Failure is growth.

Failure is good. It makes you a stronger person.

Sure it sucks, and it may take a long time to recover from your failures (Little over four years for me), but guess what? You get past them, and as a result you are better off.

I used to allow the fear of failure to control my life, and it's only been recently (last eight or so months) that I have broken free of my cycle of fear and have instead embraced it as an opportunity to do better and to improve myself.

The work that I do right now has a high difficulty learning curve, but in the week and half that I have been doing my new duties I have become more comfortable and accepting of my own ignorance and failings. When I mess up, I no longer dwell on it, instead I move on and learn from it. I basically convert all of my negative energy into positive energy that fuels me through out the day.

Fear no longer controls my life, instead I only focus on the things that I can control, and when things beyond my control happen, I step back and I learn from it.

An open mind, and a willingness to learn have been my greatest keys to success coupled with the fact that I have managed to stay consistently awesome for the past eight months that I have been working have moved me closer to my goals than anything else.

TL; DR Don't be afraid to fail, you'll learn from it and do better. Improve.

I'm using a Mac and I kind of like it...

Hey guys, it's been a while since I updated my blog, so allow me fill you all in on the details as to why I have been persona non grata as of late. Some of it has to do with me being lazy, the other part has to do with my laptop kind of blowing up on me (not really). The power button kept randomly pushing itself in because of a design flaw in the laptop, so there would be times where things were working just fine and then the laptop would just shut off.

I spoke with my Dad about what was happening with my laptop and he  to took the laptop back from me, fixed it, and turn it into a back-up for his laptop. Leaving me with just my smart phone as my only internet device (which really sucks for writing blog posts).

Until recently that is. My Dad fixed up his old iMac and has allowed me to use it for the time being.

Making things like writing this blog easier.

Bellow is a list of things I happen to like about this Mac, check it out.

Here's what I like about it:

• It's no bull shit.
• No really.
• I mean it.

That's right folks, Macs are straight-up legit machines that do not screw around. 

When you start up a Mac you do not have to wait fifteen minutes for all the programs in the background to load before you can do anything else, you just log in and start whatever work you need to get down, and then when you want to shut the machine down, guess what? 

Same thing. 

It shuts down without having to wait another 15 minutes for anything else in the background to shut down. 

Amazing, it's a machine that does what you tell it to do without holding you up with something that has nothing to do with what you are trying to accomplish; which is nice. 

I came to expect those slow downs and head aches from all machine, until I started using this Mac and found out they just do not exist on this machine, which is funny because as of late I have been Windows purist. I'm drinking the kool-aid y'all and it tastes pretty damn good.

Now that I have access to a Mac I think I may actually start playing around with things like programming, because reasons.

TL;DR Macs work.

It's been over a Year

I've been writing this blog for over a year now, and in that a lot of things have happened.

This blog started as something for me to do while I was unemployed to try and take my mind off of how much my life really sucked at the time, and then as I began to write, and as the delusions of grandeur began to build in me I thought "Why don't I see how far I can take this, I wonder if people really will read what I have to say?"

So here I am, one year later, still writing, and I hope those that have come to visit find my blog to at least be somewhat entertaining and interesting. When I started out I was not sure where I was going with it, and at one point I had all but abandoned it (more than once actually).

To recap the year:

I've had the Islands on the air event where I covered camping out on Hutchinson Island in Stuart. I got to spend some time near the beach and play around on the radio for the weekend which was fun.

Then there was the time I wrote a post on Cowboy Bebop. Which is still a contender, at least in my view, for one of the best anime's ever made.

Or what about the time I went to Orlando?

Can't forget my lonely Valentine's day.

My posts on WoW and Diablo III were also some good analysis of those game.

The power of positive thinking...

About my car.

I think I can.

There you have it folks, about a year of my blog, be sure to share it with your friends, and expect more from me 'cause I'll keep writing as you keep reading.

Thanks guys.

I think I can...

Barrow'd from someone else's blog. Still relevant, however.

Alright, I think I have mentioned before that I really like the Pillows, despite the fact that they are a Japanese band and I really do not understand what they are singing, thing is I don't really need too, the music speaks to me on a different level.

Here's a song by the Pillows called "I think I can," check it out:

I don't know what they're saying, but when I hear this song it gives me hope, energy and determination.

It's like this blog, when I first started it I thought no one would read it, or even like it, but I have found evidence to contrary, so here I am writing a new piece for you all. It's not as hard as I originally thought, basically all I do is get a basic idea (like this one) add some text and post a video and bam I got my post.

If I had to say what this post is about is me just trying to be more active and showing people that I am capable of producing content. Anyway, if you like this post be sure to share it with friends, or even (gasp) comment and share with me a song in a strange language you don't understand but still like anyway. Don't be shy I won't bite.

