Tal

I bring in Blade as my ringer. <.

Oooh the new seanan_mcguire CD. I'll be in my bunk.

( I've done these things )

I'm pretty boring. :/

Big Honkin' screenie
With that we've faced and beaten the two toughest encounters in WoW now. I'm sure we'll do a little farming of it but I hope hope hope that we can get started on Black Temple now. I so want an Illidan kill before the Expansion...

And because I thought it looked cool... My girl

I was perusing shereth's response to my earlier Meme and one thing jumped out at me:

"14. Do you miss being a child?
No. There are specific aspects I occasionally miss, but not in general."

And I realized that there is an aspects of my childhood that I miss. And as can be expected from me they involve my favorite holiday and my tangentially to my wife's favorite holiday.

I miss the 'cool' creepy feeling of Halloween. For most of my childhood Halloween felt like a magical night filled with demons and dames, skeletons and sorcerers. A night where it truly felt like the great divide between the world of the living and the dead truly were a hands breadth apart. I miss that creepy atmosphere but am perversely glad that I create that atmosphere for the kids that live in my neighborhood with my display. As I have said many a time to kids that have come up to my house with a scared look on their face - "Its safe to be here. It looks scary but nothing is going to jump out and get you. Its just for looks and feel."

I also miss believing in Santa Clause and while I'm able to live vicariously through my daughter's enjoyment of the myth I don't look forward to when she stops believing in him. This is despite the best efforts of some kids in her class (seriously wtf? - isn't second grade a little early to be knocking away that favorite myth)?

Anyway just some random thoughts...

Shamelessly stolen from jonfmorse

( We cutz cuz we carez )

I'm always amused by the spin the doctors put on public statements. Rarely do I see one so blatantly show what the bottom line is however like I did with Warner Brother's recent announcement about a new service called "T-Works". A snipppet:

In spring 2008, Warner Bros. Entertainment will launch T-Works, a brand-new broad-appeal immersive animation experience which, for the first time ever, brings together all of the key characters from the Studio’s core animated properties in an expansive, rich online environment. The project was unveiled today by Barry Meyer, Chairman & CEO, and Alan Horn, President & COO, Warner Bros.

T-Works is a cross-divisional and companywide initiative designed to take the Studio’s wealth of animated characters beyond the media where they have an extremely rich history (television, film, home video, consumer products) and make them accessible to fans in a fully immersive and customizable online world. T-Works, which will be ad supported, also marks the first time that all the key characters from Warner Bros. Entertainment’s unmatched family of animated icons, including Warner Bros. Animation, Looney Tunes, Hanna-Barbera and DC Comics are brought together in a single site and tied to a user rewards system.

I've been in the office exactly one hour and five minutes and have been inundated with demands for changes to our Intranet, Website and the internal database pages. I've barely had time to start prioritizing the work that needs to be done and folks are acting like I should have already been done. BUT I'm grinning and telling them their request is in the queue because its too soon after vacation for me to be murderizin'. :)

Stolen from Steve.

( This is a list of the 50 most significant science fiction/fantasy novels, 1953-2002, according to the Science Fiction Book Club )

So yeah I've read a lot of Science Fiction and Fantasy. I'd like to say that I read many of these in preparation for writing my (only) published book but the truth is that most had been read years before I got the contract. >.>

Somedays I feel I could say "I need a tissue to blow my nose" and have five people show up to tell me that my underwear is the only material I should use.

( What am I in Real Life™ )

Title says it all. I've got more to do on a daily basis than ever before and am scheduled for more desk time than ever before. Take today for example. 10-11am on the desk, 11-12 Virtual Reference, 12-2 desk, 2-3 lunch, 3-4 technology center, 4-5 work the desk AND close the building.

Add into that that I've got to prepare a report for the director before tuesday and I'm royally boned. Looks like I'll be doing work at home so the folks that were supposed to be doing desk time can attend trainings they don't need, read books and do secondary projects.

Tuesday I go to war over the schedule.

Oh and I mean this in the nicest way possible but handle your Tal with care - I'm liable to explode if folks are cruel, stupid to me, etc.

Questions...
...28 questions about you, for me.


VITALS:
1.Your Middle Name:
2. Age:
3. Single or Taken:
4. Favorite Movie:
5. Favorite Song:
6. Favorite Band/Artist:
7. Dirty or Clean:
8. Tattoos and/or Piercings:

NOW THE FUN STUFF:
1. Do we know each other outside of LJ?
2. Whats your philosophy on life?
3. Would you have my back in a fight?
4. Would you keep a secret from me if you thought it was in my best interest?
5. What is your favorite memory of us?
6. Would you give me a kidney?
7. Tell me one odd/interesting fact about you:
8. Would you take care of me when I'm sick?
9. Can we get together and make a cake?
10. Have you heard any rumors of me lately?
11. Do you/have you talk(ed) crap about me?
12. Do you think I'm a good person?
13. Would you drive across country with me?
14. Do you think I'm attractive?
15. If you could change anything about me, would you?
16. What do you wear to sleep?
17. Would you come over for no reason just to hang out?
18. Would you go on a date with me if i asked you?
19. If I only had one day to live, what would we do together?
20. Will you repost this so i can fill it out for you?

