Category Archives: Leisure Activities

Successes in ToC-10 and ICC-10

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World of Warcraft Wrath of the Lich King Logo

A couple of days ago, I posted about how I had finally returned to Icecrown Citadel for raiding. I mentioned how we had a lot of trouble on the gunship fight, spending hours with no success. Well, last night I got invited to another Icecrown Citadel 10-man raid and this time we had some more success.

Trial of the Crusader 10-man Raid

Before I did ICC- I got invited to a ToC-10 (Trial of the Crusader) raid.  Actually, originally I was rejected because they wanted people with a minimum GS (gear score) of at least 5K and I was only 4.9K.  I appealed to the raid leader and he invited me. I was angry when I messaged him (not knowing he was the raid leader) and he said I didn’t message him and he didn’t reject me. I admit he was right but I responded by saying that I figured that they talk to each other before accepting/rejecting people. Anyway, I got in and had a bit of trouble recalling all the fight mechanics but we still did OK and completed all the bosses and I got a couple of achievements as well.

An interesting sidenote is that the person who originally rejected me for being sub-5K gearscore, only had a GS of 4.7K. Sure, that made sense. My GS is 200 points higher than your own but you reject me because mine isn’t high enough.

Trial of the Crusader 10-man Achievements

Gear Upgrades

Most of the gear that dropped was for casters, so it was useless to me. There was also a really nice staff that dropped, but Paladins can not use staves.  I was lucky enough to pick up a shield upgrade from Splintered Door of the Citadel to Bulwark of the Royal Guard. (402 GS).  Adding this shield got me to 4984 GS which frustrated the hell out of me, because I thought it would push me over the 5K mark for sure.

Icecrown Citadel 10-man Raid

I was on Bancy, my Rogue who I need to get to level 40 so I can continue leveling Inscription passed 225, riding along in Thousand Needles on my way to mark the Flightpoint in Gadgetzan, Tanaris, when I noticed in Global chat (channel) that a group was at the Gunship Battle and needed a tank. I took a chance and let the poster know I was real close to 5K GS and that I had recent experience on that fight. Once I logged into Golvan I got an immediate invite and soon discovered the other tank, who was geared a little better than me, didn’t have much experience with that fight as a tank. I was quickly assigned to the away team, which meant it was my job to jump over to Orgrim’s Hammer to tank High Overlord Saurfang.

The Gunship Battle

Having learned from my mistakes in the previous group the other night I did much better this time around. I jumped over at the right moment and jumped back correctly, as well. Unfortunately, the results were the same. However, this time we failed because DPS wasn’t downing the Kor’kron Battle-Mage fast enough and the healers ran out of mana. We repeated our efforts a couple of more times making some tweaks here and there but we kept failing.

One of the changes we made was we took two of the three Druids out of the guns and let them Innervate the healers.

Change in tactics

Eventually, the raid leader had me try something different. He had me jump over, taunt Saurfang and jump back to our ship immediately. I spent the entire fight jumping from one ship to the other non-stop. I didn’t understand the purpose of this until after I started doing it. Since Saurfang bugs and chases the tank back to the friendly ship, my jumping back and forth meant that he just kept following me and he spent more time traveling back and forth and less time hitting me or the other players. In short, it was a brilliant way to achieve success in a situation like the Kobayashi Maru.  Yes, I am exaggerating.

Unfortunately, this didn’t work either. The first time we still were not killing the battlemage fast enough and so our ship died first so we wiped. The second time I button mashed and screwed up the whole thing. I publicly took blame for my mistake and we set about trying it a third time since we were having more success this way than any other.

The defeat of Orgim’s Hammer

This time proved to be the charm, mostly because someone asked me to keep my jumping, and Saurfang, off to the side and away from the rest of the group. So, I stayed between the left gun and the lifeboat and we finally got our act together and annihilated Orgrim’s Hammer by a huge margin.

I got ANOTHER new shield and broke the 5K GS barrier

I guess this is shield day or something, because I got yet another shield upgrade.  This time I got Neverending Winter which has a 457 GS getting me to a GS of 5039.  I can’t begin to describe how happy this made me.

Deathbringer Saurfang

Right after the Gunship Battle is Deathbringer Saurfang. It’s important to remember this is a completely different Saurfang from the Gunship Battle, although they are family. Literally.

Although, this is a pretty simple fight and a DPS race we wiped on the first attempt because we went with a single tank, me. After the wipe, I knew something was missing. I did a little research and watched Tremor guild’s tutorial (below) and figured out a couple of small things that helped us turn the tide.

  1. Do not tank the adds. Instead, let DPS kite and single target kill them ASAP. With that being said it is important that neither tank uses AoE. Doing so might attract the adds which is bad because every bit of damage they do adds to Saurfang’s Blood Power and that is bad.
  2. You have to have two tanks because you have to taunt off each other similar to the Toravon the Ice Watcher fight in the Vault of Archavon (VoA). He casts a debuff on his target (tank) called, Rune of Blood which lasts about 20 seconds. It’s important that the tank without the debuff taunt the boss off the tank who does have the debuff so that it can’t be used to heal Saurfang. Initially, I was the only tank and with no one to taunt him off me he kept himself near full health until we wiped. Once we added the second tank he was toast.

The Deathbringer is dead!

As I said, once we made the adjustments he was a piece of cake. Unfortunately, I didn’t get any loot from him.

The Plagueworks and Festergut

WIth Saurfang dead we moved on to the Plagueworks to take on Festergut. By this time it was 630 AM and I was exhausted, but we were progressing so I stuck around.

Unfortunately, we hit a few bumps in the road almost immediately. The main tank (MT), who was different from the original main tank, was a superhero who kept charging ahead with only 2 or 3 people and so we wiped twice on that big dog looking sub boss thing. I had to run back to the fight, from death, twice and finally we were able to down him. I was furious but too tired to complain.

Festergut

Once we got to Festergut we were doing fine but the raid leader, tired as he was, screwed up a callout/instruction and so DPS wiped which meant the rest of us wiped as well. So we started over and this time we downed the boss pretty easily. Again, I got no loot.

At this point the raid broke up as most people were ready for bed. It turns out I got myself invited to a guild run and most of the people from that guild were from Finland or something. I wanted to go on, but I was happy to end it and go to bed.

ICC: I have returned!

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World of Warcraft Wrath of the Lich King Logo

Last night I was contemplating playing one of my alts, but in the end, I decided to log into my main. Not long after I logged into Golvan, my level 80 Paladin, I got a message asking me if I wanted to do ICC 10-man.  At first, I was hesitant because I knew I only had a 4.7K GS, which is usually not acceptable when a group intends on doing bosses. ESPECIALLY on this server, where they frequently demand 5.2K GS or higher to do VoA (WHICH IS RIDICULOUS AT BEST!)

Anyway, I told them about my GS and they didn’t seem to mind so I accepted the invite and when i got there I noticed I wasn’t even the worst geared there. Hell, the raid leader started out with a 4.2K GS. I took on the role of OFF TANK or OT as the MAIN TANK or MT had a slightly higher than 5K GS. (I think it is interesting to note that he had a piece or two of PVP gear on as well.)

Lord Marrowgar

Anyway, we blew through the initial trash pretty easily, but that didn’t last when we got to the first boss, Lord Marrowgar. I lost track of how many times we wiped on him, but it was mainly due to the fact that very few members of the raid knew the tactics to defeat Lord Marrowgar. What is sad is that even after we told everyone what to do they still didn’t seem to understand the concept of: KILL SPIKES!!!

Lord Marrowgar hurls a spike which traps a raid member causing 10% damage per second. If you do not free the victim they die pretty fast. This is called Bone Spike Graveyard. Most raids assign specific members to kill the spikes and free the affected raid member. Unfortunately, we didn’t do that. Instead what we did was I created a macro which allowed me to say, both in raid chat and via /s,

KILL THE SPIKES

At that point whoever is closest was supposed to rush over and, well, kill the spike. I don’t know if DPS was just slow getting to it, or if they didn’t notice the spike was near them or what but they just weren’t getting the job done.  Note: I just learned that I could have freed them using Hand of Reckoning. I wish I knew that last night. Unfortunately, I haven’t done ICC since just before World of Warcraft: Cataclysm was released,  and even then I was a Holy Priest and not a tank.

Continued Frustation

Also, we were having a problem getting people to move out of the way of his Coldflame ability. This is basically a line of frost that does massive damage. Fortunately, it is easy to avoid, unfortunately, we had morons in our raid.

After a few wipes, we lost a few people and replaced them with a few smarter ones. That and a few others learned their lesson. Heals did a pretty good job throughout given what they had to work with. I am not sure why but the main tank kept moving away from me which is not smart given we are more or less supposed to stack to divide the damage during Bone Slice. I kept stacking and he kept running away from me, which I do not understand considering I told him what to do.

To the victors go the spoils

At any rate, once we got him down we were all filled with confidence and the satisfaction of knowing we finally succeeded and that we didn’t give up. Well, most of us didn’t give up. In addition to that satisfaction two of us were rewarded with drops. The first item we rolled on was Frost Needle. I asked if I could roll on it for Heal spec but someone pointed out it had hit and I agreed it wouldn’t be proper for me to roll on it. The second item was Bonebreaker Scepter, which I did roll on and won. I actually rolled 100 so I was doubly surprised. The MT tried to guilt me into giving it to him but I wasn’t leaving that raid empty handed and it boosted my GS to just over 4.9K.

Lady Deathwhisper

With Marrowgar dead we headed to our next challenge, Lady Deathwhisper, who was considerably easier to down as the fight was pretty straightforward. We split the raid into two groups. I, as the off tank took group two and we handled the adds that spawn, randomly, from both sides of the room. The main tank took group one to engage the boss lady.

After ensuring everyone knew to avoid the green spots on the floor we started the fight and breezed right through it with ease. Two things about this fight surprised me.

  1. We did not wipe.
  2. There were only two waves of adds. I spent most of the fight standing there looking for adds that never showed up. I finally took the hint and fired off a couple of Exorcisms at the boss and when she was low enough I was able to fire off 2 or 3 Hammers of Wrath. (Yes, I know this is not the right link for WotLK. Blame Wowhead.)

Unfortunately, she didn’t drop anything I could use. I think one piece was leather and another was cloth, but I am not 100% sure.

The Gunship Battle

The tactics for the Gunship Battle are not difficult but it does require some coordination and it requires that DPS have their act together.  They have to remember to jump back and forth and the Tank, who jumps over, has to remember to wait untill the entire group is back aboard The Skybreaker / Orgrim’s Hammer before jumping back after downing the Kor’kron Battle-Mage / Skybreaker Sorcerer.

I started off as the Offensive Tank, which is the one who jumps over to the enemy ship, so it was my job to tank High Overlord Saurfang while allowing my guys to do their thing against the Battle Mage. Then, after they jump back, I am to follow. Saurfang returns to his post and we basically rinse and repeat. While this is going on the other tank is supposed to tank the Horde troops who assault our ship. There isn’t much needed by way of healing or DPS because the NPC’s do most of the work. All that tank has to do is keep them grouped on him and away from the healer, who was doing double duty healing both tanks along with the other healer who concentrates solely on the offensive tank.

The monkey in the wrench

Yes, I know that’s not the correct saying/term, but I like it better so…Bite me!  We had a couple of problems to contend with.

  • As I said I was the offensive tank, but it has been a long time since I did ICC and when I last did it I was a healer. So I was a little rusty on the tactics and I jumped over too early on the first few attempts. I was going as soon as Orgrim’s Hammer was in range. I didn’t realize it was a mistake until the healer’s switched off and I got the more experienced healer who was getting tired of getting killed because the tank couldn’t hold aggro aboard The Skybreaker. (I later found out he had the easy job.)As a result, I kept dying relatively quickly despite the healers’ best attempts.I know what you are thinking. Why didn’t I research them first? Right? I know I am supposed to, but I will say it again.1. My gear score was too low (4.7K) when I was invited so I had no reason to even think about researching the tactics yet.2. Being invited was a total surprise. Hell, I had even considered playing a different alt last night. It was by pure chance that I played that toon.
  • The second problem we had was that Saurfang kept bugging on us. He is supposed to stay on his ship after the tank jumps back to our ship. However, he kept jumping over to our ship and he couldn’t be taunted or tanked once over there. So, as to be expected, he kept killing our healers and once they are gone there is nothing left to do but wipe.

There are several bug reports about the gunship battle on the Molten WoW website.  I have of course commented, and someone had replied with a tactic to try but I don’t think it will work because it involves maneuvering the boss, in our case Saurfang, to the edge of the ship so he resets. My question to this poster was, HOW? How do I maneuver him when I can’t taunt him or get aggro on him because he is hunting down my healers?

I’m back to playing World of Warcraft

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January 23-24, 2013

I had stopped playing World of Warcraftfor a while because I lost half the RAM in my PC. Then, a couple of weeks back I decided to try playing with only 2GB of RAM to see how it would play. As it turns out everything was fine and I even got Kevin back into playing it again. He was into Guild Wars 2
for a few months.

Anyway, I got Golvan from level 79 to level 80 in pretty short order. I started using the voting system points that I had still been accruing to pretty much outfit him with gear. I spent a few hours looking at a spreadsheet I made to aid me in evaluating the level 80 Epic PVE gear available on Molten’s Marketplace. I got my gear score up over 3000 and I still couldn’t get into Random Heroic Dungeons that award Frost Emblems.  Tonight, I decided to grab a few more items with voting points and got his gearscore over 3800.

My night in the dungeons

Thanks to my new gear, I was able to get into Heroic Oculus using the random dungeon finder tool (RDF).  The nice thing about getting that instance was I have a quest in there. Unfortunately, the server crashed so, when I got back in I tried again and I ended up in the Culling of Stratholme.

I did the first Chromie quest: Dispelling Illusions and turned it in for the second Chromie quest: A Royal Escort which requires clearing the dungeon with Prince Arthas. I had to do the first quest and turn-in on my own because the group disbanded before I was even done buffing up. So I went to Caverns of Time and I entered CoS and did the quest.

I queued up in the dungeon finder and ended up in Violet Hold. I didn’t mind because I had the quest for in there anyway. Unfortunately, even though I had a pretty well geared group we wiped twice on Xevozz. I tried to kite him the first time but they had gearscores over 5.8K and I couldn’t get him to keep following me. We tried again and I reminded them to let me kite and at first they did but then some genius locked him down and I couldn’t get aggro back and the 3 DPS died. I found this ridiculous because we were 5 pallies in a group. Why noone bubbled is beyond me. So for the second time in a row it was me and the healer and we almost
had him to 25% but we died and the group disbanded.

