10/14 Patch Day

Now why, oh why, would you put Patch Day on a school night so we have to get up in the morning and can't just wallow in our achievements? (Literally.)

9/26 One more thing about Palin

One more thing I meant to mention about Palin.

I'm from southwestern Ohio. I grew up on the Cincinnati Reds. They were wonderful. If you got straight A's in school, you got tickets to Reds games. And what a thrilling time that was to be a Reds fan--I'm talking about 1975-78 range. They were our team, and we ruled the world for five months a year.

And then that most wonderful news of all--the Reds were going to be owned by a woman! Oh, could life be more exciting! The most wonderful sports institution in the world would be the first major-league team to be owned by a woman! Oh, what joy would be mine.

And then we met her. The nearest equivalent I can think of is, what if we learned that the world had chosen the most fit human, both physically and mentally, to be the first astronaut to Mars. And there would be years of fitness trials, and everyone would have a chance.

And then the guy they picked was Carrot Top.

And the woman who would be the first owner of a major sports franchise was Marge Schott.

I'm having the same response to Palin I had then--oh, I'm thrilled that a woman's being considered, but I can't help but think this isn't the right woman for the job.

9/13 Notes on Palin nomination

John McCain nominated Sarah Palin as his running mate several weeks ago, so I've had some time to think about this. What strikes me is the sheer cynicism of the Republican message; the ticket wreaks havoc with the American Dream.

Right before the convention, it came out that McCain doesn't know how many homes he owns. For most Americans, this answer is simple: one. For many Americans, the answer is and always been zero, and for a frighteningly increasing number of Americans, the answer used to be one but is now zero. I'm sorry, but if you do not know how many homes you own, then that puts you squarely in the "elite" category. End of discussion. You can wear all the cowboy boots and vote against Martin Luther King Day and pretend you like your salsa hot and engage in all the other redneck activities you want to; you're still an elite.

I have many issues with the Palin nomination, but I'm just going to comment on her from my vantage point as an educator. Five colleges in six years. Now I don't have the full story on that, so I'm not going to say anything but that: five colleges in six years. I teach at a community college; I have seen, and I understand, and I respect many non-traditional educational paths. Most of my students are going to go to two schools, mine and the four-year institution they choose. Some come to us from other schools, so they may end up with three or four. Most of them are working, so five or six years, even longer, is well within the realm of the respectable. Let me just put it like this: I teach at the community college in Las Vegas, and I have had a number of students who let it be known they were earning their money, or had previously earned their money, dancing on or near a pole. These students are fully entitled to a nontraditional educational path; they may have had the hardest row to hoe educationally that I have ever heard of.

Five schools in six years. Why does Sarah Palin need more schools than a pole dancer? What has she done? Not even pole dancers, many of whom are not known for their couth or available study time, have pissed enough people off or educationally lagged enough to require five schools in six years. Five schools in six years. Five schools in six years.

And yet she has the nerve to sneer at people with Ivy League educations, many of whom won their degrees at one school in four or perhaps five years. Now let me make myself clear: I obviously do not teach at an Ivy League institution. I do not have an Ivy League education myself, nor did I seek one; I applied for no such institutions. I do not think the education is innately superior to that which I received or that which I dispense.

Having said that.

As an educator, I obviously have colleagues with Ivy League educations. They are universally bright people whom I admire. I do not necessarily admire them for their Ivy League educations per se, but I certainly admire the stress levels to which they subjected themselves to receive that education.

If a relative of mine received a scholarship to an Ivy League college, I would be thrilled. For those people for whom the American Dream, the answer in about 75% of the cases has been education: your education opens the door to your future success. (Of course it isn't that simple or direct, and of course in many cases, it doesn't work. An education is neither necessary nor sufficient for success in America, however that may be defined. However, I have never heard anybody older than 40 with any sense say, "Gee, I wish I hadn't wasted that time getting an education." (I have heard some people say something along those lines, but there isn't any indication that they actually received an education, so I don't consider the comment valid.)

For most Americans, education is the first step. An Ivy League education, while certainly not required, often shows a willingness to work hard, to go above and beyond, to put yourself out there in ways that not everyone is willing to be subjected to. Yeah, I can see why an American wouldn't find that admirable or respectable.

