If you are using Comcast or Verizon as your internet provider like me, you may have been noticing a lot of disconnections from World of Warcraft starting on December 19th, 2008. Blizzard is aware of the situation, and you can read up on the latest update on the situation HERE.

Hopefully they can get this issue solved soon.

The Wednesday night that the Phillies won, it was crazy all over Philadelphia. The streets were all filled with hundreds of thousands of people. All out and celebrating. As a Philly fan, we have a bad rep of being rowdy and destructive. So I was proud to see no vandalism or looting happening anywhere in the city. Just drunken cheering, and fireworks.

The Phillies Parade was scheduled for Friday afternoon, on Halloween day. It started at 12pm and lasted about 5 hours. Starting on 15th and Market Street, the parade slowly made its way around City Hall onto Broad Street, then made its way to ballpark.

Holy crap was it crowded! It was estimated to have over 2 million in attendance over the 4 mile stretch from beginning to end. Even the Philadelphia Eagles opened up their stadium to be able to hold more people (since the two stadiums are next to each other).

This week has been one of the best weeks of my life. From my Birthday, to the Phillies winning Game 3, winning the World Series, then finally the parade in Philadelphia, it was a lot of fun. It is also the reason why I haven’t wrote anything lately.

My head hurts, my voice is gone, I’m dehydrated, and will mostly be sick from being out in the cold. But I feel great! I am no longer without a memory of my own.

So the day goes by, and what is mostly on my mind is the Phillies/Rays World Series game which was going to be played later that night. All day on TV, radio, and internet, I kept hearing “match up” this, “predictions” that. I was getting really pumped for this series.

So an hour before game one of the World Series, I put on my Phillies attire to prepare for the game. It became a little good luck thingy now in the house to order pizza from the same place, with the same toppings, and same side orders. They’ve won the last 3 times we’ve done this. So we ordered, and watch the pregame shows on ESPN/Comcast/Fox.

Food arrives, game starts… … an ends.

The game was close, way too close for comfort. I had that feeling of uneasiness the entire game. I’m glad the Phillies were able to present me with a win as a birthday present! Great job guys! Go PHILLIES!!

The good birthday didn’t end with the Phillies, it kept going as I logged onto WoW later that night. More on that later today.

Brewfest is over, and no I didn’t get my Kodo Mount, but I did end up with a bag full of goodies. Other than the Kodo, what I also wanted was the [Direbrew's Remote], which I got. I also picked up one of every trinket that drops from the boss, including both Beerwench trinkets. Gotta wait til next year for the Kodo Mount now.

I also got my proof of a C’thun kill ready for the upcoming Achievement system which will come out with Wrath. The only ways Blizzard can track if you have cleared an instance before the Achievement system is out, is by tracking your quests (if it has something to do with the death of, or a drop off the last boss), or by seeing of you have obtain loot off the last boss.

With the expansion just around the corner, you will be seeing more and more players doing old instances such as Naxxramas and Ahn’Qiraj. Naxx for a chance at Tier 3 loot which will be lost forever with the expansion, and AQ for mounts and achievements. Now I wish I didn’t throw away my collection of AQ mounts. At least I kept my Blue one.

Kil’jaeden at 30% last week! Will we have what it takes to kill him before the next patch? I sure hope so.

Gaming:

A local arcade in Philadelphia has happen to get a Street Fighter 4 arcade machine, and I got to finally play it. My first impression is: Very fast, and very fun. Anyone in the Philadelphia Area, University Pinball - gogoogog!

Movies:

Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist, great movie. If you enjoyed last year’s hit movie, Juno, then you will definitely enjoy Nick and Norah’s. Michael Cera starring as the only type of character he knows how to play, himself.

Why is it that every time I have to take a short break from WoW that all the cool things happen during that time? This time I missed the Harvest Festival, Pirates’ Day, and Brewfest (which is currently still going on).

Gaming:

I am currently a little over 45 hours into Spectral Force 3 for the Xbox360, and reached what I’m guessing is 75% done mark. I’m guessing that because I just got a little over half of the game’s Achievements, so I should be close to finishing the game.

Great game if you enjoy Tactical RPGs. My only gripe is that the voice acting is HORRIBLE (with no option to switch to original Japanese voices), and the game has PS2-esque graphics. I do wish more import games include the option to switch the voices.

Abandoned games I need to go back and finish:

• Final Fantasy IV (close to final dungeon)
• Final Fantasy Tactics A2 (2 hrs in)
• Lost Odyssey (on disc four)
• Persona 3: FES (64+ hrs in, maybe halfway through the game?)
• Final Fantasy XII (15 hrs in)

Anime:

I just finished watching the 2nd Bleach Movie: The Diamond Dust Rebellion ~The Other Hyourinmaru~, and it was a rather good movie. Probably because it starred one of my favorite characters in the anime, Hitsugaya Toushirou. Oh and his zanpakutou (living sword) has the power of Ice, coincidence?

Real Life:

One wedding down, and one more to go this coming weekend. After that I can go back to WoW and raiding again.

Biggest news is the release date for the Wrath of the Lich King expansion has been set by Blizzard. The release date is November 13th, 2008! Onward to Northrend!

The PTR is open for patch 3.0.2. This patch would be similar to the patch which came out right before the release of the Burning Crusade expansion. The patch will allow you to use the new talent trees, and some of the new features which will be coming out with the WotLK expansion.

