Yes. Hell yes. I’ll be in line! Who’s with me?

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Yeah, it is a lame filler technique. Tune in next week, where I’ll invent a race of vampires and fill SIX GODDAMN MONTHS with pointless wankery whining.

Anyhow.

Emmie. The new dog I’m sure I’ve mentioned before.

Oz. The foundling Cat.

Both of them. The dog is overjoyed at this new squeeky toy.

One of these days Kristi will get a camera that is better than my crappy old 2 megapixel Exilim. Of course my new phone is probably better than that.

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Well, a new Router that is. I’ve been using a Linksys WRTP54G combo Router/Switch/Wireless AP/VOIP device, and it isn’t all that it is cracked up to be. Of course it is a four-five (I don’t remember exactly) year old piece of plastic networking hardware. Though I admit if I had read the Amazon reviews, I probably wouldn’t have bought it, rebate or no rebate. I have a few problems with the router right now, and not all of them are new.

First off, the antenna sucks. It never had range for crap before, and with it on an upper floor in the house, the vertical gain is absolutely worthless. Even back in the one story house on Sylvan it wouldn’t completely cover a relatively (Golden) rectangular 1200 sq foot house. In the new two-story I share with Kristi it is even worse. I’m considering moving the modem and router downstairs to compensate, but that would require me to disconnect the file server. That’s a non-starter. I mean the pitifully small drive I have in it right now is almost full, but it is still where my BSG and Top Gear hang out and networked access to that is pretty cool. 210 picked up some of the Linksys High-Gain antennas, but my cats kept knocking them down so they were retired.

Secondly, the thing runs seriously hot. I had my modem and router stacked on my desk upstairs and my modem kept shutting off. Kristi went upstairs and put an empty Altoids tin between the modem and router and no more problems. It is bad when plastic is warm to the touch, it isn’t supposed to act as a radiator.

Now it is only sending parts of webpages in addition to dropping connection from time to time. I’m used to having to disconnect and reconnect the wireless once/twice daily, but this is happening with ridiculous frequency.

Therefore I need to replace this pile of crap. I have a few candidates. There’s the sexy N1 Vision from Belkin, but the damn thing is living upstairs. Who cares if my router looks good if nobody is around to see it? Then there is the Netgear RangeMax WNR3500. Martin likes Netgear (I think) but there is one guy who got a bad one on Amazon. Maybe I should get the extended warranty? Finally there is the Linksys WRT310N. I’m having bad experiences with a Linksys as we speak though, and as with the Netgear I don’t see any antennas.

There is a fourth horse in the race though. I have a mini-ITX box I bought from State Surplus a few years back that I haven’t done anything with. It has two PCI slots and I could just as easily install a PCI/PCMCIA converter (or Wireless N card) and a 4 port NIC and put IPCop or something on there and emancipate myself from big-box dealers. I’m not the biggest Linux fan though. I want something to work out of the box, rather than spending my entire day building Ruby so I can use the volume knob.

They all have ups and downs. I’m in favor of the Belkin for its external antenna, but I like the Netgear as well. Then there is a part of me that wants to run the homebuilt for much geek cred. Who knows. Over the next few weeks I’ll have to make a decision though, because I’m pretty sure that MSA doesn’t want me playing WoW at work.

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I’m still in love with Warcrafter. Its Gear Score functions as a good barometer for how “Well” I am doing in WoW. Its built-in talent calculator (and blinding speed) make it more than a replacement for the standard World of Warcraft Armory. It appears there is a new kid on the block. And said new kid is called “Be Imba”. For those who don’t follow the shorthand, the webpage provides advice on exactly how to make your character become imbalanced. Which is good. Not mentally imbalanced. You are already crunching the numbers on Warcraft, it is a foregone conclusion that you are imbalanced.

The only issue is to manage throughput/bandwidth the site is throttled. Usually you have to wait through a short queue to get your report. This puts out a little tip sheet with stuff you have that is unenchanted or misenchanted and where you need to go for gear upgrades. There are a few flaws here.

First, it says that my cloak is not enchanted. Yes, it isn’t. But there really aren’t that many good enchants for cloaks used by casters/healers and I’m not popping for subtlety (-2% threat) or Major resistance (+7 all Resistances) for a damn blue quest reward that somewhat sucks. It is true that I need to enchant my cloak though, so fair enough. Secondly it identifies my Helm and Shoulders as mis-enchated. It says I need a Glyph of Renewal for my hat (duh) and the healing enchant for my shoulders rather than the spelldamage one. The first can be explained away as “I don’t have the rep for the Glyph.” Because I don’t. I might make it this weekend’s mission to get that rep and replace that enchant, but while I don’t have the requirements to purchase the Glyph, maybe the site shouldn’t recommend it. In all fairness, it is probably hard to pull rep from the armory. Warcrafter doesn’t do it, so maybe the API is all weird. The shoulder thing is a fair catch and actually really helpful. I had no idea that the +33 healing also had +10 spelldamage, because the inscription doesn’t actually mention it. So thanks Be Imba, that actually helped.

