WoW One Year Anniversary

To commemorate the event, Blizzard has setup a community timeline showcasing some of the more interesting user-created tidbits of the past year. Many years from now, gamers will look back at 2005 and one name will stand out among all others. Of course I'm talking about the one and only.....Leeroy Jenkins! If you've got 10 minutes, check out "WoW Is a Feeling" and the saga of Captain Placeholder.

US Propaganda Comics Debut

While tooling around on The Engine today, I found some people discussing the US Propaganda Comics and how we're trying to win the hearts of Middle East children with them. After destroying their schools, towns, houses and medical facilities...nothing says "we're really your friends" like a comic book.

Sony Hates Your Computer

Sony/BMG Music infected millions of our computers with spyware. We've heard all about it and SHAME ON THEM...but anyways...now for something completely useful:

>> Here's the full list of infected CDs<<

Another Promising Waste Of Time

Although I won't be visiting Azeroth again in the near future (been there, done that, cramped my hands up trying to beat the quest that buys the t-shirt), this game review sounds very promising. I'm an old school Dungeons & Dragons fan (the secret code for lonely geeks and dorks everywhere) and am looking forward to some of the changes this MMORPG promises.

Xbox 360 Crashes & Blueprints

Slash Dot posts a few interesting articles about several crashes already reported with the Xbox 360. It's also good to see that Xbox Scene has already posted the blueprints needed to take that puppy apart. I smell mod chips in the near future!

India's Feelings Are Hurt

Boo hoo, cry me a river! Seriously though, I don't agree with people taking out their frustrations on call center employees. That's no different than the a-holes who go into Blockbuster and scream at the teenagers who work there, because they were charged a $1 rewind fee. I'm just as upset about outsourcing as the next guy but screaming at the people in India isn't going to fix anything. It's decision makers here in America that need your protests. These are the people who are to blame. India is just looking for work. We're the ones that keep giving it to them.

The Madness Begins

All you have to do is head on over to Joystiq to see what I mean. Xbox 360 this and Xbox 360 that. Paris Hilton and Justin Timberlake got 360's even though the rest of the world has to suffer a shortage. People are announcing engagements at 360 events. All of the "hip" channels will be having wall to wall video game programming all next week. I warned you all. This is merely the first sign. More shall follow. There....is....no....sanctuary!

Superman Returns Teaser

Not the best teaser in the world...but you should definitely see it. Why? Because it's freaking Superman and he deserves your respect. I really want this movie to succeed. I'm not fully behind the costume but I'll give Singer some leeway. I'm extremely impressed with what he did for the X-Men. I'm really impressed with Spider-Man and how it has turned out. Batman Begins is one of the best movies I've seen in a while and was my favorite movie this summer. I don't know guys; I just love to see these American icons get the respect and star treatment they deserve.

Xbox 360 = Good BUT...

Xbox 360 games = CRAP.

Thats right. Im a Microsoft fan boy Ill be the first to admit it. However I think the Xbox 360's game lineup is TERRIBLE. There are only 2 games which are not sequels of an existing franchise or ports from current gen consoles. No Halo, No fighting game and NO RPG means I wont be buying one anytime soon. When Chromehounds and Gears of War comes out Ill be the first in line with my money out but till MS gets decent games out there Im unimpressed.

Gamespot has posted several reviews of 360 games and the verdict so far is Good but not great. The 4 or 5 games they've reviewed are averaging about 8.5/10 BUT no game has gotten a 9.0 or higher yet. The original Xbox started out with Halo getting a 9.6 (one of the highest rated games ever) and every other game getting 8.0 or below.

Old Grandma Hardcore

This is a woman after my own heart. If you only click on one link today, make it this one.

Pop Culture for $1000

Even Jeopardy digs World of Warcraft. What is wrong with these college students, man? They must be spending entirely too much time at keggers and engaging in premarital sexual relations.

Only six more days...

...until Microsoft drops the big one. If all the rumors of shortages are true, then you can expect mass hysteria come Tuesday. I'm sure there will be riots, fist fights, people selling systems on eBay for thousands of dollars, and idiots willing to buy them. You thought Tickle Me Elmo was bad. You ain't seen nothing yet!

I'd be lying if I said I wasn't intrigued by the idea of camping in front of Best Buy to get a system and then just reselling it for a quick profit. Isn't capitalism grand? Seriously though, I'm not really interested in getting one at this time. $400 is a lot of money to drop on a system and lately I've been more interested in PC gaming. That money could be a nice down payment on a new PC or could go towards a new video card for my system.

