No touching

Except for i.

Sigh…iJokes were old what, like 50 years ago now?

So help me, I’m feeble-minded. Yes, I got my 16-gigabyte iPod Touch this week, and it’s lovely. Made a quick haul video for it, and have been trying to upload it to YouTube for the past two days without success. Not sure what the deal is; it’s only 1.07gb. I do wish YouTube had a better upload status bar. If it’s not up by the time I get home this evening, I may have to check out some other programs, like Vimeo or something.

Not that it’s a great video, but you know – I put in the effort and I may as well toss it out there.

Only had an hour or so the first night to download the latest version of iTunes (/shudder) and upload 7 or 8 albums. I also put Dr. Horrible on there to check out the video capabilities. Very cool stuff.

The Wi-Fi is cool, but I can never seem to access the web via “Free Public Wi-Fi” in the network browser. Safari can never connect to that type of server for some reason. I don’t really understand how all that works anyway. I know that my city supposedly has a free Wi-Fi program operational to at least some degree, but I haven’t been able to get anything outside of limited (and unlocked) residential networks in my neighborhood or downtown. It is highly amusing to check out everyone’s network names, however.

And then last night I updated the iPod for version 2.2, which includes the App store. Gotta say – not too impressed with the App or games selection, but I didn’t browse for very long.

I did, however, purchase both the soundtrack to Wrath of the Lich King and Video Games Live off iTunes. Both of them are extremely good.

Another quick 10-man raid on Archavon last night. Everyone was on their game and we only wiped once. My DPS was higher than before, certainly, since I’m getting better at the SV play style each day.

As far as damage meters go, I’m honestly trying to think less about them. Unless I’m at the bottom of the charts, I’m not really going to worry about it. Admittedly, this is due in part to the great theory-crafting discussion on the latest episode of Spouse Aggro. The hosts (one of whom, I should add, is actually my guild leader) debate the merits of living by the numbers in gaming these days. They make the excellent point that with WoW’s raiding circuit being more accessible to casual players than ever before, regular folks (like me) are paying MUCH more attention to stats, DPS, gems, enchants, etc., just like the players at high raiding levels in previous incarnations of WoW.

It’s certainly been true for me since hitting 80. Stepping back for a moment, I can say that I’ve been loving Wrath, but I’ve become increasingly obsessed with improving my gear and stats, to the point of spending easily over 100 gold to balance or boost a particular rating by 10 or 12 points. Now granted, I certainly believe that those 10 or 12 points can make all the difference in some cases. I would prefer to be hit-capped and haste-capped. I would prefer to have ungodly agility and ranged AP. But it really was becoming like an addiction on top of the overall WoW obsession.

So I figure, why spend that gold? I certainly have other things I want to accomplish. I have an extremely expensive long-term goal that I want to complete in the next few months. And as we’re headed into Naxxramas anyway next week, why drop coin on some minor stat differences if there’s the possibility I could get another gear upgrade? I’d just have to spend MORE on those new gems or enchants anyway.

It’s also not just about me, and I need to keep that in mind. The raid is not going to fail based on my character’s haste being off by 4%. It’s certainly true that /trade is full heroic pugs looking for players with very specific numbers for defense, DPS and heals, and they do exclude based on those numbers.

But I’ve seen my damage numbers vary by several hundred points depending on so many more variables than my own base stats. Your group makeup, the types of mobs, the fights, the number of wipes, etc. all affect your performance if you measure it by Recount alone.

In the end, it’s a game. It’s a game that takes skill and knowledge to play well, but it is a game. Stops being fun if you start seeing it as numbers rather than a beautifully designed world of escapism.