I must say, so far, it’s pretty freaking cool.  Meet Kurmudgeon:

Kurmudgeon is a level 55 Death Knight (they start at level 55).  His story is a simple one in that he doesn’t really have one.  I needed an alt and I’d used him a very long time ago so he was resurrected as a Death Knight.  We’ll see how it goes. 

~P

Okay - Episodes 1 - 3 were about making George Lucas tons more money.  As a side note, they were also intended to show us the descent of Anakin Skywalker from annoying little child savant to evil Sith Lord.  Depending on who you talk to, they either accomplished this feat quite well or they destroyed something sacred and held dear to an entire generation.

Let’s go with the theory that they did it well, that they showed Anakin’s slow change into the evil sith Lord, Darth Vader.  Episode 1 showed us Anakin as a child, Episode 2, an angry young man who wanted to do things his own way and in Episode 3, we saw a man twisted by his own anger and fear into doing things that he wouldn’t otherwise do.

Given this progression, The Clone wars makes no sense.

“Let’s give Anakin a spunky young Jedi Padawan who makes him laugh and send em on some light hearted adventures!”

Um, what?

I am so confused…

~P

I was looking forward to both the flick and the trailers, as I haven’t been to the movies in a bit.  One of the online articles I read mentioned that the new Star Trek trailer would be attached to Quantum of Solace, so I was looking forward to seeing that too.

They showed eleven trailers - ELEVEN!  And not one of them was Star Trek.  *sigh*

As for the James Bond movie, I have to say I was disappointed.  It was good, it just wasn’t great.  I felt like it was setting up the next film, not necessarily spending time in this one, if that makes sense.

Spoilers follow:  Bond is still pissed, he’s still acting a bit more rogue than M likes and he’s getting blamed for every dead body that’s found anywhere near him.  This story takes him all over the world again, and he’s still pretty cold as he was in Casino Royale.  He fights a lot, kills a lot, get’s his ass kicked around a lot and women die around him.

He’s on the trail of the people responsible for the death of Vesper and it leads him to a seemingly environmentally conscience company who has plans to make millions off water rights and, so it seems, is a part of something much, much bigger.

That got me thinking.  If they really are starting over, I wonder if this new big bad isn’t an old big bad: SPECTRE (Special Executive for Counter-intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion).  Does this mean that we’re going to see a rebooted version of Ernst Stavro Blofeld?  That would be sort of like an all new, modern Master…

Anyway, I felt where Casino Royale was a bit too long, Quantum of Solace was a bit too short.  And the end, not very satisfying at all.

If you liked Casino Royale, you’ll probably like this one.  If you like the character and the world of James Bond, you might liek it but not like it, if that makes sense.

~P

My trip to Blizzcon rekindled my interest in the World of Warcraft, among other games.  I’ve been doing a good job of balancing my time playing video games with doing other, non sitting around on my ass stuff.  Not enough, of course, but at least I’m trying.  Still, I find myself logging in more than I have in a very long time.

Still not playing much Horde, though.  I want to, I’m nearly there - seriously, I am.  Lots of drama happened there, lots of stupid people being petty and blaming everyone else for all sorts of crap.  Bleh.  It’s no wonder I stay away.  There are some truly fantastic people over there, though, and I am closer to going back and getting into the groove of things again than I was, say, a month ago.

In the meantime, I’ve been working on my Alliance side Paladin - arguably my first main character.  Pretty well developed RP-wise and when I played him every night, I had it down really well and as long as I had mana, I survived.  Playing him again after so long has been a challenge, but I’m getting the hang of it again.  I’m looking forward to the Lich King expansion, everything I saw at Blizzcon really looked interesting and the latest patch with all the new stuff has been a lot of fun.

Logging into him for the first time in a long time, I had to redo all his talents, spells, etc.  I also had to deal with the fact that he had no money - I’d sent it all to Morticai Horde side long ago.  So I set to work on getting him some money, working the Auction House (and doing a damned fine job of it), upgrading his armor and finally breaking level 60 after three years.

The funny came when I was going through my bank and found my tuxedo pants.  This reminded me of those early days, playing in a tight group and doing really well.  RP-wise, my Pally was engaged - hence the tuxedo pants.  When the call came to head to an instance, he was wearing said pants and I totally forgot to change them out for his plate.  So, I tanked Uldaman in tuxedo pants.  And I didn’t die.

If you know anything about the game, this should be amusing to you

~P

Walmart had little to nothing in the Halloween asile and SamsClub had already switched to Christmas.

-Christmas-.

One WEEK before Halloween.

-CHRISTMAS-!

What the hell?

How stupid is that?  Are they skipping Thanksgiving altogether now?

~P

Not sure what that’s all about or how to fix it.

~P

“Blood Rites” is by no means the latest book in the series, it’s simply the latest one I’ve read and I really liked it.

Harry Dresden: Wizard.  That’s what the sign says and that’s exactly what Harry is - a Wizard.  Well, he’s more than that, really.  He’s a detective too.  And a good one to boot.  It’s just that he’s always managing to piss everyone off so the list of people who want to kill him is longer than the list of people who don’t.

In “Blood Rites”, Harry’s still got troubles with the Vampire Courts over that pesky little war he started, or that they tricked him into starting when he killed Bianca and all hell broke loose.  They want him dead and they have no problems whatsoever sending in the heavy hitters to get the job done.

Trouble is, Harry still needs to pay rent.  And, much to his surprise, there’s at least one Vampire that he likes, even get’s along with mostly: Thomas.  Thomas has a job for Harry and though he’s wary of the Vampire despite his repeated attempts to help Harry out, it comes down to helping people who are being hurt and that’s what Harry does best, right?

Someone’s using some bad magic to kill people, innocent people as far as Thomas is concerned.  Harry takes the job but, like so many other jobs he’s accepted, there’s more to it than the client is telling him.  In this case, the job is working for a movie mogul wannabe who is making a porno, and the people dying?  Well, they’re the women working for the mogul wannabee.

Once again, Harry finds himself in trouble; protecting the movie set from a nasty entropy curse while having to fend off heavy hitters from the Black Court who are gunning for him, getting involved with the internal political struggles of the White Court vampires and, of course, he has to meet Mama Murphy and the whole Murphy clan at a family bbq.

All in all, this is another fantastic romp through the streets of Chicago as we follow one of the most screwed up Wizard’s of all time.  Harry has a certain blindspot that all too many people seem capable of exploiting and it always ends up hurting him in the end, and though this book ends on a high note (sort of), it does have some pretty dark times in it as well.  We see that Harry might be developing some feelings for Murphy, imho, and I’m not sure if that’s good or bad for the seires really.  Harry needs to be close to someone again and I don’t think he’ll let himself, not after what happened to Susan.

Jim Butcher is a master at telling a strong, compelling detective story with a heavy dose of magic, fun and fantasy built in for good measure.  If you like your magic and fantasy set in ‘the real world’, you’ll enjoy this book (and the previous 5).  Extra points for the use of ‘Bolshevik Muppet’ in the book!

Click the image above and order yourself a copy.  They’re fairly quick reads for all the complexity within the covers.  Easily done in a week or two depending on your schedule and speed. 

~P

I have an alarm on my iPhone that’s set for daily - I forgot that doesn’t include Saturday - it’s just Monday through Friday, so it never actually went off this day.

D’oh.

I had people calling me early though, so I was able to get up and get going, just not quickly.

I wanted food - people were busy doing stuff, so I went by myself.  Also, I had a mission.  It was at the end of this:

I’m talking about Downtown Disney.  See, Disney now has not only Disneyland and the California Adventure theme parks, they also have their own little downtown area complete with shops and restaurants.  I needed to hit the Disney store in that area to pick up something for my mom.  I’d asked her if there was anything I could bring her from Disney and she originally said ‘no’.  Then, -after- I’d visited the park and was well into the convention, she called and said she wouldn’t mind some ear rings if it wasn’t too much trouble.

Sigh.

So, being a good son, I walked to the Disney store and got her some ear rings.  While there, I also picked up a new hat for myself, which I wore for the rest of the convention.

