HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

BOO!

A word from FDR

These economic royalists complain that we seek to overthrow the institutions of America. What they really complain of is that we seek to take away their power. Our allegiance to American institutions requires the overthrow of this kind of power. In vain they seek to hide behind the flag and the Constitution. In their blindness they forget what the flag and the Constitution stand for. Now, as always, they stand for democracy, not tyranny; for freedom, not subjection; and against a dictatorship by mob rule and the over-privileged alike.

--FDR

GO VOTE!!!!

(Apologies for political rant)

Pathfinder update!

Pathfinder has released a beta web enhancement for prestige classes.

Tons of Links on SW:tOR

These Links represent all of the Internet Coverage on the MMO I'm aware of. Sadly, no release date has been announced. However, if this game is as good as I hope, I can tell you now, that I WILL be returning to the hell of guild leadership.

• 10/21 - IGN's Coverage of the "First Details".
• 10/22 - IGN's Coverage of "Story Details".
  
• 10/22 - TenTonHammer does a Q&A with other members of Bioware's Team.
• 10/22 - IGN's Command Prompt Podcast.
• 10/22 - TenTonHammer Talked with Daniel Erickson, Lead Writer for BioWare Austin.
• 10/23 - Massively.com discussed an overview and space combat.
• 10/23 - Massively.com discussed Combat and PvP
• 10/23 - Massively.com talked (boy were they busy!) Setting and Sith
  
• 10/23 - Kotaku Outlines WHAT WE KNOW SO FAR.
  
• 10/23 - IGN's Coverage of "Art Directions".
• 10/24 - Still at it, Massively.com discussed Classes, Jedi, and Crafting, Leveling, sidekicking and questing, and companion characters.
• Eurogamer has a preview.
• And finally, someone beat me to the punch and created a wiki!

I admit, I took a lot of these links from Slashdot.

Furthermore, I am already a member of the community on their boards (as RachaelStorm).

Bioware interview about Star Wars:The Old Republic

Word of warning, y'all are going to see a LOT of stuff posted here about this game.

Deal with it....



OFFICIAL WEBSITE

Boy, I hope this game doesn't suck....

Ever read Slashdot?

It might be worth your while




May the Force be with you.

I just hope it's from Rudy's or Smokey Moes

You Are Barbeque Sauce

You are a social person. You enjoy cooking for other people. You are both skillful and competitive. You enjoy mastering hard tasks. You appreciate complexity more than simplicity. Your taste in food tends to lean toward interesting flavors. You appreciate exotic spice combinations. You tend to like cutting edge, fusion cuisine. You get along with all personalities from a distance. Except salsa personalities, who always seem to annoy you.

What Condiment Are You?

I HAVE NO CABLE!

Yep, you read right, I unsubscribed from cable. I know, many of you dear readers are saying, "WTF?!?!?!" It's not as extreme as you first think.

First of all, I didn't watch a great deal of TV. Certainly, I do watch South Park, Fringe, Simpsons, Family Guy, and Battlestar Galactica. But really, not a lot compared to what is out there. However, I DID NOT GIVE ANY OF THIS UP!

How is that? You ask.

Well, my laptop has a S-Video connector which my TV also has. It also has a handy headphone adapter that I can hook into my surround sound system. I upgraded to Roadrunner premium when I dropped my cable and decided to start using the following websites...

• Hulu
  
• Netflix - Streaming movies.
  
• South Park Studios
  
• IMDB - They started doing streaming movies.
  
• CBS
  
• ABC
  
• Youtube - Yes there are legal TV shows there.
  
• Joost
  
• Revision3
  

Now, I am aware that these do not provide UBER picture quality, but if I want that, I'll watch the DVD! Oh, and yes...they have commercials, but...they are about 15 seconds of commercial per 15 minutes of TV....that is LESS than it would be if I fastforwarded on the DVR.

I'm saving $50/month by doing this.

NEW "Weird Al"!

As reported on Slashdot, Weird Al has decided to start releasing songs as he records them directly to iTunes. The first track has arrived, "Whatever You Like" a parody of TI's...."Whatever You Like".

