Help a heroic turtle navigate three gorgeous game worlds dripping with detail. Block the bad guys on their mission to capture toddler turtles in this side-scrolling Arcade game. Use your brain to eliminate traps and obstacles while crushing dozens of enemies with crates. Navigate 60 wondrous worlds with loads of puzzles while collecting bonuses and power-ups. Can you recover the baby turtles in Turtix 2 Rescue Adventure?

Tons of puzzles

Worlds to conquer

Rescue young turtles!

System Requirements:

OS: Windows XP/Vista

CPU: 800 Mhz

RAM: 512 MB

DirectX: 8.1

Hard Drive: 37 MB

It Takes Just A second To Say Thanks,

It Takes Longer To The Work On This.

Turtix 2-Rescue Adventures

So last week I went into H-Azjol-Nerub as a PUG just trying to complete the Daily Heroic quest for the day.  Gotta get those two emblems of Triumph right?  We had a Shammy healer, Myself (Prot Pally Tank), A Warlock, Hunter, and Feral Druid as DPS.  I have been trying to get the Glory of the Hero acheivments for awhile now, and I always ask groups before hand if they want to try for em, and I suggest that you do this as well.  Again – courtesy goes a long way in WoW.  The only achievement that I didn’t have for H-AN was Watch Him Die. When I asked the group if they wanted to try – they were all enthusiastic.

I had never attempted this one before, and I hadn’t even looked up a strategy on how to accomplish the achievement. But I ran in full force w/ my Tier 9/Onyxia gear – confident that we could get this achievement. Let’s just say I was a little overconfident – not fully, but a little. Our first attempt was basically just trying to Tank n’ Spank him down w/ no real strategy. We wiped. The next few times we tried to take down the caster spiders without killing the watchers. We wiped. All said I believe we wiped about 8 or 9 times – on the first boss. On our last try we decided that we would make it just a straight DPS burn – throw everything we had at him.  SUCCESS! And we wiped right after the boss went down. LOL.

——————————-

So here’s a few things to take away from that experience.

1. Most PUG’s won’t be patient enough to wipe time and time again just for an acheivement.  Try and work them in accordingly and realize that most people in Heroics are only there for the badges and gear.  After this experience I offered 50 gold to each of my group members to help w/ their repair costs.

2. Don’t be afraid to try someone else’s strategy – Just because something has worked one way for you before doesn’t mean that is the only way it will work.  I had to be willing to try out other strategies for this achievement, because the one I tried first was a complete disaster.

3. Don’t get so fixated on an achievement that your run becomes a failure.  This is doubly true if you are already saved to an instance.  I was extremely lucky that everyone in my group was well geared and wanted this achievement.  This will not always be the case.

4. Remember to have fun – just because you are with a group of people that you’ve never played with before doesn’t mean you can’t have fun.  Trying for this acheivement was a blast!  I hadn’t had that much fun wiping in quite awhile.

Did the first three bosses on Heroic 10 man TOC night. Some slight differences in the fight from regular 10 and 25 man TOC. But felt real good to give TOC a try on heroic. Of course I was on my Retribution Pally. We had it set up with 4 DPSers. I off course was the lowest of the DPSers. See post “Being a Retribution Pally isn’t Easy” post. The good news is that while I was 4th out of 4 DPSers I was hanging close to number 3. Been switching between Seal of Command and Seal of Vengeance depending on the fight.

So I think we should talk about the different pally seals for the next post. The what and the whys of seals. Not talking baby seals here, we’ll talk Paladin Seals!!!

I feel the need to  mention how much I hate Anub’arak on Trial of the Grand Crusader 10.  In our ToGC 25, we got our first kill on the Beasts just last week.  So we won’t be seeing him there anytime soon; however, both of our 10-man groups are OH.CO.CLOSE!

Last night, we got him to 37%… and the mofo burrowed on us! Oh.my.gosh. Then three adds came back up.  It was just a bad situation.  I think we have finally got the pursuing thing down.  The targeted person runs one way, kiting the boss sort of around the ice.  Everyone else runs the other way.  I try to use Body and Soul when he get closer.  If there’s not any ice- and we usually try to preserve it in heroic since there are only SIX- I Fade when he is about to tap my arse.  Of course, THAT means he is going to target someone else, full-speed and getting faster. 

I noticed a little bit of geometry with the fight, too.  Let’s say I am kiting along the wall, and he gets too close.  I fade…  Anub makes a beeline towards the next closest person, and it’s not always from behind.  He could hit them from the side or anything, and if you can’t react and change directions fast enough, you WILL die.  It just makes sense for the rest of the raid to run as far away as possible, but I don’t know if that will keep the spikes from t-boning you.

I don’t think the pursuit was our problem last night, though.  I think the problem is burning those adds down with some AOE almost up under the boss.  That way, all targets take damage.  We can’t decide when to pop heroism though.  It seems like if we can get him down in the 60-66% range before the first burrow, we might be able to finish him off  with only one more burrow phase .  Any suggestions out there?

Salux !

Le blog officiel (wouaa trop la classe mdr lol) du Cycle de Cassiopée est ouvert ! Mais qu’est ce que le Cycle de Cassiopée ? Une trilogie Heroic Fantasy que j’écris et mets en libre téléchargement sur ce blog. Pour plus d’informations, je vous renvoie à la page http://cassiopee.wordpress.com/about/

Vous pouvez dors et déjà consulter le premier chapitre (http://cassiopee.files.wordpress.com/2009/11/revision1_1.pdf) que j’avais déjà mis en téléchargement sur mon ancien blog, relu et corrigé un million de fois. Le chapitre 2 est presque terminé (désolé du retard) et j’ai fixé la date de parution au 5 décembre. Je peux dors et déjà vous dire qu’il sera deux fois plus long que le premier (ce qui justifie ce retard ).

Blizzard on Emblems in 3.3

Bosses in Naxxramas, Obsidian Sanctum, Eye of Eternity, Ulduar, Trial of the Crusader, and all Heroics will drop Emblems of Triumph. Bosses in the Icecrown Citadel 10- and 25-player dungeon will drop Emblems of Frost. Choosing the Random Heroic Dungeon option via the Dungeon Finder (new in content update 3.3) and completing whatever dungeon is selected for you will award you with two Emblems of Frost the first time you do it (this is in place of the daily Heroic dungeon quests which are being replaced with weekly raid dungeon quests). Continuing to use the Random Heroic Dungeon option within that same day to complete dungeons will award you with two Emblems of Triumph each time in addition to those dropped in the instances. The random option can also select Heroic dungeons to which you may already be saved, so you can technically do every Heroic dungeon more than once in a day by continuing to use this option.

Source

Finishing up those T9 sets isn’t going to be a problem .  I wonder how many Emblems of Frost the Tier 10 set will require.

I’m going to go ahead and skip the obligatory introductory blog, except to say Hello to all of you, my friends.

Let’s get down to business.

“The humble are like nightingales that hide in ravines and spread joy to the souls of men with their sweet songs.” -Elder Paisios

I can point to a place in my past, maybe four years ago–it’s like a chasm separating thoughts I can remember having, and this other self that I barely recognize. Cursory glances at my writings before this point, private or otherwise, betray the thoughts of an almost embarrassingly enthusiastic and emotional effigy of myself. It’s pretty painful. That pain, like most of our experiences, is probably much more common than I think it is. And I still think I’ve got something of that self in me left.

Anyway, in seventh grade or so, we had to write an essay in response to the prompt, “Who is your hero and why?” Most of my classmates wrote about their dads, or their athletic idols, or their Harriet Tubmans and MLK’s. Why did I write about Charles Schulz, the pen behind Peanuts?

My primary source for this essay was an obituary that had just been written, telling of his battle with colon cancer, the disappointment of being robbed of the ability to continue with his work, his love for his wife, Jeannie (who would herself die later that year), and an introductory essay to the first Peanuts collection published in Italian, written by Umberto Eco, analyzing Schulz’ Freudian and Adlerian projections that obtained existence in the beloved characters, Charlie Brown, Linus, the Red-Haired Girl, and the curious absence of identity ascribed to adults–very high-minded stuff.

Schulz was a divorcée and a lapsed Methodist Sunday School teacher whose comics dealt with, above all, disappointment (cf. Lucy’s dirty football trick, which makes me think that the author of The Gospel According to Peanuts should have reconsidered, and written about Schopenhauer instead, or at least Ecclesiastes). What did my seventh-grade mind, revealed to be more melancholic than I remember, find heroic about all this?

I should first recall my own experience with Peanuts. Here it is:

I’m nine. I’m staying the weekend at my grandparents’ place on the other side of town—the quieter, more autumnal side, as I remember it, where the houses are closer together and the grass isn’t so coarse as in our sprawling, country mega-yard–it’s funny that the tight space incited in me just the opposite of claustrophobia. I spend the mornings and afternoons in the basement, and between soccer games and meals (Grandma always used to put sugar on our Rice Krispies, ah!), I read from their assortment of paperback Peanuts collections.

Reading Peanuts was a very sensual experience; not only the beautiful simplicity of the faces and scenery, and the depth of meaning found in the three- or four-panel dialogues (the best ones were without words altogether), but also the smell. That lovely, old book smell. That smell that I can’t have without thinking of my grandma. And this is the heroic part.

You see, my grandma Vredevoogd was a saint. She was a nightingale, hidden in a ravine—grey, weathered and warm. She was most herself when she tucked me in, and when she chastised me. Her sweet songs (coupled with Grandpa’s whistling—always the same, ancient tune that my mother will now also occasionally absent-mindedly warble) were her moments of sainthood in tenderness and in righteous anger, though most often she was even-keeled, steady, curly-haired, tall and wiry. To me, the varicose veins around her ankles, despite her attempts at concealment with dark hosiery, were like purple hearts—the accolades for a life lived well.

These days, as in those days, I have trouble separating Peanuts from Grandma in my mind. She, like Schulz, knew that life, especially life in Dutch West Michigan, is mundane. She knew the “eternal recurrence of the same”—the same football retracted at the same moment, the same futility of flying a kite with a will of its own, the same faceless teachers and uncompromising seasons. The same lawns, the same houses, the same friends, the same children.

She knew all of this, but she beat it. Her death occurred not long before I wrote that essay. It was not a death that she succumbed to. It was an exercise in overcoming. It was graceful, humble, and meek. It was magnanimous and servant-heart shimmered as her body faded and shriveled; it was almost like she prepared the post-funeral ham sandwiches before her death, just so we wouldn’t be bothered. (I think the only way to die, and to live, is magnanimously, but few can.) My essay honored Charles Schulz because he was, in the end, honest about what is, and must be overcome. Charlie told me how great my grandma was, how she had the courage and stamina to accept the grace of God and continue to wade through the thickness of the mundane, finding and receiving those moments of utter harmony that occur ever so often if you can just pay attention (cf. Charlie Brown’s crooked line grin). I didn’t know it then, but I was writing an ode or a prayer to her, hidden beneath what was probably a very dry, poorly written biographical sketch of a curious sort of existentialist that spoke with consequence of his diligence (in his 50-year career he took just one vacation, in 1997) and honorable life as a Christian, and a Sunday School teacher (I must have skipped the lapsed part in my disappointment and desire for him to be the hero I wished he was).

My grandma, Betty, was Schulz’ salvation in my mind. She was the perfect no-hitter, the breezy day when the cumulus clouds creep across the ocean of a sky and the blue hits the red of your kite just as elegantly as the wind. She was the Red-haired Girl’s peck on the cheek, Snoopy’s faithful return of the stick, and the vast, towering hillside of powdery snow just begging to be sledded upon. She was everything that makes a boy feel at home, assured, and supported in the senseless return of the same. And each night I drive on I-196 on the cliff that overlooks the small Grand Rapids skyline, it’s like Christmas Eve after Grandma’s House, and I’ve still got 40 minutes to sleep in the backseat before we get home.

Do you see it aswell? That look in his eyes? That little bit of Yeti drool that’s dropping out of his mouth. He is sniffing for dwarf sweat, sweat caused by fear. He forgot to brush his teath aswell, wich is not always easy if you don’t have the brain to distinct your mouth from your butt. That’s the reason why he unleashes that stinking frozen breath, who wouldn’t get stunned by that? I’ve faced him multiple times with my shaman in normal mode, we got him down every single time. But the heroic version demanded something more, something hard to swallow, something…Masiv.

Nice intro isn’t it? I feel lyric today. And to say it’s friday… Perhaps it’s because it has been a while since I filled you in on my game status. Well Masiv got kicked in the ass by me and I got him back on par with the rest of the guild. Our best geared members are our tanks and I’m not yet a part of that. But I managed to grab all of my Emblems of Conquest upgrades and I was lucky with some drops in Onyxia pugs. Last weeks guild run in ToC normal didn’t gave any tank loot as reward, bad luck I guess. I didn’t got a scratch on my plate shoulders, Masiv can handle that.

We’ve been clearing ToC Normal (10) for a couple of weeks now, each time getting better and better and our kill times are getting shorter and shorter. As long as we bring a decent balanced group in there and we got some healers to count on, we can practicly get all people through it. So it was about time we tried something different: ToGC 10. The first 2 raids we were in there, we got our *ss wooped by Gormuk. If we were lucky to survive him, we didn’t manage to figure out what to do exactly at the worms. Funny how the normal goes so smooth these days and when you look at the heroic version, we’re running arround like screaming little kids.

Tanks got smashed by the Impale, ranged got fired up by bombs and those snobolds seem to love our healing squad a lot. I thought Fugaru was able to keep people up, but I didn’t seem to get any decent heals out of her. Well maybe the heals were there, only they didn’t really had an effect. Luckely we use a forum and we have some people who like to spend some time looking for relevant information on how to handle the situation. We had a lot of input and I scammed the tankspot forums to plan for a more succesfull raid.

First thing we changed was our tank setup. Our druid tank and warrior combo is most of the time sufficient for every encounter these days, but a 3rd Impale on Sigge was getting really hard to heal. We decided to bring a protection paladin. Masiv was not feeling to confident to head in there. Standing still for almost 2 months, not a single drop in the normal version of ToC and now going to take a tank spot that didn’t seem to be healable? Oh man, I could allready feel the repairbill stacking. I needed more stamina for this, I was bearely hitting 40K when I had some buffs. I did some regemming and applied some new enchants aswell. I made some armor potions with Fugaru, I figured I could use those.

Second thing we changed was our healing squad. Last raid we had Fugaru on heals with 2 holy priests. You can practicly see it comming beforehand, that’s not really ideal to keep tanks alive who get 15k damage spikes within 1 or 2 seconds. So we needed Tzuké (you know, the dude that didn’t wanted to be a dude anymore?). He got some nice upgrades aswell in ToC normal, it wouldn’t only help him, but the tanks aswell. Beacon is really nice to have if you know how to handle it. Our druid tank switched to his Resto Shaman because of the hero but apart from that, a resto shaman is the only one who I see as a decent option to heal a tank in the heroic mode. We don’t have a Disc Priest in the guild so that wasn’t an option. We brought a Holy Priest to take care of the raidhealing. Another thing I found out was that levitate actually “ignores” the fire bombs. You’ll get hit by it but it’s not leaving a fire aoe on the ground. Not sure if Blizzard wants it to work like that but why not use it if it helps us?

Our DPS squad was fully equiped and ready to go. With a Balance druid, DK, Warlock, Rogue and Hunter we should have enough firepower to take things down. But we need everyone to do their part of the job ofcourse. Beyond expectations, Gormuk went down well in time and no one died. No time to think about how we did that, let’s just continue with the worms. I took the mobile one so I was responsible for freeing people who got the Toxin. It took me a while to figure out how to position the worm so people were able to reach me. We lost people…wipe it and try it again. Damn, that was not bad for first try, we had a much harder time previously to get that far. I think people needed to see we were able to actually progress and they picked up the confidence to try again.

The taunting went fine on Gormuk, I was well in controll of the Impale stacks, both on myself an my co-tank. 3 stacks on Estme, 3 stacks on Masiv, Bubble, 3 stacks on Estme, I gave here Hand of Protection and than I only had to take 2 more stacks and he went down. Solid rotation, we got that covered. I than screwed up and faced Dreadscale towards the raid when I wanted to free people of the toxin. Dreadscale took the gift with both…euh hands and had the opportunity to wipe the whole raid. My bad! I decided not to let that happen again so I took Dreadscale for a walk in the park in the other direction, waited for the spray and than run to my green friends. OMG (I don’t really use that expression in game) we got a worm down! This was going to smooth. Shouldn’t we be dead by now? Well, some of us did, but we continued anyway and tried to take Dreadscale aswell. Estme was ready to pick up Icehowl but we didn’t managed to get to him.

After that, we really got better, we got the first part covered and if you can survive the first phase with the worms, we actually had a good chance to get to Icehowl. With the use of hero, both worms got down. To bad we lost dps to have a real chance at Icehowl. Only 2 minutes to take 100% down…nah, wipe it and try again. People wanted to go one more time. It was just before 12:00 and I decided to give it a go.

