For the last two years, I’ve basically given up my Thanksgiving Thursday in exchange for a long cold sidewalk outside of Best Buy.  My parent’s house was a wasteland of non-technology, but in the two years that have transpired, they’ve gone up to the HDTV lifestyle, multiple modern day computers and high speed Internet.  No longer do I feel like trips back home are on a farm.  So now I wonder, is there a point going for year 3?

www.blackfriday.info has the Best Buy ad as well as the Circuit City ad up.  I’ve gone through the BB one and noticed absolutely nothing worth spending nearly 18 hours in the cold for.  I think the last piece of digital wizardry I could use is a camera, but even that isn’t too big of a deal for me since I’m not one to take a lot of pictures anyway.  I could also stand an upgrade from my 256MB thumb drive to an 8GB one.  But I don’t need black friday deals to buy those since they continuously drop in price.  I imagine in 6 months I could get a 32GB thumb drive for these prices.

So for the first time in 3 years, I can look forward to a day of turkey and possibly a whole lot of Rock Band with my family.

When Burning Crusade came out, I skipped the preorder phenomenon and hoped and prayed that I could still get one.  I headed to Wal-Mart that night and got in a decent sized line.  I was about the 10th person in or so.  Midnight hits and they go on sale.  As I approach I ask, or maybe it was the person in front of me, about the collector’s edition.  The clerk gives us a weird look like “There’s another one of these?”  to which they proceed to go to the back.  Everyone behind us groans, they didn’t hear us, thinking we’re holding everyone up.  However, they come back with crazy amounts of collector’s editions and everyone rejoices.

This year, I’m hoping my luck will hold out and the same thing will happen.  Though I moved so the Wal-Mart from the last story is across town, I still had 2 to choose from in my vicinity.  I head to the first one and I’m about the 15th person in line.  I ask the clerk about a CE version to which the guy in front of me says they only have 6 and that they’re probably already taken.  Gee dude in front of me, you think?  So I leave and head to the second Wal-Mart around me.  I end up about 10th in this line and make the same inquiry to which this store replies they have zero.  Zero is a weird number for me to digest so I leave and consider going to the Gamestop in the parking lot.  I glaze over and notice that there’s this huge line about 20+ people long and I say forget it.

Now I’m not one to plan things without backup plans.  Oh yes I had many actually.  My first backup plan was knowing a friend of mine was going to the Wal-Mart that I got my Burning Crusade copy from and hoping that they were again going to have a boatload of them.  However, she calls and says that they in fact have zero, which even a second time is hard to digest.  So I’m aimlessly driving, but I’m near Best Buy and on the phone she says that they were having a midnight opening.  I think about how strange that is because my BB is not known for such things.  But I head out there anyway.

Getting to Best Buy the parking lot was lit up and there were a good amount of cars on the side lot.  I park in the front and notice two managerial types at the door looking anxious to lock up.  I can’t blame them, it’s about 12:20 at this time.  They greet me courteously without a drop of weariness or “Ugh, people are still coming in” kinda feeling.  I walk in and see a nice big table with all these copies of Wrath, and one with a CE box on it.

“I NEED THAT!”

“You’re in luck!” says the employee.  I asked knowing my buddy and her brother will want one if they had more.

“Oh yeah we got tons under the table.”

Ecstatic, I call them up and hurry them over.  But knowing I was the only customer and seeing as lots of employees were looking very tired, I just bought 3 copies and left.  I had a pleasant conversation with the cashier who plays Alliance even though her co-employee beside her plays horde.  She gave me her server and character name though it’s impossible for me to move servers but I was friendly.

So I’m 5 for 5 on collector’s editions spanning from Diablo 2, Warcraft 3, and the 3 incarnations of WoW.  I had to call in my backup plans and tell them I had lucked out.  I didn’t get it installed completely until around 2:30AM so I only had time to head to Borean Tundra and log out.  This felt more hectic and I’m hoping I have a bit less stressful time picking up a Starcraft 2 CE for whenever they decide to come out.

Quite a mouthful for a title.  I’m really hoping it comes out before Thanksgiving.

I’ve been using WoW Matrix since the death of WoWAceUpdater and noticed I can export my list of addons! Check it out!

