Thoughts on Warcraft and WotLK

Still trying to process how I feel about what happened during Thanksgiving. We shall see if writing about something else first helps or not.

First thoughts on Wrath. It's excellent. The Death Knight class, and the questline you go through as you create one was very impressive. The zones on the new continent (at least so far) are very well laid out, with questsgivers very efficiently organized in centers, with lots of breadcrumb quests to allow you to move on when you feel ready. Vehicles are an amusing diversion so far, but I expect they will become more advanced as I level up. Lots of variety, the graphics look great, lots of vactions with rewards worth getting. All in all, a very impresive creation.

Now, the race from 70 to 80. I missed out on the first expansion 2 years ago, so I really didn't know what to expect. And because of my vacation, I didn't play much for the first week and a half. Two and a half weeks in, I've noticed a few definite trends in my guild. As of today, there are twelve people at the new cap of 80. Every night, there are runs of heroic instances. Below the cap, though, there are 2-4 people at each level, and the number actually on-line at any given time is lower still. As a result, putting together a group of five people at the appropriate level for a given instance is a slower and much less frequent occurance. This is consistent with what I've seen with other releases of new content - some are in a position to surf the wave, scooping up new experiences and rewards with their comrades, while others pick their way along in the wake as best they can and try to not fall too far behind. It's a little frustrating, being behind the wave and seeing people showing off their shiny new loots in guild chat, while knowing that no one would give a damn about my generic quest rewards. I hope that we don't end up with a situation where the early 80s don't decide to go off and become a 10-man raiding group, rather than waiting for enough people to level and gear up to do 25s.

On a more positive note, my story of the Death Knight Vyprania was a huge success. I enjoyed writing something very different from the usual light NeedMoreRage fare, and the comments I got, as well as verbal feedback from friends, were extremely positive.

Sleepy, so Ima gonna stop here.

Night!

Quick Notes

The door on the office fridge is broken. If you aren't careful opening it, it falls off, which is annoying.

My baby paladin is now 71, and is actually slightly stronger than the orc. Go go Kinnavieve!

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving. I shall be baking pumpkin pies, and this year I will make sure Taylor's dog does not take a bite out of each one.

Thawing Out

Back in Texas. The cold front coming through today means that the high will only be 68 degrees. I can live with that.

Dating Report

So, I logged into Warcraft last night and immediately got several whispers asking how my dates had gone. Which was pretty cool – makes me feel all warm and fuzzy, knowing that people are interested. Especially after such a long time of struggling with feelings of loneliness and yet needing to keep my life hidden from the outside world.

But yeah, back to the dates. Or dates with training wheels. Or just getting together for a bit with a friend. Or however you want to look at it. They went great. I can't remember the last time I sat down at a restaurant with a single, attractive, available (at least theoretically) woman. I'm sure it happened once or twice in the last seventeen years. Must have. Just been so long I can't remember. But it was really nice. Good conversations, some good laughs, no awkward pauses. I felt relaxed and comfortable (most of the time – more on that in a minute), and I think I did a decent job of holding up my end of the conversations without dominating. Now, obviously, Bell's been a very good friend for over six months now, and Steph and I have been friends for more than half our lives, so unless I somehow fucked the evening up with grandiose fuckosity, things were pretty much guaranteed to be at least okay, so that took a lot of the pressure off. But everything went a lot better than just okay, which is going to help a lot with the not freaking out if and when I get an opportunity to go on a date with someone who isn't a friend yet.

Well, I kinda did have a couple of "oh crap, I shouldn't be doing this, should I?" moments. And I had to take a few deep breaths and remind myself that no, I wasn't doing anything wrong, that it was all okay. No one was gonna get mad or think I was a jerk or anything. And then it passed and I was relaxed and happy again. Knowing I was with a friend helped.

