Holy crap it's 2012 already?

Lets see, what happened in 2011.

I was diagnosed with a totally non threatening yet completely incurable disease. Thats bad.
But I finally removed out of my mothers house. Thats good (double good... good squared?)

I got dental surgery on several of my teeth and I'm expecting them to hurt for the rest of my life. Thats bad.
But I got all my medical and dental work done before my insurance gives out! Thats good.

I don't have a girlfriend... thats bad.
But of my 99 problems a bitch aint one... so... thats good.

I hit a bitch for being a bitch. Thats bad.
I literally exhausted every option available to me before I took a swing at her. Then I had to kick her husbands ass. Which I successfully did even though I was greatly hindered by the fact that she was swinging a FUCKING CHAIR at my head. Thats good.

My tomato plant had to be murdered. Thats bad.
I successfully nurtered a life that was stronger and healthier than I could have imagined, and I'm not cursed with my fathers anti-green (Red? Blue?) thumb!

OK. So let's talk ToR for just a minute cuz, hell, it's my blog and noone reads this anyway, right? RIGHT!

OK. For those of you that don't know, BioWare is a company that designed KoTOR and KoTORII, the Dragon Age games, and Mass Effect. Well, long story short, they've got their hands in with Mythic who brought you some classics like Dark Age of Camelot and Ultima Online. Understand that pretty much every one of these games are considered classics. KoTOR especially is considered one of only a handful of starwars games that dont feel like they're based off something that fell out of George Lucas' ass.

Well, they just released a new starwars MMO based on the Old Republic franchise which, and this is important, stands on it's own without feeling like something based on anything george lucaqs did. Yes, there are swords light sabers, there are bows blasters, and, theres magic telekenesis the force. Pretty standard fair. But the thing is that if you played KoTOR, you know that theres a story to be told, and that it's rather interesting. The single player portion is pretty immersive, and grabs you relatively early. The 1-20 leveling experience is fun... the first time around. And each class gets it's own unique story. And you really, truly feel like a part of that story.

Case in point. My smuggler starts off delivering a crate of weapons, gets her ship stolen, and starts hunting down the guy that did it. He attempts to kill her several times over, and eventually I get my ship back. I cannot tell you how overjoyed I was to have my ship back. Not my character. Me, personally, I felt a sence of pride at having recovered my ship. As I'm sitting on my ship, I meet the guys EX GIRLFRIEND, who hates his guts. We call him up, he's pissed, we rub his nose in it, he finds out that, thanks to a hacker friend of mine, he now has a death sentence on every single planet worth going to... standard "you stole my ship now face my wrath you bastard" stuff.

Which brings me to my next point. You may have noticed I'm really getting into my character. And it's hard not to. I've dipped my toes into the RP pool a few times, and it wasn't for me. But here, I understand these characters, I relate to them. My Jedi would have just shrugged it off, and considered the returning of her ship being nothing more than the means to and end. Shes very stoic like that. But my smuggler went APE SHIT, because thats how I played her. I pointed my gun at more merchants, criminals, and imperial officers saying "Where. Is. My. SHIP!" than I care to count. And it made me feel good. Very good. Sober pissed off Cpt. Jack Sparrow good.

The grouping portion of it is a little different. First of all, four man groups. This is going to instantly be a problem because of the holy trinity and class choices. Theory goes like this. Each group must consist of the following. 1 person to taunt and take damage. 1 person to heal everyone else. And X number of damage dealers to fill out the rest of the spots. This becomes a problem when 10% of the population are tanks, 10% are healers, and the rest are all damage dealers. If you're not a tank or a healer, you're gonna have a hard time getting into any groups. And the sad thing is that it's actually a ton of fun. The group areas are story driven and conversations include every member of the group.

I'm really looking forward to seeing the end-game content and seeing if the game is going to have any staying power.

Anyway, I'm out.

Lefthandright vs. iTunes

Been away awhile. Busy. Like I have all the free time in the world to update this thing? Cmon, I'm way to busy going snow boarding with movie stars. Or something like that.

So I've always wanted an ipod. I thought they were really neat, I could load up all my music and take it everywhere. Yeah. Right. My roomates have an ipod. And my dumb ass thought 'hey, I can just hook this up to my computer, copy over my music, and take it to the party with us!". Wrong. Gotta download iTunes. Ok. I downloaded iTunes.

After iTunes tried no less than 5 million times to get me to format all the music off of the ipod and start fresh, I was finally able to move some music over. Except, again, my dumb ass clicked the "auto locate music!". And what did I get? 2000 13 second mp3s from the sims and civV that I didn't want! So I'm like OK. That's cool. I'll just delete all this shit I just put on and start over. Oh wait. Right clicking on it doesn't delete it. Um. The delete button doesn't delete it. Um... I... I can't make this shit go away!!

Thus, I want to register my complaint with a big old "Fuck You Apple".

And I appologise for the language.

~LHR

"I don't associate with non-christians"

A quote I've been hearing alot lately is "I don't associate with non-christians". To me, this is a very odd quote, but it really struck home recently as to WHY I find this quote to be so upsetting. I got involved in a conversation.

