Lynx's Lair

One of the EQ2 Fan Sites, EQ2-Guild is running a poll to see what the top 10 favorite fan sites are ... and my site, EQ2 Traders Corner, made the list. While I seriously doubt we'll win as there's some really amazing sites listed in section 1, I'd love it if we could at least make a solid showing. If you want to help out, you can vote once per day at this link If you do so, I'd also like to recommend that in category 5, you vote for thebrasse.com. Brasse is an amazingly talented, and all around cool lady. Besides, she's a fellow redhead - what's not to love about that?

Another huge update is in the works for EQ2 that will impact my site, and I've been busy putting together previews of it and planning how to tackle yet more sweeping updates to my database.

I had to take a break from it yesterday, though to do computer "stuff". The dead secondary computer had to be unhooked and pulled out. The old primary computer had to be unhooked and reinstalled where the secondary use to be, and gave me several panicked moments before it decided to behave after being moved.

Then the new computer had to be dragged into place and hooked up. The doggone thing is a monster (Dell XPS 720), though, and I didn't feel up to manhandling it into place before I was sure everything was working properly, so it ended up hooked up and in front of its nook for most of the day.

Even with all the reinstalling and reconfiguring that I'm doing, it is pretty cool to have a new primary system with enough muscle for all the stuff I do with it.

There was just one problem - the water was turned off in the area for several hours yesterday due to work on it. Why's that a problem? All of the above computer wrangling involved crawling around on the floor and many dusty corners with computer cables and the like. I felt like Pigpen from Charlie Brown by the time I was done, and couldn't clean up for a bit.

Once I get a few more things installed on it, and stop sneezing from the new computer smell, I'll feel a lot more productive again!

9 a.m. The sun is shining, the rose that was brought from Malone is blooming like wild (and trying to take over the front yard), and all I want to do is go back to sleeeeeeeep. That's pretty much par for the course these days, even if I don't indulge it. (Last night was another bad night, and I only got 4 hours of restless sleep.) It probably doesn't help my difficulty with m*rning any that I'm trying to cut down on my soda/caffeine intake right now, does it? {yawn}

Adam's mom had been having eye problems for a while without really knowing a cause. She finally found someone, after several tries, who was able to diagnose it, and she went through outpatient surgery for a detached retina this week. Ouch!

Adam is on a new diet, with the help of a group that makes/delivers special meals for him - we'll see how it works out after he's gotten used to the change in eating habits.

I'm trying something less formal, diet-wise, given all my food allergies, and we'll see if I, too, can stick to it. Various meds that I've been on, as well as my very sedentary lifestyle, have added close to 30 lbs in the last year, and I want them gone!

In other news, several months ago, Adam requested the week of our 10-year wedding anniversary off from w*rk. We found out a couple days ago that the annual SOE Fan Faire (gaming convention) will be held the weekend before our anniversary, so it looks like we'll be spending part of our time in Vegas. (He'll have to attend that for w*rk, anyway, and I love going to Fan Faires to see old friends, make new friends, etc.) We're still deciding if we're going to stay a couple extra days in Vegas, or if we're coming back home for a few days, then going to Pala for a couple days for our anniversary.


After looking at multiple emails that I received overnight, I'd like to send out a random reminder to folks. When forwarding on email to a group, especially those annoying chain letters of any sort that tell you to pass on to 10 more friends, and so on: 1) send it as blind carbon copies (bcc) to the folks you want to send it to, instead of visibly listing all their email addresses, and 2) strip out the email addresses of the person that sent it to you. No matter how good the cause mentioned in the letter, you have to assume that it WILL get into the hands of someone who farms valid email addresses for a spammer or three, and there's really little sense in giving them all those extra addresses so easily. While this won't stop the spam, as there are many ways they obtain such things, it will help prevent a tiny bit of extra annoyance down the road. Of course, ignore the above if it is business correspondence that needs all the source information kept intact, but for all the cute pics, chain letters and such that get sent out to many folks at once, a little {snip} is a good thing.

... personally satisfying about seeing a hummingbird eating at a feeder less than 5 minutes after you cleaned and refilled it. While there isn't the frenzy of feathered flitterbidgets all over the place, like there will be later in the season, even one can be an uplifting sight.

And I've needed the uplifting.

Last Thursday, my EQ forums were hacked, for the first time in the 9 years I've been running them. While the result was "just" a prank email sent out to everyone registered for those forums (apprently using a security hole in that version of the message board software), it was still quite upsetting. My little safe haven on the 'net was suddenly feeling a lot less safe.

Saturday, we spent a couple hours at the Escondido Renaissance Faire and I returned from that brief trip with a sunburn, a new bodice and blouse, and some BTS (Better Than Sex) Chocolate Honey. Yummm. Thankfully, liberal application of aloe made the burn disappear overnight.

Whether from the spring pollen exposure at the Faire, or "just" being run-down from the hacker thing, etc. I caught a cold over the weekend. I've been dosing it with oil of oregano and ecchinacea several times a day, so it didn't get as bad as it could have, but ... ugh. Even chocolate tastes "off" right now. (Thankfully, it didn't flake out my tastebuds until today, or I'd have been unhappy about the chocolate honey sampling)

Then, the magazine article for Equinox Issue #3 that I've been working on hit a mental brick wall. Ugh. I think I rewrote the same paragraph at least 15 times last night. Feh. I'm waiting for word back from the editor now, to see if any of it is worth salvaging.

Anyway, more another time - this is mostly so folks will know that I'm still alive and kicking (and coughing and sniffling!)

... that it is always overcast here! It seems that every time she visits, the weather is "enh". (Overcast so far today, and a chance for drizzles that won't really make up for our rainfall deficit, but will make it a less-than-stellar weekend for sightseeing.

Ah well, it could be worse!

The sun is shining, the birds are happily nesting, the cats are basking in the puddles of sun, and Adam's back from a week in VA with his family (and back at w*rk). It is really looking, and feeling, like spring is solidly here.

It is going to be a pretty busy week for me, but I'm starting it with a positive attitude. I got over the soreness from the adjustment pretty quickly, and while this weekend's massage was pretty rough, I am much better today. This afternoon, I get my second adjustment at the chiropractor and hopefully will still be feeling good when I get done.

There is, as always, more w*rk to do on the site, as well as more to be done on the creative writing project with Kiara. I have high hopes for it being a pretty fun set of articles, once we get done with it. I "just" need to ignore all the distractions and get what's already in my brain "written" into the brainstorming web page we have set up.

Then on to the Equinox article, and some more data entry .... etc.

If all goes well, I hope to have a lot of it cleared up before Aimee arrives late Friday night and maybe even be rested up before then, to boot!

I started back up with a chiropractor yesterday, and "sore" doesn't begin to cover it after 4+ years with no adjustments. Hopefully my body will soon be used to it again, and I'll start having relief from some of the headaches. {fingers crossed} I'm also going to start trying to work on daily fibroga. As with anything, it is going to be hard to work past the inertia until it hits the "routine" phase, instead of something requiring extra fuss, lesson DVDs and so on. Wish me luck!

There are a lot of good reasons why several folks in my guild in EQ2 don't know that I run www.eqtraders.com, and I'm really fighting with senile guildmates (who tend to "oops" at really bad times) who want to let it slip. I already get tagged for more than my share of crafting questions, partly because I'm online so much, and partly because I do know it backwards, forwards and in my sleep. I also have problems that a couple of them (especially the one I am about to rant about below) often ignore what I say on the adventuring front because I'm "just that crafter". Nevermind that I've been playing longer than them, and have a higher level adventuring character than them (or even better, TWO adventuring characters higher than their best), and so on. I'm a crafter, so in one brain cell, out another, which means a lot of frustration and repetition on my part as they ignore what I say a time or three. If they knew I ran these sites, well, they'd never go look anything up, and would just assume that I'm always going to drop my gameplay to help their lazy tails.

Let's call her "Madame Y"

She's the most incoherent person in the guild, bar none, and it is pretty clear that she never reads what she is typing ... sentancesw ill bea ll mess3eed up lol an dsheis prONE TOH ITTING HER CAPSLOK INT HE MIDDLE OFWHATS HEI S TYPIN LOL. Add a train of thought that will often be derailed in mid-word, leaving us just scratching our heads as we try to decipher the sentence enough to figure out what she's talking about, and it gives several of us headaches. I know a couple just tune her out and don't even try to figure it out when she gets in one of her bad phases.

