I hate drugs. I hate being so dependent on them. I hate when they don’t work. I hate being the thorn in everyone’s side.
Category: journal
Character woes
I’m sick of it. I really am. I can write. I write well but I still want to be able to draw. I want to be able to make a nice sketch of my characters that doesn’t either look like crap or has to be copied from somewhere.
I know how drawing works. I know the time and effort that has to go into learning it. I watched Ajin go through that process over the course of years. And yet I still want to be able to have a reference picture of my characters without having to find a style I like and shelling out money.
This is not the first time I’ve thought that if I’d only gotten into drawing instead of writing way back when, I could be making money with my hobby instead of just posting up a stories that no one cares about and even less people read.
I don’t understand why I have to be so ADD *and* such a perfectionist at the same time. The only reason I got as far with my writing as I did is because bad writing looks the same as good writing. It’s all letters formed into words in lines and paragraphs and pages.
All I wanted to do was put up some little sprite faces of my Silent Wings characters and even using a reference I couldn’t come up with anything that didn’t look like crap.
But then what does it even matter? No one comes here anyway.
The Adventures of Matthew and Laura: Buying a House
Thursday, February 5, 2009
1:30 pm – We are informed that our mortgage loan has been approved and the ban on moving money in our accounts is lifted.
3:00 pm – Homestead (House Seller) gets their computers back up from a two day downtime and tell us how much we need to pay them for a down payment.
3:11 pm – Matthew calls me to inform me he was 5 minutes too late to have his old account at Provident’s balance <amount #1> credited to our account by midnight that night because they don’t do cashier’s checks and the normal check they give him needed to clear. We will not have enough for the down payment.
5:00 pm – Parents are called and a wire payment for <amount #2> is scheduled from Matthew’s mother. Brad (Loan Guy) calls Homestead to get wire information sent to us.
Friday, February 6, 2009
5:00am – We wake up and pack up the car. Wire info still has not arrived. We plan on getting it through Matthew’s iphone while on the road.
6:00am – We actually leave Rockville (after getting breakfast) and head down to Blacksburg for what is usually a four and a half hour drive to make the contract signing at 11:30am.
8:50am – We realize we cannot get email on Matthew’s iphone. Call Brad and get the wire information transferred.
9:30am – Arrive at BB&T (My bank with our main accounts.) with the wire information, and are then informed that we do not have enough money in our account. The transfer from my online account of <amount #3> that was supposed to have arrived today was still in progress. Ie: the funds were not yet in the account, even though they could see it coming.
9:40am – Make many calls including: Asking my dad if he had <amount #3> that he could wire for us. He could not. Called Brad to see if anything could be done. He made calls to Homestead.
10:00am – Went back into the BB&T (we did calling in the parking lot) and transferred the bulk of the amount <amount #4> we were supposed to in hopes that we could still close today. (Courthouse is closed on weekends, so we couldn’t close Saturday.)
10:20am – Brad calls back and says they can’t close without the money, even though everyone and their mother knows we have money pending to be in the account by midnight. He suggests that we appeal to the branch manager at the local BB&T since I have been a customer for almost 10 years.
11:00am – We arrived in Blacksburg and go to the local BB&T branch and ask for the Branch Manager. She (Susan) listens to what is going on, and checks my account and says that <amount #3> has indeed cleared and can be wired.
11:05am – <amount #3> is wired to Homestead. We call Brad and inform him of the situation. Homestead representative who has an hour drive from Roanoke has already turned back, thinking we could not close, and does not have time to come back.
11:30am – We eat lunch.
12:30pm – We call Judy (Realtor) to meet her at the house for the scheduled walkthrough (albeit a little late.)
12:45pm – We arrive and Judy tells us that Homestead has said that we can drive to Roanoke and sign the papers so that they can be submitted on Monday. After that we check out our house, turning on all the lights and the water to make sure everything looks like it’s working.
1:24pm – We leave to head up to Roanoke to sign the papers.
1:45pm – We get a call from Brad saying that the wire from Matthew’s mother <amount #2> did not arrive at Homestead. We call his mother and she goes off to bust heads. (His mother’s great.)
2:30pm – After getting a little lost, we get to the realtor’s to sign the papers.
2:50pm – We get conformation that the wire has now gone through. Provident decided that even though they were told the wire was urgent, that they would just put it off until who knows when.
2:55pm – We sign a LOT of papers.
3:45pm – We head back to Blacksburg in order to get a hotel room for the night. I call the power company to switch utilities over to us from the seller.
4:05pm – Call the water company but they’re already closed for the weekend. (As of 4.)
6:00pm – Arrive at the only hotel in Blacksburg that allows pets. (Did I mention we had our cat Nickel in the car since 6 this morning?)
6:20pm – I collapse on the bed and watch TLC until midnight. Matthew goes to the store where his friends hang out.
So yeah, long loooong day. Nickel (our cat) was wonderful. We thought he’d whine and cry but he just slept the whole time. He was very happy to get out at the hotel too. Everyone involved was actually very helpful and friendly except for Provident, it was just a very hectic day packed with lots of bureaucracy. I am just very thankful that it is all over and as of Monday, we will officially own the house.