!StopTheSpam – Finally! No more AddOn loading spam.
!Swatter – Debugging tool for handling and displaying of error messages in a useful way.
Align – Grid to align UI elements.
Atlas – Instance Map Browser
Atlas_Battlegrounds – Battleground Maps
Atlas_DungeonLocs – Dungeon Locations
Atlas_FlightPaths – Flight Path Maps
Atlas_OutdoorRaids – Outdoor Raid Encounters
AtlasLoot – Shows the possible loot from the bosses
AtlasLoot_BurningCrusade – AtlasLoot loot tables from the Burning Crusade
AtlasLoot_Crafting – AtlasLoot loot tables of Crafting Items
AtlasLoot_OriginalWoW – AtlasLoot loot tables from pre-Burning Crusade
AtlasLoot_WorldEvents – AtlasLoot loot tables from world events
AtlasLoot_WrathoftheLichKing – AtlasLoot loot tables from the Wrath of the Lich King
AtlasLootFu – Minimap button for AtlasLoot
Auc-Advanced – AuctioneerAdvanced, An addon to help keep track of items values. You must at least enable a statistics extension (like Auc:Stats:Simple) to start tracking stats.
AutoProfitX – Automatically sells low quality gray items and selected white items to the vendor.
Bagnon – Single window displays for the inventory and bank
Bagnon_Forever – Stores inventory information about your characters
Bagnon_Options – A configuration menu for Bagnon
Bagnon_Tooltips – Tooltips for telling who has what
Bartender4 – Simple and Advanced combined – Bartender4 ActionBar AddOn
BeanCounter –
Bejeweled – The popular game Bejeweled, now for World of Warcraft!
BigWigs – Modular, lightweight, non-intrusive approach to boss encounter warnings.
BigWigs_BlackTemple – Big Wigs Black Temple Modules
BigWigs_Extras – Big Wigs Extra Plugins
BigWigs_Hyjal – Big Wigs Hyjal Modules
BigWigs_Karazhan – Big Wigs Karazhan Modules
BigWigs_Naxxramas – Big Wigs Naxxramas Modules
BigWigs_Outland – Big Wigs Outland Modules
BigWigs_Plugins – Big Wigs Core Plugins
BigWigs_SC – Big Wigs Serpentshrine Cavern Modules
BigWigs_Sunwell – Big Wigs Sunwell Modules
BigWigs_TheEye – Big Wigs The Eye Modules
BigWigs_ZulAman – Big Wigs Zul’Aman Modules
Buffalo – Customizing your buff display
ButtonFacade – Dynamic Modern Button Skinning
ButtonFacade_Elegance – Elegance skin for Button Facade.
ButtonFacade_Entropy – Entropy skins for Button Facade.
ButtonFacade_Serenity – Serenity skins for Button Facade.
ButtonFacade_Sleek – Sleek skin for Button Facade.
Cartographer – Addon to manipulate the map
Cartographer_Battlegrounds – Module which provides maps of battlegrounds.
Cartographer_Coordinates – Module to add coordinates to the bottom of the world map of the player and the cursor.
Cartographer_Data – Cartographer_Herbalism, Cartographer_Mining and Cartographer_Treasure data updated daily
Cartographer_Foglight – Module to show unexplored areas on the map.
Cartographer_GroupColors – Module which turns all your party’s and your raid’s POIs into circles colored based on class, and shows a number on them based on their raid group.
Cartographer_GuildPositions – Module which shows you your fellow guild members’ positions, as well as allowing them to see you.
Cartographer_Herbalism – Herbalism mapnotes for Cartographer (based on PinPoint by Ammo)
Cartographer_InstanceLoot – Display of loot on instance bosses.
Cartographer_InstanceMaps – Module which provides maps of instances.
Cartographer_InstanceNotes – Module which adds default notes to the instance maps.
Cartographer_LookNFeel – Module which allows you to change the transparency, position, and scale of the world map.
Cartographer_Mining – Mining mapnotes for Cartographer (based on PinPoint by Ammo)
Cartographer_Notes – Module which allows you to put notes on the map.
Cartographer_POI – Module to manage points of interest.
Cartographer_Professions – Stub for loading Cartographer module addons based on your professions.
Cartographer_Waypoints – Module which shows an arrow to direct you to a specified note or location.
