Operation: Mindfsck

RichO, The Hall of Heroes and a Debt of Honor.

2012-02-12T14:54:00.000-08:00

A word about my experiences in the VA Healthcare System here in Central California.VA is very different from every other hospital I've ever been to. If only one word can describe the difference between VA and, say, Kaiser, it has to be "sanctity."

How is VA a sacred space? Think of a Valhalla for the living, a place for the brave who faced our nation's enemies in war and emerged alive, if even barely. Or, in a twist on a historical model, a Hospitaller order like the Knights of Malta, founded for the knights of the realm instead of by them.

While every hospital carries an aura of sanctity to my eyes because the art of Healing is beloved of Goddess, there is something else entirely in the air at VA. And that something made me uneasy.

The root of my unease lies in my life story. My military service was a very brief peacetime stint. I left the service under honorable but involuntary conditions, a medical discharge for inability to control my weight. I emerged from that service with limbs and mind more or less intact. I gave my oath -- as every serviceman does --and kept that oath.

However, did I truly give enough to earn a place in this hall of heroes? Do I profane this hallowed ground by claiming a place here even when "the rules" say I am really a member of the lodge?

These are the kinds of questions a man asks himself in the dark hours, when it's just him and his soul, one on one. Nowhere to run, Ego. Id, nowhere to hide. Bald, naked no holds barred self-honesty. Not a thirst for martyrdom, not at all. Not me beating myself up for the sheer joys of habitual self abuse. I can be self-honest without self loathing.

Can I go there for care and still live up to the man I'd like to think I am? Can I walk among my fellow vets without feeling like a poseur?

The answers cannot merely be practicalities like "Dude, you need the care, you qualify and it is there!"

How DARE you take resources away from those vets who suffered and bled for America when you did not?

Like I said, brutal self-examination. My self critic was on a bit of a roll.

I resisted going to VA for care for a long time. I did not understand consciously until the other day the reason why. I was agreeing with my rather brutal self critic. Not the wisest thing to do.

These reasons don't fly in the world of practicalities. They are reasons of the soul.
When I brought this up to a VA counselor, he had this to say to me:

"Did you or did you not sign up of your own free will to, if so ordered by competent command authority, offer any service or sacrifice in defense of the Constitution of the United States of America? That you were never called to actually confront an enemy is not relevant. You were there, in uniform, ready to do so! Unlike most of your or my generation, we served. Those who do not serve sometimes seem to take freedom for granted. You and I did not. You made the effort to pay for it, took a soldier's chance. In short, every other American is indebted to us for our service, and your care is how that debt of honor is paid in full. Stop telling yourself you do not belong there and get the care you need."

After I presented my Form DD214N, documenting my service, I was welcomed and treated with the same dignity and professionalism as the visibly wounded warriors. In some ways the standard of care is much higher here.

I do not want any reader to get the impression that I was in any way dissatisfied with the care I received at Kaiser. Quite the contrary. Kaiser kept me alive for a long time. It's a matter of coverage.

So now every visit to the doctor is something extra. It is a visit to a Hall of Heroes, among brethren and sistren.

Musical Interlude . . .

2012-02-04T14:35:00.001-08:00

This song sums up the first half of this last week. Sara Rameriz's version -- from Gray's Anatomy's musical event episode -- is far superior to the original artist IMHO. Even with the GA cut scenes in there.

Republicans . . .

2012-01-27T13:13:00.000-08:00

What a great choice you have!

Corporate tool, Gov. Dog On Car (Willard Romney)
Ethically challenged pseudo-intellectual (Newt)
Neo-Confederate racist who wants to lead America forward into the 19th century (Paul).
Moral scold, Senator Man on Dog (Santorum)

Given this field, in spite of my many disappointments with him, I'm voting for Obama.

Heard Among The Pathfinders: Missing Persons Edition

2012-01-25T15:44:00.000-08:00

More game table quotes . . .

"I thought you liked cats!"
"I no haz cheezeburger. Sorry."
"I tot I taw a putty tat!"
"I'm sooo glad he said 'rakes' -- without the 'p'"
"It's as though Bel is missing so often in combat has adopted his cleric pacifist Willow's philosophy -- 'Do No Harm'"
"This is the Revenge of Red Lobster!"
"Don't eat my birdie!"

The full list here

"The bird is not Lassie, he can't yelp to tell Mom and Dad that Timmy's down a well."
"Acrobatics check . . . oh $#!7, a 3"
"Finally, a chance to Spellstrike! . . .(rolls a 1) . . . FML."
"It's the famous fuzzy rich guy J. Paul Yeti."
" . . . the worst was yeti to come . . ."
"I failed, yeti again."
"We killed the yetis and got the hair-loom."

Heard Among The Pathfinders: Admiral Akbar Was Not A Rogue Edition

2012-01-09T17:20:00.000-08:00

More fun heard at the table on Sunday. I cleaned up the naughty words.

I'n chaotic sober

You have Disable Device? I put all my points into "Disable Person"

You seem to be the most experienced adventurer. Your name is now "Meat Shield"

Dwarf on a leash! Sniff traps! Good Dwarf! Have a cookie.

You have the Travel domain for that "Run Like A Little Girl" domain power.

Faction mission overachiever!

We have reports of a fount of endless zombies and the gunslinger didn't bring a shotgun. How lame is that?

We should investigate the dead elf. Elves have cool stuff.

Food storage? Water in the barrels and jerky in the coffins?

I intimidate the rock slide

(singling) "He didn't know . . . the gun was loaded"

OK, who cast "Summon B.S. Artist"?

The gunslinger is a "dead-eye" knight

Get out of the axes!

Go play in the trap . . .

Isn't it only courteous to reset the traps for the next party of adventurers?

This map is not of a cave complex, it's of a digestive tract.

This is frozen water, like ice.

I cast "Summon Tums" on the acid pond

Der Tekommando: VNC and Games Routers Play

2012-01-06T14:58:00.000-08:00

Happy fun on the techie front for me.

1. Esteemed Younger Son's Christmas was made with the gift of a decent desktop PC with a 802.11g wifi dongle. Right now he is playing games on it, with his basic user account.

Of course, I have an admin account for basic maintenance. However, given that the primary user is just eight, I find myself answering a lot of "how-to" questions. There's also the times where I have to go over and operate his box from it's place in the living room. Since his chair cannot handle my size, I need to drag over my wrought-iron monstrosity over to do any extended stuff on the box . . .

Enter VNC -- virtual network computing. With VNC technology I can operate EYS's system from anywhere I have an internet connection with port 5900 open through the router on my side. This is the basic tech behind the "GoToMyPC," the Xfinity Signature Support services Jameece sells, and Apple's "Back to my Mac" services. All I had to do is install a server app -- TightVNC -- on EYS's box. Then I launch the Safari web browser, type "vnc://(his LAN IP) or click the shortcut link," log into the VNC server if it is the first time, then log into my admin account. I can silently watch his screen or operate it as if I were there.

I stay at my machine, do what needs doing, then close the screen share.

Of course, once outside the NAT firewall, I have to use our public IP address. Our public IP may have been assigned via DHCP from Xfinity, but it has not changed in a year. Even the local IPs are relatively steady, and the DHCP leases refresh daily. I figured I could port-forward the correct IP port in the router to his local IP . . . then if machine's local IP changes and the port forward fails, I can log into the router's admin interface (over both the LAN OR from the public Internet -- I have a password FROM HELL on the admin interface), adjust the forwarded IP to match the new one for EYS's machine, and I can go back to remotely accessing.

Remote access was not implemented on Jameece's PC because it is a work machine, and I do not want to cause any interference with her employer's requirements.

2. A few years ago, I was hanging out with some of my Lodi techie / gamer friends, and we noticed a neighbor's open wireless network was available. Completely open, as in still using the default Linksys admin username and password. Completely open, as in he was sharing his printer with the entire Internet. My friends changed his SSID to "My Network Is Completely Open!" and printed instructions -- on the shared printer -- on how to secure his network.

When I got a router of my own, I was determined I would not be That Guy.

After consulting with Jameece, I tightened down the security on the wireless network at home. The SSID is no longer visible with a normal scan, so you have to know the new network name to join the network. The new password is much longer and munged to within an inch of its life. MAC address filtering is now implemented for wireless clients.

We will eventually add shared storage and expand the sharing of our printer once we get a new router with guest network capability.

Yes . . .

2011-11-29T10:36:00.001-08:00

I called it. Four years ago

From the TechKommando Files: Crossing Over . . .

2011-11-26T12:34:00.001-08:00

No, this is not about death and dying. Or dead and dying computers.

It's about a third way to run Windows software on Macs.

Yes, three. Seasoned Mac heads know all about Boot Camp and virtual machine software. The third way is using a compatibility layer at the Darwin (Unix) level: Crossover Games.

Basically, Crossover does two things: It makes it easy to install Windows programs and it take program calls from Windows software and direct them to the part of Mac OS X that handles the call. The app runs natively, and yet Windows is never installed. No VM emulation slowdown, no dual booting a la boot camp. NO Windows license.

I got Crossover originally to run the wonderful family MMO Wizard101. A quick perusal of the list of supported apps made me smile: Warhammer 40k Dawn of War (best RTS I've ever played), RIFT (a MMO that is giving WoW a run for its money), X-Com and Hero Lab. The latter is tabletop RPG character design software that beats the living hell out of PCGen.

Awesome stuff.

Table Quotes: Blackros Walpurgis Day Edition

2011-10-30T20:51:00.000-07:00

Great game today at Crazy Squirrel Game Store. I've been away for three weeks due to illness and / or transportation issues. Willow (my healer) made 3rd level.

Highlights included: getting the drop the end boss and keeping him Color Sprayed into impotence the entire fight and fighting an iron golem giant snake.

Thanks to Ethan's Mom for bringing me home after game.

Click here for the rest

Here are the table quotes:

I'm a half orc! I dig green chicks!
(After a roll of 1 on Knowledge (History) Check) [Sings opening melody to "It's a Wonderful World"] "Don't know much about history . . ."
Yet another night at the Museum
I'm going to shadow him
(heard from the adjacent table) " . . . a foul odor emanating from the halfling . . ."
I'm gonna wand his happy ass.
"Since we exist on the Prime Material Plane and the Plane of Shadow at the same time, does that make us bi-planar?" "Sorry, dude, I'm hetro-planar."
If I open the door, will I see screaming zombie women?
The sign reads "Pain Test Here." As much as this pains me, let's go there.
Out of curiosity, which god?
"You won't like me when I'm angry!" "I don't like you right now!"
Sense Motive on the restroom stalls.
Slaves are friends, not food.
"What foul magic is keeping this door sealed?" "It's called a Doorknob!"
Too bad we cannot turn that club into a Newspaper +1 (fighting a nasty dog)
"The dog is making an Acrobatics check." "So he's doing 'Roll Over'/"
So this is the Snake on this Plane.
He said "vivisected" not "bisexual"
Coke of Resistance +1 -- better than Cloak Zero!

My Rite of Autumn

2011-10-28T00:21:00.000-07:00

One of the great spiritual truths I've gleaned from my Pagan path is that the Wheel of the Year offers a good model for timing some of life's bigger tasks that are not directly tied to religious liturgy or agrarian life. One of the things I have been doing annually between the Autumn Equinox and Samhain is taking stock of my life, cataloguing the wins and losses over the course of the year, celebrating goals achieved and identifying new opportunities for spiritual growth.

OK, New Years' Resolutions are somewhat universal, and in a way, this is exactly that.

(continued)

I differentiate it from the mundane practice through timing and the timing's significance on the Wheel. This is the season of the harvest. The seeds I planted -- and nurtured, or neglected -- have come to fruition or ruination in a spiritual harvest. I reaped the benefits of positive change and identified things I need to work on. In addition, the Wheel offers some conveniently spaced mileposts for evaluating my progress -- something that is neglected in conventional New Years' resolutions. This year I will be evaluating my progress at the Cross-Quarters.

By Walpurgis Night, I have everything is in writing and ready to go for the new year. I usually do not share this on my blog. There are elements of this year's version that I am not prepared to share here, but here is what I can share.

1. Physical health. I am closer to being wound free than I was last year. I am eating better and generally healthier, lower in weight. I need to build up my physical endurance through more exercise. I want to be able to walk at least a mile without issues by this time next year. Right now, walking to the bus stop is difficult. I want to be wound free so I can swim next year.

2. Emotional health. I am now aware of the mechanics and pathology of chronic anger and depression. My intense work on this has paid dividends. I am not quite where I want to be here just yet. This is one of the important progress areas. My social anxiety and panic attacks are responding to medication and good old-fashioned visualization. An opportunity here is for me to eschew beating on myself verbally when I make a mistake.

3. Socialization. I achieved the goal of getting into a regular tabletop gaming group and thereby meeting people in Fresno who are not connected to Jameece. Another goal achieved was to set aside some nightly quiet time for just Jameece and I to watch TV together. I have begun the process of reconciling with my birth family. I have not been in close contact with my siblings, child, grandchild, godchild and parents. I made limited progress in changing this, and I need to make more progress. This year, keeping in touch moves to the front of the queue.

4. Reading: Dresden Files, October Daye, and Mira Grant. My progress here has been abysmal.

My other goals concern my relationship with Jameece, and I am not going to publish them here.

Speak Out With Your GEEK Out!

2011-09-04T10:30:00.000-07:00

Yes, why yes indeed, I am all for this.

And, about bloody time!

I encourage all of you to go hither and check out the website.

Facebook page; Twitter hashtag is #speakgeek.

The Dog (and Cat) Days of August 2011: MAXIMIM WIN

2011-08-30T17:08:00.000-07:00

Good stuff happening here? Yeah verily, lots of it!

Young'uns are back in school. My sanity is seeping back ever so slowly.
The youngest is manifesting vastly improved behavior. That's been a big factor in my lower blood pressure.
Big win on the kitty-cat front; fostered all four of our surviving kittens to good homes.
The kid's Dad is cleared to return to work from his illness. He's still not quite all the way out of the medical woods yet, but he'll be back on his beloved mountain again soon.
I'm back in the GMing business. I've the next several adventures sketched out for my home brew game and I've been tapped to substitute-GM for a Pathfinder Society gameat The Squirrel.
Glitchy cable box -- replaced. Damned thing was recording only part of the shows J and I watch together.
Fresno Pagan Pride Day is almost here!
My Grandson, the amazing Parker, turned two last week!

What about you?

Incredible. Just INCREDIBLE.

2011-08-26T18:18:00.000-07:00

Time for a good old-fashioned rant. Reputation.com, I do not give a zebra-striped FSCK about the effect of a rant on the searchable info on the Interweb.

I saw the news today, oh boy.

The central and northern part of the US East Coast is now the target of a hurricane. President Barack Obama, to his great credit, is warning the populace to Get Ready. While we do not know how bad it will be until the event is over, we all know how bad it can get.

Two words: Hurricane Katrina.

The Bush Administration's "response" turned a disaster into a catastrophe. While New Orleans drowned, the President partied. FEMA's response was held up, delayed and of course politicized . . . and people perished who did not need to die.

"Heckuva job, Brownie."

Now we have a hurricane about to hit the US again. It happens every few years, often enough that any given President who serves even one term in office will have a Big One hit us somewhere.

And, now it is Barack Obama's turn. Goddess help him.

Now the same people who almost brought you the smash film "Government Shutdown (2011)" and succeeded in driving down the Federal Government's 'credit rating' by bringing the nation to the brink of a debt default, want to bring us "FEMA 2: Heckuva Job, Barry!"

If ever anyone needed proof that a certain political party -- it happens to be the one symbolized by an elephant this time -- gives not a single solitary rat's fscking ass about anyone who is not already monied . . . look at what Rep. Eric Cantor said with respect to this week's earthquake in Virginia:

The rep's remarks, (tl:dr) -- "No Federal relief without a corresponding tax cut."

What. An. Ass.

Seriously. This loon wants to hold FEMA's disaster response hostage to another demand for goddam tax cuts. In a sense, this should not be so surprising. After all, he led the charge to hold the federal debt limit hostage earlier this month and was deeply involved in holding the middle class tax cuts hostage to the extension of the Bush43-era tax-a-palooza cuts for the wealthy.

What the hell happened to "E Pluribus Unam" ("out of many, one")? Are we not all Americans? Do we no longer have a communitarian bone left in our national body? Is our national soul so corrupted by the idea that we are not our brother's keeper, that the meme "I have mine, get your own, go fuck yourselves!" has so twisted our national soul that it is no longer a duty to help our fellowman recover, but to leave them alone at such times of loss that are truly the foult of no man?

I cannot believe such churlishness, such a callous disregard for the suffering of fellow citizens, is even possible in someone who has sworn to serve in the US Congress.

I barely recognize the leadership of nation of my birth anymore. While I want to weep for the callousness, the sheer doctrinaire heartlessness of these decisions. I hold out hope that Goddess either stays the storm's fury or sends it to be spent where none may be harmed. Should anyone be caught in the maelstrom and be unable to escape, may they endure and recover quickly.

