I want a stainless steel road stretching off to the sky

The Behind the Steam blog published an official review of the 2 Cent Show album by Steam Powered Giraffe, and overwhelmingly it's positive. Which is good news indeed!

[Help] Kneecapitator: So what's with this popup as I log in? "Given recent events", watch your info? What happened?
[Help] Hexman: wow hacked... again
[Help] Scourging Gale: presumably a bunch of gullible nublets have given their account info to scammers
[Help] Scourging Gale: oh
[Help] Scourging Gale: I stand corrected
[Help] Hexman: I should say blizzard since it wasnt limited to just wow

In brief: this news has been everywhere at this point, but Blizzard got hacked. Specifically a lot of matching information the hackers can use to access user accounts for Diablo III and WoW (that we know of), so that they can get in to those accounts and change those user passwords.

It's a huge, huge hack, and it's pretty grim in a lot of different ways.

[Help] Kneecapitator: Glad I quit when I did and decided not to buy any more of Activizzard's crap.
[Help] Kneecapitator: Then again, my bank blacklisted them years before that, I was playing on timecards from Wrath on.
[Help] Hexman: I want to return to the days when I could go to the store, buy a game, go home and just play it, I dont want to log into some server, or give my CC# or create an account, I just want to play what was in the frikkin box that I spent 50 bucks on

Yeah. Those were the days.

[Help] Ettu?: amen Hexman
[Help] Hexman: hopefully they will see that you cant have accounts hacked if you dont require your customers to HAVE accounts
[Help] Hexman: with the exception of MMOs for obvious reasons :P
[Help] Kneecapitator: Back when copy protection was "What's the third word in the second paragraph on page 15 of the manual? XD
[Help] Sgt. HellTouched: I was going to say...
[Help] Hexman: I dont believe in copy protection, it simply does not work.

Well, yes and no. Back in the days they're talking to, "hacking" was pretty much "we photocopied this sheet with the flag colors and country names on it, use it when you open the program". Things have gotten a lot more technical since then.

[Help] Hexman: and adds a cost to the product you purchase

Always.

[Help] ThornyDevil: it's like Jeff Goldblum said "Nature finds a way"
[Help] ThornyDevil: except with piracy
[Help] ThornyDevil: and thus better

Or worse, depending on your point of view.

Turning to more personal topics, what do we do when the thing that gives us joy and delight turns into anguish and pain? All the work of our hands turned to dust and splinters, ashes and thorns? If we're anyone else, we start over somewhere else, somewhere that doesn't burden our heart more than it gladdens it.

Ah, but I've always been stubborn.

So I listen to the demon's music, and dance with the serpent of honeyed tongue, and vaguely resent the moon while I wait for a dawn that may never come. It could be a very long night indeed, and I still have no answers. I thrash inside the cage I helped to build and wonder when I'll feel free enough to fly through the open door.

Maybe flight is not what I need. Maybe it's not the method of movement that's important, as much as the desire to move. Maybe it's less about wanting to stay, and more about wanting to leave.

Or maybe I'm still falling, and I need to hit bottom before rising again. I just hope I figure out where I need to be, before I crash through bedrock.

I've also realized something else. Over the past five months, I've been reacting instead of acting--to pain, to hurt, to confusion, multilayered and dizzying in scope. And rather than face up to the things causing that hurt and pain, I've been trying to shut them out entirely, desperately seeking distraction, oblivion, blindness...thinking that if I can't see it, I won't hurt over it. Out of sight, out of mind? Or at least pushed far enough away that I start to forget entirely.

But I'm not that lucky. I never have been.

The thing is, I can't do that anymore. I mean, I cannot keep carving bits of myself away, in the hopes that my losses won't be quite enough to kill me before I heal.

And I've always healed slowly.

What I've always done is not the way I get through this. And just because I don't see another path doesn't mean there isn't one. It just means I've been standing in my own way again.

So we start small. Still not up for the rounds of social engagement, but I might show up in Cubidon now and again. And I'm going to make another stab at getting the writing off the ground again. Building things, even if they're just for me and never for retail. Making an effort, as hard as that seems, because waiting for things to feel less stressed and strained is also not working.

At some point, we have to realize that we fell into the hole on the path all on our own, and no one is going to come back and save us. That's not the point of falling. We have to save ourselves.

And if it's hard climbing out of the hole, well, maybe it needs to be. Maybe that will convince me not to fall again.

Or at least, not fall quite so far next time...