The Goofy Wizard

GrandMaster Gardener

2011-01-08T22:47:00.000-05:00

A funny thing happend this week. I saw something flying around a young Elephant Ears. It looked like a pink wisp. I thought: How cool!

Level 2 pest in front of the tree above my head

I was wrong. It was a Ghoulish Wisp, a level 2 pest. Bummer, I thought it looked friendly... I had to run to the nearest mole to learn a new spell to get rid of it.

Oh yeah, I also made it to GrandMaster Gardener. Woot!

Looks like there is a bug in the badge display...

See you ITS!!

I am back

2011-01-05T22:29:00.000-05:00

Yes, I am back.

I don't know how frequently I will continue to post. But I will whenever I feel like it. I might also post on Facebook. Look for my picture under the name Giovanni Francesco (not my real name). Work is keeping me busy and most of my online time, I try to spend it in the spiral.

During the last holidays, Gilroy made it to Legendary and completed Celestia. Wow, we have been talking about Celestia for a long time and it's already done.

I have taken up gardening. It's more fun than I thought it would be. Mostly thanks to the Giving Tree that made me level up very fast. I am now level 9, Master Gardener. My favorite plant so far is the King Parsley. He literally rocks!! The Orange Dandelion is also very cool with its swirling pixie.

We can see the little pixie just above the Orange Dandelion.

I hope my next post will be won't take too long to come.

See you ITS!!

More Celestia

2010-10-16T21:51:00.001-04:00

Made it to the Floating island. Again, WOW, what a nice place! Look, my vampire is taking a stroll in this wonderful tropical forest. Though it's rather strange that a vampire would wander in a tropical forest in day light...

I also found this Treasure Card Recipe seller that has a very interesting recipe. Elucidate will reduce the pip cost of the target spell card by 2. Looks like we need to be GrandMaster Artisan to craft it though. I think that will probably be the first thing I craft as a GrandMaster Artisan.

There are also new potions that will increase Critical spells probability or increase Block probability. Vengeful Elixir will add 120 to Critical rating for one hour (No PVP) and the Elixir of Fortification will add 120 to Block rating for one hour also (No PVP). I found them very useful in my fight against Wildcrag. I have a feeling I will use a lot of those...

BTW, the roaming monsters on the island are quite difficult to handle. Some are over 1300 health. Good thing there was friendly wizards around otherwise I would have has a tough time.

See you ITS!!

Celestia is My New Favorite World

2010-10-13T21:41:00.002-04:00

Hello everyone! It's been a long time since my last post. Nothing much was happening in my Wizard City neighborhood. But now, Celestia is on the test realm...

My first impression is WOW, at the risk of repeating myself, KI have outdone it once more! Celestia is now my favorite world.

I did not have time to play as much as I would have liked. I just finished the Stellarium. It took me four attempts, but I managed to solo the instance (Thank you Death School). Loved it, the difficulty level is perfect, winnable but not at every attempt.

Took me a while to understand the "Critical and Block" concept. I am going to have to search for better gear again. I will have to sacrifice the high health and boost on Death damage.

Love the new school; I will have experiment more with those on the test realm.

So far I found only a small bug, the death shield are invisible. Can't wait for Celestia to come on live!!

See you ITS and especially in Celestia!!

Selena and Bejeweled

2010-09-11T18:49:00.000-04:00

This week, I have been hypnotized by the Facebook game Bejeweled. It seems I can't stop playing this game. I played well over 350 this week alone. The games last only one minute. After each game, it's like I automatically click on the new game button. :-(

I hope this crazy thing will stop...

I still got to go on the test realm and saved Selena a couple of times from the Crab King. After my fire wizard Jasmine freed her, Selena held a concert in her backyard theater at her Wizard City home. And Scooter the mander tried to show us his best moves...

Starlight Pony and Hydra Pet

2010-09-04T11:50:00.002-04:00

After a little break from the spiral, I am back in the game.

First of all, I would like to wish a very Happy Birthday to KI. You have created a great game and I am sure you will celebrate many many more birthdays.

Last weekend at the bookstore, I stumbled on the Sept/Oct issue of Beckett Fun Online Game Magazine (or FOG). So I brought it home and entered the code for the Starlight Pony and gave it to my fire wizard, Jasmine. I was a little disappointed that it was only a 7-day rental, but nevertheless I took nice pictures. The pony has the same color eyes has Jasmine's hair.

My balance wizard, Blaze Darkflame has now reached level 48 and has completed his quest for Power Nova and the Hydra pet. I took a picture of the balance spirit he summoned, but unfortunately, the event attracted a small crowd.

Blaze's next quest is to venture inside the Pyromancer's tomb so he can get enrolled in the Dragonspyre Fire School. Wish him luck!

See you ITS!!

Not much happening

2010-08-18T17:00:00.000-04:00

Nothing much is happening. I played mostly my Storm Wizard, Kyle Darkflame. He's now level 22. He just got his Kraken spell. Did Savarstaad Pass in Grizzleheim and now he's starting the Grand Arena in the Krokosphynx. Fizzle rate is quite annoying with Storm wizards. But since he's level 22, fizzle seem to have come down to a more acceptable rate.

Gilroy has found a new place to farm for gold. He does the first two level of the Warehouse. Each fight give him about 130 golds. It's quite fast too. He brings a small deck with only Scarecrows and blades. When everything goes well, it takes only two Crows to defeat the bad guys. The second fight is usually longer, the ice monsters will cast tower shields and the life ones will cast more desth shields. And then, I like to take a shot at Boss #1. The best I have done is kill the first two minions and half way to the last one. I am sure this is soloable. If only I could use blades.

My Wraith made it to Epic

2010-08-07T23:31:00.000-04:00

My Wraith, Lord Midnight made it to Epic. He's my second pet to get to this level after my Pioneer Dragon, Gizmo.

I am a little disappointed by his pedigree. Pip Boost is cool and is standard with all level 48 pets. But I am not sure that Efficient, Well Trained and Astute will be very useful. Except for racing, what will more intellect, will and agility do in a fight??

I am going to take a small brake from pet training. My next pet to be trained will probably be Lord Maximus, a Minotaur. Luckily, it already has a spell casting talent.

See you all ITS!!!

Renewed my Subscription.

2010-08-05T20:38:00.000-04:00

Just a quick post to let you know that I should be around for another year. I just renewed my subscription. I took up the offer of 1 year for $60. This limited time offer is ending tomorrow night.

I wish you all another magical year ITS!!!

Celestia Shark Pet Revealed

2010-08-03T12:51:00.001-04:00

Today, in a letter to inform us on her new role at KI, Dalia Falmea disclosed the picture of a new Shark pet.

When I first saw it, I thought it was a mount because of the saddle. I wonder if there will be a mount version? Although it could be weird to run around Mooshu on the back of a shark...

Woohoo!! Can't wait for Celestia!! Thank you Prof. Falmea and good luck in your new post at KI!

See you all ITS!

The Warehouse and Lego Universe

2010-08-01T00:12:00.002-04:00

Sorry I haven't posted in a while. Things at the office were rather busy. I had to do some overtime so I needed some time to myself. Now thing are back to normal. I need some vacation though...

