Gamer Joke of the Night

"You see several mind flayers that have been fried by liquid hot magma"

Me- "Mmm, Calamari"

Mike- "Would that make it brain food?"

The Gamer Report 3/31/10

I tried playing my main, a level 80 Forsaken priest, on World of Warcraft last night. I had just gotten done running four and a half miles and relaxing at my desk at work with the pleasant post-run glow suffusing my body. I had a few moments until I needed to change the buffer on my Southern Blot, so I thought "Hey, why not dust old baldy off and take him for a spin" since, ever since I stopped raiding consistently about this time last year, Benn hasn't really had much of a chance to go stretch his legs. I initially had a thought to go do some of the quests that are about to explode once the Cataclysm happens, but as per usual, the healer effect happened almost immediately when I turned the game on..."Hey, you want to come heal this heroic?" (Ok, that's not really fair. Pat just asked if anybody wanted to go run a random heroic with him. It did, however, remind me of the old days in BC when occasionally I would just flat out not turn the game on because I didn't want to be bugged to go heal something.) I relented, and we partied up and joined the queue, unsurprisingly getting a group straight away since we were the tank and healer for the group. As the loading screen appeared, however, we let out a collective groan as we saw the reflective ice blue and black concept painting from the Halls of Reflection appear on the screen.

Now, let me be straight about something. Halls of Reflection isn't that bad of an instance. Admittedly, my gear is a touch behind the curve for what it was designed for because of my abandoning raiding a year ago, but it really shouldn't be that tough. You literally just need to hide behind a corner and have semi-well behaved dps to finish the hard part of this dungeon off with a minimum of fuss. Add to that the fact that my tank is geared in ICC equipment, and this should have been a cakewalk (albeit a sort of frantic one.) However, two things that can and will make this instance significantly harder are A) mobs escaping the tank's control (since, as per expectations, the first things they're going to do is turn and gank the healer, aka me the under-geared one) and B) having bad dps who don't kill the trash fast, causing the hard hitting trash mobs to survive longer and putting a greater and greater strain on the healer to keep everyone alive during the pulls, a problem which is compounded since the trash comes in waves and there is no time to stop and drink between them. But still, this should have been cake, right?

Yeah, not so much.

To skip a lot of belaboring of the point, essentially after our first attempt it became apparent that three of our dps were only just reaching the point where they could do this dungeon with the gear scores they had available, as they were pulling down an appalling two thousand dps (a decent target would be at least twice that) and one, a warrior, was throwing out aoe damage on the trash packs as they were coming in, before Pat could actually get hold of them. Remember that list of ways to fail this dungeon? Yeah. So these guys were basically going down and checking them off in turn. Follow that up with another wipe and a belligerent dps who, after the wipe, determined that the problem was with "Fucking fail heals and tank" (I strive to point out that he died three times during the course of the wipes, and trying to keep him alive was nearly causing me to ignore the tank to the point of nearly causing wipes during each pull) and we have a fine "Hey, welcome back to playing your main" from World of Warcraft, causing me to remember all the fun activities I do in my spare time that DON'T involve nerd rage flying at me through the internetz. The whole situation boiled down to the warlock in question and my friend Pat engaging in a chat channel shouting match and playing chicken over who was going to drop group first (if we're so fail, why was he so adamant about staying in the group? I'll never understand fail dps logic,) leading to me, ultimately, dropping group in disgust and going back to work, reflecting that this was definitely one of the things I did not miss about "end-game" WoW.

However, after that I went with the same group of friends to Lake Wintergrasp and dropped the Alliance without breaking a sweat, ultimately pushing them back to their spawning point and killing off even the Alliance NPCs hiding there. Owned. So I guess it wasn't a complete waste of an evening.

The Corps.

“Look,” Maya says, walking along the back wall of the room. “You didn’t hire the man because of his finesse. You didn’t hire him for flash. You hired him because he’s brutal, and that’s what you got.”

