Traditions are memes. I understand some of why traditions are propagated... they keep cultures alive (maybe small-scale like in a fraternity or family unit, or maybe large scale like a national identity or a religion). What got me thinking about this was overhearing a snippet of conversation last night in which two couples were talking about what happens if a Jewish boy is born right at sunset... How do you know when to get the rabbinical specialist with the wine, strap-down board, and knife to show up... i.e. which is the eighth day. It turns out there is someone you can call. You give him/her the day and recorded minute of birth, and they will tell you if the boy was born before or after sunset from an almanac... but it got me wondering. The tradition of using the almanac might not be universal. There is a rich diversity of Jewish cultures, and many of them are fierce believers in doing things the old fashioned way, and others maybe less so. So I started wondering about whether in centuries (before almanacs and accurate clocks and telephones) gone by there might have been someone who's job it was to hang around the house of a woman in labor in the late afternoons to announce when the Sun had set, and perhaps someone else inside listening for that call and keeping an eye on how much of the baby had come out when the call was made. It also got me wondering what technically counts as sunset under these conditions. If you are in a house nestled in a deep valley, sunset might be an hour or more earlier than for a neighbor at the top of the hill. Is it the sunshine that matters? what do you do when it is raining?

Of course, there are lots of groups with traditions. Some are more whimsical that others. If someone violates a tradition connected to fans of some sports franchise... not really a big deal. Perhaps within political parties these traditions are as serious as religious ones. Nationally, we might now be starting a tradition of impeaching every two term president from here forward. Families might always take their vacation in the first two weeks of August, and always go to the same campground, and camp with the same friends they've always camped with...

But with every tradition that gets very specific about time, places, and actions, how do you handle cases near the boundaries and perhaps closer than our ability to measure? Do we have the calamity of Buridan's Ass? or do we shrug it off and make our best approximation? or do we close down shop and end the tradition (as mostly happened to the Abbey of Saint Pyr when Caw ap Rhys died)?

Oh well. Lots of loose thoughts and no possible resolution. I invite your comments.

X-posted to wow_noobs

Stormwind College has a minor crisis. The laundry machine in the basement is malfunctioning, and is duplicating the students' clothes and bags. Saturday between 10 bells before midday and 2 after, talk to any Stormwind College alumnus in the less dangerous areas to exchange cloth, wolf pelts, and other miscellany for shirts, simple cloth armor, small bags, and even student-made weapons.

(( OOC version - the college is trading lowbie armor, weapons and various bags for small amounts of cloth or grey vendor trash TBD. We'll be stationed in the various newbie areas, alliance side. /w Perspicacity if you don't see one, I will send one. ))

So, I bet all the alliance people here recgonize the line in the title. You see it all the time while just hanging out in the trade district in SW. It just so happens that ( I got recruited! )

Just one small problem...

The person they told me to go to? He's not giving me the quest. D:

I looked on wowhead and it dosen't look like there's any pre-req besides getting your name said. I even logged onto my laptop to see if that would change anything, but he's still not clickable. What gives? Any idea what might be going on? Should I bug a GM about this?

I'm excited about getting recruited, but it's saddening he won't give me the quest.

SO I had my first full clear attempt Kara run last night, and It was sooo frustrating. Our guild has two Kara groups, one on wensdays and one on fridays. The wensday group has run it alot fo time adn the friday group has run once before. I was put into the friday group, and last night was one of the most hellish nights ever for me. We down the horseman, Morose, Maiden, Opera (wizard of Oz), curator, and illhoof. And out of it I got new shoulders and my T4 gloves for my shaman, so I'm decently happy. The trouble started when we were at shade.

We had some scrubish just-hit-70-still-in-lvl-61-gear people, mainly a warlock, and a few people not from our guild (one of which was our DE and logged off with all the void crystals assuring he'd mail them later), and people from our guild who had and haddn't run it before. We wiped on shade about 4-5 times (due to the arcane blast when people are slow adn the elementals) and then made the biggest mistake in skipping him and doing chess. We down chess easily and run to prince, takes us two times to down prince, and the last person standing was our tank, who died shortly after from shadow word pain or soemthing. No one could pop up to rez, since everythign was on cooldown and my RL told me to pop reincarnate in the middle of prince so I could use my bloodlust.

Some of the guys start to run back only to find everything from curator to shade had respawned and there was no way 2 shamans and a warlock were getting through. I opened a ticket to see if anything could be done, because we had been running since 6 and we hit prince at 12 (midnight). but before anyone responded, princes body disappeared and all the work we had done was for nothing. I guess I shouldn't complain, since I got some upgrades, but it was stupid how things went down.

