As usual on Mondays, I got up early, snuck out of bed, and rolled up to the JFZ.
I have a severe case of the road rage. Road rage is a disease that afflicts 1 in 1 drivers across the Americas. It’s running rampant, like facebook, it’s gotten out of control. The symptoms are not only detrimental to you, but could potentially be fatal to complete strangers around you. Like when you take out a pistol and blow that stupid motherscratcher’s head off who just cut you off in traffic with his giant truck with “Roll Tide” bullshit all over it. Roll deez nuts, dog.
You may think that you just did the world a favor, and you probably did, but unfortunately our society does not tolerate vigilante justice (read a Batman comic sometime for proof. one of the good ones.).
Being as I am a sufferer of this terrible disease, I get pissed in traffic. I’ve calmed down some over the years, meaning that my symptoms are not as pronounced as they once were. For instance, instead of hanging my head out of the window and yelling at people and keeping a weapon in the car at all times, I now just honk, with an occasional flipping of the Bird. “The Secret Sign” as my dad would say. Dad useta say that when people would flip him off in traffic, “Oh, the secret sign! He must be a member!” Naturally, abiding by secret society rules, meant my dad was now obliged to give the secret sign back to them. The rituals of this club also, apparently, sometimes included impromptu street races.
But! I do get my boxer briefs in a wad sometimes while in the traffic. I especially get them in a wad, a plum knot even, when I find traffic in places, or at times, when I least expect it. Like at 5am on my way to the JFZ.
I know traffic stories are boring and, usually, it’s hard for the audience to understand exactly what happened, thereby making you, the storyteller, just seem like an asshole. Therefore, I will keep this brief…
There was a lot of traffic out on my way to the gym this morning. There usually is not, so I got extra pissed off.
My 5am drive to the gym is usually a pretty good time. It’s dark, there’s no one out, and I listen to relaxing music and drink as much water as I can stomach. When that gets disturbed, I get disturbed. Which means that I lash out and swear a lot and yell at my fellow motorists things like, “WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING OUT??? GO HOME AND GO BACK TO BED!!!”
I half assume that everyone else who is out is drunk or high or in a gang. Who, in their right mind, would be up and driving around at 5am? If you’re not headed to the JFZ, you should be home in bed, dreaming of the one that got away. And that is the truth.
All this hubbub in the morningtime got me all worked up, so that by the time I got to the JFZ I was ready to strangle that daggum whirling bird. It also put a cloud in my mind that prevented me from thinking straight. Therefore, I left my new Martex Brand Hospitality Hand Towel in the car. Much to my dismay, this meant I had to use the JFZ’s paper towels to wipe myself, and the equipment, off with. I realize that this is exactly what I was doing not even a week ago, but Martex Brand Hospitality Hand Towels have spoiled me with their luxurious softness and gleaming white pure-as-the-sweat-off-a-unicorn’s-balls finish. I know unicorns are played out. Fuck it, that’s how pure these towels are.
My check better be in the mail, Martex, because your towels are average. And I blame them for making me spell “Hand” like “Hnad” three times in a row. Is this a terrorist conspiracy? Martex, be honest with me, are you a front for an elite covert terrorism operation known simply as “Hnad” (which I pronounce like “huh-nod”)? I’ve got my eyes on you, “Martex”. If that is really your name.
Right! So the JFZ felt my wrath this morning, even moreso than last Monday, and last Monday I was pumped up like Schwartzenanthiggerjigger on weeeeeed, man. Mondays are always a good day for me in the gym. On Sundays I’m ready to go back, after taking Saturday off, but I wait and let my fuzzy ballfruit get good and heavy with testosterone and unleash my midlife-crisis onto whatever unsuspecting whirly birds or Trilogy of Terrors happen to be close by. When looking at it from that perspective, I think it is a good thing to take the weekends off.
Ok, so I was going to include, in this post, some stuff about tabeletop wargames, but since the word counter is telling me that I’m at over 800 words right now, the tabletop gaming post must wait… or this post is liable to end up at like 5 googleplex words. Later today I may come back and post that stuff, but I may save it for tomorrow. I hafta go to the Store today. Celery and shit, ya know…
Meantime, here’s a picture of my fitness idol. My cat. His name is Fletch, or as the dude who bags my groceries at the Store (can you tell my ADHD mind has already moved on from 5am traffic jams on the way to the JFZ… to what is going to go down at the groceria today) calls him, “MISTER Fletch.”
Yes, he is named after the Chevy Chase character. His Make is “big black Halloween cat”, his Model is “Chantilly Tiffany”. Go ahead, do a little googly image search for “Chantilly Tiffany Cat” and you will end up with dozens, nay hundreds, of photos of Mr. Fletch.
He eats and sleeps and runs laps around our house, occasionally ambushing your feet… and he never gains an ounce of fat. Of course, if I lived on a diet of Purina Cat Chow and water, I’d be pretty thin too. Maybe I should get him a can of tuna fish at the store today… hmmm…
One week from today, there will be 333 days until Dragon*Con. Triple threes, three times the magic number. “The past and the present and the future, faith and hope and charity. The heart and the brain and the body, give you three… as a magic number.”
Somewhere in ancient mystic numerology, I’m hoping that this day means luck for me. Secondary to me, I hope it means luck for you too.
Why do we need luck? Why do we need to pin all our hopes on an ancient ideology that probably is the equivalent of putting a quarter into a Fred Flintstone Egg Drop machine? And why does Fred cluck while he’s picking out your prize?
bock bock bock... superball... bock bock
Because, Dragon*Con attendees, one week from tomorrow, October 3rd, is when the Dragon*Con Host Hotels open up their booking for the D*C 2012 dates (August 31 – September 3).
So why do we need luck next Sunday? Because next Sunday is the day that we must remember to set our alarm clocks to be on the phone Monday morning, bright and early. So even though Monday is the day to book your hotel, you really need the luck on Sunday evening. From what I understand, the flood gates open up on Monday, and even calling early in the morning may not guarantee you a room. Magic number, do your duty, hook us up with a room and booty!
A photo I yoinked from the internet of our *hopefully* hotel
My Dragon*Con travel companion and I are going to be attempting to get into the Marriott Marquis, solely out of some impalpable loyalty to Ray Bradbury, who apparently made the bold statement, “This hotel is science fiction!”
I mentioned before that we have only been to Dragon*Con once before. I have no shame in that. I just know there are some D*C vets out there who are rolling their eyes at me. Well, screw you.
Anyway, when we went in 2010 we stayed at one of the official “overflow” hotels. Specifically, the Airport Hilton. While a nice hotel, being so far from the action made it kind of a pain in the ass. They had a shuttle that ran from the hotel to the D*C “area”, which was fine in the mornings, but from what I remember, if you stayed at the Con very late, you had to get a taxi home… because the shuttles quit running at like 10pm or so. The last panels/events don’t even start until 11:30 or somewhere around there! A taxi ride from the Dragon*Con area, out to our hotel, was expensive. So that sucks.
There is no doubt in my mind that staying in a host hotel will up the ante on the Dragon*Con experience, and not just because we don’t have to get taxis to and from our hotel. A host hotel also has “Dragon*Con tv”!!! DCTV is a closed-circuit, 24-hour television programme broadcast only to teevees inside the host hotels. On this channel, you get exclusive programming like event announcements (panel such-n-such has moved to room so-n-so), comedic routines by everyone’s favorite janitors (hand puppets who are almost like the mascots of D*C), and best of all, broadcasting of the “big panels”. So if you stood in line for that Star Trek: the Next Generation panel, but didn’t get in, you can go upstairs and watch it on the death box.
To recap: set your alarms a week from tonight so you can wake up and start calling whatever hotel you want to get into.
another pilfered pic from the internet
A Walk to Rivendell…
I know many of you know this already, but I post to the message boards over at theonering.net. Recently, I became aware of a fitness challenge for Tolkien fans known as the “Walk to Rivendell Challenge”.
At some point, someone somewhere took a ton of time and figured out how many miles walk it was from the Shire to Rivendell. How they did this is a mystery, I am assuming witchcraft and/or divination.
The “Walk to Rivendell” challenge is to walk this same distance over the course of a year. There are milestones along the way (Weathertop, Bree, etc.) so you post, either here or wherever else you want to join up, about where you are, and drink a tasty beverage in celebration.
To be honest, I am not doing the Walk to Rivendell challenge, mostly because I started this blog for, basically, the same reason the Challenge exists: accountability.