Fishing up Dalaran Fountain Coins

Before all of that, while in Dalaran, I grabbed the fishing and cooking dailies and was delighted to see that Dangerously Delicious was the fishing daily. I was happy because it meant I had to go to Wintergrasp (WG) to complete it. This is a bonus because I tend to fly a circuit or two and pick up herbs. Wintergrasp is probably one of the best places to get level 80 herbs such as Lichbloom, Icethorn and Frost Lotus. Considering Golvan’s other profession is Alchemy, which is currently at skill level 440 I need a lot more of all 3.

At any rate, while doing the daily I noticed that I was really kicking butt getting the Terrorfish drop. Usually, it takes a while to get all 10 but I got them all in less than 15-20 casts which is unprecedented for me. I think it had a lot to do with the Aquadynamic Fish Attractor I had used.

Once I got back to Dalaran I decided to use up the 3 gold coins I had in my bags. This made sense considering I still had a few minutes left from the fishing lure. I am slowly, yet steadily, working on finishing all 3 coin achievements but I am getting especially close to finishing the There’s Gold In That There Fountain achievement.

However, I did finally prove one thing. It is possible to fish up duplicate coins. Kevin says this isn’t possible on retail but it is definitely possible on Molten’s Lordaeron server and I have the screenshot to prove it.

World of Warcraft - It is possible to fish up duplicate coins in the Dalaran Fountain.

As you can see I sold Stalvan’s Copper Coin twice.

Pacquiao: YOU GOT KNOCKED THE FUCK OUT!!!

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I just finished watching Pacquiao vs. Marquez 4 and I was as shocked as anyone to see Manny Pacquiao get knocked out so early in the fight.  Hell, most people were surprised that Marquez even knocked him down. I will say this. I wasn’t shocked or even surprised by either the knockdown or the knockout but I was surprised it happened so early on.  I had been saying for days that this fight was going to be one of two things.

  • A decisive Marquez victory
  • Another controversial ending

I didn’t think Manny was going to get a decisive victory in this match.

Right now people are thinking.

“YEAH RIGHT! You didn’t know Jack Shit!”

The problem with that is if you go back and look at the article I wrote about the Pacquiao vs. Bradley fight I am firmly in Bradley’s corner and I point out Manny’s shortcomings in that fight.  Also, if you go down my Facebook wall I make similar comments about Manny’s decline over the last few fights and his chances vs. a fighter the caliber of Floyd Mayweather.

Here’s how I see it.

Manny won the third fight vs. Marquez but just barely. As a result, the Nevada State Athletic Commission more or less had their judges score the Pacquiao – Bradley fight according to the rule book and not according to the popular method of by punches alone which is why Bradley initially won the fight.  Unfortunately, the decision didn’t stand and public outrage forced the reversal of the decision. This is what I consider to be an outrage.

This all comes to a head on December 9th when Pacquiao steps back in the ring with Marquez for a forth time. Manny, in my view has been sliding downhill for a while where as Marquez has been slowly feeding a fire inside of him. This desire for revenge exploded in the ring with a 3rd round knockdown of Pacquiao.

Unfortunately, even with this decisive victory people are still trying to take something away from Marquez. I have been hearing a lot of different excuses and accusations in regards to either why Manny lost or why Marquez won and I have to say I think it’s shameful. So far, I’ve heard that Marquez is on steroids or according to one Filipino boxing “expert”, Manny tripped over Marquez’s foot. My personal favorite is that Manny switched religions and he was praying to the wrong God. Regardless, of which excuse or accusation you choose the fact is that the knockout was the result of something much simpler. Marquez is a hell of a counter puncher, both men were very enthusiastic  in the ring throwing flurries of punches, and at the time Manny stepped in to throw his own punch and in the process stepped into a punch which caught him on the chin/jaw and he paid the price.

Was this luck or was this skill? I have a better question. Who cares? The fact is this was shaping up to be a good fight with both men scoring some excellent points and both men giving a very good showing in what was, up to that point, a see saw battle between two equally good fighters who know each other, in the ring, very well.

Actually, thinking back on it I am a little sad that it ended the way it did. I think that fight could have ended up being a very exciting fight had it continued.  I am happy though that Marquez got the decisive victory he so deserves.

I don’t want anyone to think I am trying to take anything away from Manny. I have been a detractor of his for a while now but that is because I saw what most chose to ignore. The erosion of a great fighter. I don’t think it was an erosion of skills or even his age. I think he just doesn’t have his heart in it anymore. He has a lot of other things going on in his life, including his budding career in Filipino politics, and he’s been talking about hanging up the gloves for a while now. I think this fight he came out with a renewed vigor and it really showed. Unfortunately for Manny, and for the rest of us who were enjoying a good fight, it ended early.

