This is just a bit of arbitrary spammage by me, about me, for you.

So, after just over 9 months of agony I am leaving my not so beloved ‘Slave Spar’ as I have come to call it. For those of you that don’t now, I’ve spent the last 10 months toiling away working in retail for 6 days a week… In most ways, it was a lot like pregnancy. I’ve grown tired, annoyed, exhausted and heavier. I can’t express my joy in mere words at it being over, so I won’t!

I have two more ‘fun filled’ days left. So I intend to do what anyone in my position would, yes that’s right, meet as many girls as possible. Hey, there has to be some upside from the 9 months of toil doesn’t there? Here’s hoping that doesn’t result in a pregnancy.

To be honest though, it hasn’t been all bad. I think it’s very important to take a step back in life and truly view things objectively. I’ve learnt a fair bit through working there. About myself, my career path, what I want to do with my life, about my interactions with others and lastly, I’ve made some really cool friends.

Something that really took me by surprise was the big response to my resignation. I’ve had everything from some of my staff members asking me ‘why didn’t I consider them when I decided to leave’, because they don’t want me to leave to others bursting into tears. Despite all the negativity I’ve taken away with me from work, this really opened my eyes. I really didn’t think that I’d had that much of an impact on my staff. To realise how positively I’ve affected others around me in my time there is quite heart warming and makes me feel all warm and fuzzy, despite all the aforementioned negativity…

Moving on though, it’s on to bigger and better things. Graeme moves into sales and don’s the corporate suit and tie. You’ll find out how that turns out soon enough.

I’m busy working on a piece on something I call the ‘Gamer Mentality’. I’ll have it up in the near future. Stay tuned.

G……Out.

This is my return to the land of writing. Much like my favorite dysfunctional, fictional character Hank Moody, I ‘like words’. Despite taking time away from writing due to work, life and the rest of the self destructive symptoms of the rat race, I am now back for good, and I greatly doubt you’ll find this page empty of my ranting again.

I’ve gone through a lot of self reflection and transformation over the past couple of months and unlike the overused metaphor of the butterfly instantly emerging from the cocoon I’m still very much in transformation mode. I’ve realized that everything in life takes time. Nothing happens instantly. If you’re overweight you don’t just wake up one morning looking like a stick insect, errr… I mean super model. Now just you hang on, I know what you’re thinking…. You’re thinking, ‘ewwwww self help’, much the way Calvin (partner in crime to Hobbs) used to run around going ‘ewwwww cooties’.

Well, simply put, you’re wrong.

I believe it’s the smallest things in life that affect you the most. A small realization, a small moment in time, or even a small change of mindset can have the biggest effect on your life. For me one of these realizations was a simple truth, namely, our time on this earth is limited, therefore, live actively, not passively. Society is teaching us to be passive. We are bombarded every day with so much information that we can effectively live our entire lives, talking about others lives as opposed to living our own. Don’t believe me? Let me give you a few examples. TV series, Games, Reality TV, Facebook, Myspace, Celebrity News, Youtube…. The list could go on and on…

We are being taught to escape from our mundane lives using the examples I mentioned. What’s that? Your life isn’t boring? So what you’re telling me is that your daily routine isn’t something like work, gym, food, series, sleep, repeat? But what’s that? You have your fun on the weekends? That’s the time you meet up with your friends for a braai (BBQ) and talk about sport, TV series, Games, Reality TV, Facebook, Myspace, Celebrity News, Youtube….Really? Oh wait… Think about it…

Anyway, that is a long rant that I will gladly discuss with anyone on msn or gtalk… Moving along, it’s this change in my mindset that has led me to follow my passions and spend more time doing the things I love and actually want to be skilled at. Right now those things are music, writing and social dynamics. So that’s what you can expect to see on here in the near future. I’ll also be ranting about anything I feel like. So there!

I’ve left taking over the world for later, seeing as it’s less of a skill and more of a conquest.

