Post-Invasion Day Blues More news from Azeroth Rearranging the deckchairs
Friday, January 28, 2005
The traditional Triple J Hottest 100 party on Wednesday was accompanied by the traditional bloody hot weather and too much beer too early. Nobody seemed to have much enthusiasm for overt celebration, just low key beer consumption and trying to make oneself heard over the slightly-too-loud radio. Perhaps it had something to do with the fact that the outcome this year – victory by an unprecedented margin for Franz Ferdinand’s Take Me Out - was in so little doubt, or perhaps the fact that of everyone there, Fiona and I may actually have been the only remaining regulars JJJ listeners (we set the Breakfast Show as our alarm clock).
Eh. Whatever. At the end, there was more bad karaoke, thanks to Simon’s insidious Playstation attachment (which includes as its only recent track the aforementioned Franz Ferdinand hit). Dancing pants were worn, by and large, however they were not employed usefully. I don’t think this year’s crop of music was particularly dance-inspiring either, but never mind.
Now, two days later, I am sore and tired, seemingly without justification.
Vasharda, my tauren hunter, has been stuck in a grind for the past few days, constantly running into situations too tough for him (or at least beyond the limits of my l333t sK1llz, as the young people are saying). I was beginning to tire of it and look into an alternate character, but (very late) last night I finally knocked off a quest that had been bugging me, thanks to the timely arrival of another player on the same quest – together we formed a mighty team of clam-and-centaur killers. Don’t ask…
To me there are two chief attractions to this game, apart from its slick look and newbie-friendly gameplay. The first is the sheer fun of temporarily ganging up with a bunch of complete strangers to put the hurt on some troublesome monsters that your solo character could never manage by themselves, in between which is generally crammed some cheerful bragging and amusing banter – and dancing, on occasions. The other is the changeability of the game environment – the last time I logged in, I was grinding away endlessly on a barren plain, slaughtering beasts vaguely resembling velociraptors, moas and zebras and skinning them for my collection of hides; now I’m infiltrating a human-occupied fortress to hunt for a murderous gunnery sergeant (or something) and spying on a vast army of pirates. Sure, it all still mostly revolves around slaughtering the Enemy and taking their stuff, but the scenery, my motivations and the general capabilities of the monsters in question keep things interesting.
The next big challenge is to head into a dungeon, which generally requires a party of at least five. Since I don’t know anyone in real life who plays on this server (Cenarion Circle) – except for Simon and Jimbo, who are using my account and with whom I can therefore not play simultaneously until we get a broadband connection and two more copies of the game – this means I have to team up with strangers and hope they know what they’re doing. That should be…interesting…
So in the wake of various taskforces created to help coordinate with the tsunami relief efforts, work has once again shuffled a variety of Branch Heads and Directors into new jobs. So the new Branch Head who was appointed just before Christmas, for whom we have been delighted to work, has been shoved sideways into a job she doesn’t want, to make way for a replacement with whom we have no desire to work. Given that I’ve just agreed to stay in my position for the next six months on the basis that we’d finally have a stable leader who understands the job and has even the faintest commitment to the corporate services area (an area held in the most contemptuous regard by the vast majority of my colleagues, because it has No Glamour Value), I am a little miffed. Especially since this will likely be the final nail in the coffin for my two direct supervisors, both of whom are currently considering moves to other areas.
In their likely absence, I am of the assumption that I will be completely without either guidance or support, since they are by far the two most competent (non-technical) people in the branch. That is a pity, because I really don’t think I’m ready to do this one by myself. Sigh.
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