I'm a Chevrolet Corvette!

You're a classic - powerful, athletic, and competitive. You're all about winning the race and getting the job done. While you have a practical everyday side, you get wild when anyone pushes your pedal. You hate to lose, but you hardly ever do.

Take the Which Sports Car Are You? quiz.

Everytime I think about quitting we have a night like last night that makes up for the crap we put up with. Boo to going to Naxx on Monday - we should be trying to capitalize on that momentum!

As the title suggests something has been bothering me for quite a bit now and I just can't resist turning it over in my mind, or better yet, doing something to relieve the frustration. And yes this is yet another WoW related post so those of you who don't play, don't care can freely skip this post though you may find it interesting if for no other reason than to mock me and my excessive run on sentences.

It came to my attention last week that the guild leader for another Alliance guild, Irishclan, confronted one of my guildmates in Ironforge. The thrust of the conversation was that in Irish's vaunted opinion my Guild sucked, should learn how to play (a generic insult in WoW) and would never amount to anything on Stormrage.

The reason for this tirade? The Lurkers sucks in his opinion because we "need help" to do end game content such as Molten Core, Blackwing Lair and AQ40. The kicker in all of this is that on the server Stormrage Irishclan has a pretty bad reputation for harboring thieves (stolen items from boss drops), rep grinders (folks who idle in battlegrounds and earn reputation in PvP for ranking) and being generally bad players to group with over all. So why do/should I care what these scrubs think of my guild? We're part of a very successful guild alliance that has Molten Core and Blackwing Lair on farm status and we're at the Twin Emperors in AQ40. Why should I care what a guild who has never gotten past Broodlord in BWL thinks of my guild?

But I do care - care enough to be insulted and wanting to give a verbal once over on Irish. I wanna point out that in a raiding environment where guilds want to absorb smaller guilds we've retained our identity and individual nature. We've also managed to avoid succumbing to the "OMG we need 2 mor preists for MC lets invite everyone" mentality that makes up Irishclan's recruiting practices. And the Avarice Alliance has been very successful and has lasted much longer than most guild alliances usually do and we keep picking up steam.

Folks keep telling me to ignore it and to not lower myself to his level but I'm such a papa bear when it comes to my guild that I feel this irrational need to defend my guild even when its not necessary. Who knows I may still give him a piece of mind and put him on ignore. Hopefully I'll just forget about it and get back to playing the game.

( Cut for your pleasure )

Errr well south-east more than east. Southish. And A little eastish. Yar right there...you know Blackrock Mountain. Where last night the Avarice Alliance, despite server crashes, pwn'd the place in one evening (I think sub four hours in fact). Ace slapped me into the DPS role for much of the evening allowing me to see just what I could do when damage is my game. It was a wonderful evening full of jokes and carrying on and at the end of it I was 10th in the damage meters overall and the top warrior. This is despite me having to tank on Vael and against Nefarion's minions during the fight. I also came out of it with Wrath gauntlets on upgrade and my much anticipated Drake Talon Pauldrons. Even more I was absolutely amazed at the crit numbers that I was putting out last night. I hit like a truck before...now I hit like a semi-truck it appears.

Best part of the night? Pulling aggro at 3% on Chrom, switching to sword and board and shield walling/shield block spamming him down in my dps gear. :D Great night. WTB more of them pst.

Those interested can check out Shal's new gear here

Boy do they have me pinged wrong!

Well on your way! You are 71% Addicted!

You play a lot, and you're starting to get hooked. Keep it up and soon you too will be part of the ever-growing group that is totally addicted. Or, see the warning signs now and get out while you still can!

My test tracked 1 variable How you compared to other people your age and gender: You scored higher than 39% on addiction level

Link: The World of Warcraft Addiction Test written by survivedestiny on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the 32-Type Dating Test

On the Information Desk:

Mormon comes up to the desk "Have you found Jesus?"
Tal: "Have you tried the Lost & Found?"
Tal exits stage left

Around the wife:
*singing along with the radio playing Rob Thomas' Lonely No More*

Now its hard on for me with my Dork still on the trend
Open up to me, so I can do your girlfriends!

wife clobbers Tal