For Shatts and Giggles

Sound Bite

2012-02-12T13:17:00.002-05:00

Ok, so I didn't manage to get myself writing another article last weekend. Just very tired after doing three weeks of high school health & safety inspections. I wanted to rest over the weekend and clear my head or it would just turn into a rant session.

I do have one sound bite to share to sum up what I went through. This is from a teacher at one of the schools, "I don't have time to be safe. I haven't been trained to be safe. If they want me to be safe they will have to provide me with more prep time."

Outstanding. If Ronald Reagan were alive I think we need him to come up here and take care of these teachers. Fire the lot of them and hire new ones. Out of the 45 or so teachers I met during that time only 5 or so were in it because they loved it and it showed.

So, last Monday was the start of a new week. My alarm goes off, I am tired, I have a shower and get dressed and go to work. Report writing, playing a bit of catch up etc. Half dozen coffees and a trip to the bathroom. Standing there, fly down, rummaging around looking for the little guy. Then it dawns on me. I have my underwear on backwards. No opening to be found. Panic sets in, must (pause ) drop (pause - work it like Shatner) pants. Made it.

Now you know you're tired, when you mess up getting dressed in the morning.

WOW Stuff

During the three weeks I was away I didn't have much time to play. Leaving at about 6:00am and returning on some days at 10:00pm. I noticed that when I did play it was to do more relaxing stuff. I managed to get all my toons through the Darkmoon Faire stuff. Happily, I have another week to do the "Love is in the Air" stuff.

My pet peeve about that holiday boss is the drop rate on the good stuff. I think it is non-existant. If anyone has received the "Love Rocket" from the holiday boss let me know.

Have a good one.

Yes - I know

2012-01-31T21:03:00.000-05:00

I know, where have I been all month. I have been busy, from spending the last 3 weeks doing a health and safety audit for a school board to finishing up the martial arts program I have been working on for the City of London's Parks and Recreation Department. I am absolutely beat.

So this really isn't going to be my blog. It is really more of a notification that I am still alive. I hope to write a new article this weekend and get back to a more reproducible schedule.

Going to bed now. G'Night

Karma

2011-12-23T11:08:00.001-05:00

Two days till Christmas and I am sitting at the dining room table wondering how I am going to pull it off. I even stared out the window for a bit to see if I could see the brunette in the red bathing suit jumping into my imaginary pool. Nope just dreary wet weather - green this year for sure.

During my pondering I noticed something interesting. We have two cats. We got them to keep our dog company when he was in his twilight years. Also, if we went out and forgot to feed him he could eat one of them. The interesting bit though is that when they sleep, one curls counter clockwise and the other if he wasn't too pudgy and could actually curl, curls clockwise. Like a furry Ying Yang, and not where you were going with it.

This brings me to the karma bit. I believe in karma but does it always have to come around at Christmas? Like really? In the last couple months the Kingdom of Alt37 seemed to be turning it around. The bank called a couple of months ago to tell me that one of our mortgages was paid off, a letter from Dell notifying us that our computer was paid off and on the horizon a payday for the martial arts program I am writing for the parks and recreation department of an Ontario city.

Things are looking up. Then in the last few weeks - the Queen of our kingdom's car needed repairs, our royal ice box needed repair and the people that we agreed were not getting presents this year suddenly made it into the good books. On top of that, the bank calls back and informs me that the mortgage that we paid off was the mortgage that had the property taxes built in.

So I had to contact the city to get set up for automatic withdrawal (I figured I would just continue to put the "mortgage" money in the account). Makes sense right? Wouldn't miss it. Well, the confirmation letter back from the city had a monthy payment greater than the mortgage payment that I just finished paying off. How does that work?

Paid "X" on the mortgage which was to cover Principle, Interest and City Taxes. We'll say $180.

Now on automatic withdrawal property taxes are "Y". We'll say $242.

Scratches Head

When the accounting is done, this month still comes out in the red, /facepalm. I guess I will have to raid the peasants piggy banks. I am allowed, I am the King.

One day - Karma will swing my way.

Merry "Insert politically correct statement for whichever festive occasion you participate in"

Sunday Morning

2011-12-04T12:03:00.001-05:00

It has been a blur since my last posting. I am trying to decide if the old saying, "Times goes fast when your having fun." applies in this situation. There has already been Christmas lights up for the last couple weeks. Why are people trying to rush these things?

For those who know me I changed my status last night to read - "Bake at 400C for 25 minutes or until desired colour is achieved". Well that was off - it should be 400F. If the temperature was 400C then the desired colour I guess would be "black". I just thought it interesting. When one eats pork one hopes that the internal temperature of the meat reaches the "salmonella is dead" temperature rather than a pleasing exterior colour.

For those that read this blog for humorous anecdotes, I have none today. I think it is more due to my "oldtimers", rather than there being nothing funny happening in my life. I guess I just need to carry a pen and paper around to document them. Those of you that follow this blog for a glimmer into my exploits in WOW, your in luck. This posting is going to be for you.

Patch 4.3

IT SUCKS

I am not going to delve into the specifics of different class mechanics, I am going to stick with the big picture stuff.

Void Bank
Transmorgification
Darkmoon Faire
Raid Finder

I am going to lead off with the good, then go to the bad, then the ugly.

Transmorgification

Haven't tried it. So no comment.

Darkmoon Faire

The games were fun however; the one game where you have to shoot the targets. Why do the Tauren players have to stand pretty much on the counter. Be courteous. You can barely see what is going on. Blizzard should have made that booth bigger and had an invisible wall so you can't get too close. Other than that - this is a good.

Void Bank

This is bad - Open it up and it costs 100G to open the account, then it is 25G per item I think to deposit (Wasn't able to actually deposit anything so not sure if there was a discount for multiple deposits). I guess Blizzard wants to match the service charges of the Bank of America, or the Royal Bank of Canada depending on your locale of residency. How about no service charges and they call it the "Void Credit Union".

Oh, so about the depositing. I went to my player's bank when I logged in all a giddy with anticipation of clearing out a pile of stuff that I wanted to keep but was taking up a ton of space. I brought it all to the Void Bank and paid my 100G. Only to be told that I can't deposit anything that is "Unique". Well that is about everything in my bank. Six years of celebratory steins, and other assorted world event trash. I could deposit nothing. So other than tier gear which I don't collect what use it this?

Raid Finder

This gets the designation of ugly. Again I was all excited to log in and queue up for a Lich King. I never did get my Kingslayer. Completed up to the second last boss several times then the raid fell apart. I figured awesome, finally going to get it. What do I see? Only 2 raids available and you need something like an ilvl 370 to get in. Blizzard, if I had an ilvl of 370 don't you think I would be raiding that content with my guild. UGH!

I thought that all the raids would be represented. Eg. If I was a level 70 or higher with a minimum ilvl x, I would be able to queue for Karazhan, or Black Temple etc.

Two raids, what a waste of energy on their part. The only way of pulling this out of ugly is some plastic surgery. I hope in the next few months they open it to all raids.

That's it, going to the faire.

Time

2011-11-02T11:59:00.002-04:00

It's November - Christmas is about 53 days away and the local department stores are setting up their displays. This year seems to be just flying by. My daughter turned 13 and showed me a photo of her kissing her "boyfriend" at the halloween dance a couple days ago. I almost had a stroke. Everything is moving too fast.

Even in WOW, Blizzard announces a new expansion and all you see everywhere is Panderia this and Panderia that. It's like they put up the Christmas decorations and we still have to get through Thanksgiving (US) still and Patch 4.3. I know there had to be the hype element, but seriously - do you think it will be released in July 2012 like the polls at WOW Insider are suggesting. I guess Blizzard needs to make their money before the end of the world - JK.

I am also trying to come to grips with my advanced stages of "oldtimers". Where I think to myself, "What just happened? This would be a great blog article.", only to forget it in a blink of an eye. I guess I will have to start taking some notes on my travels.

So I am going to try and list the things that have happened in the last few weeks that I thought were somewhat interesting to me (in no particular order - Oldtimers).

Halloween

From my Facebook status, "Ok - Halloween night - So what does it mean when the lights get turned out? Oh yeah - the candy is gone. Some kids need to learn some Halloween etiquette."

I turned off the lights and I was still getting the odd group coming to the door for candy. Really? Use your Tim Horton job money and buy your own candy. One "kid" that did come to the door was standing 6'4". At least he came at a reasonable hour and had a full understanding of Halloween etiquette. The knock, the "trick or treat", the passing of candy, the "thank you". Good job - now go out and get one.

Another woman brought her 2 month old to the door. Again, really? Pretty sad.

Martial Arts

A couple of weeks ago I got a pretty good "George Horse" to my left knee. I say "George" because it was way more severe than a standard "Charlie Horse". Almost a full 3 weeks of hobbling around, apparently with the "oldtimers" there is a slowing of the physical healing as well.

My program that I am developing for a city in Ontario is going well. A lot of the drafts are done and I am working on the instructors guide. Working on getting some photos done because there is only so much you can describe without a picture being required for that extra thousand words.

Looking forward to the submission and the people who hired the expert, telling the expert how he should be doing it. Should be interesting.

WOW Stuff

One word, "overwhelmed". Patch 4.3 is coming out and I have barely read any of the patch notes. I am not even sure what is happening in it. Then the expansion announcement comes and really causes a cataclysmic upheaval to my WOW world. The talent changes alone were giving me a headache. Remember, I am the guy with the 37 alts. I rely on cookie cutter. I guess time will tell.

With the "Mists of Panderia" coming, and the new race and class, have you parked any names for your new monk toon? Let me know. I wanted to use "TheyCallMeBruce", but lo an behold I was 3 characters short, so I parked, "CallMeBruce". The original movie - "They Call Me Bruce" was screened in 1982, I think I enjoyed it, what 29 years ago.

Tuesday Musings

2011-10-04T14:29:00.002-04:00

Okay - I woke up this morning with a cold. Runny head, feverish, ringing in my ears,and achy. So I called in sick to work. I realized that I was on the road today and had to get an email off to my assistant so he would know what needed to get done at our customer sites. I logged into my computer only to find a pile of work emails that I had to get done. So, I ended up working from home. I got everything done (or at least stable until I get in tomorrow). Got a new customer in the process. So things are good.

I put in 8 hours already. Kind of glad I was sick, it allowed me to get my office work done and my assistant will still get our road work finished. Needless to say that I would have been a bit stressed had all these emails come into my phone and I wasn't able to do anything about them.

But enough about work. Before I go lay down, all the symptoms are starting to stir again, I wanted to get a quick blog post up. Just to mention a couple of things that I have been involved with in the last week.

Sake Ceremony

Last week we were finally able to acknowledge the granting of Shodan to our Jiu-Jitsu club's newest black belt. His certificate finally arrived in the mail from our governing body. We had our traditional (at least in our club) Sake ceremony. All of the black belts have a drink of Sake in honor of the student - then we fill his bucket (er glass) so he can drink in honor of us. John managed to choke down the 2.5L of Sake we poured into his glass. After this we went to the local watering hole and honored him with some Tequillia and Goldslager. I am sure his head was a little sore in the morning.

Amazon.ca

A while back I ordered a book from Amazon.ca. I picked up a used one of the title I wanted because a new one was going for about $60. The one I ordered was $0.67 + S&H - or about $7.00. It took a while to get here. When the envelop arrived I could see why, it was shipped to me from England. What made me chuckle was when I opened it, I found it to be in really good shape except for the stamp on the inside cover stating it was the property of the "Liverpool Library".

That must be why it took so long for me to get it. Someone had to go to the library and steal it for me.

Playing with it

Well I am sick today as I mentioned earlier. While sitting here working on my office stuff I started to get hungry. I decided to make some Cream of Wheat (love the stuff especially with a splash of Bailies). I followed the directions, added milk to the pot, brought it to a rolling boil, stuck my in cream of wheat, and began to stir it around. For the whole 3 minutes I stirred. Nothing - I couldn't get it to stiffen up. Not satisfied, I had to have a bowl of limp cream of wheat.

I think I will take a nap, feel like I am going to fall over.

Arrrr! Crap

2011-09-20T12:14:00.000-04:00

I am one step closer to having to walk the plank. I was so busy yesterday that I forgot to talk like a pirate. It was Official Talk Like a Pirate Day, and I totally forgot. Not good, I think may have to eat an orange (scurvy protection), and pirate rant to myself to try and make up for it. This is not going to keep me in good standing with the Pirates Licensing Board (PLB).

The reason I was so busy yesterday was that I had an interview with some city representatives (from a city in Ontario) to write a martial arts program for their Parks & Recreation Department. The interview went so well I have a bad feeling they will want me to teach the program as well. It will be a helluva commute but if the money is right it should be fun.

On the martial arts training note. I have noticed in the last couple of weeks that my son has the grace and coordination of an albatross trying to perform ballet. It got me wondering if the mailman had anything to do with his conception. But alas, last night I was working on some of my kicks, ah yeah, no mistaking where he got his poise and grace. I really need to work on that. I guess that is why Jiu-Jitsu appealled to me. Kicks below the waist.

WOW News

Play the Paladin! They know who they are. The rest of you - nevermind.

Going to spruce up my coffee and go outside and enjoy the nice fall day. Yeah, I said it - FALL.

Have a good one.

Going Home

2011-08-21T10:03:00.014-04:00

Well our daughter is home. She had been away at a 2 week General Training Camp at CFB Trenton as part of her Royal Canadian Air Cadet training. Friday evening the family converged on Trenton to watch her graduation parade. I drove up with the boy and my wife drove down from her parents (she was there visiting). We positioned ourselves around the parade square to watch the festivities. We saw many cadets "gingerly" walking around - obviously due to an abundance of blisters from two weeks of "drill" training.

During the march past we caught a glimpse of our daughter (there was over 500 cadets graduating), she looked great (in comparison to some of the other cadets from her squadron). She was tanned and looking fit but obviously a little tired.

The graduation went well, however; darkness soon fell and it was hard to see the ceremonial honor guard demonstration. But the muzzle flashes were awesome. They did their routine to music provided by the RCAC summer band. Excellent job by both groups. The graduation ended about 9:30pm, I said goodbye to my wife and boy. They were driving back home (about 3.5 hours - ETA about 1:00am) because my wife had to work in the morning.

Off to my room, my x-wife's husband was an officer in charge of the senior camps, he got me a room at the on base accomodations called the Yukon Lodge. Yes it's bizarre, but if even a small percentage of family break ups ended like mine did, there wouldn't be as much issue with society these days especially around child issues.

Any way, the plan was to pick up my daughter in the morning. give her the evening to say, "good bye" to new friends, party it up. Within an hour or so of getting back to my room I got a call from my daughter, she was crying, "come get me, I don't want to stay." My first thought was "post traumatic stress syndrome" - PSD. She was only away for 2 weeks! I got dressed and headed down to the camp area. When she saw me she actually ran over and initiated a hug. I am usually the one doing that, especially when I drop her off at school. She explains, "all my friends are leaving tonight, I am the only person that is going to be in my barracks." So off we go, to fill out some papers, have her confiscated items returned (aerosol bug repellant - all of the kids had one thing or another confiscated).

She is free, we walk back to my car and head the 2Km back to my room. She was in heaven, a car ride, it was the 2Km ride she would march 6 times a day back and forth to the mess hall. In the room she grabbed my iphone and updated her Facebook page with 8 pages of new friends (that was 8 school notebook pages of new friends). She had a hot shower without wearing flip flops for fear of athletes foot and she slept in a bed and not a bunk. Maybe if all of the kids that are out there, seamingly content in their entitlement (my daughter has no illusion that she is entitled to anything but it was nice to see the joy she received from just some of the basic services we take for granted) spent 2 weeks at Cadet Camp, the world would be a better place.

OMG - next morning - up at 6:40am, I told her we could sleep in. Nope - she didn't want to miss breakfast. We marched our 80 yards to the mess hall. Ate and then bussed our trays. I was going to put it in the rack about half way up. "No", she said. "Start at the bottom." As we left she saw the halo of light eminating from the mess hall restrooms. I read the sign, "No cadets on summer training permitted to enter." She states, "I am using this restroom, I am no longer on summer training." Ah, my girl - marking her territory.

The trip home - used my iphone to simultaneously have 15 text message comversations, sleeping most of the time while drooling on my phone (she had it on her shoulder since I forgot my headphones) while listening to "HER" music on either my iPhone or the car radio.

Glad she is back. When does school start again?

As an aside, she was very eager to show me her camp report card and to show me the certificate she received stating that her and the rest of her barracks won the - "Most Orderly Barracks" award.

Arrr! I am now a pirate.

2011-08-06T09:53:00.007-04:00

For those of you following my tweets and Facebook status updates the last couple weeks, you may have been confused by a number of my entries referring to pirates. Well you see, since Bear died 2 months ago, I have been very much missing him. I have been looking for just the right tribute to his life. My wife and I have been searching for just the right headstone for our back yard when we inturn him later this month. So I decided to get his portrait tattooed on my left thigh. My theory is that "man's best friend" always sits to your left. So Bear will now, always be at my side.

The reference to pirates extends from my theory that only pirates and sailors should be allowed to have tattoos. As for women, our indigenous people of northern Canada tattoo their chins. So obviously a female getting tattooed secretly wants to be an eskimo, or sailor or pirate. But we know the later isn't a good idea because of the superstition of having a female on a boat. Usually a Kraken comes and swallows it up. At least that is what Disney taught me.

So for the last few weeks I have been studying up for my pirates exam and at the end I got my pirates license a beautiful piece done by Bob Paulin, owner of Studio123 in St. Catharines, ON. I celebrated with Mr. Christie Pirate cookies and rum.

For those of you that said I would cry - it tickled except around the knee when Bob was working over where my common peroneal nerve is available for striking. Those of you that take a real martial art (not MMA) should know were that is. Did I strike a "nerve" with that comment.

WOW Stuff

Speaking of Eskimo women, one of our guildies was lamenting a few months ago that he wanted to make a guild of just paladins. Now I am sure this isn't something new, a group of 12 year olds probably already beat us to the punch. We laughed it off in Mumble (really try this it is good), but the other night we were bored (the guildie that suggested it was on vacation and wasn't there) and decided we were going to start toons on a new realm, from scratch and form a new guild of just Dwarf Paladins. The realm we chose was Shu'Halo (NA) and the guild we created is called, "Seal Cub Clubbers Club". In case you haven't figured out the connection from Eskimo women to WOW it is - Seal Cubs.

Now we are having fun running around as just dwarf paladins, but I am sure we will have to have a talk about other classes as well if we decide to run any of the big boy content when we get to that stage. However; I think we will limit the races to dwarves (so whichever classes are associated with dwarves), from there we may have to extend it to other vertically challenged races (gnomes).

I have never played a dwarf - so I am seeing their content for the first time. You can actually see more of the content. Following behind a Tauren is a bitch - even totally panned out.

Anyway, off to help my daughter pack for her 2 week basic training course in Trenton (she is in Air Cadets). Before she goes, I think we will practise a bit of our baton stuff. Just in case she needs to throw a beating into an unruly male cadet while she is away.

ARRR!

WOW - and not the MMORPG

2011-08-01T20:00:00.003-04:00

It has been a couple of weeks since I last wrote an article, and I did plan to actually write it a couple days ago, however; I had to wait the couple of extra days to allow my eyes to heal. Now before you start sending me emails to find out where you can send flowers, my eye injury is more of a figurative statement than a physical injury.

You see, I went to our local Ribfest on Saturday. Every town tries to have one of these events. They get a park, load it up with tractor trailer sized BBQ'ing units, a band shell (with questionable talent), and some of the worst dressed patrons - then tell the world how wonderful it is in City X - come on down for a great time, with probably less than 2% going to charity. Ours is hosted by a charitable organization, I would love to see the bookkeeping for this event.

The thing is, I am not writing this to complain about the whole charity event thing. I am writing this to discuss the people watching that one can do at these events.

The title of my article - "WOW - and not the MMORPG" speaks volumes towards what my eyes had to go through while at this even. All I wanted was to spend my $20 and get me a box of ribs. Little did I know I would be shelling out big bucks on cornea transplant surgery and counselling in the future.

Here is a summary of what my eyes saw:

The guy with the pink plastic cowboy hat. Now, if he thinks he can rock a pink hat that is fine (he couldn't). But his girlfriend in tow - what was she thinking? She should have warned him that he looked like and idiot.
Picture this. Thigh high leather boots, micro mini skirt, white tank top with ample cleavage bouncing off her knees everytime she took a step. Your eyes burning? Yeah she had to be pushing 65.
Itsy bitsy teenie weenie yellow polka dot bikini - on the very large boned woman with no sarong. Where did her bottoms go?
and finally a general statement - Where was FACS? Some of these teenagers - WOW - Some of them should have their parents arrested for what they were wearing.

There was many other sights worth mentioning. However; my head was swivelling so fast I couldn't take mental notes fast enough. There was a lot of neurological overload.

That is it, just a short one. Having to relive those sights in the recesses of my mind is becoming too much.

Have a good one.

Really? That was Bruschetta... /FACEPALM

2011-07-09T10:39:00.003-04:00

OK here we are Saturday morning, coffee on my handy dandy electric cup warmer, sitting at the computer about to blog the weeks events. The problem is, I can really only remember back as far as Thursday.

So the blog will be condensed from Thursday on. I really should write some of this stuff down during the week. Our company doctor says I don't have Alzheimer's, just age and work stress that is causing me to forget stuff. Enough said about that.

In Thursday's Jiu-Jitsu class we continued the module on knife fighting. Very interesting stuff so far. We had a few more new students join. On Friday I had my first chiropractic appointment since coming out of retirement. It was easier to tell the doctor what wasn't hurting than to go through the list of what was. The chiropractor asks me, " What is the issue getting back into it?" So far I would have to say, "my cardio". Have to work on my cardio. For that I have been trying to do the video work out on our Kanect. It's pretty good except the damn chick that helps me with my cool down. I do the Zen warm down and she keeps telling me I am not doing the technique right. "Like HELL", I scream at the TV. I have been doing this stuff for 33 years.

My daughter had her music leasson Friday evening. She is taking guitar lessons from an outstanding teacher. I gave her a bit of a challenge last night and I think it is paying off. She is practicing as we speak. Anyway, her music teacher plays in a two man band called "Off the Cuff" and if you are in the Niagara Area and you hear of them, catch their show. That is what we did later in the evening yesterday. Most enjoyable.

This leads me into the rant of the week. They were playing at a local bar called, "The Jordan House". Yes I said it, they have to hear it and give their "chef" (I definitely am using that term lightly) a slap. I ordered Bruschetta and it had to be the worst I have had in my entire life. I could probably get better at a restaurant that specializes in Indian Cuisine.

The toppings were not discernable from the meat used at Taco Bell. Did they throw everything into a blender with a gallon of balsamic vinegar, caulking gun it onto a slice of bread and throw it into the oven for 10 minutes? It was truly horrible.

So Jordon House "chef", here is how you make Bruschetta.

Tomatos
Red Onion
Garlic Cloves
Basil - fresh
Sea Salt
Peppercorn
Olive Oil (good quality - not vegetable oil)
Feta (this was the cheese you mentioned in your menu)

Bread (good French or Italian loaf - not the Wonder bread, or hot dog bun you used)

Take a metal bowl and...

dice tomatos
chop onion
smash garlic cloves then chop
chop some of the fresh basil (rough it up so the tasty goodness is seeping out)
sea salt - ground
pepercorn - ground

feta - you can add it now but I would wait

Mix the ingredients in a couple of tablespoons of olive oil to coat

MINI RANT ALERT
Don't go making up 15 pounds of this - make it fresh, your customers will appreciate it.

Slice the bread into elongated discs (for example if you are using a French stick) - TOAST

Spoon the bruschetta onto the toasted bread disc. Sprinkle with the feta (I would do it here) and garnish each slice with a sprig of Basil.

NEVER PUT THE BRUSCHETTA IN THE OVEN WHEN TOASTING THE BREAD. ANYONE WHO DOES THAT TO "MELT THE CHEESE" ARE HEATHENS (and not in the religious sense - please no nasty emails. I could have placed the word "Idiot" there but didn't want to insult the idiots)

That's it. Everyone - try the recipe, then go to the Jordan House and try theirs. I will be waiting on the Kudos I know will be flooding in.

Canada D'eh

2011-07-02T12:00:00.004-04:00

Happy Canada Day, I will throw in a Happy Independence Day as well since that is around the corner and our friends to the south are gearing up for that on Monday.

I found myself pondering a couple of bizarre topics during my Canada Day festivities yesterday: household chores, what did my wife slip into my drink to make me feel like this, municipal government and this morning it was Cialis.

Household Chores

I had an urge yesterday to clean out the closet from hell. It is the walk in just outside my home office. Only took a couple of hours but I managed to organize and remove a pile of stuff for the garbage man (of course I had this urge after the garbage man already passed by), as well as, the household hazardous waste people. It is amazing how much e-waste you accumulate. This closet must have been where electronics go to die. The question is, Why? Why on a perfectly good holiday would I decide to clean out a closet? Maybe I will apply for a government grant for that study.

The Drink

We went to the bar for dinner yesterday. When I got home around 6:00pm I had to lay down. I swear the wife slipped me a roofie, I woke up and couldn't remember a damn thing from the previous 2 hours. Wait that is old age.

Municipal Government

We decided to take it easy last night. We were not going to go down to any of the usual places to get jostled around, pick pocketed, play count the "tramp stamp", watch fireworks then sit in traffic for 2 hours to try and move 5Km to get home. Instead, my wife and I sat in our backyard and had a campfire and ate s'mores.

You may be thinking.. OK not sure what you would be thinking, but theoretically in St. Catharines where I live, having a backyard campfire is against one of the many stupid by-laws we have to live with. I understand that there may be a need to regulate stupidity, but if you can demonstrate your due diligence I think you should be exempt from the by-law.

For example, in St. Catharines if you go to the park for a picnic and have a BBQ, it has to be a charcoal version. You could potentially get a fine if you show up with a small 1L propane bottle version. So for those of you that have your propane training (for forklifts etc) the training means nothing. However; a hillbilly can fill up a hibachi with charcoal and a gallon of gasoline and light a match and that is perfectly OK. Then when done, throw the hot coals into the woods next to where they were picnicking. Brilliant.

So we chose a night when most of the idiots would come out to play. I figured if a fireman or by-law officer showed up, I would cover him with due diligence and if he still issued the ticket I would fight it in court. Perfect opportunity to shed some light on how stupid municipal government is.

The year before this is how I prepared:

Purchased a fire pit (with mesh cover)
Created an 8'x8' patio stone pad
Created this pad 50' from all permanent structures (i.e. neighbours houses, my house)
Obtained a 20lb fire extinguisher
Trained family on use of said fire extinguisher (documented)
Wrote a policy and procedure for the use of the fire pit
Trained family on said policy and procedure (documented)

On the night of the event we:

Designated a DFPC and a SO (Designated Fire Pit Coordinator, S'mores Officer respectively)
Banned alcohol like most provincial parks and conservation areas on statutory holidays

We also made observations, like the house 2 doors to the east of us. That clown set off their fireworks on their deck 5 feet from the house. Was funny when they got a rocket embedded in the soffit of their house and all you could hear was them running around trying to get the garden hose.

The next observation came from the local newspaper, yeah the one that prints articles that occurred about 5 days earlier. In this edition, there was an article that Welland had removed the By-Law for back yard campfires. Welland, holy crap, have you seen the crowd that lives in Welland, I am surprised that the city didn't invoke a match ban instead.

Any way, no By-Law officers showed up last night. We are thinking of having a campfire tonight as well (we are rebels), weather permitting of course. The wind has to be less than 4km/hr or we pull the plug. That is what it says in the procedure.

Cialis

This morning I arose still suffering from the after affects of the roofie my wife put in my drink last night. I noticed my parents (they live next door - and no not the fireworks idiots) gardening in our back yard. They do that all the time. Well, they have bags of mulch everywhere, rakes etc. I go to the bathroom and head to the kitchen for a coffee. I look out the kitchen window and "Bam", no one is there. The bags of mulch are laying there, the rakes are laying there, my mom's gardening gloves are laying there. I am thinking maybe my parents decided to have a Cialis moment. I thank god that it was my moms gloves laying in the yard and not her panties. Do mom's wear panties or is it a different term (hip huggers maybe)?

Did you look at the link for Cialis - the active ingredient is called "Tadalafil".

Lets break it down - The guy takes one "Tada", she "laf's" and you feel "il".

Pharmacists have a great sense of humor.

WOW

Patch 4.2 is out. I think the beginning quest line is incredibly sappy. Thrall needs some Cialis and take Aggra into the back room of an Orgrimmar pub. Thank God you can skip the cinematics. Eleven 85's down four to go in the pre-Firelands quest chain. When I am done these quests if I hear Aggra whine about Thrall's feelings one more time I may snap.

Any way - have a great weekend. I hope all of you play safe.

Aftermath

2011-06-19T19:12:00.011-04:00

Well I'm back.

It has been a couple weeks since Bear passed and it has been tough. During this time I found that whenever I was in the backyard cutting the grass or just sitting on the patio, I was reduced to a blithering idiot in about 5 minutes. Whenever I look out at the backyard all I could see is that little Golden Retriever we brought home almost 14 years ago playing in the yard. I want to thank Ken for sending me a passage that has been very inspiring and has helped. I just think it will take a little more time.

Funny thing though, since his passing I think I have cracked my WOW addiction and our toilet works better. The WOW thing I understand, the toilet thing I can't figure out. Both are good things. I played a little over the last couple of weeks, but found myself working on other things as well.

WOW

A guildie tells me he did the math. We would have to complete all the dungeon challenges every week for 6 weeks, just to get to a level 3 guild. So for the time being playing WOW will be just for fun and relaxation. It has been fun to run various instances with guildies. You think Blizzard could program it so that guild leveling would be pro-rated based on active members. We have many toons but only 4 active members and we really don't want to open up recruiting.

Jiu-Jitsu

For those of you that follow me on Facebook or Twitter, you will no doubt have seen my status update - "Retired from Jiu-Jitsu for 6 years. Daughter started last Thursday. I unretired last night. Many ouchies." To be honest at the time I felt like a water balloon hitting the concrete a couple ties but when it was over, I felt wonderful. I am glad I am back at it.

Many years ago, I wrote a book on the martial art of jiu-jitsu, unfortunately my only electronic copy was lost when one of my hard drives failed. This renewed interest in the martial art has persauded me to retype it. This is a good thing. When I initially wrote the book I did all the illustrations. Yeah - my stick figures are bad. I now have an illustrator re-doing all the artwork for me. I am so excited.

Road Trip

As for work, I am teaching at a University this week. So in preparation, I researched some issues that have happened in research labs. Yikes - most of you have read my rants regarding high school science departments, I think some of the accidents that happened in these labs are far worse. What is wrong with these people? Do they think they are too smart for disaster to effect them? This week may be painful.

On the way here though, I witnessed a blind guy (cane and all) crossing the highway - incredibly brave or incredibly stupid. Take your pick.

That's it

I think I call it on this weeks installment. I need to work my way back into it. I think I will still blog the funny, the WOW and now I think I will include some writing on the Martial Arts. Maybe next week I will rant about the term - Mixed Martial Arts. Why not call it Jiu-Jitsu?

Good Bye Bear

2011-06-04T07:52:00.002-04:00

BEAR

June 13, 1997 - June 4, 2011

"We are all going to miss you so much."

Does Someone Have to Die...

2011-05-29T09:08:00.018-04:00

Good morning everyone. For those of you that read my blog as part of your normal routine I must apologize. I will not be funny (at least funny HaHa) nor will it be about World of Warcraft. I promise I will write something lighter next week. For those that know me in real life, it will be about my pet peeve. Over the last two days this topic has been keeping me up at night. I no longer can keep it in.

I usually start this rant with the question - In Ontario what do you think are the most dangerous jobs? After some guiding I usually get them to say miner, steel worker, high altitude construction worker. Yes they are dangerous jobs, however; there are rules and regulations that police these occupations and violating these rules can get an individual person a fine of up to $100,000 and a couple years in jail.

"No", I say, what I was looking for was "High School Teacher". Their faces tilt like a Doberman Pincher. I give them a moment to try and figure it out. I then help them out by saying, "It is the occupation that routinely ignores all of the various safety legislations and inserts untrained individuals into situations because they feel they are above the law." "The occupation that feels that nothing bad can ever happen to them because they are in a school and that their Union is awesome."

I have touched on schools before in my blog, if you cannot remember my pearls of wisdom you can re-read them. My suggested order is 'What a Week', The Title', 'Smouldering' and finally 'Statement of the Day'.

I have been in the environmental manangement industry for 24 years and my job function has evolved to where for the past 10 years or so I have been consulting with customers on health & safety matters, fire code concerns and yes even environmental management legislation. Over the past 5 years I have been working with a couple of school boards because they realized that they were so far behind. The problem is the teachers are fighting any proposed changes to make them compliant tooth and nail. "Why?" they ask, "We shouldn't be subject to this." "We are teachers, this is outrageous."

Wow, what I have seen would get a normal business fined and potentially shutdown, but in a school it will go totally undetected. Why? Because the Ministry of Labour or the Ministry of Environment won't go into a Ministry of Education governed institution. That would make the government look bad.

Christ, I have even been reading a document from the Science Teachers Association of Ontario that blatantly tells teachers they can dump hazardous waste down the drain. Any other company caught doing this would be crucified. But it's ok you see. They have a disclaimer stating that all of the opinions are those of the writers and not the association and you shouldn't necessarily follow what they are saying. I have witnessed it, I was at a school picking up some other waste when I saw a teacher pouring a tray of liquid down the drain. I asked what he was doing and he replied, "The STAO guide tells me this is OK."

We have tried to get into other school boards to handle their hazardous wastes and are told they don't create any. That they treat it and pour it down the drain. Hmmm, any other company that does that needs a Certificate of Approval (license) for both the treatment of the waste and the discharge of the resultant material to the sewer. Why are they any different? They are not. They are governed by regulations. They are considered an industrial establishment. They consider themselves - above the law.

Why now? Why am I ranting again on this subject? Oddly enough last Friday I was at my favourite school board for an update. My contact is valiantly fighting what I think is a losing battle. She wanted to implement some more procedures and the teachers are saying, 'no'. God, I feel like I am the Jamie Oliver of safety. I am trying so hard but nobody gets it. She said I will have to go back into the schools in the fall to do another inspection. She then says, we will probably have to extend the inspections to the shop and art departments.

"Why?", I ask. She tells me about the death in Ottawa of the shop student. She says, "You were right." I hadn't heard, I have been so busy the last week or so I usually do my news catch up on weekends. My heart sinks. I remember last summer in the midst of the threats from the teachers regarding my reports on their unsafe practices, I told my contact, "Does someone have to die before they will change?" Now someone has. My heart goes out to the family and friends of the student that passed away. To the other students that witnessed the incident and were hurt.

So now the Ministry of Labour is involved. However; my gut feeling is that nothing will become of this tradegy. They will chalk it up to an unfortunate accident. The chance to send a message lost. That poor student will have died in vain. Sure the Board will say it is going to review procedures and nothing will change.

From what I have seen in some schools, this is what should happen.

The teacher should be charged with criminal negligence causing death. Cutting into a used drum is one of the stupidest acts on the planet. However; instructing someone to do it is negligent and criminal.

Then the Ministry of Labour should inspect every school in the province and fine the teachers, the Union and Boards like they would any other business in Ontario. The debt of the province would be gone with all this extra cash. Oh wait, my tax dollars would most likely be paying these fines and I think this is an election year. So again I fear - Nothing will change.

A Good Day - Shot to Hell

2011-05-25T14:56:00.009-04:00

Ok, today is going to be my WOWcentric blog post. I am sure when I regale you with the details of my questing from last Monday you will easily be able to relate this to a person you actually have daily dealings with.

First some background info:

I have a few alts, many of which are 85. I am in a small guild, maybe a dozen individuals in total with only five or so active participants. We have worked our way up to a whopping guild level 2 powerhouse. We managed to coordinate our schedules in order to actually pull together a 5 man, however lopsided it is. So far it is 4 lowbies being blasted through an instance by an 85.

I do have a few mid level toons available and decided to work on my level 60 Enhancement Shaman. First off, I haven't played him in ages and when I went into my first instance of the day my DPS totally sucked. It was like 250. Now, something has to be wrong. I talked to my buddy to verify my gear (which at 60 included a smattering of level 55 pieces), my priority list, my weapon imbues and my totem selection. I reviewed my favourite Wow Insider articles. What was wrong?

When I do select a talent layout from WOWpopular I tend to print it out. So I figured I would check my talent selection. Now my talents were not refunded but there was a discrepancy. Apparently 2 talent points were in a talent on my print out, that no longer appeared in the tree. They were part of a "new" talent - Seasoned Winds. OK, time to fix the talent tree. Check

Well the DPS started to go up but not as good as I had hoped. Time to instance and quest to replace my crappy pre-BC gear I still had. By the time I was done Monday I was level 67 and had some new gear.

So that was the background. Now the problem - I did about 10 instances that day. All of the pug groups were pretty good. No complaints really, except for the last one and this is where my story begins.

Sethekk Halls

DK Tank
Priest
DK DPS
Enh Shaman (me)
Mage

Menagerie of beasties that either fear or mind control.

So here we are, DK Tank thinks he is all that, decides to run through the first room and collect everyone. Enh Shaman (me) drops totems including - Tremor Totem

FYI - If you don't play a shaman the Tremor Totem IMO is broken (I am just used to the old way it worked and apparently this "tank" was under the same impression). Only breaks one "fear" then is used up. There is then a one minute cooldown before it can be dropped again.

But the problem, there was 4 creatures that could fear. Well let the chain fearing begin. We managed to survive but of course began the 35 word expletive filled sentence from the tank. Now I have the parental controls - language filter on for when my daughter plays with only the words "retarded", "shaman", "tremor totem" actually being legible.

I begin to write my response - Dude (I begin), I understand there is a need to over compensate especially when there is the saying, "the bigger the pulls, the smaller the penis", but you should really understand the mobs you are pulling and your group make up.

I explain, the changes in the Tremor Totem.

I explain that the rest of the group could help as well (now these interrupts may or may not have worked). DK's have at least 2 silencing type spells each, the mage has counterspell, I was trying with my wind shear.

So in addition to my tremor totem there were 6 other "fear" interruptions available. Why were "you/they" not assisting in this obvious poorly thought out "pull".

I hit the return key...

Time passes - the response.

FU (and the Tank leaves group)

I did however get an apology from the rest of the group and the new tank we got from the queue was awesome. So maybe this was a good thing. But for a while afterwards I was a little "hurt", what was a very positive leveling day, this incident started to bring me down.

Have you run into this type of situation? Has someone tried to slam you for not knowing your own class?

Let me know.

Finally, I think we had 2 dry days this week - I saw a big yellow ball in the sky today. What is that?

Prayers go out to Manitoba and Quebec (flooding) and the US Midwest (tornadoes).

Inspiration

2011-05-15T12:27:00.007-04:00

I was truly blessed today. I went to church and I came out of it enlightened. I was able to come up with this truly inspired blog article. Now, I go to church from time to time, my daughter is even in the midst of preparing for her confirmation. So I am no stranger to going. Although, the congregation does seem to be a little surprised when I show up. All these jokes about wanting me to sign the guest book.

Maybe it is all the time I get while my daughter is in her "chat room" with the other kids that I get to reflect in quiet solitude the past weeks events. Maybe, it is a sign from the "big guy" that he reads my blog too. Maybe.

When I wrote last weeks article I forgot to include one thing. Which, might be because I didn't go to church and that is why it didn't come to me. So I am going to lead off with it today.

Bluetooth

Now Bluetooth is a rather remarkable invention, it allows us to connect with our computers and cellphones wirelessly. Which, keeps us from getting fines, especially with respect to the latter device while driving. But why is it when you sit in a mall some guys are still wearing theirs? Dudes, Bluetooth is so you can use your phones while in your cars. When you get out of the car leave your headset and take only your phone.

Guys, you look retarded. Chicks will NOT be attracted to it and finally, judging by the looks of the guys that seem to wear their headsets all the time - How many calls do you expect from your mothers?

Zebra Hair

So during the week I had a rather exceptional sneezing fit. Of course it had to happen while driving. I must have sneezed about a dozen times. My hands were covered with phlegm and of course, not a napkin or tissue could be found. Needless to say, those pants went into the laundry, as soon as I got home. I was concerned, so I went to the bathroom and decided to look up my nose to see what was going on in there.

First question: What colour is nose hair suppose to be?

When I took a look I saw both black and white hair. I truly looked like I had snorted a small zebra. Really, I understand the whole going grey thing, but I thought it was isolated to the head (including beard and moustache), not nose hairs and nether regions. I can hardly wait to start using "Just for Men" crotch colourant.

Second question: What is the average length of a nose hair?

These couple of hairs were bugging me. Tickling actually, to a point that I grabbed a pair of tweezers and pulled them out. Holy crap, they were almost 3/4 of an inch long. I don't think that is right. More research is needed.

Flash Point of Baileys

Now I don't want a pile of negative feedback on this. I have been known to, from time to time, to spike my coffee with Baileys, pour it into a travel mug and then enjoy sipping it while receiving the Word of the Lord on Sunday mornings. This morning was no exception, however; when I arrive in my pew and dialed open my cup, the Baileys vapour coming out was almost overpowering. I was so happy there were no ignition sources close by or it may have FLASHED. I guess I need to be a little more awake when I am making my coffee in the morning.

Baileys is my back up to bacon, since I am not quite sure how I would smuggle a pound of cooked bacon into church. So for today and every Sunday. I think we should allow the phrase, "Everything is better with Baileys."

Roommate Agreement, S15 P4 - Unknown Women for the Purpose of Coitus

So - are you interested so far? Are you trying to figure out how I went from church Baileys to unknown women coitus. I am going to tell you.

Last night my son was a little out of the ordinary. He laundered his clothes, showered (I started to think he was ill), brushed his teeth and asked if he could borrow the car. That he would only be out for a few moments. I said, "sure", I think because of all the hygiene that was thrown at me all at once. Well out he goes. A few moments later he returns a "friend" in tow. He paused at the rec room to see how my movie I was watching was (I had the lights off so visibility was poor). His friend said 'hi' and made a comment. I was unfamiliar with the tone. My son's friends are all short, or more round. This one was not matching up to my internal database. It wasn't until they were in his room and the door closed that I registered the pitch to be that of a female.

I was caught in a place that was new to me. The 'two thumbs up' dad moment. Or that of concern that it would turn out to be a mid-operation transgender and I should warn him. You see my son seems to be "blossoming" a bit late. Which is a good thing considering he always has money squirrelled away. Having a girlfriend doesn't usually afford you that luxury.

Any way, I inserted a cat into his room as a spy, in as much to have an excuse to open the door to see them watching TV, the cat you see likes hanging out in his room, so the perfect door opening excuse. I then go up to do my WOW research for my next blog article (which was going to be todays - but now that I am side tracked with this gem I am going to save it for another time).

Fast forward to this morning.

I am sitting waiting for church to start, trying to avoid being detected as having alcohol in my coffee or bursting into flames due to Baileys vapour flash, when my mom asks. "Did Dustin (honestly - not his real name) have to work this morning? I saw him leave really early in the car?" (My parents live in the home next to ours -she is I think the neighbourhood watch committee as well)

"Hmm" (pause for effect) "He didn't take the car to work because I drove it to church this morning." In my head I figured, he had to sneak the girl out early and take her home, come back and drop off the car, and then walk the 5 minutes to work. Thanks mom, you always want the "ace" when it comes to parenting.

The best part of this whole incident was when I got home from church and told my wife (she doesn't usually come with me - she can't hold her liquor). You could see the dawning on her face the phrase, 'what goes around comes around.' She was probably the worst offender when it came to this stuff when she was younger.

"I don't know if I can approve of this!", she exclaims.

'Hypocrite', I think in my head. (That was one of them fancy terms I learned in church today)

I think we both can't wait for my son to come home from work. Have a great afternoon, I know I will.

Pint of Mer - Lot Please

2011-05-11T16:27:00.000-04:00

This past weekend was pretty busy, mother's day and my wife's birthday on the same day this year. My daughter going gliding with her Air Cadet Squadron. Having to go on a training journey and my wife wanting to come along. I guess she thought Coburg, ON was going to be somewhat equivalent to a couple of days in Las Vegas.

I started this journey by taking my wife out for dinner last Friday night. Pretty fancy restaurant (they have cloth napkins), when a buddy and a few of his friends and their wives come in. I have participated in several LAN parties with them, it starts with several COD games and then deteriorates into a drunken Wii Bowling Event (thank God everyone remains clothed) and who can get the most consecutive gutter balls after drinking a dozen Russian Vodka shots. One of his friends travels to Moscow a lot and usually brings something back for us to kill brain cells with.

Well he can't see me from where he is seated, so I decide to send his wife a drink. I think it was a $15 martini. That almost caused a ruckus until he realized it was me and I was jerking his chain. Interestingly enough I still got him in shit with his wife. Apparently, I am the only person who has ever sent her a drink. He was beaten for it not being him.

I am lingering too long on that evening. I will fast forward. Sunday, I make breakfast art for my wife and daughter. For those of you that view my blog by following the link from my Facebook page, my wife posted the hashbrown pattie and bacon flower growing out of toast in front of a big round egg sun that I made her for Mother's Day/Birthday. For my daughter I carved a glider out of hashbrown patties using toast for the ground and little bacon birds. I never got a photo of that one. I am :(

After the breakfast festivities we dropped our daughter off at the airport and my wife and I headed to Coburg. We took the scenic route. It was nice. We checked in and started looking for a restaurant for dinner. We went to one place and it looked like it was going down the horrible road. So we decided to go to another. Dinner was good.

Now we are at the part of the trip that this article is titled after. Now I am always making a bit of fun of the area whenever I come out here to do some training. I think I have several articles that describe the locals as hill billies. Well, I never saw them since they were in the booth behind me.

The waitress comes up and...

"Can I get you any drinks?"

(In your best hill billie drawl)

"Yes, I would like some of this here $5.95 a glass Mur-Loc."

(My wife laughs and asks me if she was referring to the WOW creature. "I don't know", I exclaim.)

The patron rephrases, "Make it a pint of the MER - LOT?" (I would have to say the waitress was pretty cool, she even said it back to the patron by pronouncing the "Mer-Low" as "Mer-Lot" in order not to embarrass the patron. Not that the damage wasn't already done.)

A PINT glass of Mer-Lot, that there is culture.

WOW Stuff

Only played a little this week. Still afraid to try and heal (especially on heroics), because the PUGS I have been in the last couple of evenings have been absolutely horrible. I am tempted to actually do an article specifically on WOW in the coming days to rant about Pugs and few other WOW related things. We will see.

Have a great evening.

Cyclist Wannabes

2011-04-26T14:42:00.006-04:00

This will be a short post today. I am at home suffering with what may be a tumor. However; I am sure it is just my back telling my head that it hates me. But then again, when I called into the office, there appears that several of us are suffering with the same basic symtoms. Anyway, I decided that I was going to make use of the time I have today and get a few reports completed that I have been avoiding the last couple weeks. I managed to get a 50% success rating.

It turns out that a big project I am working on is in jeopardy because I can't find a truck in order to deliver the product. It appears that at the end of the month it is difficult to find a truck rental. Of course, of all things, I forget the dreaded moving day rush at the vehicle rental store. Hopefully, things will work out.

Oh and my dad is messing around in the backyard today, my internet goes down, he calls on the phone to say he inadvertently disconnected it at the pole.

Chainsaw

Just before the stroke hit, he tells me that the tree cutting business neighbours are working in our backyard and disconnected it at the pole for a few minutes in order to cut one branch that they knew was going to cause a problem.

Ok, glad I am taking a blood thinner.

So, I decide I am going to step out a bit. My lovely wife left me a grocery list. From now on I think I am going to buy groceries before I pay bills. Its just easier that way. I ask her, "Where should I go?", and before all you readers scream at your screens, "Grocery store!" I wanted to know where I should go, considering the fact I spent all our money paying the bills and had a very limited amount for groceries.

I could go to:

2nd Mortgage Zehrs
It was fresh a month ago Sobeys
Ghetto Food Basics, or
What do you mean I can't have a cart because I don't have a Quarter Freshco?

My wife told me to go to Freshco - however; I didn't know I needed a quarter until I got there (I don't carry cash anymore). I also went ill equipped to carry the groceries out of the store. They don't have bags, no boxes, so I had to buy a couple of the "green" grocery bags to get the items to the car.

I must admit that the amount I paid was about half what I was expecting. So at least that part of the trip was pleasant.

So, the article title, where does that fit into the days events? I am going to tell you.

I am driving home and my route takes me down a road that was converted to allow for a couple of bike lanes. So here is a couple of ladies, fully decked out in cyclist gear. Full spandex, enough advertising on their jerseys to make Tiger Woods wet himself (or was that the spandex). Riding down the road, totally not staying within their lane. They put the "lane" there so you can drive in it. They didn't put the line on the road so you can drive on the "line". Finally, they go to make a turn and neither of them know the arm signals for making a turn. Painful.

Apparently, spandex does NOT make the cyclist (maybe they were headed to Bingo and just being green about it). Oh god what am I saying. Riding a bike to Bingo, that's crazy talk.

That's it, going to chew a few more Advil's, pray for a break in the weather so my head doesn't hurt any more. If you read this before you head home, Hun, we are having chopped up weiners and fake potatoes for dinner (I picked you up something special as a substitute). Yummy!

The New Me - Update #2

2011-04-15T08:56:00.004-04:00

It's Friday, five days into the "New Me" experience. I took the last couple days off in the exercise department. Basically I was too damn sore to move, I kept up the eating well though.

Speaking of eating well, have you seen the commercials regarding the potential to have 10lbs of fecal matter trapped in your body if you only "go" once a day. I said to myself, "Hmm". So on Monday I started to do a dose of Metamucil everyday. It said 3 times a day but I was not that daring. The original commercial that started me on this was for a product called "Colonblow", which really scared me. Anyway, have you tried Metamucil lately? They have tried to make it taste better. The stuff I tried had a wonderful cherry flavour with a delightful sandy after taste.

After four days I was still only "going" once a day. Until today. My body made a "huffing" sound (for those of you not up on your animal sounds, that is the sound a bull makes before it charges - very important to know for the purpose of this blog), then it was like San Fermin.

I flung my covers off, too bad our cats were on the bed, then our old dog was flopping around (I think it was all the pussy landing on him). I jumped up (glad that I took those two days off to recover), I ran around the bed hurdled the dog and raced down the hall headed to the bathroom. Let's just say the rest is a Finch moment. You know, the Colonblow guys were right.

Well it's off to exercise, maybe I will write a part #3 this afternoon.

The New Me - Update #1

2011-04-12T15:13:00.006-04:00

I thought the pain usually hits a couple of days after you work out. At least that was what I remembered it being like when I was actually in shape. For me the pain hit within approximately 5 minutes. But Tuesday is a new day. I am going to do this.

I woke up to a cat bashing his head into my face. I think he was trying to determine if I was dead. I made a non-carb breakfast and started the procrastination. I decided to do my home business accounting, because lets face it. Accounting is way more fun than exercise.

I made it down into the basement and fired up the Xbox system. Logged in as me and was horrified to see that it didn't save my profile. Well, my profile was there but because I didn't continue with the torture Monday after I finished the setup, it didn't save the fact that I actually did the set up.

So I had to start over. Age, activity level, what are you trying to accomplish? (They didn't have the answer - Thwart death)

I had to do the 2 toning and 3 cardio tests AGAIN. Oh the burn. I was successful and I didn't collapse. But now to avoid having to set it up again. I was going to get a workout session in to secure the saving of my profile.

I chose, 'Nice and Easy' (they lied). It was 6 freaking sets of 3 exercises. I am not going to make it. But I was determined to push forward. It didn't help that everytime the damn cat walked into my "play" space the exercise lady would bitch at me and I would have to do a couple of 'reps' over again.

I DID it. It was the most difficult 15 minutes of my life. That's it - 15 minutes. I even decided to do the Zen cool down program which was an additional 6 minutes. Already I am having a performance increase.

I had lunch and I am now working on this update. Tomorrow is another day with more decisions...

Work out
Pick up dog poop in the backyard
Or both (might need a hospital bed if I choose this one)

I will leave you in suspense.

Really? Is it that bad?

2011-04-11T12:16:00.009-04:00

First the good news. The family did a road trip to Michigan to see my best friend. We ate, drank, and laughed. We even started to plan our next visit. All the while in the back of my head I knew, that the week I had off was going to be the start of my "getting into shape". I had planned it for weeks. A couple of months ago I even bought the fitness "game" for the Xbox Kinect that we got at Christmas. You can only practise your "supa-man" so many times. Although for me it usually came across as the "aquaman". You would have to be part Sheldon to figure those couple lines out.

You know who you are.

So what happened? I was a practising martial artist, I ran several classes a week. I wilderness camped - for our honeymoon instead of going to Maui or similar, we went wilderness camping off of Lake Temagami. Only a 5 1/2 hour drive followed by an eight hour canoe and portage session. But it was worth it. Running around in my pastey white naked glory (between noon and 12:05) before the mosquitoes realized I was there.

Life happened, the dark life, having kids and saying we were too busy to exercise. The dreaded CF's (chicken finger) and plum sauce. Did you know in Michigan they are called boneless wings since chickens don't have fingers. Or so we were told.

I digress.

This morning was going to be the start of the new me. The missus went to work, I took my daughter to the orthodontist then to school and I arrived home and donned my silk short shorts, tank top and Jimmy Connors matching head and wrist band set. I should have known when the Kinect scanned me and the computer chick gasped, "oh shit" that something was about to go awry.

After the scan, was the series of questions, ok well three. Age, weight and how active. Again, clues were there. Exercise every day, exercise once or twice a week or never. This was going to hurt. I knew, "no pain, no gain", right.

Then the choice - do you want a male or female exercise assistant? I chose a female so she could "bitch" at me to keep me motivated.

The evaluation program started, a series of exercises to assist in creating the plan. It was 2 toning exercises and 3 cardio exercises. I thought I was going to die. I literally had to concentrate on not throwing up. Once that was finished there were the questions. Do you want the program tailored to help you loose weight? To tone up? To help you climb a flight of stairs without becoming winded? I chose the last one. Then I collapsed on the sofa. My computer trainer chick repeating the line, "Where are you going? Where are you going?" over and over.

I gave up for now, I decided to do some laundry. Have some cereal and decide on whether I should change my game name from "AwesomeSauce" to "HolyShitIAmOutOfShape". On the bright side the machine told me I lost 87 calories. Which I probably did while trying to control the urge to throw up that I mentioned earlier. All those stomach crunches. Easily the equivalent of about 600 sit ups.

I will try my first program exercise later today. when there is someone in the house to call 911. I don't have the "fallen and I can't get up service".

WOW Stuff

I keeping with my attempt to get fit, I decided to do the following:

run everywhere, no flying or riding mounts
do a lot of swimming off the coast of Tanaris, the water looks clean there, and with it being sunny all the time I can work on my tan
Only pickup fast food in Silvermoon, no one is fat there. So they must be selling all whole foods with minimal processing

I will check in with you during the week and provide updates.

If you feel the Richard Simmons photo is a little too creepy let me know and I can change it.

The Ottawa Trip

2011-04-03T20:59:00.007-04:00

Well I am off to Ottawa this week for work where I will be teaching some courses for a couple of our customers. It's the first night but I noticed a few things on my drive up today, which was about 5 1/2 hours by the way.

Day 1

There were three things that make you go, "Hmmm"

First: Did you notice that the closer you get to Ottawa, the cheaper gasoline gets?

Second: I drove up on Highway 7, why is it that people have some beautiful properties, but feel it necessary to make them look like a scrapyard?

Third: Finally, the construction between Carleton Place and Highway 417 isn't done yet. It is going on at least 3 years. I find it highly amusing that their make work program is still underway.

I will check in over the next couple days to let you know how things are going.

Day 2

Completed the confined space rescue training. I was spent. Nothing too exciting happened that evening. I ate some meatloaf, was pretty good.

Day 3

Breakfast was good although I was getting creeped out by the plastic cocks (err chickens) watching me. Glad the boss saved the day.

Went on a H&S walk about. Was humoured when the guy I was watching realized half way thru the pouring of an ethyl ether bottle (with no PPE or ventilation) that maybe he should be using PPE and ventilation.

From there I had to take a 1.5 hour drive one way to service a customer (not the fun servicing either). Realized that I would be passing the Calabogie Nudist Colony (has something to do with an uncle-in-law).

Well I decided to stop in to get a pamphlet. They told me I couldn't stay because I "didn't measure up." What were they trying to say?

I am now printing out training packages for a class that was sprung on me at the last minute - hate you Matt. 10:30 and I only have 8 more to go, started at about 6:30pm - UGH. 11:00pm - out of ink driving back to the hotel. Four training packages short.

Day 4

Teaching a Transportation of Dangerous Goods course today. The location is about an hour or so from my hotel. I noticed driving up this morning that satellite radio is not what it is supposed to be cracked up to be. I have been in this vehicle for almost a week and they appear to play the same five songs over and over again.

Had dinner with Matt and one of our customers. Was fun, watched Toronto Maple Leafs get obliterated again.

Day 5

Last day of training, rather close to the hotel. I am teaching a Basic Spill Response course. It was a good group and I am very pleased with the outcome. I am now back at the hotel completing my invoicing and answering emails. Pretty soon I have to decide where I want to eat for dinner.

I am thinking about "Mucho Burrito", but then I think about my 6 hour car ride tomorrow. Without a colostomy bag, I can see a world of problems. I think this may be a game time decision.

Something caught my eye. In my hotel room I have the coffee station. Maybe I will make a pot, I read the fine print of my room agreement and the coffee station is free (unlike the bottle of water that is calling to me, I made the mistake a while back and had to pay $7.00 for the $0.99 bottle of water).

What exactly is "coffee colourant" made of? That is what the whitener called. OK I searched the Internet. Putting "coffee colorant" in the search line, I retrieve may references to coffee colored hair colorant, lip stick color (brown lip stick, that puckered only looks like one thing) and how to colour homemade soaps. Nothing on coffee colourant for you know, colouring coffee. Lost interest, can't be bothered searching coffee whitener.

Day 6

Friday morning. Finally, 6 hours from home and the start of my vacation. I will be heading out soon. I just finished my disks of sugar (at the hotel they call them - waffles) and I am about to check out. I am tightening my running shoes in anticipation of a company credit card NOT working. I hope I can get to the truck before the counter person can react.

WOW Stuff

Been away, the hotel Interent doesn't have the horse power to play Farmville let alone WOW. I will report on WOW next week sometime.

Here it is - done. To use a famous quote from Bilbo Baggins - "I will be leaving now, goodbye." As mentioned, I am beginning my vacation this afternoon. Yes, I will be writing about my "Tony Packos Odessey avec Family". Only in Ottawa a week and I am fluent in French - notice the "avec" which means "with". I am so bilingual now.

Is That a Gourd in Your Pocket...

2011-03-28T18:08:00.009-04:00

Is that a gourd in your pocket, or you just happy to see me?

I was at church on Sunday, we were having a pot-luck lunch. I brought my "Mexican Spaghetti", and maybe if you are good I will share the recipe, when someone I have not seen in ages came over and we started to chat. The typical stuff about the wife, kids, work etc. After he left I realized that it has been almost 17 years since I almost tore off my penis.

Right now you are probably sitting at your computers mouths agape, you may have even sprayed your monitor with coffee or an other beverage depending on the time of day you are reading this. But, I find everytime I come to think of that day, I laugh my ass off. The whole story is actually quite funny. Guess what? I am going to telling to you.

Did you feel the suspense? I just got back from dinner. I have been away for about 2 hours. I am in beautiful Lindsay, Ontario and if you follow my wife's tweets , I am going to be teaching a course in Transportation of Dangerous Goods tomorrow.

One thing about the restaurant I ate at, please teach your wait staff about serving wine. My guy filled my wine glass (I use that term loosely) to within 1mm of the rim of the glass. Even sober I wouldn't be able to swirl and sniff the wine I ordered. Also, in Lindsay, $12 buys you a litre of Australian Shiraz. Yikes, was I wreaked. I also noticed while tipsy, my hotel room has 2 of the exact same painting in my room. One over my couch and one over my bed.

Anyways, back to my penis.

About 18 years ago, I just separated from my first wife, and I was trying to balance my life with my son who was about 3 years old at the time. Since I was teaching Jiu-Jitsu at the YMCA, I had a few privileges. So I decided to take him to an open swim. We splashed around for about an hour, I am sure it was fun. Due to the upcoming events, I can't be sure.

So we finished our swim. We are back in the shower room. I have my son showered off and I am in the midst of showering myself. I washed my hair, pits etc. and decide to take off my swim trunks and wash the "parts". I reached into my Addidas shorts (that's what we wore back then) and grasped the tie string. I pulled it. Not a whimpy pull, but picture how you would pull the cord on an outboard motor. I saw the stars, I felt the pain. I dropped to my knees on the terazzo floor. My little guy had worked his way through the loop of the perfect shorts bow I had tied. OMG (back then it wasn't OMG, it was the full - "Oh My God"). As I lay there, writhing in pain, my son was screaming, "what do I do?" I couldn't think. All I could picture was the cutting of a block of clay with the "wire" from high school art class. I was afraid to look in my shorts.

My son saw the emergency phone, he picked up the receiver and on the other end I could hear who picked it up. You see it was sort of a speaker phone just incase CPR was required. Believe me it was close. I digress. It was Victor, the flaming homosexual (not that there is anything wrong with that.) Again OMG. My son told him what had happened. Victor said he would be right up to "untangle" my manhood. I screamed that it would be unnecessary and that as soon as I stopped crying I would be fine. He tried to insist, I think I threatened his life at that point.

After a while I gathered the courage to look into my shorts. There it was. The loop encircling my part was no wider than a centimetre in diameter. I gulped, "I hope it will still work", I thought to myself. I got both hands in there and backed off the loop and relieved the pressure on the little guy. I managed to stand and stagger, son in tow, to my locker to get dressed. As I left the YMCA that night, Victor offered artifical respiration. Yuck.

I got home and applied some ice hoping the swelling would go down. Next morning I took a look and found the little guy looking like the gourd I have pictured above. The bruising stayed for about 6 weeks. Literally, I was purple from my waist to my knees.

Happily, I can say it still works, because when I got remarried I was able to produce a beautiful baby girl. Who, is growing up quicker than I would have hoped. Your a goof Nathan!

WOW Stuff

You know, other than procrastinating on trying to get my archeology completed on one of my alts, I am really enjoying working on my professions. I am also afraid of actually queuing any of my alts as a healer. With all the articles I have read on WOW Insider regarding the changes in healing, I have not had the balls. Based on my story above, I almost didn't have the bat (LOL) to try.

Well I need to sober up. I hope my future headache isn't too intense when I am trying to teach tomorrow.

Have a good week all.

Virgin No More

2011-03-22T18:53:00.006-04:00

I am no longer a virgin, that would be a Bed & Breakfast virgin. That's right, I did it. I stayed at a bed & breakfast Monday night while in Stratford. It was an experience and I still haven't decided if I liked it. It was called the Stone Maiden Inn, I don't think it was named after the lady that owned it. She was kind of nice. The place was sort of creepy with my room on the third floor. It sort of smelled like an old lady. What was weird about my stay was that you needed to take a tour. She showed you the parlour (they have parlours in these places and not family rooms). It had a TV, and a Mac (to check my email). I passed on the Mac, don't understand why they would make a computer that only has a one button mouse. Christ my mouse on my PC has 5 buttons and I don't think its enough. I will get back to my stay at the B&B in a bit, I want to take you around town.

Apparently, they put the town away around 6:00pm. Pretty much everything was closed. My host got me a reservation at a restaurant named - Foster's Inn. I had a wonderful steak dinner with a hearty shiraz.

Back at the B&B, my host suggested that I watch TV in the parlour, but I didn't feel comfortable with that, so I stayed in my room and watched a movie on my computer. I was also a little concerned when I went to the bathroom and looked up and a crow was staring at me through the skylight.

What a horrible sleep, I think it was because my bed was not aligned properly to protect me from mauraders. But the breakfast made up for it. My host made absolutely spectacular pancakes. Blueberry and chocolate chip pancakes, bacon, chocolate dipped strawberries, grapes and pineapple slices. I also had orange juice and coffee. My host had a newspaper and a couple of bottles of water to go. Very nice.

I guess I had a nice stay.

Potholes

2011-03-14T12:38:00.015-04:00

This self imposed deadline thing sucks. I tweeted late last week that I was going to have an article written and posted for Sunday. That never happened. I, on the other hand, was spent and didn't get my article written. I wrote down some notes since I seemed to be experiencing higher than normal Alzheimer's activity the last few days. But alas, I never had the time to write it. I should say I didn't have the energy to write it, I only had the energy to slaughter crap in Eastern Plaguelands.

Here we go...

Daughter's Trip

It was chaos around the homestead, but when it was all said and done, our daughter was off on her trip to Washington DC. She managed to update her Facebook status with my wife's iTouch we had her take. She said it was "awesome" so far. We will have to see if she has the same sentiment later this week after getting up at 5:00am every day in order to keep to her itinerary.

The most humorous part for me in getting her ready was my comment on Saturday about needing her underwear so we can sew her name in them. The "look" was priceless.

Earthquake in Japan

I am mentally devastated by this earthquake in Japan. My heart truly goes out to these people and their country. What bothers me is that my country is taking the, "wait and see approach". They said they are more than willing to send equipment etc, but they want the Japanese government to ask for it. How about giving them a call and saying, "our stuff is on the way, where do you want it?" Sort of like the Libya thing. Most of our Canadian citizens got out with the help of other countries so when the Canadian plane showed up (about a week or two late) it left empty. They seem to let the windows of opportunity close due to their inability to make decisions.

Have you seen the photos? I sit there slack jawed at the devestation. However; I find myself truly astonished when it comes to their roads. Several of the photos I have seen, have these rural roads being looked at by guys in white lab coats and hard hats. They appear to be measuring the shift in the earth's crust, in some of the photos the road seems to have dropped/risen by 6' in some cases. Amazing. But have you looked closer at the photos? No potholes. Other than the damage done by the earthquake, these roads do not have potholes. The area where the earthquake occured is slightly north of where I live, so similar winter feeze/thaw conditions should be prevalent. Yet their rural roads have no potholes, there are roads in the middle of our town that look like they took the brunt of an artillery barrage.

Toast and Peanut Butter

I found myself making some toast with peanut butter on it a few days ago, instantly I flashed back to when my mom made it for me when I was a kid for breakfast. Interestly, I began to make it the same way she made it for me - make toast, spread peanut butter, sprinkle some sugar on top. That was how she did it. She explained to me that the sugar was used to make the peanut butter gritty enough so that if some got stuck to the roof of my mouth, my tongue would have something to "grab" on to. To avoid cramming a finger into my mouth to scrap it.

Hmmm, I think it was a ploy to make me hyper in order to get me medicated at school. Isn't that the typical modus operandi of schools these days? They see a hyper kid, BAMM!, kid needs medication. Wait, back then there was no such thing as ADD, ADHD, peanut butter allergies; back then teachers did their jobs and parents - if the student did have issues took them home at lunch. These days it's medicate the hyper or punish the rest of the school population if a single student is allergic to PB&J sandwiches.

I blame all these issues on teachers just wanting to collect a pay cheque, parents that don't want to parent, and the perservatives in Twinkie cream.

Grilled Cheese Sandwiches

I hate them, mainly because I hate cheese, but here is the problem - is it "Grilled - Cheese Sandwiches" or is it "Grilled Cheese - Sandwiches". The "-" was placed in the phrase to denote where the pause would be.

Let's review the second phrase first. Grilled Cheese - Sandwiches. It wouldn't work. If you threw a piece of cheese on a grill it would ooze through the rack and onto the charcoal. This brings us to the first way to pronounce it. Grilled - Cheese Sandwiches. To me this makes sense, you are taking a cheese sandwich and grilling it. However; most people "grill" their cheese sandwiches in a frying pan. Therefore; it isn't a Grilled - Cheese Sandwich anymore, it is a Fried - Cheese Sandwich.

Ear Hair

I was watching TV the other day and there seemed to be a high proportion of commercials dedicated to colouring or tinting your hair or putting on mascara to accentuate your eyes. Here's a thought, Ear Hair mascara for guys. Granted it would be accentuating their ears so it might not be a good thing.

Thinking about "mascara" - did it come from the latin "mass-us scaring-is"? Another, makes you go "hmmm" moment.

WOW Stuff

Finally, completed the journey of getting my original 14 - 80's to level 85. Now begins the second part of the journey, the leveling of the worgen and goblin, as well as, the professions. I must say, leveling is pretty easy, I almost got a level on one of my toons just doing the cooking and fishing dailies.

Enjoy the week, spring is coming.

The 2 4

2011-02-13T14:11:00.006-05:00

Yes it has been a while since my last post. It's been busy with work and home life. To be honest some of the things that have happened since my last blog were just not blog worthy. But today I have a couple of items that I think will make you smile.

First off, does anyone other than me get pyjamas from their moms at Christmas time? Well my mom got me a pair of fleece pyjama pants. Just the pants, I am sure if there was a matching top it would be either a fashion police violation, or you would simply spontaneously combust while sleeping. Any way - I noticed that these pants are official Pillsbury Fanware. Yes, I am wearing pyjama pants with Pillsbury doughboys all over them. /facepalm

My second item was a text I got late this past Friday night. It was from my buddy's (I will call him Bob) girlfriend. You see "Bob" is Canadian and he was transferred to the USA for his work and has moved on from there. But from time to time "Bob" gets into these predicaments where he has to explain something Canadian. In this case the text was a question regarding May 2 4.

I explained to her that May 2 4 was usually around the third weekend in May when all loyalist Canadians celebrate the queens birthday. Or what really happens, we have a long weekend and BBQ, totally oblivious to the fact that the queen had a birthday all together. Usually during this weekend there is the consumption of a 2 4 as well.

Her next text was, "What is a 2 4?" Well a 2 4 in Canada is a 24 bottle case of beer. We shorten it to a 2 4.

"But why a 2 4?" Now I am not sure what the standard size case of beer is in the USA, but if you have a 24 bottle size, isn't it just easier to say - 2 4? Maybe we are just better at short forms than they are.

The reason we predominantly have the 2 4 in Canada, however; is that our beer cases have been scientifically designed to maximize the stacking of cases on our dog sleds.

I got the text, "Thanks".

WOW Stuff

"Cataclysm instances are hard!!" You may remember the rant Blizzards' Ghostcrawler had regarding all the QQ'ing over instances. Well, I usually take the time when I do instances to go through them a couple of times on my DPS toons, then graduate to running them with my healers, then once I have some gear saved up I will run them, usually in regular mode, on my tanks. This gives me ample opportunity to learn the instances from all perspectives.

Today however, I went into a regular instance (Stonecore) and all of the toons were level 83 except the tank, he/she was level 85. I was on my level 83 warlock. We wiped on the first pull of trash 3 times. Now there was the, "I wasn't ready excuse." from a few people. The second time it was, "My mom was talking to me." But the third wipe was attributed to the fact the tank just didn't know what he was doing.

Now you are thinking - did a dps'rs pull aggro? No, I wait at least a 2 count and he was well out front according to Omen. Our dps wasn't split - at least mine wasn't, I use a macro to assist the tank. Oh wait, that's it. He kept grabbing 3 groups at a time because he thought that just because he was an 85 in a level 83ish instance he was invincible. I guess he couldn't handle getting smacked in the face by 12 mobs all at once.

Felt sorry for the healer, because according to the tank, it was all his fault, just as the tank quit group. Ugh.

Have a good week.

The Oven

2011-01-31T11:33:00.003-05:00

Since we are so close to the Super Bowl, I felt it would be fitting to tell you about the family trip to Leon's (furniture and appliance store). No, a new TV was not purchased.

Did you know there are no sports figures named after an oven, a fridge yes, oven no. What preciptated a trip to the appliance store was a rapidly deteriorating stove/oven. It is to a point that we need a thermometer in the oven to verify the temperature. Currently, in order to get it to 300F you have to dial it up to 450F. Chicken fingers literally take days to cook, although it is more of a dessicating than a cooking.

So here we are, in the showroom, it had the same feeling one might expect when swimming in the amazon. We were almost instantly surrounded by the piranhas (err sales people). Unlike the movie we actually told them to go away (and it worked - I didn't have to resort to putting on my Speedo), until we had some questions or in the off chance we had made our decision.

We looked at a few models, looking for the one with the biggest oven space. We are currently the centre of the universe now for family events. So we need to cram a pretty big turkey in there on occassion. Eventually we realized that we had to talk to a piranha (err sales person). We give them the story, ask which model can hold the biggest turkey, and there it is - the attempted upscale to a convection oven (I am pretty sure the hole will be the same size).

"Nice try", I say. "If getting the food cooked faster, means getting the in-laws to go home sooner, it's a sale. However; their visits are always a specified number of days. Convection won't help."

He figures it out, explains which oven would be the best in our price range (imagine my disbelief when he selected one that wasn't the most expensive in our range) and we tell him to hook us up. We determine the delivery date. Now the payment options. We want to use our Leon's credit, he asks to see our card, we have never had a card, he responds is your credit with Citibank. "Yes", I say. He retorts, "We have broken off all business relations with them, you will need to reapply."

My head is pounding - this is bad. Applying for more credit, I am starting to feel my national debt ballooning to United States proportions.

The App (not to be confused with an iPhone app)

Name, address, social insurance number, home worth, amount owing on home, where do you work (I figured I was doomed and the sirens would have went off as soon as that was entered), monthly gross.

The sales guy was listening so intently that he entered my yearly salary as my monthly gross. For those of you that just read the last line and didn't even chuckle - that was sarcasm. Our sales guy was so pissed that this sale was taking longer than it should. Damn customers.

Now we are told to wait for 10 minutes until we get the answer. Time passes... "Need a co-signer", we are told. I knew that. The salesman didn't listen to us when we suggested that my wife also include her information. A "credit specialist" takes us back to the counter. She is going to add my wife's information.

Name, social insurance number, address (hmm, its my wife, how is she going to use the oven if she doesn't live at the same address - you figure that would be a no brainer - I am also so dead for an obvious male chauvinist comment), where does she work, monthly gross.

This is the best. The girl then depresses the "enter" key. Before she is even able to release the key (really I was watching), there is a "bing" sound and she says we are approved for $2000. Have a nice day.

THE GIRL DIDN'T RELEASE THE KEY. That, I think was the fastest credit check I have ever withnessed. I think that their Credit App is directly attached to their Dart Board App.

We get the oven on Wednesday - I will let you know how the chicken fingers turn out. Oh, for those of you south of the border (the US if you are still pondering the globe), I think you call them "boneless chicken wings".

WOW Stuff

I have nothing. This weekend has been a blurr.

Apps = Applications

2011-01-13T20:37:00.005-05:00

I had several opening lines for this article. Your mind tends to wander when you have a 6 hour drive ahead of you. Yes, I was on the road, heading towards beautiful, balmy Sudbury, Ontario. If you have ever travelled that direction from Southern Ontario the drive is pretty barren once you pass Barrie. That is when I started to think of my next article.

Then the tummy rumbled, the mental panic. I need a washroom and the side of the road was not an option. Not at -10C that's for sure. Then it dawned on me. The company I work for gave me an iPhone a while back. The first app I put on it was the WOW Armory app. Then the Tim Hortons and Starbucks Finder, the mandatory "what drinks can I make from the contents of my liquor cabinet?" app and as soon as my daughter got a hold of it - the dozen or so games. I even put a couple of work related apps on the phone as well. Later on I diversified and added a restaurant finder (Open Table) some recipe apps, some music and a couple of movies (in case my daughter needed something to do if we were on a road trip).

I was in need of a washroom, but where? I am in the middle of no where. The iPhone! I open the TimmyMe app and prayed that there was a Tim Hortons close. 19KM, I can make it, and that I did. The APP WAS A LIFE SAVER (or at least a pant saver - sort of like the winter car mats but better).

As I headed further north I was thinking, by the time I get to Sudbury the town may be closed up. I was not looking forward to eating dinner out of the hotel vending machine. I figured - another app! I will use Open Table to find a restaurant. I start the app, and look for Sudbury. Hmm - not in the list. I try searching "Near Current Location" - 30 seconds later I got the error, "You are not in a civilized area - try again". Thats awesome. (to be honest once I got into Sudbury proper, one restaurant did pop up, however; I really didn't feel like kangeroo burgers and sea bugs. Really, their specialty was kangeroo burgers, in Sudbury, I think I'll pass.)

Now you may be wondering - why the photo of the ABS. It was an attempt to get more female readership (not that I can actually track the gender of my readers). If you remember my New Years Resolution blog, I mentioned I was going to try and get into shape. I think this is what I am going to work towards. Right now I can only use the word AB (I can't pluralize it). Think of Homer Simpson in a bathing suit.

Oh, I ended up eating at Swiss Chalet, looking around at the clientele, I felt young and fit. Maybe I don't need to get into shape, I may already be there.

WOW Stuff

Mods = Modifications

Mods are 3rd party additions to a game that makes the experience better. I used to use a ton of mods. At one time I had to call the Blizzard technical support line and they suggested that I back up my interface folder before proceeding. The back up took 20 minutes. The technician suggested that, that could be part of the problem. I significantly reduced the number of mods I use. Other than recount, omen and deadly boss mods, the mods I tend to utilize are designed to make my professions easier to do. Check out WowInsider and read their mod articles.

Well, need to go put on my snowsuit pyjamas (I am in Sudbury remember) and get to bed. TGIF

The Night To Remember

2011-01-09T11:27:00.006-05:00

Dear Penthouse

You are not going to believe this. Last Wednesday my wife suggested we go out for a drive to see if we can pick something up. My senses peaked, was she letting the Liger out of his cage? We cruised the town we live in, searching for that one, that we thought would satisfy. There she was, brown hair, nice curves, with Northern European features. We pulled over, we watched for a while to see if maybe it was a sting operation. We couldn't pick anything out of the ordinary that would suggest there were police around. We pull up, my wife asks, "How much?" Our beauty replies, "$375." Wow, I think, my boss says his usually only costs 25 bucks.

I look at my wife - wondering if there is a way out. She smiles coyly at me - nope not this time. My wife asks her to get in. I ask her name. "My name is Sklar Peppler." she replies.

I am rocked by the small explosion in my lower back, the sound of my son asking me if I am ok. "I think I am dying", I cry out. A few more steps and we will have our new (used) dining room set in the truck. All five trillion pounds of Sklar Peppler classiness. Now all I am thinking about is what is going to happen when we get it home. We have to unload this.

After an hour of lugging Miss Peppler around town and a Harvey's hamburger (I am glad he didn't show up in my fantasy with his Angus hanging out.), we got the set in our house and set up.

It is now Sunday and I still am being rocked by excruciating back pain. Even the Robaxacets and liquor are not touching the pain. Thank goodness I am going to the chiropractor tomorrow.

Reminds me of the time, me and the wife spent the evening with the trapeeze, but that is another story.

WOW Stuff

Playing WOW this week saw me try and complete the Vashj'ir quests for all of my alts. It looks like nine down and 5 to go. I also spent the time getting each of my lower level alts a couple more levels each. What is it with the Guild Experience? Our guild has an active member base of like 5, number of members of like 8. Two of us have been pounding the Azerothian pavement the last week pretty hard and we are still a bubble from Level 2. Yes, I said it, level 2 guild status. The bar doesn't seem to want to move.

What are we doing wrong? We are running our alts that belong to the guild doing dailies, completing quests, but the blue line doesn't seem to want to move. The guild my main is in is like level 10 - I guess the power of 250 members has something to do with it. Blizzard really screwed over the small community guilds this time.

Oh well, I guess we will keep plugging away.

Have a good week, I hope my back pops back in tomorrow at the chiropractors.

New Year's Resolutions

2011-01-06T17:58:00.004-05:00

So here we are, into the 6th day of January and I have so far resisted to the urge to write an article about New Year's Resolutions. Guess what? I think I have to go there. I don't want to go there, but I feel I must.

You see I was going to the bathroom the other day and when I looked down I couldn't see my penis. I knew it was there, I was hanging on to it. Making sure the stream of bodily waste products landed in the toilet and not all over the bathroom. I think it is of adequate size, it managed to produce a couple of good kids. A little iffy on the boy, but all in all, they are all right. So what could possibly be eclipsing my manliness?

My belly.

All I could think of was the line spoken by Fat Bastard from the Austin Powers movies. "Get in my belly." I must have swallowed a small child I thought. No, it couldn't have happened. I am sure I would have remembered the struggle. Did I let my body go? I thought to myself, "When was the last time I exercised." "10 years ago - give or take a year or two."

Well its all going to change. I am going to get back in shape. Am I making a resolution? No, I won't go that far. Just in case I get side tracked by a bag of cookies. But I will try.

I will let you know how it goes.

BELL Phone Services

Remember a few blogs back I ranted about Bell Mobility? We ended up cancelling our home service and getting a different carrier. Well they sent us a "final bill" in November of $204, on which they had not processed a payment I had made. Unwittingly I paid the $204. In December they sent a revised "final bill" of a $110 credit (I had paid too much). Awesome, Christmas present money. We contacted Bell to ask them for a cheque. They said that it was my problem I paid too much and that I would have to talk to my bank and have them claw the money back through my web banking. I went to my bank and they said they would put in the request, they cautioned that Bell could still decline to allow the reversal.

It's January, Happy New Year, we get a revised, revised "final bill". We now only had a credit of $108. We had a "late fee" of $2.00 taken from our credit. I had to phone them, I couldn't pass this up. The phone call went something like this.

Bell - Hello how can we screw, err help you?

Alts37 - Well, we closed our account in November and we paid our "final bill" of $204 not knowing that you had not processed a previous payment, giving us a credit of $110. Your revised "final bill" reflects this. We asked for a cheque and you declined.

Bell - Hmmm, that doesn't sound like something we would do.

Alts37 - That is not why I called. I find it funny that you sent us a revised, revised "final bill" in January for a $108 credit and the missing $2 was attributed to a late fee. How is it a late fee when I didn't have to pay anything. You sent me a "final bill" in November and I paid it. End of story, I paid too much and a cheque should have been sent.

Bell - Let me look... ah here it is. We took the opportunity to look back over your account and found that in August, your bill was due on the 24th and you didn't pay until the 26th. At that time we did not assess a late fee on your September bill because you were a valued customer. But since then our relationship has changed, so we took the opportunity to recoup the fee.

Alts37 - Outstanding, and you wonder why people are leaving Bell in droves. Thank you for your time, should I expect a revised, revised, revised "final bill" in February for this invoice consultation?

I hang up.

I am hoping that my bank manages to get me my money at the same time Bell sends me a cheque. When I get the request from Bell to return the over payment. When that comes I will tell them it's a "late fee".

WOW Stuff

Working on professions, the gathering part is easy, the making part seems to be a little harder than what I remember in Lich King. At least the alchemy profession. I remember it being a lot easier to get maxed out.

Pray for me as I endeavour to loose some weight. If you are not a religous person - send potato chips. I like Old Dutch BBQ.

The Balls Have Dropped

2011-01-01T15:05:00.005-05:00

It's New Year's Day, many of you are suffering with a hangover, cottonmouth, and my favourite - who the hell are you? (when you woke up). At our house it was pretty quiet. Midnight came and went with zero fanfare.

It started off in the afternoon - asking my son to join us for dinner. Please shower and be ready for 3:30pm. He states, "I may have to go help my buddy set up for his party."

I restate, "Regardless have a shower and be ready for 3:30pm. It won't kill you to have dinner with us, we will drop you off at your buddies afterwards." We start early because my wife never makes it to midnight. Every year she usually makes it to about 10:00 and then goes to bed. So although we are EST, we usually celebrate as if we are residents of the Canary Islands.

We go to dinner at the Chinese diner in the plaza near our house. Absolutely yummy, it is such a hole in the wall but the food is superb, service is fast and it is cheap. If you live in the Niagara Region, post a comment and I will get you the address and phone number. Time in restaurant - 45 minutes (4:15 - 5:00)

We then watched a couple of new movies. My daughter and I picked up The Sorcerer's Apprentice and SALT earlier in the afternoon putting us at the 10ish pm time frame. Both movies were very good IMO. I was actually pleasantly surprised with The Sorcerer's Apprentice. Very enjoyable. At this point my wife excuses herself. She has to go to bed, she can't stay awake. My daughter and I decide we are going to finish watching The Pirates of the Carribbean trilogy (number 2 and 3 - we watched the first one a day or so earlier).

After the second one I go to check the time - 12:15am hmm... I come back to my daughter, administer hug, exchange Happy New Year's pleasantries and watch the last movie. Bed time comes at 3:10am.

Now - how should have the night went? Well back in the day when we were wild and crazy, we used to watch the Mr. Bean marathon and watch a ball drop, all the while swilling a champagne knock off. This doesn't work anymore, couldn't find a Mr. Bean marathon. This is what I want to propose. Major TV Networks are you listening? Here it goes.

I think a good marathon substitute could be a Steve Carrell Marathon. They can work it so The 40 Year Old Virgin takes us to midnight and we can then watch someone's balls drop. I think that would be appropriate. During the whole time they could run Viagra and Trojan commercials. We could still swill the appropriate alcoholic knock off. It would be awesome.

WOW Stuff

Well as usual, watching my daughter play WOW with an ear piercing play list of Katy Perry et al playing in the background. I will give her the boot in a bit and probably get another couple of Alts a few levels.

Well the balls have dropped, it's a new year, new RL, as well as WOW adventures await. Good Luck and have fun.

Bacon

2010-12-28T13:56:00.000-05:00

We are going to talk about bacon today, the American bacon as opposed to Canadian back bacon. I like both don't get me wrong, but todays rant will be over the selection of a good package of American bacon.

I don't know about all of you but I like bacon, so does the entire family, it is not uncommon to go through a package a one sitting. But what do you look for in a package of bacon? With me, it is not about price, it is about a quality pound of bacon. I will look at the following:

Slicing - are the slices thick or thin (some days my wife says she just can't handle it that thick)
Marbling - there is a balance to the amount of meat/fat content
Smoked/Flavoured - what was the bacon smoked with? I have some recipes that call for a maple bacon and some that require a hickory smoked bacon
Price/Packaging - if the price is too high or too low or if the packaging doesn't look right I may not buy the product

Why am I spending the time discussing bacon? Why am I not using my blog space to write about world peace or how shitty Justin Bieber music really is? Because - well it has to do with my Mother-in-Law and I just couldn't pass up the opportunity.

I think I mentioned in the Christmas blogs that my in-laws were down for Christmas. Well they brought some groceries with them since they were spending a few days, and one of the items was a pound of bacon. We never got around to doing the bacon, eggs, toast and hash browns breakfast so when they left they also left a bunch of the groceries as well.

My Mother-in-Laws Bacon

Let me start off with saying my mother-in-law (MIL - why is that really close to MILF? That's so not cool. My head hurts now) is not that bad, there are things that drive me nuts about her but in the long run she is ok. However, her bacon purchasing skills need work. Not that I would expect her to know how to purchase bacon since she sticks to chicken when it comes to land animals she eats. But you know she pretty much purchased this pound of bacon based on price with a total disregard to the other attributes I mentioned above.

Let's review this pound of bacon's stats:

Packaging - Company name: Bob's Bacon, that pretty well sums it up, cheapest looking packaging I have ever seen
Smoked/Flavoured - no mention of any special processing
Marbling - I would say about 95% fat - what were they feeding their pigs - Joe Louis' and Twinkies
Slicing - My favourite here - the package was only about half sliced, the other half not so much. One big slice about 2" thick.

So at least I could say I am cutting down. My daughter had about 4 slices and I had only one. Granted it was a 2" thick slice.

So what am I getting at? Well take the time, look at the bacon and select a good package. To my MIL, throw an extra 10 cents in the next time and get a decent package of bacon.

WOW Stuff

Planning to get another toon to 85 today, but right now I am looking over my daughter's shoulder as she plays with a group in Gnomer.

Have a Happy New Year.

Christmas Traditions

2010-12-25T17:30:00.000-05:00

"N" is for Nuts

Now the best part of being an uncle is knowing that you have the obligation to teach your niece or nephew the important life lessons, the ones that their parents are too whishy washy on.

It's Christmas Day, and what does one do on Christmas Day? Well you get liquored up and you head to your parents house for Christmas dinner with the family. Luckily for us we live next door so there is no endangerment to the public. There is no operating of heavy equipment involved, when trying to get to the holiday festivities. One literally has to pull on their best Cousin Eddie baby blue leisure suit and just walk on over.

Now, Christmas at Alt37's parents house is an adventure, present are my wife and daughter (my son headed off to his own personal purgatory - his mom's house), my brother, his x-wife (no idea why she still comes over - but hey it helps with blog content) and two kids and my parents who are in there 80's.

Now my mom is funny - she probably cooked Christmas dinner in August and froze it. Because she apparently doesn't have the time on Christmas day to make it. She is retired - she has all sorts of time. She threw me a curve ball this year though. Fully expecting the winter medley of vegetables (broccoli and cauliflower) but we got the bean medley with carrots instead - still boiled to mush though, glad one tradition remains. Yellow ochre coloured roast beef (does it usually change to that colour when frozen?), mashed potatos, cabbage rolls and salad etc. It was pretty good though - can't complain. I don't recall hearing the "Griswold cutting of the turkey sound" when she peeled back the aluminum foil on the beef bucket. Maybe it was because my wife brought 4 bottles of wine with her, wine makes everything taste better. Kidding mom - it was good.

Highlights

At the beginning of the blog I mentioned that "N" is for nuts. You see my nephew got one of those electronic gadgets that allow him to key in a letter and it will tell you a word that starts with that letter. Being a responsible uncle. I taught Bruce (alias - honest) that "N" is for nuts. I then proceeded to teach him what B, G, and T were. Seeing that the ladies in the room were feeling left out - I started to teach him what C, P, T and V were for, but the topic was quickly changed. Shame - this is important stuff.

At this point in the evening I tried to start up some carolling but my mom said she couldn't. Apparently my dad's organ isn't working. Hasn't been for a couple years. She wants to get some guy in to take a look at it. She said she blew some air through the pipes, but that didn't help. What that little tangent had to do with carolling I have no idea. Maybe she was referring to the electric organ she used to play sitting in the corner. Old people are funny.

My nephew wants to be a fireman when he grows up. I guess so he can be in the calendar and show off his nuts.

WOW Christmas

Did you collect all your presents yet? I managed to get through two of my toons. Thirty five more to go. You get 5 presents for each toon, the total of which will equal the number of presents my daughter got in RL. Math - 5 x 37 = N, where N does not equal "Nuts". It's going to take me forever.

Any way - Merry Christmas, I need some more wine.

Oh Shatts... It's Christmas

2010-12-24T10:22:00.000-05:00

Well it is Christmas Eve already. My Christmas celebrations started last weekend with the yearly trip to Bobcaygeon to be with the in-laws (part #1). My wife's brother doesn't like to drive so we trek up there for Christmas the week before with them, then my wife's parents come down to spend the actual Christmas day with us (part #2). I thought I would get considerable writing material while up there, but the weekend was wonderful. The only thing I got while up there was a cold (apparently the whole family including the in-laws caught it). I think it originated up there - on the microscope slides the viruses only had one tooth.

So what do I blog about now? Well, this past week I did my volunteer duty with Community Care. The place where I work rents a truck and for the two weeks prior to Christmas, an employee volunteers to go around each day to the different businesses to pick up the food donation barrels. Both years I took my daughter out of school so she can give me a hand. She really enjoys helping me out on this.

It surprises me, the different places I visit. Just a quick overview of what I have seen this week.

Stopped at a Salon with the stereotypical male salon owner (not that there is anything wrong with that) throwing a hissy fit and screaming at his employee's (in front of their customers) regarding there being hair on the floor and it is getting every where. News flash buddy, you cut hair, gravity causes it to fall on the floor. Get used to it.
Kudos to a highschool that had at least 6 barrels of food contributions. The sad part was they had an equal number of barrels contributed for the 10 families of students that actually go to the school that need help on a monthly basis. Even more disturbing is that they have a breakfast program where they feed as many kids as they can every morning so they will at least have something to eat.
Went to a provincial government office, nine floor office tower. Six cans of beans and a tin of sardines. You guys rock... NOT! You should be ashamed of yourselves.

WOW Stuff

I think the special Christmasy stuff in WOW was lost on the expansion this year. Everyone is either leveling, exploring or working on professions. I managed to get one of my toons to 85, got it part way through the Uldum quests. Which are awesome by the way. All the Indiana Jones related quests are great. Most of my other 80's have graduated to either 81 or 82 and yes I made a worgen and goblin (they are only in the 20's).

A shout out to Gethendor - Guardian of All That is Good. He was in town this week and we couldn't hook up. He was heading home for the holidays this morning and left me liquor in between my house doors. This is what the holidays are about, liquor between your doors.

In General

This is all I have, I have been writing this article in my head all week. It was alot funnier in there. I guess I should have wrote this stuff down. I am going to my parents tomorrow for Christmas. That in itself will probably be worth an article.

By the way, the photo of cousin Eddie up there, that's what I will be wearing to Christmas dinner tomorrow.

Have a Merry Christmas.

stupidus geekis - Disease

2010-12-08T16:02:00.000-05:00

Well it has been about 36 hours since Cataclysm has been live. I have been totally overwhelmed by the change. I didn't pick up the expansion till about noon on December 7th, I had plans to do the midnight madness at EB Games but something happened that changed that plan. I will get into that in a bit.

With regards to the changes, I got home from work yesterday and ran upstairs to boot up my computer so I could do the install. The boot up stalled, seconds turned into minutes, minutes turned into what seemed like forever, do I push the restart button, do I wait and see if my Windows 7 figures it out (I did a fresh Win7 install about a month ago and the machine has been running awesome since then - figures on the day I needed it to be solid). I swallow the bile that was starting to well in my throat and push the reset. It starts to reboot, a screen - push 1 to cry, push 2 to have WIN7 do a Start Up Repair. I push 2 (they should have a third option - cry AND do the repair). Off it goes, chug, chug, chug... 15 minutes goes by, up pops the screen and I paraphrase - Sorry, couldn't figure it out, you are SOL.

Ugh, I pushed the reset button again, nothing to loose now except about 15 hours sleep rebuilding my system again (if necessary) but this time it worked. System started up like nothing happened. I install the game, I log in, now the chaos begins. Two and a half hours to log into each alt and upgrade professions and secondary professions, get my flying certificate then log out.

Next on the to do list - roll the worgens and goblins, whose names we parked months ago. A set for me and a set for my daughter. Facial expressions, hair styles, ears, sex and class all have to be just right, we write down the "code" 2, 3, 1, 5 - which is the right arrow selections for the different attributes. We now hold our breath, delete the toon that was holding the name and frantically recreate the toon we just "spec'd" out, enter the name and take a deep breath when we realize that no snot nosed kid scooped our brilliant toon name in the 20 seconds it took to remake it.

Success, I finally have my world settled down.

My son shows up now, "hey dad, hows Cata going."

"Fine", I state, "finally have my alts taken care of. Have to decide what I am going to do now. How is your Cata experience so far."

He replies, "Good, good, good. I am level 84 1/2, was trying for server first for paladin, stopped to go to the bathroom when it was announced that I missed it. I feel better now."

"Good, good, good. Benefits of being a college student - eh! Study for exams yet?" I am met with stunned silence. Oh well.

I managed to get my worgen to level 11 and my goblin to lvl 5 when I realized the time, tonight I think I might play one of my 80's and check out some of the new areas.

MIDNIGHT MADNESS

I had the best intentions, I came home from work on Monday, had dinner and just did a couple cooking and fishing dailies. I logged off at 9:00 because I was going to take a nap. You see, I have been sick the last few days with a fever, headache, aches and pains (isn't that the same thing). I lay down on my office couch. The plan was to get up at 11:00pm, bundle up and then head to the local EB Games with my son. Hang out with all the other geeks and think to myself - I am the coolest guy here.

My alarm went off, I awoke with a start, I was completely disorientated, had the shivers and sweats, and a crushing headache. I text my son - I couldn't even get up to go down to his room and tell him in person. "You take the car and pick up your game, I will get mine at lunch tomorrow." I get up - WHOA, bad idea... I crawl down the stairs and into my bed. My wife groans, "back already?" "No, too sick to go."

Really - Midnight madness, what was I thinking? It wasn't as if I could install and play right away. I am in the eastern time zone. Install and sit around until 3:00am EST? I had an audit at 9:00am at work. I would have been a mess, especially since I am already teetering on the edge of having the plague.

I think the infection that was in my body was stupidus geekis, or the more common name - 47 year olds shouldn't go to midnight madness no matter how cool they think they are (in their head) syndrome, and my body successfully tossed it out.

Enjoy Cataclysm - oh, in case I don't write another article until after the holidays - Seasons Greetings (very PC of me)

OK - lets face it, I am having Christmas with my family and out-laws. I will have plenty of stories to write.

OMG This Tastes Like Crap 'or' Old is New

2010-12-02T18:39:00.000-05:00

My dog is old. He is a purebred golden retriever and he is about 13 1/2 years old if my math is correct. He is going blind, his hearing is pretty much shot and he moves around a little slower than he use to. All this stuff would be happening to you if you were 90 something years old. He has been a vegetarian all his life, ever since he was a puppy everytime we tried to feed him dog food with meat in it, he would throw up. So he might possibly be the only vegetarian dog I know. A semi-strict vegetarian - none of this - well fish is ok, and chicken because it is white meat. I think the only time he falls off the vegetarian band wagon is when he gets his raw eggs. They make him happy and he gets a shiny coat. He's a good dog so we try to give him the best possible care in his golden years.

He goes to the vets and the Doctor suggests some arthritis medicine for him. So we get it for him. It is the difference between night and day, and he knows it. He even yells at us if we miss giving him his dose.

Today I get home from work and he runs around (yes runs around - its dinner time, don't you run around all happy like), barking to let everyone know I am home. It's wasted though since I am the first home. I get out his food and prepare his medicine. Preparing the medicine means putting the 35mL of goo on a piece of whole wheat bread. He scarfs it down. In the meantime I decide to make a warm beverage because the house is a little chilly. We have one of those Kueri g machines and as I get the thing brewing I feel something wet hit my hand.

Instinctively I lick the spot, not wanting to waste any of my yummy coffee. Aaarrrgghh! Buckley's medicine for dogs. OMG it's awful (but apparently it works). What do I do, I ingested dog medicine (and once you actually get past the taste,and the fact it's for dogs it really wasn't that bad ), and if it makes my hips feel better, you never know I may have a goo sandwich every day too. This stuff makes him feel young again or as my title eludes too - makes him New again.

Now for WOW - unfortunately I don't have a fancy countdown clock but there are only a few sleeps left before Cataclysm happens. The guys/gals at Blizzard have recreated our gaming world in essence making the Old World - New again. The last few days just playing in the 4.0.3 The Shattering world I felt overwhelmed by the newness of the artwork, the rendering of the water (from 4.0.1 - I believe), and the talent trees are only a few of the ways. Yes some of the changes are hard to swallow (had to fit in a Buckley's reference), and there have been some nerfs (or perceived nerfs), but overall it hasn't bothered me. The video monsters still die and I still line my pockets with virtual money, so all is still good in my now New World.

Enjoy the next few evenings, get some extra sleep, get caught up on your work, buy a case or two of Monsters because next Tuesday is coming quick. Don't prepare and you will feel really old again really quick.

What Happened?

2010-11-27T19:55:00.000-05:00

My work at the school board is complete, at least until the next time they call for some assistance. So now I can get back to writing about World of Warcraft. For the last two weeks or so the Pilgrim Bounty was going on. It spanned the old world and the "Shattering", and for me was the one my biggest noob moments. I haven't done any of the Pilgrim Bounty quests for the last couple years (ever since I did it on my main), I didn't think it necessary. That was of course until my daughter (and I guess, Nebz) opened my eyes.

You see, I totally forgot that you could use the "bounty" quests to totally get your cooking leveled. From zero to about 330ish in about an hour. I had a smattering of alts at 80 that still had cooking level 1. This would be a God send, you don't now how embarassing it is when your resident cook (I use my main - a rogue to do all the farming for fish feasts.) sends a stack or so to my other toons and they can't actually set up the fish feasts. You then have to PST the raid leader to see if they will do it for you.

So I figured I would get my toons up to the 330 mark really quick then spend some time getting them up the rest of the way (I really only dreaded the 0-300 trek). That said, I started to do the quests. I had 6 80's, a 60 and a level 8 (yes my daughter started a troll druid) to take through. What do you do on a Friday night? I decided to cook - virtually.

Around 10:00pm after a couple of hours of cooking I was getting a little peckish. So I went down stairs to make a sandwich. I made a hot salami on Italian bread sandwich. I also noticed that my wife had opened a bottle of 2008 Cabernat Merlot from Pillitteri Estates Winery, so I decided to finish off the bottle. Which would be about a half bottle (we have big glasses).

So here I am, back up in my office making stuffing, turkey and sweet potatos. Things are getting a little blurry. Next thing I know, I wake up on my office couch at 3:00am, feeling like I had the worst bender of my life, with my shirt untucked (Seinfeld dentist episode). Not only am I a WOW noob (when it comes to understanding my special events), I am a wine drinking noob now.

Well Christmas is coming up. I better start training.

Statement of the Day

2010-11-24T17:24:00.000-05:00

Well I am still doing the inventories for the school board for their high schools. The school I was in today had two storage areas I would have to work through. The first area was in an actual class, so in order to inventory in this area I would have to be very quiet while I went through the chemicals. Things were going well, at least for the first half hour. Then the school went into lockdown. Twenty minutes of sitting in the dark, smelling fear and urine. Only to receive the all clear that it was a drill. The funny moment in lockdown was when one of the nerd kids whispers to one to the hotter female students, "If this is the end, do you want ta...". That almost made my day - however; my day had barely started.

This batch of chemicals wasn't too bad to sort out. During this time however; Nebz called to inform me that he had sent me an email. It was regarding a chemistry class lab accident in Windsor. You can read the article here .

I personnally like the line from the story,

"It was a typical lab experiment," said Braido. "Who knows today why there was a reaction?"

Hmmm - let me see:

Potassium Chlorate - A very strong oxidizer

Manganese Dioxide - A very strong oxidizer

Glycerine - An organic liquid (consistency of corn syrup)

Sugar - A carbohydrate (organic)

Plus the teacher added some heat.

Usually you get a strong fiery reaction when you mix oxidizers and organics - What a moron. "Who knows today why there was a reaction?"

Anyway, I finish the first area and go up to the preproom. Ugh, I remember this room now. Absolute nightmare. Usually I focus on the oxidizers first, since it is usually the worst. Remember last week, the oxidizers were causing the labels on the jars to smoulder? Well I open the cupboard that appeared to have the most oxidizers in it and began taking out what shouldn't be with them. I end up removing approximately 20 jars of various organics. Can you imagine what could have happened if the reaction started. Apparently teachers can't - remember the shrug from last week as well. I can see the line in the newspaper article, "Who knows today why there was a reaction?"

Around this time I was getting hungry. This is when I came up with the statement of the day:

"I have to eat now, I am getting whoozy from all this stupid."

In addition to all of the oxidizer issues was the cabinet full of acids, bases and flammable organics, but that is a rant for another day.

Before I talk briefly about WOW I have to make one more comment about the chemistry lab accident. In one of the newspaper articles I read regarding the accident it prominently stated that, "the teacher and students were all wearing safety goggles." I have to call BULLSHIT on that. In my Health and Safety Audits from May and the inventorying I have been doing the last month, I have been in these 15 schools twice for extended periods of time for which I have observed approximately 90 classes. Even if a third of these classes were doing labs, I only recall one class where the students were wearing goggles. That is 1 of 30. So highly unlikely - nice PR attempt, but you already stated you had no idea why something like that would happen.

WOW Stuff - 4.0.3

I am still reeling from the patch yesterday. I got my few alts re-talented that had their talent points reset. I also flew around using the flight paths to see the devastation. I thought it amusing that Deathwing chose to destroy the park in Stormwind. Where are all those little gnome babies going to play - Gnomer? Isn't that still suffering from radioactivity? Please no NerdRage emails because I don't have the lore correct.

I really don't have a clue what I am going to do in-game tonight. I was thinking of picking more herbs. You see my Worgen that I am rolling on expansion day needs to be an alchemist. So I want to give him a leg up, so to speak. (Leg up - you see they are Canus lupus (wolf) like creatures. Stake out a fire hydrant, you will figure it out.)

I am hungry again, must be the stupid. CYA

Smouldering

2010-11-19T19:09:00.000-05:00

Its the end of the week again. Thank goodness. Vodka Sodas for everyone. I am still doing the school board inventories with one more week to go. In my last blog I discussed going back to school to get my teachers certificate. I think I would be somewhere in between the "Shut Up" teacher and the "Basic Instincts" teacher in teaching style. I really don't think I could crop my testicular hair short enough to do the "Basic Instincts" style justice.

Other than the schools having much more inventory this week, only one situation really stands out. I arrive at this one high school and immediately have the feeling of "impending doom". The naked statue out front reminded me of their corrosives cabinet. You see I visited all of the schools in this school board a few months ago to do a comprehensive health & safety audit. Part of my focus was to assess chemical storage safety and at this school there was literally everything in this one cabinet.

There was:

Concentrated Hydrochloric Acid (HCl)
Concentrated Sulfuric Acid (H2SO4)
Concentrated Nitric Acid (HNO3)
Glacial Acetic Acid (CH3COOH)
Concentrated Ammonium Hydroxide (NH4OH)

There was even a bottle of Ferrous Sulfide (FeS) in there.

As a review for all you teachers.

FeS + 2 HCl = FeCl2 + H2S

H2S if you do not know equals DEATH.

Why would you put Ferrous Sulfide (any sulfides for that matter) in a corrosives cabinet filled with acids?

Anyway, flash forward to this past Wednesday. I enter the chemistry prep room with my chaperone teacher and say the first thing that comes to mind.

"Do you smell something burning?"

"No, it just smells like a chemistry prep room in here.", he exclaims.

After some searching through the cupboards, I open the oxidizer storage cupboard to find a whole array of materials stored together: nitrates, chlorates, organics all sharing the same space, with most bottles having loose caps or no caps at all. Many of the labels were in various stages of combustion.

I take action. Defuse the issue and make everything right in world.

Now the rant.

WTF (I say in my head). Outside my head I give the teacher the lesson.

"OK, when you come into the prep room and you see the 'white' labels staring back at you, things are good. When you come into the prep room and you see that the labels that were once white, now a shade of brown -> black (with wisps of smoke) there is an issue and it needs to be investigated.

A shoulder shrug, a FREAKING shoulder shrug.

"When am I going to find time to 'investigate'. I don't have enough paid prep time as it is.", he states.

/facepalm (inserted WOW reference - I am already off my WOW topic when I said I was going to get back to it)

Anyway, the impending doom of the corrosives cabinet. They actually heeded the warning and it was cleaned up really well. Now if they could only keep the smouldering labels under control.

WOW Stuff

The elemental stuff is happening with 4 bosses. Unfortunately, I don't think it is going to last longer than next Tuesday. That is when 4.0.3, I think is going to happen. Shame, I have a few alt toons that could really use some of the gear that has been dropping. Unfortunately, the gear is dropping when the wrong toon is in the instance.

I am staying strong. I am sure the odds will finally work in my favour.

Final Thought

Remember, fire in a chemistry prep room is bad. Shrugging shoulders makes it all better.

The Title

2010-11-12T14:23:00.000-05:00

I literally sat staring at my computer screen trying to come up with a title for this article. I thought to myself, "If I am having this much trouble coming up with a title, how am I going to actually write anything?" It has been a strange couple of weeks. I believe I had mentioned that my main line of work is in the environmental management field and the company I work for has been contracted by a school board to do some health and safety/risk management assessments.

That being said, we did the first part of the work a few months ago. This consisted of the health and safety assessments. Now I am back at each of the schools to do a chemical inventory and to rearrange their chemical inventory so they are properly (safely) stored. Needless to say that when we did the H&S assessments, we found that most of the high school chemistry, biology labs we visited were anything but healthy and safe. Heck in one of the biology labs, I witnessed the class doing fetal pig dissections and none of the kids were wearing gloves, let alone eye protection. When the bell rang for lunch all of the kids left the class without so much as washing their hands.

So now the inventories. My work has led me to believe that in order to be a high school teacher you need the following:

1) No actual teaching skills

2) No actual understanding of the topics you are to instruct on

To demonstrate this I will give several examples.

No Actual Teaching Skills

The first school I was at had me situated in the chemistry prep room. There was access to the teachers office area through one door and to a couple of classrooms through two other doors.

In one classroom the class was rather boisterous. I think I counted the instructor yelling (yes yelling), "Shut Up!" 58 times in the one hour that he had the class in session. How is he getting anything done? I am not hearing any lecture materials being taught, only the constant drone of, "shut up!".

In the other classroom the instructor was discussing the principles of pH. The class was dead silent "taking" it all in. I was curious, how was she doing it. I positioned myself so I could catch a reflection into the classroom from the glass in the door. I chuckled to myself. Here she was, sitting on her desk with her legs slighty apart wearing a mini skirt. Ah the, "Basic Instincts" method of teaching.

In both these methods, I am not sure how much information is actually being retained . I do know that the "Shut Up!" teacher needs a sabatical and potentially a life review to see if this is the job for him.

No Actual Understanding of the Topics

This may require a bit more set up. At a different high school, we went to do the health and safety/risk management assessment back in May. At that time we quickly reviewed some of the chemicals and I was asking some questions of the staff member that was left with us. To my chemical questions he replied, "I am just the gym teacher, I don't know anything about chemicals." I asked what he did in the department, to which he replied, "I teach grade 12 chemistry to fill up my schedule. The rest of the time I teach Phys-Ed."

Fast forward to this past week. I am back at this school to do the chemical inventory and the safe rearranging of how the chemicals are stored. I dreaded this school so I never bothered to look up the contacts name (The contact was female back in May and she was a "joy" to work with - can you see that statement dripping with sarcasm.). When I arrived at the school I took out the email I had printed of the contact names, looked up the school and moved my finger across to the contact column. It was the name of the gym teacher. "What?", I asked myself.

I go into the school's office and ask for my contact. He comes down, greets me and tells me how happy he is to see me again. I ask him where my other contact is.

He states, "She did what all new female teachers do. They teach their first couple years and then get knocked up so they can get the next couple off on maternity leave (you see the teachers union is king in the province I live in)."

"Wonderful", I exclaim, "and what do you do at the school now."

He responds, "I am the new Science Department Head. When she left they posted the job and I applied for it and got it."

In my head I am screaming - "BUT YOU ARE THE GYM TEACHER!!!" On the outside I say, "So how is your teaching schedule."

"Grade 12 Chemistry in the morning and the rest of the day is Phys-Ed.", his answer.

With more prodding I basically realize he still knows nothing about chemistry. He leaves me to inventory the chemicals.

Some time passes and another chemistry teacher comes into the room carrying a cup of chemicals I guess. I watch him as he goes over to the "waste containers". These containers are labeled: flammable wastes eg organics, caustic wastes eg hydroxides and finally acidic wastes eg inorganic acids.

He ponders each of the labels and finally asks me, "What does caustic mean?"

"Basic", I answer.

He shakes his head and stares at the flammable waste container, he shakes his head as well. Finally he mentions to himself, "acidic, that's it", and he pours what I now know as waste into the acidic waste container. He then goes over to the sink to rinse out his cup.

I notice that his cup is leaking, the bottom then falls off and I state, "There's a hole in your bucket." (I try to put a plug in for Newfies as often as possible.)

"Yes there is.", he replied, "I don't understand why, this is a new cup, I just got it. I will have to call the manufacturer to complain."

I said, "Before you do that, you do know that the acid you had in your 'metal' cup probably had something to do with it." He's puzzled, I continue to explain that acids are corrosive to metals and that the acids probably weakened the cup to the point the bottom fell off.

He drops the useless cup into the garbage can and states, "You learn something new everyday." and leaves the room.

I literally collapsed onto a stool and began rocking back and forth. Apparently you don't have to know anything about the topic to be put in front of a class to teach "said" topic.

Teacher's Union Rules - did I mention that. So when a kid dies, the Teachers Union will be the first to bash the government over it.

How does this relate to WOW?

I did promise to get back to a WOW oriented blog. Well RL (real life - for my non-gaming followers) is way more funny. But, I can relate it to WOW. When you play WOW you have your toons. Those of us with alts, I think for the most part try very hard to learn, know our characters so we can play them to the best of our ability. We learn our rotations, study our different spells and abilities and watch the videos in some cases on the 'Net' to be able to play our toons better and not be called a "Noob". We want to be able to play these "alts" as if they were our main toons. Just the other day, I was playing and one of the others in my group asked me what my main toons name was. He said that he used to be in my guild and couldn't remember seeing my name. I rattled off a list of 4 or 5 names and he goes - Oh I remember you. You are the guy with 10 mains.

I smiled.

What am I going to do in real life? - apparently I am going to look into going back to school to become a teacher. I apparently don't need to know anything about teaching, just look good in a mini-skirt, and I also don't need to know anything about the topic I am to teach. Win - Win

My Meat

2010-10-28T20:18:00.000-04:00

For those of you that have been following my epic birthday journey, the final installment.

As a recap my wife gave me a 'little piece' on Sunday. On my birthday which was this past Tuesday, she gave me a 'rack'.

Well to thank her for the aforementioned gifts, I decided to give her 'my meat' last night. Yes my meat (as pictured to the left). Not quite sure why it's hooking to the left, but it was still good.

When she got home from work there I was with my meat out on the counter. I trimmed the silver skin, seasoned it with fresh ground sea salt, crack peppercorn, and coriander. I then braided it with bacon. Everything is better with bacon, trust me.

I tied it up with cooking twine because wrapping it in latex would stick to the pan (sorry latex fetish guys) and browned it in a skillet for about 10 minutes a side.

I then popped my meat into her oven for about 30 minutes at 350 Celsius. When done I sliced it into 1 inch thick pieces and served it with Cajun spiced roast potatoes and peaches and cream corn. For desert we had apples sauteed in brown sugar and dusted with cinnamon.

After all that I was spent, and since I don't smoke, I went for a nap.

That's it, that was my epic birthday journey. I hope I didn't cause anyone to soil their keyboards.

Back to the regularly scheduled WOW related blog next week

No penis' were injured in the writing of this blog.

The Big Piece

2010-10-26T21:12:00.000-04:00

Well, since yesterday there has been a ground swell of interest in what my wife could possibly give me for my birthday that would better the "little piece" she gave me last Sunday.

Many have guessed - A pound of butter. Although it would totally go with my new butter dish that is not it.

After having my fill of tacos, my wife smiled and presented me with...

PAUSE... (for dramatic effect)

A "RACK"

It was gorgeous , the proportions were perfect, symmetrical if you will.

I can't wait to sprinkle their contents on my meat. It would make it very tasty. As a matter of fact, the SPICE RACK is just what I needed for my kitchen, after having it remodelled last week.

So there you have it, for my birthday I got a butter dish and a big 'spice' rack.

mmmmm

What a Week

2010-10-25T19:00:00.000-04:00

What a week. Off the top of my head I can’t remember if I have written on this topic before. Actually, I think all my blogs have something to do with the, “What a week” topic.

A number of things have happened to me, they include:

Inventorying chemicals at high schools because the chemistry teachers can’t handle it.
My computer explodes from a rootkit virus I got from the CBS website resulting in a full format/re-install to Windows 7.
My birthday is tomorrow and my wife gave me a “little piece” a bit early, this past Sunday.
And finally - My Wife's BELL MOBILITY bill

Chemical Inventory

My main source of income is working at an Environmental Management company specializing in Hazardous Chemicals where I am the Health & Safety/Compliance Manager. We were contracted by a local school board a few months ago to do a Health & Safety Audit. This audit would include the chemistry classes in all of their high schools.

Needless to say the results were less than stellar. In one classroom the first aid kit was full of mold, in another the water to the eyewash/shower was turned off because it was dripping and annoying the teacher. In other schools it was as simple as incompatible chemicals being stored next to each other, where you could visibly see that there were reactions starting to happen.

Now I have been asked to go back and inventory (WHMIS requirement), which when I ask why the teacher isn't doing this, I am told, "We can't expect the teachers to take on this responsibility." When inventorying, I am also required to colour code all the bottles so they can properly store the chemicals. Which I am at a loss to understand how this is going to help. They didn't know how to store the chemicals by reading the labels, not sure how looking at the colour coding is going to make it better.

Computer Explosion

Last Thursday, I was leisurely tabbing through the news and came to an article on the CBS website. Following the headline link, I started to read the story and got to a link to watch a CBS video. I clicked the link and was asked to download a "viewer". I downloaded the file, ran a McAfee scan on the file and proceeded to install the "viewer". My video didn't open. Hmmm. I was concerned. I ran a Malwarebytes scan and all the virus scanners alarms started going off. The CBS Video Viewer file was full of rootkits and other associated viruses. Thanks CBS.

Well I decided that I was going to try Windows 7. Yes I know, Windows 7. Well so far I have been extremely happy with the install and with no issues. It's even a legit copy, imagine that. So "Installing I must go." - I begin adding all my software. I got everything in and started installing World of Warcraft. The original and the two expansions, then the 4.3gig upgrade to 4.0.0. This I started at about 1:00am, by 1:00pm that afternoon only 500M had downloaded. WTF is that, I have a business account, I am suppose be on a 1M/sec account. I noticed that when the download was happening, that Internet was not available to the other computers in my house. Something is wrong here, so I decided to get a new router. WOW - freaking awesome. I am now connected at the 1M/sec. The rest of the download happened in about 15 minutes and the next download of about 3gig to go to 4.0.1 happened in minutes as well. Happy days, I was killing things in no time. I do notice a huge difference in my gaming, no more lag and my frame rates are really good.

A "little piece" For My Birthday

It's my birthday tomorrow, and over the past weekend my mother came over Saturday to give me my canister of peanut butter cookies, my Reese's Peanut Butter cups and my $20 bill. Huzzah, WOW snacks. On Sunday my wife goes out to "shop", I find out from the kid that it is for my birthday gift. My wife gets home and asks if I want my gift today (as in Sunday and as in early). I tell her I don't care, on the day is fine. Fast forward to Sunday dinner time.

I did a grilled steak, red peppers and onion stir fry that we placed on panini's and these triangular fancy buns. After, dinner my wife takes the plates to the kitchen and comes back and asks, "DO YOU WANT A LITTLE PIECE?"

I am thinking, "Now we're talking, we should probably take it up stairs so we don't damage the kids."

My wife looking at me sensing the wave of "Barry White" music, quickly states, "No a little piece of your gift, you will get the bigger part on Tuesday." She then hands me a box.

She got me a 'Butter Dish'. Now we need a butter dish, but after getting my hopes up, it was a rather flaccid moment. Can't wait to see what the second half of my gift is. A pound of 'butter' to go into the dish? I am sure I will love it none the less.

Bell Mobility Bill

I get home from work today and there is a brown envelope waiting for me saying, 'personal and confidential'. I open it up and it is a letter from a collection agency saying I owe them $245.00. I call to find out what is going on and they refer me to Bell Mobility because oddly enough they have no idea why I am in collections. They have no documentation regarding the case.

I call Bell Mobility and find out that the charge is for my wife breaking her cell contract on July 29, 2010, when her expiry date on the contract is supposedly July 29, 2011. Hmmm funny. Prior to that date she called several times to find out her contract date because she was interested in a hardware upgrade. The most recent was in June 2010 when we got our daughter a cell phone for her graduation from grade 6. We researched cell packages for a twelve year old and found that a Virgin Mobile package to be the best. When we picked up the phone my wife inquired about a cell package for herself, saw something she liked and to verify her contract date, the Virgin Mobile lady called Bell Mobility to again verify the contract date - July 29, 2010. YES July 29, 2010. So my wife said in her best Schwarzenegger voice, "I'll be back". I remember the day very well, we had tea and everything from the tea place in the mall. She even sent me an appointment in Outlook regarding her trip to the Virgin Mobile kiosk July 29, 2010.

July 29, 2010 - she got her phone. She was happy. Now this collection letter. Calling Bell Mobility was the usual, "we mailed you on three occasions, we called you on your cell, as well as, your back up land line, we emailed". Funny, we never received any correspondence from Bell Mobility until this collection letter from the collections agency. Bell Mobility on the phone even went so far as to say that the Virgin Mobile lady lied to get us to switch. So I guess they are also saying my wife is suffering from a mental issue when on three occasions she called and Bell Mobility told her the same thing - her contract was up July 29, 2010. It all ended up with Bell Mobility saying that it is an issue we need to take up with Virgin Mobile.

We called Virgin Mobile told them the story, they sympathized with us, and stated that unfortunately they couldn't really help us. But to take some of the sting, they would credit my wife's account $50.00 just for being a valued customer.

Well we decided we are going to pay the collection notice - I don't have it in me to fight it. The "case of the dog-faced hooker" (that is another blog) sapped all my legal battle fighting power.

To Bell Mobility we say - F U

Patch Day + 3

2010-10-15T17:37:00.000-04:00

Well it has been almost 3 days since the patch that rocked my world (no pun intended). We have had earthquakes starting in all the major cities. I even experienced one on the Death Knight mothership. How is that possible? It is hovering in the air. Sure you may hear something going on down below, but would it actually move our hovering homeland?

How about those glyph and gem prices? Through the roof on your server? They are on both of the realms I have toons on. A glyph I couldn't give away for 2G is now sitting at 399G on the AH. Although it didn't last long, I am sure a few people bought them at the inflated price. Even gems that were in the middle of a price war of about 70G each are now close to 200G. Crazy.

We have had the Wow Insider folks helping us out by publishing a guide to what to do before and after the patch. It was pretty helpful. Lets just say, I am glad on one of the realms I play on, I have the whole ball team (10 toons). Everyone does a profession or two as needed. I spent almost nothing on re-gemming and glyphing. I think I may have spent a couple thousand gold to get everyone updated and that was because I was too lazy to wait out my transmuting cooldowns. Compare that to another realm where I have 3 Alliance toons and 1 Horde toon, and they don't cover all of the profession choices, I believe I spent closer to 5000G re-gemming and glyphing just the 4 of them. That's crazy as well.

What is more crazy is what I saw on the way home from the chiropractor today. Apparently with Cataclysm coming out, the Blizzard folk have decided to remove the portals from Dalaran. I guess it makes sense since the focus is now on the 'new' old world and Dalaran will be a veritable ghost town like Shattrath is now. Anyway, hopefully this is not a distant memory for you, the well in Dalaran. On your realms do you have the guy or guys (and they are usually the toon/toons that everyone knows on the realm - usually the trade chat trolls) that hover their fancy mounts over the well, immune to the dismounting for some reason. The one that I remember on my realm was the guy that would hover in the Mimiron's head, I always pictured him as the middle aged looser from the basement. Well photos apparently surfaced of him, and I guess he is a teen aged looser from the basement. Anyway, what I saw on the way home from the chiropractor was a teenager in a Saturn Astra, windows rolled down (it's about 10 Celsius here), with his smoke (not cool any more - you are not the freaking Marlboro man), with his seat set all the way to the back with his arms perfectly straight and he is now looking through the steering wheel. I swear to God that I thought the car was empty when he was driving behind me. All I could think of was the guy in the head. Buddy you are not cool. Same as with the guy in the head. You had 24 others that carried your ass through Ulduar to get it. You had 24 others that failed the roll and you got it. God, felt sorry for you because you live in a basement. I had a nice vehicle, then I realized that I don't need to pay $600/month to get from point A to B, so I got a small cheap car. In a year I filled up the car about 15 times with fuel. So to tie this back to WOW - I won't be forking out 5000G to get the upgrade from 280% flying to 310%, once was bad enough. There isn't anywhere I really need to get to that fast.

Next can I talk about mods? Thank you to all the writers out there that are working diligently to update my life's blood in game. You don't know how much you miss something until you are staring at a standard Blizzard UI.

That's it. I had a couple more things I wanted to talk about. Unfortunately I had a bout of Alzheimer's kick in and those thoughts left me. I don't actually have Alzheimer's, I guess I am just old.

Just One More Hit

2010-10-15T09:46:00.000-04:00

Hey, did you know that you can't use a "Scroll of Resurrection" on an account that has been upgraded to Wrath of the Lich King? I sure didn't and I'm willing to bet Alts didn't know either.

I finally had everything all patched up and I was twitching at roll a new character last night. I accepted the invitation to use the "Scroll" and behold yet another error message. "This account does not meet the requirements to use the Scroll of Resurrection."

I'm starting to think that this is a sign. A sign from above warning me not to put the Warcrack back in my veins.

I Suck

2010-10-14T09:09:00.001-04:00

So I reinstalled the game and patched everything up nice, nice last night. However when I went to start the application I received the same error message as before. For some reason my system is refusing to connect to the game server. This is most perplexing indeed.

Everything used to work fine and now I can't connect, time to troubleshoot this bad boy. Let's see, what has changed on my system in the past eight months?

...Oh...I Suck....

Here's a tip to anyone that cares to listen. If you install a program on your system to prevent unwanted connections to other networks (ie Peerblock) it will block the connection to other networks! That's what it is supposed to do, that's why it's not called "Peer-allow" or "Connection-encourager". So I turned off my connection blocker and hey, what do ya know I can connect to Bliazzard again. (IDIOT).

So once again my computer sits at home updating to the current patch. Hopefully when I get home today I will finally be able to reenter the World of Warcrack.

Insert WELCOME BACK KOTTER theme here

2010-10-13T09:37:00.002-04:00

Like a phoenix I have been resurrected from the ashes.

A friendly soul has cast a scroll of resurrection on Uncle Nebz and in doing has unknowingly unleashed a hell upon the land of Azeroth like none have ever witnessed before! That is assuming that I can get the game to load. You test my allegiance once again Blizzard.

I successfully installed the patch yet when I attempt to start the game I receive an error message telling me that it can not initiate the streaming installer? "Streaming Installer, what the hell is that?

Now the old Nebz would not have accepted this fate. He would have punched a hole in his screen, drank a bottle of whiskey and then proceed to write a crap- filled blog article on how Blizzard is F'N SCREWING WITH ME! But I stand before you a much gentler and kinder Uncle Nebz and I reacted with a meager "meh" and then proceeded to attempt a "repair" on the WOW folder. After 10 minutes of the game scanning itself and trying to fix the holes in my game code I received a lovely little note saying, "Unable to repair, please reinstall."

Hmm, reinstall? Really? Ok then, let's do that. So I break out my DVDs and start reinstalling the now bloated 16.5 GB game. After a half hour of physical installation the game is finally on my hard drive and ready for… play? In the immortal words of Consuela the Spanish housekeeper from Family Guy, "No"

It's update time. So my computer now sits in a perpetual state of updating. It seems that it has been downloading patches now for five hours. But that's fine and I'm okay with the wait. I am in my happy place, the sky is blue and the ocean is calm.

Good for you Blizzard, you have tested me and I am the better person for it. I'm looking forward to reentering the World of Warcraft. I will update again with my progress and of course my thoughts on the present state of the world. Everything is finally rainbows and puppy dogs.

Patch Day 4.0.1

2010-10-12T19:52:00.000-04:00

Well it's patch day, 4.0.1 is being applied in an extended server maintenance. At the time of my writing this, the server maintenance has been extended a couple more times and we are supposed to be able to "play" at 5:00pm PDT. I use the term "play", when in fact it will most likely be the picking up of the pieces of our shattered virtual lives.

Anyway, as you know I am on vacation this week. As I mentioned yesterday I think I nailed the weather component, so if I feel like sitting out on my patio in my pajamas and drink coffee infused with Baileys Irish Cream I can. But today the focus was on getting a couple of chores done during the maintenance down time.

My chores were:

Assemble my daughters new dresser.
Create talent trees for 15 level 80's some of which have a duel spec.
Correct an Income Tax Remittance issue for my home business - this after I called and was told by the help guy that the Gov't of Canada screws this up all the time.
Search for updated Mods

So I had to plan my day. I figured I would start with the Income Tax Remittance issue.

Income Tax Remittance Issue

Back in June 2010 I received a letter stating that my T4-Summary was messed up. It appeared I may have remitted too much and I was tasked by Revenue Canada to prove that I in fact paid too much before they would give it back. Well I successfully proved that I had overpaid by about $670. I was instructed to short/not pay my monthly remittances until I had used up the entire credit.

Come September, I got a form from Revenue Canada stating rather humorously that they haven't received any payments from me lately and that they missed my money. I was suppose to complete the form to let them know where the errant money had gone, or if I had closed my business. If that was the case, they wanted me to know that "They were saddened by their loss." Yes I phrased that right.

Well I called the help number and explained to him that I had a letter saying not to pay until my credit had been used up. I stated I sent in my remittance forms each month with a yellow sticky note saying this is what I was suppose to pay, but I wanted to apply it to my credit. "That is the problem", he stated. "Government pink slips are actually yellow and opening my letter and seeing the yellow piece of paper probably set the guy off" - he asked that I don't use yellow anymore. He then proceeded to state that the 'left hand doesn't usually know what the right hand is doing' and that he would make some notes on my file, but that I should fill out the form and send it back just to be safe. So that is what I did today - I decided to wait until the credit was completely used so I would only have to explain once.

Talent Trees

I must thank the Wowhead Talent Calculator guys for their wonderful utility. It made my life easier even though I ended up making 23 different builds to cover all my alts and their dual specs. Enough said about that - I am sure there are a large number of you rocking back and forth in your basements as we speak.

Assembling the Dresser

When the hell did Ikea change the rules. I open the boxes expecting an Allen Wrench to fall out into my hand - it didn't. Instead I open the instructions to reveal that I had to use a Phillips screwdriver, a slot screwdriver and a hammer. Wow, real tools, I almost felt like a master carpenter except that I was assembling "wood" made of wood dust and liquefied horse ass.

This task took 3 freaking hours, you would think that those Swedes were a little smarter. Apparently, one of them can't count up to 6. I love getting down to the bottom of my part bag only to find out that the guy can't count and their quality assurance guy didn't catch it.

Luckily I had the part I needed from one of my past furniture endeavors.

Updating Mods

They will come - my son is under the delusion that he will be raiding tonight. Good luck with that.

Side Note

Did you see the size of the list of known patch issues. There must be a pile of programmers at Blizzard running around like Chicken Little. They must be stressed - sort of like the Enron accountants on audit day.

Anyway, see you in Azeroth sometime this evening. I have a few toons to talent up.

Thanksgiving

2010-10-11T10:55:00.000-04:00

I am on vacation this week, so I am going to try and write a few articles this week to make up for being lazy the last couple of weeks. Since it is Thanksgiving in Canada today, I figured I would write about the things I am thankful for.

For one, I think I picked a good week for a vacation. The weather looks as if it is going to co-operate the whole week. Eighteen Celsius and mostly sunny all week. So I am thankful to North American Indians for coining the term "Indian Summer", or was it those oppressive pilgrims because I think this is it.

Since we are thanking our ancient peoples, I would like to thank all of the ancient civilizations that thought the fermenting of grains, vegetables and fruits was a good thing. I would have to concur. Cheers.

I would also like to thank Blizzard for developing a game that I can truly enjoy (although there is the occasional rant about the stupidest mod on the planet - GearScore - wait it isn't the mod that is the problem it is how people use it.)

I am thankful for my wife's patience when it comes to my playing of WOW.

I am thankful for having a couple of great kids. Especially the one that does all my pvp'ing for me.

I am also thankful for my parents, because if they didn't do the nasty I wouldn't be here. It burns the inside of my head every time I think of that.

A couple of weeks ago I wrote an article and I included an honorable mention of my ancient neighbour from across the street. Her photo is shown above, as she picks up leaves in her driveway by hand. I am thankful that her mind isn't so far gone that she is doing her leaf collection naked. The nightgown is bad enough.

That's it. I have got to go and put my daughter's birthday present together. While I am doing that I have to think of a serious WOW article since the 4.0.1 patch is rapidly approaching. Oh, I am thankful for the development of the Allen Key.

Have a great day everyone - Happy Thanksgiving.

I See Hillbillies

2010-09-19T13:04:00.000-04:00

It always takes a bit of time to re-acclimatize myself when I get home from a business trip. I was away for a few days about 5 hours north of where I live teaching at the university up there. The course being taught doesn't matter, the fact is, the time away messes up the family equilibrium. You read the signals and react but the outcome is wrong. I am starting to get things figured out. I decided to go outside and collect the dog crap that has accumulated. If anything it will keep me out of more trouble.

WOW seems to have changed for me as well. You see my notebook doesn't have the testicular fortitude to run WOW so for the time I am away all I can do is read the wow.com articles (Notice the URL change - even that was stressful for me). I will talk about that later. Most if not all articles are about the Cataclysm Beta, and as I read them I practically put myself into an anxiety attack. It's OMG, OMG, OMG this is changing, that is changing. I have 15 level 80's to figure out. New spec's to try and understand, more leveling to do. The list goes on.

Then there are the guild achievements. Please if anyone has an answer for this question, please let me know. There are cool guild mounts. I would imagine that these mounts become available once the guild achieves a certain status/level. A number of points or something. My burning question is, "Will all guild members be able to purchase these mounts?" or is it just the persons that participated in the particular instance or whatever that unlocked the guild mounts. You see, I had to drop out of my raid spot due to RL during the fall of 2009 and I have not been able to get it back. There have been openings but because of the time off, I am behind in gear and the knowledge of some of the fights. So the guild preferred to poach (I mean recruit) from outside instead of trying to get me (and a few others that had some other commitments) back up to speed. I would find it incredibly unfair if guild mounts were only available to the raiders of the guild.

As I mentioned above, Wow.com is moving again. I can handle only so much change. Are you people trying to kill me? I now have to book mark new URL's on 4 computers and on my phone. Oh the pressure.

I read an article saying that there was patch stuff to download. They were saying that Cataclysm must be close. Can you imagine my horror when I got home Friday evening and the downloader kept giving me a "runtime++" error. Thank goodness I was able to find a fix for it on one of the World of Warcraft Community forums - "change the compatibility to Windows 98/ME". IS BLIZZARD SERIOUS? WinXP has been around for at least 5 years and they screwed up the downloader. This does not bode well for Cataclysm release night. On the bright side my patch info has been successfully downloaded.

Friday when I got home I didn't play much. I just re-applied my auctions (I love my Armory App but not enough to purchase the subscription to be able to do my auctions on my phone), and did a few fishing dailies. On Saturday I did do a little more before relinquishing the computer to my daughter. I did a few VOA's, even one where the raid leader insisted on a GearScore of 5500+ for a VOA10. At least somethings haven't changed, we will not be without the idiots come the expansion.

Finally, the Real Life highlight of my trip. I got to see a hillbilly couple out on a family excursion. As I drove north on the highway I looked off to the right to see a couple driving their his and her ATV's, both fully decked out in their finest camouflage. However; on the back of his ATV was a baby seat bolted to the cargo rack facing forward. Sort of like a navigator in a fighter jet. The kid was probably 6 months old or so, dressed in a little camouflaged outfit with a little camouflaged blanket. Now this couple thought of everything. I would have been concerned that this little guy or girl would get pelted with branches as mommy and daddy went plowing through the underbrush. Oh no - this baby seat was decked out with a plexi-glass shield. Did I lmao for the next couple of kilometers. I can see it now, half the USA is thinking, "What's so funny?" and the other half is thinking... I am not even sure what they would be thinking.

Anyway, that's it. My daughter went to a friends, so I have a couple of hours to work on my GearScore for the next VOA10.

Where Can I Find a Bonar?

2010-09-12T19:29:00.001-04:00

Yup, that's my title for this article. Last week I was sitting in my cube, with a co-worker in the cube next to me, when one of the owners comes out of his office to ask us that very question. "Where can I find a Bonar? Google that for me please", he says. "I am afraid to Google that." I reply, "I am afraid of what I might see on my monitor".

Well you see, the environmental management business is full of interesting terms for "Packages". You almost have to shake your head there. Bonar, to the uninitiated is a plastic cubic yard container, although they can come in a variety of sizes and colours (I almost can't contain my chuckling on that line). Another container in the environmental management industry is the Gaylord. Not that there is anything wrong with that. Time to change the subject.

Anyway, other stuff to talk about. I find humor just staring out my front window. I am talking popcorn and a pop (soda for those south of the border) funny. The lady across the street from us is probably close to a million years old, and she just can't stop working on her yard. You would think that once you get that old you would have your son come over and do that work for you. Wait, her son's in his late forties and lives in her basement (I am suspecting a Tauren Warrior).

Nevertheless, she has a thing for leaves. Leaves are not allowed on her lawn. She stands out there all day and she picks up every leaf that falls onto her lawn by hand. No rake. I even saw her this morning trying to catch the leaves as they were still falling. Believe me, that was hysterical, my daughter and I were just killing ourselves. Additionally this morning she was being harassed by this pesky dove, it would keep landing on her sparkling driveway. You see she wipes it down on her hands and knees with a wet cloth pretty much everyday. The dove would land, she would run over (as fast as a million year old lady could), broom in hand and scare the bird away. Kneel down and wipe the spot where the birds dirty feet made contact with her driveway.

Oh the jocularity.

Garage Sales - Is it all the same in North America? I had one once, a few years ago. I put the ad in the newspaper on a Friday night. "Garage Sale - 9:00am Saturday. 123 Anywhere Road". The paper around here is delivered around 5:00pm maybe, by 6:00pm Friday night I had people cruising past my house and coming to my door asking me if they can "Preview my stuff". Get the hell out. The ad said 9:00am Saturday. What is wrong with some people? Then of course, people start knocking at my door at 6:00am, wondering how come I have not started the "sale". How can they not understand - 9:00am. I can't believe they were fighting over my shit. I had a hard time taking their money. Even when they tried to barter with me over the cost of an item I had priced at a $1.00 and they only wanted to pay 75 cents. Holy Crap! They could have had the whole yard for 5 bucks. I just wanted to get rid of this crap. Well fast forward to this past Saturday.

I rented a 6 cubic yard bin for this weekend. After my "garage sale" fiasco mentioned above I decided to just rent a bin every so often and purge. Well amazingly it only took a couple of hours to fill up. You see I was going to clean out a few storage rooms in our house, but I ended up filling the bin with the contents of my shed. Now I have to get a bin next month for the interior two rooms. "Where is the humor?" you ask. Well as I am filling the bin in the driveway a few people stopped to see if I was having a garage sale. "Yes", I exclaimed. "Everything must go. I conveniently compacted it all in this handy dandy 6 cubic yard carrying container." One person actually made an offer. I almost fell over. Some people shall I dare to say it, "are retarded". I can't even throw crap out into a garbage dumpster without someone coming over and wondering if I am having a garage sale. They were actually mad at me for not offering the crap to the public prior to my depositing of it to the bin.

That's it, I am spent. It was actually pretty tiring cleaning around the house this weekend. I am glad we are sort of in a lull waiting for Cataclysm. It gives me a chance to rest, do some of the vanilla and BC achievements and store up some gold (Have old world flying to purchase for a few toons. So happy it will only be 250G each.). I am going to be traveling this week. I should have a whole pile of stuff to write about next weekend.

TTYL

You Need to Know Your Toon

2010-09-02T13:24:00.000-04:00

I think I read that title in one of the Wow.com blogs. To summarize the article, there is either the GS argument or the skill argument. I totally believe in the skill conquers all argument. The "don't stand in the fires", "more dots", "phase two ranged only" blah blah blah. Just the other day I did a GDKP in TOC 25 with the raid leader sporting a 3800GS. We never wiped once and he never died during the whole raid, because he knew how to play his toon. Funny enough, he also came second on the healing charts. I consider myself to be somewhat competent with my toons. I also know my limitations and do not attempt instances/raids when I know for sure I neither have the gear and my skill is not quite there. For example, I duel spec'd healing tree on my druid and the first random instance I got into was HHoR. So here I am with mostly feral druid gear on, attempting to heal my first time on a druid. I politely told the group I was with that I was not ready for this instance and kicked myself. I am slowly getting my skill and gear up but I am still not ready to attempt that instance.

The above being said - "Know Your Toon" can apply to RL as well. Just yesterday, I was asked to go out on the road for work with a "temp" driver. As in, can you go with this temporary AZ (tractor trailer) driver and go service some of our customers. Although I didn't like the idea of going with a temp driver it was a day out of the office.

So here I am, sitting in the passenger seat of the tractor listening to the driver tell me that he didn't remember how to do a circle check (and the required paperwork to fill out) and what I thought was the best (although it was going to be a day of "bests"), he states he doesn't know how to back up a tractor trailer. I shuddered thinking that I had 3 loading docks to back into during the course of the day.

Off we go, heading to the biggest metropolitan centre in Ontario, on one of the busiest highway systems in Canada with a driver from a temp agency (that can't back up a tractor trailer). During the two hour drive I determined that my driver had two speeds:

Complaining that the vehicle was governed at 100kph; or
Locking up the brakes (because monitoring the flow of traffic and adjusting your speed accordingly wasn't in his skill set)

Well we got to our first stop. The business was a building sort of behind a strip plaza, so there was a need to back down a driveway. I got out of the truck because I knew a spotter was going to be needed. It took close to 1.5 hours for him to negotiate the backing up of the vehicle. I along with the owner of the plaza had to stand at the drivers door and relay wheel turning instructions to my temp driver as an additional 2 spotters at the back of the trailer relayed everything to us with respect to distances and location of the trailer to inanimate objects like gas meters and the like. Once positioned my temp driver stayed in the cab as I off loaded the 20 drums (it took me about 20 minutes). Did I mention it was 32 degrees C plus humidex. Tally - 2 curbs crushed, chunk of lawn flattened, section of interlocking brick pulverized and close to 4 dozen vehicles with their schedules impeded.

Our second stop afforded us with the "mistake" that when we pulled into the wrong driveway, it inadvertently positioned us to easily back into our assigned loading dock. I got out of the truck to find our contact and when I returned I found my temp driver now perpendicular to our assigned door. How the hell did he do that? No problem the facilities loading dock area was "L" shaped and he actually positioned himself in front of one of the other doors. The contact and I ran to the other loading dock and opened the door. Waving the temp driver to back into this dock instead. 5 minutes later, he was no where near the second option but he was in line with a third dock. We opened that door for him. Yes, he missed that door too. I finally yelled, "Pick a door, I want to get this job done." He got the truck parked and disappeared (ashamed of himself perhaps), I ended up loading this customers material by myself (about 10 skids and a dozen drums). This job took 4 hours for me to complete by myself because I had to actually pack the material onto the skids and shrink wrap them.

Off to our final stop. We pull in and I get out to find the contact. I walk with my contact to the loading dock and open the door. I go out to truck and tell the temp driver which dock he needs to get into. Sixty eight attempts later and the following items violated:

One sea container bumped (no damage thank God)
One landscape boulder ran over and pulverized (they don't make rocks like they used to)
One abandoned skid crushed
One building across the parking lot - scuffed (no one came out so I guess they didn't hear the noise of the vehicle crashing into it.)

As soon as he got it into the dock I noticed that he hadn't opened the back doors of his trailer before backing in. So he actually had to pull out in order to get them open. Once opened he took another 32 times to get back into the dock. He didn't come in to help me load, he stayed in the cab and I loaded 30 drums of sulfuric acid by hand, by myself.

By this time I was about 12 hours into my day (the whole day was expected to take about 8) we still had to drive back to our base. I get a call from our dispatch, "Drop the trailer at Plant 2 and bob tail back to Plant 1.", "Ugh" I say. "Don't worry about backing it into a spot, I will get one of our regular drivers to do it in the morning.", dispatch says. "That is assuming he knows how to drop a trailer.", I reply.

Well a two hour drive back to Plant 2 through the extended rush hour. As we are pulling in I tell him to just drop the trailer along the fence. I get out and gingerly walk around the yard gathering some wood in order to put under the landing gear, you see the asphalt is a little rough in that area. As I am returning to the truck/trailer I notice him tearing apart the cab. "What are you looking for I ask?" He states, "I am looking for the 'button' that disengages the fifth wheel." I am about to explode. "So you don't know how to drop the trailer." I query. "Not entirely sure, I haven't actually did it before, I haven't driven a tractor trailer in about 3 years.", he replies. I get a pair of gloves on and reach under the trailer and pull the fifth wheel release, "Get in the truck and drop the trailer, I want to get home."

Dropping trailer done, Plant 2's gate is closed and we head back to Plant 1 so I can get my car and go home. My 14 hour day complete. We pull into the driveway, he extends his hand and say's, "Thanks for the work today, and how did you think my driving was?" In my head I was screaming 'EPIC FAIL' but not wanting to totally crush him, I stated, "You showed improvement throughout the day, I would suggest a lot more practice in backing up. Try to visualize a situation and run through it in your head how you would do it." I am a nice guy. Had this been WOW there would have been a vote to kick about 10 minutes into our "instance". I couldn't trash him to his face, I will just do it in my blog. He was an example of not having a good gearscore, as well as, not knowing how to play his toon.

Not only did the landscape have a heavy toll taken on it, a pretty hefty toll was exacted on me:

Two upper back muscles blown out
One hernia irritated (I had a hernia operation about 3 years ago, I think I stressed it out)
Two red and chaffed testicles - It was 32 degrees C all day and I had meatball soup happening
Both knees messed up

I got home quaffed 3 beers, a monster energy drink, swallowed two Robaxocet, ate dinner, and Heath Ledger'd on the couch until my wife shook me awake this morning.

Have a nice day.

You Just Have to Shake Your Head

2010-08-31T13:35:00.000-04:00

Nebz has spoken. I thought he was dead I haven't heard from him in so long. It looks like he is riding off into the sunset like a SpaceCowboy :) He may be back for Cataclysm but I think he may require a cooling off period. Always so angry.

I am glad he took the time to write his article though, because just yesterday something happened to me that I thought would be wonderful to blog about but it tied into his hacking incident. You may have heard the phrase, "You can't fix stupid." If you haven't - remember I coined the phrase :p

Nebz regaled you with his account hack drama. Isn't that insane, what hacker actually improves your account when they have it under their control? Additionally, something Nebz forgot to mention - they actually were adding stuff to our guild bank - not taking it away. This must have been the worst hacker ever, at least in his ability to leech the life's blood from a toon and it's guild bank and then return it with only the virtual skin he/she is wearing with no possessions.

To expand from there - I think this same hacker broke into my car over the weekend. You know the second you get into your car that it has happened. This is my 4th time this year. I will explain how my car looked in the mornings when I got into it to go to work. Oldest to most recent.

Door left open, crap thrown around the car, glove compartment open and contents on the floor, all change taken from the console/ash tray. It actually takes you an hour to figure out if anything has been taken.
Door left ajar, glove compartment open, all change taken from the console/ash tray, jacket taken but hung on front banister once it was found to not contain anything valuable.
Door closed, glove compartment left closed (but looked through), all change taken from the console/ash tray.
Door closed, all coins taken from console/ash tray, car detailed to be cleaner than when you parked it the night before. Glove compartment not even opened.

So this weekend I decided to take all the silver coins out of the car - my daughter has been hitting me pretty hard for Slurpees lately so I was dangerously low on coinage. When I counted my change, I left $1.50 in pennies in my console. THAT'S RIGHT - THE CLOWN BROKE IN FOR 150 PENNIES. Not only that but he left my $125 Bluetooth/charger and my $85.00 power converter plugged into my console - he/she even tidied so the cords were not all over the place. They didn't even go into my glove compartment, which is really disconcerting, they didn't take my Beach Boys CD. What is wrong with the Beach Boys? Is there something wrong with me?

Sorry if I am not being politically correct but - What a retard!!!

I am so sure now that the same hacker that got into Nebz' account was the person responsible for getting rid of all that annoying penny change and tidying my car. I am stunned by the magnitude of their stupidity. I want to say - why would you put your freedom in jeopardy by stealing $1.50? Although that question was answered when I called to file a police report - they are not in jeopardy of loosing anything.

But that story is for another day.

Well, I feel shame

2010-08-31T08:55:00.000-04:00

I have been neglecting you the faithful reader for months. After all those emails pleading me to please write again and then there's the facebook page that you made trying to persuade me to come back. To you my fans I say "Thank you."

Many of you have been wondering just what I've been up to. What could have been so damn important? To you I say, "What the hell. Are you my mother? Stop nagging me already!"

Sorry.

So what have I been up to… well let's see. I've been working, actually working. Not like the last job I had where I would show up in the morning, set up my laptop in general seclusion under the guise of needing the privacy to make "sales calls" and then play WOW all day (why did I get fired? Oh yeah, FUCK YOU SHAWN). I am actually working, and you know as hokey as it sounds, I have a much better feeling of worth. I enjoy what I do and it's carrying over into my family life. I don't want to hide behind a laptop when I get home anymore. I like being accountable for my hours (if that makes sense), what I mean by that is by the time I go to bed at the end of a day I can look back and remember what I did. There were times when I played WOW, as some of you can attest to, I would start playing with a coffee in the morning and by the time I turned the computer off it was the NEXT FREAKEN' DAY. That's not cool.

After reading my past few posts I can see that my interest in WOW had been waning anyways. I wasn't playing the game anymore, I was logging into another job. (I feel like I should add something here. I just deleted an entire paragraph ranting about WOW and my obsession. In the end it wasn't going anywhere, so in the interest of comprehensive journalism I had to sacrifice it.)

Although I have not being smoking the Warcrack for the past few months doesn't mean that I don't have any WOW news. My account was hacked, and before you ask, yes I have an authenticator. I know, I was baffled to. It goes down like this;

I get an email form Alts one morning giving me right shit that I didn't say "hi" to him last night. Apparently I logged in and was soloing some dungeon from the Burning Crusades expansion all night.

I read the email carefully, it didn't make any sense. I never used the handy Blizzard "give me your credit card number" payment scheme- plan. So when I stopped playing WOW those few months ago I didn't have any time on my account. It was then that my stomach dropped, I knew that my account had been hacked. It began to eat me up inside, I tried to pretend that it didn't really matter. 'I could call Blizz in the morning and explain the situation and I'm sure they could reverse the problem and restore my account.' The more I thought about it, the more I worried. 'Good 'ole Blizzard will fix everything, they'll verify who I am and then restore my account… oh crap… they need to verify who I am.'

Side note- I'm kind of a "tin hat" wearing guy. I don't think anyone has the right to know who I am or what I do unless I want them to know. So to cover my tracks I always use an alias when I register for things online, fake name and fake address. ALWAYS!

I'm screwed! I can't remember what address I used to register for my WOW account. I remember the name I used, but not the address. 'I'm doubled screwed! My email password for my email address is the same as my login password. The hacker can screw with my email account!'

I jumped out of bed and ran downstairs, logged into my gmail account and quickly requested a password change. 'Whew, done and without any damage to my account…. Picture rusty wheels turning…gerbil running in a wheel…faster…faster…hmmm, I wonder…the train's leaving the station….faster…do you think…the power is flowing to the light bulb….you don't think….'

I try to log into my Battle.net account, DENIED, so I request a password change. "Your request has been sent to your email address for verification."

I look in my email account and there it is, password change verification. SWEET, the dumb ass hacker didn't change my default email address. I change the password to my account, switch email address to an alternative one and add a new authenticator (courtesy of iTunes). Within minutes I am logged back into the game I loath. I quickly check all of my 14 toons and they all seem to be in good shape. Actually, they all seem to be in great shape.

This is going to be hard to admit… the hacker actually improved my gear score! I had more gold, better gear and even a couple of new achievements. The hacker played my account better than I did. Hand- Face- Shame!

So to recap my experience of having my account hacked:

The hacker put a months worth of time on my account.
My gear score drastically improved for most of my toons.
I have enough good now to buy epic flying for a couple of my toons

What the hell is everyone whining about? Having your account hacked is freakin' awesome!

I am back in control of my account and I continue to ignore the game just as much as did before. My "free" month is almost up and I haven't played for more than ten minutes. The most I have done was, in the interest of cleansing, I deleted most of my low level toons.

I get hacked and my account is improved. I get my account back and I destroy more than 75% of my toons and spend all the gold. I'm not sure, is that ironic or moronic?

The Power of the One Ring to Neuter them All

2010-08-29T11:59:00.000-04:00

Summers winding down and back to school is right around the corner. This past Saturday my daughter had her soccer banquet. The league she is in is spectacular. I have been very impressed with the way it is run. At the end of the year they treat the kids to a carnival like day at the field where they play - tons of food and those bouncer things. Although I am not sure if a hot dog/bouncer combo is a good thing, the kids seem to have fun. I think my daughter is past the bouncers though, being a tween and all. It is tough to text when little Jimmy is bouncing around next to you spewing hot dog bits.

Anyway, today's blog will be the telling of the tale of us heading to the soccer field. It starts with us sleeping in, at least in my wife's mind. You see my daughter's team wasn't in the championship game which was to start at 9:30am, with the awards to be handed out after the game which would be around 10:30am. We got up and scrambled around the house. I decided that since it was going to be a hot day I would spray on a small amount of AXE to keep me smelling fresh (remember the antiperspirant article from last week). We left the the house about 9:15am and before getting to the park we had to stop at the local Starbucks to grab a couple of coffees. The wife and kid stayed in the car while I ran in.

At this point I need to throw a bit more detail into this AXE business. We have all seen the commercials, guy sprays this crap on and goes out, guy gets swarmed by chicks, makes for a happy guy. Now I was never one to actually believe the commercials. They were way too far fetched until now. Lets return to the Starbucks shall we.

In I walk, up to the counter and I place my order. The girl behind the counter was blond, visually pleasant and petite. She asked for my order - Venti Caramel Macchiato, Grande Caramel Macchiato extra hot. I always order mine extra hot. I hate it when the coffee gets to you and its already lukewarm. Damn you Stella Liebeck.

This is where it got weird, she started to talk to me. Nice hat, is it Michigan State? What you doing today? I know, customer service, stroke the customer's ego, get them coming back crap. This was different, this girl has never talked to me when I have come in before. Was it the AXE? OMG - the gay barista started to talk to me with that twinkle in his eye. Was the AXE jamming his gaydar? Not that there is anything wrong with that.

I knew I had to get out of there fast. I raised my left hand, the power of the wedding band would protect me. They cowered in terror (at least that was how I saw it) so I could make my escape. I returned to the sanctuary of the car. I was safe. From there it was an uneventful day at the soccer field.

To think a visit to the Starbucks could have been a life or death experience. Now many of you that play WOW have done a cooking daily. Many of you, no doubt have opened your Small Spice Bags to find your Northern Spices and possibly some - Old Spices. You take these Old Spices and toss them at other player characters and they end up having a buff that says, "they smell great". Wouldn't it be awesome if and when you threw these old spices at a player character that all characters in their vicinity were temporarily mind controlled and were drawn to the toon that had the buff? It would be hysterical (in my mind), of course you would have to put a cooldown of a couple hours in there, or no one would be moving around Dalaran - other than to have no control of their toon as it chased down a guy that "smelled great".

Oh the rants on Ventrilo this would cause. I remember the Shattrath undead craziness after a patch (can't remember which one) and the Ventrilo rants it caused.

Have a great week.

It's a Monday

2010-08-23T14:18:00.001-04:00

It's a Monday. You are asking yourself, "What is he doing blogging on a Monday?" Normally, I would be in a fetal position, rocking back and forth at work, but today... I should jump right into it, I want to get done before my lunch is over.

My son is going back to college in a week or two and he hasn't even registered yet. So that is a bit stressful. My x-wife calls me about his birthday coming up and she wants to get him a car. Not a new car, a hand-me-down from her mom. However; I can hear the chi-ching of money leaving my pocket when it comes to re-working the insurance etc. She asks me what I think and I tell her that I would prefer if she assists our son by giving him whatever she was going to spend on the car, so he can make his college payment. Then there is only the stress of figuring out how to pay for the next installment. She agrees and she proceeds to contact our son to make the money transfer arrangements. Done.

I called my son to say that I got word that the money was transferred and that he needs to get up to the college this afternoon to pay. He informs me that his grandparents (my parents) are not at home. You see he doesn't have a car - Chicken and the Egg story can be inserted here. Anyway, I told him I would call my parents and make arrangements for them to take him to the college tomorrow.

This is where the blog really starts. I dialed my parents cell number. Ring, ring, (insert 20 rings here)... You see my parents are almost in their 80's and my dad wears hearing aids. So it is either he can't hear the phone or he is looking for a place to pull over. You see, we can't use a cell phone while driving or we get a ticket, and he hasn't figured out the whole newfangled blue tooth thing yet. Even though it wouldn't work because his ears are full of hearing aids. Oh wait, he's answering (here's the conversation).

Dad: Hello

Alts37: Hi Dad, where are you, what you doing?

Dad: I am at a funeral (realize the sound in the background is the 3rd verse of Rock of Ages)

Alts37: HOLY CRAP Dad, I will call you back.

I hang up.

OMG - it rang at least 30 times, my dad wears hearing aids, I am sure it sounded like a 747 taking off in that funeral chapel. I feel SOOOOOO bad.

What is it with people with cell phones. When I go to the movies I think I have my cell phone off before I even finish purchasing my tickets. There is a time and place when you don't answer a cell phone (nor have it on) and that is at a funeral. UGH - Some peoples parents.

Advertising Claims

OK, I ran out of antiperspirant over the weekend so I went out to get more. Before I get into my issue I have a question.

Normally, you place the antiperspirant on your under arms. Not being a hairy guy I usually place said antiperspirant on the haired area of my arm pit. If you are a hairy guy where do you draw the line in antiperspirant application? I digress

Anyway, I am at the store and I am weighing my antiperspirant options. I settle on the "Degree Adventure Series" for 2 reasons. It is the "white stick" - not the blue, green or clear gel that feels like glue and usually causes me to smell like rotting fish within a couple of hours. The second reason - the package was the coolest IMO.

I got my purchase home. I opened the cap (I like to be surprised when smelling it for the first time), and it smelt (is that a word - other than a small silvery fish that my dad likes to eat) - Adventury (I know that isn't a word).

So I put it on. Not bad, good feel, not tacky. I thrust my arm pit into my daughters face as she was mid instance (Utgarde Pinnacle I think) for her reaction. The desired effect.

Then it happened with no provocation. My arm pits started to leak. Like Niagara Falls I might add. What the hell. It's suppose to be antiperspirant. It got to the point where I had to change my shirt and underwear (my boxer's waistband was taking the brunt of the sweat soaking up duties).

What is it with this antiperspirant? It's like PvP gear on a PvE server - apparently it improves your GearScore number, but it doesn't do anything for you. Like "Resilience" although the term could be twisted around to mean that the antiperspirant would actually work, but it doesn't.

Well that is the Monday Special Edition. Have a nice day.

Counseling Required?

2010-08-22T09:59:00.000-04:00

What a week. It has been pretty busy at work, my daughter got home from up north and threw the house into chaos and I realized when I was cutting the grass yesterday that it had been about 3 weeks since I did it last. Where is the time going? Cataclysm will be here in a few months and I am totally unprepared. Additionally, I had a couple of incidents this week that makes me ponder a trip to the "shrink". First the incidents:

Earlier in the week "The Wife" called me at work and asked me about the dinner situation. Considering what I had been eating prior to her returning home with our daughter, I had not really put much thought into it. I told her I would stop at the grocery store on the way home and pick something up. Let's just say I picked a bunch of stuff up, checked out and headed out to the car.

So here I am in the parking lot bent over putting the groceries in the car. Completing that I stood up and paused staring over the roof of my car at another couple walking through the parking lot. Not just an ordinary couple. These two were probably around when the dinosaurs walked the earth. Now I have seen old couples before but there was something weird (have you noticed that the "i" before "e" except after "c" rule totally doesn't work for the word "weird" - hmm weird) about them.

They were holding hands, smiles on their faces and they were almost skipping through the parking lot. It was almost as if you could hear the music from the Viagra commercials in the air. Then I noticed that the gentleman was carrying a produce bag. There was a SINGLE BANANA in that produce bag. WHO BUYS A SINGLE BANANA? OMG I thought. A wave of horror descended over me at the thought of what they were going to do with that banana. I had to get out of there.

So now I am at home. Still reeling from the vision of that banana, pressed to the side of the produce bag. Almost as if it was calling out to me, "save me", I shook my head and started to prepare dinner. A little bit of BBQ'ing later and I had dinner done. I started to plate it for the family. I like plating the meals, I think if I didn't get stuck in the career I have now I would have liked to be a chef. I noticed however; that the whole meal was round. I had:

Parisian roasted potatoes - ROUND
Kernel corn (as opposed to "on the cob" - OMG banana flashback) - ROUND
Brussel sprouts - ROUND - and hated by the whole family except me
and finally Sirloin medallions - ROUND

What is this? What is the meaning of the symbol of round? Does it mean I have to get on the phone with Robert again? For those of you that read my blog a couple of weeks ago, I just finished listening to the DaVinci Code audiobook.

When I look back at these situations I have to ask myself, "Do I need counseling?" Maybe I just need a bit of a lay down on the couch. I think maybe I just need to give my brain a rest. Sort of like an Al Bundy vacation. I don't go anywhere, I just set up my white picket fence around the couch and sit there for awhile.

It is going to get worse too. Cataclysm is coming out in a few months. I read WOW.com daily (not trying to dis any of the other blogs) and the amount of information regarding changes is rather overwhelming. Sure if you have a main toon you can focus on what is going on with them and it is pretty easy to track. But remember, I am Alt37 and by the time Cataclysm hits I will have no less than 15 level 80's. Many of which are duel spec'd. I am pretty sure I WILL go insane.

Well that's it, I am done. My coffee cup is empty and it's time for a refill. I got my daughter farming up stairs, so I don't want to disturb her. Maybe I will go and sit in the backyard under our new canopy and watch the rain. I can start my mental vacation now.

See you next week.

Black Coffee

2010-08-15T10:20:00.000-04:00

This morning I am having black coffee.

The reason, well let me give you some background information. My daughter has been away for 3 weeks at my in-laws up north. She gets to fish, swim and drive their boat around. Lucky kid. The way it works is my wife takes her up (I go sometimes depending on my work schedule) and stays for a long weekend (This is what she classifies as a holiday from her work - you see, she likes her work and likes to take time off missing as little work as possible. I don't get it either.). During the time my daughter is away we can actually keep the house tidy, amongst other things because we don't have our tween running around giving us the "talk to the hand" attitude. Any way, as time advances forward my wife starts to miss the daughter, sure we text her all the time - "stay away from the boys" etc. but it isn't enough, so this weekend being the weekend she was to come home my wife took an extra day off work to go get her (and stay for the 4 day weekend instead of 3).

Well when this is normally scheduled, and I am to stay home, I usually prepare what I would like to call, "meatapalooza". Where the weekend BBQ'ing is just meat or meat by-products (aka hotdogs). This week I saw it coming, so I am not trying to get sympathy that my wife abandoned me. I was just so busy at work and all, I just didn't have time to plan out the menu. Thursday when I came home from work and I started to look around for food and noticed the pickings were pretty slim. I decided to try and get through the weekend without buying groceries (Except Friday night - I took my son to "The Expendables" movie and we ate at a pub. A critic here called the movie "Dumb as Mud - but extremely enjoyable". Imagine that, a critic actually understanding that a movie can be just entertainment and not something with a deep meaning attached to it.)

Getting back to my anti-meatapalooza, this is what I lived on this weekend.

Lots of Bruschetta - we have a garden and we grow the tomatoes, onions, basil, garlic. It was freaking yummy. However, the equivalent of 3 loaves of Bruschetta is bad.
Mr. Noodles - Many, I am thinking at least 8. For those of you that do not have the Mr. Noodles brand near you. Think of the instant Raman Noodles for like 25 cents a package. Yes extremely healthy eating there - please Jamie don't hate me, but if you want you can come over and start a revolution at my house.
Pirate Cookies - Mr. Christie, you make good cookies. mmm... peanut butter and oatmeal
Beer
and finally - black coffee. I normally have it with milk and sugar but we were out of milk and I didn't feel like going to the grocery store.

I think the whole purpose of this article is to show that you don't have to do what is considered normal when the wife goes away for the weekend - well OK the beer wouldn't ever go away. However, the same goes for WOW. This weekend I kind of did stuff that was out of the ordinary for me as well. My son started it last week when we were doing old content. I spent a lot of time working on fishing and cooking skills and farming materials for potions and stuff. If you are in a raiding guild it may be good for the crew to take a week off to do other stuff. Remember if it starts to feel like a second job, then it is time to take a break and do something else for a bit.

I know not as funny as last week. Yes and I did put a shameless plug in for the best diner on the planet. I drove 6 hours (one way) just to have lunch there once. Oh and to buy pickles too - the sweet hots rule.

Have a good week. I can't wait to see my daughter.

Retro Week

2010-08-08T09:41:00.000-04:00

I am trying to adhere to my vow to write a post at least every two weeks. This week was tough. What should I write about? Would you believe that my son inspired me? For those of you that know my son, you probably dropped your coffee cups in your lap and are now trying to figure out how to sue me. You will have more of a chance getting money out of McDonald's again than me.

Anyway, enough said about frivolous litigation. My son has been trying to finish many achievements before the Cataclysm release. He has been working on the Dungeonmaster, Loremaster and a few others. He asked me last night if I could assist him, considering he doesn't have any of the keys for the heroic Burning Crusades instances. I must say doing those instances was a lot of fun. I even needed quite a few of the achievements. Apparently when Blizzard brought in the achievement system they didn't realize my priest had run Heroic Ramparts about 50 trillion times.

Tonight we are going to finish another 10 or so instances. I will be having a yard sale from the plundering at an Auction House near you.

Real Life Retro

This is my usual weekday morning.

My alarm goes off about 6:50am, I snooze it and begin rocking back and forth sobbing about how crappy my life is. This goes on about 4 times until I desperately need to get up so I can get to work on time. Sometimes however; I do drift back to sleep for those agonizing 9 minutes that some sleep study guy determined was just right. Those nine minutes toy with your emotions. Anyway, as I was saying, sometimes I do fall back to sleep. When this happens I usually have a dream. I can't seem to have dreams during the night when I have, well all night to enjoy them. I have them during those 9 minutes of hell.

This is the dream I had the other day.

I found myself on second base. It was an evening game, it felt like late July. The air was humid, the sounds of the cicadas calling out for their mates. I must have been dropped into a very important game, the crowd was large and loud (and by large - more than the 5 people that showed up to my little league games). The were undulating in that lame "wave" that people seem to want to do when they are a part of a large crowd. I was doing the dance, taunting both the pitcher and the catcher. "I'm going to steal third", I was saying in my head.

At that moment, there was a pitch to the batter. Strike! The catcher fell for the bait. He hurried his throw, it sailed over the baseman's head. I was off. Full speed in two strides. Like a North American Bison. I was barreling towards third, the coach waving and screaming me on towards home. I rounded third, I saw my prize, the pentagon, the home plate. Now I am not about to go on a Robert Langdon-esk rant about the shape of home plate. Needless to say I was almost there. I started to slide - not the wussy foot first slide, but the manly diving slide. It seemed like an eternity (remember I only have 9 minutes - maybe this was the same inspiration Madonna and Timberlake had for their song). Then I felt the rubber of home plate. I made it, the crowd erupted, I guess we won. My team mates rushed to me striking my back and congratulating me, it was one of these pats on the back that jarred me from my snooze time slumber.

I awoke, sweating, heart racing, out of breath, I felt as if I was about to experience a heart attack. It took a whole other snooze cycle to bring myself down from that dream. I then laughed and thought to myself, "what a looser." You know you are out of shape when you can't even handle "DREAM EXERCISE".

So yeah, what can I say, off to work in the yard. Apparently I need a lot of exercise.

Emptying My Head Edition

2010-07-18T10:05:00.000-04:00

Well it's Sunday and and I promised a couple weeks ago I was not going to let another 4 weeks go by without writing something. Problem is, I don't think I have enough on a single topic to write a complete article. So I decided to dump out all the stuff that could not be tweeted about. Damn that number of character restriction.

Ok, here we go.

HST

In Canada on July 1 (Happy Birthday) they rolled out the dreaded HST. They said it was a good thing, it will help consumers and small businesses. Well I am a small business and I think there must be something I am missing. Anyway, not going to rant about that. Where I live in Ontario gas was about $0.97/L on June 30th. On July 1st it went up the 8% to about $1.04/L (to accommodate the HST change). However; 2 weeks later it has dropped back down to the $0.97/L.

So what I see is that prior to HST coming into effect gas should have only cost about $0.88/L? Do you think they were gouging us. hmmmmm

Education System

Apparently you don't need to know anything to become a chemistry teacher. I guess I am over-qualified. Strike that off my to-do list. Enough said about that.

Bacon

Everything is better with bacon - but you knew that already.

Rough Morning

You know its going to be a rough morning when you look in the cupboard and have to decide between no coffee or instant coffee. You choose instant coffee.

Not Knowing Your Pecking Order

This one will be a little longer to put out there. Let me set it up for you. I have a daughter who is a WOW fanatic (Although those Twilight blood sacks have been eroding that lately) and she is mostly responsible for my pen name. You see, she is in charge of character creation. If I want to start another toon I tell her the race and class and she does the naming and creation. I am up to 40 toons now. Might have to update the pen name. I keep telling her to leave room for Cataclysm, I will need at least a few spots for the new races.

I have great friend and business partner that is well endowed with computing skill (I hope you didn't think I was going anywhere else with that.) and he has written a few excellent WOW mods (found here). Due to his said mod writing abilities he secured himself a Cataclysm Beta Key.

So now the story unfolds.

We are working this past Thursday and the friend says, "Why don't you bring your daughter over on Saturday and we can have a BBQ. She can play the beta for awhile." "Sounds good.", we discuss the menu and I give my daughter a call.

Ring, Ring... Ring, Ring...

"yyyyeeeessss..." I hear, "were you still sleeping", I say.

"yyyyeeeessss..." she says. "you know it is 2 in the afternoon." "yyyyeeeessss..." You see we leave the kid home alone during the summer (although my parents live next door, and her brother is still sleeping downstairs in his room until about 4:30pm in the afternoon - he raids all night - and not panties, so you see, she has some supervision if necessary).

"We are going to a BBQ on Saturday."

"No I am not.", she says, "I have a sleep over at a friends." That is on Friday I reminded her, we will be going later Saturday afternoon.

"No - why would I want to go to a BBQ. Where is it?", she queries.

"It' s at Jason's place.", I say. "Why would I want to go to scary Jason's house for a BBQ?!?", she screams.

"He has a Cataclysm Beta Key."

"WHAT TIME ARE YOU PICKING ME UP!!!!!!", she shrieks.

At that moment in time. I was not sure if I was the "coolest dad in the world", or second fiddle to the guy my daughter thought drove around in a white van handing out candy.

Needless to say we had a wonderful time. Hamburgers, roast potatoes, prosciutto wrapped asparagus, salad, homemade chocolate ice cream (he has his own ice cream machine in case candy doesn't work), beer (almost forgot the beer). My daughter got to experience both starting areas, getting each of the new races up to level 12 in about 5 hours. LOL - I have some friends that take about 6 weeks to get one toon to level 12 let alone 2 toons (She's a pro).

As our evening concluded I was confident I was still the "coolest dad ever". At least until she asked me when I was going to get my Beta Key.

Doh! Working on that.

Sorry - RL got in the way.

2010-07-05T12:26:00.000-04:00

Well I was wrong, the life of a WOW blogger is not a small flat on the Seine with the Eiffel Tower as your back drop. Sipping espresso, or a dark European beer while you stare at your replica Frostmourne on its epic ice shard stand through the smokey haze of your lemon grass incense (I don't smoke but had to have the smokey haze). Contemplating your next article.

It's actually staring at your computer screen not believing it has been about 4 weeks since your last article, gulping lukewarm coffee from your Tony Packo's Cafe mug, eyes watering because the dog is under your desk with a gas problem. Four weeks, where has the time gone? Well it was the four weeks of day job hell, the perfect storm of everyone on the planet wanting work done the same few weeks of the year. It happens every year. It's the daughter's grade six graduation (never got a grade six graduation - I think I am jealous). It's the wife and her grand dad going in for surprise operations (Is a surprise operation a good thing? They will be fine.), the back yard project (which went surprisingly well and under budget). And finally, the purchase of the Logitech G19 Keyboard and the massive learning curve of re-educating my fingers where my healthstone button is when I am on that alt or when another warlock is nice enough to give us one in a raid.

I have managed to play during these last four weeks, but with less focus. Summers here and I am torn between playing or tanning my pasty white behind. Fish here, daily there. I was 5 days behind in doing any of the Ahune daily instances. Only one toon got their scythe and only one other got the pet. One nice surprise was a ICC10 raid I managed to get into. You see, I am apparently on the cusp of the dreaded GS cutoff for getting into those raids. I usually do the /wave at the Dalaran fountain only to be told that my GS isn't high enough (this particular toon - 5400GS). Yes I know - I already did the GS rant. But this raid leader let me in. It was a guild run I think, with only a few of us tagging along as oddballs. They treated us as equals when it came to rolling on gear, nothing was "reserved" (we aren't talking the escargot in butter sauce at the cafe down by the Seine here), they seemed to be learning the instance. They were happy they got as far as they did, and we set a time to try and finish the instance before the reset. I actually got an invite through the calendar thing on the minimap (first time). I would like to give a shout out to the guys and gals in Devils Rejects - Malfurion for an enjoyable time. I hope we go a long way in finishing the ICC 10 tonight. I guess the devil rejected them for being nice.

Time to scoot, I have to go wield my mighty Frostbroom and sweep off the patio and finish the rest of my chores before my wife gets home from work. I might even have another cup of lukewarm coffee while I contemplate my next blog which I promise won't be 4 weeks from now.

Hats off to the Wow.com writers and all the other bloggers that do this full time.

Congratulations Alts

2010-06-01T10:45:00.001-04:00

Congratulations Alts for hitting 80 last night on Druidic!
Druidic is our guilds first level 80 (but I think it's Alts 80th level 80).
This "WOOT" goes out to you buddy.

You're Welcome Alts

2010-05-31T11:50:00.001-04:00

The last post from Alts confirmed something for me. It's something that has been plaguing my thoughts for a long time. It is the simple idea that knowledge, in the hands of the wrong person, can be a very dangerous thing. In this case it is not the knowledge and wisdom possessed by my fellow geek Alts that is the proverbial shotgun wielding monkey. Rather it is the perceived expertise of this and other websites that can be the digital equivalent of running with scissors. These websites designed to rate or offer advice on gear are ruining my enjoyment of this game.

For me, life was much simpler when I was younger. My universe did not extend past the schoolyard. I woke up went to school, played hockey (I AM CANADIAN) and waited for the weekend. I lived in blissful ignorance for many, many years. One Saturday afternoon my mother returned home with a new pair of shoes for me. They were the coolest pair of sneakers I had ever seen, blue leather with white stitching and, the coup de grace, a lightning bolt on either side. I almost wet myself from the excitement. With these sneakers I would be the fastest boy in the world! I put them on my trembling feet and sheepishly, as to not release all of the awesome at once, took a single step. BAM! The power of the shoes surged within me. I took another step and BAM! The power was too great for my little eight year old being. But I knew I would have to press on, I yelled for my brother to come into the backyard.

He came running down the stairs and into the backyard where he stopped dead in his tracks. "Nice shoes!" he squealed, and without anymore words being uttered we both knew what had to happen next.

We lined up at the cedar bushes, side by side. Me looking down the final acre of our yard and my brother still staring at the lightning bolt emblazoned on my shoes. 1, 2, 3 GO! We took off running. I was sure that the sonic boom could be heard from across Canada. The trees that lined our yard were a mere blur and everything else around me was shut out. It was tunnel vision and all I could see was the end of the yard, blurry trees and the back of my brother. The back of my brother, what the hell? How could he beat me, how could he beat the shoes?

After that race I never wore the shoes again. I couldn't believe that those shoes could allow me to lose to anybody. The truth of the matter is had I not raced my brother that day I would have went to school the next Monday still believing that I was the fastest boy in the world. Maybe as long as I only raced the fat kids at school I would have still believed that I was the fastest boy in the world. The problem, however, was that I did race my brother and that loss could never be erased from my memory.

I draw the same parallel to other WOW websites. As long as I don't allow myself to be measured, be it by gear score, recount or websites offering gear analysis, I am still the fastest boy in the world. I can get into an instance and things will die, I can complete quests and I still receive experience points. So why the hell would I care if some geek sitting in his mother's basement tells me that I can squeeze out another 200 dps if I switch my red gem of sweetness for an orange gem of slightly sweeterness (it's a word). Who am I hurting by using a piece of gear that I like?

You're Kidding Me - Right?

2010-05-29T09:59:00.000-04:00

I have been playing this game for quite a while. My first toon was a rogue and I was looking in her bank the other day and I still have items in there from years ago. I have made many more toons since then and with respect to me thinking I have Alzheimer's etc. I rely on websites to assist me at a glance as to what I need to focus on for a specific toon.

Ever since I found the site, I have been a fan of the Be Imba! character auditor. As mentioned, having so many toons I rely on this site to provide me a way of knowing what piece I need to upgrade, what enchant I am missing an upgrade for and to know if I should even bother /Waving at a toon at the Dalaran fountain for the subsequent gear check when my Gear-o-Meter says there is no way on earth I should be going there.

I was pretty comfortable with the site. Then Nebz goes and gives me the URL for the Elitist Amory site. What a jerk. I go to that site and enter my various toon names. OK, not bad, this toon is pretty good, this one needs work and I know where I need to focus. Then I enter my Warlock jewelcrafter's name. Ugh!

Items Passed - 88%

(Ok I understand, I have a few PvP pieces purchased with honor in order to satiate my GearScore to the clowns at the Dalaran fountain)

Enchants Passed - 100%

Woot

Gems Passed - 88%

WHAT! I am a jewelcrafter, how could this be? I am anal when it comes to my gems and enchants. What am I doing wrong? I get on all the theorycrafter sites. Read up on all the warlock information I could get. OK, more Runed Cardinal Rubies. Hit capped, need haste? Maybe some Quick King's Ambers?

I make some changes to my gems and refresh the Elitist Armory site - Gems Passed 89%. WHAT!!! One stinking percent! 600G spent on the uncut gems I didn't have in stock. WTF. Nebz did I mention I hate you.

I realized at that time, I have no idea what I am doing. I even chuckled when I actually read the Elitist Armory site notes saying, "Next up, gem and enchant suggestions". Ugh! I give up. Trying to figure out how to upgrade this toon is like fixing that truck in the photo using a board as a jack. I think, I need a drink. I will come back to this when they upgrade their site with the gem and enchant suggests.

Seniors Moments

2010-05-20T21:02:00.001-04:00

This article is for the more mature WOW players out there. I have noticed in the last few months that I have been experiencing more frequent “Senior Moments” both in and out of game. By far, the out of game ones are more humorous. Those are the ones I am going to let you in on.

Fall 2009

The company that I work for operates a medical surveillance program for its employees due to the plethora of chemicals that we deal with on a daily bases. As I sit on the side of the gurney, he is asking me questions, giving prognoses and telling me the usual - You are fat. (I am 6’1” and have been 250 lbs for ages. I did drop 36 lbs one year for a hernia operation but gained it back.) Every year he tells me to loose 50 lbs and no matter how much I control the food intake, I remain 250 lbs. This year he asked me to loose 25lbs, "meet me half way", he says.

Near the end of the appointment he asks me the question, "Is there anything else you want to talk about?" I thought about it and there was. My wife and I have been noticing that I am becoming more and more forgetful. Walking into rooms and forgetting why I entered, forgetting to pick up my daughter at band etc. Things like that. Not sure why my daughter was mad at me, I was only a 1/2 hour late. So I mention to my doctor that I was concerned that I was getting Alzheimer's.

My doctor replies that there are a number of tests that are used to diagnose the disease and he would try a few on me. Three to be exact. He does the tests and then asks about my job and the amount of stress I am under. He concludes that I do not have Alzheimer's, it is stress related and I suck at math. I leave his office. In the car I call my wife. "How was your appointment.", she says."Good", I say, "no Alzheimer's he did three tests on me. The first was to subtract 7 from 100. 93. Then subtract 7 again, and again, and again.I got to 63 when I stopped the doctor to say that you can't get to 63 by continually subtracting 7 from the result of 100 - 7." He congratulates my by saying, "You don't have Alzheimer's, a person with Alzheimer's would never know they couldn't get to 63 that way, you just SUCK at math."

My wife asks, "What were the other 2 tests?" "Can't remember", I replied. I swear, for the life of me I could not remember and I did the tests not more than 15 minutes earlier.

Earlier this Week

I was sitting at my desk and had to go to the bathroom. Walked into the bathroom, lifted the lid and the seat, pulled down my fly and thrust my hand into the opening in my pants and began to flail my hand around looking for lil'Alt. I couldn't find him. I started to panic. My eyes were looking at the water in the toilet bowl. My bladder must have been paying attention and decided, "here we go". I began to panic. "WHERE THE HELL IS IT." "WHEW" I got him out just in time. I finished up, washed my hands and stuff and went back to my desk. I sat there for a while. Thinking. How does one size themselves for Depends (for those in different areas of the planet - that is a tradename for adult diapers)?

Am I really that close? I am 46. It is a pretty slippery slope once you hit 40.

So a couple of RL seniors moments. But what about WOW?

Dalaran

It was a fishing quest in Dalaran, I went up to Marcia and got the daily fishing quest. Sweet, "Jewel of the Sewers", this will be a quick 200 gold (that is if all my alts do the daily). I get into the sewers and CTRL+C (switching to my fishing outfit). I look, where is my jeweled fishing pole? I begin to freak out, "did I sell it?", "WTF?". I realize after about 20 minutes of panic that this toon doesn't have the pole, an alt on a different realm has the pole. A wave of relief washes over my body. A slippery slope I say.

Well I can't remember what else I wanted to say. Time to Farmville.

Hillbillies Make Terrible Neighbors

2010-05-18T13:51:00.001-04:00

How is that saying written again?

I think it's something along the lines of "Don't start nothin', won't be nothin'." I was looking for drama and I found it in the form of the now nerve inducing DUNGEON FINDER.

A while back I finally hit level 60 with Shammy Davis, to help "celebrate" this momentous occasion I decided to invest in a dual spec. I knew that by having Enhancement (dps) as my primary spec I would be sentencing myself to hour long queues to get into dungeons. So I trained my secondary spec as Restoration (healing), I was sure that this would almost eliminate my wait time for dungeon runs. Well I was right and to help speed things up I queued up with my buddy Alts who just happens to be a tank. I think we were in a dungeon before we even queued up, it was awesome! Now the fate of this newly formed group of ragtag warriors rested on the shoulders of ole' Shammy Davis. Live or die, it's all up to me… the healer!

As the group of us sat at the mouth of the dungeon I surveyed the lucky few that were fortunate enough to be grouped with the mighty Shammy Davis. We had a Death Knight, a Hunter accompanied by his pet raptor and a Warlock, oh and Alts was on his Druid. As I looked at each of their shinny faces just beaming with hope, a small, tiny, insignificant amount of concern entered my being.

"Hey dummy', I said to myself. "You've never played a healer before!"

Let's call a spade a spade here, I was F'n SCARED! I've never played a damn healer before. I've only been a damage dealer, period, end of sentence. What the hell was I doing, these guys were all going to die and it's going to be due to my ineptitude. Now I feel like I can tell you this in total confidence, my hands were shaking and my heart was racing.

So the six of us (including pet) began the instance and I started clicking wildly. Their health bars were dropping faster than my wife's inhibitions after two martinis.

CHAIN HEAL

RIPTIDE

HEALING WAVE

I couldn't click them fast enough. I could hear their tiny nerd screams;

"Save me Shammy Davis."

It was like a scene out of Saving Private Ryan, but something was different, they weren't dying. Hmm, pull after pull, they were still alive. Cool, we ended up finishing the run with only one fatality. On one occasion my buddy Alts decided to ignore my need for mana and pulled a mob while I was less than prepared. He died, but the group lived on. I resurrected him and asked if he didn't see the wall of text that was me pleading for a break so I could drink my greatly needed water. His response?

"I did, I just didn't care."

Fun Alts!

Ass.

Anyways the instance ended and I was feeling better about my abilities as a healer. That was until we queued up for a second run.

For the second instance we were placed right back into the same dungeon. Only this time I couldn't tell you who the hell was grouped with us because I never got a chance to see their names. Alts (the tank) pulls the first mob and I throw my first heal and that was my first and last mistake. Here's a tip for anyone that would like to be a healer, THE TANK NEEDS TO BUILD AGRO! My heal went out and I pissed off two or three of the attacking mobs. They turned and started to run at me. Now here's where I make mistake number two, I see the mobs running towards me and I convert back to my noob form and I RUN AWAY FROM THE TANK! What the hell was I thinking? I know better than that. I've been a squishy Mage long enough to know that (if I can't use Ice Block to help defer the agro) I'm supposed to run towards the tank not away from the tank.

Needless to say the entire group wipes on the first damn pull and to make matters worse I have Alts in vent yelling at me;

"RUN TO THE TANK!"

After running around looking for the entrance to an instance that I can't find, I finally get back in and gather my thoughts. So Alts proceeds to pull the mob again and then…. MY POWER GOES OUT! Thanks hick ville Canada, apparently some hillbilly drove their Jon Deere tractor into a pole and knocked out the electricity to my entire street. By the time the power came back on I had been kicked from the group and the instance had finished, crap!

So here's what I learned from my time as a healer;

Never get cocky, you always suck!
Heals pull threat just like damage does so let the tank build agro
If you do pull agro, always run towards the tank
Healbot is the greatest addon ever
I need to move to a city that doesn't have drunk hillbillies driving lawn tractors on the streets

Stupid Stuff or What's Wrong With RL?

2010-05-10T20:01:00.000-04:00

It has been a week or so since my last article. I have been traveling for work the last couple of weeks so my WOW time has been limited. Similarly, I have not had much time to think of something to write about. While I was driving today I was reflecting on my last week or so and found myself chuckling about the stupid stuff that has happened to me. I am going to recall a few of these situations. Are they WOW related? Probably not. But I am sure you can think of a few stupid things that have happened to you in WOW.

Online Banking

With all the traveling I have been doing, I have had to do a little bit of money transferring. I attempted to log into one of my accounts and found out that I never did set up the online banking. So I dialed the phone number that was listed on the site. We have all heard the queuing. Press 1 for English, press 2 for French (Well in the US it may be press 2 for Spanish). Anyway, why is it when you press 2 you get a French person speaking French, but if you press 1 you get a French person speaking English with a horrible French accent?

Hotel Pools

I was in a hotel pool in Toronto last week and while sitting in the luke warm hot tub I noticed the safety gear stationed around the pool. Life rings and rope, fair enough, I am sure it is a legislative necessity. However; the pool in question was only 15 feet wide by 30 feet in length. On each ring there was a good 50 feet of rope and there were 4 of these positioned around the pool. Funny thing - the pool was only 3 feet deep. Picture this, "Help me I am drowning". Crowd of onlookers, "STAND UP!"

Oil Changes

Last summer I stopped going to those quick lube places, maybe because they forgot to tighten the oil filter and all my oil sprayed out as I embarked on a 600km drive. So this time I took the car to the dealership. Their oil change takes apparently 60 minutes to complete. Well I guess 20 minutes for the oil change and 40 minutes to go over the car and make a list 3 pages long regarding what they think is wrong with my car. They only wanted another $1500 to make my car "right". I was in a hurry and didn't want to have to explain that money doesn't form in my warm, dark, moist areas and that I would have to budget and prioritize these fixes.

That's it, that's all the stupid stuff I can remember, I am sure there was more but at my advanced age I am lucky I can get my depends on with the tag at the back.

OH, on a WOW note - on my shadow priest I was able to get my cooking leveled from 25 to 400 in about an hour and a half without buying mats from the AH.

Yeah me.

Pigs are Cute

2010-05-07T15:10:00.001-04:00

Well, that didn't last long. I smoked the Warcrack pipe last night, even after swearing that I wouldn't.

What the hell is wrong with me?

OK, starting tonight I will not log in again until Monday… er, maybe once to list some items in the AH…. Ok, twice…but that's it! Let's take baby steps here.

I do, however, want to address something before the weekend starts. The idea of potentially not logging in to WOW over the weekend has got me thinking. Should guilds have mandatory attendance records? How long is too long to be away from the guild before its ok for the guild leader to kick someone out? (Sorry, inside joke)

What I really wanted to discuss is the very evident leak of information coming from the Cataclysm Alpha. For the last couple of days, we the player, have been bombarded with screenshots about the upcoming expansion (WOW 2.0). Shinny pictures of old zones looking pristine and, quite honestly, somewhat graphically taxing. Blizzard has put a new coat of paint on the old girl and nerds around the world are drooling over what has been put in front of them. Well, MOST nerds are drooling, but not your ol'buddy Nebz. You see Jimmy, your Uncle Nebz here is more of a glass half empty type of guy. As a matter of fact, Uncle Nebz would like to know who the hell drank the other half.

OK Blizzard, so you took our 1984 Pinto, slapped a spoiler on the back, maybe some 80 mille an hour stickers on the side and expect us to forget the fact that it's still a damn PINTO! Or if you rather, just because the pig has a tuxedo on doesn't make the fact that it's a pig any different.

I will never see the graphic upgrade because my card won't be able to handle it, and
Graphically upgrades do not make for a better game. Prettier maybe, but not better. It just gives me something else to look at while I'm swearing a blue streak about the dumbass quest I'm on for my totems.

I am not going to boycott the information being leaked, as a geek, that goes against everything I stand for. I will, however, be taking the information with a grain of salt.

"Hey, did you hear that Thousand Needles has water in it now?"

Who gives a crap? I mean it's cool to a point but be on that all I can think of is the fact that I'm going to get lost in every zone now.

The leak I want to read about is;

"Hey, did you hear they fired the jackhole that wrote all the totems quests?"

YAY!

So watch the parade of screenshots and don't forget to wave at the princess in the Pinto as she drives by. Just remember, the real enjoyment from this game comes from the people you play with and not your surroundings.

A Shaman Loses Focus

2010-05-06T10:09:00.001-04:00

I've been staring at my cursor flashing on this blank page now for almost 20 minutes. It just keeps blinking, on, off, on, off, on, off, on….

The problem is, I don't know what to write about. I know I should contribute something to this blog. It's been almost a full week sense my last post. Yet I can't find anything inside of me to write about.

Warcraft has kept me very entertained over the last week. Well, not entertained per say, but it has kept me busy. I've managed to accumulate almost 2,500 gold (that's a first for me) but it wasn't done in any grand fashion. I simply kept buying low and selling high or vendoring items that people have listed too low.

I was able to finally reach level 60 on Shammy Davis (yay), but even that accomplishment felt lack luster. All I did was quest and grind the whole way from level one to level 60.

Level 60 should be a big deal shouldn't it? I mean it's the end of the original content. My total time played so far is just over four days and I haven't used any heirloom items nor have I used the dungeon finder. It's been a solo grind all the way to 60 and maybe that's what's wrong. I'm feeling very melancholy about the process. I'm… dare I say it… I'm BORED!

Phew, that feels good to say. HOLY CRAP I'M BORED! YAY, shout it from the roof tops.

This is nobodies fault but my own. However, sometimes I feel like I'd rather rub my ass with a cheese grater and sit in a bowl of vinegar than grind another bitchy harpy. I think I need to mix things up a bit. Now that I am in the Outlands, maybe I need to start using the dungeon finder. Maybe, simply being in the Outlands will help change my attitude. Let's think about the changes that are happening in my young shamans' life.

Shammy is going to learn to fly… sweet!

The gear drop is incredible compared to what I had in vanilla… nice!

Experience gained comes is greater amounts… cool!

The gold drops are better… super!

So there's a lot of nerdrific things to look forward to, I just need to catch my breath for a minute before I muddle through the next 20 levels. So, here's the plan. I'm going to take a couple of days off from smoking Warcrack and enjoy real life. Then next week I will come back ready for more. This is after all just a game and in the great words of someone much smarter than I;

"It's not the destination, but rather the journey."

My GearScore Rant

2010-05-02T10:15:00.000-04:00

Well I knew it was only going to be a matter of time before I started my GearScore rant, it has always been in the back of mind. I said I would never do it because we already have a contributor on this blog the tends to rant a lot. I think they should make a WOW game title for it. It could be, "the Ranter", or something like that. Nebz, you wouldn't even have to do the prerequisite achievements. They would give it to you like they dish out honorary doctorates in RL.

I am not sure this will qualify as a rant, for I am not sure if I can do my hate for GearScore any justice when compared to the excellent article written by Fox Van Allen over on WOW Insider. His article entitled, "Spiritual Guidance: The GearScore is a lie", is a masterpiece for those of us that have been tainted by this mod.

His (no disrespect if female) focus obviously is his shadowpriest, but the article transcends all classes, I know it has impacted all of mine in some way, shape or form. I strongly suggest you read the article, his analogy regarding how GearScore works is outstanding. Shedding the much needed light on a mod that in my mind is absolutely useless.

Why is it useless?

I got sucked into the GearScore spiral of doom on a few of my alts with the very trinkets that Fox says are useless (especially to shadow priests). I did exactly what I shouldn't have done, I picked up the Talisman of Resurgence without a nary of thought, I was blinded by GearScore. So now on a few toons I have been trying to correct the issues but that is a long road to travel.

There are a few more reasons, most notable, the enchants and gems. Fox mentions, a good pug leader would take some time to actually assess your gems and enchants. I take oodles of time and if I didn't have all the professions covered, would spend tonnes of gold on the best (proper) enchants and gems. Maybe on my realms GearScore isn't the problem, hmm, maybe we do not have any god pug leaders on my realms. Well that is a different article.

It has gotten to a point where I don't even try to pug anymore (raids anyways) because every pug raid clown (err leader) is asking for a GS of over 5500/dps >7K/and the achievement for the likes of TOC10. Yeah, you read it right. This is what some pug leaders are asking for on my realm. I have played this game for about 5 years, when I choose a class for the evening or week I know how to play it, I have the best gear that I can get for my station in life and I know to stay out of the burning bits. But, I always get turned down for GearScore or I don't have the achievement on the particular toon I want to bring in.

Well I don't want to drag this out any longer. Maybe Fox should have titled his article, "Spiritual Guidance: Everything a Pug Raid Clown (err Leader) Should Know About GearScore", then take the time to actually realize GearScore isn't everything.

UGH

Stop the World I Want to Get Off

2010-04-28T12:45:00.001-04:00

I've noticed a trend in the weeks that this blog has been running. My posts have gotten much more "rantty" than I'd like them to be. When I started writing the posts for this blog it was not my intention to rant about everything that happens to me, but here we are. So I promise to slow down on my rants and to rein in my nerd rage a little more. Well… I promise to TRY and rein in my rage… well… I promise to rein it in after this post.

I'm not sure if you've noticed in the news today, there was a small article written from Santa Clara County. It turns out that a panel of Soccer Moms and Larry Lawbringers sat down and decided that, in Santa Clara County, it would be illegal for fast food restaurants to give away toys in their "kiddie meals". This panel of Jackholes has, in their infinite wisdom, linked the epidemic of child obesity to the "reward" of getting a toy for eating unhealthy foods. It is their hopes that by removing the "reward" children will be free to make healthier choices. One of the twits on the panel (Ken Yeager) was even quoted with saying "Why would a kid say 'I want a burger with fries'? It's the toys that they want."

Are you freaking joking? First off if you want you child to make a healthier choice when it comes to eating, DON'T TAKE THEM TO MCDOANLDS! Simple, and no one has to pass a law for me to make that decision. Second, the reason kids say "I want a burger with fries" Mr. Yeager is because the only other choice is a Fish Crapwich!

I buy my children their food, not the other way around. Sometimes we "dine" at a fast food restaurant, and when we do, my kids eat whatever they damn well want. You know why? Because I live in Canada and it's my GOD GIVEN RIGHT to decide what my children eat. But here's the twist, I don't eat crap food all the time! What? That's right, see my family has what is known as restraint. It's a relatively new concept for some (especially Americans) but I think it will catch on. On the nights that we are not eating greasy garbage from a trash bin we are eating… HEALTHY FOOD, home made, HEALTHY FOOD. Yup, strange as it may be, my family does not eat out every night. Oh… and for an added bonus my kids also EXERCISE… Gasp! I know, weird right?

So apparently, in Santa Clara County, the ratio of Cupcake Lovin' Fatties to "Healty Kids" is so grossly uneven the County has decided to take away the fat kid bait from the kid-centric meals. Instead of education the county has decided to eliminate options. Hmm, interesting.

Hey shut up, this does relate back to WOW. It comes down to parents being parents and not their kids best friend. Just like the chunky chuckles from Santa Clara, we need to step in and understand what our kids are doing online and in real life. The computer is not a baby sitter, nor is the television. I will tell you now that yes, my oldest child plays online games, but he plays them with me in the room. His time is limited and I monitor who he chats with… I guess I'm not a cool Dad, I can live with that. I don't need some one else to dictate what my child can and can not do. I use my parenting skills and make that decision all by myself (and my wife).

Unfortunately, this is not the trend that the world seems to be on right now. It seems to be easier for the world just to sit back and let the government be the parent.

"I would love to let you eat that hamburger Junior, but the man in the suit says I can't. Please don't hate me, hate him!

Here, let me buy you a new car."

Give me a break. I implore all of you parents out there, STAND UP AND BE PARENTS! Lil' Timmy doesn't need another friend. Lil' Timmy needs you to be a Dad, so suck it up and be one!

Ass!

A Shaman Grows Up

2010-04-26T14:14:00.001-04:00

Dear Blizzard,

I know we've had our arguments over the past few weeks. Stones were thrown and words were said that can't be taken back, I know that. Do you remember that time when I said "screw you", yeah, water under the bridge. I love you and you should know that. I thought that I should take this moment just to let you know that I think you're doing a great job. Gosh darn it, I ain't quitin' you.

Your always,

Nebz

I've pushed through that last totem quest and all I can see are blue skies and rainbows ahead for me. Shammy Davis is rockin' his way to 30 and is not looking back. The road to this point has been a sordid one to say the least. But once Shammy hit 20 everything started to "click". I was running quests, collecting XP and moving on with my life. Levels 20-30 moved very quickly for me, only a few hours in fact. Furthermore, just when I thought I was going to hit a brick wall in the form of yet another totem quest, Blizzard made it supper easy. Walk over there, talk to that guy and get your shinny new totem.

Now, granted, my spell rotation hasn't really changed much. It's still a matter of casting bolts, shocks and then clubbing the crap out of something (no need to capitalize that anymore).

Everything is rainbows and puppy dogs!

I mean yeah, it's a little annoying that my attack rotation hasn't changed for over 30 gosh darn levels. I bet that Blizzard's just trying to make the new Shaman inside of me a really great warrior. It's not like they forgot about the Enhancement Shaman, right? I remember on my Mage by the time I was 30 I had some great crowd control spells and mobs died before they reached me. With my darn Shaman I need things to hit me, otherwise that freaking water shield won't return any darn mana. So as a melee class it's kind of inconvenient when the that piece of crap mob that you just pulled dies 20 feet before he reaches you and renders your damn shield impotent. But that's just what happens now, doesn't it Blizzard? Admit it you cowards, you really didn't think anyone would play this class, or more specific, this spec. Well guess what… I'm your huckleberry. I've stuck with this stupid class for 30 levels, been on pointless quests for stupid totems that I never use.

You know what? Up yours!

Where's my Shaman love? For god sakes, I finally reach a level where all that wandering around Azeroth would finally be a little less painful. With all the flight paths I have now I could actually complete a totem quest in under two damn hours, and what do you do Blizzard? You jackholes give me quest that takes me two f'n minutes! WTF?

That's it, I'm out! You can take this game and cram it with walnuts! I'm fed up and I've had enough.

Now if you'll excuse me there seems a couple of men at my door and it looks like there's some sort of sparkly horse behind them… oooh, shinny.

Welcome to Wuss-dom

2010-04-24T10:03:00.000-04:00

Well it all seemed innocent enough, Shammy Davis asked me to head out into RL to watch his wife sing at their local bar. She sings there often, and well, I needed to deliver a jar of pickles to him (that is another story). Heading down the highway, I came to the conclusion that this was just a ruse to keep me from leveling my druid too far ahead of the shaman that he has been writing about.

They live in a rural community, not a one tooth, pick-up truck with a missing tailgate rural community, but more of a minivan with a missing tailgate, bedroom community for a fairly large city. But I digress, this article isn't going to be about hill billies.

As we skip ahead to this morning, I have to report an incredible hangover. I haven't felt this bad in ages. Not since I drank that punch bowl of Sake as part of my initiation for getting my black belt in Jiu-Jitsu has my head pounded this bad. What happened to me? Did one of the local cougars slip me some roofies? I didn't notice any chaffing on my parts (my wife verified that there was no part chaffing that she was responsible for).

As I re-travel through the fog, that is last night, I came to the conclusion that it was my journey to Wuss-dom that I completed. For the drink tally - 2 beers. That's it! Two beers totally wrecked me. I am so in the line up for umbrella drinks from now on. I never have this problem in Azeroth, in between instances or after I empty my bags from questing I can go to the local pub and drink several caraway burnwines or a glass of Dalaran white without fear of this much pain. Maybe a fuzzy monitor (but that is easily fixed with the un-checking of a few graphics options).

I am now to the point in my article, where I say to myself, "How am I going to end this?" You know what? I can't think of a single thing. My head is freaking killing me so much that I can't even come up with anything witty. I feel awkward like Frodo's uncle at his birthday party, in the Fellowship of the Ring. Fidgit, fidgit - Good bye.

When It All Started

2010-04-23T17:57:00.000-04:00

November 8^th 2008, that’s the date that my life changed. That’s the date that I became a certified geek and joined the ranks of millions. That’s the day I started playing World of Warcraft.

After posting the last article I began thinking back about how long I’ve been playing and, frankly, how quickly the time has past. I’ve grown from a struggling newbling to a struggling older player that’s short 15 bucks a month for the past year and a half ($270). I find it interesting how things have changed for me. How complex this game can be and how, after a basic understanding of certain vernacular, simplistic the game can become.

I remember the first night I played. My buddy was a long time player and had MANY characters on MANY realms. Before we left work on that faithful fall day he told me to give him a call once I start my character and he would come and help me get acquainted.

This is the unedited email chain from the day after that conversation.

Alts (friend)-

“I was waiting all night to give you a hand - I crafted a bunch of stuff for you to make life easier. What level are you now?’

Nebz (me)-

“I didn't realize that I couldn't just 'txt' you in game, this frigin' game is huge! I'm currently a level 9 Warlock, and I've chosen to learn first aid, I'm an apprentice tailor and alchemist. I finally turned it off last night because I got lost in a place called the 'Undercity'. The last thing I did was train in one-handed sword fighting, cuz my guys a puss! I got attacked by a BIG ASS bear that killed me in one swipe!
I couldn't find my last three quests and I got lost so I finally went to bed. Some Elf was following me around last night throwing spells at me to strengthen my attacks, it was a very strange night.
Can I add one of your guys to my list?
Are you going to be on tonight?
Oh, and I finally found an Auction but apparently 'Trial' accounts can't use it.
Damn!”

Alts-

“You crack me up.

If you want to be an alchemist you need to take up herbalism (herbalism allows you to pick herbs which you need for the alchemy profession) which would require you to drop tailoring. You can only have 2 main professions. You can however take up cooking and fishing. You will have to buy some wood a flint and tinder, a fishing rod and lures to be able to do those things.

PS: you are addicted - welcome to the club.”

Holy crap!

C.R.E.A.M.

2010-04-22T19:47:00.000-04:00

(Yup, I'm old enough to still think that Wu-Tang references are appropriate)

Obtaining large amounts of gold has always been a mystery for me in this game (and still is). Regardless of the server or faction I’ve always been a gold poor player. When I started the game a couple of years ago (Alts, has it been a couple of years already?) I had my buddy on the server with me. He made me some Netherweave bags and tossed me some cash just to get me started. I actually remember on one occasion I was trying to fly from Thunderbluff to Orgimmar and I couldn’t afford the flight cost. I had to borrow enough silver just to take the flight. I’ve also started a Death Knight on a second server. That doesn’t really count as starting a “new” character considering by the time you finish the starting zone with a DK you have pocketed around 60 gld. So, for the first time in a couple of years (yikes) I’ve started a new toon on a new server and I would be left to my own devices to gather cash.

After starting Shammy Davis the very next thing I did was start a level one Blood Elf for my bank alt. I’m not sure if using a Blood Elf is 100% necessary, but I like the time it saves me from running back and forth to the Auction House. Plus, I use the mail system as a bottom less bag. I can empty my bags of all useful articles and keep on questing.

The next step was to choose a couple of professions for my main. I understand that crafting professions (Blacksmithing, Engineering, Tailoring…) are all gold sinks. With this in mind I decided to start as a Skinner and Herbalist although any combination of gathering professions would work. For the first five to ten levels all I did was gather mats and mail them to my banker for posting on the AH.

Sell, sell, sell.

Once I was able to bank roll roughly 25 gold I switched from Skinning to Inscription. Not for gold making purposes, but just for shatts and giggles.

My banker’s role in all of this was very important. Every day I would log into my banker and scan the auction house using the Auctioneer mod. Religiously I scanned and scanned, once a day during the week and two to three times on the weekends. After a week of gathering data I began to use a couple of additional features on Auctioneer.

There are two fantastic scans that a player can do using this mod. One is called Vendor, and it’s under the search tab. A vendor search looks for articles in the AH that people are listing for less than a vendor would pay for them. Every day I perform a vendor scan and every day I consistently make two to three gold.

The next scan I use is Resale, this scan is found under the search tab as well. Resale scans the AH for all articles being listed at or below normal price (as gathered by Auctioneer). Once the list of articles is gathered I would buy or bid on as much as I could until I had almost zero gold left. All the articles that I bought or won in bids were relisted for “normal” value.

Simple and quick, the whole process takes me approximately 10- 15 minutes. By using this process I was able to reach 1K gold before I reached level 40.

Now I know that this probably isn’t earth shattering for most players. But for me it was a matter of making a goal for myself and achieving it. I am able to afford bigger bags now, I can afford all my training, and I can afford my shinny new mounts. It’s nice to know that the cash is there if I need it.

A Shaman Gets Wet

2010-04-21T14:11:00.000-04:00

What the hell Blizzard?

Are you freakin’ kidding me?

So I went on the damn water totem quest and two hours later I was finally able to obtain my Water Pole. Now I won’t rant about the obscene amount of travelling you have to do in order to complete this quest of futility. I also won’t complain about the fact that once you finally have the damn Pole in your bag it’s primarily useless. I will, however, complain about the fact that by going on this quest it takes a player out of the overall questing rhythm.

By the time you hit level 20 a player feels like they are finally hitting a bit of a questing cadence. Go out CLUB THE HELL OUT OF something and return to get your XP. Your spell rotation is starting to take shape and things seem to be happening fairly quickly. Then Blizzard throws this giant brick wall in your face and flips you the middle finger.

“Dear valued nerd. I understand that you’re trying to achieve greatness with your Shaman and kudos for sticking with it this long. But could you do us a favour and go wander around ALL OF AZEROTH for the next few hours. It would be most entertaining for us. Thanks.

P.S. We’re going to send you into zones that are above your level just so you can have your ass handed to you by a nomadic bear.”

Give me a break. I understand that they are trying to make the totems a bit of an achievement for the player. They’re trying to make you feel like you’re accomplished something. But come on, why the hell does it have to take so damn long and waste so much of my damn time? Why can’t the quest be a challenging battle with a powerful mob? Or even better, how about a damn quest that you are accompanied by an NPC. During the quest the NPC puts you into situations that require you to use specific totems. It would be a sort “training” quest and would allow the lonely shaman the opportunity to better understand the mechanics behind different totems.

Well, regardless of how much time I spent on this quest, the quest is over. The Water Totem is in my bag and I am able to move on into my 20’s.

The Diet

2010-04-19T11:47:00.000-04:00

I am not sure how I am going to relate this to WOW, but over the weekend I found myself in a discussion with my wife over blue nacho chips. You see, my wife started a corporate challenge where she works, and the goal is to totally eliminate processed foods from her (and by extension the households) diet. I think their mantra is "eat to live, not live to eat". So all our "crap" food was removed from the house. That was about 3 months ago. We are doing well, my wife is over 20 pounds lighter, I am totally the same weight (I think my issue is exercise), and my kids are still asking, "Whats for dinner at the gulag?".

My issue is these healthy blue nacho chips are triangular which makes it difficult to scoop my organic salsa made from free range tomatoes out of a round bottomed bowl. It came to a head on the weekend and I asked my now thinner better half to search tirelessly for round blue nacho chips. Then I can safely scoop my chips without fear of spillage. Seriously, it was like practicing yoga to get the salsa out of that damn bowl with a triangular chip (which may solve my exercise issues). She was given an ultimatum, "Bring home round blue chips, or round normal nacho chips".

Well she came home with the triangular blue nacho chips, I gasped in horror until she handed me the square bowl. It's for my health she explained.

A topic for another day, why with "healthy" foods, do they make it almost impossible to get into? Seriously, potato chips you grab the two sides of the bag and tug and the bag opens. These blue nacho chips the bag needs a nuclear intervention (i.e. scissors) before it opens. I am thinking it has something to do with providing us some exercise.

Any way, I digress, connection to WOW - yes, what WOW foods would you consider healthy and which would you consider unhealthy? Feel free to make your suggestions in the feedback below.

I have to go now and eat my roasted egg plant sandwiches - YUM.

My Little Pony

2010-04-17T18:20:00.000-04:00

There has been quite a bit written the last couple days regarding the Celestial Steed and whether or not Blizzard is right to sell it. The 'against' group are saying that it is a cash grab or that items this special should only be for persons that are lucky enough to get it from a world drop or end game instance. The 'for' group (which technically I guess I am in) a) doesn't care or b) doesn't care.

I purchased one today, along with the Lil'XT. Why you ask? Because I can. I like the game and my daughter likes the game and when she saw them she wanted one and I like doing stuff for my daughter. It got me bonus points when she was playing and all of a sudden the mail icon lit up. She opened the mailbox and there they were. It was Christmas and I was the top dog in the gift distribution list. My wife couldn't even come close to something as special. She even made my daughter get out of bed at 7:00am on a Saturday to go to swimming lessons. She definitely didn't earn any points with the kid today.

Was Blizzard right? Was it a cash grab? Maybe - a new expansion is coming out soon and that costs money to make. The costs for the artwork alone to create the "World" of Warcraft boggles my mind. Creating this world is not cheap. Most say they make a ton of money every month. Yes they do, but that is to keep the current hardware working and to provide the database technicians to help recover the solid stone you deleted by mistake. I also read that there is going to be a need to upgrade and/or replace much of the existing hardware to be able to handle the new improved world.

So if you think it was a cash grab, guess what, don't buy one. If you think it should have only been available for you 6000 GS, uber snobs from the depths of Ice Crown Citadel, initiate a corporate take over and reverse the decision. While I wait for that to happen, I will continue to bask in the attention from daughter. FOR I AM SUPER DAD!

Courtesy is Dead

2010-04-15T20:07:00.000-04:00

Please understand that the last thing I want to do is steal the thunder of the other contributor to this blog. So to Alts I apologize, but something happened last night while I was playing WOW that I just can’t let go.

I was on Shammy Davis (I think I’m going to put a space in his name now) and I was on a quest to kill a certain mob that spawns “randomly” in a certain area. I’m being vague because the particulars really don’t alter the conclusion of this little parable. While killing the surrounding mobs in hopes of triggering the random spawn I see a hunter from the same faction running around beside me killing the same mobs. The poor hunter was not doing quite as well as he should and was on the verge of death. Noticing this I toss him a quick heal and move on with my killing spree. This happened a total of three more times for a total of four times I saved this basement dwelling craptard. Now most decent members of society would, at the very least, toss a “Thanks” my way or even a freakin’ wave, not this product of inbreeding. Not only does he not wave he ends up killing the mob that finally spawned as a result of all the killing that I was doing.

Screw you jackass!

Next up on the dumb ass parade is the asstastic individual who followed me up a path on the way to the final kill for another quest only to run past me as I engage the second last mob to ninja the end objective for me.

Awesome, thanks!

I understand that everyone’s time is precious and everyone is looking for the quickest way to get to the end game, although I don’t know why. But would it kill someone to invite you to a group so when you kill that final objective you both get credit for it? How hard is it share a quest? Give me a break, this is the kind of crap that makes me want to jab shards of glass in my eyes. This is another reason why I haven’t jumped into a low level dungeon yet. I know that the Dungeon Finder is a great way to help supplement ones leveling progress. Unfortunately, the last time I tried I was paired up with a tank that still suffered from resurrection sickness, a healer that hadn’t trained up his skills for the last 6 levels and a dps that was AFK for the whole run, but I digress.

Maybe I’m wrong (I doubt it) maybe I shouldn’t have healed that hunter. Maybe I should have “gone all nerd-ranty” on the ninja. Maybe, but I don’t play the game that in that way. I have enough stress in my job and personal life, I sure has hell don’t need to get all stressy over a video game. I play this game to relax (ha) and if I can’t enjoy myself while I’m playing I turn the game off. I just hate the fact that sometimes I have to turn the game off because someone else doesn’t know how to function as a human being. So please, I beg of you, the next time you get an anonymous heal or buff give that player a wave. It goes a long way and it doesn’t cost you anything.

A Shaman Gets Rolling

2010-04-14T21:08:00.000-04:00

With that awful, awful fire totem quest in the rear view mirror (it really was just awful). Shammydavis is able to look ahead to the great span of levels that is 11 through 20.

I have to admit, I’m having a good time playing the Shammy. It hasn’t felt too gear dependent and even without the help of any heirloom items the levels have gone by fairly quickly. The only change to my rotation so far has come with the addition of the lightning shield. The lightning shield was an ability that I got back in the early levels. I just never used the damn thing that much, it didn’t seem necessary. As I climbed the levels I found myself buffing myself with the lightning shield before every pull. So my rotation went from Bolt, Bolt, Shock, CLUB THE HELL OUT OF THEM to Lightning shield, Bolt, Bolt, Shock, CLUB THE HELL OUT THEM, Lightning shield (reapply) and FINISH CLUBBING THE HELL OUT OF THEM!

As far as using that stupid fire totem, I have learned one very valuable lesson. Don’t use the fire totem. Lesson learned. See, the problem with the fire totem is the fact that, at this level, all it does is a ranged attack. But the ranged attack is completely uncontrollable, when you‘re finished CLUBING THE HELL out of a mob this damn pole of Satan will fire another attack at the next closest mob. Sometimes my totem would fire a shot at a passing squirrel, but other times it would fire a shot at a wandering mob. The mob would get all pissy and come over and first club the pole of Satan and then start CLUBING THE HELL OUT OF ME. So if I can pass along any advice it would be this; keep you totem in your pants, I mean bag (sorry). The only time I pull out my totems now is when I screw up and pull too many mobs. As soon as I recognize that the F’n Harpie I just sent a bolt at is bringing a couple of bitchy friends I frantically throw down any and all totems available to me. At this point that would be a totem to increase my armor and the pole of Satan. Then as soon as I am finished CLUBBING THE HELL OUT OF THEM, I retract my fire totem right away before it can get a shot off... and drink.

Oh, I have left out the greatest addition to my rotation. I have decided to become an Herbalist. The skill learned at level 75 herbalism is an instant cast heal over time spell and believe me I use this skill. Maybe more than the heal ability that Shamans learn from the trainer. Not only has Herbalism saved my life more than a couple of time it has also provided me with a nice little income on the side. All thanks to wonderful flower power.

Levels 11 through 20 have flown by and I now stand before you an adult Shaman. I wonder what wonderful skills I will get at level 20? I get a nice shiny new dinosaur mount, no more walking for this sucker. Off to the Shaman trainer to get my… oh crap… Water Totem quest.

Now We Can Move On

2010-04-14T15:39:00.001-04:00

Well the wooden spoon has been swung and I guess it didn't hurt too badly. Of course that's assuming that everything that Blizzard "wants to take care of" actually stays in the game. So due to the fact that I don't want to get all worked up on talents, buffs and nerfs that may not stay in the game (I'm looking at you Druids with your Magic Mushroom). I will eat crow for partially being wrong yesterday about the sky falling, regroup, and come back with another thought.

P.S. Truth be told I just needed something to write about so I can try out the "post be email" feature.

Watch Out For That Spoon

2010-04-13T18:57:00.000-04:00

I’m scared.

I am sure that we have all been following the upcoming class changes for Cataclysm. It all started with the changes to the Shaman class (Shammydavis is excited) and it finished with the Mage, or should I say, the updates were suspended with the Mage. Within all the updates there was one glaring exception, where’s the Paladin changes?

Now I know that Blizzard warned us ahead of time that the Paladin changes weren’t coming until the following Friday (April 16^th). But with all these changes, some good and some bad, we are left to wonder just how bad are these changes to the Paladin class that Blizzard has decided to wait an entire week before announcing them?

Any educated person knows that Blizzard is not taking the extra time to finalize the upcoming Paladin changes. These changes have been designed and finalized awhile ago. Blizzard has something different in mind. Blizzard is waiting for most of the crying (QQ) over the other class changes to calm down before dropping the Paladin Bomb on us. Good or bad, nerfed or buffed the Paladin changes are coming and apparently they need their own dedicated day to unveil them.

Personally I hope that the reason they are waiting is because they have no changes to the class to announce and they just wanted to give the Paladin class their own day. How great would it be if Blizzard published an article that said,

“Keep on truckin’ Pallies. We think you’re special just the way you are.”

Let’s just give the Paladin some kick ass level 81-83-85 talents and be done with it. But a betting man would place money on the fact that the Paladin is going to change drastically. So now all we can do is wait. At least we don’t have to wait until Friday anymore, Blizzard has pushed the date up to Wednesday (April 14^th). Good or bad the changes are coming at us like an angry Mom with a wooden spoon in her hand. So when the changes come and Blizzard swings that wooden spoon at your head just duck and try to push all the agro to your brother. After all he plays a Gnome Warlock, he deserves a spoon to the head!

What is Wrong With Some Players?

2010-04-10T09:04:00.001-04:00

This is my first article, never blogged before and do not have the journalism degree like my other blogging cohort. How do I do this? First person, third person, how many words? Can’t make it too long or people won’t read the whole thing. So there will be growing pains. So bear with me. Here we go…

From my pen name I have a few alts (sic) and when a new WOW holiday event comes around I select one of my toons and try to get him/her the title. Well I was playing one of them the other night, trying to get the Noblegarden achievements completed before I went away for the weekend. She is a level 29 Tauren druid and I had the “Desert Rose” achievement to complete.

For the “Desert Rose” I got all the zones completed except Tanaris and Silithus and I was starting to think how I was going to pull it off without getting killed numerous times. On this particular realm all my RL friends are sporting alliance 80’s so I asked one of them to switch over and escort me to Silithus. He switched up and eventually arrived in Tanaris.

This is where this article really begins. As I was discussing the plan with him through vent a horde hunter came over and flagged PvP. He began jumping up and down around us and shooting off his volley. I told him that my Alliance escort was not interested in a fight because we wanted to get this done.

Well this hunter followed us and then would try to get in the way of my buddies targeting when I went and aggro’d things, and boy did I aggro stuff. I may not have been politically correct when I asked him if he was “retarded”. No response. A little farther into our journey I ask him what his problem was and he finally responded with something similar to this (since my daughter plays I have the language control on), “This is what you get when you have a &*^DFT^% H&*IFHISH &*$HJ S real life friend that decides to roll a J*S&KFH&&*$# SK alliance. I will eventually HF&@jd kill him.” To this I responded with, “Are you 12?” and immediately put him on ignore.

He went away and our journey through Un’goro Crater was mostly uneventful. However; upon arriving at Marshal’s Refuge, I get a whisper form a level 1 toon. It was the hunter. Went something like this, “You AH@&H HS*$H A$$, you are no better than your HS&$H HSH*@ Alliance friend.” I responded,” So you are retarded, 12 and obsessive compulsive” and put that toon on ignore.

We finished the journey to Silithus and I got my quest “Desert Rose” completed.

So my question, “What is wrong with some players?” I was going to ask the question, “What is wrong with some of the players on [insert realm name here]?” but realized these people are probably on all realms. Please, through your comments enlighten me. I would love to hear from some psychologists; maybe they can shed some light on why some people turn into idiots when they start playing WOW.

A Shaman Hits Double Digits

2010-04-09T18:39:00.001-04:00

Dear Blizzard,

SCREW YOU!

Thank you,
Nebz

So Shammydavis dinged 10 and with great power comes great responsibility. Finally, I was thinking, finally I can specialize in my chosen talent tree. Finally I can train in some kick ass abilities. But best of all I can finally get my fire totem and add a little dps to my shaman (insert fail sound effect here).

First let’s talk about the talent tree I have decided to pursue. A shaman has three choices (duh), Enhancement (two handed melee DPS), Elemental (DPS caster in leather/mail) and Restoration (healer). Now, personally I don’t have very much interest in trying to level Shammydavis through the Dungeon Finder (too many horrific runs with other toons). For leveling toons my poison of choice is good old fashion questing. Leveling a healer through questing is a matter of outlasting the mob you are currently poking and for me that doesn’t spell fun. So that narrows my choices down to caster or melee, and since I already have a level 80 mage, I decided to level as a melee (Enhancement).

Alright, we have a talent tree! Let’s look and see what I get to put my first point into on my journey to uberness. Ummm... ummm awesome… one point goes to raising my intellect by a hair. Nice. Great. Wonderful. Grand.

Well at least I get to go on my magical and mystical journey for the elusive fire totem. Now I won’t bore you with the specifics of my journey, but I will tell you that I wasted a total of 54 mins of my life on this damn quest. 54 mins! What the hell Blizzard?

Years ago I used to read a comic in the Saturday newspaper entitled “The Family Circus”. Although the comic wasn’t very funny, once in awhile it had a drawing of the crazy adventures of little Jeffery. In one of the frames Lil’ Jeffery’s mother would ask him to go and get the mail. The next frame contained his “hilarious” journey through the house, into the yard, into the playground, out on the road, to the mail box, to the fridge, to the bar, into the bathroom and then finally to his mom. The final frame would be his mom asking “What took you so long?” Ugh! On this quest chain I felt just like Lil’ Jeffery. Crisscross the Barrens, then into Durator, into the Barrens back and forth until you finally end up back where you started just to kill some crappy fire elemental that was beside the guy who started the damn quest. Oh, and of course Shammy is only level 10 so I HAD TO WALK THE WHOLE DAMN TIME! Nerd rage! Screw you Blizzard! I had visions of some jackass sitting at corporate Blizzard laughing at me as I ran back and forth.

“Look”, he would yell to his buddies, “another sucker is on that stupid fire totem quest. Pop some popcorn this loser’s going to be awhile.”

Up yours Blizzard!

Well needless to say I finished the quest and I got my stupid fire totem. Big frigin’ deal. I just keep telling myself that this quest chain was an anomaly, after all that running around I’m sure that the water totem at level 20 will be a breeze.

P.S. Blizzard I still love, don’t make me leave the game. I’ll pay extra if I have to.

A Shaman is Born

2010-04-07T19:51:00.000-04:00

My most recent endeavor has been to roll and level a Troll Shaman. You may think, “big deal” or “who cares”, well I’ll tell you the little twist I have in store… you ready for this… I plan on leveling all the way to 80 this time! Crazy, I know, but this time I’m actually going to see this one through.

The first decision I had to make was which race was I going to use. Admittedly, the Horde side has many more choices over the Alliance, so I was to chose between Tauren (slow, kind of dull and they take up too much real estate on my screen), Troll (ugly, crappy racial traits, but man can they dance) and Orc (way ugly, better racial traits and cool wolf mount). So I choose a Troll, what can I say I’m a sucker for the cool dance moves.

The second decision was his name. Do you know how damn hard it is to be original any more when it comes to naming your toon. Think of a name right now, any name, now try and use it in the character creator. Go ahead, I can wait…. Didn’t work, did it? It’s brutal; all the original stuff is gone. So now you’re left using a “1” instead of an “l” or some other form of phonetic bastardization. Oh and if the original name that you choose did work, guess what, there’s probably 100 other toons with the same name on other servers. My shaman is Shammydavis, there are a lot of other Shammydavis’s already running around Azeroth. I didn’t know this at the time. I swore I was the wittiest cleverest person ever when I thought of Shammydavis. Sadly, I am not.

So here I am, Shammydavis, ready to take on the world. I am part of friendly little guild that my friends started, For Shatt (s) and Giggles (damn we’re funny). I have my mace and my shield. Everything seems to be ready to go. Wait a minute. I don’t have any 18 slot bags? I have no gold? What the hell is this? Now I’m starting to rethink this whole thing.

My Shammydavis is born to the world and as a level 1 Shaman your attack choices are very limited, as a matter of fact for the first 9 levels every attack was exactly the same. Lightning bolt (usually twice before the mob gets to me) and then CLUB THE HELL OUT OF THEM! One nice thing that has recently happened is Blizzard has decided to make manna and health regeneration much quicker for the first 10 levels. This allowed me to bolt, club and move on with very little down time. Eventually I got my first shock spell (level 2) so my pattern varied enough to include the new spell. Lightning bolt (x2), shock and the CLUB THE HELL OUT OF THEM! That’s it, rinse and repeat for the first 9 levels. Oh sure I got a new shinny totem at level 4, but honestly I don’t think I ever planted the damn thing. Maybe once I threw it out there when I pulled one too many mobs, but as far as early leveling goes I never dropped a totem. Oh sweet ignorance, and then “DING!” level 10!

New Contributor

2010-04-07T12:41:00.000-04:00

I am now a poster to a blog. Yikes - I hated English class in highschool which was a long time ago. I am calling myself Alt37, which I think is the current number of toons I have on my WOW account. My daughter treats the character creation screen as her personal Barbie fashion centre. Any way, I will from time to time blog about various World of Warcraft topics. We will see how it goes. Cheers