Thursday, April 30, 2009

Resto druid services?

Atania was taking a break from her prime number maths last night and pointed out a funny advertisement(?) on trade chat. Let's take a look, shall we?

Now I have to wonder... exactly what is this female resto druid doing during raids to liven things up in vent? How exactly is she making raids not so "depressing"? Is she simply speaking as a female? Is she boosting the male ego by cooing "Ooh Mr.(insert male toon name here), you are so strong! So awesome!" Is she reading scandalous stories to the group? Does she simply state "OMG guys I haz the bewbs!!!!" Seriously, does a flirty female really liven a raid up or just cause more drama?

What I also find amusing is that she lists herself as a female resto druid. Why does it matter if she is a resto druid with 500+ IMBA rating? Isn't the crux of what she is selling simply the "friendly female" bit? What does it matter what class she is and whether she can play at all?

Finally, how she is getting paid? Drops? In-game gold? A raiding spot in a hardcore progression guild? Real life cash? Geez, I liven up our raids for free not with friendly flirting (please...) but with smart, sarcastic, witty banter. I had no idea I was giving away something so valuable for free!

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Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Oh noes! Prime numbers!

A couple weeks ago we were doing a laid back guild run. I can't remember if it was one where I was doing my kickass awesome "raid-leadering" or not. I should have blogged about this earlier because I've forgotten who said what.

The stage: 10 man Naxx - Thaddius
The setting: I had just split up the raid into two groups and our stabbity stab rogue Atania was assigned to the left platform.

Atania: Oh, is there anything else different about this platform? I've never started here before.
Smart ass guildie #1: Yeah, there are round disks of fire on the ground that you have to avoid.
Atania: What?
Smart ass guildie #2: And not only that, but the disks of fire are numbered. You can only stand in the odd numbered ones.
Smart ass guildie #3: Actually you can only stand in the prime numbered ones.
Smart ass guildie #4(we iz chock full of thems): Yeah, while you are stabbity stabbing away, you must be doing the maths at the same time.
Atania: Sigh... ok lets go.

Thaddius goes down.

K: So how did those prime numbers work out for ya Ata?
Atania: I hate you all...

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Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Awww... Bai2U Megs

This is how I'm feeling since I found out that Megan at Out of Mana is moving on from WOW blogging. (What a cute picture, huh? I did it all myself!) Anyways, I have no clue what warlocks really do besides make cookies and demonic puppet shows and "evily" collect souls. I have done my share of battlegrounds, but am not all that good and never really got into arenas.

But I read Out of Mana religiously, because Megan was my kick ass, take no crap, STFU bishes North Star. Her command of MS Paint and witty comments on random pictures always cracked me up. Anyways, as I've said once before, for everything there is a season. Best of luck to you Megan, I'm sure you'll kick ass at whatever you do next.

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Friday, April 24, 2009

The tree goes to the beach!

I'm spending four days in sunny southern California catching up with some girlfriends, so WOW playing and blogging will be at a minimum for a little bit. Don't have too much fun without me guildies! Before I go though, some cute shirts from cottonfactory.

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Thursday, April 23, 2009

Would you confess to this woman?

Couple of random pics/observations/questions post patch 3.1


1. Yay for more efficient flight paths! I always thought it made no sense that the old flight path from Sholazar back to Dalaran took forever and a day.


2. Here's me and my new squire. He's a bit creepy looking, no?


3. Finally, lets talk a bit about the argent confessor at the new argent tournament. Seriously, would you confess to this woman? A woman wearing thigh highs and tabard? I sorta think that the confession should go the other way. She should confesses about dressing like such a skank.

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Tuesday, April 21, 2009

You fish on your side, I fish on my side.

This is Lake (I kid you not) Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg in Massachusetts. In Nipmuc (Algonquian), this name approximately means "Englishmen at Manchaug at the fishing place at the boundary". However, there is a humorous myth that says that this name means "You Fish on Your Side, I Fish on My Side, Nobody Fish in the Middle".

I would like this humorous myth to be applied in WOW fishing. I seriously don't get when someone comes right up and fishes from the pool I'm fishing in. Ok, ok I sorta get it (but still don't like it) in the Stranglethorn Fishing Extravaganza, but seriously? During just regular fishing of Nettlefish or Salmon or whatever? In typical feisty K fashion when someone comes up and fishes from my pool, I'll sometimes just follow them to their next pool and return the favor.

