Professional Gaming

It's no secret that I play World of Warcraft. I used to have a lot of other hobbies, but as school and family take up more and more time they have disappeared. Since moving to Columbia I've had no friends to go spend time with so when I get to leave the house it's for something boring like grocery shopping. So when I'm not busy with school or the kids I'm stuck at home with nothing to do but read and play Warcraft.

Why do I publicly announce my shame? I have a good reason, but to get to it I have to embarrass myself further. I am in a raiding guild. That means I go with a large group of people every week to fight some big, bad monsters. These monsters drop special items when they die that you can use to make your character tougher so that you're strong enough to fight even bigger, badder monsters. And the cycle continues. Well, my group has gotten good enough that we've been killing the biggest, baddest monsters in the game. And so I've got the best items in the game. My main character has become the 9th best geared person on my Warcraft server. (There are like 200 servers with 11 million players spread out over them all).

What do I have to show for my hours of play and my fancy pancy gear? Well, I checked online and it seems that my Warcraft account is valued at about $10,000. Unfortunately, you are not allowed to sell your account. It's against the company's rules, so reputable (safe) websites like Ebay will not let you sell your account there. To actually unload my account I'd have to try and secretly sell it on some shady website and probably get my bank account hacked and my identity stolen. But if I could manage it I'd get a nice ten grand.

I guess if the whole Nuclear Medicine thing doesn't work out I can make a living by playing video games. I can't sell my Warcraft account, but they have tournaments for some of the games I enjoy where the prize is like $250,000. And a new game that I got for free has a real money auction house where you can sell items you get for real money. So hey, that should be enough to pay the rent right?

Nuclear Medicine Program

I was just tentatively accepted into the Nuclear Medicine program. This is what I've been working at for the last couple of years, so the close call was kind of a surprise. Allow me to elaborate.

We had interviews on Friday. These were the final step in determining whether we would be in the program that we've been doing for awhile. There were 5 judges in there; two from the University and three from the clinical sites. In order to be accepted you needed 3 yes votes.

I received two yes votes. Both people from the University wanted me in. These are the people that have known me for at least a year. All three clinical people voted no. I worked with the first one for about 15 minutes, the second for about 15 minutes, and the thirds somewhere between 0 and 1 minute.

It seems I make horrible first impressions. The first guy talked quiet, so I had trouble hearing his instructions, but I didn't want to keep asking him to repeat himself. The second person saw me when I'd been sick for over a week, so I was understandably not enthusiastic that particular day. Also, she only saw me in the booth and not out with all the patients and procedures. The third person just jumped on the bandwagon.

They also hated the essay I wrote with my application all those months ago. I don't remember what I wrote, but I was informed they took it wrong. They saw it as me insulting their profession and thinking it was gonna be an easy ride. The department head read it also and told me he didn't get that vibe at all, but unfortunately he didn't have a vote.

So with those three wanting me out it looked grim. My professor argued with them for over an hour before they disgustedly agreed to give me a probationary acceptance. This means that at any time between now and November any one of those three can decide I'm not working out and get me booted from the program. I'm walking on thin ice. I can't make any mistakes or I'm toast.

The funny thing is that the interview itself went well. But they had already made up their minds. We'll see how it goes I guess, but I may be working in a toll booth by the end of the year.

Porn for Women

The title can be a little misleading, so allow me to say that there is no reference to actual pornography in this blog post. So if that's what you're here for you may as well leave now because you will be very disappointed.

Now that that's out of the way allow me to begin. My daughter has been watching Cinderella recently. It's a simple story where the perfect woman meets the perfect man and they get married and live happily ever after. While I was running errands I thought about the skewed perception of love and marriage that exists in the world, especially among Mormon young women. It is a common view that the girl will meet this amazing, flawless guy. They'll fall instantly in love and they'll have this magical first kiss that goes through them like an electric shock and they'll just know that it's meant to be! After months of blissful dating they'll get married and then... well that's the end of the story.

Where did they get this odd idea? While I was making dinner I thought about it some more. Fairy tales, romance movies/books, Twilight. These all give such an unrealistic view of how it works. Cinderella runs into the prince, they dance while singing "so this is love" and they almost kiss before she has to run off. They are madly in love. Really? Madly in love when they didn't even talk enough for her to find out he's the prince or for him to learn her name. But it works out.

