Who is this Kendra ...

... and why do I care about her baby.

http://www.okmagazine.com/2009/12/kendras-baby-joy/

for months I've seen headlines on magazines about this so am assuming the kid is the next great prophet or something.

The Greatest Weather Site Ever

Thats all I can say about it, this is the greatest weather site ever:

The Greatest Weather Site Ever

Why are you still reading this? Go and check the weather.

The Return of PC Games

Ever since the Atari meet it's demise I've been for the most part a PC Gamer. I did drool at friend's consoles thru the Nintendo, Super Nintendo, Playstation, Game Cube, and XBox years but other than briefly owning a Dreamcast I primarily stuck to my PC for my gaming needs. This was the result of being a University Student with a young family and not having a lot of Cash Flow. As a Computer Science Major I was able to rationalize the purchase of a PC but just couldn't afford a gaming console. However, in the last few years my Cash Flow has improved dramatically and I own a Wii and XBox 360 yet I still do 99% of my gaming on the PC. Why?

Anyone reading this blog can tell we play a lot of World of Warcraft (WoW) which is a PC/Mac only game but lately I've been getting a little tired of WoW and still find myself gaming on the PC. This is purely a result of console game price gouging. I am a big promoter and user of Valve's Steam service which is basically a online PC game store with some good online community features. On Steam I can buy most newly released games for 40 to 50 bucks and if I'm willing to wait a few months they usually offer amazing limited time offers where I can get relatively new games way cheaper. Switch over to the console world. Any newly released game has a 60 to 80 dollar price tag and 9 times out of 10 I get the game home to only be disappointed with it or the DVD gets scratched or lost. That is a lot of money to burn.

I'll admit a good gaming PC costs a lot more than a console but I'm going to have a good PC regardless so really bending over so the Console Game stores can screw me just seems self abusive.

A Music Themed Game I Would Play

I consider the music themed game, Rock Star, Guitar Hero, DJ Hero, etc..., to be a bastardization of all I consider to be good and true about video games. I fail to see the point in playing a game that doesn't let me kill something, and I thoroughly detest games that represent something that I could actually be doing in real life. Why would I play a football, soccer, or hockey game? I could easily do these things myself outside my home, along with skateboarding, snowboarding, not to mention life simulators like The Sims; play a game that requires me to do all the things I'm playing a game to avoid? No thanks, I'm happier being terminally socially awkward.

And as for the music games, seriously, you're time is better off spent learning to play a real instrument, at least you're accomplishing something. Prince actually refused his own music game, Rock Star or Guitar Hero, I can't remember which, for that very reason, he'd rather see kids learning to actually play instruments. If you can't respect Prince, who can you respect, right Darcy?

But, like it or not, the music game seems to be here to stay. That's why in an effort to try and live with society's mistakes in general I've come up with a theme for a music game I would be willing to play: R0ck Star Zombies

Think about it, playing with all the late greats, Richie Valens, Jimmi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, John Lennon and too many others to mention right now; you could even throw in the arm of the drummer from Def Leopard, I'm sure it could crawl around the drum set or something. Apparently Kurt Cobain wouldn't be able to make it since he's apparently the musical equivalent to Jesus or some damned thing, but who cares, the dude wasn't worth including anyway.

The idea is that the better you play the better your chances of avoiding a bullet in the head, which would end your "new" career, and getting closer to the tasty brains in the audience. The other side of the coin, the song ends with your rotting skull being emptied on the stage behind you.

A bad idea? Yes, probably, but then so is the entire music themed game genre. At least my way guarantees something dies, thus making it a real video game!

The Yip-Yips

Anyone else remember them, those aliens on Sesame Street who were amazed and befuddled by stuff? I loved them bastards as a kid and miss getting a laugh out of them. Don't quite know why, but I started thinking about them today and ran across this clip; on a side note, it never fails to amaze me what a single Google search is capable of returning.

This also would have appealed to my inner child that died while doing phone tech support. I swear to the almighty ever loving god that this is exactly what was happening on the other end of the phone conversation on at least 3 different occasions. But then maybe it was my fault for asking cryptic questions like "What operating system are you using?"

The Cleveland Show

You may remember some months back I wrote about the demise of King of the Hill and lamented it's replacement with The Cleveland Show.

The Cleveland show came on TV a few weeks back and, as the faithful animation addict I am, I've been watching it; I figured, what the hell, I always watch cartoons on Sunday night so I may as well check it out. 4 episodes later I think I have a good feeling of the show.

I may have been a tad bit hasty on my prejudgement, it's actually not a bad show all in all. Of course, again all in all, it's basically the The Family Guy with a black family so it's not like they have anything new to create and perfect, just use a small child to set up a series of largely non-sequiter cut scenes and have a talking animal for the moral guidance. It delivers that, although, after so many years of The Family Guy I think we may be running a bit short on this style of humors lifespan. When I made my earlier judgement I was thinking of the Family Guy pre-cancellation, late 90's Cleveland who had all the personality of stale sliced bread, but I failed to notice that they had managed to breathe some life in him over the last couple of years, giving him at least some of the qualities needed to run his own show.

I guess it boils down to this, if you like the Family Guy you'll like this, and, to be perfectly honest, you may like this better. Let's face it, the Stewie-Brian stories were an interesting sideline on the Peter oriented stories, but they were never worth enough to dedicate so many episodes to them alone. I think the Family Guy has run it's course, and, if Fox is smart enough, which we know they're not, The Cleveland Show can act to gently segway into a retirement of Peter and his family.

Long story short, 3.5 stars out of 5; not a waste of time to watch, but if you don't already watch the Fox Animation Domination on Sunday nights, this isn't going to get you started.

You Should Familiarize Yourself with Stephen Lynch

Sometimes when one puts his iTunes on shuffle you discover some awesome shit your forgot about. If you've never heard of Stephen Lynch and are open to some raunchy musical humor I suggest you look into the man. The following are some of my favorites.





and one that fits this blog a bit more

Whatever Happened to Deee-Lite

All right I have no intention of ever buying or playing this game but my god this trailer brings back memories of my youth living young wild and free on a matress in my buddies pantry.



It also bring back memories of a great David Spade movie, Lost & Found. Here's live performance from that golden time.

9 - Not Directed by Tim Burton

Well last night I went to one of the movies I was excited about, 9, and once again fell for the marketing technique of pushing the famous producers name over the relatively less famous directors when hyping the movie. I like Tim Burton's work, well all of it short of Edward Scissorhands so was pretty excited about seeing 9 but it turned out that it was produced my Tim Burton not directed. It was directed by Shane Acker and he's no Tim Burton.

