Got home a little before 4pm, caught up on some Blogs, watched some Youtube videos that don't stream at work (so I can't watch them on my lunch break), then got sucked into an episode of The Closer where Brenda had to 'close' a case against a female Detective who had accused her husband of beating her, a husband who was later shot & killed by a police officer who responded to a 911 distress call the Detective placed.
After Brenda got her man (or in this case her woman) we went to dinner at The Cheesecake Factory (had some Gift Cards burning a hole in Liz's pocket), got a free book at Borders for the Bunny (for reading 10 books since the start of summer break), then bummed around the Mall until closing time.
Came home, got the kids ready for bed, read some more Blogs, and now it's Bedtime for Bonzo...or something like that ;)
Monday, July 12, 2010
Once more unto the breach
Or...here we go again.
The reason given?
WoW's Terms of Use, S10 "Security of Login Information" makes me "responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of the Login Information". I stated that as RealID was an Opt-Out program and not Opt-In, I felt this amounted to unauthorized disclosure of the Login Information for which Blizzard had made me responsible, and so I no longer wished to continue my subscription.
I now have a few more weeks to play, until August 7th, and then my WoW subscription will once more lapse.
The reason given?
WoW's Terms of Use, S10 "Security of Login Information" makes me "responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of the Login Information". I stated that as RealID was an Opt-Out program and not Opt-In, I felt this amounted to unauthorized disclosure of the Login Information for which Blizzard had made me responsible, and so I no longer wished to continue my subscription.
I now have a few more weeks to play, until August 7th, and then my WoW subscription will once more lapse.
How much time???
Part of becoming my own parent through WoW's parental controls was being able to request a copy of the amount of time played/signed in to my WoW account.
I know I play a lot, especially when I have days off/weekends and I don't need to do any Dailies (Weeklies?) to grind Spousal Rep. Today I got confirmation of how much I play, being a record of the amount of time I'd played on my account last week, the number of minutes logged in, and what time I'd logged out.
On the 4th of July (the first day of my report) we joined friends for barbecue dinner and fireworks so I logged off at 3:50pm after playing for just 85 minutes. After we got home I logged in again and played for 160 minutes before calling it a night/morning at 1:50am. Because the 4th was a Sunday and I get all the Federal Holidays I was off on Monday the 5th, so logging off at ten-to-two on this particular Sunday night/Monday morning is not that big of a deal.
What's funny about my play time on Monday is I had 3 session that each lasted almost exactly 100 minutes. Two at 99 and one at 98. Combined with the evening's play session I racked up a little over 7 hours for the day.
Tuesday I played a much more moderate 2 hours (literally. The report says 121 minutes. Ok, 2 hours and 1 minute. Happy now?), logging out at 11:25pm. Wednesday I played just 1 hour (or 61 minutes for you nit-pickers) and logged off at 10:43pm.
But Thursday?
The wife called me on my way home and said the boy had basketball practice, the bunny had gymnastics, and afterward she was going to the Gym and wouldn't be home until after 6pm. She confirmed that the kids would be staying with her parents (no need to make dinner) so I rode the bus all the way home (instead of her picking me up at the Bus Station) where I emptied the dish washer then reloaded it, picked up dog poop (from the backyard!), took out the trash, vacuumed the stairs, then sat down to play at approx. 4:30, logging out 110 mins later at 6:20 (probably when the wife got home). I wouldn't log in again for another 3 hours, but when I did I racked up another 200 minutes between 9:30pm and 1am when I called it a night (or the wife called me to bed ;) So between 4:30pm and 1am, a period of 8 1/2 hours, I played for 310 minutes, being 5 hours, 10 minutes (for the mathematically challenged).
Friday was another day off (yes, I worked just 3 days last week, flanked by two 3-day weekends) but the kids stayed with their grandparents while Liz and I spent a lazy day at home. I actually only played twice this day. I logged off at 7:07pm after playing for just 572 minutes, (a little over 9 1/2 hours :P), but it was clearly an idle-out while grabbing something to eat because I logged in again just minutes later and would stay logged in until quarter-to-one, Saturday morning. Two sessions, one at 572 minutes, one at 333 minutes, for fifteen fucking hours.
I got up Saturday and despite attending my son's basketball game, among other activities (such as shopping with the wife), racked up another 7 hours in-game.
Total time played for the week (thanks in no small part to Friday's 15-hour marathon session)? 2,498 minutes, or 41 hours, 38 minutes.
With the extra days off and the kids spending much of their time with their grandparents this was not a typical week, but I'd still expect to play for at least 20 hours in any given week. Let's see what this week brings. Will I let this inordinate amount of in-game time affect this week's play time? Or will I still play for 20 hours, if not more?
I know I play a lot, especially when I have days off/weekends and I don't need to do any Dailies (Weeklies?) to grind Spousal Rep. Today I got confirmation of how much I play, being a record of the amount of time I'd played on my account last week, the number of minutes logged in, and what time I'd logged out.
On the 4th of July (the first day of my report) we joined friends for barbecue dinner and fireworks so I logged off at 3:50pm after playing for just 85 minutes. After we got home I logged in again and played for 160 minutes before calling it a night/morning at 1:50am. Because the 4th was a Sunday and I get all the Federal Holidays I was off on Monday the 5th, so logging off at ten-to-two on this particular Sunday night/Monday morning is not that big of a deal.
What's funny about my play time on Monday is I had 3 session that each lasted almost exactly 100 minutes. Two at 99 and one at 98. Combined with the evening's play session I racked up a little over 7 hours for the day.
Tuesday I played a much more moderate 2 hours (literally. The report says 121 minutes. Ok, 2 hours and 1 minute. Happy now?), logging out at 11:25pm. Wednesday I played just 1 hour (or 61 minutes for you nit-pickers) and logged off at 10:43pm.
But Thursday?
The wife called me on my way home and said the boy had basketball practice, the bunny had gymnastics, and afterward she was going to the Gym and wouldn't be home until after 6pm. She confirmed that the kids would be staying with her parents (no need to make dinner) so I rode the bus all the way home (instead of her picking me up at the Bus Station) where I emptied the dish washer then reloaded it, picked up dog poop (from the backyard!), took out the trash, vacuumed the stairs, then sat down to play at approx. 4:30, logging out 110 mins later at 6:20 (probably when the wife got home). I wouldn't log in again for another 3 hours, but when I did I racked up another 200 minutes between 9:30pm and 1am when I called it a night (or the wife called me to bed ;) So between 4:30pm and 1am, a period of 8 1/2 hours, I played for 310 minutes, being 5 hours, 10 minutes (for the mathematically challenged).
Friday was another day off (yes, I worked just 3 days last week, flanked by two 3-day weekends) but the kids stayed with their grandparents while Liz and I spent a lazy day at home. I actually only played twice this day. I logged off at 7:07pm after playing for just 572 minutes, (a little over 9 1/2 hours :P), but it was clearly an idle-out while grabbing something to eat because I logged in again just minutes later and would stay logged in until quarter-to-one, Saturday morning. Two sessions, one at 572 minutes, one at 333 minutes, for fifteen fucking hours.
I got up Saturday and despite attending my son's basketball game, among other activities (such as shopping with the wife), racked up another 7 hours in-game.
Total time played for the week (thanks in no small part to Friday's 15-hour marathon session)? 2,498 minutes, or 41 hours, 38 minutes.
With the extra days off and the kids spending much of their time with their grandparents this was not a typical week, but I'd still expect to play for at least 20 hours in any given week. Let's see what this week brings. Will I let this inordinate amount of in-game time affect this week's play time? Or will I still play for 20 hours, if not more?
Wednesday, July 07, 2010
Facebook, WoW, and RealID
"Facebook is the only (big) place where people interact, play games and spend time by their real name, not behind some avatar..." - Okrane S. commenter on Spink's Blog
Except for many of those 'games', Zynga's games in particular, you need at least 501 friends WHO ALSO PLAY if you want to be 'successful' in them.
In Mafia Wars, if you don't have 501+ people in your Gang, you're guaranteed to get attacked by other players. Having 501 (or more) doesn't mean you won't be attacked either, but having less than 501 means you certainly will.
So you have two choices:
You can spam the message boards asking hundreds of people to add you as a Friend while you also add as many new 'Friends' as you can;
Or you create a second Games-only account where you don't use your real name or picture;
I did the first but slowly grew frustrated at having my wall filled with countless messages from all the games all these Friends-I-hadn't-met were playing. The final straw came when my brother-in-law posted a status update commenting on his broken foot, I asked what had happened, he said he'd crashed his car a week ago...and hadn't I seen his status update?
No. I hadn't. Because my FB Wall had been filled with the random crap of countless strangers. (In my defense I do live in another country, 8,000 miles away.)
So I pruned my Friends List and went the second route, creating a Games-only FB account using a fake name and picture, and started over.
With the speed at which you can level to Cap in WoW these days then Epic-out your character via the LFD Tool, starting over is not the set back many might think. Sure, there's the $100+ to purchase WoW, BC, & LK all over again, but by starting over and using prepaid Game Cards you can give yourself a brand new name, which seems to be the concern of many. So that's one way to bypass RealID.
While creating a fake FB account (and likewise a fake WoW account) may be against their Terms of Use (if they even have one, and I can't be stuffed looking), there are thousands, maybe even tens of thousands of people with Game-only accounts, accounts created by people who didn't use their real name and/or picture. For the most part it's easy to tell if it's a Games-only account, especially if their profile pic is a centerfold, or a graphic from Mafia Wars, Farmville, etc. In my case, I trawled a random guy's pic off the 'net, gave him a name, and even created a fake profile/history for him. What's really funny (not 'Ha Ha' funny) is he gets well wishers posting on his Wall on his 'birthday'. But he doesn't exist. He's just an avatar. My avatar. My avatar which I use to play Facebook games.
That's what Facebook and Blizzard need to understand: Many, many, MANY people do NOT want to use their real name when playing computer games, and their reasons for doing so are numerous, varied, and quite often valid.
RealID has set the 'net ablaze. Many are angry about it, some blasé, and some creative types have produced humorous responses (dryly ironic, but amusing nonetheless).
I liken this to those who say, "If you have nothing to hide, why can't the police come in and search your house? I'd let them search my house if they wanted to."
Fine. Let them search your house then, because even though I have nothing to hide, that doesn't mean I'm prepared to let the police poke around in my private belongings. I value my privacy, thank you very much, so I'll share what I choose to share and when given the choice, I'll keep private what I'd prefer remain private.
This is why I enabled Parental Controls on my account last night and deactivated RealID, or I would have, if it wasn't already unchecked once I got in.
By coincidence my 6-month sub expired yesterday and my Mum is coming to visit for several weeks next month so when I renewed WoW last night, rather than buying another 6-month block at $12.99/month, I just bought 1 month at $14.99. I don't intend to play during August so why pay for it? Sure, July cost me $2 more but I'll save $13 in August so by that reasoning I'm $11 ahead. I need to cancel that 1-month recurring Sub before August because I don't want to continue paying $15/month so when I cancel it, in protest against RealID, I intend to state it as the reason why I'm doing so. Who knows, with LOTRO apparently going free-to-play in a couple of months, maybe I won't even renew WoW after Mum leaves.
And in the meantime? I still have both Mario Galaxy games to complete, along with Zelda: Twilight Princess, Muramasa, Sky Crawlers, Zack & Wiki...the list goes on. So many unbeaten Nintendo games. I'm getting slack in my old age ;)
Except for many of those 'games', Zynga's games in particular, you need at least 501 friends WHO ALSO PLAY if you want to be 'successful' in them.
In Mafia Wars, if you don't have 501+ people in your Gang, you're guaranteed to get attacked by other players. Having 501 (or more) doesn't mean you won't be attacked either, but having less than 501 means you certainly will.
So you have two choices:
You can spam the message boards asking hundreds of people to add you as a Friend while you also add as many new 'Friends' as you can;
Or you create a second Games-only account where you don't use your real name or picture;
I did the first but slowly grew frustrated at having my wall filled with countless messages from all the games all these Friends-I-hadn't-met were playing. The final straw came when my brother-in-law posted a status update commenting on his broken foot, I asked what had happened, he said he'd crashed his car a week ago...and hadn't I seen his status update?
No. I hadn't. Because my FB Wall had been filled with the random crap of countless strangers. (In my defense I do live in another country, 8,000 miles away.)
So I pruned my Friends List and went the second route, creating a Games-only FB account using a fake name and picture, and started over.
With the speed at which you can level to Cap in WoW these days then Epic-out your character via the LFD Tool, starting over is not the set back many might think. Sure, there's the $100+ to purchase WoW, BC, & LK all over again, but by starting over and using prepaid Game Cards you can give yourself a brand new name, which seems to be the concern of many. So that's one way to bypass RealID.
While creating a fake FB account (and likewise a fake WoW account) may be against their Terms of Use (if they even have one, and I can't be stuffed looking), there are thousands, maybe even tens of thousands of people with Game-only accounts, accounts created by people who didn't use their real name and/or picture. For the most part it's easy to tell if it's a Games-only account, especially if their profile pic is a centerfold, or a graphic from Mafia Wars, Farmville, etc. In my case, I trawled a random guy's pic off the 'net, gave him a name, and even created a fake profile/history for him. What's really funny (not 'Ha Ha' funny) is he gets well wishers posting on his Wall on his 'birthday'. But he doesn't exist. He's just an avatar. My avatar. My avatar which I use to play Facebook games.
That's what Facebook and Blizzard need to understand: Many, many, MANY people do NOT want to use their real name when playing computer games, and their reasons for doing so are numerous, varied, and quite often valid.
RealID has set the 'net ablaze. Many are angry about it, some blasé, and some creative types have produced humorous responses (dryly ironic, but amusing nonetheless).
I liken this to those who say, "If you have nothing to hide, why can't the police come in and search your house? I'd let them search my house if they wanted to."
Fine. Let them search your house then, because even though I have nothing to hide, that doesn't mean I'm prepared to let the police poke around in my private belongings. I value my privacy, thank you very much, so I'll share what I choose to share and when given the choice, I'll keep private what I'd prefer remain private.
This is why I enabled Parental Controls on my account last night and deactivated RealID, or I would have, if it wasn't already unchecked once I got in.
By coincidence my 6-month sub expired yesterday and my Mum is coming to visit for several weeks next month so when I renewed WoW last night, rather than buying another 6-month block at $12.99/month, I just bought 1 month at $14.99. I don't intend to play during August so why pay for it? Sure, July cost me $2 more but I'll save $13 in August so by that reasoning I'm $11 ahead. I need to cancel that 1-month recurring Sub before August because I don't want to continue paying $15/month so when I cancel it, in protest against RealID, I intend to state it as the reason why I'm doing so. Who knows, with LOTRO apparently going free-to-play in a couple of months, maybe I won't even renew WoW after Mum leaves.
And in the meantime? I still have both Mario Galaxy games to complete, along with Zelda: Twilight Princess, Muramasa, Sky Crawlers, Zack & Wiki...the list goes on. So many unbeaten Nintendo games. I'm getting slack in my old age ;)
Monday, July 05, 2010
AFK Fun in the Blood Furnace
I've been leveling up a Death Knight Tank (just for something to do) and this weekend I did numerous Ramparts and Blood Furnace Runs trying to get either Hellreaver or the Warsong Howling Axe, but neither of them would drop. (Which is a blessing in disguise, because it also meant I didn't have to lose them to a Ninja Hunter). There are a couple of other low 60s weapons which are more easily obtainable, but none that could really be considered an upgrade as far as Tanking goes.
