Hooplah.Org

In just a little while I’ll have 2 and 1/2 large cinnamon rolls with orange icing to enjoy, and then after that, I’ll finally be able to bring in my old desk and set up my new aquarium. My mother was supposed to help me with it yesterday, but she had been too tired from only getting 3 hours of sleep the night before. Since the weather is supposed to be *so* nice today (63ish is what I’ve been hearing) I asked for help again today and she agreed.

Whether or not I’ll fill it with water today, we shall see. Before I even attempt that, I’ve got to feed the axolotls very well and then try to put them all together in one tank to see if they’ll get along. Kasey and Cayenne are the males, and they had already been together in a tank for 75% of their life and had gotten along fine. And then from that, I’m hoping that those two will have no issues with being aggressive towards Herbie, who is female. For now though, I’m not as concerned about their sexes as I am about their size. Herbie might still be roughly twice as big as Kasey and Cayenne. Despite the fact that the female is usually bigger than the male in about 80% of the species out there, axolotls usually are around the same size, give or take a couple of inches. There’s a chance if I up their feeding and food variety I could get both of them another inch in the next two months… but waiting for something I want has never been one of my strong points.

Anywho… cinnamon rolls are done, got to finish eating them if I ever want to get this over with and done.

I’m relieved to finally accept that there’s no chance that I will be dieing of rabies anytime soon. Since a mouse bit me sometime back in early October, I had been so paranoid of the freak chance that it could have given me something fatal that I was looking up every odd pain or flinch I’ve had since then. Since rabies incubation period is usually a max of 8 weeks for people, I should be in the clear by now, since it’s quickly approaching 12 weeks since it happened. I’m relieved, in that “how could I be so silly” way.

And how did a mouse come to bite me, you ask? Well, to make a long story somewhat short: one was loose in the house and my mother put a sticky trap in my room behind my TV to catch it. While on a Sidi raid in DAoC I happened to look to my right and the mouse had indeed walked across it and gotten stuck. I had never thought of what to do with the mouse once it was caught until I saw it trying to crawl away using only it’s front feet. I won’t go into the graphic details of how much he had hurt himself trying to free himself from the plastic, but it was nearly enough to make me cry just looking at him. I decided I would try to remove it from the very sticky plastic outside on the porch, because it was simply too cruel to leave it that way to die. The only way to do that was, as gently as possible, to try to pull the mouse off. While I was trying, he turned around and bit my finger. When I went back inside and told my father what happened, while blood made a constant drip down my finger, he did nothing but continue to lay there and called me stupid and said I would get rabies. Not in a concerned way, but with a continuing “you’re so stupid” theme. I finally convinced him to help me remove the mouse from the sticky pad while I tended to my finger. He ended up using a shovel to remove the mouse, and then flinging it under the porch still covered in the sticky goo… as if that was worth the effort at all. I flushed out the wound as much as I could and tried to go on without worrying about it. It was very sore, but it healed quickly.

There was alot that happened in October that I never felt the real urge to sit down and write about. Like seeing School of Rock with Stephen instead of filling out employment applications at the department stores like I had intended to do. We ended up eating at Wendy’s, I chickened out, and we went across the street to see the movie instead. I also forgot to write about walking around downtown Fredericksburg with Michelle while the weather was still in the warm 70s and the leaves were still green. Her and I and gone into the birdshop there, and a tiny parrot that was on top of a cage tried frantically lick the leftover salt from lunch out from under my fingernails. Michelle also spent a large portion of time petting the tummy of this very large white and pink bird. We didn’t go into many other stores, but mostly walked around and talked.

I really did have a good time with Michelle that day, and had not wanted her to leave that night. Now that she’s back in Roanoke, I’ll have even less of a chance to see her than I did while she was living just an hour away. Why I kept forgetting to return her calls in her last week of living in northern VA, I have no idea. Dave IMed me and told me that he had already run into Michelle by chance somewhere, and she had only been living at her father’s for roughly 2 weeks or so then.

I’d really like to see Dave again, and to see Radford as well. It would probably be painful as hell to take it all in, to actually see the ghosts of my past walking around… but what’s the point of hiding. I really did fall in love with the place… and after all, it wasn’t it who left me. Deep down it was I that made the conscious decision to leave, because I knew I didn’t belong there. I know I don’t belong there now, which is why I would keep my visit short. If for nothing else than to keep myself from getting any wild ideas of going back. It was the time, it was the people, it was the moment that I miss… not the consequences of hard work and commitment.

Sometimes I think of what it would be like to see Sarita again, as Michelle had always mentioned that we could take the metro if we ever wanted to visit her. We left off on such bad terms, and it’s been so long since I’ve seen her… I don’t know if I’d be able to be friendly with her. Not in an upset or angry way, but that I just wouldn’t know how to begin to. Everything’s so different now, I don’t know if I would be friends with someone like her.

