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. ]

Taken in the halls of BD Amadora. Check out the rest of the photos over at flickr.

I’ve recently started reading a blog written by a Spanish guy who lives in Tokyo, called Kirainet. His blog is written in Spanish but he translates a lot of his posts to English also, but since I can read both well enough I end up reading everything he writes.

I found a post which is a compilation of photos of people in Tokyo taken in 2008 and I couldn’t help but realize that if some people in those photos wore what they are wearing here in Lisbon, Portugal, they would be stared at constantly, and possibly even laughed at. Personally, I’d like to see that much style diversity here. It would make a change.

For those of you reading this and who aren’t in Lisbon or Portugal, allow me to introduce you to the world of Lisbon’s day-to-day fashion.

The major fashion styles we seem to have here are:

Neutral, a.k.a. people who are dressing in a way that they could go to work in. This will include a variety of neutral sub-styles, such as people who wear formal suits and people who wear a typical jeans plus t-shirt combo, among many others. EDIT: Most people I see are part of this category.

Skanky Hos, a.k.a. chicks with miniskirts shorter than belts, and with a very intense lack of colour coordination (but always wearing a lot of pink!). You’ll find these specimens wearing round earrings so huge that a parrot could land in them, and excess makeup which they are wearing to look more grown up but simply makes them look like a failed transvestite. Also, you’ll note that they usually have horrible perm jobs on their frequently crappy-blond dyed hair, and they are wearing so much fake bling that you can hear them coming a mile away.

Of course, they will be loudly chewing bubblegum while even more loudly talking to their equally skanky ho friends about something that no one gives a crap about, but everyone in the vicinity would strangle them just so they stop squealing.

Bad Boy-Wannabes, a.k.a. guys who dress in sports clothes three times their size, hear crappy rap/hip hop/kizomba ‘music’ (note the little ‘s around it) on their cellphones while not using earphones because of COURSE everyone else on the bus wants to know how absolutely laughable their musical taste is. They usually also carry a lot of fake bling, just not as much as their female counterparts, the skanky hos. You’ll find them wearing baseball caps sideways because they apparently want to be Disney’s Goofy ever since they were five and they will walk like they have a severe motor coordination problem.

These specimens will talk loudly while being part of a pack of three or more bad boy wannabes because otherwise, instead of people quietly maximizing their distance to them, they would simply laugh at their lack of fashion sense and the fact that they walk like they had their ass raped by a very large elephant. Bad boy-wannabes are especially amusing to watch when they are white guys who would give their right leg to have been born black. Maybe they did, and that would explain why they walk so awkwardly.

Sadly for the most part I am not exaggerating, but it’s still refreshing to see an occasional punk or goth (the non wannabe kind, meaning the ones that don’t think that Tokio Hotel are the best band EVAR!!11) who makes me think not all is lost in this city where horrible, unoriginal fashion sense reigns almost absolutely.

So, what fashion ‘trends’ can you see where you live?

Photo taken a couple of weeks ago when we were at the Pena Palace in Sintra. I’ve uploaded the rest of the photos to my flickr account.