I'll be away from the 21st till the 26th of August.  Time to go enjoy the company of the people I'm related to in a group setting with rules intended to prevent us from killing each other.  Otherwise known as a family reunion.  I am actually looking forward to it. Really.  Last time when I said to my Hubby "never ever let me go to one of those again" I didn't really mean it.  Honest. This time all our parents are to be seperated at all times and not let within 5 metres of each other.  And each of us is responsible at all times for their behaviour...if they get out of hand we must take them away.  For my Irish family its sometimes better if we visit from a bit of a distance.  There is lots of animosity between my mom, Eileen, and her siblings and her siblings with each other as well.  So all the cousins band together to keep the peace.  I'm sure it'll go better this time.  No one is allowed to bring cast iron frying pans for instance.  That's a given after Uncle Allan and Uncle Phillip had the frying pan/whiskey bottle incident.  And we all know there's no way we can prevent Uncle Phillip from leaving the whiskey at home so extra measures are being taken to keep him occupied. 

Well that's probably too much detail just to let you know I'll be away, but as I was saying to someone else recently; I should never be left alone with a keyboard and too much coffee late at night.

After raid tonight I looked back at the experience. We had a night full of wipes on a more or less farm boss, and yet, I still had a blast! I deduced that this is because downfall is such a great, fun guild to be in. I hopped into a vent channel with HBK and we started discussing why downfall is such an awesome guild. I came to this deduction: Downfall is such an awesomer guild because Dwarves are the superior race! Lowe and behold, the leader of Downfall is a dwarf! Thats right you heard it, I'm better than you.(Unless your a dwarf, then we are equal) :P lol. Continue reading. Please.

During our contemplation of guild leadership and how it affects the sink or swim status of a guild and raid, and how our guild has two, TWO, successful raids I kept in mind how our guild leadership fulfills both of our kindred philosophies. In short, our philosophies dictate that raids and guilds only become successful when the leadership of both possesses certain qualities. Leaders must have compassion for others. Leaders can pick favorites but not let that have any influence upon loot distribution, treatment or fair judgment on internal issues. They must be intelligent enough to comprehend the inner-workings of the human mind so that they can screen away members that may be unhealthy to introduce into our community. Lastly they must be kind and selfless, we cant have a leader who is all about "ME ME ME MINE." It just doesn't work. I call these the Super Superior Qualities.

It was so much fun meeting everyone in Portland this last weekend, plans for the 2nd guild get together are already in the works! This one will be centered around the Penny Arcade Expo (PAX) in Seattle, the weekend of August 29-31. If you've never been to PAX, nay even heard of it, it has become North America's largest open-to-the-public video game trade show since E3 scaled back last year. One colossal convention of all things game.

Details (and tickets) are available at http://www.pennyarcadeexpo.com/.

Aside from the convention (which is all three action packed days), we'll probably also try to have an after-hours social event at mine and epat's place. We'd love to invite you all into our city, houses and liquor cabinets, so sign up and let us know if you think you might be able to make the trip. Also activating LFCouch now, so if you need a place to crash or you're in the area and can host some visitors, let us know.

Hey everyone, I'm sorry I've been MIA for the past few weeks only popping in my head here and there. On top of moving, internet issues and getting sick just to add insult to injury, I have been spending time living with my dad for the past week who conveniently doesn't have internet. College is starting soon so I have been busy setting up appointments with advisers, getting rooming sorted out (they threw me in a dorm with a bunch of English majors when my major will be engineering so I wanted to switch to a dorm with more people that have my same interests.) and registering for classes. Then on top of that I have been working my ass off trying to get a little more money to pay for all of it. Oh and I have been helping finish my uncle's basement building walls, throwing up drywall, texturing, laying in carpet and soon to be installing a bar.

When classes start on August 25th I will most likely be quilting wow cold turkey to focus on classes. I wish I could say I will be available for every raid until then, hell I want to be available, but if things keep going the way they are It looks as if I will be extremely busy. On second thought I may quit more like cool turkey because I have a feeling I will be poking my head in every now and again to see how everyone is doing, I don't think I could not do that.

Alright so its late, its been an interesting day for me, and I'm not entirely coherent right now. That means this is the perfect time to give all of you a good way to grind your way to Exalted status with Derchlon. This is just an on the fly list of things I like, and conversation topics that I relish.

1. Baseball. I enjoy people who can discuss the inner strategy of a 3-1 ground ball to shortstop, and why the hitter got fooled by the high heat again when it was the last two pitches thrown. Common phrases from these people include "I just said that! These announcers should give me their job," and "I knew they should have benched that guy earlier" Also, trash talking Bill Bavasi with an intelligent reason is worth bonus rep.

2. Misa Campo. She happens to be one of the most attractive women I've ever seen. Way back before I got involved in WoW, I was labeled as "The guy who really likes Misa Campo" on a message board I was on. I pretty much pushed her image on the site before she was as known as she is now, and now she's decently popular. Chances are if you've heard of her before, thank me for it. She's best known for her picture in the green shirt with the sprite logo. Have fun on Google Images ;).

3. Hypothetical situations. These can't just be simple "what if we replaced a mage with a boomkin?" kind of questions, they need to have more meaning, and likewise, consequences. A good example is as follows: Two girls love you very much, but you only love one of those girls in return. However, if you choose to be with the one you love, the other is banished and tortured for eternity, but if you pick the one you don't love, you can never see the one you DID love ever again. So, which do you choose?

