Twilight Vanquisher

I've held my WoW nerd at bay, chained up and foaming at the mouth, for months now. There have been some small tidbits here and there, but no meat and potato meals. Well indulge me dear reader because it's about to get geeky in here.

On the 25 player raid front we have been pushing for The Twilight Zone achievement for going on three weeks now and finally got it last night. To define terms three weeks of attempts is two raid days a week for three hours each day, so roughly eighteen hours to get it done. It was by far the hardest challenge in WotLK that we have faced to date. Although I wonder about The Immortal and You Don't Have An Eternity now. They will be hard to do for sure. Here is some back of the napkin math, to give you some perspective.

• 11.5 million people in the world play WoW;
• 35,273 guilds in US and EU are ranked which means roughly;
• 881,825 players in the US and EU have killed a raid boss in WotLK, of those;
• 59,075 players have done The Twilight Zone or 6.7% and only;
• 5,850 players have done You Don't Have An Eternity or 0.66% and only;
• 2,100 players have done The Immortal or 0.24%.

Granted those numbers are rough estimates given that some guilds have more than 25 people on their rosters. Regardless the difficulty of the last two achievements is pretty clear.

On the 10 man front we had been slowing down since Christmas, but picked back up this week. Our goal was to knock out all of the 8 man achievements and we did last night with A Poke In The Eye. Up next is The Undying which should see our first attempt Saturday night.

No good news to report on the pvp front. No arena team I have been on has yielded any results. Either I suck at healing in arena and should level my mage up or my comps plus the current nature of burst dps is running a game on me. In any case I keep trying to find the magic spice that makes the pvp meal taste good, but have not done so to date.

MMAmazing

Two big events went down this weekend that would get any MMA fans blood pumping. Saturday was Affliction's second event showcasing the MMA legend Fedor Emelianenko and Sunday brought WEC 38 and a return to form for Urijah Faber.

Emelianenko vs Arlovski
I have been riding the Fedor band wagon ever since I saw my first Pride event years ago. I was also a big fan of Andrei Arlovski post his first and only win over Tim "The Boring" Sylvia. So needless to say I was hyped up to see the two clash. In the end it turned out just as I expected, with Fedor one shotting the Pitbull. Up until his lights when out though Arlovski looked better than I have ever seen him. His boxing was clean and he was beating Fedor to the punch. The second he switched his game plan up though he was face down on the mat. If you make mistakes against one the greatest pound for pound fighters in the sport you will pay for it.

Faber vs Pulver
Their first fight went to the cards which did not suprise me in the least. Pulver seemed younger and ready to retake his crown at 145 lbs. Faber clearly won though, but not finshing his opponent seemed to be a chink in his armor. November came and Faber got rocked by Mike Brown to lose his belt. So the second meeting between the two this past weekend end up having different stakes for each fighter. Faber needed to win to put him on track to get his belt back and Pulver needed to win to prove he was still a relevant contender at age 34. The end result was a vicious left to the body from Faber that sent Pulver reeling back in pain. The jig was up and Faber pounced on the ageing fighter to finish him in the first round.

UFC 94
Penn vs St. Pierre is this coming weekend on the heels of UFC 93 which aired earlier this month. With such big names clashing in one month across the whole sport it is pretty easy to dub this month one of the best in MMA history. The fight this weekend is one I have been looking forward to for a very long time and while I like both fighters I will be pulling for St. Pierre to retain his belt and keep balance in the MMA landscape.

Fabled Batman Blade

Fable 2
While not the open world Fallout 3 was, Fable number two snagged me up this winter and fed me to it's RPG young. I logged near 30 hours in this game and if not for the lack of a true co-op game would probably still be playing it with friends. I never owned the original Xbox and as such did not own the original Fable. What I hear though is that it did not live up to the hype. The hype seems to be met and exceed in the sequel though. The story is what really made this game shine as the best RPG for me in 2008, versus Fallout 3 which felt disjointed a bit. I've heard it best described as Zelda for adults and I will leave it at that.

Mount & Blade
Indie games tug at my heart strings, but usually not my purse related ones. M&B is a game produced by a husband and wife that is indie to it's core, save its home on steam. The game is based in medieval times (not the restaurant) and is a mash up of a RPG, RTS and third person action game. Throw in late 90's 3D graphics and early aughts physics and you are approaching what could be a great game.

There is no real story, you start out the game plopped down in what presumably is the English country side. Just a dude with a sword and from there it is up to you to choose what you become. There are various factions to align with or you could amass your own army and rule the land. What truly makes the game great is the amount of latitude you have to create your own story. The huge battles on various types of topography don't hurt either.

Lego Batman
When Crystal finds a game that she actually has interest in I cling to said game like a baby baboon. The last one we sunk our teeth into was Mario Galaxy near one year ago. To my surprise the game she picked out this year was Lego Batman. I knew she enjoyed Lego Star Wars when I picked it up in 2006, but I was floored when she picked Batman as her stocking stuffer. The game is just as the title who lead you to believe, Batman stories done with Legos. The co-op is where it really shines and the drop in drop out arcade style play is solid. We skipped Lego Indian Jones after the 4th movie based installment turned my stomach to no end this summer, but Lego Batman is just the ticket in a post Dark Knight world.

Micro Blogging
As if posting here twice a week wasn't enough self indulgence for me on the webs, I started a micro blog over at Tumblr. It is really just a filter of all the stuff that inspires, awes and generally peaks my interest on the internet everyday. It will be updated much more frequently, but consider it bite sized morsels to this blog's steak dinners.

Comcast
This is not a follow up to any of my baggage with them, but a great article on Wired about the last two years at the company, high highs and low lows.

Anniversary
The blog is two years old as of Jan 18th, where is my cotton based present?

Spin and Spun

So I threw down a lofty gauntlet for myself two post ago to ride at least twice a month and to ride more miles in the current month than I did in the previous. Last year I made it to July before faltering. Well, I'm proud to announce that the month of January can be checked off. It will only get harder from here, but the weather will get warmer and more friends will come out of hibernation to pedal with me. Two weeks ago, last weekend and this weekend Grant and I braved Richmond's mild winter and extreme cold (22º) to cruise around the Fan and Riverside.

1/3/2009: 13.67 mile Patterson and Grove loop
1/10/2009: 23.31 mile West End to Riverside loop
1/17/2009: 19.01 mile West End to The Fan loop

The rest is in the photos...

January is time for facial hair and riding

First ride of the year

She has been unloved for so longFirst saddle shot of the year Rolling on GroveTo meet up with LandonGroup shotRide no. 2 went through U. of R.Under Huguenot RdGrant's new barsVCU22º at noon is cold with a "C"Homeless is the new blackThe rest...

Disparate Devices

I have owned a mish-mash of MP3 and video playing gadgets over the past eight years and none really scratched my itch. For Christmas this year I made the decision to ditch the hammy down zune I was borrowing from my brother and eighty six the iPod nano I have been relying on for three years. Both get their jobs done, albeit remarkably slow in the Zune's case, but carrying two devices around is a royal pain in the ass.

So out with the old and in with the new. I got my iPod touch a week before Christmas and loaded it up with apps and podcast galore. It covers everything I was getting out of the Zune and nano, but also opens up other functionality. Having a tiny device that can browse the web, check the weather, get movie times and play games is freaking cool. Granted open WiFi is to Richmond, VA as war mongering is to Switzerland, but the WiFi in my house and the few restaurants we frequent means it still gets it's fair share of use.

1Up Fallout Continued
The former crew of the good ship 1Up Fm have already banged out two episodes of their new show Rebel FM. Where the first episode was audio murder they cleaned up the second with better equipment, definitely worth a listen. Ryan Scott has announced his newest podcast Geekbox Radio, the crew yet to be announced, but it should be out Friday at his site Geekbox. Finally the 1Up Show crew is brewing up something at talking orange, no clue on what it is, but a safe bet would be a videocast of some sort.

Guild Progress
We downed every boss in the game a while ago and are now relegated to doing heroic (25 man) achievements. Lately we have been trying for Sartharion with three drakes up, but are hitting a wall. It will come with time, but what I really want is a crack at Ulduar.

Smokin' Out Jesus

The title sparks controversy, but chill it's just reviews...

Jesus Camp
Netflix's watch it now feature is hands down the only reason I keep the service anymore. Friday night I threw Jesus Camp on the que. The film focuses on a small camp in North Dakota run by Evangelical Christians with a taste for brain washing children. Evangelical's around the country send their children to the camp to be breed into what is essentially a new generation of fundamentalist Christians. Highlights include, but are not limited to having your child speak in tongues, sob uncontrollably as they receive the holy ghost, be taught about the evil's of Harry Potter and wear tape over their mouth as a grown man passes around toy fetuses.

Maxed Out
Yet another documentary fruit plucked from the Netflix tree. Maxed is a film about the credit and personal debit crisis in the US. Credit card companies make it super easy to get a card and consumers don't know how to be responsible with them. That was the main message the film was sending my way. I'm torn because there were some sad stories, but in most of the cases the people did it to themselves. Don't get me wrong once they got into debit the companies involved did everything in their power to keep them there, but they weren't forced at gun point to buy new crap.

Smokin' Aces
Not a new film to me by any means, but after watching this film for the third time in two years I realized that I have a real affinity for it. I'm tempted to say it is just the way the movie is shot, because the editing is just my style, but coming back to it over and over again means I like the writing too. Joe Carnahan, who wrote and directed it hasn't done a ton since, but he has three films attributed to him for 2009 including a sequel to Smokin'. Oh yeah the story, lots of assassins trying to kill a mob boss turned snitch with a good plot twist at the end that makes the whole film seem more complex. Outstanding performance by Ryan Reynolds considering most of the comedies he is in are terribad. He was good in Definitely, Maybe too.

Wreck Awards 2008

So I did this thing last year and now it's that time again!

Game of the Year: Wrath of the Lich King
I some how got in more gaming this year than I did the last and without WotLK in 2008 I would say last year held a better roster of games. Regardless a new LCD TV in my office and purchasing the 360 wireless adapter (still a rip off) made for some great console gaming this year. Which is funny because the best game I played this year was WotLK on the PC. Hands down Blizzard brought it with their newest expansion. More story oriented questing, phasing and end game content for the masses made this a must play for me and 11 million others.
Runners Up: Fable 2 and Castle Crashers

Game I should have played: Metal Gear Solid 4
The Metal Gear series and I have a long on again off again relationship that started when I was in high school. The first title on the original playstation was great. The second on the PS2 was really good , but not great by any stretch and then I hated the third game. I think the controls staying the same for six years may have had something to do with it or my disdain withe the clunky camo system. In any case word is MGS4 fixes those things and brings Snake into the modern world. Crossing my fingers for a 360 port.
Runner Up: Farcry 2

Movie of the Year: The Dark Knight
Not since Terminator 2 has a sequel eclipsed its predecessor like Dark Knight. As far as super hero and/or comic movies go Ironman set a high bar this summer and Dark Knight took a green giant step up, over and beyond it. The late Heath Ledger's performance as the Joker was the stand out roll of his short lived career. I phenomenal acting job by all involved and replacing Katie Holmes with Maggie Gyllenhaal was a great move. It is difficult to think they could raise the bar again with a third film, but Johnny Depp and Philip Seymour Hoffman are rumored to to play the Riddler and the Penguin respectivly.
Runner Up: Burn After Reading

Movie I should have seen: The Wrestler
The TRS guys drooled all over this movie about a washed up B level wrestler who finds love and a new purpose in life. Mickey Rourke and Marisa Tomei are both fine actors so it could be great.
Runner Up: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

TV show of the Year: House
I've said on a number of occasions both here and other places that House is the best show on TV. I still believe that and think that the current cast is better than the previous or the writting just got better, but watching old episodes can be a let down.
Runners Up: True Blood and Sons of Anarchy

Not Listed
I would have done comic of the year and album of the year, but all of the comics I'm reading were not produced in 2008 and strangely I didn't get around to much music this year.

RIP 1UP
So the whole thing is dead now, UGO bought the site and the magazine. The podcasters have either quit or were let go and EGM saw it's last issue in January. Sad really, I hope everyone who worked there lands on their feet and their feet equal new shows for me to listen to. Update: They have landed!

2009 Wish List
Healthy Baby
Computer Upgrade
Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX3

Vacation in Review

Jesus's birthday is a great reason to take off from work and recharge the batteries. Consequently I took two weeks off the blog too, not that writing here is work, but I don't do well without a schedule. Waking up at 12pm every morning and staying up till 3am every night is not conducive to a lot of things it turns out.

What I did do was a ton of house work and maintenance. Specifically Kaden's nursery. Crystal is a planner, so when we decided to start trying for a baby, we decided to move my office and start painting. My current and old office are a dark charcoal gray so it took one coat of Kilz and three coats of yellow. By the time we rolled through the second coat of yellow Crystal was pregnant and sick. So, the room sat with two coats of paint until Christmas vacation. I also steam cleaned the rug, put up a new ceiling fan and purchased and assembled a bunch of furniture. Don't worry I plan on doing a fascinating nursery post in the future with pictures. I know you will wait with bated breath.

Aside from house work I played a ton of games. The list is long so I will do a seperate wrap up and review in a future post, bated breath etc. I also caught a few movies and watched two seasons of an anime called Code Geass all of which will be reviewed here as well. Lastly on the media front I picked up the new WoW novel Night of the Dragon which I am more than half way through and really enjoying. Expect a post.

Finally, seeing as it is a new year, some New Year's resolutions are in order:

- Ride at least twice a month
- Ride more miles in the current month than I did the previous
- Ride and camp more
- Try a new recipe a month
- Improve my writing
- Take more photos
- Improve my video editing (and post more videos)
- Lose weight (see riding goals)
- Take at least one grappling or BJJ class
- Read more comics
- Build an arcade
- Finish a 40k army
- Organize my workshop
- Back up my data
- Become a good Dad

Flash Game Fun
The best flash game I have played since the inception of the interwebs is Auditorium. Describing it in words does it a disservice, but the best I can do is to say that it really must be played to be appreciated.