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.

It was stormy Sunday afternoon, around 3:00 PM. I restocked my Flasks, Potions, Oils, and farmed for 2 stacks of Basilisk food. I was all ready to kill M’uru/Entropius later that night. Then all of a sudden, internet and cable goes out. Yep, Comcast down! The most notorious boss in all of online gaming strikes again. I was without internet and television until the next morning.

I go on the Guild forums Monday morning to find out they have gotten M’uru/Entropius down… to 4%. I wish I could have been there. He/She/It dies this week definately!

Video Games:

I started playing Tekken 5 again. My roommate downloaded the online version on his PS3, so my free time has been spent playing that. Currently ranked at 1st Kyu using only Ling Xiaoyu.

Since I don’t have a PS3 online username thingy, I’ve been playing on his, which is Katsu1017. Looking for challengers!

Anime:

The School Rumble manga ended… and the last chapter left me saying, “OmG wTF is this stupid $h!T? Arghh!” It felt like the author ended the series just to end it. The two chapters had NOTHING to do with the chapters before. It pretty much just skipped whatever story they had planned, and just said, “The End”.

I guess the good news is that they’re making School Rumble Z, but I have no idea if its going to continue the original series, or if it takes place some time in the future. Guess I’ll wait and see…

Otakon 2008 in two weeks! Gotta start saving money now, to buy new toys at the con.

Sports:

Tuesday me and my other roommate took a trip up to the Lehigh Valley to go check out the Philadelphia Eagles’ Training Camp. We got there early at around 9:00 AM and it was already crowded.

It was fun going to come watch the team practice and run drills, and maybe get some autographs every year. The worst part is the heat, which wasn’t too bad, around 85 degrees.

With the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3), there will be a ton of new announcements, disappointments, and even some release dates. So there is a lot to cover for last week, and I’ll go over a few of them today.

World of Warcraft:

Patch 2.4.3 is out. The latest patch notes can be read here.

The significant changes in Patch 2.4.3 are:

General

• Dispel effects will no longer attempt to remove effects that have 100% dispel resistance.
• Haris Pilton has launched a new line of bags and jewelry. Check her out in the World’s End Tavern!
• Mounts at 30?! Yes, it’s true: Apprentice Riding and mounts are now available at level 30. Training costs 35 gold.
• Equipping an item will now cancel any spell cast currently in progress.

Mages

• Frost Armor, Ice Armor, Mage Armor, and Molten Armor are no longer Magic effects and cannot be dispelled.

Warlocks

• Curse of Shadows: This spell has been removed.
• Curse of Elements: This spell now applies to Arcane and Shadow damage, as well as Frost and Fire.

Mounts at level 30 for our baby Mages, 22 Slot Bags for our older Mages. Our Armors can no longer be dispelled in PvP, and Warlocks will buff our PvE regardless of the number of Mages in the raid.

Also, if you are using the Evocation macro, if you switch back to your DPS gear too early now, it will cancel your Evocation channeling.

I finally got my WoW Authenticator! It is kind of a hassle to needing to have it on you whenever you want to log in, but he added security is way worth it!

Video Games:

Ah… E3 has begun and there are a lot of exciting news. E3 begins July 14th, and lasts until July 17th, so there will still be more news to come.

The biggest news so far is Final Fantasy XIII will also be released for the Xbox360! This is a huge blow to Sony, and Microsoft has taken the final steps to making the Xbox THE system for JRPGs. I for one, am really excited about this announcement. I have an Xbox360, but no PS3 (although I still want one!). Final Fantasy XIII would have been one of the reasons for me to break down and finally get a PS3, but now there is no need to anymore.

Final Fantasy Versus XIII is still a PS3 exclusive at the moment, but I guess the “exclusiveness” of any game can be taken away at anytime now. Seems like nowadays, “exclusive” just means “for the time being, will only be for”.

A new Fable 2 trailer was shown, and the announced release date is for October 2008. There was also a new Star Ocean: The Last Hope trailer. The release date for that is Spring 2009. Some new clips for Halo Wars was also released. A release date for that is early 2009.

