WoW videos for the iPod

Geekgasm: Apple has posted Quicktime World of Warcraft trailers (including one for the Burning Crusade expansion) for use with the iPod Video.

(Mmmm, links.)

Remember Baghdad Bob!

Oh, the fleeting nature of celebrity. One moment, you’re standing before television cameras in Baghdad, insisting that US forces are not, in fact, entering the city, the next, you’re a Trivial Pursuit answer.

Fortunately, one site remembers Iraqi Information Minister Muhammed Saeed al-Sahaf, also known to some as Baghdad Bob.

In addition to letting us know what he’s up to (no new news since the capture of Saddam and Bob going to work for Al-Jazeera), we have a great record of classic quotes, including “God will roast their stomachs in hell at the hands of Iraqis.”

I have to admire a quote machine like him.

“I triple guarantee you, there are no American soldiers in Baghdad.”

Saitek Eclipse Keyboard

I was looking for a new keyboard — my old cramped Vaio keyboard was the munged-up leftover from a long-gone computer — specifically one with a full-sized keyboard that can stand up to fast and furious typing. I type approximately 110 words per minute, and banging on many keyboards, such as the current Macintosh keyboards (an issue for me at work), means a frustrating slowdown, and even typos.

The Saitek Eclipse Keyboard is the sort of solid keyboard I was looking for, with a heavy weight overall, good “key feel,” home keys that can be identified by touch and includes a limited set of additional features. I don’t need a dozen extra buttons to do what I can already do with software. (I know how to start iTunes and Thunderbird just fine as-is, thanks.) The only additional buttons on the Eclipse keyboard are a row of four small buttons over the number pad: Volume up, volume down, mute and cycling the lit keyboard from bright to dim to off.

As for the lighting — and this was certainly one of the deciding factors in buying this keyboard — for day-to-day use in a lit environment, the glowing keys will likely be hard to notice. For gaming in a dim or totally dark room (I play World of Warcraft, among other games), the keys are bright without being overwhelmingly so.

This was an excellent purchase for me, although I know people who like additional features on their keyboards might want to get one of Saitek’s higher-end keyboards above the Eclipse. But for people whose desired feature set resembles mine, I’d say this keyboard is a must-buy.

Sarcoidosis medication update

I just got my prescription for the NapraPAC refilled again just now.

Good news: There are apparently so many coupons foisted on my healthcare provider by the vendor that I have three more months of freebie meds coming my way. (Don’t get excited; it’s basically just prescription strength Aleve and Prevacid.)

Bad news #1: When it’s time to pay for it in four months, the cost before insurance discount is $158/month. Yikes.

Bad news #2: My symptoms are starting to get bad enough that the Aleve isn’t preventing most of the problems any more. My left knee has been giving me crap since the weekend and now my left hand is starting to have pain and locking up. I forsee another major crash coming later this year.

Races of the Dragon

The bad news about Races of the Dragon: The two new races, the dragonborn and the spellscales are just awful. Apparently, someone out there thought that the default dwarf race wasn’t serious or grim enough, and gave us the dragonborn. Likewise, if you’ve ever thought that elves weren’t flighty and magical enough, the spellscale are for you. *gag*

The good news? Those only take up 31 pages of a 158 page book, making Races of the Dragon a very good 127 page book.

Kobolds, who are the stars of the book, get a lot of believable fleshing out, boosting both their links to dragons (but in a low-key way) and their status as underground low level menaces. (It turns out there’s a perfectly valid reason for them being cannon fodder in so many games.) The core kobold is also mildly tweaked to be a more playable race, and by burning a feat, there’s a mild variant kobold race that’s even better.

Half-dragons and the draconic template from the Draconomicon (reprinted here) get a chapter, including a monster class that allows a character to turn draconic and then eventually into a half-dragon without having to wait for the Dragon Disciple prestige class. The book also discusses the issue of exactly how, and why, there are so many draconic and half-dragon creatures running around. (Dragons are less kinky than you might have feared.)

The prestige classes aren’t as flavorful as the ones in the Draconomicon, there’s a counterpart to the Dragon Disciple, turning the character into a draconic character instead of a half-dragon (and more quickly). There are also prestige classes for most classes, although some of them are a bit quirky, like the Singer of Concordance, which is a plane-shifting hotel clerk of Io, or near enough.

Then follows a bevy of feats, which especially ones that boost sorcerers, kobolds, and other “dragon-blooded” characters.

There are also the now-obligatory substitution levels, with kobolds getting access to four of them (including the dragon-blooded sorcerer levels).

There are more spells than in the other races books, although Power Word: Pain is an overly powerful first level spell that you’ll likely see fixed in errata on the official Wizards of the Coast Web site very soon.

The new items and magic items are fairly nice, and include new-to-me draconic grafts.

The book is rounded out with more words in Draconic and a slightly different take on the Draconic pantheon (Kurtulmak is also detailed earlier in the kobold section).

While it’s not equal to the wonderful Draconomicon, Races of the Dragon finally makes kobolds a viable player race, makes them a really interesting foe and adds a lot of nice new stuff for sorcerers.

This is obviously a very targeted book, and if you’re not in the audience for what it’s got to offer, the book will offer little value. If you are interested in more draconic content or especially are interested in kobolds (as all right-thinking people are), Races of the Dragon is a home-run and a must-buy.