Human Brutality

Reading Bill Zeller's last letter to the world made me realize how brutal we human can be to our own childrens, our legacy, our ever extending life. Here are his words...

Bill Zeller

I have the urge to declare my sanity and justify my actions, but I assume I'll never be able to convince anyone that this was the right decision. Maybe it's true that anyone who does this is insane by definition, but I can at least explain my reasoning. I considered not writing any of this because of how personal it is, but I like tying up loose ends and don't want people to wonder why I did this. Since I've never spoken to anyone about what happened to me, people would likely draw the wrong conclusions.

My first memories as a child are of being raped, repeatedly. This has affected every aspect of my life. This darkness, which is the only way I can describe it, has followed me like a fog, but at times intensified and overwhelmed me, usually triggered by a distinct situation. In kindergarten I couldn't use the bathroom and would stand petrified whenever I needed to, which started a trend of awkward and unexplained social behavior. The damage that was done to my body still prevents me from using the bathroom normally, but now it's less of a physical impediment than a daily reminder of what was done to me.

This darkness followed me as I grew up. I remember spending hours playing with legos, having my world consist of me and a box of cold, plastic blocks. Just waiting for everything to end. It's the same thing I do now, but instead of legos it's surfing the web or reading or listening to a baseball game. Most of my life has been spent feeling dead inside, waiting for my body to catch up.

At times growing up I would feel inconsolable rage, but I never connected this to what happened until puberty. I was able to keep the darkness at bay for a few hours at a time by doing things that required intense concentration, but it would always come back. Programming appealed to me for this reason. I was never particularly fond of computers or mathematically inclined, but the temporary peace it would provide was like a drug. But the darkness always returned and built up something like a tolerance, because programming has become less and less of a refuge.

The darkness is with me nearly every time I wake up. I feel like a grime is covering me. I feel like I'm trapped in a contimated body that no amount of washing will clean. Whenever I think about what happened I feel manic and itchy and can't concentrate on anything else. It manifests itself in hours of eating or staying up for days at a time or sleeping for sixteen hours straight or week long programming binges or constantly going to the gym. I'm exhausted from feeling like this every hour of every day.

Three to four nights a week I have nightmares about what happened. It makes me avoid sleep and constantly tired, because sleeping with what feels like hours of nightmares is not restful. I wake up sweaty and furious. I'm reminded every morning of what was done to me and the control it has over my life.

I've never been able to stop thinking about what happened to me and this hampered my social interactions. I would be angry and lost in thought and then be interrupted by someone saying "Hi" or making small talk, unable to understand why I seemed cold and distant. I walked around, viewing the outside world from a distant portal behind my eyes, unable to perform normal human niceties. I wondered what it would be like to take to other people without what happened constantly on my mind, and I wondered if other people had similar experiences that they were better able to mask.

Alcohol was also something that let me escape the darkness. It would always find me later, though, and it was always angry that I managed to escape and it made me pay. Many of the irresponsible things I did were the result of the darkness. Obviously I'm responsible for every decision and action, including this one, but there are reasons why things happen the way they do.

Alcohol and other drugs provided a way to ignore the realities of my situation. It was easy to spend the night drinking and forget that I had no future to look forward to. I never liked what alcohol did to me, but it was better than facing my existence honestly. I haven't touched alcohol or any other drug in over seven months (and no drugs or alcohol will be involved when I do this) and this has forced me to evaluate my life in an honest and clear way. There's no future here. The darkness will always be with me.

I used to think if I solved some problem or achieved some goal, maybe he would leave. It was comforting to identify tangible issues as the source of my problems instead of something that I'll never be able to change. I thought that if I got into to a good college, or a good grad school, or lost weight, or went to the gym nearly every day for a year, or created programs that millions of people used, or spent a summer or California or New York or published papers that I was proud of, then maybe I would feel some peace and not be constantly haunted and unhappy. But nothing I did made a dent in how depressed I was on a daily basis and nothing was in any way fulfilling. I'm not sure why I ever thought that would change anything.

I didn't realize how deep a hold he had on me and my life until my first relationship. I stupidly assumed that no matter how the darkness affected me personally, my romantic relationships would somehow be separated and protected. Growing up I viewed my future relationships as a possible escape from this thing that haunts me every day, but I began to realize how entangled it was with every aspect of my life and how it is never going to release me. Instead of being an escape, relationships and romantic contact with other people only intensified everything about him that I couldn't stand. I will never be able to have a relationship in which he is not the focus, affecting every aspect of my romantic interactions.

Relationships always started out fine and I'd be able to ignore him for a few weeks. But as we got closer emotionally the darkness would return and every night it'd be me, her and the darkness in a black and gruesome threesome. He would surround me and penetrate me and the more we did the more intense it became. It made me hate being touched, because as long as we were separated I could view her like an outsider viewing something good and kind and untainted. Once we touched, the darkness would envelope her too and take her over and the evil inside me would surround her. I always felt like I was infecting anyone I was with.

Relationships didn't work. No one I dated was the right match, and I thought that maybe if I found the right person it would overwhelm him. Part of me knew that finding the right person wouldn't help, so I became interested in girls who obviously had no interest in me. For a while I thought I was gay. I convinced myself that it wasn't the darkness at all, but rather my orientation, because this would give me control over why things didn't feel "right". The fact that the darkness affected sexual matters most intensely made this idea make some sense and I convinced myself of this for a number of years, starting in college after my first relationship ended. I told people I was gay (at Trinity, not at Princeton), even though I wasn't attracted to men and kept finding myself interested in girls. Because if being gay wasn't the answer, then what was? People thought I was avoiding my orientation, but I was actually avoiding the truth, which is that while I'm straight, I will never be content with anyone. I know now that the darkness will never leave.

