Old instance fun.

Our GM and her co-GM have level 44 shammies that they are leveling together.  He is melee she is healing / casting.  They are ripping thru the levels.  Last night we were short people for Kara so we all went our separate ways.  I flew to Tanarris to do some fishing (grumble sputter damn fishing) when I noted them both hop on.  They asked for help on the chicken escort quest.  We did that and the turtle escort quest, then they asked if I would mind taking them thru ZF.  The two of them could duo any mob in the instance, but with a lot of 3-4 pulls it was way more than what they could handle.

I have not been in ZF in a long time, since shortly after hitting 70.    When I hit 70 I was still wearing my shoulders from MC.  I had blue quest pieces, green AH pieces that were mid level 60’s, and stuff from instances all the way back to ramparts.  At that point ZF was not hard, but I still had to be careful.  One pull at a time, eat / drink, rinse repeat.  Bosses were very difficult and required the help of teammates. 

Since then I have replaced every single piece of gear.  Replaced all gems with the best ones in can get, and dropped 700G on enchants.  I am down to my only green being a trinket. 

Off to ZF we head.  The first 3 man pull I tell them to take one blood drinker, I would trap one, and bear tank the caster.  We pulled.  I two shotted the caster and three shotted the blood drinker, then I flipped to the trapped mob and 2 shot it.  Woah!  What a difference!  I sent my bear hurling at the next group.  I unleashed on them and had all three down before the pat could return.  A few pulls later I got a little more adventurous.  I sent my bear into a group of three and then misdirected three more on him.  I pulled them back into a snake trap and unleashed hell.  They were all dead in seconds.  We did the Basilisk boss and ate him for lunch.  The undead boss was cake because I looted about 7 tombs at a time to clear them out.  I was not quite confident enough to try the stairs, but was 60% sure I could have done it.

That was FUN!

We have done a few BRD and UBRS runs, and a dozen DM runs for epic mount quests, and everyone has had a blast completely decimating things that were previously challenging.  I loved it in UBRS when I was kiting Drak “Hey, FD the guards are dead and you have him down to 40%.”

I’m still trying to get us to do BWL, because I only got inside there once before BC came out.  I also want to experience Naxx. 

Strange Thought

I have the cooking recipe that requires “Furious Crawdad”. My first thought is “Why is he furious? What if someone gave him a reason to smile…could I still cook him? If he changed to happy while in my custody would he be un-cookable?”

Then it dawned on me. He is Furious because he was caught incorrectly. Crawdad are caught in nets, not with a fishing pole and lure. They are probably infuriated over the incorrect method of capture. If you were to net them then I think they would be more pacifistic and un-able to be cooked.

Also, while leveling my new pet (to be revealed soon) I have been in Zangamarsh. I’m killing those guys that can drop that firefly non-combat pet. My pet had picked up 4 levels and no firefly. I do have a concern. Since a creature has to be alive to be described as “Furious”, and those Furious crawdads are in my bag, then one has to assume that they stay alive in my bag. I am kind of nervous to get that firefly pet. What if I accidentally put it in a bag that contains a live fish? I don’t want to do all that work to get that firefly only to have a fish suck it down for dinner. Also, what if the crawdad is furious because he is hungry? What if he eats my precious expensive firefly and is satiated, therefore no longer furious.

What the hell am I supposed to do with a Happy Crawdad?

perhaps my engrish is not soo gud.

I work in office furniture.  I help people make custom stuff, or plan room layouts using standard furniture.  I work online having meetings with people using a desktop sharing application.

I had a meeting this morning at 9am.  The lady needed help with 8 offices.  She got into the meeting and we did office 1, office 2, then she realized she did not have any paperwork on office 3…or office 7.  So, we did the other 6.  When those were done I let her know that I was booked solid all day today, so she scheduled a meeting for tomorrow morning at 8am. She asked when she could expect a quote.  I told her that after the meeting tomorrow I would be able to start on the quote, and my average turn around time is about 48 hours.  She said (and this is an exact quote) “That would be perfect, then just put this all on hold until tomorrow then.” 

If you hadn’t guessed by now, that was not all ok. The following are some cut and pastes of the e-mail chain.

So, we hung up at 9:35.  At 9:54 I received an e-mail “I know that we have the meeting for tomorrow, but I still have not received the quote for what we worked on today.  Send that over immediately.”

Errr…..What?

I reply “As I mentioned on the phone 20 minutes ago, my average turn around time for a quote is 48 hours.  However, when we last spoke you told me to hold on until I get the information tomorrow.”

