New job, new lots of stuff

Of course it's been a long time since I posted! Do I look like the type of person who does not keep his word? Apparently I do because I tell myself I am going to post more and I never do. It just slips my mind, forgive me. I am still working at the Zoo and enjoying it (I have read 3 books in the past 2 weeks at work alone). I was offered a job at a major credit card company in their call center which I happily accepted. It pays 50% more than the Zoo and has benefits etc, plus after a year there are lots of opportunities for career advancement. I am really excited to start working (This coming Tuesday my training for 11 weeks begins) at a real job. I still feel like I have never actually had a real job (no offense to people in food industry) until now.

My little kitten Bella just got spayed so she is being weird, but hopefully she will get back to her normal rambunctious self soon enough. I recently server transferred (and faction transferred) my rogue and priest to play with some college friends. My old server was getting pretty stale and lots of my buds had already left so I figured it was time to move on and get back in touch with some friends. I am enjoying it so far. Horde-side is not the rosy picture most alliance players picture it to be. There are still idiots on both teams obviously.

I guess you might be asking yourself what books I read recently? If that piqued your curiosity I will let you in on it. I read "The Shack," "Native Tongue," and "Redwall" (still working on this one actually). Three very different novels, but nonetheless I enjoyed all of them. They are all very worth your time.

Paladin Seal choice in 3.2

I have been testing a little bit with the different seals and I would like to share my thoughts. Whatever people may say about Blizzard and their treatment of the Paladin class, I think they have done something rather special with 3.2. I believe it is a very very good thing that people do not know which seal to use. If there were one obvious choice for every situation then why not just use that one seal? Why even pretend like X seal is useful if Y is better in every way?

Our seal choices (speaking only for ret of course, the other spec's choices are obvious) are as follows:

Righteousness (SoR)
Vengeance/Corruption (SoV because I am alliance)
Command (SoC)

Each of these gives the user a unique playstyle, however subtle the differences may be. They are present. Let us go through them one by one so not only to be thorough, but to allow each of them their due respect.

Righteousness has been the underdog since I can remember. It is the first seal you learn, but it is discarded rather quickly when you come upon SoC (though after this patch who knows). Personally, I enjoy this seal of alot for a few reasons.

1: The damage is consistent and it cannot be dodged/blocked/parried (in contrast with SoC).
2: You can glyph and talent for it (which opens up Unyielding faith in Holy. An AMAZING talent).
3: You can hard switch because the damage does not depend on a dot to be up (contrast with SoV)
4. The AoE damage is consistent because of #1 which makes this very useful for cleave comps.
5. The judgment damage is almost on par with SoV and way more than SoC

The downsides you might ask?
1: It cannot crit, which in pvp does not make much difference because its chance to crit would only be somewhere around 12-13% anyway so who cares?
2: You HAVE to glyph/talent for it. By doing so you are losing some of the deeper prot talents that are useful like 6% damage reduction, better shields + 40 second stun cooldown (instead of 60).

So this comparison has outlined some of the differences between the 3 seals so it is therefore not necessary to do this twice more. I will throw some more info out there that I did not mention above. SoC can crit, but as I said up there it can be blocked/dodged/parried. DKs have a lot of parry so I can forsee some frustration with that. SoV can be glyphed so as to give you 10 more expertise. Not bad at all when everyone in the game has 5% dodge and many have 5% parry as well. Gives an overall dmg boost to all your attacks.

On the subject of SoV, it warrants its own little section here. SoV does more damage on the seal and judgment plus it has a dot that is just icing on the cake. The downside of course is that it takes FIFTEEN seconds of face time with your target to get this damage to ramp up. That is a lifetime in pvp my friends. And with the amount of time I spend twiddling my thumbs while freedom is down, this will be very frustrating.

Another downside of SoV is that it does basically no aoe damage. SoR/SoC both proc no matter what debuffs are on the target, so when I divine storm a rogue and warrior who are on my partner I am doing 3-4k damage to them if nothing crits. When I use SoV that drops to 2-3k. That adds up overtime. Also, if you are using SoV then you are forced to stay on one target (unless you get peeled then you can try to stack another target) because switching back and forth will be tedius with the 15 second ramp up time.

So what is a person to do? I think the smart paladin's brain is whirring at this point trying to figure out a way in which to use these seals' weaknesses and strengths to his advantage. I know I am. My thoughts are thus: When the fight begins, use SoV to put pressure. When you see an opportunity for burst (say a druid pops out to cyclone you so you repentence him), swap to SoR (or SoC, have not decided which is better for this purpose) and stun + wings on him. This way you have the sustained damage of SoV for pressure plus you can swap and still do good burst when you need to.

