Problem 1. Internet at the house has been out for 24 hours.

Problem 2. Mrs BRK launched herself into a carpeted floor at work yesterday and has to get to an MRI appointment today.

Problem 3. We have promised to do BRK’s Phat Loot Bingo today.

Solution 1: Call Comcast and demand same-day repairs, ’cause we “work from home”.

Solution 2. Call work, tell them we won’t be there as our duties as a chauffeur are required.

Solution 3. After making sure Mrs BRK makes it to her doctor and the boy gets to school, we find the nearest coffee place with WiFi.

And lo, here we are, ensconced upon a black-fabric covered sofa sipping a raspberry latte, writing this post.

So we haven’t checked email in a because of the BRK Blackout. Don’t panic if we haven’t responded in a while. But right now, we have to start our Phat Loot Bingo callout posts. Remember, they’ll start rolling out at 11am EDT today!

/sip

/wave!

The Streak

The Ratshag

If you couldn’t make this race, we really hope you make the next one. We’re gonna have a BRK Cinco de Mayo Event! We’re thinking of these ideas right now:

• Gnaked Gnome Race, Spawn Circle to Booty Bay (300 gnomes, should be doable)
• Running of the Bulls, Baby Tauren (moo!)
• Some kind of five-person baby gnome team event, like “Find TJ in Loch Modan”.

If you’ve got an idea, let us know!

BRK, “We’re going to have a BRK Cinco de Mayo Event!”

Mrs BRK, ” Oh G@d. Just don’t offend Mexico.”

Arcane Shot, properly employed, is OP. Problem is that not enough hunters have a dang clue how to use it. Thus the complaints remain minimal. 

If one right-clicks on a soul well but misses and hits a Magtheridon captor, the event begins. That’s just the way love goes, sarsaparilla. The sight of 25 unbuffed, unready raiders begging to get through the gates won’t do anything but look pathetic. Die with some dignity.

Before you whisper anybody in game, do a “/who Theirname” first. Maybe they’re trying Magtheridon and really shouldn’t be disturbed. But if you do send a Hello at the wrong time and you get a “WTF! PLEASE JUST SHUT THE F-UP AND TAKE YOUR BUFFS, YOU OBNOXIOUS PITA!” response, don’t blame us or think we don’t care about you. Mistells happen.

When in doubt, listen to the healer.

Hunters have Freezing Traps. By habit, we’ve almost always got one at our feet. If you get something chewing your squishy butt, run to a hunter and avail yourself of our trap. It’s totally cool.

Why is it that federal employees can view 190,000,000 pr0n sites in 2007, yet we can’t play WoW from the NASA supercomputers? Got 52″ plasma monitors everywhere and fiberoptic networks underfoot and no WoW at all here. It’s a d@mn travesty, it is.

The news women on CNN have said “panties” and “pr0n” about 100 times. That’s pure win.

The chick on the cell phone who ran the stop sign at the 4-way stop on our way to work didn’t even blink at the pileup she almost caused. We really need a hood-mounted crossbow with “I’m A Total Noob!” arrows installed.

You want to know when your country’s economy is in the toilet? Look at the quality of the work performed by your favorite drive-through restaurant. If you get everything you ask for, the person at the window speaks your language, provides the correct number of straws, a spoon for your frozen chocolate sundae, extra napkins and ketchup without prompting, and looks as if they actually know one end of hand wash station from the other, you know the available job applicant list is huge. In other words, the economy sucks.

If you get someone else’s order, get the wrong drinks in the wrong sizes, no napkins, pre-wetted straws, they hand you a torn and soiled bag, and then slam their Window of Absolute Power when you raise a hand to ask a question, you know the job-pool is shallower than an oasis in the Gobi. In other words, the economy is going gangbusters. One could base one’s investment strategy based upon fast-food service. We should write a paper.

