Link Bloggy: Ooog

Not feeling well again today. So, no bloggy for you today. Instead, hot link action:

Don Imus is a jackass. This is surprising to people how?

Prosecutor scandal: The subpoenas are set to fly. And, irony of ironies it looks like the DoJ is going to argue privacy concerns in an attempt to shield those documents.

Congress to Bush: We're willing to negotiate. Bush to Congress: Go fuck yourselves. Congress to Bush: We're still willing to negotiate. Bush to Congress: Why don't you come to my office so I can tell you to go fuck yourselves in person. Congress to Bush: ... Media to Nation: Congress rejects Bush's cordial attempts at bipartisan outreach and hurts our troops by refusing to pass a bill which he won't veto. Also, Anna Nicole's baby daddy revealed! Me: I need more cough syrup...

Puck drops on the NHL playoffs tomorrow night at 7PM EST in Ottawa. I'm actually pretty excited about this as there look to be a lot of good match-ups this year. This has nothing to do with the fact my not-so-beloved-anymore Wings might actually make it out of the first round this year.

Guild Wars. New skill balancing today. Hot on the heels of the one earlier this week, it's short and to the point but still sweet. This is about the size and frequency of updates I like to see, by the way. Haven't seen a dev post on them, though, which is puzzling. The highlights:

• Natural Stride and Mending Touch both took a hit but not big enough ones to really matter. They're just a little bit worse now. Not enough to get people to stop using them but to the point where Natural isn't constant immunity from harm and Mending Touch will have a harder time keeping up with the current meta of condition spam. I suspect this is a further attempt at Ranger "diversity" which I read as "not every Ranger needs to be a BA with Mending Touch, Natural Stride, Apply Poison, Troll, D-Shot, and Savage, pls."
  
• Black Spider Strike, as you might expect, took a nerf. This only provides more fuel to the theory that the devs want the Black X stuff out of the picture. But since it's only a decrease in damage, it kinda misses the point - go after the energy or the recharge, that's how you get people to stop packing it.
• Odder is the change to Mirror of Disenchantment, it's back up to a 20 second cooldown. Because...Aegis chains are good?
• On to the good nerfs. Brutal Weapon was just insane, it's now back to sensible levels. Burst of Aggression now lasts for only 2 seconds unlinked, say good-bye to BoA Sins. Icy Veins gets its energy cost doubled which puts a further nail in the coffin of any SBRI type build. And Wearying Strike gets its recharge upped to 6 seconds. Not far enough for my tastes, since that's still a non-elite Eviscerate on a condition immune tree every six seconds. But it's better than once every four, so a step in the right direction.
• Interesting buff: Order of the Vampire. Again, the damage additive stuff is getting better. It caused a bit of a problem with Brutal Weapon but is already leading to some interesting places.
• Stuff I don't care about: Another minion spell, Golem this time, gets the Soul Reaping tax repealed. Wells are cheaper, and so is Spiteful Spirit.