Re: A Step Above Mediocrity

I'd like to point out that Steve stole the majority of my kills. The git. And I pulled off some -epic- arrows. I'm not sure how I do that... Either luck or skill. Maybe both.

A Step Above Mediocrity

John and I played a rather nasty game of League of Legends yesterday, and it sort of stuck out to me among the several games we've played over the last couple of days.  To start out with, even though I've probably now played enough games to be considered a level 30 player (if you combine both my EU and US accounts), I don't really consider myself to be an excellent level 30 player.  "Sometimes rather good" is more the term I would use to describe myself.  The reasons for this don't particularly matter for the topic of this post, so I won't get into that now.  I'm here to describe this one particular game and why I think it's significant enough to talk about.

First and foremost, it was apparent to me that the team was either comprised of at least two to three individuals who where "together" (meaning they were probably friends in real life and had voice chat going on), or they were just a handful of very, very good players.  More on that later.

The game started out rather weird, because we noticed that two of their players -- Shaco and Amumu -- had chosen Smite for one of their summoner spells.  I suppose having two junglers is POSSIBLE in a 5v5, but it's highly rare and this was the first time that I had seen or even considered such a thing.  So right away, I was rather suspicious of this team.

Despite this, the game started out rather well for our team because we managed to get first blood off of their Dr. Mundo in our lane.  (I actually don't recall who got it.  I think it was John, but I'm not sure.)  Mundo simply underestimated us, and it was a mistake that he never made again.  Like I said, this was a team of very good players.

I would assume that Shaco wanted to get a couple of levels in the jungle before he decided to harass us -- which was another factor leading to our successful first blood.  After that, however, things got a bit nasty.  I'm not entirely sure the reasons -- it could be that they were indeed together and Dr. Mundo was very angry at us and asked his friends to come help him, or it could be that they simply viewed our lane as a very big threat to them, or it could be that they just really wanted to push our lane -- but after that first blood we were under constant attack from Mundo, Shaco, and surprisingly enough, their Amumu.

There were a few reasons why the middle of this game went very badly for us. The first was the whole jungling thing -- if done right (which, I suppose they were doing it right), it means that most of their team would exceed ours in regards to level and gold.  That means being stronger than us due to simple brute strength in level advantage and in item quality from the gold.  Adding to this problem was the fact that one of their champions was a leaver (or disconnected, or whatever), meaning that their whole team was leveling faster than ours.  In mid-game, all of them were 3-4 levels higher than me, and that was unbelievably frustrating.

I don't do a whole lot of damage to begin with.  I do a decent amount right away, and then it's basically down to nothing.  This means that my 1v1's go one of two ways:  Either the other champion gets scared at how much damage I do right at the start and runs away, or they know my champion and keep fighting me (in which case they WILL win).  Head-on fights are not what I'm good at, and I'm fine with that.  But it means that if the ENTIRE enemy team has a 3-4 level advantage over me, then I am utterly useless.

Back to this match, though.  The ganks that they were pulling off where utterly over-the-top.  Shaco was appearing out of nowhere (as he does), and Mundo was being an overly aggressive bitch.  The surprising part was Amumu, who was constantly hiding in the brush right beside our outer turret.  I have never been harassed so badly in a game, and them dedicating 3 members of their team to our lane was very surprising.  Especially so early on -- naturally it's normal for a lane to get pressured after level 10-ish.  But this was only at level 5 when it started happening, if I recall correctly.

From that point forward, I was totally shut down and really couldn't contribute anything to the game.  (Aside from the occasional annoyingly negative comments that were getting on John's nerves.  Sorry about that, love.)  I eventually just shut my mouth and tried to lane and jungle as best I could to try and catch up in levels.  We held our own -- remember that we had 5 to their 4 -- so even though they had level advantages they couldn't make a TON of progress.  One on one we were losing horribly, and sometimes even 2 on 1, but they couldn't take on our whole team.

