World of Warcraft fashion for the undead.

(Photo by Judith White of Bloomberg News, via NY Times)

Of course, I could have bought a 12-pack of this “DEW WITH AN INVIGORATING BLAST OF CITRUS CHERRY FLAVOR with other natural flavors” … after all, LIMITED EDITION … but I’d rather just have the photo and take the risk that my gaming won’t be all that it could be. No doubt liquor has more to do with that than a lack of invigorating citrus cherry flavor.

Myspace, carefully annotated and cleverly anonymized because I didn’t cheat and vacuum right before the photo:

What you don’t see: the aforementioned unvacuumed floor, 15 stacks of books and 4 stacks of CDs, 2 bags of camera equipment and the dog sprawled on the floor licking the subwoofer. (WHY? WHY?)

You have time, it’s “Vacuum out the Warcraft Servers” day.

I’m way ahead of ya, though. Voted this morning on the way to work.

I’ll share my super leet strat for voting — unless there’s evidence to the contrary, every incumbent is a crook, and the longer they’re in office, the more likely they are to be crooked.

I look at it this way, I’m doing them a FAVOR by sending them home. Let some new guy have a chance, that’s my vote.

Whatever your leet strat is, get out there and do eet. If you don’t, you’ll have no one to blame but yourself. And the Republicans. (I’m kidding.)

P.S. Here’s some pics from polling places across the nation via the AIGA Polling Place Photo Project. I would have snapped a few at my polling place, but the scary goth election judge looked like the type who would jump the table and crack my skull with the camera.

Encore broadcast times, in case you’re not a torrenting type and I don’t even know if that’s legal, so you tell me, I’m just saying, in case you think it isn’t and you’re not into that sort of thing, and you’re willing to wait for another broadcast, unlike me: Thursday (today) at 10 pm Eastern, Friday at 12:30 am Eastern, Saturday at 12 am Eastern, Sunday at 11 pm Eastern, and beyond that … just ask a guildie to hook you up or check out the broadcast schedule. And if you don’t have access to Comedy Central, I don’t even want to think what your internet connection must be like.

There’s a few snaps from the episode in a Flickr photo set.

(Links and full article available on the World of Warcraft site.)

(Reference, because they hate permalinks: the news item dated 5/10/06.)

(Created with the Newspaper snippet generator.)

(I wish they had 24-pt type for the headlines. This is certainly worthy of HUGE TYPE.)

(Draenei = dark elves. I called it.)

(Here’s the Plane of Hate.)

(I kid.)

(I’m going to buy that expansion just to see if there is a Plane of Hate.)

Back to Vanguard, Microsoft is getting out while the getting’s good. Based on the HORRIFIC beta buzz swirling around Vanguard, it’s not a moment too soon. That’s me being blunt.

Here’s me being nice: Microsoft and Sigil had irreconciliable artistic differences. Now, Sony and Sigil can have artistic differences.

Did you want to get into the closed beta and try out Vanguard for yourself? Let me rephrase that. Did you want to get into the queue for Vanguard’s beta but for some reason you haven’t signed up on the Vanguard forums already?

Here ya go: the latest issue, June 2006, of Computer Games Magazine includes a code that will give you exclusive access to the Vanguard beta (queue). Plus, there’s pictures.

Heh, a couple of guys in my Warcraft guild went out Monday to pick up a copy, excited to give Vanguard a try. They weren’t too pleased about the queue thing since that’s not very evident from the cover. They tried to convince a few more guildies to get in the queue so we can have a merry little band running around in Vanguard.

This was me being nice: I don’t have $5 to spare this month on a computer mag.

Few things I thought of this week: #1 – I’m not big on the future. I’m not much interested in what I might be able to buy some day. Tell me what I can buy NOW.

#2 – I hope no one ever writes a book called The Mathematics of Multiplayer Online Gaming because what a snooze that would be.

#3 – Please, please, please announce the new Alliance race for the World of Warcraft expansion soon. I’m not much interested, but I’m tired of the speculation and rumors. We all are. End it already. (UPDATE: Thank God that’s over. It’s Draenei. NYT wouldn’t print it if it wasn’t true. Also, longish NYT interview with Blizzard’s (Tigole) Jeff Kaplan.)

#4 – There’s no way in Hell I will spend $500 and change on a game system unless it will blow me too. What functions could said system possibly perform, short of the aforementioned blowing, that my other pieces of electronica can’t do already? None, that’s what.

#5 – This porta-crapper reminded me of the new Nintendo controller, Wii, the subject of much hype-o-drama at the E3 this year. I came back the next day to get a photo. That’s how dedicated to my craft I am.

However, I am a Flickr fanboi and have been for at least a year and a half. Of course, Flickr is not a game, so that probably explains that, but it is (their words) “… almost certainly the best online photo management and sharing application in the world.”

I have a Flickr pro account for AFK Gamer (which you can see), and another Flickr pro account for real life photos (which you can’t see). Most days, I’ll throw up a screenshot or two on Flickr that won’t make the cut for a post here. You’re welcome to poke around there, OF COURSE, cuz Flickr is all about sharing for people that like to watch.

One of the things I do while waiting in a game queue is follow the Flickr gaming tags and check out other people’s screenshots. Here’s a few to get you started if you’re like me and you like to watch:

WorldofWarcraft tag, Most interesting WorldofWarcraft, Everquest2 tag, Most interesting Everquest2, Guild Wars tag, Ragnaros (the bastard of Molten Core) tag, and Flickr interest groups for gaming screenshots.

There are even gaming guilds/clans that have a Flickr group for their members to share screenshots and photos, which, by my way of thinking, makes Flickr a killer guild app, too — unfortunately, not for my guild. We’re still working on How to Register for the DKP Site 101.