The Warehouse

Gilroy has conquered the Warehouse! Thanks to Tavia Starcacher who happened to offer her help to complete our trio (Savannah Griffincloud, Llewella Dragonsond and I). Tavia had done it before, so she could coach us with the boss fights. Thanks for the tips Tavia!

I took us a little over 2 hours. But we managed to get the broken Spiral key. It was fun, but 2 hours is a long time.

Lego Universe

This week I was selected for the closed beta of Lego Universe. I tried it this afternoon. I can't talk too much about it, as I am probably under non disclosure agreement. First thing, I won't leave Wizard101 soon to Lego Universe. Second, the subscription is a little high for me.

See you all ITS!

Found my Blue Dragon

2010-07-12T21:35:00.000-04:00

My Blue Dragon is back!!

Found him in Marleybone. He had a small pouch hooked to his saddle with a note and 10K gold in it:

Hello!

Good news!! Your named item(s) have been restored (please check your backpack (or your bank if the backpack was full))! As a thank you for your patience through this, we've applied an additional 10000 gold to your character as well.

Happy questing!

KingsIsle Support

Thank you KI, I knew I could count on you!

See you all ITS!!

Another Update in the Case of the Missing Dragon

2010-07-12T12:56:00.000-04:00

Got another email from KI yesterday concerning my missig dragon:

Dear Wizards &/or Parents,

As you know on 7/9, during the restart of the game after a short maintenance window, some items were lost that had been in use or equipped just prior to the shutdown. We sincerely apologize and we promise that all individual claims will be reviewed and addressed.

So that we can quickly get your account back to rights, we request your assistance. Please provide the following information (we know some of you already have, but the succinct reiteration will allow us to quickly target your account):

1. Account Username: (No passwords please!)

2. Character Name: (if you have more than one character with the same name, please add in the school/level)

3. Specific Item(s) Lost: (If you are missing a pet, please provide the talents/level)

4. Specific Item(s) Lost:

5. etc.

A few additional notes:
a. This ticket will NOT automatically close
b. Please respond only to this email for this topic. Opening new tickets will require more time by the support staff to link your tickets together (and thus slowing down our ability to get your items recovered). If you have questions unrelated to this issue, please just open a new ticket/email.

We anticipate the full recovery for all impacted players will take a few days. Your continued patience & understanding is greatly appreciated.

Sincerely,

KingsIsle Support

I replied with the requested info. I am confident that KI will resolve The Case of the Missing Dragon!

I just hope they did not request the help of the old Sherlock Bones, he tends to give his tasks to young and unexperienced wizards...

Missing Dragon Update

2010-07-10T00:36:00.000-04:00

I just received an email from KI:

Hello,
Thanks for taking the time to submit this report. We're aware of the situation and are working to have it rectified in short order.

Thanks again!

KingsIsle Support

So if any of you are missing an item, KI knows about the problem. I would still suggest you report it. See Friendly's excellent post to see how to report a problem to KI.

Missing Blue Dragon

2010-07-09T22:36:00.000-04:00

Have you seen this Dragon?

He's missing from Gilroy's inventory.

I am pretty sure I had my permanent Blue Dragon ride when I first logged on this morning after the update. I had time to be on only a few minutes. When I entered the Storm School, I received a message that the servers were going to close in 5 minutes, so I logged of. When I came back tonight, My wizard was back in the Pet Pavillion like when I first logged on this morning. He should have been in the Storm School. I checked his bank and the shared bank, no trace of the Blue Dragon. My other wizards don't seem to have any missing items.

I tried exiting the game and logging back on, but it was not successful.

I contacted Wizard101's support. I hope they can find him.

See you ITS!

Someone tried to reset my password again

2010-07-01T18:49:00.001-04:00

Today, I received an email from Faculty@wizard101.com saying that I requested to reset my password. This is the second time this has happened. Last time was time, it was on March 6th. So I logged in my account with my real pasword to, like it says in the email, discard the temporary password.

You have requested a new password. To log into Wizard101.com the website or Wizard101 the game, you must first follow the instructions below:
(...)
NOTE: The temporary password will only be valid for 12 hours. Temporary passwords do not work on the game login, only on http://www.wizard101.com/.
(If you did not request a new password, please ignore this message and login with your existing password. The temporary password will be discarded.)

And I also changed my password for an even tougher one to guess. BTW, since some people seem to be interested in my passwords, here a hint for you: they all have at least 8 characters and include letters, both capital and lower, numbers and special characters. Yeah, they take time to type, but I feel safer!!

And again, to those people, I hope to defeat you ITS and IRL.

Gizmo is now Epic

2010-06-27T21:14:00.000-04:00

Gizmo finally made it to Epic! I have trained him without ever using crowns to speed up the process. With a perfect game and the best snacks, he would get 11 experience points. The Sizzle Smack Cereal were a real hit. Got the recipe from the vendor in Ravenscar.

And the best of all, he now has the ability to cast a fireblade! I can't wait to see Gizmo in action during a fight! Now, I just need to learn a few fire spells. LOL I know, I should have stick to Fire as a second school...

Here's now his full pedigree:

This afternoon, I played my youngest wizard, Valkoor Darkflame (Ice), level 10. I realized that I am not used to look after my mana. I went to face the Harvest Lord and I wondered why I could not cast spells higher that level 1. Silly me, I was about to file a bug report when I realized I was out of mana ROFL.

See you ITS!

Gizmo is half way to Epic

2010-06-24T12:59:00.000-04:00

Gizmo is well on his way to Epic status. Last night he passed the half way mark and this morning, he's at 588 experience points:

I hope I can reach the thousand point at the end of next weekend. This seems possible since today is a national holiday in my province and I took Friday off so I can have a four day weekend (Woohoo!).

Yesterday, we got a little tremor at the office. The earth shook for a few seconds. It was funny, almost everybody got out in the corridor and were asking "Is this an earthquake?". Not me though, I stayed at my desk and tried to "enjoy" it LOL. We so rarely get earthquakes here. That little baby quake made a lot of commotion. But I got to feel lucky that I can laugh at our earthquakes. It's not so funny in some places. My heart goes to the people in Haiti still living in tents.

See you ITS!

Seeing Double

2010-06-20T20:00:00.000-04:00

LOL I got two Gizmos!! Thought I would share this glitch with you.

Don't worry, Gizmo came back to normal as soon as I changed rooms. Oh look!, we can see my rug brigde.

Gizmo is resuming training

2010-06-20T11:37:00.001-04:00

After this week's updates, I have resumed Gizmo's training. He is slowly on his way to epic status. He is now at 240 experience points out of 1000.

This week, I am happy to add two bloggers as my in game friends. Earlier this week I met Malorn Willowsmith (aka The Sorcerer of the Spiral) and this weekend, I met Kestrel Shadowthistle from the Shadowthistle School of Wizardry.

These days, my time in the spiral is spent baking pet snacks, training Gizmo then farming for other pets or just gold to buy reagents for the pet snacks.

See you ITS!

Gilroy Darkflame is 2 year old

2010-06-12T11:11:00.006-04:00

Two years ago, I was looking for a new online home after Disney's VMK closed its doors. I had registered to beta test a new game, Wizard101. Here's my registration acknowledgment, received on May 31st 2008:

Congratulations, you are on the waiting list for the Wizard101 Free Beta Test at http://www.wizard101.com/.

