My Thanksgiving, or why I will not get to see my family this year.

So, Its the holiday season again.

Woo.

I mean it, I really do. Its the time when I can go and see all my busy, old, far away relatives and catch up with their lives. I can get some fond memories of them while they are still around, and enjoy some seasonal food while it is fresh, and nostalgic.

Wait, I work in retail.

Nevermind.

The retail store I work at is only closed 2 days a year, Christmas and Thanksgiving. It closes then so that its employees can go get some time with their families. But that rings just a little hollow when because of the days immediately after each one. I cannot go see my old, or far away relatives. I mean, its not like my grandparents are old or anything, I mean they're supposed to live forever right? Its not like people in their eighties are just dying off. Its not like people who are old and or fraile have a higher mortality rate in the winter because of the cold or anything.

But at least I can go see my parents this year, and go get some good food and entertainment before I work through 12 hours of angry guests. Wait, some of them are headed out to see the family thats far away, so I guess I can only see one small chunk of my family this year...

again.

Wait, every major retail chain this year has announced that they will be opening their doors at 8 pm Thanksgiving night. So, it looks like I now get to run a shift from late Thanksgiving to early Black Friday.

So, in order to survive this shift, I will need to sleep while the family who is close enough to me for me to visit them is eating.

So my thanksgiving this year:

• Cannot see my aging grandparents who are too far away.
• Cannot see my sisters or their families, who are living close to the above.
• My dad is almost assuredly going out to see every one above, which leaves me out again.
• I have to sleep through the meal my mom is making this year, so I can:
• Say up over night and deal with customers who will be upset because we ran out of deal x
• or want us to honor coupon y, even though it doesn’t apply to what they want.
• or who are mad at me personally, that I made them get up and shop at the ridiculous hour of 11:45 PM on Thanksgiving evening.

Because I get a choice in all of those options.

Its true, I do. I can also chose to tell my boss “I quit” go and become a hobo. Its not like I need my pay to make ends meet. Or to feed myself or my wife. or for rent so I can stay warm and dry through the winter season.

Or I can work when I’m told too.

The simple fact is:

Companies know that they can open the doors whenever with an amazing sale to get more customers.

Customers know that Companies are going to put out the best sales on Black Weekend.

This vicious cycle of malignant consumerism has pushed my thanksgiving from a holiday where I get to see my family like my employer's “intended” by not being open that day. To a holiday where I have to not see anyone I really care about because I have to sleep through it. So I can work .

Some might ask, What about Labor Day? Well obviously leading question aside, it’s Monday. Really, its the day I go to work and do labor. I know it was intended to be a day where laborers get the day off, but I have somehow always been doing labor on labor day. Weird huh?

Now, before this grows much longer, Here’s the point.

Don’t feel sad about missing me. When you're passing the rolls around the table, eat one for me. I miss my family so much, but there’s really nothing I can do to see them right now. I know that they are missing me, and I am always welcome. But I need to keep working to survive, so its off to work I go. Until the vicious circle ends however, this is the way it will be.

Brain-dead Super Rant

So, last night I spent the whole evening with some friends doing several of our RPG campaigns. First there was The Dragon Blood one. Basically, since the last installment online here, we lost our home town, been getting slowly stronger, and finally, we just had our mentor and only real protection in this game die before our very eyes. ( Well, My character didn't, but that's his own fault). In any case, This point has the world starting to hit the proverbial fan. (With included proverbial poop). We are now fleeing southwards with no immediate goals towards finding our lost party member, Though our mentor kinda got better. At least he didn't actually die. Thanks to the healy member of the group.

Moving on. After some o the group had to leave for school the next day, The rest of us moved on to another RPG, Namly Dungeons and Dragons. With a simple hack and slash combat going on, we spent a while making sure we had some fun time to burn down. This game really ended this morning, about a half hour into mindnight.