The Devil got to do The Aristocrats Joke - which you’ll have to search for yourself, we ain’t linking it - on Sirius’ Raw Dog comedy channel this morning. He totally rocked; we got a little nauseous.

Speaking of Sirius, the Playboy channel would be 100x better if they stopped taking calls, period.

Speaking of Sirius again, if you don’t have it and you drive a car, get Sirius now. Tell ‘em BRK sent ya.

We are so torn between getting a MacPro with the 8800GT card and building our own PC specifically to play WoW, we’re frozen and can’t make a move.

May we raid our 401k and buy a Porsche Boxter for our birthday? Hello, IRS?

We want the Gnaked Gnome race to be fun for boys and girls, adults and kids alike. When we really feel like shoving a Pike of Pestilence up our reader’s rears, we’ll hire every warlock on Drenden to help us do a Gnaked Gnome Race from Shat to the Dark Portal, foshizzle. Don’t think we don’t know how to Bring It.

Mrs BRK wants traffic on her blog. It’s become a nightly plea. OK, we surrender. You, gentle reader, are under no obligation to visit or comment whatsoever. There are no Gnaked Mrs BRK pics, or anything else you’re probably interested in over there.

We’re sorry, but Jimmy Buffet FTL. C’mon, can’t we agree on this by now? Every time we go to our new-on-the-rotation lunch place, it’s all they play on their PA system. Enough!

Winner of the award for best performer and musical artist who should get the kind of street cred that JB gets? No contest: Neil Diamond.

Lake Effect Snow. You poor, sodden b@stards. /opens door to lanai

All sympathies to the Heath Ledger family, of course, but supplanting Jack Nicholson as the Joker just seems wrong. We’re not mad or sullen, just a little confused.

In more movie news, Daniel Craig is making the next 007 movie, Quantum of Solace. Mrs BRK’s pheromones are accumulating at this news, we may have to get some big Tupperware containers to hold to overflow.

Mortal Strike is gonna get the biggest, baddest, meanest Blizz Nerf Hammer we’ve ever seen. We’re not the first to predict that, but we are the first to predict The Great Tank-Strike of 2008!

When we were a young lad, middle school-age, the BRK Mom posed in her homemade, pink bikini on her 1969 VW Beetle for a contest by a local radio station to win a car makeover. She won. Her bug was completely repaired, painted black, and had the radio station’s call sign painted in blazing orange on the sides. She drove that car for twenty years.

You think we’re nuts? Blame our genetics.

So we wanted to do a macro-movie and our last guide showed us breaking our own trap. That’s a pretty good lesson that needs to be taught, isn’t it.

But how to show a tiny-text macro in a compressed movie… we had to do some thinking. Telling people what to type isn’t the same thing as showing them, and hopefully our method in this movie will work.

The full-sized movie (24MB) is available for download here.

A Non-WoW BRK Moment

The Scene: driving Mrs BRK back from the dentist - root canal - and we pass a Latina Hooters.

BRK: “Now that’s targeted shopping, right there.”

Mrs BRK: “What is?”

BRK: “Latina Hooters.”

MBRK: “Wow. Do you think they’re all Latinas?”

BRK: “Yes, most definitely. Latinas with huuuuge tracts of land.” (and he does the whole visual-thing, too.)

MBRK: “Latinas with huge racks of lamb? What are you talking about?”

Mrs BRK hates William Shatner. Obviously, today was a sad day in the life of Mrs BRK.

“WTF did I ever do to deserve this?! I can’t escape that communist, tree-climbing, bed-wetting, has-been-that-never-was with a tiny-misshapen-pen1s hack!! As Charlie Brown would say, AUGH!!!!”

“Dear BRK, can you explain the meaning of the term “bam-bam”? I understand “bling-bling” to be vernacular for shiny and/or expensive jewelry, but the term “bam-bam” eludes me. UrbanDictionary yields the definition “Another word for a fat blunt to smoke weed”, but I find it hard to believe that your wife requires you to buy illegal drugs for her. Please clarify, Sherp.”

