• 7Jun 07

  Too Many Things to Talk About, Too Little Time

  Almost every day I take a look at my profile and think, I have too many things to post and don't have enough time to give them all the appropriate attention they deserve, so I don't end up posting anything.  To combat this, I'm updating a bunch of things (briefly) to get them off my plate to get on to more regular updates (hopefully).

  First Me:  I've rejoined the ranks of HOG (Harley Owner's Group) and am looking forward to the upcoming runs this summer.  The Bike is going in the shop tomorrow for its 10k service and for some funky noise it was making Tuesday (still under warranty thankfully).  For those that care about Harleys it is a 95inch Black Cherry, until I get the custom paint job on it, Electra Glide Classic.  Also, I was lucky enough to have someone from the wait staff of a Country Waffle (love waffles!) snag my phone so I've been without it since last Friday, talk about feeling disconnected.  To be honest, it was actually nice, but it's time to get plugged back into the Matrix and I'll be getting a loaner phone today.

  Everything Else:  It's a buyers market out there.  If ever was a time to purchase a house, now is probably the time.  The new Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke has made mention that he doesn't see rates going anywhere for a while, but if they do go anywhere they'll probably be up.  New home building is down by 9% which is a pretty good sign that things are slowing.  Home sales in general are down by a good percentage, 12% in my area East of San Francisco.  So, the point of this, buy buy buy.  Rather than paying a bunch of money into someone else's retirement, it is easier to get a home than you think, just not as easy as it was with low credit scores which means that's the first thing you need to protect in your financial future.

  Also, just in case everyone has forgotten, there are still some active MMOs out there besides World of Warcraft, hard to imagine, I know.  In the World of Eve Online, developed by CCP Games, there's been quite a bit of drama as of late.  The biggest difference (besides the space ships instead of ogres part) is that the community on a service is massive and where guilds in games like WoW & EverQuest can go from 10 to hundreds, Alliances in Eve can number in the thousands and consist of many different sub guilds/groups.  Not only are you put in a position to deal with more people, but the delicate balance of power and politics has a huge impact on how successful you are.  Also, the longer a game goes through its lifecycle the more likely it is that there will be less and less people interested into putting the time into leading and organizing a group in that environment and you see very large alliances form that end up playing a big role in the day to day experience of the game.  Currently, one of the biggest Alliances in Eve is Band of Brothers and they and the devs of CCP have been accused of foul play.  Unfortunately, someone from CCP did screw up and hand over some rare blueprints that was intended to or did give them upper hand.  I didn't play eve for more than an hour, so I'm not going to pretend to know how much of an impact that actually has, but the trust with the community was severely hurt.  Recently, someone from the development group logged in and used their GM tools to make themselves a member (even a co-administrator level) of an Alliance that opposes Band of Brothers named GoonSquad and that Alliance is once again screaming foul play.  It actually sounds like the first incident was a real screw-up on CCP's side, but this recent incident sounds more like making a mountain out of a mole hill.  The story behind of all of this, while interesting isn't the point here.  It is what CCP is doing to combat this, read about it here:  http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/07/arts/07eve.html?_r=1&oref=slogin They are allowing the community to vote in other members of the community into a "Oversight Committee" which will be flown at regular intervals out to CCP offices to basically watch dog CCP to make sure nothing shady is going on.  My gut reaction was W-T-F?  I know these guys aren't Blizzard and want to hold on to as many of their 200,000 subscribers as possible, but am I alone in thinking that this move is a tad overboard?  This is one story I'm definitely going to be following.  For an interesting read (almost makes me want to play the game) check here: http://goonfleet.com/open_letter_to_CCP.html.

   

  • Posted Jun 7, 2007 5:38 pm PT
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• 15Mar 07

  Inspiration

  One of my hobbies is inspiration.  From How to Win Friends and Influence People, to Think and Grow Rich, to The Secret (which is sweeping the nation right now, www.WhatisTheSecret.tv), I look for it in all places.  Recently I had the opportunity to attend an event with Rudy Ruettiger, among other speakers, and I found his story of sheer determination very empowering.  Too often these days people play it too safe and because of that end up shorting their lives and their futures because of it.  I heard one quote this weekend, "you can't steal second with your foot on first" and that makes a ton of sense to me.

  I've been very fortunate in my life to always run into people that inspire me.  One of those people is Ron Heagy.  You can see his site at http://www.rollonron.com.  His story is about overcoming the biggest adversity I can imagine and coming out a champion.  Ron is now a motivational speaker (see a video of him speaking here),  and what makes this guy special to me is not only his ability to overcome great and adverse odds, its that he's also my cousin.
  
  "The man who acquires the ability to take full possession of his own mind may take possession of anything else to which he is justly entitled."  
  - Andrew Carnegie
  

  • Posted Mar 15, 2007 11:05 am PT
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• 7Feb 07

  World(s) of Warcraft

  If you're like me, you rejoined the bozillions playing Warcraft for the launch of their expansion, Burning Crusade.  So far, my adventures have been fairly straight forward: Grind, Grind, Grind.  I'm not one to want to linger at the lower levels and soak in the content, I'd rather get the leveling out of the way and then go back and relax through the content.  So here I am, finally at 70 and finally working on the lower level content and my trade skills.  The game is definitely a different experience to me as opposed to when I hit 60 on my original character (felt like I hit a brick wall of "nothing to do").  I also play more relaxed instead of power gaming, besides the leveling of course.  With all of the content and a good number of friends I have to help catch up, I should be busy for a while.  

  I do, however, have one major issue and that is the 222 servers WoW has.  107 of them PVP servers, 6 of which are RP, and 155 "Normal" servers (don't get me started here on why they are calling the NonPVP or PVE servers "Normal"), 16 of which are RP.  When I started back up, I had no idea anyone else was playing, and it wasn't until I was firmly locked into the server I randomly decided to get myself and a few family members/friends into that I found that I knew a bunch of people playing on a bunch of different servers.  Of course everyone wants me to transfer, but it wouldn’t be just me it would be everyone I was responsible for on my server as well, and I do want to play with all of these people.  ARRRRRGH!

  The only foreseeable solution I can imagine is cross server PVE (“Normal”) instances with a little more control over who gets in than their PVP counterparts.  One can hope at least.

  • Posted Feb 7, 2007 3:08 pm PT
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