Enthusiasm

Even though I was at the Saturday market off and on all weekend freezing my fingers off, I had a really awesome relaxing weekend.

It all started off Wednesday night where Kerrie and I cracked open the latest Mario game, Mario Galaxy for the Wii. She loved it and I loved the nostalgic feel of Mario 64 in this game. The controls are great, the music is classic, and the whole game feels like Mario 64 v2.0. I give it an 11 on the 10 point Win scale.

Thanksgiving and “turkey hangover day” was really great because neither of us overstuffed. I think it’s the first thanksgiving where I think I might have actually had a net loss in weight instead of gaining 3-4 pounds.

Finally the cherry on the preverbial cake came when Kerrie had her best weekend of sales ever. The cold was insane, but the sales went nuts. She ended up selling around $450 in product over the weekend. Hopefully it wasn’t just because of Turkeyday weekend and hopefully the slight tweaks to our merchandising has something to do with it.

Overall the whole 4 day weekend was full of win. Finding out that HILYMI has pretty much died last night didn’t even spoil my weekend. I just shrugged it off, sadly I was the last to know, but oh well. At least that means the vent server is 100% for the Browncoats.

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I’m a busy man and with my duties as Chief Medical Officer of the Browncoats, I’m the head of both divisions of the medical science wing within our ranks. This means that I need to give direction to Exobilogist recruits and help them be better at what they do, but I’m a medic in training.

Yesterday I decided to do something I told myself I would never do, I took a trip to Foreas base and got myself cloned. My alter ego came out a bit different in the cloning process. He looks just like me except his hair is black instead of brown (and he seems a bit evil). I don’t know maybe I’m being paranoid. For the sake of science and posterity, I have given him my access codes so he can add his own Exobilogist viewpoint to the data I’m gathering in this medical log.

I hope I didn’t make a big mistake…

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After completing my assignments in the Divide toward the end of last week and spending more time in Palisades, a thought popped into my mind, “What’s with the Treebacks?”. Are the Treebacks a revered creature like the elephant of Earth’s India or are they the cow of Earth’s America? This question puzzled me and I went to look up more information in HQ’s database back at Foreas base. I could find very little information in the basic intel on these indigenous creatures other than obvious information such as  “Treebacks travel in herds of 3 to 5 animals and are sometimes accompanied by their young.”

All I personally know is that the Foreans hold the Treebacks in very high regard. I want to know why. Do they hold some secret to the harmony of the planet? Are they a crucial part of the ecosystem? The herds in Palisades especially are very highly protected. I will have to check to see if there is any classified information about the Treebacks available. Right now I’m going to get through this paperwork and maybe later tonight I’ll check the classified AFS data files.

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Normally I like to make weekly entries in my medical log, but last night I found something of special interest that I figured I needed to write it down. I ventured into Palisades last night and was asked to translate a Eloh ruin. I found some symbols that were very similar to ones on my tabula, but many were unknown. In fact the only ones I knew for sure were “Power” and “Today”. After comparing the symbols to other symbols I knew and some creative thinking, I found that the ruin stated “Honor planet today, have power tomorrow“.

I thought it was somewhat appropriate considering my medical log yesterday regarding the Hydro plant and protecting the planet. Even with the war going on around us, I think I’m going to like it here. 

Roleplaying was one thing that was seriously missing in my opinion in World of Warcraft. For some reason it was just really hard to get into it. I could try all I wanted but it just fealt like I was regugitating 10 years of Warcraft lore. I also couldn’t “connect” with my character in a fundimental way. The story seemed like I wasn’t REALLY that influential in the world so it was just… kinda meh.

