Discussion on Mental Health

Mental health conditions are a great prevalence in our society, and in all others. Even though mental health problems seem to be just as common as physical health problems, the subjects are approached far differently. If I were to walk up to someone I know and tell them I was having a camera put down my throat in two weeks to look at my stomach, they would be understanding and supportive. However if I were to tell that same person that I go to counseling on a weekly (sometimes bi-weekly) schedule, they would likely have some hesitation about how to deal with the situation. In my eyes, both of these situations are essentially the same. I am having a camera put down my throat to try to find, and ultimately solve the problems I am having that affect my physical health. I go to counseling to try to find and solve the problems I have that affect my mental health. To me, physical health and mental health should be treated with the same amount of compassion and support because they both cause problems in the lives of those who have to deal with them. Both require help and guidance, either to cure the problem, or learn to live with it. These are just my personal opinions, but I would like to share some opinions provided by others as well. The decision to put together this blog post was fueled in part by a recent Tauren Think Tank episode (#78 - It Smells Like Wood on http://taurenthinktank.com/ ). In this episode a feedback letter was sent in to Rem and Jules that sparked up a lot of conversation. It was the story of a man whose wife struggled with mental illness and the path life took her on with treatment. There is no way for me to try to summarize that letter with the appropriate emotion involved, as just by Jules reading it, it brought tears to several people listening. This is a very powerful and inspirational story and my suggestion is, at the very least, go and listen to the end of the episode if you haven't heard it already. This letter sparked a lot of discussion in the chat room. I selected a few of those comments and am now going to share them, and reply to them with my thoughts.

Arcaynemage said: "It's not physical, not visible, so there's the "it's all in their mind" stigma. An implication that they're making it up."     ~Personally, I agree with this explanation. I think a lot of people have a hard time believing what they can't see. With physical illness, you can see what's wrong, or at the very least often times (with internal illnesses) you can see a picture of what's wrong. But there is no real way to directly see mental illness. All we see is what it does to the individual. For people who cannot grasp the idea of something being wrong that they can't see, they don't believe it to be real. The only other option for them is to believe the person is making it up, or that it is all in their mind.

Wombat1974 said: "The number of times I have heard "OH YOU JUST NEED TO CHEER UP"..."      ~This comment relates to a discussion on depression, and all forms it holds. For someone with depression (speaking from personal experience as this one is common in other members of my family) they CANNOT just cheer up. And if they could, they would. One of my relatives does not enjoy dealing with depression so badly that she sometimes can't get out of bed for days. This isn't something she wants. And for her, she has seasonal affective disorder (SAD) on top of the already severe depression she deals with on a regular basis. For those who don't know, SAD is a disorder where depression either results, or gets worse, at a certain time of year - every year. For many this occurs in the fall and winter months because of the lack of sunlight, the colder temperatures, and other factors that may be different for each individual. So for her, and for many others who deal with varying types of depression, being told to just cheer up can be a very bad thing to hear, and can make their mood even worse. Not only does it show the person doesn't understand what they are going through, but it also comes off as not caring, or at the very least not trying to understand or be sympathetic and compassionate.

Laidraphyre said: "I think people think its kinda contagious or something like that."   ~This is another viewpoint that I agree with. I think this goes back to not understanding the issues with mental illness. I'm going to share a very personal story with this one. Ten years ago when I was in elementary school, and my older sister in middle school I found out she was cutting herself, very badly. This was discovered because my sister and I were watching an episode of 7th Heaven over the summer, as we did almost every day. In this episode, one of the characters was cutting herself. After it was over, my sister showed me her arms. I refused to believe her. I didn't say anything to anybody about it and just ignored it, not because I didn't care, but because at eleven years old, I didn't know how to process what was going on. It wasn't until much later, when school started again that she was finally getting help. And once the family knew about it, things got even harder for her. I remember one time I was in the kitchen with my siblings, and my brother wouldn't go anywhere near my sister. When she asked him about it, his response was "I don't want to catch your disease." This seems like a terrible thing to say, but keeping in mind he was only 8 or 9 at the time, he couldn't comprehend what was actually going on. To me, when adults have the viewpoint of mental illness being contagious, it is the result of a juvenile mindset.

Arcaynemage also said: "It's too bad, but at least there are folks like you guys (Rem, Jules, all of you in the chat room and listening) that are willing to carry on the conversation."     ~This is a very good point. It is terrible the way mental illness is treated in society. There need to be people to talk about it, and to listen. We need to do what we can to better understand all of these problems and be supportive to those who need the support.  By talking about it, we can find that we are learning more, that we are becoming more open minded, and that we are willing to lend a hand to help where we can, even if just by sharing thoughts are forcing the conversation to continue.

Finally, this is what I said in the chat that night: "We can see physical problems. Mental problems... we can't see it. We don't know how to comprehend that which we cannot see, so we fear it and avoid it. And it's a shame."     ~Obviously I agree with this because I said it. But it seems to sum up a lot of what other people said. I hope, by forcing conversation, we can start to help people become more open minded about these issues.



And because this is such a prevalent problem, not talking about mental illness, and shunning those who deal with these struggles, I decided to carry on the conversation in Twitter, by asking this: "Hey all you smart people! I need some opinions on why you think society tends to avoid discussing mental health. I'm working on a blog post." Here is what some on Twitter had to say:

@Chris O'C said: "Political correctness. It stunts conversation about many important issues. People are so paranoid about offending someone (especially when they don't understand the matter) that the convo never starts. There's yet to be a celebrity or spokesperson to bring it to the forefront and no one's going to listen to a random doctor. And most "normal" folks that have various mental illnesses don't talk about it for (genuine) fear of being...well I dunno. Just think how most letters on TTT start. Something to the effect of "I never thought I'd talk about this..." "    ~There are a lot of good points made here. It has yet to be brought up about being afraid to offend people, but this is yet another aspect to the matter. But I think, so long as the topic is approached in a respectful manner, there is some level of understanding that you may not be trying to be offensive, but rather just trying to understand. If more respect can be brought to the people who struggle with these mental illnesses, perhaps they would be more willing to talk about it. We need to have a spokesperson for mental illness. It is a problem, and we need to make it a priority just as much as so many other physical illnesses are. To finish the sentence, most normal folks that have various mental illnesses don't talk about it for (genuine) fear of being judged, rejected, feared, misunderstood (and any number of other words). We need to have a place to be able to talk about it. TTT brings us a place to talk about it, and to bring our opinions together to try to understand each other. Having that place where you know you will be treated with respect makes it feel more safe to bring it up. I commend TTT and the moo crew for all that they do to support everyone who needs someone to lean on, for mental health concerns and anything else they are struggling with in their lives.

@RichardkurnieJ said: because we can't just fix it, we can't see it. Someone can appear fine but still have a mental illness and that scares people."     ~this falls in line with what a lot of other people are saying. It seems there is a great consensus on the biggest problems with avoiding the discussion of mental illness in our inability to see it, and the fear we have because of that.

One person, who will not be mentioned, responded with: "I'd discuss it, but, you know, society avoids it..."     ~I know who this person is, and know it wasn't intended as a serious comment but more of a joke. But it brings up a good point anyway. We don't discuss it because society avoids it. We conform to society, and what society wants. We try to keep people comfortable by avoiding uncomfortable topics. That cannot continue. In my own struggles with mental illness (not anything major) I avoided talking about it with a lot of people because I know it's an uncomfortable topic. But it's uncomfortable because we don't talk about it. Let's get the conversations moving, and continue to talk about it. We must do our best to make it known what's going on, the struggles we face, and the help we need. My first step in opening up about what I'm going through was in sending a series of letters to TTT. Through talking with them, I found the support of an amazing community of individuals willing to listen. And sometimes that's all we need.

@RealKareemAli said: "I think the biggest reason is the stigma attached to it. Part of that is due to a lack of understanding on what it is and how to deal with it mainly but both those affected by it and those who know people affected by it. No one wants to be called crazy or be around those who they view sometimes incorrectly as crazy and unstable. It threatens what's considered the norm and also requires some thought and consideration. And ignoring it is one way to avoid looking in the mirror IMO"     ~This brings up a very touchy topic... the words 'crazy' and 'unstable'. These are words that are often times put upon people who suffer from mental illness. All this does is make the problem worse. Nobody wants to be called crazy. It hurts. This response also brings up two major reasons why we tend to ignore mental health: there's an uncomfortable stigma, we don't understand it, so we refuse to look at it.

@xsinthis said: "It's a bit of a taboo, and it makes people feel awkward, they'd much rather ignore it than confront it"      ~this is yet another good point. It is unfortunate that it is a taboo subject. It reminds me of years ago when women who got pregnant outside of wedlock were sent away to live with someone else for a year so no shame would be brought to their families. And like so many other things in the past that have been taboo that now are not. I just hope that someday, and someday soon, mental illness is something we can talk about instead of ignore.

@applecidermage said: "I believe a lot of why people don't discuss it is because societally we perceive it not being "real" When in fact it's on the same level as having diabetes or heart disease. It's a real thing with your brain. It's also frequently stigmatized as only a thing "bad", abusive or violent people have. People with mental illness are characterized in a myriad of ways - lazy, weak, emotional, etc. There's also a cultural belief that being emotional in general means you are weak or irrational (esp in case of women.)"     ~This brings up a number of good points. As I mentioned previously, mental illness should not be treated any differently by society than any physical illness can be. Furthermore, the number of stigmas placed on those with mental illness is part of the overall problem, and personally I feel it falls back into the fear that many seem to have about mental illness.

@azerrah said: "in my opinion mental illness is one of the least understood things. There is so much to learn about how the mind works. When the system fails to treat those who suffer, bad things happen. After that, all people who suffer with illness are painted with the same brush and people ASSUME everyone is out to do bad things. People then fear the unknown as well as the person who suffers the illness. It's not understood nearly enough."      ~this again is going back to a lack of understanding and a fear. But it also further emphasizes on the point of stigmas and stereotype. With the current accepted view of mental illness, we are not letting those who suffer be individuals, but rather a mold that we chose to see. We're not giving them a chance to let us see the person beneath the illness.The majority of people with mental illnesses don't let it define them, and we shouldn't define them by it either.

@Mistapankake said: "Well we know the brain works and the different parts of the brain but we don't know exactly how or why it works. We don't know why we are sentient, why we have a soul, a conscience and it scares us. When something is a little different from the norm, well that scares us too. But when you add something that is constant but completely incomprehensible and the extra little stimulus of say of mental illness it scares the hell out of us. And how it has been said 'out of sight, out of mind' . We try to ignore it so we don't have to deal with it and try to understand it. We just hope it goes away and that is wrong, utterly and completely. We need to try and understand and help those who need it"    ~As soon as I read this, I knew it was going to be the final comment from others in this post because he does a fantastic job of essentially summing up everything else that is written here. We don't know, so we get scared, so we hide. And that's not okay. It never will be okay.

Friday night, I was watching Batman Begins, and one line really struck me and I wanted to be sure to mention it in this post. Thanks to mistapankake, this is the perfect place to do so. That line was: "this is a world you'll never understand, and you always fear what you don't understand." That one sentence, I completely agree with. However, the one thing we need to consider is that just because we don't understand it, and just because we fear it, doesn't mean we have to avoid it. We need to have the courage to deal with it anyway. Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the ability to face those fears. So, lets join together and build up the courage to face our fears and try to truly understand the struggles people with mental illnesses face on a daily basis. Let's give them a friend to confide in, a hand to hold, and a should to cry on if they need it. Let's be a community that helps build people up, instead of breaking them down. 


