Ramble, Ramble

I was walking back to work from my evening "lunch" break, and a fellow addressed me. In short order, he was telling me how 1) works for a living as a cook, 2) lives in a tent, and 3) was recently hit by a car. He made note of how the driver was a woman on her cell phone and didn't even seem to notice.
I am increasingly frustrated by the number of people on the streets with their attention on their phones. Drivers, walkers, even people on bicycles. It doesn't inherently mean they're oblivious to their surroundings, but it sure seems like there's a connection.
He went on to say he wasn't asking for money, but was hoping for something to eat. Funny how getting food usually requires money. Having been drawn in beyond being able to feign ignorance, and not being a completely heartless bastard, I gave him a little money. These encounters always leave me... unsettled, though.
I'm always left wondering whether such a person's story was true. It wouldn't be that hard to bullshit something in the hopes of making a quick few bucks. And I'm usually left feeling somewhat resentful these days, asking myself "why did he choose me to talk to?" In this case, there was another guy about as far away as I was, and a couple people across the street. What made him single me out? Usually when I encounter people asking for something, it's by the grocery store, but I usually feel and think about the same things: is it true, and why me?

WoW
We got in a heroic Nexus run yesterday. This isn't really news or any great accomplishment. It was certainly the first time with that configuration of characters, though. Our usually-tankish druid took up the mantle of healer, and we had two Protection paladins. All told, the group was not ideal, and we probably paid for it a little. After early-boss difficulties, however, we pulled together and got through okay. A couple notes:
- Unless you count Emblems of Heroism, epic-quality gear drops from the end bosses in heroic dungeons. Other bosses might give good stuff, but they're only rare-quality.
- If I'm tanking a trash pull and things get suddenly more difficult (usually this is either CC breakage or accidental pulling of a second group), I start pulling out the stops. This means two things of note. First, I am going to start dropping Consecrate and doing AOE to try to hold everyone's attention - I will not be expecting or waiting for someone to re-polymorph/trap/etc. a mob that got free. Second, if you (my healer or DPS companions) are being attacked by things, I would be more than happy to tank them for you, but you might have to help me a little by leading them to me where I can hit them with Cons. and HotR. Running away generally doesn't help and I don't always see adds with a screen full of whatever we're fighting already.
- Whirlwind still sucks, and the group past Commander Korlug still doesn't like to re-freeze if they've been pulled and he resets.
Otherwise... I've got a Holy spec for Reyalyn now, so I feel more appropriately healerish. I'm still trying to track down a good gear guide for such, but I think her stuff is reasonably solid for starting on heroic dungeons at least.

GW
Progress in Factions continues a bit slowly, but it continues. No major missions yet, just doing quests around Kaineng Center. The design of the place is, if anything, worse than the maps I'm already frustrated by, but somewhat used to dealing with. Oh, it's flavorful to have a semi-run-down-looking city where you make your way through multiple layers from caves to rooftops, but it's a pain to tell where you're actually going.
We're trying to get everyone on the same page, which is always tricky. For the most part, the group is killing things okay. I'm still at a loss for profession direction, and am not encouraged by being told there aren't any decent ritualist elites to capture for a while. Ah well. Another couple levels to maximum, and then maybe I'll start worrying about it more.

FurryFaire
I'm going through a period of disinterest. They've happened before. Is this one any worse? I've no idea. And I'm not altogether sure what I even want to see out of the place these days.
I think about what characters I could log in and, generally speaking, each one evokes in my mind a few different scenarios of likely play. The problem there is they all feel like things I've done before a few hundred times (and maybe I have over the last several years) - the same players and/or characters in pretty much the same situation. But I don't really feel any "OMG, earth-shattering TP" is going to shake that up. There's only so much creativity you can expect from two people in a room and, for various reasons, that's about what any RP I see there amounts to - me and one other player.

Offline Gaming
Saturday's game was... lackluster. I've always liked that word. This is the game in which I conceived a character who was mundane, and would thus be at some disadvantage while dealing with the supernatural, only to have him become gifted in the first session or two.
It's been months since we played this particular game, so none of us remembered exactly where we were. The GM answered this by having the PCs summoned to some other realm and going from there. He seemed to have some ideas, but not much of a plan, as we worked from encounter to encounter seeing different areas that felt disjointed. He's also a little overly-concerned with rules, which is unfortunate using the Witchcraft/Unisystem rules. There's a lot of stuff that's not explicitly covered, and a GM who spends five minutes or more reading what is there and trying to reason out some justification for a ruling (often in terms of other rules systems) slows things down.
So... I don't know. It was nice to get together with friends for the afternoon, but the game itself remains a bit of a let down.