AWOL sits on the edge of the hotel room bed, staring glassy eyed at the floor. Pupils dilated, his thoughts are clearly far away from this room. Maya, for her part, is similarly distracted as she paces back and forth on the opposite end of the room, shouting into her cell phone.

“Don’t give me that shit,” she says, “You knew what state he was in when you cleared him to compete, and Craven knew it too. He decided to take the risk. He got in the ring. This week, when Evans gets in the ring he’ll be taking the same risk. I can’t promise anything more than that.”

They’re talking about AWOL. He’s sitting in the room, and it is evident that he could not care any less. His eyes slowly blink, and his lips start to move, silently muttering to himself.

“So what? The crowd loved watching what he did to Craven. They love the face washes, the beat downs. This isn’t a boxing crowd, it’s an IWC crowd. They want blood, and he’s going to give it to him. So frankly, no, I’m not going to promise it won’t happen again this week. Hell, you should be BEGGING for it to happen again. What the hell does Pat Evans contribute to this company anyways? If AWOL puts him on the shelf, it’ll free up space for you to go get some actual talent.”

His lips continue to move, and from the shape of the words it becomes obvious that he’s counting. One, two, three, four…

“You’ll get a promo when he feels like doing a promo.”

One, two, three, four…

“Who the fuck am I? I’m his new agent. If you want to talk business with AWOL, you’re going to be talking to me from now on.”

One, two, three, four…

“You’re god damned right I’m a bitch. And I’m the bitch that you’re going to be dealing with from here on out, so you’d better get used to it.”

One…

“Look, you just get Evans into the ring tomorrow, and I’ll make sure AWOL’s there.”

Two…

“Yeah, that’s all. Lovely to talk to you as well.”

Three…

With a sigh, Maya, flips off the phone and tosses it onto the bed, her angry scowl instantly evaporating, replaced with a smile.

Four…

She drapes her delicate hands over his shoulders, giving them a rub as she slides up onto the bed behind him. “You and me, big guy, we’re gonna do big things together. BIG things.”

He turns, looking into her green eyes, a look of confusion and mild interest finally showing on his features.

“Something on your mind?” she asks, flashing him an even wider smile.

He pauses for a moment, seeming to mull things over, before turning to resume staring blankly at the wall. His only verbal response is to whisper a single phrase.

“I love the Marine Corps.”

***

There were years, even after I left the service, when I could still hear that chant in my sleep. One, two, three, four, I, love, the Marine, Corps. One, two, three, four, I, Love, The Marine, Corps. It was the rhythm you lived your life to while you were in basic. You adopted it almost the minute you showed up. It was the only thing that could keep you sane, really. They taught it to you as the pace for push-ups, but it became so much more than that. When you brushed your teeth, it was to that beat. When you walked, that was the cadence.

Once, I caught myself thrusting to the same rhythm while having sex.

What the hell was I talking about? Oh, right, the Corps. As a civilian, there’s really no way to understand what Hell Week is really all about. I can tell you the horror stories, of course. I can tell you about how they didn’t let us sleep for a week. I can tell you how they made me clean the grout of the bathroom every night with a toothbrush, squatting over the cold tile floor, knowing that if I so much as raised up an inch or let my butt touch the ground, that it would be the last goddamned thing I ever fucking did, at least according to my drill sergeant. I could tell you how, after that week, I spent another week or so in the infirmary with stress fractures in both feet, and how, when it’s going to rain, they still ache today.

I could tell you those things, but if you weren’t there to experience them, you can’t understand.

A lot of people believe the point is to make you hard, to toughen you up inside. They think that the Corps finds the baddest, meanest pricks to be drill sergeants, and that they do it because somehow, someway, it’ll make you a better soldier. They’re half right. The truth is, the point is to keep you alive. When you’re in the shit, when everything is falling apart, when the world is turning upside down, the worst enemy you can have is your own mind. Fear, panic, these are the things that make good marines into dead marines. The point of hell week is to break you down, take everything that you were before you got there, strip out all the parts that aren’t of any use to you in a combat zone, and replace them with icewater and iron.

