text:
tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-90061882684672554242014-09-03T12:06:06.060+10:00Constructive QQCoreushttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-9006188268467255424.post-80765560384938056062014-08-28T02:41:00.000+10:002014-09-02T10:28:53.305+10:00Initial thoughts on 6.0 Prot Warrior
It's the same as it was before.

But we lost Disarm, we lost Disrupting Shout, and I think all our (non-talent) damage cooldowns are gone but honestly I didn't notice. Shouts are now just mutually-exclusive 1-hour buffs fucking finally oh my god. Bladestorm and Shockwave are now on separate talent tiers so you can have both.

Dodge is gone. Parry is now called "Critical Strike" and now also increases your chance to crit with damage abilities. Mastery now also increases your total damage done (~40% of crit block chance iirc). Haste for prot warriors has been buffed from doing absolutely nothing to now reducing the cooldown on Shield Slam and Thunder Clap, increasing damage and rage generation.

I played a bit with the new Ravager talent-- 1min CD to place a spinning weapon as a ground effect and get 10% parry chance for ten seconds-- which strikes me as a really useful tool for making pulls, and a really weak defensive CD for every other situation.

Still, Warriors have been for years the only tank unable to place a ground effect (unless you count Heroic Leap) so it's good to finally get one.

I think that's everything. Something tells me that once all this stuff is finalised and balanced Haste will end up being the preferred stat for Warrior tanks. Just a feeling.
Coreushttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-9006188268467255424.post-85496000372639687082014-08-23T00:08:00.000+10:002014-08-23T00:08:00.331+10:0025-player raiding is objectively terrible and if you disagree with me you are wrong.
All the mount achievements in WoW are now decided by unofficial Twitter poll.

I am now 100% sure that my opinion is being neglected by the WoW dev team because I'm not making stupid demands on twitter and threatening to quit if they are not met.

Am I the only person who doesn't assume that shoving in more and more players into a group somehow makes the game more fun?

It has been decided that my guild is now and retroactively always was a 25-man guild. This apparently pleased everybody except for me. I was looking forward to working on Heroic Thok; but our 25-player team could only kill a single heroic boss, and as much fun as wiping on Protectors for two hours was, I couldn't shake the feeling that I'd done it all before like six months ago.

It was explained to me that 25 mode is better because it's easier and has more loot and it's better loot and that should be enough for me.

So it's an easier goal, and my contribution has been reduced from 1/10 of the raid team to 1/25 of the raid team, and by some retarded fucking reasoning the game treats this as being worth more loot for me?

And it really is so much easier. 25-player raiding on a Monk is three spells: Renewing Mist, Surging Mist, Uplift. There is no point in using any other spells. Renewing chooses smart targets, Surging chooses smart targets, Uplift is a Chi dump that also happens to heal some of the people in the raid.

25-player reduces every healer to spamming their most efficient spell rotation and nothing else. Mana barely matters. Technique barely matters. Death barely matters because the rest of the raid was going to carry you regardless. You will always succeed as long as the number of stupid people you bring is fewer than the number of battle reses.

I maintain that unless you are in a world-class guild, 25-player is just an excuse to carry people who die too much to succeed in a 10-player raid.

Coreushttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-9006188268467255424.post-38730941716582406042014-08-22T02:14:00.000+10:002014-08-21T08:51:48.458+10:00Reading quest text
I downloaded the Warlords beta finally.

Orgrimmar keeps crashing, but that's not really unexpected. I had to set up my controls about six times though because I kept failing to /reload after updating my options.

I made a "Tanaan Jungle" premade 90 because I'm curious about what this modern tutorial looks like, choosing Druid; a class I've not played since early Wrath. Also because Battle.net was down so I couldn't copy a live toon.

As soon as I logged in I got a huge spash screen giving me the option to accept a breadcrumb quests to get to Tanaan. I was instructed me to speak with Khadgar in the Blasted Lands

While I try to figure out why the quest text I'm reading is telling me to meet an NPC on the other side of the world the game crashed again.

Half of me says that modern quests never ever include that much manual travel, the other half tells me I'm being a retard for not just following the quest text because why the fuck would the quest text specifically direct me to an NPC in a place on the opposite side of the world if this was not the place I was supposed to go. I checked my map and the quest objective marker is clearly there in Blasted Lands.

The first thing I tried was the Orgrimmer portal to Blasted Lands, which it turned out has been changed to go to the other side of the Dark Portal.

I had reached Draenor at last! Though I had apparently arrived too late-- the planet had been destroyed and seemed to be crawling with level 60 demons. Not to mention Amy had aged 36 years and refused to let me save her.

I tried the Dark Portal in what is now called Hellfire Peninsula, but it's now just a gigantic demonic sparkly blackish-greenish solid wall that does absolutely nothing. Though helpfully the dimensional gateway I had arrived through from Orgrimmar apparently allowed two-way travel.

I feel like we've come to that point in a long-running series where the writers have stopped caring about the rules that defined older storylines. Now the public service magi in our capital cities can easily break through the dimensional walls just like how Medivh did while he was corrupted and possessed by the god Sargeras.

So I went back to Orgrimmar, hit a crash once more while waiting for the Grom'gol zeppelin to take me to Eastern Kingdoms, flew across the continent to Blasted Lands, down to the quest marker on my map to find not Khadgar but a swarm of elites that mobbed me until I died.

Now I was getting annoyed.

I hearthed back to Orgrimmar. Apparently I should have known better than to read and follow the quest text instead of spamming whatever channel is at hand demanding someone else take their time to explain exactly how to play the game. An extremely helpful person in trade informed me that betas are supposed to have bugs but that was the extent of the advice.

Then the game crashed again.
Coreushttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-9006188268467255424.post-22599811202414159402014-08-19T00:01:00.000+10:002014-08-19T00:01:00.188+10:00Challenge Get!
Yesterday three of us completed our final Challenge Mode gold. Yay. Next: Warrior tank.

I feel empty. I don't know what I was expecting to feel... happy, I guess. Was I expecting something to change? It's an achievement, but it's also an ending. I was really enjoying healing CMs. I want to keep playing my Monk but all she has left to do now is rated PvP and Heroic raiding. And fishing, I suppose.

I tried replaying Endless Healer but got demoralised when my ranged dps died to the fucking ground fire halfway through the second round-- about two seconds after I had used a CD to top her off. Someone please inform Kavan the Arcanist that I'm replacing her until she can get her shit together. Also I suppose I can improve my lockdown sequence on the quad caster wave to reduce the amount of fire on the ground for my idiot party to avoid.

I tanked a dungeon to get a feel for the Warrior again, but tanking is so boring when you overgear the content. And I'm going to say it: Heroic Strike is the worst rage dump ever. At least Arms makes Heroic Strike crit a bunch. For Protection it does approximately twelve damage and makes you feel like an idiot for wasting 30 rage.
Coreushttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-9006188268467255424.post-70557840223651847362014-08-15T10:02:00.001+10:002014-08-15T10:03:52.035+10:00Three months
Warlords will go live in three months.

This information is so important that its communication demands a medium of its very own. I know I've been planning my "finding out the Warlords release date" blog since before Mists came out.

So three months is about 90 days, or three subscription periods, or another $45 for the same game you've been playing for the last year.

The months in question are September, October, half of August and just under half of November. September, October and November are named such because they began as the seventh, eighth, and ninth months respectively. According to Wikipedia; August was at one point called Sextili-- I have no idea why they changed it. In the Southern Hemisphere, August is the seasonal equivalent of February in the Northern Hemisphere.

Thirty days hath September and November, but October is going to be a slightly longer month than usual due to its thirty-first day. It's still unclear whether this extra day was intended by the devs.

I haven't watched the cinematic advertisement yet. I assume it will be pretty but pointless.
Coreushttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-9006188268467255424.post-9987645338488497002014-08-14T11:20:00.000+10:002014-08-14T13:27:11.320+10:00Hype
How many days is it now until we learn how many months we will have to wait?

I guess I find stuff like this a bit demeaning-- being told to be excited about something, or being spoken to under the assumption that of course I'm excited about the new product that this company wants to sell me at some point in the future. Or possibly has already sold to me and is trying to keep me from thinking about them having my money and me having nothing to show for it yet.

Well, not nothing. My Blizzard Launcher gained the option to play "Warlords of Draenor" months ago-- but I still get Mists of Pandaria every single time I load it. Maybe I need to submit a bug report.

Some stuff I did find interesting has emerged over the last few days:

Blizzard is trying yet again to build a comprehensive group-finding tool into the game. Maybe people will use it this time. No seriously, people might actually use it. They really might!

A new 250-mounts achievement was announced, then a few complainey people all simultaneously quit WoW because the mount reward was not better than all of the previous 250, so we don't get that mount any more, but now we do get a green recolour of the Firebird from Firelands, which I think is pretty cool.

I've only got eight mounts left to go which should be a piece of cake. Actually only five mounts if you include the three free Phoenixes in 6.0. Or three mounts if I'm desperate enough to log onto a toon with class mounts to get the achievement. So yeah, piece of cake.

Coreushttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-9006188268467255424.post-67380332622633718632014-08-07T01:19:00.000+10:002014-08-07T10:36:25.879+10:00Announcement announced.
My launcher has been screaming at me that the 12th of August is when Blizzard intends to announce when they will announce the date of the next WoW expansion.

This is pretty good news for people who hope to play the expansion before the end of the year. Maybe it will arrive before Blizzcon. Or just after.

I keep hearing about Warrior's new Gladiator stance and the amazing things you can and can't do while using it and... I can't be the only one who hears "stance" as "gameplay restrictions."

Every now and again stances get a superficial make it a bonus pass where they rephrase the tooltip to describe the stance change in a glass-half-full way, but stances alway end up becoming the cross nanny rapping your hand for daring to try to use the wrong combat ability at the dinner table and telling you to go stand in the corner for a GCD and cool off before you try again.

I finished my little Mistweaver spreadsheet. It doesn't do much, but I really wanted to "prove" this thing for myself. Also, I really wanted to make some graphs. I like graphs.

I should also note that I'm using Healiocentric's maths, but I added some extra stuff to take into account the small amount of crit granted by Intellect. I answered the question anyway; crit gems became more valuable above ~42k spell power. I hope I didn't make any mistakes.

I'm still tooling around with my hordies on Moon Guard. I rolled an Goblin Shaman years ago because I fucking love their mechanical totems and I had in my head the concept of a street-smart mechanical genius who is as clever at manipulating the elements as he is his business partners. He has scuzzy hair pulled into a greasy ponytail and jets around reclined in his personal rocket.

