My lady and I are like all couples, we have good times and bad. Where I think we differ from a lot of couples is that we will talk things out instead of letting them stew and not say something to the other person as if nothing is wrong.

Last night was one of those nights where something was wrong and it needed to get taken care of right away. What do we do when something like this comes up?

1) Air out what’s bugging you

This sounds simple, but a lot of times what might get said could hurt the other person. We’ve set the stage already and let it be known that we have to just air it out no matter what. Conflict sucks, but not having each other and being angry sucks even more.

2) Let the other person speak

Again, it sounds simple, but when a person is angry, you can tend to go on the defensive real quick. Let the other person talk too. You’re a couple. Don’t act like you’re the only one in the room with feelings.

3) Find a resolution you can both agree to.

This is one that we always seem to have an easy time doing. Our latest resolution is that we don’t turn the TV on until 9:30 at night (unless it’s my streaming night) and that we do work around the house and talk and listen to music instead of sitting on our asses and doing nothing.

4) Stick to it.

If there is one thing that couples can agree to, it’s that they agree to something and then they don’t do it. There is also the potential for it to stop after a couple weeks. Don’t let it. Keep doing it. You’ll feel better for it. If there seems to be an issue with the resolution, start talking about it IMMEDIATELY and don’t let the issue fester.

5) Don’t go to bed angry.

It sounds like everyone says this, but it’s true. If you go to bed angry, you’ll wake up angry and your day will not start off right.  Last night was a prime example. My lady came to bed, she was upset, I was already asleep but woke up when she came to bed. I knew it, so I woke up and we started talking right away.

That’s really all there is to it. We know we’re not perfect. These are just the things we do to help us.

Some of these are new, others are very old. No matter what, I am happy with what I have going on in them.

No Title: 

Break it open: 

Crush: 

Late night afterthoughts:

Destructive lullabye:

1) Leveling is way easy

I got to level 60 super fast. I remember getting my first toon to 60 and it felt like it took forever. This time around, not so much. I was in Outland in no time and getting gear that is super awesome. It’s almost as if they want you to just fly through the first 60 so you can really get to that end game faster.

2) Worgen rock

I decided to play a race I never played before. So, I went alliance and picked a Worgen. What a great choice. The fact that my riding skill is racial and I don’t have to buy a horse is pretty cool. I didn’t even know that was a thing going in until it popped up on my screen at level 20. That was the other thing that got me. I remember it was level 40 to get your first mount in the original game, and level 60 to get an advanced riding mount. How things have changed.

3) Not visiting trainers is the coolest

The old grind sucked. You always had your hearth at the city you were most fond of so you could go to your trainer and get your new abilities. Sometimes it was even a couple levels after you got whatever new skill it was that you could get. Nope. Not any more. Now you just get them when you level. Why are there trainers at all any more other than to give a quest every once in a while? Why not just give those to a random NPC or just stop calling them class trainers?

4) I only have to search one body?!?!

Hands down, the biggest time saver. Looting used to suck. Every single body had to be clicked on in order to get the cash. Now, one click, done. Unless you’re skinning. Then you still have to click on all of them. This still makes things faster.

5) Questing is much more fluid

They really seem to have grouped things well now with the Cataclysm expansion. Outland is still a mess and I don’t expect it to get better anytime soon. But, Azeroth really got an overhaul when it comes to questing. The maps really detail where things are grouped at and you can plan your time accordingly.

That’s it! Those are the things that really got my attention coming back. I’m having a lot of fun right now with my rogue and I can’t wait to start leveling my priest as well. Hopefully that one won’t be too difficult. I’ve never done a healer before.

Let me know what you like the most in the comments section, even if they’re different from my 5.

1) Heat

On Christmas Eve this past year, my heat went out. I thought I had got the damn thing running again, went to Christmas dinner, but returned home to find out that it was 50 degrees and dropping during one of our coldest winters ever. Emergency call to the heating guy on Christmas morning? Not something you ever want to do.

2) Air conditioning

Going along with the coldest winter I remember in years this past year, we had an extremely hot summer to boot. It was during this heat wave that the fan on the condenser unit of my central air went out. With it being more than 10 years old, the EPA recommends that things like this get completely replaced instead of fixed due to it possibly not being efficient enough on energy. Screw that. $40 later I had a new fan motor and I did it myself!

