Kiss My Alas

There is no QQ in "team"

Posted on November 11, 2010 by Alas

The longer I do this GM/Raid Leader thing, the more convinced I am that a guild needs only two rules or guidelines to cover their bases.

The first is the ever popular DBAD – or Don’t Be A Dick rule. You can read the wiki article I have linked there if you are unfamiliar, but it basically sounds exactly like what it says. You can also check out Bible of Dreams where Anexxia crusades for less dickery in WoW.

Well, I think this rule has a twin and that twin’s name is “There is no QQ in team.”

For a team to succeed at anything, there needs to be teamwork. Being selfish is the anti-thesis to teamwork. Being selfish is also one of the most commonly expressed dick moves in WoW.

You see it every time someone hysterically insists that they should have gotten that loot, this raid spot or unlimited guild bank repair funds.

It is evident in everyone who ever insists that farming for loot for them is more important than actual progression and threatens to take their toys to the other side of the sandbox if you don’t do what they want when they want it.

The person demanding that the raid times that can be agreed upon by the greatest number of people be changed because they aren’t optimal for them might as well wear a sign declaring it is all about him.

Fellow officers, raid leaders and GM’s – the next time someone comes bitching at you about something please do us all a big favor. Take a deep breath. Smile. Spread the word. There is no QQ in “team”.

Posted in Leadership | Tagged fail, GM without the co, I has opinions, obvious post is obvious, WoW, Yngwe feeds on tears | 2 Comments

Alas is being topical: raiding and recruitment

Posted on November 10, 2010 by Alas

Work has been rather insane lately. We’ve been finding much of our time taken up with an interview process that was supposed to be simple and instead ended up taking more than a week longer than we had intended and grew to encompass follow-up interviews with a few of the candidates.

I have been on this side of the interview process a few times now, and my main thought has always been how glad I am to not be the poor jerk on the other side of the table having to face the questions we always get asked in the interview situation.

This time however, I find myself wrestling more with whether my input into which candidate we should hire was the input I should have given. Of the two we couldn’t decide between, I felt that I could relate better to one of them and the other gave me this feeling I can’t quite put my finger on. It’s a sort of itching in the back of my mind, and totally a gut instinct sort of thing.

And it’s a gut instinct that seems to be shared by most of the interview team, so at least I have that going for me.

Recruitment in Cataclysm

I think it is somewhat likely that we will be doing some light recruitment here in the near future. That, along with my desire to make WWAB more of a serious raiding guild, has me looking into reinstating a raiding application, which we have not used for quite some time. I’ve been poking around online, shamelessly stealing ideas from guild applications turned up by a quick Google F Search.

But even as I do so, I wonder whether an application will be all that useful to us.

Going back to this real life interviewing process, the candidate that gives a heebie-jeebie feeling is, on paper, somewhat better qualified for the position. The one I think I could actually work with easily is less so, but not enough to disqualify them.

To me, being able to get along with someone is very important. Although I am starting to think that some people cannot or will not be taught to be improve themselves in vital areas, I think I would still take someone less “qualified” than I would take someone who creeps me out a bit. After all, the less qualified person should be teachable.

I feel as though I am mingling the topics quite freely here and am hoping I’ve not confused anything.

Anyhow – applications. Interviews. Even a semi-formal getting to know you over lunch (or in WoW terms a few heroics, I guess).

How much can you really hope to get any of those things to tell you? And is there a point when it might just get down to having to go with your gut instinct?

I can see applications being useful from the standpoint of being able to screen out the obviously unqualified or those who clearly won’t really fit in with the culture of the guild. I mean, I will immediately toss out anyone who luz 2 type lik tihs lol.

Because I would stab them if I had to see that in guild chat all the time, that’s why.

I can also see applications being useful from the standpoint of allowing people to come to us, rather than the stumble-across method we employ now (if we stumble across someone who seems to fit and they are not guilded, we extend an invitation [because I hate poachers so much I won't get remotely close to that line]. It’s slow but we do tend to get people who fit really well!)

