WOW!

Alright, the lame, and overused pun, in today's title is probably going to negate anything witty I might have to say, but still, I hope you'll read on.

There's a story on Wired yesterday with a title that I needed to read twice: "Bejeweled, Warcraft Combine to Form World's Most Addictive Game"

For a moment, I assumed that this was simply some kind of joke, and then imagined, for a moment, a game of Bejeweled where gems are replaced with Orc heads. Then my eyes wandered to the screen shot, and I was suddenly filled with a plethora of feelings... mostly disgust, intermingled with pity.



The concept here is that someone created a plug-in, or add-on for World of Warcraft that allows you to play of game of Bejeweled during tedious or mundane tasks.

Really?

World of Warcraft is one of the biggest time-wasters on the planet, and people pay for it, in many cases addicted to it. Bejeweled, by a similar token, ranks fairly high as a worthless time waster, and people will play it, like so many other 'casual games', instead of working, looking for work, feeding their kids, etc. So, now there's actually someone that's actually taken an enormous time-vortex and crammed it into another time-eater? Isn't that like taking uppers and, instead of downers, but more uppers at the same time?

I want to be clear on the understanding here. First, there's tasks built into WoW that are so mundane, that people are actually looking for something to do at the same time? If that's the case, the game ceases to be a game, and just becomes work, doesn't it? Alright, so, with that said, instead of listening to the little voice that says, 'hey, this is boring, go outside, find a girlfriend, and stop living inside this game!', people are actually bringing casual gaming inside of WoW (much like running Bejeweled in your cubicle, at work)?

I feel so sorry for these people. I'm sure I'm not the right person to feel pity for pretty much anyone, and I'm almost certain that I would, with my addictive personality, find myself deeply buried inside of WoW, had I ever succumbed to its wiles. However, I can't help myself here. This is so pathetic, and laughable, I still can't believe it's not actually a joke.

Maybe it's time to get all the WoW players together and have an intervention. I'm sure we can get of them into a nice 12 step program, and have them well in no time.


Since I'm on the subject, though...

I suppose I might as well mention another WoW article that had me checking the calendar to be certain it wasn't actually the first of April: "Pentagon Researcher Conjures Warcraft Terror Plot".

Hard as it is to believe, Wired felt this belonged in the "Danger Room", as opposed to games. The simple concept here is that the oxymoron of American Intelligence has actually gone as far as to study the concept of terrorists using a virtual world, like World of Warcraft, to plot and plan future terrorist attacks.

I'm not even sure how to approach something like this, at least not without just laughing derisively. Even with all the maps and descriptions of how it could be done, it just seems so asinine. Do we really expect Bin Laden to get his cadre of criminals together on a server and train them to drop a nuke on the White House?

I'm sure we have nothing to worry about, as I see one of two things might happen. Either we're see a huge drop in terrorist activity around the world, as Al-Qaeda members cease functioning as cells of suicide bombers and drug / gun runners, and instead begin to build up their guild, farming for gold and items, and launching a Jihad on the Horde.

That, or they'll be too busy playing Bejeweled, and just won't be listening to the plan.