I was a little bored today, and the World of Warcraft servers were down for maintenance, so I went to the official World of Warcraft forums. For those of you who’ve never been to a forum of that type, let me summarize what kind of thing you’ll see:

Company representative: These are our plans to make things better.
Anti-fan #1: u idits ned to fix this gm s o i can mor easy be a ashol on it, not try to impr.. um… fix stuf.
Anti-fan #2: Don’t you know that there are 800 other problems that need to be fixed? And that this will make things worse? You don’t care at all about the fan base. I swear, this game has a lot of potential, but it sucks. SUCKS, I say! … Oh, here’s my $15 for this month’s gaming.
Fanboy #1: This is awesome! You guys are great! Everything you do is great! Will you have my babies? Or, can I have yours?
Rational fan #1: I understand that you guys are trying, but could you possibly try to fix the following things? There are pretty simple ways you could do it, like this…
Anti-Fans #1 and 2: Shut up, Fanboys! Blizzard is the devil!
Rational Fan #2: If you hate the game that much, stop paying to play it, get off the forums and leave us alone!

Really, reading the forums is just an exercise in masochism. It’s like a bad car wreck. You don’t want to keep reading, but you just can’t help it.

I have my complaints about World of Warcraft, but very, very few of them have anything to do with the developers. See, people are idiots. You’ve got the PVP servers filled with people who don’t want fun, fair fights — they just want to win. They attack people 10-20 (or more) levels below them, because they get a kick out of ruining other people’s game. They watch while you fight a creature and wait until you’re injured before jumping in. Basically, they’re just jerks.

The thing is, if you joined a PVP server, you should have expected this. Sure, it’s annoying, and sure, I complain, but I don’t blame the developers. It’s the nature of a PVP server, and either suck it up, or move to another server.

In addition to the annoyances of the actual game, I’ve now discovered the annoyances of the forums. Most of these people, I’ve decided, are kids. They don’t remember what it was like to buy a game that was too hard for them and was never patched. They think, when a game is a challenge, the solution is to whine until the developers “rebalance” things so that it’s easier for them. This might involve changing some non-player dynamics, like quest rewards and the like, or it might involve cutting back on the amount of damage that other players can do.

Anyway, the point is, stop your freakin’ whining. If you don’t like the game, quit. Free up bandwidth for me and my friends.

As horrific as I find abortion, I’m going to agree with Deb on this one:

Stacy Dow, who was 16 when she found out that she was pregnant, is seeking compensation and damages for the “financial burden” of raising her daughter. Miss Dow, whose father has had to take on a second job to help to pay for his granddaughter, is claiming for “loss, injury and damage” suffered at the hands of Tayside University Hospitals NHS Trust.

Deb says, and I agree, that if you must sue over anything at all, this is an entirely appropriate thing to sue over. This young girl was the recipient of a legal procedure, which was botched. I see nothing wrong with holding those who botched the procedure responsible for the costs that she received because of that.

That’s not to say I’m defending the girl, exactly. I’m just thinking that if one considers an abortion a perfectly ethical (or, at least, legal) “service”, then one shouldn’t be surprised if people are held responsible for providing a sub-standard service.

That said, this quote sent chills down my spine:

She added: “I still don’t know if, or what, I’m going to tell Jayde when the time comes. I just hope she understands what happened and why I did it.”

I can’t imagine what that would do to a child. “Dear, I just want you to know that I tried to kill you before you were born. I succeeded in having your sister killed, but you survived. Then, because I was so put-out by your survival, I sued the people who killed your sister. But, just so you know, I love you.”

I’m thinking that might constitute a mixed signal, but I’m not sure. I’m usually all for honesty, but I’m not so sure that people should tell their children about their botched abortions.

Other posts:
Outside the Beltway

Here’s a bit of odd news from Germany. Danger: Exploading [sic] Toads! (All emphasis added):

The residents of Hamburg have been told to avoid one of the city’s lakes after a spate of mysterious explosions in the area. It seems the lake’s toads have been violently and spontaneously combusting.

…

Explanations include an unknown virus, a fungus that has infected the water, or crows, which in an echo of the Alfred Hitchcock movie The Birds, attack the toads, literally scaring them to death.

Okay, I’m going to withhold final judgement here, but I’d be completely shocked if the “terrifying birds” explanation is the real one. I’m pretty sure that if fear could cause toads to explode, we would’ve had some evidence of it before now.

All I know is that we’d better figure out what’s causing it soon, before the frogs decide that it’s all our fault and turn on us.