Pretty much every online game has at least one non-player character (NPC) that folks just love to hate.

Mine, which happens to correspond with the opinion of many of the members of the EQ2 tradeskill community, is a little boy called Qho Augren.

It isn't that he's rude, or mean, or even very bratty. To be fair, I have to give him points for not worrying his parents by wandering off on his own to obtain all the harvesting samples that he wants.  (Though the fact that he spends all his time in that one little pond, often totally submerged does make one wonder if his parents were aquatic creatures of some sort, as opposed to human!)

However, no matter how politely he asks, by the third time he has sent you out to harvest an ever-growing list of items for A Gathering Obsession, you're likely ready to scream at him. By the time you have found the last bit of meat needed from Rivervale, you may be tearing your hair out. When you finally earn your cloak, you may have pondered several wonderful means of murdering him. 

 Annnnndd, if you're like a certain stubborn redhead, you have likely had to go through the entire questline, several times, and you now flinch every time someone mentions going out to find their "Qho-ta" for Qho.

We just love to hate him, and since he's just a little pixelated kid in an online game, our hate is a relatively safe and silly thing.

What does this have to do with asking about what to do with him?

 SOE had some of their employees decorate game-themed Mighty Mugg characters for the 2010 SOE Fan Faire, to be sold in the silent auction.  Emily "Domino" Taylor, crafting dev extraordinaire, not only did a wonderful job of creating Qho, but she blogged about the process.

He's now sitting on my kitchen table, along with the receipt from the silent auction, as I ponder his fate.

Rijacki and I both thought of turning him into a voodoo doll if we won him. Calthine from Zam had several suggestions involving firearms. I've also considered just hanging him from a "noose" in my home office.

I'd really rather not damage the replica, especially given the work that went into him, so I'm open to suggestions that will show how many of us feel about Qho while still respecting the work that Emily put into the replica.  Depending on where you're reading this, feel free to respond on my personal blog, on facebook, or on my forums with your suggestions for the little brat. 

Those who know me from long ago remember one me, who used to be able to laugh and joke a lot. "Bouncy" was one word used a lot. "Cute" was another, though some who used it made it sound more like a curse than a compliment. 

Those who met me after the fibromyalgia really started getting bad knew a quieter, moodier me, prone to "wearing my shoulders as earrings" as I'd hunch from the constant pain, etc.  It got so bad that physically I became a virtual hermit, only really getting out of the house for the chiropractor, the grocery store and such.  My 2005 Celica is not yet at the 5000 mile mark for mileage, if that gives you any ideas of how bad it had gotten!  (Meanwhile, I've put wayyyyy more "miles" on my keyboard than most folks do, during that time, escaping to the distractions of online worlds as a form of pain-blocking.)

 Starting the Savella helped in the fall, but once I settled into a new baseline for the pain, and winter, such as it is, hit here, it was almost back to the same-old same-old. I'll candidly admit, after the fact, that I was getting close to being clinically depressed, due to so many years of constant, never-ending pain.

 I'm still in pain. There has been no miracle cure.  There is, however, a new me.

 Sort of.

More like the old me, starting to return after over a decade of hibernation. The process will be a slow one, but the first steps were very noticeable.

I started up gentle Hatha yoga 3 times a week, starting at the beginning of June. Last week, I went mall-crawling for the first time all year, then went back and got a body wave (perm) the next day. Next week, I get a professional hair coloring done, to more properly cover up the grey.

And I'm doing it all with a huge smile on my face.  I'm reclaiming the old me one gentle stretch at a time.

The next several weeks are going to be busy, with EQ2's Tinkerfest, the SOE Block Party, the SOE Fan Faire in Vegas, etc., but please, folks, help nudge me about mid-August if I've not started up a blog series. There are many out there with whom I want to share several fibro-related notes that I learned the hard way regarding massage, chiropractic, yoga, and even some food sensitivities that may help my fibrofriends out.  Old me or new me, I'm still prone to procrastinating and getting side-tracked, and if I'm getting enough nudges, I may get enough "oomph" to get them written for you!

Into every life, some quakes must fall ... at least for those of us living in Southern California!  We're actually due for a lot of quakes in the coming year, apparently because of the bigger one back in April.

How many of us know what to do during a big earthquake, though?  I'll be the first to admit that I was clueless until someone posted the following link a few months back, so I'd like to share the knowledge around as things start rattling a bit more around here.  This comes from the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA): What to Do During an Earthquake  For those of you living in the SoCal area, the following site can also be a handy one to have bookmarked: California/Nevada Region Earthquakes