I think the system has a lot of potential with 3 CPUs and I can't wait to see what kind of games come out for it. I actually had the opportunity to play the system in Wal-Mart and Best Buy recently. Wal-Mart had their TV at such a ridiculous angle, that it actually caused me physical suffering to stand there and try to play the damn thing. I screwed around with King Kong a little bit and wasn't really impressed with it. Noticed quite a few jagged lines, plus playing that kind of game in a well lit environment is just a bad idea. Tinkered with Call of Duty 2 and was pleasantly surprised. I'm really intrigued by the A.I. in this game. As soon as you pop your head up, you're getting shot. It's pretty intense. Of course, the pain of playing grew to be too much for me. I had a much better experience at Best Buy the next day. I actually played all the way through the Call of Duty 2 demo and if I was getting the system, I'd pick up this game. I can't stress how intense the fighting is and the demo just sparkles in my opinion. Definitely a very good game for showing off what the 360 is capable of.

The New Alliance Race

is not the Kool-Aid man, unfortunately. It's a shame, too. His racial passive of being hopped up on suagr all the time would have come in handy.

I'd Rather Be Gaming

One of these days I'm going to get that on a bumper sticker. Anyway, since we're on the subject, I thought I would let everyone know what I've been up to recently. I just bought another 512 megs of RAM for my PC. He's now running on a full gig and we're both very happy about it. I even broke down and bought a new keyboard and mouse:

Saitek Eclipse Keyboard
I bought this keyboard mostly for the backlit keys. Now I can chat with my party members in style. I can touch type for the most part but it helps to see the keys every now and then. Plus it looks really cool and goes with the overall aesthetics I try to maintain in my office/inner sanctum. The keyboard is a lot sturdier than it appears at first glance. The adjustable wrist rest is a nice addition but isn't the best solution. I'm not a big fan of hard plastic wrist rests. It does its job though and if you don't like it, you can always take it off. All in all, I'm fairly impressed with the keyboard and I'm glad I bought it. Of course, this is coming from a guy who doesn't really use WASD for playing games. If you're just looking for a solid keyboard with backlit keys, then I highly recommend this bad boy.

Logitech MX518 Mouse
I was initially drawn to this mouse because of its look but being able to adjust the sensitivity and the additional buttons on it really sold it for me. I'm sure there are better mice out there for gaming if you're really hardcore about it. For example, the Logitech G5 has adjustable weights and a higher resolution. It's also not very pretty, in my opinion, and it's more expensive. Do I really need adjustable weights in a mouse? Anyway, I'm really happy with the MX518. I'm still getting used to it but I think I've finally nailed down all of the custom resolutions I want. Being able to switch the sensitivity on the fly is awesome and I don't know how I ever lived without back and forward buttons.

So what I have been playing? World of Warcraft, of course. I'm sure the game gets old at some point but I haven't reached that point yet. I'm thoroughly enjoying my dwarf hunter, and I've made it a personal mission of mine to collect as many animals as I can. I'm working on that Tiny Crimson Whelpling right now. That along with exploring, questing, fishing, engineering, and first aid keeps me pretty busy. I'm even running a custom interface because I needed more buttons. How geeky is that? With my interface fully tweaked and the additional memory, WoW and I are very tight. I actually would be playing it right now if the servers weren't down. It looks like they've updated the launcher, which is nice. It's more like AC2's launcher now with news, updates, etc. Now might be a good time to get back into the game, too. With the new expansion on the horizon, things are moving on up....to the east side....to a deluxe apartment in the skyyyyyy.

I recently had a little birthday shindig at Dink's Cafe, and I think a good time was had by all. I know I had a great time. Before I knew it, five hours were gone and it was time to go home. The highlights of the evening were playing Half-Life 2 Deathmatch and Shadow of the Colossus. We played Deathmatch in a map that is basically an upgraded version of the Facility from Goldeneye. You have not fragged until you've killed your opponent with a bathroom sink. The gravity gun in this game is incredible. I'm dead set on buying Half-Life 2. I downloaded the demo and it's nice but I could really use a graphics upgrade. I sure hope I didn't make Santa's naughty list this year.

I was right about Shadow of the Colossus. If you own a PS2, you owe it to yourself to check this game out. I bought it and I don't even own a PS2. I took it to Dink's so we could play it there. I've only played a couple of games on the PS2 and I haven't played my PS1 in forever, so it took me a while to get used to the controller. The camera in the game can be frustrating at times, and I was a little disappointed with the graphics on the main character. But that's my only major complaints. The rest of the game is a sight to behold. The landscape is gorgeous and riding to each of the colossi is a treat for the eyes. In case you don't know, the premise of the game is that its basically 16 boss battles. You may have some platform jumping or terrain navigation between each colossi but that's it. It's pretty much find a specific colossus, kill that colossus, start back at the temple, rinse and repeat. You won't be fighting any minor characters in this one. It's a very straightforward kind of game but that isn't necessarily a bad thing. The fun in this game comes from finding each of the colossi and then trying to find a way to get on it. You have to attack certain weak points on them to take them down and this is where the game is at its best. I may have to break down and buy a system to finish it.

