Wrath of the Lich King has been out for just over a month now, and so far I have to say I'm enjoying much of the new content. 

Well, let me put a disclaimer on that.  I've found ways to enjoy the time I'm spending in game much more than I was before the expansion was released.  For one, I've been holding off on doing any quests until such a time as Krystalle is available to run with me.  As she's been crazy busy recently, that means my main character has only hit level 75.  I'm ok with that.  I figure I'm only going to get a chance to see the new stuff once with fresh eyes, and I'd like to actually do that with her so we can share the experience instead of going back and running it with her again when I've already blown through it. 

From everything I have encountered so far, though, and from everything I'm reading online and seeing in our guild, I am severely dissapointed in how easy they have made everything as far as new content is concerned.  Yes, I realize I haven't encountered much of it yet - but it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that when one guild manages to beat the most difficult dungeon in the expansion within a week of release there really isn't much in the way of challenge waiting for me. 

I'm not the only one, either.  I've noticed that a lot of the formerly "hard core" raiders in our guild are in no rush to get to the current endgame and the sentiment is pretty much the same throughout - if there's no challenge waiting for us, there's no motivation to get back to the point where you are doing the same thing night after night.  Only two of the five officers in the guild have characters at the level cap.  Of the sub officers, of which there are four, only one is there. 

Interestingly we have a good number of players in guild who HAVE hit 80.  Some of them on multiple characters.  I log into game and watch them, and other than the fact that they have gotten to experience some of the more interesting parts of the game that I haven't gotten to yet I do not at all envy the fact that every night I see them running the same dungeons over and over again trying to get that "one drop" or grinding a faction.  Someone mentioned in guild today that we should be attempting to do a raid boss in Wintergrasp every week because it's quick and will gear people up.

Ugh.

I just can't find the motivation to get back into that mindset.  I want to be challenged.  I want my accomplishments in game to represent the fact that I worked hard and was dedicated to getting something done.  That's why I've been spending a lot of time working on achievements.  As much as I bagged on them as being a way to get players to run content again that they have already done, I can at least take some solace that you have to either be really dedicated (or insane) to get many of them.

The hope out there among the hard core WoW players is that we've only seen the tip of the iceberg as far as new content in the expansion and that later raids will be more challenging.  One can only hope.  Of course, when that happens I'll be behind the curve as far as gear is concerned...but you know what?  Again, not so much with the caring.  I've made up my mind that if I'm not having fun doing something in game I'm simply not doing it anymore.  I spent far too long treating the game like a job, and more often than not for other people's benefit.  I'm paying to play this game.  When someone decides they want to pay me to play I'll re-evaluate my stance.

This isn't some kind of deep, soul-searching blog post.  Please don't let the title fool you.  I'm kicking around a financial decision and I could use some advice/input from my friends.

I have two $10,000 life insurance policies that my Mother took out when I was in elementary school and passed on to me.  If I'm reading the paperwork correctly, at the age of 36 these policies that are probably close to 30 years old have amassed a whopping cash value of $596 each.  I pay $18.20 quarterly for each of these policies, so I'm shelling out $145.60 a year to maintain them.

I have PMI on my mortgage that is paid monthly, so if the worst were to happen the house would be paid for.  On top of that I have a sizable life insurance policy through work that I pay extra to have increased.  It is set up to be split between Alex, Krystalle and Jareth if.  It wouldn't be enough to set them up for life, but the house would be paid for and Krystalle could make sure all of my debts were paid off and they would all still have a decent cushion for a while.

I've always looked at the two $10k life insurance policies as my "funeral" policies.  That money would probably cover the funeral and subsequent mad party I have requested should I shake off this mortal coil.  In the grand scheme of things, that money is a pretty small drop in the bucket and won't come near covering what my other policies do.

All of this leads to my question - If you were me, would you continue paying for the two policies or would you cash them in and use that money to pay down debts (or, more likely, pay off the new debt incurred by Christmas)?

In the interest of full disclosure, I have to preface this particular entry by reminding my readership that I am ensemble member of the Jobsite Theater.  All this really means, in the grand scheme of things, is that I have worked with Jobsite in the past and they do not need to see a monologue from me at the beginning of their casting season.  They know what I'm capable of, and if they think I might fit a role they call me for that specific show.  I am not involved in the business end of Jobsite at all.  I am not on the Board of Directors.  I have no financial stake in Jobsite beyond the shows that I do with them, and my interest in their health and future only impacts me directly in that if they were to fold I'd actually have to actively seek roles with other companies if I wanted to keep acting.

I mention this only because what I'm about to write is going to be fairly critical of another local company, American Stage, and I do not want you all to think that my words are in any way motivated by a desire to see them fail.  The truth of the matter is that any company that does well here is good for the community at whole, and that's kind of why I felt the urge to make this post.