It's only 99 miserable, lousy, stinking pennies.

That's less than a dollar...and considering how much THAT is worth right now, it's a bargain!

WAR! Huh?! What is it good for?

So, it seems that almost everyone I know who is remotely interested in MMOs is playing Warhammer Online Age of Reckoning. I've not played it yet, but my first impression was that it was a WoW rip-off (and I found WoW to be quite boring). Apparently, that is not necessarily the case and is a gem among MMOs. If I pick it up, I will on my next payday, but right now, I've started researching it.

SO, for any of you MMOers out there...have you played it? What do you think? Feel free to leave comments and let me know!

Allergies...

"RAGWEED POLLEN!"
- Dr. Ruth Leavitt, "The Andromeda Strain"

At least my blood isn't turning into dust, it's only felt that way for the past month...

Here is a little bit of entertainment to tide you over until the next REAL missive from me....

Apologies if this has been pulled before you view it

IT BE TALK LIKE A PIRATE DAY 2008!

ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!



What be I talkin about?

A post from the Gimp

This is my life right now.

The Revenge of Rachael Storm?

If you look at the first posts of this blog, you will realize that the original purpose of this blog had to do with my then obsession with City of Heroes. To be sure, this *is* a great game I loved. However, 3 years straight of playing it meant that I grew tired of pounding around the city thwarting Tsoo (my favorite villain group).

Yet another MMO has hit my radar, Champions Online. Will the Big Bad Boulder Bitch return to pummel evil-doers into paste with fists of stone?

Political Post

I try to stay a-political, But

From McCain's Campaign Blog.

I can't really say I'm thrilled by that comment. I don't like being marginalized. It is EXACTLY this type of comment that makes me hide my real name when I post about games. I've been treated like garbage in a couple of jobs when it was revealed I was a gamer.

Quick Checkin!

Moving to busy time at work again, so posts will be few and far between until Sept.

So, enjoy a few bits from my favorite Japanese Girl Band until then....







If you like them, buy their albums at Amazon.com!

Pathfinder Organized Play

I wasn't a super-fan of RPGA when I was a member (Living City/Living Force), but I did like the fact that you could download modules and play RPGs at conventions. It gave me a chance to meet new people.

Well, it appears that the folks at Paizo have taken their Pathfinder RPG (based on the D&D 3.5/d20 ruleset) and are creating a campaign based on this. Check out the Pathfinder Society Organized Play Campaign. You may not be interested in convention play, but its worth it for supporting a game company that is trying to appeal to tastes of gamers who might not like 4e.

Order of the Stick

Vaarsuvius has the BEST line of all time in today's strip...

"And once again, Probability proves itself willing to sneak into a back alley and service Drama as would a copper-piece harlot."

Star Trek Online

I ran across this Slashdot post yesterday about Star Trek Online.

Those who've been aboard the Pequod from the beginning, know that this started out as a City of Heroes blog. Cryptic Studios, who made City of Heroes, is the company creating Star Trek Online. Between Star Trek Online and the Knights of the Old Republic MMO, I hope that I'll be able to find a few fun computers games in my future.

I'm not fat, I'm big boned!

OK, maybe not.

Like many gamers (certainly not all gamers), I'm not necessarily the sveltest of people. I used to be a LOT heavier (about 440 max), but today, I could still stand to drop about 20-30 lbs. Every morning I walk about 45 minutes with wrist weights, ankle weights, and a weight vest. However, I've annoyingly been maintaining my current weight for the past few months. Admittedly, at least some of that fat has turned to muscle because of the weights. Yet my gut and the butt are still a bit larger than I'd prefer.

A friend of mine introduced me to The Daily Plate. After looking at this, I'm going to give it a try to see if I can get those last few pounds of padding on me gone. As he points out, for those of us that like gaming, one can approach this as a game that you are trying to win - and in this case, winning is good health.

I also recommend The Hacker's Diet for a few other pointers on dropping tonnage.