so i made a website

can my website count for my blog for the next 2 weeks? im gonna write on there!

http://haddontwo.webs.com/index.htm i forgot to post that last time.

serious shit went down

so, i have these 3 groups of friends, right? i have emerald and her group, paige and her group (they are my neighbors) and matt and that group. none of the 3 have yet met eachother, but ive known matt alex and meg for a long time. these others are new.

so emerald has been living in broomfield, at this house with like 5 other people. 2 of them, a couple, hated the rest, and stole a bunch of shit. so the people whose stuff was stolen went to their house, and lots of drama came about.

but crazier are crazy dan and the aussies. dan is the brother of zach, who is dating my neighbor paige. dan is apparently daing vanessa, who is paiges best friend. kinda weird. so one time dan freaks out while drunk, breaks zachs jaw, and they dont speak for a week or two. they apologized last night. then dan freaks out AGAIN, after i left, he cut himself breaking shit, bled all over the apartment, cops were called, more shit went down.

and then there is the aussies. they met paige and then the rest of us through a mutual friend. they came over on tuesday or something, we all drank and played beer pong, and we all thought they were awesome. they told us they were from australia, all this stuff, spoke with an aussie accent, even had all these weird little things to make us think they were more australian.

turns out they arent from australia, but new orleans. and they might not be brothers. their names arent what they told us.

we are so confused.

yay for homecommings

so recently my father and ex-stepmother have split up, and are getting divorced, and all that stuff. she is the mother of my little sister, maddie, and currently the legal guardian. though, with luck, that will change and she will live with my father.

my dad was born and raised here in colorado, and they moved to new mexico something like 4 years ago, for a few reasons. largely because anee had grown up there, and her family was there and that jazz. so they got a place in ruidoso, but not too long after anee moved out, and now they are going through a divorce, and my dad has realized that, though he doesnt mind ruidoso, he hates new mexico. so he is moving back. and that makes me so incredibly happy.

he has the house to sell, and he is going through all the BS that comes with a divorce, and possibly trying to get maddie. while anee used to be better equipped to be a parent, i think, she has dropped and my father has risen. in the past few years he has realized what it is that he did wrong with my brother and i. as well, he has realized he wants to be here for us, get to know us as adults, get to know his new daughter in law, and get to know his new granddaughter once she is born, which should be the middle of february. i just though about how wonderful it would be if she was born on valentines day. that way, when she grows up and starts dating and stuff, the dude will only have to remember 1 day in place of two. and given that she will be half hilling, and all of us hillings are prone to forgetting things (like birthdays, and what day it is, and sometimes our own names), it will be easy for her to remember when valentines day is! alriiiight!

so, once he settles down there, he will be moving back to colorado, though he is not entirely sure where in colorado yet. he says somewhere along the front range, and that is good enough for me. even if he did move out to say sterling, it is much easier to get to than a massive 12 hour drive to get from here down to his house now.

as well, if he moves somewhere near here, it might be prudent for me to live with him while i finish up school. that is all up in the air ofcourse, but he and i got along phenominally when i lived down there last year, and i think we could do so again. i was really happy there, and it was wonderful getting to know him as an adult, when the last time i had seen him with any reasonable frequency, i had been a child still. well, like 16 or so, but not quite an adult, as much as i thought i was at that point

past nick, you suck. you stupid, silly little bastard. i hope future nick is totally smarter and cooler than past nick was. and present nick is, though im not sure it is possible to be any cooler than i am right now.

oh dear, there goes that ego again!

Videogames are becomming less of “games”

silly title, right. silly subject, eh?

i just watched a video about Warcraft, one of my favorite series of games ever. World of Warcraft has gained such popularity and praise that it is known even by people who never touch videogames, or even rarely computers. however, it has been given it’s negative connotations as well, ofcourse. anything popular will. even sex, food, and love, probably the three most popular things of all time in any species (save perhaps love) are hated and fought against in certain ways. muslims wont eat this, christians wont have this kind of sex, and as we all know recently, the mormons will only allow heterosexual love.

but that isnt the point of this little babble. the point is this: world of warcraft has over 11 million players. lets look at that. 11 million.

everyone knows the kingdom, some of the history, the culture, the achievements of scotland, right? 5.2 million people, give or take a hundred thousand.

ireland. the emerald isle, with the story of the leprechaun, banshee, and lots of drinking abd being catholic?

6 million people.

the city of new york. 8.2 million

what this means is a fake world, one made up by a few dozen writers, artists, programmers, and millions and millions of players outnumbers more than a few countries on the planet. it outnumbers new york city, beijing, tokyo, mexico city. in fact, only 2-4 cities in the WORLD have a higher population, according to wikipedia.

the land mass of world of warcraft, before its two expansions (which have easily double the overall size) was estimated by a blizzard employee at being roughly 200 square km. let us say it is now at around 400. that is larger than the city i am writing this from aurora, co. that is, a fake world, made up of polygons. 0’s and 1’s, is larger than my city. (this is all assuming that the characters in the game run at the same speed as a marathon runner, which is how the total was figured).

all in all, what does all this say? all these little statistics and comparrisons? simply put, we are adding land. fake land. fake place. WoW is one of hundreds of MMORPGs(massively multiplayer online roleplaying game) out there, and while likely the largest in landsize, and by far the largest in population, if each MMO is even 1/4 the size of wow, we have added considerable amount of “land” to the earth. sure, each human needs a living space at the very least (or only roughly 6′x6′x4′ or so according to tolstoy), but give it time and maybe the only necissary space a human will need is place for them to sleep, bath, eat, and use the restroom. the rest could all be in cyberspace. which terrifies me, but it is indeed possible someday.

i guess my overall point in this is, we have reached a turning point in entertainment. where videogames are not simply just that. I have been playing WoW since the night before it hit store shelves. that is 4 years this month. I have taken breaks, i have stopped playing for months at a time, i have gone from playing hours on end to not playing more than a few hours a week, as i do now. But i have been here, creating it, changing it, shaping it. I have been here giving ideas and input, writing to programmers and designers, to fellow players, and former players, and will-be players. i have been a part of warcraft since warcraft 2, fighting as an orc, a troll, a human, an elf, a goblin, a dwarf, a skeleton. and clicking sheep until they blew up.

