I have no idea where to find the answer to this... is there some place I can contact blizzard (other than waiting on hold for three hours) to find out what's going on?

I've never had a forum ban so, I'm not sure how to tell if I'm just getting glitches or I've been banned (god knows why!)

When I log into the forums (official blizz forums) instead of my character portrait I see "You have no active World of Warcraft Accounts Attached" in red underlined text. When I click on that text I get a list of my toons the names of which are all grayed out. There is an asterisk (*) beside each toon which leads to the bottom of the list, another asterisk and the comment, "*The characters on this account are unavailable, as the account has expired or is prohibited from posting."

Since I'm IN GAME right now I know I'm on an active account... does this mean I somehow earned myself a forum ban??

New loot information from Patch 3.3 is available on MMO Champ and World of Raids. The Quel'Dalar questchain rewards are HAWT (the only exception I've seen so far is that the 2h DPS Strength version has Haste on it for some idiotic reason, where as the AGI version has a ton of sexxxy Armor Pen), as are some of the Emblem of Frost items. So far, I'm not impressed with Icecrown Raid gear though.

Assuming the information is correct, the Heroic versions of the two new 5-mans will be dropping ilvl 232 gear. The normal versions will be dropping ilvl 219 gear. o_0

http://www.worldofraids.com
http://www.mmo-champion.com

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Current Mood: groggy

So, last night I was chillin' in Darkshore, killing rabid thistle bears and working on my loremaster achievement, when I got a whisper from a stranger:

Mysterious Druid: Kel saved to 10 toc?
Me: She's never done it actually (Don't ask me why I answered in 3rd person)
Mysterious Druid: Mmkay, I'll ask the raid leader. Do you have a gear score by chance?
Me: No, I'm afraid I don't, but I know that I'm right on the edge.

I didn't hear anything again, which doesn't surprise me and was fine because I'd been heading off to bed anyway (and it amuses me that this mysterious druid never asked me my spec or asked me if I wanted to go to 10 toc O.o). But it did get me thinking...

I am an officer of a casual/social guild. When I raid (which is rare), it's usually with KittenPug, who I'm familiar with. I farmed heroics for a long time but stopped shortly before gear scores really became a big deal. While I do miss raiding, I have been discouraged by the fact that to get into a raid any more, you have to already have the achievement, so I've just been letting my 80 collect dust. This means that I never bothered to look into this gear score thing. And last night, I realized that... maybe I should. Just in case I get asked that again. I should have an answer, right?

Which brings me to my super noobish question. Controversy regarding the gear score aside... how does one calculate gear score? Do I just add up the ilevel of all my equipment? Do I have to get an add-on to calculate it for me?

FYI, my priest's armory is here: http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Khadgar&n=Keleili

as I will post this only once! :) (Hopefully the time of posting will also not inconvenience too many of our US friends)

( Lemmings of the Light of EU Aszune recruiting casual and community oriented players! )

I said I would do something other than Blood Elves for my next post? I lied.  :l

( Blood Elves in here. XD )

Okay, I think I might be near ready for this convention, now. FFFFFF.

Went over to ringtree's place earlier tonight to do the supply exchange, so I now have six different kinds of buttons to include in my inventory of stuff to sell. (One of them says, "Role playing. Cheaper than drugs and without the nasty hangover of alcohol." Yeah, I had to go and do something like that.)

I've got about twenty different art prints total, three of which come in poster size and all of which can be bought at 4"x6" size, as well. I'm also dragging along a huge binder stuffed with old sketches, old inked art and old prints for sale. And like ten different badge designs.

I still need to get the Vash art framed for the raffle, and go to Kinkos tomorrow to get smaller versions of the Demyx and Monday arts made. Then I just need to finish off the backgrounds for those digitally and add them to the print inventory. I think I'd better pick up another pair of print cartridges, though, just in case. And I definitely need more page protectors.

Bah, I keep worrying I'm going to forget something, but duh... Not going way out of town this time. So if I do forget something, I can at least drive home to get it. Or just wait to bring it until Saturday.

So I was reading wowhead's 3.3 patch guide and came across something I hope is not as bad as I think.

"In addition the bosses from the Trial of the Crusader no longer appear in the grounds - the event is over, there is no need to spend resources on games."

Does that mean you wont be able to do the Tournament things like the daily quests and the instances? Are they really going to take all that away? Say it aint so, I still have things to do there!! Can anyone confirm or deny that the Argent Tournament will be a thing of the past?

The article is here, info found under the "Icecrown Changes" section

I'll be totally open and say I suck at cel-shading. It's never something I've quite gotten the hang of the way I like it. I really like the styles of David Kawena and of course Keovi, but for some reason, try as I might, I can't seem to get the hang of it.

Do any of you have any favorite cel shading tutorials, techniques, advice and critiques for me? Please see my recent half-assed attempt to tell me what I can do better. Admittedly, towards the end it was so late at night I got sloppy, but I might want to revisit this and try again:
http://thornwolf.artspots.com/image/38302/greylock-character-sheet

Here's what I did with this one, just to give a little insight:
I haven't found a good way to ink digitally as I primarily use Photoshop and I haven't been able to get the crisp lines in photoshop that I like to see on digitally inked things (if anyone has any tips for this I'd love to hear them), so I drew it in pencil and just tried to "ink" with the pencil as best I could, then put the "lines" layer on multiply and colored the flats under it.

For the shading I used a saturated magenta which I had on a new layer set to a low opacity. I /attempted/ a little bit of gradient work on the overall flat color but that didn't work out as I had planned.

Really any advice or tips would be great! I want to give this another shot.

So about a month ago, I got the idea to combine photos of Peter Pan and Tinkerbell at D*sneyland in Photoshop, since it seemed like a fun project. I pitched this idea to them and the agreed to help me out. I started out making a list of ideas and got to the park early one morning to meet with Peter. We took a ton of photos, and he even threw some ideas out to me.

About a week later I put all the photos on my phone, met up with Tinkerbell, and showed them to her so she could see how she was supposed to act out. Since it's MUCH harder to do a photoshoot with Tink when there's a constant line waiting for her, we didn't take a whole lotta photos onstage. But we ended up getting through them all and I spent most of October doing these for fun.


Click on them to see the high rez versions at flickr!

( The second star to the right )

Current Mood: relaxed

Dear Yuletide Writer,

Thank you! It's incredibly lovely of you to be writing something in one of these fandoms. You rock! Anything you do'll be really really awesome, so please ignore any optional details and/or this letter if that's what works for you.

PS Totally including links to source material because I've found some wicked cool stuff in my recipients' Yule letters before & hope to pretend to be 1/4 as cool.
( Read more... )

Sighing dog on my bed
Wants to rest his heavy head--
on my leg, on my knee--
and grumbles when I shake him free
I dare to move, and off he goes,
whistling through his clammy nose
His patience stretched, his temper gone,
he huddles on the floor til dawn
I toss and turn, and lie awake
This dogless bed I cannot take
So I scoot aside, and bend my knees
He curls up in the space it frees
He pins me down, a grumpy ball
'Til I'm lucky I can sleep at all
But soon he's finally drifting off
and his breath comes deep and soft
The time is right, the hour is come
His muzzle's right behind my bum
I take my shot: the deadly blast
Right in his face from out my ass
Upon my bed my dog may stay,
But turnabout is still fair play.



FIN

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Current Mood: busy

I think I've mentioned a couple times before that of late, I listen to audio books more than music when I draw these days. Having a story told to you makes sitting still for 4-8 hours much less of a chore! As my budget for audio books is not huge, I've been taking advantage of some of the free podcasts to listen to as well. I thought I'd link a few of the ones I've enjoyed for anyone who's also looking for some listening material.

Writing Excuses - Brandon Sanderson (Fantasy author), Howard Tayler (Web comics), Dan Wells (Horror author)

I highly recommend writing excuses for anyone who's ever wanted to write their own novel or web comic. The podcasts are 15 minutes each and every week they cover a different subject. I found them very entertaining and they give you a lot to think about when writing. Coming from someone who produced 200 page failed web comic out of high school with no plan at all for what was going to happen more than 3 pages down the line, I can safely say that the importance of thinking your story through is something everyone who wants to do a comic (print or web) or novel (I think preplanning is a given there, haha) should consider. You can listen to seasons 1 and two through the archives, as there are too many episodes to have on itunes at once.

12 Byzantine Rulers - Lars Brownworth

A series of podcasts about the eastern roman empire. My friend Erich recommended these to me. The podcast covers the history of the Byzantine Empire by giving you the life stories of 12 key rulers. These probably won't be for everyone, as it is very much like having a (very good) history teacher lecture to you. But if you're in the mood for some learning, they're a good listen.


If anyone has any podcasts they favor and would like to recommend them, I'm all ears. I'm finished with Byzantine and halfway through season two of writing excuses and my stockpile is dwindling fast: Honoes! D=

---------------------------------------

Patch Together - Eurukatt's Butterfly Cobra
Eurukatt recently submitted a rather spiffy butterfly cobra to patch together. Stop on by and comment / vote if you enjoy it and would like to see this made into something fancy and tangible.

Current Mood: enthralled

Any ladies on Emerald Dream (US)? Just about to transfer over, and was wondering if any of you called it home. :) Oh, and I'm Alliance.

Also had a few minor questions... First of all, do you like it? Silly question, but... this is my first big transfer and I'm nervous. How's the BG PvP, does Alliance have a chance? General community attitude? RP? And this would be my first time on a pvp server... how's the dreaded ganking I hear so much about?

Current Mood: nervous

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does anyone know WHY i can't log into my main only? my alts are working fine, but when i try my main i d/c

Ok. I think I'm not "Indy" enough to fully appreciate and understand Donnie Darko, but I will say that that movie scared the everloving shit out of me. It's become sort of an ongoing joke between myself and skorzy, who loved it (vantid shares my opinions on this, however, at least I'm not alone in this).

Frank freaks me out. Period.

After watching the movie recently, skorzy wanted me to "Frank-ify" him. So I did.


(actual size I worked at)

I can't tell you how difficult this was for me to draw because the reference images I used were staring at me with that horrid grin! Even though I drew this whole thing from scratch and know logically it's just a bunch of pixels, it still feels like it's going to pop out of my screen and creepily ask me about time travel :(

I actually attempted to draw one for myself but haven't found the time to finish it yet, but regardless, here's the sketch page so you can see it anyways:

Current Mood: scared

I've done one page already (twice, even, thanks a lot corel) and pencilled/inked a second one. Things go faster and faster as I get better at using the tools.

One thing, though... I've already begun thinking about buying the larger Cintiq. The smaller one is awesome, but I honestly need more room to work. I have to pan tool like a mofo as it is. Jess wants to buy the 12wx when I upgrade, which will speed up the saving process, but oh how I long to stroke that fat 21 incher.

Speaking of speed, my computer hasn't got the processing chops to handle the watercolor tool at high resolution. I had to redo 3 hours of work last night because it stalled and crashed when I tried to paint too long a line. I need to speed this sucker up, or get a new box.

Shit, while I'm at it, Corel Painter 8 is neat and all, but I'm already stalking Santa Claus and killing his housepets, so I might as well throw an upgrade on the pile. Better to be hanged for a thing than the other thing, and all that.

Ah, money, you find so many ways to crawl out of my bank account. But it's all in the name of becoming more awesomer at webcomics, so whatEVer.

I do what I want!

Hello! I'm new here :) My name is Melissa, but I'm known as "Addie" (short for Adelaid) the Gnome Mage on Sisters of Elune. I've been playing WoW for about 2 years now - I started playing with my husband when we were dating. He's in the army and while we were dating he was in Hawaii and I was in Oregon, so we used it as a way to keep in touch. :) My other 80 is a Draenei Shaman, but I've been playing horde lately. I just made a tauren druid and dusted off my lvl 58 blood elf hunter and kind of got sucked in RP =P I'm very new at it, but from what I've experienced it's pretty fun :)

Anyhoo, nice to meet you all! *wave*

Sooo crazy, but, I just volunteered for a panel at FC.
'Created Species Panel'

A panel regarding made up species as avatars and discussions thereof.(obviously I'll be talking about my taithal) Should be interesting, I'm fairly excited, wonder who my companion panelists will be. I really do love species creation, so I can wait to talk with others about it.

