What I Do When I'm Not Gaming

I suppose I ought to provide an update to my deck adventure, if for no other reason than as proof that I didn't abandon it again like so many other years.

Last year, car repairs ate up all available money, and the year before I was still in recovery from my little hospital adventure. And the year before that, 2021... Well, I'd rather not talk about that summer again.

But yes, I have been working on the deck this year, and I do have a long term plan of action.

The first stage was to determine if the top of the beams and joists were good enough to use as-is. If they weren't, then I'd likely have to replace the entire deck and... with costs for a new deck running $12,000 to $20,000 for a direct replacement, we don't have the money for that right now.

So I bought a couple 8 foot replacement deck boards and pried the old ones out on the far end with the intent of determining if the so-called bones of the deck were worth saving. 

Luckily, they were, so I replaced them and put in an order for decking that would cover somewhere between 35-40% of the deck. I give it a range because you always over-order on wood being delivered to your house because you have to assume that some of the wood is going to be unusable. 

Looks can be deceiving.

From this side, the wood looked pretty good. However, when I began flipping the boards over, I discovered that was not the case.

There's a reason why I put some boards up
high like this. This flaw just had to be in
the middle, because if it were on the end
I could have found a place for it and cut off
the bad section.

Some boards, however, could be made usable by merely flipping them over so the flaw wasn't showing.

Such as this one. I do sometimes wonder how
people at the mill where this is cut convince
themselves that wood such as this is perfectly
fine to sell at the same price as other, good boards.

Over the past couple of weeks, I've been pulling out a row of decking and replacing it with a new one. Although I've been out there early in the morning from time to time, typically as stress relief from work, for the most part I've begun my work after 3:30 PM. That's when the deck is covered in shade from a nearby chokecherry tree.

If you notice that the last board on the end is an old board, that was done on purpose. I'm using that board to be able to snap a line once I'm finished and trim all of the excess off in one cut. That does mean that there are boards that extend pretty far out from the edge of the deck, and I've nearly thwacked myself a few times by forgetting that fact. When I cut the grass last Sunday, I forgot about the 16 foot deck board I set on the top of the rail and nearly smacked into it with my temple. 

Still, the project is continuing, and I'm about 30 - 33% finished:

That has left a lot of old deck boards to get rid of.

That pile is after I broke down a bunch of boards, took care of the nails sticking out, and set them out for trash removal. I sure hope that the trash people aren't gonna complain about the steady stream of old decking they're gonna see.

***

The plan going forward is to finish using these deck boards, then in September I'll get another round of wood, and go until that round is finished. If I need a third bunch in October, that's fine; October is usually our driest month of the year. 

Why spread it out? Well, the short answer is money. I can afford a bit at a time, rather than pay for it all at once. Since the cost pushed me into using pressure treated wood instead of composite*, cost is also determining just how much of the deck I can complete at one time. I'm a one man operation, so I don't want to have all of the wood delivered just to have it sit out, unused, for months.

Once the deck boards are replaced, then I have the Winter to plan out how I want to attack the next phase, which is either the railing or the steps. I'm thinking it's going to be the railing, but I could change my mind and do the steps instead. The last stage of the deck repair will be replacing the skirting and putting in some gravel and whatnot around the edge of the deck to keep the weeds away.

So yeah, multi-year project. One step at a time, however. One step at a time.

*At one point composite decking cost as low as twice that of pressure treated wood, but the price of wood has gone down recently. Still, I'd likely have to rework the deck by adding joists if I wanted to use composite deck boards, because composite isn't as strong as regular wood. Yes, I'd have to paint the deck more regularly than if I used a composite material --and paint is not cheap-- but having to resubmit the deck for review by the county inspectors isn't worth the extra up front cost.

D&D Gets the USPS Treatment

D&D is 50 years old this year, and because of that anniversary it has now been given a status like that of other pop cultural icons: on the cover of US stamps.

The official US Postal Service announcement included stamp series honoring legendary basketball coach John Wooden, photographer Ansel Adams, and the classic summertime pastime of carnivals in Carnival Nights.

From the USPS.

The stamps will be officially released the first day of GenCon, on Thursday August 1st.

Before you ask, no, I'm not going up there on Thursday just to get the stamps; I can get them at our local post office without much of a big deal. (We're going on Sunday, however!)

What does amuse me is just how much the anti-D&D crowd is likely to explode when they discover that the Post Office is peddling SATANIC MATERIALS!!! I'd better prepare myself in the event my mom has a coronary when she goes to the post office.

Meme Monday: Then and Now Memes

Yes, I've been on that kick again, where comparing RPGs and MMOs between "back in the day" to "right now". And yes, I know I could just login to WoW Classic Era and compare it to Retail WoW, but this is much funnier.

Be warned that some of these are pretty damn large and you'll need to either download them or something to see them all...

Such as this one from Dorkly.

Again, from Dorkly.
I really miss Dorkly's glory days.

From Nerfnow. It's the bane of all classic MMOs:
they're basically solved games, and have been
for the past decade or more.

I wish I could look that well adjusted.
From FowlLanguageComics.com.

Musings on that Creative Cosplay Impulse

While you'd never guess it if you met me in person, I'm quite enamored of cosplayers of all stripes. 

There's the professional cosplayers --those who are paid to cosplay, from the so-called "booth babe" gig to those who cosplay at a con to mingle with the crowd*-- and there's the various levels of amateur cosplayers. The amateurs range from raw newbies to those who work on their cosplay with a level of professionalism that rivals those of the actual pros.

Svetlana and Benni, the people behind Kamui Cosplay.
They not only create and wear cosplay for events, they also
publish digital (and print-on-demand) books on creating
your own cosplay. Full disclosure: I own one of
their books. From KamuiCosplay.com.

Svetlana in Druid Tier 9 gear
from World of Warcraft.
From KamuiCosplay.com.

And I know that some of them will get mightily offended when I lump them in with the cosplay crowd, there's also the historical costume people --ranging from SCAdians** to historical re-enactors of various stripes-- who research and create their own clothing with varying degrees of faithfulness to historical accuracy.

Union Civil War reenactors at the "A Step Back in Time"
event at the Sharon Woods Heritage Village Museum.
From Cincy Magazine.

To me, I consider all of this part of cosplay. Your research, design, and engineering (whether by needle and thread or actual machine shop equipment) for the outfit you're working on is going to be just as rigorous as you want it to be. Having seen a lot of the cosplay YouTube videos --such as those from Mineralblu or Justin Cosplay-- there's no real difference in quality between the various groups.

Part of my interest is because I enjoy working on and creating things***, but also there's an undeniable amount of beauty in cosplay. 

Screencap of Dokomi 2024 in Dusseldorf, Germany,
video by Mineralblu. One nice thing Mineralblu does
is put the names and social media for the cosplayers
in the video without having to switch on closed
captions, so they get full credit.

Another part is understanding the how behind the cosplay designs that elude my oh-so-not-with-it brain.

I mean, I can comprehend using 3D printers for a variety of purposes, and foam sheets from the hardware store (such as this from Home Depot) to make armor and whatnot:

From Flooring Inc's website.
The website I linked to is an entire entry
point into how to use foam for armor
and shields. I kid you not.

Yes, I also understand the power of needle and thread, whether by hand or by sewing machine. I've described sewing machines before as power tools for cloth, which makes it sound more like something that belongs in a garage shop than in the corner of a bedroom.

Or in storage in the basement. 
Yes, that's my machine, built in the late 1970s.
And holy crap is it heavy.

I also understand the ability of makeup or a wig in the hands of an expert to transform someone.**** 

Screencap of Dokomi 2024 in Dusseldorf, Germany,
video by Mineralblu. 

While I was peripherally aware of other things out there to assist a cosplayer, I have been still quite surprised at the extent of what's available. Such as contact lenses for the eyes:

Those eyes...
Alexstrasza cosplay by DarkLadyCosplay.
From DarkLadyCosplay on DeviantArt.

Or that so-called "boob tape" is a thing:

Apparently this movement got a boost from
Kim Kardashian of all people, which is likely
a big reason why I never heard about it before.
The pic is from boob tape brand Skines.

When a magazine known for household tips and tricks such as Real Simple runs an article about how to use boob tape, you know this entire thing has gone mainstream. All my brain can think of is that removing the tape must really hurt like hell, but the various forms of boob tape is safe for use on the body, so hopefully it doesn't hurt like when you're waxing your body.

Steve Carell from The Forty Year Old Virgin.
Supposedly he was never told about how
this would feel before the shot, and
this was his real reaction.

There's an entire cottage industry surrounding items for cosplayers, whether intentional or not. Companies that you'd never expect to have anything to do with cosplayers, such a Flooring Inc. mentioned above, have web pages on how to shape their products for cosplay gear. It all spends, I guess, and if cosplayers are going to shell out money for your company's stuff, the easiest thing in the world to do is to encourage those sales.

***

Things aren't always sunshine and roses, of course.

There's a reason why the slogan "cosplay is not consent" is a thing, and that's because some people can't keep their hands and their words to themselves. 

I get that someone in their cosplay outfit can look damn hot --just watch a video or even looking at the small samples here and it becomes pretty obvious-- but a cosplayer looking hot or acting/posing in a sexy way doesn't give an onlooker license to act like an oversexed creeper.

Basic common courtesy can go a long way toward interacting with cosplayers, but also recognizing that there's an "in-character" and an "out-of-character" mode for them is highly important. Just like any actor who slips into character, they may act in a fashion they may definitely not feel internally. Sure, that Harley Quinn cosplayer gave you a grin and a wink while striking a pose, but that doesn't mean that they're giving you an okay to go and pursue them. Or grope them. Or berate them when they refuse your advances.

***

I could go on and on about details surrounding cosplay and historical re-creations --in another lifetime I would likely have been busily working away at Colonial Williamsburg in their archives or assisting in restorations rather than working in IT-- but I'm going to end this with a couple of videos on the creation process:

I really love Svetlana's energy in her videos as 

well as the details during creation.

And the corgi is massively cute.

While I could have picked the video Bernadette

made about the time she made an OnlyFans for

"saucy Victorian ankle pics" (oh, it is funny

as hell), I went with an actual dress creation video.

*Some professional cosplayers get involved with con events, such as judging amateur cosplay contests or holding workshops on cosplay and the cosplay process.

**I've mentioned the Society for Creative Anachronism several times in the past; they were my initial exposure to amateur level historical costuming. Yes, I've visited Colonial Williamsburg, but I've always considered the re-enactors there to be purely professional in nature. The SCA was my first exposure to true amateurs who research and create their own period clothing. I met my first Civil War (or other) re-enactors only after my first (and only) SCA organizational meeting. 

Why didn't I join the SCA? Well, that's a story all by itself, and one that won't fit here...

***When my primary care physician suggested I go on vacation to relax --yes, really-- I immediately thought of woodworking projects. Such as creating this outdoor end table using 2x4 and 2x6 pieces of wood:

****Okay, time for a short story.

Back when I was a junior in college, one Saturday night my friends and I stopped by the dorm of some girls we knew before everybody was to go out for the evening. Two of the girls were to join us later --they had some event to attend first-- and they were finishing up makeup in their common room when we walked in. For the most part, the girls didn't wear much in the way of makeup --after all, when you're up until 1 AM studying and then have to go to class at 8 AM the last thing you want to do is spend time doing makeup-- so when they came into view I was stunned by what I saw. Before, they were 20 year old friends of mine, but after...

If you've seen the transformation that Katy Perry makes when she puts on makeup, you get the idea.

I'm pretty sure my brain broke that evening.

EtA: Fixed some formatting.

Yadda Yadda Yadda, Something About History

Let's harken back to those halcyon days of yester er, 2021, when the Dark Portal opened and TBC Classic formally launched.

The optimal method of leveling in Outland --according to all the game guides-- was to spam dungeons in succession until you get to the level cap. My guild back then followed that strategy religiously, endlessly spamming dungeons to get to the cap*, and then... They stopped. They --and a lot of other players who followed the same strat-- simply burned out on running dungeons and refused to run them again.** 

This strategy, one of endlessly spamming dungeons over and over, was repeated in Wrath Classic and in Season of Discovery's Phase 2 (Scarlet Monastery, anyone?) and was even picked up on by Nixxiom in his latest video as part of the reason why he stopped playing SoD:

One of my Classic Era friends hates hates HATES
Gnomeregan, so she's right there with you, Nixxiom.

So, why bring this up? I mean, that community-wide scourge of min-maxing things to death is what led me to quit Season of Discovery too, but that's not why I'm posting.

