So, this isn’t really relevant to anything, but I saw her in concert last night. All I can say is she was amazing! So much so that I’m actually bummed today knowing that it’ll be months, at the earliest, before she’s back in town. If you haven’t heard of her she’s an incredibly talented singer songwriter. Don’t believe me? Just watch this:

Not only have I returned to Age of Conan, I seem to have returned with a vengeance. The title of this post is actually the name of my new guild. The picture to the left is us just inside the entrance to the Onyx Chambers.

I didn’t set out to join it a guild, I just sort of fell into it. I was running quests in Aztel’s Approach when a group of players ran up. They saw me killing some mobs and I got an invite. I figure they were probably here for the same reason so I joined. A few hours later, after completing several quests that would have been much harder to complete alone, and after having quite a bit of fun, one of the group members asked me why I hadn’t joined a guild.

The fact is, the reason I hadn’t joined a guild before is because this was actually the first group that I can remember actually joining. Not only that, but the guys in the group seemed pretty cool and seemed to know how to play their characters. Both of which seem pretty hard to come by these days. I’m not one to join a guild on a random invite, nor do I care enough to do my research and seek one out. I prefer to just play the game and if I meet some cool people and they want me to join, then absolutely, I’m in. Needless to say there’s a reason why most of my characters, in just about every game, have remained unguilded. So, when I got the invite, I figured this group was worth giving a chance.

I’m glad I did! I’ve already seen two instances that I would never have even had the chance to see, if not for these guys. Sunday evening we ran through the Thunder River Prison. Sure we died a few times, but lots of fun was had by all. Then, last night, they let me tag along of the Onyx Chambers. Keep in mind, when I joined back up I was only level 62. As of last night, I was level 66, but they still let me tag along for the run through Onyx Chambers, apprenticed, of course! Despite all the issues that still exist in the game, I’m having a lot of fun thanks to the Defender’s of Grayskull. Plus, I like the name… I was a huge fan of He-Man when I was a kid.

I should also point out that the one thing I have noticed that’s really improved about the game is it’s stability. After all of the hours playing since Friday night, the game has only “sort of” crashed once. I say sort of because the game was still running but the graphics were cutting in and out forcing me to reboot. This is a HUGE improvement from a couple of months ago when the game would regularly hard lock my computer forcing a hard reset; or the crazy graphic corruptions I would get soon before it happened (as evidenced by the screenshot on the right). I have no doubt that those problems have been exacerbated by the fact that I’m running Vista 64 Ultimate. I despise Vista and I fully plan to go back to XP once I stop playing Age of Conan in favor of Wrath of the Lich King. I may not be there on day one, but I know myself well enough that I’ll be unable to resist the call of Wow.

It was bound to happen, last night I reactivated my subscription to Age of Conan. I’ve been having the undeniable urge to MMO lately, however it was actually WoW that was calling me back, not AoC. I just can’t bring myself to play another MMO while I still have one where I have yet to reach max level. Of course, that didn’t stop me from quitting Dungeons and Dragons Online, but I Digress.

In celebration of my return I bring you 5 clips from the show The Big Bang Theory. I’ve never watched this show but they apparently had an episode featuring Age of Conan. Some of the clips are pretty funny but I think they take the whole “geek” thing a little too far. Anyways, without further ado:

• Sheldor the Conqueror
• Dragon Fodder
• Queen Penelope
• Chosen by Science

As for my initial impressions of the game having returned after 2 1/2 months… If possible it seems even more buggy than when I left. Treasure chests don’t open any more, performance seems a little worse, and the lag spikes have increased dramatically. Death by lag is never fun. I was hoping Funcom would have gotten their shit together by now, at least somewhat… I plan to stay this time until I hit level 80, but if things haven’t improved by then, which I highly doubt at this point, I’m gone for good. But with Warhammer Online already out and Wrath of the Lich King and Gears of War 2 coming soon, not to mention several cool games I’m probably forgetting, there’ll be plenty of places to go.

Backstage with Obama before and after his 2nd Presidential Debate with John McCain.

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Sarah Palin Debate Flow Chart

If the candidates were trains: