Month: March 2012

Best Songs To Play With The Windows Rolled Down

On By Michel McDonaldIn Ad1 Comment

This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of Kia Rio for SocialSpark. All opinions are 100% mine.

When you are driving, what songs do you like to listen to with the windows rolled down?  I personally don’t drive, but I do like to listen to music when I am in the car with Darrin.  I remember when I was a teenager in the 80’s and we used to drive with music blasting so the whole world could hear it, now of course I just have whatever is on the radio playing, but I’m too old to blast it now.  The only time we ever blast the music is when we’re showing off.  So which song do you think that I would blast if I were driving in a car?  The answer would probably surprise you.

Kia has a new Rio for 2012 which has amazing features that I think you will love, like for example the 40MPG which is probably the best reason to buy a car, but they also have heated leather seats, a button to start the engine, blue tooth wireless technology for your hands free and UVO voice-activated Infotainment system by Microsoft, I’ve never heard of that but I’m intrigued.  They don’t stop with the inside, they have LED lighting instead of light bulbs for your back lights. Check out this ad for more information.

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lml0ufpxkzI&feature=colike

So getting back to what I was talking about at the beginning, you can enter your favorite song in the Kia Rio “Best Songs with your Windows Down” playlist” on Facebook and have it added to a playlist on Spotify.  What did you think I picked as my favorite?  If you guessed “Queer Nation” by Elephant you were correct.  I know it’s explicit but I think I would blast that mofo for shock value, I mean besides it being an awesome song of course.  I chose that song because I am newly addicted to Elephant, I mean they are gay twin rappers, who wouldn’t be intrigued by that?

You can add your favorite song as well by going to the “Best Songs with your Windows Down” playlist on Facebook and typing in your favorite artist and/or song and clicking the search button, choose a track and submit it using your name and email address.  If I had to choose another band with another song I’d have to go with Justin Utley’s song Room to Breathe, or really any of his songs for that matter.  I chose those 2 artists, Elephant and Justin Utley because they are out loud and proud gay artists and I support my community.

Hey I know, you should pick a song too, make sure you have Spotify installed so you can add a song and see if your song made it to the playlist, and if you do, tell me what song you chose and why.  Check the playlist every day to see what new songs are being added, you might find something new to listen to.  Oh and if you get a chance, go out and buy a new 2012 Kia Rio, it’s a sound investment… Get it?  Sound?  Cause… the music… it was funnier in my head.

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EverQuest Bonus Exp.

On By Michel McDonaldIn EverQuest1 Comment

If you have been playing EverQuest lately, you know that they have doubled experience for their 13th Anniversary.  Well, you know what that means right?  It’s a Power Levelers dream!

When I started playing again after 5 years of being MIA, I realized that I had to relearn the game from the ground up because I had totally forgotten everything.  You know how they say it’s like riding a bicycle?  Well, it’s sort of true, but you have to take a refresher course to get you back on track.  What I did was I started playing my Necromancer who was level 12 when I began in late February.  I played for a few hours then I couldn’t play it for a week.  Then when I finally did get to start playing it again I got hooked on the game again and now in less than one month my level 12 necromancer is level 47.

When I first started playing EverQuest in 2002, it took me 6 months to get Xanapus to level 16 and I gave up on him and created other characters.  When I started playing Xanapus again it took me another 6 months or possibly a year to get to level 50.  I have done in less than one month what I couldn’t do in 2002/2003.  You see how frustrating that is for me?  But it isn’t my fault that the game is much easier now than it was 10 years ago so that does make me feel a bit better.

My guild is still MIA, I only see someone on every once in a while.  Even though I am the only member of my guild who plays every day, or at least that’s the way it seems when I get on, I am not about to abandon them because I am still loyal despite the fact that they are all gone lol.  Besides, I don’t want to have to start all over with new people, and who knows if I will even continue playing in a month from now, I might get bored with it and quit again and I will have left my guild for nothing.

I started thinking today that I have abandoned Lord of the Rings Online for EverQuest so I tried logging in today and every time the launcher tries to launch the game, it crashes and I am unable to play.  They did an update on it so perhaps the update doesn’t work with HDMI for some reason.  I will have to plug the VGA back into the TV so I can see if that will work. It’s kind of frustrating because I’m almost positive my [hobbit] house maintenance fee needs to be paid for lol.

I am having fun again in EverQuest and that is a good thing.  I quit for many reasons but one of them was that I was bored to death.  I mean I would literally fall asleep while playing, that isn’t good is it?  So thankfully I am not bored now and I hope it can keep my attention for a bit longer.

The Let Go – by Elephant

On By Michel McDonaldIn Gay, Music3 Comments

I listened to rap music when I was a teenager, although not too much but I did listen to it.  I was never really into punk rock music, that is until I first heard Green Day then I was hooked.  I don’t really listen to very much music anymore until I recently.  I just now found out about a gay twin rapping duo and absolutely fell in love with their music.  Watch their newly released video “The Let Go” and then read below.  Go to their official website because there is another music video which I cannot get out of my head.  I am a new fan.

httpvh://youtu.be/ecHI9BkiWH8

West Hollywood, CA: Hip-hop duo Elephant has released their fourth official music video entitled “The Let-Go.” Fresh on the heels of the group’s successful Queer Nation, and the controversial Notorious HIV, “The Let-Go” features visual and thought-provoking thematic material that is in line with the duo’s previous efforts.