Update
So what’s been going on in normal life? The “destined day” looms. That’s right ladies and gents. On Friday, February 6, 2009, Matthew and I are signing the papers for our first house. Shock and awe!
And as normal, with moving comes boxes, and more boxes! Right now things are looking very messy. I’ve packed up most of the extra stuff so we can take down some boxes when we go on Friday. The rest of the stuff will probably end up just getting tossed into boxes (Of which we need more…) when we get closer.
We won’t actually be moving into the house until the weekend of the 20th. Or at least I will be. Matthew will be staying in the apartment until the Internets are up and working in the new house. Since he’ll be working from home, this is necessary. Hopefully everything goes fairly smoothly.
Christmas
I was all hopped up on finishing off Shifting Winds this week, and then I was suddenly reminded of Christmas. So as you can see, no new story posts this week. Hopefully time spent away from WoW will give me extra time to work on the story.
And Merry Christmas everyone!
Fun stuff
So I hit 80 in wow the Wednesday after it came out. Since then we’ve cleared 25-man Naxx and Obsidian Sanctum (all drakes down) and have worked a little bitty bit on Malygos. I’m working on my gear and rep, but I also found out about a really rare spawn that I’ve been camping since I hit 80 to no avail.
NaNoWriMo was a flop, the lure of WoW was just too great. Had the expansion come out in any other month I would’ve been fine. So my goal now is to finish off Shifting Winds (Only another few chapters) and then start posting Silent Wings and finishing that off. As such I will have another chapter of Shifting Winds up tomorrow and I’ll go from there.
Nano Update! …and LK too.
Well technically you can see my current word count by clicking on the little button I put up, but for those of you too lazy to do so: 15,802. I’m a bit behind, but I have been since day two or three. I just kind of keep following the goal by a few thousand words each day. Whatever works I guess.
So yesterday was patch Tuesday for WoW. Servers went down around 8, came back up around 2 as planned, and went down again almost immediatly. They didn’t come back up last night. Apparently there was a problem where everyone’s mail and auctions just disappeared, but this morning they say they’re working on a problem where people were buying arena items without paying the correct amounts for them, which is why it’s still not up. Pretty horrible way to lead into the day before the newest expansion. Won’t do people much good to go to the midnight release tonight if the servers are still down.
That being said, I am still very excited about the expansion, and I know they’ll fix it eventually. Leveling up for BC was one of the more fun times I’ve had in WoW, just because everyone on the server was leveling up at the same time. Pugs were successful because the good players who usually hide away in their guilds were out there looking for groups, and everyone was helping everyone else with quests because everyone needed to do the same quests at about the same times.
At the same time, I am feeling that my decision to switch my main was a good one at this point. I got extremely lucky that the pet that I went back and leveled ended up being the best raid pet, but now that that’s changed I see less alure in the hunter class. I mean there are always going to be cookie cutter specs. There will always be talents that are just necessary to do the most damage, but those are built into the hunter. For me, changing my pet is changing that character. I know, RP crap, but that’s how it is. The fact that I would have to go out there and get a devilsaur (which I hate) or a spirit cat (which are cool) like *everyone* else, no options…yeah it’s just a bit much. Same reason I’ve hated cats even though there is such a variety of skins. Either way, I’m probably being whiny, but I’m allowed. It is a game, and I’m in it to have fun.
Now I’ll still be leveling and gearing Nabith. I think I did a good job of gearing Near outside of raids, so I can do that with Nabith as well. I also think I want to gear Pandemonium. While tanks won’t be in as short supply (hopefully…) just having an aoe tank has come in handy a lot, and so I want to have the option when I need it. Amebil will continue to just exist as an alchemist/skinner, and same with Isrio. Neither will get fabulous gear, but I still have all my bases covered.
Hopefully the servers come up sometime today so I can get everything set for tomorrow, including filling my bank to give me more bag space, and positioning myself in Menathil (still can’t spell it) Harbor for transfer to Borean Tundra as soon as I have LK installed.
NANOWRIMO
So every year in November this happens. In short, it is a wildly popular event in which people all over the world sit down and challenge themselves to write a novel (50,000 words) between November 1st and 30th.
I have not participated in years past for the basic reason that, even though I have tons of ideas, I have started on every one of my stories, and one of the rules is that you can not have started on the story (sans outlines and notes and the like) before November 1st. So since every idea I have for a story has been started, I’m technically disqualified.
However, this year I do wish to participate, and as such I am going to by throwing out what I have already written for my story Silent Wings, which I really want to start over from scratch anyway. I suppose it’s a little bit of a stretch on the rules, but I’m letting it go for the sake of trying to power write a story in a month. (Unfortunate that Lich King is coming out the 13th, but I will prevail.)
You can see the outline I have online for Silent Wings here. I probably won’t post it as I go, unless you really want to see the trash that might be coming out. The next four days, I’m going to be working on my outline and reworking my notes.
WOW attention
Patch 3.0 just hit in wow, the patch that gives us everything for the expansion except what you need the expansion to access. As such, it has garnered my attentions quite thoroughly. And of course in four weeks the actual expansion hits. and that will have almost complete control over my time. As such, the updates are probably going to be few and far in between, though I hate to do it because Shifting Winds is so close to being done, I’d also rather not have what few people visit this site continually disappointed. Thanks for your understanding.