Just because I don’t have enough to do in World of Warcraft, I’ve decided to start a new level 19 Horde twink. I’m kidding about not having enough to do, of course. I miss playing Battlegrounds and I figured it would be faster to get a character from 1-10 than play my Shaman, Warlock, or second Paladin to eighty. I’ve converted my banker, a Tauren Hunter, to my PvP twink and am currently level seven. As my banker is firmly planted in Thunder Bluff, she — yes, I said “she” — can easily queue up for Warsong Gulch and watch the auction house for twink gear that non-twink players put up for sale.

My shopping list currently includes all of the following: Sentry Cloak, Forest Leather Bracers, Gloves of the Fang, Scouting Trousers of the Monkey, and Twisted Chanter’s Staff. My Leatherworking Rogue will craft a Deviate Scale Belt, rounding out my bind-on-equip gear.

My current goal is to level her to ten and head to Trisfal Glades outside of Undercity. There, I will tame a Vicious Night Web Spider for their Web ability which “encases the target in sticky webs, preventing movement for 4 seconds.” I predict hijinks ensuing very soon!

Posted in 200 Words, Twinking, World of Warcraft 3 Comments »

“Watchmen” was entertaining and did not disappoint. I was very nervous when the opening credits began and even became sad at one point when I realized that I was about to view someone else’s vision of what I had become very attached to. The opening scenes rolled in with Bob Dylan’s “The Times They Are A-Changin’” playing in the background. This was one of my favorite parts of the movie and really set the tone for what we were about to witness: a changing of the guard for the Watchmen and society.

I became immersed in the movie right away, but was disrupted several times. The soundtrack was annoying when mainstream songs were forced into the story, attempting to recreate a 1980s feel. Malin Akerman’s acting was awful, and the makeup for President Nixon and Sally Jupiter looked really fake. The action sequences didn’t seem to fit either, but were well done.

I think that someone not familiar with the graphic novel would be confused. Scene transitions seemed hurried at times. This did keep the story moving forward, though, and it didn’t seem as abrupt since I knew what was coming next.

I give it three-and-a-half stars out of five.

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I was tasked with main-tanking the Loatheb fight in Naxxramas with our second tank – a feral Druid – watching the spores and contributing DPS. I put my recently-upgraded gear to the test, and fine-tuned my spell and attack rotation on the fight. Things got dicey towards the end of the fight when Loatheb’s casts of Inevitable Doom became more frequent. During one of the last Necrotic Aura phases, my health got dangerously low. Our aforementioned feral Druid taunted the boss off me. I panicked, thinking that a spore had struck me, or I somehow wasn’t holding threat. I popped Avenging Wrath and taunted Loatheb. I received two big heals returning me to full health, but half the raid was lost at this point. Those that were left burned all available cooldowns and finished him off.

We then ventured into the Military Quarter and worked our way down to Instructor Razuvious. The other tank and I spent about six attempts learning how to control the Death Knight Understudies. With some macros, a tweak to my Bartender settings, and communication over Ventrilo, we had the fight down pat. Our challenge for next week is to try and clear both quarters in one night.

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Great video games give you a sense of accomplishment. When you can accomplish something with a group of people, though, it’s even more satisfying. Our Naxxramas group started over with the Arachnid Quarter after the weekly reset. We cleared more in one night that we did in two nights last week! The group of people I play with are motivated, quick-learning individuals who like to have fun, but take what they’re doing seriously.

Before the raid began, I spent fifteen Emblems of Heroism on the Libram of Obstruction. This was an excellent upgrade for me since it increases my shield block value on every successful Judgment. I could definitely tell a difference working it in with my 96969 rotation.

We had a few issues starting out with Anub’Rekhan. I was silenced on two attempts because I was too close to him when he cast Plague Swarm. This ended up wiping the raid because I couldn’t control the Crypt Guard. Everything finally came together, though, and we got him down. We went on to one-shot the next four bosses and I picked up two new pieces of tanking gear: Gauntlets of the Master and Cloak of Armed Strife. Now for Loatheb!

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I was planning on getting my Warlock to sixty-eight and get him started in Borean Tundra. However, when you play as many alts as I do, things don’t always go as planned. Just as I started in Terokkar Forest, a friend of mine came online and was itching to play his level sixty Death Knight. My Death Knight is sixty-one, so I offered to come help him with some quests. We started off with the Ravager Egg Roundup and made quick work of the ravagers. I hadn’t played my Death Knight (specialized in Unholy) in quite some time, so I had forgotten about what rotation to use. I found a Death Knight site that listed a cast sequence macro for Unholy, and setup the buttons on my action bars to match. After that, I was quickly reminded of how much Death Knights are overpowered.

