Dancing Queen

My friend's family has a beach house, and we did a "boys' weekend" at the coast. A few facts to put the trip in context: Oregon, January, rain and snow and wind, (very) small town, five guys, beer, rum, more beer. We walked down to the beach and in to town a few times, but hung out at the beach house most of the weekend. Much non-PC social gaming this weekend.

Pool. The beach house is decorated in classic 1970s style. However. The pool table upstairs scored big points. A decade ago I could shoot pool. Not so much anymore. Note to self, brush up on billiards skills.

Dance Dance Revolution. At some point late Friday night someone pulls out DDR for the Xbox. Not my idea... but I'm drunk and happy and what the hell. I felt dorky and self conscious at first... but, you know, after you let go of silly notions like pride and shame the game is fun. It works as a party game. I couldn't imagine playing it by myself or stone cold sober. We danced for 4+ hours. But it's not really dancing. More like stomping in time with beat of the techno music. My body was hurting the next day. I recorded a 30-second video clip on my cell phone. Black mail material. Or insurance that a similar clip on my friend's cell phone won't show up on YouTube.

Chess. Four player cutthroat variation. Five second clock. Playing in the local hippie coffee shop Saturday morning. The teams weren't fair though. Our opponents couldn't remember how all the pieces moved. Or so they claimed. All I can say is L2Play newbs!

Halo. Most of my friends are the twitchy console gamer types. They paid me back for slaughtering them at poker and chess. I tried. I died. Over and over. I'll admit I'm not good at these games, but I'm playing against someone who recently spent 10 hours playing PvP on his day off from work. The same guy who refrains from shooting or throwing grenades to "make it fair." Gee, thanks. Hehe.

Poker. Texas Hold 'Em. We played for beers later Saturday night at the one bar in town. I put the hurt to my friends and won 8 beers. I opted for 4 micros instead of 8 light beers. Not that I have anything against PBR, but I was already drunk and I've learned to listen to that little voice that says slow down.

Dance Dance Mortal Kombat. Sunday morning we had the bright idea of trying the DDR pad with other games. Halo was a no go... but Mortal Kombat 2 worked. You can move the characters and attack by "dancing" on the game pad. The "Finish Him" move looks ridiculous but got us talking about the future of how we interface with games.

Theater Thursday - January 24

Today is a double feature. Funny stuff. Watch them. You will comply. Resistance is futile.

The Grind - Episode 1



The Grind - Episode 2



All I can say is... sky rockets in flight afternoon delight.

P.S. I promise next time I won't just repost something I saw on WOW Insider. Lame. I know. My excuse? Um, jury duty for a few days now. Listening to lawyers drone on and on is melting my fncking brain.

Missing You

I pushed the reset button when I returned to World of Warcraft two months ago. A fresh start on a new server, new faction, and new guild. No complaints. A positive experience every time I play. I'm having a great time exploring new zones, new quest hubs, and new lore. The guild is full of friendly, fun, and mature people.

However. I miss the Outlands. There, I said it.

I retired my old main, a level 67 orc hunter. He's on vacation in Blade's Edge Mountains. But I'm considering playing him one night a week, just to get a taste of the Outlands. Why do I feel dirty thinking this?

Here is a thought I had driving home last night. I'm certain it's not an original thought. I can buy a new name from Blizzard for $10. I can buy a new server from Blizzard for $25. I'd happily pay Blizzard for the ability to start a new toon at level 60. I don't mean buying an account or paying someone to level up a toon for me. I just want the option on the character creation screen to start at a higher level than level one.

Some questions though...How would it work? What are the benefits? What are the drawbacks?

Perfect Storm

A few weeks ago Stormgaard over at Se7en Samurai was complaining about not having enough time to blog and wanted to cut back. His self-imposed slow down was, of course, short lived. A few days at most. And then what shows up in my Google Reader today? A freaking 35,000 word doctoral dissertation on how to play a holy paladin in World of Warcraft. All I can say is:

OMGWTFBBQ!!1!
/wink

I don't play a paladin, but the piece is well written, provides concise details, and gave me some excellent insight into the class. Okay, I just lied... I do play a paladin... but that's my daughter's level 9 toon and a story for another day.

Polish This

Polish. The word bothers me. Read Bildo's post about Conan getting delayed again "to polish the game even more." Excuse me for beating a dead horse, but this little rant is timely for me. You see, my work has delayed their main product again and they actually used "polish" as the excuse. Um... right... I'm in software test. I've seen defect log and it ain't pretty.

When a company tells its customers they're postponing a release for "polishing"... that is PR putting a positive spin on a bad situation. When a company tells itself they're postponing release for "polishing" ... that, my friends, is politics.

If I hear the "polish" excuse, I think the product has too many:

• Broken features... that is, good ol' bugs. Hopefully minor things like typos and not hangs or crashes.
• Half-finished features. Either the feature was poorly specced to begin with or the software engineer cut corners to finish on time.
• Poorly designed features. Maybe it sounded good on paper but beta testers found it boring.

I had a point to all this... but lost it. Meh. I'm just bitter they delayed Smash Bros Brawl again.

Where's My Warcraft?

Rum? Check.
Coke? Check.
Warcraft? No.

The kids are fast asleep. I have an adult beverage in hand. Thoughts of running a few dungeons buzzing on caffeine, sugar, and alcohol. I pugged Dead Mines the other night and they called me god after multiple demonstrations of my near divine healing skillz. Not to brag (hehe). Wonder how I'd do over the legal limit.

Nope. Blizzavision has gone fubar on me. Hung at authentication. Perfect.



Thinking I need a "plan B game" for times like these. Something to fall back to if WOW is down. Maybe I'll dust off my copy of Rome Total War or try my hand at the boy's Zelda Twilight Princess. Now that should be interesting with good buzz going.