~~To know, know, know me…

 

…is to love, love, love me…~~

That’s a song, from way back when. ((apparently Amy Winehouse remade this.)) 

Lots of people really do like me when they get to know me. Not everyone of course, but most do.

I have friends in:

·         the real world

·         MMO worlds

·         the fiction writing world

·         the Twitterverse

·         Facebook

·         roleplaying realms

·         military mama’s

·         Boy Scouts…

Those are just some of the areas in which I’m involved, I have many casual acquaintenances as well.

Here is my challenge; I want to promote my blog so people will read it and comment upon it. I know it seems a little self-serving, but I enjoy sharing my ideas with people. Often I’ll get private messages or email about the blog giving me encouragement and very positive feedback, but that’s not sharing with the other readers.

I really like discussions and forums, so I’m going to begin asking people to join in the topics with comments! I know it’s a little weird because I write about what I’m interested in. This isn’t chatting about me, but instead the topics I’m interested in and passionate about. If you are also interested in them, or have questions, or even disagree let’s talk about it!

I want to bring more people here, I want to share things with all my friends and their friends and find new friends!

Here is MY challenge to YOU! At the minimum, leave a comment to this post. If you blog, be sure to leave a link to it, including what you blog about. I want to know what you are interested in. Let the other readers know your connection to me; there are many of us that have several things in common.

C’mon, give a girl a hand!

Also, if you are struggling with something in your life, check out my Something Different tab at the top.

 

((photo link))

LISTS!!!

I went back to college at 40; the class I dreaded the most was English Composition. I discovered I am a very good writer. At one point, my teacher said I was so good at writing because I wrote about what I knew. I do write on things I’m passionate about, or tend to have a strong opinion.

I am working to be a better writer and I want to share what I write with others. My current project is working with problogger.net on their 31 Days to Build a Better Blog. You all get to … ummm, reap the benefits… or suffer the torture… you choose, of what I experiment with for the next 30 days. Yesterday was day one, I haven’t shared that with you yet!

We are being challenged to write a list. I love lists! I try to put most of my work emails and reports and others things into lists so people can read the majority of the content easily. To this end, I’m going to create a list of the things I’m currently passionate about! *wicked grins* although you could just look at my blog cloud to see the same thing.

Ready? Set? GO!

·         MMO’s – Massive Multiplayer Online game. Often it’s MMORPG, with the RPG meaning roleplaying game. I love these games. Why? Not so much for the game, but for the Multiplayer part. I LOVE PEOPLE! I’m a social person. I’ve always enjoyed playing games on computer, but add in the social aspect and I’m totally hooked. Not addictively anymore, but it’s so amazing to see people come together to achieve common goals. I build teams and the principles for real life team building absolutely applies here in MMO’s.

o   Star Wars Galaxies (past favorite)

o   Star Trek Online (looking to a near future)

o   World of Warcraft (current)

·         Family – I’m 50 now. I am not oriented on raising my boys any longer, but I am interested in their lives and watching them mature, grow, and supporting them (hopefully not financially) to become the amazing young men I know they can be.

o   Hagardly (writes music and is starting a comic series based on MMOs)

o   Da (pronounced Day. He’s a fiction writer who is incredibly intrigued with the psychology of relationships)

o   Mike (In the Army, and has a true artist’s heart. He plays instruments by ear and wants desperately to be an actor)

o   Mom (terrifically smart woman)

o   Extended (so many, and I love them all, even when they make me crazy)

·         Role Playing – This is the area that I get to still make-believe in. I get to be someone I’d not, but it’s not crazy, it’s accepted and enjoyed by me and others. Star Wars is usually my chosen universe for RP, but I’ve dabbled in Star Trek and it has a tremendous appeal for me.

·         Writing – I’m exploring my new found love of writing. I’ve written short fiction stories that have won an award. I’ve writing dozens of boring technical manuals, but now… I want to explore reaching out to others.

o   Twitter (fast, furious, fun).

o   Blogging (therapeutic)

·         Something Different – The clickable tab at the top of the page. This is my current passion right now.

·         Internet and/or Celebrities – I’ve always been a little fascinated with the entertainment world, from the days of my youth.

o   Felicia Day – She is an incredible young woman. I enjoy following her career because she’s utilized the current technology to make her dreams happen. She’s worked hard and is probably the biggest celebrity on the Internet and will be in other media soon as well if things keep going as they are. She’s a writer, actress, singer, director. Those are things I always wanted to do, and so I feel a certain kinship with her. I’m twice her age, but she’s a role model. She is a gamer girl who is loved and adored by so many people.

I’ve spent time explaining my fascination for her here, because many of the people my age have been asking why I’m so intrigued. This is why: She’s an Awesome Geek Chic!

o   Dr Horrible’s Sing-along Blog – Jos Whedon – what an amazing talent. Firefly, Dollhouse. My boys and I all have the DVD’s for Dr. Horrible. If you haven’t seen it, just stop what you are doing, and go watch it now! It’s on the Internet. DO IT! DO IT NOW!

 

… and that concludes today’s list of Zannniee’s Interests!

 

Choices…

I'm in good company!

I’m 50!

I know that isn’t earth shattering to any of you. Still, I’m 50. I went into a funk about it months before the actual date. I did NOT want to be 50. Guess what? I didn’t have a choice.

Actually, I have many choices. I can choose what to do with the rest of my life. I decided the main choice is this:

“Start my life now, or die.”

I’m starting my life now! I feel a new motivation. A new energy. A new excitement.

I started a diet almost two weeks ago. However, for the FIRST time, it’s more of a lifestyle change than a diet. The real test came today. I actually chose to pass up Rice Krispie treats. I LOVE those, but today it wasn’t worth it.

So, now it’s time to decide who I am and what motivates me. I am not the fat woman whom people enjoy talking to and laughing with. I’m the woman who is going to be thinner and healthier, whom people enjoy talking to and laughing with.

I’m still a gamer mom. I still enjoy Dr Horrible. I’m still a HUGE Felicia Day fan.

I Tweet, I blog, I play WoW. I’m a Star Trek fan, even more than Star Wars. I roleplay, I write fiction.

I’m a geek. I enjoy the challenges of SharePoint. I like troubleshooting and giving the solutions to someone else to manage.

I love to read, I like puzzles and solving mysteries.

I am the mother to 3 amazing boys.

I think there is more to me than even these things. My life is my own. I have choices.

I’m 50!

 

((I’m pretty sure I need a 50th Anniversary Barbie now…))

Staying in Touch…

I don’t know what direction to take. I have several ideas and a few posts started in my drafts folder.

My thoughts are turning to my future now. I will be 50 in less that two months. My youngest son just left for college. There is this big house and me and Hagardly, my middlemost son. I don’t expect Hagardly to stay too much longer, but then again, who really knows.

I want to do something meaningful, fun, exciting. I don’t know that that is. So, until I figure it out I’ll be playing WoW, blogging, Tweeting, and sending spaceships to their doom (AstroEmpires.)

I’m going to look into doing something with my voice. I’m told it’s a huge asset of mine…

End of the Beginning or Beginning of the End…

There is a term In MMO’s. Capping. This means hitting the limit. In WoW terms this could mean capping out the new level of 80. Years It’s when you reach the goal and can’t go any further.

Or can you? Just because I hit 80, doesn’t mean I’m done. However, it *felt* like I should be done. It was almost anti-climactic. YaY! I’m 80! Bleh, I’m 80, now what?

You really can’t savor it long, it’s fleeting. Why? Well, in WoW, you can now go and do harder dungeons or instances. But wait, you really can’t because you are not geared well enough to do the harder instances. So the grinding and farming starts. It’s boring. So the end is just the beginning.

Kinda like my son leaving for college. It’s the end of his time at home, but is it also the beginning of something else?

I’m a people person. I want to do things with people.

Kinda weird though, I want to do things with people, and I do. But I do it by sitting alone in my room.

Okay, time for some psych eval…

Three letters can make a grown woman cower in fear…

PVP!!!!

Those three little letters usually make me groan and cringe in fear. Being placed into a PvP situation would cause my blood pressure to soar to unreasonable levels. My hands would shake. I’d be very irritable. One time, my desk suffered a nearly complete demise from my utter frustration with the situation!

PVP? “What is it?,” many of you would ask? It stands for Player versus Player in computer gaming terms. It’s you going up head to head against at least one other player. Sometimes it could be one-on-one; sometimes teams against teams.

I HATED it.

I avoided it at all costs!

Unless I was sitting in the gunner’s seat in an ARC-170, or the turret of a YT-1300 (think Star Wars Millenium Falcon.)

 

 

Love the ARC-170 the best!

I LOVED gunning. I was arguably one of the very best in all of the Star Wars Galaxies (SWG) game. Just ask anyone from the Space Community about Sandarie. You are first likely to be told she was a beautiful blue Twi’lek and next a deadly gunner they never wanted to go up against.

   Recently, WoW incorporated an achievement system with titles and rewards for completing various tasks. Guess what!?! Several of the achievements had a PvP component. GROSS! But a few people took pity on me and a few others with sentiments similar to mine and took us into the 40 against 40 zones a few times to let us get what we needed for the achievements.

 Let’s transition to WoW. The World of Warcraft’s PvP environment didn’t have starships with turrets. It was you against other players. BLECH!!!!

 

That’s it, I was DONE! No more PvP! YAY!!!

Fast Forward to WoW’s new expansion, Wrath of the Lich King. This brought Wintersgrasp and Strand of the Ancients.

Oh My GOSH!!!!

I’ve never experienced PvP with so many options. Not since playing SWG. I could defend the keep in a turret! I could grab up a rocket launcher! I could do massive magie goodness of damage from a distance!!!

I think that’s the key for me. I wasn’t up close and personal! I was away from the immediate action, I have better perspective.

But it’s more than that! It’s immersive in the story. I was defending something, it was measurable and had lasting effects. We got to keep control of the Keep or lose control of the keep and that directly effected game play in other areas.

It. Just. Feels. Real.

I go every chance I get to go with a group of friends. I know someone else who feels as I do about PvP and now he’s created a Hunter just for Wintersgrasp PvPing. I love it…

… now if only I could get my desk’s keyboard tray attached back on my desk again…

 

WoW and Politics…

Who’da thought!?

Well, apparently Sandeep Parikh thought about it. He’s working on a project involving polling WoW players to see who their presidential choice for is. Actually, I found out about the project because I follow Felicia Day on Twitter.  I can feel another blog post about Internet celebrities just wanting to be written…

Anyway, after following the link she provided, I emailed answers to the questions and indicated that a follow-up phone call was welcome if they needed more information. Guess what?!? They called and the hilarity and fun ensued.

They were good sports. I knew going in I would probably be on the opposite political side, but that’s fine, the pollster’s questions and interaction was professional. He inquired about my WoW character (Human), her class (70 Mage) and professions (375 Enchanter/Tailor). Then asked who I was voting for. I replied and the normal questions followed, things like “Why him? What’s the most important issue in the election?” You know, the basics.

Then came the fun… “So, which WoW race and class do you view each candidate as being?! Three of them were easy:

 

McCain: Human Warrior
Palin: Troll Shaman (I do want to explain… Trolls in WoW are incredibly colorful and Shaman are hybrids, capable of many roles)
Obama: Night Elf Mage (Mages have amazing magical abilities, which seems to explain some otherwise unexplainable things, while Night  Elves are very charismatic.)

Then the Biden question. Mr Biden, I have disagreed with for years and years. I respect him as a person, but we are so far opposite on certain issues. I’m not getting into the politics here, but I did let my bias show. I picked the race I liked the least… a Dwarf. For the class, a sneaky rogue.

What I haven’t mentioned yet is that my youngest son, Da (pronounced Day) was standing there listening to the call and participating in the fun. It was at this point that he got all dramatic on me and was mortally offended (okay, not really, but he does know drama!) His WoW character is a…   Dwarf Rogue.

It was then that the pollster asked to talk to Da and got his opinions. His first question to Da was, “Do you agree or disagree with your mom?” To which Da replied, “I disagree with several things, I just can’t remember which ones now.”

So many questions asked like,  ”What would each candidate’s attributes be, what spells would I cast on them?” It was just a great time and we all laughed a lot.

When the video is released, I’ll be sure to let everyone know. Sandeep is one of the main characters in an awesome web show called The Guild, and produces a web show, The Legend of Neil, which my middle son, Hagardly, absolutely loves.

So, do WoW and politics mix? Quite possibly. Just… stay away from guild chat with it, trust me.

A Quick Note…

Halyn still hasn’t watched Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog!

I’m trying to play Morrowind and keep thinking it should be an MMO. For those of you who play Oblivion, you know what I mean.

I’m actually PvPing, kinda. On a spreadsheet mmo game called AstroEmpires.

I’m considering going back to WoW for awhile, if I can find the money for the subscription (danged school loans)

I’m loving my little Star Trek RP group. I’m a El-Arian Counselor on an Excelsior class starship (*giggles* is that nerdy enough for you?)

… and I have to remember to get Shadowcall’s DVD’s in the mail to Netflix tomorrow….