This is hysterical.

The world of World of Warcraft is rife with cultural references. Monty Python and the Holy Grail is lovingly ripped off with quests such as "It's only a flesh wound". You can get Blue Suede Shoes as a reward. If you are doing a quest chain where you have to kill monkeys for an item to drop, you'll often get an empty barrel or a hefty barrel, obvious references to Donkey Kong. I could list hundreds more, but you get the idea.

It's now the holiday season where people are wondering what to get that special someone. Over the past 2 years, Blizzard, the creators of WOW, have enlisted the aid of celebrities to plug WOW via TV commercials. The very first one to make a WOW commercial was Mr. T. I am not making that up. Blizzard's artists created an avatar for Mr. T, complete with mount.

At the time, once you created your character, you couldn't change anything about it. If you decided, at level 20, that you didn't like being a dwarf female, there wasn't anything you could do about it. You had to start a new character. There was no way to get the "night elf mohawk" that had been created for Mr. T's commercial.

Now, you can change hairstyles, genders, races (I could become night elf.), and even factions. I play Alliance. I could become Horde. Males of some races can get a mohawk, in various colors.

On Friday the 13th, this commercial was released. In the commercial, at the end, the announcer clearly says, "Get WOW and get your night elf mohawk grenade." What the...?

Monday, the Night Elf Mohawk was unleashed upon WOW. Above, you see what my character looks like having been "mohawked".

You go to a specific place and speak with the Mr. T character and he gives you the grenade you see to the left in one of my bags. Then, you run around the world tossing it at people to get the above result. The "head" lasts one hour. The grenade lasts one day. It has five charges and you can get another one when you use up those charges. You can only carry one at a time. Don't want to be "T'd"? There is a small icon at the upper right of your screen. Right click it and the head goes away.

This kind of silliness is one of the reasons I play this game. There is a teenager in my guild who thinks this is the stupidest idea ever. He was complaining left and right last night because he kept getting hit by a grenade. We had to remind him that participation is entirely voluntary and you can dismiss the head change at any time. This is purely for amusement, doesn't change any fighting you might do, other than reduce your party to fits of laughter, and is a direct cultural reference that almost everyone knows.

I like these kinds of things. When you get to my level, you can often run out of things to do, other than amass large quantities of fake gold. I can always keep myself amused but this is one thing that makes the game fun. I like the silly. "I pity the fool" that doesn't.
P.S. Dear Blizzard, I'll do almost anything to get a mount like Mr. T's. Love, Gimmlette.

Beverage: Assam tea

Deb

You better watch out...

One of the things I'm known for is shopping for Christmas presents all year 'round. If I see something in May that I think someone on my list might like, I have no qualms about picking it up. In my closet is a box containing all sorts of things I've picked up over the years.

About this time, every year I get all the little things out of the box, spread them out and take a look. Then, I make a list of who I think would like what. As Carole's birthday is at the end of the month, this coincides with the "What did she say she wanted" phase of accumulating presents.

Now that she's in Puyallup, I really don't want to ship two boxes so Christmas presents should be purchased and shipped with the birthday presents. Plus, because her birthday is the last possible day Thanksgiving can fall on, shipping Christmas presents means she has something festive with which to decorate her apartment.

I generally lose the carefully prepared list I made of who could get what and wind up making another list at work of who still doesn't have anything wrapped, at least, that I can remember. It's that list that becomes the shopping list. The second week in December, when I've finished everything and am preparing to ship, I find the first list and that sound you hear is a rather loud, "D'oh!" Yes, I try to be done, fini, over with, ended with all shopping by the second week in December because 90% of the time, I have to ship everything and I'm not paying Express Mail Next Day for either UPS or USPS.

This year, I decided to go through that box, assign, wrap and tag every stinkin' thing in it. Occasionally, my mother reads my blog so, "Merry Christmas, Mom! That's your gift."

But, wonder of wonders, I had enough accumulated to get half my list done. Pilchard had to, on occasion, "supervise" the wrapping process which meant I went off and did something else for a half hour until she got tired of sitting on the paper. I have 2 items that are not wrapped but I have to purchase something to go with them.

And I started a new roll of wrapping paper. Why is this noteworthy? Well, in an article many, many years ago about how to "unclutter" your life, wrapping paper was brought up as being a contributor to lots of clutter. Think about it. Many people have four or five rolls of Christmas wrapping paper. You have one for the >10 year-olds, a roll for the teens, a roll for your daughter and her boyfriend, a roll for mom, maybe one for people at the office. Every year, you use 15% of that roll to wrap gifts and every year the roll goes back in the closet to be knocked over when you're looking for the roll of birthday paper.

Use one roll, for everyone. For the past two years, I've been wrapping gifts in a green paper with yellow stars on it. I used that up this year. I buy paper I like to look at. The above is from Current.com. And it's also noteworthy in that it has lines printed on the back for cutting guides.

Oh! Whoever thought that up should get a quadruple raise, as far as I'm concerned. I first saw it on Hallmark brand wrapping paper many years ago. Gone are the mismatched edges, the too short edges, the diagonals and the torn sections where you didn't quite cut right. Easy to cut. Just follow the lines.

I know what some of you are thinking and the answer is, "No. I won't skip you this year." I realize that even if you limit yourself to $10 per person, if you have 20 people on your list, that's $200 total, not including shipping fees. At a time when my finances stink, how in the world can I think of spending any sort of money beyond survival. Two words:

It's Christmas.

Beverage: Cranberry Grape Juice

Deb

Now what?

If you are perceptive and, because you're reading my blog I'm inclined to believe your powers of comprehension and your intelligence rank at the epitome of humanity (How's that for a loquacious pat on the back?), you have noticed an addition to the right side panels located toward the bottom.

I have joined the bazillions who are on Facebook.

I was intending to be a hold-out. Sometimes, there's more cache in being the lone person NOT following the lemmings over the cliff.

But Perry promised to send me an email a day until I joined, or maybe that was implied, and Carole would mention all these tidbits she knew. How did she know that? "Well, I saw it on their Facebook page, mom. You should get a page."

Forthwith, I have a page. I was quite astounded by who showed up from my address book as also having a page. It was quite interesting.

So I'm there.

Now what?

Beverage: China Black Tea

Deb

Sunday Morning

I found a way to be even more of a help. Mom won't mind.

Beverage: Milk

Deb