Wipe #12: The Brainiac Wipe. The raid leader has spent loads of time reading up on the fight, has his strategy modified to match his raid make-up, and Brainiac wants to argue.

Frequently heard comments: “But when I do it the other way, I get more DPS!” “My spec isn’t designed to handle that, so I’m going to do Y,” and Y is the exact opposite of what is needed. “In my other guild, the one that cleared the Sunwell on the PTR, we did Y instead,” again, the same Y. “Dude, I told you to do X, and you completely ignored me! WTF?!”

Wipe #13: The “I Don’t Generate Aggro” Wipe. All healing and DPS must stop, dude thinks he can ignore this rule and does what he wants anyway.

Frequently heard comments: “I didn’t know drinking a potion would generate aggro.” “I didn’t know throwing a Mend Pet would generate aggro.” “I didn’t know an AoE attack would generate aggro.” “My totem shot him, I forgot about that.”

Wipe #14: The Pally Buff Wipe. Someone critical loses Blessing of Salvation, nobody knows why.

Frequently heard comments: “Why don’t you have Pally Power?” “Pally Power sux!” “I thought I had Salv, then I had Might, then I died.” “I told X to buff Salv!” “Can I get double-Salv, so when the Pallys do their drugs, I get to keep at least one Salv?”

Wipe #15: The Keyboard User Wipe. Quickness is needed, but the player wants to turn use the A and D keys instead of strafing or using the mouse.

Frequently heard comments: “All you had to do was get out of range, what happened?” “He’s walking backwards?” “Is he paying any attention? He’s just spinning when he should be running.”

Wipe #16: The DC Wipe: Main Tank or his healer’s computer goes bonkers at just the wrong time.

Frequently heard comments: “Annnd there he goes again.” “Is he AFK or… nope, he’s gone.” “Heal me!!! Oh (bleep) I got no healz!”

Wipe #17: The Forgot How to Play Wipe: Someone is on their alt and tried to do something that his class cannot do, or forgot he can do something he normally can’t.

Frequently heard comments: “I don’t have FD, that’s right, sorry.” “What do you mean, Ice Block? I’m a rogue! Oh, crap.” “My bubble must be on cooldown… if a warlock had a bubble, that is.”

Wipe #18: The One-Button Wonder Wipe. One key-press causes the whole shebang to go to h3ll.

Frequently heard comments: “Why did you shift into humanoid form? You can’t tank as a humanoid!” “You fired your gun just as the tank Taunted the boss?” “Don’t attack until the tank has aggro, that includes priests with maces. Never thought I’d have to be that specific.”

Wipe #19: The Master Loot Wipe. Specifically for Lady Vashj, the raid has to be able to pick up the Tainted Cores. Can’t do that if Master Looter is set, foshizzle.

Frequently heard comments: “And another one despawned!! That’s three in a row!!” “Oh crap, folks, I made a big boo-boo.”

Wipe #20: The Misplaced Misdirect Wipe. Hunter is allowed to pull, totally honks up his Misdirect and throws it on his pet, another member of the raid, or just misses it altogether.

Frequently heard comments: “HEY! Don’t put that on me!” “GET IT OFF ME, GET IT OFF ME!!” “And you’re planning on tanking that all by yourself, are you?”

Wipe #21: The Busted Macro Wipe. DPS has to switch targets during the fight, they make a spiffy macro to assist, and end up spelling something in a foreign language.

Frequently heard comments: “Kill the totem! The TOTEM! Why is nobody killing the totem!?” “Demononic Chains, right? Oh, well there ya go.”

Wipe #22: The Tab-Target Wipe. When people refuse to use an Assist Macro and end up busting sheep because they only know how to target the closest mob.

Frequently heard comments: “You break my sheep, you tank it, buster.” “Resheep circle! Resheep circle! RESHEEP CIRCLE!” “Only attack what the rogue is attacking, OK? Assist him! Assist. It’s a slash command.”

Wipe #23: The “OK, That’s Too Cool” Wipe. Someone breaks a paradigm, does something tricky and fun, causes the raid to wipe, but it’s so impressive that nobody cares.

Frequently heard comments: “Voodoo gnomes wiped us? Well that’s new.” “Barov’s Peasant Caller is all Win. No, dude, I’m honored to wipe with you.” “You fired at the audience and pulled them all? I didn’t even know you could attack them!”

Edit: We’re getting some email asking for the “Wipe-Fight between TJ and BRK” to continue. Folks, TJ has her own blog and writes her own stuff. She has very kindly volunteered to post stuff for us, that we write, on our blog when we are unable to. There will be not TJ/BRK Wars as we don’t write on each other blog unless we’re Very Explicit. We both want to avoid confusion. If you see a post here, “written” by TJ, it was just her “posting” it, unless she states at the beginning, “Hey, this is TJ.” Vice-versa on her site.

/apologize for the confusion

Wipe #1: The Stoner Wipe. Welcome to the raid, all you people staring out the window and watching television. Yes, there is a boss fight now; please pay attention.

Frequently heard comments: “Which way is north?” “Is it my job to do that?” “Ha! I had my tanking/DPS/healing gear on.” “I’m supposed to be on the other side? I’m always on this side… aren’t I?”

Wipe #2: The Early-Epeen Wipe. DPS rushes ahead of the tank and blows up the raid before anything actually gets started.

Frequently heard comments: “Stay behind the tank, you cannot beat him to the boss.” “Wait for the tank to get aggro; don’t open with your highest-threat attack right away.” “D@mn, sorry guys, I always grab aggro when I chain-crit.” “I was just trying to get in position.” “I used my trinket/talent macro and overtook the tank; can we get a Misdirect on the tank this time?”

Wipe #3: The Bad-Position Wipe. You must stand in a certain position and move when things happen, but people forget they can move and end up dying in-place when the action starts.

