A Dedication To Corey

The following is a poem dedication to a very talented young man, a man I was beginning to get to know but who was taken too long before was fair. The poem was written by Melissa Muth, a friend of a friend.
A Poem Dedicated to Corey Bobb
By: Melissa Muth

There once was this man named Corey Bobb.
The fact that he died today makes me sob.

He was a performer unlike any other.
The loss of him will be hard to recover.

I know I was just the shadow in each show,
But I got to watch Corey’s acting skills grow.

He put so much passion in each and every role.
The audience’s hearts is what he stole.

As an actor, his work was fantastic!
That man was sooooo dramatic!

He was loved by family and friends.
He was a good friend to the very end.

Who could ever forget his famous Gollum voice?
Now that is something to truly rejoice!

He was an excellent singer and I will miss him in choir.
Damn he knew how to set Aagard’s attitude on fire!

Never was there someone so funny and sarcastic.
Hell I never thought he could be more spastic!

For a dude he sure knew how to have a great time.
He’d sing for his own musings and to entertain others on a dime.

For a guy he was most noble and kind.
He cared for others and put them ahead in his mind.

He protected those he loved and respected.
He did honorable things that I’d never suspected.

I think everyone would agree that he was a good man.
However, him suddenly leaving us was not part of the plan.

Life will never be the same.
Everything seems dull and lame.

Corey I salute you sir for everything that you are.
It will be nice to look up at the sky and see you as a star.

Corey Bobb was precious to each and every one of us.
He wouldn’t want us to grieve or fuss.

So we thank you Corey Bobb for touching our lives.
Thank you for giving us a reason to strive.

I hope you are happy on the other side.
You were a great friend and much more besides.

Corey's passing served as a reminder to me that we all have a chance of leaving before we're ready, so make every day count.

RO

RO (or Ragnarok Online) is an MMORPG (massively multi-player online role-playing game) that I've been playing for quite some time now, starting way back in middle-school. It has many many private servers worldwide, a few of which I play on. The few I play on are Burn-RO, Dreamer-RO, and Neverending-RO . I'll be giving a short review on all of them. Firstly I should explain some terms. "WoE" is the abbreviation of War of Emperium, this is battle between guilds to control a castle. "PvP" is player vs player, this includes dueling and PvP-Rooms. "GM" stands for Game Master (or Game Moderator) these are the managers/rule keepers/event hosts of the server.

BurnRO Max Levels = 255/150, max stats are 250

Community: The community of Burn is generally very friendly, with a few bad eggs mixed in. The community consists of mostly English speakers, along with Pinoy (Philipines), Hispanohablante (Spanish-speaking), and Deutscher (German) players.

Pvp: There are PvP rooms available, including Non-Custom Items room. My advice would be to stay away from the PvP rooms until you're a confident player, being max level is a must.

GMs: The GMs on the server are friendly and active, I am one Spanish support GM.

WoE: WoE should be reserved for the confident and elite players. It is moderated in a balanced fashion and I have no complaints.

Recommendation: This is a very exciting and friendly server, 5/5 stars.

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Dreamer RO Max Level = 500/120 Max stat = 500

Community: The community is quiet and semi-cold natured. Don't go looking for help in this server, as you're likely to be ignored.

PvP: Intense and unrelenting.

GMs: The GMs here are fairly inactive, events are automated and bland.

WoE: Similar to PvP, the WoE of this server is unrelenting and can be over very quickly.

Recommendation: This server is a bit more strategic and should be reserved for hardcore Ragnarok fans. 3/5 stars.
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Neverending RO- Max levels 1000/300 Max Stats 1000

Community: This is a low population super high-rate server, the community is quiet and conserved.

PvP: Being a super high-rate server, the PvP of this server is a bit of a joke.

GMs: Inactive and ignorant at best.

WoE: Like PvP, the war of Emperium here is a bit of a joke. All players have max stats, similar equipment and hive-minded strategies.

Recommendation: I've been treating this server very much like a novelty server. As far as I can note, you should only join this server to mess around and watch the Damage amounts fly. 1/5 stars.

