New monitor

Ok, so it's not new, we've had it for a couple of years now. But it's never really been used as a monitor until recently.

Say hello to my little friend ;)

(If you click it, it gets bigger ;)

One fine evening, down at the running track

Among the 20 or so runners/walkers at the local High School running track were:

An elderly Chinese man running the wrong way. No, I'm not saying there was something wrong with his technique. I mean he was running clockwise while everyone else was running or walking counter-clockwise.

One couple strolling along together, side-by-side...hand-in-hand. Nothing wrong with walking on the track, lots of folks do, and at least they weren't walking on the inside couple of lanes (track etiquette dictates that the inside lanes are for runners) but they looked they were out for a casual romantic Sunday afternoon stroll rather than serious walkers getting their laps in at 8 o'clock on a Monday night.

Two ladies walking together. One wearing a faux fur vest (it wasn't that cold), the other with her jacket tied around her waist, a black & white leopard print silk (or faux silk) scarf around her neck, and an umbrella. No, not a compact umbrella. She was walking around the track carrying a full-sized 2 1/2'-long umbrella. Wow!

And me? Why, I was a picture-perfect fashionably-dressed runner, of course. With my grey & black Under Armor t-shirt, my red basketball shorts with black "racing" stripes, and my coordinated white, red & silver Nike runners w/ matching ankle-high white socks.

What?

The Perfect MMO?

I wonder how much fun an MMO would be where you skipped the time-consuming-and-apparently-boring-but-necessary-to-recoup-our-development-costs level grind, and went straight to the "end game" with its gear-grind?

With no zones, no exploring, and no leveling up to do, players would not have the opportunity to gradually learn how to play their class, so the classes would be limited to the bare minimum required, being three, with each of the three classes reduced to their simplest form. Players would also be able to switch classes at will , and to facilitate this and preserve valuable bag space the character's "paper doll" would be able to hold up to three different outfits, one for each of the three classes, being:

DeePeeNes: Named in accordance with current MMO class stereotypes, DeePeeNes have 3 Damaging abilities or attacks.

• Take this! - An Instant Cast attack with a 1-second CD (Global CD) which severely damages a single target.
• And this! - An instant Cast, high-damage attack with no CD, but which can only be cast on the recipient of a Take this! Critical Hit.
• And that! - An Instant Cast moderate damage attack with the 1-second GCD which affects all opponents within 10' of the Target.

For simplicity's sake the effective range on all DeePeeNes attacks is 0' to 65-yards, allowing players to play melee or ranged DeePeeNess based on personal preference.

The Tank: Like DeePeeNes, The Tank also has 3 attacks or Aggro-generating abilities, also with o' to 65-yard range.

• Hit Me! - An Instant cast attack with the 1-second Global CD. This ability targets one Mob and greatly encourages it to hit the Tank;
• Everyone! Hit me! - An Instant cast attack with 5-second CD which encourages all Mobs to hit the Tank. Does not encourage Mobs to hit the Tank quite as much as Hit Me!, and;
• HIT ME! NOW! - An Instant cast ability with a 25-second CD which forces one target to attack the Tank for 10 seconds. Works even better than Hit Me! but only works on Mobs not currently attacking the Tank.

The Healer: In keeping with the perception that Healers are a hard class to play, Healers get a couple more abilities than DeePeeNes and The Tank.

• Little Heal - Does what it says. Heals the target for a small amount but makes up for it by being instant cast with the 1-second Global CD.
• Big Heal - Heals the target for a larger amount than Little Heal but has a 1.5-second cast with a 5-second CD.
• Lotta Heals - Heals everyone in the Healer's party within a 30-yard radius of the Healer for H/X, where H is the Maximum Heal (modified by +Healing gear) and X is the number of characters being healed. Has a 10-second CD but also has a small chance to apply an additional 5-second HOT.
• HOT - Single-target, instant cast heal with a 10-second CD which applies a 5-second HOT (modified by +Healing gear).
• GET OVAH HEAH!!! - Immediately teleports the targeted character to a spot 6-feet in front of the Healer. No Saving Throws, no Resists, no chance of failure. In combat or out, it doesn't matter. It works all the time, every time. Can be used to save the Healer by dragging The Tank to their location, or to save stupid DeePeeNes by yanking them out of the fire. Through strategic use of terrain can also be used with hilarious effect to drag & drop annoying players off cliffs, into lava, etc. Works especially well on characters with giant mounts standing on top of important NPCs.

