Star Light Star bright,
The first star I see tonight,
I wish I may, I wish I might,
Have the Quel’delar drop tonight.

In a society where communication is everything, why is it that we as society seem to be distancing our selves more from each other? With the advent of text messaging, phone calls, emails, instant messaging, and new methods of communication like Twitter, Facebook, and Google Wave you would suspect that we would be drawn closer together as a community.

These tools have created a side affect that no one could have ever suspected. We email instead of speaking on the phone, 45% of people now break up through text messages, and 32% of people admit they have flirted with someone else through text messaging while on a date with someone else. What does this all about how we now choose to communicate?

As the flow of everyday information becomes more predominate and easier to access, we are becoming our own gate keepers to our digital lives. We pick and choose who is allowed become our friends, who can see our updates and even how we choose for people to view and interact with us, all with no remorse or consequence. We have become the stars of our own digital world weaving through social networks and profiles trying to gain attention from a world over loaded with irrelevant information. Fame comes in many forms in the meta both good and bad. It can become a venue to catapult you to the next level or  become the platform where you are the next global joke that will forever live in the meta.

These new tools for communication should be used to enhance your real life and to expand your network on a global scale. But most people have started to use the meta as a defensive structure from which they shield themselves from real life situation and allowing them to experiment with different type of relationships with out any consequence. This has led to a the creation new personas, an online presents that doesn’t necessarily represent who they would be in the real world.

In one form or another this new entity that is born within the meta is an extension of that person. Somehow this new persona is fulfilling  a need that the person cannot fulfill within their real life.

We should all learn about our online personas and understand why it persists and how it interacts with and affects our real lives. Maybe in doing this we can bring some of that knowledge and self discovery back into our real lives to better ourselves.

Maybe in the end we will be able to just talk to a person face-to-face about an issue instead of sending a text message.

Now that our vacation to the port of Ashenvale was over, a fellow guildie and I dozed off and dreamt of the adventures we were about to embark on as we sailed deep into the Veiled Sea.

In the past fifteen years selling your unwanted goods has gone beyond a simple yard sale and directly to the web. With the advent of sites like Craig’s List and Ebay buy and selling has become quick, easy and cheap. But recently a new trend of selling and buying has started with the monetization of virtual goods.

In the past virtual goods been over looked by many entrepreneur and big business but has recently started to turn heads and many company’s have started to scramble to jump on this growing marketing. According to a report by Inside Network, its estimated that the virtual goods market will hit $1.6 billion in revenue the U.S. in 2010. This is only a quarter of the estimated $4 billion in revenue that will be  generated this year in South Korea where the virtual good market started over a decade ago.

Facebook, Myspace, and others are driving this new market. Their massive user base have allow companies like Zynga, the creator of popular games like FarmVille and Mafia Wars, to capture audiences with there virtual offerings and has create a viable business model from which to profit from.  Max Lechin, CEO of Slide and co-founder of PayPal, in a recent interview told TechCrunch they now almost make all there money from virtual goods.

Even if you haven’t heard of Zynga or Slide, other big companies have started to ramp up production there virtual offerings in hopes of new revenue streams. Companies like Sony, Activision Blizzard, and even Microsoft have all started to expand or experiment with offerings in the virtual market by taping into there existing services and adding “premium content”.

You maybe thinking to yourself “I’ve never bought a pet for a game!”, but at one point or another you have bought some type of virtual good.

Virtual goods are not limited to just items for games for FarmVille or WoW, but can be found in places like Apples own App Store with there new in app purchase system. Apple is another example of seeing the potential growth of the virtual goods market and expanded their payment platform to include functionality to allow purchases of premium content and services.  Now that Apple has announced the iPad and there intent to keep with the iPhones App Store model virtual goods can be seen as the foundation of their new business strategy. Services like Xbox Live, Playstaion Store, Apple App Store and more will help ignite a virtual goods boom the the coming years.