9 is a story about a set of little robots that 1, 2, 3, .... 9 in a post-apocalyptic world that was destroyed by a war between humans and robots ... hmmm that sounds a bit like another franchise. Anyway, the AI responsible for the human/machine war is re-activated by 9 who apparently is an idiot and the little robots need to stop the evil AI robot from absorbing their souls and making more machines to destroy an already destroyed world. You see the AI or evil robot is evil because the inventor gave it his intellect and not his soul. He however, split his soul up among the little robots for some reason that isn't entirely clear to me. I guess souls can make it rain or something. Anyway it was pretty cliche with 1 being a scared poor leader type and 8 being his dumb ass bigger little robot goon and 7 being a ninja like awesome fighting robot who was the only female robot and yet another example Hollywood is trying to make up for decades of cool male characters by making the male characters clumsy wimps or goons and having the female character be the only cool smooth character. Anyway the movie could have worked despite the cliches (it was a PG movie after all) if the evil AI robot actually came off as evil instead it just seemed to be a machine doing what it was meant to do, not evil. Yes they tried to make it seem evil with some flash backs but it didn't work. For a movie like that to be good it must have a cool scary ass villain.

I guess this wasn't the worse move I've seen but it was definitely a let down from what I was hoping. I'd give it maybe 5 stars out of 10 at most.

Thoughts on L4D: Crash Course

It came as a bit of a surprise to find out that there was going to be some new DLC for L4D, Valve really didn't make a lot of noise about it, unlike when they did the Survival pack. After finally getting to play it I can see why there was so little fanfare.

Was there anything wrong with it? No, not really, it was basically the same as all the existing campaigns, you run through a city in an eternal dusk setting shooting zombies and trying to find you're way to safety. I have only two minor problems with the game:

1. The campaign was way too short, consisting of two maps, one set in an industrial/warehouse district, prompting you to run through a maze of storeroom, offices, and alleys due to street blockage caused by jackknifed semis and the sort, and a finale episode that entails you to run through a fairly extensive shipping yard to get to a vehicle designed to travel the streets safely. Seriously though, if you're escape vehicle is a ten minute run from the safe house, can this really be called a safe house? Seems to me this is just a house, but I digress.

2. Guns and ammo are everywhere to be found. On the surface this may not seem like a problem, but the degree to which weapons and ammunition are scattered throughout the levels was one of the main atmosphere setters in the original campaigns. You were always aware of how many rounds you had left because that's how close to death you were at all times, but Crash Course apparently had an M-16 fairy run through the entire map sprinkling her certain brand of love. It got to the point that I was more worried about hurting myself tripping over piles of ammo in the street than the zombies getting to me. The one thing they did do is limit the health packs, however that's still not the same thing as limiting the firepower; as long as I had one point of health left I could continue shooting, you never had to worry about being defenseless AND hurt.

Along with the guns and ammo, there were an almost unlimited supply of gas cans and propane tanks laying around to shoot, not to mention the pipebombs and Molotovs; I think this is a sign of Valve trying to cater to the instant gratification crowd, giving more and better destructible environments, something I personally don;t need, but it's no biggie. One feature I really liked though was in the finale, you're required to flip a switch to start a generator, bringing a horde of zombies down on your team; the catch was that you have to stand there in the open for about 10 seconds doing nothing button hold the switch in order to activate the generator. On top of that, you need to do this again in the middle of the fight in order to restart the generator. A lot easier said than done.

So there you go, all in all it's a good add-on. A quick campaign that can be played relatively painlessly. I would also say that the maps seem to be longer than any of the original campaigns and I think the graphics are a little smoother. My opinion is that this is essentially a beta for Left 4 Dead 2, what you see here is what you'll be seeing there, based on the screenshots I've seen of the new game.

Since it's free, as long as you have the PC version, there's no reason not to get it and play it. If you have the 360 version I would seriously consider waiting for L4D 2 and saving the 500 odd points that Microsoft is charging.

Top 10 Movie Plot Holes

God I wish I could take credit for this one, but I can't. I do however have to say most, not all, but most of these questions have crossed my mind at one point or another during my life time.

Top-10-Unanswered-questions

Gotta say, number 10 is the one that bothered me the most, even back in the days before I knew anything about networking computers or viruses I wondered how the hell they did that one.

Robs Thoughts on WoW Classes

I've been playing pretty religiously for the last 3 months now and I have to say I'm really set in this game, Blizzard has truly created an immersive world that draws the player in, This is in no small part due to the surrounding actions of the game, not just the hack and slash, although without that there's little point in playing the game, but the things you do in between the hacking and slashing. Add the race/class mix in and this game just doesn't give up.

So what are my favorites you ask? I'm glad you did! Today I'm just going to address the race/class thing (mainly class).

I freely admit that I haven't tried as much as the game as I would have liked to (yet) so my opinions are slightly limited, but I have managed to bring a Warrior, a Hunter, and a Paladin up through the ranks with an assorted mix of professions between them; I've also got a mage in the upbringing and have started dabbling with a priest, but they're fairly low level. Along with this I've hit most of the races, even a couple of the Horde types, but I'm pretty much an Alliance guy.

Without going into too much detail, I need something to write about down the line, I've enjoyed all of them, the Dwarven Hunter, the Gnomish Mage, the Human Warrior, and I've got no problems with my Night Elf Priest, but I have to say none have brought me as much joy as my Human Paladin. I think the Paladin is a great choice for the up and coming WoW player, they dish out the dirt and heal when needed; add plate armor to that and you've got an awesome dude. To be honest I can see my warrior starting to approach my Paladin in DPS, but it's just not the same thing as playing a Holy Warrior; Hurtinator lives to kill whereas Ultronicus lives to kill AND heal!

The Paladin allows you to get a taste of the magic user mixed in with the attack power of a warrior, giving you a sample of both sides of the spectrum, adding in survivability to keep you going; my warrior has spent a lot more time dead than my Paladin. The best part of this is that down the line if you want to get a pure magic user going, like a Mage or a Shaman, you have an idea of how that works and what you need to focus on. The warrior doesn't lend itself to these skills as well, although Blizzard has managed a pretty gentle learning curve for all classes.

As for the human part, well if I had to do it over again I might have gone dwarf, my hunter is really cool, but he's a human and I accept him for that. Each race has it's unique abilities giving it an edge in certain things, but I mainly went human so I could stay in a comfort zone.

Having said that though, if PvP is your thing, I'd say a Hunter should be your choice, although this changes as time goes on. The very heart of WoW is wearing bigger boots than the next guy, and two sets of boots is always better than one (especially when one pair of boots is worn by a gorilla named Randolph). I don't mind the PvP, but it's never been a big part of my lifestyle. The Hunter also gives you a taste of magic use, although it's almost strictly limited to offense magic, and is largely associated with your gun, but magic none the less; as a matter of fact I think the Hunter teaches you more about Mana management than the Paladin does, an important skill for magic use.

So there you go a very limited run down on my thoughts for starting WoW. Only thing left now is for you to go and find out for yourself.

Dark Disney Princesses

Stumbled across this the other day. Thought it was cool enough to share.

Dark Disney Princesses

Now There is Some Good Advice Here: Shit MyDadSays

A friend of mine runs a humorous blog where every once in a while he shares some Internet gold with the masses. One such nugget was a Tweet, or whatever you call a twitter site, called shitmydadsays. I now visit this page every day.

Don't get me wrong I don't have a Twitter account anymore and I firmly believe very very very few people are interesting enough to pull off a worthwhile Twitter run. I did say in the past that there are a few worthy Twitters going on and shitmydadsays is one. Not only is it humorous but there is some damn good life advice there that I think needs to be shared.

1) "The universe does not give a fuck about you. You are a speck in its shit."

Why do I like this quote: well there seems to be an epidemic of people wallowing in their own sense of self importance. Thank god I'm a humble bastard but it seems like a plethora of the human race needs to read this piece of Dad advice and take it to heart. :)

2) "Don't listen to the pussy side of you when you make a decision. People gravitate towards being a pussy. Remove the pussy, son."

Damn good advice here fear of taking a risk leaves many an opportunity missed. Note being humble doesn't equate to being a pussy :)

3) "The worst thing you can be is a liar....Okay fine, yes, the worst thing you can be is a Nazi, but THEN, number two is liar. Nazi 1, Liar 2"

Glad the man straightened that out for me.

4) "Here's a strawberry, sorry for farting near you...Hey! Either take the strawberry and stop bitching, or no strawberry, that's the deal."

What a lesson in negotiation!

I hope the guy running this Twitter sees the genius his dad is sharing.

Left 4 Dead Crash Course

I believe what we are seeing here is a case of Valve doing a little bit of backpedaling. After the uproar over the announced Left 4 Dead 2 they have decided to throw people a bone and will be releasing some new DLC for the first one. The whispers on the Internet seem to be indicating that we'll be receiving it starting September 23.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm looking forward to Left 4 Dead 2, sounds like they've got some cool things going on in there, such as melee weapons and infected wearing hazmat suits made of asbestos; nothing like finding out you Molotov Cocktail just became obsolete. Having said that though, I have never supported the choice to change the characters, I think there is a lot of story left to play with Francis, Louis, Bill, and Zoey, but life goes on doesn't it?

L4D Crash Course is going to tie together No Mercy and Death Toll, showing how the intrepid 4 go from a helicopter rescue from the hospital rooftop to being abandoned on a highway in the middle of nowhere, cool! The current complaint I have is this release seems to be a bit more geared towards the vs aspect of the game, where players take on the role of infected against other players, something I've never cared for. On top of that it's supposed to be streamlining some of the survival levels, again, something that I could live without; me and Darcy found a comfort zone with it and even thrived in the survivals for a short time, but in the end I'd rather gain ground and accomplish something.

There you have it in an nutshell, L4D is getting a new campaign to tide you over until L4D 2 hits the proverbial shelves (except for our friends in Australia that is, although to be fair the game hasn't been banned there, they've just refused to give it classification, thereby rendering it unsaleable down under), and the download is completely free from Valve. That's right 100%, no strings attached, absolutely free!

Unless you bought the 360 version, then it's going to cost you 560 Microsoft points to get the new DLC. Yes once again XBox live has decided to go for the gusto and put a qualifier the free term. Screw you Xbox live! I try to support Microsoft, I mean what are your choices, either give your money to Apple, HA!, or go Linux, and after working with Linux let me quote something I heard long ago and fully support "Linux is worth your time if your time is worthless.", but it's not always easy.

But I digress. Once again, good news for L4D players, the zombies, they need- a-killin'! So a-killin' I will go.

WoW: Pet Taming The Easy Way

To date my hunter has had 4 pets, a Coyote Packleader, every prairie farm boys dream, a Crocolisk, a really decent tank/DPS hybrid in my opinion, and two gorillas, an Elder Mist and a Silverback who I just picked up last night.

Me and Darcy were questing South of Booty Bay, doing all that humdrum every day stuff like slaughtering pirates and hunting giants when Darcy happened to discover a Silverback he just had to have. I was busy a ways off searching bottles on the beach so it took me a minute to get to him when he started calling for help. Turns out the Silverback has a nifty little talent that makes him a desirable pet and a tough one to tame.

If you don't know how it works to tame a pet I'll fill you in on the basics. Upon reaching level 10 the Hunter trainer will inform you that it's time to get a pet of your own, you then go out in the wilderness and tame 3 different pets that the trainer commands you to; once that is done he turns you loose to get a pet of your own choosing. To tame a pet you find an animal that appeals to you, making sure that it is either the same level as you or lower (and there's little point having a pet lower than yourself) target it, and start waving a stick in the air, exuding waves of what could only be pure love, judging by the hearts that appear in the air around you. A progress bar also pops up and once the bar is empty, taking about 30 seconds, your pet is tamed; that's all there is to it, yup, just stand there and soak up the punishment that your pet-to-be hands out while you're taming it, cause in case I for got to mention it, the pet attacks constantly during the process. And therein lies the rub of today's topic.

It turns out Silverbacks have pushback effect, where they are able to knock you flat on your ass when they attack; the main downside being that when you get up you have to start the taming all over gain, giving them ample time to recharge their ability and push you back again. This is where Darcy's problem came in and we ended up killing 3 of them before we managed to tame one.

How to save yourself the trouble? Pretty easy if you have the Freezing Trap ability. We tested it out on his gorilla and then tried the method out to get me a Silverback of my own, worked flawlessly the first time. I first laid a trap in front of myself and backed up a few steps; I then started the tame process, causing the Silverback to charge; upon hitting my trap the Gorilla was frozen in place, allowing me to continue the tame uninterrupted; at this point Darcy came along and dropped another trap in between me and the still frozen gorilla; at the 20 second mark the trap broke and released the Silverback, who promptly ran into the second trap and was frozen again. About half way through the second trap cycle the tame finished, the trap thawed, and I had a brand new, fully tamed, level 42 Silverback Gorilla to match Darcy's.

So there you have it, save yourself some trouble and use the traps you've got, freeze 'em and tame 'em. I'm looking forward to getting Randolph and Clyde in PvP, Pushback's a bitch unless you're controlling it.

Okay I Decided that Amazon Hates Canadians

The biggest problem with living next door to the United States is that us Canadians are exposed to all the American media. True over all this isn't so bad and at times it is damn entertaining. However, it also means we are tortured with commercials and media promoting things we can't get in The Great White North. This resulted in agony for millions of Canadians when the iPhone was released in the United States and we could only paste our faces to the store window while told "no you can't have that in Canada".

We did finally get the iPhone thanks to Rogers but that was only after being forced to watch our American neighbors flash their fancy phones in front of our faces for what seemed like years. I don't own a iPhone and I chalk that up to bitterness. In fact I'm probably going to get the Blackberry Storm instead and think as Rob would say "Steve Jobs can suck my ass".

The newest villain to torment us Canadians is Amazon and their cursed Kindle. I'm an avid reader and so is my lovely and loving wife so our house is filled and I mean filled with books so the introduction of a good eBook Reader interested me a lot. I was even willing to shell out the money the moment I heard about the Kindle even though it's over priced. However, Amazon said nooooo you can't have the Kindle and then later said noooo you can't have the Kindle 2, your Canadian, then they stuck up their noses and walked away.

I can't even get an American friend to send me one becuase it turns out that you not only have to have an American address and credit card to buy a Kindle you also need that to buy the eBooks for the Kindle.

