So it's a typical Monday afternoon. Classes are over, it's summer and hot, and I just want to get home ASAP. Have my air conditioner on, music blaring, things seem good.

Red light ahead of me turned red. I stop the car. Yawn.

Then...

BAM! BOOM! KAPOW!

A car hits me from behind. Holy crap... this could not be happening. I open my door and step out. I look behind me. Holy crap... this might actually be happening. I walk to the side of my car. I look down. My bumper is hanging off the back. Holy crap... this is actually happening. The other driver, a female student who also attends Cal Poly Pomona, steps out of her car. We look at each other, both in disbelief. She instantly starts apologizing, saying she stepped on the brakes but it didn't work. I sigh to myself. "It's not my fault. It can't be my fault." We agree to pull over to the side into a parking lot. Holy crap... this actually happened.

We exchange information. I have no idea what the hell I'm doing. I don't know what information I need. So I do what everyone would do in my situation: call their mommy. Long story short, I'm at home, no car, no way to get to school, major headache, typing in my blog.

All I'm concerned about is getting free repairs to my car. I hope my insurance covers it. :(

"It's not my fault. It can't be my fault." But you know these things can go. Other person is a backstabbing, cheating lair and tries to sue you for existing, because had you not existed the accident wouldn't have happened in the first place. Great logic, judges will go for it.

It finally happened. I didn't think it would, but it did.

Eternal Keggers will no longer be raiding.

Why? Lots of reasons. Many of our officers could not handle the abysmal end-game raiding scene and have quit the game to play another MMO. Many other members have returned to our home server of Terenas. Some have rerolled on Mal'Ganis as Horde and created a new raiding guild, one that will play alongside the like of Elitist Jerks. Others have outright quit the game in general.

I do not plan to stop playing World of Warcraft anytime soon. My interest in the game is still very much alive. I look forward to the new content patch and future expansions. I like raiding and enjoy defeating new bosses.

Nataliah will remain in the guild and the server for the time-being. I have simply spent way too much time progressing her to give up. I have been offered a spot on Mal'Ganis and although it is tempting, I cannot fathom starting a new main.

It's odd, though. As depressing as the news is, I am not completely bummed out by it. I see it as a new start for, not just World of Warcraft, but life. I am no longer bound by raid times and guild responsibilities (not that I had any in the first place). I can focus on my studies, pick up a job in the summer, and return to my first love: Nintendo.

Speaking of Nintendo, I picked up Pokemon Pearl this past Monday. My team so far consists of Graveler, Machoke, and the evolved form of my starting pokemon, Plinplup (oh my god, why didn't I learn the starting water pokemon was a penguin sooner?). My team is in the low thirties. I have three badges. My playtime is approximately ten hours.

The game is a lot of fun, but I would've loved to see more touch screen functionality and speeding up of monotonous tasks. Watering berries is still a two-step process - you need to plant the berry and then bust out the watering pail, which doesn't seem like much work, but it made annoying because it is ten dialog messages long. Organizing items in your bag is still cumbersome as well - the touchpad can be used to skim through bag types i.e. potions, HM/TMs, battle enhancers, but it'd be great if you can click and drag to sort instead of using Select and scrolling. It's better than no touchpad functionality, like if it was released on the GBA instead, but come'on! What makes the DS unique is the controls and it could've definitely been enhanced.

Oh well.

I hope to have the game completed in a week or so, then have a full party ready to go online and battle some players around the world within the month. This'll be a great way to fill the gap of my online gaming.

I always enjoyed the complexities of raising the perfect pokemon. Setting up your team has never been difficult. It's catching the right pokemon with the right personality, traits, and IV stats that makes it challenging. I've attempted making a perfect team of (near-)perfect pokemon before on GBA versions, but without online, my opponent base was very small. Now I have the world to challenge and I can't wait.  ^_^

Even though these pictures have an annoying tag stretching across them, Ashley Tisdale looks insanely gorgeous. My jaw broke when it hit the ground.

I don't like physics. I dislike physics. I abhor physics. I detest physics. I hate physics.

I don't think I'm going to do well on my physics finals tomorrow.

Last Friday, I bought a TV tuner so I can finally watch TV in my room again. My dad bought me a big screen TV for my room a couple months ago, but being the tech-illiterate fool he is, he bought one without a TV tuner (are you kidding me?!?). The good thing about the TV is it had an input that let me use it as a secondary monitor, which is quite nifty for browing Wowhead and playing World of Warcraft at the same time.

Anyway, I inserted the ATI TV Wonder Elite 200 into my computer and tried installing it, but my computer wouldn't pick up on any new hardware. Also, it appeared my wireless adapter card had become "disconnected" so I couldn't go online to get any help. Fast-forward a bit, after trying to figure out what happened to my internet, and I killed my computer. It crashed and refused to start up. I panicked because even trying to load up Windows under Safe Mode wouldn't work (it'd return me to the very beginning of the boot up process).

Fast-forward some more and I had to reinstall Windows. I didn't want to reformat my computer because I have way, way too much stuff I dare not lose. Movies, pictures, music, porn, etc. I don't mind reinstalling software, since I can reconfigure settings to how I liked them in minutes, and I keep installers for my main programs on an external hard drive anyway, but actual files takes time to find and make (Photoshop files, text documents, etc).

So I managed to successfully reinstall Windows and get my computer running again. Oddly, it appeared my hard drives got swapped. Files on my secondary drive were saved onto my primary drive and vice versa. The problem was the second drive, which now had files previously on my primary drive, couldn't be accessed without being reformatted. Corrupted, maybe? Fortunately I discovered a nifty program called Handy Recovery that allowed me to access those inaccessable files and copy them onto my main drive, thus letting me burn them onto DVDs.

Fifty DVDs later (more like a dozen) and I had enough stuff backed-up onto discs and my external hard drive to reformat my second drive. With the drive void of any files, I transferred some things on my main drive which had files from the second drive back where they belong onto the second drive (make sense?). So all is well and I'm back in business. Except now I have Windows installed twice on my computer. But as long as it runs!

Oh, and I got my TV tuner working.

Some Ashley Tisdale goodness!



Blender magazine uses some fancy words. "Nymphet", "Lolita," and "hedonism" are fun to say.



I'm not sure if I should be disappointed or turned on by the fact she'll always have underwear on. Makes me wonder if there's a bra beneath that shirt... Do bras count as underwear?

Ms. Ashley Tisdale made an appearance at a Verizon Wireless store this afternoon in Pasadena. As how I'm such a big fan of hers, I naturally woke my lazy butt up at 6:00 A.M. to meet her. Here's how my day went!

***

I drove by the store at around 8:00 A.M. There was no one waiting outside the front, and I assumed I showed up really early. I parked my car and got some sleep for about an hour. At around 9:00 A.M., I decided to drive by the store again; like before, there was no one out front. Eventually I got bored of sitting in my car so I went for a walk. I strolled down the strip and eventually I curved around the corner to the back of the stores, which I did not realize they had (I don't live in the area). When I approached the Verizon store from the back, I finally found the line and quickly rushed to get my things and wait; I was about the 40th person.

With about two hours left to go, some of the promoters of the event started some contests to win VIP tickets to see Ashley (I'll get to those in a minute). There were sing-alongs, dance competitions, some random trivia questions, and other Verizon phone related things. I use T-Mobile so I wasn't eligible for most of it, but the prizes were random Verizon merchandise (key chains, towels), not Ashley Tisdale memorabilia.

Back to the VIP tickets real quick. I did not get one since my spot in line left me behind the Verizon truck, so the promoters weren't really able to see me. I panicked, thinking I needed the ticket to get in, even though I had a wristband securing my spot. Fortunately, it turns out the VIP ticket just lets you cut ahead of the line. You weren't given extra time to meet with Ashley or anything like that.

At 12:30, Ashley appeared! She was escorted from the inside of the store (no idea how she got inside in the first place) to the back of the store where everyone was waiting. There was a tent with a camera that people can dance in front of to pretend you were really dancing with Ashley (a prerecorded Ashley danced on the on the left side, the people dancing with her appeared on the right). Ashley Tisdale herself actually went in the tent to dance with her virtual self, which was really cool, but unfortunately I couldn't get a good look cause the sides of the the tent were covered. Still, I got to see Ashley dance on the TV screen!

Twenty or so minutes later, I finally got inside the store. I was so nervous, I was unable to keep my hands steady. We were allowed to have her sign one thing (gasp!) and one picture of her, not with. It was okay, though, since I really just wanted her to sign my copy of Headstrong. I had a present for Ashley; it was a stuffed white and black striped tiger. When I finally got meet her, I handed her my gift, saying how I would appreciate it if she would accept it. What did she say next?

"Awww, thank you so much!"

My cheeks must've been blushing so much. I mean, it's Ashley who should've been receiving all the thanks since she has given so much to the fans. But here she was, saying thank you to me! It was incredibly awesome.

I had her sign the handbook that came with the album. As I preordered the album, I was supposed to received an autographed booklet. When the album came in my mail last Saturday, it had a small signed picture of her which I thought was the bonus autograph. A couple days ago, however, I received another package from Warner Bros. that contained an actual signed handbook. I wasn't sure if this handbook was really signed by Ashley herself, but I honestly didn't care. If I was going to meet Ashley Tisdale, why not have her sign both? So despite the one autograph rule, Ashley signed them anyway and now I have two booklets with three signatures.