3) Modern plumbing

I lost water pressure and hot water last week. Lucky for me, I can shower at the gym that is a mile away so I didn’t offend anyone at work. But, when you lose that hot water, there’s a lot you can’t do like you used to. Bathing/showering, washing the dishes by hand, washing the dog when she gets stinky, it all gets thrown out of whack. But, that’s now fixed, I have hot water again, and water pressure that rivals a hotel in Vegas.

4) Transportation

Most people can not afford their car breaking down or having something even semi-bad happen to them with their vehicle. Ever end up getting a flat tire? Battery dead? Yeah, I’ve had both of those in the very recent past. Luckily, I was able to get them both fixed and take care of it right away. A few years ago, not so much.

5) Work

Sometimes you get too comfy in that chair at work, or you think you’re doing alright at what you do. Then, out of nowhere, there’s a big change in the direction of the company. You are now out of work and you don’t know what you’re going to do next. This is something that HAS happened to me in the past. It sucks. You feel like you should have seen it coming but you didn’t because “everything was so good”.

How did I get out of all of this?

I’ve had all of these happen to me in the past. Here’s how I have helped make it better for me in case something like this happens again. I started saving money for a “rainy day”. If you’re looking for a few tips on how to save some money, check out the article I posted on 5 easy ways to Save Money that will help you get that “rainy day” fund going.

In my previous post, we talked about the 5 things the internet changed for the better. Today, we look at the other evil side of the internet and show you the 5 things the internet has made worse over the past 25 years.

1) Privacy

With the advent of social media over the years, if you’re new to the online world, you’re probably sharing everything to everyone like it’s a party on New Years Eve after having one too many drinks. You just put it all out there. Pictures, places, things you wouldn’t want your mother seeing. It’s all there for everyone to see. And even if you thought it was safe from eyes you didn’t want to have access to it, the site you put it on could have changed their privacy settings and then it’s all out there in the open again.

Rule of the evil internet #1: If you don’t want even one person to see it, don’t post it. They’ll see it somehow.

2) Identity theft

It’s hard to go a week or less without hearing about some huge security breach that has taken place and thousands of credit card numbers are out there in the wild for everyone to see. Target was the latest in all of that. There are more to come. We all have to have credit monitoring going on now or we’re going to be in some real trouble when we go to buy a house or a car. It used to be that identity thieves would have to sift through paper hoping to get a social security number or a bank account number. Now, it could be some guy who worked on your computer and got those numbers because you had them in that file called “IMPORTANT-STUFF.TXT” on your desktop.

Rule #2 of the evil internet: Encrypt anything that might be financial on your computer.

3) Too many choices

Barry Schwartz calls it “The Paradox of Choice”. When it comes to buying stuff, we just have too many choices out there. And given that we can’t research all those choices, and many others couldn’t either, we might end up with something that is far less valuable for a higher cost than what we really wanted in the first place. We’re wired to get a deal. We’re wired to take people’s word about the things that they have experienced in the past thinking that it will also pertain to our lives. When it comes to internet shopping. I’m totally sure that a 85 year old grandmother living in a community home has the same standards for audio/video equipment as me. Her five star rating on that Pioneer receiver and XBOX ONE has to be worth something, right?

Rule #3 of the evil internet: do your own homework. Don’t assume all the five star reviews are good. Some people just put down 5 stars and then write a bad review!

4) Bullying

Sure, bullying has been around for ages. But, with the semi-anonymous side of the internet where you can be who you want at any time. Children as young as 8 can have balls the size of monster trucks and you would have no idea who they are. I’ve had this happen so many times that when an online conversation escalates just a little bit, I get offline immediately.

Rule #4 of the evil internet: Don’t get sucked in to conversations online you wouldn’t normally have in person.

5) Communication

Some people might see this as a plus. I even mentioned yesterday how some communication with the internet has actually been beneficial thanks to the internet. Then there is the bad side. Email started it, AOL Instant Messenger and many others all the way to Facebook have made it even worse. People would rather type it than say it. With everyone all text happy, they forget that there is actually a person on the other end of that computer/phone reading the message and that their emotions and meaning can get lost in translation due to any number of reasons. Maybe your friend is in a bad mood when you jokingly sent a message that said “you suck”. They might not recall the conversation that was taking place, you could have responded hours after the original flurry of messages, but whatever the case. That message itself might have been taken as hurtful when you just meant it jokingly.

