Looking for a point

Things are fuzzy over here today. Not bear fuzzy or kitteh fuzzy. Just a sort of looking through the bottom of an empty wine glass fuzzy, after that wine glass has been drained something like seven times. I've been trying all morning to think of what it was I was going to post about here, but instead have been flailing about from topic to topic in my head and failing to make any connections.

Patch day? Meh. Easy heroics are easier. Big whoop. Nothing happening to my class either, soooo.... yay?

I don't really have anyone or anything to yell about just now either. I mean, there is this guy and he is annoying me slightly, but it's too hard to work up a good rant through this blanketing fog.

The apathy is smothering my rage! I think I'll take a nap instead.

/wanders off to say happy birthday to the sister on FB

/peruses Twitter feed... lols at WoWTabloidNews

/stares at screen in puzzlement

/scratches head

So, here's an observation. Since I have declared myself to be the GM of WWAB, I find that people have also automatically started calling me the GM. Not, "co-GM," not just "Alas" hell, not even the GM's girlfriend (long story).

(Okay, not a long story. Some jerk face left our guild a long while back and his friend was still around. The friend logged on and started saying shit about the guild and said his friend left because the GM's girlfriend was allowed into Kara at level 69 and he didn't think that was right. I said, "First of all, I'm the GM's wife. Second of all, your friend left because he's a prick with no concept of commitment to anything other than his own selfish goals and thirdly, I had to take the druid in because I ran out of 70's who weren't saved and, my God man, it's Kara, not BT. Then Noxy gkicked him and the peasants rejoiced. Something like that anyway. It was a while ago, back when I thought my druid would be my tanky tank.)

Why, yes, this is how my mind works when I'm not really awake.

Right, I have an idea for tomorrow. I'm going to write it down and hope that it makes any sort of sense to me when I (hopefully) have a more clear mind.

Oh, and just wait for allergy season, guys. I really get circular and roughly 76.82% more pointless when I am jacked up on Benedryl. 

In which my guildies bring teh funny

Also, At helped me finally find something to appreciate Google Wave for. Namely, that you can just drag and drop any photos you want into a wave and it is much easier than dealing with emailing crap back and forth and attaching files the old-fashioned way and blah, blah, blah.

Hence, I have a lot of material. But I will attempt to pace myself. Click to embiggen if needed.

 And by "tomorrow," I of course meant "whenever I manage to get the SS edited to size and sent to myself."

 

Later on that night. I am sure I don't want to know half of what goes on in the healing channel. (Holly and Hanse are married, so.... that's why that's funny.)

  

  

 

I think that conversation from the other morning speaks for itself...

Sentiments that amuse me

Because otherwise we'd be looking at a whole lot of my scratching my head and WTF-ing all over the place and I just don't think Yngwe needs another feeding quite yet.

In other words, here are some pics that make me lol:

 Unless it's the weekend....

Visitors suck!

