If you are looking to catch up with Dio and I in a game we are currently playing WoW and Rock Band. Our druid and warrior are level 80 and we have joined the ranks of people who own Rock Band 2.

I am going to officially close the Warhammer: Age of Reckoning chapter of Doors of Night. I have not felt like playing WAR since the mass exodus was caused by those few childish and self-serving members. Since none of the remaining officers wanted to take over lead, I kept it open until all of the remaining members were able to find an active guild to join up with. It now seems like the last of the members have found a new guild so I have canceled my account and have closed down the Warhammer member forums. I wish those of you who stayed the best and hope that your new guilds treat you well. Feel free to continue to stay in touch through the Doors of Night website and the general forums.

Walking out of work Monday night I was greeted with the first snow of the season.  The campus looked beautiful as the snow sparkled in the street lights.  Snow and glass sparkled on the driver side back seat as I opened the door to toss in my bags.  Until that moment my fascination with the falling snow had distracted me from the biting cold midway winds.   The lengthy call to the police was futile as they first chastized me for using 911 instead of 311 and then the person from 311 hide laughter at the idea that someone would actually come out to collect evidence.   The bitter winds were an added irritation to the police call as I had to rummage through my car to discover what was missing.  Thankfully the theif seemed to miss the more important items like 2 pair of expensive sunglasses going instead for the change tray and the 24 pack of bottled water that was in my trunk.  (Yes, I really said bottled water. I guess hard working criminals need to keep hydrated.)  The change tray, unfortunately, included a pair of gold earrings.  At first I had thought that he managed to snag more items like my registration/insurance info and the glasses but later found that he just moved a ton of things around in what I guess was a hunt for my Ipod (located safely on my person) that the car charger belonged to.  The theif also managed to leave behind his tools and roll of tape so I would guess that he didn’t have the successful heist he anticipated.  The drive home was especially frigid driving on the highway since I was not able to close the window.  Being the beginning of the snowy season, I also didn’t have earmuffs, scarves, or mittens the whole night.

Free transfers opened up off of Kragg so we moved to Monolith.  Kragg was becoming a ghost town so we jumped ship.  The sc ques are better, there is more world RvR, and we have been enjoying an exp/renown bonus.  You can now find Philomela and Doors of Night on Monolith-Destruction in Warhammer.

After posting the reveal on the Doors of Night Warhammer heraldry in the forums, I thought it might be nice to look back on previous heraldry chosen in other games. While the games have changed and with it the styles, Doors of Night has kept with the Black/White/Grey colors. From left to right we have the heraldry from Guild Wars, World of Warcraft, and Warhammer.

Happy Halloween!  In order to make up for canceling my Halloween party, I baked 4 dozen Halloween cupcakes to share with friends.  They were a huge hit and really easy to make so I thought I would share how make them.

Halloween Spider Cupcakes
1) Bake and cool your cupcakes in wrappers. I found the spider themed cupcake wrappers at a local party store.
2) Make (or buy your icing). In the picture above the dark icing is a chocolate fudge and the orange icing is cream cheese. I used some of the cream cheese icing for the webs.
3) Ice your cupcakes just like you normally would ice a cupcake. Try to get it smooth but it does not have to be perfect.
4) Create a make-shift decorating bag by filling a sturdy ziploc bag (best to use the freezer ones) with cream cheese icing. It took me about 1 cup of icing for 4 dozen webs. Leave the bag open and mush the icing into one corner. Twist at the bag closed at the top of the icing so it does not squeeze out the top. Clip a small corner of the bag to allow the icing to squeeze out.
5) Make the spokes of the web by drawing a line across the diameter of the cupcake. Drawn two more lines like this that divide the top of the cupcake into six pie shaped pieces.
6) Start just a hair from the center and make a hexagon around the spokes. Move out just a hair and drawn another one. Then drawn a third slightly bigger. A few times the cupcake looked liked it needed a 4th but 3 was typically good.
7) Stick a spider ring into the cupcake. These are those cheap plastic rings you had as a kid and they are available at party supply stores and a lot of places that carry Halloween stuff. Make sure you washed it first.

Diomedes and I are officially quitting WoW and going over to play Warhammer. After playing in the WoW Beta for Lich King, we decided that we wanted something new.  We have rolled on the Destruction side of the Warhammer server Kragg. Additionally, we have started a guild which is already Rank 3 (Guilds gain levels in the game just like players). I am very much looking forward to another game focused around PvP. Hope you will stop by if you are planning on trying out Warhammer.

This awesome Rice Krispy Barad-Dur (from the Lord of the Rings) was made by Six. It was made as a going away gift for one of his co-workers. Thanks for the picture.

Sorry to have missed posting last week. I have been working on my Brewfest site which I will reveal later when it is a bit more complete.

I finally finished leveling my lock to 70 and with a long weekend I spent most of it beginning the reputation and gear grind.

I have also been neglecting my Gaia gatherings with the month coming to a close I almost missed picking up my May Thank You Letter. They also added a “Badge” to be included to link to from other sites. I plan to find a home for my badge someday.

Standing over the seedless watermelons, I begin knocking on each melon to find a nice ripe one. Listening closely to each knock I try to block out the overly loud sound of the page being repeated on the intercom. If the pages had not been so interrupting to my melon selecting, I might not have noticed that the 3rd page was cut short by the sound of Rick Astley singing “Never gonna give you up.” The song made it through the chorus twice before you heard an abrupt transition into the typical store play list. I can only imagine that there were a couple of stock boys in the back rolling on the floor laughing that they just Rickrolled the store.