So here we have a man who claims to be homespun but owns so many homes he can't keep track of them and a woman who barely seems to have escaped the educational system, yet is willing to mock people who actually...well...had clues. Sign me up for that ticket.

8/1: Notes on WOW Professions

I have a batch of nine Alliance characters: one of each class, at least one of each race, at least one of each profession. Eight are level 60; the ninth is 62. (She is obviously the current project.) I've enjoyed playing this way; instead of "power-leveling" professions, I've played them as I've gone along. I also have appropriately-leveled cooking, fishing, and first aid. The crafting professions have made gear for everyone; the gathering professions have supported that. I've found that my characters were making appropriate gear for the appropriate level most of the time. (I'll see if I can discuss a few exceptions below.)

First of all, here's what I have right now:

Night Elf Priest Herbalist/Alchemist
Night Elf Hunter Skinner/Leatherworker
Night Elf Druid Tailor/Enchanter
Human Mage Miner/Blacksmith
Human Paladin Miner/Engineer
Draenei Shaman Miner/Jewelcrafter
Dwarf Rogue Miner/Skinner
Gnome Warlock Miner/Skinner
Draenei Warrior Miner/Skinner

(I am not involved in the beta, as I'd rather get my characters closer to a point where they can participate in WotLK when it comes out. At that point, since I meet the eligibility requirements, I will be creating a Death Knight of undecided race. She will be an Inscriber. I discuss her other possible profession below.)

(Yeah, some of those combinations are funny. Take a minute and laugh. Get it out of your system.)

*Herbalist/Alchemist obviously work well together. On my next batch of characters, however, I will not have this be the priest. I think it would make more sense to give potion abilities to someone who can't already heal herself. I'm leaning toward the mage, although the rogue might also be a good choice.

Since I never created another herbalist, I clearly had enough herbs to support alchemy without needing to supplement. Since we learned that Inscription will also use herbs heavily, I've been trying to remember whether one herbalist generated enough herbage to support two professions. I think probably not, although I'm giggling at the idea of a level 55 Death Knight skipping through Teldrassil picking Peacebloom.

*Skinning/Leatherworking work together naturally. I lucked out here; I would say the two best choices for a leatherworker would be a hunter or a shaman. (These two classes move from leather to mail at exactly the same point that the profession does.) Obviously, a rogue or druid would also work here, as they remain in leather the entire game.

*Tailor/Enchanter. I go back and forth on this one. In some ways, it was nice to have these two professions together: she could make cheap greens that were never going to sell on the AH and then DE them herself, getting two skill-ups for one set of mats (at first, and then later the materials for the second skill-up).

Tailoring does actually have a gathering profession associated with it, but by default, everyone is a cloth gatherer and doesn't have to train or level the skill. (My grandmother told tales of the Ragman who would come to the house occasionally to gather discarded scraps of clothing. Every character in WOW is a default Ragman.) Although the timing doesn't always work out just exactly as I'd like, I haven't had a problem having both cloth for the tailor and enough to level everyone's first aid and eventually some to sell or make into extra things to sell.

So in some ways, the tailor and enchanter went together naturally. In some ways, though, they were problematic. This character has *two* crafting professions, both of them expensive to level; she also has no gathering profession for easy money. She is therefore the clan's Welfare Case; most of the others are able to support themselves and pay for their own leveling in class and profession skills, but she sometimes needs a cash infusion.

Another advantage to having two crafting professions in one characters: one fewer character to drag through reputation grinds. (I may change my mind on this later, but right now, if a character doesn't need to have a good reputation with a particular faction to obtain a desirable schematic or item, I haven't taken the time to do that grind. I don't think it'll be fun to have to drag five people through the Timbermaw grind, where my poor leatherworker is working right now, instead of four.)

Another reason her income is low: when she finishes a quest or otherwise wins a new item, she DE's the old one. She therefore does not have the income from selling it that the others would have.

The flip side of that is that she contributes the DE materials that are below her level for sale, and they sell very well; she also contributes tailoring products to the AH, and they generally do well. So she makes the group more money than she takes, but she doesn't have as much ready cash of her own as the others do.

