Words down the toilet

I despise Al Gore. 

I’m made that the entire paragraph because I think that four word sentence articulates all that I intended to say.  I posted before about how incompetent his ‘Inconvenient truth” movie was. 

I have been stuck listening to NPR for the last few weeks at work because our offices got temporarily moved and I can’t get any good stations.  I have heard some good news stories in the mix, but a lot of the stories are fluff that have no bearing on anyone’s life what so ever.  I heard recently a bit where someone uses Al Gore as a reference to substantiate their ideas. 

Let me be clear.  A SCIENTIST used a POLITICIAN as a reference to make is SCIENCE ideas seem more credible. 

I started writing a post.  I am somewhat well read, and 4 years of statistics in college lent me to evaluate the science behind all the claims I hear.  I begun with writing my ideas.  Then I started to research to find the articles I have read to support those ideas.  I learned that my ideas barely scratched the surface. 

Here were my views (please note the Were):
-There IS global warming.
-There IS an increase in CO2.
-However, MAN has NOT been the cause of those things. 

After reading many (I actually saved links to 37 sites from reputable sources) articles on the subject of Man Made Global Warming I learned that I was wrong.  Here is my new statement of Views.

-There is evidence to show that there is any global warming beyond NORMAL variations.

-There has not been an increase in CO2 levels since man has became industrialized, and there are many times pre-dating man where the levels were much higher.

-Man has not even been a blip on the radar.  There is nothing to indicate that man has had any impact on the global climate what so ever.

-Most people research things that have no useful outcome.  (I’m going to write an entire post on this later.)

My post grew and grew as I amassed more and more information.  At last count it was just over 2200 words, and I figured I was about 80% done.  Some of the best stuff came from the reports and evidence pertaining to the lawsuit in England.  Apparently, in England the national school board decided to issue the movie “An Inconvenient Truth” to their teachers to show to students.  Someone realized this and sued the school board for distributing something full of errors. 

Here is a link to the statement given by one of the witnesses for the prosecution. 

http://newparty.co.uk/UserFiles/File/carterstatement.pdf

I read this and realized that he is saying everything I was saying, and more.  PLUS, he is someone that has credentials in that profession, so his words carry more weight than my own. 

READ THAT ARTICLE!!!!  It has some things that shocked even me.  On a side note, I have researched a large number of the articles that he referenced in his statement.  I have not found a single time where anything was taken out of context, or mis-stated.  This is a well written and well documented piece of work. 

Calling all rogues

I have a baby Rogue that just hit 33 last night.  He is twinked beyond all previous levels of twinkage.  I’m not PVP twinking, but rather speed level twinking.  At 17 I had him geared in the Blackened Defias set from deadmines, fully enchanted, but he could not wear the chest for a few levels.  His pants have Clefthoof armor kit on them.  At level 5 I gave him a grey dagger that had fiery on it.  Now he has a sword and dagger, both with fiery.  As soon as he hits 35 he is getting new gear with max level enchants on them.

The challenge I am having is that normal leveling specs do not take advantage of the gear he has.  I have read a lot on the subject of leveling and they all suggest Combat spec.  If I did not have the gear I have I would agree, but with my gear I have chosen assassination spec.  I did that because I end up with Uber combo point generation, so I can keep Slice and Dice up all the time.  Most of the time I open with Cheap Shot, then one Sinister Strike, then pop Slice and dice.  If I build up a few more points I will Eviscerate, and most of the time a 3 point Eviscerate will destroy the bad guy.  The combo of Ruthlessness and Relentless Strikes gives me a ton of energy and combo points to use. 

Anyone with more rogue experience have any advice?  I like the play style, but can’t help but feel that it could be better.

Also, last night I learned a new thing.  When you are trying to sneak around behind a mob and they turn and face you as if they caught a whiff of something but did not completely notice you, do NOT walk around toward the way that they were facing before.  What happens is that just as you get to their side they decide that what they heard was nothing and turn back to their normal facing direction, then they are looking directly at you.  At which time they aggro and you loose stealth.  Then, you begin taking it down.  Then, they will stun you and take off running, only to return with two friends.  Inevitably this will happen as Vanish is on cooldown.  You will try and fight the two mobs that are orange to you, only to realize that you are outmatched. You will pop sprint and try and run away.  Unfortunately, due to a momentary lapse in judgment, you end up jumping off a short cliff DEEPER into the pit of mobs.  Then you will aggro 4 more mobs and die a glorious death. 

Then, you will get back to your corpse and respawn far enough away from them so you can eat.  Unfortunately, that was not far enough, so you pop a healing potion and make a break for it with three mobs on your tail.  You will stumble across a random troll that aggro’s you.  You try and gouge it to give yourself a head start…then notice that it is the Grom Grol base guard, so you are now flagged PVP. You run a few yards and spot a 70 horde mage (I’m human) running someone around…CRAP.  Fortunately, just then Vanish comes off cooldown.  Unfortunately, the mage spotted you and decides that a gank is in order. 

Are you aware that one Arcane Explosion in the right area exposes a stealthed Rouge?  Are you also aware that a sheeped level 33 rouge that is crited by a Pyroblast from a level 70 mage…suffers such a blow to their HP that I almost had to rez twice just to get back to alive. 

I still smell burning hair.

Kara stalled

We run Kara Wednesday and Sunday.  We have about 13 people that are capable of going, about 6 that regularly sign up, and 8 that regularly show up.  That means every night we depend on 2 people to show up at random.  The first night is Attuman, Morose, Opera, Maiden.  The second night we start with Curator.  We have been stalled the last few weeks because the 5 that are not regulars all say that they are sick of running the first night, so they try and only show up for the second night.  The problem is that if we only have 8 the first night, we can’t run, so the second night never happens.

So, last Wednesday when only 6 showed up we called it.  Knowing that without the first night the second night was doomed, I got permission from the Guild leader, then a guildie and I ran with another guild we are friends with.  The guildie normally plays a healing pally, but that night they were full on healers so he brought his PVP Shammy.

Our guilds MT is a pally, so most nights the mage can AOE and I am #2 on the damage meter.  When the mage can’t AOE I tend to fight neck in neck with the mage for #1. 

Running with the other guild we had 3 shammies (1 heal, 2 DPS), 3 druids (1 heal, 2 DPS), a priest, a warrior, a pally tank, and me. My group was me, the DPS shammies, a feral druid, and the healing druid.  So, I was getting 8 totems, the crit bonus from the druid, and they were all getting my Bestial Wrath.

Words can not properly express how much DPS we had.  Numbers don’t go that high. 

I have done Curator a dozen or so times.  I am used to one DPS being on Curator as the bolt soaker, and all other DPS being on the adds.  I have the target Astral macro ready to go.  My normal thing is to send my pet on Curator because the Astrals decimate him, then I DPS the astrals.  We normally kill one just as the next spawns so I switch seamlessly from astral to astral.  That night I would get ONE steady shot on the astral, then one steady shot on Curator, then one steady shot on the next astral.  I had to do this because their DPS was so high that I did not have time to get off two steady shots back to back on one astral. 

The fastest my guild has ever gotten him down is after the 4th Evocate.  I know that is not fast, but he is our roadblock right now.  We have to switch out people so often, we are usually under geared. 

That night, during the SECOND evocation we got him below 20% and killed him before the third Evocate. 

We called it a night, and the DPS charts went up.  My guildie shamy was #1, I was #2.  I had never been beaten on DPS by a shammie before, then I inspected him.  He is wearing all PVP Arena gear.  Everything is purple.  I have 4 blues still.  I don’t feel so bad anymore.  Also, on Morose I had to chain trap the entire fight, so my DPS hurt a lot. 

After the raid I was talking to him in Teamspeak.  He started laughing.  He records the DPS charts after each boss.  On Maiden I died from 4 holy fires in a row.  I died when she was at 30%.  I was STILL #2 on the meter. 

No drops for me, but it was still the best night in Kara I have had. 

