Yellow Mohawk

vacation

2008-07-25T14:20:00.001-06:00

I've been on vacation(s) for most of the summer so far. Look for more to come.

Meet my mage

2008-05-25T16:24:00.004-06:00

Aenigma has been a difficult skeleton to get to know. Perhaps in this case the personality has grown out of the name. Or perhaps it's because I suck at playing mage. He has stood at level 29 for months, at the top of the battleground bracket, where I am inclined to leave a character with whom I'm uncertain about continuing. Playing an undead is quite fun. You can't help but start feeling sinister, intelligent, and grimly humorous.

Aenigma returned to action the other night for a trip to one of his favorite places, the comfy Shadowfang Keep. To his left is Toquen, (25) my RL sister, who was on her first instance. If you're a hunter, you know how many mistakes you can make, and she is learning quickly. Ziko be very proud. To her right is Zdrastutya the Ice Queen, (33) one of Rashomon's alts.

After wiping a couple times right away, we ran through the Keep without further deaths. We stand above in Arugal's expensive corner office, having dispatched him fairly easily with our tank, "titi," gnawing on him while he took crossfire from the two mages and a hunter.

SFK is such a fun instance. Not too long, lots of loot, not too hard. It was so much more fun than running around the Sunwell for the Nth time.

Where are they now?

2008-05-23T08:26:00.005-06:00

Our friend Ziko of the yellow hair and blog title, was not my first character on Scarlet Crusade. Alas, Kazamara, what happened? The Shaman with so much potential. Level seven and a beast of burden.

Ziko spends a lot of time in his hammock deciding if he should pick up a trade and start making leather armor. He is, of course, cunning and wise in the ways of hunting and killing. Running around Nagrand killing beasts with a troll hunter is one of the top 5 easiest things to do in the game. He's too lazy to sell the skins, and he's too lazy to take up a trade. He already did leatherworking for while and quit that. He was an engineer for a while, and quit that. Ziko like da barbecue and cactus juice. It may be time to sell the skins.

Axes aweigh!

2008-05-17T15:14:00.007-06:00

OK, our intrepid orc Shaboo acquired two Grunt's Waraxes and went out questing in Hellfire. I have no idea if he is doing better DPS or whatever, but he is having a blast. He is swinging so fast that there isn't much to do except let the rage build up and start swinging strikes and whirlwinding while the mobs go down. Much easier than timing slams, which he was not good at. Later, buddy Rashomon the Shaman showed up, and they made merry mayhem.

You know, Shaboo kills baby deer and eats everything in his path, but he misses Salandria. Don't say anything, or he'll rip your head off.

Sleepy Willy is fun and all, and he is totally hilarious when he kills frogs, but he and Shaboo haven't quite bonded yet.

Meet Shaboo

2008-05-16T16:38:00.004-06:00

Shaboo, the orc warrior, is my secondest leveled character. Thus far, he has managed not to obtain modifications to his original intelligence (23) or spirit. He lives on Scarlet Crusade. He likes to eat bunnies. Favorite saying: "SHABOO KILL." Favorite holiday: Brewfest.

I'm not exactly sure I remember leveling him to 60, but it was probably because he has a lot of fun ... until Hellfire, which has been a total drag so far for this happy but dim orc. He's a pretty good tank, but he has decided to get BIG AXE and BIG ARMOR, so he's motivated to level up. Yesterday, he talked to the warrior trainer, who suggested making things simpler. "Shaboo carry axe in each hand," he said. Today Ziko, who has got mad smartz compared to his orc friend, will help him negotiate the purchase of a second axe. They may buy some magical voodoo colors to put on them, too.

Alterac Valley sociology

2008-05-13T15:06:00.001-06:00

It's been AV weekend, and I got in today with all the other weirdos of warcraft to play for our welfare epics. I think it's a big axe that Ziko wants. I'm not even sure, but I like the battlegrounds.

The Reckoning battlegroup struggles on the Horde side, let's just say. There's no generally agreed-upon strategy. We have the intrepid who try to help. There are a few fast-typing reasonable players who do know how to win. But how do you really convey a winning strategy to 30 or so people (cavers not included) in less than a minute? You don't really. So to fill in for the smart players, we get the bossy whiny complainers, some of the most hilarious players in the game.

I'm starting a new feature, Great Leaders of WoW. Look for these motivators to appear soon.

Alt massacre

2008-05-09T10:04:00.004-06:00

I found the other day that you can only have 40 characters per account. I kept trying new toons on different servers, and it would say "You have reached you limit on this account," which I kept reading as "limit on this server." I added up my characters: 40. I'm now down to a slim 25 after getting rid of a lot of level ones, and a lot of under-10s that I decided I'll never play.

Now you see why I only have one 70. The only alt I really miss was Sunstone, a Shaman on Chromaggus. Sunstone was a 45-50 shaman, somewhere in there. Chromaggus was teh suck. Perpetually low population, impossible to find groups to do anything. Plus, shaman was the QQ class du jour. I gave up on Sunstone. I sold everything except my cape, and I bought a long straight staff that looked like friar tuck's. Sunstone was all white, and he was formidable in size and hilarious-looking as he ran around Orgrimmar. I took him to the battlegrounds. I got every reaction from lols to people offering me gold go get gear. (The latter really surprised me.) I dispensed shamanly wisdom on a PVP server. In the end, I send all my gold to a family member and dissolved him.

I bet there's some secret way to yank him out of the twisting nether.

LF matchmaker

2008-05-07T23:04:00.003-06:00

The Running of Da Bulls for Sharvan

2008-05-04T22:13:00.001-06:00

I made me a big tauren with a sledgehammer today for the Running of Da Bulls, brewed up by a dwarf, of course--Mr. Bigredkitty. He are a dwarf and a cat what writes good and teaches me to be a hunter.

The event was created in honor of BRK's guildie Sharvan, who passed away too soon.

Cannonbull stomped around the cow village while the crowd grew past 70, from which I can't count no more.

He took these screenshots for youse to peruse.

The crowd started to get a dance line going early on. Lavender shirts were distributed in Sharvan's honor.

Deadly duels went on in the middle while the rest of us played Simon sez.

More racers arrive, and here's where I can't count em no more.

We create a magician-style fountain on top of the cookin' cave.

Dis is a lot of cows at da starting totem. Moooooo!

The crowd thins as lag shakes up the server (and wolves eat a few bullz).

The lag at the zeppelin platform in Durotar waz hilarious. Bulls flying off the platform everywhere. Cannonbull was in the group waiting for the second zeppelin (AKA "not winners").

/cheerz to goblin tech-0-nology

Worgs begin to thin the herd as we wind through Silverpine.

After an uneventful run through Arathi, we made it! (Sorry if you got eaten by a spider.)

Celebration at Hammerfall!

Many level 2 tauren in lavender shirts died at the hands of Mr. Fancy Pants of the Shattered Sun.

Off to Ironforge to see harpies give birth to Alliances. My ma tolds me that.

70 or more strong, we charge up the hill to Ironforge. My pal Sprintaculus makes his move on the left, yearning for the glory of death.

The glory of death waz available to all takers.

Cannonbull and the Moo Guild threw themselves against the portal to the Deeprun Tram, taking a wicked defender down with every death. We got through the portal and woke up in Eversong Woods. Cannonbull and others chose an honorable death on the mailbox in front of the Goldshire Inn.

Cannonbull's demise at the mailbox in Goldshire.

The Crash Dialogues

2008-05-02T21:12:00.000-06:00

Sometime about patch 2.1 or so, my computer began to crash frequently. The details showed I was getting the dreaded ERROR #132. If you search the Warcraft forums, you'll find dozens of possible solutions from the official Blue posters, plus voodoo fixes from other 132 sufferers. Of course, none of them really works.

When a crash occurs, a window opens that says "Describe what you were doing when the crash occurred?" I decided to start sending answers back to Blizzard. What follows are my messages to the good folks at Blizzard that handle the tech support.

What were you doing when the crash occurred?

I was riding across Nagrand. Oh, you guys--I finally had the 132 error fixed for at least a month. I had to set my BIOS to "fail safe." New patch and it's back. Sigh. Well, how are you doing with all the WowErrors? Wouldn't it be fun if you had to email people and help them adjust their BIOS. LOL, as we say. Anyway, I just dinged 69, which is nice. Catch you next time.

I was riding my BRAND NEW wolf in Org. (This is my alt--you guys know my main.) I just dinged 40! I know, grats--thanks. I chose the Timber Wolf. Next I'm getting my Whirlwind Axe. Anyway, I haven't talked to you guys since my last 132 crash. This one's a 134. It's kind of exciting. I've never had a 134 ERROR before. So have fun with it, and as always, have a GM pst me if you have a solution.

I was riding my raptor toward Halaa. The Horde were about to get control! How are you in error central? I see I'm back to the old comfortable 132 error. It's been kind of a slow night for a Saturday. Do you think people are starting to play other games? Well, Nagrand is like a wide open frontier. You all did a nice job on this zone. With all the beasts everywhere, I've been grinding away tonight to get leather to sell. As you know, I'm a hunter, so this really gets me into, you know, "being" a hunter. OK, I'll let you get back to collecting errors and fixing them!

Hey all, how are you this weekend? Do you like Eye of the Storm? Can you believe I made 18 gold on 20 Talbuk meat today? That's some good farming there. Speaking of farming, you Blizzard guys and gals sure seem to be going well cracking down on gold farming. Someone in chat today had never heard the term. OK, so what was I doing: Sitting in the Auction house in Org. So what else? Oh, did you get the Orange Box? TF2 is really eating into my WoW time. Don't worry, I'm not unsubscribing! There are so many drop quests still to be done! And instances, too. What is is anyway with the cranky guy who suddenly says something like "you are all noobs" and quits immediately? I have to head out. Just PST me with the details on how to fix the 132 error.

Good morning! Nothing like getting out early on a Monday to farm some elementals in Netherstorm. Which is what I was doing when I got the 132. (That's kind of the cool slang for ERROR #132.) OK, WoW Error Fixer--I hate to be impersonal--you know, wouldn't this be more helpful to us if a window popped up, kind of like when a GM shows up, but you wouldn't have to say "Greetings, cruel Troll" or whatever, but it would just say like "Hi, it's Jason, or Heather, from WoW. Just to make it a little more WoWey. Maybe that's not the same as Blizzardey. What I was going to say, and I hang my head in shame, is that I was using an (hush) Addon. I was looking at a Mobinfo tooltip. So, this 132 would probably be from the, you know, the *thing* I installed. So, you know, just get back to me and let me know if that was the deal. Hey, have a good week. I hope you don't have to work on Thanksgiving!

Surprise! I didn't expect to be back so soon. I'm still in Netherstorm. I started doing a quest where you kill those ethereals and steal their sparkly pieces of technology. Those goblins can't get enough of it, can they? And they make wacky stuff that may not work. So it's like "Wazzup? Can you kill some guys and steal their stuff?" I'm all over that. Killing's my business. But these ethereals, man are they cool-looking. Please tell your game designer friend in the next room they did a good job on that one. The ethereals seem like they might be cool to hang out with them, but there's always a bunch of traitors. Like all those trolls in Stranglethorn? Traitors, every one of them. And boy, did they get what was coming to them. I was like "How many of you am I going to have to kill before you give up 30 Skullsplitter Tusks? This other troll wants to make soup out of them." Anyway, that ethereal didn't like it when I killed him and grabbed his sparkly box, so I crashed.

OK, that was a weird one. I had just logged in and was standing in Orgrimmar. Orcs love that place. So I went into the garage to put another coat of spray paint on the aluminum box for my guitar amp booster I'm building. You know people think you have no life when you play WoW! That's crazy talk. So I walked back in about 5 minutes later, and this screen was up. It's nice to be able to communicate our WoW problems. I mean, there are the forums, where you can get involved in some 186-post thread about rage regeneration--and don't get me wrong, thanks for the forums--but this feels like real on-on-one service. So thanks! I might just go copy my WTF folder and replace it because I know you would feel good. Cya!

Sorry folks, just time for a short note today. I'm in Eye of the Storm. I got killed, then crashed while in the graveyard. What an outrage! I want my 11 gold! CYA friends.

I was fishing up in the Barrier Hills. You know that nice spot above the Aldor Rise. I thought a little fishing would take me down after doing BGs all night. We (the Horde) won 2 or 3 AVs tonight, lost about 5. Usually we don't win at all, but you know about AV. So you remember I crashed while dead in the graveyard at Eye of the Storm. That's kind of an intense situation. You maybe just got your mind sucked out of you by a Warlock, you need 24 seconds to recover and start fighting again. I can see crashing then. OK, but what about standing on a green bank of grass along a high mountain pond, your bobber in the water, a nice breeze taking the heat off. That's not crashworthy. I'm sure you will really want to dig your teeth into this one, so I'm really looking forward to hearing how you fix this. I know y'all are top-notch problem ticket creators and solvers at Blizzard. Do you get to ride scooters around and play foosball and eat free bagels. I know, that's Sun LOL! And they don't give em bagels anymore, just pink slips! So after you take a nap in the bean bag chair room and have a free coke, take this one on. It seems like you folks are awfully shy, so why not have a GM contact me with the resolution? He could be all "Greetings Hunter, may you drink the blood of Night Elves! Deliver this bag of Skittles to Thrall. He could really use some Skittles, along with brave warriors like you." And Thrall would be like, "Roho!! I knew you could get those Skittles. Now that I can trust you, I want you to delete your WTF folder." And then we'd both be doing our /lols. He throws his arms up in the air and does that cool Orc laugh, then maybe I break dance while he does the Orc Hammer dance. Then he'd say "Bring this parchment to Varimathras in the Undercity. He will explain to you how to reset your BIOS and set your memory timings for optimal perfomance. Strength!!!" We could do that on an RP server, right? OK, gotta go. Have a great day!

Good morning. I am in Arathi, and I just finished the Artisan First Aid game. My intellect is only 24, so it took me about three times to finish it. So, yeah, I crashed again. Last night I ran Sunken Temple for about 4 hours--way too long, but now I have a troll head in my bag to take to some other troll in the Hinterlands. All right, have a great day. Looking forward to the haggard GM to appear in a puff of smoke with the fix for ERROR 132.

Well, this crash was, frankly, an outrage. I know how hard you're working on this, but I crashed sitting down in the Gadgetzan inn. I went in and sat down on the butcher's table, which is like a throne for an orc (no offense to Thrall, may he live long and enjoy his own throne and kill many Alliance). So I (IRL) took off to have a piece of pizza, and I come back to see this screen that I love. I'm feeling a little let down by you experts at the tech desk. You know how much I like you, but come on. I really don't want to reread the ERROR 132 forum again and try every last possibility. Well, I did kind of have fun adjusting memory timings for quite a while. In fact, you can adjust almost anything in the BIOS for about two days, and the game still crashes. Not to mention deleting every single addon, replacing WTF and WDB folders, trying memory in different slots, trying single channel vs. dual channel, running Memtest for hours with no errors. I try to be positive, though. It's a good opportunity to clean the dust out of the computer. OK, I'm going to stay positive!! I can't wait to tell people in the forums when we get this solved cooperatively! Boy, will all those anti-Blizzard complainers hang their heads in shame. See ya!

I think this is my first midair crash! I had just taken off from the Aldor Country Club, and whammo, WowError. I just did some quest where I kill 20 ogres. How many ogres must we kill? They kind of "ROAR" at you and then fall down. I like the ones that throw rocks at you, but not the ones that try to get a spell off and then die. I'm excited to see if I'm still in midair, dead, or what. I know you all are busy on a Friday night, but check this wyvern "crash" out, cause it's a unique one for me so far, and I think this could be the lead that breaks the case. I wonder if you die like when you get shot out of the cannon at Thunder Bluff. That cannon is hilarious! ROFL!!

OK, this one's great. Remember my last crash, when I crashed while in midair? Yeah, I know you were all talking about it. After I restarted, there I was, still hovering in the sky. Whew! I'll give you folks credit for solving that one right away. OK, so this time, I cruised on down to Skettis, where I had to bomb some eggs and grab a wing or a leg or some kind of part off a big bird that supposedly is lying on the ground. It's one of those quests from The Rokk. I'm all about the Rokk. There's not really enough Rokk in WoW. Did you ever see that KISS movie, where the badasses in KISS could shoot laser beams out of their guitars? That was awesome. And when Jimi Hendrix lit his guitar on fire at the Monterey Pop Festival--you are correct, Awesome. But not many people know what was really going on. Jimi could put a Firey enchant on a guitar. He could also do +15 Awesome to his Strat. Hey, because I like you, I got a couple words for you: Epic Guitars. Pass that on to Mr. Blizzard. It's on the house. So dude, I crashed again in midair! And this time I woke up dead. Ran over to my corpse, only to find my corpse was up in the trees. No can rez. Bummer. I tried jumping off the edge of outland, but that didn't do anything. And you can't drown yourself when you're a ghost. So I was running around checking things out while I waited for a GM to answer my petition for assistance, and I crashed while I was a ghost! LMAO!! See ya in the ether!

I was in the middle of teleporting. I bet, since we've got a communication going, that you're using me as a test case. Crashing on the flying mount, crashing while dead, now crashing while teleporting! These are sort of philosophical in nature, which confirms for me how sharp you folks are. A teleportation gone wrong. Do I end up in Outland, or do I stay in Orgrimmar? Do I get sent to the void? Time travel? Lost on a chunk of Outland alone? This calls for some RP! Hit me up in GM form if you want to do some serious sci fi RPing. By the way, you should set up some kind of test server for this kind of cool stuff. I'd join up in a second! By the way, I'm good to go here on the WTF, WDB, BIOS, memory timings, RAM and CPU voltage, CPU clock speed,system temperature, driver updates, network and router setup, and peripheral conflicts. I even let the kitten out of the computer case! Just so you know I'm solid on this end. Adios, friends.

Hola amigos! Long time since I chatted at you. I'm really sorry, but I haven't been Describing What I Was Doing When My Crashes Have Been Occurring lately. I've been doing a lot of PvP. You really want to get back to the game. That's like 90 seconds when I'm letting my team down, and I could have been turning a gnome into a claw-shredded pincushion. For the Horde! So as you have inferred, I was PvPing in the Eye of the Storm. I crashed once mid-battle, and then after we won (natch) I crashed again. Do you think I'm crashing more because I'm getting to be a better pvper? Like, my awesomeness is taxing the server? Oh, you guys know I'm humble. I like to kick back and Jah Mon with my troll homies, and we're all about the dancing and laughing and fun. No worries mon! But if it's time to fight, I don't care if it's Brad Pitt's Night Elf girl hunter. She's getting her skull split by one berzerk troll. All right brothers and sisters, you probably put my ticket on the back burner, but you can pull it again and keep up the good work!

Good crash this time, well, metaphysically. I crash after clicking the portal to Org from Shatt. I think I'll still end up in Org when I come back. But say you've made some Easter Egg where sometimes you get sent to Ironforge, like to the place where the gnomes sell rockets. LOL!! Or how cool would it be if you sent one of your dedicated team of crash testers (ahem) to a Wrath of the Lich King preview server? You know how sometimes the crazy Troll Witch Doctor turns you into a frog, and you didn't expect it, and he goes "OH HAHAHAHA" and then you turn back into your regular self? That's the kind of trick that a Troll can appreciate, and I would bust out the Troll LOL right back at him. But think of how much more you could do? Like turn you into a Fel Reaver, but you show up in Booty Bay. Oh, and just FYI, the curse of Zanzil: not funny. OK friends, back I go to relive the magic!

I was changing my pants! What a shameful crash. I should say thanks for the Greaves of, well I don't even remember yet! I was just trying them on. I got them from this goblin who wanted some wood and metal scraps (sucker). Guess what, though? This is my warrior's first crash in the Outlands! Yup, I hit 58 and decided to cruise down to the Dark Portal and kill some of those red orc traitors. Oh, god, I'm standing there in my underwear--gotta go!

Eating Doritos, having an iced tea, thinking about going to AV. What were you doing?

I was going across the lower city to the fruit vendor in Shattrath. Then I see "Pumpkyn waves at you" on my chat log. Screen locks, and I am horrified to see a gnome next to me. This same creepy gnome had just licked my Tauren guildmate and logged. Folks, this an outrage and would make any computer crash. Is there no honor anymore?