Archive for the ‘Yeah, I play WoW’ Category
Monday, January 25th, 2010
Internet, there are very few things in this world I truly dislike. I don’t like sausage. I don’t like Fiona Apple. I don’t like any movies with shooting, violence, explosions, fighting, running, jumping, car chases, bombs, harsh language, aliens, time travel, inter-breeding of species, special effects, animation blended with live action, sad parts, funny parts, dramatic parts, things that jump out at you, red herrings, false alarms, love triangles, or the part of the plot where the girl/guy loses their guy/girl forever except you know it’s not forever because there’s still 20 minutes of movie left, and I hate stubbing my toe.
So really, Internet, you know that I must be serious when I tell you HOW HARD I HATE SNICKERS BARS RIGHT NOW.
Phil is taking a course of steroids for a back injury right now, and I have a raging case of PMS combined with the fact that I’m going wedding dress shopping next week, so it only made sense that yesterday we hopped in our car to drive to the Shell station around the corner to find a whole bunch of fattening crap to stuff into our face holes.
Among other things (which were, of course, a salad and a delightful low-fat low-cal low-sodium low-taste protein bar to power me through my evening work outs-HAHAHAHAHAHA), I chose this:
Please pardon my chicken, it was conveniently sized for covering up a S’mores ice cream stain.
Are you judging me right now, Internet? Maybe for the fact that I bought a Snickers? Or because I have a cooler under my desk so that when Phil and I do actually play WoW together (I totally gave in this weekend, by the way – Fronks & Boones on Drenden, Alliance side), we don’t have to make the 45 second round trip downstairs for sodas? Or maybe you’re one of those assholes who thinks it’s ridiculous for me to drink diet soda with my candy bar, like people who drink diet soda are all universally so stupid that when we order a Big Mac and a Diet Coke, we actually believe the Diet Coke is somehow cancelling out the Big Mac? For that last one, if you are one of those assholes, seriously – have you ever even realized what an asshole you are?
Anyway, my point is – if you are judging me right now, you go right on ahead with your bad self. Because you’re a PERSON and it is your right to run around judging people all willy nilly for whatever you want! I mean, it’s possible to go overboard, of course, but I can’t stop you. Sometimes, when you’re having a really crappy day, judging someone else and finding yourself slightly superior is the one shining moment in the whole shitfest of a day. So you go on and do what you feel you need to do.
But you know who isn’t allowed to judge me?
Candy. Candy is not allowed to judge me. Not even a little. I don’t even want a HINT OF AN IDEA that candy MIGHT be judging me. And while the candy bar pictured above isn’t saying anything outright, I am PRETTY DAMN SURE it doesn’t even approve of me buying it in the first place.
Upon getting in the car and ripping open my Snickers bar before we even left the parking lot (again, judge me if you must, but I just want to say that Phil? He ended up paying for a hot dog WRAPPER because he ATE THE HOT DOG before we even got to the counter) (I’d also like to remind you that Phil is on steroids, so, you know), I pulled out my prize only to discover? IT WAS ONLY HALF A PRIZE.
At first I thought my King Size Snickers bar had broken in half, and I wondered how that was even possible, because have you ever seen a King Size Snickers bar? It’s like as big around as a baby’s arm (don’t even act like you’ve never eaten a Snickers, Internet. I mean, judge me if you want, but don’t LIE about it). And you know what I found on closer inspection? It hadn’t broken in half, because the part where it would have been broken was CLEARLY AND DELIBERATELY CHOCOLATED OVER.
So I took a closer look at the wrapper.
Ok, for some reason, they have taken a perfectly good ridiculously-sized candy bar and broken it into two pieces. I WOULD HAVE BEEN FINE WITH THIS, except for the added INSTRUCTIONS.
That’s right. Instructions. On how to SAVE one of my UNASKED FOR PIECES for later.
And? The two “CONVENIENT” pieces? They were both smaller than an actual, normal-sized Snickers.