Last spring I met someone who was unlike anyone else I'd ever met. Someone who showed me just how well two people could get along and how much I could care about another human being. Someone I know I could be with and love for the rest of my life, if I weren't so fucked up. Amazingly, she liked me. She liked the shell of the man the darkness had left behind. But it didn't matter because I couldn't be alone with her. It was never just the two of us, it was always the three of us: her, me and the darkness. The closer we got, the more intensely I'd feel the darkness, like some evil mirror of my emotions. All the closeness we had and I loved was complemented by agony that I couldn't stand, from him. I realized that I would never be able to give her, or anyone, all of me or only me. She could never have me without the darkness and evil inside me. I could never have just her, without the darkness being a part of all of our interactions. I will never be able to be at peace or content or in a healthy relationship. I realized the futility of the romantic part of my life. If I had never met her, I would have realized this as soon as I met someone else who I meshed similarly well with. It's likely that things wouldn't have worked out with her and we would have broken up (with our relationship ending, like the majority of relationships do) even if I didn't have this problem, since we only dated for a short time. But I will face exactly the same problems with the darkness with anyone else. Despite my hopes, love and compatability is not enough. Nothing is enough. There's no way I can fix this or even push the darkness down far enough to make a relationship or any type of intimacy feasible.

So I watched as things fell apart between us. I had put an explicit time limit on our relationship, since I knew it couldn't last because of the darkness and didn't want to hold her back, and this caused a variety of problems. She was put in an unnatural situation that she never should have been a part of. It must have been very hard for her, not knowing what was actually going on with me, but this is not something I've ever been able to talk about with anyone. Losing her was very hard for me as well. Not because of her (I got over our relationship relatively quickly), but because of the realization that I would never have another relationship and because it signified the last true, exclusive personal connection I could ever have. This wasn't apparent to other people, because I could never talk about the real reasons for my sadness. I was very sad in the summer and fall, but it was not because of her, it was because I will never escape the darkness with anyone. She was so loving and kind to me and gave me everything I could have asked for under the circumstances. I'll never forget how much happiness she brought me in those briefs moments when I could ignore the darkness. I had originally planned to kill myself last winter but never got around to it. (Parts of this letter were written over a year ago, other parts days before doing this.) It was wrong of me to involve myself in her life if this were a possibility and I should have just left her alone, even though we only dated for a few months and things ended a long time ago. She's just one more person in a long list of people I've hurt.

I could spend pages talking about the other relationships I've had that were ruined because of my problems and my confusion related to the darkness. I've hurt so many great people because of who I am and my inability to experience what needs to be experienced. All I can say is that I tried to be honest with people about what I thought was true.

I've spent my life hurting people. Today will be the last time.

I've told different people a lot of things, but I've never told anyone about what happened to me, ever, for obvious reasons. It took me a while to realize that no matter how close you are to someone or how much they claim to love you, people simply cannot keep secrets. I learned this a few years ago when I thought I was gay and told people. The more harmful the secret, the juicier the gossip and the more likely you are to be betrayed. People don't care about their word or what they've promised, they just do whatever the fuck they want and justify it later. It feels incredibly lonely to realize you can never share something with someone and have it be between just the two of you. I don't blame anyone in particular, I guess it's just how people are. Even if I felt like this is something I could have shared, I have no interest in being part of a friendship or relationship where the other person views me as the damaged and contaminated person that I am. So even if I were able to trust someone, I probably would not have told them about what happened to me. At this point I simply don't care who knows.

I feel an evil inside me. An evil that makes me want to end life. I need to stop this. I need to make sure I don't kill someone, which is not something that can be easily undone. I don't know if this is related to what happened to me or something different. I recognize the irony of killing myself to prevent myself from killing someone else, but this decision should indicate what I'm capable of.

So I've realized I will never escape the darkness or misery associated with it and I have a responsibility to stop myself from physically harming others.

I'm just a broken, miserable shell of a human being. Being molested has defined me as a person and shaped me as a human being and it has made me the monster I am and there's nothing I can do to escape it. I don't know any other existence. I don't know what life feels like where I'm apart from any of this. I actively despise the person I am. I just feel fundamentally broken, almost non-human. I feel like an animal that woke up one day in a human body, trying to make sense of a foreign world, living among creatures it doesn't understand and can't connect with.

I have accepted that the darkness will never allow me to be in a relationship. I will never go to sleep with someone in my arms, feeling the comfort of their hands around me. I will never know what uncontimated intimacy is like. I will never have an exclusive bond with someone, someone who can be the recipient of all the love I have to give. I will never have children, and I wanted to be a father so badly. I think I would have made a good dad. And even if I had fought through the darkness and married and had children all while being unable to feel intimacy, I could have never done that if suicide were a possibility. I did try to minimize pain, although I know that this decision will hurt many of you. If this hurts you, I hope that you can at least forget about me quickly.

There's no point in identifying who molested me, so I'm just going to leave it at that. I doubt the word of a dead guy with no evidence about something that happened over twenty years ago would have much sway.

You may wonder why I didn't just talk to a professional about this. I've seen a number of doctors since I was a teenager to talk about other issues and I'm positive that another doctor would not have helped. I was never given one piece of actionable advice, ever. More than a few spent a large part of the session reading their notes to remember who I was. And I have no interest in talking about being raped as a child, both because I know it wouldn't help and because I have no confidence it would remain secret. I know the legal and practical limits of doctor/patient confidentiality, growing up in a house where we'd hear stories about the various mental illnesses of famous people, stories that were passed down through generations. All it takes is one doctor who thinks my story is interesting enough to share or a doctor who thinks it's her right or responsibility to contact the authorities and have me identify the molestor (justifying her decision by telling herself that someone else might be in danger). All it takes is a single doctor who violates my trust, just like the "friends" who I told I was gay did, and everything would be made public and I'd be forced to live in a world where people would know how fucked up I am. And yes, I realize this indicates that I have severe trust issues, but they're based on a large number of experiences with people who have shown a profound disrepect for their word and the privacy of others.

