Wrath of the Burger King...

Just read Wonko's account of his attempt to snatch a copy of the latest Warcraft expansion pack. As some may have surmised already, W is wholly responsible for getting me into WoW.

"C'mon, man, it's fun. You can quit anytime if you don't like it..."

Now who's going to pay for my WoW rehab, Mister?

I'm actually teasing him here, folks. Truth is that I've been a gamer all my life. If it wasn't Pac Man, it was Zaxxon. If it wasn't Zaxxon, it was Joust. If it wasn't Joust, it was Civilization. If it wasn't Civilization...

From the time I was four years old when my folks first brought home the Atari 800 to the present, I've played many video games. To some minor extent, I was encouraged in my habit due to the shitty depth perception I was blessed with at birth. Video games somewhat helped me to develop coping mechanisms for overcoming my eyesight shortcomings, so in a way, I was helping myself while I played.

I signed up for Warcraft almost a year ago and, much to my surprise, discovered that several other colleagues and friends of mine at work had been playing together for quite some time. I honestly had no idea that a quarter of the people who work where I do spend a few hours battling online in the epic struggle of good vs. evil.

As many know, I'm a bit of an insomniac, so it gives me something to do to wind down a few nights a week instead of staring upward at the ceiling all night. It's a fun hobby for me and it gives me a chance to hang out with friends I know in real life, friends I've met in-game as well as hang out with my brother who also plays occasionally.

Wonko showed me the ropes when I first got to Azeroth. He was completely patient with my obvious n00b mistakes and basically taught me everything I needed to know to be a kick ass grinding machine. We still run quests together and have a lot of fun doing so from time to time. There is still I ton I learn from the guy.

So, to read his post was pretty disheartening. I know he'd looked forward to getting the new content and I really felt bad for the guy when he told me that he had "no joy" in his attempts so far to snatch a copy.

Myself, I was a little more fortunate. Living in the Middle of Fucking Nowhere as I do actually does have its advantages on occasion. I strolled right into the Wal-Mart at 12:45AM, picked up a copy and went home. I had a really sinking feeling in my stomach when the nice lady who rang me up told me that all the stores in nearby Austin (big city) had sold out of their non-pre-ordered copies in TWENTY MINUTES. Ouch.

She also said that I was the twenty somethingth person to buy a copy by then and while they had a box and a half left in the back stock, they'd likely be gone by 6 or 7 AM based on all the phone calls they had been getting from the hordes (heh) of hungry gamers wanting a copy. Double ouch.

I went home and installed it. At this point, I was pretty wired up so I knew sleep wasn't an option. I ended up playing the new content for an hour before I hit the sack, waiting to see if anyone I knew would show up and want to get into some mischief.

I heard from a buddy the next evening via in-game chat that he had no luck after his search across stores in his city. He and I frequently team up for fun as we level a pair of 'toons who are the same level, so I asked him if he wanted to go get into some trouble.

"Nah, I'm good," he replied, "you go ahead and have a good time with the new content."

I knew he was pretty disappointed after his fruitless journey to find a copy and my response was instantaneous as it was genuine.

"Seriously dude, let's go run our 'toons. It'll be fun. I can screw around the new areas another time. Let's go kick some ass."

And kick some ass we did until he finally had to go to sleep. Questing is more fun when you do it with a friend and it's not something I would think twice about.

The funny thing was that as soon as my buddy went to bed, another friend in-game mentioned that he'd like some help running a couple lower level dungeons someday soon to finish up some quests he still had. I paused for a split second to think as I stood on the boat dock to board the boat that goes to the new content area.

I smiled to myself in brief contemplation as I watched the boat pull away from me as I stood still on the dock. I asked my pal which one he wanted to do first as I clicked the "invite" button to form a group.

The new and fancy stuff could wait.

A Response In C-Minor...

Read this post on Wonko's Corner before you read the rest of this post.

Back now? Good. Anyway, here's my reply. It was a little lengthy to post on his comments section, but keep reading. Things get out of hand, I promise...

1) $1,000 Pizza.

As a former pizza transportation and customer service professional, I'd like to say that not only will I happily provide this delightful item but as an added bonus if you act now, I will also include ONE FREE swift kick to your beanbag that you can keep as my special gift to you.

Call in the next ten minutes and I'll also include free steel toe bootage to the face, that's right, absolutely FREE!

$1,000 pizza. Jesus.

2) The Donald Vs. The O'Donnell.

Donald Trump and Rosie O'Donnell are both class AAAAA attention whores. The arrogant attitudes of both really grate on my nerves.

How 'bout we hold an eating contest to see how many $1,000 pizzas they can eat in an hour?

Think about it! We can award a kick to the beanbag of the winner! We can then also award a kick to the beanbag of the loser!

Think about the publicity! It'll be stellar, man.

Seriously, they both need to shut up and get back to work.

3) Heather Mills.

It is the idea that someone thought her important enough to extend an invitation.

Seriously?

I was thinking that it was a miracle that they hadn't asked Wink Martindale & Tonya Harding to be on the show. It'd be awesome.

They'd start dancing, Wink and his partner would win a round, setting Tonya off into a full on bloodrage. Tonya punches Wink in the beanbag, and quickly grabs Heather's fake leg and breaks Heather's other leg with it.

A tussle ensues and Wink, after taking a few recovering breaths, pulls out some tricks of his own by casting the Game Show Host Hair Of The Infinite spell, which knocks Tonya out like a sucker on Celebrity Boxing.

Seeing her opportunity to knock out another competitor, Heather casts Ex-Beatle Wife of Unlimited Income, temporarily incapacitating Wink with a mighty law suit.

Wink somehow manages to recover by some fancy legal footwork and cuts off Heather's next attack by casting X Blocks The Square, shielding him and also shooting hot piles of pork products back at her in the process.

Unfortunately for Heather, she didn't throw a good enough defense roll so she drowns underneath a pile of bacon bits and porkchops.

As Wink surveys Heather's gruesome, yet tasty, demise, Tonya regains consciousness and pounces on Wink, shouting about how "it was unfair, my shoelace broke" and "gimmie another chance, judges!"

They struggle on the ground for a few moments before Ian Zierling, who had been sitting on the sidelines wishing that Aaron Spelling was still around to give him a job, joins the fracas.

Ian reaches within his fancy coat and pulls out his "Steve Sanders Sword of Slicing" and quickly seperates Tonya's head from her torso, George Lucas style. He helps the weakened Wink to his feet and they both stand and observe the carnage.

Wink turns to Ian. "Thanks, kid, you saved my life!"

Ian dusts himself off and cocks one of his famous toothy grins. "No problem, Mr. Martindale, I was happy to help!"

"I bet you are, kid," Wink chuckles as he suddenly thrusts his hand right through Ian's chest and rips out his heart, "I bet you are."

Ian looks at his own heart in shock for a second before falling over dead. With all the other competitors dead, Wink was now assured of being the grand prize winner.

"After all," Wink chuckled wickedly as he watched Ian's heart slow to a stop, "there can be only one..."

---+---

Oh, wait, sorry, what? You mean Dancing With The Stars is about DANCING?!?

*sigh*

Intermission III: Happy Birthday, Wonko!

Happy Spirit Journey Formation Anniversary, Wonko!