WoW has evolved past being a game. I have friends from the game, and several others, that in a time of need i could turn to. they have helped me with homework, with philosophy, with my writing, and with my life’s troubles. they have made me smile and laugh, made me angry and feel all around like shit. we have built an economy where things are valueable because WE give them value. if you never play WoW, you will not know that i could sell a purple gem (let alone know what i meant by purple gem) for several dollar. real dollar. USD. green, cash, bills. we have made leaders, and we have made outcasts. we have formed stategies to take down virtual foes, and other players. we have honed our abilities to hear, and see, and listen to others. I can hear when a rogue goes stealth, and with my sound system i know where in the playing field they did. i tell the difference between which spell an enemy is casting simply by the color of the sparkles in their hand, and from this i can tell how best to survive, and indeed beat them.

friends, family, and even people i hardly know have given me more crap for playing videogames than i care to relate. but in reality, videogames have enhanced my ability to read and write. they have given me more insight into philosophy, psychology, anthropology, literature, cinema, musica. Indeed, it is because of videogames that i am as in to history as i am today. without dynasty warriors, i would never have known the history of china i do today. sure, i may have learned it at a later point, but i know it. now. because videogames piqued my interest.

i learned about the Id because of Xenogears. I learned about the Han dynasty because of dynasty warriors. i learned about samurai because of probably 3000 games ive played (samurai are in everything). i know about computers largely so i could get my games running the best way they could on my machine. i have taken apart and rebuilt my playstation numerous times to clean it, to learn it, to understand it. and because i get bored.

videogames are not just games. they are so much more for one single reason. they are made by people whos interests vary just as much as books, movies, shows, plays, discussions and anything else you can think of. if you like it, someone has made a game about it, or included it in a game, or has been influenced by it in the making of the game.

videogames are shaping the planet as much as literature has. the fights of “they corrupt our kids!”, the business that has boomed. japan is forever changed by this. the US is certainly changing, and even european developers, later to jump on ship in a big way, will be forever altered. i suspect in 100 years, children in history class, students in economic classes, and people all over the planet will note 3 things about our time. globilization of economy. the rise of the internet. and the rise of new media, most notably videogames.

Yay for the election…

…being over!

i didnt vote, ive never voted, and chances are pretty decent i wont ever vote. at least, not for office. i might vote on propositions, ammendments etc. but i wont vote on a politician, unless i actually LIKE the person. studying history, there have been maybe 10 presidents i would have actually voted FOR, and all of them were before i was born, or before i could vote in 1 case. i like obama, but not quite enough for me to vote for him. i likeD mccain, before he became a patsy to his party. but even before, i wouldnt have voted for him. bill clinton i might have voted for, but im not positive. both rooseveldts, maybe jfk, lincoln, jefferson, jackson, madison. i wouldnt have voted for washington, to be honest, because when you only have 1 person running that has ANY chance of winning, its not needed. maybe polk, just because i like him, but if i were around at the time, prolly not.

i dont strongly believe in voting. i dont believe in democracy, or a republic, to be honest. at least, not on this scale. 300+ million people voting, when a good portion of them know even less about politics than i do, and im 20. just doesnt seem like a very good idea. the greeks had a great idea with democracy. each democratic city voted on their leaders, but their cities probably didnt ever exceed more than 1million. if that. even today, as a united country, they only have 11million. and, ofcourse, the only people who could vote were those who could UNDERSTAND politics, which was most in places like athens, but in our country not quite so much. different ideologies.

the issue i see with having a republic is, much like rome, the representatives ARENT us. sure, we can choose which are most like us, but obama is still a christian, against abortion, doesnt agree with gay marriage (though he believes that people should have the right to belief and act differently, thankfuly). we arent on the same page in many areas, and he was by far my choice in this election. governing 300 million people is difficult, even if they were all republican, or all democrat. but what makes it even more difficult is this divide that keeps growing. soon-to-be president obama talked about needing to get rid of this break between us, and while i dont think it is possible to mend, it is possible to make it less pronounced, perhaps. winning by what…200 electoral votes, it is obvious americans are not of the same mind, and thusly having a single person control any amount of it is a bad idea, i say.

i go for a tetrarchy. let the west have their president, the “mid-west” (im not sure if we count as west, or mid-west. ive heard both), the northeast, and the south east. sure, the “president” of the mid-west would have far fewer people than the other 3, much less money, power etc, but at least we would get what we did in 2000 and 2004. the northeast and the west voted almost unanimously blue, the mid-west and the south almost unanimously red. this way each area of the country would get their regional leader, chances would be better of alabama always getting the republican if they so chose, california always their democrat if they so chose. only issues i could really see are us and NM if we were mid-west, or arizona, utah if we were all west. and maybe a few states back east. it might get less done, but its hard to get less done when the government doesnt do a whole lot most of the time anyway, yeh?

all in all, im pleased with the election. aside from the judicial branch, all of our parts of government are democrat. and while i dont consider myself democrat, i am much more left than i am right. here is hoping that our new president and representatives can fix some of the mess of the past 8 years. and hopefully bush and crew wont do anything else dumb in their 2 months left.