“We wanted to write a song about religion that asked people to think for themselves instead of relying on religion to do it for them,” says Coleman Vrana, age 26.  “We’re not religious in any way, but unlike Queer Nation, this isn’t any kind of attack. We wanted to inspire the same sort of liberation we felt as kids in Oklahoma when we started to recognize all of the hatred coming from people around us–and the justifications for it–based on the word of God.”

Filmed in the Echo Park neighborhood of Los Angeles and directed by noted cinematographer Jim Zabilla, the video also features openly lesbian and vocally Christian rap duo Yo! Majesty.

Comprised of openly gay twin brothers Jackson and Coleman Vrana originally from Oklahoma, Elephant is quickly gaining momentum within the LGBT press as the personification of the growing Queercore movement among gay youths, particularly outside of urban markets. The two seem to share a connection with teenagers and young adults who see them as a fighting voice for equality; a force they feel weakening in rural America.

“The paint in the video symbolizes our struggle to color everyone’s black and white view of religion, it’s rules and the ultimate oppression of minorities in this country,” adds Jackson Vrana.  “It’s like us painting our own view, so to speak.” The twins rarely embrace political correctness, they never shy away from any social issue, and their presence is undeniable when they enter a room (which is—in fact—the origin of their name). “We are incapable of apologizing for what we say and that’s probably what people most appreciate about us.”

Elephant released its 4-track debut EP Queer Nation in July of 2011 on Josie Cotton’s Scruffy Records. “The Let-Go” is slated for digital release on April 10th and will be featured on Elephant’s anticipated, full-length LP to be released late summer.

For press and booking inquiries, visit: http://www.elephantwave.com/#!contact

More Information:
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/Elephantwave
Official Website: http://www.elephantwave.com
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/elephantwave
Twitter: http://twitter.com/elephantwave
EPK: http://www.elephantwave.com/#!ElephantEPK 

Our 18 Year Anniversary

On By Michel McDonaldIn Gay2 Comments

I wanted to post this a few nights ago but my blog stopped working…

Darrin and I met on March 25th, 1994 and have been together ever since.  I wrote in my book about how I thought that our relationship wouldn’t go past the 10 month mark because my relationships before only lasted 10 months.  I don’t know what it was about 10 months, but we have stayed together and now it has been 18 years.

I think that this should be a lesson to naysayers who say that a gay relationship cannot last.  I think we have more than proven that love doesn’t have a gender.  We deserve the same rights as every straight married couple out there in the world.

Here is to 18 more wonderful years together and the end of marriage discrimination.

My Website is Back Up

On By Michel McDonaldIn BlogLeave a comment

I have been in bloggers hell for the last 2 days.  The night before last night I got an email from Blogsvertise saying that a post that I had written (the post before this one) was missing 5 days later.  Well, I clicked the link and sure enough it was missing, along with the rest of my blog and my dashboard too.   I immediately went to my websites control panel to find out what was wrong and that wouldn’t load.  When it did finally load the database page wouldn’t load.

All day yesterday I had been contacting the web host about it and last night the dashboard finally came back online, but the blog itself was still out.  This morning it was the same thing so I emailed them again.  I emailed one of the associates from Blogsvertise to let them know what was going on so they would be patient with me.

This happened to me last year where my database became so corrupt that I couldn’t load anything and I ended up having to start over with a new database which meant I had to start over from scratch.  I had lost all of my comments and I had to go to other websites where my blog posts were are automatically published to.  That was no fun at all, it took me several months and I got so bored with it that I gave up which left a huge hole in 2010 from posts that I never copied back over.

It doesn’t seem as though I have been blogging very much lately because I have been spending so much of my time on Facebook.  I keep saying that I will try to get back to blogging, but it just doesn’t seem to happen.  I will make that same promise again though, perhaps I will blog what I post on Facebook, we’ll see.

My New House in EverQuest

On By Michel McDonaldIn EverQuest1 Comment

Thanks to the 13th anniversary of EverQuest, Sony Online Entertainment has given me the three expansions I was missing so I was finally able to buy a house.  At first I bought the 1 bedroom for 5k (forgot the exact amount) but then I noticed how tiny it was compared to the rest of the houses in the neighborhood and decided to go get a refund and buy a 3 room house instead for 10K.

I have been noticing from inspecting my items that some of them say they can be used in the front yard or in a house, so I figured why not grab all of those items from my bank and place them, and now I have quite a nice display of old armor that has been clogging up my bank for years.

I had to resize some of them so they were bigger on the wall because it didn’t look good that some of them were huge while others were tiny.  Notice my wizard epic in there?  That was my first epic, when I upgraded it to epic 1.5 I got to keep my epic 1 which has been collecting dust for years, so now it can collect dust on the wall.

It isn’t just old weapons that I could decorate it with, I was also able to add my trade skill trophies to a table which I bought for that purpose.

