bellemorda

yesterday my pusher (you know who you are) says "I feel like killing, lots of killing" and we set up an online match in DoW. only it shakes the bejeebus out of me, its a full-on match between us and however many max players you can get in a match (the others are computer AI). I "eeeep!" briefly about how my sweetass is gonna be sliced and handed to me on a servette with a sprig of parsley garnish and au jus. 

I issue the edict to the realm: "you canNOT interrupt me for the duration of this match -- if you have any questions or problems you must go to the padre and let him mediate all conflicts. do not ask me for snacks or tell me somebody called you a booger head or ask if you can bring peanut butter jars of ants into the house. I will be more than happy to accommodate you AFTER the match so please give me 30 minutes of uninterrupted concentration on smearing the pulpy innards of the blasted orks and squishily penetrable imperial guards all over the landscape with my dreadnaughts. Period."

it lasts perhaps 10 minutes. I'm off to a ragingly decent start acquiring my resources and fighting like the living hellcats of satan's own whorehouse when the first inopportune moment happens: "waaaaaaaah! I was doing blah blah and then blah blah and then HE THREW A LOG ON MY FOOT! AAAAAAHHHHHH!"  as quickly as possible I triage the damage, hug, toss the injured a cookie and shuffle her off, then try to recoup my position on the map. my machine cult is up and running, I scan through what research updates need making, get all the loser servitors off their asses and repairing damages.

within five more minutes or so somebody's wailing with a bee sting. ingame freneticism while I set my marines in cover and turn the dreadnaughts onto patrol, scrape stinger out, turn over the stung littl'un to the padre for ministration of injuries. then have to deprive a starving child for whom two cowtails, a paper cup of Yan-Yan cookies with frosting and a bowl of shrimp chips was just not enough to stave off hunger. I tell him, whatever you want to eat help yourself only please please please don't interrupt me again or remember how those flayers in WoW get all enraged, blazing red and three times their size when you keep pummelling them? I don't think you're geared to take that on, buddy.

I recover, build up my marines once again. then the third comes in having fallen off the playset, bloodied and wailing. at that point, I realize that although I've attempted to secure the vital center core of the map I am going to lose, lose, lose in very painful and gut-grinding ways. I resign myself to certain death and abandon what I'd started with such high hopes, and literally leave the map, game running, to tend to the necessities of this and that. during the bandaging, I also deal with two arguments, one about somebody eating somebody else's ferreted-away snack, and another one discussing with the padre about Twinkie 2 not turning in her homework again and therefore likely having to miss a zoo trip planned for her class. I answer 13 questions about can we get hula hoops from the attic and when can we go buy sandals and can we take babydoll strollers out into the yard and can we listen to Tom Jones on the stereo and can we have tocino for dinner and I think I hear the ice cream man coming....

I get back a full 20 or 30 minutes later. I've been annihilated, of course. sooooo irked but generally apologetic to my gaming partner. days like this, I don't even know why I try gaming its so full of fail.

and he just laughs and emotes all kinds of smiles at me. tells me he tapped out at around 18 minutes into the match. and then, tells me that I was the last one defeated by the winning computer AI. 

.....huh?

I have to go back in and exit the game so I can see the standings. whaddya know. he was dead right. oh my freaky, FREAKY goodness.....

so yeah. despite all the craziness, I'm riding a two day high over this.  just imagine what I could accomplish if I *weren't* distracted.

/dance