World of Warcraft trial - Days 6 - 8

Time is running short. Soon I'll have to decide whether or not to subscribe.

I made a new human mage (Omacmage) on the Maelstrom server, and got him up to level 8 fairly quickly. I've stalled out a bit at that point, though; the quests I have are too deadly. Of course, part of the problem is that I've been doing them solo.

Teri and Sebastian call for me about every five to ten minutes when I'm on the computer, you see. If I'm in a dangerous area, I quit the game; otherwise I just go AFK. So I can't do much real playing until after they're both asleep. That's sometime between 8:30 - 9:15 or so.

But I've been staying up WAY too late, past midnight several nights in a row. This was killing me. I damn near collapsed on Sunday, and passed out on the couch several times. I can't live like that. So if I do subscribe, I need to work out some way to not stay up late. I honestly don't know if I have the willpower for that, though.

Another issue: will this eat up all my spare time? I'd like to get some writing done, as well as some work on my RQ website. WoW might make that more difficult.

- I got lost in Stormwind (?), the first major human city. It took me quite a while to find my way out. When I did, some annoying little level-71 PC followed me and challenged me to a duel five or six times. Annoying. I declined, of course. Why did he do that?

- So as to see both sides of the game, I created a Horde character on the Maelstrom server as well. He's a Tauren shaman called Omacsham. I regretted that name soon after; B'Dank (a bull-man from a Cordwiner Smith story) or Beef (from "The Story of Beef!") would have been better.

He was an interesting character to play. Not evil, though I'd thought that the Horde was evil. Instead, the Tauren culture was clearly based on native American culture, very nature-oriented. I've played him up to 8th level, and he seems fairly effective and fun to play. I have to wonder how on earth the game gets the Tauren to work together with some of the obviously evil races of the Horde, though!

World of Warcraft trial - Days 6 - 8

Time is running short. Soon I'll have to decide whether or not to subscribe.

I made a new human mage (Omacmage) on the Maelstrom server, and got him up to level 8 fairly quickly. I've stalled out a bit at that point, though; the quests I have are too deadly. Of course, part of the problem is that I've been doing them solo.

Teri and Sebastian call for me about every five to ten minutes when I'm on the computer, you see. If I'm in a dangerous area, I quit the game; otherwise I just go AFK. So I can't do much real playing until after they're both asleep. That's sometime between 8:30 - 9:15 or so.

But I've been staying up WAY too late, past midnight several nights in a row. This was killing me. I damn near collapsed on Sunday, and passed out on the couch several times. I can't live like that. So if I do subscribe, I need to work out some way to not stay up late. I honestly don't know if I have the willpower for that, though.

Another issue: will this eat up all my spare time? I'd like to get some writing done, as well as some work on my RQ website. WoW might make that more difficult.

- I got lost in Stormwind (?), the first major human city. It took me quite a while to find my way out. When I did, some annoying little level-71 PC followed me and challenged me to a duel five or six times. Annoying. I declined, of course. Why did he do that?

- So as to see both sides of the game, I created a Horde character on the Maelstrom server as well. He's a Tauren shaman called Omacsham. I regretted that name soon after; B'Dank (a bull-man from a Cordwiner Smith story) or Beef (from "The Story of Beef!") would have been better.

He was an interesting character to play. Not evil, though I'd thought that the Horde was evil. Instead, the Tauren culture was clearly based on native American culture, very nature-oriented. I've played him up to 8th level, and he seems fairly effective and fun to play. I have to wonder how on earth the game gets the Tauren to work together with some of the obviously evil races of the Horde, though!

Balmier Narnia

We finished reading The Voyage of the Dawn Treader last week. Sebastian enjoyed it very much. So we started right in on The Silver Chair. That has been going very well, too.

The library has a DVD of the British TV series of The Chronicles of Narnia, or at least the first three discs (which cover Lion, Caspian, Voyage, and Chair). We watched the first disc, and well...it was pretty silly. The special effects were awfully cheesy, but that was pretty much to be expected. The pacing was much slower than the movie, of course, and Teri was bored out of her mind; but that was to be expected too (Sebastian wasn't bored at all).

