But I really haven’t.

It’s just that ya’ll don’t play World of Warcraft.

I gave it up for a whole year. I played for maybe a total of 5 hours or so during the whole of 2006. I didn’t miss it.

But then the expansion pack came out, and I have joined my merry band of adventurers in a few daring escapades.

It’s not all I’ve been doing, of course. These dishes aren’t going to clean themselves, and the novel ain’t gonna write itself, and the money ain’t gonna make itself, etc. It’s just that the few scant hours I have for socializing on weekdays have been temporarily reassigned to other pursuits.

One day, I’ll regale you all with a lengthy discussion of why World of Warcraft is not a complete waste of a 29 year-old’s time, but not today.

But my hobby does have a more immediate use to me; I’m still writing for Metroblogging Azeroth.

You can get an RSS feed of my work here, but don’t click it if you don’t use an RSS reader like Google Reader (which integrates automagically into your web browser). You can also see a live, updated list of my entries here.

You’ve heard of Talk Like a Pirate Day, but this might be a new one for you.

But this is very funny. One must give Bill a little bit of credit: he can take a joke. After hearing him on Howard Stern over the years, he’s always a good sport when his interviewees are not taking him seriously.

He’s still a dick, though.

Muslim Group Upset that Fox Show 24 Depicts Accurate Terrorists

I find it despicable that people judge all Muslims based upon the actions of a relative minority. Not all Muslims are terrorists, and Islam itself is no inherent threat to Western culture.

Still, a show like 24 butters its bread with current events. If your show involves the One Man Against Terrorism formula, it is not inaccurate to depict terrorists as practicing Islam.

Also, organizations like the Council on American-Islamic Relations butters its bread with knee-jerk reactions to any negative light cast on the movement or ethnic group it defends. This is not just true of this particular organization – from the NRA to NOW, if a slippery slope is to be avoided, they must protest the smallest infraction.

Thus, while the news story above is no surprise to anybody, and I am loath to assign blame on anyone, I find it incredibly silly to, for instance, blame Spielberg for depicting Nazis as being German.

RFID Tags To Turn The World Into An Awesome Playground

Make sure you watch the video. I can think of a million uses for this technology, beginning with a pack of cigarettes that unleashes a hacking cough when you open the lid.

Kucinich To Reintroduce The Poorly-Named Fairness Doctrine

The Fairness Doctrine is essentially this: there are two opinions on either side of any issue, and the government should force broadcasters to tell you both of them.

That’s a huge, steaming pile of injustice.

Kucinich is a Democrat, and doesn’t like the fact that conservative opinionship is so successful. From O’Reilly to Limbaugh, the only voice broadcast en masse is a conservative, right-wing one.

Of course, he’s right. The liberal answer to this, Air America, has been plagued by a lack of funds and a very small portion of the listening audience.

So, instead of trying to win the war of words by playing by the same rules (as entertainment industries rise and fall based entirely on the appetite of the audience), Kucinich wants to leverage the power of the government.

While I agree that a few massive conglomerates owning all of the broadcast towers is a bad thing, I don’t think the government should be involved. I don’t like that the much larger power of the government is being used for purely political aims. I can think of no reason to enact this legislation that doesn’t rhyme with sour grapes.

The biggest threat I see is the slippery slope. If we decide that a radio station has to have one hour of liberal programming to every hour of conservative programming, it brings up some issues:

1) Who decides what is conservative and what is liberal? The only answer is the government, and I don’t want the government putting any kind of definition or metric on opinions.
2) There are never just two sides to any issue. How will the FD handle multiple sides?
3) How will this impact things like podcasts and blogs? Does that mean I have to start posting a Christian point of view to every post I make about atheism? Hell, will I have to post a blog about the Transformers movie isn’t going to suck?

I don’t like this one bit. If you want an excellent 45 minute illustration of why this sucks, listen to this episode of Penn Radio.

McDonald’s Opens Drive-Thru in China

I only include this because the photograph attached to the article depicts a fat kid standing, agape, in front of the golden arches. Of course.

Short Rant About Nutrition Mavens Wanting To Close Down Fast Food Restaurants: If you don’t want to get fat, don’t eat McDonald’s; assume that people are smart enough to know that.

Order of court dated 01/16/07. Divorce decree granted.

A wake is a celebration. It’s an acknowledgment of what came before, where only the best times are remembered. There were lots of good times there, and I recall them with fondness and comfort.

I welcome the end, because it’s actually a beginning.

From here forward, things will only get better. For both of us.

Panic, silver lining, writing’s on the wall
Children get together, you can save us all
Future’s on the corner, throwing us a die
Slow down, turn around, everything’s fine
- Black Sabbath, Never Say Die

I’m going to try hard to not get excited by this announcement, because I remember the last two times the Sci-Fi channel made miniseries out of two of my favorite books (this one and this one).

PS: it’s pronounced “primmer”

This will only be funny to people who have played the game (though you can get an idea of it here).

That’s apparently what the network and the series creators are negotiating for, a definite end to the series.

One of the creators compares this announcement to J.K. Rowling’s declaration that the Harry Potter books would number only seven:

…it gives fans [a framework for understanding the arc of the show]. ‘The X-Files’ was a cautionary tale for us. It was a great show that ran two seasons too long. ‘Lost’ has a short-half life.

Yeah. The show has already been on for 2.5 seasons – this “framework” is imposed midway the larger story, while the Harry Potter books have a built-in end point. HP & The Sorcerer’s Stone depicted Harry’s entire first year at Hogwart’s, which has seven total grades – of course the books are going to end at the seventh, because that’s his last year. It’s similar to another popular TV show, 24 – the entire season takes place in the span of a single day, in real-time. The day ends and the story is finished. Part of why that show maintains a huge audience is the certainty that the story will eventually end.

LOST has no built-in framework like this – they are imposing it from outside the narrative, making it an artificial construction. It’s not that this method can’t work, but its nonintegration within the story might make for some lazy coincidences.

What the LOST creators don’t seem to understand is not that the fans don’t like the idea of a story that potentially never ends, but that the mysteries and questions are piled on top each other without resolution.

Take a look at this list. The creators have a lot of work ahead of them.

The fans don’t want every question answered all at once, but a few of the bigger ones might be nice.

Tycho at Penny Arcade wrote something today that I found interesting, an observation of his from CES:

It was fun to see the men in the show’s car audio cavern pretend that they weren’t huge dorks and were, in fact, masculine, but that’s all. They seemed to believe that since their computer rolls around that this was a crucial point of distinction.

My hypothesis: that sci-fi/tech/gaming nerds are no less lame than man’s men, despite what the latter may think.

First, a definition: a man’s man is a man who enjoys cars, sports and related topics. You know the type I mean. They can also be defined based on their almost total dislike for nerds. See these two excellent documentaries on the subject for proof.

My evidence is actually very simple, but it will require you to click links. I’ve made these links open up in new windows, to make it easier for you.

Tell me, what is the difference between this forum on fantasy football and this forum on Magic: The Gathering?

Also, what is the difference between this forum on car stuff and this forum on swords?

Besides subject matter? Nothing.

Comments? Counterexamples? Criticisms? Post them below.

…to describe how much incoherent joy I find in these.

They’re both from America’s Funniest Videos. It’s a wonder what good writers can do for a show like this.

35 Face Balls in 32 Seconds:

Fainting Montage: