One of these days I'll use this damn journal again. I have an entry in mind but I can never get around to starting it. Most anything I want to say can easily be done on Google Plus, which is awesome now that facebook is shooting themselves in the foot. 1500% traffic increase over the last week on G+, lawl.

Circle me, k? k.

Compared to some of you, it seems I am an emotional void :(

lol facebook drama

lol over-sensitive people

Send a lot of text messages?
On wifi, use Chrome, and have a keyboard?
You might be interested in Texty!

Seriously, this is great. It's an app with a Chrome extension, and when you receive a text message, Chrome pops up with a notification. You can click on it, type up your reply on the computer, then send the message, all without touching your phone. What can I say, I'm lazy I guess.

http://textyapp.com/

How many total songs?
6777 songs, 58.81 gigs.

Sort by song title - first and last?
First: múm - Á bakvið tvær hæðir...sundlaug
Last: Isis - " - "

Sort by time - shortest and longest?
Shortest: Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra & Tra-La-La Band - [Untitled Track] (0:04)
Longest: Deftones - MX (37:19 - secret track after 20 mins silence), or Eluvium - Behind Your Trouble (33:19 continuous song).

Sort by Album - first and last?
First: The Beatles - Abbey Road
Last: Sigur Rós - ( )

Sort by Artist - first and last?
First: AC/DC
Last: 65daysofstatic

Top five played songs?
1. Wintersleep – Astronaut (42)
2. Opeth – To Bid You Farewell (41)
3. Nine Inch Nails – The Day The World Went Away (36)
4. Opeth – Benighted (31)
5. Dream Theater – The Glass Prison (29)

Find the following words. How many songs show up?
Sex: 7
Death: 314
Love: 177
You: 682
Home: 57
Boy: 63
Girl: 33

Decemberists at Home by losershawn

This is a little higher than I'm used to as I forgot to grab my capo. Still passable though.

My laptop (with no torrents running or anything of that sort):


My phone on the cell network, no wifi:


Hmmm....

Lj meme at home by losershawn

I didn't actually listen to see how this turned out, because listening to myself talk is weird. :| I'm just going to assume it all went well.
edit: Okay I've been told it worked other than I sound croaky cause I was trying to be quiet and didn't want to yell at the phone. The dbm meter was flirting with the red zone as it was.

Your name and/or username
Where you're from
The following words: Aunt, Roof, Route, Wash, Oil, Theater, Iron, Salmon, Caramel, Fire, Water, Sure, Data, Ruin, Crayon, Toilet, New Orleans, Pecan, Both, Again, Probably, Spitting Image, Alabama, Lawyer, Coupon, Mayonnaise, Syrup, Pajamas, Caught, Orange, Coffee, direction, naturally, aluminium and herbs
What is it called when you throw toilet paper on a house?
What is the bubbly carbonated drink called?
What do you call gym shoes?
What do you say to address a group of people?
What do you call the kind of spider that has an oval-shaped body and extremely long legs?
What do you call your grandparents?
What do you call the wheeled contraption in which you carry groceries at the supermarket?
What do you call it when rain falls while the sun is shining?
What is the thing you change the TV channel with?

Oh I was also going to mention we don't use the term supermarket here, it's all "grocery store."

Rooting in progress. Should have CyanogenMod installed soon.

edit: Done \o/

Wii friend code: 1928 7972 4796 7185

Who comes up with these product names??

mooiisssttt.

Really.

If you only watch one youtube video today, make it this one:



I'm not held responsible for any urges to play a certain game received from the viewing of this video.

obaby. I hope she's still not angry that we killed her daughter in Mauradon.

(She is.)

Five more days:
(Highly recommended watching, especially to see the art style of Deepholme, the cavern type place with lots of floating pieces of rock debris.)

This is actually not a picture of a shoreline, but one (blurry) picture of
boats heading out to sea for lobsters. All those lights are boats. I took a
few videos too, but they're not all that interesting to be honest. I counted
somewhere around 150 headed out.