One thing I'm going to have to work on, I realize, is getting used to very different rules on physical contact. After years of marriage, I'm pretty used to it being able to just reach out to the woman I'm talking to and stroke her hair or touch her knee or whatever, because she's my wife and it's okay. And all three of the relationships I've had in my life started with some degree of physical intimacy before moving on to dating. But with a woman I'm just getting to know, it's obviously going to have to start with pretty much minimal contact, and stay that way until …. I dunno what. But something. Like I said, gonna have to work on this at some point.

Steph told me before we said goodbye that she expects monthly reports on my dating progress, although she won't be grading me. At first. Oh, and she suggested I try meetup.com as a starting point for creating a real-life (as opposed to on-line) social life. So I checked it out a bit, and found a few groups that look interesting. So we shall see.

Addiction

So, I'm at the local mini-market the other day with my sister, 'cause I wanted to have some Diet Coke while I'm staying with her. And she asks, "Do you want one or two two-liter bottles?"

"Four"

"Four??!?"

"Yeah, four. What?"

Need More Warm

Cold Pennsylvania is cold.

Four Martinis Later....

... I feel pretty mellow. And sleepy.

Had dinner with my sister and her husband at their favorite martini bar. Apparently dinner is half-price saturday night, which weren't bad at all.

Talked a lot about dating with them, and before that with friends and my therapist. I was pretty freaked out the other night when I wrote that post - eHarmony is a scary, scary place. We WILL find your SOUL MATE in just SIX WEEKS if only you will TELL US EVERYTHING about YOU RIGHT NOW. Holy frack that was too much for someone like me who wants something, just not sure what. But I'm feeling much calmer about the subject now. Still confused and uncertain, but calm.

Some things I have learned and/or concluded:

While on a date, do not ask a woman what color underwear she has on.

Socialize more in real life - join some sort of club or organization where meeting women happens often.

Asking a woman out for a cup of her preferred caffeinated beverage is a perfectly acceptable thing to do.

Offering to fly to Chicago to go out for a cup of her preferred caffeinated beverage would probably be creepy and unadvisable.

Brett has in some sense been dating various guys for the past ten years. She would never call it that, and until now I haven't either. But looking back, there's always been some guy who needed her help, or would come over to help with some project like chainsawing trees or whatever, and after they'd talk and get some coffee or lemonade or whatever. Sounds a lot like what I'm contemplating now.

Dating 20-year-old college students when you're a preofessor and they're your students is wrong on so many levels. Dating 20-year-old college students when you're just a regular 40-year-old guy apparently may or may not be wrong, depending on whom you talk to and what kind of relationship you're talking about.

I'm having dinner with two different single women this week, both of whom are very dear to me. Excellent opportunities to get used to being in social situations with women while at the same time feeling perfectly safe just being myself. 

I are very sleepies. Nite nite!

On a Brighter Note

Just got back from the grocery store. Freezer is now fully stocked with popsicles.

Yeah, yeah, and some real food too.

Dating

Is it proper for a married man to date? It certainly doesn't feel proper. I mean, if I were to be totally up front about my current situation - separated, doesn't see any real hope of reconciliation but not yet ready to file for divorce, still in love with my wife even though living with her made me miserable - I have no doubt that any woman with a bit of sense would split post haste. Who would want to get entangled in that mess? Even at a casual, have dinner from time to time level. And being anything other than completely open is not acceptable.

On the other hand, pretty much all I know about dating comes from sitcoms, where everyone is young and beautiful and has great clothes and homes they couldn't possibly afford. Not the most authoritative source....

Thinking about it, there ought to be other people in similar situations, yes? Maybe a little farther down the path, but not ready to jump in the deep end. Or even the shallow end. Or any more than sit on the edge and dangle their toes in the water for a minute.

I tried looking into on-line dating services just now. Holy crap, was that intimidating. After skipping over the ones which weren't applicable (services for ethnic groups, religious affiliations, homosexuals, swingers, millionaires, etc.) pretty much everything I looked at was promising single women serious about a relationship looking for single men serious about a relationship. That's not me, at least not now. Possibly not for a long time. If I were to go this route, and I ain't saying I am, what I'd be looking for would be something with other people like me - confused, trying to start over and not wanting to take more than tiny steps and utterly clueless about how to do so. One would think there's some sort of market for that, yes? Gonna take more than a five-minute search to find it, apparently.