There’s no magic to why marines are the toughest bastards on the planet. It’s simple conditioning. By the time your boot instructors are done with you, when it all goes FUBAR you don’t panic anymore because you can’t. You physically can not do it. That part of your brain? It fell out somewhere around the fiftieth mile you were running at 4 AM when you hadn’t slept in five days. Instead of fear, instead of confusion, what comes back to you is your training. You keep your ass down when you’re crawling because your drill sergeant stomped the shit out of it every time you let it rise up too high. You follow orders without questioning because you spent so much time being dressed down in front of your whole training platoon for insubordination. You fire without thinking. You act without considering. You block out the rattle of gunfire and the explosions and the screams of the dead and the soon to be, and all you can hear is…

…one, two, three, four…

I don’t mention it because I like the sound of my own voice, or because I enjoy reminiscing about the good old days or even to impress the fans with my old war stories. I bring it up because, in my sleep Pat Evans, that is the only thing that I hear now. In my idle moments, it rings in my ears. Every time I try to move, it’s back. Sometimes I can hear the echoing voices of my platoon, sometimes I can only hear mine. Sometimes I just feel my pulse pounding in my temples to the beat, but it’s always there, it’s always with me, and it has been here ever since Two for One Special.

I didn’t understand why, at first, but it should have been obvious. This isn’t really a war, persay, but the IWC has many qualities to remind you of it. The chaos, the uncertainty, the inability to tell who’s really on your side. We aren’t exactly wearing uniforms here, and alliances change so rapidly you’d think this was an episode of Survivor. People you think are friends one week are throwing you in trunks the next. Just as soon as you think you have a handle on it, the rules change completely. And the only thing you can ultimately be sure of is that, in the end, whatever happens will not be fair. There is no justice on the battlefield, no order. All that is consistent is anarchy, and the one who can capitalize on it first wins.

I tried to deny it, Pat. Don’t you see? That was the mistake! I tried to pretend that it wasn’t the case. I tried to pretend that, somehow, someway, I could force this place to change, to bend itself to some sort of order. I should have know better. It seems that no matter how long I spend in this business, I’ll never learn this one inescapable truth: violence is the rule of the day in today’s IWC. Violence is the one, true, equalizer.

I tried to deny it, I tried to fight, but it broke me Pat. It broke me down, and I had nothing left. I was within a hair’s breath of fighting for the World Title, two World Titles, and for no god damned reason whatsoever Josh Hudson stopped me. He didn’t care about Savior, or Zero, or any fucking thing. He got it, Evans. He figured it out. He saw the truth the way I’m beginning to see it now. But it was a painful realization, and it nearly finished me. Were I not a product of my experiences, I may not be here now. But, ultimately, there was one thing I could fall back on. One thing was waiting for me when it all went into the pisser, when all the bullshit I was filling my head with finally caught up to me, and it was the one thing that I will always be able to rely on, whether I like it or not. The training was there. The drills were there. And, to be honest, they’re the only thing keeping me on my feet.

…

But you see, the thing is, that’s more than enough to take care of you, Pat.

Being AWOL

There’s a funny thing about being crazy. It doesn’t happen overnight. There isn’t one incident and then, snap-pop, your brain fries a fuse and burns out and now you’re drooling and running around the streets wearing an Aquaman onesy. It creeps onto you, one little bit at a time. One little event in your life, one little moral compromise, one little violation are the things that do it, and with each one your sanity shreds away from you bit by bit. Often you don’t even notice it happening until it’s too late. You’re walking out to your car, and the next thing you know people hit you in the back of the head and stuff you in a trunk, and they find you wandering down the street babbling to yourself a few days later.

Hmm.

Ok, so maybe sometimes it does happen all at once.

***

AWOL sits on a park bench. He’s staring forward into space, eyes slightly unfocused. His ring attire is on, looking plainly out of place given the bright, sunny, daylight surroundings he finds himself in. Behind him, children play a game of Frisbee. Squirrels dash back and forth in the grass surrounding him, chasing each other around for whatever indiscernible reason squirrels chase each other. Suburbia surrounds him, a pastoral scene of peace and tranquility broken only by the scarred, shirtless frame of a very dazed, very confused man sitting there staring off into the distance.

Suddenly, with a little twitter of music, a bird flies down from the sky, landing on the black cast-iron hand rail of the park bench. It looks up at the big man, cocking its head spastically to the side, and letting out an inquisitive chirp. He turns his head, slowly, eyes coming back out of their gaze, staring down at the blue-feathered avian. He blinks, as if seeing his surroundings for the first time. He shakes his head, rubbing his knuckles against his eyes as he stares around. The bird takes a tentative hop closer to him, dropping down onto the seat next to him.

“Where the hell am I?” AWOL says.

“You got me, pal,” the bird says, looking up at him. “I was just about to ask you the same thing.”

AWOL seems surprisingly non-plussed to be having a conversation with a blue jay. “I don’t remember coming here. I’ve never seen this place before. Are we in the city?”

“If by ‘In the city’ you mean ‘In a hallucination somewhere in your frontal lobe,’ then yeah, I guess you could say we’re in the city.”

He looks around, still very confused.

“So, I guess that means I’m crazy again.”

“Looks like it.” The bird gives a wistful shrug of his shoulders, which somehow manages to convey itself despite the bird’s non-human features. “That’s a drag, huh?”

“You’re telling me.” AWOL looks around regretfully. “I wonder what put me over the edge.”

“Well, I’m sure Generation Next hitting you in the head and shoving you in the trunk didn’t help.”

AWOL gives a dismissive “pfft” and shakes his head. “I’ve been getting jumped every show for months now and it hasn’t set me off until now. And it’s ‘Generation Now’ by the way. ‘Generation Next’ was a Pepsi ad campaign.”

“Yeah, but you were thinking about using it to mock them in a promo, I think, so that’s why I know it.”

“I guess that makes sense,” AWOL responds, though it clearly doesn’t. “So what are you supposed to be, my conscious mind trying to guide me out of the hallucination? Or maybe some kind of metaphor about the thing that’s really bothering me?”

The bird shrugs again and holds its wing up, examining it closely. It looks back at its tail, giving the feathers an experimental wiggle.

“As far as I can tell, I’m a talking bird.”

“Oh, ok.” This clearly does little to alleviate AWOL’s confusion.

The two sit for a moment in silence, looking around at the park. In front of them, a forty-something woman walks by, her puggle dog straining hard against the leash and pulling her along.

“You know,” the bird says, “I’ve gotta say, when I pictured what the inside of your head looked like, this was really not what I expected.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah,” the bird seems very disappointed. You know this because you’re the audience, though how it conveys this, given that you’ve likely never seen a disappointed bird, is left unclear. “I figured there’d be a lot more fire and brimstone and stuff. You’re supposed to be the angry monster guy, aren’t you?”

“So?”

“Well, what kind of monster goes into a mental collapse and starts thinking about a kiddy park?”

“Monsters don’t get to like parks?”

“Well, they do, but I just figured your kind of park would have benches built out of skulls and wading pools filled with blood, or something.”

“Hmm, I suppose you’re right.” He pauses for a moment, his eyes closed, concentrating. A moment later the ground begins to rumble, a violent earthquake rending it in twain. The sky immediately darkens, changing from a brilliant ultramarine to a dark, bloody red color. The grass fades from brown to black, withering as if being blasted by the heat of a raging fire. With a deep exhalation (that shoots smoke from his nostrils) AWOL opens his eyes, turning back to the blue jay, who has now transformed into a bat.

“Better?”

“Much.” The bat nods in appreciation. “That’s more like it.”

Behind them, the kids continue to throw the Frisbee, giggling with glee as it soars through the air.

***

“Miss, I really have to protest.”

Maya is standing with a man wearing green medical scrubs. He is flipping the pages of his metal clipboard in agitation, walking stride for stride with the former stripper as they head towards an end room.

“Protest all you like, this is happening right now.”

“But mi-“

“My name is Maya, by the way.”

