World of Warcraft: The World Game Craze

First off, allow me to apologize to my loyal readers. All six of you. I haven't updated in a while. Suffice to say, an errand I went on wound up taking a little longer than I expected it to. Anyhow, I'm back now so let's kick this thing off already!



World of Warcraft. Eleven million people, myself included, play it worldwide. Hundreds of countries, different religions, children and senior citizens alike all log on to play. The company that produces it(Blizzard) makes billions of dollars yearly because of the people who pay to play it. The game has its own economy, sociology, and language. Players enter their characters in arena matches to see who is the strongest. The game is only five years old, but already has two expansion packs, and one more on the way. What is so entertaining about this game that millions of people find themselves so drawn to it?

The answer lies in good old fashion research. I'm going to create a new character and take you step by step through what you do in the game. Stay tuned, this could be good!



Michael's commentary: Alright, my character is a level one Dwarf warrior named Thorvor and he appears to be in a Dwarven stronghold. First things first. Let's talk to our captain.

"Thorvor," he says, "I am cold. Go out and kill five starving frost wolves and retrieve their pelts for me so that I may make a blanket."

Michael's commentary: What? Go get your own damn wolf pelts, you lazy Dwarven popsicle. I thought I'd be killing Orcs, not wolves that are barely surviving because we drove away all their food. This is a lame quest. But... I guess I can't progress the game unless I do it.

Thorvor kills a starving frost wolf. Thorvor searches the corpse and finds no pelt.

Michael's commentary: Wait a second. This wolf looked like it had fur. Why can't I take it?

Thorvor kills four more starving frost wolves. He finds one pelt.

Michael's commentary: So only one of these wolves had a pelt? That makes no sense to me.

Thorvor kills twenty seven more wolves and find four more pelts. He gains a level.

Michael's commentary: How are these wolves surviving when they run around without skin?

Thorvor returns to the captain.

"Thank you Thorvor. Here is one copper piece for your work."

Michael's commentary: ...one copper piece? For all that work? That's bull crap.

"Now go across the country to my brother and deliver a letter to him. Then come back because by that time, I'll have another letter I want to send as well. If you do this for me, I will give you a rusty long sword."

Michael's commentary: So you want me to spend hours traveling across a monster infested countryside to deliver a letter, come back and deliver another one, and if I do this you'll give me something I can find in a junk pile? I hate this game. But I can't stop playing...



There you have it. The reason everyone plays this game: Mind Control.

Well.. maybe not.


Although the fictional story of Thorvor accurately depicts some of my least favorite quests in World of Warcraft, there are many good things about the game too.

It is beautifully rendered. Everywhere you go looks as if it could be a real place. Rolling green hills, snow peaked mountains, red desert canyons, and dark mysterious forests. Exploring is my favorite thing to do in World of Warcraft.

Easy to use and understand concept and controls. I personally know a three year old and a seventy-seven year old who play World of Warcraft. Neither are particularly computer savvy (Damn it! I told myself to stop saying "savvy"!), but both of them love jumping into the game.

Cooperative play is what gets most people. Fighting along side your friends on a quest to finish off an evil demon? Now that's fun! Fighting along side your friends to finish off another group of friends? That's even more fun! Plus it's entertaining to watch.

Professional World of Warcraft players form up into teams of three and square off with each other in the arena. There are real life tournaments where these "Pros" go to compete against one another for a chance to win up to $25,000 cash! I had the pleasure of meeting one of these "Major League Gamers" and he tells me that when he goes to the tournaments, he gets to stay in five star hotels, eat at fancy restaurants and he doesn't even have to pay for any of it. Makes me want to just play video games all day.

Well, it may be ruining America's youth, but they aren't complaining. Not as long as Blizzard keeps coming out with new stuff for them. I think the game is fun, but you should definitely play it in moderation. Too much of a good thing, you know.

Don't worry. I'll be back tomorrow.

I found some cameras!

What do you think of my mad photography skills? Is it myspace.com worthy?

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone: The Movie!

This is not your average review. This is a "Harry Potter Movie Review"!



Although Richard Harris, may he rest in peace, was a brilliant actor, he comes off a little senile.

Harry throws Dudley a great look of disgust while Dudley complains about having too few presents. And people said Daniel Radcliffe couldn't act!

Uncle Vernon is such a dick. "Look Harry, I'm burning your letters! It's fun! Care to try your hand at it?"

Whenever I imagined the island the Dursleys fled to, I imagined something with at least trees and grass. Not just a solitary rock with a pointless, two story shack on it. Who builds a house out there?

Hagrid could have been bigger.

What did Lily and James do for a living to acquire that mountain of gold?

