Klaatu... Berata... Nick... *cough*

More movies... Mrs. Blade and I like our movies.
There's a pair of NPCs on the second floor of the Alliance inn at Honor Hold (Anchorite Barada and Anchorite Klaatu).
Now... there's a little something extra to this pair...
Yes, their names are two of the three words Ash utters (or attempts to utter) in order to obtain the Necronomicon in Army of Darkness... but he is by far not the first one to do so...
The phrase itself... "Klaatu Barada Nikto"...

HA!

Did I catch you saying it?
Will there be an opening in the fabric between dimensions ushering in a horde of zombies and horrible nightmarish creatures?

*evil orc laugh*

While we wait for the chaos to overwhelm this dimension, a little background...
The phrase itself was first spoken in the 1951 movie "The Day the Earth Stood Still". The alien, Klaatu, arrives on earth with a message for Earth's world leaders... of course his presence is less than welcome... anticipating that things could go very wrong, Klaatu teaches a human woman the phrase in case something should happen to him...
Which, of course, it does. Klaatu is killed and his associate - Gort - unleases his robot force and begins to start destroying the earth. The phrase: "Gort! Klaatu barada nikto!" communicates *something* to Gort... in any event, Gort stops wrecking the planet, resurrects his buddy Klaatu and the movie ends on a high note.
But...
Those 'three words' have become so ingrained into our subconsciousness... or maybe it's the fact that it's an awesome pop-culture classic-cult-movie phrase... that they appear (in some form or other) all *over* the place!
In television: Farscape, Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, and The Monkees;
There are appearances in movies such as: Return of the Jedi, Galaxy Quest, Tron, Willow, Toys, and of course the slightly-altered version in Army of Darkness... Keanu Reeves also utters a phrase very like it in the remake of "The Day the Earth Stood Still", but the movie executives disallowed a direct translation, apparently...
There are appearances in the cartoons Darkwing Duck, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Jimmy Neutron and a spoof-version in The Simpsons;
The music band Klaatu named themselves after the character;
Those of you that are running Firefox can type about:robots into your page line for a little extra treat...
Webcomic appearances of the words include PVP Online, Van Von Hunter, and Sinfest;
In video games, there are appearances in Duke Nukem, Myth II: Soulblighter, Sacrifice, The Lost Vikings 2, and, of course, our beloved World of Warcraft... interestingly enough... as a side note, if you *kill* Anchorite Barada, *another* character named Colonel Jules (friendly to Horde and lying in front in the bed) will start floating - He will float into the middle of the room and back into the bed.
If you speak with Colonel Jules, he says the following:
"Be gone, ! Leave us be, or we will enter you next and show you true despair!"
Hmm... is the Draenei praying for our Colonel Jules... or is he trying to stop whatever is possessing Jules from coming into this world?
Thoughts to ponder...

'Appy Mudder's Day, Wot!

I had *had* the thought to make this podcast contribution a tribute, as it were, to Mother's Day... but I could only find two designated 'mothers'...
Mother Smoulderweb in Lower Blackrock Spire
and Mother Shahraz in Black Temple...
Neither of which I'd classify as mothers that one should try to emulate... one beng a great huge spider, the other being a concubine for... well lI dunno *what* she's a concubine for...
So...
This week, I'm thinking I'll honor Mother Blade in a slightly different way...
One macro for each healer class...
... for all the times mom has been there to pick your butt off the sidewalk, put a bandaid on your scraped knee and make you suddenly feel a whole lot better.
Shamans - Purge or Cleanse (Which will Purge or Cleanse depending upon the criteria it sees when you mouseover your intended target... be careful though... it will remove a paladin's bubble so far as I know...)

#showtooltip

/cast [target=mouseover,harm,exists] [target=target,harm,nodead] [target=targettarget] Purge

/cast [target=mouseover,help,exists] [target=target,help,nodead] [target=targettarget,help,nodead] [target=player,help,nodead] Cleanse Spirit

One for Trees... (pretty self-explanatory... Nature's Swiftness makes it an instant-cast heal...)

