ICON and Bella

Just made the trip back from ICON. If you were there and had trouble finding us due to some program book snafus, I apologize. Also, the hotel internet was terrible (as anyone there can attest). We spent over an hour on the phone with their provider’s tech support, bought new hardware, tried everything possible, but it was just crappy and the hotel completely mis-stated their internet capabilities. I think our record for the weekend was 15 minutes online without being dc’d.

Despite that Bella (the Cheerleader) and I had a great time. We played with our characters projected on the big screen and we got to talk to a bunch of people about WoW and hunters and strategy.

One of the most interesting things about the weekend from my perspective was running around with Bella in real life. Now I’ve hung out with her before, but never for so long a period of time. I think it’s always fascinating to see how much people really are like their characters. I guess I always expect the online persona to be more different.

Now, we’ve all been afflicted with tunnel vision from time to time and I think healers are more prone to it, since they’re typically watching 25 health bars complete with debuffs. So in our 10-man we’ve been known to laugh about bella standing in the fire, burning away and healing away. We also mock her mercilessly for refusing to use a mouse. This is good natured in the sense that it’s mean and meant to succeed in changing her behavior where repeated suggestions and logic did not.

But here’s the thing: she’s kind of like that in real life too.

It started when we got to the hotel. I was carrying some computer gear and she was pushing the cart with the rest of the stuff along. We took the elevator and met the con organizer. I got off, and the three of us chatted. Then we watched as the elevator doors started to close on her, shouting “Bella, get off the elevator.”

But we were too late and she went for a ride.

Later we were at Best Buy desperately looking for solutions to our internet problems and I realized that if I stopped walking, Bella would run into me from behind. In the interest of science I successfully repeated the experiment several times. Eventually she started hitting me so I stopped, but I think we can agree that she needs to use a mouse to move.

Also she locked her room key her hotel room. Five times.

On the other hand, true to her nature, Bella made friends with every person we passed, or were on an elevator with, or was within chatting range. I pursued a strategy of efficiently moving from point A to point B only talking to people when they talked at me first, generally looking intimidating to prevent that kind of sidetracking. But I was regularly foiled in my efficiency when I realized that Bella was still back at the elevator with someone she just met, but who is sharing their deepest secrets and dreams with her and braiding her hair.

Overall I think we made a good team though. Bella was cheerful and talked to everyone and made them feel welcome as she showed them her cute little toy computer and made friends. And I carried around a spare key to her room.