Benie's Games Blog

Great. Another patch, another risk of having the mods I use be broken. Thankfully a good thing comes with this patch. The developers realized not everyone’s interested in PvPing (as Imperial City will be in the PvP zone), so I’m getting the non-EP patch.
It’s a big one, though. 6GB. I see the installation taking 1-2 hours.

EDIT: That took about 3+ hours. There’s a new splash screen on the main menu. Currently waiting forever to login. 5 minute wait time and I’m finally in. Checking my addon list and everything is listed as ‘Out of Date’. I had Minion auto-update what it could, and now it shows only 5 of the several addons I use are no longer out of date. Hopefully I don’t NEED them to be not out of date for them to work.

So I’m now ingame, and I immediately get an error from one addon. Fuck. On top of that, it seems all my skills have been reset. Feels typical of a major patch in WoW.
Oh yeah. My hotbars have also been resetted! That’s really nice of them…
However, this gives me a chance to respec my Sorcerer(though I don’t know into what). I could also use this to my advantage for my old main DK.
Still, the forced reset wasn’t cool, and also I’m getting studdering when I move and animations happen. Meh. Though I wonder if the second thing can be easily fixed with a restart of my computer.

So I guess either I’m going to be forced to do away with some cool addons, or wait for them to be updated. Because there’s also the chance the author(s) is(are) inactive.

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EDIT: It seems all but one of the addons I use is still working. Also I’ve been informed that the devs actually had the API released to the addon devs months before the release. So they had plenty of time to update.
Did find a replacement for said addon. Works fine with the patch.

There’s also another issue. It seems it’s now harder to solo even normal mobs. When they do that really annoying knife throw thing (whatever it is), all classes are supposed to have the chance to interrupt it. However, interrupts seem to be somekind of RNG bullshit now instead of being based on the tooltip (where it shows no “has a ##% chance to interrupt casting” listed anywhere).
In other words, I think they just made leveling up as a Veteran even harder. Though it seems not everyone is phased by this. Maybe they’re having too much fun ganking people at the Imperial City.
Or maybe it’s just me. I dunno. It is taking the same speed to kill someone, and I am in need of a desperate upgrade (still using the Level 40 gear given to me by the second guild I joined(All-Star Crafters)).

I have ‘defeated’ Molag Bal today! Yet why is it in quotes? If you don’t mind being spoiled (or have played the main questline fully), just click the spoiler in this post.
If not, then don’t. It’s that simple.

Now, the area I thought I was screwed and felt I was forced to do dungeons? Actually I wasn’t. Infact, you’re supposed to quest here normally. There were Level 44 quests that helped me get up to 45. Yet I never got my Level 45 single player questline until 48 (which is my current level at the time of this post).
It had me gathering allies for the city (and also getting to these two areas to the West and East of Coldharbour). After I did, we arranged a War Council on how best to deal with Molag Bal (as a window of opportunity had opened up). But there was a sad, yet known thing when it comes to waging wars; there will always be casualties.. and we lost a lot of brave men and women (even several old quest NPCs).
But their sacrifice didn’t go in vain. None of them did. Especially during the final battle with Molag Bal.

It was nothing like I’ve done in WoW. It wasn’t a copy of the Molten Front. I do like this. Yet I just wish the Groundskeeper didn’t say what she did by acting like, this is my base of operations.

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So anyway, the game actually gives the player something to do after the main questline. And it doesn’t involve gearing up or raiding, but starting the questline as another faction. Basically what I said before. Yet it seems to start as early as Level 48. Yet when I arrived, everyone’s at V1 (Veteran 1), or Level 50. I should be able to take on these enemies.

Though I’m not sure if I should. After what I (my char) went through, wouldn’t he just want to go to a bar in Windhelm, invite everyone that helped him to defeat the Prince of Schemes and drink Mead to the ones that didn’t make it?
A long rest would be nice. Instead my character’s all “Actually, I’m bored. I wanna do more!”

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Well, I feel like personally taking a break. Head back to Skyrim (maybe even play the 1,000 years in the future version).

So, Molag Bal, the ‘Prince of Schemes’ as he’s known, has done more damage to Nirn than we ever knew. He’s caused ESO:TU to not work!
Or so I want to believe, and not an apparent DDoS attack on their Megaservers. What’s funny is the company is downplaying this, stating that “some” players are having issues connecting. From what I’ve seen, they need to go back to Sesame Street and learn that ‘some’ isn’t 100k people who cannot connect.

