Saturday, September 26, 2009

Sometimes goodbye's the only way...

Yeah, I quit playing.

I've been posting quite a bit on my other blog... And I'm gonna stop this one. Was nice hangin with you all, spec ripper. And that mad orc, ratter.

Anyway, here's my big list of wow regrets.

1. Ever playing a PvE server.Compared to that, PvP servers are like sex without the condom. And with a partner. Admittedly, a sadistic 12 year old parter... maybe I should stop now.

2. My first char was a troll mage onna PvP server. I moved to be with a friend and started a rogue on his PvE server. Big mistake.... shoulda stuck with the mage. Rogues are for people who hate humanity a lot. Mages are for people who hate humanity intensely.

3. I missed the whole opening of AQ event. It happened during one of my burnout/server hopping periods. When you consider this was probably the only real global event in the six years of WoW history... yeah, still pisses me off.

4. Ever becoming an officer in a guild. The first rule of guilds and S&M gay pr0n. Never freaking volunteer!

5. Ever playing alliance. Goddamn Ironforge, anyway.

6. Getting my only real pvp title (Knight Commander) onna ally char. (59 nelf hunter) It hurts my soul not havin a decent pvp title on a hordie char.

7. Ever trying to level a paladin. Orra warrior. Plate is a waste of a freaking drop.

Anyway... I go now to my final reward... hopefully SC2 inna few months, and diablo 3 inna year and a half. Stay (blood) thirsty, my friends!

Friday, August 14, 2009

Stand your ground

Bored, and have to spend another hour at work...

Downed HM Thorim this week, bangin head against HM General now. That life leech is killin us.

I suspect that the proc rate on 4 piece tier 8 might have gone up... or RNG is really, really messin with me.


Anyway, lets talk GI JOE.

A lot on the right are up in arms against an american icon getting "multinationalized." I'm sorry... suck it up. It been the way ever since they started givin John Wayne a little native boy as a comic relief/boytoy in war movies. American military movies have always made a point of including other nationalities in our struggles. FFS, we had french and germans fightin alongside us during the revolution.

The problem is that the movie doesnt really acknowledge america as the point nation. And it is idiotic to assume that american special forces would work independent of the american government.

Sigh. I mean, they don't even pick up the big insult... Cobra's big plot is to make the world fall into line behind america.

K, nough politics. Lets see... movie starts with a super secret weapons research plant in central asia. Later on, another one pops up in "east africa." I mean... yeah, that makes sense... weapons are weapons, and you'd make ultra sensitive micro weapons in areas with unreliable electricity, corrupt troops beating up your help, and the occasional explosion. Cuz you know... silicon valley would just be too simple.

Oh yeah.. big shock... the bad guys are the arms dealers. Cuz, you know... guns don't kill people.. people who sell guns to people who kill people kill people. Just think of the profit margin!

I mean... we're talking about the most heavily audited industry on earth. Really... if an evil corporation has to be behind crap, why cant it be microsoft or intel? Hell, they could build a massive secret base under the arctic outta spare change, and noone would notice.

But can you picture the sales pitch to NATO? We're gonna make the most advanced weapons the world has ever seen, and we're gonna make em in a lab directly between China and Russia!

Sigh.. don't even get me started on Marlon Wayans. If I'd known he was in the movie I simply wouldn't have gone. He's Jar Jar Binks given flesh. He's a black Pee Wee Herman, only without the cleverness.

And he gets more time on screen than anyone. BTW... hollywood... if yuir reading... not everyone in a movie needs to get laid. Just sayin.

Then there's the baroness... see, there's this trope. It's kinda seriously racist, but still exists in a bit more sanitized form. See... the baroness in the movie is doin bad things cuz she's brainwashed. But her love for Duke overrides her brainwashing, and she ends up being a hero...

Back in the day, a lotta b grade movies and stories had this semi porno plot... american guy gets captured by evil foreigner, evil foreigner's daughter falls under the spell of american... um... "mojo..." and then helps american escape, betraying her father and people...

How idiotic is this? Reference the greek story of Medea sometime to see what greeks thought of this behavior.

Anyway, old school flash gordon? Ming was too busy trying to rape a white woman to notice his daughter puttin out to flash.

I mean... really racist. Sigh. But along with this is the assumption of pure and innocent women... who can't possibly work with terrorist organizations.. they must be "brainwashed." And would willingly swap sides the minute Mr. Right showed up.

Is it too much to ask for a bellatrix? A white witch? A paris hilton? K.. maybe not that evil. But still... and maybe a more cohesive motivation?

Remember annikin skywalker's politics... "the strong must take charge to reduce chaos!"

Yep.. that's cobra's motive.

It really really didnt have to be this way. I can think up a dozen ways to spiff up both GI Joe and Cobra... and have the movie a crapload more interesting. You spend $175 million on a movie... drop a few hundred thou on writers, ffs.

Oh and snake eyes' mask was hideous.

Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Forever and ever!

Took some time off. The guild is mad at me... well, not really, the guild leader apparently lost his job by failing a drug test...

Considering he's one of the most high strung people i've ever been in vent with, there's an awesome case to be made for medical marijuana.

Anyway, the week I took off ends up bein the week the patch hits... so I got two questions...

One, what the hell am i gonna replace power auras with? It aint working, and I havent seen a recent update. What do my fellow non gnome mages use to keep track of pyro (fire) and fireball (frost) instacast procs?

Two... went to see GI JOE with Melvin. It sucked. So you people wanna review?

Thursday, July 23, 2009

Golden in your darkness

And after that crit, maj became a well dressed smear across the floor of ulduar...

Saturday, July 18, 2009

You get what you need...

I haz 4 piece tier 8 bonus. :)

Damn 10 man pants! They make maj's butt look big.

Sunday, July 12, 2009

It's better to burn out...

Yeah... been doin crap.

The guild runs a naxx 25 pug that Melvin loves because it gets him tons of epics with no wipes. I mean, we're talking 3.5 hour full clear.

So we're doin loatheb, and the guild is betting on whether the holy pal will beat Melvin's lock in dps, usin just holy shock.

I dunno sometimes.

Monday, June 29, 2009

All the toys and the tools in the box couldn't get you off...

OMW to stomp on some fires...

Damn peculiar activity fer a fire mage, but as the ratter puts it, you can tell who the good guys are as them the folks payin you.

Hard core raiding is kinda eating into my meditative post generation reflection time. Ah well.

So, here's some general crap. My quest for music has gone well, here are three albums that stood out...

Delirium, Best of Delirium
Bt, Movement in Still Life
Metric, Fantasies

Im still not sure why I like that last one so much.

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

You don't care if it is wrong or if it is right...

So... I joined the most prestigious raiding guild on my server... (horde side, might be some argument overall...)

First night in, killed yog, maly 25 and sarth +3.

Killed X2 hard mode last night. And FL +3.


Damn, I need a break already. And I'm in the back of the pack on damage meters...

Saturday, June 6, 2009

He said shut up!

Time to change guilds... new one needs a UI screenshot.








Wednesday, June 3, 2009

Because lies sound so nice

I've been havin problems sleeping again. So, I spent a few hours buyin stuff offa Amazon's digital download center.

I'm at a weird time right now. I'm still havin fun with the game. However, drama intrudes. I rather like the guild I'm with right now, but they ain't goin anywhere past uld 10 anytime soon, no matter how hard they recruit.

And I can accept that. Raids starting at 11:30 my time... more of a pain. However... I've been running a bit with one of the more sucessful raiding guilds on the server. And while their vent chat tends to freak me out a bit, they get crap done. And I play better with em. I finally got my mage over the 5k dps hump. (inna 25 with an ele shammy anda boomkin)

So, I've been considering a move... and then, outta the blue I getta invite to a different raiding guild, also in the top three on my server/faction.

Personally... I prefer the social dynamics of the guild I'm in. But from a l33tist asshole standpoint, I'd really like to do serious endgame crap at least once before I stop playing this game.

So... I learned a new trick with my mage. Which is probably old hat to most of you... but I'm just (finally?) getting my head around the potential of mirror image. I've been pretty good at surviving raid wipes, and avoiding death when I pull aggro, but that was due mostly to inspired use of ice block and invisibility. I really didnt know that mirror image pretty much wiped all your aggro off for 30 secs or so.... so now, when I pull aggro with the mage, I pop mirror image before ice block.

Course, this is mostly trash fights. Boss fights, I don't pull aggro unless the tank goes down. (Which is usually how I find out the tank is down... enemy number one, baby...)

Allright... so lets do some pop culture. Ripper reviewed the new WoW book. And I gotta say rip... let go of star wars. The first three were alright up until the empire got taken down by teddy bears. The second three were so horrific... and well, lets leave that.

There was a movie a while back that pretty much rocked hollywood. The Score, with Robert DeNiro and Ed Norton. And when I say rocked... i didn't mean in a good way. The most significant part of the movie was Ed Norton's character... who pretends to be mentally handicapped to rip off a place.

The reason this was controversial was that hollywood had just given a buncha oscars to people that played handicapped characters. And here was norton, mocking them, by playing a vicious bastard pretending to be handicapped for money. See the joke? After that... not so much interest in 'special' roles...

Anyway, I've been holding off recommending this fantasy series. People spout things about "character development." The First Law series is to epic fantasy what Full Metal Jacket is to John Wayne war movies. After you read it, you will feel violated... and curse every epic fantasy series you've ever read. The point of the series is to destroy every epic fantasy cliche, one at a time, in excruciating detail. "Lost Prince?" Yeah, right. Quest to recover an artifact of ultimate power? Are you insane? Ancient wizard who ISN'T a complete bastard? You probably believe in the easter bunny as well, eh?

The most sympathetic character is a torturer. And I mean that... at the end, I thought that the only character worth a damn as a human being was... well, the torturer.

Character development? Reminds me of the old animaniacs cartoon, that would end with the "Wheel of Morality."

Wheel of morality, turn turn turn
Show us the lesson that we should learn...

My favorite?

"Elvis lives on in our hearts, in his music and in a trailer park outside Milwaukee."

Thursday, May 28, 2009

Let me hear you screaming just for me

Its been a rough time in the old Noobed neighborhood. The old guild is kaput. The new guild is havin problems breakin the 25 man raiding roster limit.

And our good friend Ripper is having issues.

Seems he posed for a coupla.. ehm... provocative pictures back in the day, and they've recently been posted to the internets.

Of course only a completely vicious and tasteless bastard would link them or anything...

So anyway... he's been reacting badly, and I know a lotta his friends are planning an intervention. Here's a guide to surviving a trip up there. Well, ordering food up there...

A translation guide to Canadian Pork products

You say......................You get
Bacon ........................Ham
Pork Chops...............Ham
Pickled Pigs Feet......Ham
Sausage......................Ham
Ham............................Celine Dion

Note that this chart is a little unpredictable, as any results may also be influenced bye the time of day, the province, the lack of a french accent, the presence of a french accent, and what just turned green and needs to be sold.

Also... never order eggs poached. There is a superstition in Canada that any unfamiliar word that has two vowels back to back must be french. And um... they have curious ideas about what the french do with their eggs. And where white sauces come from.

Thursday, May 21, 2009

Well now, everything dies, baby, thats a fact

Two posts in a week? Maybe three... I'm plotting against ripper. Doan quite know how to keep it vicious yet tasteful...

Um. Well, there's this. I dunno how many of you would be interested in this. Tiananmen was a while ago, and China is changing so fast...

And I'm not even sure how much I sympathize with the protesters. I was in Tiananmen square a few years later (coincidently on the anniversary of the massacre) and I really had a hard time imagining what they could have accomplished even in a best case scenario.

However, the massacre was a horrific reaction. And Zhao Ziyang was one of the victims.

Why am I posting on this? Cuz of two people I respect greatly. Both of whom lived more than 2000 years ago.

Him.

And Him.

The important thing to remember about Socrates... he kinda detested democracy. But he believed in the law. His death in no short measure was the result of his standing up for people against lynch mobs. His death sentence was a hypocricy... it was assumed that he would leave Athens for exile.

He didn't. And, as the cliche goes... spoke truth to power, using his death to give a grim authority to his message. As a defender of Athenian law against those who would abuse it... he could not in his final hour ignore the same law as it came for his life.

Now, most of you probably know that... Sima Qian is less well known in the west. Sima Qian is to chinese (and by extension east asian) history what Socrates was to western philosophy.

Sima Quin was a well connected official in the early Han dynasty who decided to speak out against the unjust trial of a han army officer. For his honesty he was sentenced to... well... castration.

Now... this is china. There are ways around this. The first is a big bribe... but because of the political nature of Quin's "crime," he was unable to raise any money.

Like in socrates's case, this was just window dressing... the "criminal" was intended to kill himself rather than suffer such indignity. The wiki article has Quin's thoughts on the matter...

Anyway... he accepted the mutilation. And he spent the rest of his life writing the first modern chinese histories. Which were hidden until political circumstances changed.

There's a story that he sent his writings into the mountains... and wrote to the emperor that on the day of the emperor's death, the histories would return... and on that day, Quin, and truth, would have revenge.

Just a bit of context. This is the tradition followed by such Ziyang. The revenge of the honest man against the pitiless state.

So the next time Keith Olberman bitches about being repressed... well.

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

About a god we've never seen

Meh... Alliance on my server reading my blog. Not sure how I feel about that. On the one hand, thanks for the kind words Adamantite. OTOH...

If you are a member of Symphony of Blades or Smashbunny, Ima gonna off myself.

SoB (horde translation: Motherf$ck&rs) issa ganking guild. The other night they were camping the ghostfish daily fishing site. And one of their druids pulled an interesting trick.

He flew up to where I was sitting on my flying mount and dismounted me with typhoon.

I am dying to try this with blastwave... but honestly cant make room in my fire raiding build to take the talent.

