In case you had not noticed already, this blog is dead. I have decided to keep it online since it was such a big part of my life for a short time, and led to me meeting a lot of amazing people and having some really great experiences. I'll probably never blog about WoW again. Much as I still enjoy the game, it comes and goes from my life. I probably spend more months out of the year without a subscription than I do with one.
If any of the few who are still following this blog (don't think I haven't noticed you!) would like to follow me elsewhere, I am still writing. I presently (as of September 19th 2011) maintain two public blogs.
Comma, Blank_ is my primary blog at this point. There's no focus to its content, I started it because I wanted to return to writing regularly. I figure I'll write there for six months to get myself back into good writing habits, then I'll set up a blog with an actual focus based on whatever I happen to be writing about the most.
I also post at Sailing The Garage Seas which is primarily a seasonal blog about Garage Sales, but I also post a few other bargain-hunting finds there as well.
To anybody reading who doesn't want to follow me further, thank you so much for being with me while I wrote Curse of Senility. I still look back on that part of my life very fondly. I learned so much, gained such great confidence, and feel like it really started me on a positive path in my life.
To any who might be joining me at one of the blogs mentioned above...thank you. Your support means a lot. I hope I can continue to entertain you.
Regards,
Nick "Sentai Grehsk" Whelan
Showing posts with label blog. Show all posts
Showing posts with label blog. Show all posts
Monday, September 19, 2011
Monday, August 10, 2009
A Life Tap Too Far
Earlier this morning, it was announced on WoW.com that a new Warlock columnist is required. The brilliant among readers of this proclamation deduced that I am no longer filling that role. And, since I'm the kind of talky-fellow that likes to blather on endlessly when nobody is listening, I figured I'd give an explaination to the endless tubes of the internet.
Working at WoW.com has been one of the coolest experiences of my life thus far. The people I worked with there were not my coworkers and bosses; they were my colleagues. The work I did there was not drudgery; it excited and challenged me. And even the flames and trolls directed at me are not something I will look back on with scorn; they were my teachers. They gave me some small glimpse of what it means to write professionally. I would be lying if I said they never got to me--I remember a handful of comments which continued to mock me within my own mind for days after they were posted. But looking back, there's not a single one that I regret.
In fact, WoW.com has absolutely nothing to do with me resigning from my position there. Rather, I resigned because I had to accept that my disinterest in World of Warcraft wasn't going to go away anytime soon. In fact, I haven't played the game for its own sake since patch 3.1 dropped. I won't try to explain why I'm not interested any longer--attempting to express what it is about the game that keeps me playing would be a seven thousand word digression from a five hundred word post.
I kept playing, and I kept writing, because I loved working with WoW.com. I loved the people, I loved the challenges, and I loved what I learned. But over the last few months I've run dry. One can only keep writing about a subject they don't care about for so long before they need to recognize that their apathy isn't the passing phase they wish it was. So I regretfully informed my editors--who are far cooler than any bosses I'll ever have again--that I couldn't write anymore. And that, is that.
In a way its a bit of a relief. The biggest barrier between me, and writing actively, has always been guilt. It's the reason I stopped writing on Live Journal several years ago, and it's largely the reason I've been writing so sparsely lately. The guilt I was heaping upon myself because of columns I had failed to finish was like a vice on my brain. Now, perhaps, I can get back to basics, and start producing some things worth reading again. Probably not here at Curse of Senility of course--though I actually do have a few non-Warlock related WoW posts that I might pop out over the next few days.
I wish only the very best of luck to WoW.com in the search for a new Warlock writer. And to whoever gets the job: don't forget how lucky you are, and try to learn from those who degrade your work, rather than allow them to wound you.
Thanks for giving me a place to put my words.
Working at WoW.com has been one of the coolest experiences of my life thus far. The people I worked with there were not my coworkers and bosses; they were my colleagues. The work I did there was not drudgery; it excited and challenged me. And even the flames and trolls directed at me are not something I will look back on with scorn; they were my teachers. They gave me some small glimpse of what it means to write professionally. I would be lying if I said they never got to me--I remember a handful of comments which continued to mock me within my own mind for days after they were posted. But looking back, there's not a single one that I regret.
