Monthly Archives: November 2008

Thursday WoW Update

Not a lot happening on the World of Warcraft front lately. Lot of people just not even checking in to see what’s going on. I don’t know if anyone is still playing. Well let me take that back I know some people are still playing.

Steakems hasn’t logged in quite a while, and matter of fact at the time of typing this the armory wasn’t able to bring up his character. I’m not completely sure this character still exists. I know he’s been playing though, because he was bragging on some bitcast that he got to 80 on some other server. I don’t know what’s going on with this character though.

Remana is still playing, but not so much recently. I know that this is still an active character because I get reminded that there is a deficit in funds that needs to be corrected in order for this character to get a mount. This I’m sure will be corrected sooner or later.

Grotesk was supposedly leveled a bit, and I know this because Umori told me so. On the other hand there was an apparent migraine that forced the delay of getting some time in to level Rhenzaburou and Tsugutoshi might be playing, but I don’t know. If it’s anything like how I play then I’d hardly notice, because I gain some experience and then log off and go do something else.

I’ll have to get all the names of Umori’s other characters and list them all here sometime. There are a bunch. I think there are at least 5 level 70+ characters in all.

Xandrov and Romany continue to play those characters and some other characters together, and they would have to be stupid not to since their 3x refer a friend experience credit is going to run out eventually. That means that Rombus has been put on the back burner for awhile, which is fine, since technically I have two alts that need to catch up to him.

Rombus, Romany, and Xandrov actually have their own more in depth weekly updates that you can find if you follow the Rombus link on the left hand side of the page. No credit needed for the idea, because none was given, well it was sort of given. 😉

Movie Night

Netflix provided another good opportunity to sit down and watch a movie. My son, Andrew, and I all watched Get Smart, which is of course based on the television show, which spun off the cartoon show Inspector Gadget, which was all just a comedic take on the Bond movies in the first place.

The movie was terrific and I strongly suggest giving it a rent if you can. It was extremely funny.

Thanksgiving

We had a pretty good Thanksgiving this year. My neighbor gave us a larger table for the dining room than what we had, because they got a new one. I’ve had the table we threw out since… well since I can’t remember. It seems like I had that table for forever. I won’t miss it at all though, it had definitely run it’s course. We could all sit at the table without having to move anything around. That was really nice. I could even have a few people over and there would still be room.

I bought glasses this year, so we didn’t have to eat off or drink anything out of plastic. I find it to be a much better experience dining on more glassware, instead of having plastic.

The turkey was good, mash potatoes, gravy, and cranberry sauce, which is a personal must for me. Next year we won’t burn the marshmallows on top of the yams.

College Update

I know I haven’t said a whole lot about what has been going on at the University of Akron, but I thought I’d take a moment to update a few things before I head into finals week.

My observation hours are over.  I have to get the teachers signature, write a paper, and type up the log of what I did during the hours I was observing.  I’m going to continue to show up to referee the flag football, but that’s coming to a close as well, so my whole commitment to this thing is basically over.  A freshmen actually was a bit disappointed that they won’t be seeing me any longer, because I am not taking a class that requires observation hours next semester.

I have a mock teach to do next week and then I am done with the Classroom Management class.  It was a pretty great class, and I’m glad I took it.

I have to write a paper, teach a class on strategies for getting students to read in social studies, and finish up an interview with a circulum director for another class.  That and a final.  It’s going to be a busy two weeks for that class.  Really coming down to the wire.

My politics class is coming to a close with a final, and I feel really confident about it.  I enjoy classes that are laid out in a certain way, and this professor had that flow.  It was easy to take notes, it was easy to figure out exactly what he expected, and so I feel good about this class.

The only final I’m actually concerned about is the Reading in Secondary Schools final, because I have been having a hard time studying for that class.  It seems on the midterm I focused on things that ended up being really irrelevant.  That class has given me a ton of ideas and I’m glad I took it, but it would be nice to get a good grade as well.

I guess the next time I’ll be posting about what I’m doing with my classes will be after finals.

Where is the Update?

I was going to do a Thursday WoW Update last week, because I actually had things to update, but then the wowarmory.com had some sort of bug going on that when you would go to a character it would give you an error. It was affecting half the people I wanted to update about, so I just felt it is better to wait till they get that cleared up.

Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts

Rick picked up his copy of Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts on Saturday so on Sunday we actually got a chance to play the multiplayer. To be honest I was expecting a pretty mediocre experience. I know I’ve seen reviews that basically summarize the multiplayer portion of this game as something that feels tacked on and not fully developed. After spending a few hours winning and losing at it I feel I can safely say that the multiplayer is a full experience that everyone should try out.

First you all join a room. In this room you can run around and load up vehicles that you have created. Then if you don’t have it locked, which is a simple press of the A button on the main multiplayer screen to turn it on or off, other players can actually take pictures of your creation and those will be saved to their system as a blueprint. That way they can create the vehicles they see.

What is there to do? There are many different kinds of races. Races in the water, air, and land. There are also sports, and that’s where it would seem that vehicle creation is going to get awesome as you have to develop a vehicle that is good at catching a ball and holding it or pushing another vehicle off a ledge.

You get an appropriate vehicle for every race. The host decides whether everyone starts with a default vehicle or if everyone can bring in their own. Rick and I played with the default vehicles, because we have barely played enough to unlock the parts in the single player game to build our own awesome vehicles. I’m sure we’ll both remedy that soon.

One of the coolest things about the multiplayer is if you are having fun just playing around showing someone your vehicle and the host starts a match, well then you don’t have to join. You can just keep hanging out doing what you want until the match is over. Gives you some control over what game types you want to play as well.

This game is $40 new, so I imagine that a whole lot of people can afford this. With how cool the multiplayer is and how really social it is I am hoping that it’s the next Midtown Madness for this generation. It certainly seems like it, and I’ve already given the game to two other people, so I’m helping that cause along.

Enjoying Saturday

Rick and Melissa came up from Columbus to spend the day with me. They brought a birthday card. The card was a Far Side comic that I think I might have seen before, but more interestingly was Rick’s choice of the word “DING” for my birthday. While I do not know whether or not they exist I am positive that they have to, because this seems to perfect. Simple yet sort of funny thinking about getting older in the same light as leveling.

They picked up their copy of Banjo Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts that I bought them for Christmas. I know it’s early for that kind of thing, but I just thought it would be pretty cool. We plan on getting online some time and checking out the multiplayer. There is supposed to be racing and some other stuff to try.

Renee came over and we all went to have lunch at Dave’s Cosmic Subs in Hudson. It’s a pretty neat place, but a bit of a drive. Renee remarked that she thought the sub would have been better toasted, and honestly it probably would have been. I don’t even know if they do that there. I just sort of assume they would have asked if I wanted it prepared that way if they did.

Rick and Melissa started their characters on Balnazzar, and so I will have them in my Thursday WoW Update with their new characters names and all about what’s going on with that. They played for a few hours while I cleaned up. We ordered pizza for dinner, and that worked out.

Anthony and Andrew stopped over for a little bit, but they had to go. Derek came over and he had plans for later tonight as well, so he just got some time in with Mirror’s Edge. It’s a very frustrating and enjoyable game. I can’t wait to play it more.

WoW Thursday Update

There isn’t a whole lot to say about the World of Warcraft today, except for you either have the Wrath of the Lich King expansion, or you don’t. That’s the big thing for this week, and probably the upcoming weeks, as now you can start a whole new class with the Death Knight. I’m not really sure what a Death Knight is, and that answer would probably be revealed to me if I spend more time playing the class.

The problem is Death Knights report to Arthas, who is basically the supreme evil guy in the World of Warcraft. The Death Knights are all swearing allegiance to him, and they start at level 55, and they apparently are in this to kill everyone. I don’t think it’s an Alliance vs. Horde thing so much as Blizzard not wanting to take the time to make a legitimate third team. From everything I’m seeing it should be Arthas vs. Alliance vs. Horde. It is sort of a shame they didn’t go that way.

Who has the expansion already? I know Tim and my brother waited in line for the midnight release. Dan had it shipped to him, and I only know this because he was making regular updates on Twitter concerning where the shipment was.

The reason I’ve never mentioned Dan before is simply that he doesn’t play on the same server as any of my characters. He plays Alliance, which I don’t play at all, and if I’m not mistaken he plays on a PvE server. While I’ve often considered moving to such a server to get away from the whole hours of getting ganked fun, I have yet to actually commit to that. I have more of a chance running in to him at a Jonathan Coulton concert in Cleveland.

Jo said he would be picking it up today. He had it preordered and paid off, but weighed standing in line at midnight to be far more trouble than waiting till the next day. I had to run to Wal-Mart at 5 AM in order for a certain member of the US Armed Forces to have the game last night.

Renee, Rick, and Melissa might not have picked it up, but then again they don’t have any real immediate use for it. I could include Jo into this demographic as well, but he can at least see the finish line now. None of them are necessarily close to being 70 to take advantage of the new content in that respect. They could start Death Knights, but they still have the aforementioned characters to take from whatever level they are to 70.

Expansions cause so much activity!