But "she means well" ... and with that, the guildies will forgive her almost anything.

I, on the other hand, when not wondering if she did too many hard drugs in her youth, often wonder if she did too many in the last day or so.

This most recent frustration with her stems from a) she hates to read (and admits that she doesn't read any of the updates, in almost the same exact breath she is complaining because a change went in with "no warning", even when it was mentioned in numerous places for weeks before it went live), and b) she likes to ignore anything the crafter says.

She decided she wanted to work on the new crafting epic quest. Epic, meaning it is going to take a bit of time, effort, and thought, or a good quest guide. Day 1, question 1 from her - I give her the answer and give her the URL for the quest guide, warning that it will get tricky in a couple spots, and the guide will help her a ton. Day 1, question 2 from her - again, I give her the answer and nudge her towards the writeup, warning that she's going to have some other rough spots. The rest of the day is lots of "lol" comments as she complains about how she didn't realize it was going to be so much running around, lol and it sure is more complex than she thought, lol, and it is hard figuring out what to do next lol. Day 2, question 3 from her - I grit my teeth and stay silent, while one of the (male) adventurer/crafters gives her the answer. I shoot him a tell to let him know that she's already been told about the quest guide and ignored it. Day 2, question 4 - I tell her that there is a map with the locations that she needs in the quest guide that I keep telling her about, and that there is zero way we can walk her through it verbally without being there looking over her shoulder. The same adventurer/crafter, bless his furry heart, gives her the URL again and tells her that the map there will help her a lot.

Suddenly, because he said it, instead of me, yep, she went to go look at the guide finally and finished most of the rest of the quest without further incident. (Though we were given a blow-by-blow for the next several hours as she harvested the rares needed for the final bit.)

If this was the first time it had happened with her, I'd just laugh it off. However, it has happened often enough that I am really ready to /ignore her for my own sanity's sake. Bleargh

We're now into the "typical" spring days here, with early fog being gradually burnt away to reveal brilliant, beautiful sunshine. If only my fibrofog were so easily burnt away! I now have multiple writing projects of a time-sensitive nature to work on, and since I'm often thinking through mental sludge, I'm finding it hard to get going on them. Since one is a multi-part cooperative piece with someone else, and another is for issue #3 of Equinox magazine, I'm hoping it will help push me into waking up the Muse and "just" getting it all written soon. Wish me luck!

(Of course, I took too long writing this the first time, due to multitasking, and I don't want to rewrite it all. So, you get a condensed version.)

I swear, telemarketers intentionally have some of the worst listening skills in the world. There's a reason we're on so many do not call lists, and that we have pay extra money to have the phone company screen calls from caller ID-blocked numbers. Really. So, when one gets through and makes a repeated pest of themselves, is it any surprise that I get grumpy?

"Arizona call". I see that on caller ID and I'm reaching for the phone, as it is likely to be a family member. This week, however, while napping (trying to shake the flu fever I had), one got through for a survey. Mind you, she was talking so fast once she realized she had a "live one" on the phone, that it took me several moments to mentally catch up with her and interrupt. "I'm not interested in participating." "Excuse me?" "I don't want to participate." "But I'mnotsellinganythingitisjust ..." "No" Obviously, she didn't want to give me a chance to hang up on her, as she decided she'd called at a bad time and she'd "callbackanothertime". "But...!" {click} Ugh. I really did NOT want to hear from them again. Truly. But, yep. A second call this week from the same source, only a man that also talked really fast in hopes of getting the script verbalized before I could interrupt. Maybe he was related to the first one. However, since I was awake when the call came this time, I cut him off expertly. I still needed to repeat it three times before he'd accept it, which irks me to no end, and yes, this cause me to grumble that it was the SECOND time in a single week that his organization pestered me, and there'd better not be a third. It may not have been his fault that I was disturbed after declining to participate the first time, but, eesh, how many times do I have to say no to someone after making it clear that I didn't want to participate?

