I had an idea like this one -- a site that would allow you to rate anything at all (from a new movie to the casserole your aunt makes), and then let other people share their own opinions about whatever you rated. My idea never got off the ground (standard operating procedure for the idea mill I call my mind), but reader Antoine apparently had the same idea, and built it specifically for the WoW universe. WoW Ratings is kind of a silly site with some interesting outcomes: basically it's a database of everything in the game, from bosses to zones to game features or what have you, and you can come along and rate whatever you want on a scale of 1 to 5. The ratings don't actually mean anything (though Antoine has them listed as qualities from Uncommon up to Legendary), so it's really just a broad temperature-taking of the World (of Warcraft) at large.

The most interesting screen is probably the "Best and Worst" screen (which you can reach by clicking on the toolbar at the top of the homepage -- note to Antoine: permalinks are your friend, scale back on the javascript), where, as of this writing, Hakkar the Soulflayer is sitting on top of the heap, and the Voice Chat patch and Darnassus are sitting in the bottom 10. No Fandral Staghelm yet, strangely, but I'm sure things will get shaken up after all you readers head over there (and if the site's a little shaky under the flood of our link, give it time to get back on its feet). Sure, it's a little silly, and it's not so much a "resource" as it is just a free-for-all of player opinions, but it is interesting to see kind of a meta-overview of what players do and don't like. Useless features for the loss, old school raid bosses for the win.

Our podcast is back on the air today at 3:30pm over on Ustream, and it's gonna be a hum dinger, as the old folks used to say. We'll welcome Matthew "Matticus" Low on with us, so we'll definitely be talking some healing, and The T will be back on with us after his absence last week. Should be a great time -- we'll be chatting about the most popular stories in the World of Warcraft, including (but not limited to) the latest PTR build, the Battle.net changeover, and how, probably soon, you'll be able to send items back and forth between factions.

Plus we'll answer your emails as usual, since that's always a good time. Be sure to tune in and join us -- the show goes live at 3:30pm Eastern today, and you can listen on our Ustream page, via the Ustream iPhone app, or on the embedded stream below. You can also tune in a little early (like 20 minutes) if you want to hear us chatting during the preshow while we set everything up, or stay a little later to join us during the aftershow, where we turn off the recording and just chat live directly with the chat-room. It'll definitely be a lot of fun, so if you're around and available, tune in! See you there.

Hallow's End is almost upon us, and Blizzard has once again announced their annual pumpkin carving contest. This is always a hoot -- I was only ever able to do the usual jack-o-lantern (once I did a Batman symbol, but it never really worked out), but there are always some real professionals in the mix on these contests, as you can see in the gallery below. Basically, carve a pumpkin featuring something Blizzard-related, showing "high levels of originality, craftsmanship, and possibly humor," light it up with a candle or other source, and then submit a picture over on the site by two weeks from today, Wednesday, October 28th.

And some nice prizes this year: the top five submissions will all pick up a nice 32gb iPod touch, apparently supplied by none other than Apple (and of course you'll be able to run those Blizzard mobile apps if you win). Good luck to everyone who enters -- go grab your knife and the biggest "gourd-like squash" you can find and get to carving!

To go along with their recently created Twitter accounts, Blizzard has now started up an official YouTube channel as well. Right now, the channel just contains animations and cinematics that we've mostly seen before (not that we mind watching that Burning Crusade cinematic for the umpteenth time), but we presume that in the future, we might see newly released videos, including possibly interviews with Blizzard staff, and maybe even some (gasp!) gameplay videos as well.

Whoever's in charge of social media over at Blizzard has really been working it lately -- we can't wait to see their Last.fm account (Most Played: the artists formerly known as Level 80 Elite Tauren Chieftain) or their OkCupid account (Adam Holisky & Alex Ziebart would be at least 87% friends with Ghostcrawler, no question). Definitely fun to see Blizzard, historically a very closed-door company, opening up a little bit to the various outlets where they can correspond with fans.