So... went to see Star Trek with Kimmu-sempai.

And I came outta the movie with two sad realizations. First, that it was an excellent and enjoyable movie even tho the plot made absolutely no sense. At all. And second... I hate trekkies.

I pointed this out to Kimmu and she told me not to call them trekkies... it's rude.

So apparently I hate trekkers instead. Nice to be corrected. Wouldn't want to offend em, or anything. Just hate em.

Now I gotta lotta problems with star trek. Mostly... it makes no goddamn sense. I mean... don't these people have anything better to do? A space going battleship that can be crewed in battle by ONE man? What the hell is the rest of the crew for?

A star goin nova, so they send a bazillion year old vulcan, ALONE, to fix it?

And since when have romulans been this butch? I mean... I'm watchin one dangling Kirk by his neck, and I'm thinking... I know trekkies... sorry, trekkers... dont know crap about human anatomy... but the neck is not the human version of a coffee cup handle.

And second, is there a single race out there that humans can beat in wrestling? I mean... why the hell does everything have to be so much more physically capable than humans?

How exactly did he figure out where/when spock was gonna pop outta the time portal? Did he just hang around waiting for the lightning storm inna fixed region for 25 years and hope not to get noticed?

How does a captain promote someone who isn't even a part of their military at that point to second in command?

Why didn't the romulans just go to romulus and turn that ubership and all that uber tech over to their home planet?

Look. Its like this. Star Trek isn't science fiction. All we can hope for issa good story and some reasonable level of internal consistancy. JJ Abrams pushed the action at a pace that would keep us from noticing how nothing was making sense. So... itsa good movie.

I used to game a bit. And one of my fav gaming buddies had a theory on role playing games... that kinda applies here. If the game is gonna be worth a damn... people can't know what game they're playing. So you start them off thinking they're playing something like D&D, and then turn it into Call of Cthulhu.

See... if they know the rules... they know how to win and how to cheat.

Great movies are a bit like that. Either you can't really see whats coming till the end... or the ending is so obvious and brutal, you can't accept that that's where it's going.

Why the hell give the romulans a back story? I mean really.. what does it add to the movie to know that they're avenging the death of romulus if they're doing it in such an idiotic way? And more importantly...

TIME TRAVEL IS STUPID.

I don't know. It just seems that something that had that much effort put into it shoulda had a plot that an eight year old couldn't punch holes in. Personally, I blame the trekkies. Er... trekkers.

And I'm still not sure how I feel about Vulcans with perpetual 3 o'clock shadow...

Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Well, they blew up the chicken man in philly last night

The in-game wedding was a lotta fun. Afterwards, we went skydiving from the dal sewers...

I have modest goals for this blog. More or less... post once a week. More if I have to vent or something. It's kinda busy at work right now, so I've been slacking

Majeure has become quite the achievement whore. Goddamn it. I needa new addiction like I need another hole in my privates. (Don't ask.)

So... despite the whole "this issa mage blog" thing, I really need to do a shammy post. Later.

Today... Ripper went to the fountain of stupid and got wet. And I gotta correct him.

Look, Ripper. Itsa freaking Keanu Reeves movie. I mean really. Didn't he get kicked outta the church of scientology for excessive crazy?

It's also a propaganda piece for the environmentalist movement. You know, that whole group of people that want folks to only use one sheet of toilet of paper per visit to the bathroom? Virgin forests? I assure you... those are slut trees and they had it coming.

The great Quentin Tarentino was once criticized that his movies had gratuitous violence. He replied that condemning his movies for excessive violence was like condemning pr0n for excessive sex.

Condemning a Keaun Reeves environmentalist movie for excessive stupidity is pretty much the same thing.

And here's my think about why science fiction these days is slowly turning into freaking garbage.

(WARNING! MAY CONTAIN CRITICISMS ABOUT STAR TREK AND STAR WARS! IF YOU CAN'T HANDLE THAT, GO UPSTAIRS AND ASK YOUR MOTHER TO HUG YOU TILL THE SHAKING GOES AWAY)

I still can't write about the clusterf$ck that was Battlestar Galactica. I mean... that ending...

But there has been a trend in Sci Fi over the last few decades in which the Frankenstein's monster argument predominates. New technologies? Evil corporations and governments will use them to screw us all. Aliens? Cuddly hyper moral beings here to correct us.

What, they're shooting at us? That just shows how cuddly and hyper moral they are!

Sci Fi has moved on from the concept of evil. This is why Sci Fi is dying. This is why fantasy is beating the crap outta sci fi. This is why the blockbuster movies are things like Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, and various super hero movies. Cuz the first story ever told was about a guy who stood up, said "this ain't right," and went off to kick ass.

Sci Fi can't tell that story anymore. These days its all about trying to understand why the tentacle monster has such horrible sexual hang ups. And feeling its pain.

OK... maybe that wouldn't be such a bad movie idea...

But sometimes bug eyed monsters just need to be killed. Sometimes it really is just about US vs THEM. Independence Day anyone? Star trek lost it when... well, when they decided that William Shattner was the greatest martial artist in human history. That's why Matrix was so great, and Matrix 3 was crap.

Matrix... "we've been slaves all this time and didn't know it! TIME TO BREAK SHIT!"

Matrix 3... "actually... this whole slave crap is not so bad, as long as *we* get to live in Zion and crash the matrix fer babes and parties every so often..."

To quote Rorschach.. never compromise.. not even in the face of apocalypse!

BTW, heres an awesome Alan Moore link.

A friend of mine once spent 30 minutes bitching about how terrible the recent war of the worlds remake was. And the upshot of it was all about how much of a coward Tom Cruise was.

The original story was a fable of colonialism. About what would happen if aliens tried to colonize England like England was colonizing other lands. (Hence the part about alien farms "watered" by the blood of the natives... englishmen for once, instead of asians or africans) The response... mindless, ferocious resistance. No matter how superior the aliens' technology was. NO SURRENDER. Read the damn book.

Radical environmentalism is a sick joke. It is a response to the rapid pace of technological change... basically (as the old joke about conservatives goes) standing atop the turning world shouting "STOP!"

The word "terraforming" has been lost. For thousands of years, we've been moving rivers, leveling forests, growing forests, and radically changing local fauna and flora in order to make the world more habitable by ever increasing numbers of humans. As Heinlein one wrote... "every time the human race has been faced with the choice between becoming less promiscuous or more resourceful... they choose the latter."

I mean really... in a coupla hundred years... we'll be able to turn the sahara into green fields. We'll be able to make new island paradises like Hawaii and Bermuda. Replace the Amazon rainforest overnight.

Canada will probably stay frozen and boring tho. I don't expect miracles.

So... what exactly is the point of the modern environmentalist movement? As ripper points out... movies like TDTESS and The Day After Tomorrow are based on such flawed science that even science fiction fans won't buy it.

Yeah, that's Kirk's real hair. Whatever. But I'm not buying this whole "world freezing because of global warming" crap!

