This election is insane. The DNC was pretty cool - Biden's and Obama's speeches were great. THEN fucking McCain brings out a pretty hot braud for his VP. Holy SHit. The drama.

| Smoke and Mirrors

I think Jon is full of smoke and mirrors. I have checked the wowarmory and there are only TWO Blurst characters, and neither of them are Draenei....

Hey now, I actually listen to a WoW podcast too, haha. Legendary Thread - it's one of the 1up.com ones and I'm pretty gay for most of their podcasts. I just meant what got you to start playing the game again after all this time - cool you're digging it though, it'll go down as one of the greatest. I played for a lot longer than you lot after the initial crew fell off and probably burnt myself out from that point.

I gotta reiterate: Castle Crashers is one of the funnest fucking games. www.castlecrashers.com/ (It's slammed right now, but later on check it out - 4 player same machine or over live or mix n match - super funny and cute and fun. It's MY WoW dammit!

Dude Eric, I'm down for some Podcastin' maddness. I guess the big bummerness is that I'm down here and you guys are up there - sucks! Doing it over skype or whatever probably isn't very viable. Too bad. :(

Tiger Woods PGA 2009 is kinda weak. The demo was fun but renting the full game, not so fun. I'm like +17 on the tour right now. That's just ridicolous. But you can put your face in the game, so there's this freakish spore-creature thing that sorta looks like me playing golf. Or gorf.

| Not Obsessed

It's just sort of what I have time to do anymore. Wake-up, get ready, family time, drive to work, work, drive home, family time, 15 - 60 minutes of WoW, bedtime, rinse repeat.

I don't have a weekly game group, I get to SF maybe once every month and a half, and that will be much less now that I am a 7.30 - 6.30 guy, and I really have no local friends up here.

It's really just what fits my free time schedule, and I think it is interesting to simply listen to people talk about things that interest me, even remotely interest me.

I totally love you eric, don't get mad, but I gotta ask, where did this totally random wow obsession come from , YEARS LATER!? I don't mean that in a snarky way like "oh, welcome to 3 minutes ok" but like I thought the glory days were pretty much done maybe after that first year or so and the group at least kinda quit playing. Yeah, rad game, but personally I can't imagine going back. What made you go back to it?

Castle Crashers released today on Live - sounds friggen rad. Great art-style, 4 player same machine co-op or over Live. Beat-em up but with RPG elements - I can't wait to get home and play - hearing great shit about it.

| The Blurst of Times

Ah, nice decision with the Russian Goats from Space! The worst thing about playing the Draenei is their stupid-ass home city. I hated that place. I will try and log on tonight and see what's cookin'. Same server? Dalaran, right?

So, I am working 29 miles from the house in Gilroy these days which leaves me plenty of time to listen and explore (by necessity) podcasts, as the radio is burnt, and music is burnt too. I have discovered quite a few good ones which I will inform all of you here about.

- The Instance: A really good and well produced and supported WoW podcast. Lots of interesting information about WoW in an interesting format. From listening to the show, I am pretty much only scratching the surface of what the game has to offer, and I still feel like the game is rather rich and fulfilling. Raids, dungeons, pvp, guilds, arenas, equipment sets, supar rare pets, etc. Wowzers. And Curt Schilling is a regular on the most recent shows! Also, from the Rudy standpoint, one of the guys is in Texas and the other is in Utah and the audio quality is perfect with no lag. So it totally proves that it can be done. I wonder if they are using their guild ventrillo server and just balancing the input levels and mixing it all down.

- The D6 Generation: Three dudes that really like mini wargames. They all started as Warhammer 40K lovers, and have migrated to mostly Warmachine. One of them has a Golden Demon, one ran a game store and website called "Dakka Dakka" that only sold and supported GW stuff, another has been published in White Dwarf for his modelling skills. Whatever. They mostly talk about and discuss Privateer Press vs. GW from different standpoints; business, fun, cost, etc. They also discuss gaming in general and in later episodes regular board games, etc. Interesting talk to listen to.

- 3 pretty good wargame podcasts. Point 2 Point, the Sound before the Defeat, and The 2 Half Squads (ASL podcast).

