Mind dump

Posted on August 25, 2010 by

I’ve been having a difficult time lately with maintaining my veneer of civilization.

Things have been so chaotic lately, that I’m honestly not sure where one thing begins and another ends. Real life problems are overlapping with WoW problems and whenever I start thinking about one thing it seems I am inevitably on a path that leads from one low point to another sore spot and then to something that makes me grieve before I hit some sort of freakish manic high and then next thing I know I am ranting again.

If I didn’t know better, I would think I had some sort of mental problem. Or maybe it’s just hormones. They make excellent scapegoats.

Read no further if you dislike incoherent mind dumps. However, if you like watching  train wrecks, this might be worth making some popcorn. I can wait.

So my job. God, can I tell you about my job?

Customer service and I do not get on well together. I hate dealing with people who don’t seem to have enough brain cells to rub together to understand simple things like that if they request a computer it just might take longer than five minutes to get it. Or that if they really wanted something yesterday, they should have put their request in as early as a few weeks ago. Lastly, I don’t see how I can be held accountable for shipping delays that are the fault of the vendor. What am I supposed to do? Hop on an airplane and fly to any one of Dell’s global locations to demand that I be given the next available laptop?

Yesterday I had a woman call up and bitch me out for some charges that were levied against her account that she didn’t understand. Which, okay, I can understand some consternation that she was charged $130 for something she wasn’t supposed to be, but it very clearly wasn’t my name on the entry. Unless I missed something in job training, I can’t read the mind of the person who did it, seeing as how they are gone and have been since like May and only now have decided that no, they are not coming back.

Let’s not even get into how since this person has been missing, I am stuck trying to do the work of two people. Two and a half if you count the fact that one of my managers won’t go to a weekly meeting and then do their communication job by writing up boring blog posts saying “Blah blah blah won’t be available, just like it isn’t available every third Monday every month.”

But Alas, you’re blogging. Should you be able to do that if you’re so busy?

No, I totally shouldn’t be doing this. But I hate my job and something like 99% of my customers. Getting that off my chest might help me cope with those facts for a while longer. Plus I have to do a lot of waiting for those pesky computers to get here. Can someone perfect instant transportation? I mean really this waiting is hard to understand for all these PhDs like super hard you don’t even know how hard harder than anything in the world except maybe fixing paper jams in copiers because that’s pretty fucking hard for mechanical engineers yo.

Then there’s my guild.

I’m actually too afraid to get into that here, because I just might end up naming names and saying things that I know are better left unsaid. Suffice it to say I most certainly do not understand how some people’s minds work. I’m not saying they’re not working, but I just cannot see any logic.

Also, the raiding scene has been so full of utter fail lately on nearly all fronts. I despair of getting the Lich King down any time soon. Woe is me. Woe, woe, woe.

(I’m totally laughing at myself by this point. Ahh, catharsis.)

Ending on that note

Because there is a lot more shit going on right now, mainly in real life. Many things are uncertain right now and it’s the uncertainty that wears on me. That being said, don’t be surprised if I fall off the face of the earth here and there in the near future.

Posted in rant, Real Life | Tagged , , , , , , | 9 Comments

More DinoTam Poetry!

Posted on August 24, 2010 by

I know you’ve all been eagerly awaiting this, scoffing at posts of killing pirates and wondering why I even bother to pretend I have anything to say that anyone wants to hear if it has nothing to do with DinoTam. Here are the other entries:

From Anea of Obeying the Muse, we have this untitled haiku:

lotiony orange scales
dignified tophat dino
EEP! surprise buttsecks

Eep! Forsooth.

From Angelya of Revive and Rejuvenate, we have this untitled DinoTam song:

DinoTam, DinoTam,
Does whatever a Dino can.
Pointy teeth, shiny scales,
Another pet beside him pales.

Look out! Here comes DinoTam…

Alas just cannot understand
What it’s like to be DinoTam.
He hates the north where cold winds blow -
He’d rather be in Un’goro.

He prefers the finest meat.
Look out if you pass him in the street!
He might pounce when you’ve turned your back
with his surprise buttsecks attack!

DinoTam, DinoTam,
Friendly neighbourhood DinoTam.
A Dino of enormous size!
He is ravishing to the eyes.

Look out! There goes DinoTam!

Name that tune!

From Elfindale (again!), another Dr. Suess-ish entry:

THEY CALL HIM DINO TAM

The dinosaur was huge,
Like “fuck off enormous” size
But the hunter was certain
She wanted him as her prize
So she tamed him and named him
And gave some commands
But it was soon very clear
He was full of demands
He had no time for mobs
He just wanted to play
But then he’d be tired
And would sunbathe all day
He soon became known
All through the land
As the dino with attitude
They call him Dino Tam
He likes skin rubs and steaks
He doesn’t play well with others
When he stays at daycare
They get complaints from the mothers
But the hunter, she loves him
And puts up with his shit
Because thanks to him
Her blog gets lots of hits

It’s true. I do get lots of hits for DinoTam-related stuff.

An untitled entry from the dapper dino himself, @DinoTam

DinoTam rocks
Thoughtful, benevolent and kind
DinoTam rocks
Dignified as a Dragonhawk
No matter how much Alas whined
Or joked about sex with behinds
DinoTam rocks

He is so damn modest.

And lastly, this untitled entry from Lara of Root and Branch, also seen in the comments section of Zelmaru’s DinoTam limerick post:

If DinoTam’s behind you, it were wise
To watch your backside closely as you may
Lest he should give you buttsecks by surprise

In Hellfire, there are demons of great size
Who cover up their rumps with sheets of clay
If DinoTam’s behind you, it were wise

In Howling Fjord a dragon roams the skies
But when he flies behind you, move away,
Lest he should give you buttsecks by surprise

I beg you, give no notice to his cries,
And flee the region when he says, “let’s play!”
If DinoTam’s behind you, it were wise

So do not heed Tam’s pleading or his lies,
But hide your tender derriere away;
If DinoTam’s behind you, it were wise –
Lest he should give you buttsecks by surprise

Buttsecks by surprise sounds like a cologne gone horribly wrong. My two cents.

That’s all the entries. Thanks again to all who entered and to all who love DinoTam as much as I don’t do!

Posted in DinoTam, Guest posts | Tagged , , , | 5 Comments

My name is Alas and I kill pirates

Posted on August 23, 2010 by

No, really. For serious. I kill pirates. One might even say internet pirates. And I kill a lot of them.

And then after a loooooooooong time of running around Ice Lancing low level pirates to death, I get a full green bar. I love green bars when they are full. Except on internet pirates and internet bosses. Those should be empty as often as it can be contrived.

For variety, I sometimes stop killing Internet Pirates and work on those wintercat guys instead. I’m still neutral.

Hopefully they’ll let me keep blogging from my padded cell, but I think WoW will be taken away from me.

Posted in Acts of Lameness | Tagged , , , , | 5 Comments

DinoTam, all the way, omg! What does it mean?

Posted on August 20, 2010 by

Could I get some fanfare please?

I’d like to announce the winner of the DinoTam Poetry Contest.

Like all long-winded announcers, I want to first take a moment to say thanks to everyone who entered. I loved every entry! Even the ones that weren’t strictly poems. As I mentioned before, I’ll be sharing all of them here, although I may split them up and share over a few days. I wouldn’t want anyone to get blinded by all the DinoTam glory.

Without further ado, the winning poem from Elfindale (omg, more ado! I put all the entries up on my guild website without author names and opened up voting to anyone with a stipulation that one could not vote for oneself. No one voting knew that they were voting for a guild member) :

