Life is Drama (and why I’m not friends with women)

So I haven’t written a post in a few days, and aside from coming down with something, I was pretty busy over the weekend. So here’s the rundown:

Friday there was a Halloween Costume party at a day-shift officer was throwing, and me and the ol’ lady were invited. Ted was going as well, so we got ready and headed over to his house. A couple of his roommates went as well, and aside from a few others, that was about all the people I knew. It was mostly day-shift employees, and a couple from graves, but overall it was a good time. There were a couple kegs, some food, and a DJ (though the DJ played a bunch of dance and hip hop, both of which I’m not a huge fan of). Me, Gina, and Ted had the most original costumes at the shindig, we were the Bundy’s (Married with Children) and Ted was Lt. Dangle (Reno 911!), complete with shorty shorts. Otherwise there were a bunch of commercial costumes, and a bunch of girls wearing lingerie, or some form of it (of course I didn’t mind). After drinking for a while, I ended up getting dragged onto the dance floor, but I managed to have fun, even though I don’t dance. We were there until about 3 a.m. or so, and then we went home and crashed out.

On Saturday, I had absolutely no plans. Surprisingly, I woke up without much of a hangover. We lounged around and played some EQ2 (more on this in a further post), and later on I found out that Ted was throwing another party that evening. I didn’t plan on going, but Gina said it sounded like fun and we decided at the last minute to go. It wasn’t a “costume required” party, but some people did show up in costume (which included more girls in skimpy outfits). Herbie and Howard were the most original this time around, Howard being a Zombie Doctor, and Herbie a Breathalyzer. We didn’t wear costumes, just went to hang out. This party also came complete with a keg, food, and a DJ (but both nights I managed to eat prior to the party, not expecting food, so I didn’t partake). When we first arrived, there was hardly anyone there, but we hung out for a bit to see if it would liven up. Right when I was getting ready to call it a night, the party showed up, and I put in some calls to friends, and that’s how Herbie and Howard ended up there. Herbie also brought his girlfriend and one of her friends, whom I guess were in costume as well but I couldn’t figure out what the hell they were. They didn’t stay long, Herbie making some comments about the party sucking. Once again I was dragged on the dance floor, but not for as long. Eventually the keg was run dry, and there was no more alcohol in the house, and I figured the party would end soon. It was before 2 a.m., so I hit up Howard to see where they went. They were back at his pad, so we headed over there. Here’s where shit got crazy.

The apartment was quiet when we rolled up, so I didn’t think many people were there. Howard and his cohorts from the party were present, along with Shawn and another dude named AJ. I know the last guy, but not really well. For no apparent reason, AJ got an attitude with me, and one thing lead to another, and he wanted to fight with me. Shawn tried to get him to leave unsuccessfully, and a bunch of shit was talked, etc. Eventually they got him to leave and we only stayed a little after that, apologized and went home (there’s more details in there, but I’m sparing them for now). I’m sure more bullshit will come from it, but time will tell.

Now, for the latter part of this post title: why I’m not friends with women. I thought I was pretty good friends with a girl at work. A couple weeks ago, me and Gina went with her and her man to a Gay bar. Reference this post. I had a good time, and so did everyone else. We’ve hung out with them on multiple occasions, and it’s always been cool. Well while we were at the club, the guy said something to Gina about suspecting something between me and his girl. I suppose he’s just noticed we had grown close. She brought this to my attention, and I brought it up to him, telling him we’re just friends. The next day, I hit her up to see if he had said anything to her about it, and he hadn’t. Then they had a conversation about it, in which he denied saying the comment in question, and she comes back to me with comments about how my girl has issues, is trying to stir shit up, and they don’t like her anymore, so we can’t hang out. She then continued by telling me that I’m still cool, but they don’t want to be around her. This didn’t make any sense to me, and I suspect that there’s something else going on there that I don’t know about. Nonetheless, I haven’t spoken to either of them on a personal level since. But now it seems to be spilling over into work.

She’s a Dispatcher for Security. This means she sends us on calls, and clears us for breaks. Basically, the go to person unless we have to go above her to a supervisor. She’s been a fucking Nazi lately, pissing everyone off in general, but it seems like she’s taken some of it out on me. The first day after our last discussion, she seemed to be giving me all of the calls when there were other available officers, and today she seemed to be fucking everyone on their breaks, and has had a negative attitude in general. Part of this I know has to be due to the fact that her and her man have been fighting pretty continuously throughout the past few weeks, but when it’s focused towards me it seems different. Maybe I’m just paranoid, but still, she’s a bitch for having done what she has, and looking back on our “relationship”, I can’t see why I was such good friends with her in the first place.