4. Quoting from movies in common conversations. This is self explanatory. If its from a movie, and its in the conversation, done deal.

Reading this story on WoWInsider made me laugh: http://www.wowinsider.com/2008/05/14/the-gquit-macro/

Didn't we have someone who did this?  They had the foresight to build a massively long goodbye, then gquit, then logoff.  All in a macro.  Wow.

Am I getting older and grumpier and meaner or are more people becoming septic tanks of idiocy? 

My theory about apping goes like this: If you're not a mouth-breathing, inbred douchehat with the people skills of a suppository, an application is a wonderful opportunity to express why you'd be a great part of our team.  Don't people want to be part of a group where they know those group members have been carefully selected?  Who wants to join a guild (or a baseball team, or rowing team, or knitting team, etc) where everyone gets in automatically?

We're not elitist.  We're selective.  There's a big difference.  We're not better than you.  You just might not be a good fit for us.

The more I think about it, the more I realize that the same person that refuses to fill out an app for "just a video game" is the same guy that:

• Complains about repair bills while learning new content
• Doesn't buy reagents
• Didn't read the strat
• Gems his stuff in green gems
• Doesn't enchant anything
• Complains that he can't find a group then logs off after 3 minutes
• Won't help others and then gets mad he can't get a group for his run

I know these guys.  They run rampant in this stupid game.  I'm glad we have an app process because, hopefully, I'm the last jackass we ginvited :P

I thought I would use this blog to post my experiences and thoughts on
playing the night before (or whatever). Soooo anywhoo.... tried Arena
2v2 for the first time EVER last night with Tweaks, who was gracious
enough to invite me to his team. We got thoroughly smoked over about 6
or 7 games. Aside from walking away from the arena with a thoroughly
new sense of how bad I am at pvp, it was still fun. I respecced into a
PVP build for it, it may have helped, but I don't know how much.

I have come to the conclusion that PVP (arena play in particular)
requires quite a bit of commitment to get pretty good at it. I like it,
I think I could be good at it, and there is a little voice in the back
of my head saying "prove to the world that enh shammies can PVP
too!!!!"

I'm going to be hosting some Tempest Keep instances Friday night, and I'm going to bring Freakelf with me to tank it up. I can bring Heals on Feudara if no other healer volunteers, so all I really need is a couple DPS/CC to sign up, and we should be good to go.

I'm going to try and get a Heroic Botanica, and possibly a Heroic Mech after that. This is a great opportunity to see a new guild app in action, and form your own views on it. You won't want to miss it.

T1- Freakelf

H1- Gingerbeer

D1- Feudara
D2- Tweaks
D3- 

If you aren't listed above, sign up anyway. I still might be able to get you in

The Downfall Guild Bank is split up into 5 tabs for now:

1. Raw Mats
2. Lock Down
3. Consumables
4. Shinzmom
5. Raid Mats

Various ranks in the guild have access to deposit into different tabs, we ask that you please deposit ONLY the following items into each tab.

1. Raw Mats - Ore, herbs, leathers, metal bars, cloth, uncut gems, and all worthwhile profession materials that cannot be simply purchased from a vendor.
2. Lock Down - Only a few guild ranks can deposit into this tab.  This is where we put high level materials and items that should not be simply open to anyone to take out like BT gems, primals and motes. 
3. Consumables - All pots, cooked & raw meat/fish, high-level scrolls (Spirit, Strength, Agility and Protection ONLY please), and flasks
4. Shinzmom - All the other odds and ends.  Please don't deposit grey items no one will use or can simply buy from a vendor.  This is a good place for quest items, BoE blues, magic resistance greens, etc.
5. Raid Mats - Primals, repair bots, shadow resist mats, high level consumables and other odds and ends used for raiding.

Help us out and make sure that we keep this thing organized.  Let me know if you're having any trouble depositing or withdrawing at any time.

Repair/Withdrawal Gold: At the time of this post, all guildies ranked at "Balla" have up to 35g to use for repairs or withdrawal daily.  Use at your own discretion, though it is HIGHLY encouraged that core raiders please use this feature to pay for raid repairs.  Raiding costs a lot of money as it is, please allow the guild to help cover some of the costs of progression.

I think we're at the point where we need a guild-wide Vent meeting again.

8:30pm, Sunday night, hopefully after the mAlt Gruul's run.

I would specifically ask that ALL members of LF1M and Hamfist be in attendance.

This is something that has bothered me for awhile, so I supposed I'd get into it here.

About a week ago I was on <Kill Order>'s vent horde side, when one of their former hunters (who had transfered off the server to a guild in BT/MH). The hunter stated that I did not know when I was talking about when I responded to his statement of "ya I killed someone with only my 2 swords and a bow." I quipped back with "Well hunters can solo Illidan at lvl 65 and thats the reason that the hunters can't use his Warglaives."

Long story short, I was told that I didn't know shit about the class and having a 70 hunter on the arena test realm (which I don't) doesn't make me an expert. I was told to go kill Illidan and then maybe I'd know what I was talking about.

Now as far as the hunter goes, he knows nothing about me, as the only toon I have that is older than my hunter is my original paladin. I also know for a fact that given a head start, if a hunter knows what they are doing they can normally kite someone to death. This however is all beside the point.

"If you haven't Killed Illidan you don't know what you are talking about."

"If you haven't gotten over 2k in S3, you don't know what you are talking about."