You will receive another email when you have been accepted from the waiting list.
You cannot login to the website or play the game until you receive this second email.

In the mean time, visit www.Wizard101.com to see pictures, movies and downloads from Wizard101.

Thank you,

Merle Ambrose
Headmaster, Ravenwood School of Magical Arts

And two long weeks later, on June 12th 2008, I was admitted the Ravenwood School of Magical Arts:

Congratulations! You are one of the select few that have been accepted into the Wizard101 Free Beta Test at http://www.wizard101.com/!

You may now activate your account in order to login and download the game. Once you login, you can click the "Play Now!" button to download the game and begin playing. When you login to the game, you will use the same login and password you used for the www.Wizard101.com web site.

In order to activate your account and begin playing the game, please click here.

If you cannot click on the above link in your email client, you may copy and paste the following link into your browser:

http://www.wizard101.com/site/user/registration/validate

In order to change your account settings, please click on the "My Account" link on the web site.

Thank you,

Merle Ambrose
Headmaster, Ravenwood School of Magical Arts

When Gilroy was admitted, the admission test put him in the Death School. Then he chose Fire as his second school. Hence the name "Darkflame". He chose Fire mostly because he loved the Fire spells. But when the game was released, he decided to change his second school to Life. Because he had experienced the higher world like Marleybone and Mooshu and found them quite difficult. Now he wishes he had not done that. The game was made much easier since then. Who remembers Maleybone with no sidewalks? I mean, there was almost no safe area on the sides...

I still love this game so I am in no way planning to leave yet.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank some people who are part of this incredible experience:

Of course, everyone at KingsIsle for this awesome world!!
Admins and all members of Wizard101 Central for this incredible bank of knowledge.
The Friendly Necromancer for his wonderful blog.
Fallon Shadowblade for Diary of a Wizard ConnectX and event organizer extraordinaire.
Steve and Leesha for Ravenwood Radio, the best radio show in the world.
My friends from the DISboards, all former VMK citizens.
And of course all the bloggers out there who all contribute to make Wizard City a wonderful and friendly place.

So see you ITS for a long time!!

PLOX!!

Gizmo made it to Ancient

2010-06-06T22:22:00.002-04:00

After some hesitations, I finally made Gizmo graduate to Ancient. He got two more talents: Intrepid and Slick-N-Slide. Intrepid is only a rare talent and it add +25 to the max running speed ( I guess) and +15 Max power. Not sure what it means exactly though... As for Slick-N-Slide, it's an Epic talent and it puts an oils slick on all four lanes in the derby.

I would have prefer to have the Epic Talents on the "Wizard side". Not sure I will race a lot. And those derby talents are more useful when I have the lead on the second lap. So I got to make sure I have the lead soon.

Anyway, Gizmo is still my favorite pet!

See you ITS!!

PLOX!!

My First Rug Bridge

2010-06-05T20:15:00.000-04:00

Wow, what is happening to me? Another blog post!?!? LOL

Thanks to Jessica Fairyheart's guide, I successfully made my first rug bridge. Jessica made an excellent video explaining in details how to do it.

OK, I agree, this is not much of a bridge... lol. But hey, I made it myself! When I have time to shop, I'll make it bigger. And I got to find me some crates to make it go up. BTW, where do I get crates? I have only one.

Thanks Jessica!

See you ITS!

PLOX!!

Within an inch from Ancient

2010-06-05T11:11:00.002-04:00

Wow, another post... I am on a roll!! LOL

This morning, I got up early to take advantage of a less crowded game. I was able to solo a few times Keruvian Scargiver. Unfortunatly he kept his pet for himself. But I did manage to teach him a lesson of two.

I aslo continued Gizmo's training. He's now three point away from Ancient. But now, I am not sure when I will get him to Ancient. I tried a few pet races with theses stats and he's unbelievably faster than most other adult pets. I am afraid that when he graduates, he'll be a weak Ancient instead of a strong Adult.

Oh yeah, now that his Intellect is full, I started feeding him Cherry Pies and he loves it!!

See you ITS!!

PLOX!!

The Game has become so crowded

2010-06-05T00:11:00.001-04:00

I have never seen the game so crowded. Looks like a lot of people like the new pets. I hope KI will add more servers. My friend Llewella Dragonsong and I had trouble to find a spot to farm Scargiver in Plaza of Conquest tonight for the Death Minotaur. There is also a lot more lag especially in crowded rooms.

I also continued to train Gizmo. If all goes well, he should make it to Ancient tomorrow.

Only 81 point to go. Above, you can the result of a perfect Maze game and a 7 Layer Taco!

See you ITS!!

PLOX!!

Crab Pet Woohoo!!

2010-06-02T20:44:00.000-04:00

As soon as I heard about the crab pet, I sent Gilroy farming the Crazed Spirit. It took me about 10 tries to get it.

For now, Lord Simon gives only a Storm Minion spell. I can't wait to see what he has in store for me.

In the mean time, Gizmo, my Pioneer Dragon is now at 209 point, on his way to Ancient status. Those 7 Layer Tacos are working very well.

See you ITS!!

PLOX!

Increasing Mana Gift

2010-06-01T22:01:00.002-04:00

I was surprised to notice tonight that Gizmo's Mana Gift talent is increasing as he gains experience. See here, he has a +47 Mana Gift before a mini game:

After the mini game, the Mana Gift has increased to +48:

Wow, that's so cool!! I was a little disappointed with this new talent, but this is much cooler.

As you can see, Gizmo is already at 133 experience points two day after making it to adult. Making 500 experience points seemed a lot at first. Now, I think Gizmo will be Ancient by next weekend. Not too bad :-D

As for the Stonewall talent, not as cool as I thought. I was expecting the wall to appear behind Gizmo in the race. But it seem to appear at a random place on the course. Maybe with more experience it will get better.

See you ITS!

PLOX!!

Gizmo is now an adult

2010-05-30T22:31:00.002-04:00

Tonight, Gizmo, my Pioneer Dragon, made it to adulthood. He got two new talents: 35 Mana gift and Stonewall. Stonewall is an Epic talent that builds a four lane brickwall. Can't wait to go try it out in the derby.

The best snack for him that I found so far is the 7 Layer Taco. He likes it and gives him 5 experience points. It's a recipee I got from the DragonsSpyre Recipee vendor. It's not expensive to make, the reagent are easy to find and gives great return.

Not sure what I am going to do next, continue training Gizmo or raise my Wraith to adult...

See you ITS!!

PLOX!

Blue Dragon!!

2010-05-28T20:01:00.001-04:00

The new updates are now online and Woohoo!! Gilroy finally got his permanent blue dragon!!

His pockets are 85K gold lighter, but he got what he wanted.

I did not get to try the test realm as much as I would have liked to. But I was happy to see that some of my pets had a nice pedigree.

Gizmo, Gilroy's Pioneer Dragon has a pedigree of 59. That seems to be quite a lot. And it's higher than my Wraith.

Another surprise was my minotaur, Lord Maximus, he got the ability to cast Myth traps. Although I don't have any Myth spells, I will definitly try some fight with him at my side, just to see him cast a spell. :D

OK, got to go train Gizmo! See you ITS!!

PLOX!!

The Goofy Wizard is 1 year old

2010-05-18T22:06:00.010-04:00

May 9th last year was my first post. I can't believe that one year later I am still blogging. Not often enough, I agree, but I am still here.