So problem solved right? Yes and no. The good news is that speccing for SoR and SoV are the same thing (seals of the pure) and you can glyph for judgment which helps both (I had considrered glyphing for SoR, but this looks like a better alternative). The bad news is the same thing: You are speccing out of a LOT of stuns over time. In a 10 minute match, which is 600 seconds, the paladin with imp hammer of justice will get 15 stuns. What I am alluding to currently will only yield 10. That is FIFTY percent more stuns. That is awesome. BUT I think the 30% less time feared/disoriented will make up for the stuns. Fear is a terrible problem for me and It will be a dream come true to never sit in a 10 second fear again.

My conclusion is that the smart ret paladin (oxymoron? some would say) will use his arsenal of seals at his disposal and swap seals depending on the situation. Oh, another reason swapping with SoR is bad is that if they know what youre doing, changing seals could be a dead giveaway that you are switching.

SoV for sustained pressure, then SoR for some burst. That is all for now folks.

Patch 3.2

I have been trying to inject as little WoW talk into this blog as possible, but with the new patch today I could not resist. A new dungeon (or a slue of new dungeons more like it), lots of pvp changes, levelling becoming even EASIER (yay my dk will have a 150% flyer in northrend. itll be a joke to hit 80 now). Despite the fact that I have not been raiding for a while now due to scheduling conflicts, I am still really excited about the new dungeon and hopefully I will be able to find a raiding guild suitable to my needs.

This new patch changes a lot for paladins in pvp, and this is of most interest because my paladin is still my main pvp toon. My priest is a close 2nd, but I think I am most at home with paladin mechanics. That being said...they are throwing a wrench into my paladin mechanics:

Seal of the Martyr? Axed
Exorcism in pvp again? Yes, but theres a dark side.
Flash of light putting a hot up? Pro

The biggest change for me is that I have no idea what seal to use in pvp anymore. Command doesnt judge for anything at all (something like 1k?) and can be parried/blocked/etc. Vengeance requires a substantial ramp up time (15 secoonds? sigh), which means if I manage to stick someone who is planning to kite me (everyone), not only must I do this for 15 seconds, but if I get peeled for 10 seconds I have to start the whole process over again. Perhaps it wont be so bad because once I get vengeance stacking it will do massive damage? I dont know. I have not spent any time on the PTR to test.

Disc has been nerfed with the changes to penance (10s cd->12s cd), but I do not think that is such a big deal. A bigger deal is that mages and shadow priests now have a 20% mortal strike? Really? I am deathly afraid of mage/lock teams in 2v2 now because that is going to be a rediculous team. Shadow cleave in 3v3 will be a force to be reckoned with as well (spriest/lock/healer).

Only time will tell. Another cool change is that heroism and valor badges are gone, so I will be able to gear up new toons even easier doing heroics/naxx25 etc. Should be pretty cool. I am not sure how serious my DK will be, but when he hits 80 in a couple weeks (wishful thinking since I am moving in 2 weeks) I will be able to gear him to the teeth very easily.

Some RL news: Like I said just above Jackie and I are moving to Dublin on the 19th of August. That is the move-in date, but I am sure it is going to take us a week to get all our stuff out. This area is brimming with business so I am optimistic I will be able to find a job. The rent is more expensive so having an income is of paramount importance. That is all for now folks, I will write another entry in a couple days I expect. Cheerio.

The southern drawl

I would like to preface this with a disclaimer: All my friends and family who live down south should not take this post personally. I know that is asking a lot (and you will see why), but keep an open mind.

The other night I was walking home from the corner store after getting some milk (I drink so much milk that I have to go every few days and get a gallon) and it occurred to me that many people labor under the impression that having a southern drawl or accent makes you stupid. I do not disagree, but I would like to explain myself in that regard.

As you may know, I grew up in a small town in South Carolina (<3). Everyone around me (virtually of course, there are always exceptions) spoke with a southern accent. No surprise there, I hope. I, however, have always labored (mostly unconsciously, but I will get to that later) to suppress this accent. For one, it comes with a certain stigma of being unintelligent. As we all know, this is poppycock because there have been many great minds from the confederate states.

How does this all fit together to make something worthy of a blog post? I played devil's advocate when I was thinking about this assumption and said to myself: Ok, so southern people are stupid. If this is true, why do we think this and is there any truth in it? It is difficult to define intelligence of course, but I will leave it up to the reader to define it in their own words. I see intelligence as a multi-faceted quality which is honed throughout one's life and contains things such as knowledge (general and specific), reaction time, problem-solving, visualization (being able to rotate objects in your mind) and many many other things that are not really the point.

So southern people almost all have one thing in common: their accent. So maybe the southern stupidity hypothesis is explained by this (partly or wholly). But certainly we cannot judge someone based on their saying words slightly differently than other people right? Well, that is what I am here to address.

Whatever your stance on the topic, you will undoubtedly agree that some people think this is true. My thinking on this subject is that there are certain types of intelligence that some people just do not care about. One being social rules for conversation and speech. Do you stand up everytime a woman comes to join your dinner table? I doubt it, and I would never do that sort of thing, but some people see it as a courtesy due to women. Some people also believe that conversing in an articulate and courteous way is of utmost intelligence.

Ok ok, I see I am getting off on a tangent here. Are southern people stupid and is this because of their accent? I think, not all of them and yes, respectively. An accent is certainly something you can control (I am living proof, though I do slip into a different speech pattern when I am at home. A topic for another post), so with so much stigma around the accent, why not just pay attention to your speech and stop it? Most southerners do not realize they are speaking in this way, especially since everyone around them is doing the same.

So, why does this make them stupid? Language is our most valuable possession as humans. We can do things that no other species can. We can lie and cheat and swindle and hood-wink and all sorts of other terrible things that are impossible without detailed communication. Though many species do steal and lie, it is nowhere near as sophisticated. The point I am trying to get across is that language is of utmost importance when deciding how intelligent a species is. Language is the gateway to someone's thought processes.

If you know someone who is always saying like and uhm and thing in their speech, it means either they do not have much information about which they are speaking (or just dont put the mental strength into trying) or their brains just do not work fast enough. One measure of intelligence is processing speed. So since southern people slur words and push words together or create new words altogether, does this mean their brains work differently than other people's? My view on this matter is painfully obvious.

So what do you think? Is language a gateway to the inner workings of a person's brain, or is it just a random process that gives you no information at all? To me, I do not see how you could argue that language gives NO insight into how smart someone is. The fluidity and clarity with which you speak has great reprocussions on many aspects of one's life. If you cannot speak clearly, you cannot expect to ever get a job where one of your primary duties is to communicate information. Though as I said earlier, most people with accents do not realize they have accents. An accent is a deviation from the normal. If the normal IS the accent, then it technically is not an accent to them.

I will leave it off here, but feel free to comment or email me with reponses.

New Direction

Nothing much has changed since the last time I put up a blog post. It has become clear to me that even if (when) I get a job, I will not have enough material to post often enough and have it be interesting. So what I am going to do is write about random thoughts that come into mind. Some will be social commentary. Some will be random bemusings born from boredom (borndom, if you will). So here we go.

When it rains, it pours.

As you probably know, I have been job-hunting for about 3 or 4 months now. Previous to this week I have had one interview and a handful of emails requesting more information. Then I get a call two days ago for an interview. I would have said I did not do well, but I got a call back for a second interview which will basically be a whole work day where I see how the company works and if it will be a good fit. That last sentence looks like a run-on but we will table that for now. So I had the interview yesterday and on the way home I got a call from another company wanting me to come in and listen to a corporate overview and consider a position with them. Maybe it is coincidence or maybe it is the summer starting. Or maybe the economy is turning and people are hiring preemptively to keep up with the growth that is coming. Who knows. But I am optimistic because I know that I am a hard-worker and I can do either of these jobs. Anyway, just wanted to update. Wish me luck :).

Small update

As you can probably tell, it has been a while since my last post. I will not pretend that I have been slacking on posting due to be really busy. That would be a lie. In fact, I think it would be fair to say that I have not been posting because I have not been very busy at all. It makes for dull writing when there is nothing to say besides: still no job, wow going well, etc etc. I will try to tackle some social issues or something to make it more exciting in the future. In any case, I am posting today because I saw that a certain website that I frequent in looking for a writer. I applied, so wish me luck!

It is probably the sort of job that I should be doing. Talking about what I enjoy in a succinct and interesting for the readers sort of way. I try to keep this as professional as possible because I get all my LOLWUTSUPGAIS kicks from wow. Anyway, wish me luck!

