Not much is happening here, so I’ll post links to some interesting news and articles I’ve found recently.
Japanese make cakes that look like sushi. As delicious as I am sure they are, I prefer actual sushi.

It seems that in Japan, students also do what Portuguese students used to do until coffee shops/restaurants started banning them - study there. Dany Choo asks why people do this. Speaking for myself, when I used to study in my college’s bar, I did it because not only did I have company there (both from my degree and other degrees, so it wasn’t just a matter of helping each other out), I’d study a lot better there than if I locked myself at home all day. For me it’s harder to be productive if I feel I have to do just that one thing.

To finalize this, I looks like Gardening Mama, will be coming out next Spring. It’s a game that’s like my beloved Cooking Mama game but directed to gardening. It’s a long wait but I’ll somehow manage to live.

This past three-day weekend was a much needed break from every day stuff. We went on a short shopping spree Friday night. We had a small dinner party with some friends at our place on Saturday, went to my sweety’s family farm on Sunday, to the movies Sunday night (Madagascar 2 is high on amusement, by the way), and then slacked the entire Monday at home, watching TV shows and playing Wrath of the Lich King.

I even managed to play a couple of the games I’ve been wanting to play for a while now. On Cooking Mama 2, I’ve finished unlocking recipes on the ‘normal’ mode, unless you get some if you get complete silver medals or above on every recipe. I’ll have to check a FAQ to see that. So anyway, I started the part of the game, where you cook for virtual friends, and already have 5 unlocked friends total.

I’ve also played some Wrath of the Lich King, although I didn’t level even once, since I’ve practically only played on Monday afternoon. I got near level 75 though, and got my reputation with the Kalu’ak up quite a bit. I am little over 14k reputation away from Exhalted, my pet penguin (btw check out this site about WoW pets) and new fishing pole. If I do the three dailies every day, totalling 1500 reputation, I’ll get to Exhalted in less than two weeks. A plus on this faction rep is also the fact that I can get a new 2-handed weapon at level 78, which is good because my current one kind of sucks. It’s much easier getting faction reputation in this expansion than it was before, not to mention less boring - the dailies I’ve seen so far aren’t the usual ‘kill 10 boars’ ones. There’s a particular Kalu’ak daily that comes to mind - you have to bait/kite a Sea Bull near a Sea Cow so they mate.

Oh, I also got a haircut and hair color change on my hunter. After almost four years, I’ve finally let her hair grow and become a very pretty white instead of blue. Let’s see if I like it. At first I had only switched the hair from short to long, but It was very odd playing her like that. Maybe with white hair it’s less awkward.

I’m going to get an epic flying mount for the hunter at level 77, which isn’t too far away, so I’m starting to save some gold, even though I can already afford it if I get the gold from my ex-main character, so I’m not too broke after that. That plus the 1000 gold we have to pay to get the flying ability in Northrend, makes 6000 gold, so I’ll have to skip getting the pretty Armored Snowy Gryphon. I’ll just get a regular Swift Purple Gryphon for now.

Aesthetically speaking, what I’m starting to get desperate about now is a new tabard. I am sick of all the ones I have and want a pretty new one. Maybe I’ll get the Argent Crusade one.

Oh, I finally visited Dalaran, and it’s a very cool-looking main city. I liked the daily cooking quest, which made me walk around a bit within the city to get some ingredients, while sightseeing.

While I’m on the subject of games, it seems that Baldur’s Gate, and NeverWinter Nights are going to be ‘revived’. I hope they come out decent enough to play. If I want hack & slash I’ll go for Diablo III, m’kay guys?

The posting slack continues!

But an update. Last Thursday and Friday, Fnac stores here in Portugal gave a 10% discount to everyone with a client card who bought anything at their stores. Other than buying the X-Mas gifts I hadn’t yet gotten, I also bought myself an unexpected self x-mas present - a Creative MP4 ZEN X-FI 8GB, which I’d been flirting with for a long time now.

I’m a Creative MP3 player fan (great sound quality and I never got the obsession with iPods *shrugs*), and this one seemed to be a decent enough upgrade to my old Creative Zen Micro 5 GB MP3 Player, for me to invest in it. This way not only do I have more space for music (3 gigs plus the SD space), but I can also watch TV shows and anime episodes while commuting.

