The GOP is precisely that…

… Grandiose and Old.

I have to say, I’m impressed. I was appalled at the atrocities perpetrated by the Bush administration, especially now as more information gets leaked out, but what’s going on now is mind-boggling at best, and at worst will decimate our country to where we’ll never recover.

I refer, of course, to the constant Republican QQ-ing and stonewalling about the choices the Obama administration is making.

Ever time I hear a prominent Republican talk on TV, on the radio, or read something on the Internet, I hear nothing but “waaah waaah I’m not getting my way anymore so I’m going to make life difficult for everyone who doesn’t see things my way, waaah waaah!” Ironic, this, as it’s the old-folks that are acting like 8 year olds who aren’t getting their way.

Aparently, some of these people need a refresher for what THEY had a hand in for the past EIGHT YEARS:

• DOUBLING our National Debt from ~$5 trillion to > $10 trillion
• TWO wars, one justified one not
• The justified war in Afghanistan has been under-manned and assumed to be a “quick romp” to clear out the Taliban. Guess who’s back in power and even stronger?
• The unjustified war in Iraq has destroyed the friendships we had with many countries around the world and has made even MORE people angry at America, leading to MORE terrorists. Iraq will fall into civil war between Sunni and Shiite as soon as we leave, just you watch.
• Decimation of personal liberties through acts like the Patriot Act and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (What did Benjamin Franklin say about safety and liberty?)
• Secret prison camps. Torture guidelines, Guantanamo Bay, Detention without Trial
• … and who knows what else we’ll find out about in the coming years

You guys have done a TERRIBLE job at running the country. Why should we trust, or even listen to, anything you guys have to say? You complain about lack of bi-partisanship, but then you don’t ever budge on your stances on bills. You guys are going to fight the new Supreme Court nominee (well, you’re probably still pissed that the exiting justice, David Souter, made you guys look like idiots, but I digress), only because it’s Obama’s choice, not one from your party.

You guys might mostly disagree with Limbaugh, but come on, you are all working towards Limbaugh’s ultimate hope, the “failure” of Barack Obama.

Do you care about this country? Or do you only care about your personal “values” that get thrown out of the window anyway once you’re in power?

Congratulations on losing most of the young vote (like myself), that’s really going to help you get back into power in the future. Oh and grats on alienating the Hispanic vote, and most of the Black vote too. In fact, the women vote is going to the Democrats as well (thank you Limbaugh!)! If anything, the self-inflicted implosion of the GOP has been very entertaining to watch, but the delusion that the party is still as relevant now as it was 20 years ago is causing far more damage than good.

That said, there is a simple solution to this problem:

Grow Up.

Game design lessons learned from World of Warcraft – Part 2

While Part 1 touched on abstract decisions affecting game design (and admittedly turned into a rant by the end, I’m kind of bad at that), part 2 here will focus on a few of Blizzard’s design decisions for WoW that we can learn from, and in Part 3 I’m going to touch on my ideas and observations on the game’s PvP and PvE.

Now of course I can’t list, or even think about, most of the design decisions that have helped towards making WoW the massive success that it is, but there are a few decisions, both good and bad, that have hit close to home for me, decisions that I have to work with or around every time I play. Were I to be on the WoW dev team, these are some of the things I’d be recommending.

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