The Edge of Sanity

This is great...  Hackers vs. Scientology...

http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/01/anonymous-attac.html

http://www.partyvan.info/index.php/Project_Chanology

Knowledge is free.
We are Anonymous.
We are Legion.
We do not forgive.
We do not forget.
United as one.
Divided by zero.
Expect us.


Fuck Scientology.

Been a while since I've posted anything... just been lazy, I suppose.

Guild news... none really.  We're 2 bosses away from Hyjal, though... Vashj and Kael.  Just happens that we're missing our warlocks right now, or we'd be making attempts on Vashj.  I think we'll get it soon.  We've been gearing up in the meantime, which is a good thing.

Other news...  Back to school on monday, done with work until June.  I kinda wish the break was longer, I won't get one between spring and summer semesters... out of school and into work.


Anyways, onto other business...

If is hasn't become apparent, I'm not a big fan of today.  It's got a lot to do with... everything, really.  You have child stars getting pregnant, taking nude photos, and, well... all that.  When I was growing up, we didn't have that.  I'm sure the internet is partially to blame, it makes it so easy to destroy the reputation of someone with a few pictures...

Growing up... it was mostly cartoons, country music and some old 90's rock, and few actual real TV shows...  Power Rangers, Bill Nye, perhaps the kids from Salute Your Shorts... these are the people I grew up with...  Did they do bad things?  I'm sure they did, but it wasn't publicized like things are today...  Cartoons were good...  Magic School Bus taught us everything, Rocko's Modern Life made our parents cringe almost as bad as Ren and Stimpy did, Doug and Scooby Doo, Aladdin and Pinky and the Brain... life was good.  Life was simple.

What happened to the world?  I dunno.  Some stuff is better, I suppose...  House, Heroes, Mythbusters... we have our TV shows, our cartoons have shifted to a larger focus on Asian influences, anime mostly.  Our movies have certainly amped it up...  Super Heroes galore, a renewed interest in the retro cartoons of the past, hell, we're even getting a new Indiana Jones...  Our music... well that leaves a lot to be desired...

What happened to it all?  Back in the 80's, when hair was at an all time high, and the tunes were rockin, you had great hits.  Now?  I couldn't tell you who sings what.  I honestly don't know one artist from another.  Taking a stroll through my library, half of it is at least 10 years old... most is older.

I miss growing up, I suppose...  When I actually enjoyed new music.  When I would rush inside after hopping off the bus to see the newest episode of Power Rangers and finally learn the identity of the White Ranger.  When I would climb on the monkey bars during recess... when I had a recess...  Before my cousin had a kid... when we'd be able to just talk without him itching to dive into his wife's pants every waking minute...  Back when summer meant watching TV, swinging on the swing, and not doing work...  Back when cartoon network would play Alvin and the Chipmunks...  Back when Saturday meant cartoons.

It hurts... it always will.  Seeing friends come and go.  Looking back at the friends I had.  Looking back at the family members I miss so much.  Remembering the simple things...  Watermelon, working in the shop, cheery Christmases, Saturday mornings...  Growing up just complicates things...  Will the next president fuck things up?  Where am I gonna work?  What will I do?...

I dunno...  I'm rambling on and on, but the point is, sometimes you can't help but remember the good times of growing up.  Life will always give you disappointments, it's part of living.  But, when we were kids, somehow, we just didn't care as much...  I get more and more upset everytime I get on the internet and look at the news.  The RIAA sues a kid for ripping a CD he bought to his computer.  PETA uses scare tactics to guilt people into not eating meat.  A new document is found that lists yet another reason people think Bush or Cheney should be impeached.  Brittney Spears proves, again, that she's worse than white trash.  Another teen celebrity does something stupid, ruining a career.  It all sickens me...

I started this topic in hopes of talking about how much I like 80's music compared to today's... but it seems I've rambled my way around that... so, to reward people for actually reading this, I'll post this little goodie...

First off...  I think I've decided I'm gonna use my journal over on the Curtain Call site for my randomness, at least for now...

Next up.  Something I think I've realized...  I think Curtain Call is a good place for me...  See, when Paragon disbanded, I had went through doing things.  I felt the tension, so I prepared myself, the best I could...  I browsed around looking at other guilds, seeing what options were out there...  But, nothing really looked appealing.  I spent the early part of the day adding friends...

Saturday night, when I logged on, guildless...  I was thinking of what to do...  I had thought about joining Team Whiskers.  Good people, friends from long ago in AHG.  I mean, Juju had asked me if I wanted to come back to their Kara team, and I did (still wouldn't mind running with them, actually... just they run when I raid).  And today it hit me that it wouldn't be all that good for me at all...