Frequently heard comments: “Why are you standing in front of a mob that Cleaves?” “Why are you not at max-range?” Why are you not moving when you know you have to? See the debuff on your screen? That means you have to move!” “I guess my boss-timer was off.” “I never get that debuff when I stand here.” “Nobody healed me when I got hit for 10K!”

Wipe #4: The Unlucky Wipe. You’ll destroy the boss as long as X doesn’t happen, and X happens.

Frequently heard comments: “Nothing you can do when the Infernals land like that.” “The murlocs just went crazy.” “I got hit with three of those blasts in a row!” “I was mind-controlled the whole time.” “All the spawns came from my area and I was overwhelmed.” “If the boss keeps doing that to me, I’m going to call the police and report sexual harassment.”

Wipe #5: The Competent-Guy Wipe. The most solid person in your raid sneezes and smashes his head on his keyboard, wiping the raid. He falls or turns or does something really stupidly simple that wreaks utter destruction and neither he nor the rest of the raid knows why.

Frequently heard comments: “What happened X? You’ve never done that before? Are you feeling OK?” “Well, let’s try again, but this time X won’t pretend to be Y.” (Y being the guy from the Stoner Wipe).

Wipe #6: The “Healers Get Lost in Another Dimension” Wipe. The main tank dies for no apparent reason. His healers start cursing into Vent, not knowing how the tank died, yet knowing it had something to do with him taking a lot of damage.

Frequently heard comments: “You were at full health, and then you were dead.” “I was just in the middle of casting a huge heal, and then it was too late.” “My heal got interrupted by a silence/mind-control/cool commercial on TV.”

Wipe #7: The Weak-Tank Wipe. Squishy-DPS classes are just crushing the boss without regard to the tank’s inability to maintain aggro, and they don’t care. The tank gets all the blame while the mages and warlocks are not watching the threat meter and getting one-shot.

Frequently heard comments: “I’m Frost-spec; I shouldn’t be grabbing aggro!” “I die on every pull, why should the boss be any different.” “That curse always gets me killed.” “Someone needs to teach that guy to generate threat; I never pull aggro when X is tanking.”

Wipe #8: The Hunter is a ‘Tard Wipe. One hunter refuses to prematurely Feign Death, and once he does grab aggro, waits for the boss to get in his grill and THEN Feign’s Death. The boss then runs amok and smashes the healers like whack-a-mole.

Frequently heard comments: “Feign Death you b@stard!” “He must have resisted my FD.” “Run TO the tank if FD is resisted, don’t just stand there.” “Would you please FD before you grab aggro? Do you need a definition of the word, ‘Before’?”

Wipe #9: The Late-Epeen Wipe. Things are going fine, until the rogues and hunters decide to play Riding the Aggro Wave, trying to match the main tank’s threat without going over it. But then someone does something silly, grabs aggro, and the boss smashes the melee classes into dust as the hunters FD and laugh quietly to themselves.

“Rogues are down, ferlols are down, the fury warrior is down, can we just call it a wipe now?” “I can’t wait to see my DPS on that wipe; I was crushing him!” “If I could have a Feign Death talent, I’d die a happy girl. You hunters totally suck.”

Wipe #10: The “Raid Doesn’t Give an F” Wipe. Eight wipes into the night, it’s late and nobody has the patience to perform up to standards. They want to log off and get a snack. Wiping is the fastest way to accomplish this.

“If we get him down on this try, guild bank pays for repairs!” “Next week, can we do X, Y, and Z instead of this boss?” “I’m going to level my (other class) all week; I hate this guy right now.”

Wipe #11: The 1% Wipe. You got him, he’s going down. But something small starts a trickle of raid members dying, and it’s a matter of keeping just enough DPS alive to kill the boss, but there’s just no way it’s going to happen.

Frequently heard comments: “Aww (bleep!)” “(BLEEP)!” “(BLEEP) (BLEEP) (BLEEPITY) (BLEEPING) (BLEEP)!!”

Is it too soon for another Airman Howell story? Probably. But so what; it’s our blog.

Seriously. Do not read this if you’re anywhere close to eating-time, either before or after. We get queezie just remembering it.

/daniel mode on

Back at Beale AFB again, going to the dental clinic for the first time. Gotta keep the teeth in good shape, yes?

The little technician said, “Ooo, you have a few impacted molars. I have to get the doctor.”

Off she trotted, returning with the doctor.

“Yup, Airman Howell, you need surgery to get those removed. I’m not doing those, though. Those look mean. Gonna send you to Travis AFB and have a specialist work on you.” And he kicked me out of the clinic.

A few days later, I drove to Travis for our operation. I sat in the chair and a Lieutenant Colonel strolled in.

“Hello Airman Howell, I’m Dr. X, chief of dental surgery. I saw your case and grabbed it for myself. Let’s have some fun.”

They rolled up my sleeve for an IV and I waited for the shots in my jaw to prevent the pain of the extractions.

And woke up 12 hours later. Holy crap, they totally knocked me out. Wasn’t expecting that. Where am I?

Turns out I was in a recovery room with three other guys. My clothes were still on, but there was sling around my head holding ice against my jaw. My face was the size of a Buick. Apparently Doctor X had inserted a pumpkin into my skull.

Pumpkin. Food. My god I was hungry. Before the surgery, I had been told not to eat for 12 hours prior. It had basically been a day since I’d eaten and the hunger pangs were tremendous and non-stop.

Food. Must have food. So I hit the little red button on the box next to the bed and the stewardess came in.

“Cab I’b hab subbtin ta eah?” I muttered through the pumpkin and ice bag.

“No, Airman Howell. You just had your molars removed; you can’t have any food yet.” And off she skipped.

D@mn. Dejected and hungry, I just slumped in the bed, totally stunned. No food? This was not acceptable, but what to do…

I did have my checkbook. I had a bed-side phone. Somebody must deliver to the hospital, no?

Hmm… dial 9 for an outside line… 800-555-1212 for toll-free information.