She replied and copied my boss, the sales director, and the VP of sales.  “I don’t understand what the hold up is.  (VP of sales) can you please instruct bob to send this quote to me immediately.”

The VP replied to me and asked what was going on.

I replied to all “I apologize, I must have misunderstood.  When I told you that my average turn around was 48 hours, and when you instructed me to “put this on hold until tomorrow”, I was under the impression that you wanted me to put this on hold until tomorrow.  As I mentioned on the phone with you less than one hour ago, I have back to back meetings all day today.  This quote, as is, will take approximately 3 hours to do.  The earliest I can possibly START working on this quote is tomorrow after our meeting, because as discussed, I have meetings back to back all day, and walk in the door tomorrow at 8am to your meeting.  Please note, I have a meeting already scheduled tomorrow at 10am, 11am, and 1pm tomorrow.  So, assuming no one schedules a meeting tomorrow at 9am, or 2pm, the earliest that this can possibly be done is tomorrow at 3pm.  I will be working on this as soon as possible, and will place it in line in front of all other quote requests (with VP’s permission), but as it stands, 3PM tomorrow is the fastest this can possibly be done.”

Not 1 minute later the VP replied to all “Well, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but I have a project that is higher in priority that will consume Bob’s time tomorrow.  Please expect this quote sometime mid-day on Friday.”

Then the VP e-mailed me, and copied my boss and said “Your response was more than reasonable.  I don’t have anything for you, just thought you would like the breathing room.”

Did I miss something?

just another day

So I’m still working on fishing.  I hate fishing more than Murlocks and Gnomerang pur together.  I hate fishing more than being ganked.  I hate fishing more than time with the inlaws.   

That being said, it is a good way to pass the time waiting outside Kara for everyone to get there…then waiting because some people are not online, then waiting because we are 2 short…then waiting more hoping that someone is coming on soon.  When we finally gave up last night I had 5 stacks of fish and a handful more skill points.   

My other favorite thing to do while waiting for Kara to start is to flag and get some PVP action.  There are a few things that make doing this fun.   

1) I have 2 weapons that are like level 6 greys that I put Fiery and Icy on to speed up leveling on alts.  I had them on my main.  Equipping them makes me look all huntardy.   

2) Two stealthed rouges and a shadowmelded Boomkin make for a fun trap once a hordie takes the bait.  

3) I may have been dead from the outset, but my party completely decimated the Warrior and mage that flagged and attacked.

Car heater

Here is one thing I dread.  I live in Michigan, it is cold here.  I get in the car and crank up the defroster on high.  The heater eventually gets the blowing air warm and starts cranking out some heat.  Then I turn the knob from defroster to floor heater.  The part I dread then happens.  The warm air starts flowing into the floorboards, pushing the mass of cold air up past my face.  I an blast chilled for a few seconds until the heat makes it’s way the entire length of my body. 

What if they replaced the knob with three sliders.  One for defroster, one for dash vents, and one for floor vent. Each slider adjusted how much air came out of each.  With them all cranked open there is low pressure to all three.  With one closed the other two get medium pressure.  With two closed, then one gets high pressure. 

This way I could close the floor and dash vents, and blast my dash, then slowly open the floor a crack to warm it up down there, so I don’t get blast chilled when switching to floor heat. 

They can invent a car that calls 911 when you are in an accident, a car that tells you to turn left to get to Taco Bell, and a car that warns if you are backing up too close to something, but they can not pre-heat my feet?  I don’t understand.

Medal of Honor: Airborn

Looking at the box this is just WW2 FPS #9526, 9501 of which were Medal of Honor games. 

This is NOT your daddy’s Medal of Honor. 

The first big thing is that you parachute into the map.  There are landing points, but you are free to land wherever.  The landing zones have a green smoke flare, they are usually protected from enemy fire, and have ammo and health crates to re-fill yourself with.  Sometimes landing behind the enemy can work well.  For example, the landing zone is at the bottom of a hill covered with machine guns that you will have to fight thru.  Land behind the enemy at the top of the hill and grab the first machine gun.  Hose the bad guys from behind.  When you die you respawn as a fresh para-drop, so sometimes once you capture an objective it is faster to die and re-drop near the next location.

The second big thing is the weapons.  Each gun you start out with is similar to previous games.  The difference is now you gain experience with the gun based on how much and how well you use it.  Headshots and kill streaks make your experience go up faster.  Each level of experience gives you a reward.  Bigger magazines, faster reloads, lower recoil, faster rate of fire, more accuracy, and more.  For example, the german sub-machine gun that I love so much, the first upgrade is faster reloads, the second upgrade increases the clip from 32 rounds to 64, the third upgrade reduces recoil, making it more accurate.  Un-upgraded it is a good gun.  Fully upgraded it is a death spewing firehose of bullets. 

