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~ A full guide to RBG Leading (and playing) ~
- 1. Reasons to do RBGs
- 2. Getting a Group Together
- 2.1 The Setup
- 2.2 The Target Caller
- 2.3 Recruiting the right people
- 2.3 a. Guild
- 2.3 b. Trade
- 2.3 c. Skype
- 2.3 d. X-Realm
- 3. Strategy
- 3.1 Warsong Gulch
- 3.2 Twin Peaks
- 3.3 Arathi Basin
- 3.4 Eye of the Storm
- 3.5 Battle of Gilneas
- 3.6 Silvershard Mines
- 3.7 Temple of Kotmogu
- 3.8 Deepwind Gorge
- 4. Addons
- 5. Tips
This is a Full Guide on How to be Successful in Rated Battlegrounds.
First off, credentials: I have been 2650 in season 9, which gave me HotH. Next season (S10) I quit the game.
In the start of S11 I got 2350 RBG by running my own pugs, after which I started to lead guild RBG's, with which we capped on 2500, easily in range for hoth were it not for all the people getting boosted to hoth ruining our chances to get it.
In early MoP I capped out at around 2400 in the start, but when switching to russian realms was introduced and win trading was fixed (Blizzard made it harder for teams to purposefully queue into eachother) mmr started inflating, I ended up on 2800 and stayed around there for the rest of the season, even after the exploit that allowed people to get free MMR got fixed. This earned my team around EU (and world) #5-10 RBG rank.
Ofcourse, due to the fact that blizzard doesn't ban wintraders in high-end RBG (they really dont, even the obvious 90-0 on 4000 rating people) I didn't end up getting hoth.
In the start of S12 I quit, but after a few months I came back, getting an easy 2400, after which I quit again due to an absolute lack of decent teams playing.
All of this was achieved mostly with people who have limited arena experience and only 1 or 2 gladiator's, so yes, you can get high in RBG legitimately without being an arena superstar, though it does help to be one.
Blizzard recently changed that you can't queue for a new RBG game if you leave your old one and it's still in progress, hoping that this would fix the wintrader problem, they reset all 2200+ players back to 2200 recently, only to have the ladders be flooded with 2400+ players in greens through (russian) wintraders.
Before I start, a warning; leading RBGs aren't easy, you need to have the ability to network, be patient and above all have the ability to make harsh calls, you can't go and bring people because you feel sorry for them and sometimes you will have to be a dick. Also, as a leader of bad pugs, you can easily get a bad reputation on a server because you just wasted somebody's rating, so be careful with whom you play.
1. Reasons to do RBGs
- 1. It is fun, this is the biggest and most important part of doing RBG's, you have to think its fun, there are very few things in wow close to the rush you get from pulling a last-minute victory against an equally skilled team and knowing you contributed to that win (or even better, are the cause of that win).
- 2. It is a great opportunity to play with friends, I have met over 100 really nice people trough RBG, with which I still hang out and play from time to time
- 3. You get a SICK conquest cap from it, which is much higher then arena rating (on 2.2k your RBG cap is 3511). However, since the changes in MoP you will need to play (and win) alot of games per week to actually earn the RBG part of that cap. A good place to find out how high your cap from RBG is (gonna be) is http://whatsmycap.com/.
- 4. You get a nice mount if thats what your into Vicious War Wolf - Item - World of Warcraft for Horde & Vicious War Steed - Item - World of Warcraft for Alliance.
- 5. You can obtain very nice and prestigious titles, such as Hero of the Horde (or Alliance) and High Warlord/Grand Marshal.
Hero of the Horde is obtained by being within the top 0.5% of your Battleground in RBG at the end of each season, this is the RBG equivalent of gladiator. Last season, the cutoff in my RBG. Every 100 rating, starting from 1100 RBG, will get you a title. The highest title you can get is High Warlord/Grand Marshal, which is the equivalent of obtaining 2400 rating.
If that isn't enough for you to start leading your own RBG groups I personally don't know what is.
2. Getting a group together
Before I start, a note on individual skill:
While being individually skilled in RBG and knowing how to play your class is terribly important, being able to listen is even more important. A lot of good or semi-good arena people often forget that RBG is about accomplishing certain gimmicks, not a form of team death-match pve damage race, which some people believe it is (and frankly, is a good way to win most of the bg's). So you need to make sure you get people who do what you tell them to, even if they are not sure why you are asking them to do it.
2.1 The Setup
Before I start on setup, the following: In RBG, setup isn't as important as in arena, if you are playing low-middle of the pack RBG, it is better to play with people who are good/consistent/can listen then trying to replace people and getting the ultimate setup together, synergy in RBG (especially between healers and FC and between rogue/hunter/mage) is very important.
The current most popular RBG setup is the following:
- Flag Carrier - Arms Warrior/Feral Druid (Ferals are significantly better then arms warriors as FC. However with the recent feral nerfs, they arn't as good in non-FC maps anymore, so having an arms warrior is equally good as a feral druid. Due to ferals higher skillcap, it is hard to play one extremely well in RBGs, and bad ferals can easily cost you games (more so than bad arms warriors). A good feral is much better than a good Warrior, but a bad Warrior is better than a bad Feral. (If you are low rating, Arms Warrior is the safe choice). With the recent changes that give non-fc tanks +20% damage taken and fc tanks +50% damage taken, we have found out that on every battleground, having a feral fc is better then a guardian FC and having an arms warrior FC is better then a protection warrior.
- Healer - Holy Paladin
- Healer - Resto Druid/Mistweaver Monk (With the new changes and the introduction of ring of peace, a Monk is now significantly better to get. However, good Monks are very rare, so most of the time you will have to do with a rdruid)
- Healer - Resto Shaman/Holy Priest
Again, for healers you can make a mix/match of almost any combination of healers, however I believe Holy paladins to be fairly mandatory and having double of any healer is generally considered bad. However, if you can get 2 really good resto shamans, it is definitely worth getting them. Alternatively, if you have access to a lot of good healers but no dps, you can run with 4 healers, again mix and match to your preference.
- DPS - Unholy Deathknight
- DPS - Frost Mage
- DPS - Affliction Warlock
This is the core of any good RBG group, for the 3 remaining spots, you can pick a mix of the following classes/specs.
- DPS - Shadow Priest
- DPS - 2nd Affliction Warlock
- DPS - 2nd DK/Arms warrior
- DPS - Rogue
- DPS - Balance Druid
- DPS - Hunter (though I am personally not a big favorite of playing with them)
- DPS - Elemental shaman
My personal favorite setup would be to take a balance druid, rogue and another afflction warlock, however this depends on what you have, if you know this amazing ret paladin, feel free to take him along, just know that its not optimal.
Before people start jumping on my back saying ''I got 2.9 with xx setup where we did yy completely different, I understand, good players can get high no matter what setup, I am just saying that this setup is the most commonly used, and in my opinion, the best.
2.2 Target Caller
You will also need, on top of having a leader (which is yourself), a target caller.
If you are a DPS and are leading the BG, you can (somewhat easily) do it yourself, however if you are, like me, a healer, you will need to make sure you also have somebody who can call kill targets. While you can do it yourself as dps, it can often get very stressful for you to do it while leading and damaging yourself, so my recommendation would be to find someone else to do it.
You need to make sure that your target caller is a vocal person and isn't afraid to speak on skype/other voice com programs. If you don't have a target caller, everything will go wrong and people will be dpsing all over the place, so avoid this at all costs. Another user on this website made a very decent post about target calling, http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...0#post19284380 for this I claim no credit but I will copy some of what he wrote here.
While it is always good to have backup target callers (dps who might be able to see things the ''official'' target caller does not) you need to be 100% positive that people know who the real target caller is, if someone else calls a target people should ONLY switch when the main target caller confirms the target, not any time else.
Recommended Target Callers
1. Death Knight - Death Grip, makes them the best target caller along with other abilities such as improved chains and silences.
2. Rogue - While not as good as a DK a good rogue can def land a kill if he calls targets in unison with a well timed smoke bomb. The problem with Rogue target callers is that for a lot of the team fights they won't be there (Ninja capping flags, harassing flag carrier etc).
3. Destro Lock - While not as good as the above, warlocks can call good targets since they will be in most team fights and most of their damage is burst, however the disadvantage of taking a warlock when there are melee in your group is that an inexperienced warlock will sometimes call targets outside of the range of your melee.
What not to do..
- Do not tunnel a target
- Do not go on the enemy flag carrier if he has no stacks & the whole raid there peeling for him
- Don't be shy
What to do!
- Switch Often, just because you called the rsham 10 seconds ago do not be scared to call for a hard switch.
- Speak up, you have to be louder then everyone else. Your voice has to be commanding.
- Enable, "Target Count" in your Battlegroundtargets add-on. This will allow you to see how many targets are assisting your target.
- Call for CC, on healers when you are going to burst
- Give countdowns, for example. Say: 5 seconds till AOE grip (via gorefiends grasp). The most important thing here is that you need to check for your teammates cooldowns, if you can line up an AOE grip with a ring of frost and Solar beam, you can wipe the enemy team in seconds, getting this properly coordinated is fairly hard though, and will cause you alot of stress in trying to set up, even on high level, but it is definately worth it.
- Grip overextended targets even further away, and call the kill for them.
2.3 Recruiting the right people
I use 4 general ways to find people for my RBG groups:
a. Guild
I am personally in an RBG guild with 300 people including alts, of those 300 people there are about 40 that I would want to join my group.
If you take guildies, be careful and only take the ones you actually know (or have good references from), your guild policies might not be as strict as your groups policies.
b. Trade
Make a macro and spam your heart out.
A macro should have the following components
1. Your doing RBG
2. Which classes you need
3. What communication system you will use
4. What the requirements are
5. What the expected MMR will be
A macro for my groups usually looks like this
/2 LFM <Insert needed class/needed other class> for RBG, requires 2400 arena or 2400 RBG or 2200 Current RBG, be around ~2200 MMR, using skype
This should be enough to tell people what you need and deter people who don't fit your requirements.