Don’t you think, SNICKERS, that if I wanted a normal-sized Snickers, I would have bought a normal-sized Snickers? I WOULD HAVE. But I didn’t. I bought a KING SIZE SNICKERS because I had a KING SIZE NEED for chocolate. I needed CHOCOLATE, not your ATTITUDE, Snickers.
Don’t you see, Internet? Who buys a King Size Snickers without intending to shove the whole thing down their throat right then and there? Don’t tell me, “Well, sometimes people want some Snickers now, and some Snickers later,” because you know what, up until Snickers made this UNREQUESTED two-piecing of their candy bar, that’s what buying two Snickers was for. ESPECIALLY gas station Snickers. You don’t wander into a gas station looking to stock your pantry with snacks for later. You walk into a gas station to buy stuff that is going to be half-digested by the time you arrive at your destination.
Yet, here we have the CANDY BAR ITSELF trying to pass judgement on me, and being pretty effing passive aggressive about it, if you ask me.
You know what, King Size Snickers? This is my you impression:
“Um, TJ, I’m not going to tell you what you should and shouldn’t eat, but you know what I am going to do? I’m going to go ahead and cut myself in half, and then? I’m going to suggest you go ahead and twist my wrapper right around. I’m not going to come right out and say it, but I think you understand that I’m not telling you to twist an empty wrapper here. You should leave half. For another time.”
THAT’S YOU, KING SIZE SNICKERS. THAT WAS ME, DOING YOU. And you know what? You sounded kind of like an ASSHOLE.
If I WANTED a smaller portion of Snickers, I would have bought a smaller portion of Snickers. I don’t need the “helpful” advice, King Size Snickers. I already KNOW I shouldn’t be eating a King Size Snickers. Do you know how I know? Because it’s called KING SIZE and I’m not a king. I’m not even like, 1/32 royalty. I shouldn’t be having ANYTHING meant for kings. Up until you decided to get all WRAPPER-UPPITY, King Size Snickers, your name alone was enough to warn people like, “Dude? Just so you know? I’m meant for kings, so I’m pretty huge. If you’re cool with that, go on ahead and eat me, but by my very name, you should know that I’m not really the best option for someone who isn’t a king.” And you know what? THAT WAS ENOUGH.
Seriously, Snickers people? If you read the Internet? You need to shut your candy the hell up because, rude!
JUST IN CASE IT WASN’T CLEAR: Snickers totally did not pay me to say this stuff about their passive-aggressive, judgmental, SHOULD-MIND-ITS-OWN-BUSINESS candy bar.
Posted in Somebody's getting maawwweeed, Yeah, I play WoW, daily BS | 45 Comments »
Monday, January 18th, 2010
“Look at my new hunter.”
“Aw, cute.”
“You should totally start a Druid so we can play together.”
“I don’t want to.”
“Why?”
“Because we never level past 12 when we do that.”
“Well, this time we will.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t want to level past 12.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t like playing with you, you always want to level professions and not follow the guide.”
“Ummm ok, well, how about I play your way?”
“Nope, because you’ll be a d-bag about following the guide.”
“I won’t, I promise.”
“Lie.”
Though I have asked the “are you doing that right” question before and rightfully been told to shove it, this time I feel that I am actually correct in my statement that TJ WoWs WRONG!!!
Evidence:
1. We both use add-ons to guide us, Tom-Tom and Tour guide, they are both great tools to help find quests and level. We have both done most of these quests way too many times and just want to maximize the leveling in the shortest amount of time. I, however, will deviate from the guide as necessary – skipping quests I’m too high or low level for, getting things down in my own way as needed. She will not. When the new LFG thingie came out she freaked out because her priest was leveling in instances and passing where she was in the guide. She followed the guide to the letter anyway, killing gray mobs for low level quests. So, when we group up I know that I will have to follow the guide to the letter.