TR on the other hand I’m REALLY getting into the roleplay aspect of it. I’ve written a few pieces of fan fiction and the folks on the official site liked it so much they started up an official “blog roll” for people with an apptitude for role play blogging of their characters. So I started another LJ blog for Victeonus (http://victeonus.livejournal.com)

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Over the last week it seems like Roland and Eaos have been busy adjusting to life on this new planet, so I’ve been exploring the Divide with Crichton. Deep into the trenches we paved our way exploring the mucky dirty pits filled with Bane and grassy plateaus filled with strange native wildlife. Occasionally we were caught off guard by a convoy of predators. One at a time we can handle pretty well but four of them can be overwhelming even with my medical skills. I had to resuscitate Crichton after she took some nearly terminal wounds on more than one occasion. We learned to listen for the high pitched squeal of their jet engines and avoid them when in packs.

I learned that the power of the Logos is important in more ways than I imagined before. It seems Logos knowledge is needed to be able to access some of their most strongly kept secrets, including a Logos that I finally was able to access the other day. It seems the Bane’s control of this planet is focused on gaining Logos information, although they don’t seem to be as receptive to the knowledge within it. Even at the Pravus research facility which we raided two weeks ago, they didn’t seem to be able to harness the power of Logos directly and instead required machines to be able to gain the information stored within it.

One of the most interesting landmarks within the Divide is the Hydro Electric Plant which generates power from the run off from Eloh Creek. I’m proud to see that even in the foreign land we’re living in, we’re learning from the mistakes we made on Earth by focusing on renewable energy like hydro electric power. It makes sense why the Bane focus their attacks at the plant, they know that if they attack our power we could be crippled. This is why when I hear of a Bane attack on the plant, I’m right there defending it.

Tactics, Logos, and lessons of the past, knowing all these things gives us power. Knowledge we can share with each other. Power we can all gain. Power to defeat the Bane.

Now that I’m not even REMOTELY as stressed as I used to be, it seems like my brain doesn’t need NEARLY as much sleep as it used to. Although now that my brain is rested, it seems like my body is starting to want more sleep. The problem is that now that the two aren’t in sync I can’t sleep even if my body wants to goto bed at 11:00, my mind is awake. I think it’s all starting to adjust but it’s interesting the toll of stress and with it gone how my body and mind are adjusting.

All I gotta say is HOLY JEZ. I spent a long time last night getting my new personal Gallery up (link is on the left http://gallery.victorlaurence.com). The EQ screenshots blew my mind. I found a lot of other screenshots I forgot about as well, like my Horizons screenshots. I still have a TON of EverQuest screenshots to get up, but other than that my Gallery is up to speed. Also Frapps is now setup properly to record video and capture good quality PNG’s properly while in Tabula Rasa.

I went to update my links and LiveJournal made me update my style. Kinda pissed me off at first and then I found a decently cool style. The look is nice and represents the feel that I was going for when I first made my original style. It’s a little girly, just a little too much frills, but it’s alright I can deal.

I hope my readers like it.

The last 2 weeks were a downward spiral of World of Warcraft that finally led to my retirement from WoW. I’m tired of what Blizzard is doing to the game and I think they are rather quickly destroying the game. I’m tired of an easy game that’s frankly boring filled with 90% morons. Not to say that’s the only thing that’s bugging me. Blizzard is making the game have TOOOO many options for the casual gamer which makes my vision of my guild impossible. Why would the casual gamer BOTHER raiding if there are so many new options for attaining loot? Most of all I’m quitting because my brother is done. He’s burnt out, he’s not enjoying the game.

I’ve gone back to my roots and returned to Richard Garriot, not in Ultima Online, but now Tabula Rasa. This sci-fi shooter “aims” to please and even GameSpy gave it 4 out of 5 only because the fealt it lacked polish. Well honestly it does lack polish, but so did WoW. In fact Wow wasn’t even a stable game for the first 3-4 months of it’s release. This game is pleasently stable, works well, is well thought out, crazy fun, and honestly I don’t think I’ve had more fun in a game, let alone an MMMO.

Most of all I’m glad I’m not in a top end leadership position anymore. I will do my best as an officer in the new clan here in Tabula Rasa, but I’ve told the clan leader I can’t be more than a low level officer, JUST enough involvement so I make sure the clan turns out to my liking, but not enough leadership that I’ll be overwelmed again.

P.S. This userpic is the userpic I’ll use for Tabula Rasa posts.