All Dressed Up...

...but not going anywhere!  If you are reading this on the site, you will notice I'm cleaning, painting, adding on, and putting up pictures.  If you aren't, well, come on over and peek!  This is a work in progress, that may take well into next month to complete, but some things had to change here.  It's obvious that I have moved from talking about just WoW to commenting on several other games. So, my banner had to go.  The theme I had been using was blah.  Blogger has all these new tools to use to make your site look nice, so I tried them out, and I believe the site went from boring to beautiful.  Blogger also added the ability to make more pages, so I started a few.  They are subject to change, and will change as my characters change.  I had a little problem with my paint program.  My transparent pictures didn't turn out like I wanted, so there is something I am working on. I plan to add armory links to all my WoW characters, and similar information to the other pages.  Each page will eventually have a description of the game they are about, with links to where you can get them.

I will be posting a little more often.  I am writing down my "bucket list" to do before Cataclysm hits.  I hope to post one or two items from that every day.  For Wizard 101, I have plans to link to great guides I have found around the web for farming for the items I am interested in, which include furniture, pets, and eventually, best gear items on the x5 and x0 levels, per class.  That will probably be once weekly.  As for my forays into other virtual worlds, I may have one a month, whether it be a new MMO or a revisited one.  I still plan on sprinkling in new iPod games here and there.  My iPod and I are having arguments lately.  I don't think the new operating system version is playing nice with my first generation iPod.  Still, I won't let that stop me from exploring new games (and more than likely, free ones!).  We'll just have to borrow hubby's iPod for the stubborn ones.

Stop by, kick the tires, see how it runs.  Tell me what you'd like to see.  Suggest a free MMO to me!  I look forward to your comments!

What I Am Up To : May Edition.

I have a bad case of the WoW blahs after some rather nasty guild drama.  Still, my guild managed to continue its push through ICC, downing Festergut and getting pretty close on Rotface.  This is due in part to our excellent group of raiding members, and in part to the buff that has been pushed to 20%.  Another reason is, since we lost two raiders in this messy dramatic break, we have been having some friends of the guild help out in a couple of places, some of which have already seen all of ICC, if not having already completed it on other characters.  They have been a big help explaining fights that some of us never took the time to study (hides behind her keyboard and whistles innocently). Oh, and did I mention Delgada got shelved? Turns out I know what I'm doing on Carlotta, and we don't need another healer.  Look up there, you'll see our raid group, about 50% Tauren, and made all that much sexier with Carlotta's ethnic color.

Since I have been fairly uninterested in doing anything in WoW, I have been playing a couple other games to pass the time.  The game that has taken the most of my time, up until our last ICC raid, was Perfect World, a free to play game with cash shop.  I am trying to play it without using the shop, but I think it's going to get difficult when I exhaust the quest means to expand my bank.  There are no quests to expand bag space, only a "quest" to turn in a bag expansion stone, which you have to purchase. Your bank,. however, can be added to by completing two gathering quests.  The first I was able to complete by level 20.  The turn in for this quest, however, is at the very top of the game map, far and away from a level 20 anything is questing. By this time, my cleric had maxed out her flying skill, so this was not too difficult to turn in.  But what a gigantic time dump!  I think all I did that day that I turned in that quest was turn it in and log off.  I am not looking forward to the second collection quest.  Let me not forget to mention that I joined a great faction there.  HVND has been around just as long as KNR, and been in many of the same games.  I remember frequenting their town on the Corbantis SWG server, paying my credits for their great doctor and dancer buffing house. The faction in Perfect World is just as friendly, and I'm looking forward to my next few stolen hours of playtime with them.

Another game that has taken some of my gaming time is Wizard 101.  Rowan Trollstalker is level 30, and I decided I would spend some time farming bosses for pets, since part of the new expansion for the game has been pushed live, with the introduction of pet leveling, breeding, and min games. Tonight, I spend a good part of my evening killing General Akilles in Cyclops Lane over and over again.  No pet yet ( I hear he drops a blue ghost), but I managed to snag a cyclops statue, a tonne of armor, a shelf, and a one day flying broom! After, Mister Winston and I fiddled around in the Pet Pavilion, playing in the maze game, the cannon game, and the dance game (we don't like the falling food game, no we don't!) Below is a picture of a practice derby Winston tried out yesterday.  As I play with crowns, I didn't run a rated match, but if this is any indication of how well he'll do, I may shell out a few crowns for some rated matches when he gets to ancient status. Right now, he and my dragon Madame Hannah are adults, and I could mate them to hatch another pet, but the price is outrageous!  Since we were lucky farming for pets (accidentally, mind you, what I really wanted was a flame cat statue!) the day before, I think we will stick with that for now.  If you want to try this out, level a character to 7 and talk to the Headmaster.  He'll send you on a delivery mission that will end in you getting a piggle of your very own to grow and love!

I would be a bad, bad game blogger if I didn't mention my other game addiction, We Rule. It's free to download and play, though if you wanted I suppose you could support them by buying mojo to speed up your farming and building, but you don't need to. Oh, and it would help if you had an iPod Touch, iPhone, or iPad to download it to, as I think that is the only platform they support.  Recent expansions have moved the level cap from 20 to 25, then to 30, and added such neat things to add to your kingdoms as stocks, jails, orange and ruby groves, and golden roads.You can farm, visit your friends villages and purchase their wares, and rearrange your town to your hearts content. Below, in no particular order, are hubby's homes and gardens, Michelle's(of VGO and WCO) kingdom, a picture of what the neighbors menu looks like, and a view of the loading screen and my kingdom.  These are all a little dated, because I had planned to post them earlier.

Other than those titles, the only thing that has been keeping me busy are the end of school rush for extra credit (or just regular credit), getting ready to close my work kitchen, and teenage drama.  I hope you are all in a better state than I am. 

That is all I have for now.  Stay tuned as summer hits, and my gaming adventures become less mundane.  I promise a summer vacation of free to play mmo's and free  iPod apps that will leave you feeling like you took a grand vacation!

But Public Domain Sounds Boring!

I haven't had anything nice to say about my time in World of Warcraft this past couple of weeks.  Pardon me for being absent.  I tried posting, really I did, but all the posts ended up sounding like a whine fest,and not the kind that goes well with cheese, so they will sit, partially written my in folders, unused.  Guild drama is entertaining sometimes, but mostly, it's just sad, and so, that is all I will be saying about that .

I have been enjoying some really well read books on iTunes lately.  Well, one, I'm slow, but I am looking forward to enjoying at least 3 others I have loaded on my iPod Touch.  The one I am listening to now is A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs.  It's about a middle aged guy who was part of the confederate army, who struck out to prospect gold with a partner after the war.  They found a nice chunk, and the partner was sent to get better equipment.  He didn't make it, and after saving his body from Indians,  our hero holes up in a cave and his adventures begin.

The book I downloaded was in podcast form, with about every other chapter voiced by a different reader. Does anyone know how to make your iPod play things in reverse order? This is the part that is slowing me the most, as I have to quickly bring up the interface and click on the next chapter before it reads one I have already listened to.  Imagine trying to do that in the middle of assembling 96 turkey subs.  My poor screen was pretty gross looking, even after taking off the gloves, a mix of perspiration and glove powder smeared across the screen.

Librivox is the service that made this available through iTunes.  They, with the help of volunteers, record works in the public domain and make them available to the public for their consumption.  I just love it because, well, I love to read, but I don't have the time to sit down with a book all the time.  Their books read in podcast version are read by a variety of readers.  This doesn't bother me, it just adds more color to the reading.  One chapter I get English with a middle eastern accent, the next I get a lovely southern drawl. Aside from that,the only other distraction during the recording is the required "This is a Librivox Recording" at the start of every chapter, introducing the book, chapter, author, and reader.  I believe this a small price to pay for their product.

In comparison, I recently joined Audible.com for their promise of keeping Stormrage for just trying them out.  Well, like most free trials, I always end up paying for another month, so I have credit there to spend.  Their book was good, but the reader annoyed me with their pronunciation of things like Sylvanas and Teldrassil.  You'd think they would ask how to pronounce something before committing it to a sound file and charging for it.

Aside from World of Warcraft books and free science fiction novels, I have been enjoying the series on the ship captain Honor Harrington by David Weber.  I spent my 1 credit from Audible this month on The Honor of the Queen.  I expect it to be a good listen, as I enjoy reading about Honor's adventures in her universe, and that should be enough.

Another series I would love to get into is the Dr. Who book series.  One I got my hands on was read by David Tennant, so it was almost like listening to the show while out of the room. I see that Audible has these available as well, though I am not sure who reads them.  So, I suppose I could recommend Audible if you have an extra 15 bucks a month.  It translates to one book a month, and if you don't use it, you can roll over up to 6 credits.  If you wanted to buy another in a month, you get up to 30% off. Not a bad deal, just not the best for me, when 15 means I feed my family for the day.