People say suicide is selfish. I think it's selfish to ask people to continue living painful and miserable lives, just so you possibly won't feel sad for a week or two. Suicide may be a permanent solution to a temporary problem, but it's also a permanent solution to a ~23 year-old problem that grows more intense and overwhelming every day.

Some people are just dealt bad hands in this life. I know many people have it worse than I do, and maybe I'm just not a strong person, but I really did try to deal with this. I've tried to deal with this every day for the last 23 years and I just can't fucking take it anymore.

I often wonder what life must be like for other people. People who can feel the love from others and give it back unadulterated, people who can experience sex as an intimate and joyous experience, people who can experience the colors and happenings of this world without constant misery. I wonder who I'd be if things had been different or if I were a stronger person. It sounds pretty great.

I'm prepared for death. I'm prepared for the pain and I am ready to no longer exist. Thanks to the strictness of New Jersey gun laws this will probably be much more painful than it needs to be, but what can you do. My only fear at this point is messing something up and surviving.

—-

I'd also like to address my family, if you can call them that. I despise everything they stand for and I truly hate them, in a non-emotional, dispassionate and what I believe is a healthy way. The world will be a better place when they're dead—one with less hatred and intolerance.

If you're unfamiliar with the situation, my parents are fundamentalist Christians who kicked me out of their house and cut me off financially when I was 19 because I refused to attend seven hours of church a week.

They live in a black and white reality they've constructed for themselves. They partition the world into good and evil and survive by hating everything they fear or misunderstand and calling it love. They don't understand that good and decent people exist all around us, "saved" or not, and that evil and cruel people occupy a large percentage of their church. They take advantage of people looking for hope by teaching them to practice the same hatred they practice.

A random example:

"I am personally convinced that if a Muslim truly believes and obeys the Koran, he will be a terrorist." - George Zeller, August 24, 2010.

If you choose to follow a religion where, for example, devout Catholics who are trying to be good people are all going to Hell but child molestors go to Heaven (as long as they were "saved" at some point), that's your choice, but it's fucked up. Maybe a God who operates by those rules does exist. If so, fuck Him.

Their church was always more important than the members of their family and they happily sacrificed whatever necessary in order to satisfy their contrived beliefs about who they should be.

I grew up in a house where love was proxied through a God I could never believe in. A house where the love of music with any sort of a beat was literally beaten out of me. A house full of hatred and intolerance, run by two people who were experts at appearing kind and warm when others were around. Parents who tell an eight year old that his grandmother is going to Hell because she's Catholic. Parents who claim not to be racist but then talk about the horrors of miscegenation. I could list hundreds of other examples, but it's tiring.

Since being kicked out, I've interacted with them in relatively normal ways. I talk to them on the phone like nothing happened. I'm not sure why. Maybe because I like pretending I have a family. Maybe I like having people I can talk to about what's been going on in my life. Whatever the reason, it's not real and it feels like a sham. I should have never allowed this reconnection to happen.

I wrote the above a while ago, and I do feel like that much of the time. At other times, though, I feel less hateful. I know my parents honestly believe the crap they believe in. I know that my mom, at least, loved me very much and tried her best. One reason I put this off for so long is because I know how much pain it will cause her. She has been sad since she found out I wasn't "saved", since she believes I'm going to Hell, which is not a sadness for which I am responsible. That was never going to change, and presumably she believes the state of my physical body is much less important than the state of my soul. Still, I cannot intellectually justify this decision, knowing how much it will hurt her. Maybe my ability to take my own life, knowing how much pain it will cause, shows that I am a monster who doesn't deserve to live. All I know is that I can't deal with this pain any longer and I'm am truly sorry I couldn't wait until my family and everyone I knew died so this could be done without hurting anyone. For years I've wished that I'd be hit by a bus or die while saving a baby from drowning so my death might be more acceptable, but I was never so lucky.

—-

To those of you who have shown me love, thank you for putting up with all my shittiness and moodiness and arbitrariness. I was never the person I wanted to be. Maybe without the darkness I would have been a better person, maybe not. I did try to be a good person, but I realize I never got very far.

I'm sorry for the pain this causes. I really do wish I had another option. I hope this letter explains why I needed to do this. If you can't understand this decision, I hope you can at least forgive me.

Bill Zeller

—-

Please save this letter and repost it if gets deleted. I don't want people to wonder why I did this. I disseminated it more widely than I might have otherwise because I'm worried that my family might try to restrict access to it. I don't mind if this letter is made public. In fact, I'd prefer it be made public to people being unable to read it and drawing their own conclusions.

Feel free to republish this letter, but only if it is reproduced in its entirety.

Appeasing all means appeasing no one...

This is a classic example, I found it on the Eve Forum Watch, where appeasing all means appeasing no one. I thought it was really funny... I think this is a case where Gelvon would just reply to Patty to tell her that she is a M&S.

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FROM: Patty Lewis, Human Resources Director
TO: All Employees
DATE: December 1
RE: Christmas Party

I'm happy to inform you that the company Christmas Party will take place
on December 23, starting at noon in the private function room at the
Grill House. There will be a cash bar and plenty of drinks! We'll have a
small band playing traditional carols...feel free to sing along.