From the movie Talladega Nights, bam-bam was indeed a colloquial term for cocaine, you’re correct. However, Mrs BRK has adapted it to mean, “Anything I particularly want at any particular moment.” This can be cash or material goods, or just a general “Appease Me!” feeling.

Mrs BRK sees some dark chocolate covered raisins? “BRK, buy those; I need some Bam-Bam!”

Mrs BRK wants a new truck? “BRK, you’d better get a good bonus this year. I need the Bam-Bam for my new Hummer H2!”

Comprehension and consistency are not as important as Mrs BRK getting to say “Bam-Bam”.

And you know, we may have to publish a BRK-Urban Dictionary.

And have no fear, denizens of central Florida, Mrs BRK will never have a Hummer H2. We once owned a Dodge Ram 1500 Rumblebee with the big V8 Hemi. In the driver’s seat, her eyes would glaze over and her spittle would coat the inside of the windshield. She would raise the seat as high as it would go so her 5′3″ frame could see over the steering wheel, race the engine to redline, scare the beejezus out of soccer-moms, and cause their minivans to high-tail-it out of the fast-lane.

No joke. We sold that thing PDQ.

“Dear BRK, I could write to you and tell you how great your blog is, how I’m a BMFTW! convert, or even how playing as a BM hunter (under your tutelage), has made me a better Paladin (Wolfgarr lvl 70, Anvilmar), better healer, and better team player, (it is now my personal mission to keep all pets alive in raids/instances.)

“However, this letter is to thank you on Mrs. Wolf’s behalf. I took it upon myself to serve Mrs. Wolf your Grape-juice-and-Ginger-Ale-I’m-not-feeling-so-well treat, and now she’s hooked. Thanks for an excellent, clean and entertaining blog. Wolfpaw and FaceEater, My DASHING Raptor”

We’re all about giving BRK Cool Points to healers who give some love to hunter pets, so that rocks our sox. However, Mrs BRK just gives Wolf a B. Why not higher?

“If there’s no bling-bling or bam-bam with the juicy-juice, it’s just half-@ssed.”

So sayeth Mrs BRK, so let it be done.

Edit: We initially forgot BEs and Draenei, so we added them. Then when we added them, we messed up the Vote button. Now it’s all fixed. If there has never been a 100% completely inaccurate poll before, we’d like to put in for that record. Sheesh.

BRK has a new job. Same company, different responsibilities. Details are still up in the air so we’re in a holding pattern, (and we award ourselves BRK Cool Points for the double air travel-metaphors.)

Meetings, confusion, and a few punches thrown. Standard space-industry schenanagians. And then there’s the whole, “we want to go back to school for a PhD” thing we have to resolve before the end of October. We have two BS degrees and our college-burnout has, we think, finally lifted and we just might be ready to tackle graduate school. Is the family prepared for us to go back to school for a dual MS/PhD program? Can Mrs BRK deal with us in that capacity? Can we? Lots to think about, little time to act, and the potential for the elimination of WoW from our daily activities.

Can you imagine?

We have stuff to write about, we have lots of letters to try to answer, but time is a commodity that we may just not have enough of for a while.

“Dear BRK, how much time do you devote to your WoW habit and how does your wonderful Mrs. BRK handle/cope/punish you accordingly? I have noticed a big difference in playing time between those who have been married longer than us newlyweds if the Mrs. is not a gamer. I’m not about to jeopardize my good standing with Mrs. Gitr by starting to raid Kara, so how do you raid and still get all the benefits of marriage? Gitr.”

If you’re not aware, Gitr is the altaholic who runs Gitr Knows WoW. A WoW blogger of supreme longevity, he also has approximately 14,302 alts and is the founder of the Buttered Monkeys guild. Truly a man to be appreciated.

We get to play about 15-20 hours per week depending on the raiding schedule. We only play after 7:30pm. We don’t play past 11:00pm. We don’t play during the day on the weekends. We save Saturday night as a date-night.

