July 27, 2005
I dim the lights and slip on the headphones.
I know I have a couple hours before anyone notices that I'm not just out here "checking my email," but I'm still jumpy.
I spin around fast on the swivel chair...just the wind.
I have reason to be jumpy.
Tonight, I'm creating a horde character.
My roommate hates the horde so much, that once when I mentioned half-in-jest, half-testing-the-waters "What if I created an alt horde character?" He nearly punched me right in the mouth.
When playing the game and getting camped, gang raped, and killed by horde 50 levels above me, I've often wondered in a nerdy-Seinfeldian voice "Who are these people?"
Once when I was a ghost, I ran back to my body where a horde was camping me, and I saw him transform into a Bear and press the "X" key to "sit down" on my body -- a gesture that not-too-subtly looks like he was having relations with my corpse.
Then, since the horde can't communicate using understandable language, he /mourned me, and even through the stale, generated text I could hear the sarcasm, and I'll tell you that I sure shook my fist in the air over that one.
But who are these horde? They're real people somewhere.
What alliances to they have with each other, if any?
Do they even operate on a Honor System, or do they just Keyser Soze the place up?
Well, surely everyone would understand if I went to try it out, on a purely scientific basis.
So tonight, as I was talking to my roommate, all I could think about was how I would execute my plan. I'd wait till he fell asleep, then I'd chloroform him under my pillow.
Too drastic. Plus, I have to sleep on that pillow later, and at some point after that, wake up.
I waited until he was tucked into bed, and I sneaked out to the living room under the pretense of checking the gmail.
As I waited for the game to load, I suddenly remembered that it was Tuesday, and I surely had a new rank on my main character from all my horde killings of the past week.
The nonsarcastic /mourn over my soon-to-be brethren typed on the chat interface of my mind was quickly replaced by a /cheer as I ached to click on my character to see my new rank.
"One second won't hurt," I thought. "Then I'll sign off."
I awoke in the Wetlands and was pleased to find that I was now a Private. But how could I boast it? Perhaps my old late-night chums were all in Battlegrounds, and I could show off my newfound rank to anyone levels 21 to 30!
Plus, Ironforge is just a quick griffon over...
So I enter Battlegrounds, upset to see that my usual comrades, Knives, Dinnen, and Question, were nowhere to be found, replaced by a couple colorful characters who I guessed had an average age of 13 and a combined IQ of my Night Elf's rank. They also seemed to have their caps locks stuck toggled in the "yell like retards position," probably by the sticky Dr. Pepper that keeps them awake instead of going to bed like people who have lives. Hah!
Wait a second...
One in particular liked to yell how no one was on "D," as I stood in the defensive position with about 4 other people shrugging at each other, while yet another liked to yell about how we're all (not an exaggeration) faguits.
The horde could have sneaked into our base dressed as fucking landsharks and custodians, because everyone was too busy typing angrily about how we should "SOTP YELLING AT EACHOTHER U FAGUITS."
Sometimes I wish PVP meant ALL PVP.
Right after the horde stole our last flag, one of the particularly cruel faguits mentioned within the raid chat that that's why he hates the fucking alliance.
What's this?
Wh- Someone ELSE has thought of having two characters of opposing sides?
And he's a jerk! Were all the horde like this?
I tried not to be racist and signed onto yet another BG, but it was just the same jerks, complaining about how much they hated each other and wondering why we were losing.
I hearthed home and camped.
Did I really want to get myself into this?
I did. I must know what they know. Perhaps...perhaps I can learn their secrets and exploit them for personal gain!
I started creating a character. The Tauren looked too butch, and the undead seriously frightened me, so I picked the hottest Troll I could and made her a shaman, because she had on the prettiest dress.
It was so cute, I nearly had a tea party right there.
But online gaming is no place for actions like that.
Picking the name was no problem, since I had already picked it hours earlier while my roommate was talking about dilithium crystals or some crap.
In a world where every horde I met was "DeathSkullBlood" and "VengeanceReaper," I decided that no name was better to instill fear and to provoke someone to angrily curse than to be killed by someone named "CuddlyKitten."
Click to complete...aaaand error. Apparently, I can't have Alliance and Horde characters on the same server. I try to memorize the facial characteristics I chose for my character as I hit the back key to pick another server.
I quickly signed on AIM to see if any of my friends were on that were always asking me to join their server. Nothing says "thanks for being my online friend" like an ax through the forehead by a cuddly kitten.
No luck. Everyone's asleep. Like faguits.
I pick the most hardcore sounding server (it was either "ReaperDeathSkull" or "VengeanceBlood") and patiently waited for the connect screen. For five minutes.
Well, I knew they were doing maintenance on a bunch of servers, so I picked another. And another.
The entire world was down. And now I'm about to go to bed.
It seems Elune herself is trying to keep me from turning to the dark side.
July 26, 2005
Lately, I've been getting a weird hankering for some voice acting.
I mean, everyone and their mother has some flash animation or video editing software.
Well...*I* don't. But I know people who do.
As you may be aware, I did a quick stint for clanbob.net a while back, and I actually had a lot of fun doing it. I cannot however, go back and listen to it, for the unfortunate reason of going into a pokemon-like seizure every time I hear my own crappy voice pretending to like pie or be British.