Honestly, I think women manipulate us without our knowing it. They make us think we like them to get what they want out of us, then toss us to the curb when they’ve gotten it. Leaving us to look back and think “wow, I never really could stand that bitch the whole time”. This is probably true to an extent in relationships as well, but at least I’ve been able to look back on past ones and think “at least it was a good piece of ass while it lasted”. Somehow, that little tidbit makes it so much better than losing a female friend you weren’t doing anything with. But, I’m losing my train of thought, so I’ll leave it at that.

Feel it coming

I feel a sickness coming on. It’s been quite some time since I’ve been sick, so I guess I was overdue. I think it might have something to do with the various costume parties I went to over the weekend, seeing as how alcohol tends to lower your immunities.

I do have stuff I want to post about, some EQ related, and stuff about the parties. For now though, I feel like crap and I am going to bed. If I feel any better tomorrow I’ll be back with something a little more substantial.

The End of T6

It’s been a while since I’ve made a post about my progress with my Brigand, and I figured it was overdue.

I’ve spent the past couple weeks leveling in the Desert of Flames expansion. Currently, Izlain is sitting about halfway through level 58, and just got his 75th Achievement point. I’ve noticed that going through the game again has given me a chance to explore areas I hadn’t before, and knowing exactly where to go for things has helped me to maximize AA gain. EQ2i is another great resource that I didn’t even know about the first time around. I primarily used ogaming, which is now allakhazam’s, and it’s lacking to say the least.

So aside from completing the entire Sinking Sands and Pillars of Flame timelines, I also had the chance to hit up Hidden Cache, Clefts of Rujark, and Living Tombs. I also finished the carpet quest, and it’s nice moving at a better speed. I’m not bothering with Peacock, nor did I care to venture into Silent City. I did however, journey into Shimmering Citadel, and just tonight finished the final quest for access into Poet’s Palace. I’ve had a great little trio throughout my adventures in DOF. My Dad has had a Berserker since EOF release (a fae, who is now lvl 59), and he has a friend who plays a Warden (58 as well). The three of us finished many of the quests that we had along the way to the end of T6.

The only thing remaining is to head inside Poet’s (which we didn’t get to tonight), and grab up the scarabs for the music box quest, and then I’m done with DOF. I may have to touch back during my downtime to work on Ashen Order (for the “Ebon Dragon” title) and Court (Coin) faction, but otherwise I’m done with DOF.

I did move onward to one Kingdom of Sky zone earlier in the day, Tenebrous Tangle. I just hit up solo quests in an effort to pass some time. I’m going to try and have the easy quests done tomorrow, but I’m pretty sure I’m going to avoid Claymore, just as I did Peacock. The long drawn out questlines have never really appealed to me, but with ROK around the corner, and epic weapons coming with it, the old signature series are pretty much pointless. Not to mention I can’t afford to waste the time, as I would like to be 70 before ROK, and i have under 3 weeks to make 11 1/2 levels. I know it can be done, but my time is limited. I’m figuring I’ll be between 68-70 by release. Hopefully 70, but I’m not positive.

The part I’m excited about is running around the T7 instances and grabbing up my set gear, along with other goodies. And of course, raiding is high on my list of “to-dos”. It’s been a long journey, though shorter than last time. The pay-off should be better this time around, and I’m eager to get a taste.

Race/Class Combinations

Please note that the information contained in this post is dated, and was appropriate at the time of its writing, not so much now. For a more concise article, click here.

I’ve had an influx of traffic to my site from search engines. Search engine hits are not new to me, as I cover a broad range of topics, and I happen to talk about things that are popular, i.e. music, movies, everquest, etc. But recently the queries have been about race and class combinations for Everquest 2.

“Best race for x class” has been the most frequently searched phrase, and I don’t quite understand why my site came up on this list, because I’ve never written an article about class and race combinations. Until now.

This seems to be a very common question for newcomers to the game, particularly on the forums. I’ve seen it in every class board, and the newbie section as well. There are currently two sides of the fence; those who think race makes a difference, and those who do not. I reside on the latter side, because ultimately race does not affect the overall performance of a class. If it did, races would have limited class choices, as they did in Everquest 1. Or, from a roleplaying stand point, they would be limited as well, as I depicted in this post.

