After trotting 4 characters through Wizard101's starting quests and grinding the rest of the way to L10, I think I've learned all I can from it without spending real money. I went with all female characters, for 2 reasons. First, if I have to eyeball a character for hours on end, she may as well be eye candy. Second, because in any and every online game, all the gamer-geek boys fall all over themselves trying to curry favor with girl avatars, even though we know that half the time there's a basement-dwelli... (...more)

When I made fusilli Wed. evening, I stored half, undressed, with the last of the diced surimi, and yesterday I tossed that with the dregs of a jar of Classico spicy red pepper sauce and some diced black olives for lunch. Much happier with the red sauce than the alfredo. Dad called while I was still at work, so I cut that short and deferred until I got home. Between teh orffice and home, I hit the gym for a short run - a mile at 6.0, 1 lap cooloff, 1 lap at 7.0, cooloff and called it a night. Don't know ... (...more)

Needed bread and pierogis, wanted protein but tired of chicken so I bought surimi too last night. A pound was probably excessive, but it's a nice change of pace so far. Hope it freezes OK because I don't trust it in the fridge more than a day. Also, a regular 750ml bottle of Sutter Home merlot with which I'm going to do a little reference tasting of the St.Regis near-wine. I COULD have restocked ice cream but I chose not to. Have not slept well the past couple nights. Between that, being bored with my d... (...more)

Two sister MMORPGs get a lot of ad time on Cartoon Network - Wizard101 and Pirate101. Both are patterned on a basic free-to-play, pay-for-expanded-content model. You run up against the free-play area limits very early, within a few hours of play. Many items in-game are real-money-priced as well. Character creation Compared to WoW or FFXI, the character system is quite simple. Your 'toon is a human wizard, with customization options limited to gender, hair color and facial features (which other players ... (...more)

Alarm at 8, squeaked by with a level-up in CA and managed to bury most of my health refill before my revenge-list fans buried it for me. Coffee and vitamins but no breakfast before church. Arrived right about on-time. The scripture readings and Susan Beebe's sermon focused on the parable of the bad manager from the gospel of Luke - the punch line of which is, "you cannot serve two masters, you cannot serve both God and money". Suffice it to say, I have a very neurotic relationship with money, so the ser... (...more)