Crazy For Karazhan Day 2

We started day 2 back in the curator's room. We cleared trash through the library and into Aran's room. Some sloppy pulls with some adds. I had some trouble picking up aggro. I died a couple of times.

Finally we made it to the Shade of Aran. We took him down easy. I got a Shermanar Great Ring, it was an upgrade over WindTrader's Band. The main tank was a little more aggressive clearing the trash mobs between bosses than I was used to, and I had trouble picking up aggro on some of my offtanking assignments.

Next was the Chess Event, where we (surprise) play chess. This is usually a walk over, we've only lost once out of all the times I've been in here.

Next we moved on to Prince Malchezaar. I always die in this fight. It's just what happens to melee fighters if they aren't the main tank. I've never seen one survive the whole fight. My current weapon was dropped by this guy, the Decapitator. Tonight I got another axe from him, this time a two handed axe to use when I'm not tanking. It's called Gorehowl.

Then we moved on to Netherspite, or the "Beam Dragon" This is my favorite fight in Karazhan. Easy as pie as usual. The hardest part of this fight is running back and finding your beam location.

Next was Terestian Illhoof. I have an interesting assignment in this fight. The boss has an imp companion, Kil'rek. I tank him the whole fight, and usually kill him two or three times, because he respawns about 45 seconds after he dies. The toughest part for me is targeting him and getting aggro when he respawns. Another one shot. We switched out Mystii for Lager again for this fight.

Unfortunately, we moved on to the Maiden of Virtue. I hate this fight, especially when they decide to make me main tank it. We wiped three times. Then they had me and the other tank tank it together, and it went pretty smoothly. To be honest, I don't think the wipes were all my fault, but I'm sure I contributed to them. I got Iron Gauntlets of the Maiden, which may turn out not to be an upgrade for me, but I was the only one on the raid who could wear plate.

Lastly we moved on to Nightbane. It was getting late, so we decided to only give it one try. We got him down to 40% and then we wiped. I maight have had something to do with this. Apparently I somehow grabbed aggro away from the tank. I tried to give it back, but we wiped. To be honest, a lot of times we skip this fight altogether.

From what I understand, our guild fights the bosses in a different order than many guilds, and we use a few strategies that are uncommon, but things usually go very smoothly. We wiped four times tonight, which is unusual for us, but considering we fought six bosses, not all that bad. Skuud got a lot of good drops tonight, and I got a couple of good ones.

The same crew as last night except Awlbiste missed the raid, and Wickum, a Night Elf Druid (surprise) took her place.

Crazy for Karazhan

I got lucky tonight when some people who signed up for Karazhan didn't show. (I was on the standby list because I got to go last week.)

Everyone in the group was pretty experienced, but a lot were on alts, so they were taking on roles they don't normally do. We took out Attumen the Huntsman first. It was pretty cake, until this idiot warrior (me) pulled a group of elites near the blacksmith after the boss fight. We wiped because I had a total brainfart. Everyone was pretty cool about it though.

Then we headed upstairs to take out Moroes. Again this went well, if not actually textbook. We pulled adds on a couple of occassions but picked them up pretty easily.

Next we moved on to the Opera Event. It was Oz this time, a first for me. I got to kite Tinhead around, then help kill The Crone. The cool thing about that fight was when the Crone cast cyclone on me and I got bounced around up in the air for about 20 seconds.

After this fight we ran back out, and went around to the back to take on The Curator. We ended up pulling the boss early, but recovered nicely and got him down first try.

All in all a great group. The only wipe was due to my stupidity.
Group:
Amaraa - a Night Elf Druid (Main Tank)
Arienna - a Night Elf Hunter
Awlbiste - a Night Elf Druid
Fyra - a Night Elf Druid
Gahrie (me) - a Human Warrior (Off Tank)
Mangler - a Dwarf Hunter
Moonsfire - a Draenei Shaman
Mystii - a Draenei Mage
Skudd - a Gnome Rogue
Ydnareno - a Night Elf Priest
Lager - a Gnome Warlock was switched in for the Attumen fight, I believe in hopes of getting a drop.

Here's hoping the second half goes as well tomorrow night.

A Visit To Gruul's

The guild raided Gruul's Lair tonight. We were a little tank and healer heavy. Still it was nice to have 25 players turn out. We never did manage to kill him, but we came close....a few unlucky cave-ins hurt. We had him down to 9% at our last wipe. Friday we are supposed to go to Serpentshrine Cavern and take on Lurker, but I don't know if I will be able to make it...I think I have a fantasy football draft at that time.

Stupid Commecials # 1,056,456

J.C. Penny has got a commecial on currently for back to school clothes. Someone thought it would be a smart idea to use music and scenes from Breakfast Club. Stupid idea. Those of us who remember the movie resent the exploitation, and those who the ad was aimed at have never seen the movie.

How I Met Your Mother

OK, I flip on the TV and this show is on. Now I sometimes watch this show simply because Alyson Hannigan is on it. She's hot. Now apparently one of the current storylines is that she's constantly horny, but not getting any. OMG. This should be illegal. I'd go with her to bandcamp anytime. By the way, I love her as a brunette. Of course I loved her as a redhead also.

Lame Lame Lame

Oh you lefties slay me. McCain cleans your guys clock, so now you all come scuttling out of the wood work to accuse McCain of cheating at the forum and lying about his prison camp story. Lame.

By the way, it's Obama who lied about the Born Alive bills in the Illinois Senate, and his only example for his bravery in "crossing the aisle", he actually punked out.

Please Allow Myself To Introduce....Myself

For anyone who happens to play WoW that may come by, my main account is on the Realm Draenor, and my main toon is a level 70 human protection warrior named Gahrie. I'm currently leveling a nightelf hunter named Shoan, and a human warlock named Kirbdawg.

My guild, Mythos, is pretty cool...I've gone from being a complete noob to someone who can at least act like he knows what he is doing. My main role is to punch the big guy in the nose, and then stand there and get hit while everyone else kills him. It's called tanking, and I'm referred to as a tank. (or more accurately at the moment as the offtank or second tank in bigger raids) I have leveled out blacksmithing, mining, first aid, fishing and cooking (yes I said fishing and cooking for you non-WoWers) I'm hoping when WotLK (next expansion) comes out the levels will go up.

Throw Me A Frickin' Bone Here....

Someone needs to put a warning label on bottles of concentrated grape juice!

I'm just sayin'....

Intervention

Hello everybody, my name is Gary and I'm addicted to WoW. (cue everyone responding "Hello Gary") The problem is, I can't use the next line, I'm still in the throes of my addiction. (If you have no idea that WoW means World of Warcraft, you're still safe.)

I started on the small stuff, like Age of Empires and Civilization. I soon moved on to Diablo. But soon I needed a bigger score. I moved on to the hard stuff, City of Heroes. I began to get my friends addicted. But I was still in control. I could handle the stuff. Then I fell into the abyss. World of Warcraft. I'd heard about this one, but stayed away from it. Then one day I heard a siren song. Just get a trial account, try it out. The next day I was at BestBuy buying a WoW battlechest. Soon I was playing the game for 12 hours at a time. (seriously...I'm a school teacher and single...which means no life and lots of free time during the summer)

Last night I was chastised by a good friend, who pointed out (among other things) that I have been neglecting this blog. So, I'm going to try and do better.

College football is coming up, and I absolutely love that sport, especially when USC is supposed to have a good year, and they are this year) Expect at least a weekly report about collge football. (end the BCS!)

It's an election year for goodness sake! Expect some political posts. I can't get excited about McCain. He's too liberal for me. However I will support him as the alternative to Obama. Seriously what exactly has Obama ever done but give a good speech from teleprompters? More to follow.

You can expect some posts about WoW for that matter.

So...I'm back, and I'll try to do better. (battle: puff pastery on Iron Chef?!? What the hell?)

Happy Birthday to Me.....

Woo freaking hoo....