But, I did want to share it with all of you because I thought it was a cool way to be “nerdy” and get fit at the same time. You hafta admit, there’s not much that is nerdier than figuring out the math to compute how far it is between two points in a world that doesn’t even exist anywhere other than in books.
I’m going to copy/paste the initial post in the thread over at theonering.net. Also, before I do that, here’s some links so you can get involved if you want to.
CLICK HERE to take the “From fitfordragoncon.com to original thread” challenge.
CLICK HERE to take the “From fitfordragoncon.com to the Eowyn Challenge” challenge. The Eowyn Challenge is the original website dedicated to the Walk to Rivendell Challenge and other Tolkien-related fitness challenges also.
Without further ado, here is my copypasta from the thread over at TORn, as originally posted by member Arandiel:
The There and Back Again Challenge
TORnFolks, our mission is simple: get 13 rowdy Dwarves, one grumpy Wizard and a beleaguered Hobbit all 967 miles from Bag End to the Lonely Mountain in time for the premiere of The Hobbit: There and Back Again (the second Hobbit movie) on December 13, 2013.
How, you ask? Our Challenge is in three parts, a Group Challenge and two Individual Challenges. You can choose to participate in just the Group Challenge or add an Individual Challenge if you want to.
1. There and Back Again Group Challenge Bilbo, the Dwarves and Gandalf traveled approximately 13,900* cumulative miles from Bag End to the Lonely Mountain. For us to get them there, we’ll need to log a group average of about 120* miles per week to reach their destination by December 2013.
Last week, we logged a group total of 63 miles. How are we going to double that figure? By increasing our own level of activity, including more of the types of activity we’re already doing, and inviting more TORn Folks to join us on the journey!
2. Unexpected Journey Individual Challenge So you want to set yourself a goal as well as helping the group? How about following Bilbo’s 967-mile journey from Bag End to the Lonely Mountain! By logging an average of 8.5 miles per week,** you’ll get there by the second movie premiere in December 2013.
3. There and Back Again Individual Challenge Want something more ambitious? Travel the 1934-mile Bag End-Lonely Mountain-Bag End round trip with Bilbo by logging an average of 17 miles per week!***
A Few Tips
Use the conversion charts that grammaboodawg is posting in this thread to convert other types of activity into walking-equivalent miles (thanks, gramma!).
Never underestimate the value of stretching, moderate strength-building, healthy snacks and sleep.
This is a journey, not a race; pace yourself, especially at first, to avoid injury and/or burnout. And make sure your health care provider is okay with your level of activity.
Most important, this is fun! We’ll get much farther when we celebrate the milestones, encourage each other, and throw the occasional party!
Logging Progress To make things easier on the Group Challenge mileage tracker (me!), please include the following format when you log your weekly progress:
Miles covered this week:
Cumulative miles:
Due to, well, life and such, I can’t keep track of the miles anyone logs for part 2 or part 3 of the Challenge (except myself!); please keep your own records, and let us all know how you’re doing! Part 2 and Part 3 participants – we’ll log the miles you report for the Group Challenge, as well.
Group Challenge Progress Miles covered last week: 63
Cumulative miles: 63
Bilbo has just arrived, huffing and puffing, at the Green Dragon, where the Dwarves are saddled up and ready to go. Gandalf will shortly catch up to them on the road, bringing Bilbo’s pipe and pocket handkerchiefs.
As for me, I’m leisurely making my way toward Frogmorton this week. Bill the Treadmill was rather lonely, as I’ve been unexpectedly busy since last Thursday, but next week will be better!
Arandiel
Miles covered this week: 4
Cumulative miles: 16
Goal: There and Back Again!
Please update your mileage via the login page, and be sure to keep a backup record of your miles, in case Warg attack, Wizard-induced blizzard, or other fell calamity causes the Shields page to crash. And see you in Rivendell, or wherever your journey takes you in Middle-Earth!
The Éowyn Challenge/Walk to Rivendell (and beyond) is a Middle-Earth-related fitness walk that began in March 2003, and has been going on with walkers around the world ever since. TORn’s Walk is open to all people and healthy types of activity. Please visit the Éowyn Challenge site, especially the main page and the Walk page, for more information. Useful links, including mileage charts compiled by the late Karen Wynn Fonstad, are on the Tools page.
