Happy Birthday to me!

So turns out the only thing worse than working alone in the office on Saturdays, working alone in the office on a Saturday that also happens to be your birthday.

Well it is now 8:30 am. Only 8.5 hours to go huh? The wife has told me I am not allowed to go home for lunch today. I wonder why? It might be because for the second time in the last five 6 years she has attempted to throw a surprise party. The first time was on my 30th, when I randomly bumped into her best friends mom, who blew the surprise. This time the wife blew it. I was making plans for tonight with some friends to install a solar pool heater, when she said "But what about your party Saturday night?"

So at least I will be able to get ripped tonight! yay me!

Into the Scarlet Monastery.

I have a good in game friend who is the GM of her guild. They were making excellent progress on Naxx25 when a good portion of their core raiders left for more progressed guilds. They are in the process of training a new batch of raiders for 10 man content. I feel for the GM and all the 80's left in the guild because it is a huge step backward. They are basically back in the wiping 2-3 times for every Anub'Rekhan kill.

My guild has pretty much left me behind. Not out of malice, or anything like that. But because real life has made raiding with my guild pretty much impossible lately. So I have decided to join up with The Lost for their Naxx10 runs and help them build a new batch of raiders.

Last night I got the wife and the kid out of the house, dinner cooked and settled in for a night of Naxx10 with The Lost. Well real life jumped up and bit me again, "The Boy" had a final project for both English and Science due today, that was just in the starting phases. He needed mini-figures for a board game they were making, needed CD's ripped for a speech project blah blah blah.

Well that kinda shot the raid for me. We killed Anub'Rekhan, and Grand Widow and I had to leave the raid. Fortunately for The lost I was just DPS'ing and not healing, a DPS spot is pretty easy to fill on our server.

After the homework crisis was averted, 2 hours had passed and I logged back in on my baby Pally to just futz around a bit before bed. I was invited to SM Cath as healer...um at level 29...and Ret. Well it went well till we got to the actual cathedral and my little level 29 butt had such a huge aggro radius that one flash heal and I pulled the whole cathedral.

Two wipes later I gave up and brought in the big guns...Skraps. I must say running a group of 30 somethings through all 3 wings of SM was way more fun than I thought it could be. I basically pulled the whole instance to the final boss and Magma Totem, Chain Lightning and Thunderstorming the whole thing into oblivion. The 4 guys I ran with all Leveled up at least once. Good times were had by all.

The most amazing part. Two of the players were brand new to WoW! They had never seen the unbridaled wrath of a level 80 Elemental Shaman. There were resounding ohhhs and ahhhhs heard through the entire cathedral.

I think I may run those guys a few other instances this weekend it was that much fun.

Thanks to everyone...

Thanks to everyone that helped me figure out how to get loot-links to work. I can now show off proper wowhead links on all that super cool loot that drops, I mean if I can win a roll. Who knew I would ever think "Why can't my guild run a DKP system?"

Stupid RNG hates me!

Heirloom Items.

So I have been meaning to write a post about heirloom items for some weeks now, but I kept putting it off because I wanted to grab screen shots of my characters with the super cool shoulders and the Bloodied Archinite Ripper but every time I login to get a screen shot, I end up running some heroic (Halls of Lighting 5 times since last Thursday) or other. I will try to get screen shots today and update this post.

So after running 25 naxx on my hunter and my shaman 1000 times and getting decent gear pretty regularly I have found after buying the trinkets, because if a trinket ever drops on a run I roll a 2, I just stockpile the emblems. There really isnt much to buy (so I thought). I decided to blow about one hundred emblems a few weeks ago. I thought I would get the plate shoulders and axe to help my DK level through Outland and Northrend. What I found is not only does that 10% XP boost rock, those two items are prety much BIS while leveling. I have held on to some BoE drops thinking when I level up I will equip the because they are better than what I have. Well when I ding, so does the item! They just keep getting better!

Now I have sent them down to my baby ret pally at level 28. She is tearing through mobs like a hot knife through warm butter, and then there is that whole 10% XP boost.

If you have an addiction to Alts, and the emblems to spare I strongly recomend you spend some of them on these items, you wont regret it.

Soap Box.

/Soap Box On

I will not be climbing on my soap box very often on this site, but today I feel I have to.

While I am in an extremely happy hetero-sexual marriage, and was even married in the Catholic church, I am saddened by today's California Supreme Court ruling, to uphold the constitutionality of Proposition 8. It frightens me to think they have set a precedent to allow a majority to restrict or remove the rights of a minority.

I know it has been a long time since my high and college civics classes, but I always thought the constitution was a document designed to protect and grant rights to the people, not to remove them.

What bothers me the most is this whole situation has put me in a position to support my mother-in-law! (Who married her partner Sandy in August 2008) I mean come on! Why should I have to side with her on anything, that just isn't right!

And lastly, come on! California is now officially less progressive than Iowa? Whaaaa? How did a fly-over state on the fringe of the Bible Belt become more progressive than California, and grant constitutional freedoms that California has refused to acknowledge?

/Soap Box Off

Finally!

So after months and months I finally found a group of alts in the guild that actually wanted to run heroic Halls of Lightning. I ran as heals, one of our new Ulduar tanks, well, tanked. We had a assortment of 2500-3000 dps'ers. We were so over geared for the instance that I DC'ed on Volkhan and by the time I was back he was dead, and with my Earth Shield cooking on the tank, they didn't even notice I had DC'ed.

To go along with the Champion title I also got these little achievements to go with it.












Oh and I also topped off my reputation with the Kirin Tor, and am about half way to finishing up Knights of the Ebon Blade.

Maybe I will start leveling my Death Knight in ernest now.

My fost favorite thing in the world...

Next to my wife and "The Boy" is The Cure. I have been a huge fan since I was in 7th grade when I first heard the album "The head on the door". That first listen opened a door that lead me to a world beyond "Top 40" music. This is when I learned record companies do not have my best interests at heart and there might be a world of music that they would never promote due to its lack of commercial viability.

The Cure guided me through all the trials and tribulations of my teenage years and high school. Now as an adult living the suburban life I still listen to them almost every day (Much to my wife's chagrin). I am not sure I would be the person I am today with out this band.

Last summer I took my son who was 13 at the time to his first concert, it was The Cure for the 4:13 Dream album. He loved it, although he seems to be more into the opening act "65 Days of Static"

This weekend Sirius/XM are doing a Cure weekend, so I urge you to check it out on First Wave 22. If you do not have Sirius/XM it is also broadcast on DirectTV's music channels or you can listen online, go here for a free 3 day trial. They are playing a 3 hour live concert from Hollywood Bowl twice a day all weekend too.

If you have never listened to The Cure, here is my list of albums to check out for those new to The Cure.

1.) Disintegration (of course). This is probabally the bands best album. It is the album that moved music from the 80's electropop, to the early 90's grunge movement (not that it sounds like either one of those). Matt Parker and Trey Stone from South Park, summed it up best at the end of the "Mecha Striseand" episode...Robert Smith kicks ass, and Disintegration is the best album ever!

2.) This is tough, do we move forward to Wish with its heaver guitars, some more accessable sound or back to The Head on the Door? Both albums are light and full of pop type hits. Both are excellent albums to introduce new listeners with out the heavier overtones of other albums, but with a good example of their lyrical style.

3.) Lets move to the dark side. There are 3 albume in their early catalog that are heavy, dark, and powerful. These albums are where The Cure cemented their "Goth Rock" lable. Pornography, Faith, and 17 Seconds. While these albums are heavy fan favorites, their general mass apeal may be limited. If you really enjoyed the first 3 albums I listed check out one of these.

4.) Because I am such a huge cure fan, I am going to list as number 4, the rest of their catalog. I know lame but thats how I feel. Wild Mood Swings, panned by the fans is full of up beat quirky songs. "The Cure" produced by Ross Robinson is recorded in 1 take, very lightly produced and kind of raw, while not a favorite is still pretty good.

Japanese Whispers is an EP full of pop singles, Three Imaganary Boys/Boys Don't Cry is their first album, full of post punk angst. Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me is the album that introduced me to my wife. The Top is my all time favorite, for its bizzare guitar riffs, lyrics and over all uniqueness.

Or just buy the deluxe edition of their Greatest Hits, 18 tracks that span their entire discography, with "live" accoustic versions on the second disk.

Enough rambling from me. I am at work alone today as it is Saturday and I should get back to work.

Skraps.