But all in all, until I have actually tried it, I don’t have a conclusion for whether applications and interviews are useful from a raiding perspective. A lot of people do it, so it’s clearly an accepted practice, but can anyone weigh in on how it has affected their guild? Do you go with paper or gut instinct?

Posted in Uncategorized | 20 Comments

p.s. ur an elitist

Posted on November 5, 2010 by Alas

I’m cheating here, writing this post before I have really delved too far into my daily NaNo goals. Because it’s how I roll – and I’ve been having these thought clattering about in my brain for a while now and as I have mentioned before, I often try to figure things out by talking to myself this way. Lucky you for getting to be privy to it, I know.

The E’s

I’ve recently been called elitist by two of my officers. That word has a lot of connotations in WoW and it’s difficult to determine exactly what is meant by it. I don’t think it was applied to me in a “you’re a super total jerk who thinks she is better than she actually is” way in either instance, but it has me thinking.

Mostly, I am thinking about expectations. I have always had expectations that people around me should be capable of going through life with a certain level of decency and skill. These are not easy things to quantify and I won’t even try. Since this is a WoW blog and I am talking about expectations in a guild, I’ll focus on that.

I have a certain standard for myself when it comes to being in a leadership role in a guild. It’s always been my viewpoint that if you’re leading anything, you have to do so by example. There is nothing more galling than someone who holds the philosophy that you should do as they say, not as they do. To that end, all of the things I would like my officers to pitch in with and help out with, I try to be an expert in them as well.

“I must not decide on my own performance.” So Elizabeth told Mr. Darcy and so I must admit I feel. It’s not for me to say how close I may or may not have hit the mark on any of the things I have tried to be an expert in. I have certainly tried my hardest when it comes to raid leading and when it comes to charting the course for the guild.

Obviously that leaves me somewhat spread thin, trying to be expert at everything I want done. And obviously there must be things that ought to be done that I have not even considered because I am so busy trying to keep everything else in the air [insert ball joke here].

With the word elitist ringing in my ear (and let me state that I’m not carrying the word around like it’s some heavy boulder that is crushing me – I’m not that affected by it), I find myself wondering whether I have, in trying to be an expert in everything, created expectations that my officers feel they cannot meet.

That sounds egotistical on paper, so I want to switch to the other side of this coin for a moment.

Self-doubt and failure

I struggle with feelings of failure and self-doubt fairly often as a leader. After all, I’ve never really held a supervisory position in any of my jobs – oh, I’ve been a shift lead here and there, but by and large, nothing in management has ever come my way – and I am not certain that several years as an officer and GM really give me anything to point to and highlight as experience.

The fact is, I have failed a lot over the years. I’ve made hasty decisions and I’ve pushed At into a few ugly situations. I have not gotten many things right on the first or even second tries. But I have learned some things to avoid and some ways to more subtly get people to do what I want them to do. I have made colossal errors in the heat of emotion and I have mastered my emotion to allow logic to dictate my actions. I have destroyed relationships and I have salvaged them.

It’s been the hell of a ride, but the main point is that I do have these failures in my past and I haven’t always learned from them right away or come away with the right lesson the first time.

Something that has been nagging at me lately is the thought that a good leader shouldn’t beat down people to the point where those people don’t feel like they can ever meet expectations. I think a good leader gives those under them the room to grow into their strengths.

But then there’s motivation

So now I am feeling caught between a rock and hard place when it comes to dealing effectively with my officers. I have tried to express many times that I want them to find what it is they like to do within all the things in a guild that need to be done and have the freedom to pursue their strengths.

I am not certain that the message is getting through the way I intend it.

Generally speaking, I most often feel that it would be less hassle for me to do all the things that I see that need to be done than it would be to try to get someone else to take on a part of the burden. That could say a lot of things about me or my officers or even my guildies in general, and I am truly not trying to point fingers and declare that I am better than anyone else or that I am the only person who ever contributes, because I do see contributions.