What’s happening is my latency just suddenly shoots up to 999 at times(normally it’s around 97-105). When I saw it, I was pretty sure there was a DDoSing going on.

Hopefully they do maintenance and get this shit fixed soon. Though it looks like it won’t be done by tonight. Oh well. Might as well head to bed early. I have confidence they’ll fix this.

So I’m done with The Rift. Got to see Riften in its prime. Place seems… strangely legit. They actually arrest people for doing black market activities, instead of endorse.
The Black-Briar Meadery on the island west of Riften, never existed in the past. It’s a place for Bards (I guess before Solitude found a place for them). Also, the Riften Sewers aren’t a thing back then. Neither was the Honeydew player house. And of course the layout of Riften wasn’t the same.

Anyway, that’s just 1/4 of the purpose of this post. The other 3/4, as I said I’m done with The Rift. Which means I’m done with all of Tamriel.. or so I thought. I’m now in Coldharbour, in a place called the ‘Hollow City”. I got a tour of this town that used to be a part of Nirn, by a woman called ‘The Caretaker’ who claims to be my adviser to help me gather an army to defeat Molag Bal (and get my soul back). It feels like an instance of The Molten Front in Cata, as I see other players running around. If I didn’t, it would feel like the Garrison from WoD.

But I’m in trouble. I’m Level 44 now, and the only quest available to me is Level 48. That’s four levels above me. I asked my Guild for advice, and they tell me my only hope is to do all the dungeons in Tamriel I’ve been avoiding. They claim I just have to do each of them one time. This would give me a Skill Point and lots of XP. But this also means… being forced to get a PUG. Ugh… yet why, when I’m in a Guild? Why can’t they help me with this?
Well, I can join up to 5 guilds. I’ve joined two already. I could look for a dungeon guild where they won’t mind to carry me through these, and help me level.

There’s other ways of gaining XP, but I’ve pretty much done all of them. I’ve explored all the areas of my faction. I’ve completed both the Fighters and Mages Guild questlines. I’ve done all Public and Solo Dungeons. I’ve done all available quests. Really, my only hope is to do what I don’t want to do; Group Dungeons.

Ahh.. Skyrim. Best Elder Scrolls game ever(because dragons). Yet this is Skyrim… 1,000 years ago before the second coming of the Dragon Wars(more like one man slaughtering dragons and absorbing their souls and spending them to power his dragon-like abilities… and no, I don’t mean Mirrak from the Dragonborn DLC).
Still, seeing this land some time after the Dragon Wars is quite nice. Yet it seems (to me) there are a lot more dragon burial mounds than I remembered. Perhaps these are where the unnamed “Dragon” and “Blood Dragon” ones popped up in the far future.

Still would be fucking shit my pants epicness to do a quest that causes a dragon to rise out of one of the mounds… and you hear those kickass dragon battle songs. 😀
Anyway, focusing at the Skyrim in the past. The music is quite lovely, but it’s not Skyrim’s original soundtrack. That’s pretty sad.

Seeing Windhelm in the past was…interesting. It looks absolutely nothing like the one in Skyrim. It’s cleaner and more friendly… a lot less murders going on, anyway. The creepy kid trying to summon The Dark Brotherhood to get revenge on the bitch that runs that horrible orphanage, isn’t there (as he hasn’t been born yet).
Also, I think I met the first Stormcloak (before Ulfric) as the Thane of the place. Mara Stormcloak is her name. It’s only fitting for her to be in Windhelm, as that’s the Stormcloak HQ in Skyrim.

I got to see a few landmarks similar to Skyrim, such as Kynesgrove (I nearly pissed my pants). Instead of seeing a woman running up to me, yelling “There’s a dragon! It’s attacking!”, I did a quest to stop some witches. It ended up at the first dragon burial mound that Alduin resurrected the named dragon. Location was spot on. Yet as I said, this was a millennium ago. Alduin is banished by the Elder Scroll which ended the Dragon Wars(there was no Dragonborn back then to defeat him). Still, it was mind-blowing of how accurate the locations of the two are.

