Sometimes, you've just got to kill penguins.

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I haven't been playing a lot of WoW lately. I loaded up Oblivion again, and its various add-ons, expansion, and mods (the whole thing takes up about 10 gigs) and have been playing that a bit.

I also recently downloaded the Spore Creature Creator, and man that's fun to play with. Even though I only have the demo, I've made a lot of really cool creatures. Imagine what I'll be able to make with the whole thing!

Here's a little box thingy that displays all the creatures I've made so far:

Yea, I know this post has nothing to do with WoW.

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With the help of the new Fishing daily quest (which added some much-needed fun to the profession) I hit 375 in all of my secondary skills last week. That's right, I even have Cooking maxed (which is easy to do, especially when you're fishing a lot).

Of course, I DON'T have my weapon skills maxed yet. I've been using almost nothing but a dagger since I hit Outland, and since I'm Elemental, I don't even use THAT very often. Usually just to deliver Flametongue for the last 5% of a creature's health, so I don't waste mana. In fact, my 2-handed Axes and Maces skills are only at 1 right now. I felt a need to train those talents, even though I've never used them. Hey, it was only 20 silver.

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I just got back into the game again after another of my month-long hiatuses (hiati?) and decided to start up a new character on a friend's realm. Once again I made another troll shaman named Baluki, because it's my favorite race, favorite class, and favorite name.

I'm considering making this one my new Main, but it all depends on how fast I can level him up, if I can get him to 70 before WLK, if I can stand being on a PvP server, and if I can stand having all 9 of my other characters on another realm.

I really wish I could just get my friend to transfer to my realm, but of course you can't transfer a character from a PvP to a PvE realm. I completely support this rule (PvE servers would turn into nothing but training grounds for people who haven't hit 70 yet, and the PvP servers would be full of 70's and the economies would be totally out of whack) but I just wish I could get it done this one time.

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Well, here's my brand new video I alluded to in yesterday's post. You can see a higher-res version on the new Baluki Facebook Page.

In it, I demonstrate the ins and outs of the sport I invented, called Beam Jumping (or Baluki's Beam Jumping, if you're going to try to form a league). Think of it as a mix of skydiving and darts.


I worked pretty hard on this one, and it's actually pretty long. I can't tell you how many times I threw myself to my death, just to entertain you.

I managed to whip it all up on my ancient copy of Adobe Premiere Pro 1.5 (they're up to version 5 or something by now) and once it was all done, I had a hell of a time getting it to render right. And THEN, once I had attempted to render it about 20 times (which took about 2 hours each time, though once it actually took 12) the program just wouldn't load the project anymore, so I thought I was screwed. Finally I figured out that I had to run it in WinXP Compatibility Mode (I'm "rocking" Vista) and run it with Administrative permissions. Oy.

If you've never seen my previous video, "Baluki and the Ring of the Law!", here it is too. I made it about a year ago (pre-BC) in Windows Movie Maker, which didn't give me any trouble at all. (I used WMM because I couldn't get Premiere to install at the time.)

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Brewfest is definitely the best holiday in the game. Or it was, before much of it broke. But it will be again next year, when they (hopefully) fix everything.

The Dark Iron Invasions were really fun while they lasted. If you missed them, here's what happened: dozens of huge drilling machines would pop up in the middle of the Fest, and several Dark Iron dwarves would pop out. You'd wave to one of the barkers, and they'd throw you a drink. You would drink the drink, and auto-throw the empty mug at a dwarf, which would get you a ticket each time. The problem was that people didn't know how to activate this, and they just spammed /wave, which apparently caused lots of lag. So they had to disable that event, which happened hourly.

Fortunately, the ram-racing quests were still there. The two in the game were distinctly different from each other, and were completely unlike anything else in the game. They're a lot of fun, but I'm glad that mounts don't handle like that normally.

I've got my mount, and I'm going to work on getting a hat and maybe some of the other items if I have the time.

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On my trip to the Exodar, I found a lvl. 10 Blood Elf Rogue just as I got off the boat. He wanted me to help him find a Blood Elf Bandit Mask, which makes you look like you wrapped your face in a red towel. He apparently thought it looked pretty neat, and since it's one of the very first head-slot items you can get in the game, he decided that he had to have one.

The problem is that it drops from a single mob that randomly spawns SOMEWHERE on Azuremyst Isle. And it has a 9% drop rate once you find the mob. Not good odds. This guy wanted me to help him track it down. He seemed to think that he only spawned in front of one tree, but I humored him and followed him to the tree, where of course there was nothing.

Just for fun, I decided to run around and try to find it anyway. Naturally, I could cover more ground on my epic mount with riding crop than he could on his...feet. I wasn't sure if I would give it to him if by some miraculous chance I actually found it, or keep it for myself. After about 5 minutes, I gave up and ported away when he wasn't looking.

However, the rogue seemed to think that I had promised him a mask or something. He fully expected me to buy one on the AH (which I was going to do before his sense of entitlement kicked in) or go back to Azuremyst and farm for it for him.

And he kept at it too. He kept asking if I had his mask yet, so I blocked him. So who knows what happened to him. I do know that he had somehow destroyed his hearthstone.

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Here I am, sitting around Belfville, waiting for someone to put some thorium ore up on the AH.

I don't look very happy to be in that extravagant city of wonders, do I? Guess I'm just pining for the fjords.

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Here I am, about to ring the gong and open Ahn'Qiraj.

Nah, not really. I won't have a Scepter to hit the gong with until...never.

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I always knew that someday Hooter would turn evil and that I'd have to kill him. But I did not expect it to happen in BWL. The horror.

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I finally saw Tyrande Whisperwind in-game. I had to make an elf alt to do it though.

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Me as a wisp. I didn't realize that these things have faces. Too bad they're Elf faces.

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Oh, so very very ugly.

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Orange Lightning!!! And glowing! And everything else.

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Another Halloween costume. I think I like this one the most.

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I am stealthy, like a piece of really clear glass. Only not shiny.

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I could get used to this.

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