How am I to avoid the trap set for me by society? I could rebel and insist on being unique like a sulky child that does things just to spite whoever is pressuring them. But then I would likely end up with my dyed black fleece in my eyes and barbed wire at my wrists. I could give up and become a sheep who lives and breathes the standards that society sets. Standards imposed to inspire ‘normality’. Standards to make me just another face in the crowd, another brick in  the wall or another body in the abattoir.

But where would that leave me? What am I to do if I need to conform to a certain standard in order to succeed in the ‘normal’ business world? As I see it I have no choice. My only choice is to play the game… But I’ll not be the sheep, I’ll be the wolf. Play the shit out of their game and play it so well that they don’t see the wolf hiding beneath the fleece till it is too late.  Conciously shaping myself to become what I want to be and be one step ahead of the sheep. Learning, growing, striving to better myself and leave those in my wake clutching at my coat tails in awe.

Because at the end of the day, the sheep are lost without someone to lead them.

Game on.

Little Graeme is going off to the big city. At least, thats what they’d have you believe, since they clearly dont count London, Reading or the greater part of England as the ‘big city’. But yes, I am moving to Cape Town next week since my attempts to return to the land of milk and honey have failed.

I procured a job at a new gourmet spar called Cape Quarter Foods, opening in [you guessed it] the Cape Quarter in Greenpoint. I will be the assistant manager, or junior store manager. Go team!

I’ve had a fun filled day. Things seem to be taking a turn for the better. Sort of. Tomorrow I need to start working on my English grammar though, so that  will definitely not be so fun filled!

In my internet wonderings today stumbled upon two interesting bits of news.

Firstly, I saw something very exciting today. Onlive. Onlive is a subscription service that is to be launched later this year. This service will stream entire games to your PC. Confused? So was I. The concept is actually quite simple though. Their machines do all the game processing and then transmit the game to your receiver and you play the game on your screen, using your peripherals. The receiver is a small mini-console that plugs into your PC and costs around 50 Pounds.

In theory, this would eliminate the need to buy expensive gaming PC’s and consoles. All you would need is a very basic computer. Hell, you don’t need a console at all because you can connect your PC up to your TV and play games on that. Too good to be true? Unfortunately that is highly likely.

While this idea is amazing in theory, it might not turn out that good in practice. The biggest problem is internet connections. One will likely need a fairly fast internet connection to be able to download the data fast enough. Additionaly, while Onlive are boasting very low latencies, that is on their end. I suspect that once the ball is out of their court and in the hands of the telecommunications companies, that latency will rise a bit and once it does that, who knows how choppy your gaming experience might become. The lesser problem I forsee is that this service will only really be available to first world countries with cheap, high speed internet.  So unfortunately, I think that counts countries like South Africa out. I will definitely be keeping tabs on Onlive to see how it fares once it is launched.

The second thing that I found rather interesting today was that the primary World of Warcraft data website, wowhead has a new background. Needless to say, I find it rather amusing that wowhead have a huge Warhammer Online graphic on their front page. Can you say Epic Win?

That aside, I leave you with two wonderful examples of why my mouth is my worst enemy.

Exhibit A:

Graeme says:
yeah
Graeme says:
I’d love to have someone with a bit of know how
Graeme says:
that I could mess around with
Graeme says:
well
Graeme says:
lol
Graeme says:
FUCK
Graeme says:
how bad does that sound
Graeme says:
I mean someone with musical know how
Sven says:
haha
Sven says:
Sounds like a advert
Sven says:
That belongs in the sleezy section

And, Exhibit B:

2009/03/25 01:01:41 AM Sven It’s late already
2009/03/25 01:02:05 AM Graeme lol
2009/03/25 01:02:06 AM Graeme yeah
2009/03/25 01:02:09 AM Graeme im doing this post
2009/03/25 01:02:14 AM Graeme then Im retiring to bed
2009/03/25 01:02:18 AM Graeme with harry potter
2009/03/25 01:02:21 AM Graeme sigh
2009/03/25 01:02:22 AM Graeme WHY
2009/03/25 01:02:24 AM Graeme do I do this
2009/03/25 01:02:26 AM Graeme to myself
Ok, Bye.