The next big upgrade is in the movement and firing controls.  Other games have had the Iron Sights feature where you can fire from the him and be un accurate, or put the gun up to your eye and be more accurate.  Other games had a lean left and right button.  No game has this games control structure.  You map your normal move forward, back, and strafe left and right.  Your mouse 2 is Iron sights.  If you are in Iron Sights mode, then your motion buttons become lean buttons. There is one “move while Iron Sight” button.  The reason this is useful is you get close to a corner, lean, it is not far enough, you hold the Move while Iron Sight button and it locks your current lean and then you tap your normal motion control and it moves you.  So you lean left, hold down the move button, you stay locked leaned left, move until you can fire, release the motion button, blast away and you are in perfect position.  This also lets you be in Iron Sights mode and walk slowly to clear rooms and walk around corners.

The motion controls are so intuitive and fluid you move in the game how you can move in real life.  The crouch button is a toggle.  There is a sprint button that works and works well.  There is a melee button that works well. 

I love this game, but always seem to nitpick.  Here are the things that I don’t like.

The enemies are endless.  If there is a hill and you sit at the bottom and snipe the bad guys you could be there a year and never run out of guys to shoot.  This is actually helpful if you want ammo.  You must rush up the hill to stop the respawns.  Once you find those respawn triggers, you find that you can run right thru enemy lines and stop the respawns and take the objective. 

The sniper rifle is the worst gun in the game.  It is not accurate and worse yet, it is not powerful.  It takes a headshot, or 2-3 body shots to kill a guy.  It is slow to reload and slow to work the bolt.  I can see weakening it to stop the snipefest that some games came into, but this is insane.  They made it useless.  I am better with a gerrand or K98 than the sniper ever does. 

Exiting the game takes about a minute.  This is a personal pet peeve, but when I have to quit playing I want to hit escape mid game, and be able to hit “exit to Windows” and be done.  In this game you hit Escape, then click on the save tab, then exit, then yes you want to exit, then a 20 second cutscene leads into the main menu, then the menu fades in, then you click exit, then yes you want to exit…THEN you are out of the game.  That is unacceptable. 

The pistol.  There is only one, it is the Colt 1911 semi auto.  The 1911 shoots a 45 round.  You have endless ammo for the pistol, and it is horribly inaccurate, but handy when you are out of ammo.  The problem I have is that it shoots a 45 caliber pistol bullet.  That is a powerful and deadly round, except in this game.  In this game it is a pea shooter, taking 5-6 rounds in the chest to kill someone.  If they wanted a wimpy pistol they should have given one that is less powerful. 

The graphics are good, the controls are amazing, the guns are great, the parachuting adds a unique element, the sniper rifle and pistol need work.

I give it a 9/10.

Good, horrible, better (squared), not so good, Great!

That was my weekend.  Here was the plan: wife’s surgery Friday, mother in law there to help Friday and Saturday.  Spend the weekend making soup, fetching water, dispensing pills, and in between all that playing a massive amount of Warcraft.  Took Monday off work in anticipation of her and my return to work Tuesday.

Friday: Good
My wife had her surgery, everything went well.  Picked her up from the hospital and took her home. 

Saturday: Horrible
I was happily playing along when my PC screens went black.  Hmm…the caps lock key still works, so it mist be video related.  Cranked the sound and heard the stuttering sound of the locked game.  Ctrl-Alt-Del.  No response. Hold it for 20 seconds, no reset…hmmm.  Power down.  Power up and it locks at the screen that gives me the option of going into the Bios setting.  No response on keyboard.  Hmm..  Unplug 1 month old external DVD burner, remove video card, second screen, and TV tuner card…no response.  Change keyboard and mouse on an off chance, no response.  Remove 2 of 4 ram chips, nada, remove the other two and try first two alone…nothing. Unplug internal DVD, and hard drive and try to boot..nothing.

CRAPTASTIC.  My baby is dead.  After a year of flawless performance it just dies out of the blue.  I take it to my “guy” (the one person more geek than me).  He pokes and prods and says it is the motherboard or processor. 

Sunday: Better.
The wife is getting to where she can stand up sometimes.  Now, I only have to physically lift her to standing and hold her while she catches her balance, I no longer have to half carry her to the bathroom.  I am focused on getting my baby working.  My mom comes to visit.  I pilfer her laptop for some shopping.  No good deals.  I will cost as much to repair as to replace.  I left my wife in the good care of my mom and run to Best Buy.  Granted, I despise buying a Best Buy computer, but I cave and get a new Gateway.  My old one was a Gateway and I loved it.  I found one with a PCI-E slot and room to grow.  I am not pleased about having to switch to Vista against my will, but I bite the bullet and swipe my bank card.  I spent a few hours playing in Vista trying to find out how to do anything. 