For the most part the PUGs have gone reasonably smoothly. There have been few (if any) cases of Go! Go! Go! and while I'm still getting the hang of DK Tanking, learning what I can (and cannot) safely Pull, the Runs are also going reasonably quickly. While I'm not doubtful of my Healer's ability to keep my alive, I do want to keep the Pulls to a size with which I'm comfortable holding Aggro. Which would you rather: The Tank play it safe & take 20-25 minutes for a Wipe-free Run? Or you drop out because they're going too slow, then have to endure the 30-minute debuff? (Sure, you could hang in there for 15 minutes to avoid the Deserter Debuff, but in just 5-10 more minutes the Run will be over so why not stick it out? DPS are easily replaced anyway. It's no skin off our nose if you bail on us, first 15-minutes or not.)
On this one particular Blood Furnace Run we lost one of our DPS on the wave of Orcs preceding Broggok (or perhaps between Wave #4 and Broggok). No problem, DPS are easily replaced. A Hunter zoned in as I grabbed Aggro on WoW's equivalent of a Beholder and 20 seconds later he went down, dropping the Legion Blunderbuss. Everyone Greed rolled except the Hunter...who didn't roll at all.
I was in the middle of typing "Hunter, Need roll on the Gun if it's an upgrade" when our Priest said, "WTF Why is the Hunter following me?"
I stopped typing and brought up Recount. The Hunter's name was conspicuously absent. He'd zoned in (something you can't do without clicking 'Accept' and immediately AFK-Followed the Priest). I deleted what I'd just typed and replaced it with "No sign of Hunter in Recount". Someone else threw up their Recount showing it wasn't just me; the Hunter was AFK-Following the Priest, and had been AFK throughout that entire Boss fight. (With all due respect, he was a NElf Hunter)
Right-Click Hunter. Vote to Kick. And? This player cannot be kicked for 12 more minutes.
I announced this to the group.
"Just keeping going and we'll kick before the Boss," someone said. That appeared to be the general consensus so off we went, 4-manning Blood Furnace. Fortunately Death Knights are OP so it's not like we were wanting for DPS.
In the room immediately before Keli'dan we decided to try and get the still-AFK Hunter killed. It should have been easy as the Felguard Annihilators in this room often ignore the Aggro table and attack party members at random. It was working too, and I was silently cheering as the Hunter's lifebar started dropping, and then...he Potted. Or Feigned to drop Aggro then Bandaged, or something. But his Health shot back up and just like that he was running all over the place and no longer AFK-Following the Priest, who in an ironic turn of events was the only casualty of the fight.
WTF? Did the Hunter Heal? someone asked.
He's pulling the Boss!!! someone else yelled.
And indeed he was.
The Hunter had run into Keli'dan's room and aggroed the Warlocks, starting the encounter.
Well sure, you can do that, I said to myself, as I watched the Hunter run back out of Keli'dan's room, Warlocks in tow, but good luck taking the Boss down with no Healer or Tank. (I'd moved back to the far wall and was having no part of this fight.)
The Hunter was also not stopping to finish what he'd started and was running back the way we'd come. With no additional incoming damage the Warlocks eventually reset and ran back into Keli'dan's room.
Idea!
"Running back to the start to pick up our Healer," I announced in Party chat. "Don't want to risk stray Pats or respawns."
Also need 5 more minutes until we can kick this bastard Hunter, I whispered the Priest.
The Timer was ticking down but the Priest hadn't zoned back in. I wondered if he was delaying, hanging around outside. I decided to give him a valid excuse for 'wasting time'.
"We're in the top Instance," I typed. "The one up the ramp and along the wall."
"Oh. Never mind," I added, as the Priest laughed and zoned in beside me.
As we passed through Broggok's room the Hunter's 15-minute Immunity Timer finally expired and within seconds he was Kicked and almost as quickly replaced...by another Hunter! No!
This one was a Dwarf though, so that was alright ;) He also responded when I mentioned we were on the final Boss, thus confirming he wasn't AFK-Following us. I did a quick Inspection of his gear and he had my Axe! :( Actually that was a good thing, if it would just drop already! (Side note. An earlier Inspection of the AFK-Leech had revealed he was wielding the Heirloom Bow Feel free to interpret that how you will.)
Into Keli'dan's room we went. The Warlocks went down. Keli'dan went down. And...still no Axe :( That made five Blood Furnace Runs, and Orion only knows how many Ramparts Runs, and still no weapon upgrade.
But after all that (& questing to boot) I'm now also 65 and thus able to attempt the Ring of Blood chain in Nagrand, completion of which will reward me with the Honed Voidaxe. Finally! A(nother) weapon fit for a Death Knight! I just need a group, or a couple of über friends, and the Honed Voidaxe will be mine. Oh yes! It will.
For the most part the PUGs have gone reasonably smoothly. There have been few (if any) cases of Go! Go! Go! and while I'm still getting the hang of DK Tanking, learning what I can (and cannot) safely Pull, the Runs are also going reasonably quickly. While I'm not doubtful of my Healer's ability to keep my alive, I do want to keep the Pulls to a size with which I'm comfortable holding Aggro. Which would you rather: The Tank play it safe & take 20-25 minutes for a Wipe-free Run? Or you drop out because they're going too slow, then have to endure the 30-minute debuff? (Sure, you could hang in there for 15 minutes to avoid the Deserter Debuff, but in just 5-10 more minutes the Run will be over so why not stick it out? DPS are easily replaced anyway. It's no skin off our nose if you bail on us, first 15-minutes or not.)
On this one particular Blood Furnace Run we lost one of our DPS on the wave of Orcs preceding Broggok (or perhaps between Wave #4 and Broggok). No problem, DPS are easily replaced. A Hunter zoned in as I grabbed Aggro on WoW's equivalent of a Beholder and 20 seconds later he went down, dropping the Legion Blunderbuss. Everyone Greed rolled except the Hunter...who didn't roll at all.
I was in the middle of typing "Hunter, Need roll on the Gun if it's an upgrade" when our Priest said, "WTF Why is the Hunter following me?"
I stopped typing and brought up Recount. The Hunter's name was conspicuously absent. He'd zoned in (something you can't do without clicking 'Accept' and immediately AFK-Followed the Priest). I deleted what I'd just typed and replaced it with "No sign of Hunter in Recount". Someone else threw up their Recount showing it wasn't just me; the Hunter was AFK-Following the Priest, and had been AFK throughout that entire Boss fight. (With all due respect, he was a NElf Hunter)
Right-Click Hunter. Vote to Kick. And? This player cannot be kicked for 12 more minutes.
I announced this to the group.
"Just keeping going and we'll kick before the Boss," someone said. That appeared to be the general consensus so off we went, 4-manning Blood Furnace. Fortunately Death Knights are OP so it's not like we were wanting for DPS.
In the room immediately before Keli'dan we decided to try and get the still-AFK Hunter killed. It should have been easy as the Felguard Annihilators in this room often ignore the Aggro table and attack party members at random. It was working too, and I was silently cheering as the Hunter's lifebar started dropping, and then...he Potted. Or Feigned to drop Aggro then Bandaged, or something. But his Health shot back up and just like that he was running all over the place and no longer AFK-Following the Priest, who in an ironic turn of events was the only casualty of the fight.
WTF? Did the Hunter Heal? someone asked.
He's pulling the Boss!!! someone else yelled.
And indeed he was.
The Hunter had run into Keli'dan's room and aggroed the Warlocks, starting the encounter.
Well sure, you can do that, I said to myself, as I watched the Hunter run back out of Keli'dan's room, Warlocks in tow, but good luck taking the Boss down with no Healer or Tank. (I'd moved back to the far wall and was having no part of this fight.)
The Hunter was also not stopping to finish what he'd started and was running back the way we'd come. With no additional incoming damage the Warlocks eventually reset and ran back into Keli'dan's room.
Idea!
"Running back to the start to pick up our Healer," I announced in Party chat. "Don't want to risk stray Pats or respawns."
Also need 5 more minutes until we can kick this bastard Hunter, I whispered the Priest.
The Timer was ticking down but the Priest hadn't zoned back in. I wondered if he was delaying, hanging around outside. I decided to give him a valid excuse for 'wasting time'.
"We're in the top Instance," I typed. "The one up the ramp and along the wall."
"Oh. Never mind," I added, as the Priest laughed and zoned in beside me.
As we passed through Broggok's room the Hunter's 15-minute Immunity Timer finally expired and within seconds he was Kicked and almost as quickly replaced...by another Hunter! No!
This one was a Dwarf though, so that was alright ;) He also responded when I mentioned we were on the final Boss, thus confirming he wasn't AFK-Following us. I did a quick Inspection of his gear and he had my Axe! :( Actually that was a good thing, if it would just drop already! (Side note. An earlier Inspection of the AFK-Leech had revealed he was wielding the Heirloom Bow Feel free to interpret that how you will.)
Into Keli'dan's room we went. The Warlocks went down. Keli'dan went down. And...still no Axe :( That made five Blood Furnace Runs, and Orion only knows how many Ramparts Runs, and still no weapon upgrade.
But after all that (& questing to boot) I'm now also 65 and thus able to attempt the Ring of Blood chain in Nagrand, completion of which will reward me with the Honed Voidaxe. Finally! A(nother) weapon fit for a Death Knight! I just need a group, or a couple of über friends, and the Honed Voidaxe will be mine. Oh yes! It will.
Saturday, June 26, 2010
Beef Brisket
After spending a day at the beach in San Diego we stopped at Kula Sushi in Irvine for dinner, then decided to hit the Korean market next door. While I was looking at the beef briskets Liz asked me if I knew how to cook it. "No," I said, resignedly placing the packet back into the refrigerator. But just as we moved on impulse hit me and I grabbed it back out and threw it in the cart.
Back home I wondered "Just how does one cook a beef brisket?" so I decided to hit up someone I was pretty sure would know. The Man came through, suggesting that because my cut was the Flat (lacking the layer of fat along one side) I should do a beer marinate to keep it tender while cooking (the role the layer of fat normally plays when one barbecues a brisket). He also recommended I slow cook this cut in the oven, covered or wrapped in foil, to keep it tender.
Alternatively, if I didn't mind a tougher cut, I could still marinate it and barbecue, but glaze it, and glaze it, and glaze it some more. That sounded like a lot more work than I was prepared to do. Not that I'm not afraid to stand out over the barbecue, tongs in one hand, beer in the other, but I'm rather partial to the "slap it in the slow cooker and forget about it until the house smell delicious and you start drooling" method of cooking.
Of course a beer marinate is not as simple as it sounds. What kind of beer are we talking about here? Lager? Ale? Draught? Bitter? Stout? It turns out Guinness is one of the most preferred beers to use as a marinate, as are English ales. Problem is my house currently has no beer, but we'll probably go shopping later so at least now I know one of the things we'll be looking out for. I also now know how to cook a brisket, but more importantly, how to shop for one. Thanks Daniel!
Back home I wondered "Just how does one cook a beef brisket?" so I decided to hit up someone I was pretty sure would know. The Man came through, suggesting that because my cut was the Flat (lacking the layer of fat along one side) I should do a beer marinate to keep it tender while cooking (the role the layer of fat normally plays when one barbecues a brisket). He also recommended I slow cook this cut in the oven, covered or wrapped in foil, to keep it tender.
Alternatively, if I didn't mind a tougher cut, I could still marinate it and barbecue, but glaze it, and glaze it, and glaze it some more. That sounded like a lot more work than I was prepared to do. Not that I'm not afraid to stand out over the barbecue, tongs in one hand, beer in the other, but I'm rather partial to the "slap it in the slow cooker and forget about it until the house smell delicious and you start drooling" method of cooking.
Of course a beer marinate is not as simple as it sounds. What kind of beer are we talking about here? Lager? Ale? Draught? Bitter? Stout? It turns out Guinness is one of the most preferred beers to use as a marinate, as are English ales. Problem is my house currently has no beer, but we'll probably go shopping later so at least now I know one of the things we'll be looking out for. I also now know how to cook a brisket, but more importantly, how to shop for one. Thanks Daniel!
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
Quick Review: UFC Undisputed 2010
I had a chance to play the PS3 demo of UFC '10 at Best Buy on the weekend, and I liked it. It was very quick and easy to pick up the basics, especially as it used Tekken-like controls with each of the 4 primary buttons being for left punch, right punch, left kick, & right kick. It made it very easy to string combos together while also demonstrating the infeasibility of throwing right roundhouse kick after right roundhouse kick after right roundhouse kick, etc.
Being UFC the game is more than just striking and fighters do go to the mat and can attempt submission moves. Not knowing (at the time) how to get out of a submission (or apply one) I settled for knocking my opponent the fuck out! Hey, it's UFC, right? It's not figure skating. So for the most part I was throwing combinations and going for a knock-out punch, and if I happened to knock my opponent to the mat I'd move in and hammer him with left-right-left strikes to the head until he pushed me away and the referee broke us up, or I broke through his defense, broke his nose, and knocked him the fuck out!
To demonstrate the engine's eloquence and subtlety my son took his turn and made it through the first round after cutting his opponent up (strikes to the head can cut while blows to the body leave nasty looking welts). When the bell sounded to start the second round my boy slowly backed away from his opponent while throwing several big, right hands that found nothing but air. But the fourth or fifth punch he threw finally connected and it must have found the sweet spot because his opponent went down like a poleaxed steer. One punch and Bam! (And we're not talking Margera) Knock out. Lights out. Game over. Thanks for coming.
Unlike my victories which came after several devastating head shots this was one, perfectly thrown punch that just knocked the recipient out for the count. So you can brutally beat your opponent into the mat, you can finesse your way to victory, or, as I'd find out in one of my matches, you can yield to an arm bar or some other various submission hold.
It's apparently getting quite high reviews and having played the demo I can understand why. It's controls are easy to pick up and it's probably loads of fun at a LAN party or just when you get a few mates around, but it also hints that if you're prepared to put in the time it could rival the fighting games of yesteryear for depth and complexity.
If I had a PS3 (or XBox), this is definitely one I'd be adding to my library.
Being UFC the game is more than just striking and fighters do go to the mat and can attempt submission moves. Not knowing (at the time) how to get out of a submission (or apply one) I settled for knocking my opponent the fuck out! Hey, it's UFC, right? It's not figure skating. So for the most part I was throwing combinations and going for a knock-out punch, and if I happened to knock my opponent to the mat I'd move in and hammer him with left-right-left strikes to the head until he pushed me away and the referee broke us up, or I broke through his defense, broke his nose, and knocked him the fuck out!
To demonstrate the engine's eloquence and subtlety my son took his turn and made it through the first round after cutting his opponent up (strikes to the head can cut while blows to the body leave nasty looking welts). When the bell sounded to start the second round my boy slowly backed away from his opponent while throwing several big, right hands that found nothing but air. But the fourth or fifth punch he threw finally connected and it must have found the sweet spot because his opponent went down like a poleaxed steer. One punch and Bam! (And we're not talking Margera) Knock out. Lights out. Game over. Thanks for coming.
Unlike my victories which came after several devastating head shots this was one, perfectly thrown punch that just knocked the recipient out for the count. So you can brutally beat your opponent into the mat, you can finesse your way to victory, or, as I'd find out in one of my matches, you can yield to an arm bar or some other various submission hold.
It's apparently getting quite high reviews and having played the demo I can understand why. It's controls are easy to pick up and it's probably loads of fun at a LAN party or just when you get a few mates around, but it also hints that if you're prepared to put in the time it could rival the fighting games of yesteryear for depth and complexity.
If I had a PS3 (or XBox), this is definitely one I'd be adding to my library.
Thursday, June 10, 2010
How Country are you?
If you're real Country, you know what usually happens shortly after the lambs drop. If you need a subtle hint, think Barbecued lambs' tails and Rocky Mountain Oysters. What? That's subtle. Country subtle ;)
Many years ago, after getting the lambs into the holding pen there wasn't anything left for us boys to do so we decided to play Rodeo with the Ram that had been locked up in the nearby stable.
My mate climbed on top of the Ram and grabbed a couple of handfuls of wool, but the Ram just stood there, chewing some hay, probably wondering what was going on and why this fool of a kid was sitting on his back.
