Adventure of A Jawa

After a long wait the day has finally arrived. Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar officially gets released Tuesday 24th. They expect the servers to go live around noon eastern on Tuesday; which is 1AM Korean time. That Blows. So it’ll be Wednesday night before I get to play to expand my characters.

I’ve been in Beta since the end of January.

There was an offer to anyone who pre-ordered the official game to keep the characters created during “Open Beta” which started in April. They put a level cap of 15 in effect for this event. So I got two level 15 characters sitting and waiting for release so they can grow more.

I would probably of had all 5 character slots allowed on the server maxed out, but sadly during most of the “Open Beta” I was without a computer and internet connection as I moved to Korea.

My characters:

A Human Hunter named Legacy and An Elf Champion named Athena.

My intention when I started “Open Beta” was to take a Champion as my main. During Closed Beta I played a Guardian and really enjoy it. Being the “TANK” class was fun. I think Turbine did an awesome job with how they created the Guardian. Most of your offense is triggered off using a shield and being beaten to death by the enemy.

But the saying “been there, done that” comes into play. I didn’t want to re-level another one.

So I decided to go Champion. Duel wielding DPS machine class. I enjoyed playing the character to level 15 and had all intentions to continue with this character as my main.

But deep down inside “Hunter” called to me, so I deiced to level one of them to 15 and get a feel for it.

Star Wars Galaxies I was a Creature Handler. Basically I could tame pets and use them in combat. Then Sony fracked the WHOLE GAME UP…

World of Warcraft I started off with a Hunter as my fist character and got it leveled to the high 30’s before I decided to go a different path. I wanted to get into “End Game” play and realized as I hunter it would be a tough tough thing to do. Hunters in WOW could tame almost any animal they came across in the world and use it for combat.

Hunters in LOTRO cannot use pets or tame creatures of the wild. Turbine claims they couldn’t fit it into the LORE of the franchise. In Fact there are two classes in LOTRO who can have pets, Captains who can have a “Herald” to fight n buff for him. Lore-master can summons pets; but as of now you get the choice of Raven or a Bear, and later in the game an eagle. Neither of these classes appeals to me.

I think it is kind of LAME to have no real pets; but I can understand them trying to stick to LORE the best they can.

I think what appeals most to me about “Hunter” class is the Long Range combat (AKA Bows n Arrows), and in other games the taming of beast.

Something that I find ODD (Albeit with a disclaimer that I have never been apart of any others MMO release day, so I am not sure how others have done it. Plus the unique fact the characters we created during “Open Beta” can be carried over.) is that Turbine is hosting 5 launch parties at various GameStop/EB Games though out the US. Yet it does no good to get the game early.

One: The servers will be in “Open Beta” set up until they turn the servers off at 6am and bring it back up around noon with the “Live version”

Two: Turbine has given us a grace period of three or four days after “Launch Day” that we can play the “Live” version without buying the game for us who pre-ordered.

I just hope they have awesome Door Prizes :-p

Currently it’s just before 2PM Monday as I type this and I’ve been up since 8AM Sunday morning. I could not sleep what-so-ever last night at all. I tired to go to bed at 1145PM and just tossed n turned all night. My Body is protesting the non-regular sleep schedule I’ve had to partake in over the last month.

I was on normal sleep Eastern Time zone for many months up till around March 20^th.

Then I want to Pacific Time and stayed on that till I left for Korea 5 April.

That night I sleep some but not a lot, and I didn’t sleep on the 15 hour flight. I got to Korea Friday night local time and crashed and it so happened to be the right time at 13 Hours ahead of eastern.

The next week I was sleeping fine and everything was good.

Then OSAN “Exercised” and I was put on nights. So I switched to that and I didn’t have much trouble sleeping after being at work for 12 hours.

But then came the end of the “Exercise” this past Friday. I happened to have an in-processing appointment Friday at 2pm so I woke up at noon with the intent for me to go to bed Friday night and get back on the normal schedule.

