machinima { Amazing work

The Craft of War: BLIND


The Craft of War: BLIND from percula on Vimeo.

Awesome video (and its about rogues). The guy who created this worked professionally as an animator and was recently laid off from his job.

game { "I've been the Prince of Darkness since 1979!"

(of course Ozzy would be a warlock, although I thought for sure he'd be a death knight)

politics { Is Azeroth a blue state or a red state?

I know its a little late, but the servers have been down all day and I was jonesing for some WoW.

musings { WoW as a Terrorist training ground?

Wired, the pinnacle of journalism has posted an article about WoW being used to analyze people's behavior to study terrorism.

My take on this article.

1) They're trying to get play by cashing in on the 'World of Warcraft' popularity.

2) They found retards to contribute to the article. Seriously. I agree WoW is a good place to study social interactions, its an MMO. It has an in-house, partially player driven economy (not a total free economy) so it has its value for studying economics. It would be a good place to observe people for psychological study, as here you have a place where people's identities are hidden behind avatars, and there becomes a certain freedom for ass-hattery. But terrorism? No, griefers aren't terrorists, they're ass-hats.

This article is a stretch. I think even the author realized this as the link at the end between Blizzard and DHS feels weak and half-hearted.

gaming { Alliance! I'm in ur Citiez getting mah questz on

That's right. Pernox, a Horde, has picked up a quest in your own City of Darnassus. Your defenses are weak. Your guards are asleep. I got me +1000 AD rep and 17gold beyatches!

Your own Dawnwatcher Shaedlass is in such dire need of help he'll talk to anyone.


P.S. Evilbobby loves gnomes!

P.S.S. FOR THE HORDE!

wow { Pernox, a history in pictures

lvl 1 - strange new world

lvl 10 - lost in this new world

lvl 20 - trick or treat...give me your money!

lvl 30 - my helmet looks stupid

lvl 40 - riding in style

lvl 50 - public transportation

lvl 60 - fiery vengeance

lvl 70 - I am become death

musings { Sorry the updates have been minimal...

And at that YouTube videos.

Its not that my creative juices have been low, in fact they have been flowing. Just I've been spread in a lot of different directions. A lot of my energy has been dumped into my Guild. We've picked up a lot of new, wonderful people lately. Nerdwife has also broke sixty and well into Outlands, so I've been spending time with her there.

As I've stated before, WoW is what most people have as TV time. I do this for a few hours in the evening, usually after chores (though sometimes not), and if I don't have work. I think its far more interesting and definitely more interactive than what has been on TV for the last few years. The only exception is the of course our one TV addiction. I've started a new alt for farming and possibly raiding. He's a druid. I plan for him to be feral/restoration and plan to swap as needed. Our guild has a bit of a tank shortage at the moment, as we still have a number of tanks leveling (as well as new healers). I plan to have a character that can fulfill a tank or healer role as needed in raids. But he's only level 13 so I have a while to decide. I have numerous alts that I've started for various professions; my shaman the leatherworker; my hunter the jewelcrafter; my warlock the tailor and enchanter; my druid the herbalist and skinner; my mage the pyro-maniac engineer; my warrior the blacksmith. But none of these are as much fun or have a special place in my heart that Pernox occupies. My energy in game has been spent being a liaison between IoD and another guild 'Total Recall' which is the reincarnation of the original guild I first joined when I started WoW. We've merged our resources to help us progress in 25 man end game content. So far its worked well. We're moving beyond Gruul's Lair and into Tempest Keep and Serpentshrine Caverns. We've even stuck our toes into Mount Hyjal.

So yes WoW has been a big chunk of my free and creative time. But its not all that I've been doing.

I keep two journals now. One is my day to day that I've been keeping for years now. Its up to volume 2. It contains my thoughts and feelings and interpretations on my journey through life. My other journal is a creative writing project. I'm trying to develop my skills as a writer. I've always wanted to be able to tell stories. My first project I assigned to myself is something I know well, Pernox. I'm trying to write a journal from the perspective of my character. Its written in first person and is intended to be a journal of travels and advice for future Deathstalkers (Forsaken rogues). Its pretty bland. But other writers who have either training in writing or are professional writers tell me that the first step is to start writing. Keep writing stuff until you've refined your basic technical skills and develop your own style.