If you don't know what to do, or how to start a conversation, or how to help, check online. There are a ton of resources for helping individuals with mental illnesses. Here are just some of the resources that I have found:
http://us.reachout.com/facts/factsheet/supporting-someone-with-a-mental-illness
http://www.time-to-change.org.uk/talk-about-mental-health/tips
http://www.schizophrenia.com/family/60tip.html    <--- this one says it's for schizophrenia, but don't disregard it as a lot of the tips apply for just about any mental illness. 

If you would like to be a part of this conversation, PLEASE share this post, and share your thoughts in the comments or elsewhere. If you want to directly share thoughts with me, you can find me on Twitter at @JennMorton01 or just post something in the comments and I'll see it. This is something we need to be talking about and bringing awareness to. Join the conversation and help start the change we need to see.
 

BlizzCon Week!

This post would be far more exciting if I were actually part of Team Blizz Con instead of Team No Con, but I'll take what I can get. It was still BlizzCon week, and no matter where any of us were, there were so awesome things brought into light about the future of Blizzard games. That being said, here is the summation of my week, which got far better as it went on:

Monday: Yeah, Monday sucked. I got to level 41 which was pretty cool, but then I got stuck and impaled myself on a tent pole accidentally, as you can see here: https://twitter.com/JennMorton01/status/397507979466924032. There were a number of attempts made to get myself unstuck, most of which were obviously unsuccessful. I tried leaving the game and logging back in. It kept disconnecting. This is when I found out that Blizzard was having problems and it wasn't just me. Once I finally got back into the game, I was still stuck (as I very much expected to be). My next attempt was to run dungeon. So I spent five minutes sitting in a dungeon finder queue, then while in the dungeon managed to get another achievement. Once finished with the dungeon, I was still stuck. So I went into the help menu and used the "stuck" option and was supposed to be teleported to the nearest graveyard. Instead, I was teleported to the starting zone and had to find my way back which took for ever, and a few flights. Through all of these random flights and what not, I decided to try some pet battles. It's far less exciting that past reading made it out to be, and I hope I can find the fun in all of it soon. Eventually I made it back to where I was. In between all of this nonsense when I kept getting disconnected from the game, I decided to spend some time playing Hearthstone. To sum up: four losses, two wins, and two dailies.

Tuesday: I am going to have a hard time keeping my post topics from running into each other with this one, so I will say as little as possible. I didn't do any game play until after Agents of SHIELD and that episode may or may not have made me cry. It was by far the best episode thus far, and I cannot wait to talk about it in my next SHIELD post in two or three weeks (for thoughts on the first four episodes, see my earlier post: http://wownewbie01.blogspot.com/2013/10/agents-of-shield-16.html). So, after SHIELD I played Wow, hit level 42, earned two new abilities and opened two dungeons. And then my character must have gotten drunk, or forgot to put his land legs back on after getting out of the water because he kept listing lazily to the left while walking. It got annoying so I stopped playing.

Wednesday, I didn't do a damn thing. Thursday, I spent about an hour leveling with my leveling partner. In all honesty, I still feel dumb and slow because I get lost a lot and forget to finish quests and what not. But there were three things I learned: one- plump vermin burp to attack. two- cart travel is fun. three- I am a very, very bad tight rope walker.

Friday. BlizzCon day one. I unexpectedly had off work, which was awesome. I spent my entire afternoon glued to Twitter for BlizzCon news. There's no reason for me to sum up all of the news here, because if anyone is actually reading this blog and cares about Blizzard stuff, there's a damn good chance they've already heard the news elsewhere, several times. But here's a few highlights and the thoughts I have on them:
-There's a new expansion set to be released sometime in the future entitled Warlords of Draenor. Some features that I think will be fun: automatic character to 90. As someone new to WoW, this is exciting for me. I have every intention of creating a character specifically for the expansion and leveling it to 90 so I can start something at the same time as everyone else is starting something. Then I won't have to be the only one learning new stuff. I'm also looking forward to the player Garrisons. I think this will be a fun new feature to the game. I can't give an opinion on the whole time travel thing because I don't know enough about the game as a whole right now. As a final note, I believe Remghar's name suggestion is far better. If you don't know what it is, listen here: http://stormridecast.libsyn.com/the-rem-and-phytt-show-2-blizz-con   OR you can listen to TTT's new episode here: http://taurenthinktank.com/podcasts
-Hearthstone News: The most exciting piece of Hearthstone news for me was the announcement that they will create Hearthstone for compatibility with iPhone and Android devices. Given that Friday morning I was wishing I had that option, I was pretty stoked to hear the announcement that my wish would soon come true.
-And finally, then announcement of a new game, Heroes of the Storm. I assume most of us are already signed up for the beta, so now it's just a matter of time.
Friday afternoon, I took a break from twitter to play WoW and hit level 43 (still with the goal to get to 45 by the end of the weekend.)

Friday night was Rem and Phytt Show live. Phytt was brutally honest, people got pissed and left the chat room, Rem came up with an awesome new name for the expansion, they got drunk, it was hilarious. Also, we discussed my presence at ConnectiCon and a wing challenge (though that was post show). If you want to know more about their thoughts on BlizzCon and the new announcements, listen to the show! (The link is above)

Saturday: Level 44 in WoW, and opened a new dungeon. I ate lunch while playing Hearthstone (lunch of champions... hot dogs and tater tots!). I played a Mage deck in the arena then lost, three times in a row. After that, I had no gold left so I went into play mode. My only win was due to an opponent giving up the second the match started, for whatever reason. After that, I lost two more times, then I gave up because of how terrible I was doing.

