September 24, 2014 Lyn Plays World of Warcraft
Price: Starter Edition is free to play. Now we get complicated. See below.
Client: Mac/PC
Get it from: www.worldofwarcraft.com
Alright so this isn’t my first time playing WoW. My first time playing WoW was as a Night Elf Hunter waaaay back in 2005 or so. Possibly 2006, it’s hard to be sure. Since then I’ve been on again off again with WoW, but I don’t think I’ve ever unsubbed for a full year.
Since my other game plan for this week fell through, Mark suggested I do some Pandaing. To make it a bit new for me I rolled a Priest because I don’t tend to play squishy classes except Warlocks because they get a nifty tank pet.
Although I started as Alliance (Humans, Gnomes, Dwarves, Draenei, Night Elves, Worgen and Pandaren), I went to dabble with Horde (Orcs, Trolls, Blood Elves, Goblins, Tauren and Pandaren) and enjoyed how much funnier the quests are. I also found the general chat was less offensive. Which is not to say it’s not ever offensive, because it’s WoW.
Having all these WoW years behind me means I am a master of the game. People are right to fear me. I am excellent at every class, every battle and ev.. wait I was thinking of someone else. I’m pretty bad at it. I’m a PvE player, I like to wander around and take my time and go sightseeing or whatever. I guild, but rarely group and I certainly don’t run instances.
Now, pricing. There’s the basic game, and the expansions and you can add as you go. Easiest way to see the prices is to click this link, but only because it keeps showing me Australian prices and that might be misleading. Subscription is $14.99 a month, with discounts for buying months in bulk.
There’s not really much else to say other than I have 240 vanity pets and that makes me oddly cheery.
Tags: LynPlays
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September 23, 2014 Tuesday 7: Movies of 1979
I was seven years old in 1979 and here we have seven movies I liked from that year. Coincidence? Yes, very much so.
7. Manhattan – I know this is supposed to be Woody Allen At His Best and it probably is, but I couldn’t tell you. I like Woody Allen movies in general (I just watched Blue Jasmine over the weekend, even), but I never remember much about them after the fact. They all tend to get jumbled up in my head, which is why I’m not a high-falutin’ film critic. Well, one reason, anyway.
6. Rocky II – This is the Rocky I remember the least. There are no robots or giant Russians, that much I remember.
5. Apocalypse Now – I watched this around the same time a college class I was in was discussing Heart of Darkness, the book this movie is based on. The two of them together helped me to understand them both better, if that makes any sense.
4. Alien – To date the scariest movie I’ve ever seen.
3. The Jerk – Bernadette Peters is a national treasure (as is Steve Martin, but we already knew that). Their duet on the beach is beautiful. Oh, and the movie is funny, I should probably mention.
2. Star Trek: The Motion Picture – We’re supposed to hate this now because it’s slow and ponderous. Too bad, because I actually quite like it. Except for the new uniforms, which were terrible.
1. The Muppet Movie – Still the best Muppet movie ever made (though The Muppets is a pretty good second).
I’m sorry that Mad Max, Phantasm, and Meatballs didn’t make my list. I hope that didn’t ruin everything ever for you.
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September 22, 2014 Movie Monday: All of Me
Some of you might recall how we were a crucial part of getting The Compleat Al released on DVD. Well, your help is needed again.
All of Me was #4 on my Steve Martin list, but I admitted it was going mostly off memory as I hadn’t seen it in a long, long time. The main reason I haven’t seen it in a long, long time is that it’s impossible to. Okay, not impossible, but very, very difficult. The only DVD made for it was a full frame version, which might as well be a coaster/Frisbee/terrible donut. There are digital versions here and there, but that is unacceptable. It is high time there was a widescreen edition available, and, of course, a Blu-Ray.
In case you can’t read the text on the movie poster to the right, here’s how it sums up the plot:
They say that behind every great man there’s a woman. But in this case it’s ridiculous.
When rich, eccentric Edwina Cutwater died, a crazy guru tried to transport her soul into the body of a beautiful young woman.
But the guru goofed. And Edwina’s soul has accidentally taken over the entire right side of her lawyer, Roger Cobb. He still controls what’s left.
Now, Edwina and Roger are living together in the same body.
He’s losing his job. He’s losing his girlfriend.
And he just can’t seem to get her out of his system. No matter how hard he tries.
It’s a romantic comedy with mystical elements, which I realize doesn’t sound all that groundbreaking, but I will say again: the scene where Steve tries walking down the street after being half-possessed is one of the funniest bits of physical comedy I’ve ever seen.
I don’t know how much actors have input on what gets released how – I suspect is isn’t much, but I also suspect that if Steve or Lily were to want it done, it’d get done. I wonder, though, how Steve feels about this one now. It was on this movie that he met Victoria Tennant. They were married two years later and then divorced eight years after that (a couple of years after making L. A. Story together). By most accounts, the divorce hit Steve very hard, and I can’t help wondering if it would be difficult for him to talk about this movie, even 30 years later.
I don’t know what y’all did last time to make these things happen, but I’d appreciate you doing it again for this one, okay?
Tags: Steve Martin
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September 19, 2014 tGIF: Animals
A few GIFs to increase your happiness today:
“Why… why’d you take my can away?”
Listen to this song while this one plays
“Weirdest tree ever.”
“I can quit any time I want to, but that time ain’t now.”
“Who’s a good boy now, jerkface?”
“Never mind how it happened, just get me out!”
I am not even kidding – this might be my favorite GIF ever. For extra fun, imagine the raccoon is saying Zoidberg’s “woob woob woob woob” as he runs off.
Tags: tGIF
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September 18, 2014 TK-421
There’s this scene in Star Wars where the Millennium Falcon has been captured and is sitting in a dock on the Death Star. Two Stormtroopers have been stationed at the bottom of the ramp into the Falcon, and a scanning crew has been sent inside. Not long after the scanners have entered the ship, someone calls down to the Stormtroopers and asks for help, so they go up into the ship.
Shortly thereafter, Lieutenant Pol Treidum attempts to contact one of the Stormtroopers: “TK-421, why aren’t you at your post? TK-421, do you copy?”
A Stormtrooper (presumably TK-421) comes down the Falcon’s ramp, looks up at the office where Pol Treidum is, taps his helmet, and indicates his comm is down. When Pol leaves the room to go check on TK-421, everything falls apart (Empire-wise) and Han Solo and Luke Skywalker, now dressed as Stormtroopers, start looking for Princess Leia.
It’s a short scene, but important. It’s how Han and Luke get their Stormtrooper outfits, and it gives them access to the computers so R2-D2 can look for where Leia is imprisoned. I don’t know why that trooper’s designation stuck in my head when I can’t remember my home address without looking it up half the time, but there it is.
Okay, so… now what? Why bring this up?
Several months ago, the state of Indiana started handing out license plates that started with “TK,” followed by three numbers, and then three more letters. Like this: TK123ABC. When I saw the first couple of them, for some reason that scene from Star Wars came to mind, and I knew that somewhere out there a plate with TK421 on it had to exist. More exactly, there were at least 15,600 plates out there, and possibly 17, 576 of them, depending on how the BMV feels about repeated letters (source). Assuming there exists every possibility between TK421AAA and TK421ZZZ, it seemed likely it wouldn’t take that long for me to see any plate in the series.
I started out casually, “oh, hey, a TK plate.” But then it became an obsession. “TK419. AH! Close!” and “TK241 – right numbers, wrong order!” And I involved a friend, who quickly became as obsessed as I. I tried explaining it to my wife once, but she gave me a “I’m very concerned about your well-being” look, so I didn’t bring it up any more.
I was on the phone with said friend the other day, and he said, “I just saw it! TK421!” but he couldn’t get photographic proof. “Maybe he works around here,” he said. “I’ll check next time I’m over here.”
Two days later, I got this picture from him:
Now, I’m not saying it wasn’t exciting, because it certainly was… for him. I mean, it confirmed to me that it was out there, but I already was 99% sure of that. I guess it just bummed me out that I didn’t see it firsthand. I’m still on the lookout, and probably will be even after I see one (if I ever do).
“Now what?” asked my friend.
“Well, I thought about that,” I replied. “And you know how it was Luke that ended up in TK-321’s armor? I think we should be on the lookout for ‘TK421SKY,’ for ‘Skywalker’.”
He groaned, but I’m pretty sure he won’t be able to resist.
Tags: Star Wars
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