Rabid Rabbit Rant

Yeah … a picture’s worth a thousand words, but you know what? I’m still gonna RANT for those thousand words. Maybe it’ll be therapeutic, I doubt it but it’s worth a shot.

Wait a minute, got to login and check for the rabbit. She’s still sitting there, she won’t leave. Just take a sec. Okay, I’m back and this is what she saw … nothing … nada … EFFING ZIP BLIZZARD!

I don’t nerdrage at Blizzard often. A lot of the normal things people do in WoW aren’t possible for me. It’s not Blizzard’s fault, it’s the way I choose to play their game, it’s my fault and I’m fine with that. There will be no downing of Deathwing for me. That’s okay, I make my own achievements, personal ones, and that DAMN rabbit WAS MY DEATHWING BLIZZARD! You STUPIDHEAD MEANIES, YOU …

Deep breath … deep breath … okay, better now. Maybe I’ll just calmly tell you what happened. Yeah, that’s what I’ll do. Calmly. So yesterday I see someone’s trying to get a raid together for the Darkmoon Rabbit. Yay! He’s up! Pick me! Pick me! And the stars were aligned! I had time to just sit around for a couple hours while we tried to get enough people!

Around 22 or 23 people we took a shot. Not enough. Since everyone’s dead half the time and a lot of spells miss because of his level, that didn’t leave enough people alive at any one time. He reset. More searching for cannon fodder. Losing some, got to go to class, it’s around 11:00 am. At last, we got a surge of people! Put us somewhere over 30! Let’s do this!

We had him. It’s slow, but judging from the first try we definitely were going to do it this time, maybe take another 15 minutes or so, BUT DAMN, WE SO HAVE THIS RABBIT!

A message … we apologize, blah blah, EFFING BLAH, whatever it is they say when they do an unscheduled restart.

We redoubled our efforts! Well, really we just kept going and hoped for the best. Alas, it was not good enough and the server restarted with that evil rabbit still alive.

All good, I’m sure everyone will come back … we’ll get him, we have enough people. Deathwing Rabbit WILL FALL!

Yep, nope. That CHICKEN RABBIT DIDN’T RETURN! Blizzard is harboring THAT RABBIT! Blizzard brought down the server when they saw we were about to take him down AND THEY ARE LETTING HIM STAY AT BLIZZARD HEADQUARTERS! Probably feeding him special Blizzard steroid carrots, stupid rabbit.

IHATEYOU IHATEYOU IHATEYOU BLIZZARD! Well, today anyway.

Sigh … I see I still haven’t recovered. I’m not really ready or fit to join polite society yet. I’m real jumpy today and when anyone talks to me I respond with, “EFFING RABBIT” so I think today I should do something soothing like fishing. Just calm down. Yeah …

Just got to check the island one more time.

A Dead Horse

Yeah … see that’s as close as I can come to an actual picture of a dead horse. I mean they have them, but they were really upsetting to me so although it’s never BEEN alive consider it my dead horse … that I’m beating. I figure it’s okay as everyone’s talking about the beta now so no one will notice. I usually have to wait a while anyway after I read something that brings out my ranty side so I can regain my words. I’m pretty much down from a Defcon 1 to about a Defcon 3 which is kinda just a few jackasses and shits thrown in here and there.

I’ve been reading the posts on sexism. I’m fairly close to Navi and Effy in this regard. Although not a feminist there are those I admire, I’m more of a can’t we all just get along and sing Kumbaya sort. I know unlikely, but there it is. I think it’s because on reflection, if I tally up the mean, hateful, things that have been done to me in my lifetime I’m coming up even on the male/female thing so my view is that it’s more a people problem. Let’s face it, us humans can be such jackasses to each other. What got me in the irate, raging, fuckity mood was the comments made to a 15 year old girl who dreamed of being a pilot. I usually try to remain calm and see things from both sides but that remark made me think that being drawn and quartered was too good for that sorry excuse for a human being.