“Maya, your friend is in no shape to be discharged. Mr. Wolworth has suffered a massive psychotic break. We absolutely cannot let him out of this hospital until we’ve finished examining him.”

The two walk into the exam room, where AWOL is currently lying strapped to a bed. He lies, staring glassy-eyed at the ceiling, his massive chest rising and falling beneath the beige restraints crisscrossing his body.

“Well what’s holding your examinations up? You haven’t found anything physically wrong with him, have you?” Maya says, walking over and gently stroking AWOL’s hand. He does not respond.

“That’s beside the point. There are a number of forms of brain damage we may have missed. We need more time.”

“You’ve had almost a week. If you haven’t found anything by now, I’m sure you won’t if I leave him to rot in your beds for a few more days and he’ll get behind in his conditioning.”

“Are you listening to me? Mr. Wolworth-“

“AWOL,” she interrupts him. “You can call him AWOL. The cameras are on, after all, and we wouldn’t want to confuse the audience.”

The doctor looks in irritation into the camera lens for a moment before continuing, “Whatever, AWOL is completely disconnected from reality. He alternates between states of catatonia and violent outbursts. Something is very wrong with him, and he is a danger to himself and everyone around him right now. It would be the height of irresponsibility to release him in this state, particularly given what you have in mind for him.”

“What I have in mind for him?” she looks up, shock evident on her face. “All I want is to get my AWOL back, doctor. I’ve done nothing but worry about him ever since he vanished after the Two for One Special, and I want to get him home so he can get well. It’s the evil IWC who want to…no, no that’s lame. Can we do that over again?”

She turns, looking just above the camera lens. Apparently someone nods at her somewhere behind it. “Yeah, don’t worry. We can edit it out in post.”

The doctor looks flabbergasted, but Maya just nods and resumes her grieved facial expression. “Ok, on me in three, two, one…all I want is to get him so he can get well, but the IWC executives don’t care. They’ve booked him for a match this week, and he has to compete or be fired.”

“Are you serious?” the doctor slams the clipboard down onto the table. “This isn’t a television show, Maya. This is a man’s life you’re putting at risk. Ethically there is no way I will discharge this patient, and seeing as how you don’t have power of attorney for him, I’m pretty sure he’s not going anywhere.”

“There’s no choice, doctor. You don’t understand what you’re up against here. These IWC people, they don’t care. Their parent company made him wrestle once when he was in a coma. They’ll pull some sort of legal loophole and get him out of here. They’ve done it before, they’ll do it again. Like it or not, next week he’s going to be climbing into that ring against Max Craven.”

AWOL’s eyes suddenly snap into sharp focus, and he starts to scream inarticulately for a moment, straining against his restraints. “CRAAAAVEEEENNN!!!! YOU MOTHERFUCKER!!!! I’LL FUCKING MURDER YOU! I’LL EAT YOUR CHILDREN, YOU SON OF A BITCH!!!!!”

He strains against the bands, the whole stretcher creaking from the stress his flexing muscles are putting against it. The doctor quickly smashes the call button with a palm of his hand as Maya dives back from the stretcher, true fear finally in place on her expression. A pair of nurses dash into the room. The two grab hold of AWOL’s head and upper body, pinning them in place as the doctor quickly draws a syringe from the bedside and jabs it into his neck. Almost immediately the Big Crazy Bastard’s thrashing starts to slow, the glassy expression returning to his face. Very slowly, at last, his eyes circle around in their sockets, at last focusing on Maya’s face.

“The bat made me do it,” he whispers, before his eyes gently drift shut.

The doctor looks up from the bedside, fixing her with an accusing glare. Maya, for her part, smiles innocently.

“He looks ready to fight to me.”

***

AWOL walks down a ruined street, the bat turning lazy circles in the air above him.

