Trying to 'asplain WoW to a non-player: Part 1 - Getting Gear

The short answer: Nothing else can provide so much entertainment for $15 a month. Very few things in my life can provide more joy or more frustration. Of course, the lows are usually me swearing at the screen and pounding my desk. The highs often result in me silently smiling at what I/We've done. If you have tried it and didn't enjoy it, there are good odds that you've been "presented" it in the wrong way, or you have already made up your mind that you wont like it, or a combination of the two.

The long answer: We need some term like "Muggle" to describe those who don't play. Maybe Wuggle? Does that mean anything that I'm not aware of? With my luck it's some slang that only those deep in the drug underground would know, and my blog is now being "watched" by the government.

Well, for all you wuggles out there, World of Warcraft (or WoW), is the single greatest creation in the history of mankind. Sliced bread truly sucks in comparison. The wheel is only a "meh" when placed next to this technological wonder. Over 10 million people play, about 1/4 of those are in the US. It works out to be about 1 in 120 people in the US that play WoW, and that number is rising. Each of those people pay $15 per month to continue playing. That works out to be about 150 Million dollars a month that Blizzard is making off this game. I would estimate that 80% of that is pure profit.

So, how do I convey the entertainment that Warcraft brings? I think we do it a disservice by thinking of it only as a game. I'm not saying that it isn't a game, nor am I saying that it's greater than a game. It's that this software can be so much more than a game. I think a better classification would be to call it a hobby. When people learn how much I play, they think it's kinda wierd. But those same people wouldn't think anything is wrong with the model railroad guy who spends just as much time working on this train set. Think of how many hours of TV the average American watches each day. I replace TV with WoW (but I still watch about 2 or 5 TV shows each week). I consider each of my characters as a project I am working on. I spend a lot of my play time trying to get better gear for them and perfecting how I control them.

That's not saying that everyone takes it at the same level. For some people, it really IS just a game. You play for a half hour, maybe 3 times a week. That kind of player may or may not ever see level 70 (the highest level in the game currently).

Other people have multiple 70's and have them geared up rather well with good armor and weapons. For those people, each character is the end result of dozens of hours of work. For example, I put about 300 hours, spread over a few months, into getting my latest character to level 70. And once you're 70, that's just the start. Now you have to get all your gear. And by the time you have that gear, Blizzard will have announced new content or a new expansion, and that means you can work to get more gear.

The way most people get gear is from running "instances" or "PvP".

"Instances" are special zones that have some computer controlled creatures for you to fight. These creatures sometimes drop "loot". The instances also have a few difficult to fight "bosses", which have much better loot, and at least one item is guaranteed to "drop", or be looted from them. But each boss has several items that may drop, and since they drop only one or two things each time they are killed, you may not get your desired item, even after many attempts.

PvP is another way to get loot. PvP stands for Player versus Player combat, and it is when you get to fight character controlled by another person, somewhere else in the world. Every time you defeat an enemy player, you receive "honor points". Honor can be spent like currency towards very nice equipment. There are designated areas that people can go to in order to participate in PvP combat. These areas are called Battlegrounds, and have objectives that can give bonus honor and/or help your team win the match. The smallest PvP battleground allows for 10 player on each team, and the largest allows for 40 players on each team. The encounters can result in 1 on 1 fights, or 40 on 40 battles. Sometimes it's incredibly fun, especially when some punk kid "jumps" you unexpectedly, but you are able to defeat him. Few tings are more exhilarating than coming out ahead when your opponent had every advantage.

I'll write up some more points in another post. I'll probably cover the crafting or social aspects of the game next, and have another post about the coordination required for some of the fights in various instances.

Another 15 minutes of WoW fame

Thanks to my guild leader, my Blood Elf Paladin's name will be imortalized in his new web comic Ding!

The other day Scott asked me if he could use LilGalKills for the name of the Blood Elf Rogue in the comic. Of course I said yes. It should be starting soon, I'll make another post at that time.

American Airlines

In regard to American Airlines allowing BAE Systems to test an anti-missle defense on test airliners:

"Fort Worth-based American, a unit of AMR Corp., has said anti-missile defense is best handled by stopping terrorists from getting missiles that could shoot down commercial jets and by improving security around airports."

That could be the most ignorant statement possible with regard to this situation. Both "solutions" are naieve.

The first aspect is considering how many shoulder launched missle systems are in the hands of underpaid soldiers in former-Soviet countries. If you aproached one of those units and said you'd pay 80,000 for a single launcher, what do you think they would do? 80k and all they have to say is that one was destroyed by a forklift in a warehouse, or in a training accident. This reeks of the same ignorance that thinks guns can be kept out of the hands of criminals.

The second, airport security, is full of dumb when you consider that these launchers have at least a 5 kilometer range. That includes straight up. So if they stood 10 miles from an airport, directly under an ingress path or holding area, they just have to point up, and any plane aproaching will be vulerable. This is a system that could easily be transported in a small car, truck, or even a motorcycle if the bad guys were bold enough.

American and BAE aren't using live flights or live weapons in the tests. Right now it's just testing the system to see if it can withstand the workload of an airliner. I presume one of the next steps will include a remotely-operated empty aircraft, and live missiles.

I do take my hat off to them for allowing these tests. But I can't help think American is getting some kickback for this. The DHS awarded this contract to BAE, and there is almost surely a provision in the contract that rewards airlines for participating.

BTW, I bet I jsut tricked Annie into reading this, just from the title.

Iowa was funny!

Obama beat Hillary, Hahahahahaaaa! She couldn't even win the female voters, and that was supposed to be her core. Of course Iowa is just one state, but the political types seem to think it's a big deal, so I guess it is. They say New Hampshire could really solidify Obama as the lead Democrat, and I'd love that.

Tonight, as I read about his victory, I realized time that if he wins the Democratic nomination, for the first time in over 15 years, I won't be upset if a Democrat takes the office. This doesn't mean I'm voting for Obama, I'm still undecided and it will depend on the Republican candidate. But for once I won't be voting in an attempt to keep someone else OUT of office. It will be nice for a change.

However, if Hillary gets the nomination, I will definitely be voting Republican. I honestly don't think my vote will make a difference, but I'll be damned if I'm going to do nothing about it.

If you think about that last statement, it would really be wise for the Democrats to pick Obama as their choice. Republicans who are on the fence, may vote for him. But Democrats who would be on the fence with regard to Hillary would probably not be on the fence if Obama were a choice. I could see the sway go to the left, but not to the right.

My 2007 CD

We did another album for Christmas, and as usual, I didn't get the print out done that I wanted to. I was going to have Kinko's print out a little booklet that would fit in a CD jewel case, but didn't prepare enough in advance. So I'm blogging about my track selection instead.

My 2007 Tracklist:
1. Tegan And Sara - The Con
2. Tegan And Sara - Dark Come Soon
3. TNP - Myriad Harbour
4. TNP - Adventures in Solitude
5. Silversun Pickups - Checkered Floor
6. Silversun Pickups - Little Lover's So Polite
7. Silversun Pickups - Dream At Tempo 119
8. PJ harvey - When Under Ether
9. Iron & Wine - Carousel
10. Iron & Wine - Innocent Bones
11. Iron & Wine - Wolves
12. Iron & Wine - Boy With A Coin
13. The White Stripes - 300 M.P.H. Torrential Outpour Blues
14. The White Stripes - Little Cream Soda
15. Led Zeppelin - In the Evening
16. Stevie Ray Vaughan - Little Wing
17. Aerosmith - Back Back Train


Now the details:
1. Tegan And Sara - The Con
This is just an incredible song, it shouldn't need explaining. Hands down my favorite song from this album. What I love most about it is the energy of the vocals, guitars, synthesizer and the drums. I think they could have even sped it up a few BPM more.

2. Tegan And Sara - Dark Come Soon
I added this song mostly to try to put something on the album that I thought would have a broader appeal to the rest of the family. The guitar it starts out with is interestingly simple and pleasant, the kind of fun picking style that mom likes.

3. TNP - Myriad Harbour
I can't explain what it is about this song that I like so much. The vocal cadence at the begining is intruiging to me. That caught my attention almost immediately. The "question and answer" (even though no questions are asked and no answers are provided) style of having the rest of the singers join in with the lead is another aspect of what I like about it. It's really difficult to describe actually. Just listen to it and enjoy it for whatever reasons you find.

4. TNP - Adventures in Solitude
This is a happy-sad kind of song. It has a sad sound, and describes welcoming back the veteran of a war who feels guilt for surviving when their friends did not. But it does so with the tone an understanding friend would use when they welcome you back. I think it's the empathy in the song that sells it for me.

5. Silversun Pickups - Checkered Floor
I picked 3 SSP songs from Carnavas that were not regular radio songs, not that I have much of an idea what's on the radio. I was really expecting Marianne or Clayton to have a few SSP songs on their albums. Had I known they wouldn't, I'd have put on about 8 SSP songs total. Maybe it's good that I didn't know. Carnavas is an amazing album. It falls into the very exclusive category of albums that I can listen to more than a half dozen times in a row without growing tired of. I usually only change from this album because I fear that I will grow tired of it.

6. Silversun Pickups - Little Lover's So Polite
It's just got a good tempo and energy. After looking up the lyrics, it may not be the best topic though. I still love it.

7. Silversun Pickups - Dream At Tempo 119
I'm confident that Brian (the lead singer) is at least partially insane. This song is my proof. But it makes me wish that more singers were insane.

8. PJ harvey - When Under Ether
I almost didn't include any PJ Harvey songs for fear of everyone thinking I'm wierd. Well, more odd than you currently think I am. PJ Harvey is the kind of singer that you probably won't like from one song. You have to listen to a few, prefereably an entire album, over and over, to come to appreciate fully. I picked the song that, in my opinion, was the most accessible. Yes, the other ongs on White Chalk were even more odd. This at least had a pretty piano part to it.

