today marks the end of an era for me.

i’ve offically canceled my world of warcraft account. i received notice a few days ago that my account had been suspended for an investigating into possible acts of economic exploitation, gold farming, etc. after some back and forth with the blizzard support crews it was generally accepted that i had not personally logged into my account in nearly 3months. if the account had been farming, exploiting, whatever it was not by me and the account was obviously hacked.

having been quite offended at their tone and accusatory manor in which this was handled i made the final decision that my times in azeroth were over. i was done with wow for good. the newest expansion set to come out soon holds nothing enticing for me at all. its more level grinding, faction grinding, money grinding with nothing new in store. sure new dungeon(s) new class(s) but the same old grind. Zzzz.

a few weeks ago i thought i’d take a gander back in shadowbane to see whats been going on there since 2003. i don’t regret checking it out at all. while graphically it is behind-the-times, the pvp’ing in this game has never been remotely touched by any game since then. the level of pvp’ing this game overs is enough to keep my attention for now. i’m really enjoying loggin on, picking on a few people, killing some zerg players and then logging off. i can start and stop whenever i want. i don’t have to worry about spawns, don’t have to worry about 5 hour raids, don’t have to worry about farming to fund my repair bills. its mindless, easy, oh and FREE fun. no monthly fees!

alas, i will miss my comrads in WoW. I will miss little Dalos the little gnome rogue that could.  i will miss the hours and hours of questing to gain 1/2 a level… wait. fuck that. no i won’t.

I’m at Drupalcon!  Woohoo!

so i have this love-hate relationship with birthdays. they were never all that big-o-deal in my house.

most years i just let it wander past and never put in much of a thought.

this morning i happened to be looking at mySpace which i dont like doing since i found facebook. but this time I was looking and got a fun little comment today:

nature is so grand…

the other night i had the strangest of dreams. i’m one of those people who remember their every dream, no matter how vivid, boring, gory, mundane, wicked, peaceful, or bizarre.

monday night was no exception. at the start of the dream i was rewatching the episode of mythbusters (season 4, episode 17) about the nikola tesla earthquake machine. in the dream a fanatic of the show happened to create their own earthquake machine with some modification. in their replica they added a device that allowed the unit to work without power using springs and rubber bouncers to keep the pistons moving on their own. having believed his designed failed the fanatic set the tesla machine off to the side somewhere in his garage. however one day while clearing a space for his next invention he happened to bump a box that contained the tesla earthquake machine causing it to begin its gyrations back and forth. overtime the movement became perfectly in tuned to the vibrations of the earth. enter the butterfly effect; small vibrations in his garage start tsunami’s in china. the upset of the natural balance of the earth began having cataclysmic results globally. as one delicate balance was upset chain reactions of events began.

this phenomenon continued causing worldwide panic and hysteria. as governments clamored to pass the blame and scientists scratched their heads trying to figure it all out, I joined the X-Men in their search for answers. Yes, the X-Men. Fade out 3-D reality, enter 2-D cartoon-ism. flying around in the X-Jet Cyclops, Wolverine, and me searched the globe trying to find what was happening. as we soared above Los Angeles we bore witness to the separation of the San Andreas fault line and an eruption of a once dormant volcano in the heart of LA. waves of lava engulfed the city covering it like a modern-day Vesuvius. fearing the end of the world we cloaked the jet mid-air and did the only thing we could think to do before annihilation— we fucked. yes, yes, three hero pileup—wolverine in me, me in cyclops, cyclops in his hand. it was like poetry.

the dream continued on for much of the night like this. lots of fucking, more flying, more fucking, more panic. until—that fanatical boy found his tesla device stopped it from moving, saved the world from destruction, and set off my alarm clock.

experts say there are meanings behind our dreams; interpret that one!

(and for the record—wolverine is thick, and cyclops is quite long)

ever feel like you have had a day like this?

Week One without a single cigarette. not too bad.

its strange. i think this time around i was more prepared for this and so the cravings haven’t been all that bad. i had about two days of edginess but that was it. occasionally i still get some minor craving, mostly when i smell smoke in the air. but that’s about it.

i was tempted last night. as i was shoveling out the drive (which is covered in 2 ft of snow btw) i thought aloud—this used to be a perfect time to enjoy a smoke.

i woke in a foul mood today. i was tired from yesterday’s fiasco, i had to shovel through a 4 foot snow drift half frozen without a proper snow shovel. i was pissy.
then i find this:

those of you in new england know. last night—we got about 12″ of snow dumped on us in about 8 hours. we averaged nearly 1-1.5 inches of accumulation per hour!
I get a call from my husband around 11:00 saying that campus would be closing at noon and since i had the vehicle i needed to go get him. i left work at 11:30. his campus is 7 minutes away on a good day. i arrived to stand-still traffic at 12:10. Finally get frustrated and park, walk the rest of the way to him and arrive back at the car at 12:30. the college he is at has approximately 20,000 students who commute to campus every day. and all 20,000 were leaving all at once. along with faculty, staff, and the rest of the county it seems. on top of that every business in this town was closing early dispatching all of their employees to their homes, so the entire fucking town is leaving. in this particular town there is one yes ONE single solitary bridge that crosses the connecticut river—in the entire damned county! and so the entire county is trying to cross this one single solitary bridge. while 12″ of snow are pouring from the sky. it was in all senses of the word a nightmare. what should have been a typical 5 minute drive from campus to the highway took nearly 4.5 hours. I kid you not. we finally arrived at the highway to take us home at 4:30pm. the distance traveled in 4.5 hours was 5 miles; if that. it wasn’t for another hour before we had finally made it from the highway to our house (typically a 10-15 minute jaunt.) five+ hours in the car to travel 15 miles. YUK! i hate the snow.
on the plus side though—i’ve never seen this much snow. and it is quite beautiful. makes me wanna go skiing.

its day three of no smoking. you’d think i’d finally quit considering how much i hate the feeling of quitting. the cravings, the shortened temper, the temptation to eat and eat and eat and eat and eat. i hate this. but i’ve got to do it. the cravings aren’t as bad this time around. i think its because 1) i haven’t been smoking as long this time around 2) when i did smoke i smoked american spirits (which contain no added chemicals) so i am not craving them, and 3) i already know what the effects of quitting cold turkey are for me and so i am more prepared this time.
it was strange this morning. as trav and i are heading into work we find ourselves without much to talk about. we’re so used to having a smoke in our hands in the car ride to work that without it its like we’re in some other world. i mean what does one do in a car if one can’t smoke?

its weird. i remember the last time i quit it taking me some time to get used to life again without smoking, but it somehow fell into place.