My Addiction

As, I mentioned the other day, I play World of Warcraft. Probably way the hell too much. Then again, being on a graveyard schedule, doesn't lend me too much time to actually go out and have a social life. The real world tends to shut down at midnight, unless I want to invest in a new liver, which I'm already in the process of obliterating without my career and education throwing in their two cents every other day.

Sorry, rambling again. Like I said, I play WoW. I think I've been on it for going on 3 months now, and I'm just now getting to the fun part. Every time I've ever played this type of game, the fun isn't in getting to the end, the fun is the end itself. Well, it is for me anyways, and I'm paying the monthly fee, so screw what you think.

Thankfully, or unfortunately, as some people think, the endgame in WoW is huge. You can spend months exploring the entire endgame and just barely scratch the surface. 10-man raids, faction grinds, gear upgrades, daily quests, the list goes on and on. This is probably one of the issues I had with EQ, is once you hit the level cap, the only thing left to do was continuous raids to up your gear, which frankly gets boring after a while.

Currently, I'm rolling on a level 70 beastmaster specced hunter. In other words, more pew pew. That little guy up there, is my buddy, Chester. He's been with me since day 1. He reminds me of my cat Chester who passed away a few years ago. Chester was always the king of the house, and I always imagined him being a huge black panther out in the jungle somewhere, terrorizing everything he could get his vicious little paws on. The first night we had him, I was tormenting him while he was in the carrier. The little bugger sliced my finger open when I stuck it in the cage to play with him.

Chester always stuck with me, and was always my best friend, and it really hit me hard when we had to put him to sleep. While I have plenty of photographs around, this way I can remember him in a way that he would purr about.

Ugh, rambling again. Anyways, back to WoW.

Once I hit 70, I hit a huge wall. The amount of things you can do at level 70 is really daunting, and it kinda threw me for a loop what I can do. Each task seemed to be something that would take forever, and taking those first few steps on the path to such a long venture, was something I wasn't ready for yet.

Enter alt toon #1 & #2, a druid and a warlock. At least with this guys, I can also supply my soon to be huge bills incoming from gear repairs and feeding my profession addiction. Yes, I love professions also. I was part of the 2100 club on Everquest, and eventually will be able to add "I capped all WoW professions" onto my video game resume.

Anyways, here's the current list of things that I'm working towards...daunting as it may be.

• Leatherworking to 375 - currently at 348/375
• Karazhan key - DONE
• Justicar Title (Exalted with League of Arathor, Silverwing Sentinels, & Stormpike Guard)
• 1000 PvP kills - 130 kills
• All Heroic Keys
• Exalted with Cenarion Expedition - Honored @ 7874/12000
• Exalted with Honor Hold - Honored @ 1090/12000
• Exalted with Kurenai - Honored @ 4692/12000
• Exalted with Ogri'La - Neutral @ 25/3000
• Exalted with Netherwing
• Exalted with Sporeggar - Friendly @ 2825/6000
• Exalted with The Consortium - Honored @ 3295/12000
• Exalted with Lower City - Friendly @ 5818/6000
• Exalted with Sha'tari Skyguard - Neutral @ 1182/3000
• Exalted with The Aldor - Friendly @ 1785/6000
• Exalted with The Sha'tar - Friendly @ 709/6000
• Exalted with Keepers of Time - Friendly @ 3259/6000

Yeah...that's a lot of faction. Um. This should at least keep me busy for the next 7.328 years. You think?

Keep an eye out for updates. God knows, I'm psychotic enough to eventually do all of this.

Tin Roof! Rusted!

Once upon a time, back when I was irresponsible and immature(no, not yesterday, you twits), I lived in a shack. Well, not so much of a shack as a breadbox. Myself and 5 other people in a 3 bedroom house. Did I mention the bedrooms were about as big as a Honda Civic?

Anyways, a two story house on the outskirts of town, complete with carport that we couldn't park on because the concrete was faulty and could potentially collapse at any moment, deck that was splintered all to hell, and our own groundhog.

Yes, we had a pet groundhog. Funny story, we came out of the basement one day to go to a LARP(yes, I used to LARP...stop laughing), and lo and behold, we find George sitting on the back stairs. Mind you, he wasn't plopped down like you would expect a groundhog to be. No, he was hanging out, big fat ass sitting on the bottom stair, little paw resting on the next step, chilling like a villain. He became our little buddy after that, and whenever we went outside on smoke breaks, he'd come out and chill out with us. Odd little fella. I still wonder whatever happened to him after we moved. Probably running his little pimp show down on the corner.

Anyways, 3 of us lived upstairs, in the "real" part of the house, and the other 3 lived downstairs. The upstairs rooms were big enough for a bed, and maybe a small walkway if you were spotless. One shirt on the floor and you were trapped. There was also hardwood flooring that looked like it had not a single bit of maintenance done in its entire history. Many splinters were suffered on many drunken nights from that floor. Where said splinters went, I'll leave to your imagination.

The downstairs wasn't much better. At least we had carpet down there. My room was big enough for a futon. If I stretched I could touch both opposing walls. The tv had to go in the closet. Across from the closet? The boiler room.

Oh, did I mention this house had no air conditioning? Also, a tin roof? Yeah. You do the math. For those of you that have tried dieting and failed, I have the perfect diet method for you. Live in a breadbox, with a tin roof, in the dog days of summer. I guarantee you'll lose 20 pounds in 2 weeks. Patent pending.

Funny part about the bedrooms, they were like coffins. They were on the front side of the house, and the house was built into the side of a slope. So, the front side of the basement was buried in the ground. No windows, ergo no exit, except the door. Close the door, and the rooms were pitch black. It was way too easy to lose track of time in those days. Just huddle in your room with the lights off, and the doors closed, and you'll never know what day it is when you wake up. It's like Nocturnal Roulette!!