Microsoft also announced that they have partnered up with Netflix, and you will be able to download the movies you want if you have a Netflix account. My roomate has a Netflix account, this will be nice to have.

The Xbox360 interface is getting a new upgrade too. They’re adding a couple a few features, one which resembles the Nintendo Wii’s Mii feature.

I know that is a lot of Xbox360 news. The Microsoft part of E3 was July 14th, hence all the Xbox360 news. July 15th will be Nintendo and Sony’s day of announcements.

Also, fans of the Sims game, Sims 3 is coming out in 2009. Here is a small trailer for that.

Movies:

The Dark Knight, July 18th, that is all…

Real Life:

I finally joined BlogAzeroth for the first time last week. Crazy (but awesome) group of people I tell ya. Great place to hang out during the day.

WordPress 2.6 is out! I upgraded with now problems. Haven’t noticed any new changes yet.

Sports:

It is the All Star break for baseball, and the Phillies are still hanging in there at the top of the NL East, half a game ahead of the Mets.

2B Chase Utley, and P Brad Lidge have been selected for the All Star game. Chase was also selected for the Home Run Derby, but failed to advance to the 2nd round with 5 Home Runs.

The lack of sleep I have been getting doesn’t help either. Maybe this week will calm down a bit, and I can catch up with some much needed nap time.

World of Warcraft:

One of the biggest news for the week was the disbanding of a well-known and respected raiding guild, Death and Taxes. They achieved 13 world first kills , and 19 US first kills. I remember watch many of their Naxx videos back in the days… They will be missed.

Aetherial Circle clears Serpentshrine Cavern with the death of Lady Vashj. This is a great accomplishment for any guild. Not only that, AC went into Mount Hyjal and one-shotted Rage Winterchill and put up a valiant effort on Anetheron. We got him down to 1% and then Lady Jaina Proudmore died! Yes… it was a very very painful way to wipe on that boss. He will definitely die next time we see him.

Death Knight talents were released briefly on WoWInsider before they were kindly asked to be taken down by Blizzard. I didn’t get a chance to see them before they were taken down, but I’m sure there are ways out there to find them. Hint Hint – Thanks to Nick S. for the heads up! There you can find other Wrath of the Lich King (WotLK) information.

Also, the third gate of the Sunwell Plateau is unlocked on the US Realms, opening a path to the final boss of the instance, Kil’jaeden.

Anime and Manga:

I stumbled upon a post by How a Girl Figures on the Anime Series, School Rumble, and got me re-watching the series all over again. Easily one of my favorite Romance/Comedy series, School Rumble got me hooked again. I even started reading the Manga, in which I caught up from beginning to the most current chapter, in about 3 days (which contributed to some of my lack of sleep that week).

Speaking of School Rumble, the third season was announced awhile ago, and their website there is a short promo video for it. You can view the video HERE.

I also watched Voices of a Distant Star for the first time. Very well done for a one-man production team to put together. Its a 25 minute short film, so if you get a chance, check it out. Beware: There is a ton of dialogue in the film.

Real Life:

My cousin has finally cleared Rowan University. His loot? [Diploma] Bind on Pick up of course. He is now also attuned to the instance: The Real World. Grats to him.

The Philadelphia Flyers lost the the Penguins in the series 4 – 1. It was a good run for the cup. Good job guys!

I was without a computer and video games for the entire trip, so that left me with little option to do up at my sister’s place. I ended up watching a ton of television and taking lots of naps.

I did have some fun up there though, but I am glad to back home.

World of Warcraft:

Nothing much happened last week in WoW for me. I was only able to make it to the first raid night of the week, in which we were able to kill the first three bosses in the Sunwell Plateau. No caster loot dropped or Mage tokens that I needed dropped.

Looks like Patch 2.4.2 will be out Tuesday. You can find the patch notes from the WoW website here: Patch 2.4.2

They will be cutting down on Arena point selling and teams exploiting to get easy wins. Also Mages, don’t forget to pick up your new portals! Go to Stonard if you are Horde, and go to Theramore Isle if you are Alliance.