Happy Birthday Goofy Wizard!!

I have been busy at work lately and most of the time I had, I spent playing Wizard101 instead of blogging. Since my last post, Blaze Darkflame is now well into Dragonspyre and he is now level 45. A whole new set of nice gear is avalable to him, Woot!

I am kind of glad the new pet enhancements are not coming to the real servers since I don't have much time to play.

Advanced Power Pets!!

2010-04-28T18:48:00.003-04:00

Woohoo!! Advanced Power Pets are coming soon to Wizard101!!!

Look at Wizard101's web site for more details and a short video:
https://www.wizard101.com/game/advancedpowerpets

Set your pets free to roam your Castles & Lands.
Get your pets some exercise in the Derby.
Buy or craft them treats to make them happy.
Let them have some fun in the Mini-Games.
Create new pets with the magic of Hatching.
Watch as your pets cast their own spells in battle.

I don't usually post about KI's announcements, but this is too huge! :-)

I just can't wait. I hope there is enough room in my Mooshu Palace to let my pets go as they please.

WOOHOO!!!

Introducing Blaze Darkflame

2010-04-26T19:46:00.002-04:00

After Jasmine completed the main storyline and made it to GrandMaster, it's now time to introduce my next wizard, Blaze Darkflame from the school of Balance. I chose Death as his second school, for now he has leaned it up to Vampire.

I have been playing him on and off for a long time. Last weekend, Blaze beat the War Oni and got to level 42. So he was able to learn Hydra, WOOT!!

He already had one Hydra spell from his Master's Hat of the Hydra, a handme down from his big brother Gilroy. These old crown items are quite awesome. Gilroy was able to buy a few first generation crown items during the short time we could buy them with gold. And they are helping a lot his younger brothers and sister.

GrandMaster Pyromancer Jasmine

2010-04-13T22:49:00.000-04:00

Woot Ding!! Jasmine made it to GrandMaster!!

After doing the side quests of the three areas of the Athenum in Dragonspyre, Jasmine is now a GrandMaster Pyromancer. She's now my third GM. Here she is with her new black and gold GM outfit. Her Malistaire robe is a gift from my main wizard Gilroy Darkflame.

Jasmine's next goal: Grandmaster

2010-04-06T22:21:00.001-04:00

Jasmine is very proud of her victory over Malistaire. But she's still level 49. She did skip the side quests in Dragonspyre but so did my second wizard Liam Hawkheart and he was GM when he faced Malistaire. I find that odd... Anyway, Jasmine is back in Dragonspyre to finish cleaning up the streets LOL. She's done with the Tower Archives. Plaza of Conquest is next and about 16000 xp to go!!

Jasmine finally gets Malistaire

2010-04-03T11:53:00.000-04:00

Jasmine, finally beat Malistaire late last night, making her my third wizard to defeat him. Thanks to three fellow wizards who were also looking for help to teach the old professor a lesson: Flint Stone, Evan and Olivia Willowthorn. We zoomed past the security and took him out!

Jasmine got a great reward. She managed to snatch a Chirping Staff from the bad guy. Not only is it cute, but it has an extra regular pip and does 90 Balance damage. Not bad for a little birdie...lol

In the mean time, Gilroy is waiting impatiently the new upgrades. The end of the summer seems like a very long wait to get our feet wet in Celestia. I hope I will like the new pets. But until now KI has done an awesome job, no reason it should change.

Password Security

2010-03-06T16:14:00.002-05:00

This afternoon, I received an email from Wizard101 titled Wizard101 Forgot Password Notification.

You have requested a new password. To log into Wizard101.com the website or Wizard101 the game, you must first follow the instructions below:

1. Write down or copy this temporary password: XXXXX
2. Go to the Wizard101 website in your Internet browser: www.Wizard101.com
3. Enter your Username
4. Enter the temporary password (XXXXX) in the password field
5. Click Login
6. Create a NEW password you will remember
7. Click Submit
8. Now you can use your existing Username and NEW Password to log into the Wizard101 game and Wizard101.com the website!!

NOTE: The temporary password will only be valid for 12 hours. Temporary passwords do not work on the game login, only on www.wizard101.com.

(If you did not request a new password, please ignore this message and login with your existing password. The temporary password will be discarded.)

Thank you,

Merle Ambrose
Headmaster, Ravenwood School of Magical Arts

It But I never requested to reset my password.

It could have been an honest mistake from someone trying to reset his or her password. But it could also be an attempt to steal my account. I just thought I would tell you in case it happens to you too.

Just to be on the safe side, I changed my password on both my Wizard101 account and my email account.

Here is what a good password is: It has to be at least 8 characters. It must not be a word in any language. It should include letters, numbers and other characters like !"/$%?&*(). A good idea is to use two words that don't belong together and add numbers and other characters.

Better be safe than sorry!

See you in the spiral!! PLOX

Female Mannequin

2010-02-07T12:37:00.001-05:00

Last night I finally finished my female mannequin. As I expected, the black pearl took a very long time to harvest. Transmuting helped, but needing 15 black lotuses for a single pearl still took some time.

Since I sell almost every piece of gear I get, I had to go to the Bazaar to dress her:

And I now have a trio of mannequin in front of my Mooshu Palace

I will now take a break from crafting. All this harvesting is getting boring.

See you in the Spiral!

Briskbreeze again!

2010-01-30T23:03:00.001-05:00

Yep, for a second week in a row, we did Briskbreeze tower. I played as Gilroy again with my DISboards friends. There was Jessica Blue (Ice), Kimberly Frostweaver (Ice) and Fallon Dreamweaver (Life).

During the second floor fight, my computer froze. I had to reboot and load the game again. First time this happens to me. Unfortunately, the game brought me back outside of the tower. My friends were kind enough to start over. A good thing we were not further up. Thanks guys for coming back for me! :-)

This time was a little easier since we knew Orrik Nightglider's tricks. Having two Ice wizards on board meant that he was hammered with Colossus, Frostbite and Frost Giant:

And in the end, we were again victorious. Probably a fizzle away from defeat, but still victorious!!

Malistaire went down again

2010-01-30T14:07:00.002-05:00

Last night we went to teach a lesson to our old nemesis Malistaire. Kimberly Dreamweaver, Rachel and I sent him up to his room for a little time out... Thank you ladies for the great time, and Bryan too, who had to leave after we pulverized the Gurtoks.

I had the last hit, a not too shy Vampire:

Kimberly also had her big hits; her Orthrus and Minotaur were very busy. And thanks to Rachel's blades and her Judge Judi.

Thank you, I had great time. I have another Briskbreeze run scheduled for tonight. I'll tell you about it later.

A Second Mannequin

2010-01-25T22:15:00.002-05:00

Yep, I made a second mannequin. It took me more time to craft this one than the first one. I harvested most of the reagents. Springs are sparse. Thank you for transmuting.

I now have two guards for my Mooshu Palace:

My next crafting project will be a female mannequin. I already purchased the 10 Seraph needed at the Bazaar for a total of about 1500 golds. I also bought the leather straps, I was missing about 24 of those.
The black pearls will be difficult. I will have to look at transmuting again. Ore and scrap metal will be much easier.

