Costume choice dilemma for Matieka 2009

As every year I have the usual problem of what costume to wear for the costume party of the annual german carnival (Matieka) in Stellenbosch. Since I got hold of several Zentai suits recently, I am tempted to try those, but I might end up feeling quite exposed since that is so skintight and several people might have some rather mocking comments about that. Another idea is to try a pirate costume or some padded superhero suit which can get quite hot. Idea number next would be try try a bunny or a female character since the nun idea last year worked well. Trying a Power Ranger Zentai suit is also an option, but that limits eyesight a bit.

My biggest problem is that I can never decide on these matters which is quite annoying.

Matieka 2009 in Stellenbosch

For those who are looking for the Matieka 2009 programme which is taking place in Stellenbosch, there is a Facebook group for Matieka. The programme listed there today is as follows (mixed German with English):

Daten:
31.07.09, 20h11 - Büttenabend/Prinzenball
01.08.09, 12h11 - Frühshoppen/ Beerfest
01.08.09, 20h11 -Maskenball/Fancy Dress Ball
02.08.09, 12h11 - Kehraus/ Beerfest

Karten sind ab den 20 Juli bei Hairlines zu kaufen.
Maskenballkarten gibt es nur im Vorverkauf bei Hairlines.
Tickets for Sale @ Hairlines.
Fancy Dress Ball only available in Pre-Ticket sales.

The problems with free World of WarCraft (WoW) servers

It is very amazing to find all those mushroom free World of WarCraft (WoW) simulated servers that have popped up all over the place in the last few years. Many are advertising with "stability" and "lagg free" and "PvE" in some of these voting websites. The real picture however, is totally different.

What is really happening is the following:

- Not being able to connect a lot of the time.

- Waiting for 20 minutes for the character screen or getting into the game after picking a character.

- Lagg related wrong monster position every time where a monster is showing in the wrong location which makes attacking and defending not fun at all. What you see is what you do not get. Wysiwydong. That last bit of that word namely "Dong" is the only thought about these issues.

- Most quests do not work. I understand that none of the server scripting is in place when importing the raw data and that is exactly why not everyone should have a mushroom server, rather combine skills and solve the issues.

- Stability does not exist. Good example: The Scapegaming server (formerly WoWScape) tends to go into a loop and stall and reboot once or more per day. I tried that one for a short while and gave up.

- Rollbacks kill your progress. Also with the Scapegaming server again as an example (there are others): I made a bit of progress, logged on about a week or two later and my character was missing some random gear, some of the inventory was gone and two levels were gone as well. This was not a rollback to a previous state, but rather a partial data change.

- Addons do not work. To be able to upgrade the simulated server does require some reverse engineering which does take time, which I can understand. Add here the fact that there are so many rubbish addons and many frameworks that cannot work together. Some published addons are made for certain game versions and there are no ways to really check this properly. Certain addons always get updated for the latest game client, but this means they break because the simulated server requires a slightly older version.

- PvP only servers marked as "Normal" or "PvE". Not all players want to play PvP (Player versus Player), some just want to enjoy the game and the rather flimsy storyline which needs to be guessed. Getting ambushed by a higher level character while trying to do a quest is not fun. It might be fun for the attacker who knows victory is more guaranteed than the sun coming up the next day. Not all players are professional all day and night hardcore players who just play one game for years.

- Everyone just wants the top end gear and not really work for it. Again this is for those lazy players who are already enjoyed much increased XP (experience) rate. They do not want to level up and do all the quests, they want instant best gear and highest level. There is no satisfaction in playing a game this way.

In the end it comes down to: If you do not want to have too many additional annoyances and actually have some fun, play on the real server.

German Karnival MatieKA coming again

The annual German Karneval in Stellenbosch called MatieKA is happening as most of the time at the beginning of August. The main event is this year on 1 August, it is always on a Saturday.

As always, the main event is a costume party. Some people don't bother to dress up. There is always a theme for the entire event. To fit in with the theme, I was a nun last year with a mask with the appropriate padding to have a different realistic looking face to fit the costume. I quite enjoyed looking like a female character for a change which also got quite a bit attention. I might do that again just for the fun of it. This year I am considering pirate costumes or possibly Power Rangers.

Harddrive partition suddenly gone, doing recovery

I tried some odd software to see it it has the option to resize a partition. At this point in time I was just looking, not doing anything. This software decided to go and kill my partition, or at least make it not usable by the operating system, and it installed itself as bootloader. To make matters worse, its partitioning part just brings up a grey screen and a lot of drive activity with no indicator about what is going on. This tool is called VCOM Partition Commander version 8. Some people tell me it works fine when you boot it off a CD (provided we are talking about the same tool here). At this point in time, I do not want to take more risks of losing more data.

Last night I started the data recovery process using R-STUDIO network edition. It scanned the files all fine for recovery purposes, but unfortunately cannot recover the structure and proper filenames.

Many requests for a Barney costume

Latey I have been getting a lot of requests for an adult Barney costume for children's birthdays. Usually these are two to three year olds. Most people are happy if they can find something that sort of looks like Barney, at least what the colour concerns. Unfortunately there is a legal issue with that character and there is no way to get an official character performer for half an hour to maybe up to two hours. This is a pity, because the character is very popular amongst kids.

Children's birthday party in dinosaur costume

This last Saturday I was asked to be in a dinosaur costume at a children's birthday party. The first half an hour went fine, kids were bugging me the whole time. The second half an hour became quite hot and I had sweat dripping off my nose inside the suit. When I finally got out I was wet all over.