I do think Manny had a hell of a career and it is a shame that this loss will pretty much take any possibility of a fight with Mayweather off the table. I think that is a huge disaster for boxing because it would have been a hell of a fight.

At any rate, I look forward to seeing what happens next. I’ve been a huge boxing fan for the passed few years and a lot of that has to do with the fact that I live in the Philippines and that Manny Pacquiao is such a big part of the Filipino culture.

My Paladin has dinged level 50!!!

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Well, I haven’t done of those these posts in a while and I probably should have given the traffic the other posts have gotten but I am back on the ball now.

I rather gave up on my druid and I have been concentrating on my Pally a lot more. Don’t get me wrong. I haven’t completely given up on Celchu, as I ran him through a few instances as a healer the other day, but I definitely scaled back his playing time.

At any rate, as the title suggests I dinged level 50 on my Pally. Golvan also has

You may notice that First Aid is missing from this list. I normally do First Aid on all my serious toons but this time I have decided to forego First Aid because I was sending most of my cloth to Kringle who has Tailoring.  Also, I have never used bandages all that often and even less so on a toon with healing abilities.

Golvan’s Gear

I have also acquired two pieces of heirloom gear.

The next piece I intend to add is Polished Helm of Valor which I discovered while writing this post. What is nice about adding these three pieces is it will give me 30% boost to XP gained.  This will just be awesome because as it is the 20% boost I am getting from the two pieces I have now is helping me level a lot faster than I had hoped.  What’s funny is I was actually going to get either of the two weapons listed below.but when I discovered the helmet and noticed it also had a 10% XP bonus I changed my mind. Since I am at 20 points right now and it costs 50 points to buy heirloom gear it will take me at least 3 days to get the helmet. That is assuming I remember to vote twice a day which I never do.

I am leaning towards the one handed sword because of the combination of attack power and stamina which is perfect for tanking.  I wish heirloom weapons gave an experience boost like armor does but I guess we can’t have everything we want. I also wish there was an heirloom shield as well but unfortunately there isn’t one.

Golvan’s Future

I intend to continue to quest and hit the occasional instance with Golvan. I considered dual speccing him as Retribution and Protection but I seem to do pretty well in instances my level as a Ret Pally so then I considered Retribution and Holy so I could tank and heal but bag space is already at a premium and the last thing I need is an extra set of gear. Also  I am not too thrilled with the idea of 1000 gold being spent on this.

Update

Well, I never did get the heirloom weapons and Golvan is now Level 80 with all weapon and professions (except First Aid and Fishing) maxed out at 450. I am also exalted with all but 2 of the Northrend factions. I have full epic tank gear and I just traded in Retribution spec for Holy.

Screenshots

I managed to nab a few interesting in-game screen shots of Golvan.

Movie: Crazy, Stupid, Love

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I originally downloaded this movie because I thought Jenn might like it but while I was previewing it to see if the quality was good I started to get into it.

And women wonder why men don’t understand them?!?!?!?

So this guy (Cal Weaver) is sitting in a restaurant with his wife (Emily) and she’s being quiet and seems rather distracted. He asks her what’s wrong (showing concern and care for her) and she tells him that she wants a divorce.

The scene cuts away to their house with the babysitter and their kids.

Then they switch back to the couple who are in the car driving home and they’re sitting quietly. He’s obviously stunned and thinking about everything but she is feeling guilty and going insane.So, she gets mad at him,

“After 25 years of marriage and you have nothing to say (about this)?”

SO HE IS WRONG? You’re the asshole who just made his life come crashing down! Obviously, the poor guy is in shock. What would you like him to say?

This shows how screwed up some women are. She probably wants him to fight for the relationship. What relationship? You just shot the damn thing in the head with a .45 caliber pistol!!!

I know it is just a movie but you know full well this kind of crap happens in real life too.

OH MY GOD! And the bitch cheated on him?!?!?!?!?

They’re still in the car and she is yapping because she’s feeling guilty and can’t take the uncomfortable silence.  This is what I thought was funny. She is yapping because she’s uncomfortable, as I said, and  obviously this just makes his pain worse. So he says to her,

“Please stop talking or I am going to jump out of the car.”

But of course she just keeps going because she never heard him say it because she’s so engulfed with herself.  So he calmly unbuckles his seat belt and opens the door and then HE JUST ROLLS OUT OF THE CAR!!!  LOL LOL

GOOD FOR HIM! He got his. Later on, probably a day or two later, he is in the drive way next to his U-Haul truck and he is just looking at his house. I guess he was thinking abou the situation and reminiscing. She walks up and she starts pouring her heart out to him about why she did all this, claiming midlife crisis.  Again, he doesn’t want to hear this. The guy is hurting and he is TRYING to ignore her.  He starts talking about fertilizing plants and the sprinkler system and she says,

“I don’t know when we stopped being us. Do you know?”

