Brann Spankin' New Archives

Long before I have to go to work, I already am at work. I'm sure that makes a lot of sense to you, so I'm going to go ahead and not delve into the meaning of that sentence.

Eh, what the heck; I'll explain. The Internet can be a very unforgiving place, so in order to preserve all my thoughts that I've put on here (and conversely, all the thoughts I will place on here), I'm making an offline archive of The White Knight Chronicles in order to preserve my history for posterity^[1]. Besides, I figured it'd give me a little something to do in-between now and work tonight, so -

Warning! Life form pattern not recognized. Archival processing terminated. Continued interference will result in targeted response.

...oh, that doesn't sound good. We miiiiight have a complication or two... *clears throat*

Anyway, today's entry title, this opening spiel against a fictional AI, and parts of the blog that follow are all direct references to World of Warcraft and the Wrath of the Lich King instance "Halls of Stone" - specifically the part where you protect a dwarf explorer named Brann Bronzebeard against multitudes of enemies. Audio quality on the video is low; I suggest lowering the volume once combat starts. (To WoW players: I think you'd agree with me when I say Brann's current voice sounds much better than this version.)

(Author's Note: Yeah, I know: this whole thing seems childish. But I like having fun, so... deal with it and my hyperactive imagination. Hehehe.)






CURRENT MUSIC:
Matt Uelmen - "Secrets Long Forgotten"
World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King Soundtrack

A snippet of the music that can be heard in some of Wrath of the Lich King's instances - specifically anything involving old gods, long-forgotten titans and the origins of the modern races of Azeroth. The track carries the sound of discovery and echoes an ancient and advanced civilization's presence.

Quite obviously most of this would make sense to a gamer, but most of you reading this aren't World of Warcraft fans (much less gamers), so this track probably has no significance for you. Shame, though - it's good music. Play it while you're at some long-forgotten location for the first time and you're discovering new things. Should fit well.



"Augh, another computer. Says 'hit any key.' W...Well, which one's the 'any key'!?"
- Unknown Marine
(StarCraft: Brood War - Terran Mission 7: "Patriot's Blood")

Classic computer joke right here. I think one of my life goals is to run into someone stupid enough to believe that there's an actual "any key" in existence. When I do... I think I'll be elated and die a little inside at the same time.





Hello, readers. Today's Friday, and as such, I think I ought to treat you with a good entry today. I'll just grab the past entries' data, process them into my laptop, and we should be good for you to hear about my -

Security breach in progress. Analysis of historical archives transferred to lower priority queue. Countermeasures... engaged.

...uhm... shit. L-Let's get to work!





Working Sleep Breakdown

I have to say that today's process of waking up surprised me. Last night marked the first night in years where I willingly went to sleep before 0100 and willingly woke up roughly eight hours later at 0900.

Normally my schedule looks something like this:

• 0930ish - 1030: wake up
• 1030ish - 1230: zombified actions performed to "wake up"
• 1230ish: shower
• 1300: begin preparations for the day, start any plans I may have made
• 1500: leave for work (assuming I work that day)
• 2355ish: arrive home from work, assuming I was at work
• 0000-0200ish: random stuff on the computer
• 0200ish: quick internal debate on whether I want to sleep or not
• 0200-0330ish: more random stuff on the computer, arrive home if I was with friends all late
• 0200-0330ish: fatigue makes me call it a night, power down electronic stuff and hop into bed only to get shot back awake
• (half-hour afterwards): sleep

According to the typical schedule I have here, I get anywhere from 5.5 to 8 full hours of sleep a night, and usually it's somewhat restless. This past night was different, though - at least 8 solid hours. No interruptions. No nightmares. No waking up in the middle of the night because I realized something that triggered my conscious self to do something. And quite importantly: no fatigue.

Kind of weird in my opinion - I think I'm somewhat used to having the less-than-recommended amount of sleep necessary. Over time I'm sure it'll lead to part of my undoing, but for now, I'll take it.

Despite not having any fatigue whatsoever and possessing a cool and cheery demeanor, I couldn't help but notice something tugging at the back of my mind...

