The Crazy Parade.

Today started out really good: I woke up all fresh from a night's good sleep, and had a quiet morning in front of the online papers, since my flatmate watched some alpine skiing event on TV in the other room.

Last night I got my draenei huntress a couple of new pets, since I realised a gorilla might be a bit annoying for everyone else if I use him for questing in Northrend, and quite stupid for general BM-hunter 101 activity in an instance. Not that I will ever give him up, though - I love him like crazy - but for precision work I'll probably be using another pet.

So, what's new in the stable?

First, I went to Winterspring, and picked up a Frostsaber Pride Watcher:

I really wanted to name him Sam Spandex, but that was a no go, so Spandex it is.

After that, I flew all the way down to Un'goro Crater (one would think I'd had enough of that place after camping for my gorilla, but no way!), to see if I could find another ferocious companion:

Lo and behold, the tamed version of that endlessly scary and annoying thing that squished you super dead around level 50 (the vanilla-WoW version of the Fel Reaver, I suppose) - a Devilsaur! This one doesn't have a name yet, but I'll get around to that.

A couple of days ago my huntress and her gorilla friend was in Zangarmarsh, kickin' some butt, and they stumbled upon Marshlight Bleeders, who give you a glowing debuff. The result?
Discorilla!!!

And yeah, he's got a name now - Fonzarelli. As in Fonzie, or The Fonz. If I ever find an even cooler pet gorilla, I guess I'm going to have to name him (or her) Arthur.

The dangers of working from home...

I just discovered it's Friday today. Whoops. Doesn't really make a difference in the long run, or the short run for that matter, but I was surprised, since I was convinced it was Thursday. I'm going to have to keep better track of things, so I won't miss the train on Tuesday :D

No, really, it would be dreadful to be stuck here - friggin' alone - during the holidays. Sure, I'd get my Winter Veil gifts, but that would be it...

Right now, I'm waiting for the oven to get warmed up, so I can make some dinner, and after eating, I plan to continue leveling my huntress. She's currently about half way into level 65, and I'm hoping to get her started in Northrend before the weekend is over. With the offline-time I have looming on the horizon (starting late Feb - early March, may go on for a while), it would be really nice to get her well on her way (maybe all the way) to 80 as soon as possible.

I'm still playing with the thought of trying out mobile broadband for a bit, once I've moved, to see if and how it works. If it does work, nothing much would change, WoW-wise. Time will tell.

Not enough mana!

Right now, I'm a tiny bit too hungry to not go shopping for food, but my hair is a bit too wet (from showering) for me to want to go to the store immediately. So, here I am, making a post.

When I'm hungry, a number of things can happen:

1. Nothing. I calmly and patiently make sure I get something to eat soon-ish.
2. Full-on bitch mode. Nothing good can happen if you try to communicate with me, or just pass me on the street. Unless, of course, you're getting me something to eat.
3. Uncontrollable giggling. Everything is absolutely hilarious, no exceptions.

Right now, it's no. 3. WoWInsider has another "You know you play too much WoW if..."-article, and I just realised how I really want a "Ding!"-buddy IRL. You know, someone you run into every now and then, you go "Ding!", and they reply with a "Gratz!" - wouldn't that be just perfect? Too bad I don't have too many IRL-friends who would get it, and I guess even fewer would find it funny. I doubt I'll find it funny once I've had dinner, but still... It would be like an MMO equivalent of that Scrubs episode, where J.D. meets a patient with the same initials as his.

My baby!

Guess who finally decided to show up?

I'm in love. Seriously. Haven't decided on a name yet, but the important part is done - in my opinion one of the coolest skins/colours in the game! <3

(For anyone interested: I started camping at about 1 AM this morning, then there was a break for weekly maintenance, and I logged on again at about 10.20 AM. Uhk'loc spawned at approximately 1 PM, I abandoned my old pet, cleared the three mobs that were in the way, did the trap->wait for cooldown->aggro->2nd trap->tame-routine, and there you go!)

Off to level my new pet, I guess :)

Not very exciting, no.

Guess what? I'm still camping the gorilla. No, I haven't camped constantly since last night - Wednesday is maintenance day in Europe, so the server went offline at 3 AM, and was back up when I decided to try and log in at about 10.20 AM. At that time, I was alone in Un'goro Crater, so I'm assuming no one has been here and snatched him away.

A lot of people suggest that one levels up fishing while camping in there, to fight the boredom, and that would have been great, if it hadn't been for the fact that my darling huntress hasn't fished a whole lot before. I think she's got about 52 in fishing... But I'll get it up, some day. So, instead of fishing, I melee down the handful of gorillas that spawn around the spot where I'm standing, slowly getting up the skill in 2-handed axes (and the defense skill, of course). I do kind of wish I had brought several different melee weapons, though. Also, this is a pretty good way to get rugged leather for the Winter Boots people should be wanting this season!

What's really important.

OK, so... I have a recently dinged level 80 moonkin, a bunch of level 70s just waiting to get moving in Northrend, the Feast of Winter Veil goin on, and what am I doing? I'm camping the spawn point of a rare gorilla on my level 64 huntress. Looking good, aren't we?



Sadly, my faithful Fonzie will be abandoned the moment Uhk'loc spawns, and I'm obviously keeping him on passive - it would be so dreadful seeing the blue-white beauty die from thunderstomp.

I'm hoping that a lot of hunters are either doing Winter Veil stuff, or are grinding to 78-ish to try and get Loque'nahak, so that no one comes along to steal my baby.

(Yeah, yeah, not the best screenshot, but the boring ss kind of illustrates how boring it actually is to camp one of these rare spawns. And he's only on a 5-8 hour timer! Luckily, I have a blog to mess around with.)

It wasn't just me, apparently.

Weird morning. I went to sleep quite late last night - showered, and read a few pages in some book - and was a bit worried I'd oversleep, just because I had arranged to see a friend early today. That, however, was not an issue. At about 6.20 AM I was shook awake by what I thought was the construction work in the railway tunnel they're building beneath our house, and since the activity in said tunnel has been quite loud at times, I went back to sleep for another hour. Later, when I met up with my friend, she asked me "Did the earthquake wake you up?", and I finally managed to add things up, realising that construction work probably doesn't make your bed sway for 10 seconds! The papers say it was a 4.7 - the highest in Sweden since 1904.

Christmas preparations are coming along rather nicely: 2 ½ gifts done, 2 ½ to go! Train tickets were booked a couple of months ago, and since I'll be away until January 2nd, I've even arranged for my mail to be sent to my parents (which obviously is where I'm going) for the duration of my stay.

OK, nonsense, OT, personal post today, but it's what I've got for now. I believe it's time for a quick nap now, and later the Feast of Winter Veil awaits. :)

Am I tired? Don't know, better not check.

I only slept about four hours last night, due to some RL turbulence, but oddly enough, I'm not very tired. At least not as long as I keep myself busy. After spending some time on the phone, and reading stuff online, I think I'm going to make my self look a bit less like an unmade bed, and go out on the town to see if I can find some Christmas presents.

WoW-wise, I don't have a lot to say - I'm kind of excited about the Winter Veil event, and will check it out later tonight - mostly I'm just sick of my own voice, in general.

Ah, I just got a message from a friend - we'll be having coffee tomorrow morning, and I think I'll postpone the Christmas shopping until then. It'll be nice to actually meet someone in person, for a change - it's been a while, since everyone's so caught up in the pre-Christmas-craze.

SWE???

Yes, I'm swedish, no, I'm not one of those people. And, most importantly, I don't feel obliged to talk to you just because you happen to live in the same country as me. When I hang with people online, wallowing in the swedishness we may or may not have in common is not my number one priority. The game, music, movies, food, general silliness - yes! SWE??? No. And no, I'm not going to help you simply because you're swedish.

/rant off

I believe this happens almost every time I decide to play my nelf huntress - Nysnö. I have brought her out of retirement for a bit, to level mining on her, instead of skinning (which is one of my new hunter's professions). Suppose I may as well get used to it, and keybind /dnd.

Other than this rather trivial issue, I'm kind of enjoying playing her again. My draenei huntress still kicks her ass, but the nelf has her charms too :)

Weird Science.

Just found this, after seeing what I at first thought was a joke at Lady Jess' place.

So, how many male draenei will have a sex change? To me, most other races are quite equal when it comes to the look of the different sexes, but I've always had a rather hard time understanding why people choose the big, blue, self righteous look. It's like a smurf version of a not-so-incredible Hulk. Oh well, people are different, and so are their preferences when it comes to picking a WoW-character.

I doubt that I'll change the look of any of my girls (well, I do have one male character - I finally started that male dwarf hunter - but he's just level 6, and already perfect) - since I don't really feel that I've made any huge mistakes when it comes to skin colour or eye shape, and I have certainly not made any mistakes big enough to pay RL-cash to adjust them! But I can understand that there are people who want to make changes - I'm guessing that a person who've named one of his/her actual characters "Trklsie" just to show how little he/she cares, may also have chosen one of the ugly/angry faces, and is having regrets.

Still, though, I guess I can understand the sex change-thing. But it's bound to have interesting effects on RP-servers!

I really need to stop QQing online, this is getting silly.

I've spent most of the evening trying to organize my bank characters, and cleaning up the inventories and mailboxes of some low level alts, and I'm planning to open up another tab in the guildbank. I've also spent a little too much gold in the past few days, so I've done some dailies on the druid. I did the Oracle dailies, the cooking daily, the Kalu'ak ones, and the two I've found for Wyrmrest Accord, and unfortunately, my computer seems to enjoy the trips through Northrend less and less each time I move around a bit there. My fps in Dalaran rarely goes above 15 if I'm moving, and if I'm standing perfectly still it can get up to 35 - yay!

So, trying to make my future time away from WoW not seem so dreadful, I thought to myself how I'm not really seeing the new expansion from its best side anyway, because of my crappy computer. OK, fair enough. But then it hit me like a rotten egg on a bad clown (they all are, btw): If I'm ever going to be able to play the way I'd like to, not only will I have to get a real broadband connection, I'll have to buy a new computer too :´´´( Way to make myself depressed! Well, I guess that all this will make me even more determined to find a job (any job!) as quickly as possible after I graduate. Job -> apartment -> broadband -> computer -> ? -> profit!

I suppose most people don't consider playing WoW a human right, and that I should be happy about roof over my head and food on the table, especially now, with a financial crisis going on and all that, but they're wrong, oh so wrong. ;)

/cry even more

Sigh. It seems I will be without a real broadband connection when I've moved. That was not something I had expected, but I guess I'll just have to roll with the punches, meaning I'll have to prepare for a few months of not playing. >.< Still, I have until late February, minus Christmas and new year's (and the days in between), and should be able to get quite a few fun things done. What I will miss the most, is the people. I do have a few friends on the server - not a gazillion since I haven't really made an effort lately, due to studies and other RL-stuff, but a few - and I'll miss them like crazy.

On a slightly different note, it really annoys me that I'll be offline during the months when people will just race through - and past - heroics, so that I'll be waaay behind if and when I get back. Maybe I'll give the mobile broadband-thing a shot, after all. Would be nice to be able to take part in the seasonal events, and log in to say hi to people every once in a while.

Stupid Swedish countryside, and its lack of cheap and easily accesible broadband! Also, curse the lack of unexpected piles of cash falling into my lap. That really would have solved my problem.

/cry

Oh, crappers. I'll be moving house some time in February next year, and I may not be able to get a broadband internet connection at the new place (which is hopefully quite temporary)... During the past 48 hours, I've been looking for a solution, and have come up with three possibilities:

• Dial-up 56k modem - my WoW-time would be limited to AH and perhaps some low-level activity, apparently with serious lag. Sucky is just the beginning. Plus, I don't really enjoy playing the AH.
  
• Mobile broadband - I've heard it's supposed to be a bit unstable, and considering the place I'm moving to is located in the backwaters of the most backwatery backwaters, I doubt I'll even get connected long enough to make it worth the money. WoW is supposed to work OK on it, though, if one manages to establish a connection.
  
• Real, hard core broadband. It will cost a bit to get started, and it would require other people than me to give a green light, but it would be so sweet. Don't know if this one has any chance of happening, though.

Anyway, I'm going to try and savour every moment I have online, and not afk in AH while watching a movie. If I end up not having any WoW at all this spring, Buffy and the PS2 will be my best friends for a while...

Back to huntress - level 52 and counting :)

What's with the creepiness?

Today my baby huntress dinged 47 (and 46 - gorilla pet rocks!), and I've been doing selected quests in Tanaris. Weird thing happened when I landed in Gadgetzan, by the way. I got on my mount, decided to head down to the "escort the turtle"-quest, and notice someone is following me. Another draenei hunter, a male, on an elekk. And yes, he seems to have put me on /follow, since he copies every twist and turn I make. Half way to my goal, I get a whisper: "were are u goin?". I'm a bit annoyed, so I answer: "very special places". A minute later, the guy is gone. What I'm wondering is this: What was the point of that? Mmo-stalking of a complete stranger? Jeez.

Anyway, I've had a cup of tea, and just about to finish a few quests in Hinterlands. No druid today, it seems - maybe I'll log on her just to do today's inscription research, but the dailies will have to wait until tomorrow.

Boo-yah!!!

OK, so I didn't start a new hunter the other day, simply because I didn't feel like sorting out the stuff I kept on the character I would have deleted. Instead, I leveled up my draenei to 32, and got her a fancy gorilla! His name is Fonzie, and with him, leveling is even more of a breeze.



Seriously, I don't think I ever had this much fun while leveling my nelf huntress - around level 35-40 she started pulling aggro off her cat, and it got a bit boring holding back. With this one, with Fonzie, I can take down 3-4 mobs at a time, no problem. Also, all other potential pets have gotten little special twists, making them all that much more fun.

And now, back to Thunderstomping stuff! Weeeeee!!!

Stupid brain.

Last night some deluded part of my mind thought it was an excellent idea to play WoW at 8 AM today, not realising that today is Wednesday. Frickin' maintenance day. Not that I wasn't getting up anyway, but I simply don't like plans that don't work out. Oh well, time for proper breakfast and studies, I guess. Was going to save that for about 11-ish, but yeah, we'll have to move that one around - thanks, brain!

Anyway, the reason that I was so excited to get up and play a bit before my work day starts, is a bit silly, maybe even slightly stupid. I'd kind of like another hunter. I know, I've got my hands full with my druid, and with leveling the draenei, my beautiful Bunnyhop, but this new one would probably be sitting somewhere at levels 1-12, until his/her time comes. Now, what would be so special about this hunter, you ask? Well, here it goes: It would be a dwarf! I have 2 accounts in my possession, and so far no dwarf has set his/her foot in there, at least not past the planning stage, and I have decided it's time to end this madness. Don't know if it will be a he or a she yet, though.

I'm quite familiar with the male dwarf sounds and animations, since my flatmate has a pally of that kind, but I have very little experience when it comes to female dwarves, so I might just check on Youtube to see if it might be possible to see some examples. I mean, seriously, people put up all kinds of crap there, so why not female dwarf animations? Still, I'm leaning towards a male, since I'd love to have a character with a real beard!

Flying, hunting, choosing.

I'm in the middle of trying to understand, and apply, the Learned Hand rule, and am getting a tiny bit frustrated, so it appears to be time for blogging.

Yesterday my druid regrew her wings by turning 77, and learning Cold Weather Flying, and I spent quite a bit of time exploring Northrend, until I got the World Explorer achievement - it comes with a title, and you get a tabard for exploring Northrend. The tabard is very meh, and I'll probably bank it as soon as I've made room for it (I save a LOT of junk), but the title's fun, even though it's quite easy to get. Not everyone feels like devoting a day's gameplay (roughly, and obviously not /played time :D) to traveling around all of Azeroth to find every little nook and cranny, and the completionist in me is mighty proud. Also, I'd love to get the Loremaster achievement done, but I need to do another 700 quests in Azeroth for that, a lot more Northrend, and some scattered quests in Outland, so that would definitely take a while. Also, I'd like to get her to 80 within the next few days, so I highly doubt that I'll be doing any quests that don't give me xp or cash anytime soon.

Also, yesterday I logged on to my draenei huntress, and did some easy going questing in Ashenvale. She's 28, and moving up fairly fast. She is a hunter, after all! Now, I do have a level 70 hunter - a female night elf - and she and I have had a bit of fun, but somehow I can't muster up any passion for her. A lot of people would say that a hunter is a hunter is a hunter, but that is so not the case. Not only does my draenei girl get extra hit rating and a HoT, but she also has a sleeker, cooler look, compared to her nelf sister. It's not that I have anything against female night elves as such - I wouldn't want my druid to be any other race (although, a gnome druid would be adorable) - but when it comes to hunters, they just don't cut it for me. The innate reclusiveness of nelfs works great for the druid, but I'd really like a hunter with a bit more "oomph!", and along comes Bunnyhop, and her fearsome boar Hurricane!

Of course, I wont be deleting my nelf huntress - I'll probably level up her engineering a bit, and maybe do some farming - but I wont be farming for Loque'nahak or Nuramoc with her - I'm saving that work for the draenei!

Back to the books, need to get this working in my brain before it's time for dinner.

Just another one!

I overslept today. Not as badly as yesterday, but still. Got up at about 9.45, when I had planned to be up and about at 8. Still an amazing improvement compared to yesterday, though. Anyway, I'm having some tea, and in a bit I'll be off to the library, after dropping off a package at the post office.

Ever since I found out about Stinker, and what I had to do to get him (I've wanted a pet skunk from the moment I first saw them as critters in the draenei zone) I have been looking for new mini pets to get my hands on, and I've collected quite a few so far - feel free to check my collection (which spans mutliple characters) at WarcraftPets.com - including Stinker. The day before yesterday I finally got my druid to Dalaran - not by portal, but by turning 74 - and I've started working on my Kirin Tor Familiar. He's kind of the reward for completing this achievement, and so far I have found one of the books. I just tried to log in, to do a quick check of the different spawn locations before I have to be off, but alas, the servers didn't come online at 11 am as usual - they'll be down until 1 pm, and by then I hope to be on the bus. Hopefully I'll get enough work done today, to feel like I can work on this little project for a while tonight! Should fit in nicely with a bit of fishing...

Eventually I'm going to have to level up to at least 76 - in Sholazar Basin there's a weird faction called The Oracles, and when one hits revered with these guys, one can buy a Mysterious Egg, which may contain one of four different mini pets, or just an Aged Yolk (eww). So, the required level for questing with these guys seems to be 76, which shouldn't be too hard to accomplish after getting some rested bonus while camping for books and doing some fishing. While doing that, there's always the chance I pick up one of these! Fishing sure does rock.

Right, I'm off to the library.

With a Song in My Heart!(?)

This Tuesday has so far been slow, and off topic when it comes to this blog (which is just as it should be, since I have a lot of non-WoW-stuff to do). I got up a late, since I went to bed late, and have spent some time trying to figure out the next step in my "get a move on"-plan. I guess the obvious next step is just that: Get a move on. I just need to have lunch and a shower first.

The reason I stayed up so late last night was incredibly important: My druid finally reached level 74, and got to do the "going to Dalaran"-quest! Finally, the ultimate hearth spot! Of course, I've seen it before, on the beta, but now it's the real deal! It is a pity though, that there aren't any class trainers there, and no auction house. Well, I guess that would have been the final blow for Azeroth, and that would probably kill the game, in a way.

Now i don't really know what character to level- should I continue with the druid, and move on towards 80, or should I start levelling the mage, so she can get a bunch of low level alts to Dalaran at 74? Should I give the hunter or the rogue a bit of love, so that I get the farming going a bit? Ah, no. I have a feeling there'll be enough farming in the future, so I think I'll just stick to the druid for a while, and have fun doing a lot of new and fun quests. I did this quest last night - took 2 tries to figure out, but it was hilarious! Very Mario Kart!

You know what else is hilarious? My neighbour. She sings, and plays the piano. She plays quite well - seems to have some kind of classical training behind her - but the singing is, most of the time, just loud. About half an hour ago she almost had me rolling on the floor in fits of laughter when she did the title song from Phantom of the Opera. For a long time she was obsessed with "Wind Beneath My Wings" (Bette Midler song), and there's usually a lot of Bon Jovi and Aerosmith ballads from the early-mid nineties on her repertoir. Her playing+singing is only audible in the livingroom, so it's not really a big problem. It can get a bit repetitive after a while, though - three hours of "Did you ever know that you're my HEEEROOOO?" can make anyone feel a bit nauseous.

OK, I have to get going. I need to eat something, take a shower, get a package to the post office, and try to figure out my school work.

Checking off the list.

Annoying morning. I stayed up waaay too late last night, but for a reason: There are a few "kill that named mob, get that drop from it" quests, that are heavily camped (and heavily ninja'd) these days, when everyone is doing them, and as I like to keep moving while levelling, I have simply postponed the completion of those quests. Anyway, at about 3AM the amount of players online has dropped significantly, and I could easily do Words of Power, The Assassination of Harold Lane, Cracking the Code, and Slay Loguhn - lots of nice XP and cash in my virtual pocket!

About the "annoying morning" thing: For some reason I couldn't open the Gmail website while being connected through my router, and I had to go through a bit too much dragging of cables and climbing on furniture before breakfast. Now Gmail works, and I'm going to have something to eat, and hope the rest of the day will be a walk in the park. I might even go for a walk in the park later - I really need to get some air.

While My Server Gently Weeps.

Server restart. What to do? Blog.

Today's questing/exploring has so far been a bit sparse - I'm awfully old, and my body simply couldn't stand sitting in front of the computer screen all day, so I went out for a well needed walk earlier, did some dishes, and cooked myself a proper dinner.

By the way, I'm typing this on my laptop - since I grew tired of alt-tabbing between WoW and Firefox to check wowhead.com (in the middle of the unavoidable crappy fps that comes with everyone being online), I decided to connect the laptop to the router, and simply be my own QuestHelper (I have that addon too, though - as much as I enjoy the lore, it's just great getting a big green dot showing me where to go).

I managed to reach level 72 surprisingly early last night, somewhere in the Star's Rest area in Dragonblight. That place is also so pretty... It's got a lot of the look from Winterspring, but still with its very own angle - I love it. Anyway, I'm taking it quite easy - not that I'm standing around fishing for hours, but I'm trying to take time to do most (if not all) of the quests, explore, and just look at everything - since I'm not in a raiding guild, and hence don't have the pressure on me to ding asap, I'm just going to try and play through the content.

So, soon I've done all of Borean Tundra, and then I'll be heading back to Dragonblight. Eventually, I might even try and get into some dungeons - the screenshots I've seen of the Nexus are amazing, and instances are fun (if one manages to find a nice+reasonably talented group).

A last note: I've really missed the keyboard of my laptop. It's nothing special - a regular laptop keyboard - but the keys are so much softer than those on my PC one, and there's a really nice, worn spot on the space bar. If I ever write my great Swedish novel, I'll so be doing it on a laptop.

Time to check if the server is back up, me thinks.

Delirious.

Ah, it's pretty, so pretty. And my moonkin is a dream to level. She can take a beating from a few mobs at a time, nuke things down quite fast, and the downtime is basically non-existant - Borean Tundra is cake! The lag + low fps can be a pain at times, but the environments, the fancy new skins, and the quests are so effing great I don't really care! She's gotten to 71 so far - I'm taking it quite easy, but I'd like to get to 74 soonish - Dalaran awaits :)

My mage has been chosen as my no. 2 leveling project, so when the Borean Tundra starts to feel too harsh, I head over to the Howling Fjord. This rather newly dinged mage doesn't have the kind of semi-fancy equipment my druid has, though, so it's a bit slower, with a few more deaths. Not as tricky as Hellfire Pen could be at 58, but those few mid 60s quest rewards can make even my badass mage squishy...

Downside: My home server was full, and queued, last night, and it's the same thing tonight. Serious queues, too - last night I was no. 420! Hopefully it'll get better in a while, but right now there's really no way to easily switch between my two accounts.

Anyway, back to the game - aiming at getting to 72 sometime within the next 24 hours, which shouldn't be a problem :)

Hi-tech Durid.

Sadly it seems the day has come for my graphics card to retire. I haven't managed to find the correct drivers for it (no CD anywhere, and not online, since it's oooold), and now everything is either stretched out vertically (the regular interface, Firefox and so on), or horisontally (WoW). Also, since it's a bit older than what Blizzard recommends for WotLK, and since my fps has been heartbreaking for a while, I've decided to get a new one.

Well, semi-new, since I can't afford any of the ones I actually want. So, I'll be getting a Nvidia Geforce 9500GT, upgrading from the fancy MSI Geforce 7300GT - better late than never, right? Guess it's time to keep my fingers crossed that the rest of my darling computer will survive this ordeal.

Another reason for not getting a better one, is the vain hope that I'll be able to get a whole new computer sometime next year. I would love it so dearly, and tenderly keep it as dust-free as I can! Hence, also keeping fingers crossed for an improved spring economy!

Sooner than expected.

Once again I've found a mail from my favourite online game store in my inbox, and today they're telling me that I'll be getting the expansion in the mail on Wednesday, i.e. tomorrow! I'm a grown up (no, really!), so I wasn't too bummed that I wouldn't be able to go through the whole "World Server down"-craze that is most certainly going to start a few moments past midnight, and go on well into the afternoon on Thursday (everyone and their mother is going to be online, so it's bound to happen), but now I'm actually a bit stoked about being able to at least try to get to Northrend early!

About the WotLK-preparation: I just spent about 400 gold on friggin' mithril bars and solid stone, to level blacksmithing on my level 39 pally, so I might have to try and make some more gold :D I believe tonight and tomorrow evening will be filled with as many dailies as I can stand, and since the druid has access to basically all of them (Ogri'la, Skyguard, Netherwing, Isle of Quel'danas and cooking&fishing), and has epic flying, she's going to be doing a lot of the dirty work. I'll probably get the rogue out too, for a bit. Epic flying really speeds things up.

Also, still have to try and find the original CD for the graphics card. The basement is not too tempting, though...

RL: I've found an actual idea for my big, final paper-thingie! At least I hope so, will have to do a bit of research, but it doesn't look too bad.

Monday, Monday.

Meh. I haven't been down in the basement to look for that CD - yet - so my WoW-graphics are still slightly fucked. But it doesn't have any real impact on my gameplay, other than the fact that I'll be endlessly delighted the day I actually get it to work, or get a new computer, and get to see all the fancy colours I know are there.

In a few minutes I plan to go out for something to eat. I had a fancy McDonald's lunch earlier, and I'm still a bit full, so I'll probably just get something small. Fruit, maybe? While waiting for the rain to stop (it won't, though, so I'll have to go out anyway) I'm camping a vendor in Aerie Peak, so I can get these blacksmithing plans for my paladin. She's at 225, and those plans are supposedly the cheapest way to get to 235. They're apparently "limited supply", so I have to camp for them /yawn. Anyway, I think I'll check a couple more times, and then I'll head out.

Thursday will come, I'm sure of it.

I just checked my inbox, and found a "we'll be sending you the stuff you ordered"-mail. More specifically, a mail stating that I'll be recieving two Wrath of the Lich King - Collector's Edition on Thursday! That's right, two boxes, one for each account - Frosty galore!

Hopefully my darling computer will survive - I think I'll have to try and find the original installation CD:s for my graphics card, though - there has been a few too many glitches while playing lately... Arakkoas, epic elekks and Cenarion Hippogryphs have certain parts blackened out, and I believe that happened after a panic reinstallation of the card, using some drivers I found online. So, I 'm keeping my fingers crossed that the original CD is still in the basement, and that it will be some kind of magical solution to my problem. Honestly, this baby has been shivering and shaking so much in the last year, I would've bought a new computer if I could afford it. Maybe sometime next year, when I've found a job, and gotten settled in a new place.

Of Tauren and Boots.

Just remembered: This morning I briefly logged on to one of my few horde alts, a tauren druid who goes by the name Moonberry. I got her to level 13, and then I had to go start my "work day", but I do really hope I'll get her levelled up properly one day - female tauren druids look amazing!

This afternoon I bought a new pair of winter boots. Not WoW-related at all, but if they were a piece of equipment, they'd definitely be epic. They're bound to keep my feet warm and fabulous for a few winters - at least two, hopefully more than three! :)

En attendant WotLK

Over the last few days I've been laying low, WoW-wise. Not a very big surprise, considering Hallow's End left me exhausted, and without a new title (poo!). Also, my studies actually seem to be moving forward, which has required quite a bit of focus. I spent yesterday evening getting my human priestess up to level 50, and now she only has the (in my opinion) really fun areas left:

• Felwood - OK, I guess some of those demon guys (if not all of them) are a bit too resilient to shadow damage, but it looks sooo cool.
• Un'goro Crater - A lot of quests to do, all in one go (maybe two), as you move in a circle around the place.
• Western Plaguelands - A lot of quests, of course, really close to eachother, and quite a bit of runecloth - yay for tailoring!
• Winterspring - Let's grind some funky reps! OK, so I may not feel like grinding all the way to exalted with Timbermaw Hold, but I love the quests in Winterspring, and the blindingly white environment.
• Silithus - On a second thought, no. I don't like Silithus. Only good reason to go there is to pick up this cooking recipe from a quest, to get cooking to 300 without too much fuss.
• Eastern Plaguelands - This is where I usually do that last grind to 58, killing Scourge and gathering even more runecloth, while enjoying the (yes, once again) effing amazing environment. I like the spookiness of the place, how it feels abandoned, and how one can almost flinch in surprise if actually running into another player in somewhere like Plaguewood. It's just got a really nice atmosphere.