Perhaps a new direction

Though it has only been a month and a half since I graduated college, I am starting to wonder if I should change my focus. Job-hunting has been less than easy. I am sure anyone looking for a job in this economy will agree with me when I say: It's rough out there. I am strongly considering going back to school in the fall (or winter most likely) to start studying forensic psychology. I am not a huge people-person so I think counseling psychology would not be the best field for me. There are a lot of branches in Psychology, but most of which will only lead to writing articles, research and teaching. Those are all great endeavors, and I do indeed hope to take part in them in the future, but I also would enjoy a career where I can apply psychological concepts in the pursuit of miscreants and criminals. This is of course not the only job a forensic psychologist does, but certainly a large part of it. They work closely with law enforcement to help profile and anticipate the actions of fugitives etc.

Anyway, I will spare you the details. Suffice it to say: Forensic Psychology is a terribly interesting field, which I am very interested in. So to that end, I am keeping my options open and am taking the GRE (graduate something examination) in order to get into a good graduate school. It is quite possible I would need a doctorate in order to pursue the type of career I have envisioned, but I will cross that bridge when it is presented. I am continuing to look for positions, hopefully one which I will be able to do while attending graduate school.

A quick snippet from my WoW life now. My guild finally got through the bugged Mimiron encounter (ironically, they fixed the first bug which only created a second bug in its place which has since been fixed as well *crosses fingers*). The next boss was not a pushover, but certainly not terribly difficult. On our first General Vezax kill, I plucked an amazing spear: Lotrafen, Spear of the Damned. Is it of course not the best weapon in the entire instance for me, but it is close enough. Plus, spear animations are really cool.

Anyway, we have been working on Yogg-saron; and are getting very close to a kill. Unfortunately, another guild managed to do what we could not last night and claimed the realm first. I am not discouraged, however, because I am still having a blast and realm first or not, it will be a great thrill when we take him down this week. On a side note, I seem to have stumbled upon some very good arena teams. I found a Restoration Shaman to play 2v2 with and it is goign swimmingly. We have played about 120 games together and are at 2003 rating. This is the highest I have ever played arena, but this is only the 2nd week of the season! I see great things in our future, of which I hope the Gladiator's Frostwyrm is one. I also was invited to a 3v3 team and we are at about 1840. The numbers are relative and the 3v3 is perhaps the higher ranked team at the moment. 3v3 is not my favorite because there is 50% more things to pay attention to compared to 2v2. 2v2 is usually slower and easier to keep up with. In 3v3 people just get blown up if youre not careful.

Anyway, that is all for now. I am going to get back to studying for the GRE. So far, it seems a lot like the SAT in that it is testing logic and critical thinking as opposed to actual knowledge. However it may sound, this is a good thing for me :). Not to say I lack knowledge, but I think I am more of a critical thinker and a logical person rather than a cold, hard facts memorizing person. See ya later, alligator (in a while, crocodile).

Oh the places you'll go...

I could not think of a title so that is the one I gave this article. I still have no managed to land a job, though I am sure there are many people who have been looking longer than I so I should not complain. In the meantime, I am still working part-time not nearly making enough money. Not much to say about the job hunt unfortunately. The one interview I had fell through unfortunately. It would have been an amazing job, but I was not the best candidate.

But life goes on. I am still applying to more positions daily in the research, human resources and other fields, but the people hiring are being very stingy with their pocket books. They will not just hire anyone, so I have to give a lot of information in my cover letter to ensure they know I am the perfect person for the job. Not to say I am lying or anything, but I feel that it is important to show that one's specific characteristics and skills can be applied to job X as well as job Y in a different capacity. I would say I am very good at making these applications, but that would imply that I got a job.

As you may or may not know, the new patch for World of Warcraft came out a week and a half ago and there have been some bugs. I have been having trouble logging into my characters (just one actually and conveniently its the one I want to play the most). This time has given me the opportunity to tidy the house and whatnot. I recently transferred servers to find a raiding guild that is more my style. I think I have found such a guild and I am enjoying raiding with them. Hopefully they will feel the same way. Its quite a gamble swapping servers and leaving your friends behind for a chance at a raid spot. Hopefully the will take this into consideration :).

We have been tearing through Ulduar right up until Mimiron. This is probably the first really difficult boss fight in Ulduar and I am glad they put it into the game. The problem is we are being (excuse my French) cock-blocked by this guy due to some strange bug (or is it?). He is supposed to spin around the room (Like Lurker if you recall from SSC) and shoot lasers (pewpew) at anyone in his path. They hit for 16k which is enough that you do not ever want to get hit by them. What seems to happen is that if one person gets hit by a laser, he does a little jig and shoots the rest of the raid. This happened on many many of our attempts. The only way we could figure out to stop it is to move very preemptively and stop all dps. We basically back off and put our hands in our pockets for the duration of the spin. It works, but people are still failing to silly things (myself included) like bombs or rockets or whatever.