And related to the previous post, if anyone's interested in giving Warcraft a try, you can buy the first three games for $20 american. $5 for vanilla (includes new Azeroth, but not Worgen/Goblins), $5 for Burning Crusade (draeneis and blood elves!), and 10 for Wrath of the Lich King.

THIS WEEK ONLY.
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/blog/1220626

If you are interested, let me know beforehand and I can refer-a-friend. Basically I put your email in and it sends you a 10 day trial key, and then if you upgrade to the full game it will give you triple exp, the ability to summon each other, and a two-person flying rocket mount.

http://us.blizzard.com/store/browse.xml?f=f:1

Come gather 'round people, wherever you roam,
and admit that the waters around you have grown,
and accept it that soon, you'll be drenched to the bone.
If your time to you is worth savin'
Then you better start swimmin' or you'll sink like a stone,
For the times they are a-changin'.
[...]
Don't stand in the doorway, don't block up the hall
For he that gets hurt, will be he who has stalled
There's a battle outside ragin'
It'll soon shake your windows and rattle your walls,
For the times they are a-changin'.



This post is going to be unapologetically geeky. There'll be feelings in relation to a video game. You have been warned.



It's been two years since I tried it. And four years of relentless uninformed bashing before that.
My first character was a Human Warlock called Virulence. I got to level 20, which was the max level possible on a trial account. It wouldn't be long until I'd buy the game, a few weeks before Christmas actually, under the guise of a gift for a friend. Conviction, the Night Elf priest, was created when I got home. Of course, what was the point of a game if I couldn't get to max level to play with my friends? Burning Crusade and Wrath were purchased shortly thereafter.

Somewhere along the shaman, Symbiosis, and the new dranei priest, Invocation, it clicked. The new starting areas were phenomenal. I could turn into a wolf and run around town! There were totems, spells you could cast while moving, a completely free range of motion - I could walk, run, swim, and yes, jump. I could mail my friends regardless of if they were online or offline, and they'd be able to get it in an hour. There was an auction house! Dungeons required real teamwork, concentration, and skill. Battle awareness was a necessity - I died in a second from standing in an innocent looking cloud of green stuff. There were mounts! I could download addons to tailor the UI how I wanted. And the story, the lore! Oh my invisible pink unicorn was there ever lore. Almost every character had a story, reaching back years to the first Warcraft game.

But most of all, the world was so alive. NPCs cluttered the cities, and would have conversations with themselves. You could meet random players just walking down the road, and they'd often throw you a health or mana buff as they passed by. And it wasn't just the population, but the world itself was so animated, often quite literally. The weather would change, rain, snow, fog, with day and night cycles as well. A gnome mage would walk the streets of the town and turn on all the lamps himself. The lamps would then magically hover, and glow, casting realtime shadows on the ground. The attention to detail was ridiculous.

It's only improved since then. Portals were active in Dalaran, allowing faster transportation all over the world. You didn't have to spam chat looking for a group anymore, just choose your role and desired dungeon, then hit queue. In minutes you would be teamed up and ready to go. The raids increased in scope and presentation. Jousting against other grand champions, playing Ikaruga, having the ground of the coliseum fall out from under you into a giant spider/beetle's lair, fighting on a gunship and using jetpacks to jump from ship to ship, a fight which required healing an npc to full health while fending off wave attacks, and of course, the incredible culmination of defeating the Lich King, and the consequences thereof.

But later today, it all changes.

The patch which overhauls Azeroth will be released, forever altering the world. Zones will be changed dramatically, both geographically and quest-wise, as Deathwing unleashes the Shattering. It's really surprised me just how much I'm looking forward to the overhaul, and yet how nostalgic I am for the incredible questlines and experiences of Vanilla Warcraft. For example, never again will we be able to complete The Missing Dipolmat, the 17 quest chain which was basically a huge lore storytelling chain of the kidnapping of Varian Wyrnn, King of Stormwind, which spanned the zones of Duskwood, Wetlands, Dustwallow Marsh, and Westfall.


