Throwing out some book recommendations (will refresh every now and then) for interested people who have time to read outside of the books scattered around Azeroth. Would love to hear what you think of them if you get around to them (or have read them). Anti-intellectuals please look away =).

Non-fiction: Micro Trends: the small forces behind tomorrow's big changes by Mark Penn

This is a collection of statistical analyses on social factors that help forecast how consumption, education, technology, etc will change based on a changing America. For example, did you know that:

1) It has historically never been a better time to be a single straight male in the United States, or a worse time to be a single straight female under 34.

2) The most common occupations of the 9 Million millionaires in the US are a) welding contractors, b) pharmacists, and c) pest exterminators.

3) If porn were a televised sport, it'd get better annual ratings and boast greater profitability than all four major sports leagues combined.

Non-non-Fiction: Confessions by St. Augustine.

No this is not a text of religious doctrine despite the author. It's basically a play-by-play of a young man struggling to reconcile his humanity with his morality. While the topic may be spiritual in nature, the method and the basis is decidedly secular.

Rainbow Six Vegas 2 review
 

Developer – Ubisoft Montreal  
Publisher -  Ubisoft
Release date - Mar. 18th 08,  and April 15th (PC)

Platform used: Xbox360

Completion: 100% 6-10-08

Spoiler Free

Gamepro calls this "The perfect shooter" that is if by perfect shooter they mean most effective at being terrible. The more and more I have thought about this game and the closer I got to actually writing this review the more I thought about how terribly, terribly bad it was. I will start by saying this is coded on the Unreal engine, which is an FPS engine, this is an FPS/third person game.  What is so bad about that? Well let's just say then when your character switches into third person view states, the enemy can see you but you can't see them. This equates to broken controllers and abusive language that makes the angry Nintendo nerd look meek and mild.

I went in with a very positive attitude, I loved rainbow six for PC and loved raven shield to death, in fact I still do, none the less I came out swinging….at my TV that is. The game overall has a good concept and a great Tom Clancy styled plot, which is why this game is withholding a 4 for a rating from me, but the execution of a brilliant idea was unveiled by the lazy designers who thought this was a great way to convey it. Now I have yet to play Vegas 1 but people say it's the same thing so I'm not excited to downgrade to a game that probably deserves a 2.

The graphics are decent considering you never see the washed over gloss feel to the characters you tend to see in the new Unreal engine games, which is more points for them. This game however has some pretty mean issues when it comes to clipping, hands through guns and all sorts of nonsense, which leads me to ask- did graphical artists work on this game? or their children? Either way it's not something I'd hang on my refrigerator.

Sound quality is nice, the music is decent, and it's not repetitive so I'll give them that. It adds a lot of feel to the game when combat music changes or adds different feel to the game based on what you're encountering at the time. Good cinematography Ubisoft maybe you should go make a movie about it.

Game play is weak and controls can be bothersome at times but for the most part they work great together. Let me however say that the final boss fight is a joke. I don't have to spoil anything by saying that a person shouldn't be able to chuck a grenade through a regular fence in an ultra realistic deemed game, cause I definitely know that no one in their right mind could do it in real life, at least out of skill or consistently. I spent more time cussing in this fight than i have in my entire life span it was horrid ask my roomate how much i hated this fight on the hardest difficulty, and trust me i understand hard but i don't cope with BS well. The AI is decent, when it's not shooting at you through walls of course, it will try to flank and all that so that's good.

Multiplayer is ok it plays better than single because players can't see stuff while the computer normally could which makes it seemingly fair and balanced, and the maps are some of the old raven shield maps, finally someone got it right.  

The game overall just feels like I'm cheating on my Xbox 360 console or that I'm defiling it, poor girl. On another note where did all the customization go? Seriously? I want my m14 back, oh yeah and an inventory slot to use for extra mags please. On a second thought don't give them to me cause I'm never picking up a title like this again and neither should you. Do yourselves a favor and read the book about the plot and save the game disk for a coaster.

I rate this game a 4/10

~h4mm32~

I've been trying to work with my UI as of late.  I'm looking for any pointers and opinions on how to fix my UI.  I like to keep it simple for the most part, but I'm open minded about changing things.  Also, I love mods.  If you think there are any mods I'd be interested in for tanking, dps, or healing please let me know.  I'm not totally done with everything yet.  I still have to assign some keybindings and write some macros, but you get the picture.  Thanks!

