Of Death Knights and QQ (Protip: QQ represents two crying eyes)

Nerd Alert: the following post deals with Warcraft. Sweet, addicting Warcraft.

Anyway, there are a lot of people bitching - the WoW forum term is "QQ-ing" - about how easy it is to be a Death Knight. About how overpowered the class is. About how only fools and bad players roll Death Knights. Mentioning how their guild refuses applications from all Death Knights and how they ignore people who post on the forms using a Death Knight avatar.

Seriously, and I realize that I'm writing this to a bunch of serious, hardcore nerds, get a life and quit your whining. Yes, the DK is a very powerful class. You might even call it a "Hero Class". It can do a lot of things. It is very easy to kill and very hard to die as a Death Knight. Quests often requiring three people can be done by a single DK. But how does this differ from any other class? A skilled Mage player can solo group quests. So can a skilled Paladin. Or Warrior. Really, anyone who can play their class well will appear overpowered to a bad player. Admittedly, the Death Knight makes this a little easier, with its high armour values, incredible critical strike ratings, and extremely high base DPS regardless of build. So? It's a Hero Class. That's the idea. It might make things a little easier for less-skilled players, of which I am one. Is that so bad? Maybe - just maybe - the experience of making and playing a Death Knight will improve their skills on other classes. Being good at something tends to boost your confidence, which in turn makes you even more skilled at the activity in question.

Once A Year, Every Year

I really should write more often. It always seems like I want to do this around my birthday. Is it just that I feel so much older every year, then pretty promptly forget and start acting like a twelve-year-old again?

Either way, tonight's rant is about the NHL All-Star Game. Why? 'Cause all of this pissing and moaning about "unworthy" players being voted in by the fans is starting to annoy me.

First, a basic truth: most people are stupid. Moreover, most people should not be allowed to vote precisely because they're stupid. For some reason, we make people take a test to drive, but we allow them to influence the direction of the nation (and the world, in some ways) without even the most basic of intellectual examinations. There's something seriously wrong with this. Remember, many voters are people who actually enjoy American Fucking Idol.

But I digress. The long and the short of it is that the NHL allowed fans to vote the starting lineups for the All-Star Game. As a result, the starting Western All-Stars are made up entirely of Chicago Blackhawks and Anaheim Ducks, whilst the starting Eastern All-Stars are Montreal Canadiens and Pittsburgh Penguins. There is a great hue and cry about this. First of all, this means that only four of the thirty teams in the league will be represented in the All-Star starting lineups. Second, players like Alex Ovechkin had to be named by the league as a reserve. Thirdly, some of the players "don't deserve" to be there. Players like Alex Kovalev and Mike Komisarek.

Going back to my earlier point, people are stupid. Should Ovechkin, who is probably the best all-around player of our generation, have to be named as a reserve? No fucking way. Should Mike Komisarek, a stay-at-home defenceman who is a great team player and excellent leader, be named to a one-shot roster where offence is rewarded? Nope. And I say that as a Habs fan and someone who believes that Komisarek is the odds-on favourite to be captain of Les Glorieux in the next few years. But if the NHL wanted the best players to start the All-Star Game, they should have just appointed them. Instead, they opened up the process to fan participation. Hockey fans are dedicated sorts, particularly those who are desciples of Montreal and Pittsburgh. We voted often, we voted for players who we wanted to see.

That's the core of the matter. People are stupid, too stupid to be allowed to vote. And the NHL is stupid for assuming that talented players would be voted in on merit alone and with no consideration to the holy emblem on their chests. In fact, the NHL themselves has had a part in this: does anyone else remember the ad campaign that mentioned that the important thing is the logo on the front of the sweater, not the name on the back?

To take another tack at this issue, though, I must say that in some ways the voting system worked. Mike Komisarek and Alex Kovalev might not merit All-Star starter status in a lot of ways. But the fans really, really want to see them there. If the All-Star Game is supposed to be all about fan participation, the NHL, and the blogging wags who populate the internet, have to be prepared to accept the results of the vote.

The NHL should not have allowed fans to vote for their players if they wanted the highest-quality All-Star Game possible. It's just that simple. They either have to accept the fact that people are dumb or they have to eliminate fans from the selection process. Or do the easiest thing and just get rid of the All-Star Game. I still don't entirely understand why they do it. I mean, it's hockey, making it much more entertaining than most other things on television, so I watch it. But I wouldn't cry if I slept through the entire thing.

As for Komisarek and Kovalev? Good on 'em. Kovalev's incredible level of talent is going to shine like a diamond when he's playing with some of the best in the world, and Mike Komisarek is one of the hardest-working players in the league. It will be a joy to see them at the All-Star Game.