Now I understand the Canadian cell phone network thing could cause a glitch but I don't buy the copy right thing for a 2nd. Sony can sell us books for their reader and Amazon.ca seems to have no problem selling us books. Now I think Amazon could have said sure you can buy the Kindle but sorry the whispernet feature won't work in Canada. However, we'll sell you the books on Amazon.ca and you can download them to your Kindle via a computers USB port. However Amazon didn't do this and pretty much flipped us in Canada the bird not even commiting to trying to get us Kindle in the near future. I'm almost as pissed off about this as I am about Coke advertising their pop in glass bottles. Therefore, I'm not going to buy their stupid Kindle even if it comes to Canada and am looking at the alternatives.

Alternative 1: The Sony eReader

Alternative 2: Wait for the Indigo eReader

Alternative 3: The Astak EZReader

Alternative 4: The Cybook

Not sure which one I'm going to go with but I do know that Jeff Bezos and his Kindle can: to quote my good buddy "Suck My Ass"! :)

Okay Christian Bale Robot ???

I'm pretty sure anyone with an internet connection as heard the famous Christian Bale rant which made me dislike the man more than I already did but for some reason made my loving wife think he was even hotter then before:

Some Blither about the Bale Rant

Today I found this promotional media for a game that I'm pretty excited about, Borderlands, and think it's worthy of adding yet another internet link to:

Making of Borderlands Series ep 1

More Dead Rising 2

It looks like development on the much anticipated (at least by me) Dead Rising 2 is carrying on splendidly. To date it's the only game I've been looking forward to that hasn't pushed back it's release date until 2010, but that's most likely because it was originally slated for an early 2010 release anyway.

Thought I'd share a few pics today, first the art that will grace the cover of the box:

I kind of like what they did here with only showing Chuck Greene from the back, they've got a kind of "back to the wall" desperation thing going here. It also helps throw you into the game; being that it's a third person perspective and all your gameplay is going to be from this view you may as well get used to it now.

Then we've got this one, which in of itself is nothing groundbreaking, however it does have one key point that hits the mark home for me on quite a personal level, see if you can spot it before I clue you in:

Did you pick up on it? I bet you did, as a matter of fact I know you did. That's right, check out the rack on that zombie chick just past Chuck's left shoulder. Yup, looking forward to a lot of that view:

God I love video games!

It's Really Not Fair

When I was growing up the only people who had anything to do with gaming or fantasy, especially D&D fantasy were short dumpy dudes with bad complexions. Apparently Blizzard has managed to mainstream things enough to get the likes of these ladies to only involved, but actually excited about it.

and, probably may favorites, these:

I gotta get me to BlizzCon sometime.

The Legend of Neil is Funnier then The Guild

Bold statement in the title of this post but I have to say it's true. I like The Guild and find it humorous. However, you need to watch a few of The Guild episodes to get the characters and fully appreciate the humor. However, if you are looking for a Mel Brook's style of comedy The Legend of Neil will be of greater interest to you.

The background is Neil gets sucked into The Legend of Zelda game while drunk, masturbating, and asphyxiating himself. Of course everyone deems him Link and he is trying to finish the game so he can go home. If you like Mel Brook's movies and have played a few old Nintendo games you'll like this web series. It sounds stupid but so did Blazing Saddles and Space Balls.

Blackest Night: Early Comments

I finally worked my way through most of the Blackest Night comics that have been released so far.

There were 3 issues of "Blackest Night: Tales of the Green Lantern Corps" with these they are doing short background stories of different Lanterns (Green, Red, Blue, ...). Then I read "Green Lantern" #44, "Green Lantern Corps" #39, and "Blackest Night" #1 and #2.

All I can say is wow talk about shaking up the DC Universe: almost as much as what went down in the original Crisis of Infinite Earths.

So far the black lantern rings are finding every dead hero and bring them back as Undead Black Lanterns and I am thrilled to see Hank Hall the original Hawk in comics again: even if he is evil and undead. The undead Black Lanterns are using peoples hearts to charge the rings so this of coarse means ripping the heart out of the chest. Then said now heartless victim becomes a undead lantern them self. Big complex story but so far the death toll includes; Aqua-Lad, Hawkwoman, Hawkman, ... and others that I'm probably forgetting.

I'm just touching on this today as it's to early into a complex story to review it fully but so far I like it. I have heroes, zombies, and Hank Hall how can I not like.

Do You Want to Date My Avatar

OK, this was pointed out to me by Darcy, but since he isn't moving on it I will.

This may be the greatest music video I have ever seen and it's certainly sparked my interest in watching the show.

Cataclysm Announced ...

and just when I thought I was close to having my fill of Warcraft.

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/cataclysm/

I'm so playing a Goblin!

However, having said that I like Rob am ready to start getting my WoW play under control. Since I got this game for Christmas I've gone from being able run a 1/2 marathon to struggling with 2km not to mention gaining close to 20 pounds. Plus I've been ignoring the wonderful world of comics. Lucky my family all plays WoW but I've actually got a bandwidth use warning from my isp thanks to 3 WoW accounts going during our crapy rainy summer.

Picked up my comic file today to find a ton of Blackest Night stuff in there. Next post will be all Blackest Night.

Enough about WoW

Since I've gotten involved with WoW I've noticed that our posts here at Geeky Blithering have gone from the occasional post by Darcy to a pretty much dedicated blog by both of us about the venerable World of Warcraft. At this rate we'll have to change our name to Geeky Blithering on WoW or even WoW Blithering! Well, enough is enough I say, and not just about WoW, today I'm doing a blog about all the other things going on in my life this summer.

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Well, lately my wife has been complaining I don't spend time with her, funny I never heard that before the end of June, probably some kind of unmentionable feminine issue, hope she feels better.

Um, my yard is kind of messy, it's almost as if the lawn hasn't been cut much since the end of June, probably the crumby weather this year.

What else? My garden was doing good for while, but man the weeds seem to have gotten out of control since the end of June, damned weather again I guess.

Oh ya, my boy is starting school again in another week or so, not sure which grade, he hasn't been around much this summer for me to ask. At least I haven't noticed him since, oh, I don't know, the end of June I guess. Wonder if the weather got to him too?

Oh, I know, books! Haven't had much time for reading lately, with work and such, but I started reading Moby Dick while fighting to get the last WoW patch in, although I haven't gotten back to finish it yet. Oh well, the story's focused on an all consuming, life altering obsession, I guess I just can't relate to the story in any way. I'll find something else to read, maybe in a few weeks when I'm not so busy.

Been having trouble sleeping, just not getting to bed as early as I should, and I've noticed a recent increase in my Cheeto consumption. Since both of these started around the end of June I would say it's a combination of the long days and lousy weather.

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I guess that's about it, pretty much life as normal for this summer, I mean other than having started playing World of Warcraft sometime around the end of June, but I'm going to stop right there as I promised I wasn't going to talk about anything involving WoW.

Guild Invites

I'm really getting sick of getting guild invitations thrust on me everywhere I go in Azeroth. I walk into Stormwind City, I've whispers; I quest in Westfall, I get whispers and a guild invitation thrust on my screen, I walk into the bank in Iron Forge and I've got whispers and general invites. I'm really kind of fed up about it.