I know, I put Bin-Laden to shame. And I wasn’t even in a cave. Well, I was never really away. I was spending all my time in getting another blog off the ground. It is a blog about everything and anything related to Naruto Arena. I present:

Click Me:

That aside, I am doing an English course in April. So that is pretty exciting stuff. My blogs will most likely become vastly more interesting as I will actually be leaving my house, something that hasn’t really happened for the last 3 months.

I’ve finally given in and have started reading the Harry Potter series. Yeah I know, first Twilight, then Harry Potter. What’s next…Goosebumps!? I think not. I managed to polish off the first book yesterday and I will likely end up barreling my way through the second book tomorrow. I will probably end up doing reviews on the entire series at some stage. Come to think of it, I still owe you a Breaking Dawn review, I best get cracking!

Till next time, may all your Bettie Botts Every Flavour Beans be toffee flavoured! [Not Ear Wax!]

No not a dodgy eyebrow lift like the one Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson does.

I mean the suggestive “if you know what I mean” eyebrow lift, made famous by drunk old men worldwide.

It would appear that I am a champion rambler. No, not one of the idiotic English people that seem to think that if you call walking, “rambling” that it will make it more exciting. You’re walking you idiots. ‘Stabbing yourself in the face’ by any other name is still ‘stabbing yourself in the face’. For those of you that have no idea what I am talking about. Here is the “official” explanation of what the ramblers are:

“The Ramblers is the charity at the heart of walking in Britain. If you walk, we are for you. We work to make it easy for everyone to walk, whether in the countryside, cities, hills, the coast, and on and off the beaten track. We are about all sorts of people doing all sorts of walking in all sorts of places.”

Or, “Idiots that won’t call walking, walking”. I wish they would “ramble” into oncoming traffic. I’m not quite sure exactly how they plan to make walking easier… Unless of course they have their own personal Jesus to perform miracles on people that can’t walk… Somehow I doubt that. Ramblers….grrr

Ramblers aside, I bet you didn’t get the sexual connotation in the opening line. Don’t worry, it was a long shot at best… and that terribad joke aside, I said I would post an artist spotlight today and I didn’t so I’m going straight to hell aren’t I. Don’t suppose I’ll even get to pickup my $200 as I pass go.

Instead of spending my time writing the artist spotlight I had promised, I spent my entire evening transcribing “Go go Naruto” on guitar with a friend of mine. Needless to say it was a long and painful experience. We got about halfway. So tomorrow, round 2! After I have written the artist spotlight

I’ve decided that I drink way too much coffee [again]. My blood probably has so much caffeine in it that I could bottle my blood and sell it as energy drinks. Actually, scratch that idea, I am fairly fond of my blood staying inside me. So I think I’ll probably just end up giving a few mosquitoes one hell of a case of insomnia. Take that you little guerilla bastards.

In other news, my mom is on the verge of giving away her mobile air raid sirens. It seems looking after them is too muchof a hassle, especially with winter approaching. As much as my feathered friends wake me up at ridiculous hours of the morning, I have to admit the idea of that makes me just a bit of a sad panda.

What if they get given to someone that doesn’t look after them well. What if they get sent to become roasts?… and what will happen to my mom if the nazis attack!? She won’t have any warning!

And……

/sleep

Wrong.

Continuing on from my New Moon review, Bella chooses to put her life at risk and rush off to Italy with Alice to try to save Edward from the Volturi. Of course this means she chose Edward over Jacob [oh woe is me, how will I ever recover]. Bella and Alice manage to save Edward when he is literally a step away from dying, only to go from the frying pan into the fire as they are forced to pay Aro, Caius and Marcus a visit. They miraculously manage to survive the encounter and return to Forks. Edward and Bella reconcile and Bella realises that Edward loves her [That took a while]. Police Chief Swan isn’t too happy with that and goes so far as to put Bella under “house arrest” and forbid Edward from entering the house. Bella manages to finalise her vampire conversion for shortly after graduation and Jacob does everything in his power to stop that, despite the fact that he is avoiding her [I wish my grass was like Jacob Black so it would cut itself].

