Christian Thoma

I very rarely follow a Cory queue, so I don’t often get an earworm. I did switch with Anna this week — but I’m still not following a Cory queue because the divine Liz P was up yesterday. Fortunately(?) she replicated Cory’s earworm formula and so I’ll be writing this queue by a crystal blue Italian stream. Unfortunately the weather forecast is:

Look around
Leaves are brown
And the sky is a hazy shade of winter

Oh wait, that’s a different Bangles song. Fun facts: Manic Monday was written by Prince, and A Hazy Shade of Winter was originally a Paul Simon song performed by Simon & Garfunkel. If I had to pick just one Bangles song, though, it would be In Your Room which while a top 5 at the time is largely ignored now. Probably because Walk Like an Egyptian is just as iconic of the band as Manic Monday so those two get all the airtime.

Long story short, they should be in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame alongside the Go-Go’s and Pat Benatar. Hopefully they’ll be 2024 nominees.

Anyway, while I clearly have an eternal flame for the Bangles, let’s actually answer some questions!

Despite the week being shorter due to the New Year’s holiday it feels like it’s been twice as long as a normal work week. I’m pretty dang tired — but when Liz asks for a sub, I’ll always find the energy to help!

No ramble in my preamble, let’s just answer questions.

… if I had one!

So the whole family got matching pajamas to wear for Christmas, and Marshmallow got a bandanna that also matched. He looked super-cute in it too.

And then it disappeared. We have no idea what happened to it. At some point it was no longer around his neck, and we haven’t found it anywhere. As near as we can guess it fell off while he was outside and then blew away, but that’s just a guess. I suspect it’ll turn up in four months.

While we lament the cute picture that could’ve been, let’s answer some questions!

The 2024 World of Warcraft development roadmap was released yesterday for Retail and for Classic and I love how forthcoming the development team has gotten in the past year with these and other updates. That said, I want to talk about something more important: the term “roadmap.”

We all pretty much know what a roadmap is, but speaking as someone of an advanced age they used to be ubiquitous and necessary just for normal everyday driving in your neighborhood. But in this era of in-car navigation and GPS applications on your phones they’re kind of a relic from a bygone time. While not completely obsolete I’m certain that the number sold annually has plummeted dramatically in the past twenty years. Pretty soon a “roadmap” will only exist as a curiosity, and like the Save File icon the term will be a reference to something that’s no longer around.

Well enough of that, let me navigate out of this intro and answer some questions!