Merry Christmas!

As much as I hate to say it, Merry Christmas! I suppose I'll be fairly non-scrouge for a little bit. Though it's kinda hard to not channel my inner ebenezer when I signed up to work 7a-7p, on Christmas day.

So I'm sure I speak for myself, the 13 nurses, 2 doctors, other unit clerk, communication tech, both house keepers, the triage tech, the MEC (Minor Emergency Care) staff, the registration staff (6 or so people), and all four patients when I wish you a merry Christmas from my work.

Though on an unrelated I managed to do a full clear of Naxxramas tuesday with my new guild. All four wings, the undead dragon, and Kel'Thuzad. And only two wipes that were my fault!

One was when someone mentioned I forgot to loot my boots and I ran back to do that, and the other one when I was learning the fight on Kel'Thuzad.

I saw the incoming explosion on me and didn't know to keep away from everyone else, so I stepped next to another healer....who went boom and died. We were still doing a decent job of staying alive when I put my camera behind a banner, couldn't see anything, and didn't "stay out of the" crap "on the floor". The remaining healer couldn't keep all 7 tanks/dps alive.

Welp, Merry Christmas, and I might even post again between now and New Years! You never know...


~joe ebenezer

I'm it!

Welp, thanks to my good friend Grai, it looks like I have to post again. Dang people and their niceness. So Grai was tagged by 3B, who was tagged by Ratters, who was tagged by Phinn.

Now how were they tagged? Phinn dug up a list of who commented first and thank them for it.

So here goes, I started posting back in May no one commented for almost a month....Turns out you kind of need to, you know, tell people you're there if they're going to read you. But the next month I figured it out and first props go tooooo: Phinn! Followed closely by a bunch of other Sidhe Devils. Thank you all for getting me addicted to reading comments.

Other people who have commented a lot and keep me motivated to post:

Doodle

Dax

Dammerung

And I'll resist tagging 3B since he's just been tagged.

The rest of ya'll can consider yourselves tagged, now get with the postin'!


~ishvi

Wooo! Wooo! Chugga-chugga chugga-chugga

Welpers, that time of year my friends. I'll start my last final in two hours and head to NM shortly after that, which means a couple things.

NM of courses is where my mom resides, and where she is also graduating with her bachelors! Woooo! Oh, AND she's turning 50! The fact that she's lasted this long with the four sons God gave her is an acomplishment in and of itself.

Thing number one: I'll be driving for 10-12 hours straight (my pitch hitter for driving broke is foot and hasn't acted right so it's not healed yet, and people with moonboots don't drive cars). This means I'll be getting tired.

Thing number two: It's holiday season, and I'll be on the road with a LOT of other people, who will also be getting tired.

---

So, what do these two things entail? Welp, one I may be out of pocket due to a lack of places to plug Katherine in at, and two I have prayer requests! (who guessed it!)

---

Okay, prayer point number one: That I'll be safe on the road. I have a tendency to get a lead foot, especially on long drives, I really want to make this one without a speeding ticket. I also really want to make it there without injurying myself or anyone else. So a prayer for safety would be greatly appreciated.

Point number two: That I will be refreshed. I really don't want to arrive there and be to tired to do anything, or so grouchy no one wants to do anything with me.

Point number three: That I would find a way to serve, and do it. So often people go on vacations and do nothing. They just sit around and are waited on hand and foot, I'm as guilty as others, but it's so much more fun when you can find something to do, and do it. Every day. God called us to be servants, and I believe one of the major causes of discontent is when people don't willingly serve others. But that's another blog entirely.

Point number four: Everything previously listed, and harmony, for my brother riding with me. Growing up we fought like cats and dogs...Hmm, can't think of anything that fought as bad as we did. It wasn't uncommon for us to have to be pulled apart before we physically hurt each other. We've gotten much closer as time has passed, but there is always room to grow closer. Especially when in the car for 10+ hours.

Point number five: It is a vacation and I pray that I'll be refreshed. I'm coming back, unpacking, going to bed, and then getting up for a 12 the next day, so I really want to be refreshed.

---

Well, I think that about covers it, if you get a chance to pray for me I'll appreciate it.

Who needs titles?

Much like everyone else I get lots of stuff in my email, though thanks to good friends I don't get to much trash, and every once in awhile I come across something nice. Well this time I got something really keen from my dad, but I really hate forwarding anything.

However, now I have a way to deal with this now! I have a blog! So without further ado I will present the poem thingie, it's really good.

A Different Christmas Poem

The embers glowed softly, and in their dim light,
I gazed round the room and I cherished the sight.
My wife was asleep, her head on my chest,
My daughter beside me, angelic in rest.
Outside the snow fell, a blanket of white,
Transforming the yard to a winter delight.

The sparkling lights in the tree I believe,

Completed the magic that was Christmas Eve.
My eyelids were heavy, my breathing was deep,
Secure and surrounded by love I would sleep.
In perfect contentment, or so it would seem,
So I slumbered, perhaps I started to dream.

The sound wasn't loud, and it wasn't too near,
But I opened my eyes when it tickled my ear.
Perhaps just a cough, I didn't quite know, Then the
sure sound of footsteps outside in the snow.
My soul gave a tremble, I struggled to hear,
And I crept to the door just to see who was near.

Standing out in the cold and the dark of the night,
A lone figure stood, his face weary and tight.
A soldier, I puzzled, some twenty years old,
Perhaps a Marine, huddled here in the cold.
Alone in the dark, he looked up and smiled,
Standing watch over me, and my wife and my child.

'What are you doing?' I asked without fear,
'Come in this moment, it's freezing out here!
Put down your pack, brush the snow from your sleeve,
You should be at home on a cold Christmas Eve!'
For barely a moment I saw his eyes shift,
Away from the cold and the snow blown in drifts.

To the window that danced with a warm fire's light
Then he sighed and he said 'Its really all right,
I'm out here by choice. I'm here every night.'
'It's my duty to stand at the front of the line,
That separates you from the darkest of times.

No one had to ask or beg or implore me,
I'm proud to stand here like my fathers before me.
My Gramps died at 'Pearl on a day in December,'
Then he sighed, 'That's a Christmas 'Gram always remembers.'
My dad stood his watch in the jungles of 'Nam',
And now it is my turn and so, here I am.

I've not seen my own son in more than a while,
But my wife sends me pictures, he's sure got her smile.
Then he bent and he carefully pulled from his bag,
The red, white, and blue... an American flag.
I can live through the cold and the being alone,
Away from my family, my house and my home.

I can stand at my post through the rain and the sleet,
I can sleep in a foxhole with little to eat.
I can carry the weight of killing another,
Or lay down my life with my sister and brother..
Who stand at the front against any and all,
To ensure for all time that this flag will not fall.'