And don't be surprised if our CEO shows up dressed as Santa Claus!

A Christmas tree will be lit at 1:00pm. Exchange of gifts among
employees can be done at that time, however, no gift should be over
$10.00 to make the giving of gifts easy for everyone's pockets. This
gathering is only for employees! A special announcement will be made by
our CEO at that time!

Merry Christmas to you and your family.
Patty

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FROM: Patty Lewis, Human Resources Director
TO: All Employees
DATE: December 2
RE: Holiday Party

In no way was yesterday's memo intended to exclude our Jewish employees.
We recognize that Chanukah is an important holiday, which often
coincides with Christmas, though unfortunately not this year. However,
from now on we're calling it our "Holiday Party."

The same policy applies to any other employees who are not Christians or
those still celebrating Reconciliation Day. There will be no Christmas
tree present. No Christmas carols will be sung. We will have other
types of music for your enjoyment. Happy now?

Happy Holidays to you and your family.
Patty

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FROM: Patty Lewis, Human Resources Director
TO: All Employees
DATE: December 3
RE: Holiday Party

Regarding the note I received from a member of Alcoholics Anonymous
requesting a non-drinking table ... you didn't sign your name. I'm
happy to accommodate this request, but if I put a sign on a table that
reads, "AA Only"; you wouldn't be anonymous anymore. How am I supposed
to handle this?

Somebody?

Forget about the gifts exchange, no gifts exchange are allowed since the
union members feel that $10.00 is too much money and executives believe
$10.00 is a little chintzy.

NO GIFTS EXCHANGE WILL BE ALLOWED.

Sincerely
Patty.

-------------------

FROM: Patty Lewis, Human Resources Director
To: All Employees
DATE: December 7
RE: Holiday Party

What a diverse group we are! I had no idea that December 20 begins the
Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which forbids eating and drinking during
daylight hours. There goes the party! Seriously, we can appreciate how
a luncheon at this time of year does not accommodate our Muslim
employees' beliefs.

Perhaps the Grill House can hold off on serving your meal until the end
of the party - or else package everything for you to take it home in a
little foil doggy baggy. Will that work?

Meanwhile, I've arranged for members of Weight Watchers to sit farthest
from the dessert buffet and pregnant women will get the table closest to
the restrooms. Gays are allowed to sit with each other. Lesbians do
not have to sit with Gay men, each will have their own table. Yes,
there will be a flower arrangement for the Gay men's table.

To the person asking permission to cross dress, no cross dressing
allowed though. We will have booster seats for short people.

Low-fat food will be available for those on a diet. We cannot control
the salt used in the food. We suggest for those people with high blood
pressure to taste first. There will be fresh fruits as dessert for
Diabetics, the restaurant cannot supply "No Sugar" desserts. Sorry!

Did I miss anything?!?!?

Patty

--------------------

Must there be incentives to raid 25m?

There has been a lot of discussion on the raid changes that will come with Cataclysm and until BBB put it into perspective I didn't really know to quantify why it is that I dislike a lot of the points people made, in favor of 25s or against.

The point from BBB that I think I love most:
"Let’s cut to the chase.

The question isn’t “Do 25’s deserve better rewards than 10’s”, or “Are 25’s harder than 10’s”, or even “What should be used to entice people to play in 25’s”.

The question is, “Can 25 man raids really be as fun as 10’s to play in, if most people have to be bribed to take part in them?”

That’s the question at play here."

Yes, yes, YES!!! Like I have said before, the heavy lifting, in term of guild management and logistic are NEVER seen or felt by the everyday raiders, mostly they see it was an inconvenience when someone miss raid, so why must there even be incentives for individual raider to raid with twenty four other people? If there are any incentives to be dole out it should be to the GUILD. It may be something Blizzard themselves are keeping hidden in their pocket protectors, remember we are suppose to be getting some sort of guild advancement system with Cataclysm and I can't imagine a more perfect way to encourage and support large guild then to have it means something to belong to a large guild. One thing off the top of my head would be extra gold from daily quests, extra honor from daily BGs, extra damage in gears for raids, extra time on flasks/elixirs. The individual raider will benefit indirectly from the incentives given to the guild and in my mind build a stronger relationship to the GUILD.

Death to 25m raiding... long live the RAID!!!

It has always bug me with the advent of WoTLK that the same raid for 25 people would drop better loots then a 10 man raids. Sure the amount of work to put the raid together is greater but honestly that work is squarely on the shoulder(s) of the Guild Master, Raid Leader, and/or the Officers; the majority of the raiding members of the 25 man raid doesn't even notice or feel the pain of such efforts. The raiders complain if there is no raid but they don't do anything to fix the problem they wait on officers to mend it.

I honestly think everything done in a 25m raid is much easier but only made harder because of the same space (as 10m raid) being available. There is more people to share the burden but less room to maneuver. From my experience, healing in 25 man raid is often less stressful, if something happens to you there's someone to cover you. DPS in 25 man raid is often nothing more then a pissing contest. Tanking seems to be pretty much down to asking whether if there is more adds to pickup otherwise the same mechanics are obverse between 25 and 10, often boil down to two tanks trading off on aggro.

I'm also very excited with this news because it will make the people who claim to love the big raiding environment either put-up or shut-up. No longer will they be able to hide behind the excuse that they love big raid environment to get the extra benefit of loot. People often claim that the large raids give you a sense of camaraderie and epicness, however I think they are full of Tauren's manure. I had no love for 40m raiding, just more people doesn't mean more fun. I have had people retell how fun 40m raids were from Vanilla, yet often enough the core of the story is that they are afford more time to goof off and is not noticeable because there are enough people to pick up the slack.