Now being a Ram he was not only responsible for impregnating the whole flock of sheep all by himself, but he needed to get the job done in a real short space of time. In order to tackle a big job like that all by himself a Ram needs a big set of tackle, and our Ram was no exception.
As my mate sat on the Ram's back and kicked his heels trying to get the Ram to start bucking, the Ram moved around and two things became very obvious.
And I got an idea how to get this Ram Rodeo underway.
I stretched out my foot and tapped these two things with my toe (really, it was just a tap.) and the Ram exploded. He leaped into the air and spun around and my mate went flying and as he crashed to the ground my mate's little brother and I roared with laughter.
We each took a turn riding the Ram and it didn't matter how good a handful of wool you got, each ride ended with the same result. That Ram did not like anyone touching his tackle, but who could blame him? With what the men were doing to the lambs outside maybe he thought it was finally his turn, and over the years he'd probably become real attached to his balls ;)
Many years ago, after getting the lambs into the holding pen there wasn't anything left for us boys to do so we decided to play Rodeo with the Ram that had been locked up in the nearby stable.
My mate climbed on top of the Ram and grabbed a couple of handfuls of wool, but the Ram just stood there, chewing some hay, probably wondering what was going on and why this fool of a kid was sitting on his back.
Now being a Ram he was not only responsible for impregnating the whole flock of sheep all by himself, but he needed to get the job done in a real short space of time. In order to tackle a big job like that all by himself a Ram needs a big set of tackle, and our Ram was no exception.
As my mate sat on the Ram's back and kicked his heels trying to get the Ram to start bucking, the Ram moved around and two things became very obvious.
And I got an idea how to get this Ram Rodeo underway.
I stretched out my foot and tapped these two things with my toe (really, it was just a tap.) and the Ram exploded. He leaped into the air and spun around and my mate went flying and as he crashed to the ground my mate's little brother and I roared with laughter.
We each took a turn riding the Ram and it didn't matter how good a handful of wool you got, each ride ended with the same result. That Ram did not like anyone touching his tackle, but who could blame him? With what the men were doing to the lambs outside maybe he thought it was finally his turn, and over the years he'd probably become real attached to his balls ;)
Imagine a dirt road, full of pot holes
With a creek bank, and some cane poles,
Catching channel cat.
I’m a little more country than that.
- Easton Corbin
With a creek bank, and some cane poles,
Catching channel cat.
I’m a little more country than that.
- Easton Corbin
Monday, May 17, 2010
Review: Warstorm on FB
Warstorm is neither your typical Facebook game nor your typical card-based war game. (It also has a browser-based version but I'm not sure how well that works.)
Unlike Mafia Wars, Farmville, etc., you don't need 500+ friends to get maximum value from Warstorm, so it doesn't require you to create a second Facebook "Game" account, spam a load of strangers with Friend requests, or fill message boards with ADD ME!!! LOL!!!. And yet in spite of this the typical comments on the official Warstorm Facebook groups are still "Add me!!!" Go figure.
With that said, it does help to have a couple of Friends who play because every now & then the game gives you a bonus 'Rare' Card. But it's not for you, it's for your friends, and in the typical FB Game spammy fashion you can't just Send it to them, you have to post a message on your wall so your Friends can Click the link and collect the Card themselves. Likewise your Friends can post Rare Card messages on their own Wall that you can click and collect. But there's a catch. You can only collect one Rare card every 24 hours. Not one Rare Card per Friend per day; one Rare Card per day, period. So having hundreds of friends spamming your Wall with Rare Card posts every day is no more useful than having just a couple, as long as they're regular players of course. (Which makes me wonder how the browser-based version works, unless you can somehow add people as your Friends...perhaps via email?)
As you play the game and win battles/duels you earn Silver which you can use to buy more Card Packs, and when you do buy and 'open' a pack you will sometimes get a Bonus card. Unlike the Rare Cards these can be Sent directly to a Friend but only to one Friend, and you can only send one Card to each Friend every 24 hours. The game does ask you to post a message on your Friend's Wall so they know they got the Card, but in this case I don't think posting is actually necessary. I believe your Friend still receives the Card whether you post a "Hey! I sent you a card!" message or not. Now while you can only collect one Rare Card every 24 hours, and you can only send one Bonus Card to each Friend every 24 hours, if you have 100 Friends they can obviously each send you one Bonus Card if they get them, but! Do you really think someone is going to send a Bonus Card to you, a complete stranger, when they have Real Life Friends who also play? Of course not. You only get Bonus Cards from opening Packs, or from buying Hero Cards via RMT, so unless you spend real cash you just won't get that many Bonus Cards to give away. Are you going to send some stranger a Bonus Hero card you only got because you spent real money? Or will you send it to your Brother/Cousin/Best Friend4Life? Yeah, I thought so.
That's a big plus to Warstorm over the other FB Games: you simply do not need to add a bunch of strangers as Friends in order to play the game. Of course your Real Life Friends still need to actually play.
I said earlier that it's not your typical card-based war game, and it's not. In MTG and other games of its ilk you build your deck then duel other players by, usually, dealing yourself a hand, then playing out the game and using your cards to the best of their ability (and your own) to defeat the other player and their cards, in a process requiring a combination of both luck and strategy. In Warstorm, the only strategy comes from the deck building itself, because once a game starts you're even more of an observer than someone playing a low level Paladin. Yes, once a duel begins you'll do nothing more than sit back & watch, and maybe hit the Fast Forward button if you want to speed up the pace a little, which I did.
This may sound boring and/or frustrating in not having any control over how your cards are played ("No! Don't give the Sword of Power to the Mage! He's going to be killed on the next turn! No! Don't Zap the Troll Hero! Target the Flying Imp!") but it's a lot easier to accept that style of play once you realize it's actually a very fair way to resolve combat. You're dueling a random player's deck, not an actual player, meaning they're not actually present to manage their own cards, so letting you control your own cards and Zap their low HP Imp instead of the high HP, regenerating Troll Hero would be giving you an unfair advantage over your opponent.
Here's an example of a Hero Card:
There's already descriptions for the bottom numbers and they're self-explanatory for the most part, although just for clarification purposes your Turn and your opponent's Turn makes two Turns, so a card which readies in 10 Turns will be ready within 5 of your own Turns after being drawn. The three numbers in the top right corner of this Hero's card mean his Squad will be comprised of 6 Units, but no artifacts or spells. A Squad is always a Hero plus 6 Cards so you may also get a Hero who commands 4 Units but takes 2 Artifacts into battle, or 2 spells, or 1 Artifact and 1 Spell. I've not yet seen any Heroes who have more than 2 Artifact and/or Spell cards.
As soon as a Card is Ready it can be used immediately to attack, heal, etc. There is no Tapping or Exhausting of cards. Your cards attack and use their special abilities (if they have any), then your opponent's cards do the same, then your cards, and so on, with the goal being to reduce your opponents Morale from 30 to 0, or destroy all of his units/cards. Morale is reduced by cards attacking unopposed, through Spells or Artifacts such as the Drums of Despair, or via special abilities like Demoralize.
When you start you'll play through a Tutorial which both introduces many of the special abilities in the game, and rewards you with cards with the same. So after beating a Squad of Mages with the Blast Ability you'll receive a Mage or two with Blast, and so on. This makes it very easy to learn how combat and the cards work, and what cards are effective counters to other cards. Unfortunately it also makes the game appear rather easy, so the first time you play a real opponent you might be in for a very rude shock.
After completing the Tutorial you can continue to play the Single Player campaign, which gradually rewards you with more powerful cards, or you can try your luck against other players. But as those players tend to already have the more powerful cards, or even RMT cards, it's advisable to build up your Squads before engaging in the Warstorm equivalent of PvP. I say Squads because if you have sufficient Heroes and Squads you can do up to 4v4 Duels, being 4 of your Squads versus 4 of those from another player. Personally I thought 4 Squads took too long (and usually resulted in my Defeat) so for the most part I'll do 2v2 where my chances of success are much greater and the battles are usually over a lot faster.
Now even though, once you hit Start and the cards start coming out, you become no more than a participant, there's still a lot of excitement from watching a battle unfold as you cheer desperately for certain cards to come out, knowing there's nothing you can do but watch the battle unfold. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. Sometimes you get creamed and wonder just why the hell your opponent seems to have so many cards, and other times the cards go all your way and you're the one with a seemingly invincible army carving up everything your opponent's deck throws at you.
If there's anything negative to say about Warstorm it's that (for me) there was a wall around level 10-12 that I needed to crash through where I just couldn't defeat the next stages in the Single Player campaign, and where I likewise went from seeming to win most of my PvP Duels to just getting crushed in almost every single game. It almost seemed intended, as if to convince me to engage in RMT to advance, instead it made me want to throw in the towel. But I stuck it out, and even losing duels got me silver, and eventually I was able to buy some more card packs, tweak my squads a little more, and I started to win a few more duels. That was also when I accepted that "You can't win 'em all", which made the game more enjoyable as well.
All up I'd say check it out, at least to level 10 or so, to see whether it's your cup of tea. It's free to play so you really have nothing to lose but an evening of messing around. And even if you don't have a Facebook account you can always give the Browser version a try.
Unlike Mafia Wars, Farmville, etc., you don't need 500+ friends to get maximum value from Warstorm, so it doesn't require you to create a second Facebook "Game" account, spam a load of strangers with Friend requests, or fill message boards with ADD ME!!! LOL!!!. And yet in spite of this the typical comments on the official Warstorm Facebook groups are still "Add me!!!" Go figure.
With that said, it does help to have a couple of Friends who play because every now & then the game gives you a bonus 'Rare' Card. But it's not for you, it's for your friends, and in the typical FB Game spammy fashion you can't just Send it to them, you have to post a message on your wall so your Friends can Click the link and collect the Card themselves. Likewise your Friends can post Rare Card messages on their own Wall that you can click and collect. But there's a catch. You can only collect one Rare card every 24 hours. Not one Rare Card per Friend per day; one Rare Card per day, period. So having hundreds of friends spamming your Wall with Rare Card posts every day is no more useful than having just a couple, as long as they're regular players of course. (Which makes me wonder how the browser-based version works, unless you can somehow add people as your Friends...perhaps via email?)
As you play the game and win battles/duels you earn Silver which you can use to buy more Card Packs, and when you do buy and 'open' a pack you will sometimes get a Bonus card. Unlike the Rare Cards these can be Sent directly to a Friend but only to one Friend, and you can only send one Card to each Friend every 24 hours. The game does ask you to post a message on your Friend's Wall so they know they got the Card, but in this case I don't think posting is actually necessary. I believe your Friend still receives the Card whether you post a "Hey! I sent you a card!" message or not. Now while you can only collect one Rare Card every 24 hours, and you can only send one Bonus Card to each Friend every 24 hours, if you have 100 Friends they can obviously each send you one Bonus Card if they get them, but! Do you really think someone is going to send a Bonus Card to you, a complete stranger, when they have Real Life Friends who also play? Of course not. You only get Bonus Cards from opening Packs, or from buying Hero Cards via RMT, so unless you spend real cash you just won't get that many Bonus Cards to give away. Are you going to send some stranger a Bonus Hero card you only got because you spent real money? Or will you send it to your Brother/Cousin/Best Friend4Life? Yeah, I thought so.
That's a big plus to Warstorm over the other FB Games: you simply do not need to add a bunch of strangers as Friends in order to play the game. Of course your Real Life Friends still need to actually play.
I said earlier that it's not your typical card-based war game, and it's not. In MTG and other games of its ilk you build your deck then duel other players by, usually, dealing yourself a hand, then playing out the game and using your cards to the best of their ability (and your own) to defeat the other player and their cards, in a process requiring a combination of both luck and strategy. In Warstorm, the only strategy comes from the deck building itself, because once a game starts you're even more of an observer than someone playing a low level Paladin. Yes, once a duel begins you'll do nothing more than sit back & watch, and maybe hit the Fast Forward button if you want to speed up the pace a little, which I did.
This may sound boring and/or frustrating in not having any control over how your cards are played ("No! Don't give the Sword of Power to the Mage! He's going to be killed on the next turn! No! Don't Zap the Troll Hero! Target the Flying Imp!") but it's a lot easier to accept that style of play once you realize it's actually a very fair way to resolve combat. You're dueling a random player's deck, not an actual player, meaning they're not actually present to manage their own cards, so letting you control your own cards and Zap their low HP Imp instead of the high HP, regenerating Troll Hero would be giving you an unfair advantage over your opponent.
Here's an example of a Hero Card:
There's already descriptions for the bottom numbers and they're self-explanatory for the most part, although just for clarification purposes your Turn and your opponent's Turn makes two Turns, so a card which readies in 10 Turns will be ready within 5 of your own Turns after being drawn. The three numbers in the top right corner of this Hero's card mean his Squad will be comprised of 6 Units, but no artifacts or spells. A Squad is always a Hero plus 6 Cards so you may also get a Hero who commands 4 Units but takes 2 Artifacts into battle, or 2 spells, or 1 Artifact and 1 Spell. I've not yet seen any Heroes who have more than 2 Artifact and/or Spell cards.
As soon as a Card is Ready it can be used immediately to attack, heal, etc. There is no Tapping or Exhausting of cards. Your cards attack and use their special abilities (if they have any), then your opponent's cards do the same, then your cards, and so on, with the goal being to reduce your opponents Morale from 30 to 0, or destroy all of his units/cards. Morale is reduced by cards attacking unopposed, through Spells or Artifacts such as the Drums of Despair, or via special abilities like Demoralize.
When you start you'll play through a Tutorial which both introduces many of the special abilities in the game, and rewards you with cards with the same. So after beating a Squad of Mages with the Blast Ability you'll receive a Mage or two with Blast, and so on. This makes it very easy to learn how combat and the cards work, and what cards are effective counters to other cards. Unfortunately it also makes the game appear rather easy, so the first time you play a real opponent you might be in for a very rude shock.
After completing the Tutorial you can continue to play the Single Player campaign, which gradually rewards you with more powerful cards, or you can try your luck against other players. But as those players tend to already have the more powerful cards, or even RMT cards, it's advisable to build up your Squads before engaging in the Warstorm equivalent of PvP. I say Squads because if you have sufficient Heroes and Squads you can do up to 4v4 Duels, being 4 of your Squads versus 4 of those from another player. Personally I thought 4 Squads took too long (and usually resulted in my Defeat) so for the most part I'll do 2v2 where my chances of success are much greater and the battles are usually over a lot faster.
Now even though, once you hit Start and the cards start coming out, you become no more than a participant, there's still a lot of excitement from watching a battle unfold as you cheer desperately for certain cards to come out, knowing there's nothing you can do but watch the battle unfold. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. Sometimes you get creamed and wonder just why the hell your opponent seems to have so many cards, and other times the cards go all your way and you're the one with a seemingly invincible army carving up everything your opponent's deck throws at you.
If there's anything negative to say about Warstorm it's that (for me) there was a wall around level 10-12 that I needed to crash through where I just couldn't defeat the next stages in the Single Player campaign, and where I likewise went from seeming to win most of my PvP Duels to just getting crushed in almost every single game. It almost seemed intended, as if to convince me to engage in RMT to advance, instead it made me want to throw in the towel. But I stuck it out, and even losing duels got me silver, and eventually I was able to buy some more card packs, tweak my squads a little more, and I started to win a few more duels. That was also when I accepted that "You can't win 'em all", which made the game more enjoyable as well.
All up I'd say check it out, at least to level 10 or so, to see whether it's your cup of tea. It's free to play so you really have nothing to lose but an evening of messing around. And even if you don't have a Facebook account you can always give the Browser version a try.
Monday, May 03, 2010
WoW: Food for thought
Raid-geared players spend their downtime running Heroics on their Mains so they can get Badges to buy Heirloom gear for their Alts so they don't have to spend as much time playing their Alts. I know, I know. Leveling their Alts, it's the same thing.
Here are some questions to ponder.
