Believe it or not, every single day I think to myself: "Self, you should really get off your ass and update that page."

I invariably reply to myself: "But Self, I don't have much to say."

"What about that great big ass post you wanted to do on massively multiplayer games and the directions you believe they'll take?"

"Last time I wrote that up, god-damned Windows hosed on me as I was proofreading it and I lost the entire long-ass essay."

"Yeah, that was a bitch. Hey, Self, let's stop talking to each other."

And I pretty much just get pissed at myself for arguing with myself. Honestly though, I had a great big f'n essay that was through provoking and all that jazz, but God-Damned Windows™ decided that it wanted to hose on me completely and allowed me only to hit the reset button. There was much weeping and crying, and the mandatory gnashing of teeth.

So here I am, in an odd mood, typing to fill the time. It's not like I don't have other things to do. I could be spending this time working on the sites that I've created and administered for fun: www.gamenews.org and photo.familydisease.com. Or I could even be working on the sites that I'm paid to create and maintain: www.abeypestcontrol.com, www.wize-guyz.com, and www.securitysash.com. Okay, so those were actually shameless plugs for my mad-phat-r337-ninja-web skillz, but some people actually don't know what I do for a living, and a few of them think I play games for a living. While the second concept isn't that far off the mark, I actually put bread on the table by making websites and keeping them running.

Other than that, I really don't have much else to say. One day (I hope) I'll resume the rewrite of that essay, but it's a tough cookie to swallow, ya dig? I mean, I seriously had an award-winning (we're talking Nobel Peace Prize for MMORPG Design) long-ass, in-depth piece about where the MMORPGs are going and where they should be going... Had it written, spell-checked, and was happily converting all the "links" into "links" and Windows hits a website it doesn't like. Something didn't rub properly against something else, something got offended, and my system decided to wait out the storm. And since these things never solve themselves, the only thing I could do was hit the reset button. And cry. And weep. And gnash my teeth. Hmm.. I'm repeating myself now.

Oh, in case you haven't noticed, this isn't exactly a very game-oriented article. That's because this site isn't a "Gamer's Diary" anymore, but a "Diary of Sorts"---

I've covered that in previous posts too... Repetition is a bad thing. Repetition is a bad thing. Repetition...

Well, it took alot of negotiations, but the Disease (and its hosted site, GameNEWS.org) are now fully accessible by the world. If you haven't been able to read the site in awhile, I'd recommend clicking on the word "Archives" in the upper-left corner to see what postings you've missed.

Other than that, I don't have much to say right now... I found a SoundBlaster 64 sound card in my glove compartment yesterday and I have no idea where I got it from. Odd as that is, I sure hope that its a continuing trend; I like stumbling onto useful hardware.

While I'm on oddball topics, did you know that Optimus Prime was the narrater on the Voltron Theme song?

Well, it happened, and I'm a bit ashamed. I bought EverQuest today. I bought EverQuest because TSR released the 3rd Edition Players Handbook for D&D. (Confused yet?)

See, I haven't played D&D in over 6 years. Haven't read the books, haven't read latest news, nothing. The closest I've come to playing D&D would be playing Baldur's Gate (to which Cali is currently addicted). And yet, when I found out that TSR (or is it just Wizards of the Coast now?) released the new 3rd Edition Players Handbook, even though I don't have anyone to play with, even though I probably won't play again, I had to buy it.

Getting in touch with the old school games made me want to get in touch with the old school gang. So I made a few phone calls and tracked down those that I played D&D with oh-so-many years ago. They're not playing D&D right now, they're playing EverQuest.

I've always despised EverQuest. I've played UO, and I've played AC. I've avoided EQ because I've heard nothing but hate and loathing for the designers and the guides for the game. I understand that the game's entire economy is based on camping spawn spots (which spawn monsters at a schedule that you can set a clock to) and selling the ph4t l3wt to someone nearby who didn't get to the spawn early enough and wait in line (we're talking many hours), or sell it on eBay. There's alot to hate about the game.

So why am I playing?

I'm playing for two reasons. First is to prove a point. Second is because I believe in this point. And the point is (drum roll): UO, AC, EQ and all the rest are nothing more than chat rooms on ego trips. Observe: Quake and Unreal and other action games are designed so that people don't need to know each other. They only need to frag (either for the team, or for themselves. However, MMORPGs (massive-multiplayer role playing games) it's all about socialization. Doesn't have to be friendly socialization (as UO has taught us, even PKs need victims) but you need to interact with other players regularly, or the game gets dull fast.

All of the people I used to play D&D with are now playing EverQuest. I'm not going to be playing EQ for the game system, or its graphics, or its (failed) quest system. I'm paying $10/month to Verant so that I can hang out with my friends in another world. I stayed in UO for a year because my guild (The Order of Crux Ansata) was composed of people with whom I had fun playing. I played in AC for about two months (maybe) because my patron was enjoyable company. I didn't find anyone else to replace him, and quickly left AC.

So I'm off to play EQ now. From the sizes of other EQ rant sites, I'm sure I'll have plenty to bitch about.

