Monday, March 15, 2010

So Many Things

First off, I have time to blog today because I took a day off of work to handle some Education Things for my Autistic Son (He had his evaluation of where he was).  He is doing great for those that are wondering and it has been a real blessing to have the support structure he is in.

Moving on to game related stuff.  I want to cover three different things.

First, Eternity Matters turns Four Years old this week.  That is just pure awesomesauce as one of the founders would say.  We have a big party planned for Saturday, so those that can make it will have a blast.  What is different this year is that it is a progressive clue hunt to get to the party.  We will all start in one location and clues will lead you to more clue givers until you get to the final place.  Winners of that contest will get some cool in game stuff.  I can't wait for this to happen this Saturday (actually anniversary is Thursday).

Second, I want to talk about Blizzard Support.  I had a great experience with a Billing / Service / Support guy named Jason.  We had ordered four of those cute plushie pets with the in game counter parts.  We only got one in the mail.  I called and after 2 hours of hold time, I got Michael.  He got the ball started, but nothing seemed to happen.  I called back the next day and got Jason, got full updates, emails and everything.  Today we got our missing pets.  So good job Jason and Michael, kudos to you guys.

Third, I want to talk about a mod.  Gathermate and Routes.  These mods combined have made farming ore so much easier.  I recommend them highly.

Well that is all I have time for now....  I leave you with an awesome video that will scare the gnomes out of you

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Gaming and Fellowship

Writing this blog is for myself.  I do appreciate those that come to read.  I may not be as good as my wife's blog (who, in my opinion has the best blog for World of Warcraft Rogues and Lore) or as good as Honor's Code blog.

Recently Honor Code did a good blog on end times and his conviction to share his faith.  I applaud that blog and his bold step.  I have watched him go from completely silent about his faith to that bold post.

I on the otherhand, decided to blog about my new toy and got insulted for it.  Sure, my past blogs have been better and my blogs of late of been lacking.  There are many reasons for that, but I hope today I am able to renew the spark of joy I had in writing stuff way back and give you something worth reading.

So I want to write about something that is key to good spiritual health.  That is fellowship with your fellow believers, so that we may encourage each other.  Without fellowship, we become isolated and begin to attack each other and not show the love God has commanded us to show.  One way to have fellowship is by playing games.  This is one of my favorite ways to have fellowship.

I remember growing up and we would play board games and card games 2 or 3 times a week.  I have many great memories of Rook, Monopoly, Clue, Risk, Yatzee, Rummykub to name a few.  Times where I grew closer to my family and my grand mother especially. It was during that time I learned about fair play, sportmanship, honor in the game, how to be a good looser and a humble winner.  I learned how to be on a team and cooperate.  These were all good times, plus I was having fellowship.

When I went to college, my buddies and I started playing Magic the Gathering, and later on Dungeons and Dragons.  Again, it was a good time of fellowship.  I miss those days of hanging out with my college friends and their wives.  It was that bit of gaming that brought my wife and I to World of Warcraft and ultimately to our guild where we try to have good clean fun and provide a safe place for fellowship of believers.

That brings us to last night.  On Tuesdays, we do the weekly raid quest and maybe try to knock out some achievements. Last night we were sent back into Nax spider wing to kill the first boss.  We had I think 22 people.  It was easy as pie, only two tanks, we almost had him dead before his first insect swarm (we had an large number of healers with us).  So we decide to go after Saph and KT and do some achievements.

So people switched for alts and we went up and easily killed Saph and got the 100 club achievement for some guild members.  Though Vangelis was a sacrificial dps as he died each time Saph did the cold breath move.  That was the on going joke for the night that he was taking my wife's place on the sacrificial dps spot.

So we move on to KT and I want to do the kill 18 Abominations achievement.  I think hey, lets just agro it all and aoe it down, piece of cake right?  Amalt, my cotank takes one side and I take the other and we go and cause a raid wipe.  Many jokes ensue about their fearless leader and his um not so brillant strategies (some of the jokes made by myself).  So we go in and do it the right way, having one of our hunters (taita) pull the abominations a cubby at a time to us and we end up getting our 18.  We had a couple of deaths and battle rezzes, but then we are into phase 2.

Bam, ice block move thing and down goes Schekeria and Kiki, our primary healers for the tanks.  This leaves Daerthy and ZimaSquid to keep me alive plus a few other healers that are not used to healing that much.  Bam, iceblock takes out all our melee minus Daraia.  Yet, we persist, bam, Amalt is dead, I am the only tank and 40% hits out come the adds.  I manage to get all of them on me, and the burn to 0% starts.  I am doing all the possible survival moves I know, and I eventually die, with KT having .3% life.  We manage to kill him, get the achievement, but everyone is dead.  IT was a great time of fun and fellowship and I thank God for my guild and the good time we had last night.

It is their encouragement of me that helps me to rise above criticism of others and the other stressors in my life.  Thank you Guild and thank you God for your love and support in me.

Sunday, March 7, 2010

Boys and their toys!

For those that follow my wife's blog, she already covered the new toys I have picked up for her and I.

Those that have no idea what I am talking about, it was a set of these for both her and I -






These headsets are incredible from audio quaility, features, etc.

My favorite thing is to use the voice changer and freak out un suspecting guild members (which is becoming fewer and fewer).

Ya, these guys are awesome!

So I guess the old saying is true, the only difference between boy toys and men toys is the price tag.  Ya, these babies were expensive, but worth every penny.

In wow news, I almost got my hunter to Northrend (hopefully today) and my Paladin who this blog is for, is still tanking up a storm.

Well, I am back to work (I hate working weekends, but it pays the bills and buys toys)