But anyway I sent him some heirlooms and ran around smacking things with my fire-tipped weapons for a bit. The randomness of enhancement fits a goblin character really well; he just throws everything at the enemy: fire, metal, electricity, explosives. I'm think I'm also starting to like my clattering fire totem more than any other pet.* It stays where I place it and just shoots, like an imp minus the constant whingeing.

Of all the classes I'm playing on Horde, Shaman is the one I don't also play Alliance-side any more. Might be a good candidate for a level 90 boost. Enhancement is really fun.

*Except Xuen, he's my cuddly kitty.

Coreushttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-9006188268467255424.post-91800682143773247982014-08-06T01:00:00.000+10:002014-08-06T01:00:04.349+10:00Stats
Icy Veins has updated their stat priority for Mistweavers to put crit at the top, so I guess that makes it official. Again, not a single word of explanation for this change, and as far as I can tell only that single line was changed. I'm pretty sure that only top research theorycrafters understand the science behind this new fact. Nobody is quite sure when it turned into fact but apparently a consensus has been reached now.

All I want is a chart mapping the boundaries and balance point between crit and intellect. I think I'm halfways there with this neato spreadsheet I made in google.

Years ago when I had first heard about Challenge Modes I set myself a goal of clearing all the golds on each of my "focus" toons for the expansion. At the time those were Warrior tank, Warlock, and Shaman healer. But I got bored with the Shaman long ago, the Warlock failed to capture my attention past mucking about with green fire during Throne, and even my very favourite class Prot Warrior fell by the wayside as I got swept up in the fun of Monk healing.

Now that I'm closing in on my first CM clear with the Monk, I can start imagining doing it with a second class, and Warrior is the obvious choice. I'm hoping that once myself and our tank finish all the Golds, we switch toons and go again from the start. In any case I reckon there is enough interest in the guild to keep this going until 6.0.

And depending on how slow Blizzard is to make Warlords happen, a third toon doesn't seem completely out of the question yet.
Coreushttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-9006188268467255424.post-82030214034600378292014-07-23T01:50:00.000+10:002014-07-23T01:50:00.034+10:00Surprise Priest!
This weekend on a whim I levelled my Gnome Priest from eighty-eight to ninety and have been derping around the Timeless Isle and feeling ridiculously underpowered in any and all group content. It turns out a hundred item levels is a pretty massive power deficit.

I've been pleasantly surprised at how fun Shadow is. It's really not too DoT heavy, and has plenty of instants for movement. I've always complained about multi-dotting, but it's so powerful that I've started liking it. Priests are squishy as hell! I've been making heavy use of speed bubble and renew just to stay alive against larger elites.

Discipline healing has a fantastic niche in Power Word: Shield. I think of it as a universal stop-someone-from-dying button, and Penance backs it up nicely as an instant heal. And... that's about it. Everything else is a two second cast, during which you just sit and wait for your cast bar to move. Coming from a Monk who can start casting an efficient heal and then transform it into a huge heal mid cast, watching my Various Heal casts slowly drip out seems underpowered and really unresponsive. In a truly dangerous healing environment the situation can and will change in the two seconds it takes to cast a spell.

Any raid healer knows the way to make your number bigger is to focus on AoE healing. Unfortunately Discipline's AoE is really terrible.

I've talked about Prayer of Mending before: I called it a "dumb" heal. As opposed to a smart heal which heals the person who needs it most, the dumb heal will choose someone who doesn't need it and do nothing until it expires. But it's still mana-efficient most of the time so I use it on CD.

Prayer of Healing is the "direct" AoE heal. It's quite powerful, but has the utterly bizarre restriction of only hitting people in the same party group as the target. If this spell was designed today there is no question it would use smart healing to choose targets. Instead, I have to rejigger my interface so I can see who is in which party. How has this vanilla WoW bullshit survived so many expansions?

I might try Holy eventually, but I'm enjoying Disc for the moment despite all the whinging. Somewhat ironically (if you know me) I've been mostly ignoring the other of Discipline's strengths, Atonement healing through damage. I think I'll get to it eventually... I'm finding the main healing spells challenging enough to master for the moment. I'll keep working on my gear and hopefully soon do some 25-man Priest healing with my guild's alt raid.

On the Monk front, I'm finally done with the Island, which has left me without much to do. I suppose this explains the Priest.

Coreushttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-9006188268467255424.post-87936910004475550922014-07-17T01:23:00.000+10:002014-07-17T01:23:00.452+10:00Theorycrafting
It's come to my attention that at some point every Mistweaver started telling every other Mistweaver to gem for crit. So far not a single one of those people has been able to justify this opinion past "you should be doing this" or "yeah crit is really good". Some people like to have evidence before advocating radical change.

So I've done multiple google searches, I've been to EJ, Icyveins, Noxxic, official forums, multiple healing blogs; most still provide specific advice to gem for intellect, and the ones that do seem to prioritise crit don't explain why.

Is this cutting-edge theorycrafting that the establishment has yet to bring on board? Are people simming to get this conclusion? Is it just a tradeoff for mana regen? Is it that stupid Robot site spitting out poorly calculated stat weights again? Has it come out of poorly worded gemming advice where it's assumed that the reader already understands that Intellect is their best stat. Is it something that some famous raider did and inadvertently popularised?

Using facebook regularly has shown me how easily terrible ideas can gain legitimacy. Perhaps crit gemming like is the anti-vaccine movement of Mistweavers. Hah.

I should clarify that I'm not arguing against crit gemming. It's just that the people who have spouted this point of view at me are obviously not doing their own research, just repeating what they've been told, and I don't trust those people.

Someone show me I'm wrong about all this so I can shut up. That's called science.

Coreushttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-9006188268467255424.post-60661582542717012702014-07-15T00:05:00.000+10:002014-07-15T10:54:49.692+10:00In which Coreus tells Blizzard they are doing it wrong
Several years ago I made the complaint that Blizzard sucks at planning, giving the evidence of a raid release schedule which could have been much better timed to how long players would likely take to get utterly bored with each raid. Basically, they gave us far too little time in Ulduar and far too long in Icecrown Citadel. (There was another raid in there too but I'm pretty sure that was mostly a jousting minigame and some PvP.)

It doesn't seem like they have learned from it because the exact same thing happened last expansion. And again this expansion: A spectacular second raid tier was cut short so a fairly middling final raid tier could sit around for a year gathering flies.

"One expansion every 12-14 months" is the very long-stated intention and... I'm sure they're still working on that one.

I'm not really sure where the imperative has come from, but WoW's dev team is cutting class abilities left and right. Their market research probably indicates that games with fewer buttons sell more mounts or something.

I've always given Blizzard the benefit of the doubt when they improve their game at each expansion. It's mostly all worked out so far. The Warlock thing was probably a bit severe so I'm glad they're backpedaling on that a bit.

I just feel like I'm seeing change for change's sake. Nearly every existing ability has its niche. The ones that didn't find theirs immediately were modified to fit better or removed. "WoW has too many buttons!" is one of those things that sounds obvious in a meeting, but when you get down to it even small changes like removing a passive mean adjusting everything else to compensate. I guess I'm trying to say it would be nice if they could concentrate a bit more on making the expansion exist before they worry about it having too many buttons.

HAY BLIZ HOW ABOUT REMOVING CRANE STANCE OMG SO MUCH BUTTON BLOAT.

I totally understand toning down crowd control abilities, though. Let me tell you a story. Back during the Burning Crusade, tanks were rubbish at holding threat against more than a stiff breeze and AoE was a niche thing that Mages did, so CC was essential for completing high-level dungeons. However, only certain classes had CC, so the classes without any complained on the forums that they were being left out. Meanwhile Paladins had started picking up Warrior gear and groups suddenly realised that AoE tanking was easier and faster and would never ever go back to CC and fuck any non-Paladin tanks.

Blizzard gave everybody what they wanted: Wrath loaded nearly every class with effective CCs, and it also gave every tank spammable AoE, making all CC redundant. And nobody used CC ever again. The End.
Coreushttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-9006188268467255424.post-77820320714648762922014-07-10T01:44:00.000+10:002014-07-10T11:32:25.245+10:00Levers and rewards
I got my two hundred and thirty-seventh mount this morning: a Swift Zulian Panther. One more boss crossed off the list, though the Raptor will keep me coming back to ZG for most likely a while yet.

Getting a new mount has a noticeable effect on me; a greater feeling of attachment to the game, and a compulsion towards immersing myself in WoW. The reward system in action.

I really need to go check a few mount bosses for soloability. The problem is they're mostly the final bosses of raids; Al'akir, Lich King, Yogg-Saron, and Deathwing each require me to clear an entire raid just to attempt. Alysrazor sounds doable, though, and I'm pretty sure only needs one trash pack cleared. Perhaps I'll try her tonight.

I noticed today that I've ended up with all four Legendary cloaks on my Monk. As well as separate helms for each of the meta-gems. Maximum Legendary. You might ask what use a class without a caster spec has for caster procs... The answer is Jade Crackling Lightning. Using this spell alone does almost as much damage as a full melee rotation, and benefits spectacularly from the 30% spell haste proc on the meta-gem. Along with a caster multistrike trinket I picked up on an offset roll, this gear set has been a huge asset for all the ganking-- I mean, world PvP I've been doing to grind Bloody Coins.

So Alysrazor should be a piece of cake, right?
Coreushttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-9006188268467255424.post-56158468960654825322014-07-04T01:00:00.000+10:002014-07-04T01:00:06.287+10:00What I've been doing in WoW
I rolled a Blood Elf Monk a few days ago, and levelled him to 45 so far. I think I'm thoroughly in love with this class. I feel powerful, and the attacks all feel good to pull off. Windwalker has a great rhythm to it: Jab is your downbeat and Combo Breaker procs determine your time signature; Jab, Palm, Jab, Kick, Kick, Jab, Kick, Jab, mega aoe stun bullshittttt....

I'm running a damage and a healing spec, doing a bit of questing and a bit of dungeoning. I healed a Dire Maul run while topping the damage meters, which I think offended the DPS of the group-- they instantly accused me of poor healing after the squishiest tank ever died from one of his constant damage spikes. So much rage. But apart from that I've been enjoying the fuck out of the class. I don't have any particular plan for this toon, I've just been enjoying playing it.

In conclusion, Monk is the best class.