Check it out! Verne Troyer, a.k.a. Minime, as Griphook the goblin! Crazy!

Thank goodness Hagrid showed up when he did because I'm pretty sure Mr. Ollivander is a pedophile.

Aw! Adorable little Bonnie Wright (a.k.a. Ginny)! Who knew she'd grow up to be such a fox?

I personally like Rupert Grint's acting better during this movie. He's seriously cracking me up every time he talks.

Little Emma Watson! She grows up to be the hotness too! Hahaha! Sorry, I'm freaking out over how young they all look in this movie. No more. I promise.

I don't like how they made room for Trevor the toad, but not Peeves. Lame.

Why does the Sorting Hat shout Harry's anxieties for the whole great hall to hear? That's not cool Sorting Hat.

Ron seems genuinely shocked that the Sorting Hat actually called his name. I guess he was hoping to get out of it somehow.

This is the first time I noticed: When Ron is talking to Nearly Headless Nick, a Weasley twin grabs something off his plate! Ha! What a thief!

Does anyone else think Hermione is super obnoxious when she says, "Nearly headless"?

I only remember eight Gryffindor students in Harry's year, but there must be twenty of them following Percy to the dormitory.

Snape. What a mean guy.

What the heck is up with Madam Hooch's eyes? And why do we never see her again? And why didn't she have a broom? This scene is full of flaws!

Neville is the only one to follow directions and everyone yells at him for it, including Madam Hooch.

Draco Malfoy was perfectly cast. What a brat.

How on earth did they get that enormous dog inside?

It's "Levi-OH-sa", not "Levi-yo-SAW"!

Dude, I totally want to go to a Hogwarts Halloween feast right now.

That was a mountain troll? I've seen bigger hill trolls!

Nice of Snape to wish Harry good luck on his quidditch match, right? What the hell?

I think a new wizard sport should be to ride the bucking broomstick.

Harry puts balls in his mouth and none of his friends make sexual jokes. I guess they ARE only eleven.

"Hermione knows a spell when she sees one. She's read all about them." I should hope so. She's going to a friggin school of magic.

The Christmas caroling ghosts were pretty terrifying.

They cut out one of my favorite lines in the entire book series:
Harry- "I've got presents?"
Ron- "What'd you expect? Turnips?"
Classic.

I want an invisibility cloak.

And a mirror of Erised.

And a Dragon.

And a million dollars. (Hey, as long as I'm wishing for stuff, right?)

Filch "misses the screaming". What a seriously disturbed individual.

The forbidden forest would be a great place to play paintball.

Hermione jinxes Harry:
Hermione- "As long as Dumbledore is here, you're safe."
McGonagall- "Dumbledore isn't here."
Harry- "Shit."

Hahaha! At 1:51:36 there's a girl who's been in detention so long, she's a ghost now!

Harry is Fred, and Ron and Hermione are Velma and Daphne. Solve the mystery guys. Neville and his toad are Shaggy and Scooby.

In the trapdoor scene, the camera goes straight up Hermione's skirt! What a perverted director.

Harry touches Quirrell, and Quirrell bursts into flames. I hope Harry thinks twice about touching himself...

Well, Professor Quirrell, let's take off that mask and see who you really are... Lord Voldemort!? He would have gotten away with it too, if it weren't for those meddling kids.

Voldemort, go! Use ghost attack! It's super effective!

Thank goodness Dumbledore will always be around to protect harry and explain everything (I'm in denial).

I always love how Dumbledore gave Gryffindor just enough points to beat Slytherin. Kind of playing favorites, Dumbledore?

And so, Harry goes home to torment his cousin until the summer break is over. What a hero.

You know, I don't think I said "Sorcerer's Stone" a single time in this whole review. How odd.

Camera

I've come to a rather lame realization. It seems that every blog I come across has pretty pictures to accent it. I guess most bloggers are also photographers. I look at my blog and see no pictures. No reason for people to look twice at it. Of the first three comments I got, two of them were telling me to put up pictures. I can take a hint. I'm not completely stupid.

I'm thinking that if I want anyone to read my blog(apart from my mother) I'm going to have to:

1. Obtain a camera.

2. Become somewhat savvy with it.

3. Stop using stupid words like "savvy".

It is now 3:45 a.m. pacific time. I'm going to go to sleep and then I'm going to get up and get myself a camera.

Six Flags

Today was a welcome change from the normal routine of sitting on my computer and refreshing my facebook. Today I went to Six Flags' Discovery Kingdom with my girlfriend, Katie, and my self proclaimed sister, Hilary. For those of you not in the know, Discovery Kingdom is a zoo/roller coaster theme park in northern California. It's always very busy during the summer, but we thought that since a lot of kids were going back to school about now, it wouldn't be too bad.

So we spent the morning scraping together all our loose change and 1/2 off admission coupons and then headed out at around 1 p.m. pacific time. I've been there dozens of times, but we managed to get lost on the way because we were following Hilary's voice navigation instead of my memory. In the end, we got there with what promised to be several hours of good fun.

Now Discovery Kingdom has a most peculiar mascot. It's an incredibly old, wrinkly, man named Mr. Six (Six for six flags)who can outdance anyone alive. When we walked through the gates, the first thing we saw was Mr. Six having a dance party with a bunch of Looney Tunes Characters. The ladies excused themselves to the bathroom, since our car ride was a little longer than we anticipated, and I took the occasion as an opportunity to join Mr. Six's dance party.

I knew I didn't have long to dance (the girls would be back soon and I wanted to keep my involvement in this jam a secret) so I busted out a few really sweet moves. I could tell that some of the Looney Tunes were impressed (Bugs definitely could have been more enthusiastic about the party), but I think Mr. Six thought I wanted to challenge him to a dance off. The toons started to form a circle around him and me, but I managed to escape before they closed it. It's really a shame. I would have loved to lose a dance off with the greatest dancing geezer I've ever seen, but I didn't want to embarrass my girlfriend. And if you've ever seen my personal brand of dance moves, you would know why she'd be embarrassed to see me dancing in public.

So I caught up with the girls just as they came out of the lavatory and we headed off in the direction of some roller coaster or other. We walked all round, rode some rides, saw some animals, ate some incredibly overpriced food, and generally just had a ball. We saw Mr. Six a couple more times, but I never went over to dance with him again.

This is kind of random, but I tend to listen way more than I like to talk. So when we were walking around the park, Katie and Hilary would walk next to each other and talk while I walked quietly behind them. Sometimes they would talk about things I didn't care to listen to, so instead I imagined that I was their hired body guard. I would glance around for any signs of danger and pretend that I was a master of every martial art. I imagined us being attacked by a group of thugs. The girls would stand back and watch me with awe and lust in their eyes as I beat our assailants to a pulp. Everytime I imagined something like this, I would laugh at myself and shake my head. Sometimes I like to share what goes on in my noggin, but I think it's best that I usually don't.

Anyhow, while we were on our way home, I was thinking about Mr. Six and was wondering if I regretted not dancing with him. After all, how often does that opportunity come up? And would Katie's embarrassment really be a very big deal? Of course not! She would get over it in a few minutes! Was I afraid of her or her reaction? Of course not! What would she do? Hit me? Break up with me? Over a really dorky looking dance? That's just silly. So why did I decide not to dance with him?

Honestly, because I didn't want to. I mean, I did want to. I really wanted to. But even more, I didn't want to embarrass Katie. This probably seems like a lame, cop-out reason to some people. After all, I just explained that her embarrassment was not a big deal. What's up with the contradiction?

I think it comes down to following your heart. To me, it was more important to keep my girlfriend temporarily happy, than it was to have a crazy-go-nuts dance off. Now some of you will probably say, "That's stupid. You'll regret not dancing if you wanted to do it so bad!". Well, I would have to disagree. Katie's happiness was my priority, not Mr. Six. The way I see it, I chose the greater of two great things. That's just the way I think. You might disagree with my decision. You probably do. Hell, even Katie may think I made the wrong choice if she ever reads this. But the decision was still mine to make. And I honestly feel that I made the right one.

Always follow your heart. And make sure you know what that means. It won't always be exciting or cool or glamorous or even very fun, but it will always be what you really want. Never settle for less than your heart's desire.

Humor #1

My first post was a rather formal review of a movie. I'm afraid that it was a little out of the ordinary for me and I regret starting my blog with something that wasn't exactly my style. I'm usually VERY loose with the things I write. That being said, don't expect a lot of reviews like the one I did yesterday. Additionally, I tend to be very cynical and, as such, I will not be taking many of the things I write very seriously. Don't be sad, though. I will write about relevant things from time to time. Anyhow, on to irrelevant business.

It's time for a life lesson from a guy who has barely experienced life at all. Get out your notebooks because this stuff is important. Today's lesson is part one in a series of many on my second favorite facet of life: Humor.

All right boys and girls, raise your hands if you've ever had too much alcohol to drink. Hhmmm. I should be seeing more hands up than this. Well, once upon a time, I, myself, had too much alcohol to drink. At 6'4" and 245 lbs, I'm a pretty big guy and can hold my booze okay, but I drink very rarely and so my tolerance isn't as good as it could be. Regardless of my size or tolerance, this occasion was only my 5th time ever drinking anything hard and I had not yet learned when enough was enough. That being the case, enough went by without me even glancing its way. I know you're dying to know, so here's the story.