So, theres my rant. roar

... to check this out for free; after that it'll only be for pay on iTunes or on DVD.

It's worth the price of admission, I promise.

But seriously, is anyone else seeing the same thing for the WotLK gear that I am?

It's all generic. All of it is spell damage, Int and Stam, with a few peices having spirit. I can see at least 4 if not 5 or 6 class/specs fighting over that gear. Same with the mail and leather and plate. Actually the plate one really worries me, as a Paladin tank I look for Spell damage AND avoidance stats. There's only pure Avoidance stats and I sorta doubt Warriors will be so forgiving about having to share a few plate tanking items with Paladins and Deathknights.

I sort of saw during BC with the various Teir sets all looking the same, and the PvP/Arena sets all matching the PvE sets. My thought was always that the PvPers should get something unique to them, something that more matched what Arenas seemed like. Something say...dripping blood from the hands, smoke pouring out of the helmets, kinda thing. Instead, everyone pretty much looks alike no matter what you do right now.

In a nut shell, what I keep seeing is Blizz literally making a peice of gear that says "Increases all Stats by X amount", and that'll include your traditional stats, but also AP/Crit/SpellDamage/Healing/Defence/ect and the only difference between people will be specs. Somehow...that's not really the game I want to be playing and it's a tad disturbing to see this move in the direction of everyone looking the same, and having the same stats.

We're a tier 6 guild who's short healers, and have been short healers near raid start time for awhile. They usually come on later after getting home from work and such. Tonight someone mentioned doing Mag while waiting to see if the raid was getting called or not and we managed to get them to go to Gruul first (WTB Dragonspine Trophy). So off we went with all mains - 5 healers, 23 DPS and 2 tanks.

Gruul died in 5 growths. :P No DST. :(

Mag died in 6 minutes. All 5 channelers were dead before he released and we didn't realize that killing the last one would release him! Whoops, lost 2 or 3 DPS to that (Yay brez). XD

Finally got my main her Champion of the Naruu title to go with Hand of Ad'al.

Seriously, the most fun I've had in a raid in a long long time! Tons of chatter in Vent and people just doing their jobs and kicking butt. Our MT accidentally had on DPS gear for Mag even. XD

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[yesterday] [year ago]

Ya i got booted:(

 
I found another guild on another server with some old friends including my old guild master from my days as a Death Dealer on silverhand but stilll its sad. i was really planning in leveling to 80's with these folks.

DO i regret what i did No. but i think i misplaced some of my Bot abusing anger. When i was pushing to make Grand Marshall i took some vacation time the week i was going to make it. I was beat but a lot.. by two other players that were well known botters:( I never got pass field marshall . 

Today has been a pretty good week!

Aside from a rather frustrating and abysmal raid on Wednesday, I've managed to get a bunch of stuff done this week:

1) My druid has her epic flight form!
2) ...and dinged Exalted with the SSO about ten minutes ago.
3) ...and is wearing her Sorcerer's Alchemist Stone.
4) Over on Horde-side, we downed Dragonhawk in ZA for the very first time. We've tried him a couple times, but we got it down tonight. We also poked our heads over at Malacrass, and he kicked us in the teeth. We'll get him. Oh yes...
5) I spoke with my guild leader about the crappy Kara run, and they've agreed to let me run the next Kara raid, which'll be exciting for me. I just have to hope I don't screw up. On the plus side, I can't do *worse* than the person who led the last one...

Whee!

Got the proofs back from Mo's wedding and they are very very good - some of them are quite amazing. However, I also promised her that I wouldn't be posting them (at least not without her permission), so they may have to wait. I did manage to get a snapshot of a waitress there that I developed a bit of a crush on. Taken quite some time after sunset...just before the light died completely and it became a deep dark. Neopan 1600 at f1.7 and even then it was probably close to the limit of being sharp handheld.



This previous trip had reminded me of another some two years ago - it was an ending of sorts. We were standing by the train station and it was evening. There was a smell of metal and grease and that scent that comes before the rain. We hugged each other good-bye and I knew our story had ended. I came back the following year, stayed close by and waited for her. We met over tea or coffee and there is a warmth there, in her hands when she clasped her cup and her body when I hugged her. It was something new replacing all the old things that I missed: that loneliness, that yearning for something that I can never have, that terrible excitement...all those things were gone.

