Musings of a Virgin

Since I spend so much time on World of Warcraft, I might as well blog about it.

Here we see my mage Isale finally getting his Epic land mount.


And here Astir replaces her old staff with Bloodfire Greatstaff from Black Morass. Granted its no where near the best staff, but considering that I'm a healing priest, this staff is part of my solo gear.

Labels: WOW

Posted by emyln at 11:12 PM | Permalink | Comments

This is a chick flick. So if you don't like chick flicks, skip this one. I like some chick flicks and the fact that Chris Evans was in this one made it sweeter.

This movie has gotten some really bad reviews, which are not justified. All the critics are comparing it to the book and shows like The Devil wears Prada. In all honestly, I have not read the book so I have no frame of reference.

This show is a romantic comedy to an extent, but its more the story of a new graduate finding her own way in the world and finds romance. Its light hearted fair and no better or worse than shows like Maid in Manhattan, or 13 Going on 30.

I'll admit that its entertaining but more worth the price of a DVD than a movie ticket. However if you're also a Chris Evans fan, its worth the price. He's so pretty and charming in this one, despite the short screen time.

I give this one a 3/5.

Posted by emyln at 5:56 PM | Permalink | Comments

Here's my nod to the environment. This website called BreathingEarth shows the pollution and birth rate of all the countries in the world.

Open up the application and let it run for about 5 mins and even longer. You'll be amazed at the results.

Posted by emyln at 5:47 PM | Permalink | Comments

Well its been a really slow summer. There have been almost no game of interest released and so after a 3 month break I'm back in World of Warcraft again.
Despite all its shortcomings I have to admit that Blizzard's jewel really is fun. And with the introduction of "Daily Quests", which can only be done once a day with fairly significant gain, there's a compelling reason to login for about 1-2 hours then have that sense of achievement.


Here are some screen shots of my adventures in Outland. Astir becomes Queen of the Ogres, she indulges in Nether Ray wrangling, and works towards getting an epic swift mount.

The new expansion, Wraith of the Witch King can't come soon enough.

Labels: WOW

Posted by emyln at 10:36 PM | Permalink | Comments

OMG! OMG! OMG! OMG! OMG! Stardust is AWESOME! If you like fantasy, fairy tales, witches, magic, falling stars, you will LOVE Stardust. It is that good. The market is currently being flooded with tons of children driven fantasy which do look good and I am waiting for, but Stardust is a fairy tale for adults.
Its got everything going for it. From the first line till the last Happily Ever After, this is in in my mind the best fantasy movie I've seen in recent years. And the star power in this movie is not wasted. Michelle Pfeiffer is the evil witch who craves the power of the fallen star. She shines as the imposing regal yet menacing witch queen. Robert De Niro plays the fierce some pirate who mentors the young hero and hides a flaming secret. And lastly, newcomer Charlie Cox who is Tristan, the young hero who starts out a boy and becomes a man. The best part is that you can literally see him change visibly as he goes through the movie.

More than all that, the movie succeeds where many other have failed, in creating a fantasy world that reminds us of all those fairy tales we used to read when we were young. It succeeds so beautifully that I would recommend it as a contender for best movie of the year. Sadly its a fantasy and a fairy tale so we know that that will never come to pass.

I easily give this movie a 5/5 and highly recommend it to young and old who love fantasy!!!

Posted by emyln at 8:20 PM | Permalink | Comments

Took me a while to watch this movie but I finally did. I enjoyed the previous 2 Bourne films and enjoyed them but I had a problem with the 2nd movie and the director's use of shaky camera work. Bottomline, it gave me motion sickness. But I have to admit that while The Bourne Ultimatum uses the shaky camera technique to reflect the excietment of the film, its no where as bad as the 2nd movie.

If you've never seen any of the Bourne films, I highly recommend them before watching this one, otherwise you won't get Bourne's character. This installment is just as good as the previous 2. Lots of car chase scenes, explosions, heart stopping action and fighting and best of all we get to see Bourne's origins. Since I've never read any of the Bourne books, this was a nice surprise to me.

The only bad thing I have to say about this film is that the hand to hand combat scenes were filmed with the camera so close that you miss most of the action. Aside from that its an excellent intense pop-corn action flick. I gave this one a 4/5.

Posted by emyln at 8:39 PM | Permalink | Comments

City of Heroes/Villains recently had a reactivation weekend, so you can come back and visit if you are interested in seeing the the game, they even had a new update or Issue as they call it where an Allen race called the Rikti were invading Paragon City.

I got City of Heroes when it first came out back in 2004 but I only played it for that first month. Like everyone else I found a lot to like about the game and a lot to hate. After 3 years, 1 expansion and numerous updates, how do I now find the game?
My opinions have not changed. Its still tremendous fun to create a new character, nothing beats the feeling when you first get your mode of transport, (I chose flying as my transport ability). And the powers available to you are quite fun. But now on to the bad points of the game. There are now more quests but sadly when compared to games like World of Warcraft and Everquest2, the quests in CoH are dull, boring and repetative. The game now drops. There is some itemization in the form of inscriptions and such but when compared to the itemization of items available in other MMO's City of Heroes just can't compare. Finally, and the worst trangression is that after an hour playing on my old character, I was feeling the level grind. This is never good for an MMO.

