Well, it's that time of year again -- that special time of year when a young man's thoughts of buying BlizzCon tickets turn to a creeping psychosis. When dark whispers echo from the cavernous depths of the serpentine tunnels beneath the earth's crust, their walls emblazoned with pulsing eldritch symbols unknown to any living civilization. When dreamers with minds unguarded bear witness to the psychic rumblings of beings lost to time. If you listen closely you can hear it, sussurating even now...

Ïa! Ïa! BlizzCon tickets f'thagn!

Oh, and it's also that time of week (Saturday) where we check in with our many writers (and one Peruvian pygmy mummy) and see what the heck they're doing this weekend. The two may intersect in ways you probably anticipated.

So let's see just what's causing our writers' sanity levels to drop dangerously low this weekend.

• Adam "Holisky: Trying to pull off 75 daily quests from Friday through Sunday.
• Alex Ziebart: I won't be doing anything. I profaned an ancient tomb and now I've switched bodies with a Peruvian pygymy mummy! A primeval headhunter is running around in my body! If only I could alert an expert in mystical anthropology who could provide a tincture, or perhaps a talisman, to break the spell.
• Allison Robert: Praying my connection holds through an Ulduar-25.

NO, THIS IS NOT A HORRIBLE DREAM, DEAR READERS. THIS IS REAL LIFE. AND THERE'S MORE, LURKING JUST BEYOND THE JUMP.

• Daniel Whitcomb: It's Road Trip time here. I'll be headed to Portland in the morning to hang with friends. It may be possible, however, that I will drink enough alcoholic products such that I will believe I am in Azeroth. So maybe that'll count!
• Jennie Lees: Helping my mum l2p. Again. My "the ten things you need to know about enhancement shamans", including gems like "this is the spec where you hit stuff in the face" and "spell power and attack power are different things" has apparently been mislaid under her knitting.
• Matt Low: I too shall be playing the Blizzcon queue waiting game. Then it'll be time for the... *gasp* alt Ulduar runs.
• Matthew Rossi: I'm re-reading my Robert E. Howard collection - I'm up to Solomon Kane and will be digging into Kull and Bran Mak Morn after that, maybe some Fritz Lieber too (Fafhrd rules) and after that, some 10 man action in Ulduar on the shammy I hope.
• Michael Gray: I'll be playing the "Queue for BlizzCon" game! After that, hitting the Maryland Faerie Festival, then rocking out a ten man Ulduar. My life, you are jealous, I can tell.
• Michael Sacco: Reading Lovecraft obsessively, looking for a copy of Edgar Rich Burrough's "A Princess Of Mars" and eating Otter Pops until my stomach lining dissolves. Also, writing Alex Ziebart's WRUP response since he never replied to the email.
• Nick Whelan: My eighth level vasharan Warlock / Rogue gestalt character will be searching for another dagger shard, which will someday allow him to strike down the gods themselves! Bwuahaha!
• Robin Torres: I will be making sacrifices to the Blizzard gods in the hopes that I do not meet my nemesis, Mr. Failoc, again. What do you think will work? If cookies work for Santa, will cupcakes work for Blizzard?
• Amanda Dean: After getting a wee bit tired of struggling with Rasuvius 25, I made another RAF account with a buddy. When I'm not in Ulduar and Naxx, I'll be taking baby steps and a priest and muttering something about "take the player not the class."
• Zach Yonzon: Staying up at ungodly hours in the hopes of scoring tickets to BlizzCon.

How about you, noneuclidean readers of ours? What cyclopean horrors will you bear witness to this weekend? Alternatively, are you playing any WoW?

Tags: blizzcon, blizzcon-2009, cthulhu, failoc, lovecraft, tickets, wrup