*Bilbo traveled roughly 967 miles from Bag End to the Lonely Mountain. 967 mi x 15 people = 14,505 miles; however, the Dwarves traveled somewhat less than 967 miles, according to the Eowyn Challenge site – they didn’t visit Gollum or make all the errand-runs around the Lonely Mountain, for example – and Gandalf’s wanderings in The Hobbit are hard to track for a layperson like myself. So, after applying a mathematical technique I like to call “I think I’m somewhere in the ballpark, and I’ve even included most of the miles they took by Eagle, even though that feels like cheating,” I arrived at about 13,900 cumulative miles, which, divided by 116 weeks, averages out to just under 120 miles per week.
**Technically, it’s 8.34 plus a bit; I rounded up to make it easier to track and give folks a little bit of wiggle room!
***Technically, it’s 16.67 plus a bit; see above!
Two days ago I posted pictures of Vlad the Merciless. Vlad the Destroyer. Vlad the Spinal Cord & Shoulder Dislocator.
Whatever title you wish to call him, he is a creature born of smoke and fire and he will not yield. He is 35 pounds of romping, stomping, graveyard destruction and he will leave your joints and spine quivering in pain and fear when he leaves… especially if you do not handle him correctly.
If you do not believe me when I say that kettlebells are born of smoke and fire, watch this video and know that kettlebells are the Balrogs of the fitness world. My personal kettlebell hero, Russian total-badass strongman Pavel, hosts this look behind the scenes as a kettlebell is born out of the fiery pits of Mount Doom.
So yeah, I think you get it by now. Kettlebells are tuff.
There are tons of videos on youtube of how to do exercises with a kettlebell, but instead of just linking to a bunch of them, I thought I’d just tell you the proper way to lift a kettlebell… so you can do the exercises without separating your shoulder or blowing a hole in your intestines or something else unpleasant.
Ok, the first step to kettlebell fitness is picking out which kettlebell is right for you. Personally, I own an RKC-certified black ball of death from Dragon Door, but they are expensive and I only own one because a friend of mine sent it to me in the mail. I know you can get them pretty much anywhere, including stores like Target and Wal-Mart, but I wouldn’t recommend it. You can tell a cheap kettlebell immediately because it will be two pieces. The handle will be welded to the ball. A good kettlebell will be one solid piece of black death. Also, some kettlebells I have seen don’t even have a round handle! Some of the handles I have seen are pentagon shaped and have edges. A good kettlebell handle will be thick and round, not skinny and shaped like geometry class, so it can roll around in your grip easily.
If you are a ladykettlebell user, I would recommend getting the 12kg model, which is 26lbs to us Americanos. This is, honestly, probably going to be quite heavy for most ladies, but that is the idea. Kettlebell is not supposed to be easy. As Pavel says, “When we say kettlebell, we mean strength. When we say strength, we mean… kettlebell.”
Most guys start out with the 16kg model, which is 35lbs. This is what Vlad is and I can assure you, he is quite heavy enuff, thank you. If you are already in shape, you can always get a heavier one, but even if you are a beefcake, I’d recommend the 35-pounder (the next burger at Hardee’s!!!) so you can practice your form before you take on the slobberjaw-size ones that will leave even your overgrown ass in the dirt.
Most people name their kettlebells. Russian names are popular, of course, so a name like Grigori or Nikolai is ideal for kettlebell nomenclature.
Once you own your own kettlebell, it is very important to first learn how to pick it up without hurting yourself. The main thing to remember is to keep your back straight and your body taut (hard to do for el blobbos like myself).
I was going to try and draw a picture of how to do it, but it is too difficult, and if you do it wrong, you’ll hurt yourself. I can’t have that on my conscience.
Here is a step-by-step on how to lift the kettlebell so you can start your kettlebell workout:
1. First, stand over your kettlebell with your feet facing forward and the kettlebell between your feet with the handle running parallel to your body. You should be standing flat-footed, or as near to that as possible, meaning that barefoot is optimum (drop kettlebell on foot at your own risk for maximum discomfort), and your feet should be shoulder-length apart. Keep your back straight.
2. Keeping your back straight, squat down over your kettlebell like you’re going to drop a steaming deuce on it. At the bottom, your back should still be straight and at about a 45 degree angle from the floor. Your feet should not have moved at all. The kettlebell should be sitting between your knees.
