Yes, it's a World of Warcraft screen, or rather a fusion of the news and WoW. On the right, we see that Obama's completed the quest "Crush the Republicans!", which called for the heads of McCain and Palin and at least 270 electoral votes. He hasn't yet completed the Transfer of Power quest, since "Take Office" is still grayed out.
The ZZZ on the little picture of Obama in the upper left shows that he's in a friendly location and therefore getting rest bonus (which'll increase the experience points he gets from future efforts). The smaller picture of Biden in that position shows that he's grouped in the same party.
Both Obama and Biden are at full health, as shown by the green bars. Obama is a member of the priest class, as shown by the blue bar for his accumulated mana and the tooltip in lower right for Prayer of Hope, a priestly spell. Each class has several different kinds of talent; Ta-Nehisi suggests that Obama went for the shadow talent tree, which allows for some awesome damage dealing - "you will melt faces" is the standard explanation for people playing shadow priests - rather than the healing-focused holy talent tree.
The red bar by Biden shows that he's a warrior: that's rage, which accumulates as a warrior hits and gets hit, and is spent to power special attacks and defenses. He's charged up and ready to go wallop someone.
Achievements commemorate distinct achievements. In WoW, they come for mastering new levels of skill, defeating particular monsters, exploring the world, and so on. It appears that becoming President of the United States is a fairly high-point achievement, as is appropriate.
"Working as intended" is the stock response from Blizzard's customer service folks to many kinds of problems. Sometimes it's perfectly suitable: "Hey, I stop doing worthwhile damage whenever I sell off all my weapons." "Working as intended." Sometimes it's intended to resolve ambiguity: "This spell routinely goes off ahead of that one. It would be more convenient to do it the other way, and the language is muddled. What's up?" "Working as intended." And sometimes it's a cover for what's very likely a behind-the-scenes disaster they're trying to fix: "Whenever I go talk to the warchief of the faction my character's in, he eats him." "Working as intended. Thrall's touchy right now."
A lot of us WoW junkies said or thought "Working as intended." about this presidential election.
well played, Bruce. couple of other things in this pic:
-- Obama's location is "Grant Park" -- hence the rested state (see upper right)
-- looks like he's specced a combination of shadow and disc (he's got power infusion). while I completely agree w/ TNC on the shadow part (vs. holy), discipline also seems highly appropriate, given the campaign he ran. and this combo is a pretty good PvP build, fwiw...
gussie -- a WoW player's "spec" is the particular choice of spells/talents they choose in putting together a character in WoW. short for "specifications" -- like a "spec house" or "i did that job to spec".
mauv -- I came across the pic in a discussion thread w/ some other WoW players where I work and sent to TNC... it really is teh awesome.
They must be running 2v2 right? So what about the other team? I see McCain as a Fury Warrior. Palin is - wait for it - a (character) Assassination Rogue. Or is she a failed Evasion tank? Hard to think of her specced for Subtlety.
Mr. Coates--love your blog but one small quibble. Guys like you, me, and the vast majority of Americans DON'T HAVE a "Commander In Chief". The only people any president "commands" are active military--it's in the Constitution.
I only mention it b/c routine use (Biden did it recently too) of this term to describe our president, contributes to the idea advanced in recent years that the Prez RULES all of us. which he damn sure doesn't and shouldn't.
I'm thrilled Obama will be next up, but he won't be my "commander" any more than King George is.
mark, while it's true that the Constitution only mentions the President as the Commander-in-Chief of the military, I feel like it's acceptable in at least two ways. One, it's a rhetorical flourish. Even if the President is only one of a three-branched government, he's still considered the leader, and commander-in-chief seems to me to be a valid term to refer to him. Two, I think a lot of people consider the military to be OUR military, and the president is the commander-in-chief of OUR military, so isn't he OUR commander-in-chief? I never felt like people were using the term to suggest he was in fact, ruling directly over us (that's left for our totalitarian small-town mayors), but that he is in fact, our leader of our military. I don't know if that makes sense, but I've never felt "commander-in-chief" was that big a deal for us civilians.
retard is self explanatory.
a "baddie" is someone who shows for raiding Black Temple with green crap gear and an unspecced talent tree and expects everyone in the guild to carry them.