A good rule of the thumb is that if your looking to start a group with a certain approximate MMR, you should ask experience in arena or RBG 200 above that or require somebody's current RBG rating to be at that level.
You can also use armory to gouge a low-current rated persons MMR, mostly by judging his W-L ratio, the higher that is, the higher his MMR will most likely be.
For the rest your pretty much at the mercy of your experience with people and of the rating they tell you they have.
Another hidden requirement to join should be gear, every player that you don't know should be armory checked to see if he has proper gear (just look for people that have similar to your own gear) and has gemmed/enchanted it, this shows he is atleast dedicated and knows what hes doing.
c. Skype conversations
I always use skype as my communication tool during RBG, so I have a huge record of skype calls with alot of people in it which I know are decent (I have played with them before)
So if I am trying to make a new group, I always copy-paste my trade macro into the different skype convos to see if I can recruit people there, this is how I get most of my participants.
d. X-realm recruiting
As of patch 4.3.2, it is now possible to queue with people from your Real-ID list from different servers in RBG.
This function is really easily abusable by just going on an x-realm forum, recruiting people there and then adding them to your Real-ID list and playing with them.
The best way to recruit x-realm people is to log an other account onto a server where you know there are alot of pvp players (stormscale-eu horde for instance) and spam your recruitment message there aswell.
Another way of recruiting people is arenajunkies, they got pretty decent lists of high-profile players interested in RBG, be warned though, these can be very low in rating/mmr considering most only care for arena.
Another way to recruit people is #RBG.EU channel on webchat.quakenet.org, there are usually hundreds of people active there, just spam your recruitment message there and wait for people to contact you.
You really need to be carefull with x-realm people, always check to see if they indeed are/have what they say they have, you got way less means of social control over them and they tend to leave or act rude far more often then the non-x-realm people simply because they will most likely never see you again.
If you like playing with a certain x-realmer just keep him on real-id with a note tagged to him of his class/spec/exp so you can call on him again should you make another group in the future.
2.4 Preparing to queue
Alright, you have your full group of people ready to go and are good to queue, there are a few things you need to do first.
1. Assign roles
2. Give tanks/Healers a mark
3. Make sure everyone is on skype with you
4. Do one more final check of people your not sure off
5. Perform a ready check to see if all here
6. Queue
3. Strategy
The biggest thing about strategy is making sure you know where the opposing team is and where your team are.
You need players who can listen and understand what you are saying and know how to follow orders.
Having a vocal team is great, they can help you in making strats and observing little things that you didn't notice, however at the end of the day, your making the executive calls, so you need to be able to tell people to shut it and listen if they are trying to lead themselves.
For the individual battlegrounds I am going to assume you already know the basics mechanics on what to do and i'm not going to explain how the work, im only going to explain what you need to do as a team to win in RBG
3.1 Warsong Gulch
This battleground is the bread and butter of each team and has been around the longest in the wow history.
It is a simple capture the flag battleground and lasts 20 or untill someone has captured 3 flags.
Most competitive games will last the full 20 minutes, unless someone manages to capture 2 flags, in which case its GG 90% of the time.
In the start of the game you want 9 out of 10 people to leave the gates trough your graveyard.
The 10th will go trough the tunnel and pickup the speed buff, so that the enemy FC can't get it if he manages to push trough you (which will happen 90% of the time), this should also be the person picking up berserking, usually a warlock or balance druid.
You should have 9 people fairly close to each other and your FC on the right side of the map, so he can slip trough as soon as the fighting starts. DO NOT have your FC try and get the flag before the midfield fight has started because otherwise they might turn around and try to kill him, if they succeed they have a huge advantage and even if they fail they force you into a bad position (fighting close to their base, near their GY).
If they have a mage, rogue, hunter or sometimes even balance druid, chances are they will try to slow down your FC to prevent him from getting to the flag, anticipate this by having a player (your least important player in team fights) be mounted up until all of the aforementioned classes are either in combat or trying to engage the tank, if they try to engage the tank it's his job to cc them/slow them down so the tank can run past safely. Tanks in this case should never dismount unless absolutely necessary.
Of course if you are using a feral druid as FC, you shouldn't have to worry about it, since he should just be stealthing past them.
Personally I dont try to go for the enemy FC because im not using a hunter or rogue and am fairly confident in my groups ability to wipe the enemy team midfield. If you have a feral druid and they have a Warrior and you are winning the team fight, you can send 2-3 DPS to their Warrior to kill him before he gets close to his team.
90% of the time the fight will start when a DK gets a decent grip going and people connect on that target, if you do not have a DK, make sure you engage them first because if they grip you you are in a bad shape
While struggling in the mid try and wipe them one by one, follow your target callers orders and hope your team is good enough to wipe them.
- Try killing them and pushing them back to their graveyard.
- If you get close to their graveyard quickly, stop advancing and just keep them boxed in, make sure nobody escapes, that way, when their FC enters midfield, you can easily swap onto him and kill him.
By now, both FC's should have the flag and should be running back, if you are wiping them your FC should take the tunnel, if they are wiping you you should all disengage and meet up with your FC at the ramp to get him across the map safely.
If you see their FC come out of your tunnel and you are on their side call for a disengage of 2-3 people (preferably high-burst classes, like mages spriests and destro locks), everybody else should stay fighting and slowing down the enemy team while those people go for the EFC.
This will usually force 1-2 major cooldowns (last stand/shieldwall) out of their tank or even kill him allowing you to get an easy cap.
If this doesn't happen, have your FC stay behind the group, and have an Hpaladin keep an eye on him, if they want to swap onto your FC they should either use a grip (which can be countered by life-grip) or charge trough your full group, which leaves them and their healers exposed allowing for a quick wipe.
Once you start pushing them towards their graveyard, send your FC together with 1 hpaladin back to your base and start pushing for their FC.
Keep an eye on their spawntimers and try to kill some of them while the rest just spawned for an easy second wipe.
A good way to do this is have a stopwatch set to 45 seconds and push it every time they ress (if one of you addon people read this please help me and make this for me)
With 3 stacks up a Deathgrip-Stun-Smokebomb (if with rogue) should force major cooldowns/get you a kill.
If the EFC isn't standing at their GY but rather in their base, you need to wipe them one last time (should be easy since they will most likely have a healer with their FC) and then have 2-3 people go for the EFC, against heavy burst classes like lock/spriest/mage are ideal for this (though mages not so much after the recent frostbomb nerf).
If you don't have the group to wipe them and they are pushing you back, the only way to win is to fight on your graveyard, with your FC behind you or even on top of your graveyard (warriors can intervene up and (s)priests can grip healers up.
Keep in mind that they can be gripped down by DK's and that warriors/rogues can shadowstep/charge up the graveyard aswell.
If you can't even wipe them while standing on your own graveyard, your in trouble, bigtime.
The only way you can win now is hoping that you cán beat them 5v5.
What you do is split your group up and go to roof, group 1 will be defending, group 2 will be attacking.
Group 1 should consist of the FC, 2 healers and 2 dps who can slow/knockback/control enemy attackers well, like mages, balance druids, warlocks or dk's.
Group 2 should consist of 1 healer and the other 4 dps, and should be going for the EFC (if you let them into your base, their EFC will go back to their base which leaves him vulnerable).
From there on its your job to win the 2 fights, the best way of doing this is having the warrior stand on your roof and have the balance or resto druid regularly knock them down into your flag room, which causes them to have to waste time running back up again, which gives your offense team time to kill the EFC.
Alternatively, if you have a really good feral druid, you can try the kiting strategy, if you do this well you can keep running endless laps around your base and not get caught, remember to only do this with a good feral druid since he will LoS/range your healers aswell and if he gets caught while the healers arn't there he will die very quickly. Remember that after 4 stacks travelform doesn't give any speed boost anymore, so the only way you can kite is by being in bear. Make sure that if your attack team thinks they can kill the EFC soon, that your FC gets ready to jump off the roof/run into the flag room to prepare to cap.
Rinse and repeat this strategy for profit
If you are ahead 1 flag/capped last and its almost time, you can consider camping your roof, this is a pretty risky strategy but it can pay off very well.
Donot consider camping unless there is less then 10 minutes left when the flags are first picked up.
The way to camping is having your melee stand below the ramp, ranged stand up the ramp and FC stand near the edge of the roof, that way, if they want to reach your FC, they will have to go trough your entire team before reaching him.
Also make sure to utilize knockbacks on roof to the fullest extend, knocking 3 dps off while their rogue is bombing is priceless
3.2 Twin Peaks
My guide for twin peaks is essentially the same as Warsong Gulch, but I will give a few more pointers which are unique to TP but that is it.
In the start always try to get across the water asap or else donot fight near the water, not being able to run away because of the bridge LOS or because water slows you down sucks major balls, so just avoid the water alltogether.
If you can't get them to come into the water and basically have a stalemate, go over the water near the alliance graveyard and fight near the big rock there, alternatively you can make a demonic portal and port people over.
If you are getting pushed back, try moving towards your middle graveyard while having your tank stand inbetween you and the graveyard so you get quick resses.
If you really cannot hold it anymore consider going back into your base and up the ramp, especially with knock-back classes and good path blocking it is pretty easy to defend a tank there while your spriest/mage/lock try to kill the EFC.
If you have an elemental shaman and your alliance, try to knock the enemy flag carrier off the map while hes crossing the water near the alliance berserker buff hut, this is really a great strategy, as it gives you a huge chance to get a cap (considering the flag stays in limbo for quite some time before returning itself, which gives you alot of time to get on the flag spot).
Catching flag carriers in the water is a great strategy as horde, you can easily have your casters rip into him from up the ramp and he isn't going anywhere because damage removes his water walking. Water+Slow=not going anywhere.
If they all gather up in their base to turtle, just push trough them with freedom totem and rape the EFC asap.
For the strategy again its the same as WSG only instead of defending on roof you have to defend on ramp.
