UnMotivationalPosters

Water. That’s all she needed. Her eyes slid ceaselessly from side to side, head cocking occasionally to pick up the source of some unfamiliar sound. All the sounds were unfamiliar to her. This wasn’t the forest she was used to, if it could even be called a forest. Fat, squat things littered the landscape, their only similarity to trees being their positioning, some in clumps, some standing alone, all within a respectably “forest-y” distance from one another. For all she knew she was in a forest of giant, misshapen leeks wearing crowns. Leda paused to stare at one at 2 o’ clock from her position. Deviating from the path she had discovered, she stepped over to it. As she neared the thing, a hand came up to cover her increasingly strenuous grimace; the smell was beyond nauseating. A cloud of rot hung around the squamous growth and it took Leda a moment to notice the absence of the sound of flies. This was odd to her. At home rot was always accompanied by flies. What kind of life is here, she pondered. She struggled to make connections with the forms of life with which she was familiar. Her momentary reverie was interrupted by a grotesque shimmer across the gelatinous surface of the “rot tree”. As if responding to her proximity or her body heat or the carbon dioxide she was expelling the thing gurgled and Leda jumped back so quickly she almost tripped over one of its roots. She was sure it hadn’t been there before but this was no time to worry about that.

Back on the path she stood staring at the rot tree, heart thudding harder than she could ever remember it beating before. A serpentine movement caught her eye. It was the root. It probably hadn’t been there before, because it was still growing. Leda couldn’t take her eyes off it. The thing was pulsing and…pumping something into the ground. She thought to herself that this was a great time to get going but she didn’t feel immediately in danger right now and she’d never seen anything like this. The rot tree shivered again, this time more violently. The gurgle became louder and was accompanied by muffled belches coming from the root as it began to funnel ever larger pieces of whatever-that-was into the ground beneath the greenish ground litter. Something poked through the dirt a few feet away from the root. Leda’s attention was divided between this new protrusion, the pulsing root, and the shuddering rot tree. She was prepared to run.

The protrusion was slender and tall, looking an angry, slick red. More a tentacle than anything else. It bent to and fro, leaning and curling, as if tasting the air. It leaned slightly in Leda’s direction and she took a big step away even though it was realistically too far to reach her. If it doesn’t stretch. A tense moment later it had decided Leda was beneath its interest and it straightened, its base swelling to the peristaltic rhythm of the root. The rot tree itself had ceased to move and was soon followed by the root. Resisting the urge to step forward and examine the strange stalk, the woman focused her eyes on the swollen bulb and noticed a glistening shimmer. A baby rot tree, she mused. For the first time she looked around and paid attention to her surroundings.

Springing up everywhere between the rot trees were young trees. They were more slender than their elders, and the red stalk was turning, in some of the taller and wider ones, to an orange hue. Looking at the more subdued yellow and tan of the larger rot trees she wondered what the insides of their fluted crests looked like. The tips were stained with the same bright orange of the middle-sized rot trees and Leda wondered if that was bait for, or blood from its prey. Another gurgle, closer, reminded Leda that she was hungry. Rolling her eyes for the hundredth time at her predicament, she unzipped a compartment on her upper left sleeve and slid her fingers in. From it they conveyed a long straw. Taking several large gulps of water, she felt the pack on her back getting lighter. I should stop. I should save some so I don’t run out before I find more. She took another swallow, letting her eyes roam the ground. No bugs. This place is weird. A movement caught her eye. The root shuddered and the water in her mouth suddenly wasn’t so refreshing any more. She put the straw away and got back on the path.

This guy's got plenty of water

-supersticky can usually be found not writing a damn thing at Deus Ex Why Zed

Coupla things about my tortured relationship with World of Warcraft:

1) supersticky does play the WoW. Many think it is lame. That is fine. I understand that there are people who are addicted and will play all day long. This is also fine. For them. I get sick after about an hour. That is about long enough to try not to get killed in Northrend again.

2) Once at like level 20 my SPriest mistakenly angered an Orc lady whilst traipsing about. Did not know that getting whacked in the back by a guard turned the formerly gloriously safe PvE wonderland into a deadly PvP wasteland. Flag went up, I got GANKED. I did not know about the flag going up or the “wait 5 minutes in a secret hidden location you wuss” rule. This person, to whom I will refer as “Tauren Horde Scum X” then vanished. Waiting until just the right moment to POP SUPERSTICKY AGAIN! I SPriest was lost and had no idea about this “get hit by an enemy guard and PvP flag goes up” thing and so suffered several deaths that day, each more astonishing than the last. Until the secret was discovered (thanks guild members!) and all was restored. Tauren Horde Scum X, by the way, was about a level 53 at the time. WHAT A JERK!

3) I am a PvE loyalist. Call me weak, call me a sissy, call me a girl. One of those would be true. I am not against PvP (mostly for other people. Have at it!) but I’m not a big fan myself. One of my parental units plays WoW and he’s always trying to get me to come over to his server where it’s all PvP and he swears up and down that ganking and being ganked is part of the fun. I’m what some people call a “carebear”, the type who heals and buffs passing strangers because it seems like a nice thing to do. For whatever reason, these kinds of people seem to be despised. Oddly, though, a lot of people randomly buff me or something if I happen to be passing by them. Perhaps the haters are just a very vocal minority.

4) Once I actually killed Nazan at Ramps. It was a PUG, we’d wiped a few times, and we had this one guy who just kept fucking it up for everybody. He left the party about halfway through and we struggled on without him because we couldn’t find a replacement at such a crucial time. Well dammit we got to Vazruden and Nazan and it was a freakin bloodbath. I res’d so many people it was ridiculous. You KNOW how long it takes to run back into the END of an instance! Everyone was down and I was alone, like a big dumbass and low on health and waiting for people to run back, so I did some bullshit which killed the dragon. Of course he was already mostly drained of HP or else I wouldn’t have this little story, but when it happened all of Vent got quiet then everyone was like “wtf healer killed the dragon!” It was a nice moment and I got those lifegiver britches. Totally worth it for those pants.