Fifty "fun" facts

1. The first character I ever rolled was a druid
2. It took me five or six tries to finally stick with a warrior
3. I once thought my warlock would be my main
4. I've deleted a level 50 priest
5. And a level 30-something rogue
6. I have tried gender-bending many times but there's always something about the movement of a man toon that irritates me to where I can't keep it
7. I think that people who won't play a certain class or race because "it's too evil" are stupidlame
8. I also think that no one is going to get addicted to something in real life just because they played a belf who was addicted to magic
9. Speaking of addiction, the idea that WoW is harmfully addictive is a crock. It's fun and some people just have no self control 
10. My baby huntard is still BM because I sort of like lol ez mode
11. I also deleted a 20-something mage back before they super accelerated 1-70 xp gain
12. I find the death knight class to be boring as hell but I'll get one leveled anyway
13. People who act like their time is more important than that of anyone else they are in party/raid with make me stabby
14. PvP is unhealthy for my desk/keyboard/mouse and At's ears, so I try not to deal with that aspect of the game
15. If someone leaves my guild on bad terms I will carry a pretty unreasonable actual hatred of them to the point where I have cheered to hear that someone's real life fell apart
16. And yeah, I know it's just a game
17. But that doesn't mean that people can't be real douches in a fake environment
18. I once had a GM tell me that my opinion as an officer wasn't worth his listening to it
19. That may have been the reason I cheered when I heard his real life fell apart. Maybe
20. I find that there are some struggles to being female and in a leadership position
21. But I will never ever use that as an excuse when I make a bad decision or am otherwise stupid
22.  I don't think being female gets me any perks in WoW
23. Unless you count being told that being a bossy raid leader is hott
24. I have gotten a couple pervs before - that was interesting
25. Even though we sometimes struggle with content for a while I do think Blizz is making the game as a whole too easy
26. At scoffs at me whenever I start in on how no one should get ponies at 20 or flying at 60
27. I used to think I would never level fishing or cooking on any character
28. My main is max exalted with all WotLK factions except Ashen Verdict
29. Lately I change Alas' hair every few weeks because I would do it in real life if I could
30. I think Renaissance faires are an awesome excuse for dressing up
31. Alas was not supposed to be my main because of her name
32. I have a different name I use everywhere else online but that name ended up attached to a nelf huntard
33. That huntard got deleted at 44 to make way for my DK with the same name
34. I've met several of my guildies irl even if it did mean driving to the deep South (imo) to do so
35. Alastriona is the Gaelic form of my middle name
36. And I cringe every time someone pronounces it "Alas-tree-OH-nuh"
37. The first time I healed a raid it was in Kara and I didn't have any helpful addons, such as grid or healbot
38. Of course, that was the PUG raid that wiped on chess, trufax
39. I call At "At" in real life but I almost never call him by his real name
40. I'm ridiculously addicted to FarmVille, even though I see how brainless it is
41. Of course, I also deal with faculty and buying random crap for a living (me, every other day: "How the hell do I buy printer memory? Printers have memory?") so I try to avoid that as much as possible
42. Unless I plan on writing either the fanfic or the novel, then I'm all worky worky worky
43. I lol at people with naming conventions
44. I am super cheap, to the point where even though I have over 30k across my toons, I still won't buy anything off the AH unless I absolutely have to
45. The cheapness also means that many of my characters don't have epic flying 
46. I will not play undead, trolls or orcs because they're ugly
47. I will not play gnomes or dwarves because they're short
48. I would totally do any draenai  - male or female
49. I have some moderate OCD tendencies 
50. I needed this list to have a random number and an alliterative title   

This again?

Once again, it seems like a good thing that I don't have anyone reading this post aside from fellow-guildies and the very occasional person who is bored enough to subject themselves to this rambling. Because there I went and randomly fell off the bloggy world for a while.

It wasn't that I had nothing to write about. Quite the opposite. I had too much going on and for a lot of it, the things that seemed the most pressing, I knew I needed to take those items up with the officers before I wrote about it here.

Which I did last night and I'm really glad it took so long to get most of us on at the same time because I was able to just say what I wanted to say without (I think) being all crazysauce again, like that one time I let game stress build up and then shot at all the leadership with both barrels and a whole lot of profanity. And yelling. And abuse of caps lock.

And in the aftermath of having divested myself of specific nights of having to be on, be the raid leader, answer all the stupid questions and blah blah BLAH, I really have to laugh at myself and shake my head and acknowledge that I bring this all on myself.

What I like to do, is be in charge. Of everything! All the time! Because clearly, I am the person who cares the most and knows how to do things best! But then it gets to be too much for me to handle. And the game becomes a chore and I find myself making rude remarks about everyone no matter how much I like them or how little I actually know them. And then I go apeshit on the officers like it's their fault that I feel the need to be in control.

(Well, I only did that once but it was BAD and I was a jerk and I'm still sorry!)

So last night I said, "Guys, I am feeling really overwhelmed again with handling this all the time. It's making the game not fun for me and that's a bad thing."

One officer said, "Haven't we had this conversation before?"

Well, yes. Yes we had. But the problem was that I just said "I need help!" and the officers said, "We can help! Let us know what to do!" And I said here are some things. Then... eventually... because we never said this is always your responsibility all the time, I allowed them to help in general but no one ever really took anything on and I eventually was doing it all, all over again.

Last night, two officers took on half the raiding schedule between them. I have the other half still. I really think it will take some of the pressure off.

But, I have control issues.

So on the inside, I'm wondering if I can trust these other officers to do it "right." I wonder if they will have the follow-through. I wonder why I wanted to give up any precious, precious control.

I am a sick woman.

But I'm also the official "has all teh admin power" GM for at least the rest of this last semester of At's. So I guess that makes me a sick woman with power.