3. Grip the handle of the kettlebell with both hands. I usually hold on to the corners of Vlad. You don’t need to grip it too terribly tight, as eventually this stance will lead into swings and other KB exercises that involve slinging your little Vladimir all over the place and require a loose, but firm, grip.
4. Once again, while keeping your back straight and your shoulders squared off (if you round your shoulders, you are liable to pull them plum out of socket and also more likely to injure your back), use both arms equally to lift Vladimir to your chest.
5. Slowly stand up, but as always, keep your back straight and your shoulders square while doing this.
Now that you are proudly standing up with your new pal, facing down your weakness, you can begin several workouts from this position, which we’ll get to at a later date.
There are also plenty of other ways to pick up the kettlebell, most of which lead directly into some sort of fitness routine, but I thought I would share this with you first, as it teaches you proper form and safety while handling the kettlebell.
Plus, if you do this a few times, you’ll be winded and get a workout just from picking up the kettlebell. At least I am.
Vlad will be coming for you in the night..........
As I mentioned, role-playing in any game is where you pretend to be your character. When I played D&D in middle school (that’s not to say that I wouldn’t play now, because I would. in a heartbeat. you got a game goin’?), the best we could do is make a primitive doodle drawing of our characters. I’m pretty sure that none of my friends ever dressed up for a D&D game, or “talked funny”. As fun as that sounds, most of the guys I played D&D with were the types of guys who rode Zorlac skateboards, so you know what that means.
In an MMO, it’s easier to pretend that you are a character because you don’t have your buddies, whom you’ll hafta see in school tomorrow, sitting right across from you. It’s all very anonymous which, like wearing a mask at Mardi Gras, makes people feel more comfortable to do things that they want to do, but might would feel stupid doing with their everyday gang of pals.
That said, I never saw anyone in any game I ever played “talkin’ funny”. I even started characters on Roleplay servers in WoW just to see if anyone was doing it. They were not, and these were even designated roleplay servers (unlike Landroval, the server I play on in LOTRO, which is the “unofficial” roleplay server for lotro). In fact, all of my characters in DAoC were on a RP server, yet I never saw anyone talking funny there, either.
I think I just came to the conclusion that people on RP servers were just nicer, and that made a big difference, especially in WoW, which is notorious for cretins.
(I just wanted to share what the “urban dictionary” says a cretin is, because it’s so close to exactly what I mean. Ahem… “A Person that is: brainless, stupid, child-like, and full of pointless information that makes no sense and appeals only to other cretins. They can be found in abundance in every single populated internet forum, where they race to post as many mind-numbing messages as possible in a single session. In addition, they seemingly interbreed with other cretins, ensuring that their cretinous genes continue long after they end up dead meaning the Internet will never be rid of their kind. More’s the pity.”)
I never saw anyone talking funny in an mmo, that is, until I went to work on lotro.
As soon as I started playing lotro, I immediately noticed that the people were way nicer and more helpful and more mature than the people on WoW. I assumed they were mostly fellow adults. Gone were the Chuck Norris jokes that had so plagued my existence in WoW, replaced with…
…with…
Say…. what the hell are those people doing? It appears as though they are talking funny. And they are using the emotes to communicate back and forth.
Great Scott! I do believe that these people think they are really in Middle~Earth!
It was quite a shock at first, I’ll be honest. And to be even further honest, I wasn’t entirely comfortable with it and thought that it was incredibly stupid and couldn’t understand how anyone could possibly have any fun whatsoever doing that rather than slaying orcs and leveling and building up their crafting abilities to make some serious jack on the auction house (the auction house, or AH, is where you can sell stuff to other players, usually for an enormous profit).
Eventually, my character (my first character) arrived in the bustling city of Bree, which is probably the largest city in the game, and should be known to you other Tolkien fans out there.
My quest led me to an inn. An inn called the Prancing Pony.
I stepped inside and immediately had to just sit back, mouth hung open, and marvel at what was going on in this inn.
There were people dancing, people playing music (the music mechanic of this game is so complicated, I won’t even try to get into it here. suffice it to say that you can play music in the game. you can even start bands and write your own songs. it’s crazy.), and loads and loads and loads of people talkin’ funny.
