THE RETURN OF THE PODCAST IS HERE!

Episode 9 of the All Things From My Brain Podcast is here.

In this weeks massive, DOUBLE SIZED, MAXI-PODCAST, I am joined by a special guest on his very first podcast [...]]]> I said I’d do it, I warned you – you didn’t listen, did you? Well, now it’s TOO LATE!

THE RETURN OF THE PODCAST IS HERE!

Episode 9 of the All Things From My Brain Podcast is here.

In this weeks massive, DOUBLE SIZED, MAXI-PODCAST, I am joined by a special guest on his very first podcast appearance as we discuss the iPad, about Apple, Google, Blizzard, Doctor Who, Dollhouse, Torchwood – and the fact that his youngest son may be stalking me via iPhone.

With Episode 9 I am dumping Podbean and everything is going to be hosted here on atfmb.com. If you’ve subscribed to the podcast via iTunes, that link is in the process of being changed and you’ll have to resubscribe – I’ll let you know as soon as that’s ready and available.

In the meantime, click below and stream to your hearts content or you can download via this link by right clicking and choosing ’save as’.

~P

[podcast]http://www.atfmb.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/AllThingsFromMyBrain009.mp3[/podcast]

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In the fifth episode of the All Things From My Brain podcast, I talk about the Palm Pre losing it’s iTunes sync functionality, how India plans to issue biometric ID cards to its 1.2 BILLION citizens, how the Kindle and Amazon are once again in the news with BAD [...]]]> Episode #5: All Things from My Brain

In the fifth episode of the All Things From My Brain podcast, I talk about the Palm Pre losing it’s iTunes sync functionality, how India plans to issue biometric ID cards to its 1.2 BILLION citizens, how the Kindle and Amazon are once again in the news with BAD PRESS, about Galaga coming to the iPhone in both retro and new forms, how Farragut films is bring Star Trek back to animation, how the family of Lord of the Rings author J.R.R. Tolkein are suing New Line Cinema cuz they ain’t been paid, about G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, Iron Man 2 & Green Lantern: First Flight, Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, Buck Rogers in the 25th century, Flash Gordon, and The New Universe book projects currently on my plate.

[podcast]http://www.atfmb.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/AllThingsFromMyBrain005.mp3[/podcast]

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Guess what I did this weekend?

I created a podcast!!

I decided that I have a face fit for radio… Or Podcasting…

Anyway, spent the weekend working on this – hoping that I’ve worked the kinks out and it’ll be much much easier to do these moving forward.  We’ll have to see about that.

There’s lot’s of ways to [...]]]> So.

Guess what I did this weekend?

I created a podcast!!

I decided that I have a face fit for radio… Or Podcasting…

Anyway, spent the weekend working on this – hoping that I’ve worked the kinks out and it’ll be much much easier to do these moving forward.  We’ll have to see about that.

There’s lot’s of ways to access the podcast at this point:

• You can click this link and it’ll take you to the feed.
• You can click the podcast player in the right sidebar and play it in the browser.
• You can click the link in the left sidebar to the feed.

I’ve submitted it to iTunes so as soon as I have a link for that, I’ll put it here somewhere.  In the meantime, you can add it to your iTunes by clicking on Advanced, then Subscribe to podcast and just paste the feed link in.

I’m really excited about this!

In this inaugural episode of the All Things From My Brain Podcast, I introduce myself and then talk about: the podcast and the blog, I also talk about reboot mania gripping Hollywood, the new iPhone 3GS and the new 3.0 OS, Tweetdeck on the iPhone, the new Ghostbusters game released this week, Microsoft’s new .NET Firefox addon that you probably didn’t know about, Torchwood: Children of Earth, Primeval, Doctor Who and the new Spaceport America.

If that sounds interesting to you, then what are you waiting for?  Click the link!

~P

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Some examples come from the Death Knight starting area and quests.  

The Eye.  The Eye quest lets you take a giant floating eye for a ride down to spy on the Scarlets.  Your [...]]]> I have been playing Wrath for a couple days now, and I have to admit – Blizzard has done some pretty nifty things.

Some examples come from the Death Knight starting area and quests.  

The Eye.  The Eye quest lets you take a giant floating eye for a ride down to spy on the Scarlets.  Your whole UI changes – it is really, really cool.

The next surprise for me was when you get to steal a horse.  Again, the UI changes – it surprised me and was a lot of fun.

Next, the cannons on the ship.  You get a quest to sneak behind enemy lines, board a ship and turn their own cannons against the Scarlets.  OMFG – the fun!  It reminded me of the first time I did the bombing quests in Outland.  SO FUN!

But none of that prepared me for the best surprise.  Normally, starting areas remain just that – starting areas.  You do your quests and move on, other people come on and do the same quests – the area remains the same.  Not so for Death Knights.  I completed the first quests and found that, for me, the starting area had changed!  Now, the Death Knights hold it – so I see a battered area, full of Ghouls and Plaguehounds.  Holy crap, it’s COOL!

This way of creating a logical progression – how the quests are about conquering the land and then you actually see it conquered instead of having to pretend – that is just simply amazing.

Well done, Blizzard.  Well done.

~P

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My trip to Blizzcon rekindled my interest in the World of Warcraft, among other games.  I’ve been doing a good job of balancing my time playing video games with doing other, non sitting around on my ass stuff.  Not [...]]]> Well, to quote Michael Corleone: Just when I thought I was out… they pull me back in.

My trip to Blizzcon rekindled my interest in the World of Warcraft, among other games.  I’ve been doing a good job of balancing my time playing video games with doing other, non sitting around on my ass stuff.  Not enough, of course, but at least I’m trying.  Still, I find myself logging in more than I have in a very long time.

Still not playing much Horde, though.  I want to, I’m nearly there – seriously, I am.  Lots of drama happened there, lots of stupid people being petty and blaming everyone else for all sorts of crap.  Bleh.  It’s no wonder I stay away.  There are some truly fantastic people over there, though, and I am closer to going back and getting into the groove of things again than I was, say, a month ago.

In the meantime, I’ve been working on my Alliance side Paladin – arguably my first main character.  Pretty well developed RP-wise and when I played him every night, I had it down really well and as long as I had mana, I survived.  Playing him again after so long has been a challenge, but I’m getting the hang of it again.  I’m looking forward to the Lich King expansion, everything I saw at Blizzcon really looked interesting and the latest patch with all the new stuff has been a lot of fun.

Logging into him for the first time in a long time, I had to redo all his talents, spells, etc.  I also had to deal with the fact that he had no money – I’d sent it all to Morticai Horde side long ago.  So I set to work on getting him some money, working the Auction House (and doing a damned fine job of it), upgrading his armor and finally breaking level 60 after three years.

The funny came when I was going through my bank and found my tuxedo pants.  This reminded me of those early days, playing in a tight group and doing really well.  RP-wise, my Pally was engaged – hence the tuxedo pants.  When the call came to head to an instance, he was wearing said pants and I totally forgot to change them out for his plate.  So, I tanked Uldaman in tuxedo pants.  And I didn’t die.

If you know anything about the game, this should be amusing to you

~P

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Four years of World of Warcraft.  I can’t believe it’s been four years.  With Blizzcon approaching, I’ve been thinking back on how Warcraft has impacted my life.

At best I can be considered a casual player these days.  It’s probably more realistic to call me an occasional player in that I occasionally play.  I [...]]]> Wow.  Or, WoW.

Four years of World of Warcraft.  I can’t believe it’s been four years.  With Blizzcon approaching, I’ve been thinking back on how Warcraft has impacted my life.