I haven’t tested the movie clip playing capabilities of the new ZEN, but everything else is excellent. The earphones it comes with are very good, the speakers are good (and no, I won’t be using them while commuting *rolls eyes*), the screen seems to have vibrant colors (in the menus at least), the menus are cool, and so forth. What I bought was the Fnac Pack, which didn’t just include the ZEN regular stuff, but also a very nice leather casing and a Creative USB Power Adapter. All for 130€ with the 10% discount already, was a good purchase.

Now all I need to do is convert some Saint Seiya episodes to 320×240 or something, get me some decent podcasts, and I’m set. :)

Speaking of podcasts, any recommendations? I’m especially looking for podcasts centered in video games, movies, and books, but am open to other themes.

Although I had another busy weekend, I managed to spend a large portion of Saturday playing Wrath of the Lich King, before heading out to a couple of friends’ (immensely fun :D ) birthday dinner.

So far, I’ve leveled my hunter to 73, and started a Death Knight, which I’ve only leveled once since her initial level, 55. I’ll talk about what I’ve seen so far in Wrath, and comment on a few other things I’ve seen people talk about all over the place.

I’ve mostly quested so far and done a couple of instances - Uthgarde Keep and The Nexus. The instances are nice, and The Nexus is by far one of the best looking ones in the game. In comparison with The Burning Crusade, the initial instances are more accessible to the common player, not being a leap from the ones we used to do before WotLK came out. I found them more relaxed, but maybe it’s just due to me playing an exclusive pew pew class and actually being able to enjoy the view while playing (no more staring at green bars a lot of the time \o/).

The quests I can talk more about. I’ve been told that the Howling Fjord quests are more fun than the Borean Thundra ones, and was momentarily tempted to switch from BT to HF. I ended up sticking about the Thundra and after some Saturday afternoon questing, I’m glad I stayed there. I was questing with my sweetie, and we went to do some quest involving murlocs. Before these I was skeptical because the only murloc I ever liked was my pet, the adorable murloc cub, Lurky. Anyway, I’ll spoil you a bit, so skip the next paragraph if you prefer to go do the murloc quests without previous info.

We go there to talk to the King of Murlocs, Mrgl Mrgl, and end up finding out that he is in fact a guy from the D.E.H.T.A. camp in disguise, in a very silly murloc suit. Minor details that I loved: you can see a zipper on the costume’s back (saying EPC) and a little bit of the NPC’s boxers, full of little hearts. So we end up doing some quests for him, including one where we had to free a load of infant murlocs of some cages. They are just as adorable as Lurky and we had them following us all around. Another quest included us dressing up in murloc suits, carrying a while flag and wandering around to do some stuff. Fun, especially because the suit is even sillier than we thought: when we ran, one of the eyes of the costume poped out temporarily, and we found out that we could do a murloc dance if we /danced. Plus, the way we jumped was jsut priceless. Needness to say, I took a zillion screenshots, which I will eventually upload to flickr (I’ve only uploaded the three I’ve included in this post).

From these quests and others we can tell that Blizzard took one step further into the creation of really fun quests. Sure, you still get the odd ‘get me 15 ears’ or kill ‘6 bears’ quests, but there are a lot more than just these, and a lot of them are so much fun, either due to the mechanic of the quest, or little details you see while doing the quests.

Some details I loved:

• The Murloc suits. Seriously fun for all the reasons I mentioned two paragraphs back.
• On a ‘get the items off the wolves poop’ quest, the wolves do the funniest animation when pooping. I’ll just say that they should eat more fibers.
• The lines some NPCs say are amusing. One that pops to mind is the poachers when they get the fake furs we set into the traps saying ‘It’s a miracle! The beast skinned itself!’
• The names of some achievements. I still say the max cooking one should be called ‘Even better than Mama!’ as a homage to that wonderful cooking game, Cooking Mama.
• The Giant Turtle ships - will post screenshots later.
• Being parachuted off a gryph

I was checking out some reputation rewards, and they managed to include one that I really want. A pet penguin. Yes, you read right. I want a pet penguin and I don’t care if it means getting exhalted with a faction, especially because the other exalted reward is a very cool, epic fishing pole, which has an interesting feature: underwater breathing. Both are must-haves and since there are some quests for this faction that are done in the Howling Fjord, over there I might go as soon as possible so I make them while they are still green quests for my level, or at least I hope they still are.