I was actually totally pumped to be doing a favor for Aaron, but I got one of those things where you're all ready for your 2-minute spot on the radio or whatever, then someone tells you, "Man, like millions of people are about to hear your voice. Tons of people. Truckers, people in hospitals, people doing their jobs who listen to the radio only for the minute auditory escape it provides them and prevents them from snapping and poisoning all their coworkers. Welp, good luck!"
Then as soon as you get in front of the microphone, you're like every line Squall spoke in FF8.
"..."
He and Serge from Chrono Cross would be great friends.
So, yeah, maybe the pressure of the huge fanbase of clanbob was too big, but if anyone out there in HBM readershipland ever needed anyone to, you know, like, talk into a microphone for free, I'd be more than happy to do it.
If I had the talent and resources (read: not crappy computer), I'd even put some effort into doing it myself!
I just stumbled onto Pure Pwnage and I was like, "Wait, I'm a nerd, too! AND I'm narcissistic enough to want my voice or likeness all over the internet moreso than it actually is!"
Plus if my WoW server keeps messing up and needing restarted and causing whole fucking hemispheres to not exist, I'm gonna have a lot of free time.
July 19, 2005
A quarter of a century.
Some say, "You're closer to 30 than you are to 20!"
Some say, "I'm a over half of a century old and it's not so bad! I'm also your mom! Clean your room!"
This is a pretty cool year, so far.
I can now rent cars.
The next big milestone is, I guess, 65, when I can qualify for the ASPCA or whatever the fuck old people qualify for.
I'm spending my birthday with tons of friends getting plastered at a local bar.
That's in the alternate universe where I neither have to work from 3-11, where I have a local bar, and I have tons of friends.
I found a tape (and by "found" I mean "look at every day on top of my CD player in anticipation of my birthday") that I got when I was probably 8 where a spaceman sings a song just for me. It's one of those personalized deals that you get in toy stores, or cry in toy stores if your name is Girbigaboo or something, and I happened to have a common enough name to have this spaceman sing me a song about trying to find me presents on the moon and Mars.
So that's why I'm not depressed about getting older.
Things like that still amuse me.
July 16, 2005
Do that here.
Here's the thing that sucks about World of Warcraft.
I've got a bunch of things to do today. Most of them enjoyable, all of them need to get done, but not necissarily today.
They range from things like "catch up on the news" to "relax with some Tivo'd episodes of Forensic Files" to "finish knitting that tank top" and "make that link sidebar and caption page I've been working on for six months." Also in and out skirts "play Super Mario 2, because the song keeps running through my head" and "fire up Kotor 2 and Prince of Persia just to say hello."
Along with that comes "Just use up your rested experience on WoW to level, then turn it off and get the rest of the crap done."
Herein lies the problem. So easy is it for me to fire up WoW (I don't even have to click an RCA switcher to toggle from my PS2 to my Xbox or SNES!) and so mindless (I don't have to wrack my brain through code or try to think of a funny caption!) that I usually end up playing WoW, no matter what my day's agenda is.
And don't even get me started on forming parties in game.
From some depths inside my persona, I have awakened such a loyalty to my teammates "NightRAVIN" and "RickJamesBitch," that I will spend hours upon hours defending their honor, ironically blowing off my REAL friends to do so, but let's be honest, when are *they* probably going to invade a camp of Orcs and need my help, hm?
So...I'm going to go use up my rested experience and THAT'S ALL.
Well, also, I just caught a pet Raptor I named JeffGoldblum and I should work on gaining his loyalty.
Also I just got a new cape and I should walk around populated villages so everyone can see how pretty I am.
But THAT'S IT.
July 15, 2005
Well, I'm alive.
Writing here has been like keeping in touch with an old friend.
I keep putting it off because I feel so guilty for not having done it all along, then I put it off further, because I want to make sure I have a lot of time set aside so I can pour out all my feelings and be riotously hilarious, but all this putting-aside means that I never actually get that time, and feel exponentially worse with exponentially more time needed to apologize and be interesting.
Let's recap on the past month.
I worked at Performing Arts Camp, and although it was delightful and the kids were great and my helpers were wonderful, I truly think that was my last year.
It's not just because I'm leaving, either, because I could easily take a month off every year to keep doing it. The stress level of it all just overshadowed the satisfaction level in the end, which is something I've never felt, but I believe my helpers and the techies know what I'm talking about. I'll miss it and the people, but I just think my role in there has overstayed its welcome.
I'll do the website again this year, and beg you all to go read my hilarious captions of children you don't even know, and then I'll imagine that you all did.
I saw Star Wars a few weeks ago, although I believe I was still probably the last person who proclaims herself a nerd to do so. It was a nice surprise, and I'm glad I didn't hate it as much as 1 or 2. I am, however, confused about the fact that Emporer Palpatine seems to be an avid Blitzball fan. Did anyone else find that scene oddly familiar?
I'm off to work right now, and I'm going to try to catch the end of a Harry Potter release party at Borders tonight, even though I'll be getting off work at 11:00. It's said to start at 9:00 and go until a little after midnight, but it's something I'd like to witness.
If you can't get all excited and fangirly about stuff, what fun is there?
I'll be back soon to tell you guys all about my Swiss Semester 10-year reunion.
Promise!