In my next batch of characters, I think I will separate these and combine both Tailoring and Enchanting with a gathering profession to help cash flow.

I've also toyed with the idea of combining enchanting with inscribing, since the materials for inscribing have natural use to the enchanter, but I think it'd be cheaper just to mail the parchments to the enchanter, or that'll be another character with two expensive crafting professions to level. I've really enjoyed having all the professions, and I think I've learned a lot doing it. One of the things I've learned: two crafting professions is a cash drain.

I also don't think I'd make the druid a tailor, since it's a more logical fit to give this to a squishy. When Inscribing allows Enchanting to sell its wares on the AH ("stoked" would be the word for the joy this gives me), then I don't think it'll much matter what class the enchanters are. Druid seems as fine as any of them.

*Miner/Blacksmith. Okay. This shouldn't have been a mage. By the time I figured that out, though, I thought it was funny, so I'm going to have a mage with a purple sword when the time comes. The two professions go together naturally and smoothly. This should have been a warrior or pally. (The other classes aren't particularly weapon-dependent, with the possible exception of the rogue.)

*Miner/Engineer. This was the paladin, and I actually liked that; having explosives gave the pally a way to pull, which she was generally lacking. The primary disadvantage: those wonderful cloth headpieces are wasted on a pally. I still liked the way this plays, though. (And a pally with a mechanical dragonling, advanced target dummies, and explosive sheep is wicked.)

Disadvantage: Pallies can already resurrect, so Jumper Cables aren't quite as cool or useful as they might be on a rogue or someone else.

*Miner/Jewelcrafting. This was the shaman, which was fine. It might also make sense to give this, with those handy healing statues, to someone who can't heal, like a mage, warlock, or rogue. The BOP trinkets were cool with the shammy.

*Three skinner/miners. Now I did this because having the crafters weren't generating enough materials on their own to level in a timely manner. This has produced way too much leather, but still not quite enough ore. (For awhile, between blacksmith quests and things I wanted to make, I needed something like 500 mithril and 300 thorium. That took forever. I did finish that, but now I'm trying to make both the pally and the warrior the Imperial Plate set. Even with six miners, I'm short on thorium, especially since the jewelcrafter and engineer need some, too.) In my next set of characters, I won't have so many skinners, and I'll have at least one more miner. (The tenth character will probably end up being herbalism/inscription, so she should be able to take care of herself.)

All of my characters are right around level 300, so I haven't done the final slog yet. That may change some of these thoughts. This is where I am right now.

7/19: Pattern That's Making Me Laugh

Have you ever noticed how many of the people who aren't going to vote for Obama because of his "socialism" are teachers, police officers, fire fighters, career military members, and trade unionists?

7/13: Alterac Valley

I'm getting character #6 from level 55 to 60, and I quickly noticed that it saves some coin to get the epic mount through Alterac Valley over buying the race mount or over the mount for all three battlegrounds. (Since we almost never win WSG, that would involve losing 30 times in a battlefield where D never earns rep; major drag.) So I've played well over 100 matches of AV, and although there are still aspects I haven't figured out, this is what I've worked out so far.

Assumptions to be borne in mind: a) I have only played Alliance. b) I have only played in the 51-60 bracket. Please do not be mean to me because of my limited experience. We're all doing the best we can.

First question: When do I go to Alterac Valley? Well, you can go at level 51. Don't. There are level 60's, both players and NPC's. If you are unable to solo a 60, don't go in there. (All ego and posturing aside, 51's can't solo 60's; any 60 who can be soloed by a 51 needs to quit. No 51's should be in AV.) With 40 people in the battlefield instead of 15, you don't stick out quite as much, but each side only gets a maximum of 600 deaths; if you are level 51 or 52, you're going to die more often than you should, eating up these deaths (which are called "Reinforcements"). That's counterproductive. Keep your little low-level keester out of the battleground.

Once you're around 55 or 56, you're big enough that you won't be a drag on the team. You probably can't do the mine quest until you're at least 56 or 57; that one requires you to be able to take out a 58 with two or three 57's on you. If you can't do that, you can't do the mine quest yet. The others probably won't be a problem after level 55 or 56.