Slowly, we began to catch up in levels.  When I hit level 18, I finally started getting kills again, and things slowly started to get easier for us.  As abruptly as anything, we killed Baron, killed them all in a huge team fight, and rampaged through their base to end the game.  I was surprised that we were able to turn the game around, but looking back it of course makes sense.  Had they been able to apply the needed pressure when they had their level advantage, I'm sure they could have won.  But we lasted long enough to level the playing field, and it was finally 5 equally powerful champions against only their 4.  Simple math won the day.

I really don't know how the game would have went if it had stayed 5v5.  These guys were very good, and very nasty.  I'd like to think it would have at least been a close match, but who knows.  What I do know, however, is that I feel as though we went up against a very good bunch of players, and it feels pretty good to come out on top after seeing how well they played.  We'll place this match under the category for the times when I was "sometimes rather good".  

A quick peek into how my mind doesn't work

Hi there! I'm John. You may know me from PD's previous posts. If you do, then you probably know that I'm a lunatic. If not, now you do know. Anyway! Steve made me a contributor to The PD Chronicles, so here I am contributing. I thought I'd start by talking about the game that got me and Steve together; World of Warcraft. Specifically, a raid instance in World of Warcraft. MORE specifically, a boss in World of Warcraft.

Chimaeron.

I hate this boss.

Now, if you're not familiar with how this boss works, he basically hits you with a bunch of abilities that instantly kill you. Thankfully, you have protection from being killed as long as you're above 10'000 health (a trivial amount compared to your maximum health) and as such the healers don't have to heal people above 10'000. This is made up for in the fact that Chimaeron uses these abilities very, very often. You have a few seconds to heal someone up to 10'000 health before they may get hit by another ability and die.

In short, it's a healing test.

Now, I'm a healer in WoW, and this fight is my bane. Why? Because my brain just doesn't compute this fight. I've played the game for 5 years and I know it pretty well. Unfortunately, this also means that I'm set in my ways. When I see someone's health drop, my natural instinct is to heal them up to 100% as fast as I can. This has a few exceptions (for instance when I know that person isn't going to be in any danger any time soon, so I can focus on someone else who needs healing more) but generally I'm good at raid healing and keeping people at high health.

This comes to bite me in the backside when I heal Chimaeron. When I see someone's health drop from 100% to 0% (1 health, the buff you get prevents you from totally dying as long as you're above 10'000 health remember) in under a second, I panic. I feel like I've done something wrong. Like they've stood in something they shouldn't have. But I know they haven't, and I (along with a couple of other healers) have a few seconds to get them back up to 10'000 as soon as possible. This would be fairly easy, even though more than one person at a time gets hit by an ability at once, were it not for the fact that I am a Druid!

Druids rely hugely on healing over time, so I can easily heal someone beyond 10'000 health with a single spell - provided I have more than 2 or 3 seconds to do it. There's even a spell called Massacre, where Chimaeron reduces everyone's hp to 1. I can easily use an Area of Effect heal to get people back into the 10k+ safe zone if given more than a few seconds, but there's no use. Even if they don't get hit by another ability, one of the other healers has used a direct heal that makes them safe. This makes me fairly useless in the Chimaeron fight. The only time where I get to be useful is when we lose the protection and we have to mitigate damage by grouping up and using loads of area of effect healing, and we're given more than a few seconds between hits. That only happens once every minute or two though, so the rest of the fight I'm twiddling my thumbs trying not to panic and healing for trivial amounts.

I never want to do that fight again. I know I'm gonna have to, though. But! In good news, my guild got Cho'gall down tonight after many, many nights of wiping on him. It's nice to finally beat that git, and celebrate our first completed Cataclysm raid as a guild!

(I'd add an image here, but both Google Chrome and Internet Explorer don't know what an image is on the internet so I'm just going to waste your time by continuing this sentence into a long, unneeded paragraph of drivel and nonsense and I really can't understand why you're still reading!)

Warm and Fuzzy!

I like Valve.  I trust Valve!  So when I learned that DotA 2 would be Valve's first foray into not only the MOBA genre, but also the FANTASY genre, I wasn't concerned.  I had faith they would do it right.

That faith was reassured when I started reading the DotA 2 blog today.  This is because Valve *gets* gamers.  They just know them.  Pure and simple.  This was obvious when I read the FAQ.  One of the questions someone sent in was if they would support someone in the U.S. playing the game with someone in Europe.  Their answer?  "You'll be able to play with anyone.  Anywhere.  Anytime."

HEY BLIZZARD, ARE YOU LISTENING?

O - pin - ion

Before I start, I should mention that this post is actually written tongue-in-cheek.  It's so hard to make that apparent through text, so please try to imagine me writing this with a big toothy grin on my face while sipping on a cup of tea.  I'm exaggerating a lot, definitely being over-dramatic, and basically just having fun with this.  That said, enjoy!



If there is one incredibly bad thing the Internet has helped create, it's a complete and utter misunderstanding of what an opinion really is.  It's not all the Internet's fault, mind you.  I honestly place most of the blame on bad parenting, but that's a completely different topic.

So lest we forget, here is the definition of opinion:

o·pin·ion

  

[uh-pin-yuhn]

–noun

1.

a belief or judgment that rests on grounds insufficient to produce complete certainty.

2.

a personal view, attitude, or appraisal.

3.

the formal expression of a professional judgment: to ask for a second Medical opinion.

4.

Law . the formal statement by a judge or court of the reasoning and the principles of law used in reaching adecision of a case.

5.

a judgment or estimate of a person or thing with respect tocharacter, merit, etc.: to forfeit someone's good opinion.

6.

a favorable estimate; esteem: I haven't much of an opinion of him.

The simple misunderstanding or ignorance to the meaning of this word is probably the largest reason why I'm a misanthropic bastard who hates the human race.

"This game sucks."
No.  No, no, no, no, no.  You *think* the game sucks, ya snot-nosed little cunt.

"The rapture will be this Saturday."
In honor of Yahtzee:  In short, no.  In long, nooooooooooooooooooo.  I'm quite glad that preacher is older than dirt.  It means he'll have his own personal little rapture soon and I can stop hearing about his bullshit.

The part of the definition that people seem to just utterly disregard is "grounds insufficient to produce complete certainty".

That part is so important I'm going to repeat it.  In all caps.  And larger font.  And bright red text.  


GROUNDS INSUFFICIENT TO PRODUCE COMPLETE CERTAINTY.

The bottom line is, if you're not writing an editorial or opinion column, you don't get to make bold statements.  This brings me to the SECOND reason why I despise human beings:  Most of them are cocky, self-entitled little bitches.  The most common example of this is when a game developer makes any kind of announcement and allows comments on said article:

"You need to add X to Y."
I wish I was a game developer, just so I could take pleasure in saying, "Fuck you, you little self-entitled cunt.  Go make your own game so you can add X to Y.  Until then, you can shove X up your fat haughty ass."

And my own personal favorite is when someone actually gets angry at you when you don't agree with them.  I *love* these people!  If they were a raccoon, I would definitely speed up when they ran out in front of me on the road.  (I slow down for real raccoons.  My life would be a Disney movie if I had that option.)

It's always a joy when you see this happening:

Self-Entitled Cunt (or Professional Troll):  "THIS SUCKS."
Reasonable Top Hat Wearing Gentleman:  "Well, I think it has certain features that are quite enjoyable, such as X, Y, and Z, because they add a certain depth and scope to the game."
Self-entitled Cunt (or Professional Troll):  "HAHA U NOOB U SUCK GO FUCK YOUR MOM THIS GAME SUCKS !!!!!11!!!!1  I KNOW CAUSE I KNOW EVERYTHING I'M ON THE INTERNETZORZ."

And this, kids, is why I ignore most people.  

Finally!

The patch notes for version 1.6 of Minecraft are out, and it's quite the extensive list.  However, I need to only point out one change:

• Added nether support to multi-player

OMFG!  Finally!

There's a bunch of other cool things in there too.  PC Gamer did a nice article on it.