The other project I've been working on is my 10+ year quest to learn the bass guitar. Its really hard for me. I have a book 'Bass Guitar for Dummies' and I've been spending time just learning the strings and getting my hands, used to a lifetime at the keyboard, to learn how to move on the strings. The bass I have is a hand me down, and it has some imperfections. I'm getting used enough to the sounds and how things should sound that I think for my birthday this year I will buy myself a new learner bass. I've also found some videos on YouTube that I've been watching.

Work has been more of a grind than WoW. I've moved beyond soul sucking. I've checked out. I have a couple of projects that are high impact and somewhat interesting. But this place has finally broke me. I don't have the energy or the will to continue to try and change things for the better. I'm just passing time and collecting a paycheck and trying not to get fired until Nerdwife and I are ready to move away from Rochester. Training budget has been frozen since 2006 so I've not been able to add anything to my skillset, which means its time to get out of here before my skills degrade anymore. I've also not felt that I can stand behind my work that I've done here. Which hurts. I've always taken pride in my work. Even if it hasn't been the greatest, I would stand by it and use my failures as learning experiences. Here it doesn't matter. It takes so much effort and energy and time to get anything changed here I'm just gonna take the path of least resistance. Do what I can. And polish my resume and tap into my network of contacts as to how the job prospects are for my profession.

Nerdwife and I haven't decided where we're gonna go yet. We have some ideas. One this is for sure. Once we leave Rochester, we will never look back, nor will we probably ever come back. I won't say the last four years of our lives have been wasted here, but it was amazing how fast four years of progress and advancement can be taken away on pure fabrication, hearsay, jealousy, and pettiness.

Last weekend we spent the 4th at a BBQ with our friends in the Cities, many of whom I've not seen for months. I miss those people. Genuine, real friends. People who weren't just pretending to be nice. People who we could let our guard down and with whom we could be ourselves. Something we don't get to do in Rochester, save in the remaining sanctuary of our home. I went to Nerdnight the following day and played a guest appearance. It felt good rolling the dice again with the Nerds. Even though I was in Rochester, I used to religiously go to Nerdnight twice a month. However I had to take a break due to the events of last April. I'm on extended leave, but it felt good to know I will have a place at the table.

Much good news with some of the Nerds. Goran, who in my opinion has had one of the most interesting life paths of anyone I know, has in the last year found his birth certificate (was lost in a fire). Picked up a passport (so he and John can travel, especially to Sweden and Finland). Found his family and extended family. And now will be able to marry John, legally in California. I wept with joy and happiness for my friends.

I've been drained a lot lately. I don't think its anything to worry about other than anxiety over how things have been unfolding the last few months. I've not slept well. I keep having feelings of helplessness and hopelessness randomly.

I think I'm still losing weight, but my eating patterns have been up and down. I still need to lose a lot of weight. I need to ride my bike more. I stopped going to the gym when the badness started since many of the people who are central to it went there at the same times we did.

I'll never forgive those people, ever. People who I called friend, shared food with, let into my house and my life. Its not my nature to wish ill on people. But with these people, I would not feel bad if I heard something tragic happened to them. These duplicitous bastards deserve whatever bad things in life happen to them for what they've done.

One day at a time. One problem at a time.

musings { Nerd love is helping your loved one face the World...

...of Warcraft.

Over the last few weeks I helped Erewhon (aka Nerdwife) craft a now rare warlock cloth pattern. The Robe of the Void.

privacy { Gov't spying on the World...of Warcraft (and other MMOs)

This is actually a pretty good and balanced piece (I have to agree with WoWInsider for once).



This suggested legislation bothers me, as much, if not more so than the illegal phone tapping. I don't want the government watching me at home. I don't want them watching me at play. This is a fishing expedition. I hope Blizzard, like other companies stand up and refuse the gov't from doing this to us. Its the same as warrantless wiretapping. They already data mine my personal financial records. They data mine my phone habits.

musings { A guild is like a garden

And sometimes a game can help real life.

The last six weeks have been painful ones. I'm not ready to talk about it. But something helped me get through it. That something was a game, World of Warcraft. It wasn't the game itself, it was what the game provided, a distraction, a community, someplace where I could go and feel like I accomplished something. Things that the real world(tm) were lacking. During the last six weeks this game has allowed Nerdwife and I to have an outlet where the pain and frustrations could be funneled into something. It was something we could share. An experience we could do together. It allowed us to spend time with people, our friends, who still care about us; but who live far from us. Celeseathene, Allthingsspring, and the friends I've made from around the world in my guild.

I read once that my generation (gen X) doesn't have a sense of the family, more a sense of the tribe. We come together in tribal units, from many different backgrounds to share life's experiences and hardships. I think that is true. My family has never really understood me, but my tribe, my nerdpod, my friends have. They've been there for me in times of need more than my family has. I've known some of my friends for over half my life. Some of them are to me siblings. Not by blood, but by experience.

This June will mark the 1 year anniversary of my having been a guild leader or co-guild leader in some capacity. I'm not a leader of people. So the last year was a learning experience. I learned a few things. Things like you can't make everyone happy, but you can try your best. I've learned a guild is like a garden. Its a fertile base upon which things can grow. I've been lucky, that base has been friendship. Its been a social framework where common experiences have been shared. Its not perfect, it has its problems, but nothing in life is. There can be tensions and conflicts.

I've been wrapped up on all things WoW the last few weeks, not only because of my excitement that Nerdwife is playing (and enjoying it), but also because I've been brokering an alliance with two other guilds so that we can pool our resources and efforts to field a 25 man raid group, a new tribe. Our first raid is this Friday night. It will be a journey into the heart of the Blade's Edge Mountains, to the home of Bladespine Ogres, where we will confront their High King, and kill their demi-god Gruul...or try to. Our trip into Zul'Aman was a bloody expedition, sadly one where more of our blood than theirs was spilled, but that didn't bother me. It was an experience shared with 9 other people (and a few watching our progress in guild chat). We laugh, we cried, we 'qq'd moar', but we had fun. I'm hoping Gruul's will be that.

Reading my "stories" today over lunch I stumbled upon a beautiful piece of machinma by the same person who did 'Super Duper Ultimate Edition Extreme'. Its a song about when life blocks your path, find another way.

'Through the Roof n Underground' (music by Gogol Bordello)

warcraft { Ya mon der be da lootz

Tonight my Guild tackles Zul'Aman.

machinima { 'Super Duper Ultimate Edition Extreme'

One of the most interesting pieces of World of Warcraft machinima I've seen in a while.

machinima { The videogame that is all movies...

"MMovie" - pretty cool

gaming { QQ more Alliance, your tears sustain me

Seriously, get over it. Since the 2.3 changes in Alterac Valley your outdated zerg mentality no longer works. You complain about map imbalances, however you told us to go fuck ourselves and 'QQ moar' back when 3/4 of the Horde raid was AFK and the only way to win was defeat the general. You had no qualms about how Stormpike was laid out. You know why we win? We usually have a dedicated 15-20 on defense. We also have people going after the mines (both ours and yours). I rarely see Alliance on defense except when we chokehold you at Stonehearth. You can no longer be all offense nor can you no longer be all defense. Your days of easy honor farming us are over. Adapt. We did. Yeah our queues have gone up, but to me thats ok. I can play EotS and AB in between waiting for the timer to pop. You're like children, can't use your one-trick pony anymore and you quit playing.

Here's how the new AV works:

1. You win by depleting reinforcements. Not by killing the main boss anymore. Reinforcements are drained by capping towers, killing other players, and knocking out the captains and leaders.

2. Mines help lessen the reinforcement drain. Although its really annoying the bug where if you cap the Irondeep Mine first, even if we take it, its still flagged Alliance.

3. Defense. Gotta have it. Have to know how to use the map to its fullest. Instead of zerg rushing Snowfall, why not try and send some to SF and the rest stop our attempt at Stonehearth? You drive for Iceblood, and we often initially lose it, but we can generally take it back because we keep enough on D (usually).

gaming { Pernox has a posse

Pernox, 5'10", Undead, co-GM, has a posse.

casual_friday2 { Ode to the feral DPS druid

aka the Kitty


('My Cat', Jack Off Jill)

nerdcore { This is Hallow's End...

