Tag: bonus

Lord of the Rings Online

On By Michel McDonaldIn Games, MMORPGLeave a comment

I was first introduced to the world of MMORPG video games in late 2001 by my cousin who had played EverQuest since beta.  He wanted to play with me and so he bought me the game at Fry’s Electronics for $10.  I played for 6 years and quit for personal reasons.  Believe me, I didn’t want to quit but things were going on here at home that was a direct result of my neglect thanks to me being on EQ for up top 16 hours per day.

I haven’t played an MMORPG game in about 4 years now and I really miss it.  A friend of mine who was my EQ guild leader introduced me to Lord of the Rings Online ironically in 2007, the same year I quit playing EQ.  I only played it for an hour with him then I never played it again because I was too freaked out that things here were going to go south again.

Since I’m home alone for about 12 hours a day now, I figured it wouldn’t do any harm if I started playing LOTRO.  So without emailing my friend to ask him what server he was on, I just got on and created a character and started playing.  A week later I emailed him and found out that he’s not even on the same server.  So I have a choice, I could either delete my character and all of my progress and create a new character on his server or pay $25 to move my character to his server and that’s what I did.

I had already bought a horse with real life money and I couldn’t justify deleting that character or even playing on 2 regular characters on 2 different servers so I just bit the bullet and transferred.

My character’s name was Rego on the Riddermark server but since that name was already taken on Silverlode, the new server, I had to change the name so I chose Xanapus.  It’s not very original but I couldn’t think of anything else on the spot.  He is a Hobbit Burgler and his trade skills are Crafting Yeoman; Cook, Farmer and Tailor.  And his hobby is fishing.  I figured the fishing and farming would help in cooking, the tailoring is just bonus.

I really love this game because it gives me the feeling of being in the world of The Lord of the Rings.  There are many differences between LOTRO and EQ such as the never-ending zone.  When I was in EQ and went to go from let’s say Butcherblock Mountains to Lesser Faydark, I would have to go through the “zone” which took time to load.  Sometimes fast depending on my computer speed and/or my internet speed.  In LOTRO there is no zoning.  All of a sudden I see words on my screen saying I’m in such and such place.  There is a jolt sometimes when that happens and I tend to spin out of control when it freezes me up but I recover.  The only time I zone is when I go into a building.

Quests are much different in LOTRO too than in EQ in the way that they have a Quest window and a Deed window which allows you to see what quests you have going and what your progress is so you know what you have to do to complete the quest.  I have done quite a few quests and deeds in the shire since my character is a hobbit.  I am only level 13 but I hear when I get to level 15 I can buy a house.  One of my hobbies is Fishing and they have certain fish which are mountable and I have already mounted 10 for the walls of my future house lol.

Yes, I do plan on buying a house in this game because they really aren’t that expensive.  I would have to do a lot of farming and selling what I make to be able to make up the money to buy a house and to keep it up but I’m willing to put in the effort.

I’m having fun in this game and even if that fun wears off I won’t regret playing because I’m doing it because it’s what makes me happy.  Yes I have other things that need attention in my life but my brain needs this too, not just those other things.  I can play this game during the daytime when I’m alone then at night pay attention to Darrin so he doesn’t feel neglected.

Stargate

On By Michel McDonaldIn TVLeave a comment

I’ve always loved the show Stargate SG-1 but only watched it occasionally but since I wasn’t a regular watcher of the show I was always lost.  So a couple of months ago I decided to sit and watch it every day when it came on Sci-Fi.  I started paying attention to it when Ben Browder came onto the show.  No reason why I paid attention to him, just a coincidence lol.  Don’t put any thought into it lol.

I know that I’m still probably lost and I figured that they would be nearing the end of the last season soon so I can start watching it from the beginning again but I don’t know when that will be.

Stargate Universe will be coming in the fall and I really want to be caught up by then.  Although, it doesn’t look like it’s from the same era, it looks like it might be in the future but I won’t know until it comes on.  I want to be really caught up with SG-1 before I start watching SGU anyway.