/cast Nature's Swiftness

/stopcasting

/cast [help] [target=player] Healing Touch

One for Priests... and because I tossed a few healing macros out there before... I made *this* one easy... it "loads" the heal spell into your cursor (the glowing hand)... all *you* have to do is click on the recipient - either in your fancy-dancy healbot addon or on the side of your screen when you're ina casual group... or heck... even in any situation where you can toss random heals around.

/cast [target=none] Flash Heal

and one for Healadins... This one has you saving the butt of whoever the boss is targeting... *you* target the boss, it redirects the spell to the boss's target. Well... not exactly... in order, this macro heals *you* if you right-click, or else it will heal your target (if they're friendly) or else it heals the target of your enemy target (when you're targeting the boss) or it will give you the 'glowing hand' targeting cursor if you don't already auto-self-cast.

#showtooltip Flash of Light

/stopcasting

/cast [button:2,target=player][target=target,help][target=targettarget,help][target=none] Flash of Light

The best thing about these macros is that they're interchangeable between classes and spells... you can substitute any spell of *your* class (or any different spell) that would fit (be it a big heal or heal-over-time)

I don't seem to have it in me for spellcasting... maybe...

It's mudders' day... and Ol' Blade had to cobble together this edge real quick... but before I get to it... I just want to say a big thanks to Linai, Auttikin, Cloud and Malanus for dragging my sorry excuse for a 62 healer priest through Steamvaults...
K... yeah... I know what yer thinking... 'Steamvaults is a level 70 dungeon, Blade!'
Yeah... I know... I realised that after we started in and I actually moused over an enemy... eek!
... come to think of it, that's *probably* why I got two-shotted a couple times... Warlock Soulstone ftw!
We churned through the entire place and only got stymied at Warlord Kalithresh until a timely assist by another guildie (Malanus) turned the tide.
Other than that - what with the summer semester starting - I haven't been doing much... got my druid to 65 and - barring my getting *really* bored - there he will stay... 'cause 65 is the level you need to start doing the higher-level (as in Northrend) skill patterns of professions... and I just can't get into the druid for some reason... it feels off... on a rogue, you are gear-dependent... the higher dps you have on your daggers, the more damage you will do... with a druid that's all different, though...
Maybe I've just played gear-dependent classes for so long that anything else seems a not quite complete fit... which is probably why I've been taking so long leveling my caster classes...
Ah well...
Anyone have any suggestions on how to more-successfully level some squishy casters... short of what I'm already doing - which is logging in and hoping someone will be running a dungeon around my level...?

Sick 'em!

Something for Warlocks... these are mainly for pvp... 'cause a little bug in my ear told me that Warlock is one of the more-desirable classes in a 3v3 arena team... whether I'll get around to pushing my warlock to 80 is anyone's guess, tho...
Not having actually *done* any arenas on any characters to any success (one failed attempt at 70 with a mage was more than enough to leave a discernably bad taste in my mouth for it), I can only speculate, but these macros should help you whether you're in a 3v3, any *other* arena team combination, battlegrounds or in pve:
/cast Corruption
/cast [pet:Felhunter, target=teammate]Devour Magic
/cast [pet:Felhunter, target=yourname]Devour Magic
/cast [pet:Felhunter]Devour Magic
This one is fun... we're taking advantage of multiple cooldown factors here again... one press casts Corruption on your target and either causes your Felhunter to devour one magic debuff affecting a teammate (useful for getting rid of a polymorph, hammer of justice or similar spells in arena combat... if you're not a fan, take the line out) if your teammate isn't suffering any magical malady, it will turn your Felhunter in *your* direction and consume any debuff that *you* may be suffering from... and if *you're* not 'under the influence' of a magic effect, the Felhunter will devour a beneficial buff that currently affects your target.

This one's for anyone with a pet... and Ol' Blade's probably gonna get a /slap from some Shamans for this one...
/petattack
/petattack [target=Healing Stream Totem]
/petattack [target=Mana]
/petattack [target=Tremor Totem]
/petattack [target=Grounding Totem]

In a nutshell? Substitute whatever names of Totems you like... add as many lines as necessary to fill out the list and put your highest priority at the bottom.
What's it do? Aims your pet at the ever-so-irritating totem(s) and lets you focus on the task of dotting your target down.
The nice part about this one is that *any* class with an attacking pet can use it... so not only Warlocks, but Hunters and Death Knights as well.
... and you lot thought that Ol' Blade /hated DKs... not so! With this totem-smashing macro, it might even free up a spot on your action bar so that you can add *another* skill or talent to your /facerolling auto-success!
Feel the love?

'Bring your orphaned kid to work' week...

Things are moving ever-onwards for Ol' Blade... a level on an alt here, a few daily quests there...
Noblegarden has come and gone... and now it's 'Bring an orphaned child to work' week...
Anyone *else* find it a little cruel to drag an orphan across the countryside, eat sweet treats in front of them (but not give them any), place them in hazardous combat situations (both trying to attain specific (ridiculous) feats in various battlegrounds and taking down King Ymiron in Utgarde Pinnacle) then taking the orphan *back* to the orphanage to say 'Thanks for the achievements! See ya next year, squirt!'
Personally, I think that we should at least have to pay gold for the privelage.
Also... what about choosing your orphan's race for a little faction rep at the end? Maybe letting people do it once for each race for the rep reward?
I mean... why is it always an orc kid? Three years in a row I've dragged an orc kid around Azeroth... Are there really no Tauren orphans? All the troll kids are safely tucked in their voodoo beds, then, are they?
Are you telling me that there are no Gnome children orphaned refugees from Gnomeregan?
(Not that we'd know... they're probably small enough that Ol' Blade might have used them for floss to clean the Stormwind Canal grit from between his toes! Or maybe THAT's what those two Deeprun Tram NPCs (Monty and Nipsy) have got in those boxes of theirs... they aren't Deeprun Rat Kebobs at all!
By the Beard of my old Uncle Throgg!
Gnome Kebabs are *real*!
I *KNEW* it!

Mechanical toads can remember dreaming of robot sheep...

Mrs. Blade's been challenging your favorite Loremaster again... she said: 'Find me something obscure, yet contemporary..."
Hrmmmm.....
After dodging large, heavy cooking implements whilst reading love poetry to her (props to anyone who just got *that* reference), Ol' Blade set to the task of finding her something "obscure".
How's the 'Life-like Mechanical Toad' for obscure?
See... this little engineering wonder (Engineering 265 required to learn the skill, the pattern being a random world drop with the best results from any of the five world dragon bosses of old-world Azeroth) is a reference to the movie Blade Runner...
Well... no... actually it's a reference to the book "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep" by Philip K. Dick which was the *basis* for the movie Blade Runner. In the book, an incredibly life-like toad is found that turns out to be merely an ersatz animal.
(Ersatz meaning 'artificial' or 'synthetic').
While on the subject, when walking by the refugees in Shattrath City's lower gate, one of them can be heard saying "Hey, Man? Got some money? I got five kids to feed!". This is a line uttered by Benny the cab driver in "Total Recall", the movie adaptation of the short story "We Can Remember It For You Wholesale". Guess the author of the book! You betcha - Philip K. Dick.

Experiencing technical (chemical?) difficulties...

Sorry guys!
Yeah... I haven't posted much... missed the latest CtrlAltWoW episode, too...
Have I mentioned how much I dislike Chemistry? /sigh
If I haven't... see it here... http://twitter.com/TheBladedEdge
We will return to our regularly scheduled posting (and possibly a treat for the next podcast) tomorrow or Friday at the latest... (exam's today)
On the topic of a return, though... anyone know how to extend an audio clip in Audacity so that it will loop or repeat in the background while a certain vocal personality reveals secrets to living on the edge of the blade?
Most of my segments are 7-10 minutes long... maybe a little less if I cut them apart and only do them individually...
I'll play with it tomorrow some more, but it'd be a lot easier if I had someone telling me how to do it... lol
Blade