Anakin became Darth Vader because he missed his mommy? mmmkay... Dude stops wind up watches because that kind of technology threatens the environment? No way...

Why did we lose faith in progress? Why do we pay attention to nutjobs telling us the world is gonna end in.. oh, say, 50 years without thinking... "well, by that time, I'll be immortal, have a harem filled with sexy cylons, and the human race will have started building its third earth.. a paradise with no Canada."

So, to summarize Ripper... why are you complaining? You really expected the movie to make some kinda sense? Here's a project for you... netflix the original TDTESS and The Thing. Both came out the same year (1951.) Compare and contrast the attitude of each movie towards both the military, and scientists.

Note how in both movies scientists conspire with aliens against the human race, but in TDTESS, this is presented as a noble action, whereas in The Thing, it's seen as treason...

Oh yeah... here's a star trek link...

Thursday, May 7, 2009

Would you choose the water over wine?

Not sure anyone reads this anymore.

Anyway, one of my self promises is to put at least one post up every week. So... here it is.

Downed Hodir last night with the uld-10 group. Love the new guild, but they doin an ingame wedding tomorrow. And I've no idea what to get the couple. Or even if they a couple in RL. One of those healer/dps pairs. Cept she's the dps (and she beats the pants offa me on damage meters with her surv hunter.) And hes the pally healer.

Mabd is pretty much retired fer a while. Unbound is only gonna be running with the old crew, which is to say once inna blue moon.

So ima mage player, and this issa mage blog.

Is it just me, or how evil is it that fury warriors and rogues are much better at aoe adds duty than mages? I really cant spare the mana to blizzard without destroying my ability to dps the boss. Meanwhile, rogues never run outta freaking knives to fan, nor warriors rage to whirlwind with.

Speaking of which... I've become obsessed with master of elements... and its interaction with the spell named after the company that puts the game out..

Namely Blizzard.

Master of elements gives 30% of mana back with a crit. Blizzard issa channeled spell. How do these two work?

Well, blizz has 8 tics. And if I crit ANY target in a given tic, I get 91 mana (30% of blizz cost/8?) back. I crit a target each tic, I get back the net 30%... making blizz damn near affordable.

I need to mess with flamestrike and arcane explosion to see how they work with MoE...

Also... something is weird with living bomb. Some people claim LB tics wont set off ignite... but dammit, I'm getting ignites on targets at the weirdest times. AND hot streak. A shame I'm usually too drunk to figure out how.

Monday, April 27, 2009

We better have a good explaination for all the fun that we had

Braids is leavin us. Dammit, now I'll never get to see the much promised pictures of her in Wildheart... (you can still mail em to me!)

Keep checking the Ratter. You just know hes gonna post pics of Kinny in rabit ears.

Mabd is in hiding. After the eighth "wtb female orc" post in trade... damned server is overrun with pervos.

I jumped guilds. The old guild is heading for the cliffs... our best tank left in disgust, our second best tank (and guild officer) is goin through so much RL garbage that he couldn't even make the guild tank meeting that *he* called.

That leaves two tanks that I wouldnt trust in RFC, let alone ulduar. So... I moved Maj. They dont care at this point since they prefer I play my healer (Unbound). My new guild seems to like the dps. Ulduar is gonna kill the old guild. Two decent healers... me, and the guy who plays once a week, and is beta testing Bloodbowl.

You people might lose me when that goes live.

I don't have the time to play three toons anymore. Or barely to play one. Gearing Mabd is gonna take a backseat for a while.

The new guild has everything. Paladins to hate on, and a decent lock to despise.

"I hate you. 4k rain of fire ticks? WTH? The best I get with blizzard is 1.8..."

"But I thought blizzard could crit now?"

"THAT IS A CRIT YOU DEMON MOLESTING VERMIN!"

I loves the new fire build on single bosses... spec after molten fury procs. I'm having no mana problems, and finally got secure enough in the spell rotation to start doin what I was doin as arcane. The only problem... I suck at aoe on trash.

A lot.

Damn locks.

You know things change when the best aoe class issa... rogue.

Friday, April 17, 2009

Kinda like the way everything is grey...

I apologize for not posting sooner.

I've been... ill.

There was a terrible accident. My spleen, whom I thought inured to almost any toxin, decided to rip itself out of my abdomen and flee for the hills.

Well, flee for somewhere. I have to admit I'm worried, itsa bad neigborhood, it doesnt have any money, and doesnt really know anyone around here.

I tried tracking him by the trail of blood, but was a bit too dizzy. I got to the corner hot dog stand and no further.

Mmmm... hot dog bodegas...

Anyway, 3.1 is here. And you will be as surprised to learn as I was that Melvin had been keeping up with the 3.1 news! The most important thing in 3.1 for him? Titansteel spellblades! His lock and mage finally get an upgrade! (Melvin doan know about the flame heart scalpel... and wouldn't really be able to grind Kirin Tor rep either way since he doan get invited twice to heroics...)

Also of interest to Melvin... them changing frostweave bags to 24 slots!

(don't ask... I mean... I didn't. Even tho Melvin confessed to having read articles "nonstop" regarding the upcoming patch.)

So, I was quietly discussing the changes with Melvin on tuesday.

"No, Melvin, the bags aren't gonna suddenly get more slots!"

"How do you know?"

"I read the patch notes."

"How do you know those aren't fake?"

"THEY'RE ON THE BLIZZARD SITE."

"But I read..."

Anyway. Melvin then asked me what the big deal in the patch was gonna be. I told him about the hunter ammo bag changes... thunder stomp fer all tenacity pets... shammies becoming the only healing class without insane mana problems... and mages getting both jack AND shit.

Oh yeah, and the whole dual spec thing.

"You mean my mage and lock will be able to use two titansteel spellblades? I'm gonna need more titansteel!"

I wasn't really able to correct him. I felt a brief sharp pain right next to my liver, and we spent the next hour looking for missing body parts.

Which, I have to admit, has long been my ideal way to end conversations with Melvin. Just... I never thought it would be MY body parts we were looking for.

Monday, April 13, 2009

Keep to the sunny side of life!

Good... Bad... I'm the one with the monkey.

Mabd hit 80, BooYah!

Tuesday, April 7, 2009

Those people that smile a lot... watch the eyes

So... after spending 9 hours in Naxx 10 with my shammy and the guild alt run (any of melvin's characters should be considered alts..)

I ran Naxx 10 with my mage for 9 hours with a guild that I was once (but no longer) considering joining.

If your healers can't handle KT's ice cubes... your guild aint goin nowhere.

Also ran the mage in a midnight to 6 am naxx 25 man run. Four resto shammies, none of whom knew how to FREAKING HEAL. Half the party was dead at the end of loatheb. We couldn't do Patchwerk. We couldn't do Rasuvious. One of the most disgusting females I've ever had the horror of being stuck in vent with played a shadow priest with a level of incompentence that would shock even Melvin.

