Dad

It's odd how some scenes from childhood stand out with almost movie like clarity while others drift away. The ones that stay are also not the ones that seemed not to be all that important at the time.

The first is the two of us catching rainbow trout while out camping. I loved doing that. The flash of the fish, the fight..I was always torn between wanting the pretty thing to get away and wanting to catch it to show I could. A few years later, I remember us throwing chicken legs on string into the ocean hoping for crabs. So different, crabs took patience, usually more than a kid had.

The next memory was all of us watching football together in my dad's 'private' study. We had a game that let us pick 2 teams as 'ours' and we would support them the whole season. It was a contest to see which team would be the best. The competition and yelling at the TV screen when 2 of our teams met was fierce. My 2 were the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Oakland Raiders. I knew everything about them--even years later I kept up with them, at least until they changed their home towns.

The last one that stands out is more a series-it's all the books he gave me to read. My Dad would hand me books that he found interesting. This led to some interesting choices for a little girl. The books I got were not the kind you would find in a children's library. They were strange, disturbing tales that sometimes shocked and bothered me. I was probably one of the few kids that read Kurt Vonnegut, Studs Terkel and a really odd book called 'Report from Group 17'. There were others, lots of them, but those stand out.

Lately I've been thinking about why these memories stand out above others and I think I finally know. These were the times my Dad was teaching me the important things in life. Not by dragging me to a class or explaining things heavy-handedly but by showing me how the world worked.

From the fish and crabs, I learned that different situations call for different reactions. You have heard the saying 'To a hammer, everything looks like a nail'. These 2 things, while being similar, required totally different approachs. One took speed and fast reactions-the other required patience and determination. Pretty useful concept for dealing with others..
The football game helped me learn about healthy competition even against those we cared about. I learned the importance of sticking with one thing for the long term instead of just bouncing about.
The books were the greatest gift of all. They opened my mind to ways of thinking that I never knew exsisted. The bothered me but they made me think. They made me want to know more, to find out more. Even today I'm constantly reading.
I think my Dad did it right (even if he didn't know he was doing it). The best way to teach our children is show them- not with long lectures and pontificating. Just let them see life through activities done together. Not once do I recall my Dad saying-"See, this is what it all means..this is how you act..." He didn't have to-he showed me and I learned and it stuck with me.

Thank you Dad :)

The perfect game

All the adventures in MMo world got me wondering what the perfect game would be.
For me the perfect game would look a lot like WOW, just with additions.

From SWG it would add the crafting system that that game had at the start. It would have the variety of professions and the ability to custom build and rebuild your template that SWG had at the start. Finally, it would add the level of character customization that I loved so much.

From EQ2, it would add the housing system, the betrayal quest, and the scaling dungeons.

From Second Life and Entropia, it would add the real life currency conversion. There will always be buyers and sellers as long as there are games...might as well have it as a feature.

Other qualities would be strong customer support, GM's in game enforcing the rules (especially on RP server types), player events that actually changed the world, multiple outcomes or ways to complete quests.
Last I would add a community that worked together to make the game fun for everyone, that was there to help, to compete, to challenge and to enjoy the created world together.

That's my vision of a perfect MMO. I'm sure there are things I left out. But its a good start. :)

WOW

Gaming-Part 3

After EQ2, I wandered randomly for a bit.. Lineage, Final Fantasy, Second Life, Entropia, others I can't even remember. None of them held my interest.

I hadn't wanted to try WOW. Somehow that the fact that seemingly everyone played it worked against it for me. But finally, with not even a shimmer of an interesting game left to try, I bought it.
Thats when I learned that there was a good reason everyone played it..the game was great! It's acronym fits it well.

Customization was again not as good as I had hoped, but I was happy with the choices I had. The quests were interesting, varied, and suitable for both solo and groups. The areas were graphically impressive and hidden things seemed to be around every corner. Just in case you missed them, the birds flew over POI's so you could see if there were any you had missed.

I play on a pvp server and frequently died as I am pretty bad (laughable even) when it comes to my pvp abilities. But it added excitement to the game as you had to watch your back all the time. I could spend pages extolling the good qualities of the game but its subscriber numbers speak to that just fine on their own.

It's not perfect of course. After being 60 on a couple characters, you start to run out of things to do. Theres only so many times you can relevel to 60 without it becoming just another job. So, yep, another game is now cancelled..but I'll be back to this one the day Burning Crusade ships!

Everquest 2

Gaming-Part 2

After I left SWG, I went to Everquest 2. Yep, still had faith in SOE.

The first thing I noticed was the lack of customization as compared to SWG. My dark elf looked like many other dark elves and it was next to impossible to create something unique. The whole game was much more scripted and felt more like a single player game to me.

There was lots I liked about the game though. I loved the housing system. Everyone had homes(inn rooms) in the cities that could be visited by other players if you wanted. There was no urban sprawl. Elite addresses cost more, but I rarely saw people in those houses as they were out of the way of the main paths.