It'll be a lot of work to let go of my psycho enough to let others do their jobs. I hope it goes well.

And I really do think my fellow officers are awesome, so please ignore the crazy woman huddled in the corner biting her nails and tearing out her hair.

Half assed Tuesday

I may have mentioned before that I am lame? Here's an example. Every damn time we go to Pit of Saron, I always, always think Tyrannus is talking to me. Every time. Despite the fact that my name is not simply "Alas." I have become too accustomed to being called that by my guild mates and even myself. So, if ever someone in game says, "Alas," and means "unfortunately," I still think it's all about me.

Does this mean I am unfortunate? Could be, could be.

In other news, we finally headed back to Ulduar after spending several weeks away from it working on ToC (with great success) and ICC (with less success). And, hey, what do you know? We plowed right through Thorim and Freya. I missed a shot of Freya, but here's me flexing in Thorim's crotchal region:

^^^^

Wow, dude's got this sort of like, aura around him, you know?

At (as his shaman) made me laugh because he is also lame:

And lastly, I thought that I saw a famous bloggery type person hanging out in Shattrath. On second thought, it might just be a fan as I am quite certain no one would roll a DK on another server for any reason whatsoever.



 <--Very likely not Amber of Bubble Liking fame.

Will your pug fail hardcore?

Has anyone else noticed that it's relatively easy to tell within about 5 seconds of getting in party whether or not your PUG group is going to fail hardcore? And that you could do so without the help of any add-on or knowledge of GS?

It's true, I tell you. True!

Here's how:

1. Peruse the names of the people you are grouped with.
2. That's it. You're done!

If the tank is named something like "Greattank" or "Iamawesome" - congrats, that guy won't hold aggro worth a damn.

If the healer is named something like "Retpally" or "Azzah" - congrats, they'll have no idea what the hell they're doing.

If two out of three dps are DK's, you don't even need to read for names like "Darkarthas" or "Vaderknight" to know that they'll just be facerolling the keyboard.

If you end up with my failtank (a pally named Alleluia), run towards the nearest exit as fast as your legs will carry you. I'll understand if your cat is on fire and you have to go. It happens a lot, apparently.

....

wow, that was pointless.

Extra special guest post edition

As the Raid Turns, So do the DPS of our Lives

Hi My name is Jinx Deluna, luckily I know Alas in real life and spend many moments in front of her desk going over whatever raid we've been in or whatever is on my mind. She usually has a kind word to say, gives the pep talk and life is good for me. Well it has been Christmas break, days off sick, and I haven't gotten my Alas time in a few weeks. Then the cookie began to crumble for me and I was getting close to hanging up my raiding keyboard for a simple questing life somewhere else. I had the opportunity to talk to her today and well my mind has been put at ease, to a degree and here's what was going down.

So several nights ago, we are hitting new areas of Ulduar for our guild and I find myself eating pavement as 9 other people killed the boss with joy in their voices and a dead druid on the ground. Three times this happened, once ok, twice ugh, the third time, I see a pattern here. In order for the raid to kill the boss, Jinx must kiss the ground and watch as her buddies take down that boss that we've been struggling over. Dude, I'll take one for the team but my mind says, “You're not good enough, your dps sucks anyway and if someone else had died you couldn't use your battle res cuz your dead on the ground. What good are you?” Then that other quiet but reasonable voice says, Blame it on the healers! And how many times has Asmod died two nights before? And how many times did Noxy have his own macro by the healers because he died all the time? Ok maybe it's not so bad…maybe…

Then last night OMG everything hit like a brick. First Noxy is sick and I'm at his house trying to take care of a runny nose, fever running, sick boyfriend and his only wish, “Please go to the raid and have fun, it's ok, really.” I roll my eyes fine, I'll go.

I show up early as usual, do a few dailies, and notice from the FU that I'm not in a channel that Alas has, I join it through the FU and type: So, where are we headed tonight? It didn't show up. I typed it a second time and again, it didn't appear. Fine, I checked my settings and it doesn't show up that I'm a part of this channel WTF? Check it off and ask a third time, So, where are we going night? What I didn't realize was that Alas did see it post and answered and just because my chat window didn't show it, hers was. No one tried whispers or anything to clarify, so what's up with her snarky remark that I did see? “What about my post Jinxy” or something to that effect. What post? Oh the Kiss My Alas page, went back found the post, it reads something to the effect of things that piss me off: “when someone asks hours before raid where were going.” It wasn't hours, it was 30 minutes. I want to feel useful, like I'm contributing something, so, now I'm pissed and trying to figure out what I've done wrong to get a snarky remark.

(Note from Alas: I feel bad about about that, but it's also sort of funny in a comedy of errors sort of way) 

Then from there it went downhill. Tanks pulled agro without a raid leader designating where ranged DPS is supposed to watch, a pally ran out of mana asking for innervate - what if I needed it, get your own damn mana, I don't care if you are the tank and are you using Divine Plea, oh wait, I'm almost full, fine, have the damn thing. (Remember, I'm already pissed and normally this doesn't bother me in the least). Then add almost wiping on a trash pull because people weren't gathered on the stairs and the biggest thing Star or X? Which one dies first? I don't want to ask on each pull which mob has to die first, why can't we use skull and X…EVERYONE else in the game does. So I watch the health bars and see our DPS is split. WTF can we have a little bit of freaking consistency here, is that too much to ask? Please?

(Note from Alas: Bad raid leader is bad. Since it was only the weekly [XT-002], I was being lax. Thought that surely people had a handle on what to kill, when. But Jinx is right. There is not a lot of consistency since the star mark is only for what a certain person is tanking and doesn't signal anything other than that. Sometimes we need to take down the starred mob first, sometimes it's the X. We're going to have to switch back to skull, X or simply say that star = skull so it has to go down first, I don't give a damn who is tanking the mob.) 

So I vent this out at Alas's desk today with most of the day to cool off and I am actually finding the humor in it, I also found some truth. We need the consistency in raids, people need to know where they are supposed to stand or what is expected. I don't need the mechanics of the fight but tell me which adds to watch for, folks need to make sure the healers have mana, and for goodness sakes what is a damn ready check for? *smile* OH I get it, just for shits and grins? LOL…one last thing: WHO DIES FIRST?

We have an awesome team of folks that raid. I do enjoy the game and raiding. I fuss over my DPS like it is an only child and feel that everyone is watching Jinx and asking, Why does she get to come to raids, her DPS is the shit. In reality It's not horrible since I'm a hybrid but everyone else pulls 3500 to 6000 and I'm pulling 2700 to 4000. I feel so inadequate sometimes.  I leaned over Alas's desk and said, “But my dick isn't big enough”. She leans in and says, “But it's a hybrid dick…it is ok.”

Fine, I'll take care of the sick boyfriend until he's recovered, then I'll belly back up to the raiding bar again and take my hybrid dick and kill what I can kill and not fret over the other stuff. …Well, I'll still fret because it is my OCD but hopefully I will not let the mind chatter muddy the waters.

Jinx

Note from Alas: And here we are, letting this site be a place to rant. For the record, other guildies who come here, you all can guest post any time. It makes me lol and helps me learn what's important to you and why.  

The fine line of douchebaggery: A How To

We had someone quit the guild the other day, taking his main to go heal for a family's members guild. "No hard feelings," he said.

And I don't have hard feelings, per se. But I do find myself rather frustrated with him because this is something like the third or fourth time he's quit. And I find myself frustrated with us as guild leadership because we're the ones who kept allowing him to come back. Granted, the first few times he cycled out the door, it was during times of high stress and drama. I often want to quit the guild during those times too, so I can understand it to a point. Still, he's burned his last bridge with us and here's why:

I hate giving loot to people who prove to me over and over again that all they're going to do is walk away later.

At this point, I wouldn't invite him to a raid if we were a dps short and it was a choice between his skills and a new 80 who thinks that it's a great idea to be a fire specced mage and only cast frost spells (saw that in a pug, trufax).

But rather than focusing on our own stupid for allowing him to use us over and over again, I present a short list of easy ways to ensure a guild will never want you back, not ever, but still have to say, "It's not that he was a douche, really, but..."

1. Never shut up. Ever

The trick to this one, of course, is to make sure that you keep everything light and friendly and clean. That way no one can actually complain that you're rude or crass, but your constant stream of chatter will make people want to put you on ignore at the very least. To carry this beyond a simple stream of chatter, consider carrying your chat over to vent, particularly when people are trying to raid or make it visually unappealing if you're working only with text, like so:

hey gais!
so i waz wondrin
?
hav u evr liek
thot about bein liek
relly ur caracter
?