' So go back inside,' he said, 'harbor no fright,
Your family is waiting and I'll be all right.'
'But isn't there something I can do, at the least,
'Give you money,' I asked, 'or prepare you a feast?
It seems all too little for all that you've done,
For being away from your wife and your son.'

Then his eye welled a tear that held no regret,
'Just tell us you love us, and never forget.
To fight for our rights back at home while we're gone,
To stand your own watch, no matter how long.
For when we come home, either standing or dead,
To know you remember we fought and we bled.
Is payment enough, and with that we will trust,
That we mattered to you as you mattered to us.'

Gooooooooooooooooaaaaaaaaaaal!!!

Woot! A job! I has it!

I went to my interview today, smashing success all around. Really nice bosses, so lemme sum up the outcome, I may post more later:

Hours: 20-40 a week (my choice)

Schedule: None!

Pay: $12.50/hr

Happiness: Much

~joe

Not gonna retype it...

     The title says it all:

http://www.sonofwau.com/the_coalition_for_getting_things_done_in_a_timely_manner_and_obtaining_free_donuts/guidelines.htm

     My blog for the day. Well, my second blog. It's spiffy, come back and comment here.

~joe

p.s. I'll post something WoW related soon, lots of cool stuff has happened

Fun times

Okay, gonna have to hand out some more information for this blog to make tons of sense.

So, everyone knows I've been looking for an internship right? Preferably a paying one with awesome hours. Well not living in a big town it makes it somewhat hard to find a internship, much less one that pays. And you can just forget them working with your school schedule.

But sometime last week (maybe the week before) I was chatting up the lab instructor at MCC and lo and behold she knew just the thing.

One of her former students works at a local company that makes programs for insurance companies and is constantly bothering her to go work there. This company had hired her as an intern, paid her, and even paid her for time spent in class. And continues to pay her to take time off work and go to classes!

As I have worked with her (my lab instructor) before she said she'd ask her friend and find out of they were needing interns. So she emailed her friend and we waited. A few days later she emails back and says that they don't usually post spots for interns, people just apply and are accepted/rejected, and if hired space is made.

She says to go ahead and e-mail her something telling her about me. Not necessarily what all languages I know, but more of a general outline of where I've been and where I'm going sort of thing. Mainly they wanted to know if I'd be consistent or leave at the drop of a hat.

So I put together a thing hoping it makes me look cool and uber without sounding proud and moronic. This is not something I do particularly well, I usually talk myself up to being godlike or make myself sound like scum of the earth that no one would ever want to hire.

E-mailed that to my friend Tuesday, which she e-mailed on to her friend on Wednesday (I still hate how that word is spelled), and I settled down to wait. After all, who honestly looks at hiring people right before year end taxes?

Anyways, found out today that it got sent on up the hierarchy for further inspection! While I realize this doesn't mean I'm hired or accepted or even smell nice, it does mean important people are looking at my name. Which is sometimes a good thing.

Yay for passing the first gauntlet!

~joe

Hum de dum

Was working on my website and ran across this. Horridly sappy, but cute.

http://www.beanbagcentral.com/ccosas/promise.html

~joe

It's that time...

So it's getting to be that time of the year again... Holidays and winter break. So many good things, so many bad things, and so much white space.

What do I mean by this? Well, I love Thanksgiving, it is quite probably one of my favorite holidays of the year. It combines getting together with people, cooking, eating, and thanking God. I mean really, how much better can it get?

Semi-sadly I'll be working 7a-7p this one though. Not horridly sad because I'm doing it for a good cause and I really do love my coworkers. Plus the majority of the family I love and want to spend time with is in NM and lots of people I don't know are coming over. You know the "weird" ones.

But winter break is coming! 18hrs of school grinds exceedingly thin and I sooo looking forward to my break. Even if it does mean I have to put up with bloody Christmas music.

Don't get me wrong, I love Jesus, I'm glad he was born, and I love lots of the hymns and praise music regarding the event. But I really, really, really, really, really, really hate anything related to: snowman, reindeer, sleighs, caroling, and all other stuff like that.

Oh, and if I manage to get this internship I'm applying for I'll only be one class short of graduation and it's possible I might be able to prove myself good enough with C++ to skip that class and just sub something else in, thus graduating in the summer and making live much easier on me.

WoW related content:

On a happier note I know I'll be able to hit 80 over the break. Lots of great people have written blogs about how leveling to 80 is not a race. And I agree to that to some extent... But I'm the sort of person that when climbing a mountain wants to be on top first. This may be e-peen (whatever that means) of me, but it's my personality. I like racing, even if it's against myself.

Now does this mean I'm gonna be mad if sixteen people make it to 80 before me? Heck no! Grats to them! I'm already behind two people in my guild in actual exp, and many more in trade skills (the big 2B made 410 on engineering before I managed to crack 390 on mining). I'm thrilled to see people make progress, even if I don't get there as fast, or ever.

Oh, and while everybody else has said it I feel the need to as well... I love you Blizz, WotLK all I expected and more. The quests are more interactive, the lore is just as cool, and my armor doesn't make me want to use the belly cam to avoid looking at it.

Welp, I'm off to finish making myself sound like the world's coolest intern so someone will hire me. Talk to ya'll later.

~joe(ishvi)

p.s. If I come across as overly competitive sometimes that's just me being overly excited. Tell me to calm down and go away and I usually will.

p.p.s. I'm better at pool than some other people

Ack!

     Oh, umm, I'm supposed to post? Ack! So nothing new really, homework, Ishvah made 68, moved 3107 pounds of brick, digging dirt next week... So to make up for lack of content I offer you, in the standard currency of the net, a video:

Cold weather sucks

see more puppies

This is me when the weather gets cold.

Movies? Books?

     Okay, so I was updating my myspace profile today and it got me to thinking... What do I look for in movies and books? Out of all the possible things to read about and watch, what draws me?

     The short answer? Epic ones. Movies where a few stand against endless to save many, or just one. I also adore stories of redemption. Where someone who did great wrong comes back and saves the day. 

     The best example I can give would come from the second book of a long series that would take to long to explain, so I'll give the second best one from Lord of the Rings. It's where Boromir tries to steal the Ring from Frodo, Frodo gets away, and then Boromir goes to save Merry and Pip. Here's a quick excerpt:

     "Then Boromir had come leaping through the trees. He had made them fight. He slew many of them and the rest fled. But they had not gone far on the way back when they were attacked again, by a hundred Orcs at least, some of them very large, and they shot a rain of arrows: always at Boromir. Boromir had blown his great horn till the woods rang, and at first the Orcs had been dismayed and had drawn back; but when no answer but the echoes came, they had attacked more fiercely than ever. Pippin did not remember much more. His last memory was of Boromir leaning against a tree, plucking out an arrow; then darkness fell suddenly."