Then you've got the movies where the kiss tells all. If the first kiss is magical then it's meant to be. Ok, I know that's not how it works. I've had some AMAZING kisses and that didn't mean anything more than we were good at kissing. As for the first kiss with my wife? She was asleep. And the second time she was terrified. Good thing we didn't base our relationship on that. I know a guy who was his wife's first kiss. He said "If I hadn't known it was her first kiss I woulda just turned around and walked away."

As I was cleaning up dinner I thought about that awful series Twilight. This is the ultimate porn for women. Here you have the selfish, annoying, obnoxious, girl. She can't make up her mind about two guys, but guess what? She doesn't have to! Why you ask? Because these two guys who are supposed to be absolutely gorgeous and amazing love her unconditionally. It doesn't matter what she does or says or how she acts. They will follow her to the end of the earth. I encountered the same thing in the Hunger Games books.

I've known girls in college who called it quits on relationships because they were looking for "the one". Girls who had a great relationship, but thought something must be missing because they didn't feel completely infatuated 100% of the time. Girls who didn't realize that even great relationships take work to keep them great. That you're gonna fight sometimes. That you'll have doubts sometimes. And they definitely don't realize that marriage is the beginning of the road, not the end.

Regular pornography skews the male outlook on women and makes it so no real relationship can ever live up to their fantasies. It causes perpetual disappointment. That's just one of it's extremely destructive effects. This porn for women can have devastating effects as well. It skews the female outlook on what a relationship is. It creates expectations that can never be fulfilled. It can destroy potentially life-long happiness because the woman is expecting what she's read about.

The guys in these fairy tales, movies, and books don't exist. And I think you don't want them to exist. Think about it. A guy who's personality and life revolve around your every whim and want. How boring is that? Watch Cinderella and tell me that the prince isn't the most boring guy ever. The closest you'll find is the guy who's willing, after a day of class and labs, to run the errands, cook dinner, and then clean it up afterwards. My wife is a lucky woman.

Jacob Romney Day

You only get one special day a year and that's your birthday. Six months later you are as far from your birthday as you can get. It's a very depressing time. Well I'm not going to go that long without a day for myself. My half birthday is March 8th. I hereby declare March 8th to be Jacob Romney Day. It's a day we will celebrate all things Jacob Romney. Here are appropriate activities for Jacob Romney Day:

1. Send Jacob Romney a gift. Money is a perfectly acceptable gift.
2. Call or message Jacob Romney if you have his phone number. If you are only facebook friends with Jacob Romney you may leave him a message there.
3. Talk about Jacob Romney. Share Jacob Romney stories. Laugh at Jacob Romney antics. Tell friends about Jacob Romney.
4. Read Jacob Romney's blog. If there are no new posts then feel free to read over some of your favorite posts. Or just start back at the beginning and read them all over again.
5. Leave comments on Jacob Romney's blog. He likes comments.
6. Send Jacob Romney a gift. This is for those who skipped number one. If you did send a gift, but you want to do everything on the list you may send another gift.
7. Pray for Jacob Romney. Not for anything in particular. Just for his well-being. It can't hurt.
8. Write interesting blog posts that Jacob Romney will be interested in reading. You may link your blog post in the facebook message you sent when you were doing #3.
9. Use your imagination. There are countless ways to celebrate Jacob Romney Day. Make it a special day for Jacob Romney. It comes but once a year and is second only to the actual birthday of Jacob Romney.

Less than three weeks until Jacob Romney Day. Start your preparations now!

Disdain of the Masses

When I was 17 I moved into a ward with about 30 young women. Most of them were a couple years younger than me, so we weren't in the same Sunday School class. They all lived in different towns, so we didn't go to the same school. They had all been in the ward for years, so they all knew each other really well and had formed their cliques.

I was very socially inept as a teenager. I wasn't good at initiating conversation, making small talk, or stepping out of my comfort zone. In a new ward my comfort zone consisted of me and me alone. So I kept to myself. Later I got to know a couple of the guys in the ward because I had to give them a ride from seminary to school every morning and the silent car rides were getting awkward.

I never got to know the girls in that ward. They never tried to talk to me and I wasn't about to step into a group of girls I didn't know and try to get to know them. I was too shy for that kind of thing. A couple years later I found out that the girls in that ward hated me. I didn't understand it. How could you hate someone you've never talked to or even tried to talk to?