3.3 Arathi Basin
The following BG's are about defending/keeping bases in order to score, there are some classes that are inherently good at defending while others are medium at it at it. What you are looking for in a base defender is a. enough defensives to keep themselves alive against multiple enemy's while help comes and b. enough ways to prevent an enemy (team) from ccing him to stop the cap.
1. Hunter (alot of defensives aswell as good anti-cc cap because of pet and amazing 1v1 capability)
2. Rogue (alot of defensives and can pmuch chain-sap multiple people to prevent caps, aswell as amazing 1v1 capability)
3. Arms warrior (hard to kill and can zerker rage saps and fears and spell-reflect incomming cc aswell as bladestorm incomming cc)
1. Warlock (alot of defensives, but dies hard to any melee, aswell as cant do full damage due to having to have a pet out to prevent cc caps, also often needed in teamfights for his damage)
2. Mage (just as good of a defender as the ''Good'' category, but often needed in teamfights)
3. Balance druids (alot of defensives/heals but no anti-cc and medium 1v1 capabilitys, though good for defending LM because of knock-off, often needed in teamfights)
Anything besides the above are bad defenders and shouldn't be considered, especially healers
Arathi Basin is the hardest map to lead on, which is positive, considering you can win against teams much better then you by just outleading them.
What you need to do is keep your cool at all times and keep control of your group, people have the tendency to think that they know better on this BG and try and ninjacap bases/go on their own for some reason.
For this game you need to split up your group in 4 subgroups
G1=Arms warrior/feral druid & Hpala, the arms warrior will cap farm and move to BS to try and stall the enemy there
G2=Rogue, hunter or mage (if you have 2)=If you dont have a rogue or hunter or only 1 mage and they do have a rogue/hunter/2 mages, its not worth going for GM since you will lose it anyway, rather have that one extra dps up on LM.
G3=Rsham+Dpriest+4 DPS=LM, once (if) you get LM, they will slow fall down to BS and try to get that aswell
G4=Mage going to LM aswell to fight there and then defend.
In the start all groups will go to their assigned base, the BS group is just stalling the opposing group for as long as possible.
If your G3+4 succeed in doing this, have the mage stay LM, give everybody slowfall and have them jump down to BS to cap that aswell.
As soon as your dps land on BS, your warrior will go to the Farm/stables and defend that for the rest of the game.(arms should obv go sword+board)
G3+4 should then be able to cap BS, since all their DPS are still ressing at farm/stables, or even their starting place if the LM group was quick.
If they manage to get to BS before you can safely cap it, just wipe them again
If your G2 also manages to cap mine, you should now have 4 bases. Most groups however will send 1 dps to mine to help guy cap, this is okay, just have your defenderstall them as long as possible and then die. Like that they will have 1 less player on the BS which makes the fight easier there.
Once you have those 4 (most likely 3 unless its a really bad team) you should spread out your players, 1 healer on each base (if you have LM preferably you on LM, since you have a nice overview there) and all your DPS on blacksmith.
Nowadays it's almost impossible to win a full teamfight on a base that is controlled by another player, so most of their attacks wil be having most of their group go to 1 base and then having 2 sneak attack on another base.
Therefore, if they are attacking 1 base you should only send your 2 other healers there if all enemys have been located (except those defending their bases ofcourse)
The above was all assuming that the enemy doesn't wipe you and that you can get 3/4 bases in the start.
The hard part starts when you arn't able, for instance you get wiped on LM.
What you do then depends on how fast you get wiped, if you lasted long enough to ress on stables/farm it should be fine, you can easily get to BS before the enemy team caps it by slowfalling down from the LM.
Send your mage to help your GM attacker at GM if he hasn't capped that yet so you atleast get that base. Then have the frostmage stay there.
If you failed badly on LM and get a ress in your starting base, you may consider going LM instead, if they are all in the air slowfalling they are really slowed down from getting to LM, and if they only left 1 person there you can easily rape him and ninja the base.
This does however give you the LM-GM-Farm/ST base combination, which is really hard to defend.
If you fail on this aswell and the opponents take BS, you first and foremost need to keep your calm.
What you then do is move your entire group to the point inbetween the 3 bases they have (so for instance if they have LM-Farm-BS, move to the bridge between ST and farm.
There you should try and wipe anyone in your way, which should be easy since they usually have a couple of floaters. Once those are dead you need to see where they have least people defending, BS or LM/GM. Have your mage leave the GM/LM and have him go with another dps that can cc to open on the stables or the farm (whichever applicable) and then send your entire team to the base where they have the least players. Have your DK stand between the BS and that base to slow them down. Make sure you kill 1-2 of them before they are there in full force, once they are all there have 1 person disengage and send your mage from GM/LM to the Farm/Stables (whichever isn't yours) leaving LM undefended and then have him go with that 1 dps to cc cap that base
This should get you back to 3 bases and then just employ the defending strategy I mapped out earlier, even though the bases you are defending arn't fully optimal.
The key to winning this map is the opener and communication, people need to be constantly on the lookout for enemy movement patterns to see where they are going asap, keep an eye on the enemy team rogue and their other stealthers, every person assigned to solo defend a base should be able to keep that base alone for atleast 30 seconds if they use full cooldowns.
If you are doing a mass fight you should always be on the lookout for people who are trying to ninjacap, this is mainly the job of the person assigned to defend that base, so if he sees someone trying to ninja while hes cc'd, he should ofcourse call it out. The person best suited to keeping an eye on the flag is the DK and the destro lock(s), since howling blast/rain of fire allows them to instantly stop any capping attempt.
This BG is where the good people distinguish themselves from the average ones, keeping a base against 2 people helbend on either ripping you apart in a global or ninjaing that base from you is really an art.
If you have incommings here, make sure you say it, even if it is only one and you think you can handle it, as soon as its needed people should be coming over to wipe them.
Thats about it for AB, the key to winning this place is great internal communication combined with excelent strat knowledge and solo performance.
Good luck, this is the hardest BG to lead that there is.
3.4 Eye of the Storm
This is the worst BG you can get, it is a BG that is essentially decided in the first ~4 minutes of the game and from then on you have the choice to either play fun or turtle for the win. Having people who can knock back (especially combined with aoe grips) is really good here
Send a mage/hunter/rogue to one base and the arms warrior/feral druid to the other one (it doesn't really matter which one goes where), the arms warrior will probably stay on his base for the entire game picking his nose (fun gameplay, I know) while the mage should try to find out what class is on the tower opposite to him and occasionally try and ninjacap it (have him ask you for permission first though). You need to avoid having an arms warrior on the MT/BET because it is really easy for a mage to ninjacap from him there
In the start of the game have 8/10 of your team charge the middle.
If you fail to do this this can have potentially horrible consequences, because half your team is at half health when you reach the middle.
Once all are in the middle, start pushing them back knockbacks/pressure.
If they are pushed back far enough your ele shams/druids should knock them off to create even more pressure.
Try and wipe them asap as this fight is the most important one in the game.
Your DK should keep an eye on the flag with howling blast to avoid them from ninjacapping it, but if you already do good damage this should never happen
Once you start wiping them push them back and tell your healers to cap the flag.
The best person who can do this is a resto shaman or a resto druid because they can ghostwolf/travelform with the flag for less downtime.
Have him run to the arms war/ (or to the mage if you have a feral defending) and drop flag and then go back to the middle again, instruct your FC to only cap flags when you say it.
Just keep wiping them if they try and push one of your towers or your FC.
Your flag carrier is basically unkillable due to not getting debuffs for carrying the flag.
If you play it really gay you can just have 2 people on 1 base and the other 8 on the base they are currently attacking when you get the flag and wait with capping till 50 points left for an easy win
If you have a semi-decent team, you should never ever ever lose a base because of the graveyard being so close to each base (except maybe MT).
Then when the score hits 1550 (this will take a long time) have your FC cap the flag, good game, you just won in the most lamest way ever.
If the opponent has better pressure then you you are basically ****ed on this map, you can't really win unless they play badly.
Your best bet is to have 7/10 push into one base which isn't opposite to the one your mage is on and have your mage leave his base and go to the other base together with another dps who can use crowd control wel (a spriest, balance druid, rogue or warlock) then control the 1 defender and hope you can ninja it by ccing the defender before reinforcements arrive.
Another good trick you can use if you have a DK if you want to force them to cap is to Deathgrip the FC to the flagspot, this is quite hard however since most FC's won't get in LOS of the flagspot if they notice your trying to do this. If you do this make sure there is someone in the middle to pickup the flags.
If they have a hunter defending a base that pushes your warrior/feral, your in trouble, since a hunter can easily solocap against a warrior, if this happens you have 3 options, either switch your warrior/feral and mage around, so the mage is facing the hunter, this might be risky because they can cap your base if they time it right.
The second option is to continuously send a dps back to defend with your warrior when the hunter is comming, which kinda rapes you in the middle.
The third option is having a dps push through the enemy (balance druids with travel form/displacer or spriests with disperse work really well for this) and go to the base the hunter just left empty and try to cap it, most of the times you will fail but it should scare them enough to not try such shit again.
If they have a rogue he might try capping against your warrior aswell, since blind is now 1.5 minutes, so what he will do it go to the base, force your warrior's/feral trinket with his blind and back off only to come back and ninja it again when his blind is back up and your warrior's/feral trinket isn't, you need to make sure your war/feral sets a timer for this and asks for a backup during that 30 seconds when his trinket isn't back up and he is vulnerable to the rogues cc.
3.5 Battle of Gilneas
Battle of Gilneas is after TP/WSG my favorite battleground, before blizzard changed the spawnpoints it was really impossible to win after you were 1 base down because people could just spawn-rush you pretty hard making it impossible to take a base off the opponents. Luckily once they changed this it very possible to win this even after overcomming a wipe in the first fight
In this battleground it is the best to have your war/feral go arms/kitty and defend GM/LH and the rest of your group will go WW.
If you are horde, send your entire group except for your holy paladin around the back, the holy paladin should go front way, make sure your dk has waterwalking. As horde you have a pretty big disadvantage in this bg at ww, because your healers are stuck in a very tight place, making them very vulnerable to getting killed.
In this BG, it is basically healer rushdown, you focus their healers and they focus yours, the one who kills the opposing teams healers first wins.
I have had games where all 3 of both teams healers were dead after 30 seconds, leaving the dps to juke it out.
Ofcourse, it is still important to not overextend ridiculously hard and get killed of.
Make sure you wipe them before they wipe you, again your DK should be keeping an eye on the flag to avoid them ninjacapping it.
This fight can last for quite long, but even if you notice your getting wiped, keep going, you can still recover if you all die.
Once you control WW, send your hpal to the mines/LH with the arms war and have your mage/rdruid stay at WW.
The rest of your dps+resto shaman should be on the little ramp right next to the waterworks (in between mines and waterworks).
So if they choose to instead of going for a base go for the inbetween group, they can very easily go trough the backway to either mines or WW.
If they choose to engage the group standing there it is really important that you donot get caught, as this will certainly lead to your death.
Also never try to pick fights away from bases.
If they go for the WW and kill someone, he will spawn at the mines, if he has 10 second left and is considered a capable base defender (see the list I posted previously) your arms warrior can then move WW to prevent them from capping the base and thus to buy you some time, you do need to coordinate this properly though.
If they win the first fight over waterworks, you need to make sure that you donot panic, have everybody wait for their ress and buff up, you still have plenty of time.
Then move towards the big mountain in between LH and Mines.
See where their in-between group is and engage that one.
Most likely you will kill 1-2 of them and they will all push back into WW, this is excactly where you want them.
Have your DK(s) stand in between the WW and the LH to slow down any attempts from the enemy team to go LH and have your entire group push LH.
There should only be 2 people there which are easily wipable so you can cap that base.
If it does turn out to be a really long fight at LH you can still wipe them, considering you already killed 1-2 of them earlier.
If this strategy fails just rinse & repeat till you get it right, it does take some discipline from your group to not chase them to WW here.
Always make sure your defenders are communicating with you wether or not their bases are under attack this is again of key importance.
For defending against a rogue/hunter attacking LH/Mines, the same strategy(s) apply as on eots.
3.6 Silvershard Mines
This BG is fairly hard to lead and takes alot of coordination and people knowing what they are doing but since it's new its often easy to win since most teams don't know what to do properly on this one.
Also this BG is ridiculously biased towards horde, they are ALWAYS faster to both the lava and the mid cart then the alliance, so if you remain wipeless in the first teamfight, the horde get the lava cart guaranteed, unless the alliance can keep them out of the cart.
Also it is really easy for the horde to bottleneck them and get a great grip-beam combo on them.
The lava cart is the cart that caps fastest, almost twice as fast as the top cart, so since horde have a much easier time controlling it, they will get more points and have a much bigger chance of winning, huge oversight by blizz.
First of have your feral/warrior go arms/kitty if he has the proper gear for it.
First of abit on linguistics: it's important that people know what you mean when you call for a certain cart, so say beforehand to your team that:
Most left cart=top or water
Middle cart=middle
Right card=right or lava
Respawn place of carts=spawn
This might seem abit obvious but I can't tell how many times I have seen people go to the middle and fight there while the leader was calling the middle cart.
The place where the carts spawn is never the same, so as a leader you need to adjust your strategy based on if carts are able to be capped from the start, this will take some practise but isn't very hard.
In the start you start of by sending 1 person to the middle (horde) or top (alliance) (see my previous list of defenders) and having all other 9 people go for lava cart, since the locations of the carts can vary randomly in RBG, you need to estimate if you can still cap a cart before it auto caps, this is a proces of trial and error and will take some time before you get a feeling for it.
The goal of this BG is to always make sure you cap 2 carts while the enemy caps 1, preferably the top cart.
The way you do this is by continuously fighting them 9v9 on a specific cart, wiping power really doesn't matter here, controlling of the carts is what matters.
Always leave 1 person who can survive behind on a cart, this will tipically be your warrior/feral (even if he is arms/kitty).
What you need to do is always make sure you are inside the carts range (rsham freedom totem & hpala freedoms are really good here) while making sure that your enemys arn't, classes with knockbacks/aoe cc (shamans, (r/b)druids, mages, warlocks and arms warriors are really good here).
Try to get them splitted up on ress, dont kill their last few people untill the first people are (about to) ress.
The most important thing here is capping the carts, not controlling them, 1 cap gives 150 points, which is more then all the points combined you get from controlling a cart.
The shortest route from spawn-cap is the lava cart, so if possible make sure you get that one every time.
There are levers to make the cart go a different route, but they are fairly useless, I suggest never really using them.
You can try ninjacapping the enemy's cart only do this if the cart your trying to catch is like 3/4th along the way of being capped, this way you dont waste to much time if you fail and if you succeed its to late for the enemy to reinforce, but this is risky since it requires you to send 2 people away which you will not have later, also the 1 defender might be a very good player and be able to defend it by himself until it caps. So in general unless your really certain you can get it or are really desperate for that 1 cap, its probably not worth it.
There are switches that can alter tracks, but I almost never use them, since they are kinda pointless since its really hard to reach the switches if the cart is between spawn and the switches, because there is a big bottleneck on both sides.
Overall this is quite a hard BG to lead and it is very dependent on what the enemy does where you want to send your forces, just be careful and make sure people dont make silly mistakes and you should be fine.
3.7 Temple of Kotmogu
This BG is the most stressful cluster**** you will ever encounter, and is mostly about individual skill rather then group leadership.
Again in the start you need to make sure you agree on linguistics, you can either go for top/bottom right/left (seen from the world map) or with the orb colors, depending on what you prefer. We use the colors, which might take some practise but is easiest once everyone knows where which orb is (Orange=Top-Right, Purple=Top-Left, Green=Bot-Left and Blue is Bot-Right
From here on all hell breaks loose.
Make sure the first 2 orbs are picked up by ''proper'' carriers this includes:
- Feral Druid
- Mages
- Locks
- Spriests
- Hunters
- Moonkins with Warlock Symbiosis
Basically anything except for healers and melee.
In the start, you want all of your group to go to one side with the enemy team and have a big teamfight, if 1-2 die, 2 good 1v1 classes should split of and go around for the enemys FC's, ofcourse if you can grip them in thats amazing aswell, but very hard.
Try to always have your FC's together with the main group standing in the back and kite them along the lines, NEVER have them in the middle unless the enemy team is wiped, and then always have them stand on the bottom of the ramps so they can easily get out of the middle
Also have your ranged stand on ramps and ready to pickup orbs that will die
If your killing someone controlling an orb, call out what color is about to get avaible or where that color can be found, so people can go there to pick it up.
Similarly, if your dying call out where the orb you will drop will be respawning.
Now the point count is fairly interesting, the amount of points you get depends on where you are standing, you get 5 points/5 seconds when you are in the circle, 4 points every 5 seconds if you are in the ring around the circle and 3 points if you enter the grass. (there is a pretty big modifier if you controll all 4 orbs but you can come back from having that happen)
Also you get 10 points every time you kill an enemy orb holder.
What you want to do when you have the orbs is NEVER go into the middle, except when almost the entire enemy team is wiped, to score some quick points, but after that get out asap again, since you are very vulnerable to ganks in the middle.
If you have an orb you will just want to kite around the platforms while the rest of your team keeps them of you, just go round in circles while another part of the team goes for the enemy orb holders.
Generally you don't want to kill healers since they will be oom most of the game spamming heals into orb holders (they have less healing taken) so dont bother swapping on healers unless they are a free kill, just focus on orb holders.
Getting the kiting under control is the hardest thing about this battleground, if you can master that properly you have pretty much won the game.
Also don't be afraid to kite outside to the green if your about to get killed or most of your team is dead, it is a really good way to prevent the enemy team from getting all orbs and getting the +10 point bonus from killing you.
If you have good coordination you can also bop orbs of people (only way to reset stacks) and then quickly have someone else pick up the orb, you need to make sure for this that there is someone ready to get the new one, only do this if bad carrier classes have them or people have high stacks.
3.8 Deepwind Gorge
This ''new'' bg is basically a mix between Warsong Gulch and Battle of Gilneas.
Before the game starts, you want to divide your team up in 3 groups, depending on what 1v1 classes you have (hunter, mage,feral and rogue) and on how good you judge those players to be. If you think they can 1v1 an opposing hunter/mage/rogue and you have 1 of each, send 1 of them to each top/bottom base and the third with your main team to mid (more on that later), if not, send 2 of them to top and noone to bot, it is most important that you get at least top or bottom. If you are running with 4 healers send 1 healer and a dps to one base instead of 2 of your 1v1 classes.
Put the rest of your team (including your arms) to go to the middle base and fight to the death there. The fight in mid might last for quite a while, but as soon as the opposing team hits 150 resources, have your fc peel off and go for their cart, not before that, since otherwise you don't take the full 200 resources from the enemy team from picking up their cart. If you win the fight at mid, make sure you have at least top or bottom and then have 2 people defend, a healer and your tank go for their cart and the rest of the group being reactionary focussing on either protecting your cart carrier, killing enemy cart carrier, or protecting whichever base they are attacking.
Alternatively, you could leave 1 dps to harras/slow the enemy cart carrier so you can easily kill him when he picks up the cart, remember that if you return your cart, you will gain the 200 resources the enemy team stole from you back.
Even if you can't wipe them in fights, you can still win if you cap a lot of carts while preventing your enemy from doing so, so that is the best strategy if you can't win the mid teamfight. Alternatively, you could try ninjaing top/bot base with a stealth team (mage/rogue/feral/hunter/resto druid), 2 of those classes.
This bg is really big, so you will need to anticipate the moves the enemy team is making before they actually make them, otherwise you might be to late to do anything about their play. There is not much else to say about this battleground, just act smart, anticipate what the enemy is going to do and try to kill their cart carriers as much as you can while capping/keeping two bases.