Check out Librivox or Audible.  Pick up some food for your imagination.

iPod Gaming and Open Feint

If you haven't heard of Open Feint, it is a social network and ranking system that groups all sorts of casual games from all kinds of different developers together.  The best way to find them would be to either install the main Open Feint application or use the embedded system within one of the games you already own.  Here is a list of fun games I am using on a regular basis that use this system.

• Word Warp Xtreme - an updated version of Word Warp, this free game jumbles a word of 7 letters and gives you a set time to find as many words as you can within those letters.
• Bird Strike - This game may still be free on the App Store, as it was a free game of the day and a recommended Open Feint download recently.  This game uses the accelerometer to guide a bird you shoot from a slingshot through the air, missing obstacles and collecting rockets to zoom to incredible heights. Silly fun, my kids like it better than I do.  
• Ms. Chuck - is a ball that you guide through an obstacle course.  I keep this on my iPod mostly for my toddler, but it can get pretty challenging in higher levels.
• Radio Flare - I downloaded this game a long while ago, and it is still one of my favorites.  Using the accelerometer, guide your ship around obstacles while gathering flares. It has a great soundtrack, too.
• Piyo Blocks - This is my guilty pleasure.  It's a match three game where the blocks are chirpy little square birds. You can play against the timer or without one.
• Dunnit - Wait, this isn't a game, or is it?  I recently unlocked the achievement, "Better Late Than Never" for completing 5 tasks a day late. Silly me, this is a to-do list that is really easy to use (and it's free!).  With the added incentive of experience points and achievements, I am getting more household chores done lately.

This is a short list, I understand.  I plan on finding more games to add to my collection soon. For me, games have to be entertaining for more than 5 seconds and be free.  Tough standards, I know.  If someone wants to fund my gaming habit, they can send me an iTunes card!

Another nice thing about this system is that it integrates with Facebook and Twitter, finding friends that are using it and automatically adding them to your friends list. For instance, I have Leo Laporte and Darryl the Tip Giver on my list, thanks to my Twitter feed.  Yes, and my hubby, too.  But not many of you follow @theholyfallout (he's the strong, silent type).  The fun of this is, you can see what  they are playing, if they are online, you can chat with them (I haven't tried this yet) through an instant messenger embedded in the Open Feint dashboard.

So, point of this post?  LFM for my friends list!  If you own an iPod or iPhone and enjoy twiddling your time away between more important things like loads of laundry or random dungeons, follow me on Twitter and download an Open Feint application, and start browsing. I will happily let you step on me as you climb the ladder past my low user rating!  You can find me on Twitter as @Shawndra or on Facebook under the e-mail address Jeni at pamedia dot com.

Awkward Silences

I'm still here. I've been kinda sick, kinda pretending to raid (sorry I missed tonight guys), and really dealing with a teenage daughter. See, she likes these things called boys, and, well, she likes to tip toe around and pretend she doesn't, and sneak visits with them while telling mom how she is being a wonderful daughter and retaking tests. Sorry, mom was a teenage girl once, and those excuses have been used. Not by me, I was too busy working and hanging out in a digital world to really date until I was nearly 18, but I saw them used by friends. Nope. It took me a day or so, but we got this all figured out. Mom now officially knows daughter is dating, knows boyfriend, has verbally pounded both over the head for being shifty and doing things both know are inappropriate, and they are both grounded until the girl gets out of the nunnery. All that done, it was too late to log in and try out Lady Deathwhisper (is that the boss after Lord Marrowgar? I forget) with everyone else, so I turned to suitor number two, Wizard 101.

Wizard 101 is so forgiving of someone who has to take seconds away from the keys, or minutes. The three year old was having problems staying in bed, so between the hubby and I we got up and put her down at least 4 more times. There are no safe zones in WoW, except for Shattrath and Dalaran. You can't kill anything but time in those two areas, anyhow, so why bother? In Wizard 101, I can hop to the walkway, swat a toddler, grab a drink, and hop out into the street to collide with another mob. Fantastic!


Unfortunately, I have hit a wall. I guess I bought an area for my second youngest last year sometime, so I didn't run out of content right away. Now, I am stuck needing everything for 4 quests that come from a certain area, and a dungeon I have to unlock and the teleporter to unlock Krokotopia. I will have to grab the calculator and decide how much I need to unlock it all. This still isn't running me near as much as my World of Warcraft addiction, but I can see it getting close to it if I decide I need a pony/dragon/cat/wings and that I need my outfit to look like the rogues gear (so cool!). I have been content, so far, with just coloring my items to match.