Turns out they had decided I was a stuck up snob who thought I was too good for them. This was because I had never been nice to them or tried to get to know them. Well, I figured that it's the job of the people who are there already to make the new guy feel welcome, but I guess I was mistaken. Why did they decide I was stuck up instead of shy? Why jump to such a drastic conclusion? Why, over ten years later, do some of them still harbor a grudge against me when I never even learned their names?

I was a good-looking, athletic, muscular kid. I don't say that to brag, but to lend context to the situation. I've seen it played over a number of times since I experienced it myself. The general assumption is that a person who fits that criteria must be popular and social. Which means that if they ignore you it's because they must think they're too good for you. If a person is unattractive and quiet then people assume they must be very shy. Oh, that poor shy guy, let's go make him feel at home. But since person A isn't repulsive he must be a jerk since he didn't leap into our lives and become our friends.

Yesterday I posted a dumb comment on the wall of one of those young women from my ward in the past. Not sure why we're facebook friends since we were never really friends. She got very angry, tore into me, and then wrote another of those young women and said, "Remember how Jacob Romney was an a****le when we were growing up? Well he's still an a****le. Go check my facebook page." Wow! The fact that I can get that strong of a response out of someone I haven't seen in over ten years and haven't ever spoken to is incredible.

Things Jacob Says

Due to the large and somewhat unpleasant response to my last post I have deemed it appropriate to expound upon its background. Let me make clear what I was doing when I wrote the last post. I was sharing something that both my wife and I found amusing with the people who regularly read my blog. Those who know us well know that we joke around all the time with this sort of thing. My wife went over the blog. Had she asked me to not post it I would not have done so. It was harmless fun. She has her own blog where she posts silly things about me as well. Had I known how people would react I probably wouldn't have done anything differently. I very much enjoy getting comments.

Julie and I were driving home laughing about how often she says certain things. We decided to make a list and we laughed at each phrase we found. It was a fun drive home. I thought it would be fun to share our mirth on my blog. There was nothing mean-spirited or spiteful in my words. I exaggerated a few points for comedic value. However, due to the post sharing things of a personal nature I made sure to check with Julie about what I was doing. I wouldn't want her to be upset in case I was being callous and insensitive. I was pleased to see that she was amused by the post as well, so I deemed it appropriate for public viewing.

Have I learned some things from this experience? Yes I have.
1. I have more readers than I knew I had.
2. Inflammatory posts get more comments than other kinds of posts.
3. People need background and context.
4. Angry people are more fun than content people.

Now, I'm a blunt person. I say what I think and I don't cater to the whims of sensitive people. This is my blog where I write what comes to mind. That's always how its been. If you don't like what I said then feel free to post your displeasure as was done on the last post. I will take your thoughts under advisement and decide whether or not I made a mistake. If so the post would be deleted and an apology issued. If I think you were mistaken in your assessment of the situation then I will let you know as well. Let's keep things lively!

Things Julie Says

Yesterday on the drive home from church I was thinking about some of the phrases Julie uses all the time. I'm going to share some with you.

I can't do this! - I hear this all the time in the middle of the night. It's usually accompanied by tears because Julie's very tired and the baby won't go to sleep. I hear it a lot during the day too, but it's in an angry voice instead of a sad voice.

I need help! - This is probably Julie's most common phrase. If the baby spits up then "I need help!" If Naomi won't behave then "I need help!" If Julie wants to get up off the couch then "I need help!"

Damn it! - This is Julie's go to phrase. Whenever she's mad or upset or frustrated or mildly annoyed or thirsty this is what I hear. Julie said yesterday that with each child her swearing gets progressively worse. I won't tell you some of the other words she says...

I just wanna BE with you! - I hear this whenever I've found a moment to relax. Then suddenly it's snuggle time. However, this is often a trap to get me to go to bed.

When you're done that... - Julie doesn't use the word with. She also omits the word of as in "on top that".

Quick! Look at (Naomi/Aleta) - Whenever my attention is focused intently on something Julie feels the need to interrupt me so I can see the baby smile. I've seen the baby smile a hundred times, but I better look right now!

Can you help me do (any variety of things) - This would be fine except she's usually asking for help with a one person job. So "can you help me" is code for "can you do this?" It usually has something to do with changing a diaper or cleaning something.

That's enough for now. She says lots of positive things too, but they're not as fun to talk about.