Hello! I’m Homestar Runner, and this is a website!
March 27, 2014 § Leave a comment
Actually, no. I’m not Homestar Runner, and this is a blog. I just thought that would be a funny way to start things off. Plus, you know, common search terms on Google and all that.
This blog is currently in its third iteration. It started off as a way for me to collect my thoughts and ramblings about World of Warcraft, and as a journal, of sorts. Then, I kind of got bored with World of Warcraft and thought, maybe I will use this blog as a place for me to post my creative writings and practice the craft of writing and all that silly nonsense. Then, well, then life got complicated. I got married. I had a kid. I moved to New Jersey. Like I said. Complicated.
I was reminiscing about how much I enjoyed writing this blog when I started in…holy crap, 2009! And I realized how much I missed it. I let life get in the way. I let my own insecurities as a writer get in the way. I let a lot of things get in the way. But you know what, no more.
I wish I could tell you what this blog is about. I wish I could come up with some pithy mission statement and find a way to convince not only new people to come read what I have to say, but convince them to keep coming back. But I can’t. It’s a work in progress. I’m writing for myself, I guess, and whatever comes, comes. If I find a specific thing to channel everything into, great. If not, well, I’m really not going to worry about it. And, I’ve rambled on enough already. I’ve got posts to work on.
“[Insert clever sign off phrase here]”
~Fizz/Ben
Second Date
May 12, 2012 § Leave a comment
Seamus found himself humming “Whistle While You Work” as he cleaned out his car. He didn’t clean his little Toyota very often, but he wanted everything to be perfect for his second date with Lisa.
His heart fluttered at the thought of her. They had only just met, but he was already smitten. They had already made a deep and last connection. He could feel it.
Man this car is disgusting, Seamus thought. The back seat was full of half eaten candy bars, fast food wrappers, empty bottles of energy drinks, old socks, a detailed map of the city, and hundreds upon hundreds of photographs. Seamus was a wonderful photographer. He owned a small portraits shop in the mall, right next to the coffee shop where he had met Lisa.
What a natural. She acts like the camera isn’t even there, Seamus thought, holding up a candid photo of Lisa that he’d managed to snap on their date the night before. She hadn’t seemed particularly upset when he’d pulled out his camera and took picture after picture of her. In fact, she seemed to have enjoyed it.
She looks the best in this one, he thought. He held up another picture of Lisa, the first one he’d taken of her as she left her office on her way home. I should make her a collage, he thought, suddenly inspired.
He cleared a pile of Kleenex and lotion off the back seat and laid out a handful of pictures. He had the one of her leaving work, as well as the candid of her. He also had one of her in the car, one of her eating dinner, and one of her at the gym. He had a bunch of her at home–sitting in her living room, feeding her cat, watering her plants, and even a really nice one of her in the shower.
Man, am I glad I sprung for that telephoto lens, he thought. He’d had to spend most of their date stuck in his car, as he wasn’t good with crowds. They made him nervous. But, he didn’t want to seem standoffish, so towards the end of the evening, after he’d made sure that she’d gotten home safe, he climbed the tree outside her bedroom window so they could hang out for a while. Then, because he was a gentleman, he made sure that she got to sleep ok.
It took him nearly two hours to get the last of the junk out of his car. Then he spent another hour getting out the smell. He wanted to make sure that everything was perfect. He opened the trunk and began to line the edges with soft carpeting. He put in a long cushion, a few throw pillows, and even a reading light. After all, he wanted Lisa to be comfortable. It was important to impress a lady like that on a second date.
Reality Check
April 27, 2012 § Leave a comment
Short Story for my Gotham Writer’s Workshop Class:
Reality Check
It started one lovely weekend in September when I first moved in to my new apartment in Brooklyn, and ended on a cold winter night in February on a fire escape in my underpants.
When I first moved to New York City, I arrived with all the gusto and determination of Canadian illegally crossing the border into the States. I had just graduated from Yale with a degree in business. I wanted to get a degree in Art History at Berkeley, but my father told me once that “no son of mine is going to become some hippy liberal faggot. You’ll be a Yale man just like me, and your grandfather, and your great grandfather. You’ve got quite a legacy to live up to my boy.”
During my time at Yale I traveled a well-blazed trail. I joined all the same clubs my father had been in. I took all the same classes he had taken. I was in the same fraternity that he, and his father, and his father’s father had been in. I was living a life that had already been lived. As I approached graduation the question that came most often was, “So, what company are you going to work for after school?”
I hated the question. There was only one answer they would accept anyway and that was, “Oh I’m going to go work at my father’s firm in New York.” It was what was expected of a legacy like me.
When you’re life’s path is as well laid out as mine, you have to find creative ways to make your own choices. I couldn’t rebel in any normal teenage way. If I had died my hair or joined a band or, god forbid, voted democrat, I would have been shipped off to West Point faster than I could say ‘art school’. So I found unique ways to rebel.
What the future holds (plus a bonus story)
October 4, 2010 § Leave a comment
Cataclysm is looming on the horizon, and patch 4.0.1 is right around the corner. However, aside from telling you folks that I only log in once every other day or so to sell [Solid Sky Sapphire]’s, I have nothing WoW related to talk about right now. But that’s not really new information. I already told y’all I’m on hiatus–although clearly I’m not very good at hiatus-ing. I guess it’s only a ‘sort-of hiatus’. A kind of, ‘I-may-or-may-not-write-posts-now-but-they-won’t-be-at-all-regular-and-probably-won’t-be-WoW-related-until-Cataclysm-comes-out hiatus’. Sometimes I really want to tell y’all an anecdote or two, but I don’t want people to be disappointed if/when I don’t write regularly. However, I also want to make sure that y’all know that regular (the goal is to get up to twice a week again) posts of some form or another will be forthcoming upon the arrival of Cataclysm. I hope so anyway. If not, I’ll have to re-evaluate my blogging goals.
I see one of 3 things happening:
- I love the expansion, it fires me up about the game again, and I continue much as I have been; passionately and intelligently discussing the game while occasionally tossing in non-WoW-related anecdotes.
- I only kind of like the expansion and grow bored with it rapidly. I no longer have anything interesting to say about the game, because the game no longer holds my interest. I let my WoW account lapse, and stop updating this blog until eventually I make one of those lame ‘farewell posts’ and 2a) stop posting, but leave all the previous posts up or 2b) delete this blog in its entirety.
- I loose interest in the game and/or writing about it, but still want to continue blogging. In that event I would 3a) stop posting on this site and ‘freeze’ it–locking posts and comments–but move it to a domain name that I don’t have to pay to renew every year; 3b) completely stop posting about the game, but leave the site as is and continue to blog about whatever tickles my fancy under the guise of ‘The Cranky Old Gnome’; or 3c) archive all the WoW related posts (re: delete from this website and store them either on a free domain name or just my own hard-drive) and only talk about non-wow things.
I can’t predict the future so I can’t really say which of these things will happen. I do know which ones are most likely. Regardless of whether or not I enjoy Cataclysm I will keep blogging. If I no longer want to post about World of Warcraft related topics, I will probably let this site revert back to it’s original “https://crankyoldgnome.wordpress.com/” domain name, but leave all the posts up and continue to allow comments. Then I will probably start up a new site, and talk primarily about what it’s like to work in the entertainment industry. Maybe call it something like “A Hard Day’s Work”. Or something.
Now, here’s a story about my creepy roommate.
I’ll be back
September 9, 2010 § 3 Comments
So it turns out that planning a wedding takes a hell of a lot more time and energy than I first realized. So basically, all the free time I used to have to dedicate to wow and blog writing has pretty much been swallowed up in what promises to be one hell of an awesome wedding!
With that, I’m just letting y’all know I’m not dead, and that I fully intend on coming back to the game and to the blog. But for now, I’m on official hiatus until Cataclysm actually comes. At which point I’ll start up again for reals.
One a different note–Operation Gnomeregan started yesterday! My reaction to it? The event itself was lots of fun. Fighting for the glory of the gnomes was fantastic. And, despite my political differences with the High Tinker, it was an honor fighting along side him and the myriad of other characters they introduced (whose names I don’t remember at the moment). However, the ending left me feeling…empty. ‘Is that it?’ I thought. I mean, at least in the Fall of Zalazane we actually get to kill Zalazane. At the end of this little Operation, Thermaplug is still alive, and Gnomeregan is still full of radiation. All we retook was the surface. Really? That’s it? That’s poppycock. Poppycock I say! I sure as hell hope that something more happens when Cataclysm drops. Cause if not, what the hell was the point?
Also, I know I could probably find out by researching the beta stuff, but I’m really trying my damnedest to avoid spoiler info about Cataclysm. It’s been a real challenge by the way. I’ve pretty much given up on reading all my usual WoW blogs because I don’t want to risk it. So don’t go posting spoiler info in the comments or I will be very disappointed in you.
“[Insert clever sign off phrase here]”
~Fizz
PS: Oh yeah, one more thing, I finally downed the Lich King the other night! It took us 134 attempts.
The Cranky Old Gnome 