Since my boys like to watch me “play” WoW, I’ve decided to try gaining the World Explorer achievement. Now, when they watch me play (read: ride/fly around the zones), I can actually accomplish something more than just entertaining the Calves.

I was surprised to learn that there was still a lot of areas I hadn’t fully explored. I was mostly shocked to find out that I hadn’t finished exploring Durotar –- where my orc hunter started out. It’s kind of an annoyance to have to ride way off to some far corner of the zone map just to fill in the last small area. But, doing so does make my boys feel like they’re playing WoW.

One night, without my boys with me, I decided to explore all of Teldrassil (as an orc). The first two times I tried to get on the boat at Auberdine, I had trouble with PvP players. One human warlock ended up killing me, and one night elf something drove me away. The third time, I ran right to the boat and got on. No problem.

And then in Darnassus, I had a bunch of 70+ PvP players blasting me. They camped my corpse for about 15 minutes. Fortunately for me, though, I just minimized WoW to my taskbar and worked on other stuff to wait them out. Actually exploring Teldrassil was easy. Running through the guards in Darnassus was easy. But the PvP players were all over me, coming and going.

Then I went to Azuremyst Isle, by boat from Auberdine. I had no problem getting on the boat and exploring around the island (although I’m not finished yet). No PvP players came after me even when I jumped in and out of the Exodar.

Sadly, to me, exploring the world isn’t nearly as interesting as I thought it would be. It’s really just a time dump. I could be doing something much more fun. So I think I’ll just forget about going for that achievement. It’s a waste of my time.

Bullgrit

Through college, I worked in the electronics section of a department store. During a break in my college career — to make some more money to pay for the next part of my schooling — I needed to pick up a second job. (This was circa 1989; I was around 22 years old.) I looked around at various restaurants for a waiter job, and in my search I was offered a job in a night club. A country and western saloon and dance club.

The owner told me she had been considering hiring a [male] waiter for a while, and since I was looking to wait tables, maybe I’d serve drinks instead of food. I wasn’t really into country and western music at that time, but let’s think about this:

The good: Hang out with a dozen good looking cocktail waitresses in miniskirts; don’t have to memorize a bunch of drink mixes (that was necessary for the [male] bartenders); make a ton of cash-money quick (relative to other part-time jobs); get hit on by a bunch of drunk women. OK, I didn’t realize this last item until I started the job.

The bad: Work till 3 a.m. (and therefore sleep half the daylight away or get only 3 hours of sleep at night); listen to loud country and western music all night; get hit on by a bunch of drunk women. Again, I didn’t really know this last item until I started the job.

What the hell? I took the job.

Now, I don’t know if things have changed since 1989-90, (I haven’t been to many bars or clubs in the past decade and a half), but there weren’t any other “cocktail waiters” anywhere I had ever been. Even the owner of the club, who had made her living with various types of clubs, bars, saloons, etc., said she had never seen men serve drinks other than as bartenders. I was breaking new ground, blazing a trail. But I don’t think any men followed my path.

The waitresses wore white, club t-shirts and denim miniskirts; I wore a white, club t-shirt and blue jeans. The bartenders and bouncers all wore black, club t-shirts and jeans. The bartenders stayed behind their bar and never mingled with the crowd. The bouncers occasionally walked through the crowd, but the women never seemed to pay them any attention. All the bouncers were over six feet tall (at least two inches taller than I), burly or buff, and looked intimidating. Next to them, I was a skinny kid who looked “sweet and cute.”

For the record, this was not a rough club. In fact, it was one of the nicer places in the college town. In my six months working there, I never saw a fight. There were some disturbances, but the looming presence of the bouncers calmed the disturbers down pretty quickly.

Now, about the bunch of drunk women. Let me quote the head cocktail waitress: “The women are really a lot more aggressive with you than the men are with us.”

Some not-drunk or only-buzzed women just flirted with me or complimented me. This was fun and a big ego boost all during my time working at the club.

Some of the drunk and horny women would actually grab and paw at me. This was fun and a big ego boost for the first couple of weeks.