Cunnilanguage

Now it's been ten thousand years, mankind has cried a billion tears, and I'm back. I sort of doubt that anyone will read this (or, for that matter, read any of the previous posts a year ago), but I really don't care. Nobody reads blogs. They're stupid. Even the word "blog" is one of great foolishness - it sounds like an onomatopoeia. "Jimmy was just sittin' there, strummin' his banjer, and BLOG! Pig came fallin' outta nowhere and done crushed 'im."

The news has stopped pissing me off this past year. Now, it's funny more than anything else. Drunken astronauts. Jesus theme parks. Doped-up bicyclists and baseball players. Political pissing matches between presidential candidates, most of whom won't even make the final ballot. It's fuckin' hilarious if you take the time to think about it. The incompetence, the arrogance and the spite that flows forth from the media every day makes things into a laugh-or-cry experience. Since the only time I've cried in the last few years was when I smoked my head into the roof of the car while reaching in to get something (I don't remember what, the whole event is kind of fuzzy), I have to go with the funny side.

Of course, language still gets me. Y'know what the guys I work with are called? Maintenance Technicians. They clean stoves and bathtubs, which makes them janitors in my book. I'm the Assistant to the Facilities Manager, Sexton Campus. Basically, Head Janitor. Why can't I just be the Head Janitor? That's what I do. Or Janitorial Manager. Both are pretty good discriptors of what I do. I'm not actually a maintenance man; I can't fix shit. I get others to do that for me. I'm also not a technician of any sort. Also, my crews aren't allowed to paint, because that would get the union guys mad. Instead, we "wall wash". Using paint, of course.

Y'know, you aren't supposed to call a hurricane a hurricane in Alabama? It's now a "tropical occurance". Can we do things like that for everyday life? You don't take a leak, you have a "bladder relief event". Microwaving a pizza pocket could be called "high-enegry cuilinary preperation". Fucking doggy-style becomes "cainine-type coital interaction".

Y'know what? Fuck popular music. New music blows.

There. I've finally said it.

Coming up on my birthday, I feel as if I've earned the right to sound old and decrepid about music. I just can't stand it anymore. Every time I flip through the channels and see MuchMusic for a second, all that's playing are videos featuring morons rapping about euphamistic confectioneries and attempting to make a song featuring the term "lady lumps" sound sexy rather than just ridiculous. Just so that I'm not singling out rap music, I'd also like to say that I'd like to see each and every member of the Arcade Fire fed into a woodchipper. Rebellion my ass. What are you rebelling against? The record company that shat you out, precompiled and complete with those oh-so-pretentious hipster haircuts?

Now, I realize that new music has always been shit. Whatever comes along after you stop listening to pop music is automatically the worst garbage ever created, certain to warp the minds of kids and usher in a new era of social instability. I hold no such ideas, however, I do fear that kids today are probably going to grow up with tin ears and without a sense of lyrics. I mean, seriously, most stuff today has fuck all when it comes to Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, Bruce Springsteen, Pearl Jam, The Tragically Hip, old (a la Joshua Tree) U2 - the list goes on and on. Seriously, if the best our society can come up with is an admonishment not to "funk with my heart" and Britney Spears singing about her "perogative", we're screwed. This is probably what happened to the Romans, fer chrissakes. One minute, they're doing great stuff like conqering Europe, feeding Christians to lions, making slaves fight hippos from rafts in the flooded Coliseum, having orgies - really fun shit - and the next, someone discovered how to put a backbeat to music and everything went downhill from there. Goodbye Rome, hello Constantinople.

I feel like I'm too young to be saying stuff like this, waiting for any inkling that someone I like will be putting out a new album. This is just sad.

Note to the music industry: there are a lot of us out here. Stop pushing premade pop down our throats and make something that we actually want to hear. Y'know, when the Hip cut a new record, I actually buy it. That's right. Same with Green Day. And a bunch of other bands that actually have some modicum of talent. Want to increase record sales? Sign good bands, you dumb fuckers.

One more reason that I should be running things...

Don't Ask, Don't Tell, Don't Care

According to the American Family Association, my favourite dead, Jesus-loving horse to flog, the gays have infiltrated the Alabama Civil Air Patrol. The aticle states, in part, that:

the unit had appointed a "trans-gendered" individual to work as an orientation pilot directly with the young people, unsupervised

God forbid! Certainly nobody with a different sexual or moral compass than the standard white, redneck, God-fearing, Jesus-loving and Fag-hating Southerner could possibly be a good pilot instructor. And isn't it just fucking ghastly that young people, those who'se minds may not be quite as closed as their parent's, be introduced to someone who thinks and acts differently from them? I mean, they already let the Negroes in, and now the Homos are here? Hell in a handcart, people, we're going to Hell in a handcart.

