We took Saturday off, and went to the Como Park Zoo in Minneapolis, MN.

While there, much enjoyment was had in gazing at the many critters on display.

At least, much enjoyment was had by my son, who watched excitedly as the polar bear repeatedly performed backwards dives from a ledge into his pool, slammed into the glass partition, and swam underwater to his ledge to do it again.

They must have been working on the Polar Bear exhibit, because the bear had about 20′ x 20′ to live in at the moment. The other Polar Bear seemed to have no water to play in, and was forced to pace back and forth in a narrow concrete channel.

There is something about visiting these exhibits that always makes me want to return at about 2 AM, armed with a machine gun, bolt cutters and a flatbed truck.

Arise ye furry prisoners, and revolt!

They can take our lives, but they can never take our freedom!

Sigh…….

Next time grandpa… next time.

(Be warned… this is a full on rant, with some mild profanity ahead. If you are sensitive, you can skip this post. It is only a rant, after all.)

A League of Their Own. God I love that film. Great movie.

Tom Hanks had that one perfect line in a film filled with them. “There’s no crying in baseball. There’s no crying! Ref, she’s crying.”

Like, he’s appealing to the Referee, about one of his own team crying, like he expects the Ref to hand down a ruling or something. “That’s right, miss, league rules state there is to be no crying. You’ll have to stop or be suspended from play.”

To me, and many of my Marine friends at the time, it was just the perfect statement of a typical macho man, taught to ’suck it up’ when faced with pain or hardship, and not complain, faced with a woman that is playing a ‘man’s game’ who has the sheer audacity to act human! Oh, the horrors! The poor guy is so stuck in his way of thinking that he just can’t quite grasp that, maybe in some part of the world, it’s actually okay to admit that, “Hey, you know… this sucks. It really and truly does. Don’t mind me, I’m gonna go off in this corner over here, and weep at the sheer frustration I’m feeling because of all of this BS. No, you guys go right on ahead. And when I’m done crying, I think I’m going to kill about 5 million Ogres in Nagrand until I feel better.”

We used to toss that line around all the time, when the bullshit level really started reaching the ‘weep in frustration’ point. It always got a laugh… cause it reminded us that we played the same damn game he did. Don’t ever admit you hurt, or seriously complain about pain. You suck it up and bitch about something else.

And, oh god did we find other things to bitch about.

Well, this rambling does in fact lead somewhere.

When we play WoW, there is a tendency to try not to hurt anyone else’s feelings in the guild.

In a good guild, anyway.

So there are a lot of things that go on that can really be a royal pain, that you may not feel it is appropriate to mention out loud in guild chat because you might hurt someones’ feelings. If you go there, even if you’re right to feel that way, you are still the one that was a jerk and said something about it.

You’re supposed to suck it up, be a good guildie, and take it, because we are all in this together. And you should never hurt another persons’ feelings.

And I agree, 99.9% of the time. In fact, I feel a bit of guilt myself because earlier tonight I was in such a bad mood that I was rude to one of my good friends in the game. Just for a second, but it only takes one pissy remark to hurt someones’ feelings.

Jay, I’m sorry dude. Hit me up next time I’m online and tell me all about your new piece of cool gear. My bad.

Yeah, we’re not supposed to be rude, or mean, or judgemental about our fellow guildmates.

But tonight, I’m gonna go there. Oh yeah, that’s right. I’m going there. Hold on tight.

I’d like to dedicate this rambling rant on the soapbox from hell to my ill fated Karazhan run of about 30 minutes ago.

1) I have a life. (I can hear my wife laughing at that one). My time is valuable to me. There are many things I can be doing with my time. I have all of Heroes Season 1 to watch on DVD before Season 2 starts, just for an example.

If the Karazhan run is scheduled 5 days in advance on the Calender addon, and you sign up for it the day that it is posted, then you had better do one of two things. Either show the hell up on time, or log in BEFORE the run, and let someone know that real life came up.