Rule #5 of the evil internet: Sometimes a phone call is better.

That’s it. Those are what I think are the 5 things the internet has not improved on over the last 25 years, and in some cases… it made it worse.

Don’t forget to sign up to get updated anytime I write a new blog or post a new video, and let me know what you think about this article by leaving a comment. I can’t wait to hear your thoughts on the good, the bad, and the ugly experiences you’ve had with the internet over the last 25 years.

I’ve been on it for at least 20 years (probably more). A lot has changed since the first words were sent over the internet. Here are my Top 5 things the internet has changed for the better.

1) Information sharing

We live in a world now where anything that is to be known is out there in a split second for people to consume. News sites, Facebook, YouTube, all digital, all rich content… just ready for you to consume on an “as you want it” basis. Wikipedia emerged, kids going to libraries to look at encyclopedias went down. Online research is now a real thing.

2) Music consumption

This one was huge. With higher speeds of internet and the mp3 coming in to its own. Apple really set the stage with the iTunes store for legal purchasing of music. Amazon and Google have followed suit as well on this, and there used to be rampant illegal file sharing sites for music as well. Most notably, Kazaa and Napster. I have a huge CD collection. But over the last 10 years, I can’t really say I’ve bought like I used to. It’s been all digital for every purchase.

3) Gaming

In my life, this has been a huge impact. Now, you don’t have to go to your friends house to play a game with them anymore. It used to be an overnight sleep over where you’d try to beat Contra without using the Konami code, or seeing who can speed run through Super Mario Bros. the fastest. Now, Call of Duty, Madden, NBA2k, World of Warcraft, and many more have taken over the digital gaming landscape. Friendships and even marriages are formed thanks to gaming and the internet. This one, I call a win.

4) Buying anything

I used to work at a Best Buy store. I even kept going there when I needed something like a movie, or computer stuff after I quit. Not anymore. Everything is bought online and shipped to my house. Amazon Prime is one of the best things I could have ever signed up for. I get books for free on a monthly basis, I get free shipping, I don’t have to leave the house when it’s really cold, and I can see reviews from people who have already bought the item so I don’t have to go in blindly.

5) Keeping in contact with people

Email. Myspace. Twitter. Facebook. Gmail chat. Skype.

There are so many mediums that we can use in order to keep in touch now that it’s hard to believe that we used to have to pay for long distance and that the Jetson’s “video phone” was so far away. Video chat is here. It’s more and more common for people to be doing some sort of communication online rather than face to face due to the restrictions of distance.

What are some of the things you think are great about the internet? How has it changed YOUR life for the better? Leave a comment, and let me know.

Tomorrow we’ll be going over the 5 things the internet has made worse over the past 25 years.

1) Crap night of sleep

This one I knew was coming. My woman isn’t feeling all that well, so there’s a lot of tossing and turning . When she’s not sleeping well, I don’t sleep well either. That always messes up my day.

2) Car troubles (Part 1)

In the ultimate wisdom of Kia, they don’t have an audible ding or beep when you leave your lights on in your 2010 Optima. I’m pretty good about making sure they are off when I leave the car, but I must not have last night. So, I had to jump the car (again) this morning to get to work

3) Car troubles (Part 2)

After successfully charging the battery, my car needed gas. I drove all the way down to the freeway to give the battery a good charge, filled up my tank and went to work. Check engine light came on. Shit. Hopefully it’s just something stupid like my gas cap wasn’t tightened all the way and it will clear itself. I’ll check it out later when I get home.

4) The money pit

Over the weekend, I thought my hot water heater went out. Checked all the other faucets and it’s working just fine. Just not to my tub and shower. Why? Old house, galvanized pipe. Galvanized pipe corrodes inward as sediment happens in the pipe. Even more so when it’s laying horizontally. I have about 4-5 feet of horizontal laying galvanized pipe in my bathroom to the shower. Now I get to rip out the ceiling in my kitchen and learn how to do copper piping with Sharkbite fittings.

5) A killer headache because of all of it.

All this stress this morning has turned up a hell of a headache. I can’t shake it. I’ve been taking Advil like it’s going out of style, but it’s just not doing anything. Maybe a nice hot shower… oh right, #4.