1,000 views...

Some guy named rob made the image above, I just added the text 'cause I am lazy and stuff.

Yep, 1,000 views. 1,000 strangers/robots/myself, have visited my blog. Thanks for reading guys.

Also it's late, I'm hungry, and tired, so I am going to do that thing most people do at this time; sleep.

Out of Gas...

Time for me to write about something most people can relate with; the cost of gasoline. See, as time progresses, the cost of gas goes up. And you know what really sucks? High gas prices. Mostly because in America if you want to go anywhere, you gotta  buy it. So what's your best option, aside from car pooling that smelly guy from work who collects life-sized dolls of questionable ages?

You could buy a Prius and drive a plain, uncool car.

Exudes images of "stale bread..."

You could buy a hybrid that catches on fire in the event of a crash.

Fire, oh my!

Or, you can buy a compact car, that given any accident, will sheer apart and likely kill you and anyone else in the car.

The stripes make it faster!

Neither one of those options sounds appealing, so then, what do you do?

Walk.

Of course I am kidding, walking sucks. I don't like things that suck. So I drive a compact, most specifically, the one pictured above. If you have not noticed, it's yellow, because just like me, it's awesome. Also, the color makes it go faster a la Maddox.

One of the many reasons why I love my car though is the gas mileage.

If you can't tell from this low res photo, the odometer reads "373.0."

In case you're wondering, the stepper motors in my dash have stopped working, and I do have the replacement parts and it's on my list of "Stuff I will eventually do."

Now about my car: 

Make: Chevy Cavalier, possibly one of the most poor received cars in recent history, earning a reputation for being a cheap low quality car that often fell apart regardless of whether or not you maintained it. This used to bother me a lot, but then I owned a crappy beat-down Volvo and I realized something, the outside of the car, or even the inside really does matter, so long as it drives down the road and accomplishes it main goal of transporting you from Point A to Point B then that is all that matters.

Engine: 2.2 Ecotec, Four cylinder, produces about 140 HP and about 150 foot pounds of torque. The car is known to be very sluggish and slow, going 0-60 in about 9 seconds, and completing a quarter mile in about 17 seconds, which is not all to impressive.

Body: J-body, arguably one of the worst platforms GM ever made. They produced  a Cadillac version of this car that was hailed as the worst Cadillac ever made.

Transmission: Five-Speed, I find automatics to be a bit dull, but there's one advantage they have, you can talk on the phone and not worry about shifting...

Everything else: Paint's failing, driver seating is coming apart, and I am missing my tire iron.

Bottom line: I love my car, despite it being a piece of crap, I'd be even happier if I had my crappy old Volvo 240 Station wagon, hell I even suggest my Dad go back up to Georgia, trade his Volvo for the crappy Volvo, and then trade my car for that crappy Volvo ('cause it's a five speed and you can tow it behind a motor home).

I think this song neatly ties everything up and with that, I conclude my tireless drivel.

Be sure to follow me on twitter, and share this blog with your friends too, that'd help me out a lot.

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The Power of Positive Thinking...

Positive Energy

It took me years to figure out something so simple; Negative thoughts are nothing more than a waste of energy. Instead, I take any and all negative thoughts and feelings, and convert it into positive energy that fuels me through out the day.

I often ask the question of people "How are you today?" The responses vary from "I'm doing well," or "I am doing good," Sometimes they'll ask me the same question, and the response that I give them is the same "I am awesome." I have had people balk at this statement, being so jaded that they cannot believe that such a statement could be honest, I had a customer say to me, "Now that we've lied to each other, how are you really?" I backed up my statement with this reasoning, "Look, I wasted a lot of time being negative and feeling sorry for myself for the mistakes I have made and I realized that it would be a far better use of my energy to just take it and turn into into positive energy that moves me forward, rather than backwards."

This realization came to me from my experiences in taking care with my grandfather, who is stuck in this perpetual cycle of negativity and angst. I saw how his negativity has enveloped him and has plunged him into this train of thought of "No one loves me, they all want to use me," made me decide that as I grow older, I will reject this kind of thinking, and that I spend the rest of my life doing the exact opposite of what he has done. Instead of pushing people away from me and keeping to myself, I will instead embrace and seek out people who are in need.

You see, my grandfather is gripped with feelings of inadequacy and fear of "fucking everything up," or that "everything I touch turns to shit," (his favorite phrase). My grandfather does not know how to interact with people, and he feels that no matter what he does he will irreparably mess up every relationship he has. Unfortunately, as you get older we tend to get stuck in our own thinking patterns and find it hard to accept, or even incorporate new ideas into our daily thoughts and my grandfather is all to much a victim of his own "Stinkin' thinkin'."