See, TW has half of what I miss from AHG...  The comedy.  The immature, rather stupid, and often perverted humor most commonly known as guy talk...  I browse around their forums from time to time, see what they're up to, and I chat with em every so often in their channel...  But, they are missing one thing...  The raid motivation I desire.

They goof around in raids, which is fine, sorta, but not for progression.  Don't get me wrong, they are REALLY fun to raid with... until you realize that you don't have a chance of progressing very far.  To my knowledge, they haven't killed the High King yet, they might have, I dunno...  Point is, they do Kara, not much more.

Now, I realize that I woulda hated to join the guild because what I crave is progression.  Last Friday night, the GL, Wischeese invited everyone to come kill Doomwalker.  He's an outdoor boss, and is quite the pain in the ass at times, due to an earthquake attack that hits everyone.  We killed him after a couple of attempts.  Then I got pulled into a Magtheridon run after one of the other druids left.  We spent about 3-4 more attempts in there, and GOT HIM...  I remember VIVIDLY, going into the raid, getting asked to jump down a channel, while 2 of the officers explained the fight to me...  They even told me that I had a super important job.  It was GREAT.  I healed the 2nd tank, tossed a couple of hots around, and then I was on Wischeese after the big bad guy popped up.  We beat him...  I remember getting down to about 200 mana...  It was kinda rough... luckily, my pot came up again, and we killed him.  Mags was the best boss kill I've seen since probably Vael...

Saturday, I got to go to Serpentshrine Cavern.  I felt great getting to go.  I goofed a bit... fell into the frenzy of fish...  Which, that was me using my scope, and I hit the wrong direction to get out of it...  Then, I ended up pulling aggro on Hydross, and he wiped us when 4 more poison elementals spawned...  I don't know how that happened, though...  Next attempt, I think, we got him...  Great idea proposed by someone of using Misdirect, it worked great...

Got to see the Lurker and Void Reaver (no luck killing either...  but it's only a matter of time...), and it's just great...  I got to see A'lar flying around even...  I don't care that I spent 40 gold or more in repairs over the weekend...  It was FUN.  That's what I was missing from raiding.

And, I guess, I just realized that being in TW wouldn't be fun...  Not like what I want...  I mean, I even look at some of their humor, and it's kinda... eurgh for me...  Some of it's funny, but some of it's just... ". . ."

The biggest being the animals.   90% of all lolcat crap is just that... crap.  The only animal stuff I enjoy is the Walrus Bucket, and that's because Walruses are much better than cats...  Even the guild is named after the in game pet.

And it's sad, I guess, because they are really fun people to run with.  I just don't feel that it'd be for me, since I enjoy raiding too much.  I like actually being able to run Karazhan on a whim, or being able to hop into Gruul's lair for one boss and rotating out for someone else on Gruul.  I enjoy that.  I don't have to dream about going into these new places... cuz Im' there.  Eventually, I hope I'll get to see the Black Temple, and Hyjal, but until then, I'm happy to be seeing SSC and TK...  TW just lacks the raiding mindset and motivation I need...  But, I guess that's what happens when you get burned early in raiding...

That's right... that feeling is back...

Raiding, the feeling of actually working for something...

See, one of the problems of Paragon was how we raided.  You know we never got more than maybe 3 or 4 attempts on Gruuls, ever?  It took us so long to get back and start again...

Last night, I went with my new guild, Curtain Call, to Gruul's Lair.  We one shot the High King.  After the High King fell, we went to fight Gruul.  It wasn't my first time to see him, but I had never killed him before...  We wiped a lot, though...  It was great.

Hold on a minute... wiping was great?  Not entirely...  But coming together like that, it was great...

Ok, I'm getting ahead of myself... time to take a huge step back...  AHG.

When I joined AHG, we were essentially through MC, kinda...   I believe we could down through Golemagg, but there were wipes...  It took us a while to actually get started, but that's expected since there were several guilds who had to get together...  Anyways, when we fought bosses, we'd do it...  We'd go through and fight a boss, if we wiped, we'd get up, rebuff, and fight some more...  Onyxia was probably the best example, prior to BWL...  It didn't take us long to get back...  It wasn't as fast as CC, but it was much faster than Paragon...

In BWL, it was similar...  We'd raise, buff, and go again...  It was the thing that made it seem like we were actually raiding...

In Paragon, however, it took forever to recover from a wipe...  People might go AFK, or they might wanna wait for a rez, or whatever.  Point is, it seemed to take forever to get everyone back up, and it took forever to actually initiate the fight.  Whatever the problem, we were lucky to get 3 rounds in before morale dropped and nobody cared to make another attempt...

Raiding is about coming together for a common task...  It's all about getting up after dying to kill what has to be killed...

