Forced Fasting
This blog post is going to suck, I just wanted to get that out of the way now so you can avoid reading it. In the mornings I muster the “oomph” to blog by channeling the dark arcane magic of coffee. I am completely un-caffeinated today and it is horrible. I am having to fast this morning as part of some blood work, and I have no problem with the not eating part… but no coffee is hitting a little below the belt. I totally imagine that once I have had my blood drawn I am going to go to the nearest QuikTrip and like try and drink straight from the coffee pot or something like that. I’ve never really understood the purpose of fasting before blood work, since don’t you really want to see the persons stats how they actually are all the time? What is the point of having this fasted idealistic state, when you know the person is going to screw everything up with caffeine anyways.
As part of our insurance plan at work, we are having to submit to a “biometric screening”, which seems really damned Orwellian to me. The last few years I had been a conscientious objector to the process and as a result paid a significantly higher insurance premium, but this year that reached a critical mass. If you do not take the screening your monthly insurance rates are literally over double what they would be if you submitted to the finger prick. We did not find that out until after all of the normal screening sessions were finished. So now I have to go to some massive last call session this morning. I still think this entire process is bullshit. I’m curious, are any of you having to do this for your work insurance? My working theory is still that our HR department is incompetent and just simply cannot negotiate for new insurance plans worth a shit.
The Impossible Plateau
At some point I had to go afk for an extended period of time and I cut off the stream after returning. Later in the evening I attempted a public dungeon with Warenwolf but we seemed to be missing a lot of the bosses. Turning in the quest from inside gave us credit for the place, but I have never seen a public dungeon without a slew of optional bosses. In grand total I think we found three, and none of them actually seemed to drop anything of use. Honestly I have been on a bad streak as far as bosses go. I am reaching a point where the greens I craft seem to be significantly better than the blues I am getting as drops. Crafting in this game is extremely overpowered, and I now have enough skill points dumped into blacksmithing that I have a pretty great chance of getting a temper off anything I deconstruct.
I dinged 38 last night, so In theory I could craft up an entirely new set of gear. Not sure if this is really worth it however. Thinking I am going to try and limp on with the 36 set I have until I ding 40, and then craft all new gear then. The problem with crafting sets of gear is that it is a serious drain on your available tempers. I am really not sure how many I have, but I don’t think I have near enough to be throwing them away randomly. The big frustration so far with Alik’r is that I am still mostly finding Orichalcum. I thought by now that I would be swimming in a sea of Dwarven Ore, but so far it has been extremely rare… which means I may not even have enough ingots to craft a full set of anything right now.
On Streaming
I am really bad about not touching social media or my RSS feed on the weekend, and as a result I usually have a significant backlog that starts sometime on Friday night. Since I was off for Good Friday this past week, it mean this void started on a Thursday night. As a result I missed this post by Scopique on his thoughts about streaming. I am honestly not sure how I feel about streaming in general. Twitch is one of those weird things that I am not really sure what to do about. While I have a twitch channel and I stream somewhat regularly, and then dump said videos on Youtube… I really don’t watch twitch much at all. Well there was that period of time when all of us were watching Twitch Plays Pokemon… but that was more of the “trainwreck you just can’t help but watch” thing than something I genuinely enjoyed. Generally speaking the only time I watch anything on twitch is when there is some presentation relating to a game I am playing.
As a result I feel kinda bad that I am streaming and love it when people watch my stream… but I don’t ever actually end up watching anyone elses streams. I feel like that is a big reason why my stream and youtube channel will never really be successful on their own. They will always be attached to my blog, since the blog is what is really important to me. I don’t fully get the twitch or youtube cultures, and in order to get either to really work it feels like you need to fully immerse yourself into said culture. Right now I am streaming mostly because going back and listening to the things that my friends and I say on my stream entertains me. I say all sorts of stuff and fifteen minutes later I cannot remember what the hell I just said, so it cracks me up the random stuff that comes out of my mouth while I game. Ultimately I stream for the same reason I blog, because for whatever reason I find it entertaining and fun, and would probably be doing both even if I never had a single reader or viewer. The stream however is just not something I think of as meaningful or permanent… it is very much a throwaway experience to me. Entertaining for the moment it is happening, but not something to really ponder once the stream has been turned off.
That is not to say that there are not some absolutely amazing and entertaining folks out there. Qelric for example does amazing videos, and her production value is just great. I tend to watch whatever videos come down the pipe from her, because I find them equally entertaining and informative. That said I have never really gotten into the “let’s play” culture on YouTube. I tried doing some of it with my series on Trove… and really I just didn’t like the way it felt. For a period of time I was trying to get people to do the like and subscribe thing… before I realized that I just didn’t really care much. If people watch my YouTube channel and like my videos… awesome… if they don’t… equally awesome. I think the big difference is I am not trying to make a career out of being an internet persona. I don’t need viewers or clicks or likes or whatever to get a pay check. At the end of the day my blogging and my faffing about in streams and videos… is just something I do for entertainment. I respect the folks who are trying to make this work as a career but I don’t think I could ever deal with the inherent instability that is trying to make a living off the whims of others.
The #Aggronaut spends the morning without caffeine: http://t.co/9li9oj5FFM Plus, @Belghast discusses the inanity of #Streaming.
One of our dogs needed a fasting thyroid test this morning, so I got him in the car as early as possible, meant he still got breakfast two hours later he was used to. As soon we got home, he made a beeline for the the bowl.
As far as the streaming, I understand your dilemma. As a blogger, I try to read quite a few blogs, but always feel I could/should read more. I don’t understand game streaming myself. Why would I watch someone play, when I could be playing myself? (same reason I don’t follow sports, actually.)
I’ve been finding while leveling that the white gear is perfectly acceptable. I’ve been upgrading my gear at the x0 and x6 levels becuz that’s when the new tier of enchants comes into play (well technically at x5, but you can’t craft at x5) and then simply repairing it when needed in between (generally every 2 levels). Though I do upgrade my weapons every 2 levels and always “green them.”
If I find a drop that’s better I’ll swap it in, but usually I find that the white-level crafted is fine. Then again, I’m not playing a tank, so I’m really just wearing the gear for the bonuses from wearing certain number of pieces and the stat boosts from the enchantments, not for the armor rating. That probably colors my outlook quite a bit.
But anyway, following this strategy I’m finding that I’m keeping my health as high as it gets from putting my level-up points into it, and then keeping my secondary stat of choice (usually magicka) at or just below the softcap. If I were using beverages or food for buffs I feel like I’d be even more powerful, but I also haven’t really found it to feel necessary as of yet either. Perhaps in the VR levels the 35 minute buffs will be more important, as well as wearing green/blue gear?
***
My work does the same thing with the insurance rates and the biometric screening, though in my case it’s only about a 25% increase in the rate (and it’s still not bad) if you don’t do it. We’ll see how that changes once the employer mandate of Obamacare goes into effect, though. OTOH, last year the notifications they sent us about our insurance said that we were already within compliance and so that once the full implementation went in that nothing should change. Who knows?
Wow. We had the OPTION to get our bloodwork done here (it’s how I got confirmation that my cholesterol is a little high – genetic, unfortunately) but it was neither mandatory nor does it have an affect on our premiums.
Well, that’s not entirely true – it could have a positive effect. Our health insurance has a points program where everyone is bronze, silver, gold, platinum, etc. – if you make it up to Silver it’s a pretty serious discount on your premiums, but mine are so cheap I’ve honestly never bothered to put in the work. There’s some nice ways to get the points here – namely if you swipe your ID card to get into the gym our company has a partnership with, that goes to your points total. (It also means you could just swipe your card a few times a week, get points, lower your premiums, and never work out…)
We had to do it too only it didn’t just apply to the employee, everyone had to get pricked. I fully expect that come Sept. his company will say that it is too expensive to insure anyone but the employee & the spouse/family is now forced to get Obamacare crap insurance. I’ve never made a medical claim on the insurance EVER & yet they forced me to go to the doctor, get a physical & bloodwork for some secret damn database I want no part of.
The coffee shop I frequent on the way to work had no water, so they couldn’t serve coffee! I am also caffeineless today!
I’ve thought about blogging off and on, but I’m too much of a Leo (and I mean this in the best sense) to try it. I’m someone that needs feedback to stay motivated. I remember getting really discouraged back in the livejournal days when I’d post and post and no comments came, so I lost interest.
Besides, my mind is currently filled with cosplay plots! That’s a task in itself!
I think in order for streaming to work for a person, that person needs to really put the effort into it, or has to be really good at providing content that’s ahead of the curve, or with some angle. Great production values help a lot, I suspect, because they’re fun to watch, and it’s apparent that the broadcaster cares about making a decent show. The rest of us stream for streaming’s sake, I think, or for a historical record; I am sorely lacking in screenshots from my middle-age of gaming, and I feel sad when I see folks with pics from the games they played 10-15 years ago. Streaming can serve that kind of purpose as well, I suppose.
And I’m in the same boat in regards to reciprocating involvement. I read some blogs, and I blog, so I guess that washes out. But I keep thinking I’d like to do a podcast, except I don’t listen to podcasts, and I just can reconcile that disconnect there : /
The Impossible Plateau http://t.co/zLVjUdyXQL #Aggronaut #ESO #ElderScrollsOnline #TeamFaff #HealthcareBullshit #Streaming