Volunteer Work

I'm not usually a shy person, in fact I find it hard to shut my mouth around most people. This week was a bit different; I served some volunteer hours at the local food pantry. The people that enter this food pantry were entitled to an allotted amount of food, this food allotment varied by family size. The family sizes that can be served ranged from 1-2 person familes, up to 12+ sized families. The food in the pantry was the generals of life: cereals, soups, fruits, vegetables. I volunteered my time here because it put me outside of my comfort zone, these people were strangers, but strangers in situations not unlike my own. They were low income families, just trying to make ends meet. I'm in the same situation, I recently moved into an appartment with my friend and my girlfriend. They both have jobs, and lucky me, I recently got laid off. I know the "list" very well, because I hear it once a month, every month as I go in for .my. food allotment. I can list the categories that I listed off: Fruits/juice, vegetables, beans, tuna, spaghetti sauce, pasta, side dish, mac & cheese, meat, cereal, soup, hygiene products, extra products. Honestly I was nervous to be volunteering there, what if I saw a friend of mine? What would they think? What would they think I thought? The identities of the clientele is confidential, I can't even mention it to them later face to face off the pantry premises. I must admit, there are those that I favored if they came to my workstation, instead of four cans of soup I gave them five. There were some people who had children with them, I gave them an extra box of pop-tarts, maybe something sweet for the kid. I didn't feel sorry for them really, I just identified with them, because I have been on their side of the counter before. I'll confess that some of these people were downright mean, picky, crude. To them I say that sometimes, you have to settle for something, you won't always get name brand. Out of the volunteer work I've done, (highway clean-up, community garden work, local rec-center work) I think my time at the pantry was best spent. No matter how hurried they were, or how embarrassed they were, they always gave a thank you, and maybe the best part about it was that these 'thanks you's were actually sincere. It's times like these that I'm glad to help people, help the ones that deserve it, the ones that need it, and not just those that want it.

A bit about me.

I've not been in many car accidents in my lifetime, no heart-stopping t-bone on the highway. I'm not a fighter, but I fight. I'm not a singer, but I still sing. I can barely play my guitar, but that doesn't stop me from playing. I'm learning all the time, and sometimes I learn that a lesson isn't worth the effort, or maybe that the lesson isn't a priority right now. I've done a lot of learning throughout the last two years in particular; I've lost a friend through murder, lost another through a house fire. I did some regrettable things within the last few years; a couple of which I don't believe should be forgiven. I've lied to people recently, but I've come clean to them all as time went by. One thing I learned about lying is that each and every lie changes something about you. You might not feel it the day of, or even months after, but you'll feel it eventually; they always catch up with you.

On a happier note, I've been practicing to play "Better Version" by Shinedown, I can only claim an amateur grasp of the song, my fingers aren't as quick as they need to be. For players out there, take a look at the tabs, they can be found Here It's a brilliant song, deep lyrics that I wish I'd written. It's only fair to pay credit to where it's owed; my inspirations for ever plucking a string include (but are not limited to) The Doors, The Who, The Beatles, Disturbed, 3 Doors Down and others.

I'm starting my French lessons again, mainly to prove my brother wrong; he seems to think I'm not up to it. French would be my 3rd foreign language of study, preceded by Spanish and German. Music itself can open your ears to a whole variety of worlds as far as language is concerned. Example 1 , Example 2, and Example 3 Each of these examples is in a different language, languages that I have studied in school or on my own.

My hope is that this week you can open your doors to something new, whether it's something small, reading a book to learn something. Taking up an instrument and seeing what it does to you. Or maybe just finding something foreign that you can enjoy and maybe even seek more of.