The level 90 boost icon sits on my character screen taunting me. But I'm just tired enough of the current tier of raiding that I don't see any point in doing it over again. It makes sense to save it for whatever class/faction I end up wanting to play through Draenor with but don't already have at 90.

I don't have any Horde toons at endgame, but I've been playing around with a few fresh-rolled class/race combinations on Moon Guard (great friendly place to level) to see what's resonant; a male Goblin Warrior, female Undead Death Knight, and the male Blood Elf Monk have kept my attention for several hours of playtime each so far. The male Blood Elf works really well for a Monk I think, though I can't say I've mastered Arcane Torrent yet.

It's interesting to note that all three are melee classes. It's not that I haven't rolled any ranged classes-- I recently tried a Mage and a Hunter, but neither stuck. They just seem to get boring faster I guess. It's weird that I always disliked raiding or PvPing as melee, but melee classes somehow tend to be more fun to solo than ranged.

I wonder why that is...
Coreushttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-9006188268467255424.post-77262972608375827682014-07-02T01:37:00.000+10:002014-07-02T01:37:00.428+10:00High-res nipples
Bashiok has explained that the first wave of Beta invites is being targeted to "WoW veterans". I wonder what their definition is; and whether we might extrapolate any interesting pattern by looking at the data of which players got an invitation. For the record, I've been playing since 2006 and I got an invitation.

Or, perhaps the aim of this targeting is to give long-time players something to do. Or it could be any of the twelve other reasons why choosing experienced players is useful for a beta test. Speculation is fun!

We've been seeing some very active chatter on the subject of new character models. The way they're talking about it gives me a strong impression the expansion has entered crunch. They need to get as much as possible done before the end of the year when they promised to deliver the product they have already sold people-- the dialogue has shifted to become mainly about managing expectations and prioritising the most important things.

It's really interesting to watch the character model situation evolve, and to gain an appreciation for how tricky a challenge it really is. It reminds me of the way game sequels always tend to update the player character models-- they never look quite right next to the old ones. I always assumed it was because they were deliberately updating the style with each iteration, but now I understand it's simply hard to maintain a sense of common style between two different levels of detail.

But the most important update is complete: male human high res nipples/chest hair.

It's also interesting to note the emphasis on PvP testing this time, which has always struck me as an important thing to test because it's the area where class balance issues reveal themselves most prominently. One of the PvP beta realms has been set up for this specific purpose, with players who roll on this realm given an instant boost to level one hundred, but with all of Draenor's PvE zones disabled. Previous WoW betas I've been in always struck me as poor tests for PvP because without meaning to they were giving players the choice between brand-new pre-release PvE content or the same BGs they can play on live and receive real rewards for.

Coreushttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-9006188268467255424.post-63213578198640059552014-06-05T01:12:00.000+10:002014-06-04T13:15:32.684+10:00Is Wildstar going free to play?
I understand that if you make your headline into a question you don't have to actually say anything to back it up.

I keep hearing about this new MMO (WoW-clone) called Wildstar. Apparently it's pretty good. I would have been happy to give it a try, but the publisher is asking sixty fucking dollars just for the privilege of becoming a paying subscriber, and I'm unwilling to pay that much money into a long-form video game I don't even know if I'll play for very long.

Someone needs to tell this publisher what year it is, and point out that everyone knows that the box price (so appropriate a term) attached to an MMO released today is just an early adopter fee. They wont stop charging for it until enough people demonstrate that they wont pay for it.

Weird that buying full-price game software has become almost like some meta-MMO. Players keep paying for boxes with the hope that there's something wonderful inside, even when most of the time there isn't. Skinner would be proud.
Coreushttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-9006188268467255424.post-78373493547092274402014-05-21T01:29:00.000+10:002014-05-22T11:19:17.661+10:00More Mistweaving
I've been a bit concerned at all the attention the Mistweaver Monk spec has had in WoW's ongoing development. Mainly because I'm acutely aware of all the scandalous ways it overpowers other healing specs (at least until you need damage reduction), and although I can appreciate that nerfs are necessary, I'm really worried that some important things might be lost in the process of redesign. I truly love playing the Mistweaver class. It's my favourite way of playing my favourite game, and I don't want to lose that.

First, the ability to place Healing Spheres manually is being removed. I've written a few times about how overpowered this ability is, even considering its difficulty to use. All the other healing specs will be losing a major spell, so it probably seemed appropriate to kill this one for Mistweavers. (We got to keep all our proper healing spells.) My balls were never really as fun to use as to talk about casually during raids, reminding people to watch their health bars and when they go down make sure to grab my balls. -cough- Anyway, I'm not too sorry to see it go.

Mistweavers will no longer have a melee slow, and although this is another ability that I'm willing to concede was overpowered, as someone who plays 200ms behind the server, I always found it to be a huge asset in PvP.

The Mistweaver global cooldown is being raised from 1.0 to 1.5 seconds. This pisses me off. They are slowing down my gameplay and I think that sucks. Mistweaver is a distinctly active feeling spec and that feeling comes from having a lot of fun buttons to push, and lots of opportunities to push them. Longer GCDs means fewer button pushes means less gameplay.

Lastly, we are getting a brand new stance! Crane stance grants you attack power equal to your spell power, and causes healing from damage dealt! Incidentally, those are the same things that your healing stance no longer grants.

Or to say it in clearer terms; our healing stance is being nerfed to no longer provide melee attack power or any healing through damage. And of course the Crane stance restricts which healing spells you're allowed to cast. No more weaving Renewing Mist hots across the raid while melee healing. No more free auto-attack healing between instant casts.

Instead, stance dancing. They are giving my favourite class one of the most objectively clunky mechanics WoW has ever seen. Even though there are more classes that use stances than don't, each one seems to have gone out of its way to make sure stance changing is not part of gameplay. And there is a good reason for this: every single time stance changing has been incorporated into gameplay, it has sucked.

Currently the only class that still needs to change stances mid-combat to be effective is Demonology Warlock, ironically a recent change and part of the great Warlock revamp of Mists. I enjoyed Mists Demonology for a good long while. I levelled and then raided with it. Running around with a posse of imps is an awesome realisation of the class fantasy. But the stance switching always felt clunky; I never got used to it. And this is coming from someone who not only "got used to" but actually enjoyed placing Rain of Fire rotationally.

I can only hope that stances themselves are being changed in some way to make them easier to deal with. At least one other class (Warrior) is getting a new "optional" stance, which makes me hopeful that at least some development attention is being paid to improving the mechanic itself.

I just really hope they don't screw up my favourite class while trying to fix it. It's already brilliant.
Coreushttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-9006188268467255424.post-43448493017609905942013-11-28T12:22:00.000+11:002013-11-28T14:03:39.724+11:00Ghostcrawler leaves Blizzard!
Yes, I do feel that heading deserves an exclamation mark.

Ghostcrawler is someone I've respected for a long time. As Lead Systems Designer, he was the front-man, so to speak, for all the fantastic gameplay innovations that World of Warcraft introduced over the past few years. Of course, this also made him the target for any complaints that dedicated players had about the state of the game, the common meme being to claim that "Ghostcrawler must play a blank", with blank being whichever class ended up more powerful in the current patch.

The obvious question is of course: did angry fans finally cause this man to give up?

No, I really doubt that. Ghostcrawler's a pro. And he's been doing this for years, so I have to assume he's developed a hell of a thick skin when it comes to ridiculous complaints.

The explanation provided on GC's Facebook announcement was that he has "a great opportunity for something new and exciting". So in other words, the same bullshit reason any well-known executive leaves any big company.

So, speculation time! Now, the explanation which immediately occurs to me is: perhaps Activision Blizzard isn't as awesome a place to work as Blizzard once was. We've all heard stories about how cutthroat the video games industry is and Activision has been an obvious villain for quite some time.

Or, perhaps the WoW development environment has become too iterative. The upcoming expansion doesn't have any new classes to throw a wrench into the balance mix... maybe the core World of Warcraft gameplay is now as close to "complete" as it is possible to get, and there just aren't many systems left to design.

Or maybe he's telling the truth. Maybe Mr Street has found a job which is somehow more exciting than being at the forefront of designing one of the most influential video games in the industry.

We'll all find out soon enough. I have to assume the MMO Champion guy is actively chasing and/or confirming the information as I type this.
Coreushttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-9006188268467255424.post-64080881163610454672013-11-14T15:02:00.001+11:002013-11-14T17:04:54.620+11:00Doctor Who trained me for this
Okay. Okay. I totally get it now.

Bear with me. The Dark Portal links the two worlds of Draenor and Azeroth, but because the timestreams of these worlds are completely seperate, the point in time that one arrives in when stepping through the Dark Portal to Outland is and always has been "arbitrary", so to speak.

So what Garrosh actually does is something like recalibrating the Dark Portal so that it points at a different "place" in time on Draenor. The reason it's not technically time travel is because relative time between the two worlds isn't a thing.

Garrosh's new portal leads into Draenor's "past" only in the sense that we consider Outland as the "present", neither is technically relevant outside of the world in question. From our perspective, we're only stepping from one place to another.

I mean I suppose if a person originated in Outland, exited through the old Dark Portal to Azeroth, then took Garrosh's New Dark Portal back to Draenor, then that person would have effectively time traveled to the past... y'know, by way of two interdimensional jumps. One might argue that time travel alone would be less interesting.
Coreushttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-9006188268467255424.post-78687121325285877702013-11-08T10:15:00.000+11:002013-11-08T10:53:09.659+11:00Interface ruins my immersion.
Am I supposed to believe that in my fantasy world my hero is constantly followed around by a huge chunk of metal with gryphon bookends, containing what appear to be a collection of icons representing her various spells and abilities. Give me a break.

And for some reason whenever I move into a geographically distinct area floating words appear in the air which name the area that I just entered. You want to talk about immersion-breaking?

A man walked up to me and said "greetings". I was about to reply when a perfectly round white cloud materialised above his head with the words "hey there" mysteriously inscribed there on, while he only mouthed silently and gestured at me. What is this bullshit in my MMO?

What's more, every time I look at an enemy a weird red circle appears magically on the ground around it. I've found I can't even cast a single offensive spell unless my vision is targeted precisely at an enemy so I don't even have any way of getting around or turning off this awful horrible immersion-breaking laser circle.
Coreushttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-9006188268467255424.post-74903512795691087472013-10-15T14:13:00.001+11:002013-10-28T11:22:07.903+11:00Hearthstone
Last week I finally received a Hearthstone beta invitation. I've been cautiously optimistic about the game since the announcement, maintaining a deliberate aloofness to Blizzard's attempts at building excitement for this game within a demographic that doesn't seem sure whether to care about online TCGs. But I also have a very clear understanding that Blizzard does not make bad games, and also that I'm the kind of person who really enjoys that specific kind of game.