“Hello? Yes, I’d like the number for Dominos Pizza please. Yes, you certainly many connect me, thank you.”

“Hello Dominos Pizza, what’s the number to a Dominos franchise near Travis AFB? Why thank you. Yes, you may connect me, thank you.”

“Hello Dominos? Yes, I’d like to place a delivery order to Travis AFB. One large cheese pizza. Pepperoni. Yep, that’s it. I’ll be using a check today. OK, Travis AFB, the hospital… looking out the window, I think I’m on the 3rd floor. My phone says my room is 312. Forty five minutes is great, wonderful. Thank you!”

BUWAHAHAH!! Food incoming!

Now as I said, there were three other patients in the room. Two of them were out cold, but the person directly across from me was not only awake, but had a gaggle of doctors surrounding his bed. Apparently his jaw had been reconstructed with bone from his leg and was a mini-celebrity in the hospital. And this phalanx of doctors and nurses was still interviewing the guy when a very loud knock disturbed the peace of the room.

“Pizza for Howell?!”

And I pulled back my curtain a little, sat up a bit, poked my still ice-bagged noggin out and said, “MEPPH!”

Delivery guy didn’t break a stride, just delivered the pie, took my check, high-fived me, and took off for parts unknown.

Nothing has ever smelled as good as that pizza. Cruel, evil, short stewardess be d@mned, I was gonna eat!

As I performed some very intricate prayers of thanks to the Dominos God, the gaggle of doctors across from me was staring. Then they started talking amongst themselves, and finally a nurse took of like a shot out the room.

Irrelevant! Who cares! Gonna eat! And I opened the box and there it was. Beautiful. DaVinci never did better work. Gimme gimme gimme! I reached for it… and grabbed nothing but air.

It was gone!

The stewardess stood there, having swiped my pizza. Seriously, she grabbed it, held it over her head, and taunted me!

“Thanks for the dinner, we’re gonna enjoy it,” she announced, and flounced out of my life, my treasure in tow.

I was bewildered. I had no food, then I got food, then I had no food again. How did this happen? Yes, I’d been sedated, but I didn’t just imagine the pizza, it was here just a minute ago…

And a doctor came in. He had a bowl of something that he placed in front of me.

“Airman Howell, you can’t have pizza. Seriously, you just had your molars removed; you’ve got great big holes in your jaw. If you’re so hungry that you got pizza delivered to the surgical recovery room, you can have this, but no more pizza. No Chinese, no anything, OK?”

Chicken soup. I had pizza, and now I have chicken soup. Well, it’s not like I can fight the guy for the pizza, I was outnumbered. And sedated. And hungry. And had a 20lb bag of ice strapped to my cranium.

Fine. Whatever.

The broth was good. The chicken itself… it was the worst chicken of any kind I’d ever had. Ever. Tough doesn’t begin to describe it. Stringy, hard, basically garbage. But at this point, who cares, it’s food. I ate it all, picking pieces of the trash-chicken out of my teeth and swallowing them all.

The doctor came back, saw my empty bowl and asked, “How was it?”

“Well,” I mumbled, “I really appreciate the food, but the chicken was god-awful. Seriously, man, just the worst thing ever. I don’t want to complain, but nobody would ever eat that chicken unless they were tranquilized out of their mind.”

He looked at me, puzzled and quiet. Then he said, “Open your mouth.”

He took out a flashlight, held open my swollen jaw, and examined thoroughly. He pulled away, satisfied with his exploration, and sat on the bed beside me.

“Airman Howell, you know you have great big holes in your jaw, right? Where your teeth used to live, and now don’t, there are holes. Well these holes like to bleed. They bleed a lot. So the surgeon put stuff in there to keep the bleeding down.

“There was no chicken in your soup, it was just broth. You just ate one of your bloody, molar-hole gauze pads.”

And he got up and walked out of the room, while the guy with the reconstructed jaw laughed so hard, he actually hurt himself.

Have a great weekend, folks. Here’s a non-WoW, BRK Totally True, We Swear It, Military Story to get you through.

/daniel mode on

I worked Defensive Electronic Countermeasures (DECM) and Electronic Sensor Systems (ESS) on U-2s at several installations around the world, but for three years I resided at Beale AFB, California. A special feature of the aircraft hangers at Beale is that they open to the west. What that means is that in the summer, in the afternoon and evening, the sun would turn those metal contraptions into giant Easy Bake ovens. The heat in there would skyrocket way over 110 degrees because of the complete and total lack of airflow. That giant metal box with the sun pouring heat into the entrance was basically a torture device straight out of The Bridge Over the River Kwai.

One summer’s afternoon, I’d been working on the flightline on a U-2 for a while and thought I had determined the problem with a system, but it was time for the shift change. So at 1530, I was passing on the information I had gathered about the problem to the oncoming crew. The person who would be in charge of the next crew was a notorious goofball, Airman B. Physically harmless but capable of extreme and aggravated incompetence, it was standard procedure to write down instructions so he couldn’t claim ignorance of what was expected of him.

In my shift-notes, I wrote about the problem on the aircraft, what I had troubleshot, what my thoughts on progression were, and a safety note about the heat that was going to be coming from the setting sun and to make sure he had water for him and his crew. “Do Not Get Dehydrated! This is critical!”

He asked me what his people could drink. What a goober, sheesh. Just drink from the Igloo cooler on the truck.

“I don’t have a cup.”

Use the cups in the box behind the drivers seat!

“Um, the box is empty.”

THEN GET ON THE COMPUTER AND ORDER SOME, NOW NOW NOW!! GET THE SYSTEM FIXED, GET THIS AIRCRAFT FULLY-MISSION-CAPABLE, GET IT DONE SAFELY AND DO IT F-ING NOW!!”

And I left. Golf was on the agenda, perhaps a quick 9 holes, maybe a full 18. Back home, changed, grabbed the clubs, hopped in the superhero-green Honda del Sol, and boogied over to the golf course, desperate to get in a foursome somehow.