And then it hit me. Today was day three of... six? Again? Oh, gee, I knew something seemed a little off when I woke up. In the event you don't recall, I had to work six days in a row before I had five fun and relaxing days off... and now I'm back to working another straight set of six days. I found out about this last night at work^[2], but I don't think the whole "sandwiched vacation" thing fully registered in my brain until well into this morning.

Eh. I'm still picking up a decent vibe in the air, so I'm sure today will present something fun and exciting. The last few days have so far - day one went by like a breeze with lots of fun while day two offered me... not much. Well, it wasn't negative, at least. So, day three: what do you have to offer me tonight? *arches eyebrow*





Safeguarding Knowledge

So, about this whole "archiving" thing. I've always been one to back up important things in my life - or at least anything that can be stored electronically. This blog is no exception, and I -

Alert! Security fail-safes deactivated. Beginning memory purge...

What!? No, no, NO, NO, NO!!! I thought I had those wired so that - AHA! *smacks the "any key"*

System online. Life form pattern recognized. Welcome, White Knight. Query?

"Query?" Uhm... how 'bout I talk to my (small) fanbase and you just sit there and archive my blog in silence? I'm kinda talking to the readers and your imaginary interruptions are distracting all of us.

Acknowledged, White Knight. Establishing link with offline database and creating duplicate archive.

Thank youuuuuu! *turns back to the camera and audience of readers* Where was I...? Oh, right. *clears throat*

While Blogger possesses a server-side system that can archive all the entries any user has, I've always been one to want a backup archive in the rare event that a server crash ensues. At home I have a folder full of Microsoft Word document files consisting of a blog I typed up. Surprisingly, it's not just a simple copy-and-paste procedure that most people would think of me doing - there's also a data log I have (thank you, Excel spreadsheets) documenting the days I've written something down on the Internet. Naturally, this archive is incomplete and always has room for more data (just like every other archive out there), and it has a story to tell.

A long time ago when I had a Xanga, I never did anything of the sort. To be honest, I'm kind of glad I didn't - I was pretty depressing and emotional back then, and if I were to read those blogs, I'd probably end up wanting to time-travel and punch myself in the face all those years ago. Later on I moved to MySpace when that was the big thing and began blogging there. Then I got a Facebook account, of course (since, y'know... it's the main thing at the moment) and began to somewhat blog on there.^[3]

Anyone stalking watching me will notice a severe drought of bloggage - in my high school days I slapped something on the Internet almost every day. Once I graduated, I pretty much stopped - I didn't have much to talk about. All my high school experiences constituted most of the content I posted during my high school years. Of course, with The White Knight Chronicles, that sort of changes things since I'm posting every bleeding day. Until today I have made no attempt to preserve and archive any of the entries present here.

That's where this entry comes in. I'm currently taking every posted entry present on Blogger and saving a hard copy on my laptop via MS Word. I'll also be rolling through Facebook and MySpace and double-checking to see if there were any entries I missed archiving in the past. Years from now when I do some self-reflection (for whatever reason), I will have this archive to look back on and measure how much I've grown over the years. If only I was smart enough to do this back when I was much younger.

To the archives!





Footnotes:

1 ^ [Pre-Blog Opening] Yeah, because people totally want to read every single unimportant event that occurs in my life. Of course, if I'm famous later on, that'll probably change.

2 ^ [Working Sleep Breakdown] Turns out while I was going through the archives that I already figured this out about a week ago. How this realization eluded me is still a mystery - and I'm very sure it had nothing to do with cactus juice. *sips*

3 ^ [Safeguarding Knowledge] Due to the personal sensitivity of some of my Facebook entries I've refrained from linking any of them. Heck, you probably couldn't even see any of them - my privacy settings prevent anyone who I deem a security risk to be unable to see virtually anything I do on Facebook. When you think about it, it's quite ironic - I'm like "secret agent" status on the social network yet I'm perfectly candid here on Blogger. (Then again, I don't tell you all everything...)





Well, I must be off. Between all this archiving and work, I'm gonna be quite busy for some time. I will catch y'all somewhere between tomorrow and Sunday with another entry, so keep your eyes peeled!

Oh, and while you wait, you should submit some kind of question, comment, and/or concern for me to address and respond to. It'll be fun, and I promise you I'll provide some kind of answer. =D

Until the 'morrow!