Hearthstone is a clone of Magic The Gathering (or whichever game invented that genre) but with much better rules. While Magic is a really great game, there are just so many counterintuitive or obtuse rules, like responding on other players' turns that, with the benefit of hindsight, Hearthstone has been able to design around.

The behaviourist vibe I get from this game is powerful. Hearthstone's interface and art style feels like every "social" game I've ever played. Opening a booster pack stands out as a very deliberate ritual; you drag the the leather-bound wallet into the centre of your screen, where it explodes into fireworks to reveal five floating face-down cards, which you then need to click one by one to reveal.

They're already accepting real money for these booster packs, with the promise that although all beta cards will be wiped, the value of any money you spend in beta will be refunded as in-game currency when the game is properly released. To me that seems like pretty good value, since you'll get twice as much card-opening (which I now understand is the important part) for your money.

All that said, the game is spectacular. Blizzard has once again proven that you don't need complex rules to create gameplay depth. I feel like I need to dedicate more words to expressing how good it is, but I just don't think superlatives are that useful past the first one. You either have played it, and know exactly what I mean; or you haven't played it, in which case you now have my highest recommendation.

http://us.battle.net/hearthstone/en/ is the link to register for beta access.

Coreushttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-9006188268467255424.post-26110495312744262532013-09-10T03:29:00.000+10:002013-09-19T15:32:41.649+10:00Player versus player
Dealing with poor teammates in PvP is something I still have trouble with. A few weeks ago I had a particularly nasty experience in a BG that made me reflect on what causes people to act poorly and how to deal with it.

My team had a decent lead in our Eye of the Storm game, and I was holding the flag at Mage Tower waiting for a third node to cap when I was ambushed. I eventually survived the attack but afterwards noticed that in the chat box my teammates were calling me names and accusing me of being afk. Apparently while I was fighting for my life I missed a completely obvious opportunity to cap while my teammates held the centre. And the only conclusion my teammates could think of for why I would do this is that I am a fagot and/or afk.

In fact a short time later I was informed by a debuff that I was in fact AFK and if I did not engage in combat within 60 seconds I would be removed from the battleground. The insults didn't faze me but my team-mates had turned on me, invoking the sacred rite of battleground afk to try and rid themselves of me.

I snapped. I told them that because they reported me afk I needed to get into combat RIGHT NOW to not be removed and ran off with the flag into the nearest battle, which hadn't even resolved before I found myself on a loading screen back to town.

I didn't even know it was possible to directly boot people from random BGs. I felt like the game had lied to me. I thought I was following the extremely stern and specific instructions that the game itself had given me. Get into combat or get out! Not "cap the flag or get out!", not "help your team or get out!", it gave me a specific fucking instruction. GET INTO COMBAT.

Not "convince your team not to boot you because oh didn't we tell you that debuff is just for show and they can still boot you just because they don't like you. And get out!"

Were I thinking logically I would have capped the flag before going into combat, despite it being a dumb move, but I just couldn't capitulate to the people who were actively attacking me with every weapon they had.

It took me a while to come to terms with what had happened. All I felt afterwards was anger. Twice I wrote a support ticket to complain about the occurrence, cancelling each a short time later. I wanted to blame someone, but frustratingly there was nobody to blame. It was a misunderstanding that turned into an angry mob. People love righteous indignation. My team had turned on me because they didn't question the logic of the first idiot who called out my error as being deliberate and malicious and afk. He misunderstood a situation and acted poorly, then others acted poorly, then I acted poorly. Humans being humans-- in retrospect how could anyone expect anything else.
Coreushttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-9006188268467255424.post-39981327298084279862013-09-06T11:47:00.001+10:002013-09-19T14:29:19.234+10:00Blizzard apologist
I noticed I've been doing way more writing than posting, so I might see if I can finish what I can of the random things I've felt compelled to write about and put it in this post.

I also noticed that the last post I (accidentally) made brought my total "Published" posts to 200. Yay. Over four years or so that's about one post per week on average.

The WoW dev team seems increasingly enamoured with the idea of self-directed gameplay recently, with the upcoming patch continuing the trend of the past two patches of offering even more choice and less structure in how players approach the new single-player content. I've been saying for a while now that WoW needs more free-form gameplay and exploration.

Self-direction is the difference between yard work and a yard work simulator. Players of this game and many many others have demonstrated time and again that they are willing to put up with insane amounts of repetition to achieve in-game success, as long as it's something they choose to do, that it's done as an expression of individuality. This is why it matters so much whether an in-game task "feels mandatory"-- it robs the player of the sense of following their individual path, and even a video game becomes work when you have to do it.

I find it slightly unnerving that as ridiculously successful as Blizzard already is as a company, with every release they are getting even better at making games. They so regularly make the stuff they produced last time look like crap that it's easy to forget that that crap was considered one of the greatest things ever made when it first appeared.

In my continued adventures with the titular spec of the current expansion, Kiddow's diligence with daily heroic scenarios has earned her nearly a full set of i516 "Ale-Boiled" random enchant gear, which is looking more and more like a gear plateau point-- Kiddow's overall item level is exactly 516 as I write this.

I've been raiding with a fairly casual guild, which is fun without being too stressful. I walked into that raid on my most recent 90 and was immediately at the head of the healing meters, so at worst I'm a useful contribution to the group-- no chance of feeling like I can't affect the outcome here. On my second week with them, we downed Ji-Kun and managed a couple of attempts on Durumu where it became apparent that I need to review my technique for divining where in the mass of swirling purple the safe spot is.

I'm sorry, I really need to rant about this for a moment.

I know video games are still a new medium compared to things like statues and coliseums, but are we still at this point? For god's sake do we need to make the deadly effect as deliberately hard to see as possible? That's not gameplay, it's a fucking eye test. I can only assume the devs who designed it are the kind of people who take eye tests recreationally and so they thought not being able to see the vitally important thing you need to be able to see was an awesome gameplay challenge.

Okay, QQ over. I'll put some time into learning how to "see" the safe spots in Raid Finder before next week, and hopefully we wont have too much trouble.

Being the min-maxer that I am, I compulsively collect any offspec gear which is available to me (passing to anyone who needs it of course), and having this unspent resource of agility gear on my Monk was weighing on me. I had previously tried the DPS spec, Windwalker, but found that the combined difference in both skill and gear meant that I was actually putting out less damage, while at the same time being acutely squishy because that damage was no longer automatically healing me. So Kiddow now moonlights as a drunken master.

The good news is Brewmaster is a spectacular tanking spec. This class was clearly designed in a post-damage-smoothing world because the extent to which a Brewmaster can mitigate physical damage spikes blows my god damn mind.

Coming from a Warrior, the Stagger mechanic seems like a shield block that you can keep up 100% of the time. It absorbs 45% (plus mastery) of the physical damage you take into a damage-over-time debuff lasting ten seconds, ticking once per second, which you have the option to spend a single Chi to completely remove at any time.

Or the way I think about it: you get to choose whether to take the full hit of damage, after you have taken the hit. I've yet to play this class in a progression setting so I'm not sure if the mechanic is less effective at higher levels of damage intake, but my impression of it so far is that it's ridiculously overpowered.

Elusive Brew is a bit of a wild card... I always thought that having an active ability (or trinket) that only increased the chance of taking less damage was a bit weak-- whenever I had these I would usually just macro them to a similar ability to semi-automate them. After some playing around I eventually decided to macro Elusive Brew to the same button as clearing my Stagger, so it will go up as soon as I feel like I'm taking significant damage. I'm not terribly concerned with wasting stacks because dodge doesn't do much in a low damage phase (when all the hots are overhealing anyway), but in a dangerous phase it's a fine bonus to have, especially considering it has no resource cost.

Monks also have a 100%-uptime, self-focused, instant-cast AoE, and a no-cooldown, floor-targeted AoE bonus-threat move. As a Warrior tank I find that insulting. It's like baby-mode tanking. Point and shoot.

I've made the comment before that I like Warrior tanking because it feels very active, aggressive, instant feedback, careful eye on rage bar and ready to react to what happens next. The Monk's ability to stack Shuffle feels just a bit too comfortable, too much like resting on your laurels. Not that that's necessarily bad. Being able to focus less on keeping my resource generation stable allows for more headspace to be devoted to fight mechanics. Easier is not necessarily less fun. Not to mention having an easy-to-learn offspec is far from something to complain about.

Several bloggers have been talking about a game which might come out in the next couple of years, Everquest Next, which if I understand correctly is a MMORPG like World of Warcraft. It looks pretty awesome but I'm not sure it will be as good as WoW. Speaking of WoW did you hear it now has over a million subscribers... I guess that's what happens when you have no serious competition.

Coreushttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-9006188268467255424.post-78302565617882842502013-08-16T17:34:00.002+10:002013-08-19T14:42:39.423+10:00Revival nerf!
At this stage it looks like Revival will be 30% less ridiculous in patch 5.4. I'm not saying it was poor design to have up to a third of your total healing numbers over an eight minute boss fight to come from three GCDs... but it's probably still worse design than only a quarter of your total healing numbers coming from three GCDs.

Before this week I had only an abstract interest in that conversation about healing cooldowns being too important, but now I fully understand the frustration. Unless you're doing content which is on the high end of your abilities as a player, these tools are superfluous and are used either as cheap ways to boost healing numbers, or to remove the need to heal efficiently.

Maybe I just need to be doing harder content.

I read about the tank Vengeance change-- they are nerfing the raw amount and removing the incentive for tanks to take unnecessary damage to increase their damage output, ie by "standing in the fire". I can understand the overall nerf-- we can't let our precious damage roles feel like they're subpar to tanks in the one area they're supposed to specialise in. The standing in fire thing I can understand too; we don't want to reward people for playing badly. But they have also gone out of their way to "target cap" Vengeance gained tanking large groups of mobs. Honestly, that feels like being punished for doing something awesome, not to mention emergent by definition (if they meant to do it why are they "fixing" it).

How about a similar change for healers where healing done by the major cooldowns doesn't count towards healing meters? Are those things not equivalent? It's giving me an incentive to play badly (use CD when it will provide the most healing, instead of to deal with encounter mechanics or stop a death) to increase my healing output.

