There Is A Part 5 To This Part 6

Now that I'm secure in both college and housing, finished with the bulk period of my job, and bored to death of you fuckers who are back again....I am fighting with myself over reactivating my WoW account. Not for any lengthy period of time - I definitely don't plan to play it anything but sporadically in Humboldt (As I assume I'll be wading waist-deep in beautiful, willing girls) - but it would be nice to have something to tide me over until then.Yet even with that clearly flawless logic, I can't seem to get up the nerve to type in my credit card info again. I've finally figured out why: I haven't continued the Neverending Stoooooorrrrrrryyyyyyyy:

THE AGE OF CHANGE, or More Like Wrath Of The Bitch King, Am I Right Guys? Guys?

My last dispatch ended on an optimistic, slightly glass-eyed note. I flew off into the stark Arctic sun, freshly 80, ready to begin the arduous but rewarding task of clawing myself once more up the infinite ladder that is Warcraft.
That's pretty much what happened. The Burning Crusade, now that I can analyze it from a well-focused hindsight perspective, was revolutionary in every imaginable many ways. But it was far from perfect - we just didn't know it at the time. The introduction of flight changed the daily experience of the game - it allowed for three-dimensional landscapes, separated by large stretches of land that were punishing to traverse by land but delightfully playful to soar over on wings of Nether. Each zone of Outland was strikingly different - Nagrand was lush and rolling, Netherstorm was barren and alien, Blades Edge was fascinatingly beautiful and a piece-of-shit-to-navigate, etc.
Northrend blows Outland out of the fucking water.

The developers of Northrend, proud and protective of their work, saw to it that we didn't just jump off the side of our landing party ships, mount up, and fly straight into the razor-sharp maw of ice and cold fire that is Icecrown Citadel, the stronghold of the Lich King himself.
Which was basically what we planned to do. One must keep in mind the state of things near the end of TBC. We (I, indeed, personally) had vanquished the FUCK out of nearly all of the major lore antagonists (and, lets be honest, most of the protagonists too.) of Warcraft history. Illidan got his shit pushed in. Kael'thas betrayed us, or tried to, so we had to kill him TWICE. KIL'JAEDEN THE DECEIVER, ACTING LEADER OF THE BURNING LEGION, WAS LITERALLY PUSHED THE FUCK BACK INTO THE NETHER. What I'm getting at is that, at the very end of TBC there were those of us who (rightfully) wielded the light eternal, the power overwhelming, the raw destructive forces of the arcane, and a giant fucking mace with spikes all over it.
So, to be told upon landing on the misty shores of the Howling Fjord that our mounts were "too damn cold to fly right now" and that we would have to wait until lvl 77 to purchase Cold Weather training for a thousand gold....we were slightly miffed. Did these people, be they Kalu'ak, Vrykul, or Dragonkin themselves, not know Who The Fuck We Were?

We learned quickly that they didn't. And, more importantly, they didn't give a shit, because they could stomp our puny carcasses into red mush faster than we could say "I am Harticus, Defender of the Weak and Paladin of the Li-OH GOD, MY BLOOD, YOU SERIOUSLY JUST TOOK ALL OF MY BLOOD OUT OF ME".

Northrend was beautiful, and hard, and different, and cinematic, and every adjective I've attributed to it previously. I really blew through every area with exactly the kind of fervor I promised I wouldn't, but I have since made up for it by revisiting each one in painstaking detail - yeah, thanks Daily Quests.
I reached 80 quickly, and legitimately felt like I had earned it thanks to the overall epicness that permeated every zone, quest, and dungeon I visited. The additions to each class are abundant and game-changing, and most importantly, in my favor as a Retribution Paladin.
When you're a holy warrior of the light, an entire continent of ravenous, mindless undead is basically a big inviting playground. Northrend is a place where you can get some serious smiting done. I SMOTE. All the screenshots I took of me in combat are useless; all you can see of me is a whirling glowing golden avatar of righteousness.
Actually, William's Death Knight Zekeil and I smote together a lot of the time. We were both still in Neurotic, on new characters, at the Friend rank. Technically we were Djinn's friends, but since he didn't play anymore we were just got stuck on the bottom rung in a high-end guild full of shitfuckers people we didn't know.
Neurotic had changed since their halcyon days of Sunwell. Gurgoth left. Djinn left. Littlemee left. Forrk left. The highest-ups retired to be cast in bronze etc. etc., the point is that it was under new management, and half of them were pricks and half of them were busy.

Good thing WotLK instances were basically puggable with any combination of madmen and idiots, with any group composition, with any gear. If you have half a brain, you could get as far as halfway through the highest raid instance at the time. WotLK was substantially easier ON AVERAGE, which is to say that everyone acquired gear at a faster rate, killed more bosses, had more stuff to do, felt more powerful, and overall actually had more fun than previous iterations. The learning curve had softened, is all. The really dumb stayed shitty and the really great were still amazingly powerful.

