I'm making this post to see if I can get the Trackback feature on my other blog to work correctly. However, you may be interested in this link anyway. So, either enjoy or ignore:

• Avatar & the Future of 3D (Part 1)
• Avatar & the Future of 3D (Part 2)

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I just wanted to mention that I've got a new blog that I've been working on for about a month now. It's quite a departure for me, because it actually covers some serious topics, like politics, science, religion, and so on. I must warn you though: you probably won't approve of some of the topics I cover. But go ahead and check it out if you're curious; you'll survive. If nothing else, you'll get to see what I look like in real life. And I'd love to get some feedback.

In case anyone is wondering, I still intend to keep writing THIS blog. There just isn't a whole lot for me to talk about right now. I've been working on a feature post that I'm tentatively calling "WoW's biggest mistakes", which I hope will turn out pretty good.

[Dubiosity]

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Sorry about my absense lately, folks. I've been pretty broke, and so I'm taking a break from WoW.

I'm definitely coming back, of course. If not in the next few weeks, then definitely for WotLK. I'm probably more likely to come back in 2 or 3 weeks.

So, what have I been up to besides that? I've been playing a few other games; I tried out Dungeons & Dragons Online (with the free 10-day trial) and it's pretty cool. Very well made, pretty fun, but it's just not as great as WoW. Or, tabletop D&D. I play D&D with a group of friends every few weeks (when our work schedules line up) for about a year now, and the best part of the game is definitely making fun of your friends and fucking with the DM the whole time. We take turns DMing, so everyone has the chance to be ridiculed.

I also just got a copy of Diablo 2 from a friend to try. Can you believe I've never played it? So far, my favorite character is the Sorceress (who wields Fire, Frost, and Lightning...sound familiar?).

I also got back into class for the summer, which is going well so far. One more quarter after this, and I'll finally have an Associate's degree.

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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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A while ago, I added the Project Wonderful ad box you can see on the left. Since then, I've made a whopping $2.

So, I've decided to put those two dollars into getting the word out about this blog by placing ads on other WoW-related web sites. Gotta spend money to make money, you know.

At this moment, I've placed 4 ads on 4 different sites. I'm paying them 0-5 cents per day (depending on how popular the site is) for one week. Hopefully my investment of a whopping 35 cents will pay off in increased traffic and, ideally, more ad revenue for me. We'll see.

Oh. Here are the simple ads I created, which should be showing up on the aforementioned sites. They're also useful if you want to link to me.


Argh, looks like I need to change the background color on one of them.

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I'd like to say a few things about the Google ads that appear on this site.

If you don't know how Google ads work, let me explain. Basically, the ads contain a little script that reads the text of my blog, which lets it decide which of the millions of ads in Google's database are most relevant to display.

But on to my point.

First, since this site is about World of Warcraft, it makes sense that there are WoW-related ads being displayed. This is fine, except that some of them are for gold-selling and powerlevelling sites. I do not in any way endorse those sites. People who buy gold and powerlevelling services are directly supporting the people who create keyloggers and hijack accounts.

Do you know anyone who has ever had their account hacked/stolen? It's because they accidentally got a keylogger on their system, or gave their password to somebody (like a powerlevelling service). Once an account is stolen, typically the thief sells all their gear on all their characters, then sends all the gold to someone else, who then sells it via a gold-selling site. THAT is how it works now.

I've tried to filter out as many of these sites as I can, but there are so many that it's impossible, so I've stopped trying. I recommend you check out NoGold.org for more info.

Secondly, since this site is frequently about the Shaman class, there are often ads about real-life shamanism (if it can indeed be called that) and spiritual healing, and all that. That stuff is pure nonsense, and I really hope nobody takes it seriously.

Stick with real medicine. Talk to your doctor. It's not that the scientific community refuses to take alternative medicines seriously, it's that they have already conducted testing that proved the stuff worthless, and have long since moved on. Alternative medicines & techniques are a scam, nothing more. I recommend checking out sites like Science-Based Medicine.

So there ya go. Getting off my soapbox now...