Have you tried the Mistweaver Monk class yet? The class has a pretty revolutionary healing style for WoW, with all kind of location-specific healing, between statues, Spinning Crane Kick (used similarly to the original incarnation of Holy Radiance), Chi Torpedo, Chi Wave and Healing Spheres-- a floor-targeted smart heal. Spheres are ridiculously strong and not too mana inefficient. I get the feeling that the only reason they have stayed so strong is because few people understand how to use them effectively so it has yet to develop a reputation for being OP. For example, the most efficient way for a Monk to go from zero to tank saving is to drop Spheres on the tank's physical location.

I call it "teabagging".
Coreushttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-9006188268467255424.post-13536081966949747922013-08-02T02:09:00.000+10:002013-08-02T11:49:56.406+10:00Monks heal with their feet!
I feel like I've been doing a lot of writing, but not much posting recently.

Kiddow reached 480 item level, which is enough to unlock all the current endgame content, so everything past this point is just doing whatever looks fun. (Oh, but I do still need to level my professions-- I've been atypically lazy about doing it for this character... maybe I'm just over the profession systems.)

I mentioned in an earlier post how smoothly a Mistweaver flows between damage and healing, but it's the multitude of support abilities that Monks have that makes the class. I genuinely feel like a jack of all trades, with a tool to handle every situation. Healing and damage, but also an AoE stun, disarm, snare, taunt (Dampen Harm+Fortifying Brew is win for temporary tanking), and Monks also have what I believe is the best crowd control in the game-- Paralysis is instant, ranged, long duration, fairly short CD, and has not a single restriction on mob-type. I abuse the shit out of that move.

For a long time I had been dreading healing Raid Finder again. I've always preferred small groups and the melee healing that formed my attraction to the class sounded like it wasn't really viable in a 25-person group. The single target healing spells that Monks have look cool but are not incredibly compelling, and I always found Renewing Mist too hard to keep track of to use Uplift efficiently.

What I didn't expect to find was that healing a large raid as Mistweaver is even more fun than a small group.

I understand now why Renewing Mist is so "complicated"-- it's because it forms one of the major points of gameplay for the class. Renewing Mist can be cast every 8 seconds, is applied to 3 players per cast, with the hot expiring after about about 17 seconds. Uplift is a spell that will heal every target with Renewing Mist on them for a flat amount. Thunder Tea is a 45-second CD spell which causes your next Uplift to reset the duration on all of your Renewing Mist hots to full. So using those three spells efficiently allows you to have up to twelve Mists going at once, plus Uplift. You don't need to be a rocket surgeon to realise that is a absolute fuckload of pure throughput. The downside of course being that you need to know ahead of time when you'll need the extra juice because you reach maximum throughput (12 Mists) between 24 and 33 seconds after the first cast in the sequence.

So yeah. Gameplay!

Revival is probably the most mind-blowing spell they gave Mistweavers. An instant cast that heals everybody in the raid for over 100k each, and dispels all magic, poisons and diseases. It's like they took Druid Tranquility, halved the cooldown, made it instant instead of a channel and added a mass dispel. It's ridiculous.

I do need to switch up a few talents. Chi Wave and Xuen are fantastic for small groups, but are relatively weak in larger raids. Chi Burst (unlike Chi Wave) fulfills that all important 25-man quality of having no target limit. In the Xuen tier, Chi Torpedo seems popular with raiders, but I'm very excited for the next patch turning Rushing Jade Wind from a minor AoE CD into simply a buffed version of Spinning Crane Kick-- one of my favourite Mistweaver abilities. I mean, because you're literally healing with your feet.

(Monks also heal with their balls, but that joke is somewhat cruder so I decided to put it in brackets.)

(Seriously, it's a comedy gold mine in groups to keep referring to your Healing Spheres as "my balls.")
Coreushttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-9006188268467255424.post-21533445268758030982013-07-26T16:30:00.002+10:002013-07-26T16:37:09.795+10:00Certainty

[stolen from http://xkcd.com/263/]

I recall this comic every time I see someone arguing about anything at all. Some people will never question their most basic assumptions about the world, preferring that the burden fall to the facts to comply with this reality.

Coreushttp://email@example.com


text:
Register with us or sign in
They look like ornamental poppy seedlings
Can we see more of how it is growing please? The whole plant
To post a picture on here click on the green tree icon on the toolbar above where you type your post and follow the instructions.
Pencil me in
Not so sure David - Ballerina is one of the David Austin roses and many of them throw up shoots from below ground - they're not suckers. Another member of the forum removed just such shoots only to be told by a member of DA staff that they were not suckers.
David Austin staff are very happy to give advice and can be contacted here http://www.davidaustinroses.com/english/Advanced.asp?PageId=1989
Untended field hedges containing blackthorn will get wider over the years as the blackthorn suckers - when we bought our smallholding some of the hedges were over 15ft wide where they'd encroached onto the meadows. However, the line of the original hedge is easy to see.
Your neighbour is attempting to pull a fast one
Just a thought - the mind boggles at the post Mike might get following his op
Contact them and ask them - if the hospital have passed on your details they deserve a good rocketing!!!
Of course, it may be that you're just noticing these things more, what with your improved eyesight
....................... I'll get my coat
One good thing, once you've pulled it all up you won't get any more - until next year!
What about Real Ale? - OH is partial to Adnams Broadside, Cotleigh Barn Owl and Guinness - I'm going to have to siphon some off when he's not looking

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Congratulations! You leveled up, but you aren't logged in so we can't save your points.
That battery is huuuuge.
Categories funny
Tags commercial, 80s, phone, cell, handy, sooo, lol-signal, optional
Video Size: 420 x 315480 x 360640 x 480960 x 720
Flag This Item
Nothing like hanging ten on the couch.
27,269 |3
The guy in the chair is like one of the humans from Wall-E.
12,491 |1
"I slave all day." Perfect.
79,228 |4
Can't... look... away...
68,812 |11
A woman goes Super Saiyan after being denied Mcnuggets.
9,202 |4
Amazing video. The pilots make flying a jet look easy. What an amazing job.
26,825 |3
Yeah, something something something chocolate bar.
215,693 |1
A lava waterfall flows into the ocean near Hawaii.
27,092 |4
If they offered an online course, it would be incredibly popular.
13,710 |3
IKEA makes it clear why it's important to tidy up before you have people over.
20,316 |4
VideoBash is your first and final stop for free funny videos, games and pictures guaranteed to brighten up your day. The funniest jokes and the most unbelievable pranks caught on tape have been collected in one spot for your viewing pleasure. This is entertainment at its best and no one does it better than VideoBash. These funny clips crackle with humor and they will definitely have you laughing till your sides hurt. Quality is our number one priority and the free funny vids here are the best of the best. There are no mediocre videos here. All the videos, jokes, pranks on VideoBash are the cream of the crop and you'll be hooked from the get go. The best part is you don't have to keep all this good stuff to yourself, you can share all the free entertainment videos with your friends.


text:
Click Here for Articles About BEAUTIFUL CREATURES
Video Trailer: BEAUTIFUL CREATURES In Theaters February 13th, 2013
A supernatural love story set in the South, "Beautiful Creatures" tells the tale of two star-crossed lovers: Ethan (Alden Ehrenreich), a young man longing to escape his small town, and Lena (Alice Englert), a mysterious new girl. Together, they uncover dark secrets about their respective families, their history and their town. Oscar(R) nominee Richard LaGravenese ("The Fisher King,""P.S. I Love You") directs from his adaptation of the first novel in the best-selling series by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl. The film stars Alden Ehrenreich ("Tetro"), newcomer Alice Englert, Academy Award(R) winner Jeremy Irons ("Reversal of Fortune") Oscar(R) nominee Viola Davis ("The Help," "Doubt"), Emmy Rossum (TV's "Shameless") and Academy Award(R) winner Emma Thompson ("Howard's End," "Sense and Sensibility").
About Author
- Producer Reveals More on ABC's 'THE STORY OF FROZEN' Special; Confirms Broadway Plans
- VIDEO: COMMUNITY's Dan Harmon's Doc HARMONTOWN Gets Trailer
- THE TWILIGHT ZONE: Complete '80's Series Heads to DVD Today
- Discovery Premieres Fourth Season of BERING SEA GOLD Tonight
- TNT Acquires Rights to Lionsgate's HUNGER GAMES & DIVERGENT Film Franchises
- Josh Gad, Sarah Jessica Parker & More Accept ALS Ice Bucket Challenge
- Matthew McConaughey to Act as 'Storyteller' in New Lincoln TV & Digital Campaign
- SHARKNADO 2 Terrorizes Big Screens Nationwide in Exclusive One-Night Event Tonight
- The Urbanworld Film Festival Presented by BET Announces 2014 Festival Slate
- VIDEO: Ansel Elgort Talks New Film 'Men, Women & Children' on GMA


