Take care for outdoor containers: insulate them from frost with bubblewrap.

Hard frost last night, which started about 4pm. Thawed this morning about 10 am, cold & miserable all day. Lumps of ice turned out of hens’ basins were still frozen in the evening. Made bonfire, added some of the hay which had rotted to the compost-heap. This uses up the Adco, which will not have made the 7 cwt. of manure as specified, but perhaps I used it too liberally.

7 eggs. Sold 20 @ 4/4. Total this week: 49. + 12 laid out = 60.

The weather of the last few weeks was fantastic, but it was too good to last.  Today it rained most of the day.  Tomorrow the forecast is snow.  After that we get back to more normal temperatures, but still not bad.  It’s going to freeze at night and the sun will melt the frost during the day.  Eventually the frost will win.  Any tillage needs to be finished in the week after turkey day.

We’ve been hauling dry corn to the ethanol plant and have almost made enough room for what is in the field.  With eight tenths of an inch of rain we now have wet fields.  The puddles are back.  Add some snow and things get smeary.  I hope the sun can dry things out a bit but I doubt it.  We’ll be getting corn out of the field as soon as we can.  No football for me Thursday.  I’ll be in the combine.

Harvest and tillage will now switch to the times when the ground is firmed by frost.  When things thaw out we’ll not be moving as much.  The harvest has now developed a new wrinkle.  We’ll see what full moon brings.

Michael

It only took about 15 minutes at the vet clinic yesterday, one fast visit. *smile* The vet thought Clouds eye looked good (I really don’t want to know what bad looks like according to him) and Cloud only have to eat antibiotics for 6 days and get eye drops for 10 days then he’ll probably be as good as new.

We talked a little bit about the situation and our vet didn’t think that this was a serious fight where the dogs really wanted to hurt each other. Since they have been living together for 3 years and they never had a fight before (not even when the females are in heat) he didn’t think there would be a problem putting them together again. I sure hope he is right! Tomorrow we will take them both out for a long walk and then….well… We’ll give it a try. (if the walk goes well then)

This is the boys today.

//Ninni

***********************

Hos veterinären…

Det tog bara 15 minuter hos veterinären igår, snabb visit med andra ord. *ler* Veterinären tyckte att Clouds öga såg bra ut (jag vill inte veta hur dåligt ser ut enligt honom) och Cloud skall bara äta antibiotika i 6 dagar och få ögondroppar i 10 sen skulle han vara som ny igen.

Vi pratade lite om situationen här hemma och vår vet tyckte inte att detta var ett allvarligt slagsmål där hundarna varit ute efter att skada varandra. Eftersom de har levt ihop i 3 år och aldrig slagits innan (inte ens under tikarnas höglöp) trodde han inte heller att det skulle vara något problem att sätta ihop dem igen. Jag hoppas verkligen att han har rätt!!! I morgon skall vi ta med dem båda på en lång promenad och sen…tja…sen gör vi ett försök. (om nu promenaden fungerar bra)

Kortet är taget idag.

//Ninni

I’m finally reading Leo Babauta’s The Power of Less. I have read, or have on the list to read, many productivity books. It is a fascination of mine.

The aspect of the problem that I am struggling most with right now is the selection problem.

Leo has been broadcasting a powerful message of simplicity for a while now. I bought his book the moment it was available based upon my experience with Leo’s writing at Zen Habits. I discovered Zen Habits during an exploration of David Allen’s Getting Things Done. That exploration had begun with Merlin Mann’s 43 Folders. Before any of that I had drank the Franklin Covey Kool-Aid.

Each of these attempts to articulate productivity principles have had an impact. My own decision making is informed by aspects of each that have resonated with me. Still, today, one core problem remains for me. That problem is the selection problem.

Which of the many opportunities, tasks, projects, items, emails, websites, phone calls, interruptions and interactions will hold meaning for tomorrow? How does one decide?

Each of the systems gives some guidance on selection. The advice and recommendations in these expressions of possibility are not the issue. The issue lies within me. I have no idea how to rate and rank the possibilities right now.

It is perhaps because I am hard afloat within a personal period of transition. It feels almost as if I have no past. At least no past that doesn’t consist of experience informing today. It feels as if I have almost any future. I stand at a fork. Yet, this fork is not the one I imagine when I read Robert Frost’s words.

I do not see a choice between a well trodden road and another less travelled path. Not at all. I see uncountable possibilities. I see a Mandelbrot Set, fully developed, completely opaque to understanding meaning. I see so many of the possibilities of a universe full of quantum fluctuations.

Perhaps this isn’t a selection problem at all. Perhaps this is an existential problem.

…In November???

Well, actually, it’s wild strawberry leaves,  turned autumn red ruby and here festooned with the remnants of the morning’s frost:

I liked the way each of the leave’s tiny, hair-like spines had captured its own accumulation of atmospheric rime.

This was taken at about ten AM in the deep shade of a stand of firs, and the crystal structures were becoming indistinct as the day warmed.  I bet it was really good a couple of hours earlier!

Thanks to Mary over at Work of the Poet for hosting this rubilicious meme.  Go visit her for more rubiliciousness!

So, despite frost being “not Raid viable” as DPS goes, I still do it from time to time. Frost does bring some nice raid utility, but in my guild’s 25 mans all that fancy viability isnt needed. We got a warlock bringing the spell crit debuff, a ret pally and some hunters for Replenishment and a bunch of other mages for AI, tables and Portals. I wouldnt be caught dead Rading Frost on a progression encounter, for that I’ll stick with Arcane. But there are times when you need a break. You know its okay to switch to Frost spec when all the drops off of a boss in a Raid are going to D/E (I’m looking at you Ulduar!).