Lacking the real drive and time for serious raiding anymore, Zeke and I soon settled into a comfortable medium-high level of game immersion. There was always something to do that was new that could potentially yield a tangible upgrade to our characters. We were able to actively watch ourselves get more powerful as we slowly replaced our quest blues with heroic purples. And it took time, and there were several hilarious occurrences that people who don't play WoW would not laugh at. (I spent four hours in an Occulus run, I made Zeke run H UK fourteen times for pants I wanted, I won an incredibly rare protodrake first time I set foot in the Pinnacle, blah blah)

Eventually we reached, after a few months, a plateau. We had gotten the most possible out of the game at our current level of commitment - we had best in slot gear. Not THE best in slot, of course, because we didn't raid - our gear was still medium good - but it couldn't get any better unless we devoted more time. Which is the drawback of every MMO, but we knew that going in. So our enthusiasm wound down in direct correlation with our immediate rewards. Every now and then, we would wiggle our way into part of a Neurotic alt raid, but since nobody really gave a shit about us anymore (and thanks to my naturally condescending and grating somewhat standoffish personality) we never got very far. This feeling was not limited to just us - everyone was getting impatient for new content. People were running around with Immortal titles and Twilight Drakes, all the stuff was done.

So we dithered around until Patch 3.1 dropped like the massive load of reinforcements it was. Ulduar gave us all loregasms and some of us incredible loot. The Tournament gave us gold and cool shit. Dual Spec allowed for even more flexible group comp and a breath of fresh air into our classes. Now, at the touch of a button, Harticus could sheath his bloody spear and pull out a sword and board, going from Ret to Prot and back again. In the same vein, Zeke could now switch from immovable block of ice to unstoppable deathbringer. I started tanking and he started doing damage, and we were annoyingly well-matched in all respects. I got lucky one raid and got handed the best tanking weapon in the game.

But we still didn't actually play for longer amounts of time, and so our rewards were still respectively medium. We each rolled shaman alts that we lavished heirlooms and twink items upon, then petered out around lvl 28. Holidays came and went and we got new swag. Other things in life were more interesting and important, for once. I rolled a second alt one night, fueled by hunter nostalgia, but she too lost my interest.

Eventually after one too many frustrating moments both in and out of the guild, Will and I realized that we damn sure weren't going to keep spending 15 dollars a month over the summer. You could buy a fifth of vodka for 15 dollars! And it would yield the same amount of entertainment, with a much higher chance of females!
SO, with no particular fanfare or sorrow, we let our accounts run dry a week or two before people started landing back on Maui for the summer. Will ran out before I did, so I spent my last week tying up loose ends and doing all manner of odd accomplishments.

Of course, now I'm sick of you layabouts again, and Patch 3.2 has promised to pluck for me the very stars from the sky. We're going to run away together to Paris and open a small bistro, earning just enough to get by. Our love will overcome all obstacles and we'll have more fun than you can ever imagine.

So I'll probably start playing again.

Give Me Reincarnation, Or Give Me Death

You may recall a movie I was all agog about back in March that was all lovely and indie and full of Zooey Deschanel. (Here it is again)


I bring this up because there is a new one coming out! Equally indie, equally Zooey!

I just have to decide which of the two male leads I prefer. It is a close race.


...Rummaging around in the dregs of my internet history trying to come up with any remaining scraps of other video news that I can link and use to avoid actual writing.

Here is a fat dumb cat that made me laugh to the point of tears.


Remember these guys? Turns out I like them. And not just because I think the singer looks like Shia LaBeouf.

Have some more noise noise noise.



KT Tunstall, take us home.

Permanent Cripples, Failed Seekers...

Come summertime this blog declines, because instead of sitting here typing I am out there doing face to face.
That is a terrible lie, but it's true.
This place exists as a conduit for my lightnings, and in the mean time I cram it with obligatory filler - musings, music, miniscule daily things.
In between the lightning.
The one thing I avoid on my blog is retelling a story from my day - My day, not my experiences, but my actions. I've already done them, and during the summer days anything I've done that'd be worth writing about is probably done in the company of the people who would read this damn thing in the end.
But something, god, something has to go here or I just end up working all day and doing nothing all night.
So. Gonzo journalism. Or rather, "narrative non-fiction". I want to try and be the writer I idolize, and if I can fake the personality over to you folks at the same time it'll just be the second bird.
Somewhere between an essay and a diatribe, between journalism and opinion. Part drug-fueled stream of consciousness, part tailored calculated message. Autobiographical, to be sure, but not focused on ME so much.
I don't want to report on the happenings of the night. I want to show you the happenings I saw.