- Puck podcast. Weekly NHL show by two sports writers for fun. They do a really great job, handle the show rather professionally by having sports writers from different markets interviewed on the show, and talk about all the different teams in the NHL. One is a Kings fan, and the other a Ducks fan, so that is a fun element.

So there you have it. No one needs to listen to podcasts because everyone that commutes on the Action Team takes the train so they can read or play games. But if for some reason, someone out there wants to listen to some 'casts, check these out!

Certainly makes me want to have a show every time we get together. As long as we have a brief outline, we could pull it off and people would listen to it methinks.

| Yeah!

I logged on as Borst, and immediately kind of panicked/froze, because he is level 45, and all my talents are unspent, and I don't remember anything that's going on at that level... couldn't figure out how to promote you either, I think we need to meet up.

So, I created a draenei warrior (Blurst) and am now cruising around the starting island charging deer and picking flowers. Good times!

| B...O...R...S...T...

So, I see that Borst took a little visit to the Dalaran server a few days ago. How'd the visit treat you? Gonna stay for awhile? :)

Thanks again for the game! I love me some Nethack but have never been competent enough to get even 30% through it, so hopefully this one will be a little more approachable! Is the main character an ampersand?

Agreed on Tropic Thunder. Good, silly fun (and a lot funnier than the trailers made it look). It reminded me of going to see some dumb comedy in high school, or maybe the old Ben Stiller show. I was chortling for most of the movie and there were several laff-out-loud moments. I mean a movie where even Rudy likes Tom Cruise a little bit, has to be pulling something significant off....

Well Aeryk, congratulations in your goal, you've succeeded in what we all know was your TRUE motivation: getting not Enron, but ME to sign up for WoW again. I got the 1 gig of patches downloading just before I left for the airport, so perhaps tonight I'll sign up and finally turn over stewardship of the Action Team to you.

There are some handy little apps coming out for the iPhone. Unfortuately most of them cost money, but there are some good stupid free ones. For example I got a WoW character lookup app. That's a nice Mithril Heavy-bore rifle you've got there Doc! There's also an app that turns the iPhone into a "rain stick" and another one where you start the app, then put the phone in your pocket and every time you jump it makes the "boinng" sound from Super Mario Bros. These are glorious days!

Anyone catch the Biden speech from yesterday? Personally I thought it was a very exciting speech. I have been feeling positive about the election in general but I really feel like this dude will bring a lot of verve to the fight against ol' "I forget how many houses I have POW POW POW" McGee, or whatever his name is.

| "Thatsa So Nice!" - Mario

Jon was in town for his birthday (and mine, a woman can dream can't she girls!?) so we went and saw Tropic Thunder. It was fuckin' funny! Robert Downey Jr was pretty funny - like it was kind of uncomfortable haha, but you know, I think it was harmless for the most part (he's playing a Russel Crowe-type actor who has an operation to look black for his film roll.) I haven't seen a goofy comedy in awhile, and there was a lot of funny shit in there.

I was telling Jon I've been pretty hooked on Old Time Radio dramas through itunes - either the radio station "AM 1710 Antioch" from the radio tab, or a few random podcasts that broadcast these old 40s-50s programs. There are some that are really good and fucked up - it seems like suspense/thrillers were huge back then and a lot of them are pretty morbid. Yeah, women kinda get a bum rap for the most part, and then godforbid there's a foreigner in one of the stories, hahaha some rad stereotypes, but it's a blast to listen to these.

I also gave Jon one of my DS games for a bday present (I have two copies of it now *COUGH!* homebrew *COUGH!*) and it's a good one if any of you DS guys are into rogue-likes. Mystery Dungeon: Shiren the Wanderer. It's really good. Hard as fuck. Basically you go through these dungeons and in between every few levels there are towns where you can drop off gear and stock up - so basically you go through collecting shit so eventually you can complete the game. When you die, you go back to the start of the game without any of your money or gear (BUT - the stuff you put in warehouses stays, so you can eventually have a nice arsenal.) It's neat if nethack-type gaming is your thing.