Now then, as for how we escape the evil clutches of Mrs BRK several nights per week, there are several tricks and evasions we employ:

We provide Alternative Entertainment Sources. DVR/TIVO, Netflix, iPhone, MacBook, and HDTV are big-time keys to being left alone. Did you know every episode of Sex in the City is on DVD? Don’t you think she wants to watch them? Get them on your Netflix queue. Subscribe to HBO and let her watch all those bad 80s movies over and over again. Sometime your spouse will get hooked on a really good movie, like Mrs BRK and The Godfather trilogy, in which case you buy it and let them run it with headphones on all the time. Unfortunately, this can backfire and they might latch on to My Big Fat Greek Wedding. We can’t emphasize the headphones enough.

Definitely leave small but meaningful messes around the house. Nothing that will require scrubbing or vacuums, but maybe a single dish containing some half-munched salsa on the coffee table in the family room. It’s too small to call us in to clean up, but no wife is gonna just leave it there. And once the salsa dish is emptied, washed, and placed in the dishwasher, there’s always something in the kitchen that needs cleaning and you’ve just primed her Chores-Motor. That’s a good 30-minutes to two hours of solitude for you right there.

Do the laundry, never fold it. No wife on the planet will leave laundry in the dryer overnight. “It’ll wrinkle and I’ll have to do it all over again!” they’ll screech. Do they know that we don’t care if our NASA tee shirt is wrinkled? We wear it to clean the pool and do yard work; we just don’t want it funky when we put it on. Not folding laundry, especially if you can get your spouse to fold toddler’s clothes, will free you for days.

After 7pm telephone calls. You’ve got those free minutes, use them. Call your wife’s best friend at 7:05pm, say “Hi, how are ya?” and then hand the phone over. Your night is set.

Get her a hobby like Genealogy. Easily to do and research at the beginning, much harder and time-involving once the first three or four generations are complete. Get genealogy software that allows her to import pictures and create family trees. Point her to the geneaology databases available on the Internet. If you can hook her on this, you’ve got months of time to yourself.

Treats. Buy her treats, small quantities, of course. Dark chocolate covered raisins or those cinnamon pita chips. Something that she loves and won’t want to share. Be a good husband and get her some. Let her sneak off with them and let her be “selfish” and not share. As soon as the cleaning in the kitchen is done and you hear that bag rustle, fire up your Kara run.

Cosmo. Get her a subscription. Don’t ever judge the contents though. Don’t make statements like, “All that magazine does is try to teach women to be comfortable with their bodies, that they don’t have to be size double-zero to be happy. Then they slam 700 pages of ads with nothing but mega-thin models in them. Isn’t that one of the worst double-standards ever perpetrated upon your gender, yet you continue to support them by buying that junk every Saturday at the store?”

No; wrong tact. Buy it for her. It goes great with dark chocolate covered raisins.

So you’ve got all this going and you still don’t have enough time to farm money for your epic flying skill? OK, work out a schedule. And if necessary, a contract:

I, the WoW-addict spouse, do hereby declare every Saturday and Wednesday night to be Date Night. I don’t raid. I don’t farm, I don’t quest, I don’t even log on the game. I’m in a marriage and WoW is not my life.

I, the WoW-addict spouse’s spouse, do hereby declare that every Tuesday and Friday night are WoW Raiding Nights. I won’t bother, I won’t nag, I won’t ask for help getting things down from high shelves in the pantry. From 7pm until midnight, I’m basically single and will accept my status with grace and chocolate.

And that’s basically how we at the BRK manse get by.

TJ’s yapping on and on about some online radio thingy, we get a very friendly “Hello” from a BRK reader, we MT a response… so of course we get yelled at.Oh, and Mrs BRK posted a Thank-You comment in the post where we discuss her youth and our inability to keep track of our wedding ring: