May312009 
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Angus freaks me out!
If you were one of the imaginary visitors who used to read my old site, you’d know I sometimes get a bit obsessed with TV show title sequences. I mean, we’re into season 5 of ‘Lost‘, people, and the BASTARDS still haven’t fixed the god-damned gaps in that rendered logo that flies past. The only way I could forgive it now is if the thing was integral to the plot and given how screwy the show has gotten, there’s actually a fair chance of that being true! Anyway, back to Angus. Like I said, I’ve no problem with the actor. Sure, he’s no Olivier but that’s not really what the show demands. My gripe is with that morph they do when the little ditty they’re lip-syncing to comes to an end and ‘cute as a button’ little Angus goes all you-wouldn’t-like-me-when-I’m-angry and stretches out into teen Angus. Then he grins. Yeah, maybe that last little bit of creepiness is all Angus but the morph? Ick! And it’s only going to get worst. This morph is something they’re updating every season, so that as Mr. Jones growth-spurts his way further from the cherubic mug that started this gig back in 2003, I can only assume he’ll start disappearing off the top of the screen. They’ve already announced the series has another three seasons all signed up. It’s going to be grotesque! The series creator, Chuck Lorre has joked that the show remains ‘Two And A Half Men’ despite Angus becoming a ‘whole’ all to himself since both his co-stars are shrinking as age takes it’s toll. Given how he’s grown, I think either Charlie Sheen or Jon Cryer are going to have to lose a limb or two by season 9 just to even things out. Tags / angus t. jones / charlie sheen / hulk / jon cryer / lost / TV / two and a half men / |
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Apr22009 
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Stinker, looking for love
I am of course talking about the mighty Stinker. Now, I’ve already managed to obtain this pet (as detailed here) but was quite amused to find the bods at Blizzard have given this critter a little extra oomph in the personality department. Quite clearly inspired by the legendary skunk philanderer Pepé Le Pew, it seems our little Stinker has a thing for the ladies. And by ‘ladies’, I mean cats. Specifically, the Bombay Cat and the Black Tabby Cat. Whenever Stinker spots either of these felines, he falls instantly in love, chasing his prey around the area until he is finally scorned and his heart breaks. All together now… awwwww. Don’t worry though, old Stinker has the memory of a goldfish and will again be pursuing the unobtainable within seconds. Tags / achievements / blizzard / expansion / Gaming / pc / world of warcraft / wrath of the lich king / |
Although the Valentine’s day inspired ‘
Feb252009
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The Proto-Drake Whelp is mine!
The Proto-Drake Whelp comes from the Cracked Egg, which comes from owning a Mysterious Egg for the alloted 7 days – after which, it transforms and the roulette of what you get can begin. The Mysterious Egg can be bought from Geen, the Oracles Quartermaster once you have Revered reputation with them (and 3 gold to spare). You’ll find this race of Gorlocs in their village at Rainspeaker Canopy, in Sholazar Basin, Northrend. Yep, you’ll need to be tootling around in the Wrath of the Lich King expansion for this reward. Now, building reputation with these beasties requires you to have finished the Oracles quest line, ending with ‘A Hero’s Burden‘. This quest has you taking down an elite mob, Artruis the Heartless (so maybe bring friends) but during the fight, you’ll be attacked by a Gorloc and a Wolvar (the Frenzyhart Tribe being the other warring faction in the Basin – by this point you’ll have met them already). Who you kill decides which faction’s daily quests you can take. If you’re going for the Oracles rewards, you’ll want to beat the puppy to a pulp. Complete the quest chain and you’ll be honoured with the Oracles but hated by the Frenzyhearts. Meh. Never liked those slave-driving morons much anyway. Right, now just do the daily quests in the Basin to earn that Revered standing and you can purchase an Mysterious Egg. Stick it in the bank for a week and forget about it. When you come back, crack that sucker open and then cry because, chances are, you’ll just get some Aged Yolk for all your effort. Don’t worry, you can buy another egg but that means another seven days. Yay! If you happen to get lucky, you’ll receive one of four possible vanity pets. In order of how common they apparently are, you could get either a Tickbird Hatchling, a White Tickbird Hatchling, a Cobra Hatching or our friend up there, the Proto-Drake Whelp. If you’re really, really lucky (2% drop rate according to Wowhead), you could wind up with the Reins of the Green Proto-Drake, a flying mount! No. I haven’t got that yet. *mutter* *grumble* Note – you can get the same pet even if you’ve already learnt that one. Great for flogging on the auction house, not so great if you’re impatient for some other reward. So there you have it. How to get your very own Proto-Drake Whelp. It’s not a hard process and not particularly expensive either, just time consuming. Yes, I’ll probably be swimming in Aged Yolks before I ever get the flying mount but I’ve got my mind set on it. Oh, and if you do get everything and become Exalted with the Oracles, don’t forget to switch back to the Frenzyheart Tribe faction, complete their daily quests and become Exalted with them so that you can earn the Mercenary of Sholazar achievement! Tags / achievements / blizzard / expansion / Gaming / pc / world of warcraft / wrath of the lich king / |
Okay, okay, I promise not to announce every single thing I acquire in World of Warcraft like this but this particular vanity pet has me more than a little pleased for the moment. Partly because it completes the ’set’ and partly because it’s one of those long slog kind of rewards to get. Let me explain (and show you how to get your hands on the flying bundle of fun to the left)…
Jan202009
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Bleaurgh… IEPretty much just a follow-up to one of my earlier posts (’Skoardy v3.0‘) where I unveiled/announced my revamp of the Skoardy.com theme. I was pretty happy with the results as I’d almost managed to achieve everything I set out to with the new look and also added some elements I’d overlooked the first time I switched everything over to WordPress. Of course, I have little-to-no faith in my skills with CSS, hence the comments about not coughing. It’s a rickety set of stairs, the outer shell of Skoardy.com, and give it too much of a hammering and it’s likely to fall apart. But, it looked okay and everything was where it should be… or so I thought. In comes Microsoft’s Internet Explorer with it’s size 9 clod-hoppers and its own unique take on what things should look like. Normally, I use Firefox as my default browser. It’s small, fast and best of all, with the right add-ons, you’ll never need to see another advert again. It looked fine on that. I even tried the site with Google’s Chrome – the new kid of the block that’s also small/fast. Also, looked fine. And with IE? Yeah…um, well, it was borked on IE. I don’t usually like booting IE up. These days it seems there’s always some kind of new exploit being reported and death from within for anyone foolish enough to take it for a spin on the intahwebs. Eventually, I worked up the nerve to have a look. Things were misplaced, oddly positioned and some bizarre gaps were appearing. One by one, I managed correct the flaws, writing in more specific code so that even IE couldn’t get creative with my instructions. Everything was fixed, except for some gaps in the sidebar. I know IE users take up the market share of web tourists (seriously guys, switch to a new browser already!) so I wanted to fix it but nothing I tried could get rid. So every few days I’d get a new idea and try it out with the hope that it’d fix the problem without breaking the site for other browsers. Every time, same result. Nada. Tonight, however, the new fix worked and everything fell into place. Better still, it’s something that other browsers appear to care little about. Of course, this is just with version 7 of IE. If it’s broken on older versions, screw you. Upgrade… or better still, switch to a new browser already! Tags / firefox / google / microsoft / mozilla / pc / redesign / wordpress / |
Jan122009
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Meet Stinker!
So ever since that day, I’ve kept an eye out for new vanity pets. An auction purchase here, a quick quest or two there and a few trips to previously overlooked vendors, slowly adding to my collection until Sunday night when I hit the magic number – 50 and gained the achievement ‘Shop Smart, Shop Pet…Smart‘. Moments later, a letter from Breanni, the NPC pet-store owner in Dalaran, arrived commending me on my pet care and asking me to look after… Stinker, the vanity pet skunk. So here I am with my collection of 51 vanity pets and of course I felt the urge to brag share the news of my accomplishment. It’s not such a tough feat all told – especially considering there are apparently over a hundred pets in game. But I’m still pleased. In fact, I thought I’d share with you my favourite ten pets… listed after the ‘jump’. Tags / achievements / blizzard / expansion / Gaming / pc / the burning crusade / world of warcraft / wrath of the lich king / |
Jan72009
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One more Persona 4 review
I have to say, their reviews are pretty much the only kind I bother with these days for checking out new games. While most magazine & website reviews out there are reasonably passable, Gametrailers.com reviews are concise, give you the basics and don’t need to do a half-arsed job of describing the visuals, audio or gameplay mechanics – it’s all up there on the screen for you to see. In an age where some piss poor websites encourage their self-obsessed writers to disappear up their own backsides, where they spend most of the review trying out second rate comedy routines wrapped in third rate flowery prose, I find game reviews that actually focus on the game to be surprisingly refreshing. The games gets a solid 9.3 out of 10 from Gametrailers, and with this one more than any of the reviews I’ve linked to before, if you don’t want anything spoiled, I’d probably avoid checking this one out. As lovely as viewing clips from the game is during the review, it does tend to reveal a few scenes & settings that you might want to discover yourself. You were warned. Tags / atlus / consoles / gametrailers / Gaming / persona / ps2 / review / rpg / |
Okay, so in my
Jan42009
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The definition of optimism……is perhaps trying to sell ice-cream from your cheery little van on the street when the temperature outside is reading a mighty 0°C. I really couldn’t believe it when I heard that instantly recognisable tinkly tune but yes, lo and behold, some enterprising ice-cream seller is hawking his wares in weather that could quite legitimately be called ‘a tad chilly‘. Just thinking about actually consuming ice-cream on a day like this sends a shiver to my core. Well, I assume he’s selling ice-cream. There were no customers so I never actually saw a transaction take place. Maybe he’s retrofitted the van and was actually flogging kebabs and other more suitably seasonal (and namely hot) consumables. Who knows. But if not, I guess his actions also pass for a pretty good definition of stupidity as well. |
Dec222008
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Skoardy v3.0Don’t make a sound! Don’t cough. For heaven’s sake don’t sneeze, whatever you do! I’ve just rebuilt the website’s theme and the slightest jostle could bring it crashing down around your ears. I thought it was about time for a change and doing so has allowed me to fix a couple of oversights I made when I first put the Wordpress website together. The first thing that got sorted was being able to show more than one category at the same time. While I could define my posts as have multiple categories, my first theme couldn’t display them (it’d only show the first one). That’s sorted now. I can go category buck-wild… er… not that I plan to. But I could! Second was a better integration of the tags. I’ve been adding them to the posts and had that chubby tag cloud in the old footer so it seemed daft not to list them in the posts. Well, there they are. The tag cloud itself has gone, replaced with a list of the top 30 tags over in the side bar. I’ve binned the comments. They weren’t getting used – though I never really expected them to. No, scratch that. They were getting used but there’s only so many hours in the day you can devote to marking bot-seeded porn site advert comments as spam. And what have we learnt from doing another theme? Mostly that creating images for pretty much every post and blending them to the theme’s background colour is going to bite you in the ass somewhere down the line. Yeah, recreating all those was a mind-numbing excercise in tedium fun. Anyway, enjoy. Mind what you touch, though. The paint is still wet in a few places. Tags / redesign / wordpress / |
Dec182008
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Wordpress 2.7
Okay, fair is fair – that’s probably more a comment about my complete lack of skills rather than the embarassingly straightforward update procedure but when it comes to any kind of task like these, if it can go wrong, you’ll probably find my grubby fingerprints already all over it and smoke pouring from the back. So what is new with 2.7? They’ve given the dashboard another new lick of paint and versatility seems to be the order of the day with a ‘however you like it’ vibe to the whole process. All the content on the main page can be re-arranged (even to the point of switching from a single column layout to a double column one and vice versa). You can quickly add a post right from the main page, track draft posts, and also sort & answer comments… if unlike me, you have visitors to your website. The customisation follows through to new content sections, allowing you to set your post/page editing layout how you like it, minimising or even removing altogether any feature you hardly ever bother with. On the plug-in front, they also can be added and updated without stepping away from the comfort of your site admin, browsing the plug-in directory through a handy list of tags. Yep, soon enough your site will be groaning under the weight of countless unneeded (but must have!) plug-ins. One of my personal bugbears is also fixed – the way that adding images used to default to having a pre-defined URL and how they insisted on being thumbnail size. Both gone, I’m happy to say. Yeah, I’ll miss the manual update procedure but given how the package keeps improving with each iteration, I’ll definitely be looking forward to what Wordpress 2.8 brings! Tags / upgrade / wordpress / |
Dec82008
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Even more Persona 4 reviews
Given the number of people visiting the site looking for information, it’s clear that quite a few of you will soon be neck deep in a murder mystery and busy molesting TV sets in a picturesque Japanese countryside. While you’re enjoying yourself, please spare a thought for us unlucky European bastards who have anything up to half a year to wait. Hey! Stop laughing! Since the reviews are all picking up on the same points and have a general theme of appreciation, rather than comment on them individually, here is a list of the new reviews and their scores…
As you can see, this new series of review scores closely match the ones posted last time. Certainly encouraging for anyone with the game on pre-order or considering popping into their local ‘house of games’ to purchase Persona 4. If you were previously on the fence, get the hell off and get the game bought. Tsch! Another related tidbit is this article from Siliconera, expanding their series of previews of the game with a look at the dungeoneering aspects. As with other previews, if you want to experience the tweaks to the game fresh, avoid but if you’re nosey like me (and you’re looking forwards to months of waiting for a European release), have at it. Speaking of which, Square Enix have confirmed that they’ll be releasing Persona 4 in Europe next year with a slightly firmer ‘Spring 2009′ (so any time between late March and late June) in their December newsletter. I think this will be the last Persona 4 review update. They all seem to be of a single mind (the game is great!) and there should be enough nuance in the eight to ten reviews I’ve linked over the last few weeks to help you decide if the game is for you. Simply put, it is. Tags / atlus / consoles / digital chumps / game vortex / gamecritics / Gaming / honestgamers / persona / ps2 / review / rpg / square enix / thunderbolt games / |
Along with the reviews mentioned in my