But virtual goods have not always been at the for front of a companies business model. In the beginning they where uses to entice customers to buy a certain product and acted as a bonus.  Blizzard has been known to give vanity pets for there World of Warcraft game as a bonus to people who purchased a collector edition, usually tagged with a premium price. But in late 2009 Blizzard announced they would open up there online Blizzard store to accommodate 2 new vanity pets that could only obtained buy purchasing them at $10 each. Also a recent Blue Post stated Blizzard it intent to bring their in-game auction house online on World of Warcraft Armory portal and would be considered a premium service with a separate service charge.

So how do these new “goods” and services affect our real lives? At what point does the meta become an integrated part of life and is important enough to us to track, pay, and consume on a daily basis? What drives us to decided to pay for new cloths for our avatar, or to be granted access to these new tier of “premium content”?

For whatever the reasons maybe it is seemingly becoming clear that the line between our real lives and our life in the meta is starting to blur and become one.

For sometime now I’ve had multiple sites and domains but have never taken the time to concentrate on building them out. It was mostly do to a lack of content and time. This time around I thought I would try to concentrate on a single concept instead of trying to create a personal blog.

Starting in 2008 I started to get back into online MMO’s and was hoping to find a game that was enjoyable and could distract me from the drama that real life brings. As the months progressed I found that some online communities just didn’t seem to fit my personality or were too complex. I figured it would be best to join the same communities that people I knew in real life were a part of. So I joined World of Warcraft since I knew of a couple of people who currently played it.

I had previously played WoW but never got too deep into it because I didn’t understand the complexities of the game nor did I have the time to dedicate to it. But knowing that I had friends already in game I was willing to give it another shot and dived right into this new online experience.

As time passed I wanted to learn more about the people in WoW community and their online experiences. To my surprise there was a large following with wikis, blogs, portals, movies, and even podcasts all dedicated to WoW. So wondered what drives people to create so much content and have so many discussions about a game? To try to answer my question I started to listen to different WoW related podcasts and blogs. One podcast really struck me, a podcast produced by a female WoW player named Alachia called WoWCast .

Her views on MMO’s and communities that revolve around a fantasy world  intrigued me and caused me to reflect on my life and experienced with in these worlds. She described these worlds as the meta, a fictional world with in our reality that we become attached to and try to make our reality. I dont want to go too much more into it but you can read Alachia’s explanation or look up the word on Wikipedia for more insight.

Come back to present day and I am still playing WoW and have become immersed in the community and the game itself.  But WoW is only a small part of my metaverse. The Internet itself fascinates me and has become my home. So with this website I hope to post my insight into this constantly changing and evolving online world that connects us all and even separates us. But we’ll talk about that in another blog post.

Recently I started a new blog. You can see it at the link below. Enjoy!

http://www.rez-please.com

Well I just got the new Prince of Persia game from Amazon today. And because I Pre-Ordered it they upgraded me to the limited edition. It comes with the game, and online comic, bonus DVD with videos and more.

Not bad for just paying the regualr price of the game.

So I guess I know what I’ll be doing all weekend. I also recently got Too Human and have just started that game.

The next one I want is  Fallout 3 but I think I’ve used up all my “entertainment” budget and will have to wait a but. Unless I can find a good deal on it.

I just read this on Kotaku.com. It’s crazy that now Guitar Hero is everywhere, including now in your food. This meal is a heart attack waiting to happen with so much food. Don’t get me wrong it looks really good but we all know with most fast food, just as fast as you it goes in your body it goes out. At least that is a big issue I have seen with Taco Bell.

Orginal Post: Kataku.com

Just thought I would show off my new set up. I moved my Xbox 360 to my desk so now I will never have to leave my room except to go to the bathroom and to eat something. Its pretty nice to have the 360 right next to my computer so I can look things up or keep track of other things.

I don’t know how long this will last but it seems to be working out pretty well so far. 

