Toasters at 60

Okay, so we can put people on the moon, create awesome electronic devices that fit in your palm, hybrid engines and even clone living beings... but we still cannot make a reliable toaster. Seriously, what the heck is wrong? It's a bloody toaster! I have yet to see a damn toaster last any significant time. In some cases I've had them come out of the box and completely suck.

Too light, too dark, burnt charcoal... argh. The one we have at the moment (Black & Decker - yes, the people that make all sorts of hardware) is completely unpredictable. You put it on light and it burns the toast. You put it on dark and it burns one side of the toast. You put it in the middle and it's lightly toasting both sides, except at the bottom on one side.

I'm going to go look for a toaster on the weekend. Any suggestions?

Once that toast is replaced, I'll get a couple of friends together and we'll take it out into a field to do this to it:




On a happier note, I hit the second old WoW level cap of 60th last night. It is sick how huge a jump the gear is... and the fact that it is purple in color (not quality). What the heck?

Things are a little trickier and I actually did something I haven't done in a long time while soloing - I died. Okay, it wasn't really a matter of things being trickier, I was just tired and not paying attention in an area where I should have been paying attention. I was boiling blood when stuff started spawning around me (aside from the beetles), soon enough I was facing off against a caster, several beetles, a grunt, two mounted dudes and their two mounts. Oh, and FD was down.

It was no problem when I went back, I simply stayed out of the patrol paths and boiled the blood. Go figure.

Blog Skin, PS3 and WTF?

Okay, I haven't made any time to screw around with the blog look and feel so I just went with a default skin. I've no idea when I'll change it because, at the moment, I don't really care about it.

Anyone out there have a PS3, Wii, and two PCs (sometimes a wireless laptop) plugged into or working off a (cheap ass) wireless router?

I've discovered that I'm getting some IP conflicts and things are getting reset. Here's the situation.

Wii uses the wireless connection. It's on sleep mode all the time.
PS3 uses the wireless connection. It is on and off regularly as the little ogre is playing Lego Star Wars or watching movies.
Main PC uses a cable connection. It is on and off, more on than off.
Secondary PC uses a cable connection. It is almost never on.
Laptop uses the wireless connection. It's only on when I'm working from home.

Now, recently, since about the time that I've picked up the PS3, I seem to get random disconnects from WoW. Just sudden disconnects. Other times, I'll start up the Main PC and need to screw around with modem, cable box or reset the IP.

Just the other day, I noticed that I was getting kicked off when my son turned on the PS3, or when he turned it off.

Okay, so my wireless router likely has a limit of 4 connections so I could see it being an issue when I have the laptop, Wii, PS3, Main PC and Secondary PC going, but... when only the Wii, PS3 and Main PC are going? Worse still, why is shutting off the PS3 screwing things up?

WTF?

I'll have to look into it some more. Maybe it's coincidence, but I doubt it.

The only other thing I can think of as being an issue is the controllers - I have two. I didn't think Bluetooth devices (controllers specifically meant to be used with the PS3) would use the Wi-Fi?

Again it wouldn't explain why turning off the PS3 causes issues..

UPDATE: I did a search - go figure - and it seems to be a fairly common issue. At some point I'll have to sort through all of this.

Nerf Hunters

I spent about three days arguing with my gaming buddy from Montreal over how Hunters don't need to be nerfed or anything, that Blizzard intended them to be what they are and that they were recently nerfed by the changes to the Spirit/Intellect formula for mana regen.

The short of that nerf is that I can no longer unload every fight and be nearly full mana for the next fight and just mow through mobs. I actually have to pace myself if I want to keep my mana up for use of other abilities... but I can still mow through things, one after the other.

Last night in Un'goro Crater, I AEed three of the bugs there which were even con to me. Okay, they're solo mobs and they did do a fair bit of damage to me, but still... they lost, I won. Next I soloed a level 56 Elite (I was 53 at the time), I thought I was a goner when I got two adds but I pulled through. It wasn't easy by any stretch, but still. I won.