9. Iron & Wine - Carousel
Have you heard this song. If so, then you know why I included it. You wouldn't even need to know English to appreciate how great this one it. That brings up a good point, do you have any music that you appreciate without being able to understand? The frist that comes to mind for me is Beethoven's 9th. I've looked up a translation, but that one symphony makes me want to learn German.

10. Iron & Wine - Innocent Bones
Just a nice slow smooth song. Odd lyrics. I enjoy it, like Carousel, without needing to listen to the words at all. A really cool banjo part fits in perfectly without making it "Ozark". Of course I'm a sucker for the pretty, whispy, background vocals that his wife provides.

11. Iron & Wine - Wolves
If you don't like the beat of this song, I can forgive you, but will probably never like you more than I like a passing stranger. All kidding aside, it's just fun to listen to.

12. Iron & Wine - Boy With A Coin
See the notes for track 11. I really didn't intend to have 4 Iron & Wine songs on this disc, but after picking a few, I found it difficult to remove them.

13. The White Stripes - 300 M.P.H. Torrential Outpour Blues
This is a great example of a modern blues song. It starts slow, crecendo's as it builds to it's climax, and then backs off slowly as the song ends. I almost added "A Martyr For My Love For You" from the same album, but I couldn't verify if it was singing about an inapropriate relationship or not. He was either too old to be dating the girl that is the focus of the song, or he just didn't consider himself worthy of her. Another great song, but my first impression of it was the age issue, and I didn't want to creep anyone out.

14. The White Stripes - Little Cream Soda
This is a great example of what The White Stripes mean to me: lo-fi and loud, fast and fun.

15. Led Zeppelin - In the Evening
A classic from one of Led Zeppelin's later albums "In Through The Out Door". I almost took this song off to make room for something more modern, then slapped myself for ever considering such a crime against classic rock.

16. Stevie Ray Vaughan - Little Wing
This is possibly my favorite SRV song ever. And this is easily my favorite version of his take on the Jimmy Hendrix classic (he has at least 3 versions of this song). If you listen to it, really listen, you can feel the sorrow bleed from his guitar.

17. Aerosmith - Back Back Train
A few years ago Aerosmith put out a mediocre album of electric blues. On that album was this gem (and at least one other song that made the album worth buying). This is electric blues at it's best; mean, dirty, and loud. It has an aural "momentum" to it, you feel like the song has the energy and innevitability of a train bearing down on you. Whatever the outcome of that approach, the train passes you as the song decrecendo's on it's way to another victim.

Lyrics

A-Z Lyrics is a pretty cool lyric site. It's not overloaded with ads like so many other sites. Seems to be largely user edited, so it may not always be correct, but it should be good enough for anyone who's already consigned themseves to a lyrics site.

My guild seriously rules

Today, on our 4th attempt, we got Al'ar to 2% before he enraged and wiped us. We have come so far so fast. We have all of Serpentshrine Cavern (SSC) clear except for Lady Vashj. And by the end of January I expect to have SSC and Tempest Keep (TK) on farm, and making shots at Mount Hyjal. I'm very proud of our raiders. Don't tell them I said that.

A while back, when we were struggling, I asked a friend in a more advanced guild, what he thought we were missing, what we could change to possibly do better. His answer was kinda funny: "You're all too nice, you need a 'bad guy' sometimes".

He was right, we have always been too accommodating, and our members were taking advantage of almost no repercussion for poor performance. In response to this, I decided to play the bad cop. I really like it actually. If the raid doesn't seem to have enough focus, I get mean and make it know they had better perform. It's an interesting little amateur psychology experiment seeing how people react to being yelled at for performance in a video game. About 90% of the time, they start performing substantially better.

If people screw up with anything other than legitimate mistakes, I rip them apart. I was once so mean that I got a guild member to quit the guild on the spot, and about a week later, the game. In my defense, he was being superbly stupid, and nobody really liked the guy. His mistake was that he was trying to save his own life, at the cost of EVERYONE else in the raid, including himself. I definitely overreacted, and in hindsight, should have handled it differently. And I've learned from that.

But our guild is now progressing rapidly, and it feels good to make significant steps forward. We should have people in full tier 5 soon, and a few pieces of tier 6 not long afterwards.

Crazy work hours

I work from 1 am to 9:30 am, which are hours I love. Wednesday through Sunday, with Monday and Tuesday off. But it leads to some oddities.

It's really strange to drive to Beatos for lunch, and pass a few of those insane early morning joggers. Here my day is half over, and they are doing the 5 am complete-lack-of-common-sense-jog. Do they know it's 5 am? I feel an urge to purchase some inexpensive watches to hand out so they don't have to exercise at such stupid times. And it's winter! You should see them all bundled up, moreso than I've sometimes prepared for snowboarding.

Another wierd part of working these hours is my interaction with other humans. Of paramount importance is how this schedule affects World Of Warcraft (WoW). What I do is go to bed soon after work (ok, so I will usually do the PvP-daily and then go to bed). Then I get up at about 6 pm on raiding nights (Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday), and run an instance with the guild (BTW, we are now on Vashj!) Then, after the raid, I will try to get another 1-3 hours of sleep before work. It really feels like I'm living just to work and play WoW, which is a shame. I should just be living to play WoW. I need a "sugar mama" to facilitate my need to play WoW unhindered. Or maybe find some way to play WoW professionally, and then I can have a normal wife. Of course, I don't want a "normal" wife, I want a wife that plays. We have a few couples in our guild that play together. It's seriously full of win.

Sadly, one of my days off (Tuesday morning) is on WoW weekly maintenance. That's 7 hours, in the middle of my "day", that the servers are offline. It's seriously boring. I usually play Guild Wars or organize music or something. The real problem is that servers come back online just about the time I should be starting to sleep. "But my arena points just rolled over! I can't go to bed NOW!" This leads to miserable Wednesdays at work.

But one of the nice aspects of this life is that when I get off work, everything is open. All the stores, banks, etc. So it's really easy to get chores done, I just do them after work, and I have the entire "normal" workday to get them done. It's like potentially having every day off in that regard (if I'm willing to sacrifice sleep, which I am). And even though I work on Sunday, all I have to do is go home and put on a tie, then I'm ready for church. But often I go home and fall asleep, unintentionally or not.

All in all it's a great schedule for me. The positives outweigh the negatives, and it's uncommon which makes life interesting.

Harry Potter

Driving to work today, it was cold and the ground was misty, like a low fog was rolling through. I immediately knew what this meant.... DEMENTORS!
So that means I finally finished the Harry Potter series. Really good books, though I didn't read them, I listened to the entire series on my iPod.
My first experience with Harry Potter was from the first movie, and in hindsight, that was unfair to the series. After finishing each audiobook, I would watch it's associated movie, and they really don't do justice. Such is the case with most books converted to movie.
As good as the books are, there are lots of issues that I have with them. The first is with Harry. He's too emo. Although he's portrayed overall as being fiercely loyal, his faith in his friends and family falters too far and too often for my taste. James (his father) and Albus Dumbledore seem to bear the brunt of this more than most. There are points in the 6th book that Harry goes so far as to hate Dumbledore (even with all the failed occlumancy and other external influences aside). There were times I just wanted to slap the little punk. You can't have it both ways. You can't have a young man with amazing strength of character that later loses all faith in one of his dearest friends. I would have preferred if he dealt with his misgivings in a less "emo" way. This was just a way of trying to show that he's "human".
Rowling uses "incredulous" far too often, by the 5th book it was bugging me. She seems to have backed off the word a bit at the 7th book. I also didn't like how dreary most of the 7th book was. I know this was meant to be a dark time for the series, but it was too much. Maybe this was partly due to the change in narrator that I had for this last book. My greatest problem with the books was my own idiot fault. I kept reading Wikipedia articles to get more information about things that I had missed or misunderstood, and kept reading spoilers. So I highly recommend that nobody read anything until done with all the books.
My favorite characters were Luna, Ginny (3rd book and later), and most of all, Kreacher the house elf. I think to really appreciate this character, you would HAVE to listen the Jim Dale (the US audiobook) narration of the Order Of The Phoenix. There were times when I laughed out loud. His voice was PERFECT, and his mumblings were even better. If I had read the books, I would not have done Kreacher the justice that Jim Dale did him.
I can't say enough good things about Jim Dale's work on the audiobooks. He has a very good range, with few character voices "overlapping" in traits (the younger characters being the rare exception). For book 7, I listened to the British audiobook narrator, Stephen Fry, and was rather disappointed. Hermione sounded a bit like Ron, almost every adult female sounded the same, and Kreacher wasn't nearly as fun to listen to. I would go so far as to say that Jim Dale is probably responsible for 40% of my enjoyment of the series. Had I listened to the first audiobook narrated by Fry, I might not have gone on to the second audiobook.
So, if any of you are interested, I've got the first 6 books by Jim Dale, and book 7 by Stephen Fry, that I could get to you (all in digital formats). I'm going to try to get book 7 by Jim Dale as well. I really need to listen to Kreacher's part in that book done properly.

WoW on Linux

I was able to get World Of Warcraft running under W.I.N.E. under Ubuntu Linux v7.10 tonight (this morning). In OpenGL mode it looks as good as it does under Windoze. But I still don't have audio working right now. Hope to get that going after work later today.

More about the new jorb

Ok, so the description that I previously gave about my new job is a bit off. The equipment that I'm supporting is NetApp storage systems. I'll be a support tech for OnTap storage devices. These are computers that manage large hard drives for companies that need a lot of storage (several terabytes), and needs it to be very fast (firbre channel drives) and very safe (fast backups and restores, mirrored servers). They run an OS very similar to Unix, but the OS will not be the focus of the support. The OnTap software is what most calls will be about.

Some of NetApp's clients include the US government, Yahoo (mail), Google, and the LDS church (genealogy). The portion of the market that they cover is the mid-high end. They don't try for the absolute top-end, nor do they focus on the lower end.

I work directly for Convergys. NetApp will be sending us support calls, and NetApp is doing the first 3 weeks of the 5 week training. The training that I'm getting now is very valuable, so I'm really excited. This sort of experience is very desirable for many employers. And I will probably take the certification tests at some point in the future.

I got the job

I got the job, I got the job, I got the job, I got the job, I got the job, I got the job!

It pays double what I'm making now, so I'll go from barely being able to live, to having some extra cash left over after bills are paid.

My boss thinks I'm destitute

So, at work I've mentioned more than once that the current job isn't paying the bills. I did this in order to set my co-workers and bosses up for my eventual departure, but today I realized that my boss thinks it's worse than it really is. Embarrassment is when your boss offers to share her lunch so you can save money.

But you have to know her to fully understand the situation. For family members, imagine my mom in her place. There you have it. She even looks about the same. So the offer was with genuine compassion, the way a mother would care for her child. She really does seem to consider all of her employee's not unlike her children.

Anyways, I have an interview tomorrow that could lead to a better paying job. This job is for Unix tech support, so it will look better on a resume. Wish me luck.

Most embarrassing way to lose a job

We had a guy work with us for about 2 weeks. He asked us to call him "Thorn". We found out soon that His 'full' name was "Thorn Briar". This is not the name his parents gave him, it's the name he and his D&D friends use when they play Dungeons and Dragons. Yes, old-school D&D without a computer. Nerds sitting around a table spinning a tale of adventure!

He was rarely seen without his D&D "sourcebook", which is a book about the size of a large magazine, that outlines all the rules. He claims that anything you can imagine actually exists. He also claims to regularly have out-of-body experiences, and is working on personal levitation through rigorous meditation. When he was young, he turned into a white Siberian tiger and mauled a friend so bad that the friend nearly died. Oh, and he claims to be a "Pixie". Maybe he meant to infer that he was a member of the 80's-90's alternative band.

Anyways, Thorn had BO that would gag a European teenager! This guy was rank. You couldn't be within 10 feet of him without wanting to move. Tabletop gamers, and to some extent all gamers, are notorious for not bathing enough.

So, our boss politely asked him to bathe, which he did, and the next day was fine. But that was possibly the last time he cleaned himself. About a half week later he was punishing our noses again. So the boss told him that he has to bathe regularly, which he refused to do, so he was asked not to return.

I thought that his reason for no longer working there was stupid office rumor, but two days ago we were talking about him with the boss, and it was confirmed.

Now I know that I'm not entirely "mainstream". I embrace the title of "gamer". But how out of touch with reality do you have to be to not have social basics down, like bathing?

Greeceland

I wore my "Greece" shirt on Friday. Not a single person laughed or commented on it. Do none of them know the Union Jack, or is my shirt not as funny as I think it is?

Ding!

My mage ding'd 70 a few days ago. This makes 5 World Of Warcraft characters at level 70 now.

Lunch at work

At work today, I ate lunch outside with some of the employee's. One of the ladies there is in her mid 20's, has been married about 6 years, and is expecting her first child. She's due in January, and has only been "showing" for the last week or two.

About a week ago I got the impression that I should say something nice about her looks. You see, her complexion has broken out recently due to the hormonal changes she's going through, and I could tell by the way she dresses and carries herself that she is feeling self-conscious about her appearance. I didn't say anything, for fear of sounding flirty towards a married woman. Now I know a possible reason for that impression.

Last night, her husband told her something along the line of not being attracted to her anymore. Both her complexion and her weight gain were reasons, with other possible reasons. I guess it was the second time he's done so.

When I got outside, one of the other ladies said "let's ask Adam and see what a man thinks". So I was asked by one of the other ladies if it's ok for a man to say something like that to his expecting wife. I said "of course not", and then went on, hopefully redeeming myself for not acting a week earlier.

I sad that I feel that I've been given a gift. I can see the beauty in almost anything. Not just that, but I can see through things that might otherwise hide beauty. I told her that no matter what her pregnancy may do to her body, she has a beautiful face and an attractive figure. Her husband just may be one of the guys that can't see past those things.

She started balling after that, and one of the ladies consoled her. I presume she cried because she was appreciative of the comment or moody, and not because she was again mad at her husband. I didn't feel like I had crossed any line of decency, so I'm chalking it up as having done something nice.

Work

So, not one of the many resumes or interviews that I've gone on have worked out. I blame you all for not praying enough for me.

Now that culpability has been established, I'm not giving up on getting a good job, but I've had to pick up temp work to pay the bills. I went to Manpower, a temp agency, to fill out an app and see what they had. Let me make this clear, Manpower doesn't mess around. About 10 minutes after filling out the application, they were telling me about my new assignment that I would report to the following morning. I was expecting a few days at least.

The job is simple manufacturing for a craft company in Orem, QuicKutz. The work is bearable, and the people are nice. But the time is horrid! Work starts at the inhumane hour of 7 in the morning! That means I have to get up at about 6. Six AM for a gamer is about the equivalent of 2 AM for the rest of you. A half hour lunch means we are done at 3:30 PM. At least that leaves me a good chunk of the day to game like humans are meant to.

Oh, and my Druid hit 70 last week, so this should also be a "ding" post. Most of you wont understand that last sentence, and I encourage those who don't know to research for yourself what it means. A lvl 70 Druid is very fun to play. You should all try it sometime.

Jobs

I had 2 interviews yesterday, hope they turn out.

Texas

I went to Texas with a few friends from my WoW guild, Panda Attack, last week. We had a blast. I wasn't going to be able to go, but Dan (Weshea is his in-game name) wanted me to be there and was willing to buy my plane ticket for me.

The night we got there a group of us went to Ihop. Dan and I were there of course, but so was Jason Salsbury (Jase), Jeremy (Hitsuji, who came all the way from Japan), Angie (Miranda) Kurtz, and Scott Kurtz (Skull), the leader of our guild.

The next day, we went to a LAN center to play WoW. It wasn't the best environment, but it was a fun experience just because of the 14 year old punks who spend their day there yelling obscenities at each other. My new favorite term is "homogayfag". One kid, who was upset with another kid, said "stop being gay" at least 8 times in a one minute span (I think the other kid was spawn camping him). After a few minutes our crew were all calling each other homo's.

So we left there and all setup computers in Scott Kurtz's living room. That was a good call, just because it put us all in a quiet environment (or at least one we control), and we had a great time.

Some of the other people who showed up were Becky (Naraktrako) and her husband Mike, Gary (Ghulof), and Gary (Xindaiel).

On the iPhone's first day on sale, Scott Kurtz and I went and got in line to try to get a phone for he and his wife Angie. It was pretty fun for a few reasons, I love gadgets like all the folks in line, I like "first day" kind of things, and Scott Kurtz is an entertaining person to hang out with. He told me later that he was thankful for the company in line. We got one for Scott and one for Angie, both 8 gig models. Those phones are very sweet, and I'm stoked that Apple upped the ante this way. It will force Nokia and Motorola to do the same. All the competition will be great for us the consumers, as prices will drop and feature counts will go up.

Hitsuji got each of us some swag from Japan, mostly just inexpensive toys, but all of it is pretty cool stuff. My stuff got lost when I was there, but the Kurtz's are going to mail it to me.

On the last day, we played a little bit, and then packed up for our flight. It was sad going, but we had a good time. I was kinda hoping our plane would be delayed because of the horrible rain we had, off and on, all weekend. But alas, I had no excuse to stay and headed back home.

On a side note, I got my Druid to lvl 61, and should hit 70 in a week or so.

Ding 70

Just ding'd 70 on my Blood Elf Pally.

Now to gear her up and maybe re-spec holy.

Don't count the PS3 out yet

Home is Sony's latest announcement regarding the PS3, and it looks like they may have done something right for once. I still think that console is doomed to fail, but I've considered buying a used PS2 just for Guitar Hero, and something like this could get me to splurge for it's bigger brother. Big Brother is such an appropriate term in this case.

Some changes

I updated to the new Blogger a while back, and am just now getting my links put back in. I didn't realize that this is the only place I had most blogs linked, so I haven't been keeping up on my friends blogs.

Anyways, I have a lot of reading to catch up on. You can get current with the links on the right side of this page.

Ding 60!

My Pally hit lvl 60 just a few minutes ago. Thought I'd blog that while flying to Falcon Watch.

My 15 minutes isn't over yet!

The Instance, one of the prominant World of Warcraft podcasts, mentioned me in it's latest episode as the "Uber Shadow Priest" who got an air to air kill.

Episode 50 has the info, and if you move forward to 43:34, that's when they mention it.

I'm immortalized!

A few hours ago, my guild leader was being camped (killed over and over by enemy players), and I came to help with Weshea.

We successfully stopped the camp, but the Alliance stuck around and took a few pot-shots at us. One of them was on his flying mount, about 50 yards in the air, just out of spell range.

So I flew up to him and then flew above him. I dismounted in mid-air and hit him with Shadow Word:Pain (a DoT, or Damage Over Time) as I fell (you cannot attack while mounted, so I had to dismount and fall). I tried to hit levitate before I hit the ground, but was too slow, and I took fall damage.

But the guy I dotted up was under 50% health now. When I flew back up, he went higher thinking I wouldn't dismount because of the fall damage. But I did, and I hit him with another DoT, and this time he died! Best of all, I hit levitate before I hit the ground, and took no fall damage. My first air to air kill!

But by far the best part of it all is that it's now immortalized in Scott Kurtz's Blog for today!

Ding

I hit 70 about 2 hours ago and already have my flying mount. Flying in this game is freaking amazing, I wish it wasn't restricted to just Outland.

Well, I'm helping other people level now, and am off to do that.

Update 2007-01-19

Now lvl 63, about 20% into lvl 64. Instance servers just crashed, or I wouldn't be typing this now.

Anyways, back to the game. Gonna level my Blood Elf Pally. She's lvl 8.

Update

Burning Crusade is out, I'm still alive (in RL). Back to the game, c ya.

No longer hacked

It only took them 4 week, but I got my gear back. Blizzard took their sweet time on this one. But I'm relieved that I'm back to normal. I can now test my new spec from the 2.0 patch, and get ready for Burning Crusade.

My account was hacked

Two weeks ago someone hacked my primary WoW account (I have 3), and sold all my gear to in-game vendors before mailing off all the money from the sale to some unknown destination.

This affected 4 of my characters. My Priest, who is my main character, is the one who's loss hurt me the most. He has equipment that I can not replace because several people left our guild and we can no longer do anything in Blackwing Lair (BWL).

But the expansion is coming out in about 3 weeks, so people tell me to just wait it out and replace my gear with new gear as I level from 60, the current level cap, to 70, the new cap when the expansion comes out in January.

And possibly the worst part of all this is that I have no idea how my password was compromised. The traditional method is to hack the persons computer and install a keylogger that tracks all keystrokes. If that happened, then I could have my RL banking information stolen and my identity stolen. Jokes on them though, I've got nothing to steal.

Anyways, Blizzard was kind enough to send me an e-mail saying it would take 5-7 days to investigate the theft. You see, they have to make sure I didn't sell my gear and mail the money to a friend in game. Then if they restored all my gear they would have been scammed. But they've had almost 3 weeks to investigate now, and it's driving me crazy. Oh well, I just wanted to rant.

J!NX has some sweet shirts

Love this shirt:

I'm starting my own company

With a little prodding from my nephew Ryan, I've decided to start my own company doing web and graphical design. I'm calling it H&H Designs. The name is a tribute to my father's first race car shop: H&H Speed Shop. A few years ago my brother Tom told me that he uses H&H Systems as a fake company name for online questionnaires, so I started using H&H from time to time.

I'll probably post a few logo idea's here and see what the 3 of you that read this page think.

Onyxia last night

Crap, it's already 04:30. Where does the time go?

Last night our guild ran Onyxia. We called in a few friends that had left the guild in the last big blow-up a few weeks ago. These two left on fairly good terms, but I know that they expected a mass exodous to go with them. Raiding just hasn't been the same since that last blow-up. We were probably a month away from downing the last boss in Black Wing Lair (BWL), and now we can't even finish Molten Core (MC) every week.

Anyways, Onyxia is a gimme, and after 2 failed attempts these two people left, stating that they were out of time. I would have said the same thing, or something similar, and I wouldn't expect anyone to believe it. It really looked like the raid was going to fall apart as even more people left, but we were going to give it one more shot, as hopeless as it may be.

I happened to be on my Mage, because we supposedly had enough healing and wouldn't need my Priest. Well, for this last attempt I decided to 2-box my Mage and Priest. I was doing it almost as a joke, but I figured if my Mage died I could switch to healing and if the Priest died, no big deal. I never planned to be attempting to focus equally on each character in the fight, that's nearly impossible to do during Onyxia.

I totally didn't expect to down her, because once a group fails at something a few times, the spirit of the group is just defeated and typically they can't win at that point. It's human nature, and raiding in WoW can sometimes boil things down to the basics of how we as people function. It becomes less and less about gear and skill, and more a factor of who has the desire and drive to make things happen.

Let me deviate from the story a bit and explain the groups involved in a raid. First, there are the officers, such as myself, who manage everyone and try make things happen. In a raid of 40, we have about 2-4 present. Second, there are the class leaders who are in charge of their specific group, be it Warriors, Priests, Hunters, or whatever. About 5-10 people in each raid are class leaders. And third would be the guild members who are the body of the raid, making up the remainder. Different outcomes depend on the different disposition of the three groups. When the officers lose the ability to lead or even control, things go sour and it's obvious. When the class leaders have lost their drive, it's less obvious, and doesn't lead to failure as surely or as quickly. Also, a few good class leaders can easily make up for the officers shortcomings. And lastly, when the guild members who form the bulk of the raid lose their spirit, it's sometimes difficult to see what exactly is wrong. It's even more difficult to correct this. I still don't have a fool-proof way of picking up the body of our group and getting people to perform. What seems to work one day, will fail the next time. Sometimes it's like herding cats. You get a few immature punks in the group that want to crack jokes nonstop, and soon everyone is screwing around. That's when I play bad cop, and I get mean. Verbal abuse DOES work people. But it has to be used only in extreme cases. If you do it all the time, people disregard your anger as a personality flaw rather than a call for them to correct themselves.

Tonight we had a case of the third group losing it's drive, and we mis-diagnosed it as a class imbalance issue: "Not enough DPS". It wasn't a case where the bad cop could fix it. I definitely didn't know what to do, and that leads me back into my story. I was going to control two different characters, on two different computers, at the same time.

I've done this before, but on my own, when other people weren't affected by my performance. In this case, I was playing my Mage, BigGuyCasts, one of our top 10 DPS characters in a guild of over 350 characters, and I was also controlling my Priest, BigGuyKills, our #1 healer (name is somewhat ironic) in that same raid. Yes, I'm a bit proud of my accomplishment with my Priest, and no, I wouldn't be half of what I am if it weren't for the other people I play with.

So during this third attempt, where practically nobody thought we would succeed, at the end of the battle both of my characters were alive. My Mage was 7th in total damage done, and my Priest was first in total healing (having done 25% of the healing in a group of about 9 healers, the next nearest had done about 16%).

This was a case of the body of the raid losing it's focus, but pulling through at the end. I still don't know exactly how it turned around. My guess is that the two groups of leaders, about 10 of us, took their game up a notch and covered for everyone else who had lost their edge.

Well, I know that none of you really care about all this. I'm just really proud that we were able to recover from 2 failures and end the day on a good note. And I guess I need to look deeper into why these things happen, as well as how to recover better and faster.

2007-01-16, the day I dissapear

That's the street date for Burning Crusade, the first expansion to World Of Warcraft which lets me level my characters beyond the current cap of 60 to level 70. So you can expect even less than usual from me on that day. I've already pre-ordered it, and splurged for 1 day shipping.

Not sure how I feel about the expansion. People in the beta are saying that the basic drops from the first dungeons are better than some of the more accomplished people's gear. It really leads to a bit of discouragement when you know that "trash drops" form simple instances are going to replace the epic gear that you worked so very hard to get. A lot of people are not playing as much because of this, and my own addiction may even be wavering.

But all this comes from my keyboard a mere 20 seconds after seeing the post on the official website. Excited enough to post so soon after seeing the news, and excited enough to post twice in a day when my two prior posts were over two months apart.

Yeah I know, I make no sense.

You probably don't want to read all this

Blah, blah, blah.... I don't want to type in here. So why do I? Bored I guess, maybe I want to make this thing work again like it used to. I think it's good to have a place to thrash out ideas and feelings. That sounded less feminine in my head.

So I'm on my backup PC right now, here's why. A few months ago I had a power outage during a storm. No big deal, the backup PC went down as expected, and my main PC stayed up as expected. So did my internet and a few other things. All this because of the 500VA APC UPS on the floor next to my PC. The UPS (Uninterruptable Power Supply) is basically a battery that keeps providing power to whatever is plugged into it for as long as that battery has a charge. It also makes sure that the power going through it never spikes up or down. Upward spikes in power are handled with simple electronics that never allow the voltage to exceed a set amount (why do I always try to put two M's in amount?). Downward spikes are handled with capacitance and the aforementioned battery. Anyways, back to the story (I know it's a great story so far, and it's gonna get better folks).

So I finish up some rant about DKP or guild drama or our raiding schedule or whatever happened to be the topic in WoW at the time, and was about to close down my main PC, when the UPS battery ran out of juice and powered off. No big deal, it gave me enough time to finish what I was doing after the power outage, so I was happy. A few hours passed and power came back on. The backup PC cycled on, but the main PC didn't. This is where the story really takes off guys.

So I had a mystery on my hands. Well, mostly I just wanted to not deal with any of this, but I forced myself to. My first thought was that it's the power supply (PSU), motherboard, or CPU. My next thought was that these are all kinda spendy, and I don't want to throw that much money at the problem. So I took out the PSU, and drove to PC Club to have it tested. They said that it was putting out proper voltages, but would need to run a bench test to see if it's putting out enough amps. Well, if it's putting out the right voltages, I'm sure it's fine. I'll just replace the motherboard because that's surely the problem. So I took anther 2k from my 401k, and paid rent, bought groceries, and picked up a new Asus A8N-SLI Premium.

The motherboard got here a few days later and I installed it that day. Hit the power button and NOTHING. I just wanted nothing to do with it at that point. But I knew that most of my bills were paid and that I easily had enough money left over to buy a new PSU, so I drove to CompUSA and bought a new Antec NeoPower 550. I was a little upset that the NeoPower series had switched from 120mm to 80mm fans, but I bought it anyways.

Got home, installed the PSU, and it powered on! I was so relieved. And just in time for Molten Core (MC). WoW was acting a little strange at times. Of course it wasn't the computer's fault, I had that all fixed, right? Well, it turns out that about every few hours, the game completely locks up. I replaced the CPU with the one from my backup PC, and it still faults. I'm at a complete loss as to what this could be. I've replaced EVERYTHING that could be doing this. Except drivers. Seriously, I just realized that as I was typing.

See, not matter how girly it sounds, it IS good to have a place to type out what you are feeling.

