Another scout goes down

As a former scout, I'm starting to get a bit scared. USA Today's headline read Lightning in park kills 1, hurts 7 on Sequoia scout outing. I don't even have to read the rest of the story to know that somewhere in the article it was mentioned that "The scouts were taken to a nearby military base hospital for observation." One by one the little merit-badge-clad patriots are being taken down and replaced with agents of propaganda (read yesterday's post).

I'm sure my name is on the list somewhere. I can build a fire, kill my own food, and survive in the wilderness. Surely I'm a threat to national security because I don't need the government to survive. Imagine a world where people don't need to fear for their means of survival, just don't imagine too hard, at least not while you're under cloudy skies.

Jamboree 'Slow Cook' 2005

Jamboree 'Slow Cook' 2005

The headlines on USA today read, Hundreds of Boy Scouts fall ill from heat at Jamboree and in the accompanying photo a beefy scout master clad in a bright red shirt, forest green shorts, a similar shade of red socks and white tennis shoes helps soldiers haul a boy scout to a near by military base's hospital.

The story describes how roughly three hundred boy scouts gathered in a field in Bowling Green, Va. to await the arrival of our fearless president. Three hours later the slow-cooking sun started to melt through the thin candy shell and the boy scouts and they started dropping like flies. Concurrent with the evacuations and the feint smell of bacon, the president decided to postpone his visit because of the threat of thunderstorms and high winds. In other words, screw the kids and the three hours of their lives that they just pissed away, screw the ones being carried away on a stretcher. It might rain. What could happen if the Fuhrer got wet (thank you Stanley Kubrick)?

What I really want to know is not why the president was so afraid of wind and rain when 300 kids were willing to endure it. I want to know what happened to these kids in that military hospital. Did anyone see village of the damned? If you did, you know exactly what can happen when our children turn against us. Imagine the subliminal possibilities of your 8 year old son telling you how much he loves "That swell old chap, Mr. Bush" and how he wishes there were some way to keep him in office forever. With all the idiots mortgaging their house to buy their kids the newest pastel-colored piece of crap with an apple logo affixed, imagine what they would do to accommodate their son's new-found political ideas. I can hear the SUV conversations now. "Who cares if Bush becomes the last president of the US, at least Oliver will stop crying himself to sleep at night because he fears that the proliferation of democracy might not take."

I'm not going anywhere with this, evident by the way I choose to end this post. Check out APC's Counting Bodies and enjoy.

Math Question

This one will be a story problem, I'll try to show my work.

What is 500,000 + (X - Y) times 60? Assign this value to the variable gamePrice. Also, if you take that same 500,000 + (X - Y) and multiply it by 12 what do you have? Assign this value to the variable monthlyPlayPrice. Now, count the number of months from Janurary until right now and assume that X has grown consistently during that time and Y has diminished slightly. Now, add gamePrice to playPrice.

So what is the solution? It's a really big number, nothing apples and balloons can figure out anyway.

It's also a lot bigger than 22, which is how many jobs Blizzard has open right now. If you haven't guessed it, this is how much I figure Blizzard must have grossed off of World of Warcraft so far, and they've just started to release the game in china. I think they deserve it though. I played and loved Diablo II and in about 35 days I will gladly be paying to play World of Warcraft [35 because the game has a 30 day free trial {already used the 10 day one} and 5 because I'm gone this weekend and I would hate to waste free days]. And the moral is if you make good games, eventually, you will rule the world.

Maybe this is what the US Army was thinking?

Places and memories

First I feel like I should explain my absence. If you’re an avid reader of this blog you know that the computer is running at about 95% (meaning everything but the PCI slots is working). You’ll also have noticed an image of the World of Warcraft box appear in a previous post. Put 2 & 2 together and you have the reason for the absence.



I’m tempted to write a review of the game but maybe my stunned silence speaks more clearly about the merits of this game. Maybe I’ll just limit my review to one line. Imagine everything you thought was wrong about role playing games in the past and then fix it. (If there was a way I could be playing now, I would be.)

Back to the title of the post and how this entry relates. It does have something to do with World of Warcraft so the past 127 words were not a waste. Anyway, I was playing WoW yesterday morning at about 6:55 a.m. when someone, in the general chat area of the screen, mentioned the bombings in London. It was one of those surreal moments when real-life invades and destroys a fantasy environment. It wasn’t important anymore if my mage saved the Eastern Kingdom from the encroaching horde. It didn’t matter what level I was. I was just a guy passing time before work.

I don’t want this be a type of loss of innocence story. We’ve all had that lesson in 11th grade English; it’s played. I want this to be a story about places. Because now whenever I log in and play WoW I’ll remember the moment when i encountered a monster that no spells would touch. I don’t know how else to describe it.

I guess everyone has places attached to memories. I always remember my mom saying how she was sitting in a classroom when the principal came over the PA system and announced that JFK had been assassinated. And I’ll never forget sitting in a small cubical at Farmers Insurance, listening to Bob and Tom say, “It appears that a plane has flown into the World Trade Center. Oh my God, another plane just hit the second tower.”

This WoW memory is probably not as dramatic as the two described above. Like so many other things that happen in this world, it will probably just fade away. But whenever I see a moment like this unfolding, when it has the potential to impact many things, I always look around and absorb. Traumatic or not the details are always worth remembering.