Four friends (For the sake of protecting their identities, I shall call them "Ashgay", "Gaysey", "Gayvis", and "Gayrard") and I were staying at a casino hotel. Ashgay's mother had won a free night at said hotel and offered to let us use it. It was a two and a half hour drive from my house, but I wasn't driving so I wasn't complaining. When we got to the hotel a large bottle of Bacardi 151 appeared followed by an even larger bottle of vodka. Ashgay and I promptly drank a good three shots of the Bacardi and half a glass of the vodka. Gayvis and Gaysey had a little rum, but Gayrard restrained himself.

After four more shots of rum, I had me a proper buzz. I decided it was time to go down to the casino and throw away what little money we had. Despite the smoke filled rooms, the cranky card dealers, and the fact that I lost all my money almost instantly, I thoroughly enjoyed myself. If I had stopped drinking right there, that would have been just fine with me and everyone else. Unfortunately, when we went back to our hotel room, that was not what happened.

Suffice to say I drank most of the bottle of Bacardi, quite a bit of the vodka, and was completely out of my mind. I fell in the wet bathtub, stripped to my shorts, and ran down the hotel hallway looking for an elevator in which I planned to escape my annoyed, yet amused friends. When they brought me back to the hotel room I spilled coffee on everyone's shoes, tried to break open our third story window, and went to sleep as my "friends" drew inappropriate things all over me.

I know that some people who read this will laugh, some will say "That's nothing compared to my drunk stories", and others will read this and wonder why this stupid idiot is bragging about his drunken stupor. Just so everyone knows, I'm not proud of this experience. As far as moments in my life that I'm ashamed of, let's just say that this will make the top ten. But even though it was a bad decision on my part and possibly a dangerous one too (seeing as how I was trying to break out a third story window), you have to admit that it's kind of funny.

Seeing humor in every corner of life is huge part of what happiness means to me. I'm not saying laugh at everything, no matter how boring, infuriating, or inappropriate it may be, but look really hard to find a reason to smile, whatever your circumstances might be. If you can take yourself out of your own shoes and learn to laugh at your own misfortune or humiliation, then really, what can hurt you?

Lesson #1: Humor can make you impervious to life's hurts. Humor can make you invincible.

Taken

This first review is about a movie that's been out for a little while, but that I only saw recently.

The film is called 'Taken' and stars Liam Neeson as a protective father whose daughter is kidnapped while she is vacationing in France.

Liam Neeson's character, Bryan Mills, is divorced and living alone in "quiet" retirement. His ex-wife (Famke Janssen) married a rich man and has custody of their little girl. Apparently Mills was a preventor and his work for the government estranged him from his wife and child. He quit in an attempt to save his relationship with his daughter, Kim (Maggie Grace(hottie)). I'm not really sure what a preventor's job description includes, but I know that Bryan Mills is the biggest badass of any movie I've ever seen. He is un-freaking-stoppable. As soon as he knows his daughter is kidnapped, he calls in all of his resources to get him to France asap and to tell him who the people are that he's looking for.

He goes from lead to lead, totally destroying anyone and anything that stands in his way with unbelievable ease. Taking on Albanian, human-trafficking, mobs as well as the French government, Bryan Mills is a nightmare for the people who took his daughter.

A lot of the action is reminiscent of the 'Bourne' movies, in that Mills wins fights with multiple armed opponents without getting hurt, gets in a huge car chase where he is the lone survivor, and when people try to track him or trace him, he is always one step ahead. I think I prefer 'Taken' to 'Bourne' simply because Mills is in his late 40's or early 50's. Not exactly in his prime, but still more deadly than a hundred men. Also, I just like Liam Neeson better than Matt Damon (No offense, Matt, I think you're brilliant).

The movie touches hard on a sensitive topic. It really gives some insight into how horrendous and serious a problem human trafficking is. In real life, foreign women are sent to America with the promise of jobs as nannies or maids, but when they get there they are restrained and made into prostitutes. Their "owners" will get them addicted to drugs so that they are unable to leave. There are real places like this all over in big cities like San Fransisco or Los Angeles. They are allowed to exist because of corruption in the government.

Oh damn, I got kinda preachy there. Maybe that was a little too heavy for my first blog. Oh well, no turning back now! On to the conclusion.

All in all, I'd say that I thoroughly enjoyed this movie. I'm an action fan, but if the action movie has a good plot (like this one did) then the movie makes it onto my favorites list. Obviously this is just my opinion and you're welcome to have your own... even if I judge you harshly for having it and call you names for disagreeing with me.