2. She hates professions. We both have toons on many different servers, so most of the time it’s not a big deal. I can just send my alt whatever we need. However, she has started toons on new servers, where neither of us has a high level, and not picked up any professions. Thus, no income. She will play with 6 and 8 slot bags well into the 20s and 30s. I was amazed when she picked up skinning on her now 70 Priest at level 15. When we have played toons together she won’t pick up any at all.
3. She will put her talent points in all willy-nilly. I don’t know why this one bothers me, but it really does. I have even offered to research talent builds for her. She does not take me up on my offer. She just puts points where she feels like putting them, with no plan or particular goal in mind.
4. I bought Wrath for both of us the day it came out. Instead of leveling her 70 Warlock, she rolled a hunter and leveled that to 70 and stopped. Not just stopped playing that toon, but stopped playing all together for months and months. Granted we both stopped playing for a while, but when we picked it back up I was excited to go explore all the new content I paid for. I admit I didn’t go back to my 70 Warlock, I went to a new server and started a brand new Warlock and leveled him to 80. I love alts. So when TJ started a new Priest, (sadly on a completely different server), I understood that she could not yet explore the new content. So she leveled her little Priest and was seemingly having fun, until she hit 70. She hit 70 and not only stopped playing her Priest, she has stopped playing WoW all together. Again. She may pick it back up, but my guess is that when she does it will be with a level one something on a server neither of us has toons on.
In short – she won’t play with me because I don’t play correctly. However, she refuses to deviate from a guide even when she outlevels it by several levels, refuses to take up professions, does no research into where she sticks her talent points and won’t play a toon past level 70 for some reason. Maybe I make sandwiches wrong, and maybe I interpret the word “dry” wrong, and maybe I have accused her of doing something wrong unjustly. However, in this case, I AM NOT WRONG. SHE IS THE ONE WHO IS WRONG.
SHE PLAYS WOW WRONG.
Posted in Yeah, I play WoW | 44 Comments »
Monday, December 14th, 2009
I know WoW posts don’t make sense to most of my readers. I promise to post something comprehensible later today.
As you might know, Internet, I’ve never been a huge fan of a lot of the changes that have been made to WoW – the dumbing down of the game has been going on forever. You know, like how quest items didn’t used to sparkle, you certainly couldn’t ride your mount in the water, you don’t have to do ANYTHING for your Dreadsteed anymore… PHIL.
Phil often tries to talk to me about the different things that have happened in each patch, but either I don’t care because I play so sporadically, or I shriek over him because something has been changed so much as to make it criminally stupid. Like the new quest helper thing? Come on!
Of course, Phil did point out that I use an add on that essentially does the same thing, but shut up, people who agree with Phil, because that’s completely different. It is. I certainly didn’t use it, or any add ons, on my first character – not for a long while. I at least learned the mechanics of the game and how to find non-sparkling quest items before I started using add ons at all.
But anyway, one thing I guess I can get behind is the new cross server looking for group tool. I’m playing a priest on a server where I don’t know anyone, unguilded. Around level 55, seeing that Phil was getting some groups through the new tool, I decided to give it a try. The reason I wanted to give it a try was specifically because of the cross server thing – I’ve never ever healed before (I’ve leveled some healers, but have pretty much never done instances as I leveled – there’s a lot of them out there, at all levels, that I’ve never even seen, even after playing the game for a skrillion years).
Anyway, I’d never healed before, so I figured if I sucked at it, everyone else would be from another server and I’d never have to see them, you know, at the bank in Org or something, and be all embarassed at my suckitude. The first random I was sent to was old school BRD, and I actually got really lucky with the tank, who happened to be from my server. He was super easy to heal, and my first attempt at healing went so well that when he asked if I wanted to group up and queue up again, I said sure. I think he and I ended up doing BRD 3 or 4 times.
The next day or so, I had some not-so-good luck with the group finder, and leveled up to 60 in the process. Once I got out to Outland last night – which, by the way? AWFUL. Because on Saturday night, Headmaster’s Charge dropped in a group I was in for the first time in my life. Ok, so that may not sound like such a big deal now, but way back in super super old WoW, I seriously waited my entire life for that to drop. Not one time did I ever see it. Yet, on Saturday night, it finally did. And I was the only one who could use it. 24 hours later, I get to Outland and replace it. I had Headmaster’s Charge for 24 goddamn hours.