They just don’t come on my timeline or in the way I expect that they should.

Part of this, I think, is some sickness in me that assumes I do have the best way of doing things because I have put in the time and effort to find what is most efficient. Which is, I think, not a horrible way to view things, but the sickness comes in when I don’t allow for other people having different ways of doing things.

In other words, I might place the most value on the shortest, quickest and most direct route – but does it then follow that there is no value in taking the scenic road?

There’s no value in it to me. That’s all I know.

Hallmarks of a great leader

I’ve honestly never had anyone in my life that I would follow to the gates of hell because I respected their leadership to the extent that I thought they could do no wrong. This is likely a good thing, since everyone fucks something up along the way. But I do find myself wondering what sort of leader that person would be.

I do wonder what other people look for in the figures they follow.

Searching desperately for a conclusion

I don’t know that I’ve done anything but muddy the waters more for myself. I do have some ideas on how to improve the system I have going, but they need to percolate a while longer before being brought out for general consumption.

Over the last few days, I’ve started a few conversations with various people about topics related to this one. Those people in my life who really understand how I tick are telling me that I am too soft and that I don’t hold people to a high enough standard.

I don’t know what to make of that in the light of having people around me who seem to believe that I have impossible standards. For all that I have imposed on my guild in particular, I don’t see any of my expectations as being particularly onerous or – my other favorite word that has a lot of connotations in WoW - hardcore.

I am searching for a way to reconcile my basic standard of leading by example with what I perceive as being other people’s motivations to be in a leadership position. I am the GM of WWAB because I am willing to put in the work it takes to see us succeed. I understand that there really aren’t any perks to being in a leadership position.

I just don’t believe in my heart that everyone else sees it that same way. And perhaps, at its core, that is the void that lies between me and nearly everyone else I try to work with to make WWAB better.

But it’s still a confusing place here, between feeling let down and wondering if it’s something about the way I do things that makes people not even want to try.

Posted in Leadership | Tagged Alas pretends to be thoughtful, At, GM without the co, I has opinions, obvious post is obvious, WoW, Yngwe is pretty | 19 Comments

But clearly I cannot

Posted on November 3, 2010 by Alas

Do it all, that is. But I am a couple hundred words past 5000, so I am at least keeping up, however much of a struggle it is. I find the hardest thing so far has been to not go back and edit as I write. It feels as though my paragraphs are crumbling and I am trying to build on them anyhow. Hopefully I can get past the need to tinker as I go.

I have some notions for a serious post kicking around, but no energy to write it at the moment. Instead, I’m going to slap a bit of Emergent here for, well, general consumption I suppose. I’m not certain about enjoyment. In fact, I am so unsure about the quality of this work that I am more than half-terrified to let any of it see the light of day. Please be gentle (but honest) if you choose to comment.

Half an hour of panic later

I was actually going to not post anything. I was going to chicken out on this altogether. Because I’m a huge wimp. But At read it all over and he likes it well enough and thinks I should. So, uh, here you go. Please keep in mind this is unedited and that I know it’s horrible.

Rawr.

I was first aware of the pain and the cold when I awoke. My cheek stung, as though I had been struck, and the coldness was all around me, pattering on my face and soaking the ground underneath me. It was raining. I squinted, disoriented, wondering where I was.

A dim halo of shattered light stood around me, a gaping darkness beyond its weak powers of illumination. There were people, too, several of them.

I convulsed with a shiver, my mind instantly distracted from the question of where I was to how I might get warm. I wished that the rain would stop falling, that the ground would dry up and the sun would come to thaw me, banishing the cold from where it had settled in my bones, turning them fragile.

In that dreamlike state, it seemed as though my wishes were to be granted immediately. The rain stopped striking me, although the noise of it thrumming was still audible. A sensation of warmth began to creep into the air around me. Curling up tighter, I began to drift back to sleep, but was jerked back to awareness by a shout of alarm from nearby.