I understand that some people can't envision doing anything without that feeling of "being a part of something bigger than myself", and that's what guilds are made for. I also understand the benefits of being in a guild, the banks, the access to high level members for runs, the cool tabards. Finally, I can understand why people want to get more individuals in their guilds, and, to be honest, I was rather intrigued by the concept of being in an all Dwarven guild with my hunter, but you know what? Enough!

Instead of doing dumb things like making a 1.5 second cast on my exorcism, maybe Blizzard should be doing something good, like giving guildies their own bulletin board where you can post you're wish to recruit members. You go into a capital city and see who's recruiting if you want and if not, oh well, your loss. Unsolicited invites should be a complete no-no!

Again, I have to say, I have no problem with guilds, however if I want to be in one I'll go looking for one. As I've said many times, I'm in the game for myself, not companionship. If I wanted to be hanging around with other people I'd be with my family, or at least someone I actually know. I don't have a problem with guilds, I'm actually in two of them, but I hate spam!

Long story short, not everyone wants to be in a guild so if you whisper and get ignored, take the hint.

Machinima Part II

After seeing Darcy's post on this, and thoroughly enjoying the videos he posted I figured I'd check out a couple more. I may have found some of the funniest stuff I've ever found in this one here:

Check it out, my favorite moments are the punchline at the end of the first sequence at about 1:30 and the Murlocs at about 3:30. Funny shit and both ideas I can agree with.

Slave Leia

Oh my god, I think somebody was actually reading my mind when I was 13. This my friends is what teenage dreams circa 1980's were all about.

If you haven't figured it out by now, click the pic.

And just in case that isn't enough for you, and I don't know how any of that could ever be enough, lo and behold there's a Yahoo group dedicated to this:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SlaveBikiniBuilders/

God I want to be in that group.

WoW Recruit a Friend Experient Update

Back near the end of June I decided to mess around with the World of Warcraft recruit a friend program to see if I could take advantage of it's many benefits. I did this two ways:

1) I actually recruited a friend (aka Rob)
2) I set up a 2nd account for myself to dual box

It's been over 50 days now so I thought I would share the results and offer my opinion.

First off for me I don't enjoy dual boxing at all. True I don't have the addons and software to control two warcraft sessions with single key assignments but I still don't think dual boxing is something I'll do much in the future. I find I'm to worried about controlling two characters and not enjoying the actual game. However, doing recruit a friend with a real life friend is loads of fun. Rob and I have had great fun running in circles and flirting with Night Elfs and Draenei. My little Gnome is a don juan.

I tend to play Alliance when I play with Rob because he doesn't care for playing Horde. Therefore, I'm trying to level Horde with my own 2nd account. So far I've accomplished the following thanks to the recruit a friend benefits. On my main account I've leveled a Night Elf Rogue to 49, a Gnome Warrior to 51, a Human Paladin to 34, a Human Mage to 26, a Draenei Hunter to 18, and a Gnome Warlock to 16. I literally have leveled the Warlock using the Grant a level feature on my 2nd account. For the Horde on my main account I now have a Tauren Warrior at 8, a Tauren Druid at 10, and an Undead Warlock at 16. For the Alliance on my 2nd account I have a Dwarf Hunter at 19, a Night Elf Druid at 18, and a Human Rogue at 10. For Horde on my 2nd account I have a Troll Hunter at 8. During this time more than a few characters have been created and deleted so this is my current standing. As you can tell I have spent a lot more time on the Alliance side and could be further along if I didn't spend so much time gearing up for Battlegrounds and trying to keep up on my professions (this I gave up on).

When using triple XP and Grant a Level benefits you fly through the levels so fast that if you don't have a high level main supplying your guys with money you won't be able to keep up on my training never mind gear. There is no way to earn money as fast as you can earn XP. I actually just created a Horde Death Knight purely for the purpose of earning money to hand down to my hordie characters.

The Triple XP and Grant a Level boast is sweet but the benefit I use the most is the Summon Friend ability. As you might have guess this benefit lets you summon your friend once an hour. I use this all the time with my 2nd account to cut back on the travel time on those annoying quests designed to force lower players to get flight paths. I hate running or flying for 10 minutes so the summon friend ability is sweet. Specially if you have a main in Dalaran who can port to any of the main cities.

All in all I think the cost of a 2nd account was worth it for 3 months. I'm hoping to have 4 level 60 Alliance characters and at least 2 level 60 Horde characters with a 19 and 29 twink for both factions when all is said and done. I'll comment more on the program when I'm done at the end of September.

Oh yeah the Zebra mount is huge and has a big ass. My Gnome looks a little goofy riding it.

PUG's (Pick Up Groups)

I have to say that my current lifestyle choice, playing WoW, has introduced me to a rich and often obscure lexicon. Not more than a week ago I was listening to a podcast where they mentioned a PUG; one Google search later I knew what it meant. Put quite simply, a pick up group, or pug, is when someone collects a bunch of more or less random people for a run, often through an instance, or sometimes just to a scary and dangerous place where it's good to have backup. This is opposed to doing a guild run, where a known group of people set out for the same purpose.

Well this past weekend I had the opportunity to get involved in no less than 2 pugs, and I thought I would briefly discuss my experiences. I think it's safe to say that I saw both the good and the bad, but I'll start with the bad one.

Pug # 1 was what I would define as bad, and mainly because of one individual. It was a pretty rough group, from what I could tell thrown together on a whim. I was hanging out in Southshore, smelting a bit of ore when all of a sudden I had group invitation pop up on my screen. I ignored it for a few minutes while I worked until finally someone came on and actually talked to me and asked if I was interested. There were two relatively low levels, a couple of 29's who wanted to be run through the Scarlett Monastery and they were looking for a tank. Being that me and Darcy had done this one a few weeks ago so I knew the terrain and was familiar with the drops I figured why not, it'll be good way to kill an hour or so.

Turned out they didn't really need me, they already had a 65 Death Knight and a 69 Warrior along for the ride. Now that in itself wasn't bad, made the combat a little short, but at least there was very little danger. The problem came in the fact that the organizer, a 29 Druid couldn't keep out of the way and kept killing herself in fights she should have stayed away from; by the end of the third hour of this I was getting very sick of seeing her typing 'HLP', 'HLP ME', HLP' 'ME PLZ', followed by 'Rez plz'. Turns out my Paladin was mainly along as a mobile Resurrection machine, and although I like to help I wasn't getting much to pay for the mana I was burning through. She also made a habit of needing all the higher level items, whether she could use them or not. Then there was the constant bitching, ordering buffs, telling people how to play, and cranking at the Gnome wizard because he was disenchanting the few things he did actually get to greed; if it gets in your bags it's your stuff and you do what you want with it. The final straw for me was at 3:00 in the morning when she was not only telling me which aura to use, but telling me I had the wrong seal open. I said "I gotta go." and hearthed home.