To be fair to myself and my fellow raiders, this is one of the most demanding encounters as far as situational awareness goes, that I have ever seen. I saw all but 2 bosses in the previous expansion and none are as intense as this fight. You have to watch the ground for bombs (if you step in them its about half your health), the ground for rockets (which you have 3-4 seconds to get out of), the cast bar on the boss for an aoe insta kill, the middle of the boss for the spinny attack and the middle of the boss again for his small aoe abilities. Whew. It really may not sound like a lot. Glance at your feet, the boss, the middle and thats it right?

That is right I suppose, if all you ahve to do is sit there and do nothing but look. But you have to dps/heal/tank. This means your attention has to simultaneously be on your rotation, your feet, the enemy's cast bar and the middle section as well as listening on vent for instructions. Whoever says playing video games is easy and is just playing around has never played this game. Play a few arena games at high levels and you will understand that this game is more in depth than most people's lives. Mine included, excluding the happening in the game obviously.

So why, might you ask would you play a game like this which has no monetary reward (unless you arena in the tournaments) and in fact costs you money and time and massive attention? Because once you kill that boss for the first time and everyone yells in your ear and you get the achievement...its very difficult to explain, but the harder the boss, the better it feels. And thats what keeps me raiding and spending hours each week farming consumables and repair money and maxing out my professions and doing everything I can to increase the likelihood that we will kill a new boss.

So I am really tired and felt like ranting about wow and the job hunt etc. I will report back soon (with a Mimiron kill of course). Peace and chicken grease.

Patch 3.1, Ulduar, dual specs, too much!

I am overwhelmed by all the changes. Every time I log in, someone says: "Hey did you notice X or Y or Z?" And my response is always: WTF THAT IS AWESOME. Its quite a thrill to be playing WoW at this time. Despite the raid instances being down for 90% of our raid times, we at least got to kill the first boss on 25 and 10 man modes. Its a complete pushover and requires no strategy at all really. Run from the boss and shoot at it. Hopefully the servers will be cooperative soon and we will get to dive into the actual instance.

There are so many small things that get added that make you think "wow, how have we lived without this?!" which could mean a few different things. One is that Blizzard has a long list of things they know we would love, but only trickles them out to keep us playing. This is called marketing and its a good way to make money. Another reason could mean the Blizzard developers actually play the game and figure out creative ways to make the game more engaging and interesting.

One of the big additions in 3.1 is the Argent Tournament. Finally, a daily hub! The dailies are not super fun, but they yield very cool rewards (mounts/pets/tabards/etc) if you put in the time. I calculated it will take 5 months of dailies once you hit champion (which takes about 2 weeks to get) to get all the rewards. This seems excessive, but it will probably be enough time to clear ulduar and be getting ready for the next big patch.

Another is the improvements to the LFG interface. I am not an advocate of pugging instances, but if I were to do so, I would be a lot happier with the current interface. It allows you to specify your role (or roles) so it is much easier to gauge what sort of group you could get instead of trying to decipher comments like: KIN HEAL ORE TANK LOL.

So there are new dailies, a new instance, dual spec, new/streamlined talents and all sorts of new things to collect. Its an exciting time to be playing World of Warcraft, but it would be much moreso if the instance servers did not crap out at 9pm every night on the dot.

Some 3.1 thoughts

For those of you who are World of Warcraft players AND not living under a rock (which ironically some would say all WoW players do, but thats another article), you are aware that a huge patch is incoming. 3.1 will bring lots of changes to lots of classes. My own class/spec (Ret Paladin) is getting all sorts of changes which will change my playstyle quite a bit. My gearing will change completely (sort of) and I have a new rotation to learn as well as a new skill to weave into said rotation. It is very exciting for us paladins, in good ways and bad. Paladin changes aside, the game itself is going to change a lot because Blizzard's new raid progression plans for WotLK will come into play. Naxx and sarth were a joke of course and Malygos was tricky for a few weeks, but nothing was too difficult. Sarth +3 drakes was cleared in mere days or a couple weeks by the best players in the world. This is to be expected of course, while some pugs still wipe in Naxx 10/25 weekly.