Okay, so you're big enough, and you've decided it's time to begin your AV career. Go to Ironforge and pick up the quest from the guy in front of the bank. Run into the Warrior's Hall and see if the Honor quest for the day is for AV; if so, pick it up, but don't enter the battlefield here. Then fly to Southshore and ride north toward Alterac Mountains. As soon as you get the notification that you're in Alterac Mountains instead of Hillsbrad, turn left off the road and ride the ridge up the hill. (If you get the Corack's Dagger [spelling optional] notification, you're in the right place.) Then ride along the mountains until you're at the base. One guy will have a question mark; do the turn-in and pick up Proving Grounds. There's another quest outside; this is the one to defeat Drek'thar. Pick this up. Go in the cave. There's a dwarf with an exclamation mark; get all three quests. Go to the end of the cave and right-click the marshal to get yourself in the queue.

Now sometimes, this queue moves immediately; other times, it can take forever. If it takes more than two hours, I generally log off. While you're in the queue, there are a lot of things you can do. You're near the lake at the western shore so you can go over by Dalaran and run up and down the shore and fish. If you skin and are grinding Thorium Brotherhood rep, these mountain lions are easy sources of Heavy Leather. It's also easy to run north through Alterac Mountains and work on the quests in Western Plaguelands; you can also fish in the lake there.

So you finally get into the battleground. What now? During the prep period, you should cast whatever buffs you have on the people in your group and perhaps others you see nearby. (Don't forget hunter pets. I usually cast on demons as well, but I don't know how much difference this makes.)

The gates go up. Everyone steps just far enough outside the cave to be able to mount and does so. I have to admit that I find this kind of stirring in a sappy way, The Mounting of the Heroes.

I'll number this (1. 1st time in battleground; 2. between 1st and 2nd time in battleground; 3. 2nd time in battleground; 4. after that) to make this a little easier to follow.

1. Your first time in the battleground, your first priority is to finish Proving Grounds. You're going to go to the cave about a third of the way down on the western side of the map. You'll come across some harpies on the way, but they're level 53 tops; they shouldn't be too bad. Go into the cave. At the fork, go left. Then there's a part that veers down and a part that veers up. Veer down. There's a big ice field with a flag in the middle. Right-click that flag. (You'll obviously have to kill about a dozen harpies on the way. It's not unusual for other people to need this quest as well. You can all get the flag; no worries here. You can't all do it at once, so you'll have to take turns, but you can all claim it.)

After you've gotten the flag, you have some choices. Look at the chat; does there seem to be somewhere you could be useful? Do that. If not, if you're at least level 58, you might go up to Irondeep Mine and complete the Capture a Mine quest. (Capture a Graveyard and Towers & Bunkers you will probably complete quite easily just in the course of naturally running the battleground within the first four or five times, but the mine one requires you to go out of your way.) Go in the mine, killing little trogg things; eventually, there's a named 58 with some company, usually two 57's, sometimes three. Kill the 58, and the quest is done. Just run south and try to make yourself useful in some general capacity.

2. With any luck, you will win your first match. If not, you'll certainly win one of your first two or three. (Alliance seems to win about 80% of the time. This has to do with the map, and when the Horde chooses to play, and no doubt half a dozen other factors. I think the winning percentage is best on weeknights during the school year, but that may just be me.) When the match is over, you will go back to where you entered the queue; if you followed the above instructions, that's in Alterac. Right-click the marshal to get back in the queue. If you get the immediate message to enter the battleground, wait until you've done the turn-ins. If you did the mine quest, you may have that and should turn it in on the way out; it also isn't unusual to pick up the Graveyard and Tower & Bunker quests just in the course of your travels, so turn those in as well. Then run outside the cave. Turn in Proving Grounds and pick up your trinket and your Frostwolf Artichoke. (You should read this once, just because it does give a viable strategy, but then you can auction it off as it is otherwise worthless. Someone will buy it eventually for reasons I am unable to fathom. It costs no deposit on the AH. It might take several weeks, but someone WILL buy this turkey, just like they do the Faded Photograph, and since it costs no deposit, hurray.) If you won, turn in the quest for winning. Then there's an immediate re-turn-in, and you get a fairly good choice of prizes. If you've gotten the battleground entry, enter now; if not, quietly amuse yourself in a useful manner until you are called. Equip your trinket.

