Homesickness.

For Neriak, FFS.

I am acutely aware that the true glory of EverQuest is gone forevermore. It was gone shortly after Shadows of Luclin was released, even. Oh, the crappy graphics of a long dead age. The music with tinges of MIDI, that was so horrible yet so right. The clunky interface. The ridiculous difficulty. The fact that you could experience a graphical virtual world on the Internets, with thousands of other players, in a day and age when dialup was king.

Such a thing will never come again. That age of innocence, awesomeness and novelty cannot happen ever again – the marches of technology and time have seen to that.

I will never again experience the sense of scope and beauty that, after running through the commonlands, skulking my way through Kithicor – at night, sneaking through Highhold… I viewed as I slowly made my way down that massive ramp-like trail through the Karanas, at dawn. And with games focused on instant travel (not that instant travel is a bad thing), I doubt I shall ever again end up with a cloud of wood elves and halflings eying me suspiciously, wondering what, exactly, the hell a Dark Elf is doing in Queynos.

I reactivated my EQ II account. The Internet tells me that nostalgia is a contagious epidemic. Before reactivating, I did some research – am I rejoining yet another dying game? I have a habit of doing that. DAOC, EQ, PSU, et cetera. Apparently, though, the EQ II population has been continuing to increase. Say it with me now – WTF?

Well.

I’m not that surprised. World of Snorecraft was never a rightful or even equal challenger to EverQuest. That honor went to Dark Age of Camelot which, still, didn’t directly challenge Norrath. Only by virtue of diametrically opposed gameplay did Mythic throw down the gauntlet. To put it simply, nothing has managed to compare to EverQuest. Not even EverQuest II. But whatever. Home is home. Home is Neriak.

Population on my apparent chosen server of Blackburrow is… curious. The areas aren’t swamped with people, but I’ve yet to run through anywhere – and I’m going through low-level areas here – where I haven’t seen other players. A far cry from the deathbeds of Dark Age of Camelot, where you could walk through Albion without seeing another living soul. Crafters are happily crafting in Neriak, despite there being other starting cities and such – I’m sure with all the expansions, the hub of activity has moved elsewhere.

…So apparently, Sony had the bright idea of Asianing up EverQuest II. There are some fairly hideous ‘alternate models’ now. Some of them are improvements, I admit, but take the human female – the human female has gone from human female to human female smacked repeatedly in the face with a frying pan. And the Tier’Dal female…

Yeah, I’ve gone through the alternate appearance setup, then blew a veteran reward mirror on doing it again because it borked up my hair color. And now…

My poor, innocent Inquisitor of Hate is angry. Very angry. And looks like every other Tier’Dal in Neriak. Seriously. I walk around, and everyone has my face. My scowling, angry face. This disturbs me, because my Inquisitor is supposed to be pleasantly amused at piles of corpses and puddles of gore.

Honestly, I know what Sony was thinking – if I understand correctly, they killed the Asian servers and shoved folks from the greater Asia area onto standard servers. Which meant those fine, paying customers would want to keep their special models. The problem is, now how your character is seen is entirely in the hands of other players. This doesn’t sound like a big deal – but really? It is. One of the standard features of an MMOG is that you get to control how others see your character. To put it simply – there’s a reason people want l33t, hard-to-get gear, and it isn’t for the stats – it’s so people can see how awesome you are. You’re in a virtual world, almost certainly using an alias – how your character looks is vital to personal identity.

Note that this problem also occurred with the original EverQuest! Shadows of Luclin took an aging, ancient graphics system and kicked it into next Tuesday – bringing a slew of new character models along the way. There’s a key difference, though – Luclin was a massive upgrade in quality. You knew that the vast majority of the playerbase would be using the new models as soon as they possibly could – they were just that much better. These EQ2 alternate models, on the other hand, clearly aren’t upgrades. Honestly, some of them do look better than the original models, but others definitely look worse – and instead of a clear, obvious case of ‘these graphics are much better!’ you have a situation where it all comes down to player aesthetics.

In short, you have no idea which models a player is going to be using, and thus, your character can be viewed in more than one way. Which means you have to get both models reflecting the way you want your character to look. Which, with these alternate models, is clearly impossible for some races. I seriously mean it when I say all Tier’dal females look exactly the same, save for skin color and head size. The potential for facial structure differences, especially with regard to the mouth and nose – are fairly imperceptible.

Maybe I’m making too much out of this – but my character goes from awesome to ugly with nothing more than two mouse clicks. That infuriates me.

Meh. Maybe I’ll get over it. I miss my dark elf. Then again, I’m kind of enjoying my new Arasai…

42″ 1080p TV. Current cost, $600-750.

