Yeah, I know.  Tomorrow, three days later…what’s the difference?

 I should attack a "not safe for work, small children, or furry animals" warning here, but that’s as close as you’re going to get, kids.  Go visit TD-0013 and laugh.  We all need A Different Point of View.

(I do note, you do want to listen to the archives if you haven’t been scared off yet.  They are probably the most played items on my iPod.  Troopers and a pink iPod mini…that’s joy.) 

Okay, so I have a reason why I haven’t updated. Knitting content is included. I promise!

My hard drive decided to start going back, and it needed replaced. If you’ve ever done this, you know it’s a complete pain in the ass. I *think* I’m back to where I was before with most things. We’ll see.

Also, things in SWG are kinda uneasy. For those who don’t play online games, I’m part of a fairly good-sized group of people, commonly known as a guild. People generally join guilds to make playing more fun, make friends, etc. You can do more fun things if you have people to go play with, since these kind of games are generally designed so that most things are designed for groups to do.

Unfortunately, in SWG, there’s not a lot to actually *do* that hasn’t been done many, many, many times. This isn’t a problem for my guild, Total Eclipse, since we’re what’s known as a role-playing guild. In other words, we all have characters in the game, and we try to “live,” for lack of a better word, in the Star Wars world while we’re playing. So our characters don’t talk about things like what’s on TV, or our real life jobs, or whatever. They might discuss what they do for a living, since they’re separate people. Or whatever their hobby is, or what’s going on with people they know, or the war. (It’s Star Wars, after all!)

At this point, you all probably think I’m insane and should be carted off somewhere. You’re probably right. However, it’s great fun, and generally lets you forget real life problems, at least for awhile. And it beats “Let’s go out and kill Tuskens again!” It is, however, extra work on top of all the standard work that guild officers would do.

Let’s face it. Any time you’re responsible for a group of people, there’s work. Some of it is what my friend Thirteen would call “cat herding.” Just getting people to do the right things at the right times, for the good of everyone. There’s things like inventory and finances, and just keeping track of things. I have spreadsheets for all different kinds of things in the game.

I take the majority of the work. I’m the guild leader. And, going into this, I knew it would be work. I don’t mind at all. TE is an incredibly great group of people, and I’m honored to be trusted like I am. However, I can’t do it all myself, and so I have some officers. Unfortunately, I lost two of them last night. One of them was Mike, who was my Executive Officer.

Yeah. So…stress. I’ve gone from having four officers to two. And one of those two is out of town at the moment. So…a bit of panic on top of the stress. We’ll get through it. As I said, it’s a great group of people, and I love them all. They all understand that I’m stressed and have jumped to help out wherever they can. I love them all. I really do. I’m happy to count almost every member of TE as a friend, and our new members will be friends in time, I’m sure. But it’s affected my knitting, in that it’s hard to hold needles when you’re pulling your hair out.

However, I did manage to finish the Dublin Bay socks. I’m rather happy with them, but I’m starting to think I’d like to get hold of some size 0 needles that won’t snap when I look at them funny, because I’d like to see how I’d like a tighter gauge.

And, without further ado, pictures.

Odd perspective, I know. Picture taken by my webcam, which sits on top of my monitor. Trying to get both feet in the picture was a bit difficult. And my desk is relatively clean there. Sad, isn’t it?

I do love the little lace pattern up the side of the leg. Enough that I shaved my legs just for these pictures. Heh. Yes, you guys can feel loved.

I’ve been busy with in-game stuff, so there hasn’t been much knitting going on. For those of you who aren’t familiar with online games of this sort, running a guild is a lot of work, but it’s very rewarding when it comes together. I love my guild, so it’s well worth it!

I just took a step in my knitting I’ve been afraid to for awhile. I just ordered the TKGA’s Level I Hand Knitting Master materials. I’m excited, and a bit scared. We’ll see how it goes.

And for those of you who don’t know me well, yes, I tend to curse. This time, it’s necessary, though.

One of my guild officers is a great guy. He does a great job at keeping the ground troops in line, picked up half the slack when Mike and I disappeared over Christmas and sickness, and is a great role-player. He also braved a knitting blog to ask me to come back to the game. That takes bravery, and being a good friend.Hopefully a lot of people know these things.

But what not everyone knows is that Major TD-0013 is a sexy bitch.

Can you think of anything you’d rather find in a suit of trooper armor? I know I can’t.

Edited to add: I’m glad to know my guildmates think enough of me to do things like this to cheer me up. This started as a joke on our guild channel. Yeah…we’re that kind of guild. *smirk*

For those of you who don’t know, I do things other than knit. Namely, I’m the leader of an Imperial guild in Star Wars Galaxies. It’s a lot of work, but the people in my guild make it worth it. If this sort of things makes your eyes glaze over, feel free to skip to the next entry. There are pictures there, I promise.

Lately, I haven’t been playing much. There have been some game updates that made things a lot less fun for me. But I finally came back from a break, all for the people.

And, tonight, one of those people hurt me pretty badly. It started with a discussion of an upcoming recruitment initiative. We’re Imperial. We role play. One of the best ways we can get new recruits is to go to a newbie area in uniform and just…be. There’s something about seeing a line of stormtrooopers march by that’s just incredible, at least to Star Wars fans.

Now, I’m relatively new to the Star Wars universe. However, one of my guild officers (hi, Thirteen!) knows a lot more about it than I do. I generally defer to him on dress matters. Yet one person has to claim that she *must* be able to wear her own interpretation of Imperial uniform.

I step in, as I (at least should be) able to make an official call. I do so. I think. She proceeds to argue with me based on evidence she claims she has. Oh, and forcing her to wear pants would make me sexist. Excuse me? Kinda hard - I have breasts too, dear. And what she wanted to wear…Mike walked in, took one look at it, and said “no.” I agreed. It was in no way a uniform. She argued more.

Um. I said no. She called into question whether or not her opinion mattered. I told her yes, it is taken into consideration. It does not mean I’m going to give her what she wants all the time. And this time, I’m not budging.

More whining, bitching, screaming ensues. I stand firm. She then questions whether or not I care about the “little people” of the guild. All leprechaun jokes aside, there are no “little people” in my guild. I value everyone. You can ask Mike - I do a lot to make people happy. So, my feelings ended up pretty badly hurt.

In the end, she left the guild. I ended up doing damage control from the incident, and then logging out, too tired to deal with it. I guess I just don’t get people.