After slicing through ravagers like two hot knives through butter, we thought we could handle the group quest “Cruel’s Intentions” by ourselves. We got Arazzius down to under ten percent on our first attempt, and wiped quickly on the second try. After finishing our humble pie, I asked a nearby Paladin and Priest to help us.

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I just discovered Synergy, and it’s awesome. Last week, the power supply on my computer at work began screaming and dying a slow death. During this time, the computer would shut down by itself when it began to overheat. As you could imagine, this was extremely frustrating. This was effecting my productivity and mental well-being. I started using a backup computer that I used for remote connections and data backups while I waited for the power supply to be replaced.

After I received the new power supply, I decided to make use of my backup computer to manage databases, execute long-running processes, etc. Just this morning, though, I hit a snag. I had modified a stored procedure on my secondary computer and needed the contents of the procedure moved over to source control on my primary computer. Since you can’t share clipboard contents across machines, I was stuck.

Along came Synergy, a desktop sharing application that lets you share the mouse, keyboard, and clipboard contents across multiple computers. This is purely a software-based solution, making the need for a KVM switch and cables disappear. I followed the setup guide from lifehacker.com and was up and running in about five minutes.

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We ventured into Naxxramas for the second time, attempting to clear the Arachnid Quarter and explore the Plague Quarter. We had some troubles with Maexxna the night before, but we were able to one-shot her. I was concerned with rounding up her spiderlings and trying to tank them before they reached our ranged players. I posted a question on the Maintankadin forums and received some solid feedback. Users replied with their experiences of ignoring the spiderlings. I took this approach and focused on helping with the Web Wrap and healing.

The Plague Quarter was a nice change of pace after battling spiders for a night. I was tasked with handling the adds during the Noth the Plaguebringer encounter. I controlled them fairly easily, and our healers did an outstanding job of keeping me alive during phase two. It was another one-shot and on to Heigan the Unclean. After great progression on each attempt, we took him down. I assisted with cleansing and healing during the fight, and had fun running through the eruptions to the safe zones.

We’re going to try it all again next week in hopes that we’ll get through these two quarters even faster next time around.

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I ran Naxxramas with my protection Paladin for the first time. We started with the Arachnid Quarter, like most new raid groups do. I wasn’t sure how far we’d get, especially since my gear is not quite optimal for tanking Naxx. I studied a video created by Tankspot that showed how to tank the first boss, Anub’Rekhan. As it turns out, I was made the off-tank for the boss fight. After a few wipes, I finally had control of the Crypt Guards and avoided the Locust Swarm’s silence. He ended up dropping the Chivalric Chestguard and Gloves of Dark Gestures. I took the Chestguard since our Holy Paladin had something better.

Next was Grand Widow Faerlina. This fight was pretty easy for our group with me tanking the adds (in this case, the Worshipers). It was a bit difficult to round them up (as casters), but my Arcane Torrent ability helped keep them grouped together. We nearly wiped when I forgot to change my target icon when it was time to kill the third Worshiper. We recovered nicely and were rewarded with the Avenging Combat Leggings for our Restoration Shaman, and the Bracers of Lost Sentiments for our Fury Warrior.

Posted in 200 Words, World of Warcraft 4 Comments »

I attended “Art Night” at my son’s preschool last night. It was great to see some of the creative ideas his teachers came up with. Shown first was a flashlight painting, along with a photograph taken of him working on his piece. Basically, he had a roller attached to a flashlight, and applied the paint onto the page by following the light with the roller. Next was a design he created out of shaving cream. The shaving cream was glued on the paper, which gave the picture a soft and puffy feel. I thought it looked like a fish swimming towards me; probably in the same way a cloud in the sky sometimes appears to be a fish. His teacher showed us how they work with textures, explaining how my son took small squares and meticulously glued them to paper. Last was an original drawing that he painted. He chose to draw a football and paint it yellow. He proudly said to me, “Look, daddy, I made a football.” I was very impressed by the school’s organization and display of the kids’ artwork, and pleased with my son’s ability to follow directions and participate while showing off his creative side.

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A week later, I received a phone call from my buyer that purchased apples for the upcoming apple pie bake-off. The buyer was in a panic. Apparently, all the apples I delivered to them were rotten! I had no idea how this could be. Although I know the order was a bit rushed, we care very much about our apples and ensure that they are of the highest quality. The buyer went on to explain that they did nothing with the apples after they were transported. This was particularly surprising to me, considering that they requested the apples be delivered right away for their event.

The buyers let the bushels sit out in the open while they tended to other situations regarding the bake-off. I learned that the apples sat out for a week, and now they only have a few days left before the event begins. I wondered why the buyers didn’t put the apples in proper storage. Although I was confused, I figured that it’s their right if they changed their mind to not make use of the apples immediately after I delivered them.

I was most troubled when I was told that this was all my fault.

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