One of the Classics

So, I’ve been on a roll lately, posting almost every day, thanks in large part to RG’s example. At times, thoughts just seem to flow out the fingers, through the keyboard, and onto the screen. Today is not one of those days.

Last night, I ran with the Monday Night Crit’s and Giggles Classic Raid. Sunwell Plateau.

Parts of it were a walk in the park. Others just kicked our ass up and down the whole instance.  I’d gone through a couple of the bosses before, and so wasn’t too surprised, but other were just a night mare… Felmyst required a few wipes and tactics adjustments. M’uru went down on the first try, despite the best efforts of the children who insisted on throwing down train sets while the raid leader was trying to explain the fight. Did that phrasing suitably disguise the disgust I felt towards the dumb asses?

Look… when the raid is on farm, or it’s an easy boss… fine. Play grab ass. I like to mess around as much as the next person. But when you’re going into an unknown fight, and your a bare 15 minutes from half a dozen wipes on an earlier boss, let’s just say it’s not appropriate.

Kil’ Jaeden took us two tries, but actually went pretty smoothly, once we got the hang of the dragons.

That’s a short summary, but all in all, Sunwell was one of those you remember. I cannot imagine doing it at level. And despite the grind, it was a complete blast. I recommend any guild that has been progressing content go back and try it.

Global Meanderings

One of the things I enjoy about MMORPGs is the cultural expansion it brings. I currently have people I would call “friends” not only all across the United States, but in Norway, England, the Netherlands, the Philipines,  Australia… and that was before I even started playing WoW. Yes, the life of a notorious Mafia don is an educational one, and in this case, proof positive that when it comes to the addiction factor of a game, the complexity of the platform is a distant second to the human factor.

More Attitude

So, last night was fairly calm. I got my random out of the way, getting pulled into HVH in time to down the last boss, and then jumped on my DK to do a mining circuit of Sholazar. About the time I hit the Seabreach Flow, I noticed keyboard imprints on my forehead, and decided to call it.

However, that left me without any real fodder for a post. /sigh. So, I’m having to dig a bit. Yesterday, I came across this rant over at PewPewLazerz. I could reply over there, but the comments are already up to 50+, so I decided to kill two birds with one stone. As an added benefit, it is almost a natural follow-on to yesterday’s post.

Attitudes on Attitude

So,  old business first. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you… Jeeves!

Many thanks to Kalyon and Shalae for donating titansteel cooldowns to the cause.

Twas the Night After Patching…

A long time ago, in a galaxy, far, far away… oops! Wrong franchise. Sorry about that. Let’s try this again.

Way back when, around the turn of the millennium, I had the good fortune to be a part of the Taldren Inner Circle, a group of gamers invited by now defunct Taldren, to take part in the design and testing of Star Fleet Command II. We were something of an experiment, and created a few minor ripples in the gaming industry. I wound up coding some of the missions, and eventually doing maintenance programming on the codebase. It was an education in the gaming industry, software design and just an overall warm and fuzzy feeling to contribute to what was really a great space combat game.

Take a Deep Breath

Back pain sucks. But back pain wasn’t why I called in sick on Monday. Naw, that was because of the marathon coughing fits, lack of sleep, etc.

So, after going back to bed, getting a few hours of sleep, I got on WoW. Loving the new solid state drive that I have Windows and my important programs running from. “Important” being a euphamism for “World  of Warcraft”. Definitely a noticeable difference.

So, I logged in, and continued my mat-farming for Jeeves. Uggg… all that mining. No wonder my back is killing me. But now I’m only a few titansteel bars, and a couple king’s amber away from constructing my “gentleman’s gentleman”. Which, given recent patterns, may be a really good thing. Sure, our guild runs up repair bills rivaling the gross national product of a small third-world country, but that’s to be expected. Most people I’ve come into contact with on Heroics seem afraid of repair bills; “Oh, I want to run heroics and raids and not get my armor scratched!”. Even Kalyon has expressed reluctance along those lines. Meh, plebe. My attitude is, if you’re worried about repair bills, find another line of work. If you wanna play with the big dogs, be ready to piss in the high weeds! If you ain’t wipin’, you’re not challenging yourself. I think that’s really why Kaly doesn’t like to tank.

But even I had to be impressed by Apathy.When it comes to wipes and repair bills, they don’t seem too worried about it.

Another One in the Books…

So, all in all, it was a weekend. You know, one of those where you have free time, and nothing really going on to fill it up? Happily, like so many other situations, WoW has that covered. Can you say “Achievements”? Sure, I knew you could.

Running Ulduar 9 + a spare

Yesterday, on the Grumpy Mage:

repgrind Says:

>.>
<.<

Ok, fine. Strat tonight then. :p

Miracle of miracles, I managed to leave work at a decent hour, and upon arrival at the Cave, hopped on WoW. As related over on Reputation Grind, Kaly was being respecced, and then Karius and Lajos were going to go pillage Strat, spit in the Baron’s eye, and demand the Deathcharger’s Reins. If that didn’t work, Karius was going to try begging pitieously.

A Perspective On Value

Ok, so this is going to be one of my non-WoW general state of humanity rants. I’ll try to make it less “rant-ish”.

I work doing phone support for a company that sells a timekeeping solution, aimed primarily at construction, agriculture, manufacturer, and service industries.  There are two things that make my job really awesome.

First, the people I work with are incredible. I regularly walk into the CEOs office, with no appointment, and we discuss products, tech issues, or just the company in general. Over Christmas, one of the techs put up a giant (we’re talking 5+ feet) Christmas stocking, and we put a “ransom note” on it, saying “Fill it, or the fat guy in the red suit gets it.” We came in the first working day after Christmas, and it was full of peanuts, Cracker Jacks, Pringles, Bazooka Joe bubble gum, Corn Nuts, a huge jar of animal crackers, an electronic dartboard, Nerf weapons, etc., all courtesy of our CFO. We returned the favor by going to the farmer’s market, and filling her office with a couple dozen bouquets of flowers.

Secondly, by and large, our product works, and our customers generally love it. I’m in tech support, so I get to hear the problems, and it’s not uncommon for a customer who is frantic because they can’t run payroll, because they’re system hit a glitch, tell me how much they love the system.  Let’s face it, labor costs are the biggest business expense, and even innocently rounding a timecard off 5 minutes every day can add up to a significant amount of money. An employee that intentionally fudges? Big, big ripoff. I had a customer who’d bought our system a month before tell me that in the first pay period alone, he discovered that he’d been losing on an average of an hour a week to employees. He had 50 employees, and when he bought the system, had been at the point of laying someone off. With what he saved, someone kept their job.

So yeah, I think it safe to say we’re better than average.

Friendship

Friendships come in many different forms, in varying degrees, and manifest in a multitude of ways. In WoW terms, some friends are companions, fun to be around, run a raid with, or just be silly with. Other friends give you a lift when you need a hand getting those last few Emblems of Triumph for your next T9 piece. Others just cheer you up when your down, and help you take your mind off your troubles.

And then, there are those that, in addition to all the above, challenge you, as in this comment from RG, made after I’d told her I needed her to help me find the Jeeve’s schematic:

Help you how? Have you seen the drop rate on that thing??? Get me Deathcharger’s Reins and we’ll talk … til then, have fun farming :p

I woke up this morning, a bit out of sorts. It’s been a rough week, with a lot of ups and downs, extreme ups, extreme downs. Last night, I ended up getting stuck at work, got home late, and my first attempt at my random was a rough pug. Not rough in the sense of rude people, but the group just wasn’t quite up to H-HoL.  RG was kind enough to let me tag along on Karius’ random, so I got my emblems, then I got my lock to 40, but all in all, the whole evening just felt off-kilter.

So, I scanned the auction house while I showered, then decided to see if I could get my random out of the way early. I did my fishing and cooking dailies, then fired up the old Wormhole Generator, and popped up to Storm Peaks. As I landed on the platform for the Library, the random popped, and we got HCoS. Decent run. We missed getting the drake by mere seconds, but other than that, it was good. Thanked everyone, and left the group, back to Storm Peaks.

And a mere few dozen Library Guardian’s later:

So, it looks like I need to get those last few points of Engineering. Folks on Winterhoof, stay tuned. I’m going to be having a clearance on Gnomish Army Knives real soon.

And, to my very good friend over at Reputation Grind, I return the favor: Get your ass down to Strat, and get to work. Last I saw, the Deathcharger’s Reins don’t drop in Icecrown Citadel, Trial of the Crusader, or any other place in Northrend.