    The other major aspect I really enjoy is love.  Now love is a tricky aspect, I don't just mean sappy girl falls for loser boy and everyone ends up happy after a series of completely avoidable misunderstandings. I can enjoy (or at least sit through) those easily enough, but the ones I adore are stories of when two people are forced to marry, either via someone actually forcing them or in order to save something (someone's life or prevent a war), and then end up loving each other. 

     For example a princess marrying the general who kidnapped her in order to prevent a war that would have decimated her country, and then the general loving her enough to go through great lengths to protect that country even when he didn't have to.

     The point of this post? Not much, except maybe to get some titles of good books for me to look at next.

~joe(ishvi)

p.s. Also, I really, really hate love stories that go into explicit details of sex and junk like that.

p.p.s. I also enjoy funny movies that aren't retarded. Almost everything involving Will Ferrill is retarded.

p.p.p.s. Also tell me what ya'll enjoy reading/watching.

What fun!

     Shocker! I actually have something worth posting about! So I was idling around last night, kinda putting off schoolwork and working on the latest pre-WotLK event when the cry went up for Kara people, and it looked like they might be a tad short. Plus one of the two people who really wanted to get their dps toons into kara pre-xpack would have to switch out to the their tanking mains to do anything. So I offered to tank it, after all it's quite enjoyable and I'd have a shot at the axe from the event boss.

     So this is where stuff starts to get crazy, Fal starts throughing out invites and getting people organized. Shortly we had nine people standing outside Kara ready to go in, and Fal did something monumentally nuts, he passed me raid leader. Apparently neither him or Blu wanted to play raid leader so they let/made me take a shot at it. Craziness! So with nine absolutely craz...err, wonderful people and a promise of a 10th we headed on in.

     We dropped Attumen without a hint of a problem, bam dead.  The 10th chick joined us and off we went to Moroes. Moroes fell with only one death, but it was only Blu so no one worried and we moved to Maiden. 

     Here I took a back seat for a bit, you see last time I had been here with Elysse she had tried to tank it and things had sadly not gone so well. So I threw on healing gear to let her have some revenge. I honestly with I hadn't switched to my healing gear, it was a complete waste of time, Maiden died in 1min and 2sec, without a single death and only one repentence. So we marched on to Opera and smashed the Big Bad Wolf in 1min 6sec and still deathless. Our healers were awesome.

     So on we moved to upper Kara, deciding to save the event boss for later. So we slapped around Curator, and guess what? Still no deaths! So we moved on to Illhoof, we didn't have a warlock but we decided it wouldn't be a big deal...and it wasn't! Down Illhoof went, and on we moved to Shade. Here we switched out Minn (who had to go) with Windstar (who had just logged on). We did Shade the good old fashion way, standing in the room with him, and off'd him without any real trouble, though I did do a horrid job of picking up elementals.

     This left Chess (which we downed on the first go) and Prince, who also died without a hitch. And last we dropped Blu and our Lovely mage Zaanah as they both had work the next morning, which let Janelle and Papersmith come in for the event boss and Netherspite. The silly event boss died easily enough, though it was pretty wierd kiting it, the bugger didn't like to follow straight lines.

     To finish off the evening we popped over to Netherspite...which I didn't explain very well. And as a result of the bad explanation on my part we had a little bit of difficulty (the boss healed back up to full after the first banish faze), but ultimately it died, yielding some nice loots for people.

     Now for the really good part? My first time leading a raid (though people were helpful and constantly giving advice and telling how stuff should be done) and we didn't wipe once. In fact we had four people who never died at all. One of whom was the main healer and there the entire fight! Cudos to the healers and dps!

     Oh, and of course the wacky story of the evening...Blu accidently threw a steady shot into a group of elites between Moroes and Maiden...which we downed easily.

     Welp, that's about it, so I'm gonna go do homework. Hopefully everyone else had as much fun as I did.

~joe(ishvi)

Yay for school!

Every once in a while I sit back and think, 'man, I really hate time'. Not just converting time or recording time, but the fact that it doesn't move on a consistent base. One day I time might be passing at a 50% efficiency, meaning 120sec to every minute, and then the next day it's at around 200% efficiency (30sec to the min). And it's not just dependent on if I'm having fun or not! Or if I'm busy or not, some days just go faster than others...

Oh well, time marches on and things pile up...I'm a few weeks behind in my PC hardware class, a week behind in programming, about 10 hours behind on housework that I want to get done (and that has to happen before Thanksgiving), and now I'm having to start looking at what I'm doing next semester. Oh, and I need to find myself an IT job, or at least a paying internship.

That's most of what I'm up to, besides the time I've been spending on WoW (which I'm about to cut back). See the problem with WoW is the time I spend actually doing stuff on it isn't that great, it's the time I spend sitting there staring at the screen wondering what I want to do. Oh, and I think I may just stop reading web comics, those things suck sooo much out of my life it's not funny. Well, I mean they are funny, and have good plot lines (some of them), but they they're such a horrid time sink. I accidentally spent about two hours this morning reading Schlock Mercenary archives...which I've read...multiple times.

It really sucks to sit there and clearly see that your worst failing in life is apathy. I mean I don't even have a cool vice, like you know, being a pimp, or spending all my time being godlike on a game or sport. I just sit there, thinking of all the things I could easily do with my life. Anyhoo, I'm off to do some homework now, I'll try to make a less angsty like post later on.

~joe(ishvi)

p.s. bah, and I just remembered I have to make pumpkin pies this week

Best event to ever come from Facebook:

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=35588927412

~joe(ishvi)

Tankadin funness!

        So as those of you who play WoW know patch 3.0.2 recently hit, and with it much goodness. We don't have to worry about uncrushability with raid bosses anymore, stuff has less hitpoints, there is yet another craft skill to painfully consider leveling, and of course huge class changes.

        I could spend time and effort researching all the class changes and detailing them...but most everyone who reads my blog knows FAR more about the various classes than I do. So I'm going to settle myself with just pointing out some of the awesome goodness that has recently cropped up in paladin land.

        First point I wish to make is that all of our offensive spells are now instant casts. No not being able to throw my shield like unto Captain America while being beat on by a mob. No more not being able to use Holy Wrath because of the horde of undead beating on me...even though it's only useful when there IS a horde of undead beating on me. There is so much happiness here it's hard to explain.

        Secondly our stamina increases our spell damage, which increases our threat, which makes it that much easier to keep people from dying after certain druidic hunter priests pull an extra room. And in case you were wondering 3B, I don't ever plan on letting that one go. It also makes it easier for when my brain wanders off and I try to tank without putting Righteous Fury up first...

        The third point I have is that they changed Blessing of Sanctuary. Now first I was peeved about this, they changed the flat dmg reduction into a percentage and removed the damage you did when you blocked... Half the reason I used that blessing was because it provided easy extra threat for blocking things. But then I actually tried the new one out... Instead of doing damage for threat every time I blocked I got back mana, 2% of my maximum mana to be exact. And I don't just get it back when I blocked, I get it back when I block, dodge, or parry. What does this mean? It means if I have 5-6 mobs on my I. Cannot. Tap. This makes me very, very happy.