Movies:

The trailer for X-Files 2 is finally out! You can see the trailer of the new movie X-Files: I Want to Believe at www.xfiles.com. w00t! I can’t wait! The movie will be out in theaters on July 25th, 2008.

Another movie I am also looking forward to seeing is Star Wars: The Clone Wars. You can watch that trailer at www.starwars.com. The movie will be out August 15th, 2008. Looks like it will be an awesome summer.

Television Show:

My sister also got me started on watching a show called Dexter. I am probably going to end up watching the first two seasons of this show by the end of this week.

Anime:

Naruto and Bleach are now in filler mode in order to give the respected authors of the series more time to further the gap between where the story is in the Anime with where the story is in the Manga. So far the filler episode isn’t too bad, but we’ll see how long that lasts.

Until then, go watch:

• Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion R2
• Kurenai
• Nabari no Ou
• Evangelion: 1.0 You are [Not] Alone

In Real Life:

My sister’s graduation was held at the IZOD center (where the New Jersey Nets play) so that was cool.

We took my mom out for dinner for her special day. She wanted Thai food, so we went to a nearby restaurant. The food was delicious and my mom enjoyed it.

The Flyers are down in the series against the Penguins 2-0 with game 3 being played Tuesday night. Lets go Flyers!

I thought I would share with you some of the things that happened this past week, which you may or may not care about.  Maybe I will make this a regular thing, who knows. Depends on if there was a lot that went on during the week I guess. Oh well, here it goes…

World of Warcraft:

It is Children’s Week in WoW. Go take your pet for the day out and around Azeroth and Outland, and turn them in for a cool pet! I contemplated on keeping Jaina’s Autograph for myself, and keeping this human child as my pet until he expires. I got Speedy the Turtle instead. I also got Eggbert from the Outland one.

Hmmm… Jaina’s Autograph and Human slave or Speedy the Turtle?

I am now 0 – 20 for Baron’s Mount, and decided to start on my Wintersaber Trainer’s Rep again when I get sick of farming Stratholme. Currently half way to Honored with them.

[Pattern: Sunfire Robe] dropped and I wished I was a tailor. The pattern was won by a Shadow Priest. The Mages and Warlocks which were tailors all cried in unison.

[Design: Loop of Forged Power] also dropped, but the crafted ring is Bind on Equip, so I got myself [Sunmote] x 5 from the guild, and I am now waiting for one more [Primal Might] transmute before I can get this baby crafted.

We decided on a new strategy on Eredar Twins. The strategy overall is much simpler than the last, but relys on everyone to be on their “A” game. One person doesn’t move in time will trigger an instant wipe. Got one twin down to 60% with only 21 people in the Raid during practice runs. We’ll see how this goes with a full raid.

The Epic Gem Vendor on my server is currently at 61%. It is going really, really slow. Come on everyone, do your dailies! I know I know, even I get lazy sometimes and not do them either.

BRK’s Running of da Bulls was a huge success. 373 level one Taurens running around Azeroth starting trouble.

Speaking of Tauren, we got a Tauren Mage in the raid one night. Doesn’t he look cool?

/mooooooooo

Movies:

The first of four movies to be released, Evangelion: 1.0 You are [Not] Alone, was released on DVD on April 29th, and became the best-selling DVD in Japan in 2008 so far. If you are looking for an english Dub of this movie, I highly recommend [Anonymous].

Iron Man was released in theatres this weekend. I watched it, and enjoyed the movie a lot. For those of you who haven’t seen it yet, go watch it! And stay til the end, there is more after the credits. If you saw it already and left before the credits finished, now you have another reason to go watch the movie again.

Video Games:

Grand Theft Auto 4 has sold a record setting ~2.5 million copies in the United States on opening day. I am one of the buyers and am currently enjoying the game. First thing I did was run over a few pedestrians, and went straight to the strip club, and I know about 90% of you out there who got the game did the same. My gamertag is Trunks1022 if any of you own this game on the Xbox360 and want to do some multiplayer mayhem.

