Only Two Years Younger than an iPhone

 Seventeen years ago, the first post on Parallel Context appeared. 

That was long enough ago that the graphics that Souldat* linked to in that first post no longer work. Hell, the site warcraftrealms.com itself resolves to warcraftdb.com these days as it effectively shut down in 2023.**

Oh, and if you ever wondered, Souldat was biased toward the Horde from the beginning as his first post made pretty plain. Given that I now play Alliance most of the time, it certainly feels odd reading that first post again.

Anyway, PC has been around long enough that it ought to be applying to colleges right about now. I certainly hope that it has a decent safety school selected, because the cost of attending a university isn't cheap.

*He used Murtaugh as his handle back then, and changed it several times over the next several years as his main changed.

**Links not being maintained are a big reason why I make local copies of pictures and/or other graphics these days; that way I know there will be a working graphic when I return to a very old post from the future. I suppose I could spend a month cleaning up old links and trying to figure out what ought to go there, but I'd rather get it right the first time.

Meme Monday: 'Go Touch Grass' Memes

If you've been a gamer long enough, you've had a parent or some other authority figure tell you to "Go outside". Or "Go touch some grass." I was reminded of this on Saturday, when I was literally touching grass as I was doing yardwork.

So, in honor of parents or other authority figures providing you with direction to not sit in front of a screen all day (and all night), here's some "touching grass" memes.

(And not a single one involves weed, either!)

I don't use my phone for gaming (or own a Switch),
so this would be me. From programmerhumor.io.

I feel for ya, doggo.
From Memedroid.

I don't play League of Legends, but I'd imagine
that a subset of WoW players are like this.
From Instagram.

Ha! "Me to touch grass!" is right
up there with "You no take candle!"
From Memedroid.

I have to admit it's a clever way around the
issue. From HyperX.

It depends. Can I get revived easily while
I'm outside? From Memedroid.

You Only See It After The Fact

I attended the visitation for my friend last night, which was cathartic. I hadn't realized just how many people he knew, because there was quite a line of people to see him, but I also ran into several other members of my amateur radio club there. Yes, I'm quite aware that visitations and funerals are for the living rather than for the dead, but still it was good to be reminded that we have other people who count on us and connect with us. 

Speaking of connecting, I made a point the other day to get my annual flu and covid shots while I was picking up my medications at my pharmacy. While I'd known the people at the pharmacy for years, they'd been strictly professional in all my interactions with them. I'd occasionally wondered if they actually recognized me --a strange concept considering I'm a redhead with a (now gray) beard. Well, when the woman providing the shots took me into the little private room, I discovered that not only did they know me quite well but they were happy to see me whenever I made an appearance.

***

That got me to thinking about a couple of recent instance runs I had on the Anniversary servers. 

The first one, on my Hunter, was a run through the Underbog*. The tank and healer were from the same guild, and the healer was max level, so yay for us. But still, for the most part I was trying to stay out of trouble. Which, as a Hunter, meant not having my pet pull aggro from the tank nor trying to be a jerk and hitting the enemies hard enough to pull threat myself. Yes, Hunters have that reputation, and I'm quite aware of it. 

Of course, I did miss that I had the wrong buff on when we started (Aspect of the Pack). Sure, it makes you run faster, but when you get hit you get stunned, so... Yeah, not a good idea. 

When the Healer mentioned it, I apologized and switched the buff to the correct one. "I think every Hunter, myself included, has done that before," the Healer replied, which made me feel better.

"And here I was trying to make sure that Growl was off," I added. "Oh well."

I think that a little kindness there went a long way, and I appreciated that.

The second instance was a Sunken Temple run on my Horde Mage, Neve. After my failed attempt to get into ST the other week, I wasn't sure what to expect. However, the Druid tank was up front in that they hadn't been in ST in years, so they might need some guidance in finding their way around. Luckily, another party member pulled up some of the more intricate parts of the instance on ChatGPT (I guess going to Wowhead would have worked too), so we had that part covered. Since our tank was a Druid and I know Druid tanks quite well because I first met my Questing Buddy while she was on her Druid tank, I knew to wait and get a chance to see how they'd do at handling threat before I went all in on my DPS. 

Okay, so I'm casting Blizzard right now; sue me.
Typically I focus on a caster/healer and make sure
we kill them first, or at the very least I can counter
whatever healing or damage spells they put out.

That didn't exactly work as intended, because I kind of got excited a couple of pulls in and pulled threat. "Sorry about that," I said, "I'll slow my DPS for a bit so you can keep threat." 

"That's okay," the tank replied, "I don't speak English well."

Honestly, I had no idea why that mattered in terms of me slowing down my DPS, but I kind of shrugged and did my best to keep myself from pulling threat. I mean, that's my job: do damage but don't be an asshat; do crowd control** and make things easier for the tank and healer; provide food and water for the group, and make sure everybody has the buffs they need.

In case you've forgotten, Sunken Temple (formally known as The Temple of Atal'Hakkar) is one of those Classic instances that can take an entire evening to clear if you're very thorough, or if you're not quite at the right level for it. Just like the other four massive Vanilla instances, Blackrock Depths, Blackrock Spire, Stratholme, and Maraudon, you'll just have to take your time and relax.

So I did.

I mean, I was constantly drinking to get my mana back, so I was fine with the pace. And to be honest, about 1/3 of the way through our group got into a groove and then we were able to speed things up just a bit.

Still, I was floored when the tank said in group chat, "Yr good Mage, you don't go all in on aoe when I pull."

"Thanks," I replied. I thought about making an additional comment, but that was kind of embarrassing. I mean, I'm part of a team, and I look good when the team looks good.

When we finished, both the tank and the healer said in group chat that they added me to their Friends' list. Again, a little kindness went a long way.

***

If there was one thing I'll always remember about my friend, it's that he was always there for you. He encouraged people, enabled them to do their best work, and celebrated with them when they achieved their goals. He was living proof that behaving like other people mattered and were worth cheering for paid dividends, both for the people he affected and himself. I don't know if he ever got to see how many people's lives he'd impacted, but I'd like to think he did. 

*Yes, it's Underbog, not "Underdog", the cartoon from the 1960s. Although I have been known to say "Never fear, UNDERDOG is here!" while in that instance.

This is a poster by Ian Glaubinger.
Note the evil Simon Bar Sinister on the
bottom left, and Polly Purebred on the right.

**Apparently not that many Mages actually do crowd control like you're supposed to. My Questing Buddy has informed me on numerous occasions that the Mages in her guild simply don't do any of that stuff. Or even bother with things such as removing curses from party/raid members, leaving that job to other classes. I have no idea where that mentality comes from, but I consider those "lesser" things a critical part of actually playing a Mage. 

EtA: Corrected intent in a sentence; it could have easily been misread.

When Words Aren't Enough

(Okay, I'm ready to post. At least I think I am.)

Like most hobbies, amateur radio has it's own slang.

Some of it I already knew prior to getting my license, courtesy of being a shortwave radio listener for decades. 73s means "best regards" or an equivalent, and is said at the conclusion of a conversation. QSL, which in question form means "are you receiving me?" or in a statement means "I am receiving you." The terms originated from the (ancient) past; 73 came from the telegraph era and QSL from when most hams communicated via Morse Code, and there's a whole host of terms that originated back then and are still in use today.

73 was also used as the name of an amateur
radio magazine. As you can tell with this cover
from January 1973, declarations of ham radio's demise
have been around since forever. From eBay.

Other terms don't require knowledge of Morse Code, thankfully, but can seem somewhat arcane by themselves. An amateur radio operator's mentor is known as an "Elmer" which originated from an article in an amateur radio magazine whose author was mentored by a man named Elmer, so hams kind of appropriated the name as a term for a mentor in the hobby. A "boat anchor" is an old piece of radio equipment, typically powered by vacuum tubes. Given that those radios weighed a ton and were hard to move around, they got the moniker "boat anchors" to reflect that.

Now THIS is a boat anchor, and one that I did
play with back in my college years, but alas it was
claimed by a professor. This Hammarlund HQ-180AC
is also as heavy as hell. From The Radio Attic.

And then there's a Silent Key. 

As you can probably figure out, the "key" part is a nod to keys used to tap out Morse Code, but the term Silent Key is a respectful way to refer to a ham radio operator who has passed away.