BBB thinks that this will bring the "Golden Age" to WoW and I have to agree with him. People who bitch that content is too easy will get plenty of face-to-ground time doing content with the same set of gears rather then bring 25m gear to 10m content. I also have a problem with people who complains that they had to run alts raid to practice for their main Lich King kills, looking at you Ensidia. Honestly pay the price for being first (efame) or STFU.

Update on the Shadow's Edge front, the 25 Primordial Saronite are sitting in my bags but waiting on the two bloods, which I probably will do a GDKP to get since there's probably no way I can get my warrior into our 25m raid even if there one this week. Or maybe I can if we don't have enough people and have to pug a lot of the spot, we will see.

Shadowmourn

In order for Bakatirak (Haman's current incarnation) to start on her road to Shadowmourn, she'll be needing 25 Primordial Saronites. However she can ill afford to use her own frost badges since her tanking set is yet to be completed, as well as the dps set which she's barely started on.

The total number of badges required for 25 saronites is 575 frost badges, at first that would seem a daunting task when she isn't even done with gear but that's the nice thing about having multiple raiding toons. Kinzlayer is done with any upgrades from frost badges and Bruenhylsda will make do with what fortunes provides her.

Within a week one can earn 14 frosties from doing the heroic random each day, 5 frosties from the weekly raid, and 4 [edit: 2 from 10m and 2 from 25] from Toravon who is still holding on out my warlock's Sanctified gloves as well as potential lottery winner in Bruen and Baka. It never hurts to hope that their ilvl264 drops from him rather then the more expensive option of buying them with badges.

As Kinzlayer is doing ICC10 progression it's hard to count on consistent frosties production but since the guild runs a fresh ICC25 every week there should be 17 badges from that venture each week. Bruenhylsda can contribute to more frosties by regularly running ICC raids (10/25) but I don't have the energy/time every week so that can't be counted on.

As of now, Kinzlayer and Bruenhylsda have a total of 275 frost badges, which leaves a whopping 300 badges to go. At a rate of 63 badges a week (14*2 + 5*2 + 4*2 + 17), it will take just a bit under 5 weeks to get all the badges needed for the saronites. Incidentally there is also the need to get the bloods from Festgut and Rotface, which hopefully the guild can provide help with since all the plate melee's main either have the bloods or don't care enough for it and seeing those drops while no one in raid want them will be painful.

As each journey starts with but a step, this is mine... hopefully Bakatirak will have a Shadowmourn to show for my effort.


Update 04/12/2010 : Total - 188 + 111 = 299
Update 04/17/2010 : Total - 243 + 123 = 366
Update 04/19/2010 : Total - 249 + 136 = 385

A friendly goodbye...

Not from me but a co-worker who is going to serve God in his own way. He passed along this wonderful blessing which I want to share.

May love and laughter light your days,
and warm your heart and home.
May good and faithful friends be yours,
wherever you may roam.
May peace and plenty bless your world
with joy that long endures.
May all life's passing seasons
bring the best to you and yours.
And until we meet again,
May God hold you in the palm of His hand.

Thanks Ben, you are a good man and may your efforts be helpful for others,

Phong.

Is this why raiders are jerks?

I was just wandering around on the net and bam, I happen upon a picture of an old article from an old newspaper (1985)... read it and laugh, cause e-peeness is not really a new thing, just a little different.

On and of course all rights and w/e copyrights are still from whoever owns this stuff...

Ongoing quotes...

This will be an ongoing post with quotes I find funny as I read various things online... this is for me so if you don't like it, do what comes naturally and scatter.

...this doesn't even seem to be a regular case of rats fleeing the sinking ship. Seems more like the rats are on fire, the ship is on fire, and the sea is full of drunk Russians. - Jacob Etienne

lol'ing @ screw quarters. My domi dosn't seem to come with screw quarters by default, how can I get some? - Mr Sean

Nobody gets rich in this business. You simply obtain new levels of relative poverty. - Irulan S'Dijana

As I’ve said before, you can’t patch stupid, but there sure as hell are addons for every one of our little brainless moments. - Euripedes

Almost 6 months to the day...

She's mine!!!

My kind of flying...

Log on to do some dailies and it then it dawns on me that I have a Mysterious Egg to crack; I just love how big they are.

It almost trump getting Life and Death

New toy...

Last night, logged in to do my normal rotation of dailies, with half a mind on helping Thomas with his Ogri'la pre-quests, I ended up with the hit trinket from Cyanigosa. Of course Thomas didn't say what time he, himself, was logging... so w/e, went to finish my dailies for the SoH and the chic at Brunnhilda, having done the fishing and Dalaran's cooking in the morning. Nope, still no bear mount but tomorrow is another day.

I would have to say it was very much karma that I finally got the Mark of the War Prisoner from Cyanigosa, as the first time I saw it drop, a shaman healer won the roll, for his off spec which ticked me off but it was the last boss so w/e, and this time, the tank was a test of my patience.

