Tag Archives: Personal

Games, Personal

Realizations on Modern Day PC MMO Gaming.

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Boredom is a powerful and deadly drug in this modern day world… It can cause us to view some rather awful things that our human eyes were never ever meant to see. Great example was the viral “2 girls 1 cup” video that many laid eyes to and lead to some great “reaction” videos on YouTube. However… It has lead me to a rather interesting cross-road. I have lost quite a number of friends from the ex wreaking her drama around town which is a terrible shame really. In turn, this has caused me to play with an odd thought my cousin Sol tuned me to…

Zero, I dare to say that that your laptop could run World of Warcraft… I know you are getting cabin fever when people call out and cancel to your hang-outs. I have had friends who couldn’t even run Guild Wars with low settings on their machines, but somehow World of Warcraft runs like a champ. Plus you may have some fun on top of everything. Just hit up Blizzard’s World of Warcraft site and get your free trial key.

I would give it a shot and see what could come out of it… but sadly… there was one thing limiting me from playing. The updates. World of Warcraft’s base install from a v1.0.0 DVD took 20 minutes and about 2GB of hard disk space. Then add that there are several patches that lead to v2.4.0 that are about 450+MB a piece and NOT a direct “update to 2.4.0 patch” upgrade… Over a base DSL connection, that’s a rather agonizing download… I am on v2.0.1 updating to 2.4.0 currently at 24%, the patch being about 1GB in size, and my speeds from P2P downloads reading at 26 kb/s to 76 kb/s. The estimated time of completion being close to 5-6 hours. I could deal with slow updating, but that’s a rather hefty lot to be downloading almost 3-4GB of compressed game data just to enter the game. At the same time… Guild Wars has it’s own share of things… If you install the client, it does have to sync up with the server to download client software updates which can be agonizing as well. I assume that having to download all of the data before playing is much better than entering a zone and being prohibited from playing until the zone data completes, which is a slight issue I have with Guild Wars.

Why?

I would try to go somewhere like a zone after entering a town and my in-game friends would message me to death but due to the zone loading, I couldn’t see squat. I digress…

I haven’t played World of Warcraft in a long while, save for the one time Cousin Sol let me have a taste early on just to see… I didn’t care for it much then, as I had liked how polished out Guild Wars was with regard to errata. It should be interesting to see how things are now in the game after so many “nerfs” that have balanced/unbalanced (depending on your take) the game play.

It’s a shame my family doesn’t want to step into Verizon FiOS but I don’t have much choice. I will say that if World of Warcraft does run on my laptop, albeit crudely… 1) I will probably be seeking a dedicated Windows laptop for gaming and proprietary program use. Even if it does mean I have to donate Suzaku to my family and means I may not be using Linux too much… I don’t mind charity for them. 2) I will probably ask family to consider FiOS for bandwidth reasons.

I will say that I don’t plan to have World of Warcraft take over my life, I have decent self control from working out and knowing I only have a few years left in my pharmacy studies anyhow.

Personal, Site News

Charity begets Elegance [Thank You Post]

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This past Sunday, I got my friend Wendy’s computer cleaned to the bare system and meddled with her request to have the system running Windows XP again. It took me a few hours to get it going but once all was well, it was grand. Wendy felt bad that I didn’t drink too much on my charity effort and wanted to do something a little more classy for me. She remembered that at the offices of ZeroXR, all I just had was a bottle of Yamazaki 12 year old whiskey and remembered I was trying to keep it only for special occasions… Well last night she ended up presenting me something far too kind for anyone who’s a fan of me as a friend or my site.

Shades of Blue

I was rewarded with a 750mL bottle of Disaronno Amaretto and a 750mL bottle of Bailey’s Mint Chocolate Irish Cream. I didn’t have much to drink earlier in the night, but it was spectacular to finish a night of consoling a few of my very close friends with romantic problems to have those bottles in my hands. The Disaronno I have had, however, the Bailey’s was rather new to me. I decided to have some in the safety of the office of ZeroXR after hours over ice. The silky dark chocolate laced with a refreshing hint of the mint made it stunning to behold. The best way to describe it be comparing it to a drive in a very windy mountain road with the top dropped down and the temperature of the air being 70F to just relax in simple opulence.

The two new bottles of liquor have earned their place as part of my stash of thinking liquors. By thinking liquors, I mean products that will be a “staple” for when I am buckling down hard on meaningful posts for the site and that could definitely use something to unwind and unlock my potentials. Yamazaki is purely too special to be squandered away… That’s for truly joyous occasions. Bailey’s and Disaronno however are wonderful pleasures that aren’t too difficult to buy.

