A Moment of Your Time

As you are probably aware, a 7.0-magnitude earthquake struck Haiti on Tuesday. Casualties are in the hundreds, at least; estimates reach into the thousands. Exacerbating difficulties in aid and rescue is the damage done to the nation's already weak infrastructure. I suggest making a donation to the humanitarian agency of your choice.



Edit, 1/15/10: Estimates are now placing casualties in the 100,000s. Disease is rapidly becoming a concern.

New Directions, Shameless Plugs

I haven't had much of interest to comment on lately, though I fully expect that to change once 3.3 goes live and the guild starts hitting Icecrown. We've been spending a lot of time gearing people up in Ulduar, and farming ToC and Onyxia.

As there is little in either raid in the way of upgrades for Eidtalheg, and to avoid burnout, I've been spending quite a bit of time running heroics on my Death Knight, whose Armory link I've added to the sidebar, and learning the intricacies of tanking. It's fun! With luck, I'll be bringing her to an Ulduar gear-up night soon.

I've made a few changes to the blogroll; a couple of much-loved bloggers have decided to move on to other things, and I wish them the best. I've also added a few DK-centric blogs I enjoy.

Finally, I want to draw your attention to a webcomic drawn and written by tabletop-gaming cheerleader, guild-leader emeritus, and rather nice guy, Shawn Gaston. It's set in the grim dystopian steampunk future of a fantasy world, and features a mix of action, intrigue, and humor. You go there now!

Because Unlike People, Animals Are Never Jerks

I've been meaning to mention this for a while, and I'm sure if you're reading this then you're already aware of it, but Brajana of the blog Mend Pet, who is obviously more organized than I will ever be, has put together a donation drive for the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

Now, I've had a number of pets in my lifetime - two dogs, a cat, countless goldfish - and I've also worked in retail. It has been my experience that animals are more considerate, understanding, and simply pleasant to be around than most people. The least we can do is try to provide them with a decent standard of living.

Theorycraft From the Comfort of Your Browser

My guild-leader and fellow hunter has just brought to our attention something that should be of interest to the hunter community: Shandara's Hunter DPS Spreadsheet is now available for use in-browser, no Excel necessary!

Of Snowmen, Infernal Machines, and Meta Achievements

/wave

Hello! Yes, I'm still here, just lacking much of substance to post. Some hardware hiccups kept me from raiding this week, which means, sadly, I wasn't present for our guild-first Hodir kill!

But, far from being frustrated, I'm actually very happy, and not only for the success of the group that actually took him down. I'm happy because now I can feel confident that Hodir will not be the brick wall to our Ulduar progression that it appeared he was becoming. It seems that last night's group put in several attempts on Thorim afterwards, but never quite made it. Hopefully, I'll be along to describe the situation in grisly detail next time.

And finally, it appears my little blog has reached 200 unique visitors! I hope everyone who has stopped by has gone away better informed, or at least mildly amused. Ya'll come back now, ya hear?

*chirp*

So, yes, I'm "tweeting" now. Or as I like to call it, "microblogging" - like microcredit, only less useful for empowering third-world women through entrepreneurship.

From Now On, We Raid in Style

Behold!

Now, don't get me wrong - I've never been a real tech whore. My PC for the past 4 years had been a DIY job, periodically upgraded to squeeze a modest level of performance out of the cheapest parts possible. But in the end, it was quite the cobbled-together monstrosity, and after its most recent heart attack, I had to admit defeat.

So I splurged! I fully expect this beast to last longer than I do, and I am positively giddy in anticipation of stepping into Ulduar on this thing. Who knows - you may even begin seeing videos on this here blog... (the screening of which would probably be a great incentive to improve my own performance. Ah, public humiliation: the great educator.)

Out of Mana? Have Some Replenishment!

Cheers to the lovely and always entertaining mistress of both PvP and cutting-edge raiding, Megan at http://outofmana.blogspot.com/, for shooting me some blogroll linkage. May your Exorcism continue to affect enemy players, unannounced changes be damned!

This is the Greatest and Best Blog in the World...

Tribute.

As you should have heard by now, the bar-setting, internal-dialoguing, mass-marketing, pod-casting frontman of the Hunter community, Big Red Kitty, has made the hard, but undeniably right, choice to turn away from WoW for his wife and family.

BRK's was the first WoW blog I regularly read, upon returning to the game a year ago. He never went into the same obsessive depth of theoretical exposition as some other bloggers (and Lord knows, I loves me some math-craftin'), but he presented important fundamentals of the class in a highly entertaining manner, and I credit him with my Hunter becoming my main, rather than my Warlock, all those months ago.

Good luck, BRK. I'll raise a cup o' raspberry latte to ya.

Heart Attack-ack-ack-ack-ack-ack

Like anyone who deigns to publish a blog, I'm a fairly narcissistic person. So, of course I have a hit-tracker to tell me all of the who-when-where of visits to my blog, and I'll occassionally take a look at where my visitors are coming from (Hint: overwhelmingly click-throughs from my comments on other blogs, and woefully few hilarious Googled word strings).

With that in mind, it was with great surprise and a rush of endorphins that I just noted not just one, but two hits from the storied blogroll of the inimitable Pike. Indeed, I am still hyperventilating into a paper bag.

Thank you, Pike. If I don't recover, it will still have been worth it.

Future's So Bright...

...I've gotta use cliches.



Hello, and welcome to Improved Tracking! It is my hope that this blog will become a source for commentary and discussion of all aspects of the game World of Warcraft, with a focus on the Hunter class.

I've been an avid browser of the WoW blogosphere for quite a while now, and I've gotten frustrated with not having a central hub at which to contribute my own thoughts on the hot topics du jour. So now, with patch 3.1 right around the corner, I feel the moment is rich with opportunity to dive into the blogging scene. The new content patch, in addition to the Ulduar raid instance, is bringing a world event, sweeping changes among all the classes, and, who could forget, new achievements to... achieve - and I plan on covering it all!

I do hope you'll choose to join me on this adventure.

Cheers,
Eid