Sometimes I miss my friends from high school that I’ve lost touch with (which has totally been my fault), and I’m sure whatever bond I had with them has suffered the same fate as the one I had with Sarita. It is a very odd thought that I have not seen Carl in person for 2 years… nearly 10 years ago I would have rather died than to have gone that long without seeing him. Someone from his house had called me on Thanksgiving while Matt and I were still asleep, and I was pleasantly surprised to find out that he had. Though, at the time I figured he must have dialed the wrong number, and never attempted to call him back. For all I know, it would have been Lindsay calling in anger over some compromising pictures she found… so I just let it be. By the time I was in good enough shape to call, they would have been deep into their holiday festivities, and I saw no real point in interrupting that.

Though I have become more “calm” in the past two years, I have also become much more shy. Not in a self conscious way, but just in fear that I’ll do something I regret. There’s been so many pointless, careless, selfish things I have done for no real reason that I would give anything to remove from the record, and I’ve become so afraid of just adding to the list. Example: I’m completely comfortable with my body and my appearance, but heaven forbid someone say something to me and expect a witty or clever response back. I instantly become stunned when it seems like something is being expected of me that I just cannot provide while not on my own terms.

Ehh… Enough of that for a while.

Another note: I went walking with my mother earlier. I’ve been doing it to lose some weight… I’ve also cut my daily meals down to 2 (before you think that’s too few, I was eating on an average of 5-6 full meals a day… not because I was hungry, but because I was bored. Cutting down and chewing gum instead doesn’t really bother me that much) in my weight-loss effort. I’ve already been able to fit into some of my jeans again, which is good.

What really brought this post on was that I just discovered I got a blister on my toe from walking. I noticed it, and then all at once it started to sting and burn. Guess I’ll have to stay off my feet the rest of the evening… oh, darn

Time for an update I just sent an e-mail to my father’s friend (someone who I’ve always known as “Uncle Fred”) asking if he could pass my lil resume around to his associates to see if any would be willing to hire me. After hounding the paper for weeks and weeks, and not finding anything I could do (or missing the opportunities on all the good jobs) I’m finally starting to look elsewhere. I tried to make the e-mail to Fred sound professional and friendly at the same time. I actually feel really hopeful about it, and I hope he can pull through for me. I’m dreading the idea of signing up with another employment agency, and just having a repeat of what happened at the last one. Or them telling me that if I’m not willing to answer phones, then they have nothing to offer me. It’s probably impossible to skip college and get in the front of the line for office jobs… but it doesn’t mean I’m going to stop trying anytime soon.

Sometimes I wish I could find the secret to making 10p an hour in DAoC and just live off selling that Temp constantly buys gold from someone for 10p at a time, and he makes his living doing just that. Course, that guy probably has 0 time to spend actually enjoying the game. Who knows, that might have just been his only option after the LA nerf… hehe.

I’ll have to tend to my axies again today. Feed them, as well as change their water, and scrub their tanks. Maybe I’ll be daring and try putting Kasey and Herbie together in the same water, and see what happens with them. I just have to be ready to scoop one of them out if I see them start to bite. While Kasey is somewhat used to being in a tank with another axolotl, Herbie hasn’t been with others since she was a couple of weeks old… which is coming up on 2 years in February. Other than the guild ML raid tonight (which I’m really looking forward to) that’ll be the extent of my excitement for the evening

Maybe I’ll get lucky and hear back from Fred this evening as well.

I keep feeling antsy, like I should be doing something… but the past two days have been spent by wasting my time. There were three really decent job openings in the paper on Sunday… but did I call any of them? No. I just kept putting it off and putting it off until now it’s Friday, and ridiculously late to reply to an add that only ran in last Sunday’s paper. Sometimes I wonder how anyone possibly fits in all they want to do in life while having a job. The days arn’t long enough, I sleep too much. I’m lazy. Vicious cycle.

Matt and I haven’t been talking much In the past I’ve never minded it, mainly because Matt always made an effort to keep talking to me. Now Matt is taking advantage of the free time that he gets (since I play DAoC almost all day, he no longer does, and I rarely hear the IMs when he sends them while playing) I guess I’m starting to get a taste of my own medicine. He’s also hasn’t been in the mood to talk on the phone the past three times I asked. While I know he shouldn’t ever worry about my feelings for him, no matter how distant I am, I’m not sure about him. He’s never been as distant as me before… but it would also be very hypocritical of me to be suspicious just because someone changed their behavior, as I’ve done that before to him. I do it all the time, actually. Would be unfair for me to worry about him, or to freak out about it. So I handled it my own way, not confronting him but just making an effort to send more IMs and ask more about talking on the phone. When he goes home for winter break (should be tomorrow?) it might get back to the way it was, who knows. Not that either way is bad, now or before… while I like not feeling guilty about always forgetting or not hearing, I do miss him. I miss him alot.