>As soon as we pulled to a stop, I leapt out of the truck and gathered my things. The ride to the party was enough to drive a man to drink, which was good, because it fulfilled its purpose perfectly. It certainly helped set the tone of the night – although, as I was soon to find out, everyone there would have given you a different answer as to what the tone actually was.
In the meanest sense, it was to be Kaitlin Wright’s 20^th birthday party.
Facebook had been whipping us all into a frenzy for a week now, offering tiny thumbnails of the strangers we would be mingling and competing with and for. The guest list set my teeth on edge, as did the merciless enthusiasm. Girls calling each other “gurl” is a warning sign of the highest caliber. There was a definite divide. We knew this going in. I packed accordingly.

We were stationed in Haiku, so I wore a jacket that I immediately took off. The plan was to get terrifically drunk outside near a fire, then retire to our tents. Lacking a tent, I was faced with the only other option: Get so drunk I couldn’t tell the difference. To meet my brain halfway I was armed with a sleeping bag and a pillow from home. To meet the ground halfway, I was armed with a personal bottle of Ketel One supplied by my driver and accidental nemesis. I owe that man sixteen dollars eventually.

Apprehension gripped me as I strode towards the light of an open garage. No recognizable soul was in sight. Was I making a dreadful mistake? I didn’t even like Kaitlin, regardless of how Jesus Lord! large her house was turning out to be. Haiku houses have a disconcerting tendency to stretch into the darkness, and I was fumbling blindly around for several minutes before I located the comforting sounds of people I knew being raucous.

A door I hadn’t seen before blew open and I was greeted by friends lugging a large water cooler. A fleeting wave and empty congratulations went to the birthday girl in her sparkling tiara, - which I instantly planned to and eventually did steal and equip during the course of the night – but my soul needed comforting, so I followed Roland and William. This was the lauded “Jungle Juice”, a perennial college concoction favorite and reason for my personal pure bottle of booze. Designed by students for students, this mixture has the express purpose of removing layers of clothing off of women - by the taste of it, via a chemical process that eats away at fabric. Throughout the night, it was assigned various pet names, usually involving a combination of a name for the ruler of that dark place below and a bodily fluid of choice.
The drinking began immediately following my swift assessment of fellow partygoers. It had been some time since I had gotten truly belligerent, so my enthusiasm was emphatic that night. Having had each test conversation turn belly up within the first few minutes (usually ending with my talking partner running away screaming about “Those eyes! That horrible vacant stare at my jugular!” or something similar), I had no other purpose at that party but to capsize myself and anyone stupid enough to fall into my gravitational field.

People-watching is a sport, and if anyone tells you otherwise it’s a good tip off to sidle away before they start talking to you about Popular Sports Team or Popular Band.
People-watching while drunk is a contact sport, and if anyone tells you otherwise it’s a good chance to grab their shoulders and shout at them about their vile life choices until they pry themselves loose. It’s the only way they’ll learn.


Later in the night, after I had both pissed off of a high altitude location that will remain undisclosed and stolen a priceless plastic tiara, I became entangled in and subsequent god-emperor ruler of the treehouse, which was a dark and shadowed land. I had to, given the circumstances. People kept adding more fire to the fire, which is a terrible strategy when you aren’t drunk enough to forgive people for being so damn ugly all the time.

Thankfully I had comic relief the entire night provided by David, who cradled his atrocious cheap wine bottle to his chest like a newborn, assuring concerned patrons that he was not in fact chronically depressed but merely a merlot aficionado. We smoked taquitos like cigars, and cigarettes like cigarettes, and drank vodka like water and water like vodka and Jungle Juice like it was Uranium which is to say we did not drink very much of that.

Some damn fool had the audacity to bring a vegetable platter, whether as a cruel joke or honest ignorance I do not know. We fed them to the dog and carried on our violent and timid sexual advances. People made moves on people and people were made moves upon and a good time was had by 66% of everyone. Eventually it began to rain and the whores were washed away, leaving equally vacant empty seats in their stead. I broke a chair or two, but that was alright because nobody was using it but me.

The night continued on in perfect blurry vision, as valuable belongings got soaking wet and people got slightly more sober. A desperate round of tricksy shots bought me another half hour of observation time as I took mental notes of my surroundings, eager to overturn any remaining stone in the hopes that someone had hidden something, anything, interesting and new. Everyone assured one another how much they really loved you, man, lets keep doing these damn things. Frantic mental checklists were ticked as people stopped thinking about the moment and began to plan and/or worry and/or remember/suffer about the future again, which was distressingly nearer this side of four in the morning and full of annoying emotion.

Tents were thrown out both metaphorically and literally. The conflagration was put to sleep and we made a mass exodus to the house, sleeping guardians be damned. Like refugees we huddled together, clutching at whatever we had managed to blindly grab. Some of the more forward thinking among us held water bottles and a sound investment in tomorrow. The most optimistic but foolish among us (myself included among these poor souls) held one last stand in the stark fluorescence of the same garage where it had all started. A kindhearted if innocent girl tried to snatch my cigarettes away from me first by force, then by guile.