That is what I miss about raiding... the sheer teamwork.  Last night, we wiped...  I dunno how many times, it seemed like more than it was...  We had respawns twice...  We didn't give up after just a couple of attempts, and that's the thing...  That feeling of coming together, doing everything we can, and NOT giving up is what was missing from raiding...  I'm glad to feel it back

I've got a cousin, he's 11...  I've mentioned him many times before in various random posts on my guild forums, but he's a bit... annoying.

First up, my room.

My room is set up like this:

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|            |
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You've got Bed, Computer Desk, TV...  My cousin likes to sit at the head of my bed, where he pretty much squishes himself up so he can see BETWEEN me and the computer screen... and see the TV.

Normally, you'd lay at the foot of my bed to see the TV, I've got 2 of those long pillows that fit across the entire bed (it's not one of those super small beds, bigger than that, I don't remember the exact size name...  I guess about the size of a hotel or something...

Point is, with him RIGHT THERE it's like he's up in my face...  I hate it...  He won't lay at the other end, he has to be able to watch every little thing I'm doing...

Furthermore, I don't normally listen to music when I play on my computer, it's GENERALLY the TV that's running, and I listen to it, and maybe watch it for a bit.  I normally watch adult swim, and other less kid friendly shows.  What do I hear from him?  "I'm not allowed to watch this..."  Well go into the living room and watch something...  I do wanna watch it...

Next up, the questions.  Why can you turn into a cat?  You can turn into a bear?  Why don't I ever see you turn into a bear?  Can I play?  Why haven't you worked on leveling my character?

Which, I wanna jump to, working on his character is like beating my head in with a rusty spoon.  He rolled a hunter on one of the free transfer realms that were offered to Shadow Council.  Of course, he named his female hunter (well, tried to name her) the typical non RP name a 12 year old would (eminem or something was what he was gonna try...)...

First off... I have one character on that realm, a draenei paladin that I rolled for the single excuse of being able to talk to a good friend of mine, who has since rolled horde, and I dunno if he even plays his alliance guy anymore...  I don't like playing off my server for 2 main reasons.  First off, I don't like having to put up with starting from scratch...  Anyone else out there regularly help out their alts by giving them gold and stuff?  I do it all the freaking time...  Second, I hate noobs...  I hate them to the extent that I avoid them at all costs.  9 times out of 10, a lowby who isn't guilded will want to act like a noob just because he can...  Finally, I don't like playing hunters too much...  Not in the sense that I've already leveled 2 past level 10...  Prior to level 10, it's just... dull.  I don't like the starting zones very much in the first place...  Anyone who is anyone can tell you the problems with leveling a new character...  The starting zones get dull so easily...

To date:
Dun Morogh - 4 times
Night Elf - 3 times
Draenei - Once
Humans - 4 at least...

And Spectrose leveled a bit in the first 3 areas...  Needless to say, I'm about tired of leveling in the newer zones...  See, it's just a bit painful to bother with.  Add it all up, and I've got absolutely no motivation for the character...  Then you factor in problem number 2...  Alex (my cousin) comes over to the house MAYBE once every 3 months...  That's a rough guess.  He's not around enough to even bother playing his character, so why should I waste time with it?  It sounds mean, I know, but that's how I feel...  MAYBE, if he actually came over a bit more, then I'd bother to at least get him high enough to play with a pet...  But, the thing is, he only wants to play when I'd normally be raiding or something...  I get frustrated and usually tell him to shut up because he's normally asking a dozen questions a minute...

And I don't even remember what else I was gonna say...

Since this is where my randomness will now take place, I feel it is only best to randomly name a topic each time I think of something...

Among the hardest things for me to do, I think the hardest is archiving my random topics...  My last random topic was 150 posts long, and when you factor in that most of the topics were written by me, each of them at least a page in length... that's a lot of copying and pasting...  Luckily, I got it all done Saturday...


WoW really needs a larger friends list.  I think it should also factor in for Alts...  I would LOVE to associate people with their Alts.

Think of it like this.  Say I were to add in a friend, someone who has 3 70's.  Instead of filling up 3 slots, or having to bother with /who everytime I wanna see if they're on, I associate alts.

For example, Juju is a rogue, she has a priest and a mage both at 70.  She is usually on her priest, but not always.  If I had associations listed for her, she would have one spot in my friends list.  If she was on Juju, her full rogue's name would be listed, but if she logged off, and onto her priest, the priest's name would be listed in Juju's place.  Have a comment system built into the UI listing the alts associated with a character.  And make this where everyone has to set it up themself.  I mean, don't make it so that every character created is automatically listed in a friend's list, instead, if you add a friend, you have the option of setting alts for that person.

