Weekend Wibblings

[digitaldiscipline]

Friday: WoW with K, Baal, and MBI (astute observers may notice a trend). After getting the mid-week 'shoes her machine was having rectified, K is turning into quite the gamer geekette. *laugh*

Saturday: 9am found me at GMBAS, getting all manly. There's something deeply theraputic in being able to take a ten-pound sledgehammer to something that Needs.To.Die as hard as you can, though.

[Which isn't to say my shoulders and hands don't ache a little today, but there's a sense of accomplishment when you can look at a pile of rubble and say "We did that in an hour and a half" that's altogether different from seeing a small pile of paperwork move from one bin to another, or some new little electronic files taking up space.]

Then, it was off to look at Corollas with K, and provide moral support and financial stubbornness in the face of some of the nicest car salespeople we've ever met. If any Tampaxen are in the market for a Toyota, go to Stadium and ask for Bill, because even though we eventually said "No, thanks," he and (Megan? Laurie? The manager & financials person) were really nice, knew their stuff, and tried hard to get us to say yes without crossing over into being pushy.

An aside here: I was finally chilly in Florida. It took until December 4th, standing outside in mid-50's with a breeze and some sprinkles while wearing shorts and a t-shirt. :-)

Back to GMBAN for more WoW before K was to do a ride-along with the neighborhood pet-sitter for some freelance work & $$, and then the plan was to hit the company holiday party with Sil & Bob. The ride-along took twice as long as expected, so we put the kibosh on laughing at other Cokies in favor of hitting TBBC for dinner and a drink. Lurch, as always, gave great service and banter, and the Lindeman's Framboisie 'rita is darn tasty (and their chili is phenomenal). Back home, it was WoW-time until 2am.

Sunday: Woke up to be productive (Sil was already talking hitting the gym at 8:15, so we weren't about to be outdone). The front garden got thoroughly landscaped - right side has red cypress mulch down, left side is bare earth (the bougainvillea is taking well, though growing slowly). Pruned the Rampaging Wall of Hibiscus that's between my yard and the alley where the sketchy neighborhood personage (read: bike-riding dealer) tends to conduct his business, the intent being to make it both more densly bushy on my side, and less appealing as concealment on the other. K tackled the silver sponge paint in the Incredibly Blue Bathroom, and ended up doing a semi-wash treatment over the wall's existing texture. It knocks the color down a fair bit, and adds a really funky patina that changes depending on the light and viewing angle.

Afternoon and evening - you guessed it, more WoW. ;-)

We won't discuss my hideous showing in smaugchow's fantasy football league this week. . .

And today, the first installment of the Sil-free workplace. I'm just wondering who keeps calling and leaving her voice mail.

Comments

[ladysoleil.livejournal.com]

I'm going to contain my envy of your managing to be merely only chilly in December. *shivers*

[etcet.livejournal.com]

A clever combination of Buffalo upbringing and being in, oh, FLORIDA has contributed to this state of affairs.

Did I mention that the house across the street is available for sale, as are a half-dozen or so others between the two GMBA outposts? Are you -sure- you don't want to come to the warm-and-dark side? *coerce, coerce*

[ladysoleil.livejournal.com]

*sigh* You tease me, darlin. You do. I'm quite willing, my other half has issues. I've brought it up more than once and it *has* been seriously discussed, but as of yet, no success.

[kungfugimp.livejournal.com]

Send some of that cooler weather to this side of the coast. While it's been nice and less humid, I would love to break out a jacket sometime before the year ends :o)

Just wanted to verify if K is still into modeling some clothes for me and if you would also be interested. I'm making a couple of men's clothing for Ken (go figure) and he's XL.

[jmoriarty.livejournal.com]

I find that the carefully timed and applied use of both psychological and physical (*ahem*) coercive tactics can work wonders in this regard. ;)

Hell, it worked on *me* - I wound up moving to INDIANA, for Legba's sake! For eight years.

OK, I'll stop now.

[etcet.livejournal.com]

As far as I can tell, yes, she is (did you get the IM with her addy? If not, it's on her LJ profile).

It's not cool here now - probably above sixty when i went running this morning. But last week was nice, though saturday afternoon was bordering on dreary, at least by local standards.

[etcet.livejournal.com]

I do not tease. I entice. Taunt. Cajole.

Teasing makes it sound like you never get off. ;-)

Silent P has 'shoes? *attempts to look stunned* *tries again* Okay, that just isn't gonna happen.