And I moved on to kill something else without stopping to wait on my mana. About the only time I take mana potions or use drinks is if I'm in a dungeon and I'm feeling impatient. Heh.

No in defense of Hunters around the world, I am awesome. :) Actually, I went with the Beastmaster spec and a little into Survival, so my pet is built to take it and dish it out too. I have been hoarding anything with +attack power and I've focused on increasing damage. My gear isn't the best, but it's not weak either. I also play to the hilt and account for every little mana expenditure to ensure the minimal needed to succeed so I can move on.

If you think about it, I probably would save some time by burning through my mana (as fast as a Hunter can do that with all the cooldowns and stuff) then just drink to get the mana back. I have a couple of problems with that mode of play:
a) if I do that and get an add or two it can be messy
b) the drinks get expensive
c) it isn't as fun as constantly being active

Other proof that Hunters need to be nerfed (hopefully no one in Blizzard reads this):

- I dueled my Priest friend from (the one that argued that I needed nerfing) and killed him in probably less than 15 seconds. At the duel countdown I Enraged my pet (which enrages me too now) to make him immune to my friend's fear, sent him in right away with a Mark on the priest. He pre-bubbled but my pet tore through that, he likely AE Feared but we were immune, so he rebubbled which I took down with Arcane Shot leaving him to get devoured by my pet which I also put Intimidate on so it stunned him so he couldn't heal himself. It was a mess. In his defense he went mainly with Holy talents, so there should be no real surprise.

- I also killed a Fury/Arms Warrior that was 12 levels higher than me. Yes, that's right, 12 levels. He was attacking guards at Razorhill so I went to take a look. He was taking quite a beating from them so I helped the guards out. He revived and came back, taunting me to attack him while away from the guards. Ever the patient Hunter, I watched him and he sat down to eat... I attacked. With a combination of Enraged, Intimidating pet, Frost Trap (big frosty snare area) and Concussive Shot I managed to kite him around and take him down again.

Now obviously I had an advantage where I could engage him before he got the Charge off and he didn't really attempt to counter anything I was doing, he just sort of decided he should win so he didn't appear to do anything. Okay, maybe he just sucked, but I'd expect a player 12 levels lower than me to get completely owned with minimal effort.

Please don't nerf Hunters...

Make a Will Save...

... again. I've been having to make a lot of Will saves lately.

Yesterday I resisted the urge to pick up a PS3 Remote (25$) for the Blu-Ray player which means I'll suffer with using the game controller for a little longer. It was good that I resisted that because had I failed that save, I would have had to make another Will save to resist buying Guitar Hero III with the Guitar (100$).

I also managed to resist picking up the Flobots CD (15$). I took a listen to some of the tracks on there and liked them.

I am also fighting the urge to subscribe to City of Heroes/Villains again (18$/month) which I blame Champions Online for. All that reading up on it has me wanting to fly around, wearing tights and blasting bad guys. Fortunately I didn't mention CoH/V to my oldest son, if I did then I would have faced a -10 penalty to my save as he loved that game.

Not too bad, I made three imaginary Will saves and saved myself (slightly) over 150$! It gives a whole new meaning to the phrase, "Imagine the savings!"...

Yeah, okay, that was bad.


On another note, I was a good husband yesterday and put up the blinds in the kitchen window last night. We had to replace them when my oldest little ogre took the scissors to the strings that held them together. The wife didn't even have to ask, she was off to the grocery store, big little ogre was outside with a friend (and the friend's mother), little little ogre was inside watching TV so I went ahead and installed them.

Once done, the big little ogre came in and was coloring downstairs while the little little ogre was outside with mom and the other moms. I figured I'd go downstairs and fire up WoW to get some mining done (I recently switched from Skinning+Leatherworking to Mining+Engineering). A short bit later the wife comes in with the little little ogre who is proving why I call him an ogre (he was throwing a tantrum because he didn't want to come in). I figure he's with the wife so no problem, I'll let her take care of it.