New Gadget

I have a TV, a “home theater in a box” DVD / surround sound system, a Cable box, and a Wii. 

Last weekend my mom came to visit.  I was cooking dinner and my mom asked “hey, I want to watch this movie, how do I do it?”.  Here were the exact instructions:
1) Now grab the Black remote, push the power button
2) Then push the DVD button at the top.
3) Grab the grey square remote, push the power button.
4) Then push that input button 4 times.
5) Now grab the Grey rounded remote, and push the power button. 
Pop in the movie
6) Back the black remote hit the play button.

Three remotes, and commands on each to make the change.  This is not acceptable.

I went out and bought a Universal remote.  It would not control my Cable box.  I returned it and bought a different one that supported my cable box, but it would not control my DVD surround system.  I returned that one and got another.  It would control all the pieces, but did not have a page up and down button for using the cable box guide, so I returned that one as well.

I was not happy.

I remembered back to my Best Buy days a really expensive remote that would control everything, all the way down to flushing the toilet.  It was called Harmony.  It plugs in via USB to your PC, then you go online and program it.  It said that it would work with all my components.  I bought a Harmony 659 for $70 on eBay. 

I got it out of the box and handed it to my wife.  She is not the most tech savvy person, so I figured if she could do it, anyone could.  I watched her.  She popped the disk in, and plugged in the remote.  Simple install of some software.  Register on the website, and it updated the remotes firmware, and the PC’s software. 

Then it asks what you want to hook up.  She chose TV.  It asked what brand, pull down chose Samsung.  Then filled in a box with the model number.  Repeat for the DVD/Surround, Cable Box, and Wii. 

Then it asked some simple questions like “When watching TV, what do you use to control the volume: TV or Stereo?”  and “When watching a movie what input is the TV set to?” and it gave me an exact list of all the inputs my TV had. 

She answered all the questions, only asking me to confirm her selections, but she did it 100% right on the first try.  Then when all the questions were done you hit a button to upload it to the remote. 

Now, you pick up the remote and hit the “Watch TV” button.  It turns on the TV, sets it to the correct input, turns on the cable box, and turns on the Stereo and sets it to the correct input.  If you hit the “Watch a movie” button it changes the input on the TV, and changes the input on the DVD. 

Total time from cutting the box open to it being programmed and functioning, less than 20 minutes.  10 of which was time spent with updates automatically installing, so it was really 10 minutes of actual time required of my attention.  I was ready and willing to spend HOURS of complicated programming, involving many unsuccessful attempts.  This was a welcome surprise.

One of the other features that I really like is the backlight.  The buttons have a nice bright glow.  I don’t usually like glowing remotes because they eat batteries.  This remote you can turn the glow on and off with the push of a button.  The little feature that I discovered last night was that while all the other buttons are smooth and round, the Glow button has a raised dot in a different texture on it, so you can feel it in the dark. 

Also, it did not have a Page up and Page down button.  2 minutes (exactly) of playing with it on the computer and I found out how to set any button on the remote to do anything I want it to.  I used Fast Forward and Rewind to be page up and down.  So, about 4 minutes after discovering that problem it was solved. 

My wife has a DVD/VCR in the bedroom.  She lost the remote for it.  The problem is that there are only one set of controls on the front, and you have to use the remote to change from DVD to surround.  Without the remote, she had to unplug the player, then plug it in and turn it on.  Whichever she used first is what it would set itself to.  So, unplug it, then pop in a DVD.  It would play DVD’s.  If you want to watch a tape, you have to unplug it again.  I programmed the remote to run the unit, and now she can grab the remote from the living room and change it over without having to fish cables from behind the dresser.

On top of all the good things I have already written, it is also very comfortable in my hand and the buttons are easy to press without being too hard.

This is the first geek gadget I have ever reviewed that I am giving a 10/10.

I should be SO Smurfing fired.

I work for a high end wood office furniture manufacturer.  I help customers design custom things, but occasionally have to deal with questions that are just strange.

