My life...or something like it

A New Obsession

I've done it.  I've now joined the world of an MMORPG (that's massive-multiplayer online role playing game).  In my quest for "the next Diablo" I've decided on World of Warcraft

Matthew and I had been discussing this game since it came out last Tuesday and since it was on sale at CompUSA Friday for $10 off (gotta love those day after Thankgiving sales!) I decided to give it a try.

I've played it a couple days now and while it's mostly fun, it's still not Diablo.  Mostly what's different from Diablo are the battles.  In WOW you don't really have control over the battle.  You press the "weapon attack" key and it all goes automated.  You do have the ability to activate special skills or spells that make your attacks more powerful - but that's about all the control you have. And you also have to "select" a target to attack.  And once a target is selected, that's the only target you can attack.  This makes it really difficult when two or three (or five) monsters want to attack you and you can only do battle with one at a time.  This also makes it extremely difficult to run away from a battle you can't win.  I've died way too many times trying to run away.  I just can't run fast enough!  (Now, I haven't exactly fully read the manual - so it very well could be that I'm doing things wrong, so if someone out there in blogdom plays WOW and I'm doing it wrong, please tell me!!)

But I love playing the Tauren race.  They're so cute!  It's fun being able to customize my character.  I also love the "quests".  When I complete one, I feel such a sense of accomplishment.  It's still a little weird playing with "live" people.  Since I'm still in the early levels and getting my feet wet, I haven't been too concerned about joining any parties.

But if I decide that I really do like it, it shouldn't be too hard to convince Matthew to get it and we can play together (which would probably make it even more fun!)  And that would be cool since it is something that we can do together even though he's
in Hawaii!

It's funny that when he first told me about WOW and how his friends would probably to get him to play it too, I (half jokingly/half seriously) that he wasn't allowed to play any more computer games.  (He loses all focus and sense of priority when he gets into a game).  But since it's something that I am now interested, it would be ok if he plays it with me!

Reason 465

why I want to move out.

Roommates using my stuff without permisison.

I'm uploading pictures off my camera last night and whoa, wait a minute.  There's pictures on the camera that I did not take. Granted, they are pictures of the kitties, but still...don't use my crap without my permission!!  Especially fragile and complicated electronic gadgets!

Turkey Comas

There's really not a whole lot to say about my Thanksgiving "mini-break".  It was great to have four whole days off.  And I did a whole lot of nothing.  Ate yummy things, hung out with 'the fam', saw a couple movies.  Yup, that's about it.

Choices

I have one hour to kill before The Amazing Race starts.  Do I 1) place Dicsiples or 2) work on adding more photo albums to my website?

Reason 264

why I want to move out.

I come home from work today, enter the bathroom and find this.  A roommate has decided to add something in the way of decoration by putting a picture frame (frames 4 4x6 pictures) on the wall with various pictures of the roommies.

I'm sorry, but that just seems so inappropriate.  This is the sort of thing you'd expect to find in a bedroom, living room or even kitchen.  Not in the bathroom.  The bathroom is a place where you do your business people.  I don't need my friends/roommates friends, ect. to see pictures of me while they're taking a leak (or other).  So I took down the frame, pulled out the picture that included me, put the frame back up and wrote a note to roommie saying I didn't want my picture up in the bathroom, paper clipped it to the photo and left it in front of her door.

Please please let there be a different roommate situation out there for me!  And soon!

Finished!

Finally!  Do you remember when I when I went to Hawaii?  That was like months ago.  Well I've finally uploaded all my photos!  It's about time, don'cha think?!?

Mellow Sunday

Actually, it's been kind of a mellow all around week.  I guess that's why there hasn't been too much posting.

So this morning I looked a room available.  I am definitely not in love with it.  Probably not even in "like" with it.  But I still my be tempted, cause I every day that I spend here I want to move out that much more.

So, the problems with this new place:

• I'd be living with two men in there 40's
• The house smells like a litterbox
• It's definitely a mans apartment
• It's an apartment (I currently live in a house)
• shared/coin-op laundry (I've never lived in a place with a "laundry room")
• no storage, other than my bedroom
• a little further than work, probably no more coming home on my lunch break
• further to freeways

Ok, so the good things about the place

• not living with my current roommates
• a big room - a lot bigger than I have now
• my own bathroom (in my bedroom)
• matthew can come and visit and stay with me (he could even move in, if he needed to)
• they don't mind the kitties (although I didn't mention a few bad habits they have - like very talkative (loud!), like to knock things over, chew on wires -- but I did say they're very active.)
• Roommates were familar with the breed, and even commented that they were very smart cats (to which I wholeheartedly agreed!)
• my own place to park
• walking distance to downtown Menlo Park
• the same portion of my income to housing (33%)
• high speed internet access included with rent - even my own static ip (I can stop spending $65/month for crappy earthlink DSL)

So while there are some good positives - I'm still a little uneasy.  They still have some more people to interview, so it's not even like they decided on me.  (Although they did say that "you're the kind of person we'd like to rent to).

