I've been having a blast running heroic dungeons and raids with my guildies.  My god, it's so awesome to be a part of the WoW end-game at last - doing it with a great group of people makes all the difference.  

Life's been good to my little blood elf paladin.  He's replaced all his blue-quality gear with decent epics - with the exception of just one jewelcrafter's trinket.  I'm sure it's just a matter of time before that one finally goes, too.  :)

We've been hitting the ten-man Ulduar raid for a while now.  Ulduar is new/progression content for the guild, so there are lots of attempts and wipes while we're all working on strategies and learning the encounters.  Not every player is cut out for this potentially aggravating process - some nights all that happens ARE wipes and no real progress is made and no rewards are had, just big repair bills - but personally, I am loving every. single. minute. of it.  I've not once felt frustrated or impatient with the process.  It is an honor and a privilege to wipe with these people...and the victories simply come with perseverance.  :)

I'm especially proud of the Ulduar team's recent kill of the boss Auriaya.  I got to be there on their first attempt on this boss (which was a wipe, of course) and have been a part of nearly every attempt on this chick.  We banged our heads on the Auriaya brick wall for a long, long time...and finally we brought her down last week.  It felt so great! 



Awwyeah!  

Personally, I can't wait to down Furnacemaster Ignis; he's one big scary dude full of hugeness, fire and death.  We've only attempted him a very few times so far.  We ran away with our tails tucked between our legs and haven't been back.  One day, one day we'll get him, and I hope to be there to do a victory dance on one of his fingernails.

...is FANTASTIC. We picked up the PC version (which is multiplayerless, but a stellar single-player Ghostbusting experience), but I've also heard good things about the 360 and the Wii versions (but not so much the PS3 version which reportedly suffers from lower-resolution textures).

EDIT: Important to add that the version we bought was from Steam.  The retail box apparently contains some pretty evil SecurRom DRM.

But holy crap, this is the game that Ghostbusters fans have been dreaming about playing. The developer, Terminal Reality, hit the ball directly out of the park with this one.

Having most of the original actors back doing the voice-overs is sublime. I don't think I can ever get tired of Dan Aykroyd's voice. Bill Murray's lines were a bit flat for some reason, but the rest of the guys are great. Even Annie Potts came back to do Jeannine! They couldn't get Rick Moranis to come back to voice Louis Tully; apparently he'd retired from acting a while back. Too bad.



SO COOL!

This shouldn't feel as awesome as it does, but I am SO stoked right now.

Not too long after I started playing WoW back in 2005, I began to crave being part of a guild.  Not just any guild, but an active, busy guild full of friendly, mature, thinking people who were more inclined to help rather than be snobs about (_fill in the blank_), and who were on the same page as I as far as wanting to make progress through dungeons and raids. 

Problem with WoW is that the community is, as a general rule, a bunch of annoying, antagonistic, immature, egotistic and thoughtless people who measure their own self-worth (and the worth of others) by virtual gear.  Being a socially-phobic person just makes it harder to find the awesome players who just tend to be crowded out by the tidal wave of cruddy people...so there's always been this element of frustration and, well, a pervading sense that I was missing out on so much cool stuff just because I didn't know the right people.  It's been a bummer.

But it looks like it has happened.  I joined up with a guild on Moon Guard not too long ago and since then, I've been talking with them on Ventrilo and even run some heroic dungeons with them.  These guys are *awesome*.  They are helpful, intelligent, friendly and oh my god, many of them are in or near my "age range" (and the rest are 18+ or at least act that they are!) and it helps SO MUCH I can't even tell you.  Also, 98% of these folks are LITERATE and type in complete, non-leet/non-shortcutty/non-crappy sentences which is such a beautiful thing.

I feel so geeky saying this, but I've gotten a couple major gear upgrades already as a direct result of having a great pool of people to run dungeons with, and my paladin's DPS shot up to 2300 from where it had been languishing at 1600.  Holy SMOKES!  And they've invited me to their five-man all-paladin comedy arena team and they're going to craft up the beginning saronite pvp plate set so I won't be going in at zero resilience.  And...and...I want to go on about other things which have been too awesome but I'm going to restrain myself.

This really has been, so far, a dream come true and it is truly one of the best things I've done in this game ever.  I don't want to keep this great guild to myself, either; I'd love to have my other Moon Guard pals join up, but I recognize that this may not be everyone's cup of tea.  The door IS open, however, in case anyone's curious about applying.  They call themselves a community guild, and they're primarily concerned with getting people with the right personalities and temperaments in their ranks; level and gear doesn't matter one whit.

I'll stop raving now.  I'm getting ridiculous.  :)

Watch My Fake Baby [Part 1] in Educational  |  View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com


Watch My Fake Baby [Part 2] in Educational  |  View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com

This is just on so many levels. 

The guys in this documentary are all which is about right.

THE MOMMY THING IS SO GROSS AND WEIRD.  UGHH.

EDIT: "It's a DOLL you numbnuts!"  Ahahah. 

So I go to use my old Mac Powerbook, and as I reseat the power cable into the machine, the cable (the cord part just below the actual cylindrical plug) gets hot, sparks and catches fire and starts melting in my hand as I'm frantically trying to yank the cord out from the computer and the power strip.  Thankfully it burned itself out pretty quick and nothing else caught on fire...but now this means I have to go into the Mac Store, the land of white plastic and the pretentious people who love it.  Blaaaaaarrrrggh.

The scary thing is that in the last few hours I *thought* I'd been smelling a faint burning smell.  Jesus!

...draw during the outage. I haven't done any art in a very long time, but have been toying with the idea of drawing some fan art of my WoW paladin. This isn't special nor a complete piece, but it's something.



I'm tired of drawing freehand in Photoshop 7 and want to get into vector linework. I need to check if the new Photoshop versions can do what I need, because Illustrator never seemed to click with me.

Another outage, this time a full day.  We called them almost immediately after we noticed it was out, and of course it takes DAYS for them to send out a technician.  Back when Adelphia ran things, they always had someone out the same or next day. 

I'm so sick of Time-Warner that I just want to puke.  Ever since they took over, the service has been awful.  They won't stop pushing their stone-age ideas about bandwidth caps and it is just sickening.  I'm not a high-bandwidth user, but jesus, they want to do a cap at something like five gigs and that is just...not acceptable.  ONE FREAKIN GAME from Steam can be five gigs alone.

To say I'm pissed is an understatement.  I do not know why Verizon FIOS isn't in our area yet; it's in less-hoity-toity areas in Upland, but not yet in this area, and I'm angry enough to suspect that this is because this neighborhood has one of those goddamned homeowner's associations which has probably prevented FIOS from going in.

SO livid and sick of the Time-Warner monopoly on cable internet service.  It's just not right. 

I want to get on the phone with Verizon and abjectly BEG them to get out here already.

( Cut to spare friendslists... )

 

( The unfortunate fact of life on a WoW RP server - cut for ?risque? image )


o.O

It launched Tuesday. I didn't know much about it, but I just checked it out and I'm super impressed with it. It comes off as an MMO for kids, but really, anyone who appreciates lighthearted gaming can still enjoy it. The graphical style reminds me of WoW, but even more cartoony and pretty. It runs amazingly well and is pretty darn slick in the way the Sims 2 was slick. Best of all, there's a ton of things to do for free. If I weren't sleepy right this moment I'd be playing more of it.



Now time for bed.

And you know that I tend to drop off radars for long periods of time...but now I'm in the gradual process of hunting down old friends who have accounts on LJ and friending them...so yes, if you've gotten a friending from me, it's because we were (and still are, unless you tell me otherwise) friends years and years ago.  So hiya to these peeps.  Long time no see! 

drememynd has poked me with the idea of joining Facebook, but...I've been leery of Facebook for ages.  There's something very scary about joining up with one's real identity at a site where everyone else in the world has signed up...because, frankly, I don't wish to be found by necessarily everyone I've ever known. 

But I am looking for those special people I used to hang out with/game with.  There are people I still think about and remember fondly.  If anyone knows more folks from the olden days who do have an LJ presence, please point me to 'em.  I've found David and Gary (but not Amy!) on LJ so far.  I've found Brad and Boojum, but haven't friended them because I really don't know if they'd remember me.  Also, maybe someone can make JR sign up here too, even if he'll never post.  Don't know if Chuck has a journal here.  Anyone know whatever happened to Thomas Rumbley? 

It's been pretty gratifying, this whole making-my-own-cultured-food thing. I was regularly making my own yogurt for a few months, but since I acquired some genuine kefir grains a while back, I've taken a break from the yogurt-making process simply because making kefir is so much easier and is equally as tasty.

I've talked about this before, but I'm about to go on about it again...real kefir is amazing. I wish I had known about it much earlier in my life. The bottled Lifeway brand (among other commercial brands) one finds in the cooler section of stores is NOT real kefir; it contains additives and is made using a mix instead of real grains. Kefir mixes or "starters" aren't the genuine article at all. One cannot just buy Lifeway kefir and use it as a culture to make more kefir like the way one can do with yogurt. It just doesn't work that way.

