May 9 2013

The Good, The Bad and The Awesome

 

Okay, family, I’ve been home from Iceland for a week, so I figured it was about that time to do my Fanfest wrap-up.  No, I don’t mean that thing that everyone else already did where they talked about neat features, new expansions and weird video games that you strap to your face.  That’s all kinds of played out by now.  Besides, I’m not that kind of blogger, y’all know that.  If I’m not talking about me, I’m pretty silent.

. . . Well, it’s true!  At least I admit it.

This is just a collection of things I experienced and my feelings about them.  Enjoy!

 

THE GOOD

The #tweetfleet Meet- Every time I met someone from Twitter, I got all giddy.  The feeling you get when you can accurately match a face to a Twitter handle is nice.  There was much hugging and drinking going on Wednesday night.  However, the Celtic Cross was full to bursting, uncomfortably so.  Oh, and I got called an attention whore– twice.  That puts a damper on things.

Breakfast at The Laundromat- Is it my favorite food in Iceland?  Not even close.  But the portions are large and the coffee is strong, giving this eatery a place on my good list.

Eve Roundtables- These would have been in the awesome category . . . if there was more room.  Most of the sessions were full beyooooooooooooond capacity, some of them being held in main traffic areas to accommodate the expanded nerd population. CCP has already outgrown the Harpa, which means they need to find a new venue.  I’m thinking in Florida . . .

Bæjarins Beztu Pylsur-  This translates to “The Best Hotdogs in Town”.  When our friend Aaron praised these hotdogs for a full five minutes, dear, sweet Bagehi and I decided to try them.  They are good.  Different but, my God, I have no idea what all the fuss us about.  The bacon-wrapped hotdogs at the grocery around the corner excited me more.  That’s what I get for trusting a dude in Moar Tears.

The Icelandic Phalleological Museum- You’d think that a building full of cocks would have made it onto my awesome list.  Alas, my stomach could barely handle the countless soft, fleshy penile specimens floating in formaldehyde.  Add to that the sausage everyone ordered for brunch after the tour, and I was pretty much over it.  Go once, just to say you did.  Or don’t.  Whatever.

Eve/Dust Keynotes- Jump animation aside, I wasn’t as impressed this year as I was last year.  Maybe it’s because I don’t play Dust and there seemed to be a retarded amount of focus on it.  Maybe it’s because while I think these Eve trailers are amazing as hell, I’d rather spend the time learning about the game itself.  Maybe it’s because some of the people who spoke didn’t appear to really want to be talking to a group of two thousand people.  Idk.  I enjoyed them, regardless, they just didn’t stop my heart the way orbital bombardment did last year.  Although, an Eve TV show is pretty neat-o.

 

THE BAD

The ooshirts/UPS disaster- 27 people ordered #tweetfleet shirts, which were supposed to arrive on the 22nd.  As I type this, they still haven’t arrived.  I documented the whole thing here.

Quafe- I can hear the protests already but Quafe is fucking disgusting. It tastes like carbonated sugar water and if you drink enough, it elevates your heart rate.  I don’t even think mixing it with vodka will save it.  Give me an ice-cold Appelsín any day!

Air Travel- I hate planes.  With a capital-H HATE them.  If given the choice, I’d sail to Iceland.  Unfortunately, I live with one of those practical types of people– whose grandfather worked for Boeing– so I had to fly.  This may not have been so bad if not for the two landings we had.  The first?  Landing in Keflavik, our pilot didn’t want to wait for the runways to be cleared, so he landed in snow and the wheels locked.  We skidded for a bit.  It wasn’t fun.  The second?  We arrived home in Orlando in the middle of a giant thunderstorm.  Many grown-ass adults screamed during that landing.  I’ve never been tossed from my seat before; that turbulence was fucking scary.

The Grill House- Not to be confused with The Grillmarket.  This was by far the most awful meal I consumed during Fanfest.  Even being surrounded by 50 of my closest PL bros didn’t make the experience better.  2/10.  Never going back.

Icelandic wind- FML.  We were told when we arrived that it was the first day of summer.  That’s when I knew that Iceland has no idea what “seasons” are.

The Pub Crawl Without a Dev- This was bad because I cancelled it.  Suffering through an astoundingly bad hangover, I decided I couldn’t drink.  God bless Jeg and Xander, of Crossing Zebras fame, for feeding me little mouthfuls of vodka throughout the day, but it wore off.  It wore of baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad.  Cut to dear, sweet Bagehi and me in bed at 10:30 on a Friday night, reading books and repeatedly flipping through the same 6 channels (our hotel had 2 different Hustler channels for free, which made the flipping a little more interesting).

Creepy fanboys- I’m all for making friends and I LOVED being approached by people who knew my music, but when the front desk guy greets you with “Your friend stopped by again– twice”, there’s a problem.  A big one.

 

THE AWESOME

Hotel 101- Sometimes, you just get lucky.  Last year was not one of those times.  This year, though, we stayed in the Best. Hotel. Ever.  Awesome rooms, killer views, friendly staff, amazing breakfast, 24-hour saunas and Jacuzzi.  Best of all?  Ultra-filtered water that tasted great and smelled like– well, water.

The Not-a-Charity Dinner- This was one of the best ideas I’ve ever had.  Seriously.  The food was amazing, I forced Brennevin shots on people, and we had 39 people attend!  Maybe we didn’t get to drink over-priced wine and hang out with devs, but it didn’t matter.  We still had a blast!  I truly appreciate everyone who came out and am so happy to have met all of them.

Interviews, Interviews, Interviews- I answered the same questions multiple times over a 48-hour span.  Being able to get The Angel Project out there where more people can learn about it?  Totally worth it.  My 10 minutes with CCP Guard, CCP Rise and Chribba was the most fun you could possibly cram into 10 minutes.  You know– with pants on.

The food trucks that sit outside the tourist center at 4am- There were six of them.  Do yourself a favor and stop by the black one with the flames painted on it.  They sell hamburgers.  Order the Axl Rose.  You’re welcome.

The CCP Office Tour- For some reason, I started receiving messages from CCP Explorer Sunday night and I had no idea why– at first.  Imagine my surprise and delight when we got to tour CCP Headquarters, alongside my new BFF Chribba.  ♥  Seeing that place and the people reminded me that while this may be just a game to me, to everyone who works there, it’s a career.  It’s their lifework.  You respect it more when you see them in action.

Little Bees- When Uncle SUAS pulled out a guitar and a mangled sheet of paper in the middle of the Harpa Saturday night, we were all a bit taken aback.  Surprise turned to delight when we realized what was about to go down.  My single favorite memory from Fanfest this year?  Singing Little Bees with Suas, The Mittani, a giant pile of PL bros and anyone else who happened to stop and listen.  It was magical.

 

That’s all for now.  I’m sure that as more of the alcohol haze wears off, I’ll remember more cool things.  Until then, kiddos!

<3

Apr 18 2013

Eve 12-Step Program: Step 6

*Disclaimer: Alcoholism is not a joke.  It is a destructive disease.  These posts are not meant to poke fun at people who suffer from or are affected by alcoholism.  If you think you might be offended, please do not continue reading.  If it bothers you that I’m writing about this topic– well, I honestly don’t care.  Sorry.*

Okay, family, if you noticed the unfinished Step 5 that I published an hour before this one, you’ll see that I’m back on-track to finish these damn steps.  No more “pausing” for three months because I backed myself into a corner.  From now on, these steps are like a standardized test: if I get stuck, I skip it and move on, then come back if I have time, but it really won’t matter anyway because standardized testing in no way demonstrates how much a student knows, it merely categorizes millions of students in thousands of schools so the government knows how much money to give them, which they have scaled in the most back-asswards way.

*deep breath*

Sorry.  It’s FCAT week for my oldest child.  He’s smart.  Like NASA smart; he just can’t take tests.  Fucking hate it.

*deeper breath*

Damn.  I have to stop talking about this and focus on the steps or I may be driven to drink– which would put me in a highly ironic position, wouldn’t it?  So, let’s move on.

_____________________

 

Step 6: You are entirely ready to have your higher power remove all these defects of character.

This one is gonna be a bit symbolic.  At least, for Eve purposes, anyway.  Honestly– how exactly am I supposed remove all the aforementioned defects of my character?  More importantly, how am I supposed to show that in a blog post??!?!?!  You see the problem.  In real life, an AA member can strive to show people that they are changing.  You can see them try, you can feel it.  This is a blog.  The only thing you’re supposed to feel here is complete and utter disgust at my inability to play this game after two years of trying.  So that leaves me in a bit of a predicament.  I can tell you I’m changing.  Obviously, I am, because I’ve blogged twice as much this year as I did last year and it’s only April.  That’s pretty cool to me . . . but it’s only one of the things I’m struggling with.  It’s not enough.  I have no way to show Step 6 to the readers.  :(

OR DO I?!?!?  Y’all know me, I’m a creative sort-of-girl.  So, back to the symbolic gesture.

Step 6

 

That’s right, bitches.  I podded my dumb ass.  Yes, I know I could have taken the screenshot, then cancelled the self-destruct, so I also captured this:

Proof

 

This is the only way I could think of to “cleanse” myself in this game until they get the shower working in my CQ.  I self-destructed my pod and am now sitting in a shiny, new clone– a clone that is clean and has none of the old traits that I need to get rid of.  She’s not flaky, she’s not irrational.  She’s never shouldered too much work and she’s never been scared to ask for help.  That’s what these steps are about– a chance to change yourself and the way you live your Eve life.  New beginnings, turning over leaves, whatever-the-fuck you want to call it.  Does it mean you have to be “better”?  Hell, no.  It just means you don’t repeat the same mistakes over and over again.  Make new mistakes, try new things and nevereverever be afraid.

Can’t tell my readers to do that, though, and not follow through, so the first thing I’m doing in this brand-new clone is *gasp* burning through my sec status.  Time to go set Jita ablaze!!!

Anyone wanna come?

<3

Apr 18 2013

Eve 12-Step Program: Step 5

*Disclaimer: Alcoholism is not a joke.  It is a destructive disease.  These posts are not meant to poke fun at people who suffer from or are affected by alcoholism.  If you think you might be offended, please do not continue reading.  If it bothers you that I’m writing about this topic– well, I honestly don’t care.  Sorry.*

Two things everyone needs to know about me:

1.  I pay crazy close attention to my site stats.

2.  I am, and have always been, a reactor.  Sorry.

So when I saw the first four steps of the 12-Step Program linked on a forum, along with “The following is an attempted twelve step program to Eve, unfortunately the blog author did complete but the first four posts are funny . . .”, I figured I should do something about it.  So, phlor of The Old-Timers Guild, I am resurrecting my steps because you’re disappointed that I didn’t finish.  In my defense, I kind of screwed myself into a corner with Step 4.  If you’ll recall, I accidentally completed Steps 4 and 5 at the same time but I didn’t want to skip Step 5 so I was kinda . . . stuck.  This doesn’t mean, however, that I have to stop the series, though.  Right?  RIGHT?!?!?!?!?

Therefore, I am going to leave Step 5 unfinished until I figure out the best way to do so, and move on to Step 6.  Good plan?

_____________________

Step 5: Admit to our higher power, to ourselves, and to other capsuleers the exact nature of our wrongs.

. . . to be continued . . .

Apr 16 2013

Before I forget . . .

 

Well, family, Fanfest is next week, so I thought I’d drop some last-minute trip advice for you.  This is not at all like Kesper North’s Guide to Fanfest, merely some suggestions I have due to my own personal experiences last year.  If this is your first trip abroad or, hell, even if it’s not, read this.  Learn.

___________________

1.  Call your bank and/or credit card company and let them know you’re traveling abroad.  THERE’S A REASON WHY THIS ONE IS FIRST!!!  I don’t care if there’s a calendar online where you can schedule trips, call them anyway.  Talk to a person.  That way, if anything happens, you can reference said P2P call.

Now, this includes both the card you plan on using and any alternate cards you may have.  For example, if you call your bank and let them know you’re going to Iceland, but lose your debit card while you’re there and start using your credit card, you’ll be able to use said credit card exactly one time before they shut your ass down.  The next thing you know, you’ve got an armload of souvenirs for your children and your card gets declined.  Then, you spend the next hour on the phone trying to get things sorted.

2.  In this same ilk, save the international numbers for these banks in your phone so that you can call and cancel your card if you DO lose it after buying ten rounds of vodka and Red Bulls for you and The Mittani.  Just, you know, in case you do things like that.  And– for what it’s worth- try really fucking hard not to lose your card in the first place.  People are less-than-helpful if you come looking for it the next day.

P.S.  It’s a little late now, but for next year, get an bank account with ING.  Why?  Glad you asked.  It’s totally online.  It can be connected to your regular bank account, making deposits easy as hell.  It has NO foreign transaction fees.  NONE.  That shit adds up.

3.  Purchase and bring a power converter adaptor.  Make sure anything you need to plug in doesn’t use more power than your outlets provide.  If you need to check, please don’t use your $150 flat iron to do so.  Also, if you’re using the blow dryer in lieu of the flat iron and it’s on for too long, it may start to smell and shut off on its own.  Let it sit for 20 minutes, reset it and resume styling.  Don’t assume it’s broken just because dear, sweet Bagehi says it is (but if it really is broken, bring rubber bands, hairpins and a hat).

4.  Bring a travel coffee cup with you.  The coffee cups in Iceland are tiny and made of porcelain.  You can’t take your coffee with you and it’d be gone before you walked out of the door, anyway.  Speaking of coffee, it’s probably not a bad idea to bring a bag of coffee with you for your in-room percolator.  The free coffee in your room is not that great.  By bringing your own, you’ve made sure that your giant to go cup will always be full.

5.  Bring a wine key.  You can buy all the awesome duty-free wine in the world, but if you can’t open it, you end up leaving it at the front desk of your hotel and tweeting for CCP employees to come pick it up when you leave.

. . . Oh!  Pack the wine key in your checked baggage.  Otherwise, they’ll search your butt.  #truestory

6.  Whatever over-the-counter pain medicines you use, bring them with you.  Most likely, they won’t sell them in Iceland.  Also, if you’re suffering from a wicked hangover and you didn’t follow step 6, come see me for Advil.  You’re welcome.

7.  I realize that Iceland has a non-tipping culture that runs almost exclusively on plastic; however, still bring folding dollars for the housekeeping staff, the front desk (if you use them for taxis, the Fly Bus or any sort of concierge service) and anyone else who helps to make your stay more comfortable.  Don’t be a douche.

8.  Bring your own shampoo/conditioner/body wash.  Those little bottles won’t last and you don’t want to smell, do you?  Place these bottles into a resealable plastic bag and put them in your checked baggage.  Also, bring an extra resealable bag for dirty underpants.  You don’t want your suitcase to smell like dirty crotch.

___________________

 

Well, there you have it.  A few little tips to all my Fanfest homies.  I can’t wait to see all of you.  May your travels be safe and your hangovers few.  I’ll see you next week in Iceland!!!

<3

Apr 4 2013

Impasse

 

See, family?  This is why I shouldn’t do things like a contest.  I get people excited, I get a couple amazing entries– and then I can’t decide between them, so I just stall and ignore everyone.  It’s bad practice, I know, but I promise you, by the end of this post, I will have chosen a winner.

~the time is currently 6:46 pm ET~

First, I’d like to thank Drackarn for his banner entry.

Drackarn

It had everything on my wishlist.  It was shiny, it had a diamond-encrusted skull and (sadly) it represented me as a person . . . but although it had the name on it, it had nothing to do with The Angel Project.  :(   I know he wasn’t entering seriously, but I wanted to acknowledge his effort.  Drack is a wiz with PhotoShop; you should see what he did with my legs and the Razer logo!  It takes some time to shop me licking a Dramiel and I truly truly appreciate it.

Cheeky bastard.

__________________

Rixx Javix.  Dear, dear, man.  I was impressed that you actually took the time to create entries.  I realize how busy you are and what you came up with was truly amazing.  This one, in particular, was my favorite out of yours:

pinkskull

Everything from the colors to the font to the image itself is just perfect.  I didn’t know what I was expecting when I started this contest, but it definitely wasn’t something like this.  Thank you, Rixx.  After only a few short hours, I thought I had my winner.  YAY!!!

~the time is currently 7:52 pm ET. TOTALLY stalling~

. . . but then someone asked, “Wouldn’t a flying skull scare new players?  They’re not going to think you want to help them; they’re going to think you want to kill them and steal their stuff!”  Huh.  I hadn’t thought of that.  Honestly, I thought the pink would soften up the scariness of the grinning skull.  I still loved the design, but my resolve was shaken.  It didn’t matter, though, since I had no other alternatives, anyway.  I was sticking to this entry and I was beyond pleased.

I never thought I’d receive another amazing entry . . . but I did.

__________________

Joe Struck.  Before you submitted eight different entries for my contest, I had no fucking clue who you were.  So imagine my surprise that you knew me well enough to completely nail this competition.  Your entries were all simple and sophisticated, cute and girly, but slightly edgy.  There was one, in particular, that captivated me:

pink wings

I felt like you understood what I am trying so hard to accomplish and more.  I was blown away, seriously.  Well done, sir.  I definitely know you now.

__________________

Now I’m stuck.  Do I pick the one that I adore because it’s exactly what I wanted?  Or do I pick the one that better represents what the Project is: the kinder, gentler, cuddlier side of Eve Online?

Fuck.  I don’t know.  I don’t know.

Then, I did what I normally do when I have to make a decision and I don’t want to: I dis-ap-fucking-peared.  I don’t want to hurt feelings because, apparently, I’m still a big baby who thinks people won’t like me anymore if I express an opinion.  I’m working on that.  For now, though, I just have to decide.  I said I’d have a decision by the time I hit the bottom of this post.  Well, at 8:55pm ET, I believe I’ve hit the bottom.  I am officially calling Joe Struck the winner of my little contest.  I would be honored to use your pink-winged angel as the logo for The Angel Project.  I know you told me not to pay you any isk, but I feel the need to reward you somehow.  If there’s anything I can do for you, please let me know.

Thank you to the gentlemen who answered my Call to Arms.  I am grateful for each of you.

<3

 

Now back off, Twitfleet! :P

Mar 29 2013

Collaborate and Listen

 

 

I’m not good at working with others.  Like, at all.

I used to take the lead of every group project in college, then just do all the work by myself because I didn’t trust anyone else to not fuck it up.  I clean my kids’ rooms so all the toys end up in the “right” bins.  I have to unload my shopping cart onto the conveyor belt at the grocery store because dear, sweet Bagehi can’t be trusted to put frozens with frozens and separate fruit from meat.

. . .

I know!  It’s a sickness!!!  This anal-retentive demon who lives inside me cannot be stopped.

So when I was approached by DJ FunkyBacon to work on a song together, I had to choke down a fuck-ton of protests and just go with it.  This will be good for me, right?  I mean, can Sindel play nicely with others.

Usually.

We decided right away on a song and we’ve made zero attempts to hide it, even announcing it on Twitter before we started (which, in retrospect, was probably bad luck).  Bacon and I would be covering Thrift Shop, which is no simple feat.  Macklemore’s rhythm, diction and overall style is im-fucking-possible to imitate, but damn-it-all if we weren’t gonna try.  This kind of song?  Either we fall flat on our faces and everyone laughs at us, our Eve-parody careers crushed and bloody, or we ace this shit and become instantly (more) awesome.  A lot rode on this song choice– to me, anyway.  The pressure was noticeable.

Things started smoothly enough: we took a couple days to go over ideas on our own and then had a Skype conference to hash them out.  We both presented ideas on what we wanted the song to be about and, in the end, went with his idea: Wreck Shop.  See?  I’m nice.  I sat down and started to write the next morning and fuck me if I didn’t finish my part in a matter of hours.  I started recording takes, then layering them and screwing with sounds.  Did it sound perfect?  Oh, hell no.  This is one of the hardest things I’ve ever attempted vocally, and that’s coming from a classically-trained soprano who’s done Italian arias.

This.  Shit.  Was.  Tough.

With that in mind, I figured I should probably check on Bacon.  He had, naturally, hit a wall.  Bacon was rewriting the first verse and his rhythms were much harder to tweak than mine.  He was stuck.  Pair that with ridiculously long hours at work, plus RL obligations, and I was pretty much on my own.  :(

No big, right?  I can power through this!  I wrote out the rest of the first verse and scrambled to find someone to sing the hook.  Things were moving forward, sure– but I missed my friend.  This was our song.  And he was gone.

Until today, when he shows up out of the blue and says, “We need to finish this.”

. . .

We?  WE?!?!?!?!?!?!!?!?

I don’t hear from the man for two weeks!  I was finished; I made a contingency plan and everything, because that is what you do when you don’t like working with other people.  You plan around them.  You plan on them failing or ditching you.  You get your shit done with or without them.

I fought every urge I had to say these things.  It was fucking hard, but I did it.  Deep down, I was thrilled he had resurfaced.  This song was our baby and now, we could see it through the way it was supposed to be done.

______________________

 

We have another conference on Sunday.  Hopefully, recording will be done next week.  I can’t promise it’s going to sound good, but I’m fairly optimistic.  So far, it’s entertaining and, if I do say so myself, well-written.  I will say that if it’s complete shit, I’ll scrap it and move on.  I’m thinking Ke$ha . . .

<3

Mar 28 2013

A Call to Arms

 

Well, not really arms.  I don’t need y’all to shoot anyone.

Today.

I do have a small request, though.  It’s kind of a big deal to me and I’ve been putting it off because . . . fuck.  I don’t know why.  I guess because I didn’t want to look needy.  Maybe because I didn’t want to ask for help.  But, whatever, I need help and I need to get over that whole asking thing.  So here goes.

*sigh*

I need a logo made for The Angel Project.  This logo (or whatever you want to call it because I’m not some Fortune 500 company; I’m just a girl with a fake, pixel-slinging Socialist charity) will now and forever be on The Angel Project page, where you will be credited for the art.  Also, there are some things I’m doing for Fanfest (buttons for Moonsoon and me to wear, for example) that will require some sort of graphic and I am seriously stick-figure-bad at stuff like this.  It’s embarrassing just how bad I am with stuff like this.  I mean, look at my freaking banner, for crying out loud!  Granted, that’s supposed to look ironically bad, but I think I accidentally made it un-ironically bad . . . and it took 3 hours to accomplish that.  :(   I suck at art and I suck at design and I suck with computers.

I need assistance.  This is where you come in.

From now until Sunday (March 31st), I am asking you to submit logo ideas.  I’m only giving this 3 days because I don’t want anything fancy.  I just want something that people can look at and know that it’s mine.  Easy, right?  I’ll even give you examples of things I like:

Dramiels
Guns
Explosions
Pink
Unusual fonts
Skulls
Shiny things

I’m pretty easy to please, though.  None of the aforementioned things need to be present on your design.  You pick the background, you pick the design, and on Monday morning, I pick the one I like the best.  Just link it to me– here in the comments, on twitter, on email, Skype or Steam.  I do not care.  No one else has to see your ideas if you don’t want them to, either.

Unless you win.  Then you’re fucked.

The person whose design best represents me and the project will get 500 million isk (out of my pocket, not the charity’s) and– just for fun– one of my corpses to do with as they please. . . just don’t tell me what you’re doing with it.  I 100% don’t want to know.

Thanks in advance for participating.  I’m curious to see what y’all come up with!

<3

Mar 27 2013

Won’t You Please Help Me

 

Oh, dear.

The messes I get myself into.  Sometimes, they’re dangerous.  Sometimes, they’re fun.  Sometimes, I’m, like, a comedy writer’s wet dream, you know?  Today’s mess was perhaps the cleanest, safest, most ridiculous fun I’ve gotten into in awhile.  I was logged into my alt toon, flying around, running errands for The Angel Project, when I notice my corp window blinking.  Yes, I KNOW.  Turn off blinking; it saves brain cells.  NPC corps, they normally don’t offer much, but I decided to look anyway.

It didn’t disappoint.

There was this guy selling a Heron BPO for 27 MILLION ISK.  Seriously, bro?  I don’t know much, but I know that’s a lot for a freaking crappy-ass frigate.  And by “a lot”, I mean “a metric fuck-ton”.  So I did what I usually do–  I called him out on it.

This angered him.

I was a n00b.  I didn’t know how blueprints worked.  I didn’t know how markets worked.  He needed profits to support his towers.  Now, I’m sure his BPO was waaaaaaaaaaaay better than the one selling for 4.5 mil in the same region.  It was still too much.  But whatever, he’s awesome and I’m a freak.  He continued to tell me this until something very sad and beautiful happened.  A new player came into corp chat and asked for help on his quest.

. . .

Yeah.  His “quest”.

. . .

As you can, imagine, all hell broke loose.  The trolls forgot all about me and set off to attack this poor guy.  Well, I couldn’t just abandon him, right?  One, he saved me from NPC corp hell.  Two, he asked for help on a probing mission!  ZOMG!!!  The ONE thing I’m good at!!!!  I had to act fast.  I sent him a convo request.  He accepted and was suddenly safe from the ridicule and judgement that is Perkone.  After some coercing, he linked his current location.  13 jumps, huh?  I can do this.

___________________

 

I remember the Probing missions.  Good God, I remember them.  I would sit at dear, sweet Bagehi’s computer and cry in frustration because I had no freaking clue what to do.  He even stood at my shoulder one night and lamented about how hard it was to teach new players to use probes and how the missions were . . . less-than-helpful.  He tried to show me but between his instructions and the missions instructions, I just fell.  I skipped those missions and moved on to more important things.

Until that one day when I decided I wanted to explore.  I read up on probing.  I watched YouTube tutorials.  “I can do this!” I thought.

Fuck, was I wrong.  Probing is hard to understand, at first.  Instructions are choppy, screens don’t make sense and if you don’t IMMEDIATELY learn what Shift or Alt do, you’re royally fucked.  But Jamyl smiled on me that day.  I tweeted about it and people responded, including Prime Flux.  That first day I tried to teach myself how to probe, he opened a convo window with me and walked me through it, step-by-frustrating-step.  The first time I got a 100% scan, my eyes welled up with gratitude.  I was SO HAPPY he was there for me and I’ve never forgotten the two hours he wasted on me.

I needed to make him proud.

___________________

 

Back to my new friend.  I hopped in my Drake and flew the 13 jumps to meet him in Akiainavas, where I *shudder* joined him on his new player missions.  I got my Proof of Discovery for Cosmic Anomalies.  I received a Bantam.  I powered through the missions until I got to the one he’d spent an HOUR working on: Proof of Gravimetric Discovery.  I undocked with my shit prober and my shit probes on my shit Drake and started walking him through how to probe down sigs.  I could tell he was getting it, by my typed instructions weren’t clear enough so I worked up the courage and asked him to get on Eve Voice with me.  His mic didn’t work right away.  Finally:

“Hello? Is it working?  Can you hear me now?”

“Yes. Hi.”

“Oh.  Oh . . . hi.”

*sigh*  It never fails.  But, after the initial shock, we continued with our mission.

I had gotten the site scanned to 70% when it completely disappeared.  I shit you not; it was there, then it was gone.  He confirmed; it had disappeared off his screen.  I’m assuming someone finished it, so it moved to another location, but still.  That sucks when you’re actively searching for a site and it disappears on you.  It took us a few minutes to regroup from this, naturally.  It’s very embarrassing when you’re trying to teach someone something and the lesson just leaves.

Anyhoo.  We (read: I) scanned down another site and I fleet warped us there.  We approach the gate and it’s locked.  We need a Passkey.  What Passkey?  THERE’S A PASSKEY?!?!??!  This goes on for another 10 minutes while we fly back and forth to random training sites looking for this dumb key.  He tries to tell me it’s in a Blood Raider Hideaway– the one place we haven’t looked yet.

HA!

Then, it dawns on me.  I open my assets window and it’s there, safe in my item hangar.  I make my new friend dock up and grab his key, fully aware that he’s being much more patient than he should be with me.  We warp back to the site, open the little cargo container, then warp back to the station, where I realize I never picked up the Proof of Discovery paper.

FUCK!  I suck at being a newbro!!!!  This is why I help them because it sucks doing this!

I warped back to the site . . . but what happens when someone completes a training site?  Oh, yeah.  It disappears.  I had to scan the site down.  Again.  Then, open the container.  Again.  This time, I was not-dumb enough to scoop a paper.

By the time I got back to the station and turned in my mission, he had scanned down our next mission site to 70%.  I had already gotten it to 100% but I kept my mouth shut and waited.  Ten minutes later, he had it down to 100%.  I asked how it felt.  He said it felt awesome.

Op success, right?!?!?!

We warp to the next site and complete it– a full TWO HOURS after he started and an hour after I joined him.  Then, we chat.  He tells me he’s happy he met a girl who was nice enough to help him.  He tells me he hates how much has changed in 3 years.  He tells me that it’s okay that everything that could possibly go wrong did, indeed, go wrong.  He tells me he should cherish the fact that I love sci-fi and play video games.   Whoa.  He said a bunch of things that I’m not going to bother with.

He needed a friend and he got one.  He may not have realized how good a friend I am and that’s okay– he’ll find out when I replace the Badger and ships he lost by going through low sec alone.  He was so grateful for help– and that bothers me.  You shouldn’t have to be grateful when someone helps you.  You shouldn’t have to be grateful when someone is nice.  The way a lot of veteran players treat new players is deplorable.  It disgusts me.  I’m ashamed of it.  I wish I knew how to change people’s attitudes.  I still don’t know how.

I’m very happy, though.  I met a great person tonight and we’re going to do the SOE epic arc together.  I’m going to help him and he’s going to remind me why I help new players in the first place.  We’re going to support one another.  And I think that’s awesome.

Feb 28 2013

You Get What You Give

Remember when I said something drastic needs to happen?  How I was a selfish, disgruntled bitch who needed to be dragged, kicking and screaming, back into the chaos and beauty of New Eden because it was for my own good? . . . No?!?!?!?!?  Well, I may have added that last bit– but let’s not deny we were all thinking it, hmmmm?

Anyhoo, I have figured it out.

The best way to get back into the swing odd things is to immerse myself in Eve.  Fleets, exploration, killmails and, of course, The Angel Project.  My solution?  The “You Get What You Give” drive.  From now until the end of Fanfest, I will be accepting donations of unused and unwanted ships and mods, along with the ever-useful pile of isk.  Donations will be accepted anywhere in Empire (no, I will NOT fly to Stain to pick up 30-odd frigates), but I would appreciate them being dropped off in all of the major market hubs: Amarr, Dodixie, Jita, Rens and Hek.

*sidenote: It’s time for all those hauler volunteers to resurface.  I gots a jobby job for y’all.  Read this in Tiny Tina’s voice.*

So, if you’re here and reading this, I urge you to pass this along.  I’m, like, asking nicely and everything.  Let your friends and corpies know.  Paste a link to this post in local.  Mention it on your radio show.  Spam it on Twitter.  Write it up on your blog.  Do your part to let everyone know that from now until April 27th, I will be accepting any and all donations.  Please contract any and all goodies to The Angel Project.  I want to be buried under the staggering weight of contracts each and every time I log in.

“So where’s it all going to go, Sin?”

I’m SO glad you asked.  Part of it will be set aside to be used for the upcoming charity auction.  There will be a post about that at a later date, btw.  The rest will be sold and the proceeds given to organizations and events like Brave Newbies Inc., RvB (Ganked FTW), Eve University and The Tuskers for their FFAs and Deathraces.  This list is far from all-inclusive, just an example.  I get word of corporations, alliances and organizations that focus on helping new players on a very regular basis.  I can’t help all of them, but I want to do as much as I can.  Together, we can help.

. . .

. . . THAT WASN’T LAME! YOU’RE LAME!!!!

*cough*  Sorry.

You’ll notice I deleted a lot of information off The Angel Project page.  I didn’t think the bi-monthly updates were really necessary anymore; y’all know what I’m doing by now–  I hope.  I plan to use the space to list all of the people who donated to the drive.  I also plan to use Twitter, Tumblr and Facebook as a way to acknowledge all those who are helping me pull this off.  Yes, I know– social media, how “quaint”.  To those who say “So what?“, I say “STFU!!!!”  Being recognized for good deeds is important regardless of whether they happen in space or in RL.  With the anonymity of the internet to protect us, we all have the ability to be complete douchebags.  If you choose to keep a moral code and do what’s right, then dammit, you deserve props.

Soapbox gone, rant over.

So there you go.  We have seven weeks to make this a resounding success!  To keep track of how much time we have left to collect donations, look at the handy counter on this side ————————–> of your screen and ADD TWO DAYS.  Easy, right?  I hope all of you will support me in making this drive wildly successful.  If not, whatever, I still love  you . . . but you’re very, very mean.

<3

Feb 19 2013

… so why don’t you kill me?

Get crazy with the Cheez Whiz.

No.

Not really.  Cheez Whiz is gross.  For those who don’t get the reference, you’re younger than I thought.  Google it, learn something.  For those who do, you’re probably wondering why I have such a not-nice opinion about myself right now.  Or why I have old-school Beck in my head.

. . .

Well no, nevermind, if you read the post prior to this one (that I just published– two in one day! ZOMG!!!!), you’ll recall I’m in a bit of a funk.  You know, one of those “I-don’t-care-fuck-everyone-I-hope-you-all-go-away-and-leave-me-in-peace” kind of funks.  No offense; it’s just hard to curl up in a ball and sulk with a bottle of wine when you’re distracting me with wit, silly tweets, and pictures of cats.  Anyway, as I was writing that last post and talking to two very good friends of mine (thanks guys, btw), I figured out where a lot of this angst was coming from.  Call me a stupid, whiny girl, but this is the reason I took my hands off my keyboard and tossed a couple of middle fingers up in the air:

 

Hello (Sindel Pellion),

We have received your request to register your EVE Online Fansite “Sindel’s Universe” at http://www.sindelsuniverse.com.  Thank you for your time and energy to set up this interesting site, we appreciate your efforts in the past.

However, your site lacks current activity and content that adds general value to the EVE Online Community, therefore your site doesn’t meet the formal criteria to become an officially recognized EVE Online Fansite.  The main issue at hand is the frequency of the updates.  We tend to look at a guideline of roughly one blog post a week to consider a blog for fansite status, and while the quality of your writing appears good enough to be a little lax on this, we still require a little more frequency of activity before we can approve the site.

We would like to encourage you to fill your Fansite with more recent content and then to apply again, we gladly would reconsider your site then again. Good luck!

___________________

 
:(

Now, I realize I’m not now– nor have I ever been– a daily blogger.  Fuck– I’m not even a weekly blogger (yet) . . . but I still think I’m pretty active in the community.  I had hoped that between the Eve parodies (with over 70,000 listens!) and the FREAKING CHARITY PROJECT, they would look past the blog thing.  Nope.  No dice.  What really gets me is the “lacks . . . content that adds general value” thing.  I know it’s not, like, a market tool.  Or a fitting tool.  Or a regularly-produced blog/vlog/podcast, but I do contribute things to the Eve community that add “general value”.  I like to think I do, anyway.

So where does this leave me?  Well, for starters, it forces me to do one of two things. 1.  Quit the idea of being a larger part of the Eve community as a whole (and not just the social media part) or 2. Write more.  Now, I hate being forced to do things.  I’m one of those stubborn people who would rather give up on everything than do something because someone told me to.  And why, you ask?!!?!!?

Because I’m a stubborn-ass moron, that’s why!

. . . God, I hate that about myself.

All I wanted was to be recognized as a community site so that maybe more people would hear about The Angel Project and more people could get help.  You know, fancy splash ad on the login screen that leads to this poorly-written, but often comical, blog about alcohol, dying and helping newbros.  I guess you don’t always receive the shit you think you should get, though.

Kinda feels like high school all over again.  *sigh*

Since the fansite thing’s not gonna happen for awhile, I’m gonna have to go all grassroots-like and do this the old-fashioned way– and by “old-fashioned” I mean that I need all of my space friends on the internet to take to their various social media and sharing sites and start threads and conversations about The Angel Project . . .

Fuck me.  What an amazing world we live in, huh?  Granted, that’s nowhere near as cool as saying “start a fire, grab a blanket, and signal the people at the next settlement over,” but this is far more effective.  By the way, if you know how to do that, take pictures.  I wanna see.  Smoke signals are cool as shit.

. . .

I apologize.  I’m rambling again.  Writing half-drunk at midnight has it downside, you know.  Mostly, I can’t seem to remember what I just wrote so I just keep going.  Eventually, it leads to where I need to be, but I have to fall down a few times and split my pants to do it.  So, uh, yeah.  Back to the project.

I can’t rely on CCP for assistance, which is fine.  They shouldn’t have to help every random player with good intentions and mediocre social skills get traffic to their site or attention drawn to their endeavors.  I understand and respect that . . . now that I’ve put on my Big Girl Panties and moved on.  Getting The Angel Project out of the hole it’s been stagnating in for months is ENTIRELY up to me.  And to my friends.  Please, take time this week and tell one person.  Write one tweet.  Post in one thread.  Say one thing about it on your radio show, blog, or podcast.  I need your help.  Contrary to what I was sent, to what I feel, I am a part of this community.  I just need to swallow my pride, get the fuck over my feelings and get on with being me.