Assorted Stuff

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.

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

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

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 2009-04-20: Dude! The Great American Smoke-In Starring The Doobie Brothers!

1. SotR: On my way home from a weekend of communing with Gwenny. Much was had in the way of good times. We played WoW (more anon) and took a walk to a nearby coffee shop where Gwenny got her introduction to Mac OS X. SGLs are an awesome shade of green all weekend.

2. WoW: Got into a heroic Naxx run this weekend; both guildies and a few PuGs. We cleared the Arachnid Quarter, dropping the bosses with just a few wipes. We started on the Military Quarter, dropped one boss after a couple of wipes and called it after the second wipe on Gothik the Harvester. Got two nice items:Grim Toll and Totem of Dueling. I took 25 Emblems of Heroism and bought a Pendant of the Outcast Hero. 38k honor points got me a Hateful Gladiator"s Cloak of Triumph. All of my items are at least good quest blues, Heroic dungeon drops, Badge, Honor or raid / Tier 7 gear. Reset is tomorrow, so I'll be good to run 10/25 Naxx/VoA/OS again. I'm good for most heroic raids now, heroic dungeons -- except for end boss drops -- are no help any longer.

3. Culture: The real story of "420"

4. Gwenny: This relationship gets better and better. What can I say that I have not already said?

Daily Bloggery and Link-a-rama™ 2009-04-04: Good Things™

1. Amtrak. I've always loved trains, and being car-less but involved with someone has made me a lot more familiar with Amtrak. My first ride on the Capital Corridor train Sac to Fremont last week was a lot of fun. Even the ride home, as reluctant as I was to leave Gwenny, was still fun. The ability to engage in occasional acts of public CCD exposure (aka shutterbuggery) -- I took a lot of pics of the Naval Reserve Transport Fleet in Martinez because one day I want to show Baby Kanenwisher (my grand, once said child is born and can understand the significance) what his grampa's grampa did in WW2 (namely, built Liberty Ships in the Kaiser Shipyards).

2. The Unitarian Jihad. This one's for Diane and her mom, who know why, where and how.
Oh! BTW, my Unitarian Jihad Name is: Brother Dagger of Enlightenment. What's yours?

3. Health: Left side wounds look real real good, the heal-negative sluff is slowly being banished by the frequent dressing changes. I've been fighting either a bit of a tummy bug or I'm reacting to the Glucophage™ I'm taking to keep my SGL under control. Teh runz are teh suck. Anyway, good SGL -- under 110 -- over last 12 hrs. Walking really helps!

4. Gwenny. Every day, I thank Goddess for bringing this magnificent woman into my life. I have nearly thirty documented (but unshared as a collection) Reasons Why I Love Gwenny. Reason 29: "Helps get me through the bad days and makes the good ones even better." Yesterday the tummy bug and a meeting I was forced to stand up at were together kicking my head in. Gwenny was right there, encouraging and expressing affection while I was Not At My Best. Sometimes that is all we need.

5. WoW: Martkishar is level 79. He should hit 80 sometime next week. Or, if Gwenny and I play WoW together all day Sunday, maybe even Sun night. I do not think that playing WoW all day on Sunday is very high on our list of fun things to do together. I hope v3.1 is released this week. Dual specing, here I come!

Daily Bloggery 2009-03-31: Back in Harness

1. Goal reviews tomorrow. I didn't make all of them (one or two SGL spikes, no DB for Sun-Mon), but I'm down another 2 lbs this weekend (made goal easily) and, well, I have a Gwenny now.

2. Health: SGLs are hard green, wound beds look nice and red. That is what is supposed to happen. My weight is down another two lbs. Gwenny -- thank Odinn -- had Healthful Foods™ available and is mindful of my issues.

3. Tomorrow is Apple's 33rd birfday. I'm going to celebrate by booting up at least one Mac.

Daily Bloggery 2009-03-26: The Unbearable Rightness of Being (Gwenny and Me)

Health: SG still in low 100s (108) this morning and last night (111). Got some good walking in again, too. Feeling energetic, almost like a teenager.

