The Purple Boot from the Sky Lives!

If you're not a gamer, you don't know what this means. And I don't mean a cool video gamer. I mean a hardcore, geeked out D&D and tabletop gamer. The kind of person who can regale his or her gaming buddies with hours of tales from past adventures.

The "purple boot from the sky" is a magical happening, whereby the Game Master (usually one of your friends, who you're harassing constantly to give more treasure, let you bend the rules, etc.) gets so sick of your whining or rules lawyering that you just die.

There's always a reason: The dragon that's 40 levels higher than you, the rockslide, a shipwreck, a giant with a club the size of a VW Bus. But the result is always the same.

Splat.

Well, I was playing WoW today, and lo and behold, the Purple Boot lives!

I found a whole new place to adventure - the Dark Portal. It's been around a while, but I'm old, busy and don't game as much as my geek credibility requires.

I was happily traipsing around, slaying left and right. Suddenly, the ground shook, and a huge PURPLE foot stepped on me.

Splat.

Turns out I'd done nothing wrong, but these 100-foot tall robot demons stroll around, periodically clomping cocky, inexperienced gamers. Dang...