NO LA

I'm in New Orleans (NO) Louisiana (LA) visiting Ryan, Ashley, and Jordan. Ryan and Ashley are great, and about the same as you've seen them in the past.

But Jordan is almost an entirely new person! He has such a little personality now. The usual 2 year old traits are there, like shouting "NO!" in defiance whenever Teletubbies or BackYardigans end. And answering "Yes" anytime you ask him if he wants something.

He says "peesh" for please, and has his own flavor of Jackanese where he can talk in complete sentances that seem to make perfect sense to him.

I can't stop smiling as he does most things, and I know that I'm being stupid about it all. It's nothing novel, kids have been this way for centuries, but that's my nephew's son being so traditionally cute. And by traditionally cute, I mean fare more adorable than 99% of the 1-3 year old population of the world. I have higher standards than most.

This weekend we are going to walk the French quarter with him one night, which I guess is a lot of fun for him, and all the partiers walking around in the past just adore the kid. I'll get a few pictures and try to post them here.

Celebrities I suppose I look like

Been a long time

Sorry for ignoring this blog for so long, but a lot have been going on.

I've been looking for a house over the last few months and not having a lot of luck. This is compounded by my work schedule which is from 10-6, and does not have a lunch hour. This means I have no time in the middle of the day to go look at houses. So I was only able to go looking on Saturdays. And when you find a house in Utah, it's got an offer on it within 1-3 days.

And then, my company went through some major changes. WCGS was owned by 3 equal partners, but is now down to 2 partners. The 3rd was "let go" by the other 2. Problem is, that partner was the only other employee in Utah, so what do we now do with the one remaining Utah employee? Yeah, I was thinking that I'd be out of a job, but it doesn't look that bad just yet.

Then I went to NY for 2 weeks to work from there while there was a lot going on. That was good for visibility reasons I guess. One of the partners has an "out of sight, out of mind" kink of mentality. While in NY, we decided to close the Utah office and have me work from home. So that's what I'm doing now.

BigGuyWhoKills

A friend of mine (from WoW) designed a shirt for Threadless.com and it's being voted on. If you would like to see it, follow the link:


Threadless.com has a bunch of really cool t-shirts, and even more really odd shirts. Every now and then you'll find one you like more than anything in your closet. I used "you" in that sentance, because my closet pwns all your closets combined. But even I will sometimes find a new shirt there.

Work trip

So I'm in NY for 2 weeks. All I can think about is how much World Of Warcraft I'm missing.

Last week we defeated Majordomo Executus and opened the Cache of the Firelord, where I got the Eye Of Divinity, one of the requirements in the quest for Benediction! Benediction is the premiere healing staff in WoW, and I now have it. In fact I'm the only person in my guild of over 400 people to have this. And it's sitting there, not being used.

On the plus side, I might be able to meet up with some of my guild members while out here (if I'm not too busy). Keep your fingers crossed.

An interesting date

On Wednesday of this week, at two minutes and three seconds after 1:00 in the morning, the time and date will be 01:02:03 04/05/06.

That won't ever happen again (in our lifetime).

Why do I bother to title these when they're all about Warcraft?

Well, you'll be happy to know that we've defeated the first 6 bosses in Molten Core. The last 4 we took down on our second attempt on each of them. That's a sign that we work well together. Most groups can't do that much that fast, so I'm very proud of our team. Getting 40 people, most of whom have never met one another, from diverse backgrounds, to all work together towards a common goal is a real chore. A lot of our leader's time is spent dealing with drama amongst the various players. But we now have crossed some threshold.

It all goes back to Lucifron, the first boss of MC. We wiped on every attempt during the first run, and gave up eventually. On the second run, we figured it out on our third attempt, and we haven't wiped on Luci since. We had some minor problems on Magmadar, but we got it on what was surely our last attempt for that day. From there on out, we have defeated every subsequent boss on our second attempt.

And so far I haven't missed out on a DKP yielding kill yet. Here's our current DKP standing (which should always show the current listing and will change this Wednesday). DKP stands for Dragon Kill Points, and it's an old Everquest method of making sure that everyone gets a fair shot at the awesome rewards given after every boss kill. Since each boss kill drops about 2-5 very nice items, not everyone is going to get something. To make sure that nobody get's too far ahead of the rest of the group, each item is given a point value, and all the points from all the drops are added up, and divided by the number of participants. So if a item worth 40 DKP drops and there are 40 people, each person gets 1 point. And if you want that item, you have to "spend" DKP in order to get it. Obviously we allow people to go into negative DKP, otherwise nobody could get anything on the first few runs.

That's it for now. This week we hope to finish the last 2 bosses before Majordomo Executus. Wish us luck.

Lucifron got OMGWTFBBQPWNED!

We downed Lucifron! 39 of my good friends and I went to Molten Core (MC) last night and proceeded to terrorize Ancient Core Hounds, Lava Surgers, and all sorts of magma related bad guys. This was our second real attempt at Lucifron, the first of 9 bosses in MC.

We picked up 3 pieces of epic gear, none of which was useful to me, but I hope to get something on our next run. I was Main Healer (MH) for this run, which means I am responsible for keeping the Main Tank (MT) alive throughout the fight. And I did a very good job, if I do say so myself. The MT is the one person designated to be the punching bag, and usually has the best armor. If the MT dies, we might as well sit down and let the big monster feast on us.

We had our first Onyxia run a week before last Sunday, and though we failed to bring her down, we did get to phase 3 without her taking a single deep breath. Tomorrow we will try again.

For those of you that don't play World Of Warcraft, Onyxia is a very powerful dragon. The Onyxia fight requires 40 people (traditionally), and has 3 stages. In stage 2 she takes to the air and has a particularly devastating flame attack that does a lot of damage over a very large area. You know that this attack is coming when the game tells you that Onyxia is taking a very deep breath. Her fire breath can wipe out 1/3 of your 40 person group. The key to avoiding the flame breath is to keep spaced out so as to not present a group target for her, and to bring her down to 40% health quickly, which is when she lands and goes berserk on everyone. That's when it gets tough. From what I understand, she goes even more loco at about 7% health. I hope we get to see that tomorrow night.

Home on the range

I was approved for a home loan today! I could have something picked out this week.

But don't worry, this will NOT affect my adventures in World Of Warcraft for the worse.

WoW - Part 10^35

Just a preface, I'm not commenting on any one person here. This is an observation that I've noticed over the past 12 months of playing World Of Warcraft.

Why is it that almost everyone (who doesn't play) listens to my fanaticism with more of a "golly, you're hardcore, and kinda nerdy"? It's as if people presume that it's ME, or my personality, that takes this to the extreme. Why does nearly everyone make judgments about it without even trying it? I rarely find people that approach this in a more logical way: "With so many people so addicted to the game, maybe the game is exceptional. Maybe it's even something that I'd like as well." I've met maybe 3 people that started with the presumption that I am normal and that it's the game that is worth this devotion. Sure, I proved that theory wrong in the end, but it was nice that they gave me the benefit of the doubt.

FYI, it was Blizzcon where I shed all concern over what people think about my WoW habits. So comment however you like. In the end, I really feel sorry for people that don't play. Most of you have no idea of what you are missing.

More bad driving

In the comments to my blog about how to drive part 1, a few of you mentioned how bad some drivers are. Claire said that South Western drivers are the worst. I've heard that Southern drivers in general are the worst. I can't say for sure because I've never spent much time in those areas, but I thought I'd blog about what I know.

The worst drivers that I've experienced were in Rhode Island. And the strange thing is, the driving goes back to normal the second you cross the state line. The bad driving doesn't leak over to Connecticut of Massachusets. I've never understood why this is.

Some of the more memorable RI maneuvers:

The Rhode Island Snake - When waiting in the left turn lane at an intersection without a turn arrow, gun it as soon as the light changes, and cut off the oncoming traffic as you make your left turn. They've got brakes, don't worry about it. But you alone do not make up the snake, it's the 3-7 cars behind you that follow in your wake that complete the "Rhode Island Snake". The snake can only be broken by a car with a CT or MA license plate.

The Rhode Island Crawl - Say you want to turn right onto a main road, but traffic doesn't have a gap large enough for you to merge into safely. What do you do? Slowly crawl your car out onto the main road to the point that traffic has to barely swerve to miss you. After a few cars, you will see someone slow down slightly because they are unaware of what you intend to do (or maybe they know and respect the Rhode Island Crawl). When you see them slow down, nudge out a bit more and watch them slow down more. After 2-4 nudges, you will have oncoming traffic slow enough that you can gun it to make it in. Of course by this time you are also blocking enough of the road that people will have to face oncoming traffic to get around you. And those cowards aren't gonna do that!

I often wanted to spend a day at an intersection with a camcorder. I'm convinced that in a 5 hour span you could record at least one accident, and 20+ near misses. As you drive around any major RI city, you are bound to see a few accidents each day. Such is the life of the Rhode Island motorist.

WoW

I hit 60 early yesterday morning!

How to drive: Part 1

Since nobody's blogging these last few days, I'll take a turn for now.

Everyday I drive 35 miles to work, most of that on northbound I-15. Pretty much everyday I see things that make me want to carry a firearm in the car, so I can murder those that don't drive the way I want them to. This seems reasonable to me, and it would cut down on traffic for everyone.

Luckily I resist the urge to mount high powered rifles to my car, and instead I fume internally, and think of the scathing blog I should write about these people. "That would teach them!" But what am I going to write about that hasn't been covered by nearly every stand-up comedian in existence? Failure to use turn signals has been overdone. Reckless merging has been overdone. And the idiot going too slow in the leftmost lane has been overdone.

So I'm going to talk about the idiot going too slow in the leftmost lane.

