Wednesday, February 28, 2007

According to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, via IP:

"During the Christian vs. Kurt Angle match on PPV, Angle had called a spot where he would do ten German suplexes but stopped after seven. He appeared to be in pain after the match but wouldn't let on if anybody noticed."

If there wasn't enough reason to hate Civil War.

In this interview on Newsarama, Marvel writer Mark Millar comments near the end:

"Like all my pals, the TV and movie people have come calling and even the computer game people (which is weird because games are for pedos and I have no interest)."

Well, Mr. Millar, I've enjoyed games for decades, and I'm certainly no pedo, so screw you. Oh, and your story ended up absolutely sucking.

Monday, February 26, 2007

You know, it's been a while since I showed my various WoW characters, and they've gone through a lot of change in that time, so why not?

I'll do it on here rather than BoffoBlog because it's easier to incorporate multiple images here with BlogSpot's editor than on BoffoBlog with just HTML.

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BOFFO

"Well, I never wear buttons, but I got a cool hat."

Now at level 53, my eponymous character has become my clear main. He has the epic Lei of Lilies necklace that he can pick petals from that restore his health and mana, and the epic Robes of Insight, granting up to 500 mana discounted off the cost of a spell in a pinch.

In 5 levels, he'll be able to finally go through the Dark Portal and explore Outland and the main content of the recent expansion.

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HUMANSBANE

Humansbane is a new character since last time as he's a member of the expansion's new Blood Elf race. I admit it's a weird sounding name, but it comes from the idea of Wolfsbane, a plant reputed to stop werewolves. Basically, with this name he's taken, this character sees himself as the cure to the "disease" of humanity.

This fits into the lore of the Blood Elves. When they were allied with Humans, their liaison was a bigoted human who kept sending them out on suicide missions as cannon fodder. This drove the Blood Elves to the other side... therefore both Humans and Blood Elves see the one as betraying the other.

Humansbane's pet is a Dragonhawk, one of the new pets in the game with the expansion. Dragonhawks have have a limited area of effect flame attack that can be very handy. I gave this one the awe inspiring name "Expendable".

DarkHelm's Blood Elf Paladin Elrena has very similar skin and hair color, so we put into their backstories that they were siblings.

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ILP

Ilp was meant to both be a suitable Undead sounding name as well as an acronym standing for Impressive Looking Priest, referring to the character in The Princess Bride who proclaimed "Mawwaige!" I later learned the official credit for him was "The Impressive Priest". On a suggestion from DarkHelm, Ilp's lack of lower jaw helps in his astounding powers of pronunciation.

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IRIDISCIA

Iridiscia was once my Alliance main, named after a character in a random sci-fi story I wrote when I was younger.

(As a matter of fact, I believe the story is available in the Dave's Works section of my Home Page.)

She has just made level 40, and thus just become able to ride mounts (Nightsabers, which are tiger-like), and has upgraded from leather to mail armor. She is armed with the epic Bow of Searing Arrows. Her main pet at the moment is the gorilla named "Naked".

...well, he is.

I assume it's a he.

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LIBBI

This is a character that was obviously named in better times. She was and still is meant solely as a gesture of respect to her namesake.

That said, this Paladin has also reached level 40 and has gotten her mounts. She has gotten horses because she's human, as well as a special horse because she's a Paladin. She has also upgraded from mail to plate armor.

In addition, on a recent dungeon run, Boffo obtained the epic Nightblade two handed sword and shipped it to her as the only character on the Alliance side who could use it. This is to date the first and only epic that has dropped for me instead of being bought.

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MORSH

Until fairly recently, Morsh was my main character, as I figured early on that an Orc Warrior was a fairly straightforward character to play. He still has the rare Baby Murloc minipet I received as an attendee of BlizzCon as there's no way to move the pet.

He has the same epic Lei of Lilies that Boffo has (though it's less benefit to Morsh because Morsh has no mana), as well as the epic weapons Bloodrazor and Flurry Axe (both with the Enchant Crusader, which offers a chance of immense extra strength on each hit) and the epic shield Wall of the Dead.

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MUUCAU

This is a character back by popular demand... or at least by the demand of Matt Sutton, and he's popular.

The original Muucau was my Tauren Shaman, who became expendable when the expansion ended up introducing two new races without adding any new character slots per server. As I was reaching my limit on my main server, having two Tauren was no longer feasible. So I deleted Muucau as the new expansion would allow Draenei to be Shamans as you'll see below.

This made Matt a saaaaaaad Sutton.

Later I decided to retire my Tauren Druid Greygear because the concept behind the character (that she would only wear poor quality, or grey, gear) became unworkable. So I made a new Tauren Druid named Muucau, that I liked to imagine was the child of the original Muucau and Greygear.

This made Matt happy!

And isn't THAT what matters?

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SAPSINGER

There's your good old fashioned nightmare fuel.

The Gnome Rogue Sapsinger is based on my old RPG character Sapsinger Tanglebeard the Kender.

Why is he wearing a dress? Two reasons.

1. Because during character creation of Sapsinger Tanglebeard, DarkHelm reminded me that I needed to buy at least one set of clothes, creating a running gag where Sapsinger would streak if bored.

2. Because during the Valentine's Day event on WoW, *twice* I ended up getting a very rare drop of a "Lovely Black Dress". This was a good thing because I got a total of 180 gold selling these on the Auction House, but my guild mates taunted me about it in fun while I was on Sapsinger... so as a quest reward for one of the seasonal quests, I took and wore a "Lovely Red Dress" and that's what he's wearing here.

Hoping you haven't clawed your eyes out here, we'll continue...

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STORMWINDSPY

Stormwindspy is another gimmick character. Basically, I have him eat things that change his appearance to look like a human rather than a troll, and when my adventures carry me to a Horde capital city, I give an announcement about how the denizens there can proceed with their evil Horde activities while I observe, safe in the knowledge that I will not report on them to my true masters in Stormwind. Luckily most people go along with the humor.

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TRAITOR

Traitor is a name in the same kind of vein as Stormwindspy, but I really don't do the same kind of shenaningans over general chat. I let the humor of the name speak for itself.

I recently completed a quest chain where at the end of it, an NPC yelled something to the effect of "All hail Traitor! Hero to the Draenei! Savior to our people!" and had someone whisper a laugh to me.

And over on another server...

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FLAMEBEARD

Since I didn't have a dwarf on my main server (due to having two humans), and because I wanted to try a Role Playing Server as an alternate experience, I started this character.

Now dwarves can choose between the classes Warrior, Rogue, Priest, Paladin or Hunter. On my Warrior, it was fun at first, but I've hit a real snag with soloing in later levels. Rogues and Priests have been also harder to solo. And since there have been 10 races, 10 slots per server and only 9 classes, I've already had to repeat one class, and that class has been Hunters (both the Night Elf Iridiscia and the Blood Elf Humansbane are Hunters), so I took my 2nd Paladin here (after Libbi).

Paladins can be an easy class to play because they have good melee abilities and can cure themselves.

Anyway, that's my cast of characters.

Sunday, February 25, 2007

During IGN's coverage of the New York Comic Convention '07, the following Announcement was made, courtesy comics.ign.com:

NYCC 07: Whedon Revives Serenity
Mal and his pirates will return this fall.
by Richard George

February 25, 2007 - Earlier today at the Dark Horse panel, publicist Jeremy Atkins and editor Scott Allie confirmed that Joss Whedon's Serenity would see a sequel series published. The mini would take place prior to the movie but likely after Firefly, the short-lived television series based on the same property.

Whedon would once again team with Brett Matthew to write the books. Artist Will Conrad would return to do art and Adam Hughes was tentatively committed to doing covers.

Details were fairly light since the series is still far away. Allie stated that the series would launch some time in the fall, most likely September. The premise would focus on the group acquiring a job so lucrative that it would let the entire crew retire. The pressure of pulling off a job with such high stakes begins to wear away at team, and they slowly begin to break apart as the storyline progresses.

Allie also confirmed that the first script was already written and submitted. IGN will have more details as the release of Serenity nears.