So he replies,

“Maybe it’s when you screwed David.” (the guy she cheated with)

Her face just sank.

BLAM!!! Take that bitch!

BUT!!! I will say this. If ever there was a chance to fix the relationship….THAT WAS IT!!! This is clearly a woman who is in need of some attention and support from her husband and he’s not there for her.

But you can’t blame the guy. One minute everything was fine and the next his whole life has been shattered.

OK, another reason why women are nuts! This poor guy is sitting in a bar and he’s waiting for his friend (Bernie) who shows up late. So Cal starts telling his friend how he never saw this coming and this and that and the friend interrupts him.

Cal: You know…when you don’t see something coming…
Bernie: Claire said I can’t be friends with you anymore.
Cal: What?
Bernie: She said we have to choose between you and Emily. I chose you.But she said no.
Cal: Bernie. Are you breaking up with me Bernie?

And Bernie walks off leaving Cal sitting there, ONCE AGAIN, shattered and betrayed.  Now tell me this. What kind of woman does this guy’s wife have to be to even use that kind of IDIOTIC logic? I guess that wasn’t insane enough because she actually tells her husband he can’t be friends with Cal? Why? Because she wants to stay friends with that cheating bitch friend of hers (Emily)?  Talk about being selfish!  But Bernie is no better because this friggin pooftah lets her have her way.

So after this Cal is sitting there in the bar and he’s being obnoxious with the self pity and this other guy who is supposed to be like a Mr. GQ Smooth type calls him over and offers to help him update his image. This guy, Jacob, straight out tells Cal that he’s being obnoxious and whiny and a few other things. In short, he gives him the straight truth to wake him up.

So a few days later Cal meets him at a mall to go shopping for a new wardrobe and Jacob says to him,

“”Your wife cheated on you because at some point you lost sight of who you are as a man, as a husband and probably as a lover.”

AIN’T THAT THE DAMN TRUTH!!!

I LOVE IT!  Jacob tells Cal while they are exercising,

“The war between the sexes is over and we won. We won the second they started doing pole dancing for exercise.”

So, Cal finally gets his act together and (only in the movies) makes a comeback and becomes a ladies’ man. His first conquest is a lonely woman sitting in the bar who, even though she’s not talking to/with anyone, is obviously on the prowl. The funny part of it was he had completely screwed up everything that Jacob taught him to do and he reverted back to just being honest and pathetic but it was the honesty thing that got the girl. Turns out she’s one of those girls that gets used and lied to and never called again and she was sick of it so his honesty was so refreshing it ended up turning her on to the point that it became a sex game of sorts.

Jump ahead in the movie it turns out that this woman is Cal’s 13 year old son’s English teacher. Of course, he discovers this at a parent teacher conference with his wife, whom he had just SECONDS before started making up with.  Well, the teacher melts down and the truth comes out and in the end he is in the parking lot with the wife and she admits she has no right to be mad because she cheated first. So Mr. Rocket Scientist blurts out that he has been with nine women. Now, where as I agree that was a STUPID move, I would like to know why this is a problem? She cheated first. So he isn’t cheating because she wanted a divorce and they are separated and he moved out. So why can’t he sleep around? Why is his being with nine women an issue?

One of the things I was enjoying about this movie was all the irony floating around in it. Cal’s son was in love with his babysitter and she is in love with Cal. Cal doesn’t know she’s in love with him and the son doesn’t know who the man is that the babysitter is in love with. The babysitter won’t even consider Cal’s son for a relationship because he is 13 and she is 17 and Cal doesn’t even know this girl likes him much less want a relationship with a 17 year old. The babysitter treats Cal son like a kid and is embarrassed by his advances and yet the age difference between her and Cal doesn’t even dawn on her during her ongoing crush on him.

Well, that and so much  more finally comes to a head towards the end of the movie and I have to say I just had to laugh. What a great scene there in the backyard with the surprise and the brawl. Nicely done!

I have to say the ending was good I guess. It wasn’t too sappy but as always things worked out in the end.

World of Warcraft: Risellum has risen

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My very first toon was a mage, on a retail server called Risellum. I had gotten him to around level 68 or so before I stopped playing him. The last time I saw Rizzy he was level 85 and in mostly PVP gear. My friend, John, was playing him and he had shocked me by leveling Rizzy without telling me.

My very first toon. Risellum is a                     level 85 frost mage on Dath’Remar

At any rate, since I am not playing retail anymore, and since I need a couple of alts I decided to create a dps toon. I had created the Shammy a few days ago and I got him to level 7 or so the other night before dropping him into an inn to get rest bonus. I was unhappy with the Shammy because he took too long to kill mobs and I was getting impatient. I briefly considered making a Warlock but in the end I decided against it.