Oh yeah, and of course I’ve already made my Death Knight, a cool-looking dark-skinned/white-haired female draenei. Dark skin with those creepy glowing eyes is made of win.

I miss it…

There are several things I’d like to do, assuming I’ll have some free time on the two three-day weekends ahead, or on my still faraway x-mas vacations. I’m already getting all the Christmas gifts before time so I can avoid malls packed with people near X-Mas eve, thus not wasting my time and stressing too much. Of course, I just know that something will come along and ruin my very much needed R&R, but a girl can dream, and this girl is a gamer who wants to play some games.

What games am I curious about or want to play?

Let us start with games we’ve already bought but haven’t played much. Namely, Assassin’s Creed, Viva Piñata! (still the cutest game around), GTA4, and The Force Unleashed. All of these I’ve started, but ended up not playing much for one reason or the other, none of which was due to the quality of the games. All three seemed cool.

Others include:

The Witcher for PC. I’ve tried this out, before the Enhanced Edition came out and I liked what I say back then. Eventually, when it goes down a few euros, I’ll get the Enhanced Ed. and actually play the thing. It sold 1 million units, and was made by an unknown game developer in Poland, based on some fantasy novels written by Polish writer Andrzej Sapkowski. We need more independent cool, original games and this is one of them.

Cooking Mama 2 for the Nintendo DS. Yes, I’ve played this quite a bit, but haven’t unlocked a lot of recipes so I would like to do at least that. I loved the first one and this one is even better - more recipes, etc. Apparently a gardening version of this is being worked on and, recently Taito registered the name ‘pet Shop Mama’ which indicates there might be another Mama title in the future. Can’t wait for either. They’ll be hours of fun, I’m sure.

Fallout 3 for PC. Haven’t tried it at all, but I’ve heard wonders of the game from all who have. Plus it’s a roleplaying game and it’s sci-fi, which is something I like to play sometimes instead of just fantasy set games, which get boring after a while.

Sins of a Solar Empire for PC. Real-time strategy game, made by an independent developer company that sold half a million copies. I have been extremely curious about this game. Especially because it was another proof that the quality of a game will make it sell and that is regardless of it being made by a large developer company. Plus, I haven’t played an RTS in ages, and it’s a space-based RTS, which makes it even more interesting. I was a huge fan of Star Wars Rebellion, which was, for those of you who don’t know it, an RTS much like Master of Orion but on a Star Wars setting.

Wii Fit for the Nintendo Wii. I hardly played this and it might be an idea to work out a bit. The price still beat forking out a gym subscription and monthly fee and then not going.

Penny Arcade: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness Episode I for the Xbox 360 or the PC. It’s been ages since I have played an adventure game, and this one seems to be good. Plus it was based on one of the best video game based webcomics around - Penny Arcade. It has recently turned ten years old, so happy birthday, Penny Arcade.

Last, but not least, I want to play more of Wrath of the Lich King. I haven’t played much on the first week, and would like to have more time to level up and go instancing.

As you may have noticed, my list is long and I will certainly have a lot of difficulty playing these games, but like I said earlier, a girl can dream.

On my previous post, I just found a gaffe.

Where I said “I hope the Legendary Edition stops being sold fast, or I’ll be one sad Pandaren.” I obviously meant “I hope the Legendary Edition doesn’t stop being sold fast, or I’ll be one sad Pandaren.”

I need to lay off the drugs, really. Or better yet, get some sleep.

So yeah I’ve continued my posting slackage, and not due to Wrath of the Lich King, but real life.

Been too busy, and with little free time. Fortunately, although three friends have their birthdays this week, we’ve already got their respective gifts and don’t have to run around looking for them, instead we will run around like mad people taking care of other stuff. Yay us! \o/

Anyway, last Saturday was so exhausting that I didn’t even go out on Saturday night. I spent the entire day looking at wedding dresses and shopping with a couple of friends. I think I found the store where I will buy the dress. They had four I liked (didn’t try any of them out though) and the store was not as pricey as others with more horrible-looking stuff, so the decision seems pretty easy.