Cartographer_ZoneInfo – Module which on hovering over a zone, will show the levels of the zone, the instances in the zone, their levels, and the number of men the instance is made for (e.g. 5-man, 40-man).
Chinchilla – Minimap addon of awesomeness. *chewing sound*. It’ll nibble your hay pellets.
ClearFont2 – Funky font switcher
Clique – Simply powerful click-casting interface
CooldownCount – Display Cooldown Count of Spell Icon and Item
CowTip – Tooltip of awesomeness. Moo. It’ll graze your pasture.
CT_ExpenseHistory – Detailed log of character expenses
CT_MailMod – Heavily improves the in-game mail functionality.
DBM-BlackTemple –
DBM-BurningCrusade –
DBM-ChamberOfAspects –
DBM-Core – Deadly Boss Mods
DBM-EyeOfEternity –
DBM-GUI – GUI for Deadly Boss Mods
DBM-Hyjal –
DBM-Karazhan –
DBM-Naxx –
DBM-Outlands –
DBM-Party-WotLK –
DBM-Serpentshrine –
DBM-Sunwell –
DBM-TheEye –
DBM-ZulAman –
Decursive – Affliction display and cleaning for solo, group and raids with advanced filtering and priority system.
EasyMother – Easy Mother
eePanels2 – Create and modify panels and art
EnhTooltip – Used to display enhanced tooltips under the original tooltip or in the original tooltip, contains hooking functions for almost all major in game item tooltips [5.1.3715] This AddOn is licensed under the GNU GPL, see GPL.txt for details.
Examiner – Advanced Inspection Mod of Gear, Talents, Honor and Arena Details.
FishingAce – Simple right click casting.
Forecast – Xiven’s incoming raid cast watcher
FuBar – A panel that modules can plug into.
FuBar_BagFu – Keeps track of space left in your bags.
FuBar_ClockFu – A simplistic clock.
FuBar_DurabilityFu – Keeps track of durability and pops up a dialog to repair when you go to a vendor who can.
FuBar_ExperienceFu – Keeps track of experience.
FuBar_FuXPFu – Lightweight XP Bar
FuBar_LogFu3 – Small plugin for enabling/disabling of combat logging
FuBar_MoneyFu – Keeps track of current money and all your characters on one realm.
FuBar_NameToggleFu – Toggles player names.
FuBar_PerformanceFu – Keeps track of performance of memory, latency, and framerate.
FuBar_RecountFu – A FuBar plugin to show Recount.
FuBarPlugin-2.0 – A library to provide a means create a FuBar-compatible plugin.
Grid – A modular, lightweight and screen-estate saving grid of party/raid unit frames
GridStatusHots – Separate indicator for your HoTs: Renew, Rejeuv, Regrowth, Wild Growth, Lifebloom, Sheath of Light, Glyph of Flash of Light and Riptide + timer and total HoTs.
GridStatusThreat – Adds a simple threat display to Grid.
Incubator – Mob Respawn Timers
Informant – Displays detailed item information in tooltips, and can produce item reports by binding an information window to a keypress [5.1.3715] This AddOn is licensed under the GNU GPL, see GPL.txt for details.
Instant_Health – Significantly speeds up health updates.
ItemRack – Makes swapping equipment easier through equip slot menus, equip slot buttons, gear sets and automated swaps.
ItemRackOptions – Load-On-Demand modules for ItemRack
kaliClient –
kaliDKP –
KLHThreatMeter – A Threat Meter
MagicMarker – Automated smart raid marking to speed up trash clearing in instance runs
MinimapButtonFrame – Collects the minimap buttons and puts them into a moveable frame.
MinimapButtonFrame_SkinPack – Skin Pack for MinimapButtonFrame.
MinimapButtonFrameFu – Fubar Plugin for Minimap Button Frame.
MinimapButtonFrameTitanPlugin –
Miv –
NugRunning – Buff/Debuff tracking
Omen – A lightweight, flexible, multi-target threat meter.
OPie – 1. Bind infrequent actions to rings. 2. ??? 3. Eat pie.
oRA2 – A CT_RaidAssist alternative
oRA2_Leader – oRA2 Leader modules
oRA2_Optional – oRA2 Optional modules
oRA2_Participant – oRA2 Participant modules
phpRaidViewer – Views and manages raid information from phpRaid