There was another rather interesting article at PC Gamer this morning, too, regarding League of Legends.  They wrote a very nice beginner's guide to the game.  I read through it, and since I've been playing the game for a while now, there was nothing in there that I didn't already know.  But it would be a HUGELY useful collection of information for someone just starting out.  Due to how much one person can affect the outcome of a match in MOBA games, the community is severely unforgiving.  If you don't know what you're doing, you're going to get harassed and flamed.  I can see this article helping to educate new players so that they might avoid most of that negativity, and don't prematurely quit the genre.  Because, despite being filled with a high number of assholes, MOBAs are incredibly fun to play.

Read it here.

Other than all that -- my shoulder feels much better today.  Still a bit sore, but I can move my neck freely today, which I couldn't do so well yesterday without cringing.  So that's pretty good news.

I'm Still Picking Dirt Out of My Fingernails

It was a nice day yesterday.  This was a monumental occasion, because it feels like it's been raining for the past 40 days.

(The irony of this is NOT lost on me, by the way.  I find it utterly, UTTERLY hilarious that our first nice day in what seemed like forever, where the birds were singing, the sun was shining, and the world was beautiful, just HAPPENED to be the day after the world was supposed to end, according to the bible thumpers.  I fucking love it.)

Back on topic, since it was a nice day I decided to go out and do some planting. Four of our large flower beds were already weeded by my Dad, so I didn't have much else to do in those aside from putting in the actual flowers.  That didn't take me long at all.  Planted them, applied the Preen, watered, done.

The other two beds were a bit more problematic, as they haven't yet been touched by anyone this year.  Which means, of course, that it was the equivalent of traversing through the Amazon rainforest.  I'm pretty sure I discovered a few brand new species of weeds.  So in the name of science, I naturally ripped them out of the ground to examine them.  With fire.

After finishing that, I discovered my raspberry bushes are actually doing quite well, despite nearly being choked to death.  I cleaned the area out around them, and then started making room for flowers.  I planted a few rows of impatiens on one side, and more impatiens with petunias thrown in on the other side.  All of that took me nearly three hours, and I was pretty much done with being outside after that.

I went back inside with clothes soaked in sweat and my entire body covered with dirt.  After taking a shower, I realized another unfortunate side effect of making the outside look nice:  I could barely move my head because of my neck.

I've had a problem with my right shoulder-neck-ish area for a couple of months now.  Before yesterday, it was down to just a dull ache that I only tended to notice when my mind had nothing else to focus on.  I assume I'm obviously not supposed to be in semi-constant pain, so I should probably be seeking the aid of a doctor.  Thing is, I honestly felt it was slowly going away -- until yesterday.  Now it seems like if I put even the tiniest amount of strain on my neck, it flares up like a son of a bitch.

So, what I'm going to do is wait and see what happens with this newest pain (which is actually in a different spot than it was before).  If it's not really any better in a week, I'll go to the doctor.  It does feel better than it did yesterday, but it's still worse than it was before then.  I'm feeling pretty good today mostly because I got a ton of sleep last night.

Enough of my pathetic whining now.

Also this weekend, I decided to play a bit of the Amnesia DLC entitled Justine.  It's added a bit of a new angle to the whole atmospheric immersion of the game.  For one thing, the entire thing has to be played in one sitting, because there is no saving the game nor are there any checkpoints.  And, what I found to be most brilliant, the game actually SHUTS DOWN when you die.

Aside from that, I didn't do much in the form of gaming, besides the typical co-op stuff with John -- LoL, WoW, and Minecraft.  With him healing some randoms for me, I'm only 1 item level away from being able to queue for heroics.  I'll probably wait a bit longer than that, since I remember how horrendous it was to do heroics at exactly 329.  *shudders*

As a final point, I think I'm getting a bit high on carpet glue.  They installed new carpet here in the office over the weekend, and I think they wanted to make sure it NEVER comes off of the floor.  I expect pink elephants to show up rather soon.

Damned Slacker!

It's funny, but I seem to be The Anti-Slacker.  That's not intended to mean that I'm not a slacker -- because trust me, I most certainly am -- but instead it's intended to mean that lately I've been slacking in the strangest of ways.

More to the point, I haven't been slacking at work.  (Oh the irony, since I'm typing this at work.  I'M ON BREAK, OKAY?  JEEZ.)  Anywho, I've instead been slacking in regards to the increasingly disturbing number of games piling up in my to-play bin.  So that's pretty funny -- my procrastination is harbored within my free-time activities.  How bizarre.