But, Friday night I didn’t sleep much. I think 4 hours early Saturday morning.

Saturday night I slept with no problem.

Sunday, as I stated above I didn’t sleep a wink.

Tonight I should be very ready for sleep and hoping it will become a good routine.

For-warning: Be careful how your sleep schedule can get messed up.

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On a side note, OSAN AB, Korea does not carry Diet Mountain Dew or Diet Code Red Dew… What on Earth could be wrong with this place?

This past week I learned a valuable lesson about the “Meal, Ready-to-Eat, or MRE (pronounced “M-R-E”)”.

80% of them taste horrible. The other 20% tasted ok the first two/three meals but then they started to taste the same. The meals that have meat; “Chicken/beef/etc…” don’t taste like meat at all. Not even close. I LOVE chicken in every way. You can ask my wife. But the chicken in the MRE’s… GROSS…

The only thing good in them are the snacks/drink mixes. I enjoyed many of those during the past week instead of the meals.

It’s a lesson for next time the base has an “exercise”. Make sure I have TONS of food for the week in my room.

For some reason the base decides that during an “exercise” all chow hall facilities are closed and everything but the bank n post office is off limits to those in the “exercise”. So pretty much you work for 12 hours and are confined to your room for 12 hours. That part is not bad, its food I have issues with… Man’s got to eat…

But that is all in the past and with any luck it’ll be 4 months or so before the next one.

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Kudos to my RED SOX. Trailing 6-2 going into the bottom of the 8^th inning; they scored 5 runs to take the lead and held on the BEAT the EVIL EMPIRE. 7-6

Let’s hope the next 18 games are as good as this one. 2 more this weekend in Boston then next weekend 3 in New York.

As scheduled on Wednesday I got my internet hooked up and my personal stuff the military shipped from Georgia. It is so nice to have my things. What we Americans can’t live without. Still have to put some of the stuff away. Procrastinating. To many other things I would rather be doing.

Thursday I got the first of 6 Anthrax shots spread out over 18 months. It was not too painful. It burned like HELL for about 5 minutes; but other then that just the normal shot soreness.  But the fun times is yet to come. Not next week but the following week I get my second anthrax shot, then the following week I have my third Hep B shot, followed by a week later my third of the Anthrax. So for those of you a little slow, that is three weeks in a row with a SHOT… Got to love life…

Starting Sunday I get to be on night shift for the exercise we have. Will be good because there is a lot of training I need to accomplish to learn about the job specifics here.

Currently I am Fifth out of 16 teams in fantasy baseball. Got as high as second, but seem to be hovering around the 5^th spot. That is not bad considering my team was auto picked and 2 or 3 players missed four games because of the snow out in Cleveland.

And here comes another attempt to BLOG….

I have yet to successfully achieve this goal in many years since I first purchased jawa-slave.com. It has gone through many attempts of it and many difference site looks. Maybe this is the time for it to happen? *ROFL* I have no faith in myself. I think the biggest challenge is I do not do much outside the normal work/Physical Training/ gaming to have much to say.

None the Less; I shall put forth a diligent effort…

As for a quick “Here I am” update…

I am now stationed in South Korea. Arrived here 6 April 2007 and my tour length is a year. After here I am currently scheduled for a follow-on to F.E. Warren AFB in WY.

We live in dorm’s here which are pleasant but not great. Thankfully we don’t have to share rooms, just the bathroom n shower with a suite mate.

Should get my internet hooked up this coming Wednesday which will make life a lot easier. Right now I am outside military hotel on base in a gazebo type setup and I can get wireless internet from the hotel.

We are Plus 13 hours ahead of Eastern Time which is weird and taking time to get use to. That basically blows for my sports watching. Most Red Sox games are 715 PM which is the follow day 815AM. At least MLB.com archives the games so I can watch them when I get home on the internet.

Well, that is about all for now; Till Next Time