Free Candy For Everyone

Of course one of the first thing I had to do upon my return was check out the official World of Warcraft site to see if there was anything new revealed about the game in my absence. And lo and behold, the Patch 1.9 test servers are live and they’ve posted the really detailed notes.

There’s so much stuff in this patch! Is there always this much stuff in a patch? I just don’t even remember right now. One of the first things I noticed (that was new info, not something that I’d read before - see my first post on patch notes for general big feature items) was the changes to the Hunter pets.

• Turtles can now learn Shell Shield, allowing them to reduces all damage taken by 50% for 10 sec.
• Hunters can now tame Sons of Hakkar. Sons of Hakkar are in the Wind Serpent family and will know Lightning Breath (Rank 6).
• Boars can now learn Charge, an ability that allows them to charge to an enemy, immobilize that enemy for 1 second, and add a large amount of Attack Power to the boar’s next attack.
• Gorillas can now learn Thunderstomp, an ability that causes high threat area Nature damage.

Definitely seems like they’re trying to give the Hunters a reason to actually have a stable of pets and pick ones that are better for different circumstances, like one if you’re soloing, one in a group when you’re the tank, one in a group as support, etc. Right now, I just always use my cat. But if different types of pets have really cool unique abilities, it becomes way more of a decision to be made!

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Just spent a lovely week in Cabo, Mexico with my family. Fun in the sun, lounging on the beach and barely touched a computer the entire time. For full reports on all the wonderful eating we did, check out my brother and sister-in-law’s blog, they’ve been posting reviews of a lot of our meals.

I may return with some info about my trip, and about the seven (yay, reading a book a day!) books I read on my trip. Quite lovely and relaxing.

Ok, one more post before I go! I have been a fervent TiVo fan for many years. But since I got my HDTV, my enthusiasm has waned. If I had started this blog a couple of years ago, you would have been inundated with posts galore extolling the virtues of TiVo and its life changing properties. But I figure you all know about TiVo and DVRs already so I don’t need to rant. And really, I tend to use my Comcast DVR more, since it records in high definition. Who wants fuzzy low res tv when I can have it so much prettier, even if the box is less smart…

I just read this article imparting the news that the next TiVo service release will allow you to play your TiVo shows on your iPod or PSP. I don’t have one of the new-fangled video iPods, but I do have a PSP. I’m actually charging it up right now in preparation for my travel. If I could easily load it up with shows from my TiVo archive, that’d be great! I’d be so on board for that.

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I’m leaving tomorrow for vacation for a week. So no blog posts until after the Thanksgiving holiday. I’ll be basking in the sun and lounging on the beach, probably without any internet access even. No gaming for me!! What will I do? Oh yeah. Read, relax and avoid technology. See y’all in a week.

I’m a big fan of just about all the games that Harmonix has made. They continue to make really great music games that are unlike anything else. Everyone at work has been all abuzz about their latest, Guitar Hero. I was reluctant to pick it up for several reasons, the biggest being that I have too many games to play and too little time. But it has been getting such rave reviews from the gaming press and everyone that I know who’s tried it that I couldn’t resist.

Guitar Hero is a game for the Playstation2 that let’s you feel like a rock star. It comes with a custom guitar controller, which puts the price of the package at $70. Not too bad, considering the controller is a hefty piece of equipment. It’s about three feet long, has five fret buttons, a strum bar, a whammy bar, and a start and select button for navigation. Here’s a picture of the stuff:

Let me qualify all this by saying that I play guitar. I’ve been playing for about 15 years, and I’m certainly not a rock star, but I’m comfortable with the instrument, I have a good sense of rhythm and I do alright. I still had an awesome time playing this game. My co-workers who were playing it are not musicians. So I was sorta like, “well, maybe it’s fun for you, but I can actually play the guitar for real, why would I want to pretend?” Well, because you have a whole band playing and flashing lights and score cards and cheering crowds, that’s why!

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