"877 Services" Somewhere, somewhen, hubby got on some list of folks willing to participate in surveys ... and they're even worse about paying attention than the other group. Each time they ask for "James" (Adam). Each time they ask when a better time to call is and are told that weekdays are bad. Period. He's gone from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., if not later. I've given them the times. I speak clearly. English is my native language. Really. Each time they call back on a weekday. Three times this week. WHY THE HELL ASK THE QUESTION IF YOU WON'T PAY ATTENTION TO THE ANSWER?! It was clearly a script as each person immediately asked the question the moment I said he wasn't home and offered to take a message. (Which is, of course an obvious dodge that tells me something is fishy when they refuse to identify themselves to his wife.)

I'd not even be so irked if I'd not gone through this same EXACT thing the last time they wanted to talk to him. Next time they call, I'm going to simply demand that they have their supervisor call me back and tell them that they either get it right or they remove us from their calling list, and that I WILL file formal complaints if they continue to make such pests of themselves.

GRRRRRR

Even though the weather is lovely, I'm still having to fight some serious tendencies to be depressed and weepy. Turning 42 last week was rough (and not just because the only member of my clan that remembered was Bernadine. Adam's family, as usual, had a much better track record via phone calls and email).

Then there was EQ2's Community Leader Summit this past weekend, which had several of my friends and peers in atendance. It is pretty well acknowledged now that I'm a "logical" choice for that sort of event BUT that I won't get invited to them anymore due to Adam being employed by SOE (they fear complaints of favoritism, conflict of interest and such). My mind accepts this as the way it is going to be. My mood, however, wishes I could have at least crashed one of the mixers or such, so I could see Brasse, Kiara, Coyote, Jethal, etc. when they were this close to where I live. And THAT is what has me really depressed about it. From Brasse's account of it, it sounds like they had a great time.

Add to that the fact that I've been working too hard, getting burnt out, etc., and have been fighting some flu/cold repeatedly over the last couple weeks, and I'm having a hard time being motivated, much less cheerful. Hopefully I'll snap out of it soon.

Well, I've still got more work at than I can shake a stick at, but at least it is a bit easier on me now that the weather is settling. We are once again starting to get more good days than bad, and the plants and critters are celebrating!

I've got the sliding glass door leading to the patio set up with just the screen door right now, and the cats are loving it. There's even a squirrel giving them a free show right now! He/she keeps running up to one of the chaises out there that is capitalizing on the fact that the fabric on them died from heat/sun exposure a year ago. They've been stuffing tiny cheeks with as much of the batting from it as possible, for use in a nest, and it is hysterical to see how much they can stuff in! (And this is the reason I've not removed/replaced those chaises, which we haven't really been using anyway - the wildlife has been making use of this clean fiberfill for extra nest lining.)

Just after 7 a.m. is just not a happy time to be awakened to the sound of yard care equipment, but this is especially true after the last few days I've had. On the flip side, at least it means the weather has been mostly improving (there's still a heavy fog this m*rning, so the justy is still out on today).

It's been a crazy busy week, as yet another Game Update was announced for EQ2 that contained a lot of stuff on the tradeskill front. I think a lot may be an understatement and I am sure I'm not very coherent this m*rning, so I'm likely going to be going back to sleep once the lawn care guys are done.

While being able to immerse myself deeply enough in the testing and writing to pain block is a good way for coping with pain, there are definite downsides, as the last 2 days proved to me. I never took more than a 5-minute break for 13 straight hours of working yesterday. The day before was more like 16-17 hours, but with two breaks when the Test server came down, and I think my last update was at someting like 3:30 a.m.

I'd love to blame it all on the fact that previewing and testing these updates is a time-sensitive matter, and I wanted to be sure to give it justice, but that's really only part of the issue. Most of that time, I simply did not notice the time at all, or only marked the passing of it by what portion I'd finished testing/reviewing.

Definitely time for a second timer up here to join the one I use to make sure I don't overnap and throw my sleep cycle all off. Something to remind me to take breaks now and then would be a good thing, I suspect!

Here's a link for my sisters and Barbara, from a place called "Daily Strength". They've got support groups for many different issues, it seems, and I tripped over them last night when researching mineral bath therapy and fibro. Fibromyalgia support group at Daily Strength

I called it right with the lumps thing. The weather is still uggy here, and while we do need the rain, especially after the dryness of the last few years, not only are my joints unhappy, but flu season is lingering, and lingering.

Oh well, this week is not the week where I break any of my recent productivity records, that's for sure!