I hafta admit, I was intrigued.
Even after I had finished my business in Bree, and had moved on to the far reaches of Middle~Earth in my journeys, I would go back to the Prancing Pony just to sit and watch and enjoy the atmosphere. Even though I would not participate (other than a smoke here, a drink there, or a dance or two), I thought then, and still think, that it really added to the atmosphere and the character of the game, and I’m glad that people do it. I’m glad that there are people out there who enjoy getting on a video game and really testing out their improv acting chops by truly pretending to be their dude, or lady, in Middle~Earth.
In time, I started a character specifically to participate in these kinds of activities, and I got him into a kinship that supported that sort of thing. I still don’t go all out, balls-to-the-wall, roleplay, but he does wear appropriate clothes and will occasionally do a dance or share a pipeful of pipeweed with a kin member. I’m trying to get into the swing of things, though I don’t really know exactly how far I’m willing to go into this world.
For a long time, when I was just kickin it in the Prancing Pony every now and then, I thought that roleplay was strictly for people to “hook up” in-game and type dirty to each other. Most of the roleplay that I had seen in the Pony was all about flirting. Allow me to relate to you a story…
I had just gotten done with a quick adventure, and was waiting for the cooldown on my port home to be up (if you own a house in-game you can port there once an hour, and that’s usually where I prefer to log off). I decided to pop into the Pony for a minute, just to see what was going on.
Now, my character is one handsome devil. His beard flows like a waterfall over a mountain and his eyes are as blue as the balls you got on your first date.
So here’s our man, standing around, minding his own business, when a lady character walks over and sends a “tell” (another word for private message) saying, “You up for a little roleplay?”
I send her back a tell that says, “Nah, I’m just waiting for the cooldown on my portal home, so I can log. Thanks anyway. Smiley Face.”
“You sure? I know a private room here at the Pony…”
It’s a dude, I thought. “No thanks, I’m just gonna hang out till I can port home.”
“Can I come with you?”
Definitely a dude. I ported home and haven’t logged on with that character since. Looking back, I should have been more open to the idea, just to see how it goes. I think that all of this roleplay stuff is extremely interesting, especially from a sociological standpoint, and to see where that little conversation could have gone now piques my curiosity.
I know about the “fourth wall” and how there should not be one in mmo’s, especially when roleplaying, but I just can’t help but think about it. The fourth wall is the wall between my character and whoever, or whatever, was doing the talking for that forward lady toon. I think it’s a theatre term. It’s impossible for me not to wonder exactly what that other person is thinking when they say, or do, something “in character”.
Landroval also, being the unofficial roleplay server of lotro, has an ongoing dilemma between the people who talk funny and the people who don’t. I have the feeling that Turbine (the makers of lotro) will never get involved, meaning that they will probably never come out and say that Landroval is the official roleplay server of lotro, for fear of alienating people and, ultimately, losing customers, and thus revenue.
There will always be some tension between the people who think that everyone on Landroval should talk funny, and the people who feel like they shouldn’t be forced to do it, just because they happened to choose this server. Personally, I can’t stand the “RP” nazis. These are the people who get all uptight if you say something OOC (out of character) or do something that doesn’t quite jibe with the established lore of Middle~Earth. Thankfully, there aren’t many of these folks out there. There are, however, plenty of people who have no sense of humor or who take themselves way too seriously and forget that this is a game, and it won’t last forever. The people in your kinship that you are so fake friendly with on a daily basis, if Turbine closed up shop tomorrow and lotro went off the air, they would be gone forever because you have no clue who they are irl. And then where are you?
Sure, I like to have fun and hang out with my kinship, but real life has to come first, because it’s just that. REAL life. If Turbine closed tomorrow, I’d still have my friends and family (although all that time I threw in the toilet crafting “yew hafts” would be gone).
With all that said, lotro is a fun game and it’s a fun game because the people who play it make it fun. It’s fun to run around in the Shire, killing toads and slugs and whatnot. It’s fun to gather together with a bunch of people and pretend like you’re having a party and pretend like you’re drinking loads of ale and smoking loads of pipeweed. As weird as that may sound (why pretend to drink ale when you can have the real thing? I don’t know), it is just another facet of the game, just like killing orcs and leveling up your fishing abilities.
