Monthly Archives: May 2010

What Came First.. The Hat or The Hair Loss?

Posted on by dreamzncolor

I have observed something over the years.  I’ve seen guys I’ve known a long time go from a thick head of hair to balding or receding hairlines.  Many say that it’s their bad genes contributing to this factor, but I think there is another reason.  Hats.  A man’s head doesn’t seem to be too picky about the type of hat.  Baseball cap, cowboy hat, helmets, or hard-hats.  Pick your poison. 

There is theory that the hair trouble comes first, so to hide the trouble, men put on a hat.   This article from hairfinder.com is a prime example of that.  http://www.hairfinder.com/hairquestions/caps_hair_loss.htm  An excerpt from that article says, “I think one of the reasons many people have come to believe that hat-wearing is connected to hair loss is because many men who are losing their hair favor hats to hide that fact. They wear the hat because they’re losing their hair, not the other way around.”   

Others believe it is only partly a contributing factor.   This article from wikipedia.org appears to lean toward that idea. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baldness   Here is the belief in this article;

“”Tight hats cause baldness.”

  • While this may be a myth, hats do cause hair breakage and, to a lesser degree, split ends. Since hats are not washed as frequently as other clothing, they can also lead to scalp uncleanliness and possible Pityrosporum ovale contamination in men with naturally oily scalps. Some scalp infections, if left untreated, can cause hair loss.”

The latter article has quite a list of reasons people think cause men to go bald.  A rather crazy list in fact.  Here is one of those reasons; 

“”Frequent ejaculation causes baldness”

  • There are many misconceptions about what can help prevent hairloss, one of these being that frequent ejaculation may have an influence on MPB. Depending on frequency, it can raise or lower plasma testosterone.[33]“

I don’t know that much about testosterone to be honest, so I won’t argue with that. 

Back to what I’ve observed over the years.  The men that I’m referring to, have worn hats for a long time.  Before they even had a glimmer or shine to their head.  Now one could say, that the bad genes are causing this issue for them.  Although, I just can’t quite buy into it for every case.  Have you ever noticed a man who is significantly bald and wears a hat, has hair all around the hat…just not under it?  It’s a perfect fit.  How about someone who has worn their baseball cap backwards for years and years?  Not bald, but badly receding.  Now someone who has worn a hard-hat for a lot of their working life…what do you notice there?  Thinning hair.  My husband once developed bald spots in his facial hair where the chin strap from his helmet (military helmet) rubbed.. over the course of a deployment.  It took a couple of years, but it eventually grew back.  Maybe you’ve noticed or have experienced yourself, that jeans rubbing consistently on your shins over an extended period of time causes you to have balding or areas of thinning hair on your shins. 

Another thought of mine is about how this hair loss issue affects men more often than women.  Women do wear hats, but it seems to be less often.  The women I’ve known have worn hats for various reasons.  Either they have to for work, it’s an accessory to an outfit, when playing a sport, or a hat is desired while they participate in other recreational activities.  However, it’s less likely that every time I see these women, they’re wearing a hat.   Unlike the men I’ve known for years.  Another point I have to make is, the guys I’ve known for a long time and barely ever wore hats…apprear to have all of their hair intact.  Those are just a few observations I’ve made on the topic of hair loss.

Just to make myself clear, I’m not a hat hater.  I like guys in hats.  It’s something I noticed and thought I would share.  I’m not an expert, but from what I’ve seen, the evidence is clear enough to me.   Here is website called baldnesshelpline.com which is dedicated to the subject.    

So, what do you think came first…the hat or the hair loss? 

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Yes, I Played WoW! Help, I Miss It!

Posted on by dreamzncolor

WoW – My World of Warcraft definition:  A fantasy MMORPG that requires a lot, and I mean a lot of your time if you want to get high into the rankings.

I took a bite of the forbidden fruit.