Still don’t understand why only two of the holds of Skyrim are accessible at the moment(for the Ebonheart Pact). Hopefully more would be in the future? I really can’t wait to see Bleak Falls Barrow 1,000 years ago, or even Whiterun(my favorite town in Skyrim).
I did get to see Skuldafn, which in the age of Skyrim is where Odahviing takes you. Was expecting to see a dragon just randomly pop in after getting there. I was sadly disappointed. 🙁
This version is different. Even the tombs, there’s no annoying sliding puzzle and tons of Dragur to kill. It looked dumbed down, and I didn’t like it. There was even a crap version of Sovengarde (yet it had the same portal you use to defeat Alduin.. minus the Dragon Priest and his staff).
There’s a secret cave that goes there. I assume that in a thousand years, this tunnel has collapsed, which is why your only option to get there is fly on Odahviing’s back.

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And it looks like I’m done with Eastmarch. Place looks to be a 30-37 zone. Now ready to head to my possibly final zone in Tamriel; The Rift(the Southeast side of Skyrim and gateway to Morrowind). Can’t wait to see Riftin. 1,000 years ago. Wonder if it’s still the thief capital in all of Skyrim.
Heard rumors The Companions are here in The Rift. At least, the old Companions from a thousand years ago. It’s just so very wild. It almost makes me wanna play Skyrim and say “My great-great-great-great (etc) grandfather was here! He saved this town from (threat to town here). He was so brave, even though I remembered my grandfather who fought the Oblivion Wars, told me that he sucked at gear choices.”
Or “Oh wow.. I remember there was a town here in ESO:TU! Now there’s nothing here. Amazing what has happened in 1,000 years.”

And who knows? Hopefully as the game ages, maybe we will have a special plaque we can install in Skyrim that shows the name of our great grandfather/grandmother who fought for our freedom. Like, where they eventually died of old age. Because really, you don’t expect your character in ESO:TU to live a thousand years, right?
This just feels like, you’re playing Skyrim and you discovered an ancient ruin by the Dwarfs (that just got unearthed about 20 years after Alduin’s defeat… more like something you downloaded). You go in, kill several standard constructs, and discover what looks like some kind of ancient time machine. You find the piece that powers it and you see what looks like you from 1,000 years in the past.

I’ve been playing too much Far Cry 4 lately, and I wanted to go back to ESO:TU. First off, I have officially surpassed my Argonian DK main. And my Nord Sorcerer (new character. I wanted more of a ranged class) is my new main. Currently Level 27 right now.

I’ve also learned a thing about the ‘Veteran’ mode of once you hit Level 50. Normally in Skyrim, that’s the level cap. But in ESO:TU, Veteran Mode kicks in. What it is, is basically 50+. See, you continue to level. But all mobs get scaled to this new ranked level system as your player progression. So it’ll be like Level 1 again, except different.
The only difference, and this is to be expected, is it’ll take much longer from to get from Veteran 3 to Veteran 4, compared to Level 3 and Level 4. Also, you’ll be able to go to all playable areas of the game. This means you can quest on the Daggerfall Covenant side while still being part of the Ebonheart Pact.
Yet here I was thinking this “Veteran” mode meant that mobs would be 3x harder to kill (like Terraria’s ‘Hardmode’). With a name like ‘Veteran’, that’s what I had assumed. I’m quite relieved that’s not the case. Now getting Veteran mode in the future, is actually a welcomed thing to me.

Though personally, this whole “Veteran” leveling system is a dual-edged sword. On one end, you’re pretty much simulating going past Level 50(as in, the difficulty doesn’t change; this isn’t like Hardmode in Terraria). On the other, it’s actually a more realistic, smarter system. Because to say you’re Veteran 50 is actually better than saying you’re Level 100.
However, they’re planning to remove the Veteran leveling system for good once this Imperial City DLC is released. It will be called “Champion Points” instead. And the way I was told, it sounds like they’ll be doing a similar system as Guild Wars 2’s DLC. Where instead of traditional leveling, you gain XP to boost your char.

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Anyway, that’s about all I’ve learned. This new info I learned about the whole Veteran thing and it not being anywhere as bad as I envisioned it, to me warranted a post.

EDIT: I’ve learned more about the Veteran ranking system. I made a thread on the official forum, and got told quite a lot;
-The Veteran level cap is 14(which would be Level 64 if my math is correct). They plan to raise it to 16 soon.
-To explore the other factions’ zones, you must unlock them in a specific order. They are ‘Silver’ and ‘Gold’. Silver is the Daggerfall Covenant, and Gold is the Aldmeri Dominion. However, it’s different if you’re not part of the Ebonheart Pact.
-A zone called ‘Craglorn’ opens when you hit Level 50/Veteran 1, however.. you must be at least Veteran 11 to participate.
-Apparently the ‘Champion Point’ system is already in the game. I know absolutely NOTHING what I’m reading about it… thought it would be like Guild Wars 2.

Though the term ‘Silver Pledge’ or ‘Gold Pledge’ was never explained. My guess, is this is a way to get lots of VP(Veteran Points replace Experience at Level 50).

Been watching Heelz’s videos since I subscribed to him. I had unsubscribed to everything WoW-related since I left the game back in March of this year.
Anyway, there’s a few things I wanted to go over to get off my chest. None of these are to bash Blizzard, by the way. I actually wish them luck with Legion, and hope they don’t fuck it up too. Consider this a drama-free WoW post for once.

1. Flying in Patch 6.2.2.
2. Legion’s “maybe possible” release date.

First, flying. Two months ago, Heelz released a video on how to prepare for this questionable, pointless patch coming early next month (if it does get released). Several months ago, Blizzard announced a way that flyers would have what they want, which is simply to fly in Draenor. However, you have to go through living hell. Much hell.
Heelz’s video goes over such hell. It has nothing to do with dungeons or raiding. It has to deal with how far until your sanity cracks.
First, you must explore every zone in Draenor(before Patch 6.2). Easy to do. Second, you must collect 200 treasure chests. Third and forth have to do with 6.2, and this is what would literally drive you insane. You must complete.. every. single. Apexis daily. That includes the Group ones.
Finally, you must get Revered status with all factions in WoD. And guess how you get rep? Yep… Apexis Crystals! So after you get this done(and you don’t end up blowing your brains out with a pistol beforehand), then you can fly… in 6.2.2.

Call me crazy, but I was actually considering doing it until I heard I had to do every Apexis daily. And the rep… it’s not fucking worth it. It really isn’t. Because, where are you going to go when you get your wings? There’s really no point! And Blizzard knows this. That’s why they’re doing it, to test just how desperate people want to fly. I’m not THAT desperate, especially my pure hate for Apexis grinding!

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Moving on… we talk about a ‘maybe possible’ release date for the Legion expansion. Heelz believes that they’re going to base it around the time of the Warcraft Movie release. Because that movie is WoW’s saving grace. And an interview with a game company, pretty much confirms it(in ways). So, there could be a maybe possible release by either the end of April or sometime in July of 2016. When this is released, is actually very critical of WoW’s survivability.
If they do it before the release of the movie (and the expansion is also shit), WoW’s pretty much dead.
But if they do it after the release of the movie, the movie would help make potential new people see how awesome WoW really is and look forward to the expansion. And in turn, reduce if not undo sub loss.

Though personally, I doubt the movie will save the game. If Blizzard doesn’t do something in the favor of players(as in a Patch 6.3 with good content that isn’t more Apexis grinds), they might as well say goodbye to the king of MMOs.

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That is all I can say that doesn’t involve bashing them. Because…what’s the point anymore? The damage has been done, and I think Blizzard has finally learned their lesson in not listening to their community(at least, I really..really hope so). All they have to do is fix this mess with a surprise patch that isn’t more grinds, and they just might get their sub numbers to rise by Q3 of this year.
The ball is in their court. It’s up to them if they decide to use it to save their game. I really can’t believe I’m talking like this, but it’s true. Subscription numbers aren’t assumptions, they’re facts.

I didn’t have time to refill the popcorn dispensers from last night to hear more gooey, delicious drama in the pipes (when it comes to WoW and Heelzvsbabyface). But this is why I really like his videos. He too is tired of the BS of Blizzard, yet also still like the game for what it was.

However, this discussion is different. You see, Heelz in his video feels that the devs are telling the WoW community to back off and even showed an image of what they said. Yet when I read it thoroughly, they didn’t really seem they were blaming the community for the screw-up that was WoD. They actually seem to blame themselves for over-hyping the expansion, saying “we released way too much info during BlizzCon 2013. We will make sure this doesn’t happen again”.