I played MUDs back when I was a high school nerd, and they were wicked fun. A college roommate had Everquest and I played it briefly, found it too addictive, and promised myself not to play any more of these kinds of things..
At Culture 11, where TNC gets linked a lot, the blogmasters maintain that culture is more important than politics...I think that is true, because culture informs politics.
That is why star trek refs and will.i.am score points for Obama with my demographic.
I think all of us see a little bit of ourselves in Obama...the geekcred and IQ quotient for young nerds like me, the family man and loving husband and father for others...even for some a successful black man....or a measured statesman and harvard review editor.
Like this Keane tune
" ...when we fall in love, we fall for ourselves."
That is why Palin is so beloved of her followers.....she is their mirror, they see themselves in her.
Here's a piece no one cared about. Meh, whatever, probably the most enjoyable article I did during my stint at TIME. Premiered a month before I got laid-off. The nail in the coffin? Ya think?
Here's me going after Al. I didn't so much have a problem with him, as I had a problem with media acting like this dude was the go-to guy for everything black.
This was my first real story at time. I was writing for the Business section, a real change of direction for me. At any rate, it's about Wal-Mart's attempts to colonize the inner-city. As much as I enjoyed this piece, I mostly enjoyed going out to Chicago, which is a beautiful, beautiful city.
This a piece I did about the cops just outside our nation capitol, in Prince George's County, a few years back. I wanted to offer a counter to the dumb, conventional wisdom that if you paint your police force black, you could eradicate police brutality. In fact, Prince George's--one of the richest, blackest counties in the country--also had one of the most brutal police force's in the country.
The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood 
Spec holy.
Hm. Speculate? In a righteous fashion?
That can't be right.
I am both fermisht and fartoost.
Barack's Hymn of Hope crits you for 365 Electoral Vote dmg!
That looks like a video game screen -- I'm guessing that's lingo from World of Warcraft or Halo. Cool idea, time for an explanation.
I have never been as confused by a post as I am by this one. I'm actually slightly terrified.
Ha, this is great. Wonder what his Epic-level mount would be.
Yes, it's a World of Warcraft screen, or rather a fusion of the news and WoW. On the right, we see that Obama's completed the quest "Crush the Republicans!", which called for the heads of McCain and Palin and at least 270 electoral votes. He hasn't yet completed the Transfer of Power quest, since "Take Office" is still grayed out.
The ZZZ on the little picture of Obama in the upper left shows that he's in a friendly location and therefore getting rest bonus (which'll increase the experience points he gets from future efforts). The smaller picture of Biden in that position shows that he's grouped in the same party.
Both Obama and Biden are at full health, as shown by the green bars. Obama is a member of the priest class, as shown by the blue bar for his accumulated mana and the tooltip in lower right for Prayer of Hope, a priestly spell. Each class has several different kinds of talent; Ta-Nehisi suggests that Obama went for the shadow talent tree, which allows for some awesome damage dealing - "you will melt faces" is the standard explanation for people playing shadow priests - rather than the healing-focused holy talent tree.
The red bar by Biden shows that he's a warrior: that's rage, which accumulates as a warrior hits and gets hit, and is spent to power special attacks and defenses. He's charged up and ready to go wallop someone.
Achievements commemorate distinct achievements. In WoW, they come for mastering new levels of skill, defeating particular monsters, exploring the world, and so on. It appears that becoming President of the United States is a fairly high-point achievement, as is appropriate.
This has been Bruce's Subtitle Corner.
Thanks Bruce. You are all win.
Oh, yeah, one last subtitle:
"Working as intended" is the stock response from Blizzard's customer service folks to many kinds of problems. Sometimes it's perfectly suitable: "Hey, I stop doing worthwhile damage whenever I sell off all my weapons." "Working as intended." Sometimes it's intended to resolve ambiguity: "This spell routinely goes off ahead of that one. It would be more convenient to do it the other way, and the language is muddled. What's up?" "Working as intended." And sometimes it's a cover for what's very likely a behind-the-scenes disaster they're trying to fix: "Whenever I go talk to the warchief of the faction my character's in, he eats him." "Working as intended. Thrall's touchy right now."