The Hunter’s Bane

As dinos go, he’s not the norm
He’s small in stature, slight in form
Once a wild and enormous beast
He’s now quite spoiled, to say the least
It all started one day, way back in the crater
He was huge and scary…. an intimidator
When along came a hunter in need of a pet
And she tamed the proud beast with no thought of regret
She named him Tamarind and watched him shrink down
Thinking he’d still be the most fearsome around
But alas, she was wrong and the plan went awry
It seems that good pets are hard to come by
The hunter now has her hands full, it seems
And has to buy lotions and powders and creams
Because her pet, Dino Tam, has dry scaly skin
And demands every day that she exfoliate him
He never attacks when she needs his assistance
But for “surprise buttsecks” he has much persistence
He’s an embarrassment, that one, in his tweed smoking jacket
If he were my pet, I’m not sure I could hack it.
He pampers himself whenever he can
By sunbathing on rocks to improve his tan
He likes mani/pedi’s and calls himself “metro”
Quite strange behavior from a once wild dino
He scares little children by showing his teeth
But he’s such a big baby he can’t get his own meat
The hunter must feed him, between all the skin rubs
And anything less than a steak he just snubs
Now she is stuck with him, English accent and all
Maybe a pet dino wasn’t such a good call?
Although I think she’s lucky to have such a beast
Because he entertains me greatly whenever he tweets.

I think she might be related to Dr. Suess. Anyhow, I won’t need to stalk anyone to give DinoMat to the winner, so that’s nice.

And the runner up! Is a tie!

From Saga of Girls Don’t Play WoW we have this untitled piece:

The silence greets my words,
I wait, but there is no sound but your breathing.

Tears are trickling down my cheek,
I turn around to hide them from your sight.
The silence is tearing at me,
crushing my heart beneath its weight.
Why aren’t you speaking to me?
What did I do wrong?
All I did was say ‘DinoTam’…

He’s moody. It’s not you. It’s him.

And this very modern, uh, code poetry from Analogue of Looking 4 More:

//Recommend using DinoBob, DinoFred, or DinoBarneyThePurple classes instead
public static Dinosaur::DinoTam
{

bool isHungry = true;
bool isAsleep = false;

//Note: the “edible” check is unreliable. Anyone interfacing with the “DinoTam” class
//is responsible for ensuring that inputs to this method are acceptable

public void doEat(object Prey)
{

if(Prey == edible)
{

nomnom(Prey);

isHungry = false;

//some sort of bug in this method. Won’t compile without this next line
isHungry = true;

}

}

//Intern hasn’t finished this function, contains no “wake” triggers
public string doSleep(Rock Rock)
{
string returnvalue;

if(Rock.isSunny == true)

{
returnvalue = “zzzzz”;
DinoTam.isAsleep = true;

} else
{
returnvalue = “DinoTam only likes sunny rocks, what what.”
}

return returnvalue;

}

//undocumented bug causes this method to trigger randomly
//probably user error
private void doMoisturize(object lotion)
{
if(lotion.isSmoothAndMoist)
{
lotion.apply(DinoTam.skin);
DinoTam.ContentedPurrGrowl();
}

}

//users keep complaining about this behavior. Assure them it is their own fault
//and DinoTam code is working as specified
public void responseToAlasOrders(object Orders)
{
DinoTam.DoNothing();
DinoTam.GiveAlasTheEye();
DinoTam.doEat(Orders);

}

//!!Remember to take this out before public release!!
public void doButtSecks(object victim)
{

if(victim.DoesNotSuspect && (checkRelativePosition(victim, DinoTam) == true)
{
DinoTam.Yell(“Surprise Buttsecks!!!”);
victim.assault();
}

}

private bool CheckRelativePosition(object victim, Dinosaur DinoTam)

{
if(victim.IsInFrontOf(DinoTam)) return true;
else return false;

}

}

I don’t care who you are, that’s hilarious. Well played!

Consider me in your debt, Saga and Analogue, for a guest post at a time of your choosing. I’m just sorry I didn’t have DinoMats to give to everyone.

Lastly, to round out this dino roundup with something not contest related, here’s a sketch of DinoTam from @Bellbell. It makes me laugh.

Will the real Tam please advise to whether or not he is plotting my demise? Many thanks.

Posted in DinoTam | Tagged , , , | 9 Comments

I'm a girl and a GM – so what?

Posted on August 19, 2010 by

I’m going to start with disclaimers.

I know there’s a lot of talk and interest right now regarding feminism and WoW.

I know I’m on a list of female GM’s over at Bossy Pally.

I know that this is an interesting and important topic to many people and I am truly not trying to downplay that or imply that it shouldn’t be.

