Muffled Noise

So as many of you know, I finally gave in to the call of the wild (i.e. the inner game-lover) and started playing WoW. As some of you know, I’ve been avoiding it for the longest time because I recognize the said game as a dark vortex that sucks out your sou— cial life. The beginning of the end. The end, you hear me?

Like an old man scribbling out his dying days, I shall blog about my first days in Azeroth. Okay srsly enough with the drama. (Lame) screenies for everyone!

As a personal rule in MMORPGs, I only play support or tank. Since there seemed to be too many tanks in the guild I was joining, I started out as a Night Elf priest. It was okay, I got the hang of it playing this character. I hit level 10 or so in a couple of days then, after some account issues, I restarted as a Human priest.

Before I continue, don’t judge me for choosing Alliance! I’ve heard it all! And after playing for a couple of weeks I think I get what all you Horde folks mean. *WINK WINK*

So anyway, Human priest. The starting town was way more fun to be in, and Stormwind was awesome— You walk in the Valley of Heroes and awesome music plays, it has the grand entrance and all. Had a bunch of firsts from that point on… My first gryphon ride:

My first instance, the Deadmines:

My first tram ride from Stormwind:

And then there’s Ironforge:

A friend toured me through here, the land of the Dwarves, and it’s even more epic than Stormwind. I love the design of the city, like a fortress, like a machine of awesomeness. Check it out:

Obviously my screenies aren’t all that awesome, I’m using an old low-specs laptop here at the hotel. I cannot wait to get home to my gaming PC and fire up all the settings!

Aaaaand that brings us to today. Today, almost hitting 21. Today, maintenance (which is the only reason I’m not playing). Today, the day we decided…

…to move to Horde. HAHAHA.

In fact I just got back from buying The Burning Crusade, so I can rock a Blood Elf of awesomeness.

So concludes this indulgent blog post. I think I can still manage to keep a healthy social life, and get enough sleep. I only play 1-4 hours a day, including lunch breaks (1 on days when we go out)… except on weekends, I think I play for at least 8 hours. So don’t give up on me yet. I may not be ruined just yet *shakes fist trimphantly* :D

I’ve been to Charlie Brown Café here in Hong Kong before, but that was a year and a half ago and we didn’t stay to eat. So this is practically my first time really experiencing it, and although the taste wasn’t anything extraordinary, the sights and the feel of the place is enough to make a trip for. Some pictures!

Charlie Brown chocolate mousse and a Woodstock plushie I bought

The Charlie Brown Sampler

Snoopy!

Poor Charlie…

In that last picture, the cup reads “Charlie Brown wins your heart with his losing ways. It always rains on his parade, is baseball game, and his life.” While we were there, we were joking about how depressing that sounded, but I used to read the comics as a kid and I knew it was true. Sad, but that really was his appeal. Poor Charlie.

More pictures on my Facebook. I loved it, so I might go back sometime to try some of the other stuff. :]

So today marks my 44th day in Hong Kong. Here’s a quick rundown of the stuff I’ve seen on those weekends (and occasionally, weeknights) when I just stayed in my room and cozied up to my endless supply of chips and cup noodles. And yeah, I’m posting this coz I got nothing better to write. Ain’t I clever? :D

Bolt. I loved this one! Fun, funny, cute and made me cry a couple times (well, that’s not exactly hard to do). I’m glad Disney can still make stuff like this, I heart Mittens! Though I wish Jack Black did the voice of Rhino, it would’ve been perfect.

Fast & Furious. Screw the Tomatometer, this movie was awesome and a bag of chips! Well granted, you don’t watch this movie for story per se (though we didn’t expect the Braga revelation), the level of awesome from the opening scene was just too high up there, that story and plot twists are just a bonus. Dominic > you. :]

Read more »

So I have no April Fool’s blog/website thing like Ade and Baddie, but in celebration of this holiday for pranksters, my short (and sweet) tribute to the wise guys at the office, for these lovely (and relatively harmless) pranks:

March 31: Appetizer

Victim: One of the senior designers. Keyboard, mouse, watch and monitor in a nice little package. Hid all sharp objects. The rest of them after the jump. Read more »

So. You haven’t been updating me again. I thought you said you were gonna post at least whenever something major happened? Last I heard, you’re in Hong Kong and staying for a few months even, isn’t that major enough?

No don’t try to play dumb with me, I know what you’ve been up to. Just because I’m stuck here doesn’t mean I don’t have my sources. Huh? What? Yeah I know everything! Want proof?

Yeah I know it was your first time at the NAIA Terminal 3, and I know you thought it was nice. You even took a picture while waiting for the plane because you were an hour early.

And then you almost didn’t have enough for the cab ride to the hotel because you didn’t have all your money exchanged, and you were panicking, but got there with 6 HKD to spare. Then you had enough to get from the hotel to the office, and didn’t work that day. You like the atmosphere at the office and you’re really excited about the project. I mean, that’s the kind of thing you usually blog about!

And that’s not the worst part! When you get home, you have my Write Post page open all night but what do you do instead of type? You watch movies! You watched that movie Twilight, which btw you said you didn’t really feel like watching in the first place. According to my buddy Plurk, you even thought it was just “alright” after watching it. Psh!

And that other movie, One Night with the King, was it? You watched it 5 freaking times! I know it was about your favorite story in the Bible and you liked that Luke Goss guy in it, but could you not have watched it one time less to, I don’t know, post a two-sentence update on me?

Don’t think I don’t see you munching through that giant bag of Lay’s!

Have I not been good to you? I never gave you problems when you used the auto-upgrade plugin. I didn’t randomly eat up your posts (no matter how tempting that was) and I always tried to look my best in your custom themes. I mean, I know you’re busy and all, and I know this is just a phase. But you can’t keep me out like this! It takes two to make this relationship work, that’s all I’m sayin’.

You know what, I don’t want an explanation anymore. I’m just gonna take a walk through the archives. Don’t wait up for me.

Yours truly (though you make a sucky owner sometimes),
mufflednoise.com

P.S. This week’s spam is particularly weird.

Let me count the ways. Google has been a big part of my Netizenship, and along with m’dear pal Wikipedia, has been among the first I run to for help when I’m feeling noobish. Now I know you all love Google too, but I’ve come to give you some more reasons to finally buy that diamond ring, get down on one knee and ask Google if it would like to have little search engine babies. Uhm, or something like that. Let’s begin!

5. Because of the changing Google logos, occasionally reminding me to celebrate people that I don’t know wouldn’t normally pay tribute to.

125th Birthday of Walter Gropius (May 18, 2008)

4. Because of Google Maps, which have been the cause of many arguments between people who think they know rooftops, and have brought us Atlantis.

Because I refuse to believe their “logical” explanation. Lulz.

3. Because when you search for “french military victories” and click “I’m Feeling Lucky”, it will lead you of this very sad history lesson:

Try it. And if you’re French, I’m sorry.

2. Because you can come up with very interesting search suggestions as you type.

Click it or open in a new window, it’s surprisingly insightful (and funny).

1. Last but not least, because Google co-founder Sergey Brin reminds me of both Zach Braff and Jerry Seinfeld.

And this is reason enough.

So for all you Google-lovers out there, don’t take her for granted. If I missed a good reason in this short list, let me know! :P

I’ve been laying on the FAIL pretty thick recently, as many of you know. I’d like to claim that a bunch of pink internet-savvy bunnies attacked my blog, took down my very interesting February posts, leaving me with only traces of soil and grass on the floor. I’d say it were a shame you didn’t get the chance to read them, really. They would have changed your lives, they were the stuff of classics.

As believable as that story is, I’m afraid it isn’t true. If by any chance you insist on believing it then, yay for me! :D

Truth is that work has sucked me dry of all blogging skills — pulled out a black crayon and scribbled all over my heart cutouts. Lolz. Seriously though, I’ve just been busy. Not miserable, mind you (I happen to really love my job) but yeah. This blog tends to suffer at crunchtime, because the pink bunnies convinced me that my readers were very understanding. Yes, you shouldn’t believe everything you read — the pink internet-savvy bunnies are actually very wise and gentle creatures.

Belated Happy Valentine’s, and I promise to be a good blogger again. For the bunnies.