And, finally, that human decency overcome adherence to an inhuman doctrine and assures any victims the adi they need.

The Tekommando Files: EVO much?

2011-08-24T10:42:00.000-07:00

My amazing fiance and I have been discussing getting smart phones to replace our current phones when the contract allows us to do so without too many issues. Mine will not be replacement-eligible until March or so . . . but just yesterday, the Mighty UPS Lady™ brought right to our door a new Sprint EVO 4G.

Once J went to bed, I ~~stayed up way too late and~~ spent a couple of hours messing with the phone, downloading apps and getting my feet wet with the Android OS. My only other smart phone experience has been with Apple's iPhone and iPod touch running iOS.

Color me impressed. The gadget came with a USB A to micro-USB cable, a 110 VAC to micro-USB charger, a quick start guide and near-useless hardcopy documentation. It has an 8 gigabyte micro-SD card for downloaded apps, a customer-installable rechargeable battery and 512 megabytes of onboard flash memory. This is a big difference from iOS devices, which have no mini-SD slots and non-customer installable batteries.

Activation was painless, once we got the correct device number entered. Virtually every Sprint device we have has required a call to Sprint; this one was no exception.

Plusses:

Frankly, the on-device Android Market is far more usable (to me) than the iOS App Store. The apps take up very little memory and seem to execute cleanly. Android Market apps download to and execute from the SD card.
The connectivity to my Mac was excellent. While I could not browse the device with Snow Leopard's Bluetooth File Transfer utility, I could easily pair the EVO with my Mac, my own phone, Jameece's old phone and my Mac. I did not try USB connectivity with any computer system. I was able to get all of Jameece's contacts to the EVO as .vcf (vCard) files and all her photos as well. Very robust Bluetooth!
While we don't have 4g network connectivity, the 3g works just fine.
The file system looked very very very familiar to me. Apparently, and I did not know this before she got the phone, the Android OS looks like (and is!) a mobile version of Unix. Renowned for being rock-solid enough to be the foundation for Internet servers, Unix also underlies my favorite computer OS, Mac OS X.
Just for grins, I checked the Android Market for "Pathfinder RPG" apps. There are a lot more useful, free RPG apps here than on the Apple App Store. This makes me happy. iOS 4.x users are not so fortunate.
I loved the ringtone selection. A lot.
Two words: Angry Birds.

Downsides:

I still cannot see how to get mp3 music onto the thing. If an Android device is going to replace my iPod touch and phone, it needs to play my music. I'd love to see a sync app like iTunes . . . but I have the strangest feeling that the device will only sync music with an iCloud-style subscription store. Not. Amused. I'm sure I'll figure out how to do this when Teh Meece asks me to do so.

Verdict: I still want one.

A Steaming Heap Of First Day Of School Blog Fodder

2011-08-22T10:38:00.000-07:00

1. Today is the first day of school. It's just quietly working grownups and NO TV ON at our lovely little home. And kitties.

2. Speaking of the kitties, two of them have now been spoken for and will be leaving us today. We rescue, we foster and we facilitate responsible cat ownership. We are not cat ranchers. We'll be down to a mere five cats -- three resident adults and two foster-age kittens.

3. Yesterday, I did something I wish I would have thought workable three months ago. What has changed is that the esteemed younger son is behaving much more responsibly. I took note of his respectful tone of voice and his compliance with my reasonable requests to keep the TV volume down, and I was trying to think of a reward to recognize this positive change.

After I caught a glimpse of one of our kittens wandering across the living room floor, the brainstorm hit: I handed him my digital camera and gave him a short lesson in its basic use.

His first solo pictures were of course the kittens. I also gave him a bonus course on how to use iPhoto on my Mac to import and enhance the pictures he takes.

4. Pathfinder Society at the Squirrel: New season, new characters, new adventuresome fun. We are up to four tables and well over twenty players now. I'm playing a pacifistic goody-two-shoes cleric healer and having a blast.

I've also been toying with some additional fun to play character concepts for Society play.

Mezzo d'Foppe, the fabulously flamboyant actor-bard / duelist / fashion plate.
Lo Ping, a monkish mobile speed daemon / two fisted acrobat / master of chop-socky philosophy.
Rob E. Slay, alchemist. Cooks up his extracts, bombs and mutagens like any PF alchemist. For (ahem!) flavor, add Profession (Barbecue Cooking). Occasionally he confuses his cooking and alchemical ingredients.
Rogue, a half-educated transplant surgeon. He only learned how to remove organs with a knife, not put them back.
Monty, a scarlet-clad Inquisitor with a penchant for comfort and stealth. Why stealth? because if he is using stealth, nobody expects him . . . .

One week WoW-Free

2011-08-17T13:28:00.000-07:00

I'm feeling pretty good about that right now.

What an I doing these days with my play time?

Working on my new RPG campaign. Write-ups, plotting and scheming.
I called both my sibs for the first time in years.
I'm playing and will (soon) be GMing at our weekly Central Valley Pathfinder Society games
Enjoying Jameece's company for things like Next Food Network Star, MasterChef, Hell's Kitchen and of course Grey's Anatomy. I am not that crazy about Glee and Chopped.
Facebook games like Galaxy Online 2 and Monster Backyard.
Kittens! Kittens! Kittens!!! (see above pics for the cuteness. Mom-less 2-week old rescued strays, getting bottle-fed by Chief Kitteh Mommy Jameece, ably assisted by the younglings.)

Heard among the Pathfinders: Triple Players

2011-08-15T11:12:00.000-07:00

These quotes are from three separate games: My Miresseia game on Saturday at Meetup and two separate Pathfinder Society `tables where I happened to overhear good ones on Sunday.

Bringing two swords to a gun fight, are you?

You make your bedroom acrobatics roll?

Do I get bonuses for flanking *and* tea bagging?

It's a blunt thrusting weapon

Striker? check. Meat shield? check. Healer? check. Let's do this

. . . Rambo vs. Preditor fanfiction . . .

You are now the keepers of the sacred pizza. Do not rub it.

New Spell: Tenser's Floating Poker Game

You guys might be in a relationship

At least is's not a lust monster or a rust monster, it's a dust monster!

I forgot my +1 swifter broom

Does it take double damage from vacuums? If so we might just suck enough for a bonus.

Rogue: "Now I'm going to get screwed."

Cleric "Nope, that was yesterday's game" (where aforementioned rogue wound up escaping the town watch by leaping into the joy house next door . . .)

Rogue: "I'm scouting ahead, not leaving the group."

We're following the paper trail (as party followed a trail of papers in Swift Prison)

"How do wimpy druids do 2d6 with clubs?"

"Shelliegh spell"

"Oh"

They say we are rootless wanderers . . . (after a druid's entangle spell)

Everybody's rolling good...even the bad guys

Neutralize, I mean, neuter him

Would the baron be mad if he bribed him?

Where is Admiral Akbar when you need him? (While the rogue searches for traps, of course)

Player: "I search the bedroll"

GM: "You find bugs"

Make sure you paint me gloriously

You fell prone on my sword, Get the hell off it!

Acrobatics check to get across the sewer?

Those damned Taldors, they think their shit does not stink.... (in a sewer)

Fight! Fight! A Derro and a Mite!

Get used to the word "fetid."

If you play RPGs . . .

2011-08-13T21:30:00.000-07:00

You will want to go read THIS.

I have tried at least a few of these.

Thank you, Thomas, for pointing me at this list.

There is a time for everything . . .

2011-08-10T10:34:00.001-07:00

. . . and the time for me to stop subscribing to World of Warcraft is now.

That's right. After just over five years, I'm hanging it up as a subscribing player. I'll still play occasionally, since now WoW has gone "free to play" to level 20. But my days of raiding and playing at level cap will end as of next month when my sub expires.

This is not a sudden decision; it's been coming on for the last few months. It's not because I cannot afford it.

Basically, I'm paying for a sub I am not using as much as I once did. I've logged into WoW maybe three times in the last week for maybe an hour or so each. Before this, I was spending in excess of 20 hours a week playing the game or reading up on the game or researching specs, raid strategies, gear, etc.

Now, with all I have going on, I have a different set of priorities.

There's also the fact that Jameece no longer plays. I really enjoyed playing WoW with her. However, she did not enjoy raiding, she hates PvP and is far more into the social element of the game. I like having her along for my adventures.

Finally, there are the changes that went in with the latest expansion. There's some awesome stuff in there . . . but when they dialed the difficulty up on normal mode raids, it hit a point where I could no longer keep up. My reflexes are not that good to start with, so I tend to stand in fire too much for the folks for whom this game is life. In the last expansion, I could keep up with the kids in terms of staying out of the bad stuff. I cannot do that anymore.

Even now that they dialed down the difficulty a bit on the previous tier's raids . . . I just don't have the time or inclination anymore.

Right now I am getting my game itch scratched through Facebook games like Backyard Monsters, Galaxy Online 2. I'm also active in the Central Valley Pathfinder Society, doing table top RPG at Fresno's most awesome game store, Crazy Squirrel Game Store.

I am not rage quitting and it is not goodbye forever. It's a sober recognition that now is the time to go do something else. After all, things change, people change, and under a different set of circumstances I could see myself going back to Azeroth.

Earworm . . . Unreal

2011-08-10T08:56:00.000-07:00

It has been YEARS since I heard this gem from the original Unreal Tournament (UT99). It was the music for my favorite level, Deck 16

I give you . . . Go Down!

UT99 was awesome for a lot of reasons: the music, the flexibility of computer opposition "bots," the many many mods and total conversions like the counter-terrorism TC Strike Force.

Oh, and the various nude bot skins and the one risque voice mod . . . . RAWR!

Heard Among The Pathfinders-- Mists of Absalom Edition

2011-08-08T07:44:00.000-07:00

More Things Gamers Say™ -- the responsibility for any misquotes is mine and mine alone. Just don't hit me over the head with a croewbar . . .

"I love all of God's creatures -- on a plate, with mashed potatoes!" -- a druid

"Anything will improve the look of Bazit's face -- like a chainmail shirt."

Player 1: "What's the plan? Knock down the door, kill them all and loot their bodies!"
Player 2, sympathetic, caring voice: "It's OK, I know all about PTSD, man . . ."

Player: "My will save? Zero"
GM: "Awesome!"

GM: "Your Int and Cha dropped to 6"
Player (Barbarian): "Not that big a hit."

"You should have asked him before he became an idiot"

"Begun the Prone Wars have . . ."

"Bazit, did you bring your giant tub of butter for that giant lobster?"

"Giggling and laughing is normal for a restroom."

"Go ahead, snake my day!"

"He told the plumber to snake the drains . . ."

"Meat shield! Door! Now!"

"I'm not giving you my crowbar! Let the monkey do it!"

"Now maybe he's a little more angry"

"What do the monkey people want?"

"I'm going to try to reason with him."

"You're going to get pummeled over the head with a crowbar . . ."

"Make a promise / Take a vow . . ."

2011-08-07T10:39:00.000-07:00

Today's earworm, from the Moody Blues:

Today's earworm . . .

2011-08-02T18:09:00.000-07:00

Thank you, Gray's Anatomy for turning me on to this song. It caught my ear the first time I heard it while watching Gray's with Jameece . . . but once I caught the full lyrics, it had me in tears.

This particular mashup is from one of my favorite episodes of those I viewed with Jameece.

Mount and Pet gathering

2011-08-02T15:42:00.000-07:00

For a number of reasons, I decided it would be better for me if I stopped raiding for a time. As much fun as raids were, I probably spent more time prepping for raids than I ever did playing D&D.

Without a commitment to raiding, I now am having a lot of fun doing other stuff, like maxing out Archeology skill, collecting pets and mounts and doing the "personal progression" bits in the Regrowth / Firelands region of Hyjal.

Here's are just a few of the rewards I have earned, all through daily quests. The firebird mount, of course, is the awesomest one. I got that for completing the Hyjal / Firelands daily quests. The white cat mount took three weeks of dailies for the Wintersaber Trainers in Winterspring. As I get more screen caps I'll post them for your amusement.

More table quotes . . .

2011-08-01T11:50:00.000-07:00

More stuff gamers say at the table -- Crypto-Fools edition

"Too bad the mage cannot cast Stone to Flesh and walk the statue lady over to the imprisoned madman."

"This statue brought to you by the letter 'I'"

"Oh great! One of those self-defined 'masters'"

"A big-ass crab! All I need is a big-ass salad to put it in!"

"So much for studying for your giant crab driver's license"

"With all the codes here we must be heading for the crypto-fools"

"It's Dokken, not Dorkin!" (Character name)

"I'll swing the dwarf at it."

(Sgt. Schultz voice) "I see no-think! nothink!"

"I'll cast light on his head!"

"We're doooooomed! Dooooooooomed I say!" (foeman casts Doom in the party)

"We're here to kil, er, help you!"

"Difficult terrain is fine. Non-ecludian geometry is NOT!"

"Skeletons! Don't use piercing weapons or you'll be boned!"

"Bring out your undead! *bell rings*"

"As the SAS says, 'He who derros, wins'"

"Is 'shit myself' a standard action?"

"Is 'run like a bitch' one of my class abilities?"

Der Tekcömmandö Files: VNC and Me

2011-07-30T12:48:00.000-07:00

With the goodly number of computers -- one per person, now -- in the house, I often need to go hither and yon to do my thing with them if they are not behaving normally. There's J's office machine (Beauty) in the bedroom, my Mac and two PC lappies (EYD and her dad) and Beast out here in the common room. Upon occasion, I need to do things to or with them on the network.

How do I control them all? Think Lord of the Rings: Sauron gave the various rings out to exercise control over humans, dwarves and elves and had the One ring to rule them all. In the case of the home network, all I need to do is hand each machine on it a ring of sorts -- a VNC (virtual networking computing) server program to install and install the One Ring -- a VNC client -- in my Mac. Kinda neat?

EYS thought so when I showed him how I can log into his system from my Mac. Since Beauty is a work machine, I did not touch it. Her work requires her to run a VNC server and I do not want to fsck with that without knowing the specifics.

It's nice to know that if I need to, I can access home desktop machines from anywhere there is a network connection. Of course this is no help when the network is down . . .

VNC also suffers when there are bandwidth issues. At Apple, I got to work with Apple Remote Desktop, a Mac-specific remote admin solution. Slick, sweet interface, real time scanning . . . and a network with enough bandwidth to not lag. Since Beast's primary network connection is with an early G-generation wireless card, and it looks to be a 802.11B link at best . . . I suspect that 11 Mbps WLAN coupled to the rather lame video capability of the MacBook is why the control feels as laggy as a frozen arthritic snail in molasses.

Question:

2011-07-28T14:04:00.000-07:00

Are the latest antics in Washington over the Federal debt ceiling attributable to the antics of a dangerous cult?

I prefer this method of finding a answer.

"Heard Among The Pathfinders" -- Clerical Errors edition

2011-07-26T13:28:00.000-07:00

Last Sunday's installment of things best taken out of context from the PFS game. Errors are mine.

"My clerical domain is 'The Office Pool'"
"I'm fresh out of Smite Gnome spells!"
Cleric: "Are you hurt?" Wizard: "No, just very sadly disappointed."
"Show us on the miniature where the cleric touched you . . . " (touch attack by cleric, get your minds out of the gutter!)
"I'm not that evil!"
"I'm dropping the gnome in!"
"It's Shit-take, King of the Mushrooms!" (fighting a fungus guy, spelling and emphasis intentional)
"Elf is NOT 'The Other White Meat!'"
"I'm going to smash that guy. Let me go prone first!" (Barbarian with a knack of maxing his damage by attacking things while he is prone)

Semper Fi!

2011-07-22T20:18:00.000-07:00

Three cheers to the United States Marine Corps, for their supremacy on the battlefield and their devotion to the Constitution of the United States:

From the Wall Street Journal:

Sgt. Maj. Barrett also tackled questions on the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” the military’s ban on gays serving openly in uniform. The Department of Defense is preparing to implement repeal, and Sgt. Maj. Barrett addressed that issue directly.

“Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution is pretty simple,” he told a group of Marines at a base in South Korea. “It says, ‘Raise an army.’ It says absolutely nothing about race, color, creed, sexual orientation.

“You all joined for a reason: to serve,” he continued. “To protect our nation, right?”

“Yes, sergeant major,” Marines replied.

“How dare we, then, exclude a group of people who want to do the same thing you do right now, something that is honorable and noble?” Sgt. Maj. Barrett continued, raising his voice just a notch. “Right?”

Sgt. Maj. Barrett then described conversations with U.K. troops, who saw a similar ban lifted a decade ago, with little disruption. And to drive the point home, he produced a pocket copy of the Constitution.

“Get over it,” he said. “We’re magnificent, we’re going to continue to be. … Let’s just move on, treat everybody with firmness, fairness, dignity, compassion and respect. Let’s be Marines.”

Yes, Sergeant Major!

While I am so glad DADT is ending, I am sad for the magnificent people who were either forcibly ejected from the ranks or who never served at all because of the ramifications of this misguided policy. One of my friends is in the latter category.

For him, this policy change is about a decade too late.

Of debt limits and the like: Another Long Hot Summer?

2011-07-22T16:37:00.000-07:00

"The only time anything ever gets done is at the last minute . . ." -- Some wit or another.

By Odinn I hope the elected Federal Government gets it done at the last minute. "It" being an increase in the federal debt limit.

If Something Is Not Done by 2 August . . . the possible consequences are beyond such words as "dire" or "grave." The macroeconomic ones -- the instability of the markets, the flight from the US dollar as the international reserve currency, the certification to all the world that the US has dropped to Third World status -- pale in comparison to the more personal ones. How to pay bills if my SSDI does not arrive. How my parents and Jameece's will fare if Social Security pensions and veteran's benefits are held up. Will the kids' schools open next month if the district's allotment of Federal aid does not arrive? What happens if people take to the streets with weapons because their SNAP benefits have not been paid and their children are hungry? What happens if the President decides that the 14th Amendment's forbidding of the impairment of the full faith and credit of the US Government supersedes the House of Representatives' hold on the purse strings of the entire government and Tea Party types decide to launch a putsch?

I am not in the mood to go into the various arguments for or against or to state my positions in this debate. If you know me well, you know where I stand.

Looks like 2011 might be another long, hot summer.

On this date, 42 years ago . . .

2011-07-20T21:54:00.000-07:00

I give you this:

"Here men from the planet Earth set foot upon the moon, July 1969 A.D. We came in peace for all mankind."

-- Plaque left behind by the crew of Apollo 11 at the Sea of Tranquility landing site, 1969.07.20

In many ways I am saddened more and more each year as this date passes. America used to do great things.

Now all we do is argue endlessly about why we cannot.

Leslie Fish captured the moment perfectly in the song in this video. Yes, we won the "race to the moon" . . . then rested upon our laurels. Americans used to gaze at the horizon and dream and hope. Now we turn and glare at one another in fear and loathing.

Has this country really become such a small, mean place in the span of just two generations?

I will not go into how this happened. There is plenty of blame to go around . . . but blame never really ever fixes anything.

If you really want to start somewhere, countrymen, start with a mirror and a pair of open eyes..

Heard Among The Pathfinders . . .

2011-07-17T18:47:00.000-07:00

Table quotes from the last couple of weeks. If I did not get them exactly right, well, this is what my hasty notes say. The responsibility is all mine.

" . . . from monk to chump."
"BURN THE SEWER!" (During a run through the sewers of a big city after the presence of methane gas was mentioned, and the effects of same).
"Are we going UP or DOWN Shit Creek? With or without a paddle?" (same game in the sewers).
"Are you a fire mage or a flaming mage?"
"Can I (a cleric) cast Bless on myself so I can piss holy water?"
Player: "Listen check at door." GM: "Sounds like wood."
Player 1: "I'm hearing voices again" (in a corridor); Player 2: "Take your medications to fix that."

Much fun was had at PFS on Sunday at the Squirrel.

Finding my Path in Fresno, Crazy Squirrels, Etc

2011-07-15T15:21:00.000-07:00

After more than a year of not dropping dice around a table, I found a good group up here in Fresburg.

It's not my beloved Miresseia, and I'm not GMing. However, it's something I have long needed to do, and that's being just another player.

Our FLGS here, the one-and-only Crazy Squirrel Game Store, has become the nexus for a cell of Paizo Publishing's Pathfinder Society (PFS). PFS is organized play in the mold of the old RPGA -- adventures in a shared world with stringent rules about character creation, equipment and advancement to provide a uniform experience for players. Pathfinder Society uses the Pathfinder RPG rules -- think rationalized, streamlined D&D 3.5 with a lot more character creation options.

A quick example of the differences in terms of one class: the Wizard. In 3.5 wizards could have a familiar, with options as to which beastie you can have serving you. In PFRPG, "just a familiar" class feature is now called "Arcane Bond." A PFRPG wizard can have either a familiar OR a Bonded Object like an amulet, ring or staff that allows the casting of an additional known (not necessarily prepared) spell each day. Of course, you suffer penalties if your bonded object is not with you . . .

Every Sunday, about 20 of us gather in the CSGS game room, snag a couple tables and start playing our way through the shortish scenarios (3-4 hrs). Our GMs are awesome: Jack, Josh and James know their onions and are good at helping new players. I currently play Graylith, a generalist wizard with an risk-taking streak a mile wide, cat-like curiosity and who describes magical stuff in a techno-babble that would make a ST:TNG writer blush.

TL: DR -- I'm having fun.

Google+ First Impressions

2011-07-12T21:13:00.000-07:00

Thanks to my friend Iz, I now have a Google+ account.

Basically G+ is Google's social networking site. It is in early alpha so far. It has Circles for your friends, Sparks (stuff you follow that look suspiciously like a RSS feed of Google search results), a Stream for pics and status-type updates and up-voting.

Plusses: G+ is currently ad-free. I do not expect that to last because there is a lot of white space on the pages where Google will eventually no doubt toss targeted ads at you.

Minuses: No iPhone mobile app right now (there is one for android, naturally). No games or much in the way of eye candy. The sharing UI really needs work.

If you read this and want in, I have invites. Just leave a comment to get one.

" . . .our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor."

2011-07-04T10:43:00.000-07:00

In Congress, July 4, 1776.
A Declaration
By the Representatives of the
United states of America,
In general Congress assembled.

When in the course of human Events, it becomes necessary for one People to dissolve the Political Bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the Powers of the Earth, the separate and equal Station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent Respect to the Opinions of Mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the Separation.

We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness—-That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute a new Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles, and organizing its Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient Causes; and accordingly all Experience hath shewn, that Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while Evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the Forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long Train of Abuses and Usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a Design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their Right, it is their Duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future Security. Such has been the patient Sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the Necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The History of the Present King of Great-Britain is a History of repeated Injuries and Usurpations, all having in direct Object the Establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid World.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public Good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing Importance, unless suspended in their Operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the Accommodation of large Districts of People; unless those People would relinquish the Right of Representation in the Legislature, a Right inestimable to them, and formidable to Tyrants only.

He has called together Legislative Bodies at Places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the Depository of their public Records, for the sole Purpose of fatiguing them into Compliance with his Measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly Firmness his Invasions on the Rights of the People.

He has refused for a long Time, after such Dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the Dangers of Invasion from without, and Convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the Population of these States; for that Purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their Migrations hither, and raising the Conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the Tenure of their Offices, and Amount and Payment of their Salaries.

He has erected a Multitude of new Offices, and sent hither Swarms of Officers to harass our People, and eat out their Substance.

He has kept among us, in Times of Peace, Standing Armies, without the consent of our Legislature.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a Jurisdiction foreign to our Constitution, and unacknowledged by our Laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For quartering large Bodies of Armed Troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from Punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all Parts of the World:

For imposing taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us, in many Cases, of the Benefits of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended Offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an arbitrary Government, and enlarging its Boundaries, so as to render it at once an Example and fit Instrument for introducing the same absolute Rule in these Colonies:

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with Powers to legislate for us in all Cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our Seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our Towns, and destroyed the Lives of our People.

He is, at this Time, transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the Works of Death, Desolation, and Tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty and Perfidy, scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous Ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized Nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the Executioners of their Friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic Insurrections among us, and has endeavoured to bring on the Inhabitants of our Frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known Rule of Warfare, is an undistinguished Destruction, of all Ages, Sexes and Conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions we have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble Terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated Injury. A Prince, whose Character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the Ruler of a free People.

Nor have we been wanting in Attentions to our British Brethren. We have warned them from Time to Time of Attempts by their Legislature to extend an unwarrantable Jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the Circumstances of our Emigration and Settlement here. We have appealed to their native Justice and Magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the Ties of our common Kindred to disavow these Usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our Connections and Correspondence. They too have been deaf to the Voice of Justice and of Consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the Necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of Mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace, Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the World for the Rectitude of our Intentions, do, in the Name, and by the Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly Publish and Declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be, Free and Independent States; that they are absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political Connection between them and the State of Great-Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm Reliance on the Protection of the divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.

Signed by Order and in Behalf of the Congress,
John Hancock, President.

Attest.
Charles Thomson, Secretary.

The WoW 4.2 Patch Day PvP Troll / Griefer Blues . . . And More

2011-06-28T13:55:00.000-07:00

Warning: This post contains some rather naughty (NSW) words.

I am not going to rant about the intricacies of World of Warcraft here. Been there, done that, got the t-shirt. It's just that WoW is a perfect vehicle for my observations this Day That Patch 4.2 Dropped. I'll do my best to avoid or translate MMO-speak, largely because most of you are not conversant with MMO-speak and because the issues I am highlighting are more about human nature in cyberspace and some issues I am working than specifically ranting about WoW trivia.

This particular bit of new content, Patch 4.2, has been in the works for quite awhile. Two of this patch's great new features are several very lore-heavy new quest series. One of them is a one-pass -- non-daily -- quest series that has as its reward a considerable sum of gold and an "epic" item grade cloak. Since my characters' cloaks are nowhere near this quality, I made doing this quest series a priority as far as my WoW time was concerned.

I can understand everyone and his dog doing these quests along with me, since this is Patch Day. Good cloaks were hard to get in Patch 4.1. Folks of both factions, the awesome Alliance and those motherless curs of the Horde, gathering in confined areas where the quests -- killing swarms of elementals -- were happening. Then some folks of both factions were showing up for these quests "flagged" for Player-vs-Player (PvP) combat. The default on my server is that players must voluntarily "set their PvP flag" to engage in PvP. However, under certain circumstances -- like attacking or healing a flagged player -- the PvP flag gets set without player input.

So there I was, killing elementals when I swapped targets to a flagged Hordie and popped him with my trusty boom stick. Hunters in WoW have animal companions that fight alongside them, so my trusty gorilla (yes, I engage in Gorilla Warfare) did his area-damage thunder stomp . . . and suddenly I was being hit by six Hordies. Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide, damage piling up like a wreck in tule fog on I-5 . . . all I could do is fight back till I died. I took two of the fsckers with me, though -- hunters are nasty in PvP.

I waited five minutes while dead. If a PvP flag is set automatically, it goes away after five minutes of no PvP action . . . and the Horde guys cannot see me if they are alive and I am dead. I resurrected and made the adjustments -- an animal companion without an area of effect attack, my raptor "JeebusPony". I also took a few other measures too technical to detail here to limit the chance of attacking flagged Hordies.

My point is that the people on my server are mostly dedicated to questing and raiding -- in other words, Player-vs-Environment (PvE). If we wanted the added ~~pain in the ass~~ thrill of needing to watch out for the other faction all the damned time, I'd play on a PvP server where my PvP flag is ALWAYS set. Questing in crowded areas flagged is trolling for unintentional PvP combat against people who usually do not want it -- like me.

Most of the trolling people had special PvP gear -- there are special armor pieces and weapons with statistics that enhance PvP performance -- that gave them an enormous edge in PvP. Most of these unintentional fights were rather one sided due to gear and the PvE mindset. I spend very little time engaging in PvP, so I'm not familiar with class tactics and I do not have gear with PvP stats.

But not all fights like these are one-sided. I got flagged again. This time it was a flagged lone death knight -- think of a non-evil slightly undead anti-paladin -- who got dinged by the accidental fire of my boom stick. He closed the range, which is a move right out of the "How to Kill Huntards for fun and profit" book. He proceeded to beat the ever-loving snot out of me with his ugly-ass two-handed sword . . . but he was alone and did not have PvP equipment. I managed to open the range and keep it that way with "stun and run" tactics right out of "How to Kill Death Knights For Fun And Profit". Down to less than 5% of my hit points, he retired from the fight for a short but obligatory dirt nap.

So flag trolling on a PvE server is kind of dickish. It's within the rules of the game and if not done to excess, not harassment. However, there was another move being pulled that some saw as dickish. There is a class of no-no behavior in the WoW community called "griefing" that is simply not tolerated by the Game Masters. Player accounts have been permanently banned for extreme instances of griefing. Standing atop key NPCs, killing key NPCs, blocking access to inns and in-game mailboxes with large mounts, which makes interaction with these in-game assets very difficult or impossible -- these are just a few examples of griefing.

Anyway, several of these PvP-flagged people were standing on the quest NPCs for the various phases of the new quest series. Not only can you not easily interact with the NPCs, trying to interact with the NPC and mis-clicking may well lead to an unintentional attack on a PvP-flagged foeman.More unintended combat, more delays resetting the PvP flag.

Something people who know me well -- or not so well -- realize upon spending time with me is that I have a mercurial temperament coupled to an incendiary temper. I've gone from zero to full asshole rage in slightly more than nothing flat. Far too often, these rages have been over life's more trivial matters, like a certain popular multiplayer video game.

A couple of years ago, I would have nerd-raged over the level of jerk behavior I saw this morning while playing WoW. I would have reported every one of them to a Game Master, their Guild Masters and possibly posted their names on WoW Jackass for good measure. I may have even raved about it on one of my blogs . . .

Oh, wait. . . . .

Anyway, the point is this: Things that used to utterly piss me off, small stuff that usually prompted me to go on a raging tear, don't do that to me anymore. I still get angry -- oh hell yes I get angry!

However, I'm in control now, not the anger.

What happened? I Got Help™ -- long long overdue Help. Some of what some of you have been telling me for years finally forever defeated the demonstrable impermeability of my skull. I gained practice with my toolbox o' Cope Building® working my issues. I now have a deeper store of Cope® than I've ever had. I ask for what I want, I practice avoidance only as a short term relief measure, a "time out" to give me the ability to face the issue. It's not all about me. I now assume going into stressful situations that I can and will handle it. I seek solutions to problems, I don't just recapitulate them. I relax now on cue, meditate away the stress and work with the understanding that people do stuff that annoys you not because they are evil dickheads. More often than not, annoying behaviors are the other guy's way of Dealing With Stuff, not malevolent asshattery aimed at me deliberately.

These changes could not come a day sooner. For one thing, I was dreading the kids' summer vacation this year. Last year's edition was sheer hell for me. I was stressed out and grouchy all the time. That is a Very Bad Combination around children . . . hell, around human beings. As Esteemed Younger Son started counting down the days to Summer Vacation, I'd gotten so far out of hand that my behavior was threatening all I had worked for over a year to build here.

So, Esteemed Younger Son's annoying behaviors are not him trying to drive Uncle Rich up a wall for shits and giggles. He's trying to get wants and needs met by methods he understands how to use. I do things to limit how much the TV volume bugs me rather than bitch about it. When I need a time out, I think of it as a tactical retreat under fire into hard cover to regroup and plan how to overcome the emotional challenge. I buy time to think when I need to. I do not need to have an instant answer for everything.

By this time this summer, I thought I'd be going absolutely batshit crazy. Instead, I'm going sane. OK, maybe saner. I'm sure to run into scenarios where no amount of Cope® will suffice, where no tool can magically fix things. However, in the event of a lapse, I'm going to redouble my efforts and remember that "error" is just another name for "learning experience."

Whotta concept, eh?

So, in the context of the above, all the griefer madness today in WoW is simply gamers being gamers. Not one of them did what they did because they had it in for me. The very worst thing they could do to me is render my avatar dead.

As my dad once said, "What is the worst thing can they do to you? Cook and eat you?"

CSGS Minicon . . .

2011-06-19T09:02:00.000-07:00

The Free RPG Day mini-con at Crazy Squirrel was a blast. Jameece's boy decided not to go, which was disappointing . . . but I had a great time.

/rant

The first session featured a Pathfinder Society Organized Play session. Pathfinder is the true open successor to the best damn open edition of D&D ever: D&D 3.5. Sorry boys and girls, but D&D 4th Edition is now little more than a cash cow in the Hasbro farm alongside GI Joe and Strawberry Shortcake -- another brand to be milked, While every edition of a game changes a few things for the worse . . . . 4th Edition combined the elimination of some of the best races and classes in classic D&D with an insane number of basic rules changes and, in the change most galling to me, the licensing out of existence of any kind of 3rd party electronic tools. The D&D 4th edition system license basically forbids the creation of any sort of 3rd party character generation / maintenance software. Of course, Hasbro of the Coast just happens to have a licensed online tool that allows characters to be created for free but saving / maintaining the character data files requires a subscription to Dungeons and Dragons Insider at eight bucks or so a month. In another change, the core rulebooks are loaded with big type, huge illustrations, massive amounts of flavor text and a bare minimum of "crunchy" rules bits. This is a reversion to the classic RPG publishing paradigm TSR started in the 70s: put a bare minimum in the core books and sprinkle the crunch across dozens of supplements.

It's plain to me that the future of the hobby continues to lie in open gaming. At the mini con, there were exactly two D&D4e games -- and one specifically labeled as a "kid's game" at that . . . and counting my game, eight Pathfinder games. I checked the program of convention sponsored events (non OP) for this year's DunDraCon and there was more Pathfinder and D&D 3.x than 4.0 by a score of 21 to 12. In terms of organized play, the numbers at DDC were equal.

/end rant

Anyway, my PF OP game was a lot of fun. I went with a 1st level elven mage. I managed to expend my full spell load out (Thank Odinn for cantrips!), and avoid dying thanks to a great cleric.

For the second flight I ran an adventure in my own game world. One of the springtime traditions in one of my rural baronies is an annual paring back of the monster population to keep the baddies off the local farmers and blood the youth of the countryside. There were, of course, complications, like insane nihilistic druids, cute bunny rabbits the size Dobermans with an attitude to match, playful grenadier squirrels the size of gnomes and viscous weasels the size of couches . . . . fun times.

The third session was Traveller. I have not played or ran Trav is roughly forever. This was old-school Traveller, set in the Imperial Golden Age right after the Fifth Frontier War and before the Rebellion / Virus / TNE. Our ship mis-jumped in the aftermath of an assassination attempt with damaged drives and our only hope was another derelict vessel in a decaying orbit around a gas giant. Of course, between a stealth predator beast loose on the ship and a mad brain-in-a-jar mind-controlling some of us at bad times . . . it was a hoot. There was some good mature role playing all around in this one, and made the perfect end of the three course meal that was the games at this con.

The con was free of drama, personal issues, cheating and the other things that make gaming sometimes not-fun.

Crazy Squirrel is a rocking place to play for a lot of reasons. The game room has enough room, and more importantly, enough exits. Being there does not trigger my anxiety disorders. While they do charge to use the game room, they did not charge for Free RPG Day, you can pay or with canned goods when you do. Or, you can do as I did and buy a tee-shirt and not pay when wearing it. They have games to try out, wi-fi and snacks / drinks at reasonable prices.

I am looking forward to gaming there!

This 'n That

2011-06-17T11:08:00.000-07:00

1. My Mac's latest ailment -- swollen battery-itis. The thing still fits, and I'm mobile but not not functional off AC power.

2. Geek step-dad: I'm taking the youngest to the friendly local game store's Free RPG Day mini-convention tomorrow. I'm running a Pathfinder game involving Dire Stoats, Killer Bunnies, incendiary acorn-tossing squirrels and mad druids. The youngster's going to play D&D 4th Ed in a special D&D for Kid's Game. There's also going to be Traveller, WoD and Pathfinder. I'll be playing in my first Pathfinder Society Organized Play game -- will probably be playing Greylith, my wizard, but I have a sorcerer, an alchemist and a ranger set up for OP as well.

3. Father's day is being celebrated here today (Friday) because she is working on Sunday. Her dad, the kid's dad and I will feast on swordfish steaks and pasta.

4. WoW: Testing the upcoming patch 4.2 personal progression content is a whole lot of fun. I'm not raiding as much now because with my kid care duties I cannot focus completely on raid performance for the bleeding edge content. I'm seeing some good trends with the personal progression content. In many MMO games, characters do not seem to make a visible impact on the world, even though they are supposed to be mighty heroes. This starts out early in the starting zones with the stereotypical "kill 10 rats" quests and progresses to endgame daily quests. In patch 4.2, after a prerequisite quest chain, you get to do things that change an entire zone through daily quests in one of the the current expansion's flashpoint zones. There is a second quest chain where there your hero gets to enable a second kind of transformation -- a personal one, in one of the core NPCs of the entire game world. The second positive thing I am seeing is that on one of the quests the lone hero is provided with what I call a "virtual party." In this quest, you are facing up against some tough elite monsters that pull some of the kinds of tricks that high end raid trash monsters do -- things like summoning additional monsters or laying down high damage Areas of Effect that need to be dodged. Without help, these guys cannot be soloed even by the stronger solo classes like hunters. I shudder to think how a cloth armored class like a priest might do without aid. In this quest, you have 4 helper NPCs that take the traditional party roles that you cannot fulfill. My hunter got a healer and a tank.
Is this the beginning of the end of the 5 man dungeon?

Newsy-nooz Bitz . . . .

2011-06-07T10:46:00.000-07:00

A few things I've been up to . . . .

1. My Mac is back up. Snow Leopard 10.6.3 + The SL Combo Update From Hell™ + Time Machine + WD MyBook external HD FTW. Apps and data were restored as expected . . . but I need a much bigger internal HDD.

2. Jameece is doing great on her new job. She can sell shoes to a snake, sand to a Bedouin and ice in the Arctic, so it is little wonder that she can sell paid tech support to folks who are unable to do it themselves.

3. I'm back to playing WoW and having fun at that.

4. During my short break from WoW, I found some real gaming gems like Smokin' Guns, ioUrban Terror, Open Arena (OA is to Quake 3 Arena as Open Office is to Microsoft Office) and League of Legends.

ioUT is an open-source Quake 3 engine answer to games like Counter-Strike and Strike Force -- terrorist vs counter-terrorist action with real world weapons, armor and damage models. Plusses -- good assortment of weapons and maps, no "buy system, wounds will kill from bleeding unless bandaged (unlike the "leave me without new damage long enough and I heal" model from Modern Warfare 2). Minuses -- no official bot support and that which is there is for a limited number of maps and game modes, client is not very stable even without bots, ammo is very very limited.

Open Arena is an open-source clone of Quake 3 Arena. I played a lot of Q3A in my pre-WoW days at Apple: the game ran very well on later-generation PPC Macs with 10.2-10.4 and Q3A was in my opinion the ultimate after-work Friday LAN party game. Q3A has it all -- awesome game modes, great maps, smooth-running OpenGL graphics, robust bot / multiplayer support . . . and QuakeC for modders. OA adds some innovative game modes like one-flag Capture The Flag, Domination and others to the usual Deathmatch Team DM, CTF, etc to a set of "new but verrry familiar" maps (the Q3A maps and models were not released under the open software General Public License . . .), bot / weapon models.

League of Legends is a different kind of beast -- a MMOBA (massively multiplayer online battle arena). 3rd person real time strategy view -- think Diablo / Warcraft -- combined with teamplay with uniquely powered classless hero characters. You team up with other "summoners" to play heroes in "kill the other team's base before they does the same to yours." The client is free and the game is free to play . . . but is monetized through game items / power-ups that can be bought in a store.

The game is well done, nice graphics and sound. The monetization efforts with the Store are not very intrusive, and there are two currencies for buying stuff -- one that can be earned by playing, and one that is bought through RMT in the store . . . but I am utterly bored by LoL. The maps make a wrestling ring look exciting, The fights are head-on slugging matches that make Wild West fast-draw showdowns look tactically nuanced. Unlike OA and ioUT, LoL has no Mac client. Sadly, the gameplay is not compelling enough for me to consider Boot Camping my Mac to run Windows.

One Smokin Game . . .

2011-05-26T00:11:00.000-07:00

One of the things I've been trying out while my main WoW account is unavailable is a freeware First Person Shooter game called Smokin Guns.

SG apparently started out as a mod for Quake 3 -- kind of like how Counter-Strike started out as a mod for Half-Life. Fortunately, you do not need Q3 to play it.

SG is, as you might gather from the name, set in the Old West. Desperadoes, six-shooters, dynamite, shotguns, rifles. Oh, and Gatling guns. too. No aliens, BFGs, weird power-ups, "gibs" or health potions. Like Counter-strike and Strike Force (the Unreal Tournament engine's answer to CS) , SG uses a realistic damage model that takes hit location into account. Hits to the vitals are usually fatal.

SG comes with a nice variety of maps, player models (and in a nice change from most futuristic shooters, the female models are fully clothed), weapons and scenarios. You can rob banks (or defend the bank from robbery), fight classic showdown duels or just deathmatch against humans or bots. The bots are great because they allows you to practice against AI opponents. As one might expect from an older game engine, SG runs very well on older hardware.

Like CS, this game has a "weapon buy" system -- players get cash for each kill, and a small amount of cash can be found on the maps in places like banks and saloons. In deathmatch games, weapons can be bought anytime. In my bot battles, I've gone for the Colt Peacemaker -- a slow-loading weapon that reminds me of the venerable "deagle" (Desert Eagle automatic) from CS. Any center-of-mass hit is a kill. Shotguns are lethal at close range, especially the sawed-off. The Sharps rifle with scope can ruin your whole day from a county away.

It's also Mac and Unix compatible, so this one's going on my Mac for WoW server maintenance Tuesdays.

Verdict: if you like good freeware FPS games or are are a fan of the Old West, give SG a try.

Taming The Beast . . .

2011-05-23T20:20:00.000-07:00

We have two Windows desktop systems here -- Jameece's "Beauty" 3.3 HGz i5/ 4 GB DDR3 / 1TB HDD / Windows 7 screamer . . . and "the Beast" (2.8 GHz P4 / 2GB DDR2 / 350 GB PATA HDD / XP SP3), some of the components of which are older than my goddaughter.

We got Beauty with a tax refund check because The Beast was behaving, well, beastly. World of Warcraft was undergoing random abnormal terminations, locking up the system and causing video to go completely away every few minutes. Installing the final patches of WoW patch 3.3 was a hell of "download incremental patch . . . attempt install . . . fail install . . . troubleshoot . . . repeat."

When my trusty MacBook migrated to "format and reinstall" land (Apple - gear, double flash startup), I grabbed Beast for my various WoW playing stuff. I need to wait a week or two to buy a Snow Leopard CD (my old one did not make the trip to Fresno last year).

Until them, I had to make the Beast work for games.

Round 1 of troubleshooting: memcheck found some bad RAM, which we replaced.

While we were at it, we also upgraded the video card (because Jameece also got a new Viewsonic monitor that seems to work best with ATI hardware . . . we had an nVidia in there) and reinstalled Windows XP.

The memory errors went away, but WoW and The Sims 3 were still randomly crashing. Ran Windows Update and applied all updates. Still crashing. I ran dxdiag. It showed DirectX 9.0c was up to date and completely functional. I installed the latest and greatest video card drivers (Radeon HD 3460), applicable hotfixes, etc. I updated the motherboard AGP bus (I know, sad , . . .) drivers, tweaked the AGP aperture in BIOS . . . nada, Ran temp monitor software on the GPU -- even with ambient cooling this card's GPU temperature does not exceed 75 degrees C. Card is not overclocked. No spikes or error messages are logged -- ever.

Then I ran an OpenGL stress test on the GPU -- No issues.

It took me just five minutes to find out how to force WoW to use the OpenGL renderer.

No more issues. I played WoW for several hours on the Beast with no issues at all.

The Men Who, uhm, Stare At Goats, Sheep and Other Beasties.

2011-05-13T10:26:00.000-07:00

The following rant is NFSW.

The Death March Of Serial Outrage that is the 2011-2012 legislative season continues with this tasty bit from the state of insanity that is Florida. It took just three tries for the Florida legislature to pass a law banning, you guessed it, sex between humans and animals.

This news is a bit mind-twisting in several ways.

Of course, how can anyone oppose such an worthy goal? Why did it take three tries to pass a law to save Bessie the Cow from human molestation? How could PETA face such enormous opposition in lobbying this through the FLA lege?

There is a second point to consider. This nation has far bigger problems than man-on-goat sex. Florida, like the rest of the United States, is in the grip of a severe economic downturn. Millions of people are unemployed and / or losing their homes to often fraudulent foreclosures. Woe, misery and despair stalk the land. The Great American Middle Class is being systematically destroyed bit by bit by a political and economic regime determined to wrest every last scintilla of monetary value from it before casting the drained carcass aside like an empty beer can. Decent jobs are fleeing the country. Nationally, we have a House majority that is willing to play financial doomsday "chicken" with the nation's debt ceiling to force passage of further draconian spending cuts. This same cabal wants to throw future senior citizens (like, well, almost all of us, eventually) to the wolves of the private medical insurance industry with Medicare vouchers and rob them of the benefit of a dignified retirement by killing Social Security.

Yet, with this plethora of unsolved issues and unaddressed problems, the state legislature and governor of Florida cannot be bothered to work on resolving, they could find the precious time to pass a law against bestiality.

And they wonder why people hold legislators in such low esteem.

Security Alert: WebGL, Firefox and Chrome

2011-05-10T14:58:00.001-07:00

I usually DO NOT send out dire technical warnings about computer stuff I find out on the Internet.

However, when a warning is credible, I see it as critical to inform as many of you as possible about these things.

I subscribe to a number of cybersecurity mailing lists, including the US Department of Homeland Security's US-CERT technical lists as well as follow many credible sites. Warnings that come from panicked users in emails are often not credible.

This warning applies to users who run the Firefox 4.x, Google Chrome and Apple Safari web browsers. Users of Internet ~~Exploder~~, er, Explorer, are not affected by this one as far as I know (probably because DirectX is the Microsoft-based technology for doing this).

The warning concerns a new service that these browsers support called "WebGL." It's an adaptation of the OpenGL graphics language used in 3D applications like video games to web applications. WebGL is the kind of thing one might use to implement, say, a game like World of Warcraft in a web browser.

Neat idea . . . but there is a big security hole in the latest version that could cause your system to lock up or worse.

So, what to do?

If you are using Firefox 4, all you need to do is click here and follow the directions.

If you use Safari (and apparently, Chrome), this option is disabled by default. Just leave it alone . . .

And, update your browsers when updates become available.

"Begin Again, the Browsers Wars Have . . ."

2011-05-06T09:07:00.000-07:00

As a veteran tech-head, I remember well the first browser war between Netscape Navigator and Microsoft's Internet Explorer. Netscape Navigator was the feature-rich, lightweight, intuitive champ, IE was clunky, slow and had the user interface from hell . . . but in the end, the vastly-improved IE 5 / 6, integration with the Windows operating system and feature bloat eventually killed Netscape.

As a Mac user, I've had the choice between the bundled Apple Safari browser and Mozilla Firefox. While Safari is fast due to tight integration with Mac OS X, boasts the clean clear interface of any Mac program, most of its deeper settings are not readily available to the user -- and far too many web sites just do not work with Safari. Firefox launches very slowly, renders slowly but nicely, has just about the right amount of settings exposure and is a lot more compatible with respect to web pages it will render.

To continue the Star Wars meme . . . "there is another . . ."

And, at first glance, this "other" is pretty damned good.

A couple of years ago, while I was still earning my daily bread by troubleshooting Macs, I downloaded an early beta of Google's "Chrome" web browser. At the time I was singularly unimpressed with it. Chrome was buggier than a roach motel then, so I soldiered on with Safari for work and Firefox for everything else. In my post-Apple life I can count on the extended fingers of a clenched fist how many times I've launched Safari.

After one Firefox crash too many, I downloaded the latest version of Chrome for Mac. The bugs that so annoyed me before were no more. I am very impressed with the rendering speed on even new web pages. I like the tight integration with my favorite general-purpose search engine and I love the low memory footprint I'm seeing in Activity Monitor. Chrome imported my Firefox bookmarks without any fuss or bother.

As a quick "smoke test", I logged several web pages that I use frequently that give me issues with Firefox. I tried a few Facebook games of the variety that sometimes blow up Firefox. The games performed without issues. The World of Warcraft Armory page -- another page that makes heavy use of Flash -- also rendered flawlessly.

My verdict? Firefoxes are cute, but Chrome shines.

Judgment at Abbottabad: So why am I not dancing in the streets?

2011-05-02T09:38:00.000-07:00

One of the most important ideals to emerge out of the Second World War is the notion that individuals can be called to account by due process of law in the aftermath of conflict for crimes committed in the name of a nation or ideology. These criminals can be captured, held, tried and punished for even something as horrifying as genocide. Even decades after the famous war crimes trials, fugitives from justice such as Aldolf Eichmann were still being brought to account. Many were captured, tried and punished . . . by sentence of court.

Fifty million died to fascist aggression in twelve horrifying years of war and genocide, but the architects of that cataclysm were called to account in a manner consistent with the values we were fighting for. In the face of overwhelming evidence of their crimes, even genocidal Nazis and Japanese militarists were offered the benefit of due process at trial.

In these debased times, apparently we can no longer afford the luxury. Due process of law is a sad casualty of this War on Terror™

Last night, President Obama informed the world that Osama bin Laden, the mastermind behind the attacks of 2001.09.11, was killed in Abbottabad, Pakistan, and the US has his dead body. This electrifying news triggered spontaneous celebrations around the country and even some praise for the President from the various Republicans seeking their party's presidential nomination.

So while this monstrous mass murderer is now explaining his crimes against his religion to Allah in person and a nation rejoices . . . why am I not celebrating?