How many Heroics do you need to run to obtain enough Badges to buy the Heirloom +XP pieces? How long does that take? Factor in not being a Tank (or being able to queue with one) and spending time in queues.
If your Alt changes Armor at 40 (Leather to Mail, or Mail to Plate), factor in enough Runs to buy multiple sets. Actually I just read that Mail Heirloom Gear apparently reverts to Leather when worn by sub-40 Hunters and Shamans, while Plate Heirloom gear does the same for sub-40 Warriors and Paladins. That's a nice touch but you'll want to buy a set of Leather Heirloom gear anyway for your Rogue and Druid (two Sets if you're leveling a Caster Druid), and don't forget a set of Cloth Heirloom gear for your Squishies. How many Badges is that? 8-10 pieces at 40 each, or 320-400 Badges. And don't forget Weapons for everyone. At 65 Badges per weapon that's another 300+ Badges.
How many Runs will it take to acquire 600-700 (or more) Badges?
What about one Alt? How many Runs will it take to collect just 145 Badges?
And how much time does Heirloom gear really save while leveling Alts?
A level 1 character needs 24,067,200 XP to get to level 80. Whether you run to the nearest Mailbox at level 1 or just complete the starting area quests and get there in due time is a moot point. You need 7600xp to get from level 1 to level 5 (the average point at which a character reaches their first Inn & mailbox) and so a 20% bonus to XP by that point has netted you just 1520 extra XP, or a little more than 1/3 of the 3600 needed to get from level 5 to level 6. It takes approx. 20-30 minutes to get from level 5 to 6 so taking 5 minutes (or so) to run to the nearest Mailbox to get your Heirloom gear at level 1 saves you about 10 minutes.
But we're looking at The Big Picture® and in the grand scheme of things a 20% bonus to XP means you don't need the full 24,067,200XP to go from 1 to 80 but rather 83.3% (recurring decimal) of that. That's 20,056,000 XP, an amount which would put you a little over halfway into 77 if you didn't have Heirloom gear. That's what your 20% Heirloom gear really saves you: that last grind from 77 to 80 which would probably take an experienced Player (and if you have Heirloom gear, that's you) about 2-3 days/evenings questing, running PUGs, etc. Naturally a more casual-paced player is going to take longer to do that last 77-80 grind, but they'll also take longer to gather the 80 Badges for the Heirloom gear, so it all evens out in the end.
Here are some questions to ponder.
How many Heroics do you need to run to obtain enough Badges to buy the Heirloom +XP pieces? How long does that take? Factor in not being a Tank (or being able to queue with one) and spending time in queues.
How many Runs will it take to acquire 600-700 (or more) Badges?
What about one Alt? How many Runs will it take to collect just 145 Badges?
And how much time does Heirloom gear really save while leveling Alts?
A level 1 character needs 24,067,200 XP to get to level 80. Whether you run to the nearest Mailbox at level 1 or just complete the starting area quests and get there in due time is a moot point. You need 7600xp to get from level 1 to level 5 (the average point at which a character reaches their first Inn & mailbox) and so a 20% bonus to XP by that point has netted you just 1520 extra XP, or a little more than 1/3 of the 3600 needed to get from level 5 to level 6. It takes approx. 20-30 minutes to get from level 5 to 6 so taking 5 minutes (or so) to run to the nearest Mailbox to get your Heirloom gear at level 1 saves you about 10 minutes.
But we're looking at The Big Picture® and in the grand scheme of things a 20% bonus to XP means you don't need the full 24,067,200XP to go from 1 to 80 but rather 83.3% (recurring decimal) of that. That's 20,056,000 XP, an amount which would put you a little over halfway into 77 if you didn't have Heirloom gear. That's what your 20% Heirloom gear really saves you: that last grind from 77 to 80 which would probably take an experienced Player (and if you have Heirloom gear, that's you) about 2-3 days/evenings questing, running PUGs, etc. Naturally a more casual-paced player is going to take longer to do that last 77-80 grind, but they'll also take longer to gather the 80 Badges for the Heirloom gear, so it all evens out in the end.
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Plants in Aquariums
We were at one of our local Pet Supplies stores recently. Not a PetCo/PetSmart, not that I have nothing against them, just this local supplier can do better deals on Blue Buffalo and Wellness pet food than I can get at PetCo. I asked the cashier if they carried live plants for aquariums, because I hadn't seen any plants and their fish section was quite small (they don't actual stock animals, just the supplies, feed, etc.) They didn't but she did tell us that there was an aquarium store just up the road.
How we didn't know about it before I don't know, because it was huge! At first I thought it was a pet store because it was so big and it was called PTF Pets (PTF = Pasadena Tropical Fish, btw), but inside were wall-to-wall tanks of fish. But not just fish; crabs and other marine critters and even some strange things that looked like 5-legged Octopus...would that make them Pentapusses? Pentapie?
I asked the lady running the show about plants and she escorted me to a tank with a dozen or so plants floating around the bottom (are they still floating if they're at the bottom?) and I picked out a couple of lively looking sorts (Narrow Leaf Chain Sword, and Red Wendth), then asked her about the proper method of installing them in my tank, because I'd put plants into my tank before which had not survived. Then again, that was probably a combination of the Snail infestation that came along with them, and me being a Noob and not following SOP for planting aquarium plants.
Growing out of the bottom of one of the pots were these lovely long roots and yet when I asked the lady about how to plant the plants she recommended I cut those lovely long roots off. She said if I bent the roots over to bury them in the substrate that it hurts the roots and the plant, and that's not good. That was probably one of the Noob mistakes I made last time. The other was trying to bury the sponge surrounding the roots in the substrate, because...I don't know why, I just did. It didn't work, because it's a sponge and it wanted to float, even when covered by rocks.
This time around I carefully cut the plants out of their little plastic pots and carefully pulled apart and removed the foam sponge surrounding the roots, then I carefully separated the plants because while it wasn't obvious at first glance each pot actually came with more than just one plant.
There were two Chain Swords in their pot, but I'm sad to report that their roots were very brown and I didn't like the look of them (the roots, not the plant itself). I still planted them because (as you'll see from the picture below) their foliage was green and looked quite healthy, so I'll just hope for the best with those two.
From the Red Wendth pot I got over six individual plants (this was the one with the beautiful, long roots) and the boy and I carefully trimmed their beautiful, long roots back to about half an inch before planting them in the tank, too.
Oddly enough, as Pike has noted on her Blog about her fish seeming happier after a water change, my Tetras likewise seemed excited (or at least more active) with the new addition to their tank, as they now have a small underwater forest (of sorts) in which to hide and swim through. Then again, I also did a 25% water change (I have a 2.5 gallon bucket so I siphon out a bucketful of water from my 10-gallon tank then add a bucket of water), partly because it had been over a week since I'd done a water change, partly because I needed to take some water out so when I stuck my arm in the tank it didn't overflow, and partly because I deliberately stirred up the substrate so there was a lot of fish crap floating around. It was so murky that even though I changed the filter prior to the water change, it was covered with junk within minutes and water was backflowing out of the filter. After topping the tank back up to 10-gallons I rinsed even more crud off the filter (yes, again), then later in the evening rinsed it off one more time.
I checked on the fish this morning at breakfast and we still had a tank full of fish, still alive and still seeming to enjoy their new underwater forest home. If they were going to die from something brought in on the new plants, with it being such a small confined space I'd expect the first deaths to occur within hours. But they were alive this morning and they're happy as clams now, 24 hours later, so obviously they've survived the addition of the plants. Now I just need the plants to survive being transplanted into their new home.
Finally, here's a picture...
Click to make FHuge!
How we didn't know about it before I don't know, because it was huge! At first I thought it was a pet store because it was so big and it was called PTF Pets (PTF = Pasadena Tropical Fish, btw), but inside were wall-to-wall tanks of fish. But not just fish; crabs and other marine critters and even some strange things that looked like 5-legged Octopus...would that make them Pentapusses? Pentapie?
I asked the lady running the show about plants and she escorted me to a tank with a dozen or so plants floating around the bottom (are they still floating if they're at the bottom?) and I picked out a couple of lively looking sorts (Narrow Leaf Chain Sword, and Red Wendth), then asked her about the proper method of installing them in my tank, because I'd put plants into my tank before which had not survived. Then again, that was probably a combination of the Snail infestation that came along with them, and me being a Noob and not following SOP for planting aquarium plants.
Growing out of the bottom of one of the pots were these lovely long roots and yet when I asked the lady about how to plant the plants she recommended I cut those lovely long roots off. She said if I bent the roots over to bury them in the substrate that it hurts the roots and the plant, and that's not good. That was probably one of the Noob mistakes I made last time. The other was trying to bury the sponge surrounding the roots in the substrate, because...I don't know why, I just did. It didn't work, because it's a sponge and it wanted to float, even when covered by rocks.
This time around I carefully cut the plants out of their little plastic pots and carefully pulled apart and removed the foam sponge surrounding the roots, then I carefully separated the plants because while it wasn't obvious at first glance each pot actually came with more than just one plant.
There were two Chain Swords in their pot, but I'm sad to report that their roots were very brown and I didn't like the look of them (the roots, not the plant itself). I still planted them because (as you'll see from the picture below) their foliage was green and looked quite healthy, so I'll just hope for the best with those two.
From the Red Wendth pot I got over six individual plants (this was the one with the beautiful, long roots) and the boy and I carefully trimmed their beautiful, long roots back to about half an inch before planting them in the tank, too.
Oddly enough, as Pike has noted on her Blog about her fish seeming happier after a water change, my Tetras likewise seemed excited (or at least more active) with the new addition to their tank, as they now have a small underwater forest (of sorts) in which to hide and swim through. Then again, I also did a 25% water change (I have a 2.5 gallon bucket so I siphon out a bucketful of water from my 10-gallon tank then add a bucket of water), partly because it had been over a week since I'd done a water change, partly because I needed to take some water out so when I stuck my arm in the tank it didn't overflow, and partly because I deliberately stirred up the substrate so there was a lot of fish crap floating around. It was so murky that even though I changed the filter prior to the water change, it was covered with junk within minutes and water was backflowing out of the filter. After topping the tank back up to 10-gallons I rinsed even more crud off the filter (yes, again), then later in the evening rinsed it off one more time.
I checked on the fish this morning at breakfast and we still had a tank full of fish, still alive and still seeming to enjoy their new underwater forest home. If they were going to die from something brought in on the new plants, with it being such a small confined space I'd expect the first deaths to occur within hours. But they were alive this morning and they're happy as clams now, 24 hours later, so obviously they've survived the addition of the plants. Now I just need the plants to survive being transplanted into their new home.
Finally, here's a picture...
Click to make FHuge!Sunday, April 25, 2010
Tanking in CoS
I've been slowly upgrading my Tanking gear via the Auction House, with Drops (when the Tank doesn't Need them), and Badge items, but despite reading how easy it is to hit 540 Defense I'm still at approx. 480. But that still doesn't stop me from offering to Tank in a pinch when we really need to, such as on a recent Heroic CoS.
The Warrior Tank was clearly new to the game and expressed unfamiliarity with the CoS Instance, and we lost & replaced two Healers and two DPS before we finished the 10 Waves. (There were not going to be any Bronze Drake Reins dropping on this Run.) After hooking up with Arthas and our third replacement Healer and DPS we got to the top of the stairs and once again things went south in a heartbeat.
Lying dead on the floor I quickly whispered the Druid Healer not to drop group, that we'd kick the Tank and I'd take over. I knew the Hunter who'd stuck with me through this would kick the Tank if it was put to the Vote, and just like that the Tank was gone. I switched to Prot, donned my Tank gear and, to his credit, the Druid did not take one look at me and immediately drop group, although he did whisper me and ask if I had any more +Def gear.
This is it, I replied, but I do know this Instance and what I'm doing.
It's okay, he whispered back, I'll keep you up.
We restarted the Arthas encounter and everything went a lot smoother, although I did forget the third wave that ambush the party in the short corridor immediately before Epoch. That was certainly an 'Oops!' moment as I ran through to Epoch's room then stood there wondering what was keeping the others. (So much for knowing the Instance.) Back into the corridor I went, laying down Consecrate and doing everything I could as fast as I could to grab Aggro. We survived. Arthas makes for a good Tank in a pinch and Druid Healers are my favourite. I'm not saying they're better than the others, I just seem to have smoother runs when I'm backed up by a Druid.
After taking out Epoch and running the last gauntlet of Undead before getting to Mal'Ganis the Healer whispered me "OMG this is horrible!"
I whispered back, "But maybe just a little fun?" (Healers secretly love it when we overpull and give them something to do ;)
"Maybe ;)" was their reply.
We got to Mal'Ganis, Arthas and he had their chat, then I ran through my rotation and like I knew he would the Druid healed through my deficient Defense and the Demon Lord went down. But not without casualties. The Druid (or perhaps it was the other DPS) had whispered me earlier about the Hunter sucking but I'd chosen to ignore that whisper. Well the Hunter had died during the Mal'Ganis fight and he was not very happy about it, especially when the Druid told him to learn to DPS.
"You need to learn how to heal!" he retorted.
"Go die in a fire! :D" replied the Druid.
I looked at the Hunter, lying dead on the floor, and I just couldn't help myself.
"I think he already did :D" I typed.
The Warrior Tank was clearly new to the game and expressed unfamiliarity with the CoS Instance, and we lost & replaced two Healers and two DPS before we finished the 10 Waves. (There were not going to be any Bronze Drake Reins dropping on this Run.) After hooking up with Arthas and our third replacement Healer and DPS we got to the top of the stairs and once again things went south in a heartbeat.
Lying dead on the floor I quickly whispered the Druid Healer not to drop group, that we'd kick the Tank and I'd take over. I knew the Hunter who'd stuck with me through this would kick the Tank if it was put to the Vote, and just like that the Tank was gone. I switched to Prot, donned my Tank gear and, to his credit, the Druid did not take one look at me and immediately drop group, although he did whisper me and ask if I had any more +Def gear.
This is it, I replied, but I do know this Instance and what I'm doing.
It's okay, he whispered back, I'll keep you up.
We restarted the Arthas encounter and everything went a lot smoother, although I did forget the third wave that ambush the party in the short corridor immediately before Epoch. That was certainly an 'Oops!' moment as I ran through to Epoch's room then stood there wondering what was keeping the others. (So much for knowing the Instance.) Back into the corridor I went, laying down Consecrate and doing everything I could as fast as I could to grab Aggro. We survived. Arthas makes for a good Tank in a pinch and Druid Healers are my favourite. I'm not saying they're better than the others, I just seem to have smoother runs when I'm backed up by a Druid.
After taking out Epoch and running the last gauntlet of Undead before getting to Mal'Ganis the Healer whispered me "OMG this is horrible!"
I whispered back, "But maybe just a little fun?" (Healers secretly love it when we overpull and give them something to do ;)
"Maybe ;)" was their reply.
We got to Mal'Ganis, Arthas and he had their chat, then I ran through my rotation and like I knew he would the Druid healed through my deficient Defense and the Demon Lord went down. But not without casualties. The Druid (or perhaps it was the other DPS) had whispered me earlier about the Hunter sucking but I'd chosen to ignore that whisper. Well the Hunter had died during the Mal'Ganis fight and he was not very happy about it, especially when the Druid told him to learn to DPS.
"You need to learn how to heal!" he retorted.
"Go die in a fire! :D" replied the Druid.
I looked at the Hunter, lying dead on the floor, and I just couldn't help myself.
"I think he already did :D" I typed.
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Tanking: Perspiration, Inspiration, Perception.
After the first Heroic Random of the night I like to do a Heroic Normal. Not because I need the gear but because the Run is usually more relaxed, I get 2 Emblems of Triumph just like doing a subsequent Heroic, and I get more 50% more Gold. (I know, I know. Heroic sub-Bosses often hand out Triumphs like candy to trick-or-treaters, and Heroic vendor trash is usually worth more than Normal trash, yeah yeah. Normal is just relaxing, usually, okay?)
So I sign up for a Normal as Ret, wait a few minutes, and eventually find myself in the Pit of Saron. Everything progresses smoothly until we get to Tyrannus when the Warrior Tank starts throwing knives at him while he's flying around on his dragon waving his ePeen at us. Now pissed off and having had his say the Scourgelord refuses to come down and play. The Warrior says "bugged" (No shit, Sherlock), LOLs, and drops group, forcing us to wipe to reset the encounter, now sans Tank. Thanks for nothing, buddy.
While waiting I hit up the WoWWiki on Tyrannus and read through it. I can do this. I tell the group I'm dual-spec'd Ret/Prot and have reasonable but not fantastic Tanking gear. With DPS being easier to replace than a Tank my offer is accepted and we re-queue. Several minutes go by. No DPS. I re-read the the Boss strategy to make sure I know what I'm doing. Tyrannus is an easy Tank & Spank fight, as long as you avoid the splash damage from his dragon's ice breath and, if possible, drag him through his own mount's icy drool puddles. I'm not Def Capped (I have some +Def pieces, including this baby) but this is a Normal Run and I'm wearing almost all Purples. Nothing to it. Hopefully.
Still no DPS.
"Let's do this. 4-man it," says one of my comrades-in-arms.
And so we did.
It was intense. Really, seriously, freaking intense. My health got low at a couple of points but we got through it. Normal Tyrannus. 4-manned. Tanked by yours truly.
As Jaina started on her spiel our DPS finally showed up. Sorry buddy, you're too late. The party's over.
Next night. Halls of Reflection. Again a Normal Random PUG.
I dropped in mid-way through the opening battle, picked up what was going on (after a few seconds, it's rather disorienting to zone into the middle of a brawl) and started doing my Retadin thing. We downed Marwyn and apparently he didn't drop what one of the DPS wanted, so he dropped group as we ran down the corridor towards Arthas and Jaina. Then the Tank dropped group. I guess he didn't want to wait for a replacement DPS, even though the hardest part of the Run was already over and DPS are usually easily replaced.
After re-queuing and waiting a few minutes I offer to Tank the rest of the Instance in Prot spec, and again state that I don't have fantastic gear but it will do the job (for the content we had left, and if you know HoF you'll know we already had the worst of the Run behind us). The Healer and other DPS accept my offer and as we re-queue I switch to Prot, but when I don my Tank gear the Healer speaks up.
"Please tell me that's not your Tank set," he says.
It is, yes, I reply. Before I can add that it had done the job on Tyrannus the night before the Healer says, "F**k you both," and drops group.
"What an arse," says the remaining DPS.
We decided to hang out in the queue for a little while longer to see if we can't pick up another Healer and 2 more DPS but after 10 more minutes, with DPS coming then going (or at least their spot being filled out in the popup at the little eye on the Minimap) we decide there's no point throwing any more good time after bad time. We call it quits and bid each other adieu.
Next night. Heroic Utgarde Pinnacle. We head in with a Warrior Tank with almost less Health than me, and at 25-28K (depending on buffs) that should have been a sign. He manages to Tank the first room, then we head outside to Raven's Watch where we wipe on the first pack.
We regroup, run back in, rebuff, run out to Raven's Watch...and Wipe again.
The Warrior drops group and almost immediately a new Warrior takes his place. This guy has almost twice the health of the first guy, but the gear does not make the man and we wipe again in the very same place. This Tank doesn't wait for a second shot, drops group and almost immediately is replaced by a Tankadin. Finally we have a guy who knows what he's doing and we clear the Instance in almost record time, missing out on some sort of Speedy Kill achievement on Skadi the Ruthless by literally seconds.
So I sign up for a Normal as Ret, wait a few minutes, and eventually find myself in the Pit of Saron. Everything progresses smoothly until we get to Tyrannus when the Warrior Tank starts throwing knives at him while he's flying around on his dragon waving his ePeen at us. Now pissed off and having had his say the Scourgelord refuses to come down and play. The Warrior says "bugged" (No shit, Sherlock), LOLs, and drops group, forcing us to wipe to reset the encounter, now sans Tank. Thanks for nothing, buddy.
While waiting I hit up the WoWWiki on Tyrannus and read through it. I can do this. I tell the group I'm dual-spec'd Ret/Prot and have reasonable but not fantastic Tanking gear. With DPS being easier to replace than a Tank my offer is accepted and we re-queue. Several minutes go by. No DPS. I re-read the the Boss strategy to make sure I know what I'm doing. Tyrannus is an easy Tank & Spank fight, as long as you avoid the splash damage from his dragon's ice breath and, if possible, drag him through his own mount's icy drool puddles. I'm not Def Capped (I have some +Def pieces, including this baby) but this is a Normal Run and I'm wearing almost all Purples. Nothing to it. Hopefully.
Still no DPS.
"Let's do this. 4-man it," says one of my comrades-in-arms.
And so we did.
It was intense. Really, seriously, freaking intense. My health got low at a couple of points but we got through it. Normal Tyrannus. 4-manned. Tanked by yours truly.
As Jaina started on her spiel our DPS finally showed up. Sorry buddy, you're too late. The party's over.
Next night. Halls of Reflection. Again a Normal Random PUG.
I dropped in mid-way through the opening battle, picked up what was going on (after a few seconds, it's rather disorienting to zone into the middle of a brawl) and started doing my Retadin thing. We downed Marwyn and apparently he didn't drop what one of the DPS wanted, so he dropped group as we ran down the corridor towards Arthas and Jaina. Then the Tank dropped group. I guess he didn't want to wait for a replacement DPS, even though the hardest part of the Run was already over and DPS are usually easily replaced.
After re-queuing and waiting a few minutes I offer to Tank the rest of the Instance in Prot spec, and again state that I don't have fantastic gear but it will do the job (for the content we had left, and if you know HoF you'll know we already had the worst of the Run behind us). The Healer and other DPS accept my offer and as we re-queue I switch to Prot, but when I don my Tank gear the Healer speaks up.
"Please tell me that's not your Tank set," he says.
It is, yes, I reply. Before I can add that it had done the job on Tyrannus the night before the Healer says, "F**k you both," and drops group.
"What an arse," says the remaining DPS.
We decided to hang out in the queue for a little while longer to see if we can't pick up another Healer and 2 more DPS but after 10 more minutes, with DPS coming then going (or at least their spot being filled out in the popup at the little eye on the Minimap) we decide there's no point throwing any more good time after bad time. We call it quits and bid each other adieu.
Next night. Heroic Utgarde Pinnacle. We head in with a Warrior Tank with almost less Health than me, and at 25-28K (depending on buffs) that should have been a sign. He manages to Tank the first room, then we head outside to Raven's Watch where we wipe on the first pack.
We regroup, run back in, rebuff, run out to Raven's Watch...and Wipe again.
The Warrior drops group and almost immediately a new Warrior takes his place. This guy has almost twice the health of the first guy, but the gear does not make the man and we wipe again in the very same place. This Tank doesn't wait for a second shot, drops group and almost immediately is replaced by a Tankadin. Finally we have a guy who knows what he's doing and we clear the Instance in almost record time, missing out on some sort of Speedy Kill achievement on Skadi the Ruthless by literally seconds.
Thursday, April 15, 2010
Email Headers: Internet Detectiving 101
Time for some gibberish (for most of us, but not for some).
This is the full header of a recent Phishing email I received.
From wowaccountadmin@blizzard.com Thu Apr 15 07:49:15 2010
X-Apparently-To: me@yahoo.com via 67.195.8.205; Thu, 15 Apr 2010 00:49:33 -0700
Return-Path: sylve@hotmail.fr
X-YahooFilteredBulk: 65.55.111.76
X-Originating-IP: [65.55.111.76]
Authentication-Results: mta1059.mail.sp2.yahoo.com from=hotmail.fr; domainkeys=neutral (no sig); from=blizzard.com; dkim=neutral (no sig)
Received: from 127.0.0.1 (EHLO blu0-omc2-s1.blu0.hotmail.com) (65.55.111.76)
by mta1059.mail.sp2.yahoo.com with SMTP; Thu, 15 Apr 2010 00:49:33 -0700
Received: from BLU0-SMTP93 ([65.55.111.71]) by blu0-omc2-s1.blu0.hotmail.com with Microsoft SMTPSVC(6.0.3790.3959);
Thu, 15 Apr 2010 00:49:12 -0700
X-Originating-IP: [222.94.32.217]
X-Originating-Email: [sylve@hotmail.fr]
Message-ID: BLU0-SMTP9322D8F095F0D27C44F50ECF0F0@phx.gbl
Return-Path: sylve@hotmail.fr
Received: from vlpxfrcn ([222.94.32.217]) by BLU0-SMTP93.blu0.hotmail.com over TLS secured channel with Microsoft SMTPSVC(6.0.3790.4675);
Thu, 15 Apr 2010 00:49:10 -0700
Sender: sylve@hotmail.fr
From: "wowaccountadmin@blizzard.com" wowaccountadmin@blizzard.com
To: me@yahoo.com
Subject: World Of Warcraft-Account Instructions
Date: Thu, 15 Apr 2010 15:49:15 +0800
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
boundary="----=_NextPart_000_0E74_01A76424.11700BC0"
X-Priority: 3
X-MSMail-Priority: Normal
X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2900.5512
X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2900.5512
X-OriginalArrivalTime: 15 Apr 2010 07:49:11.0296 (UTC) FILETIME=[22DEE000:01CADC70]
Content-Length: 5211
At first glance it looks like the email came from wowaccountadmin@blizzard.com but then you notice the Return Path has a different email address, from France. Sourges to be precise (I found the guy on Facebook via his email). But did Sylvain Borreda really send this email? Or did someone hack his email account?
The earliest and most reliable record of the email entering cyberspace is the bolded line, Received: from vlpxfrcn ([222.94.32.217]). Googling this IP brings up a couple of pages, almost all being reverse IP Lookup pages...except for one, a non-existent page at: http://nj.livingchina.cn (A Chinese website. How cliché.)
If you're following along at home and you clicked the actual link on your Google search page you'll see that the specific page at livingchina.cn no longer exists/cannot be found, etc.
But back on the Google search results page we can see that along with the IP there is additional identifying information. There's a phone number and an email address, and if we now Google gftaiyq@163.com we discover the apparently true identity of Mr. 222.94.32.217 aka Guofang Tao, a Real Estate broker in Nanjing, China. (Go figure.) But is Guofang Tao really our Phisher? He is Chinese, but that doesn't automatically make him a Chinese Gold Farmer/Phisherman. He's like a Tootsie Roll Pop: the world may never know, because this is as far as my Internet sleuthing skills can take us.
This is the full header of a recent Phishing email I received.
From wowaccountadmin@blizzard.com Thu Apr 15 07:49:15 2010
X-Apparently-To: me@yahoo.com via 67.195.8.205; Thu, 15 Apr 2010 00:49:33 -0700
Return-Path: sylve@hotmail.fr
X-YahooFilteredBulk: 65.55.111.76
X-Originating-IP: [65.55.111.76]
Authentication-Results: mta1059.mail.sp2.yahoo.com from=hotmail.fr; domainkeys=neutral (no sig); from=blizzard.com; dkim=neutral (no sig)
Received: from 127.0.0.1 (EHLO blu0-omc2-s1.blu0.hotmail.com) (65.55.111.76)
by mta1059.mail.sp2.yahoo.com with SMTP; Thu, 15 Apr 2010 00:49:33 -0700
Received: from BLU0-SMTP93 ([65.55.111.71]) by blu0-omc2-s1.blu0.hotmail.com with Microsoft SMTPSVC(6.0.3790.3959);
Thu, 15 Apr 2010 00:49:12 -0700
X-Originating-IP: [222.94.32.217]
X-Originating-Email: [sylve@hotmail.fr]
Message-ID: BLU0-SMTP9322D8F095F0D27C44F50ECF0F0@phx.gbl
Return-Path: sylve@hotmail.fr
Received: from vlpxfrcn ([222.94.32.217]) by BLU0-SMTP93.blu0.hotmail.com over TLS secured channel with Microsoft SMTPSVC(6.0.3790.4675);
Thu, 15 Apr 2010 00:49:10 -0700
Sender: sylve@hotmail.fr
From: "wowaccountadmin@blizzard.com" wowaccountadmin@blizzard.com
To: me@yahoo.com
Subject: World Of Warcraft-Account Instructions
Date: Thu, 15 Apr 2010 15:49:15 +0800
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
boundary="----=_NextPart_000_0E74_01A76424.11700BC0"
X-Priority: 3
X-MSMail-Priority: Normal
X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2900.5512
X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2900.5512
X-OriginalArrivalTime: 15 Apr 2010 07:49:11.0296 (UTC) FILETIME=[22DEE000:01CADC70]
Content-Length: 5211
At first glance it looks like the email came from wowaccountadmin@blizzard.com but then you notice the Return Path has a different email address, from France. Sourges to be precise (I found the guy on Facebook via his email). But did Sylvain Borreda really send this email? Or did someone hack his email account?
The earliest and most reliable record of the email entering cyberspace is the bolded line, Received: from vlpxfrcn ([222.94.32.217]). Googling this IP brings up a couple of pages, almost all being reverse IP Lookup pages...except for one, a non-existent page at: http://nj.livingchina.cn (A Chinese website. How cliché.)
If you're following along at home and you clicked the actual link on your Google search page you'll see that the specific page at livingchina.cn no longer exists/cannot be found, etc.
But back on the Google search results page we can see that along with the IP there is additional identifying information. There's a phone number and an email address, and if we now Google gftaiyq@163.com we discover the apparently true identity of Mr. 222.94.32.217 aka Guofang Tao, a Real Estate broker in Nanjing, China. (Go figure.) But is Guofang Tao really our Phisher? He is Chinese, but that doesn't automatically make him a Chinese Gold Farmer/Phisherman. He's like a Tootsie Roll Pop: the world may never know, because this is as far as my Internet sleuthing skills can take us.
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Can you Ninja with a Greed Roll?
After getting all my gear back (some time really early Monday morning, according to the emails in my Inbox), I reinstalled WoW, BC, & Wrath, then commenced patching, and after about 4-5 hours I was logging in to play. (Despite having DSL my WoW patch DL speeds are not terribly fast. "Why, you seem to be behind a Firewall!" the Downloader will report, as if that's a bad thing)
My first Heroic on Monday night brought my Emblem of Frost total to 30 (I got all my badges & emblems back, praise Orion!) and I promptly spent them all on the i264 Libram of Three Truths.
Tonight I queued up for another random Heroic and found myself in the rather fun (at least I think so) Culling of Stratholme. I've done this one a few times on Heroic and seen a couple of Reins of the Bronze Drake drop. Some people Pass while others gleefully Roll, so I take my queue from those who do. When people roll Need I roll Need. Other times they'll roll Greed so I'll follow suit. On tonight's Run the Drake was mentioned just once as we ran through, with someone asking if we planned to do it. (Barring running out of time I wasn't aware it was optional, but apparently it is.)
We got to the Corruptor and killed him within the 25 minutes so naturally he dropped the Drake. Someone said Gratz and the first three rolls were Passes. I sat there watching the screen for a few seconds. I didn't need the Drake. I wanted it, but I didn't Need it. The fourth player rolled Greed so I followed his lead and hit Greed as well. He rolled low, I rolled high, and with that I had myself a new Epic Flying Mount.
As the group moved on to Mal'Ganis I was almost expecting to be booted from the party for being a Ninja, but it didn't happen. The player who lost the Roll never said anything, neither in Party Chat nor Tells, and if he had I was prepared to hand it over to him, even though I'd won the Roll. Not because I didn't care to be labeled a Ninja, simply because I didn't really need the Mount. But nothing more was said and we moved on and defeated Mal'Ganis.
