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8/19/11 Well, I am uploading this update on the 21st since it is the first time I am able to actually bring myself to log onto Dreamweaver to make it. I lost someone very close to me today, my dear friend Stink. He was my cat since I was a little boy, we did everything together and we slept together every single night. People may think it is childish that I can be so upset over a cat's death, but they probably aren't pet owners themselves. When I moved from my childhood home to my "Middle School" home, Stink was there. When I didn't have any friends, Stink was there. When I had my heart broken for the first time, Stink was there. When I graduated from School, Stink was there. I always had him by my side, through thick and thin and he unconditionally gave me his love. He never once betrayed me and never once made me feel sad. Whenever anything was wrong I knew that his shoulder was the one I would be able to cry on. He was always there for me and the only thing he ever asked for back was my love for him. Before I go on I'd like to post a few pictures of him, sadly all I have that I can get up. I may get up more later. One of the many pictures I have of him, it is a bit blurry since it is taken on a cellphone but it shows you mainly what he looks like. The above picture has been my cellphone background image for about 3 years now. It is one of my favorite pictures of him and it is not blurry on my cell. This was taken at my old house. Here is a picture of my dog, Sophie, but Stink can be seen in the upper right corner not paying attention. Here is probably the main picture I have of him to show you what he looked like. You can probably tell why we named him Stink, he looks kinda like a Skunk and his white line down the nose was his Trademark. I'd like to add though, I'm not writing this update for any of you guys. This update and what I am saying here is for me. My website will always be up on the internet, even if I forget about it in the future. I want to always remember this date and keep it in my heart for when Stink passed away. I've had other animals die in my life, Shadow, Jim, Whiskers, but Stink hit home since he was my cat and my best friend. We aren't entirely certain why he died, he was 13 years old which is rather young for a cat in my experience but he was getting progressively thinner. During the dates leading up to his death he was having a hard time taking a crap. He would squeeze and squeeze but nothing would come out. He was still acting 100% though, he would run over to me when I walked into the kitchen and meow at me for treats and cuddle with me every night at bedtime. I knew something was wrong though, I mean we've all heard of the book everybody poops. So I did some research and the main thing that came up was something called Megacolon. It's pretty much when the cat gets old and his colon becomes wider and weak. We took him to the at about 8am on the 19th and the vet gave him 2 enemas before allowing us to bring him home later at 3pm. Stink was weak and frail, he didn't move around much when I went to pick him up and the vet said he felt that Stink had a 50/50 chance. The ball was in his park now and he would be the deciding factor in the days to come of his wellbeing. Stink was quiet and motionless on the car ride home, usually he threw a fit and pissed and moaned in cars, he hated them. When we got him home I set him down and he wobbled off into the corner and laid down. I knew immediately that something was wrong. The way he walked was... Just off... I laid beside him off and on for the next 4 hours. His condition progressively worsened and his breathing became more shallow and erratic. So I went upstairs and got a pillow he used to lay on and a blanket and brought it down. I placed him onto the pillow and covered him with the blanket and held him until about 8pm when he became much worse. He started to twist and turn, panting and clawing at things that did not exsist in the air. He wouldn't even look at me the last hour. We wanted to take him to the animal hospital but I knew they wouldn't be able to do anything for him. I know a bit about "medicine" in general and my conclusion was he was either hallucinating or having a seizure towards the end. About twenty minutes after the hallucinations, I'll call them started he had passed. I remember just watching his chest. Watching each breath praying that his chest would just keep moving as he was lying there. His breathing was shallow and erratic as he stared off into the room... Like I said before he wouldn't make eye contact with me. I held him close during the final moments and whispered to him time and time again that I loved him and always will love him. I told him about the story of how I first got him, thirteen years ago at my Grandparents. After bugging for hours my parents finally agreed that we could bring home a cat and my uncle Mike chased cats around in the barn for close to twenty minutes, grabbing them one after another and showing it to me. I kept shaking my head and then I saw Stink. He was still a kitten at that time, I pointed to him and I said I want that one! Mike chased Stink around for close to twenty more minutes, trying to catch him. Eventually he caught him and handed him to me. Stink clawed the shit out of me for the first 5 minutes until finally we calmed him down and I asked what his name was. My uncle replied, Stink, because of the white on his nose he looked like a Skunk. I told Stink the night before as I was falling asleep that my favorite part of the day was at the very very end when I brought him in my room and we cuddled together until I fell asleep. Stink was and always will be my best friend. Around 8:20 Stink took his final breath and was gone... I didn't know what to do at first, I sat there and just stared at him, his paws and fur were cold and his eyes were