        Fourth big thing they did is give us Hammer of the Righteous(HotR). This is a wonderful skill that puts out a massive amount of threat on three targets, AND doesn't break CC like consecration does. Do you know what this means? I can have a mob sheeped/shackled/trapped right next to me and still control up to three mobs! No more having to QQ about people wanting to use CC (previously it made tanking rather annoying).

        The last thing I'm gonna talk about is actually kind of a gripe. When they removed uncrushability they had to find a new way to make us suffer...so they removed 20 defense skill from our talent tree. While this isn't the end of the world it did leave me scrambling about to find 48 defense rating so I'd be back to uncrittable and able to tank again. I'm not really complaining though, it's still much easier to remembering to keep holy shield up so Moroes doesn't crush my bum.

        Welp, that's it for now. Back to homework and waiting for my 16GB flash drive to get here.

~joe(ishvi)

Shinies!

Yay for homework! I got to do some of the fun stuff today, added some more onto my website. Mainly I hand coded the germany section under the front page, pretty dandy. 

I did have one problem though, when I put in the footers they showed up just below the body of the page. I want them to display down at the bottom of the screen, dunno if that's possible or not. 

Anyways, if anyone has any tips and suggestions please feel free to give them! Eventually I want to make it the uber site that makes others weep. Someday...

~joe(ishvi)

p.s. WoW post coming soon to describe the WoW goodness going on

p.p.s. If anyone knows how to build a blog type function into a website that would be AWESOME.

I blame...something

Okay, so maybe it's been a tad less than once a week updates. But we're not going into that now! We're going to talk about more interesting things, like girls, and computers, and homework? Anyways, regardless of content we will have something!

Well, okay maybe we're not going to talk about girls. I don't have one, I can't afford one, but they're pretty dang spiffy! Unless of course you consider computers girls, at which point we will be talking about them. So I'm still working on my website, hopefully put some more time into it next week. Already know a few things that I need to fix.

Also need to put some more work in on my linux box, I have it installed but nothing really on it. Well, I have WoW installed, but it doesn't run.

Speaking of WoW... I recently started dual-boxing (sort of) to level my druid and my brother's warrior. It's awesome. I really don't know what all to say, with almost no effort we're at lvl12. Most of the time spent has been running around NOT doing leveling quests, like class quests and junk. If I get all the homework done I want to get done, and house work, I may see if we ding 20 this week, honestly wouldn't take more than a few hours of honest leveling.

Which brings us to the subject of homework, oh how I loathe the easy stuff. I have no trouble sitting down and pounding out some hard intricate piece of code for a professor just because he said it can't be done. I also have no problem doing monotonous stuff at work, I mean, I'm in a hospital, that's a large part of what we do. But for some reason I can't bring myself to do easy homework.

Most of this stuff wouldn't take me an hour a week, but I find it near impossible sometimes to sit down and do it. Oh well, supposedly I'm "building character" and "proving my work ethic". I suppose I'll post more on stuff later, like how awesome protadin is, or why 255.255.255.87 should be the standard subnet mask, or maybe, just maybe, I'll figure out how to put a blog on my website and do that!

~joe(ishvi)

For Dammerung

Okay, so Dammerung just linked me a post about blogging (here) while I was writing my blog. I naturally stopped to read it, I'm ADD like that. If you want to read it you can, if not I'll try and sum it up a little for ya, please bare in mind I didn't like it: Conversations are bad, blogs are for making statements. Also it uses far to much language for my taste, considering that it's supposed to be a business blog, please take into account though that I only read two posts and neither of those weren't exactly happy ones.

Now I feel like responding, because well, I suppose I got my back up some. Been in a fightin' mood lately. He makes four large points that I care to talk about. First that blogs don't have to be conversations. Second that comments can be detrimental. Third that people commenting were leaving bad advice. Fourth that he's trying to run a business and comments don't matter.

First, well he has a point, the giant successful blogs, like 3B's, usually aren't very conversational. 3B is well informed on his topics, and blogs to inform other people about them. Banana Shoulders is much the same, and I'd assume BRK is too. They're run by people who, lacking the internet and games, would probably be found in local government. Local politicians who have lots of experience in their field, or perhaps speakers who go from business to business teaching people how to do what they do.

Second he says that blogs aren't necessarily supposed to be conversational. Well, I kinda disagree here, and hear me out. In my opinion blogs are about communication, they're kinda like forums, only more spread out and everyone gets to make their posts look pretty. You share information, and people give feedback. I guess what I'm saying is that if you remove you comments you are commiting blogger suicide. You no longer have a blog, you have a newspaper article, online. You've removed the social part of it. At best, if you have an email where people can get ahold of you, you're an online version of Anne and Abby. There is nothing wrong with this. But it's not a blog.

As for his third point, well, yeah, it happens. It's like being the host of a computer lab and 'volunteers' giving advice to people, they leave confused and with a bad taste in their mouths. After all, they went to you for clarification, and came back more confused. Welp, ya got a point there, other than monitering your blog carefully and deleting any stupid comments and hoping those people didn't come back, nothing else to do but remove comments.

His fourth point I find somewhat amusing. Quote: "I'm trying to run a" wonderful "business here." (Yes I changed a word in there). Welp, you're running a business, not very professionally, but it's running. I see this post as something like an irate manager taking away an often used comments box and leaving a sign saying "I took it away because I'm trying to run a wonderful business here!". No problems, but perhaps not the best way to do it. But then again, I don't run a business.

Now for reply to Dammerung. This post honestly has nothing to do with mine. Your first comment was that my blogs need to make sense, his post has nothing to do with that. Then you posted the article, which has to do with why his business blog stopped allowing comments. And that deals with an entirely different problem. His issue was having to many comments on a business blog, and mine is to few comments on a private blog. Perhaps you need a new article to fight for you? I seem to have slain this one.

~joe/ishvi

Goooooodmorning

So it's Monday again, so I shall post again! I actually have some fun stuff going on. Finally got my site up here. It's certainly not winning any awards yet, but it's there! Hopefully I'll get some more stuff added later, like links to my characters in armory, and eventually this blog. Oh, and if I ever get around to writing a program to make TOE charts I'll put it up there as well.

What else is new, got some fun antics planned for tonight with my wow buds. Wulfa knows something is coming, and 3B might have a inkling that somethings coming, we'll see. :D

School is going well, got some programs to work on and such. PC hardware should be fun tomorrow, taking a computer completely apart, motherboard out and all... Then I just have to get lots of homework done.