Now, the parts that are helpful. I see all of my equipment at a glance, this is good. I see what stuff I have that is very outdated. This is also good. It gives me a more targeted gear shopping list. Right now it says I need to replace my Libram (already working on it), my breastplate (priority one), my cloak (also on the list), and my Vengeance of the Illidari (not going to happen for a while). It also gives me a little graphic that tells me where my best upgrades drop and where my character can best compete. It says I’m good for most of heroics and half of Kara, and that my best upgrades drop in those two tracks. So I’m pretty much right about everything. Save my badges for a Good Libram and a Good Cloak, rep up with HH for a Glyph, get a new breastplate, and then check again. All in all, a pretty cool tool.

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Here is an “alpha” of the Chrono Trigger rehash Chrono Resurrection. Now I wasn’t head-over-heels for CT back in the day, largely because my parents never got me a SNES and I was too lazy to work hard and get my own. This video is interesting though, and aside from showing a large amount of menu stuff, it does get to stuff with a VERY high degree of polish. Especially for a fan. But alas, Squenix’s Lawyers of Doom put a stop to this. WTB Doujin protections.

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Well, more of “should I get these wonderful toys?” I’ve been playing with a Nerf Maverick for a while, and I enjoy it. It looks cool, it fires well (less well now, but I keep dropping it) and it is a pile of fun. I want one of the sniper rifles, the longshot. But I haven’t gotten one, being poor/not wanting to spend money on things I don’t need. However, it looks like Nerf has finally raised the bar too high to resist. Sometime this fall, we are being treated to the Vulcan EBF-25. A fully-automatic, Belt fed, 25 shot, battery powered machine gun with a tripod. And all that for $40. Hells yeah.

The interesting thing I see is that they are now actually mentioning the rail system on the gun. If you look at the top of the barrel, you see something that looks a bit like a Weaver Rail. I’m a bit upset they didn’t use standard Weaver, but what are you going to do? I don’t think they want to appeal so directly to Airsoft Hobbyists (or their younger counterparts). Though I’ve seen a large amount of Airsoft stuff recently. My survivalist catalogs have been taken over by fancy, realistic toy guns. As an aside, I get survivalist catalogs because my little brother ordered some hats from a container auction company. Not because of any weirdness on my part. That and the flea market is positively brimming with them. Has airsoft eclipsed paintball? I don’t know, I don’t follow either. Anyhow. The rails are common to the rest of the Nerf weapons, it would be cool to see a line of accessories that fit on them: Lasers, scopes, grenade launchers, etc.

Anyhow. Nerf SAW? I say again, Hell yeah!

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So yeah, I’ve finally gotten my Bracers. I’ve also managed to get them gemmed and enchanted, though I got some static for not tipping for the enchant. Come on people, you get the Superior Healing recipe for six gold and friendly with Honor Hold. Friendly! Six gold! What the hell, man?! I’m providing the materials! I’ll tip for crazy exalted recipes, but not for piddly crap. End result? I’ll just get enchants through the guild. To hell with the free market.

Also, my Gear Score on Warcrafter is now a robust 860. This claims the bronze for paladins in Serenity. So far Lylah and Pheonos are both above me, but should I manage the Breastplate I’ve got my eyes on, then I overtake Pheonos. Sadly, I won’t be beating Lylah without hitting Kara.

Where to start with patch 2.4…? First, there is the little buff that Holy Shock is getting. A little boost called thirty percent more damage and healing. Hells yeah, I have to say! It will shock for almost 1000 at the top end and heal for almost as much as a Flash of Light! Sure, the mana cost is going up, but honestly who wasn’t expecting that? Also, Primal Nethers and Nether Vortexes are both going to stop binding on pickup. I love this idea. Yes, the price will certainly be driven down, so crafters are screwed a little. But it spreads the wealth over all players, not just the crafters. And in addition to the MC mats in the Serenity guild bank, now we can get some Nethers.