Am I the only one who gets annoyed by this?

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Monday, April 20, 2009

Left Claw's first Ulduar pics

Here are some pics from our first night of Ulduar raiding:

1. Jess provides usual raid lecture, while a number of us sit down obediently in a circle to take it all in. Vel and Dest are studiouly taking notes, while I am asking if anyone has the cliffnotes. Ata says "Rogues don't need no stinkin' instructions!":

2. Here I am with Buns on her chopper, practicing how I would get picked up after being catapulted and downing the turrets:

3. The license plate on the choppers crack me up:

4. Finally here is our screenshot with Flame Leviathan down:

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Friday, April 17, 2009

Leading a Raid - K style

Before patch 3.1 dropped, we were putzing around in 10 man Naxx. Yeah, yeah we've done it tons of times before. What was different this time? Well, I was "leading" the raid. From this experience, here are 5 things that you should not be doing as a raid leader, well unless you want a horrible raid or you are goofing around:

1. Demand undeserved respect: I insisted that everyone call me Madam Raid Leader and would not respond to anything else.

2. Provide irrelevant instructions: The raid strategy and instructions I went with were "Kill shit, don't die"

3. Blame others when things go wrong...: When there were minor missteps I insisted Jess try harder.

4. ...but take all the credit when things go well: When we downed a boss, I praised everyone for a decent job, but then declared that the overall success was clearly due to my awesome "raid-leadering"

5. Go on a power trip: I did a number of raid checks, just to do them. But I got mad when any of the raid assistants did them before an actual boss.

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Thursday, April 16, 2009

Deep blogging thoughts

While everyone else is talking about patch 3.1 (which I'm sure I will as well in a couple of days), I have been thinking about this blog. There was some talk pre patch 3.1 around the WOW blogosphere around blogging and improving one's blog. First of all, why do I blog? As I said in my first post:

"I don't intend for this blog to really give any insights that haven't already been given elsewhere, I mean 9 million people (so they say) play this game! Am I going to come up with anything ground shattering? No... I also probably won't be doing complicated calculations on spirit vs +5 mana or some intense strategy discussions. Instead I thought it'd be fun to have a place to start tracking my adventures in game, post funny screen shots, and basically just share my point of view."

I think I really just wanted some place to be able to chronicle my experiences in game. I was part of a very tiny tight knit guild and wanted to talk about those relationships. A lot of my first posts were simple recounts of guild instance runs (melee strike force FTW!) or the tank-healer relationship I have with Jess. I talked about making money and professions as well. When I first started blogging I think I was one of a few bloggers who talked about fishing and this post written 18 months ago still gets read.

So that's why I started... why do I keep blogging over a year and a half later? Sometimes I've felt that this blog has kept me playing the game, if that makes sense. But there are also times where I've felt the pressure to do an interesting or funny post. But I'm also one of those people who you may run across on the road... where you look across to the next car at a stoplight and see a girl who is laughing by herself. Well I am that girl, a girl who has a lot of random things that come across her brain, many of which she is amused by. I'm also a girl who can be incredibly corny, sentimental, sarcastic or just plain feisty (despite the "blog no evil" cartoon above, I have posted about asshats I've encountered ingame), all of which I think have been obvious on this blog.

But I am definitely intrigued why people beyond immediate folks I know read this blog. I rarely do healing posts anymore and never really did many posts on strategy or responding to changes in game or crunching numbers or anything. Thus, I do think that the fact that I have a blog shows that anyone can do this... and you don't have to be some super duper theory crafter.

If I were to give some advice to someone contemplating starting a WOW blog, couple of random thoughts:

1. Don't try to be the next Phaelia, or BRK, or Big Bear Butt, or Megan at Out of Mana. Just don't... cuz you can't. I think part of what resonates with the many readers of these big blogs is the individual personality and flavor of these bloggers. Even when they do/did serius bzness theorycrafting posts, their personalities came through. So as cheesy as it is, just be yourself.

2. Blogging about WOW does change the way you look at the game, and thus your game experience. Also realize that blogging definitely takes time. If you are thinking that you should cut back on WOW time, I would hesitate suggesting that you start a WOW blog.