Eclipse kicks off with Charlie releasing Bella from her house arrest, but as he doesn’t approve of Bella spending all her time with the Cullens, her new found freedom is conditional. She needs to spend time with her other friends, particularly Jacob [who is avoiding her like she has the plague], because he is depressed. She also isn’t allowed anywhere near Seattle because of a series of gruesome murders. As it turns out, these murders are the work of vampires. Bella wants to see Jacob but Edward refuses because of the danger an unpredictable young werewolf poses.

Edward reminds Bella about the plane tickets she received on her previous birthday and he convinces her to go see her mother the following weekend. Bella returns from her weekend away with Edward to find that Jacob has been chain-calling her house looking for her. He shows up the next morning at her school and proceeds to blurt out what happened while she and Edward were away. There was very nearly a Cullen vs Quileute death-match because the families ran into one another while they were both hunting the same target… Victoria.

Yeah, Victoria hasn’t given up quite yet. Unfortunately Victoria gets away and of course, this fuels Bella’s desire to become a vampire sooner rather than later. The only problem with that is that the Cullens are convinced that they can protect her and as we know, Bella is too afraid of marriage to accept Edwards condition to change her. [Go figure, the one woman on the face of the earth that is afraid of marriage].

Bella constantly tries to visit Jacob, despite Edward’s orders and this causes him to enlist Alice to look after [kidnap] her while he is hunting. Edward returns and proceeds to take Bella home, only to find that an unknown vampire has been in Bella’s house. Could it have been the Volturi?

Aside from the unknown vampire, the Cullens have another problem looming. The vampire murders in Seattle are getting worse and before long the Volturi will intervene, which is something the Cullens do not want as Bella is still human. They only have one choice, they have to take care of the rogue vampires themselves.

The situation intensifies as the Cullens realise that the vampires causing the havoc in Seattle are an army of newborns. To make matters worse, the most likely reason for someone to create an army of newborns would be to to use them to destroy a coven of nearby vampires. The only coven nearby Seattle is the Cullen family. However, that theory turns out to be slightly incorrect, as they soon discover. The unknown vampire that was in Bella’s room wasn’t a member of the Volturi and the newborn army isn’t being sent to destroy the Cullen family. Their target is Bella.

By now you should be used to the action increasing as you move towards the end of each book. Stephenie Meyer’s writing style definitely builds up the story to a climax at the end of each book. A bit like a piece of good music, she keeps the anticipation building, giving you just enough to keep you interested and thirsting for more, till eventually there is a flood of action. A bit like good sex, come to think of it.

Unlike New Moon, Eclipse has a fair bit of action [Thank God]. No, I don’t mean that Edward and Bella have sex. Don’t be ridiculous! You should know better by now. I meant action, action. Like Chuck Norris kicking babies action [Disclaimer: I am in no way implying that Chuck Norris kicks babies]. Throughout the entire book the tension between the werewolves and the vampires is palpable, specifically the tension between Jacob and Edward. Silently I was hoping for a bit of a duel between them, just to see Edward give that mongrel a good beat-down, but alas, that was not to be. We do however get to see a lot of action when the newborn army arrives in Forks.

True to form, Stephenie conjures up the emotions in the book perfectly. Which unfortunately for me, make me want to smack Jacob Black around, a lot. Now I know Jacob is fictional, but Taylor Lautner isn’t! Score! The reason for my aggression is that Jacob is about 5 times more annoying in Eclipse than he was in New Moon. I know, you’re thinking that it’s impossible. You’re wrong. Despite the fact that Edward has returned and that he and Bella are happy, Jacob just will not give up.

