Programmer, Analyst, Learner, Leader, Gamer

In contrast to how I was feeling last week, this week I feel great. I log into the game and I’m apprehensive expecting something dramating and…. nothing. I have fun, I enjoy the progress the guild is making. Everyone’s motivated. Out first retro night went really well. Overall very exciting stuff. I completed my Psych final with 41 or something minutes left of the 3 and a half hours left. Today or tomorrow I’m going to finish my CIS final to wrap up another successful term at DeVry. Hopefully I should have secured an A in Psych and an A in CIS. Despite all the drama, I have a merger going into affect very very soon. November is going to be a crazy month.

An interview that Kevin Flick of Microsoft (aka Fhearl of HILYMI), conducted with me a few weeks back. He’s going to conduct a series of interviews with gamers for his blog with the sneaky and underhanded goal of helping to demonstrate that gaming is just like any other hobby we may engage in. The interview of me was the first of the series of interviews. He’s not to great with post production work, but it’s a greater interview. http://blogs.technet.com/immerse/archive/2007/10/19/gamer-interview-1-victor-f-laurence-aka-livistos-aka-soriathus.aspx

The interview itself covers my history in gaming and about half of it covers my leadership of the guild Hit it like you mean it. We really went into a lot of high level philosophical stuff in there and really put somethings I do for the guild in perspective. Sometimes I’m too humble about all the work I do.

So many lies. So much negativity. What has fealt like almost daily drama all stemming from the lies of one individual. One individual who I thought I trusted above everyone else. Someone who I listened daily as the daily pulse of the guild. A pathalogical liar on such a distinct level that some psychologists would love to study. All of this has crashed down in what’s fealt like a roller coaster of emotion in the last week. Finally after enough lies all of us started sharing stories, confirming lies upon lies upon lies. First we started with obvious mundane ones, then we worked up to complicated hurtful lies. The straw that broke the camel’s back was the one that damaged the character of multiple members of our guild. So many people are hurt by this that many of us drank ourselves to sleep last night. What’s so horrible about it all is how long we let it continue. We didn’t want to believe it at first, but eventually you break down and it’s all over after that.

The first time I approached him about one of his most disturbing lies which ran for several months. He rationalized all of it and then cried to Robin that I had ‘pegged him’ unfairly as a liar. The second chance was last night when all the officers tried an intervention, but again he simply rationalized all the lies and used his “illness” as a crutch. He also called everyone liars for pointing out he was a liar, that the reasons why our stories he told us didn’t match is because we were lying to each other. So for the protection of this guild, we have decided he needed to be removed from the guild.

Fact is he’s manipulative in the worst way. He gains your confidence through niceities only to later abuse your trust in him. Amanda warned me of this behavior 4 months ago, I didn’t believe her then, I believed him after all the lies he told about her. So many lies… so many lies.

At a certain point it’s easier for you to accept CRAZY outlandish stories to be true because that’s easier for the mind to accept than to believe someone would be crazy enough to make such outlandish stories about someone. It’s easy to believe someone is unstable rather than believe that someone is telling stories about someone being unstable. Crazy stuff. Last night I pretty much had to drink myself to sleep over all this crap. What’s worse of all is that this is the first time I’ve had to blatently kick someone our of our organization that didn’t want to go. We knew he would continue on telling lies and not leave, several people hurt involved in his latest lies demanded he be kicked. So it was done.

At this point we are in a healing phase. We’re working through all the lies he told to each other, forgiving each other for being mad at each other over falsehoods. We’re breaking down the walls of mistrust and the aura of tension that was created by him every day. The amount of pain I’m feeling over this is on the level of my xwife when I finally called it quits with her. I learned nothing, hopefully going forward I’ll be different. Maybe that’s good, maybe that’s bad. I doubt people’s truths now. I doubt my own thoughts. I wonder what of my thoughts are my own? What of my thoughts are put there by the suggestions of other people? I have an internal struggle that will only be healed with time. Thankfully I have 100+ people (online and IRL) who care for me and 1 less person who will be bringing me down day to day.

Expect me to begin writing in my journal again. My head has been a mess. Maybe if I wrote I would have figured this stuff out sooner. Writing for me is very theraputic.

http://blogs.technet.com/immerse/archive/2007/10/08/more-from-newegg-lanfest-2k7-hit-it-like-you-mean-it.aspx

Kevin Flick, aka Fhearl, is our resident Microsoft employee / Microsoft hardware guru. He works for the Human Interfaces Research department of Microsoft and brings ideas from gamers to life by sharing ingenious ideas from gamers with the actual hardware developers. His most recent baby is the Microsoft Sidewinder mouse and at Newegg LANFest 2K7 he pimped not only his mouse but our guild on stage while giving away Mice and Keyboards. Click on the image above to see the whole story on Kevin’s official blog.How’s that for awesome?

Lots more pictures in our private members only area of the forums.