matt dash low dot com

I have not yet decided what to do on my birthday yet. All I know is that it will involve friends and food. I don’t know if I want to go out somewhere for dinner or not. My birthday falls on the last Friday of September. That’s a prime date that can work on either the Friday night or the Saturday night schedule depending. I’ll end up doing something on Friday for the time being unless something happens.

Given the choice between eating in or eating out, I can safely say I prefer eating in. There’s something to be said about creating your own food. It’s far easier on the wallet too. On the other hand, there’s also the issue of cooking. For one, I’m no Emeril. I feel bad about making others go through the motions and the efforts of doing so especially when I feel powerless. The only thing I can do decently well is supply laughs and liquor!

And so the dilemma continues. Eat out and spend money, or eat in and spend less money, but incur effort on the parts of others? I’m definitely going to involve the usual suspects no matter what we do. As I continue to get older, what we activities do doesn’t seem as important as who we do activities with. Even board games, or card games or Wii games is enough for me with friends around.

Wish list

Just intended as a guideline. Even monetary donations to contribute to next year’s Blizzcon and California adventure will be great! But gifts are not required. Nope. Just bring yourself, a smile, and laughing at my lame jokes will be enough for me!

Wii Sports Resort – This will definitely keep me off of WoW for at least 4 or so weeks. Plus I’m sure it’ll be a fun party game.

Professor Layton & the Diabolical Box – Only the best puzzle sequel ever made!

Luminous Arc 2 – Another DS RPG type game.

Wanted – DVD. Really, all I want is the 5 second clip where I can see Angelina Jolie’s ass.

Day 5

9:33 AM – Realized the day before we’re running low on fresh clothes. The heat and humidity here is a little more then us Canadians are used to. Had to do a laundry run.

10:02 AM – Found a laundromat. First time I ever did laundry. It all boils down to necessity, don’t it?

11:04 AM – Finished washing and drying! Didn’t realize it would take an hour or so. Timing was about right. Went to Carl’s Jr right after to meet a a fan of the blog. Turns out he works at disney and reads my site. Offered us three 1-day passes into Disneyland! Thanks Scott!

11:40 AM – Parted company with my roomies. Met up with my guild mates 5 minutes later. Went out for sushi.

5:15 PM – Mini golf tournament with my guildies! Naturally, I come up short on the bottom end.

8:01 PM – Just left. Traffic reeeeally sucks down here. Wow. I’m amazed.

9:46 PM – Arrived home! Yay! Bed!

Day 6

6:19 AM – Woke up. Had to check my email and Twitter.

9:03 AM – Had to shake my Curtis and Leah loose. Time to go grab breakfast and then off to Universal!

11:03 AM – Just pulled into the parking lot! Time to go off and lineup!

11:18 AM – Whoa, this place is huge. Theres a Starbucks, a movie theater, Tony Roma’s, and all this other stuff. More importantly, I see a lineup! And its HUGE! But first, a picture with the Universal Globe…

11:21 AM – Lined up!

12:02 PM – Finally got to the front of the line. Geeze, people have a lot of questions.

12:17 PM – Heading down the long escalator to the lower lot. They’re playing different TV themes for people to guess with. I heard Friends, Seinfeld, and the last one is some legal show. Can’t remember which one it is.

12:25 PM – Entered the Jurassic park lineup. Its 5 minutes. Sweet!

12:33 PM – Good idea: Not wearing a white T Shirt to a water ride. Got myself soaked pretty good.

12:45 PM – Onwards to the Mummy ride!

1:03 PM – Irk. Scary. I don’t wanna do that again. Over to Backdraft!

1:23 PM – WOW that was quite the sauna. Geeze. Good story about firefighters and stuff. Heading back up the escalator of at housand miles to the Simpsons ride.

1:51 PM – Finally, front of the line. There’s a lot of people here. Entered a car. Looks like its a 3D ride. Didn’t know that.

2:07 PM – Whoa, very realistic stuff! At least, it sort of felt that way even though its animated.

2:37 PM – Arrived to the Universal tours lot. I wish Conan would give us a tour.

2:41 PM – ITS THE HULK!

3:14 PM – Saw the Jaws set. Saw Angels and Demons set. Saw Pirates set. Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift. Got wet again. Why do I always sit at the edge? I always seem to get the ones with all the water.