For some reason this really annoys me. Probably because of the fact that in real life there are always guys out there that don’t care whether a girl has a boyfriend or not. You know the kind I mean, the “smooth operators” that often manage to swoop in and point out all your bad points to your girlfriend long enough to fool her so they can get what they want. Of course then it’s too late. Game over for your relationship because you can’t trust her. He constantly tries make moves on Bella and every time he fails he uses the feelings he knows Bella has for him to get her to forgive him. Needless to say, Jacob Black is my least favourite character in Eclipse.

That aside, there are a few funny moments in Eclipse that you can probably relate to. The best of which is probably the “sex talk” that Charlie feels obliged to have with Bella. This is closely followed by all the Cullen “in jokes” that return in this book.

Overall I thoroughly enjoyed Eclipse. Jacob Black annoyed me to no end but that aside, I struggled to put it down. If you already read the first two books of the Twilight Saga then I am fairly sure that I don’t need to convince you to read Eclipse, as I’m pretty sure you can’t wait to get your hands [or grubby little paws if you're a member of Team Jacob] on Eclipse already.

So you want to be a raider do you? You want to join a new guild and be liked by your peers and officers? Well, stick with me kid and you’ll go far.

I’ve been around the block a few times and I have seen pretty much everything when it comes to the raiding environment. I’ve been that new recruit and I’ve been the officer. I’ve been in a casual guild and I’ve been in that server first guild. In this series I am going to tell you what you need to know in order to get accepted into a guild and how make it through being a trial successfully as opposed to becoming the guild Donald.

The first step towards becoming a raider is ofcourse applying to that raiding guild you have your eye on. Most guilds will have an application template on their website and they are generally all very similar. This could be a little daunting, especially if your English is not your first language. Fear not my young padawan, this is easy. Let’s run through a few of the questions you’re likely to come across.

• Age:

Many guilds prefer not to accept members under the age of 18 because of issues that might arise because of school and/or parent issues. If you are under 18, lie like your life depends on it! No, seriously, be honest about your age up front and hope for the best.

• Character Name:

You may want to include your realm if the guild you are applying to is not on the same realm as your character.

• Character Class and Spec:

If you are a hybrid class, include any offspec experience and gear that you have.

• Previous WoW Experience:

Include your previous raiding experience, amount of time you have been playing the game and what experience you have with other classes (if any).

• Previous Guild and Reasons for Leaving:

Be sure to be honest here as sometimes the guild you are applying to may check with your previous guild.

• Do you know any “SuperCoolGuild” members?

Self explanatory.

• Tell us why you want to join SuperCoolGuild:

This question can make or break your application. My best advice here is to do some research into the guild you are applying to. What is their progression like? Which of their rules and/or policies do you like the most? What is their guild community like? Find out some good reasons why you want to join them and tell them. Far too often I have seen applications saying “because I want to join a good guild and raid a lot”. That answer is way too generic and all you will achieve with that is to make the officers reading your application fall asleep.

• For bonus SuperCoolPoints™, tell us a joke about llamas:

Some guilds include questions like this in order to gauge the personality and individuality of the applicants. This is your chance to be unique and stand out, so take it! If however you really cannot think of any good llama jokes, resort to google and link them the Llama song.

That covers most of the questions you are likely to come across in an application form. Aside from these questions in particular, when dealing with a new prospective guild there are a few golden rules you want follow to the letter.

• Use capitals and punctuation. I cannot stress this enough. If you are applying to an English guild and English is not your first language, then tell them that so that they know you aren’t an idiot. If English is your first language and you don’t take the effort to fill out their form in proper English they won’t take the effort to invite you to their guild. So, do not use l33tspeak becuz dey will not no (or care) wut you r talkin about.

• If you are not sure whether you should include something, put it in anyway. You can never give them too much information about yourself.

• Try to stand out and if possible, be witty. First impressions are important and this is your chance to make a good first impression.

• Lastly, be honest. If they find out that you have bent the truth about anything, they will have no reason to believe anything you said.

That’s it for applications. Hopefully you will now have the competitive edge compared to all the other people applying to that guild that you so desperately want to join!