I bring up the “pretending to have a party” thing because last night I attended what I’m pretty sure was the largest in-game, player-controlled event I have ever been involved in.
If you are a nerdlinger like I am, you probably know that, in lore, yesterday was Bilbo Baggins’s birthday. To celebrate, a kinship called “the Sons of Numenor” hosted a party in Rivendell where they shot off fireworks and everyone pretended to drink ale, dance, and smoke pipeweed.
I took some screenshots. (as always, click to make them bigger)
Party in Rivendell
The hobbit that is front and center is me, smoking a pipe and watching the fireworks. The two lady hobbits on my left and right are, I think, members of the same kinship I am in. The dudes in uniform standing up on the rock are members of the Sons of Numenor kinship, and they’re the ones hosting the party and shooting off the fireworks. Yes, I know that I am a nerd.
fireworks!!!
This shot is, again, of yours truly watching the fireworks. In the background you can see the little horse trail that leads down into the Valley of Rivendell. This also gives you a better idea of how many other player-characters were there. Tons.
Last one…
roleplay that that glare isn't there for me, would ya?
This shot is from farther away and is from a first-person perspective. It shows all the people there with the Falls of Imladris behind them. No idea where that glare comes from, it’s not like I took this with a camera or anything.
So it was pretty fun. I always feel like the black sheep of my kinship because I’m old and therefore am constantly making pop culture references that no one gets, so they just think I’m saying random ridiculous shit.
Why would so many people want to get together and pretend to have a party? Why do they talk funny and flirt with each other? Why do they form bands and play in the Prancing Pony so other people can pretend to drink ale together? Because it’s just fun to pretend sometimes, I guess.
I haven’t really even scratched the surface of roleplaying in lotro, but it will hafta do for now. Perhaps another time we can talk some more about it. Feel free to ask any questions.
I also meant to get back around to Vlad today, and how he is used to destroy your weak, flabby body, but I’ll do that tomorrow. Today I didn’t even use him. I went to the JFZ and did 35 minutes on the elliptical and then used the Trilogy of Terror to failure. I’ll be stove up tomorrow.
I know I haven’t been talking about what I’m eating or drinking, either. I just want you to enjoy this blog, and I realize that reading stuff about what someone ate today, or how many sit-ups they did, is a bit dry. Hell, I never read other fitness blogs. Well, yesterday when I went out to eat with my sister I had some grilled trout with veggies. For dinner the DW cooked some wheat tortellini and broccoli with sun-dried tomatoes (which I normally hate due to their leathery texture, but these were good). Then I drank a beer and had some Davy Crockett wine. For breakfast this morning I had yogurt and granola, then a mid-morning snack of an apple. Lunch was baked red potatoes (five), some beans, topped with brown sauce. Right now I’m drinking some more Davy Crockett wine.
So, yeah… tomorrow we’ll talk more about Vlad.
I leave you with this video (via youtube as usual), depicting an event called “Ales & Tales” which is a roleplay event on Mondays of every week on my server. It is hosted by my kinship (so if you know anything about Landroval, you now know what kinship I am in). People get together, play music in-game, and do all the play-pretending and talking funny that they want. If you follow some of the links from this vid, you’ll find tons of video of this weekly event and others like it. Enjoy…
(((EDIT: 9/24/11…)))
Today I found this video of Bilbo’s Birthday Party at Rivendell. The one talked about above. Figured I’d share it with yall.
Even though I live in the South, like banjo music, and dislike superhero comics, there is one thing that I have a strong common bond in with Dragon*Con folk.
Well, to be honest, there are several. But one of them is video games. And another is a love of all things Tolkien. When you put these two things together…. usually you get shit.
That is, I thought that until I tried out Lord of the Rings Online (LOTRO).
LOTRO is an mmorpg, which most people just call an mmo these days. MMORPG stand for “massively multi-player online role playing game”. And that is about as far as I will go in explaining these highly scientific technical aspects of the game. I’m working under the assumption that most people who would stumble upon this blog already know what an mmo is, and guessing that my friends who may or may not know what that is, do know how to use google.
I’ve been playing mmo’s for a long while now. I dabbled in Ultima Online, which I have always considered to be the jumping-off point of mmo’s, for a while before playing a little bit of EverQuest (which many people dubbed EverCrack because of its addictive nature). I say that I played these games a “little bit” because at the time (we’re talking mid to late 90’s) I didn’t have a computer, but had a friend who let me have a character on his account.