We have a bunch of different wood types we can use, and also many stain colors that we can apply to them.  It is common for someone to order pieces of furniture from more than one manufacturer and put them in the same space.  When that happens, they give us a sample of the wood that they chose from the other company and we match it.  We sometimes get requests for wood that is un-stained, to which we apply a protective clear coat.  Once in a great while we get a request for “Unfinished” wood that they plan to stain and finish at the job site.  We will not do that.   This customer was just confused as to what they want:

Customer: can you do custom stain colors on wood?

Me: Yes, we have a very good color lab, Stain To Match is a 10% additional charge to everything.

Customer: What about blue?

Me: blue?

Customer: Yes, blue, but they said that they don’t want any stain on the wood.  They just want unfinished wood.

Me: That is blue?

Customer: yes.

Me: Unfortunately, our wood supplier can not get smurfwood, so you are out of luck on the naturally blue wood.  I can see if we can stain something blue for you.

Snake trap.

First off, let me say, I am a HUGE fan of snake trap.  Not because it does a ton of damage, but because of all that it can do.

First, at 305 mana it is nothing to sneeze at.  On long fights that it a decent investment, however, there are many times where that investment pays off…big time.

Snakes have FOUR different attacks that they use.  First, and most notable, Deadly poison.  A stack of 5 means 75 damage per 2 seconds.  Second, mind numbing poison.  This slows cast times.  Third, crippling poison, slowing movement speed.  Fourth, a spit attack.  The spit is a ranged attack, but the snakes will run to melee range to use it.  The spit attack has an 8 yard range (I will mention this again later) and does 25-35 damage with a 1 sec attack speed.  The snake spit is enough interrupt casting.  Snakes have a 15 yard aggro radius, and no threat table of their own.  They have their own place on mobs threat tables (I’ll mention this again later). 
 

There is some strange mojo at work with that spit attack.  I was running someone thru deadmines.  The boss Smite just as you are about to board the boat has a thunderstomp that stuns you while he changes weapons.  He does it at certain points in his health.  He has two stealth guards with him.  I laid a snake trap, then opened with aimed shot followed by multi shot.  The multi killed the guard I hit with aimed, my tab targeted smite and he hot an autoshot that got him low enough to stomp.  The snakes had been set loose.  Normally, they are stunned as well, but one of them resisted.  The snake spit one time, and both Smite and the guard were hit by it.  I have seen many other times where the spit seems to be a volley rather than one single target hit.

So, there are 5-6 snakes (as a BM hunter).  Each has a 1 sec Global cool down, and all poisons and attacks are instant.  Lets say there are three mobs.  When the trap pops all five snakes begin applying the DOT poison.  Then, they will apply the crippling and mind numbing poisons.  Then they will start using their spit attacks.  If a new mob enters the fight, they will instantly receive a DOT from each of the snakes, meaning an instant stack of 5.  (I’ll mention this later)

The first and obvious use is in AOE situations.  Drop a snake trap to add your own AOE to the fight, along with slowing the mobs.

The second obvious use is in PVP.  A DOT, a cripple, and a mind numb…come on, that is 100% pure un-filtered WIN.  Obviously, giving up a freezing trap is situational decision, but if you are not the focus of fire, a snake trap can help take down the mob faster. 

One of the weaknesses of snake traps is that it is a trap, so you can’t use it and another type of trap at the same time.  So, if you have to CC, then snake trap is out of the question.  Another weakness is that if a mob is CC’ed, then that CC breaks, the snakes will poison the target, stopping any other CC attempts.  Another weakness is that the snakes themselves are wimpy, and easily killed with one AOE.  The last, and perhaps biggest weakness is that if you are dropping a trap you have to move into range that stops you from shooting.

Here are some places where snake trap is worth its weight in gold:

In Kara, on Attuman.  About 5 seconds into the fight drop a trap on Midnight.  They will still be up when Attuman pops.  The snakes will poison Attuman instantly and get aggro.  Attuman will attack the snakes, and leave the healers alone for a precious second or two, giving the tank time to target Attuman and get some threat.  When Attuman and Midnight are up, if they are close enough together, trap one and the snakes will attack both.  On the last phase of the fight, after Attuman mounts, keep a snake trap on the ground and when Attuman charges he will open it up and you get some cheap DPS.  If you use a snake trap no where else, use it here.

In Kara, on Morose.  IF and ONLY IF all the CC mobs are dead, when Morose vanishes it is a good time to run in and drop a trap.  The REALLY cool part is I have seen Morose Garrote a snake. 

In Kara, in the Opera events, there are many Great applications.  On Romeo and Juliet, keep one on Juliette at all times and the mind numbing keeps her cast time longer.  On Oz keep one on Tin Man and it will DOT most of the mobs on stage, making your damage look GREAT.  On Big Bad Wolf, the snakes not only DOT, but the spit attack seemed to interrupt his casting of Little Red riding hood, giving more warning as to who needs to start running.

In Black Morras, Snake trap the guys that fear.  Snakes can be feared.  Also, they will aggro the spawned mobs, slowing them down and DOTing them. 

In Shattered Halls, snake trap the adds.  After the add is dead they will attack the boss, and crippling poison slows his movement when he runs around hitting people. 

In Botanica, the second to last boss Laj (the plant with two adds summoned every few seconds).  Snake trap the adds and the snakes will aggro the summon before it can start shooting anyone else, then the snakes will DOT up Laj before dying.  On the last boss, a snake trap popped by the tree adds will move to the boss without you having to re-locate to drop it. 

Think about these applications.  If you can think of other applications let me know.  (keep in mind that I have only been past Curator once, so I can’t speak about those bosses.) 

What a bunch of obligatory crap and the worst PUG EVER

I just got back from an hour and a half lunch.  My lunches are normally about 12 minutes long.  I drive 2 blocks to Wendy’s drive thru, eat my fries on the way back, eat my spicy chicken sandwich wile reading Wowinsider at my desk, then back to work.  Today’s long lunch was because there was a baby shower pot luck for a co-worker. 

Now, I am the FIRST person to rush to a pot luck.  I love them.  I make something fun, and easy to eat, and not intimidating looking, and not too spicy, and that does not require assembly, and that maintains a good flavor as it cools and dries sitting on the table while people file thru line.

I JUMP on the chance to go to a potluck, but that is not the issue I was confronted with today.

This is the third baby shower this year.  Every time that card comes around the office letting everyone know when it is, and where they are registered.  Every time that means a $20 gift.  That makes $60 this year alone.  The fact that I am buying presents is not a concern.  What grinds me is that we have decided not to have kids.  We are not dead set against it, and would not jump off a bridge if my wife got pregnant, but we are using protection. 

Here is what is bugging me.  Any other gift exchange you do because you know that some day you will be in that position and everyone will buy you things.  With this particular exchange, we are sure that we will never be receiving anything in return. 

I will continue to buy gifts because I love going to the pot luck, but I am taking a moral stand.  If there is no pot luck involved, then I’m no getting them a gift….well…maybe a card.

But I digress. 

Last night I saw a “LFM DPS Arcatraz Rep and key run”  and decided to join in.  There was a druid tank and druid healer that were guilded and Kara geared.  They used to run Kara with us, so I know them both.  They are good players.  There was a lock that was in good AH gear, and a rouge that was heroic geared, and me in kara gear.  We should have no problem at all right?  WRONG!  The lock is the GM of his guild.  A /who revealed that he was the only person from his guild.  Normally, that would never be an issue, but apparently he was used to getting his way, and decided to be the puller.

Two things stood out in my mind.  1) He started out the instance with a voidwalker not an imp. 2) he said “I don’t care if you need the key or not, I only need one piece of gear from the last boss.”

On the very first pull he pulled the mobs before they engaged in combat with the other mob, so we were stuck fighting the blood elves AND the creature.  We wiped.

On the next pull I said wait for the pat, there are three of them, get the one with all the little guys.  Get ready to AOE.  He pulled that pack, but did so when they were right on top of another pack.  Wipe again.  We managed to get a lot of them down.