43 today. I wake up, turn on Mike and Mike, and they are wishing Dick Vitale happy birthday. A little later, I switch to CNN and they are wishing one of their financial analysts happy birthday. That's a little weird...

Gave myself a sort of birthday present and paid off my car loan early. The girl on the phone noticed and wished me a happy birthday.

Oh well, another year older....

Ironic?

They just had Jerry West award the Western Conference Championship trophy to Mitch Kupchak of the Lakers. Excuse me? Given all the talk that the fix was in when West traded Paul Gosol to the Lakers was this really a good idea?

Public Service Announcement

If you ever hear that I am going to the same baseball game you are going to, sell your tickets. The last four baseball games I have attended (2 Angels, 2 Dodgers) have ended in 1-0 scores.

Last night was a real scorefest. The Angels won 1-0 on a walkoff walk on four straight pitches in the bottom of the 12th.

Plus I got the pleasure of sitting next to a bunch of drunken frat boys and their dates.

The seats were cool otherwise though....3rd base side, field level between the foul pole and the bullpens, close to the bullpens. Kenny Rogers was pitching for Detroit, and I got some good heckles in as he was warming up in the bullpen and walking out at the start of the game.: "Hey Kenny, you pitch like a singer", "hey where's Dolly?". " you better sing good tonigght, I paid good money for the seats", "freebird!", "C'mon Kenny, just one song".

O'Reilly Losing It (profanity)

The Empire Strike Barack

TBL? Update 4/21/08

Well I weighed in today. My team leader read off the numbers. According to her I lost 9 pounds this week. Not bad, remember, I haven't started any type of exercise yet...it's all just a change in diet so far.

Am I The Only One Thinking This?

Utah is known as the beehive state. New Orleans is the home of jazz music. The NBA franchise in Utah is known as the Jazz, the NBA franchise in New Orleans is known as the Hornets. Shouldn't somebody arrange a swap in team names?

There is precedent.

When the Art Model wanted to move the Cleveland Browns to Baltimore, the NFL worked out a deal where he essentially traded the Browns to the NFL for an expansion team and the Browns' then roster and organization. The name, uniform, records, legacy of the Browns stayed in Cleveland even though everything else went to Baltimore, and a new Browns team was formed.

Refilling Oil Fields Pt 3

Another article musing about the possibility that the Earth is constantly producing oil deep beneath the surface. It mainly talks about a new field found off the coast of Brazil. Every since people started moaning that oil was running out new oil fields have started popping up all over the place.

Being Sick Sucks.....

About halfway through work today, I started to get a painfull cough and my chest tightened up. By the time I got home I was feeling miserable. Just in time for the fracking weekend. My throat is raw, my upper chest congested and I am painfully coughing up bloody sputum. I hope it burns out fast, we're giving the state standardized test all next week, and I really need to be there.

Global Warming Redux

Global Warming

The global warming doomsayers have been telling us for years that one sign of global warming was the increasingly bad hurricane seasons. It's a central point in Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth.

Well, the scientist Gore and others have been depending on has just released a new study. Those that are talking about this study are concentrating on the idea that this new study might suggest that hurricanes are not linked to global warming. Which is true. What they are overlooking or ignoring is that Emanuel also states at the same time that his new study might equally suggest that the climate models that global warming activists rely on do not accurately reflect real world realities. The key quote from Emanuel:

"The models are telling us something quite different from what nature seems to be telling us. There are various interpretations possible, e.g. a) The big increase in hurricane power over the past 30 years or so may not have much to do with global warming, or b) The models are simply not faithfully reproducing what nature is doing. Hard to know which to believe yet."

Surely the interpretation that the climate models that underlay the theory of global warming don't work is much more newsworthy than the interpretation that hurricanes aren't linked to global warming? Why then is the first interpretation receiving so much coverage, and the second is being, as far as I can tell, completely ignored? According to Emanuel himself the two are equally likely.

At the very least, Emanuel's new study clearly shows that climate science is not a settled issue. Which is what we skeptics have been claiming all along.