Ok, admittedly, this is about as far away from the World of Warcraft as we go on this site, but stick with me here, it'll be worth it for the jokes: Blizzplanet has discovered that Blizzard COO Paul Sams and his family are now major shareholders in the Pittsburgh Steelers, of all things. The connection seems a little hard to find, until you check the rest of the list: Thomas Tull is also a shareholder, and he happens to be CEO of Legendary Pictures, the same company that has made a deal with Sams and Blizzard to make the Warcraft movie. I can't say I know that many CEOs personally, but I have to imagine that the conversation went something like, "Hey, wanna own part of a football team with me?" And who would pass up an opportunity like that?

Fortunately for Sams and his team, they're supposed to do pretty well this year (and of course they're coming off of a Super Bowl win last year), so the investment is likely a good one. But, more importantly, we can now point out that if the Steelers make their way to the conference championships and half of Blizzard travels to Pittsburgh to see the game, we'll know why the patch isn't coming out that week.

Sure, the Cataclysm trailer was cool and all, but did it seem like it was missing a little something? That little something may have been the Wowcrendor touch. Fortunately, Wowcrendor has remade the trailer in his own unique style (he says on the YouTube page that it's an early cut Blizzard eventually scrapped for obvious reasons), and you can watch the result above.

As with Wowcredor's other videos, the satire is piled on in heaps, from MS Paint-ed lava to a nice dig at rated battlegrounds, and a nice little coda about Barrens chat (given, that's a pretty big comedy target to hit, but Wowcrendor hits it anyway). Funny video, and proof that no matter how awesome Cataclysm sounds, odds are that we'll still be playing the same game with the same people.

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Yaaaaaar maties, it be me again, Cap'n Phineas Blackbeard (ye may remember my old guide to the most piratical o' quests), and I be back again, today, September the 19th, because today, ye scurvy dogs, be Pirates' Day! My old flame Dread Captain DeMeza will be hanging out in Booty Bay and causin' all kinds of trouble under the nose of old Baron Revilgaz, so ye can head down to the southern shores, listen to some shantys with those old swashbucklers, and maybe even win some loot. If ye like, ye can even go and visit DeMeza with the scallywags from this here WoW.com site (though between you and me, some of them smell like the inside of a whale's belly, especially that landlubber Schramm). And of course, all of ye yellow-bellied scallywags should spend the whole day talking like a pirate as best ye can, and maybe even wear an eyepatch. Y'know, for the nightvision.

And just in case ye don't get enough grog today -- HA! Get it? "Enough grog"? A good pirate knows ye can never have enough grog! -- don't forget that Brewfest starts tomorrow. Stay tuned to this here vessel for more information about how ye can get all of the achievements and titles and dragons and treasure chests ye desire. Have a great Pirates' Day, and then get back to swabbing the poop deck, ye peg-legged, pox-faced mutinous cur! Dead men tell no tales! Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum!

Hey, how about a fist weapon? Isn't "fist weapon" a weird name? We don't call them "sword weapons" or "stabby weapons," right? It's Phat Loot Phriday! On a Phasaturday!

Name: Insanity's Grip (Wowhead, WoWDB, Thottbot)
Type: Epic Main Hand Fist Weapon
Damage/Speed: 372 - 558 / 2.60 (178.8 DPS)
Attributes:

• +52 Agility, +51 Stamina
• +1736 Feral attack power, if you're of the feral persuasion
• Improves crit strike rating by 34, expertise by 25, and attack power by 80

Our podcast is back on the air yet again this afternoon -- Turpster will join Amanda Dean, Adam Holisky and I to talk about the biggest posts of the past week, including (but not limited to) why even Priests dislike being Priests, the new race/class combos and how they'll be explained, why Blizzard is so secretive (and why they probably shouldn't be), and what kinds of things we learned from that faction transfer survey. And of course we'll answer your emails -- you can send those along to theshow@wow.com anytime.

It all starts up tomorrow at September 12th, 2009 3:30 PM EDT right over on our Ustream page (or you can tune in on the embedded feed right after the break), so do be sure to join us if you're available. And of course, as usual, we'll probably have a little music during the preshow, and a little fun during the aftershow (where we turn off the recording and just chat with the kind folks in the chat channel about whatever comes up. See you there!