Why are you so cold? You are cold enough my knees hurt! WTF?

Catch y'all on the flipside.

My right cheek feels like someone has tapped it with a hammer and the pain radiates through my right eye socket. My nasal passages, however, are clear, leading me to wonder if it IS my sinuses or not. That and I seem to have developed a slight temperature. Maybe not going to classes tonight would be a wise idea...that is all.

Today marks my first foray back into education.

Needless to say, I'm a little nervous.

What if the other kids don't like me? What if the teacher doesn't like me? What if the classroom doesn't like me?

It's been 10 years since I've been in classes and I'm not sure how it's going to work out. The intentions are to complete my courses, get my Certification as a Financial Planner and use that to my advantage. As it is, I sadly lack portable skills. I have the knowledge provided by my current employer, but that's only good as long as a company I go to uses the same computer programs in their administration. I'm also limited in that my experience at this jhob deals with only a couple types of retirement plans, and there's a whole spectrum out there.

Anyhoo, wish me luck kiddies!

I was going to post this on my private filter, but fuck it. This post has been inspired by something Meti said and I think it's an interesting thought that bears discussion.

Some comedian once said that American politics was based on special interest groups and lobbies, like the Tobacco Lobby and the Alcohol Lobby and the Insurance Lobby and citizen's lobbies, and in America there are 350 MILLION Special Interest Groups and Lobbies. I'm starting to think that he may have been right, but for the life of me, I can't remember his name. I'd like to give him credit where credit is due.

It breeds what Meti called a "Cuture of Entitlement" and I can't really disagree. It's not just in the States, as the comedian joked, but really everywhere. There seems to be a growing culture of entitlement, a growing feeling that people want things handed to them on a platter instead of having to work for it, and that saddens me. Also a growing sense that people take things entirely for granted and our wants are more important than anything else. Case in point?

The State of the Union Address

Please take the time to read the entire article. I'll wait. Really, I will. I have the time. Digest that just for a second.

When did a fictional program about a plane crash on a monster-infested time-travelling island, and an over-hyped, over-blown karaoke contest become more urgent, more pressing, more real than The State of the Union Address? More important than your own country? YOUR OWN FUCKING COUNTRY! Honestly. Can anyone tell me? Tell you what, if anyone can tell me a good night for the State of the Union address that doesn't conflict with a season premier or a new episode that falls into the traditional timeframe for the State of the Union address (late January to early February) I'll pass that on to Obama and all you vidiots out there that joined the Facebook group and the Twitter Clan can relax.

I'm sure that something will be done, like ABC doing the smart thing and pre-empting entertainment for REALITY as opposed to reality-based programming and fiction. Or each and every one of you fans of LOST can RECORD the damned show, turn off Twitter and the interwebs for a few hours, watch the State of the Union Address and then watch that damned show after. I'm sorry, but mindless entertainment should not take precedence over your country. And for the blowhards out there threatening to vote for the other guy next election if Obama does pre-empt your show: Wow...really? The touchstone of American politics and society, and the thing that everyone holds so dear, DEMOCRACY, hinges on whether or not you get to watch your stories? If that REALLY is the case, then we are all fucked. You are asking the President to change something that has been done since WASHINGTON for your TV show? You're not entitled to that. Nuh-uh. Sorry.

Note to the LOST and American Idol fans who were up in arms about this: Go fuck yourselves. Your country is more important than that. You are spitting on your own country and your President. I don't give a fuck if you voted for him or the other guy, Barack is still your President of YOUR country and it behooves you as an American citizen to take an interest in your country.

This way you'll know when to emigrate to Canada. :-)

If you do nothing to help yourself don't be surprised if, eventually, people stop helping you too.

If something in writing does not answer a question to your satisfaction, then you're out of luck. Dried ink on a page cannot change, something else has to.

The squeaky wheel gets the grease, this is true, but the same doesn't hold true for people. Sometimes a ball-gag is involved.

I have this friend...lol...a lot of things start like that, no?

Well, recently when talking to this friend on the phone or picturing this person in my head, I see them with three dogs around them. Not hounds, or rotties or shepherd or anything like that, but those small wire-haired mutts that are not any one breed in particular but completely adorable.

I'm wondering if there's any connection with lwa or Netjeru or anything, but for the life of me I can't come up with anything in particular. St. Lazarus is only pictured with two dogs, one light and one dark, and I'm not sure if there are any Netjeru associated with lost mutts or small dogs...anyone shed any light?

Thanks, Mike. Appreciate that.