Gormuk down, no deaths, Worm 1 down, Nelek down, waiting for battle rezz, Worm 2 down without using hero and Icehowl was allready chewing on Estme. CR on Nelek, first Crash, he slammed his ugly face against the wall…HEROOOOO! Good, 75%, let’s keep it comming guys, spread out… I allready saw it was to late for Nelek. I looked at my Lay on Hands but it was on cooldown, he died a second time. Ah, come on, this is doable, second crash incomming and he didn’t realize he was about to run in again and smash his head up again. NUKEEE! 47%, we lost another one and had about 1 min left on the clock. The 3rd crash was succesfull aswell but we ran out of time. Enrage at 10%…down went the raid. Damn, that was close.

Everyone was disappointed but at the same time I could hear they had a great time during the raid and enjoyed how we made progress. I think we all realize now this is doable by Oldtimers, we just got to tweak that last part of the fight. I’m pretty sure we will see some heroic loot soon.

I’ll give you a screenshot on how close we were that final attempt:

Blame the warlock! Well, we had fun, we laughed, and we’re confident to go in there again. Even Masiv is. Although I must thank Blizzard for Ardent Defender. That thing saved my life multiple times and I love it. Keep it quiet, most of the time they tend to change the things I love.

Recently some friends of mine have become a bit more active playing WoW.  This has, in turn, provided me with more structure when I play WoW.  We don’t have anything formal scheduled but we do like to run the heroic daily, regular daily, BG daily and maybe a quick heroic ToC whenever we can.  It’s been fun and I’ve made significant progress on my gear via emblems.  Sadly there isn’t any gear in heroics that are useful to me (especially my druid) but I’ve been tweaking my tanking gear with upgrades from conquest and triumph.  (hurray for 2 piece T8.5 bonus)

While I sit here and reminisce about my recent gaming accomplishments and what has provided me with the most entertainment I notice that WoW is pretty short on the list.  I play WoW more than any of my other games solely due to the diversity of things I get to do.  On a daily basis there are my crafting cool downs (epic gem transmute, moonshroud etc) there are the profession quests (fishing, cooking, JC etc) and a plethora of other things I can do to occupy my time.

When I’m not on WoW what do I prefer to play?  Rock Band, of course.  I’m pushing myself into expert drums rather rigorously these days.  I refuse to play on hard when I play by myself.  That isn’t to say that I can play all the songs on expert but rather I play the easier songs so that I can force myself into the expert mindset.  When I play with others I often down-grade to hard to ensure we can play all the songs we want – and survive!  Guitar, on the other hand, has become my formitable bread-and-butter.  I’m at the point where I can beat almost every song on expert – and beat them convincingly.  That is, my worst case scenarios end up being about 85% or so, and the vast majority of songs end up being above 90%.

The list of songs that I can’t beat have shortened considerably.  I recently beat Green Grass and High Tides, which took about 3 hours of back-to-back attempts to do.  Vicious!  The list has widdled it’s way down to 5.

Painkiller – I’m convinced I can beat this now I just haven’t tried in a very long time.

Panic Attack – This is my current project.  I’ve spent about 1 hour with it and am fully confident I will command and conquer on my next set of solid attempts (damn that organ solo).

Warriors of Time – Does the solo need to be that long, fast and difficult?  Really?  I honestly can’t foresee myself completing this without a solid afternoon of attempts.  It’s cool though because it’s a great song and fun to play.

Snow, Hey Oh! – Can someone explain how this isn’t a tier 7 song?  Mother of some-other-son-of-a-pain…

Visions – Whoever suggested this song as mandatory in order to complete the endless setlist needs to have a vice grip attached to their balls (or punched in the boob if it was a girl).  Speaking completely from the music theory perspective this song is terrible.  There is no well defined beat, melody or harmony.  It’s composition is sloppy and it’s just a shitty song to play.  Some chick just grumbles into the mic for 4 minutes and the guitarist just hits random strings…not to mention what the drummer is doing…

Other than that I’ve downed every other song (that I have) on expert.  I’m sure there are some DLC songs that would be very challenging but I haven’t come across any that sounded appealing to me.  It’s sad how a great deal of the very challenging songs consist of people just screaming at the mic.  Perhaps I’m getting too old but when it comes to music I’d like to have feelings aroused.  The songs I end up liking are songs that I find moving – either by lyric or note.  Screaming incomprehensible words means very little to me.

When thinking back on what I’ve done, as far as gaming goes, in the last few weeks I must admit that Rock Band sticks out as the game I’ve had far more fun playing.  Why is it that I choose to spend so much more time on WoW?  A mystery…

I am thinking of them…

The men and the women who are

serving our country.

I am thinking of them…

The Sons  and  Daughters.

Who are giving their time to serve

and obey.

I am thinking of them.

Who are our love ones and friends…

To just defend our country right now.

I am thinking of them …

* COMING HOME *

=== ”’Insiden di Hotel Yamato, Tunjungan, Surabaya”’ ===

Setelah munculnya maklumat pemerintah tanggal 31 Agustus 1945 yang menetapkan bahwa mulai 1 September 1945 bendera nasional Sang Merah Putih dikibarkan terus di seluruh Indonesia, gerakan pengibaran bendera makin meluas ke segenap pelosok kota.

Di berbagai tempat strategis dan tempat-tempat lainnya, susul menyusul bendera dikibarkan. Antara lain di teras atas Gedung Kantor Karesidenan (kantor Syucokan, gedung Gubernuran sekarang, Jl Pahlawan) yang terletak di muka gedung Kempeitai (sekarang Tugu Pahlawan), di atas gedung Internatio, disusul barisan pemuda dari segala penjuru Surabaya yang membawa bendera merah putih datang ke Tambaksari (lapangan Gelora 10 November) untuk menghadiri rapat raksasa yang diselenggarakan oleh Barisan Pemuda Surabaya.

Saat itu lapangan Tambaksari penuh lambaian bendera merah putih, disertai pekik ‘Merdeka’ mendengung di angkasa. Walaupun pihak Kempeitai melarang diadakannya rapat tersebut, namun mereka tidak berdaya menghadapi massa rakyat yang semangatnya tengah menggelora itu. Klimaks gerakan pengibaran bendera di Surabaya terjadi pada insiden perobekan bendera di Yamato Hoteru/Hotel Yamato atau Oranje Hotel, Jl. Tunjungan no. 65 Surabaya.

Mula-mula Jepang dan Indo-Belanda yang sudah keluar dari interniran menyusun suatu organisasi, Komite Kontak Sosial, yang mendapat bantuan penuh dari Jepang. Terbentuknya komite ini disponsori oleh Palang Merah Internasional (Intercross). Namun, berlindung dibalik Intercross mereka melakukan kegiatan politik. Mereka mencoba mengambil alih gudang-gudang dan beberapa tempat telah mereka duduki, seperti Hotel Yamato. Pada 18 September 1945, datanglah di Surabaya (Gunungsari) opsir-opsir Sekutu dan Belanda dari Allied Command (utusan Sekutu) bersama-sama dengan rombongan Intercross dari Jakarta.

Rombongan Sekutu oleh Jepang ditempatkan di Hotel Yamato, Jl Tunjungan 65, sedangkan rombongan Intercross di Gedung Setan, Jl Tunjungan 80 Surabaya, tanpa seijin Pemerintah Karesidenan Surabaya. Dan sejak itu Hotel Yamato dijadikan markas [[RAPWI]] (”Rehabilitation of Allied Prisoners of War and Internees”, Bantuan Rehabilitasi untuk Tawanan Perang dan Interniran).

Karena kedudukannya merasa kuat, sekelompok orang Belanda di bawah pimpinan Mr. [[W.V.Ch Ploegman]] pada sore hari tanggal 18 September 1945, tepatnya pukul 21.00, mengibarkan bendera Belanda (Merah-Putih-Biru), tanpa persetujuan Pemerintah RI Daerah Surabaya, di tiang pada tingkat teratas Hotel Yamato, sisi sebelah utara. Keesokan hari ketika pemuda Surabaya melihatnya, seketika meledak amarahnya. Mereka menganggap Belanda mau menancapkan kekuasannya kembali di negeri Indonesia, dan dianggap melecehkan gerakan pengibaran bendera yang sedang berlangsung di Surabaya.

Begitu kabar tersebut tersebar di seluruh kota Surabaya, sebentar saja Jl. Tunjungan dibanjiri oleh rakyat, mulai dari pelajar berumur belasan tahun hingga pemuda dewasa, semua siap untuk menghadapi segala kemungkinan. Massa terus mengalir hingga memadati halaman hotel serta halaman gedung yang berdampingan penuh massa dengan luapan amarah. Agak ke belakang halaman hotel, beberapa tentara Jepang tampak berjaga-jaga. Situasi saat itu menjadi sangat eksplosif.

