saturday
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Netflix already stopped mailing DVDs on Saturdays, but you probably didn't notice
The USPS may not have gone forward with its plans to kill Saturday mail delivery, but Netflix isn't waiting. A few customers have noticed it's no longer processing shipments on Saturdays, opting for a five day schedule instead. Company spokesman Joris Evers tells Engadget that it's been transitioning in that direction over the past year and ended Saturday processing (usually a low volume day) entirely in early June. Longtime subscribers may remember that originally Netflix was a five day operation, and it only shipped or received DVDs and Blu-ray discs on the weekend over the past five years. These days, most of us are streaming so with all those options there's less pressure to get an item in the mail, but of course not everyone is happy. When weekend mail delivery came close to ending last year (various government committees have opted to keep it going), an AP article noted that it could actually save Netflix money by reducing the number of deliveries for heavy users -- because of its flat rate, they're actually less profitable. Now that competitors like Blockbuster are out of the way, there aren't many other options which is probably also a factor. Of course, we can't blame Saturday deliveries (or the lack thereof) for this Hot Rod DVD that's been sitting on the coffee table for as long as we can remember. [Image credit: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg via Getty Images]
Team Meat digs up first Mew-Genics characters, art each Caturday
Mew-Genics, the next game in a line of cheerfully disturbing adventures from Team Meat, stars Mr. Tinkles, Dr. Beanies and of course a cat with an extra head, early images show. Team Meat is disseminating five silhouttes of a full Mew-Genics teaser picture, one every Caturday (ahem, "Saturday," that is), until the full image is revealed.The first teaser in the silhouette showdown is Mr. Tinkles, a flamboyant "Party Gurl" with cat trophies as back-up dancers. Mr. Tinkles was revealed last week via the Team Meat Twitter. This Caturday (Saturday, sorry), we see Dr. Beanies, a worried-looking scientist with a cute cat in his lab, introduced on the Team Meat blog.Check out Dr. Beanies below, and stay tuned to Team Meat next Caturday (SATURDAY, damn it) for a new teaser.
Don't panic over these iPad delivery exceptions
Lots of TUAW readers have written in today, worried about their iPad deliveries. Since they received shipment notices, many folks have been tracking their progress, and are now seeing messages like: UPS INTERNAL ACTIVITY. SHIPMENT IS HELD TO VERIFY COMMODITY DESCRIPTION WITH THE CUSTOMER FOR CORRECT CLASSIFICATION "Your package has experienced an exception" If you received one of these notices, you are not alone. Apple has taken similar measures in the past to make sure that deliveries do not arrive before the official release date. In fact, Boy Genius Report suggests that Apple is purposefully withholding clearance papers for the iPads to make sure that they are not delivered early. As anxious as these next few days of waiting will be, and as nerve-racking as it is when this is your iPad, I fully expect that 99.99% of the iPads scheduled for delivery on Saturday will be delivered on Saturday. We've also heard directly from someone who works "for a certain shipping company" who reports that they will have double the number of drivers out in their particular delivery area on Saturday, due to the increased traffic. I would expect that other areas would see similar increases. Nobody who works for a shipping company wants to have to go back to Apple and explain why they couldn't meet delivery needs. That being said, the same source does not expect exceptions to be made for areas without Saturday delivery, so you may have to wait until Monday for your iPad to be delivered. Don't panic -- we're sure UPS will do everything it can to get your iPad to you on time. If you're not sure about the delivery policy in your area, you may want to contact UPS to verify. Image via UPS.com. Please note, this man is not actually delivering an iPad. If you see him, do not try to wrest it from his hand.
BlizzCon 2009 ticket sales are done
BlizzCon 2009 tickets went on sale for the last time on Saturday at 10am PST, and were reported as sold out less than 30 minutes later. As expected, there were lots of disappointed Blizzard fans, but compared to the way things worked last year, this year's system was much more fair and much less frustrating. Unfortunately, you had to be quick -- while the sellout time was actually around 10:24, tickets really sold out in a matter of seconds, because if you clicked the buy button even 30 seconds to a minute after it went live, you were too far back in the queue to buy tickets at all. But even though it was a very small window of chance, it was at least a fair chance -- Blizzard's meter for tickets left on Saturday started at around 50%, which indicates that they split the two days of sales right down the middle. As long as you showed up and clicked at the right time, you had as much chance as anyone else. At least we got a great game out of it.If you have tickets, enjoy the show (and don't forget: our meetup will be on Thursday night!). But if you don't, what now? The DirecTV stream will be available both via their service and on the Internet. And even if you don't jump in on that deal, we'll of course have plenty of up-to-date coverage, as will lots of folks in the community. And if you want to go a little black market, tickets will probably be available online in a few different places. We've already heard that Blizzard is starting to crack down on eBay, but certainly there are other places tickets will appear for sale. And as time goes on, we're sure people who were planning to go won't be able to make it, contests will be held in various places, and a few more tickets will free up.So all hope may not be lost. But unless you want to call in a favor or pay a premium, BlizzCon tickets are sold. We say: the fourth weekend in August can't come soon enough.
