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...

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!"

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...