Last week, almost a year to the day that I took my first amateur radio class, one of the three instructors in the class became a Silent Key. 

The last time I saw him was a Saturday in the Spring, assisting with taking down the antenna tower at his home's backyard. He was planning on selling the house, and so he asked for help in taking down the tower and getting it out of the way. It didn't take us long to get the thing down, thankfully, and afterward he showed us how he set up his shack in the basement. 

I fully expected to see him at our next club meeting or at least hear him on our 2m repeater, but a couple of weeks after helping out he stopped logging in to our weekly net. I was told that he likely was busy with the move and probably looking at a vacation, but the longer the silence the more I began to worry. Then I heard unofficially that he was sick, so I reached out to him via email and sent him some words of encouragement. I didn't receive a reply.

A month later word spread throughout the club what the real reason for his absence was: cancer. I was told this in confidence and I kept it until now, since it is merely academic.

He was in his 80s and had lived a full life, and he'd recently remarried in the early part of 2026 after his wife had passed a while ago. But cancer really doesn't care about your hopes and dreams. And you'd think that knowing he had such a wonderful life would make this easier, but it doesn't. Not really.*

If it weren't for him and the other two instructors, I'd not be a ham right now. I'd also not be part of the club that I'm in, and I'd not have a larger circle of friends now. He was such a friendly guy, and he was patient with me as I struggled with some of the more advanced concepts on the General exam. 

I believe the best way to honor him is to pick up his torch of mentorship and pay it forward. I'm not sure how exactly, because I'm not secure enough in my knowledge to be an instructor, but I can be there for people and assist them as they need help. I surely hope that will be enough.

This graphic can be found on several sites, so I'm not sure
who created it. The Morse Code "silent key" is below the
artist's rendering of an actual key. 

*I also discovered this past week that two people I worked with back in the late 90s and early 2000s, who are both about my age, had passed away this Spring. The first one had cancer and was told that it was fatal, so he told people before he died, but the other I have no idea what happened. There were no clues in the obituary, but the photo that they used for the memorial... I couldn't look at it for more than a few moments without seeing the dead look in his eyes. I... I wished I could have reached out, but our paths hadn't crossed in over 20 years (different jobs and social circles), and I didn't even think about seeing what he's up to until recently.

Meme Monday: Stardew Valley Memes

Yes, I've been playing Stardew Valley again. Maybe this time I'll stick around past the two year mark, but we'll see about that.

In honor of my courting of a redhead (probably Leah this time, as my wife is an amalgamation of Leah and Penny), here's a few Stardew Valley memes...

Unlike some people, I don't mind Pierre
that much. Still his "Closed on Wednesday" stance
early in the game pisses me off. From The Gamer.

I gotta be honest: I'm probably "the kid" in this meme.
It never occurred to me that people would actually
put Lewis' purple shorts in the potluck soup.
From Reddit.

I'm not sure why, but this made me laugh.
From Awkwardzombie.com and Kate Tiedrich.

Yeah, romancing Harvey kind of dredged up some
uncomfortable surprises. He's still overall a nice
guy, though. From @sonniegaming on Instagram.

I lived in a dorm in college that this reminded me of.
Well, minus the fireplace and the nice kitchen. From Reddit.

Yeah, I know. I figured it out, and so did everybody
else who played the game. Still, would YOU
want to be the one to tell Pierre? From
@StardewValleyBut-I-Draw3 on Pinterest.

EtA: Added references.

Nothing Lasts 4 Evah

From the comic For Better or For Worse, July 7, 2005.
April's band was named "4 Evah", a reference to the four
members of the band. And yes, Jeremy was a Class A asshat.

Shintar poked me the other day, asking me when I was going to post about WoW Forever. I am, after all, a Classic Plus skeptic.

I heard about WoW Forever even while I was up in Milwaukee, because you can't truly escape the gamer news cycle, but beyond that it now exists --and that there's a new Elven race that you have to pay to access*-- I knew almost nothing about it. In fact, I heard just as much about Diablo 5 and the announcement about new game set in the StarCraft universe** as I did WoW Forever: hardly anything. Given that I was with family, that's fine.

And some friends.

But I'll also admit that I'm just absolutely damn tired of it all.

***

Maybe it's the fact that I've got to start over once more and try to figure this stuff out without spoiling the discovery process in the game for me --as tons of people seem to have no issues doing that for themselves already-- but I'm also tired of the "same old same old" that will be the modus operandi once the game opens. You know the drill: the game opens and everybody and their Grandfather rushes out to max level, because that's what they've been conditioned to do. 

For all the lip service paid by the Devs to the Journey***, both they know and I know that it simply won't happen. People will rush to Endgame, do all the new instances, have YouTube videos and Wowhead in their (virtual) hands, and min max their way to happiness. Oh, and do all the new raids. 

My Questing Buddy mentioned something about WeakAuras not working in WoW Forever (I think I have that right), but that won't stop people from trying to figure out other ways to make the raids trivial. To what's probably a vocal minority of the WoW player base, overcoming the obstacles to making the raid trivial is just as important as the raid itself. But since they are quite vocal, they have quite a bit of influence over the player base and the Devs, so... I look at every other fresh WoW environment that Blizzard has released --Retail/Classic expansion, new Vanilla, or whatever since I began playing in 2009-- and the behavior has been the same. 

And I'm kind of sick of it. 

***

This isn't a matter of me whining that I didn't get my way with Classic Plus, as in my "I'll believe it when I see it" stance means I now have to believe it, but more a matter of me being tired of going against the grain. About the only thing I do know is that based on my prior decades of gaming experience, going with the crowd and rushing ahead only leads to frustration and self-loathing on my part. Ever plowed through a ton of Halloween candy and immediately regretted it afterward? It's like that, but instead of Snickers bars you're inhaling all the in-game content you can without a whit of self-control. 

I know for a fact that if I did rush ahead I wouldn't be able to control myself, because I've done that while reading novels. Or playing video games.**** Even WoW, to be honest. (See: the Summer of 2021.)

I do realize that this is just a funk, and I'll eventually get out of it, but I don't think I will do all that much of anything resembling a deep dive into the game. I ought to at least look at a few basics and hash out some theories about WoW Forever and the Azerothian Universe. For now, my initial, very off-the-cuff impression is that WoW Forever is in the same point in the timeline as Warlords of Draenor: an alternate universe akin to what you find in comic books. As I described WoD back in the day as the equivalent of DC Comics' "New 52" reset, WoW Forever fills a gap in the timeline where the timeline zigged instead of zagged. 

The hubris involved in calling the game WoW Forever has also not been lost on me, because my initial reaction to the name has been "Really? You're going to call it THAT?" Oh, I get the why of it, but I also don't believe for a minute that was the only reason why that name was chosen. And all I'll say to that is... Nothing lasts forever.

This is the last photo we have of Bleu. Last Wednesday
my oldest found her very lethargic in the morning and rushed
her to the Emergency Vet. She was told about the worst news
you could have, where Bleu was in severe pain, and the two
choices were to undergo a highly risky surgery with a low
chance of success, or putting her down. She decided
to have Bleu be put out of her misery. At least we got to see
her over the weekend, where she seemed happy and healthy. 

*The fact that Blizzard has already monetized WoW Forever says a lot about their belief it'll be a success.

**James Strive from the YouTube Channel GameLinked (it's a fork off of LinusTechTips) commented on that StarCraft game "I'll believe it when I see it" at the 2:40 mark from their weekly post this past Thursday. Four years away from release is a long time, and let's be honest: we can't predict what's going to happen in the game industry even two years in advance with LLMs on the rise, much less FOUR years.

***This is another of the few things I do know about WoW Forever.

****Helloo, Baldur's Gate 1. It's been a few decades since I completed you, hasn't it? 1999, you say? That sounds about right. But that was quite a blur back then, because I was a new parent, and despite that I stayed up all night for several nights and then went into work dead tired because I couldn't stop myself from playing until I finished it. 

About In Game Economies

So. 

EVE Online.

No, I'm not thinking of playing it, but while I was away in Milwaukee, a joint venture between Micro and How Money Works on YouTube created this video:

As soon as I saw the title, I knew it was EVE Online. I wasn't disappointed.

Now, the real query for me is what those I know who play EVE Online think of the video. Nogamara? Wilhelm?