BlizzCon tickets: how it went, and what's next
Yes, if you were around on Saturday, you know that the first round of BlizzCon tickets sold out, and sold out fast. Tickets went on sale right around 10am PST (which was 1pm EST), and sold out just about 28 minutes later. If the queue numbers are trustworthy, over 21,000 people (we've heard as high as 25,000 at a time) logged in to buy tickets that day, and from unconfirmed reports around the web, it seems like about 5,000 to 8,000 tickets were sold: most people who got in line around number 5,000 were able to pick a ticket up, and that was a few minutes in already. Some of those people are already selling tickets on eBay as well.We believe (though aren't sure) that they'll be selling more than 15,000 tickets this year, since that's what they sold last year and they're using even more of the convention space. If that's true, then Blizzard probably went through only about half of the tickets, and will sell the rest during the second session on the 30th. But that's probably not much of a consolation -- given the frenzy around this last Saturday, there'll probably be more people trying for tickets, and given the prices on eBay, possibly more scalpers clogging up the queue. We'll see.Update: Lots of people point out, rightly so, that I missed something in my guesstimates of how many tickets were sold: you could purchase up to five. My personal guess is that the majority of people bought only one or two, but even if you go with three as the average, 5,000-8,000 people in the queue is actually 15,000-24,000 tickets. Blizzard probably did sell the majority of tickets on Saturday then, not just half. So the process on May 30th will presumably go even faster.BlizzCon 2009 is coming up on August 21st and 22nd! We've got all the latest news and information. At BlizzCon you can play the latest games, meet your guildmates, and ask the developers your questions. Plus, there's some great looking costumes.
Steamwheedle Cartel holding a "Black Market" crafting event
I love this idea a whole lot. A group of folks on Steamwheedle are holding an RP even (which they've done before), but it's a different kind of event than the usual party or dueling tournament. Instead, it's going to be completely peaceful -- they're having a Saturday morning crafting bazaar. Down in the empty vendor stalls of Undercity, they'll have crafters of all types and levels, some with their mats, some where you'll have to bring your own mats, making items aplenty for players. On January 24th, they're holding a "Black Market", where you'll be able to get almost anything crafted that you want (providing you've got the goods). They're also having a raffle, and they'll be serving food and drink as well. What a great idea.In fact, I'd love to see something like this come to the game at large -- maybe Blizzard could provide a bonus to crafting when it's done at a certain time in a certain place, like create a "crafter's market" weekly on Saturday mornings (scheduled just like the Sunday fishing tournament), where crafters can make sure to be in a certain area ready to craft for any players who might need it, and can get bonus items or currency or mats for their trouble.For such a social game, combat seems to always end up being the only way for players to connect regularly (not that there's anything wrong with that, but the only way to bond in game seems to be killing things). It would be nice to see more of this type of connection encouraged by Blizzard, with players using the skills they've earned to help each other and both sides getting a nice reward for it.
Getting all the Well Read books
It's the weekend after Thanksgiving, the family has all left, there's nothing but turkey leftovers to eat, and you hit level 80 last week, and you're just waiting for your guild to level up so you can start the endgame. What is there to do on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon? Find all of the Well Read books -- WoWWiki has the guide I've been looking for ever since I first got excited about this achievement. I count 43 in total, and they've got a list of all the books you need and where you can find them for reading.The vast majority of the books can be found in Scholomance and the Scarlet Monastery, so a run through both of those instances (you can easily solo both at 80) will get you many of the books you need. From there it's time to travel the world -- Brill, Southshore, the Eastvale Logging Camp, Duskwood, and Booty Bay, and a few other places, depending on your faction (Alliance seems to have a little bit of an advantage there, as Stormwind and Orgrimmar have nice libraries. There are a few good books in Undercity, but the Orcs and Tauren aren't much for book learning, apparently).Seems totally doable in a quick afternoon, and while you won't really get anything but the 10 achievement points (and probably a nice chance to pick up some more of the old Azeroth explorer achievement), why else would you do this, other than to brag about it. Whenever anyone argues that you don't know your Azeroth lore, you can just point them to your Armory page, and tell them to check the part about you being Well Read.
Check in with the WoW Insider podcast this weekend
The holidays are pretty much in full effect (have you gotten one of those stupid carols stuck in your head yet?), but don't worry-- our podcast will still be live tomorrow to give you a WoW-related discussion break from those holiday blahs. Both I and Chris Jahosky will be on there, and that means we'll finally have to talk about Paladins, as Chris is more or less our Paladin rep here on the site. He's also working on that great graphic novel that we're posting, so we'll talk with him about that as well.And of course we'll also chat about all of WoW Insider's most popular posts of the last week. Join us tomorrow afternoon at 3:30pm EST (and on IRC at irc.mmoirc.org) on WoW Radio for the latest episode of the WoW Insider Show.
WoW Insider Weekly
Saturday once again, and that means it's time to round up all of the great weekly action here at WoW Insider over the past seven days. Our columnists work hard to bring you great content, and every Saturday afternoon, we wrangle it all up on one post for your weekly reading enjoyment.All the World's a Stage: Turning stumbling blocks into stepping stonesDavid smooths out the roleplaying road.Officers' Quarters: Why we leadWhy do guildleaders put up with all the progression angst and drama? I have no idea-- read Scott's column to find out.Addon Spotlight: WhodropAs in, who dropped this?The Art of War(craft): Warsong Gulch, the broken battlegroundZach covers not only what's wrong with WSG, but what you should be doing while there.Two Bosses Enter: Sapphiron vs. Bloodlord MandokirOur gigantic boss throwdown enters its second round.Guildwatch: Inspiring action in all the wrong placesIf only players put as much effort into making the world a better place as they did fighting about drama.Build Shop: Hunter 41/20/0Chris breaks out my favorite Hunter build: Beast Mastery.Shifting Perspectives: The forgotten feral formHe probably means the little-known Druid anteater form. Oh, that doesn't exist? It's something I just dreamed up? Oh. Excuse me.WoW Insider Show Episode 14: A podcast of PvPZach woke up at 4:30 in the morning just to record this podcast for you. The least you could do is listen, right?Blood Pact: Let's lock and roll to 60!Vims covers the penultimate stretch of leveling a 'lock.The Light and How to Swing It: Heal me! for dummiesScared of healing? Don't be.Know Your Lore: AszharaKYL covers the queen of mean.Totem Talk: Gearing up Elemental 60-65The best Shatner-spec gear in Outland.WoW, Casually: December 7-13 activities and making cashRobin's guide to what you can do with just a few hours of playtime this week.The Care and Feeding of Warriors: Making life easier for your healerThey spend their whole lives making sure you stay alive. Should you help them out a bit, too?Insider Trader: Gatherers behaving badlyBack off that Black Lotus or so help me God I will flag PvP and chain lighting you where you stand!Phat Loot Phriday: Precisely Calibrated BoomstickThis... is my boomstick!
Saturday PSP background explosion
This week's edition of Saturday PSP background explosion is an all fan request extravaganza! In case you don't know, every week we feature new backgrounds (clickie the link to see previous entries) for you to put on your PSP. One out of ten doctors recommends putting new backgrounds on your PSP every week and thankfully we help with that. This week we have backgrounds for Backgrounds after the jump ...
Wii looks to pump you up
According to IGN, Nintendo just might be trying to get you off of the couch and into a workout routine with the Wii, doing for your body what Brain Age on the DS did for your mind. They found this news via Bloomberg, which claims that Nintendo is in the process of making new diet-based software for the console.This idea sounds about right, but in what way could they guarantee an actual fitness experience through use of the Wiimote? Would they try to market another peripheral for the console or would the player just jog in place, for instance? Sure, we could imagine the Wiimote playing a role in some kind of exercise routine where stretching was a major aspect or perhaps some kind of yoga variant, but we know that is in no way going to pump you up.[Via Joystiq]