Bingo! A trio of older guys had a tee-time but their fourth had just radioed, saying he couldn’t make it as there was a huge emergency at his work. Am I available? You bet! I got picked up and away we went.

After the front 9 holes were behind us, we all went to the clubhouse for a drink. It was really hot and we were sweating buckets. As we stood at the bar, an announcement was made on the PA.

“Colonel X, please pick up the phone; you have an emergency call.”

Imagine my surprise when one of my golf partners said, “Excuse me,” and went to the phone.

He picked up the receiver, said “This is Colonel X,” and didn’t say another word. That is, until a stream of Yes Sirs started pouring forth from his lips. The final Yes Sir ended as the phone was slammed into the cradle. He came back to the bar.

“Well Dennis, you’re gonna get a call in a second.”

“Why?” said one of my other golf partners.

“General Z is on a rampage. The Supply Commander just went ballistic because one of my maintainers ordered a criminally stupid part for a nuclear aircraft.”

To myself, I thought, one of his maintainers? He’s a full colonel? Oh my god, he’s the Maintenance Group Commander! I’m playing golf with the Maintenance Group Commander… and I think I’m down three dollars to him.

A quick aside on U-2s and nukes. U-2s don’t have em, don’t carry em, and have nothing to do with nuclear power or detonations thereof, whatsoever. I promise.

A quick aside on the The Air Force supply system. Air Force Supply delivers parts on a priority schedule, and each priority has a code. When you order a part, you put the order priority code into the computer so Supply knows just how fast to get you that part.

You need office paper, that’s low priority. A part for a truck would be higher priority. A part for an aircraft is higher still. A part for an aircraft on a war-time footing is almost as high as it gets. The only things higher are parts for Air Force One and an aircraft on a war-time footing with nuclear payloads. An order made for this scenario was called 1AA-priority - it might be called something else now - and causes a massive hullabaloo, with possible repercussions across the world if a part is critically needed and not immediately available.

And it really upsets some folks if you order parts for a nuclear aircraft when there are no nuclear aircraft on the installation.

Back to our story, where the PA made another announcement.

“Colonel Y, please pick up the phone; you have an emergency call.”

Sure enough, Dennis walked over to the phone. Jeebus, what is this, a colonel-reunion?

The third member of our golf group approached Colonel X and asked, “What’s going on?”

“Apparently, an ESS airman ordered Styrofoam cups for his guys, but ordered them as if they were a part for an aircraft carrying a nuclear payload.”

“He did what?”

“He said the outgoing shift chief told him to do it. I’m gonna kill someone; I really hate being chewed out by the General and the Supply Commander at the same time. Especially before I finish a round.”

“Oh, is that why he couldn’t make today’s golf, he had to go talk to General Z?”

“Yes. The general was quite surprised to get a call and learn that a pallet of 8 oz Styrofoam cups were ready to be airlifted from Texas to repair a broken, nuclear U-2, but there was a question of just how many cups a nuclear U-2 carried and where exactly they were installed, cause that’s ‘a whole lotta f-ing cups.’ The general said he thought it was a joke until a two-star explained that he wanted answers or General Z would soon be running the ROTC detachment at the Arctic Circle School for Advanced Polar Bear Studies.”

Back on the phone… “Colonel Y speaking… No sir… No Sir! Absolutely not sir.” And Colonel Y hurriedly put down the phone. He came back to the group, and said,

“The general asked me, ‘As you are the Operations Group Commander, I am relying on your expert opinion. None of your aircraft are nuclear, are they? There are no cups installed as equipment on your aircraft, are there?’ And then he slammed the phone down. I don’t know who “Airman B’s” preceding shift supervisor is, but he’s about to get a phone call from General Z and that poor airman isn’t going to know what hit him.”

And the evil, dirty PA came to life one last time.

“Airman Howell, please pick up the phone; you have an emergency call.”

And the three Colonels: the Operations Group Commander, the Maintenance Group Commander, and as I would learn later, the Medical Group Commander, watched me put down my drink and, with rubbery resolve, slink to the bar phone. I stood at attention because I had no idea what else to do.

“This is Airman Howell.”

“Airman Howell, this is General Z. How are you?”

“I was enjoying around of golf with a few of your commanders, but I don’t think I’m going to complete my round, sir.”

“Are you losing?”

“I think I owe Colonel X three dollars.”

“Damn good man but can’t hit a wood to save his life. Let me be quick; you’re on speakerphone here. Did you order or request or threaten anybody to order Styrofoam cups to be installed on a nuclear U-2, priority 1AA?”

“No sir.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes sir.”

“Airman Howell, Airman B seems to think you did.”

“Sir, I told Airman B to make sure his guys were kept hydrated while they worked on the flightline in the evening. I told him to order some cups from supply if he was out, but I didn’t tell him to pretend that cups are an integral component of a U-2, and I certainly didn’t tell him to have them expedited nuclear-priority.”

“I didn’t think so. Thank you airman.”

“Yes sir, thank you sir.” And I gently hung up the phone.

My drink’s location happened to coincide with the gaggle of colonels still at the bar, so that was where my feet took me. The Maintenance Group Commander looked at me, befuddled, and asked, “Well, what did he say?”

“Sir, he said that since you’re in my direct chain of command, it is improper of you to place any wagers with me, and as such, you cannot collect your three dollars.”

“Fuck.” Said Colonel X, as he brought his drink to his lips. ”He probably said I can’t use a driver, too, didn’t he?”

A BRK-reader just wrote an email from Holloman AFB. Those folks just went through a very horrible week due to an Operational Readiness Inspection. So for them and all the military-folks out there, here’s:

The Totally True, We Swear It, BRK ORI Story

/daniel-mode on

In 1996, I was stationed at Misawa AB, Japan when I first met the thing called an ORI.