Again, I must say that mannequin should be able to wear wands and have a pet. The other unfortunate thing about mannequins is that I need to keep all those nice clothes I get. I can't sell them for cash anymore...

Conquered Briskbreeze Tower

2010-01-23T22:17:00.019-05:00

Thanks to my DISboard friends Fiona Green (Balance), Kimberly Dreamweaver (Myth) and Llewella Dragonsong (Life) we were able to rescue Lieutenant Culpepper from Briskbreeze tower.

It took us only 1.5 hour. Much less than we thought. But it was intense, a little more than I anticipated lol.

The first boss, Angrus Hollowsoul, was difficult. Before we finished him off, he managed to spawn two minions that we killed before they reach four pips and cast the 10,000 hit point meteor.

But that was nothing compared to the final Boss, Orrik Nightglider. At some point I thought we would not all survive. Especially Kimberly and Fiona that got hit by his 560 hit point per round Heck Hound. But thanks to Llewella and her healing abilities, we all got through safe and sound. Kimberly's Humongofrog and my Scarecrow were very effective, especially with with Fiona's well timed blades.

Here is a guide on Wizard Central that I should have read before hand: Briskbreeze Tower Guide. Next time, my deck will be loaded more appropriately.

And for my other friends who could not make it, I will be glad do it again.

Here are some pictures I got from our adventure (click on pictures to see full size):

At first it was easy.

Then we met Orrick Nightglider, the cheater

And we vanquished!!

Vasek Ashweaver met my Wraith

2010-01-21T22:15:00.006-05:00

I decided to go take a look at Vasek Ashweaver as suggested by The Friendly Necromancer. According to Friendly, this guy is the one to farm for necromancers. As usual, every one's favorite necromancer is right. As the next picture shows, my Wraith hammered the poor Vashek with a 10,568 damage hit.

Here is my recipe:

Feint (70%)
Life trap (25%)
Death Prism
Death trap from gear (35%)
Death trap (30%)
Curse (20%)
Dragonblade (30%) (Pioneer Dragon)
Spirit blade (35%)
Death blade (40%)
Wraith from gear (575 damage) (Malistair's robe)

And adding to all this, 30% more damage from my gear and the boost for attacking with a Life spell. I was lucky, he fizzled his debuff on me, so I had a clean shot. I don't have the Spirit trap, I could have added 30% more to this.

Woot for my personal record!!

I could easily defeat Vasek in around 5 minutes. And at the end, being a necromancer, I would be at full health. No need to look around for wisps, I just got back inside right away to face him again. Just this evening, I was able to get almost 10,000 golds.

Thank you Friendly, I this is really the place to farm for gold!!

Here's Friendly's blog: http://thefriendlynecromancer.blogspot.com/

My New Mannequin

2010-01-12T22:22:00.006-05:00

Woot!! I finally managed to craft a mannequin. Gilroy's Mooshu Mansion now has a guard at the door.

I was surprised of how low the selling value was in the bazaar. Just the recipe costs 5000 golds and I could have sold it only for 1200 golds. I am planning to make more mannequin, but they will take more than two days. I know have depleted my supply of all the reagents needed...

Kudos to KI for the success to the charity event. I am quite pleased that KI was serious about the charity. They could have just have given a percentage from the sale of a lame item. Not KI, they gave the proceeds of one of the coolest item in the game, the Meowmodon. Congratulations KI!!

Gilroy's new look

2010-01-11T23:06:00.009-05:00

Hello wizards,

Just a short post to show you Gilroy's new look. After a stop by the Seamstress and the dye shop, Gilroy transformed his Malistaire robe.

He's also started a new crafting project. He bought the recipe for a male mannequin. He's almost done. Only 7 diamonds and 1 spring to go.

How to Create a Windows Limited Account

2009-12-26T17:27:00.022-05:00

A fellow blogger recently had a problem with a virus that rendered her computer not boot able. Here's a simple trick to help protect your Windows operating system from being compromised. Last year our computers at home were infected with a virus that was not detected by regular antivirus programs. The only thing that would stop our computers from being infected was to use a non-administrative Windows user. That way, the virus was only able to infect files from that user not all the files. And most Windows vital files can only be written to by an administrative user.

Here's how to create a regular user in Windows XP. I don't have Vista or Win7 at home, but the procedure is very similar.

1- Using an administrator user, go to Control Panel.

2- Open User Accounts, and open User Accounts again in the next window.

3- Select Create Account:

4- Enter a name for the new user and click Next.

5- Be sure to select "Limited" then click on the Create Account button.

And now you have a brand new limited account to safely surf the net.

Things to know:

To install some add-ons to Internet Explorer, you might have to temporarily have to change the user to "Computer Administrator". Once installed, you can switch it back to "Limited".

If your computer was previously infected, the virus might have changed the permissions to the vital C:\Windows directory to full access to all users. Unfortunately, the Home version of Windows XP does not permit to see or change permissions of the files. If someone needs it, I will try to find how to do this, otherwise the limited accounts will have access to the C:\Windows directory.

Some antivirus programs will not permit to be managed by limited accounts. But they will work fine.

If you get a virus using your limited account, you just have to logoff that user and logon with an administrative account, copy the data files you want to save from that user, go to Control Panel and Delete the limited account that has the virus. And that should be enough. And create another limited account.

One more thing, since you might not use the administrative user very often, make sure to note the password and keep it in a safe place.

Safe surfing!

Jasmine's mount Rajah

2009-12-12T22:26:00.007-05:00

I could I have forgotten to talk about Jasmine's mount Rajah. She spent almost all her 90,000 golds to get the Bengal Tiger. Every Jasmine needs her tiger. And his name is Rajah of course.

Look at that cute tiger face!

Jasmine, my girl wizard

2009-12-12T16:02:00.003-05:00

OK, time to present my third wizard. At the time, I wanted my wife to get interested in the game, so I made a girl wizard. And since she's a big Disney fan, I tried to find a name related to Disney. The only name I could find was Jasmine. I made her a Fire wizard because I really liked Fire School during beta, I had to have a Fire wizard.

She is my first wizard without the ability to heal herself. I had to learn how to fight almost all over again. Instead of long fights, I had to make the kill as quickly as possible. I had to use more blades and traps. Also the spells in the deck need to be more carefully chosen to make sure victory comes as quickly as possible.

She is now level 47. Her brother Gilroy already got her the Malistaire robe. She can't wait to be Grandmaster and wear it.

Next time, I will present you my next wizard: Blaze Darkflame. He's Balance-Death and at the moment, he is making the streets of Marleybone safer.

How to see other wizard's stats

2009-11-22T18:44:00.008-05:00

I am interrupting my wizard presentation series with this little guide. Ever wanted to know what your friends or that wizard you just saw is wearing? A lot of people don't know that, so a thought I would show you how.

First, select a friend from your friends list or just click on a wizard around you, that you are curious about so that you bring his picture and menu on the upper right corner of your screen like this:

Now, click on the arrow on the lower left of the window. Look at the picture above, I have circled the arrow in red. You will then get the full specs of this wizard. See below:

The, you can click on the arrows on both sides of the title "Traits" to see which gear he or she is using. I have circled the arrows on the picture above:

And if you hover your mouse over the different items around the picture of the wizard, you will be able to compare your items with his or her's. In the picture, we can see that I have a pet Satyr and my friend has a Stormzilla. Looks like we both use our level 48 pet. Your gear is identified by the fist in the corner.