This would also allow for the autocompletion of names, and would automatically work for any character you've created.  Bank alts are a pain in the rear, since you have to add them to your friends list, or type the full name out everytime...  If I could have my bank, my rogue, and my mage all linked with the autocomplete mail thing, then they wouldn't have to take up a spot in my friends list...

I think it'd work greatly...  And if that wouldn't work out, then I'd REALLY like to see a much larger friend's list...  It's just a pain in the butt to have it limited to 50 people.  Saturday, I filled my friends list up so full that I had to remove some of my alts, and some of my RL friends who no longer play WoW.  Names that I kept on my list just in case I ever saw them come back to wow...

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Now, for some other stuff...

It seems some school somewhere has banned hugging...  My opinion?...  WTF?  This just has ugh written all over it...

It's like the US is turning Nazi or something...  Don't believe me?  New Bill is revoking the right to bear arms if you have various mental illnesses, including ADD or ADHD as a child...  Last I heard, it hadn't yet passed the Senate, so if we're lucky, that's not the case.  It sucks because if your grandpa gets Alzheimer's his gun collection could be siezed, which means he can't give it to a grandchild...  My Grandfather gave me and my cousin .22's and I dunno what I'd do if they had been siezed and he couldn't even pass them down.

There's another bill that would take away free speech if it was considered racist or hateful, or whatever the term is...

In all, it's like we're becoming Nazi Germany...  I just hope that effing nutjob known as Hillary Clinton becomes prez... the US is going to go to Hell if that happens...

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Jacko...  Oh Jacko, how much longer will it take for you to lose your license?  I speak of Jack Thompson, anyone hear the news that he pulled some Gay Porn up to try and defend himself or something like that?  The Judge wasn't amused...

I dunno, but he does get on my nerves sometimes, just for the simple fact that he doesn't understand games, but with the mentally incompetent, I guess that's to be expected...  Guess it's not much different than not understanding why monkeys don't talk japanese...

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Does it annoy anyone else that people will open boxes wrong?

My whole family does that...  They'll open the fridge packs (which I think I prefer to the old boxes for cans of stuff) at the handle, or they'll rip open a box in another random weird way...  We had some Nutty Butty Bars that the box top was cut off, the flaps weren't opened up, just kinda sawed off the top...

It's not always that bad, but, it is a bit annoying at times...  There are perf... err... the dotted lines along the boxes signifying you can open them that way, or flaps for a reason...

Speaking of, it also annoys me to see someone squeeze a bottle of something and put the lid on it... to where the bottle is squeezed and won't pop back out to round...  I dunno, that's always gotten on my nerves...  You can at least pop it out so it's not flat in the middle and will fall over or something weird like that...

Anyways, seems I'll be keeping my livejournal as my random home... at least until I grow bored or figure out a better place to put it, so if you are reading this, and know somewhere good to put it, then holler at me...

It has happened.  Paragon has fell.  I'm sad to see it happen... but it was inevitable...

A recap if you'd like it... to the best of my memory...

I joined the Alliance Highguard in January of 06.  I had been 60 only a month or so.  My warrior buddy Bashkir had just applied and gotten into the guild.  He encouraged me to join; I wanted to raid, so I did.  It was great.  The first wed, I was in Molten Core, and I was hooked.  Eventually Ragnoros fell to us.  But, I'm getting ahead of myself...

I can recall 4 really big moments of drama, nearly guild shattering, with the 4th being the deathblow.

Longwalk Alliance - The Longwalk Alliance was an alliance of guilds set up to allow us to do MC.  It was composed of several guilds, including Angelic Halo Clan, Ashenvale Templars, and Devstyle.  Through a series of events, a rift was forming between the AHG and Devstyle.  Eventually, the shit hit the fan, and our forums exploded in rage.  Who was right and who was wrong?  I don't know...  I think it coulda been handled better by both sides...  This would be event 1...

Split with Team Whiskers - Another era that coulda been handled a bit better, since there's still harsh feelings on both sides...  In all, I can only blame one person for all this, and it would be Toraion.  The lack of a guild leader caused what could only be seen as some sort of power struggle...  I don't remember everything that happened, but no GL didn't help things...  The forums got rearranged (from what I recall, at Tor's request), and it ended up leaving a lot of folks without a say in things...  Eventually, things exploded, and a HUGE chunk of our guild was now known as Team Whiskers.  It was truly a sad thing to see happen, since they are good people.  In the end, I don't think we ever recovered after this...  Everyone we lost, raidwise, were highly experienced, and well geared.