I decided to leave my character in Stormwind. It was the place where I first met my local friends in game, where they gave me a tour of the world, and where we would later have our first guild meeting, completely crowding the cathedral's crypts with our guildies.

I walked to the Valley of Heroes and looked out past the gates, knowing that when I return, the signs of Deathwing's return will be found upon the claw-marked turrets, and broken statues.


As I stood there, reflecting, it started to rain.


Fitting.




And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.

Filler text here blah blah blah

Lol redundancy.

attn brandy and whoever else

Minipet display
need something like 20 or 21 of:

white minis I don't have:
raptor
juggernaut
forest minotaur
irukandji
abomination
desert griffon
dredge brute
krait neoss
kveldulf
quetzal sly
terrorweb dryder
word of madness
cobalt scabara
fire drake
ophil nahualli
scourge manta
seer
shard wolf
siege devourer
summit giant herder

purples and higher, listed for completion, some may be cheaper than above whites (like the first year ones):
charr shaman
kirin
koss
palawa joko
freezie
nornbear
flowstone elemental
jora
candysmith marley
oola
ventari
lich
beast of argghhh
white rabbit
brown rabbit
gwen doll
yakkington

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

Hero display:

Black Widow Spider

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

Weapon display:

Any oppressor's weapon
destroyer bow
destroyer scythe
destroyer daggers

So Linkin Park put out a dance music cd or something, which is kinda weird.



Maybe I'm just used to real metal now, but back in high school when I used to listen to Linkin Park it seems like their stuff was a lot heavier... Then again a lot of the stuff I got into in high school was pretty much radio music, with the exception of System of a Down.


edit:
also I never realized how little sense the lyrics make. Especially to 'Somewhere I Belong'. It's almost as bad as Nirvana's Smells Like Teen Spirit.

Ok I reactivated WoW. Hopefully it won't cause my laptop to overheat and shut off. I think other games have caused that recently, I may have a fan going bad(?).

Lemme know your Real IDs if you want to talk to me in game, either in a comment or lj/msn/fb/text message if you're worried about random people seeing it. Mines the usual gmail shawn.mike.smith one.

lol this is amazing.
(also: Frontier Justice is imba.)

Bioshock
Beyond Good and Evil
Garry's Mod
Colin McRae DiRT 2

All for 32 bucks.
I love Steam sales.

I’m not entirely sure what the point of using Windows Live Writer is when I could just update my blog from the lj main site.. And yet, here we are.

 

So anyway, the Windows Live Beta was released today. This should interest you if you use MSN at all.. or rather “Windows Live Messenger” as it’s supposed to be known.

 

I was too lazy to crop, (and you can right click and open the image in a new tab if you want to see it full size), but you can see the new social window MSN uses, along with the chat window that now has tabbed chats. You can switch the main window back to the compact old-style msn if you like, as well. There’s also a new Mail program, Photo Gallery, and Movie Maker, if you’re into that sort of thing.

So the new Aion 1.9 patch went live today. It actually looks rather enticing. Even more grind reduction (now with rested exp, and even some sort of bonus exp if you stay at a certain level too long), an LFG tool, some more sweet costumes and such.

However. Almost all my RL friends are on WoW. The only person I know in Aion is buttfacemakani.
And WoW has a content patch coming up with a new raid.

Alas.
My collector's edition will have to rot a bit longer I guess.

[20:54:14] {@shawn} okcupid called me hot
[20:54:36] {gerg} that little stunt made me delete my okc account
[20:54:50] {~calixae} lol >_>
[20:55:22] {JD} ... what
[20:55:46] {sabrina} what
[20:56:17] {~calixae} http://i.imgur.com/S8JOE.jpg
[20:59:52] {@shawn} http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b70/a_perfectschism/lolwut.jpg
[21:01:12] {@shawn} i was gonna cry about it on my lj
[21:01:12] {@shawn} but
[21:01:14] {@shawn} lj's down
[21:01:24] {~calixae} indeed it is
[21:01:25] {JD} lol
[21:01:37] {JD} well, i'd still say you're in the top half of attractive users. >_>
[21:02:49] {sabrina} "go and ask an ugly friend and see"
[21:03:04] {@shawn} the top half probably isnt that hard to get into on a dating site
[21:03:31] {sabrina} yeah, so long as you have a face

1. Your favorite song
None, although I've been enjoying American Pie by Don Mclean, As I Am by Dream Theater, and a few songs off Wintersleep's new cd.