The team GM approached me after the game last night (we lost 8-5) and said that, seeing as the team had been together for a while, and some of the guys were anxious to win SOMETHING besides the Toilet Bowl, they wanted to bring in another goalie to replace me and have me run the floor. He told me there'd been some grumbling on the team about the goal-tending, and even though I'm a friend he thought he should mention it, and even mentioned the goalies (yup, not one, but THREE that were coming available for next session) that he wanted to "platoon" me with and blah-blah-blah. I freely admit, I'm not the best goalie in the league, far from it, and there have been nights where I haven't been spectacular in goal, and I've been lit up, but it's usually the same guys that used to play Jr. A/B and Sr. A/B that are doing it. Then there are nights I stand on my head and we don't score more than 3, but the problem is the goalie?

Really?

Hmm...funny that.

It's a non-contact beer league, and it's supposed to be for fun, but with that one statement all the fun has been sucked right out of this for me. I think it's time for me to hang up the pads, or see if someone else will take me because I don't need a negative attitude like that and a sense of "Oh, geez, Meathead's in goal, we're going to lose..." hanging over my head. I mean, really. I mean, if the problem REALLY is goal-tending, then shouldn't they win ALL the games I'm not in goal?

Yeah, guess what, they don't win the games I don't play. Guess what THAT means? Yeah, not ALL the goalie's fault.

I'll take the Christmas break to think it over, and to be honest, I probably will end up hanging them up. I think I've had enough lacrosse for now. I may come back to it at a later date, or with a different league, but a session or two off might help me out.

I've been having a bit of a rough week at work.

Nothing seems to be connected, synapses are misfiring and in general it's been a piss poor week.

There's new printers that don't work right and new policies and procedures for timesheets and hour tracking and to top it all off my brain has decided to be on hiatus. That which I thought I knew no longer springs readily to mind and I've been fighting calcs and packages all week. It's a really disconcerting feeling for me, beacuse I'm used to being on top of things, used to being knowledgeable and used to getting things right.

It's frustrating and just damned upsetting in that it's separated me from my happy feelings.

That is all.

Back to school...

I know, right? I’m going back to COLLEGE at age 34. Seriously. “But, Awi, why?” you may ask. For the chicks, dude…I get older, those hot College chicks stay the same age…lol.

No, seriously, I’m going back to get my Certificate in Financial Planning. It’s 4 courses spread out over a year and after that I set the exam for the Canadian Institute of Financial Planners, get my certification (hopefully) and start my own business. Well, start my own or find a better paying job. One of the two.

In Flanders Fields
By: Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, MD (1872-1918)
Canadian Army
In Flanders Fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

Please take the time to remember the fallen today and observe a moment of silence between 11:00AM and 11:02AM. 120 seconds is a pittance in light of the sacrifice that many have made, and taking the time to remember the dead is the least we can do.

Thank you.

There is a lot that can be learned about the character of a man and his soul.

I’ve come to learn that I am a small, bitter, jaded, petty, vengeful, spiteful, mean, hateful, conceited, rotten, dastardly person at times.

You know what? I am perfectly OK with this.

I DO take pleasure, at times, in the pain, misery, mishaps and misfortunes of others, sometimes because I feel myself to be above them, be it socially or mentally or morally or ethically or whatever have you, but most of the time I take pleasure in them because they are videos NOT of me. Like the internet videos you see of teenagers on skateboards racking themselves on railings at high schools while their buddies film them? Yeah, those make me howl. Trust me, if video cameras were more compact and portable when I was in my skateboarding phase (20 years ago, for those keeping track of my age) there’d probably be footage of me having yard sales everywhere and y’all would be laughing at me.

And the videos of the guys getting pummelled by cops after fleeing? Yeah, those make me howl.

And the footage of the Animal Control Officer and “Pinky” the cat? Yeah, that made me howl.

And that footage from that Japanese game show “Hit in the Nuts”? Yeah, that made me howl.

Get the idea?

There is no shortage of this shit going on in real life too, and now I am at a loss. I mean some of this shit happens to people I’m close to and some of this happens to those that I’m no longer close to but was, and some just happens to random strangers and I sit here and think to myself: “Self, that’s some fucked up shit right there. It’s fuckin’ funny but I like the person that it happened to so now I’m not sure how I feel…”

Made up my mind: I will laugh because the world needs more of it.

Sign seen at a Baptist Church:

Old habits die hard, and new ones dance on the gravestones...

I find it really interesting that in an age of supposed "instant" communications, we spend a LOT of time waiting around. Instant messages aren't so instant, and electronic mail isn't really that much more efficient or faster than snail mail.