With 3.3 Coming, Frost will be come a little bit less laughable in a raiding environment. To that end I am going ot compare my current Frost Raiding spec to the one I will be using come 3.3, and discuss the differences and where the newly needed points will come from.

For more info on Mage Raiding Specs and Rotations check out this post I made earlier.

So lets look at what a Frost Raiding Build looks like in 3.2.2:

3.2.2 Frost Raiding Spec (18/0/53)

So this spec goes into Arcane for Torment The Weak , but also picks up a few useful odds and ends while in there (Arcane Concentration, Focus Magic and Magic Absorbtion). But ultimately it is Torment the Weak (TTW) that brings us to arcane, That extra 12% damage is invaluable and will remain so into 3.3.

A majority of this spec goes into the Frost Spec (duh!). I want to touch on a few Frost Talents that make the spec. I’m going to gloss over the big duh Talents. It’s a given that you should take the ones that increase the damage of frost spells and the haste of Frostbolt, but some talents are a little more abstract.

• Permafrost – The ability to reduce a bosses heals is invaluable. It is a fairly situational occurence, but Wrath has a fair share of bosses that have some form of healing. Being able to reduce that Healing by 20% is amazing even if no one realizes you are doing it.
• Fingers of Frost and Frostbite – These two Talents are intrinsically linked. This post on the official forums explains it far better than I can. In this 3.2.2 build you dont need Frostbite. you are essentially going to ignore Fingers of Frost procs as you are just going to continue using Frostbolt, only it has an increased crit chance. This will be very different in 3.3.
• Cold as Ice – Reducing the cool down of your water elemental is key. In 3.2.2 you want your icy little dude out as much as possible. The water elemental is responsible for a very decent amount DPS for a frost mage and keeping him out as much as possible, and keeping him alive, is key to maintaining top DPS.

The rest of the talents are fairly self-explanatory. Increased Damage this, increased crit that, you get the point. Just keep spamming that Frostbolt button and you’ll do all right for yourself.

So what changes in 3.3? What kind of spec will I be rolling with?

3.3 Frost Raiding Spec (18/0/53)

Same numbers, but there are some key differences. In 3.3 Deep Freeze becomes important. Now besides being nice for PvP, it will also do a very sizable chunk of damage to targets that are permanently immune to stun (read: Raid Bosses). This means that you wont just be spamming Frostbolt untill your fingers fall off. Now on every Fingers of Frost proc you will also toss out a Deep Freeze.  For this reason we need more control of our FoF procs so we need to spec into Frostbite.  Again, This post on the official forums will tell you why in very clear terms. This alone should be a sizeable increase in Frost DPS, but the fun doesnt stop there!

There will be a new Glyph for your Water elemental. Here is the PTR Link. Glyph of Eternal Water will make it so your Water Elemental is permanent.  Sure he looses his AoE freeze, but thats almost useless in raids anyways. This makes a big difference on talent expenditure. Now Cold as Ice only really reduces Cold Snap, which is nice, but makes a minimum impact on DPS if it isnt taken in 3.3. Also a large part of Enduring Winter is useless too. One point in it is really enough to keep Replenishment up at all times, you will still be spamming the heck out of Frostbolt.

These changes aren’t enough to make Frost the new hotness, but it is a huge boon to Mage Frost Raiding. The best part is there will be very little effect in PvP. PvP frost probably wont take the glyph, because that AoE freeze is invaluable there, and in PvP no one is permanently immune to stuns. Don’t be surprised if you are asked to change to another spec for progression raiding, but now you shouldn’t be embarrassed to be casting Frostbolts in a raid!

Good Hunting!
-Mandrus

I got an appointment at the vet clinic at 19:00 with Cloud, got to check his eye. We did call the vet earlier but they didn’t have time for us and we contacted an eye specialist in Gothenburg but she didn’t think it was necessary for us to travel all the way to her so… That’s why we’ve waited until today.

I’ve tried to figure out what caused the fight and I have asked around a lot. According to the people I’ve spoken to it seem like there are two options. 1. Frost is trying to get Clouds position in the pack. 2. Frost got unsecure/afraid/nervous and over reacted. I can’t say for sure that this is right and that is wrong but to me it feels like option number two is more right that option number one.

Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong here, I’m just thinking out loud… *smile*From what I’ve read, heard and experienced it’s more likely that an unsecure/afraid/nervous dog bites than a dominant one, they also tend to over react more often. When you look at the wounds that Cloud and Frost have Frost only got small wounds when Cloud grabbed him over his muzzle. It seems like Cloud didn’t use that much force and why?  Cloud on the other hand look like Rocky Balboa.. I don’t know if Frost actually thought that he was fighting for his life and had to use as much force as possible? Maybe he panic?

I guess I can analyze this until I die. *smile* No one can say for sure what went on in their heads and that’s too bad. I think it would make things easier.

Maybe my thoughts make me look like an idiot but…what the hell….

By the way, this is an extremely short video of how Frost normally treat Cloud. This is just a fart in space…he is often much more submissive than this.

//Ninni 

 **********************************

Tankar…och en tripp till vet…

Har en tid hos veterinären klockan 19:00 idag för att kolla upp Clouds öga. Vi ringde faktiskt till veterinären redan i helgen men de hade ingen tid för oss då, sen var vi i kontakt med en ögonspecialist i Göteborg men hon tyckte inte att det var nödvändigt att vi åkte hela vägen dit så… Det är därför vi har väntat ända tills idag.