The one on the left is my brewers trophy, the one in the middle is my tinkerers trophy and the one on the right is my baking trophy.  My brewing and tinkering are both 287 so I just need to get them to 300 and they will look different on the table.  I am only missing my trophy for fletching, jewelcraft, blacksmithing and tailoring, but maybe one day I will get there.

I had a little bit of fun with buying decorations.  I bought a cute 4 poster bed and a dining room table for the other room with a slab of meat and a loaf of bread that I placed on the table which also has 4 chairs.  Then there are 3 pictures on the walls and garden gnomes in the front yard.  Yes, I know, a gnome who has garden gnomes in his front yard.  Hilarious right?  The problem was, they were too big, I was half the size of the garden gnomes so I had to shrink them down.

I hope you can see them.  I don’t know why it looks bright and cheery in the game, but then when you leave the game all of the screen shots are really dark.  I don’t know how to fix that.  I let Picasa do an auto fix, but it still looks dark.  Perhaps someone might tell me how to fix that.

Well, enough working on the house, I better get my moneys worth and start actually playing the game instead of focusing on a stupid house I will probably rarely ever go to.  At least I was able to lighten my bank, and I have made all of my alts co-owners so I can lighten their banks too.

Oh and just in case I forget to mention, you can’t just buy a house and that’s it, you have to pay a daily or weekly upkeep fee.  I am paid up for the next 8 weeks lol.  In Lord of the Rings Online you can only pay for 5 weeks up front, at least in EverQuest I was able to do 8 weeks.  I’m sure I can do more but I’m not positive how far in advance.  And if I run out of money then I can always go back to my shaman character and make a buttload with alchemy to pay for more time.

EverQuest on my HDTV

On By Michel McDonaldIn EverQuest5 Comments

My monitor stopped working so I had to start using my HDTV instead.  I was so happy that I bought a new video card with an HDMI plug, but for some reason EverQuest won’t load at all when I have it plugged into the TV.  I have been searching my heart out on the internet trying to find out why but nobody seems to have the answer.

I remembered that my friend Ruth told me a few years ago that she got a HDTV and she had her computer plugged into it and was using that as her monitor.  I sent her a message on Facebook asking her how she did that but it took her awhile to respond.  Today she responded to me to tell me she can help.  I spoke with her a few hours ago and she revealed the answer.  Stop using the HDMI and plug the computer into the TV using the VGA cable instead.  OF COURSE!  Why didn’t I think of that?

After I got off the phone with her I decided that I couldn’t wait to try it.  My computer was off so I had to wait for it to come on and it immediately defaulted to loading on the HDMI since I had them plugged into both.  When windows was finished loading I switched it over to VGA with the video driver software.  It didn’t look good at all so I had to do some adjusting to it so it looked normal and then I loaded EverQuest and to my surprise it loaded.

So there you have it, if you are using a HDTV using your HDMI plug, you won’t be able to play EverQuest until you plug it in with your VGA cable.

No More Monitor, No More EverQuest :(

On By Michel McDonaldIn Computer, EverQuest6 Comments

I recently decided that I wanted to make my return to EverQuest after 5 long years, but then my monitor decided it doesn’t want to turn on anymore.  My video card has an HDMI so I can plug my HDTV in so I can still use my computer, but now my issue is that EverQuest crashes before it can begin to load the game.  So much for that idea.

My monitor is a 20.1-inch Sylvania SK2000w-b Widescreen LCD.  What it is doing is when you turn the computer on, the screen doesn’t turn on and the power light turns green and starts blinking over and over.  The screen never actually turns on, it used to turn on after a few minutes, but now it isn’t turning on at all.

I googled the model number and found out that it is fixable.  I found out on the Fixya website that the problem could be that the capacitors have gone bad.  My first thought was, what the heck is a capacitor and how do I fix it?  So I looked at YouTube and they have a video that shows a guy who bought a monitor from a thrift store for only $2.98.  It’s not a Sylvania, but he is showing what a capacitor is and shows you how to identify a bad one and how to remove the old and replace it with new.

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02uLSu1Jj5M)
It looks really complicated, but I’m sure that once you figure out how to remove the solder from the capacitor and are able to replace the first one, the rest are a cake walk.  Hey, if it works then I get my monitor back and I can play EverQuest again, but if it doesn’t then I still have a 20.1-inch paperweight, so really, what is the worst that could happen?  I mean sure I could buy a new monitor, but who has that kind of cash?  I could pay someone to fix it for me but they would end up charging me half of what a new monitor would end up costing me.  I can pick the parts up at Radio Shack and fix it myself.
I think that if I can build a computer, I can replace a capacitor, right?  Yeah… easier said that done, but we’ll see how it works out.
My concern about EverQuest is that I will have to cancel it before they charge me for another month, but I haven’t really had that much time to play with it anyway and I don’t want to keep paying for something I’m probably not going to be able to play very often.  I may as well cancel my account and go back to it when my monitor has been fixed.  I waited 5 years, I’m sure I could wait a little bit longer until I can fix it.  Who knows, I may be back in the game by the weekend.  I think I can afford to spend up to $10 on capacitors rather than $200 for a new monitor.