I was home today when the exterminator came to do his regular inspecting and spraying. My boys were very interested in watching him work. The exterminator said he didn’t mind; in fact he said all kids are interested in watching him, and he loves it.

While inside the house, he noticed the books on my gaming bookshelf. His 14 year old son plays Dungeons & Dragons, and they both play World of Warcraft. In WoW, his son has a level 70 undead rogue, and he has a lower-level undead mage. He bought a second computer so they could play at the same time.

When he asked if I played Alliance or Horde, I could tell in his tone of voice that he sadly expected me to say “Alliance.” His face brightened in a smile when I said, “Horde.” I told him I had a level 68 orc hunter, but I hadn’t played in a couple months. (More people play Alliance characters—the civilized, pretty races like humans and elves—than play Horde characters—the savage, ugly races like orcs and undead. It’s a common complaint in WoW gamer circles.)

There’s something just so cool about meeting a fellow gamer like that, at an unexpected time and place. There’s upwards of eight million people who play WoW. If half that number are Americans, that’s a little more than 1 person in 100. Not high odds in a normal slice of society. My next door neighbor used to play WoW, and I’ve encountered 2 or 3 in my corporate workplace. None of them, my neighbor or coworkers, are the stereotypical geek-types that most people associate with online role playing games (RPGs). Add in the exterminator, and you blow the stereotype right out of the water.

Players are all around. When you consider that there are many other such games online, not just WoW, the odds of meeting someone who plays a computer RPG gets high enough that everyone probably knows someone who plays one.

Unfortunately, table RPGs, like D&D, have far fewer players—around one to two million—and so don’t have near the population representation. That’s a shame. Computer RPGs have the immediate and easy access, but table RPGs are usually much more enjoyable. And where computer RPGs generally have a monthly subscription cost, table RPGs are costless after you buy the rule book.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com

The annual alumni magazine from our alma mater came in the mail today. It’s a nice, slick book: heavy-stock pages, brilliant full color, great design and layout. But I don’t recognize anything in any of the images of the campus. The foyers shown are modern architecture steel and glass. The classrooms are high-tech with bright, flat-panel LCD monitors on the tables, and big, clear projected displays on the walls. I’m impressed, and jealous.

My wife and I met in our college years, and we used to visit the old campus at least once a year. But we haven’t been in almost 5 years, now, and it seems the school has vastly changed its look in that time.

The campus in our day was homey, well-kept, and pretty—all red bricks, white columns, and pink azaleas. It’s now, apparently, judging from the magazine, all modern and high-tech. And that’s cool, but it’s very different. In my day, the campus looked like an Ivy League school (it isn’t). Now, in the magazine, it looks like a Fortune 500 company.

My college experience was fun. The things I remember most fondly of those days, in no particular order:

– Spending time with my girlfriend on and off campus. (She’s now my wife.)
– Playing table games and console games with my friends. (Super Nintendo!)
– Going to the beach between classes. (Campus is just 5 miles from the ocean.)
– Walking, running, exploring, and playing on campus with my dog.
– Charlie Daniels’s speech at my graduation.

Yeah, that’s right: Charlie Daniels was the commencement speaker at my graduation. In your face, Ivy Leaguers! His was the best commencement speech I’ve ever heard. (I’ve been to four college commencements.) I would have loved to thank him and shake his hand, but there was no way to even get close to him in a university commencement crowd. I used to work with a woman who was related to Charlie. After hearing me brag about his speech, she got me an autographed glossy from him, signed to me. Now that’s cool.

You probably noticed there isn’t anything about actual school work in my list of fond remembrances. Yeah, I notice that too. It’s sad that study and learning is often not appreciated by those at the age when formal education is presented. Although, it’s ironic that most of what I ended up needing to know in my careers was never offered or covered in my college courses. But I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised by that. I mean, Computer Science, Biology, and Engineering are careers straight from college majors; English is only useful for making you sound ostentatious at dinner parties.

“These new Southern writers just do not have the depth of story and color of phrase like classic Faulkner and O’Conner. It is a shame, too. We have lost the beautiful heritage of the written word. . . .”
— English major with a chip on his shoulder because he can’t get a publisher interested in his manuscript

But anyway, back to the ole college campus as depicted in the alumni magazine: I wonder if the current students occasionally show up to class smelling of sunscreen and saltwater like we sometimes used to.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com

Viewed: Theater

I only vaguely remember the Transformers cartoons and movie from the 80s. The nostalgia factor for me is present, but it is pretty low. When I first heard of this movie being made, I had little expectation of anything good. I planned to see it when it was released, but it would be light fare for a Saturday afternoon. But when I heard that Steven Spielberg was the producer, my hope for it to be actually decent, increased. Spielberg doesn’t make crap movies.

In the past couple of months, I watched the trailer a dozen times. It looked really good. My hope increased a little more, but I still didn’t expect it to be great. Then I got one quick review from someone whose movie opinion I trust—he had seen it at its midnight opening. I actually started getting excited about the possibilities of it being good.

The start of the movie had me worrying. Having a narrator explain the back story rarely leads into a good present story. The notable exception is Lord of the Rings.

I’m so glad this movie didn’t get cut down to less than two hours like so many others are now days. The two and a half hours for this tale is long enough to cover the story without dragging anything out too much. I was never for one minute bored. The story is told, and the robots kick each other’s metal butts.

99% pure Awesome! All during the movie, and so far for the past several hours after leaving the theater, I’ve thought this movie was one the best I have ever seen. And I’m not one to throw around such strong accolades for movies easily. I’m actually known for being pretty hard to please with movies.

The writers did an excellent job of updating the story for the 21st century. They explained the robots’ history and abilities sufficiently (though not completely). The CGI is amazingly believable, as are the human actors. A couple things irked me a bit, like helicopters chasing at street level, but these were molehills compared to the mountains of absolute coolness.

I will see this movie again in the theater, and I will buy the DVD. I can’t remember a movie in the last ten years that so excited me during and after viewing.

There are three short scenes after the credits start rolling, all within the first couple minutes or so. The first two are just for laughs, but the third might be a hint of a future plot. There’s nothing at the very end of the credits.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com

Today we celebrate our nation’s 231st year of independence. Isn’t it ironic that the nation our ancestors fought a long and difficult war against to gain independence from is now our most loyal ally? That nation also, a few years after that war, burned our nation’s capital to the ground. And yet, today we can count on it to stand beside us at all times. Now that’s a friend.

The United Kingdom is like an older friend who beat the crap out of us when we were young, but respected us when we fought back—especially when we fought back well. Today is the day we remember that whoopin’.

US: “Remember that time I blacked your eye and busted your lip?”

UK: “Yes, I remember it. That was a bloody good fight. But you only got out of that headlock because France flashed her knickers to distract me. I also remember the time I knocked you on your bum with that thump to the head.”

US: “Yeah, that was a sneaky sucker punch. But I almost broke your arm when I got back up. Good times.”

UK: “Jolly good times, indeed.”

Celebrate this day well. We fought off the greatest power in the world of the time and then stood up on our own to become the United States of America.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com