Saturday night was a live TTT, as usual, but with a lot of unusual guests! Jules was at BlizzCon so a lot of people were able to stop in and say hi! It was a great recap of BlizzCon and all that is to come. Then they blue screened at the end of the show. But, what made it even better was post show. There were drinks had by Rem and Phytt, and a few in the chat room. Myself, I was drinking spiced rum. Two people called in and chatted with the guys. I was one of those two people. I talked with them for almost an hour. It has been decided that I am definitely going to ConnectiCon, barring some horrid mishap between my college graduation and then. It has been decided that they disprove of me attempting to eat 50 hot wings, but will encourage me to eat at least 30. It has also been decided that they have almost free reign over deciding my cosplay (but they better figure it out soon). Furthermore, my wing eating attempt... it will be recorded, no matter what we have to do to make that happen. I will prove to those guys that girls can eat wings too, and eat more than they can! Oh, and the guys and the chat room encouraged me to put a post up on BecauseofWoW to explain all of the things that have happened to me in the past couple of months.

Post post show, myself and TehKnuck decided to run a dungeon. I was very drunk. It was fun. I got lost a few times, died twice, and overall just had a freaking blast with it! Also, I can't read half of my notes because trying to take notes, while running a dungeon, while drunk, is not the easiest thing in the world.

And finally, this morning, Sunday morning, I made my post on BecauseofWoW. Here is my story: http://www.becauseofwow.com/archives/719#.UoFSAeKI0po. Personally, I think that BecauseofWoW is absolutely incredible and Jules deserves so much praise for it. This creation of hers is a great way to bring this awesome community so much closer together!

Regardless, BlizzCon week was a blast, even for TeamNoCon and went out with a bang!

WoW, Hearthstone, and Halloween Games

Holy crap what a week. This is a somewhat overdue post, but there is so much to say.

Last Sunday, after posting my last blog, I played WoW. I hit level 38 and unlocked a new dungeon (yay), and reached the achievement of 250 quests completed (double yay). I also wanted to try pet battles, but I couldn't figure out where the trainers were. I posted something in Twitter about it and got the answers I was looking for! Later that evening I decided to play a bit of Hearthstone. As you may know, I have spent a lot of time trying to beat Paladin to unlock all races and to be able to move into arena mode. Well, with a priest, I FINALLY beat paladin. I then made a custom mage deck with an Expert Mage, and managed two wins. I then went into play mode where I lost twice and one once (evening total of three wins and two losses). I also completed two dailies which gave me more gold. The rest of my evening was spent studying and working on some personal projects.

Monday, I was having an absolutely miserable day and wanted to play WoW just to have an escape from life for a while. Thanks to the help I got from Twitter on Sunday about pet battles, I was able to find a trainer and get started on pet battles, though I didn't get very far. After that, I went back to working on some personal projects. My Hearthstone time on Monday was my first time playing in the arena. I learned that the arena deck fyou create expires after you lose three games. This has its good and bad aspects. Obviously, if you create a terrible deck, you have a very quick turn around before creating a new deck. The downside is if you really like a deck, but things just don't play out well, you would have to completely recreate that deck again. In arena mode I won twice, lost five times, and completed one daily.

Tuesday: Maintenance Day. Not cool. I never like maintenance day. This week was even worse though because my first class had gotten cancelled and I had so much time in the morning to do nothing. Instead, I spent this time catching up on some podcasts (specifically the season finale of The Lockhead Journals and Flex Mode #1). Later that day, I came across a wonderful thing: Steam Sales! Specifically, Halloween game Steam sales. I bough four games for just over $10.00. Those games are: Alice- Madness Returns, Ghostbusters- Sanctum of Slime, Home, and Sherlock Holmes- The Awakened. After this purchase, I was very much hoping of making a blog post specifically about my new Halloween games. Unfortunately, this couldn't happen because I am having some compatibility issues with Steam working on my new laptop and working with Windows 8. The only game that I have been able to get to work thus far is Home which is a 2D game that is highly text based. You walk through with a flashlight, so you can only see so much at one time and the purpose at the beginning is to try to figure out where you are and what's going on, and who the dead bodies are. There are interactive objects where you can select them, then with a lot of things select what you do with them. For example, do you pick up the knife, do you keep the photo, do you keep the gun, etc. There is a lot of reading to be able to underestand what is going on, but it's fun. The game is also really creepy. There are bats in the dirt cellar, noises of water dripping, bloody cages in corners, corrosives in jars, blood caked shelves, and old items that the main character thought he and his wife had thrown out years ago. I didn't play this game too much, but hope to go back to it soon as it is a lot fun. Later, in the evening, I played Hearthstone, but was having another really bad day so I wasn't putting any effort into playing but was just using it as a break from life. In arena mode, I lost ten times, and won zero. However, I did figure out the discrepancy between the gems on the cards. White gems are common cards, blue gems are rare cards, purple gems are epic cards, and orange gems are legendary cards.  Finally, Tuesday night I received yet another Hearthstone beta key. Since I had no use for it, I decided to give it away on Twitter. The task was simple: to be entered, you had to retweet my post, and then comment on it and tell me your favorite thing about Halloween, and I would pick a winner at random on the night of Halloween. Surprisingly, there were a number of people who missed the second step so did not actually get entered.