4.0 Addons
- 1. Battlegroundtargets, this is absolutely the best addon for RBG ever, it allows you to keep track of how many the enemy team got alive, how many stacks the FC's/Orb holders have where enemy's (trough clicking on them and looking at the mini map) and how much mana their healers have left, this baby has alot of settings so work with what you think works best.
- 2. Deadly Boss Mods for seeing when the next stack in FC games will be comming
- 3. Icycle (as Target caller) to see what anti-damage buffs your target has up
- 4. Any raid cooldown timer addon which allows you to see what defensives the individual members of your group have up.
Note: If anyone knows of an addon which tracks enemy teams res timers, preferably on all BG's but mostly for WSG/TP, please contact me or post it in this thread and I will be very grateful, I know that bailamos has one, but he refuses to share it
5.0 Tips
- 1. Buy battle standards, in mass fight that extra HP boost can be great, especially if you can always keep one up (which is pretty much the case if you have 10), make sure you place them strategically, in houses, behind your group or at least as far out of reach of the enemy as possible.
On the other side, always be on the lookout for badly placed battle standards, even healers can 1-shot these things.
- 2. As of patch 5.1, blizzard disabled cooldowns in RBG that couldn't be used in arena, this includes Infernal, Bloodlust/Heroism/Time Warp, Lay on Hands, Ahnk
- 3. Loot enemy corpses, this prevents people from walking to their corpses, on the other hand if the enemy fails to loot your corpse and you get a long ress timer and you havn't died alot yet this fight, feel free to run back to your corpse.
- 4. Always keep an eye on their ninja capping classes (rogue/mage/hunter/druid), if they are disengaging on a node battleground they will most likely try and ninja something, if they are disengaging on a capture the flag BG have a healer move close to your tank for when he opens with smokebomb. In node bg's, it is the defenders duty to do this.
- 5. Look enemy players up on the armory before the game starts, if they have sub-par pvp gear they are most likely carried alts who make for easy targets.
- 6. In the case that your fighting against a boosting team (easily seen from the 2400+ CR of half of the team compared to the 2200- rating of the other half, don't stress, its okay if they wipe you to the floor, they should be playing on 2400 rating, not 2100. If you think it helps report the people to blizzard, but I don't believe blizzard does anything to counter RBG boosters.
- 7. Always stick together unless your called to do otherwise, ramboing really doesn't help.
- 8. Call out your cc's and the targets your using them on
- 9. If you have abit better group, you could try setting focus targets for ranged to use their interrupts on so you know all healers are getting interrupted at least once.
- 10. If inviting a certain player to your group doesn't feel good, don't do it
- 11. If you run alot of good pugs, you may become famous and people will constantly spam you asking if your making a group again, always be polite when responding to them because you might need me later.
- 12. If you are about to die, ask for the ress timer, if it is almost up make sure to die quickly (run into them, click off buffs) so that you make the ress timer
- 13. Shouting at people is often reasonable, if they don't do as you told them or are playing really badly, this will often shake them up and make them focus better. However try to keep it at a minimum, you only want to yell at people if they are making very obvious mistakes or arn't listening, dont rage because the game is going bad in general, nobody wants to play with a rage machine because it's simply not fun. Also if you rage alot people will think it's your normal way of communicating, making it less exceptional when you do and people are bound to be less impressed by it, so keep it at a minimum.
- 14. You are the only person that shouts at people, it's your job and entitlement as a leader, if other people in your group start doing it the atmosphere will turn ugly very soon, so make sure people dont start flaming on each other, most of the time people making mistakes are prepared to take it from you since your the leader, but not from some other random guy.
- 15. Play well, leading by example and not making stupid mistakes is the best way of showing people how it is done, it will also increase their respect for you.
- 16. Have your little map open somewhere in your screen at all times, to make sure you dont constantly have to toggle up the big map to see where people are etc.
- 17. Due to AOE grip sharing DR with vortex, the grip-->vortex-->solar beam combo is a lot less potent, still having a good aoe grip can change games enormously.
Well thats about it for this guide guys, I hope you enjoyed it and learned something useful from it.
Please do not copy-paste this guide without giving me credit and linking back to this original guide.
If you disagree with anything written here please say so and maybe you can help me refine my strategy's
If any errors I might have made, please point them out.
If you have questions, feel free to ask them and ill get back to you as soon as I can


text:
Monday, September 03, 2007
Left Behind, anyone?
Now here's something interesting. You know those Left Behind books? Bestsellers in America, written by two premillenarian dispensationalists - that is, fundamentalist Christians who believe that there's going to be a Rapture where all the good people are lifted up to heaven, leaving behind only the bad ones, to whom all manner of bad, Apocalyptic things are going to happen? The Left Behind books are a story of what happens after the Rapture (nothing nice, unless you get with the theological program), basically a religious revenge-fantasy thriller series.
The Slacktivist blog, written by an evangelical Christian who doesn't believe in the Rapture, and disapproves of revenge fantasies on the grounds that Jesus probably meant it when he said things like 'Judge not lest ye be judged' and 'Blessed are the peacemakers', has taken such exception to them that it's proving an almost line-by-line critical analysis. I've never seen such detailed reviewing: it goes through the book page by page, quoting sections, discussing the writing, reflecting on the message, considering the implications and arguing with the writers. It's fascinating to watch, an impassioned, detailed analysis that puts astonishing amounts of time and energy into the longest review in the world.
In brief, the blog writer calls the books 'evil', and goes into a lot of detail about why. The basic points are that the books substitute vengeful triumphalist fantasies for supposedly Christian virtues like love and forgiveness, that they're misogynist, callous about human suffering and self-flattering. Another point, and a worrying one, is that they support a worldview in which care for the environment or the infrastructure, and a desire to avoid war, are seen as bad things: the end is coming, and the worse things get, the more we'll hasten the end, so the sooner we can get into heaven, hence it's good to start wars and pollute. To quote a couple of passages:
That word -- "peacemaker" -- practically screams Antichrist ... For those not initiated into the cabalistic logic of PMD [premillenarian dispensationalist] prophecy freaks, this seems counter-intuitive. Peace, after all, is generally regarded by Scripture as a Good Thing. Peace is one of the fruits of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22). The Messiah is described as the "Prince of Peace" (Isaiah 9:6-7). Peace is often spoken of by God's angels, including the heavenly host of the Christmas story in Luke 2 (cue Linus), who sing, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men." ... But none of this matters to the prophecy nuts who are convinced that the Antichrist will be a man of peace. And since they believe that the most important thing for Christians to do is to be on the lookout against the Antichrist, and vigilantly opposed to his evil ways, they believe that Christians must oppose anyone who speaks of, pursues, or tries to make, peace.
This is one of the most astonishing and dangerous aspects of the popularity of the End Times heresies promoted by people like LaHaye and Jenkins. It is one of this biggest reasons why this matters -- deeply, truly, seriously matters.
This eagerness, this enthusiasm for apocalypse, is theologically malodorous, but it is also politically dangerous. Here again are L&J and their 50 million readers cheering for entropy, celebrating calamity, wars and rumors of war as the confirmation of their desires, and railing against peace and progress as setbacks to this consumation for which they devoutly wish. They believe that things must fall apart and the center must not hold, because even now the beast is slouching toward Jerusalem.
They want this to happen. And, whenever they can, they vote for it.
I haven't read the Left Behind books, and I don't think I'm going to - for one thing, with this site up and running you hardly need to, and for another, the Rapture is not something I personally think likely to happen, so the spiritual message of the books is not likely to ring many bells with me. (Though here's a very compassionate and intelligent article.) But it's a curious idea, and, at least as presented in these books according to Slacktivist, on a par with the way religions sometimes tilt.
A few years ago, I went on a holiday to Venice and spent a fair amount of time looking around the churches and museums. And it left a profound impression: for at least some of its life, in some of its incarnations, Christianity has been a dark faith. Venice, of course, is Catholic, and most of the art was medieval. Crucifixions you can expect in any church, and Stations of the Cross art you can expect in many Catholic ones, but Venice didn't stop there. Reliquaries were on all sides, each containing part of a saint's corpse; display cases with more than a dozen brown, fragile arm-bones or hands from saints; pieces of the flagellation post with little gold figures whipping a little gold Christ; beautifully painted eight-panel strip cartoons showing the martyrdom of this saint or that, involving intestines being wound round a block or an upside-down man being sawn in half from the crotch upwards... Depictions of gruesome death and actual fragments of dead people were in all the sacred places. Christianity was manifesting here as a death-cult as grisly as anything the Aztecs could have dreamed up; the Way, the Truth and the Life were getting much less wall-space than martyrdoms and relics.
This is an accusation that's often levelled at Catholicism: that it's a morbid religion. Standing in front of some of those Venetian display cases, I'd find it hard to argue. But it's interesting to see that an extreme version of Protestantism can wind up in a similar condition, though a kind of reversal takes place: Slactivist argues that the problem with the Left Behind position is that it's based, not in excessive interest in death, but in excessive fear of death:
L&J [the authors, LaHaye and Jenkins] are not interested in resurrection. Resurrection is something that happens to dead people, and L&J don't want to die. Death scares them. And that, more than anything else, explains what rapture-mania is all about.
Christianity is about death and resurrection, not about the denial of death. Not about "Jesus coming back to get us before we die."
The result is a faith that prefers war-making to peacemaking, destruction to construction, because they'll hasten an end that will spirit believers up to Heaven without them having to go through the process of dying. That's also a pretty dark faith. It's a case of extremes meeting, as is often the way.
(I should say here and now that I'm not saying anything about premillenarian dispensationalists in general; I don't know any, but I'm sure there are good, kind and pious people among them, as there are in every faith. I don't much like the attitude of these particular authors as described in Slacktivist, but that's only two people, not the whole denomination.)
Anyway, have a look at the site. It's an intriguing example of educated but non-academic close analysis, funny in many places, and quite possibly an important social docmument. (To begin at the beginning, you have to read from the bottom up, as most recent posts are at the top.)
Despite not being the least bit religious, I'm fascinated by religion and theology. (Or maybe my lack of religion explains my fascination? I don't know.) I've read a lot of mixed reviews on these books and I've drawn the conclusion that they follow the same lines as the street preachers you get in Cambridge every now and then.
Essentially their message is that it doesn't matter if you're a good, kind, decent human being. As long as you're not the same kind of Christian as them, you're going to Hell. It's fear-mongering no difference from the kind that went on centuries ago in Europe, when the Church sold indulgences to absolve you of your sins and pave your way into Heaven.
I agree that Christianity in some incarnations is a dark faith - and it seems that some people use that aspect of it to create fear in their followers. (I know I'm generalising.) I'm sure this is something that happens in all religions in some form or another, but it seems only to be prevalent in Christianity.
What about Islamic fundamentalists? I hesitate to side with the kneejerk warmongers who are wildly demonising the entire Islamic faith, but I think that group of fundies has a pretty blood-and-sulphur set of beliefs as well...
For my money, it's not really religion that's the problem. Some people have dark souls, and rather than using their faith to enlighten them, darken their faith to match. Being a good person is difficult, and sometimes it's just easier to use your faith to justify your faults rather than to purge them. A sad thing, and sometimes a dangerous one.
I grew up in an eschatalogical church and yes, these are attitudes one frequently sees. Not only is there a total lack of concern about issues such as environmental degradation, overpopulation, poverty, etc. (because Jesus will be here any day now to set things right, so why bother?), but many people express actual glee at any bad news. They're happy when there's another war in the Middle East because it validates their view that Armageddon will be here soon.
Yikes. Hope you're not too distressed by the whole experience. :-)
You'd know more about this than me, because you've got personal experience, so do you think I'm right to assume that the main problem is that in cases like this, personal vices get given a free pass by corrupted religion? Glee at bad news sounds like the desire to have someone else sort everything out - ie laziness - coming out in a profoundly warped way. (As in, 'Yay, bad news, that means it'll all be sorted out soon!')
I ask partly because I'm thinking of a comment that shocked a lot of people, quoted in this article (http://www.talk2action.org/story/2007/2/8/04932/02745) -
'The best thing about the Left Behind books is the way the non-Christians get their guts pulled out by God.'
-- 15-year old fundamentalist fan of the Left Behind series
My first reaction was horror as well, but thinking about it and trying to be charitable, I wonder if that's just a fundamentalist formulation of standard, horrid-little-boy adolescence. He's not allowed to play Grand Theft Auto, so he's indulging his distateful, but developmentally normal, appetite for mayhem wherever he can find an outlet. Which, in this case, is the Left Behind books. If that were the case, it might explain their success: a socially sanctioned outlet for violent impulses must be very appealing to people whose behaviour is normally tightly constrained.
What do you think?
What about Islamic fundamentalists? I hesitate to side with the kneejerk warmongers who are wildly demonising the entire Islamic faith, but I think that group of fundies has a pretty blood-and-sulphur set of beliefs as well...
Ah yes, I concede ^-^ I think what I meant (and probably forgot to actually say, lol) is that it seems this kind of attitude is better documented in Christianity. And even that's a terribly inaccurate statement, given the current global climate and anti-Islam state of mind. Maybe it's always just a case of "my God is better than yours."
Re the 15-year-old Left Behind fan - I wonder if his real intention was simply to shock? In the same way a 15-year-old might, under other circumstances, brag about drinking, drugs or sex.
Or is it more inline with kingm's comment - certain people are looking forward to Armageddon
because it will prove their beliefs right?
'Re the 15-year-old Left Behind fan - I wonder if his real intention was simply to shock?'
You could well be right. It would be, like my theory that he enjoyed it because it was his only permitted outlet for violent impulses, entirely normal behaviour for his age - and he might even have been doing both, enjoying mayhem and trying to shock his interviewer. Double whammy! I always incline to think that human nature rules ideology rather than the other way around.
It would be a more benevolent interpretation than thinking that he really truly does want most of his species eviscerated, anyway. But then, he might only sort-of want it, even if he's convinced he believes. Slacktivist points out quite a few occasions in the books where the authors, despite professing a literal belief in the book of Revelations, then write as if they have to be metaphorically interpreted, suggesting that even they don't entirely believe everything they're saying - or at least, not with all of their minds. One of the qualities of authoritarian thinking, which I was talking about in the article about fantasy below, is that it's highly compartmentalised and can sustain a high degree of cognitive dissonance...
I'm working my way through Slacktivist's posts - very fun, interesting reading. It's fascinating how the authors of the series have tried to take Revelations and translate it literally into fiction. One assumes (one having not read Revelations or Left Behind) that there are aspects they've either had to leave out or mould to fit the storyline.
Faith is an interesting thing. You can't prove or disprove matters of faith, so it's probably easy to say you want all non-believers disembowelled by God, knowing nobody will be able to successfully prove it couldn't actually happen.
The U.S., especially in the "bible belt" states, is as fundamentalist as any Islamic state. They could tip into Taliban-like behavior any day and it scares me.
For the real skinny on how and when and by whom the much ballyhooed "pre-trib" rapture delusion came into being, indulge yourself in the 300 pages of "The Rapture Plot" - the most detailed, the most documented, the most breath-taking assemblage of facts anywhere. I bought my copy at Armageddon Books online. But please don't reveal the name of the 19th century plotter - whose "mother of all revisionisms" was totally unknown before the above book came along. If pre-tribism can survive this bombshell, it deserves to! Clara
I also call "shenanigans," a bit, in the way these books get classified as "best-seller" -- churches and religious bookstores buy them in bulk to resell (I think I got that right) which is not the same as Mr. Average Mainstream American Joe–times-several-million walking into the Barnes and Noble and picking up a bunch of copies because it's so durn popular.
Sorry, that bit bugs me. These books are always portrayed as something "sweeping the nation," and they're just not.
Ah, I didn't know that. I suppose it's possible that you could still argue that they're 'sweeping the nation' if you concede that the church is pushing the broom. :-)
I need a major religion to push my books. Any world leaders reading this, I'm open to offers...
Well, I've given it to three people so far, and one is a Baptist? I know, I know, needs work.
*starts cult*
I've been reading the Left Behind entries on the Slacktivist blog for quite some time. I find them immensely entertaining. I worked at a Big Box Bookstore for several years, and I had to shelve the Left Behind books. They sold pretty steadily, so it's not just church bookstores that they were coming out of. I've been genuinely curious about the books, but averse to having to endure that much bad prose, so I'm grateful that I have this blog to do it all for me. ;)
I've never really understood the whole "Screw the future, Jesus is coming!" attitude that so many fundies seem to have. It strikes me as not unlike letting the dishes pile up in the sink while your parents are on vacation, on the basis that Mom will wash them when she gets back. If you honestly believe that humanity was designed by God to be the stewards of creation, shouldn't you be doing a little more . . . stewarding?
I think it's more a case of using religion to justify political points of view, since environmentalism (in the US, at least) is seen as the domain of Those Godless Liberals.
Yeah, it's too bad how often religion can be used as a justifier of things with which it has nothing to do. Gives the phrase 'justification by faith' a whole new meaning...
Protestantism, too, had its origins in blood and gore: the Church of England used to have copies of Foxe's Book of Martyrs in each church, and it was phenomenally successful, especially for its grotesque woodcuts of Protestant martyrs. I've seen 16th-century copies and the pages with horrific pictures always show the most wear -- crumbs in the spine, smudges, handwritten captions. The dark aspect of Christianity is, as either you or another commenter already pointed out, a part of human nature.
Interesting point; I'm sure you're right. I'm not saying anything in particular against Catholicism; most of my family is Catholic or lapsed Catholic. It's just the religion where I happen to have seen the goriest art.Post a comment
What kind of captions? What do people say?!
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subset: commoncrawl


text:
Identical twins serve as excellent control groups: when one is affected by a disease, researchers can uniquely look at environment and genes for the reasons behind the illness. For researchers, the hardest part of the work can be identifying the twins and getting them to participate in research studies.
Thanks in part to a unique arrangement with the Department of Licensing, the UW's Twin Registry is becoming a one-of-a-kind program in the nation, with the goal of 10,000 twin pair participants. Researchers expect this energized program to deliver significant science and health benefits.
DOL provided the UW with an excellent data source since the agency issues driver license numbers based on applicants' names and dates of birth, and because DOL historically asked initial applicants if they were a twin to combat issuing duplicate license numbers. In 1998, the University of Washington negotiated with DOL to obtain access to agency records as a part of state agency data-sharing. This was necessary to form a twin registry. In early October, 2010, DOL amended its agreement to also collect data about twin-status during driver license and ID card renewals in addition to initial applications. This has dramatically increased voluntary participation in the UW's Twin Registry.
Using federal stimulus funding, the UW funded the reprogramming on DOL servers and other associated processes used in gathering information from the public.
"Even during these tough economic times, it's important that work critical to people's health and lives moves forward, and it's equally as important that in these tough times, that we all work together, and that's what is happening here," DOL director Liz Luce said.
UW researchers say that genetic research performed through this registry could offer new strategies for investigating and treating common and emerging diseases as well as bioterror threats.


text:
A member of the NCAA Division III and the USA South Athletic Conference, LaGrange offers 16 intercollegiate teams, from football to lacrosse. Our athletic facilities, including an outstanding baseball stadium, natatorium, two-field softball complex and 4,000-square-foot weight training room, are among the best in the region.
Year, after year, LaGrange student-athletes earn conference and national recognition in their chosen sports. Ready to join them? Fill out a Recruit Me form for your sport below and find out if there's a spot on a Panther team waiting for you.


text:
- Tech Trader Daily
Salesforce, Google, Amazon Cloud Winners, Says Piper; Microsoft Straddles the Line
- Order Reprints
- Print Article
Piper Jaffray enterprise software analyst Mark Murphy today offers up the results of a survey of 141 chief information officers regarding their use of cloud computing, though the details of the time frame in which the survey was taken are not provided.