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MMO’s are one hell of a drug…

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Where do I begin…

I remember living the alone life and watching my life depressively fall apart. I was the low man on the totem pole at the office. My course-work was a shining example of a guy who had too many things to worry about and school could hit the back-burner. I will admit that I had a bad problem with alcohol addiction and only because I lacked supportive and close friends to break me from the slump. I only found one outlet for my loneliness and that was through online gaming. Sure, I was drunk most of the time I played, but for the few hours of my evening… I could be a character who was kind and sympathetic to other travellers of a fantasy world with mythical beasts and denizens. However… with how much computer gaming has changed with the years, my gaming computer can’t even barely play Guild Wars anymore. My laptop had a shot with the game, but the graphics chips just couldn’t handle splitting processor power to display the game and processing the game data at the same time. I have had to take a forceful retirement of gaming all because of dated hardware.

With my status change to an “eligible bachelor in training” (quoted from my boss) and with my reputation in Dallas being a tad tarnished… It’s been a little hard to try to do damage control to re-establish myself as a reputable person. With friends in summer school and some of my distant friends unable to take vacations to Dallas, I have been at a rather odd loss to going to the bars and wine parlors to only drink alone or watch my attempts to strike conversation only go so far. Then there are days where misery makes me yearn to put my time into a game… but I have lost my gaming consoles save for my PSP and DS and I lack funding for the new generation systems as well as a TV. I lack a digital SLR camera to fuel my hobby of macro photography.

Sad to say… I almost want another gaming computer. I know that there’s college for me around the corner… Lots of laptops on the retail market at the entry prices of $600 have GeForce 8000M series or ATi Mobility Radeon cards with supple processing power and RAM to boot. Not that I have anything against my loyal Linux laptop Suzaku, but booting into Windows bogs down the poor 1.73gHz Centrino from doing its job and I am damn near close to scrapping that partition… In essence, I’d rather have a dedicated Windows machine for gaming, Windows Mobile phone back-ups/hacking/modification, and proprietary academic programs that do not play nice in Wine or Virtual Box. I almost want to fork out the cash for a modest machine to play an FPS game, Guild Wars or even, dare I say, World of WarCraft. I have hated the cabin fever of staying in with nothing to do and even more so that my machine is so limited and my old gaming tower is damn near useless.

I guess ultimately what I am saying is… LOL! When friends turn me down to go out on the town to enjoy the night life over a pleasant drink and maybe dinner… I’d like to have an alternate plan to bask in the greatness of MMO’s and maybe feed my gamer side when no one online feels the need to talk to me. (I can assure you that I would not be neglecting ZeroXR 13mg in any form of fashion.)

I think I know what my next purchases will be, should I be able to hobble up my expenses… a new Windows laptop for strict use that minimize it from being a full time machine and a Canon Digital Rebel XSi with a 4 or 8GB high speed SD card as items celebrating my liberation from debts. I have just a little more to go before I am free from the biggest financial bondage… To be free of personal debts is something that I am so very close to concluding. I cannot thank my family enough for giving my that one chance to prove my filial worth as as son and to start over as an upstanding man in society.

Personal, Rant

[Editorial] Empowering Debilitating Words

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A while back… My dear friend dare2dreamer had told me quite the interesting anecdote that involved the skill-toy folks. The tale was quite interesting and I thought the resolution that came to it was quite good!

One of my friends had posted a video of his demos online and some egotistical fellow out in New York basically slammed him for his demo. This person went as far as picking out “flaws” in my friend’s demo and even went as far as calling him “mediocre” and his skills “amateur”. Of course, this bothered my friend… however, the guy out in New York claimed he was doing skill-toy stuff on a professional level and made claims that the mediocre skills would not be taken seriously. I decided to pick apart the “professionals” use of the word “mediocre” and decided to re-spin it as a positive. We were joking around and going “I’m mediocre!” with enthusiasm. In essence, we turned the word mediocre from meaning “ordinary” to “awesome”. We may even go as far as making t-shirts just for kicks and have my friend do another demo video of his skills with the t-shirt. In all seriousness, it should have never gone this far.

With regard to this uplifting tale, I can see how we as humans can let debilitating testimony get us down. I know with personal experience that I have let too many trample on me just for the sake of their own glory to just simply gloat “I am better/faster/stronger/[insert misc adj. here] than you.” I have been spinning attacks made on me to a better light, because honestly… what’s the point of getting disturbed with pathetic and cheap-shot attacks? The next time you encounter someone taking a cheap shot at you by saying something that is derogatory… Turn it into something much better!

After all… We’re all mediocre! 😀

Edit: Get your “Mediocre” and “Am I Mediocre Yet” Apparel below!

“Am I Mediocre Yet?” Shop
“Mediocre” Shop

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The Journey East: Unlocking Limits at A&M Commerce

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Well… It was a fun journey. Sol and I had arisen from our sleep at about 5:50am yesterday to go east. We both couldn’t really sleep from how we both have messed up our sleep cycles. The first stop of course was to 7-11 for early morning refreshment and food. I had my 710mL can of Monster Lo-Carb with a croissant while Sol got a English muffin with a can of Rockstar Light Vanilla. After we scarfed down our food and all… The GPS from my phone got a lock on the location and directional data… We proceeded onward!

I will admit that 380 from Mckinney through all the way up to Greenville is horrible boring. Lots of boring roads and a whole lot of nothing. There was the lake, but I quote Sol on this one:

“What the hell dude… It looks murky and with the branches sticking out of the waters… it looks almost like a marsh!” – Sol

We did however see lots of fireworks shops setting up their booths and trailers for the upcoming event of the Forth of July, sadly none were open… $3 artillery shells does sound awful tasty in retrospect. On jumping off of 380 to I30, we saw probably one of the greatest “1337” sights ever however the worst crime of it all was we were too damn far to take a damn picture. There was an Asian grill called………. Ninja Grill. For this infraction, I will post the address here for those who want to either pass by it, dine there, or phone them up:

Ninja Grill
1218 I 30
Greenville, TX 75402
903-454-0102

Running I30 to 50 was another boring stretch of road again… but then again… so was running 50 until I finally was reunited with the “Welcome to Commerce” sign and the sight of Whitley Hall (my dormatory). This time around, the campus was rather busy with summer students living off campus and attending classes for the summer time. I would seek out the Agricultural Technologies building for the Arts and Sciences advisor to unlock my holds and sign up for classes. The surprising thing to find was the fact that I am basically a little more than half way done with my education. Take into consideration that I had been side tracked for almost 4 years and even quit school for nearly 2 years, that’s really impressive. I was eligible for an astounding 19 hours, but I decided to take a modest 14 hours just to keep things tolerable and try to merge in work. I will definitely have to see how my employment will work… because I know for a fact that I will have to seek some employment to finish the last of my car note.

I also managed to talk to my housing committee about my meal arrangements and reduced my plan to a lower scale one factoring that I will be completely on campus 4 days out of 7 days a week as well as buying bulk snacks and supplies. On top of that, most of the construction has finished compared to when I was at Commerce in January so I was able to take a look at the mess hall and Mane Card Office. I ended up getting my ID made so I could have it then and there rather than wait in a line to get it.

Other than that… The dates are settled. August 20 I am extracted out to Whitley Hall to commence preparations and acquaint myself to my surroundings. August 25th is my official “Mission Start” date for school and classes. I definitely like how my classes are configured… Sure, I have to rise at the tip of dawn, but to be done by 11am (save for Monday and a lab course that lasts until 6pm) is a fair trade. That gives me time for school work and working out which is ideally what I want. I know working full time and then carrying an encumbering debt was the main issue that hindered my education, but to be free of the encumbering debt is quite liberating.

Logistically speaking… Dorm move-in for the university begins 8/20/2008. Classes begin 8/25/2008. My assumption is that I am to make my final move on Sunday 8/24/2008. We will see how things hold up. I know for one… I do hope to keep ZeroXR 13mg in good shape.

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[Thank You] My thanks to Kwesta for vindicating me!

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Last night, I had met up Kwesta to talk about helping him launch his own personal domain and such. I actually failed to mention the highlight of the evening’s meet-up. For once, I actually spoke fashion with him as he had taken note that I was dressed to the times. This actually made me feel vindicated. I hang out with a good number of friends, but they aren’t typically up with the clothing styles and trends… (Disclaimer, I still love you all!) To hear his compliment made my day as I never got much verification if any that I was not dressing according to the times or if I was making actual fashion faux pas. I know that Kwesta himself is up to the times as he is affiliated with Global Fashion News and is always looking sharp himself… He can’t possibly be wrong!