I don't seem to have any notes on Wednesdays goings on, so I must not have played Wednesday (honestly, I don't remember). On Halloween, I played Hearthstone between my classes and the volunteer work I was doing for Halloween. I lost, four times. After my volunteer work was over (far earlier than expected because apparently Halloween is very different in cities) I started a new character in WoW with a leveling partner. I now play a Pandaren. I got lost a lot, and am definitely not familiar with the area. My leveling partner was very nice and helpful though which helped a lot. I am very much hoping I get better at all of this soon. It's kind of embarrassing to get lost and be wandering when I am supposed to be leading.

On Friday, I bought a Humble Bundle with nine games for $6.00. I haven't played many of them yet though. On Friday, I also spent over two hours working on my personal project and am so excited to share it in a few months when it is finished. Before I went to bed, I jumped into WoW for a bit. As soon as I got into the game and had time to relax without needing to focus so much, I got incredibly tired so I only played for 15 minutes and nothing exciting happened. After that, instead of going to bed, I decided to play some of my Humble Bundle games. One of the games is Worms Pinball. The beginning graphics are incredible annoying, I couldn't figure out the controls at all, and they weren't listed anywhere in the game menu. So I gave up on that game. The other game I started playing was Superfrog HD. In that game, the opening credits suck, but they do a good job of introducing the story. It is very similar to Mario's storyline, but with aspects of children's stories. There is a prince and princess that are in love. The witch gets jealous and turns the prince into a frog, and separates the prince and princess. The frog prince then has to find out how to get back to the princess. This game is a lot of fun and is very much like Mario games.

Saturday was a rough day for me. I played WoW for about 20 minutes before leaving for an induction ceremony for an International Honors Society I was invited to join. AFter the ceremony, I played some more WoW. I hit level 39, unlocked a new dungeon, and then went back to doing school work around 4pm. Around 9pm I played WoW for a bit, hit level 40, unlocked two new abilities, a new dungeon, and a new feature. I also got to congratulations from the guild. Saturday night, I had an awesome idea for a blog post that I am looking forward to working on and hopefully posting around Thanksgiving, or at the latest by Christmas. And finally... the end of my Saturday night. As with every week, Tauren Think Tank started at 10pm and I listened live. This show was absolutely hilarious. Furthermore, I sent in some food for a Tauren Taste Tank, and caused a few upset stomachs, and an incident that almost involved some puking. But all in all it was fun and I can't wait for part two in two weeks. After that, I stayed up to listen to a new Azeroth Roundtable live which was a lot of fun too.

And finally, Sunday. I was so busy with school work this weekend that I didn't do anything fun until about 6:45pm. I played Hearthstone and didn't have enough gold to get into arena mode so I was stuck playing in play mode which was a problem because there were errors with getting into the game. There was also a few glitches that went away on their own. I won three times, and lost five, and had two opponents give up, one of them by the 5th turn. I wanted to post all of this last night but just didn't get to it.

And now, classes have been over for several hours, I got out of work early because the executive director had things he needed to do, and this post is done. Time to get back to school work!

WoW Fun and Hearthstone Failures

My sixth week of playing WoW, and my second (I think) week of playing Hearthstone - It's kind of hard to believe after all of the resistance I had to MMORPG gaming in the past that I am so enchanted by it now.

Last Sunday, after I posted the blog, I played more Hearthstone. I was in play mode, and it kept taking so long to actually get into a game. I have heard that this is one of the problems though that they are working on, so hopefully it improves in the future. I learned that I seem to make my moves, in general much faster than my opponents. However, another downside I have noticed when it comes to Hearthstone is you can't pause the game. This, in combination with your turns being timed, makes it very difficult to play while cooking. Some of the cards are very interesting in what they say and do. For instance, the Shieldbearer card says "You shall not pass" when it is played. I very much enjoyed this little ode to LOTR. Also, the Novice Engineer card - half the time when you play the card, she says "if you're sure" and every single time it makes me doubt if I made the right decision. Overall, I won three times, and lost four. I also made a custom deck and that seemed to make things a bit better.

On Monday, I created a new event for myself that I like to call Hot Tea and Hearthstone Happiness because much of last week I was sick with a bad cough and a sore throat, so I was drinking a lot of tea and playing a lot of Hearthstone. I won twice and lost once in play mode then won once in practice mode. I also decided on Monday that I want to be able to get to a point where I am able to play Hearthstone and WoW equally throughout the week. Since I got the Hearthstone beta, I have spent far less time actually playing WoW than I would like.

Tuesday night, I played Hearthstone for about forty minutes before the new episode of Agents of SHIELD. (If you want to know my thoughts on the first four episodes, check out my post entitled: Agents of SHIELD 1/6 ). In this time, I was in practice mode trying to unlock all of the other classes. I managed to win once, and lose four times.

Wednesday I didn't play at all, and on Thursday, I lost, A LOT. I played for an hour, in practice mode, and wanted to unlock all of the classes. I only had one class left. Paladin. And I lost nine times. I didn't win at all. It sucked. Also, I learned that if you have a card that increases your spell power by 1, you might want to make sure you have a spell card to play with it. Otherwise it's just a waste.
Thursday night, I finally played WoW again after too long. I said hi to people in the guild and nobody responded which kinda sucked, but oh well - you win some you lose some. I was terribly amused by the little Halloween things sitting around. Like bobbing for apples, and jack-o-lanterns full of candy that give out, through a quest, a Handful of Treats. While I was playing, I accepted 8 quests at once when I arrived to Dustwallow Marsh. This was the most quests I've accepted at once, and I still haven't finished them all. Damn spiders keep killing me.

On Friday, I played WoW a bit more while waiting for my homemade jambalaya to finish cooking (it was amazing!) and decided to give Hearthstone a break for the day. I hit level 37 while fighting off Theramore Sentrys, and wrote down the note for that while I was still fighting them off.