A lot of us WoW junkies said or thought "Working as intended." about this presidential election.
My pleasure, Ta-Nehisi. Some gags really do deserve the subtitling. :)
What, you only get 30 (80?) points for getting the POTUS achievement? and no title? ;)
Sorry, missed the chat line re. the title. Heh! Where did you find this pic?
Someone needs to table him. He's out of biscuits!
well played, Bruce. couple of other things in this pic:
-- Obama's location is "Grant Park" -- hence the rested state (see upper right)
-- looks like he's specced a combination of shadow and disc (he's got power infusion). while I completely agree w/ TNC on the shadow part (vs. holy), discipline also seems highly appropriate, given the campaign he ran. and this combo is a pretty good PvP build, fwiw...
gussie -- a WoW player's "spec" is the particular choice of spells/talents they choose in putting together a character in WoW. short for "specifications" -- like a "spec house" or "i did that job to spec".
mauv -- I came across the pic in a discussion thread w/ some other WoW players where I work and sent to TNC... it really is teh awesome.
russ
They must be running 2v2 right? So what about the other team? I see McCain as a Fury Warrior. Palin is - wait for it - a (character) Assassination Rogue. Or is she a failed Evasion tank? Hard to think of her specced for Subtlety.
Mr. Coates--love your blog but one small quibble. Guys like you, me, and the vast majority of Americans DON'T HAVE a "Commander In Chief". The only people any president "commands" are active military--it's in the Constitution.
I only mention it b/c routine use (Biden did it recently too) of this term to describe our president, contributes to the idea advanced in recent years that the Prez RULES all of us. which he damn sure doesn't and shouldn't.
I'm thrilled Obama will be next up, but he won't be my "commander" any more than King George is.
Nah, Palin would be a hunter, specced into beast mastery.
spec holy?
priest or pally?
Ret pally i think....Obama is so OP, now.
haha.....maybe he is Arthas in disguise.
Will we see you in Northrend on thursday, TNC?
mark, while it's true that the Constitution only mentions the President as the Commander-in-Chief of the military, I feel like it's acceptable in at least two ways. One, it's a rhetorical flourish. Even if the President is only one of a three-branched government, he's still considered the leader, and commander-in-chief seems to me to be a valid term to refer to him. Two, I think a lot of people consider the military to be OUR military, and the president is the commander-in-chief of OUR military, so isn't he OUR commander-in-chief? I never felt like people were using the term to suggest he was in fact, ruling directly over us (that's left for our totalitarian small-town mayors), but that he is in fact, our leader of our military. I don't know if that makes sense, but I've never felt "commander-in-chief" was that big a deal for us civilians.
resto,
Palin is a "retard" and a "baddie" in wowspk.
She could be any race and class.
you see that telegraph article today? "Barack Obama: The 50 facts you might not know"
He collects Spider-Man and Conan the Barbarian comics.
such a nerd.
retard is self explanatory.
a "baddie" is someone who shows for raiding Black Temple with green crap gear and an unspecced talent tree and expects everyone in the guild to carry them.
I played MUDs back when I was a high school nerd, and they were wicked fun. A college roommate had Everquest and I played it briefly, found it too addictive, and promised myself not to play any more of these kinds of things..
At Culture 11, where TNC gets linked a lot, the blogmasters maintain that culture is more important than politics...I think that is true, because culture informs politics.
That is why star trek refs and will.i.am score points for Obama with my demographic.
I think all of us see a little bit of ourselves in Obama...the geekcred and IQ quotient for young nerds like me, the family man and loving husband and father for others...even for some a successful black man....or a measured statesman and harvard review editor.
Like this Keane tune
" ...when we fall in love, we fall for ourselves."
That is why Palin is so beloved of her followers.....she is their mirror, they see themselves in her.
For those interested, hi-res version here: http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3021/3014333235_bcc3bc5fb1_o.jpg
I don't like his hotbar setup.
His quest log is way too full.
One other thing....
Looks like Jewlcrafting is one of his professions.