Just so everyone knows, I hate internet classes, I really do. If you know the subject like the back of your hand they're great, if you don't... Well professors are rarely the most accessible of people, they usually keep odd office hours and are hard to get a hold of outside of class. Take away that class time and it's near impossible to find them. Plus I have *shocker* self-discipline issues. I know ya'll never would have guessed that one.

Well, that's all for right now. Please add comments for what ya'll would like to see on the new website, give me something to work on. Oh! And I'll be adding a cheap review of what I think the patch is going to do to paladins soon. Hopefully before the patch itself.

~joe/ishvi

p.s. If anyone knows how to add indentions with blogspot please tell me, it's bugging the crap out of me.

Excitement!

Fun times are coming! Soon I shall have me own website! In the coming days I'll be migrating to www.sonofwau.com (hopefully). I have the domain reserved, I have the hosting obtained, now I just need to get it activated and set up with a blog type thing.

There are a few reasons why I really like this, and I'll go into more detail later on, gotta jet for work in just a sec here. But yeah, my own domain. :D Very happy

On another note I dps'd Lower Kara last night, while I'm not sure if I did good dps or not I came to a conclusion that I kinda figured I would before but ignored... I hate retadin. Not retadins, just when I play one. So yeah, I'll prolly start shopping the gear here in a bit.

Switched out with Sux after Opera, I was quite happy though, he managed to get his T4 gloves. Woot! Go Sux! Other than that nothing horridly exciting, I died a lot. Then died some more. Oh, and Morthog mentioned that he should take his pants off when tanking Maiden, maybe that'd tick her off. Well, that put the idea in my head... So off when the pants and boots and I dps'd on her pantsless, sadly I don't think anyone noticed. Welp, away I go!

~joe/ishvi

The Start Of Organization

So I may have been a little unorganized lately. And it might have lead to some posts turning into bad essays. But I plan on that changing! Hopefully that will be changing now, got some spiffy plans which may or may not happen.

First I plan on being much more self disciplined, I have a bad tendency to put stuff off until it HAS to be done, and then throw myself at it with a passion. This doesn't always turn out badly, but self discipline is good, so we're gonna do it. Plus it leads to horrid conversations where I end up having to confess that I only brush my teeth like, every other week... Anyways!

Second I want to start being more organized. Hopefully this will help with getting stuff done in a timely manner, and if nothing else will help me pretend to have time management. So you can expect to have at least a digest every Monday. No more of this saving up a months worth of news and dumping it on you in one post, hopefully.

Third I have regular plans with a friend from work and his family to come over and cook for them, which is AWESOME. I love cooking for people, it really makes me feel warm fuzzies. And it keeps me sharp with my cooking skills, which I'm very glad for, already have coworkers bugging me about when I'm gonna start cooking pies for work again. =D

That's it as far as plans that I have right now, I mean, I suppose I could put out my weekly schedule, might actually do that, but at the moment we're stopping here. Gotta go shower, get dressed, and you know, brush my teeth.

~joe/ishvi

It shall not happen!

I shall not let a month slip by without a post! Surely such a tragedy would cause my readers, if I still have any, to, well, stop reading? I dunno, maybe they'd gang up and hang me or something.

Sooo, new stuff in the life of Joseph/Ishvi... Ummm, school? Community finally coming back? Ooo, we'll talk about community, school reminds me I have homework to do.

Okay, so as many of you probably don't know, I started going to college lifegroups (Kinda like bible studies but more focused on felloship, I think the best way to describe them is like this) when I was 12 or so. We had just moved to Waco and the awesome church we were going to decided to multiply. A little less than half of the "regular" church and most of the college group going with one of the pastors to start a more church planting focused church (ACC), and the rest staying at Highland.

My two oldest brothers (Moon and the chubby orc himself) and I went to the new one, while our parents and remaining brother stayed at the old one. But anyways, all this to explain why I ended up at a college lifegroup at 12 or so, and have been there for the last 8 years.

For most of those 8 years I expierenced some GREAT community, I'm talking stuff straight out of Acts 2, we ate together, had fun together, anything that was worth doing, we did as a lifegroup. But over the last few years I'd started to drift away, not get busy with other stuff mind you, but just kinda stop going. After all, everyone I knew to start out with had graduated, I would name old appartments that had HUGE memories from back when I started, and all the new crowd would just kinda look at me funny.

Buuuuuut all this changed! As most of you know I went to Germany this summer to do childcare for a mission conference, turns out one of the girls who was helping out with the older kids had an awesomely active section (group of lifegroups) and invited me to come along. Again, all that explaining was pseudo-necessary to explain why I was so excited to say yes and go along. I spent two weeks hanging out with the kids of people I hadn't seen in several years! We had good times, shared good jokes, talked about their kids (who were AWESOME), and best of all, I was reminded that I was the origenal Broseph.

The name Broseph came about largely because I LOVE to hang out with people, Don't care what you're doing. I've happily cleaned people's houses with them, cooked for them, gone shopping with them just to fellowship! I. Love. People. So I became known as Broseph, a term one of them carried to San Diego with them and used as a term of endearment for people, but none of them knew it was mine! This was evident when he had to explain to one of his church plant buddies why he called me the origenal Broseph.

So I've been getting to hang out with people again, it's awesome. Spent last Sunday night hanging out eating pancakes with a bunch of people from my lifegroup, it was great. Oooo! That reminds me of something!

Okay, so we all know God provides (If you don't talk to me, Moon, Wulfa, or Dammerung and we'll happily explain it to ya), but sometimes he does it when we REALLY don't expect that we need to be provided for. I say this of course because I have example!

Okay, was watching a friend's house for him this last week, his g-ma (good christian woman that had cancer and while kinda expected still sad) died down in Florida and he had to take his family down to the funeral, and then stayed a little longer when a relative gave his family tickets to Disney Land. They were due back late Wednesday night, so I put some venison in to marinade so they wouldn't have to cook Thursday, also I love cooking AND I'd get to hang out with them before/during/afterwards. So I marinade, and off to class I go in the morning, after a quick talk informing them I'd be back later to cook said meat so not to plan for dinner.

Get to class, call my mom like I normally do, well, sometimes my dad but anyways. My dad answers, this is by far not odd, but the crying in the background was very odd. I ask what's wrong and get told one of my homeschooling friends from growing up had died in an accident the night before. While I hadn't talked to Keller in some time I still think of him as a friend. He was one of the most energetic, active, and completely looney people I know, knew (I hate grammar).

Needless to say this shocked me, I mean, who expects 24 year olds to die? Normally my reaction to this sort of thing is to tell people who will want to know but might have been out of the loop, do whatever needs to be done, and then go catatonic somewhere thinking of good memories. But God wasn't gonna let that happen! I had promised to make dinner for this family, and what a Wauson promises to do we do, or at least try really hard to do, and in my somewhat depressed state "My friend died, can I not cook?" sounded like a really crappy excuse. So I showed up, I'd already texted my friend earlier and had forced myself to feel better so I didn't drag them down, so I had a short talk with him before I started cooking.

