TOYRANT has a new home at http://toyrant.blogspot.com/

See you there!

Ok I have a little confession to make. While I love Dungeons and Dragons Online to bits, I have strayed a bit by playing other MMORPGs. I have tried Vanguard: Saga of Heroes, Hellgate: London, Age of Conan, and just a couple of days ago, World of Warcraft (WoW). Yes, WoW, the game I vowed not to play just because it's the most popular MMO in the planet. I will have to blame my friend Tim for making me play his character.

The game is similar in many ways to DDO and other MMOs in the market, and for the life of me, I cannot see how the game could reign supreme. Honestly, graphics-wise, I'd give my vote to DDO or Age of Conan. In terms of gameplay experience, I can say that it's enough to keep me hooked for a couple of hours. It's not as bad as I thought.

In any MMO, earning gold or plat at the early levels can be tough and it's usually a grind-fest. I do understand why people buy from online sites or gold farmers in the game. My friend Tim didn't have that problem because even before he got hooked to the game, he got hold of the World of Warcraft Gold Guide. He said everything he needed to learn to amass gold in WoW is in that guide. I'm surprised that he is not yet banned from the game. Then when I checked the site (see link), it says it's 100% legal.

I reckon it could be legal, otherwise, this guy who wrote the guide wouldn't be able to post a video and show some proof of what he had amassed in the game (gold, mounts, gears, etc.). DDO has relatively easier way to make money, but if you are a WoW addict, you'd probably be spending sleepless nights just to get 200 gold. I don't like grind-fest so if I decide to play WoW, I'd probably use the guide. For now, I'm sticking to DDO, where I have enough platinum to buy the stuff that  I need. So sad when your character is richer than you. Tsk, tsk.

The title says it all.



I'm too excited to actually give an objective analysis of the casting.

Ray Park as Snake Eyes...I'm not so sure.
Sienna Miller as Baroness...Yes!
Dennis Quaid as Gen. Hawk...Ho-hum
Chaning Tatum as Duke...Too young
Rachel Nichols as Scarlett...Why not?
Brendan Fraser as Gung Ho...Too much hair
Joseph Gordon Levitt as Cobra Commander (ok IMDB said that)...I'm thrilled.
Marlon Wayan as Rip Cord...Oh that Wayan brother
Byung-hun Lee as Storm Shadow...Not Bruce, not Jet
Christopher Eccleston as Destro...Might just work
Karolina Kurkova as Cover Girl...Can walk the walk, but can she act?
Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje as Heavy Duty...let me hear you say his name

This reminds of movies like Street Fighter and He-Man and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and DOA....I just hope to God that they don't ruin this franchise.

Hehe. I am not new to online business. In fact, at one point in Toyrant's life, there was an online and a real toy shop operating at the same time. The online toy shop was a disaster. and the offline shop was quite profitable until some big toy shop decided to burn Toyrant to the ground. So that left me with boxes and boxes of toys at home. I really don't have enough resources to set up another shop in some posh shopping centre, so what I'm gonna do is to sell the rest of my toy inventory on Multiply.com. The site is up but the toys are not yet displayed.

Bookmark this site: Toyrant's Toy Shop

Hey, you'll never know when you will get bitten by the toy shopping bug

Christie's had a Roman Glass gaming die up for bid back in December 2003. I only started playing Dungeons and Dragons Online (DDO) in 2006, so even if I saw this auction in 2003, I wouldn't be interested. Now that I am addicted to DDO, I take notice. In the MMO, every time you attack, you roll a virtual die to see how much damage you deal to the creatures. You can actually see this polyhedral die light up on your screen.

Here's the description of the die:

A ROMAN GLASS GAMING DIE
Circa 2nd Century A.D.
Deep blue-green in color, the large twenty-sided die incised with a distinct symbol on each of its faces
2 1/16 in. (5.2 cm.) wide.  Acquired by the current owner's father in Egypt in the 1920s.

I have always been fascinated with online jobs and online businesses. Of course there are more scams than there are legitimate businesses. The spams you get in your mail can be very annoying but there are a few spams that actually are useful information. Fortuner J has useful information on Squidoo about starting an online business without the headache. 

Fortuner J has been harping about The Fortune Key, which is actually a business formula that does not involve pyramid schemes, AdSense, online survey, and similar time-consuming online activities. This is actually making my spider sense tingle, but since there is a money back guarantee, there is little to no risk. Can you tell that I am already suckered into availing this program? We'll see if my online empire grows with this business formula. Gosh, I'm a sucker.

I am addicted to Dungeons & Dragons Online but I am still open to playing other MMORPGs. The other games I've tried bored me to tears, so I told myself that I am not spending more money on games unless they do a good job of holding my interest (and attention) for more than 2 hours. Good thing I have friends from high MMO places so I got myself Age of Conan for free (gotta love birthdays!).

Sadly, my game machine (aka laptop) is too archaic to play this game. I have to upgrade my graphics driver just to enjoy this game. Sigh. The game jacket looks nice. Don't you think?

I was cleaning out my toy closet when I saw a box containing body parts...plastic body parts. I put them together and it turned out to be a boxer. I'm pretty sure that this is from an anime show about a boxer. Unfortunately, I don't know much about anime, but I do know the show Hajime no Ippo. The question is, Is this Magunochi Ippo?

I have a borderline addiction to online games. It takes so little to make me try games. I spend more than 3 hours playing MMORPGs (Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games). These games are quite demanding and they require your 100% attention. Anything less than that and you will pay the consequences which may include character death or the occasional flack you get from insanely serious guildies. These things you don't need after a stressful day at work. What you need is a game that will keep your mind off things and just play in a relax mode. If there are game doctors, I bet they would prescribe Wixgame. It's an online flash game site that caters to gamers with varying tastes in online games.

While the games are not as complicated as MMOs, they still provide enough challenge to keep your brains and reflexes working.

You have several choices of game categories which include adventure, puzzle, aim and shoot, fighting, concentrate, car racing, jumping, dress-up, and room decoration. With a variety of games to choose from, you're bound to play one that will keep your interest for hours on end. The graphics are not shabby either. A lot of the games are quite old school, but the nostalgia factor is the main appeal of the games being offered in Wixgame. If you are a rather snobbish and only want games that you recognize, then you will have fun playing popular franchises such as Metal Slug, Fantastic Four, and Dragon Ball Z. On the other hand, if you want trashy celebrity games then I suggest trying The Federlines, it can't get any trashier. There's always something for everyone. Best of all, Wixgame is free!

Google is my default homepage for a year now. I don't want to change it because I use Google more than any other site in the worldwideweb. If you use it as much as I do, you will get tired of the boring design (or the lack of it). Sometimes I look forward to special occasions or holidays because the folks over at Google change their logo to be occasion-appropriate. It thrills for about 30 seconds, then it's back to boring homepage.

All that has changed when I accidentally found myself browsing Homepagle. With this great tool, I can jazz up my Google homepage. Unfortunately, it only works on Firefox. But that's not a problem for me because I love Firefox almost as much as I love Google.

Here's my Google homepage now. It looks a bit blurry. It's still better than boring.



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