PitBull – Unit Frames of awesomeness. Woof. It’ll bite your face off.
PitBull_Aura – Show buffs and debuffs for PitBull frames as well as highlight frames that need cleansing.
PitBull_Banzai – Adds aggro coloring to PitBull.
PitBull_BarFader – Adds fading this to the health/power bars.
PitBull_CastBar – Show a casting bar each of the PitBull unit frames.
PitBull_CombatFader – Adds alpha changes based on combat.
PitBull_CombatIcon – Show an icon based on whether or not the unit is in combat.
PitBull_CombatText – Show information like damage taken, healing taken, resists, etc. on the unit frame.
PitBull_ComboPoints – Show combo points on the unit frame if you are a Rogue or Druid in Cat form.
PitBull_DruidManaBar – Show a mana bar for your Druid when in Cat or Bear form.
PitBull_ExperienceBar – Show an experience bar on the unit frame.
PitBull_HappinessIcon – Show an icon on the pet frame to indicate its happiness.
PitBull_HealthBar – Show a health bar on the unit frame.
PitBull_HideBlizzard – Hide Blizzard frames that are no longer needed.
PitBull_Highlight – Highlight unit frames on mouse-over or on targetting.
PitBull_LeaderIcon – Show an icon on the unit frame when the unit is the group leader.
PitBull_MasterLooterIcon – Show an icon on the unit frame when the unit is the Master Looter.
PitBull_Portrait – Show a portrait on the PitBull unit frame.
PitBull_PowerBar – Show a mana/rage/energy/focus bar on the PitBull unit frames.
PitBull_PvPIcon – Show an icon on the unit frame when the unit is in PvP mode.
PitBull_RaidTargetIcon – Show an icon on the unit frame based on which Raid Target it is.
PitBull_RangeCheck – Range checking for PitBull unit frames
PitBull_ReadyCheckIcon – Show Ready Check icon based on if the unit is ready or not.
PitBull_ReputationBar – Show a reputation bar on the unit frame.
PitBull_RestIcon – Show an icon on the unit frame when the unit is resting in an inn or city.
PitBull_Spark – Graceful display of energy ticks and the spellcasting five-second-rule.
PitBull_ThreatBar – Show a threat bar on the unit frame.
PitBull_TotemTimers – Shows Totem timers for the PitBull player frame.
PitBull_VisualHeal – Visualises healing done by you and your party/raid members directly on the unit frames.
PitBull_VoiceIcon – Show an icon based on whether or not the unit is talking.
Prat-3.0 – A framework for chat ehancement modules.
PreformAVEnabler – Synchronized solo queuing of battlegrounds
ProgTrack – Xiven’s progress tracking mod
Quartz – Modular casting bar.
RaidCopy – Displays current raid attendance in a easy to copy format.
raidTemplate – Automates the distribution of players in a raid
RatingBuster – Item stat breakdown, analysis and comparison
Recount – Records Damage and Healing for Graph Based Display
Routes – Routes on your worldmap and minimap!
sct – Adds Scrolling Combat Text above your character
sct_options – Options menu for SCT (LoadOnDemand)
sctd – Adds your damage to Scrolling Combat Text
sctd_options – Options menu for SCTD (LoadOnDemand)
SharedMedia – Inserts some media into LibSharedMedia’s storage.
SharedMediaLib – Shared handling of media data (fonts, sounds, textures, …) between addons.
Skinner – Changes the look of the default UI
sRaidFrames – CT_RaidAssist style raid frames
Stubby – Allows on-demand addons to load automatically based upon simple event notification hooks [5.1.3715] This AddOn is licensed under the GNU GPL, see GPL.txt for details.
Surfaces – Texture Library
WIM – Give whispers an instant messenger feel.
XivenCatch – Xiven’s raid listing mod
XLoot – A remake of the built-in lootframe. .
XLootGroup – Minimalistic Group roll frames.
XLootMaster – Highly configurable master looter dropdown menu
XLootMonitor – A live monitor of loot picked up by yourself and your group
XRS – Compact and configurable raid status window

