Flight of the Shaman

So after much saving, selling, grinding, herb gathering, potion making, etc.. I finally saved up the cash to purcharse my flying mount. I chose the Blue Windrider, and now I soar above the desolation of Outland free from the strife of wandering mobs and walking.

Now its time to grind for some PVP weapons, or maybe some Reputation rewards.. Scryers anyone? But now actually.. my poor priest, who is still level 60, is crying out for some leveling...

Photos are up!

So, I have been expanding my ever-so-useful Google Account to now include Picassa Photo albums... a very cool tool that integrates very well with Blogger, GMail, and makes it very easy to upload/modify/share pictures. Lets you add captions and lets people leave comments on them. Highly recommended. (though if you have Blogger, you already know that..) :P

I have a public album of my Warmachine painted figs up there now, so you can take a look. Most were painted a year or so ago, and I do say I have gotten better since... Hopefully soon I will get a Hordes folder up there too as well as more Warmachine pics. (I gotta take the pictures first though...)

You can see it here.

Also have some really awesome Star Wars photographs up there as well, taken by Cedric Delvaux.

I'll be putting more photos up as I get around to it..

MTFBWY, till later.

returning from the nether...

Hello everybody! (not that anyone actually reads this thing...but if you do, let me know)

So... I completely failed at keeping up with my New Year's post (see below) and have not updated anything! But, I am still here, and I do plan on keeping up with this more. I just need to find the right rhythm... and find some things to talk about. (which is always the problem with me... I guess I find my life too boring to talk about most of the time - not alot exciting happens to me here in Bally, ya' know?)

Things are going well. Work is as it has always been. We seem to be busier than we usually are, which makes the days go by faster. (and is , of course, good for the company...) I am still no where near where I need to be financially to get my own place.. but I am committed to moving in somewhere in the Fall. So that means not alot of spending... and alot of bill paying and saving. (neither of which I am good at) I will have to cut back on the Star Wars collectibles, I have some stuff pre-ordered... (stuff from SideShow and Gentle Giant) but I am gonna cut myself off after those. I will be grabbing up some more Hordes models, but I am almost finished with my army until the new expansion releases. So the rest of the cash will go to Mr. Credit Card and Mr. Bank Account and hopefully I will have enough by summer's end to make the move and purchase a vehicle.

GenCon throws another wrench... it costs money and comes at the end of the summer. But the trip is already partially paid-for; and I wouldn't miss GenCon for anything. This year's trip was a bit "up in the air" for a while. My dear friend Jason is currently living in Santiago, Chile. (The blog of his South American adventures can be found here) We were unsure if he would be able to make the trip, and much to our excitement, he will. Its also a blessing to us for without his organizational skills our trip would be a disaster =D And it will be good to see him again. We also have a 5th person joining us, a GenCon virgin, our pal Rob. (and my good WoW companion, Lokron).. not sure how that will impact the trip.. 2 cars? squeezing another into the hotel room?.. tricky things to plan out when you are trying to conserve money. But regardless, it will be a blast! (GenCon always is) The games, the atmosphere, the new stuff, and of course, the companionship, which is where the real fun of GenCon is found.

In local gaming news.. we will have our first Iron Kingdoms game next month.. I am very much looking forward to getting things rolling. This will be my first real time helming a 3rd Edition DnD game.. so here's hoping I don't let my players down, =/ I think it will be fun. I haven't been able to flex my role-playing muscles in a while, so I am ecstatic to get to play Dungeons and Dragons once again, even if it is infrequently. The story should be pretty cool. We have an interesting bunch of characters and hopefully my ideas will hold up and everyone will have fun. This campaign will feature the exploits of a Trollkin Fellcaller, a Nyss Scout, a Rynnish GunMage, and a Gobber Bodger (party roster subject to change at any time with out notice)

In WoW news.. Pondrepof the Orc Shaman has finally hit level 70! Yay! I have really enjoyed the new content in Outland, and the new spells are great.. the Earth/Fire Elemental Totems are very cool, and Bloodlust is the Bee's Knees. Now I am working on saving up the cash to get my flying mount, and then.. well... who knows. But 2 years later.. I am still having lots of fun with this game with no end in sight.

