Jethro Tull Season Begins!

Well, truthfully, this year's Jethro Tull Season began at 1:15 p.m. on Saturday, but everyone knows I'm a big fat liar. So, there you go. Screw St. Nick and shopping malls and all those damn dead turkeys! Break out the heavy horses and the locomotives and the dirty old homeless men with pneumonia! Yes, this is how Caitlín copes with winter. Jethro Tull.

Thanks to Elizabeth Bear (matociquala, a fellow Tullite), I wasted over an hour this morning destroying most of the earth's population with a viral pandemic. I failed, though I did manage to wipe out the entire populations of Russia (where it began), North America, Europe, India, Greenland, much of South America, China, and most of Africa, before the disease finally burned itself out. I even bested the attempt to create a vaccine. Every day should begin so triumphantly (even though I failed).

Also, 149 years ago today, Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species was first published. 149 years later, we are still beleaguered by creationist numbnuts.

Yesterday, I wrote 1,125 words on "The Collier's Venus (1893)," and I almost found THE END. There will be one last short scene today. It's an odd story, another of my Cherry Creek steampunk tales (this will be the fourth), revisiting much of the territory covered by "In the Waterworks (1889)" and Threshold. After the writing, and a dinner of chili, we read and proofed Chapter Six of The Red Tree. I am pleased to say I like this novel even more now than when I "finished" it last month.

We lit the fireplace last night, for the first time this year. I haven't lived anywhere with a functional fireplace since 1982.

After the reading, we watched Mike Nichols' Charlie Wilson's War, which I found extremely effective and chilling. A study in unforeseen consequences. The more things change, the more things keep getting worse. Meet the new boss, same as the old. You know the score. Tom Hanks was good, but Philip Seymour Hoffman was brilliant. Julia Roberts was just scary. And then, after the movie, there was WoW.

I think that I am finally beginning to become disenchanted with World of Warcraft. That makes what? Almost three months? It's just starting to feel far too much like a game (which, of course, is what it is), and I am too entirely disappointed by its utter failure as rp. I'm going to try and stick with it longer by scaling back the number of characters I'm playing, so there's not so much repetition (part of the undesired "gaminess"). I hate games. I want a simulation. I want roleplay, not gameplay. I want full immersion. I want to lose myself in alternate realities. And, so, I suspect it's time to forsake the visual interface and start reading more again. Reading, at least I am not bombarded by REAL LIVE idiots and by stats and leveling and all those other things that only serve to destroy suspension of disbelief. Last night, Mithwen reached Lvl 35. Scaling back, I'll most likely confine myself to Shaharrazad, my blood-elf warlock, and her little sister, Hanifah (a paladin). Spooky's talking about concentrating on her Tauren shaman, Usiku. Total, I presently have six characters, which looks pretty bad, until you consider that Blizzard permits you to have fifty. Anyway, I will continue to hope that at some point within the next few years a genuine rp "simulation" will emerge from the chaos of SL and mmorpgs and whatnot.

Addendum: Postcards from the Land of Can't Be Bothered

Sooooooo...a week or so ago, I said something about compiling a WoW-related list, something like, "101 Ways to Tell That You Simply Can't Be Bothered." To wit:

3. If you've named your rogue character "Roguepimp." And I wonder, just when did pimp cease to mean, you know, pimp?

4. You've named your human warrior "Warriorhuman."

Actually, I've been jotting down the extra-stupid names that I've come across in WoW the last week or so. Early on, someone told me that the Horde players seem to be somewhat more mature, all things considered. This surprised me, but then I created a human priest alt and started having to play out of Stormwind and Goldshire. And Jesus fuck. It's the Children's Hour over there. From pushy griefers who won't take "No, I don't want to duel" for an answer, to slutty gangsta-talking elf chicks dancing on table tops...well, I think "suspension of disbelief" isn't at the forefront of many of these peoples' minds. Meanwhile, so long as I stay in Silvermoon City and thereabouts with my blood elves, goofy names and behaviour are almost completely absent. Anyway, yeah, my list of goofy names (all collected in or near Stormwind):

Firemanjeff, Chickenboy, Bornagian, Private Badkitty, Sonoftwinky, Cookookachoo, Jazzyman, Lcpl (really, I have no idea), Redneckbrat, Bumsicle, Showboat, Watermelonia, Hoardganker, Emodead, Saycookie, Unhollyhood (I'm guessing this guy was going for "Unholyhood," but it was taken), Demonicduck, Goofus, Builttokill, Darkshotace, and, my personal favourite —— Hctibelttil, which, of course, is Littlebitch spelled backwards.

And this is on an RP server, which specifies that names should be appropriate to Azeroth. But...hey, we get free bears. Free baby bears. That do...nothing. Really, I fear my WoW days are numbered.

Postscript: And, just in case anyone has forgotten since the last time i pointed this out, "Endeavor to be inoffensive to all who might have their feelings hurt at the drop of a hat" is not in my job description. In fact, I think it says something rather to the contrary.