Honesty Just Doesn't Work For Me

The first lie that I remember telling was horrible in its formation, full of holes it was; I didn't yet know the great art of lying. I stood, shaking in front of my step-father, as he had his belt in hand. He asked me if I had ruined the new garage door by scratching initials into it. These initials just so happened to be the initials of our neighbor Lisa. Well, little me, not knowing any better, I said "no, I don't know her last name, I know her first name and middle name." Now when I think back to the look he gave me, I can recognize it as the look of utter disbelief and a dash of confusion. I can remember him staring at me, and to my mother, and back to me. He walked outside, sanded the initials away and repainted over where they were. My mom had the same look of disbelief on her face, almost as if she had expected that my dad had trained me better. Back then, a bad lie saved me from a spanking, but earned me some stern glances at the dinner table.

Another lie I remember was bringing my first "F" home on a freshly printed report card. The "A"s weren't important, it was that "F" that would get me grounded. I sat at the kitchen table as my dad opened it up and ready my grades aloud to me, "Math, A, Science, A, History, A, Gym, A, Music, F... How can you get an 'F' in Music? How can you do that?" Well, "I stepped on her (the teacher's) foot and she's failing me now." It sounded good at the time, as I hadn't learned to rehearse this sort of thing quite yet. It turns out that that lie was pretty sufficient, or at least it was while dad was still in his barely awake sleepy stupor state. An hour later he saw the report card again and asked me the same question, and I responded the same way as I had before. This time around he wasn't tired any more, and he knew that my tiny foot and unimpressive body-weight could not possibly warrant a failing grade. He called the teacher, and found out that my 'F' was indeed the result of my foot, and her shin. I had kicked the teacher and lied about it. The 'F' was grounds enough for a grounding, but the fact that I had kicked her had landed me a month grounding, without desserts after dinner. My world was crushed.

I started practicing, I started planning, I started lying like a trained amateur, I was no longer a novice to the game of deception. I'll admit, I still wasn't the greatest, not even as good as my brother. I studied the way he lied; I studied the way he talked and stood. I studied the way his voice changed when he wanted emotion. To me, my brother could lie to a police officer, standing next to a burned down house, matches in hand. That boy had skills. My dad was no match for him. Although, for all his lying expertise, he still couldn't dodge the "F" bullet.

High-school, if not anywhere else, is the training grounds of the professional liar. The reason for this is that the student is always being questioned, "Where is your homework?, Why are you late? Why did you skip class yesterday?" The lies themselves range from the simple, "I left it in my dad's car when I got dropped off this morning; I can bring it tomorrow." to the bold " I wasn't here yesterday because my mom is in the hospital again this week." Depending on the gullibility of the teacher, and his/her patience, either of these lies might be passable, or they might get you a hot seat in detention.

Now I've become so good at lying that I can fool myself into thinking it's the truth, or maybe everything I say is true. Maybe I no longer need to lie, because I have nothing to hide. Do you have the nerve to tell the truth?

Did You Say Something?

I was traversing the internet one day and I happened upon one of the best internet quotes I have ever seen. My friend later put it onto a desktop background and it amuses him to no end.

The quote itself can be found on his drafting background here: http://i25.tinypic.com/33c44lw.jpg

This quote got me thinking, what was going through the author's head as he typed it down onto the message board? Maybe English was his second language and it was a simple mistake. Maybe, just maybe, s/he was attempting to say three different things, but was in a hurry so they all got bunched together. I started thinking about language and how many languages are being brutalized on the internet. When I say "brutalized" I mean of course the misspellings, the shortcuts, the LOLs. Many on the internet are thankful for spell-check, or they would be if they used it. Or typing an essay, how many out there take the time to capitalize every "I" instead of letting f7 do all the proper work?

Why has the internet fallen to this, maybe because with each and every typo, we personalize our post. Maybe because the errors we have in ourselves are shown through our carelessness in our speech or text. I'll be the first to admit that I have my faults. I'm unmotivated I have a short attention span, I occasionally succumb to writer's block. I feel as though I could give more of myself to people. I have low pride, I'm a giver, I find it hard to take what I didn't earn or work for. I try to make every post something that I can look back on without cringing. I try not to be the one post or comment that confuses everyone with incorrect wording.

So please, for anyone out there reading this, please put a little more effort into your posts/comments/statuses, your language is counting on you to keep it alive.