2. A book I should read that you've enjoyed
Roadside Crosses, by Jeffery Deaver

3. A game I should play that you love
WoW, Portal, Team Fortress 2.

4. An LJ comm I should check out/join
Dunno, I don't really do lj comms aside from a select few some gw people got me to join.

5. Something good about your life right now
Some new girl potential.

6. Something not so good about your life right now
The front right tire on my car keeps going flat and I need a new one.

7. Your ambitions for the rest of the year/life
Save up money, move/get a better job.

8. Are you a Doctor Who fan? :3
Nope. Saw one episode about Agatha Christie, it was beyond stupid and I haven't watched it again.

9. What attracts you to a person
Personality/sense of humor.

10. Your spiritual beliefs
Don't really think about it much lately.

11. The best food to snack on
Pizza.

12. Are you a night or a day person
Night, by far.

13. Your favorite animal
Cats.

14. What you love about yourself
Sense of humor.

15. What makes you keep reading my nonsense
It's amusing!

16. Your opinion of Family Guy
Completely immature, childish, and of course.. absolutely fucking hilarious.

17. If you ran Adult Swim, what shows would you carry
No idea, do we even get Adult Swim in Canada? I don't watch tv much.

18. Your favorite boardgame as a child/or now
Monopoly I guess. As long as I'm the banker so I can cheat.

19. Your opinion of ouji boards
They'd probably be okay for firewood, that's about it.

20. What are your fandoms?
None.

They are delicious burgers i must eat them

Just like the subject line says. Popular 90s (and early 2000s) rock songs, list 'em.
The list so far:

Bush - Swallowed, Glycerine
Incubus - Stellar, Drive
Oasis - Morning Glory, Champagne Supernova, Wonderwall
Matthew Good - Everything Is Automatic, Load Me Up, Hello Time Bomb, Apparitions
Our Lady Peace - Superman's Dead, Clumsy
Matchbox 20 - Push, 3am
Placebo - Pure Morning
Default - Wasting My Time
Lifehouse - Hanging By A Moment
Blur - Song 2
Soundgarden - Black Hole Sun
Green Day - When I Come Around, Basket Case, Hitchin' A Ride
System of a Down - Chop Suey
Korn - Freak on a Leash
The Offspring - The Kids Aren't Alright, (not Pretty Fly, screw that song.)
Finger Eleven - Above, First Time
Adema - Giving In, The Way You Like It
Deftones - Be Quiet and Drive, My Own Summer, Change In The House Of Flies
Foo Fighters - Learn To Fly
Train - Drops of Jupiter
Pearl Jam - Do The Evolution
Chevelle - Mia, The Red
Weezer - Buddy Holly, My Name Is Jonas, Say It Ain't So
Nirvana - Teen Spirit (even though I was never a huge fan /blasphemy)
Sloan - Rest Of My Life
Barenaked Ladies - If A Had A Million Dollars, Brian Wilson, It's All Been Done, Call and Answer
The Presidents of the USA - Lump, Peaches, Dune Buggy
Third Eye Blind - Semi Charred Life
Marcy Playground - Sex and Candy
Collective Soul - December
REM - Losing My Religion
The Tragically Hip - Courage, Wheat Kings, and the rest of the Fully Completely album really, Ahead by a Century, Bobcaygeon
Semisonic - Closing Time

For the curious: I'm making a list of songs to learn to play, so that way when we go to jam in the future when no one seems to know what to play, I can haul up a list of well known songs everyone likes to rock out on.