I remember the sweet beginning of my WoW days.  I’d wander around discovering new parts of the world.  Meanwhile leveling up and getting new pieces of gear or armor.  I loved the treasure chests and looting.  I was actually rather satisfied with that alone.  Then my hubby and some friends of ours started bringing me along for dungeon runs.  I was clueless and nervous.  We had Teamspeak at the time and I could hear tension as I knew I’d done something wrong again.  I thought it was fun to make the mobs attack me.  My toon was a human paladin.  The group of us consisted of me (the pally), friend’s wife (the warrior), friend’s hubby (the priest), my hubby (the rogue), and sometimes my brother-in-law (the hunter).  Looking back now, we were a pretty good group combo.  However, I just wasn’t getting it.  I wore plate and I could heal myself.  Why shouldn’t I tank?  Mind you, this was in early 2005.  Which was not long after the release, and things were quite a bit different then.  I’m sad to say, as a group, we always failed.  Finally, we quit running together.  I was actually kind of relieved.  I could go back to questing and exploring.  My hubby was a dungeon junky though.  Let me tell you, he was a typical rogue for a long time.  He thought he was doing a great service by pulling aggro and tanking bosses or mobs.  I watched him from my desk and shook my head many times. 

Finally, I thought…I can do that.  I figured it out.  I ran a dungeon and did really well.  I was still nervous, but not anywhere near as clueless.  Still not completely thrilled with doing the same things over and over.  Failing with pug groups.  I rarely ran dungeons.  Of course, I did some bouncing around guilds and making friends.  That’s when I would learn more about gear and professions. Finally, I leveled my pally up to 60.  Gee, that was fun.  What do I do now though?  Since I hadn’t messed around much with dungeons, you know I didn’t raid.  Then, I did what most players like me would do.  I created more toons.  A lot more toons.  About 20 of which really never made it past 20.  You couldn’t use mounts at that level back then.  For any of you who have had to walk back and forth thru Stranglethorn Vale over and over, I’m sure you’re somewhat peeved that now you can have mounts at 20.  One of the characters I created was a mage.  About that time, I had our baby boy.  WoW was put on the back burner.  Until the release of Burning Crusade.

These flying mounts are fantastic!

This expansion felt like it flew by.  Before I knew it, I had leveled to 70.  Realizing I needed a lot more gold to buy my flying mount, I spent a lot of time working on professions and learning the workings of the auction house.  Dailys were now part of my schedule as well.  Yep, I said schedule.  At this point, I played WoW everyday for hours and hours.  I don’t want to admit how many.  Running a few more dungeons here and there, I still didn’t care for it.  Maybe, it’s just my pally I don’t like to run with, I thought. 

Then comes the debut of my lovely mage.  I focused mainly on leveling her and researching how mages worked.  Apparently, this was like opening Pandora’s Box for me.  Hooked is an understatement.  The term warcrack began to make a lot of sense.   She rocked.  Dungeons were now fun and enjoyable.  I actually liked being a vending machine.  One day while running a dungeon with a pug, I made some friends who were part of a raiding guild.  The next thing I know , I’m getting invited and told to get this add-on and that one.  Get Vent, they said.  This was to explain how to get all of these addons…at first.  Things took off  like a wildfire.  They were a funny group and did well on runs.  For the first time, I felt like I belonged.  My first raid date was approaching fast and I wasn’t nervous, I was terrified.  Kara was the place.  Talk about confusing when you are new to raids.  I caused a few wipes, died from falling off balconies, but didn’t do too bad on the damage meters.  All and all, I liked this thing called raiding!  Before I knew it, I was raiding quite consistently, but not hardcore.  About every other day for 3+ hours.   I started getting noticed by the higher ranking guild members.  One evening, the GM messaged me asking me to join him on vent.  I did and was surprised at the topic of our conversation.  He wanted to make me an officer.  Just a class leader, but hey, I was shocked at that alone.  In awe, I accepted.  I thought to myself, now I really need to be on my game.  Raiding started to become a five night a week obligation.  Notice I said obligation.  I enjoyed my new position and the raiding. 