The main reason for this is the fact that I've been catching up on Season 7 of Grey's Anatomy.  That ended last night, because I'm now annoyed with the show.  (April is chief resident now?  Really?  Fuck that!)

Okay, back to the games.

I have started The Witcher 2.  I'll write a proper post about it once I get a bit deeper into it.  (Herp.)  So far, though, I'd say it's a very adult and very pretty game, with a decent story.  I'm a bit meh on the combat thus far, but I've heard it improves a bit as you go along.

I have a bunch of DLC packs to play.  The Fallout DLC Honest Hearts, the Amnesia DLC, and now there's a new Bulletstorm DLC.

Fable 3 seemed to be borked when I tried it the first time.  (C++ errors.)  I did a bit of reading online and found a forum post suggesting to uninstall and re-install the game.  I haven't tried it again yet.  It's inability to work right out of the box (so to speak) kind of turned me off from even wanting to play it. I'll give it another shot this weekend though, because I really wanted to play the co-op with John.

What I want to do with the Amnesia DLC is basically record myself playing it.  That should be entertaining.  

Ants!

I noticed several of these little bastards crawling around on my floor last night.  (I promptly murdered them by crushing their little heads.)  If I had to guess, I'm thinking they're in my basement because of how much bloody rain we've gotten this month.  It so freaking wet outside they have no where to go.

So tonight, I'll be stopping by the store to get a few packages of ant traps to lay about in strategical positions on my floor.  I have no desire for this to become anything close to an infestation.

This is a Neo-St. Valentine's Massacre

On my way to work this morning, as I was listening to the radio I heard a bit of crackling in my speakers.  Obviously this was a concern, because listening to the radio on the way to work is what keeps me sane through the entire 40 minute drive.  (Or 60 minutes.  Or 75 minutes.  Or 120 minutes.  Depends on the fucking traffic with all the fucking road construction, and also on the fucking Stupidity Level of the human race.)

So, utilizing classic troubleshooting steps, I went about to figure out what was going on.  First step:  Isolate the problem.  The first thing I did was turn off my radio and listen.  Best to confirm that the cracking I was hearing was indeed coming from my speakers, and not my car falling apart.  Since that would be bad.

I didn't hear it with the radio off, and I began hearing it again almost immediately upon turning it back on.  So it was definitely coming from my speakers.  Bollocks.

I listen to the radio very loudly at times, so I assumed that I probably borked them myself.  Perhaps I'd actually blown one of them out.  Who knows.  I decided to try one more thing, however, to satisfy my own curiosity.  I'd been listening to satellite radio this entire time, and I then switched over to a CD.  Surprisingly enough, the cracking stopped when I did this.  So, I am hopeful that this noise was simply interference or just something wrong with the satellite radio signal, or the channel I was listening to.  I do not think, thankfully, that it is my speakers.  That's a relief, because honestly I wouldn't even know where to take my car to get new speakers installed.

Oh, and the title of this post contains lyrics to the song Peacemaker by Green Day.  That's the song I switched to on CD.  

Hey PD! What race are you going to play in Guild Wars 2?

Charr.  Duh.  

Planting Time!

Today, I went out and purchased a bunch of things I would need for this year's planting season, to include the actual plants I intend to grow.  In regards to flowers, I won't need as many annuals this year as I usually do, because of all the bulbs I planted last year.  Surprisingly, almost all of the gladiolus are coming back up.  That's pretty damned cool. 

So anyway, in the way of flowers, I got three different kinds and that should be enough to fill out all the space I have.  One flat of impatiens, one flat of petunias, and one flat of marigolds. 

In addition to all of this, I also purchased some bamboo stakes to use when the gladiolus get too tall for their own good.  Also, I got a strawberry plant, some pepper plants, and a few tomato plants.  I may not like to eat vegetables, but I certainly do enjoy growing them. 

Now playing: The Fray - Happiness

Apiphobia

I have borderline apiphobia, which is a fear of bees.  I say “borderline” because I don't actually have an irrational fear of them.  I just hate the mean little fuckers. 