Yesterday I bought the original 1994 Stargate movie which I have seen before but I want to start it all over by watching the movie.  Plus I’m sure there are some bonus features.  Maybe.  I’ll have to wait until it comes in the mail.

I also bought another Stargate which I had no idea even existed.  “Stargate Infinity: The Complete Series” which apparently is a cartoon with half hour episodes.  There was only 1 season so it wasn’t a very good one I guess lol.  I can only assume they were trying to target the show to kids because some of the cast members were teenagers lol.  As if Stargate Command would have teenager soldiers fighting the fight.  Hilarious.  I bought it because it’s campy to me.

I was going to start buying each season on DVD but there are 10 seasons at $21 each and I can buy the entire series in a big box for $115 and get 2 bonus discs with all bonus features.  So I’m just going to do that.  I’m going to have to wait until next month though to set aside half then on my birthday pay for the rest so this will be my birthday present to myself lol.

When I’m done with all that then I’m going to buy Stargate Atlantis.  Although, I might wait until they have the entire series in a box.  Right now I think they only have each season sold individually.  I will work on getting that before the fall so I’m REALLy caught up hehe.

My Weight

On By Michel McDonaldIn Diet, HealthLeave a comment

Wow!  I just weighed myself and it’s not good.  Of course most people would just not talk about it, they would pretend that it doesn’t matter or the problem doesn’t exist but I know the problem exists.  I was doing Spark People a year ago (I started on October 1st 2007) but something happened in my life and I just couldn’t do it anymore.  I gave up dieting altogether even though I had lost over 20lbs.  I was so proud of myself and then I just quit.

I was eating the food but not exercising and I was in a plateau for over a month and just couldn’t take the torture of having to suffer eating such small portions and so many veggies.  Although it wasn’t all that bad, the veggie portions were pretty big but it was still torture to eat good and not lose a single lb.  But I wasn’t exercising either so that’s where I made a huge mistake.  I didn’t step it up and help myself along the long road of losing weight.

My highest weight that I’ve ever been was 245 and I weighed myself just before I started this post and I was 243.  I’m just 2lbs from being right back to where I was.  I need this Dell DJ battery to come soon and the pump and bag.  I need them to come so I have motivation to ride my bike to get exercise.  I need the pump because it has a gauge built-in so I can see if I’m pumping the correct amount or not.  Right now they don’t feel fully pumped but I’m afraid to put too much air in because it will pop if I do.  If it doesn’t have enough it may pop from my weight.  The frame bag is just a bonus to keep all the tools with me so I don’t have to carry them.

The Dell DJ battery is a crucial part of this whole journey.  I refuse to ride the bike in silence.  It will be too boring and I will not want to keep doing it day after day if I’m bored doing it.  Of course I probably won’t have to do it day after day.

As of right now my leg muscles are still not ready for a 2 hour bike ride.  It is ready for a 5 minute bike ride before I can’t walk anymore.  What I will have to do is just ride for as long as I can going towards beach park where the bike trail is and when I get too sore then just stop, rest and head back home.  Just keep doing that every day or every other day or whatever I need.  I can’t push my muscles too far because the more sore my legs are the less likely I will want to do it.  But I heard from a trainer that if your legs are sore, so what, keep doing it.  You don’t want the muscles to heal fully, you want them to be sore because they won’t get used to it unless you keep doing it.  Yeah they will be sore for a few days but once they get used to it they wont be painful.  It will become old hat.

Let’s just hope that these items come to me soon, within a week at least.  I don’t know how much more of this fat I can take.  I can’t look at myself in the mirror anymore.  I have BDD so bad from this that I don’t even want to leave the house because people are staring at me and judging me every day.  I just want to be back to where I was when I was thin.  Nobody even noticed me because I blended in with all the other skinny people.  Fat people don’t blend in too well especially when their t-shirts are stretched out in the stomach area. Which reminds me, if this does work, if I lose a massive amount of weight by riding my bike, I’m gonna need a wardrobe change hehe.