Still, I don't know if I'll feel like doing the final grind all the way to Outland before the expansion comes, which is next week! I'd really like to try and grind some cash (lately, it seems, I've spent it as soon as I've had it), so I can upgrade skills and stuff like that without giving it another thought, and not having to focus on gold for the first few levels in Northrend. On the other hand, I don't really plan on spending a whole lot before getting to 80, except on riding skills, since I honestly don't find it necessary to be fully enchanted when you're running around in quested greens.

Anyway, I'm probably going to try and get enough cash to pay for slow flying for a mage and a shaman, and hopefully about 1000 gold for each of the 70 chars. Should be enough.

Now, I'm going to spend some time trying not to fall asleep, while waiting for my flatmate to get back from work. I made dinner yesterday, and the day before, so I'm expecting food, dammit!

Also: Yay Obama!

Now, let this be a lesson!

I stayed up rather late last night, hoping and wishing that my druid would open a treat bag or a crudely wrapped whatever, and find a Hallowed Helm inside. This, of course, did not happen. Instead, my level 48 priest got a helm, so, I now have 6 characters with the Sinister Calling achievement completed, and only one of them is level 70 - my nelf hunter. What do we learn from this? A classic, obviously: Random loot is random. Le QQ.

Anyway, I'm pretty much over it - considering I only pugged the Headless Horseman three times, getting about fifteen kills, and only trick-or-treated and did the fire-daily, I did pretty well: Next year I'll just have one thing to complete on the druid to get the title, quite a few of my alts got a boost in the form of one or two levels, and ten(!) of my characters got a Squashling! Also, all the switching-like-a-crazy-person between alts made me realise which one to delete in favour of my future Death Knight. (A poor, forgotten human mage, abandoned at level 23. Unfortunately her name is boring, so I'll have to come up with a new one.)

Some time last night I noticed a rather common conversation in trade chat:

Person A: "Why do people talk so much crap in trade chat? It's called "Trade chat", and should be for just trading..."
Person B, C, D...: "Who cares, yada yada. L2P, u r stoopid!"
Person P: "Why do people have to point that out - don't they know it just makes things worse?"

And this is where I just had to jump in:

Me: "The first rule of trade chat is "You do not talk about trade chat"."
(If you ask me, this is a well known pop culture reference - not for my parents' generation, but certainly should be for the WoW community. For the uninformed: I made a cheap parody on some famous lines from the movie Fight Club.)

After this I get a whisper:
"but thats just what u r doin", to which I reply:
"I think you missed a highly relevant pop culture reference."
Now, the answer I get back, I don't really know what to do with:
"NK u should get a relative life".
What? I make a joke, including a reference to something outside WoW, and I'm told (I assume) to get a life? There's really no way to please the average idiot, is there?

Of course, I can't take for granted that everyone will understand and appreciate my sense of humour, but what's up with sending rude whispers to random people in trade? I guess I should also point out that I very rarely say anything in trade, so I'm not exactly a "public" person. I mean, the Dirge-spammers are begging for it.

So, rant over. I'm off to buy sushi.

Sigh.

This day is starting to make me exhausted... My druid only needs one more item to get her "...the Hallowed"-title - the Hallowed Helm - and I've spent all day trying to get it. I've trick-or-treated at least seven times, and I've pugged the Horseman twice, unfortunately with only four summons each time, since the healer in the first group disconnected (and I had to take over), and in the second group I was the one with no summon left. The helm dropped with the second group, but someone else got it. :´(

On the bright side, though: While it was cake healing the well geared warrior tank in the first group, I managed to heal a pally tank, who had 9.5k hp and 390 defense rating >.< , and his buddies, a rogue and two warriors (one 65), all of whom loved to steal aggro, and stand in the whirlwind... Now, with most groups, it's easy to solve the problem by going "hey, try not to take so much damage, step out of the whirlwind", but since this happened to be a group where everyone but me preferred communicating in italian, this didn't really make any difference. The tank only died once, though, and the boss went down a millisecond later, so it still worked ok.

Anyway, since Hallow's End ends tomorrow morning, at 4AM, I'm planning to trick or treat every hour until then, which gives me... 10 more chances to get the helm. Not bad, but considering I haven't gotten it earlier on the druid, I can't say it feels very good either. I'd rather have the event continue for another week...

There's always next year, but the perfectionist in me really wants to see that achievement completed, and the title above my main character's head, and not later, but as soon as possible! So, I'm keeping my fingers crossed - since I don't really have the energy to try and get a spot in a pug without being able to summon, it seems to be all there's left to do...

More changes.

On a sidenote: I felt that the black background was getting a bit too... Depressing? So, I decided to change the layout a bit. A light yellow, a different font, and a screenshot of my lovely druid, flapping about in Hellfire Peninsula as a header pic. Kind of wish I knew how to move the title text down to the bottom of the picture, though... Will have to research that.

Edit: Found it, and it looks a lot better! This place had the solution.

Changes.

I was endlessly excited about the 3.0.2 patch, and ever since it finally arrived I've been on a constant sugar high :D Now, when it's been with us for a while, I think I'm starting to get back to some kind of "normal" state. A few major, and many minor achievements have been completed:

• 50 mini pets -> Stinker
• 50 mounts -> Albino Drake
• Exalted with all 5 alliance factions -> Ambassador title
• Exploration of all pre-TBC and TBC zones (Which will lead to the Explorer title when Northrend has been fully... Well, explored.)
• Fallind 65 yards without dying (Scryer's tier in Shattrath is a hot tip, from the balcony to the left of the elevator, when facing the center of the city)
• And a whole bunch more...

Of course, I have to add a screenshot of my druid and her new, smelly friend:

(Yeah, yeah, it could be a lot more exciting, with fireworks and hordes of dancing gnomes, but this is what I have, OK? Also, skunks rock.)

It's been lots and lots of fun, and the general atmosphere on the server is all "SPRING BREAK!!! WOOOOOH!!!!", which is such a relief after the rather high strung era of be.imba-scores and general e-peen-ing that's been going on ever since the last batch of badge gear came out. Hardcore raiders spend their afternoons in Goldshire, putting out fires and dueling, while wearing RP-greys and pumpkins.

My druid is one (1!) silly achievement away from getting the "the Hallowed"-title - all she needs is a Sinister Squashling and a Hallowed Helm (and the upcoming removal of the 20 mask achievement from the requirement), but the few times she's killed the Horseman she's been outrolled on both helm and Squashling, and she's not having any luck at all with the trick-or-treating... I'll try to run a few pug's, though - hopefully a lot of people have those two items already, are only after the mount, and are willing to take me on just because I can summon the boss. Honestly, I'd be willing to pass on the mount just to be able to get the two drops I need for the title. It is a sweet mount though, and in a perfect gaming world I'd have all three :D

What bothers me the most is that three of my alts, low-level, seldom played ones, have gotten helm+pet through trick-or-treating, seven others (yes, I have *that* many characters) have gotten the pet, and five have the helm, while neither my main - my beloved druid - nor my planned primary alt - the mage - have either one. I bet the drop rates of these items are higher for lowbies :( If for nothing else, just to annoy high level casuals like myself.

Anyway, after a couple(?) of weeks with the new patch, I'm mighty pleased. The new achievement system really speaks to the old Pokémon-player in me (Charizard was cool), which is both a blessing and a curse - it leaves me with tons of stuff to "complete", but not getting certain things completed (such as the Squashling+Helm situation) drives me crazy.

I spent the weekend at my parent's house, with no internet (gasp!), and even though I had a number of other reasons for needing to get away for a bit, the time out from WoW was a welcome one. I still really, really want that title, but other than that, I'm going to take it easy for a while, i.e. no hardcore farming - buying enough mounts to get to 50 took quite a bit of dailies... The occasional daily, yes, but since one can't use flying mounts in Northrend in the beginning, I'm not really in a rush to get epic flying for the mage, and I don't think I have a lot more to spend cash on, except for raising profession skill caps, paying trainers, and buying fancy little things that may very well be available in the new continent. But that won't be until after the 13th of November!

So, my plans for the next couple of weeks include a lot more RL than WoW. Studies have been piling up at an alarming rate, and I have to do something about it. At the end of January next year, I'm hoping to start a new era in my life - one without studies! It's all I've ever done, so it scares the crap out of me, but finding a job, moving, and having a real income seems like heaven, and has done so for a long time. This does in no way mean I'm quitting WoW, though :) Just that there'll be a lot of RL-changes, which will lead to a much happier player!

Finally!

About 20 minutes ago, the Background Downloader finally started working again. For some unknown reason it's been stuck on 63% and "tracker is not responding" ever since the third and last part of the upcoming patch was released for downloading, but now it has increased to 65%, and the "Downloader" is even stating an approximate amount of time needed for the remaining download. OK, the amount of time varies between 4 and 8 hours, but an amount is an amount!

Boring: Will probably have to spend some time this evening frying pancakes. Had sushi for dinner yesterday, and considering my limited finances, that was this month's take out. That sushi was gooood, though. So worth it. Anyway, off to book the laundry room, and to buy eggs and milk.

Short-term Plans.

Since I play on a European server, I won't get to enjoy the hassle of "o-shit-the-patch-is-still-buggy"-downtime until tomorrow, so I've been making (very loose) plans for the evening:

• Herb gathering. Inscription will be introduced, and as much as I love my druid's alchemy trinket, she's switching from alchemy to inscription. (While I keep my fingers crossed she'll be able to get a trinket less embarassing than her old Glowing Crystal Insignia.) I'll still have the rogue to make pots/elixirs/transmutes.
  
• Dailies for a bit of cash. Since I'm going for both the 50 mounts, and the 50 mini pets for the achievements, I'm going to try and get those together asap (regardless of when the achievements are actually introduced), now that they wont take up any space in my inventory.
• Getting the horde mini pets. I think I'll fire up my undead mage to do a bit of Booty Bay AH trading with snakes and whatnot. Good thing, that - getting her past 20, so she can teleport around a bit.
  

Since the amount of Azeroth herbs needed is rather huge, I think that's gonna have to be it. May have to temporarily make one of my alts into a herb mule, though, since my main banker is filling up, and the guildbank only has one tab.

Before dinner.

I'm a bit bored this Friday night, but that's OK. Waiting for my dinner to be ready, can't decide what to watch while eating it, can't decide what character to play later tonight - am I going to spend the whole night on my druid, or should I rush through the fishing+cooking dailies, and level my priest? Probably the latter, at least if I'm going to be somewhere close to 70 on her in mid-november. And, I'll probably watch some Buffy-episode while having dinner, unless there is something new and exciting on TV (as if).

So, why the boredom? Well, I guess it's the aftermath of a lot of reputaion grinding - all of the Alliance capitals, Netherwing, and also checking the AH for Coilfang Armaments - but I think I'm done with that for the time being. I think I'll recover soon enough, though - moonkin is the only way to go :)

Ah, my dinner seems to be ready - fish and mashed potatoes - yay!

On a slightly different note...

...I really should log on to the beta more often - every time I do so, there are at least three patches to download before I can actually log on. Oh, well, I guess this gives me a bit of time to work on that exotic, new thing called "real life".

Decisions, decisions...

As everyone and their mother know, the new expansion will be here in 1 month and a few days, and it has the potential of changing one's gameplay a lot. Since some time during the spring, I have had all my characters (a respectable amount, I might add, considering they're all on the same server) stationed in a closed guild, i.e. a guild started by me and a close friend, intended to serve as an alt-guild, where the two of us have exclusive and unrestricted access to the guildbank. Really convenient when I want to send stuff between characters on my two different accounts, or when I want to send stuff to him.

He picked the name, I picked the tabard, and I've enjoyed countless hours of alt leveling, without getting bugged by some nab whispering "join my guild plz xroads raid every week!!!11", or even better "wanna join my guild? its a hunter/shaman/draenei only guild".

But now, with WotLK around the corner, I've started looking around a bit. There are a few guilds on my server that seem really nice, that seem to have the kind of plans for the expansion that would suit me very well. "Casually aiming at heroics and 10-mans" - works for me. Also, I've been talking with a friend from my old guild a bit lately, and I'm playing with the thought of asking for a social spot in her guild, which also happens to be the guild where the other people I loved from my old guild are members. They've been doing quite a bit of 25-man content lately, though, so I don't know if that means I'd be sidelined entirely in the expansion. I miss them all a lot, though, and since I'm trying to get my so-called "real life" going, I think I'd be very OK with not being booked for a lot of raids. Chatting while I do dailies and level fishing, and some heroics every now and then - that would be great.

Naturally, I wouldn't be moving all my characters to this other guild, partly because i don't want to come off as insane, but mostly because I tend to be a bit shifty when it comes to leveling alts. I have a gnome rogue at 42, and a nelf priest at 51, and while I spent a lot of time leveling them in the past, I have no idea if I'll ever level them to cap. Also, I've leveled characters to 70, just to discover they aren't too much fun (read: hunter + rogue). So, the plan would be to move the druid, and possibly one or two others, probably my mage (66), and the human priest (44 atm), and keep the others in the alt-guild. Provided, of course, that I'll still love the mage in 4 levels, and the priest in 26 levels.

Anyway, these are still just thoughts, and I don't know if I'll be putting them into action. A change would be good, though, and getting into a "real" guild again could be a great change.

While I'm starving.

Well, not "third world"-starving, more like "I really should get some water boiling for the pasta, so I can eat soon"-starving.

Anyway. I discovered that the Arctic Grizzly Cub will not be tameable in WotLK, so my hunter will sadly not be accompanied by a cuddly, smiling, lethal friend... :(

I've managed to reach exalted status with Darnassus, Stormwind and Exodar on my druid, and Gnomeregan Exiles and Ironforge are not too far away either, so Ambassador-title + Albino drake, here I come! :D (I'm planning to spend the afternoon in Uldaman, as soon as I've looked up the available quests.)

This close to the expansion it may seem stupid to start leveling a brand new character, instead of trying to bring the higher leveled ones to 70, but the thought of a female gnome warrior has always been sitting in the back of my head. However, I think I'll try and do all the other stuff first, such as getting pvp gear for the druid, leveling shaman+mage+priest, and maybe even the pally, and then I might go for the tiny, pink power puffed girl with big weapons. I'll make a gnome Death Knight when WotLK comes either way.

And now it's time to actually make that lunch... I've had the same lunch for several days: Pasta + swedish meatballs. May seem boring, but why change a winning concept?

In the Meantime.

I spent most of yesterday pvp-ing with my druid, in battlegrounds. Alterac Valley weekend - w00t! Managed to scrape together a little bit more than 9000 honour, partly by selling marks. All battlegrounds except one were AV, the "one" was Warsong Gulch, and I was convinced it was going to last forever. The hordelings started camping our graveyard, in an attempt to leave a clear path for their flagcarrier. Luckily, the clear path worked both ways, and we won. 3 marks, which, together with the 2 I had in the bank, led to 1570 extra honour.

My goal is this fancy staff, and yeah, yeah, it'll be old the second Northrend opens, but I still want it. If nothing else, it should be great for levelling. About 9000 honour to go, so I guess I should be able to buy it in a couple of days. I'm also planning to get the whole season 2 Wyrmhide set together, simply in order to not look like a total clown when I'm saving Northrend from undead, and bonding with walruses.

What's to come.

So, I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but: I got a beta-key a while back. I haven't used it much though, thinking it might be a bit like having a sneak-peek at the gifts before Christmas - basically just logged on to my copied druid, took the ship to one of the starting zones in Northrend (having trouble remembering what the place was called :S), and then the server collapsed, and I haven't bothered with the druid again. I also started a Death Knight, a gnome with pink power puffs, and I loved her. But I'm probably going to wait until the actual expansion is here before I try a DK again - the first few quests, the story, and the environment were all so... Magic? I basically want it to feel as fresh and exciting as possible when I start my "real" baby DK.

Anyway. I just started patching my beta again, and I've copied the druid once more - I've gotten a couple of things done that I hadn't the last time I copied her, and I think I'm going to try and do some basic exploring this time around. No quests, that is. I've levelled enough alts to know that most quests don't get better the second time around. I should be able to survive long enough to see stuff, and maybe I'll check out inscription. The druid is probably going to stick with alchemy in WotlK, but my up and coming priest has "Scribe" written all over her.

Meh.

Earlier today I was able to log in, and did the Brewfest quests (not the boss, though), and got my druid a Wolpertinger, since I didn't get around to getting her one last year, but then the monster lag hit again, I got kicked out, and now we're back to not being able to access any servers or anything connected to wow-europe. It seems our ISP is having some major router issues somewhere, and it's not just us not being able to play. We're seriously thinking about switching to another provider.

Unwanted break.

Friday night, i.e. last night, our internet connection went haywire, and since then it refuses to let us play WoW, or access wow-europe.com. Everything else on the internet seems fully accessible - newspapers, Youtube, blogs and whatnot - but some server seems to time out every time we try to log on to WoW. I spent a couple of hours after breakfast unplugging the router, running different scans and something called tracert, and got nowhere. If it still doesn't work in the morning, I'll have to call our ISP, and hope they can do something about it.

In a way, it's rather nice to not be able to play for a bit - yesterday I was logged on for quite a while, but started watching a movie, and was afk in the Aldor bank for two hours. Even though I'd very much like to log on to do some dailies, using my recently acquired purple bird form, it might be a good idea to regroup a bit, and make some plans for what I'd like to get done before the expansion gets here, which alts to level up and so on.

RL-plans for today: Making dinner, some kind of fish stew, served with bulgur, and watching Carnivàle at 8pm. And yeah, keeping my fingers crossed that the internet issue will solve itself sometime during the evening...

Finally, flying like a grown-up druid!

Yesterday I finally got to finish my druid's Swift Flight Form quest, by killing Anzu in Sethekk Halls! My husband helped me get a group together, and I got to meet up with two of my favourite people from my old guild, which was great. I haven't talked to them since they switched to a raiding guild, and I went ultra-casual, and I've felt really bad about it, so it was good to talk to them a bit, apologizing and such. Don't know if there are hard feelings, so there's still a chance we wont have much contact in the future, but I really hope I'll see them again soon - I miss hanging out...

Anyway, heroic Sethekk also happened to be the daily, so we all got 5 badges each, and some cash out of it. There were a few hiccups, and I died during Ikiss, but Anzu went really well, and I spent quite a bit of time last night just soaring the skies of Outland - no more flap-flap-flap! Also, I of course got the idol, but I don't know if it's better than the one I have, for a moonkin. In groups, I guess it is, but for solo play? Hmm. It's fun to have, anyway - would be awesome to have a complete collection of idols (never going to happen in my case, of course).

Chilling/Changes

I've pointed out earlier how the summer seemed to be over, and sadly it's gotten more and more obvious as the days have passed. I'm wearing a sweater made of the wool from what might be several goats, and finally I'm not shivering. It's not extremely cold in the apartment, but the drop in temperature is noticeable. Also, I'm getting older :( I really should do something about that "start working out again"-plan. Once I get some nice looking pants for it, I may very well start running. Or I'll start doing triathlon, or start a religion dedicated to clogwearing chinchillas.

Anyway, still stoked about the upcoming WoW-changes, even though I can understand raiders becoming frustrated that the last month pre-expansion will be screwed up due to every class being different enough to mess with all the available strategies, and arena junkies wont be too thrilled either, I guess, for the same reasons. I, however, can't hardly wait.

Politics(!) + Pre-expansion Angst

Am I the only one hoping that Sarah Palin is crazy enough to make the U.S. population vote for Obama, just to see if Palin's head explodes? I think not. I'm still kind of hoping they'll vote Obama, just cause they want Obama, though.

Today I realised that I can actually order 2 boxes of the WotLK Collector's Edition from the same online store - I thought my credit limit was lower than it is - and so I ordered another one, to make sure both my druid and my shaman can sport the super cute Frosty! Yes, I'm a true member of a consuming generation.

Ordering the expansion has given me the "waiting-for-the-expansion"-blues, and part of me is torn between going further with long-term projects, such as my level 33(34?) pally, and finishing other projects, like getting the mage and the shammy to 70 (both are stuck at 65...). However, I've read that the amount of xp required to level from 60 to 70 is going to get a lot smaller once the pre-expansion patch hits, so I might as well wait until then. Mid-October seems to be the time when it goes live (but I'm keeping my fingers crossed it will be sooner). Tonight I'm planning to watch Heroes, and try to get my warrior up to 20 (17 atm), so she can finally be the fierce, dual-wielding bitch she is. I've wanted a MS-warrior for a while, though, so one day she might be wielding a big club/sword again. Probably not til level cap, but maybe I'll try slam for a bit.

Semi-back? Perhaps.

Monday was an exciting one, wasn't it? We finally got a release date to go with Wrath of the Lich King - 13th of November, this year! Also, there's going to be a collector's edition, and yes, I've booked one of those online, just to get the mini pet. (I always envied my old guild mistress, who had the Netherwhelp - endlessly adorable.) I'm hoping to get another one, though, since I have two accounts... May seem silly, but since I'm more of a "cute accessories"-fan than a hard core raider, it's really not a big mystery that I want the mini pet on all of my favorite characters. Honestly it bugs me a bit how my hunter is the only one with a Spirit of Summer - maybe I'll get one on another char next year.

Earlier I went out to get some lunch - it's been a while since I had the noodles from the local thai-fast food place, so I went there. Noodles with deep fried chicken and shrimps - really good. Unfortunately there seems to have been peanut sauce all over the chicken - bad, bad, bad. I'm quite allergic to peanuts, and yeah, I should know better than to have thai fast food, but the noodles and the shrimp were sooooo good... And now, the swelling of my throat seems to finally be going away. I'm not extremely allergic, but in the past eating pieces of peanuts has led to projectile vomiting on several occasions, and a night in the ICU - charming, eh?