I am NOT addicted ... or

the weekend wrap-up

(ok, so I'm a little late, but better late than never)

Friday night I watched  The Perfect Score.  It makes me think back about how I did not take the SATs.  For a couple reasons actually.  Now, my junior year in high school, I guess that's about the time when you start thinking about taking the SATs, my crappy guidance counsellor neglected to tell me that I should probably take them too.  Senior year rolls around, this time I now know about the SATs, I've already decided that I'm just going to go to the "JC" first and then transfer to a 4 year school, so I didn't really need to take the SATs.  Plus, I didn't want to have to give an answer the the "what'd you get on your SATs".  "Oh, I never took them" is a pretty good answer, I think. (Then I'd never have to admit, oh, I'm really a dumbass, or, oh, I'm really smart, but just modest).

Saturday morning I go up expecting rain.  It turned out to be a gorgeous day and I decided to head out for a bike ride at Russian Ridge.  It's been way too long since I've riden there.  I almost forgot how nice of a ride it is.  Especially nice in winterish time, because they don't close trails at the first sign of rain like at Arastradero.  I didn't do the full loop that I normally do, but I still had a nice workout.  I took some photos.  Maybe if I get around to it I'll post some.

After putzing around at home a bit, I sat down and decided to take out Disciples II.  Although not before I went to Fry's and thought about buying Sims II.  When I first got my Windows computer last year, I went out and bought the original Sims.  However, I just could not get into it.  Now I don't know if I just couldn't figure out how to play or if it's just that boring.  A lot of people do seem to like it - so maybe I just didn't figure it out or something.  But reading this post over at Tvindys got me thinking more about Sims.  It was actually a lot of fun reading and I wondered if maybe I was just missing something.  A few weeks ago when the boy was in town and we were at CompUSA in Santa Rosa (damn Santa Rosa for not having a Fry's!!!!) and he was contemplating RAM for my parents computer, I saw a Sims II strategy guide and thought maybe I could try Sims II but with the strategy guide book.  But I got to Fry's and couldn't find a strategy book.  And I thought do I really want to spend $50 on a game I'm not sure I'll even like?!?  Especially when I already have a couple of games at home I haven't even played.  Which brings me to Disciples II.  So yeah, I started getting into this game.  The boy and I played one quest together just after I first bought it.  But shortly after that I discovered Diablo and forgot all about Disciples.  But now I've played out Diablo.  I got my favorite character the Hell level and now it's just hard and boring.  Disciples is a  little like Diablo in that it has the same type of characters and spells and stuff.  But it's turn-based and offers a little more strategic thinking than Diablo.  So I'm enjoying it.

After that it was "date night" with Dre.  We went to dinner and saw The Incredibles.  The Incredibles was cute.  Although I think it was over-hyped to me, so I was expecting something uber-fantastic, but it was cute and I did enjoy it.  Although I think the sound was off a bit in the theatre.  It has this "echoy" quality that was really distracting me from fully enjoying the movie.  And this couple sitting next to me couldn't stop talking.  And the girl was practically sitting in his lap the whole time.  I just felt like saying, if you don't want to watch the friggen movie, leave and go get a room or something.  That and someone kept farting.  Oh, and even though Dre and I decided to see a late show (11pm) to minimize the kid factor (it IS a kids movie), someone still brought in their baby who screamed the whole time.  But yah, it was cute.  It could have waited for Netflix, though.

After the movie I stayed up late and played more Disciples.  I woke up and played more Disciples.  Then Dre and I went hiking at Castle Rock.  It was nice.  I don't think I've ever been there during the "fall" time.  So some of the trees were all yellow and reddish yellow and it was quite pretty.  Plus climbing on the rocks is fun.  I turn into SUCH a little kid when there's big rocks to climb.  I took pictures.  Maybe I'll get around to posting them.  We also had the now traditional apres-hike at Yummi Yogurt.  I had Vanilla and White Chocolate Macadamia Nut.  I probably should have added butterfinger bits, because while it was good, I just didn't enjoy it as much as I usually do when I get a topping.

Then I got home and played more Disciples.

one more till the weekend

and forty five more minutes until i'm out of here.

today was a very productive day for me at work.  I got to stick labels on envelopes.  But i guess it's better than yesterday when I got yelled at by an attorney because I put one of her calls that she was expecting to voicemail while she was on the phone (a conference call, even).  *sigh*  I guess it was my fault.  She did tell me that she was expecting a call - although it was while i was on the phone with somebody else, so it didn't totally register it - but again my fault for not saying, wait, tell me again when you have my full attention.  Oh well, lesson learned, I'll try better next time.  But in a way, it's good knowing that I have the job with the least amount of responsibility.  And yet, you could probably argue, my job is the most important.

And yay, Monday is payday.  I'm excited to see exactly what my take home pay will be.  That way I'll be more able to tell exactly how much more I'll be able to afford for a new place to live.  But I am kind of sad thinking about leaving.  Aside for the number of roommates (and two roommates in particular) I love my house.  (aside from the
decor, I loathe the decor - but I was never involved with (or even asked my input on) the decor).  The other roommates sigh and complain what a crappy house it is - the landlords haven't replaces the carpets or kitchen tile maybe ever, and the inside needs a serious paint job, if you use a hair dryer on one side of the house you're going to blow the fuse, the heater doesn't work, when you close a door the whole house shakes, ect. But I love it. It's a great house for the kitties. And I'm going to miss it, I think.  Especially if I end up living in an apartment that has less "common area" room.

Yes!

I've finally found my firefox theme.  It's Apollo.  I am happy again.