Play this.

So, the confounding thing about this is that it is “From the creators of Diner Dashâ„¢”. Can anyone, anywhere, tell me who these people are?? I want to know. I mean, I know that PlayFirst is covetous of their exclusive relationship with their money tree, but still! I mean, are we talking space aliens here?

Who makes these games?

And how can I get more?

[edit: Oh, and if you haven't played Diner Dash, then goddamn it, I thought I told you to play it. ]

Sometimes you hit it off with people unexpectedly. Who knows why. This, right here, appears to be one of those times.

Bouncing around in Azeroth, I end up grouped with this fantastic rogue. He joined us as a replacement for a horrible rogue we ditched (I mean, come ON, we’re running Scholomance 5-man, there is no room to fuck around, people, and this guy was awful). Soon, this guy was doing more damage than I think the rest of us were doing combined. He knew when to sneak in and knock an NPC out, and when not to, without being instructed in the fine art of pull-itude… and he was a freakin’ comedian to boot.

Exactly my kind of gamer.

The funny thing about making a game friend is that there are two utterly unconnected relationships resolving themselves at the same time:

1. The first is sheer personality: do you like the person, and can you hang out. That one’s familiar. We even do that in real life sometimes.
2. The second one, though, is more secret. We’re playing a game, after all, and the main reason I’m going to want to hang out with you is if that furthers my gaming goals. That means that our play styles need to match as well.

Managing both at the same time is a little strange, and that’s what I want to talk about, just briefly. And then I’ll show you some pictures. I know how you are about that.

The crucial moment in any online gaming friendship is a moment that I call The Lull.

Here’s how it works: we’re gamin’ along, and we’re chattin’ along, and… inevitably we run out of witty things to chat about.

Now, we’re having a fine time playing, but… this strange silence…

We are after all humans, and so we start to wonder if the other guy is okay, or if they are bored or whatever. So… you try to ping them with something witty. But (as I mentioned) we’re all out of wit… so it’s kinda flat…

The Lull has struck.

How two people navigate The Lull is the most important dynamic in whether or not they will be able to hang together, eventually banding together to strike down the immortal enemies of all that is good and righteous, saving the world from certain destruction and slavitude. Turns out that the best friends you can make online are ones that you’re okay with not talking to.

[ Aside: That isn't entirely untrue in the real world as well, but the situation is exacerbated online by the inability to see your companion. Perhaps, someday, we will have an Emotion Reader that will scan the emotion on my face and transfer it directly to my Avatar. Until then? Words. ]

Will my new-found rogue friend be one of those who stand the test of time? Will The Lull claim another victim??

Who fucking knows. When I told him I was a man in RL he said I was “creepy”. This made me laugh.

So, now the pictures.

Turns out that just about everyone looks great in a suit. My companion, however, is not entirely trusting of the screen shot process.

And, I’m a lot hotter than he is.

All the same, he’s a goddamn cut-up.

That’s all I have for you tonight. You’ll have to accept that for the cold, hard truth it is.

Grr. I just lost a huge post because the power failed in my office.

I don’t have the spirit to re-build it. Sometimes, what you are writing is a process on it’s own, and reproducing it is next to impossible. I think this was one of those posts. Maybe I’ll return to the topic later, once I’ve finished stabbing this screwdriver into my goddamn defective battery backup system over and over and over.

On the bright side, my wargaming bridge got painted over the weekend, and I’m startled by how well it turned out. This picture is, of course, horrible, and does not really get across the detail that the model contains, but you can kinda see the green ink job I did for moss in the stone cracks…

And, more marvelously, the bridge was bloodied that very day.

Those are unpainted Chaos Warriors on the left, being (as it turns out) overrun by painted Beasts of Chaos on the right. Which just proves the age-old adage that painted figures always win.

Which helps explains my losing streak. At least that’s what I tell myself when I’m crying myself to sleep.

I hate getting fat.

It’s hopelessly degrading, and frustrating, and humiliating, and life-threatening, and stupid. Yet, here I am.

At lunch yesterday, I was talking about my fascination with my stupid behavior with a smoker friend of mine, and we hit on a remarkable shared experience: that of standing there, observing yourself engaging in a behavior you know will kill you if you sustain it over time, and having the knowledge of that fact affect your behavior in no way whatsoever.

It’s amazing, actually. I stand there, look at some fattening snack that I don’t need, and think to myself “that’s the shit that I need to stop eating, right there. That’s the bad stuff.” And then, I walk over, and help myself to it.

o.O

(That’s an emoticon for raising one eyebrow, by the way. See? It’s two eyes? The period is the nose? Yeah. Picked that up on WoW, and have been unable to stop. Again with the compulsive behavior.)

What’s even more remarkable is that I have, in the past, managed to connect the notion of continuing to eat like I do with denying my kids of their father in their adulthood. I mean, if I keep this up, there’s a good chance I’m going to kick it before my grandchildren are in highschool.

Consider that I know what that feels like. My dad died in his sleep at 51 (of being fat, methinks), and I still harbor a certain resentment against him for giving me an adulthood without him. It sucks, frankly.

Yet, I stand there, looking at the open bag o’ Doritos that my co-workers have thoughtfully left out on the table after our TGIFriday meeting, and go ahead and take a few.

Or, a lot. What’s astounding to me is that I can see my children’s faces as I’m doing this, and it doesn’t prevent me from taking the destructive action.

What. The. Fuck.

I have, it seems, a remarkable ability to embrace and endure horrendous internal paradoxes. The strongest emotion I feel about all this is fascination and horror, horror at my lack of horror over my actions (if that makes sense).

My talent, it seems, is to be able to observe the horrendous, in both the abstract and the personal, and understand it very deeply. This, without any desire to actually alter the (infinitely predictable) outcome that awaits at the end of the road I’m walking.

Perhaps to distract myself from the fate in store for me, I have become quite bemused by certain small things that have happened along the road to robustness. I have an idea that all large men go through these little milestones, that they are a kind of shared cultural event (like driving a car for the first time, or your first sexual experience).

These, however, I imagine are only discussed when among other men, and only when sitting around a table somewhere reasonably anonymous. Like a bar. With drinks to lubricate the mind.

Here, then, is the progression of initiations I encountered, and which I am coming to believe all men encounter, while traveling on the road to becoming a Fat Boy:

The Belly
The first event was when I stopped simply growing larger in general, and began to poke out in front. The arrival of the actual belly is a moment not easily forgotten, and is filled with horror. Dieting ensues.

Then, horror fades, and is replaced by familiarity. Dieting skips, stutters, and dies.

The Hanging Shirt
The second great event was when I could no longer bear to tuck in my shirt. Time it was that tucking in my shirt made for good form, and I could boldly carry my chest about (as it was still larger than the supporting gut).

Then, one day, tucking it in only made it more clear how much larger my gut was than my waist.

The best solution to this, as it turns out, is to simply leave the shirt untucked. A draped shirt, you see, although it doesn’t actually hide the enormousness underneath it, at least obscures it. Button-down shirts are actually better for this than T-shirts.

Since I made this discovery, I have been observing my well-gutted friends and co-workers and, uh, everyone I see. And lo, I’ll be damned if every single one of them hasn’t learned the same trick. Some go for sports jerseys, some go for button downs, but no one save those most comfortable with their rotundity tuck the goddamn thing in. Look around, see for yourself.

The Belly Drops
The most recent event (and, in some ways, the most horrifying) was the day that I realized not only that I had been holding in my gut for years, but that I could not, in fact, hold it in any longer.

I swear, this is what happened: I woke up one morning, looked at myself in the mirror, noticed that I was straining to keep it in, and let it go… and I gained 20 pounds in 0.2 seconds.

I told this story to a friend of mine at work. He laughed and laughed (I have very sensitive, kind friends), and said that he was wondering what had happened, because I looked like I had gained a bunch of weight recently. I assured him that it was just my belly dropping.

Take a look around, and see if you can find any men that have a sort-of large belly. I daresay, you won’t find many. There’s no-belly guys (who are holding it in), and then there’s large belly guys (who let it all hang out). I haven’t seen many in-betweeners.

…

That’s it so far. What horrors lie in store in the future, my dear and beloved friends? I’ll keep you posted.

http://www.youtube.com/watch.php?v=Yhm1ClW5uAY

Frost shoooooock!!