Ringtones

I’ve discovered, to my surprise, that I generally prefer MIDI ringtones to MP3 ringtones. Perhaps it has a little to do with the tiny speaker they’re coming from, and in part because a MIDI just sounds more like a phone-ring sound to me.

My current favorites: katamari.midDoctorWho2006.middune.mid

I like technology that beeps.

Elves and aliens lurking behind your icons

Yeah, I’m posting a ton of WoW stuff this week. Don’t worry, I’ll find other stuff to talk about soon enough.

So, I was looking at a official Blizzard Entertainment desktop pic for The Burning Crusade, and I started thinking, “I wish they had one with the great graphics from the cinematic.” Then I thought, “Hey, I have QuickTime and Photoshop, what else do I need?” and I threw together a little image.

Look behind the cut for a small version

News from the Azeroth front

So far, so good on my quest for 60. I made it to 59 last night… I kept dying a lot, though; I made my best progress when I stopped trying to quest, and just stood close to home base and kept grinding monsters.

(Many of them were level 59 boars, and I was unavoidably reminded of the South Park WoW episode where they grind boars to 60.)

The experience is good, but I still wonder if my armor repair bills would be lower if I went back to Winterspring. Maybe I’ll try it for a bit tonight. I doubt I can manage a level in a single evening, even if I play for several hours, but it would be nice.

Ironforge was a ghost town last night on Uther. Even the Dranei starting area, where I fiddled around a bit, was pretty empty. I think the whole server is in Outland right now.

I play lead for “Rocketship X”

Guitar Hero II arrived in my house this week, thanks to the lovely raininva‘s observance of my birthday. Now, I haven’t had a lot of free time on my hands, and even my gaming is scheduled by priority these days, but ya gotta take some time out of the day to hold a plastic guitar in your hands and rock out to Cheap Trick, The Pretenders, and David Bowie. (I think some of our guests approved more of the Motley Crue and Danzig tracks, though.)

The game’s got a bit more realism than I’d like, though – Rain and I are developing blisters on our fret and strumming fingers.

The book – very little going on. I worked out some background changes to my universe which will allow for more sensible plotting and better conflict, but I’m still not real sure what the ending’s going to be. Clearly, this isn’t going to be done by the end of the month, but then I’m not that worried; I never expected it to. (The base universe is one I created round about 6th grade. It’s weird making changes to something that’s been mostly static in my head for 20-odd years.)

I have several episodes of Torchwood in my hands, but I haven’t finished watching the 2006 Doctor Who season – in fact, as of last night, I’m behind the SciFi Channel’s broadcast (it’s sitting on the DVR). Since I’m reliably informed that the series opener of Torchwood spoils much of the end of the Doctor Who season, this means I’ll have to wait a while longer to get my Captain Jack fix.

Apparently, Rising Star went extremely well this year. Kudos to Cathy and all how worked so hard to pull it off. I think many excellent decisions were made this year, and it bodes well for the future of the con.

I’m burning DVD data discs tonight in a desperate attempt to find clear space on my hard drives.

“Mirondarah” could be a Japanese monster movie

Last night, raininva‘s rogue and my mage assaulted the ruined desert city of Zul’Farrak with shrewlet‘s paladin and a little other help. I died a lot; that seems to be the mage’s job. When I moved forward to see what was going on, I attracted aggressive attention (‘aggroed’); when I hung back, stuff snuck up on me from behind and clocked me before the rest of the party could react. Ah, well. At least Shrewlet was able to resurrect me, and I completed 4.5 quests I’d never have finished on my own. 1/2 a level worth of experience; really, a pretty good evening in the game.

One of the quests involved summoning and defeating the giant water lizard Gahz’rilla. Just for rattrap‘s info, Gahz’ruki was nowhere in sight.

Before that, we spent a couple hours at my workplace’s Game Day. The host had a really nice place in an area we wouldn’t mind living… must weasel some info out of her 🙂 Rain and I spread the gospel that is Apples to Apples, and lo, it was good.

Saturday, I played in the comp a bit and then spent 6 hours cleaning the house; you can actually see the floor of my office now, yay! That night we broke in our copy of the WoW board game in a four-person run with Bert and Meche. Took about 5 hours to finish, and Rain and Bert’s Horde characters finished off the boss on turn 33 or so. I have to look up who to contact – upon opening the game, we learned that it’s missing one of the character figures.

There’s an Internet rumor going around that the PlayStation 3 will cost $600 – $700 upon release in the US. Of course, Internet rumors aren’t known for having a lot of basis in reality. However, if it’s true, it may be a good thing that I still have many months’ worth of PS2 games to finish.

WANDA WANDA

Real post coming later today, or perhaps tomorrow.

For now, 2-D Katamari Damacy.

(In the beginning of the game, you control the King, and the Prince follows him. Don’t let them touch! It’s easiest if you try not to move the mouse outside the play area. And don’t click!)

Good choice of reward, too

For the diminishing (but still a majority) group of folks who don’t play World of Warcraft, advancement in power within the game is measured in Experience Points (XP, in gamer lingo). XP is usually gained by slaying monsters over and over (often a tedious process), or, more profitably, completing quests (which usually involve slaying monsters, so doubleplusgood).

How does one receive a quest? In any populated area where the monsters are close to one’s level, citizens will have a yellow exclamation point over their heads, announcing that a quest is available. Usually, one returns to that citizen after completing the requirements, and is rewarded with XP, and often coins, weapons or armor, reputation increases, or other valuables. Sometimes, the quests are almost silly: “Take this note to the person standing outside this room”; and sometimes, daunting: “Kill 20 of this monster, 15 of this monster, and 10 of this one, and bring me their gall spleens. Oh, they travel in packs, so bring a friend or two… did I mention that only one out of four of them even possesses a usable gall spleen?” Blizzard has shown great creativity in inventing different types of quests and related rewards, and is to be commended.

Level 60 Quest

But someone recently wondered how this bore any relation to reality. In the scientific tradition, he decided to put it to the test… though he didn’t figure out a way to generate a holographic punctuation mark over his head…

Written while waiting for hot water

Busy life these days… I haven’t been taking time to slow down and write lately. I’m hoping to do more of that this weekend.

Went to Rising Star last weekend, and had lots of fun. I showed off the new Utilikilt on Saturday, and it went over quite well, though I have to think more carefully about the process of sitting down while I wear it. raininva and I scored over 20 PS2 games for around $100 or so at the auction – of course, lord knows when I’ll play any of them. With WoW on the computer, I have to poke myself to make time for my new copy of We (Heart) Katamari.

I missed meiran, ranchonmars, and madwriter… maybe I’ll see some of you at Marscon, and if not, there’s always T-Con.

We listened to the audiobook of “So You Want to Be A Wizard” on the way up and back. The narrator does good work with the voices, I’d recommend it. We bought it from iTunes, and while I understand this is not Apple’s idea, the process of getting the audiobook onto an MP3 CD for my car player was unpleasant. I hate the freaking music industry.

Three movies I want to see soon… Serenity, Mirrormask, and Curse of the Were-Rabbit. I haven’t been to see a movie in a while – no idea if I’ll make it to any of these.

I’ve been offered a ride to VTSFFC Halloween, and heard about another H’ween party in Richmond I’d like to go to, but either way, Rain can’t go because of her work schedule. This bites in great measure. OTOH, Trans-Siberian Orchestra is coming to Newport News in November, and that I might be able to see! There’s something about “Xmas Eve / Sarajevo” that makes me tingle when I hear it for the first time every season… it’s so angry and beautiful at the same time. Elton John’s “Funeral for a Friend” is the same way.

Tried “Second Life” last night. Lousy framerate and poor responsiveness were my first impressions… and this is on a Mac that does WoW quite tolerably. We’ll see if I go back.

More on my mind, but I gotta go to work.

Like, WoW. This is a bit of a pain…

As I mention many posts back, I’m playing World of Warcraft with some of my free time these days. I was thrilled with the execution of the game when I began playing it, and loved the way it sucked one in early on. The fact that it ran well on my older-but-upgraded Mac was a real plus, too.

I’m beginning to have a few problems with the game, however.

Never mind, Cortana

I’m very disappointed in Bungie right now. I’m a fan of good first-person shooters, and I’ve recently been trying to finish the Macintosh port of Halo; well, this week I gave up and deleted it from my hard drive. There’s no point in spending rare personal time on a game that I’m not enjoying, and I really wasn’t enjoying this one anymore.

Perhaps it has something to with the fact that in the midst of the game development, Bungie was purchased by Microsoft, and the game changed in mid-stream from a Mac/PC title to an XBox disc, amidst the legal and logistical upheaval of moving. But I’m astonished at the poor quality I experienced, and amazed that this game has received the glowing reviews that it has. Perhaps it’s the multiplayer that’s so good – I didn’t have the opportunity to try.

Four things I hate about you, Halo

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