42″ 1080p TV. Cost to ship to California? $233.

Ouch. Still, far cheaper than buying a replacement out in California, and I have little to complain about with regard to the TV. Speakers are kind of weak, but who cares about speakers on an HDTV? Seriously, you’re splurging, go the whole mile – surround sound is the only valid answer. Picture’s gorgeous, of course, and I’ve my share of crazy inputs.

Loving the UPS store here. Such a ridiculous thing to package and ship, and they went at it straight away. Was out of there in under twenty minutes.

Loving on USPS as well. Media Mail could use some major clarification – I opted not to send much of my potential ‘media’ via Media Mail, and only sent books. Problem is, I received too many different answers to my questions on Media Mail. Given that violations either come with penalties or are simply discarded (as far as I’ve heard, there is no return service on Media Mail)… Yeah, not worth risking.

Still, Parcel Post is dirt cheap. Estimated delivery times of approximately a week. Can’t argue with that, and frankly, if things are late, meh, they’re late. We’re talking cross country migration here.

Need to run the numbers and see what my final UPS packages tomorrow are going to run (two more custom packages, alas – no way around it!)… But, I think I’m in good shape to have successfully executed a cross country move for under $1k. In addition, I’ve several hundred dollars worth of tax write offs thanks to donations to charitable organizations – and I haven’t even gotten to furniture yet. Speaking of which, this sort of insanity is why you should never buy expensive furniture until you’re damned set on permanently settling somewhere.

Can’t wait to go to Ikea and buy a bunch of Klingon tables. FLOOGNAGH! GAGH! MOLTZ, JOI CHOO!

Coming back from the UPS store today, ended up behind some dude with an NRA sticker on his car. And… A ‘Darwin fish’ in a circle with a line through it. Hilarious. Couldn’t tell whether to be happy (someone concerned with gun rights) or disgusted (person who believes in fairy tales, claims divine omnipotence, but can’t come to terms with the fact that said divine omnipotence could’ve worked out the entire evolution thing).

I’m not fooling myself into thinking California doesn’t have its share of ‘differently thinking’ individuals, but damn, compared to this place…

Going to miss the scenery, to be sure. Nothing like the forests of Pennsylvania at the beginning of Summer. Kind of unhappy I didn’t have the chance to drive about the state and take some pictures, but that’s what vacations and rental cars are for.

Well.

Farewell to the black morass that is Northeastern Pennsylvania. Farewell to crappy weather, crappy humidity, crappy roads, crappy local governments. Farewell to crappy job markets.

Hello, In-n-Out.

Also dropped a box of stuff off at the Goodwill. Noticed I forgot to put two books in the box I was dropping off. Argh. Awesomesauce, though, I asked for a receipt – I get a blank one. Yeah, I donated a Rembrandt, totally. Hahaha. But it’s nice that I don’t have to sit there for four hours while they do an inventory I’ve already done. Charities rock, by the way. It’s like a yard sale where everything instantly sells, but instead of spendable money, you get to stick it to the government. Of course, they stick it to you right back, what with the not-counting-full-value for tax purposes, but in the end, you get money off your taxes. So while everyone involved (except maybe the charity) gets screwed, the government gets screwed slightly more. A net victory for our beautiful city.

It’s only Tuesday and I miss my car. I mean, I still have three days with her. Stopped for cigarettes (yes, yes – e-cigarette, whatever, too much to do right now to deal with an e-cigarette charger); get out…

Oh, man. I’m doing that deja vu thing where I swear I’ve already typed this post. I AM THE KWISATZ HADERACH.

Monster > Rockstar > Coffee. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

Right, where was I? Ah, yes. Walk out of the gas station, fumble around for my keys, and my car simply opens for me. Butthurt skeptics would insist I merely bumped the door unlock while grabbing my keys. No, sorry, my car loves me and opened her door for me automagically. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

Wonder if I can get a low-mileage ZX2 out in California.

I like to think United is a leather-clad dominatrix, refusing to allow you to check in with plenty of time to spare, because she knows you really like it, because the safe word is Willem Dafoe, and you aren’t screaming Willem Dafoe’s name, because damn it, that’d just be awkward.

Your online system is telling me I am too late to check in online; it’s within an hour before my scheduled departure. Except, not really. Re: Surprise 11:20 AM. I’m glad that my reservation is fine. Yes, you already said I have to check in at the airport. I’m asking you if your airline is going to screw me because of some absolutely illogical policy. Yes, I *know* – check in at the airport. I’m asking if I *can*. Oh, FFS, thank you, good day.

Rush to airport. No rush, because waking up is hard to dooooo.

Check in, no problem. Hours to kill. Starbuck’s. God awful coffee. Pretty good blend of coal ash and mud, though. Departure. Sleep.

Paul H. Muad’dib, why is it under negative NINE THOUSAND? Ridiculous $7 blanket is very tempting to purchase. Rather sleep. Sleep, in the three seats I have to myself. US Airways. They are NOT United. They do not really pack them in. They are not stacking them like cordwood. They are not loading them up via baggage conveyor into a holding area with a grated floor.

Philly. Time to kill. Bathroom. Oh god yes, bathroom. Four hour flight? Seemed longer when I watched it. Itinerary said five. Captain was awesome, by the way. Explained exactly why the hell we weren’t departing at 8:20 AM in great detail; begged apology. US Airways. They are NOT United. Bathroom. Change into long sleeved shirt. Wander around Philly. Time to kill; need food. Wendy’s! Coming soon, crap. Walk to terminal F. Can’t walk to terminal F without re-screening. Still no problems with TSA. Theatre Security Asininity. Not arrogant enough to be an arsehole martyr. Not looking to cause enthusiast problems; result, no problems. Ever. Downright pleasant folks, really. I’m on a BUS!

Terminal F. Food? Sbarro. Sbarro. How the hell do you pronounce Sbarro? Is it Ess-Barro? Or some hideous s-b consonant shift that doesn’t work with English? Damned good pizza. Probably sucked, to be honest. I mean, airport pizza? From some random chain? Crispy thin crust. Awesome sauce. Could be alteration of taste buds caused by starvation. For I am the Kwisatz Haderach. Beer is the mind-killer.

Boredom. Boarding. Beets. Battlestar Galactica. Love small regional jets. Getting used to riding the skybus, though. Bus. Bus. I hate Airbus. Even after United, flying was still awesome(tm), until I realized: It’s a bus. A bus with wings, but a bus. Mere public transportation. Nothing special about it whatsoever. All because of Airbus. They couldn’t name themselves Airlimo? The temperature of this bus is over nine thousand. Shouldn’t have changed. Didn’t turn off my cell phone; take that, asinine pointless rules. Gods below, are we at cruising altitude yet? Need. Music.

Zzzz. Crackle. Crap. Beginning descent. So much for the glory of Yuki Kajiura. Flying to Japan from California should be a hell of a lot cheaper.

Drinking. Decent games of pool. Dim, dank diner. Ridiculous girl from Hazleton. Boyfriend facepalming. Poor dude. Good luck with that. And good luck to you, stereotypical girl from Hazleton. The company I co-founded does direct business with household names that you cannot possibly imagine. What do you do? Nothing of consequence? Enjoy growing old in dive bars.

Ah, arrogance. Well deserved arrogance; the best kind. Time I start acting like it.

Konata is dead. S’what I get for naming a red car Konata. Started earlier; not starting now. Alternator. Alternator, really? Probably. Really? Seems like it.

Pork chops. Mashed potatoes. Hell yes. Need to cook dinner when I get back. I make killer lemon and garlic pork chops. Ah, crap. I make a damned fine ham. Ah, crap. I should just cheat and do sushi. Need to remember to grab the knife from the kitchen. Best investment ever. Nearly took off my finger and didn’t feel a thing. Want to break out the requisite sushi equipment. Only have settings for two people, though. Awesome green-black, though. Gods below, must pack that carefully. Might be a UPS or FedEx box instead of a USPS gets-there-when-it-gets-there cheap box.

Family that doesn’t comprehend that moving some crap into the house != moving in. Infuriating. Attempts to correct largely ignored. Could try harder. Guilty about not trying harder? Not really. Don’t need the drama. What ever happened to TNT? They know drama(tm). Need to find a place with Surewest. But even Comcast is surely better than the local cable monopoly.

Alternator. Gunk on the cables. Clean the gunk. Like hell that’d fix it. Still, much improvement. Negative on start. Why is my airbag light blinking with my blinker? WHY ARE YOU BLINKING, AIRBAG LIGHT? YOU’RE NOT EVEN A BLINKER. Disconnect. Serpentine belt, we meet again, my old enemy. Remove the coolant resevoir. I can see why; there’s no room. Not like the Jeep. A foot of room in front of the engine; Serpentine clearly visible. My god, it’s full of space. Not like Ford. Then again, ZX2. Overpowered tiny car. Overpowered, giant engine, makes sense. Bolt removed. Can’t even approach the nut which must be removed. Why would you do that, Ford? Why would you leave two inches of screw sticking out? Just to make things difficult for those of us who don’t have tiny rachet sizes with ridiculously unnecessary depth to them? Gods below. Washer fluid resevoir? Two of those nuts. Can get the one, but there’s no chance at the second. Great.

Screw it, I’ll work around it. Ah, Serpentine belt. Tensioner in the worst location imaginable. Can’t get the torque to move it. Detatch front right shield. Plastic shield. Hilarious. Have torque; but… Physics for the win. Force of ratchet being pulled back keeps second ratchet snug against a piece of the body. At full de-tension. Alternator pulley uses teeth. Would rather not lose fingers to pulling and working the belt; jenky use of a second ratchet to hold tensioner in de-tensioned position – yeah, not trusting that. Screw it. Saving $250 isn’t worth dealing with the horrible Serpentine belt. I cede victory.

Four months of mail. There’s my new Visa from Citi. And here’s a letter from Citi that arrived shortly thereafter. It’s just been revoked. Okay then. Well, I’ll just pay this card off slowly. No, wait. Okay, then. I’ll just prioritize paying off this card. Crap. ShittyBank. No matter what you do, they win.

Real system. Install Steam. Install Portal. Slightly amusing. Honestly, seems ridiculously overrated. Bored already. Believe this is why Depeche Mode wrote that song asking if there is, in fact, something to do.

Alternator. Is it the alternator? My car has spider webs in it. My car sat at an airport for five and three months. It was buried in snow. I want to drive, damn it.

Wal-Mart. Tape and bubble wrap. Fifteen feet of bubble wrap. Might as well get two. $67 for a battery? Thought it was more. Screw it. Everything I’ve been reading all day says, alternator. Unless it’s the battery.

Should’ve got separate receipts. Oh well. Finally have a use for those highlighters.

Konata lives. Konata stutters. Konata stutters badly. What’s up with that? Car has been sitting. I’m going to suspect, longer than a week, what with spider webs and the shaking the crap out of things. Two blocks later, she’s back. Taking it easy. Quick dash to Mountain Top. Could’ve just turned around. Nice section of 309 where it’s impossible for cops to sit. Downhill, posted 55. 80 it is. Structure integrity is holding, captain. Missed Materialise via car stereo. Something intriguing about Kajiuran Opera. Down to 45. Take a left at the light. Road seemed longer last time. Another left, and the old highway. By highway, I mean two lane road with a ridiculously decent posted 40. 55 it is. Except for spinning around that bad corner. Feel daring, though. 35, and she gives no leeway. Love you, m’dear.

Might as well check the Interstate. Real open field running. Construction, FFS. With nary a construction worker to be seen at 1 AM. Still, 55 to 65 mph for a decent stretch. Or stretches. Keep being interrupted by sudden lane shifts with a complete lack of lighting and concrete barriers that are far too narrow. Another reason to miss California; those people understand how to do roadwork. Get back. Park. Turn off car. Turn on car. Turn off car. Turn on car. Turn off car. Turn on car. Turn off car. Turn on car. This is probably really bad for the car, come to think of it. Need to know though. Well. Will check it in the morning. Just drove for an hour and a half. That and getting me to AutoZone for a free alternator check, and I’ll say it was a good use of $67.

Agitated because of the car. And other reasons. Mostly the car. Monday already. Leaving Saturday. So much to do. The car, really? Not really. The real problem is I have a crap ton of things to do on Monday, few of which involve anything material. Determine if I need to rent a van to move stuff to the house. Need to talk to Goodwill. Possibly the Salvation Army. I’ve got furniture, and someone’s going to haul it away for free or for a tax-deductible receipt, damn it. I really cleaned out in the time between California trips. Out of stuff to merely throw out. Need to talk to the post office about Media Mail and Priority Mail. Not much to do.

Sleep for a few hours. Wake up. Humidity out here is deadly. Low humidity at the moment, and it’s twice what ‘high humidity’ days in Sac are. Feel dirty. THEY DON’T MAKE WATER HOT ENOUGH.

Need to do something. Feels like I’m wasting time. Four AM. What time? Only things open are Wal-Mart and gas stations. Media mail. Books are lighter than they appear. Box full of books – half my library. A mere twenty five pounds. Fifteen feet of bubble wrap is nothing. Gods, need more. Progress.

Need a cigarette. Loving the e-cigarette tonight. Oh hell, loving the e-cigarette tonight. Need a real cigaratte though. Need to stop doing this, need to stop reverting. All in due time. Cigarette consumption already at ridiculously low levels. Will make the final push later in the week, I think.

