Gitr

Jawed Karim just might be my hero of the year. Can you imagine going to school at Stanford with no worries about cost because you were involved in the PayPal sale to eBay? He’s had it made to the tune of several million dollars for going to Stanford and getting his master’s degree.

Now, Google (another drooling success story), wants to buy YouTube.com for billions of dollars. That’s right billions with a “B.” Jawed is one of the intellectual contributors that made YouTube possible and a smashing success.

What is there not to like about a guy that gets described like this by the New York Times reporter doing a story on him?

On Wednesday, during a walk across campus and a visit to his dorm room and the computer sciences building where he takes classes, Mr. Karim described himself as a nerd who gets excited about learning. Nothing in his understated demeanor suggests he is anything other than an ordinary graduate student, and he attracted little attention on campus in jeans, a blue polo shirt, a tan jacket and black Puma sneakers.

Mr. Karim said he might keep a hand in entrepreneurship, and he dreams of having an impact on the way people use the Internet — something he has already done. Philanthropy may have some appeal, down the road. But mostly he just wants to be a professor. He said he simply hopes to follow in the footsteps of other Stanford academics who struck it rich in Silicon Valley and went back to teaching.

Quote from the New York Times dated 10/12/2006

I will be following his efforts for a long time to come.

I found this very insightful post by link-clicking like crazy this morning. Maybe I should start complaining about the interest rate on my Discover card. Discover, if you’re reading this…

http://tobolds.blogspot.com/2006/10/dell-is-confusing-me.html

 

Dell is confusing me

Just 24 hours after sending me an e-mail saying that they could only deliver my new laptop in mid-November, Dell sent me another e-mail saying that the laptop just shipped. For a second I considered the fancy notion that somebody at Dell read my blog and decided they couldn’t afford the bad publicity. But the far more likely explanation is that it is just an administrative SNAFU. Well, if they really shipped it, it should arrive early next week at the latest, which would be just 3 weeks after I ordered it, which isn’t so bad. I’ll just have to wait and see.

 – posted by Tobold @ 8:15 AM Permanent Link (1) comments

 

You all know who I am, but who are you?

What class(es) do you play and why?

What race(s) and why?

What level(s) are you?

What server(s) are you on and what type?

I know about several of you and have even created toons on your servers to play with you. I think it would be interesting to see some of you on Burning Legion or Kargath with me. The Blogger thing on Sen’jin kind of fell apart, but we’d be all for getting that going if someone got a toon up to the mid-20s.

I got the Buff of the Dragonslayer before logging off Wednesday night, so when I go on last night, I had some major power. I went to Ashenvale and killed Feldemons and the Elementals for a whopping 12 minutes to get my 4k XP to ding 31.

I spent my talent point in Shadow on the Mind Blast cooldown reduction 3/5. K was still over, so I logged off and got on later to see what that dragon buff does with my current equipment and skill.

I have a quest to kill Ambassador Malcin outside of RFD, so I ran down there to see what his level is. I told Aeigelus that I am trying to use Thottbot.com less with Deadr so I actually experience more of the game rather than picking and chosing where to go just to kill something on a map. Gitr still had areas of Winterspring that he hasn’t explored because no quests necessitated it because I knew exactly where to go.

When I got to the ravine by the meeting stone, I was disheartened to see wandering level 33 elites. Geesh! “All the way down here for nothing,” is what I was thinking. Then I wondered exactly how good I am and how good this buff is. The first mob I targeted was a warrior class with no mana. Good. Straight dps. Here is what I did:

Pre-fight:

• Touch of Weakness
• Fortitude buff
• Inner fire buff

Fighting:

• Holy fire
• Power Word: Pain
• Power Word: Shield
• Mind Blast
• Corruption
• Wand

I used the wand until I lost my bubble. I’d bubble, Renew, and wand again until he lost Pain. I re-cast Pain and continued bubbling and wanding him to death. Now, if I’m correct, this is more XP for a single kill than I have received since the 50s with Gitr, and I’m fairly certain that grinding at 59 with him against 59s and 60s was only 500 XP without rest, and 1000 XP with rest. That, folks, is how a level 31 priest can take down a level 33 elite.

I was not as lucky with the level 34 elite mana mobs. Darn things kept healing themselves back up to 45-60% and entangling me with roots. I’ll have to get Malcin with a partner, I guess. One tank will do. I think I know where I can find one. :) Hey, Abull!!

Gitr’s WoW Blog has had over 10,000 visitors since it’s inception! I never would have thought that many people would want to read about someone else playing WoW when I started the blog, more as a journal to track my progress. My memory is terrible, so it is nice to go back in the archives and see what level Gitr and Deadr are at certain dates.

I almost hit 31 last night, but I just couldn’t grind for another 20 minutes. I found a nice area just outside the fort in Ashenvale that has Feldemons and Elementals that are 29s and 30s only. That’s some nice xp for the effort. It should only take about 20 minutes to grind out a ding tonight, but I don’t know what time I’ll be able to log on.