In fact, WoW.com has absolutely nothing to do with me resigning from my position there. Rather, I resigned because I had to accept that my disinterest in World of Warcraft wasn't going to go away anytime soon. In fact, I haven't played the game for its own sake since patch 3.1 dropped. I won't try to explain why I'm not interested any longer--attempting to express what it is about the game that keeps me playing would be a seven thousand word digression from a five hundred word post.
I kept playing, and I kept writing, because I loved working with WoW.com. I loved the people, I loved the challenges, and I loved what I learned. But over the last few months I've run dry. One can only keep writing about a subject they don't care about for so long before they need to recognize that their apathy isn't the passing phase they wish it was. So I regretfully informed my editors--who are far cooler than any bosses I'll ever have again--that I couldn't write anymore. And that, is that.
In a way its a bit of a relief. The biggest barrier between me, and writing actively, has always been guilt. It's the reason I stopped writing on Live Journal several years ago, and it's largely the reason I've been writing so sparsely lately. The guilt I was heaping upon myself because of columns I had failed to finish was like a vice on my brain. Now, perhaps, I can get back to basics, and start producing some things worth reading again. Probably not here at Curse of Senility of course--though I actually do have a few non-Warlock related WoW posts that I might pop out over the next few days.
I wish only the very best of luck to WoW.com in the search for a new Warlock writer. And to whoever gets the job: don't forget how lucky you are, and try to learn from those who degrade your work, rather than allow them to wound you.
Thanks for giving me a place to put my words.
-LS
Saturday, April 25, 2009
Old people hate change
So, long time readers may recall a post I made earlier this month, where I noted that I was having difficulty keeping Curse of Senility and Blood Pact separate, and that Curse of Senility was suffering because of it. The whopping three posts I've made this month attest to this being a continued problem. But luckily for people who are masochistic enough to read the drivel I post here, I'm a philosophy major! Solving problems is what I'm trained to do. Sure, most of the time the problems I apply myself towards are so convoluted, difficult to support, and obscure, that there's no real solution to be had. But as far as I'm concerned, that should just mean a problem with a solution will be a cake walk!
So here's the deal. Blood Pact will continue to be updated weekly, cuz...it's my job. I will officially commit myself to posting on Curse of Senility at least once a week. Posts will likely be somewhat shorter, but the alternative is that I simply abandon the project, and I'm still not ready to let go. Not quite yet.
This arrangement, however, has me writing roughly 3k words a week. And that's a pretty weak weekly quota. So, I've set up a third (or seventh...>.>) blog, which I intend to be a daily work. I might eventually start taking weekends off. The idea is to carry on the spirit of what I tried to do with Curse of Senility when it first started: produce publishable, interesting material on a frequent and regular basis. The content of this new blog will be a mixture of creative essays, short stories, poetry, and the interesting kind of philosophy. It's not just about writing, it's about writing something that people want to read.
If that interests you, check out my little reincarnation of Wearing Black in the Back. If not, keep checking back here, there will be some content for ya.
And on the theme of change, I find myself temporarily without a raid group. My little PuG group, which I love to death, has really had some scheduling difficulties lately. Our Main Tank is a long haul trucker on occasion, one of our healers and best DPS had power outages that lasted for several days, and so on, and so forth. Little by little we had to fill too many spots with untested scrubs who drew the group down (though I did find a gem of a tank who probably thinks we were the worst group ever.) Long story short, I informed the group today that I would be taking a brief break from raiding, to start working on the foundation of a more formal, and strict raiding group.
Cane-shaking good times.
So here's the deal. Blood Pact will continue to be updated weekly, cuz...it's my job. I will officially commit myself to posting on Curse of Senility at least once a week. Posts will likely be somewhat shorter, but the alternative is that I simply abandon the project, and I'm still not ready to let go. Not quite yet.
This arrangement, however, has me writing roughly 3k words a week. And that's a pretty weak weekly quota. So, I've set up a third (or seventh...>.>) blog, which I intend to be a daily work. I might eventually start taking weekends off. The idea is to carry on the spirit of what I tried to do with Curse of Senility when it first started: produce publishable, interesting material on a frequent and regular basis. The content of this new blog will be a mixture of creative essays, short stories, poetry, and the interesting kind of philosophy. It's not just about writing, it's about writing something that people want to read.
If that interests you, check out my little reincarnation of Wearing Black in the Back. If not, keep checking back here, there will be some content for ya.
And on the theme of change, I find myself temporarily without a raid group. My little PuG group, which I love to death, has really had some scheduling difficulties lately. Our Main Tank is a long haul trucker on occasion, one of our healers and best DPS had power outages that lasted for several days, and so on, and so forth. Little by little we had to fill too many spots with untested scrubs who drew the group down (though I did find a gem of a tank who probably thinks we were the worst group ever.) Long story short, I informed the group today that I would be taking a brief break from raiding, to start working on the foundation of a more formal, and strict raiding group.
Cane-shaking good times.
Thursday, April 2, 2009
Be quiet you damn kids! I was trying to sleep!
Well, that was a lovely, restful, and entirely unannounced vacation. Actually, the only one of those adjectives which applies is 'unannounced.' But whatever happened yesterday is in the past, and now it's time to get back to waving my cane and casting my dots. As something of a rejoinder, I guess I'll talk about stuff that has changed in my personal game-life lately. This post won't be long or terribly interesting, but is intended as a quick stretch before I start posting more regularly again.
I've been running Naxx10 and fully clearing it weekly for over a month now, and our group has managed to get our time down to about 4 hours, give or take 15 minutes. I'm exceedingly happy with our progress. Deaths are uncommon due to our fantastic healers -- though Heigan still drops a few people each time around. We've had a bit of difficulty maintaining a regular set of tanks, but I'm relatively assured at this point that the two MT ready tanks, the the one OT ready tank we have will be reliably available for most of our runs. The only thing really left to improve at this point is the overall output of the DPS, which is getting higher and higher every week. An unfortunate number of them have even started to out DPS me on most fights!
The group has also made an attempt at Malygos, which was long overdue. It took us a little while to get the Death Gripping down, but once we did our Death Knights were able to do it almost without fail. Those times when Malygos managed to chomp on a spark probably fell more on the shoulders of the tank than the Death Knights. We only got to phase 2 once, but I think we'll be able to do better if we get more members of our regular group in there. That attempt was almost half friends-of-friends.
Phase 2 kinda threw us for a loop...
I'm also trying to get used to casting Drain Soul instead of Shadow Bolt once a boss is below 25% health. I'm having an atrocious time remembering to do it, though. Near the end of a boss fight I'm usually so deep into the rhythm of my casting rotation that changing it around just slips my mind. Still, below 25% Drain Soul ticks for roughly the size of a small Shadow Bolt crit (5-6k) so it's certainly worth using, even if the damage takes an extra .5 seconds or so of casting time.
I've also taken a stab at using the Doomguard in fights where it is appropriate. The extra ~500 DPS is certainly welcome, but a little frivolous in my opinion. At this point I've little doubt that my group could lose 2 of our DPS, and still kill Patchwerk before he enraged. So I don't see why everybody seems so gung-ho about the Doomguard. I certainly liked breaking my personal best DPS record (without situational buffs, such as on Loatheb or Malygos) but the Doomguard feels like a fun little gimmick that can be pulled out now and again for extra DPS, rather than a useful class mechanic. Maybe in Ulduar, if there is a boss similar to Patchwerk with more HP and a shorter enrage timer, it'll feel more useful.
Never broke 4k on my own merits before. Very cool.
