Clearly a 6-man raid
Playing around with the WoW Item Creator…
No, it’s not actually in the game. 🙂
Cat vs. Weasels
I spent a fair chunk of the weekend ‘suffering from brain weasels’ as they say… just listless, depressed, and grumpy. As near as I can tell, it wasn’t anyone’s fault, or due to anything going on around me – perhaps my body chemistry fell out of whack, I can’t tell. Last night, I consumed a fair amount of chocolate – it seemed to help.
After months of waiting for the money to be available, we have a new kitten! She’s 8 weeks old, and is a grey tabby we picked up at the local shelter. Her name is Midori, and she’s already fixed and microchipped – she goes in for her first vet visit (since moving in with us) on Thursday. She’s sweet, but full of mischief – in other words, perfectly normal.
I may have addicted ptownhiker to Guitar Hero II Saturday night. Heh, heh, heh. Now to spring Katamari Damacy on them!
Finally got your questions ready, fishy1. Sorry about the wait!
Radio Telescope Ga-Ga
I quote the Bad Astronomer, Phil Plait:
“Most people are surprised — I was when I first heard — that Brian May is actually a scientist. He had just started working on his PhD thesis when he got distracted by his guitar playing in some band or another. But he knew was gonna be a big man someday.”
His thesis is entitled Radial Velocities in the Zodiacal Dust Cloud, and it seems he now has his degree. I only hope the “Flight of the Hawkmen” theme played as he accepted the honors.
This is just… excellent.
Throw open the switches on the static oscillator
In the Roanoke Valley, the sound of thunder bounces sharply from mountain to mountain. Here in Hampton Roads, the sound rolls over the water, producing a deep, extended timbre.
The demonstration nature provided last night certainly made me happy to be indoors. Lightning was flashing at least once every two seconds. It was like sitting under a sputtering neon sign. Thunder echoed almost continuously as the rain torrented down. Zap-zap-zap-zap-zap. I’ve never seen a fiercer storm.
We lost power three times, but each time it returned withing five minutes, which was a relief. I didn’t want to try to sleep through a humid 85-degree evening with no AC.
Calm, cooler, but still humid morning greeted me. I hate having to get up before dawn.
Dispatch From the Friends List Network
Interview questions from gryphynkit can be found by clicking here
The Sound of the Universe
I have all of Doctor Who season 3 on my Mac. I have most of it on the DVR. So it was about time for me to get around to finishing season 2.
The last four episodes restored my interest in the Tenth Doctor, and I’m looking forward now to seeing “Runaway Bride”. While I had nits to pick, these scripts really engaged me again, and I honestly think that this season’s two-part finale is stronger than season 1’s.
But I have to say that I’m pretty divided about episode ten. The episode was clearly about science-fiction fandom, and I understood all too clearly the points it was making from that angle. But the last bits with the guest lead and his grilfriend were wrong in so many ways… and I mean that seriously, not in that rueful fun manner.
Summon Spectral Tigerzord Now!
In World of Warcraft, once you are high enough level, you get to ride around the lands instead of walking and running. At level 40, you can acquire a steed which moves at 160% of your running speed; at level 60, you can get one that moves at 200%. (At higher levels, you can get mounts that fly, but they are only good in certain areas.) When the necessities of the game force you to pass through the same area for the hundredth time, the bonus speed is quite welcome.
My gnome mage rides a large mechanical ostrich, while my warlock summons a demonic horse. Mounts are expensive, but not rare or difficult to acquire. (Poor gnome is still riding her lvl 40 ostrich because she hasn’t yet made enough money for her lvl 60, but that’s purely a matter of time.)
Like anything else in the game, there are rare and valuable steeds found only with the greatest of luck. To mirror this, the trading card game for WoW includes ultra-rare cards with a scratch-off code that can be entered into the game to provide the player’s character with a mount that few in the lands of Azeroth will ever see. This ghostly tiger is pretty keen-looking; the regular tigers of the night elves are nice enough that some players of other races work for the right to them, and this one is certainly cooler than those.
My point here? One of those WoW “loot cards’ just sold on eBay… for TWO THOUSAND DOLLARS.
Great C’Thun, people. It’s a CGI tiger. In a game. It doesn’t even go faster than shrewlet‘s armored warhorse or snidegrrl‘s giant rhino-lizard. Someone just paid the cost of my next Mac laptop for this virtual ride.
Arrrrgh.