Finally got to Disc 4 on Lost Odyssey. It is a really great RPG for the Xbox360. You should really give it a shot if you enjoy any role-playing game.

In Real Life:

The Sixers lost to the Pistons in Game 6 of the playoffs, losing the series 4-2. Nobody expected them to make the playoffs let alone take two games from the Pistons. Good job guys.

The Flyers beat the Canadiens in Game 5 of the playoffs, winning the series 4-1. They will now face off with the Penguins in the Eastern Conference Finals. A little Pennsylvania rivalry going on here.

The Phillies are now in first place in the NL east. Chase Utley and Pat Burrell are still on fire.

My sister is graduating from Seton Hall next week. Congrats to her! My cousin and trusted sidekick is also graduating from Rowan University next week. Grats to him too!

Happy Cinco de Mayo! Don’t forget, Mother’s Day is just around the corner!

I scored some tickets to the Sixers Playoff game against the Detroit Pistons and was pretty excited. The Series is tied 1-1 with game 3 and 4 at home in Philadelphia. Let’s go Sixers!

Friday: Sixers and Phillies

Everyone thought that the Sixers win in Game 1 of the series was a fluke when they beat Detroit on the road by 4, and in Game 2 it may have been proven so when Detroit won by 17. Game 3 was in Philly, and everyone is predicting a repeat of Game 2. Everyone who I told that I was attending the game gave a similar response, “Have fun watching the Sixers get stomped”. Well they were wrong…

We arrived at the Wachovia Center with little to no problems with any traffic or finding parking. We get to our seats, 3 rows from the court. Awesome seats! We were directly to the side of the basket, and within a foul shot distance from the Sixers bench.

See the dude with the white cap on backwards in the bottom left corner?
Our seats were directly behind him.

The Sixers started off strong with a 6-0 run. Detroit keeps the game close, and by the end of the first half, Sixers were up by 4. Not many were expecting the game to be this close, let alone the Sixers to be leading by the half. We head towards the bar during the half-time intermission to check up on the Phillies game. Phillies up 6-0 at the top of the 6th Inning. Niiiiice…

2nd Half began, and the Sixers kept at it and extended their lead, and never looked back. They won by 20 points. Everyone expected the scores to be the other way around, but Sixers pulled it off for the win. Out of all the Sixers games I’ve been to, I have never seen the crowd so excited. This was by far the best Sixers game I’ve been to.

After we left the stadium, we headed towards the one place every Philadelphia fan goes to after every game: Pat’s King of Steaks. I got my order of “whiz wit’ (cheese whiz cheesesteak with onions)” and an order of cheese fries and a Pepsi. Delicious! Checked up on the score of the Phillies game, they win 6-5. w00t!

Whiz wit’, Cheesefries and a Pepsi – Yummy!

Saturday: Flyers, Phillies, and Eagles

It was a long and unproductive day in front of the television today. We had the Flyer vs Canadiens in Montreal, Phillies vs Pirates in Pittsburgh, and the NFL Draft in New York, all to watch, all at the same time.

The NFL draft started at 3pm, the Flyers and Phillies game started at 7pm. Eagles had the 19th overall pick in the 1st Round, but they traded their pick away. They’re next pick is now in the 2nd Round 43rd overall.

Fast forward to 7pm, Flyers and Phillies game started, and we are frantically switching between channels try to keep up to date on who hasn’t been taken yet in the NFL Draft, who’s batting next, and watching the Flyers game.

Here is a quick scoring summary of today’s events:

Chase Utley hits a single into right field with 2 outs in the inning. /click

Eagles are up but they trade away their pick again. Their next two picks are now 47th and 49th overall in the 2nd Round. /click

Ryan Howard hits a 2 run HR, with Utley on 1st. 2-0 Phillies. /click

Flyers Goal by Umberger! Flyers up 1-0 in the 1st Period. /click

Phillies up 5-0 still in the 1st Inning! How the heck did that happen? Who cares! /click

Eagles draft Trevor Laws from Notre Dame in the 2nd Round, 47th overall. My roommate is also a huge ND fan, he is very happy. /click

Goal by Carter! Flyers now up 2-0 in the 1st Period. /click

Utley scores on a single by Geoff Jenkins. Phillies up 6-0 in the 2nd Inning. /click

Eagles Draft DeSean Jackson from Cal, 49th overall in the 2nd Round. Eagles are done for the day for the NFL Draft. Good job birds! /click

Montreal scores a Power Play goal before the end of the 1st Period. Flyers still up 2-1.