It's amazing how cooking dinner for a family of five (5y old, 2?y old, and 9?y old) just makes you feel good. We laughed, joked around, ate some awesome food, and then I went home feeling great. Still sad my friend died, but remembering all the great times we had and how he was having such a better time in heaven right now, lucky dog.

Anyways, this post has gone WAY longer than I wanted it too, but who knows, maybe someone will actually read it down this far!

~joe/ishvi

In my defense, rambling is in the name

*warning: very long one, it's good though*

Okay, so I've stated before that I don't pug. I find it far to stressful as a rule and just refrain from doing it, even when I really want an instance done. Now you might say that's silly, I mean, if you want something, why not go ahead and do it? It might not be the way you wanted to do it, but the end result is the same, right?

Wrong! The best way I can relate this is with a parable, Jesus used them so they're obviously good stuff.
~
Imagine three young men from a poor family. All three desperately want to go to college, but none of them have the money. After all they're from a poor family, and colleges are expensive!

After discussing their options between them they decide that they have no idea how to do it, but they know their father has a degree and came from an even poorer family! Together they go and ask him what they should do. Their father offers to find them positions at his job, because although he's poor he's very well thought of, and within a few years they would be able to afford to go.
~
The first son scoffs this advice. Why should he wait for what he desires now? So he goes and seeks advice from his friends. They also mock his father's advice, there's a much easier way they tell him! Join the army they say, after a short time they will pay for all your education! So he goes and joins the army, where he quickly finds out he does not fit well.

After a few miserable years they tell him he can leave and they'll pay for his college. But having spent so much time being miserable his entire outlook as changed, he hates the thought of anything organized and goes on to lead a miserable life regretting his choices.
~
The second son hears the advice, but also decides it's not right for him. So he goes to his friends and asks for their advice. They quickly tell him that waiting is not the way to go! Get loans they say, enjoy school and pay them off after you graduate, after all, you'll be doing what you love? What does it matter if you have a little less money a month. He decides to take his friends advice and off to the loan office he goes.

He thoroughly enjoys his college years, not having to pay for a thing. But after he graduates he discovers he's unable to do any of the things he had planned on doing. After all, college isn't free and those loans have piled up. He's so busy working and paying off loans that he fails to enjoy life and quickly becomes embittered.
~
The third son listens to his father and goes to work with him, after a few years of diligent work he manages to pay for his education. Because he wasn't tied down by the legal requirements of the military he's free to change jobs when a better offer came up. As a result when he has the money he joyfully heads off to college.

While his college experience isn't as carefree as the second son, he still enjoys the fruits of his labor as he studies. But the best is yet to come! When he graduated he did it without the burdensome debt of the second son. His boss happily rehires him into a new position, know from experience that he'll do a good job. In his time off he does very nearly as he pleases with his free time and money, not being forced to work overtime.
~
At long last we get to the moral of the story! 1st son: Pugged all his gear but hated the experience so much he quit WoW. 2nd son: Joined a heavy raid guild to get all his gear but in the end felt to guilty to leave and plays wow but hates it. 3rd son: Played mainly with friends, took his time, made sure to enjoy the time along the way, and as a result has gear and still enjoys WoW.
~
There was one, count it 1, PuG I went into that I really enjoyed. Shallah (a resto druid LW I had used once) invited me to do a heroic with his wife (warlock) and one of his employees (shadow priest), because Shallah had always come across as a very pleasant person I decided to give it a shot, we merely needed to find one more dps. Lacking any Sidhe Devils that could go at the time we turned to PuG, managed to pick up a fury war that claimed to be geared.

So everyone showed up at Setthek Halls and I get a look at peoples gear, and decide that I want an option to make it so that others can't look at mine. I was the only one that wasn't in mainly epic gear. Spriz (the fury war) was in PURE purple, the first char I've ever seen that on.

We romped our way through the dungeon. Not only did we finish the dungeon and enjoy ourselves, we made such good friends that I regularly do heroics with three of them and the second invited me to main tank Kara last night. Which brings us to our feature story!

After getting back I really noticed that Onyxia was scheduled for this Sat, and seemingly had replaced Kara for our Guild Raid Romp for the week. While being VERY excited about getting to see Onyxia I was somewhat sad not to get to try fun stuff in Kara.

This is where the keen stuff comes into play. Remember the pug? Spriz, who I've been chatting with for the last few weeks, very nice guy, asks me if I'd like to main tank Kara for him and some friends. Double checking to make sure there wasn't a Kara schedule to Sidhe Devils I accept, I figured I'd prolly end up feeling bad and hiding my gear before it was over, but what the heck?

So we all show up at Kara and yeah, while my gear has improved, I was in with nine other people in Black Temple gear just doing a kara run for kicks, giggles, and some badges. The raid leader gives me a heads up that I don't really have an off tank, just a kitty druid capable of taking some hits on Moroes and changing gear to help tank Netherspite. At this point I start shaking with a mixture of fear, excitement, and nervousness. After all, I don't wanna be the tank that got talked up and then kept wiping because the healers just couldn't keep him alive and never gets invited to anything again, and I hadn't really thought about actually TANKING Prince, I mean, that's for the big boys right?

We burn through Attunmen with ease as I hold agro on both of them, well mostly. Mages in full Black Temple gear deal an unholy amount of threat, didn't have to much trouble right of the bat, but on later bosses it was hard.

As we head towards Moroes I shake off the last of my nervousness as we all joke around and pull each others legs. We clean up the room for Moroes and they start announcing the kill order for the adds. I ask where they want me to stand so CC and me don't end up doing the Scary Sheep Dance where I keep breaking their spells. Their response? Oh just stand at the bottom and tank them all. I'm pumped, we down them without losing a peep, AND I remembered to bubble the priest out of their garrote.

We go on to take on EVERYTHING with me as MT and no wipes. Except for that one time where I accidentally pulled curator and three of his buddy groups, not much to do there but die and joke about whose fault it is. One shotted everything else without a problem. And according to the healer afterwards, the only really scary moment was when I took a crushing blow on Prince. But now I can happily rest in the knowledge that I've seen (and know I can tank) almost all of Kara, and I don't care about the beast bosses.

~joe/ishvi

Sometimes free coffee just isn't worth it

So yeah, there I was at work, just sitting on the counter minding my own business. Me waiting for work to do, my coworker also waiting for work, but with a starbucks to sooth the boredom. After a very short bit, she gets called away to talk to someone, I forget exactly who, BUT she leaves her coffee there.

Now here we're left with a serious of choices. For one I could hide her coffee from her, but she'll know it was me, and thus I'll just have to fess up (by and large I'm a horrible liar). I could add something to her coffee, but I have a very hard rule that I don't mess with peoples food. Somethings are just plain wrong. So I decided to go with the third option, help myself to free coffee!