I’ve suffered through my share of sexist behavior but I never thought of it as being “male” behavior, I thought of it as coming from an ignorant human being that happened to be male. Not that males aren’t different though. If you manage to spy on a group in their natural habitat, undetected, they are so mean to each other. Their idea of witty banter with other guys would be viewed as deplorable behavior to us woman. Sure, all males aren’t like that, my husband is some kind of a weird throwback to the “throw your topcoat on a puddle” days which means dealing with me can be a real trial for him.

I’ve not suffered any bad behavior in game as a result of being female. I’ve endured a WHOLE LOT of bad behavior, but not because someone thought I was female. It could be though, that by the time I got to WoW, my senses were so dulled I didn’t notice or it’s just that I’ve been lucky.

For example, back in the days of yore, I didn’t want to ride on THE BACK of my not yet husband’s motorcycle. If I was going to ride one I’d ride it myself, thank you. Not many women seemed to do that back then. If I was alone and stopped somewhere, I would, depending on where I was stopping, frequently get the behavior depicted above directed at me with a witty comment, you know, like yeah baby.

Okay seriously, what effect were they going for? I couldn’t figure it out back then, but now I realize they were trolls. This had to be trolling, they couldn’t have really thought that was an effective pick-up strategy, could they?

After becoming alarmed the first few times, I finally worked out an effective comeback that seemed to end the encounter rather well. It took a few trys to hone my comeback but I finally did get it down.

I thought my first was really good, but it failed miserably.

Are you injured, shall I call a urologist?

Next one worked a little better, but not much.

Thanks, I’ve got my own ride.

But this last one worked perfectly! It’s like I finally figured out how to talk like one of the guys.

First a rude hand gesture, then, FUCK YOU AND YOUR JOHNSON, and it had to be delivered with a smile. The smile was key. They’d usually laugh and wave and leave me alone like we were buddies now. Who knew! I’d learned how to speak guy.

Lots of less amusing events have taken place over the years, some out of ignorance, some upbringing, some just really rotten human beings. Since I’ve begun this rant I might as well get to EVERYTHING that’s bothered me and I’ll be good for a year or so in the rant department.

Go back in time a few more years. My first job, at a large architectural firm. It was a horrible place. We worked at big light tables and I remember the power in the building went out once and we were told to tape our drawing to the windows for light and the work WILL CONTINUE. I hid in the ladies room laughing until the power came back on.

Anyway, I had this old bat as a supervisor. On my first day she inquired about my religious affiliations and from that determined that when the rapture came, she would be saved and I’d burn in hell for eternity. That didn’t bother me all that much but it was the smug, self-satisfied way in which she told me. So already I’m not really liking my supervisor and really don’t want to end up anywhere she goes.

A co-worker and I were making arrangements to meet up and see a movie, she must have overheard us. She called me aside and told me she didn’t approve of interracial dating and I had best watch myself. So if you’re still alive out there you old bat, this is interracial dating, dating another human being is not. I’m thinking you might be in for a surprise come the rapture.

Whew, that’s feels good, I finally told that old biddy off after all these years. I like dogs. Really like them. One of the reasons I think I like dogs so much is that they don’t suffer from some of the stupidity we humans do. Do you see that big dog? He took one look at that other dog and knew right away, hey, it’s a dog. Humans seem to have trouble with that sometimes, we can’t even figure out who we are. Maybe when the rapture comes I can get a ride to wherever the dogs are going, better company.

Okay, let’s see, who else has pissed me off. Oh yeah! Now that I’m getting older … WHAT? Yes, I know I’m showing a lot of cleavage, so what! Hey, you got it flaunt it I say. ANYWAY, as I was saying now that I’m getting older I really appreciate that AARP is watching out for me so that in my dotage I’ll be protected from evil schemers who will try to trick me out of my money by sending sweepstakes notification in the mail and all. Yes, thank you, I’m really grateful. BUT DON’T YOU DARE send me another one of those invitations to join you.