It's that easy...

Liam Hawkheart, Life Wizard

2009-11-14T18:45:00.009-05:00

Liam is my second wizard, he is Life-Balance. Life is the school I would have chosen first. But in beta, it was not possible to skip the admission test that selects your main school so I decided to stick with my test result: Death school.

With Liam, I could have soloed every thing up to Malistaire. When he calls in his minion fairy, he's almost invincible. Outside of PvP of course. With life school, fights are long but almost always easy.

He has finished Dragonspyre and is now starting Grizzleheim. I did not do any farming, so he's not as well equipped as Gilroy, but he is using old crown clothes from his big brother.

Both Life and death wizards fight are slow paced. Their attacks are not very strong, but with their high healing capacities, they can take quite a lot of damage.

Liam is my first wizard to get a mount. The black stallion was purchased for 70,000 gold. I have not purchased crowns yet. My wizard get rich rather quickly. I rarely buy things and they sell almost all the gear they get from drops that they don't use. My next wizard is Jasmine. She just purchased a Bengal tiger for 90,000 gold. I will tell you more about her in my next post.

Gilroy Darkflame, Death with an Ice ring

2009-11-09T21:14:00.010-05:00

Gilroy is my main wizard. He is a Grandmaster Death with Life as a second. He's been my main wizard since I started playing Wizard101 in beta, in June 2008. During the beta period, he was Death-Fire, hence the name Darkflame. He has been through a few wipes, and after the final wipe before the launch of the game, he switched his second school from Fire to Life. Since he likes to solo a lot, I was afraid he would have too much trouble in the new worlds that would be coming. It's a choice I came to regret, since he had no problem soloing using almost only his main school spells. I thought about changing back to Fire when it became possible, but it was expensive and housing was coming. Now that I have enough gold again, the mounts are here...

I am proud of Gilroy, he as been everywhere in the spiral and done every quests possible.

The Ice ring

Gilroy has a secret. He's probably not the only one, but still there must be a few like him. He is a Death wizard and he wears an Ice ring. Yes, he is wearing the Rime-Edged ring with +277 max health and +170 max mana. I have been asked that question a few time in the game, how come a Death wizard wears an Ice ring?

When Dragonspyre came out, KI forgot to make the new DS rings school specific. So at the time, He went to the DS ring store and bought the most powerful ring available. A few days later KI made the correction, and Gilroy was still wearing the ring. So the ring was now school specific but he was still wearing it. The only problem is, if he ever removes it, he won't be able to put it back on his finger. Since then, I have never found a Death ring as powerful as this one. Until he does, he will continue to wear it.

Gizmo

Gizmo, the pioneer dragon, is Giroy's favorite pet. He also likes Lord Midnight, his wraith pet. But the Gizmo reminds him of the adventure of beta testing. Pioneer dragon were given to the beta tester just before the game the game was open to public.

Next post, I will present my second wizard, Liam HawkHeart.

Crown Shop Bug FIXED

2009-11-07T16:47:00.005-05:00

Just a little note to say that the Crowns Shop bug is fixed, at least for me. This fix came with yesterday's update.

My second wizard has bought a Black Stallion with gold. He's my only wizard with a mount. My main wizard, Gilroy Darkflame has enough gold for a permanent dragon, but he wishes for a blue one. And it's not available as permanent.

My next post should be to present you all my wizards. I currently have four wizards (Death-Life, Life-Balance, Fire-Ice and Balance-Death) I feel the time as come for a fifth one. And I think he will be Storm.

Easier Marleybone streets

2009-11-01T19:24:00.005-05:00

My fourth wizard, Blaze Darkflame, made it to Marleybone today. He's Balance-Death. Of my four wizards, he's the one who had the less difficulty with Krokopatra. At this time she's still wondering what happened... He really kicked her ...beep... Well, he did have a secret weapon. Blaze is wearing one of the first generation Crown hat with Judgement. That spell can really it hard.

OK, to the point of this post. Has he made his way in Hyde Park, I noticed that our friends at KI made it easier for the new players in Marleybone. The Monsters on Hyde Park are walking much more in the middle of the street, leaving a space on both side wide enough to pass, just like a side walk. I don't know if they also changed the other streets, but if people are still complaining now about the missing sidewalks in Marleybone, they should have seen it before...

I remember my first time in Hyde Park, back in beta. I go caught the moment I set foot on the street. That was mad. Since then I had noticed that they made it easier, but what I saw today, is really child's play.

I still don't like Marleybone, too dark of a place. I will report back with what I think has changed.

Crown Shop Bug

2009-10-31T18:56:00.004-04:00

I don't know if you have heard about it. Some people don't see the description and price of the items in the Crowns shop. Here's how my Crowns shop looks like:

I reported the bug to KI. But recently I discovered a workaround. On my computer, I always use a user without administrative permission. But the other day, I tried to play Wizard101 on my administrative account. And I had the surprise to see that my Crowns shop was not bugged. After promoting my usual user to administrative permission, it was working too. Removing the permission, the bug returned. I updated my support ticket with KI with that information. Mr Lincoln replied to my saying that information was very interesting.

A few days later, on Wizard101's forum, Mr Lincoln said:

**UPDATE** Seems we may have tracked down the problem and we are testing it
internally to make sure that it fixes the issue with the missing text on the
Crowns shop, without breaking something else. Please be assured that we will
keep you updated on the progress. Thank you to everyone who helped us
troubleshoot, as it initially seemed like a very hit-and-miss problem.

So be patient, a solution is coming.

Master Artisan!

2009-09-25T23:31:00.003-04:00

Yay! Woot! I finally made it Master Artisan.

I don't know how, but earlier tonight I finished crafting the last bookcase. In about two hours I managed to find five Blood Moss and three Black Pearls. That must be a record, at least for me.

After that I wanted to craft something for me. I would have love to make the carousel, but it needed a lot of Black Pearls but I was sick of those pearls...lol. So I decided to make the Wyrm-Crowned bed. It did not need anything rare and it was my second favorite item. So here it is:

I was a little disappointed to see that it was smaller than the regular beds, but it still looks great. Not sure I will craft more, but at least I can craft what ever I want now. We'll see, maybe some cool recipes will come out in the future.

An Exhausted Wizard

2009-09-21T19:41:00.010-04:00

This wizard is exhausted from searching all the reagents needed for the crafting quests. Gilroy still needs 9 Blood Moss and 8 Black Pearls to complete the last crafting task; the 5 bookcases.

I tried to encourage him with a big ice cream sundae, but it does not seem enough.

Wizard City needs an Ice Cream Parlour... That would probably give Gilroy what he needs to finally finish this quest...

Come on buddy! You're almost done!!!

The difficulty of writing in a foreign language

2009-09-07T07:02:00.003-04:00

I could have titled this article "The frustration of writing in a foreign language". It has been much more difficult than I expected. I realized that my vocabulary is much more limited to information technology than I thought. At work, I have no problem writing about an IT subject in both French or English.

My blogging is very different from what I am used to write. And writing is much more different from speaking than I thought. Aside from the more elaborate vocabulary for writing, I always found it difficult to express feelings and emotions, even while speaking in English. The extremes are easy to express. The good and the bad or the black or the white are easy. What is difficult is all the shades of gray between the extremes. As a result, I feel that I am writing like a five year old with an elaborate vocabulary...

This does not mean I will stop blogging. But for time, I think I will limit my subjects to the ones that I feel more comfortable writing about. In the mean time, I should also begin to read English books that are not technical manuals.

Old Trades and Traditions Festival

2009-09-06T23:00:00.002-04:00

Today we went to the "Festival Métiers & Traditions de Longueuil" which translates to "Old Trades and Traditions Festival". It is held in a park in old Longueuil during the Labor Day weekend. There was a blacksmith, a candle and a soap maker and all kind old trades that were the high tech of my grand parents. The temperature was ideal so there was a lot of people. Most of the time it was difficult to watch the demonstrations. There was so many people with their dog, that sometimes I felt I was in a dog show lol.

There was an ice sculptor. He was keeping his ice in a mini barn covered with saw dust, just like they used to do before freezers. They would cut the ice from a lake during winter, put it in a barn and covered with saw dust. The ice would stay frozen all summer long and until it was cold enough to cut more ice the next winter.

Saw dust covered ice blocks

My wife was more interested by the doll and candle makers. As for me, I liked the ice sculptor and the blacksmith. The few hours we spent there were very pleasant and interesting. I just wish the booths were identified. With so many people, it was difficult to see what were the demonstrations about.

Black Pearl Day!

2009-08-30T22:50:00.002-04:00

This weekend I felt is was time for Gilroy to resume looking for black pearls. Well, it was a good feeling. Yesterday, he found two black pearls. I thought it was pretty good. But today was exceptional. He found six black pearls. Yes, I said six including one he purchased from the Bazaar. With those pearls, he was able to craft his second tunic for the Dragonspyre crafting quest. And I even have three out of eight black pearls for the third tunic.

I hope to be able to keep up this pace. WOOT :)

A New Name

2009-08-15T19:48:00.012-04:00

Hi all!

I finally found a name for my blog: The Goofy Wizard. And a new name also comes a new look. Since in Wizard101 I am a Necromancer, I thought black was in order.

Speaking of Wizard101, I have been taking a break from the game this week. Searching for all those reagents was getting boring. So I am taking a small break before I get to hating the game. I will be back soon looking for black pearls again.

In the future, I will probably write more about Wizard101 but I will also continue to write about things in real life.

Like last night. I spent last night in a sleep clinic. I had what they call a polysomnography. I spent the night hooked up to a dozen electrodes that were monitoring my physiology during my sleep.

My doctor sent me to pass this test because I was complaining that don't get fully rested after a night of sleep, even if I feel I have slept well. And also because my snoring makes it difficult for my wife to sleep.

So, I arrived at 9pm last night at the clinic. The inhalotherapist showed me my room. I was surprised that it looked more like a hotel room with a real bed and not an a hospital room. I had a questionnaire to fill and the inhalotherapist briefed me on how the night will go. Then he installed the electrodes on my head, face and neck. The whole "hookup" procedure takes 45 minutes. Once in bed I had two more electrodes on the legs to monitor leg movement and a device in my nose that would detect if I was breathing through my nose or mouth. Then he made me test the electrodes. He made me move my eyes sideways and up and down. Breath by my nose, my mouth and even snoring. Move my feet one at a time.

Now came the time to go to sleep. Normally I should have fell asleep in minutes like I normally do. But I think I was a little nervous. It took me two hours to finally sleep. So I had four hours of sleeping time. In the morning, the inhalotherapist told me that he monitored some episodes of sleep apnea. But the data would have to be analysed and that my doctor should receive the report in about ten days.

Sleep apnea happens when the air ways are blocked during sleep and thus causing micro wakeups that are preventing the subject to go into deep sleep. And without deep sleep, there is much less resting.

So I should know more when see my doctor with the report. I will keep you up to date on this subject after I meet with my doctor.

In the mean time, sleep well!!

Black Pearls

2009-08-08T22:41:00.004-04:00

Today I bought the Beckett Massive Online Gamer Magazine and got my Umbra Sword. It looks awesome, but I wish it would be more powerful. It gives five cards of 75 death damage and no extra pip.

I finally managed to find eight black pearls to craft my first death tunic. Those pearls are really hard to find. Tonight I found three pearls, that's my all time record. I usually find none or a single pearl per day. More and more people are looking for them, I will have to find a way to get on the game outside the busy hours to get more chances to find one.

Fiddler on the Roof

2009-08-01T20:09:00.005-04:00

My wife got free tickets again. Today we saw Fiddler on the Roof. The show was in french so the title was "Un violon sur le toit". It was part of the Just for Laughs Festival. Even if the festival itself is over, some productions continue to play.

The show was at Salle Pierre-Mercure. We had to plan how to get there, since there are three festivals this weekend in Montreal and a lot of streets are closed. There is Diverscité, a gai festival, Osheaga, a music and arts festival and Les francofolies, a french music festival. Our plan was good and we got there with time to spare.

When we entered the theatre, it was very cold. But when the show started, we warmed up quickly. It was the first time a saw Fiddler on the Roof. I found it very entertaining and also instructive. I did not know the Jews were driven out of Russia by order of the Tsar. I thought it was only after Staline took power.

The actors were excellent. Most of them are well known local actors. I did not know Martin Larocque (Tevye) could sing that well. Golde, the milkman's wife was played by the always excellent Linda Sorgini.

Tevye (Martin Larocque) and Golde (Linda Sorgini)

At the end, the actors got a well deserved standing ovation. We had a great time. After, we decided to go back home for dinner as Downtown Montreal was very crowded.

Washing Machine Repaired

2009-07-18T19:33:00.006-04:00

Yes, I finally repaired the washing machine. I thought of an easy thing to do. I cut the wire with the faulty connection before and after the multi wire connector. I connected the cut wires together bypassing the connector:

The faulty connector is the white and green block in the background, attached to the main motor. In the foreground is my bypass connection.

It was so easy, I should have thought of this the first time...

Brazil Brazil

2009-07-15T22:37:00.008-04:00

This afternoon, my wife got her hands on a couple of complimentary tickets for a Brazilian dance show, Bale De Rua. The show was at Place des Arts downtown Montreal. It is part of the Just for Laughs Festival (http://www.hahaha.com/en/).

The show was great, full of energy. It even woke up my very hidden rhythm gene, LOL. I don't know why, but the audience seemed not to respond very well. The dancers tried to make people clap hands and sing with them, but the response was very shy. They danced on all kinds of Brazilian music. At the end, the audience gave them the ovation they deserved.

They really brought some sunshine in our miserable summer. Here is a video I found on YouTube:

It would have been a perfect evening if it was not for a flat tire on our car. The front-right tire was completely flat when we arrived in the interior parking. It could have been worse. We could have been outside in the rain... So I put the spare tire, you know, the one you wish was the same size as the others when you need it. Then we headed home slowly. In all we had a great evening.

Good Night!

Washing Machine Repair

2009-07-02T18:02:00.007-04:00

I repaired the washing machine again today. I had repaired it last month, but I had not found the real problem. As I poked at the internal components, it started to work again.