Next time round I will be discussing that stressful first instance run or raid with your potential guild.

]]> http://graemedt.wordpress.com/2009/03/13/world-of-warcraft-raiding-101-the-application/feed/ 1 graemedt http://graemedt.wordpress.com/2009/03/13/worldscom-to-sue-the-makers-of-world-of-warcraft-and-second-life/ http://graemedt.wordpress.com/2009/03/13/worldscom-to-sue-the-makers-of-world-of-warcraft-and-second-life/#comments Fri, 13 Mar 2009 01:19:18 +0000 graemedt http://graemedt.wordpress.com/?p=242 ]]> There are few things that annoy me more than the ever popular act of suing someone. Well, maybe mosquitoes are right up there, but people suing each other and companies at the drop of a hat is not far behind.

In today’s culture [and particularly in America. Sorry, but it's true Americans] you cannot step out of your house without facing a potential lawsuit. Don’t believe me? See this example: A woman who got drunk at an office party and crashed her car, successfully sued her employer in 1995 for allowing her to drive — even though her firm offered a cab ride or accommodation if she gave up her keys. Linda Hunt, 52, from Ontario, Canada won more than $300,000 in damages and interest from Sutton Group Realty Ltd, after arguing her boss should have stopped her from driving home in a snowstorm. People are dragging each other to court over trivial things [often their own stupidity] because they see a pot of gold at the end of that court room rainbow. Yes, ofcourse, it’s all about the money.

Enter Worlds.com. What’s that you say? You have no idea who that is? Neither did I. In fact I am pretty sure no one knew who Worlds.com was before they spotted the pot of gold at the end of the court room rainbow. It turns out that Worlds.com is a company that created virtual world’s in the 90′s. Yes, you heard right, the 90′s. Michael Jackson was still partially black back then.

As far as I can tell, World’s.com has had no real impact on any of the games that have paved the way for the current generation of MMO’s. It also looks as if they have essentially done nothing as a company since the 1990′s. Take a look at their website and decide for yourself. To me it looks like that website, along with the graphics and movies in the “About” section, havent been updated since well before the new millenium. Hell, the cut scenes in Warcraft 2 look better. So what’ the big deal with Worlds.com you ask?

Well, in the late 90′s Worlds.com inherited a few patents regarding “virtual worlds”, most notably US patent 7,181,690 titled “System and Method for Enabling Users to Interact in a Virtual Space”. So, after years of essentially not using these patents in any way, what does Worlds.com do? They decide to sue the companies running MMO’s that refuse to enter licensing negotiations with them. Why? Because the idea of a scalable virtual world with thousands of users is their patented intellectual property. Oh yes. Pot of fucking courtroom gold.

They have already targeted NCSoft, the maker of games such as City of Heroes, Lineage and Guild Wars. Worlds.com CEO Thom Kidrin has also stated that if the suit against NCsoft is successful, that he intends to go after World of Warcraft and Second Life as well. I suppose I can’t blame him, one can never have enough court room gold can you?

Honestly, this kind of thing sickens me. I’d love to sit down with Thom Kidrin and ask him two simple questions. Why now? Why didn’t Worlds.com think about this way back when the first MMO’s started appearing? Oh wait, thats right, the MMO’s weren’t making enough money back then. Hmmmm courtroom gold… So tasty.

This entire situation seems highly unrealistic to me. Worlds.com are suing these companies for using a general idea. There is no definite system, software or graphical interface involved. If this was the way things worked, then I am surprised MacDonalds hasn’t sued Burger King for making and selling burgers.

Worlds.com insist that they do not want to put anyone out of business, they just want to be paid licensing fees for what they consider to be their lawful intellectual property. Oh so that’s it, you just want money for doing nothing. Right. I honestly hope that Worlds.com loses this lawsuit. In fact I hope that NCsoft somehow manages to counter sue [as unlikely as that is] and absolutely destroy Worlds.com.

What do you think?