How to not let it get to you.

Sure, you might blow up at first. Sure it’s crazy town at some point in everyone’s life. Out of all of this, I look at it like it’s a learning experience. I get to learn some things. I get to learn about Sharkbite fittings. I get to finally have water pressure in my upstairs bathroom (that’s something I have never really had EVER in this house.. the bath will fill up faster than 20 minutes?!!?!?). Oh, and I don’t have to spend over $1000 USD to have a new water heater purchased and installed.

All in all, there’s a lot worse that could happen today. This was just the start of mine.

Enter: my future wife.

She has never played a PC game that wasn’t attached to Facebook, ever. Not only that, but I’ve always been under the impression she hates games in general.

Well, I recently got her to agree to play with me. She is a Blood Elf Warrior named Wyndbane and I am her healer (I rolled a priest for the first time).

We’ve played for two nights so far. About 2.5 total hours. We’re still somewhere around level 7 and should be much further than we are.  But I found out there are things new people just don’t get and are synonymous with new players:

1) Movement is not natural to non players

This was really frustrating. I tried showing her how to move, how to click on the ground, how to use WASD controls, how to use the mouse to move. None of it worked. I had to make a macro to target and follow me (that she insisted had the /train command at the end).

2) Why the @#$! are the all sitting here?

When we first got in, the starting zone was full of people just standing around AFK. That’s great, I get what to do, right click get my quest and roll. Not her. With her it was “Why are they all standing here?”, “Why is there a ! over her head?”, “Why do I have to do what she says?”

Yup. That happened. This went on for a while along with what happened in #1. She was running all over the place while I tried to get her to accept the FIRST quest.

3) Animal lovers don’t want to kill things

The first quest she was fine with. We had to kill Mana Wyrms. The next quest though, she wasn’t all that thrilled about. She’s an animal lover (so am I). So, when a quest told her she had to kill Springpaw cubs to get their collars, she wasn’t happy. She even got more concerned when she had to kill not only the cub, but it’s mother as well.

4) Spell/Ability rotation

She’s a warrior. So to start, you just mash a button for a while. But once you start getting in to it, there’s a ebb and flow. Chain pulling, threat, all that stuff. My first toon was a warrior. I understand this kind of thing. She doesn’t. I tried showing her how it should work, that she needs to pay attention to the spell bar to see if something is available and use it if it is. Nope. Button mash the whole time.

5) Everything has a funny name

Yes, It’s fantasy. It all has funny names. For the longest time she tried to liken everything to the shire and Hobbits and such. Then she learned there is much more than that. Now she runs around the house yelling things that she hears in the game in a fun joking manner just to see me get visually irked at it.  I’m sure that a lot of places on Earth have funny names too. In fact, I’m sure of it. But, I have been reading fantasy for a very long time. I read the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings when I was 10, this is like childhood for me.

Those are the big five that I learned out of playing the game with her for only 2 hours. It’s quite amusing. We’re going to play more this weekend. If there is anything else that is worth mentioning, I’ll keep you all updated on the adventures of Wyndbane.

Just recently, I started playing again (on a limited basis, not letting it take over this time!) . And it hit me, this is a game that I could totally play with my wife to be and build a bonding experience with her.

You see, back in June, we got the word that she was diagnosed with MS. For those of you who don’t know what it is, it is an auto-immune disease that attacks the nervous system. With her, she gets sensations in her arm that from what she says makes it feel as if “it’s not her own”, and feels very weak because of it.

There’s times where it gets her down, and she’s not her warrior/spartan self. I want her to be able to be that warrior every chance she gets. Someone who can take on the day, kick some ass, and feel accomplishment.

At the same time, I am not a doctor. I can’t heal her. I can only be there for her. But I want to be the guy who does the healing for her.

That is where the game kicks in. I talked to her about this and she seems to be all for it. She’s going to be the warrior, I’m going to be her healer. At least in that world, I can do my best to keep her safe. She’ll do her best to kick some ass. I think it’s going to be a lot of fun. While I know this doesn’t fit in with my usual “Five things”, it is a way for us to “Refresh our life” and help cope with something that affects both of us.

If you’re using a couple really good websites like Followerwonk and Buffer, you’ll know exactly when that time would be.

Watch the video below and see my 5 steps to timely tweeting.