Stinkin' Thinkin'

What is "Stinkin' Thinkin'?" It's a processes by which you wallow in your own negative emotions and you allow them to take control of your entire begin. Instead of allowing yourself to move forward in your life, you instead dig yourself into a rut where you rob yourself of the possibilities in life by virtue of you believing that they do not actually exist and that regardless of what you do, your life will remain and continue to be shit.

As I said earlier, I spent a lot of time stuck in this rut of Stinkin' Thinkin' and I realized that it just does not do me any good, so I have gotten rid of it.

The role of Family...

I have spent a considerable amount of energy in an attempt to remind my grandfather that his actions in the past, good or bad, do not actually matter now because we are family, that we accept him unconditionally, and that the only thing we want for him is to get better, and to become more active and present within the family; however he decides to do nothing because he feels it is far better to sit around and wallow in his own negativity than it is to actually embrace the opportunities afford to him by being closer to his family.

It's hard because I really want the best for him, and yet on every front he has dug his heels into the ground and refused to cooperate. Worse off, he does not see the forest for the trees, how much better he could make his life by dropping the negativity and instead embracing a positive outlook.

As a family I think it is important to open and honest with each other, and to accept each other despite our faults and repair broken relationships with unconditional love and patience.

Conclusion

Maybe we've all missed the boat?

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So I stopped playing WoW...

So I have this on again, off again relationship with WoW. As of this writing I have not logged in to WoW for a whopping nine days. See, I've gotten to the point where I am just geared enough that I could do whatever I want, only I am a bit burnt out with SoO. I do have a guild, but it's one of those pick up guilds you just use for the benefits, I don't know anyone in it, and no one talks to me either. I guess that's mostly on me because I have even attempted to join their vent server, or reach out to any one, because I am a bit of a stranger on my server.

A few posts ago I may of mentioned that I played on Aggramar, which was a festering purgatory with only one actual raiding guild Horde side, well a few weeks back I mouthed off to some obscure guild officer and then got banned from raiding for two weeks, so me being the genius I am, transferred to Thrall, where I was told it was like the land of milk and honey.

The first two weeks I spent on the server were great because I just pugged my way to Thrall every week, picking up some sweet loot along the way. Then Diablo III happened, on top of me starting a new job. I got fed up of looking for a group of 10 semi-geared semi-competent people, and just decided "fuck it," and went for the single player awesomeness of Diablo III.

I started working back in late February, and here it is May, and in that three month period I think I have clocked a total of maybe thirty hours in WoW tops. I have to ask myself one question though, why do I keep paying the subscription fee?

Mostly because I am to lazy to unsubscribe, mostly on the off chance that one day I will wake up and decide I have nothing better else to do but play WoW all day. I doubt that will be any time soon, however, because I am really just burnt out on the whole idea of the game. About the only thing I miss is all the people I met while playing the game, but now that SoO is cross realm the game just feels kind of meh and I feel no sense of urgency to come back to the game, mostly because no one needs me to help them along I guess.

Final take away: Am I looking forward to the new expansion?

Not really, it's most likely going to be the same re-hashed boring crap Blizzard comes up with every expansion, insert a few fart jokes here, add in a couple of cultural references here or there, and then BAM boring end game abound!

Me before I stopped trying...

Maybe I am just cynical, or maybe I am completely right, either way I am going to spend my time playing Diablo III because it vastly more interesting than WoW is, and on top of it all, I can play it by myself.

If anyone feels the need to interrupt my alone time, add my battle tag: Crappyplayer#1882 and give some feed back.
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Diablo III: Not a complete waste at $20.

Diablo III: Does it suck?

Short Answer: Nope.

Long Answer: Sort of.

What gives with the contradicting explanation? Well if you take the on a short term basis, it's a pretty awesome game, but as you play through the game you begin to see some cracks in the whole of the game.

Do these things ruin the game? Not really, they are mostly small inconveniences and most of them take little from the game over all.

Where do I begin? How about Game Play.

How does the game play? Like you'd expect Diablo to play.

You play your character class, which are no longer gender locked like they were in the previous game, and you have two active attack slots: left and right click. Normally your left click attack builds up your class specific resource (in the case of the monk it's spirit), and your right click spends your resource in the form of a massive AoE attack.

Then you have your action bar, which consists of four special moves you can activate that either act like a massive AoE or (at least for the monk) a passive heal buff.

Gone is the annoying skill tree, no longer do you have to worry about screwing up your character because you don't have enough points in specific skills, they all scale with level, and as you level up you get access to runes that enhance your abilities and you can freely change between them, freeing you up to play your class exactly how you want too.

Not only that, but Diablo III took the whole "get your stats from your gear," idea from WoW, simplifying game play. However, it's not neigh impossible to find gear with the specific stats you need either, they kind of fixed the loot system.

What's the story like? It's okay.