My relationships with people are much better in this stage. I've lost a lot of potential friends when I was younger, but only one important one - the one who made all this possible. Her invitation brought me here to you and had I waited a little longer and all I felt was that little warmth, then we could have been great friends - lifelong friends. I can be very impressive when I have no need to impress.

I feel like exploring the south. My friend, Danielle, warned me against it some years back when I first met her in LA, what with the racism and lynching and such, but I'm going to ignore that and do a little side trip sometime in October for a week or so. I have numerous riverside baptisms to attend and healings to witness. Praise the Lord!

It will be like that time when I poisoned myself in the desert (unintentionally, but still due to my own negligence) and a church took me in and we sat around a campfire telling stories except every one of them ended with someone being saved and when I say saved, I mean found Jesus.

Tonight in a Karazhan run, I about doubled my DPS from last week in TK. And I'm 9 badges away from my Scryer's Blade of Focus. Which will then get enchanted with +40 spellpower. Which will put me over 1000+ shadow dmg with no raid buffs. My shadow priesting mentor said that 550-615 DPS on early Kara boss fights is enough to keep my raid spot, my RL just has to confirm that.

It's been a good night. :)

Tonight we were making attempts on Zul'jin (usually he goes down easily, apparently, but with all three healers-- myself included-- never having seen the fight before...) when I received some very bad news about someone very close to my family in the middle of a fight. Naturally, my concentration was shot and I immediately became more of a liability than I already was. When we wiped I whispered the raid leader, vaguely explaining the situation (the raid leader for the Zul'Aman timed chess events is an ass and I don't want him knowing more of my personal business than he has to) and high-tailed it out of the instance then /camped right there on the steps, leaving vent after a quick apology. Staying on the computer even if I had wanted to wasn't an option.

It's been gnawing at me ever since, though, what I could have done differently. What would you have done in a situation like that or, heaven forbid, have you done if something like that has happened to you?


EDIT: I should add that I have a history with ZA. The reason I haven't seen Zul'jin before tonight is because I've always been busy or shadow or just haven't wanted to go. That's a huge part of this guilt. "Sure! I'll finally go on a guild timed ZA! Yay we made three chests! Oh, no loot for me, too bad--ohgottagobye!"

Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, part III…

…not what I was expecting. But Joss is good about that.

How'd you take it?

This post is, not surprisingly, relating to my little draenei shaman. (You might remember me asking several weeks ago about professions. Thanks to those who responded, she's at 350 in jewelcrafting! And staying there for now due to lack of funds.)Okay, so she's not that little anymore. She's lvl 60 now, and has hit that "omg what do you mean I need 490k exp to level?!" slump. My main trouble with her is that I'm having trouble surviving in the Outlands.
My first character to get this far was my Hunter, and at 60 she and her cat wandered directly into Zangarmarsh and had few problems from there. I've had no major problems with surviving on my shaman thus far, but lately I've been feeling about as squishy as a mage fighting orcs in her underwear.
For starters, here is Kurree the shaman's armory page.
I'll be honest: I'm a horrible shaman. (At least, that's my opinion.) I have a hard time making myself use totems because: 1) They're expensive, mp wise, 2) I'm not entirely sure as to how to use some of them and 3) When I do use them they don't seem all that helpful. Except for like, debuff removing ones. The ones that say they increase your attack or agility just seem so vague that I don't use them much. I also tend not to use lightning shield because it is so expensive and it eats up my stormstrike charges.
Did I mention stormstrike, btw? I'm Enhancement spec, and I LOVE stormstrike. I have gotten through a large portion of the game thus far using a stormstrike/earth shock combo. It all works wonderfully well, but I'm still getting the everloving crap beaten out of me whenever I have to face more than one enemy. (The aggro'ing totem only seems to make things worse.) I know shamans don't have any real CC, but I've gotten used to that.
So, I need help/recommendations/whatever. Basic things to remember are that due to time/patience/lag restraints I don't run instances. (My guild also is generally still lower in level than I am and the only 70 other than my hunter is the GL.) I might be open to getting myself slaughtered in the battlegrounds to earn things that way, but the same factors as with instances come into play again.
Are my problems just inherent to playing a shaman, or is there something else I can do to improve my situation? Thanks for the advice in advance!

I got my first piece of tier gear tonight! :) I guess your first is always the most remembered.