Hearts of Darkness aren’t BoP. Neither were Fiery Cores or Frozen Runes. I have no idea why Nethers weren’t BoE before except for the “phased exclusive” model that keeps high end stuff out of the hands of casuals for a while. This is eventually removed after the Hardcore have had their day. Like the removal of attunements or the Pop-a-lock action on the Gates of AQ. This keeps Vis Maior and Nihilum from clearing new content the day it is implemented.

The only thing the change to Nethers will do is allow people to get access to the better caliber of level 70 gear (Blessed Bracers, Belt of Blasting, etc). That gear already has a sell by date on it. Really, in this “last hurrah before Wrath” patch they are handing out a path to T5 gear so people who haven’t cleared Kara have a chance at seeing the dungeons that will be in the heap with BWL and MC in six to eight months. In pre-BC WoW I ran everything except Naxx, BWL and AQ. I saw MC and killed Rag, I saw ZG and killed Hakkar. I killed Onyxia. Really, I saw MOST of the game. I can’t say that about BC. The gear curve is far too rocky for me to go into Mt. Hyjal even to see the bosses. If I’m not Tier 6 geared I’ll accomplish nothing but guaranteeing a wipe. With this change to Primal Nethers I get my hands on good Kara starter gear and good SSC starter gear (Nethers and Vortexes respectively). I’ll be a trifle more prepared for some stuff before Wrath hits and makes all of that worthless with quest greens.

On the other hand, it does cheapen crafting. The only thing that Engineers make with a Nether that isn’t BoP is the Gyro-Balanced Khorium Destroyer. I haven’t made one (not being able to use guns, it is a cash cow only), and I can say that watching a 1000 Gold gun become a 100 Gold gun is kind of sad. There could be a balance struck, though. Personally, I’d think that making Vortexes a 25 badge item wouldn’t be too far. We already have a way to get Nethers with Badges, and I thought that was a way to help out crafters that roll low. As it stands, the Badges-for-Nethers purchase is becoming a Badges-for-a-Pile-of-Gold thing.

I’m more cheesed off that the Engineering Goggles are trash drops from SP and thusly something that won’t even be sold on my server. With two Ally guilds and one Horde cleared on MH I don’t think I’ll see the Hardened Khorium or Justicebringer 3000 schematics on the AH for quite some time. I bet they’ll go the way of pre-BC enchants though and become rep rewards in Wrath. Of course they could go the way of the Force Reactive Disk and never show up again for any price.

On the other hand, I’ve got a healthy wishlist for Magister’s Terrace (the five-man dungeon that will be right up my ally). They are as follows:

• Vial of the Sunwell - This thing is shit-hot. I haven’t even gotten the Warp Scarab Broach that it would be replacing (or perhaps joining?). But hell, 15 mp5 on a trinket is not to be sneezed at. But an extra instant 2000hp heal every 2 minutes? Sign me up!
• Timbal’s Focusing Crystal - This is less hot, but still awesome. I’m honestly impressed with the 44 Spellpower, but the extra ticks for Consecrate and Seal of Vengeance are quite nice. I would just have a hard time stealing it from a mage or warlock. All in all, it would be nice to have but is more of a Tankadin trinket if it has to go to a paladin.
• Sun-Touched Satchel - Daddy needs 20-slot bags. I hear rumor of additional bag types in 2.4 as well. One for Vanity Pets (Hello bank bag) and one for Soulbound Equipment (At least three in the bank and one on me). So trash bags need to be bigger. I’m hoping for upgrades to all of my bags to 20+ slots.
• Cloak of Swift Mending - Nice. Very nice. I like the new focus on Spell Haste with the ability to lower the GCD to 1 second. That’ll make my mending quite swift.
• Greaves of the Penitent Knight - Sweet boots. If it is easier to run Heroic Magister’s Terrace than Heroic Old Hillsbrad then these might be the boots for me.
• Breastplate of Fierce Survival - If my Many Graces chest isn’t in the mood to drop then this would be an upgrade. I still want Many Graces though for great costuming.

And that’s just drops. There is some badge gear that wouldn’t be too shabby:

• Greaves of Pacification - Nice legs. I like sockets, what can I say? I’m not in love with the look, but with stats like that, who cares?
• Ecclesiastical Cuirass - Horrible name, nice gear.
• Gavel of Naaru Blessings - HUGE boost to healing. Sadly it is 150 badges, which makes it almost completely out of my reach. That’s what? Forty runs through Heroic Mech? Ten Kara clears? Insane amount of badges, especially with the stuff I already want.

So that’s the temporary rundown of stuff I’m waiting for with the Last Big Update Before Wrath. Though there may still be another one. I’m hoping for Naxx to do another move/invasion. I’m still ticked I missed that last time.