I opened my eyes again, seeing nothing this time but a liquid wall in front of me. It was part of my dream then. I was still sleeping. But then what was this confusion of sound behind me? Moving slowly, I began to raise my head and to turn to investigate.

A whooshing sound swung heavily through the air, bringing with it an influx of cold wind and a spattering of rain. Then there was a noisy crunch and a blinding pain, both hitting me at the same moment.

Then there was nothing.

I came to some time later, lying on a hard surface in a dark place. There was no stir of wind around me and there was a distant pattering sound, as of rain on a roof. I opened my eyes slowly, shifting in order to get my feet beneath me and then stopping abruptly when it seemed likely that the pain searing through my head would render me unconscious yet again.

Instinctively putting a hand to the back of my head, I eased back onto my hard bed and gritted my teeth against the pain. My delicately questing fingers easily found and gingerly explored a large swelling area underneath my hair. When I pulled my hand away, my fingers were smeared with blood.

Someone had hit me in the back of the head before, in the rain and the cold. But why? Cautiously opening my eyes again but making no other movements, I cast my mind back. The coldness hadn’t been a dream then, although I had likely imagined other elements of it, such as the rain stopping at my hazy wishes. Was I sick and dreaming fever dreams? Or had I perhaps been robbed and beaten on the side of the road?

What events had led up to here?

My mind was a terrible void and I shied away from wondering how I had gotten here to wondering where, exactly, here was.

I was in a bare room, its stone walls and floor unadorned. A door stood opposite of me, the only feature in the entire room that broke up the monotony of the space. I seemed to be lying on a plank of wood with a light cover thrown over me.

After several moments of deliberation, I tried moving again. I went slowly this time, taking it in stages, moving my head as little as possible. Even so, I was dizzy with pain by the time I had achieved a sitting position, and it took me several moments of deep breathing before my head cleared enough that I could open my eyes again and take a look around.

There was nothing more to see in the room, save a pair of buckets in one corner, but my shifting positions had caused my blanket to fall off me and I looked down to rearrange it, only then catching sight of my body. I was naked underneath the blanket; utterly without a stitch of clothing.

My cheeks burned briefly and some rage deep inside me came boiling all at once to the surface, pushing me to my feet. I staggered, clutching my head, cursing between my teeth. The surge of emotion carried me to the door which was locked. I pushed and pulled on it in futile effort before the energy lent to me by my anger deserted me. The few steps back to my plank were almost more than I could accomplish and I sank down gratefully once I had reached my goal.

Feeling exhausted, I reversed the process I had started only a few minutes before, gradually slumping down until I could curl up on my side, the thin blanket thrown over me for warmth and modesty.

I was terrified at this point, my mind racing in several directions all at once as I wondered where I was, why I was held prisoner, why I was naked and what chain of events had brought me to this place. Outrage at my treatment carried me along for a while, but when my mental fuming brought me to a place of making threats in my own mind about what I would do or what I would have done to the people responsible for this, I again came up against the void that was my memory.

Closing my eyes, I tried to force myself to remember anything that had happened before the cold and the rain, but there was only blankness. My name, my history, who I was and what I did – all of it was gone.

Left to myself, I tortured my mind in circles, trying to think of something other than that I couldn’t remember anything, wondering what my imminent fate was to be and at whose hands, going back to peer into the abyss of my mind, worrying at it the way a man worries at a freshly missing tooth. There was the feeling that something should be there, and a fresh, tiny shock every time I found that there was not.

OH GOOD. THAT’S OVER.

I think it goes without saying, but if I am having to force words to the point where it’s all coming out so heavy-handed, that it’s unlikely I’ll post here very often due to the being mentally worn out factor. If anyone is interested in providing a guest post at any point through November, I would be grateful. You can email me at alas at kissmyalas dot com.