End result: When you move on, people will say "It's not that he was a douche, really, but he wouldn't ever shut up." 

2. Be just a little dim-witted 

I don't know about anyone else, but I personally despise that one person who asks the same questions over and over. Not because they're not getting a response or a real answer, but because they can't remember from one week to another what exactly they have to look out for on a certain encounter or just how to get from IF to SW without bugging a mage about it (yeah, that tram is so difficult to remember and even harder to find since you have push through a magic barrier to find Platform 9 and 3/4).

End result: When you move on, people will say "It's not that he was a douche, really, but he was just so stupid."

3. Offer unsolicited critiques on your guild-mates' builds, rotations, glyphs and enchants  

After all, your mage is a level one bank toon, surely you know more about to play that class then the level 80 who has been playing it for years, because you're fairly certain that they're not really literate and couldn't possibly be smart enough to look at sites like Elitist Jerks on their own initiative. Even if they say they have, chances are they were overwhelmed by the math and big words and still don't really know what's going on. You've heard them button mashing often enough over vent to have a pretty good notion that all they do is slam their face against the keyboard. Give everyone your ideas on how they might improve and then talk loftily about fictitious alts of yours (on other servers and they're maxed out on everything so you're bored with them, lol ) and how much better DPS you're able to pull using your ideas.  

Caution: You have to make sure your tone comes across as friendly and helpful. Any hint of condescension will result in people thinking you're a douche.  

End result: When you move on, people will say "It's not that he was a douche, really, but he was such a know-it-all."

4. Be that guy above and still constantly be the first to die in raids because you're too fucking stupid to get outta the fire!

'Nuff said.

End result: When you move on, people will say "It's not that he was a douche, really, but he thought he knew everything and was such a noob he couldn't stay alive in raids for more than a minute."

5. Give off the faint impression that you believe the rest of the guild is there to serve you

This one is perhaps the most tricky of all to master. As with the rest of these, the key is tone, but equally important is frequency. If you're constantly spamming for help, hints, run-throughs or invitations to parties, your guild will clue in pretty quickly. There are a few ways to handle this. One is to just never say anything much, but whenever you do type in guild chat make it a request. Don't be rude but don't be too gracious either. You can get away with more frequent requests if you make sure to watch who is online and who is off and try to catch different segments of guild at different times.

The other way to finesse this is to offer help about once for every five to ten times you get a run through. Honestly, not many people will keep a running tally or anything, so just as long as you appear to be helpful they won't notice that you're really just sponging off the guild and have been for months. Times to offer help are right around when you know people are going to be logging off for the night or just before most of the guild is heading into a raid. Sure you might occasionally get burned by employing this method and end up having to actually give someone's alt a run through SM, but you can also manufacture emergencies if this happens and get out of it early.

End result: When you move on, people will say "It's not that he was a douche, really, but he was just so needy."

Weekly raid and me

I love me some weekly raid, generally speaking. So far, everything that has come up has been excessively easy to get to and to pwn.

Then yesterday, the thing I had dreaded more than anything else happened.

The weekly raid was Malygos. Eee. Oh. Eee. Our nemesis.

I've mentioned before that it should be an easy fight but that people tend to want to give Malygos hugs while they're on their dragon mounts or not give the tank time to grab aggro on the mobs at the start of phase two or assume that it's everyone else's responsibility to kill those nasty sparks o' doom.

So when I heard from Noxy that the weekly raid was Maly, I started mentally drinking then and there. Had I been not at work, I might have started actually drinking.

Raid time rolled around and I sent out invites and we got everyone summoned out to Colderra. Then I kicked everyone out of the raid, yelled "psyche!" over vent and gquit.

Okay, not really. I did tell everyone to split into two teams though, and that we were going to practice our dragon skills while doing the daily quest Aces High! The healers practiced their healing and the dps practiced their button mashing and every now and again I would bark out "move!" and people would practice strafing to the right. It was delightful, sort of like being in Kindergarten and practicing drawing circles when you know you and all the people with you should be at least at a college equivalent level.

Once both teams had completed the daily we reformed into a raid group and headed in.