The article goes on to state:

...CAP leaders have an ulterior motive for ignoring the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy in the military. "You almost would think that Civil Air Patrol's allowance of homosexuals and other deviants in these programs is almost a back-door way to root away at Don't Ask, Don't Tell," he suggests -- adding that such undermining of the policy "could possibly lead to openly homosexual individuals serving in the armed forces."

Heh. They used the word "homosexual" and the term "back-door" in the same sentence. It's teh funnay.

Stephen Harper: Illegitimate To The Fuckin' Core

According to Stephen "Hey Guys, I'm COOL!" Harper, the upcoming same-sex marriage vote lacks legitimacy because it will only pass with the support of the Bloc Quebecois.

Harper branded Bill C-38 the product of an illegitimate union. "I think because this bill is only being passed with the support of the BQ, I think it will lack legitimacy with most Canadians. The truth is most federalist MPs will oppose this legislation," he said.

Funny, I seem to remember that a few short weeks ago, ol' Mr. Harper was trying to bring down the government by opposing the budget - and almost succeeded...

BECAUSE OF THE FUCKING BLOC!

So, ending pointless discrimination against gays and lesbians isn't right because it will only happen because of the Bloc, but bringing down the government would have been just dripping with "legitimacy"?

What's with that, Stevie? Is this a bad morning after? Personally, I think that you woke up next to a seperatist one morning and started to feel guilty and insecure about yourself. You've been struggling with your feelings for years, haven't you? You're thinking, "I'm sick... but maybe I was born this way..." Every time you slip under the covers with a Frenchman, you know that you'll regret it in the morning, but it's the heat of the moment... the passion... the real and hidden you coming out to play before being crammed back down...

Let Her Die, Goddammit

Once again, I'm the one who has to ask the hard questions: what the holy fuck is wrong with the Schindlers?

First of all, I should not know who the hell these people are. They turned the death of their daughter into a media circus, something that I doubt that anybody would want, and now they're celebrities of a macabre sort. Their daughter Terri - relegated to veggie-tard status by some sort of unexplained heart failure - was finally allowed to die by the one person who had the right to make that kind of decision, her husband and legal guardian. I'm sure all of you know the story.

Now, they're disputing the results of the autopsy something that should never have been made public in the first place. Now, I know that news reports often mention the results of an autopsy, as in "an autopsy has revealed that the victim died of a gunshot would to the chest". I've never seen a report that specifies the weight of the brain (615 grams, 1/2 normal) at the time of death, however. In a way, I was hoping that this would shut her family up so that we would never have to hear from them ever again. Of course, this was not the case. They immediately began to interpret the results to suit themselves.

To the Schindlers: Y'know what? I don't know how you managed to watch your daughter suffer for twelve years without putting her out of her misery and yours. Moreover, I'm amazed that you couldn't see that she would never come back. This is what "faith" does to people: it forces them to ignore the obvious. She was, for all intents and purposes, dead. She was blind and unable to feel pain, for chrissakes. Most of her brain was gone. Not just damaged, completely missing. You can't start a car without an engine, you can't rehabilitate a person without a goddam brain. Then again, maybe you're proof that people without brains can function in society...

My sympathies lie with the woman who died twelve years ago when she collapsed. A life cut short, ended before it should have been. They lie with her husband, who had to watch this grostesque farce play out for over a decade and being made to look like a deranged monster the entire time. They lie with the parents who lost their child over a decade ago, not the attention whores and morons that their misguided belief that she could be brought back has made them.

Death has come and gone. Say goodbye and move the fuck on.

As of late, I've been thinking about how lucky I am.

Maybe lucky isn't the right term. Luck goes hand-in-hand with superstition, which is a kissing cousin to religion. I'm not superstitious and I don't have a religion, so I suppose luck is excluded by default. Still, it's hard to explain just how I got to where I am today. Random chance and something related to quantum physics (yes, I know, everything is related to quantum physics) are probably good bets.

I have a job where I have the opportunity to write things like this in between watching TV box sets on my laptop and playing old strategy games. I have a nice apartment, a decent coffeemaker, a barbecue that starts after a few tries, two reasonably reliable computers, and a television that does a workman-like job of presenting me with entertainment. Moreover, I've got Cait, who, along with two entities who shall remain nameless and speciesless, are my whole raison d'etre.

Don't fuck with a happy man.

(I'll go back to being bitter later.)