If you haven't been called, if you won the battle, and if you had the day's battleground quest for AV, fly or hearth to Ironforge to turn it in.

3. Now you're back in the cave for your next match. Again, buff people. When the cave opens, mount and ride south, following the huge herd of blue dots on your mini-map. There are two strategies Alliance usually uses to win here: most people ride to Galv, or most ride to Galv and some to the Relief Hut. (Occasionally there's a blitz that bypasses Galv; in my experience, that's iffier in its success rate. It might make sense if the battle's going to end because there aren't enough Horde players; this could maximize honor & rep earned for time expended, but it's not a normal winning strategy.) Now since you don't have an epic mount yet, presumably, don't put yourself in the latter group; you will not move quickly enough to be useful. You're following the herd to Galv. (He isn't strictly necessary, but it increases honor and rep and reduces the opponents' reinforcements to kill him.)

On the way to Galv, you will often see that the Snowfall graveyard has been captured by someone on Alliance. That's not a bad idea, but it isn't essential. Often, you'll also get the message that the Irondeep mine has been captured. Mines add reinforcements; reinforcements = deaths, so this can be important if the match is close. If, by your third or fourth round, you haven't completed the graveyard or mine quests, you could join others and do them this early in your next battle, but I'd suggest on your second, after getting your trinket, you just run the battle normally (as described below) and try to figure out the lay of the land and such.

Nine times out of ten, the herd of people wipe out Galv quickly and cleanly, no problems. If you have a trinket (not your AV trinket, but another one) that permits you to resist Fear effects, you should equip it. Under no circumstances should you run out of the tower for this battle or for Drek below; if he follows you out of the tower, his hit points reset, and you have to start all over--and the players' hit points or mana don't reset, so this can be a significant bummer.

After Galv is killed, run back out of the tower and remount. There will be a tower with archers visible to your right (to the east). Are there people with green names up in the this tower already? Have the messages at the bottom said Iceblood Tower has been captured by the Alliance? If not, run into the tower, go up a level, scan for horde, go up to the top, kill any NPC's (many of these are 60's), run inside the little hut and make sure the flag is gray with a lion and not red with the horde doobob, and then run back to the road. (You will sometimes get credit for Towers & Bunkers just riding past this tower or Tower Point; you may as well be helpful.)

On your left, you will very quickly ride past Iceblood Graveyard. If there's still a battle and the flag isn't gray with a lion, or if it's being attacked, stop and be helpful; otherwise, ride on. (It is not unusual to get credit for the Graveyard quest just because of when you happened to ride past here.)

Go south. Soon, you'll be at Tower Point. Again, are there archers, or have they been attacked? Even if Tower Point has been assaulted, glance inside. If there is a dwarf lying on the ground, right-click him; this is a Wing Commander, and he's useful if he gets to Dun Baldar and useless lying on this tower floor. Click on the "You stink" part to get him running back toward home.

Now is the tricky part. Ideally, you want to run south into the village of Frostwolf. You do *not* want to get bogged down at a big battle at the graveyard here. You really don't want to take this graveyard; it isn't particularly defensible, and it becomes a bottleneck. If you see a number of people on your side trying to take the Relief Hut at the very south of the map, do NOT let anyone take Frostwolf Graveyard; if all the horde spawns at the Relief Hut, it's all but impossible to take, and that graveyard is far and away the most desirable for the Alliance.

At this point, it might make sense to run and do Coldtooth Mine; same set-up as Irondeep. Rogues and druids might do well to stealth into Frostwolf and avoid this graveyard. ("Turtling" in this battleground often means, "We can't get past FWGY to help you in the battle at the far south of the map." This is stupid and frustrating. Do what you can to break this deadlock. If you are stalemated, go down to 3b below.)

Okay, now you've come inside the gates to Frostwolf. There's a hut in front of you, a hillside to your right, and a road that goes straight ahead. On the road just beyond the first hut is an elite horde guy named Jorek or Jotek or some such. If someone is fighting him, go into the second hut, the one that faces the road, and free the second Wing Commander. This is a Night Elf. He asks that you cover him; I did once, and it really isn't necessary. Just release the wing commander, and he'll probably get himself to Dun Baldar. If the elf isn't there or Jo-guy is still in the way, just go up the hill to the right. (This avoids several battles; past Jo-guy is a cave with 58 elites, so up the hill is your friend-o.) There are a lot of Horde NPC's here, the various vendors. If you can avoid fighting them, do; they have a crapload of hitpoints and aren't really worth a lot of XP or rep or honor or such. Go into the tower, turn left, and ride up the hill.

As you get up the hill, you go through other gates. On your right and left are two towers. See if the flags have been right-clicked so they're Alliance and not Horde. In the one to the left, there's a human guy collapsed on the floor; here is your third Wing Commander. Again, right-click him to release him.

When both towers have been conquered, go due south to the Relief Hut graveyard. It makes life much easier if Alliance has this graveyard. (This can break the deadlock; if Alliance can die far enough south to resurrect here, then we can get the last two towers and Drek easily.)

3a. About half the time, the match has gone smoothly, and you've been able to get to all these landmarks with a bit of interference from the Horde, but nothing undue. When a Horde person dies, instead of the little money bag a normal corpse has, the cursor turns to an insignia. Right-click it; you will pick up stuff that is potentially helpful. If it seems necessary, it would be appropriate for you to stop and defend any of the landmarks along the way (except the Frostwolf graveyard; this is a black hole).

If all of these objectives have been met, then go back to the middle of the Frostwolf compound and ask what the timers are at. (There's an add-on that will tell you this, and I should probably have it, but I don't know what it is yet.) You do not want to attack Drek'Thar (called Drek) until Iceblood Tower, Tower Point, and both Frostwolf Towers have "capped" (been destroyed or are under the control of the Alliance). This maximizes the XP, honor, and reputation and minimizes the remaining reinforcements for the Horde, which makes it easier to win if Drek doesn't die easily. Each of these landmarks that caps also removes one of Drek's guards; if all four are capped, then he has only the two wolves (easily dispatched by a group) and himself; this is very doable.

3b. If you're waiting for towers to cap, this can be a good time to use your trinket to return to Dun Baldar. (After death or during a stalemate is also a good time.) You've probably got three yellow exclamation points the first time you do this. The one nearest to where you land is probably one asking for supplies. Turn them in in lots of 20. This gives you Ironforge XP; the first time per match you do it, you also get a buff. Very worthwhile. (He's only yellow the first time; after that, his exclamation mark is blue like the other repeatables.)

If you have any Frostwolf pelt thingies from the wolves, they go to the mounted guy with the blue question mark over his head; he's in the pavilion by the trade supplies vendor. (My mother would have a fit at a horse in a pavilion.)

If wing commanders have been released, they're by the griffin master between the pavilion and Dun Baldar South Bunker. (You can't fly anywhere, but there's still a griffin master.) The dwarf guy gets the Soldier medals you may have picked up in exchange for IF and Stormpike rep; the night elf gets the Lieutenant medals for Darnassus and Stormpike rep, I belief, and the human gets Commander medals for Stormwind and Stormpike rep. (I may have the elf and human mixed up.) If a wing commander isn't there, he either hasn't been released, or he hasn't had time to make his way here. (The human way down south has a teleport he uses, but it still isn't instantaneous from his release.)

If you have Storm Crystals, follow the path behind Dun Baldar North Bunker. Turning in the medals or Storm Crystals has the potential to release powerful units to help your side. I was in a battle once where Ivus the Forest Lord was released from the Storm Crystals; that was wicked. If you go behind the North Bunker for the Storm Crystal turn-ins and the elves aren't there, either they've been killed (unlikely; they aren't that worthwhile to the Horde) or they've gone to the Field of Strife to summon Ivus. In this case, hie thee hither to the Field of Strife to help with the summons.

