Betrayal

Wow. How one person I was “friends” with in an online game totally became a psychotic piece of shit is really amazing. I can’t believe that this one person, while even being totally enchanting over people can really do this with multiple people is beyond me. I mean even while playing the original MMO I played with him, he was a bit of an ass. However, he was quite nice to me. Maybe it was because I am a female, maybe it was because I was nice to him, I am not sure. However, for all of my prior friends for YEARS to become objected by this piece of shit? I mean, come on! Seriously, how on Earth do they take this idiot’s side over mine? I guess they were never my friends to begin with. I am not sure really… Have any of you played online games and suffered this same fate? How did you cope with it?

Clean Up Your Messy House!

Last week I saw the Oprah show with Peter Walsh for their new series (on the show) about cleaning up your messy house. I really enjoy taking part in some of the areas that Oprah offers her viewers. So, I figured I would take her up on this “course” with the help of my Mom. After all, it is her house and whenever I just organize and clean up a space it ends up returning to its former havoc within a month or two.

The course from Oprah’s website is really easy to signup and be a part of. Just go to her website and signup for an account (yes, it is free). Then signup for the newsletter(s) you want to be a part of. After that, just print out the “Clean Up Your Messy House Pledge” and sign it. Then each month you will get new assignments for cleaning up your home. Committing to 10 minutes each day can change the life of your home!

I am sort of a neat freak, sometimes. When I had my own apartment, everything was always where it was supposed to be and nice and clean. However, now that I am living back at “home” with my parents I have just one bedroom. My computer space, living room and bedroom are now all-in-one. Not very space-friendly.

The image I used for this blog is of my bedroom. I can only get in a few angles, so that will just have to do for now. I don’t like how it is setup and plan on rearranging it totally. My closets (yes, 2 but they are small and awkward so don’t go getting jealous or anything) are a disaster spot too. Basically, I have quite a bit I want to change in just my bedroom as it is.

I’ll post updates on this project I am undertaking with some new pictures along the way as well. I invite you all to join me on my de-cluttering journey and let me know how you are doing as well.

New Layout, Sorta

The past few hours I’ve been looking for a new blogskin for this blog. I found a few I liked, but nothing I really loved. I haven’t played around with HTML in awhile or XML ever to make my own yet. I might at some point, but not right now. After being thoroughly disappointed in not finding one to work, I just uploaded a picture I had saved on my computer for the header/title area. For those who are wondering where it is from, it is from the company Tokidoki. I love their bags, stationary and oh well everything. Fair warning though, they are a bit high priced.

Super Skinny

Seriously what is with the super skinny girls on television and movies lately? Sure, thin girls have always been in the media However, if you turn on Gossip Girl, 90210 or any other teenage drama you will find these super-tiny pint-sized version of teenage girls. Runway model skinny is just not a realistic version of what normal girls look like.

Blake Lively, who stars on Gossip Girl says she had to lose “serious” weight for the movie Elvis and Annabelle, she tells W. “I play a beauty queen who died of bulimia,” she says. “But beauty queens are still very toned. So, I lost weight, but got toned. It was the healthiest I’ve ever been!” Wow. Since when is a bulimic who dies considered healthy? What were you thinking Blake? Comments such as these are NOT role-model worthy. They are not healthy for Ms. Lively either. If she is not in therapy yet, perhaps she should be.

Pink - So What

Pink has been one of my favorite solo female artists since her debut album. Her new CD is great! Her hit single off of it titled “So What” has been on my iTunes library since it came out. It has been played about 70 times on there already by me. Yeah, sometimes I get a little obsessive with songs and have them on repeat – so what? If you are a Pink fan, or just love this song it is definitely worth a download!

Silk Road Online

“The first experience a player shall have is of one large world waiting to be explored and shaken up; a constant progressing adventure.” – Silk Road Online

After researching for various Free-To-Play games I came across links to Silk Road Online quite often. So, I decided to give it a try. As the quote above says, it is a large world waiting to explored.

The game was designed to re-enact the Silk Road trades from the 7th Century. Through the use of the game as a MMORPG, it is based on history, culture and stories of each and every Silk Road trade route. I love history and culture so I thought this would be a great game for me. Plus, the armor was pretty cute - and if you know me I love clothes in real life as much as I do in games!

While downloading the game (which took quite a few hours), I read up on their Cartoon Guides via their official website. They were rather cute and helpful to beginners and quite funny actually. Their website is very informative and if you plan to play this game, I suggest you browse through it while downloading the game as well.