text:
Top Apps
- Audio & Video
- Business & Enterprise
- Communications
- Development
- Home & Education
- Games
- Graphics
- Science & Engineering
- Security & Utilities
- System Administration
Showing page 1 of 24.
GnuWin provides Win32-versions of GNU tools, or tools with a similar open source licence. The ports are native ports, relying only on libraries provided with any modern 32-bits MS-Windows operating system, such as 2000 / XP / Vista / 730,675 weekly downloads
Arduino core for Attiny13107 weekly downloads
Song downloader
Through this software users can easily download bolllywood (and other Indian) songs.This software is in developing stage and may contain some buggs, or other problems.So I request to please report any problem or suggestion.The new alpha version is based243 weekly downloads
A useful tool for viewing, recording and replaying URG sensor data.138 weekly downloads
Real-time, modular, microkernel-based operating system under development for i386. The first goal is to support 32-bit DOS protected mode applications made with DJGPP as well as native applications.55 weekly downloads
Cloudium OS
Cloudium OS is being written in pure ASM with cloud computing in mind.30 weekly downloads
Speaking Images for Kids
English learning project for little kids with speaking images25 weekly downloads
Shadows Rising RPG
Open Game Engine
An object-oriented Game Engine. It abstracts the differences between platforms and allows level/scene coding through script/XML files. Subsystems based on open source libraries. Adaptable to multiple game genres (fps, space shooter, indoor, outdoor, ...)11 weekly downloads
Sistem Akuntansi Open Travel
Sistem Akuntansi Open Travel untuk pengelolaan keuangan travel agent.34 weekly downloads
YahooFinance API
Get stock quotes, historical data and exchange rates from Yahoo!Finance using a Java API. Sample code on project homepage (see Yahoo!Finance Web Services Terms of Use)) Yahoo! has stopped providing intraday data (logtrade.finance.vip.ukl.yahoo.com) so for now it's disabled ... We've now a YQL Client available. Register at http://www.hans-dieter-thiel.de for a free copy for non commercial use.32 weekly downloads
Gooper1 Building Creator
A revolutionary building creator for Skyscraper.6 weekly downloads
Java Lift/Elevator Simulator/Analyzer
An elevator (lift) system analysis and design tool. The main goal of the project is to produce the ultimate platform for comparing elevator control algorithms (call scheduling systems).20 weekly downloads
PGMFI Project
The PGMFI project has as its goal total understanding of the computerized systems such as ECUs, ABS controllers and other devices present in Honda vehicles. Currently, the Non-Commercial-Sharealike license is reccomended for all releases.11 weekly downloads
Aiming to develop a fully open source, customizable secure internet kiosk. SiteLock strives to be the number 1 internet kiosk package in the open source world.4 weekly downloads
Tired of expensive video editing software that comes on three DVDs and takes hours to install? Looking for a free, lightweight alternative? Borne Programming's FilmFree is just the program for you, with comparable features to professional software.4 weekly downloads
Code Browsing, Management and Documentation tool for VB6 Developers.5 weekly downloads
MT Backend
A PHP control panel solution for websites. Creating custom control panels for your unique needs too easy with MT Backend.11 weekly downloads
The JavaBluetooth Stack
The JavaBluetooth Stack is a 100% Java implementation of the Bluetooth Specifications Version 1.1. It uses the javax.comm package to address the Bluetooth chip, and implements the JSR-82 (javax.bluetooth) API. Deployment on TINI is possible.6 weekly downloads
Arcanum Editor
The Arcanum Editor is a small but powerful tool to encrypt and decrypt messages. The program also comes with it's own format CTXT. This format is based on XML and allows you to save texts with the Advanced Encryption Standard.10 weekly downloads
Collaborative Visualization Environment
This project is a collaborative visualization environment. It is being written for a course at UAA, CS 401 Software Engineering. It uses a client/server model and allows users to simultaneously view visualizations over a network.10 weekly downloads
SourceForge.net Support project that is used to help resolve various user issues. As well, we use this for real internal work.2 weekly downloads
CMAKE build enviroment for CMSIS MCUs
CMAKE build enviroment for LPC2000 and LPC17xx Cortex MCUs2 weekly downloads
UDK Apoclyofable Source
The source code for the UDK release of apoclyofable2 weekly downloads
Contract Programming Library for C++2 weekly downloads


text:
43 Lakeview Manor, BT23 4US
offers around £219,950
Property For Sale > Northern Ireland > Co. Fermanagh > Brookeborough
Page 1 of 1
For Sale 3 Bedrooms Terrace
The Express Estate Agency is proud to offer this REALISTICALLY PRICED opportunity – all interest and OFFERS are INVITED. Mid Terrace House3 Bedrooms 2 Reception RoomsRefitted Dining KitchenRefitted BathroomDouble Glazed &...
For Sale 3 Bedrooms 1 Reception Detached Bungalow
Offering a well-proportioned family accommodation, boasting 3 bedrooms, 1 reception room, bathroom and kitchen/dining area. Externally this property benefits from a large private site with good car parking at front and an enclosed...
For Sale 6 Bedrooms 4 Receptions Detached
The accommodation comprises on the ground floor a drawing room, family room, dining room, large Hampton Conservatory a magnificent modern kitchen with adjoining sitting room area, an office, wet bathroom,...
Part of the Independent News and Media group


text:
Renovate or rehab and then....enjoy this mid-century modern home designed for fun family living and entertaining. Walls of windows with views of the lovely property, skylights, vaulted ceilings, spacious rooms, first floor Master Suite. Lighted tennis court, pool, indoor lap pool. On a beautiful 3/4 acre wooded property. New Trier school district. Ideal location walk to town, beach, community center.
Click for more info
Information deemed reliable but not guaranteed.
The data relating to real estate for sale on this website comes in part from the Broker Reciprocity program of Midwest Real Estate Data LLC. Real Estate listings held by brokerage firms other than Weichert Realtors are marked with the Broker Reciprocity logo or the Broker Reciprocity thumbnail logo (a little black house) and detailed information about them includes the names of the listing brokers. Some properties which appear for sale on this website may subsequently have sold and may no longer be available. The information being provided is for consumers' personal, non-commercial use and may not be used for any purpose other than to identify prospective properties consumers may be interested in purchasing.
Copyright © 2014 Midwest Real Estate Data LLC.
Data is updated as of 8/22/2014.


text:
60" bathroom Double glass sink top cabinets bath design vanities modern furniture w/faucet MD4305G
MD-4305G - Bradford 60" - Vanity
The espresso Bradford vanity captures a European contemporary design with a touch of warmth. This double sink set provides maximum storage while maintaining a beautiful clean line appearance. The vanity features dual modern basins on a tempered glass counter top. The complete set includes matching mirrors and faucets.
• Main Cabinet : 59.8" W x 21.9" D x 36" H
• Mirror: 23.6" W x 35.4" H
• Espresso Finish
• Solid Oak Wood Construction
• Tempered Glass Countertop
• 7 Drawers with 4 Storage Doors
• Brushed Nickel Hardware
• Ceramic Designer Basins
• PS-104 Faucets and Pop-up Drains Included
1 year manufacture warranty


text:
Call for Submissions: 2015 Nowruz Banner Contest
Farhang Foundation is calling on aspiring or veteran graphic artists to submit original designs that conceptualize Nowruz (Iranian New Year) or some other aspect of Iranian culture. Eligible designs will be considered as the central artwork featured on street banners that will proudly promote Farhang's 7th Annual Nowruz (Iranian New Year) Celebration at LACMA throughout prominent boulevards in Los Angeles and the San Fernando Valley in March 2015.
Call for Submissions: 2015 Nowruz Programming Proposals
Farhang Foundation invites artists, writers, directors, and performers to join us in our efforts to create a dynamic and immersive theatrical experience in honor of Nowruz (Iranian New Year). Calling on talented and creative individuals to submit proposals for Performing Arts pieces that visualize the story of Nowruz. Eligible submissions will be considered as the central program featured during our 7th Annual Nowruz (Iranian New Year) Celebration, taking place on Sunday, March 22, 2015 at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA)'s Leo S. Bing Theater. Deadline for submissions is September 1, 2014.
Afsoon Riazi, a graphic designer based in Vancouver, Canada has created this year's winning design, at the heart of which is a red apple. Signifying health and beauty, a red apple is traditionally among the seven essential items that are featured in the Haft-Sîn, one of the centerpieces of Nowruz where each article symbolically corresponds to some aspect of life, nature, or creation.
"Nowruz always invokes bright, inspiring and cordial memories that delightfully resonate in all of my Nowruz-related projects," said Afsoon Riazi. "Its festivities gracefully represent the renewal of the Earth that occurs with the arrival of spring. This idea inspired me to create a symbolic illustration that embodies a new beginning in both eastern and western culture, through the use of the well-recognized motif of the Persian paisley (boteh jeghe) and the apple tree to reflect health and beauty in the renewal of the Earth."
2014 Nowruz Celebration at LACMA
SPECIAL Nowruz Program - "Spring Love" by Ziba Shirazi
Photos - Film Festival 03.22.14
SHEIDA KOUFIGAR - Winner of Farhang Foundation's 2013 Nowruz Banner Contest
Sheida Koufigar, an Iranian-American graphic designer currently studying at California State University, Long Beach, was named the winner of this year's banner contest, which called upon the public to submit designs that visually represent the spirit of Nowruz, the Iranian New Year.
"When designing the Nowruz banner, my goal was to imply a sense of nostalgia by depicting familiar images in a modern and minimalist style," said Sheida Koufigar. "One of the most memorable aspects of Nowruz is the Haft-Sîn, the traditional centerpiece of the Iranian New Year that depicts the various harmonious elements of life and rebirth. The 'mahi va tong' (goldfish and bowl) is a familiar and beloved fixture of the Haft-Sîn that represents the joyful celebration of life and new beginnings."
SPECIAL Nowruz Program - "The Dawn of Spring" by Shahin Yousefzamani
Photos - Film Festival 03.16.13
Video - Film Festival 03.16.13
NAVID GHAEM MAGHAMI - Winner of Farhang Foundation's 2012 Nowruz Banner Contest
Navid Ghaem Maghami, a San Francisco-based graphic designer, has been selected as the winner of Farhang Foundation's 2012 Nowruz Banner Contest. His winning design was featured on light pole banners on various major streets across Los Angeles and the San Fernando Valley, including the highly trafficked Westwood, Wilshire, and Ventura Boulevards.
"In creating the Nowruz banner, my goal was to design an image that draws both traditional and contemporary," said Navid Ghaem Maghami. "Gol-o-morgh (bird and flower) is a cultural symbol that is deeply rooted in Persian literature. Through a contemporary rendition of this iconic image, I have created a design that evokes a sense of nostalgia and longing for the past, with hope and joy for a new beginning."
SPECIAL Nowruz Program - Celebration by Hamid Saeidi
NASRIN BEYRAGHDAR - Winner of Farhang Foundation's 2011 Nowruz Banner Contest
Farhang Foundation selected Nasrin Beyraghdar, a graphic designer from Irvine, California, as the winner of the 2011 Nowruz Banner Contest. Her design concept was featured on Farhang's Nowruz banners, which were displayed along the Wilshire Corridor, Westwood Boulevard, and other parts of town on March 1-31, 2011.
"I was really excited when I first learned that Farhang Foundation had opened a contest of this nature," said Beyraghdar. "I felt this would be a great opportunity to merge my passion for artistry and my heritage, especially in honor of a celebration like Nowruz, at the heart of which is the idea of renewal and the emergence of awareness."
SPECIAL Nowruz Program - When Hope Arrives by Houshang Touzie
Farhang Foundation celebrated its second annual celebration of "Nowruz", the Iranian New Year, at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) on Sunday, March 14 2010 from 11:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
"This is the second year in a row that LACMA has partnered with Farhang to bring this celebration to the general public for their enjoyment" said Ali Razi, chairman of Farhang Foundation. "We are grateful to LACMA for acknowledging the importance of Iranian culture in Southern California by participating in this Nowruz celebration."
SPECIAL Nowruz Program - The Persian Rite of Spring by Niloufar Talebi
Celebrating Iranian New Year
Street Banners sponsored by Farhang Foundation
March 1-March 31, 2009
Los Angeles, CA
© 2014 Created by Farhang Foundation.