About ten minutes later she comes down and starts bitching at me because I'm on the computer, the little little ogre is crying and isn't in his pajamas yet and I'm not being helpful.

Don't worry, I pointed out the fact that she had the little little ogre outside, he is a little little ogre and she's his mom so she should be able to handle his tantrum without my assistance, I couldn't exactly put his pajamas on him while he was outside and that she was welcome for my putting up the blinds in the kitchen.

She liked that.

She's now no longer the wife (no no, not divorce), instead I shall refer to her as Mrs. Ogre. She grumbled as she went upstairs to put the little little ogre's pajamas on, then put him to bed. She grumbled about upstairs, watched some reality TV and then went to bed asking me to put the big little ogre to bed after he was done watching his movie (Leap Frog - educational stuff).

Everyone was fine in the morning, no residual anger. Well, the little little ogre declared, "I am grumpy with you, Daddy!" To which I responded, "No, you're not." That threw him for a loop and he stated he was grumpy with me again, though he sounded unsure. I told him he wasn't again and he started telling Mrs. Ogre that he was grumpy with me. By the time I was done brushing my teeth the little little ogre had forgotten that he was grumpy with me.

Oh, with forgetting in mind, I locked myself out of my work laptop this morning. I was drawing a blank on the password for the hard drive encryption. I knew what most of the password was, but I was missing one character and I couldn't remember where it was for the life of me.

No worries, I could redeem myself by proving my identity with answering two questions.

1.) Who is was your favorite superhero?
2.) Who is your favorite entertainer?

I was stumped again. I guessed Superman and Robin Williams but apparently I was wrong. Those are tricky questions because my favorite superhero sort of changes. At one point I liked Colossus (X-Men), then Superman (he's the ultimate munchkin), and Spider-Man of course. Once Fantastic Four came out, I couldn't help but love the Jessica Alba... uh, I mean, the Invisible Woman.

Favorite entertainer? Holy crap, I've not idea where to start. Honestly, I don't think I have a favorite and if I do, it changes from time to time. I think I'm going to have to pick one and stick with it. I think I'll go with Jessica Alba and Jessica Alba next time.

The shittiest part about the day so far is that I really want a beer and my beer buddies either have lunch or have team lunches going on...

I think things are going to go horribly wrong in my WoW session tonight. We're supposed to do a bunch of quests in Zul'Farrak and we should have our Mage along with us. The group will be Me (48 Hunter), Frank (45 Priest) and Chris (40 Mage) so we should be more than fine.

Any guesses on what will happen?
A. Computer hardware failure
B. Internet Connectivity issue
C. Server crash and wipe

Session 2...

Question for the masses: as a 'living construct', should Warforged be subject to Charm Person?

I didn't see anything that directly said they wouldn't be affected by Charm Person, but they are considered 'living construct' as opposed to Humanoid - or would they be Humanoid (Living Construct) in which case they would likely be affected...

Anyway, they advanced the module story a bit and discovered the underground forge but we had to stop there as it was sometime around midnight. The haven't found what they're looking for yet. I guess we'll resolve that next session.

I do admit I was a little surprised at the length of one of the encounters and shocked by the CR of a certain creature used in an encounter.

The long encounter was one that could have been dangerous had the lead party member (the Rogue) not spotted the hidden enemy. He would have attacked the last person in the group and they would have faced Sneak Attack damage - 2d6 damage is pretty hefty when you're dealing with first level characters. The rogue spotted him and drew his weapon, revealing that he saw the hidden Warforged who started the round by falling back to his allies. This combat took a bit long though not due to anything other than the group having bad luck.

Glaekan, one of the group's Clerics almost died in this fight. I suspect he was close to 0 if not actually at 0 HPs. "42", the group's Warforged Fighter, took quite a beating too.