I'm looking at Delves from Retail's soon to be released The War Within and am thinking that people will simply run Delves on repeat until they get to max level, and then switch to running dungeons and raids. That's assuming that they don't actually need to finish a main storyline to jump straight into endgame content. Maybe they do need to quest to get to endgame, but my belief is that people will skip everything to get to the end if you give them the opportunity to do so. The WoW community has shown in the past that enough players will do whatever it takes to "win" that they need to be protected from their worst impulses. 

I don't need to rehash that TBC Classic experience that the leveling Shamans --myself included-- had upon reaching Outland: when we finally needed to enter some of these dungeons, we couldn't find anyone to run with us due to the burnout. At least with Delves you can run them solo, so you don't have to worry about your friends burning out on them and preventing you from getting your own runs completed.

It's just that I look at these new systems and think of all the ways that they could go wrong. Like death and taxes, the concept of developers underestimating a player base's lust for something --no matter what it is-- is almost a certainty. 

*And then Heroics once those unlocked, because getting attuned to some of the raids required a lot of Heroic dungeon runs.

**Until the Isle of Quel'Danas unlocked at the end of the expansion, revealing the Magister's Terrace dungeon, and they all spammed that endlessly for reputation and gear.

Meme Monday: Miscellaneous Memes

Because it's mid-July, I suppose, and I'm not sure anybody wants to see marching band memes right now. (Particularly those who started band camp this past weekend in the heat and humidity, standing at attention on an asphalt parking lot...)

In 2004 I was 35, so I already had those
so-called adult responsibilities.
From Gamerant.

You know, this is what happens when
you play an MMO that encourages mass
slaughter. From Imgflip.

Not to burst your bubble or anything, but
I'm pretty sure the Dragon Queen would have
a few thoughts on the matter...
From Reddit. (Of COURSE it's from Reddit...)

The craziest people I know who I play RPGs
or MMOs with are women. So yes, I can confirm this.
From Pinterest.

If We Had The Chance

Can it be that it was all so simple then
Or has time re-written every line?
If we had the chance to do it all again
Tell me, would we? Could we?

--The Way We Were, Barbara Streisand (Written by Alan Bergman, Marilyn Bergman, and Marvin Hamlisch)

The other day I was helping out my Questing Buddy with a run through Uldaman --that mid-L40s dungeon out in the Badlands that is actually the archaeological excavation of a titan city-- when I mentioned something amusing I saw when I got to the Ironforge Flight Point to head out.

"One of the people from [the guild I occasionally help out with Onyxia] was here at the Ironforge FP and they did a keyboard turn as I ran by on OG Card," I reported. "It was as if they saw my full Tier 3 set and said, 'Wait, isn't that the Mage who never reserves anything in Ony?"

"LOL"

I'm sure I got recognized, since that Mage Tier 3 set is pretty distinctive, and having it also means that I was raiding Naxxramas in Vanilla Classic long enough to actually get the full set. In a 40 person raid where you have --on average-- 5-6 Mages, 3 Warlocks, and 3-4 Priests vying for the same drops-- you're competing with over 1/4 of the raid to get 9 pieces of gear.

Too bad I didn't say out loud "I'm the EVIL twin!!" before I took the FP, but because my brain only thought of that now, oh well.

"Maybe they're waiting on the T6 set," my Questing Buddy added.

"They'll be waiting a long time for that," I replied. We both knew that the T6 set was released in Burning Crusade, and Classic Era is permanently set at Vanilla Classic.

After a short pause, I said, "I never got a T6 set. Or a T5 set, for that matter."

"Neither did I." 

Our TBC raid team disbanded after only one try in Sunwell Plateau*, and since I was Loot Manager for our raid, I was also aware of her struggles to get gear in the two Tier 5 raids, Tempest Keep and Serpentshrine Cavern.

"IIRC, Tier 5 wasn't that good for Enhancement Shamans," I mused. "Maybe two of the pieces were good, but overall Tier 4 gear was more desirable."

"I didn't even get Tier 4 gear at all," she replied, "since Fire Spec Warlocks used the Spellfire set."

"Ah, the Tailored set?"

"Yep."