Bottomline, City of Heroes has improved since its initial launch and added many features that have improved the game, but the same glaring issues that were wrong with it initially have not improved.

Still its not a total loss. I finally got screenshots of my old characters which I spent loads of time creating.




For some reason I've always fixated on Automan, an homage to the 80's TV series. I usually use Automan as my avatar name in RPG games. Aside from that, as you can see all my heroes are burning hunks of testosterone. **grin** We all have fantasies.

Posted by emyln at 1:59 PM | Permalink | Comments

VanityFair magazine has a very interesting article on Hollywood's Next Gen Men. Basically up and coming actors who might one day become the leading men of tomorrow replacing Brad Pitt, George Clooney etc.

I don't agree with all their picks, but then again my criteria is a little more biased than theirs.
Personally I don't find Shia LaBeouf attractive but there is no denying that of all the Next Gen men, his star is shinning the brightest. With Transformers and Disturbia under his belt, and not to mention the upcoming Indiana Jones 4, he's definitely the brightest star right now.

Kevin Zegers is the pretty boy of the lot. Just about every teen and pre-teen know him from the disney hit High School Musical and he's also in Hairspray. What he needs is to start branching out and doing more than just the teenage movies, otherwise he'll probably be a has been in a few years.

--edit -- Opps, made a mistake, I was thinking of Zac Efron. Kevin Zegers is the former Disney star of the Air Bud movies and Transamerica.

Henry Cavill is gorgeous, and has a very bright future. If he seems unfamiliar to you its probably because he's a British actor. But his credits include the upcoming movie Stardust, as well as the very highly rated Showtime series The Tudors. Check out his wiki.

Channing Tatum needs no introduction. Even if you missed his recent movies (which basically showcase his six pack abs), I'm pretty sure you've seen him in dozens of commercials. I don't quite see him as a real actor, in fact, I'd say to date he's nothing more than another second rate model turned actor. Still... VanityFair probably knows more than I do on this score.

Let me begin by saying that this is one of the worst photos I've seen of Steven Strait. He's gorgeous, don't take my word for it, go rent The Covenant. But beyond his looks, he's starring in some big upcoming movies 10,000 BC, and Priest both out in 2008.

Finally, we have Ben Foster. He was Angel in X-men 3, the character that was hyped up and ended up being complete fluff in the movie. I don't know what to make of Ben, he's definitely talented and you can see this from his role in Six Feet Under, but will he make it big? ONly time will tell.

Posted by emyln at 6:51 PM | Permalink | Comments

This guy is crazy talented! If I had to guess, I would say that this artist is not using a mouse but a digital pen to draw, but its still very impressive. Take a look!

Labels: Entertainment News, YouTube

Posted by emyln at 6:07 PM | Permalink | Comments

At about 6:05pm, 1st August, the I-35W bridge close to the U of M, that spans the Mississippi River collapsed. This happened during the tail end of rush hour so there was basically bumper to bumper traffic.

Currently the toil is 7 dead, 35 injured, 20 missing and the death toil will definitely increase as the rescue continues through out the night. The numbers might seem small compared to other disasters that have occurred but if you can view the bridge end to end and know just how major a bridge this is, I'm actually surprised and glad that the toil is much lower than I had originally expected when I heard the news.

Make no mistake, this is a MAJOR road/bridge which will adversely affect traffic for however long (probably several years) before the bridge is rebuilt. But right now everyone is focused on recovering and rescuing those still trapped.

My family who are in Singapore actually spent several hours trying to get in touch with me. I was playing Dungeons and Dragons at a friends house and was blissfully unaware of the situation until I got back into my car to drive home.

So if anything has come out of this, I will be exchanging phone numbers with my best friend to our respective parents.

Anyway, my prayers go out to those who are still awaiting news of loved ones and to those who have passed away from what is Minneapolis's worst disaster to date.

Posted by emyln at 9:07 PM | Permalink | Comments

Just caught this movie. I have to say that after a long dry movie spell earlier this year, there have been a ton of great shows released this summer and there are more to come.

I'm a Simpsons fan but not a HUGE one. I own all the Simpsons DVD's released thus far but I don't have them all memorized or anything like that. You'd be surprised at how many fans can list and recite Simpsons episodes front and back.

Anyway, if you like the Simpsons at all then go watch the movie. Its like watching a really good long episode of the cartoon. And I must admit that its some of the best writing for the show that I've seen recently.

There are even some important character developments for the Simpsons triva. Lisa get's a real boyfriend, we see a glimpse of Bart's penis (I kid you not) and we hear Maggie's first spoken word (to catch it, watch the ending credits all the way through). Did I also mention the new song "Spider Pig"?

I really enjoyed it and its one of those shows where everyone in the theater was giggling. I give this one a 5/5.

Posted by emyln at 2:24 PM | Permalink | Comments