I'm not kidding... I muted her in vent about 15 min in. All during the run she kept "recruiting" in general Naxx chat for a fictional ERP Guild named "The Brown Eye." AND she was last in dps (1100... and she's been 80 for months). AND she couldn't handle the adds in the Rasuvious fight... I mean, we really shoulda known when she started bragging about the guilds that would no longer pug her for their naxx 25 runs.

Last... a more or less unbelievable Melvin story. Magebert has decided to spec his druid fer tanking. And has problems understanding the role swipe plays... anyway, magebert and melvin decided to do H Gundrak. Melvin brought Fleabag (thats my pet name for his feral druid.)

So, I'm hanging in guild chat with a coupla friends, and the following flashes...

Fleabag has achieved Heroic Gundrak
Fleabag has achieved What the Eck!
Fleabag has achieved Share the Love

In case you don't know... that last achievement comes off the final boss in Gundrak... he has this horrific attack called impale... you get the achieve with everyone in the party getting impaled... A good run will down him with only one impale. A medicore run with 2.

How did they get the achieve? Magebert and Melvin pullin less than 1k dps each. I /w the healer and just got cursed at. (Holy pal... Melvin said "He never ran outta mana!") 7 impales if not more, Magebert is kinda not the best at keepin track of these things.

So I hop into vent with the guildies... and have to explain that Melvin really wasn't TRYING for that achievement. He just got it... naturally...

That's when I found out that Melvin came close to being kicked out of a previous guild after he used Fleabag to tank for some of that guild's officers...

Friday, April 3, 2009

Gonna be ok...

Melvin's ret pally is more or less geared. So Melvin refuses to play him anymore. On raid night what should show up but Melvin's elemental shammy? Still decked out in level 70 gear!

I'm still kicking myself for not dropping the party immediately. To add to the drama, we had two other dps doin sub-1300 dps.

And I got talked into playing my resto shammy. And the raid leader is an idiot. He's playing a geared holy pal. We have my shammy, about as well geared as 10 man naxx will get you. And we have a disc priest... the wife of a tank, and not... um.... terribly skilled. Which is to say, when doin saph, we need someone to keep an eye on her, and keep her healed. Cuz she can't heal herself and someone else through the aoe damage.

(last wipe on saph, she dies from the cleave.)

So raid leader sets healing assignments... My resto shammy on main tank... his holy pal on offtank. And disc priest on raid healing.

/beats head

God, I wanna gank Melvin in RL. And then camp his sorry ass. Friggin 1100 dps. An hour in, I had to ask why he was using flametongue instead of totem of wrath. (he was using both... and of course casting wrath first)

We had the annoying mage (1300dps) who couldn't even be bothered to decurse himself through Saph, let alone the people on his side. (why is he annoying? He NEVER SHUTS UP in vent. Of course, he did warn us that the blizz in saph "always stays on the side the melee is on, so the melee probably should switch sides...")

So, I took Mabd, my much neglected hunter for a spin last weekend. Ended up running UK, OK, AN and VH. Top dps each run. End boss of AN, I just put monkey on aggressive, and he beat every one else in the raid (including myself) in damage. Damn, thats just too much fun. Ended up main tanking UK (mabd is 75, dk was 70 and had wrong rune to boot) with banana boy.

Every so often you need to strut the old stuff in pugs. We all need recognition...

And a haiku? Dammit all to hell. Things change, eh?

The mighty hunter
Awakens from raid winter to
Red headed flower.

Good luck Daniel. A word of warning... its much easier to stop playing than to stop blogging...

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

I don't need to be forgiven...

My guild asked me to become an officer...

I declined. The position would have been DPS Nazi. And who needs that kinda stress... especially since I'm thinking about jumping my mage to a more active guild to follow a friend.

So... first interview with Melvin... the question..

"Would you please transcribe your recollection of the story following the commentary "Ret pallies are simply too easy." I would love to hear your methodology on this theory."

Melvin... "I click a couple of insta cast buttons, and something (someone) dies. There isn't a lot of thought involved."

The context was him killing a boomkin. Now... I never really ask him if he just goes out ganking or what. I suspect so. Melvin is also very impressed that when playing his ret pally, alliance tends to avoid him. Unlike the 4 other 80's he has, who tend to get murdered with minimal notice. He really hates his mage in this regard.

Anyway... finally saw the Watchmen movie. The ending didn't suck anywhere near as much as I thought it would. A coupla notes on important differences between the movie and the book...

Veidt. In the graphic novel, he comes off much much freaking worse. The scene BigBearButt had problems with, where Veidt tells off the captains of industry for failing humanity completely reverses the meaning of that same scene in the novel. See... Veidt was the sellout. He saw the Keene act coming, and went public well before hand, leveraging his fame into his millions. In the relevant scene, he is discussing ending the line of Minutemen action figures... a fallen hero making money offa children's toys. And instead of evil money grubbing capitalists getting gunned down by the assassin Veidt hired himself, it was his attractive assistant. At the end of the scene... he is supposed to look lost and pathetic. That he isn't, and that we find at the end that it was all an act, is part of his evil. HE IS NOT SUPPOSED TO LOOK PRINCIPLED GODDAMNIT! His namesake, Ozymandius, built massive monuments to his own vanity at the cost of thousands of lives, and the suffering of slaves. That should be a BIG tip. And when he finds his plan go off... in the novel he cheers. He doesn't give a little speech about how "this hurt me more than all those people I just killed." He doesn't give a damn.

Comedian. The movie really rips on him. For good reason... Moore wrote him to be as obscene as possible. However, one of the strands of the story is the redemption of the comedian. And can we bitch about Gugino in old person makeup? They couldn't find an actress of an appropriate age? WTF? Anyway... one of the signs of Veidt's evil is his misinterpretation of the Comedian's breakdown. Veidt claimed that the comedian was broken by the knowledge that war would be ended forever. This was Veidt's twisted view. What really broke the comedian, as revealed in the scene with Moloch, was the knowledge that the sick joke of a humanity always at its own throat was being taken to its logical extreme. What broke the comedian was, for the first time, a realization of horror. At that point, he stopped being the comedian, and was simply human. And it was a human being that Veidt killed, dying (hint hint) in a bathrobe, not in battle armor.

The comedian is redeemed at the end by sally jupiter. Sally didn't forgive Eddy because he was the father of her daughter. That was complete nonsense. She forgave the brutal almost rape because she loved him. The graphic novel begins with a man being murdered, and ends with a woman weeping over his death.

Last was the corner. The heart of the graphic novel, in a way that the movie didn't capture, is a corner with a news/magazine stand. Where an annoying kid reads comics and doesnt pay for them. Where the stand owner doesn't mind because he likes the company. Where a bull dyke lesbian (sorry for the language, but she is... straight outta central casting) pushes everyone around, while physically abusing her girlfriend. Where everyone shows up... all colors, all types, all ugly, flawed, normal people. All given a panel or two to introduce them to the reader. And at the end, it's where Veidt's "bomb" shows up... killing everyone.

When Rorschach talks about the pile of bodies Veidt's new world is based upon... the reader of the graphic novel knows, because Moore took the trouble to show them.