That was the set that required a Tailor to make Spellcloth every couple of days. While it's one of those 'it sounds great in theory' concepts to spread out the gear acquisition process, what ended up happening in TBC Classic was that people would fanatically level alts just for the purpose of cranking out tons of Spellcloth for their gear. I knew one Mage who actually had FIVE toons making Spellcloth so they could get the gear needed for raiding.** (Yes, they also had a 'normal' full time job.) Somewhere in the back of my head I would have liked to get that set for Cardwyn or Neve, but I looked at how sweaty people were at working for that set, threw up in my mouth a little, and walked away.

The next day, we were killing pirates in Stranglethorn Vale when talk about TBC Classic came up again. 

"I find it surprising, but I'm now kind of missing TBC Classic," I said. "It would be nice to go back and do things differently."

"What would you do differently?" my Questing Buddy asked.

"First thing is that I wouldn't switch to being an Enhancement Shaman," I replied with some heat.

She laughed.

"I'm a Mage, and while I love melee, I absolutely hated the totem-twisting rotation. If you were off by just a smidge everybody's DPS would tank. I know I'd lose my raid spot, but that'd be the case only on the hardcore guilds."

"Yeah, I'd do a lot of things differently," she added. "I loved Warlock Fire, and I hated giving that up to tank [Leotheras the Blind]."

"I don't miss raid leading." Being peripherally involved in guild leadership drama wasn't worth it, particularly the perception that we were the "casual" raid despite our once per week raid trying hard to keep up with the multi-day per week hardcore teams.

"I miss Jesup." Jes ran a lot of alt raids, and she was the one who originally created the Friday night Karazhan run before handing it off to me. She'd burned out on all those alt raids in TBC Classic, but she came back to run some in Wrath Classic.*** 

"How is she doing?" another of our friends asked.

"I haven't heard from her in months," I replied.

Now that we're a few years away from the end of TBC Classic, I find that I've come around to agreeing with Shintar's desire to have a few TBC Era servers around. For all those worried about the player base being fractured, to Blizzard a sub is a sub is a sub, so if they keep you "in the family" in some fashion rather than having you unsubscribe to go play FFXIV or Elder Scrolls Online during content droughts, then Blizz has succeeded.

Preach talks about the "keeping it in the family"

concept here, so it's not just me who thinks that...

I know I'm not the only one who misses the concept of TBC Era servers, given the community driven "fresh" server push on PvP-RP Classic Era servers, as highlighted by WillE here:

Apparently Microsoft/Zenimax is pushing hard

to promote ESO's Gold Road expansion with
all of these sponsorships...

He is right in that Vanilla Classic seems to be an evergreen thing, where there's continual interest in starting over every few years, but another part of it's appeal is that in an Era server you have all the freaking time in the world. You don't have to rush to the end and then start on the progression raiding treadmill because you know an expansion will be coming out in a few years. That's kind of why in LFG and Trade Chat there's an ongoing argument about why pay for a level boost when most of the Vanilla Classic experience is in the leveling itself. 

With Cataclysm Classic in full swing, there is now no ability to see the Old World + Outland + Northrend as it was, so Blizzard is effectively creating a demand by simply going through the progression of World of Warcraft's expansions. While it's not their primary motivation for creating Cataclysm Classic, I'm sure that the WoW Classic team is aware of it. I'm also completely sure that Blizz has at least kept an eye on the private server community to see if there's an uptick in interest in TBC and Wrath Classic servers. 

But we'll see. After my experience in TBC Classic, I never thought I'd be circling back to want to try it again, but here we are. Maybe it's a shot at redemption, or maybe it's a chance for me to finally get some closure from all of the shit that myself and the other leveling Shamans went through, but if I did go back it would be on my terms, not anybody else's.**** 

And that's a start.

 

*That's where you get the Tier 6 gear, along with Mount Hyjal and Black Temple.

**And to sell on the Auction House.

***I'd have loved to have run with her in those, but since she was doing them under the franken guild's name and some people I no longer respect participated, I refused to join. I'm not so desperate to raid that I was willing to overlook bad behavior, which judging by commentary in social media makes me feel like I'm some sort of unicorn.

****Even just writing that last paragraph gave me flashbacks to that insane month I spent and how miserable it was. Slaying that soul-sucking psychic vampire would be very much worth it. Now, where's my fucking wooden stake?