Jag har försökt klura ut vad som orsakade bråket och jag har frågat runt en hel del. Enligt folket jag har pratat med verkar det som att det finns framför allt två alternativ. 1. Frost försöker ta Clouds position i flocken. 2. Frost blev osäker/rädd/nervös och överreagerade. Jag kan inte med säkerhet säga vad som är rätt och fel men för mig känns det som att alternativ nummer två är mer rätt än alternativ nummer ett.

Det är hel okej att rätta mig nu om ni tycker jag har fel, jag tänker liksom bara högt. *ler* Efter vad jag har läst, hört och upplevt så är det mer troligt att en osäker/rädd/nervös hund biter än en dominant, de har också lättare för att överreagera. När jag ser skadorna som Cloud och Frost har fått så kan jag konstatera att Frost bara har mindre/ytliga sår där Cloud har greppat honom över nosen. Det verkar som att Cloud inte har använt mycket kraft alls och man kan ju undra varför? Cloud å andra sidan ser ut som Rocky Balboa.. Jag vet inte om Frost faktiskt trodde att han slogs för sitt liv och var tvungen att använda så mycket kraft som möjligt? Kanske fick han panik?

Jag misstänker att jag kan analysera det här tills jag dör. *ler* Ingen kan med säkerhet säga vad som föregick i deras huvuden och det är lite synd. Tror det skulle underlätta en hel del.

Mina tankar kanske får mig att framstå som en idiot men…skit i det.

Den extremt korta videon är förresten ett smakprov på hur Frost behandlar Cloud dagligen. Egentligen är det som visas en fis i rymden, Frost är oftast mycket mer undergiven än så.

//Ninni    

“OMNOMNOM, ME LOVE SANDVICH!!!” Screams Elnoriah as he devours sandwich after sandwich at the Ebon Hold’s café delicious…

Raiding can be quite the expensive investment, as a Tank I put in about 100g a night of raiding in repairs, and receive emblems and possibly loots. Of course I have tons of fun, which is worth every copper of that damned virtual currency. Nonetheless there is more to Raid expenses than just repairing, and these my friends are called consumables!

What IS a consumable?

The best way to describe a consumable is something that you “eat” and in WoW, most likely buffs you. The three examples that you will be most familiar with will be Flasks, Food, and Potions. Just by having enough of all three of these items can increase your performance quite a bit, and so most Raiding Guilds REQUIRE you to use these on Guild-Run Raids. PUGs for specific Raids, not so much, but if you are tackling hard content, then you may as well strap a few of these on with you.

Hine over at Death Goddess wrote an article on Death Knight DPS consumables, so for any of our DPS cousins I suggest you hop over there and take a peek!

Food

Up until 80 we generally only think of Food as the way to get our HP back in between pulls, but in fact cooks can create food that can buff the whole Raid/Party or just yourself. As a Tank, there are quite a few decent choices we can get, and the expense to acquire the consumables may vary depending on the server. Regardless, let us judge only by stats, not by a virtual currency.

Fish Feast: As goes the same with what Hine wrote, it’s free and it’s a pretty good buff. Generally I would use this with my guild if we were doing something that is on farm, and/or not a challenge to the group. Honestly, there is no reason to break my back fishing or break my wallet purchasing food if it is for a cake-walk Raid. As with most consumable foods it gives 40 STAM (contributing about 400 HP), and for a whole hour is a pretty sweet deal. On top of the 40 STAM, if that was not already enough to sell you, is 80 AP which of course boosts your DPS. To us this means that because we do a bit more damage, we will be doing quite a bit more TPS (Threat per second).

So for Farm content, or just plain easy instances/Raids mooch off of a friend and eat their Fish Feasts, eat them up!

EDIT: (Thanks for correcting me on that Gravity)

Blackened Dragonfin: Is certainly the best food out there for a DK Tank, with its 40 Agi and 40 STAM there is virtually nothing that can compete with it. The 40 STAM is a keeper just on its own, but what does the Agility do for us? Well, Agility as a stat increases Dodge, Armor, and also gives us a tiny bit of AP. Avoidance, damage mitigation, and a bit of Threat, exactly everything we need in a single stat. It is simply delicious, as a food and as a buff, go blackened and you will NEVER go back!

Personally I would only be using this if either your Raid has no Fish Feast (Very Unlikely) or if you are progressing through harder content that is not on farm or ridiculously easy!

Snapper Extreme: I will be completely honest, use this ONLY if you are severely lacking in Hit Rating. As a Tank we do want to get a bit of Hit, maybe not the Hit Cap, but we want to be “up there” enough to be able to successfully use each of our abilities. The problem with getting “up there” is that in ToC there are VERY few Tanking items with Hit on them, so we need to scrounge what we can out of the T9 Helm/Chest and possibly even use a couple gem slots for +Hit. Dark times indeed, but food can actually limit the amount of gems we need to “waste”! The Snapper Extreme gives 40 STAM still, but also 40 Hit Rating, which is about 1% Melee Hit and 1.5% (ish) of Spell Hit. The extra percent can easily boost your threat IF YOU NEED THE HIT RATING, otherwise like DPS overcapping HR it is completely useless.

So if you are lacking HR to the point of not being able to hit Raid Bosses and keep them on top of you the entire fight, grab a Snapper Extreme to give you that boost. Fish Feast and the Dragonfint are better but if you can not hit the Boss, you are not producing threat. What is the point of all of that survivability and uncrittable gear if you can not keep the boss on you?

Yeap, I look like a stripper now. Mother will not be pleased!

Flasks are made by Alchemists, think of them as potions that last for a whole hour and persist through death. Flasks are VERY important to have, you can go without Food for Farm content, but you should always have at least 2 flasks on you for the duration of the Raid. (Onyxia/VOA/OS you could probably get away with not using one) These flasks will increase performance pretty significantly, and they are not even that expensive! Considering there are only 4 choices to choose from for Flasks we will only be using 1 as a Tank.

Flask of Stoneblood: 1300 HP ’nuff said. Really, that is a significant amount of HP to gain just by drinking some concoction, and it will make quite a big difference in terms of your survivability. Take me for an example, normally I have about 35.9k HP, and by drinking this I am at 37.2k HP self buffed, obviously this is a great deal of difference and will help the Healers not have to work their asses off to keep me alive. Sounds like the 25g a wack is certainly worth it!

Like I said earlier, you would be able to get away with not using Flasks in Ony10/VOA/OS if you are just futzing around with a PuG. Regardless, find an Alchemist and make friends with him/her, because you are going to need them!

Potions

Potions are the trickiest of the consumables to truly understand. You can only use them 2 times in a fight, once before the pull and once during the pull, so you will need to have a bunch but be able to use them wisely. Choosing the right potions is also a huge part of it, but luckily for us we only have one that we even need to think about as a Tank. Yes we are cheaters, but we are the ones keeping you from getting pounded by that fire-breathing worm over there!

Indestructible Potion: Words can not describe my love for this potion, because frankly, it has saved my life on multiple occasions. 3500 Armor is a ridiculous amount to come out of a potion, so much that it completely takes the Runic Healing potion’s potential use and throws it out of a window. The mitigation is tremendous, but that is not all that it gives you. If you have Bladed Armor you can get around 100 AP extra just by popping one of these, so on top of the amazing amount of mitigation it provides, it also gives us a ton of bonus Threat. Just incase we were questioning its awesome power.

Keep about a stack of these with you at all times, because you will never know if you need to whip one out. They are cheap and easily replaceable so do not worry!

So let us add all of these together, if we are fully buffed with all of the best foods/potions/flasks available we will receive about 1700Hp, 3500 Armor, a tiny bit of parry, and 180-200 more AP. A noticeable difference for sure, but it does come with a price. To get fully buffed/flasked it can cost 80g+, but there are ways to limit the costs, but generally only through a little bit of elbow grease.

Level your cooking and fishing to 450 on an Alt or even your Main. The cost of Food is certainly the most expensive of all of these, so by putting a bit of effort in you will be able to cut the cost of Raiding by quite a bit. If you have a gatherer/Alchemist get them to max level and farm on them for the mats/flasks/potions, this can be a bit time-consuming, but it gives you something to do on those boring times of the day.

Great job today guys, now let us take what we have learned and apply it on our next Raid!

Unless it is OS… just face roll. *snickers*

Happy WoWing!
-Elno

On a Side Note- we now have a Guide section for the site, go to the page and you will be able to view all of the Guides written by myself and Aifel! Enjoy!

Da wir gerade bei Filmen über Metal sind:

Ob eine weitere Doku über ‘Trve Norwegian Black Metal’, Kirchenbrandstiftungen usw. unbedingt nötig war, weiß ich ja nicht…

10.27.2009

A recent morning’s ride into work past Hancock Dam in Thomaston, CT.

HAIKU

Leaves torched with colors

of flaming scarlet and gold

wear frosty white wraps

3/14/90 Phyllis DeWitt-VanVleck

In this case, mid-morning frost on a carpet of moss in a field where I’m currently working.  The shade of a stand of fir trees kept the frost in place until coffee break, when I gathered my kit and dashed out into the scrub to snag a couple of photos.

I’m glad I did, even though they were quite rushed.

Moss, supporting a sprawl of wild strawberries:

…and a closer shot of strawberry plants gone red as the freeze comes on:

The full-sized versions of these two photos display the temporal layering of successive ice deposits as what looks here to be chunks of Morton salt.  But trust me, it’s good ol’ H2O.

These come our way courtesy of Ziggy, my 50mm Sigma prime lens.

Enjoy.

I do not see what the big deal was with that place. Sure, it took 5 people a year ago to do it, but it took 1 Elnoriah now! *flex*…

The Burning Crusade was WoW’s very first expansion pack, and certainly its finest. Some of the most challenging Raids and Instances were home to TBC, and honestly it has shaped many a player. Every pull had to be carefully executed, it was like a well-rehearsed ballet. A Hunter trap here, a polymorph there, and Sap that caster! I miss those days.

Will CC (crowd control) every be back in the PvE portion of the game? I sure hope so, it made every instance a new-found challenge. In the meantime though, the only thing we have left of those days are the memories we all shared, and one of my favorites was doing Magister’s Terrance.

A History

The Sunwell patch was the last official content patch for The Burning Crusade Expansion, and with it there were the Isle of Quel’Danas Dailys,the Sunwell raid (25 man) and of course Magister’s Terrance (5m and Heroic 5m). Both of which were hard, and both of which made me question my faith in a higher being. The group had to be fine-grained in the sense that you pretty much need 5 REALLY good people to complete the Heroic (or even normal) instance, and like the traditional group makeups of TBC Instances you had a Tank, a Healer, and 2-3 DPS that could CC.