How do you know if you are going too slow in one of the left lanes? You can tell because other cars are consistently passing you on your right side. In this case you should change lanes to the right, until you notice that people are now passing you on the left. This is part of a more basic rule of driving that most people ignore: stay to the right, unless passing slower cars. Part of what makes the German Autobahns a success is that German drivers "drive right". This doesn't merely mean that they drive on the right side, they stay in the rightmost lane unless they have a need to use one of the left lanes. When they no longer need the left lane, they move back to the rightmost lane available.

Utah just installed carpool lanes on I-15, and it's a great relief to traffic during congested times. However, some people think that the carpool lane serves some other purpose. Some seem to think that the lane is like a big comfy couch, just for them to stretch out on, at whatever lazy speed they want to go. Others treat it like a "party lane", where all the cool cars hang out. What it actually is, is a lane that can be used by carpoolers, when the regular lanes are crowded. Sure you can use it anytime you want to, but if there's no real traffic in the normal lanes, there's really no reason to use the carpool lane. If you are in the carpool lane when the lanes to your right are not really crowded, then you are being a dork. You are also being somewhat unsafe. This goes back to the rule I mentioned earlier: stay right, unless passing slower cars.

Now I know everyone that reads this in now going to do their best to stay in the rightmost available lane when appropriate. Thank you for your time.

Star Wars Communications Disruption

One of the best choose-a-caption's ever.

Happiness returns the the valley named after it

My nephew and his family are moving back to Utah! I'm so excited to see my little pimp grand-nephew! Oh yeah, Ryan and Ashley are great too. They were just going to surprise us all by visiting on Christmas when they had previously told us that they would be visiting Washington state instead. This is huge news for us as we now have all the kids and grandkids of my parents back within driving distance of each other.

Repeatable Music

I used to be convinced that MTV caters to people of lesser intellect. Nobody with half a brain can listen to the same thing repeated as often as music on that channel repeats. I won't even get into the content, my niece has that covered more than well enough.

So now that I've established that only simpletons are able to listen to the same thing over and over, why is it that I can listen to Tegan And Sara, Pinback, Muse, or Ani DiFranco on eternal repeat? It gets to the point that I have to force myself to make a new selection in WinAmp or on my iPods. Am I just now getting to some point, musically, that these MTV kids are already at? Is their music actually good and I just don't have the ability to grasp that? Is most of my music of minimal quality? Are there multiple places where repeating music doesn't drive you crazy (crappy music with low intellect vs. incredible music with higher intellect)?

I have a lot of music, hundreds of CD's, I've been buying them since 1987. Out of my entire collection, I would say that there are only 50 or so that I could play on repeat more than twice. And probably only 10 that I could play on repeat more than 5 times.

So I guess my question is (please comment): Have I changed, or has music changed?

What WoW race and class are you?

Undead Mage Undead are the forsaken: just like you. While it's important that you don't fall apart (physically or mentally), you might find yourself salivating in an unhealthy manner when someone comes selling cookies. Get more sleep. As a mage, you like blowing things up. Your favorite bit of technology is anything that goes, 'boom'. You live for that huge front-end KAPOW - but, after the dust has settled, you'll find yourself searching for something else to explode. Find out your real-life WoW race and class at QuizGalaxy.com

Actually, I'm a Troll Priest, but an undead mage is just about as cool.

iPwn

One of my World Of Warcraft guildmates made this video of the various WoW characters dancing, iPod style:

iPwn
It's only a minute, and it's very well done.

FYI, "pwn" is an intentional misspelling of "own". It's gamer lingo commonly used to describe that you weren't just "owned", you were freaking "pwned"! (pronunciation varies, I pronounce it like "own" with a "p" in front of it)

A poem about Instant Messenger (IM)

[17:59:48] KaRyn: can't you make IM into a poem instead?
[18:00:02] Adam - WCGS: ode to IM, a poem by Adam
[18:00:22] Adam - WCGS: IM stole my time, but time was fleeting
[18:00:48] Adam - WCGS: I try to think of a rhyme, but am no suceeding
[18:00:55] Adam - WCGS: am not
[18:01:20] Adam - WCGS: Customers want attention, it happens everyday
[18:01:40] Adam - WCGS: they think IM gives them that, but AFK takes it away
[18:01:47] Adam - WCGS: Oh man, that was good
[18:01:51] KaRyn: you are brilliant.
[18:01:53] Adam - WCGS: I'm blogging that

Tycho's a dad

Tycho's son was born on the X-Box 360 US launch day, kinda appropriate. The write-up he did was well done. You forget how eloquent Tycho can be, but when he stops dropping f-bombs for a few minutes it really shows.

Brian Regan

I have Brian Regan's new DVD on my video iPod.

I'd blog more, but the wife is calling.

Penny Arcade on Blogging

Forbes of all places, has a page showing Gabe and Tycho's view on blogging.

More iPod stuff

The case that ships with the video iPod is just a basic slip-case, good for protection, but lousy for real life use. I found that iPod Accessories has probably the best selection for 5G iPods right now. Everything iPod comes in second on my list. And the Apple store is harldy worth looking at right now. Their 5G product page is weak.

I already miss the Contour hard shell case that I have for my 60Gig iPod photo. It fits perfectly in the ashtray of my car and doesn't slide around or get in the way of driving.

Video iPod

I just bought my video iPod this morning! I'm watching my first video, "Sting - Desert Rose", on it right now.

Digital Purgatory

We've all seen "Demotivators". They're funny, but Digital Purgatory has one (look on the wall in the background) that blows them all away. You've seen the "Hang in there" poster with the kitty hanging on a branch by one paw, well check this out:
Digital Purgatory #47
Warning! There are some crude words in the comic linked above.

Blizzcon pics!

Here are the pictures that I took at Blizzcon:
Adam's Blizzcon 2005 pics.

Anaheim is great, and I guess there's some theme parks somewhere around here as well

I got to meet Scott Kurtz last night! I'm trying my best to be cool and not go fanboy on the Kurtz. We all met at the lounge in the Hilton here. It was like a continuation of our guild's Teamspeak chat; Scott entertaining all of us with stories, while we all chime in with one liners and such.

It's nice when an artist or writer (or both) that you like turns out to be so down to earth that they will hang out with you like any of your other friends. After a few people left for sleep, some of us went to a table and played poker and pool. I just sat and watched.

We have a good guild turnout, probably more than most. I wish the rest of the guild could be here with us.

In a few minutes we are meeting for breakfast, so I'm off to get some food with everyone.

Blizzcon pwns!!1!!!1

Blizzcon is today and tomorrow, and after a half day of hanging out with like minded gamers, I can say this: "I love being a nerd!!1!" I'm typing this from the Anaheim Hilton right next to the convention center, and I had a freaking sweet day today.

It started at 05:30 EDT in Long Island NY. At 09:00 EDT I boarded a 6 hour coach flight from JFK to Long Beach CA. I rented a 2005 convertible Mustang and drove to Anaheim. Things were looking up. But an hour later I hopped off the 405 because the trip was taking too long, and it was looking more and more like LA. The reason for that was because I got on the 405 northbound rather than southbound. So I turned around and headed back to cover sadly familiar ground. Just an FYI for anyone that cares, route 22 shares road with 405 for a few miles. This makes it easy to mistakenly exit at the wrong place, and end up on 22 in the wrong direction.
After all that, when I made it to the convention center, I was ready to call it a day. The driving reason for me to go in was the goodie bag. I wanted LOOT!!1!!!

But when I got in, I realized just how much I love Blizzard. They put on a first rate show. The demo's were great, they had top notch cosplayers dressed in seriously cool outfits. The female human mage was particularly well done (and she is hot). They showed us Starcraft Ghost, Starcraft Invasion (which we played), and the WoW expansion: The Burning Crusade, which we played as well!!1!!one!!!

Plus, I was able to meet Mike and Jerry of Penny Arcade, and later tonight a few of us Panda's are going to hang out with our leader, Scott Kurtz!!!1!!!eleven!!!!1!!

This is turning out to be the nicest thing I've done for myself in a very long time. I'm so happy that it feels like an acceptance speech is in order.

Online music stores

I fully support artists rights to get paid. I have purchased over 700 audio CD's and have no intention of ever stopping.

But I also feel that the audio I buy online is mine, and I have to right to use it anyway that I want. When I buy a song from iTunes, it will not play in WinAmp or many other media players.

If you are using iTunes version 5 or lower, you can use JHymn to strip the DRM from your legally purchased songs. It's arguable how legal this is, but I've lost no sleep.

And am I missing something about the music stores that let you rent music? The new Napster is the most popular music store that uses this model. I guess you have to think of it as an upgrade from satellite Radio, you pay monthly and when you stop paying, you don't get any of what you used to listen to. But if you have a portable audio device that can use this service, you are really locking yourself into a never ending payment plan. As soon as you stop paying, your player becomes almost useless. Sure you can still play mp3's, but that huge online database of music that you once had is now unavailable. Sucks to be you.

Gullible, don't be

Why do people still send me crap e-mail, or as I call it "feces-mail"? (yeah, it's not that creative of a term, but it kinda rhymes with e-mail) I just received one from a co-worker (I'm still at my old job, until the end of this week) about how all new laptops are being manufactured with a hardware keylogger installed, that keeps track of up to 500,000 keystrokes. This is purportedly so the Department of Homeland Security can keep tabs on us, without our even knowing. Sounds real scary, right?

Well it isn't. This is another case of somebody sending on feces-mail because they WANT it to be true. Snopes cleared up the situation for me in under 3 minutes.

The guy that sent this to me is a conspiracy theorist. He's not the extreme case like you sometimes meet, maybe just a 8.5 on a scale of 1-10 (with 1 being "hiding your head in the ground", 5 being a normal person, and 10 being the kind of guy that wears a tin-foil cap to keep the government from reading his thoughts). This is EXACTLY the kind of thing that he brings up from time to time as an indication that we are right on the cusp of a Orwellian style "1984" government. He likens it to the "how to boil a frog" metaphor, where you start with the frog in tepid water and slowly turn the heat up, rather than just dumping Kermit into boiling water. I think you can make the correlation to the topic of government and rights infringement.