Or should I just wait until my situation is more resolved, and maybe it'd be easier. And proper.

This Got Nothing To Do With Nothing ...

... it's just irked the heck out of me for years now. So I'm gonna bitch about it.

It's the TV ads for those drugs to help guys have erections: Viagra, Cialis, that other one. Have you noticed that the actors in these ads are getting younger? Lately, the guy look like they're in their late 40s, with a wife who looks 10 years younger. It's one of those creeping things. Now these drugs were developed for men in the 70s and 80s who have real medical issues. I totally sympathize with those men. But, in their 40s? Give me a break. I'm 40, and everything works just fine. "Dude, I can't get it up as long and as often as I could when I was 18" is not a valid excuse to start taking prescription meds.

Nor do I believe the only reason this middle-aged couple is not having hot sex in the kitchen right now, or some other room of the house (or the outdoor deck with his and her bathtubs - wtf is up with that?) within 36 hours, is because the sink just spontaneously asploded. Sinks don't do that (and if they did, it sure as hell wouldn't be that funny). Teenaged daughter and her friend walk in, dog tells you he's gotta be taken on a walk or he's gonna go in the living room, oh crap dinner's burning - those would be believable.

It's Over

I really, really have got to figure out how to accept this and move on with my life. Whenever we talk, there's always "I need to do X" or "I have to do Y - I don't have a choice". And these are the same things they've always been - her farming operation or volunteer work at the school or pretty much anything that isn't about trying to repair our relationship. Nothing's changed, and it never will. 

I Need A Vacation

Been feeling stressed a lot lately. Between work issues, money issues, family issues, and warcraft issues, I haven't been having a lot of fun lately. Fortunately, in eleven days I'm flying up to Philadelphia to visit my sister. She's gonna take a few days off work, we're gonna watch movies and eat junk food and drink, I dunno, maybe margaritas. It's gonna be pure hedonistic sloth, and I'm gonna love it.

My sister and I have always gotten along well in our strange, weirdling way. Periodically one of us will break out a quote from something we saw as kids, the other will give the appropriate response:

"Plahsmah!"
"Dawg plahsmah!"

or,

"And you, how long have you been a robber?"
"Four foot one, sir."
"That long, eh? Jolly good."

or,

"Were you born this stupid, or did you take lessons?"
"I took lessons!" (indignantly)

We find this utterly hilarious, and of course everyone around thinks we are raving lunatics. Which is the best part of all.

I'm also going to take some time to visit a couple of friends while I'm up there. One of them was my best friend in college, since about the second week of freshman year, and she and I have kept more or less in contact over the years. We occasionally manage to be in the same place at the same time, and that's always good fun. The last time we saw each other was I think 10 years or so ago (eep! too long, too long!). When I sent her an e-mail letting her know I'd be around and asking if she wanted to get together for dinner, her response was "Dude! even if I had plans, I'd cancel them", which made me feel pretty good.

The other friend I'm going to see is my friend Bellwether, whom I've never met before. It's one of those internet-age on-line e-mail, IM friendships, that started with leaving comments on each other's blogs, then we started doing some stuff in Warcraft, then we started getting to know each other as regular people, outside of gaming. I've really come to appreciate not only her wit and her creativity and her utter unpredicatbility, but also her support when things get rough. It's going to be great to meet her and see her face and get to know her without the limitations of chat windows and text messages. But I gotta say I'm a little nervous too. What if I turn into a tongue-tied dweeb? What if I come across as boring in real life? Or even worse .... old? I know it's going to go great and I'll be really glad I did make it happen, it's just my nature to have unreasonable worries.

Anywho, 11 days 'til vacation!

"And you, how long have you been a robber?"

:: silence ::

"Jolllllly good."

Some Dogs Like To Go For A Walk

Mine prefers to go for a drag...