If anything here in Dun Baldar has been taken by the Horde (which it seldom is), you could defend it.

There are two other quests here, one that involves gathering rams and another that involves gathering supplies in mines. I have never done either of those quests, so I don't know how important or useful they are.

3c. Once you've done your turn-ins and all necessary things have capped, git yourself back to Drek and help with the kill.

You may have noticed that capping various towers and controlling various graveyards reduced the opponents' reinforcements by 75 or 100. Once the opposite side hits 0, your side wins. Sometimes, you win on reinforcements. Not quite as satisfying, and it's less rep, but you still get three medals instead of one.

The only, only time to consider killing Drek before everything has capped is if the Horde is just about to win by defeating the Alliance general, Vann. If this is not the situation, than anyone who attacks Drek before everything has capped is merely a) eating up reinforcements by fighting Drek before all his guards are down; b) jeopardizing your reputation and honor earned for this matched. Get that foolish nonsense stopped. (If others are already trying to get it stopped, though, and people are just being jerks to get other people's goats, don't join the general jerkiness.)

4. After two or three rounds of this battleground, your Stormpike reputation has probably gone from Neutral to Friendly. (Compared to Arathi Basin or Warsong Gulch, rep in Alterac Valley accrues crazy fast.) Each time your rep changes, go back to the guy who gave you your trinket and he'll upgrade it. (Neutral, Friendly, Honored, Revered, Exalted; the sixth is from earning Exalted fully maxed at 999.) I usually enter the BG through Alterac until my rep has hit Honored. Then I enter through Ironforge or whatever city is most convenient based on whatever quests I'm trying to further between rounds.

If you haven't gotten the completion notice on the Graveyard or Towers & Bunker quest within four or five times of playing, then see if you can get others to begin the match with you by doing Irondeep and/or Snowfall. Most of the time, though, these two quests take care of themselves. (And yes, these quests are easily soloable by the time you're 58 or so, but someone else probably needs them, too, and if you can avoid a death or two, it helps our side's reinforcements.)

I know there's a lot missing and probably a lot of disagreement, but this is the basic information I wish I could have found before I entered the first time.

4/12: What I Accomplished Today

Sorry for the gap; it was feeling obligatory, so I took some time off.

Speaking of Obligatory: New Rule: If all you've got is airport security, children's birthday parties, and some vague, amorphous Chelsea Clinton/Monica Lewinsky insult tied to a picture of Obama feeding livestock, don't bother with the segment. It's a shame, because after that, Maher made some interesting observations on similarities between polygamous cults and the Catholic church (albeit marred, yet again, by his inability to distinguish between "homosexual" and "pedophile"; 20 years ago, we'd all read enough to know that most pedophiles were heterosexuals whom the child trusted for some reason, and adding "Catholic priest" to the category confirms that definition rather than changes it), but those observations weren't received in a "Hmm, let me ponder that" way as they often are because what had gone before had been...just...well...dumb. Not worthy of his time or ours. (I suspect I've conflated two episodes there, but the point remains valid.)

I've taught and graded a great many classes. We've actually given and scored the College Readiness Assessment that I attended a number of meetings planning; it seems to have gone well. I've been to quite a few Literary Society and book group meetings and read several other books; I've also been working on a class I'm teaching next fall in which we'll approach Ulysses through The Odyssey, so that's been alternately interesting and deadly boring, depending on my mood. In World of Warcraft, I've gotten all nine characters to level 50; I have to admit that I'm a little smug about this (and yes, I also know that, on the Warcraft scheme, that really isn't any big whoop, and on the non-Warcraft scheme, that's rather an embarrassment). I also have four guild tabs and am working on improving armor and weaponry while leveling the blacksmith.

Now that new television programming is filtering back to the airwaves, we can categorically announce the winner of the writers' strike: NetFlix.

Co-Vivant wants to move to Blue Diamond while keeping this house as a rental. We can do one of those things, but not both. If she finds a way, I'd love to hear it, and I'm not saying I'm not open to doing one or the other of those things, but both--I'm trying to think of a "if wishes were horses" joke to go here, but I just don't have it in me right now.