I get it that some people don't do dungeons until they were level capped or that they might be new to certain encounters but this guy takes the cake and ate it too. Didn't let anyone know that he didn't know the fights, was quiet, and was tanking with a FIST weapon, which I didn't noticed 'til the hunter pointed out, ah well. Xevozz was the first boss and if it's your first time fighting him, it can be challenging but if you slowly tank him up the ramp and then slowly tank and spank on the ledge, you pretty much avoid being cornered by two orbs. Of course our tank didn't ask, didn't say anything, start to tank him, the orbs come out and bam died, we wipe. Rezing at the GY, the hunter and I just scratched our heads and was seriously thinking about just abandoning this lost-cause but w/e, we were saved so back in. After telling him to fight his way to the ledge, we started again. The guy had the nerve to say that people on Cho'gall were mean; I'm guessing it wasn't the first failed in his resume as a tank. Sure, people on Cho'gall are used to blasting through the instances without fail but I'm sure it's the same on most normal to high population servers. It's not like Wrath's heroics are hard, not like they were in the beginning of TBC. I have yet to see any CC required for any of the heroics, AoE away when you got a good tank, which always make the instance run extremely fast. The tank and the healer died on Xevozz again when he was at 3% or so, plenty of time for me and hunter to pound into the ground. Lucky we had plenty of time to summon their arses back into the instance after he went down. I guess that would be super annoying for groups without a rezer or a warlock.

On the 2nd boss, it was Ichoron, I did not hesitate to use the crystal activators to zap all the water elementals, by this time the shield was down to 98% so if they didn't have the achievement for VH yet then they weren't getting it this run anyway. Most of the remaining fights were uneventful but a bit rough, the hunter stop AoE on those Sorcerer pulls and I just dps lightly to avoid pulling aggro. If nothing else was good about the tank, at the very least he did listen but you had to offered it to him on a platter. The Cyanigosa fight is the easiest fight in VH since she's a pure tank and spank dragon-fight, which means facing her away from the rest of the party and stay away from the tail. The priest, who at this point I was pretty sure is a friend of the tank but he had to be told to stay the frak away from the tail. At least he did not roll on the trinket, which I feared when I saw the loot. Oh well, this tank is definitely on my list of bad tank. Also oh note, I'm 6 emblems short of the T7 robe so most likely will push to get it either tonight or tomorrow, depending who else is on and what's going on.

Nice weekend ends with a T7...

Being done with both the Oracles and Kula'ak in term of reps, I have cut their dailys from my rotation so now it's just checking the Shatt's cooking for Manalicious (last for the achievement), fishing for old man Barlo (here baby croc, here baby croc), Dalaran's cooking, fly to Brunnhilda, then finish off with the Son of Hodir.

Finally motivated myself enough to finish the Grizzly Hills quests, which actually took a bit of questing each day during the weekends. As of last night, I earned my Loremaster of Northrend and learned me the pattern for Deathchill Cloak. I made said cloak and embroiled it with a Lightweave Embroidery, cha-ching, then Kel'Thuzad drop a pretty nice alternative cloak but with mp5, being the least geared person in that raid I got the welfare epix.

Ah, speaking of Kel'Thuzad... the nice folks of Attrition, hehe, mainly Rocketajax got me a spot in their 10-man Naxx. They had done most of the place on Wednesday, except for the Frostwyrm Lair. I really love the Sapphiron fight, what I learned that I did not know before doing it with Attrition, thanks to Sukuza for explaining, is that in that particular fight, it is not a DPS race, it is a healing check. I think that fight would really sucks for Holy Pallies, so much movement and environmental damage to the raid. The whole idea is to stay spread out but don't be the NooB that is way across the room when the ice blocks are down, cause you ain't making behind them before the orb of frozen doom hits the floor and you get blasted to the graveyard. Honestly, the first time through that fight with Blood Council was way rougher, as it was less organized then with Attrition. Sapphiron was a dead dragon after 3 tries, I'm sure more tries then they normally have to do but then 2nd wipe was just pure bad luck. Two blizzards on top of the two ice blocks that are 5 yards apart. I'm proud to say that I was not the 30 second NooB that night, I'm ready to play with the big boys now, lol.

The Kel'Thuzad (KT) fight itself wasn't all that interesting. Start in the green circle, adds comes at you, range dps kill the skele and the banshee before they come to the circle, the banshee floats really really really sloooooowlyyyyy. I swear this is where having at least one hunter is awesome, the skele has next to nothing in term of HP so the speed of auto shot > cast. Melees and tanks take care of of the abominations, and if range has time help on abominations. KT himself comes out after, what seems like 2-3 mins or when about 80% of the adds are down. The MT pick him up, the OT pick up and finish off any abominations left and dps are to kill all adds before they go to KT. Once the transition take place the whole fight is really just simple, stay out of the circle KT randomly casts on the floor. You really do have a lot of time to move out although not enough to stand there and finish of a 2 seconds cast, remember to move then fire as you ain't living through the collapse of the circle. KT also will ice block a random person but if you got a clump of casters you get 2 or 3 ice blocks that your healers has to heal now, so stay spread out no reasons to be a cluster of fail. At the end of it all Kinzlayer made out like a bandit on that raid, the cloak and the T7 helm token. I hope I will get more invites from Attrition as it seems most of their people are out on xmas break and doing raids with them equal welfare epix for Kinzlayer.

Oh, one thing that I'm a bit wary about the T7 set, I had to re-gem some of my gears after getting the helm since it had no +hit at all. Going forward, I might even have to spec to get Suppression and Cataclysm, that's six pts to get 3% hit. I'm going to have to seriously think about where my hit will be coming from as I'm nine emblems away from buying the T7 robe, which Rocket did say is harder to get from raid then the gloves. Using the two pieces of T7 would take away two of the known slots for +hit and that's like 100+ hit between the two best +hit items. The legging I have currently does not have +hit so I might have to look into that. I'm just not sure what Blizzard is thinking when they itemize their gears. Ok, I understand you only need 6% to hit for Heroics and the two pieces of T7 can be gotten from badges so you can easily cover 6% but the transition from 6% to 17% is atrocious when you take the two item slots that has the best +hit gears, being the glove and the robe. The other location is the helm which has a few item from crafting, quest reward, and dungeon drop. I'll definitely have to look at other warlocks and do my research during the break to see what I have to do for my hit gears.