The most fun I had here was on my Warlock, I was seducing, banishing, and christ knows what all at the same time.

Each of the fights were inventive, and of course a challenge! My favorite of which was the Faction Champions esq boss before you fight Kael’Thas. Think of it as Faction Champs but with less people, and it being about 2x as hard. It was a nightmare, but when you completed it you felt like you were THE SHIT! If someone misplaced a CC you were practically done for in that boss fight, it was stupendous. Sure, to the point that many people never even finished it in its prime, but the ones who did can agree it was hard as hell and rewarding once you finished it all.

Blizzard, you made me a happy Warlock and a very stressed Priest, and to that I thank you.

Elnoriah’s Adventure

Longing for the feeling to go back and get even with the bosses of Magister’s Terrance once again, I decided it was far overdue to make a trip through MGT and solo it. The only turn-off however was that I needed to be “attuned” to the Heroic, and so I picked up the quest and ran straight into the Terrance. With that. . . our story begins!

*Looks around*
Trash! Simplistic, these first two pulls consist of two mobs to a pull. I think the saddest part of the first two pulls is that you can literally 3 shot these things, damn straight 5k Obliterate crits are EPIC!

Now, there is a large circle with two groups of mobs on either side, which path do I choose? It does not really matter so pick the left! Let us see, 5 Belfs and an Imp, you would think this would be easy as sin, but in all honesty this one pull was harder than any trash fight in WOTLK Heroics. At the end of it I literally had 2k HP left with IBF (Icebound Fortitude) and AMS (Anti-Magic Shell) on cool down, but this will be the hardest fight in quite a while so the thrill was short-lived.

Launching myself like Kirby at the trash pulls I was a GOD, and seriously it felt GOOD! I kept up on my silences, and was doing wonderfully, and then I reached the room of the first boss, Selin Fireheart. Being the first boss, he is arguably the easiest in the entire instance, and certainly a cakewalk to solo now. Back in the day however, he was still pretty simple, but was more of a DPS check (we will talk about this in a minute), trust me, I passed the test with flying colors.

Unfortunately for you I'M the god, not you Selin!

The Boss Fight- Selin Fireheart

• Keep him in the center of his platform, the farther away he is from those crystals the better. Commence Tank and Spank!
• After he gets bloodied up enough, he runs over to a crystal and starts channeling the power from it. The longer he channels the bigger he gets.
• The crystal he is channeling from is targateable, so of course NUKE THE LIVING @!$% out of it!
• No matter how godly you are, he will still get a bit bigger and scream really lame catch phrases that only work for ME.
• After each yell he explodes with a nova of green clouds, so squishies need to move the hell away.
• Rinse and repeat until dead.

Now that he is dead we can continue to the next boss, but first the pulls before him! Mana Wyrmlings, just like the ones you have to kill at the Belf starting area, except much more of a pain in the ass. The first couple are just single squishies and are easy to kill, but afterwards they start grouping up into larger masses. Until finally in the next boss’ room down the hallway of worms there are 4 groups of about 10-15 worms per. If you are a Tank pull all of these bastards and pop a cooldown, because after each dies they explode and do a bit of damage. (Killing Machine + Rime Proc = 1 shot and a TON of lag as they asll explode)

Congratulations, you now get to fight a Voidwalker by the name of Vexallus! Honestly this was more of a Healer-Intense fight in which there was a lot of damage going out in multiple places, but if everyone was paying attention it was a cakewalk.Think of him as  mini-Curator (and if you never did Kara go do it now), which is another fun fight. I will warn you though, he is mostly a Tank and Spank . . . mostly.



Rough 'im up boys!

The Boss Fight- Vexallus

• Run in there and pop every C/D known to man. Burst him until it is not funny anymore.
• It’s still not funny, keep killin’ him!
• Pansy, you call that breaking a spine!?
• Sparks will now start shooting out, kill these things, because they tend to explode and do more damage then they are worth.
• With a group each DPS should be getting 3 each. Each spark gives a stacking buff that increases damage done, as well as received, so it can be problematic with too many stacks.
• Rinse and repeat until he is dead.

If you have the quest go to the back of the hall and laugh at the dying Belf. [Badass name] [Something with Strider or any other Belfy suffix] will give you a new one which is to go outside and use the scrying orb to spy on the Sunwell. Proceed in doing  as told and watch the cut scene that follows, and yes the guy who narrates the other cut scenes does this I think so you can listen to the liquid candy that is his voice.

What a coincidence a Blue Dragon flies down and tells you his life story, pick up the quest from him! This quest tells you to kill Kael’Thas (final boss), and by doing so you will unlock the Heroic mode for MGT.

“Wait we… AREN’T killing… the blue dragonflight?”
Not today, Munch, remember this was before Malygos decided to go crazy, so he is still “cool” with us. Well, not Bronze Dragonflight awesome-
“You know… his hair is… blue like… yours!… Except it actually… LOOKS GOOD…”
Note to self: Put less sass in his lettuce, he certainly does not need anymore.

Alright, you get your awesome buff thanks to the Dragon hanging around, and continue your quest to kill Kael. There are two robots in the hallway proceeding to an outer courtyard. They are easy, just kill them and let us get to the interesting pulls!