It's engaging enough to make you want to play through the game, and interesting enough to make you kind of care. Thankfully most of the story centers around killing lots and lots of monsters and recovering sweet, sweet loot all at the same time. The companion characters you meet along the way, from your craftsmen, to your followers, are not completely bland and come complete with their own back stories and motivations to help you along your journey. For me I ended up only using the Templar mostly because of his passive heal buff and active heal buff, and because all the gear I found for the Scoundrel and Enchantress really just sucked.

There are enough witty jokes to keep you interested really.

What's my over all impression of the game?

Wait for it to go on sale for $20 again and take advantage of all the things the expansion brought to the game without actually buying it. That's not to say you should not buy it, because I eventually will, just, take your time in Diablo III and when you get bored with it, move on to the expansion and grind out ten more levels and see what other awesome loot you can find.

Final Verdict: on a scale one to ten? It's about an eight and a half.

It's a good time sink, especially if you're tired of playing WoW. I rarely log into WoW since getting Diablo III.

Here's a video of me reviewing Diablo III. Let me know what you guys think. Follow @benlaakkonen

Life Goes On

Maybe I am using this meme wrong?

Where the hell have I been these last two weeks you maybe asking yourself?

I can sum up my life at this point in one word: Busy.

Busy with what?

Work mostly. That is right, I work now. I am a productive member of society. I actually enjoy waking up early and working through out the day now, it makes me feel like I have accomplished something with the day, then I come home and make dinner for myself and Grand Father.

Life is finally starting to move forward for me, I no longer feel like I am stuck in a rut destined to continue spinning my wheels on way to no where. For once in my life, I am actually quite optimistic about my future.

In other news, I baked a pie. Not just any other pie, an Apple pie.

I cut up two Apples, removed the hard core from the halves, poured in some Apple sauce I had in the fridge, added butter, oatmeal, brown sugar, and drizzled some honey on top. It took about an hour to bake but it came out awesome. Last night I had a bit of a Betty Crocker moment and also made pancakes as well. Those did not come out as good as I had hoped, but I did not do terrible considering it was my first time making them in the first place.

A picture of  pie, where is your god now?

Now that I have made you hungry talking about pie, I will leave you off with some music (I am such a tease):

Even if you feel like you're moving in reserve, there really is only one way life goes: Forward. 

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It's Valentines Day

Me on most valentines days...

As you get older this holiday seems to play a more significant role in your life. When you're a kid, it's all fun and games, but as an adult it be a truly crushing event full of self-loathing and pity. What kind of a day is it for me? To be honest, I don't know. It's a mixed bag for me.

Mixed in the sense that while I am single and currently have zero interaction with any females outside of those within my family, but I also do not have the added hassle of say finding a restaurant, or buying an expensive gift with money I don't have. Either way, being unemployed makes that difficult. For the time being at least, I don't think I mentioned it but last week I got hired on by the Home Depot. I'm just waiting for them to call me back, something they are not that great at.

Either way, I  hope everyone enjoys their holiday with whomever they decide to spend it with, I'm not exactly alone and I look at it this way; if it really was meant to be at this time I would already be in a relationship by now, but with all the shit going on in my life right now, it really is not possible, as much I would otherwise. I need to patient I guess.

For all those lonely hearts out there, I'll be your Valentine. Follow @benlaakkonen

The First Step: Admitting you're an Ass Hole.

I'm an ass hole. I know I am an ass hole, and there really is not much I can do about it either. Thing is, nearly every person you meet, in one form or another, is an ass hole as well. So how then do you avoid being one? Easy. Don't.

Odd advise, I know, but consider this, why are you an ass hole in the first place? For me, I am an ass hole because I believe that I am infinitely more intelligent than about 90% of the population. Where do I get this assumption from? Mostly from my day to day interactions with "average," people. I play a lot of video games, games that require abstract thinking in order to be successful so I have seen the whole gambit of strategies and tactics used and I have noticed one thing: People don't look up or behind themselves, thus leaving the perfect opportunity to come up behind them and take them out, something I have done more than once in my career of gaming.

Maybe my example is a bit hard fetched for some, but I have also had real life examples where the same kind of thinking has come in handy when dealing with a difficult situation. There was the time I was driving my dad's car at night and I lost control of it while it was raining. I contribute me sitting here today to the fact that I spent so much time playing Gran Trismo before this accident occurred, because from it I learned how to stop the car safely. As I lost control of the car it began to slide to the right, and remembering my experience in the video game, I turned the wheel to the left and ran through a patch of grass in order to slow the car down. By the time I stopped I was at least a foot from hitting a stop sign. I think most people in this situation would have been fucked, mostly because at the time of the accident I was 19, fresh out of high school and no idea what I was doing, and yet somehow I handled the situation calmly and cooly and walked away unharmed.