First of all -- it's not because I'm some kind of crypto-Islamofacist terrorist socialist communist who hates America, kicks puppies, eats kittens raw and thinks American Idol sucks. Far from it. Unlike many who are having a Beltane mass public triumphalist war-gasm over this, I've served this country in the US Navy. I think I understand a thing or two about war and the way the world works. The part of me that understands the latter is not in the mood for celebrating.

Reason the first for not wanting to celebrate: I hold with the idea of that all human beings have inherent value -- even Hitler and OBL. Yes, even a villain like Osama bin Laden. Even the dearth of this monster diminishes us.

Reason the second: Apparently OBL was killed in a daring raid by US Special Operations troops. Boots on the ground, not bombs from the sky. Intelligence and light infantry were Obama's choice of weapon, not data nets and remote-control drones. This operation could have gone very very badly for the troops and Obama, as both living Democratic former presidents can attest. Barack Obama risked his chances for a second term as President on the success of this raid. My point here: If the President chose to rely on light infantry / commandos for this task, there was the possibility of capturing OBL for trial.

If OBL were taken and not killed in action, the end result would eventually be the same: OBL would never "get off on a technicality" even before the most bleeding heart judge in the universe. Yes, any trial would be a theatrical event to rival Broadway, a media circus that would make OJ Simpson's trial look like a kiddie ride, and a trial would take time.

Due process has a price. But justice at the cost of our values and our souls is hardly worthy of a great nation like the United States of America.

However disappointed that we aren't going to try OBL for his crimes, I applaud the US military for its valor and courage in carrying out a dangerous mission. The guys in camouflage and the intelligence community scored a brilliant success on this operation. However, there is a bigger picture here . . . one that worries me over the long term.

Edit for clarity and a couple of stupid spelling errors.

OMG . . .

2011-03-11T15:09:00.000-08:00

This patent application is SICK

It isn't the Microsoft connection that's sick. It's using the example of comic books as an interest that is so out of the mainstream as to list it on a conventional dating site is counterproductive.

The geek interest stigmata strikes again.

On another front, this domain is going away. Point your browsers to the original url -- operationmindfsck.blogspot.com for my irregularly delivered wit and / or wisdom.

Morning conversation . . .

2010-09-10T06:22:00.000-07:00

Esteemed Younger Son: "I want to join Boy Scouts."
Mom and Me, in Chorus: "NO, but we can see about Spiral Scouts"
Esteemed Younger Son: "I wanna be a boy scout, not a Spiral! Why?"
Mom: (Longish explanation of such things as the Christian militarism inherent in the BSA, the rampant homophobic intolerance, etc)
ESY: "But they have such *neat* uniforms!"
Me: "So did the Third Reich . . . ."

Dinner 2020.07.01

2010-07-01T16:46:00.000-07:00

Western Skillet: green peppers, red peppers, onions, potatoes, garlic, 1 lb ham, all chopped / sliced / cubed. Spices: Chile powder, celery salt, sage.

I'm getting better at this. The manual skills of chopping / slicing food are slowly working up. Jameece always has helpful suggestions for me when we re cooking together.

Food Porn: 2010.06.22

2010-06-22T11:19:00.000-07:00

1. 5.87 lb pork roast, 7 medium potatoes, 6 longish carrots, 2 cups water, 1 tbsp garlic powder, 1 tsp caraway seeds.

Cut up potatoes, slice carrots. Place roast in crock pot, add spices to water, mix and pour over roast, add veggies and potatoes, cook 6-8 hrs.

FNO Pot Pourri

2010-06-18T11:21:00.000-07:00

1. Jameece came home early last night, so she did dinner: marinated flank steak stir-fry.

2. I used my mighty Google-Fu powers yesterday on some random things that Jameece has made for me and stumbled upon Cooks.com's recipe database. I showed Jameece a couple of the recipes there and she said "Good! Let's try them!"

/loves his 'Meece.

3. A bit of general Wow stuff: Nartyros is level 78 and about 74% of the way to 79. Tyrantos went on a continuation of his Ice Crown Citadel 10 man raid from Monday. We managed to get a new boss down -- Valithria Dreamwalker -- and got some very good attempts in on Professor Putricide. The guild has downed seven of the 12 bosses there. No personal upgrades, but some of our guild allies are getting some nice stuff. Will be in 25 man ICC Sunday night. One of the in-game holidays -- Midsummer Fire Festival -- starts Monday. Sacred fires to honor, a frosty holiday boss to pwn, cool tabards, etc.

4. First full week of summer vacation has been light on personal stress. The kids are finding other things to do and by and large are not turning into total vidiots. Yes, they still play videogames and watch TV, but not as much as I feared they might. NOT having SpongeBob on all the time helps.

5. Dad's Day plans include springing Jameece's ailing dad (poor guy's recovering from knee replacement surgery) from his convalescent hospital for Chinese buffet at our favorite Chinese buffet place. Next weekend, Jameece's Esteemed Younger Daughter turns 14, just in time for the Fourth of July.

Assorted Mobile Bloggery

2010-06-17T12:58:00.000-07:00

Most of the WoW specific content of this blog is moving to http://enhancedrestoration.blogspot.com. That blog will be a "WoW content for WoW players" place focusing on Shaman characters. Oh, I will still post some general milestones and so forth, but the detailed theorycrafting will go there.

On to more personal stuff. For example, cooking. YES, COOKING! As in "Starting with raw foods and turning them into something that is pleasing to the taste and nutritious when eaten." For over five decades, I have either not been taught or made a conscious decision to not cook my meals at home. Now, living here and on a much smaller budget . . . Meals away from home are a treat - as they should be - not a lifestyle. Fortunately, I've been blessed with friends like Michelle and partners like Jameece who have gone the extra light-year to overcome both a lack of knowledge and five decades of inertia and out-and-out personal laziness. Her lessons are informative, and if my effort is less than successful, she understands that mistakes are the mostable teachable moments, and that one miscooked dinner is not the end of the world.. To those who say "You should've learned decades ago!" I reply: "Living is the ultimate self-paced school. Even if you master every lesson when delivered, there's always more to learn . . . And in the end you STILL don't get out alive!"

Some Changes . . .

2010-06-16T08:09:00.000-07:00

I've enabled AdSense and Amazon Integration on my blog. Might as well make a little money on this serving Google ads. I will be doing more book / movie / game reviews to take advantage of the links as well as seeing what other ways there are to make some cash here.

CA Primary 2010: Good News / Bad News

2010-06-09T13:54:00.001-07:00

Good news: Props 15 & 16 - aka the corporate wolves in sheepskins - went down to defeat screaming. As did Darth Pombo. And "birther" Taly Orlitz. And Steve Poisoner. Some of the Good guys won: Kamela Harris beat Facebook Chris: Brown and Boxer also won renomination.

Bad News: The One Party Rule proposition, 14 won, clean money in elections lost. Queen Meg and Carlyfornication Failorina won noms. I expect Jerry Brown to kick Queen Meg to the curb and Barbara Boxer to do the same to Carly in November.

This week in WoW: Of The Ashen Verdict

2010-06-08T11:29:00.000-07:00

This week Outcasts did its usual runs through Icecrown Citadel. I got to heal throughout. On 10 man we one-shotted the lower spire and and got Rotface and Festergut down until the run was called. Same with 25, except for one wipe on Festergut, and we got two tries in on the Dream Dragon. In 25s, the shield I have been lusting for did not drop, but two additional healer pieces did, and I was able to upgrade my Ashen Verdict reputation ring to the one for Exalted reputation.

I grabbed the hands and arms -- even though they broke my Tier 10 4 piece bonus -- because they added something else I also need: massive amounts of haste. With gems and enchants I went to almost 1200 haste, which is very close to the cap. Damn shammy T10 healer gloves have NO HASTE on them

For healers like shamans with ~~few~~ one fast healing spell, haste is THE STAT to stack. Under the right conditions my weakest heal is now almost an instant, and I can get off a chain heal in 1.2 seconds. This is blazing speed!

On the druidic front, Nartyros got his alchemy up to cap and is now an Elixir Master, so he can get more money-making raiding elixirs for those rare materials and can transmute rare gems and metals. With Tyrtrinos as a miner he can get and smelt the metals and cut the gems. Jewelcrafting, Mining, Herbalism and Alchemy work together like the Beatles. Narty is now level 70 and questing like a fiend through Northrend.

Narty and Tyrantos are paired in what they call "the Saronite Shuffle." Here's how it works: Tyrantos mines Saronite -- a metal ore that can be smelted into bars at a rate of two ore per bar. The metal bars are passed to Narty and transmuted by alchemy into rarer Titanium at 8 bars of Saronite per bar of Titanium and passed back to Tyrantos, who smelts three titanium and some elemental ingredients into Titansteel, a rare metal costing around 100 gold a bar that is in very high demand for many types of crafted weapons and plate armor. 16 Saronite per Titanium, 3 Titanium per Titansteel. The elemental components are easy to obtain; for about 30 minutes of mining and "farming" elementals in Sholazar Basin and Wintergrasp I got enough Saronite and elementals for two bars.

I've also gotten Jameece's character Clothisis involved in this scheme, transmuting gems for me to sell on a fee-per-transmute basis.

When not transmuting gems for me or making me flasks for raiding, Clothisis is working on three things in game: the Loremaster achievement (completing about 2000 quests in all portions of the game world), another for collecting 10k gold from quest rewards and a third for collecting fifty different mounts. When I'm not raiding, I help her out, of course. These achievements do not really float my WoW boat; killing the Litch King in Icecrown Citadel with Outcasts does. On the other hand, Jameece is not into raiding at all. She tried it and did not like it. Nonetheless, I feel that its important to have couple time in game, so I'll take a break from leveling Narty or making money with Tyrantos to help out Jameece on Clo or her warrior alt Ereskigal.

Not only that but Narty can create epic-grade gems, just one every 20 hours, but each gem can be sold uncut for 80-150 gold or custom cut by Tyrantos and sold for 100-plus gold each.

2010 CA Primary: High Tech Exec Excess

2010-06-07T15:41:00.000-07:00

Here are my observations about the forthcoming 2010 California primary election. The following opinions are my own . . . .

Rep CA GOV: The two top folks are Meg Whitman, the Queen of All eBay (filking "Queen of all Argyle" in 3...2...1) and Steve Poisoner (spelling intentional). If Queen Meg is to be believed, Poisoner is the Second Coming of that most evil librul Ted Kennedy. Queen Meg says she'll run California like she ran eBay. The last politician to say that was Shrub, who ran his companies and the nation right into the ground. If Poisoner is a liberal, than I'm Leon Fucking Trotsky. Further, why does these MBA corporate tools think that experience screwing consumers and employees gives them the background to govern this well-neigh ungovernable state? I pray to Goddess that Jerry Brown beats whomever the Rethugs nominate.

Rep CA SEN: Jebuz on a crack binge. Yet another female high tech executive, Carlyfronication Failorina -- formerly CEP of Hewlett-Packard. I don;t think Barbara Boxer has anything to worry about form Carlyfornication.

Dem CA AG: The Dem front runner seems to be Chris "Friend Me On Facebok" Kelley. This clown's ads are everywhere. His claim to fame was that he failed to protect the privacy of millions of Facebook users as FB's Head Attack Lawyer. On the other hand I bet he has an awesome spread in Farmville. Yet another corporate tool in the shed. If the State AG is the state's top cop, then I'd like someone with just a little experience in the criminal justice system. Like Kamela Harris, for example.

CA 17 CD: OMGWTFBBQ. The repub candidates are going on and on about which is the "true Reagan Conservative" -- so much so that several of these clowns, like environmental arch enemy Richard Pombo, have scrubbed the term "Republican" off their campaign propaganda like a crook wiping prints off a gun. This clown got kicked to the curb in 2006 when he misrepresented the 11th CD. NONE of the Democratic candidates impress me in the very least.

Propositions: I've blogged a few days ago on the PG&E Monopoly Protection Act. I've looked at all the other propositions . . . and only one of them I actually like: Prop 15. Elections need to be publicly funded. period. Get the goddam corporations OUT of manipulating the levers of government like a demented slot machine that eventually breaks under the abuse . . . and end for good the complaints of these same corporate gamblers when they demand You and I™ fix their ever-loving Endless Magical Money Machine with bailouts and money easier than Jenna Jamison. Money is NOT speech, and corporations are NOT people!

And Men are Not Potatoes.

Food Porn . . .

2010-06-02T09:48:00.000-07:00

Dinner is Guinness brazed pork roast with potatoes and carrots. She conceives the meals, I assist in assembling them (cutting veggies, adding ingredients, etc).

Did I ever say that Jameece is a great cook? She has a great array of tools and knows how to use them. She watches the Food Network for ideas.

Now if only Iron Chef America would ever use Bacon! as the Secret Ingredient . . . .

We interrupt this blog for something NOT about WoW . . .

2010-06-01T23:23:00.000-07:00

Namely Prop 16, on Tuesday's CA statewide ballot.

Every day, Jameece and I get some kind of mailing form the PG&E front group behind this latest perversion of the initiative system by wealthy interests. PG&E is apparently feeling the heat over how localities are forming power agencies to get away from PG&E. A couple of years ago, PG&E went to the mat to stop West Sacramento and parts of Yolo County from joining the Sacramento Municipal Utility District, and succeeded by the slimmest of margins at the polls.

Now PG&E wants to load the electoral dice by requiring a 2/3rds super majority on any such vote to form a public power entity. Cloaking its naked greed in the language of anti-tax and anti-government populism like a sheepskin over a ravenous wolf, PG&E is hoping that "conservative" voters -- those who might be receptive to anti-tax, anti-government arguments -- will turn out in droves and gives the greedbags at PG&E what they want.

The problem with this plan is that voters can see right through a campaign of lies and distortions. And this plan is being sold with more lies than a used car.

Personally, I think public power is the way to go. I've lived in three public-power towns -- Sacramento, Lodi and Idaho Falls, ID -- and electricity rates were damned reasonable and service was top-notch. Whenever I've had to live in PG&E territory -- 2004-5 and since moving to Fresno this winter -- rates are astronomical and service is abysmal to indifferent.

Why deny the boon of Public Power to other communities by rigging the game in favor of the only other player at the table? If there was ever a special interest proposition, this is it.

If you vote in California, I urge not only a NO vote on Prop 16, but a HELL NO! vote.

This Week's Fun . . . My RNG Karma is Strong!

2010-05-28T08:36:00.000-07:00

1. ICC 25 -- Ran as Enhancement until the PlagueWerks, then respecced Resto. The Shield of Much Awesomeness, aka The Biggest Resto Upgrade For Me, dropped, but a guildie won it. Gratz Maddie! We went "bounce" off the Plaguewerks, again. No upgrades this run.

2. ICC 10 -- Last night's run netted me a couple of big Enhancement upgrades: One was a weapon off the Gunship in the Lower Spire, the other was my first piece of Tier 10 for my Enhancement set. Of course, the piece broke the 4 piece T9 bonus . . . but the increase in damage was worth it. If the T10 Enhancement gloves or pants should ever drop off Emalon in VoA . . . I got to heal on Marrowgar, Lady D and the Loot (Gun) ship, and did damned well, according to WoL parses. I went Enhancement on Saurfang after winning an axe (see below) and I am not so disappointed in my damage output anymore.

3. Two RNG (Random Number Generator) wins this week: One, in VoA-10, was a new mount: the Grand Black War Mammoth. Rare drop, rare mount, and it is one of three mounts in the entire game that carry more than one person. I've been playing Taxi for Jameece's characters hauling them around and assisting them when I'm not raiding or running Narty. The other win was in a random daily dungeon . . . a "Battered Hilt" dropped and I won it. That Hilt starts a 15 step 3 dungeon quest chain to reforge an ancient sword that results in a weapon as good as any that drop from ICC-10 (Item Level 251). Until then I had no iLevel 251 weapons on my character's Enhancement set, so this was a big win for me.

Combining these two RNG wins with the win of the rare drake last week, I have to say that my Loot Karma has been quite strong. What goes around, really does come around.

I also added a neat new item to my Enhancement set: the Shammy helm that is dropped by Onyxia. I've had that damned thing forever but I was afraid to break a set bonus by using it. Now with the Tier 10 piece breaking the 4 piece set bonus, no reason not to add the helm. It's T9.5 (iLevel 245) -- an uprated T2 helm with improved stats. As a result, my Ghetto-Sim DPS (Ghetto-Sim is what I call a five-minute attack run on a Heroic training dummy with all cooldowns popped in the first second (Heroism, Feral Spirits, Fire Elemental Totem, trinkets popped, etc) but no raid buffs. It went from just over 4k to 5k after all changes. I've also tweaked the combat priority queue a bit as well in preparation for 2 pc T10. Finally, on Saurfang, last week I was pulling just over 4k with my old gear and combat priority queue and fully raid-buffed. This week, with full buffs and the two new weapons (the axe minus its enchant) but no T10 or Ony helm, I was just over 5k on the same boss. I expect 6k on Saurfang next week.