An ORI? The Air Force has this little thing called an Operational Readiness Inspection where it tests a military base’s capability to respond in time of a war or other surprise. What happens is a plane lands and a high-ranking military official respectfully requests the base commander’s presence. They meet and the base commander is handed a folder that says,

“Congratulations, your base is at war. Be prepared to deploy to Location X in 48 hours. Good Luck, your chance at a promotion to Major-General is in the balance. Love, The Chief of Staff of the Air Force.”

The base commander has a heart-attack, the vice-commander slaps him back to consciousness, and the base goes into ORI-Mode. Pack this, move them over there, get the airplanes airborne, load all your equipment on the C-5, don’t sleep for 36 hours, then get your duffel bags filled with 2.8 pairs of underwear over to the processing facility to get shipped out. All of this under the watchful eyes of the ORI Inspection Team.

So you get all your equipment loaded on pallets and driven over to the loading facility, you don’t sleep, barely eat, pretend bombs are dropping around you, and put on your chemical warfare suit and suck rubber for hours at a time while the bomb-disposal and Weapons of Mass Destruction teams go through their shenanigans “decontaminating” the base. Then, when everything is over, it’s time to pretend to deploy.

You take your bags and your helmet and your exhausted and malnourished and stinky butt over to the big hanger where they pretend to load you on a C-5 bound for Location X. A truly mind-numbingly frustrating situation.

Those people processing you, the ones inspecting your dogtags and your shot records and your 2.8 pairs of underwear, they are being inspected too. And one of the things being tested is their ability to respond to the unexpected.

So I was standing with my bags and my helmet, loudly denouncing the state of affairs in the processing facility when I was pulled aside by a full-bird Colonel. Uh oh, Daniel is going to prison, right?

Wrong.

“Sergeant Howell, would you be interested in participating in a role-playing game to assist the inspectors?”

Duh. Like I’m going to say no.

“Yes sir, what do you need me to do?”

“When you are processed, I want you to refuse to deploy on the basis that you are a conscientious objector.”

And as I thought about it, as the Colonel later described, a sh!t-eating grin grew on my face.

“Yes sir, I think I can do that.”

Back to the chairs and more waiting. But eventually my group of people was called forward to be put on our plane. And as I reached the E-2 who was assigned the critical job of making sure my military ID wasn’t a fake, I stopped.

“No, you can’t see it.”

“What?”

“You can’t see my ID, I’m not going.”

“Sergeant Howell, I need to see your ID so you can complete processing.”

“No way. I’m not going. I can’t go to Location X now, my wife will have a fit.”

Stunned silence.

“I signed up because the recruiter promised me I could be a pilot. Well, my eyesight shot that to h#ll and now here I am in northern Japan about to be sent of to Location X. Where is Location X? I demand to know! It’s Korea, isn’t it! You’re sending me to die in Korea? My wife will absolutely blow a gasket! Have you seen my wife? I’m not going! You hear me? No way, no how, no no no. I’m one of those subconscious contractors! I won’t kill anybody, got it?!”

The processing facility was so quiet you could hear the underwear in my bag rustle. The E-2 was sweating, the rest of the people in the line were stunned. Suddenly, a door opened and the senior enlisted sergeant in charge of the processing facility emerged. He knew what was going on; he’d been through a few ORIs before.

“Sergeant Howell, are you declaring that you’re a conscientious objector?”

“BINGO, Chief!” And I slammed the counter with my helmet a few times for emphasis. “No way you’re shipping this guy to Korea to eat cabbage out of the ground!”

“Airman, send Sergeant Howell to that room over there.”

“Chief! I want to see my lawyer, right pronto! When you call the MPs, make sure my lawyer is right on their heels!”

“Yes, Sergeant Howell, I contact the the legal division for you.”

“And a Chaplain! I got lots of moral and ethical issues here. I need to spill my guts before you send me to Korea or prison!”

“Yes, Sergeant Howell, I’ll contact the base chaplain’s office too.”

“I’m half Jewish, make sure that gets noted and I get the right representation.”

“It says on your military ID that you’re Presbyterian.”

“I can’t be too careful, now can I? I might be knee-deep in Sojo and doggie-appetizers by nightfall. Priest and a Rabbi; I know my rights! I’m an unconscious objectifier!”

“To the room, Sergeant Howell.”

And into the room I flounced. Ten minutes later, the Colonel blew open the door, slammed it behind him, and began laughing his head off.

“Sergeant Howell,” the Colonel bellowed, “How in the h#ll did you think of all that?”

“I’m exhausted, sir. If I had had more time, I would’ve asked for a meal and a shower as well as something besides CNN on the TV. It’s hard to control my words when I’m sober. Keep me from sleeping for 36 hours and all my internal filters shut down.”

“Just so you know, I had to leave the facility I was laughing so hard, but I interviewed the processing personnel and wrote everything down. My god that was perfect. I’m changing our procedures to makes sure all these agencies are ready to respond to something like this. Don’t know if you’ve noticed, Sergeant Howell, but neither your lawyer nor spiritual councilors are here yet. They’re on the clock.”

Sure enough, the calls had gone out and the commander of the legal squadron was in a tizzy trying to figure out how to get a military lawyer to the processing facility to handle the case of a conscientious objector in the deployment processing line. But that was nothing compared to the base chaplain’s office trying to get their on-call chaplain out onto the flightline when he had no credentials to be in a classified area.

The lawyer eventually arrived with aplomb and dignity and began an interview under the Colonel’s gaze. After five minutes, the Colonel ended the scenario and dismissed the lawyer. When that guy opened the door, the chaplain was opening it from the other side. His helmet was on sideways, his flak-jacket was only halfway over his shoulders, and he was immediately jumped by the Colonel.

“You just went through a contaminated zone without a chemical suit? You’re dead, you know that? Head on over to the infirmary. Chief! Get me another chaplain!” The chaplain looked like he was going to really keel over, he was so upset.