My husband, however, wasn’t so thrilled and neither was my two-year old.  Not long after, I convinced him to join the guild.  Then things really got bad.  He was raiding right along with me.  When I look back, this is the scary part of WoW.  Our son would just play by himself until he fell asleep in the evenings.  Not good.  We knew better, but had a hard time stopping.  Then some things went bad in the guild which eventually led to the guild being disbanded.  I was somewhat relieved.  Our son needed better attention and care.  Not long after, I took a month or so away from WoW.  I had intentions not to play anymore, but a new expansion was coming.  The Wrath of the Lich King. 

The Wrath of My Conscious

 The day our copies came in the mail, I was ecstatic.  Rushing to my pc to get the install going, I hadn’t noticed something about install requirements.  My husband hadn’t either, with his copy.  Around four hours later, we’re both mad as can be.  Neither one of us could get it to install.  I started searching forums and discovered we weren’t the only ones.  We thought our copies were probably bad and were quite disgruntled.  Finally, I came upon a post about requiring a dvd drive for installing this expansion.  Pretty sure that was our problem, my husband went out on a late night run to Best Buy to find us some drives.  Like magic, it worked! 

Since I was guildless and trying to spend more time with my son, I decided to enjoy the content and take it slow.  No raids, minimum dungeons.  Just questing, exploring, and professions.  I started with my mage, because I loved her so.  The death knights looked very appealing, but I decided to wait on creating one of those for a while.  Everyone seemed to have one.  Right around level 75 on my mage, I started to feel a little ancy.  It felt like something was missing.  Yeah, I was missing being part of a guild.  I kept in touch in game with a lot of my old guild members.  Most which had moved on and into different guilds here and there.  One day I was chatting with one of them and he says, why don’t you join the guild I’m in now.  I think you’d like it.  This peaked my interest so I asked what I needed to do.  He says I need to fill out an application on their website.  Hmmm, I thought.  This is different.  A little leary, I did check out the website and filled out the application.  To my surprise, the next day I was getting an invite.  It was the biggest guild I’d ever been in.  Almost 400 members.  It turned out there were quite a few from my old guild in this guild.  This really helped me to feel more comfortable.  Eventually, I got to know a lot of people and get involved in runs and random raids.  By now, my mage is really doing rather well.  She could pull some great numbers on the meters, but aggro was under control.  Once again, I was noticed.  Before I knew it, I was an officer again.  First class leader, then to a much higher ranking officer.  It was nice and we raided quite frequently.  I mean too frequently.  My husband had joined me again and it started all over.  It was worse though.  Everyday I raided.  For hours and hours.  He  raided when he wasn’t working.  My son was the best thing in my life though, and I was trying a lot harder to include him.  Even though, it still wasn’t enough. 

The one thing I started to notice in being an officer was the drama.  Almost everyday, there was something else to deal with.  Not to mention the forums I had to keep up with and keeping up with research.  At one point, I noticed a decline in the guild’s progress with raiding.  Raids were scheduled and people signed up, but wouldn’t show.  The numbers weren’t there anymore.  The raids weren’t horrible, but were now getting there as desperation started setting in.  Desperation meaning the guild applications were now gone and invites were going out everywhere.  Pugs were included on many runs which in some cases caused complete chaos.  All in all, it was starting to feel frustrating when I logged in. 

Then, out of nowhere a huge surprise came my way.  I was pregnant.  Slowly, I started drifting away from the game.  I tried to keep up with the forums for a while, but after awhile…I just couldn’t do it anymore.  I let my GM know I needed to be removed from officer status as I probably wouldn’t play much anymore.  Since then, almost a year ago, I’ve logged into those characters maybe three times.  Once, because my husband was hacked so I wanted to check on my account.  The others, just to pop in and say hi.  Now, I’m starting to get the itch again.  With a 6 month old baby crawling around, I don’t think it’s the best of ideas.  On the same token, with a 6 month old baby, I feel I don’t do much for myself.  Would it really even be worth it or would I find myself in the same place I was before?  Maybe, I could wait till Catacylsm comes out.  Do I really want to go there again?  I do, I really do.   Then again, I don’t..I really don’t.