Why did I decide against it? Well, it doesn’t make a lot of sense when you think about it logically. I mean a warlock has a pet to tank or assist in killing and they have great DPS. Add to that warlocks get a trainable mount so why would I pass all that up?  Well, I had a warlock on Vashj (retail) and I enjoyed it for a time but at the time they kept making them super toons and then they’d nuke them down and then back to being super toons again. So I got frustrated and stopped leveling at level 73. Another thing I didn’t like about locks was that you need to buy them EAGLE gear which is generally more expensive than OWL gear.

At any rate, I think the biggest reason I rolled a mage is because the other day Kringle and Golvan were in Raven Hill Cemetery and we ran into group with 2 mages and a priest. I was rounding up groups of mobs and the mages were pelting them with their Blizzard spell which was just devastating on them considering there were two mages doing it at the same time.

Thinking back on how effective it was I mentioned it to Kevin and proposed the idea of an instance party with 3 mages doing DPS. Round up a group of mobs, tank em, and let the mages just pulverize them. Talk about destructive!!!

Well, I have some classes to teach and Risellum is at level 8 and sitting in the inn at Kharanos. I have a delivery quest in Ironforge so I will mark the bird when I log in later on.

Finished up in Dun Morogh and had a quest that sent me to Loch Modan so I figured I would mark the bird there. Once I knocked that out I flew back to Ironforge and took the tram to Stormwind. I marked the bird and headed to Goldshire. I picked up 2 quests in Goldshire. One sends me to Westfall to see Marshal Gryan Stoutmantle and the other is Westbrook Garrison Needs Help!

I stopped off in Westbrook, Elwynn Forest to pick up Wanted: “Hogger” and Riverpaw Gnoll Bounty. I did a little killing to get close to dinging level 10 and even got one Painted Gnoll Armband which was nice. After that I headed over to Westfall so turn in 2 quests and pick up the starters there.

About now it is 2:20 AM and I need some sleep. Risellum is sitting in Stormwind after training because I dinged 10 in Westfall before I flew back there.

IT’S PALLY TIME!!!

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July 7-8

I started off on my druid last night but before all was said and done we had moved back to Kringle and Golvan. From what I gather Kevin was happy to make the change as well. Marco didn’t make an appearance last night so Kevin and I finished up the Duskwood quests and moved onto The Wetlands. As a Skinner and a Herbalist it is a dream come true. There are tons of crocolisks, or as Kevin calls them…crocogators, and raptors so there is plenty to skin.  There is a ton of Liferoot and Kingsblood in addition to Briarthorn and Mageroyal but the real gem is the Wild Steelbloom.

We didn’t get too many drops but the one nice one we did get was Formula: Enchant Gloves Mining. I gave it up to Kringle who is an enchanter.  At any rate by the end of the night my pally had reached 28 so now when I log back in I have to train and then do a lot of bag and bank organizing because I just mailed everything to my bank alt, Bancy.

One of the other nice things I was able to do was I figured out how to do screenshots. I kept trying to paste them into MS Paint or Adobe Photoshop but it wasn’t working. So I broke down and I looked it up and discovered that WoW sticks screenshots into a folder.

I took these shots of Golvan while standing on a hill that overlooks the excavation site there. We got to it by killing for the Dragonmaw War Banner quest.

How I have longed for level 16

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July 6-7, 2012

I did some more of the bear quest but had to stop for class. I talked to the Great Bear Spirit and teleported to Moonglade (realized I could use the teleport spell).before logging off to work.

While I was in Moonglade I bought 2 of 3 items for Kringle.

Tailoring Pattern: Felcloth Pants

Enchanting Formula: Enchant Cloak – Superior Defense

I didn’t buy Enchanting Formula: Runed Arcanite Rod  because I ran out of money.

After work I headed back to Darnassus to do the turn in. I finally got Bear form and did some questing with both Kevin and Marco.  Marco is pulling ahead of us level wise and his dps is blowing away.

Kevin’s rogue’s dps is pretty good as well. I am not worried about my own dps because as a bear or even in caster form I am not concerned with dps. I am focusing on tanking and
later I will switch to healing.

That actually brings up a pretty good point. I originally started this druid with the intention of being a healer but neither Kevin’s rogue nor Marco’s mage are capable of tanking. So basically, I am switching between the two roles while trying to contribute some dps as well.

I can handle the healing fine but I am having survivability issues tanking. I have tried adding some more melee oriented gear but at my level it’s not exactly awe inspiring. I am getting gear with Stamina and either Agility or Strength. I have a few pieces that are caster oriented but outfitter automatically switches those out for the stamina gear when I switch to bear form.

At any rate when I logged off this morning to get some sleep I had dinged level 16 and trained the Swipe ability as well as Travel form and Aquatic form. I am more excited about swipe and travel than anything else. Travel form isn’t exactly a mount but it is a 40% speed increase and that’s nothing to sneeze at. Swipe will come in handy in those situations where I have to tank multiple mobs.