This exceptional hatred comes from past experiences, and I'm pretty sure they're all out of get me.  Let's summarize my traumatic experiences with bees over the course of my life:

• While I was swimming one day, a bee hid in my towel.  Worst after-pool surprise ever.
  
• One early morning while I was still sleeping, a bee crawled into bed with me.  What…the…FUCK. 
  
• One day I walked into a barn and a bumblebee attached itself to my back, stinging me over and over again until I reached back, grabbed it off of me, and threw it.

These are only the most traumatic examples.  I've been stung many other times, and I think it's quite obvious that they're all out to get me.  And I now have another one to add to this list.

Fifteen minutes ago, I took a shower.  I got out of the shower.  I stepped out onto the bath mat.  AND STEPPED ON A FUCKING WASP WHO STUNG ME ON MY FOOT. 

Fucking bugs.  ._.

 

Now playing: The National - Exile Vilify

Damn you, Murphy!

Okay, so I've been known to make mistakes.  I've also been known to sometimes make bad assumptions.  Thinking that Brink would be good is apparently one of them. 

First of all, I will admit that I've played a total of 18 minutes of the game.  I'm quite aware that 18 minutes is hardly enough time to warrant a justified opinion on the quality of the game.  Sadly, I was so fucking bored after those 18 minutes that I couldn't fucking stand it any more! 

Part of the problem is me.  See, I should have done my research a little better on this one.  I don't like tactical shooters.  I played a lot of Counter-Strike, but that's as advanced as I'm willing to get into that sub-genre.  Modern Warfare can lick my balls.  My kind of shooters are Half-Life 2, Painkiller, Serious Sam, etc.  No tactical planning is needed.  You just fucking shoot things.  Yes, please. 

So yes, I take full responsibility for not realizing that Brink is a tactical shooter at its core.  You have objectives, and you must complete them.  Oh great.  Doing shit like this on my own is no fun at all, and the AI (on my team) was really pissing my mittens.  But I figured, hey, maybe this would be really fun to play with someone.  It boasts co-op after all, and I looked through the menus a bit and it seems easy enough to get someone into a game.  What I saw of the game looked like it would actually be pretty enjoyable to run through with a real person I could talk to and team up with.

But, I wasn't about to make the same mistake twice in a row, so I went online to see how solid the co-op play was.  And I quote:

“Online games regularly suffer lag.”

Thank you and good night!

Now playing: Incubus - Adolescents

Dungeon Siege III

Dungeon Siege II was my first foray into the RPG genre.  I still remember my hesitation.  "Swords and sorcery?  Why the hell would I enjoy that?"

Okay, so I was young and stupid.  Sue me.

So for me, the Dungeon Siege series will always hold a special place in my heart, because it introduced me to a whole new world of gaming.  There are so many aspects of an RPG game that I take for granted these days, it's actually kind of sad.  I remember being utterly fascinated by how HUGE the world of Dungeon Siege was, and how much detail every little item had.  It's hard to still be amazed by that kind of thing, because I've seen it so many times now.

So now, Dungeon Siege III is on the horizon, and it contains what has become for me the most important feature a PC game could have -- co-op multiplay.

Lewis (from the Yogscast) linked a short video trailer for the co-op portion of the game.  View it here.  Obviously this doesn't show you any mechanics or stuff like that -- it's all fluff -- but the simple fact that the Dungeon Siege series is going to include co-op is enough to get me excited.  The game comes out in about a month, and I'm looking forward to taking a stroll through the vast world with John at my side.  

Trending Technology

Several years ago, when I first looked into purchasing my own website, there were so many uses I had in my mind that I could get out of the investment.  First and foremost, of course, was the fact that I could have my own webpage or webpages.  At the time, I'd been using free sites such as Geocities and Tripod, and I was rather sick of how many ads you had to deal with.  (It was all free, after all, so of course you'd have more ads than a pre-Thanksgiving Sunday newspaper.