glazed over. Then, I scooped him up into my arms and cried uncontrollably as realization set in and he was gone. I felt a rush of emotions, Anger that he didn't try harder, that he left me alone to live without him. Despair, never actually thinking of how my life would be without him. How could I possibly break that cycle of bringing him to bed every single night for the past thirteen years? Self doubt, Could I have done something? Maybe if I did more research, maybe if I knew more about medicine I could have done something at the end, maybe if we took him to the hospital, maybe, maybe, maybe... I was angry, not at him but at myself. I don't know why, even today (the 21st) I probably won't ever know why. For the rest of the night I just sat and stared at the wall, I tried texting my friends but as always no one was around to talk to that night. They were all off doing better things none of which involved comforting me. It took me another few hours until I decided I wanted him cremated. I don't know if I will be doing anything with the ashes, I don't know what Stink would want. Maybe I will spread them at my Grandparent's house where I found him, since we used to call him Crafty as he had a relation to the horse that lived there named Crafty as well. I actually just thought of that now and it sounds like a semi good idea... I think he would like that. I am going to take a break, not only from my website but from games as well. I've been playing my guitar a lot recently as it is a good way for my to get out some emotions. I'm still not right after this, when I sit at my computer I just trail off into wonderland thinking about everything and thinking about nothing at the same time. A piece of me is missing and it is going to be hard to get it back. If you actually read all that, thanks, I guess. I did this update on my website incase in 10 years, 20 years, 30 years I forget everything about Stink. I wan't to be able to go back and read what I had written days after he passed. I will always love you Stinky and I will never forget the fun we had together. I will miss you. If you need something to lift you up after that:
8/9/11 First Almar's Guides website update in awhile:
I'll add more here later but it is getting kind of late so I'll need to get around to posting what I said in the video later. 8/8/11 Well last night was the big seasons finale of Falling Skies and I must say I am liking that show more and more. I have liked Noah Wyle since ER when he played John Carter. He did extremely well in that roll and does quite well as Tom Mason in Falling Skies. I don't really care for the romance between him and Moon Bloodgood or whatever her name is but meh, guess you gotta have it. Pope is still probably my favorite character on the show... I haven't seen him in like anything that comes to mind before but he plays his role in the show so perfectly. Weaver is kind of getting on my nerves and I think a lot of people are in that same boat. He just seems to have a lot of misplaced arrogance. Also, what was up with the end of the season? I won't spoil it for you but that was a little corny, but it did leave ya hangin. 8/5/11 Busy, busy, busy I have been. I've been working on guides for many different games atm... Posting a few that have been submitted and over all just kind of taking a break from the computer the past few days. Anyway, here are a few of the lesser guides I have been working on... The guides are extremely far from done but those are the starters of each! 8/4/11 Just posting a link for here right now. I just started working on some Class guides from WoW again. The very first I started was with the Death Knight. So if you are interesting in watching these guides progress click here! 8/3/11 I will update this throughout the day. But here is something good that im working on: I didn't get done much more on Rift besides just that. I have a few guides/pictures that were submitted to me for it that I will put up later but for now I have been working on getting some of my EQ guides up to date and also adding in new sections to the EQ Leveling Guide since that is like the most popular series of guides on my website. I am starting to add links into my Everquest Classic Leveling Guide and making that as perfect as humanly possible. After I finish updating the EQ Leveling Guide section I may move on to making a Loremaster Achievement Guide for WoW. I started working on one before but it just wasn't paying off as well as I had hoped so I abandoned it about quarter way in. In the mean time I am going to be just adding misc guides to my website. 8/2/11 So, I first must say WoW. If you don't care about my website that much or haven't been around for long you won't care about this update but... I found out my old photobucket password and I found a bunch of pictures I need to share of memories with everyone... Back when this website was in its like 2008 days... This is a very old map and design for Drylor. I can't draw worth a crap but now you should have a very rough idea of the world. I didn't add the key to that picture though =(
The closest I ever got to 1337 and a super old screenshot of me on my hunter very long ago. Just a short time after cross servers came out. Also I think I was on Warsong at the time. Ahh the memories.
Another super old picture back when I played on Jaedenar... Or rather still had characters on that server. That was in the gladi gear that season. I forget the season though. If I ever care to look it up I will and come back to edit this!
This picture is going extremely far back... My very first level 60 character ever! This was in like december after the game came out... Or maybe even later I can't even remember it has been so long.
That is another screen shot of me dinging level 60.
Me owning one of the most well known hunters on Dethecus way back in the day when something like that mattered. Sowwy Disarm!