Murphy arrives at the conclusion that only 9.7% of all computing workloads are running in s0-called public clouds, of the sort Amazon.com (AMZN) provides with its Amazon Web Services. But that is expected to rise to 30.2% in five years' time. That adds up to 44% annual growth in workloads for the public cloud versus 8.9% growth for "on-premise" computing workloads.
Murphy finds Salesforce.com (CRM), Amazon, Google (GOOG) and ServiceNow (NOW) to be cloud winners, with Microsoft (MSFT), which runs the "Azure" cloud service, being named both a winner or a loser, depending on which way one looks at it. Oracle (ORCL) and Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) are definite losers:
We asked each CIO to describe an application that was moved from on-premise to the public cloud. The cloud winners mentioned most frequently are salesforce.com (21%), Microsoft (15%), Amazon (9%), Google (6%) and ServiceNow (6%). The losing vendors/technologies most frequently being replaced by a cloud solution are in-house technology (16%), Microsoft (13%), Oracle (6%) and HP (4%). Key takeaways: 1) CRM emerges as a clear disruptor and cloud computing leader, 2) Microsoft is frequently mentioned on both sides of the ledger, as CIOs migrate Exchange to Office 365, but nets out positively; 3) Amazon and Google are materializing rapidly as new threats to traditional infrastructure vendors.
Most of the report consists of quotes of anecdotal experiences:
We moved our email anti-spam solution from an onsite solution to a cloud-based version of anti-spam from the same vendor. The vendor is WebSense. We eliminated one MS Windows-based server in the process of doing this. We are seeing a significant decrease in staff time spent dealing with SPAM issues, as well as management overhead relating to handling blacklisting, DNS configurations (on our public DNS server), and the spam server itself.
We moved email from in-house supported on Lotus Notes to Google's enterprise Gmail. This was a fantastic move. It reduced annual operating costs by over $500k (we eliminated IBM servers, storage, IBM Software maintenance costs, and people).
Our main public cloud implementation has been moving over 80 locations to an Office365 product model. From a cost savings standpoint, we have seen our office expenses go down 38%, which for us is in the $275,000 per year range. For a $200 million company this is significant, especially coming out of such a deep financial recession.
My D/R [Disaster Recovery] is also in the cloud. Between VMware, Appsure, Dell, and a colo, it is turning out really well. This is an improvement for our infrastructure since we never had a hot site before. So the costs have increased.
With the move to salesforce.com which we were very early in, we eliminated million dollars in costs. We had 6 different Salesforce Automation Vendors, Saleslogix being the largest, Siebel and others.
has moved e-mail from an in house system to Google Apps. We eliminated approximately $ 200,000 in hardware and labor refresh costs every 3 years. This involved the update of equipment and OS version in 10 offices.
Our use of Amazon's EC2 infrastructure has been a boon to our on-demand, intensive processing needs. Rather than maintain a sophisticated application processing stack for periodic, high-intensity computing operations (graphical rendering in our case), we can take advantage of massive-performance on-demand infrastructure and only pay for the time and resources needed.
Only ServiceNow and BMC for now o Still designing and evaluating. 2013 will be a transformational year. Possibly affected vendors will be HP, CA, Cisco, Some MS licensing and Solaris o Hoping to decrease by 10-20%


text:
The designated operator of Jamaica, Jamaica Post, asks us to inform other Union member countries and their designated operators that, as of 06.30 local time on Wednesday, 30 January 2019, it has been unable to forward outbound dispatches, including those in transit, owing to customs issues.
Jamaica Post thanks all Union member countries and their designated operators for their understanding. It will inform them via EmIS once the situation has returned to normal.


text:
It was bound to happen some day. Star Wars: Episode VII is becoming a reality now that Disney has purchased LucasFilm, and set a release date for 2015. George Lucas has gracefully bowed out of the director's chair, and given the reigns over to producer Kathleen Kennedy, although it remains to be seen how much influence he'll have over future Star Wars films.
But since the director's chair is open and we all love pretending we're Hollywood executive, let's play Suggest! That! Director! This is the fun part since we have no idea what the story will be and who would be appropriate for that story. However, we do have a vibe of what a Star Wars movie is, or at least what a Star Wars movie should be (i.e., the originals, not the prequels). So who's the right director to make a worthy successor to the original movies? Hit the jump for my suggestions.
Every major filmmaker knows Star Wars, and a large percentage carry its impact to this day. They haven't just seen the movies. They've taken them into their DNA. It's part of their existence. And yet, these filmmakers have come to their own styles. I love the films of Guillermo Del Toro, Edgar Wright, and others, but I want to see them handle their own material. I'm more excited for Pacific Rim than I am for The Haunted Mansion, even though I'm sure Del Toro will do a great job with both. I'm keen to see Ant-Man, but I'm more eager to see The World's End. Here's the question you have to ask: would I rather see a director I admire do an original project, or take time to do Star Wars?
As for other obvious fan-favorites: I'm sure Joss Whedon would deliver a memorable movie, I'm not sure how I'd feel about droids spouting Whedonesque dialogue (I think his take on The Avengers works because the Marvel movies have been so flexible in their styles). Also, Steven Spielberg has said he's done with action movies, and I think after Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, he's content to keep his hands off George Lucas' stuff.
The best people I see for the job are the ones who can adapt to any genre, but they're more than journeymen. They know how to move across genres and have the talent to deliver something memorable if paired with a solid script. Furthermore, each of these directors has delivered successful blockbusters in the past, so the studio would likely be comfortable with them handling the technical demands Episode VII will likely require (otherwise Rian Johnson, Cary Fukunaga, and a few other directors would have easily made this list). While Disney has stated that they're planning a new trilogy, at this point I'm focusing solely on the next movie because let's be honest: studios want a trilogy out of everything and most of the time they're willing to part with the director.
Brad Bird
It's not just that Brad Bird is one of the best directors working today. It's that he has the uncanny ability to come into an existing project or franchise (like Ratatouille and Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol) and hit it out of the park. He doesn't leave an overbearing stamp on his material other than an emphasis on the importance of story above all else, and giving his audience a fun, uplifting experience without ever being cloying or condescending. If anyone can bring the old magic back to Star Wars, it's Bird.
David Yates
There were four directors before him, but for me, David Yates is the true director of the Harry Potter franchise. He directed it through some of the most challenging stories, found the essence of the character as it best related to the demands of a movie, and always let the story come ahead of the set pieces. His passion for the material never came off as slavish or doting, but respectful and thoughtful. If there's any franchise that could match the pressures of directing Star Wars, it's Harry Potter. Yates made it look easy.
Matthew Vaughn
Like all of the other directors on this list, he took an established franchise and made it feel fresh without leaving behind what made the world special. If anyone other than Bryan Singer had come on to replace Vaughn for X-Men: First Class 2, I think there would have been great mourning at seeing him leave the series. Also worth noting is how Vaughn has skillfully moved through wildly different tones such as the delightful fantasy of Stardust to the bombastic to Kick-Ass without missing a beat.
Sam Mendes
After seeing Skyfall, I was once again reminded that Sam Mendes is a master of genre. Give him a strong script, and he'll blow you away. Give him a bad script, and you get Revolutionary Road. But in terms of control, he has moved seamlessly through genres as diverse as period melodrama to indie dramedy to gangster film to spy thriller, and while he doesn't drastically elevate the material, he directs a script to its full potential. And as you'll see with Skyfall, he has no trouble getting into an established franchise and finding its heart.
J.J. Abrams
Yes, it will be the most secretive production in history. While I haven't been over the moon about the stories of Abrams' movies, I believe he is a talented director, and more importantly, he can make a strong picture when working with a less than stellar script. If Abrams gets a strong screenplay and can pair it with the earnestness he showed with Super 8, it should be a nice fit with Star Wars.
Of course, the most important challenge is getting the story right, and we have no idea what that story will be. This is the problem with speculation. We have favorite directors, and we want them to do big things, but we don't know if they'll be a good fit. And it's impossible to know who would be best suited to the material (although I can think of some names that I would prefer to stay away from Star Wars), so we'll just have to wait and see.
Please sound off in the comments about who you'd like to see direct Star Wars: Episode VII.
For more of our coverage on Disney buying LucasFilm:
- Disney CEO Bob Iger and George Lucas Talk LucasFilm Acquisition and STAR WARS
- George Lucas and Kathleen Kennedy Talk the Future of STAR WARS; Reveal They've Already Met with Writers for EPISODE VII
- Disney Buys Lucasfilm for $4 Billion; STAR WARS: EPISODE 7 Will Kick Off New Trilogy in 2015


text:
The Stovax Stockton 8 wood burning and multi-fuel stove offers you greater choice and more optional features than any other model. There is also a space saving Stockton Slimline stove version which is 3" (75mm) shallower. Choose from a single or two door model, the latter of which is available with a handy cast iron tool that locates over the keystone catch and then rotates to open or close the doors. To complete its versatility, the Stockton 8 wood burning and multi-fuel stove is also offered with an integral boiler which produces up to 34,000 BTUs of hot water.
|Body material
|Steel (cast iron door)
|Rated Output
|8 kW
|Energy performance certificate ?
What is energy performance?
Energy labels are designed to inform households how to save money and reduce their carbon footprint.
The rating is based on efficiency (with adjustments applied for sustainability of the fuel type), using less energy is better for the environment.
click for more details
|SIA Ecodesign Ready ?
Ecodesign Ready Scheme
The Ecodesign Ready Scheme is a new landmark in the increasing environmental benefits of wood burning stoves..
Air quality is important to all of us. Even though wood burning stoves are a relatively low source of emissions, the SIA feel it is important to reduce emissions from wood burning stoves even further.
**Most Ecodesign Ready Ready stoves are woodburning only apart from the Charnwood Arc and Skye models which are wood and solid fuel.
Please call us on 01225 891469 if you are unsure which model you require.
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|Airwash ?
What is airwash?
Airwash is a design feature that uses a specially placed vent or vents to draw in air from the outside to wash over the inside of the glass.
This helps to keep the glass clean, allowing you to enjoy the glow and flames to the full.
|Cleanburn ?
What is cleanburn?