Saturday I played more Hearthstone. I still needed to beat Paladin to be able to unlock the arena. I learned while playing that the corners of the game boards are interactive. You can splash the waterfalls, cut vines and plants, start fires in the campsite, etc. I tried playing a Warlock against paladin in the hopes of beating that character, and I lost, three times. Then I tried the warrior. I lost, twice. I also learned that when a card says "Deal three damage to ALL characters" it includes your own. Play that card wisely. After losing a total of seven times, I went to work on a personal project which will hopefully be unveiled in a few months!

Overall, I am a failure when it comes to beating Paladin in Hearthstone, and that's okay. If you have advice, please share because I NEED to beat Paladin!

Agents of SHIELD 1/6

There is so much that can be said about Marvel’s new show Agents of SHIELD. And so here I am to say all I can. This will be a series of blogs that spans six posts, assuming Wikipedia is correct in that there will be a total of 22 episodes. The format will simply be a synopses and review of four episodes at a time, so this will end up being posted about once a month (unless they keep making us wait two weeks between episodes like they are right now).  

Episode One (9.24.13): The pilot. Or, as I like to call it “Coulson Lives!” Yes, that is correct, Coulson survived his fight in The Avengers and lived to die another day. And now we get to sit back and watch as he develops… and scratch our heads and wonder how the hell he survived. The most cohesive explanation (thanks internet) seems to be that he faked his death as a form of motivation for The Avengers to get their shit done, and then was put into hiding (sent on a long vacation) until his next assignment – which he is currently fulfilling with SHIELD. In this first episode, we learn about the hacktivist group Rising Tide, and a key player in the group, Skye, who lives in her van. We also learn of Project Centipede, which takes humans with special abilities (like Mike Peterson in this episode who seemed to have incredible, hulk like strength – though he doesn’t turn green) and enhances those abilities to make them super human. We later learn that these human experiments being done by Project Centipede are exploding (literally, in a ball of fire) due to a glitch in their planning. The SHIELD team essentially abducts Skye for questioning after she tries to talk to Mike, and unsuccessfully tries to convince him to let her help him. Then, Mike abducts her. There’s a crazy scene where everybody is yelling and has guns, and everyone could die if just one thing goes wrong. Then the bad guys go down, Skye gets invited to join SHIELD and everyone lives happily ever after. WAIT! This isn’t Disney. That happily ever after shit doesn’t exist here. Nope, they get a call for an 0-8-4 and head on to their next task, while most disagree with Coulson about bringing Skye on board (literally, cuz they have a big ass plane that gets them around everywhere). And Lola, oh don’t get me started about Lola. She is beautiful. She’s Coulson’s car, but damn is she pretty.

**for more information on how I concluded Coulson’s ‘death’ check out: http://screenrant.com/agents-of-shield-tv-coulson-death-explained-spoilers/2/

Episode Two (10.1.13): 0-8-4. In this episode, the SHIELD team is sent to Peru to investigate an 0-8-4 (an object of unknown origin). Once they arrive, they find that it is actually a piece of Hydra technology that is powered by Tesseract energy. While in the area, they have to constantly be concerned by rebels. They eventually run into Coulson’s old ally Camilla Reyes, and her crew. They team together to obtain the Hydra technology, and fight off the rebels while rushing to seek refuge on the SHIELD plane. Once on board, and in the air, Reyes and her crew betray Coulson and try to take over, and take the Hydra technology for themselves to fight of the rebels in Peru. There is a big fight on board, the plane is brutally damaged, but the SHIELD team finally learns how to work together and utilize all of their individual skills. They win, of course. And then, scene swap: Skye gets a text from someone within Rising Tide, and she confirms her alliance to them! Jerk. And then, scene swap: Coulson is being yelled at for the damage to their plane, by none other than Nick Fury! Yes, at this moment I did, in fact, jump up out of my chair screaming (my neighbors on the third floor probably heard me) “Holy shit he’s back!!!!” Then I sat back down just in time to hear him tell Coulson that having Skye with them poses a great threat.

Episode Three (10.8.13): The Asset. Open on a truck driving down the road. All is normal. Or so it seems… until cars drive past and get blown into the air. Then the truck goes up, and comes back down, seemingly by magic. It comes to be that this truck is transporting Dr. Franklin Hall, and asset of SHIELD, who gets kidnapped by Hall’s former research partner Ian Quinn, and others with him. They are the ones that caused the cars and truck to float in the air, by a gravity device they invented. They use Dr. Hall to help them create a gravity device, called a gravitonium generator, which they plan to use to take over the world’s gravity. The SHIELD team needs to try to get into Quinn’s mansion to try to rescue Hall. Skye volunteers, and all of them are hesitant about this, until she hacks her way through getting an invitation to one of his parties. They set her up with some gadgets and gear that will allow her to help the others get onto the highly secured property. Skye ends up going into the mansion, and near Quinn’s office when she gets caught. She then tricks Hall into believing that she is really working for Rising Tide, even though SHIELD is talking in her ear. Once she gains his trust, she destroys the ear piece, and SHIELD is no longer connected to Skye. It seems that she really has betrayed them. Then, she does the right thing, manages to reset the system to allow Coulson and Ward onto the property to try to rescue Hall. And then in an interesting turn of events, Quinn turns on Skye, and tries to attack him. She finally, finally uses her physical training that she’s been getting from Ward and manages to disarm him. Then she jumps out of a window because she doesn’t have what it takes to pull the trigger. Downstairs, Hall and Coulson are in the midst of a battle, while the gravitonium generator is going all out of whack and causing the gravity in the area to go berserk. As usual, big fight ensues, and SHIELD wins … or so it seems. It turns out Dr Hall is working for the bad guys, and wasn’t truly kidnapped, because he didn’t have a problem with it. Coulson manages to get him sucked into the generator, which seems to shut it down and return the gravity situation back to normal. In the final scene however, the generator is being locked up, in a vault in SHIELD security. And then, a hand reaches out from the generator, but in the same silvery color (honestly, it reminded me of the Silver Surfer). And then the screen goes dark. We may never understand the gravity of this situation. Only time will tell which way things will be pulled. (yeah, that was a terrible pair of puns, forgive me?)