Which brings me to the brain-dead par of this thingy: Either my face or my brain feels like swiss cheese, I cannot tell which. Luckily, work is kinda slow today so I don't have to worry about much at once. As glas as I am on having friends who enjoy my intrests as much as I do, 5 hours of sleep seems to be mostly grating on me anymore. This whole morning has been spent in zombie vision. I can qualify this as a rant for the simple fact of how I keep draging this thing on with no direction or point. oh, hey. I'm done now. Time to go off to find brains, I mean Mt. Dew.

Serves me right!

Here I am. I just had the most awesome Idea for writing an RGP. System, Universe, everything.

All I need now is free time.

Blasted free time.

I blame the Androids

I'm sitting here at work, thinking of how I want to start this off. My friend gave me a good idea with which I will follow. If only I had a freaken idea to start on.

The idea is a 30 minute story. I think I can do that. I will just have to start tommarow. See, the whole idea and everything comes from within that 30 minute period.

Oh well, Tommarow expect a great short story. Or some other sort of hack writing I'm much more likley to be doing.

Either Way good times.

Christmas: In Retro-spec

So, Christmas time has come and gone. I' have received many presents and I feel the need to chronicle them and my thoughts on them.

• I got some clothes: Not really a clothes person. They are nice, but eh. not my thing.
• Gokusen (badly spelling mangled): Great anime. I recommended to everyone!
• Death Note: Another Good one, Although I only enjoy the 1st half.
• Lost Season 1: A great show! Yea. Not my favorite season, but its good.
• Spore + parts pack: Now I too can mad scientist up my own creatures!
• Fallout 3: Now roaming the wasteland with guns!
• New Phone! It Rocks Socks!
• Idiocracy! Watch This Movie! Now!
• Books 1 - 11 of Wheel of time...  Thats allot of words.

And their is christmas in a nutshell...

of info!

It's a Holiday Bonanza!

Its Holiday time, And here's whats up!

This week are final preparations for Di and I to get a new RP setting off the ground. She's running it, and I'm just doing the PC thing. We have a party of three right now and it seems to be the perfect size. My character is magical (dragon-blooded, in the setting), and hopefully won't go crazy or anything. Of course, it doesn't help I'm setting him up for failing. Oh, and it is a BESM 2.0 Tri-stat rules grounding, so it should ground out fine. On an (un)related note, I need to get a hold of Chadd again. Punk keeps having to work when I'm not and vice-versa.

We are going to start a new holiday tradition... (mind the oxymoron), Watching 'Santa Claus Conquers the Martins.' As presented by MST3K. Sadly, that title is accurate.

This week is "get ready for the office party at work" week. I get to spend my time being office Goomba (read that: bitch) to get all the supplies. Which really isn't any different from any other day I suppose... Moving on before I realize my job description.

World of Warcraft "Winter's Veil" event is on. Yay! Its more work than I care to put into it for the title, since I have the ambassador title. So, we will se how much I do on it... Still its good to see that the online world is not a static place.

More haikus soon. I promise. No Promise is guarantied or implied. Please call your doctor for promises lasting more than 4 hours. Do not take promise unless advised by a doctor. This gag would be funnier if I could get the text smaller.

Twitter!

So, I am twitting now. I am not sure where it gets to go on what I do here, Namly Randomness. I approve so far anyway. Now, to get up to speed.

• I Voted. Yay! I was going to spam lecture about it, but that is not important any more. since it was a while ago. Thats all on that for a while I think.
• We are getting the house clean like no buddies buisness. I think it's way past due.
• Di is putting an epic BESM RPG together for us to run. It should be most awesome.
• This Bullet intentionally left blank.

Lets see what happens now...

Huh?

I find it odd that I am crafting elaborate song/dance numbers for any given location I'm in.

Example(crossing a street):

Burst out the door, run to the street!

Go into a tight spin while checking for on coming traffic.

Do repeated back flips across street.
All of this is done in sync with whatever song I'm thinking of....

I have no idea what this means either...

Supermajority???

So, My boss linked the above opinion article, for all his workers to read. It relates all of the various things a democratic majority government (aside from Supreme Court) will try (and likely accomplish) to pass. I can find the party affiliation of the writer within 2 sentences, 4 at most. Lets look at all these issues, and see if any problems can be found.