We are bred to believe that the new ways are better and that our parents were out of touch for preferring letter post and post cards and diaries, but in reality, we have the same things, just in slightly different forms. Letters have been replaced by e-mail, post cards have been replaced by Twitter and dairies have been replaced by blogs.

Manufacturers of household appliances would have you believe that you spend less time doing household chores each and every week, but in reality we are still spending the same amount of time. Wash cycles on older machines takes 37 minutes and on my parents' ultra-new machine, it still takes 37 minutes. There is one small difference between the days of Yesteryear and today - instead of doing things consecutively, we do them concurrently. We are still spending 20 hours a week doing household chores, but instead of 3 hours a day, it's all stacked up on one day because we can set the dish washer, the clothes washer and vaccuum all at the same time.

There's really only one instant thing in this world and that's pain. It's something I'm starting to flirt with more and more...this idea of instant gratification through pain.

For all intents and purposes I wasn't going to replace my Boomkin spec and go Tree Heals with the second part of my Dual Spec until Level 70 (once I hit Northrend) but as it turns out, I did at Level 63. Who knew?

I have always thought of Druids as the red-headed step-kid of the Warcraft family, to be honest, a jack-of-all-trades-but-master-of-none type, which was part of the appeal to me: I wanted to do EVERYTHING. I wanted to Tank and Melee DPS and Ranged Caster DPS and Heal and playing a Druid character allows me to do all of that, dependent on how I’m specced for that particular day, and not only that, do all four WELL. Atually, like any Ranged DPS, I really wanted to Tank (like any actor I wanted to direct…lol) or Melee DPS or SOMETHING other than stand waaaaaay back from the action and drop bombs on it. Having played a Hunter all the way up from Level 1, I needed the change.

To be honest, I had been feeling a little out of sorts with my Druid because it seemed that up to Level 58 that there wasn’t a lot of demand for a tanking Feral Druid. Razorfen Downs and Scholomance, it seemed, were better tanked by Paladins (with their buff against Undead) and other instance runs like Sunken Temple seemed to do better with Warriors than Druids (because of the Warrior’s wide-range AoE Taunt). Rolling a Druid, it had appeared, was looking like it might’ve been a wasted role as I was relegated to, you guessed it, Ranged Caster DPS (OOMkin FTW!).

Turns out I'm more in demand for Burning Crusade content than I thought, which ain’t a bad thing. Typically it’s not more than 5 minutes after I log in on Dreddnought, and someone is messaging me asking if I’d like to run HP: Ramparts or HP: Blood Furnace, or Coilfang: Steam Vaults or Coilfang: Slave Pens, or even Auchindoun: Mana-Tombs. I've been getting runs on a consistent basis (translation: If they were Dailies, I’d be making MAD BANK) through HP: Ramparts and HP: Blood Furnace as a tank and CR: Steam Vault and CR: Slave Pens as a healer and it's been a LOT of fun so far. I’ve finally found a Race and Class that I enjoy playing that can do what I want it to, and that’s deal goodly amounts of damage while keeping clothies from tanking and also spread the love and keep people alive. I think I’m going to apply to be a contributing member of Angry Healers on WordPress though. I’ve only been healing for a little while but I think I get EXACTLY what they’re talking about.

There’s only so much I can do as a Hunter and quite frankly, it’s kinda depressing when the only action you seem to get is from folks that want shit to die quickly because you bring 3.4K – 3.6K DPS to any given situation. I’m tired of getting asked to come into an instance for one boss, not having other DPS that can keep up and then getting locked to that particular instance after one pull. It had gotten to the point where I was deliberately trying to avoid playing my Hunter except for times when I KNEW no one was on in Guild (translation 4AM…) so that sort of thing wouldn’t happen. I still LOVE playing my Hunter and I’ll farm mats and pug 5-man instances ALL DAY LONG, but getting pulled in for 10-man and 25-man raids for one boss before it all goes to shit is just not fun. Those of you out there that play a pure DPS class like Mages, Warlocks and Hunters will know what I mean. We are there for one reason, and one reason only: to do shit-tons of damage in as little time as possible so that runs go faster. That’s it, that’s all. I’ve been in so many raids where if there isn’t a Hunter or Mage or Warlock at the top of the damage meters, the Raid Leader is going around whispering each one of us: “What’s wrong? Where’s the DPS? STFU and bring it, n00b! WTF did you get your account? eBay?” and man, I tell ya, there’s no days off.

This was the major reason I decided to level lowbies again instead of sitting around looking for Heroic runs on my Hunter.

Let's try this...

In case you don't WANT to read about my day...lol...this is SOOOO much easier than blogging...does that make me really lazy?

