ShawnIngram.com

Tuesday’s Topic: The Art of Fun

Posted by Shawn

In today’s society, the word fun has come to mean something different for everyone. This is apparent anywhere you go. Standing around the water cooler at the office, what Bob’s fun plans for a skydiving weekend could terrify his co-worker Joe. Although the actual definition is the same person to person, the actual events that lead to that person having fun could be the difference between black and white.

Working on the computer for hours a day, I work on developing programs with PHP, designing page layouts with CSS, managing ad campaigns on my sites, managing my photography at a bunch of different places, (and the list goes on with similar tasks). One would think the last place I would turn to for any kind of fun would be on the computer. But in addition to many of the off-computer things I find fun, I also enjoy the world of MMORPG gaming.

I was first introduced to MMORPG gaming by a consultant that I’d brought in to do some work for us back around 2000. At the time, I was playing a text based multi-player adventure game and refused to give up a game which challenged me to draw the world I was in with my mind for one that would bog down my computer with the graphics and take away my imagination. I finally caved and tried the MMORPG he had been playing towards the end of 2000. I was immediately hooked! Since then I have adventured through five different worlds (and five different beta test worlds).

Currently my family of characters live on the world of Telon (Vanguard: Saga of Heroes) where they are a mixture of adventurers and crafters. I have found that throughout the years that I have been playing MMORPGs that although the graphics are before me, the creativity of an active imagination is not robbed… There are also histories to be pondered and stories to be imagined and created even in the present. Within Telon you may find me on the Seradon server as Dartinus, Kandayael, Kitario, Kukthar, Thardon, Tordey, Domoro, or Annamael. Each has their own personality and history.. Following are snipets on a couple of them…

Dartinus Ashenblade (Dread Knight and Tailor)
As a young boy Dartinus had it rough. His family moved from their homeland of Halgarad on Telon to the deserts around the town of Lomshir when when was only a baby. The continent of Qalia was a big change for the family of lesser giants and a lesser giant boy was a BIG change to the human children of Lomshir. It is little wonder that at the age of calling, young Dartinus began to turn to the teachings of the dread knights with their dark magic and visions of war. Adorned in his mix of chain mail and plate armor, armed with his new squire’s sword and a few spells the young adventurer walked into the wilds to make a mark on the world. The question is, will the mark be for good? Or will it fall more towards his chosen career path of darkness and dread?

Thardon Ashenblade (Cleric and Armorsmith)
“What an evil place”, ponders Thardon as he exits the tomb of Lord Tsang for the fifth time in a week. Loosening the buckles on his chestplate, he lets it drop to the ground before relaxing in the thick growth of bamboo, camouflaging his presence from any wandering nearby. For the first time he notices all the blood from his comrades who, without his spells of healing, would surely have perished. He then notices for the first time since leaving the haunting tomb the continual rain as its drops begin to wash away some of the blood. “It always seems to be raining when I leave this place”, he thinks to himself. “Almost as if the gods are crying because of the desolation that is trying to take over these forsaken islands.”

Tordey(Necromancer)
Life has always been a nightmare for Tordey. Abandoned by a mother who didn’t want her as a child and not knowing who her father was, Tordey ended up in an orphanage in Tanvu. She never got along with the other children and her seething hate for everyone and everything bled through in her interviews with prospective parents. This left little to no chance for her getting away from the horrid place. Little did she know that even for the forgotten and unwanted, there was still a place for everyone in Telon’s society. Now in her thirties, looking back on those days brings a crooked smile to her face. She adoringly strokes the head of her abomination, a creature pieced together with parts harvested from the various creatures she has had to kill. Its long savage claws scrapes the huge granite boulder they are standing on as it looks up waiting for its master’s command. After she checking her quest list from the local garrison, she looks down to the forest below and after a moment spots an enraged treant. She simply points and the abomination goes off in a flurry. As she finishes the incantation of the first of many dark spells to come, she hears the battle start up in the distance. She opens her eyes and again points toward the now fighting treant as streams of complete darkness travel from her fingertips to engulf it and the powerful warmth of her spell’s energy engulfs her once again.

Tuesday’s Topic is inspired weekly by Jen Goode

Below are the MMORPGs I’ve played and/or tested… For more games or gamer gifts be sure to check out our MMORPG Gear site.