3:33 PM – Got a Jambo Juice or something. Wasnt very good. Avoid it.

4:05 PM – Heading home now! Gotta make sure we get to Medieval Times in time!

6:11 PM – Arrived to MT! Thought we were late. Nope!

6:43 PM – Saw a horse. Sorta figured out where the phrase “Hung like a horse” comes from now.

7:15 PM – This show is cool! Lots of jousting and fighting and such!

7:58 PM – Yum! Dinner was good. Half a chicken. Very crumbly.Tomato soup. Garlic bread. One rib though. A baked potato. And a pastry.

8:45 PM – Damn, team yellow lost. Oh well. Time to head home! What a good show!

9:21 PM – Passed by an El Pollo Loco (Crazy Chicken). Heard good things about it. have to go hit that for sure.

11:23 PM – About to watch some Family Guy while playing Sociables (Kings) with my roomies.

Disneyland tomorrow!

Wow, what an exhausting few days it has been. Lined up at the con during day 3. There were about 20000 people in attendance. It was unbelieveable. Got my goodie bag and my toys and then it was off to the wow.com pre-con party at the Annabella. Dinner was graciously paid for by the company (I think). Gave away lots of great stuff. FINALLY met my fellow cobloggers and superiors.

Heres what 20000 people looks like. Actually, thats more like 5000 or so. But the line was HUGE.

Zach, the guy flew all the way in from half way around the world just to attend the con. Good man. Gave me a cool shirt too!

Managed to hit up every demo station that was there. Played Diablo 3 (Monk), Starcraft (Terrans), and the Cataclysm expansion (Goblins).

Pulled off a siege tank drop on my guildie. Nice to see those are still in style. Took out his expansion base while he was working on my decoy tanks in his main. Had him hemmed and was just aapplying general pressure. Asian racial bonus to RTS? Check.

Diablo 3 was great fun. I played a Monk but died a lot. I’m terrible with melee class characters no matter what class I am.

more to come…

12:45 AM – Getting ass handed in big 2. Girl owns the two guys. Playing at Dennys. Whoever sets up Dennys next to airports is a very smart and rich man.

2:24 AM – Back to the airport terminal. Some DS action to keep us going and awake.

3:15 AM – Played some Magic to pass the time. Enchantress owns it up again. Nothing you can do against a 42/43 Flying, Rancor’d up, Empyrial Armored, Birds of Paradise.

4:00 AM – YES! Check in! No more having to haul our stuff around!

4:36 AM – Went through security. Almost forgot to insert my cellphone and belt into the trays. Had to whip out my shoes and my macbook. Feel sorry for the guys that gotta endure shoe smells all day.

4:49 AM – Made it through. Heading to terminal. My traveling companions have fallen asleep. I with my endless WoW all nighter training am able to keep watch. They call me… the Sentinel.

5:30 AM – Starbucks opens. Temptation is there. Must resist.

6:17 AM – About to board soon. Pumped. Turns out the coffee maker on the plan is non functional. This means no coffee is going to be served. Emergency starbucks run pronto! Matt with no coffee becomes very angry. Very very angry.

6:47 AM – On the plane now. Sitting next to an elderly lady. Quite nice, very sociable. Exchanged pleasantries and answered a few questions about LA (and I answered some of hers about Vancouver).

7:03 AM – In the air now.

7:31 AM – Going to try to get some shut eye.

8:45 AM – Nice. Didn’t really sleep. Its like the head nod kinda sleep where you constantly shift in and out of consciousness. Stiff neck though. Why me?

9:32 AM – Touchdowwwwwn! Oddly enough, the sun is not shining over LA right now. Theres a huge chunk of overcast. Either that, or thats what LA smog looks like.

10:17 AM – Acquired rental. Ouch, they hit us with EXTRA fees and insurance on top of what were alreadying paying. Something like 600 USD for the week. Because were all under 25. Ugh man. Need to age quicker or somehow toss that law.

10:34 AM – GPS has not acquired a satellite target. Cmon Garmin! Relying on standard navigational and mapreading techniques. My time as a carnie where I had to direct my driver to our drop locations continues to come handy. It amazes me how many people out there are non-proficient at map reading and navigation.