Tor Departs and the AHG becomes Paragon - Tor ended up leaving the guild, after leadership was handed off.  I don't remember why he was so upset, but it ended in him leaving.  A guild meeting ensued later that night, and we lost 2 officers... who left in a fit of rage...  The night ended with Dunnerbane gaining guild lead.  (I gotta be honest, I was watching Heroes, and a lot of the talk was just back and forth rambling about the same thing...  getting Kara keyed.)  Well, sometime later, Dunnerbane got himself a promotion, which would leave him with little time for WoW, so he decided to leave the game, and handed leadership over to Inmovitar.  The majority of the officers seemed to agree that the only way we'd be able to raid was to make a clean cut from the casual folks in AHG.  See, we never did get replacements for our Hardcore raiders who went to TW...  That made it hard to try and work on any engame other than Karazhan.  It seemed like a good idea, but it did make us lose a lot of people...  Jujubeann, Williame, Morgden, TJ, just to name a few...  They didn't agree with just leaving, and so, they left...  It was a hard thing to see happen.

Paragon disbands - It was a long time coming, truth be told...  Plain and simple, we failed.  We went to be a raiding guild, but things didn't work out.  We got 3 Karazhan groups up, but we had problems...  Schedules, people not wanting to spec a certain way (which for Karazhan can be a pain...), a couple problem recruits, same old, same old...  Eventually, we started losing people.  We weren't progressing, and we never even got down Gruul...  There's really nobody to blame here, at least not as far as I can see...  In the end, we started losing people, including our GL.  The end result?  It was decided that we could survive the departures, but never recover to raid... we'd be able to only do 1 Karazhan group...  The call was made...  Disband, let people try to find other places to raid, where, hopefully, homes can be found where we are all happier...

And there you have it...  I'm sad to see that only a handful of us stayed to see things all the way through.  I logged on Saturday Night (was closer to 1 AM on Sunday...), and man that knot in my stomach was bad...  To see a guild of people fracture completely.  AHG, Paragon, they're the only guilds I had ever known...  I had Peregrine Knights, but it wasn't full of people...  It didn't have lively conversations going on in the wee hours of the morning...

In all, I miss it... but, I have hope...

I don't feel much like randomness right now, so maybe around Lunch, I'll have a nice new random topic up...

New Heroes tonight...  I'm excited

Judging by all the stuff I've seen for this ONE episode, I can't wait for more.  What are we gonna see?  Well, based on what I've read and seen...

Peter vs. Sylar - This is not the final showdown at all...  Now, heroes lovers will remember Future Hiro mentioning a scar, I'm wondering if this will be shown.  I've also seen the trailer where Mohinder says Peter is dead, as well as pics of Angela sitting beside Peter, as he is laid out on a bed or something.  Dead?  I dunno...  I've also seen pictures of him up with a cut in his head from Sylar...

    Theory on the Scar - This just popped into my head...  Future Hiro warned to save Claire.  We might not even see the scar...  If Claire had to be saved in the past, I'm guessing that she wasn't in the future Hiro came from.  Pure speculation without a grain of truth, but if that is the case, Peter might never have gotten his powers for regeneration.  Therefore, he had a scar because he couldn't heal it.  But now, he can heal himself, and might not get a scar.  Possible, but I dunno...

Linderman - Linderman seems to have the power of Healing.  He waves his hand at a plant and it goes from dead to alive.  This gives him a really big way to have an edge over Nathan.  Linderman can heal Nathan's wife... something that would tempt him into running like he had planned.  He also knows a WHOLE lot more than I'd have thought...

Jessica/Nikki - She has something Linderman wants, my guess would be Micah.  What better way to assure Nathan wins office than to have Micah mess with the voting machines?

The Association - Definately wanna know what is up with these guys...  For one, the fact that Mr. Sulu... err... Hiro's dad is in on it makes it a bit fishy...  Plus, I've heard that Hiro's grandpa knew about Hiro's abilities, or that he would gain them.  As a result, his grandfather gave him comics as a child to instill a sense of Heroism in him, so he'd be responsible with his abilities (It seems to have worked for the most part...).  I think that was part of the graphic novel.  Furthermore...  What exactly is this organization doing?  It is possible they assigned the Petrelli kids to Angela?  I've heard that rumor too...  Also, what are they doing with all of the Heroes?  Also, why did we have a certain Invisible man decide to leave them?  Something is definately fishy in the air here...

Hiro - Hiro and Ando went 5 years in the future.  Next week's episode will take place 5 years in the future, after the explosion.  According to what I've read, in the future, everyone with abilities get rounded up and placed in camps.  It's kinda sounding like the public fear of abilities like we see in the X-men world.  Also, Hiro meets himself, possibly tonight.  I gotta say, though, I'm a bit worried about Hiro.  I don't think he'll die, but future Hiro doesn't have the same quality as his former self does.  The reason we like Hiro is because he embraces his abilities, and he's like the geek in all of us.  Future Hiro seems a bit darker, he's obviously seen a lot to change him.  Plus, he loses the accent, which is one thing that I like...  Either way, I'm ready to see Hiro get control of his powers like he needs...