Now, there were 2 guys non-elites from the first group, only the elite from the second group, and a third group that had one elite and some non-elites that we had not touched.  I said “we should get the tiny group first, then the elite.”  He proceeded to pull the elite when it was near the other elite, so we got all 8 or so mobs at once.  Craptastic!  Wipe.

That makes three wipes in 4 pulls.

I say “hey, would you mind if I pull?  I am a very experienced puller.  I pull Kara, and pulled all the way back to MC.”  The two druids thank me, one sends a tell saying “thank God, this is getting expensive.”

I make a few little pulls and we do good.  We get to that room where the boss is.  There is 8 or so large solo mobs in the room with overlapping pats.  I tell everyone that we are fighting in this hallway until further notice, and that the tank needs to turn the mob around.  Ok.  I pull, mob dies.  I pull mob dies.  I stand there for a second because the mobs were all clumped up.  The lock runs forward to the doorway.  All of a sudden 3 mobs come charging in.  The tank asked what happened after we all die.  I said “I’m not sure who cast it, but the mob that came first had corruption on it. I’m not pointing any fingers here, but this trip is getting expensive.”  No apology from the lock.

We get the last three mobs down one at a time and then start the boss.  For some reason the boss loved on me with 4 seeds of corruption in a row, so I go down.  The lock pulls aggro and dies.  Wipe.

We ran back and tried again.  This time I manage to stay alive and we down the boss. 

We get to the succubus looking girl boss.  We explain that if you get the debuff that you should not heal, because she gets those heals too.  The lock proceeds to lifesteal and heal the boss, then bandage for even more boss healing.  Despite that we overpower her and take her down.

We get to the two fire rock guys right before the last boss.  I explain (from wowwiki) that these guys cast a meteorite.  It deals 10K damage spread evenly across everyone it hits.  That means stand in a pile.  If we all stand spread out we will each take a 10K kit and die one at a time.  If we all stand grouped up it hits all of us and we each take 2K.  The lock runs out of the group.  The meteorite hits him and one shots him.  He is PISSED.  I told him that I told him to stand with the group for a reason.  If he had been in the group he would have only taken a 2K hit.  He is still pissed.  The next mob he fears and it brings back help.  We wipe.  When the tank asked why he feared he said “well you were low on health, and I thought that another mob would make up for me dying from that fireball thing.”

ASSHAT. He wiped us because he did not follow instructions and died for it.

Just as we started the last boss the leader flipped it to Master loot.  By some act of God we one shotted the last boss (or chain of bosses however you look at it).  The last boss dropped two things.  Junk, and the piece that the Lock was looking for.  The lock cheered.  The Master looter (healer) DE’ed the junk and we all rolled for shard.  I won the shard.  Then the ML said “ok, roll for other shard”.  The lock said “NO I NEED THAT”. 

The healer said “well, I was going to just give it to you, but then I remembered that we all have to pay a repair cost because you intentionally wiped us.  Everyone else roll for shard.”  She looted and sharded the blue he wanted.  He dropped group and hearthed.  Then she looted the gold off the body and handed out the shard. 

Not every time, but sometimes there is some justice. 

The druids and I caught up on old times and then went and ran dailies together.  I tell you what, running the Netherwing mine with a tank and healer makes it instant money. 

Loose change, or screw loose.

After a conversation with a co-worker I did something last night that I vowed never to do.  I watched the entire video “Loose Change” AND the second part. 

If you are not familiar, Loose Change is a video some kid put together where he attempts to prove that the 9/11 attack was a government conspiracy, and that the twin towers were demolished by bombs planted like a planned building demolition, AND that the Pentagon was hit by a Cruise missile.

I’m pretty sure that while watching it I could actually HEAR my IQ going down.

He does present some questions that don’t have good answers.  He does point out some things that seem strange.  He does point out that there are many sources within the government that have evidence that could disprove his theory, and contends that they will not show that evidence because he is right.

I have an opposing theory.  Here are some observations.