I've always held a quote from Anne Frank very close to my heart.  "In spite of everything, I still believe people are good at heart."  This came from a girl who hid for years from the Nazi's only to end up dying in a Concentration Camp.  I read something else today from a person in a similar situation.

You only live once. Let's keep trucking. If we don't do that, who's going to do it for us? We have to be happy. Why hate?  The world is full of hate, and yet they don't know what they want.

The man who said this was a Prisoner of War in a Nazi slave camp, who saw hundreds of his comrades die and who was told by his own government that he was not allowed to talk about his experiences when he came home.  You can read the full story here.

People like them give me hope for the world.  If they can hold on to goodness and hope when they've been through atrocities that I'll never come close to experiencing I certainly can.

This morning I asked those who follow me on Facebook and Twitter not to be dicks when it came to the election results from last night.  I feel that, in some ways, I am violating that request by making this post.  I honestly can't help myself, though.  Reading some of this I can't tell if I should laugh or cry.

President-Elect Obama,

I am writing this post with a full awareness that you will likely never read it.  I am not writing it for you per se, but I am directing the message at you and anyone who feels that you were elected out of some kind of blind hope or reckless idealism.  I am writing this to explain, and in some ways I am writing this as a warning.

Mr. Obama, we will be watching you.

In no particular order, and because I really don't feel like spamming Twitter with all of this today.

So....the Tampa Bay Devil (fuck all that dropping the Devil business...they only did that to try and get the religious freaks into the stands) Rays beat the Boston Red Sox tonight 9-1 in a playoff game.  Let me state right here and now that I do not give a damn about baseball.  At all.  I think it's a mind-numbingly boring game, and the only time I willingly go to a baseball game is when my son is in it (and even then I get bitchy about it).  If it weren't for the fact that Tampa Bay was in the playoffs I wouldn't even be aware that the playoffs were going on.

I just don't care.  Really.

But...

I'm gonna wax poetic for a bit about the economy, so if you're sick to death of hearing about it please feel free to move along.  I've just had some thoughts stuck in my head in the last few days and I wanted to get them out.

The following is the text of an email I just sent out to my local Family members.  Figured I'd cross post it here to broaden the audience (although the personal appeal at the end will have less of an impact).

If you play video games at all and don't live under a rock you're probably aware that Blizzard is releasing Wrath of the Lich King (the next expansion for World of Warcraft) on November 13th.  On the day this happens millions of happy little geeks will stay up until Midnight, plop down $50 to purchase the pre-order they made at their local video game shop, and proceed to ooh and ahh over all the shiny new content that Blizzard is offering to them.

So I have this very unusual sense of loss this morning that is related to the dream I had last night.  In this dream I had a daughter (the odd thing is that I don't know if I ever remember her having a name in the dream).  While this is not odd in and of itself,  what made this dream somewhat different was that about 3/4 of the way through it she realized she wasn't real.  She and I both knew she was a dream, and that our time together was only going to last until I woke up.

The last thing I remember of the dream is holding her while she cried and said "Please, daddy.  Don't wake up.  Not yet."

Another interesting thing about this is that I was woken up not by my alarm clock, but by my son's.  Not only was I profoundly sad when I woke up I was also slightly angry with him for cutting my time short with her.

Clearly I'm fully awake now and the dream is slipping away, but I still have this feeling like I lost something wonderful this morning....but it's something I never really had in the first place. 

How odd is that?

What's even odder is the fact that I was going to just write about this on my Twitter, but something inside me said that she deserved more than a 140 word recollection.  That her online eulogy not be condensed for quick reading.

So...yeah.  I've sat here and tried to think of some poignant way to wrap this up and it isn't happening. 

I fully intended to start this post off by talking about how I usually don't talk about politics, but then I realized I'd sound like everyone else in the blogosphere recently who has posted about how they usually don't talk about politics and proceeded to do so.  We're less than two months away from a Presidential election.  Like it or not, we all talk about politics at one point or another.  The question becomes whether or not we wish to actually have an open and honest debate on the subject or if we're so mired in our own beliefs that we cannot even hear an opposing view without feeling threatened our taking it personally.

Up until Wednesday, I had never served on a jury before.  I've been called once, shortly before Alex was born, but at the time I was working in a strip club and I'm pretty sure I did not match the criteria of "upright citizen" that they seem to go for in these things.  Twelve years and a fairly major shift in pay grade seems to have changed that, though.

So now that the month of vacations is over and I'm re-establishing a somewhat normal pattern around the house I decided to be Mr. Productive today and get some stuff done around the house.  Well, that was my intention at the beginning of the day.  I ended up being delayed in the morning by several hours due to the fact that there was yet another scammer trying to get our Member account information this morning.  It's the second one in a week!  Last week it was a pretty elaborate phishing scam, but this week it was automated calls that were asking folks to call another number and enter their credit card information!   I had originally intended to hit Home Depot early this morning, but I didn't get out of the house until around 12:30 becuase I was was waiting for official word on what we should post on the web site.