After that I was leery when I got another request the next night. However this one got off on the right foot by whispering to me, asking if I was busy and wondering if I'd be interested in some tanking as they were putting together a group to go to Zul'Farrak. I don't like to discount anything on one bad experience so I said yes, good choice it turned out. I was in the upper end of this group but not by much, there was a 52 rogue my 50 Paladin, along with a Hunter, Rogue, and a Druid all in the high 40's. My job was simple, go pick fights and keep the bad guys busy while the rogue and the hunter did them dirt, Tanking in it's purest form, and this time it worked. The Druid stayed in the back and healed me, leaving me open to agro and hit. At the end of the battle, the high items were greeded and no complaints about anyone getting anything; if I didn't need it I passed on it and I saw the others doing the same thing. When the run was finished and all quest items were had and the Hydra was dead we all said thanks and parted our ways, better for the experience, both real and virtual.

As a result I don't think there's anything wrong with pug's, however it boils down to is this:

1. Be respectful. Ask people to join, don't shove stuff in their faces.

2. Be considerate. Need should only be a last resort for agreed upon items. Don't wait until it's over and say "Sorry, I needed that, thanks."

3. Be helpful. Give a heal or a buff, don't tell people when to do it or how.

4. Just be nice. Don't yell at the party or tell them how or when to do stuff.

That's about it, the stuff they used to teach us in Kindergarden, that's all it takes. I've been invited on another instance with the second group and I'm hoping to be able to make it. I guess it's much the same with most things in life, it isn't the item or even the action that's bad, it's the people that cause the problems.

Let it never be said that I have a problem with pug's.

WoW Patch 3.2 Installation Problem

So I sat down last night to play a wee bit of WoW and lo and behold I was told that I needed to apply the newest patch before I could start my game. So, I figured, OK, this patch is supposed to have some good stuff going for it, I may as well get down to it.

So the patch started downloading and installing and I occupied myself for the next twenty minutes, not bad considering how long some patches take to download and apply, with reading the release notes. I won't go in to great detail on them, mainly since I still haven't been able to play the game with the new patch (foresahdowing anyone?), but some stuff looks cool, such as the new mount system; a mount at 20 instead of 30 and an epic at 40, cool, and a 1.5 second cast for a mount instead of 3, even cooler. On the other side of the coin I can now use my Paladins Exorcism in PVP, but the cast time has gone up to 1.5 seconds; that's a pisser since I don't really care all that much for PVP and the instant cast on that powerful spell has made it a mainstay of my heavy artillery, but whatever. Like I said, I still haven't had the chance to try it out.

So 20 minutes later the process fails, gives me a message about being unable to delete and rename files in the update process. No problem, I know what the problem is, since I'm on Windows 7 all I need to do is right click the application, select "Run as administrator', and away we go, so I quit the application and do just that. Another 20 minutes of reading release notes pass, and another failure occurs.

I was actually getting a little concerned by this point as I've been at my computer for over a half hour and I still can't log in to WoW; did I mention that you can't access the servers until you apply the patch? 'Cause yeah, you need to get the patch applied before they'll let you play. No biggie though, I've done tech support for a living, and I'm currently working in QA for a software developer, I can work through this. I went straight to the .exe and launched it with a right click and 'Run As....' directly, confident in the success to come.

By this time I had read all the release notes and was bored by them so I picked up my book to pass the time, I started reading Moby Dick recently if you care, interesting read. I was approaching the church service by the time I got the error message again. Well, now it was time to get serious and do what no man likes to do, read the message and possible take the advice of others. They suggested a Repair using the built in tool, so away we go. It ran and checked the previous patches and said everything was good. To save time I'll now just detail the next steps, each ending with a "Unable to apply patch" message:

- Google search, they recommended what i tried already.

- Delete the existing Patch.mpq and run repair. This was my favorite step of the evening as it required me to re-download all the previously downloaded and working patches to get back to the point of failure.

- Download 3.2 patch files separately, drop in containing folder and attempt start up again.

- Run Background loader as administrator.

- Another Google search, nothing new in the last hour.

- Run WoW.exe instead of Launcher.exe (as admin).

- Tracked down temp patch files and ran installer as admin.

- Copy WoW installation folder from second partition onto main partition, hoping that it was a rights issue.

- Rinse and repeat all steps above with new installation.

By this time 4 hours had passed, and I had done nothing but curse the name Blizzard and read the first 100 pages of Moby Dick. So I figured fine, I'll go to bed, get my 6 hours sleep and start again tomorrow.

Lying in bed, grinding my teeth, contemplating failure points in this process I came up with an idea, is it my AV? Side note here, I've been using ESET NOD32 for several years and have loved it up until I started working in Windows 7. 7 required a new version, which has plagued me with firewall issues, prompting me to reconsider my choice in personal AV, but nothing I had acted on yet. Further contemplation reminded me of another issue I had not mentioned as yet: during my first attempt I got a message from ESET stating that they didn't trust the files I was downloading. I clicked past the message, turned off the AV and proceeded with my evening. Could this be the root of the problems? I though no, how could it? I even rebooted the computer and turned off the firewall and main process before continuing the update, so how could it?

The next morning I thought, lets put this to rest. I turned off all start up processes, using the good old msconfig and 'Disable start up items' option. After the reboot I started the process again and went for my shower. Later, all shiny, clean, and optimistic, I checked again and was unsure if I should feel vindicated in my initial instincts or contemplate swearing a little louder and harsher (not an easy thing to accomplish at this point) as I found the same error message waiting for me, 'Unable to apply patch'. Obvioulsy the AV wasn't at fault.

As I got dressed, yes I was naked in the last part of the story, stick that in your pipe and smoke it, I considered things a bit more. True, I hadn't allowed the process to start, but maybe it's sneakier than that. I went back in my fort, now fully dressed, and decided to remove the AV software altogether. Hell, I wanted a new one anyway! Half way through the uninstall I received an error stating that the process was locked and would need to be closed before removal could continue. I opened the Task Manager and saw nothing, what the hell? I clicked the 'Show all processes" button and what do I see running? Nothing less than ekern.exe, the ESET core process! Those bastards got it in anyway. Stopped it, finished the uninstall, and ran the patch one last time.

Let me tell you, I've never been a strong man when it comes to the necessities in life, things like Video Games, Boobies, and Potato Chips , so how I was able to walk away from that glowing 'PLAY' button after the patch installed I'll never know; all I know is I did.

That's right, it was the the AV, keeping the process from finishing by quarantining and locking down the patch files ,even after i told it not too. Not Blizzard, god bless 'em, not Microsoft, thanks Bill, and not even my outdated hardware, running at specs it was never meant to, yay me, it was some 3rd party piece of shit software I should have cleaned out months ago.

I still don't know if I should give a war cry in triumph or cry in frustration at all of it. Maybe I'll give it some thought tonight while riding my epic mount in WoW.

Machinima

I suspect anyone who has gone to youtube knows what machinima is but in case you haven't it's basically when someone creates 3-D computer animate shorts by rendering images off video games: think Robot Chicken with computer animation using video game characters.

Initially I thought this was stupid and for the most part a waste of time, for the people making the vidoes and the people watching them. However, after my daughter forced me to watch a bizzilion different videos I've changed my mind. I think machinima is a legitimate creative medium that is frankly in the golden age as anyone with a computer, time, and vision can do it. Meaning it's free of corporate bullshit and done by people who just want to create something. Does that mean it's all good? Well no because really the bulk of it is frankly, just stupid, but then again most movies coming out of Hollywood are stupid and watching machinima is free unlike going to the theater. I've seen nothing that's blown me away but I think in the right hands someone could.

Anyway there are a lot of possibilities with this medium but I think comedy spoofs work the best and the following are a few of the machinima creations that made me giggle. I do apologize for them all using warcraft models but I tend to focus WoW machinima being I'm Blizzard's bitch.

Stacey's Mom Video Spoof

Thrall's Crib

Rogues Do It from Behind Video

If you know of any awesome examples of machinima feel free to comment.

"Muscle March" or "Man, The Japanese Just Keep Getting More and More Weird"

That's right, just what everyone needed, another reason to scratch their heads and say "Wow, how did these people get so messed up?". Words cannot begin to describe this, it must simply be watched:

Of course on the other hand, it's entirely possible that I just don't spend enough time playing games that feature God masturbating!

Left 4 Dead Naked Zoey Mod

OK, so I'll be the first to admit that taking up WoW has had an impact on my life, less sleep, less time with family, not reading anything anymore, and, perhaps most egregious of all, no other games being played. =But hold on, there's good news, I think I found the answer to that little problem right here.

That's right boys, Zoey will now run through the game, as well as your mind, cleansing the earth one bullet at a time, naked.

I've been thinking about playing some left 4 dead again, seems like this is as good a reason as any, and better than most, to start!

Top 100 Villians

I recently ran across this and thought I'd share it. It's actually a surprisingly long read and quite interesting. There was a few I didn't know, and even better, some I did know about but always wondered about.

For what it's worth, my opinion on the best villain? Herr Starr from Preacher. It was something else to watch Ennis increasingly drop that evil bastard further and further into a pit of despair and insanity, one piece at a time. Literally, one piece at a time.

I won't waste anymore of your time though, I'd suggest saving it for the list.

Robs Rant on Reading

Everyone always talks about "The Classics" and how everyone has to read certain books in their lifetime, such as Moby Dick, The Great Gatsby, War and Peace, so on and so forth.... Last year I even saw a list of the 100 greatest books, and it begs the question, why does great == boring? On that list I had read maybe 20 of the books, but for every one that I finished there were two others that I had started and couldn't force myself to finish. And, of the ones I actually read, only about a half of them were worth the time spent. I'll admit to reading them, but I'll sure tell you which ones weren't worth it.

Don't get me wrong, some of this stuff is good, I liked Moby Dick for instance, Mark Twain and Jules Verne made for good childhood reading, and sometimes a sweeping story is a good read just for the complexity of the characters, but unless you're one of the pretentious overblown pricks who sips Starbucks coffee and bitches about the state of modern agriculture simply because everyone else drinks Starbucks and you don't even know the difference between a herbicide and pesticide, let alone why ranchers need to use antibiotics on their herds, then there really isn't much enjoyment in these literary masterpieces. I mean, there isn't any enjoyment regardless of how pretentious you are, but with pretension comes the prerequisite of not being able to think for yourself and just do what every other pretentious prick does (I was going to say "think" again instead of "does", but that would have been silly).

Now, why the big rant you ask? Well, sometimes it just feels good to bitch, but I'd also like to point out that there are options to crap like The Great Gatsby (as God as my witness I don't know how I made it through that book, I'm rich and have lots of parties because I have unrequited love, wah, wah, wah!), the least of which being video game books.

A few years back I read a four book series based on the original DOOM games and they were good. If you played and enjoyed the games then these books are right up you're alley, it's like you're back in the game, except this time you have motivation to kill beyond the possession of a rocket launcher and plasma gun. I recently started reading the books based on the Warcraft games and you know what? They're good stories. OK, they don't have the high brow themes of The Lord of the Rings, but they do have interesting characters doing things that I'm interested in. As a matter of fact I'll probably read the Diablo and Starcraft books when I'm done this too. Sidenote: This technically regarded as blasphemy in the geek/nerd world, but the Lord of the Rings books could have seriously benefited from a good editor. The fact that I still considered these books good is a testament to how amazing the stories actually are, I mean seriously, how much do I need to know about the hair on a Hobbits foot? However, it's impossible to not respect how such a grand sweeping saga can be based on the simple theme of time, no start, no finish, just a continuation with events occurring throughout, none of which can compete with the passage of time.

My point here is that reading is good and it should be a good thing to do. School seems to be a dichotomy of ideas, I grew up with teachers saying "Reading is good!" but then giving me the most horrible crap to read. I don't care what anyone says, Shakespeare doesn't make for good reading, it's a lot of work for little gain. True, most, if not all, of our modern plots and stories are heavily influenced by his writing, but that just means you can get this stuff without the anachronistic language and behavior. If you want to read this, great, go ahead, but damnit, do it because you enjoy it. If i hadn't had a strong ingrained love of reading, and 2 hours on a school bus with nothing else to do, school would have crushed the reading bug in me.

I for one am going to stop hiding my love of entertaining books, if it's a good story that makes me feel like I've actually used a few hours of my life and not wasted time laboring, that's good enough for me. I'd suggest everyone try the same thing and read something entertaining, you never quite know what you'll learn.

Watch for a list of Robs Best Books, coming to a blog near you! Same BatBlog, Same BatBlogger!

A Newcomers Perspective on WoW

I figure by this stage anyone who is interested in WoW will have given it a shot, but I'm also assuming there are at least a few people out there like me, or at least vaguely similar. I have thought about giving it a shot over the years but never really did anything about it until a couple weeks ago.

Now the question is why didn't I try? Not because I have a dislike for Warcraft. I was seriously addicted to all things Warcraft through the late 90's; I would even say this addiction was at least partially responsible for the end of my first marriage, but I'm better off without that anyway. It's not because I don't want to spend hours in front of my computer, I mean I'm not even going to pretend that's a possibility. And, it's not because I have an aversion to role playing, I've even spent time playing old school paper and dice RPG's and enjoyed the experience. I would have to say that it's because it was such a big phenomena that I figured it was all hype, marketing, and shallow people doing what everyone else was doing that I wasn't going to waste my time and money on it. I am nothing if not fiercely individualistic!

Well the day came that my buddy Darcy got involved. Did I say involved? I meant addicted. Did I say addicted? I meant to say morbidly infatuated on what I can only assume is a chemically imbalanced level. I'm serious, I got a little concerned that he was going to start asking me to drink Kool-Aid in the name of WoW. But, when he wanted me to give it a try so we could take advantage of the triple xp recruit a friend initiative I figured, I'd give it a try. I mean, hey, I like Kool-Aid.