I think i've created a monster with this raiding deal .... gosh it was so much FUN! It was mainly a raid of alts (i was the only main) and we got to the prince and ended it. I had fun though.

couple of touch ups I missed in the ink... i'll fix it tomorrow. my eyes are zonkedout.


tea (Darjeeling tea), Japanese Sumo Ink (I swear this bottle is like 10 years old, finally almost empty!), and gold gouache. Let this sit for a while because I couldn't figure out how to lighten her up. Darjeeling tea stains dark very quickly, not light like some of the other's I've used, but I'm not fond of the flavor so it's been reduced to stain tea. I'll just have to keep remembering to hold off on the third 'coating'.



16x20'ish. ...not for sale until Gencon.

Forgive me if this has already been posted, but does anyone know where I can find some wow-themed lj mood themes? Thanks! :)

ok, they tried to change my password again. I have spent this evening, rather than crocheting and relaxing, deleting spyware, interface,addons, cleaning up my machine, freaking out, and emailing my gold to my husband to protect it.

this is not fun.

Alrighty ladies I'd like some help researching realms. I'd like to move realms because I'd like a fresh start. I'm looking for a PvE realm where I am not bothered by annoying little boys pretending to be girls and also looking for a raiding guild that is currently around SSC and TK.

 My guild is currently progressing only 25-30 people which annoys me a lot. My guild officers (not the leader) will give out gear to their favorite players and also forget to give certain people their DKP for showing up and doing raids. I have given a lot to the guild through free potions, primal mights, gold, advice etc and I haven't been recognized for my abilities as a mage. I in fact am one of the "founders" of the guild as I joined so we could start raiding karazhan for the first time (They needed 1 more dps). This was ages ago... Everyone who had joined the guild after me have become officers whilst I sit in the background and get stepped on. I've voiced my opinion about it but the officers will say that I "Need to be on more". Which is bullshit (excuse my french) as I am on every single night there is a raid. There is a lot more drama behind it but I will get angrier and angrier as I type it out so I really don't want to alt tab back to wow and freak out on everyone ^_^

but anywhoo...after that rant....feel better...

So, everyone! Tell me about your server and I'll come check it out! <3

Thanks!

Salek

Hey y'all. :D

So I have some concerns regarding Engineering... I have a 70 NElf Rogue main and I currently have lw and skinning maxed out (well, lw is at 373. so close!). And I'm thinking that, since I've always loved the idea of Engineering and the useless crap it can make (and the useful items as well), perhaps I should drop skinning and pick up engineering.

In fact, I know I've already decided to do it. I know I'll enjoy leveling it and using it and YES.  I don't care that it'll be expensive.

My problem lies in picking a specialization (Gnomish vs. Goblin Engineering) and so I have come to you ladies in order to help make a better informed decision.

I have read all the wowwiki articles. I have compared a number of the recipes and the transporter locations, etc. I know what recipes are really important to me, but I'm still having trouble deciding.

Engineering as it breaks down in my head:
I like gnomes more than goblins (yes, this sways me :x ).
I like the gnome transporter locs more than the goblin ones.
But I really want Goblin jumper cables.
But I don't need to be a Goblin engineer to use them, just to craft them.
I want to make the awesome Rogue goggles (does not req. a specialization for use or crafting).
I want to make the flying machines (does not req. a specialization).
Field Repair Bots! (no specialization)
I want the Goblin rocket helmet, but again I don't need to specialize to use it just to craft it.
The specialization pets don't really swing me either way.
The super gun I'm going to make for my bf doesn't req. a specialization.

Really, I think I'm leaning gnome and I'll buy the jumper cables.  But I want to make sure there isn't something a rogue would need (a specific specialization trinket?) or just something REALLY EFFIN' COOL that I'm not passing up by going one way or the other.

Give me your two cents, ladies and gents!  I'd really appreciate some input.  :)

What the subject says. ^^ The guild I'm currently in isn't very, eh, dedicated about running Karazhan to gear people up. Or about running anything, for that matter...so I'm looking for a new home. Are there any casual-ish guilds on Destromath (US, Horde) that run 10-mans and would be willing to take in a holy priest? :)

Here is my armory: Illythia

I also have a 70 mage, but she's PvP specced and I'm more interested in gearing up my priest as she's my main now, but if anyone wants to see her armory anyway it's here.

Thanks for your time!

[x-posted to worldofwarcraft]

So after respeccing to 41BM/20MM, I decided I needed a pet who dealt better dps. After looking up pets, I decided I was gonna get Shy-Rotam. She is so pretty! So I went to winterspring, got the chain quest, killed the first two dudes. Then it was off to get me my kitty.