We all have 'shoes. Sil coaxed El Uno away from the land of big mall hair; joo can do eet!

[jmoriarty.livejournal.com]

Pardon my ignorance (not a hardcore gamer, save for old-school RPG's, and flirted with City of Heroes), but if "WoW" is "World of Warcraft" the MMORPG game, I have heard that it is the next evolutionary step in such games, and thus quite good. Your 2 cents?

[etcet.livejournal.com]

I don't know if there's any sex that's worth moving to indiana, mate. You're -warped-. *grin*

[jmoriarty.livejournal.com]

>We all have 'shoes. Sil coaxed El Uno away from the land of big mall hair; >joo can do eet!

Reference my tactical point above. ;)

[jmoriarty.livejournal.com]

Eh. I was a fool in love. You've heard the song before.

And yes, I'm far, FAR more warped than I let on. ;)

[etcet.livejournal.com]

Revolutionary? I wouldn't say that. It's good, to be sure, and looks very nice. The gameplay is straightforward, though there are a smattering of non-intuitive controls and whatnot.

The skill system is unique, at least IME. You don't allocate points to your attributes or proficiencies when you gain a level, it does it for you, and as you use a skill, you get better at it (for instance, my ranger-type character is maxed out with her bow and dagger and the defense skill, because those are what get used all the time in combat, but HTH is 1/4 as high, because I only practice that when I get disarmed and continue to fight). It takes a lot of the micromanagement out of skill allotment (as well as closes that series of loopholes for abuse by hoarding or weirdly allocating skill points to make one race or class behave in an inconsistent manner).

The "talent" tree is the only classical instance where you allocate a point with each level, and it's fairly straightforward, though somewhat limiting in how it's established. again, the reduction in one type of flexibility makes selection of how to spend these points less of a subject for abuse or "creative management", though there are some instances where it feels like you are forced to spend them on stuff you don't necessarily want in order to get something you do, and that's kind of annoying.

on the whole, though, it's implemented well, and closes a lot of the loopholes that existed (esp. in Anarchy Online) for players to equip way over their heads (here, it's all level-based), but the upside of that limitation is that you can tell at a glance what you can and can't tackle on your own. the gameplay is skewed towards encouraging team-based engagements totake down higher-leveled opposition in order to earn more XP, but that only makes sense.

plus, the world is huge. i've explored maybe five or ten percent of it, tops.

[jmoriarty.livejournal.com]

All good points. Thanks.

I have yet to see a game that can deal with solos effectively (ie. one *must* eventually team/group/clan to survive/level), and to date that's been the sticking point for me.

[etcet.livejournal.com]

It's not requisite that you group to survive. It is encouraged that you group to level more quickly, and there are certain quests (elite quests, or raids) that are, if not impossible to tackle on a level-for-level playing field, then prohibitively difficult.

don't be an iconoclast, team up with some random slacker. *g*

[voratus.livejournal.com]

Teams suck. They either slow you down, or try to race through everything (neither of which are good).
Though it was how I got through Shadowfang. Unfortunately, Arugal killed me, and then got killed himself too far away, so now I have to do it again.

[voratus.livejournal.com]

(oh, and in case you're a soft little pink-skin, it's an elite dungeon in the Forsaken's lands)

[etcet.livejournal.com]

only 16 here, bub. me and MBI (18 or 19) got our asses handed to us in the elite mine in moonbrook last night as a party of two.

though i agree with your general assessment - random group of strangers invites entirely too much potential asshat quotient. which is why there are four of us who play, usually with phone contact as well as in-game chat, so that either the dragging ass or tearing ahead is minimized.

wishlist item would be to move the chat windows, as well as make guilding easier, since it's pointless for all of us to group when we're still too disparate in terms of char levels (9-19 atm) to do anything meaningful as a group, but still want to have a useful chat interface among all of us.

[hellsop.livejournal.com]

I'm just wondering who keeps calling and leaving her voice mail.

Head-hunters. (;

[theonebob.livejournal.com]

Physical coercive tactics had nothing to do with it in my case. It was 90% economic.

[etcet.livejournal.com]

if you squint just right, a dollar sign has bunny ears.

;-)

[etcet.livejournal.com]

Yanno, I'm wondering if I could ever find one clever enough to understand if I were to leave a voice mail that said "I'm looking for this man. . . "

[voratus.livejournal.com]

What server are you on btw?

[etcet.livejournal.com]

Lothar. . . . of the Hill People!