Good Night, and Good Luck

Dr. Joseph Lowery's Benediction

"Lord, in the memory of all the saints who from their labors rest, and in the joy of a new beginning, we ask you to help us work for that day when black will not be asked to get in back, when brown can stick around, when yellow will be mellow, when the red man can get ahead, man; and when white will embrace what is right. That all those who do justice and love mercy say Amen. Say Amen."

If you choose to visit the site directly, do not read the comments. No one intelligent ever posts comments on Youtube.

So I Hit 71.

Did it probably 2 weeks ago. I'm really getting burnt out on this game, can't be arsed to do anything anymore. Oh well, I love this game but it's been a good run.

Path of a Hero

Watch your characters "grow up" with Path of a Hero. PoaH allows you to create a blog for your character and submit pictures documenting their quests and events. With each post the site queries the WoW Armory and delivers a snapshop of equipped gear, so you and your friends can see how far you've come. The site also picks up the gear score from Be Imba, displaying it above your gear loadout. You can also add your friends as "rivals", allowing you to keep tabs on their own trials and tribulations.

Plus the creator of the site is a real swell guy, check it out!

Mingonashoba's Entry

Radio Free Gnomeregan's 3rd Annual "Winter Veil" Broadcast!

Live Broadcast: TBA
Rebroadcast: Christmas Eve, time TBA.

Once a year, Mingonashoba dodges dwarven guards and fights his way into the depths of Gnomeregan. He sets up shop alongside holdout gnomes in the Clean Zone, and broadcasts a special show to everyone and anyone who tunes their hearthstones in. Even in days of brutal conflict across worlds he tries to bring Alliance and Horde together in one day of relative peace with relaxing music.

What you'll hear:

• Holiday standards from Frank Sinatra & Bing Crosby
• Selections from Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker Suite
• Peppy and relaxing jazz numbers
• The Vince Guaraldi Trio ("A Charlie Brown Christmas")
• A few hidden gems that might make you think "what the heck did I just hear?"

Join DJ Mingo and Radio Free Gnomeregan this December!

Electronic Arts Lays Off Six Hundred

http://kotaku.com/5071439/electronic-arts-lays-off-six-hundred
http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/081030/20081030006325.html

I'm thankfully not affected by this as I'm not officially an EA employee, I'm an outside contractor. However after listening to the FY'09 Q2 finance conference call I would not be surprised to see my contract ended early. I'm hoping for the best that it does not happen.

More Thoughts About Blizzcon & VGL

After L80ETC left the stage, so did a huge number of people. I cannot comprehend why, for some of these reasons:

• Listening to "Lament of the Highborne" performed live and sung by Vangie Gunn. It's her voice you hear ingame when the song plays, and hearing it live is much more powerful.
• Watching "The Video Game Pianist" Martin Leung come out and play a suite of Warcraft II music FROM MEMORY. I can't remember the last time I've ever seen someone so absolutely thrilled to be doing what they love.
• Listening to multiple Grammy award winning artists join the orchestra while playing music from Diablo.
• Hearing the main theme from WotLK performed live for the first time. It sounds great on my PC, but again there's no substitute for live.
• It's a full symphony orchestra and choir performing video game music!

What's not to like about that? Do people not want to get a little bit of culture? I understand that what you hear at Blizzcon is not the normal 2-1/2hr concert that VGL normally puts on, but it's worth staying to listen. I can accept that a number of convention attendees had little ones that needed to get to bed and so I tip my hat, but for the rest I wag my finger at you!

I implore whatever tiny reader base I have, go to the Video Games Live website, find out when they're playing in or close to your city and go see them. Or not even close! They're playing in Lisbon, Portugal pretty soon, hop a plane and go watch them there.