I know.. I’m a total geek.

Yesterday my mom sent me this pic from the Rays Baseball game (Game 1). I haven’t talked to her today but I bet she had a blast. I mean look at that smile.. she must have had fun.

Love ya mom!

Finally got my copy of Fable II direct from Amazon with “Release Day Delivery” which awsome. Now I cant wait to go home and play it. I was even debating if I should take the rest of the day off from work to start my Fable Adventure. 

But I have to be a good Designer and do my work before play. But you can bet that I will be up most of the night playing Fable II.

For quite sometime now I’ve wanted to have a similar setup at home as I do at work. At work I have 2 Dell 19″ LCD display while at home I have an Apple iMac 20″. So I started looking at prices for another 20″ wide screen display. 

Knowing I needed to get the best deal possiable I called up my step-father in NY and asked him if he had an “in” and knew where I could get a good deal on the type of display I was looking for. He told me to send him the specs and he would look into it.

Come Friday he called me up and told me to be home on Saturday because I was getting a dilivery from FedEx. With the dilivery truck on Saturday morning came a new Samsung 20″ LCD. I was in shock…

He had gone ahead and bought be one and had it shipped next day. I couldn’t believe it. What could I do to pay him back. At the moment the best thing I could come up with was to call him up and give him a big thank you.

I know one thing, I might not have a lot of money to spare but I know that I have a great family behind me. If I ever had to chose to either have all the money I would ever need or just have my family, hands down I would always pick my family.

I Love You Bill, Thanks for being such a great dad and always being there for me. I hope one day I can do the same for you.

I’m thinking about redesigning my blog and I’m look at other themes that are out there. So if you see things change don’t freak out. I’m just playing around to see what I like.

This weekend was a pretty tame weekend. Since I’m trying to save money I haven’t been doing much these days. I’ve been a good boy and am now taking my lunch to work every day. A ham and Swiss cheese sandwich with mayo and some type of soup.

But that is not what I wanted to talk about. My point is that since I am in this new saving money mode I’ve cut back quite a bit. I’ve combined my websites under one host instead of two, taking lunch to work, got ride of Verizon FiOS TV (I only have the Internet now), turn off the air conditioning when I leave for work, eating at home a lot now, etc.

But I did sign up for Netflix’s. The reason? Well since I don’t have TV anymore I thought I would watch movies with Netflix’s, on top of that in the next month or the Fall Update will be coming for my Xbox 360 which will bring Netflix’s movies directly to my living room.

So as of late I have been watching a lot of movies and playing a lot of Xbox 360. Right now I’m addicted to trying to get Lego Starwars: The Complete Trilogy to 100% complete. Which brings me to the title of this post. I have now realized that I have found my Soul Mate… my Xbox 360.

I love… wait.. LOVE… once more L-O-V-E my 360. This fall and winter so many games are coming out and I honestly don’t think I have enough money to buy them. Which is funny because I am trying to save money but I might just end up using that money to buy more 360 games.

One of my main goals on my 360 is to try to get as many Achievements as possible. Now I know I’m not an expert gamer, but I like the challenge and I get excited when I see that green ring come up saying I’ve unlocked another Achievement.

This Fall/Winter is going to be amazing. With TONS of great games coming out and a new Xbox experience update there is plenty of excitement to keep the love alive with my 360.

Here are some of the thing I’m looking forward to playing/doing:

• Gears of War 2
• Fable 2
• Lego Indiana Jones
• Lego Batman
• Prince of Persia
• Armored Core: For Answers
• Mortal Kombat VS DC Universe
• Fall Out 3
• Tales of Vesperia
• Final Fantasy XIII
• Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts
• Watching my Netflix’s on my 360
• Creating my Own Avatar

So there you go. As you can see even though I am saving money I see myself being very poor this Holiday Season. But as long as I have my loved ones around and my Xbox 360 to keep me warm at night I think it might just be the best Holiday Season yet.