The only other news that comes to mind is the I finally replaced my last blue. Sentaigrehsk is now in full epics, which feels like such a hallow achievement in light of how easy some of those epics were to get, but meh. Interesting thing is that my newest epic is the Tier 7 shoulders, which, when combined with my Tier 7 chest piece, gives me the 2-piece set bonus. Now, it's not the first set bonus I've had by a long shot -- but it's the first one I've had that actually feels as though it will have a positive impact on my DPS. Every tick of Corruption or Immolate (both of which I'm casting now, though, after 3.1 I'll only be casting Corruption) has a chance to increase my critical strike rating with my next Shadow Bolt by 10%. Additionally, each Shadow Bolt crit in turn increases my shadow damage via the Improved Shadow Bolt talent. I haven't had a chance to do any good tests since I got the set bonus, but it seems like the proc is going off nigh-constantly when I'm casting corruption, so I have little doubt that this set bonus is going to cause at least a moderate jump in my DPS.
Not a huge fan of the Tier 3/7 look, but it's good to see Sentai looking epic again.
I should also perhaps note that at the moment, Curse of Senility is in something of a limbo in my mind. While I greatly enjoy writing for this blog, I find it somewhat difficult to write two separate warlock blogs at once. Not only do I need to worry about overlapping content, but my WoW Insider blog, Blood Pact, and Curse of Senility require significantly different frames of mind, which I'm obviously having a bit of a difficult time switching between.
What I'm considering at this point, and it's still only a possibility in my mind, is sticking with Blood Pact for most of my writing. Meanwhile, I'll start a new blog with a new subject matter, and I'll focus on writing there regularly. When I'm struck with the desire to write about World of Warcraft, those posts will still be put here, but I wouldn't hold myself to any sort of schedule. I wouldn't be entirely happy with this arrangement, but Curse of Senility was never meant to be a permanent thing. I will of course make note of it in future posts if I decide for or against this idea.
I've been running Naxx10 and fully clearing it weekly for over a month now, and our group has managed to get our time down to about 4 hours, give or take 15 minutes. I'm exceedingly happy with our progress. Deaths are uncommon due to our fantastic healers -- though Heigan still drops a few people each time around. We've had a bit of difficulty maintaining a regular set of tanks, but I'm relatively assured at this point that the two MT ready tanks, the the one OT ready tank we have will be reliably available for most of our runs. The only thing really left to improve at this point is the overall output of the DPS, which is getting higher and higher every week. An unfortunate number of them have even started to out DPS me on most fights!
The group has also made an attempt at Malygos, which was long overdue. It took us a little while to get the Death Gripping down, but once we did our Death Knights were able to do it almost without fail. Those times when Malygos managed to chomp on a spark probably fell more on the shoulders of the tank than the Death Knights. We only got to phase 2 once, but I think we'll be able to do better if we get more members of our regular group in there. That attempt was almost half friends-of-friends.
I'm also trying to get used to casting Drain Soul instead of Shadow Bolt once a boss is below 25% health. I'm having an atrocious time remembering to do it, though. Near the end of a boss fight I'm usually so deep into the rhythm of my casting rotation that changing it around just slips my mind. Still, below 25% Drain Soul ticks for roughly the size of a small Shadow Bolt crit (5-6k) so it's certainly worth using, even if the damage takes an extra .5 seconds or so of casting time.
I've also taken a stab at using the Doomguard in fights where it is appropriate. The extra ~500 DPS is certainly welcome, but a little frivolous in my opinion. At this point I've little doubt that my group could lose 2 of our DPS, and still kill Patchwerk before he enraged. So I don't see why everybody seems so gung-ho about the Doomguard. I certainly liked breaking my personal best DPS record (without situational buffs, such as on Loatheb or Malygos) but the Doomguard feels like a fun little gimmick that can be pulled out now and again for extra DPS, rather than a useful class mechanic. Maybe in Ulduar, if there is a boss similar to Patchwerk with more HP and a shorter enrage timer, it'll feel more useful.
