“Adventures With Nancy”

 

Be warned.  The following is an accurate portrayal of events that happened March 27 and March 28, 2009.  Funny as hell though.

 

Adventure: “She’s a regular!”

 

So it’s a Friday night and my best friend’s and I are kid free.  So my wife, our best friends (Terry and Dina), and I pile into the van to head out for dinner.

 

As we are about to leave the town we live in (McDade), we stop at the stop sign and wait to cross 290 (major highway that runs through the town).  This strange lady with a cell-phone to her ear starts walking up to the van.  So Dina cracks the window.

 

Fact:  The cell-phone was off; discovered later.

 

Dina - “Do you need help?”

 

“Oh, my prayers have been answered, someone is stopping.  Let me let you go.”  Strange lady talking into cell phone then turns to address us.  “Please don’t hurt me.  I’m so scared.  My car broke down a few miles back and I don’t know what to do.  My husband is a priest who was attending a conference in Waco.  His car was hit by an 18-wheeler and they don’t know if my son will make it through the night.  I really need to get to Waco.  I have a friend who will lend me their truck, but I can’t get there.”

 

Hmm.  A PRIEST you say?  Really?  Your HUSBAND?

 

Dina – “Well….  Um...” (Looks at us for the okay.)  “We can give you a life to Elgin if that’s all you need.  Charles, can you move into the back seat?”

 

“Oh thank you, I’m so scared, thank you.” Lady starts walking around van and sees my wife.  “I’m so scared because I’m pregnant.”

 

My wife is noticeably eight months pregnant.  The strange-lady didn’t ‘remember’ her pregnancy until she saw Lara.

 

I take the seat directly behind her because she isn’t taking her hands away from her purse.  The minute a gun popped out I was going to snap her neck.  Scary thought?  My wife and friends knew without my saying anything that was the reason I took the seat behind her.

 

So she gets into the van and as soon as we start moving she starts going on and on about how she’s been to three or four gas stations, but all she has is the checks from the church and none of the gas stations will accept the Houston checks because they are out of area. 

 

Then it becomes “If you have just a little money to get me from Elgin to Waco.  I can borrow the truck but I have to put gas in it.”  And further still. “Oh, I can write you a check if you could get money from an atm, I don’t mind.  It’s just these checks are all I have.”

 

Fact:  Between Giddings (town in the direction she came from) and Elgin, there are only three gas stations in the direction she was driving.  She had only passed one of them.  Three or four huh?

 

So we tell her the honest truth.  A few times.  Like a dozen.  “We don’t carry cash.”  “No, seriously.  We only use our checkcards.  We don’t have any cash, and don’t really have access to it right now, we are a little strapped for cash.”

 

Well, as soon as she knew there was no-way she was getting money out of us, she pointed at a random house “Wait stop!  I know those people!  I know they’ll let me borrow their car!  Drop me off here!”  So we stop the car, but she doesn’t make any move to get out.  Just keeps asking for more money.  Then she holds her hand up for a second and flips the cell-phone to her head for 2-3 seconds (at MOST) and pretends to listen.

 

In Adam Sandler Waterboy styled voice (seriously, it was hilarious):  “Well um… my momma sez, momma sez if you could just give me 20 dollars… momma sez that would be enough to get me to Waco.  Momma, uh… momma sez I can just write you a check from the church.”

 

This is where I noticed the cell-phone was off, but even if it wasn’t.  Her mom would have had to fire off words faster than a gatling gun to get all that out in just a few seconds.

 

So we leave her there and drive to the nearest gas station (which was less than a mile from where we picked her up), filled up, and headed back the way we came.  Sure enough, she was still standing out here with her cell phone to her ear trying to flag down cars.  So I did the good-citizen thing (I didn’t want her raped and killed), and I called the cops.

 

“Yeah, there’s a lady on 290 between McDade and the gas-station right outside who’s trying to flag down cars and scam them for gas money.”

 

“Oh yeah, that’s Nancy.  She’s a regular.  We already have two officers en route.  Oh, and thanks for calling.”  *CLICK* (Hung up on me.  How rude.)

 

 

 

Adventure NEXT: “You’re taking the bus how FAR???!?!?”

 

 

So after the first adventure, we head to dinner and decide we want to go bowling afterwards.  But the girls don’t have socks.  So we stop at Wal-mart and the wives stay in the car while Terry and I run to go buy some socks.

 

While Dina is reading Lara the kids school-menu for next week, she looks up and there’s a lady in a hoodie just talking away as-if Dina can hear her with the windows closed and the radio on.  So Dina locks the doors, and cracks the window.

 

My wife SWEARS it was Nancy.  Seriously swears.  Dina couldn’t tell.

 

Dina - “Can I help you?”

 

Lady – Sob sob sob story: “My daughter is sick and I have to get back to Ohio so I can be with her.  The bus ticket costs $710.00 and all I have is $3.00.  Is there anything you could do to help?”

 

Fact:  From San Diego, California to Ontario, Canada you are probably looking at a less than $600.00 ticket.  This lady is asking for a ticket on something less than a 24 hour drive.

 

From Greyhound:     (Austin, TX to Cleveland, Ohio.  Leaving today, round-trip)

Fare Type	Qty	Passenger	Each	Total
Refundable Fare	1	Adult	$192.00	$192.00
Non-refundable	1	Adult	$171.00	$171.00

 

 

So Dina rolls up the window and drives off without saying another word to the lady.

 

Seriously.  Think up better (or more accurate) stories people.

 

 

Adventure TRY:  “The entertainment value?”