Bear in mind that this isn't a dumb guy, he is well aware of Snopes, and he should know better than to forward a mass e-mail without fact checking it! Especially to me, I'm his #1 moderator.

Thankfully, the number of "forward this to 10 people and get a wish/have good luck for a year" crap has distinctly diminished over the last few years. I don't know if I could handle much more of that. Who really thinks that this works? What religion do they subscribe to that allows for such nonsense? And if such a religion exists, how do I get a membership list? Those are the kind of idiots that will buy ANYTHING! I could probably sell their e-mail address' to spammers for $5 per person. Honestly, how much common sense does it take to realize that there is really no higher power keeping track of how many people you forward an e-mail to? If they did, could they really be called a "higher power"?

Of particular interest are the ones that give multiple levels of payoff for how many people you forward to; 1-5 = wish granted in 2 months, 6-10 = wish granted in 2 weeks, 11-20 = wish granted in 2 hours!!! The superfluous exclamation marks are just more proof that the e-mail is TRUE!!! Do these people visualize some e-mail fairy, with their grand checklist firmly in hand, waiting for that 15th name to go into your To: field? "Hooray! Now Billy-Ray can have his wish for a 35¢ raise this week rather than in 2 months!"

On the other hand, if Billy-Ray just delete's the e-mail, this (or these?, I haven't been able to determine) vengeful entity is so pissed off that he/she inflicts poor Billy-Ray with bad luck for a year. Why is it that the circulation, or lack thereof, of some silly Irish friendship poem, barely a Limerick, can generate such a disparity in fortune?

These people also fall into that category of "hoping/wishing/fearing this is true". It's no different than the old-school paper-mail chain letters that we got in the 70's and 80's. The only difference is that back then, we didn't have Snopes.com. For the last few years I've taken the time to research every one of these "too shocking to be true" e-mails, and reply-to-all with the Snopes answer. I think that everyone should do the same. Maybe, in time, we can end this sad perpetual chain of letters that prey on the simple minded.

I used to reply-to-all to these e-mails, so everybody that got it along with me will see what I wished for. And I would always wish for the same thing: I wished to be god. That's right, if these e-mail wish givers are going to hand out wishes, then they are only handing out their own demise! I shall usurp them and remove their wish granting ability, thereby eliminating such a threat to my own sovereignty. Then comes the "fire and brimstone" stuff. You see, I'm a vengeful god, and I fully plan on subjugating you all to do my will. Have you seen the Lord Of The Rings movies? Remember Frodo's vision of Middle Earth if Sauron get's his ring back? Yeah, that's what I picture for my reign. So do yourself a favor and don't e-mail me anything that I can use to obtain easy wishes.

Thinking of these people makes me sad.

I'm changing employers

I'm taking a job offer from one of my current customers. Today I found out that NACT is paying me my PTO (Flex time) and vacation time. Since I have about 188+ hours (combined), my last paycheck that I get on the 21st will be about 5.5 times what my normal paycheck is.

I think it may be time to buy a yacht.

Watch what you say at work

Two of my co-workers go together to the gym on their lunch break. Today they worked on their glutes. When they got back to work, one of them commented over the cubicle walls that his "butt was sore". I instantly told them "I don't want to hear about what you do on your lunches together".

We all laughed.

Instant messenger is a tool of Satan

You know what I'm sick of? I'm sick of those instant messenger pop-up windows that shows who just signed on. No, I don't have an issue with it on my side, I disable that little punk first thing after I install or update my IM client. What I have a problem with is the pop-up on everyone else's screen.

You see, I don't use IM to keep up with my friends and family, I use IM almost exclusively at work. So as soon as I sign on, people (customers) around the world get a pop-up saying "Adam just signed on". And you know what, that pop-up must be irresistible, like a monkey trained to hit a button in order to get a banana, my customers all think that it's a really good idea to pester Adam with their early morning requests (I'm NOT a morning person, in fact I fantasize about drugging morning people with valium in order to make the whole world sleep in like me).

And they must think that they are crafty and subtle when their first line is "Hey buddy, how ya doin'?" Like they really give 2 cents about how I'm doing. That's just a preface to them asking for some favor that's always "real quick", when they should call our receptionist and put in a proper trouble ticket (I work in Customer Service).

This wouldn't even be a problem if it was just one customer, I'd just block them and never worry about it. But it's almost all of them.

Now I'm not saying that they can't IM me and ask a quick question. That's no my intention at all. What I want to stop is the 2-10 IM's I get the instant I sign in. It's frustrating to have that much to do in the first few minutes of being at work. Why can't these people give me 5 minutes to get the rest of my software loaded and ready to go? Is this their only chance to reach me? Do they forget about me when that pop-up window goes away? If they are that feeble, maybe I should add them to my block list anyways.

This morning it was a customer in Africa. I love these guys, they took very good care of me when I was out there training them, but it still gets on my nerves

So in review: Do NOT IM co-workers, customers, and vendors so shortly after they sign on. This should be added to some official "netiquette" rule. It's not big deal to do this to friends, unless you are asking them a work related question. In that case shame on you for abusing your friendship.

More New Orleans info

Here's a blog posted by a man who's staying behind in New Orleans to help out. Some of the posts on his blog are not for the faint of heart. The Interdictor.

My nephew used to live in New Orleans

I just got off the phone with my nephew, who left New Orleans on Wednesday. He has a lot of insight that you won't find in the media.

The first point that should be made is that there's more than just one side of this story. The people of New Orleans fall into a few different categories:
1. People who left before the storm hit. Some feared the worst, some feared the unknown.
2. People who would have left, but couldn't for whatever reason. Many people could not afford to leave, others were too ill, and couldn't move. And there could be a dozen other valid reasons.
3. People who have been through several hurricanes and underestimated the scale of this one. I have a hard time criticizing these people. In the past they have endured similar storms, and they didn't think this would be much different. When you bear in mind that areas have endured category 5's (such as hurricane Andrew) with less trouble, it would seem that a cat 4 would be bearable.
4. People who decided to stay with the intent of taking advantage of the situation and looting. These people deserve some serious punishment, but I wouldn't go so far as to say they deserve to die. Some of the armed bandits you see are these folks.

Point #2 really makes me angry at certain reporters who want to place blame for this tragedy on those who remained in the city. How arrogant you have be to make those claims! That's your small minded way of saying: "I've considered all possibilities and came to the conclusion that there's no valid reason to stay in the city". I really want to punish the people who think this way.

The situation in New Orleans is grim. The armed thug gangs that run parts of the city have become so powerful that the police cannot control them. The 80% of the city that is flooded has problems we may not consider at first. The first thing that happens when the streets flood is the sewers intermix with the flood waters, making the water that you see horribly smelly, and a serious health risk. Another problem comes from the broken levee's that let in seawater. It doesn't just let in the water, but in this case it has also let in bull sharks. Right now, these sharks are feeding on corpses of victims. The flooded streets have also seen an influx of a few Water Moccasins (Ancistrodon piscivorus or cottonmouth). These are one of the few snakes that really scare me. In the wild they are territorial and aggressive, and who knows how they will react to this new situation.

My nephew was holed up with his wife, his 1 year old son, and his wife's father in his father-in-law's apartment. The apartment building formed into a group dedicated to protecting each other. Eventually they housed a few police officers who showed up seeking refuge from the streets. One of these police officers spoke of a shootout he was part of that went very badly. I won't go into what happened, but this officer is happy to be alive after seeing his fellow police officers fall. He also mentioned that some police have been forced to resort to looting food because they have been cut off from supplies and support. Thankfully this building was in a gated community on high ground, part of the 20% that isn't under water right now. My nephew's apartment was not in the dry 20, and since he was on the bottom floor, everything they own is now underwater. They were able to take their car to a 4th floor parking garage located in the dry 20, but looting may take that from them as well.

When they decided to flee the city, the group had to stand as armed guards as they loaded up his father-in-law's Ford Expedition, and pray that the only people who saw them were unarmed or poorly armed. Any of the larger looting gangs would likely have the firepower to take the SUV and would willingly kill for something this valuable. The group had heard of the stories of people trying to leave the city, and knew that a common car-jacking tactic was to stand in front of a fleeing car and when it stops, shoot the driver and passengers if they resist. With this in mind, they resolved to run over anyone who stood intentionally in their way. To discourage this, they flew through the streets at ridiculous speeds, and thankfully, didn't have to resort to this extreme. When they heard on Saturday that the storm was going to hit New Orleans, they filled the gas tank (at pre-storm prices), and that allowed them to get far from the city before needing to refuel. When they got to (I've forgotten where they refueled), there was only 1 gas station that still had fuel. Thankfully, they weren't gouging prices in this emergency, but there was still a 2 hour line for gasoline.

Now my nephew and his family are staying in a Miami suburb with a friend. Cell phone coverage is spotty, as the entire gulf coast area is under a heavy telecomm load. Text messages don't deliver every time, and when they do, they don't always show who sent the message. I'm just happy that it's over for the ones I love, and I continue to pray for those still in that hell.

World Of Warcraft Honorable Kills

My new record for HK's in a single day:
WoW Screenshot

Here be my name...

My pirate name is:

Iron Sam Rackham

A pirate's life isn't easy; it takes a tough person. That's okay with you, though, since you a tough person. You have the good fortune of having a good name, since Rackham (pronounced RACKem, not rack-ham) is one of the coolest sounding surnames for a pirate. Arr!

Get your own pirate name from fidius.org.

More pirate fun can be found here.

How long is a year?