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This video tries to blame the “accident” in question on a woman (hence “Mujeres”) but I think you could blame it more on not having those tracks on the shop floor that stop you from… well, doing just that. I’d love to see the rest of the video, the part where the car’s owner jumps into the repair bay and starts shouting at people. That would be fairly funny.

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Well, not twenty. More like ten. And I never knew Sgt. Pepper. Let me start again. Today is the tenth anniversary of the day Kristi and I started dating. I know, a long time. Almost a third of my life, to be honest. Highschool sweethearts and all that. It is all achingly soppy. We celebrated the day in the usual way… we both went to work then we got together later and went out to dinner. We hit a local sushi/tapas place called SakiTumi. Before I showed up there, I didn’t know what tapas were. Now I do, they are delicious tiny foods. Also expensive tiny foods, but you are mainly paying for ambiance. Now if they hadn’t had Mortal Kombat on every TV in the place I would have felt a little better about the atmosphere. That and the “DDR’s Greatest Hits” on the radio, that was kind of odd. All in all though, a great place to eat. The food was exquisite, and I don’t say that too often. The complementary cooking of the peppers, onions, zucchini, and squash was incredible. It really demonstrated care and expertise on the part of the chef, because it would be way too easy to make any one of those components under- or overcooked, but they were all damn near perfect. And the couscous was quite nice as well. Not to mention the chicken and beef. The meat was GREAT, as was the sauce that accompanied it. Seriously, if you want to spend $60 on tiny food, you could do a lot worse.

Also, I really love that girl.

A good time was had by all. Good food, good gifts, good company. Good day really. I wish she and I had taken the day off, but you can’t have everything, right?

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Whew, only three quick snapshottings of Bleach episodes and I’m home free. I’ll like only having to dash off a few tens of words a day instead of three weeks of posts in a morning. It’ll leave more time for video games.

Speaking of video games. I’ve finally got a copy of Disgaea 2 of my very own. Jason took his when he moved out (How DARE he!!) and my poor super-save has been languishing ever since. I want to start a Proper Game of Disgaea and that means much more grinding. I want to get all of my specialists unlocked in all of my equipment, and only create new characters at Genius level. It is an almost impossibly lofty goal, and one I might drop, but I still want to give it the old college try. At least the specialist thing. I’m not sure about farming the special levels to get items with matching rarities, though that is tempting. I’d love to have Zero level stuff. It would make me happy.

Kristi also bought me a copy of Okami for my gaming pleasure and I haven’t gotten a chance to crack it open yet. See, TV’s second string is starting up and the DVR is filling at an alarming rate. I’m not sure if the ability to record anything I want is helpful to the TV watching process or harmful, but that is a post for another time. Maybe even tomorrow. I’ve been stoked about Okami for a while now, and people I like happen to like it. Heck, one of the artists whose webpage I follow has an Okami tattoo. And I’ve been meaning to get my hands on a good action platformer so here we go, right?

Of course I still haven’t beaten Odin Sphere (a game colonized by my girl), Fatal Frame 3 (a game with a hugely hard difficulty curve), or Final Fantasy 12 (a game with a little too much grinding) so I can’t say my plate is exactly empty. And one of these days I need to start a new playthough of Vagrant Story. I’d love a Holy Win to go along with my 100%+ completion.

I’ve been watching more TV as well:

Sarah Conner Chronicles is pretty cool. I enjoy the Taminator, and the rest of the cast is growing on me. Zach from Heroes isn’t as annoying a John Conner as I would have expected, and they are giving Sarah enough badass moments to balance out her weepy scenes. It is already longer running than Drive (a deeply flawed show with pacing issues wrapped around a great concept) and I have the confidence that it might get picked back up. It isn’t as sweet as Burn Notice, but what is right?

Oh, and the writer’s strike is over so more Heroes next fall. Whoo hoo! More Heroes! Also, Jericho starts this week. I’m beside myself. Whoever missed the lag time (of a year or something) needed to catch up, sorry. You should warm up your bittorrents. It is a good show, honestly. And Torchwood is good fun. It is British, so ladies can kiss ladies and it is cool. Well, cooler than usual and we are talking TV style Lipstick on Lipstick action, no ladies in buzzcuts with flannel action. And the sci-fi is fun, aliens and time travel and all that. Still I’m waiting for Battlestar with baited breath. I missed the lag time on BSG sadly, and cannot get my girl caught up in time. We’ll have to work on it though, I think I could convert her given time. She’s a 24 fan, so serious shows are good stuff.

I’m down to 19% bodyfat, but also 166 pounds. So we are almost at the low target weight. I figure I can lose until I’m low then gain back up in muscle. That sounds normal, right? I’ve been successful at not skipping any working out for all of Feb so far (except Thursdays for Kendo) and the last week of January. It isn’t that long of a time-frame, but still every little bit helps.

I need to get my car looked at. I know I’ll need to replace my Timing belt and both CV axles (wince) but that is what tax returns are for, right? I’ve got a mechanic I trust, I just need to limp this thing along until the first week of March when Kristi will be off and able to drive me around. I’ve got Flogging Molly tickets for that Wednesday, so she’ll have to drive to Charlotte. However in the pursuit of FM fandom all is fair. They are releasing a new CD the day before (3/4) so I’ll be picking that up there. No reason to pay the RIAA when I can hand my cash directly to their bassist at the merch table. It always impresses me when people aren’t too big to get behind the counter and hock t-shirts. Of course the Mollies are awesome to their starting bands as well. They got on stage with a few of them last time we saw FM live and really rocked the house. Dragonforce was a good show, but they were rockstars to the core. Down to the “Culling a few nubile blonds from the crowd and hustling them into the tour bus before the show” thing. They didn’t grab my nubile blond though, so that’s OK.

I ran Mechanar yesterday and have to say it sure is a quick dungeon. I mean barely an hour and we fully cleared it with a healer and tank that had never seen the inside of the instance. I think that if I ran it again (for Badges, lets say) then I could probably get that time down further. Though I’d be running Heroic Mech so it might take two hours or so. The tank really needed to calm down though, you could tell he hadn’t run many instances as main tank and was trying to hard to give a good first impression. He was a paladin and he put Blessing of Salvation on everybody including me. Which put Salvation on himself. So until we knocked out the first two mini-bosses he had -30% threat on himself and wasn’t holding aggro very well. Then the two DPS druids wouldn’t leave cat. Even when they found themselves “off tanking” some of the incidental four-pulls. So healing was very difficult. I let the same guy die three or four times, and feel really crappy about it. I only ran out of mana once, and it didn’t even cause any problems so that wasn’t too bad. In retrospect, I think some Blackened Sporefish and a Major Mageblood pot would be a good idea. I have a problem Elixir-ing up if I don’t trust the group. Money is tight and all that.

The best part is the ending. We down Pathaleon the Calculator like he wasn’t no thing. I mean just steamrollered over him. He drops the Mana Wrath: one of the best entry level tanking paladin swords in the game. It drops 12% of the time and it is the butter zone for Paladin threat generation. I end up getting it. Sure it is a great spelldamage sword, but the tank was rocking the Crystalline Kopesh. The guild thinks that maybe he was using it for mitigation. Maybe, but still. At least grab the Wrath for the threat boost after you get mitigation geared. Ugh.

So I have finished my Arcatraz key, just in time for new goals.

And here they are.

1. Justicebringer 3000 Specs: I need two Hardened Khorium (One Hardened adamantite and three khorium each) and four Primal Nethers.
2. Sunblessed Gauntlets: If I can’t get the gauntlets from Heroic Ramparts, then these are even better. And BoE so AH here we come.
3. New Daily Quests: Rep up with Shattered Sun Offensive. Here’s hoping that they aren’t a limited time faction and we get to spend as much time as we need to get exalted. The tabard looks swanky and the rep rewards are quite Relevant to my Interests. Plus the quests are new so not as boring.

Go check out MMO-Champion’s 2.4 Omnibus post. There is something for everybody. I’m sure the tankadins among us will creme themselves over the new heroic goodness, then they have no soul.

Also, I was right, the blood elves are returning to the light. This is interesting as they did say that the Griftah “progressive storyline patch” thing was going to reappear in the future, but this is huge. I mean HUGE. I really have to finish levelling up Sullivan now so I can see the old Evil Bloodelf Quests before we go all goody two-shoes. But I do want to be there for the switchover. I’m really stoked for this lore change thing. It is really quite incredible. It wasn’t exactly like I predicted (M’uru as a willing captive to “corrupt” the Belves to the side of good) but it does look like the Naaru have managed to create a race of ersatz Demon Hunters by infusing the High Elves with Fel energy. Yes, I do think about this kind stuff. I have no life.

The only problem is the totally sweet upgrade to my Justicebringer specs is a plan that drops off of trash in the new 25-man dungeon. So I’ll need even more cash, as I’m betting that plan won’t come cheap. I wonder how this Gold Buying thing works… oh wait, I’m poor! I guess I get back on the daily grind.

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