Why run both BigWigs and DBM?  I’m currently evaluating which is the better raid mod.  I’m leaning towards BigWigs.  KTM and Omen have been duking it out forever.  I prefer to use KTM, but since Kenco isn’t as diligent with updates, I settle for Omen.  The list may look menacing, but everything is modular so there are lots of folders that belong to a single mod.  I’ll add a screenshot of my UI later because even with the incredible list of stuff, it’s fairly clean.

I find lately in conversation, whether it be casual or professional, my worst habit is that I always, in my mind, try to anticipate where someone is going in a conversation and then interject before they end their statement.  Not only is this just incredibly rude, but who wants to talk to someone like this!?  I usually try to temper my speech so that I do wait, but I find myself more and more impatient as people spit out their points.  But it makes me wonder why I’ve developed this habit?

I think to start with, a lot of my communication comes from either instant messages or forums.  Generally it comes in a readable response format where you have back and forth and even if you interrupt someone they can generally continue their train of thought.  It’s a less disruptive form since you’re afforded the ability to ignore someone temporarily and then respond.

My second medium of choice in the verbal warfare comes from ventrillo which is real time voice chat software.  So in real life, you’re confronted with people where you can see literally when they’re awaiting a response or if they’re pausing, you can see why.  For instance, someone saying something, then takes a drink or eats, this is a fairly appropriate time to interject.  However, it’s not perfect, and one usually akwardly interrupts often.  It’s a difficult medium when you remove the human element but still try to maintain the back and forth.  Eliminating faces and expression makes it hard.  I imagine it’s like a conference call gone bad sometimes with everyone yelling over each other and it becomes a battle of sheer willpower to not stop what you’re saying and attempt to be the alpha voice among all others.

Ok so translating those into real life makes me somewhat of a nuisance.  Where I can sort of jot down an idea, see if it’s palatable to the the conversation and then if it is, hit the enter key doesn’t work well in real life conversations.  I did this the other night where this sort of malformed idea came out, but then I had to spend several minutes backtracking it out loud to everyone to see if I could justify my pointless point.  Had it been via IM/text, I would have simply not hit enter and it would have never boiled over into some sort of rediculous topic.  Coupled with the fact that people are trying to disprove my notion before I finish with my counterpoints interrupting them before they finish where they’re going, it was sort of a mess.

I wonder though if I’m not alone though in a sort of transitory period of life where we migrate a lot of our interactions through text/web 2.0/etc..  I feel like the business sharks of the world will hold mastery over conversation while the masses will be dumbed down to text message styles of speech with “lol”‘s and “u r”‘s all over the place.  It’s interesting to me that American English is so far developed differently from British English over the span of roughly 200+ years that I wonder what our next evolutionary jump will be.

So I woke up two days ago thinking this exact thing: “You know what, I could go for a bowl of Oreo-O’s.” Knowing it had been a long time since I had purchased said cereal, I jotted it down on my list of to buy items.  Yesterday when I realized I had nothing to eat anywhere in my apartment, I made my trip out to the old Wal-Mart and went up to the cereal aisle first thing.  I went up it once.  Then I went up it again.  Then I decided I lost the ability to read.  I double checked by trying to read my list of goods.

Oreo-O’s

Ok I can still read.  So I did a triple take.  But on this triple take, I decided to scan the price tags to see if I was just really unlucky and someone else had the same craving and stocked up.  To my dismay, said product was completely gone.  So I came home and did what anyone would do in the Internet age.  I wikied it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oreo_O%27s

According to an email from consumer relations, this product was discontinued in 2007.

So now, a part of my late teenage years is gone.  My most beloved and probably unhealthy breakfast ritual is gone and has been gone for over a year!!!!  I’ve idiotically replaced it with OATMEAL!  A sign of old man-ism.  Actually you know what else I added was toasted english muffins to breakfast.  Anyway, goodbye Oreo-O’s.  You were my favorite sin.  I ended my shopping trip with double stuff oreos though in consolation.