( Hidey-hidey Tweety-tweety )
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I will be mostly offline for the next 10 days during Wep Ronpet.

I will update when possible, but nothing major.

See ya, later!

It's not the caption that I'm particularly wondering about it's how the F*** that Husky got up there to begin with and why he still looks so happy...

TFLN

(617): omg i finished an entire carton of double double chunk chunk ice cream last night...
(716): what? what exactly is in double double chunk chunk?
(617): self-loathing.

(415): I set the bag of cheetos on the open box on my coffee table while I was watching TV. I was so high I ate half of the styrofoam peanuts in the box by accident. Am I going to die?
(510): I hope so

(508): Do I have a sign around my neck that says "SWM desperately seeking ultra-plus-size woman that likes everything I do"? I swear they're organized
(914): No, but you do have a sign around your neck that says "Free cupcakes."

(512): Fake titties should be able inflate and deflate like tires. So on Saturday you can put on your Double D hooker titties or Sunday put on your size B church tits.

BRILLIANT!

In case you don't WANT to read about my day...lol...this is SOOOO much easier than blogging...does that make me really lazy?

( Hidey-hidey Tweety-tweety )
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In case you don't WANT to read about my day...lol...this is SOOOO much easier than blogging...does that make me really lazy?

( Hidey-hidey Tweety-tweety )
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In case you don't WANT to read about my day...lol...this is SOOOO much easier than blogging...does that make me really lazy?

( Hidey-hidey Tweety-tweety )
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In case you don't WANT to read about my day...lol...this is SOOOO much easier than blogging...does that make me really lazy?

( Hidey-hidey Tweety-tweety )
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Well, turns out a housing on the engine block had sprung a leak and it was COOLANT not TRANSMISSION FLUID. *whew* Yes, I'm a panicky ninny-hammer. Still have to take a look at the undercarriage to make sure that Smartie's road-worthy for a trip to Joliet in August, but so far it doesn't look too bad. It's a small $215 crimp in my savings, but FAR better than the $2000 it COULD have been had it actually been my transmission. I have come to the conclusion that if there's an issue with the exhaust, it can wait until before my next Drive Clean test...

In case you don't WANT to read about my day...lol...this is SOOOO much easier than blogging...does that make me really lazy?

( Hidey-hidey Tweety-tweety )
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In case you don't WANT to read about my day...lol...this is SOOOO much easier than blogging...does that make me really lazy?

( Hidey-hidey Tweety-tweety )
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In case you don't WANT to read about my day...lol...this is SOOOO much easier than blogging...does that make me really lazy?

( Hidey-hidey Tweety-tweety )
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In case you don't WANT to read about my day...lol...this is SOOOO much easier than blogging...does that make me really lazy?

( Hidey-hidey Tweety-tweety )
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In case you don't WANT to read about my day...lol...this is SOOOO much easier than blogging...does that make me really lazy?

( Hidey-hidey Tweety-tweety )
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In case you don't WANT to read about my day...lol...this is SOOOO much easier than blogging...does that make me really lazy?

( Hidey-hidey Tweety-tweety )
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If there is one person or more on your friends list who makes your world a better place just because they exist and who you would not have met (in real life or not) without the internet, then post this same sentence in your journal.

In case you don't WANT to read about my day...lol...this is SOOOO much easier than blogging...does that make me really lazy?

( Hidey-hidey Tweety-tweety )
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Marry, Shag, or Cliff from Fannyfae who has no idea how I feel about all of these women! *grin*

Rules:

1. Comment to this and I will give you 3 people.
2. Label which you would marry, shag, and throw off a cliff.
3. Provide pictures of the 3 people.
4. Post this meme with your answers.

( Memeage )

7:00AM testing  = teh suxxors...done now heading home for a nap.

Yay?

Blech.

That is all.

As some of you may be aware, I'm a Whedon-ite.
I'm not a Buffy fan or an Angel fan, however, I'm that much rarer and more elisive breed known as a Browncoat. Yes, I love Firefly. I can sing you "The Ballad of Jayne" from "The Hero of Canton" and I can sing the Firefly Theme Song, and pretty much play along when all of them say their lines on-screen in both the movie and TV show.
Well, when the Writer's Strike hit and there were a-rumblin's of Joss Whedon doing something on the web, just for that, I can honestly say I got tinglies. I bought the webisodes off iTunes and then when they announced that there was going to be a DVD, I pre-ordered that too...it finally arrived and I couldn't be happier! Hee hee hee..."Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog" on DVD and "Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog - The Soundtrack" is mine as well!

JOY!