Game goes into intermission. Good time for a food break!

We came back about 30 mins later. Flyers still up 2-0, and Phillies are up 8-2. We leave the it on the Flyers game for the rest of the night. Flyers win 4-2 and the Phillies win 8-4. Another awesome night for Philadlephia.

Philadelphia Skyline shot by B. Krist

Sunday: Eagles, Phillies, and Sixers

The NFL draft continutes with the 3rd Round, Phillies play the Pirates again, and the Sixers play Game 4 of the series against the Pistons. Might be able to get tickets again to the Sixers playoff game, but won’t find out until tomorrow. Hopefully tomorrow will continue to be another good day for Philadlephia.

Sixers: Everyone counted them out before the series began against the Pistons. They shocked everyone in the first game, and showed everyone in the third game that it wasn’t a fluke. The Sixers are playing like a strong playoff team, and not like a team that is happy just to make the playoffs.

Phillies: Off to a good start this season. They are 14-11, and looking strong. Utley continues to have a great season (MPV anyone?),Howard gets out of his hitting slump with a 2 run HR and Pat Burrell, well he is playing like someone who is in their contract season looking to get re-signed. I got tickets to go to one of the games next Wednesday. It is always fun to relax and enjoy a game at the ballpark.

Flyers: Even though they won, they looked a lot better in the first game than today. Montreal is playing very well and the Flyers need to pick it up if they want to win this series. Sucks that their games are usually during raid time and tend to take up most of my attention.

Eagles: Please don’t disappoint me again this season. We picked up two very good players in the NFL Draft. I still would like to have them pick up a star Wide Reciever. How about Chad Johnson or Roy Williams? Make it happen Andy Reid. Time to hit up their training camp again this year!

Home of the Flyers and Sixers

Oh yea… the Philadelphia Flyers‘ playoff game was on, and they were down by one goal, so I can’t say I was paying attention 100% either… ^_^;

A Priest not showing up was bad news because this fight is dependant on our Priests being able to Mass Dispell the raid when Felmyst does a raid-wide debuff which puts a dot on you which ticks for 3000 Damage, and drains 1000 Mana. Ouch!

We were able to manage fine with three Priests by moving the Raid positions around a bit and continued on. We were making good progress, everyone is learning the fight, then our streak of bad luck continues. We were plagued with random disconnects and lag spikes. Then after about our fifth wipe, Felmyst did not respawn! >_< Why does Blizzard hate us so?

Flyers tied it up 3-3 on a goal by Briere and sends the game into overtime! w00t! ^_^

After standing around waiting for the putrid puking dragon to respawn, we decided to have everyone zone out of the instance and stay out for thirty minutes hoping that this may reset Felmyst for us.

Double overtime for the Flyers! Maybe we’ll get to see a shootout! O_O

Fast forward thirty to fourty-five minutes later… Yes! There she is flying around waiting to be killed. Ok ready check! Everyone is here right? Of course not… Fast forward ten more minutes… Alright! Everyone is here now, lets put in some more serious attempts.

Knuble scores the winning goal for the Flyers! Philadelphia Flyers leading the series over the Washington Capitals 3-1. ^_^

Oh yea, where was I… From then on, we had a great night of progression. We learned the fight. We know when to dispell, when to run, when to heal. We learned how to run away from her puking beam of death, we learned how to gather up all the skeletons, we learned how to avoid her clouds of death. We survived until her enraged timer.

Got her down to 25% by the time she hit the enrage timer on our best attempt of the night. When she hit her enrage timer, she one-shotted our Main Tank for 45k Damage, and turned to me and totally destroyed me.

Was that really necessary?

We did good. She’ll be dead by the next two raids.