4. Operation: Healbot -- Nartyros is on the verge of heading to Outland (level 57) -- heirloom gear rules. I'm really enjoying the Balance play style as much as I do Resto. Ph33r teh B00mCh1kkin!!

Quick post . . .

2010-05-21T09:09:00.000-07:00

ICC 10 last night; was relegated to melee DPS duty AGAIN for most of the night. This was a better run than last week's 25 man Wipe-A-Palooza™ but not much. Perhaps the 25 man on Sunday will be better. Maybe the Shield of Awesomeness will drop off Marrowgar . . . and maybe I'll get to heal the whole run.

My DPS performance is not what I'd like to see . . . I think it's a matter of not having a shred of Tier 10 gear in my DPS set. T9 set bonuses FTL. It's almost enough to make me respec elemental.

Outcasts may be going to focus on 25 man two nights a week until we get the Litch King down.

On the Operation: Healbot front -- Lodi Dodi, Narty Hit 40 last night. Now he has Moonkin and Dire Bear Forms and he hits hard. Actually he's at 42 and dual-specialized at the moment. Dungeon leveling for the win . . . .

Assorted Stuff

2010-05-20T00:41:00.000-07:00

1. Twitter -- You can find me there @rostorero.

2. Operation: Healbot -- The mid-30s levels in WoW, like the same age in years, can be a doldrums. At least it was for me in real life. Narty is right in the middle of this zone, but he is passing rapidly through it because I've decided to do more of my leveling in random dungeons as opposed to my usual model (solo questing). With a pure healer -- like the priest I plan to level -- I expect that after level 15 I'll be able to do almost all of my leveling in dungeons. The paladin will be a lot easier to solo in my usual manner because the main melee damage dealing specialization is like that of my shaman characters.

At level 40, things get interesting for the various character classes: Enhancement Shaman get two of their big signature spells -- Stormstrike and Windfury Weapon -- at around 40, and after 40 Shaman can wear mail armor. Hunters get mail armor at 40, Warriors and Paladins get plate armor at that time as well. Druids get class signature Moonkin Form (for damage dealing, looks like an owlbear -- it's often called "Boomkin" form because of the hard hitting damage spells it casts), Tree of Life Form ("tree form" or "celery stalk" in WoWspeak) for healing and Dire Bear form for tanking.

Narty should hit 40 tomorrow. On the other hand, ICC-10 happens tomorrow for Tyrantos.

Operation : Healbot phase 2 status

2010-05-18T16:14:00.001-07:00

.Narty the druid is now level 32, a little over halfway to Outland. I've done some dungeon healing, but I'm staying Balance (caster damage dealer) for leveling solo as training for leveling the priest. The priest character will be human and the paladin will be a dwarf to take advantage of beneficial racial abilities. Of course, leveling as a semi- squishy caster is nothing new to me, the guy with three level 80 shamans, all enhancement /. Resto. Not to mention, that with the right gear and talents, a druid can fufill any group role.

Operation: Healbot

2010-05-14T15:26:00.001-07:00

I've just decided to try something unusual in WoW: Leveling one of each character with a healing specialization to the current level cap of 80. Shaman is covered, working on my druid now. The goal is to have a healer Swiss Army Knife for raiding.
Oh, and the closed beta is about to start for Cataclysm. I got into the beta for WotLK two years ago . . .could happen again.

Of Emblems, Loot Karma, or the RNG's a B*$%h

2010-05-12T01:26:00.000-07:00

Tuesday is Raid Lockout Reset Day in WoW. What this means is that all the raid dungeons in the game reset. The dead bosses respawn once again from their weekly dirt naps and await you and your 9, or 24, or 39 friends' displeasure. On Tuesdays, Outcasts (my guild) does the weekly raid quest -- kill a boss in a selected dungeon such as one of the four in Ulduar's Forecourt, a first-in-a-wing boss in Naxx, Sarthiron (a nasty black dragon in Obsidian Sanctum) or Malygos (nasty blue dragon in Eye of Eternity) -- and 10 and 25 man Vault of Archavon.

This week it was the lead boss of Naxx spider wing's turn to be pwned, which was easy for raiders as overgeared as us (Naxx drops entry-level epic gear / Tier 7 equivalent, virtually all of us were in Tier 10 raid armor.

In other words, we ROFLstomped him.

Why? because this is part of a quest that awards five Emblems of Frost and five Emblems of Triumph. These Emblems can be traded for gear; Triumphs for Tier 9 and Frost for Tier 10. It takes over 400 "Frosties" to buy a 5-piece set of Tier 10 armor.

Fortunately, two Emblems of Frost are awarded for defeating one of the four bosses in VoA (all bosses in Icecrown Citadel drop two as well) and two EoFs can be earned each day for completing a random heroic dungeon. Finally, an additional five EoF can be earned by completing a weekly raid quest inside ICC.

So, last week I did seven random heroic dungeons (14 Frosties), VoA-10 and VoA-25 raids (2 each, or 4), ICC-10 and ICC-25 raids (dropped 5 of the bosses in each, two per boss, 20 Frosties) and the associated quests (an additional 10), as well as the weekly Tier 7 / 8 raid (5 Frosties).

That's 53 Emblems of Frost last week.

To put this in perspective: 60 Emblems each for shoulders and gloves, 95 each for legs, chest and helm.

To make things a bit easier, the gloves and legs drop in VoA off Toravon, so it is possible to get a two piece Tier 10 set bonus without ever seeing the inside of ICC.

Tuesday morning, I had finally accumulated enough EoFs to buy Frost Witch"s Headpiece. Two gems and an enchant later, I was rocking 4 pieces of Tier 10.

The beauty of the Tier 10 4 pc bonus is that it provides a nice buff to the spell I cast about 70% of the time for healing -- Chain Heal. However, that bonus comes at a cost: I had to replace Lightning-Infused Leggings with Frost Witch"s Legguards.

Those Lightning Infused Leggings are the very best pants available for the role I play and my class because they have a stat that shaman like mine need -- Spell Haste. Shaman are the fat kids of WoW healers: we can barely heal on the move because of the long cast time of almost all of our healing spells as matters stand, so whenever we cast, we need Haste to speed up our healing. The Frost Witch's Legguards have no Haste on them (but they have 2 sockets so 40 Haste can be added to the pants). Not to mention that the Lightning Infused Leggings have +100 Haste and three gem sockets that with the right gems can add another 60 Haste. The addition of the Tier 10 helm added back a net of 80, so the net loss is +40 (T10 pants) - 160 (LIL) +80 (T10 Helm) or about 40 Haste.

So, to get back the haste, in about three weeks I'm going to replace the last Tier 9 piece (chest) with the Tier 10 chest and replace the Tier 10 legs with the Lightning Infused Leggings. That way I have the 4-piece Tier 10 bonus and some pants with haste on them.

Haste is good.

Loot Karma: As I mentioned in a previous post, I didn't win anything in ICC on Thursday or Sunday nights. One of my guildies has been waiting for three months for a particular trinket to drop in ICC for his warlock.

At times WoW's RNG (Random Number Generator) is a bitch.

Then on Monday I got into a 25-man Obsidian Sanctum raid where we decided try one of the Hard Modes for that raid. If you drop Sarthiron in this hard mode, an Obsidian Drake mount drops for the raid to roll on.

Sarth got his dirt nap after three tries . . . and the drake dropped. That's in the pic above.

My /roll 100 (basically a command to roll 1d100 in the raid chat channel) was 95. In 25 man raids, 90% or more is usually needed to win loot . . . so I won

Karma baby!

Now I wonder what kind of bad karma one of my guild's officers incurred to get his WoW account hacked. Losing his own stuff it took a lot of play time to get is bad. Losing everything in the guild's bank -- as an officer in the guild he had total access to the entire guild bank -- thousands of gold in cash as well as valuable crafting materials, plans, bind-on-equip gear for lower level characters, glyphs, herbs, minerals, gems, raiding consumables . . . .

Okay, folks . . .

2010-05-07T15:39:00.000-07:00

1. Now that the Teabaggers have finally figured out what the term really means . . . they say it is a slur! I refer them to the phrase "hoist by one's own petard."

2. I love how the local ~~Republican~~ political vermin are crawling into the light of day . . . and nary can the term "Republican" be seen! They're all "conservatives" now. Like ~~that carpet-bagging fetid pile of dingo's kidneys asshat~~ Richard Pombo, who mis-represented my old congressional district a decade ago before getting punted like a demented gnome in 2008. I guess it takes more than a wee dram of, you know, political courage, to run on the brand so soiled and defiled by Shrub the Younger.

I guess he was a Rethug before being a Rethug was un-cool, right? As though filing the serial number off a gun changes its ability to kill . . . .

3. Second ICC 10 run yesterday for Tyrantos. Nice belt and bracers for his Enhancement spec dropped but nothing for his healbot set that he did not already have. Raid is going "Splat" on Rotface. Just need better execution on this guy. Still 5/12 ICC-10 Regular. Hope to Odin I can make the 25 on Sunday-day-day. Doing Mom's day stuffs tonight with Jameece, her mom and a friend.

4. Been watching some TV on DVD -- to wit: Babylon 5, Season 2. Two episodes to go, and it is as awesome now as it was when I first saw it in reruns on SciFi (the current designator for the network, "SciFy" makes me sick, BTW) almost a decade ago. It's a LotR-class epic space opera, the best damn SF show made in the 1990s, and outside of Star Trek TOS, is the best-of-all-time SF TV series not created by Joss Wheadon. Firefly is just as good or better in terms of acting, writing and effects; it takes the honors for the decade just passed with only token competition from Stargate . . . but Firefly never got the chance to tell this kind of story . . . if that was ever Joss' intent.

Thank Odin for Hulu.com and the WB's streaming of all five seasons.

2010-05-02T14:58:00.001-07:00

Interesting bit of spiritual conflict going on . . Christian karioke meets Pagan drumming circle in the park in Clovis . . . No bloody contest!

The nicest thing about a messaging phone

2010-04-26T09:23:00.001-07:00

. . . Is the ability to post to O:M while out and about. Day to day status posts to FB are a lot easier to make on the phone..

Slow weekend on the WoW front. No raids. But I spent time helping friends gear up. My original shanan on Draka, Dakatirr. Is finally getting some attention. He has gone from pre Naxx blues and crafted epics to 4 piece Tier 9 with weapons out of the T8 / T9 instances. Just a few more gaps to fill and he'll be ready for Icecrown.

This makes the third or fourth toon I have built in a year. On three different servers. I could be further along if I had not done so . . . Such is virtual life.
I would have never tried making a post of this length on a non QWERTY phone deviice. The thumb fatigue would be a killer and the Java apps typical of the smaller phones simply blow goats.

2010-04-25T13:57:00.001-07:00

Test post from my phone . . .

Isn't he a handsome devil??

2010-01-17T16:34:00.000-08:00

The decade in review

2009-12-30T10:31:00.000-08:00

Shorter Rude Pundit: It sucked donkey balls. Hardcore.

Another clueless moron . . .

2009-12-30T10:29:00.000-08:00

Talk about being unable to distinguish fantasy from reality . . .

For Seanan

2009-12-27T15:42:00.001-08:00

see more deMotivational Posters

Belated Birthday Bloggery 2009-11-09

2009-11-09T14:36:00.000-08:00

1. Happy Birthday Michelle! You aren't getting older . . . I am:)

2. Happy Birthday to Meece's son, Sean! Get that nelf drood leveled!

3. And, finally, Happy Birthday to the United States Marine Corps, founded 11-10-1775. In the words of Eleanor Roosevelt:

“The Marines I have seen around the world have the cleanest bodies, the filthiest minds, the highest morale, and the lowest morals of any group of animals I have ever seen. Thank God for the United States Marine Corps!”

It's been awhile since I last blogged, this has mostly been due to a need for renewed focus at work, and an attempt to focus on raiding in WoW. Well, the later focus has crashed and burned like the Hindenburg.

Meece and I are out of Eclipsed -- the guild broke up like a gigging rock band -- and are now in a new, far more casual family / social leveling guild called Kilrogg Fighters. I'm taking a breather from raiding to level a brand-spanking-new Draenei Shaman. While I have the option of moving and / or faction changing another toon from, say, Kul Tiras, over here, the total cost of doing that all at once is Too Damn Much Money™ right now. Tyrantos is now Level 35 or so after slightly less than a week of spending every second of WoW-playing since creation playing him. The /played timer shows just over 2 days playtime spread over that period . . . so I'm leveling fast.

My secret? Tyrtrinos the death knight has access to the necessary resources to buy two "bind on account" Heirloom items that give bonii to earned experience for good old Tyrantos. The items scale with level, so they will be useful all the way to Level 80.

Bloggery 2009-10-22

2009-10-22T05:21:00.000-07:00

1. Pics of Parker from his visit last weekend, as well as Photographic Proof™ of the literary awesomeness of one Seanan Mcguire -- her book, featured on the new paperback rack in the front of the Arden Faire Barnes and Noble.

Oh, and the book itself, Rosemary and Rue, is a terrific read. Rosemary and Rue is to urban fantasy as Lois McMaster Bujold's Shards of Honor (another great book, by the way) is to military space opera: a sharp, witty, very well written first novel with great plotting, crisp dialog, intelligent world-building that will gain a vast following. I think that, like Lois, Seanan's work is award-worthy. I foresee Hugos and / or Nebulas joining the Pegasus awards on her mantle.

2. Weekend WoW: Another weekend, another FAIL Naxx-25, aka, the Floating 1d4 of FAILBOTTERY. Fresh run, started in Construct Quarter. Patchwerk, Grobbulus and Gluth were all one-shotted. I got my hopes up . . . then we hit Thaddius, aka the "White Death Knights Can't Jump" boss. This time I made the jump (about a quarter of the raid didn't) because I tried a couple of tricks to boost my Run speed. but the raid's damage output was far too low to take Thadd down before he enraged and hard wipes the raid. About 1/3 of the raid was not even geared for Naxx-10. One guy had mostly green (low level) gear from the lower end zones of Northrend.

Consensus on being geared enough for Naxx-10 is to have all or almost all Rare ("blue") gear at Item Level 187 - 200. This gear can be obtained through quests rewards, through faction reputation rewards, from crafters and from dungeon loot drops in heroic-mode dungeons. New level 80 toons have little business in Naxx unless they have the gear to survive.

I still managed to get enough heroic dungeon runs in to score my second piece of T8 with badges. The loot from heroic dungeons -- with one exception, namely Heroic Trial of the Champion -- no longer provides me with gear upgrades. The badges, on the other hand, can still buy some upgrades. However, the Emblems of Conquest that drop in heroics and pre-3.2 raids no longer buy me gear upgrades. The higher-level Emblems of Triumph are what buys the Tier 9+ and associated upgrades. I can trade the EoC's down in level, save them to buy other things, just no gear upgrades. I'm five Emblems away from my third pirce of Tier 9.

Bloggery 2009-10-15: Journal of the Plague (years)

2009-10-16T13:18:00.000-07:00

With NO APOLOGIES whatsoever to Norman Spinrad's awesome novella from the 80s about AIDS.

I'm finally (two weeks later) feeling almost back to normal.

I've been passing the time -- when up to it -- playing WoW. Getting out of Clothing Discouraged and into Eclipsed was a blessing in disguise. Three *scheduled* raids a week, and this week we had a couple of Good Ones: Trial of the Crusader-10 and -25. I've tried TotC-10 once with CD and we wiped like a 12-pack of Charmin rolls on the first boss.

Not this time, bunky! While we were only able to down the first 3 bosses in 25-man (Beasts, Lord Jaraxxus, Faction Champs), we were able to finish 10-man (Twin Val'kyrs, Anub'arak). Then we did 10-man Ulduar and managed to buzzsaw our way through Flame Leviathan, XT-2000 Deconstructor, Ignis, Razorscale, Kologarm, Auriaya, and the Assembly of Iron. We went bounce off Thorim. Left are Hodir, Freya, Thorim, General Vezax, Mirimon, Yogg-Saron and Algalon. As dessert I managed to get into a no-fail Naxx-10 PuG, and dropped Gluth and Thaddius to finish Constuct Quarter (and this time I made the jump!), Sapphiron and Kel'Thuzad. I am missing one boss -- Instructor Razuvious, in Military Quarter -- from my personal Full Naxx Clear.

New additions to my gear include a ring and boots from Ulduar-10. With the emblems from here (3 per boss dropped) I got my Tier 9 gloves. Now I have 2-piece set bonii for Tier 8 and 9 -- nice because the bonii do not overwrite one another. My "gear score" is in the mid-2400s, good enough to pug Ulduar once I know all the fights.

That's the problem: reading about the fight strategies is not enough for me. I need to actually fight the boss in my assigned role, to really understand the strategy . . . and for many groups, this does not work because they do not want to take the time to teach you the fights (and I had a very bitter experience with this on Marty in Naxx back in April . . .).

Now I'd like to get the guild to run Onyxia's Lair. This is a raid from Original WoW that has been owered up for Level 80. Ony's another draconic loot piñata, or so I am told.

