Who Wants to be a Scourge?

I haven’t posted anything in a long while and now I do and it’s all related to World of Warcraft. So is this going to be about leveling characters like everyone else in the world has to? Nope. This is about an opportunity I think Blizzard, in all their wisdom, is going to miss out on.

So, those of you who have made it to level 80 and are up in Northrend waiting patiently to go kill that bastard the Lich King for being, well, the bastard he is. Let’s stop to ponder not killing dear old Arthas, or whoever the hell he thinks he might be at this moment. Arthas is a faction leader of an NPC faction, and lets face it Blizzard loves their evil bastards. Look at Kil’jaeden, for example.

So, why not open the Scourge as a third, and truly evil, player faction?

The races are pretty much present. The undead would be an obvious one, the models and customization are there, ready to go. These would be the ones that while they came to some sort of sentience just decided to go with the flow and hang with the Lich King. Overall their goals and some of the Forsaken (I'm looking at you Putress) are not too different. All classes would still apply.

Next up would be the Vrykul. From what I have seen in the game they are very customizable and who hasn’t looked at them and wanted to play one? They seem to do the warrior, warlock, mage, death knight, and priestly things fairly well.

Another obvious choice would be humans. There is plenty of the Cult of the Damned running around to make them a viable part of the Scorge. I know I get credit for killing them as Scourge quite frequently. Take away the Paladins and I’d say the rest of the classes still apply.

What next? How about using some Darkfallen with the Blood Elf models? What is a faction in an MMO without some sort of elves? Nerubians would be fun and very different, thought probably the most work for Blizzard. How about some Ice Trolls or Iron Dwarves that switched loyalties once their current faction leaders are dead?

Seems almost possible, but a lot of work. Quests and starting areas for instance, would need a major overhaul, but I still think it is a fun idea. Best of all, you can still go kill the Lich King faction leader, just like the rest of the faction leaders.

Hero Class

Recently some of my co-workers decided that we should play World of Warcraft together. There are several people in the office who play, but strangely we never played much together. (This is oddly similar to how my friends play World of Warcraft with me. They don't.) Recently someone thought that needed to change and they all rolled new characters on the server where I have my Warlock. It didn't take them long to reach 70, and then we ran the Nexus a few times with my Hunter. My wife got a good look at the Nexus and decided she wanted to join in the fun as well.

The problem is that time being what it is, we're both casual players and don't have time for the hard core things in World of Warcraft. Her highest level character is a 67 Undead Mage on another server, and she would be higher if she wasn't a more responsible person. I suggested we change servers, but she is of the opinion that it costs too much. Considering all the factors, it does. She could play a Death Knight and start a 55, but everyone is doing that, and she prefers casters. So, she started up a new Blood Elf Mage, and I joined her with my low level Tauren Druid.

I have to say she is fairly dedicated, as she is now 24, which is good for the amount of time in which we have to play. Which brings me to the question, is it more heroic to start a Death Knight at level 55 or start at 1 and play the game through. I have to say I think leveling from the beginning is a lot more heroic, even if it doesn't have the benefits.

A year ago, Today

Sunday started off like a usual Sunday for me. My son woke me and my wife up earlier than either of us wanted to roll out of bed. I got up and turned on some TV, gave him a breakfast bar and a sippy cup full of milk and trudged back to bed for a little more sleep. Eventually my lovely wife got up and said she was going to take a bath. She was nine months pregnant at the time, which might have stressed out some people, but my son arrived almost two weeks late and had to be induced. My daughters due date was the following day, and Wednesday of that week was when they were going to induce my wife. She had informed me earlier that she had been having some contractions, but both she and I were of the opinion that they were going to amount to nothing.

Until they became more intense. Not sure who made the decision but we decided we had better head to the hospital, even if they might just send us back home as false labor. It was now around 8:00 AM, and the doctor had told us, labor takes hours. What they neglected to mention was anything over one, is plural. After some calls we dropped my son off at my sister's, and we were off to the hospital which was roughly around fifty miles away. Shortly after departing we realized that this was no drill. I began to drive faster.

Once on the interstate the labor pains became so intense that my wife was quite vocally displeased, a little at first. Not to say she was yelling at me, it was a more general unhappiness. It was about twenty or so miles into our trip when my Wife informed me that she couldn't do this. Which I thought she meant she couldn't have the baby. I told her she could, as she already had done it once, and drove faster. What she meant was much more complex for my addled mind to comprehend at the time.

Thirty miles into the trip was when my wife informed me that we were not going to make it. Her displeasure had become quite loud. I told her, and felt certain at the time that I was lying, that we would make it. I had determination, I wasn't sure I had time. I drove even faster.