I didn’t really get into mmo’s until I bought my own computer with a tax refund (this was roughly around 2002 or so) and immediately started playing Dark Age of Camelot because I had some distant friends who played and it was always fun to get together with them in-game. DAoC was fun for me, especially, because it was based on the mythology of 3 different countries and/or areas (Norse mythology, Celtic mythology, and Arthurian legend), and these three areas were always at war with one another. Needless to say, the pvp (player versus player) was intense. In fact, I haven’t played a game since that matched it, and that is including WoW (World of Warcraft). I have always loved mythology (another thing that I have in common with a lot of geeks), and I have always loved Irish history, so naturally my country of choice was Hibernia (the game’s name for Ireland, or the area based on it).
Then WoW came along and ruined everything. Oh sure, I played it. I loved it. There were even times in my life when I can say that I was moderately addicted to it.
WoW, like Ultima, was a game-changer, and I mean that in the most literal way possible. It changed mmo’s forever. The biggest change? It was easier. Lots easier.
See, the folks at Blizzard (WoW’s parent company and developer) figured out that normal folk didn’t have the time to sink into a game like DAoC or EverQuest where it took a year or more of constant playing to reach the maximum level. Yet, there were lots of normal folk out there who may have played D&D when they were kids and still longed for some fantasy adventure. Also, normal folk (including myself) want to try out a lot of different races and classes. By making the game easier, no one felt like they were tied down to one race/class combination. No one wants to spend 6 months leveling to 30 only to realize that they made a mistake and that they didn’t really want to play a wizard. What they really wanted was to be a rogue.
They made WoW easily accessible to these people in many ways (which I won’t get into here), and by doing so, created the largest mmo empire ever.
Personally, I played WoW off and on for a few years, but eventually got tired of how competitive it was. Even though WoW’s design made the game instantly accessible to a lot of people, once you got to the high levels, especially on a pvp server, the game really changed and turned into a highly-focused pvp competition, which a lot of people love. Hell, I loved it! But eventually, boring things like work and family got in the way and I realized that I had neither the time, nor the drive, to stay competitive in the world… of warcraft. I cancelled my subscription to WoW and was idle in the world of mmo’s for at least a year.
Then the itch started again. Faintly at first, like one of those itches that, when you scratch it, it hurts and you realize that it wasn’t an itch at all, but a tumor. Then it got louder and louder…
I knew that I didn’t want to go back to WoW, but I couldn’t put my finger on what I wanted exactly. I tried, fruitlessly, to get a Dungeons & Dragons group going (yes, I mean the pencil & paper rpg), but quickly found that no one these days has the same schedule as anyone else. Then I tried out Warhammer 40k. We’ll talk about mini wargaming some other time, but for our purposes here, suffice it to say that that fizzled out also.
What I wanted, what I really really wanted, was an mmo where I could just sorta “hang out”.
Enter LOTRO…
I post on the message boards over at theonering.net (TORn), a fansite for all things Tolkien which I found out about when I went to their “Hobbit” panel at Dragon*Con 2010. On that site, someone mentioned that lotro, which had previously been a monthly subscription game, was going f2p (Free to Play, meaning just that. It was going to be free to download and play). I love Tolkien, as I already mentioned, and had a hankerin’ for some good fantasy rpg action, and since it was going to be free, I figured why not? I had nothing to lose, right?
That’s been almost a year ago.
Since that time, I’ve been playing a decent amount. Some of us over at TORn even started up a little kinship (called a guild in WoW. basically, a group of players in the game who do stuff together and try to help each other out).
We play on the Landroval server (servers are something that are necessary for all mmo’s. I won’t get into them here, but it is basically just your world. People on different servers can’t communicate with each other in-game.).
Landroval is the “unofficial” RP server of LOTRO. RP means “role play”, meaning that people pretend that they really are their character. This leads to a post that I will save for later today…
So stay tuned later today when we talk about RP-ing in mmo’s, and on Landroval server in particular, and also will visit one of the biggest RP events I have ever been to… Bilbo’s Birthday Party in Rivendell!!!
Fit for Dragon*Con 