Episode Four (10.15.13): Eye Spy. Yeah, I’m just gonna put this out there… this episode was creepy as hell, but so freaking awesome. Imagine hundreds of men walking in suits, carrying a briefcase which is handcuffed to his hand, and wearing the same mask. Nobody knows who they are, where they’re going, or what the briefcase holds. Some of them board the subway, and then shit goes bad. The lights are knocked out by a girl on the train, and then when they come back on, all of the men are dead, one of them had his hand cut off, and his briefcase is missing. This is just one of numerous thefts that seem to be happening unplanned, and almost impossible to pull off, so SHIELD is brought in to investigate. They learn it is one of Coulson’s protégé Akela Amadour from long ago, seemingly turned to the dark side, all the while she had been presumed dead. Coulson doesn’t think she could turn on SHIELD but May thinks she is just being used as a weapon. May goes to investigate without telling anyone, and finds out she is being controlled by a device in her eye and if she doesn’t follow every command, she is killed. It is so bad, she even has to ask permission just to be able to go to sleep. There is a fight scene between Amadour and May, and Amadour ends up in SHIELD control while her feed is hijacked. Ward and Skye take over control of the feed, and Ward, wearing a pair of glasses that transmits all of the commands that Amadour would normally be receiving, runs through the tasks sent to Amadour. While this is happening, Fitz and Simmons are trying to do surgery to remove the eye from Amadour’s head so she will no longer have to be under their control. The highlight comedy moment of this episode was when Ward walks up to a guard office, and the resulting command is simply “Seduce Him”, proceeded by a commercial break. I absolutely lost it, finding it quite hilarious the idea of Ward seducing another man. Well, he beat the shit out of him instead. At one point during these missions, Ward makes the mistake of letting his reflection be shown in a piece of glass. It is at this point that Fitz and Simmons have to quickly cut the eye out of Amadour’s head and throw it in a bin where it promptly explodes, leaving her with one, robot-free eye. While all of this is going on Coulson is trying to find the individual transmitting the messages. When he finds the man, and reveals himself as SHIELD, the man dies at the hands of a device installed in his eye, with a fail-safe, just like the one in Amadour’s eye. Coulson promises Amadour a fair trial, and she is sent on her way. After this, the team has a little fun. Ward and Fitz are playing poker and Skye is in the other room, planning to use the glasses to help Fitz cheat. She then tells him in order to do this, she would also be seeing him naked. He gives up, and leaves the room. Skye of course uses the glasses anyway, to see Ward without clothes on. And so, they all live to see another day.

I know there is a lot of details left out of this, but I mean come on. It’s an hour long show. If I put in every single detail, I might as well just give you a link and tell you to watch the show yourself. As these episodes are aired almost every week, the next post related to Agents of SHIELD will be near the end of November. Overall, this show goes above and beyond being impressive and I cannot wait to see what is in store, and to see where Skye truly holds her alliance! (I might already know the answer to that, but I’m pretending I haven’t yet seen the fifth episode since that will be included in the second post in a few weeks).

WoW week Five/Hearthstone

This past week, I played World of Warcraft a total of one time, and that was on Tuesday. After realizing my game time had run out and I needed to buy more time, I hit level 36. And that's all that happened that was at all noteworthy.

However, I have been attempting to get a Hearthstone beta key since the beta release. On Wednesday, I finally won one thanks to Twitter. I didn't get the key until Thursday night, and wasn't able to actually play until Friday afternoon. The opening cinematography is overall great. I did have trouble though with the images and sound skipping. The voice work of NPCs is fantastic. The tutorial is a little slow at first but it is very descriptive, makes it easy to pick up the functions of the game and how to play. The first step of the tutorial just gives you one card at a time walks you through it. With this, there is only one move per turn. The second stage teaches you to use mana and lets you pick the card you want to play out of your hand. In the third step, it gets more difficult, and in the forth 'taunt' cards are introduced. These cards basically target the attacks from the opposing player. Additionally, I did not like that the only card I could start with was the murlock (after playing more though, I got over it). The fifth step of the tutorial, the verbal taunting from the opposing NPC was actually incredibly frustrating for me. Thank goodness there's a mute button! Finally, the sixth stage. It always starts (no matter if it's tutorial, practice, or play mode) with one mana crystal. I found it odd that all of my cards required two crystals or more (again, after playing more I got over it).

**And turning the page in my notes I'm following to type this, I find that my two year old sister scribbled all over them, while I was visiting, making them nearly illegible. So I'll do my best from here on out**

During the sixth stage of the tutorial, I kept getting kicked out of the game and back to the desktop screen. I couldn't figure out why for the longest time. Then I found the solution: I was using a stupid function of Windows 8 on the track pad of my laptop that takes you back to the desktop. Overall, the sixth stage was the hardest of them all. It was in this stage that I first lost. When I lost, a message popped up on the screen that said "This game is totally not fair. Blame the designers." I found this to be amusing. Through my second attempt, I did win even though I had a rough start.

After I finished the tutorial stages, I played against other players. In four attempts, I lost four times. One of them, I was very close to winning, but didn't quite make it. And to quote a movie "It doesn't matter if you win by an inch or a mile, winning is winning." Basically, yeah, I lost. Big deal.

Finally, the most wonderful aspect of this past week:
I was visiting family this past weekend as Friday was my little sister's second birthday. I decided on Sunday, after a ridiculous finger painting fiasco, to teach my six year old brother how to play Hearthstone. I figured he would just pick cards at random, or ask me which card to play. He did surprisingly well. He managed to figure the game out pretty quickly, and though I had to explain it to him in terms of points instead of health, and in terms of winning and losing instead of killing, he managed to get the hang of it pretty well. I sort of coached him through it, and though he didn't like losing, he was incredibly excited when he won and was very proud of himself. I can say I was surprised by the fact that he was actually thinking it through, and he took the time to analyze different aspects of each card. He thought about which cards he could use with the amount of mana crystals he had, and about which minions should be killed of the opposing player, etc. I have a feeling once the game is released and my parents get a better computer for their house, my brother will be playing this game more often than the once a month that I go visit and play with him. 

NYCC Day Two (Sunday)

Day two of New York Comic Con began bright and early at 6:30am. After getting ready and packing up, I was checked out of a hotel at 7:20 and on the bus back to NYCC at 8:00am. I met with a group of people at the bus station and they became great company on the bus and knew a lot about NYCC and about other comic conventions. When I got to the show on Sunday, I immediately went and got in line for the “Magic of Storytelling” panel with Lemony Snicket, David Lubar, Matthew Cody, Shannon Hale, George O’Conner, Scott Campbell, and MD Payne. I was the last person they let in, with standing room only and got incredibly lucky to get in when I did. I stayed for about 45 mintues, then went and got in line for their autographing session. I must say though, their panel was hilarious and they brought up a number of good points about Children’s Literature. My favorite aspect of their panel (aside from the jokes they made teasing each other) was their discussion on how writing about just about anything will always apply to somebody. I could go more into detail about this, and may do so in the future, so I won’t here. Their autographing line was already fairly long when I got there. After the panel ended, the line grew immensely. I felt very bad for the other authors at the signing because most people were just skipping over them to meet with Lemony Snicket. I spent time talking with the other authors and greatly enjoyed the conversations. I got all of their autographs. When I finally got to meeting Lemony Snicket, I was very excited. While another author was signing my book, he was being very goofy, and sticking his tongue near the other author’s ear. This author then said that he heard Snicket’s ear, which led to a conversation about Lemony Snicket having a highly audible tongue. It was hilarious. Then I spent some time talking with Snicket and when I thought my time with him was through, I had my picture taken with him. I moved on to Shannon Hale who was sitting at the very end of the table. During the panel, Snicket called her an empty vessel. I told her she wasn’t and somehow Snicket got involved in this conversation and asked then what she was full of. This is the conversation that followed:

Me: She’s full of beautiful! *pause* unlike you!

*Snicket and Hale both have incredibly shocked faces.* Then…

Snicket: *pulls mini notebook out of jacket pocket* I think I have something in here I can use as a comeback *flips through notebook* “Oh yeah?!”

Me: Yeah!

Yes, I verbally assaulted Lemony Snicket. And I couldn’t be more proud. It was hilarious and they all thought so too. This was a fantastic start to my day.

After this, I went and met with John Morton who played Besbin Boba in Star Wars. When I told him that we share the same last name, he was very excited. He said we could be family and started referring to me as “Cousin Jenn”. He spent a lot of time talking to me about his experiences, and our family backgrounds, then took a few pictures with me as well.

After this, I jumped over into the line to meet Jason David Frank. I stood in his line for about an hour and only moved a few steps. I was seriously considering giving up because I very badly wanted to meet R.L. Stine (and had something for him to sign for my brother). Right when I was about to give up, JDF walked the length of the line apologizing for the delay and saying he would make sure to get to everybody. The line started moving much more quickly after that. When I got closer to him, I was able to get some pictures of Sir Patrick Stewart during his signings, as well as pictures of Hulk Hogan. When I finally got to the table, I gave them my notebook, and JDF signed it, while I waited for him to be done so I could take a picture. After he signed it, he said “Hey Jenn, wanna come around the table for the picture?” So I got to stand beside him, and he addressed me by name which was pretty cool. This is also exciting for others because I’ve noticed he takes the time to be personal with his fans. It was very exciting to be able to meet people who care so much for their fans and aren’t just doing these events for the money.

Finally, I could go get in line for R.L. Stine. And then, they tell me they had to cut off the line. I was devastated, but understood as it was necessary. However, I did take the opportunity to run up near his table, through a nearly empty autographing line nearby, so I could take some pictures of him. My brother was disappointed, but he was understanding as well.

After all of this was over, I finally made my way to artist alley. I spent a great deal of time walking through and looking at different works of art. I bought three pieces that I got deals on thanks to being respectful with one of them, and bargaining for two others. Additionally, I was able to meet the tattoo artist that did an awesome tattoo of William Shatner for my aunt several months ago. I definitely wish I could have spent more time in artist alley, and wish I had more money to spend there as well. There are some very talented people, and they were very inspiring. After this, I spent some time rushing through the show floor trying to see more of it, and see what I had missed on Saturday. I still missed a lot, and some of the things I missed I very much wish I had seen. After I left the Javitz Center, I was able to take some very cool pictures of the sunset behind the center, and the moon. Then I sat in the train station very grumpy, and sick of people from being over stimulated. When I finally got to my destination, I spent 15 mintues waiting in line for a cab, then finally got home, just in time for a new episode of Tauren Think Tank.

After another long day, I finally made it to bed after 11:00pm. I took an unplanned day off Monday (most of you had off for Columbus Day but I was supposed to still have classes, which I skipped) and spent the day resting and trying to recover. Overall, New York Comic Con was an absolute blast and I cannot wait for next year!!!