"KILL BALINDA"

A tribute to one of the greatest love-hate relationships of all time.



What started out as a simple birthday present quickly became, as some of those AA people would say, a lifestyle. (And thanks to my wily wits, not one that my parents would know the half of.)

When I began playing World of Warcraft, I was utterly confused. Here I was, freshly legal, at about 9 p.m., staring at a [rather good-looking, contrary to everyone's belief] troll, who was standing around pointlessly in a very saturated desert. All I could read in my chat was "what the fuck are you doing all the way out here" and all I could hear in vent was "you suck". I didn't even realize hunters could use bows.

I almost gave up the first time because I was stuck running on a mountain, dying to anything that came my way.
But after a few days of dedicated game play, I managed to snag myself a pet and interact with the world around me. Of course, I waved gleefully to any cool-looking ally that passed by, and was rewarded promptly with a death.



I do admit, I was quite the aggrosaur the first few (okay, many) instances we ran. That was one of several mistakes I made...like selling haitao's enchanting staff for 6 gold and buying Yu an ostrich.

But I grew to love it, all of it. I loved the silly, repetitive quests, the ones that made me rich if skinning anything was involved. I loved the lingo. WTB +5 str enchant? PST! LF1M Resto...SH GY, pats, and more. I loved the beautiful scenery, despite being unimpressed by my first few days in Durotar. I even grew accustomed to riding on a raptor, though seeing phoenixes and eagles sparkled my envy for a number of things. I often wished I could live in Tanaris or Nagrand-- I was unaware such a mainstream MMO could spit out such pretty places.

And of course, who can forget the PVP? Sure, Warsong Gulch was stupid. Sure, Arathi Basin was somewhat annoying. But in the course of one week, I couldn't let go of Alterac Valley. I noticed for the first time that some people devote days of staying on level 60, just to win these honor marks. I was excited by the prospect of tower caps and filing in for boss kills, while quite proud of all the Defense and Healers we had. We had bad losses and remarkable wins, and good sports and bad ones.

The people there were unforgettable. I'll miss Sassy and Blazd, Jamahn; my lover who sadly fell behind, every cowran that turned into a bear or a joke-telling tree, Paul with his invincible lock, and maybe even the poor nub who kept asking me for gold. I'll miss all the guys I ran instances with, or maybe the occasional 70 who ran it for us. I'll miss Manrik and his wife, I'll DEFINITELY miss 'Can you help me find my dog?', Ringo, Oreo who wanted to rush everything while eating oreos, Lawl, my gorgeous and loyal pridelord Humar, and most of all, you guys, my Jew Crew.





I had tons of fun. My eyes hurt. And I promise, one day I WILL come back to it, and maybe you'll all be at the top of the food chain by then, but I won't give up til I get there.


<3.