Reporting for duty

Nothing really special happened within the last few days except some nerdy things. The holy equipment for my paladin in WoW is nearly completely epic and I look forward to my first instances as a holy paladin though I have no idea how it actually works because I am a tank since level 25 or something. Probably will I use some non-hero instances to learn before I kick the real shit (yap, yap, yap… the overheal will shine over my healing failures). On the other hand I am busy in WoW with some crafting things that I left on the way while hardcore leveling my paladin. Damn, I hate it when a game turns to a work like thing. I used to start a priest and a warrior for some twinking. The priest plays a little bit lame in low level but the warrior totally rocks and I guess I will play it more often from time to time.

Besides all this were I working on my media center again and it’s in a kind of RC state now. Windows 7 was by far the better choice compared to Linux Mint, though Linux has had a fine performance but due to some screen tearing issues and the complexity that comes into play when using a dual-boot system as a media center, it had to leave the hall. The media center choice itself fell on XBMC. The Windows Media Center is a kind of a rude joke from Microsoft which is absolutely useless in all kinds of ways. The third choice was Moovida but I finally missed some customization features so I switched to XBMC which is more complex in the beginning but very easy to use in the end. I finally made to import all my TV shows correctly to the media library and my movies were found and tagged as well. It’s pretty easy to use and it looks great. I use the standard theme but I guess I’ll give some of the other themes a try in the future.

If you’ll ask yourself what’s up in project “Straight Edge 2.0” can I tell that I follow every rule except the sports rule. Unfortunately. I don’t know when I will do some sport again, probably next week or if everything works perfectly well this week, maybe this weekend. Gladfully am I stuck on a weight around 97kg and it does not increase (Yeah!). So, that’s it for now…

My name is Zim and my tank is full

It’s just one small step for a single, but one giant step for every dungeon group on Nathrezim and the whole entire realmpool. I reached level 79 at around 01:00am in the morning and I am now about 80 percent away from the level cap. According to the fact that I am soon will be level 80 I bought my paladin some new gear that he’ll be able to wear when he’s on maximum level. I had to buy this stuff because I don’t think that I’ll find much time for active raiding and most of my gear will be farmed in the three dungeons situated in Icecrown. The rest will be bought with ‘Emblems of triumph’. Sounds like a lot of farming though.

Blood Elf Paladin

I was on a kind of ‘killing spree’ during the last levels but it ended yesterday in the instance ‘Halls of lightning’ because the paladin who was in the group pulled the first boss while he was loaded with energy and lightnings and after a short struggling fight I received a very unhealthy one hit and bit the grass. Anyhow, I am very satisfied with my tank abilities and the fact that I can finish nearly every Northrend instance in 20-30 minutes. Can’t wait to enter the last three Northrend instances and kick some mobs ass.

Finish it

This week is the week of the finishing line. Project “Straight Edge” in version 1.0 is going to end on 15th July and on the other side I am pretty sure that my paladin in World of Warcraft will reach level 80. He’s level 77 right now and I’ll kick him up to level 79 this very evening. I bought my first part of the tier-9 set, some real nice shoulder armor that I can send the old shoulders to my undead warrior. Yep, yep, yep account bound items rule

But back to straight edge and a preview of version 2.0 of the project. There’s no doubt, version 2.0 will last for twelve month and there will be some rule changes. I was recognizing a lot of rule breaks when it comes to nutrition. You might remember the change to rule #5 because there was a kind of backdoor in consideration with sweets. So I decided to introduce the exception meal where I can whatever I want but only if rule #7 is fulfilled. I personally think that this kind of connecting rules with each other will make the whole thing more interesting and a little bit exciting to me.

Unfortunately is the weather absolutely exhausting these days because the temperature increased drastically but the humidity did not decrease. This like a murder to sports especially when you’re overweighted and your stamina is not as good as it should be. I was on a good way to get a better stamina but with conditions like these I definately have to do a step backwards and I cannot do sports at least four time a weak. If I am able to have two gym sessions a week I could very happy. It’s more a torture than an amusement. I guess I can do two sessions this week and then my vacation and trip to France will start.

If I’ll ever get the chance to do some kind of sports on my vacation I’ll definately grab it by the hand and do it. Meal exceptions are not allowed though it’s my vacation and it mainly there for recovery and fun. Hopefully I’ll be able to do some nice pictures with my Canon EOS 500D. I haven’t touched my baby for nearly two month and before it comes to vacation I have to shoot some pictures on a marriage. I fucking hate taking pictures of people. Portraits are okay but only if it’s a person I like or I feel comfortable with. But these stupid snapshots of a dumb ass party crowd are what really pisses me off. I haven’t bought my camera to do stupid snap- and mugshots, this is what grannies and old daddies do with their ugly ultra-compact cameras.

It’s Ziiiiiiim…

After getting hacked for a few times I finally got back to World of Warcraft to continue levelling my paladin. I was a kind of disappointed that I was not able to play this char to level 80 as fast as possible. On the one hand my good old Throll hunter bores me and on the other hand I must say that the paladin is a lot of fun to play. It’s strange to get directly to the first row in combat when you were watching every encounter from the last row for years. Seeing some of the dungeon bosses from this close in combat makes me feel like, “Hmm, I never realised that this boss actually looked like this.

Playing hunter in combat makes you feel as if you are doing damage but you do not get this feeling as if you are completely smacking the mob while playing a paladin. With a hunter the mob feels a few pricks from your arrows but with a paladin you totally beat the shit out of him, especially with this one attack spell that makes this beautiful emboss sound.

If there’s one thing a paladin always forget – it’s dying. In one out of ten dungeons runs we actually wiped and when we wiped the healer was mostly a complete dumbass, a rogue felt as if he was the tank or I simply pulled too many mobs. Last but not least, the highest fun factor as a tanking paladin aka Tankadin is the power of total control. You say when to continue. You say when stop. You say when to pull. And you say how fast to get through the instance. I had a lot of disappointing dungeon runs with my marksman Throll hunter, mainly because of lame tanks or the healer was crap. Well I guess I’ll also level the hunter to level 85 when Cataclysm is out, but for now the paladin is my main and hopefully level 80 pretty soon.