Now I am off to do something soothing, like lie in a patch of sunlight and drink wine. Like a cat. An alcoholic cat.

Posted in Writing | Tagged NaNoWriMo, Real Life, Writing | 10 Comments

I want to do it all

Posted on November 1, 2010 by Alas

So I guess I might have to quit my job to make that possible.

I have a deal with myself to write about 1700 words for Emergent every day to meet my NaNo goals before I let myself do anything else WoW-related. Today I got 2019 words, so I am feeling pretty good about it. But it’s the first day and I’ve been amped about it, so it came fairly easily. I’m sure there will be days where it will be more of a struggle.

But today I made it and have time to do this as well. I’ll worry about tomorrow when it gets here.

With Cataclysm about to drop, I’ve made myself ridiculously busy. I blame Blizzard for upsetting my balance with their silly changes to tailoring (and LW and BS, I suppose) specializations. Namely, that they got rid of them. Way to take away my only justification for having three tailors, Blizz!

I enjoy being self-sufficient for the most part, so I have every profession either at max or very close to it. As I finished getting herbalism leveled on my DK not all that long ago, I recall thinking gleefully, mistakenly, that this was the last time I would have to power level any profession.

I wish.

Smupid the warlock was facing deletion yesterday because as a tailor and an herbalist, I just didn’t need her for anything other than the very odd bit of herb farming. I wanted to have more options when Cata hit for starting something new and she seemed like the best option because I don’t play her and I didn’t need her professions. The epic flight would be missed, but not much.

At convinced me to server transfer her instead, so I shipped her off to our horde server and will faction transfer her as well once I have any idea what race I want her to be. Hopefully she’ll get a second shot at life over there.

Of course, this set off a chain reaction. Physician was my third tailor, but is now going to need to level mining so that she’ll finally be able to mine her own ore for jewel crafting purposes. I do not look forward to leveling mining yet again, but I am hoping to alleviate some of the grind by having her just smelt anything my druid finds while she’s out leveling herbalism.

The druid will be my one and only farmer for herbalism and mining now. It should be pretty awesome since she has epic flight form and I’ve long been jealous of a druid’s ability to pick herbs without shifting out of form. She had to drop engineering to pick up herbalism, so I am temporarily without an engineer, until my worgen rogue can skill it up again. That works out just fine since there’s practically nothing an engineer is good for when it comes to preparing other characters for raiding. Especially since ammo is out of the game.

So there’s my little professions world, all in an upheaval thanks to the impending cataclysm.

I probably didn’t need to stir it all up and make life even harder on myself than it’s already going to be this month, between NaNo and trying to push those last three characters to 80. The horde priest is the closest, at 79.5. The warrior has been most ignored at 77 and the baby!huntard is not a baby these days, also sitting at 77.

I think I can, I think I can.

But if I can’t, I’m going to try to remember that it’s okay. After all, my main goal of killing the Lich King is the only thing I would be truly upset not to achieve, and with a couple of attempts this last weekend that had us down to 30% or so, I am feeling more positive that it will happen.

In the meantime, I’m going to do my best to do it all. Even though I know it’s insane.

Posted in Leveling, Senseless Blah Blah, Writing | Tagged Alas is lame, Leveling, lists, NaNoWriMo, Senseless Blah Blah, WoW, Writing | 7 Comments

See how I fail

Posted on October 29, 2010 by Alas

So I spent some time looking at Petopia, working out which animals I would like to tame and mentally pairing them up with various bloggers and guildies. I admit it’s a little overwhelming, because there are so many pet models I want and even more people I want to name them after.

Twenty-five slots will not be enough. Not at all. I might have to get creative.

Especially when, as I investigated wasps for the Bee Pit, I got completely sidetracked and enchanted by the yellow firefly and my own general nerdiness.

So this happened:

Once I realized I had given up a precious spot in my stables, I resolved to get back on track and go tame and name something after an actual person.