On Sunday I get to see my grandson. Camera in hand, of course. :)

The art of magical mail enhancement, or "Pimp My Armor"

2009-10-06T04:32:00.000-07:00

No, not with blue pills....note the spelling of the noun in the title.

One of the most interesting aspects of WoW raiding is that raids are in and of themselves, not all that lucrative in terms of gold. Raids really pay off in gear looted. Most gear you get in raids cannot be obtained any other way.

However, once you haul home that Tier 9 chest token and trade it in on the armor piece you want, the question becomes "How to make this nifty piece of gear better?"

WoW has two professions that let you do just that: enchanting and jewel cutting. Just about every piece of gear can be gemmed, enchanted, or both.

Of course, the chants, gems and gem cuts require skill and materials. Materials can be bought or "farmed." Enchanters "farm" most of their own materials by disenchanting unneeded magic items -- a kind of recycling. Gem cuters prospect raw ores for gems.

If you are in a guild, you cn usually find a guildie who can be persuaded / bribed / browbeaten into chanting the gear or cutting that gem if provided the materials without charge. Many chanters will do this for free just to get skill increases; these folks advertise their availability in the Trade channel, WoW's global answer to Mos Eisley Spaceport.

Yes. Trust me. Trade chat is devoted to kids hassling one another. Or to things that belong in other channels, like Looking for Group.

If you are not in a guild, or your guild lacks a chanter or JC, and you prefer to not have brain cells leak out your eyes as you read the drivel in Trade (I always /leave Trade, never stay in it. If I want this level of inane drivel in my downtime fun I'd watch reality TV or pro wrestling), you can pony up gold in the Auction House and buy one use scrolls with the chant or the gem cut you need. Of course, that's a bit spendy -- epic gems run 200-300 gold a pop and top end chants are 200 gold or more each. Figure an average of six gems and eight to eleven gear slots (depending on class) that need chants (head arcanum, shoulder enscription, chest, cloak, pants, boots, bracers, gloves, melee weapon, shield / offhand weapon, ranged weapon).

Expensive? yes. But the other day I saw a guy (not me) get raid-kicked despite having decent base gear -- Tier 7.5 range, not bad stuff, really, but no gems and no chants. Without mail enhancement, you get raid-kicked. Skinny-kid orcs start kick sand in your face and steal your date. Even gnomes look down on you. Gnomes!

Is my gear pimped? Does Kel'Thuzad (the end boss in Naxx) love his kitty cat, Mr. Bigglesworth?

Epic gems...1500 gold. Enchantments, 2000 gold, One shotting Kel'Thurzad? Priceless

Fortunately gold can be gotten. I am one of the engines on the realm's economy. I gather raw materials -- leather from slain beasts and herbs I find in my travels -- and sell them on the auction house to crafters. I then buy crafter's wares, completing the circle. I also do several daily quests every time I log on, each nets me about 14 gold each.

I made about 3k gold this weekend. That's about normal for me.

The problem with Rush Limbaugh owning a NFL team...

2009-10-04T21:21:00.000-07:00

...is that the only formation the team would be able to use is "Right Wing"

This Week in WoW...

2009-10-04T20:34:00.000-07:00

In a word, mixed. Very mixed.

I've gotten zero guild invites since Clothisis and I left Clothing Discouraged. Not. One. Clo's now in a guild, but I am hesitant to join a leveling guild when I want to raid. I did try out for a couple pf raiding guilds the other day . . . 25 man Naxx, the bane of my life. EPIC FAIL again. I caused a wipe on Thaddius because I could not make a jump across a chasm to fight the guy. My DPS would have made the difference (< 25 k health left when Thad enraged and hard wiped the raid. . .). I failed the jump . . . seven times!

"Consider your application declined, Tyrtrinos. You are FULL of FAIL!" /kick

PUGs were few and far between this weekend. I managed to get ToC pugged just about every day, and I managed to do 10 and 25 man Obsidian Sanctum (the latter with 1 drake up) with CD's old allies in the guild Section One, If they were recruiting DPS, I'd go there.

Another possibility: bite the bullet in a couple of weeks and spend the $55 to move Martkishar (troll shammy, the one in Gwenny's guild) over to Kilrogg and change his faction to Alliance from Horde. Shammys are IN DEMAND for two reasons: One, they can heal. With the Chain Heal spell, shammys are the best raid healers in the game. Two, shammys have an ability called Heroism. When the shammy hits heroism, the entire raid gets a 45 second increase in attack speed by 1/3. Heroism is an ability needed in many boss fights in places like Naxx.

The other other option is to build Tyr's tanking skills and gear set. My tank gear is only OK. nowhere as good as my dps set. Good tanks are in demand. I'm not sure how "good" I am.

On the WIN side, I did get OS 25 and 10 done and I have been piling up gold and achievements.
I'm now at Exalted reputation with Ironforge and will start working on Exodar reputation ("Exalted Champion of Ironforge") as step 3 in a six step meta-achievement. OS 25 was done with one mini-boss drake up, so I got the "Twilight Vanquisher" achievement. I completed all the holiday insanity for Brewfest and got "Brewmaster". Since my new IF rep now enables me to buy mounts from the dwarves, I bought some epic ram mounts for "Filling Up The Barn"

Oh, and one piece of new dps gear -- Tier 8 chest, with badges. I now have the 2-piece set bonus for Tier 8.

WoW Bloggery 2009-09-23: LF Guild

2009-09-22T05:04:00.000-07:00

It is Brewfest season in ol' Azeroth. What with ram-riding keg runs, Dark Iron Dwarf attacks at the oddest of times and more free beer than a frat party, there is much happy fun.

The Great Puggery also continues as well. With my work schedule change, raiding is going to be occasional at best for awhile. This means pugging heroic instances, especially the Daily Heroic quest and Trial of the Champion on heroic mode. There are very few busted PuGs on heroics these days, so it is easy to spend a half hour farming 3-5 badges -- gear upgrades take between 15 and 60 badges to buy per piece.

I'm one piece shy of having a full set of epics. The trinket I really want drops in a raid I cannot seem to get into, or when I get into it the trink does not drop, or the raid breaks up...Naxxramas, 25 player. 25-man pugs are tough to organize and run.

My most recent gear upgrade is this nice polearm that dropped out of Heroic Trial of the Champion. Serious DPS increase with that item. Also scored some good boots with badges

Mounts and Pets: Two new mounts -- a bear (600 gold) and a Hippogriff (150 Seals of the Champion, from dailies and Heroic ToC) -- and a pet Wolpentinger (bunny with antlers, kind of the Easter Bunny meets Cernunos) from a Brewfest quest. Several other mounts and pets can be earned with Seals . . . so I joust and do the other Argent Tournament dailies religiously.

Right now my "weakest links" are my trinkets. Both are item level 200, the last such items I have left.

On the hot news front, Meece and I are no longer members of the guild after three separate incidents over the last two weeks. I won't go into details of the he said-she said, but the last straw was being told to laugh it off when the remarks were not only tasteless but bordering on criminal. Discussions of sex are fine, but even those have limits. When Meece raised her concerns over this, she was basically blown off with "(the offending party) is just that way, he does not mean anything by it . . ."

Yah, right. In other words, "just suck it up and put up with (that individual)"

With three youngsters in the house, two of which play WoW, Meece is taking no chances. We /gquit within seconds of one another. If I want to be treated that way, I'd stay at work or ride e-Tran all the time.

Arrrrrr!

2009-09-19T07:46:00.000-07:00

Avast, ye mateys! 'Tis International Talk Like A Pirate Day!

Arrrr!

Gratz!

2009-09-01T15:56:00.000-07:00

Seanan McGuire's debut novel is out today!

I've known Seanan since she was a teenager. She has more multimedia artistic talent -- drawing, songwriting, singing and omg writing -- in a single broken toenail than most folks have in their entire circle of Facebook friends.

Two copies are on order for payday . . . one for me and one for Jameece.

Life with the New Kitteh

2009-08-29T18:11:00.000-07:00

I've done three Snow Leopard installs now -- one in training, one on my production machine in the office and one on my MacBook. I love the way this beast installs. Most software installs just copy straight form the DVD to the target filesystem. SL does some nice stuff: it does the same source and target media / filesystem integrity checks (checksum on the install media and fsck on the traget filesystem) as 10.5 did, but instead of archiving the old OS then installing the old way, it creates a temporary partition on the target disk, copies the install packages there, removes completely the old system then replaces it with a new system.

This is a lot more reliable.

Not to mention that SL has a much smaller HDD footprint. Installing SL freed about 10 gigs of space on both HDDs I've installed it on.

Not to mention that I'm not getting a lot of calls about SL issues. Both Tiger and Leopard were big call drivers on release.

Only one glitch of consequence so far, and it is not Apple's fault. SL shipped with a metric buttload of print drivers for numerous popular printers. One large makes of printers, one whose name rhymes with "Pewlett-Hackard" apparently failed to deliver the drivers Apple was expecting

Crazy Sophia / Mac OS X Coincindences . . .

2009-08-28T08:02:00.000-07:00

Mac OS X 10.4 was released the same day Sophia graduated from the University of Minnesota back in 2005. Her son Parker was born just hours before 10.6 was released.

I do not believe in coincidences.

Grandson Has Arrived

2009-08-27T23:11:00.001-07:00

Welcome into Teh World to Parker Andrew. . . 7 lbs, 4 oz, 20 in.
Mother Sophia and infant son are doing well.

Weekend WoW: Loot Piñatas Gone Wild

2009-08-24T10:45:00.000-07:00

A Good Weekend™

The quest to get Decently Geared™ took some twists and turns this weekend. Ran Naxxramas-10 Regular on Friday night. Anub'Rekhan, Grand Widow Faerlina, Maexxna, Noth the Plaguebringer, Haigan the Unclean and Loatheb -- all enjoying their weekly dirt naps. Of course, I was a "FAIL" once again at the Safety Dance with Haigan. In Military Quarter Instructor Razuvious took us to "The School O' Serial Wipe," thus ending a decent raid. Clothisis, holy healer-type and Girlfriend Supreme, pulled some nice upgrades -- as in "Tier 7 shoulders" off Loatheb. It was FUN helping her determine which Tier 7 shoulders to get. Tier gear is tailored (pun not intended) for a specific specialization. Since Clo's specialization is Holy (healer), all her spells are cast at friendly targets so there is no miss chance and no need for Hit Rating stats on the gear. Were she a Shadow Priest, she'd need Hit Rating to overcome miss chance against bosses. I helped her select the Spellpower / Haste, not Hit Rating / Spellpower model shoulders.

My wow-heroes.com gear score -- an index of gear quality that too many party leaders are using to evaluate people for pickup groups -- is now a comfy 2246. This value is the best among all death knights in Clothing Discouraged and 15th overall in the guild. I am happier and happier with my raw damage output -- 2.5k damage per second when full-up raid buffed with food, elixirs and spells. We have some folks -- warlocks and rogues -- pushing 3.5k dps.

I'm getting there. Now to help Clo get there too. Need to run her through more Heroics and get her some much better gear.

Saturday was the weekly guild progression / wipe-a-thon in Ulduar. Sadly, Clothisis is barely geared for Naxx-10. We are still learning the fights. I missed the guild's dropping Flame Leviathan, XT and Razorscale, but I got in on kills of Kologarn, Auriaya (the Crazy Cat Lady) and Freya on Sunday. Fortunately, the proceeds of Gear Nobody Can Use -- as in "I already have better / and there's no paladin who can use that piece of mana-regeneration plate armor in the party" -- fund the massive repair bills (8 gold per wipe, 25 personal deaths on both runs all weekend, times 10 party members, is a buttload of gold) for the armor repairs from all the wipes.

Sunday morning I went on a timed run through Caverns of Time: Stratholme (aka "More Zombies! More Zombies!) on Heroic mode for a shot at a bronze drake epic flying mount -- and I won it! On Sunday, it seemed like I was beating loot piñatas . The belt I was after for so very long (before I sprung for the badge belt) dropped in Heroic Nexus . . . three straight times this weekend. Ran Trial of the Crusader on regular mode with the guild and got a new epic helm for my secondary specialization armor set, then on Sunday night after Ulduar I ran ToC in Heroic mode with a pickup group (the Looking for Group channel / interface is.my.friend) and scored, you guessed it, Tier 8 shoulders off Eldrac the Pure. The T7.5s I got the other day look better on my toon, but the T8s increase my dps.

I still have one non-epic item in my main spec set: a trinket. My off-spec set can still use rings and trinkets, and I'm still nowhere near defense-capped.

Random Bloggery

2009-08-19T16:20:00.000-07:00

1. Health milestone was reached today -- I am back under 400 lbs! I weighed in at 397 lbs this afternoon. Me has a happy. Walking and taking the bus really really helps. Walking consumes kilocalories from the food I eat, makes me think at least twice before wanting to go out and get more food, and generates natural endorphins that promote mental health, taking the bus builds up my supply of "cope" for assorted random stimuli.

2. WoW: Scored enough emblems last night to buy my first Tier 7.5 armor piece for Tyrtrinos, Valorous Scourgeborne Shoulderplates. In doing so, I also replaced the PvP trinket I was using with a good one for raiding -- Sphere of Red Dragon"s Blood. That trinket is my last remaining non-epic piece of gear. There's a Naxx run tonight; I hope to get Grim Toll tonight.

(Later) "Tonight" has come and gone -- the Naxx run made it through Arachnid and Plague Quarters. I still suck at the "Safety Dance" but Clothisis -- Meece's toon -- scored for herself some new bracers and, on her first try at 10 man Naxx, her Tier 7 shoulders off Loethab. My haul was a set of boots for my tanking armor set.

Just some WoW stuff

2009-08-14T14:55:00.000-07:00

1. WoW: No Naxx runs so far this week. I've been refocusing on Heroics and Rep gear for upgrades. I am four pieces from having full epic gear. Last night I replaced my Icebane Girdle belt with a Belt of the Singing Blade with badges and my old chest with a spanking new Chestplate of Vicious Potency out of Ulduar. I am less than 100 reputation from replacing Gauntlets of Vigilance with some nice nice Fireproven Gauntlets. All I need after that is to get my Wyrmrest Accord rep to Exalted for Legplates of Bloody Reprisal and score a nice trinket in Naxx or elsewhere, like Grim Toll.

I have yet to try the new Trial of the Champion instance or raid yet. I'm probably geared for them, it's just the guild's been focused on progression through Ulduar.

My next project is to get enough gold for dual talent specialization (1k gp) so I can have the talents to perform as a tank.I have about 20% of the gear I need to start tanking, as soon as my current set is to spec I'll start tanking.

Naxx-a-Ramma part 3: My Kingdom For A Tier 7 Shoulder Piece, Or A Decent Roll On Anything.

2009-08-07T22:09:00.001-07:00

Last night's continued raid on Naxx was not the wipe-a-thon that Wed's attempts on the Military Quarter were. We made short werk of Patchwerk, one-shotted Grobbulus, took down the evil doggie with just two wipes, and five wipes and the dragooning of a shaman (for the
Heroism buff) to finally nail Thaddius. I was skunked on the loot rolls. Not one /roll for loot over 10! Two Tier 7 pieces dropped, /rolls of 9 and 1. An awesome trinket for a
melee guy dropped as well. My /roll was 10.

At least my repair bills (every death does damage to gear) were not so bad, and this joint raid (Clothing Discouraged and Section One) has a lot of fun people in it. My toon's performance I'm damage-dealing has also improved a lot. I was running around 1.7k damage per second in
boss fights last week. With some improved gear (new 2-handed sword from the Argent Tournament), a talent respecialization, some new gems and new enchantments, I've now got enough hit rating to maximize every swing of that sexy new zweihander (I just do not miss now). My total Dps was almost 2.8k damage per second when raid-buffed with potions, spells and food. Some raid members did as much as 4k dos but they were in gear from Ulduar (the next more challenging raid).

Musings, ventings, raids, etc

2009-08-06T07:40:00.000-07:00

Just a bit of venting. Nothing serious.

1. It seems like ripoff artists are getting more and more brazen all the time. Between idiots who do not know how to make change (and assume that I do not count back my coin and match that count to the math when it is given back to me . . . I've had two of these con artists at various retail establishments in the last month), "scare-ware" scams, "Free" Credit Reports that are anything but, getting honest-to-Ghu checks in the mail with fine print like "cashing this check signs you up for our exclusive service where we charge you $15 / month for a 2% rebate (max $100 / year) on your credit card", "credit cards" that are little more than sweet looking poisoned hooks into one's income stream . . .

Fortunately, my father is an astute businessman who counseled me even as a wee child to read the fine print. I did, and do. As a wee childe, I was also a fan, back when being a consumer advocate was still cool, of TV consumer advocate David Horowitz' wonderful show "Fight Back!" Horowitz's segments on predatory business practices always included "the tip-off to the rip-off" -- the clue that you are headed for a fiscal reaming by buying into a too-good-to-be-true "deal."