Medicare of all - The rest of the world handles this without destroying their economy or their citizens. Why can't the US do that also?
Regulate everything! (The Business climate) - Claiming that regulating industries will slow the economy is kinda silly. Deregulation has led directly to both the Enron collapse and the Wallstreet face-plant.

Union Supremacy - This is a bad idea, agreed. Here in Colorado, however, that has to be voted in by a majority of voters. In any case, people can still write to their senators (regardless of party) and demand that they don't support bill "x." Just because the opposite parties politicians are in office doesn't mean they can't be written to. Write a letter, make a difference.

Taxes - Okay, more taxes. The governments income has to come from somewhere, and taxing the mid-to lowest section of the population is the akin to being anti-Robin Hood. Take from the poor, and leave the rich alone. Not a perfect analogy, But it points out the absurdity of the "trickle down" theory. When the economy needs money, the rich keep their money in savings like everyone else. Taking less from them so they can save more does not make sense. I propose a new idea: Upwelling. It's not about standing under a tree and getting one or two drops of extra, its about the level rising from the base.

Green revolution - Is it really so bad that we try to keep the planet livable for us and future generations? I think so.

Free Speech and Voter Rights - You would deny the District of Columbia the right to vote at congress? They would get one vote in the House at most, plus two more in the senate. You would keep general people from the vote on the day of the election if they still needed to register? You keep people from voting! If the population does not get a vote, then the country is not a democracy. Period. The End.
Special Interest Potpourri - This happened in the last 8 years plenty, so its no a democrat only thing. Also, No Child Left Behind was a failure. I was in my last years of high school when that program started, and it was already called "No Child Gets Ahead" by students. Better we have our education system watered down, and overhauled entirely than have it stay as it is.

The final thought: You have had 8 years with your party in charge of the government to get these things set up right. They failed pretty badly in my eyes. Looks like its another's turn now.

All Hail Darwin!

So I was surfing around the internebs, and I found the above article...

I can't quite express how funny this article is. The idea of reversing normal roles and sides of an issue, with the evolutionists at the "this looks like a person stain" and the Religious folks at "its just a stain!" I think this shows the absurdity of both sides. Its not that it is a stain or not, its that people are fighting over a stain, or a sandwich, or what have you.

I just think that if I had a stain of some sort that looked like Darwin or Jesus in my bathroom... I would just think they were stalking me anyway. So there! (insert emoticon sticking out tongue here)

Lizards

I think its pretty awesome t osee my lizards exuviate its skin.

Yay! New words that sound awesome!

WAR, Not Wow I

So, I have been thinking on the whole Wow vs War thing. I find I don't have the time or money for both, and I find that I don't have the energy for both. Strictly speaking, it is not a compossible thing for me.

So, War is brand new, it is pretty awesome as far as beta's went. I had a Warrior priest who kicked more ass than was handy even. One would even say he could vaticinate the end of his enemies. But, I still need to purchase the new game. and all the people I tend to dislike on MMO's are all flooding to War, from wow because its a new game and the new Wow expansion isn't coming out for another month and a half. So I think right now, I'm going to play some Wow, and get all of those things I never could before the next expansion hits. Like my epic flight form. and level all of my secondary skills. and the like.

So, when the expansion hits I can just grind out 70 to 80 with just the new skill points and I don't have to worry about any new mounts or anything. then maybe a Death-knight. Its a shame I cannot play a game I like as much or more because no one else does though. Anyway, I hope I'm not Embrangling anyone with my confusing new vocabulary. (just FYI it is all real words! Woo!)

To WoW the WaR, Of personal choice

I've been spending more time on World of Warcraft than I strictly should. I just recently got back into it as far as an active interest. I had been taking a break, though not as much of a break as much as not enough time to play to do anything on it. Where I am currently is, I have one level 70 main on my main server. She ( yes, she. I'll explain later) is a Balance specced Druid. I'm leaving behind the beginning sections of the endgame and starting to move into the middle ones. These sections are Raiding instances, specifically Tier 5 content and Zula'man. Its a place about only 20 to 30 percent of any server get to, But most servers are large enough that it translates to several thousands of players on each.

