OH it’s been soooooooooooo fun around my house.. Hear the sarcasm? No? Listen again you’ll get it this time! ugh!

It hasn’t been bad really at all. I’m just tired. I’ve been sick.. Like REALLY sick! I hate this hot then cold again weather.  It really is to blame. It started off as allergies then turned into full fledged sinuses and cold crap then I got worse and had a fever and then it settled in my chest and I couldnt breathe.. I kept getting worse. Then to make matters worse.. I overdosed on cold meds on Tuesday. I didn’t even realize I was doing it until it was too late. I mixed two different meds w/ out thinking and then got so sick. It’s never a good idea to mix meds.. It makes you throw up.. It’s not fun.. Then later on that evening.. I took nyquil b/c the hubs insisted I needed it and I felt so bad I didnt think anything about it. Well apparently I still had way too much Dextro whatever in my system b/c I got sick again and Wed I felt drugged all day and really sick. Over dosing is no cup o tea! Thats for sure!! Normally I pay very close attention to what i’m doing when it comes to meds but I guess I was so sick I wasnt thinking clearly.. I havent taken any cold meds since but hopefully I wont need to b/c i’m not feeling quite as crappy today!

So moving on. I’m sure i’ll have a new post in a few days w/ all the Christmas stuff going on.. So that can wait.. Though I didn’t bake this year b/c of being sick. Normally I bake a ton of stuff but instead I just bought an apple pie to take to my moms.. I’m sure they’ll appreciate that I didnt snot all over their food!

Moving on..

MSSC54 mentioned looking for a place to hunt.. Well Hubs hasnt had a chance to go hunting b/c of the non stop working..  He hasnt complained much about it though our freezer has b/c we dont buy meat at the grocery store. I havent bought ground meat in 10+ years.. nor pork.. anyhow.. While hubs hasnt been seeing anything special.. Our game camera has so I thought I’d share a few shots!

Check him out!

All of these shots are from right around the same time.. They are still coming back to the feeder but I haven’t saved the pics since..

He's a lil hungry!

Doe & a knot head..

Pretty yes???

Merry Christmas Everyone!!!

Today I’m going to write about one of the joys of being an Engineer. You see the other day I was doing the Dangerously Delicious fishing quest in Wintergrasp.

I’m minding my own business when all of the sudden a hunter’s mark appear above my head and then bang, bang, I’m dead . I’m not the only one he’s doing this too, and before you know it we’re all rezzed and he’s hopelessly outnumbered.  He’s also way up in the air safe on his flying mount; or so he thought .

With revenge on my mind, I grab my flying mount and fly into the air going above him, but staying in max range.  I dismount, fire off a Black Arrow (a nice 15 second DoT he can’t do anything about).  I continue to drop, and am still in range after the GCD is up.  I fire off an explosive shot (another two second DoT he can do nothing about).

I then pop my parachute just in time to see his health drop to zero as I float safely to the ground.  It was a good day to be an Engineer indeed.

My apologies in advance for the lack of screenshots or video for this one.  I’ll try to be better prepared next time, as this was so much fun, I’m sure there will be a next time.

Good Aerial Hunting!

Euripides over at OutDPS.com has a nice post about some shady dealings with epic ammo happening on auction houses across Azeroth.  Just make sure you look before you buy.

http://outdps.com/2009/12/21/ammo-one-for-the-price-of-ten/

The Central Highlands province of Dak Lak December 19 paid homage to the practice of elephant hunting by local ethnic people in Krong Ana Commune, Buon Don District.

A performance of hunting elephants during Dak Lak Province’s tourism and culture week December 16-20 (Photo: SGGP)

The event was part of the Buon Ma Thuot-Dak Lak Culture and Tourism Week, hosted by the province from December 16-20.

Tourists and locals watched December 19 as 31 hunters rode 15 tamed elephants to catch a wild elephant.

The father of elephant hunting is N’Thu K’Nul from Laos, who was born in 1928.

He was also the founder of Ban Don, a famous area of Buon Don District with a long tradition of hunting and taming elephants.

He captured hundreds of elephants including a rare white elephant, which he presented to Thai royalty in 1861.

The King of Thailand at the time conferred him the title of “Khunjunob,” meaning “elephant hunting king.”

Related article:
Highlands tourism week celebrates elephants

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There’s a common practice (often highlighted over at the greedy goblin) where people will make money off distracted (or rushed or just plain stupid) hunters by selling stacks of 100 ammo for only slightly less than the price of 1000. Depending on whether you use an auction addon or not, these stacks may even be displayed identically to you.

I am not blaming the guys who try this- in a free market, you can sell anything you want, and it’s the responsibility of the buyer to avoid being screwed. This might fall under the category of “false advertising” if your auction interface shows you the same graphic for 100 as it does 1000 (often something like “10…” for a stack size), but the reality is that they can’t overtly lie to us about the stack size. We need to have installed an addon that hides the true stack size from us. The default UI shows it.

That or we are running late for our raid prep and are just distracted.

Here’s the plan:

• When you buy ammo, don’t be a sucker. Double check in any way possible that the stack size is 1000 (or if you do want to buy 100 at a time for some reason, make sure you’re not getting fleeced). Turn off your auction addons if they’re configured so you can’t see this. Or even better, configure them so they sort by unit price instead of stack price.
• If you are an engineer (especially if you are able to make epic ammo), make sure that you list at least some of your stock for sale in 100 stacks, priced at a similar unit price you use for your 1000 stacks. This will push the fleecers’ auctions below the fairly priced ones. If someone accidentally buys a 100 stack, at least they won’t have been charged 10x the amount.
• Whether you’re an engineer or not, if you want to help and have enough cash to do this, buy full sized stacks and re-list them in stacks of 100. Heck, you might even make a profit doing this. Just don’t list them for 10x what they would cost if the buyer were fully aware of the situation.

Hunters, more than any other class, are a community. I can tell this by the fact that there are so many of your contributing in in so many ways. From answering questions on forums to writing guides and starting blogs, there’s something about this class that bonds people who play it together.

This particular auction strategy directly targets us. If you read this and say “Oh, I’m going to make sure that doesn’t happen to me”, then it was worth my time to write it. If any of you take further steps to reduce the number of people who get tricked into buying 100 stacks for the price of 1000, then it was really worth it.

Myself, I’m doing this for blue and epic arrows, because that’s what I happened to have available. Once I get a chance to set up a supply chain (probably by bugging Darkbrew), I’ll try to make sure that there’s always 50 stacks of 100 bullets and arrows, both blue and epic, all priced at around a tenth of the price of a stack of 1000.

This week we bring you another round table edition where we continue to discuss patch 3.3, and some hunter strategies for Icecrown Citadel.  We also answer a whole inbox of your e-mail.  Please, please continue to send us your questions.  We promise to answer we’ll answer them soon ™.

As always, here is the iTunes store link, the Hunting Party Podcast feed, and the direct XML feed. If you email us comments or questions, we’ll read them on the next show. Send an email to huntingpartypodcast@gmail.com. Also, we love iTunes reviews. Every time you neglect to leave us an iTunes review, a feral druid beats a hunter on the DPS meters!

If you don’t do syndicated podcasts, and just want to download this week’s MP3 and play it on your player of choice, click here.

Deer is Good

Deer steak is awesome and so is the benefit of providing food for your family. God rest her soul, she was not shot in vein.  We’ll say a prayer of thanks to God like always. 

Let us tell you it wasn’t an easy day.  Snow, sit, freeze, wait, freeze more, shoot, gut, clean, drag, show the kids, tag, take to government tagging station, hang to bleed out, clean gun, store gun in safe, wash blood covered clothes,and next week back to the butcher for steaks and ground kielbasa!  Just in time for New Year’s Eve.

Not that it really has anything to do with it but if you haven’t seen The Deer Hunter http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Deer_Hunter  now is the perfect time.  The film stars Robert De Niro, Christopher Walken, Meryl Streep, John Savage, John Cazale, George Dzundza and Chuck Aspegren.  We’re not giving away the ending but…The film ends with the whole cast at the wake, singing “God Bless America” and a toast.

Indeed, God Bless America.

If you are not already a member may we suggest the NRA membership as the perfect holiday gift at http://home.nra.org/#/home.   As America’s oldest civil rights organization, the NRA’s mission is to preserve and defend the U.S. Constitution, especially the inalienable right to keep and bear arms guaranteed by the Second Amendment.

For some great deer recipes check out http://www.hidetanning.net/VenisonDeerMeatRecipes.html

Kill to eat.  Humans excluded.

Open wide, say ahhh and subscribe for free in the top right margin. Or follow our Swine Flu Report here.

http://ahrcanum.wordpress.com/swine-flu-report/

[HQ] Hunters (2009-12-20).avi [499.5 MB]
Jung Young Hwa, Go Hara (KARA), Kim Tae Woo, etc

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=9B2BW49F | HAN

Thanks a bunch, Angelica
Please comment if downloading^^

I mentioned awhile back that I was playing around with an ArP Marks build. Well, after about a month and half, I’ve decided that it’s not for me.