This brings me to my point. Blizzard wants players to progress through raids, much the way you progress through jobs. You start out entry level and get promoted based on experience (quite literally in WoW while youre levelling at least) and achievements (again, puns but hilariously relevant) you obtain while working in a given position. My guild cleared naxx10/25 and sarth+0 within a week of Wrath. We were all-stars of the mail room. The big boss noticed and a few months down the road he gave us a new uniform (best in slot everywhere to be seen) and promoted us to Privates in the Ulduar assault squad.

I, for one, am excited about the prospect of wiping on new bosses. All the new paladin changes have ironically made me want to stay in Naxx for a few weeks to clean up some unfinished business with the terrible loot gods. Blizzard has decided that we should not be farming Karaxxramas forever. I agree with this. I hated that I had to farm heroics (even new and exciting ones) or Karazhan for a year because they kept giving us new badge gear. Cant get into 25 man raids? No problem, just run that easy instance youve cleared 18 times. Cant get into t6 raids? NP NP, hit up that heroic MgT. You get t5 level gear + badges for t6.

This was rediculous to me. I appreciate that Blizzard does not want this. I agree and I think its a great change. I am, however, worried that Ulduar will not be as accessible as they think it will be. I have no doubt I will be clearing Ulduar within a few weeks, then moving onto hard modes soon thereafter. My guild rocks and Im not humble about it because theres no need. There are so many guilds better than us, but we raid less than them so we have a good excuse.

I seem to be rambling, but who cares right? Blizzard wants us to time out of instances and move forward. I have a few theories about what will happen when ulduar drops. The first of which is that every Tom, Dick and Harry will think their naxx10/blue gear will be enough for Ulduar non-hard modes. If this is true then Blizzard has failed. If not, then they need to get more gear from 25 mans, but this too seems like a failure. Blizzard wants people to be able to only do 10 mans if thats all they can muster in their small guilds. I do not believe people will be running Ulduar 10 in naxx10 epics. Why? Because anyone still in this sort of gear (spare alts of course) probably is aweful and doesnt care about raiding. I do not mean to say people who dont raid 25 mans are automatically bad, but I do mean to say that at this point in time if you care about raiding you are doing 25 mans for that gear/experience.

The people doing 10 mans are the ones who play once or twice a week for maybe 5-10 hours and pug naxx10 and get half of it done. Thats fine and dandy, but spider and plague wing unfortunately do not carry the same loot as the rest so you end up missing out on a lot of good stuff from the "hard" bosses. The folks who care about raiding and really enjoy it either get frustrated wiping with pugs on 10 mans or move on to 25 mans. The trend right now is to go 10 man then 25 man, but this is not the plan for blizzard. I plan to do both Ulduar 10 and 25 until I get all the achievements for both and claim my shiny new proto drakes.

I think that B has the right idea when they want us to move on from Naxx and only do it on alts or on offnights for fun. Its been done (twice now) and its time to move on. Thats great. What I think they do not understand is that in general, most good players do 25 man raids right now and will not stay in 10 mans forever. This leaves the scrubs to do 10 mans only and wipe endlessly on easy bosses. The other thing is that once Ulduar comes, noone will have any reason to run naxx 10/heroics anymore. Naxx25 will be so easy with ulduar gear that we will be 15 manning it for fun in 2 hours. And we will accrue an inordinate amount of badges that are useless. All those heroic badges you are getting will be worthless. They dont want us to do the same stuff forever, but what else is there to do? Argent tournament dailies? I guess.

I think Blizzard is on the right track by not forcing its players into the same dungeons, but at the moment in time, thats what we are used to doing. We all ran kara countless times in BC and we had fun really. It was a great instance. People just are not going to know what to do when Ulduar comes out. Are you geared enough for Ulduar? Maybe? Noone really knows and pugs will try it the day it drops, guaranteed. And they will complain and complain and it will get nerfed. Then it will be naxx all over again. This is equivalent to getting demoted to mailboy and doing the same thing everyday. Which is fine and pays the bills...but even if you get paid the same (new gear that increases with standard of living changes every year), its still boring to have no stimulation. I hope they keep the difficulty up with Ulduar and dont bitch out and nerf it. I want to wipe. I want pugs to be discouraged and run naxx25 instead of complaining about Ulduar for months to come.

Collectivist vs. Individualist cultures

In World of Warcraft, there are places where people take place in player versus player combat called battlegrounds. What happens is teams of Alliance players battle against Horde players for control over areas of the battleground or assault the team's bunkers etc. The reason I mention this is because they are very frustrating sometimes. They are frustrating because many players join these battlegrounds and play solely for themselves. This implies an extreme individualism on the part of these players. What I am curious about is this: Does this take place on the Korean servers as well? East Asia is renowned for their collectivist nature, especially in China and Japan. The irony of this of course is that by playing as a team, the individual player is rewarded with honor and tokens which can be turned into even more honor! So why ever play selfishly in a battleground? I think its because a lot of people who pvp have a hard time getting over tunnel vision. They see enemies and attack, instead of going past and helping the team win. This is a result of not being able to see past ones own glory on the battlefield. Its why we need captains and generals in the army. Its why there is a chain of command all the way down to officers and sergeants etc.