Balance druids are kind of rare at this level. Mostly it is because Blizzard has designed the class to be not as effective as others with the same role. The big Range DPS's are mages, warlocks, and hunters. the lower range DPS classes are priests and shamans The lowest Range DPS are druids. That blizzard did this is perfectly fine. If one class gets to powerful the other classes will never get played. Hunters, Mages and Warlocks All do one thing: damage, and allot of it. They also can crowd control. Priests and shamans are more healing classes; they lose damage powers for healing powers. But if Specced out right, they are still pretty good. They also have area benefits to those who are in their group. Finally, we get to Druids. They have about half the dps of any of the top tier. Even specced balance they can do fairly decent off healing, they have a unique in battle Resurrection, that no other class has. They have a fairly good area affect for those around them.

So why the rarity. Mostly, because people cannot go to big raids as a balance druid. Reasons why:
1. They don't put out the DPS.
2. They don't have an effective crowd control.
3. They are under geared for the raid.

Well, this looks like 1 and 2 are blizzards doing. which is true. Blizzard has decided to "fix number 2" by giving an ability the druids already have that is related though unusable inside, the ability to be used indoors. So one down, two to go. The first one, Blizzard looks like they are possibly changing. Not sure right now, as they are adding a new expansion, we do not know yet how much extra damage each will be able to do.

So, number 3. Low gear. This at first looks like a player problem. "If your gear is low-leveled then you need to fix it". that is not actually the case. You see, most pieces of armor regardless of type (cloth, leather, mail, plate) can be firmly attached to one class for who it goes best with. Arguably the best magic dps classes are mages and warlocks, both of which use cloth. Balance druids can use leather. Simply put, Blizzard does not put out enough leather magic damage gear to let druids have leather as an option. So, balance druids need to take mage and warlock gear.

Now we are taking not only their spots but the gear from the ones who are left. As well as having no crowd control and low dps to boot. And we wonder why no one wants to take us to raids. Now, most raid groups hand out new gear on a system called DKP. It works out so that the main raiders get the first choice on any gear they can use. Its a good system, unless you are unable to do many raids within a group, or worse (like a druid) you are not allowed to go often. So you finally go, because they happen to have an extra slot. You get no gear because the main raiders still have priority. Your priority goes up slowly yes, but every week you don't raid you lose a percentage of it. If they don't let you go on raid because of those 3 points, then any priority you gained by luck goes away. Fast. So not enough gear means no entrance to raids, which means no gear. lovely circular logic.

Now this was going to be my thought between two games I am interested in playing right now, though I don't have much time. I was going to make this a post on my thoughts on 2 games I want to play and come to a decision on which one. Make this a two-part thing and I think I can do it.

Next up: Warhammer, Age of Reckoning and the pros and cons of that. plus hopefully my choice on the matter.

Haikus abound!

Its getting kinda heavy and meaningful here... So here's some haiku!

I traveled miles,
with my feet inside your shoes.
You are barefooted.

Found my shirt today.
It smells of oil, fuel, and paint.
Now I'm lightheaded.

When out on the road,
Do order a cheeseburger.
It won't disappoint.

That's all for now. Woo! Haiku!
edit - I edited the Haiku to make them more fit the syllable requirements. Because I'm horrible at Syllables. Expect more changes later when I learn them better.

Welcome Back!

I'm still working on that evolution essay. But thats for another time. For now its time to play "Here's what I'm doing now!"

In the 2 years since my last post, Big changes have been afoot. I'm back in school. I'm still in a physics related science major except I'm at Red Rocks Community College. I'm also running a Warhammer Club there. I've grown up some, I've become more politicaly aware. I've worked my head around my spiritual beliefs. I spent alot of time online with friends, jumped through some differant Online games, and am about to start one that I've been waiting for since that last post in 2006. My work responsibility has multiplied ten-fold. I still have to wash the bosses SUV. Within the last two weeks I have gotten an itch to read poetry, still not sure why. I still don't drink much. Maybe once a month, So thats a good thing I guess. I spent time with family I ahven't seen since 2005 even.

So, thats me right now. Hi, how you doing?