Cleanburn is a system by which hot air is introduced into the firebox just above the normal height of the fire.
This allows the combustion of unburned hydrocarbons in the smoke stream.
|Approved for smoke controlled areas ?
Smoke control areas
Under the Clean Air Act local authorities may declare the whole or part of the district of the authority to be a smoke control area. It is an offence to emit smoke from a chimney of a building, from a furnace or from any fixed boiler if located in a designated smoke control area.
If you are unsure if you are in a smokeless area
please call us on 01225 891469 or use the link below.
click for locations
|Room vent required ?
In properties built after 2008 or properties that are likely to be airtight, there must be a permanantly open air vent within the room (venting to outside).
If you have any questions concerning air vents to your room
please call us on 01225 891469
|Flue connection
|Maximum log length
|Multi-fuel grate
|Yes (mf only)
|Direct air supply
|Minimum Hearth Thickness
|Boiler option


text: Welcome to the Information Technology Policies webpage. IT related policies govern the use of GRCC information technology and services by all faculty, staff, student and other authorized users. These resources and services are provided by the college to support its mission, vision, values and ends carried out by the various members of the GRCC community and strive to provide safe, compliant and productive access to information for all. Please feel free to reference or download the policies listed on the right side of this page. Policies will be added and updated regularly so please watch for future communication and check back often. Use the link on the right to find all GRCC policies.


text:
Bill Mullins wrote: Earlier, Chris, you asked about other's work being used without credit.
Incorrect again. You made a very strong accusation that I did pass on work of others as mine. Olsson's report has been inserted into my ebook verbatim. It is his. It is also clearly marked where it starts and were it ends. Before you start throwing around such serious accusations please have the necessary data to back them up. I am still waiting for you to back up your accusation that I have appropriated work of others and passed it on as mine.


text:
Thursday, September 27, 2012
I told my son 'Let's go meet Vin Scully!'
Weird game time at 3:35pm. We left the house at 7am and arrived around 9am.
Spent some time at Children's Park by Harbor Drive. Great area for kids. Little Pinocchio had fun.
The only autograph I got. I'm not kidding. We got inside Petco Park 5 minutes before the first pitch. We spent the morning/afternoon at Gaslamp Quarter and Little Italy. There was no time for autographs. Plus my son is too little for that. I can't wait till he's older so I can teach him about collecting autographs. But at this moment, he just wants to run around.
Thank you Adrian Gonzalez.
I did see a few Dodgers having breakfast at different restaurants in Gaslamp. There is no way I was going to bother them.
Gaslamp. Nobody was here. It's Wednesday!
Parked the car in front of Petco Park and walked all the way to Little Italy. So much fun. Who does that in L.A.?
They have these seats all over Little Italy.
We wanted Pizza for lunch. Not sure where to eat since they have many Pizza places here. We decided to eat at Filippi's Pizza Grotto.
We walked inside and was confused. All I see is a Italian market. Someone tells me "Restaurant is in the back".
Very nice. We were seated way in the back. Kinda romantic if you ask me. They have a bunch of wine glasses up in the ceiling.
The garlic bread and salad was so good.
The Pizza was alright. I've had better Pizza to be honest.
Time to head back. We stopped at Ghirardelli.
We bought park passes. I know that if I buy park passes I won't be watching the game. But I didn't care. My son will be having more fun at the park than sitting down watching the game. Plus he's always awake from 3 to 7.
Little Pinocchio became little Matt Kemp.
My son can't play baseball just yet. Those kids are too big.
So we went here. Who would have thought you would ever see this at a Baseball stadium?
I was trying to keep up with the game....
Matt Kemp with a bomb! Little Kemp gave him good luck.
Tommy Lasorda is upset. What's new?
Dodgers won! Offense woke up. Where were you in the last 4-6 weeks?
My son had too much fun. It was my turn to have some little fun. Let's go meet Vin Scully!
My son doesn't care about this right now but I'm hoping he will appreciate this when he's older. I have to frame this picture.
When I spent three weeks in the hospital this past Summer, I told myself that I had to meet Scully again so my son can meet him. I'm really happy. I've never mentioned this before but Scully sent me a email when I was in the hospital telling me to hang in there. I cried when I read that email and didn't even really know if it was Scully. Tom Hoffarth of the Daily News set that up and I will always be grateful for those words.
Great day in San Diego. I'd like to thank my wife for putting up with all this and to the few readers that said hello. I appreciate all the kind words and I do know that I have many readers. Thank you!
Previous posts on trips to San Diego....
August 1, 2011 {linked here}
September 24, 2011 {linked here}
April 5, 2012 (Opening Day) {linked here}
May 16, 2012 {linked here}
11 comments:
- Mayra Montoya said...
What a beautiful post. I have read your blog for a long time and i am so happy and jealous that Vin Scully sent you an email. A few years ago you wrote about Vin Scully being a wine fundraiser in Beverly Hills, I went and that was the day I met Vin Scully. Thank you! And congratulations your son will love that picture so much when he grows up!
- September 27, 2012 at 12:47 PM
- Roberto Baly said...
@ Mayra - Thank you :)
- September 27, 2012 at 12:53 PM
- crzblue said...
Very nice! Happy for you and your son! What a great day!
- September 27, 2012 at 1:13 PM
- Roberto Baly said...
@ crzblue - Gracias Emma! :)
- September 27, 2012 at 1:14 PM
- Thoma Bureau said...
As a Padres fan, I enjoy reading your posts about baseball. Im jealous that you got to meet Scully and in my territory. Glad to hear you are well and best wishes!
- September 27, 2012 at 1:21 PM
- Roberto Baly said...
@ Thoma - Thank you!
- September 27, 2012 at 1:36 PM
- Unknown said...
Awesome, this is a great photo: You're son is just figuring out how interesting Vin Scully is!!! Great post Roberto, thank you for sharing.. even though this one made me insanely jealous ;)
- September 27, 2012 at 4:04 PM
- Roberto Baly said...
@ Katie - Thanks for reading! :)
- September 27, 2012 at 4:25 PM
- Luis Santoyo said...
I was going to ask how you just happened to run into Vin. I guess he already knows you? Since he sent you an e-mail and all? Either way I'm jealous. Nice write-up.
- September 27, 2012 at 6:04 PM
- gcrl said...
very nice roberto. i can tell you from personal experience that it is a great thing when you can share your hobby/passion with your son. just wait - it will be better than you already think it will be.
- September 27, 2012 at 8:37 PM
- jfore said...
Sounds like the perfect day! Your son is growing so fast; these days are priceless!
- September 27, 2012 at 9:08 PM


text:
Build-A-Bear Releases Plush Grinch For The Holidays
By Emily Lee
November 7, 2018
It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas! Well, kinda, anyway, all thanks to Build-A-Bear. The workshop just released a plush Grinch and it is seriously the cutest thing you'll see all day. Build-A-Bear's plush Grinch is inspired by the new How The Grinch Stole Christmas movie adaptation, titled The Grinch, which premieres this Friday (Nov. 7).
The adorable Grinch stuffed animal gift set arrived just in time for the holiday season and is sure to get everyone feeling holly, jolly. The gift set includes The Grinch furry friend, as well as his three-piece Santa Suit and all of his Grinch sayings. Here's the plush The Grinch stuffed animal looking *very* mischievous in his Santa outfit:
According to ScaryMommy, the stuffed animal itself costs $25.50, while his Santa suit goes for $16.00. Those fun Grinch sayings mentioned above can be added via a sound box, which costs $7.00. If you decide to go for the whole ensemble, it will cost $48.50.
Will you be heading to Build-A-Bear this holiday season? You might be convinced after seeing The Grinch when hit hits theaters. 'Tis the season, after all!
Photo: Build-A-Bear


text:
ConservasFeb. 28, 2014
Espárragos/México: producción de grandes volúmenes disminuye el precio en el mercado internacional
Large volumes of Mexican asparagus have driven market prices so low that some California asparagus growers are disking their fields to delay the start of the season rather than picking.
James Paul, director of sales and marketing for Stockton, Calif.-based Greg Paul Produce Sales Inc., blamed the depressed prices on a glut of asparagus coming out of Mexico's Caborca region.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture on Feb. 24 reported 2,108 40,000-pound units of asparagus have crossed at Calexico, Calif., compared to 1,255 40,000-pound units last year at the same time.
Growers in that Caborca, who typically begin picking about mid-January, tried to hold off production on the front end so they could capitalize on this year's late Easter season, he said.
"But they weren't really successful," Paul said, adding they only delayed production by about 10 days.
"It seemed to have brought all of the production on at the exact time, so it really doubled it up. We saw a record amount of production coming in from Mexico."
Based on current shipments, Paul said he would expect the large Mexican volumes to continue until March 10-15, then begin to taper.
Don Alford, sales manager for Altar Produce LLC, Calexico, said January temperatures brought the crop on early and strong.
"The weather's been perfect — everything's been pulled forward, and we're getting record production because of it," he said.
But Alford described the scenario as a "good thing/bad thing," since the early start also will mean an early end to the deal out of Caborca. As a result, some grower-shippers may not have the volume for the lucrative Easter holiday, which is late this year.
With the high volume also has come lower prices, which Alford described as "ugly."
Because of long-term arrangements and contracts with buyers, Alford said Altar Produce isn't as susceptible to market price swings as some grower-shippers.
"Our position's a little different, but it's been a tough season so far, that's for sure," he said.
With prices so depressed, Paul said more Mexican volume is coming into warehouses each day than is being shipped.
"When the market is this poor, none of the product is fresh," he said. "They're not selling product today that was harvested yesterday. They're selling the product that was harvested last week."
The USDA on Feb. 24 reported 11-pound carton/crates of jumbo Mexican asparagus, crossing the border at Calexico, Calif., and San Luis, Ariz., were $9.75 for jumbos and $11.75 for large. A year ago, those cartons sold for $26.75 for for large and standard; in 2012, 11-pound carton/crates of Mexican asparagus were $14.75 for large and standard.
Source: The Packer