“Oooh, that one, over there,” the bat says, gesturing with its head towards an expensive Mercedes parked next to the curb. AWOL turns towards it, looking around for a second before picking up a long, jagged piece of metal from the blasted and charred surface of the street, evidently the last remainder of a signpost. He walks across the pavement, broken glass crunching beneath his boots, to stand in front of the hood. He looks up for a moment to the bat, who nods encouragingly, and then reaches back, swinging the metal bar down onto the car’s hood. The vehicle promptly explodes, a massive fireball expanding in all directions in an instant with a massive blast. A moment later, AWOL walks out of the still raging inferno, seemingly unscathed. He looks down at the metal bar in his hand, dropping it back to the pavement, no longer interested in it.

“This is kind of boring,” he says, looking up at the bat. “What’s the point of this, exactly?”

The bat flutters over to a lamp post, hanging upside down from the overhanging arm. It tucks it’s black, leathery wings around its torso as it answers, “You’re supposed to be AWOL again. I’ve already explained this to you. Part of being AWOL is violence, meaningless though it may be. You’ve still got the potential in you, but you just don’t seem to be interested in it anymore. Come on, man, aren’t you having fun?”

“Um, no,” AWOL sits down on the curb. “Meaningless violence is, as you put it, meaningless. It would be nice if it felt like there was some point to all of this.”

“You mean besides going along with the new ‘AWOL’s crazy again’ gimmick?”

AWOL looks up in alarm, shhing at the bat.

“Stop breaking the fourth wall,” he admonishes the flying creature.

“My bad,” the bat answers. “Sigh. Alright, what the hell, I’m bored with blowing up cars too. Here, tell you what champ, how about we try some meaningful violence on for size.”

AWOL looks up in confusion for a moment as across the street one of the ground floor windows light up. Inside, AWOL is shocked to see his own face inside the well lit home. Vivian is with him, and the two are sitting around a coffee table in their living room. She laughs, taking a sip from her wine glass as the bright orange glow of the candles arrayed throughout the room dance amongst the red locks of her hair.

“What the fuck?” he mumbles, rising back up to his feet. “Why are you making me watch this?”

“You really need me to explain this to you? I guess you must be more in denial than I thought.” the bat says, swinging back and forth on the light pole in irritation.

The AWOL and Vivian inside the apartment share another laugh before, from outside the visible part of the room, a young boy comes running in, jumping and landing between the two of them. He holds up an AWOL action figure towards the big man, who takes it out of his hands. The resemblance between the faces of the boy and the man is unmistakable as AWOL picks up the action figure, holding it up and adopting his trademark in-ring scowl. The kid laughs and claps in glee as the big man clearly starts to cut a mock promo in the living room, Vivian smiling and wrapping an arm around the young boy’s chest.

“This was what you wanted,” the bat says, “What you dreamed about. This is the future you desired for yourself.”

“Stop,” the AWOL in the street says, pain clearly wracking his features, “Turn it off. I don’t want to see anymore.”

“Yes you do,” the bat admonishes him. “You want to see it, because you want it to be real. You’re still holding out some hope that it can happen someday.”

“Is that so wrong? Is there some reason why I can’t want a normal life?”

“Anthony can want a normal life,” the bat answers, “but I have news for you: nobody gives a shit what Anthony wants. Look, big guy, it breaks my heart to tell you this, but all anybody wants from you is AWOL. They want the monster. They don’t want some crying little bitch sitting in a street, dreaming about the family that they’re never going to have. It’s time to face facts. Jiminy Cricket isn’t about to come hopping around the corner to let you wish upon a star here. You need to get with the program, get on board, and move on from this. The world of IWC could be your oyster, if you’d just reach out and take it.”

AWOL shakes his head, regretfully, and lets out a rueful sigh. “That’s why I walked away. That’s why I left the company. I was tired of the shit they wanted from me day in and day out. I realized that I had the choice of getting what I wanted in the ring or outside of it. I chose to try and build a normal life.” He points at the window. “I wanted what that guy has.”

The bat sighs, rolling its beady red eyes. “We really don’t have time for this. You’ve got a match in a week, and we have to get you on your feet by then. If you won’t do it on your own, I’ll do it for you.”