I also enjoy the wonders of the XBox 360 and the XBox Live Arcade. I love trying demos of the games, and have bought several.. including the fantastic Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, widely regarded as the best in the series. It is a blast, and a total recall to the 2D adventure days.. a great buy at only $10 (or 800 Microsoft Points) And I am still addicted to Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved... my pitiful high score of about 130,000 mocks me everyday... and adding to my saving money woes... we have a ton of top tier games on the horizon... Mass Effect, Shadowrun, Bioshock, Halo 3, Virtua Fighter 5,... and I know there are a few more...

So, life continues ever onward.. I find myself, even though I live with family, often feeling lonely. Maybe it's the lack of like-minded friends being readily available, and combine that with the lack of romantic companionship, can make one feel lonely even in a crowd. Well, it makes me feel lonely anyways.. that whole bit may have not even made sense.. did it? I find myself making concertive efforts to check the finger of attractive women who come into our store, since 99% of the most attractive of them are married. Actually most of the time they come in with little children clinging to them, so checking their fingers for rings isn't required. But its all for naught.. even if I did find a pretty girl without a ring, what the hell am I gonna say while I am working? (and work is only time I really have any interaction with people outside my family) I guess I could wait until they leave, look up their number in our database and call them later...
"Hi , you don't know me, but you came into our store today and I thought you were cute and seemed like a nice person, and thought maybe we could get together some time.. eh? We have your name, address, and phone number saved in our computer here at the store, so I just looked it up after you left earlier today.. wasn't that pro-active of me?" and at that point I would hear the *click*... LOL, talk about borderline stalker... yeah, that's not a good idea. I have at times, thought about joining one of those online dating sites, you know, the high profile ones like eHarmony.com or Match.com.. but crap, they cost like $100 for membership.. geezus... I'm not that desperate... am I?

Si, I spend my time dabbling in WoW, playing 360, doing some reading (currently reading Fragile Things by Neil Gaiman), painting miniatures, trying vainly to organize my Star Wars collection (I have a Google Spreadsheet underway that will eventually catalog my whole collection), and working on the IK adventures... so pretty much entirely geek stuff. In other words, just being myself. I also listen to a surprising amount of podcasts... everything from videogames (look no further than 1Up Yours and The 1Up Show), to anime, to Star Wars (SWAN), and back again... thoroughly enjoyable and great for when you are painting miniatures. :) And I have been watching a couple TV shows, the wonderful epic Rome on HBO, and what could very well be one of my favorite TV shows ever, BSG. However, this week is the season finale of BSG and there won't be any new episodes till 2008! G'ah! What a horrible long wait!... thankfully iTunes has Firefly on tap, which will be my next show... as well as anime! (yes, anime on iTunes!) They have several new anime shows which look pretty cool (Gunslinger Girl, Speed Grapher) , so I will be checking those out as well.

Well.. that's a good long post to get me going again... I still plan on trying to put some stuff up on my 1Up page and get back to the Star Wars blog too... I will keep ya posted.

Power Cosmic... hopefully...

Now, I am no comic book expert... I am usually pretty select in what comics I read, and frankly... most superhero comics don't interest me. But, I have always had a special place in my heart for Silver Surfer. Why? dunno.. he is just cool. When I heard he was getting the big blockbuster movie treatment by becoming the "villain" in the next Fantastic Four movie.. I was worried. And to be completely honest... I am still worried. Here is the newest trailer for Fantastic Four 2:Rise of the Silver Surfer.



My biggest problem... why didn't he just turn around and obliterate the Human Torch with the Power Cosmic? =D

Obligatory New Years Post..

Haven't been around the ol' blog much. Sorry about that. But figured I start the new year off with the (everyone does one) New Year's Resolution Post! Woot! And in keeping with the intranets thing... number one is:

• More blogging. More blogging on my various blogs, Star Wars, IGN, here of course, and the resurrection of my ol' 1-Up Blog. I will of course cross-link the various posts here. I think I made this resolution last year... so maybe this year my blogging will increase to an actual steady level..instead of the sporadic mess it is now :P Maybe one post here on Blogger per week, and one post in each of the others on a monthly basis.. that seems do-able...
• Read More. There is a bunch of stuff I want to read and re-read. So I am going to try and set aside more time for just sitting and reading... I wanna read some stuff by Lisa Hearn, Naomi Novik, Robert Jordan, and re-read the Word/Void series by Terry Brooks and re-read The Sandman graphic novels...as well as keep up on my cu rent Terry Brooks and Neil Gaiman novels and stories... and let us hope George R.R. Martin's A Dance with Dragons will finally be released this year!
• Paint. This is in both the artistic and geeky sense (though the two are not mutually exclusive...). I want to do a lot more miniature painting and try and get caught up on painting my armies. I have two currently and really want to start a new one (Legion of Everblight) but if I start a new army before I finish the others... I'm never gonna have fully painted armies like I want. I am also lacking a good number of units still... so I need to invest in that. -- and I would like to start doing some *real* painting as well. It has been a long time since I set up an easel and put some color on a surface. I think I may need to start back with the basics and do some drawing, start filling up a sketchbook or two...
• Get Financial Matters in Order. Yeah, that's a boring one, but prolly the most important. Gonna get the debts paid off and start saving some cashola!
• Get other stuff. Just gonna lump all these together... but I suppose they all (in addition to the one above) could be lumped under the heading "Get Life In Order" title... they involve procuring transportation, a significant other, a home.. and such.
• Star Wars. Well, it doesn't seem like I am gonna make it to Celebration 4 in Los Angeles :( but I do plan on keeping up with the basic action figures.. but not go crazy.. spent a ton of money on Star Wars collecting last year.. need to tone it down a tad this year. I have some stuff pre-ordered but other than that.. I am sticking to basic action figures.
• Play WoW. Seems like a no brainer. I said it before and I will say it again. The best testament to this game's quality is the simple fact that I have been playing it for 2 years. That's 2 years of playing the same game... there has never been a game like that before. The only ones that come close are Phantasy Star Online, which was extended mainly due to the game being continually re-released on new systems, and Street Fighter 2/Alpha3, which even in its new forms, are essentially the same game. (but that could be debated) The upcoming Burning Crusade Expansion will just add fuel to the fire... I can't wait. For The Horde!!

Well, I think that about does it. I'll keep you updated on my progress.. :P

Awesome Game... nuff said.

360 Adventures!

well... maybe only 3 or 4...

So I spent the last 6 or so hours messing with my 360...the interface on the console is really nice.. and I love how you can access it at anytime, no matter what you are doing (playing a game, watching a movie, whatever). And the whole "blades" design is sharp looking (no pun intended). I received my Wireless Network adapter today so I plugged it in and began setting things up. The wireless connection was seamless... all I had to do was plug it in, and it was connected.. XBox Live came right up with no effort on my part. Very Cool. So then I needed to set up my account.. and I had decided a while ago to create a new Gamertag (my old one, Pondrepof, was always too hard for folks to pronounce and such and those too lazy to actually read the letters would think it said PowderPuff)) so I was faced with the conundrum of what to use for a new name? I went in with a list, in case my choices were not available.. my first was an old DnD character name.. Ambriel, but of course, it was TAKEN (a surprise to me though...) So after that, I thought I should use something Star Wars related.. but apparently so did everyone else... my list was mainly made up of creature names, planets names and such.. Dianoga - TAKEN, Mynock-TAKEN, Tauntaun -TAKEN, Gundark-TAKEN, Bantha -TAKEN, at this point I was getting a bit worried... but I pressed on... Tantive IV -TAKEN, InvisibleHand -TAKEN, Duro -TAKEN, Duros -TAKEN, Alderaan, Hoth, Veers -TAKEN, TAKEN, TAKEN..ug... but then I found one... that originally, I wasn't keen on.. but then it grew on me....simple, easy to say,easily connected to Star Wars, a city in the clouds... Bespin. Not too bad, eh? It grows on ya...


So with that taken care of.. I ventured into the online realm... lots to do there.. I went to the XBox Arcade and downloaded trial versions of Street Fighter 2, DOOM, Geometry Wars (which is awesome, its like an epileptic, high definition, Asteroids meets Galaga, with a billion colors on the screen at once), and a game called Small Arms (which has potential) Anyway.. I just got the demos for now.. but they are fun.. and free, and only took a minute or so to download. Eventually I'll need to buy some Microsoft Points (Microsoft's online currency)to get the full versions. And they have real 360 game demos as well as, movie trailers, and ..well.. whole movies and TV shows on there now... but I imagine they'll fill the Hard Drive up quick...


The Network Adapter also allows me to connect my 360 to my computer (since I own a Windows Media Center PC).. however.. after several hours.. I could not get it to work. The 360 Dashboard takes you through a few very simple steps, gives you a key-code and then says Go here on your PC and follow the instructions .. Then the 360 quietly waits for you to go to your PC.. so I did...went to the directed website and downloaded a required update to Media Center, some sort of Extender... then it restarted my PC, which then started back up with a continuous string of "Your system just recovered from a serious error".. ug... so I sent in the error report which then directed me to a solution/hot fix for the problem.. which then took me to an Intel page where I had to download an install some sort of Matrix Storage Manager...I am guessing that my body is somewhere in a pod being used to generate electricity now..so after that I restarted again, and all was well once again... so I go into the setup for the Extender... and the first time through (and many many subsequent times thereafter) I get a message that my Firewall is causing problems.. so I go to the help page..and follow the instructions for granting full access to all the required programs... go back.. and it says "Enable Ports" so back to the help pages again.. finally.. get all the ports opened.. doubled checked the Access... but still no luck... same message.. so I just plain Disabled my firewall and tried it.. no luck again. It said "No 360 Found, your Firewall or connection may be the problem..blah blah blah" I tried many times but have not been able to get them to connect... That was actually a feature of the 360 I was really looking forward to, so its kinda disappointing that I couldn't get it to work... after scouring through a bunch of FAQ's and support pages the only thing I managed to find that could be the cause is that my Media Center PC is not directly hooked to the router... so maybe the wireless "double jump" is causing the connection failure...? Oh well... no streaming of The Ditty Bops, Beth Orton, or Paul Simon for my Geometry Wars games...I guess I'll just have to get up, carrying my wireless controller, and walk the 5 feet to my computer and hit the play button on iTunes.. like a sucker...

So beyond the system itself I own one 360 game. Gears of War. An epic of man versus gross looking aliens... and it is quite awesome :P Its bloody and gory as all get out, an your squad all look like Arnold Schwarzenegger/Pro-Football wannabes wearing 40K Space Marine armor.. but this game is really fun. The aliens come in all sorts of varieties..big humanoid ones, little goblin-like ones that run on ceilings, and giant burrowing bugs who are really good at.. um.. blocking radio transmissions... Anyway.. its basically a string of really cool firefights after another, with good team AI, and tactics. Its all 3rd person view, no 1st person at all, not even for free looking around... and it has a really interesting "cover" system which lets you take cover behind any random obstacle on the ground, and you can blind fire over the cover or peek out to shoot accurately.. and the graphics are astounding.. even on my standard def TV...it must be jaw dropping on HD TV's... So far I've only gotten into the second level, which takes place in the same ruined, crumbling city as the first, though at night. And there are these bug/bird like aliens flying in the air in huge swarms and anytime you step into dark/shadowy areas they descend on you and kill you in like 2 seconds.. so you have to keep looking for ways to generate light as you go... shoot propane tanks, push burning cars, hop from streetlight to streetlight, etc... very cool. Next games up.. Perfect Dark Zero, Oblivion, and Viva Pinata!!


So that's what I've spent my past two days doing... and tomorrow, on my day off, I will do more of the same.

Bespin Out.

EDIT - Added my Gamertag/Gamercard to the blog! you can view it right below my profile and picture... you can see what games I am playing and what achievements I have earned... its a pretty cool feature...

Just a few more days..

So all of my plans for buying an XBox 360 have been crushed... but in a good way! I had been about it to my boss at work, mentioning how I was gonna buy one and so on.. and just this past Wednesday he comes up to me and says "Hey Karl, in lieu of giving you a Christmas Bonus this year... how about I just buy you your XBox 360?" And I wasn't sure what to say, it was so unexpected.. but then of course I just said.. "Yeah! That'd be great!" So my boss ordered it up on Best Buy.com and I should be receiving it early this week! Hoorah! Now I can spend some of the money I was saving for the purchase to get a few games, and all the accessories I need, and the rest can go towards Christmas presents! (and starting my second Hordes faction :P) Talk about having one of the best employers...

You guys go enjoy your PS3's and Wii's... I'm gonna play on 360!