Yet, I see all this discussion going on and I see me being held up (by Zel anyway) as an example of female leadership. To all this, my reaction is honestly this:

So what?

So what if I’m a girl and I happen to be in charge of my guild?

So what if we have a female main tank?

So what if we have several females in our raiding core?

In a game where a player can choose to hide their real life identity and do it well enough that no one ever really knows for sure whether that character is played by a man or a woman, why does it matter which roles women choose to take on in that game?

Even without hiding my gender in the game, I have never felt like I couldn’t do anything I wanted to do. Sure, there are always going to be jerks who will discriminate against women, or homosexuals, or Jewish people. But that’s because there are people like that in real life and it’s a reflection of the overall population of the world, not a slice of gamers or game designers.

I just don’t see anyone out there forcing the gender issue in a way that prevents women from doing whatever it is they want to do in the game. Frankly, if you’re a female and want to be a main tank or a GM or a raid leader or a PvP champion, your skill and ability are going to be the only things that can make or break that dream.

But Alas, you might be thinking. This doesn’t capture any of the essence of what this feminism discussion is all about!

That’s probably so. To be brutally honest, gender discussions bore me. I simply don’t care about the question of equality beyond a certain point. That point is one of mental ability. I won’t ever believe that a man is automatically smarter than I could ever be just because of his gender. At the same time, I’m totally willing to admit that there are many men and women out there who are smarter than me.

I suppose for me, the question of equality doesn’t come down to a line drawn between men and women. We all, as individuals, have our own blends of strengths and weaknesses. You might be a super freaky math genius. I might be apt at memorizing whole chapters of information. Your math smarts don’t make you better than me, just as my ability to retain a lot of information doesn’t make me better than you.

Again, I may be missing the whole point. You can tell me if I am and attempt to educate me if so. But to me, we’re all just people doing what we want to do – at least as far as gaming is concerned – so what’s the big deal?

Posted in Leadership | Tagged , , | 34 Comments

The new look

Posted on August 18, 2010 by

I wanted to draw everyone’s attention to the fact that we have a new look around these here parts. I know it’s not the sort of thing one would see if they had subscribed or were reading in a feedreader, and I think my new header (courtesy of Vidyala who is a true pleasure to work with) is just brilliant.

I’ve been asked about the sheep. Why does it have that look on its face? What is “Alas” about to do to it? What was the sheep before?

In my mind, that sheep was formerly a professor of Physics. Not just any professor of Physics either, but a very specific person I had the *cough* pleasure *cough* of working for in my previous job. On the days when he would frustrate me (ie: Monday – Saturday, most weeks) with his very urgent but also very vague demands, I would wish I could both polymorph and roast him.

Alas, I could not.

But Alas the mage is unconstrained by any such lack of magic, hence the art.

Three cheers to Vidyala for making this happen and for doing it so quickly and patiently! I am sure it can’t be easy to take a fairly incoherent explanation such as mine was and turn it into a reality, but she did it.

Posted in Mage Related, Real Life | Tagged , , | 10 Comments

Sometimes it's better to not think about things

Posted on August 17, 2010 by

We’ve recently started running a second 10-man group through ICC, which is comprised of a few raiders who don’t normally get to attend our progression raiding nights and for whomever has an alt that they want to drag through ICC to gear up a bit. It’s only gone for a few weeks and results have been pretty mixed in terms of the ease of getting through the content, but that group can pretty much count on getting through five or six bosses.

This week, real life has prevented me from going in and flailing around with bubbles and penance and generally making a nuisance of myself, but that hasn’t prevented anyone else telling me in detail what went well and what didn’t.

I suppose it’s nice to know, but today I am finding that there are times when it becomes needful for me to be able to not think about it. Some of it, I don’t even want to fucking know.

Yes, this is a QQ-fest. I haven’t had one in a while.

The bottom line for me right now is that while I can sympathize that X, Y or Z happened, there’s nothing I can do about it. I wasn’t online when so-and-so did such-and-such. Did it violate our raid rules? Yes. Should they be spoken to about it? Yes. But not by me every damn time, no sir.

