Redwolf's Journal (continued)

Wednesday, I closed on a new loan. Yesterday, I purchased a new bed (well, mattress set and simple metal frame). Today, I rearranged and cleaned my room for the bed which is to be delivered tomorrow. I also swung by work and installed some software updates and RAM that had been waiting for several days (were I on night shift this last week, that stuff would have been done already). @.@ Edit: And we got in a heroic Utgarde Pinnacle run... and the Red Sword of Courage dropped. Yay! No taunting me 'til the next expansion! ;)

I was introduced to Battletech back in the 80's when the resemblance of certain battlemechs to Robotech mecha was neat (and while I wondered at what circumstances allowed the similarities, I didn't imagine legal issues would force those mechs to be disavowed and later redesigned). I only really played a handful of times, but I would find myself designing mechs in my spare time, fiddling with tonnages and internal structure spaces. Naturally, at first I tried to make the best/most destructive mechs I could at a certain weight class. At some point, I started designing them for specific roles. And, partly due to the Robotech connection, I was quite taken with Land Air Mechs. Even though they weren't "the best," the thought of being able to airlift the setting-equivalent of a tank unit from one air to another at whim was dazzling from a strategic point of view. What does it matter if your LAM lance can't take out equal-tonnage battlemechs in a straight fight when

So I am feeling better to a large degree. I need to start looking into a new mattress set/bed, which is daunting. But I closed on a new morgage yesterday afternoon. I thought I might share about how that all went. The topic came up briefly while I was on vacation over Christmas - with interest rates so low, it might be a good time to refinance. I didn't really start looking into it until early February. I did a little bit of reading online, but nothing I saw told me what to expect from start to finish. So I went to the web site for my local bank and looked up morgage brokers their. Well, "mortgage advisors." I picked one and sent her an email, basically asking how I would go about starting the process. We traded a few messages back and forth. I'd want the info for my current mortgage to compare, and she'd need my most recent pay stub to start the process. She pulled up some preliminary numbers and a possible interest rate. So I went in on Feb. 13th (heh), chat

I'm scheduled to close on a new loan Wednesday afternoon. That should be a good thing. I've not had a chance to look at the "final" paperwork, though, so I'm hazy on exact details and this will require some reading. I pulled the bicycles out of the storage room Saturday morning. That was... perhaps a mixed blessing as I could the ceiling to be dripping (better than it getting worse, right?). These rooms are located under one of the condo buildings, so any water is coming from some piping. Previously, there was a small leak in an exposed pipe. That got patched up a few weeks back and seems fine. This time, there's something leaking above the sheetrock ceiling that soaked through and has been dripping for... some length of time. I don't get out there much. It happened to be dripping over a pile of my camping stuff. My air mattress (used all of a couple nights at last years Estrella War) was showing some sort of mold-like residue, and that got tossed. My sl

In to work about an hour early due to a problem while my co-tech is taking the day off. @whee. Not a big deal, I almost expected it. Plus, it's a quick fix so things are quiet again. I've been pondering lately a perceived shift in storytelling, particularly of the TV kind. I understand tonight is the series finale for Battlestar Galactica , a show I've liked and disliked, sometimes for the very same traits - seriously, I've said to myself "the human drama makes this series" and "I'm sick of all the drama" at different points. So I haven't followed it closely for about the last half of its run, catching just bits and pieces or reading articles online. In many ways, it seems to me it shares elements with Lost and other relatively-recent TV shows, where it feels like the writers have no idea where they're actually going. They weave intricate subplots and histories, creating plot hooks and foreshadowing... but it doesn't actually seem

You know, there's something wrong when you describe your day as having "ups and downs" only to realize upon scrutiny that the "ups" were actually only an absence of unpleasantness - that the best part of the day was really only neutral rather than good. For the most part, it's been a minorly-sucky week. Nothing seriously bad has happened. The frustrations at work has mostly been resolved, even if some have taken longer than I would have liked. But it often times puts me in a mindset that has me dwelling on small things. "The room is a mess..." "The exterior improvements at home aren't done..." "Cars are so expensive I may never been able to replace my truck..." "People are making changes without talking to me..." "The appraiser has to call home while I'm at work..." All sorts of little things bouncing in my head, bugging me to the point where I become miserable about them and even passing commen

It's been an unusual week, and this day (so far) epitomizes about how it's gone. As I was doing normal first-thing-in-the-morning tasks, I started getting hit by other stuff. A printer not printing, several people's email not receiving, a laptop failing to load explorer.exe upon startup, program installations, email setup... all sorts of stuff. Now it's about 2:30 in the afternoon, and everything is quiet again. Hurry up and wait. I actually expected to be fielding more calls during the evening, with my co-tech off in Vegas with a few others for an expo. Strangely, I haven't been called while at home, but I have been slammed on and off while actually in the office. It's draining. Rather abruptly this week, Furryfaire instigated a new method for calculating experience points for characters. Officially, "we're just testing it for a week to see how it goes." I cannot remember the last time we "tested" something without adopting it, th

I'm not sure what brought it up, but found myself focusing on this small aspect of the games in comparison. I had to do some research, as experience hasn't shown me everything I needed to compare... Aggro: The state of being the target of a given mob. (My own definition, I'm not actually quoting anyone). Getting/Pulling Aggro: You walk too close to a creature, or hit it with an attack, and it attacks you. Simple, neh? Guild Wars is simple in this respect, but gets major points for being user-friendly. You have a visible aggro radius on the mini-map - touch any mob with it and they'll come after you. On "hard mode" that radius is larger. There are certain exceptions like spotters which can attack you at a much larger range and mobs that don't show up on the mini-map until you aggro them. World of Warcraft has something similar, though much more variable and basically invisible to the player. The radius varies depending on the level difference betw

We do, apparently. As a disclaimer, I did not read the comics/graphic novel back in the day. The movie worked for me. It was more brutal (and downright gory at points) than I expected. As simple as some of the darker events were for some characters, however, it never actually felt senseless to me. Rather, it felt like a warning. I enjoyed the experience and have been thinking about it a lot, but I don't feel it'll have the impact on me that it did some people who read the original incarnation. Dark protagonists, questionable ideals, and superhero psychology just aren't new to me at this point. Material that once might have been revolutionary feels more dated to me currently. To say more would get into - No squid? I've heard a lot about this major event at the end being changed and was curious how it would play out. I was dubious briefly, but as things fell into place it made more sense. I find the threat presented more credible than some sort of giant squid-thing us

Got to go through the Culling of Stratholme a few times this weekend. I have to say the mechanics involved seem to suit my paladin better than my priest. Also some less-than-perfectly-successful other runs. A little observation as a tank: - Among other tasks, tanks control mob positioning. In boss fights that require movement, this puts extra weight on us. That's not bad, but unfortunately it often takes a few times to see what's happening, parse it, and get down the appropriate maneuvering. Reading strategy helps, but a lot of things you really have to see to understand. I am a paladin, a dedicated member of the Knights of the Silver Hand. As a member of the Order, I serve my compatriots in the guild, I serve my King, and above all I serve the Light. It is my very purpose to stand before those innocent and cared for, a shield to protect and hammer to strike at the darkness that would threaten them. I tread the path laid out by Uther Lightbringer, perhaps the most famous an