Now, there's a very important piece of information you need to know before hand. As awesome as I am, as totally rocking cool as I am, as much as my friends might tell you that I'm the greatest thing since sliced bread (and I am) it just so happens that I have a huge failing. See, I'm a dick.

Anyway, I was approached by a gentleman who wanted to "share the good word". Now, because I'm a dick, I heckled him a little bit and then we got to actully talking. He told me that his calling in life is to "share the word of God and guide the people of this country to his loving embrace." Now, this in and of itself makes him sound a little crazy. I don't mind a little Yay God! every now and then, but it needs to be phrased in a way that doesn't make it sound like you've been brainwashed. But what floored me was that not two minutes later he also uttered the dreaded quote that I hear from so many -- "I don't really associate with non-christians".

Ok, so you expect people to convert to christianity because you're just so darn cool that I desperately want to be your friend? I dunno, it was always my understanding that you were expected to lead by example, be a happy and successful person, and then associate with the non-believers and SHOW them just how awesome God is. I dunno, call me crazy.

So I know you're all wondering...

I know you're all wondering (and by "you all" I mean my sister, and the other person who googled "lefthand" and came across my blog by accident) about my ticket. According to the "magical all-knowing camera light" I went through that intersection at 80mph. I then either jumped the train, magically floated through it, or made an 80mph turn. Either way, you know it, I'm just that awesome. But meh, what's done is done.

What I really want to talk about, though, is this: my roomates. This is going to be an on-going theme. I might entitle it "I love my roomates, but..." or something along those lines. Because I do, really I do. The problem at hand, however, is that they're younger than me (I've been an "adult" roughly twice as long as them, anyone who remembers the changes in personal development between the ages of 21 and 24 knows where I'm comming from) and don't quite seem to "get it". I like keeping the house at a relative level of clean. To the point where I'm anal about some things. One of these days I'm going to find a moldy dish sponge in the bottom of the sink and kill someone with it. Or I'm gonna pull a towel out of the linen closet thats covered in cat hair, and hold someones head in the door and give them a personal lesson on the difference between "open" and "closed".

So yeah, I can be anal about some things, but the list is pretty short and usually revolves around safety (lock the damn doors), cleanliness (dry the sponge and put it somewhere else) or the cats (keep the catbox at a certain level of clean). But I have one pet peev that really trumps all the others. If you're going to offer to do something, at least take the time to do it well. Which is why, when I was told that they were going to clean the kitchen and the bathroom while I was at work, and I came home to find that the job was half done, I wasn't happy.

Now, I know what you're going to say. But Lefty, it isn't their job to clean up your mess! You should be thankful they did anything and offer to help do the rest! Yeah, bullshit. They offered to do it. They told me it was done, and it wasn't.

The kitchen had been in bad shape for awhile (since christmas, at least) and it had gotten to the point that trash was accumulating faster than I could clean it, and I couldn't muster the urge to spend two hours on it. So what did my roomate do? Finished filling the already half-full dishwasher, and started it. And... yeah, thats it. All the trash, all the hand-wash only dishes, the floor, the counters, the coffee-maker... all of them in complete shambles.

The bathroom was worse. This was the job N had offered to do. So I thought to myself "surely, even though the kitchen looked like hell, N would have done a better job on the bathroom". Yup, my self was dead wrong. The bottom of the tub had been scrubbed and... yep, once again, that was it. In her defense, the bottom of the tub was VERY CLEAN. Of course, the fact that the sides of the tub and the walls were still cakes with mineral deposits and soap scum put a damper on that. The trashcan that was still full to the point that trash was piling up around the trashcan, the dirty towels, the uneaten cake on the counter (which had been involved in a foodfight that ended in the bathroom, not eaten there), and the assortment of STUFF lying around was just too much.

I snapped a little inside. I'll admit this. There was a little bit of cursing, several uncomfortable silences, a few curt commands involving laundry in the dryer, and a linen closet door that got slammed. But now the kitchen is very clean, and the bathroom is significantly cleaner.

So I guess the point of the story is -- don't halfass quarterass sixteenthass your way through stuff, especially if you're the one offering to do it out of the goodness of your heart. And close the damn linen closet door.

Stupidity in Action

There is a major intersection up the road from me, and it has a fancy, shiny camera that takes pictures of people as they go careening through the intersection. I don't know why it's there, because anybody who runs a red light in this particular intersection is going to DIE, but hey, what do I know? Well, this camera takes pictures pretty much every time the light turns red. Even if nobody is at the intersection. That's right. And yours truly has fallen prey to this light.

I got a letter in the mail a little bit ago stating I had run a red light and been caught by the camera. I can only ASSUME that these mailers go out to EVERYONE who gets a picture taken at this intersection without any kind of oversight. Why do I say this? Because I forgot to mention one important aspect of this intersection. There's a set of train tracks that runs by it. And oddly enough, had anybody seen the picture of me "running a red light" they would have, I would hope, seen the picture of a HUGE ASS TRAIN across the intersection and at least taken the time to investigate it, watch the video, see me come to a stop and turn right, and throw the thing in the trash.

But nope, apparently I have a magical car that is capable of passing through solid matter. I'm expecting the government to come knocking on my door any day now. Oy.