other Taurens coming along to take a look at the kodos.  Many younger Taurens asked if I was there to buy a mount, and I assured them that I was.  One notable Tauren, much older and far more experienced than myself came along to gaze longingly at the Great Kodos.  We talked for a bit and I learned that he was just waiting for his check to clear sometime next week so that he come by and purchase a new mount. 

Eventually Tora found her way to Bloodhoof (no thanks to Vulf keeping her in some far off land, chasing earth elementals, hehe) where, in typical female fashion, she proceeded to hem and haw over which Kodo she wanted.  There were only two choices, and for that Im glad, or else I may have still been there now, waiting for her to chose.  In the end she chose the Kodo that I did not, that way we were not too matchy-matchy, as one of her favorite plays (the Tauren classic, Lifemate-Ritual Date) says of couples trying to hard to impress.

Well, thats it for now.  Later this week Im going to go back to the Wailing Caverns.  How on Azeroth a that cave continually refills with riff-raff after I empty it out, I dont know, but Im not really one to question the mechanics of the universe for all that I am a Shaman.  However, Ive promised HunterTaz a Deviate Scale Belt, and for that I need a rare specimen of Perfect Scale.  Oh well, what a grind.

Later all,

Sincerely,
MinasTaz

Posted by NorthernPlato @ 1:40 pm EDT | Permalink | 1 Comments

Its all w00tburgers for me

So yeah, the RAM came in yesterday.  I opened the package, reconfirmed the RAM that was in my PC by looking on my original packing slip from Dell.  Just to make sure that I had the right stuff. 

So I unhooked all the cables from my PC first, brought it into the carpetless, static-free kitchen/dining room, and removed the case.  Wow, was I impressed.  Truth be told, this was the first time Id ever removed the case and peered inside my Dell since I bought it 2 years ago.  It was clean, as in the cable were tied off together, out of the way, in the neatest, most organised way Ive seen.  Ill also mention that the placement of the slots for the RAM was very convinient for user access and subsequent upgrades like mine.  Heh heh, I love my Dell.  Now, at this point in time I decided to check that Id order the correct type of RAM.  Why the paranoia?  Well you see, at the previous place I worked, I was responsible for upgrading the computers.  One day I had decided to put a random chip into my PC.  Lets just say, it didnt turn out well for me.  There was smoke, hissing, popping and I quickly turned off the PC.  I removed the offending chip (which was VERY warm, to the point that the individual plastic thingies [really, I used to know what theyre called] were soft and left indents when I pressed on them) and then turned the PC back on - promptly blowing the power supply in a shower of sparks, smoke and very foul smell of burned electronics.  As I said earlier, I love my PC.  I didnt want a repeat of the last time I fucked around with upgrading the memory of a PC.

So I installed the memory, which was very easy to do thanks to the positioning of the slots, right in the middle of the board, under nothing, thanks to the cables being out of the way.  I replaced the cover, carried the case back to the office, hooked it all back up and with much fear and tripidation, pressed the power button.

Boot up sequence.
Message saying the amount of system memory has changed,  Press F1 to Continue or Press F2 to Enter Setup.  (this was expected and detailed in the Dell manual)
Press F1, wait for continued boot up sequence
Windows screen...
Press the Windows Key+Break, quick confirmation shows that my PC is now running 1Gb of RAM.
Success!!! Yay!!!  W00tburgers for all!!!

Next, I performed the same task on Mrs.Platos PC, which is identical to my own owing to the fact that I bought both PC from Dell at the same time.
Again, success. *sigh of relief*

With both PCs hooked back up, I start WoW.  To which all I can say is: wow.  I had literally just doubled the memory of my system, but I didnt expect such a difference.  Id figured the it took to reload the desktop upon exiting WoW was due to the fact that on my 40GB harddrive, I only had 17GB of free space.  Running WoW is a fragmentation nightmare.  But appearantly, more memory fixed that problem.  First test within WoW itself?  I flew from ThunderBluff to Orgrimmar.  For you WoWers out there, youll know what I mean.  Before, landing at the Windrider Masters tower was cause to go and grab a coke or another cup of coffee. No more.  Not only that, while running around, I found me a flagged lvl 47 Alliance running from the NPC guards.  Well, being lvl 39, I figured, Fuckem and threw a Frost Shock his way. And with the help of the city guards, I earned myself an easy Honorable Kill.  Alliance fucktard. 