I can't believe I've been blogging for almost a year. My first post was just a note letting everyone know that I wasn't gonna blog, I just wanted to post comments on Kirsten's and Annie's blog.
My second post was mostly a realization that you don't need to have anything significant to say in order to blog. Something that 99% of the rest of the bloggers already knew (or didn't know, but were oblivious to how boring they were/are).
Now I throw almost any random thought up here. Who cares about relevance or continuity! And you all get to take advantage of these pearls of wisdom. You're probably all thinking: "Wow, that Adam. What a great guy!" Well, you're welcome.

Surviving the end of a failed raid

A good raid can be the most rewarding and exciting part of your World Of Warcraft experience. When teamwork and skill combine in a good raid party, objectives are easily met and your entire group hearths home without resurrecting.

But when your raid group is formed on the spot by someone with less than existent leadership skills, you are in for a world of hurt. These groups are often the type formed when an area is hit by an organized opposition's raid. At this time, the need for a raid group becomes apparent, and somebody steps up and starts the group. But a defensive raid group should never change to an offensive raid group without first setting some kind of objective.

These groups get gung -ho when they route the enemy, and the group quickly becomes a train of "HK seekers". Snaking into enemy territory chasing after the tail end of the retreating enemy, soon they meet the organized resistance that's been formed at the nearest enemy town. The newly formed battle line is fiercely contested for a few minutes, but the defending enemy has the advantage of respawning guards, and every raid group formed since the conception of WoW has had that 1 (or more) guy who stirs up the guards.

At this point it's best to call a general retreat. Since that never happens with these "pick up" groups (they always think they can turn the tide back in their favor), your smartest act is to hearth out and leave with dignity.

So lets say you are one of the folks that should have left already, and now face an overwhelming number of red names. You are gonna die, accept that and prepare for it. We are gonna leave everyone else now. If you are a support class, don't feel bad, you can't help much now anyways.

Don't run down the path you came in on, everyone else is doing that, and it only serves as a focusing point for the now "HK hungry" opposition. Find a route that nobody else on your team is taking and head that way. You don't even need to be heading in the general direction of your intended retreat. Remember that we are hearthing out, so it doesn't matter if you do this 100m further away.

If you have no pursuing fan club, then hearth out and count yourself lucky. If you do have your own train, "root em if you got em". If you can't root, at least draw them as far from your main group as possible. This way you still serve a value to the rest of the team.

If you are going to get nailed, try to find some trees or hills that you can res behind after you go down. Ashenvale and Tanaris are great for this. This will give you a chance of escape if they corpse camp you. Res behind a visual obstruction, and once they see your corpse change to bones, they will run all over looking for you, but you have a head start because of the cover you took. Now just find a safe place to hearth, and end this nightmare.

Alone time

Well, I've had a lot of alone time this last week. It's not like I wasn't a hermit before everyone abandoned me, but now I really feel alone. It's kinda sad, but mostly in a "pity party" sort of way. I'll be fine, it just takes some getting used to.

A positive thing happened this week though. An friend that I met online a while back might be moving to Utah soon. She IM'd me 2 days ago and mentioned this. It's kinda wierd for me, as she is the first (and only) person that I've met and gotten to know rather well, without ever meeting in person.

I've updated my webcomics page, and I am VERY proud of the results. I set it up with expanding lists, and the process of learning this was really fun. It's my first Javascript that does anything really functional. I'm always adding new content to it, but I'm keeping it text only for as long as I can (there are 2 images used in the expanding lists though).

Possibly my favorite new (new to me) webcomic is Copper. I just love the art.

...

First is was Kevin, then Marcus, Ryan, and now Cliff. All my bro's are leaving me :(

Alien Loves Predator

Alien Loves Predator just may be my new favorite way to spend time online.

The premise is that an Alien and a Predator are roommates in NYC. Unlike the popular comics, games, and movie, they get along rather well. The bulk of the webcomic is done by superimposing pictures of toy figurines over real world photos. One of my favorites is Abe ogling a Barbie, it just captures Abe perfectly with one frame. If that's not awesome in it's own right, the creator, Bernie, is one hilarious human being (I presume he's human from the pictures of his offspring).

I'll throw a link on my webcomic page on Monday most likely.

Spam can be funny

Spamusement

Panda Attack!

Good news! I got into Panda Attack! I don't know if this is going to be enough to inspire me to put in the time to get another character up to lvl 40 and beyond.

We had a raid last night, but I had a church meeting at the same time, and I could not attend. Turns out we lost, and the Alliance beat us back to Horde territory. I can't help but think that maybe one more healer on site might have turned the tides. Wish I had been there.

PvP vs. PA

How do I decide?!!! Do I join "Panda Attack" or whatever incarnation PA decides on for the new Dark Iron server? Oh, BTW, this is all a bunch of WoW jargon. If you don't roll in Azeroth, just ignore my macho-nerd babble and head over to someone more interesting.

For everyone still with me, I'm leaning towards siding with PvP for 2 reasons: 1. I haven't played Horde nearly enough, and 2. Panda's are incredibly cool.

Tegan and Sara

Am I insane, or is Walking With A Ghost about the catchiest song ever. Tegan And Sara's website.

This video clears up that Tegan is in fact the evil twin. We should have known that from the lower lip piercing that Tegan has had for a while. I guess that's the female equivelant of the "evil twin goatee".

The new record is 3!

That's the number of consecutive times someone has called and hung up before I could answer.

You see, my phone doesn't play a "ring" to those who call me, it play's Eric Clapton's "Layla". My family and friends are used to this by now, but strangers are always caught off guard. I've found that most people just hang up and call back. Sometimes they will even hang up after that second call.

It just surprises me to no end that some of them won't stay on the phone the 4 seconds it sometimes takes for me to answer the call. Let's run through the mental dialogue that must go on: "Layla?!? This is not the normal ring that I hear when I call others! Surely there is witchcraft at work here. I must hang up NOW before I am cast into the infernal abyss!!!!" I can assure you all that there is no telecom hellfire portal to worry about. And if there was, Nortel would surely charge too much for it to become a functional part of any major providers client damnation budget.

Every now and then I'll get a new caller who hangs on the line long enough for me to answer. I've noticed that these people are a bit more kick-back than the uptights that hang up right away. I know right away that these people are cool.

Webcomics

I threw up a new page about the 3 webcomics that I regularly read. No idea if my reader-base (Kirsten and Sam) is interested at all, but there ya go!

Lisa Hannigan has the most beautiful voice in the world.

Don't beleive me? Then I'm gonna punch you in your left ear.

Arrrrgghhh! I'm a pirate!

I'm a pirate. I really am. And I don't mean a software/movie/music pirate, everybody does that. I mean I'm an actual pirate, with boats and the proper lingo, and sometimes even the lack of bathing! Here's how this came to be.

Tom, Tommy, Tommy's friend, Ryan and I went wakeboarding today on Utah Lake, and there were a good number of other boaters there chopping up the water. I told Tom that we should bring my rifle and shoot at them to get them to leave. If we did that, then we'd be real pirates. But none of us really liked the idea of going to jail, so that idea was nixed. Then Tom said we could chop up the water like they are doing to us, and we could do it very well. And although nobody dies when we do this, it's still very annoying, and very pirate-esque.

And boy did we chop up that lake. Tommy and his friend went tubing, and I turned that lake into the definition of chop! Arrrggghhh!

Battlefield 2 - another really enjoyable game

I really enjoy playing Battlefield 2. They had the ingenious idea of integrating rewards, unlocks, and goals to strive for in a multiplayer first person shooter (FPS). Now, this isn't unique to video games by any means, Ghost Recon did this years ago with "hero" unlocks, and other games have similar features.

Why I give them credit for this, is because they are the first to do so on such a large scale (MMO). And I don't mean MMO in the sense that 64 people can play on the same server, I mean large scale in the sense that tens of thousands of people have their stats recorded and ranked (here's my stats).

Right now my global score is just under 3,000. I need 11,000 for my next rank advance and weapon unlock. The benefit of the weapon unlock is obvious. But the benefit of the advancement in rank really only matters to leaders. People with higher rank will be able to take the position of commander from those whose rank is lower. I don't play commander a whole lot, I prefer forming my own squad and playing as squad leader. But as squad leader you will sometimes notice that the commander isn't doing a good job. If that's the case, I'll apply for commander at the start of the next round.

Today I got my Basic Command badge. That's not an easy one to get. I'm rather proud of this, and grateful to the group of soldiers that I was playing with today. Without their skilled work (play?), I wouldn't have gotten this.

Saturday night (really it was Sunday morning, but I hadn't gone to bed yet, so it was Saturday to me) I got my Explosive Ordinance badge, and my Basic Transport badge! I'm so happy. The Explosive Ordinance badge is acquired by getting 15 kills with explosives in one round. I had tried to get this for weeks, but was only able to get it by using a rather devious method. While playing Strike at Karkand, I spawned at the USMC southernmost base. There is almost always a HMMWV or two there. Playing as spec-ops I loaded all 5 C4 packs on the front of the jeep, and drove towards the enemy. When I would get close to a group of 2 or more enemy soldiers, I would hop out of the jeep, and hit the C4 detonator. This would send jeep chunks all over the place, killing the bad guys, and myself as well. As I was doing all this, I also earned my Basic Transport badge (24 minutes in a transport vehicle)!

Now I need only the Knife, Pistol, Helicopter, and Aviator badges to complete my full set of Basic level badges. This is exactly what makes this game so good. It's very replayable because there is always something to strive for. After the Basic badges, you can try for the Veteran badges, and then the Expert badges. There are also many commendations that you can earn. Most of them have never been earned by anyone, so nobody outside of EA really knows how to get them all.

If you're gonna be pro-choice, why not go all the way

Sweetwater Post-natal abotion clinic