Within reach...

It is definitely very nice to ease into the day by doing some mindless daily quests to wake up, gets you motivated for the rest of the day. I was a little disappointed that the green little midget doesn't have Manalicious today so one more day of waiting at the least. Old man Barlo had the shrimp quest for me which I have done before but I figure I would do it just in case the fishing hat drops for me. After a quick fishing trip to the lakes of Zangarmarsh for some shrimps, I hearth back to Dalaran and worked on the quick cooking quest there. While I was flying over to Brunnhilda, I took a peak at my bag and noticed the Mysterious Egg still had 6 more days on it, bah I hope that will turn into the Green Proto-drake, they look pretty kewl. The quest giver in Brunnhilda only had one quest for me, I was a bit alarmed at first then a quick search on wowhead, I was assured that sometime she's a bit bitchy and only give out one quest. I would have been fine with two random quests but not to have a 2nd chance for the Polar Bear mount? seems dumb. Well, after the quick fly over to freeze them proto-drake eggs, I head over to the SoH quests but was interrupted by a request for help.

I ended my morning by doing the three quests for the Kalu'ak, which after today I will only need one more set of quests to get exalted. I think it will be nice to finish them up and not have to fly that circuit during my daily quests. It's very nice that they take less then 5 minutes to do but three quests in three different zones and still flying at 280 speed, such a hassle.

Northrend is definitely large, still better then walking there.

Just in...

Being a bit curious about the rewards from the Oracles and the Frenzyheart Tribe, I did a bit of digging. As of right now I'm not 100% sure I want to continue doing the Oracle's daily quests to Exalted as the only true reward at Exalted for me would be the achievements. I believe I am just Revered with them now so in theory I would still have to keep their rep for buying and waiting for the Mysterious Eggs to hatch but I can better spend my time in either Icecrown, doing dailys for Ebon Blade and Argent Crusade, or doing heroics. Beside I'm not sure if I want to even do the Frenzyheart's rep, as the reward from the Disgusting Jar doesn't look like anything kewl. I should see how much time it takes to do the three daily quests, then I can decide if it's worth my time to do them, it's cash after all.

Update: Definitely skipping the rest of the Oracles daily rep grind, I may actually be able to squeeze in at least one heroic, moar purplz.

Clearing the mind...

After reading Herc's thoughts on time management in wow, I got to thinking and realized that I'm a bit lost in term of what I'm actually doing with Kinzlayer. I've got no motivation to work on any of my alts but there's always a minor tug at the back of my head to work on Haman, I love killing stuff with my warrior. Going to borrow Herc's idea and list the things I do daily so I don't sit around Dalaran wondering why I'm bored.

The Shatt cooking daily. I figured for almost a year I was doing those darn cooking quests everyday, I might as well get the achievement for them. At the moment I'm waiting for Manalicious, which I check as I head over to old man Barlo for the fishing daily.

From the fishing daily I would like to get that baby croc and the fishing hat. Also since I did them pretty religiously for a while I would like the achievement for finishing the list of quests for old man Barlo.

After turning in the fishing quest to old man Barlo, I head to Dalaran to do the cooking daily there. At the moment I'm saving all my Northrend spice as I'm not really cooking any particular item but I figure when I'm ready to cook I will have a good supply to use.

After Dalaran, I head over to Storm Peak. Do the five Son of Hodir quests and for the last few days I'm also doing the two daily quests given by the chick in Brunhilda, ever since reading that the polar bear mount drops from the reward pouch, thanks Herc. Finishing up with Storm Peak, I head down to Howling Fjord, grab the seal love quest, then head over to Dragonblights to steal, errr recover pups for them Kalu'ak, then head to Borean Tundra for the supplies. I'm about 4 days away from getting exalted with them and then no mas long-ass flying route. I'm getting me the fishing pole and the penguin.

Done flying, I head over to the basin and do the three quests for the Oracle, hehe I want the mysterious eggs... and of course the achievement for being exalted with them then later on exalted with the Frenzyhearts (I think that's what they are).

Typically I'm done for the night after that as I have spent 2 hours flying around. As of yesterday, I'm doing the two cooking and fishing dailys in the AM, which helps me wake up... otherwise I would just have snoozed the alarm and sleep in till 8:30 then I would be all tired when I get into work; I'm really lazy in the AM. If I can consistently squeeze the fishing and cooking dailys out in the morning, I can add a heroic or two in the PM session. I'm going to try to do Violet Hold once a day, at least it's easy and fast... of course I want that stupid trinket.

Black War Bear

Sitting around Dalaran on Kinz done with dailys, even did a few heroics and the regular dungeon, I do like the extra rep, with nothing to do and was not really in the mood for questing in Grizzly Hills (still need to finish that zone out for the Deathchill Cloak pattern). Then what do we see but an ad for City Raid... garrrrrgggg, didn't like how badly the last one turned out so didn't answer the call at first. Sitting around some more talking to Murd about what heroics to do next then trying to get a group together but failed pretty badly, just starting one so that's extra sad. I have no motivation to start groups anymore, so much efforts. Figures why the heck not and so I whispered the ad. At first I thought, "hmm, this does not look good", as there were only 8 people in raid. Maybe another failure to launch but after 15 mins the raid actually filled out. Got Murd his spot, took the zep to Grom'gol and flew to Kargath then had to fly back as the Raid Leader changed his mind. It took longer just to ride to the bosses then it was to kill them (less then 2 mins on each of the city bosses). Pretty amazing to see that much lag, hehe. It was nice to end the night with a letter from Thrall extolling the courage it took to beat them alliance ninnies to the ground and attached was my very own Black War Bear.