1) The person that wrote this is a pisant.  He is un-important and un-powerful.  The government has not responded to the gauntlet he threw because he is not important.

2) One of the biggest arguments he threw as to why the pentagon was hit by a missile was that there was only one hole, and that there was not holes where the motors hit.  No one has ever seen what happens when a plane hits the side of a hardened concrete building that is made to withstand an attack like that.  There is no way to predict how something will react in a system that complex, other than test it.

3) He demonstrated that the rate at which the debris fell in the twin tower collapse was consistent with the laws of physics, in that they accelerated at the rate of gravity.  He said that a building collapsing would not fall that fast because the building crumbling would slow it down.  That is a fact.  He then showed a video of the tower collapsing.  You watch the debris that exploded from the top of the tower falling toward the ground, then he stops the clock when that debris hits the ground.  He does not mention that HALF OF THE BUILDINGIS STILL IN THE AIR.  He said that the building would slow the fall of the top layers, and it DID.  He successfully demonstrated that his only theory is wrong.

4) My initial response has not changed during the watching of this video.  The simplest proof that he is wrong is this.  IF the government would conspire to kill THOUSANDS of its own citizens to accomplish some mythical goal, what would stop a black van from pulling up in front of this kids house, and him never being seen again.  He would die within HOURS of the time this video hit the net. 

5) Although point #4 is strong enough to nail the last nail in the coffin his theory is in, I have an even stronger one.  Secret.  IF this were a conspiracy, think of who would have to be involved.  I’ll try and name as many as I can think of.

a) The president. 

b) The pilot that shot the missile at the Pentagon.

c) The entire flight crew and munitions person that loaded the missile on the plane, then deleted it from the bases inventory afterward.

d) The FAA person that gave that pilot permission to enter the restricted airspace around the Pentagon.

e) That FAA person’s supervisor that signed off on that permission.

f) The FAA person that granted permission for that plane to stay in the air after the FAA grounded all planes.

g) The HUNDREDS of people that maintain the Twin Towers, that turned a blind eye to the THOUSANDS of pounds of bombs that would have had to be spread around in areas that only maintenance people have access to.

h) The dozens of people it would have taken to plant all those explosives on HUNDREDS of floors of the three buildings.

 The last president had sex with an intern and everyone found out about that.  TWO people under the spotlight of government office could not keep what they did behind closed doors secret.  How could it be possible that literally THOUSANDS of people in positions of power in many different military and government positions could not only plan this, but pull it off, AND keep it a secret after doing so?  One Olympic athlete uses steroids and is so racked with guilt that they confess.  This guy wants me to believe that THOUSANDS of people could conspire, plan, and execute an attack on a civilian target, and kill thousands of their countrymen, and not a single person is so racked with guilt that they blab it to Barbra Walters? 

Not a chance.

So, all in all, I give these videos a 2/10.  They get one point for making a really long movie with decent quality on home equipment.  And they get one point for the good sound quality and good music collaboration with the segments.  They get 0/3 for content, 0/3 for accuracy, and 0/2 for fucking common sense.

Of happyness and sadness

This next patch unveils the Sunwell.  A place I will likely never see the inside of because we struggle to get thru Curator in Kara, so I can not really say I’m that excited.  The patch notes did unveil two little tidbits that I would like to share.

1) Warlocks can now summon people inside an instance as long as they meet the level requirements.  That means if we are deep in kara and someone runs out of a consumable they can hearth, buy more, and be summoned back without a 15 min run back to the meeting stone, or them flying back and running into the instance to be summoned up to the group.

I am GIDDY about this change.

2) Those damn dirty birds in Skettis now know how to fly straight up.  For those of you in the know, before this patch unveils, if you fly straight up (even on a non-epic mount) the bird gets confused and can’t follow you as fast as you can move.  You can loose them without taking damage.  Now, you will have to avoid them or fight them, because dodging them just became impossible. 

However, knowing blizzards definition of “fixed”, the birds will now be able to fly straight up, but will evade if you move 5 feet forward, rendering them useless again. 