This may be a stretch of the imagination, but it is a very intersting phenomenon that I believe takes place at all levels of consciousness and human activity. There have been papers written about World of Warcraft and its implications for society etc and I believe they are something we should be considering in serious scientific debates and talks.

Job Hunting

I seem to have an interesting mix of skills which is suited to something very specific. The key to finding a job is finding your niche. This is pronounced neesh, not nitch like some will tell you. You dont say ball-et for ballet do you? Though we do say llama and not "yama" like it should be pronounced. But I digress. I am trying to find my niche in the job market. I have some strange and difficult to quantify skills such as being able to do sudoku very quickly.

This hardly seems like a marketable skill, but I think companies look for this sort of thing in order to find diamonds in the rough who can be molded and taught to use these skills for something great. I also believe that I can concisely get my point across in text, but maybe not in person. There are many others, some less marketable than others I am sure. I also do this thing where I correct grammar (despite of course using poor grammar on occasion). News reporters do it all the time and I would be a good person to look through the teleprompter and pick out mistakes. Or maybe write the teleprompter...prompts.

So, I am looking for jobs currently and I have gotten one interview so far. I think it went well; and I really love the company so far. It's great when you read on their website all sorts of ways the company helps the employees and provides services to them. Their products are great too and they are expanding even in this shaky economy. I have no really commented on the economic situation of the US in this blog yet, but perhaps I will later.

Perhaps you are wondering how I am doing in WoW? I am doing just peachy. I have been working on my mage and rogue recently (levelling the rogue to 80) mostly with their pvp gearing. PvP I think has the potential to be the best part of WoW, but it is striken by one unchangeable phenomenon: the different scales possible. 1v1, 2v2, 3v3, etc etc. Some classes are better at 1v1 than others. Some are amazing in 5v5 arena, but aweful in 2v2. So poor Blizzard is in the unfortunate position of having to make 10 classes feel powerful, but not too powerful in EVERY aspect of the game. Not only pvp, but pve as well. Its quite daunting and it bothers me greatly when people QQ on the forums about how X class sucks against Y and why is Z better than all of them? And blizzard makes $10m / month, WHAT ARE THEY DOING WITH THAT MONEY?!

Its so ignorant and I will not even explain why it is incorrect to fault Blizzard for this. Suffice it to say, I enjoy WoW quite a bit. I enjoy al lthe things I can do and all the accomplishments within the game that can be gotten. It gives me a sense of direction and goals, which makes me work (and play) a lot better. We have now circled back to my job qualifications: I am very goal oriented. If I am not shooting for something, I find it difficult to concentrate or enjoy doing work or play just for the purpose of doing it. Whether this is a strength of a weakness, I am not sure. I believe that if I can figure out a way to develop my own goals within an otherwise goalless activity that I can create an environment where I work efficiently and effectively.

That's all for now, but since I am only working part-time, hopefully I will be able to post more of my thoughts on here. Wish me luck on this job I interviewed for!

Long time no see!

Its been a while since my last post, mostly due to school and other activities which take up a large portion of my time. I've failed myself by not posting every week, but I am doing really well in all my classes so at least I have something to show for it. Graduation is coming up one week from today! I am excited to graduate, but a little anxious to join the work-force (or lack-thereof). I have been sending out resumes, and soon I will get a great job. I remain optimistic in spite of the economic climate. The good news is that when you hit rock bottom, there is only one place to go. I have two more finals to take, one on Monday and the other Wednesday. I actually enjoyed my classes a lot this quarter. Usually it is kind of a drudgery, and it was this quarter, but only until I got there. The material was pretty cool and I would encourage my fellow OSU students to take these courses in Japanese literature and psychology of extraordinary beliefs. Anyway, I am going to get back to studying.

Week of Feb 9th

Id like to start off by offering my apologies to those who read this (all 3 of you). I have not been posting as much as I would like because frankly there are a lot of other things I like to do also. I am now instating a rule for myself: write on the blog once per week with a weekly update of what is going on in my life. The purpose of such an endeavor is two-fold. First: it will allow me to have a literary/creative outlet which I think is very important in a young person's life. Second: I just like posting and it is easier for me to do so on a schedule.