One, I didn’t see any huge DPS increase over a standard pro-agility setup. Maybe I suck at stutter-stepping to make sure I don’t miss any autoshots (I swear, I think I’ve missed much of the design of ICC so far just from staring at my swing timer bar.)

Two, I missed my critting more than just hitting. I also miss rolling piercing shots. Again, maybe I’m missing something, but I think this is an overlooked source of damage with a build focusing on ArP.

Three, I missed the flexibility of making agility my most-sough-after stat. There have been a few times over the past month or so where I’ve thought that a survival build would be more productive (all those semi-wasted ArP gems make me sad!).

And, after playing around with the spreadsheet, I think I may be going back to a survival spec. According to said spreadsheet, this build is a 200ish DPS increase over my current Marks setup. It’s still preliminary “theorycraft” with no real raid testing, but I think I’m going to give it a go tonight in our 10 man to try to relearn survival (I am so out of practice!) to see how it goes.

I guess I’ll be trading staring at a swing timer for staring at a sniper training timer! Wish me luck!

Taz’Dingo!

- Lash

EDIT: I ended up going with this build in last night’s 10 man. Ah, explosive shot.. how I’ve missed you.

Also, I’m fully aware that to maximize DPS I still have to watch the swing timer and stutter step!

I had a nice post planned today on how to go about solo farming the battered hilt needed to start the Quel’delar quest.  I even had a link to a great video made by Vek’Nilash (EU) on how to do it as a Survival Hunter.

But alas, Blizzard has changed the rules again.  The good news is that they increased the drop rate for the hilt (by how much, I’m not sure). The bad news is they no longer drop off of the non-elite skeletal slaves in the Pit of Saron, which was the best source to solo farm the hilt.

Hopefully the increased drop-rate means I’ll actually get one to drop, or the prices on the AH will drop making it affordable.

Anyway, if you were planning to try getting the hilt off of the skeletal slaves (/points self) don’t bother.

Good Hunting!

Here’s a story that all those hunters who objected to my prior posts about hunting will never understand. From what they’ve had to say, rather than going in to save their pets, they probably would stand outside and shoot them when they tried to escape.

From the Associated Press today as carried by the Union Leader –

Fire officials say a 52-year-old Lempster woman who tried to extinguish a fire in her home and then rescue pets has died of injuries suffered in the fire.

State and local officials say Kendall A. Wright died Sunday at the burn unit of the Massachusetts General Hospital where she was taken by helicopter after the fire, which was reported at 6:37 p.m. Saturday.

Investigators say preliminary indications are that a candle in the living room set a couch on fire.

The fire heavily damaged the single family home.

New Hampshire Fire Marshal J. William Degnan says lighted candles should never be placed where they can be knocked over by children, pets, or anyone else.

An advert for the future 100 minute film. This film is now sold out. … 6mm hunter lone sniper airsoft rifle gspec stalk ambush

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tK6XBxYQtR4&hl=en

[HQ] Hunters (2009-12-13).avi [399.6 MB]
Jung Yong Hwa, Go Hara (KARA), Kim Tae Woo, Lee Hwi Jae, etc

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=8GMF08YM

Thanks a bunch, Angelica
Please comment if downloading^^

Ghost Hunting now in Old Town San Diego

Deer hunting, especially in the North Woods, is a pretty big part of life for Mainers. It is a rite of passage for boys and girls whose fathers – and sometimes mothers – drag them to their first hunters’ breakfast , pile them into all sort of vehicle, drive them into the wilderness, and help them slog through the woods to just the “perfect” site for bagging that first deer.

I know, I know, Bambi was a deer and killing deer is bad, bad, bad. At least, in the minds of many people.

But in many parts of the country, including Maine, hunting is more than just sport. Deer and other game are hunted for meat; some families, especially in this economic climate, are looking for meat from game to help them get through the winter. In most cases, it is not a life-and-death situation, but it is pretty serious.

And the deer population – and the subsequent decline in deer kills – is way down.

The effects go well beyond those to the individual hunter. I came across a blog entry on DownEast.com about the decline of the deer population and the far-reaching effects on the local and state economy. It is a pretty devastating situation.

Stores and restaurants, outfitters, sporting goods stores, hotels and motels, and hunting lodges, some of them in the same family for several generations, are hurting financially this year in part because there are fewer deer and fewer deer hunters.

My mother, who occasionally works at the small general store in my hometown of Portage, Maine, where deer kills are registered, said the take this year has been incredibly disappointing. She echoed some of the comments by the blog’s author, George Smith, who is described as “a columnist, TV show host, executive director of the state’s largest sportsmen’s organization, political and public policy consultant, hunter, angler, and avid birder and most proud of his three children and grandson.”

Smith wrote that deer population has been reduced by two back-to-back rough winters, poor habitat, and thinning by bears and coyotes. That – and I would dare say the sluggish economy – have caused longtime hunters to cancel or shorten their trips to the North Woods. Others have cut short their trips after spending days in the woods and not spotting deer or deer sign.

The blog outlines the economic hardship being caused to businesses and the financial loss to the state’s Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife in license fees.

As Smith says, the only real fix in the southern part of the state is to have a milder-than-recent winter. Mother Nature controls that.

But he also quotes a former game commissioner warning that deer hunting in the North Woods may never return. That would be a terrible loss to poor Mainers looking to stretch their grocery dollars by putting game on the table. And it would be even more so for the future generations of would-be hunters who will never be dragged to their first hunters’ breakfast, loaded into a rig, and taken to remote spots in the North Woods seeking to bag their first deer.

Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources report that hunters have taken more than 100,000 deer in the state so far this year, with a majority of the harvest occurring during the recently completed modern gun season. The number of deer taken by hunters during the opening weekend of modern gun season was down about 400 animals from the average of the previous three seasons.

Harvest for the month of November, most of which comes from hunters during the modern gun season, was down about 5,000 deer from the state’s 3-year average. The decline, however, is a normal fluctuation that deer managers have seen for years.

Kentucky’s deer herd may have reached its carrying capacity, or the number of deer that the existing habitat can support. The state’s total deer population peaked in 2004 and then began to decline. It now stands at around one million animals.   

In addition to lower harvest numbers overall, about 60 percent of the deer taken so far this year have been male. While bucks usually represent a larger proportion of harvest than female deer at this point in the season, a 60-40 split between bucks and does is a larger difference than usual.  

Having a large number of deer living in the woods near my house in Fort Thomas, I don’t see a decline in the number of deer this year.  Moreover, we have many more

Fort Thomas has tons of deer with no predators in the city.

female than male deer in our local population. 

The picture of the baby fawn is from my backyard. The doe had twins and raised both to be full grown.  They are happily eating all of the plants and bird seed in my yard without fear of being shot by an arrow in the City of Fort Thomas.

I honestly don’t see what’s wrong with this guy. Except I’d probably pair it with better boots, but now we’re just nit-picking.

I’m back from vacation.  Nothing like going from white sand to white snow.  All in all it was a great vacation and I managed to sneak some WoW time in as well; including an unexpected TotC (25) run.  I thought I was going to miss two TotC (25) runs due to vacation; I didn’t.  Lucky for me too, as I got an upgrade in each run.

Patch 3.3 still looks like it will hit tomorrow.  If it does I don’t think I’ll be raiding ICC on Tuesday.  Definitely by the weekend though.  A lot depends on what guild tag I have.  No matter what I think I’m ready.

Enough about this past week.  What I really want to dwell on in this week’s MMQB is what I was doing a year ago this day.

It was one year ago today that I hit level 80 on Darkbrew.  While certainly not the first to hit 80 (lol), I was among the first wave of players to reach the level cap on my realm.

It was the start of Act II of my journey to Northrend.  I continued to do quests, but my focus turned to heroics and putting together a gear set for Naxxramas.  I missed out on a lot of Burning Crusade content and didn’t want that same thing to happen with WotLK.  Well 50 days later (that’s my /played for level 80 ) I seem poised to meet my goals.

With the release of patch 3.3 tomorrow (presumably) I find it fitting that the final act of my journey should start one year later.  Ready or not Arthas, here we come!

Ten Things I Remember About Hitting 80

Looking at the screenshot, here are some things I noticed about turning 80.

1. I was BM spec and leveling with a gorilla.  Remember Volley + Thunderstomp?
2. I still had several pieces of level 70 gear that were not replaced while leveling,
   1. Surestrike Goggles V2
   2. Trollbane (probably the last axe I ever had).
   3. Guantlets of Rapidity (the last piece of 70 gear I would replace).
3. I had more gold than what I started with when the expansion was released.
4. I have way less gold than that now.
5. I ran my first heroic (Utgarde Keep) shortly after turning 80.
6. I replaced Hemet’s Trophy Gun with a Nesingwary 4000.
7. I began working on Argent Crusade reputation trying to get my Polished Regimental Hauberk.
8. At the time I had no aspirations of running 25-man content.
9. My UI was very basic.  I wasn’t using nearly as may mods as I am now.
10. All of the heroic gear was actually worth getting.

P.S. In case I didn’t explain before, MMQB stands for Monday Morning Quarterback.