And I know what I need  to address and with whom I need to address it, but it sorta chaps me a bit that I even feel like I have to. So I am sitting here stewing over how ridiculous some of my in-guild problems are and realizing that I need to be doing anything but that. Having purged my silly angst here, I am going to concentrate on other things now.

Like how At has a job interview this afternoon. And how I need to remind everyone that today is the last day you can submit your DinoTam poems for my little contest. And how I need to stop starting sentences with words like “so” and “and.”

Posted in Leadership, rant | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Cooking with Alas

Posted on August 16, 2010 by

I feel this one will need a little background.

Back  when Wrath of the Lich King first released, At and I took off an extra day or two from work like the good geeks we are and had a LAN party for leveling goodness and another excuse to play WoW for absurd amounts of time. This entails both a goodly quantity of booze and what we refer to as “oven food.” We offer up such delicacies as taquitos, tater skins, cheese sticks and pizza rolls.

And that right there is why we don’t have more than a few LAN parties a year. They’re hedonistic dives into pits of slothfulness and grease. And liquor.

Anyhow, that first time we made our way through Howling Fjord, we came upon a certain quest at the most inopportune time. We were in Skorn and we were eating pizza rolls.

We became rather queasy, and I don’t think it was only the alcohol talking. Since then, it’s become a joke between At and myself. We get to Skorn and I say, “Mmm, pizza rolls.” He makes adorable choking noises and we refrain from eating pizza rolls for a few more months. And it is in the spirit of wishing to save others from eating such unhealthy food, that I present this first lesson in cooking with Alas – the perfect appetizer for your next LAN party:

Skorn Pizza Rolls

  1. Buy pizza rolls.
  2. Follow instructions listed on packaging
  3. Allow a few minutes to cool
  4. Use kitchen shears to cut triangular strips on the top of each roll
  5. Nom. Or not.

And because no post around here would be complete without him:

Posted in Acts of Lameness, DinoTam, Leveling, Real Life, Screenshots | Tagged , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Alas goes to the North Pole

Posted on August 14, 2010 by

And gets gravely disappointed:

Posted in Acts of Lameness, Raiding, Screenshots | Tagged , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Unlucky link love

Posted on August 13, 2010 by

Not my fault it’s Friday the 13th and you all happened to post some great reads this week. Here’s some overdue link love:

New Word by Arioch from Clearcasting. A discussion of the differences between passively wanting something to happen and actively working to make sure something you want has the best chance of happening. I ambit this last work day to be over – anyone else with me?

Halion Flowchart by Kae from Dreambound. A great look at the Halion fight using the blogger’s sacred tools of flowcharts and stick figures! I do have nightmares about those purple death beams.

Guest Post: DinoTam by Reversion from Looking 4 More. An awesome portrait of DinoTam relaxing in his den, talking about the hardships of his life. I want to see a whole series, as with Corporate Raider. But that’s me. I’m selfish. Still, the claws coming through the toes of his slippers are brilliant I tell you. Brilliant!

The Seven Habits of Highly Ineffective Guild Leaders by Psynister, with assistance from Anexxia, from Psynister’s Notebook and Bible of Dreams, respectively. This is seven things Guild Leaders might do to render themselves ineffective. I put the list to my guild mates and either I am not terribly ineffective or they are all too afraid of me to tell me so. Or maybe I stopped listening in order to organize the guild bank.

A very special honorable kill comes via Rades from Orcish Army Knife. It’s a heartwarming hilarious tale of poor Vidyala’s (of Pugging Pally fame) first kill on the Horde side.

And in veritable endless knot of links and mutual references, I give you once again, Zelmaru of Murloc Parliament fame, with True DinoTam Facts. I have a dream that someday DinoTam chatter will replace Chuck Norris chatter in the Barrens (actually, I had a dream that there was an entire stadium full of people all cheering and chanting for DinoTam. I’ll be seeking professional help soon).

Please note that it’s now Friday and people have until Tuesday to enter as many entries as they like for my DinoTam Poetry Contest to have a chance to win totally sweet prizes.

Posted in DinoTam, Just Links | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments