There are occasions in one’s life where something comes completely out of left field — a little shocking, a little surprising.
Sometimes it’s great, sometimes it’s bad, but usually it’s something notable and interesting, and knocks you off your feet a bit.
I’m going to file the following under “great”.
Post (with an accompanying ad) from BoingBoing.net, seen in my current RSS feed aggregator, Google Reader.
Lips
Wheat
Note: This post has been guest-written by Steve Jobs.
Hello, important person and everyone else!
Steve Jobs here!
Congratulations to Tim for becoming the proud new owner of the iSplotchy prototype!
Now that the bidding is over, I can finally reveal all that owning the iSplotchy prototype entails.
Tim, by purchasing this item, you gain the following perks, powers and responsibilities.
01. The power of flight
02. A one-record deal with Warner Brothers, working with producer Rick Rubin
03. An inspirational movie to be made of your life, starring Will Smith
04. Able to decide the correct pronunciation for fifteen words of your choice
05. Mad rhymin’ skillz
06. Must work five references to Pepsi-Cola products into your blog before the end of 2007
07. A personal Scottish dialect coach
08. All the allergy medicine you can carry
09. Diamond-encrusted socks
10. You are an important person, not like all the other yokels who didn’t win the iSplotchy
Congratulations again!
So, my brother still does not know if he is going to pursue a paid subscription with the folks at Blizzard Entertainment, for access to their popular game World of Warcraft.
Right now he is on his eighth day of the Free Trial. Enclosed please find an update of his progress.
The Adventures of Baklava, the herb-gathering, rabbit-killing Night Elf Druid
Baklava, a Level 11 Night Elf Druid character, is now proficient in herb lore, and can now pick weeds and herbs. He doesn’t know what to do with them at this point. But he can pick them.
Baklava is now getting good at skinning deer and rabbit, without ruining their pelts. He says you have to kill them to get their pelts.
“Can deer or rabbits hurt you in combat?” I ask.
“No, only through guilt.”
I ask them how you approach them.
“They just stand there. I shoot a spell at them and they drop dead.”
“Does it take a long time to get from place to place?” I inquire.
“Yeah, it takes fucking forever.”
However, Baklava said there are platforms in various cities where a tired Night Elf can hitch a ride on a hippogriff. He says that the experience of flight on the hippogriff is especially nice, and says that the game overall is very beautiful.
Mazgul, the unfortunately-named Undead Mage
My brother also has an Undead mage, currently at Level 7. The mage’s name is Mazgul. After creating him, my brother realizes the name is just one letter and a caret off from Nazgûl (something he didn’t intend, and makes him now think of it as a name that conveys to him a particular Lord Of The Rings-style of dweebishness).
Mazgul was wandering around a graveyard on a quest, looking for some dog blood for a spell. He walked into a crypt, when suddenly the door shut behind him. He realized he was trapped there with a much higher level monster, and was quickly and brutally killed.
As he was recovering his body, a fellow adventurer got his attention by saying, “LOL I killed you” — apparently this was the jerk who had shut the crypt door on my brother. My brother noted that when the text “LOL” is typed for a character, you hear the character laughing, which is, as you can probably guess, annoying.
Mazgul was able to finish collecting vials of dog blood. Now he is concentrating on a new quest involving collecting ten red scarves from some bandits. Yes, it all sounds a bit swishy.
A pleasing part of playing Mazgul involves casting an Immolation spell, which sets the recipient of the spell ablaze. Mazgul says that he set some Dusk Bats on fire from a long ways away, and told me that they were really cool looking as they slowly swooped down at him, engulfed in flames.
He said that Undead characters are able to use some sort of magic floating ship for transportation, which is also cool. Apparently the different races you play have differing experiences throughout the game — quests are different, as are means of transportation, where your character starts out at is different, etc.
Will Baklava/Mazgul start shelling out cash money for the privilege of gathering herbs, killing rabbits and setting bats on fire? Stay tuned for the next (and possibly, last) installment of World of Warcraft.
And now, what you’ve been waiting for – more sexy Night Elf action.
Not pictured: the owner of this lifesize Night Elf replica, faintly intoning “It rubs the lotion on its skin.”
Remember, Remember the _______ of November
I need to make an adjustment to my recently-created November holidays.