Now one thing about Moore... sometimes, he really really isn't terribly subtle. One thing completely left out of the Movie... Veidt's ad campaign for the new future featuring beautiful blond people looking into the future... at the end Dan and Laurie more or less sell out to Veidt... and the last scene shows them visiting Sally... in the graphic novel both dyed their hair blond. Like Veidt. Like good little nazis. A beautiful future for beautiful people...

Friday, March 20, 2009

Sorry seems to be the saddest word...

Sorry bout the non-postage.

First, IT is getting worse. Or better, depending on what side of the "waste my time at work" war you on. I would like to formally curse bigbearbutt for naming his blog something that would automatically trip any censor with half a non-brain.

I mean, what? Was Naked Chicks Want to Meet You! taken as a blog name?

That being said, I rather liked his post on Watchmen. I wish I could link to it, but IT...

sigh

And I gotta lotta work on my desk right now. My department decided to begin an experiment... can Noobed make a paper on ferrous scrap price movements funny enough for people to bother reading? Stay tuned!

THREE times this week, I have been kept from commenting on political crap floating around the office by people that care about me.

Then there's WoW. One of the bastards providing competition in the glyph market finally got smart at started copying one of my favorite marketing techniques. Dammit all to hell.

My guild is getting weird. But that happens. Some of em are a little peeved at me for not running with them last night. (Told em in advance... NCAA Basketball is on, you people on yuir own!)

Problem is... they started a new Naxx group, and wanted my mage to anchor the dps. Ran Wednesday... got 2 and change wings done. Mage topped charts by 30%. Melvin was 4th... behind the two tanks. (We got decent tanks this run).

Last night... without the 3.5k dps from my mage...

Well... Melvin was a lot closer to the top of the dps meters.

Anyway... Melvin is being resistant to the idea of a guest post. However... he will answer questions. So, plz leave any questions you have for him...

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Red wine!

K. We all have problems. Me, I got more than most.

I gotta tell you guys about Melvin's Naxx 10 run.

Problem is, I can't. I don't know how to. So, I'm trying to get Melvin to do it for me. He is, to put it mildly, reticent.

See... he didn't suck. Much. He was even above two of the other dps in the charts... (on trash, he was only above one of them on bosses...)

His preliminary statement... "Ret pallies are simply too easy."

Oh, and the bottom DPS was a mage posting about 800 dps through the run. Melvin was about 1900 overall, 1300 on bosses like grob, 2k on bosses like patch. He really shined on trash. So look... Ima gonna need you guys to leave a few comments to help me convince him to "guest post" as it were...

In the meantime... me and superheroes...

See, us geeks, otaku, nerds, whatever term of contempt you choose, get a little obsessed. And obsession is nothing without meticulous attention to both detail and classification.

A while back the now defunct Arms N Fury and I had a thing on superman vs batman.

All things considered... well, I'm a lot freaky. I've had several nervous breakdowns, etc etc. At one point in my life, I was writing a 12-20 page research paper every week for three years. That changes you. So, when I get goin on what makes a superhero... don't make the mistake of thinking I'm obessed with superheroes per se... I was listening to The Fame by Lady Gaga... (don't ask) and all I could think about was which paper I would write about it if I had to... "A Loaded Gun: S&M imagery in The Fame" or "What is wrong with this picture? Eurofetish costuming in Lady Gaga's Music Videos."

I'm obsessed with a lot of stuff.

Anyway, Watchmen is out, and Kimmu sempai and I will probably go see it soon. I dread the outcome. The graphic novel is so amazing, and hollywood has a history of misunderstanding the fundamental points of Alan Moore's work. Still, one thing is driving me crazy. Movie critics making the following observation, in one form or another....

"Dr. Manhattan, who is the only one of the Watchmen with real superpowers..."

Now see... there is this thread running through American literature... the self made man. This thread leads directly to superheroes. Normal heroes aren't enough for americans... we need freaks. It is therefore, highly ironic that the greatest superhero writer... Alan Moore, was british. And there is a wonderful explanation of this in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. (which, if you translate into american, well, you get the picture...)

The point of the superhero isn't the superpower. Manhattan is not greater than the rest of the Minutemen. He is simply more powerful. The other characters... one can predict the future, one can build amazing armor and weapons, one is the greatest warrior of the human race, and then there's the silk spectre, who really doesn't belong in the picture. (one of Moore's more subtle points, and one which gets him accused of misogyny from time to time.)

The point of the novel is that none of them are human, and yet, they are forced to cohabit with humans and human foibles. One of the more poignant plotlines was Nite Owl's decision and resultant failure to become, in effect, mortal.

So when critics start talking about superpowers... they reveal not only a misunderstanding of the work, but of the genre as a whole.

Batman is not less than Superman, for all his lack of powers. Superman is boring... not Aquaman boring, but boring none the less. As a friend (who was a big superman fan) put it... every episode, Lex Luthor steals Lois Lane and flies to the moon with her... and Superman has to fly there to get her back.

Batman is no more human or mortal than Superman. Just different. Crazy in a way that human psychology can't cover. (Hence the Rorshach going through therapy plot line.) God are not different from mortals because of power... they are different becuase of perspective. And Batman, eminently mortal in flesh, is the way he is because with his skewed vision, he could chose no other path. (Or as R put it... We do not choose this... we are compelled...)

Of course there are all kinda similarities that we could talk about with the hero archetype, the nietzchean overman, or the asian hidden master.

Maybe later...

Wednesday, March 4, 2009

Where were you?

It's like this.

I'm gettin burnt out already. So... I started a druid. If I hurry, I can get her to 80 and geared before 3.1 hits.

The gold is still rollin in, and I'm facing a decreasing interest in running the 15min of operations required every night to keep it comin.

Heirloom gear is mad awesome. I mean... except for freaking druids. There is no heirloom feral druid weapon. However, the haste trinket gives me between 4 and 6% increased melee/casting speed...

Was chatting with Melvin about this. He has, among other things, an 80 druid. He hates the nickname I've given the poor brute... "fleabag."

Anyway, I told him what I've done to gear up my loverly new char, including dropping 1k gold on the alt.

Melvin thinks this is a bad idea because of pickpockets.

Seriously.

See, once in band camp... well, orgrimmar... Melvin saw the message...

X pickpockets you for Y gold.

X being a horde rogue, and Y being 3 digits. Or as Melvin put it... "When I saw how much he got, I was furious!"

Since then, Melvin keeps his gold on an out of the way alt. Bank alt, indeed.

Thursday, February 26, 2009

My morals got me on my knees...

Dunno... I hang out with people just as snarky and vicious as I am.

So anyway... I've been thinking about home ownership lately. I'm making bank, getting stuff set aside, and need to start planning so I'll have what I need over the next 18 months or so to move outta the closet I currently live in.

A friend/coworker of mine is goin through this process now. I was asking him for some tips, and here's his response...