But what got to me was the terrible British overacting. When a British actor is good they're outstanding, but when they're bad they're terrible. And there were a lot of actors in The Lion who were just painfully bad. "Bellowing scene-chewers" seems the best way to describe them. The Witch, in particular, was like a black hole of bad acting. She kept trying to shout her lines louder and louder, and it was simply awful.

When I was in stairflight's production of Romeo and Juliet, some of the other actors urged me to shout more to show that I was angry. I refused. I knew damned well that you can often convey far more anger in a softer voice, and that constantly screaming your lines can be surprisingly ineffective.

Eventually the bad acting got to me. I cracked and started MSTing (that is, commenting on the action MST3K-style). When the Witch's face was on the scream, I dubbed for her "I need some more TOILET PAPER!!!" with the requisite hamminess and eye-rolling. Sebastian completely cracked up, and made me say it again and again for the next two days.

Aslan was quite amusing too. For one thing, he was obviously stuffed. His mouth movements weren't synchronized with his words. So when he was on his way to the Stone Table to be sacrificed by the Witch, and Lucy asked him what was going to happen, I emoted "She's going to cut out my STUFFING!!!". More wild laughter from Sebastian. Ah, the fun. :D

The show of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader is far less silly. The sea-serpent actually scared Sebastian a little (lots of spiky teeth). The effects were better, as was the acting. In The Lion talking animals were played (painfully) by people wearing costumes, and other creatures were portrayed with quite amateurish cartoon effects; in Voyage there was only one talking animal, Reepicheep, and although he was played by a (little person? Is that the correct term?), he was relatively well-played and not too irritating.

Balmier Narnia

We finished reading The Voyage of the Dawn Treader last week. Sebastian enjoyed it very much. So we started right in on The Silver Chair. That has been going very well, too.

The library has a DVD of the British TV series of The Chronicles of Narnia, or at least the first three discs (which cover Lion, Caspian, Voyage, and Chair). We watched the first disc, and well...it was pretty silly. The special effects were awfully cheesy, but that was pretty much to be expected. The pacing was much slower than the movie, of course, and Teri was bored out of her mind; but that was to be expected too (Sebastian wasn't bored at all).

But what got to me was the terrible British overacting. When a British actor is good they're outstanding, but when they're bad they're terrible. And there were a lot of actors in The Lion who were just painfully bad. "Bellowing scene-chewers" seems the best way to describe them. The Witch, in particular, was like a black hole of bad acting. She kept trying to shout her lines louder and louder, and it was simply awful.

When I was in stairflight's production of Romeo and Juliet, some of the other actors urged me to shout more to show that I was angry. I refused. I knew damned well that you can often convey far more anger in a softer voice, and that constantly screaming your lines can be surprisingly ineffective.

Eventually the bad acting got to me. I cracked and started MSTing (that is, commenting on the action MST3K-style). When the Witch's face was on the scream, I dubbed for her "I need some more TOILET PAPER!!!" with the requisite hamminess and eye-rolling. Sebastian completely cracked up, and made me say it again and again for the next two days.

Aslan was quite amusing too. For one thing, he was obviously stuffed. His mouth movements weren't synchronized with his words. So when he was on his way to the Stone Table to be sacrificed by the Witch, and Lucy asked him what was going to happen, I emoted "She's going to cut out my STUFFING!!!". More wild laughter from Sebastian. Ah, the fun. :D

The show of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader is far less silly. The sea-serpent actually scared Sebastian a little (lots of spiky teeth). The effects were better, as was the acting. In The Lion talking animals were played (painfully) by people wearing costumes, and other creatures were portrayed with quite amateurish cartoon effects; in Voyage there was only one talking animal, Reepicheep, and although he was played by a (little person? Is that the correct term?), he was relatively well-played and not too irritating.