 

So it is now late afternoon Saturday.  We’ve had so much fun all day telling everyone, including a good family friend named Pam, the “adventures with Nancy”.  It was a great laugh, and we couldn’t stop.  Keep that in mind.  Pam has HEARD the entire story.

 

So Pam leaves to go get some more supplies and lunch, and gets flagged down by a lady with a cell-phone on her ear standing next to a red beat-to-hell El Camino*.  She gives the exact same sob story from Friday night to Pam.

 

So Pam, being the kind-hearted person she is, put’s five dollars worth of gas in the lady’s car and tells her that if she’ll follow Pam to the next gas-station, her husband is there getting gas/supplies and he’ll be able to send the woman to Waco with a full tank.

 

Obviously, that red el camino kept going right on down the road when Pam stopped to pull in and meet her hubby.

 

I <3 Pam very much as she is such a sweet lady, but did she give Nancy five bucks for the entertainment value?  I mean, she knew from talking to us she was getting scammed.  Didn’t she?

When I asked her that exact question, Pam really wasn’t sure why she gave the chick five bucks. 

 

 

 

*Red El Camino – Boy, that sounds like the Lexus from story one, doesn’t it?  The two cars are basically the same.

 

 

 

Definitely says something about the state of our economy on how common this is becoming.

Just in case you are as out of the loop as I am, the 20 hour cooldown on [21845] has been 100% removed as of 3.0.8.  I did not know this.  No-one TOLD me.

What does this mean for you?  [21876]s are now extremely cheap if you have a tailor-friend that happens to be Mooncloth specc'd.

My spriest Fjork does have Mooncloth Tailoring (2x per 1x mats).

So I'll be making myself some upgraded bags, but I've never really liked being selfish.

You still need those 20 slot bags, but don't want to pay the $$$ for the [41599]?  Send me(Pedran) an in-game mail with the following mats PER bag you want:     (If you send the mats to Fjork, no promises on speed....)

• 4x [21842]
• 4x [21886]
• 4x [21885]
• 4x [21881]

If you enchanters want to be cheap, I can make the [21842].  Mats:  12x [21840], 8x [22445]

One run of Black Morass should get you enough [21881] if there isn't any on the AH.

I was bored.

 

 

 

 

 

Levels of the Undercity:

• Top Level – Above Ground (Light-Blue)
• Second Level – Gryphon Rider, Innkeeper, and Armaments (Purple)
• Middle Level – Bank (Pink)
  
  • Bridges to Second Level and Lower Level
• Lower Level – Auction House, Professions (Map Shown)
  
  • Inner Ring
    
    • The Inner Ring is just goo and some Bridges up to the Middle Level
  • Middle Ring
    
    • Auction House.
    • Directly below Second Level
  • Outer Ring
    
    • Profession Trainers
    • Entrance to Dungeon Level
• Dungeon Level – Battle-masters, World-boss (Light-Green)
  
  • Middle hallway safest place for World-Raid to Veg while rezzing.

So.......

We've all been having tons of trouble linking items here in our forums. Especially the Wrath items.  

For example:

• [Titansteel Bonecrusher]  - hmm..   I entered it correctly using the format [item ] Item Name [/item ] (no spaces), but it didn't work.
• [41383] - So if that one didn't work?  Why did this one?  I instead used the format: [item ] Item Number [/item ].

 

So where do I get the item number?  Search for the item on your favorite source (wowhead, wowdb, etc).  On the webaddress you will see a line that is roughly "item=?12345".   The number in the webadress is the universal Blizzard item number. (wowdb is the best place to search since our Forums use wowdb.)

For example:

• The [41383] has the webaddress of http://www.wowhead.com/?item=41383 or the Item Number of 41383.

 

 

I wanted everybody to see this, b/c I didn't know it.   Thanks saedo!

I rerolled prot last night with like 90% Avoidance to test out the new prot spec, my gear, etc, etc.

No, I'm not at the 490 so the bosses could still crit (459).

 

I ran into a very serious problem though.  I wasn't really getting hit, but it appeared sanctuary wasn't giving me the mana back that it should have.  Was this because the single-target mobs were only hitting 'oh-so-often'?

After trying the first set of six with Cons only in my first rotation of threat-gen, then holding it I was still always nearly OOM at the end of the fight.

So with the next six, I attempted dropping Consecration completely and focusing on blowing my CDs on the rest of my spells as soon as they came up.  Not nearly as bad as the first six, but still having mana issues.  I was OOM by the time the boss spawned and told the party to just wait.

On the final six, I stopped using Holy Shield.  Completely.  BoS appeared to grant more, and even with the occacionaly crit from the final boss, I still never dropped below about 6k (half-life) from the Priest's healing.  Since I was being healed, I was at nearly full mana the entire time.  I used Cons at a constant and started wielding Martyr as opposed to Vengeance and/or Wisdom.

I'd like to know if anyone else has experienced similar issues with being 'to geared' since this latest patch.  Due to the massive dodge/def rating I had for a relatively low-gear requirement instance, I wasn't taking the damage I needed to get the healz I needed for mana (thus threat-gen).  Yet when I stopped using Holy Shield (our bread/butter), my threat-gen and mana availability were maxed.

Opinions?

http://www.wowwiki.com/Patch_3.0.2_%28undocumented_changes%29

 

The sites finally up on wowwiki.  Here's a few useful things of note:

•  Miners now receive the passive ability Toughness which adds HP based off of the skill level.
• Skinners now receive the passive ability Master of Anatomy which increases critical strike based off of the skill level.

The Auberdine boat that used to go to Menethil Harbor now goes to Stormwind Harbor.  (THANK GOD)

• The amount of experience required to level between 60 and 70 has been reduced.

 

I hadn't seen alot of these before.  Good to know.  :p