The Kefir Lady over at kefirlady.com says that real kefir grains are "...not to be confused with direct-set cultures that eventually lose their potency, requiring you to reorder again and again. Real kefir grains never need to be reordered. With proper care they last forever."

I want to eventually take pictures or maybe even video of my kefir-making process sometime, but for now, I'll borrow someone else's pictures to show here in brief just what the hell I'm going on about. 

<-- These cottage-cheese-looking lumps are kefir grains. No one really knows how they first came into being; some people think they're a gift from god. They can't be created spontaneously or from scratch. Every kefir grain was born from a parent kefir grain. Every kefir grain today traces its lineage centuries back to the original grains originating from the Caucasus Mountains in Eurasia.

Basically, these things are happy living clumps of beneficial bacterias, yeasts and stuff like that. You put them in fresh, unboiled milk and in about 24 hours, voila, these grains have eaten up the sugar in the milk, essentially creating a drinkable yogurt. Some people also compare it to buttermilk. I frequently sweeten kefir with sucralose and put some sort of flavoring in it like sugar-free fruit syrup, or just some cinnamon and/or nutmeg. Lately I've been mixing it with a little bit of fruity sparkling water and sucralose to make a lassi-like drink. Really tasty!

Like any living thing, kefir grains grow, make baby grains which grow up to make more grains! I started with a pretty small amount, but now I have a fairly large mess of them. I now have enough to pass on to other people. If any of you, my good friends, wish to have some of these, just let me know. I'd be happy to portion out a good helping of them and mail them off to you. Just remember that kefir grains are a commitment; they need fresh milk every day or two to stay happy and healthy, and you'll always have a supply of delicious kefir to drink!

I'm going to post about kombucha and cheese next.  :9

Remember Star Wars Galaxies? Remember when it was fun and engaging, full of immersive atmosphere and complexity (before Sony Online Entertainment gutted the game with those horrible "Combat Upgrade" changes)? Of course you do, and so do I. Those were some good times in massively multiplayer gaming. Wouldn't it be great to have those days back again?

Well...I only recently, as of a day or two ago, became aware that there's been an effort (some years in the works now) by a few individuals independent of SOE working to bring the old pre-CU SWG game back to everyone who has missed it. This team has been reverse-engineering and restoring the game as best they can back to its former glory. The project is called SWGEmu, and I checked it out yesterday. It really sounded too good to be true.

But...per their instructions, I registered on their forums, installed the client from my original discs (which were still in pristine condition) and used the SWGEmu project's enhanced launcher program to complete the setup. Lo and behold, I was able to log right into the test server!

Not everything is in place yet and there are still many bugs, but what they have done so far is damn impressive. It's so cool to be running around that universe again. The first thing I did was re-create my Twi'lek entertainer and run her to the Mos Eisley cantina. :) I spent a bit of time re-learning the crafting system, surveying and sampling raw materials, every now and then attempting to kill a random critter.

It was very, very cool. I'm truly thrilled.

If you want to check it out for yourself, I'd probably recommend not doing so today. The main site, www.swgemu.com, is currently obscured by a bad April Fool's make-over (the Oregon Trail stuff is nonsense). I figure the real SWGEmu content and instructions will be back tomorrow.

...I really think the next big MMO they're currently working on IS Universe of Starcraft.

At least I really hope it is. A really good, really accessible and fun sci-fi MMO is long overdue, and if anyone can actually make one stick, it'll be Blizzard.

God knows I'm sick enough of fantasy themes.

It's a probiotic, cultured-milk food which is similar to drinkable yogurt. Before this month, I'd only ever known it as something I could buy from the refrigerator section of a natural foods store.

Little did I realize that what I was buying actually wasn't the real thing.

I recently got my hands on some real "kefir grains", basically small cauliflower-like clumps beneficial "bacteria and yeasts in a matrix of proteins, lipids, and sugars", as Wikipedia states it. You put these happy little living clumps in a portion of milk (just regular, unheated milk!) in a sealed jar and let it sit for a day or two. The kefir grains ferment the milk, creating a delicious yogurt-like drink. Some people use kefir to make smoothies, or mix in fruit or sweetener, or just drink it plain.

The great thing about kefir grains is that they're living. As long as they're fed with fresh milk, they'll keep reproducing themselves. In a month or two, I should have enough to spare to give away (to friends!) or even to sell if I feel like dabbling in that particular cottage industry.

I really enjoy this sort of honest, hands-on approach to making food; no longer do I have to buy yogurt (and now a yogurt-like drink) from any grocery store. I can make it myself!

All I need now is my own milk cow. :)

And some chickens, while I'm dreaming.