Wrath of the Litch King Beta-- My First Look

I finally got to log into my beta account last night. On one server I created a new Death Knight character so I could try out the new class. It's pretty neat starting a character at Level 55. On the other I transferred Dakatirr, my Level 70 Shaman Healbot. It seems strange to be earning experience points from daily quests -- the level cap in WotLK is raised to 80 from 70. There is a lot of new quest content on the continent of Northend for Dak (I had to rename him Däkätyrr for the beta because the fïjords of Nörthënd demand umlauts).

Good points: 1. Epic mounts at level 55 for Death Knights 2. DKs start with decent gear, including some very nice rares. 3. Mounts are considered pets. They won't fight for you, but there is a new tab in the UI to manage them. 4 The ingame calendar in the UI is spiffy. Want to know when Brewfest starts? Or which BattleG holiday is happening this

There are a few things I do not like: one DK quest that forces you to engage in Player vs Player combat (something I hate) . . . a level 55 character should have a LOT nore gold (mine do, since non of my toons have crafting skills), Other than that, I'm having phun.

Berzerkeley was fun...

I went to visit my daughter and son in law in Berkeley today. Had a blast despite a sore throat that almost kept me home.
Highlights included a fine lunch at a very nice Chinese place (huzzah for Moo Shoo beef), a visit to Sam's school (Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary), some geeking about on Sam's PC, MacBook and network and good coffee as Sophia showed me how to home roast with an air popper. I even saw a home movie showing Sam giving his first sermon. W00t! Then there was that tactical nuclear oatmeal cookie Sophia made . . .

They got a new car, a Volvo, to replace Soph's Kia. The Kia was named "Inga" and she wanted a name for the new car. Given that Volvo is Swedish, I suggested a male name: Gustav Aldolph. Yes, I was thinking of everyone's favorite 17th-century Swedish King, that most Lutheran champion, general, the Lion of the North. I also suggested his formidable daughter Christina as well.

I counted Presidential campaign signs and stickers while in Berkeley, starting with an Obama postcard Sophia had. The final count was 10 for BO, 3 for HRC, and ZERO for ANY Republican.


I'm starting my Earth Day / Beltane iTunes playlist; the song in the FoxyTunes sig is headlining that playlist. Not only is the song a good green / eco tune, it's easy on the ears as I grind in WoW.
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Listening to: R.E.M. - Cuyahoga (Live)
via FoxyTunes

The perfect memorial for teh Shrub . . .

. . . in, of course, San Francisco: renaming a sewage treatment plant after GWB

"Waste not, want not!"

Bits, bytes, nybbles and other data constructs

Scenes from a geek's life:

1. My hip going "pop" as I was getting ready to leave the doctor's office. Tylenol is helping; two of the world's most awesome nurses *ever* making sure that I did not leave the doc's office until the pain had diminished. Valarie and Connie are a matched set (literally!). I've met more educated nurses, sure...but none who are so patient-centered.
(Gheekspeak follows)
2. I get my job satisfaction shots in strange doses. Few things make me happier than rescuing a customer from a mistake. One of my axioms of Mac Teching is "Walk non-technical customers through the start of an Archive and Install (preserving) because there are too many ways for a nontech to fsck it to hell and beyond." "Archive and Install" (preserving) is a common resolution for software issues on a Mac; what it does is move the /System/ folder to a new location (the "archive" part) and installs a new one. It does NOT overwrite the old /System/, /Applications/ or more importantly, /Users/ (the "preserving" part). The /Users/ folder is home to things like the Desktop, Documents, Music, Movies and all the stuff you store on a computer and want to not lose. Well, Ms. Customer made one little mistake: the did the archive and install with the "preserving" option disabled. When this happens, the /Users/ folder goes into the archive as well. Upon completion of the install, your system goes through first time setup as though out of the box and looks like all the data is gone! The call started out with my diffusing the customer's demand for scalps. I told her how I think it happened, without assigning blame (I care about happy customers, not the whys of breaking things or Who To Blame), and showed her the mystery of how to restore a archived /Users/ folder without hosing the file permissions. This customer went from mistrustful and hinting at legal action to wanting to fly me to the East Coast for personal Mac lessons. Long call, because this restore process is a bit delicate . . . but the call ended with a VERY happy customer.
(end Gheekspeak)

3. Last night, in semi-secret rites in Nygel's Point, Desolace, Dakatirr (my shaman) was passed the title of Guild Master for the WoW guild Legends Till Death . Yet another case of insufficient reluctance. I'd been looking at starting my own guild for awhile, but I literally could not buy nine signatures for a guild charter I took out for . I did not set out to take over someone else's guild, but now that I have it I'll be doing as much administrivia as I do actually playing.

4. A few days ago, Barack Obama gave this little speech about race, faith and a few other things. My inner Orator (the one who got free in speech classes in high school and college and earned the highest degree of distinction from the National Forensics League for oratory, debate, extemporaneous and impromptu speaking) was amazed. Presidents are supposed to be inarticulate boobs who cannot sting together two original thoughts without connective tissue. Presidents are supposed to be rhetorical embarrassments. At least that's been the lesson of the 21st centuty dark age that is the Bush / Cheney administration. BO was brilliant in laying out his vision for that nation, his view of this nation's historic and persistent racism. (geek sideline: while his first and last initial suggest something odorous, his full initials -- BHO -- is a Windows geek acronym: Browser Helper Object. Some BHOs suck, others are not so bad) Folks, Barack Obama (BTW, his first name means "Lightning" in Hebrew and was also the name of Ariel Sharon's armored brigade in the Sinai in the 1973 Yom Kippur War, the name goes back to a military commander from the Old Testament) is the Real Deal.

4. Finally: to the piece of human debris who parked his or her car less than a foot from my van which was centered in it's space at Kaiser, forcing a buy with a sore hip and not-so-mild claustrophobia panic attacks to climb in through the cargo door: FSCK YOU WERRY MUCH, ARSEWHOLE! I was just one security camera away from keying the passenger side door of your PoSmobile. Please, for the sake of the people who must share the road and parking spaces with you, get a real license to replace the one you have courtesy of Cracker Jack and Learn To DRIVE and PARK, you miserable dollop of dog crap.