What if someone sees that. I’ve told everyone I’m 39. And who gave you the permission to go poking around in my private affairs and snooping around and finding my age. STOP IT! Thank you for caring but go help someone else. I’m still in denial. I WILL NOT BE ASSIMILATED!

So yeah, how scary is that. Now we got girls, Pandas and GRANNIES  playing WoW! Kinda the TRIPLE WHAMMIE OF SCARY! MUHAHAHA!

Oh my, I’ve typed all these words with nary a proper piece of punctuation. But it’s a rant so I guess it’s okay. I usually make one pass after I write stuff to kind of try to throw in some commas but there are just too many words, screw it.

Yes, yes, I have a point, I’m just getting to it. In Erinys’ post she talks about being taken to task by another woman player.

Someone I vaguely know from the PvP forums launched into what can be best described as a “rant” aimed at both me and the warrior. By not correcting his/her “mate” I was letting every other woman who plays WoW down.

I just wanted to say to this young woman, pace yourself. You’re going to be burnt out in a few years if you get your knickers in a twist that easily. Life is full of struggles more worthy of your energy, trust me, you’ve got to learn to pick your fights. Yeah, you don’t believe me now but wait until the AARP starts hunting you down … you’ll see.

I Know the Devil’s Name — Rant

I’m sorry but I need to vent. This is totally unrelated to WoW except for the fact that I can’t play right now because I’m too pissed off. You’d think wanton killing would be just what I need, but it’s not working. This is a rant about Verizon. Are they the devil? Not really, I’d say greed is, I assume that’s what’s turned them and other companies into disreputable, dishonest, thieving liars. I need to call them again but in this mood it will quickly devolve into me screaming obscenities at the top of my lungs and I doubt that would be very productive, and I would be screaming at someone who has to work for Verizon. I’m sure they aren’t treated any better than customers are.

So fellow WoWers you can move on, nothing good here unless you too have had dealings with Verizon. This story is about my elderly mother but a little background will help. We had a land line through Verizon for years, never a problem with it. When Verizon dug up the neighborhood to put in FIOS they then started hard selling it over the phone and in person. We didn’t want it. You can hang up on the overzealous people on the phone who all got straight As in assertiveness training. I finally started bringing the dogs with me to the door which worked wonders on the pushier Verizon representatives.

Then the troubles started, we began to have a loud buzzing on our land line, it was intermittent. Few days on, few days off. I called them, they said they’d check it. They told me there was nothing wrong with the line but I should upgrade to FIOS. This made little sense to me, why would I reward them by paying them more money to get rid of the buzz they’d caused. I don’t know if it was intentional. I don’t know if Verizon is that crafty, and thought, hey, we’ll screw up everyone’s land line and they’ll switch to FIOS, no brainer. They just didn’t care, one lousy customer has a buzz on the line, big whoop. We got rid of Verizon and got Comcast, we now have VOIP which I didn’t want but the only land line available is through Verizon, who I’ll never deal with again. I’ll use smoke signals if it comes to that.

So we had a history, me and Verizon. I won’t go into all the calls and hours and hours it took to extricate ourselves from them but I’m sure most people have had similar experiences, with either Verizon or another company. Imagine my horror when my mother told me a nice young man called her and she’s getting a “new TV.” I finally figured out what that meant. She switched everything to a Verizon bundle because the nice young man told her it would save her money.

The bill started out around 200.00 monthly. Within a couple months it was over 400.00. She didn’t know why. I told her to SAVE the bill so I could see it. Apparently Verizon had realized they had got lucky. We’ve got a live one here. This old person has no idea what’s going on, let’s soak her. And they did. Every month there would be a new charge for a gaming addon, online storage space, virus software, etc. It’s a game of let’s see if you’re paying attention. Then you have to call them to have it taken off. This is a continual game, you have to play every month. They put it on, she has to call to take it off. Except since she doesn’t understand the bill nothing was done until I managed to get her to save one. I’m SURE she’s a valued customer to Verizon, along with every other customer who doesn’t understand their bill.

It became apparent recently that she shouldn’t be living alone. She didn’t want to leave the area she lives in so we found a new senior apartment where all the utilities, TV, phone, are included. She called Verizon to cancel. The first woman told her no, we don’t want to lose you and never allowed her to cancel. She went to a Verizon office and a “nice young man” canceled everything. He also told her to throw out her Direct TV box as he didn’t want it. He didn’t mention that he didn’t want it because she had to cancel Direct TV herself. Yesterday I found that nothing’s been canceled. Everything’s still billing at full bore, yup, they don’t want to lose her.

I really dropped the ball on this. I know my Mom wants to be independent and do things for herself. I try very hard to let her, and I didn’t think that canceling services would be a monumentally difficult task, but I should have.

It seems each part of the bundle has to be canceled separately. I made the mistake a little while ago of being honest when I called and said I was her daughter. Big mistake, wouldn’t let me cancel. I would have asked the neighbor to “play” my mother but she wasn’t home. I’ll call again in a little while with my best blue-haired lady voice and impersonate her.

I could go on with a blow-by-blow of everything that’s happened but that’s not my point. Yes! I really do have a point. A while ago Big Bear Butt had a post about hatred in America. I loved what he had to say and the response it got.

My mother is a Veteran, she was in the Navy. She served her country, land of the free, home of the brave. Right now I feel she’s just a commodity, not a customer. She’s there to be bilked out of every penny they can get. Verizon’s unethical business practices are no secret. Just google Verizon, you’ll find websites dedicated to helping people try to deal with them. No one seems to care, just business, nothing personal. I want to know when was it decided we’d no longer be the land of the free and the home of the brave and instead be the land of the mean-spirited and greedy. I didn’t get that memo.

There is your way and there is my way. There is no wrong way.

I have a habit that I need to break. When the blogs that I follow aren’t talking and I start browsing their blogrolls I tend to skip over names that appear to be about something I don’t do, like healing or raiding. The other day I saw this Game Priorities – Please Mind Your Business, Not Mine on a blogroll which led me to Heavy Wool Bandage.

It is such a great feeling to read a post that says what you’d like to say only better. I used to wonder why WoW players displayed such aberrant behavior but I’ve come to believe it has nothing to do with being a WoW player it’s just people without the constraints of real life. I don’t get it, but it’s the only answer I can come up with.

Back towards the end of BC I was doing Children’s Week and got on a boat at Darkshore. Boarding with me was a person in one of the top raiding guilds at the time. They began an unsolicited critique of my gear, not whispered, to the whole contingent on board. They said something like “… not a bad attempt but you’re weapon’s completely wrong and …”.  I tried to imagine a real life parallel. Would they walk up to me on the street and say “nice try, but to pull off those boots you’re wearing you need to lose ten pounds”? I mean it’s the same thing.

Again back in BC I wanted an enchant for my wrong weapon, my “correct weapon” dropped in a raid where I couldn’t get it so I thought I’d make my wrong weapon as good as it could be. This was back in the old days before enchants could be purchased on the AH and you had to deal with an actual person. Now I’m free to just enchant my weapons in whatever willy-nilly fashion I desire but it wasn’t true back then. I was so happy one Saturday I logged in and there was an enchanter in Shatt so I whispered to see if he had the enchant, he did and the price was set but when he saw the weapon he said it’s the wrong weapon. I said I know, I don’t raid, it’s the best I’m probably going to get. It’s the wrong weapon. Yes, I know but … after much back and forthing he decided he just couldn’t enchant that weapon, just couldn’t do it.

The end of BC is when I started going truly feral. As in strange loner solo player. It became more and more evident that the thing that was ruining my enjoyment of the game was, well, people, the wrong kind of people.

When I started playing WoW I joined a guild, ran instances with them, I wasn’t the life of the party but I conducted my WoW life in a fairly normal fashion. I didn’t worry about my dps, I just played to have fun. The more people told me what was wrong with everything I did the less fun it became and I finally did the equivalent of sticking my fingers in my ears and yelling, nah, nah, nah, I can’t hear you. I created a guild of one. It’s very peaceful here, all the characters are free to pursue whatever ridiculous missions they care to. Whatever floats your boat, have at it. If the most important thing to you is catching the The Tauren Chieftains perform no one will say a thing.

Stupid Human Error

This post for the most part is rant, just warning you. I have put up my rant face. The rant face was inspired by a particularly bad day at work. It’s part of a series I did where I would take a part of my body and combine it with all manner of things, squirrel skulls, scans of crumpled aluminum foil, you name it. If memory serves, in this one the teeth are really mine with Photoshop’s “Release the Kraken” filter applied. I had to go out in the backyard and find wildlife to eat to get the appropriate blood-stained look.

So why am I so upset? Human error, mine. I was so going to go straight from day one all the way through on  World of Saz 15 Days of Screen Shots challenge. I knew what I wanted for about the first 11 days, then it gets a little tougher but I thought it would come to me.

So what happens? Typical disorganized me happens. I get to day 7, Best Screen Shot of the Year and go to my folder where I had saved all the screen shots I took before Cataclysm of places that I knew wouldn’t survive Deathwing. And it’s empty. Because I don’t learn lessons. I had two folders named “Screenshots” one on the desktop and the one in the World of Warcraft folder. The desktop one is where I keep a copy of a screen shot I’m fiddling with to post, periodically I empty it after I post things. This is a dangerous thing to do, I knew that, but did it stop me, oh hell no.

So I’ve apparently emptied the wrong folder, they are all gone. No more shots of Auberdine, Tanaris, and all those shots you take when you get your first flying mount, holidays, you know. I’ve been searching everywhere in the hope that maybe at some point I backed them up at a now undisclosed location. The past me sometimes did things that the present me knows nothing about so I haven’t lost hope yet. But geez, how stupid can you be. I shouldn’t ask that as I’m sure I’ll do something to show myself up.

Ahhhhh, well, moving on. Anyway, what I was going to say before the rant was how great this challenge has been because beside the fact that it’s fun I have found many new blogs to read, both the participants and from their blog rolls. It was like Christmas. I’ve noticed that there seem to be three different types of blogs I read.

First type are the ones you go to so that you won’t spec like a total idiot and your clothes won’t draw comments like “LOLNOOB”. The ones with the math wizards toiling away behind the curtain, working with, Oh God, numbers!! I don’t do numbers at all well. Thank you math wizards for sparing me the typed laughter of the crowds in town.

Second type is harder to define. I just really like that person. The way they write, what they choose to write about, it’s hard to put a finger on it but it’s the kind of thing that makes you think, aw, I wish they were on my server.  The second type can sometimes also be a first or third type too.

The third is easy, they make me laugh. A thing that I hold in high regard. Sometimes they can change types. I used to read Big Bear Butt because he told me what to do when a bear but now I read him because he frequently makes me laugh. Mortigan The Warlock and OddCraft are also in the laughing category.

After reading these blogs I wish I could be more like them. I should do something about my epic run-on sentences, I should really consider using punctuation occasionally. I wish I could promise to do that but I think It’d be like promising never to name two folders in different locations the same, I know I’m going to do it.

And one last thing, I feel kind of guilty, I read lots of WoW blogs and almost never comment, for the most part I just read voraciously, laugh, or learn and I don’t comment. I just lurk. This has got to stop, I’m going to try to be better … except … the math wizards … can’t go there, they are just too scary.