2011: The year in review

For those of my two readers who don't know, for the last... oh, five or so years, I think? I've reviewed the year from my own point of view. Well, it's nearly that time of year where the earth reaches that arbitrary position relative to the sun where the Gregorian calendar says a new year begins, so! Let's have a look at 2011!

Cleverbot won't make my shield drop.

Disclaimer and backstory: As of this post, I've killed heroic Gunship Battle 15 times, Baleroc 16 times and Asira Dawnslayer 18 times and I've never had their shields drop. Which is annoying. So, Nika suggested I ask Cleverbot how do get a shield to drop. This conversation is what followed. Text in bold is what I said.

3 Reasons Why Christmas Carols Annoy Me

Firstly, I just want to make this clear. I love Christmas. I have nothing against the holiday and what it stands for. I like that we get to take a day out to spend time with family and friends to celebrate whatever your religious affiliations dictate you can and should celebrate. The songs, on the other hand? Can't stand 'em. They annoy the crap out of me. Why? Well, that's why I have a blog! To talk about crap nobody cares about!

The Actually Important Election Question

Firstly, a disclaimer, regarding my political views. I don't support any single party, I use a "I'll pick the party that I dislike the least" sort of system. I'm not going to tell you who I voted for in the last election, or who I'll vote for in this election (Because I don't know yet, although I have a rough idea), and I'm not posting this blog to support any particular political party. This blog isn't intended to be election advertising, is not supported by, funded by, or anything like that by any New Zealand political party. Apart from the copy-pasta from the referendum.org.nz website, this is my own opinion and you're more than welcome to disagree with it.

So, unless you're not from New Zealand, or you've been living under a rock in New Zealand (Also known as Gore), you know there's an election this year. Part of this election is a referendum on our voting system, which I think has received far less coverage than it deserves. See, in my opinion, this referendum is more important than the result of the actual election, because this decides how elections work. For this reason, I think, no matter who you support, you should make an informed decision in this referendum because this is the way we can decide on the fairest way to get the most out of our democracy.

I did a 130k Bloodthirst Crit.

On heroic Staghelm with full concentration trinket, colossus smash, 2-set, pot, Death Wish and Recklessness. My raid leader told me to stop talking about it and I can talk about it in my blog later. So here we are!

I didn't screenshot it, what with me being on progression, but I did draw it on Paint because I can.

Behold, the awesomeness of my artistic talent, and my awesome critting with deliberately aligned buffs! Be jealous, Chibi.

Small update because I'm not dead!

So the thought occurs, I've barely posted in the last month, after spending the month before that posting a lot. It's really entirely down to me being lazy, but I thought I'd make a small update, just to let people know what I'm up to.
Last month was a bit of a busy month for me. I went down to my girlfriend's place (She lives out of town) to see her perform one of her weekly concerts, then the next week, I went to my mum's place to give my final respects to Dinky and put a wee doggy statue on his wee doggy grave. Week after that, my sister came down for the weekend for the last time before I become an uncle, and now this week, I've gone to my girlfriend's place again for no particular reason. So yeah! Been a wee bit busy, but mostly, I'm just lazy!

But! Because I'm lazy, I thought I'd give a few previews for things I wanna post.

• A brief introduction to quantum physics, because one of my friends asked me to.
• Weird trilogue (That's a real word, I swear!) involving a fictional deity.
• A story about a seagull.
• Something about adulthood.
• A form of review of WoW tank classes.

I probably have other things in line. I'm also considering posting one of my fictional story type things up here, because I like posting it on things and maybe, someday, people will actually read it. It's not bad, I swear!

On a slightly more serious note, I've been poking around the stats, and while I haven't had more than, like, 40 views on a single blog post, I have had a few hits from search engines (Mostly to WoW related things) which is very encouraging! I like the fact that people are finding me from googling me.

But yeah. That was a pretty small update. I'll try write more soon, but for now, brb being really lazy.

Update:  Decided I would put up SKI. It's over here!

Holy New Warrior Talents!

So Blizzard announced today, the new Panda-styled talent trees. Since my main is a prot warrior, I'm gonna look at the warrior ones from a tank point of view.

So, firstly, my opinion on the setup of the new talent trees.

1. I like that they're not spec-bound now. Being able to pick and choose which talent I like without being bound to a tree is pretty neat.
2. I would like the change to be a bit more. There are currently 18 talents per tree (6 lots of 3). Something like 24 or even 30 would be nicer (6 lots of 4 or 5), but then you have the problem of making sure all the talents are cool.
3. The biggest problem, I think, is that, in trying to add customisability, they're removing it. It looks right now like there's one talent that's best for each situation and I'm not sure I like that.

With that said, it's an interesting change and I'm looking forward to seeing how it plays out.

And now, a talent by talent look, but first a disclaimer: I know these talents aren't final and are subject to change. It's also somewhat difficult to look at these talents in a vacuum. I assume skills will be changing, or else some of them are just useless.

So! Straight into it! (Images all courtesy of MMO-Champion)