Incoming DAoC talk…

Been playing alot. Helped Temp farm a scroll last night to finally activate his Aten’s Shield, since Mythic finally fixed the “spawn problem” (read: horrible bug they were too thoughtless to check before release) that was causing Champion Notes 1 of 3 not to drop. I was happy for him that he got the shield, and though it was blue con, he still did 30-40 more dmg when he slammed me than he did with his yellow con he had been using. So it’s all good. That’s the third artifact I’ve helped him farm scrolls for, and I’ve been helping him the past two days level his Winged Helm. While my Belt of the Sun is leveling at the same time, I’d really like to get some points into my cyclops shield so I can get Stealth Lore already. But I’m too afraid to pve with it now due to the decay bug that Mythic has been turning a blind eye to. Sure, they may fix it eventually, but that doesn’t mean they’ll implement anything to fix all the equipment that was ruined by it. Depressingly typical. So I’m trying to save as much of my stuff as I can only for rvr usage. I posted something about in on the guild forum, but it’s getting very few views and no one has responded. Sometimes I worry whether any of them like me at all I’m just too shy in the online world for my own good.

I’m also waiting on *someone* to finish crafting stuff for my SC template. I only say *someone* because they asked me not to tell anyone they had a LGM SCer, and since some people that play the game read this journal (or some may just stumble across it by chance, never know…) figured it would be best not to say their name. Maybe 50 years from now when I’m reading, reminiscing about how I wasted my youth in the imaginary world of DAoC, I’ll remember his char name. Heh That’d truly be sad if that’s what I was doing at the age of 70 (if I even life to that age).

But… anyway. I’m waiting for that, though he can take as long as he needs to on it… I’m really in no rush. When I sent him the template, he e-mailed me back with some suggestions for changes, as I had asked him to give if he say anything notable. He gave me alot of tips I already knew, which is fine. It’s not like I have “I am a DAoC dork and know almost every game mechanic, know almost what every spell dmg type is, and know 90% of the quest rewards for the current realm I’m playing in” written on my forehead. Besides, the choices I made for the template were ehh, and I’d guess anyone would question my reasoning given the options. I got drawn in by the artifact’s flashy appeal, and the idea of being one of the few to be able to cast a melee resist buff on myself that my Belt of the Sun has… it just seemed uber to me. My poor gimpy utility Belt of the Sun. In truth, it might have a higher utility than the uber TOA belt, only because we currently don’t have a way to measure how much utility + stat cap items give. You never know, it could be somewhere in the 90s. Mythic is the only one who has access to the equation for TOA + utility, and they’ll probably be dicks and keep it to themselves.

Guess it’s pretty obvious this is my first real post about DAoC. I’m touching on every topic I can think of Usually I spout all of this to Matt, but he has been taking a very long “break” from DAoC, so I feel bad constantly talking about something he’s not interested in. Sometimes I do vent to Temp in game, and while he does listen, if it gets to be too much he’ll sometimes change the topic randomly… that is, unless what I’m talking about effects him as well, and then the conversation will just be about “wtf, that sucks.” That’s fine, too. Just sometimes I need to type out whole paragraphs worth of my venting. As sad as it is, the game is a large portion of my life… and while it may seem pathetic to some that I’d devote so much time thinking and talking about it, the fact that it’s an online game, and that alot of it is about my interactions with the other people who play brings it out more than someone saying “My sim won’t go to the bathroom! OMFG they went on the floor again!” Or something like that While it is in fact a fantasy game, the people who I play with are real.

Anyway… again

I had responded back to *someone* that I was concerned about my poor lil Reaver’s HPs, which is why I had ended up keeping the Belt of the Sun since it gives +40 hps. In total, I can get up to +90 some hps over cap, which would factors out to about 6RA’s worth of extra hps. While my resists may be lacking, they’re all at 19-20% +, which is decent enough. I had already planned on getting Avoidance of Magic, as well as points in Aug Con and Toughness… so, in the end, I’ll have basically capped resists, and have an extra +100 hps to boot. One day my little Reaver will have nearly 1600 hps unbuffed Yay… that’s so much better than the 1340 I’m sitting at now.

I’m waiting for the evening, so maybe when Temp logs in he’ll be game for farming ML exp in Dartmoor.. and also exping my cyclops shield at the same time I could put it in my 2 handed slot or something, supposedly it still gains even though I’m not currently using it as a weapon. We’ll have to see, though.

End DAoC talk for now

I cleaned my room today, in preparation for brining my old desk in here sometime soon. I also cleaned my desk, which I needed to do *so* badly. While cleaning around, I was checking the movie stubs I had laying around, separating the ones that I went with with Matt and putting them in our little memory book to be organized later While I was searching though some more clutter, I found one for Harry Potter – Sorcerer’s Stone, and one for Chamber of Secrets. I saw Sorcerer’s Stone with Alan, and Chamber of Secrets with Matt. I also came across 3 Smoochy movie stubs, which was from when Andre bought tickets for me, Michelle, and him. I also had some from seeing Orange County and Vanilla Sky with Michelle. It was so weird to find those from almost two years ago, and in such a random place, too. Why they weren’t with the rest of my college stuff I have no idea. I just stared at them for a while, and placed them gently back where I found them. I lost momentum for cleaning shortly after that.