I can't believe most of Dream Theater's discography is from the 90s. I hadn't even heard of them back then.

Hi.
Haven't had much to say lately. While I'm sure I could write novels about the going-ons lately, most of you have already heard me whine - and going on about relationship crap is one of the worst things to slog through paragraphs of on a journal. Believe me I know, I've been there and done that, let's not have a repeat. Besides, this time I'm not tore up. Just frustrated and impatient.

So between stocking shelves at the dead-end job and hanging out with the friends in town when I can, I've been back to a Warcraft project, namely leveling the shaman which was my first real character, but I'd abandoned it a long time ago in favor of my priest.

http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Steamwheedle+Cartel&cn=Symbiosis

Naturally, I went restoration. Now this leads me to my main topic of this entry, and it's to talk about something Warcraft does really, really, really, right. But first, let's talk about that other game.

Guild Wars. In Guild Wars, there's really only one viable option for straight up healing, and that's a hybrid monk. Monks have been the backline of (non-gimmick) builds since the game's inception, and will likely continue on till its end. Now when Factions was released, Anet tried to make a secondary healer class, however.. Well, it failed. You just can't replace a two monk backline with a monk and a ritualist, they're not strong enough.

Which leads us to Warcraft.
Restoration druids, restoration shamans, discipline priests, holy priests, and holy paladins. Each of these classes/specs are viable, and can be swapped out for one another. However, each spec plays vastly different from one another. Druids, shamans, and holy priests are good at healing the whole party - druids do so with heal over time spells (that 'tick' for direct healing every few seconds rather than regen, and are very mana efficient), shamans have a slow-casting Chain Lightning-esque spell that heals instead of damages, and holy priests have an instant cast AoE heal. Discipline priests and holy paladins are excellent at single target healing, and in the case of discipline, protecting players with a shield that absorbs damage.

All classes also have their own niche spells and buffs. Druids can increase a player's stats, armor, and resists. They also have a resurrection spell which is useable in combat. Shamans have shields which can heal people or restore mana when they take damage, along with various totems that buff people in a 30 yard range. Priests have a ton of versatility in that they have a HoT, an AoE heal, single target heal, shields, and a few 'oh shit' buttons. Finally, paladins have various shields and other neat stuff that I don't know much about as I haven't played one before.

This all leads to a lot more variety, and the ability to play the class you actually enjoy, as they're all viable.

I don't, I don't want to be here when the birds fly south..
I don't want the last words out of my mouth, to be stay, out of my way..


/woo learning to play songs by The Tragically Hip

I keep clicking on websites in my bookmarks. Websites that I've visited just a few minutes before. I think I keep hoping for an update, which the social networking sites are somewhat okay at, but they often aren't. Too often. Sometimes I click on a site and it's the one I was JUST ON.

I thought boredom had some kind of a plateau, but I seem to have broken it and achieved a whole new level.

"A number of US states are planning to legalize marijuana."
...source? This is the states we're talking about. I thought they considered marijuana to be on par with murder.

Know what's worse than reading Twilght?

No, the answer is not nothing is worse than reading Twilight, although you're close.
What's worse is actually reading this fanfic about the Cullens reading Twilight.

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4759914/1/The_Cullens_Read_Twilight

I actually listened to an entire Lady Gaga song because of this. Damnit. My streak of avoiding her tripe has been broken.

http://www.feministe.us/blog/archives/2010/02/02/do-you-live-in-the-united-states-here-are-some-stats-that-will-make-you-want-to-move/


(lol, republicans.)

Hi. So sick of seeing that ugly pic of that godawful band's singer being in a fashion show.
Seriously girls, that frigging hairstyle, jesus christ:


Hey look, it's the artist formerly known as Bill Kaulitz!

Robert Downey Jr?
Johnny Depp?
That guy that plays Obi-Wan in the prequels?

Those I could at least understand.
Seriously, you want pics of someone who's allegedly attractive yet doesn't have any talent? I know just the person - So don't make me start posting pictures of Emma Watson in retaliation.