And although there’s a part of me that thinks I really ought to have gotten the green one, let me introduce you to Rades.

He likes the beer gardens and howling at the moon.

One down. Many more to go!

Posted in Acts of Lameness, Screenshots | Tagged Alas is lame, my menagerie, screenshots or it didn't happen, Senseless Blah Blah, WoW | 12 Comments

On this, the day of my blogoversary

Posted on October 28, 2010 by Alas

My blogging doors have been open for a whole year today.

That’s so little and so much all at once. Because I’m a retrospective sort (when I feel like it), I wanted to spend a little time looking back. There’s been quite a number of things that have been of great note – to me – along the way. Think of this like one of those cheesy sitcom’s almost-to-the-show-finale sorts of posts. Only I’m not going anywhere. Sorry. I’m sure you were all hoping.

Cue the projector

It all started a year ago today. There was my first post, which I won’t even link to because I sincerely don’t want people to read that. Then there was my first truly WoW-related post, which I will link to, because it makes me cringe at how bad I admitted my guild could be at raiding.

Later on, I met Zel. I liked her immediately because she hates people who try to call out over the raid leader. I also liked her because she was one of the very first “Internet Strangers” to ever come by and comment. Because she is insane with her blog roll of dooooom, suddenly I had more people coming by my little corner of the Internet than “just” my guild mates.

Then Tam found me and said something nice, never knowing what a mistake that would turn out to be. In an error of equally bad judgment, he then linked to me. Traffic went up again, and my brief obsession with it mirrored the rise.

One day, I got all jacked up on Benedryl and decided it would be hilarious to rewrite Pride and Prejudice with a WoW twist. A lot of people seem to agree that the desecration of Jane Austen’s most famous work should go forth. And it has.

But of all the turns this blog has taken, there is one that stands out in my mind as something I never would have seen coming. I speak, of course, of the DinoTam phenomenon. MiniTam – or @PetiteTam as he is known on Twitter – has recently joined the ranks of person dinoalities that have come into being and promptly gone spinning out of my control.

Since when does a blog run by a mage become all about a hunter and her pets anyway?

Slides are over! Random confession time!

But on this, the day of my blog’s first anniversary, I want to share a small confession with you all.

I want to tell you who to blame for the fact that I started blogging in the first place. Ironically, he is one of the most outspoken detractors of my blog. But it was Asmod who shared Mortigan the Lock’s how-to on raiding (Mortigan’s blog is gone as far as I can tell, but a copy of the text can be found here for anyone who somehow managed to miss that post). Little did he know what path that would put me on.

So now, being a proper mage, I’m blaming two warlocks: Asmod and Mort. But wait, there’s more. From Mort I wandered over to I Like Bubbles and ended up reading, uh, everything. Because Amber was and is terribly funny.

So I blame her, too.

I was inspired to start writing again and with no other plan than that, I set out to do so.

Sappy, I can be it

Since starting my own journey a year ago, I have been privileged to meet a lot of people and to get to know them through their posts about everything from how to be properly murderous in the battlegrounds to how to see the light side of LFG to more wonderful and witty observations on this gaming experience we all share. (And if I didn’t link you there or don’t have you in my blogroll, it’s because A) there are too many wonderful people to link in a tiny sentence and B) I fail a lot. (But feel free to mention any lack to me and I’ll get it fixed!)

I’ve ended up with new guild-mates – some who have made WWAB home and some who just visit when they have the time and inclination. I’ve had sympathetic ears on Twitter for bad days and lots of clever observations to make me laugh.

I know I have been saying this a lot lately, since I have been so recently dealing with family drama and the loss of my grandmother, but I am so terribly thankful for all of you.

And so, presents, if you want them

I can’t pretend to be nice like Windsoar of Jaded Alt and say “Here, let me give you an idea if you want one,” and make it sound like I am being generous. Instead, I am bossy, so I will tell you what to write about because I said so – if you want me to. I’ll be less of a muse and more of a nag. Please leave me a comment if you want me to order you around for one post. It’s the least I can do.