3. Just post. Its hard to know sometimes why certain posts resonate well with readers while others don't. I've found sometimes that the posts that I've worked the hardest on may get no traction at all, while other posts I've just done on a whim get good feedback. Its funny to me that my post that been talked about the most was one I did about a year ago about similarities in WOW and real life locations. It was talked about in WOW Insider at the time and indirectly mentioned again earlier this week. Did I think at all this would be my most read post? Nope, not at all.

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Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Patch 3.1 plans?

So patch 3.1 is dropping today. My planny plan plans? Well dual spec into feral (rawr), check out the new fishing dailies, try to fish up the new mount, and check out the Argent Tournament. Oh yeah, and that little thing called Ulduar. We typically don't raid until later in the week, so we probably won't get in there tonight or tomorrow. Though maybe that isn't a terrible thing since I am expecting glitches and/or lag in Ulduar for the first couple of days.

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Monday, April 13, 2009

K's 25 man Naxx thoughts

Note: Half the raid had left by the time I asked people to get a screenshot

Over the last couple of weeks, our guild has been doing some regular 25 man Naxx raids with two other small guilds. Now I did do some 25 mans in BC, but pretty rarely. Anyways, here are some of my random thoughts and experiences on going from healing 10 mans to 25 mans.

1. OMG there iz too many grid boxes!!! Just look at all those folks in the pic above. Seriously, as silly as it seems, its a big issue of mine with 25 mans. I have my grid boxes set up exactly how I like, counting down my hots and showing lifebloom stacks. I have my boxes sized and positioned perfectly in the 10 man runs. But with 25 mans... there are just too many boxes and I haven't quite decided where I want to position them.

Yeah, yeah I know I can scale it down smaller, but I like the boxes a certain size. Sigh. So sometimes I have to make tough decisions like whose box gets cut off. In these situations, usually feral druids like Fonzy lose out. (Heh just kidding Fonzy).

2. A quieter K: My guildies may have noticed that I do not talk over vent as much in these 25 man runs. I'm not sure if its because there are folks in the runs that are strangers to me, or if Im considering that fact that you shouldn't talk as much in a 25 man run because of the number of folks. But I'm definitely quieter... which I'm sure Jess appreciates because there is less Jess ribbing on these raids.

3. Less healer guilt: In 10 man runs, I am definitely more apt to try to save a naughty dps who has grabbed aggro (ok, ok, maybe its not always their fault and maybe they are not all naughty... but I still call them naughty dps anyways). In 25 mans, there is a little more hardcore triaging going on where I have to make tougher decisions and let people go. Am I saying that I feel less badly if I lose a dps in a 25 man vs a 10 man? Hmmm... maybe. So I feel a bit bad if I lose a dps in a 10 man, whereas I feel a tiny bit bad if I lose a dps in a 25 man. Heh.

4. More people to laugh at: While most people would consider running 25 mans as an opportunity to meet more people, I take it as an opportunity to meet more people to make fun of. Case in point, Sammael, who is always a source of endless amusement with or without clothes.

5. I <3 Rejuv: I love rejuv in 10 mans, but I really really love rejuv in 25 mans. Yeah, I threw out lifeblooms and regrowths and nourishes, but there was a lot of "Rejuv for you, rejuv for you, oh and you too, oh yeah you should have some rejuv too".

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Friday, April 10, 2009

Is it because of the weird birdie headpiece?

So K has been wearing her T7 headpiece now for a while, and here is how she looks now.

Now two weeks or so ago, there was some guildchat around female toons getting hit on ingame. One guildie had said that his toon was given a sex change from female to male because he was getting hit on too much in game. Here was my reaction in guildchat:

Aww... K never gets hit on. I am sad.
I am sad that my pixelated female toon doesn't get hit on. Now that is sad.

I have had several female toon playing folks, both male and female, tell me about being hit on. But K, nothing. I wonder why? Is K not hawt enough? Is it because of the weird birdie thing she is wearing on her head?

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Thursday, April 9, 2009

In my WOW vs real life

When I got tagged with the Honest Scrap thing the other week and thought about some honest things to share about myself, I realized there are some interesting comparisons between my WOW life and my real life. So a couple more things about me in WOW (W) and real life (R):

1W. I am obsessive compulsive about things like keeping the guild bank tabs straight and orderly. I have been known to get a bit crazy and inquire in guild chat, “Who put this Outland item in the Northrend tab?!?!”
1R. I can be kinda messy... I’m definitely not a neat freak. In relationships, the guy is the one always picking up after me. :)

2W. I am often heard yelling DIATH over vent (damn it all to hell!!!)
2R. I am often heard yelling DIATH and much worse things during my current daily commute because I have no patience for rude people on the roads. If you are the person who decides to drive on the shoulder when everyone else is backed up, I am the person who will NOT let you cut in front of me. Then as I pass your sorry ass I will call you a f’in idiot.

3W. I always bring a ton of fish feast. My message is Omega 3s... eat them. They iz yummy.
3R. I really do like to fish in real life. Also I could probably live off sushi for the rest of my life... but then I'd probably start glowing or develop an eye twitch from the mercury poisoning. That would not be good.

4W. I am always prepared with tons of extra stuff in my bags as well as a crazy huge stock of extra herbs and fish in my bank.
4R. I’ve been nicknamed MacGyver because I have so much random stuff in my work/laptop bag as well as my handbag. Both of these bags aren’t any bigger than what anyone else would have. But with all the random stuff I have in there I could probably jerry rig some sort of device to get me out of a jam or disassemble a bomb, should I ever find the need to do so.

5W. My confidant/tank's name is Jessika.
5R. My best friend's name is Jessica. Its funny because both know about the other and sometimes when I'm talking about some advice I've gotten from one Jess, I'll say, "Well the other Jess said so and so". Though I do have to keep correcting real life Jess on what WOW is called. She keeps calling it "that witchcraft thing you do". I’m not a witch! Well maybes...

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Wednesday, April 8, 2009

Getting back into the swing of things

I was in Chapel Hill for the last 4 days. It was amazing to be there and be able to go to Franklin Street after our win. Thus, my WOW-ing has been minimal for a while and now I'm having to catch back up on work stuff.

Hopefully I will be back with your regularly scheduled WOW blogging tomorrow. Go Heels!

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Friday, April 3, 2009

Where the tree does haiku

Maurice from Ratshag's team tagged me to write some haiku. Me... poetic?

Well I guess I should first write one for the lovely Maurice:
Oh divine Maurice
The ecstasy, the rapture
I swoon at your sight

One for Jess:
One white ponytail
With intervene, vigilance
Protecting the tree

The tree's power trip haiku:
Bow down, recognize
The glory and the power
Of the tree of life

Not gonna follow the rules to tag others (rules were made to be broken anyways), but feel free to haiku away on your blog or the comments here!

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Thursday, April 2, 2009

Honest Scrap

"1. When accepting this auspicious award, you must write a post bragging about it, including the name of the misguided soul who thinks you deserve such acclaim, and link back to the said person so everyone knows she/he is real.
2. Choose a minimum of seven (7) blogs that you find brilliant in content or design. Or improvise by including bloggers who have no idea who you are because you don’t have seven friends. Show the seven random victims’ names and links and leave a harassing comment informing them that they were prized with Honest Weblog. Well, there’s no prize, but they can keep the nifty icon.
3. List at least ten (10) honest things about yourself. Then pass it on!"

Averna tagged me for this meme thingie (why is it called a meme? where did meme come from?). Seriously... brilliant? Haha if brilliant means not so much maybes. My blog must have inspired you to blog in that it showed you that if I can do it and talk about nothing and everything, anyone can blog. Anyways, I'm so glad you started blogging Averna and I definitely feel the serious healing posts that you and some of the other resto bloggers are doing are needed now that Phaelia is gone.

As for tagging some other blogs I read (even if they've been already tagged):
Keeva at Tree Bark Jacket. First, I think the blog is beautiful in design. But Keeva does serius bzness healing posts so that I can just be silly. Thanks Keeva!
Bellwether at 4 Haelz is another beautifully designed blog. I love the green!!! Bell also does serius bzness posts along with interesting posts like 10 vs 25 man loot and gender differences that generate good debate and discussion.
Sylly at Rolling Hots also has a beautiful blog. I love how it looks at the top of the page. Sylly also does serius bzness posts, but I have a feeling that we also have a similar (sylly? hahaha) sense of humor.
Megan at Out of Mana because she rocks. Seriously. I love her sense of humor and she is the queen of all things pvp and arena. After she's posted, I am 100% more likely to get on vent or guild chat that night and yell, "W'assup bitches?!?!".
Dark Legacy Comics cracks me up. The comics are beautifully drawn and incredibly witty. Go check them out.
Last but not least (I guess not surprising?) would be Jess at Pretty in Plate because that's my tank. While it sorta pains me to be nice and call Jess "brilliant", I guess the word would apply because Jess is healed by yours truly. So that makes Jess clearly brilliant simply in choice of healer.

Now ten honest things about me:

1. I have served as my own lawyer in court to stand up for a bogus ticket. The assistant DA tried to get me to plead guilty and pay a fine, which I would have none of. None! I had to question my own witness and cross examine the cop. I tried to use the only lawyer-ly knowledge I had, which came from TV shows. Apparently I did a good enough job that the judge sided with me and let me go, in large part because I think he was amused by my preparation and how into it I was.

2. I personally know a Nobel Prize winner. He is someone my dad has worked closely with for 25 years, and has seen my sister and I grow up. My family was fortunate enough to attend the Nobel week festivities in Stockholm in December 2007.

3. I grew up and went to undergrad in Chapel Hill, NC. I am actually going to be in Chapel Hill for the final four game on Saturday night as well as hopefully the championship game on Monday night. While I grew up in a small town, I have lived in cities for a while now (NYC from 2000-2003 and Chicago since 2003).

4. I was in NYC on 9/11/01 and was about 8 blocks away from WTC. I saw first hand the second plane hit and the first tower fall. I will never forget a lot of the details of my experience that day or the things I saw.

5. I have 3 degrees from 3 schools that all begin with a C. People think I kept going back to school for the edumacation, though I think its because I wanted to put off the real world. However after all that schooling, I often wonder what the heck I know and sometimes think all I got was a hefty student loan balance.

6. I am a terrible terrible procrastinator. I still haven’t done my taxes. Eeeks! I’ve always been like this. I was like this each time in school. It seems that I need the stress, the pressure, the fire under my ass to get me to do stuff.

7. When I lived in NYC I served as a juror on a federal grand jury for one month. I was on a jury that "specialized" in homicides in that any homicide case brought to the courts at the time was brought to us. Luckily as a grand jury we were not voting on guilt or innocence, but whether there was enough evidence for trial, i.e. an indictment. I saw a lot and heard a lot of crazy stuff over the course of a month.

8. I typically fly around a lot for my job as a consultant for hospitals, being on the road Mon-Thurs. At first its kinda fun, then it sucks, but racking up tons of status and points with American Airlines, Hilton, and Avis has its benefits. I have so many miles and upgrades with American that I only generally fly in first class. I have been lucky to be on a local project for the last 4 months, but could still find my way around O’hare blindfolded.

9. I’m generally very frugal and pretty cheap about most things. I prefer more family run restaurants to the fanciest restaurants in town. When things are on sale, I definitely stock up (yes I needed 10 rolls of paper towels because they were on sale). There are also a lot of things my girlfriends typically do from time to time that I really never do such as massages, manicures, and expensive haircuts. But when I splurge, I splurge, whether that is a handbag or a Macbook, or a trip to Barcelona (my dream next vacation)

10. I am a shorty... barely 5'2" and have to compensate by pretty much always wearing 3" or so heels. Speaking of shoes, I have way too many pairs and somewhere around 80% of them are black.

Geez... I shared a lot. I feel nekkid now.

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Wednesday, April 1, 2009

Drunk on healing power

Maybe its just silly little old me, but I have a tendency to sometimes whip out what I would call my vengeful healing side. What do I mean? Well unlike tanks or dpsers, healers have a unique perspective in that as a class we are targeting other players.

So where does the drunkeness come to play? Well let's look at a conversation held in guildchat last week before the Carolina vs Gonzaga basketball game.

Wut: Sorry K but I have to root for the home state team... go Gonzaga!
Nkm: Yeah, go west coast! Go Gonzaga!
K: Hmmm... note to self: Send less healz to Wut and Nkm next raid.*

Similarily I used to sometimes show a certain white ponytailed tank who really is boss (ahem, moi) by letting said tank's health get precariously low. I will say in my defense that I only do this on trash or an easy boss where I pretty much know how much health Jess needs.

Maybe I have too much attitude to be healing. But the whole aspect of holding people's lives in my hands.... muah ha ha ha! The power... I loves it. Am I the only one like this? ;)

*Ok ok, in all honesty I talk a big game, but usually never follow through. Wut and Nkm got healz just fine and I haven't toyed with Jess health in a while. Sigh... I'm getting soft.

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