And just when things seem their darkest, wonderful things begin to happen. Firstly, at Abey Pest Control, their network damn near fixed itself for me, cutting what I thought was going to be a two day process into a ten minute process. Next, in thirty minutes, yours truly (that's me) will be heading to the local Best Buy to purchase the holiness that is Diablo II. Oh yes. But one thing that's making me absolutely giddy is the fact that my fiance, who in her grand generosity, has given me a gift. Yea, for the gods have smiled as we now have two tickets to see quite possibly the greatest band in existence, Dream Theater on August 7th at Bogart's. I will show up very early. I will wait five hours if needed. I will have a seat to watch the show. I will not stand throughout the show. I will enjoy the music. There will also be overly-priced drinks. Damn. (That's a little Smoove B for ya)

Get it? The last post was "Things Change" and this one is...

Well. I thought it was funny.

Anyway, as it turns out, things aren't going the way I planned, which is to say, things are on par for normal. The Disease will be down for a period of time, perhaps as much as a month, but it'll be back up soon thereafter. If you want to be notified when the Disease comes back up, go to the main page (http://journal.familydisease.com) and put your email address in the newsletter subscription bar. You'll be automatically notified when I place a new news posting.

I'm recovering from a nasty case of sun poisoning. Sun poisoning happens when you burn your sunburn. Essentially, sit in the sun until you blister. I'm serious. Symptoms are a lack of patience in anything and taking on the behavior of a crazy man. Not pretty. My fiance took care of me though. She does alot for me that I really haven't been appreciating, and that's something I've got to work on. Nonetheless, life goes on, whether in the ways I want it to or not. Instead of working temp jobs, I've got a decent position at my father's workplace, making decent pay. I'll be able to do both manual labor and web design, all under the same roof.

Just a public service announcement to let you all know that the QForums, found at forums.familydisease.com are finally ready for public display. They've been revamped, now using UBB, and have been completely stylized to match the rest of the journals. So please, stop by and post a few messages. You'll certainly have more room to talk there than you do in the kTalk comments fields on each othe news postings.

Or more to the point: self-enlightenment. It's amazing, pure and simple. To become enlightened. Don't chalk me up as some Buddha spouting, reborn Christian, loony that you'd find handing out pamphlets at the airport. I'm not talking about any sort of religious experience, but merely coming to terms with yourself and understanding yourself.

My mind is racing all the time. It's like a nonstop high. Quite simply, I'm happy. I'm seeing things clear and simple, and I'm cutting through the fluff that we pad our lives with. I can't watch TV, I can hardly play games on the computer. I tried. Last night I tried to settle back in the recliner for a couple hours of pure unadulterated couch potatoism, but I couldn't. And "Fight Club" was on, too, which is a damn fine movie and well worth watching over and over. Still, I wasn't content. I turned off the TV (something that's rarely done in my home) and began doing sit-ups. Later, I tried to play some games on the computer. Tribes. Asheron's Call. Ultima Online. Boring. I just couldn't do it. As a matter of fact, I think I'm going to cancel my UO account. At the least, I'm putting it on an indefinite pause. Instead of playing games I worked on the website. This has actually been going on for awhile, building up to a crescendo of self-improvement. Yesterday I spent my entire lunch break taking my car to the car wash and giving it a spring cleaning. It's been so long since I've cleaned my car that I found multiple empty cigarette packs... I haven't smoked since 1998!

The problems with enlightenment? Well, I've already touched on a few. Firstly, unless I'm actively working on myself or my projects (web pages, cleaning apartment, etc), I'm bored. At my job I sit in front of a computer and take calls. It's been fairly light the past few days, leaving me bored as can be. I want to bring some weights in here and work out. Hell, if I could just drop down and do sit-ups I'd be happy. My mind has a plan for what my body, life, and spirit should do, be doing, and what shape they'll take. I'm finally putting these plans in motion.

Don't worry, I'll be playing games again soon, and I'll be kicking out some more reviews. And as far as Bellicose goes, there's work being done by a friend in creating the underlying game rules dictating combat and character creation.

Things are coming into place.

Well, since I got back from E3 I've been somewhat bored with games to play. Ultima Online is still fun, especially since our guild has acquired www.cruxansata.org. We're trying to rebuild the guild too.

So, in the interest of getting more experience with the current MMORPGs and RTS games that Bellicose will have as roots, I purchased Total Annihilation and Asheron's Call. I plan to have a review for each sometime in the next week or so.

More details as they become known...

Oh goodness... This page is really expanding in odd ways. First of all, since they're somewhat relative to my views on games, I went ahead and added to the journal.familydisease.com my old reviews of a few games. While I was adding those, I thought, "What the hell, why not make reviews and entire section?" Seeing no reason not to, I went ahead and added a reviews section, starting with my three reviews from 1998.

I've got a friend here at work who has a strong sense of how he likes his games, and more importantly, his views are almost 100% opposite mine, resulting in sparks and fist-fights when I bounce ideas off of him. So, I decided to invite him to be an official updater at the journal.familydisease.com. He goes by the name of The_Tree, and he'll be posting reviews and whatever. I'll be editing them afterwards... For spelling and grammer of course, not to change his views so that they match mine... Well, not that many times at least!

Well, I think I'm finally finished with the actual site design. My latest triumph: Comments! That's right, you can post comments directly to my articles... It probably won't be nearly as successful as the Forums (that's an inside joke), but it's there anyway.