I kept getting whispers from Abull when I was grinding. He’s been whispering since my SFK level days for needing a healer to join him. Two nights ago he asked if I wanted to go to RFK, but I just wanted to level up, so I told him that I’d see about doing it the next day. When I logged on last night, he was on. I asked him if he wanted to go, and within 5 minutes, he had a group pulled together.

About 5 minutes into the run, we had someone drop out, whom Abull suspected that he would, so we 4-manned the instance in about an hour. It took a good 40 minutes before I had to take my first drink. My highlight of the night was rolling for a chest, getting a 97, and getting a Sparkleshell Mantle out of it. On Burning Legion, it is expected to pull in 36G, so it was well worth the run, seeing as nothing dropped that I could use. I don’t know if there is any good gear in there, but the run sucked for cloth-wearers. If it doesn’t go for that much money, it should at least go for 25G.

As far as priestly confidence, I have 0 points in Holy and was healing our 31 warrior (Abull) for about 35% of his health with my slow heal using ClickHeal. ClickHeal makes my life so easy. I can just follow along, looking anywhere I want, and just Renew or FlashHeal or Shield the cloth-wearers as I see their little bars go yellow. Granted, I usually pay really close attention the whole time, but it is not neccessary with such a good add-on. I just don’t want the embarrassment of losing someone in a run if they didn’t make a mistake. My gear provided me with +81 Healing, and I had no trouble keeping up with the damage they were taking. At the end of the run, Abull invited me to his guild, as he’s the GM, to help with the healing. I guess that means that I did okay by him. I told him that I was in one of Method’s alt guilds and that I like the people in there, but I may reconsider in the 40s and 50s if Teen Girl Squad is having trouble pulling enough people together for runs.

Despite a lack of excess funds, I bought my pair of Necromancer Leggings last night. After all, the shoulders will sell, it’s just a matter of for how much. I almost turned around and sold them, because they are supposed to sell for 43G, and I got them for 35G. My only hesitancy is that they were the only ones posted, and they had been posted and reposted at that price. That kind of stuff makes an AH re-seller nervous, so I put them on and lifted up my robe to take a gander. I think I’ll keep wearing the robe :).

Deadr went after dinging 30 last night with gusto. I started the night with 1000xp on the level and flew to Ashenvale to kill the Satyrs. First, I decided to finish the hunting quest, and went after the Bear Druid and the panther. That ended up being almost 7k of non-rest-affecting xp. Now it was time to go slay some demons.

I went on over the bridge and discovered through a fluke of aggro and repops that I can effectively get Deadr to handle 3 level 27s and 2 more in quick succession before the previous one is dead. Someone had buffed me with INT before I left Org and I had 2,400 mana to cast from. I cleared a path on up to the higher level demons and just started making the rounds. It is actually a very nice grinding area, similar in repop times to the Gitr-favorite gorilla area in STV. I like going after the rogues the best, because I just dps the crap out of them with my wand. I don’t like the casters as much because I alternate Mana Drain and dps and just end up wasting more mana. I actually had to start taking breaks last night when the only things in the area were casters.

I kept getting invites to RFK and had to keep ignoring or turning them down because all I wanted to do at the time was ding. I was on track for dinging by 9:15 or so when my fiance came over with all of her clothes and shoes from her closet and required my assistance. I finally got back on around 11:00 and had 20 minutes left to level. It took about 10g to train all the spells that were available at 30, but it was worth it. I got Mind Control and Mind Flay Rank 2.

I don’t know what the plans are after work today, what with the wedding being next weekend, but I’d like to go do some instances as a raging healer. I have 3 pieces of Healing gear to balance out with my INT and SPI gear, but those 3 pieces give me +84 Healing. If I got my hands on those really cool Necromancer Leggings, then I would do more damage at the same time. Can you say Power Word: Pain FTW? There is a pair of those pants that keep going up on the AH for 38g, with a normal price of 46, but I have too much wrapped up in inventory on the AH. It’s driving me nuts to not have the liquid assets to get something that I have the worth to get. I almost asked a guildie for them since I would have the money in a couple of days, but decided that I’ll have the money in a couple of days, and THEN I can get the pants. Besides, it would be stupid to get them and then not be able to play for a little while. I’ve updated Deadr’s profile again, so take a looksee at his cool gear now.

I almost forgot about my Honorable Kill last night. I was running to the West coast of Ashenvale to the outpost. When I got to Astranaar, I swam along the northern section of the moat to the area just off the flight point so I could avoid detection by any high level Alliance toons that might be flying in. As I made my way to the road on the West side, I saw some red text in the flight point area. It was a level 25 Night Elf Hunter, and he was just standing there. I ran back to the side of the water and got in a good distance away and swam closer and closer until my spells became in-range. I Pained him and then started wanding. I expected that the wanding would stop at any second as he ran away or that the Flight Master would attack me. Nope. He was dead in about 10 seconds, and I had an honorable kill. I chuckled as I thought of him coming back to the keyboard and finding himself dead, just as I have several times on this crazy PvP server.

To all of you priests out there, what do you feel is most important: +Healing, +SPI, or +INT? This would be assuming you are in a like-level instance as a healer. Most of the gear is still cheap, but I’d really like to get some gear strategy down before it gets too expensive.