No, these are not holigrams, these are actual Belfs and Demons hanging around this courtyard, about 7 per pull. Remember the difficulty in the first couple pulls? Take that and multiply it by 2, damn right it’s fun! For maximum skippage pull the right or left group closest to you, kill them, then pull the middle. At level 80 you should be able to just walk down the path leading towards the next room, avoiding the back pulls.

Another robot will be patrolling the hallway proceeding to the next courtyard, be sure to pull him far enough away from both the groups of mobs you skipped, and mobs you have yet to touch.  Not bad, could have gone cleaner, but now your next task is to heal up and clear out the first half of this new courtyard. You will figure out why in a minute.

Alright, head into that Greek-Building-esq thing in the middle of the courtyard, and you will spot 5 characters. 4 randomly generated characters, and one stable person, the Princess  (Purple lady with too many arms). Incoming hard fight, GO!

So, why is there a Belf with two Fisticuffs and no shirt...?!?

The Boss Fight- Faction Champions Princess-I-Need-Less-Arms

• Do the strategy you would for Faction Champions, burn down and interrupt the Healer.
• When this is done kill the next most annoying of the bosses.
• There is no threat table, they will randomly jump from person to person. (If you are soloing then go figure)
• Destroy all of them!
• ???
• Profit!

Quick! Run into the fancifully decorated hallway ahead of you, yes, Blood Elves ahead, who would have guessed!?

There are literally about two groups of Mobs left to down before you hit Kael’Thas, and these actually are some of the easier ones. Just remember to oust the Healers first, no need to make this anymore complicated than it needs to be, no? Don’t question the Naga in the pull, I assure you most Blood Elves have no positive association with them.

TEMPEST KEEP WAS MERELY A SETBACK…

“Asshole… I haven’t done… Tempest Keep… yet!”
Didn’t miss out on much, Munchy, we killed him and he apparently rose from the dead.
“…That’s my… job…”
HE TEWK YER JAWRB

YOU TWO ARE LIKE TEENAGERS IN A MOVIE THEATRE… DAMN IT, LET’S JUST FIGHT!

My, Kael'Thas, what rotten skin you have!

The Boss Fight- Kael’Thas, trust me it won’t fail this time!

• Being the prime example of a Mage, Kael will shoot fireballs at you, do try and interrupt to minimize damage taken
• around 75-80% he will summon a Pheonix, this needs to get burned down ASAP!
• Every so often Pheonix eggs will be spawned, destroy these before they can spawn the actual Pheonix inside.
• About 60% he will cast an ability that will literally take the gravity away from you for a while, much like the Tempest Keep fight.
• During this you need to fly around and dodge the purple bubbles that will be flying towards you.
• Do this successfully and he will be stunned for a few seconds before repeating this again.
• Keep killing the Eggs!
• Rinse and repeat until finished!

It is an easy fight in theory, but then again this is coming from a member of a species that thought the sun revolved around the Earth. Honestly, even on Normal mode and switching between Unholy/Frost specs I was no able to defeat Kael’Thas, and yes I was using my OH SHI- buttons and the like. It is an extremely hard fight, both for its respective level and to solo, so I will have to bug ask Aifel to help me out with that.

Either way, it was as fun of a run as it was back when I did it at its respective level, and honestly harder than any of those damned things we call “heroics” nowadays! So go try it out, and have some fun.

I’m comin’ for you Kael’Thas!

Happy WoWing!
-Elno

P.S.

As a note to all of you aspiring Tanks that have not “gotten the hang of” when to use your OH SHI- buttons, do the first trash pulls in MGT: Norm, you will know by the end of those, seriously.

  Det er tatt mange bilder av Skansen_bru i Trondheim. Jeg prøver meg med en ny vri i høstmørket og en spennende himmel…  Et frosset blad i parken tines opp av en solstråle og lyser samtidig opp bladene rundt. – Gir varme til frosne sjeler!  Et hjerte ligger på bakken nedtynget av iskrystaller og solstrålene når ikke fram!  I denne spennende parken, blant bord og benker, grill og bålplass finner jeg av alle ting bambus! Ikke bare en men mange – mange er blitt planta her! Spennende. Gleder meg til en varmere årstid. Kanskje kan vi oppleve spennende dyr også i denne eksotiske parken…? God helg til alle dere som titter innom!

Hong Kong shivers in coldest November in over 120 years

Irish Sun
Thursday 19th November, 2009
(IANS)

Hong Kong recorded its coldest Nov 18 in 120 years as a winter monsoon continued to send temperatures falling, authorities said Thursday.

Temperatures fell to 9.7 degrees Celsius in the sub-tropical city Wednesday morning – the lowest Nov 18 reading since records began in 1883.

In rural areas close to the border with China, it was even colder, falling as low as 6.6 degrees.

The previous coldest Nov 18 was in 1976 when the temperature was 11.9 degrees.

The Observatory warned the cold spell, which has brought snow to some parts of southern China, would continue until the weekend as the northeast monsoon brought wintery weather to southern China.

However, it is expected to get warmer over the weekend, bringing temperatures to around 20 degrees next week.

Hong Kong is in a sub-tropical belt at the southern tip of China and never has snow. Occasionally, traces of frost are seen on high ground on the coldest days of the winter.

Source

This is early morning frost and I’m sure most Hawaiians don’t complain about not seeing this in their back yards.

A few years ago we were visiting our son, Jon, in Kona, and as I was waiting in line at the grocery store one morning, I heard two locals complain about how cold it was on that particular morning. They both said that they needed to find their jackets before venturing out. I could only smile. How cold did it get? The temperature had dipped to 62 degrees. OMG!