It was after I set everything up that I realized just how much I could do.  Sitting here today, I realize that now NONE of these other things are true.  The technology of the internet has changed, and owning your own web domain doesn't pack the same punch as it used to.  For example:

• This very blog used to be hosted on my own webspace.  No longer, because Blogger added additional functionality and ease-of-use...BUT only if you host the blog in their own space.  And it's free.
  
• I used to upload any videos I would make here.  YouTube is so good, so organized, so easy to use, and just so much better, there's no point in me using anything else.  And it's free.
  
• I would upload files to my webspace so that people could download them.  It was easier than sending an e-mail attachment, especially if it was a very large file.  I suppose this still holds true to an extent, but if it's a video or audio I could just use YouTube quite easily.  File transfers in instant messaging software has gotten a lot better, too, and they can handle larger files now.  Any documents that I may want to share, I'll use Google Docs.  

This, coupled with the fact that I'm not as active in the whole web page design thing anymore, makes me question my need to have the domain.  My cel gallery is something I'm quite proud of, and I really don't have the ambition to move the thing into a blog.  So I suppose that's one reason.  The other is my e-mail address @pastatdude.com, which I use for just about anything.  This is another annoyance for me, though, because the damned thing hasn't been very reliable over the past week.  They migrated to a new platform, and it just simply hasn't been working.  I find it quite ironic that an e-mail address that I'm *PAYING FOR* is less reliable than G-Mail, which is free.  That's pathetic.

Also, there's something else not lost on me here:  I mentioned Blogger, G-Mail, YouTube, and Google Docs.  All free services...and all owned by Google.  They really have taken over the digital planet, haven't they?  I'm certainly not going to complain -- it's all free, and it all works.  What more could you possibly want?

The Difference a Day Makes

Yesterday, I was coughing so badly I honestly began to think I may have something more than just a cold.  Bronchitis, perhaps.  I got about 2, maybe 3 hours of sleep last night, because the coughing was keeping me awake.

But this morning, aside from being EXTREMELY tired, I don't feel all that bad.  I haven't coughed once since I woke up this morning.  I certainly hope it stays that way!

Dialect

This is going to be more of a reference for myself, but I needed to post it somewhere and I figured it would be interesting to some people.  Basically, I need an accent for my Tauren, and I've decided to give him a dialect similar to what you'd hear in northern Maine.  (Heavy New England accent, so to speak.)

So what I've started doing is compiling a list of common words that someone from Maine would pronounce just a little bit different.  

• And = An'
• Lots of = Lotta
• Yes = Ayuh
• Of = O'
• Yeah = Yuh
• To = Ta
• Fair = Fay-yuh
• Idiot = Ijit

Next, I've compiled a list of common words that they tend to throw into their sentences.  In some cases, I've provided the more common word or phrase in parenthesis.  Most of these I'd only use occasionally, as I wouldn't want someone to be completely unable to understand what my character is saying.

• Ah
• Y'know
• Bulkie (sandwich)
• Flatlander (foreigner)
• Gawmy (awkward)
• Middly (average)
• Notional (stubborn)
• Spleeny (overly sensitive)
• Finest kind (the very best)
• Scrid (a tiny piece)
• Wicked (Very, to a high degree.  Example:  "Wicked good!")

Also, in writing this dialect, there are a few rules to follow.  

• Never put a "g" at the end of a word.  (Mornin', Evenin', etc.)
• Some verbs get an "a" at the front of them.  (Instead of saying, "He is going to the store.", you would say, "He's a-goin' to the store."  Or, if you want to apply all the rules, it would be, "He's a-goin' ta the stah."
• Also, sometimes they do not pronounce the "r" in a word.  For example, instead of saying "culvert", you would say "cul-vet".  I would use this sparingly, as too much would make someone sound a bit too simple for my tastes.  
• Words that end in "ar" are pronounced "ah".  So instead of "far", it becomes "fah".  
• Sometimes, words ending in "a" are pronounced "er".  Rarely.  So, "idea" becomes "idear".  I'll probably never use this one.  

I hope to use all this compiled information as a guide to give my Tauren a nice way of speaking.  I don't want him to sound like an "ijit" or have the accent be so thick that no one will understand him, but I instead want him to sound unique and interesting to talk to.