“Sergeant Howell, you’re released. Thank you for your assistance.”

“Any time sir.” And I saluted the Colonel, he returned it. I performed as nice a facing movement as possible, walked through the door, past the Chief, the lawyer, the dead chaplain, and into the hanger where we all sat for five hours waiting for the “plane” to land at Location X.

Ask me if I miss the military. I dare you.

/daniel-mode off

“Calling all those attuned for Kara! Emergency non-planned Kara run happening now! Who wants to go?”

“OHMEMEME!!” Sayeth BRK.

“Sorry, we’re already full.”

Awww, shucks. /sulk

Off to Netherwing to make leather and money…

Fifteen minutes later:

“Hey BRK, our boomkin has to split, family problem. Wanna come in for Moroes?”

“Summon my massive-DPS @ss and let’s get some!”

Moroes down and two Badges of Justice. Sweet.

Opera, Romulo and Julianne down and two Badges of Justice. Sweet.

About to start Curator and we check our bags. One Badge of Justice. Not sweet.

“Hello, Blizzard? I got hosed. I’m missing three BoJs. Can you help? Love, BRK” /send

Curator down, two BoJs. Sweet.

Aran down, two BoJs. Sweet.

“HEY BRK! GM Phizzle here. Heard you got hosed out of some BoJs?”

“Totally, Phizzle. We’ve done Moroes, Opera, Curator, and Aran, and I only have five BoJs in my bags.”

“Dude. That totally sucks. Does everybody else in your raid have the right number.”

“Yeah Phiz, and they’re mocking me for my non-BoJ’ed-ness.”

“Rude! We can’t have a hunter being mocked. Lemme escalate this.”

“You rock Phiz!”

“BRK, I know I rock, but appreciate the love. Last question, though: Could you have forgotten to loot those bosses? :p”

“Phizster, I totally could’ve forgotten to loot those bosses, except I didn’t. I know I didn’t. I’m a loser and I forget where I’m going sometimes, but I know I looted those guys.”

“My heart bleeds, man. I’m all over this. Escalation in progress. Anything else I can do for you?”

“Dude! Good Infernal drops on Prince, can ya work on that for us?”

“You know it. I’ll punt the Infernals to Goldshire for the next thirty minutes.”

“Sweet. Hasta!”

“Keep rockin’ it, BRK.”

Chess down, two more BoJs. Sweet.

Prince down, Infernals were cruel. Phiz was laughing at us, we know it. Three more BoJs. Sweet.

Warlock? Check. Mage? Check. Illhoof Time!

Illhoof down, two more BoJs. Sweet.

Everybody awake? How about Maiden?

Maiden down, two more BoJs. Sweet.

Attumen? Why not. Attumen down, a final BoJ. Sweet.

Fast-forward eighteen hours into the future, BRK checks his email:

“Dear BRK, heard about the hose-osity and the cruelty you suffered as a result of your lack of BoJs. Check your in-game mail, you’ll find three BoJs waiting for you. Kisses and Hugs, Taiono.”

58 + 3 = 61

Our new leggings are getting closer. Sweet.

You may or may not be aware that BlizzCon 2007 is happening right now. For our field representatives, this presents a unique and rare opportunity to learn more about the possible 2008 WoW expansion and we cannot pass it up.

Thus, several partially-inebriated and completely-disheveled Blizzard programmers have been captured, gently interrogated, detoxed, rigorously re-interrogated, and released back into the wild. Their sputtering and mostly incoherent blatherings were assembled and decoded by the highly trained yet woefully underpaid staff of the BRK Cryptoanalysis and Wendy’s Baconator Research Facility. Their findings were both frightening and heavily salty:

Top Ten Possible Names of the Next WoW Expansion

10. World of Warcraft: 100% Ret Pally Free

9. World of Warcraft: First Night Elves, Then Blood Elves, Now Ovaltine Elves

8. World of Warcraft: The Rise of Hogger

7. World of Warcraft: If You’re Not First, You’re Last

6. World of Warcraft: All Booterang, All the Time

5. World of Warcraft: Just When You Thought You Were Out, You Get Pulled Back In

4. World of Warcraft: Dobby’s Revenge

3. World of Warcraft: So Long, and Thanks for All the Draenei

2. World of Warcraft: Only Runs on a Quad Xenon Processor

1. World of Warcraft: Kill Things, Make Stuff, Send Us Your $15 Already

“I seem to recall you promising us the story of the time you got a pat on the back and a newspaper on the nose for the same incident at work! You got us curious… lets have a ‘Behind BRK’ post regarding this! Cheers Amanda”

During our time in the Air Force, one of our assignments was flightline and backshop maintenance on several electronic sensor suites onboard U-2 reconnaissance aircraft. A three-month deployment to RAF Fairford during the Bosnia crisis gave us the opportunity to be in charge of the launch team. Launching a U-2 is no simple thing, and ensuring the entire suite of sensors operated properly before launch took many hours.

Our section was LGMVE and we had a little corner office with test equipment, tools, and a lockable office with our security container. We had classified equipment in there that was controlled via a combination lock and the key to the office door. Now this particular office was, at one time, used as a production supervisors office and it had a window that overlooked the hanger floor. The glass had been removed and a piece of plywood had been installed, providing that much more security. There was one key to this office and it was handed over after every shift.

We were woken one morning, very early, and told to get to work. An unscheduled launch was just requested by NATO and the plane needed to get into the air, ASAP. We dressed and drove to the hanger to get our sensors calibrated and ready to go. But at the office, the LGMVE mids supervisor was nowhere to be found. He was gone, absent, totally missing. And with him…

The Office Key.

