Nerd pants

Lunch time is usually a happy time. It's a time to escape the cubicle, rant about work, talk about the weekend, and dare others to eat something gross (Frosty Floats from Wendy's made with Mello Yello and chocolate ice cream, for example). These are all fun activities. But some of my lunch time pals are big World of Warcraft players and will often go off on dungeon-sword-magic-critter discussions. I usually respond by calling them nerds.

They argue that it isn't nerdy because over 10 million people play the game. "How can something that's popular be nerdy?" I disagree with this logic. Harry Potter, Star Wars, and video games in general are popular, but they're nerdy. I'm not trying to put myself on a pedestal above them by saying this, mind you. I like Star Wars and Harry Potter and video games, and yes, I consider myself a nerd. That's okay. But I don't care if everyone in the whole world is playing this game, it's still nerdy. My coworkers have said, "Well, William Shatner and Mr. T play W.O.W." Well then I have a news flash for ya: William Shatner and Mr. T are nerds.

(I found the Mr. T Muppet Magazine pic while typing this. If you can't read it, the teaser on the cover says, "How tough is Mr. T? Scooter finds out!" If you have to send in a bad-ass like Scooter for the interview, then you know the guy is tough. There's also the caption, "Be a Halloween look-alike: Boy George, Cyndi Lauper, Michael Jackson." Oooohh. I feel sorry for those kids.)

Name-calling aside, my coworker Dave has tried to convice me to sign up and play. If it was just a good game that everyone liked I might give it a try, but what irks me about the whole thing is that there's a monthly charge to play W.O.W. You buy the game and then it costs $15 a month to play it! Sounds like a scam to me. Dave has the game and some gaming guides, has been playing for 2 1/2 years, and his wife plays too, so they've shelled out like $1000 playing this game. I'd prefer saving my money by playing other games. Like blackjack... in Vegas.

Anyway, I told Dave I wouldn't mind playing if he paid for the game and monthly subscription. He wants me to join them on quests of killing and plunder or something. Sounds like a lot of work. I asked him what kind of stuff I could do if I just wanted to play in half-hour increments. The following is our nerd conversation.

"Well, when I get home I usually do some herbing." "Herbing?" "Yeah, I dig around for herbs, which I can then sell to buy cool things, like pants." "So you spend $15 a month so you can dig for herbs to buy pants?" "Yeah! And other cool things, like hats and necklaces!" "You spend your time digging for herbs to buy hats and necklaces?" "Well the necklaces can help you. Like, if you're a mage you want necklaces to give you extra intelligence and stamina." "Do they have necklaces that give you other stuff, like strength?" "Yeah, but the mage can't use those." "If you're a mage, wouldn't you already have intelligence? Why wouldn't you be able to buy the stuff you don't have? Why wouldn't you get necklaces that give you strength?" "Well, you can buy them, but they wouldn't work for the mage. The warrior needs strength so it'd work for him." "But the warrior is already strong!" (And why are warriors wearing necklaces?)

So, you spend your money to dig to get money and buy necklaces and pants, and the necklaces may or may not actually help you gain strength or intelligence for your herb-digging missions. I guess you also start the game without pants... hmm, maybe that's why the game is so popular. At any rate, for $15 a month I can buy myself some real pants.