PVP

In the world of 12 step programs, the first step is always denial.  I have moved past that first step and can finally admit, I am a PVP noob. 

I don’t think I have any resilience.  I have very low stamina and armor.  I don’t know any tricks.  I can’t tell the difference between two different kinds of warriors or rouges.  I only noticed the difference between shammies when I fighting two at the same time and realizing that one would charge, and the other would stand back with green hands.  I then learned to shoot the one with green hands.

I have been leveling my gorilla by fighting the ogres in Nagrand.  I do this because not only do I walk away with bags full of cloth and greens, I also get rep toward my Talbuk mount.  After filling an entire 18 slot bag with nothing but cloth, and another bag with greens and greys I decided that was enough grinding.  I had done 9 dailys and did not want to do another.  I didn’t feel like questing.  No one from the guild needed help…out of the three online.  Because there were only three online, there was no chance on a guild run.  What is left…..Farming?  no, I had enough of that.  I wanted to kill stuff. 

PVP!!!!

I headed down to the battlemasters…what a gift, the daily was AV.  I remember standing in queue outside AV for hours on end before the battlemasters.  I liked AV for the grand scale of it, and for the fact that alliance stood a chance.  I have only played PVP a couple times since hitting 70, and that was on a guild pre-made, so I was running in a pack, a thing hunters do best. 

I load into AV…Crap, the match is almost over.  Game over before I even see one horde. I load into the next one, sweet, new round.  Sweeter, a lock did a soulwell, and a mage made us food.  Sweetest, the pally that is encouraging offensive speed is in my group, so I get mounted speed buff.  Off we go.  Tower by tower we mowed to the end.  The graveyard (and this is where my noobness shows, I don’t know the names of anything) just outside their base at the bottom of the hill is where I hit my first PVP. There was about 10 horde defending there, against the 18 or so alliance, and they had no healers.  We decimated them.  We decimated them again when they respawned.  We decimated them again on our way up to their last graveyard.  We decimated them again as we capped their last graveyard.  We ran all in.  We had a pally tank that was experienced, and two good healers on him, so we ran all in and focus fired the boss down in no time. 

The horde never made it across the bridge. 

Then I realized looking at the stats, I had 11 killing blows, 40+ HK’s.  Not bad.  Then I noticed something, I never died.  I NEVER DIED.  It took a minute of replaying it in my head to realize, we were traveling as a pack, healers in the back were well protected.  Tanks in the lead to take a beating.  Hunters and mages to decimate them while protecting the healers with freezing traps and frost novas.  I was only the focus of DPS a few times, and it was a warrior.  /kite!  That is when I learned that kiting with the help of a frost mage is really like the big bad wolf fight.  I just run, and he gets decimated. 

Fully inflated with hot air from the complete steamroll that we just served to the Horde, I decided to try a round of WSG.  That was not as good of an idea as it seemed at the time. 

My team apparently did not get the memo that the “reinforcements” change to AV ONLY applied to AV.  They decided that everyone on Defense was the best idea.  It was not.  I was able to pick up the flag NINE times, but never make it across the flats in the middle without a large amount of involuntary penetration of my internal organs.  I swear, they had 36 rouges lined up 4 deep across the entire width of the middle.  I tried running in the middle and got ganked by 4 people while my team sat there drinking.  It was like they came out on a sunny afternoon to watch a good Lumpbashing exhibition.  I tried running to the left and had two rouges jump me.  Despite popping Beastial Wrath, ice trapping one, and intimidating stunning the other, I was diced up like julienne French fries.

I finally gave up and decided that if I can’t beat them, I might as well get some HK’s out of it.  After a 1 hour 30 minute WSG they finally won 3-0.  I ended up in the top 3 for damage.  Not bad for an improperly specced, improperly geared, and inexperienced PVP’er.

I may have to do that again, because I heard a rumor that there is some place that you can buy stuff using honor points…..

(ok, I really did know about PVP gear, but have never once purchased anything other than Ice Threaded bullets from the AV vendor because Thorium was too expensive.)