Inside that office was the safe. Inside the safe was our crypto equipment. The crypt codes changed daily and we needed to get the codes so that our sensors would be able to talk to everybody else they needed to talk to. But we couldn’t get the codes without getting in the d@mn door, and our cohort was apparently still in London recovering from a night of excessive debauchery. We searched everywhere to find a RAF member who might know anybody who might have a duplicate key. Nothing. An hour away from launch and we still were separated from our crypto equipment when a friend of ours recommended smashing down the door. We said,

“That’s typical crew chief thinking; excessive use of force in the face of a small problem. Go get your hammers and go fix some cockpit instruments or something, for I have a much more sophisticated plan. I’m gonna smash in the window.”

The door was heavy and designed to withstand people who did not require entry attempting to force their way past it. The window and it’s 1/4″ thick plywood defense was begging to be smashed. And smash it we did. Splinters everywhere, we tossed it aside, scrambled through the opening, opened our safe, grabbed our crypto, casually opened the door, strutted out and over to the aircraft, got it preped and ready on-time for launch.

After the launch, we went back to the office, cleaned up a little and then went back to the dorm where we made something to eat and went back to sleep.

The next day we got a call from our supervisor. Get to the Commander’s office NOW. Holy cr@p, the commander? What does a full-bird colonel want with us?

We boogied over to his building where our supervisor, his supervisor, and the maintenance officer were waiting for us. The colonel’s secretary said, “Gentlemen, wait here. The colonel wishes to see Sergeant Howell alone.”

We knocked, he said Enter, we reported with a salute, he told us to sit down.

“Sergeant Howell, it’s been reported that you destroyed a window in the hanger. Explain.” I explained.

“Sergeant Howell, your destruction was witnessed by a member of the RAF. They reported it to their supervision. They saw the safe, so they reported it to their investigative services. They called the OSI [Ed: the OSI is the Air Force's version of the FBI] and they and the RAF have descended on the place. The whole hanger has been locked off, and they’re demanding your head.”

Gulp. He held up a piece of paper.

“Sergeant Howell, do you see this? It’s a letter from the OSI. Do you see this other letter? It’s from the Secretary of State. They used the pictures from that flight over Bosnia at the United Nations to show proof of mass graves. The US government is extremely pleased with us for providing the services we did.

“So here’s my predicament, Sergeant Howell. I have two security organizations out there who want you put in jail for Breaking and Entering, and Destruction of Her Majesty’s Property. And I have the Joint Chiefs who want me to award you an Achievement Medal for getting that bird up in record time to support a mission critical to Presidential foreign policy.

“As the commander of this organization, I have full authority over my people. And I am going to exercise that right now. I think these two pieces of paper cancel each other out. No jail, no medal. You will repair that window out of your own pocket. Now get outta my office.”

Yes, BRK has gotten the Test Realm code from a double agent inside Blizz headquarters. (Apparently, any MMORPG programmer can be bought off with promises of either homemade cookies or coupons to Denny’s; who knew?)

We sent the purloined papers to the BRK Code Breaking Detachment and Easy-Bake Oven Training Facility in Grenora, North Dakota, (”Friendliness lives here — you’ll be a stranger only once”). After 24 hours of uninterrupted, unfed, and painstaking dissection by the children of Ms. Stern’s 3rd and 4th grade class at Grenora Elementary, we’re able to present their research to you. Thanks kids, your checks are in the mail.

10. Rogues who refuse to level their lockpicking skill now receive a sliding-scale damage-debuff based upon a formula that relates lock-picking skill to character level.

9. An invisible minature version of DamageMeters, with only the Healing Done code implemented, has been inserted into the core WoW code. It calculates how much healing Priests, Paladins, and Druids cast on Hunter pets in proportion to the healing they perform on themselves. If these classes do not heal a Hunter’s pet sufficiently, they suffer gold or experience losses, and their armory profile will be prominently tagged “Non Pet Healer - Hunters Beware”.

8. The enemy cast bar can now be accessed via a call in a macro. BRK has already developed a macro that will yell at a warrior:

/if enemycastbar() != nul
/y Hey you b@stard! It’s Shield Bash Time, what’s the matter with you!

7. The counter for respecing is implemented on your Armory profile, so everybody can see how many times you’ve respec’d in the past 30 days. If the number exceeds 5 when your profile is accessed, an embedded .wav file will play Beck’s, “I’m a Loser, Baby, So Why Don’t You Kill Me”.

6. Every zone now drops a raw material than can be cooked into a pet snack. In Shadowmoon Valley and Netherstorm, for example, all the demons drop “Shadow Bites”, which can be made into “L’il Debbie Evil Snack Cakes”, which grant your pet +25 to Strength and Stamina for 30 minutes.

5. Fel Reavers are a tamable pet, although they shrink to appropriate size when tamed. Engineers are the only source for their food, “Rosie’s Leftovers”, (+5 BRK Cool Points to the first person to post the correct reference to “Rosie”).

4. The Beastmaster talent, “Improved Pet Mend” has been changed so that it that allows hunters to wear + Healing gear and have the effects applied to their Pet Mend spell. The graphic has been changed to remind Blizzard that Improved Pet Mend means just that, improve pet mend!

3. The Marksman talent Combat Experience has been renamed Combat Idiocy. Every hunter who puts points into CI will have their armory profile’s character picture modified so that it shows their toon wearing a big red clown nose, a huge rainbow wig, and a cardboard sign that says, “My pet is ashamed of me.”

2. Feral Druids in Dire-Bear Form will have their butts strategically shaved so that if one zooms in, one will see the words, “Warrior Tank? My big hairy @ss.”

1. The new spell Aspect of Big Red Kitty grants all members of the party 100% of the hunter’s Haste for 10 seconds when the hunter crits with any shot, and it cause the hunter to emote, “In the name of BRK, Burn It Down! YARG!”