Speaking of FC, when would you say is a good time to start Pre-Orders for things? I was thinking of doing some button stuff before the con to hand out at con.

Current Mood: excited

This link is a collection of youtube vidoes of soldiers returning home to dogs that haven't seen them in a long time, so sweet.

http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/40324

Hey Ladies. So my buddies and I decided to roll alts on a new server for a change of pace. We need help getting our guild off the ground!

Realm: Spirestorm
Where: Undead Newb Zone right outside where the new toons spawn
Who: Dancing Undead Rogue named Offdensen
Guild: Dems Olds Ladies

Thanks in advance only need seven more!

Six more! Thanks, Noriscyn!
Five more! Thanks, Sadai!
Four more! Thanks Oldgal! (lol)
Three more! Thanks, Yuckyzombie! And BIG GRATS on your first 80!!!
Two more! Thanks Siggysig!
One More! Thanks, Crestsmile!

DONE!! Thanks so much to everyone!!

Current Mood: cheerful

My realm does not seem to offer what I want, and I am intrigued by the high population on Moon Guard, I am going to transfer.

So without further a-do, does anyone here play on Moon Guard?

Any Moon Guard casual guilds looking for a Resto Shaman? I do not usually RP, but I will not rain on your parade if you choose to.

I might be making posts from my phone more often. Mostly because it doesn't tie up the phone line and I don't have to squeeze it in before Chris gets home (we have dial-up and can't both be on at once).

Of course the small keyboard is a little off-putting and my rate of typing is greatly hampered, but that's okay! I'm sure I'll manage!

Today was quite full. I had three lessons plus training and a garbage can (the ones you set out on the road, not the usual little daily sack) to fill with manure plus cleaning up after the training horses. I think I'm going to be sore tomorrow.

I'll attempt to sit down and do some descent telling of both today and yesterday as there was quite a bit of amusement associated with the ride yesterday.

For tomorrow: two lessons, work training horses, do some art, get degrees framed, mail paperwork for substitute teaching certificate. Oh, and some mucking. We mussn't forget that!

All good things and life moves forward!

Running greatly behind in everything but comics. But the following updates happened M-F anyway, except Abby's Agency which DID update on Tuesday and will update on Thursday as well.

Alien Dice has been moved and has updated! Abby's Agency is back and up! Akaelae HAS updated!

I'm having some problems with my index finger where the pen/pencil/stylus/everything but a keyboard hits it. I suspect that my Livescribe Pulse pen is the culprit, since I've never had the problem before and have done a LOT of writing with it lately. It's very upsetting ... because I love the pen and it was a gift. I haven't gotten my full use out of it again. :D

First course of action is that I ... stop using things that bump against the finger and let it heal. (It's swollen and tender.) I can't do that right now. Instead, I'm concentrating on getting as much done as possible (with it constantly under several bandaids.) and then I'm just not going to draw or do ANY work over Thanksgiving week. My daughter and husband are both off that week so I might as well be too. I'm going to work on getting other stuff done in the interim so there will be updates, but the finger issue is driving me bonkers. It's been like this for a couple of months on and off, flares up when I use the Pulse pen. :/

Going to try to find something soft to wrap around the pen and see if that helps, but right now I'm just irritating it to death. :P I honestly shouldn't be nearly as slow in my work as I am over the last couple of weeks. It's bothering me that it's causing me that much of a slow down. :( Especially this time of year. I have a month and a half to prepare for January and I'm NOT making good progress on the books now. (Although I may end up working on them mainly during Thanksgiving break since I can primarily use a mouse for them.)

I also have a huge mountain of email to go through!

Visit the store for merchandise! Currently up are prints, tote bags and notebooks!

Planet 51 - Movie to see with Kim. Movie I'd like to see with husband: The Men Who Stare at Goats. Wouldn't mind seeing Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant. The Box looks like a good wait until DVD movie. I am intrigued by Avatar. The Princess and the Frog is wavering due to the hated lightning bug. I have a low tolerance for idiotic stereotype characters. Haven't been able to go to a movie in awhile. :D Hoping we can over Thanksgiving break - also hoping to go to the zoo with Kim.

Abandoning Stargate: FU, Vs better.

Brick and Mortar
A World of Warcraft Story by Gre7g Luterman

Episode 9: Elwynn Forest

New episodes Monday through Friday!

Brick and Mortar
A World of Warcraft Story by Gre7g Luterman

Episode 9: Elwynn Forest

New episodes Monday through Friday!

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okay went to do jewel of the sewers today. and everytime my hook caught something i went to click and nothing opened up? something on my end? or did they remove the junk fish?
thanks

I'm duel specced, 75, and have spent most of my time leveling as ret. It seemed to make the most sense, it was fast and efficient. I realize some people level holy or prot, but this was what I enjoyed. Awhile ago I duel specced prot. My fiance was a holy pally at the time and I wanted us to be able to put groups together for instances quickly. I like prot, alot. However, now that I'm nearing 80 I find that I'm dreading it. It's a strange reaction, and I've been avoiding my pally in favor of leveling alts because I'm nervous about 80.

I feel like there is a huge responsibility on tanks. Like, I feel that because I'm not, and don't intend to be, a hard core raider that I have no business tanking. I'm happy being Ret, and will always keep that spec. Recently, I've been playing around on the fiance's old main (holy pally) and enjoying it. I've been seriously considering going Ret/Holy.

Healer's have just as much responsibility as tanks, but for some reason I feel like there is less pressure...
Anyone else ever feel this way?

Firstly, my deepest thanks to those who said something to me in my earlier post about the mid-air collision. As you can understand it's had a pretty big affect on the Coast Guard as a whole. Did you know that there are more New York City police officers than there are Coasties? So yes, even one death affects us greatly.

Still, today is a day of celebration, introspection, activism, or nothing special, depending on who you are. I got to march in the Veterans Day parade here in Petaluma, CA, alongside my students and the Commanding Officer of the TRACEN. We actually headed the parade, and lead a group of 140 other agencies/entities in the parade around a route that lasted about a mile. We were dressed up in our Service Dress Blues, and man, did we look good. Not to mention it felt really good marching down the streets choked with people cheering and clapping and saying all sorts of uplifting things.

Afterward I picked up selasphorus and we went out to Applebees, where they gave me a free meal. Not surprisingly I met up with a bunch of my students, some of whom discussed the positive qualities of sweet tea along with the wife. (It was silly, but you had to have been there.)

Other aspects of the day involved taking advantage of some sales at Kohl's, and picking up the Metal Gear Solid: The Essential Collection (the first 3 MGS games for $20) for the recently Metal Gear Solid obsessed wife.

There's a chance that I will be heading over to a co-workers house tonight to drink some beer and do some character creation for a tabletop RPG of his - there's also the chance that I'll relax with some rum and contemplate episodes of The Twilight Zone. Either way sounds fun to me. :)

Current Mood: relaxed

So after much discussion, myself and a small group of friends have decided to leave our tiny, raiding stagnate server and transfer to Boulderfist, (horde side).

So, do any of you ladies play on Bolderfist? And if so, could you point me in the direction of some decent guilds? Ideally, I'd like to be clearing 25 toc weekly and working on togc 25. I only want to raid 2 days a week (tues/wed would be ideal). An occasional 3rd day would be fine (mon or thurs). With Icecrown on the horizon, I definitely want to be in a postion to see it when it comes out.

We are all toc 25 geared. (We = shadow/disc priest, dk tank and enh/resto shammy. Possibly making the transfer with us as well ... a rogue, prot war, resto druid, blood dps dk and a hunter.)

Thanks.

<3

Hey everyone! I thought I'd throw this up here in case any of you are looking for a new guild.

TL;DR: MWR 8-11 EST 2/5 ToGC25 needs tanks and DPS (esp melee) for full time raid positions. We are an adult guild and respect people's RL. Friendly raiding atmosphere. website!

We've also got a good number of female raiders and women are afforded full respect in the guild, none of that "OMG ITZ A GURL ON VENT" nonsense.

( full info )