5) I don’t understand why people have to be assholes in PUGs. I think I left 1 PUG, ever, when the leader made it clear that he didn’t give a damn what happened as long as nobody contradicted him in any way. Which would have been fine, had he been competent. After many wipes in ZF (one of my favorites) during which everyone tried to advise him on a course of action (including myself because I’d been there about 20 times by then) I just gave up and so did pretty much the rest of the party. Seriously if you were there you’d have left too. Another time I was DPS and this healer didn’t want to listen and consequently didn’t heal anyone. Worse, he was spouting off about his sophisticated real-world job to demonstrate how mature he was when someone intimated that he was, in fact, less than mature. I ended up having to heal the party while he hung around being a dick. Why the leader didn’t boot him, I don’t know. I think they were part of the same guild or something. To be fair, I try not to expect much when some random person messages me asking if I want to heal because they already have plenty of DPS and no healers in sight. It’s not like I’m busy. I’m usually just wandering around from one quest location to another, killing wolves and murlocs (those bastards) wherever I come across them.

6) I’ve bitched about the game a fair amount. I actually do like it quite a bit. I mostly like to wander around the landscape and just look at things. I love meeting random people and just getting into an instance with strangers or doing a quest with someone (I’m talking to YOU, Zombie Heme!) I just met a minute ago and who had a good joke or something. I like running into noobs and pretending I’m a tank in DM or the stocks (Holy Nova YEAH!). One of my favorite aspects of the game is the variety of environments. It’s great to just kinda get lost in there and admire some of the great scenery. And they have nerdy (and sometimes cute) jokes.

I know that in some quarters the game gets no respect. People think it’s for losers and dorks and guys who can’t get dates. I figure, if Mr. T plays it, why shouldn’t I? He probably gets SO MANY DATES.

This is so true

Here. Do gaze upon this lovely image for a few moments while I think. Take in the light and the shapes and the colors. No, this isn’t a trick.

You'll shit brix

I’m done thinking and I got nuthin. I’ve been thinking for days. I got a classic case of what they like to call “writers block” and My brain is all stopped up like nobody’s business. It’s super-lame and I would like nothing more than to get out of it and finish my crappy novel. Seriously.

In the stead of having something interesting, intriguing, or illuminating to say I’ll share a random thought with you. There’s a whole lot of importance placed on producing and performing and not enough on just existing and in enjoying life. Isn’t that sad? People work 50 weeks a year to get 2 weeks off. 5 days a week to have a 2-day weekend. You got guys with kids who can’t hardly see them because they’re too busy working their asses off to make sure they have a place to live.

That’s fucked up.

I most certainly did not start off intending to write this rant. In fact, my original plan was to dash off like a paragraph and then take my happy ass to bed but I didn’t really achieve that, you see.

Back to my rave here. Why do Americans (and other cultures of course but I happen to live in the US) take success to mean the physical or financial or social trappings of working themselves until they haven’t anything left? I’m not saying at all that hard work is unwarranted or that everyone should become a couch potato. But whatever happened to just being able to enjoy life? Why does someone have to ration their vacation days to enjoy a free Wednesday morning once a season? When did it become a badge of pride to work as many hours overtime as you do in a week? It’s necessary for so many, and that is precisely the problem. An entire society of people for whom true free time is restricted to the very lucky or the very, very unlucky. That’s some sick shit, dawg.

I get to work at home and this puts me smack in the realm of the very lucky. I’ve done the 80 hour workweek before so I know the drive to success. It can even be addictive. All those merit badges for working your fingers to the bone. Nowadays I can go outside at some random time of the morning and enjoy it. I wish everyone had that luxury. There’s plenty about the States that’s screwed up and this is a big one. Maye it’s screwed up all over the entire world.

Or hell, maybe I’m the screwed up one. Just doesn’t seem right or fair. I bet you cavemen didn’t work all damn day. They might have had to be busy and vigilant but I bet they got to chill sometimes. Any cavemanologists out there who might know, let me know. For now, I’m going to my secret laboratory, deep in the bowels of my evil lair, to cook up the magic formula for enjoying life while on the chain gang.

So, I was watching the Colbert Report on hulu last night and the browser decides to freeze right at this moment. I thought it was a pretty great shot so I hurried and hit the ‘print screen’ button and then pasted it out and saved it.

Here it is! Thumbs Up Snoop!

There’s a little holding pattern I’ve got going on here.  It’s been a few weeks since my last post.  I’m working on what my sister calls a Big Think.  I’ll be posting this Big Think tomorrow.  It’s full of ideas and questions and words and punctuation.  You won’t even believe it.

You may also have an existential crisis but really, that’s out of our hands.

We are but his mere pawns

I would say more but <SPOILERS>!  Just know that it’ll go down easier if you’re not sober.  NO, little Johnny, that doesn’t mean go huffing the glue!  If you’re not old enough to buy a bottle of liquor or to afford your own good quality reality enhancements of dubious legality then you’re going to have to just settle for listening to binaural beats in the dark (put on your headphones, son!) while you read.

And now, I leave you with this completely unrelated haiku:

No star in heaven
nor jewel of the earth could shine
brightly as your eyes

I know this story all too well. Someone won’t switch to a known better alternative or even upgrade. All because it’s something different. This webcomic says it all really..

http://popstrip.com/firefox-vs-internet-explorer/

I had to share this.. It’s so true! I hope you enjoy it also.