Must – Control – Jaws – of Death…
The cat wishes everyone to know that he was highly paid for this television appearance. The hamster… would like some more carrot bits please.
Game blogger Tobold suggests that WoW players would reach endgame with far better raiding skills if there were quests where you had to practice raiding with sets of NPCs. Aside from the time pressures, one reason I don’t do instances is that I’m not very good at them, and I think this is a fine idea. When I do have to hit an instance dungeon for a quest, I usually end up in the company of several far-higher-levelled guild mates, and my presence becomes a bit unnecessary. This idea would mitigate the problem a bit.
rhaps and shrewlet are coming down this weekend, which is a good thing because my Technicon experience was extremely rushed. I envy Rhaps’ new iMac, which is the same model as my Mom’s. But I’ll have my Mac Pro soon enough.
Paying bills, finishing paperwork, getting all sorts of ducks in a row this week. (They were sitting out front again this morning, enjoying the humid weather.) It all feels good. Also: new blender yay 🙂
Brief updates
- 10:33 @tangowildheart The Metro needs a line built of steampunk and giant crystals, with an underwater stretch including visible plesiosaur FTW. #
Sent subspace radio by LoudTwitter
Baaaaaa.
My WoW mage can (briefly) turn people into sheep.
This amuses me, so when I was reminded by a website that she can quest for an alternate spell that turns people into pigs, I rushed to the griffin taxi for the land of Azshara, home of a titanic magical apocalypse once upon a time. Finished the two quests, NPC quest giver says, “Let me teach you this spell” … and nothing happens.
Looked several times in my spellbook and bags, and tried talking to the NPC repeatedly – nothing. So I filed a bug report with the GMs, explaining the situation carefully. This morning I woke to an e-mail that politely says, “We may possibly be able to restore your lost item, though we can’t do this often because you should be more careful. File another ticket if you want us to go ahead.”
So when I get home, I have to explain that a restore will do nothing, as I never got the spell, and it wasn’t my daggone fault, because it’s a bug, one also seen by other players according to the big WoW info sites.
*sigh*
I know from experience that it’s not an easy job at all being a GM, but please actually read my ticket.
The Last Days of Technicon 25
My Sunday Technicon experience was brief and poignant. Reluctantly awake by 10:00, and out of the Microtel by 11:00, I headed back to McBryde for a final time.
My plan was to leave Blacksburg by 1:00, thereby getting home around 6:30-7:00 and having time for dinner and decompression, so my time was brief and rushed. I got to catch up briefly with nanoreid, had my picture taken with ranchonmars‘ Skull plush, and won an awesome Thunderchild print from rattrap. (It’s based on a plastic model I designed and we built many years ago.)
I finally had a few seconds to stop into Spiel, where I talked to jsciv for the only time during actual con hours. Touched base with rubinpdf, too; I hear ashoemaker was there, but I didn’t see him, though I did see markush on the way out. Since auction pickup hadn’t yet started, shrewlet offered to collect the print for me so that I could get on the road, and as I left the auditorium where the auctions were held, it seemed like half the con called out goodbyes. Just a little tiny bit verklempt, I was.
I drove home on 460 rather than battle the interstates; I got a far more peaceful drive for my trouble. Faint rain misted my windshield most of the way back, but posed no driving hazard, though I more than once encountered the damned “I refuse to be passed by a Hyundai, even if I was 15 miles under the speed limit!” attitude. Though I didn’t realize it at the time, I was so bushed that I sat a couple inches lower in the car seat, making the hood seem to disappear behind the dash.
Finally, I made it home. Starr and Midori were most pleased to see me. I presented Starr with the custom art I commissioned from rainbowsaber, and heard happy squees for the rest of the evening.
Sleep came upon me with no trouble at all, that night; and thus endeth the story of a happy Technicon. I’m already looking forward to next year’s: Jerry’s a good man who knows a thing or two about making a con happen, and I’m already tagged to do my shtick again. And this time, I’m bringing Starr!
(Say, who’s FanGOH for 26? And who’s got pics online?)