Another oldie of when I made the first wrath of the lich king leveling guide ever. People didn't believe you would hit level 80 and still have a full set of PvP gear... Well they came to find out it was better than pretty much everything you got from leveling.
Same thing as the paladin; just this time on my mage.
A funny picture just because of the paladin named Tyrone.
Dumbest GM ever... Need I say more? - Gonna post more pictures when I wake up
Another really old design I used back when I was selling my World of Warcraft Leveling Guides.
As far as I know 1 - 70 this is still the fastest legit time there is from just 100% questing I've never seen a person that beat my time without using Recruit of Friends, being power leveling or helped every second and also this was before the xp nerf of 60 - 70 and before Heirlooms even came out!
That is a picture from when I was in WoTLK beta. As you can see the server is Lich King, don't even know if that is an actual server. But anyway I just like the screeny cause my gear looks so cool! - Note: I just saved all the other pictures I uploaded then for some reason Dreamweaver cleared them... I will take me longer than I wanted but I am going put captions back under each of the screen shots... For now, here are just mostly plain screenshots.
First charater I got to level 70. I was on Dethecus when I hit 70 about 4 days after Burning Crusade came out.
The funniest part of this screenshot and the only reason I took it for is the "Enraged Crusher becomes Enraged! But that screenshot is from Burning Crusade's release. I think I took it on about the second day maybe? Yeah, that is about the time I reached Nagrand and I was also running on no sleep. I got to 67 before I slept that night. Then the day after I got max level of 70. =D
Another screenshot from when I was in beta. I fell through the world in Stormpeaks and had to report the bug to blizzard so they could fix it.
The pictures above and below both go hand in hand pretty much. They are both from Gruul and they both show you how to not die during Shatter. The top one shows two people who died during the first shatter.
This screenshot right here shows you all the people that die during pretty much the very first shatter each and everytime. I posted these pictures on TG's forums awhile back.
Above is a screenshot from someone that doesn't use more than 2% of his brain from Destromath. "if were always loosing so hard dwhy o you all play AV?" I still don't understand what it means even to today.
Another funny person, Bacchus on Gul'dan saying to watch out guys, the alliance have a Thunderfury. Like that weapon is going to plow through our teams.
A funny conversation in general but besides that it is just an oldschool visiual of Hellfire Penninsula's PvP areas. Can you believe people actually did participated in them at max?
Seems like just a simple Karazhan run... And it was. But my one friend, Zerkamor never logged on to talk to me again. =( So, if you ever read this in the future, Zerkamor. Get into contact with me again. My most updated email will always be down at the bottom under the Submit a Guide section!
A screenshot of my paladin at level 80 during beta. This is the full screenshot from it too, instead of just the picture of my character being that level.
One of the coolest looking weapons in Burning Crusade in my opinion. Just nothing compares to the awesomeness!
Some old screens from BC. This was very shortly after I went Ret... And back then those numbers were some beast numbers; especially for a ret paladin!
Only reason I really took this screeny is because of Magex. I just started laughing when I saw that name. Not because it was dumb I found it actually quite hilarious.
A picture of myself in Howling Fjord doing the quest that pits you up against yourself. I just like the good vrs evil scenario of it.
A screenshot I took of the Medallion of Karabor. I don't know why I took one of it, probably for a guild application but there it is! Also the screenshot is old none the less. I think mid Burning Crusade.
My first super big fan! This was before my website was even made, he was just loving me because I was in second place in the race for first level 70 on Dethecus.
A week before we got Gladiator I took this picture. We were on Executus at that time, transfered off Arthas join a guild called Rope Town on Executus. Our final rating for that arena season was 2,276.
Above is the screenshot of our final rating at the end of S1. We got Gladiator with our team, Happy Dappy Hug Factory on Executus. For those that don't think that rating is high, only one team was above 2,400 in like every battlegroup S1. Now adays 3,300 Arena Rating is not that uncommon. Which if you compared it to what it is like now we would have been at least 3,100. Also Warrior Paladin was a terrible 2s comp during S1, so much countered it. Anyone that played the combo or didn't blow would realize how frail it was against something like a Warlock.
Above is a picture of the interface which I used for awhile at level 60. It didn't last very long before I moved onto the one with the circles that I have now.
Above is one of the original logos that I was going to be using for the Wrath of the Lich King Leveling Guides that I made. But I changed it to something else, I forget what.
One of the original Website layouts that I was playing around with.
Above is another one of the designs I was playing around with for my website. This one didn't see the light of day though because it was just poorly made by me.
Me owning a friend back at level 60. Even if you don't care about the owning it is still nice to see some the super old world. Orgrimmar doesn't even look like that anymore!
Above is a picture of my characters on the Wrath of the Lich King beta servers.
Above is just a random screenshot of me fighting a mob in Dragonblight.
Me making fun of a Warrior in TG by the name of Manowarrior. Anyone that was in TG with him and maybe even specifically remembers Nightbane they will remember how bad he was at Stance Dancing.
First picture I took of Taunkas, the new Tauren model in Wrath of the Lich King.
Much like a few of the other screenshots the reason I like this one so much is because it is like a good vrs evil screen shot. Both my Paladin and the Death Knight look exactly the same. Makes it look really cool.
A picture of Ground Gears that I took while in Wrath beta. Was one of my favorite items then and still is today. Blizzard always does something comical, this is one of the first times it actually worked out very well! =D
First time Event Realms ever popped up on the server select screen. I made a post about them on WoW general and got my first ever reply from a GM!
WoTLK select screen. No real reason for this picture besides just showing the super old login screen.
Someone telling me that I am pro in Alterac Valley. No idea why what I did to be honest but It apparently was worth taking a screenshot of.
Another picture of someone talking to me, He said that I am his god. This was when I was in second place in leveling on Dethecus. What great memories that was. I leveled the entire first two days up to level 67, slept for like 12hrs then finished it off to 70.
Probably my favorite screenshot ever taken. It is showing Coldarra in Borean Tundra. I took it in the Wrath of the Lich King beta and used it for a few different things. If you remember this was like one of the original backgrounds for my youtube account when I first started making WoW videos.
What Mylkman said from Spinebreaker is probably one of the funniest things I have seen anyone say in WoW. Perfect song parody right there. If you don't recognize what song it is from, it is from Panic At The Disco "And I chime in with a haven't you people ever heard of, closing the goddamn door no" he changed it too "I chime in with a haven't you people ever heard of...guarding the goddamn flag no".
This is one of my older pictures of my website. I think this was the banner of which I used when I was selling guides. Anyone that used my website however long ago will remember this banner well =) Anyway, that is just about all I found for my old pictures. I hope everyone enjoyed looking through them as much as I enjoyed posting them all! 8/1/11 Still busy working on a bunch of things. I have been reading a lot recently, I re-read a few of the old Shannara books and also started reading the Heritage of Shannara books. Reading them is really helping my writing, I learn new words from reading them or learn creative writing sentence structure and such. Also I just enjoy reading them, Terry Brooks has always been pretty much my favorite writer so it's nice playing some catchup. Anyway, I hope to get done some guides soon, since WoW is still down I may make an update video for my youtube channel but it will be done using EQ, as mentioned before... I think I may stay in EQ for awhile now, I'm kinda diggin it again. I'm not entirely sure though, never am. I jump between ideas/thoughts a lot. What was I talking about again? Just kidding... 7/31/11 Not really a big update today, I just wanted to make a quick update about some super old pictures that I happened to find today from my very first guild ever, <Mirage>. One of them is our guild banner which we used on our guild portal website and the other is the very first Magmadar kill as a guild. God, I was so young at the time it feels like forever ago. Buuuuuuut anyway, here are the pictures which I managed to scrounge up.
I can't remember who made the guild banner for Mirage but they did a really good job with it. Man, that reminds me so much of the good ol' days. Anyway here is the second picture that I managed to find...
Picture is small because it wasn't an original screenshot that I took. I had to pull it off of my old guild website. But it is just cool to look at the old picture. You can see the old pike from AV there, Ice Barbed Spear I think it was. Or something like that. Even just looking at the interface you can see how much the game has changed. I really do miss the old days...
One of the logos I used for my website during Wrath. Ahh so many memories. I miss the gear on my Hunter and Paladin in those pictures. They haven't made a set that looks as cool as those sets do in forever.
I originally took the screenshot because I was having seriously problems with CT but now it serves well as just a flash back to the past. I think that screeny goes so far back it is before cross realms even came out. As to what server I was on... I am fairly certain it was either Dethecus or Warsong. I was on Warsong first before transfering to Dethecus but I can't remember exactly when I did that.
This was my first character that I got to level 70 shortly after Burning Crusade went live. You can tell how old it is just because I have a super old interface in that picture. It is missing the pillar in the center instead it just has two lines for skills and abilities. Also my pet bar is way out of place and looking all weird in the box right there.
This picture I am posting just for laughs, which is why I took it. If you read the chat window it says "Enraged Crusher becomes enraged!". Don't know why I find that as funny as I do but it is.