The quests were also a strong point. I liked that the website kept track of how many you had done. For a quest junkie like me, it was lots of fun trying to beat the next person on the list, then the next... The dungeons that leveled to match you were also wonderful. No matter your level or size of group, the dungeon would scale to provide an approporiate challenge. Many happy hours were spent there.

All of that wasn't enough to make me stay. I hated that so many quests were group oriented. If you weren't in a guild, much of the content was just not available until you were over level for it. Then there were the Frogs.
I tried it, I appreciated its good qualities, I left and never went back.

SWG

Gaming

MMO’s are time consuming, frustrating, fascinating and ultimately one of the best things on the web.

I was first drawn in by Star Wars Galaxies. I felt out of place at the start as I wasn’t one of the die hard Star wars fans but soon found out that many there were like me. At the beginning, that game was awe inspiring. I could be a hunter and explorer, hang out in cantinas, and be a doctor or a crafter. The possibilities were endless and each had its place. You could switch, combine professions, and pick your hybrid version that was best for you. People used the cantinas as social gathering spots and conversations and fun could always be found. Need a group? There were groups waiting for you there. Cities were bustling, the wild was wild, quests and adventures abounded.

Perfection? So it seemed…but things changed. Some was inevitable-mounts and then vehicles arrived-as they should have to fit with Star Wars, but now the wild was no longer wild. What had been a 15 minute perilous trek was now a minute away. Content was lost as we just skated past it. Housing became an eyesore. It’s hard too feel you are out in the wild when there is a house on every hill. Idyllic scenic spots became resorts. Worse, with houses and player cities, the main cities were empty. The game lost its sense of a global community and splintered into sub groups. As people moved on, cities became ghost towns and it became harder and harder to find anywhere with open space to recapture the feel of the beginning.

And then there were Jedi. Yes, there had to be Jedi but the way it was done…. If you were there, little more needs to be said. What could have been done differently? I wish that it had been random by cd key-perma death after 3-new cd chosen at random on the previous death and capped by server. It wasn’t though and it almost killed the game. SWG changed but in doing so they gave up much of what had made them special. No more mix and match, no more 30 professions, back to the tried and true system --. Perhaps it was for the best at that point but they lost their uniqueness.

I no longer play but reactivate about every 6 months just to see( and to walk through my house filled with the relics from the games heyday). It was such a great game and it is sad to see what happened and to think of what could have been.

Progress So Far

It's been a busy week-and took more time than I expected. Following recommendations online, in books, from random people on the street, etc I set up a whole collection od sites under the name I wanted. This is supposed to help with getting people to see me and lead to me selling more, making money and staying home. I wonder if it will work. I'm now on Myspace, DigitalJournal, Digg, here, and a few more, all of which are trying to get linked together.
I wonder how anyone has time for all this..it took a day just for Myspace and my layout doesn't look near as good as others. I don't even have a business yet and I'm already wishing I had a secretary LOL.
But I'm hopeful. I know the start is the hardest part and once I get used to all this it has to be easier.
On a positive note, I put my first items on eBay. One, my Star Wars danglers , already has a watcher. No bids yet on anything but its early. :) http://search.ebay.com/_W0QQfgtpZ1QQfrppZ25QQsassZmysteriousmenagerie

Things I've Learned Along the Way

Flossing is important. Laughing is essential. Perfection is impossible. . Don't say anything you'll regret because you can't take it back. Have something outside yourself to root for. Never take yourself too seriously. But sometimes I act like I do, just for fun.


I often feel that the entire world is that person you're stuck behind who doesn't know how to work the ATM.

The beginning

It had been one of those days. I'm a teacher yet more and more frequently I seem to be teaching less and babysitting more. So many students come to school with huge amounts of emotional baggage from home-things we aren't prepared to deal with in a normal lesson. I can see why they act out and can't learn but by the end of the day I am still frustrated, and overwhelmed. I miss the days when teachers taught, students learned, and parents did what they could to help their kids. I am certainly not saying no parents do this, but too many are just not there to give their children the support, the love, the caring, and the discipline that the majority of us were lucky enough to have. I left school-wondering if I had reached any of them today-and afraid that the answer was no. When I opened the door there were my children, rushing to the door to welcome me home. One son grabbed my hand, pulling to his room to show what a great job he had done picking up his toys. The baby laughed and raised his arms for me to pick him up. He hugged and held on as we admired my 4 year olds room :) My husband raced past out the door to his job, stopping for the goodbye kiss that seems to amount to the majority of our time together. Things have to change. I want to be there for my children, I want to see my husband, I also know I need a job to pay the bills. So, MysteriousMenagerie was born. I have until May (the end of the school year) to show my husband that I can make money online. If I can, I can stay home and join the growing ranks of teachers that have moved on. Will it work? I don't know, but I'm going to try.