The Cab – Bounce
Metallica – The Unforgiven III
Metallica – The Day That Never Comes
Mute Math – Typical
Coheed & Cambria – No World For Tomorrow
Coheed & Cambria – Gravemakers & Gunslingers
Coheed & Cambria – Once Upon Your Dead Body
Fall Out Boy – The Take Over The Breaks Over
Yellowcard – Lights And Sounds
Fall Out Boy – Fame Infamy
Tonic – Jump Jimmy
Sixto Sounds, Zircon – Lunatic Moon
Bang Camaro – Night Lies
Orange Range – Thank You
TiA – Ryuusei
Gorillaz – 19-2000

Ok to start off with, I didn’t vote.  I have one incredibly stupid reason for not voting that I don’t want to tell you about, and one important reason I didn’t vote.  The important reason I didn’t vote was that I don’t live in a swing state, so the vote I would have cast would have fallen in line with how my state voted anyway.  While my friends already chastised me about it, I refer them to my incredibly stupid and secretive reason for not voting.

Ok so now we have Obama as president.  I will admit that yes, this is historic.  But the degree to which we emphasize that we will have an African-American as a president is sickening.  I’m definately part of a new generation where I look beyond race, however maybe my Dad’s generation sees this as a sort of “Oh wow” kinda moment, but not me.  I feel like if there were such as a thing that is the opposite of racist, if there were some word for it, that’s what I’m feeling too much of right now reading through my feeds.  Also if you voted for him solely because of race, shame on you for not being more informed.  If it turns out his agenda matches though with yours then whatever.

Democrats, as far as this election goes, the one person you have to thank for this victory is George Bush.  He did so terribly these last few years, that in my mind, you could have had a horse on the democratic platform and he would have won.  The fickle nature of America is predictable enough to see that when you’re unhappy with the current party, you’re probably going to go to the other for a bit.

Republicans, what the hell were you thinking?  My news sources are crazy biased for Democrats and from what I’m reading, I feel like your whole campaign was set up to attack Obama as opposed to distance yourself from Bush.  However, there is something to be said for how relatively close the election turned out to be.  Last I looked McCain lost the popular vote by 7 million or so out of 110ish million votes.  For an election where I feel was going to be an easy win for the Democrats you still made it fairly narrow, but again, I think the people in charge went with a poor strategy.  In 4 years I hope campaigning moves away from attacking the other guy and focusing more on issues.  The “landslide” could have been much much worse and even I was thinking it could have been something like 70/30.

The election process in general seems really horrible.  We vote on a Tuesday unless you vote early which is weird.  It should be a national holiday so people in lines aren’t pressured to get back to work.  It should really potentially be on a weekend where you have lots of time and availability to go vote.  And the process should be refined anyway to be a quick in and out affair.  I threw this idea out and a few guildies said it was too prone to fraud, but I don’t think it’s an unsolvable problem.  It would be sweet if you could register to vote.  Then vote online which then has the government send you a paper scantron doodad.  This would take you to the regular voting thing on election day where you just drop it off and it gets scanned and matched with your online vote.  In the age of technology, why we do things so archaically makes no sense to me.  Clearly I know that few people trust voting machines, I’d agree that they shouldn’t be closed source and they should be opened up for inspection. However, please note, that I didn’t vote so I don’t know the process or improvements made over previous years.  Reading about how it happens for other people seems really dumb though to me.

Anyway, now that I think about it, this is probably my first and one of very few political rants.  Unlike all the reddit dudes who claimed doom and gloom if McCain got elected, I’ll be staying in the nation unlike a petulant child.  I think Elizabeth Hasselbeck’s recent statements are taken out of context.  She’s not changing sides all of a sudden but clearly saying that despite differences between parties, the most important thing we do as a nation is galvanize so we don’t look like a bickering married couple.  If anything, the most irritating thing is how divided we are in the terms of if my side is right, then your side is wrong.  Though I know one person who reads this will say I just read reddit too much.  Anyway, I’m done.  I don’t like talking about politics and the next time you see anything like this will probably be in 2012.