The only other news that comes to mind is the I finally replaced my last blue. Sentaigrehsk is now in full epics, which feels like such a hallow achievement in light of how easy some of those epics were to get, but meh. Interesting thing is that my newest epic is the Tier 7 shoulders, which, when combined with my Tier 7 chest piece, gives me the 2-piece set bonus. Now, it's not the first set bonus I've had by a long shot -- but it's the first one I've had that actually feels as though it will have a positive impact on my DPS. Every tick of Corruption or Immolate (both of which I'm casting now, though, after 3.1 I'll only be casting Corruption) has a chance to increase my critical strike rating with my next Shadow Bolt by 10%. Additionally, each Shadow Bolt crit in turn increases my shadow damage via the Improved Shadow Bolt talent. I haven't had a chance to do any good tests since I got the set bonus, but it seems like the proc is going off nigh-constantly when I'm casting corruption, so I have little doubt that this set bonus is going to cause at least a moderate jump in my DPS.
I should also perhaps note that at the moment, Curse of Senility is in something of a limbo in my mind. While I greatly enjoy writing for this blog, I find it somewhat difficult to write two separate warlock blogs at once. Not only do I need to worry about overlapping content, but my WoW Insider blog, Blood Pact, and Curse of Senility require significantly different frames of mind, which I'm obviously having a bit of a difficult time switching between.
What I'm considering at this point, and it's still only a possibility in my mind, is sticking with Blood Pact for most of my writing. Meanwhile, I'll start a new blog with a new subject matter, and I'll focus on writing there regularly. When I'm struck with the desire to write about World of Warcraft, those posts will still be put here, but I wouldn't hold myself to any sort of schedule. I wouldn't be entirely happy with this arrangement, but Curse of Senility was never meant to be a permanent thing. I will of course make note of it in future posts if I decide for or against this idea.
Friday, March 6, 2009
Generic QQ
Those of you with sherlockian deductive abilities may have noticed, Curse of Senility didn't update yesterday. Or the day before that. Or indeed, CoS has hardly updated at all for awhile now. What it breaks down to is this: when your 50 hours per week school program requires a lot of writing, and your job requires a lot of writing, and your hobby requires a lot of writing -- guess which one of them gets the shaft during a crunch period? It's horrid, really, because Curse of Senility is by far my favorite writing project at the moment. There's something about submitting your work to be graded, be it by professors I respect, or by ravenous hordes of commentators that I don't, which kills a little bit of my writing spirit. But you don't want to listen to me QQ, and I don't want to subject you to it.
And let me assure you, gentle reader, that the purpose of this post is not to tell you that I'm giving up, or that I'm taking a hiatus, or even intending to lower my ideal post frequency (which is about 3 times a week.) I'd be rather ashamed of myself if I accepted any of those alternatives, and indeed, am rather ashamed of myself for how little I've posted here as of late. However, I must be reasonable. I have been posting a great deal less, despite my sincere desire not to do that. I would be a moron to think it's even an option to change nothing, yet still do a better job of making myself proud than I have in the past. Something has to change.
The solution came to me a moment ago when -- right as I was about to post my analysis of the warlock changes in patch 3.1 -- Pike informed me that there are a bunch of new ones. Thus making my post obsolete before I even set it to go live. I internally went through a miniature version of the stages of grief ("oh shit no," "I took too long," "FUCKING BUSY SCHEDUEL," "Maybe I can post it anyway," "Well, I guess that's that.") then decided that it was time to make some alterations to the way I view this blog. Always before I was wary of any post under a thousand words, thinking that perhaps I selected far too narrow a topic. However, producing 3k+ words of well edited and interesting material every week, while maintaining my other more necessary writing projects has proven to be too demanding. At least, too demanding for my current level of self-discipline.
So as a compromise, I'm going to change my standards for what constitutes a worthy topic on Curse of Senility. Things I previously avoided writing about, such as specific instance runs, brief anecdotes about my game related experiences, and commentary on WoW related media I find around the internet will start appearing on Curse of Senility within the next couple days.
This does not mean that I intend to stop writing the longer and, in my estimation, more interesting posts I've written up to this point. Those posts are far more fun to write, and I would rather stop writing this blog altogether than abandon them. That said, writing seems to me very much like eating is. If you insist that all your meals be gourmet, then you're going to go hungry sometimes, or you might even starve. In the interest of avoiding starvation, I've decided to be willing to hit up Pizza Hut now and again. (Starvation in this metaphore is me giving up on the blog.)
Thank you for reading, and for your continued patience.
(TL;DR: I'm going to start posting shorter blog entries.)
Oh, and as a final note on the 3.1 changes that I was going to comment on; I will probably be posting on them sometime soon. But, in the interest of getting to the fucking point:
And let me assure you, gentle reader, that the purpose of this post is not to tell you that I'm giving up, or that I'm taking a hiatus, or even intending to lower my ideal post frequency (which is about 3 times a week.) I'd be rather ashamed of myself if I accepted any of those alternatives, and indeed, am rather ashamed of myself for how little I've posted here as of late. However, I must be reasonable. I have been posting a great deal less, despite my sincere desire not to do that. I would be a moron to think it's even an option to change nothing, yet still do a better job of making myself proud than I have in the past. Something has to change.
The solution came to me a moment ago when -- right as I was about to post my analysis of the warlock changes in patch 3.1 -- Pike informed me that there are a bunch of new ones. Thus making my post obsolete before I even set it to go live. I internally went through a miniature version of the stages of grief ("oh shit no," "I took too long," "FUCKING BUSY SCHEDUEL," "Maybe I can post it anyway," "Well, I guess that's that.") then decided that it was time to make some alterations to the way I view this blog. Always before I was wary of any post under a thousand words, thinking that perhaps I selected far too narrow a topic. However, producing 3k+ words of well edited and interesting material every week, while maintaining my other more necessary writing projects has proven to be too demanding. At least, too demanding for my current level of self-discipline.
So as a compromise, I'm going to change my standards for what constitutes a worthy topic on Curse of Senility. Things I previously avoided writing about, such as specific instance runs, brief anecdotes about my game related experiences, and commentary on WoW related media I find around the internet will start appearing on Curse of Senility within the next couple days.
This does not mean that I intend to stop writing the longer and, in my estimation, more interesting posts I've written up to this point. Those posts are far more fun to write, and I would rather stop writing this blog altogether than abandon them. That said, writing seems to me very much like eating is. If you insist that all your meals be gourmet, then you're going to go hungry sometimes, or you might even starve. In the interest of avoiding starvation, I've decided to be willing to hit up Pizza Hut now and again. (Starvation in this metaphore is me giving up on the blog.)
Thank you for reading, and for your continued patience.
(TL;DR: I'm going to start posting shorter blog entries.)
Oh, and as a final note on the 3.1 changes that I was going to comment on; I will probably be posting on them sometime soon. But, in the interest of getting to the fucking point:
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
How LS became a whore:
After I finish writing this post, I'm going to sign up for Google's ad service, and start putting advertisements on Curse of Senility. Actually, first I'm going to finish writing tomorrow's post, THEN I'm going to put advertisements on this site.
Now usually, I wouldn't feel it necessary to inform readers of such a thing. I put a lot of work into this blog, and while my primary satisfaction comes from a job well done and from making the lives of my readers just a tad bit more amusing; I also need to keep a roof over my head. And for the record, that's exactly what it has come down to: keeping a roof over my head.
The reason I decided to make a post about this is because many of my readers found me through my girlfriend's blog. And in fact, I wouldn't be surprised if at least a FEW of my readers are only following me so they can wait for me to mess up badly enough that they might have a chance with Pike. Not happening guys. =P
Getting back to the heart of the matter, Pike has taken a firm stand against advertisements on Aspect of the Hare. It might appear to some people that Pike's boyfriend allowing advertisements on his blog somehow weakens that stand of hers. Somehow makes her a hypocrite, simply by association with me. I'd like to nip that idea in the bud before it lifeblooms. (GET IT?) Pike and I have always had extremely disparate goals for our respective blogs. Aspect of the Hare is, for pike, more of an end in itself. While Curse of Senility has always been a means to an end for me. When I first started, it was a means of forcing myself to write regularly in the hopes that my style would improve. Now that it has taken off the way it has, I'd like to see if maybe it can be a means towards my next meal.