While this is a Free to Play game, don’t expect it to be totally free. Sure, it could be if you don’t want any of the goodies which come via the Item Mall. It seems every “Free” game out there has these and this one is no exception. JoyMax has to make money too ya know!

Once I was finally able to make my character I was a bit disappointed. Very minimal customization was allowed. Then another big bummer came when I tried to login – the servers can be full! I haven’t read a “try again later” message when trying to login to something since the days of dial-up on AOL.

I played my character up to level 10 or so. The server was overcrowded (once I was finally able to get in) which made me quite laggy. The directions of what to do once inside the game were minimal and confusing. The map doesn’t show the full area which was highly annoying.

While I didn’t get to enjoy the possible positives of the game, I will list them here. They do offer a private and street stall to sell items. There is a message/friends tool which would have been quite nice too I am sure. There is also something called a Guardian System which means that high levels can help new players and they are rewarded for doing so.

Overall, the game looks a lot better on their website than it does while actually playing it. I was overly annoyed by this game after just a few hours. However, it is worth a try. It is free to try and who knows you may just like it more than I did.

Happy Halloween!

Halloween is the holiday most kids can’t wait for, but just what is it actually a celebration of? How did the traditions we know of come about? Is it, as some claim, a kind of demon worship? Or is it just a harmless ancient pagan ritual?

“Halloween” actually has its origins in the Catholic Church; it comes from a corruption of “All Hallows Eve,” “All Hallows Day,” or “All Saint’s Day.” November 1st, is a Catholic day of observance in honor of saints. But, in the 5th century BC in Celtic Ireland, summer officially ended on October 31st. The holiday was called Samhain (sow-en), the Celtic New Year. One story says that on that day, the disembodied spirits of all those who have died throughout the preceding year would come back in search of living bodies to possess for the next year. It was believed to be their only hope for the afterlife. The Celts believed all laws of space and time were suspended during this time, allowing the spirit world to intermingle with the living. Naturally, the living didn’t want to be possessed. So, on the night of October 31st, villagers would extinguish the fires in their homes to make them cold and undesirable. Then, they would dress up in ghoulish costumes and noisily parade around the neighborhood, being destructive in order to frighten away spirits looking for bodies to possess. Because, what spirit would want an unruly body that looked frightening? Even those spirits have standards to live up to!

The ideas of the practices changed over time to become more ritualized. The practice of dressing up in costumes like ghosts and witches took on a more ceremonial role. Irish immigrants fleeing their country’s potato famine brought the custom of Halloween to America in the 1840s. At that time, the favorite pranks in New England included tipping over outhouses (no toilet paper for the trees?) and unhinging fence gates.

The custom of trick-or-treating is thought to have originated not with the Irish Celts, but with a ninth century European custom called “souling.” On November 2nd, “All Souls Day,” early Christians would walk from village to village begging for “soul cakes” made out of square pieces of bread with currants. The more soul cakes the beggars would receive, the more prayers they would promise to say on behalf of the dead relatives of the donors. At the time, it was believed that the dead remained in limbo for a time after their death, and that prayer (even by strangers) could expedite a soul’s passage to heaven.

The jack-o-lantern custom probably came from Irish folklore. As the tale is told, a man named Jack who was notorious as a drunkard and trickster, tricked Satan into climbing up a tree. Jack then carved an image of a cross in the tree’s trunk, trapping the devil up the tree. Jack made a deal with the devil that if he would never tempt him again, he would promise to let him down the tree. According to the folk tale, after Jack died he was denied entrance to Heaven because of his evil ways, but he was also denied access to Hell because he had tricked the devil. Instead, the devil gave him a single ember to light his way through the darkness. The ember was placed inside a hollowed-out turnip to keep it glowing longer. The Irish originally used turnips as their “Jack’s lanterns.” But, when the immigrants came to America, they found that pumpkins were far more plentiful than turnips. So, the jack-o-lantern in America was a hollowed-out pumpkin, lit with an ember.

So, although some cults and devil worshipers may have adopted Halloween as their favorite holiday, the day itself didn’t grow out of evil practices. It grew out of the rituals of Celts celebrating their new year, and out of medieval prayer rituals of Europeans. Today, it is only as evil as one cares to make. Have fun this Halloween, and remember to be safe!