Marco’s brother is supposed to be a WoW fanatic and he started a human warlock. I have mixed feelings about this because in the current group dynamic we need either a tank or a healer so I can specialize. But in the long term plan it fits perfectly because I am supposed to switch to Golvan to tank and Kevin will switch to Kringle to heal so we needed another dps for that group.

Either way I am hoping this works out for the best. It will be nice to have a static group that learns each other’s strengths and weaknesses because that will be real handy when we start instancing and raiding later on. What I like is that we are all on Ventrilo (vent) so we can communicate much better than we could through text chat.

I wish I could get John to join us and create another dps toon so we could round out a group of 5 but he remains stubborn and steadfast against getting back into WoW as he seems to continue to favor Runes of Magic (RoM). I think he still harbors ill will toward WoW but I think a lot of his reluctance also has to do with his new found dedication to his websites. I can understand this quite well and the fact that I am even typing this is a testament to my commitment to the same although I have not been able to put in as much time as I would like.

At any rate, I talked to Kevin, and once Marco and his brother reach Level 20 and have their mounts we can both go back to our mains and get down to business. I can’t wait because I am getting very tired of this Druid. The only nice thing about the druid is I know how to do caster dps and heals using a druid at high levels but I now get to learn melee/feral dps as well as how to bear/tank. My last druid I didn’t level myself so I didn’t get the opportunity to learn all the ins and outs of a druid.

In closing, I am happy to be level 16 and have my travel form, bear form, and swipe ability and here’s to the future of what I hope will become a great group dynamic!!!

A druid named Celchu

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NOTE: There is a list of toons and people, complete with links, who were mentioned in this post located at the bottom of the page.

Since, I am leveling Golvan, my Pally with Kringle, Kevin’s priest, I am at the mercy of timing. We are trying to stay at or near the same level and we’re trying to do our questing together as a team. My pally is doing the tank/dps role while his priest fills the healer/dps role. But due to the 12 hour time difference our playing time is severely limited.

We both created rogues as bank alts a week ago but since he started to level his when we weren’t playing together I decided to do the same thing. The difference is I am not a big fan of playing rogues. I have tried leveling several of them but I never got very far as they were all usually tertiary toons at best.

I decided to try another Shammy (Shaman) because the last one I did, on a retail server, only made it to level 7. I guess I got bored with him too. Anyway, I wanted to try something different for a change because I have played most of the classes and  hadn’t really given a shammy a chance. So I created Elico but after killing only 2 moths I realized I had no idea how to play a shammy. So I did a quick Google search and learned that this is a class that is just not for me. I don’t want a jack of all trades class that doesn’t excel at the various roles it can play. There were a few other things I wasn’t happy with either.

After that dismal and utter failure I created another Night Elf druid and named him Celchu because  I had a Tauren Druid on a retail server with the same name.  I was hesitant to create him at first because I absolutely hate…..no….I DESPISE the night elf area because all the mountains make it difficult to travel. They pretty much force you to stick to the roads which adds a ton of travel time. I prefer to cut across maps taking the most direct route to my destination like I can in Elwynn Forest for example.So, I CAREFULLY took my level 1 self down the roads to Dolanar where I picked up a quest that ends in Darnassus. Once in Darny I hit the mailbox to pick up the gold, gear, and bags I had sent from my main and then I hit the skinning profession trainer.

Once I was finished with those tasks I headed down to the boat and headed to Stormwind and then on through Elwynn Forest to Northshire to start my questing. I breezed through all the quests, which I have all memorized anyway, mostly because by the time I got there I was already level 3 from the quests I turned in, the map exploring I had done, and from the wolves I had killed on the way for the skinning.

I think I got to level 8 or so when Kevin finally popped on and then I switched back to my main, Golvan, to do some more questing with Kringle (Kevin’s Priest).  Once again we didn’t get much done because we wasted a lot of time waiting on a quest item respawn.

At any rate Kevin’s friend Marco logged in and we convinced him to move Dialtone, his Gnome Mage, from Dun Morogh to Elwynn since he was roughly the same level as Kevin’s rogue and my druid.

We did some questing in eastern Elwynn Forest but ultimately I had to drop 2 quests because I wasn’t getting any drops.

After that we headed back to Goldshire to do turn ins and then we went back to western Elwynn to do the gnoll quests including Hogger.

I dinged lvl (level) 10 while I was down there and decided to head to SW to train and with the hopes of doing the Druid quest to get bear form in SW. The trainer there sent me, as expected, to Darnassus where I was then sent to Moonglade. I left it there because Samantha started to cry and it was 6 AM or 7 AM or some crazy time.

I had every intention of returning but I had her on my lap for a while and then when I laid her down in bed I fell asleep. By the time I returned Kevin and Marco had logged off and even though Kevin offered to log back in I decided to get some sleep.

So I guess the bear form will have to wait until log in later after I finish teaching my ESL classes.

Toons Mentioned

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