I forgot to mention it but on the first day of the con, I met the cast of The Guild.  They were awesome people, very kind.  I got a special piece of art that had been done for them, and they each signed it.  Well, the second day, they were having their own panel at the con - I really wanted to see that.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get to - there was a line like no other line to get into the room.  So I wandered some more, hooked up with Hukari and hit some of the other panels.  Eventually, we met up with the rest of The Monkeys and did a little gaming while the concert was going on.

It was the first time I’d ever played Diablo and I have to admit, I really liked it.  It was Diablo 3, the new game on the horizon in that franchise.  We played through twice - you got fifteen minutes and could be networked with 4 other players - it was really, really fun.

Here’s some photos from the day:

After dinner and a particularly fantastic rant on star wars by Brian (in the photo above, he’s in the back left, no hair), there was more hanging out and partying into the wee hours of the night, then everyone started to trickle out.  I was tired, sore and ready for bed, so I headed back to my hotel room and crashed for the night.

Blizzcon was over.

I was trying to figure out what it was all about, this Blizzcon thing.  I made a joke: “I figured out what Blizzcon is all about.  You spend close to $1,000 to take a trip to stand in line for 5 and 1/2 hours so you can buy a $20 shirt.”  It didn’t go over well.

But that’s not what it’s all about anyway.  I did figure it out.  It’s about people.  Good people, good friends, hanging out and talking about the stuff they all share and enjoy in common with each other.

What this meant for me was that I found myself energized for gaming again.  I was really interested in the panels for the World of Warcraft and the changes they’re making and plans for the future that they discussed.  I really enjoyed playing Diablo 3 and thought about picking up the first two (which I did when I got back - can’t play the first one though, it wants OS 9 and I don’t have that).  To top it off, I was itching to rp in WoW again, something I haven’t been interested in for about a year now.

The Drunken Monkey Brewery is filled with fantastic people.  All guilds should take a page out of their book.  When it comes to people getting along and surving for the long haul, they know what they’re doing.

The next day, I got up and flew back to Denver.

~P

Wow.  What an event - it was Huge.  And so many people!

I started my day later than I planned due to the night before.  I was to meet Hukari as I had his pass and he couldn’t get in without me.  Only, I couldn’t find him.

Candice found me almost immediately, and together we sought out Hukari and gave him his pass.  Here’s a shot of the elusive Hukari:

Once inside, I was blown away by the sheer size of the place - they had two major halls setup with areas for gaming, vendors, food, stores, art, more games, statues, a giant ice throne - you name it, they had it.

I went to a couple of panels with Hukari while Candice and Brent were inline for the store with some other people.  I didn’t understand why they were inline, but later found out that there was some fear that the Blizzcon store might sell out of certain things, which has apparently happened in the past (and did happen, I found out the next day as people tried to get stuff that was gone).  After I’d wandered around by myself for a bit, and got some lunch, I jumped into that line as I had my eyes on several things that I wanted to pick up.

I ended up being in that line for 5 and 1/2 hours! O.o!

Boy, I was wishing they had the Disney Fast Pass >.>

After that, well, more accurately -during- that, they started the contests up on the main stage area.  I watched from my spot in line as the one liners, movie and music contests went down.  Then they had the costume contest, which was just amazing.  Here’s a link to the photo galleries on blizzcon.com.  I got out of line and met up with The Monkey’s again, which was heaven because it meant I could sit down again.  We watched the rest of the show, including the dance contest, which Andy took part in - female Gnome dance ftw!

Here are some photos from the day - it was dark, and my camera wasn’t doing so well, but I tried:

In the sixth photo above, you can see a blurry banner - it reads, “Retro Arcade”.  Oh.  My.  God.  Blizzard went online and purchased a bunch of old game systems and had classic games running.  Like: The Lost Vikings!!!  I remember that game!  It was so much fun!  I picked up the controller and it was like I was a kid again.  Something similar to this comic from Penny Arcade.

Blizzcon Day One was long and followed with dinner at Dennys and more party fun, then back to the hotel room for foot soakings and sleep.

Tomorrow: Blizzcon Day Two

~P