Well, thats my memory upgrade story, along with my first "solo" PVP experience.

Next, Im thinking of adding larger HDs and installing my games on it.  Thatll leave the 40GB HD for running system apps only, which should help things somewhat, though its not nearly as important in Windows XP as it was in Win98SE.  Im also hoping that it will help with loading terrain tiles when I max the draw distance in WoW. Not the terrain detail, and especially not the resolution, but Im hoping I dont need to upgrade my video card for draw distance.  I was able to increase it though from the minimum to about halfway without taking a performance hit.

Well, thats all for now.  Im not ready to spend much more on upgrading my PCs for now.  Theyre both P4 2.8Ghz, and instead of upgrading the motherboard, Ill just save up and buy kickass laptops with dual processors and shit if the missus and I are still playing WoW in a year from now.  If we are, the ability to play outside in the summer, under a tent, would so totally rock.

Happy gaming,

Plato

Posted by NorthernPlato @ 5:06 pm EDT | Permalink | 0 Comments

WoW Addiction

Well, I bought more RAM for both my PCs at home today.  Another 512MB for each, bringing the total ram on each PC to 1024MG...aka 1Gig!!  fuck yeah!

Next on the list are HDs.  Dedicated to running WoW.  Right both PCs are running 40GB HD, which isnt nearly enough.  The load times and exit times are rough.  Hello fragment city.  So Im thinking that an 80GB HD should suffice, if all it has on it is WoW.

After that will be video cards.  Again, both PCs are running 128Mb GeForce4s, which get the job done, and i think would work fine at maximum draw distances if I had larger HDs for caching the terrain .mlb(?) file.  meh.  Well see.

Until then, come join us on WoW.  I can be found on the Perenolde server, which is PVE. 

Later all.

Plato

Posted by NorthernPlato @ 4:53 pm EDT | Permalink | 1 Comments

If I were smart

If I were smart, I'd probably copy&paste the address to this area into my address bar, thus saving me the time navigating through menus.

There are a lot of buttons at the bottom of this blog entry thingy.  Wonder what they do?  If I were smart...

Ah.  Ifs.  I like Ifs.  They are the key, if not the gateway, into a meandering fantasy of land occupied by What If's, If Only's, I Should Have, It Could Have Been.  While these thoughts certainly can be treacherous and make for fantastic slippery-slope footing, they none-the-less demonstrate our common search for something better.  Like a mirror we hold to ourselves, somtimes we realise that the life we perceive is an illusion.  Such startling revalations can sometimes crush us, but they can also free us of the constraints we place on ourselves.

If only I'd worked harder, I may have...fill in desire here.  Instead of being depressed, we realise that we're merely dissappointed - in ourselves.  Why didn't I try harder? would be a great next question, but one we rarely ask ourselves.  Why?  Probably because we're afraid of the answer.  We might be afraid that if we look too closely at ourselves, then we'll see the same characteristics that we've mocked and chided in others.  Truth hurts.  But then so does growth.  One of the defining moments in my life came from reading Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C.S. Lewis.  A cousin of Lucy and Edmund, Eustace is brought to Narnia with them.  At one point Eustace puts on a braclet he finds in a dragon's hoard, transforming him into a dragon.  In order to lift the curse, Aslan scrubs the scales from Eustace.  Before Aslan would help Eustace however, Eustace had to ask forgiveness for his mistakes.  Asking for forgiveness implies that you acknowledge that something is wrong or have done something wrong.  In this case, Eustace had to acknowledge that which had been said about him: he was selfish, lazy, mean, etc.  The scrubbing off of the scales was described as being very painful, as well it should be.  The metaphor Lewis was describing wasn't merely a Christian belief in asking forgiveness from God and receiving it, but that change, personal, internal change of the person you were to the person you wish to be is very painful.  It requires letting go of illusions you've used to shield yourself from the world around you, deconstructing the walls and fortress of your soul and barring before yourself in all its twisted, self-loathing beauty and beginning to mould it into the person you wish to be.

I love tangents, don't you?  Now I need coffee, and considering that the coffee shop is in the college I work next to, well, let's just say that the waiting in line can sometimes be the best looking part...

And if anyone has ever wondered about the Plato part of my gamertag/forum name, wonder no more.  My head is always filled with such jibbering nonsense as above.  That's why I'm always so quiet in the Lobby in Halo.

Plato

Posted by NorthernPlato @ 12:24 pm EDT | Permalink | 0 Comments