How does that tie in with my advise of not being an ass hole? Well, I've learned to realize that people process and store information differently. Some maybe able to instantly access it the moment it's useful, while others just lose their shit and smash their face into a wall because fuck logic.

I am okay with that.

Yep, that kind of thinking used to frustrate me to hell, because the solution would be right in front of most people and they just were not able to see it. Not any more, because not everyone can do that, which is why those that can overcompensate for those that cannot. Those people are not completely without merit, they just have to be placed in situations they are better suited to handle. Me, I'm no genius either, but damn it I try. I learned to accept these people for who they are and I also try to hold their hands through difficult things until they see what I see. I bring them up to my level (totally not humble or completely full of myself here, nope).

That's it. The key to not being an ass hole is acceptance. Accept that people are stupid, accept that every one is an ass hole, and you're half-way towards making your life easier. Maybe (most definitely) I am wrong, anyway I want to hear from you guys, my non-existent readers. The robots that keep crawling my page. Let me know what you think and feel free to pick a part my lazy half-assed argument. Follow @benlaakkonen

The Orlando Hamfest Report.

So I have not been posting much at all lately and that's mostly because of the crazy hectic kind of life I have been leading lately. I have been running around a lot like a chicken with it's head cut off, and it has really just added up to me not being that active, mind you I am alright.

Where do I begin?

This past weekend was the Orlando Hamfest, I guess I could start with that.

I skipped the first day of the show, Friday, mostly because Gramps was just not up for it, we went on Saturday. Saturday was an interesting day mostly because of all the fog and rain out on the road. I could barely see in front of me as I drove up I-95, I even hit a traffic cone with my passenger side mirror, cracking the glass. Thankfully nothing else was broken and I did not lose control of the car.

The rest of the trip was uneventful, other than the five toll booths we had to go through on the last leg of the journey. Another reason why I really don't like Orlando, dem booths. When we did finally arrive it was about 10:30 A.M. and the weather was abysmal. Two words: Cold and Wet.

I really did not do a lot of thinking ahead so I went up there in shorts and really flimsy kind of shoes, the kind that just absorbed all of the water making my feet not only soggy, but fairly cold, and the jacket I did bring with me offered very little relief from the cold. I was rather Hamsexy with my MCARA polo shirt that Lee (K4LJP) had given me with my shirt tucked in and everything.

As for the crowds they were quite large, I had quite a bit of fun navigating through them with my mother in tow. To be honest I did not find the show to really be that interesting, about the only thing of note I can tell you all is that I bought my General study guide book and that's really about it.Which means I need to do some studying. By the end of the day I was tired, and quite wet. I did manage to take my shoes off and warm up in the motor home while my made breakfast for dinner (which turned out rather awesome). The only issue I had that night was I needed to be on the internet, to which there was no connection, other than our data plan from our phones, and since we have to pay by the gig, I really did not want use up a metric crap ton of data doing what I needed to do: 10 man Siege of Orgrimmar.

Yep, World of Warcraft has started to affect my life, however, I was lucky I knew someone in Orlando, a high school buddy of mine Nathan, who generously offered me an internet connection and rather comfy couch to sleep on. He came and picked me up as well, and by the time we made it back to his place I had logged onto WoW just in time to make it my raid.

We stalled out Friday night at the Dark Shamans, and then Saturday we one shot them which was quite awesome. We made it to Nazgrim, and after two or three wipes we managed to get him down and progressed to Malkorok. Where we proceeded to much up the fight because the concept of actually wanting to stand in the fire was to difficult for most and we ended up wipe more than once and called for the night.

Sunday was the last day of the show, and I ended up sleeping in and not heading out the door until about 11:30ish, the show was over by 1 o'clock, and by the time I made it back it was about 12:15 P.M. I walked around for a bit to see what was left of the show, which there really was not, helped pick up my dad's easy up that he had lent out, and loaded the car up ready for the journey home.

The drive home was not terribly complicated, although my navigation was kind of frustrating at first because it kept telling me to make a U-turn when it really meant "turn right." but after getting on the 408 and taking it to Turnpike it was pretty much just a straight shoot home. I found the best way to keep Gramps happy while driving long distances is to supply him with Reese's peanut butter cups. I also found out that the best value for your money if you stop at a rest stop on the Turnpike is to buy the king-sized candy bars. I paid close to $3.00 ($2.80 + $0.20 tax) for two regular Reese's, meanwhile I could have bought the king-size for $2.19 after taxes, which gives the same amount had I bought two regular sized ones... I also found out, after asking one of the girls that works the register at the rest stop that they sell lunchables for $3.99. When she told me that I just looked at her with raised eye brows, then at the lunchables, and then back at her, gradually tilting my head back and raising my eye brows higher. I made the girl laugh, because, you know, I'm funny (right?).