Monday: Better
I spent the 8 hours installing Office, Winamp, my mouse drivers, and an INSANE amount of time getting WOW re-installed.  (FYI when installing in Vista, be prepared to click OK 5937 times per hour).  Then I went to install my video card.  It requires a power plug.  There is one available.  When the card is placed in the system the power plug is about 1.5” from the end of the power cord coming off the video card.  CRAPTACULAR.  I need to drive 15 minutes to Best Buy to spend $2 on a power splitter / extender.  Unfortunately my mom is gone and I don’t want to leave my wife alone…seeing as she can’t get off the couch she is so drugged.  No video for me.

Tuesday: Great!
The wife was not up to going back to work, so I stayed home. I figure if I spend the day tending to her she will get better faster…that and I have Vista to explore.  I got bored with Vista by about 9am.  I started to dig thru my tote of games looking for what I was going to re-install on the new toy.  Lo and behold, glory of glories, there in the bottom of the tote, gasp, the clouds part, an single sunbeam shines down on it, a chorus of angels sings: It is a power cable I can use!!!  I power up my video card and get it running.  Now I am back with my Dual Screen goodness. 

I bought the game “Medal Of Honor: Airborn” a while ago.  I had more than enough computer to run it, but it would not run.  After a total of 9 hours with their Tech Support the 4th person I talked to actually said “Well, it should work.  I guess you just can not play it”.  I tried to return it, but it was open.  So I was stuck with it and no way to play it.  Now, it works.  I am pretty sure it was the fact that I had Alcohol 120 on there, because the guy at EA said that some “image burners” cause errors with the security system. 

I will write up a review on that game, because it is BADASS.  If you like shooters get this game.

So, the wife is back to work today, and doing well.  I am the proud new owner of a shiny new Gateway. 

Before anyone asks, it is an AMD Athalon 64 X2 Dual Core 6000+, 3 gig of DDR2 RAM, 500gig HD, and 5.1 sound.  I know that it is not the most powerful, but with my Video card (Raedon 1950 pro with 512 meg of RAM) it moves along nicely. 

Some news:

Well, the surgery went well, she did not recover as fast as she should have due to a reaction to pain meds, so I missed work Monday and Tuesday.  I came back to 10 voice mail and 174 e-mail…so no update today.  More news to follow as time permits.

No new news

Sorry, no post today.  My wife is having surgery to remove a cist from her ovary.  Wish me luck.

Incredible Noobtazim

So I am having fun on my Rogue.  He is about one bar from 30.  I’m in Darkshire completely decimating anything that moves in groups of 2-3.  Then I get to that last part of the Mor Ladim quest where I have to kill him.  I die.  I die again.  I die a craptastic death due to an add.  I get him to 10% and die again.  I kite him using stuns to allow energy regen and try to DOT him to death…I die. 

I express my exasperation in Guild Chat.  I KNOW that I my hunter killed this guy solo at 30.  I KNOW that I can do it, I am just doing something wrong.  I express how much it sucks to not have Feign Death to get me out of trouble. 

A guy in my guild says “you are high enough, did vanish resist all those times?”

Huh?  What is this “Vanish” of which you speak?  Is this some foreign tounge?  Is it some piece of gear that I did not know that I was supposed to have?  Is it some unknown Iwin button?

When I ask him what Vanish is he simply says “The fact that you don’t know what it is…is why you are dying.” 

I look in my skills and sure enough, there is vanish.  I must have trained and somehow missed mapping it. 

So, with my freshly discovered Vanish I head out to face Mor Ladim again, this time with an escape plan. 

The fight starts out well, Ambush, Gouge, Backstab, Sinister strike, Slice and Dice all land with precision, my duel wielding fiery enchanted goodness is quickly ticking away his life.  Slice and Dice procced both a combo point and 20 energy, so quickly I had a 3 combo point DOT on him and it was going well.  Then a spider decided to join in the battle, turning the tide against me.  I started to run away, then remembered the Vanish button. 

I clicked Vanish….

Nothing.  Error Message “Missing Reagent”

You died.

CRRRRAAAAAAPPPPPPPPP

Apparently, in my most incredible noobtastic moment, I mapped the button, but did not notice that it requires flash powder as a reagent, so I had none. 

I did not have the heart to tell my guildie what I did.