Co-Geeking

Lately Erik and I have been preparing for the new player housing in World of Warcraft, to be released before the upcoming Midnight expansion. Before that arrives, though, there’s a little detail in the current expansion, The War Within, that I want to save for posterity. (Even if it’s just myself. 🙂 )

Blizzard is known for using references to pop culture personages or phenomena in WoW. What comes immediately to mind is Rio Duran (a Duran Duran reference) in Mount Hyjal, Harrison Jones (Harrison Ford / Indiana Jones), the Very Light Sabre swords (Star Wars lightsabers), and Haris Pilton (Paris Hilton) in Shattrath City, for example.

Now there is also a compatriot of mine! The Finnish artist Darude has been immortalized as D’rude, a randomly appearing NPC found in delves. One of the mob’s abilities is Sandstorm, which confirms it. “Sandstorm” was Darude’s big hit single in 1999, and still pops up here and there.

Incidentally, the “Sandstorm” music video with parkour and running (so much running!) around southern Helsinki was directed by Juuso Syrjä and has become a bit of a hit, too, with over 300 million views.

Darude – Sandstorm by Darude on YouTube

To celebrate the 25th anniversary of Darude’s career, a Sandstorm Run event was held in Helsinki, Finland, at the end of this August. We were not in town for it, but we did save a map of the route and walked it later for our own enjoyment.

Anyway, Finland was mentioned! Torille! 🙂

Images: Screencaps of D’rude by Eppu Jensen and by Krionix via Wowhead. Finland Mentioned by moerkoet via Reddit Finnishmemes.

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