The first time I got the Culling of Time achievement BIL and Steve congratulated me and asked if I'd won the Drake. When I told them I'd rolled Greed like the others they were stunned. "Dude! You Need Roll that!" they said to me, but I didn't feel right Need rolling on a Vanity item when others were just Greed Rolling.
Now I'd won the Vanity item with a Greed Roll and I still wondered if I'd done the right thing. Sometimes I think I'm a little too much like Melvin Smiley.
My first Heroic on Monday night brought my Emblem of Frost total to 30 (I got all my badges & emblems back, praise Orion!) and I promptly spent them all on the i264 Libram of Three Truths.
Tonight I queued up for another random Heroic and found myself in the rather fun (at least I think so) Culling of Stratholme. I've done this one a few times on Heroic and seen a couple of Reins of the Bronze Drake drop. Some people Pass while others gleefully Roll, so I take my queue from those who do. When people roll Need I roll Need. Other times they'll roll Greed so I'll follow suit. On tonight's Run the Drake was mentioned just once as we ran through, with someone asking if we planned to do it. (Barring running out of time I wasn't aware it was optional, but apparently it is.)
We got to the Corruptor and killed him within the 25 minutes so naturally he dropped the Drake. Someone said Gratz and the first three rolls were Passes. I sat there watching the screen for a few seconds. I didn't need the Drake. I wanted it, but I didn't Need it. The fourth player rolled Greed so I followed his lead and hit Greed as well. He rolled low, I rolled high, and with that I had myself a new Epic Flying Mount.
As the group moved on to Mal'Ganis I was almost expecting to be booted from the party for being a Ninja, but it didn't happen. The player who lost the Roll never said anything, neither in Party Chat nor Tells, and if he had I was prepared to hand it over to him, even though I'd won the Roll. Not because I didn't care to be labeled a Ninja, simply because I didn't really need the Mount. But nothing more was said and we moved on and defeated Mal'Ganis.
The first time I got the Culling of Time achievement BIL and Steve congratulated me and asked if I'd won the Drake. When I told them I'd rolled Greed like the others they were stunned. "Dude! You Need Roll that!" they said to me, but I didn't feel right Need rolling on a Vanity item when others were just Greed Rolling.
Now I'd won the Vanity item with a Greed Roll and I still wondered if I'd done the right thing. Sometimes I think I'm a little too much like Melvin Smiley.
Monday, April 12, 2010
Wii: MySims Agents
After quickly checking out a video review on my phone (you might think I'm crazy, but if you really believe we're not fast approaching The Singularity then I say you're the delusional one, so there :P) I decided MySims Agents was worth 10,000 of our 27,000 Dave & Buster points and having played it for several hours over the weekend, including watching both my kids play it (5 y/old daughter, 9 y/old son) I'm still in agreement with my earlier decision. This game is definitely worth getting, and not only if you have youngsters. Apparently you can pick it up new for $20 but we already had the D&B points so it was sort of like it was free. Either way it's good value.
The first mission, determining the owner of a dog, teaches you the basics without feeling too much like a Tutorial. You talk to people, get leads from them and make 'notes' in your Notebook, which you can review if you get lost or have to Save & Quit and can't return for a while so forget where you were at (which is more likely). You also interact with items in the game world like prying open boxes with your Crowbar, fixing/repairing/salvaging items with your Wrench, or finding clues/footprints, etc, with your magnifying glass. All three tools get upgraded over the course of the game, gradually allowing you to perform a greater variety of tasks like moving boxes around to create steps to access new areas, picking locks, repairing broken items, or analyzing items of note. All of these activities are completed in minigames by you, the player, not automatically by your avatar, which makes this more than just a simple, point & click adventure game.
You pick locks in a manner very similar to the puzzle game 'Rush Hour' and while the first couple of puzzles were easily solved, as I expected they would they quickly ramped up in difficulty. Nothing taxing, yet, but I'm only halfway through the game. (Actually I'm halfway through as far as Missions go, but last night's Mission took me several hours to complete compared to the first which was solved in barely an hour. I did do a lot of exploring and I'm sure I could do that Mission a lot faster now that I know what's going on, but if the Missions continue to get more involved I'd hazard a guess that I'm maybe only a third of the way into the game.)
Repairing broken items is a basic (so far) version of the classic PC game The Incredible Machine, and requires you to get the 'colored' parts on the board moving, using a limited number of pieces to connect batteries and wires with cogs and belts.
Analyzing items could best be described as a Molecule builder game. Sometimes you start with an empty board, sometimes you'll have a couple of atoms already in place. In either case you'll also have a 'bank' of atoms that all need to be placed on the board, some of which will only connect to 1 other atom while others will connect to 2, 3 or 4 atoms, and this is the mini-game that has been the most challenging so far.
The mini-games serve to both involve the player in the game, and make it more than just a case of walk around, talk to everyone, click on everything, now see if anyone has new dialog. Considering that's what even the most hardcore point & click adventures often boil down to, that's not necessarily a negative for those who like this type of game. If you're looking for action, you've come to the wrong town. This game requires to stop, read, & think about what to do or where to go next. And while you do have your Notebook and could just skip through the dialog ("Yeah, yeah. Kill 10 rats. Got it! Shut up already!") and consult that, unlike your quests in an MMO there is no end game in MySims Agents; the Journey IS the game, so I see no point in rushing through the game (it's short enough as it is!) Yes, it is a short game, but at $20 it's also a cheap game. Without a doubt you could rent it and beat it in a weekend if you cared to, so to add longevity they've included a 'collection' game, of sorts.
Scattered throughout the game are chests, boxes, and various 'easter eggs', and finding/opening these rewards you with clothing, accessories, or costumes for your Agent, or furniture or decorations for your Headquarters.
What's the deal with decorating your HQ?
Each of the items comes with a bonus to one or more of five attributes (off the top of my head, Science, Charisma, Nature, Sport, & Paranormal), and when placed on one of the four floors in your HQ (five including the lobby, but you can't decorate that) those bonuses increase the appropriate stat/attribute of the Team you have housed there.
The Team? Isn't this a game about your Secret Agent?
Well yes, it is, but as you play the game and complete Missions you'll meet various characters, and when a Mission is over you can recruit some of these characters, who will also have a combination of one or more of the five attributes. Some of them are fairly well-rounded and will have 1 to 3 points in 2 to 3 attributes (5 points total), some will be more specialized and will have 3, 4, or even 5 points in a particular attribute. Assigning similar characters to the same floor (maximum of 3 characters per floor) creates a team strong in one or two areas (and naturally weak in others), so placing items that enhance that team's dominant attribute will make for a team very strong in one or two areas.
But why Teams?
Because you can send these Teams out on Missions of their own, and their chances of success are based on how relevant their skills are to the particular mission, from Poor to Excellent. Successfully completing these Team Missions unlocks harder Team Missions and also rewards you with new items.
The Teams also don't just go out on their own, they'll check in with you from time to time, and often at an annoyingly inconvenient time, ("I'm walking across an I-beam 3 stories up here! You think you could call back later? No? Fine, what is it?") requiring you to make decisions possibly (still not sure if it's random or not) affecting the outcome of their Mission. For example, one Mission has your Team trying to get a Client to the movies (exciting stuff for Secret Agents, I know) and the battery on their phone is running out (so they called you and drained their battery even further. Smart Team you've got there.) They have enough power to check movie times or traffic conditions, and they want to know what to do. (Pop Quiz, Hot Shot! What do you do? What. Do. You. Do?) In my case I told them to check the traffic, so what happened? They called back to say "The traffic looks fine." Now I was worried that I should have checked the movie times in case there was a later showing, but I worried for nothing because they made it on time. Well of course they did, because they didn't encounter any traffic problems.
You're not really micromanaging your Teams on their missions. Usually you'll make 2-3 decisions per Team Mission at most, but when you've got 4 Teams out on Missions that adds up to 8-12 decisions you might have to make. Throw in that the Teams will often call in just to let you know there are no problems, and you literally can be balancing on an I-beam when a call comes in. "Everything is fine? That's great! Can I get back to trying not to fall 40-feet to my death now? I can? Thank you!"
Actually you can't die, at least not that I've found. So if you ever do fall off a rafter, I-beam, etc, you'll either land on the ground below or miraculously reappear at the beginning of your rafter, I-beam, etc. This is a MySims game, after all. It's designed for the kids, but it's sufficiently well done that it has a lot of 'grown-up kid' appeal, too. It doesn't have flashy graphics or gratuitous cleavage shots, there's occasional clipping in the animation, and it can be rather linear, but it's still a very well done adventure game that's fun for the whole family (except maybe 13-year old Jimmy who'd rather be playing Soul Caliber, and I can't fault him for that ;)
The first mission, determining the owner of a dog, teaches you the basics without feeling too much like a Tutorial. You talk to people, get leads from them and make 'notes' in your Notebook, which you can review if you get lost or have to Save & Quit and can't return for a while so forget where you were at (which is more likely). You also interact with items in the game world like prying open boxes with your Crowbar, fixing/repairing/salvaging items with your Wrench, or finding clues/footprints, etc, with your magnifying glass. All three tools get upgraded over the course of the game, gradually allowing you to perform a greater variety of tasks like moving boxes around to create steps to access new areas, picking locks, repairing broken items, or analyzing items of note. All of these activities are completed in minigames by you, the player, not automatically by your avatar, which makes this more than just a simple, point & click adventure game.
You pick locks in a manner very similar to the puzzle game 'Rush Hour' and while the first couple of puzzles were easily solved, as I expected they would they quickly ramped up in difficulty. Nothing taxing, yet, but I'm only halfway through the game. (Actually I'm halfway through as far as Missions go, but last night's Mission took me several hours to complete compared to the first which was solved in barely an hour. I did do a lot of exploring and I'm sure I could do that Mission a lot faster now that I know what's going on, but if the Missions continue to get more involved I'd hazard a guess that I'm maybe only a third of the way into the game.)
Repairing broken items is a basic (so far) version of the classic PC game The Incredible Machine, and requires you to get the 'colored' parts on the board moving, using a limited number of pieces to connect batteries and wires with cogs and belts.
Analyzing items could best be described as a Molecule builder game. Sometimes you start with an empty board, sometimes you'll have a couple of atoms already in place. In either case you'll also have a 'bank' of atoms that all need to be placed on the board, some of which will only connect to 1 other atom while others will connect to 2, 3 or 4 atoms, and this is the mini-game that has been the most challenging so far.
The mini-games serve to both involve the player in the game, and make it more than just a case of walk around, talk to everyone, click on everything, now see if anyone has new dialog. Considering that's what even the most hardcore point & click adventures often boil down to, that's not necessarily a negative for those who like this type of game. If you're looking for action, you've come to the wrong town. This game requires to stop, read, & think about what to do or where to go next. And while you do have your Notebook and could just skip through the dialog ("Yeah, yeah. Kill 10 rats. Got it! Shut up already!") and consult that, unlike your quests in an MMO there is no end game in MySims Agents; the Journey IS the game, so I see no point in rushing through the game (it's short enough as it is!) Yes, it is a short game, but at $20 it's also a cheap game. Without a doubt you could rent it and beat it in a weekend if you cared to, so to add longevity they've included a 'collection' game, of sorts.
Scattered throughout the game are chests, boxes, and various 'easter eggs', and finding/opening these rewards you with clothing, accessories, or costumes for your Agent, or furniture or decorations for your Headquarters.
What's the deal with decorating your HQ?
Each of the items comes with a bonus to one or more of five attributes (off the top of my head, Science, Charisma, Nature, Sport, & Paranormal), and when placed on one of the four floors in your HQ (five including the lobby, but you can't decorate that) those bonuses increase the appropriate stat/attribute of the Team you have housed there.
The Team? Isn't this a game about your Secret Agent?
Well yes, it is, but as you play the game and complete Missions you'll meet various characters, and when a Mission is over you can recruit some of these characters, who will also have a combination of one or more of the five attributes. Some of them are fairly well-rounded and will have 1 to 3 points in 2 to 3 attributes (5 points total), some will be more specialized and will have 3, 4, or even 5 points in a particular attribute. Assigning similar characters to the same floor (maximum of 3 characters per floor) creates a team strong in one or two areas (and naturally weak in others), so placing items that enhance that team's dominant attribute will make for a team very strong in one or two areas.
But why Teams?
Because you can send these Teams out on Missions of their own, and their chances of success are based on how relevant their skills are to the particular mission, from Poor to Excellent. Successfully completing these Team Missions unlocks harder Team Missions and also rewards you with new items.
The Teams also don't just go out on their own, they'll check in with you from time to time, and often at an annoyingly inconvenient time, ("I'm walking across an I-beam 3 stories up here! You think you could call back later? No? Fine, what is it?") requiring you to make decisions possibly (still not sure if it's random or not) affecting the outcome of their Mission. For example, one Mission has your Team trying to get a Client to the movies (exciting stuff for Secret Agents, I know) and the battery on their phone is running out (so they called you and drained their battery even further. Smart Team you've got there.) They have enough power to check movie times or traffic conditions, and they want to know what to do. (Pop Quiz, Hot Shot! What do you do? What. Do. You. Do?) In my case I told them to check the traffic, so what happened? They called back to say "The traffic looks fine." Now I was worried that I should have checked the movie times in case there was a later showing, but I worried for nothing because they made it on time. Well of course they did, because they didn't encounter any traffic problems.
You're not really micromanaging your Teams on their missions. Usually you'll make 2-3 decisions per Team Mission at most, but when you've got 4 Teams out on Missions that adds up to 8-12 decisions you might have to make. Throw in that the Teams will often call in just to let you know there are no problems, and you literally can be balancing on an I-beam when a call comes in. "Everything is fine? That's great! Can I get back to trying not to fall 40-feet to my death now? I can? Thank you!"
Actually you can't die, at least not that I've found. So if you ever do fall off a rafter, I-beam, etc, you'll either land on the ground below or miraculously reappear at the beginning of your rafter, I-beam, etc. This is a MySims game, after all. It's designed for the kids, but it's sufficiently well done that it has a lot of 'grown-up kid' appeal, too. It doesn't have flashy graphics or gratuitous cleavage shots, there's occasional clipping in the animation, and it can be rather linear, but it's still a very well done adventure game that's fun for the whole family (except maybe 13-year old Jimmy who'd rather be playing Soul Caliber, and I can't fault him for that ;)
Saturday, April 10, 2010
Hacked
More than once I've tried to log into WoW and got the 'incorrect password' message, and a chill always runs up my spine at seeing that, but when I re-type my password slowly (and correctly) I always get in.
This time I fired up WoW to log in and instead of 'incorrect password' I see 'Please enter your authenticator key'.
My what now? But I don't have an Authenticator!
And that's how I knew I'd been hacked.
I immediately retrieved the two emails I'd just deleted which, like the ones I've been getting every day for a month or two now, tried to warn me that I'd been hacked. When I moused over the URL in one of them it showed Blizzard's real URL. I actually had been hacked.
I called Blizzard and got "We're experiencing a high volume of calls right now. All operators are busy and we cannot take your call. Please try again later. *click*"
What the fuck???
They're so busy taking calls I can't even wait On Hold for the next available Operator?
To me that says they've got a majorly serious problem.
Here's the rub.
The password I use is not one I've used for anything but World of Warcraft.
The only person who has access to my WoW account is my wife and my 9 y/old son, and that's via my PC.
My PC is also pretty much used for nothing but WoW. Ok, there's the checking of email, Facebook activities, reading Blogs, etc, but for the most part I play WoW and that's about it.
I do visit sites like WoWWiki, WoWHead, Thotbott (or however it's spelled) but I'm also a security freak and have numerous anti-spyware programs like NoScript, AdBlock, AVG, Spybot S&D, etc.
I also doubt anyone could call Blizzard pretending to be me and satisfactorily answer my Security questions, not unless they're someone who knows me really, really well. And no, my wife wouldn't do this. That's not her style. She'd just log in on my account and Delete my characters. And she wouldn't clean out my sister's Guild Bank like this person did.