On a similar note, while I have not yet discovered a way to qualify as a first-time homebuyer, I have discovered a way to get $3000 towards remodeling my future home. I'm already predisposed to get a tankless water system and a new boiler. Conveniently, the "stimulus" plan increases the rebate for these energy-efficient appliances.

Furthermore, I'm heartened to learn that whilst PMI now costs 1.1% of loan value, I easily qualify for an FHA loan. Since the effective annual cost of FHA Insurance is 0.65%, I will receive a government subsidy of $1107 from the federal government (on top of the $620 subsidy from the state for living in Baltimore). This amount is actually a bit higher, because the 0.65% I do pay is tax-deductible. (Thank you, Congress)

I understand these developments will not be soothing to your ears. Considering the insane borrowing proposed in the federal budget, we will all be paying much higher taxes in the years to come. Unfortunately, as a responsible renter, you don't actually benefit from any of the government's largesse, and so are doubly screwed.

You have my sympathies. If it makes you any happier, I'll ask the IRS if you can just pay your federal taxes to me instead, since cutting out the middleman is sure to improve efficiency.


I so need to egg whatever he ends up buying...

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Please Mr. Postman...

I had never seen this before... sent to my level 35 bank alt (warrior, natch, to carry all that gold...)

When did they start doin this?

Anyway. Im at work, and sick as a dog. Gotta head cold in that stage where yuir forebrain turns to snot and then dries up, and the vacuum created ends up sucking your eyes back behind that part of the brain where you remember all the clock faces you've ever stared at while waiting for school/work/paid sex to end.

You know how you feel the morning after getting royally pissed during a chili dog eating contest? I wish I felt that good.

So whats the shammy news? Enhance is getting the back of the hand they would give to ret pallies if they weren't terrified of arriving home only to find their families tied up and being forced to watch The Spirit for the fiftieth time.

Elemental is getting minor boosts.

Resto is getting big love, mostly via back door, glyph lovin. 20% more healing from earth shield? Plz stay!

So.. the same mental defectives that thought 3.0 ret pallies weren't insanely unbalanced now think they can juggle talent changes, skill changes, and glyph changes. Invest heavily in popcorn and tarp, this is gonna get messier than a Gallagher show.

Dunno if I linked this before. Let the right one in. A movie about a teenager that falls in love with a vampire, only it doesn't suck.

Also, if you've never seen this, you might really enjoy it.

I saw In Bruges over the weekend, and was vastly impressed. Not quite the Tarintinoesque semi-comedy. Lotta religious overtones. Really spooky-sad.

Also saw Jumper. Lets see... guy gets hunted by religious nuts that murder his estranged father, kidnap his girlfriend, and he ends the movie trying to convince them he's not a bad guy.

WTF is wrong with hollywood?

Maybe more on 3.1 later. I'm still trying to see where ret got nerfed. I guess I'm like that guy staring at that poster in Mallrats. Just can't see the sailboat.

Friday, February 20, 2009

don't think cause i'm easy, i'm naive

Tried 10 man maly with the guild last night. Only had an hour, so 5 wipes, no loots. At the end, we were getting to the third phase, but outta time.

Thersa weird dynamic at work. The weekday group has two kinda weak dps. And they're hurting us. With a 3 healer 10 man set up, you really can't afford weak dps. Especially since they're both ranged dps. And both locks.

I could really use some advice on how to dps assa lock. Especially a decent dest build or two.

Anyway, three posts in a week... I promised to talk about the whole gold thing. But really... greedy goblin is pretty good on things. But I think he puts too much time in on things.

Um... I got two chars doin the cooking quest every day. This results in about 30 northern spices which I can sell for between 20-30g fer a block of 10.

I do the JC quest everyday... this gets us a dragon's eye, which goes for about 150 now, down from 400 a coupla months ago.

And I sell glyphs. I'm kinda proud of this one. I get Icethorn or Adder's Tongue, and mill them. The herbs cost me about 40-42 a stack. I usually get a snowfall ink outta them, which I can sell for 45. And then I also get 5-7 ink of the sea outta them, which I can make glyphs from. My glyphs go from 12-35 g each, depending on competition. Maj can now make every glyph in the game. I sell between 5-20 glyphs a day. Armor and weapon vellums also sell well...

BTW... theres also a lot of money to be made on the JC side of things. uncommon gems turn to enchanting materials quite easily, and saronite ore is quite cheap. However... these are getting burned in house to level my chanting skills.

Thursday, February 19, 2009

And gets crazy like Prozac

So the latest tempest in a teacup for WoW is the impending healing nerfs...

I hate to say it, but healing is easy. It can be difficult sometimes, but for the most part, the better geared and trained the group is, the more retarded the healer can be.

Lets face it. Which of the three roles are least likely to be crippling if done by an idiot? Tank, dps or healing? I mean, healing... just target the tank and hit the slow heal button over and over. The rest of the party can compensate. Trust me... I know. I've been on both sides. I loves my Unbound. But healing tests in WoW are few and far between. Loken in Heroic HoL is mostly a gear check. Saphiron and Kel in Naxx... yeah.

Saph... conserve mana and keep moving while healing your assignments...

Kel... you gonna have to drop an emergency heal on someone within 3 secs of them becoming the ice block bitch.

Otherwise...

Lotheb is so retarded I can't even mention it as a check.

Patchwerk... whats harder to get, a better healer or a better dps? Spam heals till the mana runs dry, and if the dps cant get the job done by that time, it's their fault. Fer christ's sake... three times Unbound had her healing buddy DC during the fight, and had to keep the offtank up (Naxx 10) by herself... and did with no problems. Minimal skill required.

But when I get into a conversation with the guild master prot pally, and he tries to explain the 696 tank rotation to me... or the surv hunter shot rot...

Crap... I got three moves... riptide, chain heal, and lesser healing wave. There are times I should break out healing wave, and these are usually personal fail times. My arcane mage has a dozen more dimensions than my resto shammy. And is thus much more challenging to play...

Which is why I have mixed feelings about the nerf. Deadly megs explains it best... once you've done extensive pvp asa healer... with that big damn bullseye all over your butt, its kinda hard to go back to the 8 bit theatre that is PvE. So... mana nerfing is gonna be part of how Blizz tunes Ulduar to be a tougher encounter. So be it. Bring it on. I'll strap some more mp5 panels to the old cow, maybe regem, and I'll be just fine.

I'm warning the rest of you tho. Your healers... are not prepared.

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Love me tender...

You just gotta wonder what's in those Love Tokens some times...

Not too much to talk about. Unbound is now fully geared, and has the mace offa Kel in 10 man. Rocking 2200 sp without raidbuffs or totems...

Maj has 3/5 her tier 7, and is rocking the charts wherever she goes...

Which just leaves the horror of Melvin. A coupla weeks ago, I talked Melvin's brother into doin VoA... and the free epix kinda convinced Melvin to try it out.

One problem... Melvin is disappointed that the ten minute fight only results in four epic drops. It should, he told me after careful consideration, be more rewarding.

