Stratics Caption Contest - Through June 11

WoW News network pointed out this Stratics Caption Contest.

There are four screenshots and you submit your captions conveniently through the online form. You can submit entries until June 11th then Stratics users will vote until June 25th. Prizes include branded t-shirts and hats.

Update: Check here to vote on the responses.

Quick - Front or Back?

Salvage Company

I was running through Orgrimmar and saw the Droffers and Son Salvage Company:

Hmmm, Fred and Lamont Sanford, anyone? Lots of Sanford and Son pictures here.

The fun now is to trace back the names that Blizzard chose. For example, the two Fight Club NPCs were named "Edward" (presumably for the Actor Edward Norton who played him) and "Tyler," the name of the alter ego in the movie.

"Malton" - looks like it's based on Ray "Galton" who was a writer on "Steptoe and Son" which was the original British version upon which Sanford and Son was based. It also looks like a mix-up of "Lamont" which was the name of the son played by Demond Wilson.

I haven't found the inspirations for Dran or Droffers yet.

His Kong-ness

WoW just warps my view of everything...


King Kong Photo Opportunity info at thestudiotour.com

Sell-O-Matic Add-On

One of my favorite add-ons is Sell-O-Matic. Download it at curse-gaming.com. I haven't found it on some of the other mod websites that I check.

Automatically Sell
Essentially what it does is instantly sell all your vendor trash (grey text items) any time you bring up a vendor's interface. Here's a picture of an item with grey text (meaning it has no value to anyone for any quest or recipe):

Won't Sell Darkmoon Faire Items
As you may know, there are a few items that, although they have grey text, they are wanted by NPCs at the Darkmoon Faire. The good news is that Sell-O-matic won't sell these automatically:
Add items to the Sell List:
One additional thing you can do is add any item to the list. Just type "/som add" then shift click the item you want to add and hit enter. Sell-O-matic will now also sell this whenever you visit a vendor. The command looks like this:

/som add [Raw Rainbow Fin Albacore]

Notice how it now tells me it will automatically be sold as I mouse over the item:

Global Settings
The settings you enter are effective for all of your characters. If you have a character who happens to WANT that item then you can remedy the situation by just visiting the "buy back" portion of the vendor's interface and purchase it back. Find more information about buying back items on the worldofwarcraft Merchant page.

If you think this mod is for you download it at curse-gaming.com. I'm glad I did.

2006-June Events

From the Events Calendar for June:

Darkmoon Faire (Elwynn) June 5 - June 11

Call to Arms: Alterac Valley! June 9 - June 12

Call to Arms: Warsong Gulch! June 16 - June 19

Call to Arms: Arathi Basin! June 23 - June 26

During a Call to Arms, emmissaries from that Battleground will be found in the major cities, and honor/faction rewards for performing objectives in that battleground are increased.

June will be a little boring for the lack of any special events. The next annual event is the Engineers' Explosive Extravaganza which is currently scheduled for July 4th. That nicely coincides with the US Holiday but it'll be on a Tuesday. I would suggest they line it up with Canada Day (July 1st) which is a Saturday this year. But that's just one player's opinion.

Hollywood and Bollywood

I love this post: World of Warcraft Dances.

The author made links to all the real life dances that have inspired the in game dances. One thing that I noticed is that the new male Draenai dance has what I call a Bollywood influence (Tunak Tunak Tan) and the new male Blood elf dance has a Hollywood influence (Napoleon Dynamite).

Video treat - WoW/Guild Wars Dance off Video:


Hey, they have pumpkin heads!

Update 7/31/07:
This video gives me a strange feeling of completeness --
World Of Warcraft: Dancing 3:22

Mini Diablo

If you bought the Collector's Edition of Diablo you had the opportunity of getting the Mini Diablo as a non-combat pet. Further, in the patch notes for Patch 1.10 this tiny little note showed up:
"The Diablo Stone now has a unique icon."

Previously it looked like the Citrine gem icon.

Now it looks something like what you see here:In the lower right hand corner of the screenshot you see that it now looks like something along the lines of a blood red sea shell.

Frankly, although the new icon is unique, I rather liked the old one. It reminded me of the very end of Diablo I. (I had just played and finally conquered this entire game to heroically save this SoulStone from the forces of evil, only to be rewarded with an animation where I SHOVE IT FULL FORCE INTO MY FOREHEAD! (more info here.))

Anyway, my trauma aside, Mini Diablo does two interesting things. He periodically will spout fire. I was starting this new character and talking to a quest giver and I look over and see this:

Don't mind me, Mini-D. I'm just negotiating a way to pay for our next meal.

He just spouts off whenever he feels like it. We were running out of Ironforge and suddenly he wasn't next to me. I turned around and saw why here: (Note, there's that Ironforge cannon in the background.)

The second thing he does is to periodically hop up with a very "weightless" air about him. This animated gif makes it appear that he's hopping whenever I'm not looking, but it was actually just one extended jump:

Doing my Duty in Westfall

While I was in Westfall I did my elder duties (although being a 22 in Westfall barely qualifies, frankly) and took out every Dust Devil I saw.

As far as I know there's no quest for those Devils and they're just there to kill you and piss you off. If you encounter one of those on your jaunt from here to there, you are dead before your dusty corpse hits the ground. Anyone who's had the pleasure knows what I mean...

So I killed them. I killed them all....

Gurky

watchingwow.com pointed out a contest over at pcgamerpodcast.com where you can win a "Gurky" (baby murloc) pet. All you have to do is send an email, but hurry - it ends May 31st!

(This is my picture of Murky, I was too lazy to go get a pic of Gurky, who apparently has blue fins.)