I don't have a keylogger on my computer because the software I listed above is not all that's in my arsenal, I have others, some specifically designed to find keyloggers, and all scans came up blank.
This means it was not someone close to me who hacked my account, and it (most likely) wasn't a case of me being hacked/keylogged.
In my opinion this was an inside job from someone inside Blizzard, and this is apparently what many people who have been hacked have claimed for a long time. Of course nobody has any proof because the only proof is an absence of proof (as in once you eliminate the impossible, all that remains, no matter how improbable, etc etc etc...) and that's not good enough. Not for court. It's good enough for me and for those who have been hacked but it still brings you no satisfaction. If anything it makes you wonder what's the point of playing Blizzard's game when they can't protect you from themselves.
After calling back numerous times I finally got into their automated help line and was able, eventually, to talk to someone who removed the Authenticator from my account and got me back into my account. The Rep also informed me that the hacker apparently had access to my email account, so when I got in I not only changed my password but I created a brand new email account and linked my WoW/Bnet account to it, rather than my old email.
I will be very curious to see if this email account receives any sort of Phishing emails and if so, how? If it's a brand new email account, not used for anything but accessing WoW, and so the only record of it being a WoW-related email is within Blizzard's own database...how do the Phishers know to target it? We'll see if that that happens.
Finally I logged into WoW, and this is what I saw...
That's a far cry from the character model I displayed a week or so ago...those Spaulders are the Heroic badge-bought shoulders. They're worthless as far as vendoring which is why I still had them. I also had the badge-bought necklace I'd picked up literally a day or two before but everything else was gone, including most of my badges (& I was 2 Frost badges or one Heroic away from getting my new Libram!).
I logged in and my Pally immediately began falling, falling, falling. A window popped up with Accept or Cancel but there was no message accompanying it. I wasn't going to Accept anything without knowing what I was accepting. I fell for several seconds until being automatically zoned out and re-appearing on a ledge in Sholazar Basin, naked. Well not quite naked. I still had my Badge-acquired Shoulders and a Mining Pick. As a Miner/Skinner I used to carry a Gnomish Army Knife which the Hacker vendored (for 22-silver. Wow.) opting for the cheaper Pick. They then went Mining, on my character. They sold all of my bags bar my original Pack and one other, and both were almost full of Ore & Gems. When my character raided their Guild Bank my sister put in a ticket to a GM that I'd been hacked, and eventually my account was closed down. The hacker had been caught in the middle of Mining run.
Fortunately, with Pets and Mounts now being built into the paper doll and not carried like inventory, I was able to fly back to Dalaran where I checked my bank and saw it had been stripped, too. I put in a ticket to a GM to (hopefully) get my gear restored, then with trepidation logged out to check my other characters. My old toons on Kilrog (Kwazimoto & Co.) had also been stripped. I returned to my sister's server and clicked my Bank Toon. He was still clothed but none of the Auctions I'd listed before going to bed last night were up, nor was there any Gold waiting in the Mailbox for me...or in my inventory. And every other character was the same. Many still had random items in their packs but practically no Gold to their name.
I am willing to start all over again but I'd rather not if I don't have to. Naturally I'd like to get my gear restored and get my sister's stuff back, but I have no idea how long that will take. Do I just play a low level Alt for a week until Blizzard do something? What if it takes them several weeks to restore my gear. What if they won't restore it, or only partially restore it?
And then my own security measures got the best of me. I forgot my new WoW password. And I forgot the password to my new email WoW-only email account. And to be ultra security conscious I'd used my work email as the secondary email and I can't access that until Monday. So this weekend has been a sad, WoW-less weekend.
Fortunately! The kids and I went to Dave & Busters on Friday and I ended up cashing in 10,000 points (the boy and I save them up for the BIG prizes) and getting MySims Agents for the Wii. You can apparently buy it for $20 but it's not likely we'll save up our points for the 85,000 X-Box, so why not spend some of the points on a game for a system we already have.
It's a cute, point & click-style adventure game with a bunch of mini-games (puzzles) to play as your Sim Agent gathers evidence to crack each case. There's also things to find if you're prepared to look around, like new outfits and decorations for your HQ. It's a fairly typical MySims game with lots of customization available, but the way it's presented with you as a Special Agent solving cases means you need to actually think as you play. And I like that. I'm giving it an 8/10. It's not the perfect game but it's well done and is a lot of fun :)
This time I fired up WoW to log in and instead of 'incorrect password' I see 'Please enter your authenticator key'.
My what now? But I don't have an Authenticator!
And that's how I knew I'd been hacked.
I immediately retrieved the two emails I'd just deleted which, like the ones I've been getting every day for a month or two now, tried to warn me that I'd been hacked. When I moused over the URL in one of them it showed Blizzard's real URL. I actually had been hacked.
I called Blizzard and got "We're experiencing a high volume of calls right now. All operators are busy and we cannot take your call. Please try again later. *click*"
What the fuck???
They're so busy taking calls I can't even wait On Hold for the next available Operator?
To me that says they've got a majorly serious problem.
Here's the rub.
The password I use is not one I've used for anything but World of Warcraft.
The only person who has access to my WoW account is my wife and my 9 y/old son, and that's via my PC.
My PC is also pretty much used for nothing but WoW. Ok, there's the checking of email, Facebook activities, reading Blogs, etc, but for the most part I play WoW and that's about it.
I do visit sites like WoWWiki, WoWHead, Thotbott (or however it's spelled) but I'm also a security freak and have numerous anti-spyware programs like NoScript, AdBlock, AVG, Spybot S&D, etc.
I also doubt anyone could call Blizzard pretending to be me and satisfactorily answer my Security questions, not unless they're someone who knows me really, really well. And no, my wife wouldn't do this. That's not her style. She'd just log in on my account and Delete my characters. And she wouldn't clean out my sister's Guild Bank like this person did.
I don't have a keylogger on my computer because the software I listed above is not all that's in my arsenal, I have others, some specifically designed to find keyloggers, and all scans came up blank.
This means it was not someone close to me who hacked my account, and it (most likely) wasn't a case of me being hacked/keylogged.
In my opinion this was an inside job from someone inside Blizzard, and this is apparently what many people who have been hacked have claimed for a long time. Of course nobody has any proof because the only proof is an absence of proof (as in once you eliminate the impossible, all that remains, no matter how improbable, etc etc etc...) and that's not good enough. Not for court. It's good enough for me and for those who have been hacked but it still brings you no satisfaction. If anything it makes you wonder what's the point of playing Blizzard's game when they can't protect you from themselves.
After calling back numerous times I finally got into their automated help line and was able, eventually, to talk to someone who removed the Authenticator from my account and got me back into my account. The Rep also informed me that the hacker apparently had access to my email account, so when I got in I not only changed my password but I created a brand new email account and linked my WoW/Bnet account to it, rather than my old email.
I will be very curious to see if this email account receives any sort of Phishing emails and if so, how? If it's a brand new email account, not used for anything but accessing WoW, and so the only record of it being a WoW-related email is within Blizzard's own database...how do the Phishers know to target it? We'll see if that that happens.
Finally I logged into WoW, and this is what I saw...
That's a far cry from the character model I displayed a week or so ago...those Spaulders are the Heroic badge-bought shoulders. They're worthless as far as vendoring which is why I still had them. I also had the badge-bought necklace I'd picked up literally a day or two before but everything else was gone, including most of my badges (& I was 2 Frost badges or one Heroic away from getting my new Libram!).
I logged in and my Pally immediately began falling, falling, falling. A window popped up with Accept or Cancel but there was no message accompanying it. I wasn't going to Accept anything without knowing what I was accepting. I fell for several seconds until being automatically zoned out and re-appearing on a ledge in Sholazar Basin, naked. Well not quite naked. I still had my Badge-acquired Shoulders and a Mining Pick. As a Miner/Skinner I used to carry a Gnomish Army Knife which the Hacker vendored (for 22-silver. Wow.) opting for the cheaper Pick. They then went Mining, on my character. They sold all of my bags bar my original Pack and one other, and both were almost full of Ore & Gems. When my character raided their Guild Bank my sister put in a ticket to a GM that I'd been hacked, and eventually my account was closed down. The hacker had been caught in the middle of Mining run.
Fortunately, with Pets and Mounts now being built into the paper doll and not carried like inventory, I was able to fly back to Dalaran where I checked my bank and saw it had been stripped, too. I put in a ticket to a GM to (hopefully) get my gear restored, then with trepidation logged out to check my other characters. My old toons on Kilrog (Kwazimoto & Co.) had also been stripped. I returned to my sister's server and clicked my Bank Toon. He was still clothed but none of the Auctions I'd listed before going to bed last night were up, nor was there any Gold waiting in the Mailbox for me...or in my inventory. And every other character was the same. Many still had random items in their packs but practically no Gold to their name.
I am willing to start all over again but I'd rather not if I don't have to. Naturally I'd like to get my gear restored and get my sister's stuff back, but I have no idea how long that will take. Do I just play a low level Alt for a week until Blizzard do something? What if it takes them several weeks to restore my gear. What if they won't restore it, or only partially restore it?
And then my own security measures got the best of me. I forgot my new WoW password. And I forgot the password to my new email WoW-only email account. And to be ultra security conscious I'd used my work email as the secondary email and I can't access that until Monday. So this weekend has been a sad, WoW-less weekend.
Fortunately! The kids and I went to Dave & Busters on Friday and I ended up cashing in 10,000 points (the boy and I save them up for the BIG prizes) and getting MySims Agents for the Wii. You can apparently buy it for $20 but it's not likely we'll save up our points for the 85,000 X-Box, so why not spend some of the points on a game for a system we already have.
It's a cute, point & click-style adventure game with a bunch of mini-games (puzzles) to play as your Sim Agent gathers evidence to crack each case. There's also things to find if you're prepared to look around, like new outfits and decorations for your HQ. It's a fairly typical MySims game with lots of customization available, but the way it's presented with you as a Special Agent solving cases means you need to actually think as you play. And I like that. I'm giving it an 8/10. It's not the perfect game but it's well done and is a lot of fun :)
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
LFD PUG Tool
I hit 80 on the weekend and after running random PUG Normals most every night for the last couple of weeks I had a decent set of pre-Heroic Blue Gear, while self-buffed I had close to 20K Health. On a decent Run I was pulling over 1500dps but occasionally would drop down to 1200-1300 if I was having Mana issues, or running all over the place and spending a lot of time in combat without actually hitting anything.
Being an 80 with reasonable Gear I decided to do some Heroics, and that's where the beauty of the LFD Tool comes in handy. No more do you need to send a tell to someone trying to get into their PUG Heroic, only to be rejected due to a too low Gear Score (or some other prejudice). Now you just sign up and Shazam! In you go. Oddly enough I found the Heroic queue to be shorter than a regular non-Heroic PUG, or maybe it just seems like it.
I ran several Heroics and noticed that my 20K Health (24K Group Buffed) was a bit on the low side, with some of my fellow party members having 40-50K. I've fought Instance Boss Mobs with less Health than that. It was not even uncommon to see Squishy Casters with 30K+ Health. I became curious. Just what was my Gear Score? I found a website that trawled the Armory and calculated my GS. It was in the mid 2000s. That actually didn't help me because I had no idea what was considered a decent Gear Score. I turned to Curse.com and the GS Add-On which came with a bunch of stuff that I didn't think was relevant. But if you don't want all this extra crap, it said, try GS Lite.
Hmm, I think I might, I said, downloading it and installing. It wasn't as invasive as my encounter with Dominos, in fact it was so non-invasive that initially I wasn't even sure it was working. Finally I noticed my GS was on my Character's Paper Doll screen, while if I moused over other characters their GS sometimes came up, and sometimes didn't. Perhaps those with no GS didn't have a GS Add-On.
I discovered that knowing the GS of others now gave me a sense of inferior inadequacy. Woah! That guy has a 5K+ GS. HOLY CRAP! That guy has 6K+! And here I am with my mid 2000s GS running a Heroic with them.
The good thing, as I mentioned, is I can actually run Heroics via the LFD Tool, and while I don't do the insane 4Kdps of the 5K+ GS player, I am doing close to 2K+ so I'm at least doing my bit, even if it's a small bit.
And by being able to get into Heroics I'm experiencing a whole lot more of the game than I did at 60 & 70 in the pre-Wrath days. Sure, I ventured into MC and Onyxia, then later Kara, but that was just dabbling. Being able to run Heroics now means I can actually gear up and loot Epic items rather than craft them (or buy them).
I figured the first thing on the agenda was acquiring a new weapon so I started looking through Atlas to see which Bosses in what Instances dropped Epic 2H weapons and discovered Loken in the Halls of Lightning dropped a Colossal Skull-Clad Cleaver. A wicked looking axe that someone clearly felt needed MORE AXES!!!
I signed up for a Heroic Halls of Lightning, ran the Instance but didn't see my Axe drop. I then ran several more Random Heroics before lucking out and getting into a random Halls of Lightning with a Warrior Tank and a DK DPS. They were the two that concerned me because either one of them could legitimately Need roll on the Cleaver if it dropped. But then I noticed they both had a 5K+ Gear Score, and when I inspected the DK he already had an Epic 2H Weapon. And here I was, tagging along with them, practically leeching off them as I tried to get Epics and upgrade my Gear.
My feeling of inadequacy was only increased when, while clearing Trash Mobs, General Bjarngrim ran in and suddenly I was dead. And so was the other DPS.
But the Warrior and the Death Knight survived, as did the Healer. And they continued to survive. This was a Heroic Boss with a couple of Adds and they were 3-manning him. At first I thought they'd only be able to survive for a little while but the Healer's HUGE Mana bar never even looked in danger of being depleted. The Adds dropped then the Warrior and Death Knight slowly but steadily chipped away at the General's 300,000 Health Bar. I've seen some cool stuff in WoW, and done some cool stuff of my own, but this was seriously impressive stuff. All I could do was look on from my place on the floor in amazement, and when they finally killed him and the loot dropped I didn't roll on it, not even a Greed roll. I felt like I hadn't contributed to the fight at all and so I didn't deserve to even get some vendor trash out of it.
After that the rest of the Run was practically anti-climactic, right up until we got to Loken. This stay we all survived. All of us except Loken of course, who went down so fast it was like he tripped over trying to get to us. I looked at what he'd dropped on his death. "Bother. No axe," I thought to myself, as I moused over the Epic item he'd dropped...and stared in disbelief.
The icon didn't really look like an axe but there it was. My Colossal Skull-Clad Cleaver. Mine! I hit Need and it became Mine, uncontested. I had my Axe. My Epic Axe. My Epic Axe with extra Axes was mine. ALL MINE!
And here's a picture :D
The Armor is rather dull looking, and I don't exactly look Paladin'ish, but the Axe is pretty damn cool, even if I do say so myself :D
Being an 80 with reasonable Gear I decided to do some Heroics, and that's where the beauty of the LFD Tool comes in handy. No more do you need to send a tell to someone trying to get into their PUG Heroic, only to be rejected due to a too low Gear Score (or some other prejudice). Now you just sign up and Shazam! In you go. Oddly enough I found the Heroic queue to be shorter than a regular non-Heroic PUG, or maybe it just seems like it.
I ran several Heroics and noticed that my 20K Health (24K Group Buffed) was a bit on the low side, with some of my fellow party members having 40-50K. I've fought Instance Boss Mobs with less Health than that. It was not even uncommon to see Squishy Casters with 30K+ Health. I became curious. Just what was my Gear Score? I found a website that trawled the Armory and calculated my GS. It was in the mid 2000s. That actually didn't help me because I had no idea what was considered a decent Gear Score. I turned to Curse.com and the GS Add-On which came with a bunch of stuff that I didn't think was relevant. But if you don't want all this extra crap, it said, try GS Lite.