The first phase went well enough. Although we didn't manage to actually stack any sparks and in fact killed one before it even reached the platform so that it fell uselessly into the abyss, at least we managed to kill them rather than let them reach Maly. The second phase also went well enough. The two hunter's pets decided to kill the mob that the tank wasn't working on but that was sorted out and no actual raiders were harmed in the process. We also saw our melee dps get up on the discs first, rather than some random healer.

We hit the third phase with just under 4 minutes before enrage and...

...everything worked like a dream. The healers healed and absolutely no one crashed and burned. When I told people to group back up, they did. When I told them to move, there was not a 5 second delay before they did. We one shot Maly with time to spare. Some people even managed to obtain the heart thinger they needed for the quest from the key from when they got that a year or so ago killing Saph. Other people finally obtained their "Champion of the Frozen Wastes" title.

Then we went and kicked Ony's ass and it was very good.

It gives me hope that we'll maybe someday manage to find the time to go finish out the back half of Ulduar. I know we're all capable raiders. The trick is getting everyone to pay attention and understand what exactly they should be doing and when.

Hi, my name is Alas

...and I am a WoW addict.

It's been five days since the last time I logged in.

I miss my guildies and the game. Gotta get another fix here soon.

Actual gtalk conversation

Noxy: ok.. i'll do that tomorrow. for now i have an epic raid on the Sinkfullodishes

Alas: Good luck with that one

I hear it's a bitch and there's no good loots

Noxy: yeah

and to make it interesting, the dishwasher gquit

Alas: Oh, man, what a jerk

Noxy: well.. no. not true. he didn't server xfer with the rest of us

Alas: Think he might be convinced? Will you have to throw money at him?

Noxy: idk.. maybe. been eying one in lfg for a while

Alas: Might be best to get a new one - those former quitters have no loyalty

Noxy: true story. on that note.. imma go see if i can down that boos :)

Alas: booze?

Noxy: maybe that too

Alas: Woot

See ya later

Noxy: see ya

Alas: ps- this is going on the blog like right now

How to properly gkick someone

I got to gkick a douche bag last night, always a fun event. In all actuality, I'm sort of grateful to the guy because it coincided so nicely with the fact that I wanted to talk about gkicking and how to properly do so.

Here's the lead-up to the events of last night. Everyone is hanging about, minding their own business. There's talk about 3.3 and what people plan on doing as soon as it hits and, honestly, I'm not paying too much attention to guild chat because I somehow got suckered into helping out some priest in Nagrand with all their group quests when all I was trying to do was get exalted with the Kurenai. (See prior post re: Whoring, Me)

But then this one guy leaps into the conversation, which is odd in and of itself since he never really says anything to anyone, and hasn't for something like a year. He's been one of those people you wonder why is even in the guild because he gains nothing and contributes nothing, but since he also harms nothing you don't boot him. So to have him suddenly asking whether the next patch was when we were going to get goblins and worgen was... odd, but just brushed it off as him being stupid.

Then real stupid happened. He started to talk about how his account had been 'haked' and he was naked. Several people who had also been hacked before started to give him advice on what to do. His response?

"u all need to give me ur ore so I can make stuff 2nite."

No one hesitated to jump all over that and tell him no. Then someone in officer chat said that he had taken stuff from the guild bank - random crap that no warrior would ever want. I demoted him and sent him a tell, basically telling him that his attitude was not going to fly and he better shape up if he ever wanted to have privileges in the guild again.

"sry" he said.

A few moments later, he sent me another tell, "it wouldn't make me made if you kicked me frm the guild"

I typed out, "It wouldn't make me sad to kick you, either." Then deleted it. No need to be a jerk.

Then one of the other officers had a good idea. It took a few tries but he finally snagged this guy's meandering attention and asked him which character was his main.

"This is," he said.

Which was not true. So, figuring he had been hacked or sold, and not liking his attitude and theft, no matter if it was petty, I kicked him. (names fuzzed because no one in the guild has really given me overt permission to write about them, ha) 

(Clicky to embiggen, but the gist of it is there.)

No one exactly cried to see him go.

And for me, I had to contain myself just a little because gkicking is such a fun and heady experience. In fact, it was so fun I had to ask if there was anyone else on who wanted to say something stupid. Everyone jumped at that chance and bam, we were off on politics and Climategate.

How many other people employ the SPARTA method for kicking?

And how many weeks will I have guildies logging in and instantly demanding everyone give them all "ur ore"? Since we still have one officer spamming "anyone wanna run SM" about three months after THAT beggar annoyed the piss outta us, I have the feeling it could be a while.

He crapped his thong, I'm pretty sure

My husband and I have been dabbling with "the dark side" in recent months. It came from a desire of wanting to see how the other side lives, I guess. Having been Alliance for the whole of our WoW careers, the lure of easier-than-anything transportation coupled with the knowledge that leveling horde side can be like playing a whole new game, we started a handful of alts on another server.

One of the pairs we've started is a Shaman/Druid team. I'm the Shaman, he's the Druid. After ever so slowly trying to make it through what I affectionately refer to as the "shitty levels between 15 and 20," (not to be confused with the "shitty levels between 50-58") we took a break from them for the day, out of rested XP and out of patience (at least on my side) with the crummy dps and the utter laughingstock that Druid "tanking" is at that level.

Faced with a another hour or so of play time before we would have to call it for the night, I asked At what he would like to do. He suggested either our Horde side Death Knights, who are currently slogging their way through Hellfire, or our Alliance side Death Knight and Shaman combo. I am also the Shaman in that combo. Not being much of a fan of playing the Death Knight class, I opted for playing the Shaman.

We're both around level 75 on that pair and running around Grizzly Hills, despite my opinion that it has some of the most painful of any Northrend quests. Of course, a lot of that has been mitigated by having the ability to fly so I'm trying not to whine too much. While out questing, we ended up slaughtering the hell out of some furbolgs (don't get twitchy on me now, Noxy) and in my warped mind (I may have compared LotR to a pug raid once) that ended up translating into something like this:

Random Furlbog: It's a lovely day for a stroll, out here in the snow and the cold mountain air, while I wear nothing other than my handy loincloth/thong. Wait - what's going on just up the hill?

At and Alas: Slaughter! Death grip! Earth shock! Die furlbogs, die! Why is this drop rate so crappy?

Random Furlbog: Oh crap. This again.

At and Alas: *Target the furlbog*

Furlbog vainly attempts to defend himself and the sanctity of his thong. Dies within seconds. Begins the corpse run back from the nearest furlbog graveyard.

Random Furlbog: Stupid Blizz, putting me in this place where I am constantly murdered although I do nothing more than go about my own business. All these stupid elites coming through all the time and tearing through me like I'm no more than a level 25 stuck out in Ashenvale! And then there's my stupid NPC mates. They're all here, they can all see the slaughter whenever it happens. But instead of banding together and giving us a fighting chance, they just pretend they can't see what's happening no more than 10 yards away from them. Unless some level 70 rolls through. Then all of a sudden they're hiding balls under those loincloths! Then all of a sudden you can get a Shaman to throw a heal! Ah, here's my body. No one seems to be around...

At: Death grips the furlbog through a narrow hole in the rickety fence, nearly breaking the furlbog's neck in the process.

Random Furlbog: Aw, shit.

Lazy Wednesday

Yep, it's Wednesday and the day before Thanksgiving. I stayed up a bit later than I meant to last night, competing with half the damn server for turkeys so I could level cooking on my priesty, who went from 0-320 in about half an hour. Maybe someday she'll be able to help contribute fish feasts at raids!
Anyway, in the spirit of "I am somewhat tired and not feeling at all creative," here are some random screen shots for your viewing pleasure.

When I die, which I am grateful to say is less often these days, I tend to take pictures of whoever is nearby, which is often the healers. I love me some splash AoE healing. What's sad about this picture is it's from when the exploit still existed for Mr. Unclean and I still died anyway.

I am easily amused, which is why I snapped this shot of Thorim drumming his fingertips in midair. You're not on your chair anymore, silly! Oh, and just so you know, we will kill you soon, you big jerk.



I love cool GMs! And yes, my husband really did catch his turtle mount on his first cast. I sort of hate him. A little. Maybe more than that. Look, I'm still working through it, okay?

I have no idea what's going on here, but it looked pretty cool.









This is me being a dork, a not uncommon event. I may have started singing "I can shoooow you the wooorld! Shiiining, shimmmmering, splendid!" My husband may or may not have rolled his eyes at me and started praying furiously that I wouldn't launch into the "Gaston" song from Beauty and the Beast. He really hates that song.

In other news, blogger + pics stinketh greatly and I don't really feel that this ended up being lazy in terms of fiddling with layout efforts. Still totally lazy in the coming up with words department though.