So, one of my main peeps in the guild of guilds is the Palminator. Who I mock incessantly, cuz, you know, his main is a ret pally. Anyway, his roommate just leveled a DK to 80 assa tank, and we've been running together to get em geared. Now, Palmy, Dave the DK (who used to be the world's worst warrior, but got better) Melvin and his brother (magebert) are all RL friends.

So when Dave da DK and Magebert asked me to do the CoS daily with em, I agreed...

Only to find Melvin's ret pally waiting in the group.

Now... it has been proven beyond any doubt that Melvin doesn't know how to play a mage. Or gear one. But ret pallies are a faceroll class, right? Right?

Not so much... Magebert healin, Dave tankin, and we pug another ret pally... and all during the run, the pug pally and I keep up a running commentary on Melvin's sub 1100dps efforts. AND HES GEARED. All the best gear BS can make a ret pally.

Two main comments... pug pally "I didnt know a level 80 pally could do so little damage!"

Magebert: "I don't think he knows how to play any of his 4 80's..."

And at the end, band of guild drops... int, sta, haste, and spellpower ring. And Melvin rolls need, cuz it's the perfect ret pally ring. Ima go back to drinking for another week.

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Hate me today


Every so often, I gotta be me. The absolute bastard.

And the thing is... Absolute Bastard likes his jokes.

KK... one thing to know on background. I've been makin mad stacks of gold messin with the AH.

I'm not spending much time... so I'm not makin real money, like this guy is... but about 15-30 min a day, and I'm takin home about 4k gold a week. Not counting whatever I make in quests...

This lets me play what I want to play. Grinding gold with farming and dailys is NOT FUN. Some people get off on it. I don't.

I make money the old fashioned way... finding people that put serious work in, and then swooping by to claim the lion's share of profits. What can I say? Ima total bastard.

I managed to pick up Je'Tze's Bell the other day for 5.5k gold. Unbound is now seriously geared.

K... thats part one on background.

Second... I've been running with a core group in the guild of guilds. J, the tank, Av, the holy pal. We've been trying to gear/train another warrior tank (K) in the game... so J respecced fury, so he could dps and keep an eye on K during a coupla runs.

This rather upset Av. On general principle. If we gotta heal, by damn god, tanks dont get to have fun either.

So... when I whispered Av, offering to pay him to let J die the next time his fury ass pulled aggro offa the weak tank, Av agreed.

More background. I've been picking on J lately with the gold thing, since we're both inscriptionists... and J complains about always bein poor.

Whereas I complain about the carpal tunnel I'm developing from clicking all that gold in my mailbox. (yeah, yeah, theres an addon that will loot it for me, I'm sure)

So... Av lets J die, and whispers me back. "You owe me 1000 gold!"

He was joking.

I wasn't. And Av was seriously shocked when I dumped 1k gold on him. So was J. Who's a little upset that Av and I are talking about making this...

A Daily.

Or in the words of Av... "THE BEST DAILY EVER!"

Wednesday, February 4, 2009

When it's all mixed up...

How bad is the economy? Even Klingons are turning to crime!

And two more serious (read grotesque) links.

This and that.

Melvin got excluded from the Naxx run last week. I was chatting with him about it, and he's feeling quite hurt... well, not so much about that, but about his inability to get into heroics. Anytime he gets asked about his spellpower, he ends up putting the person on his ignore list.

Now note... he has authorized me to pass on his theory of WoW class justice. And when I say class... I mean have vs have not, not, er... well, class.

According to Melvin... other players had the advantage of people carrying them through dungeons. So... he doesn't see why he should be penalized for being badly geared or specced... other players should feel obliged to support him in heroic runs. Like, presumably, they were when they first hit 80.

And the whole spec thing? Not a problem... its all gear. Get him the gear, and he'll be as good as he needs to be... chain casting scorch.

Melvin is now leveling a hunter, rather than gearing any of his 3 level 80 characters...

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

What is this, forgot?

Weird guild drama, busy at work, and playing way too much...

I did every heroic on my mage Saturday save three.

My mage is now as geared as she's gonna get outside Naxx...

And then they stealth nerf my build. AND TO MAKE IT WORSE, my ret pally friend has been /w me with "QQ" the last 24 hours. Over and over.

Maybe I shouldn't have held that guild pally nerf dance off when 3.08 hit.

My guild has hit a weird point. We have way too many tanks. Enough healers, but half of em are never around, so Unbound keeps gettin drafted. (Got my t7 Helm monday, so no biggie...)

And we are crucially short decent dps. Melvin might end up getting drafted. (me: "He's only 800dps!" Them:"He's all we got!")

If it comes down to Arcane vs FFB... I'm sticking arcane. Much better survivability and dps when I gotta move. Im gonna miss my 5k arcane missile crits tho...

Anyway... the guild has asked me anchor two different Naxx groups. Which is a bit more raiding than I'd planned on. At this point we have 5 tanks, 7 healers, and an assorted cast of overly casual dps.

This last week kinda proved the point. We'd been running one Naxx-10. Wed was more or less the better players (including a drafted and protesting Unbound, who skilled or not, at least has gear) And we had the habit of takin out 2 wings in the run. (One night we killed 11 bosses in 4 hours.) Then Sat hits, the scrubs come out, and they spend 4 hours trying and failing on Maexxna. Then Sunday, "A" team, rest of wings cleared.

Monday night, we do Seph and Kel.

The problem is... the groupings are by who can play on what night. And the better players have hooked up with Naxx-25 groups, so have little interest in helping with Naxx-10. Tonight, we start the new raids with Naxx-10, group A, which seems to have all the better players and tanks. Weekends will have... Melvin. And Magebert.

I have a sense of doom... maybe this weekend I'll just work on achievements.

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

They make no mention of the beauty of decay

Extended maintenance tuesday... and I have the day off. Curses!

Some screenshots... here's a quest line horde NPC from Conquest Hold in grizzly hills. And what does the dominant orc female choose as accessories? Two pretty belf boy toys. About all they good for, I suppose...


It didn't end well, btw. "When I'm through with you, not even the worgs will touch your corpse..." I gotta figure out a way to work that into a conversation sometime...






Chistmas is when Santa Majeure rides the skies on her undead mount, bringing pwn to all the little noobs out there...

Maj is 80 now, Frostfire build, pushin between 1.6 and 2k dps (depending on heroic...) I'd forgotten how much fun fire could be. And how squishy the squishiest of builds was... and then she wakes to find herself no longer hit capped :(


Quotes from an early npc. You summon a goddess and she has this to say... of all the quest lines, the whole Gundrak thing is the saddest... "if our gods can die... then so can we..."
The trolls murdered their gods to save themselves from the scourge.. thats just hard core, there. As Wallace Stevens put it... "The death of one god is the death of all gods."

Um... so sometimes theres just a conversation in general chat that you just have to stay the hell away from. "Ima girl. Oh wait, Ima woman.. cuz I'm legal now."

/shudder

I really don't have to explain why I took this screenshot, now do I?