U of C Indiana Jones Mystery

A short, completely unrelated to WoW post today.

One of my three alma maters happens to be the University of Chicago. Turns out the undergraduate admissions office there received an incredible package earlier this week. Quoted from their blog post"

"Yesterday we received a package addressed to “Henry Walton Jones, Jr.”. We sort-of shrugged it off and put it in our bin of mail for student workers to sort and deliver to the right faculty member— we get the wrong mail a lot.

Little did we know what we were looking at. When our student mail worker snapped out of his finals-tired haze and realized who Dr. Jones was, we were sort of in luck: this package wasn’t meant for a random professor in the Stat department. It is addressed to “Indiana” Jones.



As a huge Indiana Jones fan and U of C alum, I find this so incredibly fascinating! Another article referring to this and a couple more pics:

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Korean NPCs

My blogging activity is highly correlated with not traveling and working out of my office, hence another blog post today!

So I was tooling around Halfhill a while back when I ran across this NPC, Kim Won Gi. This Korean panda immediately caught my eye. I was like wait! He's not Chinese, he's Korean! (/insert Korean equivalent of ZOMG!)



Quick side class on Korean names... I think most folks know that Kim is a Korean last name (actually the most common Korean last name) but did you know that there are nearly 300 clans of Kims? I'm actually a Kim twice over in that my mother's maiden name is Kim as well. It used to be that Kims within the same clan could not marry, though I don't think they follow that anymore.

I'm a Gimhae Kim on one side and I forget what I am on the other side. I've often said that if someone held a gun to my head and said that I had to get a tattoo (because this is such a likely scenario that I've actually thought through...), it would be of the hanja (Chinese character) for Kim, which is 金.

Anyways, apparently this NPC Kim Won Gi was named a retired Korean starcraft player named Kim Won Ki. His ingame name is FruitDealer, hence the WoW NPC's tagline with the Fruit Dealer. He said his FruitDealer name came from the fact that his mother used to be a fruit vendor. Also the red and white shirt the NPC is wearing is similar to one of his professional team's shirts. Aren't they just so clever that Blizzard?

Now it looks like there is a second NPC named after a Korean. In the Korean version of WoW, an NPC named Eun-Choding has been named after the singer Eun Ji Won. There is no Eun-Choding in our non-Korean WoW world, but added in Patch 5.1 is Little Jiwon.



On a completely unrelated matter, I often minimize and maximize my WoW screen to fuss around on other things on my laptop whether that be vent or to lookup stuff online. This control+M used to be a very quick min max feature, but recently the game takes to completely reloading each time! It's really annoying and I'd like to go back to how it was before.

Anyone understand what I'm talking about? Is there something I can change in my settings or is this just the way it is now?

***Edit: I found a post referring to this on the forums. Its only a Mac issue and yes, they are aware of it, "Switching display modes may cause the UI to reload."

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The prodigal son/brother/dad returns?

Now there I was going about my business during one of our raids (most likely being mercilessly made fun of by the rest of my raid) when I get a whisper that made me go OMFG!!! As soon as I saw the toon's name, I knew immediately who it was. It was Adamas!

Now I've blogged before about our history with Adamas, the guy who brought me into the Left Claw and introduced me to Jess. And I think I've also mentioned that Adamas is the first guy I ever even whispered/grouped with in this game. He asked if I wanted help on a group quest in Darkshore back in February of 2007. Then not long after that he invited me into the guild and as they say, the rest is history.

So Adamas casually leveling a toon again after about three years away? Craziness! It was awesome seeing his toon officially join the Left Claw again. It's kind of like the prodigal son/brother/dad returns! Son, because all of the guildies are Jess and I's kids; brother, because Adamas grew up in this guild with Jess and I; and dad because he really brought us in the guild.

I was sharing our history with Adamas with the guild, that Adamas is the one who brought Jess and I into the guild and introduced us to each other. I think Sam's reaction was "So he brought you guys into the guild, then you guys hijacked it and took it over"? Well after 5+ years... something like that.

Adamas shared with me that the only reason he came back was because he knew Jess and I were still around. Awwww. Pretty awesome that someone who left the game 3 years ago still felt a strong enough connection to two people he played a video game with for a couple years.

I do wonder how things are from his end in the guild so far. I mean here is a guy who really was part of initially building this guild. And now the only people he knows are Jess and I. The rest of our guildies have known each other and raided together for a while now, so guild chat does have a very specific family flavor. But I'm sure with time he'll fit in just like our newest guildie Chase, our fifth grade healer (private guild joke here), has.

In other news, earlier today Jess and I were having a google chat conversation where we were trying to compare current raiding to when Cataclysm first came out. Here was the ensuing conversation:

K: Yeah, so it was BWD and geez what was the name of that other place? Our first raids when Cata came out?
Jess: Yeah those two and the air one. Twilight something. Twilight citadel? No. Sigh.
K: Wait. Twilight citadel? Mmmm.
Jess: Haha
K: Seems right but seems wrong at the same time.
Jess: Something of twilight? Bastion of twilight?
K: Oh hmmm. I think that's right.
Jess: heh. Given we can't remember these kind of things why exactly are we in charge?

My thoughts exactly.

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Left claw raiding update

We've been raiding for a couple weeks now between Vaults and HoF. Our first official kill was in Vaults though I forgot to take screenshots (though I guess I could do a screenshot reenaction). Anyways here is the first actual boss kill screenshot I've taken of this expansion, last week's kill of that first boss in Heart of Fear:



It was kind of strange how while I was semi horrible at the tornadoes with Alysrazor in Firelands, I rocked the attenuation on this boss. I was trying to describe how to successfully dodge them and I think I used phrases like "concentric circles" and "discs that spiral out from the middle". I don't think anyone understood what I was trying to say. But I was convinced I was making perfect sense!

Though hell, the attenuation wasn't as bad as the mind control in Phase 2. With two priests in our raid, we were pretty concerned about the priests' fear. Damn priests! We asked them to keep fear on cooldown so it wouldn't be up if they got mind controlled. I think this was especially critical on Phase 3.

Anyways, have you guys gotten the two new pets in Darkmoon Faire? I was there early this week and came across the Darkmoon Rabbit in the cave. I have yet to kill this rabbit and thus have no idea what its abilities are. I was curious whether we really needed a full raid to take it down. Once some guildies shared some of the rabbit's abilities with me, here was the ensuing guild conversation:

K: Oh. How can something so cute be so mean?
Nikolai: We wonder the same thing about you.
Jessika: (had the same thought)
K: ...

Thanks for all the love guys, thanks for all the love.

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Why is it...

... that I feel I have to watch my back when I walk by Buckley's (which is on my daily walk to work when I am in town) in Seattle's Belltown neighborhood?



And so ends November... a crazy month where I believe I slept something like 8 nights in my own bed here in Seattle.

I haven't kept up with my blog reading this month, but just from looking at the bold blogs in Google Reader WoW folder, it seems that the blogsophere has been a bit quiet as well. I wonder if that is due to the holidays or whether the blogs I follow (most of which I've followed for 3+ years) are in a phase where they are moving away from either the game or their blog.

I said this years ago and I'll say it again. I think Twitter has significantly affected blogging. It's an alternate outlet where you can easily put out immediate brain dumps without feeling the need to substantiate it into perhaps a full post. I can see how it has affected blog output in the past couple years and I seriously wonder whether there will be any blogs left in another couple years.

Overall though why the decrease in blog posts? Do you think its Twitter? Is it just the maturation of the game itself? Perhaps just selection bias (aren't you proud of that statistics reference there Jess) due to the blogs I've followed for years, with those bloggers evolving into a different phase of their life or game play? A combination of all three?

So yes, I've wondered lately whether after 5+ years, I still have anything left to say and whether I want to keep this blog. Sometimes I waver back and forth on it. But then I realize that I've long ago given up on feeling pressured to provide anything of value or substance on this blog on a somewhat regular basis (for stuff like that go see Beru).

But at the end of the day, this blog started as a personal diary of not only my game play, but my crazy but lovable guild. So even as my life, my WoW play, or the WoW blogosphere changes, I think this blog will still be around.

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Pet battling in flight and a WoW wedding

Still around, though a busy two weeks of traveling for work has me very much behind in blogging and blog reading. I've flown 56k miles so far this year and I anticipate another 15k the rest of this year. Someone noted to me the other day that the circumference of the earth is 25k miles. So by the end of the year I will have flown the equivalent of almost 3 times around the world. /boggle and /needtobedonewithconsulting.

With tons of travel the last two weeks, my guildies have gotten used to my weekly habit of logging in during flight. The strength of the inflight internet access varies from flight to flight so sometimes I am limited to what I can do. But at the very least I can pet battle at 30,000 feet since latency isn't a big deal there. You will wait for my next move Pet... deal with it!

However I don't have enough room on my tray table to use my mouse, which means I can't really maneuver around while flying. I just have my keybind to switch into flight form, the space bar to fly up, then the same key bind to switch out of flight form. So to all those who have been surprised by a druid crashing out of the sky next to you, I apologize. And yes, I have died from this. :)

Now last weekend, I did fly back to Seattle to attend Beru's wedding. It blew my mind for a second that here was a wedding of two people who met through WoW and I was there because I met Beru through blogging about WoW. Those of you in your 30s may remember how 10 years ago meeting someone through online dating was kind of different and novel. I believe in another 5 years, this whole meeting someone through online gaming is going to be just as common and accepted as online dating is today.

Anyways, I was so honored to be at their wedding. I'm not sure how much Beru noticed this, but I was struck by how Brade was looking at her all night... it was a look where I could clearly see that she is his whole world. It was incredibly sweet.

I am back home for four days next week (hello my own bed!) so I hope to catch up here. We have officially started raiding so I probably should blog about that. Here's a preview: No mana = cranky tree.

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This clam shell is out of control!

I was flying back to Seattle last night when I got an email that Nikolai had sent to the guild. There's nothing I can really say to prepare you for it, though I guess yesterday's post should have warned you. You just have to read it. So here's Nikolai's story:

So there I was, minding my own business (as usual) when I get a whisper from Lorosia asking to meet on some Pandaren beach at night.

Being somewhat dubious of Lorosia's intent (let's face it - Lorosia ACTS all like "Oh Nik... have no interest whatsoever..." - but I think we KNOW the real deal)...

It's funny how being in private with someone they can be totally different, y'know? I kept telling Lorosia "No...you are seeing someone…this isn't right!"

Lorosia would not take no for an answer...so I had no choice - I caved and gave in to Lorosia's advances.



Now - being somewhat prone to "naturalism" as I am…merely being naked was not nearly enough for me to cross the line Lorosia so desperately wanted me to cross...so Lorosia played dirty and displayed the inherent masculine side of his toon.



I cannot lie - such a burly expression of power coaxed a response in kind from me...



But that wasn't what Lorosia wanted to see...no. Lorosia demanded some tail...I didn't WANT to do that - I just couldn't help myself...



Something about the combination of a burly dwarfish woman coupled with the intense charge of commanded exhibition and the next thing I know, I lose all control. Lorosia was not prepared



That's right...Nik began to "ride that donkey donkey!" And even though the tastefully placed air bubble tried to hide what was in store for Lorosia, the fear became overwhelming. (Of course it did…there is nothing more intimidating than a Draenei in full rut, after all!) Lorosia, realizing this was far more than could be handled screamed "Stop!"

I yelled back "Is this NOT what you wanted?!"



WIth a whimper...Lorosia ran away and I learned valuable lesson - many may want the Nik, but few are prepared to handle the...um...ramifications.

The end.



I've long said that Nik needs to do guest posts on my blog, and now you know why! And I swear, this shell is taking over our guild!

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I can't handle the hawtness

Quick post since I am traveling for work this week in San Antonio. Sidenote, how the heck can it be 90 degrees at the end of October? Craziness.

Anyways, so last weekend we did a guild run through heroic Mogu'Shan Palace and decided to go after the achieve to find 5 Jade Quilen. We got to the very last one and you have to jump off a mailbox like thing to grab it mid air.

I don't know why it was so funny to me. You know how when you laugh so hard that you actually don't hear any laughing? Yeah that was me. I was dying. But come on, watching a gnome and a dwarf repeatedly jump off a mailbox with their little legs, trying to grab this item? Look how high it was!



I was no help whatsoever. Instead of helping them as they kept jumping off the mailbox, I was dying of laughter. We did get it though. Ironically it was either the dwarf of the gnome who got it.

Also when Rades did this post a couple weeks ago about Gokk'lok's Shell, I made sure to point my guildies to it.

Apparently my guildies think that they can give Fabulor's hawtness a run for the money. Thus I present Exhibit A, the big Draenei beefcake:





And Exhibit B, the cute female Panda:



I'm working on Exhibits C and D, getting a mage and dwarf to share their sexiness as well.

Finally, we're still looking for a guildie or two to start raiding with us soon. The post I specifically wrote about it is here, but if you're looking for a guild where the healer will just laugh at you instead of helping on an achievement and one where we stand around being sexy in clam shells, we're the guild for you.

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A farewell raid for Nico

I had hoped to be able to post this last week, but it ended up being a pretty crazy week at work, which is my prime blogging time. Then this past weekend, I was visiting a friend in New Mexico. So this post is later than I had hoped, but better late than never, right?

Sunday Oct 7th was our farewell raid for Nico who is moving overseas. We kind of decided on the date only a day or two earlier, but I was pleased that most of our core raid group ended up being able to make it.

I asked Nico what raid he wanted to do and he said his farewell raid with us would be Ulduar. Ulduar was the very first raid he came with us for, thus to bring it full circle, it would be his last raid with us as well.



Heading back into Ulduar is always a good time. There's a sense of grandeur that I get from Ulduar that I don't quite get from the more recent raids.



Throughout the raid we told past stories about Nico, so in that sense it turned into a semi roast of sorts. Here we are under Thorim, who I will always associate with Nico due to his "in the mountains" speech:



And a screenshot with Jess and I:



I've long stated that the area going down in Vezax is my absolute favorite of any WoW raid, ever. As many times as I've gone through there, it still takes my breath away:







A final shot with most of our raiders from that night (I think a couple were afk and off screen).



All in all it was kind of a bittersweet raid for me. I was really sad at the end when everyone voiced their farewells over vent. But as I let Nico know the other night, we'll still be able to do crossrealm heroics and such as our schedules and time differences allow.

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Can't even begin to express the awesome...

... that is this video from this past Saturday's half time show by The Ohio State University's Marching Band.

Even if you skip through a bit of it, make sure you don't miss what starts at the 6:00 mark. Prepare for your mind to be blown.



I still don't understand why Ohio State insists on the The in front of their name, but their marching band is so full of win!

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Quick recruitment post

I really did not think (perhaps the think was more twinged with hope) that we were going to have to recruit for MoP. But the expansion has been out a week and its now clear that we will need probably two more folks to join us.

I think I've posted recruitment posts on this blog perhaps 3 or 4 times over the past 5+ years. While not everyone has worked out, most recently a recruitment post here brought us Chanti and Lolret so I'm keeping my fingers crossed. Yes even pallys joining us is a good thing.

So a quick overview. We run 10 mans and raid twice a week for a total of 5 hours each week. Our raid nights are Thursday and Sunday, 9:30-12 EST. I would characterize us as adults (our average age is 30+) who want to see the content, but also have jobs, children, significant others, and other hobbies to attend to (hence the 5 hour a week raid time).

Now that definitely isn't to say that our folks dont know how to play. Many of our guildies have been in hardcore 25 man raids in the past. People know what they're doing. But folks just want a bit of a less strenuous raid environment.

If you've read my blog before, the other thing I'll note around the guild is that we're really a family. Jess and I are the guild mom and dad and all the guildies are our kids. There's a lot of good natured ribbing and many of us have gotten together in that crazy little thing called real life during one of our four Clawcons.

So again... the basics, 10 man raiding, Thursday and Sunday, 9:30-12 EST. Class/role is open because we're really more looking for the kind of person who would fit in with us rather than a specific class. But if you heal, that'd be a bonus. If you don't, no worries. I promise I will tear myself away from Pet Battles to heal you a bit. Just a bit though.

Send me a note (email is on my profile) if you want to talk more and we'll find a time to chat through Battletags and/or on vent with Jess.

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A typical start to the expansion

It was a typical start to an expansion for me, meaning after the first two quests off the boat, I was leveling fishing, herbalism, alchemy, cooking, tilling, and archaeology.

Then something very very bad happened. I met someone very dangerous. The introduction went like this:

Blizzard: Hi K, this is pet battles... pet battles, this is K.
Pet Battles: Hai K! /cue cute critter wave
K: ZOMG I am done for. Just done for.

I can not even express the danger that is pet battles. But let me try with the following jumbled list of suggestions and random thoughts and observations.

1. It is random whether a pet you catch will turn out to be a poor, common, uncommon, or rare quality pet. I think I caught a fawn 3 times and it ended up being poor twice and rare once. So even if you've caught a pet, I would try catching more if you want to try to get a higher quality pet.

2. Try to level your 3 pets together. At one point I had two pets that were level 6 and 7 and my third was level 1. The poor level 1 got his ass handed to him when I got into a bit of trouble and my level 6 and 7 pet died. It was ugly.

3. Consider leveling more than your 3 pets together. In preparation for No Favorites as well as having a team pets to switch in and out depending on the zone and type of pets I expect to encounter, I am leveling more than 3 pets at once. I figure while I'm in the starter zones, I might as well do it now. So I think I currently have maybe 6 or 7 pets in the level 5-7 range.

I don't think you need to level all 10 types of pets from 1 because for this achievement you can catch a level 9 pet, level it to 10 and have it count. But I like the variety in knowing I have 6 or 7 classes of pets to swap in and out.

4. Speaking of achievements, be afraid. Be very afraid. As an achievement addict, the achieves to catch every pet on the continents just make me twitch. For example, Kalimdor Safari requires something like 90 pets to be captured. And that's just Kalimdor. Are you twitching as well?

5. This could be a serious threat to raiding. At one point last night the four of us guildies that were online were all pet battling. No questing, no doing the dungeons, no leveling up professions, but pet battling.

6. You will start thinking of cute little critters like bosses. So we were on vent last night and it was funny to hear the commentary as each of us went up against critters that we used to think of as just cute little critters. There was boasting, there was swearing, there was crying after losses and celebration after wins. If you didn't know any better, you'd think you were hearing us fight some dungeon or raid boss.

(And can I just say its total bullshit when you think you're going to fight one pet then it turns out to be two? Bullshit!)

7. Don't forget that your pets don't have to die to swap another pet in. So my pet Sebastian (my Magical Crawdad pet who I've always called Seb after the crab in the Little Mermaid) has a healing ability called Renewing Mists that looks like it persists for 5 rounds. My other pets have damage abilities that stack for a couple rounds as well. So play around with swapping pets in and out to take advantage of all abilities that stack through subsequent rounds.

8. Use the resources that have already been compiled. Two from Wowhead are helpful. The pet database lists every pet, showing images, stats, abilities, and location. Their map allows you to see all the pets that are in a particular zone.

9. As Lorosia mentioned in the comments, some addons to help you! Pet Journal Enchanced which helps you sort and filter your pets, Battle Pet Count which shows you the quality of battle pets you already own of that species, Pet Battle Teams which allows you to save up to 60 team pet combinations.

Anyways, here is Mini K:



Apparently I'm not the only one using a tree. My ever loving and supportive holy pally guildie Lorosia shared a while ago that he would use a tree pet to battle as well. Why? Because it would be the only time that he could tell a tree what to do and the tree would listen.

Anyways. Eventually I tore myself away from pet battles and when Jess logged, we did what has been tradition for several expansions now and did some quests together. Though it was a bit nontypical in that I did actually help instead of herbing or fishing on the side, the vent conversation was typical in that I said things like "Jess!!! Five mobs are on me!" in a very irritated voice.

I am also continuing my tradition of leveling in my resto spec. And I was surprised with how much more dmg I did! This is not going to be as painful as it was in past expansions. Woot!

Ok that's enough of a jumbled post on what my first day of the expansion was like. Hope everyone is having fun!

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OMG its as if the WoW gods were listening

Just got word that my Thursday meeting at the client site got cancelled, which means it makes no sense for me to fly all the way to the east coast for one meeting. Which is a long way of saying that I am not traveling this week and will be on at MoP launch! ZOMG!

So while I am not going to be power leveling, I may still try for realm first fisher, as well as support Nikolai in any way that I can as he tries for realm first 90 priest. If Kalthan is still trying for realm first alchemist, I could also gather herbs for him as well.

Anyways, hooray! See you guys at midnight PST! :)

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A bit of a sad panda and our chore wheel

I had been planning on taking a day off next week, along with probably "working from home" one other day. However I just found out yesterday that I need to fly out to my client on the east coast on Tuesday. It'll be a semi busy week, along with the following week, and I don't get back into town until late Friday night.

Boo. I had tentative plans in my head to try for realm first fisher the night of launch. I was also going to try to take advantage of the auction house madness via a couple of professions the first couple of days as well. So I am a bit of a sad panda, but hopefully I can sneak some time in the next two weeks. Oh well.

Oh I forgot! There is good news! I bit the bullet and waltzed into Apple last weekend to purchase a brand new shiny 15 inch Macbook Pro (non-retina though). Holy crap the game looks different! I think I was almost beginning to get motion sickness. However, I'm still a little concerned about how hot its running, even post all of the patch changes. Anyone else with a Macbook Pro still running hot?

Anyways the last things I need to do this weekend pre launch is finish the quests in Ashenvale, rearrange the first tab of the guild bank, and empty out my personal bags/bank. I'm wondering if I also need to create a chore wheel of sorts for the guild.

So my senior year in college one of my more on the ball roommates created a chore wheel for the house we shared. The wheel had the various chores with an arrow that we could either spin or move forward each week. The chore wheel lived on our refrigerator to remind us what we needed to do.

I'm thinking we may to do something similar for the planning of the feasts and flasks/cauldrons since they've become a lot more complicated. While I haven't figured out the exact details of what we need, the Left Claw Chore Wheel would look something like this:

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Do you think I could ask for royalties?

Last week I was randomly looking at blog statistics when an interesting blog visitor caught my eye. Yep, from a Blizz IP address in Irvine, CA, someone was checking out this old post and even clicking on the pics to get closer looks.

If anyone sees a future helm design close to any of those Philip Treacy hats, let me know!!! And in case Blizz needs any more inspirations, some more:

Fire mage:


Warrior:


Shadow priest:


OMG look its Druid tier 8!!!


I don't know who this would be but I find this so incredibly stunning:


Since we're talking fashion, let's provide some shoe inspirations (even though you really don't see or notice shoes in the game):

Holy priest:


Warlock:


Druid:


Rogue:


Shadow priest:


The shoes are leaving behind a trail of black puffy smoke!

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Secret watermarks?

Jess sent me this link this morning that basically says that since 2008 Blizzard has been putting a secret watermark on all of our screenshots that includes our user IDs, the time the screenshot was captured and the IP address of the server we were on at the time.

We know how technologically inept I am, so this is beyond me, but it sounds crazy. Another link to a forum discussion around this.

Comments on both sites include obvious concerns around privacy and hacking.

Hmmmm. Any folks more technologically advanced than I (which would be um, all of you) have thoughts around this?

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And you wonder why I have a thing against Pallys*

I share with you today reason #672 why Paladins are complete bullshit.

Their crusader aura no longer stacks to the rest of us! Watching all the little pink dots run ahead of me in BGs makes me grrr.

Exhibit A:

K (in an AV with 3 guild pallys): What, crusader aura no longer applies to the rest of us?
Lorosia: Nope, ha ha.
K: I hate you pallys! So selfish! And yet I share with you my Mark of the Wild! I should be able to take away my buff from just the pallys.
Lorosia: That would really be painful because its not as if we have the same buff.

/sigh.

You guys might think that my reason #673 might be the current iteration of Holy Shock, but for some strange reason I find it amusing. It's kind of fun running bgs with two holy pallys and watching them do more dmg than half decent dps. I told them to enjoy it while it lasts since there has to be a nerf incoming.

*Disclaimer: My 'thing' against Paladins only applies to Paladins in my guild. I'm perfectly fine with Paladins outside my guild. I read several pally blogs that I love. But the pallys in my guild are just so good at ruffling my leaves. Oh and this 'thing' also applies to folks in my guild who used to have Paladin mains (/eyes Nico).

Additional Note: I just realized that today is the five year anniversary of this blog. Yep, my first post was on 9/4/07. I find it incredibly amusing that my five year anniversary post ended up being a post lamenting paladins. It's like it was fate!

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Patch thoughts

Yesterday my Snow Leopard CD finally came and after a 3 hour install of the CD, 10.6 updates off the web, WoW optimization, and then the patch install, I was ready to log in. 10 minutes past our scheduled raid time.

I had an idea of how I was going to spec, but hadn't looked at glyphs. So I frantically ask Beru which glyphs I should use, while the rest of the guild is waiting for me. I didn't have enough time to reforge or gem into spirit, but I run pretty spirit heavy anyways, so I thought I might be ok. I figured someone could switch my weapon enchant into Heartsong during the night if things were bad.

Joking around with others pre-patch I was honestly worried about my mana. When I am oom, I am very very unhappy. And how does that saying go? 'When momma aint happy, nobody is happy'? While I was getting my shit together of course Lorosia has to chime in that in preparation of the changes, he had to bring a certain Archaeology trinket just in case. F'in Tyrande's Doll...

By the time we got our shit together we only had time to do 4 bosses in DS. It's a good thing the bosses were also nerfed, because there were comments like:

* What, hit went back down to 15%?
* Hmmm I haven't reforged to expertise, mastery, (insert other stat here) yet.
* What the fuck, Grid isn't tracking my hots! (Big guess who made this comment).


However despite our fumbling, the bosses seemed easier than a week ago, though I didn't notice any huge increase in our dps. The dps can correct me if there was. Oh and can I just say, I knew we were losing the guild summon thing. But to lose the double duration on our flasks? Bullshit! Lorosia mentioned that we could console ourselves instead with its replacement, The Doctor is In. As Kal would say, what a complete screwjob.

After the raid when I had some time to really look at some things, I realized that these new talent trees essentially remove the need for me to have a pve and pvp spec. For a long time I've been saying I wish we could triple spec, so that I could have a resto pve, resto pvp, then feral tanking spec. And in a sense, these talent trees are kind of three specs for me because I've been given what I think of as pvp abilities in my "pve" spec.

This does give me some concern around how bad the bgs are right now. Has anyone done a significant amount of pvp? I didn't have time last night, but I'm curious. With nearly every class and spec getting this melded pve/pvp spec and all sorts of new abilities from the talents and the new glyphs, is pvp just insane? Bubble mentioned that he was in a bg the other day where no one died since we are taking less dmg but they haven't incorporated the offensive pvp stat into the gear yet.

Finally this whole account wide achievements, mounts, and pets thing. There is a part of me that thinks that the account wide stuff is cool, but there is another part of me that is partly irritated by it.

I really kind of wanted my main, K, to earn the 100,000 honor kills on her own. I wanted it to be an achievement recognizing her insanity in going through all those bgs. So when I logged into my alts and for all my toons to have the achieve now, it somehow meant less to me.

True, this means that I can go for 250,000 honor kills easier, not having to worry about which toon I'm on. And I can see this being easier for guild and raid leaders, in that we can ask folks to switch different toons in and out depending on what we may need. Sure, not having to do all the holiday achieves on all your toons is nice.

But ultimately while I play all my toons, in a way I think of them as separate individuals. I think in a way I've given them a personality and story in my head for each of them. So now for my alts to have all of K's pvp achievements, in my mind, these toons didn't "earn" them. It somehow takes away from certain goals I might have had for them at one time.

Keredria was the very first toon I created over five years ago. Despite highs and lows with buffs and nerfs, she had always been my main. In a way, this almost feels like we are losing some of that "main" vs "alt" designation.

I don't know, its a bit hard to explain. I'm not 100% against this account wide stuff, but I'm far from 100% for it.

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Apparently you shouldn't ignore...

... emails from Apple with feline subject lines. So as of today, WoW will no longer support, heck no longer even run if you are running Mac OS 10.5. Now Mac OS 10.6, or Snow Leopard, came out in August 2009. So who in their right mind would still be running 10.5?

/raises hand sheepishly?

I do recall getting emails from Apple with cat like subject lines... Snow Leopard, Lion, Mountain Lion, blah blah blah. All ignored. And now it bites me in the ass! /sigh. This is why technology and I do not get along.

Anyways, I ordered the CD from Apple over the phone yesterday (it's so old this is now the only way you can get 10.6) but it won't get here until Thursday. I don't think I even really thought about how old my operating system was... and now I'm hopeful that perhaps upgrading will solve some of my performance issues while running WoW.

In other news... on Sunday night I pulled my poor raid into Eye of the Storm with me to try for Perfection. We ran 3 matches and didn't get it but I do think it was kind of fun. And while I won't punish them to do this every week, I am hoping they can try to help me again sometime in the future.

It was something different for 10 of us to be BGing together, so I hope folks had fun. I will say that in one of the matches we were very much outmatched in dps. A couple of folks were even in all PvE gear and were dying pretty easily. You looked at the meters and the top dmg dealers were all Horde... and we had more deaths. Yet we won the BG with 4 towers to none.

Lesson here? Of course gear helps. And I'm not going to turn down high dps or healing. But even more important is a group working together and bodies going where they need to go to turn towers.

Speaking of pvp I think some of the changes to glyphs are going to make pretty big impacts in pvp. What hunters have some exploding trap now that throw you off like shammys or boomkins can? Grrrr.

I have a feeling that there will be a lot of pvp action, particularly this upcoming three day weekend, as dps play around with all their new toys. And I'll be there healing!

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Before September 25

There are three things I need to do before September 25.

1. Get a new laptop

Ugh. I really don't want to have to blow money on a laptop just to play a game, but there is no way what I have now will be able to play the expansion. I think I'm sticking with Apple, most likely the 15 inch Macbook Pro.

Is 2.3 GHz enough or should I get 2.6? The 2.6 GHz comes with 750 GB (vs 500). If I don't need to shell out the extra dough, I'd rather not, so any advice would be appreciated. Remember, I have a habit of looking like a total noob in Apple stores.

2. Clean out guild bank

I've actually made pretty good progress to this end, getting rid of a ton of old stuff. I've also made a good dent into consolidating Cata stuff so that we'll have plenty of empty space for the expansion.

It's gotten to the point though that I am using the guild log to chastise people for adding stuff rather than removing stuff. Don't you dare add anything to the guild bank! Or no heals for you!

3. Finish Loremaster

I only have 5 more zones to finish in Kalimdor for Loremaster. Some of my favorite quests so far? The one in Felwood where you have to grow a tree and the one in Thousand Needles where you start the bar fight between the gnomes and the goblins. I may or may not have started the fight several times just for a giggle.

Anyways, as I was finishing up Thousand Needles, it became clear to me that whoever designed the quest rewards in this zone must have been betrayed in their marriage. Why? Well look at some of the quest rewards in this zone:

* Horn of the Traitor
* Alimony
* Discarded Wedding Band
* Belt of False Promises
* Breastplate of Contained Sorrow
* Belt of Feigned Joy
* Suspicious Slippers
* Dupe's Bracers
* Drinker's Bracers

Then I saw some quest rewards where it seemed the person was getting angry.

* Hood of Disgrace, which is part of Flirtation Regalia
* Swindler's Vest
* Really Cold Bracers
* Payback Band
* Shroud of Contempt
* Bracers of Reluctant Violence

Yikes! I hope this person found some Lasting Peace. (LOL at myself for creating an entire story and series of emotions around this quest reward designer's life at the time).

Anyways, I remarked to Jess how these quest rewards in Thousand Needles were kind of making me sad. His comment? "Mmm Thousand Needles... it's a good zone to throw yourself off a mesa".

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Damn those Lotuses

I'm not someone who tracks all the news around new patches and expansions that closely. Usually I find out about stuff when a guildie mentions it on vent. So last week a couple of guildies were talking about cooking in the expansion, which got me looking into it a little more.

I am quite irritated that they are bringing back the Wrath equivalent of Northern Spices with Rice Flour, Black Pepper and 100 Year Soy Sauce. Ugh, just ugh. Look, I totally understand requiring Ironpaw Tokens to learn recipes. But I really liked that in Cata once you learned the recipe, you could just cook things up without these extra reagents.

I'm especially annoyed we need them for the new feasts. Cooking with its six paths and farming for required vegetables seems a bit overwhelming. I don't know if as a guild we're going to have to coordinate and plan who is growing/providing what.

Speaking of cooking, look what I found on my grocery list after Clawcon:



Yes, that says "Tell Jess he's a good tank". Apparently Jess thinks I'm not supportive enough.

Anyways, so I'm irritated about needing those cooking reagents. But I am probably even more irritated that they're bringing back the notion of needing those damn Lotuses. Yes, the horror that was Frost and Fel Lotuses in Wrath and BC are back with a vengeance in the form of Golden Lotus.

Argh. Argh! Look, I realize that Cata flasks required more herbs and Volatile Life, but at least all of those mats were farmable. You knew you could gather up the mats to be able to make the flasks. Thus, I really hate going back to drop rate RNG in terms of being able to make flasks. And it looks like the data on making the MoP equivalent cauldrons isn't out yet, but I am scared to see what it is.

It just seems like they are making professions more difficult. I understand they want to prolong the time between patches and keep us busier (i.e. grind) longer. But I'm a little concerned what the return of cooking reagents and the damn Golden Lotuses is going to mean for creating feasts and cauldrons for raids.

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A second Dragonwrath!

Last week we were able to craft a second legendary staff for our mage Darc. Even though we had long moved onto DS, I'm glad that folks were willing to still run Firelands week after week to finally get it crafted for him.





Darc mentioned that while having a legendary, and the staff itself is cool, what means more is the fact that a group of friends worked together to create something for him. That's what the staff represents, the commitment that our guild made to craft a second Dragonwrath for him.

With a month before the expansion and the OP summer raid boss upon us, I'm satisfied if this second Dragonwrath is the last significant thing we do before MoP. Now in MoP it sounds like the legendary is going to be something that every class can use.

What are folks thoughts on this? I do like the idea of considering merit instead of being bound to whatever class Blizz has decided gets the next legendary. We were talking about this on vent a bit ago and Chanti mentioned that the obvious choices for our guild are going to be Jess and myself. I think Nkm mentioned that we should put it to a guild vote and that his vote is bribe-able.

Yes, Jess and I will fight over this decision (because seriously when don't we?). But actually the fight will be for the other to take it... so I will be trying to convince him to take the first legendary while he will do the same with me. We'll see who wins...

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Achievements galore!

Lots of achiever-ing (what is the verb form of getting an achievement?) lately, including finally getting Master of Warsong Gulch due to Frenzied Defender. Many thanks to Jess and Nikolai who I dragged into several WSG with me to be able to get this.

So now I just have The Perfect Storm left for Battlemaster. I'm wondering if I should try OpenRaid for it. My other achievement goals before the expansion launches is finishing up Loremaster.

I also finished up Glory of the Cataclysm Hero, for which I ended up tanking a 5 man! So my first foray back into tanking in forever was heroic Stonecore, and yeah it was ugly. I couldn't get enough rage or keep all the mobs together very well. And in the trash right before Ozruk, I think my expansive bear ass ended up pulling half the room.

Anyways, I think I just need a bit more practice and perhaps readjust where abilities are located on my bar to make more sense with how I'd use them. I will say my tanking definitely keeps the healer busy. Poor Bruenok saw plenty of action!

Speaking of bear butts, I could watch this live stream video all day long.

I'm sorry, I couldn't get that work assignment finished because I was watching a live stream of brown bears catching salmon all day.

Reasonable excuse is reasonable?

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Clawcon debrief and loldot

A quick debrief on Clawcon. It was a bit more lowkey this year, and as such I didn't really end up taking that many pics. I don't know, given this was my fourth Clawcon it just become more old friends hanging out.

The boys arrived on Friday and I decided that we should try grilling pizzas up on my rooftop deck. I had Jess take grilling duty, but of course I was right there telling him he was doing it wrong. Actually they turned out pretty well!

Saturday we did a drive up to Bellingham to do some sightseeing and meet up with two other guildies. We tooled around a park there for a bit then spent the afternoon at a brewery.

It was amusing because we ran into a lot of hipsters all weekend (both in Bellingham and Seattle). Hipsters seem to invoke a visceral negative reaction from Nkm. Jess joked that he was going to start a toon named "Hipster" and try to find a fedora and skinny jeans within the game.

I remarked that Nkm would then probably create a toon named "Antihipster". They'd probably stand around dueling all day. I would put my money on Antihipster in such a duel. Skinny jeans really restrict your range of motion.

Sunday was a lazy day of me and Jess making breakfast and just lying around eating, drinking, and watching the Olympics.

We discussed that next year I will do some research so that our "nature-y" outdoor activity would be going out clamming or crabbing. I think it'd be fun and we would be catching our dinner!

It'd be the real life version of when I made the guild get together to fish so we could learn the Seafood Feast. (The guildies think I'm kidding... I'm not).

In our raid last night I actually took my lock into DS. She was in 378 gear and has yet to do Raid Finder (heck I have never done Raid Finder on any toon... crazy I know). Lorosia was also dpsing, during which we affectionately call him lolret. Though he actually does pretty good dps, so he is more ret than lol. We decided we would call Kimchee loldot. She is more lol than dot.

Hooray loldot!

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Preparing for another clawcon

I have a post brewing about why Alliance are so f'in horrible in Eye of the Storm, but that is a post for another day. I need to take medication before I write that post because it gets me so heated up. It's a good thing I don't have blood pressure issues.

Anyways. In happier news, we are preparing for another Clawcon, hosted by yours truly in Seattle this upcoming weekend. It's going to be a smaller Clawcon this year, as a number of folks who live elsewhere weren't able to fly out this year.

I was planning on getting one of the attendees a gift, a real toy bow and arrow with a gift tag:



The story behind this? Our hunter friend Bubble has come with us to kill Deathwing for months now. Months! And not once has the bow dropped for him. Week after week, no bow. It became somewhat of a sad joke. But on Sunday night, finally after 43 Deathwing kills, Bubble got his bow!

I'm super happy for him that he finally got his bow, but I was looking forward to his real life reaction this weekend when I presented him with this gift.

Otherwise I'm planning the meals for this weekend. We're curious to see how much Jess and I can feed Nkm (that gnome can chow down!) and whether we can tie him down to make him eat a salad with fruit and nuts. Salad with pears and walnuts and gorgonzola? Yummers!

So it'll probably be a pretty chill Clawcon, with plans for grilling on my rooftop overlooking the sound. And I'm sure the boys will get some drinking in there as well. We're planning on driving up to Bellingham on Saturday to do some sightseeing as well as visiting Atania.

I'm sure there will be a lot of WoW references into the real life events of the weekend, as well as WoW related puns. Hooray puns! I also have some things around the condo that I need to get Jess to fix. Come on, what else is a WoW hubby good for?

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In non-pvp news

You'd think by my last couple of blog posts that all I did was pvp. Yes, I do a lot of pvp, but some updates from a non-pvp front.

A couple weeks ago I decided to get rid of the second resto spec that I haven't used in a long time and pick up a tanking spec. I haven't used it yet, but I figure if folks want to bring alts in some of our raids I could give tanking a shot. I did read up a bit on bear tanking, but probably need some more lessons:



Though who are we kidding, tanking is just button mashing and counting on healers anyways. What I really need to be doing is finger/hand exercises to make sure they are strong enough for the button mashing and ensuring my keyboard is clean for the facerolling.

On the raiding front, we're less than 3 full runs away from crafting another legendary staff from Firelands for Darc. We were there Sunday night though I cannot even express to you the level of fail from yours truly on heroic Alysrazor. The tornadoes on heroic mode just kill me dead.

My ever loving and supportive guildies (ahem, sarcasm) were giving me plenty of grief over this. And to make it worse I had to be nice to Jess on Sunday night because as a very bad WoW wife, I forgot his birthday on Saturday until really really late in the day. So I couldn't do anything of this sort:

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Checking in on my sanity level

The last 6 weeks were pretty crazy with being on the road pretty much all of June, then doing a short work trip the beginning of this month, as well as hosting my sister for a visit. But I'm finally back in a somewhat regular and more normal schedule for a while.

Hopefully this means I can pick back up on the blogging and blog reading. Did I miss any drama in the blogosphere recently?

In WoW news, let's check on my sanity (or technically lack there of), shall we? Resilient Victory and Master of Arathi Basin, check (finally). Still working on Silverwing Sentinel for Justicar, check.

I have actually picked up grinding for Battlemaster since I will get that achieve before Justicar. To finish Battlemaster I need to first get Eye of the Storm The Perfect Storm. It's EOTS weekend this upcoming weekend, but the prospect of yelling at folks going for middle pains me. I'm just going to have to suck it up and grind for it.

The other two achieves I need are the two flag returning acheives in Warsong. Unfortunately they are really a pain to get #1 a healer and #2 on a laptop with not great framerates. I only need 8 more returns for one, but I'm pretty certain that to be able to return 5 flags in one WSG I'm going to have to do it in a premade group.

So three achieves and I am Battlemaster! In summary in case you were wondering yes, I am still insane.

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For the record

Yep, I'm still around and still playing. However I've been on the road pretty much this entire month. By the end of this month I will have spent 21 nights in a hotel. FML. Thus while I still find time to play, my day time working hours have left little time to blog.

We are still raiding at least once a week, which I think is pretty good for this late in the expansion. Some screenshots after Heroic Z the other week. My guild likes to joke around that I never dispel.





Look, I have proof! So not only did I dispel, but also faerie fired the boss. We like to call it FFFFS or FFSFF ("Faerie Fire for Fuck Sake" or "For Fuck Sake Faerie Fire"). Top dispeller AND faerie fire?!?! Sigh. Carrying 9 others on my shoulders is so exhausting.

Nico/Bruenok and I were talking the other day about his raiding time with us coming to an end this fall due to a move overseas. It makes me sad because we have the strongest healing team we've ever had. Even Lorosia, whose conversations with me tend to go something like this:

Lorosia: This will be interesting, I changed all my keybindings.
Keredria: Why does that matter, don't you just bind that bullshit OP holy radiance to every key anyways?
Lorosia: Yes, but you make me cast might.
Keredria: /sigh

Anyways, in our guild's raiding history, we've usually had one healer who was just a little bit behind the other two. But having three healers who are equally as good means that we can actually take advantage of class strengths in healing strats instead of relying on the stronger healers.

Its so incredibly refreshing not having to worry about a healer's performance. This leaves me to focus on the things that really matter, like blaming the tanks or dps.

Finally, is it bad that I kind of want to see that movie Magic Mike?

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The musical raid that wasn't

Last night was supposed to be our musical Dragon Soul run. However, it didn't really end up being the run I wanted it to be. I think some people appreciated it, but there were enough voices who made it clear that they thought it was lame or didn't give a damn that it just ruined it for me. I stopped doing it after the first two songs.

Here's what gets me. No one except guild and raid leaders understand what its like to continue to keep a raid engaged, in this pre-expansion lull along with Diablo 3 being out. Not everyone is playing Diablo 3. Crazy, but true. So Jess and I are constantly trying to fill our raids, in a time when we have increasing absences along with complete no-shows or last minute cancels. And its only going to get worse this summer. It's not that I begrudge folks missing raids, I understand, things happen. Summer happens. Life happens.

But understand that Jess and I spend a lot of time and energy trying to keep the guild happy. Trying to make our raid time worthwhile and entertaining. Trying to fill holes and find replacements. So that we can at least do something. Perhaps planning so that the eleventh-million-th time we kill boss X in Dragon Soul, it may be a little different. So I not only spent a lot of time to plan out the songs for this musical run, but had also started thinking what else I could do for other runs.

As Beru was listening to me vent last night, we were talking about how guild/raid leaders feel the pressure to keep folks entertained. Almost in a way feeling responsible for their guildies' time in game... that it's still fun. Essentially to continue to entertain somehow. Otherwise we could say, hell lets just cancel all raids until the expansion, right? But we don't. We're still making an effort. I just don't think it's really realized. Finally Beru asked a good question... who is trying to make sure that our time as guild/raid leaders is fun? Mmmm.

I know some folks in the raid did appreciate the musical raid, as they specifically whispered me as such. So I can't put the entire guild in that group. And part of me feels bad that I let the negative voices ruin it for everyone else. But I just couldn't get back in the mood to care and be excited about doing it anymore. Maybe ultimately I wanted it do the musical run because it would have been fun and different for me. For my fun. So maybe I should have told the nay-sayers to shut the hell up and just done it. Oh well. It's over now.

But in case you think a musical run may go over well with your guild, here are my suggestions:

Morchok:
David Essex - Rock On




Zon'ozz:
ACDC - Big Balls



Spongebob makes it even more hilarious.

If I was able to show video for this musical DS run, I would have chosen this version of Jose Gonzales' song Heartbeats:




Yor'sahj:
The Muppets - Rainbow Connection




Hagara:
Run DMC - Walk this Way




Ultraxion:
Queen & David Bowie - Under Pressure



I had a hard time finding options for Ultraxion, and ended up choosing this because of the pressure for everyone except the healers to not screw up the Fading Light and Hour of Twilight. And I love this song.

Edit: Excellent addition with guildie suggestion: Europe - The Final Countdown



Blackhorn:
Billy Joel - We Didn't Start the Fire




Spine:
George Michael - Monkey


Red Hot Chili Peppers - Love Rollercoaster


Had a hard time choosing between these two... I love both songs and think they are both perfect for Spine!


Madness
Puff the Magic Dragon - Peter Paul and Mary



REM - It's the End of the World

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Apparently I'm crazy enough

... to be farming Warsong Gulch. Yes my friends, I have officially lost my sanity. Though honestly I was very surprised during my farming last weekend, as I won a lot more than I lost, some of which became insane farm fests. What I learned is that there is a sub-culture of those of us crazy enough to be farming WSG, because I ran into the same people over and over again. And look!

ZOMG! The third cap for Ironman was pretty close. I had several Horde on me when two priests on my team came to save my ass. I was somewhere around the middle of the field when the first priest pulled me forward, then literally a second later I got pulled by the other priest to our tunnel entrance. Priests who know how to use their leap of faith ability well? Hawt. Damn hawt.

I also had the opportunity to run some BGs again Gnomer and his guildies, as well as PP. Topics of discussion during these BG runs? The differences in how we pronounce the word 'banana' and the impending summer for us US folks vs the impending winter for the Aussie folks. They were talking about how cold it was, though celsius temperatures mean nothing to me. I've gotten the time conversion between us down, but I think converting temperatures between C and F is going to be a lot harder.

In other news I been doing a little bit of old world questing to work on Loremaster. The quest rewards have been quite amusing. Two of my favorites from this past weekend?

Unidentified Cooking Utensil

Speaking of which, how come we don't see offhands when you're running around? I mean you can control click on it to "try it on" but when your toon is running around, you don't see the offhand that you see when you're logging in. Weird. If I could always see my offhand, I just my replace my ledger with this pan.

Green Whelp Shoulderguard

These shoulders crack me up because its singular. Just one. Only one shoulder can be protected. What happens to the other shoulder? I guess its the WoW version of those one shoulder tops and dresses girls wear. It amuses me.

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I may or may not

Let's play the I may or may not game!

1. I may or may not have been on WoW the other night with a jar of nutella and a spoon next to me. If eating nutella out of the jar is wrong, I don't want to be right.

2. I may or may not have gone a little crazy in morganprather's Etsy store and I may or may not have ended up buying 3 necklaces and 2 pairs of earrings. But seriously, check them out... can you blame me?!?!

She has so many stunning pieces with leaf, tree, branch motifs. Just stunning. Go look.

3. I may or may not be planning a musical DS run in the spirit of our past musical runs.

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