Yesterday was an alright day. Went for a nice long drive, did some shopping. Finally picked up a set of demitasse cups. Espresso doesn’t feel right in a normal sized coffee cup. Finally got a fog free mirror for the shower. This is a big event for me because it also has a built in radio. And a tiny little LED light (and again, we come back to my love for shiny things that glow). Also bought one of those “soothing, stress relief fountains”. Broken, right out of the box. Kinda stressed me out, actually.
Ironyyy.

There’s been a lot of crap going on lately. Tires with sidewall damage, rusty pipes, leaky washing machines…nothing too big, but enough to make you tired, y’know? But there are a few people out there who I talk to, and suddenly all of that doesn’t seem to matter. It’s nice to have people you can vent with.

I’ve been gaining more and more control over my life. I’ve rebuilt myself. Better. Faster. Stronger. I had the technology. You’d be surprised how much you can better yourself with the help of an MP3 player. All jokes aside, I’m a lot healthier than I’ve been for quite a while. It’s a good feeling, but I’m not done yet. I still have a ways to go.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

Thanks for reading, internet.
If you’ll excuse me, I’d better get back to working on those miles.

Winter is at the door.  In some places it has already come.  So it is time to begin considering what a winter hokku should be.

Remember the Yin and Yang of the seasons, the interplay of the two universal forces.  Yang is the active force — light, warmth, movement; Yin is the passive force — darkness, cold, stillness.  In the wheel of the year, spring is diminishing Yin and growing Yang.  Yang grows in spring until it manifests as summer, in which Yang reaches its maximum and Yin its minimum.  And as you will remember, when one of these elements reaches its maximum, it begins to change into its opposite.  So as we pass the very height of summer, Yin begins to grow again, as Yang begins to decline.  Autumn is growing Yin and declining Yang, and at last we again reach winter, which brings us Yin at its deepest, and Yang at its weakest.

Added to that, as writers of hokku we must remember that these two forces — Yin and Yang — also manifest in the changes of day and night.  Morning — like spring — is growing Yang and diminishing Yin.  Midday, like summer, brings Yang to its maximum, and then it begins to decline into the growing Yin of afternoon.  This continues through evening until we reach the depths of night, in which Yin is at its maximum, Yang at its minimum.

Did you ever wonder why it is — traditionally — that some people in some places and circumstances may see ghosts at night?  It is because night is the most Yin time, and ghosts are considered part of the Yin world.

We see that Yang and Yin apply to everything in similar ways.  In human life, birth and childhood are growing Yang; as young adults, humans reach their most Yang period,  and then the decline of growing Yin begins — people start to age and begin — like Nature — to wither.  We can compare that time to late summer and autumn in the year, to afternoon and evening in the day.  And finally comes maximum Yin, which is the deepest part of night in the daily cycle — the ending of life in the human cycle — and in the seasons it is winter with its cold and stillness, when the energy of plants has returned to root and buried seed, until the growing Yang of spring brings the energies of life forth again.

Snows are already falling in the high country.  Frost has come to many regions.  The energies of Nature are retreating — Yin is growing, Yang declining.

Some might think that because Yin is the predominant element of winter, that everything in winter hokku should be cold, still, and silent.  That is a mistake.  Keep in mind that Yin and Yang never separate, even when one is at its extreme.  So even in the Yin cold and stillness of winter we will often see Yang manifesting in some way, and it is this interplay of the elements — the predominant against the weaker — that gives us hokku.

An excellent example is this very powerful verse by Gyōdai:

Akatsuki ya   kujira no hoeru   shimo no umi.
Dawn     ya whale  ’s  roaring  frost ’s sea.

Dawn;
Whales roaring
In the frosty sea.

That is a rather literal version — but effective.  In English, however, whales do not “roar,” so we would say

Dawn;
Whales spouting
In the frosty sea.

Anyone who thinks that hokku are always about the very small and the very close up will see from Gyōdai’s hokku that that is not always so.  But let’s take a closer look at the verse and see how it manifests not only winter, but the interplay of Yin and Yang.

Predominant, of course, is the force of the season — Yin.  We find that in the words the frosty sea.

The hokku takes place at dawn, when growing Yang first becomes visible.  And of course the blowing and spouting of the whales, with its force and great noise, is also Yang.  But the overall feeling of the verse is very, very cold.  So we see a great and powerful Yang force — the whales — but in spite of their size and power, they are just a tiny element amid the immensity of the Yin of winter.

Structurally, it is a standard hokku, meaning it has a setting, a subject, and an action.  We could diagram it like this:

Dawn;  (setting)
Whales (subject)
Spouting in the frosty sea (action)

You will notice, of course, that really there are two elements that make up the overall setting of the verse — dawn and the frosty sea.  Such a secondary setting incorporated as part of the action is very common in hokku.

Notice the selfless of the verse.  There is no human anywhere in sight.  All we see is the profound power of Nature — its immense cold, and the Yang of the whale who manages to live in such cold amid the frosty waves.

That last characteristic is something to remember, because things that live in extreme environments tend to manifest just the opposite.  That is why here, amid the great cold of the frosty sea — we find the powerful Yang energy of the whale.  It must be strong enough to resist the opposite element to flourish in it.

That, of course, explains why traditionally, if one was looking for the most powerful ginseng roots to use as medicine, one searched for them in the frozen mountains of North Korea.  Growing in such a Yin environment gives the root great Yang energy.  It is the same principle in Gyōdai’s hokku.