Know that I will do my utmost to ensure that none of the advertisements placed here are at all intrusive. And I encourage anybody who notices any popups or noise-making advertisements to inform me post-haste so I can rectify the situation with great immediacy. Thank you all for your understanding, and your continued readership.
P.S. By the way, to make up for last week's lack of posts, I'm attempting to post every day this week. This post, of course, does not count.
Now usually, I wouldn't feel it necessary to inform readers of such a thing. I put a lot of work into this blog, and while my primary satisfaction comes from a job well done and from making the lives of my readers just a tad bit more amusing; I also need to keep a roof over my head. And for the record, that's exactly what it has come down to: keeping a roof over my head.
The reason I decided to make a post about this is because many of my readers found me through my girlfriend's blog. And in fact, I wouldn't be surprised if at least a FEW of my readers are only following me so they can wait for me to mess up badly enough that they might have a chance with Pike. Not happening guys. =P
Getting back to the heart of the matter, Pike has taken a firm stand against advertisements on Aspect of the Hare. It might appear to some people that Pike's boyfriend allowing advertisements on his blog somehow weakens that stand of hers. Somehow makes her a hypocrite, simply by association with me. I'd like to nip that idea in the bud before it lifeblooms. (GET IT?) Pike and I have always had extremely disparate goals for our respective blogs. Aspect of the Hare is, for pike, more of an end in itself. While Curse of Senility has always been a means to an end for me. When I first started, it was a means of forcing myself to write regularly in the hopes that my style would improve. Now that it has taken off the way it has, I'd like to see if maybe it can be a means towards my next meal.
Know that I will do my utmost to ensure that none of the advertisements placed here are at all intrusive. And I encourage anybody who notices any popups or noise-making advertisements to inform me post-haste so I can rectify the situation with great immediacy. Thank you all for your understanding, and your continued readership.
P.S. By the way, to make up for last week's lack of posts, I'm attempting to post every day this week. This post, of course, does not count.
Saturday, January 31, 2009
Meta-Blogging
RAWR! I'm blogging about my blog!
So, I'm currently in the middle of two posts with are both personally interesting to me, as well as being very challenging to write! Which is good, I like to stretch myself whenever possible, but it does mean I need to take breaks. During my break today, I decided to make a new bit of art for the site.
Because you didn't notice the one 3 inches above this one.
It's not fantastic. It's pretty horrid actually. Been several months since I worked on a serious image editing project, and this is the first time I've tried to create art from scratch for such a project. All in all I'd give it a 3 out of 10 on my personal quality scale. Particularly due to how poorly the word bubble turned out, but also due to how awkward it makes the page look in general. It's better than the supremely generic design I've had to deal with thusfar (though the dots make for a fun pun) but I will probably be replacing it by a (hopefully) better image very soon.
While I'm Meta-Blogging, I'd like to mention that I don't think I'll be doing a post about the changes made to warlocks in the most recent patch. There's simply not enough to say--if only because several of the changes only affected warlocks who are spec'd differently than I, or use different tactics. I will say that the new summoning spell is AWESOME, and Blizz' artists deserve massive grats for this one. I'd also like to say 'thanks' for giving our pets a bit more health. That's pretty much all there is to say on that topic.
And one last note, since I prefer not to clutter up my other posts with off-topicness. I'd like to thank the 4 or 5 people who have actually been following this blog. Yes, I see you! It's good to know that people are reading, keeps me motivated to improve. I'd also like to thank all the people who linked to me, I don't know WHY you did it, but it has been very helpful both to my traffic and to my self esteem.
In closing; I'd like to invite anybody who has been reading to leave a comment telling me what they'd like to see more or less of from me, and I will do my best to oblige if I can!
So, I'm currently in the middle of two posts with are both personally interesting to me, as well as being very challenging to write! Which is good, I like to stretch myself whenever possible, but it does mean I need to take breaks. During my break today, I decided to make a new bit of art for the site.
