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!

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.

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?

Golden in your darkness

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

You get what you need...

I haz 4 piece tier 8 bonus. :)

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

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.

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.

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...

He said shut up!

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

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."

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.

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.

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...

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...

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.

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.

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.

Keep to the sunny side of life!

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

Mabd hit 80, BooYah!

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...

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...