Tuesday’s Topic - Focus: Oh Where, Oh Where Has My Focus Gone…

Posted by Shawn

A good friend, Jen Goode, gave me a laugh today when I saw her thread in a newsgroup that we both belong to for her Tuesday’s Topic… Focus… Focus? What is that? It’s been so long since I’ve had any, I had to go look the word up! There were so many different meanings to the word between noun and verb, not to mention different types of verbs, that I almost lost focus and forgot about finishing this post! *rolls eyes*

Seriously though, focus is something that I am in a constant struggle with. I’m one of those folks who are constantly thinking. New ideas popping into my head at a constant rhythm. At times there are so many ideas that I haven’t had time to turn into action that the rhythm drops totally out of key and starts to sound like a chorus of one year olds banging on mom’s kitchenware with the largest cooking utensils they can hold!

For example.. Yesterday… I started the day opening up Dreamweaver to clean up some code in my CafePost plug-in to be able to adapt the administration portions to my other plug-ins which have been on the backburner for way to long (I should have focused on them long ago.. lol).. I start going through the code and I run across an IF statement for the excerpt processing and get distracted into fixing the except portion of the code.. As I’m fixing the excerpt code I run across a page talking about fixing WordPress themes to support widgets (which the theme I switched to here does not, but now soon will if I can get to focus on fixing it..) So I start digging into my theme’s code and decide that instead of hardcoding the ads into the theme, I want to use the wp-ads plug-in in order to get ad rotation and balancing.. So I go into one of my affiliate networks and start adding ads to wp-ads and decide that instead of doing that for every one of the websites in the ShawnIngram.com network of websites that I want to initially load the ads for all my partnered merchants here at ShawnIngram.com and then import them into the other site databases from here. So I get distracted from loading ads from the other three networks I belong to and start trying to figure out how to export just the wp-ads stuff. Off and on all through this, I am skimming through various “How to draw manga” type books trying to get a grasp on the techniques to draw characters to illustrate my sites. I’m also thinking of how to include the illustrations into my layouts . At the same time, I’m trying to figure out how to use CSS in different ways along with the illustrations and to eliminate old html tables. Thoughts of things to add to the myNicheShop plug-ins I am trying to develop are also struggling for mind time along with thoughts of changing the database/post interaction for CafePost and myNicheShop plug-ins… Talk about a focus train wreck..

So today, once I finish this post, my day will once again start off with the goal of opening up Dreamweaver to clean up the code of CafePost to adapt the administration portions to my other plug-ins.. With luck, and some focus… Maybe I’ll make more progress before getting distracted today. Out of all the things I started to work on yesterday, I think the only thing I finished was lunch.. :p

So here is to Jen and her Tuesdays Topic. May focus be with each and every one of us.. At least for today. lol

NOTE: Jen’s Tuesday’s Topic post about focus can be read here!

Shawn’s Ramblings: A fool and his money are soon parted

Posted by Shawn

As I sit here on the last day of March, some thoughts go through my mind. Several friends who are artists/designers are pushing a new buzz on [tag]original April Fool[/tag] featuring their artistic work on t-shirts, gifts, and other clothing items. While most designs are geared toward the classic jester type fool, it got me thinking of other uses of the term fool.

Vicki of SS Noah Christian Gifts, wrote in a recent post to fellow artists I have been humming the song “Why do Fools Fall In Love”.

Along that same thought, my first thought when everyone started with this concept was the old saying “A fool and his money are soon parted.” What do money fools do with their money? Well, they spend it - quite a few because they are in love. Kinda gets ya thinking eh?

Well as we approach [tag]April Fool’s Day[/tag] this year, what type of a fool are you this year? A happy go lucky jestery type, one in love with someone special/certain items/their money, or one who is constantly thinking of gifts they need to buy and parting with your money? Whichever type of [tag]April Fool[/tag] you are, you are sure to find some awesome gifts or things for yourself at these artist’s shops!

ShawnIngram.com Topics…

Posted by Shawn

Just a quick note that I’m looking for information to branch out the ShawnIngram.com website. Some of the things that I’m looking to add are sections for a lot of my interests. I’ve misplaced my FamilyTreemaker software, well at least the version that I need to read my research files… lol Once I can find the correct install disks, I’ll be putting all the research online that dad and I gathered before he passed away a couple of years ago.

My plans are to include my information along with related shopping links for folks who share the interest. I’ll post news on the topics as I add them!