It was shortly after this that I rounded a corner and saw two police vehicles sitting on the side of the road. I vocalized my displeasure, and wasn't as polite as my wife, as the speed limit was very much broken. I let my foot off the gas and coasted by them, still in excess of the limit by a good 10 mph. They didn't budge, they will never know how they missed out on delivering a baby that day. As soon as I could no longer see them I accelerated again to my former speed.

My Wife continued to tell me that we were not going to make it, and backed up her point by having her water break. Now for the uninitiated this is the point of no return, and while it happens in every single TV show it rarely happens in real life before the hospital. Faster? You bet.

The rest of the trip was very exciting and frightening, the prospect of giving birth to my daughter was a very front and center thought. I should mention that I did look both ways and run a red light, but we did make it to the hospital safely. and I should also mention it was with an infinite relief. I parked in a handicapped spot closest to the door and ran in, pondering how we were going to get my wife out of the vehicle.

No one was at reception, I know I vocalized my displeasure more. I decided to head right and found a bored hospital employee that assumed my wife was having a false labor for all of their speed and reaction she had. I found a wheelchair and headed outside.

My wife magically got out of the car and politely sat in the wheel chair which had no place to put her feet. The hospital employee raved about my wife's missing sock as she pushed her into the hospital, and we got to triage. My wife's magical demeanor had reverted back to her vocal displeasure and all of triage who had previously looked bored, demanded "Get her to a delivery room!" I felt somewhat justified in my marginally controlled panic.

Off to the delivery room we went. The doctor they found was more concerned about who was my wife's doctor than actually delivering my daughter. He did this within ear shot of both me and my wife it took every bit of self control for both of us to not tell him to shut up and do his expletive job. A quick examination and a nurse told us that my Wife was at 10 centimeters and had done all the hard work at home. My Wife corrected her and informed her it had been done in the car.

Soon the nurses told my wife to quit vocalizing and start pushing, with no drugs and three pushes later and a little over an hour and a half after 8:00 AM, my daughter had arrived. I never sighed harder in my life, and I doubt my wife had either.

Some people will tell you there is no such thing as love at first sight, those people don't have a daughter. Happy First Birthday MegaMeghan!

I miss Abit

I can hear the whining already. “I know how to identify a counterfeit capacitor!” “I have a rainbow motherboard jumpers!” “I worked for Packard Bell!” Doesn't matter. If you haven't built your own computer then you can't wear the Hardware Geek Merit Badge. No lame excuses, if you want it, you know the drill. Build your own box.

A nice alternative would be the Laptop/Notebook Toting Freak Merit Badge. Which is easy to get, you just need to take your portable computer with you everywhere like a security blanket. I got that one while lugging my 8 pound Linux running (at the time) laptop into a Krystals deep in rural Tennessee. I wanted to use the wireless to check my email for test scores, which I did, while getting weird looks from just about everyone, seems they had not seen a Compiz desktop before.

Back to the first topic though, there is just something about researching parts, finding the best price/performance ratio your budget can handle and putting it all together. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. There will be blood, sometimes sweat, possibly tears, and more than likely some sort of thermal paste, but there is a certain pride when the machine comes together and POST.

Or does not, as my most recent experience has been. It wasn't a new system, but an upgrade, and sometimes while all indications say this CPU works on your current motherboard, reality disagrees.

The specification sheets say it is compatible, the BIOS version agrees. Technical Support tells me it should, fails to pay any attention to the information that I have already sent them, and asks me to down grade my BIOS. It ended with a rather large fail, but that rather hot running CPU from my Wife's computer has been replaced. So, it's not all bad, it's just one of the many steps in getting the badge.

Valentine's Day

Quite a few people see holidays as overly commercialized events used to encourage the wasting of money for frivolous and highly worthless items. For the most part, I agree. Christmas being the number one culprit. So it would be easy to assume that I would see Valentine's Day the same way, and that would be incorrect. You see, I'm sickeningly in love with my wife.

We kiss and hug in public. I try to open doors for her whenever I can, especially to let her into the Jeep. A phone conversation with her that does not end in a least one "I love you" seems strangely lacking. I won't even discuss our near constant emails. We hope to seriously embarrass our children some day. Also note, that we've been married for 8 years, and dating for longer.

So for me, Valentine's day is an excuse for me to get the woman I love a gift, take her to dinner, or in some other way do something special for her. And I welcome that excuse.

Though, this year I have to admit I messed up. I got her a nice gift, which I was rather excited about. So, I gave it to her early. She was surprised, and she liked it, but it has left this Valentine's day feeling a little lacking. Doesn't help much that my son is still sick and my wife thinks she is getting it too. There goes reality interfering with romance. Cruel, cruel reality. But, I'll know better next year. I won't invite reality.