Winter hokku, then, will manifest the season in an interplay of forces.  In some we may see almost only Yin, for example in Chiyo-ni’s verse:

No ni yama ni   ugoku mono nashi   yuki no asa
Field at  mountain at   moving thing is-not  snow ’s morning

In fields and mountains
Nothing moves;
The snowy morning.

That is a very Yin verse.  We see the fields and hills covered in snow, and amid all that chilly, white immensity, not one thing is moving.  That is the stillness of winter.  We see what a contrast that is with the spouting, plunging whales and blowing, frosty waves of Gyōdai’s verse.  But notice that even in the Yin silence and stillness of Chiyo-ni’s hokku, there is the Yang element of light and morning.  In such things we see the interplay of Yin and Yang, with their respective strengths varying from verse to verse.

It is important to recall that it is Yin that brings out the meaning of Yang, and Yang that brings out the meaning of Yin.  That is easy to see.  When do we most appreciate the soft warmth of a thick blanket?  In the Yin of winter.  And when do we most appreciate the heat and bright crackle of a wood fire?  Again, in the cold of winter.

Modern people are often very insulated from the seasons, in great contrast to our ancestors.  Remember the Little House on the Prairie books of our childhood?  They show us what it is like to live closer to Nature and in greater awareness of it.  Winter has great significance when we live close to it.  If you have never read that series, I suggest you do so, because if you are living removed from Nature, it will help to remind you what a life close to the seasons is like.  We cannot write hokku if we do not experience the seasons and their changes.

It is precisely for this reason that R. H. Blyth suggested that if one wanted to write this kind of verse, one should live in a house with a roof that leaks — or at least one with a roof that has the potential of leaking.  That is really a kind of Jungian statement.  Blyth meant that we must live in circumstances in which we cannot avoid the effects of the changing seasons leaking into our lives and our consciousness.  Without that — shut away in perfectly insulated, temperature-controlled environments — how can we experience Nature and the changes of the seasons enough to write about them in a manner that really expresses them?

Let’s look again at Gyōdai’s verse:

Dawn;
Whales spouting
In the frosty sea.

That is the Moby-Dick of hokku.  It is just as dark and powerful in its own way as the novel of Herman Melville — said to be the greatest American novel.  Did you know that Melville actually went to sea for long periods of time in the 19th century, and experienced the kind of environment about which he wrote?  Can you imagine Moby-Dick having been written by someone who lived all his life in a comfy apartment in the midst of a large city?  Of course not.  How then can we expect to write effective hokku — verses that manifest the character of the season — if we are not even exposed to the seasons and their transformations?

I am not, of course, telling everyone who lives in a city apartment to sign up on a ship or to take a trek to the Arctic.  But it is very important for anyone who wants to write hokku to become familiar with its primary subject matter — Nature and the seasons.  Do that in whatever way you can, whether it is visiting parks in the city or making periodic trips to the countryside to renew and refresh your sensibilities.

Winter is a very good time for hokku because it is a season of extremes, and thus the season can potentially have a very strong effect on us.  The result can be as good as the “whale” hokku of Gyōdai, or as good as the “snowy stillness” hokku of Chiyo-ni — if we learn to step aside and let Nature express itself — let Nature speak — through our verses.

David

Instinct tells you fall is the time to steer you focus away from your garden until next spring, but according to horticulturalists, fall is a vital time to work on garden maintenance. Klara Heller, a certified nursery consultant at the Home Depot, said autumn is a great time to develop and expand your garden.

Plant your tree or shrub now

Fall is an excellent time to get planting your tree or shrub. Plant it on a cool day when the sky is overcast. Putting them in the ground now will help these plants establish a great root system before the frost.

Heller recommends watering the ground before you put the root ball in the ground as well as after. “The water helps wash the soil down into to the roots so the roots don’t have air pockets.” She said. More Tips on planning shrubs.

Some shrubs and trees to get in the ground:

·Azaleas

·Holly

·Dogwood

Stop feeding your perennials

Your perennials need food for great blooms deeper green foliage but fertilizers are going to hinder your plants readiness for the first frost. “If you keep feeding it in the fall, the roots don’t go dormant,” Heller said. “That’s not good because then they are going to freeze.” If you want it to survive the dreary winter colds, let them go dormant.

Plant your hardy annuals.

Get your mums, snapdragons and pansies in the ground now. This is a great way to add color to your garden as your as those warm weather annuals start to die off. Make sure you select plants that are cold hardy so it will continue to bloom throughout October.

Mums for sale at the Home Depot. Mums and Snapdragons can survive in colder temperatures. Photo: Jessica Gonzales

Great Hardy Annuals:

·Hardy Mums

·Pansies

·Snapdragons

Stop deadheading reseeding annuals

Deadheading is a great way to get your annuals to develop more flowers, but if you let the flower fall on its own, you will have better luck reseeding naturally. “This is how Peony and Iris and Phlox do it.” Heller said. “They send out new shoots every spring.”

Use blood meal when you plant bulbs

It’s the perfect time to get your bulbs in the ground for next spring. Get your daffodils, tulips and hyacinths in the ground now because they need freezing time in order to look great next spring.

If you use blood meal, you can give them a jumpstart in the spring. “You can put blood meal on it, so when the snow melts, the granule will dissolve right over the bulb, but its not necessary if you have a good bulb.” Heller said.

Bulbs to get in the Ground:

·Tulips

·Daffodils

·Hyacinth

Story by Adam DeRose