11:21 AM – Arrived at hotel. Checked in. Settled in. Nice hot shower.

12:11 PM – Just got Arbys for lunch. Decided to go to Knotts Amusement park.

6:03 PM – OMG. Head spinning. So tired.
So wearing a wet T Shirt to that 500 ft drop water slide ride or whatever is a bad idea. I forgot what its called. You know what I mean. Its kinda like the PNE log ride. Except much bigger and its like a 170 degree decline.

Got roped into the SIlver Bullet ride. I’m gonna kill my companions. Never screamed and cursed so much in my life.

Went on the Ghostwriter or whatever that wooden rollercoaster is called. To be honest, thats my first classic coaster ever. And my last. I think I aggravated my neck. Theres a sharp pain now. It hurts so much. WTB a neck massage.

7:36 PM – Dinner at Red Lobster. My first time. Ordered the triple shrimp… dish. Really good. Wish Vancouver would have one. YOU HEAR THAT RED LOBSTER EXECS? VANCOUVER BC WANTS YOU.

Sam Adams sucks. Never drinking that beer again. I used to tolerate it. But ugh, something about todays that just affected me. Dunno if its because I’m Asian and because I was extremely hungry. Or both.

8:43 PM – Passed by a gas station. Did a double take. 3.04 and 9/10. What, you guys too good to use decimals?! Whats up with that?

10:01 PM – Tired. Going to go crash. Maybe.

5:12 PM – Arrived at the bus terminal. Ate a nice dinner consisting of 2 x McChickens and a large coke. Ramasses would be so proud

Note: Go to bathroom before boarding bus.

5:46 PM – Working on today’s crossword. 9 letters. American Idol star Carrie.

5:48 PM – Figured it out. Its Underwood. Embarassed that I know that.

6:18 PM – We shoud’ve boarded 18 minutse ago. Whats the hold up?

6:36 PM – On the highway southbound. On the Road Again is playing on my iPod.

7:09 PM – Text message from guildie. “3 bosses downed. 2 fragments dropped.”

Figures. Why would you waste my 75 cents text message receiving fee to tell me something I don’t want to hear?

7:42 PM – US border. Changed busses to Quick Shuttle. 10 more bucks. Takes us straight to SeaTac. Not bad! We dont have to worry about public transit!

7:50 PM – Just cleared customs.

Agent: Whats your business in the US?
Me: Going to Blizzcon!
Agent: Oh! WoW player? Go on ahead!

Giggity giggity!

8:12 PM – Gum is stale. Why didn’t spit it out at the border?

Dumbass.

8:29 PM – Highway to Seattle reminds me of BC’s interior. Lots of forests and mountains. Wheres the moose?

9:43 PM – Its the space needle. Finally hit downtown seattle.

10:33 PM – Found Wireless. The withdrawal shakes have stopped.

(see day 2 in next post)

Should I start a fifth one? Maybe one on a smaller scale.

A food blog! Maybe I’ll strike it big as a food critique. I can start with Japanese food and work my way around all the Japanese places. 8 years of sushi eating experience has to be good for something!

So some of you may know this and the rest of you don’t. I’ve managed to score me tickets to Blizzcon. It’s a really big gaming convention by Blizzard. They created the Warcraft, Starcraft and Diablo gaming universes. A lot of people think that because of my blogging status I was able to secretly get in. It can’t be mere coincidence that me and some of the folks from my team all managed to get tickets. They sold out in a matter of minutes. All I did was keep refreshing for a few minutes leading up to the actual sale time.

Hate to break it to you, but it was all luck.

At the very least I’ll be going alone if I have to. Figures I get called a nerd, geek, loser and loner. Hah! Sigh. What do they know? Don’t hate on something you don’t understand. And people wonder why I get so annoyed.

Seriously.

Hands on Diablo 3? Yes!
Hands on Starcraft 2? HELL yes!
Hot chicks dressed up in Night Elf revealing brass armor? I am so all over that.

I may be making the trip down alone but I’ll be meeting up with some great people and having a great time. I get to finally meet players who’s voices I’ve only heard. I get to meet the developers who created the games I enjoy. So take your hate and shove it, okay? For the past several years, I’ve endured my own friends telling me to get out of the house more and explore. I finally decide to do something and I get railed for it? What the hell. The convention is down in Anaheim, California.

