I checked the health on the Calquat tree I planted yesterday. It took about 19 hours or so to fully grow and the XP rate is awesome at 12225.5 per successful planting and health-check.

The Calquat patch is quite a long walk away from any dock or teleport location so I suppose I won’t be harvesting the fruit or planting seedlings often. I will limit these trips to times when I’ll be passing through.

The fruit is of little use to me as I don’t brew beer. I depend on Arhein to supplement my daily pineapple harvests so using Calquat fruits to create super-compost is also unfeasible. I haven’t checked selling price at the G.E. yet to determine if these are great market items.

I purchased a hosting account and domain name from GoDaddy.com. I have imported all my blog entries from nndn.wordpress.com and am in the process of copying my Runescape photos and other content over to the new server. That’s the easy part. It looks like I’ll have to manually edit the links for posts with photos and that may take some time.  Currently all past photos are still hosted on the free WordPress service.

It is a headache changing from a free host.  I hope that the ability to customize the HTML coding as well as offer new features will make a more enjoyable read.  We’ll see how it goes.

Bare with me through the transition and welcome to my new site. Please update your links to avoid losing me in the future.  =)

http://www.fweese.com

See ya in the ‘Scape.

The 14″ Synaps LCD that my wife bought didn’t make it more than a week of use until it quickly died. I wasn’t surprised actually because it was practically junk out of the box. The shoddy design, low resolution and lack of any driver disc or support website made me a bit skeptical the first day. Then it began to flicker quite steadily and eventually just blanked out.

I read some reviews online about this particular model and I suspect that Walmart has been quite busy accepting returns.

Beware, if you’re shopping at that commercial one-stop-shop and come across the Synaps-brand 14″ LCD selling for a reasonable $149, your purchase may be anything but a bargain. It is a Walmart-exclusive item and obviously a purchasing manager made a big mistake.

She returned the defunct monitor this afternoon, added about $60 to her refund, and returned home with a 19″ Dell SE198WFP Flat Panel. I unpacked it and connected it to her computer and it is a dream!

—

In Runescape, I achieved 72 Farming! Woot–I’m a Calquat planter. I’m back to woodcutting, preparing to pass the 11 million XP mark.

Yeah, it was time to upgrade from my one year old notebook… this time I went for the more ’stationary’ setup, a Dell Inspiron 530 desktop model.

Specs, for you computer geeks:

Dell Inspiron 530

22″ Hi-Def Widescreen LCD Monitor
Intel Core 2 Duo E4500
2.2 GHz, 2MB L2 Cache, 800 FSB
2 GB DDR2 667 MHz
500 GB SATA HD 7200 RPM
16x DVD +/- RW Drive
Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 3100
Integrated 7.1 Channel Audio/Dell 225 Speakers
Windows Vista Premium

The computer I bought a year ago is still rather useful, but I decided to upgrade to Microsoft’s new Vista operating environment because I really like the cosmetics of it. The speed boost is really nice as well. The 22″ LCD really blows me away… I can actually have multiple browser windows open and visible simultaneously, quite useful while doing boring Runescape tasks like woodcutting or fishing.
I’ve spent a few hours transferring my files over my home network and also updating my wife’s new system. She decided in a moment of jealousy to buy a new computer as well…

eMachines W3644

14″Synaps LCD Monitor
AMD Sempron LE-1200 Processor
2.1 GHz, 512K L2 Cache, 1600 MHz Bus
1 GB DDR2
160 GB HD
DVD +/- Super Dual-Layer
NVIDIA GeForce 6100 Integrated Graphics
Windows XP

I have to review her computer setup though because she’s experiencing sporadic screen flicker and I’m not quite sure why that is. I read about something to do with a refresh rate–it lost me. I’ll probably call a technician.

Well, it’s here… actually Jagex released it several days ago but I’ve been too busy to actually sit down and tell you about it. Further, I don’t like to recant “yesterday’s news” but this made me laugh–as I climbed upstairs to banish the Wolpertinger, a vicious bunny-like creature…

The quest was very easy and quick to complete. Before even starting Pikkupstix’s task, I grabbed two wolf bones and stuffed them in my backpack after hearing they were required. I rubbed my Games Necklace and walked the busy path from Burthorpe to Taverly.

My reward, after summoning the dreaded Spirit Wolf:

I left thinking the initial 275 gold charms were an ample supply to begin with. I couldn’t have been more wrong. While making summon pouches I managed to reach several levels with the quest-rewarded charms but I quickly ran out and had to go on a major killing spree to earn more. The fact that charms are not tradable will make this skill one that cannot purely be bought which is a great challenge.

It will cost quite a bit to actually reach level 99 in Summoning and I’m not talking about cash, though you’ll need lots of that as well. Spirit shards are needed in multiples for nearly all the pouches and they cost 25 gp each, a drop two days after release from an initial cost of 50 each. Many slayer monsters drop charms of various colors so it is likely I will gain many levels in Slayer, a skill I’m not entirely fond of.

To receive a refund of some of the shards you bought before Jagex changed the cost, speak to Pikkupstix in Taverly. He will begin the conversation:

He refunded me 6,480 shards which was a nice surprise… a boost to get back to Summoning!

I reached level 30 this morning which placed me on the high scores. I doubt I’ll do much training on the skill until I can afford the costly shards and obtain more charms.

So, while working on generating some money, I finally reached a runecrafting level! My woodcutting, the primary way I make money, is stagnate at 97. I’m rather tired of wielding that axe right now.

It has been a rather disturbing past two days or so as I recover from the horrid hack on both my WordPress blog and my actual Runescape account itself. I will not give too many details other than to say:

(1) A prior post on my WP blog was titled “0wn3d”, infamously written in ‘hacker-speak’ and I attest that I did not post the entry, having been super busy outside of both gaming or keeping up with daily blogs/sites. I found the entry as an unpublished draft later marked Private on the ‘Manage/New Post’ page and am not sure if anyone actually had read it or not. What someone thought was a reference to my personal life clearly isn’t true and I suppose I need to keep more personal secrecy when it comes to the Internet. There was a personal congratulatory remark in closing which linked to a RS friends’ site–my only hope is it wasn’t some form of earmark for anything to come.

(2) While my Runescape account ‘fweese’ had been compromised, it seems as though there are no lasting effects… my trusty bank PIN seemed to keep all but my current equipped items and inventory safe. I lost my seasonal outfit (the noticeable Kyatt hunter gear), Cooking Cape and Gauntlets, Rune Defender and Magic Secauter. Those items are easily replaceble–God forbid if my entire bank was cleared out! Naturally I do often unequip and bank all items prior to logging out but as luck would have it, after experiencing no ill situation like this before, I placed a bit of faith that my account was fine. I think it hilarious that short of the Kyatt no other item was tradable–making for one very displeased hacker.  edit: My friend/ignore list was deleted and no notice yet from Jagex whether any reportable offenses occurred while I was away.

I initially suspended viewing of this blog–the reason for the censor was to eliminate any further attempts at exploiting information until some time passes, but why tuck tail and hide?

My own computer system is fine; a comprehensive virus and spyware scan turned up nothing. I am assuming there may have been a password capture of some sort on a shared machine. So the normal rigamarole of changing passwords and other security settings should suffice.

A drawback with WordPress is that whenever someone visits your blog their IP address isn’t in any way revealed to the blog owner unless they post a comment. I’m sure if I really wanted to I could contact WP and impress upon getting that information… I feel it would reveal in some way where the hack came from as a review of my blog traffic for about a week has shown ext. search queries like ‘fweese stats’, ‘fweese bank’, ‘fweese setup’, ‘fweese real-life’. Odd terms for a random visitor to search for and I should’ve considered it a flag that something wasn’t right.

This minor, trivial “hit” will not keep me from commenting on my favorite online game or out of touch with you. I’ll just be more cautious of posting ideas that may allow speculation of my personal life, career, and such.

Oh, and yes, I’m stiiiiillllll waiting for Summoning!

Happy New Year!

Such a festive first moment of the year!

I broke with tradition this year and celebrated with friends and family over, get this… a game of Scrabble while chuggin’ Budweiser. Do you know just how hard it is to concentrate on a game of Scrabble under the influence of alcohol? Words are easily more creative then–the kind of words where Mister Webster would look at you and say “WTF?” No matter.

Sadly this is the first year in a run of about seven that I missed seeing the bright crystal ball drop over New York on TV. =(

What does the New Year have in store for me? In Runescape, surely Summoning is but a short time away! I am also going to strive for 99 Woodcutting which will come soon and 99 Fishing will follow mid-year.

For now, though…

Great way to kick off the New Year!

Merry Christmas!

It has been a great two winters in Runescape… lots of fun. I wish you a very Merry Christmas.

I spent two hours handing out gifts in both F2p and my normal P2P neighborhoods (World 44 & 91)–a leap ahead of the coming 3K trade limits coming very soon. This I suppose will be the end of spreading Holiday cheer by handing over something nice to the unsuspecting few. It was great fun. This year’s “Ho Ho Ho” budget was 3 million in value to approximately 19 different players. I don’t mention this to brag or attract beggars–it was nice to do something like this for what may very well be the last.

It is break time, the final post of the year. 99 Woodcutting, 99 Fishing, Summoning and much more coming in 2008!

And the people you run into…

I’ve heard much of the Blessings clan. I myself am not much of clan type guy, but if I were, I would certainly hope that my application were approved. :p

Thanks, Leejasper… for sneakin’ up on me.  Catherby, ohh… good times.  =)

Yeah, folks… it’s nearly here, the new skill which allows you to ’summon’ animals to assist in different ways through the land of Runescape. It is just a few weeks away!

With the upcoming skill, there will be a new and exciting change to overall combat. The highest level attainable, level 126, will be increased to 138–giving the distinguished even more incentive to play. I suspected this would happen when I first heard that a new ‘combat-related’ skill was coming. It will be awesome to watch the race to level 138 combat!

The new skill will also require the completion of an introduction quest, “Wolf Whistle”–giving those Quest Cape holders yet another task to continue wearing their capes with pride.

Jagex has given us a small graphical update… next to the Magic Guild in Yanille, if you visit you’ll notice a small building with a cute little doggie on the sign above the locked door. As mentioned by Mat, if you venture onto the second floor of the Magic Guild, you’ll be able to view a glimpse of what’s inside if you move the camera angle just right.

Get ready, Summoning is more than likely just three weeks away!