It’s all in the cards, 4 x 2, limping in the morning running in the afternoon

Yesterday I was surprised to see an email from Blizzard offering entry into the closed beta of Hearthstone, a card based videogame that is based on WoW, the MMORPG I have played since 2005.   These type of games have a huge geek/nerd factor. Most people have heard of Dungeons & Dragons or Magic the Gathering. Well Blizzard decided to make their own slick interpretation of these type of games and as usual, has delivered a superior product.

Hearthstone is a game that is easy to learn but difficult to master.  There are complex strategies that can be utilized to gain an advantage but plain old dumb luck can be just as powerful at times.

I installed the game yesterday and played through a few of the tutorial games.  I picked up the basic rules pretty quickly.  The game was quite fun and enhanced by the audio/visual flare that Blizzard is so adept at incorporating into their games.  The best part of all is Hearthstone will be a “free” game, sort of.

You can play Hearthstone for endless hours and never spend a penny.  As you play you will be earning additional cards for your collection to be used in game.  However there is also the ability to buy card packs to quickly amass a large collection without investing an equally large amount of time.  So despite the game being free, Blizzard in reality will make a TON of money from the game from a gaming community that will be eager to lay out real world dollars at the chance to score some rare, epic, and legendary cards in a hurry.  If you want to join the fun, check out this link.

Yesterday Jeremy and I were talking Quad Copters.  He had recently bought one and was telling me how he has gotten pretty good at flying the copter indoors.  He even sent me a brief video demonstrating his flight skills.  I was surprised his X1 looked nearly identical to my Blade MQX, especially when Jeremy told me the price of it, 25% of what the Blade MQX costs!

Jeremy sent me some reviews of the copter which indicated it was a great value and actually was more suited for indoor flight due to it’s more tame control scheme.  Well for $35 I was willing to find out.  It shows up tomorrow.  Maybe I will teach Cindy how to fly as well.

So when I got out of bed yesterday morning I had pain in my knee that was causing a limp however it subsided within a half hour or so.  Well I decided to go to the club social run after work, despite my on again off again knee issues, figuring if it started hurting I would stop, if it didn’t I would keep going.

Cindy was there and ran with me.  I used a moderate pace throughout, only accelerating the last half mile or so of the roughly 2.5 miles we covered.  My knee held together and I only had minor soreness afterward.  I guess I can call that a win. Today is leg day at the gym so that should do a good job of testing the joint out further.

Last night I wound up driving Cindy’s Miata home, her brake pedal is feeling a bit soft.  I let her take the Tacoma so I could take a look at the Miata brake pads.  I have a feeling it could use some new pads as well as a brake fluid flush/fill/bleed.  I think yet another auto maintenance video could be forthcoming.