OK, I lie. It was fun and a big ego boost the entire time. But after a couple of weeks, it stopped being surprising or uncomfortable; it became simply a neat part of the job. I came to appreciate it, because it turned out that women who touched me, gave me bigger tips.

The pawing and grabbing wasn’t constant and often, but it was at least once a night, every night I worked. But the flirts and compliments were pretty regular and I came to really like them. (Who wouldn’t?)

But after a few weeks, I also came to realize that the women’s attention wasn’t so much because of me or my looks, but rather because of my job. They could flirt with me and I wouldn’t hang around them all night like if they flirted with another customer. I was a safe target because they knew I couldn’t follow them out the door at 2 a.m.

Although, some women passed me their hotel room numbers with the apparent expectation that I’d seek them out at 3 a.m. Interestingly, no woman ever gave me her phone number when I was working. I never asked for them when I was working, but I also never asked for their hotel room numbers, either.

The male customers mostly just ignored me other than to order their drinks and pay me. They weren’t rude to me, even when their dates/girlfriends/wives obviously flirted with me, but they just treated me like a normal waiter at a restaurant. I figure they just assumed I was gay.

I had to quit that job because it was killing me. As a second job, it was making my first job difficult. First, the lack of proper sleep was wearing on me. And second, the totally different psychology of working in a bar and working retail was colliding.

But it was a hell of a cool temp, part-time job for a young guy. I recommend it to any young guy thinking of trying it. But I’ll never let either of my sons try such a job.

Bullgrit

I finally got Wrath of the Lich King. After getting my main character (orc hunter) to Northrend and looking around for a short while, I made a death knight.

The beginning quests, all in Acherus, make an interesting story, but the actual play of the game is still World-of-Warcraftish. Actions still have only temporary affects on the game world. For instance:

Taking the orb/eye/spy thing down to the village to look around, I flew over the massed civilians and in a moment of evil curiosity, I summoned a swarm of ghouls on them. The ghouls climbed up out of the ground, the civilians died or ran away, and the soldiers ran in to fight off the ghouls. It was pretty funny, for all of 10 seconds. The ghouls died quick, and the fleeing civilians turned around and ran back to their assigned places in the town square again. Within 20 seconds of me siccing a dozen ghouls on the town, all was right back to normal –- like nothing had happened.

When my quest sent me into the mine to make ghouls, I could transform a miner into an undead beasts while another miner stood just 10 feet away, oblivious or uncaring. A couple of times, a miner hauling a cart walked right through me and my collected ghouls without reacting at all.

Then when I performed the quest to fire the ship cannons on the assembled Scarlet soldiers (all elite!), I killed all 100 required to complete the quest. But by the time the undead flying thingy hoisted me off the ship to take me back to base, the beach was still full of stationary soldiers. When the quest giver congratulated me with, “You destroyed the whole fleet?!” (or some similar salute), I thought, Not really, they were all still there when I left.

So, try as the designers might, WoW is still WoW. It’s still just a grind through quests that have no real consequences or results. Yeah, sure, the campaign map changes as you accomplish certain quests, but that’s artificial –- it doesn’t feel like I’ve done anything real.

From what I’ve seen, WotLK hasn’t improved WoW game play in any way. It’s added some neat gimmicks, but the game play is the same. I’m starting to feel all “meh” about it, now. I’m disappointed, and I feel like the purchase was a waste of money.

Bullgrit

I am 41 years old. Just 41. Forty-freakin’-one. I am not old enough for Medicare. Dammit.

For the past few years, I’ve been regularly getting mail regarding Medicare insurance. I get some kind of “old folk” mail a few times a year. I even once got an issue of AARP magazine. Cowgrit laughs at me every time she finds such mail in our box.

Yes, I have some gray hairs. But my gray is child induced, not age grown. I don’t know how I got on this kind of mailing list, but it ain’t funny. (Shut up brogrit!)

A few years ago, I somehow got on a Limited Too mailing list. I started receiving catalogs for 12-year-old girls’ clothes. We called immediately to fix that, but it still took almost a year to stop getting the monthly catalogs.

I don’t know who to call about this old-person mail. Is there a headquarters for old people?

Bullgrit