Konata lives. Starts right up. Not believing there’s a parasitic problem. FFS, car sat in an airport, rotting away, for half a year, then started right up. Covered in such filth. Security system still armed. Still think that was not a good idea for the battery. Still going to check the alternator today. Worst case, I blew $67 on a battery, after abusing the hell out of the last battery. Kind of want to make the car as nice as possible; last week with her, and she’s going to a friend. Don’t mind the expense so much. Full of shit, I just wanted to drive *NAO*. Well, and the going to good hands and don’t mind the expense in that case, part.

Ash Like Snow. Gundam 00. Epic in Blu Ray. Unicorn is better, aesthetically. Stupid name. Movie quality animation. Gorgeous. Gundams with airbags. Hilarious. The Brilliant Green. The Brilliant Band Name. Gas station.

Weight loss, none. Maintaining? Good. Need to stop letting someone feed me giant plates of sixty three cheese nachos. Probably just need to wait for summer in Sacramento and the complete lack of eating due to the heat of a thousand stars. Energy drinks don’t count. Monster BFC. Need to get a Windows 3.11 box set up again. Doom and Doom 2. So many hours wasted. Time better spent than watching Birth. Horrible movie. The funniest part is that the main point of the movie destroys itself. The movie is pointless. Simply pointless. Ooo. Gas station burrito. 65,000 calories.

Decisive Battle. Impossible to obey the speed limit. Eliminating targets.

Burrito on plate. Suddenly not hungry. Awesome. Later.

Post.

Then there’s the keeping batteries charged problem…

Given that I’m stubborn by nature, I ordered the basic starter kit from InnoVapor. I needed a new atomizer; I could use another battery; my business partner needed a new battery; I needed more nicotine juice, and it came with another USB charger dongle. Which is awesome. And cheaper than ordering all of the above separately.

Came today, despite free shipping and the order being placed at the beginning of the week. Customer service? Hell yes, InnoVapor haz it. Anyway, I tore open the package and noticed the replacement cartridges I didn’t pay any attention to seemed… different.

Holy crap. These things are *huge*. And it’s a good thing – just tried one out, and man, I’ve never dreamed of this much vapor coming out of an e-cigarette. Not to mention the viable throat hit. That might have more to do with me going full flavor instead of medium this time (I also reduced my nicotine %), but…

Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaamn.

So after a brief pause, it’s back to a Marlboro-free lifestyle for me, no doubt.

Win.

Had a client with a WordPress blog, using PageNavi. It suddenly broke, badly – pagination worked for specific categories, but not for the main feed (eg, index/landing page which shows all posts), or for the archives. It started off with late pages (in the 18+ range) returning page not found errors, and progressed to the point where the second page started showing the same.

Searching for info on PageNavi is like herding cats – Google will give you nothing of use, but page after page of results insisting that you just have to use PageNavi. So, this is why I get the big cheezburgrz:

The solution ended up being simple. Under the ‘Reading’ settings, the ‘Blog pages show at most’ setting was set to a ridiculously high number. Despite this, the individual pages weren’t showing more than maybe 5 posts at a time. Reduced the number to 5, and suddenly, pagination via PageNavi worked up to the final page.

MATERIALISE! – Live

Been waiting to hear this live. Kind of surprised at how it turned out; not at all what I expected considering the original. Still, it’s only taken a few listens to grow on me.

…

The Image Theme of Xenosaga II – Live

Hoooooooooooooooooooooooooooly Shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit.

The first downside is, I just inhaled the magic smoke. I can’t get the taste of dead electronics out of my mouth. Took a drag, noticed it tasted shockingly like … I can’t even describe it, and then the battery appeared to be moving toward reaching critical mass.

I popped off the cartridge – the reek of dead electronics instantly filled the air. Quickly unscrewed the atomizer. Carefully place the battery in a location where it could safely explode if necessary. After it cooled… I’m not able to get it to charge, it seems. So, dead battery is almost certain. Even better – atomizer’s likely dead, too. Which sucks, because my other one isn’t broken in, so I get to taste more ass instead of … not-cigarette for at least two days, now.

In reality, I’m likely down $25. I understand the idea of manufacturing defects, but given my business partner had a battery fall to pieces when he tried to unscrew it from his charger… It’s got to be asked: These things seem fragile. Am I *really* going to be saving much money?

Not to mention: Yes, nicotine and water vapor lack a few thousand chemicals. What’s inhaling the magic smoke from burnt electronics going to do to my lungs?

Kind of starting to wonder if I shouldn’t just buy a cheap metal pot.

Y’see, it’s not the nicotine – there’s patches for that. It’s the breathing stuff in and exhaling it.

Steam, vapor… Whatever.