As for the creature with the surprising CR, well, it was a Horrid Rat. You take the Rat creature and apply the "Horrid" template to it. This template seems to give them a high natural armor bonus, increase the damage die a little, add acidic saliva and make them almost impossible to reason with. End result is a 1 Hit Die creature with an AC of 20, a bite attack at about +4 to hit which does 1d6 damage+1d6 acid damage+possible infection with Filth Fever (disease).

Crazy.

After reading all that, I was going to pull one off the board but the group didn't want to be denied their morsel of XP (hehe).

I was really surprised they all survived and it came close a couple of times. At the end of the night, they all hit level two.

Go go Evil team!

Temp Layout and Stuff...

Blogger has a new template system which I wasn't using so I decided to update my template to it. That sort of blew away my other layout, which is fine because I was thinking of changing it anyway. I'm still not sure what I'll settle on... perhaps a collage of ogres from various games would work. I'll try to make the colour scheme a little brighter and less dark, but no guarantees.


As for other stuff, I'd like to talk a bout Age of Conan, but I'm not sure if I'm allowed to yet? I haven't seen any sort of official announcement yet so I guess I'll remain tight-lipped about it.


At the moment, the only other game on the radar is Champions Online... that one has me really curious. I'm still picking through the bits of information on the site, but it sounds like you'll be able to pick your powers and customize them so they appear unique - unlike in CoH/V where you could create this bad ass looking hero only to have him fire pink bolts at enemies.

Another thing I thought was interesting is that after creating your character you end up creating his archenemy. I wonder what they're going to do with that? It could be interesting.

I like the look of the art, it's a lot more comic-book cartoony (as opposed to Saturday morning cartoons cartoony) and looks fun. I'm sure my kids will enjoy it. My oldest really liked CoH but I can't bring myself back to playing it. Hopefully they do something different enough with Champions Online.


Warhammer: Age of Reckoning (WAR) is not really on the radar. To be honest, I am a little turned off by the hype. At first it seemed exciting, but now it seems tired and forced. It's like watching a band that's played a fan favorite a billion times getting asked to play that one again when they have new material they'd rather be playing.

I'll take a peek every now and then and see what's up. If I did buy, it would probably be after release and I've heard from the players rather than the developers or PR people.

UPDATE: here's a good article from 1UP on Champions Online. I was a little disappointed to see that it will be aimed at PCs and XBox 360 as well. The fear in that is watering down the control options so that they fit on a console controller... like a certain other game did.

Go Flyers Go!

Session 1 Complete...

... no deaths yet.

I have to admit, I was a little worried when the rogue was up ahead by himself with the party a good round or two of movement behind him and I knew a Warforged Barbarian was going to get the drop on him. Fortunately for him, I rolled bad on the damage die. The two hits the Barbarian had were both 1s. Unfortunately for the recipient of the second hit, the Barbarian had raged at that point.

The group handled it well. The Druid and his wolf, "Cuddles", moved in fast to engage, the Warforged Fighter moved in as fast as he could, the Rogue (wisely) retreated, the Clerics moved up to engage (one missed a touch attack on his Ray of Enfeeblement) and heal, the Artificer moved up and repaired the Warforged Fighter and the Wizard cast Magic Missile at the darkness and made good use of the "Daze" spell.

Well done.

The session wasn't combat heavy in the least, it was more focused on RP, puzzling out what was going on, preventing themselves from being arrested or bluffing their way into the Morgrave University - which was one of those, "Crap, that's not supposed to happen" type things the players will do.

While Scott (the Wizard) had a fair bit of focus in the evening, Gord (the Rogue) made an extra effort to become involved and Ken (one of the Clerics) had the path to his Prestige Class set up. I wasn't intending for the Rogue to have some spotlight yet, but he stepped up and made things happen so I let it all play out.

I have plans for the others, things just didn't get to a point where they could come out but they will.

I didn't miss the little bits of other RP and did reward people accordingly. I think for most part, once we got going people stayed focused and in character aside from a couple of tangents while I was dealing with the Rogue 'off-roading'.

The wheels are still turning...