Automatic = Convenient?

So I'm waiting for my car get finished up from having an oil change/tire rotation yesterday.  Figured I would run next door to Dennys to have me some breakfast to kill some time.  Before I got a table though, nature was calling and  required me to answer...in a fast way.  Rushing in to the restroom to use the urinal was quite a relief, and that went all well and good.  It was afterward that the real issue came up -- washing my hands....

OK, so I'm all for the whole "SAVE THE WORLD, BE GREEN" way of life.  I like to do my part and save the planet here and there, but there gets to be a point when it is just plain silly and/or ridiculous.  When someone has to fight with various 'green' devices on a daily basis so that they can try and save the planet....that's just dumb.  Below I have included the list of the earth-saving devices that we find ALL over the place today:

1)  Auto paper towel dispensers

These pieces of .... crap? ... give you hardly enough paper to wipe BBQ sauce off of your face if you're eating chicken wings.  I mean, seriously?  Who the hell can actually dry their hands with this little "sheet" of towel they give you.  I don't know about you all, but I like leaving the restroom with my hands dry thank you very much!  I wipe my ass with more toilet paper than this thing gives you....And what's with the LONG ASS time that it takes for it to feed out more.  It's like the damn thing is waiting for you to get frustrated and walk away before spitting more out.  /facepalm

2) "PUSH" water faucets

Alright, this damn idea is PLAGUED with issues!  You get your hands all lathered up good with the lovely scented soap that is available [/sarcasm] and then you have to freaking HOLD the faucet button down in order to keep the water running.  First, you cannot scrub your hands while rinsing AND you have to hold the button down, which more or less nullifies you even washing your hands in the first place.  Granted, you are getting the fecal matter off, but God only knows what you are picking up that other people might have left on the handle.  Annoying...that is all.

3) Motion activated hand dryers

OK, so this one is not quite as annoying as the other items listed above, but there are still times that it bothers me nonetheless.  First off, you look like an idiot swinging your hands around under the damn thing trying to find the stupid sensor so that it turns on.  All the while, you are splashing water all over your pants, which we all know can make you look not so good if you are a guy.  Besides, being able to hammer on that huge button the older versions of these had to turn them on...oh so much fun :o)

Well, that is my rather abbreviated list of annoyances.  You got any good ones?

BlizzCon 2010

Ok, so it's no secret to anybody who plays Blizzard's games that BlizzCon 2010 started today at about 1pm (Central).  Generally there is some huge announcement or cool bit of information released in the first 30 minutes of it.  Last year it was Cataclysm (even though MMO-Champion released virtually all of the information days ahead of the convention), and the year before it was StarCraft 2.  So, when this years festivities got under way people seemed to have such high hopes for something really cool (new MMO maybe?).  Guess what?  Nothing cool and interesting was announced this year; exactly as I had predicted.  I have been saying it for weeks, and with the reveal of the Cataclysm cinematic during the Vikings - Cowboys game last weekend there really wasn't anything really 'cool' left to show.

DOTA for StarCraft 2?  Big freakin' deal.  Nobody really cares, and in my opinion DOTA as a custom maps is not worth the time with games like League of Legends and now with Valve working on their own game, DOTA 2, I really do not think people give two hoots about a new DOTA map for SC2.  I'll concede that there is probably some sort of nostalgic value to the game, but I think people expect a bit more out of it now other than the restrictions of a custom campaign file for the game.  Now, I'm sure there are still more details to come, and people will get all ooey-gooey over it since it's a Blizzard game and it's on SC2, but I'm just not that excited for it.  It looks to me like they are just trying to get some of the people who only play WC3 for DOTA to buy SC2...yay milking the masses?

Hopefully there is some cool stuff released about 4.1 during the Dungeons and Raids panel later today...

WoW - A History (Part I)

An Introduction

Well, it's no secret that much of my life for the last 6 years or so has consisted of playing World of Warcraft, so I figured it was only appropriate to give an introduction to who I am in-game, and my progression through it over these last 6 years.  BE WARNED -- this will be a lengthy wall of text.  There, you have been warned, so if you do not feel like reading my long and boring post then just close the window now, or click the back button at your earliest convenience.


The Beginning
I was unsure how I wanted to structure this write-up, so I figured it would be best to just start from day 1 (-ish?).  For the longest time after WoW first launched, I could be quoted on several occasions saying "I will never pay to play a game -- not ever!"  It only took about a year and one boring week during winter break during my freshman year of college, and I was hooked.

I joined up with a bunch of guys that I had originally met playing Natural Selection.  Gauis and Sil3nt (I have no idea if they even play WoW anymore) ran the guild called Aeternum Extorre.  It is here while leveling from 1-60 that I had the privilege of meeting some people that I'd come to know for quite some time.  Granted, I don't speak with any of the people who were here with me any longer (minus Tim); however, being able to establish those relationships in-game really helped make spending all that time in front of my computer less depressing.

From <AE> I moved on to <The Reckoning>, which at this point I believe was in its second iteration.  I joined them roughly 8 months after I started the game when I was level 60, so that I could experience this "raid" thing everyone was always talking about.  For anyone who knows anything about vanilla raiding, you'll know that T2 raiding was a blast.  BWL (Black Wing Lair for those not in the know) was an amazing raid instance, and was quite difficult, at least from my POV.  About the time that The Burning Crusade hit, TR had melted away and been reformed once.  By this time I somehow made it into a leadership position in the guild.  For those of you who actually enjoy doing this, I commend you, because I hated every damn second of it.  All the drama-llama people who were also in officer chat alongside me made it quite stressful.  Believe me when I say that the day I no longer had to log in and get spammed with QQ was a good one.  TR went on in that fashion for a while, but then had to be rebuilt a few more times early on in BC.  I stuck with it until TR 4.0 (or so?) and then finally called it quits.  It was at this point I applied to and joined one of the most fun guilds I have even been in, and even today, over 2 years after leaving bits of it are still with me -- <Cross of Vengeance>.

Well, I had originally planned to drone on about my journey through WoW all in one post, but I have quickly come to realize that it'd be one extremely long post, so instead of completely boring you with that I'm going to break it up into several parts.  Don't ask me why I am actually taking the time to do this, but for some reason it just feels better to actually write about what I have been through in this game as it makes all of the time I've spent seem less wasted if I can pull something from it or share it with someone else.  Anyway, parts II and III are still in the works.  For now, that is all -- I need to go to sleep I think.