Author: McKay

I'm a writer, a teacher, and a knitter. Not necessarily in that order on any given day. I'm also the McKay half of Ari McKay.

Korrak’s Revenge Drinking Game: Horde Edition

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Disclaimer: I main Alliance, but I wanted the special anniversary event mount you have to collect 200 time-warped badges to earn, and I figured the fastest way to do that would be to go Horde. Besides, I had a couple of Allied Race characters I needed to level for the heritage armor, so two birds, one stone.

So far, I’ve gotten the mount, leveled my Nightborne monk to 120, and gotten the heritage armor. Now I’m grinding to exalted reputation with the Frostwolf faction because it’ll be my 100th exalted rep, and I want that achievement (and mount!) before the next expansion.

In that time, I’ve noticed some pretty consistent behavior, so for fun, I’ve made a drinking game out of it.

Take a sip whenever someone…

  1. Sets down the train toy while everyone is at the entrance waiting for the BG to start
  2. Asks some variation of “Is anyone going after Korrak?”
  3. Screams at the group to “push the graveyard/bunker harder/faster”
  4. Screams that we’re losing/going to lose/have already lost even though Horde wins 99% of the time
  5. Uses the piccolo toy while everyone is at the entrance waiting for the BG to start
  6. Uses the wand of holiday cheer while everyone is at the entrance waiting for the BG to start

Take a shot if…

  1. You are the one who does any of the actions listed in the above section
  2. More than three people tell the one asking about Korrak to go kill him in Northrend
  3. Someone recaps the Iceblood graveyard
  4. Someone screams at the person who capped the Iceblood GY
  5. Someone pops bloodlust or time warp early so it can’t be used on Vanndar

Take two shots if…

  1. Someone pulls Vanndar Stormpike out of the bunker far enough to make him reset
  2. At least one person spends the entire BG working on the “Coldtooth Supplies” and/or “Irondeep Supplies” quests
  3. Alliance tries to turtle
  4. Puts a portal on top of a refreshment table while everyone is at the entrance waiting for the BG to start (if you’re the victim of this, you’ll need the two shots because clicking the portal takes you out of the BG and gives you the deserter debuff)

Finish the bottle if…

  1. Horde actually does lose the BG
My Nightborne monk all dressed up in his heritage armor outside the BG

My foray into poetry

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On Friday, I participated in a Reacting to the Past workshop that used the Greenwich Village, 1913: Suffrage, Labor, and the New Woman scenario. This series involves taking on roles of historical figures and integrates writing, public speaking, and multimodal composition while doing a deep dive into a specific period of history. Normally, this would take place over a series of weeks in the classroom, but we zipped through it in a single day. 😆

I was assigned the role of Hutchins Hapgood, a Bohemian writer, and “Mabel Dodge” tapped me to read a poem about the debate between Labor and Suffrage at her evening salon. I ended up writing a poem (I am not a poet) in like ten minutes (still not a poet).

But I did it, and in the spirit of early 19th century Bohemia, I will transcribe my work for the sake of posterity and your amusement.

Freedom — land of the free
But we still bend
Under the chains of tyranny.

Labor and Suffrage
Two sides of the same coin.
Throw away all currency!

Now is the time!
Now is our chance!
Now we must rise!

The Anarchists of Bohemia!

Join us — woman, man, laborer
Sabotage the machines
So we may start anew and rebuild

A true land of the free

Built by the brave
New Men and New Women together.

Anarchists of Bohemia — arise!

…I’m totally counting this as writing for NaNo.

NaNoWriMo 2019

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I’m participating in National Novel Writing Month this year — loosely, at least. My goal is to do something writing related every day through November, whether it’s actually writing or something more adjacent like revising, editing, or submitting. I’m going to hold myself accountable by posting my progress here every few days.

November 1: I got some work done on my current novel, which is still in its infancy. I transferred some handwritten notes to my Scrivener document and organized them so they’d make actual sense. I also started a new chapter and got about 600 words in.

November 2: I was out most of the day, so I didn’t get any writing done, but before I left the house, I submitted my recently-finished CNF essay to a couple of journals. My Submittable queue looks less anemic now, and I’m valiantly resisting the urge to check it every five minutes.

Halloween Horror Fest 2019: Cooties

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It’s October 1, which means we’ve reached my favorite time of year when everything is pumpkin spice flavored and you don’t get weird looks when you talk about planning a costume.

One of my annual October traditions is watching horror movies, and while I love revisiting the classics, like the black and white Universal horror movies and the saturated hued Hammer movies, I like to watch movies I haven’t seen before as well. This year, I’m going to try to get myself into the blogging habit by writing about the horror movies I watch over the course of the month.

Naturally, I had to start the season right, and I decided to start off on a lighter note with the horror-comedy, Cooties. The premise is that tainted chicken nuggets infect kids with a zombie virus while anyone who’s already gone through puberty only experiences stomach flu-like symptoms. Most of the movie takes place in an elementary school and focuses on the surviving faculty members who are trying to escape.

Overall, I enjoyed it, although I can’t say it’s one of my favorites. It straddled the line between parody and social commentary awkwardly at times, and some of the jokes fell flat to me. But there were a few moments that shined, the most notable being when Rainn Wilson, as Wade the hyper masculine PE teacher, dons mirrored sunglasses a la David Caruso and growls, “Nap time, motherfuckers,” as he tosses a lit match at gasoline-drenched zombie kids.

It’s a pretty short movie that keeps up a fast pace, which does leave some unanswered questions, like how Wade and Hitachi survived and successfully followed the other fugitives to Danville, but this isn’t really the kind of movie to waste a lot of thought on. I’d recommend it if you’re in the mood for something that’s a little gory and has a few tense moments and jump scares, but that you can watch alone in the dark and still get to sleep afterwards.