So, happy Valentine's Day to you and yours. To my wife, I love you, more today than I did yesterday, but not as much as tomorrow.

...and for those of you who have not found a significant other, use it as an excuse to eat chocolate.

Full Circle then Around Again

While I don't find myself at them often enough I rather enjoy used book stores, and in December I found myself in one. I had found some books from a series I'm in the middle of, but my Wife reminded me that Christmas was coming up and maybe I shouldn't buy things I so obviously wanted so close to the holiday. She did all that with one look, and hardly saying anything.

So I put them back and looked for something new to read. I walked down the horror isle, which I usually find tolerable as a genre, and ran across I Am Legend by Richard Matheson. I remembered thinking the movie previews had looked interesting, and I'm more likely to enjoy a book than a movie so I purchased it for next to nothing.

The paperback I Am Legend looked unread, or it was read by someone much kinder to books than myself. I can't say I've put much thought into where a used book has been before this one, but this one came to my attention in that it had a reciept in it, one that I had not put in it for a bookmark. This receipt let me know that the former owner of the book had purchased it in the Pittsburg Internation Airport, paid cash, and bought some other indescribable item on March 3rd, 2008.

This was interesting because my Grandparents on my Mother's side had lived just outside of Pittsburg. When my Grandmother died, my parents moved my Grandfather here to take better care of him. I had to wonder about when I would return to Pittsburg again.

I got my answer last Thursday, when my Grandfather passed away at the age of 91. He was a hard working, stubborn man who was very set in his ways, but he was a loving Grandfather who left me with many great memories. He had never quite been the same since Grandma had passed away, and it would be wrong to fault a man for that. He will be missed, but his stubborness lives on. Not so easily witnessed in myself even though it is there, but very visable in my son.

The whole family went back to Pennsylvania to bury him with Grandmother and since I've been stumbling slowly through the short stories of I Am Legend, I took the book with me for something to do with any spare time I had. So, the book got a second trip to Pennsylvania. I have to admit that I debated leaving it there, but I haven't finished it yet.

Superman Wears Spiderman Underwear

Children are inefficient. Not to say that I'm an expert on efficiency, but children are definitely not it. A prime example of this is my son going to the bathroom. It's a much longer ritual than it should be.

It starts out simple enough, with a loud announcement: "I gotta go potty!" It's similar to that co-worker you have that likes to announce "Look at me, I'm working!" While the potty announcement will happen at home it ALWAYS happens in a store or restaurant. Maybe it's some long latent instinct for marking ones territory, but if some place has a bathroom my son will want to visit it at least once if not several times.

After the announcement comes the sprint to the bathroom, which makes things seem very urgent. Once in the bathroom time stops. First order of business in a public place is to find a toilet or urinal low enough for him. Some places don't have such things. I think those places deserve the puddles they get, but I tend to clean up either way. I once had a guy bolt past me in a bathroom to use the lowest urinal when the other one was not in use. I believe that man's name was Richard.

Once the toilet is found there might be a short argument on which one my son wants to use, sometimes the lowest one is not his preference. I try to guide him by generally aiming him the direction I want him to go, it's a learned and varied technique which sometimes involves stern looks and repeating words like "No" over and over.

Then the pants have to come off, but sometimes my son likes to just stare at the toilet and space out. Sometimes the toilet paper gets to be a distraction. I always hope there are no REAL distractions or things will take much longer. People walking in are a number one distraction, as my son has to greet them, and introduce himself. He might also have to point out any odd clothing they are wearing. To the gentleman wearing the cowboy hat, my son wasn't really calling you a cow. He was simply trying to say cowboy.

Next is the shortest part of the trip, actually using the toilet. Once done my son has to space out again and all previous distractions can happen all over again. This is the point where I have to say "Pull up your pants." I've never been to the bathroom with him and only said this just once, and I swear if I didn't mention it, they would never be pulled up again. Which would make the trip to Taco Bell more interesting, to say the least.

Now we're on to cleaning up. Washing hands is always fun because no sink has been made for a child to use, and very few places have a stool for them to stand on. Washing hands requires coaching as well, otherwise the soap would simply be rinsed into the sink with no actual washing taking place. The water can be very distracting as well, not to mention the mirror.

Last is the drying. Without more help here my son would simply wad up a paper towel and throw it away, and not dry anything. So, more input is required. Hand driers are great fun as he can stand under them and he finds it hilarious to have them blow his hair about. This can waste a few more minutes. Finally, we can leave the bathroom. Several hours later.

Lastly, it is quite funny to see my son running for the bathroom in his Superman pajamas (which include a cape) wearing Spiderman underwear and yelling "I go poop!"