AWOL looks up in confusion as the bat suddenly soars down from the light post, landing on AWOL’s face. He starts to shout in shock, inadvertently allowing the bat to get a grip on his upper and lower jaw with its small feet. Before the big man can react it dives forward, squirming its way down AWOL’s mouth. The big man gags, grabbing hold of his throat as a tell-tale bulge crawls its way down past his larynx and into his chest. AWOL drops to his knees, eyes wide in horror, before slumping over to his side. He twitches for a few moments, spasming, before suddenly letting out an audible near death-rattle of a sigh from the depths of his throat.

He rolls over onto his face a moment later, pressing himself slowly back up onto his feet. He cracks his neck to the side, an audible pop echoing out into the street. He turns back towards the windowsill, where AWOL is waging an action-figure battle, pitting himself against a well-worn Max Craven doll. The two plastic grapplers bash back and forth before the young boy knocks the Max Craven figure onto its back, dropping the AWOL toy on top for the cover. AWOL slaps his hand down three times onto the coffee table, and all three occupants of the room raise their hands into a cheer at the victory.

In the street, AWOL smiles, a vicious glint in his eyes, before raising his arm. His right hand is pointed, fingers making a mock pistol. He pretends to fire it, making a “boom” sound and raising his hand up with the imaginary recoil. An instant later the apartment explodes, another massive fireball flying out into the street, the orange glow of the firelight illuminating the sadistic smile on the big man’s face.

He turns to walk away. “Well, that’s one mental block down. Let’s see what other damage we can cause tonight.”

Behind him, lying on the pavement, the AWOL action figure rests, limbs twisted, the top of its head smoldering in the flames…

Re-Roll

So, I re-rolled a new character on World of Warcraft. I have heirloom items for cloth casters that were gathering dust, and just frankly needed to take a bit of a break from work stuff yesterday. Consequently, I have rolled a gnome mage, Gnimsh, named for an old D&D character that eventually went insane and tried to destroy the universe.

Hopefully things turn out better this time.

I've blown through the first twelve levels overnight, demonstrating that early leveling now, particularly if you have heirlooms, is frankly ridiculous. I get that they're trying to bring new people into the game and hook them, but I did notice almost immediately after I hit 11 that, suddenly, I was having mana problems since that's the points where the new, newby friendly areas of the starting zones end. If nothing else, there is an extremely bizarre change in the dwarf area where the mobs (monsters, for the non-mmo initiated) which used to be hostile are now neutral and will now give you a nice smile and a wave as you walk past them, pick up quest items, and go assassinate their leader at the bottom of their cave. They sort of remind me of these guys.

Decided to do alliance this time since I seem to be getting bored at the top end of the leveling scale with Horde fluff (even though it tends to be more compelling, I've heard it before.) I've always wanted an engineer since that tends to be the profession with the most goofy items, and I'm easily amused. Also, I've often been jealous of the whole mage "you want to be in Ironforge now? Oh, ok, I'll summon a portal for you" thing. Thus the character choices (with mining, of course, to feed the engineering.) I'm thinking of trying out the battlegrounds on the way as I'm leveling, as well as using the dungeonfinder to try some of the lower level dungeons. This last will, of course, force me to put aside my innate terror of terrible, awful, really bad PUGs (pick up groups), but on the other hand will hopefully break up some of the mind-shattering monotony of "Go gather ten bear asses" quests.

Awesome

Credit Wil Wheaton's blog for pointing me in the direction of this post on reddit.com. For a number of reasons, I say right on to this.

Deathwatch

This game promises to have all kinds of awesome in it.

My army in Warhammer 40K is the Adeptus Astartes, or Space Marines. Fantasy Flight Games has come up with some great things on their 40K RPG with their Dark Heresy game, where you play a member of the Inquisition and help to hunt down infiltrators within the infrastructure of the Imperium. But this is Warhammer 40k. Emphasis on War. And the front page advertisement race of this game is the Space Marines. Now, finally, a chance to fight on the front lines in the grim darkness of the far future is here, and I am literally salivating for it.