Gwenny: This is the first long-distance relationship where I have given absolute priority to staying in very close touch with her. EVERY serious relationship I've ever been in -- both that resulted in marriages and my one non-marriage LTR-- have had a geographical distance issue at one time or another. Kate and I chatted often and epically, but our staying in touch was not done with the energy Gwenny and I are investing in this one. With Kate, our very first AIM session was a dusk-to-dawn marathon. Email also played a big role in communicating over the almost-year we were an item but not living in the same home. Amy did not have computer access and was happy with an occasional phone call. The long distance phase of my relationship with Karen was during my Navy days, so weekly phone calls were heavily supplemented with mailed letters. With teh Gwenny, it's chat almost all day at work, textual intercourse during my bus ride home and Ventrilio and WoW until bedtime. Not to mention supplementary love letters via email. From computer and iPod touch.
There is an unmistakable transcdental rightness to us. I cannot begin to describe it in words. It's been tried, and nobody else even comes close. All we need is real space validation. Two days.
*rant=ON*
Dataminers Gone Wild!
OK, so you're a middle aged guy on a social networking site. You sign up for an account. It's free. The business model of the site demands that they datamine the hell out of you and serve targeted ads based on the nuggets.
OK, I can grok that. I have no issues with advertising for a buck.
I have made it more than crystal clear, here and on Facebook, that I am in a relationship. A VERY GOOD one, actually. See the words "transcdental rightness" above. I am not looking for women my age, or college-age hotties.
Yet it seems that the datamining spiders are missing THAT for some damn reason.
*rant=OFF*

Daily Bloggery 2009-03-24: Them Ch-ch-changes

Time till meeting Gwenny: 4 days, 9 hrs (as of this writing, approx).

Health: Morning SGL reading was 109. Green zone = happy RichO because I am doing things right. My weight down 30 lbs since April. I will be see an eye doc for a diabetic retinal exam and new glasses soon. I'm taking my multivitamins and eating my veggies, too.
Yesterday I got a haircut and beard trim. I sent Gwenny the before and after photos from the iSight camera on my MacBook. I look pretty damned good when I keep the hair and beard trimmed. I also bought an overnight bag and travel sundries at Target while texting with Gwenny until the battery in my phone died.
This fairly short jaunt to the store, barber and doctor yesterday brought out two of the shortcomings of the RAZR: one, talk time of 3-4 hrs is shorter than I'd like. Texting is talking, as far as phone power consumption is concerned, you see. Two: I would really like a QWERTY keyboard for textual communication.

On the horizon: Tonight Marty hits Level 75; he ended last night less than 2k xp from leveling. Gaining that 2k XP and followup stuff like training in new spells would have cost me another hour of sleep. Gwenny has promised me a BOYD run through the Violet Hold dungeon tonight. Tomorrow the QoL (Quality of Life) team at the office is serving us breakfast, courtesy of Chik-filk-a.
Finally: The WoW servers go down today for maintenance and, it is hoped by many, patching to game version 3.1. This version introduces a new raid instance for progression junkies, quick-change dual-specs for a one time 1k gold payment to a trainer and more.


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Now playing: Tempest - Hal-An-Tow
via FoxyTunes

Daily Bloggery 2009-03-15: Teh Ides o' March

SotR: spent most of the day in WoW with BOYD and Gwenny. Crashed out about 5pm. Up at 11pm to get email and blog a bit. Serum Glucose levels nominal. Feeling very good.

SotR 2009-03-06: supplemental

Something neat happened at work today. The coffee service finally got rid of the swill they were serving -- have been serving -- since long before I started at Apple. They got some new coffee -- some strange outfit out of Seattle nobody's ever heard of called "Starbucks." It's pretty good coffee. The stuff actually tastes like real coffee, and not ersatz pseudo-coffee filtered through gently-used toilet paper.

Just got back from the doctor. Legs are still looking good, no odors. There is healing going on there.

On balance, it's been a damned good week. A bit of WoW tonight, Watchmen tomorrow night.
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Now playing: The Rolling Stones - One Hit (To the Body)

Look what landed on my desk this morning . . .

. . . this 8 gig iPod touch 2nd gen. I like sales contest prizes.

The OOB experience was the typical one I've had with every Apple product I've ever owned: plug it in, charge it up, sync it with iTunes, and it worked. The wifi connected right away with the network in the office. Yay wifi! Yay mobile Safari! Yay mobile Mac Mail! Contacts, iCal events, music and photos synced like a charm.

I'm ordering just a few apps for it: iPhone Bookshelf (for transferring my PDA's ebook files), Islet (for tracking diabetes stats), the SJ Games' Fnorder (just fnord because), a dice roller for gaming, a secure note program, Wikipedia and Facebook apps.

In other tech / gadget news: new iMacs, new Mac Pro and Mac minis out today. The mini is a verra sexy little beast: mini-DVI AND mini Display Port video outs for dual display support, FIVE(!) USB 2.0 ports, 8x Superdrive as standard, 2.0 GHz Core 2 duo, nice Nvidia integrated graphics, a gig of RAM standard . . . in an aluminum enclosure. Leopard and iLife '09 complete the package. Cute machine, but it's not an all-in-one, it's BYOKMD.

The iMacs are likewise yummy. 2 gigs RAM standard in the 20-inch display model . . . 256 MB graphics, etc.

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Now playing: Black Sabbath - Paranoid
via FoxyTunes