Atar UI (Caster)Caster UI

Atar UI (Bear)Bear UI

Atar UI (Cat)Cat UI

Breña (Atar) UIBreña UI

Some pics of New York. Hope you enjoy:

Tree Graffitti

Tree Graffitti

The Hudson

You couldn't tell that Ground Zero is 10 steps behind these buildings:

WFC

 Graduation (Happiest/saddest day of my life)

Graduation

Man With The Weight Of The World Before The House of God

Here is a logic puzzle/riddle. You will not already know the answer, because I just made it up myself. You can however get the answer very quickly if you turn off wow and think =).

First 3 correct responses get a "meaningful" prize in-game. It will be worth the while.

All correct responses after that get a "very very modest" prize in-game. It might not be worth the while.

Please send me all responses in private forum messages. DO NOT post the answer in this forum. DO NOT post clarification questions in the forum. Virtually everything you might need to know is in this post =).

Here is the puzzle / riddle:

• The odds of winning the lottery in New York State are 175,711,536 to 1
• Suppose you buy 175, 711, 535 tickets and all of them are losers.
• Suppose you then buy 1 single ticket for the same drawing.
• Did you win the lottery?
• Why? Why not?

The answer is very very specific, and if you get it you should think "Well Duh" like all good puzzles. "Because its probability" is not a suitable answer.

EDIT: Two hints and one clarification that I've given so far

1: Assume you are a logical being. Which means you're not going into this blind and you actually have a plan (i would hope so if you're buying 175 M + lottery tickets

2: Whether the jackpot is $350 M or $1, the odds of winning are still the same.

Clarification: The one leap of faith you need to make is that SOMEHOW you know that the first batch of lottery tickets you bought is a loser.

I like to set goals for myself. For example, today's goal was to get through the morning (when I don't have work) unscathed to set myself up for the afternoon (when I DO have work). So this morning, I established a "goal for WoW 3.2". And that is as follows:

"Double my haste rating"

Sounds like a simplistic goal, but it's actually a good guide for maximizing my DPS as a Fire Mage as most of the pieces with haste tend to have other good stats for me as well. It's not a BIS list for sure, but it is my goal for this patch...

My current haste rating fluctuates from 400-500, depdending on several gear choices that I switch back and forth from. So let's just take the midpoint. Therefore, my goal for this patch is to get to 900+ haste rating (without gimping myself in other stats, or articificially forcing it).

I have researched and researched Rawr, and the loot tables and came up with this wish list of gear that will propel me towards my 900 Haste goal. It is NOT a BIS list…and several choices in there are only as a consequence of the other choices in there (think Quartz Crystal Wand)…but it is the Gear set that I'm going for as Fire. Check back here to see what pieces I've picked up and my progress on the road to 900+ Haste and Beyond!

The + Stats provided by this set of gear (enchants and gems included, base stats not) is as follows:

• Stamina: 1096
• Intellect: 1113
• Spirit: 249
• Spell Power: 2861
• Hit Rating: 348
• Crit Rating: 770
• Haste Rating: 928 (effective), 856 (passive)

Below is the actual checklist. Wowhead only has the normal mode versions of some of these items. So, for now just assume the gear set calculation embeds stats from the highest level item of the same name.

This gear set would get me to 928 Effective Haste rating (using the optimized effective haste buff from my trinket) and an 856 passive haste rating all BEFORE raid Buffs. That would mean my Fireball cast would go down from 3 second casts to 2.15 seconds on an "effective basis" and 2.21 on a passive basis, pre raid buffs and heroism and speed

• Head: [47761]
• Neck: [47139]
• Shoulders: [47758] (got 245 version)
• Back: [47095]
• Chest: [47603]
• Wrist: [47585] (got)
• Hands: [47762]
• Waist: [47617] (got)
• Legs: [47760]
• Boots: [47194]
• Ring 1: [47618] (got 232 version)
• Ring 2: [47732]
• Trinket 1: [45466] (got)
• Trinket 2: [47182]
• Weapon: [47815]
• Wand: [45257] (got)