Something Ken told me a few weeks ago is that we should all do stuff while we’re young. As we grow older, we’re going to have less time. We’re going to have more responsibility and more expenses. We’re only young once. I’m not one for wilderness treks. I don’t give a crap about churches or architecture. I’ve always been a city guy. I’m not interested in going to temples or statues or any of that other stuff. For once in my life, I’m going to go to places that I want to go, see stuff that I want to see, and do stuff that I want to do.

I say screw that. I’m going to go now just so that I can say that I’ve actually gone some where and didn’t waste my summer. Who knows when I might have an opportunity like this again.

Am I scared? You bet. I’ve never travelled alone before. I’ve only travelled across Canada or overseas to Singapore. There’s so much to do and so much to learn.

I might just end up extending my stay a bit longer and explore the area further and just play tourist. Disneyland’s right across from the place. I apparently need to explore this fine American cuisine called “In and Out”. Maybe I’ll check out the walk of fame or sit in on a taping of Jay Leno. A friend told me that the Comedy Store is the best investment he ever made. It’s where the careers of comedians were born (Tim Allen, Jim Carey, the Wayans, Seinfeld, Robin Williams, etc). I heard the San Diego Zoo’s quite the experience.

The trip’s not until the 3rd week of August. I’ve already reserved a room and everything at a hotel nearby. For travel options, I think I’m going to bus down to Seattle and catch a flight on Southwest down to Anaheim ($40 for the bus, $90 for the flight). Flying out of Vancouver, it would have set me back around $250. For the return trip, I think I’ll try going back on a train. Ride the Amtrak from Anaheim through LA and up to Seattle. Take the aptly named scenic route. That’s about $120. The time it takes to train from LA to Seattle is around 35 hours.

No friends, eh? With the reactions I received, they’re certainly no friends of mine that’s for sure. I doubt there’s a lot of interest from other friends who’d want to travel south into California anyway. I’ve got at least one who’s thinking about joining me on the way down and making a week out of it.

I’m looking forward to the trip and there’s no doubt I’ll be writing about my experience as often as I can. I still have several months to go. No matter what happens, I’m committed and determined to have a good time this summer no matter who decides to tag along.

No Stock UI’s been open for a little over a month now. We’re barely able to maintain our 3 post a week schedule. Real life likes to bite all of us at once.

Writing for NSUI’s much different than writing for World of Matticus. The ideas are much easier to come by. I attribute that to a lack of posts and blogs about the User Interface that WoW offers. Writing a post on NSUI can take anywhere from 30 minutes to several days.

Let’s use the recent tooltip post as an example

What’s the topic?

This is the first question I’ll ever ask. What am I going to write about? Ideally, I want to answer that in ten words or less. Anymore and I’ll deem it too complicated. That’s when I either scrap it, simplify it, or divide it (into two or more topics for the future). The thing with the idea question? Ideas can come at any time. I know I’ve lost my share of ideas in the past and I’ve started walking around with a Five Star mini-notebook so I wouldn’t lose track of it anymore.

What’s the post type?

Once the topic of choice has been determined, it’s time to figure out what post type to use. Lists have always been my most favored of post types. Why? They’re easy to digest, easy to write, point-by-point, and a lot of fun. I won’t shy away from opinion pieces, news, reviews or straight-up image only posts. Do I want a micro-level, in-depth post or a macro-scale, broad spectrum post?

As an example, when I decided on tool tips, I could have gone in extreme detail about one specific addon or list the different ones available related to tooltips.

I opted for the latter. Specific addon posts can be filed away for the future. In the end, the purpose of the post was to expose readers to new tooltip addons that they might not have known about before.

Research

Welcome to the longest part of any post. Heading over to Curse and WoW Interface, I’ll look up and browse tooltip addons that are available. Any hits not tooltip related are off the list. Not updated for 3.1? WOn’t bother. From these, I’ll start inserting links and quick feature highlights into the post. As I’m doing this, I’ll start retrieving and installing the different addons into my client.

This is an extremely painstacking process. I have to continuously log on and off in order to enable and disable addons. At the same time, I try to vary up any screens I get in game by placing myself in different situations. Often times, addon authors provide shots that explain the addon capabilities far better than I can and I’ll resort to those instead.

