to reply to inane celebrity tweets with even more inane replies? I get SO tempted sometimes but I don’t want to become one of THOSE PEOPLE who think they’re special because a celebrity replies back to them with yet another inane tweet.

Speaking of Twitter, I am somewhat amused by some of the names celebrities give to their tweets and their followers: twits, twats, tots, tweeple, twitterverse. And some celebrities who shall remain nameless tweet so often I think they must keep their cellphones with them every moment of their existence and tweet about everything that pops into their head. Huh, I guess celebrities really are just “normal” like the rest of us. Either that or they just recruit minions to tweet for them.

Wow I haven’t ranted in months, what’s wrong with me? Oh yeah, it’s that FARMVILLE ADDICTION. Anyway not much has happened, the holidays came and went and I wished I could hibernate like I wish every year, and my health has continued to improve (aside from that apparently dislocated shoulder that messed me up for a couple months) and I’m pretty much ready to work now if only I could find a job.

Uhm … I saw Avatar … … … not much to say there. Oh yeah it was in 3D which means they can jack up ticket prices so you don’t have much snack money left outta that $20 bill. I really don’t get the hype on this movie though, it’s really just more special effects and a somewhat lame and undeveloped story like most “blockbusters” so uhm … is it just the 3D? I was more impressed with the 3D effects in the previews than the actual movie. Oh well.

Other than that my life has been pretty much the same old boring life it’s been for the last few years. Once I start working again I’ll have more angst I’m sure though, rest and relaxation tends to make me more mellow.

Back in the dark ages of the interwebs, long before the days of banner ads and animated .gifs, when the fashionable background color of all websites was gray, and when knowing HTML meant you knew how to change the text size and alignment, I started my very first web page … on GeoCities … because at the time, it was the only place I knew of where you could get a free webpage, and because you could have a cool “address” like www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Pines/4780 (and for those of you Wayback Machine users, my page was WAY before the one that’s archived) and you could decorate your page with nifty stuff like rainbow divider bars and stuff. It was also the reason I learned HTML in the first place, and to this day I still hand code most of my sites using good old archaic HTML – no Flash, no .css, no .php just HTML. Of course, this blog is special because I use the magic of WordPress but that’s only because it’s easy, and I’m lazy.

GeoCities was also the very first home of the nomadic First Bernadette Peters Webpage. It didn’t stay there long though, it moved first to CompuServe then to Earthlink then I closed it back in 1999 because I was bored and there were other fan pages by then and Bernadette finally got her own “official” web page.

in the California State Legislature. Beginning tomorrow, all you lucky slobs who are not unemployed in California will see a nice little surprise in your next paycheck. A nasty surprise. California is increasing state tax withholding by 10%, even though your tax rate hasn’t actually gone up (yet) and of course it’s an annualized change so uhm … take that, you silly taxpayers who keep whining about tax increases.

The thing that bothers me about this is that the state seems to be illegally borrowing money from us that we don’t actually owe, so they can get an interest-free loan to prop up their dopey outta whack budget that they won’t balance. Do they really think this is going to help? Of course not, I think they’re just preparing us for the inevitable onslaught of tax increases yet to come.

I really, really wish the voters of California would get a f***ing clue one of these days and vote each and every one of these thieves out of office, from the lowest rung all the way up to the governor, because I’m getting really tired of being forced to pay for things that I don’t actually benefit from, while the state workers and the union workers and the beneficiaries of all these dopey social programs (like that “we’ll pay you to take care of your own relatives at taxpayer expense” program, which is, of course, unionized) seem to get by unscathed. They don’t get pay cuts. They don’t get laid off. They don’t lose thousands of dollars from pension fund investments that went sour. Of course not, because they get bailed out time and time again by the taxpayers. And the worst part is the state keeps adding more stuff to the pile.

Oh, and for those of you who are thinking hey, I’ll just change my withholding so I don’t get a tax withholding increase, be careful, I’ve heard of people getting whacked with penalties that far outweigh the “savings” when the state catches on and you end up owing more taxes than were withheld. (And since they’ll probably jack our taxes up again anyway, there’s really no point in fighting it, they’ll take it all and then some because they refuse to cut anything that needs to be cut from the state budget.)

Happy Halloween!

WTF?

I knew several years ago the whole Nobel Prize committee was whacked outta its mind in its choices (Arafat for one, wasn’t he a terrorist?) but uhm … this one takes the cake. Obama was in office for what, a few days before the deadline for nominations? (Hell, I didn’t even know he was nominated.) And what exactly did he do in those few days for world peace? Oh wait, I forgot, silly me, the peace prize isn’t actually about world peace anymore it’s about political propaganda for a “cause”. But even so, uhm … what did he do? I don’t think he had plunked down billions of dollars to bail out mismanaged companies that “cannot fail” yet thereby helping to further destroy the economy. Uhm … I don’t think he had adopted Bo the wonder dog yet. So what the hell did he do to deserve this? Is it because he’s a pro-Palestinian “Muslim?” Could it be because he’s the first black American president? Hmm … maybe that’s it.

Oh well, at least Obama himself admitted he was undeserving hehe.

I’ve been doing that trial of Lord of the Rings Online all week and a couple funny things happened … one … I was out in the middle of freakin’ nowhere in Elf Land and I got ambushed by a bear and took him out, but the funny part is that he did a death move that was hilarious, not only did he kinda fly up in the air and do a flip, but he landed head-first into the dirt:

Then today while playing my little Hobbit in the Shire I happened up a farm and did a couple quests then the farmer dude tells me to go talk to his chicken (??!!??) so I do and then I end up in a weird alternate universe where I am turned into a level 1 chicken:

The bad part about being a chicken is that it makes the game insanely hard. I did manage to do the first quest in the chain, but after getting one-shotted by wolves three times in a row while trying to do the second quest I gave up. Man, and I thought Restoring the Quickpost quests were a pain in the pants. I think I’ll have to save those chicken quests for when I need a serious adrenaline boost and have way too much time on my hands. Still, it was an amusing find that I don’t remember being there in beta.

The best quest so far though was that one in the cellar of Sprigley’s farm, I remember that one from beta (thankfully it’s easier now) and it creeped me out then too … you walk around in the dark in this underground cave full of spiders and every now and then you come across one that drops down from the ceiling and starts attacking you. Not for the arachnophobic for sure. One nice thing they did though is that if you manage to find the boss spider down there the first time you’re on a quest you do NOT have to go back in there again, you can initiate the boss quest from there then turn in the trophy at the same time you finish the main quest. I remember in beta barely making it outta there alive on the first part of the quest then the dude would send you back in there to kill the mother spider and I cannot tell you how many times I died down there in beta. So it’s seriously nice to have “revenge” now that it’s a doable solo quest.

None of the other quests though have really measured up to the ones you get in World of Warcraft, but one Intro quest came close, Burying the Dead, part of the Race of Man Intro quests. That part wasn’t done yet in beta either so this was all new. But it was the only time so far playing the game I’ve felt a swell of emotion, so at least there is a glimmer of hope in the game.

I’m also rather liking playing my Rune Keeper, it’s basically a hybrid mage/healer and so far has been even easier to solo with than my Hobbit minstrel. And a lot more fun than mashing songs all day.

Pokeplushies totally revamped how the Click Forest works so my old tips are now completely useless. But help is on the way. The new one is actually easier and cheaper if you know how to do it. It’s unfortunately a bit hard to explain though but I’ll try.

Basically how it works is there is a grid, with numbers on it. You can only move vertically, the Pokirby you are hunting can only move horizontally. The idea is to get as many points as you can and to give the Pokirby as few points as you can, so that when either player runs out of move (all the “patches” are gone from the row they’re currently in) you have the most points, so you catch the Pokirby.

Now, I’ve only played a little bit so I might be wrong, but it seems that the Pokirby will always pick the biggest number in his (horizontal) row (and this square is where your character will “pop” to.) And usually you want to pick the biggest number in your row (vertical) to win. Whatever square you pick is where the Pokirby “pops” to. If you don’t want to think at all, the easiest way to play the game is to always pick the biggest number in the vertical row you are in and you’ll win more than you’ll lose.

But, if you really want to play, you can use some strategy to force the Pokirby to lose, by directing him towards rows with negative numbers, which subtract from his score. If you do this well you can win very easily. You can also force him into rows that are emptied out to make him lose quickly muahahah. Be careful though, because the Pokirby might send YOU to a row with negative numbers which subtract from your score, but some with planning ahead you can avoid this (which is why you might not always want to pick the square with the largest number, if doing that will force you into a row with lots of negative numbers.)

The only bad part about the new Click Forest is it costs 10 YBC to play now, but for most people that is actually cheaper in the long run than 1 YBC per click like the old one (unless you were REALLY good at it.) And it seems people are finding more Shadow Pokirbies too although I can’t confirm that, but I do know the last few weeks I personally was getting more Shadows than Shinies in there even before they upgraded it, but I haven’t gotten any Shadows yet in the new version but I only played for about five minutes.

Again. After burning out on hidden object game demos at Big Fish, I just happened to one night be browsing through my wallpapers because I was tired of the one I had and while scrolling through the list I found an old beta screenshot from LOTRO and thought hmmm … I wonder if there’s a free trial of that game? So I looked and I’ll be jiggered, there is! So I tried it out again. At first, I tried a couple servers and found that my old beta name Brambleberry was taken! No! So I made a character and called it Malberry because it was the only thing I could think of after an hour downloading and installing the game late at night. Anyway I toddled around the newbie areas, and it looked pretty much the same as beta, only far less crowded, I only saw ONE other player during my one hour or so that I played the newbie area. And there was no lag either! Of course I have 1 gig of RAM now too which I’m sure helps, the game was nearly unplayable for me in some areas in beta (Bree anyone? Ugh.)

Anyway, the memories of the Shire caught up with me and I wanted little Brambleberry back. So after sleeping, today (erm actually yesterday now, damn I need to get to bed hehe) I rolled through more servers and found one with the name free and resurrected wee little Brambleberry the Hobbit Minstrel! Hurray! I haven’t played her yet though, because I spent most of today trying out the new Rune Master class, which they added in the most recent expansion pack. The elf starter area is quite a bit different (in a good way) than it was in beta, actually most of it wasn’t even finished in beta until really, really late. Anyway, tomorrow, erm today I shall restart anew as Brambleberry.

Here is a screenie of the old Brambleberry:

and the new:

Notice any family resemblance?

Also, even though I’ve only played a few hours so far again, I’m beginning to remember why I hated LOTRO hehe. BUT I do have to say they’ve fixed some of the stuff, like the ugliness of elves, and some of the quests are a bit easier. Oh and they have houses now too! But the instanced quests … I know it’s a good idea in concept but man I hate those things … I’m a wanderer and explorer by Bartle type and I hate being forced to finish an “epic questline” in order to get to a new area. Fortunately though, once you get out of newbie hell, you can wander a lot more. But being forced to do those spider quests ONE MORE TIME after doing them oh I dunno, about 5 or 6 times in beta was horrible but at least they made them easier, and since I’d done them before I knew them. Oy. And I’m gonna have to do them again tomorrow, erm today. ::sobs::

Another thing too that kind of bothers me is that my old Turbine account doesn’t show any of my old “stuff” on it, my old Asheron’s Call account and my old beta stuff, I know I couldn’t re-activate my old beta account (at least I don’t think so, they supposedly wiped at the end of beta.) But what if I wanted to reactivate my old AC account? I won’t, but what if I did? Unless I’ve completely lost my mind and didn’t merge my account, I’m pretty sure it was there back when I beta-tested LOTRO. Oh well, I had to start a new account to do the LOTRO trial anyway because you can’t add it to an existing account unless you PAY first, so since I didn’t play retail I figured there’s no point in that. But it kind of bothers me that they either wiped my AC account off my Turbine account or I’ve completely lost my mind and imagined merging my old Zone account over to Turbine, and writing it down with both account names. I also could have sworn I remembered seeing both the AC account and the LOTRO beta account listed there in my account manager back when I was beta testing LOTRO.

Anyway, more LOTRO adventures and maybe screenshots tomorrow! I’ll probably make her a Yeoman again because farming pipeweed was fun. And Hobbits like to eat so cooking is a good skill to have.

sort of. PokePlushies added “paintable” adoptables and the first one up is a cat Cylin, and well … I had to get one. I painted it to match my cat Kaia.

Since I’m posting I might as well catch things up a bit, I’m feeling better, but not quite “well” yet but my disability runs out the end of the month and I’m not sure I’m gonna extend it, I think I’ll just leave it up to my doctor to decide. I probably could work at least part-time if I had to, but I’m not sure if working full-time again would just make me sick again or not, and I’ve still not figured out exactly what’s wrong with me. But at least I’m somewhat functional now, just not as well as I was when I was well. But if I continue to improve, things should be OK in a few more months. I’m definitely gonna suck it up and buy health insurance though once I start working again, cuz not being able to go to a specialist and stuff has really been frustrating. And under Obama-care they’d FORCE me to get insurance anyway haha. Well either that or pay a fine that’s considerably less than the cost of insurance. How are they gonna force poor people to pay anyway? Withhold their tax refunds? Take it out of their paychecks? You know the poor will whine how they’re unfairly targeted. And I know I for one would buy health insurance in a heartbeat if I could get it for only $100/month (assuming it didn’t have some outrageous deductible that is.)

Boredom leads to thinking. Bad, bad. (Yeah I know that’s not the “beginning” but I figure my readers are smart enough to seek out that which they need ….)