Not that I’m religious or anything but saying “Happy Easter” to people does put a nice bounce to my step. The best Easter surprise so far (aside from dozen flutes of mimosas) came from my email inbox. Ania from Warsaw, a fellow talented artsy gamer girl, sent me a photo of this:

I am floored.

Painstakingly beautiful stain-glass versions of WoW character with a complete Warcraft map draped behind it.  I don’t think I even have that much patience to do something exquisite like that.  Ania on the process:

Well, fist i drew on the egg with a graphic pen, the kind that can write on any surface. I drew the continents
and simple character outlines. Than I busted out my acrylic paint and painted the surface.
And last i retouched the contours with the pen again.

So i think the whole thing took about an hour a half maybe more, I was really into it so I’m not sure
I realised a more “realistic” or illustrative style wouldn’t work, or really fit on to the egg.

Also, I love that the Outlands whirl Maelstrom looks like a giant meteorological typhoon.  Reminds me of home a lot.

Thanks so much Ania! You’ve brightened up my Easter Sunday!

Some backstory: I left 1UP/EGM/Ziff Davis almost 2 months ago in attempt to expand my horizon.  Just recently, my old position finally got filled.  A conversation with 1UP QA beefcake Derek today:

Derek | Met your replacement yesterday.

Me | I heard.  Tim told me that he’s referred to as karen 2.0.  Which technically makes me the beta version of him.  Hence, I’m more inferior.

Derek | Mmm…you could look at it that way.  But..a 2.0 would never be created if the 1.0 never defected =P

Me | It’s okay, I’m sure his boobs are not as womanly as mine.  Since he is a man.

Derek | I’m sure we can build him some massive boobs to wear.

Me | Then you’ll need some intense QA to make sure the boobs are of the optimal kind.  You don’t want the boobs to be so big that creates a stress load.  You gotta load test the boobs.

Derek | They don’t call me QA for nothin. I’m up for the task.  Hell, I’ll bring the whole crew – I think Erik and Tim will be a good stress test for durability.

Me | Wow, this is simultaneously really nerdy and dirty.  I am saving this conversation.

Before today, the last time I truly coded something was back in 10th grade, and I wrote a Sierpinski Carpet program on my high-end Casio calculator.  The kind-of-sad-but-cool thing is, I had a lot of fun.  So much nerdtastic fun.  But today, I totally kicked 10th-grade-me’s fat ass by writing an unstoppable Journey plug-in based on WordPress’ Hello Dolly plug-in. Wordpress users, start your rawk engines.

Any way you want it, that’s the way you need it! The Rock Ballad is a helluva drug, and this plug-in reminds you the overwhelming power of song, mullets, and a particular tiny leopard-print yellow muscle tee. Let Journey’s lyrics drown you with a deluge of 80’s anthem awesomeness and send you awash in a sea of lighter-waving electrolytes.  Let us sing high and mighty, for our diaphragms should be pushed up into our lungs!   Inspired by the Hello Dolly plug-in, when Don’t Stop Believing is activated, you will see a line of lyrics from random Journey’s classic hits in the upper right of your admin screen on every page.

You can download Don’t Stop Believing Wordpress plug-in by clicking this sentence or on Steve below.

….”You got your videogame in my physical activity!”

Boy, one sure doesn’t get to hear the words “physical activity” and “videogame” together in the same sentence without some pithy wisecrack about gamer stereotypes. Alas, times are a-changin’ and we gamers are successfully, but slowly graduating out from the mire of cheetos and mountain dew jokes.

Folks who listen to the Legendary Thread might have heard me preaching about this hot MMO that I’ve been playing. It’s called Nikeplus.

“But Karen, isn’t that just another doohickey Apple and Nike is getting you to buy so that you look like one of the cool douchebag kids of the iPod generation?”

Uh, sure.

Here’s how it works: The Nikeplus program is this little addition you buy to plug into your iPod nano. It’s a receiver. Then there’s another thingamajiggy that you can attach it to your running shoes. The shoe thingamajiggy transmit data to your receiver and saves it in your nano. Then, when you charge your nano, it uploads your running data to the Nikeplus site and it analyzes everything from distance, speed, calories burnt…and so forth. So really, it’s a glorified pedometer, but the glory of it is quite blindingly awesome.

So what the hell does this have to do with games? Well, plenty. It has said before in the community that the Nikeplus system acts quite like an MMO. But like how Luke made fun of me on LegThread, your character is actually your own self and all of your character stats is based on actual physical work. But the designers behind this project really presents that system as if it’s a game in a smooth, slick, super friendly UI. So even when I look at my own running data, I feel like I’m checking out a character profile. It urges me to want to improve my character and the stats.

The “quest” aspect of Nikeplus is setting up goals and challenges and completing them. There’s a more simplified PS3-Home-Trophy-Case-like feature that showcases your achievements. And that, of course, lights my achievement whore fire. Here’s an example of a challenge I set up between my running friends:

The best part of this whole Nikeplus thing is that when I run, I don’t dwell on the actual physical labor. Rather, I’m sucked into this more distracting mindset that I’m trying to “win.” Running has turned from something I used to do but not enjoy to something I absolutely enjoy when placed in a videogame context.

But of course, there are ways to cheat the MMO. For one, maybe there are gold-farmer-equivalents (…mile-farmers?) who shake shoes to simulate actual running.

Anyways, enough drug-pushing. The last time I remember getting “tricked” to do physical activity was NES Track and Field. I say, the more of these games, the better!

*cue midi version of “Chariots of Fire”*