Sadly, I moved to Sacramento, but know where the gamestop is that you’re going to be at. I got the CE original WoW in Bloomington on launch day :)

Wish I could be there, and keep up the awesome blog! I love read it.

But aside from that, sounds like fun. Enjoy the beer, the wings, the midnight anticlimactic run for software, and the even less anticlimactic patch downloads. :)

Also. I don’t think having a gathering like this… is weird. I made a half joke that patch release notes could almost be motivation enough for WoW Nerd Friends to get together and have a drinking game made out of them.

However, doesn’t mean I still wouldn’t jump at the chance to eat wings & drink beer with you and Cassie. So if you ever decide to visit Sioux Falls (why, I have no clue), I’ll drive halfway to St. Paul to see you. :)

Okay, so what I’m seeing is, one guy is coming.

That certainly makes the button ordering easier. :)

Ely, you guys could certainly have buttons, if you wanted to order them yourselves. They’re like $3 in the various Cafepress stores. No, I ain’t buying all of you buttons and mailing them to you. And why you would want to buy a button saying you met the Bear when you hadn’t actually met the Bear would confuse me. Hmmm. I need to look at those button designs again.

Anyway, I don’t really see it as hiding from folks, if I set up in BWW to meet folks. I think of it more as giong to Buffalo Wild Wings, meeting folks there in a more comfortable setting, people who would want to actually sit and chat for a bit. After a while, we obviously would walk over to Gamestop, since the whole point is getting the game. But we’d be going over to Gamestop as a bunch of gamers, not as the BBB and his posse or some shit.

Because that is what we are; a bunch of gamers, wanting to get our hands on a game.

And I’d much rather meet with and chat with other gamers waiting in line to get the game, without trying to lay some kind of ‘gamier than thou’ BS down. Hang out, chat, share in jokes with Xathras, and be a geek just like everybody else.

Because I am just like everyone else.

Let me take a moment to digress totally from the topic, since I think that covers the whole ‘Gamestop meet’ thing.

Yes, I write a blog, and have been doing it for a long time now, but I honestly feel, and your websites bear this out, that anyone enthusiastic for something can create a blog and write about it and share your thoughts with others, and have a great time with it, the same as I have.

I’ll take Shrinn as an example. http://shrinnsrants.blogspot.com/

Before she joined Sidhe Devils, I don’t think Shrinn had ever even heard of game blogs. But she joined the guild, and was surrounded by all these blogger whackos, and kind-hearted and sweet as she is, she decided to join in the fun and make one herself.

Now, maybe you folks don’t read it, but I do, because she puts up some awesome fun screenshots that always have one thing in common; you can tell she is always being herself, honest and enthusiastic, whether she had fun or not. And most of the time, yes, she is having lots of fun and enjoying what she does, and her honest enthusiasm for playing and having fun always makes me grin.

I think anyone has it in them to start and write a blog, about whatever, and the real question is how many people either WANT to, or if they do start one, how many will continue doing it?

So if I’m out of the ordinary, it’s probably more because I’m still here than anything else. And you all come out of force of habit! Ha!

Hooking up with some people who share the same interest, enjoy the blog, can relate to the stories: FUN.

Having the whole event taken out of context and looked down upon by some judgmental coconuts: AWFUL.

In the end, I’d say the fun of the overall concept would overcome the negative aspect of the judgmental coconuts.

In my previous hobby obsession before WoW, I founded a Hobby Robot Builders club. We grew to a grand total of 6 members at our apex. We had fun stuff like buttons and tshirts and stickers that we happily displayed. The outside world was mortified at seeing people having fun doing something that they themselves could not relate to. We were judged as nerds, basement dwellers, losers who can only carve off a slice by fabricating a Fem-Bot and programming it to fulfill our every desire.

Little do the shortsighted @sshats know, the club members come from a diverse cross section of life, with varying backgrounds, experiences, ideas. Our members were the type who give back to the community and country via volunteer fire department, military / military reserve service, and one guy founded a college scholarship fund to honor a friend who passed away. The members who were of workforce age are all successful career folks including a bank manager, electrical engineer, and IT security architect, who own their own homes separate from their parents, lol. The school aged members were outstanding students who excel in science and math, two areas that are in the spotlight during this current presidential race as areas that the US needs to be stronger in.

What I’m getting at is that you’ll find judgment and @sshats everywhere you go, no matter what you’re into. And even more so if you are invigorated by or enthusiastic about anything that the general populace doesn’t understand or identify with. Forget about them, and hand out some pins, autograph the butt posters. If I didn’t live 9 hours away, I’d love to swing by and have a beer and a wing or two, and I’ll moon the camera while the news crew tries to passive aggressively insult the participants of your event :-)

BTW, the fembots were outstanding!