After a good 40 or so minutes killing frostsabers for the meat I got it, & I summoned Shy. HOWEVER... I forgot that she could fear. So that sucked. :\

( And then THIS happened... )

And that was that. :B

Hey ladies! I was thinking about selling my unscratched murloc suit card from last year's Blizzcon but I'm not sure what they are selling for. I checked Ebay but only saw 2 listed, one has no bids and the other has some suspicious looking bid activity (the same bidder over and over again) so I can't really trust either of those.

Do any of you know what a good price would be for this? Or if you know anyone who would be interested in buying, I've never sold on Ebay before so I was a little nervous just slapping it up there.

Thanks in advance!

 Okay so I join a guild on Moon Guard-A

Salvation

I was like "Sweet! Cool people!" I had rped with the GM some time earlier before I joined. We were chattin and such then in vent, I guess a friend of his comes in. Convo:

Friend: Hey, we're rollin on Eredar
GM: What? You got it?
Friend: Yeah, come on
GM: Okay, hold on

GM hands me leadership, quits guild and logs off. What the hell? Got what? Sorry but I'm sooooooo pissed off about this. >(

I just made a level 1 warrior on MG and I really can't stand to level without having people to chatter to, can anyone recommend me a nice big, active guild alli-side?

Every time I try to harvest an herb while mounted on my flying mount I get interrupted. I'm pretty sure this has to do with game auto-summoning my pet (I'm a hunter). The thing that's bugging me is that it doesn't happen when I'm on my ground mount. No one else in my guild is having this problem, but I'm the only lvl 70 gatherer with a pet.

It's definitely an add on problem since it's not happening when I disable them all. I'm currently disabling them one at a time, but I have a bunch so it'll take forever. I was hoping someone else may know what's causing it.

Hunters! You guys seen the pet talent info?? So far, it looks soooo coool!

http://www.maniasarcania.com/2008/07/18/wotlk-pet-talent-trees/

Hooray! Wolves become good dps pets! I can't waaaaiiiit!

I just moved my main's guild for the first time EVER! I was and am GM of my old guild, but was getting tired of being Mum to the kids... >.< Still feel VERY guilty!

What do you consider a "Kara badge run" to be?

So I haven't posted in a long time, but I figure that the birth of my daughter is reason to dust off the keyboard.

Luella (Lulu for short) made her appearance after 17 hours of labor at 12:23 AM on the 16th. 6 pounds 4 ounces, 18.75 inches long. Beautiful, and quite a set of lungs.

Obligatory photos after the cut.
( Read more )

Hey. Hey guys.

( Something popped into my head )

Are you ready for the end?



Uh... whu... cthulhu?



oh wait. it's the same that I linked to a year or two ago.

But... still...

Poll #1225818 Favorite party/raid positions
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All

Tank

Healer

Ranged DPS

Melee DPS

Crowd Control

I've noticed a bug in my highest rank of Prayer of Fortitude (which is Rank 2, at level 70). It's only increasing my party's Stamina by 54, even though the tooltip for it in my action bar says it's supposed to increase it by 70. (Should be 79, too, since I have Improved Power Word: Fortitude 2/2 in my talents, right?) I noticed this 2 nights ago when I was buffing my party. I ended up using my single-player buff instead to give them the correct amount of Stamina, which sucked because it used (1) all of my mana to do and (2) didn't last very long, so I had to it again several times during the instance. It's really frustrating! I double-checked to make sure I was using the right rank (and I am, because Rank 1 uses the Holy Candles instead of the Sacred ones!) So I have no idea what is going on. Is anyone else having this problem?

Also, I don't know how to send a ticket into Blizzard, so I haven't done that yet. Can someone tell me how? I'll do it first thing when I get home.

( (I mean, that was the prompt; this is the write) )

(what I do on my lunch break)

Halp! I have completely and utterly forgotten how to do the thing where you hide the frames on the image before taking a screenshot. I know it was very simple, and apparently it's so simple that no resource bothers to list it anymore. :-( Am I losing my mind, or is there still a way to do that?

http://www.drhorrible.com/

for those who have not yet been exposed to this, Joss Wheedon did a "side project" during the writers strike because he was bored. It is called Dr Horrible's sing along blog. It is broken up into three act "webisodes" and the final one will air tomorrow.

They star NPH and Nathan Fillion and so far... Hillarious

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