"Sticky Widget"
Do I really need an excuse to the use the term
stick widget? I mean, it just sounds funny. Despite this I should make it sound like some artsy, metaphorical title that has to do with this post.
Things at work are still rather busy. Though improving marginally: I sometimes get about 5 seconds in between incoming calls. There was point I didn't even get that, there was always a call waiting. Now I hear there's all these "normal people" out there that work Mon - Fri from 8:00 to 5:00 or whatever and actually take vacations during the summer. This being Memorial Day weekend and all maybe the call volume will be liter. Oh, I work on Sunday. I have today (Friday) and tomorrow off, but I work on Sunday. Then I have Monday off. So maybe the normal people will be at barbeques and camping instead of using computers and call tech support.
One thing I find annoying about tech support at apple computer: people who call trying to set up an xbox and people who complain about having to give me the serial number of the computer.
Just so you people know: I don't care if your xbox works. Really. It's made by
Microsoft. It's a
game console. If your airport works and your mac works with the airport that's all I'm going to help with. Otherwise fuck it. Go ask someone who gives a rat's ass. Because I don't care about your xbox. Seriously.
Also you have a computer. I'm tech support on your computer. In order to help you at all I'm going to need the serial number of your computer. While your waiting on hold there's going to be a recording that says "please have your serial number ready". That recording is *not* there for the hell of it. It means (and get this)
we need your serial number. So have it ready. Is that so difficult? Do not complain about having to give me a serial number. Do not get made abut having to give me a serial number. I don't give a fuck how long you've been using macs or how many you own. I just don't care. Just have your serial number.
As mentioned in the last post I may not be at apple computer much longer. As has occured to me before sometimes I wonder if I'm cut out for tech support. At least on the phone. In fact as in other portions of my life sometimes I just want to get rid of my computer, buy a typewriter and just do writing forever. Not many ways around PCs these days. I think it'd take more effort to avoid PC use then use a PC minimally.
Then I realize this is probably irrational. I don't need to write PCs out my life forever, just find a portion of the field more suited to who I am. Whomever I am I am certainly not a very good call controlling alpha-male or whatever. At least it seems like it should be easier and more consistent then it is. But I'm sticking with it. I've stuck with it for 10 months now; why not the rest of my life? Ah yes. The widget comes home. The sticky widget.
Lately I've been playing a game in my spare time. Guild Wars to be more precise. I also have World of Warcraft. I played WoW for a couple nights then started playing Guild Wars more and more often. Now I think it's been about two weeks since I've played WoW. I bought a six month subscription to WoW while Guild Wars is free. This makes me think I should really be putting more emphasis on WoW then Guild Wars. Of course I'm also paying for PlanetSide and haven't played that once, at least not in a multiplayer capacity. I found a glitch in the tutorial and never went back to it. And never cancelled the subscription.
But where was I? Right, Guild Wars. There's three modes or versions you can play this game: role playing, Arena battles and the "Hall of Heroes". The more you level up your RP character the more powerful your Arena and Heroes characters will become. Arena and Hall characters start at the highest possible level of 20. Your RP character of course starts at 1 and slowly move up.
My all my characters are "warrior/mesmer" types. I cannot switch the characters between game types. When I level up my RP character I I'll get new skills and spells I can use. My level 20 Arena character will then have these skills and spells available.
The Arena is a team-on-team battle: teams are randomly chosen from other players waiting to play in the Arena. Sometimes you end up on a terrible team that's wiped out rather abruptly, other times you get a great team that lasts 10 matches. There's really no reward for playing in the variation, it's just quick-and-dirty fun.
The Hall of Heroes on the other hand is a little different. You enter a sort-of lobby area with other players and form or find a forming team of up to 8 players. Once ready you enter the arena. The first match is just your team versus some NPC "mobs" you have to beat. The next match is against another player team. Survive that and it's your team of 8 versus 7 other teams of 8. This is as far as any I've been on has survived so I have no idea what would be past that. In fact I was on a team that was second-to-last still alive, but we eventually got split up and all died. That was a fun match though.
So I like this guild wars. In a lot of ways it reminds me of Diablo 2. But I didn't like Diablo 2 that much. I do like guild wars. While in RP mode there are various cities where all the players congregate. These are essentially chat room lobbies on any number of servers. For instance there's ascolon city numbers 1 through 14. So if you're playing with someone you have to take note of which city your going to. You can switch of course. Just random which one you'll enter.
Once your ready to leave a city you've got the bordering zone all yourself and your team mates. You won't find other players wandering around like Ultima Online. Just your and your team versus all those creatures. Doing quests.
It does get boring after a while. Very repetitive. Kill nearest creature, grab loot, kill next creature, move to next zone, repeat. Eventually find the quest goal. Then "travel" or "warp" or whatever back to the city where you were assigned the quest for your reward of items and experience. Time for the next quest. One good thing is that you can hire on NPC henchmen and do a quest yourself if you can't find a group to travel with.
Wow, I'm really going on about Guild Wars. I should really be into WoW. I'm sure I'll start playing WoW again eventually.
Well that's all for now. From the sticky widget.