Me and most of my coworkers are really good friends, we all share our food, and if we have tasty drink, we'll share that too. So it's not like I was just drinking out of some random chick's coffee. But still, sometimes God reminds us that it's best to ask before we take that drink.

Usually, when you have a cup of coffee, if, for some reason, you take the lid off, you immediately put it back on. Or at least I do. As a result of this habit, I very rarely check to see if a lid is firmly attached, I just pick it up and drink it. I'm now rethinking this habit:



Yeah, it looks pretty bad. But I also have other, and possibly less silly, news! Onward!

So I was working yesterday, 7A-7P, and looking foward to the second half of Kara afterwards (much of which I haven't seen yet). About 17:30 my aunt calls for my cousin, so I pass her off and go on about my day, I figure one of my nieces was acting up or something. Shortly after that, my cousin comes back and asks me if I want various pieces of furniture that had prior to this been in the front room (they call it a porch, but it is very much not one). I was quite happy to say yes to some of it, and obtain rights to offer the AWESOME couch to my bro. I get informed that that's awesome, and asked if I could pick up the futon (I think that's how that's spelled) tonight.

At this point I think to myself, well, Kara starts pretty much as I get off, but I'm sure they'll understand if I show up 20min late because I had to pick up free furniture. So I agree, and go on about my work.

Seven rolls around and I get off, by this time I had worked myself into feeling guilty about showing up lateish to Kara, so I call my aunt and ask if it would be possible to pick up the futon the next night. She happily agrees, but inquires if I'm still coming to help move the rest of the furniture?

This confuses me, I don't exactly know where I thought the other furniture was coming from, but I was guessing they'd deliver it mid week sometime? Further inquiries showed that they had visited an auction and obtained a wonderful leather three piece living room set for only $1300. But Texas weather being what it is lately, felt the need to get it inside tonight. Normally this stuff only requires two people, but my aunt hurt her back recently, and my cousin is at work 'till midnight, so it's me and my uncle.

Now normally I try really hard not to flake on WoW, especially when nine other people are expecting me to be there in all my n00bishness and would get mad at me for not making it. But luckily I'm with the SD! Who understand that family comes first before WoW. Period. So I dial Wulfa, accidently waking Orclette up along the way, and ask her to pass on that I'll be late (around 8pm I think) and to feel free to replace me if they need two. Little did I know, that I would NOT be back at my house at 8pm.

Gotta run to work! I'll finish it up later, like tonight or something, maybe at work if it's slow, but prolly not!

~joe/ishvi

So it may have been awhile

I realize I haven't posted in a bit, but hey! I've been busy! Just don't ask me what yet. Haven't come up with a good exc... err, that is, it's hard to explain. Let it be enough that I am posting now, and will try to post more in the future, maybe.

Also, here is proof I have hair, and a beard. Well, proof of a beard at least, I can promise you there is hair under the cap, and after I get back from the soon to be mentioned wedding, I'll prolly have pics to prove it.

Hmm, where to start, so much to talk about (not really). We'll start this party off with with an explanation of why I won't be doing anything involving Waco or WoW from next Mon to the following Sun. I'll be in S. Carolina! A friend from work is getting married (woo! woo!) and her aunt offered to let them use her beach house for free.

Now as the wedding is actually on the 16th, I'm sure some of you are curious as to why I'm going up there five days early, even though I'm not part of the wedding party. Well, I have a good explanation for that at least! I had the choice of either paying for a plane ticket up there, driving my car-which-is-primarily-composed-of-duck-tape-and up there, or I could just catch a ride up on Monday with the maid of honor and skip the whole driving/flying bit. And seeing as the maid of honor is my cousin, the choice was quite simple, and cheap.

Now I'm not entirely sure what I'll be actually doing for a week, but I'm sure one of the multitudes of women-getting-ready-for-the-wedding will find some sort of annoying labor for me to do. Women tend to do that. ^_~

After that I'll be back in Waco with a week to get ready for school. Woo! Eighteen hours of educational and time consuming bliss!

Now I realize that eighteen hours of school might not be the most exciting thing to many of you people, but I'm something of a glutton for punishment. I've also been working entry level non-educated jobs for the last four years and am beginning to get tired of the continual state of being broke. Plus it'll be fun to play with computers and call it education again.

I think that's pretty much it schedule wise, so now to get down to the WoW business!

Okay, so apparently there was a little confusion between some people and they (Wulfa and Dammerung included) thought I was kinda looking for a raiding guild, or at least something more active in the heroic department. Just wanna clarify to any who read my blogpost (which is apparently where this idea came from, silly bloggers) about it, that is not the case at all. While I do enjoy running heroics with friends from OOB and Untamed Dragons from time to time, my WoW family is Sidhe Devils (with a few relations over on the Silvermoon server). So don't get excited, you're not rid of me yet!

But in talking with people about this another subject came up, and that was my pretty much complete incompetency involving the holy side of paladin. Which I had to agree with them, I had no clue what was going on. From what I'd read from paladin blogs and forums, if you're specced prot, and you're not the MT, something has gone wrong.

From experience actually playing a paladin in raids, I've discovered that the previous statement is completely wrong, at least in Kara, if you have someone else who can tank a particular mob better (like warriors stance dancing through fear). So since then I've started to put together my spare sets and read up/practice doing stuff besides just protection, namely spec holy and let Dammerung get beat up so I can laugh.

More on the Dammerung, Ishvi, Wulfa, and Mooncadence party later. Within the next month. Most likely. Maybe. Depending on the alignment of the moon and stars.

~joe/ishvi

Wow, almost done.

Wow, so I'm almost done. I've been in Germany two weeks today, it's crazy, feels like two days. I'm soooo missing the kids already, they're some of the coolest I've ever met, but well, I love kids in general, they're TONS of fun. Already got everything packed up, just waiting for the bus ride tomorrow, which will lead to the nine hour flight, which leads to a layover and a flight from Chicago to DFW. Should land in DFW around 2100 and be back in Waco by 2300 (hopefully). 

Man, it never ceases to amaze me how fast you become attached to kids, and them to you. I feel so insanely popular, there are about 20 kids that will scream "Hi Mr. Joe!" every time I walk by, it's really fun. It's also crazy how many of their names I remember! Not that I can match any of them with their parents, much less know their parent's names, but hey, the kids are cooler. ^_~

I'm also going to miss being around this group of people, it's like a little slice of heaven. Everyone is nice and loving to each other, just imagine a huge (300+) family reunion only where everyone actually enjoys being around each other. It's more fun than I could ever ask for, I can't wait for the next time, I totally plan on attending then too. Either helping with the kids or being one of the random admin people who run around and do spot helping here and there.

I will admit that I am tired though. My stomach started feeling off earlier this week and I haven't had more than a couple really good filling meals since then, mostly I've been just eating a few bites of whatever food and eating bread and water. God's really given me grace with it though, I've been able to keep up with the kids (mostly) and still have energy to bless the people I'm working with, largely due to how much they're blessing me. I can't believe how much grace God gives some times.

Okay, now a short break from the really cool stuff to talk about WoW (which is still plenty cool, but not quite as cool). All non-WoW players feel free to skip down to my sig, nothing more getting posted non-wow. So I looked at the beta notes, and I do realize they are still at the beginning of the beta and everything can still completely change, but WOW. Someone out there took pally and decided they were going to be bestest buds. The only annoying thing is I'm going to have to watch my spell rotation more now, they turned the CD on Holy Shield down by 2 sec so we can now become totally uncrushable (so long as the mob doesn't dish out more than 1 atk per sec). But sadly with that and a few other changes I don't think it's actually possible to keep ALL my threat spells up at the same time, which leaves lots of theory crafting as to which is more important and where.

Also I'm totally pumped that Shrinn and Grai's-alt-whose-name-I-can't-remember joined Sidhe Devils. Shrinn is crazy cool and peppy and Grai is a wealth of pally knowledge, which was sadly lacking before, some crazy notion that druids could tank as well as paladins or something like that, and he isn't stuck up about knowing most everything about paladin. So we have to more people, which also makes it easier on me trying to get peeps together for 5-mans in general, heroic and regular.

I have new goals too! Want to get at least a non-heroic healing gear set for my pally, and wanna get my rogue to 70 so I can play dps too, then I'll be the full meal deal! I'll post more on that later, but for now I visit the forums then hit the sack, loooooong day tomorrow.

~joe/ishvi the very, very blessed

Lookie lookie! I'm in Germany!

Hey everybody, I'm enjoying the heck out of Germany at the moment. Second full day of watching 3 year olds, it's a BLAST. Feeding them isn't the funnest thing in the world, but after that comes naptime! My personal favorite. Only 4-1 kid-teacher ratio at the moment, so it's pretty easy to handle, come monday though one of our workers is leaving, making it 6-1, so hopefully they have someone else lined up for the spot. My co-workers are all fun. The food is AWESOME, minus the fact that all vegetables not in food in the process of pickling. And for those curious, German beer is the best.

Hope everyone is enjoying their Kara runs. I plan on getting back in on those once I get back, but in the mean time drop lots of shinies and get cheese. Welp, gotta run, borrowing the internet from a friend and they're done eating now, but I'll see ya'll later. :D

~joe/ishvi

Dia del casos

Oh man, full day yesterday, where to start... Well first we'll do a general overview, sounds like a good place to start anyways, we'll see. First off I did my dailies, nothing really cool there but I managed to nab two Badges of Justice. :D After that I managed to get a pug for Black Morass. Then it was back up to SW to try and get a croc, sadly didn't get the pet. ;_; Then came the first set of farming for the day! Had to gather 16 Heavy Clefthide Leather, 8 Primal Earths, 20 Knothide Leather, and buy a Primal Nether. Then a random pug through SV, only one wipe! And wrapping up with a really fun run through Botanica. :D

Alrighty, now to break those down a little more. First the dailies, finally worked out a routine to do all the ones I think are worth it, which makes it muuuuuch easier. Once I get geared I'm planning on stepping it down to just the four that give me a chance at justice badges, but for now I'm happy doing the 18 easy ones.

Then there was the nice pug through Black Morass. Excluding the fact that the shammy healer liked to keep me at <50% health it was close to awesome. I was yet again shunned by my D3 pants, but I did manage to get revered with the Keepers of Time which got me my new pants and sword. And thanks to the price of mats on the AH it lead to the afore mentioned farming run for leater and primal earths. Look a loooong time to get it all, but I managed to scrape together eight stacks of ore in the process, which is always nice.

Not to long after that I was picked up for another pug, this time through Steamvaults. While there was one wipe in this one, I think it went smashingly. Didn't take very long, got experience with the layout of the area, AND as an extra bonus I got to see two pieces of the hunter D3 set get sharded. Wulfa almost beat me about that.

And last but not least a really fun Botanica run. Lots of fun and dancing, not many deaths, AND an epic recovery during which we lost what I remember to be several people before finally getting everyone back to life to kill the boss. Sadly I don't think anyone got the pieces they needed, but much rep was gotten all around and good times had by all.

Something of an extended post, I got started writing this bugger around 9am and here it is 8:45pm and I'm finishing it up, oh well. Sorry if it's to rambly, I'm tired, shall post later!

~joe/ishvi

On the subject of...well, stuff

Well, as most people know, I recently hit 70. And as some of you may know I bought a epic flying with my accumulated fortune instead of buying high end tanking gear and trying to start doing stuff. So now I'm tasked with getting gear in order to maybe set up something nice and large, like MgT or Kara, however, from looking at the best suggestions I've been able to find, namely here, I've gleaned that most of my gear I'm going to have to go into instances to get. Which leaves me with two tasks, #1 to get shiny gear to tank with, and #2 to get shiny gems to put in the gear once I get it. Sadly this means I have to do two things, pugs and dailies. While dailies aren't bad at all, trying to get a pug together is a complete pain in the rear section. Currently I'm doing really nicely on the gold end, and I've gotten two of the pieces I'll be needing for my tank set.

Have I mentioned I hate pugs? I mean they serve a great purpose, but finding a good one takes so very, very long. And usually someone ends up having to leave for RL before you can finish it. Which leaves me with two options, one leave my guild to join one with a more regular instance running schedule (hahahaha, not happening) or figure out a way to plan instances with other guilds besides Sidhe Devils. While I really like that second option, I have no idea how to go about doing it. If anyone happens to know if something like this exists (preferably on Kael'Thas where I play) please post in the comments, or if you have any ideas. I mean, my guild is awesome besides awesome, but one of the reasons they're awesome is they place RL before the game. Which means those dang married couples just don't have as much time to play, and the ones with kids claim they have even less! Which I suppose I completely understand, I know from watching a series of friends' kids that kids are FAR cooler than WoW overall.

Also, I want to give my thoughts on the epic mount vs gear as far as the moment you hit 70. If you have the gold on hand I highly suggest the epic mount unless you have people waiting on you, if you're more than 500g short I'd say get your normal flying and get the gear. The reason for this is that once you get your epic flying doing dailies and herbing/mining become soooo much easier. Not that I've ever done dailies without an epic flying, but I imagine that they'd be an incredible pain. However, I really do not believe it's worth putting of getting gear for the amount of time it takes to get that flyer will feel much longer if you can't really do instances while you wait.

Welp, it's back to the grind so I can afford to pay that tyrant of a JC his exorbitant fees. *hides from 3B*

~joe/ishvi