I had to dodge her well meaning lunges both verbal and physical while defending my cargo. It was during this dance that I finally caught sight of myself in the hood of a well-polished riding mower currently containing two Zaleski twins. Disheveled hair, an almost palpable aura of disbelief and sangfroid, and (I was particularly pleased to note) a broken cigarette hanging out my mouth a la Every Anime Character Ever. So entranced was I by my own countenance it gave my opponent time to close ground and throw a perfectly good vintage pack of American dream Marlboros into the bushes. I drew myself up to my full imperious drunken height of twenty feet, ready to deliver a fierce oration linking artistic merit and all around fantasticness with massive tobacco consumption vis a vis If it was good enough for Vonnegut, it was damn well good enough for me and who are you to take away my basic, nay, sole human right to publicly and noisily destroy my body….

When exhaustion kicked in and I deflated, instantly losing all magic and beauty the night had ever held. A shriveled husk of my former jubilant self crawled quietly to my bedroll, bivouacked between a costly coffee table and a couch meant for no human to ever sit on. I slept like a king.

My driver awoke me three hours later at seven, informing me that he had church to go to. I briefly considered tagging along for comic effect, then stood up and declared that if I did not reach my bed within the time limit, not only would the planet Zebes explode, I was going to Murder. Everyone.

[Crazed laughter all around.]

This Is One Big Excuse To Open My 4chan Folder

Exhibit A:
At first I was like


But then I was like FUUUCK YEEEAAAAH M. Night Shyamalan your time of redemption is at hand. This shows great promise to KICK ASS.


(Edit: OH HOLY FUCK UPDATE TIME TO FANBOY THIS BLOG THE FUCK UP. PEEP THIS SHIT.

Do you know who is playing Sokka? Sokka of the Southern Water Tribe? This guy? It is this kid. Jackson Rathbone.


Which is fine! Sure, he's white, but he's got the big Sokka face alright! He sure does look familiar thoughhhhOOOOOOOHHHHSHIIIIIIIIII

Mature cautious optimism.....or PURE HOT RAGE? You decide!
Decide while listening to this!

and this!

Violence Is No Joke. Unless It's A Joke. Then It's A Joke.

I am always caught by surprise by the fact that one can get sunburned at places other than the beach. Apparently if you just stand in the sun for a few hours - no matter where you are - you get burned.

As much as I complain about how devastating it is to have a brother who is made of liquid cool (like the antagonist from Terminator 2, only instead of metal, it's awesomeness), I can take solace in the following fact:

At least he's not Justin Miner.

Justin Miner, friend of my brother since high school and beyond.
Justin Miner, brilliant writer and casual man of letters.
Justin Miner, fashionable Los Angelite and alumni of USC.
Justin Miner, his girlfriend is a model.

Justin Miner, lead singer of Fight From Above



If he was my brother I'd probably just become a hermit and live, scruffy and booze-sodden, in a cardboard box somewhere remote and out of the way.

I'm not sure whether to be relieved or disappointed.

I also like this cover they do! (Of this song by the Ting Tings!)


Oh Justin Miner, once upon a time I beat you at Super Smash Bros Melee after you practiced in my shed.

Step Three: Arrive At A Conclusion

I have found my messiah.
Youtubes own "takeSomeCrime", a french canadian kid who builds off the tecktonik base and infuses it with stylish funk and a relaxed sense of humor. Bits of popping and gliding in between genuine making shit up. To good music. The man is a god. Well, a demigod.
(Primarily the stuff between 0:45 and 1:30 in this video)


(Okay this one I just love the goddamn song, the little steps he takes, and the pose at 1:09)


(HE DOES NOT EVEN NEED ARMS SOMETIMES ARMS ARE FOR CHUMPS)


(............Ladies)



He won me over with a combination of all those videos and the fact that I liked all the music too. Which you will now listen to.



WOAH HOW DID THAT LAST ONE GET IN THERE

Step Two: Gather Data

Edit: Post-Graduate Program

Since I waxed so goddamn poetically about how inextricably linked music was to dancing, I figure it's as good a place as any to start my quest.
First lets list the types of music I listen to: Everything
Now let's cross reference it with the types of music people dance to: Everything.

Now let's narrow it down by popularity and subsequent likelihood of an actual encounter -SLASH- personal preference. You mean the stuff other people like...that you like. Stop talking like a douchebag Shut UP this way I can organize my thoughts logically

RESEARCH RESEARCH RESEARCH







I expect you to watch all six of those and put them in a blender and distill them into a wheatgrass elixir for me to imbibe that will infuse my soul with powahhhh.