The most common answer to the question is to “pick something you are comfortable looking at, because you’ll be playing the race for a long time“. This is pretty much the only part a race plays in character creation, as the look is customizable, and the racial abilities are for the most part, useless. For me, when I create a new character, I try to think of what I could picture that race being. My main is a Dwarf. Dwarves seem to be at the forefront of battle, sturdy and stout, and this is why I made him a Fighter class. My alt is a Ratonga is agile and crafty, perfect for a scout class. You see where this is going.

Each race is set with base stats. Sure, some are more optimal for certain classes, but it’s not too detrimental to make a Troll mage, because their low intelligence at level 1 will be made up with gear. So maybe for the first level things will be a little tougher for the Troll mage than say a Erudite mage, but it won’t make enough difference to matter. If you like the way your Troll mage looks, then go with it.

Each race also gets certain racial abilities throughout the game. There are different stat increases, mitigation increases, tradeskill increases, and some others depending on race. Sometimes the stat is one you want, sometimes it isn’t, but it’s not detrimental. Sometimes you get an skill increase for the tradeskill you picked, sometimes you won’t. Sometimes you’ll get an increase to movement speed, or something else that really doesn’t make much of a difference at all.

One exception to the rule, comes to scouts or mages. The best races in the game for scouts/mages are either ratonga, or gnomes. Both races get the best deaggro in the game, that scales with level, something that is actually useful. This is really the only racial skill I’ve found that is best suited for dps classes. Otherwise, it’s a bunch of filler crap that you may or may not find useful.

Hopefully this little tidbit is of use to you, so you can move away from the newbie questions, and get back to the more important ones.

Release Day Thoughts

I got up bright and early (well, not early for most, but early for me) today and headed to my favorite record store in town, Cool Cat. I scoured the shelves looking for the cds I wished to purchase, and when I couldn’t find them, I asked the woman behind the counter, the owner, if she had the cds in question.

 She told me she had just gotten in her shipment, and hadn’t even opened the boxes yet, and happily dug through them to find the cds I wanted to purchase. Of course, there were two versions of each, and she gave me the break down of what each contained, along with pricing.

No World For Tomorrow had a “stripped” version, just the cd in a sleeve, that the website advertised as a “bargain”. Also, the “deluxe” version, containing a booklet with lyrics/art, and a bonus DVD with various shit I have yet to check out. Of course, I opted for the deluxe version, but oddly enough it was only $2 more than the stripped, which stuck me as a boo-boo on her part, but I didn’t complain. I ended up with the two-disc set for only $14.99.

Serj Tankian’s album also had a deluxe version, which I was unaware of. This one I did not purchase, because not only was it a hefty $25, but it only had a bigger booklet, and 4 additional songs (a couple of which were just acoustic versions of songs present on the album). Not really a deal, so I spent the $15 for the regular version, and boned out of there.

Now I had already listened to the new Coheed album on myspace, but nothing compares to listening to a cd for the first time in your car. Especially when you have a system. The clarity of a cd is so much better than the crap you can hear on myspace. So I bumped that in the car, and listened to it at home, and listened to it some more while I was at work, and I think the album is awesome. There are alot more “hard” moments in the record, most notably on “No World For Tomorrow”, “Gunslingers and Gravemakers”, and “The End Complete”. There are a couple slow songs of course, and these are well done; I enjoy these more than “Always & Never” and “Wake Up” from their last album, or “The Light & The Glass”, from IKSSE:3. Overall, the band has progressed in a way that is much appreciated, taking on an even different form, which they have continued to do each time they make a new release. The new drummer, whose name escapes me, but is the ex-drummer from Dillinger Escape Plan, is awesome; he puts the last drummer to shame. He’s much more technical, and man I love double bass.

Serj’s album was one of those albums you have to give a couple spins before you know where to place it. “Empty Walls” and “The Unthinking Majority” are instant hits, and I like those still, but the rest of the cd varies between awesome and just plain weird. I’m not going to make any severe judgements at this point in time, because I’m sure that all the songs will grow on me and then I’ll regret having said something negative. Overall, it sounds like another SOAD album, in Hypnotize/Mesmerize fashion.

Nevertheless, I would encourage Co&Ca fans to pick up the album, you won’t regret that. And to you SOAD fans, give Serj’s solo effort a try. There are at least a couple gems there that are worth a couple bucks.