And that's about all I know...

For more information
www.Heroesite.com - Spoilers page, and pics can be found here
www.Heroeswiki.com - it's a Wiki for Hiros, lots of info, including theories and spoilers

From my random topic on my guild's forum

Rules of Computers
1.)  Your computer does not want a bite of your sandwich and doesn't want any Mt. Dew...
2.)  That isn't a coaster (CD Drive)
3.)  Just because I know why your computer isn't working, it doesn't mean I wanna help you fix it...
4.)  I'm sorry, but your RAM is in another computer... (Mario ftw...)
5.)  DON'T DELETE THAT!!!*
6.)  Copy and paste... what the hell do you think that means?
7.)  It isn't that hard to hook it up... I mean, everything is either color coded or only fits in ONE spot.
8.)  Computers do not come with any of the following:  Parachutes, airbags, cushons, foam, spring loaded feet, or anything else that will protect it from being thrown from a window or hit with a baseball bat...
9.)  An bathtub is not a suitable cooling device for your computer.
10.) If you don't know what it does, don't delete it, don't change it, heck, don't even touch it.
11.) If your computer gets a virus, do not try shoving Tylenol into the CD drive.
12.) If the computer stops working, try rebooting before calling for help...
13.) Yes, that cable SHOULD be plugged in.
14.) 2 Megabytes of free disk space isn't good... maybe you should delete all that porn?
15.) Pulling keys off the keyboard and using them as projectiles may seem fun, but when you are missing keys, and all you can type is UCK OU, we'll see who's laughing...

And there you have it, 15 rules for using Computers...

* This one comes from my dad... we had an old computer and the Virus scan kept popping up that there was Adware... so what did my dad do?  Delete AdAware (which removes it)...

Another note is #2, there was a program I once had that advertised Coke, and it said press a button for a place to put your drink... it opened the CD tray.

I tend to dislike a lot of things...  Most of the stuff is just because I harbor a deep hatred for a little thing called stupidity.

Ya, stupidity really sucks... especially since it pretty much just spreads...

Anyways, I guess some of it comes from not completely understanding stuff, but a good portion of the time, I just don't care whether I understand or not...

Just look in the news...  Don Imus gets fired for saying something people don't particularly like...  My opinion?  What the hell happened to freedom of speech?  Besides, he did apologize...  Rappers get to say worse stuff than he said... why can't the Imus lynch mob run after them too?  No?  Hmm... I smell double standards.  Or, how about this, Alabama and a few other states are passing a bill or something that essentially apologizes to all the African Americans for slavery.  I call BS on that, based purely on the fact that not a single person experienced slavery, since it was abolished around 150 years ago...  FEW people, if any, even knew someone who experienced it.  Point is, it happened so long ago, and to ancestors of everyone living now, that I don't see a point in apologizing for it...  The segregation and racism crap?  Yes, apologize for it, there are people old enough to remember those times...  Now, I may not understand everything like that, but to me, it seems that some idiots get ideas in their head and run with them, rather than thinking them through...  Basically... I don't see why anyone should apologize for their ancestors actions, not like it changes anything, does it?

But, beyond that, stupidity really rears its ugly head when it comes to raising kids.

Specifically, crap with school, like Zero Tolerance.  I read an article online about a week ago, where a kid got arrested for throwing a tantrum in class, hitting a teacher, and crawling under a table when the cops arrived... which was filed as resisting arrest.  How old was the kid?  15? 16?  No, try about 6...  Granted, the article was a couple years old or so, but still... it was absurd.

What is the big problem with a Zero Tolerance Policy?  It looks good on paper, but it doesn't work quite so well when it comes down to implementing it.  A Zero Tolerance Policy pretty much says, if you get in trouble, you automatically get THIS punishment.  It is meant to deter troublemaking in school.  Furthermore, it is used as an unbiased form of punishment.  It doesn't matter who you are, you are still required to take the punishment.  I'm not an expert by any stretch of the imagination, but I think it is tailored a little differently in the real world, outside of school.

In schools, however, some of the most ABSURD stuff happens with zero tolerance.  You bring a knife to school in your lunchbox to cut your food up, carry a cellphone (this is actually changing...), disrupt class, whatever, you can get sent to the Principal, and can get suspension.  There is no defending yourself to get a lesser punishment or warning, there is no way around it...  Further problems with it include things such as drugs.  If one kid brings pot to school, and another brings tylenol, they both get in trouble.  It doesn't matter if the tylenol is for a pain splitting headache...  Zero Tolerance kinda looks away from exceptions, and looks more towards stupidity... such as is the case with weapons...

