As happens so often, it’s been quite a while since last I posted, leaving TheMook.Net to languish in the ether. In my time away, though, I’ve enjoyed both a month-long vacation to Los Angeles, and a wonderfully refreshing return to my old New England stomping grounds. Much happened on both trips, all sorts of juicy realizations, foolish musings, and good old-fashioned fun; hopefully some of those thoughts will make their way here to the blog in the coming weeks and months.

One thing I will mention, that struck me when I was back in Massachusetts, is that – I adore the ocean. Apparently sea water runs through these veins of mine, because nothing touches me quite like seeing the ocean. For 33 years of my life I could smell the sea air every single day just walking out my front door, always had the ocean just a few miles away. I miss it.

I used to walk from my house to this lighthouse a lot when I was a younger man. Countless hours were spent there, late at night, thinking the oh-so-important thoughts of a high school teen. It always feels like home to me.

Seems like one of the few things that ever gets me to post is the death of someone I admired. Today’s turn of the wheel is Frank Frazetta, who, from early reports, appears to have passed away this morning at the age of 82.

Frazetta’s oil paintings were the very definition of fantasy to me growing up. We all made AD&D characters based on his works, used them as enemies to battle in our games, or princesses to be rescued. His paintings were pure awesome, there’s really not much more to say.

Most folks probably know Frazetta best for his Death Dealer series, but here are a couple of my other favorites. Rest in peace, good sir.

Princess of Mars

Alien Crucifixion

Howdy Folks -

Been tweaking around with my interface again (shocking, I know!), figured I’d post what I’m playing with now for the AddOn addicts out there.

Here’s a screenie with nothing targeted:

No Target

From left to right, here are some of the more obvious elements:

• Buffs and Debuff/Tracking bars
• Eavesdrop (left corner – combat log replacement)
• Guild and Party chat
• Recount damage meter
• Simple Minimap (center)
• Bartender4 Action Bar (center, above map)
• Omen threat meter
• System messages, other channel chat
• A few more Bars (right corner – set to fade out unless moused over)
• Capping (bottom right corner – Wintergrasp timer)
• Chocolate Bar LDB display (along the bottom – lots of various info; there’s another bar at the top of the screen with less-frequently-needed info, set to appear on mouseover)

Next screenie is with myself as both Target and Focus:

All Targets

New elements:

• The left arcs are my health and mana; the right arcs are my Target’s health and mana (which in this screenie are all the same, since I’m targeting myself)
• The green bar in the center is my Target’s Target
• The info below the green bar is my Target Info (name, race, class, etc.)
• The three squares to the left of that are my Target’s Buffs (Debuffs would display to the right, if I had any)
• To the right of my main Action Bar, above Omen, are my Focus Target (the top one), and my Focus Target’s Target (below)
• Also notice that now with something targeted, the minimap is overlayed with the Target’s profile (the pic is animated and moves around a bit, that’s why Spytte’s head is cut in half)

Final screenie is with my Hunter, so I could show the UI with a pet class, and also in combat:

In Combat

New elements:

• Pet info (including pet buffs) is to the left of the main Action Bar; Pet’s target is just below that (the Unbound Seer); Pet’s Health and Energy are the two smaller arcs just to the right of mine
• The Pet Action Bar is just above the right chat window (faded out unless moused over)
• Just above my main Action Bar are timer bars for the Buffs and Debuffs I want to track on my Target
• Combat text is scrolling up, following the arcs of the center hud on both sides – left side shows damage/effects to me and my pet, right side shows damage/effects to my target
• Just to recap – the two left arcs are my health and mana (both near full – yay ranged DPS!); the two right arcs are my Target’s health and mana (61% and 100% respectively), with the Target info in the center (Unbound Seer, Mage, etc.), and the Target’s profile picture overlaying the minimap; the green bar in the center of it all shows what my Target is targeting (in this case Ktani, my pet).

Finally, here’s a quick (0:17) YouTube video clip showing everything in action:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Obviously it takes a bit of getting used to, but I find I much prefer having all the combat info I need all clustered dead-center of the screen instead of having to watch corners. One thing I didn’t catch in the screenshots are cast bars – my cast bar is another arc to the left of my mana, my Target’s cast bar is another arc to the right of his mana.

Another thing I’m sure I’ve mentioned a gajillion times is the Action Bar – lots of folks ask me “How can you play with only 12 buttons?” It’s easy – I don’t.    I rotate the Action Bar with the mousewheel, there are actually 6 “pages” to the bar (so without moving my left hand from the keys, I can access 6 x 12 = 72 buttons).

Someday I’d like to get my full UI page updated, but that’s a lot more work than this post! Anyway, hopefully folks find something interesting or helpful here, always happy to answer any questions about AddOns, anytime.

Below is the full list of AddOns – seems like a lot, but they don’t tax the system nearly as much as ya might think. My hardware is pretty old, and the difference between no AddOns and all AddOns is about 5 FPS. NOTE: most of these AddOns don’t actually show up in screenshots, they’re more “in the background”, and included only for completeness.

Ace3
AdvancedTradeSkillWindow
Align
Altoholic
AnkhCooldownTimer
Ara_Broker_Guild_Friends
Ara_Broker_Reputations
Ara_Broker_Tradeskills
Ara_Broker_WeaponBuffer
Arcana_CalendarBroker
ArkInventory
Atlas
AtlasLoot
Attrition
AuctionMaster
Auditor2
AutoLootToggle
Automaton
Bartender4
BattleCry
Bejeweled
BindingsReminder
Broker_AllStats
Broker_Auditor
Broker_ChannelWatch
Broker_CPU
Broker_FindGroup
Broker_HitCrit
Broker_LonnyMicroMenu
Broker_SoulShards
Broker_TalentSwitch
Broker_Transit
BuffEnough
BuffWatcher
BugSack
BulkMail2
BulkMail2Inbox
Capping
cargoHonor
CCBreaker
ccSpeed
CharacterProfiler
ChocolateBar
ColorTools
Cork
CritSound
CrowBar
Decursive
DefenseCheck
DinnerBell
DrDamage
DropTheCheapestThing
DXE
EavesDrop
ElkBuffBars
EquipCompare
ErrorRedirect2
Examiner
FaceShooter
FishingBuddy
Fizzle
Flightmap
fontain
FreeRefills
FuBar
FuBar2Broker
FuBar_AddonSpamFu
FuBar_BabelFu
FuBar_RestFu
GatherMate
GatherSage2
GFW_FeedOMatic
GhostRecon
Grid
GridStatusHots
GridStatusMissingBuffs
GupPet
HandyNotes
HandyNotes_Guild
HitAssist
IceHUD
Identity
IronChef
KHunterTimers
LightHeaded
Links
LootHog
Ludwig
MadHatter
Mapster
MobsToLevel
MrPlow
Omen
OmniCC
OPie
Overachiever
PallyPower
Parrot
Peggle
PerfectScreenshot
PoMTracker
PowerAuras
Prat-3.0
PrimalDefense
PvPFlagBroker
Quartz
RatingBuster
Recount
Select
ShadowedUnitFrames
SharedMedia
Sheppard
shieldmonitor
SimpleBossWhisperer
simpleMinimap
SpamSentry
StatBlock_Ammo
StatBlock_AnkhTimer
SuperDuperMacro
Tabard-o-matic
TabardChampion
Talented
TalentReminder
TidyPlates
TinyPad
TipTac
tomQuest2
TomTom
Track-o-Matique
TradeskillInfo
VendorBait
Volumizer
Wardrobe
WIM
XLoot
XLootGroup
XLootMonitor
XPBarNone
YssDrop
ZMobDB

Just a quick note – as I’ve done for the past couple years, with Christmas and my birthday coming up fairly soon I’ve created an Amazon Wishlist for friends and family looking to tickle my gift fancy this year. As always, the WoW Gift Card is the thing that really floats my boat – since WoW is about the entire extent of my socializing and entertainment, an extra two months is always cause for celebration!

Just a quick note to let everyone know I’ll be out of town and away from the computer until around Sunday August 30th. I’ll catch up on email and forum posts when I get back.

UPDATE: Actually I’ve extended my return date three times since I’ve been here! Currently scheduled for return on Saturday September 12th.

UPDATE2: This is it now, for real – flying back to Tucson on Saturday night, September 19th … my week long visit turned into a wonderful month-long vacation and retreat.

So I just finished watching a movie that actually made me angry it was so bad: Blindness. It’s about what happens when a large city is suddenly affected by a mass outbreak of blindness, specifically the circumstances surrounding a woman mysteriously immune to the disease and her husband in one of the quarantine centers.

Those of you familiar with my wide-ranging, eclectic, omnivorous taste in movies may be surprised to find that there are, in fact, movies I don’t like. It’s rare, but it does happen.

My main complaint about this movie is its complete lack of realism. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for fantasy, science fiction, sentient grapefruits, whatever – but not in a movie that is supposed to take place in our real, contemporary world. If it’s a movie that supposed to take place in “the real world”, then the people better behave like real people or the whole thing just becomes an exercise in stupidity.

To avoid spoiling plot points, I won’t list some of the more annoying examples until the end of the post (after the “Read on …” break). For now, suffice to say – many of the reactions of both individuals and the government / military are just stupid, and ridiculously contrived to fit the plot rather than to make any sense.

That right there was enough to destroy the entire film for me. I barely cared about any of the characters because they didn’t register as ‘real’ people, just actors going through their badly-written motions.

The reason this made me angry is because the premise of the film is awesome, could have really explored some interesting, thought provoking stuff. Instead it used that premise to shoehorn in nonsensical scenes and belabor obvious points.

Grr.

Giving this one a score of 4 out of 10. It would have been lower, but there were glimpses here and there of much better material hidden beneath the tripe.

Here are just some of the things that really irked me – a complete list would take days to write!

• Very first scene: a man stopped in his car at a traffic light suddenly goes blind, attracting a small crowd of good Samaritans trying to help him out. Does anyone call an ambulance? Of course not – instead they just let the first shady dude who says “Hey, I can drive him home.” hop in the car with him and take off.
• And does that man want to go to the hospital? Nah, he’d rather go home so he can take a nap – because, you know, being struck blind for no apparent reason isn’t terrifying or anything, it’s more like having a headache.
• I understand the story is trying to touch on some modern Lord of the Flies type territory – a good and lofty goal. But it still has to make sense. There’s no way things in the quarantine wards would have devolved that badly, that fast. No doctors, no military inside to supervise things? Make sure things run smoothly? They’re just going to drop them off by the van-load, loads of blind people, and tell them to feel their way inside, fend for themselves, and not come outside unless they want to be shot? Perhaps this was meant to be a remake of Escape From New York.
• Speaking of the soldiers – they seemed a bit trigger happy to me (yes, one of them muttered to himself about not wanting to shoot innocent people – just before he shot innocent people). It reminded me of some of the characters in various zombie movies who shoot zombies for recreation. That I can see – because that thing shambling around is no longer human, it’s just walking meat. Making the leap that someone who’s gone blind is as dehumanized as a flesh-eating ghoul … I don’t see it.
• Julianne Moore’s character is, as far anyone in the movie can tell, the only person in the entire city who is immune to the disease. Does she try to let anyone in authority know? Let the government know that she is immune so that they can maybe run a few tests and try to find a cure based on her immunity? The thought never crosses her mind (and she’s the hero of the film!).
• Finally, the most infuriating point of all – Julianne Moore’s character, the sighted woman, allows a group of blind thugs to not only hoard all the food and steal anything of value, but also offers herself and all the other women up to be gang raped (resulting in at least one of the women dying from the wounds received). I’m supposed to empathize with this character? Utterly, irredeemably, ridiculous. Yes, the thugs, the BLIND thugs, have a single revolver. One sighted woman with a lead pipe would tear through that room like a boxer in a room full of toddlers. Sloppy, lazy writing (one thing I truly can not stand).

I certainly can’t say this is the worst movie I’ve ever seen. But it could have been so, so much better.

Forum Discussion

Greetings all!

I’ve been back from Vegas for a few weeks now – had fun, took many pictures of the casinos we trekked through, I’ll try to get those uploaded to a gallery soon.

It seems impossible, but Christmas is once again just around the corner – as happens every year, I remember now my thoughts of last year, thinking to myself “Well there’s no way I’ll still be in the same horrible state of mind next Christmas as I am this year”. And the year before that, and before that, going back more years than I care to count.

Anyway, the reason I’m thinking of Christmas in early November is because I’ve had a couple people poking around already for gift ideas for Christmas and my birthday (same day!) – so, I’ve updated my Amazon wishlist for friends and family with gift-giving on their minds:

The big thing for this year of course is the new World of Warcraft expansion, “Wrath of the Lich King”. My dad and sister were kind enough to pitch in on that one as an early present, so I should be playing it in less than a week – woooo!

Forum Discussion

Well folks – visitors to TheMook.Net, Laid Back Assassins, SoF2 players, MookUI users, GURPS players, and any of the other sundry net crawlers who frequent these pages: I’ll be offline for a week (that’s right! a week!) while vacationing in Las Vegas with my family.

It will be unusual to be completely off the internet for so long (I’m not bringing my laptop), but my guess is there might just be enough interesting things going on in Vegas to keep my mind off it.

I hope everyone has as good a week as I plan to. I’ll catch up on email and forum posts once I get back, and I’ll be sure to take some pics … until then: be well!

Forum Discussion