Hmm, I think I might, I said, downloading it and installing. It wasn't as invasive as my encounter with Dominos, in fact it was so non-invasive that initially I wasn't even sure it was working. Finally I noticed my GS was on my Character's Paper Doll screen, while if I moused over other characters their GS sometimes came up, and sometimes didn't. Perhaps those with no GS didn't have a GS Add-On.
I discovered that knowing the GS of others now gave me a sense of inferior inadequacy. Woah! That guy has a 5K+ GS. HOLY CRAP! That guy has 6K+! And here I am with my mid 2000s GS running a Heroic with them.
The good thing, as I mentioned, is I can actually run Heroics via the LFD Tool, and while I don't do the insane 4Kdps of the 5K+ GS player, I am doing close to 2K+ so I'm at least doing my bit, even if it's a small bit.
And by being able to get into Heroics I'm experiencing a whole lot more of the game than I did at 60 & 70 in the pre-Wrath days. Sure, I ventured into MC and Onyxia, then later Kara, but that was just dabbling. Being able to run Heroics now means I can actually gear up and loot Epic items rather than craft them (or buy them).
I figured the first thing on the agenda was acquiring a new weapon so I started looking through Atlas to see which Bosses in what Instances dropped Epic 2H weapons and discovered Loken in the Halls of Lightning dropped a Colossal Skull-Clad Cleaver. A wicked looking axe that someone clearly felt needed MORE AXES!!!
I signed up for a Heroic Halls of Lightning, ran the Instance but didn't see my Axe drop. I then ran several more Random Heroics before lucking out and getting into a random Halls of Lightning with a Warrior Tank and a DK DPS. They were the two that concerned me because either one of them could legitimately Need roll on the Cleaver if it dropped. But then I noticed they both had a 5K+ Gear Score, and when I inspected the DK he already had an Epic 2H Weapon. And here I was, tagging along with them, practically leeching off them as I tried to get Epics and upgrade my Gear.
My feeling of inadequacy was only increased when, while clearing Trash Mobs, General Bjarngrim ran in and suddenly I was dead. And so was the other DPS.
But the Warrior and the Death Knight survived, as did the Healer. And they continued to survive. This was a Heroic Boss with a couple of Adds and they were 3-manning him. At first I thought they'd only be able to survive for a little while but the Healer's HUGE Mana bar never even looked in danger of being depleted. The Adds dropped then the Warrior and Death Knight slowly but steadily chipped away at the General's 300,000 Health Bar. I've seen some cool stuff in WoW, and done some cool stuff of my own, but this was seriously impressive stuff. All I could do was look on from my place on the floor in amazement, and when they finally killed him and the loot dropped I didn't roll on it, not even a Greed roll. I felt like I hadn't contributed to the fight at all and so I didn't deserve to even get some vendor trash out of it.
After that the rest of the Run was practically anti-climactic, right up until we got to Loken. This stay we all survived. All of us except Loken of course, who went down so fast it was like he tripped over trying to get to us. I looked at what he'd dropped on his death. "Bother. No axe," I thought to myself, as I moused over the Epic item he'd dropped...and stared in disbelief.
The icon didn't really look like an axe but there it was. My Colossal Skull-Clad Cleaver. Mine! I hit Need and it became Mine, uncontested. I had my Axe. My Epic Axe. My Epic Axe with extra Axes was mine. ALL MINE!
And here's a picture :D
The Armor is rather dull looking, and I don't exactly look Paladin'ish, but the Axe is pretty damn cool, even if I do say so myself :D
Sunday, March 28, 2010
JE does TKD
This Saturday was JE's second Tae Kwon Do Tournament. He attended one last year where he did his Purple Belt Form, or Pumsae, and earned himself a Bronze Medal. (Each Belt category is broken up into groups of 3 to 4 kids so each kid gets a medal regardless of how well they do. This fact did not escape JE's notice and so he wasn't overly impressed at getting the Bronze Medal).
This time around he did a lot better; his technique was more solid and he demonstrated better power & control with his blocks & strikes. Unfortunately he used the wrong block at the wrong time and although he corrected himself immediately it was obvious he'd made a mistake. Despite the error he missed out on the gold by just half a point and so took home the Silver, beating out two other kids.
After lunch it was time for the sparring, and while this was JE's second Tournament it was his first time sparring.
Having competed at a State-level Karate Tournament myself in Australia I'd spent the previous couple of months trying to prepare JE for what I knew was in store for him. Watching him spar with the other kids at this TKD school I could tell he really wasn't prepared. He kicked too slow, as if he was afraid of hurting the other kid. Slow kicks can be dodged. Slow kicks miss your opponent. Slow kicks don't score points and they don't win matches. Kick faster, I'd tell him, kick harder. You need to tag your opponent, he needs to feel it, and you need to keep after him the whole time. (The sparring matches were two one-minute rounds, separated by a 20-30 second break.)
But my words and experience meant nothing to the 9-year old boy. He just wasn't prepared. But then that's also what tournaments are for: to give you experience so you can improve and do better at the next tournament.
There were three boys in JE's sparring group. Himself, another kid about the same size and build as him, and a bigger, heavier kid. (Not necessarily a more muscular kid, I think 'husky' is the politically correct term ;) who lucked out and got a Bye in Round One. So while JE and his Clone faced off, the Husky Kid automatically advanced to Round Two, meaning even if he lost his one and only match he'd still get the Silver. Lucky leetle fat keed.
As JE and his Clone faced off I could immediately tell the Clone had more experience. He moved more fluidly, gliding in, snapping out kicks, then skipping back before JE could retaliate. This tournament was certainly going to be a learning experience. The poor kid was taking body shots and kicking at air and I could tell it was getting to him. He was fighting two fights; he was fighting his Clone and he was fighting back the tears and he was losing both battles.
I was aware of the rule which said if one kid takes a beating, starts crying and refuses to continue he gets DQ'd, and I looked on in horror as the Referee did indeed stop the match and ushered JE and his Clone to their seats. At the time I didn't realize it was just the end of Round One, but that was irrelevant; if JE didn't go back in it would still be the end of the match.
JE's Master rushed over and began talking to him then looked up at me with a question in his eyes: "What do you want to do?"
Surrounding the arenas were plastic pylons and chains to keep the audience back and give the competitors and staff room to do their thing. But my son's TKD school was hosting this tournament and many of the Staff were volunteers and parents of the competitors, including myself. I even had the snazzy yellow Staff t-shirt to prove it.
I leaped over the chain, rushed to my son's side and began talking to him. "Come on, son. Don't give in. Don't let him win like this," I said, along with other semi-inspirational things like how he might not win even if he did go back out, but to at least go out fighting and not just hand his Clone the victory.
Now if that was a 20-second break it was the longest 20 seconds I've experienced, so I suspect the Referee and Time Keeper cut us some slack and gave us time to try to rally the boy.
As parents we hate to see our kids hurt but we also don't like to see them just roll over and give in, and after a lot of prodding and encouragement the boy dug deep, sucked it up, stood up, and went back out.
This time he took the fight to the Clone who, being up on points and wanting to stay there, fought a lot more defensively. But I could see that he was surprised at the difference between the tearful JE who'd retired to his corner at the end of the first round, and the more aggressive JE facing him now. The boy went after the Clone and while he still got hit again it didn't stop him this time, and he tagged the Clone a few times in return. Unfortunately the rally was too little too late and the match still went to the Clone, who also went on to dispose of the Husky kid and win the Gold.
After the match JE was still not happy. His Clone had kicked him pretty hard and despite the body armor they wear he was still hurting. But then getting hurt is part of growing up, as is overcoming that pain, learning from it, and moving forward.
"In the face of adversity, you find out if you're a fighter or a quitter.
It's all about getting up after you've been knocked down."
- Archie Griffin
This time around he did a lot better; his technique was more solid and he demonstrated better power & control with his blocks & strikes. Unfortunately he used the wrong block at the wrong time and although he corrected himself immediately it was obvious he'd made a mistake. Despite the error he missed out on the gold by just half a point and so took home the Silver, beating out two other kids.
After lunch it was time for the sparring, and while this was JE's second Tournament it was his first time sparring.
Having competed at a State-level Karate Tournament myself in Australia I'd spent the previous couple of months trying to prepare JE for what I knew was in store for him. Watching him spar with the other kids at this TKD school I could tell he really wasn't prepared. He kicked too slow, as if he was afraid of hurting the other kid. Slow kicks can be dodged. Slow kicks miss your opponent. Slow kicks don't score points and they don't win matches. Kick faster, I'd tell him, kick harder. You need to tag your opponent, he needs to feel it, and you need to keep after him the whole time. (The sparring matches were two one-minute rounds, separated by a 20-30 second break.)
But my words and experience meant nothing to the 9-year old boy. He just wasn't prepared. But then that's also what tournaments are for: to give you experience so you can improve and do better at the next tournament.
There were three boys in JE's sparring group. Himself, another kid about the same size and build as him, and a bigger, heavier kid. (Not necessarily a more muscular kid, I think 'husky' is the politically correct term ;) who lucked out and got a Bye in Round One. So while JE and his Clone faced off, the Husky Kid automatically advanced to Round Two, meaning even if he lost his one and only match he'd still get the Silver. Lucky leetle fat keed.
As JE and his Clone faced off I could immediately tell the Clone had more experience. He moved more fluidly, gliding in, snapping out kicks, then skipping back before JE could retaliate. This tournament was certainly going to be a learning experience. The poor kid was taking body shots and kicking at air and I could tell it was getting to him. He was fighting two fights; he was fighting his Clone and he was fighting back the tears and he was losing both battles.
I was aware of the rule which said if one kid takes a beating, starts crying and refuses to continue he gets DQ'd, and I looked on in horror as the Referee did indeed stop the match and ushered JE and his Clone to their seats. At the time I didn't realize it was just the end of Round One, but that was irrelevant; if JE didn't go back in it would still be the end of the match.
JE's Master rushed over and began talking to him then looked up at me with a question in his eyes: "What do you want to do?"
Surrounding the arenas were plastic pylons and chains to keep the audience back and give the competitors and staff room to do their thing. But my son's TKD school was hosting this tournament and many of the Staff were volunteers and parents of the competitors, including myself. I even had the snazzy yellow Staff t-shirt to prove it.
I leaped over the chain, rushed to my son's side and began talking to him. "Come on, son. Don't give in. Don't let him win like this," I said, along with other semi-inspirational things like how he might not win even if he did go back out, but to at least go out fighting and not just hand his Clone the victory.
Now if that was a 20-second break it was the longest 20 seconds I've experienced, so I suspect the Referee and Time Keeper cut us some slack and gave us time to try to rally the boy.
As parents we hate to see our kids hurt but we also don't like to see them just roll over and give in, and after a lot of prodding and encouragement the boy dug deep, sucked it up, stood up, and went back out.
This time he took the fight to the Clone who, being up on points and wanting to stay there, fought a lot more defensively. But I could see that he was surprised at the difference between the tearful JE who'd retired to his corner at the end of the first round, and the more aggressive JE facing him now. The boy went after the Clone and while he still got hit again it didn't stop him this time, and he tagged the Clone a few times in return. Unfortunately the rally was too little too late and the match still went to the Clone, who also went on to dispose of the Husky kid and win the Gold.
After the match JE was still not happy. His Clone had kicked him pretty hard and despite the body armor they wear he was still hurting. But then getting hurt is part of growing up, as is overcoming that pain, learning from it, and moving forward.
"In the face of adversity, you find out if you're a fighter or a quitter.
It's all about getting up after you've been knocked down."
- Archie Griffin
Friday, March 26, 2010
Women
So the wife emails me at work and asks me to vacuum when I get home. I agree because it's my job (she does the laundry. Trust me, I've got the easier gig by far) and because a cat, a dog, 2 kids and 2 adults create a ton of dust and I haven't vacuumed for...a while...so the house needs to be vacuumed.
So I get home, clean up the dog's poop in the backyard (Trust me, I've still got the easier gig), then figure I'll chill for a bit and catch up on some blogs before I do the vacuuming. (I was gonna get to it... eventually.) But the wife wants me to do it now.
"Why aren't you vacuuming like you said you would?" she calls out to me from the boy's room. (They're in there doing something on his computer. Probably school-related. She's a good mother like that. I should probably tell her that sometimes. Does this count? No? I need to tell her in person? Okay, I will...after I finish the vacuuming ;)
"Yeah yeah," I say, with the Zenful serenity that comes from being married for longer than a decade, as I continue reading Blogs and finish typing (what I believe to be) a witty comment on some random Blogger's Blog.
Then the boy comes in. "Daddy, why aren't you vacuuming?"
Geez! Et tu, spawn of my loins?
Fine, I'll vacuum then! Wait! Doesn't vaccuum have two C's? I'm sure it does! I'm sure that's how I spelled it in school...in Australia. Bloody Americans. As if it's not enough to drop the U out of words like colour and neighbor and the D out of Refridgerator (And how come you add it in when you abbreviate it to Fridge, huh? If it's Refrigerator, shouldn't it be Frige?) you have to go and rob vaccuum of one of its C's. And you have the audacity to say Australia was founded by thieves and convicts? Bah!
Anyway, so I get out the vaccuum cleaner and start unrolling the cord when I remember the wife mentioned to me the other night that "they" are remaking Hawaii Five-O, which prompts me to start singing the Hawaii Five-O theme song. You know the one? (Or maybe you don't...) It goes like this:
Nag-nag nag-nag naaaag naaaaag.
Nag-nag nag-nag naaaaaaaaaag.
Nag-nag nag-nag nag-naaaaaag!
Nag-nag-nag-nag naaaaaaaaaag!
By this time I'm in the boy's room and he's joined in and is singing along with me so I lean over and give my wife a big, long, sloppy wet kiss on the cheek and when I'm done (it was a loooooong kiss) I say, "I love you, dear".
And what does she say in reply?
"Do the vacuuming."
Women.
Ah well. I guess I better get back to the vaccuuming.
So I get home, clean up the dog's poop in the backyard (Trust me, I've still got the easier gig), then figure I'll chill for a bit and catch up on some blogs before I do the vacuuming. (I was gonna get to it... eventually.) But the wife wants me to do it now.
"Why aren't you vacuuming like you said you would?" she calls out to me from the boy's room. (They're in there doing something on his computer. Probably school-related. She's a good mother like that. I should probably tell her that sometimes. Does this count? No? I need to tell her in person? Okay, I will...after I finish the vacuuming ;)
"Yeah yeah," I say, with the Zenful serenity that comes from being married for longer than a decade, as I continue reading Blogs and finish typing (what I believe to be) a witty comment on some random Blogger's Blog.
Then the boy comes in. "Daddy, why aren't you vacuuming?"
Geez! Et tu, spawn of my loins?
Fine, I'll vacuum then! Wait! Doesn't vaccuum have two C's? I'm sure it does! I'm sure that's how I spelled it in school...in Australia. Bloody Americans. As if it's not enough to drop the U out of words like colour and neighbor and the D out of Refridgerator (And how come you add it in when you abbreviate it to Fridge, huh? If it's Refrigerator, shouldn't it be Frige?) you have to go and rob vaccuum of one of its C's. And you have the audacity to say Australia was founded by thieves and convicts? Bah!
Anyway, so I get out the vaccuum cleaner and start unrolling the cord when I remember the wife mentioned to me the other night that "they" are remaking Hawaii Five-O, which prompts me to start singing the Hawaii Five-O theme song. You know the one? (Or maybe you don't...) It goes like this:
Nag-nag nag-nag naaaag naaaaag.
Nag-nag nag-nag naaaaaaaaaag.
Nag-nag nag-nag nag-naaaaaag!
Nag-nag-nag-nag naaaaaaaaaag!
By this time I'm in the boy's room and he's joined in and is singing along with me so I lean over and give my wife a big, long, sloppy wet kiss on the cheek and when I'm done (it was a loooooong kiss) I say, "I love you, dear".
And what does she say in reply?
"Do the vacuuming."
Women.
Ah well. I guess I better get back to the vaccuuming.
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