I do self checkout because I want to bag my own groceries. I bike with a trailer, and I want to be able to make sure all the crushable items are in one place so I can load them on top.

I remember way back in the early days of WoW. WoW was my first MMO, and I hadn’t been playing the game for all that long, but I saw there was a group looking for a fifth for a dungeon, so I thought I’d give it a go. I’d done one or two before.

Uldaman. We were having a rough time of it. I can’t remember if we were underleveled, or just inexperienced, but it was a slog. Near the end of the dungeon is a room with four big statues that come to life one by one. We wiped a few times on them, and the rest of the dungeon was starting to respawn on us, so we were on our last legs, but we managed to make it through that last room, and up to the boss room. The scene I remember is that door opening.

More of the big statues that we’d just been throwing ourselves against. Rows of smaller statues on top of that. And the boss, towering over it all.

Fuck.

I liked Amber, but it’s not one that I would have picked from Zelazny as being particularly unique. What about, say, Roadmarks? That’s one of my favorites.

Frustration.