Alex Vernon.com

Art openings at Roq La Rue and BLVD, The Hands at the Croc and pinball at Shorty’s. Maybe last call at The Hat. Should be fun…

As I mentioned in I’m lost I really need to start creating things. Plus I need to occupy myself so I don’t go crazy, especially since I don’t have a steady job yet. So to accomplish this or at least start on the path I have signed up for a Photography class at PCNW. I have taken some photo classes before (check out The Showcase School if you’re in Atlanta) but have never learned black and white. I’ve been shooting digital for some time now and this would be a nice change. Learning how to develop my own prints will be a lot of fun as well. I have also signed up for Spanish lessons. I have been wanting to learn Spanish and Japanese for some time, I’m starting with Spanish though since I figure it will be easier plus it’s more useful as well. Then in March I’m taking some Go lessons. Go is another thing I’ve wanted to learn for years and I’ve bought books but never had the discipline to teach myself. Taking a class and having people to play against should help me a lot. Finally I also purchased a guitar. A Simon & Patrick Woodland Spruce for the curious. BTW the picture does not do it justice, it is beautiful. Playing guitar is also something (start broken record track) I’ve wanted to do for years. One of my roommates plays and I also have some self study material. I almost signed up for lessons however I thought better of it because three classes a week then four in March might but too much strain on my assaulted brain. I will probably take some lessons after my photo and Spanish classes though. So there we have it, music language and art I also want to start sitting (Zen) and take Aikido again to round things out. Aikido is going to wait a little while though or at least until I can see how I handle my schedule. As I’ve said before I’m tired of thinking about things and not following through. I have decided (sorry Dubya) to stop fucking around and get some things done. Now to see if I have the discipline to measure up.

Last night I logged into Warcraft, sold all my stuff, gave away the gold and deleted my characters. I then cancelled my account and uninstalled the game. I know Blizzard won’t be hurting though, their playerbase continues to grow faster than Bush’s poll numbers are dropping.

After running a report in Quicken I was enlightened to the fact that I’ve spent $917.75 at The EARL in November and December (not including upcoming New Year’s Eve). This total is plastic only, I’ve also spent lots of cash there and at other bars and concerts. To me this is a lot of money, especially when the only return is a temporary good time. Obviously I need to slow things down a bit. To meet that end I went out and purchased World of Warcraft and Half Life 2. WoW is my first MMORPG, I have resisted them for a long time because I don’t like the fact you have to pay a monthly fee in addition to the initial game price. However some coworkers made the point that is much less than going out every night (which has turned out to be true). I still was hesitant on principal (what principal that is I couldn’t tell you) but finally broke down. I’m glad I did, however it’s a double-edged sword. I haven’t been going out very much but I’ve been spending way too much time playing the game. This is why my blog has been stagnating lately and I’m putting off unenjoyable but necessary tasks like laundry and doing the dishes. I have even been skipping (gasp!) football. Granted the Falcons already have the division wrapped up and a first round bye, so it doesn’t matter. Still I’m still missing it, which is surprising me. In case your wondering, no I will not miss the playoffs (I haven’t completely lost my mind in the depths of geekiness). Anyway it’s an excellent game and I’m a Tarun Shaman (Alavar) on the Stormreaver PvP server. As for Half-Life 2 all I can say is WOW! This game rocks, unfortunately I loaded WoW first and got hooked on it so I haven’t played much of it but from what I’ve seen it is excellent. The graphics are outstanding, the faces are extremely realistic, actually a little eerie. Even more so since one of the characters looks familiar to me. If you’re into FPS games, you owe it to yourself to check it out.

-Alex

Lately I’ve been playing a lot of Desert Combat a mod for Battlefield 1942. I have some friends who like to fly helicopters a lot and you’re pretty much dead meat if you’re on the ground, unless you get lucky with a stinger (which isn’t very often for me). To combat this problem I need a joystick so I can fly jets and helicopters myself. The problem is, I’ve been using a laptop because my house doesn’t have grounded outlets. I have an old CH Flightstick Pro from my CompUSA days but my laptop doesn’t have a game port (big surprise). So today I did a Google search for a USB to Game Port adapter. Low and behold RadioShack makes one. So I picked it up and everything works great except for the POV hat, guess you can’t have everything. Plus $17 is a whole lot cheaper than $100+ for a new USB joystick. Time to kick some helicopter ass!

-Count Zer0