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Those of you with better-than-average powers of observation may have noticed the new ad boxes on the left, under the TOC. And there boxes under the first three posts of any given page.

So, what do you think? Are they too flashy, not flashy enough? Can you ignore them if you want to? (I'm aiming for "yes".)

I'm trying to make a little money selling adspace here, since I'm currently dead broke (I'll probably have a week or two this month without WoW). I've been doing the boring Google ads for a while now, but I just added the new Project Wonderful ads on the left yesterday. Those ads will probably be much more interesting, since those are paid for with a bidding system. Right now, a single penny will get you a box on this blog for a little while, but hopefully it'll go up eventually.

So yea, let's hear some thoughts.

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No, I don't really hate Firefox. I'm just having a hell of a time getting this site to work in both IE7 and FF, AND having to deal with cramming my CSS designs into BlogSpot's XML templates. So if something looks wrong, I'm sorry, and I'm working on it.

According to my visitor logs (zomg, im trackin u!) 49% of my visitors are using FF, 38% IE, 6% Opera, 5% Safari, and the remaining 2% are the wanna-be browsers. Pretty interesting, especially when you consider the global browser stats. Obviously, this site picks up a lot more tech-savvy people than is normal, and a lot of tech-savvy people switched to Firefox back when IE6 was the only other viable option.

Of course now, IE7 is every bit as secure and stable (or moreso) as FF, but old reputations die hard. The nice thing about having FF around is that it gets Microsoft off its ass and back into innovating new browser features (and vice versa). That's why competition is cool.

Then again, designing for multiple browsers sucks. I think that's really the point of this post. Just don't bitch at me about web standards, because I don't want to hear it.

UPDATE: I found the problem I was bitching about. It was caused by my own shitty programming. Oh well.

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Well, I FINALLY have this site looking the way I want it to. I've been toying with this design for a few months, and yesterday I finally went ahead and put it all together.

But that wasn't enough. Once I had it all laid out and looking great, using CSS instead of tables, I had to try to shoehorn it into Google's code. And CRIPES, that's a pain in the ass. Google's blog templates use XML for everything, and since I don't know XML, it was basically just a 2-day long session of trial-and-error. Honestly, I think I reloaded the page a few thousand times, trying to get everything looking right.

I still need to add some more of the sidebar items to the site, and there are probably still a few things that aren't working right, but at least it's usable, and if you ask me, it looks great.

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Slightly off-topic, but whatever.

This is a fascinating site with tons of info and screenshots detailing the development process of Starcraft. It's pretty cool to see how the game comes together in the various different versions. I had no idea that it was originally created with the Warcraft 2 graphics engine.

Did you know that the Zerg were originally known as the Nightmarish Invaders? Yeesh! Some other interesting stuff: Valkyries were originally going to be in the original game, but were pushed to the expansion. Drones and SCVs could fly. Firebats could start forest fires. Each Zerg building had its own set of larvae.

read more digg story

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I frequently go to the Taco Bell in my area (Duluth, MN) because TB is the only place where you can get Mountain Dew Baja Blast. It's kinda a strange, lime-ish version of Dew that I'm hopelessly addicted to.

But sometimes I don't want a taco. Sometimes I'm just thirsty for some BB. So I go to the drive-through, order an XL BB, (hope you're following my acronyms) and when I get to the window, they give it to me, free of charge. Nice huh?

Wrong. I'm a Minnesotan. Getting free stuff makes us feel uncomfortable and guilty. I've done this 3 or 4 times, fully intending to pay, and each time they just hand it to me.

So I came up with a plan. I'd order some Cinnamon Twists along with my Baja Blast, to make sure that they would charge me for it. But lo and behold, they gave me that for free TOO. The drink is like $1.39, the twists $.79. That's over $2 of stuff, free.

They're very nice, but I don't think I'll ever go back unless I'm ordering a full meal.

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Just got a new video card: the Geforce 6600 GT. Pretty sweet for a mid-range card. Not sure why they put a Doom cover on the heatsink. That would be pretty awesome if I liked that game. (Not that I have anything against it.)

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