Two hours later and $10.50 in tolls we were back in Stuart. I guess the one nice thing about having that new bridge in Palm city is that it makes getting from Palm City to Stuart a heck of a lot faster and easier, so I took it to 76 and made my way to US 1 from Indian town road. Half an hour later we were home.

I spent a few hours on the porch talking with Gramps, trying to work out a few kinks him and I experienced lately, and I ended up making sunny-side eggs for dinner, which Gramps enjoyed (despite telling me how much he hates eggs).

And that was the end of our little adventure in Orlando, the Hamfest was really not anything special other then it being rather miserable, and I ended up having a nice break from some of my troubles. Sleep really is your friend you know... Follow @benlaakkonen

What's that riding your everything?

It isn't anything at all?

More often I have had this song pop up into my head, in fact it's been an ever constant ear-worm for me the last seven or so years of my life. It's a bit bitter sweet to listen to this song, mostly because it brings back memories of the past, and because it also helps me to put certain events in my life into perspective.

Today is day two that Gramps has come back from the hospital, and he is actually doing pretty good, aside from waking up cranky. The two of us sat on the porch today and as we spoke to each other I was inspired to write what I am writing right now (that was a mouthful) from the song above.

First, what is the song about? To me, it's about how we all carry around our own baggage and that the only thing that is really holding us back is ourselves and gravity. It talks about how we allow past events to shape how we are right now, and that we are better off to let those things go because good things will eventually "fall," into place.

Yeah, I have used this picture before, but it's the only one of Gramps actually smiling I have.

For me, I have had a lot of personal ups and downs in myself, and have spent a great part of it constantly fighting my own depression, and that is something my grand father is trying to work through right now. His outlook right now is a bit bleak, however I keep reminding him that his life will get better and that even if he is not able to see it, people do care about him. I reminded him that he has one person that cares the most about him sitting right next to him.

"No one gives a damn about me," he said to me earlier and I told him how that was not true, because if it was, he would not be here right now to be feeling the way he does right now. Depression is a bitch to deal with, it really is. What helped me defeat it, or at least put it into check was physical exercise, and surprisingly, writing this blog.

See the opposite of depression is actually expression. Lately that is what I have been doing with this blog, expressing my thoughts and feelings with complete strangers on the internet.

Back to the song, I think it also points out that life continues to move on without us and that we should not really dwell on the present and just move on with our lives.

As a close I want to ask you guys, the people who are reading my blog, what are your experiences with depression, what are the things you have done to keep it at bay? Feel free to comment below and let me know.

Thanks for reading.

Be sure to follow me on twitter, there's a link below.

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Why I have not been posting that much...

Okay, so the last time I posted anything on this blog was over two weeks ago, and in internet land, that's a long freaking time. Part of it was that I was being lazy, the other is because I have been dealing with an ever increasing personal load on myself in terms of responsibility and emotional toll on myself.

Prologue:

It was the 20th, the day before my grand fathers surgery. Got up in the morning, made him some coffee and gave him his medicine, he read the paper a bit and went back to sleep. I stayed up all day and night in anticipation for the surgery. Gramps normally skips breakfast and lunch because he's stubborn and keeps telling me "I have never eaten breakfast and rarely ever eat lunch," thus leaving dinner about the only meal he will eat. That night I made up Vodka Chicken with Linguine pasta. He liked it. I cleaned all of his sheets while he was in the shower after dinner, got him covered with warm blankets and such. Like I said, he went to bed, I just stayed awake the whole time waiting for the time to get him out of bed and off to the hospital. We left the house at about Five Twentyish and arrived at about ten minutes to Six. I sat in the waiting room for at least three hours waiting to hear how Gramps made out, and eventually got the news he did great and that he was in a room recovering so I went home and did the only thing I could; sleep. It was Tuesday, the 21st when this all happened.

The Saga begins:

Now it's Wednesday, I wake up feeling a bit better, but over all a bit worked over. I got a call from Gramps at the hospital where he asked me to bring him his cell phone, so I did. When I got up to his room on the fifth floor I was a bit confused because he had a cute girl in his room and I thought to myself "This can't be right, we don't know any cute girls," so I went to the nurse's desk and asked them which room he was in, it was the one with the cute girl in it. So I dropped off Gramps phone, and chatted with the cute nurse a bit, but kind of pussed out in terms of missing a perfect opportunity to hit on her. That's another post though.

About three hours later I get a call telling me they are discharging him and to come pick him up, so I did. He seemed fine on the way down from the elevator to the car, but by the time I got him home he was severely weak and a bit confused as to where he was. On the way home he kept asking me, "Where is home?"