Well a couple weeks later I have to say that I'm thoroughly addicted to good old World of Warcrack. I spend all my waking moments, and a lot that should be spent sleeping, looking for people with exclamation marks floating over their heads, and finding out how many Wombats I need to kill to get to the next level. It's hard to say why the game is so addictive, but it is. It's very compelling, drawing you back in for the next quest, level, or encounter.

I think for me it appeals to my goal oriented hyper focusing personality. No matter what you do there's another goal, bigger Wombats, more Wombats, or uglier Wombats to kill. I need the next level of armor, I need the bigger axe or hammer, and I need the next level of XP. Why? So that I can go out and find bigger Wombats to kill so I can get an even bigger hammer, or heavier armor. That's all there is to it, a need to keep playing, it's like an Ethernet delivered heroin addiction.

I guess the moral of the story is that sometimes group mania is OK. I still refuse to get involved in most crap that sweep the world. As god as my witness I will never Twitter and I barely pay attention to Facebook for those very reasons. But I guess when something is good it's just plain good, and WoW is good.

As long as you like killing never ending swarms of Wombats with a hammer.

WoW: The Test of Righteousness Quest

Last night I finished off this quest with my good buddy Rob and noticed that it's not entirely clear what you need to do and where you need to go: you can figure it out by piecing together forum posts and carefully reading the quest instructions. However, the reality is that you want to fast track your way through this baby and get your Paladin hands on Verigan's Fist to smash some NPC and PvP skulls. Which means you will probably skim the instructions and cause yourself some grief by having to add to the already surmountable travel time surrounding this quest. Therefore, I'm going to provide you .. yes you with some to the point instructions and advice.

When to Start:
I suspect you could solo all of this with the exception of the Deadmines peice as a level 25ish Paladin. However, Rob and I teamed up for this run and we both were level 27-28 Paladins making the quest time consuming but pretty much a cake walk: with the exception of "someone" using Turn Evil in Shadowfang Keep causing a female ghost to run everywhere and inform every elite npc we were there and that they should come and stomp on us. Other than that one painful death the only issue we encountered was adding travel time by not realizing certain side quests need to be picked up and turned in to accomplish our end goals.

The Quest Objectives:
Alright this is a gathering quest at the end of chain that starts when you click on the blue "?" over Duthorian Rall's head at the Cathedral in Stormwind. This becomes available at level 20. After following the quest chain you will eventually talk to Jordan Stilwell just outside the Iron Forge gates who will promise to make you Verigan's Fist if you gather all the stuff he needs to build it:

1) Purified Core Gem: found at Blackfathom Deeps in Ashenvale
2) White Stone Oak: found at Deadmines in Westfall
3) Jordan's Refined Ore Shipment: found at Mo'Grosh Stronghold in Loch Modan
4) Jordan's Smithing Hammer: found at Shadowfang Keep in Silverpine Forest

You pretty much have to go to every area accessible to level 20-30s in the game and I feel for you if you don't have the flight paths. I suspect that anyone playing alliance is looking at the long run to Shadowfang Keep as it's in Horde leveling territory. To get to there I would start at Wetlands run north and enter Arathi Highlands via the Don Modr path, run west across the Arathi and enter Hillsbrad Foothills, run west right across Hillsbrad and finally get to Silverpine Forest where you will find the Shadowfang Keep instance. I highly recommend taking the short detours to the Refuge Pointe in Arathi and South Shore in Hillsbrad to pick up the flight paths. Anyway, I'm going to suggest the order listed just because that might have made sense for us if we had followed it: sadly we never. I'm also suggesting you make Iron Forge your home till your done this quest.

Step 1: Get the Purified Core Gem
- First step you have to go to Auberdine in Darkshore and get a Corrupt Core Gem quest from Thundris Windweaver. If you forget this you can kill Nagas all day and not get a drop.
- We then flew to Astranaar and ran to Blackfathom Deeps on the north west coast, Zoram Strand. In retro spec it probably would have been just as fast to run from Auberdine along the coast.
- You don't need to enter the instance to get the drop. In fact we both got the corrupt core gem pretty quick walking in the tunnels and wiping out evil on our way to the instance.
- Go back to Auberdine and turn in the quest you picked up from Thundris (wish my mom had named me that) who will then purify the core gem for you. We forgot to do this and had to make the long haul all the way back just to get the gem purified.
- Grab a boat to Stormwind and make your way to Westfall for the next step.

Step 2: Pilfer the White Stone Oak lumber
- This is the one step that I know I couldn't solo as a mid 20 level toon primarily thanks to: Rhahk'Zor and his stupid archer friends. Anyway I assume you can make it to Deadmines allright on your own but just too note the entrance is in one of the buildings found at Moonbrook in Westfalls.
- Make your way to the instance, none of the npcs should prove much of challenge in 2 or 4 groups just don't get cocky and agro an entire room. Enough 17 level npcs will take down a mid 20 level Paladin. Same follows when you enter the instance but you should find it doable until you meet Rhahk'Zore. Two can take him down pretty fast so kill him and you make your way through one more section of the instance opening the 2nd door. You should see a bunch of elite woodworking Goblins one of these will drop the White Stone Lumber but I would suggest trying to only pull 1 or 2 at a time.
- Once you got the lumber you can try and finish the instance or simply hearth yourself to Iron Forge

Step 3: Find Jordan's Refined Ore Shipment
- Assuming you hearthed to Iron Forge make your way to Thelsamar in Loch Modan and pick up Bailor Stonehand's quest that sends you to Mo'Grosh Stronghold to get the ore shipment. I can vouch for the fact that if you don't get this quest you can not pick up the shipment at Mo'Grosh and we had to run there twice because we didn't realize we had to pick up a sub-quest in Thelsamar.
- Make your way to Mo'Grosh Stronghold and you'll find the shipment behind a tree at co-ordinates 72,22. Grab them and make your way back to Bailor to turn in his quest and get credit for the Ore Shipment.
- Make your way to Shadowfang Keep using the instructions I detailed above.

Step 4: Retrieve Jordan's Smithing Hammer
- Enter Shadowfang Keep and take a right into the room close to the entrance working your way to the jail cells slowly pulling and killing the elite npcs. I soloed this with the Blood Elf Paladin so know it's possible as long as you take your time. I would suggest you kill everything in the opening stage of the instance.
- Once you get to the jail cells open the one with the human mage and ask him to open the door to the next stage of the instance.
- When you enter this stage of the instance Jordan's Hammer is in the stables down the stairs and straight ahead. Hug the wall and try to proactively pull the npc's that you think you can't get by without agroing. We died here mainly due to the liberal use of the Turn Evil spell but if you take your time and carefully pull npcs on the say you can make it.
-Enter the stables and note, DO NOT USE THE CONCENTRATION SPELL IN THE STABLES. The stables are full of elite fel-horses who will leave you alone as long as you leave them alone. Apparently and area damage spell isn't leaving them alone and they will attack you and probably kill you.
- You should see the wow twinkle locating the hammer grab it and hearth your way to Iron Forge (providing and hour as passed since the last hearth).

Enjoy your smoking blue hammer. I'm personally looking forward to trying it out in the Arathi Battle grounds tonight.