Tak lama kemudian Residen [[Sudirman]] datang. Kedatangan pejuang dan diplomat ulung yang waktu itu menjabat sebagai Wakil Residen (”Fuku Syuco Gunseikan”) yang masih diakui pemerintah Dai Nippon Surabaya Syu, sekaligus sebagai Residen Daerah Surabaya Pemerintah RI, menyibak kerumunan massa lalu masuk ke hotel. Ia ingin berunding dengan Mr. Ploegman dan kawan-kawan. Dalam perundingan itu Sudirman meminta agar bendera Triwarna segera diturunkan.

Ploegman menolak, bahkan dengan kasar mengancam, “Tentara Sekutu telah menang perang, dan karena Belanda adalah anggota Sekutu, maka sekarang Pemerintah Belanda berhak menegakkan kembali pemerintahan Hindia Belanda. Republik Indonesia? Itu tidak kami akui.” Sambil mengangkat revolver, Ploegman memaksa Sudirman untuk segera pergi dan membiarkan bendera Belanda tetap berkibar.

Melihat gelagat tidak menguntungkan itu, pemuda Sidik dan Hariyono yang mendampingi Sudirman mengambil langkah taktis. Sidik menendang revolver dari tangan Ploegman. Revolver itu terpental dan meletus tanpa mengenai siapapun. Hariyono segera membawa Sudirman ke luar, sementara Sidik terus bergulat dengan Ploegman dan mencekiknya hingga tewas. Beberapa tentara Belanda menyerobot masuk karena mendengar letusan pistol, dan sambil menghunus pedang panjang lalu disabetkan ke arah Sidik. Sidik pun tersungkur.

Di luar hotel, para pemuda yang mengetahui kejadian itu langsung merangsek masuk ke hotel dan terjadilah perkelahian di ruang muka hotel. Sebagian yang lain, berebut naik ke atas hotel untuk menurunkan bendera Belanda. Hariyono yang semula bersama Sudirman turut terlibat dalam pemanjatan tiang bendera. Akhirnya ia bersama Kusno Wibowo berhasil menurunkan bendera Belanda, merobek bagian birunya, dan mengereknya ke puncak tiang kembali. Massa rakyat menyambut keberhasilan pengibaran bendera merah putih itu dengan pekik “Merdeka” berulang kali, sebagai tanda kemenangan, kehormatan dan kedaulatan negara RI.

Kemudian meletuslah pertempuran pertama antara Indonesia melawan tentara Inggris pada 27 Oktober 1945. Serangan-serangan kecil itu ternyata dikemudian hari berubah menjadi serangan umum yang hampir membinasakan seluruh tentara Inggris, sebelum akhirnya Jenderal [[D.C. Hawthorn]] meminta bantuan Presiden [[Sukarno]] untuk meredakan situasi.

In Medieval Europe, politics often involved a monarchy that controlled their territory through agreements with regional warrior nobility, who then controlled the local people. The warrior nobility lived in castles and took elaborate steps to protect themselves from competing warrior nobility, from the local people in case they might rise against them, and even from the monarch. The only safe place for the warrior nobles was inside their castles; the warrior noble could do as he pleased in his own castle, and entering it uninvited was considered a potential act of war.

There was a large income disparity between warrior nobility and the local people (peasants, serfs, etc). Writings from the late 1500s indicated the common belief the everyone’s home was in effect their castle; people were free to live without the constant watch of the warrior nobles in their own home (no matter its size) and entering uninvited was not to be done. In his 1581 work “The Stage of Popish Toyes: conteining both tragicall and comicall partes” Henri Estienne states that “youre house is youre Castell.” In the same year, Richard Mulcaster wrote in “Positions, which are necessarie for the training up of children” that “He (the householder) is the appointer of his owne circumstance, and his house is his castle.” Within your home, you have the right to expect privacy.

In 1604 the “castle” terminology was first written into law by Sir Edward Coke, then the Attorney General of England. Sir Edward wrote in Semayne’s Case (77 Eng. Rep. 194; 5 Co. Rep. 91) that “the house of every one is to him as his castle and fortress, as well for his defence against injury and violence as for his repose.” He added “in all cases when the King is party, the sheriff may break the party’s house, either to arrest him, or to do other execution of the K(ing)’s process, if otherwise he cannot enter. But before he breaks it, he ought to signify the cause of his coming, and to make request to open doors.”

Sir Edward Coke’s writing in Semayne’s Case became an important factor in English law, and its concepts later became the basis of the knock-and-announce principle in American law and more importantly of the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The Fourth Amendment states “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.” There is no King or warrior noble now; in America the federal government or its agencies should not invade your home or your privacy without probable cause and without a warrant.

The Fourth Amendment was one of the Bill of Rights, written by James Madison in 1789 and passed into law in 1791. At that time a primary concern of warrants and seizures in the colonies had been the home invasions and seizing of colonists’ property by British government tax collectors. In the mid 1700s this had been a huge problem, and in 1761 a five hour court petition by James Otis Jr. passionately denouncing British government and government agent practices made him such a hero that he was later elected to the Massachusetts General Assembly. John Adams was in the room at the time and concurred with Otis, labeling the events Otis described “as the spark in which originated the American Revolution.” Later, with the revolution finally won, an American’s home would be his or her castle too, and Americans would have the right to expect privacy when inside their homes.

Two hundred years later America still has the Fourth Amendment, but it is being interpreted in entirely new ways. Kings, warrior nobles, tax collectors or government agencies no longer have to knock down your door in order to invade your castle. Instead, they record your internet traffic, list your credit card purchases, tape your telephone calls, copy your bank records, and film and photograph you day and night. “Reasonable search” and “probable cause” are also open to interpretation. On October 28, 2009 the New York Times quoted Valerie Caproni, the F.B.I.’s general counsel as stating “Those who say the F.B.I. should not collect information on a person or group unless there is a specific reason to suspect that the target is up to no good seriously miss the mark… The F.B.I. has been told that we need to determine who poses a threat to the national security — not simply to investigate persons who have come onto our radar screen.” In other words, investigate everyone until you find someone suspicious.

This is the nature of the Patriot Act, which was signed into law on October 26th, 2001 by George W. Bush. This legislation was rushed through Congress in the six weeks immediately following 9/11 and was passed though some Senators and Representatives openly admitted having not read it. Such was the need at that moment to quickly do something, anything to heal.

What happened on 9/11 was so counter-intuitive that our normal emergency responses might not have been effective. We knew how to address the immediate impact, but were confused by the twisted minds of those who had caused the event. How could we bring justice? As people tried to figure this out some action taken was heroic, and other action was ineffective and occasionally contemptible. In hindsight the spirit of Patriot Act is admirable and gives greater power to those who are supposed to protect us. The Patriot Act clearly allows liberties to be trampled though. Denying the liberties of American people in order to protect the liberties of American people makes no sense whatsoever. Liberty is not a three dimensional object; it is not something that can be cordoned off and stored in a secure facility while criminals are caught. Liberty is a concept, is lived as an experience, and is expressed through actions. Liberty comes with risks. It sounded risky to King George III, who used his military against American colonists, and it sounded risky to George W. Bush, who in signing the Patriot Act began to use the FBI and other government agencies against American citizens.

The USA Patriot Act is still law now, and has come back into the news again because the FBI’s Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide has been made public. This Guide shows us the criteria the FBI uses to determine which Americans should be considered potential suspects, and therefore targets for spying. Originally, reasonable suspicion and a warrant were necessary in order to invade the home of a suspect. Now, the FBI appears to be suspicious of all Americans, and warrants may or may not even be needed for the spying to begin.

It has now been eight years since 9/11, and eight years since the Patriot Act began formally allowing for our privacy to be invaded. My sincere hope is that our newly elected officials will revise the Patriot Act so that it respects the liberties guaranteed to American citizens in our Constitution. My gut feeling though is that after eight years of invading our castles, our government is highly unlikely to pull its eyes and ears out of our bank accounts and bedrooms and every single other nook and cranny of what we thought were our personal lives.

I won’t lie. Right now, Anub’arak heroic is my favourite fight in the game. I can see Valithria hardmode being a lot of fun (spoilers!) once Patch 3.3 arrives, but for now, this encounter trumps Vezax hardmode as what I feel is the most challenging and enjoyable fight for myself and other healers in the game. It’s got to the point where almost every guild is working on some form of the encounter, whether it’s 10-man (Tribute runs or otherwise) for more casual guilds or 25-man for the progress guilds (including my current guild). Today I’m going to be going over the fight itself, as well as how Discipline fits into the healing side of things and providing some tips for both raid leaders and DPS.