Harry Potter

One of my birthday presents this year was the boxed set of the Harry Potter books. I’ve never read any of the books before, but I had seen the movies 10+ times each (at least). I started reading the books just before I went on vacation in September and I didn’t stop until I finished book 7 last week. I was so drawn in by the books that I didn't stop to eat, watch my favorite shows or do anything I had planned. I stayed up reading unitl 2 or 3 in the morning even! It is just that good!

After reading all of the books, I have to admit it is one hell of a page turner. Even from seeing the movies, the books give a more in-depth insight into the world of Harry Potter. Which is better? Well, I don’t think I can judge that one. They both get an A+ from me! Sorry this post is so short, but in order to give the books justice I think I need to read them again to give a proper review. Plus well, I want to read them again!

Have you read the Harry Potter books? Have you seen the movies? What do you think of the series? Did you like how it turned out at the end? What would you have liked to have seen happen?

I'm Back!

This is just a quick blog to let those who read this know that I am alive. Last week I was on vacation in Maggie Valley, North Carolina with my family. Here is a short version of the trip for all those interested…

My parents, grandma and Aunt Doris went with me on this trip. We stayed at my dad’s friend’s house which was really more like a log cabin mansion. It was a really nice house, but will be much nicer once finished. It would also be nicer if his “interior designer” actually did the job correctly – but this is another story. I was supposed to be staying in the finished bedroom downstairs. However, I only lasted there for one night due to spiders. UGH – I HATE spiders. I killed a few and couldn’t sleep after thinking they could be in the room/bed with me. Ick! So, for the remaining nights I ended up sleeping on an oversized chair with an ottoman. Not too comfy, but it beats thinking spiders could be in bed with me!

The driveway going up to the house was quite bad. It was dirt and rocks going up a steep driveway along a side of a very tall mountain. My dad is the best drive I know though, so he was fine with driving up and down it. However, that didn’t stop my grandma from freaking out each and every time we had to use the driveway.

We went somewhere each day, so that occupied quite a bit of time. We visited my Aunt Stacy and Uncle Greg at their house one afternoon (they live near there). We went to Pigeon Forge, TN to do some shopping. We ate somewhere everyday and I didn’t always stick to my diet. I won’t be eating French fries again for a long time. There was a lot of pretty scenery and equally as much driving. Gas prices were through the roof though, and quite often we found gas stations with no gas at all!

The last day of the trip my Mom and I had the best time. We went to the casino in Cherokee, which was the first time I had ever gambled. I only played with $10 and on the cheap slot machines, but it was fun! After that we ate lunch at a restaurant at the casino. It was really good and actually cheaper than most places we had been eating at around there. Then we went gem mining. I’ve done this a few times before and I’ve always enjoyed doing it. This time though, I actually had a necklace made from a gem I mined. It is a mystic fire topaz. Really pretty!

I also did some reading while on this trip. I finished book 2 and 3 from the Harry Potter series. Yeah, I love Harry Potter and I’m 25 – so what? I got the whole set for my birthday and I’m reading them in order.

Overall, I am very happy to be back. My bed is soo much better than an oversized chair, I missed my computer and all the comforts of being “home.” This blog ended up being a bit longer than I expected, but oh well.

Hurricane Season

Growing up with constant threats of hurricanes every year, I am used to hurricanes. Florida gets hit quite often, and I lived in central Florida for most of my life. Packing up my stuff that I was allowed to fit in my bags and then evacuating with my family – possibly leaving everything else behind to get blown away. Luckily, nothing severe ever happened to our house or even the city we lived in.

In 2004, hurricanes hit Florida one after another. Remember that? I sure do. Even a seasoned hurricane Floridian was sick and tired of hurricanes after that. Sure, “hurricane parties” were fun and all – but the threat sure isn’t something to look forward to. We actually had a close call with tornadoes from Hurricane Charlie near where I lived in Orlando. The most severe hurricane that season was Hurricane Katrina. It didn’t hit Florida that hard but everyone remembers it from New Orleans’ devastation. They are still trying to recover from that hurricane.

Now, we have Hurricane Gustav that is hitting those along the Gulf today. We also have Tropical Storm Hanna (Hurricane Hanna sounds catchy and somehow that doesn’t seem like a good thing) out in the Atlantic right now. Hopefully, these hurricanes (and anymore that end up spawning out there) don’t cause devastation like some hurricanes have in the past. My thoughts and prayers go out to those in the path of these storms.