Real Life

Shameless Art Plug


A shameless plug for some of my art work I’ve got over at DeviantART. Who says all I do is game! This Christmas I was given my first ever SLR digital camera, an Olympus E-410, and I love it. I’m typically a pen and ink sort of artist as is apparent by some of my earlier pieces, but recently switched away from traditional art to delve more into photography. I’m still meandering my way through the phone book sized manual, but am having a blast with it in the mean time.

Ideally, I’d like the bit of code up above to go into one of my side bars in my wordpress template, but I use widgets, and have no idea how to go about that. I’m not a web designer, though it’s always one of those ‘things’ I’d love to teach myself. Speaking of teaching myself – I’ll be (hopefully) getting into HDR and tone mapping here in photography shortly. Should lead to some interesting pictures.

600th post.. (or so)

I decided to take a look at how many posts I had on the blog now, since I’ve had it for quite some time –

Low and behold, I’ve hit (and past) my 600th post, standing at 615. Hopefully people have enjoyed reading, and if not, oh well. I enjoy writing and that’s good enough for me. Here’s to many more.

Other points of interest? 615 posts, 1,109 comments, and protected from 7,961 bits of spam.

Go-Go Akismet.

Where Are They Now?

I was thinking last night about all the people I’ve gotten to know in an online sense over the years. There’s been a lot of them. However, over time and years as people move on from games they lose touch with one another. I spend a lot of time (well, not a lot, but some) thinking to myself “I wonder where so and so is now.. I wonder what they’re up to. I wonder if they’re still gaming”. So I thought about it a little more. Does anyone know if there’s a site out there that would perhaps let you find people who you used to game with? Let me explain a little more.

I’m thinking a data base type site, where you’d input what games you played, during what years. Your character names, and server names. Maybe guild names if you wanted to get into even more details. An email address where you could be reached as well. Have this data base open for others to search. So you could search by game, by server, by guild, whatever. If you wanted to see if anyone was still around who you used to play EQ1 with WAY back when, this would be the place to look. Of course getting people to actually sign up and input their information is always the hard part.

The reason I’m thinking of this in particular is there’s so many varieties of game now. It’s always funny when you ‘run into’ someone you used to play with long ago. Or interesting to see where people are ‘playing now’ 10 years later. To see if they’re even still around. A name you’d recognize from back in the day. Surely I’m not the only one who’s run into people in a game who leave some sort of an impression.

For example, personally speaking. There was this one bard. His name was Twinkletoes. It may have even been Twinkletoez, I can’t quite recall. Used to play on EQ1, and I’d gotten to know Him fairly well. He dyed their gear bright pink and green and blue, it was atrocious. He was funny, but over time decided to give up EQ1. He even let me use their account and I created my cleric there, Eltheria. I can’t remember why he kept the account open specifically, but I know he was apart of the floods in Louisiana, and I remember being worried for him. Shortly after that incident I never heard from him again. From time to time I wonder what happened to him, and I wish there was a way to check in (on willing participants of course) and see how folks are doing. There was the guy who told me he was some famous guitar player (and lied about that might I add, I found out later) who I met in EQ1, and all the old guilds I used to belong to. I don’t remember their names but I’m sure if I could search and see it, it would strike a note.

Then again maybe this is just some foolish idea, or, maybe it’s already out there some where and I just haven’t checked hard enough. I know there are places like eq2faces and what have you, but is there an area that encompasses all games out there (or a majority at least) where you can search for folks who used to play particular games? If you’ve heard of one let me know so I can check it out! What I mean specifically, is to be able to search for someone who you played with in EQ1, and then find out that they’re actually in your new guild in EQ2 and you didn’t even know it. Or perhaps the guild leader of your Vanguard guild is actually the same person who used to gank you all those days ago in WoW. That sort of thing.

The Other Side

I’d love to say I’ve finally settled down with one character, or even two character. Those who know me, know better though. I’ve constantly got alts on the go. I think the only game where I didn’t have a plethora of alts, was Vanguard where I limited myself to three, and EQ1, where I also only had three (a rogue, enchanter, and cleric. Sitting at level 72 last I checked). So it really came as no surprise last night when I brought up making alts to Zokor and Gozad.

Safe Haven’s “official” branch is on the Uther server, which is a PvE server. They have both an alliance guild and a horde guild. So we decided to make alliance characters there, since we already had horde on our PvP server of Ravenholdt. I wanted to be able to give Zokor a break from tanking some times, as I’m sure he can tired of it. Anyone can tired of anything if they play it enough I’m sure. I only know one person who has never had an alt in all the time he’s gamed and that would be my other half who plays a Shadowknight in EQ2, and has since release. A monk in EQ1 before that. A paladin in WoW when he dips in for maybe an hour or two a year. In any case, Zokor jumped at the chance, and thus our Uther characters were formed. A warrior (me), mage (Zokor), and hunter (Gozad). We didn’t play much, managed to get to level 6 before calling it a night. The lands were pretty though, and it was a nice change from playing horde. I miss having bags of a proper size, that’s for sure, and by ‘proper’ I mean.. well, even 8 slot bags would do. I’m pretty sure in every game I’ve ever played, the bag size is never quite enough. Especially not for beginner players. Not for pack rats either. I have items I don’t even know what to do with any more. That’s a whole other story though…

The whole ‘less game more life’ has been going great so far. It’s been very odd going from 17+ hours of gaming to 2-3. I’ve found myself with a whole lot of free time, but with great friends am managing to find plenty to do between writing, reading, artwork, going out. I’m glad I stuck with a ‘casual’ game, and I live vicariously through the Shadowknight on EQ2 as he does his Veeshan’s Peek raids (among others) nightly. With my birthday just around the corner I was going to ask for a new hard drive and video card, but I’m finding myself without a real reason to get them (quite yet, until WAR comes out). My trusty 7600 will do until then. My mom just upgraded her machine, and has been eagerly telling me about how well it runs now *chuckles* gotta love family.