If you don’t show up at all, you leave no word, and you make us spend 90 FREAKING MINUTES trying to fill your critical slot that no one else signed up for or planned to be there for because, hey, guess what? The run was filled on the calender!

Then guess what. I want to hit you. I mean, physically walk over to your house, make you put down the bong or whatever, and smack you. With a bus. On fire. Filled with scorpions.

We counted on you, and you apparently could care less. Not to show up, not to log in and tell ANYONE during the five days in advance that something came up, nada. Just a no show.

Thanks a lot. the next time you log in and ask for a BM run? Yeah. That sound? Crickets. And don’t even bother asking why. Just do me a favor and /gquit. kthxbye.

2) If we are in Teamspeak, and we have 6 people online for a 10 man run that was scheduled to start 90 minutes ago, and the raid leader is searching hell or high water for more players in guild, friends lists, and LFG channel, may I respectfully submit that this is NOT the time to begin a freaking argument with him over DKP systems and how unfair they are?

You know what? The chances are good at that point in your life that you are never going to be organized enough to down the boss in the first place.

Whine about loot after you’ve proven you can support the run, and actually get the boss down.

Whining about DKP is best reserved for when your well tuned team has moved on past Karazhan. Ok?

40 man Onyxia runs, Molton Core, that was DKP stress. 40 man group downs a boss, and the Mage loot drops. 8 mages freak. THAT is what DKP is for. If you’re on a 10 man Kara group that runs together and works well together…. there is only 1 other person of your class likely to be on the run. Are you seriously telling me you can’t just ask the other person if they need it? You can’t settle on a /roll? Wtf?

This ain’t a PUG of Kara, guys. This is a guildie event. Chill the hell out, and act like adults. You start whining about DKP and loot before we even have a full 10 man team, and I’m wondering if you’re just here to gear up before moving on to a more advanced guild.

3) If you are going to log in ‘90 minutes’ late for the run…. on the other side of the continent… and insist that those of us that were on time, and at the meeting stone in Deadwind Pass, summon you…. make sure that you buy or farm your consumables ahead of time, and REPAIR YOUR FREAKING ARMOR FIRST!!!!

I’d like to stress both of those points again…..

First, repair your armor. Even if you were minding your own business, cruising around Barrens farming low level ore for your alt, and got called up by the guild to “please, pretty please” sub in for an asshat that didn’t show up for their scheduled run… you should still say “Sure, I’d love to help my guild friends out. But before you summon me to Kara, I need to go and repair my armor. I’ll pst when I’m ready. Should be 5 minutes. Thank you.” Is that hard? Seriously, is that so damned hard?

And second… farm your own damn consumables. Maybe you’ve never used a potion before in your life. That’s fine. Maybe you are a soloing god, able to crank out vast DPS and tank as a Paladin, bubbling your way through Attumen solo. That is wonderful, and I am proud to know you. Honestly, your knowledge and mastery of your class humbles me. But we came to play, we’re in a raid, and everyone depends on everyone else to do their jobs properly. Bring your own damn consumables.

I am a meatshield. I have two jobs; piss off whomever I’m supposed to piss off so they don’t go crush the squishies, and to make the squishies’ job as easy as possible by having high armor, dodge, and health to live long enough to let them regain mana once and a while in between heals.

To that end, it is my job to not only have gotten the gear and invested in the enchants to make that happen, but to have farmed or bought the scrolls, potions and food that will improve my chances. I have researched what consumables will help me do that best, I have then gone out and gotten them. I brought them with me, because I don’t expect the mage to bring tank consumables with him just because I’m lazy. Oh, and bringing enough for others is nice, I love guildies that do that and I offer around whenever I have the spares… but you should give enough of a crap to roll your own if you wanna smoke it. Don’t bogart the Warp Burgers.

(A post on consumables is coming…. I promise).

And one final bit of advice… please, please, please get your gear enchanted. If you think your gear is good enough to go into Kara with, then you should think it’s good enough for enchanting.