Well, the first hours of BRK Rule have passed in the guild and, while there hasn’t been a storming of the Bastille, many of the guild are gathering in small groups and discussing what life would be like without the incompetence of the current administration hindering their lives. What could they possibly be complaining about? Well, BRK has some ideas:

The Top 10 Most Grievous Errors and Knucklehead Decisions Made by the New GM

10. Outland Naked Gnome Race. Naked gnome races have been done before, but it was BRK’s idea to have a level 1 gnome race from Shattrath City to Honor Hold. We summoned 45 level one gnomes to Shat and, for two hours, their squashed little bodies littered Terokkar Forest, barely able to rez before they aggro’d half the zone. The 100g prize went unclaimed, and several obscenities were hurled in guild chat. This, of course, led to…

9. Guild Chat-and-Vent Governess Powergrab. Our denizen of the public chat channels got addicted to power during the gnome race. Her screams of “WUT?! NOT IN MY CHANNEL! YOU’RE BANISHED!” and “OMG I’M GONNA RIP OUT YOUR TONGUE WITH TWEEZERS FOR THAT COMMENT!” slowly changed her into a Mussolini-esque totalitarian. She turned in her robes for a black-leather ensemble and stole her succubus’ whip. One terrified young mage accidentally told her that warlocks can’t wear leather… we have not seen him since, but a muffled scream from the far reaches of the Caverns of Time sounds suspiciously like, “…leather… it looks good on you… I swear…”

8. Mage Nicknames. Just like the president has nicknames for his closest advisers, BRK decided to give all his guild’s mages names, but from vending machines. They guy who got “Coke” and the girl who got “Pepsi” didn’t do more than grumble, but “Dirty Old Sandwich” and “Sh!tty Coffee” were vocal in the extreme. They tasted Jazzy’s whip, though, but that’s not such a good thing anymore, I think.

7. Tacitly Authorizing the Main Tank’s Boyfriend Killing Spree. Our main tank is a lovely girl, a surgical nurse, and has the ability to curse so sweetly, it’s like music. The problem is that she collects boyfriends… and eventually kills them. It used to be a quiet, reserved affair. A new boy would join the guild, Tiggy would announce that he was her boyfriend (no courting for Tiggy, just bam!) and eventually, we’d talk amongst ourselves, “Have you seen Xentress?” “Have you seen Doom?” Of course, their corpses were long decomposed by then. But now she just cackles maniacally and announces, “Dudels! My new boyfriend! Enjoy the next week or so, for it’ll be your last!” As the GM, I should do something… but I’m the only boyfriend to ever survive, and I’m not willing to push my luck.

6. Promoting the Diet Coke of Evil to Officer. To say her reign of terror recovered like it had never stopped would be an understatement. Drunk on Tequila and overloaded on salt, she goes after guildies and non-guildies alike with her burning hatred of the human species. She has adopted BRK’s motto, “Vee Vil Haf Compliance!” as her own and uses it as a battle cry as she wades into both friend and enemy alike. We call her Torquemada, the Grand Inquisitor, but just never to her face.

5. Giving the Potion and Herb Bank to Luineannon. The herb bank used to smell sweet and fragrant. Now the acrid gasses and hazy fumes that come out of that place make the Chernobyl accident look like something one could clean up with a paper towel. I don’t know what she’s doing in there, but it is obviously neither good nor safe. We’re supposed to be sending her motes so she can advance her alchemy, but I’m afraid if she advances it any further, she’ll mutate to a higher level of consciousness and smite us all just for her amusement.

4. Respec Night. BRK dug into the guild coffers and provided every 60+ with enough gold for a respec so they could try something they never had before. Pure arcane mages, survivalist hunters, balance druids, discipline priests, and 20/21/20 warriors and rogues. BRK did not, however, provide the funds for everybody to switch back… and the resulting catcalls and epitaphs were both loud and creative.

3. Duel Days - 70s versus all-comers. Each battle was a level 70 against another player, level 59 or below. We had level 27 mages against level 70 warriors, level 33 hunters against level 70 druids, and in one particularly spectacular duel, a level 4 dranei priest against BRK himself. The 13 year old girl who was playing “Nursesweetie” apparently was overcome and devastated by the mauling a level 70 hunter’s pet can do against a squishie wearing three pieces of gray cloth armor. Her parents came on Vent and told us that BRK could expect a bill from the the little girl’s psychiatrist, as well as a swift, sharp kick in the… well, Jazzy slammed the door on that one.

2. Making Riddyck and Criticalshot the Guild Ambassadors. Basically, they are responsible for finding new members for the guild, interviewing them and making sure they are decent people. It seems they’ve modified the role into seeing how many, “hot foxes” they can lie to and cajole into join the guild long enough for them to… well, be “friendly with”. They have sent so many disillusioned and legal-council-seeking females to the lawyers.com website that BRK has received checks from their discrimination department, thanking us for the extra business.

1. Leading a PvP Battle Against Shattrath City. BRK likes his blended whisky on the rocks, but sometimes it doesn’t like him. After a particularly “interesting” night of taste-testing several (read, 27) blends, BRK decided the most advantageous thing to do was lead a PvP raid. Most of the guild joined, but didn’t know the objective were the Naru. As we attacked the their 72 elite leader in the center of the city, the entire population of Outland - Horde, Alliance, and NPCs - flagged and turned practically the entire population of the guild into a smoldering, greasy spot on the Inner Ring floor. BRK’s call of, “Wasn’t that fun!” was answered with colorful metaphors and sentiments like, “perhaps there’s a twink guild that I could join… maybe a new server would be nice… I should just watch more tv…” The next day, BRK tried to explain that he didn’t mean Shattrath, he meant Darnassus; they sound so similar it was an easy mistake to make. Of course, the guild reminded BRK that, “Darnassus is Alliance, and so are we, you drunk, glassy-eyed, incompetent, bed-wetter!”

BRK is hopeful that he will learn from his mistakes from his first day on the job and do much better tomorrow.

Edit: If you’ve never seen the original 1968 Mel Brooks movie, The Producers, staring Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder looking younger than you would ever imagine, you’re doing yourself a tremendous disservice.