Then general consensus of the PTR: “Everyone is doing way too much damage”

Gaming:

Rock Band 2: If you enjoyed the first, you will enjoy the 2nd. No huge upgrades other than online World Tour mode. It is pretty much $60 for 80 new songs to play with. With the prices of the songs you can download at around $2-5, this a bargain. Another huge plus is that you can import all the songs from the first Rock Band too!

Star Wars: Force Unleashed: Pretty much is Ninja Gaiden with Star Wars characters- minus the difficulty and refined combat system. A high fun factor, and great storyline. Though I am a bit biased towards anything Star Wars.

Self explanatory. Yay!

Real Life:

Football season started! My beloved Eagles are off to a great start with a big win over the Rams, 38-3. Next up, the Dallas Cowboys on Monday Night Football.

Had a really bad Arena week. What started off looking promising, ended up a disaster. Me and my Warlock partner for 2v2s, managed to get our rating up to 1672, then I got greedy. I had over 2k Arena Points saved up, so when I saw that we were only two winning games away, I decided to make that push to 1700 in order to get the Season 4 Helm. Due to my greediness, we ended up dropping to like 1550ish… sorry Serena!

Gaming:

Got my copy of Tales of Vesperia for the Xbox360 the day it came out! I have been looking forward to this game for a long time now, and so far I love every bit of it. This is the game that caused the Xbox360 to sell out in Japan, and that means something!

If you enjoyed Eternal Sonata or Tales of Symphonia (or pretty much any of the Namco “Tales” series), then you will most likely enjoy this game as well. It has all the JRPG elements, and a very unique combat system. A nice change of pace in my usual turn-based RPGs.

Real Life:

During the weekend, I took a trip down to Virginia to visit some friends and relatives. I drove down with my cousin and had a great time there (thanks Barry and Serena!). There are a few things I’ve learned from this trip:

• The VTech mascot, the Hokie, looks like a turducken
• All golf balls I hit, veers to the right
• Same with bowling
• Red Robin is delicious
• There are no WaWa in VA
• A wrong turn in VA can take you through towns which reminds me of Children of the Corn, House on Haunted Hill, House of Wax, and Silent Hill… all put together.

I didn’t get a chance to log on last night after my Ring ordeal, but I did receive an email from a GM stating that my [Vindicator's Band of Subjugation] has been removed, and they have refunded my the Honor Points and the 10 x [Alterac Valley Mark of Honor]. This time I will be more careful when I make my purchase.

Games:

I’ve been playing a new Tactical RPG now for the Xbox360 called Spectral Force 3. It had just been recently ported over from Japan, and is a very solid game (if you like tactical rpg games that is). The only downside for me that even though it has HD support, the graphics still look like it is a PS2 game. Other than that, I’ve been enjoying this game.

I still have been playing a lot of Final Fantasy Tactics A2 during the week. Since it is for the Nintendo DS though, I’m going to save my playing time for the upcoming trips I have planned.

Anime:

With recommendations from some of the readers, and some of my friends, I started watching D-Gray Man, Full Moon o Sagashite, and Chrno Crusade.

I blame these series for my sudden lack of sleep lately, but so far, they are all really good. Thanks for the recommendations!

Website:

Patch Notes: Spicytuna Client Patch 2.5.1 (2008-08-26)

The latest patch notes can always be found at http://www.spicytunas.com/test

General Design:

• Changed the color scheme of the polls to match new layout
• Started adding more links to the Blog Roll
• Added the Badges to the right Side Bar

Theme:

• Added the Gaming Theme

I am almost done with the new design, and just need to make minor changes to some of the coding. I will also need to totally redo my Categories in order to take advantage of the theme, and that will take me a whole lot of time.

Also, with the new layout making navigation a lot easier, it also takes away a good amount of space where I would normally have Blog Rolls, and RSS feeds I currently have now. So I am planning on making a separate page dedicated to my blog list.

Thanks again to everyone who has been providing me feedback with the new layout!

Big news for me, and I think it is worth mentioning again, M’uru / Entropius finally down! Working on Kil’jaeden now, and hopefully soon, I can say, “I beat the game!” again…

Video Games:

Final Fantasy IV: I reached the final dungeon and it has been kicking my butt. Looks like I reached it too fast and need to take some time and grind out some levels for my party. However, the thought of grinding out levels then prompted me to get a new game.

Final Fantasy Tactics A2: Yep another RPG, I just love them. I played Final Fantasy Tactics Advanced to death (99hr59min59sec) last year, and I can pretty much guarantee you that I will do the same on A2 also. The game starts off pretty much exactly the same way. Boy gets sucked into a book and appears in a fantasy world and tries to find his way home.

Movies:

I saw Tropic Thunder over the weekend. Freakin’ hilarious! That is if you enjoy that kind of humor. I guess it would be “crude humor”? If thought movies like Superbad, Knocked Up, 40 Year Old Virgin, or Wedding Crashers funny, then you would enjoy this movie.

I also saw Step Brothers while I was home (I watch a crap load of movies everytime I go to my parent’s house). Funniest Will Ferrell movie to date.

Anime:

After coming back from Otakon, there were a few anime series that I saw there that made me want to watch. They were recommendations by fellow otakus I met during the con. They are:

• D.Gray-Man
• Full Moon o Sagashite
• Jigoku Shoujo
• RahXephon

Anything else you would recommend? I think I may go through an anime watching spree sometime in the near future.

Real Life:

I know I promised pictures, but I ran into some technical difficulties with the computer at the NJ Home. That and I still have to get pictures from the other people I went with. Here is another one though:

Kingdom Hearts Cosplayers

Computer problems are a huge pain to work with. The problem I ran in with my sister’s computer back home rendered the computer inoperable, and I was forced to reformat it.