Brief updates
- 08:06 @yubbie Gratz! Ironically enough, the groom at the wedding I missed was named Dylan. Coincidence? Maybe not! #
Sent subspace radio by LoudTwitter
Molten Muppet Pollen Prediction
See, this is how you “rickroll” someone. Rather than just posting random stupid misdirected link, post YouTube video claiming to be Muppet bloopers which even a savvy person will want to click just in case; then, play skillfully re-edited video of Beaker and the Electric Mayhem singing “Never Gonna Give You Up”.
The funny thing about Blizzard’s “Molten Core” joke is that you can still find people writing games for the Atari 2600, though they’re almost always played on emulators. It’s quite the programming challenge to get a fun game tucked into less storage space than my LJ user icon requires.
Two days of warm weather have produced an explosion of plant sex here. My car’s turned an unhealthy yellow-green, the streets have pale stains, and there are drifts of powdered lemonade in the gutters. We’ll see if I can breathe by the end of the day!
This weekend, I found out what the “Age of Aquarius” actually means. The Earth’s axis wobbles a tiny bit (but does not fall down). Some astrologers define a “Great Year” as the time it takes the axis to perform a complete wobble, approximately 26,000 years. A Great Year is divided into 12 Ages. Astrology being the exact science that it is, the Age of Aquarius is to begin sometime between 2062 and 2680. Or maybe it began in 2000, though any way it’s supposed to take a while to get up to speed. But now I know! (Yeah, I like that song. It’s happy.)
Gonna try to finish Technicon posts today.
WoW news for today
The latest from our masters at Blizzard:
The new playable character class in World of Warcaft… Bard!
And, coming soon to game consoles: The Molten Core! (For once I have the right system to play it!)
TCon Saturday – The Crud Strikes Back
Saturday I woke at 8:30, thought to myself “no way, not on a night where I have to stay up ’till 2” and went back to sleep. I woke again at 10:30, went to sit up and was assaulted by nausea and headache. Not, “Oh, I feel like crap, oh well,” but “oh God I think I may need to run for the bathroom RIGHT NOW.” In the hopes that more rest would help, I rolled over until noon. Couldn’t put it off any longer at that point, and made it to McBryde in time for kittykatya and impink‘s Fragile Gravity (http://unseenllc.com/) panel. That was fun, especially when Barb had to change a DVD and Chris was forced to improvise for several minutes. I look forward to Book 3!
Well, you know you’re at a real con when two good events are going on at the same time, and much as I wanted to see the General Webcomics Panel, the Spin Doctor had a date at Filking 1025. (Tech uses 4-digit course numbers.) I contributed a couple lines to the weekend’s official filk, which we actually finished nice and early! What a concept! An impromptu rendition of “The Dragon and The Lady” followed (NSFW), with joking comments about the fact that the local fandom children are being raised on this stuff. To quote a song that Keith often covers, we’ll have a generation of well-rounded outcats.
I dropped by rattrap and drich‘s “First Ones” panel – they are the only attendees who’ve attended every Technicon. I’d prepared a button that read “Technicon Fourth One” (the best I could do). Lots of old memories flew around that panel; hard to believe the con’s 25 years old. I’m fairly sure that’s a Virginia fandom record, unless you count RoVaCon / Rising Star as one entity. Still, though, the pain, nausea, and light-headedness continued to build. Barb and others started telling me to Go Lie Down. I talked to Starr a bit – she was having appliance issues at the house right before she had to attend a wedding – and finally gave in and went back to the hotel.
Good news of the evening? While I was semi-comatose, colleenk gave birth to a little boy. Gratz to her and yubbie! (Unsurprisingly, this made the con accountant unavailable for the rest of the event.)
I really regret missing the Costume Call and southernsinger‘s performance. Every few years at Technicon, I seem to come down with something on Saturday; perhaps I need to start over-medicating the week before, or something. I wasn’t the only one, either: shrewlet had a rough day, and there were bleary eyes elsewhere at the con. However, with modern technology, it’s likely that the evening entertainment was all taped, and I’m hoping that someone posted pictures somewhere.
Fortunately, I woke up in possession of a far stabler head and stomach before my evening panels, and headed down to the Microtel conference room. Those panels… are a filtered entry.*grin*