Anyway! When I stepped foot in Outland, that tank grabbed me again and asked if I wanted to queue up – so we did. We ended up in Ramparts and ran it. We queued up together and ran it again and ended up with a great group, and ran it once more with them. We lost one from that group, grabbed a random and ran again. Lost two, grabbed two and ran again. Dropped one and ran again. One of our members told us it takes 15 minutes or so to get a group as DPS, but when we queue up as tank and healer, we pretty much have a group instantly. I am pretty sure I live in Ramparts now
I’ve had no complaints with my healing at all, and of course it got easier and easier – both because I was getting more and more familiar with an instance I haven’t done in years and because on a couple of the runs, nothing but cloth dropped. By the third or fourth time through, I was actually able to look up and see what the instance looked like, rather than keep my eyes glued to the green bars (thank you to whoever suggested the VuhDo add on, by the way – love it).
This priest may actually be the first toon I level to 80, I’ve been enjoying healing so much. I definitely credit the new looking for group system with it if I do end up making it that far with this one (I have a habit of stopping at 70 and rolling something new). Once I get to 80, I’m not sure what I’ll do – possibly look for a guild I guess, and with all of the changes, I don’t have to limit that to my server or even my faction. As I learned from the venerable Ted and Marshall, however, that sounds like a decision that Future TJ would be happy to handle for me.
If you want to play with me, all you have to do is decipher the very complex clues in the image above and then continually join and leave random dungeons until I appear in yours. A second option is to roll on Zangarmarsh and level to 61 to catch up with me, before I hit 62. I recommend the first option, as the second is tedious and somewhat impossible. See you in Ramparts (because that’s where I live now).
Posted in Yeah, I play WoW | 20 Comments »
Thursday, December 3rd, 2009
What two weeks of Thanksgiving vacation time looks like to someone in the military:
Aside from Thanksgiving travel, and the fact that we got all of our Christmas shopping (except for the Christmas beer) done yesterday, we have spent the majority of Phil’s vacation time playing WoW together for the first time in a long time.
Well, playing in the same room. I think we have two or three sets of toons we rolled to play together that never seem to make it past the mid-teens. This is mostly his fault, since he’s always all “Oh, I’m just going to go level some PROFESSIONS, we’re still playing TOGETHER” and I’m all “Fuck professions!” and our play styles totally don’t mesh, because come on, seriously, fuck professions.
Anyway, he hit 80 on Drenden yesterday (there was appropriate fanfare, I threw confetti, which was actually mild hot sauce packets from Taco Bell, but we sit across the room from each other, and actual shredded paper wouldn’t have made it all the way across, and I suppose I could have stood up and walked over but COME ON), and I’ve been playing a priest on Zangarmarsh (where I started playing before I realized that it’s the server where WoW Insider has their guild, and briefly considered starting over, that’s how much I hate them).
Phil’s play time is usually pretty normal, while mine goes something like this:
“Oh! A rare elite!”
“Hey, a rare elite!”
“Oh look, another rare elite!”
I’m like a magnet for those things. And last night, in a five minute span, I said “Hey, I found a blue in this chest. Oh, look, a rare elite! Hey, this ghost just dropped a purple!”
I was totally like the King of WoW last night.
Anyway, I was in a guild for a little bit, but I had to leave. I didn’t mind the fact that they claimed to be a social, casual guild, but no one ever talked except when they were getting ready to raid. In a hardcore fashion.
And I didn’t mind that they continually proclaimed things to be “gay,” though the fact that most of them possessed literally no other way to express their displeasure was a bit disturbing.
What I could not forgive, however, was the continual use of text speak and the fact that six people IN A ROW messed up the appropriate usage of there, their and they’re.
/GQUIT.
I have since been invited to join another guild, which sounded great, until I found out that their guild name was in all lowercase. COME ON. I cannot take you seriously as a group of people playing a video game as dead people, walking cows and tusk-faces taking on mythical challenges in a fantasy world when you can’t even capitalize appropriately.
Anyway, with his accomplishment of hitting level 80, Phil owns the only level 80 in our household, between both accounts. When Wrath came out, we each had a level 70 lock. He bought Wrath for both of us on release day and… we both rolled hunters. I leveled that hunter to 70 and he got his pretty high as well, and then I took a break from the game for a bit. I played various lowbie alts on and off, and I’ve now started that priest, which is level 45.
He made an entirely new lock on Drenden a few weeks ago, and that is the one he leveled to 80. We both have level 70 locks, and I have a level 70 hunter, who have never seen even one little inch of the expansion. I haven’t played Wrath at all. I parked my 70 lock in Northrend or whatever it’s called the day I installed the expansion and haven’t logged in to her since. I don’t even have an explanation for myself.
After Phil goes back to work next week, I’ll probably drift away from WoW again. I had moved my lock to play with him, and didn’t really have the social aspect of the game anymore, and in my time away on other servers and my long WoW break, my old guild on Drenden has gotten a lot of new players and lost some familiar ones, so it doesn’t quite feel the same anymore. Without Phil playing in the same room and a guild that suits my ridiculously picky grammatical and capitalization needs, I don’t think I will ever have the motivation to make it to 80.
Solution: Phil quits the military to play WoW all day. Turns into mountain man, as illustrated above.
I become deeply resentful of his mountainy face, as his beard chaps my delicate skin. I bottle up my resentment so as not to seem shallow, but become progressively more distant as I level toon after toon to 80.
I begin to sarcastically refer to Phil as “Dr. Beardface” behind his back, correcting myself immediately by saying “That’s Beard FAH SAY,” because that’s hysterical. He catches me making fun of him in such a manner over vent one day and I try to cover by saying I was talking about one of my many, many level 80s. He doesn’t buy it and gathers his favorite belongings into a handkerchief which he ties to a stick, and takes off dramatically with the dog, trudging down the road with his thumb out.
He doesn’t get far, because we live in a low-traffic subdivision, and he stupidly chose dramatic over taking his perfectly good SUV. I lose my motivation to play shortly after he leaves, and all of my leveling work is for nothing. Plus I no longer have a dog.
Anyway, that’s pretty much the only scenario I can think of in which I’d get a toon to level 80, and since it ends up with me not having a dog, I’m not really into it. But if you play on Zangarmarsh, do feel free to say hi. I’m the not-level-80 horde priest. See you there!
Posted in Yeah, I play WoW | 29 Comments »
Tuesday, December 1st, 2009
“Did you hit 80 yet?”
“Nope, I’ve been holding off.”
“What, are there not enough people online yet?”
“Yep.”
“So… you’re holding off on hitting 80 until there are more guild members online.”
“I’m not going to deny it, I want the fanfare.”
“HA!”
“It’s a special thing!”
Posted in TJ + Phil, Yeah, I play WoW | 14 Comments »
Friday, October 9th, 2009
So I was thinking about this old Hallmark commercial the other day, where this woman watches out the window as the old lady across the street walks to her mail box every day, opens it, sees that it’s empty and does the sad Charlie Brown walk back into her house, so she gets a brilliant idea and writes a Hallmark card and has he daughter run over and put it in the mailbox, and then a couple of days later the daughter comes running in with a jar of jam or something from the old lady and says it’s from the old lady and “I think she was crying!”
That commercial, COMMERCIAL, makes me so unbearably sad every time I think about it because it makes me think of people who spend Christmas alone, which I mostly have to totally avoid thinking about so as to keep from throwing myself out the window in despair.
Also? Ok, even if you don’t play WoW, you might get this one, so I’m going to explain it for those of you who don’t play WoW, instead of assuming you know what I’m talking about.
