Wednesday, November 27, 2013

WoW Wednesday- What? Two in One Day?

Usually I find it difficult to post once a week, but today you're getting two posts. Yay for twofers!
There are plenty of things going on in the game/relating to it this month, so I thought I'd highlight some of them for you.

It is soooooo inexpensive to buy the game right now. Thanks to early Black Friday deals, Blizzard is currently selling the digital download of World of Warcraft (that includes all the expansions up to Cataclysm) for $4.99. And its selling the digital download of Mists of Pandaria for $9.99. Those are major savings! And perfect for those of us taking advantage of all the new Recruit-A-Friend features (more on that in a sec). Sale ends December 2nd at 11:59 PST.


Also in the Battle.Net shop right now is an adorable bundle of the Alterac Brew Pup (a pet) and the Enchanted Fey Dragon (a mount) for $30. Now it might seem silly to pay real life money for in-game gear, but this bundle goes to a good cause. Five dollars from every bundle sold (through December 31, 2013) is donated to the Make-A-Wish Foundation, who help terminally ill children fulfill one great big life dream. So if that doesn't do it for you, also know that the Fey Dragon changes color whenever and adjusts to your riding level, and you can use the Alterac Brew Pup in pet battles. There is also a gifting option on this bundle, so you can  buy this as a gift for your favorite World of Warcraft player. Tis the season after all :)


Its Pilgrim's Bounty time! November 25- December 2, you can cook up all the traditional Thanksgiving yummies as dailies, shoot rogues with your turkey shooter for achievements, and dress like a pilgrim and nobody will laugh at you (well, maybe). There are plenty of achievements to earn for this holiday, which will earn you the "the Pilgrim" title when completed and go towards the What A  Long, Strange Trip mega achievement. Check out Blizzard's overview of the holiday here.
 
 
Its also WoW's Ninth Anniversary right now. From November 18-December 2 (those Blizzard guys seem to love December 2nd...) Blizzard is celebrating their WoW birthday, so log in to your toons  to get the ninth anniversary achievement. Its a Feat of Strength achievement, and it doesn't cross over to all your toons like most achieves do. So if you want it, you have to log in to each specific toon to get it. A pain if you have several toons (like me), but worth it if you're an achievement whore (like me). Also, once you log in, you'll receive a Celebration package in the mail. Its nothing special, no pets or anything cool like in the past, just a buff. The buff increases experience and reputation gains from kills by 9% for 1 hour. It is reusable though, as it has a ten second cooldown. Its only good during the anniversary, so once December 2nd comes, it'll disappear from your bags.
 
 
And last, but certainly not least, the new Recruit-A-Friend (didn't it used to be called refer a friend?). Introduced in the beginning of the month, Recruit-A-Friend promised us leveling gains all the way to level 85 and eight different mounts/pets to choose from as out RAF reward. Sweet, right? The deal is, you send an email to you friend through the RAF button in-game (at least, that's how I've been doing it). Your friend responds to the email Blizzard sends them by following the instructions. If your friend pays for one month of game time, you receive one month of game time for free. If they pay for two months of game time, you get to choose one of those cool mounts or pets as your reward. There isn't a limit to how many friends you can recruit, just remember that to reap all the benefits, you need to be leveling with the person you recruit. Here are the in-game benefits as listed on Blizzard's site:
 

To help you and your recruit take on the challenges of Azeroth together, players who participate in the Recruit A Friend program will enjoy the following in-game benefits for up to 90 days:
  • Recruit and veteran characters can summon one another to each other's locations.
  • While adventuring with your linked friend or family member, you will each gain triple experience while partied up to level 85, as long as your characters are within 4 levels of each other.
  • For every two levels the recruit's characters earn, one grantable level is gained. Recruit characters may then grant these levels to the veteran player's character as long as the character is lower in level than the level-granting character.



Pretty awesome stuff. So if you do recruit your friends or family, just remember that they have to accept your invitation within seven days of your sending it, or it is no longer valid and you'll have to send them another one. And right now (as mentioned at the beginning of this post), they can get the full game for $15, that's a steal! There's no better time to join the citizens of Azeroth than right now!
 

WoW Wednesday - BlizzCon 2013 The Recap

Hello Everyone! This post has been a long time coming, so thank you for your patience! My computer issues have been solved for the moment (had to wipe the husband's old laptop and start anew. Mine is still completely dead), so things should be getting back to normal. This post was supposed to go up last Wednesday, but in all the computer mayhem, plus a death in the family, it was lost in the shuffle. It wasn't all horrible though, my lagging gave me the opportunity to find a great contributor to write about her experiences with the virtual ticket aspect of BlizzCon. So yay for that! Lets jump on in, shall we?

I think the biggest thing to come from this year's BlizzCon was the announcement of the new expansion. We all knew it was coming, but finally the confirmation was here. Which should have been a big deal except....a few days before BlizzCon, I saw a post on MMO Champion that said that Blizzard had copyrighted the name Warlords of Draenor in Australia/New Zealand. So really, the news was already out. But its nice that Blizzard made it official :)

Some fun things to come out of the expansion are the garrisons (which seem a little Everquest to me, but I'm still down), level cap raised to 100 and the race remodels.

If you want to see lots of cool pictures from BlizzCon, check out this post from Mandie over at Geeky Glamorous. She got some pretty awesome shots and it looked like so much fun! I am determined to go next year.

And here is TradeChat's video recap of BlizzCon:

===
But enough of my ramblings. I am proud to introduce the first (and hopefully not the last) contributed post, written by Kimberlee.

My Thoughts on Virtual Blizzcon 2013

Most. Underwhelming. Xpac. Announcement. Ever.

Ever.

Don’t get me wrong, I like some of the changes that they’re planning to roll out with Warlords of Draenor, like the long overdue item squish. I’m also more than a bit happy that my tabards, toys, and all that stuff will FINALLY have their own tabs rather than occupying my ever dwindling bag space, void storage (no expansion, seriously?!) and bank (also, the bank toon and 5 bank tabs I have there).

But, let me go back to my previous rant for just a moment… Because… Heroes of the Storm got a cinematic but the new expansion didn’t. Every expansion has had a cinematic trailer, except this one. To say I was completely unimpressed with the announcement trailer would be an understatement. Blizzcon gave us in-game footage, concept sketches, a few shots of the new areas that are still under development, and a look at the racial re-skins. None of this felt terribly inspiring, and I think it fell far short of the bar in terms of setting the stage for the feel of the expansion in the way that previous releases have shown us. Re-watch the announcement trailer, and then go back to watch the announcement trailer for Cataclysm, or Pandaria, or ….. You’ll see my point.

We did, however, get a look at the new Alliance and Horde capital cities of Karabor and Bladespire Fortress. Did anyone else notice how, again, the Alliance got a kind of "pretty" starting area while the Horde are shoved into a wasteland of a slightly different flavor? Anyone? But I digress, as much as the cinematic was a TERRIBLE set up for the new world, I think that Draenor, as it was presented in the panels, will be a challenge and hopefully a better version of the things we loved about Outland.

Anyone familiar with the Warcraft book series will be well versed in the lore that is the foundation for Draenor. Those of you familiar with the Warcraft games, specifically 2 and 3, will recognize characters like Grom Hellscream. Hopefully we’ll also see some familiar faces, like Rexxar, since we’re going back to the time before the first war.

While I could go on about all of the impending changes, and a rant about 10 levels without flying (oh, how times have changed since Vanilla), let’s take a quick look at the thing we’re most excited for:

GARRISONS

Customizable housing is long overdue, I’ve been expecting it since Conan released theirs. Thank the Old Gods it won’t be like the housing we’ve seen in games like Ultima. While I’m fairly certain this is going to involve at least a bit of a "mini game" concept, and it’s going to be another level-grind to get to max garrison size, I think the ultimate utility of NPCs who will complete tasks while you’re afk will more than compensate for any inconvenience. (If it’s well executed.) I’m also hoping that eventually we’ll see some of the housing storage utility, like those in games like Star Wars Galaxies.

At the end of the day, I bought the Virtual Ticket for the pet, because I pretty much can’t help myself when it comes to in game collectibles. Presentation aside, I think Warlords of Draenor has the potential to take the playability of the game to a whole new level for all players, regardless of raiding or guild affiliation.



Friday, November 22, 2013

Poppin' Off- Covergirl Capitol Collection

Happy Hunger Games everyone! Today The Hunger Games: Catching Fire is in theaters and I cannot wait to see it! Today's Poppin' Off is all about Covergirl's Capitol Collection. Its been out for about a month now, and the colors are as stunning in person as they are online and in print ads. There are limited edition nail polishes, mascara packaging, and nail stickers (that are awesome looking) made for this collection.

District 4- Fishing is one of my favorite looks. I'm a Pisces and a water baby by nature, so it just appeals to me on so many levels.

District 2- Masonry is so cool looking. Very wintry. I wouldn't do the cross on the chin or anything, but the overall look is neat.

District 5- Power reminds of Hayley Williams of Paramore, who I love! I love the red and how the other colors pop against it.

District 12- Mining of course! I think this look was one of the most subdued looks in the collection, which is strange, since Katniss is from Twelve and shes the Girl on Fire. But I really like this look because of its simplicity.

What are your favorite looks from the collection? Have you purchased anything from it?



I just wanted to add these posters in, since they all look so glamorous! And Effie and Caesar are the epitome of Capitol Couture.



Thursday, November 21, 2013

Personally....My Laptop Died

Tuesday morning my laptop decided to crash and burn and not recover. Its been very stressful. Not only did it cause me to miss some assignments for school, but I am behind on all my blog posts. I am currently using my husband's old laptop, but it freezes about every five minutes, so I have to restart it constantly and its a huge pain in the ass. For example, I typed up tomorrow's Poppin' Off on his laptop, and it took me two hours. Two hours! All because of the freezing and restarting. Ugh. So I apologize if my posts are spread out and my social media is lagging. I really have a lot of great things planned for December (giveaways!!) and I'm not sure how I'm going to do them now without my laptop. Hopefully Santa sees me struggling and gets me a new computer for Christmas :)


Monday, November 18, 2013

Monday Mix Up #12

I've had Christmas on the brain ever since I saw the Christmas decorations sitting on the edges of the Halloween decorations, like they were ready to pounce and have a good old fashioned holiday throwdown. There will probably be a lot of Monday Mix Ups from now until Christmas Day dedicated to all things Christmas. So here's the first of many :)

These are some things I've been eyeballing for my personal Christmas list:


These locks from Marla Aaron Jewelry. I love how they're just carabiners, but fancied up. And those heart ones are super adorable.

Kawaii Marvel Leggings from welovefine.

This camo Hello tee by Hello Apparel


One Line a Day: A Five-Year Memory Book
 Found on Amazon (I've also seen this in the notebook section at Target); a fun, low key way to keep track of life's little happenings for five years.


The 20/20 Experience: The Complete Experience
 I love me some Justin Timberlake.

What's on your Christmas wish list?

Wednesday, November 6, 2013

WoW Wednesday- BlizzCon 2013

The time has come, fans of Blizzard games! BlizzCon 2013 is this weekend, November 8th and 9th at the Anaheim Convention Center. I wish I was attending, but sadly I wasn't lucky enough to get tickets. If you're like me, and still want to check out the action, virtual tickets are still available. They are $39.99 and come with fun in-game goodies (something for WoW, Starcraft II, Diablo III and Hearthstone). The best part of the ticket for me, is to see the closing ceremony. This year's performer is Blink 182. Blink 182! They were my ultimate crushes in high school and I did get to see them in concert once my sophomore year. The show was amazing, so I hope its equally as good for all you BlizzCon attendees.

If any of you are actually attending the event, I hope you have an awesome time and know that I am extremely jealous of you :) For the rest of us, lets have a virtual party!

Links for BlizzCon:
*Forums 

Monday, November 4, 2013

Monday Mix Up #11

I have a real love/hate relationship with Saturday Night Live. Some years its hilarious; others I sit there thinking "why is this show still on the air?" This season is a rebuilding season, and it seems like instead of trying to make it great, they are using it as an excuse to suck. Thats not fair to the cast, and its not fair to us viewers. However, there have been a few gems so far in this rocky season, and that is what today's Monday Mix Up is dedicated to.

1. Boy Dance Party. 
Shake your sack!

2. We Can Stop. 
I like Miley's hair like this.





3. What Does My Girl Say?
 Kerry Washington was a real treat as a host I thought. I love her on Scandal too :)

Friday, November 1, 2013

Keeping Up With The Cons- Stan Lee's Comikaze and Bak-Anime

Hello Everyone! I hope you all had a fantastic Halloween. I know I did. Today's Poppin' Off has been replaced by a Con update.

As you may know, I have been looking forward to Stan Lee's Comikaze (November 1st-3rd) for months. I watched Fangasm and loved it, applied (and was denied) for a press pass, and obsessively read any information I saw about it. I thought for sure I would be going. Well, as it turns out, I'm not. I had hoped to go on Sunday, but my husband doesn't really want to, I don't have any friends and I don't want to go alone (plus, I have huge anxiety issues driving in LA)....and now to completely clinch it, my kids are sick. They need their mommy, so here I will stay. I am very disappointed, but hey, there's always next year :) Anyway, I thought I'd share what I think will be neat at Comikaze, and if you happen to catch any of them, please share your experiences with me! I love living vicariously through others.

  The cast of Fangasm is there! 
According to Molly McIsaac's Instagram,
 they will be at booth #1725 and signing
Friday 4-7pm, Saturday 9am-3pm and Sunday 9am-2pm. 
They will also be on the Hot Topic Main Stage Friday at 7pm
 for Fangasm: The Interns Reunite! Panel.
Photo from Geeky Glamorous.
I read all of these blogs and think these ladies are amazing. Its all about geeky girl fashion.
 I wish I could go to this panel. 

Megan from The Nerdy Girlie (photo from her site)
is going to be on the Super-Heroines of Pop Culture panel. Saturday at 12:30pm Room 301B.
I love her blog and think shes going to kill her first panel.

*The Geek Fashion Show on the Hot Topic Main Stage Friday at 6pm
*Blizzard Storytelling Saturday Room 306AB at 3pm (for the WoW lover in me)
*Her Universe "Year of the Fangirl" Photo Shoot on the Hot Topic Main Stage at 11am
*LeVar Burton on the Hot Topic Main Stage at 3pm on Sunday

Those are just some of the great things to see there. There are also Comikaze exclusives by Funko Pop!, Tokidoki and TOYNAMI (among many others). I hope all of you attending have a blast!

If you're in the central California area but aren't attending Comikaze this weekend, and are feeling like a smaller convention, then you might want to check out Bak-Anime in Bakersfield. Held November 2nd and 3rd at the Marriot Hotel, it promises plenty of cosplay, panels and vendors. The panels seem to focus mostly on developing cosplay outfits, but there are some autograph signings and a Sherlock panel as well. The guests scheduled are Jennifer Hale, Liam O'Brien, Sam Riegel, and Akai Sky. It costs $20 for Saturday only, $15 for Sunday only or $25 for both days. Children 8 years old and under are free.
Flyer from their Facebook page.