text:
A collection of news and information related to Peter Max published by this site and its partners.
Top Peter Max Articles
Displaying items 1-12
Condominium plan splits Balto. Co. community
Bowleys Quarters waterfront condominium plan rejected
Laughs and luaus on Maui's west coast
Peter Max holds Orlando show on SaturdayStory | Nov 12, 2010 | 4:36 PMPop artist Peter Max was born in Germany, lived in China and Israel as a child, and studied in Paris before immigrating to the U.S. He has been based in New York for years, but at age 70, heâs still a traveling man. âFrom week to week Iâ...
Orlando Arts Blog highlightsStory | Nov 15, 2010 | 4:36 PMHere are last week's highlights from my Orlando Arts Blog: Central Floridians win big at Disney's Festival of the Masters A conversation with pop-art icon Peter Max Author Jonathan Franzen visits DeLand Orlando Science Center opens World of Mechanical...
Peter Max paints Taylor SwiftStory | Dec 10, 2010 | 4:34 PMPop artist Peter Max has whipped up a new portrait of Taylor Swift to add to his portfolio of the celebrity paintings heâs created over the last four decades. Max had done an interpretation of the cover for Swiftâs 2008......
Peter Max in town Thursday with Taylor Swift portraitStory | May 4, 2011 | 4:36 PMArtist Peter Max will be in Orlando this Thursday, May 5, showing some new works at the Wentworth Gallery at the Mall at Millenia. Among his latest portraits: Music icons Steven Tyler and Taylor Swift. Max has been successively called a pop icon, neo-...
Taylor Swift merchandise connections: Let us count the waysStory | Aug 26, 2011 | 9:35 PMTaylor Swift: The full flowering of Taylor Swift's career provides a textbook example of how pop musicians are diversifying far beyond the lyrics and melodies they serve up on their recordings. Taylor Swift's "Speak Now" is at Staples Center in Los...
Grammys 2012: Paul McCartney feted as MusiCares Person of the YearStory | Feb 11, 2012 | 4:37 PMPaul McCartney honored as Recording Academy's 2012 MusiCares Person of the Year. Former Beatle Paul McCartney was saluted at the star-studded fundraising event by the Neil Young, Coldplay, Katy Perry, Tony Bennett and others raising $6 1/2 million for the...
The world through kaleidoscope eyes
Yoshitaka Amano solo show


text:
Join the Tri-City Americans for New Year's Eve Game Against Spokane
It's a 25-year tradition. This New Year's Eve the Americans will again face Spokane.
It's a 25-year tradition. This New Year's Eve the Americans will again face Spokane.
Some items are in high demand at the food bank and you may not realize it. Because they aren't essentials, the staff doesn't publicly ask for them. A survey on Reddit.com asked volunteers what items people would be most appreciative of and we've listed the top 10 below. If you're looking for an easy way to help out, pick some of these up while shopping and drop them off at one of our area food banks.
I spent the weekend singing with my band in Pendleton, Oregon, at Wildhorse Resort & Casino in Pendleton. We had a great time!
During the day I drove into Pendleton and checked out the shops. I
Last week, I splurged and ate so many holiday treats!! Convinced, I would start fresh today and do better, I came to work and the first thing I saw was the plates Holiday treats in the kitchen! So far, I have NOT partaken
Today we were talking about kids who live in homes without chimneys. Do you leave the back door unlocked? Put a fake key under the doormat? Say magic dust will make a chimney temporarily appear? One listener said she gives her grandkids "Santa keys" to leave on the door knob. I looked them up and LOVE THEM!
We all love showing off in the neighborhood with our light display...but really!
Here are the Shipping Site Links for:
It was a close race the entire time, but Brandee finished off the voting at midnight with a lead of 65. She wins the Firefly BLU portrait photography sitting session for baby, a couples massage from Elements Massage and a $200 Simons Gift Card to the Columbia Center Mall!
I was at Columbia Valley Chiropractic getting a pinched nerve attended to I noticed a Christmas tree in their lobby with some little tags attached. Each tag had something each member of this family wanted. By the way this is a family currently residing at the domestic violence shelter.
Publicity stunt? I guess! But, geez...it made me cry! This is so incredibly cool! Be sure to watch the whole thing!
Remember Kmart's juvenile ad from earlier this year, where people talked about how easy it is to "ship your pants"?
We had our Christmas party last night at Tri-City Country Club! Brushes and Bottles came and we all painted! It was sooo much FUN! I absolutely LOVE to paint! I'm completely horrible at it. But, it doesn't matter you can be horrible and it's still okay! I love that!
I could paint all


text:
New Revealed Plans for Xbox One's Reputation System
Posted by Anthony Bacchus
How to stay in the green
Microsoft has revealed a more detailed report on how Xbox One's community-powered reputation system will affect gamers and their ability to play online.
Back before the Xbox One was released, the new reputation system was touched upon in regards to labelling gamertags with a green, orange, or red level — which is directly related to how fairly you play with others online. Your reputation level will fluctuate based on whether other players have reported you as abusive either through foul language or inappropriate foul play in games, like cheating. Through a post over at Xbox Wire, we now have a concrete explanation as to what each of these levels actually mean.
- Green = "Good Player"
- Orange = "Needs Work"
- Red = "Avoid Me"
Microsoft has ensured that most players will fall into the green category, and that they will be issuing rewards to players for their good behaviour. Exactly what these rewards entail have yet to be revealed. Warning notifications will be going out to certain players if they are in the orange level, encouraging them of changing their habits if they ever want to get back into the green. Finally, the red level is of course the worst, with actual penalties instilled on the player. Matchmaking will have a negative effect as you'll be playing with others at the same "bad" level as you are, and certain privileges like Twitch and broadcasting won't be allowed.
Microsoft is using an algorithm that can adjust for any false reports from people that may intentionally report negative behaviour on someone just because they might be better than they are or for other spiteful excuses.
We have to say that we are absolutely 100% behind the new reputation level system. It feels good knowing that people who want to play fairly will always be paired with like-minded players, ensuring a safe and friendly online experience for everyone.
[via news.xbox.com]


text:
Amenorrhoea Secondary Amenorrhoea
A selection of articles related to amenorrhoea secondary amenorrhoea.
Original articles from our library related to the Amenorrhoea Secondary Amenorrhoea. See Table of Contents for further available material (downloadable resources) on Amenorrhoea Secondary Amenorrhoea.
- Sensible Ideas: The Knowledge Behind the Perception
- Do objects exist independently of consciousness? If so, what is the nature of these objects? These questions shall be investigated through the conflicting philosophies of John Locke and George Berkeley. Preliminary Quotations from Locke and Berkeley: Primary...
Religion & Philosophy >> Philosophy
- Subliminal Persuasion: Overview
- Since the 1950's, there has been enormous public concern over hidden messages in art, music, and advertising. Subliminal self-help tapes are a multi-billion dollar industry. Yet many psychologists claim that subliminal influence consists at best of...
Parapsychology >> Subliminal Persuasion
- Astral Beings and Wildlife
- The astral dimension contains a wide variety of what could be called non-physical subtle energy life-forms; or as Carlos Castenada so aptly calls them: inorganic beings. Some of these have a positive nature (nice) and some seem have a negative nature (not so...
Parapsychology >> Astral Projection
- Select Cross-Cultural and Historical Personifications of Death
- This extensive introduction includes some of the more well known, along with some lesser known Death "incarnations", and I use that term loosely, as in many cultures, the Angel of Death can be quite an adept shapeshifter. We have tried to cull...
Mystic Sciences >> Necromantic Studies
- Wards 101
- Anyone who is around Pagan or metaphysical people for long will inevitably hear about warding. Circles and other sacred spaces are warded during worship to protect participants. So what are wards? Wards are magick raised and set into place to protect a space,...
Psychic Abilities >> Psychic Protection
- Can anyone be hypnotized or only certain people? The search for the 'hypnotizability trait.'
- 4.1. Hypnotizability Using standardized induction scripts and classical induction techniques, somepeople are found to be markedly more hypnotizable than others. Aside from a requisite minimum intelligence for language and capacity to followinstructions, there...
Parapsychology >> Hypnosis
- Kenaz/Kaunaz
- This month's rune, Kenaz, is the sixth rune of the first aett of the Elder Futhark. Thus, we are now one-quarter of the way through our journey into the runes! The phonetic value of Kenaz is the hard "k" sound. One basic meaning of "Kenaz"...
Divination >> Rune Stones
Amenorrhoea Secondary Amenorrhoea is described in multiple online sources, as addition to our editors' articles, see section below for printable documents, Amenorrhoea Secondary Amenorrhoea books and related discussion.
Suggested Pdf Resources
- Secondary Amenorrhea Caused by Hydrocephalus Due to
- with amenorrhea and hydrocephalus were reported (2-10).
- jkms.org
- Secondary Amenorrhea Testing Algorithm
- Secondary Amenorrhea Testing. Click here for topics associated with this algorithm. INDICATIONS FOR TESTING.
- www.arupconsult.com
- Primary and secondary amenorrhoea
- and those with secondary amenorrhoea, but this is not always a useful distinction may present as either primary or secondary amenorrhoea.
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Secondary Amenorrhea
- Apr 11, 2011 Definition: Secondary amenorrhea is absence of menses for more than three cycles or six months in women who previously had menses.
- medpeds.med.ucla.edu
- Resolution of Secondary Amenorrhea Following Reduction of
- www.activefamilychiropractic.com
Suggested Web Resources
- Secondary amenorrhea: MedlinePlus Medical Encyclopedia
- www.nlm.nih.gov
- Amenorrhea
- Apr 8, 2010 Secondary amenorrhea is defined as the cessation of menstruation for at least 6 months or for at least 3 of the previous 3 cycle intervals.
- emedicine.medscape.com
- Amenorrhoea - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- en.wikipedia.org
- Amenorrhea: Causes - MayoClinic.com
- Amenorrhea. Primary Care. 2001;36:1.
- www.mayoclinic.com
- Secondary Amenorrhea - Symptoms, Diagnosis, Treatment of
- health.nytimes.com
Great care has been taken to prepare the information on this page. Elements of the content come from factual and lexical knowledge databases, realmagick.com library and third-party sources. We appreciate your suggestions and comments on further improvements of the site.
Amenorrhoea Secondary Amenorrhoea Topics
Related searchesi2p eepproxy
sugar substitute
defence mechanism
power physics mechanical power
tosev timeline
lang lang childhood
© 2000 - 2014 Realmagick.com, All Rights Reserved.