Such a process takes several hours to several days depending on the topic. Something like raid frames would take considerable more time since you have to be in a raid group and in a raid situation. By contrast, a post about achievement addons would be a little different (and quicker).

Writing

Now the post writing actually begins. Notes I’ve gathered become expanded as I inject my own voice into them. Screenshots taken during the research phase are added in. I start with the body before writing the conclusion. The introduction is written at the very end. Writing introductions has always been difficult for me. It’s akin to writing the intro paragraph or thesis for a term paper. My formula for introductions usually involve what I’m writing about and why I decided to pick that topic.

Polish

How does this post sound? Is there anything that can be done to explain things better or easier? A lot of stock is placed on reader experience. If I get bored of reading or start losing interest, something is wrong. I’ll look at every aspect of the post and see what I can do to make it more appealing. Would a table make a comparison easier? What about a quite with something revolutionary or relevant? If the reader is going to skim the post anyway, what few lines should stand out the most? Would a diagram help or hinder this particular section?

By nature, NSUI posts are designed to be quickly scannable for easy digestion.

Post-production editing

Once I’m satisfied, I’ll wire the draft into the system. Tags are inserted and categories are set. At the same time, I’ll alert a team member and ask for an extra set of eyes. They often catch more errors than I do. The ones I spot for are factual and grammatical errors. Maybe I used the a certain feature or description for the wrong addon. It happens. Most of my errors are grammar or spelling related. If it sounds right in my head, I’ll leave it in. This isn’t an academic term paper after all.

When they’re happy, I schedule the post for the next time slot save.

All in all, it is a fairly length process. A lot of guest posters underestimate the amount of time and effort it takes. Those that want a place on the team are asked to write one or two guest post trials so that they get an idea. This is a process more important for them than it is for me. It’s especially true of people with little to no internet writing experience. It ends up being a big eye opener. About 9 out of 10 guest post writers who do submit something end up deciding that it’s just too much work and writing for them and proceed to opt out. And I understand that.

There’s a difference between blogging and blogging well. Not everyone comes with the skills (which can be taught) or the desire (which can’t be instilled) to write as often as I do.

The advent of Twitter, Facebook, Google Talk, MSN and other forms of communication have made contacting and socializing much quicker than it was ten years ago. With all of these advances, e-mail continues to be the staple when it comes to business. As a blogger, I experience a high volume of e-mail and most of these I toss in the trash or don’t even bother responding for a variety of reasons.

How do I write effective, efficient and eye-catching e-mails?

Write a subject. Unfortunately, I still get e-mails without having an idea of what I’m about to read. Your message should be written as though it’s specifically for them. Examples: “Great blog, Matt!”, “Guest post proposal for World of Matticus”, or “Need your pro goalie skills on Sunday”. Notice the subject indicates what the body of the e-mail is going to be about in further detail.

Short and sweet. Four sentences. Ten at the most. Most people aren’t interested in reading your entire life story followed by your two line question which has absolutely nothing to do with your life story. If what your asking isn’t too much, there’s no reason to drag it out. If there is a reason to drag it out, then it’s probably not worth asking. Respect the time of others.

ALL CAPS is not cool. You wouldn’t yell at someone when you’re face-to-face. Typing in all caps signifies it as such. It’s also a little harder to read all caps. Just use the standard methods when it comes to capitalization. I spent all those years in grade 5 circling letters and words that weren’t grammatically correct. May as well make it worth something.

BCC is the way. I’ve sent my share of mass e-mails. I learned early on as a courtesy notice that it’s best to use the BCC option especially to people who don’t know each other. By contrast, carbon copies are good as it “signals” to other recipients who else received the e-mail. Good for party invites and knowing who got it and who didn’t. Great way to prevent those embarrassing instances of “Oh, <name> didn’t invite you to his party?”

Use a signature. It’s basically a bunch of text that’s attached to your outgoing messages by whatever e-mail you’re using. It should include your name (or handle), a title, organization, web site and anything else that you deem essential. Save time for your recipients if they wish to look you up or check out your credibility.

Example:

Regards,

Matt “Matticus” Low
World of Matticus – Lead writer
WoW Insider – Columnist
No Stock UI – Editor

If done right, these tips ought to help you become more focused when writing e-mails (especially the business correspondence type).