Due to circumstances beyond my control, I won’t be able to participate in Mismatched Shoe Day on November 9th.
As a result, I now decree November 9th to be the following holiday:
Pretend To Read Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged In Public Day
Whether it’s on a train, bus, or out and about at lunch, have a copy of Atlas Shrugged with you and pretend to read it.
Note: This post has been guest-written by Steve Jobs.
Hello, people with money!
Steve Jobs here!
I would like to take a few seconds of your time. For those not aware, the prototype for the iSplotchy has found its way onto a website that lets everyday schlubs such as yourself get a chance at seizing a piece of Internet History.
As everyone knows, you are what you own. If you own the iSplotchy protoype, think of the fame and fortune that will be yours, in addition to the waves of ecstatic happiness that will shoot through every fibre of your being *.
You! Sitting in your underwear, your fingers yellowed from compulsive Cheeto-eating! Wouldn’t you feel better with a piece of Internet History sitting beside you, upon which you could occasionally wipe your disgusting fingers on?
This window of opportunity is closing fast for you common folk.
Get your iSplotchy prototype today.
* Fame and fortune are not guaranteed. Feeling of well-being not recognized in the following states: MI, KY, AL, CA, MD
So, I’m having lunch with my brother a week or two ago, when he mentions he is going to start playing World Of Warcraft (WoW).
He first downloads a free trial version, which apparently adds up to about 4 GB of space taking up his hard drive. This download takes about 2.5 days to complete on his pokey DSL connection.
After the download finally completes, he kicks off the installation program. He is then immediately informed that he does not have enough memory to run the game on his PC. So, he trudges off to the store to buy another 1 GB of RAM.
He gets the memory into his PC and kicks off the installation.
So far, he is very impressed with the game’s graphics. His main characters thus far are a Night Elf Paladin and an Undead Mage. If he chooses to play beyond the 10 day trial, he’ll be forced to subscribe to Blizzard with a monthly fee of US $15 in order to play on their game’s servers. I’m not sure what day of the trial he is on right now. I’ll ask when I talk to him next.
One thing I remember from my Diablo II days is the impressive number of petulant jagoff assholes (pja) I would run into in a typical online session.
One lovely thing I never used to tire of was some emotionally-stunted middle school dweeb with a horrendously powerful character run after me with a duped Windforce bow, all the while yelling at me “NOOB” (i.e. newbie, as in an insult indicating you are not an experienced player — it’s important that “NOOB” is capitalized, otherwise you wouldn’t know they were yelling at the top of their asshole voices).
I ask my brother, who henceforth will be known by his WoW Night Elf character “Baklava”, have you run into any assholes in the short time you have been playing WoW?
He says, “Sort of.”
The monsters roaming the countryside in WoW are apparently kind of similar to the monsters I would encounter in Diablo II. For the most part, they’re just standing around, not doing anything. When you get within a certain distance of these monsters, the AI of the game triggers them to engage you in combat. Well, Baklava was getting the holy hell kicked out of him by one monster, so he starts to run away.
Little does he realize that he enters the vicinity of a whole host of other monsters lazing about the field he is sprinting through. He passes another adventurer as he splashes across some water, leaving the monsters standing back at the bank, unable to cross. This now large group of monsters then turn their collective attention to the adventurer unfortunately now in their sights. This other adventurer messages my brother, “NOOB”.
“So you sort of deserved that one, didn’t you?” I ask.
“Yeah.”
I called my brother this past Saturday afternoon. The answering machine picks up, so I hang up. Seconds later, I get a call. It’s Baklava.
“You called?” he asks.
“Yeah, I was just wondering how you were doing on the game.”
It turns out he was on a quest, when my phone call caused his internet connection to be dropped. He’s not sure exactly how it works, but whenever he gets a phone call, the connection goes bye-bye.
I apologize.
“No, it’s okay.”
“So what level are you at?”
“My Night Elf is at eleven.”
“Cool.”
I ask him how much he has been playing. He mentions that there have been a couple days where he has put a lot of time into the game. One particular weekend day involved him getting up and starting to play. Later as he is playing he realizes he has not eaten or gone to the bathroom yet.
Did I not mention that this game is very commanding of one’s attention?
Here’s some more night elves.