I should not be sad but I am...

garrrrggggg, how does one go about writing this... well no one else is really reading this so I guess it matters not.

I was a bit surprise by an add-request on facebook from the doctor so of course still having a bit of a childish fancy for her, added and promptly go to her profile. What I see under Relationship Status? meh, I should not be sad or surprised as she had never had issues with starting a relationship or holding one, I guess. Just stupid hope and all, not like the logistic would ever work out as we don't regularly talk or write and she does live 2 hours away. Just goes to show how ridiculous my mind is at times... god knows I need help or just WoW.

Meh, just meh.

Not the fastest but still half decent...

Kinzlayer hit 80 tonight and although I wasn't rushing to max level as I did want to in the past, the temptation was there. The crazy thing is the dungeons/raids progression. In BC, you didn't really see the pugging of Kara on Cho'gall till pretty late, Kara was serious business for at least a good 6 or 7 months, if my memories serve me right. And heroics were painful to pug at most but talking to a few friends in high places and watching the Trade channel, pretty much Naxx10 are being pugged successfully as of last Saturday, which just blows my mind.

Kinzlayer has been alive for roughly 130 days and been 80 for 4 hrs already, crazy I know. Looking through my gears I definitely am going to try and see what if there are any huge things to upgrade with and of course go see how crazy heroics are, I still have nightmares of Heroic Shattered Halls when Louis wasn't AoE-tanking with his pally, or that crazy fight in Heroic Alcatraz with Skyriss and his pre-nerfed mind rend. Anyway the leveling game is done and so the mid game here I come, Heroics, rep grind, and if I can get a Naxx in that would be fun to see how far my current gears will stretch.

Haman, Kiserai, and Orgreaznik will have to wait, I might touch Haman next week and see how far I can get on his rest xp before hitting the other two. I figure I can just rotate the 3 alts to 80 with their rest xp while Kinzlayer gears up and wait for the rest of the crew to hit 80.

So far, I'm very impress Blizzard... worth every dime I've put into this game.

my new toy

Flew into St. Louis all ticked off at the BestBuy in San Diego as they basically can't deliver the P-7811FX like they said they were going to, rushed to the hotel to check-in, dropped my crap off at my room, go have dinner with Jenn and Ken then rush over the BestBuy at South County Mall before 9pm. They were suppose to close their gate at 9pm but I don't typically shop at BestBuy right before they close so didn't realize they actually just close their gate and that's really like around 9:30 if their hours are til 9. Anyway, I love it.

I did do the trick that Brent suggested, which is to copy off the WoW folder from my desktop to some DvDs and copy it back onto another computer, you don't have to re-install the damn game. Well for the most part it works except it seems a bit buggy, can't honestly tell if I'm getting disconnected from the server because of the interweb connection sucks at this Towneplace Suite or just that the WoW that I have copied over from my Desktop is just crapping out on Vista but showing it as a server disconnect. Meh, I decided to just download the installer from Blizz and actually do a clean install on this laptop and see if I can stress-test it a bit more to alleviate my fear about getting a bad P-7811FX, like any pre-installed and mass build stuff there are always some crap.

Will be able to tell probably after work tomorrow in the evening. Oh also the High setting in WoW is very nice to look at but it gets really choppy (<30 fps) in major city which is a bad sign that I won't be running that for raids and large BGs, ah well, eye candy while I level to 80 then back to the simple graphics for raiding.

A ding of a sort.

As of this morning, around 3am PST or so, Haman, my fun filled warrior, got his Shattered Sun Pendant of Might, yay for not having to do anymore daily quests on the island, well we should talk about that later but for now it feels good to be done with "having" to do them. Haman also picked up both the Merciless Gladiator's Slicer and the Merciless Gladiator's Quickblade then promptly went to find an Enchanter. The Slicer got Executioner, thank you Kerry for logging on at the right time and the right early morning, hehehe, and the Quickblade received a nice coating of Mongoose. It does feel good to be sporting something different then my two Grunt's Waraxe and of course the Waraxes had only gotten Deathfrost put on them since I really didn't feel like wasting too much mats on what I felt like leveling weapons. Now it's just a matter of doing Arena weekly for pts and wrecking havocs in BGs until Wrath comes out. Along with 14k rep to grind with the Scryers which isn't really that hard with them signets coming from the daily on HFP and 3 feasible 70s to do them. It does feel a bit more "regular" with leveling Haman, as he being the 4th 70 getting to level cap and having none of the rep stuff left for him to use, nothing else it's a very different experience.

Speaking of Arena, I had done some quick calculations the other night and Haman would need a max of 2,125 arena pts since at best he can do is to get the Brutal Gladiator's Plate Gauntlets and the Brutal Gladiator's War Edge then it's a matter of BGing for honor to get at least a few piece of the Battlegear set if not 4 of the Season 2 variant. It should be fun but I'm sure there will days when I'm sick of doing BGs, hahaha, I can still remember doing something similar with Kinzlayer just before the launch of BC, well that is a story for another day.

As for the others, Kinzlayer is enjoying the time off from having to run around and supporting the alts. Orgreaznik is sitting pretty where he is at, maybe if I'm at all motivated this weekend, get one BM run in and should pretty much get Honored with Keeper of Time, which of course means I can reach 375 on my Leatherworking for no other reason then to say that he's at 375 before Wrath comes. As for Kiserai I'm debating whether if I really want to BG more to get some more welfare epics and then whether if it's too late to grind for honor to switch to Ret. Tough to choose right now as Haman is really fun to BG with and he does need around 50k honor if I want all 4 Battlegear S2 pieces.