I play an undead, a Forsaken in World of Warcraft. The origins of the Forsaken trace back to the plague released upon Lordaeron by the Lich King, Ner'zhul. This plague created the Scourge, undead minions bound to the will of the Lich King and meant to destroy humankind (and elf-kind) and convert them to the will of the Lich King. The greatest champion (and who would merge with Ner'zhul to be the new Lich King) was the Death Knight Arthas. When Arthas sacked the High Elf homeland, he took their greatest general Sylvanas Windrunner and made her a Banshee queen. She served the Lich King and slaughtered in his name until circumstances allowed her to suddenly regain her will. She gathered those others of the Scourge who were newly awakened to a kind of cursed freedom and took the ruins of Lordaeron City as their home and capital. This became the Undercity, this is Pernox's home. Blizzard released a great video illustrating this story:



Every year, the Forsaken celebrate their independence from the Lich King in a holiday called Hallow's End. Undercity and Brill (a town outside the Undercity) host many activities and experiences. The world of Azeroth is also plagued by the spirit of a relentless and restless paladin, known as the Headless Horseman, he wreaks havoc upon the towns and resides deep within the Scarlet Monastery. This video illustrates Hallow's End and the Headless Horseman.


Hallow's End - Undercity and Brill

warcraft { Life at 70

I've not posted much about Pernox in a while. He's been level 70 now for sometime. I still play him the most, despite the efforts of my guildmates to play alts. I love you guys, but Pernox is my toon. I've hit a bit of a slump. Since leaving <Ashes of Empires> to help found <Medieval Metaphysicals> I've lost my ability to find good lvl 70 groups. Which means my goals to finish my Assassination Set armor, get my Tier 4 armor, and finally achieve an epic flying mount have been delayed. I've spent a lot of time, in game coin, and effort to try and get the new guild off the ground and I find it a worthy endeavor. Sadly it too seems to be floundering and we are on the brink of dissolution. But I do miss doing level 70 groups, good ones. I've joined a few pick up groups lately, but they've been terrible, when they happened. Usually you sit in LFG state for 2 hours, can usually get 4 members but can never find that last healer or tank, and in the later instances, you need to have a varied party with some kind of healing and damage absorbing ability. The only one that has been decent was the one where I went with four members of AoE. I'm happy to see I still have a good relationship with most of the members and officers of the old guild. I've even filled in for them when they came up one short for Karazhan. That was a fun time.

But despite all this I have achieved a few things:

• Frostwolf Howler - I've wanted an epic riding wolf ever since I picked up 'Knockturne', my trusty Purple Skeletal Warhorse. I call him 'Ulysses'. It required a LOT of time in the Alterac Valley battleground which is no fun on the Horde-side for the lvl 61-70 bracket as most of the Horde raid (there can be 40 to a side) sit in the starting cave and just leech honor and AV marks. Supposedly this will be addressed in a future patch.


• Honored with the Sha'tar. This brings me one step closer to 'revered' status which will allow me to craft the Alchemists epic item, the Alchemist's Stone.


• I played around respeccing to see what the deep parts of the other talent trees for Rogues can provide and finally found a compromise spec of 7/41/13 that suits my play style and allows me to solo farm, which should make getting the mats I need for crafting (mainly primals) easier and let me achieve my epic flying mount skill faster. I miss the ability to step through shadows and ambush people, but the ability to rachet up the damage and hit more than one target at a time is quite useful. Yeah I know its not the most efficent in terms of energy and combo point generation, but it is a compromise, letting me be useful and maintain those elements I value highly (the ability to quickly and effectively sneak around). It actually does quite well against lvl 65-72 monsters and absolutely destroys things under lvl 64. I've been able to do something I've never been able to do previously, take on 4 mobs at once and kill them in the same time it would normally take to kill two, without dying.


• I'm one quests away from neutral status with the Netherwing faction, however this quest requires a five man group, which is actually hard to find/start than one for an instance. I'll hopefully knock this out so I'm one step closer to getting a Netherdrake mount.


• I've been doing the two daily quests I can to raise my Sha'tari Skyguard rep and get some gold. This puts me closer to getting a Nether Ray mount. (If you can't tell I like collecting mounts)


• Old Content - I've started going back and keying and seeing the older content, even if they are not full dungeon runs. I've also been filling in the gaps in the quests I've skipped on my journey.


• Sneaking the Alliance capital cities - Darnassus is done. I have some great screenshots of the two Night Elf leaders Tyrande and Staghelm as well as some of me fishing near the Night Elf character starting point. I also found I could get a quest from the Argent Dawn office to do a Blackfathom Deeps run. I couldn't finish the quest chain, as it was for Alliance only after the first part, but it gave me +350AD reputation! Up next Ironforge and Stormwind leaders.

If the guild thing fizzles I'll probably look for a raiding guild. I'd like to have at least one piece of epic armor and one epic weapon on Pernox.

I'm also fooling around with the idea of changing professions once I craft the Alchemists Stone, since its been hard to make money with herbalism/alchemy as opposed to someone who has skinning/mining.

musing { Death in the Virtual World

So I didn't mean for the theme of the blog this week to be such as downer. It just kind of happened that way. I just finished listening to episode 74b of 'The Instance', one of the many podcasts I listen to, this one with a World of Warcraft theme. It was a tribute to a guild member, who in IRL, died suddenly of a rare heart disease.

I mention this because everyone of the players I see on line, regardless if they are an elf, a dwarf, a beastman, an orc, an undead, even gnomes, on the other side of that character, on the other side of that screen is another human being. A spark of life. A soul that resonates in the fabric of existence. Even if some of them have the emotional maturity of a rock and the sensitivity of a twig and the tolerance of a forest fire. Granted because of the nature of the technologies of the Internet and the framework of a fantasy RPG game, we live as relatively anonymous personae of heroes fighting against the supernatural or as the supernatural, sharing only what we want with others. But that as well is not wholly true, many members of what I loving refer to as 'Team CubeZoo' have joined me in game. These are my 'real life' friends. Some of them, my oldest and dearest. I know the face behind the name/character/alias/personae. We've had good times and bad times together. We've supported each other through sorrow and joy. Dark times and light. I love them like family and have loyalty to them as friends.

In the game I have a person (Krieghund is his main's name), who I've never met in real life who I consider a friend. He and I have quested together for dozens of levels with multiple characters. We've shared sorrow and joy with each other as we're both technology professionals and have a lot in common, even if he is red leaning and I am blue leaning, we can respect each other positions and still have good times. Honestly its this relationship that has changed my opinion that not all right-wing aligned people are bad and some still can be rational. I feel bad when he's having a bad week at work, or a rough spot in his life. I share his joy when things are going well. And it works in reverse. Even though I only interact with this person through the framework of the game, he is no less a friend.

Since forming a guild, the guild members have become, not a part of my, family is not the right word but tribe works better. We're small, struggling, on the edge of failing, but we're loyal to each other and help each other.

I guess all I'm trying to say is that in our modern age, the line between reality and virtual reality had smear and blurred.

founding { Medieval Metaphysicals

In the picture left you see my character Pernox and Krieghund when I ding'd 60 in World of Warcraft. Happy times. We were both in the guild 'Ashes of Empires', the first guild I was a member of in that game (previously I had been a member of 'Central Spike' in Planetside and 'The Flying Whirlpools of Suck' in Aces High). But Ashes is a large guild, very large, and while most people are fun to be with and good to play with, there were always a few who acted immature and soured the experience for all, and its bad when one of those people was an officer. But that is the past, anyways, last night I was finally able to collect the last 3 signatures to start a new guild, 'Medieval Metaphysicals'. Krieghund and I are co-Guild Masters and so far we have a membership of 9 (I booted the hired hands who were paid to sign the charter, as we want to be a little selective in membership). As soon as I have a good screen shot, I will post what our tabard looks like.

In other WoW news, I've respec'd my talents from 11/0/50 to 41/20/0 in hopes of doing more damage, but I'm not happy with it. I like the subtelty tree too much. While the combat tree has boosted my overall damage per second, it feels awkward and wrong. I miss certain things, so I'm probably going to respec again to 41/0/20, which would bring back the things I like most in the subtlety tree and it should compliment the deep investment in the assassination tree. I will still miss two old cornerstones of the sub tree, shadowstep and hemorrhage, but I can always go back.