It's not fantastic. It's pretty horrid actually. Been several months since I worked on a serious image editing project, and this is the first time I've tried to create art from scratch for such a project. All in all I'd give it a 3 out of 10 on my personal quality scale. Particularly due to how poorly the word bubble turned out, but also due to how awkward it makes the page look in general. It's better than the supremely generic design I've had to deal with thusfar (though the dots make for a fun pun) but I will probably be replacing it by a (hopefully) better image very soon.
While I'm Meta-Blogging, I'd like to mention that I don't think I'll be doing a post about the changes made to warlocks in the most recent patch. There's simply not enough to say--if only because several of the changes only affected warlocks who are spec'd differently than I, or use different tactics. I will say that the new summoning spell is AWESOME, and Blizz' artists deserve massive grats for this one. I'd also like to say 'thanks' for giving our pets a bit more health. That's pretty much all there is to say on that topic.
And one last note, since I prefer not to clutter up my other posts with off-topicness. I'd like to thank the 4 or 5 people who have actually been following this blog. Yes, I see you! It's good to know that people are reading, keeps me motivated to improve. I'd also like to thank all the people who linked to me, I don't know WHY you did it, but it has been very helpful both to my traffic and to my self esteem.
In closing; I'd like to invite anybody who has been reading to leave a comment telling me what they'd like to see more or less of from me, and I will do my best to oblige if I can!
Saturday, January 3, 2009
A Brief Introduction
Welcome one and all, the the dreary drafts that I, your most humble and decrepit dot-lock, throw up here on the intrawab. Despite my usual long-winded ways (a side effect of getting old you know,) I'm going to attempt to keep this introductory post brief, since I doubt anyone will ever actually read it even if by some miracle this blog becomes both regularly updated and popular.
A little over a year ago, I started a blog called Wearing Black in the Back. The intent of the blog was to give me some place where I could write things, and post them, and show them to people. I wanted to keep myself motivated to write on a somewhat regular basis, without the social net that places like livejournal snare you with. In this regard, Black in the Back has been a moderate success.
I ran into something of an issue, however. I frequently found myself wanting to write about World of Warcraft. Either by putting up entries devoted to my adventures, or by writing about my experiments with my most beloved warlock class. And, given the popularity of WoW as a search term, and the popularity of my girlfriend's WoW blog, those entries invariably became somewhat popular. While it was nice to see people reading what I was writing, I didn't like the image I was accidentally giving myself. People have linked to that blog as 'a warlock blog,' which is manifestly untrue. However, a great deal of the entries on the blog WERE about warlocks. And what's more, there are a great deal of entries I didn't write, because I didn't feel they reached the standard of quality I was trying to hold the blog to, and wanted to avoid giving the blog more of a gaming connection than it already had.
Ergo, after some prodding from my girlfriend, I decided to make this place. If I ever want to write about World of Warcraft, my adventures in it, or the class that I play, they will go here, safely away from the rest of my writings.
And with that said, I'll end this introductory post. Yes--that was short.
A little over a year ago, I started a blog called Wearing Black in the Back. The intent of the blog was to give me some place where I could write things, and post them, and show them to people. I wanted to keep myself motivated to write on a somewhat regular basis, without the social net that places like livejournal snare you with. In this regard, Black in the Back has been a moderate success.
I ran into something of an issue, however. I frequently found myself wanting to write about World of Warcraft. Either by putting up entries devoted to my adventures, or by writing about my experiments with my most beloved warlock class. And, given the popularity of WoW as a search term, and the popularity of my girlfriend's WoW blog, those entries invariably became somewhat popular. While it was nice to see people reading what I was writing, I didn't like the image I was accidentally giving myself. People have linked to that blog as 'a warlock blog,' which is manifestly untrue. However, a great deal of the entries on the blog WERE about warlocks. And what's more, there are a great deal of entries I didn't write, because I didn't feel they reached the standard of quality I was trying to hold the blog to, and wanted to avoid giving the blog more of a gaming connection than it already had.
Ergo, after some prodding from my girlfriend, I decided to make this place. If I ever want to write about World of Warcraft, my adventures in it, or the class that I play, they will go here, safely away from the rest of my writings.
And with that said, I'll end this introductory post. Yes--that was short.
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