There were Verizon posters of her that she signed and handed out; I received one of these, too. Unfortunately, because I went by myself to the event, I had no one to take a picture of me. I was quickly rushed along and missed my chance to take a picture of her, and this had been the only real bummer for me. But seeing as how I couldn't take a picture with her, I wasn't bummed quite as much.

When I left the store, it was only about halfway through the event. So what did I do next? Wait in line again for another chance to see her!

The promoters there were smart. About the first half of the line received white wristbands while the latter half received yellow. This way they would know if anyone was trying to do what I did, see Ashley again. Fortunately for me, the 'bouncers' (they were just security guards) didn't know any better and I managed to go into the store a second time! I didn't ask for another autograph or anything because I had nothing else to sign, but it was great seeing her. And guess what? I forgot to take a picture! Jeez, I can be so absent-minded.

I waited outside when the event was over to try and catch a glimpse of her. This didn't work since her sneaky guards somehow managed to get her out of the building without anyone seeing it (most likely she was in the backroom of the store still but no one stuck around to find out).

All in all, I had a great time. It was so fantastic being inches away from her and having her talk to me, even if it was just for a minute. God, she is amazingly beautiful. A pic of what she wore will probably be up soon, but for those who can't wait, she wore a vanilla yellow dress. It was very simple but it looked absolutely stunning on her. I just became an even bigger fan of hers after today.

P.S. If my gift for her shows up on her website or YouTube, I would scream!

P.P.S. Pics, and maybe videos, of the event will be on http://www.ashleyconcerts.com/ this Wednesday.

P.P.P.S. Conan O'Brien is da man! 1:50 is the best part of the interview, no doubt!

This is coming late but I was the first to hit level 70 on my server Norgannon. I pulled two all-nighters: one on launch day, and one on Friday night to hit the cap on Saturday morning. It may sound like I play a lot - which is partially true - but I'm willing to be my /played time for those levels are lower than everyone else's for our server.

Now that I'm 70, the real game starts! Rep grinds, keying for instances, working on trade skills, blah blah. Anyone who spent nearly 200 days at 60 will know what to expect at 70.

I got the Collector's Edition of the game and it's signed by the developers at Blizz. Good stuff if I do say so myself.

My younger cousin told me that our local Fry's Electronics will be one of the four locations where Blizzard will 'officially' do the midnight release for Burning Crusade. Now, when I say official, I mean Blizzard will actually be at the store to sign copies of the game. Doesn't sound terribly exciting but knowing Blizzard, there's going to be a ton of other stuff there as well. But I could care less about the party; I just want the game!

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/misc/wowx-midnight.xml

Here's the link to the official press report.

Oh man, I'm so excited. Maybe I'll fork over the extra bucks for a Collector's Edition. :D

A couple of days ago, the character transfers have been fixed so now she on the Beta under the name Nataliahone (Nataliah one. There's also Nataliahtwo and -thre).

As of right now, she's cleared all the quests in Hellfire Peninsula and Zangarmarsh, excluding the instance quests. At lvl 63, there has only been one upgrade, the Bladehand's Breadth, which replaces the Blackhand's Breadth. Basically two less crit rating but a Use effect to increase attack power, much like the Earthstrike.

The lands are huge. Hellfire is kinda meh since it's just a larger version of the Blasted Lands, but Zangarmarsh and Nagrand look phenomenal. Zangarmarsh is unlike anything currently in WoW and Nagrand is what the Barrens would look like if it wasn't so... barren.

I kept a detailed log on the quests I do and where to go. When the expansion goes live, I'll be ready with a handy pathing guide to make the most of my travel time and mobs. I'm expecting to accomplish what I've done on Beta in half the time, easily.

In between Beta sessions, I'm also leveling my druid (or should I say inbetween my leveling time, I'm playing Beta?). I'm using a powerleveling guide for her, which inspired me to do the guide for BC, and I'm doing pretty darn good on time. At 2 days and 4 hours, she's level 38. I'm expecting to reach 60 under the 6 day mark, maybe even under 5!

I'm a proud owner of a level 13 draenei shaman and a level 14 blood elf hunter. Oddly, my hunter took three less hours to reach its level than my shaman did. Just goes to show how awesome hunters are at leveling, or that I'm too accustomed to my class. Either way, the blood elves are a lot more fun to play as. I've practically in love with the blood elf I made. She reminds me a lot of Gwen Stacy. Their /silly and /flirt are hilarious.

God, I can't wait for the BC.

I got mine today, yay! I'm looking at a twelve hour download, though. : /

Ah well, better than waiting till January. :D