At best I can be considered a casual player these days.  It’s probably more realistic to call me an occasional player in that I occasionally play.  I think it’s been 2 weeks as of this writing since I last logged in and that was simply to make sure that some stuff I had in the mail didn’t get deleted.  (it’s been longer than that since I last turned on my XBox)

Still, WoW has played a pretty big role in my life these past four years and in looking back, I’ve decided to share a little bit about my experiences.

First off, I was such a noob.  I remember getting the game to play with a friend of mine, his brother and father-in-law.  I took it home and installed it – it took forever.  I got everything setup and logged in for the first time.  I think I rolled a Night Elf Druid (since deleted and I don’t even remember when or why).  I liked the idea that, at some point, they could shape shift.  I knew nothing about how the game really worked.  In fact, I’d never played one of these MMO’s before, so I had no idea how any of it worked.

I rolled my Druid on the server that the system recommended for me.  Like I said, I didn’t have any idea how any of it worked, so I just assumed that my friends were also on that server.  I think my mind was thinking back to the old days when people dialed into a server to play a game – think BBS.  SO, I ran around like the noob that I was, shouting “Q?!  HEY ARE YOU OUT THERE?  ARE YOU IN THIS AREA?”

/dork

I found out later that they were, in fact, on a server called ‘Earthen Ring’, so I needed to roll a new character over there.  I figured out how to switch between servers and then I stared at the character creation screen.  They were playing Alliance so I needed an Alliance character – I knew that much.  Quinn had a Night Elf Rogue, his brother Marcus had a Human Warrior and their step-dad Albert had a Dwarf Warrior, I believe.  I looked at the different classes and thought that the Paladin was a good choice; they had some parts of the Warrior class and Healing like a Priest or Druid.

Padraig was born.

I learned pretty quickly once I got going.  Albert came to me one night and asked me to join a Guild.  I asked what a Guild was and he told me that it was a group of players who shared a tabbard and a name.  In this case, he’d found some people who were into something called ‘RP’ and they needed someone to sign a charter so they could form the Guild.  They were The Iron Guard.

I was totally willing to help out.  I liked Albert, he was pretty cool.  So, I met the folks in Stormwind, the Human city, and signed their charter.  I was the highest level in the group, which surprised me.  This RP thing reminded me of the games I used to play many, many moons ago.  I got into it pretty quick and started chatting away with people.  My knowledge of the game seemed to expand exponentially, the more time I spent with The Iron Guard.  I met someone named Snowshoe, a Gnome Rogue and eventually, a Priest named Saranya.  Things were moving right along.

Then came the day when Q’s brother M wanted to form a Guild of his own.  Through a third party, I heard that he was upset that I’d joined a Guild and wanted me to help form his Guild, so I figured out how to quit The Iron Guard so I could go sign his new Guild charter.

Holy.  Crap.

The backlash was HUGE!  Apparently, I was more popular in that Guild than I knew.  Truth be told, I didn’t care for the Guild Master.  He did some weird stuff.  He had all these rules about who could and couldn’t be in the Guild, who could be Officers (I was one, Snowshoe was the other), his character was also weird – so I wasn’t too sad about leaving.  But apparently my leaving shocked the rest of the Guild and started an exodus that lead them to break off enmasse from The Iron Guard to form a new Guild: The Iron Splinter.

Meanwhile, I was now in The AvantGuard.  I missed the old Guild though.  I got used to the RP and the constant Guild chatter.  My friends in that Guild continued to quest with me so things were good.  My Paladin ended up outleveling Q and the rest as I was trying to keep up with the group; Saranya, Snowshoe, Kyssandra and Imi.

Then, one day, The Iron Splinter – just about the entire Guild, switched sides.  They rolled Horde and invited me along for the ride.  I needed to roll my third character.  I stared at the character creation screen.  I wanted something different.  I’d gotten really good at tanking with a Pally – something not a lot of people managed to do well.  But I was tired of it – I wanted to do some damage.  I chose a Forsaken Mage.

I played around with the controls until I had a bald but nearly normal looking Forsaken – his face was intact, which I thought was important.  He also had glowing eyes (ironic considering he came to hide them more often than not). He needed a name.  He was ‘dead’.  le Morte.  I typed in ‘Morticai’.

A new age had dawned.  The Bone Splinter made a name for themselves fairly quickly.  Not everyone stayed.  Both Imi and Sandra left for Alliance.  They thought the Horde was a lark but not something to stick with – they both had high level characters Alliance side that they didn’t want to abandon.  A few more trickled after them.

But the Splinter was growing.  Alliance side was full of kids – let’s be blunt.  Horde side, we found, had more mature people who were actually interested in Role Playing and we set ourselves up as an RP Guild from the start.  The people who joined us wanted RP, the people we surrounded ourselves with, Guilds like ‘The Calling’ and ‘The Tears of Draenor’ and ‘The Drunken Monkey Brewery’ – they, too, wanted RP.

After Morticai came Torero, a character based partly on someone that I was working with at the time.  Next came Jaluli, a hunter and my first ever female character – something I wanted to try just to see if I could even create and maintain a female character (it’s still very awkward).  Other’s followed: Calum, Boogedy, Tivir, Brega, Verlassen, Albergi, Ortero, Tivir, Kalagath, to name just a few.

Friendships grew as well.  I suddenly found myself connecting with people all over the world, which was just amazing to me.

All due to a video game.

Now here we are, four years later, and I’m about to meet a ton of these people, face to face for the first time, at a convention celebrating Blizzard and all their games, culture and community and I can’t be more excited about it.  If you’d told me four years ago that playing a video game would’ve brought me such friendships and forged such bonds, I would’ve thought you were pretty crazy.

Yet, here I am and it’s been a fantastic ride.

~P

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One week til Blizzcon.

I’m starting to get excited!

Believe it or not, for me, it’s more about getting away and seeing friends than it is about going to a video gaming convention.  WoW has made me a lot of good friends and hanging out with them is going to be fun.

It’s been a while since I’ve [...]]]> So.

One week til Blizzcon.

I’m starting to get excited!

Believe it or not, for me, it’s more about getting away and seeing friends than it is about going to a video gaming convention.  WoW has made me a lot of good friends and hanging out with them is going to be fun.

It’s been a while since I’ve flown anywhere – a little over a year, actually. That was a Denver/Chicago trip to meet up with family and head down to Kentucky for my grandmother’s funeral.  This time, I’m heading into LAX – one of the busiest airports in the nation – not that Midway isn’t busy.  It’s just that I’ve been to Midway a lot and can find my way around without much incident.  LAX – I’ve been there once.

I remember it well.  It was huge, of course.  This was pre-9/11 and there were a lot of college students running around the place.  They were doing some sort of social study.  Basically, they had someone come up and ask you a bunch of questions – take a survey.  The survey itself didn’t matter much to them – they were gauging responses to the people themselves.  They had a cute girl and a not so cute girl, a handsome guy and a not so handsome guy – and they were seeing which of these people were better received by the interviewees.

I never found out what their findings were.

LAX was what I exptected LAX to be.  Saw my first Hare Krishnas there.  Yes, they were dressed like monks from an old episode of Kung Fu, had their heads shaved, those large beads wrapped around them.  They were singing and dancing and doing their thing.

This time around, I won’t be sitting there waiting for a plane to Sacramento – it’ll be a straight shot to the waiting shuttles and onto my hotel (hopefully).

The days after that will probably be a blur what with Disney, the actual convention, hanging out, buying stuff, eating, sleeping and whatnot all.

I’m taking stuff that would probably allow me to blog from there if I have the time – we’ll see how that goes.

For now, exciting!

~P

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I’m installing it even as I type.  Should be pretty interesting.

All the hype aside, if it delivers on half of what’s been promised, it will be an amazing little game.