For my birthday, my wife got me X-Men Legends II: Rise of Apocalypse for Xbox. I've only spent about an hour with it but so far I like what I see. I never played the first game although I found the idea appealing. Command a squad of mutants and fight the forces of evil with action and RPG elements. I've only completed the tutorial mission and haven't even started playing the "actual" game. They don't hold back the good stuff though. After the tutorial, I was able to create my own team and even choose alternate costumes for some of the characters. Narrowing down my mutant choices to four was really tough but I think have a solid team. If this was only an action game, that would probably be enough to sell the idea. They took it up a notch though by adding RPG elements. You can level up your mutants, equip them, and you actually have stats that I'm sure mean something. I was surprised to find a trivia game in there as well and was even more surprised to find that I don't know as much about the X-Men as I thought I did. I may break down and actually buy the first game, since it's only like $20 now.

Long post over. Nothing more to see here. Move along folks.

Aquaman Heading to TV

The people responsible for Smallville are working on a pilot for a new series featuring Aquaman. Of course, the show will never actually mention that he's Aquaman. He'll probably just be some awkward teenager who doesn't fit in and is always angry at the land dwellers. I'm really interested in seeing how they plan to pull off the scenes with him talking to marine life. This is the WB we're talking about here. This could quickly go from fame to lame if it's not handled properly.

And I know it's been a while since I've posted. I'll be making up for it later today. I can guarantee it!

WoW Fusion....Nostalgic Gaming?

Nah, it's cool and you're right...World Of Warcraft was a great game for sure. We all have our little gems from the past we like to break out every now and then...I just re-installed Unreal Tournament 2004 again and have been trying out all the different mods that been released in my absence. Plus with a modded Xbox, it's easy to "extendedly rent" all the new releases I can possibly stand. It keeps my game on enough so that I don't spend my hours standing around Best Buy drooling all over their display Xbox 360s.

But just to be clear...you are the first person to ever warn me against "retro" gaming. Remember when you went back and tried to play Decent or Tomb Raider on your old school Playstation? Holy crap...those are some big ass pixels!!!!

PS I'm halfway done with my mages 15K Geomancer Armor in Guild Wars, so I can be a l337 m4g3 who pwnz0r j00 h0bo 4rs3 too ya know...

If for some odd reason I don't have my hands on a new Xbox soon, maybe I'll join ya in Azeroth again, but while we're in the retro spirit...I'm hearring good things about that new graphical expansion pack for Asheron's Call 1. That's right. I went there. I'm thinking Battle Mage...the one game in MMO history that mages weren't designed to be gimped out bitches.

The addiction got me again...and it was well worth it!

Joe will probably call me a sell out for this but I gave in. I just couldnt resist any longer. Thats right boys and girls:

I reactivated my World of Warcraft account.

Now I always loved this game. It was so much fun to play (even with some of the problems...like hi level raiding). The new content such as battlegrounds and new dungeons are AWESOME. Since I played Guild Wars for a while Im comparing it to WoW now that Im playing again. Personally I think Guild Wars is a truly amazing game but Ive realized that WoW is more of my kind of game. I guess Im just a loot whore who likes to get uber gear and pwnZ0r fools with it. Well back to the land of Azeroth for me; we're taking on Ragnaros tonight and Ive been wanting a piece of that fool for a while now (my guild has killed him several times so Im looking forward to seeing him go down).

Electronics...Fragile? You bet.

So I was at work the other day slacking off as usual when I decided I needed to go do something away from my desk (Im sure it was something to waste time till the end of the day). As I got up and rounded the corner of my desk I accidently slammed my hip into the corner and CRUNCH....

Desk: 1
Cell Phone: 0

Yeah I shattered BOTH LCD's on my phone and the damn thing is totally ruined. I can still received incoming calls just fine but I cant dial or use any of the fancy features like oohh maybe looking up phone numbers. So off I go to drop money I dont have on a new phone which will probably take me another 6 months to learn.

Isnt technology wonderful.

Finally! Something Useful From NASA

It's about time too. Instead of monkeying around with 30 year old space shuttles that have chunks of foam flying off them during launches, how about making something that could prevent a mass extinction event.

Earth From A Desktop

Ever wanted to tour the world using real-time, satellite photos at your fingertips? I've got a couple goodies for anyone who just digs the planet Earth. These programs are much different that the old black and white, click to zoom photos we had a couple years ago and better yet, they're FREE.

I've been using Google Earth for weeks now. It's awesome and when flying down to my house, you can actually see my car in the driveway. Some of the cities have 3D mapping on the buildings and the driving directions and message boards are great freaking fun. You can download new locations and sightseeing locations from Google. I use this program a lot for work and even more for playtime.

For an even more advanced experience, check out NASAs World Wind 1.3. Now we're getting into updated terrain mapping and current images of disasters and even 3D moon maps. You need the 3D to play with this one, but it's great if you have plenty of hours to kill hovering over terrain maps of the planet.