One time, I was chatting with my guild and someone told this story as it was happening: Apparently, a couple of higher level characters took a very new player – a level 4 or 5 or so, out to Redridge, where he shouldn’t be until a much higher level because everything there will kill him, over and over and over. So these people take him out to Redridge and leave him there, as a joke, and it turned out he was only like, 8 years old, and didn’t even know how to use his hearthstone yet to take him back to his starting location, so he thought he was stuck there forever and that the game was totally over for him, all because he trusted these two d-bags to take him somewhere fun.
When I think about that poor little kid thinking that he had already totally lost the game of WoW and there was nothing he could do about it, I want to hole up in my room and read Sylvia Plath for days on end. Isn’t it just the most terrible, saddest thing you’ve ever heard?
Internet, I cannot be the only person so deeply affected by television commercials and children I don’t know. It’s impossible that I be the only person affected, because we all know I only have one feeling and it’s usually occupied with be angry at something, so if something is sad enough that I notice, then the whole world must be miserably depressed on a regular basis.
So, Internet, what things that do not in any way involve yourself make you avoid heights in order to keep from throwing yourself off in despair?
Posted in Yeah, I play WoW, daily BS | 19 Comments »
Monday, August 31st, 2009
So Phil and I have both recently picked up WoW again. He’d played more recently than I have, and kept up with patch notes and such, so he was on the receiving end of a lot of comments like “WHY is someone MOUNTED in the WATER?” which is apparently how things are now.
Anyway, it got me thinking about all the different things that changed since the last time I played WoW, plus all the things that changed DURING the time I was playing WoW.
- First of all, I rolled a new lock and immediately put my first 5 points in improved Corruption, because you need instant Corruption, right? Except, I hadn’t even noticed, it was ALREADY instant. CORRUPTION USED TO HAVE A CAST TIME, PEOPLE.
- When I first started playing WoW, warlocks didn’t have shard bags. I don’t have one on that toon now. It’s obnoxious.
- You could only mail ONE THING AT A TIME.
- Did you know that in order to fly anywhere, you had to manually fly from point to point? You couldn’t just choose a destination and automatically go through all the legs of the journey. If you AFK’d while flying, you’d come back and be standing at a flight point only halfway there!
- I saw a level 56 on a Dreadsteed. Something deep inside of me died.
- PHIL HAS A DREADSTEED AND DID NOT GO TO DIRE MAUL TO OBTAIN IT.
- Quest items did not SPARKLE like a fucking VEGETARIAN VAMPIRE IN THE SUN.
- There were no mounts at 20 or whatever is now, and only ONE flight point in STV. Yeah, that’s right. You had to run the ENTIRE length of STV over and over and over. No mount! No flying from top to bottom!
- The quest log only held some small ridiculous amount of quests.
- Drain Soul only worked if the target died while you were using drain soul. Now I’m pulling 3 shards off a single mob? WTF? I DON’T WANT THREE SHARDS, I DON’T EVEN HAVE A SOUL BAG.
- You used to have to be attuned to things, through a laborious process, to get to go to certain dungeons.
- You couldn’t do heroic instances unless you have exhalted or something. That changed while I was still playing to just honored, I think, or else I never would have seen a single heroic.
- WTF is a glyph, people? WTF IS A GLYPH?
Anyway, I am sure if you have been playing WoW for any length of time, you can come up with more. For people who have been playing longer than I have (4 years), I am sure you’ve got some good ones, too.
I feel like a cranky old man in the game these days.
“In MY day, we hald to WALK through STV! Uphill! BOTH WAYS! And when I took a flight or got on my mount? My summoned demon went away! AND I DIDN’T GET THE SHARD BACK. AND? When you sac’d your Voidwalker? HE DIED. DIED! He DIED so you could have that puny little bubble! YOU KIDS THESE DAYS DON’T KNOW HOW GOOD YOU HAVE IT!”
Posted in Yeah, I play WoW | 46 Comments »