So this past week was not all that exciting for me. I worked on the weekend, but it was pretty slow at the old pizza shop. I've been attending class regularly and probably with more frequency than previous quarters. Not to say I have slacked off in the past, but anyway...I had a midterm today which I think went pretty well. It was in my Psychology of Extraordinary beliefs class, which I enjoy thoroughly. My 3 year anniversary with Jackie is coming up on Thursday. I am very excited, though it being a Thursday kind of limits the celebratory activity list. My birthday was yesterday also! I came upon the tender age of 22. Double deuce some might say. I would not use that term. I have no spoken about World of Warcraft yet, so I suppose I should touch on my feats and accomplishments in that regard. In the past week I think I have accrued nearly 200 achievement pts (which is quite a big deal for me), most of which came yesterday when I ran a few heroics as well as did 10-man Sartharian with 2 drakes up. We tried for +3, but it was getting a little tedius and we just wanted to get some loot and get out of there. On our 25-man raids we also got Sartharian+2 drakes which is in my opinion, decidedly more difficult. One person standing in pie = wipe on 10 man (unless its very near the death of the last drake), but not so in 25 man (unless its a healer of course). My guild has a new website also: www.exhumedguild.net which our guild leader has graciously created. Its very very nice and I, for one, am very happy with it. I think that's all I have to say for this week. I have some mailing of graduation announcements to attend to so I am going to cut this off for now. Thanks for reading! I almost forgot, I got turned down for a HR job at Nestle today, which was disheartening. I think my calling is in the research field however, so maybe its a blessing in disguise. Only time will tell!

Article about the spirituality some people seek in WoW

http://www.coloradodaily.com/news/2009/jan/27/world-of-warcraft-faith-god-university-colorado/

My aunt sent me this article and i found it very interesting.

My post topics

Its been brought to my attention that my blog posts seem to be almost exlusively of the WoW variety. This is troubling to me because it implies that WoW is a central part of my life. I do not reject this hypothesis, but I do wish to point out that I spend a lot more time doing other things (sleeping, eating, school, family guy, the office, looking for jobs) besides engrossing myself in the World of Warcraft. Though I cannot deny that WoW is certainly a fairly big part of my life, I think most would agree that everyone's hobbies are regarded as such. And in regard to my falling off the top 10 dps list: I will rise again (as has been mentioned on a previous post). Do not delute yourselves into thinking I am losing my skills. You have not begun to see. Seacrest out.

edit: I see my post has delved back into the WoW realm despite my contesting that all my posts are not about that...well played sir, or ma'am, well played.

The smallest thing to go to anyone's head

No that isnt a sexual joke. I recently found a site that lists the top DPS for every class for each boss encounter in the game and found myself #10 IN THE WORLD on one fight in Naxxramas. WHO IS THE SCRUB NOW FOOLS

http://www.wowmeteronline.com/rank/clazz/dps/pal/6/0

edit: and just like that! I fall down. I shall rise again...BIGGER, FASTER, STRONGER

5000 Achievement Points

I did it! I hit a big milestone for myself in WoW today by getting my total achievement points up to 5000. Its quite a feat, but I have a long way to go if Im to be counted in with the great achievement getters of the world. I dinged doing the Lunar Festival Achievements, which was actually a lotta fun. Sort of tedius, like exploring, but leisurely.

KY Court system

I am a pretty law-abiding citizen, but today I had to deal with what happens when you break the law. I was speeding down in Kentucky about a month ago and got pulled over. Apparently the officer signaled me to pull to the right side of the road, but I pulled over to the left because it seemed quicker/safer and who cares right? Wrong, this landed me a charge of "Disobeying a traffic officer's signal" and a mandatory court date. Sweet, I live 3 and a half hours from there, but i get to drive down on a weekday to go to court. Oh well itll be a nice view into the justice system right? Wrong again. It took 4 minutes. I stood in line and they told me the charge would be dropped and that I just had to pay for the speeding fine ($163 for going 13 over). Thanks for robbing me of 8 hours of my life, KY. Could we not have done this over the phone? Perhaps this is just the way things are done and it's like this to discourage breaking the law. Or maybe its just a very poorly designed system.

My first Blog

Hi everyone, this is my first foray into blogging and Im not sure how to work this so ill just say that this blog is going to chronicle my escapades at college, in the World of Warcraft and otherwise. Its basically just for my own use, but it should be at least mildly entertaining to those who are in my inner circles.