Monday I went to the doctor, to check my eyes because I suspected I needed to change my glasses. I suspected right. I’ll have to go buy the new glasses this Saturday morning, and will take the chance to do other stuff in Lisbon. I was thinking of prolonging the visit to the afternoon but I suspect if I do, I’ll be too K.O. to attend the two birthday events in the evening. Better not take any chances, methinks.

Oh, we got our WotLK Collector’s Edition and it was worth the extra money. The art book is awesome and I, being the sucker for cool-looking angels, drooled especially at an Azrael illustration they included there. Frosty, the in-game pet, is adorable in his chibi undead dragon way. We haven’t opened the soundtrack yet, but from what I’ve heard in-game it’s quite good. We’ve trie out a couple of instances and they were cool. The Nexus is the prettiest one I’ve seen in the whole game so far. Then again, I <strong>am</strong> a sucker for blue, so it’s not surprising. I was going to post some pretty images of the expansion but sadly, I forgot the files on my laptop so I’ll have to to that at some later point.

Speaking of Blizzard soundtracks, have you heard of the upcoming Blizzard soundtrack, Echoes of War? It’s a soundtrack that ranges from Diablo to StarCraft and World of Warcraft, not being based only on a specific Blizzard game, but on all of them. I feel very tempted to get the Legendary Edition of this, as all the goodies are appealing to me. Since I’m trying to contain my expenses lately (because even making your own wedding stuff is more costly than I had anticipated), and I’ll have to pick up and pay for an order I made of some Star Wars goodies a while ago, I’m not sure if I’ll be able to get it right now. I hope the Legendary Edition stops being sold fast, or I’ll be one sad Pandaren.

Cya later.

I’ve had a pretty busy week so far which explains me kind of slacking with posts. Several things are changing in my life, some for better, some for worst, and some I’m still unsure of and will have to wait and see what life brings.

I started looking at wedding dresses last week over at Chiado, and the ongoing adventure of finding me a dress that I actually like and that looks good on me will continue this weekend. x_x This time we’ll need to be there in the morning as the stores which had more affordable stuff (meaning: stuff that does not require selling my liver to purchase) were closed in the afternoon. Boo.

Tonight we’re going to pick up our new World of Warcraft expansion Collector’s Edition. Yay! I’ve been informing myself and with some luck it will only take 15-20 minutes to install on my laptop. I’m hoping there’s no new patch after that. Of course playing tonight will be as painful experience as it gets in an MMO: people camping everything, hellish lag, server queues and quite possibly servers going down. In other words: a normal launch week day.

As you may have noticed I’ve posted some photos of Sintra and of BD Amadora on my flickr account. The Sintra photos were taken in the evening we got locked in the Pena Palace Garden, and we went to BD Amadora the following week. It was a good and bad expo at the same time. I enjoyed the sci-fi decoration, and I loved some of the art sections there, such as the Tara McPherson one, and the section with chinese artists’ work which were the best in the expo. I also liked the fact that Richard LeParmentier a.k.a Admiral Motti in Star Wars was there signing autographs, like he’s doing for us in the photo below.

This year I managed to resist buying anything (except for the autographed photos), and even refrained from buying a Sasuke gashapon (or trading figure? I couldn’t tell with the distance) I saw being sold there. I’m hoping my usual anime merchandise dealer get some at his store someday so I get the coolest-looking character in the show (so far). Yes Gaara also looks cool, but I’ve never seen him do anything in the show, plus he’s not as stylish. :p

[ Side note: dear ‘Naruto’ fangirls/boys who may be thinking of replying to this post: refrain from hate commenting on my personal taste. I hardly give a rats arse about the show and could not care less if your heart belongs to Gaara or another imaginary character with whom you’d like so sleep with ( since you obviously can’t with a real person). I simply like the quiet, cursed dude who dresses in blue, has a sad repressed past and who kicked ass whenever I saw him fight. Thanks. ]