As November comes to a close, it takes with it one of my favorite holidays: Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is an odd little day, as really it’s exclusive to America. Sure Canadians try to celebrate it, but we all know they are just trying to be accepted by US. (Pun intended) This Thanksgiving was a memorable one, from the Foster’s Rick Roll at the Macy’s parade, to my realization that mixing warm cranberry relish with warm turkey-basted stuffing is delicious; I also came upon a little thing called sugar cookie dough.

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Wisconsin.

The land of cheese, cows, and cattle. (Yes that’s a fat joke, I went there.) The state with heavy eaters, drinkers, and consequently the most drunk drivers. The state that is filled with a population of ironic people that claim out-of-state drivers cannot drive as well as they can, yet they cannot pronounce the word Milk. Instead they say “Melk,” call their own state “Wesconsin,” and call Illinois “El-in-noise.” The smell of manure and farm life litters it’s long and crop-surrounded roads, which fill you with a slight sense of dread and occasionally cause a single bead of sweat to form along your brow as you see a severely outdated truck coming over the hill in your rearview mirror. You can almost hear the tune of Dueling Banjos in your head…

But for all these good reasons, some people just don’t want to stay in those majestic surroundings. One of these people is a close friend of mine, and the following is what happened to him a few years ago, just around this time of year.

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Grandmothers. Loving, caring, in some cases parenting individuals whom you’d like to relax with, accompanied by some hot cocoa and gingerbread cookies. Generally far less strict than your own parents, even verging on spoiling their grandchildren. From random pieces of candy to toys on rainy days, their acts of kindness are something to admire and appreciate. Unfortunately, this giving nature turns ugly every birthday and Christmas. Their internal gift-giving mechanism seems to sputter and revolve off kilter and causes them to choose the worst gifts possible. Tube socks, fruit cakes, a solitary softball (no bat or gloves…just the ball), sweaters either too small or too hot, anything made of the itchy wool variety your parents expect you to wear every time they visit; the list goes on. Why this happens, I’m still not sure. Maybe the gifts are things they would like or even received while they were growing up. Sadly, times have changed quickly even from the 80s, let alone the 50s, and what made good gifts then aren’t exactly good gifts now.

I always accepted these gifts with a warm “Thank-you” and a genuinely forced smile and never snubbed or dismissed the presents. She either made these gifts or bought them on a limited budget, and I was always thankful no matter what they were. Of course I may have preferred my uncle’s gifts that were a bit more…high tech, but it never changed the fact that I appreciated what I received. And then my younger cousin ended up getting a Playstation 2 game for Christmas one year, and turned the whole process on its end.

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We are closing in on the two month anniversary of WAR’s release! Instead of writing a Detail this week, I thought I’d dive into the current uneasy feeling some gamers have felt in terms of WAR’s total in-game population. Last month players wondered how many people would stay past the first ‘free’ month, claiming doom and gloom for WAR. The month past and the game is still standing; far from crippled. Now an army of games is invading your local electronics stores and demanding your attention with their shiny Saran wrap like plastic coating and their infectious “New Game Smell,” Some players worry that the current subscribers will leave WAR to try out these new games. This is far from a real issue, as it merely involves human nature in the form of curiosity.

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Yellow, blue, and red. Not only are these the colors of the Romanian flag (as we all know), but they are also the colors on the wrapper of a popular candy.

Behold! The Charleston Chew!

The Charleston Chew was created back in 1922 by the Fox-Cross Candy Company and was named after a popular dance at the time, the Charleston. Apparently they haven’t changed the wrappers since then, as the style looks dated, but not in a bad way. A bold canary yellow backdrop, blue text, and a splash of red to get attention. As a child these were rare to me, and the only time I would possibly get them was during Trick or Treating. After the public confectionery begging rounds were complete and the treats were sorted into piles, the trading began with my friends that went something like this…

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Welcome back! To those of you just tuning in, I’m Dante, and I type about the details that make Warhammer Online what it is: great, fun, and (most importantly) awesome.

Last week I typed quite a bit about manly things and how shopping is lame, so I thought this week I should even the scales and find something in WAR that women could claim as their own. It didn’t take me very long at all to find…that nothing is specifically a woman thing in WAR. Unless the girls you know wear a lot of flannel and bowl, I don’t think I can find anything off the top of my head that they’d enjoy. Well, there is the dye system…but that’s been mentioned by like everyone already. Though, it is a cool feature…ah, hell. It’s fun, it’s easy, and it helps personalize your toon. A Detail, Dyeing shall be!

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Welcome back to The Devil’s Details! As always, I’m your host, Dante. I’ll keep the introduction short this week and get right to the good stuff. I’ll begin with a fact, in fact.

Men Hate Shopping

Men do not shop. “Shopping” involves wandering aimlessly through a crowded space for several hours, waiting for something to capture your attention and say, “Buy Me!” Supposedly this is a great reason to not only spoil your entire day, but to warrant calling your friends ahead of time so you can schedule a meeting to ensure an entire group of people can waste a perfectly good day en masse. There is as much “joy” to be had as there is money to be wasted during this time of endless prattling and laughter. At least, that’s what women tell me. Something about great sales, shoes, and chocolate. Personally, I don’t buy that (no pun intended). The above is a “Woman Thing” only. Men would never do this. Women shop and men buy. It’s just our way. Simple and direct; efficient. It worked fine this way for years…and then Mythic went and screwed up that entire system beautifully.

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“It’s the strangest things that people think are cool. It doesn’t matter what it is. You buy an enormous stereo. It’s got perfect sound, it’s high quality, but I’m just really obsessed by this little light that blinks on and off in a pleasing fashion. It is the strange little things that breathe that sort of joy and bind you on a spiritual level to what you’re doing. You can’t really explain why you like it. ‘I just like it more than the other one.’ I can’t tell you why. It defies an equation. It’s why we’re human.”

Paul Barnett

Hello and welcome to the first edition of The Devil’s Details! Allow me to introduce myself: I am Dante, your host of sorts. While years ago, I may have been guided down the River Styx and left to rot by that accursed Virgil…ahem…this time around I’ll be guiding you each week through my own thoughts on whatever twisted thing I find that catches my eye in the wildly violent and equally entertaining universe that is: Warhammer Online!

As Paul was saying in the above quotation, the real feeling, the soul of a game, of anything for that matter, is in the little details. The things you generally don’t even notice and possibly take for granted. Much like a healer in a scenario, the only time you notice them is when they aren’t there–or when they are but just not doing their job. (”Seriously, you couldn’t spare just ONE HoT before you abandoned me?!”) The buzzword here would be immersion, but I prefer to talk about the details for two reasons:

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