It seems like a continuation of that tweet that I got from that one dev, saying how they hate cutting content. This seems to prove what was said. So… I don’t really see how they’re telling the community to “back off”. More like, chill… even though I won’t be one of the millions that’s playing half-finished content for many months.
Yes, they didn’t finish WoD. Technically it’s still in beta. And they also never apologized for ignoring beta testers.
Yet… all we can do is hope that this ‘Legion’ expansion won’t suffer the same fate. If they’re smart and actually listen to feedback this time, then it could be pretty good and possibly even be worth re-subscribing to. It would definitely regain that confidence they so desperately need right now.

So yeah. This post was going to be full of hate. But now, there’s really no need.

Starts by passing out popcorn to all the cardboard cutout people that he has set up to watch his blog, as they’re the only ones that “watch” it
What a day it’s been. Glad it’s over. So I’m one year older. Too bad I’m not anymore wiser to boot. I still refuse to give up a fight(even though more than less times it’s pointless to continue fighting). All day yesterday, I’ve been getting Skype messages from some of the people I know on the MRT to wish me a happy birthday.
That’s the good part. The rest was “kind of good but meh”. And then there was the “I wish I could go back in time and stop myself from doing that” part.

There was also a matter of 1/4 of my keyboard’s keys suddenly dying on me this morning. My 5, 6, -. =, and keys were not working. Plus I couldn’t copy-paste anymore. Very frustrating.
So I’m using an old backup keyboard(that still works) where the / and P keys sometimes don’t work until I’m forced to pop them off and fix the pressure thingy inside where it’ll be in the middle again, for the keys to function normally. And I have to do that several times a day. Don’t know why. But it’s better than not having it work at all.

After I got that done, I tried to get my favorite resource pack to work on the MRT. Apparently using any Optifine version that’s not for 8.0 specifically… causes the client to crash for NO fucking reason. The crash log? It wasn’t very helpful, but it did give me some sort of reason.
Looked it up, and someone was having an issue similar with a mod. They told them to either update or remove it, and that fixed the problem. Because removing the file that’s causing the error will always “fix” the problem! So that’s when I tried an 8.0 ONLY version(the latest, which is “1.8.0_HD_U_D5”) and it went right in.

Now for the “kind of good but meh” part. Came on, and I’m all “It’s my birthday!”. The rude side of me just wants to roll its eyes and facepalm. Just felt really pathetic ‘begging’ to see Happy Birthday from people.
Anyway, I knew I probably wouldn’t really ‘celebrate’ it the way I really want to. Mainly, I wanted to celebrate it with the people I knew. And one of them even had the nerve to tell me “sorry i dont know you”. Was a bit harsh, but I shrugged it off. And then a tiny bit later, I’m being told how I’m “the god of roads” again. *rolls eyes*

Let me get to the point here. Narnia17 showed up and PM’d me, asking if this ‘ArdyDuck’ person asked me to help him with a road project. I wanted to say “Uh.. how? I’ve been gone for two weeks.” but for some reason I didn’t. Instead I questioned what exactly did this Ardy person need help with. Narnia said that Ardy had a “really big road project in need of help”.
So I decided to join in. When I got there and saw the road structure, I was immediately turned off. 6-wide highway in a rural area that doesn’t NEED to be that wide. Non-black stained clay road surface. Even the lines marking the lanes were all wrong! Yet this is EUROPE! I must think like a European.. not an American! I keep fucking forgetting, the road numbering on the server is all based in Europe. .. I’m already feeling sick to my stomach. 😛
Still… I persevered and did my best to help. Though this Ardy person was kind of a slavedriver. He seemed to not like me taking my time with placing blocks. This is why I dislike working for others. Makes me feel weak and pathetic.

That feeling continues as we’re preparing to take this road through a curve. Narnia makes it as I’m freaking out after hearing the word “curve”. Then I tell Ardy as he’s working on something else that “you’re going to need an underbelly”. And instead of respecting that I actually know what I’m talking about, he’s all “we’ll do it later”. On top of it, he wanted to take the lazy way out and fill it all up with grass instead of using pillars… meh. Whatever. Still got it done.

And then after we get the first part of the curve done (and flying around being bored), I’m asking Ardy if he has a plan to take the road (as I’m clueless where he wants it). And he says how he has the plan “inside da mind”. Not. Helpful. He did make a rough sketch where he wants the road.
We then get the other curve done. Ardy pays me for the work I did (which I never asked for) and then logs for his night. I’m actually going to come on tomorrow and see if I can help him further with this project(though I feel Narnia and I may had screwed up by accident). He may have a different road design choice than me, but at least he kept me busy doing what I really like doing on the server.

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Much later (and this is the “I wish I could go back in time and stop myself from doing that” part), I got Narnia to help me extend Ardy’s road to where it turns again(this isn’t that part, by the way). As I said, I want to help continue this project.
This.. is the part. I’m clearing out this tunnel and see how thin the ceiling of the tunnel is, and say “If Ardy was smart, he would take out this tunnel and smooth out the sides.” I say this as a “I hope he does” statement and meant no disrespect to Ardy. However, this guy named ‘MC_Dunc’ who would turn into a real pain in the ass, says “so ur saying hes not smart”.
Again, I meant no disrespect to Ardy with that statement. Even if he didn’t do what I thought was a good idea, I would be fine with it. His road. So I have to explain it to this kid, and he never responds. And in my head I’m like “well whatever” and continue with my work.

Almost a half an hour later, this new guy comes on. I’m feeling good, so I say (as a joke) “Hey, new meat. :)”. Once again, MC_Dunc steps in and says “benie thats rude”. I’m getting annoyed by this asshole, because there was a Mod on and he didn’t say one word to me. So yeah, got a backseat mod here(I actually never thought of this until the time I was writing this part).
So I PM this guy, acting like “yo what’s your deal?!” Of course I never said it like that, but you get the message. I ask him “Why are you jumping on me everytime I try to say something funny?”
Again, I’m being ignored. He’s clearly talking to others but not to me. So I pretty much threaten to tell the Admods about his attitude.
RIGHT…after I say that.. he responds! Almost as of a “NO!! Don’t tell them! I’m here!” response. He tells me how what I said wasn’t funny (to him), and how it was an opinion. An “opinion” he had to tell the entire chat instead of just PMing to me. Plus, he couldn’t had done it in a better way.
The rest of it… well…you guys don’t wanna hear that, right? You wanna hear me taking down this kid! At least… I wish it was like that. Instead… it… ok. Fuck you all. You wanna hear me cry in a corner? FINE! I fucked up! I made it worse!

I told him.. to loosen up. Because to me, he was taking it too literal. Yet when I look back(which I’m doing now and I hate myself) I could had handled it better. I should had respected his opinion. But I didn’t. I didn’t want to fall to some backseat mod trying to annoy the fuck out of me. That’s how I saw it anyway.
And it just got worse and worse to the point he was attempting to “ignore” me. And he actually thought he did. I was literally laughing my head off IRL. He was using all capital letters and stuff, just carrying on like a fool. Very humorous.

But seriously… I should had handled it better. This…this is why I will never be a Mod again. I cannot control my temper when I get super annoyed like that. When I get told off (even by my own parents), I let them have it.
Dunc did eventually calm down, after saying how “benie would not stop”. I really don’t want this conversation to EVER… happen again. And this…is another reason I’m anti-social.
Yet now I’m not sure if coming on tomorrow is such a good idea, because I feel I’m going to be forced to “talk” to the Admins about this.

Spoke to Narnia later when he asked me, if I ever wanted to be a mod again. Told him no “after what happened earlier”. And had to explain. And he says that sometimes in order to move on, is to say “I’m sorry, you’re right”. He never responded later on, when I told him how low it would feel to say that to the guy. It would make me feel, once again, weak and pathetic. Because I’ll know he ‘won the battle’. Seriously, it would. It would feel I gave up.

*sigh* Alright. I’m turning off the popcorn and drink dispensers and heading to bed. So go home!
Hopefully tomorrow will be a better day. If I just watch what I say before I actually say it, I’ll stay out of that mess again. But if I have to answer to the Admins over it… well, it’s definitely going to do the opposite of a good day. Though I doubt they would take the time to show up and talk to me about it, especially Frumple. It’s not that big of a deal.