The fight varies vastly depending on which version of the fight you are working on (ie. 10 or 25) and there are several different strategies and methods of dealing with Penetrating Cold/Leeching Swarm depending on your raid composition. I’m not going to cover them all, but I will talk at length about the most common solutions. You might want to watch TankSpot’s excellent video-guide of the encounter before reading on, as I will take some elements from that. Firstly, let’s look at the fight itself!

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Anub’arak Heroic – The Fight

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Part One: The Gimmick

Every fight has a gimmick, but the gimmick on Anub’arak is more than just something to be aware of – to understand how to heal the fight, you actually have to understand how it works and that it affects everything from how you divide up your healers to the raid’s DPS. Blizzard have created a fight where the healers have at least partial control over how fast the boss dies. How cool is that?

Let’s skip straight to Phase 3. Anub’arak uses an ability called Leeching Swarm, which drains 30% of the raid’s current health per second (20% on 10-man heroic) and heals Anub’arak. What does this mean? When you heal someone, you’re effectively healing the boss. For this reason, the raid needs to be kept as low as is realistically possible without dying. But don’t worry – the minimum tick for Leeching Swarm is 250 damage per second, so if someone is kept at 1000 health then they’re still 4 seconds away from dying! This can present a big problem for inexperienced raid leaders, which I’ll talk about later.

Leeching Swarm also presents two other big problems; tank healing and dealing with Penetrating Cold – a debuff applied by Anub’arak to several members of the raid which ticks for 6000 damage (3500 on 10-man) every 3 seconds. I’ll talk about these in the next sections.

Part Two: Raid Composition

Whilst Blizzard have always aimed at having a “Bring the player, not the class” system, Anub’arak heroic is one fight that benefits greatly from having a comparatively precise raid setup; but thankfully not back to the days of Sunwell Shamen-stacking or requiring X Priests for Razuvious. Two Holy Paladins are virtually essential for tank healing, and Paladins of other specs are invaluable for both tanking and phase 2 kiting. Other DPS classes with good passive group-wide heals (eg. Shadow Priests and Elemental Shamen) excel here as well, and shield tanks are pretty much required for the blocks on boss/add hits.

So while there’s no hard-and-fast ruleset, you’d do well to think about what you’re missing when you’re putting your raid together.

As for the number of healers, there are a lot of different combinations. I’ve heard of many 10-man guilds that have successfully done the heroic mode using 3 healers; my guild generally uses 2 healers and 6 dps (thus only going through one submerge phase). As for the 25-man, the number of healers can vary anywhere between 5 and 8 (!) but the normal group of 6 healers, provided it’s well-structured, won’t really let you down.

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How Does Discipline Fit Into The Fight?

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Discipline has historically been about damage mitigation, which means that in a fight where the damage is predictable we normally excel. Anub’arak heroic is no exception; and we can go further by saying that, indeed, this is one of the only fights where we can actually raid heal!

Part One: What’s Our Role?

In this fight, you can take on a variety of roles depending on whether you’re doing 10 or 25. I’ll cover these two separately.

10-man healing can take one of four forms, depending on whether you’re running with a Holy Paladin or not (you should be, really) and whether you’re using 2 healers or 3. Assuming you’re running with a Holy Paladin, you’ll be either asked to respec Shadow to make way for another raid healer or given a free role. You’ll generally be shielding the tanks and concentrating most of your healing on the raid in phase 3 (all of it if you’re running 2 healers). If you’re not running with a Holy Paladin, 2 healers becomes almost impossible to pull off as keeping the tanks alive all the time is tres difficile without plenty of luck and cooldowns coming out of your ears.

25-man healing invariably takes the same form. You’ll be helping out on both tanks and raid members in phase 1/2, dealing with Penetrating Cold and throwing shields around when you can. In phase 3, your attention will switch to the raid and your designated Penetrating Cold target. More on this later.

Part Two: How Can We Raid Heal?

Discipline hasn’t been very good at raid healing encounters in the past. While we can throw out a metric ton of shields and almost trivialise several bosses’ AoE attacks, when it comes to huge amounts of unavoidable damage that needs healing up quickly in a 25-man raid, we just don’t cut it. So how is Anub’arak different? Well, while the damage output in phase 3 is gigantic for the first 6 or 7 seconds, it doesn’t need healing up. We don’t have to get everyone back to full health; we just need to keep them alive, which is where small but precise heals like Holy Nova (your key tool in phase 3) come into their own. Because the actual healing required is restricted largely to Penetrating Cold targets, it might look like you need a Holy Priest or Resto Druid but really the job gets done just as well by a DPriest.

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So How Do We Kill Him?

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So, down to the nitty gritty.

Phases One and Two

The healing in these phases are pretty simple and shouldn’t take much more exertion than normal. The tanks will be hit slightly harder and the stacking debuff from the Swarm Scarabs gets annoying; but ultimately, the most important thing in these two phases is to kite correctly and this is something that the TankSpot video covers much better than I could.

What you’ll spend most of your time doing in these phases is conserving mana. Because the damage output is pretty low by comparison and because the mana requirements in phase 3 are so heavy, you’ll be wanting to keep your mana in as tip-top a condition as possible. Holy Nova may be extremely useful in phase 3 but it’s mana-intensive to use and the final phase continues for much longer than you might think compared to normal mode. Don’t underestimate the importance of a healthy mana bar in phase 3, and err on the side of caution.

Phase Three

In General: The trick to healing phase 3 is to keep everybody without the Penetrating Cold debuff (and the tanks) as close as possible to ~2000 health. This gives you plenty of time to react to the Leeching Swarm debuff (between ~4 and 6 seconds) and means that Anub’arak doesn’t heal too fast. Tanks and Penetrating Cold targets should be kept at ideally 50% health or higher; perma-blocked hits from tanks give them much more survivability when you do this. Get the raid stacked as close together as possible so your Holy Novas won’t miss targets (and may actually damage the boss and adds, however small the output is) and make sure for the first time on progress that everybody has Frost Protection potions at the ready. Nope, I’m afraid you won’t be getting a mana potion on this fight.

As for DPriests, the only really general rule is not to use Prayer of Mending! It can crit for upwards of 9k on any random target and that’s really what you don’t want in a fight where precision reigns supreme.

10-man: Healing this phase in 10-man depends heavily on your raid composition. With two healers, you’ll probably be raid healing and will thus want to keep a hasted Prayer of Healing in your bag of tricks for the other group of the raid (ie. the one you can’t Holy Nova). There are several little chain-cast tricks that come in useful here: one example would be immediately after Penetrating Cold is applied, a Shield –> Flash Heal –> Shield –> Penance –> Holy Nova –> PoH with the first four casts on the PC targets. Try and weave casts like that to get the maximum haste possible from Borrowed Time. It’s really important here!

You’ll be using PoH and Holy Nova to keep the raid from dying to Leeching Swarm, so your mana will drop extremely quickly. Ask a Druid if he can save an Innervate for you or, failing that, a Hymn of Hope from a Shadow Priest; this will help a great deal. Save your shields and Penance/Flash Heals for the PC targets as they’ll need extremely quick healing (you have to deal with two within a matter of seconds).

With three healers, the load on the raid is decreased considerably. You’ll probably be raid healing; divide the groups between the two of you, assign yourself one PC target each (raid icons help here) and keep your assigned group/PC target alive. Throw a shield off on the tanks when you can!

25-man: Many of the concepts here carry over from 10-man. Normally, each group will be assigned one healer who will keep them up through the entirety of phase 3, with the two Paladins on the tanks. Try and co-ordinate the healers so that if you’re short one raid healer, one of you heals the two groups which already have passive effects like Vampiric Embrace. Each healer will also be assigned one Penetrating Cold target, designated by a raid icon that’s automatically applied by DBM. Make a macro to target that icon, because Grid won’t tell you which of the targets with PC is yours!

Your key tools will once again be shields, Penance on your PC target and Holy Nova, but this time without PoH as you don’t have to deal with another group. Don’t forget to pop your Shadowfiend!

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Some Notes for Raid Leaders: Common Mistakes

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Having been in a good 50 failed attempts on Anub myself, I’ve heard quite a lot from raid leaders on “where we’re going wrong”. I figured I’d add this section as an appendix of sorts, so that disillusioned healers (or helpful healers) can link their RLs here and make the process a lot nicer for everybody!

Problem One: Asking DPS to offheal

Some raidframes, like XPerl, flash red when someone is on low health. If a raid leader uses a set of raidframes like this, I can guarantee you they’ll have a heart attack when phase 3 arrives. You’re sat there with your precise heals and your calculated casts but all the raid leader sees is “people are dying”. This has led to an RL asking an Elemental Shaman or Shadow Priest to offheal in the middle of phase 3 several times.

It might seem like an inconvenience for healers and you might get a little pissed when someone does it, but just remember; your raid leader may not know the kind of specifics that you do! They’re just trying to keep everyone alive and in check – it’s their job. When we were progressing on heroic 10-man, (sadly we didn’t down it before I went to university,) my RL certainly didn’t know how the healing worked on the first few tries, and neither did the rest of the DPS. Every fight on that first evening you’d see an overeager Mage Ice Block because he was at 3k health, or a Shadow Priest jump out of Shadowform and pop Divine Hymn.

So, how do you know if your healers have the situation under control? Simple! If half the raid is dead, they don’t. If less than about 10% of your raid is dead, unless it’s a tank, don’t worry. People do die here and there on Anub’arak and it’s unfortunate when it happens, but most of the time your healers are still dealing with it. If you start losing healers and it creates a snowball effect, you’ll wipe. But that doesn’t mean that you should divert DPS to offhealing just because the healers are on low health!

Think of it this way: it’s not like a fight such as Kologarn or Ignis, where you can see how your raid healers react to raid-wide damage and analyse it. Raidframes just don’t tell you that on Anub’arak. In this fight, there’s simply a line that separates someone being alive and someone being dead and you just have to place your faith in the healers. If someone’s health is at ~500, nothing has gone wrong yet. If someone’s dead, it has.

Problem Two: “Keep the raid at X%”

I’ve heard just about everything from raid leaders! Do I keep the raid at 20%, 50%, 5% or just spamheal my socks off? The generally accepted “correct” figure – which gives a balance between survivability and lack of healing on Anub’arak – is roughly 2000 health. If you want a percentage, this will work out at between 10% and 6-7% of someone’s health. Tanks and Penetrating Cold targets should be kept as high as is realistically possible, but 50% is a good health count to aim for on them. One of the big communication issues in this fight is different raid leaders hearing different things and nobody knowing who’s right.

Problem Three: Defensive Cooldowns on DPS

A great example of this is Ice Block. Something that reduces someone’s DPS for a gain in survivability. Well I’ve got news for you, buddy! Us healers don’t want you to pop Ice Block (unless perhaps you’re using it to get rid of PC); we want you to kill the boss faster. I remember someone once telling me that “DPS is the best mp5″ – well in this fight, it certainly is. You kill the boss faster and let us worry about keeping you alive.

Of course, you should take this with a pinch of salt. What’s a good figure to start worrying about defensive cooldowns and Ice Block and the like? Maybe if you’re one or two ticks of Swarm away from dying – that’d be about 250 to 500 health left.

Anyway, hope this helps. I always have a blast on this boss and it’s a great fight for Discipline. Good luck!

– Roble

Friday, November 13th

This coming Friday 13th the movie will be playing in all theaters.  Never before has a date in history been so significant to so many cultures, so many religions, scientists, and governments. 2012 is an epic adventure about a global cataclysm that brings an end to the world and tells of the heroic struggle of the survivors.

I think this is fairly common knowledge by now, but Blizzard is changing the way that heroic versions of raid encounters work in 3.3.

In the upcoming patch we are adding a new feature to the Icecrown raid instance that allows the raid leader to change the instance’s difficulty setting on a boss per boss basis. The way the raid leader chooses to switch is the same as now, by right-clicking on the character portrait. The difficulty settings can be changed from inside Icecrown Citadel, with some restrictions. For example, you cannot change the difficulty in combat or during certain events specified by our design team. To enable the ability to change the raid difficulty to heroic, you must first defeat the Lich King on normal mode, as doing so unlocks the heroic version of this raid instance. There is no heroic version of trash; meaning changing the difficulty will only affect boss difficulty.

We chose this particular functionality because we didn’t want to use the Trial of the Crusader method, and have four versions on a raid of this size. We felt the Ulduar method of having to know a certain trick to do on the boss was difficult to communicate and tied too heavily to achievements. We might eventually convert Trial of the Crusader over to this new system but Ulduar and Naxxramas will likely never change.

Source

Even though hardmodes don’t really effect my guild at this point, I personally like this new method. It’s not as clumsy as the Ulduar activations and not as repetitive as the ToC implementation.  Hopefully my guild can make some progress on the current hardmodes and be ready for Icecrown hardmodes.

Scorpio is one of the 3 Water Elements (joining Pisces & Cancer)

THE SCORPIO: In General
Sensitivity, emotions, The most private of all the signs – he doesn’t necessarily befriend just anyone, very secretive, he doesn’t share his feelings quite openly. It takes a long time to get to know him. But although he is private he is very interested to know everything about you. Water elements are very intuitive, especially Pisces & Scorpio. Scorpio’s intuition is so strong, that he will actually sense things about you and know things about you without you ever having told him. He is very forceful & will somehow pry information from you that he wants to know. He’s very curious & wants to get to know you.

Scorpio’s have a very controlled nature, but look him in the eye and notice an intense look. On the surface he’s calm but deep down he may be boiling, you can’t tell. You’ll never suspect that anything is wrong – there is no reflection on their face about how they feel. They are intense about everything they do, whether it’s a job or anything else, they are INTENSE. They feel strongly about things. They are very direct and honest. If you ask him for advice he will tell you the brutal truth as it is. They will not be diplomatic. He doesn’t have the ambition to be everyones friend (like fire signs) or a flatterer (like air signs). It’s not that he’s insensitive, it just comes from being honest. He will not pay a false compliment to win a friend. If he says something nice, he’s being sincere.

They have a gentle sympathy for the sick and dispairing (also virgos) especially people who need your help, compassion or sympathy. They react really well to difficult situations. They will attract dedicated admirers because of their strength (or envious enemies) Scorpios make enemies bec Scorpio is an intense sign, so depending how the energy is channeled they can either attract admireres or enemies. Sometimes they take things too personal and may sting others in revenge or they sting themselves by withdrawing. On the average, Scorpios have no fear and can face physical pain, poverty, ridicule & failure. He can be intensely loyal to friends but he can be chilly to those he has no interest in. He’s even capable of great sacrifice. He can be a very good friend in time of need. A scorpio will walk 3-4 miles to visit a sick friend.

Scorpios will not forget a gift or kindness but they will also not forget a injustice for the rest of their lives. Scorpios and Taurus are two signs that will not forget or forgive forever. He will even think about getting even. A soft Scorpio will hold a deep bitterness for years which can cause melancholy which is not healthy, they need to look away and try to forget. Scorpios if misguided can easily fall to drugs, alchohol and illegal activities. They can be sadistic and cruel. Go to a jail, you’ll find lots of Scorpios.

The best vacation for a Scorpio is a long rest and a change of attitude. Scorpios are very deep people, they have a deep interest in religion, they are curious about all the phases of life and death. You want to sell life insurance? go to a Scorpio they are very concerned about death more than anyone else. He has a passion for a physical relationship. Very passionate about making changes and reform (sometimes violently) In work, he quietly waits for his chance to move ahead. Scorpios have no problem getting to the top, because they have confidence in themselves, they are hard workers and ambitious. If he really wants something, it’s no longer a dream. Scorpios are heroic. Protective of children. They have a hypnoetic appeal over their listeners. Scorpios are the finest healers. Can be great detectives, great composers and actors of drama. Scorpios sometimes live alone. A true Scorpio has the desire to win!

THE SCORPIO MAN
He feels passionate about alot of things: politics, food, life & death he will make passionate declarations. “This is the way it should be” “I don’t believe” They appear calm and steady but underneath that cool surface there could be boiling steam. Sensual. Can have explosive tempers & can bite really hard. Their temper is usually almost always in control. He HAS to win. There are alot of softer Scorpios as well. Unconcerned what others think of him. Honesty, Integrity and Corageous. Can deal well with adverse situations. Has high standards. His humor can be rough and sarcastic. Conceals his motives. If you ask for his opinion , he will tell it to you brutally. He’s suspicious & Jealous. He’s loyal to his close and deep ties. Scorpios that are not religious can be doing alot of things wrong. Very stern, no nonsense father, expects his children to eventually stand alone (for their own benefit) A Scorpio man will want to be told what to do.

THE SCORPIO WOMAN
A very magnetic individual, proud and confident. She will want to dominate (They wear the pants in the house) She means business – don’t flirt with her. Can be overbearing & frigid. Can hate with venom or love fiercely. Don’t insult her. She is looking for a courageous man, she will know alot about you at first glance. She can keep secrets. She won’t reveal her feelings to her husband. Watch out for her temper. She might fight you in private but defend you in public. They are not the nagging type. They are not softies. They can take physical pain very well. She will stand up for you if you are taken advantage of. Can be ruthless and very suspicious. She’ll tell you who to trust. She loves her home and has everything under control. They can be very good friends with those she likes but aloof and snobbish to those she doesn’t like. They can either be very skimpy & saving or all of a sudden spend alot. They are not very consistent when it comes to a budget.They are preserverent and very determined. She likes to even the score and have the last word.They enjoy money, prestige & power. If you tell her a lie, she will tell you two. If you’re mean to her one evening she will not be nice for several weeks. Has a strong sense of justice but when it comes to her feelings she only sees her viewpoint. She will remember every kindness but also every wrongdoing. Will encourage her children to strive for high goals and will be to them a wise counselor.

THE SCORPIO CHILD
They enjoy a good fight. They don’t like to compromise. Don’t let them dictate, they need constant discipline. Needs to be taught not to be sore losers. Needs to learn to have respect for authority & be forgiving. He will agree to learn from another kid that is stronger or smarter than him. Will be brutally blunt, needs his privacy, may take revenge from pranksters, keep him active physically & mentally. Don’t impose your will & don’t break your word to him. Direct his passion in the right way.

THE SCORPIO BOSS
Like Teddy Roosevelt – Speaks softly but carries a big stick. Good control over his nature. Doesn’t tire easily. Will want to know everything about you. Will figure things about you on his own. He can sense your moods. Secretive and will disguise his motives. If he likes you he will help you loads. If he doesn’t like you he won’t even hire you. They don’t play games. Very good in emergencies. Suspicious, if you flatter him too much he will feel your’e buttering him up.

It has been a while. The few fans I had were allready complaining that there wasn’t a new post to be seen, some claimed the blog was allready dead! Aha! Shame on you. I’m still here, swinging the light or smashing the keyboard. I’ve been busy, busy at work and busy in game. One of the things I focused on was my paladin, Masiv.

It seemed like I haven’t played that little dwarf for ages. Each time I logged on I saw him standing there on top of my character list, proudly holding his Ulduar shield, waiting for a chance to get back in game. I always skipped him in order to get Fugaru, my resto shaman online. I told you before, it took a while before I liked my shaman, I had the same with Masiv. I couldn’t really connect with him untill he reached 45. And I actually loved to play with him at lvl 80, but that didn’t last long.

Masiv was brought to life in TBC. I wasn’t really active at Oldtimers yet and Tzuké was still known as Beric. Distefano was more of a PvE frost mage in PvP gear and most of my game friends were in an other guild. I was the first to reach lvl 70 but we were allready close to the new raid instance at the Isle of Quel’Danas. I had to wait for Beric and Nelek to get their pala and lock up. During that time we also came in touch with Jacopo, a hunter who, since than, never left our side. We had 4 people now, ready to actually do something but we were missing a tank every single time. The brilliant idea came up to force Cheet the druid to transfer to our server. After lot’s of presure and talking on the soccer field, he decided to do so. I don’t think he ever regret his transfer, his girlfriend on the other hand did…

“Ok, let’s go farm heroics!”. Beric in healing mode, Cheet in bear mode and all I had to do was to cast an occasional sheep and nuke the rest with my cold cold ice attacks. Ow yeah, we had it all figured out and headed for heroic ramparts… I must say, we wiped our ass off but we had the time of our life. We all had been there in normal mode but never realized the difference with heroic was so huge. It usually took us about 2 hours to clear the place once. Go ahead and laugh, we were noobs back than. Next day at work, we headed for the forums, looking for tactics and pointers, improving the speccs, improving the gear. Beric or me usually made a guide (read: word document with all kind of notes and pictures) that we than send arround by email so we could all prepare for the next instance night. Clearing heroic ramparts was our biggest achievement. we felt like we ruled the world while others were zerging trough Karazhan every week.

We made our way to mana tombs, the underbog, sethekk halls and eventually we reached netherstorm. There we would phase into the Botanica. It took our party 3 nights to get past the first boss. We couldn’t figured out how to get that boss down. It still brings a smile to my face when I think about that period. So as we progressed, I leveled my paladin in the off times. And I wanted to be a protection pala, a tankadin.

I was inspired by Ashbringerr and Boemond from Oldtimers and the way they handled there character. Those were the people in controll of their character. I learned so much from those guys. It was a honor to get invited by Drysk into an heroic run and to see Radish battling with Defiant to win the dps meters. I loved the way a paladin could do a line of sight pull with his shield. Avenger shield, run behind the corner and concecrate. So simple, so effective, so well executed. I wanted to be like that aswell. It was a real boost to my WoW carreer. I started to read more about my character, about the content we were facing and eventually I started to play more and get more integrated into Oldtimers.

Our party never had the chance to see Karazhan before Wotlk came out but we didn’t really mind. We had our daily runs in a heroic with Masiv as leading tank. I still leveled Distefano as first to lvl 80 but Masiv followed a couple of weeks later. It was easy to have a dedicated tank we could use to scout trough the Northrend dungeons. We did it on our own pace as a party but this time more prepared and with a greater knowledge about our character. I still enjoy reading up about paladins, especially the tanking part. Never really looked in to retri wich I only used to level. I’ve chosen Holy as my dual specc but to be honest, I don’t really like to heal with Masiv. Masiv is masiv…even his name points to tanking.

Title: Bone: Rose (LT)
Author: Jeff Smith
Artist: Charles Vess
Series?: Prequel to the Bone series, but totally legible as a stand-alone.
Basic Reason for Beginning: You know what? I can’t remember. I know Debi is involved somehow. By mentioning it, no doubt. I picked it up because I remembered it whilst I was in the store and, you know, waiting to be helped and lots of books and… It just found its way into my hands…
Basic Reason for Finishing: ’tis fun. And I like the concepts. ^-^
Blurb: Princesses Rose and Briar are preparing for the exams that will determine which of them will be heir to the throne. At the same time, a dragon goes rogue and Rose, feeling responsible, determines to set things right and slay the beast. But darker forces are at work here and it’s not just Rose’s kingdom whose fate hangs in the balance…
Book Rereadability: I… don’t know. (Don’t you hate it when I say that?) I liked the story well enough, but I’m kind of wishing it was in novel form and longer…
Author Rereadability: That said, I do, definitely, intend to check the main series out at some point. ^-^
Recommendation: It goes without saying that fans of Bone need to get their hands on this book if they don’t already own it. Beyond that, it’s pretty standard fantasy fare as far as that goes. Don’t expect to be blown out of the water by anything, but it’s definitely worth at least borrowing from the library.

Pages: 144
ISBN: 0545135435
Challenges: None.

Thoughts, Burbles, Etc

Okay, honestly? I have serious issues with how Vess draws faces in this book. Just don’t ask me for more specifics than that, the style of his facial close-ups just bugs me. That said, I have on big issue with the whole book and, unfortunately, it’s pretty major.

I couldn’t buy Rose’s personality. She’s your typical wide-eyed, innocent, stupid naïve heroine of the variety who walks into traps and enemy hands quite happily because she’s so stupid good-hearted that no one (but the Dark Lord, if him) can do evil. Except she’s perfectly capable of handling herself and… the two just don’t mesh for me. I couldn’t buy that this intelligent, self-sufficient young woman could not see what was right in front of her. You know those movies and books where the characters make you want to grab them by the shoulders, shake them and tell them “Don’t open the bloody door! That’s where the zombies are! Look at all the blatant clues strewn about, you moron!”? Yeah, that’s my reaction to Rose.

And the clincher? It’s not even a fair reaction to Rose. Smith puts enough into the story to support Rose’s naivety regarding events. There are clues to tell you that, yes, Rose may be capable of holding her own in a fight and she may be capable of good tactical thinking, but she’s Not Good with thinking badly of people. (Heck, if I were in Rose’s shoes, I’d probably do the same.) I don’t think I’d have had a problem if I’d read this younger, before I got so picky/jaded/old. Not that it’s a bad book for adults or anything, far from it, but I don’t know how much of the problem is not having enough clues to believe something and how much is just plain “I read the plot so many times, it’s blatantly obvious to me, why isn’t it to you, Rose? This is how it always happens!” *twitch* I hate that. I like knowing for certain what the cause of dislike is.

Anyway, now that I’m done airing my grievances, let’s talk what makes this book worth reading. Because I sure as hell haven’t backed that claim up. Let’s start with the world-building. I heart it. It sounds/reads solid and I have a strong attachment/liking for any story that deals with dreams or the power in them. (If only for research purposes.) Also, dragons. Dragons are cool. And rat-people. I’m so, so curious about the rat-people. And how it relates to Bone. Because, you know, this is my introduction and I don’t, er, recall much of what people have said of Bone beyond “It’s good!”
The world-building’s good and fascinating from what we get to see in this book, at least. We get a glimmer of dragon structure, a glimmer of the world as a whole, a rather large glimmer of the background of Bone’s plot (I presume) which you’d expect from a prequel and how certain things came to be.