Another super old logo that I used for my website once upon a time. I designed quite a few of them but only used one or two for the actual website. It is just cool to look back and see it pretty much how it all started back in 2008 when I made the website.
A funny picture I made when I was back in <TG>. They just couldn't figure out how Gruul worked, well most of them. All the people on my raid frames that are dead are the ones who died during the first shatter everytime. Here is the followup picture that I posted on TGs forum to call those two out:
The two standing right on top of each other. I think its pretty funny. The two dead over there are the two that were in my group. I actually think they were buddies irl too, I can't remember.
Memories of old AV on my hunter at 60. Also laughs from the person on Destromath. I still don't understand what he is trying to say.
Another picture of super old AV back when 51 - 60s could enter. And another idiot Gul'dan player.
Probably the funniest Panic at the disco parody I have ever seen. I Chime in with a haven't you people ever heard of..guarding the goddamn flag no. Still makes me laugh to this day.
One of my very early interface designs/ideas.
That's a picture of the WoTLK Login Screen that I took during beta I think. Yeah, Northrend I don't think is even a server. But, there probably aren't many pictures of that login screen around so, here we go!
That is one of my very old Banners for Almar's Guides. As you can tell I'm not very artisitic and I am pretty lame with making pretty pictures.
Every once in awhile some names make me laugh, Magex was certainly one of them.
Talking to a friend about one of the warriors of TG. Anyone that was in TG at the same time when Manowarrior will remember what I am talking about. Especially if they were on Nightbane in the first 10man.
Picture of me owning my friend Mark. Other then that I keep it cause it is an oldie.
That is a picture of my very first Gladiator Team back in Season 1. That was our rating for getting Gladiator... And if you don't think 2,276 is a lot take into consideration during season 1 only like a single team was rated about 2400. ONE. Now it isn't unusual to see teams like 3,200. So in terms of today that would have been 3,100 at least. And it was Warrior Pally 2v2... Which if you were any good and you played season 1 you'd know how much that combo sucked against most of the popular comps.
Probably one of the coolest Burning Crusade graphics on any items in my opinion. The Lionheart Master Blade!
Funny conversation in general with someone and also a really old picture of me at 70 shortly after Burning Crusade came out.
WoW Picture of good vrs bad. Same face/hair Paladin and Death Knight~~
This was even before my website, back when I was leveling in Burning Crusade. I was the highest level hunter so I was getting a lot of attention. Even though I was on a low pop server at the time, Dethecus.
Someone randomly telling me that I am good in Alterac Valley. I don't know why, didn't even know what I did but of course I screenshotted it anway.
Another old design for my website. I think this is the very first one I used for a little bit. In that picture I just used Paint to slap the letters on and to put the bars over my characters seperating them. It was a really basic job.
I don't remember why I took a picture of a Medallion of Karabor but I did. Now the picture has a special place in my memory just because it is such an old picture. My character was named Zelik at that time on Jaedenar I think.
This was the first time that the Tournament Realms appeared in WoW for arenas. I noticed them and made a post on the WoW general forums asking what they were and I got my first blue response EVER but I never got a picture of that. =(
Picture of all my Season 1 arena teams right before I got gladiator. It was about a week before, we finished with a slightly higher rating than what we had there.
When I was in beta I stumbled across the Ground Gears and loved it ever since. Blizzard always has one good comical charm in there.
Just a random screenshot of WOTLK beta I was looking at the Taunka model for the first time and I decided to take a picture of it.
Another Wrath beta Screenshot that I took in Coldarra of Borean Tundra. This is probably one of my most favorite screen shots of all time.
A picture of me against myself in Howling Fjord at whatever that quest is that unlocks your Inner Turmoil.
Just a random picture of me fighting a Decrepit Necromancer in northeastern Dragonblight.
One of the many Beta bugs that they were working out at the time. I remember just running then bam I fell through the world.
This is the full picture of my paladin at level 80 in WoTLK beta. I think Wrath was the first closed beta I ever got into before. Wait, I think Vanguard too.
Picture of me in Stratholme just after getting a full set of ret gear during season 1. My chat window has some... Well what were some high crits for that time for ret especially.
Picture of my beta character on WoTLK before they got wiped.
Picture of someone telling me I am his god right after Burning Crusade came out and I leveled up so quickly.
Just a Karazan raid with <TG> and also the last time I ever talked to a good friend of mine. What happen to you Zerkamor?! Anyway, those are all the super old screenshots that I managed to find. Some good memories there and I am glad I can get them in a memorable location just as my website!
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