So this time, I wanted to find the problem. I thought is was the control timer. So I got a another one ($25 used part). But the washer was still not emptying... :(

The guy who sold me the timer told me that timers were rarely faulty on that model. He told me to investigate the lid switch. This is the switch that stops the machine when the lid is open. I checked it, but it looked ok. So I decided to take a look at the wiring diagram that I found inside the machine. I found out that the lid switch was connected to two places: the control timer and the main motor. I knew the timer was working fine. So i decided to check on the electrical harness at the motor. I wiggled it a little and the machine started to work again. WOOT!! :)

Here is the culprit:

Since the repair shop was closed at that time, I decided to leave the faulty part in so I could close it up for the night.

Our washer/dryer set is 17 year old. My wife wants new ones. So we'll see later if I change the part or if we buy new machines...lol Our fridge and stove are even older. We are definitly due for new appliances... But i love taking things apart. I won't be alowed to play inside new appliances...

Take the bus!

2009-06-22T09:56:00.002-04:00

De Lijn - Pinguins - Watch more funny videos here

Focus Group

2009-06-17T07:55:00.005-04:00

Last night, I was invited to a focus group for a new ad campaign for a major Canadian cell phone company. As much as I despise publicity in general, I like to have the opportunity to give my opinion about it.

We were eight guests, 5 women and 3 men. We were presented a list of general ideas the company wanted to convey to the public. Then how these ideas would be conveyed to the customers. Each time we would tell the host how we felt about the different ideas. If, according to each of us, it was positive or negative.

The whole meeting was videotaped. There was a camera on top a one of the walls and microphones were hanging from the ceiling. The camera and microphones were very discreet and did not distract us at all. And on one of the walls, there was a large stained glass. We were informed that people were also watching us from behind the glass.

The two hour meeting ended on time and we were all "rewarded" with $80 cash.

Sorry I can't be more specific since we are under a non disclosure agreement. But I just wanted to share that I liked the experience

Broke my watch band again

2009-06-16T08:56:00.010-04:00

Hi,

I broke my watch band again. I don't mind the fact that those resin bands don't last very long (2 or 3 years). What bothers me is that I can't find a replacement band for a reasonable price.

I have a Casio watch that I like a lot. The problem with this watch is that it needs a specific band just for this model. I could find some on the Internet for about $22 including shipping to Canada. This might sound reasonable, but I can buy a brand new watch in a local store for the same price.

This will be the second time I buy the same watch, just because the band broke. So I will end up with three identical watches and two broken watch bands...

I know, I could buy another model. But I like the display on this one and I can't seem to find another one I like as much. And also, resin watch bands are the ones I find the most comfortable. Metal bands tend to get caught in the hairs on my arm. Not that I am very hairy... Leather bands are fine too, but they are very rare on digital watches.

I realize the is not an expensive watch and $22 is not the end of the world. But still, it's not logical to change watch because the band breaks. What about the tripple Rs: Reduce, Re-use, Recycle. This goes against the first two Rs...

As for Casio, even if I will be buying another watch, thumbs down to you.

Window Air Conditioning Unit

2009-06-08T21:58:00.006-04:00

Hello fellow followers... if there are any LOL!!

Today, I took a day off from the job to catch up on a few spring chores and install a brand new Window Air Conditioning unit. It's a big 10.5K BTU. I am happy with my purchase so far. The A/C unit is running very smooth and most importantly very cool. It is making less noise than our old unit.

My wife has submitted her application to be an Olympic torchbearer. If she's selected, she will carry the Olympic torch for the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics on 300 meters (328 yards). I hope she makes it: Good Luck!!

Spread the feeling

2009-06-04T17:47:00.009-04:00

I usually don't like publicity. But from time to time I find one that appeals to me. Since last week, we have these new Kraft Peanut Butter ads in the subway.

And there are a few more different ones. These ads are so simple and fun. By the way, sorry about the quality of the pictures, the train was shaking too much for my cell phone camera.

Kraft Peanut Butter has been par of my breakfast for as long as I can remember. So, i don't know why but this ad makes me feel good every time I see it :-) This is quite rare for me to really like an ad campaign so I thought I would share this with you all.

These ads are in French. The English version says "Spread the Feeling". And you can also help to spread the feeling by sending bear hugs. For every Bear Hug sent, Kraft give one peanut butter jar to a local food bank. If you wish to send a bear hug, go to this site:

http://www.kraftcanada.com/spreadthefeeling/

Thank you Kraft for the smile you put on my face every morning when I board the subway on my way to work...

Lawn mowing season :(

2009-05-18T20:27:00.002-04:00

Lawn mowing season is here again...

It was three weeks overdue. On some spots it was almost 10inch high. On the last weekend of April these spots were already high enough to be mowed. This is unheard of for me, mowing the lawn in April. So I waited until I had no choice but to do it... lol

We also bought the annual flowers for our backyard. Oddly enough the least expensive place had the best selection and quality. :-) The weather channel says to wait until next weekend to plant the flowers. There is a small risk of freezing this week. But the long term prevision seems to show that summer will begin next weekend.

Still not sure where this blog is going, so I don't know what I am going to write about next...

I am not even sure of how long I will be able to keep posting...rofl...

Cirque du Soleil's Ovo

2009-05-14T13:45:00.006-04:00

Last wednesday, i saw Ovo, the brand new show from Cirque du Soleil. The Big Top was setup in Montreal's old port. It was a sunny but cool day

As for the show, the performances were simply awesome. The action is in a world of insects. The costumes were stunning with bright colors. Since we were not allowed to take pictures inside, you'll have to go see them on the Cirque's website. http://tinyurl.com/cn83xb

The numbers i loved the most were the foot jugglers, the "couple on the rope" and the slack rope. The trampoline acrobats were also very exciting to watch at the end, bringing us in a big party finale!

Loved the show, go see it. I wish it comes to a town near you!!

OMG - What should I talk about?

2009-05-09T21:44:00.010-04:00

Hmm, what sould I talk about in my blog?

My first language is french, so I will do my best to write in english. I also know a little italian.

I am not used to writing. I never held a diary... I will try to talk a little about JGoof.

He was born in December 2006, somewhere during the Christmas holidays. He came to life in Disney's Virtual Magic Kingdom (VMK).

Although VMK's doors closed in May 2008. For me, only the doors between VMK and the real world were closed. In my heart, JGoof and his friends continue to live in VMK, it's just that this world is not accessible anymore for us.

Before I left VMK for the last time, I made sure to put teleporters in between most of his rooms and his friends' rooms too. That way they will be able to visit each other easily... His closest friends are RoseBonbon, PincesseMafalda, MickeyIsMyPal, Rajah, StitchFanPrincess and PrincesseMinnie.

After VMK was closed, i started looking for a new online game. Seems I was hooked to these games now... I tried Gaia. I named my gaian buddy Dagoof, since for me JGoof was staying in VMK.

Then in June 2008, I enlisted in a beta test for a new game: Ravenwood School of Magic Arts, I believe that's what it was called at the time. And now, this game is known as Wizard101. I have been hooked on that game since then. I haven't touch my Wii since...lol

I decided to take the name JGoof again, since I think i found a game worthy of his name.

I don't know where this blogging thing will bring me. Not sure which direction I will take, but anyhow, this is blog post #1 !!

BTW: You can also follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/JGoof

CYA later!!

JGoof