That iPod game is a real blast, and the kids have sent a bunch of gold and elixirs to my account while playing it. I played it, changed the wizard to my daughter's, and won an evil snowman transformation. I read a certain blogger is giving away codes for gold and the like from his play time of the WizardBlox game. Leave him a comment, you may get lucky. Or, you could ask me nicely, and I could dedicate an hour of my time (or a bored kid's) to trying to win something neat for you. Sorry, seems since I read this this afternoon and into tonight, he has gifted all his codes out, but stay tuned to his blog. There is more that just the codes to read, and you never know. I may have two or three codes to spare by Friday night, so comment if you want one of mine. I'll even leave it a surprise at what you get!

Well, enough of the awkward silence. I will make an effort to keep you all posted on what is going on in game for me and my guild in WoW. I will also be posting a bit more about this newest fling. If you are playing and want to add me, my favorite character is Rowan Trollstalker, a level 14 life/fire wizard. Just whisper in my ear first. All these random friend requests are unnerving!

iPod and Wizard 101 Fun!

My kids love Wizard 101. On my account, each of them has a character. The highest one is level 12. I heard through the web somewhere that there was a free application from Kings Isle, the makers of the game. This application is called WizardBlox. It is just like Sorcery Stones in the game, except by playing this, you can win codes for items and gold in game. Since my kids love this so much, I downloaded it and started playing with it. The game all by itself is fun to play. To get codes, you have to be able to connect to the internet. Then, just play until you can't play anymore. I think I got to level seven (I realize this is no great achievement!) before I got distracted and lost. Apparently, it was enough to win something! The game asked if I was a returning wizard or new wizard, and I clicked returning and logged in. I know you all want to see what I got. Well, not me, my daughter that plays the most. I took her out for a short walk on my computer so you could see one of the things you can win; a skeleton transformation!


Immediately after I hit the gift icon after logging in, I was inundated with friend requests, probably because, hey, how cool is this? I, of course, had to turn them all down (this is my daughter's character, not mine!). So, if a skeleton turned you down in game today, don't feel bad. Try friending her when she is online next. I wanted to save the costume for next time she played, as it only lasts for an hour, so I logged out to save what was left.

I probably will be trying this game out a little more, for a break here and there. Stay tuned for more prize reveals!

Free Apps Abound!

If you are looking for some hand held fun for your iPhone or iPod Touch this holiday season, pop into the app store! There are loads of free goodies to be had in there this season! I popped open my App Miner application, and found several fun games that are sure to make anyone from kids to fumbly old people like me happy. Here are some of the ones I have found, but don't just take my word for it. Look for yourself, and if you find something fun, tell me in the comments!

• Dark Harvest - Made by Red Rocket Games, this game is a match three game where you shoot colored blobs at a floating cloud of more blobs to make matches, without the cloud getting too heavy. Every level you clear, you grow a new evil vegetable for your army. This is a lot of fun, and slightly challenging. Other titles free from Red Rocket this season include Little Runner, MEVO and the Grooveriders, and Mr. Hand. I have tried MEVO and love it. Try the others as the whim takes you, they're sure to please someone!
• Cornhole All Stars - Though the title is off putting, the game is really cute. It's a bean bag toss game (corn being a corn bag, hole being the target) that uses the accelerometer, making it as if you were to toss your device. You get to choose your all star and play against the computer or others. I had fun with this, I hope you do too!
• Pig Rush - This is a cute and deceptively easy game. Tap high to make Pig jump high, tap low to make a low jump. Every level you pass, Pig runs faster, and therein lies the challenge. It is hard to keep up with Pig! Good for giggles, or to keep a kid in the backseat out of trouble for a bit.
• X Invasion - I haven't downloaded this one to try yet, but the images presented make me want to let my boys try it out. This game is a flight simulator and shoot em up, killing aliens over San Francisco.
• Panoramic Blackjack - Cards, anyone? This looks like a great game, and has all the options of a live game, and a Learn to Play mode. This could be good to use as practice before your next casino trip.

I didn't start this article in time to pimp the site appventcalendar.com, and I'm so sorry I missed out! Every day prior to today, there was a free game available, listed prominently on their site. There is still time, however, to enter the Plushed character contest. Drawing for the prize is on the 29th.

Alright, then, to your app stores and find the morsels I've missed! Have a pleasant Christmas Eve!