The Game Dame

From StarTrek.com

She died of leukemia at her home in Bel Air. Saw the announcement on Space.com (a little news clip on my Gmail, actually).

I had the privilege of meeting her once in 1991. I worked at a company which was headed by Loy Baxter, a good friend of Gene’s (and also the father of Skunk Baxter of the Doobie Brothers). They were buddies at the Bel Air Country Club. Loy found out that I was a huge Star Trek fan and convinced Gene to let him take me and a few friends to the Roddenberrys’ big Halloween party. I was excited beyond words! They threw a big bash every year and there would be Star Trek celebs, professional makeup and costumes, and movie-quality special effects set up around the mansion. I looked forward to the party for months.

Then, on October 24, Gene died. As you might imagine, they cancelled the Halloween party that year.

Later that year, for Christmas, it was Loy’s tradition to take the employees of our small company out to lunch at the Bel Air Country Club. Oh, fancy schmancy! On the way in we saw then-big TV star Corbin Bernsen taking a few swings on the driving range. But the real highlight came for me after we had eaten our salads and across the room, straight to our table, came Majel Roddenberry to greet Loy. I was sitting right next to him and my mouth dropped open because I recognized her right away. She was so kind to all of us. Loy introduced me to her and she shook my hand — a very warm, gracious handshake — and beamed a smile at me. I, of course, stammered and said nothing of use.

Majel Roddenberry helped her husband in conveying his vision of a positive, optimistic future for humankind. These ideas had a profound impact on my life. Now that they are both gone from this world, I’m doubly sad. I hope some day we can live up to the kind of future they saw for us. Rest in peace, dear Majel.

Wow, it didn’t take long for the Bush shoe-dodging incident to turn into a raging net meme. And a dang funny one, at that. I first saw this linked via Gaming Massively, but the original versions are on Boing Boing. (Or at least as “original” as I care to trace back to.)

The idea was to take another cultural reference and apply it to the footage of Bush dodging the shoe. I couldn’t get all the references, but the first WoW one is extremely funny (especially the “AFK Maliki”). There are also tributes to Pokemon, Monty Python, the Three Stooges, and a very amusing version of The Matrix. Here’s the WoW one, but do go check out the other ones, too.

This is Solareclipse, my Death Knight (same toon as in the previous post), doing a bit of holiday dancing in her fancy outfit that Rayha made her! Woot! Thankyewverrahmush…

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WyTUHj-jkeg]

Dude, I cannot TELL you how much I hate this theme. I need a new Wordpress theme — stat!

That’s Slig’s guild (US-Dawnbringer), the one we got invited to by Fikkle after the awesome Twisted Nether blogcast. “Flaky Shaman Seeks Guild.” So far they don’t mind my flakiness.

Last night I made my first run through a Northrend instance. Well, actually, two instances: Utgarde Keep and The Nexus. It was a blast! So today I salute my cool guildies with a list of the wonderful, amusing things about them.

What I Love About My Guildies
–an essay by Slig of Dawnbringer

• Dorkinese
• Pet collections
• One word: Shamans! (Of every spec!)
• O Canada
• Tardjar violations
• People in their 40s
• Mom & son playing together
• No wipes on Keristrasza, the last Nexus boss, the first time through
• O Brother Where Art Thou
• They play other games, too
• Arby’s
• Rats lecturing turtles in the Dalaran sewers
• In the Nexus, I stranded myself on a ledge I couldn’t get out of so I had to jump to my death and run back into the instance. They laughed and waved goodbye. And they did NOT charge me with a tardjar violation.
• Rayha, Nimrock, Kohen, Vrugore, and Kamara, ftw!

Click to enlarge.