We get the character dynamics. Let me tell you, for all my griping about Rose, let me just inform you that the crush she had? The relationship with her dogs? Spot-on. Her choices? Spot-on. (If, you know, I could buy the stupid naïve thing she’s got going on.) Briar’s relationship with her sister? Really good. Her motives? Totally understandable. No characterisation problems there. You’d buy those even without the one-page bird’s eye view of them. The dogs? Great. The rogue dragon? I want one! (Uhm, no, not really. He terrorised a village. He’d probably eat me.) He was fun. The names of Rose and Briar? Fun! (Wonder if the rest of the series plays with the “Briar Rose” theme or whether that’s just my imagination.) The folkloric/fairytale feel of some of the plot? Priceless. I love that sort of thing. The implications of Rose’s final decision? Enticing. (No, I’m not telling what that is. You’ll know the scene/panel I’m referring to if you’ve read it, and you really should. It’s fun!)

So, yes, have two major issues – both of which are more than a little due to the kind of person I am – but overall the story is wonderfully solid, with good characters, a great world and cute dogs. I’m not even a dog person, but I like those two. I think the creation-ish myth the book starts with is my favourite part of the whole book, though. It is so, so pretty!

Other Reviews

Stuff as Dreams Are Made on (also reviews Between Mom and Jo and Sometimes my Heart Pushes my Ribs, both of which are wholly unrelated)
The Written World

(Okay, what/who am I missing? o_O)

As if the Tankadin list wasn’t enough I still have to produce a BiS-list for my Retribution paladins. And since I am one annoying person I will do three lists. Best in slot (counting emblems of conquest, but not TotC), Best in Slot (Heroics/Crafted) and Best in Slot (Emblems + TotC).

Best in Slot*
Head: Conqueror’s Aegis Helm (58 Emblems of Conquest)
Neck: Broach of the Wailing Night (19 Emblems of Conquest)
Shoulders: Spaulders of the Giant Lords (Faction Sons of Hodir Revered)
Back: Hammerhead Sharkskin Cloak (25 Emblems of Valor)
Chest: Conqueror’s Aegis Battleplate (58 Emblems of Conquest)
Wrist: Wristbands of the Sentinel Huntress (60 Emblems of Valor)
Hands: Bladebreaker Gauntlets (28 Emblems of Conquest)
Waist: Belt of the Singing Blade (28 Emblems of Conquest)
Legs: Legplates of the Violet Champion (58 Emblems of Conquest)
Feet: Death-Inured Sabatons (Faction Knights of the Ebon Blade Exalted)
Ring 1: Ring of Invincibility (25 Emblems of Valor)
Ring 2: Hemorrhaging Circle (Gal’Darah – Heroic Gundrak) 
Trinket 1: Mirror of Truth (40 Emblems of Heroism)
Trinket 2: Incisor Fragment (King Dred – Heroic Drak’tharon Keep)
Main hand: Colossal Skull-Clad Cleaver (Loken – Heroic Halls of Lightning)
Libram: Libram of Discord (19 Emblems of Conquest)

First list is done! For this excellent gear you only have to pay 418 emblems.
Lets continue with list number 2. This list will focus mainly on heroic and crafted gear.

Best in Slot (Just counting heroics/crafted)
Head: Spiked Titansteel Helm (Crafted) / The Horseman’s Horrific Helm (Headless Horseman until 2nd Nov)
Neck: Titanium Impact Choker (Crafted) / Necklace of Arcane Spheres (Xevozz – Heroic Violet Hold)
Shoulders: Spaulders of the Giant Lords (Faction Sons of Hodir Revered) / Snake Den Spaulders (Slad’ran – Heroic Gundrak)
Back: Cloak of Bloodied Waters (BOE drop from heroic Gundrak)
Chest: Bonegrinder Breastplate (Prince Taldaram – Heroic Ahn’kahet: The Old Kingdom)
Wrist: Vengeance Bindings (Crafted) / Bands of the Stoneforge (Sjonnir the Ironshaper – Heroic Halls of Stone)
Hands: Gauntlets of Dragon Wrath (Eregos – Heroic Oculus) / Gauntlets of Capture (Cyanigosa – Heroic Violet Hold)
Waist: Flame-Bathed Steel Girdle (Keristrasza – Heroic Nexus)
Legs: Legplates of Steel Implants (Meathook – Heroic The Culling of Stratholme)
Feet: Death-Inured Sabatons (Faction Knights of the Ebon Blade Exalted)
Ring 1: Ring of Ghoulish Glee (Headless Horseman until 2nd nov)
Ring 2: Hemorrhaging Circle (Gal’Darah – Heroic Gundrak) 
Trinket 1: Meteorite Whetstone (King Ymiron – Heroic Utgarde Pinnacle)
Trinket 2: Incisor Fragment (King Dred – Heroic Drak’tharon Keep)
Main hand: Colossal Skull-Clad Cleaver (Loken – Heroic Halls of Lightning)
Libram: None

Since it’s still Halloween I let the Headless Horseman loot be part of the list. So yeah, on to the third and last list. The BiS of the BiS

Best in Slot (Counting heroics, Conquest Emblems and Trial of the Champion)
Head: Conqueror’s Aegis Helm (58 Emblems of Conquest)
Neck: Ancient Pendant of Arathor (Cache – Heroic Trial of the Champion)
Shoulders: Majestic Silversmith Shoulderplates (Eadric’s Cache – Heroic Trial of the Champion)
Back: Hammerhead Sharkskin Cloak (25 Emblems of Valor)
Chest: Conqueror’s Aegis Battleplate (58 Emblems of Conquest)
Wrist: Wristbands of the Sentinel Huntress (60 Emblems of Valor)
Hands: Gauntlets of the Stouthearted Crusader (Eadric’s Cache – Normal Trial of the Champion)
Waist: Belt of the Singing Blade (28 Emblems of Conquest)
Legs: Legplates of the Violet Champion (58 Emblems of Conquest)
Feet: Plated Greaves of Providence (Confessor’s Cache – Heroic Trial of the Champion)
Ring 1: Ring of Invincibility (25 Emblems of Valor)
Ring 2: Uruka’s Band of Zeal (The Black Knight – Normal Trial of the Champion)
Trinket 1: Mirror of Truth (40 Emblems of Heroism)
Trinket 2: Banner of Victory (Confessor’s Cache – Normal Trial of the Champion)
Main hand: Marrowstrike (Confessor’s Cache – Heroic Trial of the Champion) / Edge of Ruin (Champion’s Cache – Heroic Trial of the Champion)
Libram: Libram of Discord (19 Emblems of Conquest)

Didn’t take too long to write I will probably follow up this post with a “Instance – priority guide” later on.

Hell yeah! I have been fooling around with Anub’arak for a little while. Sadly every encounter I have had with him has ended badly, but not today Of course I got lucky and got the tank belt right away. Since I am the proud owner of five pair of epic legs, my next item on the shopping list is either gloves or belt.

I’m gonna try and do a BiS list later on for my rets and tank. I need to do it anyway for myself, might as well do it on the blog.

Från World of Skekraft

Believe it or not! The difference between my first steps into UK heroic and my current runs are gigantic. I haven’t been playing for long at 80 and I have already gathered 100 conquest emblems. Pretty nice if I may say so myself. First 19 was spent on librams, then 58 on T8 chest and now i’m saving the rest for the 39 emblem legs.

I still haven’t set my foot in Old Kingdom, Violet Hold, Halls of Stone and Halls of Lightning, so I should probably go there soon. Although at the moment I am just doing easy emblem runs.

With some luck I’ll be able to get the last 10 emblems I need tonight. I really really want to start clearing ToC soon, but I figure I should wait a little bit longer and get some more gear before I go back there again. Last time I visited they kinda… handed me my ass (jousting was fine tho).

Finally home from my business trip. Did the horseman, but he dropped crap so I still need one more plate helmet. One a positive note I will probably get 58 emblems today, which means a nice purple BP for everyone I also finished UK again this morning, giving me the last pair of the epic legs. Since I’m not working today my plan is to finish what I can of Gundrak, do CoT strat (since it’s heroic daily) and with some luck, actually have time to try an instance I haven’t done yet!

Oh yeah, I installed another 6gig ram into my pc, made a huge difference, especially in Dalaran. Now I just need a SSD.