A necklace with a rather large cross on it.
A gun.
A pencil eraser
A pocketknife (which is pretty common where I live)
A necklace with a long chain
Various jewelry
Various tools
A knife

Any one of them could result in expulsion or suspension based on Zero Tolerance...  Now, granted, some of them are real weapons (knife and gun), the others are not uncommon things for people to carry around... pocketknives are carried by so a lot of people I know...  long necklace chains, large necklaces... ANYTHING can be looked at as a potential weapon, which means that ANYONE can get in serious trouble.  Starting to see the stupidity here?  It comes from the fact that there are so many things that folks can look at to be weapons, which means so many people can get into SERIOUS trouble.

Rick and Bubba were talking the other day about a kid who got in trouble for something, I'm thinking either a prank or talking back to a teacher (I forgot what it was, but it wasn't that big of a deal), and he got kicked off the school baseball/basketball/football (I forget what sport it was...) team.  Simply put, with a lot of Zero Tolerance policies, the punishment doesn't fit the crime...

Then you have folks fussing about spanking kids and stuff for misbehaving...

Now, I'm just gonna throw this out there...  There are 2 kinds of people in this world.  People who learn from pain, and people who learn from losing privileges.  Specifically, some kids won't learn anything from getting a spanking, and will only learn to not do something if they have to live without TV for a week.  Other kids can go without anything in the world, but the moment their butt feels like it is on fire, they learn.  This is important in punishment...

Basically, sending a student to ISS (In school suspension, you are basically by yourself and have to do schoolwork all day, dunno much more than that since I've never been in it) can do a world of good, at the same time, the student might think "Hey, this isn't so bad, I'm alone, I don't have to listen to the teacher talk, life is good..."  For the younger kids, it is important to figure out what punishment works better.  If you wanna wean a kid off of being a trouble maker, you gotta learn what hurts him more, physical pain, or mental pain.  A spanking, or time out/grounding?  With so many parents fussing about spanking as a punishment (I'm talking general spanking, not the black and blue, literally can't sit down kind), it means that some of them kids just ain't gonna learn.

My cousin is NOT a kid who learns from time out and groundings... yet everytime he gets in trouble, it is always, go stand in a corner, don't play your videogames for a week...  He doesn't like it, but he doesn't LEARN from it...  He's more of a, "That action results in a stinging butt, I guess I shouldn't do that anymore." kinda kid.

What my idea is, is this.  Make the parents give permission for spanking when they enroll their kid in school.  Then, the teacher, or the principal, or the parent, can decide which is the best way for the child to learn the lesson...  That way, there isn't any get sent home from school for punching a kid, or sit in a classroom by yourself all day.

I dunno though...  I understand times are changing, but I guess where some people see innovation, and revolution in techniques, I see stupidity in changing a formula that works.  As the saying goes, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it..."  Furthermore, use common sense in school when it comes to punishing kids...  If they will learn from ISS or Detention (which, oddly enough, detention at my school was in the morning... not after school), then use it, if they ain't gonna learn from that, then use your imagination and think of something, preferably a hickory switch...  Don't rely on these fancy dancy zero tolerance policies, and don't totally turn your back on forms of punishment like spanking...

You don't know "FUN" until you get stuck behind a wreck for half an hour...especially a wreck on the interstate...

Bad motorcycle accident happened this morning, had traffic backed all the way around an exit to another interstate...  I got stuck for half an hour or so while they stopped traffic to land medflight on the interstate, and get the guy to the hospital.  Hope he's ok, but it does get rough pulling into work 45 min late because traffic is stopped for half an hour or so, and bumper to bumper to bumper after that...

It's raining...

Rain makes me sleepy.  It always has...  I used to fall asleep if I sat next to a window in class when it rained...

Maybe it will stop, but the atmosphere of a rainy day shall persist and make me tired...

Well... since the damn Backpace button made me go BACK, instead of erasing some stuff... let's retype this...

I don't watch many TV shows, specifically...  There is only 3 that I always watch:  Smallville, Supernatural, and Heroes.  My sister got me watching the first two, and the last comes from when I read everything Wikipedia had on it during a long day of work.

I will watch other stuff, such as Family Guy, but most of the time, my TV is set to Discovery Channel.  I love the Discovery Channel, I kinda miss some of the old classics where it would actually show wild animal documentaries, but most of the shows now are really good, anyways.

But, I gotta ask, what has happened to our TV shows?  The days of sitcoms seem to have gone...  You don't see the number of good shows like you used to (the main reason I love Nick at Night...).  I could go on and on listing classics that we'd watch every week with our families, but I won't...