The same tools can be applied to the various Internet scams, like the recent Facebook drive-by scare-ware antivirus / anti-porn download. The driveby download popped up a scary looking Windows Explorer window on my Mac (running 10.5.7, not Boot Camped or running winderz in a Virtualization engine) with a dire warning about virii and pictures of nekkid people and the immediate need to remove them by downloading this lovely little .exe file.

However: Windows virii do not run in OS X
Not only that, OS X does not have Windows Explorer windows.
I can see how an inexperienced user might be panicked into buying
Preying on folks who do not know better and in some cases cannot know better pisses me off.

2. "Your Skill In Cooking Has Increased By (a lot more than) 1" -- I got a confirmation this morning of one of the reasons I have eschewed cooking my own meals at my current digs. My roomie, an otherwise reasonably tolerant and calm soul, is a neat freak's neat freak who makes Felix Unger of Odd Couple fame look like Pigpen from the Peanuts comic strip. I am not a total slob -- at least not anymore! -- but I tend to be not obsessive about my immediate surroundings. Common areas are another matter. Roomie informed me that my kitchen cleaning was not to spec, the stove top and counters needed to be wiped down. However, I did those things!!

So, rather than get pissed off and engage in my nominal default (avoidance) behavior and not cooking just to keep His Anality off my arse -- and to save money -- I need to do a better job than the everything but polish the fscking thing job I'm doing now. Part of me -- the lazy, tantrum-prone little boy inside me -- wants to say "Bite me!" and stop cooking. However, since Meece entered my life, I've begun to get a certain enjoyment from cooking my meals. It's more than saving money, it's about crafting something healthful that I will enjoy in the making, the eating and even when I talk to Meece about it. She inevitably suggests variations to my ideas -- some I'd already considered, some that I'd not even thought of.

I know, about bloody time I started cooking. The old excuse -- "Mom did not deign to teach me" -- does not cut it anymore, if it ever did. I've had some good teachers to overcome my lack of childhood instruction. Now I have the positive feedback that enjoying cooking gives to motivate me to try New Things™

3. Naxx-a-ramma, Part Deux. Tyr's been back to Naxx. Phat Lewts dropped from the Lewt Pinatas therein. Tyr even got some phat lewts from there. I'm very close to having a full set of main spec epic gear. My "gear score" -- a numeric measure of equipment quality -- is over 2k (which is OK for normal Ulduar!) now, and there is still room for improvement.

4. Major annoyance last night. One of the USB ports on my MacBook no longer accepts a USB A plug. Visual inspection of the lower case showed that the port appears physically misaligned. Looks like it's going to need service.

Assorted SoTR bloggery 2009.07.23

2009-07-23T07:15:00.000-07:00

Health: Weight, SGL and blood pressure are down, mood and exercise are up. My wounds are getting smaller every time I get the dressings changed.

Relationship: Meece continues to amaze and delight me. She has taught me some good, practical and cheap cooking tricks and tips. With her help, and that of my roomie, I now have a mini-fridge in my room in which to store food. My roomie is still adjusting to my trying to cook, but I'm actually starting to enjoy cooking.

WoW: After a lot of thought I've decided to not move my Alliance shaman over to Kilrogg (the realm where Meece's toon lives) for the time being. A couple of reasons for this -- one, I have some close friends over in Draka I'll lose contact with if I move Dak again, and two, I have another shammy (Marty, over on Kul Tiras) that I might be able to move and switch factions to Alliance because Blizzard is working on a cross faction transfer feature.

So, to play with Meece I started a Death Knight and leveled him to 80. Now I'm raiding Naxx again.

Last night was my first Naxx raid on Tyrtrinos. It was a 25 man Heroic raid, so there were some good loots. I really got lucky and got three new epics: off Grand Widow Fraelina I got Fire-Scorched Greathelm, from Anub'Rekkan Ruthlessness, and Strong-Handed Ring from the end boss in Arachnid. We're going back tonight, but the only things I'm going to be able to win is Tier 7 gear, since this raid's rules forbid me winning any more boss drops except for Tier pieces.

Customer Service Hell: AT&T, MetroPOS, The thieving credit union

2009-07-09T07:33:00.000-07:00

I cannot fscking believe just how rotten wireless phone company "customer service"can be.

I though AT&T was the absolute nadir of customer service. Their phone tree only seems to work when you need to pay them. Other than that, you have to creatively break the IVR's rules to get a Real Live Human Being™ on the line. But you could.

Boy was I wrong!

I switched to MetroPCS because they had unlimited calling and texting plans at a far better price than AT&T. Since Meece and I talk every night, sometimes for hours, something had to give. Meece's cell is on Sprint, but Sprint's calling plans make AT&T look downright cheap. I burned through a $50 AT&T phone card in less than two weeks even after changing to a $3 / day-of-use unlimited plan ($90 / month without text or data) when I was paying $10-$12 per call!

I went to Metro's store to see if my phone would work on their network -- it doesn't. Their version of the Motorola RAZR was too much, so I got their Kyocera almost work-alike phone for $50 less. My number port took extra time because of some confusion on my part over my AT&T account number, but I was able to keep my phone number.

All I can say about MetroPCS's phone tree is that it is terrible. The IVR is overly sensitive to ambient noise, forces you to confirm every single step, sometimes more than once. Once I managed to break the tree and get a human being, you get a typical don't-give-a-fsck rep with the empathy of a small gamey little ball of belly button lint. Five minutes of explanation to change my plan -- and he wanted to charge me $3 for making the change with a phone call!

I told this cretin to get stuffed and tried to do so online -- no joy. Back to automation hell to "fix it" -- and they still charged me the $3. Fsckers.

Thank Loki I do not have a 2 year contract with these morons. Since I just bought a phone, I'm in no position (other than "bend over and apply a generous dollop of lube") to change carriers again.

On the good side, Metro's wireless signal, data service and coverage have been better than AT&T's. Then again, diseased carrier pigeons and beat up tin cans on a grimy short string are better than AT&T's near worthless "EDGE" data network.

Finally, I fart in the general direction of the so-called "credit union" that maintains the ATM at work. This machine actually vended me a $10, not a twenty. I did not discover that fact till I tried to spend the bill, thinking it was a twenty. That was a dirty goddam trick.

Daily Bloggery 2009-05-28: " . . . there is Another."

2009-05-28T15:36:00.000-07:00

Yes. Why yes there is.

And you know what? The terrain on this side of the Rubicon is even better.

ON TO ROME!

----------------
Now playing: Cornelius Brothers & Sister Rose - Too Late to Turn Back Now

No Surprise . . .

2009-05-25T21:05:00.001-07:00

Your result for The LONG Scientific Personality Test...

INFP - the Healer

You scored 9% I to E, 11% N to S, 10% F to T, and 74% J to P!

You are more introverted than extroverted. You are more intuitive than observant, you are more feeling based than thinking based, and you prefer to go with the flow rather than having a plan. Your type can best be summarized by the word "Healer", which belongs to the larger group of idealists. You have a capacity for caring that is deeper than most. You strive for unity, are fascinated by the battles between good and evil, and can be something of an idealist. Only 1% of the population shares your type.

As a romantic partner, you are usually supprtive and nuturing, however, you have a high need for individuality. Harmony is extremely important to you as you are very affected by conflict and tension, which also makes you resist confronting your partner directly about problems. When you get angry, you usually blame yourself, rather than your partner. You can also be stubborn and unyielding when you feel you are being criticized or mistreated. You feel the most appreciated when your partner listens to you carefully. You need to be understood. You need to hear your partner express their feelings, the more often, the better.
Your group summary: idealists (NF)

Your type summary: INFP

Take The LONG Scientific Personality Test at HelloQuizzy

Okay....

2009-05-25T10:51:00.000-07:00

Your result for The Social Persona Test (What kind of man/woman are you?)...

The Snowball's Chance in Hell (QTBM)

Quirky Traditional Beta Male

Welcome, friend, to this lonley little club of mine. You are doomed to wander the earth alone and unloved. Okay, not really. But you are kind of a dork. However, your combination of interests, values, and personality is so rare, that it will draw females to you if you just put yourself out there. Work on the confidence a bit too.

You are more QUIRKY than NORMAL.

You are more TRADITIONAL than LIBERAL.

You are more PASSIVE than DOMINANT.

When picking a date, consider: The Rarity (QTAF), The Renaissance Faire Wench (QLAF), The Librarian (QTBF), or The Emo Girl (QLBF).

Avoid: The Man-Eater (NTAF) and The FemiNazi (NLAF)

(Image from movingpicturemagazine.com)

Take The Social Persona Test (What kind of man/woman are you?) at HelloQuizzy

Daily Bloggery 2009-05-24: In Stockton . . .

2009-05-24T15:41:00.000-07:00

Geeking out on assorted movies and playing WoW with Dakatirr on Draka. Kaj, HIB and Flick went out -- I was not interested in going anywhere. I am alone at the moment -- but not lonely.

My state of mind at the moment can be best described as calm. I'm focusing on the future, and yes, getting help for the identified issues I need to work. I have not broken down since Friday night, and with that I'm going to call it good.

Some of the lessons I am starting to grasp from this is a refinement of my search criteria for Ms. Right Enough. 1: I am going to be very very very careful with any lady who says she suffered abuse. If she admits to me that she has suffered abuse I will probe her relentlessly for triggering situations -- and avoid them. 2. Pagan-friendly and gaming-friendly is fine, no longer *has* to be Pagan and / or a gamer. 3. I'm going to look a lot more closely to how well we match emotionally.

Coda

2009-05-23T18:14:00.000-07:00

What is now ended has been ended amicably and well.

There is sadness. . . and hope.

I look forward to the day when I can meet her again as "just" a friend.

Today was not "goodbye forever" -- it was "see you later." Too many good memories for anything else.

Thank you one and all.

When it's time to let go, move on . . .

2009-05-23T13:01:00.000-07:00

. . . you do so.
I'm grieving a change that had to happen. There is pain, but no malice.
If I were home alone now . . . well, thank Goddess I'm not home. Or alone.
So mote it be!

Goddess bless you, Gwenny.

Not so Daily Bloggery 2009-05-22: Withdrawls

2009-05-22T18:19:00.000-07:00

The Daily Bloggery has ended for a time and will resume in a time.

This is not the time or place to emote.

Physically, I'm doing good, My leg wounds are healing well, thanks to the heroic efforts of two awesome nurses (is there any other kind?) at Kaiser and a terrific doctor. Holly and Yolanda exemplify the compassion of their profession in treating the Whole Person™ -- and Dr. Dao is a fount of great advice and ideas. Down almost 40 healthy pounds in 5 months.

Mentally, I'm facing depressive episodes and more. I've been leaning on my support network and getting help and good advice. All of you have come through: Kajir, HiB, Michelle, Katie, and Karen.

I'm looking forward to a good weekend.

Finally: for Gwenny.

Daily Bloggery 2009-05-15: om nom nom nom

2009-05-15T05:12:00.000-07:00

1. My Dinner at Michelle's: Last night was devoted to spending time with my goddessdaughter and family. Dinner last night was most enjoyable: ribs made from non-meat (with tasty sauce), potato wedges and asparagus. We played some age-appropriate board games. Kaia did some magic tricks. I took pictures. There was some tech stuff I was helping her with as well: she got a new 500 GB Seagate Free Agent desktop drive and wanted me to help her back up her system before a possible nuke and pave of Winderz on the internal hard drive. I also ran checkdisk and a defrag -- there were no issues. She's having an issue with restoring her iPhone -- it gets halfway restored and quits, and iTunes gives error messages when you try to update it. I suspect part of her issue is that she is not running XP SP3 -- she's on SP2. The Seagate drive has some rather good autorun software on it that does an excellent job of automating this process.

2. WoW: Got home in time for a little WoW and to help Gwenny with another achievement -- this one for 50,000 honorable kills in Player-vs-Player combat. She told me when I logged on that she was maybe fifty HKs shy of the achievement. An "honorable kill" is where you engage another player character in battle, damage or kill that character and are close enough to I asked her to grab me for the next battleground she wanted to run. One Alterac Basin battle alter, she got her 50 kills -- I had 40 or so myself.

Daily Bloggery 2009-05-14

2009-05-14T08:34:00.000-07:00

Assorted stuff today:

1. Tonight I see my Goddessdaughter, read her books and have dinner there.

2. WoW: Last night one of Gwenny's toons got one of the major meta-achievements: The Burning Crusade. This comes from raising all dungeon factions in Outland (site of the Burning Crusade expansion set from early 2007) to the maximum. It is a long hard road to get there, quite an accomplishment.
I like running with Gwenny.
Found an interesting forum post this morning. GREAT advice on how to pick talents, enchant, gem, gear and play a Enhancement shaman raider in WoW.

3. SGLs good, got enough sleep last night.

Daily Bloggery 2009-05-13: Welcome to Kul Tiras, a No-Ninja Zone, or Death Cab for Gnomie

2009-05-13T04:45:00.000-07:00

Very interesting night in WoW last night.

1. "If it's Tuesday . . ." -- Tuesday in WoW is Instance Lock Reset Day for virtually all the raids and heroic dungeons from the two expansion packs to the game. An "Instance Lock" is something that happens when you enter a 1o+ person raid dungeon (Karazhan, Naxxramas, Gruul's Lair, Serpentshrine Caverns, Ulduar, etc) or a 5-person "Heroic" (hard mode, better loot) dungeon like those in Outland (Hellfire Ramparts, etc) or Northrend (Utgarde Keep, Drak'Theron Keep, Old Kingdom, The Nexus, etc) limit you to entering one copy ("instance") of the dungeon per character per weeek for raids and per day for heroic 5-person dungeons. Non-heroics can be run as often as you can find a group for the run. On Tuesdays each week the instance locks expire on the post-expansion raids. For example, last week I ran regular Vault of Archeron, regular Obsidian Sanctum and *most* of regular Naxxramas -- so the locks on those three instances expired yesterday.

So yesterday was a busy day in WoW. Gwenny and I agreed to meet up in game after she got off work and got done with a meeting she had then, which was in a few hours. A guild mate starts a demi-PuG for Heroic (25-man) Vault and Heroic OS. Unlike the PuG from a couple weeks ago, this one rips right through both instances -- they're brief with a single loot-piñata boss at the end -- like a hot broadsword through buttered armor, all bosses went down for their long overdue dirt naps as planned. Sartharion (Dwarven for "Draconic Loot Piñata") in OS dropped the token for my Tier 7 armor set gloves.

Tier 7 is this expansion pack's top-end raid armor. It's the gear you need to have before progressing to Ulduar and ultimately, Icecrown Citadel. It is character class and in some cases (shaman, druid, paladin) is specialization-specific. The token is taken to a vendor and redeemed like the Golden Ticket in Willie Wonka for the piece you need.

So, how do we decide who gets the token? How do RPGers decide *anything*? Through a die roll, of course, via the console command /roll. To prevent "ninja looting" -- just having anyone take the loot and leaving everyone else screwed -- virtually all raids designate a Loot Master who loots the Good Stuff™, administers the /rolls and distributes the candy. If there is no Master Looter in a raid, I drop from that raid faster than a Level 70 can solo Hogger.

OK, so this blood elf female hunter, a warrior and I roll on the token, and the hunter's roll is highest with me next, the warr rolled a 1. I /bow to her and "gratz!" her on her new T7 gloves and manage to win a nice epic helm on the next roll. I leave for the auction house to buy two gemstones for my helm.

250 gold and an hour later, the hunter sends me a message: "Gratz on the helm. I think I may have improperly rolled on those gloves. I contacted a GM (game master) to fix it, but I need your agreement that the token was rightfully yours."

My reply: OK, I have gemmed the helm and it is soulbound (cannot be sold or given to another player, can be sold to a vendor).
Hunter: GM can fix it. Gems will be refunded
Me: OK, what about the old helm I sold to a vendor?
Hunter: GM can fix it.
An hour later, with GM intervention, I am poorer by 6 gold (vendor payment for helm) and an epic helm and richer by one Tier 7 gloves token.

That most awesome of hunters is now on my friends list. It's incredibly gratifying to meet a player in WoW who shows just how few players are ninja-looting self-centered scamming pricks.

Once my esteemed Guild Mistress -- Gwenny -- logged on, she pinged me and we grouped up to spend a pleasent evening traveling about Azeroth together looting dungeons and slaying gnomes. I carve her troll tribal glyphs into each gnome skull I loot for her and toss her pet Chimalli Scooby-Snacks™. She says that is sweet. Seriously. Gnomes need to die. When fighting those Alliance dogs, I always -- even unto turning into a berserking Leeroy Jenkins -- attack gnomes first. Always. Give me a choice between attacking a cloth-armored healer at 10% health who is not a gnome and a gnome death knight in full plate with health buffs, I go for the gnome first. Tactically wise? Not. I'm role-playing!