There were a few people who seemed to hold their doubts about me ever possessing style… To them, I will leave this post with the best and most timeless phrase: “Told ya so.” 😉

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A Ray of Hope and A Journey East

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Well… Today’s been interesting. Found a decent little car windshield mount for my phone for cheap and I rather like it. It has my phone oriented in a way that can present my GPS clearly, which is very important for when that need arises. It didn’t cost me much coin and that made my day a little brighter. I will be testing it out on the open roads tomorrow.

Work at the office was rather relaxing for once and not at a frantic pace. I did however wire myself up with a 700mL “can” of Monster Lo-Carb and the reaction of my boss looking at the monstrosity of a can was priceless!

“Really dude? Really? Thing looks like an oil filter.“

Then my subordinate eating ice cream with chopsticks took the cake for the day… Yeah… A sad day indeed.

Things picked up knowing that Sol would be awaiting me at my residence. He will be accompanying me to my journey to Commerce.

My colleague wanted to meet up on launching himself as a brand on the web, so I would meet him up for food and drink while bantering about things. I did manage to network with him so it may lead to a tangent here on ZeroXR 13mg for a potential set of fashion and men’s care segments to keep unique content rolling. Rest assured, I will be playing with Linux distributions, games, and other technologies as well still. I am looking into the male fashion and care tangent as some have rather liked my work on straight razor shaving and anything for geeks looking into being stylish is always a good thing!

In 6 hours… I will awaken to drive to Commerce, Texas to discuss with my school about what I need to do before I may register for my classes and such. I know for sure that I hope to be back in the burg of Dallas by mid day to talk to banks and financial establishments on procuring monies for school. Let’s hope that I can hit the tasks I need to complete before everything surges at me like a river. I may have Sol assist me in logging my adventures tomorrow, so don’t be surprised if you end up seeing a few quotables from him.

Personal, Rant

Damn Vehicular Envy and Lust, We Meet Again!

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Machinery and throttle have been in my blood since I was a wee lad… Most of my fans know that I had a very modest Acura Integra sedan as my “intro” car. I had observed and assisted my father with repairing his cars, so naturally my interest in cars is profound from watching the machinery evolve from a primitive rat’s nest to a very neat compacted power plant with wiring and hose work that almost looks beautiful. Sure, the bodies of cars have seen some bad days where you have designers butcher misshape metal into abominations… at the same time, you also have artisans trying to push the limits for new styles but embracing traditions.

I made the foolish mistake of thinking I could turn a project car into a daily driver… but it was one hell of a lesson. The majority of the foolishness was the fact that I was desiring too much for a return to my days of glory. Oh well, one day I will have my chance to revive Project Phoenix and relive my old days…

Continue reading Damn Vehicular Envy and Lust, We Meet Again! →

Personal, Rant

[Rant] Humanity, Thou Art Not as Sacred as Thy Claims…

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Proceed with Caution

Disclaimer: I am not a proponent of religion over science nor am I a part of a Buddhist sect. This is just a personal musing I happened to stumble on.

Last night, I got into a rather heated debate with a few friends of mine in regards to religion and how so many people are lacking in their faith in the modern day. Sure, we have science, but does it eliminate that there are forces beyond our own that we should revere and respect? It got my friends talking on how people almost have become egocentric with how society has advanced more and more in technology. Conversely, when the world turns topsy-turvey to these same people, they start spouting off something close to the following rhetoric:

Dear God, I am (in) [insert random expletive phrase here]. I pray to God that I am not [insert expletive here]. I never wanted it to become like that! Please God, help me!

Continue reading [Rant] Humanity, Thou Art Not as Sacred as Thy Claims… →

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Dropping the Loot and Honoring the Gods and Deities.

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My family decided to take their jade chariot to to the Buddhist temple and participate in festivities to delight the spirit. I figured that it was in Sol’s neighborhood, so why not join them in their journey and bring my prize and Suzaku with me.

At the temple, I was at least able to make peace with the gods and deities who have gotten me thus far. I would run into Sol and we’d hang together while partaking in lunch and prayer. To eat Vietnamese Buddhist cuisine was something I had not had in the last few years… It made me realize how far I have come with regards to humility. If anything I have been far too merciful on myself and have not given myself enough credit. After reciting my prayers to the statues representative of their gods… I would make my way to Sol’s home to deliver him the Jawbone.

On dropping by Sol’s house… When I would pull the loot from my bag to pass it to him, the following image was his reaction…

OMGZ~! I SEE WUT U HAZ THAR!!!!
Sol going "OMGZ!!!"

I close out by saying that a day of repentance and prayer with a dose of ZeroXR fun is always a good time!