With no levels there are no zones to explore, only the starting City where you'll spend your downtime & gold, and the game's Dungeons where you'll fight Mobs and find new, better gear. In keeping it simple you don't get to choose the Dungeon, instead the Dungeon Runner tool will automatically assign you to a group and a dungeon based on your character's gear or iLevel. Characters can also form parties of their own and enter Dungeons via the DR tool, but the Dungeon will still be chosen at random based on the lowest iLevel character.

As you conquer each Dungeons' denizens and find & equip better gear, you'll gain access to new Dungeons, with tougher foes and even greater rewards. Play long enough, conquer enough Dungeons, and you just might acquire enough gear to gain access to the Most Uber Dungeon of them all.

Women

So the wife emails me at work and asks me to vacuum when I get home. I agree because it's my job (she does the laundry. Trust me, I've got the easier gig by far) and because a cat, a dog, 2 kids and 2 adults create a ton of dust and I haven't vacuumed for...a while...so the house needs to be vacuumed.

So I get home, clean up the dog's poop in the backyard (Trust me, I've still got the easier gig), then figure I'll chill for a bit and catch up on some blogs before I do the vacuuming. (I was gonna get to it... eventually.) But the wife wants me to do it now.

"Why aren't you vacuuming like you said you would?" she calls out to me from the boy's room. (They're in there doing something on his computer. Probably school-related. She's a good mother like that. I should probably tell her that sometimes. Does this count? No? I need to tell her in person? Okay, I will...after I finish the vacuuming ;)

"Yeah yeah," I say, with the Zenful serenity that comes from being married for longer than a decade, as I continue reading Blogs and finish typing (what I believe to be) a witty comment on some random Blogger's Blog.

Then the boy comes in. "Daddy, why aren't you vacuuming?"

Geez! Et tu, spawn of my loins?

Fine, I'll vacuum then! Wait! Doesn't vaccuum have two C's? I'm sure it does! I'm sure that's how I spelled it in school...in Australia. Bloody Americans. As if it's not enough to drop the U out of words like colour and neighbor and the D out of Refridgerator (And how come you add it in when you abbreviate it to Fridge, huh? If it's Refrigerator, shouldn't it be Frige?) you have to go and rob vaccuum of one of its C's. And you have the audacity to say Australia was founded by thieves and convicts? Bah!

Anyway, so I get out the vaccuum cleaner and start unrolling the cord when I remember the wife mentioned to me the other night that "they" are remaking Hawaii Five-O, which prompts me to start singing the Hawaii Five-O theme song. You know the one? (Or maybe you don't...) It goes like this:

Nag-nag nag-nag naaaag naaaaag.
Nag-nag nag-nag naaaaaaaaaag.
Nag-nag nag-nag nag-naaaaaag!
Nag-nag-nag-nag naaaaaaaaaag!

By this time I'm in the boy's room and he's joined in and is singing along with me so I lean over and give my wife a big, long, sloppy wet kiss on the cheek and when I'm done (it was a loooooong kiss) I say, "I love you, dear".

And what does she say in reply?

"Do the vacuuming."

Women.

Ah well. I guess I better get back to the vaccuuming.

Walk. Run! No! Don't Run!

Walking to the bus stop I come up to an intersection where a guy not quite paying attention steps into the crosswalk and starts crossing as the pedestrian timer counts down from 2 to 1 to 0, and the red hand stops flashing and stays solid.

Not-quite-paying-attention guy is suddenly paying more attention and he starts to run, not walk, the rest of the way across.

Paying-even-less-attention Guy is several steps behind NQPA Guy (which is who he is probably paying attention to rather than watching the lights) so when PELA Guy steps into the intersection the light is not only well & truly Red for him, it's now Green for the cross traffic.

PELA Guy takes one step forward as he starts to pay a little more attention, but he's not paying enough attention to not take a second hesitating step. He is paying enough attention that not only does he not take a third step, but he now takes a step backwards toward the safety of curb he's just left...which is why the bicycle courier zipping behind him almost takes him out.

As the cars start to pass in front of PELA Guy he takes a second step backwards, catches his heel on the curb, and is forced to take a third, very quick step back to avoid falling on his arse.

After a recent breakfast trip to a Denny's in Manassas, VA, President Obama has realized he originally gave We, The People a little too much credit, and after witnessing NQPA & PELA Guys' street-crossing tactics I'm not only inclined to agree with the President's revised assessment, but I wonder how he could have been so optimistic in the first place.


Obama Drastically Scales Back Goals For America After Visiting Denny's

And yes, I'm fully aware that ONN is not a real network. I'm not like NQPA Guy and PELA Guy ;)