How the Leaves Are Changing - Week of 09/28/2013 - What Was I Up To?

Welcome to the first week of How the Leaves Are Changing? Every Saturday we take a break before the start of the new week and I just kind of sit and talk a little bit about what I have been doing for the past week or so. This came from the idea from a friend that I should start vlogging (in which I lol'd at him) so I decided to blog instead of vlog.

I can color... The cover art for my outline binder!

Well for starters, I've been super busy with the blog this week. I've had this blog that's been on and off for about two or three years now where I would get the inspiration to write a bunch of articles, write one and then that would be the end of it. For the past six months however since I got my first smart phone every time I came up with a blog article I would write down the title in a To-Do list App but still wouldn't write them. This week inspiration struck me again but I took it a little further this week. I made a big binder with 5 tabs and took all of the ideas I had on my phone and wrote outlines for them so I wouldn't forget what I wanted to talk about. I even took out the college planner I haven't been using for this year and put up a five article a week schedule Friday-Tuesday. I've also done a little bit of work on the blog as well such as adding better tags, adding a blog roll and updating the links sections. I also have been putting the thinks to new blog articles on my stream for easier access.

I've been thinking about doing audio/video versions of articles. Articles like the Monday Musings are just really thought out opinion pieces, people might not want to sit and read through it all so I thought I might try writing out the article, doing an audio reading of it and putting it over a backdrop of my character dancing based on the game that it's about. And then putting highlights for the written section of it. I was also thinking of doing an audio recording only of How the Leaves Are Changing since this is also more of a personal article. Like a Captain's Log... I don't know how I would publish an audio only version, I guess I would have to find out how audio podcasts do that little audio thing on their websites.

I've also been looking into ways to make a little bit of money on the side. I put about 3-7 hours a day for 5 days into both the blog and my stream. I'm currently in school, and of course I hate it, I have a really high IQ so I feel like I don't learn anything. I don't read the books or do any studying take a test and get an A on it. I currently have no income because I'm at school full time and having absolutely $0 all the time really sucks. I'm not looking to make a ton of money, just enough so that I could pay for my game subs and the occasional game that I want without having to ask someone else to get it for me or wait until a Holiday. So I put a Donation button on the blog links and on the stream. I don't plan on promoting them or shoving them down anyones throat but I figured I would put it there incase anyone did and that's probably the last thing I'll say about it. I also got approved for Adsense by Google so there will be ads on my Youtube and here on the Blog. If you have Adblock (I do too, mostly for Youtube) I would ask that you consider turning it off for this site, since they'e tiny and not in obnoxious places. It would help me out a lot!

I also did a lot of work on the stream page this week. I finally realized that Twitch didn't move over the HTML profiles we used to have and I had nothing in my info section. I worked on it for about two hours and am really happy with the way that it looks. I like it, I think it looks super professional. You can check it out here.

Now, to the Video Games!

I'm currently on a pretty heavy WoW binge right now. I have a very bad case of gamer ADD where I play one game for 6+ hours a day for 2-4 weeks, burn out and switch to something else. Right now my addiction is World of Warcraft again. I'm currently working on finishing my Legendary Cloak that has an odd story behind it. I quit playing WoW hardcore for about six months (my first and only extended break in 9 years) because I got a new job that had really long hours. So I missed almost all of Tier 14. Ever since I have been super behind on the Legendary. For the past month or so I've been working on the Secrets of the Emperor, killed over 100 bosses and didn't get a single drop. Finally this week I realized that when I faction transferred I lost the quest and had been wasting my time for almost six weeks. Thankfully, I still had some bosses left and got my last Secret I needed on the Sha of Pride on flex difficulty and I completed my meta gem Legendary and next week I start Runestones. Other than that I've been pretty much doing nothing except for odds and ends in game, still working on getting the Ashes of A'lar, run it on five different toons, still no luck.

Tera had a promotion last week that gave you one free instant level 58 if you made a character with the .Levelup in the name. I took advantage since I am definitely not a grinding/Western MMO type of player and the chance to get an almost max level character and skip all of the grinding I'll definitely take it! However, other than logging on to get her gear I haven't actually played it yet. Maybe one day I'll find the motivation!

Now this. Guild Wars 2 is holding a free week from September 27th-October 3rd where the game is completely free to play to people who don't own it for one week. They also have a sale on the box making it $20 cheaper at $39.99. I didn't really have an interest in Guild Wars 2 when it launched because of it's not trinity system. I am a healer so if I can't choose to heal 100% of the time then I really have no interest. However, I will of course try the game if it's free! I made a Sylvari (which is a plant/tree thing because RESTO DRUID AT HEART) Elementalist and have been live streaming my first impressions. The Weekly Innervate this week will host a full article. It definitely won't be a main game but I am considering getting the deluxe addition (which is only $45) and adding it to games I play casually for the story content.

That's it for me. Thanks so much everyone who has stopped by in the last week with support of the blog and the retweets on Twitter, I appreciate every single one! Now, I'm off to record a run through Copperbell Mines for tomorrow Sunday Stroll, have a good night everyone!