When we finally pulled up in the drive way it took me about 10 minutes to get him out of the car because he could not move very well, but when I finally managed to get him out I had him sit down at the table and gave him a semi-fresh cup of coffee and I made him up a plate of left over chicken to eat for lunch. After that he wanted to go on the back porch and smoke a cigarette, so I helped him out there and sat there with him for a bit while he just kind of stared off into space. He asked for some ice cream, which I fetched for him and had to stop eating it because he said it made him cold. By then I wanted to put him in his bed and let him take a nap to regain some strength, he was shivering from eating the ice cream apparently so I tucked him in with at least four blankets and left him to his nap.

At Nine o'clock I heard Gramps get out of bed and  call me to grab his phone for him. At first I thought he was just tired, but then as I looked at him and saw the sweat on his brow, and felt his heart pumping erratically in his chest I knew something was up, and took Gramps back to the hospital. I stayed with him til about 9 A.M on Thursday, the 23rd. Which was about when he told me to just go home and get some sleep, which was something I have not really done a lot of lately. I passed out until about 4:30ish before I got up and went to check on Gramps, turns out they moved him from the South Hospital to the North, so I had to drive even further into town to go see how he was doing.

I got there at Five o'clock and ran up five flights of stairs to get to his room. No cute nurses this time though. He was watching the Andy Griffith show on TV, so I just sat down and watched it with him for a bit while he attempted to argue with me about almost everything. He also did not seem to understand where he was because he kept asking me odd questions like "Did we pick up all the tools from the yard before coming here," or "Will I still be able to go up the stairs in my house?" Pops also showed up a bit later, so we both visited with Gramps for a bit, leaving at about fifteen minutes to Seven to make the MCARA meeting.

The meeting was about an hour and a half, and it was interesting, saw some people I had not seen in a while was just wiped out a bit. I made it through the meeting though, and drove home. I tried staying up but by midnight I crashed. Only now waking up, writing this contrived blog post.

Today's Friday, the 24th. What's going to happen today? Hell if I know, I'll keep everyone posted though...

I find it funny how I find a song for every occasion...

A Systematic Appoarch to getting better at WoW...

You're joking right?

Being good at WoW is not as hard as you think it is, in fact it only involves completing a few tasks a week, and knowing one simple site that can do a lot towards moving you to your goals of having better gear and maybe the ability to stop standing in the fire.

What is the site I am talking about? Openraid.

When I first started going there I had no idea how to use the site, and I kind of just stopped using it for a bit because I had found a ToT group that was willing to "carry," my sorry as for a few weeks. Til one night I was asked to tank MSV and I failed miserably because I am not a tank and I did not know the fights. The girl who was the leader of the ToT group happened to be there for the MSV and was being a total bitch and I just got fed up with her shit and ALT F4'd. The next day I was removed from her ToT group.

Enough of that, that is really what got me to get off my ass and to start using the site. See it's really easy to use. All you do is go to the chat room, wait for someone to post a raid you're interested in, and then whisper them with your iLvL and btag and you're in. Now I started using the site back in 5.3, and here we are in 5.4 so there are even more options available. Mostly in the form of ToT normal. Look if you've got a bunch of 502 or 528 LFR gear, doing some ToT will be highly beneficial to you. Mostly because you're getting end game experience, and mostly because if you have not raided, or even done flex, it will take you a long way towards not being bad. 

My recommendation is to use the site to get into a ToT, or maybe even ToES and MSV. Just do raids even if you don't need the gear, also, try to do a heroic scenario every week as well. At least that will give you a 516 weapon. Another suggestion is to go hang out on the timeless isle and farm Burdens of Eternity. They drop off of mostly rare monsters and when you use them on the token armor pieces they take them from 496 to 535. That's what I did at least, farmed the shit out of burdens as well. Get a couple of 535 gear and you can start on flex real quick. 

It's not going to happen over night, but if you plan ahead for the week, and get done what you had on your plan, eventually over time that planning adds up and you are finally getting into SoO normal and actually getting gear. That's about where I am right now at least. It took me months to get to where I am right now in the game, I did not just end up there by accident. 

Now the reason I am writing this is because I still see a lot of people running around without their capes or with really low gear and I would like to fix that. Getting the cape in 5.4 is considerably easier than the last patch because you have even more LFR raids to get your drops from. There's no excuse for you to not get it in a month instead of three. The way I used to handle really long que times was just alt tabbing and watching something on Netflix periodically checking to see if my que popped. I ran LFR every week though, until I finished my quest, and that's what you have to do too. It may suck, and it may take a lot of time, but you can do it. It's easy.

TL; DR/DC

Step 1. Go to Openraid.
Step 2. Find a raid.
Step 3. ???
Step 4. Loot!

How to Not suck as A Fury Warrior (An Aside about WoW)

Okay, so I am going a bit off here and talking about another game that I cannot seem to get enough of; WoW.

My character's name is Etrin, and I have been playing since about February of 2013, and in that time I have accomplished a lot of things.

At one time I was the #2 Fury warrior on the server, which really did not mean much, I was just the only other person to finish the legendary quest line other than Dusen. Now I am more like #7 on my server horde side. Which kind of sucks, but that's what I get for not playing for two months.

Enough background, however, onto the real meat of the post. How to not suck as a Fury warrior and how to be successful in WoW.

First off you want to make sure you have at least 7.5% hit and expertise. That will go a long way towards having decent DPS, that and you also want to have the right enchants on your gear. Most sites will suggest you get Dancing Steel for your weapons, which can be a bit expensive if you're a Fury because you need it for two weapons. The way I got around this is I would buy the considerably cheaper Windsong enchant and put it on my lower level weapons. If you want to be conservative or even realistic, save Dancing steel for the 540+ weapons (though I placed it on a 536 LFR weapon, which you can do, it just costs more money).

Another thing you want to make sure is that you are gemming your character properly, or that you have gems in the first place. Now I understand it can be a bit expensive to buy gems for lower level gear, but in the long run it will pay off because of the over all gains you make from having the socket bonuses. What I have seen is people just stacking crit, which is great, but you can do a whole lot more if you span out into the combo gems like the orange 80 strength + 160 crit, or the 160 crit + 120 stam kind of gems. I use mostly the Inscribed Vermilion Onyx for my red/yellow sockets and the Piercing Wild Jade for my blue/yellow sockets. For my Meta socket I use the legendary Capacitive Primal Diamond (324 crit + Capacitance), but if you're not far enough along the quest line then I recommend you either a Reverberating Primal Diamond (216 strength + 3% crit damage) or an Enigmatic Primal Diamond (432 crit + 10% snare reduction) depending on your preference or whatever is cheaper at the time. Yes they are expensive, but really you should be using them on gear as low 502. It's a good habit to have, trust me.

More importantly, do not forget about enchantments, despite how expensive they can be. If you want to have any form of progression with your character, make sure you're enchanting all of your gear. The more time and money you invest in your character, the better things will turn out for you in the long run (especially if you have raiding as goal in the long run). You want to have a shoulder, chest, wrist, hands, pants, and boots enchant at all levels of gear. For your shoulder you want Greater Tiger Fang Inscription (200 crit + 100 strength), Greater Stats for your chest (+80 all stats), Strength for your wrists (+180 strength) Strength on your hands (+170 strength), Angerhide for your pants (285 strength + 165 crit), and Pandaren Step on your boots (180 mastery + minor speed increase). Maintaining these enchants can be expensive, but if you ask around in your guild, or try to make friends with an enchanter, then it can really simplify the process (and make it cheaper). If you're really strapped for cash though, que as a tank a few times and rush through a few regular heroics.

You also want to make sure you are using the right rotation for the type of weapons you are using. For me I found using Heroic Strike 90% of the time with 2h's was best for dps, but when using 1h weapons, Wild Strikes works best most of the time. You also want to make sure you are using Berserker Rage and one of your shouts (Battle or Commanding, depending on whether or not someone has the stam buff, I usually use Commanding, but it is up to you). Here are some pictures of what my rotation looks like (feel free to laugh at how bad it is):

Talents also help, and having the right glyph's as well:

*Writers update as of 01/09/2014: I've had a new set of talents I have been experimenting with for the last couple of days, I replaced Dragon's Roar with Blade Storm and Blood Bath for Storm Hammer and have noticed a considerable increase in the amount of damage that I put out. Also, I have been seeing more hits of 1 million plus lately since I made the switch. So kindly disregard what I had up here earlier, this is the new and revised scheme that I use and I recommend that you use it as well.

All of these things can come together and if you keep at it, you too can stop sucking at WoW.

Here's a video on the subject: 

Happy New Year (A bit late)

Okay, so I realize it's now the second, and maybe I am a bit lazy because it took me this long to actually write something this year, but here I am writing right now.

My New Year's eve was pretty uneventful, I spent it at home, by myself, watching Super Natural. Yep, that's it. I did not go out any where and get white girl wasted. I was home.

New Year's day was not as bad, but I still managed to spend the whole span of the holiday completely sober and mostly by myself.

Did it suck? Not really. Being by myself and not drinking kind of works out for me because if I had gone out, I would have most likely caused a shit ton of trouble. So while in the short term it does suck for me, in the long term I think I am better off for not going out.

In other news, I have come up with a really generic and almost cliched new years resolution of losing my fattiness and becoming one of those dudes you see on the front of a magazine with six pack abs and perfect hair.

I'll do it while playing WoW as well. Dun be jellos.

Music to bring in a new year:

This song reminds me that despite how much I fuck things up, we all end up in the same place.