But the weekly features have gone as well...  Friday nights, saturday mornings, and saturday nights...  Fridays would give us the best sitcoms on TV... ABC even had TGIF with a whole night of great shows.  Saturday Mornings would give us the best cartoons that were out there.  Saturday nights would give us great movies...  Of course saturday nights now have Toonami and Adult Swim, which is arguably the best cartoons/anime that Cartoon Network now plays...

But, on the topic of Saturday Morning Cartoons... What happened to them?  I remember so many classics:  Reboot, The Tick, Eek the Cat, Bobby's World, Spider-man, X-men, Power Rangers (back when they were good... even if they weren't a cartoon), other live action shows that were good, heck, it wasn't a saturday morning unless I saw some Schoolhouse Rock.

Everyone remembers (hmm... I used But to start the last 3 paragraphs...) waking up on saturday morning, don't they?  I know I do...  I would wake up at 5 or 6, wait around until the cartoons would start, and eventually fix me something to eat (cold pizza, ravioli... something, never been a big breakfast food for breakfast person).  And I would sit down and flip through the shows to watch stuff I wanted to see...

What happened?  Well, for one, Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon started playing a lot of cartoons, so the need for a specific time to watch them diminished.  NBC and CBS dwindled their cartoons.  NBC shifted towards live action stuff more and more.  ABC sold its soul to Disney by partnering up to show Disney Shows (which have diminished in quality too... gone are the days of Gummi Bears and Talespin).  But yeah, it did diminish.  But so has the quality...  Old school saturday morning cartoons run CIRCLES around most of the newer cartoons, especially the crap Cartoon Network likes playing.  I guess I just miss the glory days, when a cartoon was great...

Even after school shows have diminished to the point that nothing is aired, and anything that is aired, is hardly worth watching...


But what else has gone?  If you think about it, a lot...  Supernatural shows, like Charmed, Buffy, etc have all but vanished.  Comic based cartoons have almost completely disappeared.  Classic cartoons like Yogi or Bugs Bunny can only be found on Boomerang, which not everyone gets...  Adventure shows, like Johnny Quest, or the Centurions, have gone to Boomerang.  What do we have now?  I don't have a clue what sitcom like shows we have, since I don't watch any.  Cartoons are crap like Billy and Mandy or Ed Edd and Eddy.  Drama TV shows and stuff like that are fairly abundant.  Lots of Discovery Channel shows.

Maybe I'm just growing older and this is my way of realizing it, but it just pains me to see how TV shows have dropped in quality (on the whole, there are still a list of great ones...) over the years.

Well... I started my own live journal...

I would like to blame boredom and a certain ice cream loving priest from my guild, for the creation of an account...


Now, onto business...  I guess the first order of business will be a notice that I'm playing around with settings and stuff while I figure out which I like best, that sort of thing...  As for me, I guess time to get to the nitty gritty.

My name is Scotty, and I live in Alabama.  I'm 20 years old, and I am on an alternating schedule at college as a Co-Op.  I'm a gamer by choice, and the main game of my choice is World of Warcraft.  I'm a level 70 druid, specced resto, but I secretly have dreams of returning to the feral build I enjoyed while leveling...  I am in the Alliance Highguard on the Shadow Council server, and I really enjoy it.  For some reason or another, all the druids seem to worship me or something, so they made me the class lead for the time being...  Other stuff...  I really like anime and manga.  If I had to choose, though, I would pick manga as my biggest favorite because I'm not a huge fan of subtitles or American dubs... and I don't understand Japanese.  I'm currently reading One Piece, Naruto, and Bleach.  I just finished up MAR... looking for another manga to start reading, though...  As far as anime, I watch just about anything that Toonami or Adult Swim plays, but I'm not always a fan of it...

I tend to be random at times...  It started when I created a topic called Random Thoughts on my guild's message boards...  It was basically a list of random thoughts I've had over the years...  After a few posts of people questioning my sanity, I turned it into my big post.  I'd come in every day, usually during my lunch break and just toss in whatever popped into my mind...  sometimes it would be a rant (in fact, most of them were rants...), others it would be stuff like how to convince people  you are crazy...  just whatever.  Well, eventually we got a new set of forums, and I revamped my randomness...  Anyways, I would just post whatever.

I think of my randomness on my guild forums as an homage to the glory days of the forum hijackers.  It was a time when even a recruit application could be riddled with stuff, to the point that it was no longer a recruit application, but a mess of hijacking... heck, even our thread about us in real life got hijacked and back on topic a dozen or so times...  But, anyways, that is why I tend to be random... it is a good place to just let my crazy thoughts run amok, though.

Well, I guess I'd better wrap this up.  I'll try to think up of something crazy to put up here eventually...