The Queue: Oh what a day, what a lovely day!

It’s both Canada Day and Independence Day this week!

A good portion of North America is about to go to a big party and play in the sun while maybe blowing up a small portion of their country. All I’m most reminded of right now is that I don’t really have a Canada Day outfit that’s all red and white, so I guess my red shorts will have to do. If it wasn’t going to be super hot, I could wear my hockey jersey, which is about as Canadian as anything. It would’ve been more Canadian if the Oilers had won, but alas.

While I go and try and put a good outfit together, it’s time for — The Queue!

I think it’s more of a PhWoooooooo. There’s something at the front of it that’s hard to place with words, but it doesn’t feel very V-sounding to me. It’s kind of like the sound that things make when they’re shutting down in my mind. It’s such an iconic bit of Warcraft sound design, but also nearly impossible to put in print.

“Well then, the stealthy way it is,” Valeera said to the Council. Khadgar went to stop her, but it was too late. With a hollow sounding PhWOOooo, Valeera had become impossible to see, even though she had been standing in the middle of a well-lit room just a moment ago. “Damn, Rogues” he cursed and resumed thinking about how much he missed his beard.

See? It’s silly.

Time to start experimenting with all of the various testers of hand creams! You’ll come out of there a much more moisturized fellow, who probably smells like a flower truck hit a fruit stand and the driver had a big bottle of champagne in his front seat.

Druid!

Not to be too biased, but between Cat Form and Swipe, you have everything you need to make quick work of whole rooms of enemies. Of course, I would say it’s probably just worth it to swap to Feral spec and use a slightly better version of those — even if you’re not fully kitted out and have all of your skills and gear in the right shape for Feral, you should be fine in old content.

JackBlackPo? EdgarAllenPo? PoFistsPoProblems? ICantBelieveItsNotPo?

Time to be super creative, or just do what every Illidan did out there and throw some umlauts and other accents over your letters. You could also go super old school and do wWPoWw.

I find that I have to play them right through to the end. If I stop for too long, getting back into the swing of things feels too daunting, and then I’ll just play something else. That was the worst in Horizon: Forbidden West. I got most of the way through, let’s say 2/3rds, and got distracted. I can’t even remember what derailed me, but some time after finding the Billionaires bunker, I just stopped playing and never went back. So things were getting tough, and I knew that to beat the later enemies I’d need to play well — something that’s harder to do without the hours of muscle memory and archery skills that I’d just spent developing.

Most of the time, I’m pretty good about finishing what I start, but I also tapped out on Avowed somewhere around the 3/4 mark, and it’s the same problem. Every game can be a struggle of interest vs distraction — and as long as the interest meter stays full and I don’t let myself get too bogged down in trying to complete every sidequest or something silly like that, I’ll usually do it!

F

We’ve all had those nights, where the plans never quite coalesce, or you just get outplayed by the cheesiest cheese to ever cheese. If you went back through all of my Heroes of the Storm record, you’d see lots of angry red stretches. The important thing is to get back up on that horse and lose five more! Then you’ll have tanked your rating so much that you’ll get some nice, easy wins to rebuild your shattered confidence.

It’s a shame that more games don’t do the bot games that Marvel: Rivals does, because those are such a great quick confidence builder.

I ain’t afraid of no ghost.

Bacardi has only had to endure the heat for a little while, but it can really get to him. I can tell when he’s too hot as he’ll have this expression most of the time. Help cool him off and maybe he’ll give you some extra luck in your gaming endeavours this week.

Would you rather 

Friendly aliens off to show you the galaxy but you can never come back to Earth

Or

Aliens abduct you for a week of experiments but then you can go back to your regular life

Today’s Anna Earworm™: Joyride

I expect everyone reading this to keep all of their fingers until at least next week. Just in case, though, better use them while you have them to ask Anna lots of questions for her Queue tomorrow.