"I say, cheerrio! How about a spot of tea whilst we discuss my atrocious acting skills! Jolly good then, love!"

Oops, too late.

(click for bigger)

wowarmory.com was updated today. Now there are 3d models of your chars, along with recent activity RSS feeds, and the ability to check out your guild's calendar/bank info.

Invocation, the badass priest
Hypochondria, the cute gnome mage
Symbiosis, the hideous shaman work in progress

The only downside is that it doesn't show the particle effects that some items give off, such as the light shooting upwards from the helm my priest has, nor the glowing effect on the dagger or focus.




So awesome.
I love random surprises like these.

Albums acquired last night:

Atheist: Elements, Piece of Time, Unquestionable Presence
Death: Human, Individual Thought Patterns, The Sound of Perseverance, Symbolic
Katatonia: Night Is The New Day
Pestilence: Spheres, Testimony of the Ancients
Coldplay: A Rush of Blood to The Head

One of these things is not like the others, one of these things just doesn't belong.


And that's that. Any further updating would just be me whining, so I'll leave it here.
I'm FINE, things are FUN around here, lets go MAKE SNOWMEN.
THE END

Well actually you can get six.
I didn't want the aqua one, or the darker shade of purple.

In order of appearance: violet, viridian, cobalt, and onyx netherwing drakes.

It's 4:16am. [edit: this took me an hour to type up, lolwat] I can't sleep. Not because I'm excited for Christmas, but because my insomnia says so.

Church was awkward this year. I mean moreso than general, thanks to my somewhat-newfound lack of faith and such. I picked up on a few things I hadn't really noticed before, such as before communion the priest says:
"Lord Jesus Christ, with faith in your love and mercy I eat your body and drink your blood. Let it not bring me condemnation, but health in mind and body."

Excuse me? Condemnation? How should that even be a concern? Isn't the whole point of going to church to avoid this alleged condemnation? Every Sunday we have to ensure that metaphorical cannibalism won't cause our souls to be damnned? Is that what you're saying? Nevermind the fact that this metaphorical cannibalism isn't even supposed to be metaphorical. Maybe the condemnation comes from the fact that there's no way in hell (pun intended) that I can believe a communion wafer can turn into flesh when I pop it in my mouth. They must be getting my spot warmed up for me in the pit, stoking the fire and churning the sulfur.

I also got a lot of comments suggesting I should go to church more. This was even more confusing to me. Even assuming that I still bought that stuff (which admittedly, everyone still does think that), how does going to church more have anything to do with your spirituality or strength of belief? I realize the concept was carried over from the Egyptians, as they took some things they had established in their religion to make the new one appealing to them/have them comfortable with their transition into monotheism (largely successful, as by 383 AD Christianity was the official religion of the Roman empire, and the emperor [Theodosius, yes I had to look it up] ordered the closing of all pagan temples) - nevertheless, I'm pretty sure that 'remembering the Sabbath and keeping it holy' does not remotely equate to 'you better be in that damn church every week, or GOD WILL BE VERY PISSED OFF WITH YOU WHEN YOU DIE.' It's completely irrational and asinine. (However, that seems to be the case with a lot of things that worked out well for people back then.)

It's also amusing that Dec 25th isn't really Jesus's bday. It's believed to be sometime in the spring, but I guess they blindfolded a monkey and made him toss a dart at a calendar to pick the 25th. I honestly don't know.


Anyway. I know some people are okay with using their journals as a place to talk about their lives and whine about insomnia/lack of faith/depression/whatever else. I could certainly go on and do the same, but I feel I've said quite enough already. I tend to use this for amusing excerpts, Warcraft, and music.

On that note, I'll wish you guys a happy December 25th, regardless of what significance or lack of significance it has for you, and I'll leave with Kashmir:

Talk an' song from tongues of lilting grace,
whose sounds caress my ear.
But not a word I heard could I relate,
the story was quite clear.

Jetpacks and gunship battles?! This is how PvE is done.
(video is from the test realm before the patch went live)