text:
Thursday, August 25, 2011
Thankful Thursday
Today, I actually remembered... :-)
Things I am thankful for on this Thankful Thursday are randomly as follows:
- the beautiful blue skies that followed last night's wicked storms
- my sweet faraway friend that keeps me supplied with delicious Numi tea, especially the Toasted Rice flavor. Yum
- again, my Son and the gentleness of his sweet soul
- little girls in sundresses & sunglasses
- my brother that is here visiting from L.A. (the 1 pointing in the picture, however, all of those guys are my brothers: alfonzo, eugene, jerry & john. teddy bears!)
- each and every member of my family
- being able to recognize beauty in the smallest of things
- jazz music of all kinds. so soothing to my soul
- the inspiration I get from reading my favorite blogs
- the relaxation & peace I feel when I make cards to randomly send out, knowing they will bring someone cheer just when they're needing it
- having morning coffee outside before everyone wakes & appreciating being given another day
- the sounds of the crickets at night. they sing their songs so loud, that it seems like a lullaby
...and that's all I have for now until next Thursday. Thanks for coming by. Blessings to you.
Pictures by: me :-)
Labels: blessings, family, thankful thursday
1 comment:
Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)


text:
Originally published Saturday, September 22, 2012 at 8:46 PM
Blake Beavan finally takes a pitchers' duel from the Rangers' Harrison
Michael Saunders homers in Seattle's 1-0 victory
Seattle Times staff reporter
The offensive hero saluted the starting pitcher. The starting pitcher marveled over the reliever who bailed him out.
And the reliever savored a hard-earned 1-0 victory by the Mariners at Safeco Field over the rugged Texas Rangers and their arch-nemesis, Matt Harrison.
"We just took two games from the division winners right there," said Josh Kinney after he wriggled out of a major eighth-inning jam to help preserve Blake Beavan's 10th victory. "We should feel pretty good about ourselves. ... I think it says a lot about our character winning that game."
It was as tense as any game this season as the Mariners held on for their sixth 1-0 victory of the year, a franchise record — and did it against a pitcher, Harrison, who has owned them in his career, but especially this season.
Harrison was trying to become the first pitcher to ever beat the Mariners five times in a season, but Beavan outpitched him. Barely. Beavan worked seven scoreless innings, while Harrison turned in a complete game, but was done in by one pitch. He left a slider up to Michael Saunders, who sent it over the right-field wall in the second inning for his 17th home run.
"He's strong; he's really strong," Mariners manager Eric Wedge said. "He put a nice easy swing on it, but the ball went a long way. You don't ever expect that to be enough to win the ballgame, but it was tonight."
Saunders' homer was a feat worthy of a postgame shaving-cream pie by the M's purveyor of postgame pies, John Jaso.
"We finally figured out a way to beat him: Don't let them score any runs," Saunders said.
"He left an off-speed pitch up over the plate, and I was a little out in front."
That would be the only run of the game, but there were several twists and turns still to come before the Mariners celebrated.
"The Rangers have arguably the most potent offense in the game," Saunders said. "One through nine is a threat. That's the best game I've ever seen Beavan pitch. To hold those guys to no runs is a feat in itself."
It took Beavan shaking off a liner off his left foot in the fourth inning to stay in the game. It took a perfect relay from right fielder Casper Wells to second baseman Kyle Seager to catcher Jesus Montero to nail Nelson Cruz trying to score on a double into the corner by David Murphy later in the fourth.
But most of all, it took a dazzling relief effort by Kinney to bail out Beavan in the eighth after inheriting a no-outs, two-on jam.
"Honestly, I think that was the highlight of the game right there," Beavan said. "I don't even look at what I did today. I look at what a guy did coming out of the pen, a teammate, stepping up big right there with the heart of the order about to come up."
Beavan started the eighth working on a seven-hit shutout. But when he gave up a leadoff double to Mitch Moreland and a walk, Wedge called for Kinney.
He was up to the task. After Ian Kinsler failed twice to get a bunt down, Kinney struck him out. Elvis Andrus flied out to center, and Michael Young struck out.
"I was telling myself I wanted to make every pitch a good quality pitch," Kinney said. "There wasn't much room for error. My mindset was to make strikeout pitches, pitcher's pitches, and make them hit my best stuff. I couldn't afford to throw one in the zone to those guys. They're danged good hitters, and there was no room for error."
One reason there was no room for error is that the Mariners had blown a bases-loaded, no-out opportunity against Harrison in the fourth.
"Whenever you get the bases loaded and don't score, you think it might come back and bite you," Wedge said. "Credit to Beavan and Kinney and (Tom) Wilhelmsen we were able to hang on."
Wilhelmsen needed just seven pitches to work a 1-2-3 ninth for his 29th save as the last-place Mariners beat the first-place Rangers for the second consecutive night.
"We take every game seriously," Saunders said. "We have 162 to play, and we're not quitting. We're also playing for next year, and to send a message we don't quit. We took a big series off Texas, and we still have the Angels and A's. Maybe we can break some hearts."
Larry Stone: 206-464-3146 or email@example.com
Trending with Readers
On seattletimes.comMore Trending
- Seattle school under review for big jump in state test results
- Final exhibition game will settle roster spots for Seahawks
- Extreme walking commuter puts feet first
- Omaha police bullet kills 'Cops' film crew member
- Deliveries roll as feud ends, beloved CEO returns to supermarket chain
- One is not enough for Seahawks | Jerry Brewer
- Warm waters send millions of salmon to Canada, not Wash.
- Comedian Joan Rivers hospitalized in New York City
- Court ruling a blow to plans for Kirkland waterfront project
- Russia's Putin urges release of Ukrainian soldiers


text:
For the 2014 *fiscal year, Judge Timothy C Scallen has disposed 406 cases at the Office of Disability Adjudication and Review (ODAR) in Oak Park, Michigan. Out of those 406 dispostions, 65 were dismissed, 151 were approved and 190 were denied. This means that the percentage of dispositions that Judge Scallen has approved in Oak Park for the 2014 fiscal year is 37%. The information below for Judge Timothy C Scallen was last updated on 7/9/2014.
SSA, Oak Park ODAR OfficeCrown Pointe Building, Suite 50025900 Greenfield RoadOak Park, Michigan 48237-1267Phone: (877) 223-6060 -- Fax: (248) 968-0205eFile Fax: (877) 904-5525 (For sending evidence)
Please Note: This site is privately owned and is not administered by or affiliated with the Social Security Administration.
DO NOT SHARE PERSONAL INFORMATION. These comments are public and are not sent to the SSA, ODAR or the Judge.
The judge might see these comments if he/she views this page, so think before you post. If you need a post removed, please use the "contact us" form on this site. All comments require a valid email address, and your comment will not be made public until you verify your post via email.


text:
Summer Concerts at Ramler Park
There are no upcoming summer concerts. Please check back next summer!
Past Concerts
Check out some of the great shows that have been part of the Summer in the City series in prior years.
Swingin' in the Fens with Ron Mahdi and Friends
Wednesday / July 23, 2014 / 6:30 p.m.
Swingin' in the Fens is an annual free outdoor concert held in Boston's Fenway neighborhood presented by Berklee College of Music, Fenway Civic Association, and the City of Boston Parks and...
Admission: Free


text:
Stanford Law School's Law and Policy Lab allows students to work under the supervision of faculty members with real-world clients, such as the EPA, San Mateo Superior Court, U.S. Copyright office and more.
Patent Trolls & Patent Reform | Keynote: The Honorable Timothy B. Dyk
On March 21-22, 2014, Stanford's Program in Law, Science and Technology hosted a two-day conference on Patent Trolls and Patent Reform. The event brought together top lawyers, judges and academics to discuss the prospects and impact of potential patent reform. In this video the Honorable Timothy B. Dyk delivers the conference's keynote address.
3-D Printing Creates Murky Product Liability Issues, Stanford Scholar Says
Video of Justice Ginsburg: Some Highlights of the U. S. Supreme Court's 2012–2013 Term, With Introduction from Dean Magill
Dean M. Elizabeth Magill's Opening Remarks Introducing Justice Ginsburg Welcome. It is truly a privilege and an honor for Stanford Law School and the Constitutional Law Center to host Justice Ginsburg—and to host here on a day that, nation-wide, is a celebration of the U.S. Constitution. Justice Ginsburg is [...]


text:
Cocktails for Cancer proceeds go to NOFCC
UPDATE March 22 at 9:30 a.m.
After the March 20 fire at Respect is Burning, Vanessa Warren is currently in the process of finding another venue for the fundraiser. Check back to NorthernLife.ca for full details as they become available.
Original story:
When Vanessa Warren was in high school, she did a co-op placement with a local pediatrician. In the course of her work there, she met many children with cancer.
"One of them had a brain tumour," Warren said. "It was inoperable. He wasn't going to make it, yet he was the most upbeat, positive, smiling kid. I had to walk out of the room and cry."
Her time at the pediatrician's office had a profound impact on her life. The 18-year-old Sudbury native is now in her first year of nursing at Laurentian University, and upon graduation, hopes to work with children with cancer.
Last September, Warren was awarded the title of Miss Greater Sudbury, and will be representing the city in May at the Miss North Ontario Regional Canada Pageant.
It seemed like fate when she found out that the Miss North Ontario pageant's charity of choice is the Northern Ontario Families of Children with Cancer (NOFCC).
Over the years, the pageant has raised $130,000 for the organization, which is dedicated to providing financial support to families of children with cancer.
While pageant contestants only have to raise a minimum of $100 for NOFCC, Warren has set her sights on a much bigger goal.
She hopes to raise $10,000 through an April 25 fundraiser called Cocktails for Cancer that she's organized with the help of family and friends.
The event, which takes place starting at 7 p.m. at Respect Is Burning Supperclub on Durham Street, features not only cocktails and hors d'oeuvres, but a silent auction and entertainment by musician Andrew Hyatt. Local comedian Shawn McLaren will be the emcee for the evening.
Tickets to the event, which cost $45 each, are available by contacting Warren at 705-626-5321 or [email protected] or the NOFCC at 705-586-3229 or [email protected]