Lastly, an announcement

Blogging will be light in these here parts and with November just around the corner, I don’t think it’s too difficult to figure out why. Yes, I am participating in NaNoWriMo for the first time ever and I am excited about it but I also know what a challenge it will be. In many ways, the timing is perfect. I’ll be able to dole out ideas for posts because I won’t need them myself. I will get to focus on being creative during WotLK’s last days. When I make a return to blogging on a schedule, Cata will be days away from dropping.

Again, I feel the need to detour into sappy territory. When I first started this blog a year ago, I hadn’t wanted to write anything in a long time. I couldn’t fathom the idea of making a stab at another novel. But the ideas behind Emergent have kept coming to me in bits and pieces ever since I started dabbling here. After plotting and dithering for a year, it’s time to kickstart that novel. As I have mentioned everywhere else, I welcome support by way of people asking whether I’ve been meeting the word goals.

To all the other NaNo participants out there, I’m signed up at the official site as KissMyAlas. We can be writing buddies if you want!

Love and gratitude to everyone who has made this first year so wonderful!

-Alas

Posted in Senseless Blah Blah, Writing | Tagged Alas is lame, Alas pretends to be thoughtful, I has opinions, link love, Senseless Blah Blah, WoW, Writing | 54 Comments

The Secret Life of Mirror Images

Posted on October 27, 2010 by Alas

Our masters are cruel. Our lives – if they can even be called lives – are even worse. We exist so fleetingly and then not at all, brought out only for fighting and for dying. These brief moments of an outside existence have taught us to do what we can while we must – to kill or be killed in the small space of time that we have.

Our masters grumble against us, complaining that we “pull the wrong targets” or “stand in the fire” or “brainlessly go running after the wrong thing again.”

How are we to know what is right? We are only an image, mirrored and split and not long for this earth. We cannot see as our masters see or know what our masters know. Half a minute is all the time we have to deal with each encounter we are thrown into. So often we are bait, dying in the place of our masters that they might live on.

After all, we’re expendable.

This is all we know. Our time is short; we are expected to fight and to die. So this is what we do.

Of course we do. We love our masters, for they are our own selves, careless and wasteful as they are. So we will attack anything that is too near. We do not know what may or may not be a threat. We do not know what it means to stand behind a shield, for we are a shield and sword ourselves.

And this is another reason why we do not hate our masters. Does any man consider the feelings of his tools? Certainly not for most tools have no feelings. They are inanimate things without even the small spark of life we have been granted.

Above all else, we spend our time waiting to be needed again. When we are called upon we will do the best we can with our limited time and resources, hoping that some day we’ll be seen as something more than expendable.

I don’t even know

Reading this over, it seems rather corny to me, but the idea that sparked it and the feeling that I really don’t appreciate my copies enough is enough for me to go ahead and post it anyway. Also, at this point, I am aiming for a whole week of cheese. More to come!

-Alas

Posted in Mage Related, Senseless Blah Blah, Writing | Tagged (i)magery, Alas is lame, Senseless Blah Blah, WoW | 8 Comments

Now she's dabbling in machinima?

Posted on October 26, 2010 by Alas

Disclaimers – I love disclaimers, they’re so handy – this is my first ever attempt at making any sort of video. I’m sure you can totally tell. It was also my first time using fraps, WoW Model Viewer or Windows Movie Maker. That is just how high tech I am, yo.

I won’t say it’s awesome or even good, but I did have fun making it and I do have other notions zinging through my brain. There might be future videos to point and laugh at. Which is totally what I am after, so by all means, point and laugh away.

Posted in Acts of Lameness | Tagged Alas is lame, machinima, WoW | 8 Comments

More Friday Link Love

People I bossed around for my blogoversary

But wait, there’s more!

Back to the Link Love

There is no QQ in "team"