A few months after we moved out, we got some very interesting news. The house had been condemned by the city. Something about too many safety issues, no easement in the basement rooms, so on and so forth. It always amuses me to think back on living in that house, and realizing I was living in a deathtrap. One fire in the downstairs living room, and I wouldn't be here today. It's a little scary when you think about it.

What does this have to do with the price of tea in china(by the way, I like that phrase, you'll hear it alot...get used to it)?

I've been in the process of trying to move for the past 2 months. I finally signed the paperwork on the new apartment today, and completely emptied my bank account trying to pay for it all. 6 days and counting until I move, and every day that passes I get more and more terrified. I'm scared to be out on my own again. The responsibilities are easy to deal with, it's just the isolation, solitude, things I used to be able to cope with in the past, rear their ugly head from time to time, and make me realize where I am in life...nowhere near where I want to be. I'm just waiting for the other shoe to drop, and once it's all said and done, for me to realize I've made a huge mistake.

I just hope it's all worth it.

Hello World...

So there I am. Finally bit the bullet and decided to start writing again. What prompted this, I have no clue at all. Could be anything ranging from stress, to needing an outlet to abuse, to just sheer boredom. Such is life.

But I digress.

Hi, I'm Jason. I'll be your tour guide for this trip down insanity lane. My life is boring as fuck(oh yes, by the way, I curse a lot...deal with it). I'm on a graveyard schedule. I typically don't wake up until 3 or 4 in the afternoon, and I slack off for a little bit, then I head to class. Yep. Night class. See the little side bar, and how it says "student"? I'm a late bloomer. 29 and I'm a year away from graduating. At 30. How sad is that? Ok, it's probably not sad at all. It's probably a really good thing that I'm getting some sort of an education, and doing something good with my life. But to do it 10 years later than I should have, is just...well...tragic.

I'm in the networking/security major at my...building...that I go to every day to get an education. I wouldn't really call it a university, because well...frankly, it's not. It's a building. Plain and simple. People walk in and out of it. Drama happens. Education sometimes rears its ugly head, and we take it in stride. Accelerated courses, new classes every 5 weeks, I haven't had a break from class since January, and I won't see another one until next summer. Suffice to say, I'm a little burnt at this point...toasty if you will...bring the marshmallows, cuz I can make a mean s'more.

I'm also a network engineer. No, really? Yes, really. Genius, huh? Again, I get up at the butt crack of late afternoon, go to work until way the fuck too early in the morning, and then I go home, sleep, and do it all over again. Sad, isn't it?

So we have student and corporate drone. What else does this leave us? Oh yeah..

Hi, I'm a geek. Terrible geek, really. I play video games. Lots of them. I've got a stack of Xbox 360 games on my shelf that I cycle in pretty much daily. What's my current game? Bioshock. It's terribly creepy. Something about little gothic girls(not you spindly little pancake makeup, black latex wearing namby pambies...get the fuck out and get some fucking sun) sucking the essence out of people while being protected by the demonic diver from the depths of hell, really freaks me out. I guess it has nothing to do with the really creepy 30's music playing in the background, also.

I also play World of Warcraft. Religiously. You say "addiction" and I say "shut the fuck up and get me a glass of water". We're on the same wavelength, right? Ok good.

I migrated from WoW when I went back to school. I had played Everquest for a few years....5 or so, if memory recalls. Right since around the point of Planes of Power, whenever the hell that was.

Oh, for those of you who don't know, years of too much beer pong and tequila body shots have pretty much ravaged what crappy memory I already had, so bear with me whenever I start to ramble, or have shady recollections.

Where was I? Ah yeah. I was on Everquest for way the hell too long, actually. When I went back to school, I couldn't raid with my guild anymore. Night classes and night raiding don't mix very well together, so the latter had to go so I could go with the former. I had already just gotten to the point where I was caught up with my guild, and couldn't handle losing another year and having to play the catch-up game yet again, so I gave it up, and went elsewhere. A few months later, I picked up WoW on a whim, when a bunch of co-workers enlightened me to the fact that almost all of them play it. That pretty much sold me on it, I decided to quit resisting, bought it, and never looked back.

Now I pretty play every day. If only for a little while, since I can feel like I've made some sort of progress. That's what I love about the game. I can play for 15 minutes and feel like I've accomplished something. Tiny little ego strokes every day does wonders for your outlook on life.
So that covers three.

I'm a hustler, too. Or at least I like to think of myself as one. When I was in high school, I picked up a pool cue for the first time in my life. I've been playing ever since, going on what, 15 years now? I play in local leagues, even went to Las Vegas last year for a national tournament. Missed the money round by one round, but made up for it by puking my guts out after a tequila binge at Pure a few hours later(have you grasped the fact that I like to drink? Good, if not, I was going to be concerned).

That trip was probably one of my favorites of all-time. But definitely a story for another time. Can't completely blow my wad the first time, now can I?

Everything else is pretty self-explanatory, and some of those things you'll just pick up on in time. I'm not going to explain to you every tiny little intricate detail of my life, by any means. Nor would I think you'd be anywhere near interested.

It just occurred to me, that the Breakfast Club has absolutely *nothing* to do with this post...aside from the fact that it's in my top 3 Best Movies of All Time(post to come, methinks). Don't ask why I chose that picture. For some reason, it just seemed very appropriate. Neener neener.

So there you have it. Me in a semi-text-based-lifeform-with-odd-ramblings nutshell. Stay tuned. If my odd life is any sign, this place is going to get a lot more odd in time.