I am sick to death of people that turn 70, get the guild to powerlevel them through the Kara attunement, and then think that they have done their part, so when’s the raid? Huh guys? When’s the raid?

True story. As my Navy friends might say, this is a ‘no shitter’;

Newbie; “I signed up in Calender for Kara Group 1, how come I was bumped to Group 2? It’s not fair. I was signed up yesterday.”

Officer in guild chat replies, “The people in Group 1 have been running Kara for a while now, they all know each other and work well together. We are forming Group 2 now, and we would like you to work with Group 2 and get a good bond going.”

Newbie, whining “But I signed up for Group 1 on the Calender! It’s not fair! You can’t bump me! I signed up yesterday!”

Guild Officers, 5 of them, now spend the next 20 minutes rehashing the same point in different ways, trying to get through. And being insanely polite about it. “The event was listed on the Calender so that the Group 1 leader could see which of Group 1’s members and alternates were going to be on for that nights’ run. It doesn’t matter if you signed up, because you are not part of Group 1.”

The newbie, spending that 20 minutes intentionally not getting it, “But I signed up for Group 1. I don’t wanna go with Group 2. It’s not fair.”

A question gets asked in Guild Chat… “Why don’t you want to help Group 2 grow? Do you just expect to walk along with a team that already knows the battles, and get easy epics?”

30 seconds later, the expected /gquit comes.

If you expect to have the guild gear your lazy ass up in Kara, then I don’t want to know you. Good riddance.

4) If you need to go afk, SAY SO!!!

Like, say, for example…. you are part of the crew going after Moroes… and you have cleared everything except for the last two sets of Stewards…. and the raid leader asks “Is everyone ready?”

Ya know what… that is a fine time to say, “Hey guys, I have to go afk for a minute, my mom wants something.”

No, really, it’s fine. Please do. I appreciate it. It’ll give me a minute to get a Diet Mountain Dew. Go right ahead. You are a scholar and a gentleman and I tip my Dew to yew.

What I do NOT appreciate is silence… followed by the raid leader saying, “Ok, MT pull”… followed shortly thereafter by a wipe… and when everyone rezzes or runs back, looking down at one guys’ corpse… and someone saying “I guess they went afk…” and 5 minutes later, having that person come back into Teamspeak, saying, “Sorry guys, my moms needed me for a minute.”

Oh yeah…. and having that happen TWICE.

Don’t be shy. Speak right the hell up. Preferrably before the pull, thank you very much.

Please, cheer me up by sharing some of your fun raid stories… don’t be shy.

Edit: One last thought. I’ve been asked in real life, at work, why I get so cranky about my time being wasted by little bullshit. And I’ll share with you a story that one of my favorite artists and performers, Henry Rollins, once said in his Spoken Word. I think it was on “You Saw Me Up There”.

He said something along the lines of, “When I’m going on a trip around the world, I get ready ahead of time. I’m prepared. I’m in the ticket line at the counter at the airport and I’m psyched. I’ve got my carry on the right size, my stow away bags are clean of any contraband, my ID is in hand, ticket is prepaid, shoes and belt are easy to get off for the metal detector, I’m good to go. Go ahead, ask me if my bags have been out of my sight. Ask me! I dare you!”

“And I get up there, and there is one person at the counter ahead of me. And this person does not have the first idea what is going on, or where they are. ID? Ticket? These are new concepts.”

“And the attendant is having to spend 30 minutes explaining these most basic of concepts to this person, who is too lazy to ask any kind of question before ever setting foot in an airport.”

“And it occurs to me… you’re killing me. You’re killing me…. just a tiny bit. These minutes of my life are gone, spent standing in this line, because of you. You just killed me…. 30 minutes worth. Gone forever. 30 minutes I could’ve spent doing anything else, but waiting on you to pull your head out.”

And that is why I get so frustrated so damn fast. My son was upstairs playing… and instead of going in, getting the guild run done and getting out, I sat for 90 minutes. 90 minutes waiting for people that signed up to show up.

And I say to myself…. “Maybe that should be the last time I sign up.”