My trial period of posting once a day has obviously been in suspension since Friday. This is technically not due to my playing World of Warcraft.

World of Warcraft is like biking. It may be modestly enjoyed in the midst of familiar places, without explicit ambition, by one’s self, but it generally takes on a more memorable character when it is practiced in the company of friends, moreso in particularly novel locales.

Thus my problem: My friends’ characters have all reached level 25 or higher. My troll priest (ooh, holy or shadow?) is closing in on 15, but a certain ennui begins to coalesce as I attack Razormane after Razormane in the Barrens.

Shield, Smite, Power word: Pain, Mind Blast, Melee, Heal. In that order. Again and again. My character gains experience, but as a player, am I really gaining any? When I gain a new item or ability and begin to understand how to work it into my attack gambit, or when I encounter a new monster whose weaknesses require a different approach to exploit, I am indeed learning. But when I’ve deduced the most efficient, currently-available method of bringing down a Razormane Geomancer, does there exist any point in doing it another eight times?

Apparently yes, if I’m ever to earn that 900 XP from the quest.

Only after replacing the handset did the synchronicity occur to me.

Twice this evening, I attempted to place a VOIP call from my computer, and twice I failed. Both parties connected, but neither succeeded in auditory exchange, undoubtedly resulting in mystified hangups on the recipients’ end.

Twice this evening, I also received a landline call. Each of the two aforementioned, intended parties called me within twenty minutes of the failed VOIP connection, despite neither having had any clue as to the identity of the mysterious, silent caller.

Strange.

Perhaps my coincidence would do well with the analytical help of Bernard and Vivian from I Heart Huckabees.

My Netvibes portal is set to cull, among other things, the latest “lovely” photos from Flickr. Generally this serves up photos of cats. This evening, however, it presented me with a paradoxically breathtaking view of the definitively mundane, a shot of subdivision houses so dramatically lit by rainstorm-scattered sunlight and so appropriately sepiatoned that I had to save a copy for myself.

Jodi_tripp is to be thanked for sharing.

A designer rails against PowerPoint. A bee lands upon a flower petal. A withered tree falls alone in a vast forest.

Two of these have constructive consequences. The bee facilitates the flower’s pollenation. The tree will eventually decompose and enrich the soil. But the designer, despite staying late at work to learn, through trial and error, that Microsoft Office 2003 for Windows ships with a bug rendering it completely unable to read Mac-authored PowerPoint files, will never be heard by Microsoft.

This blog was created solely as an exercise in style.

Despite this, I somehow find myself still hesitant to post meaningless ramblings. In order to overcome this irrational reservation, I will now commence a trial period of posting once per day.

The one or so of you who occasionally read this blog, and the one who actually has an RSS subscription to it will hopefully find that lamentable trace of substantial discussion at last eradicated from my writing, and replaced entirely with vacuous, flowing prose.