I'm hoping to spend the evening getting a few levels on my priest, and perhaps logging on to my level 17 warrior. I doubt I'll be able to get her to 70 before the expansion hits, but getting her a few more levels wouldn't exactly hurt.

Confessions.

Most blogs start off with high ambitions - post every day, write insightful stuff about interesting subjects, yada-yada-yada - and I think most blogs fail, eventually.

For some time I've had "real life issues", and they will be here for some time, right now it feels like they'll be here indefinitely. No, I'm not pregnant, no, I don't have cancer. They are, however, life-altering issues, and unfortunately I'm not yet prepared to make their existance public in any other way than through the anonymous channel that is my World of Warcraft-blog.

So, I broke the code - personal stuff has been posted, kind of, and I don't know when - or if - I'll feel like posting anything, game-related or not, again. Might be later today, might be never. There are too many blogs in the world as it is, though - I don't think this one makes or breaks anything.

Slow Sunday.

So, yeah, I'm one of those "bloggers who only post when they've got nothing else to do". Right now, I'm for some reason unable to log on to my WoW-account(s) - I keep getting the annoying "Unable to connect"-message. Apparently I'm not the only one - my husband plays too, and he got in on his fifth or sixth attempt, and lots of other people on the server are having the same problem. Still, I was just going to do some dailies before dinner, so it's no disaster, really.

Earlier I ordered something I've been ogling for a while: The cute, pink iPod nano! I have another mp3-player, but it's a bit buggy, the battery is getting old, and 2GB isn't a lot if you're me. And, my old one isn't pink. Pink is an important factor.

5 pm, cloudy.

Sadly, summer seems to be thinking about going on vacation. It's been a sweet one, though - lots of ice cream, late nights gaming, and that warm weather I'm so fond of (yeah, yeah, I'm oh so original) - and I'm already looking forward to the next one.

The husband returned from a work trip on Monday evening - as stated earlier he's spent a week in Canada - and he's still recovering from jet lag and waaay too much limp coffee. He made an interesting discovery while abroad: The fact that he uses the english language every day while playing WoW, doesn't necessarily mean that his spontaneous "every day-english" is flawless. Apparently the phrase popping out of his mouth when greeting people was "Hi 2 U!" All I can say about that is /faceplam.

As I've said earlier, I've been playing my druid quite a lot lately - mostly because I rediscovered the fun parts about being a moonkin, but also because the next expansion is coming closer, and there are things I'd like to have done before the level cap is raised, and the rat race starts all over again. Now, I'm not much of a raider, even though that part can be so much fun - I had a short stint as a resto druid in Karazhan - so I'm not aiming at Kil'jaeden, but there are a bunch of other things I want to have done on my druid before going to Northrend:

• Reaching exalted with the pre-TBC Alliance factions
• Getting a Tiny Sporebat (which requires exalted rep with Sporeggar)
• Collecting a decent set of PVP-gear, for battleground fun, and in order to manage the odd heroic. Yes, I'm one of those people. (Welfare epics ftw-people.)
• Actually getting the fancy pants Swift Flight Form

There's probably a whole lot of other things I want to do too, but these are the ones I can think of at the moment.

I do have other, non-druid related, plans too, though, such as getting my rather new human priest to 70 (she's still only 25), and playing around as holy for a bit. Should be doable with all the fancy tailoring gear. I'm also aiming at getting my mage and my shaman to 70 - both have been stuck at 65 for a while.

Anyway, enough talk, too little action.

Yada-yada-yada

Ah, once again, my posts have been a bit too few and far between, but once again, I'll just go "hey, this is my blog", and go about my business, posting nonsense whenever I feel like it.

I woke up early today, for a change - husband's off to work, and I haven't quite gotten around to having breakfast yet. Wednesday in Europe (if you play World of Warcraft) means maintenance, so what I usually do on those rare early mornings - dailies and farming - is not an option at the mo. Right now it's 8 am, which means I'll have to wait for another three hours before the servers might be up again. Oh well, I'll live.

Last week was spent solo, since the husband was on a work-trip to Canada. My parents were here during the weekend, which didn't make me cringe as much as I had feared ("oh, you do your dishes that way, well that's possible too, I guess"), and before that there was studying, playing, and cleaning, pretty much in that order.

Lately I've been playing my druid quite a bit, so I guess I'm not entirely in denial about it anymore! I finally got around to grind 5000 gold for the second time, so that my beloved moonkin will be able to get her fancy Swift Flight Form (last time I had 5000 g, the rogue got the flying skill, for farming reasons). She still only has a regular 280% mount, though, since I haven't gotten around to do heroic Sethekk Halls yet, for the last part of the quest chain. Anyway, a couple of weeks ago I decided that my druid was finished as a leatherworker/jewelcrafter, and as soon as I had grinded enough honour to buy Vindicator's Wyrmhide Bracers, to replace her fancy Windhawk Bracers, and cut a bunch of those overpowered bind-on-pick-up-gems for future use, I switched to herbalism and alchemy. I have to say, herbing as a bird is just as fantastic as I thought it would be. Swoop down, pick the herb, flap away. And no more problems along the line of "oh, crap, I aggroed that mob, now I have to fight it 'cause I can't mount in combat" - just fly a bit higher to get out of combat, wait for the mob to patrol away, and continue herbing.

Also, since my druid has rather good reputation with most TBC-factions, especially considering my rather casual approach to actually getting around to doing dungeons, she's been able to get a Sorcerer's Alchemist Stone, a much wanted replacement for the Glowing Crystal Insignia she's been sporting since some time late last spring.

OK, getting hungry, off to get breakfast.

Yeah, yeah, yeah...

Ah, so much for getting around to posting each day! Anyway, it's the end of June, the weather is great, and even though I have no plan whatsoever to get a tan, I might just go for a walk this afternoon.

WoW-update:

I'm actually starting to get a hang of doing dailies on the hunter - it's fast, and - in spite of the fact that her gear is so much worse than the druid's - there's very little downtime. OK, there have been occasions where her kitty has gotten swarmed by four blood elves, and with all the mobs and people running around, all I could do was feign death and let kitty die. /cry But all in all - I don't think the epic flyer will take too long to get a hold of for this one. Guess I should be saving up to get the druid her's, but that'll come too, eventually.

Yesterday I decided to twink my alliance pally a tiny bit - got her a Gargoyle's Bite, and had the mage put +7 damage on it - and then I dragged her through Arathi up to Southshore, to get flightpaths, and do some bonfire quests. Almost died because of the presence of iron just a few steps off the road - the famous bubble saved her from evil spiders + raptors :)

Other than that - nothing much has happened, it's been a slow weekend, WoW-wise. Went shopping for shoes on Saturday - first time in ages - and found a pair:

These babies gave me chafes on both feet within five minutes after leaving the apartment. Went to the store for eggs and some stuff, and could barely walk on the way home :D They're pretty, though, and I think shoes and feet will adapt before too long.

I'll definitely go online tonight - there should be some quest rewards somewhere that could spice up my huntress - but for now I have to take a shower, make a phone call, and get some lunch.

The Power of the Light Compels You!

Today has been a day of an unusually large amount of posts - I will probably not be able to keep this pace up, but I'll do my best to publish once a day, at least - sometimes you just have a lot to say about nothing. :)

Earlier I finally got a positive response from my professor - phew + yay!

Lately I've been thinking about paladins. I have two of them - one ally, one horde, one level 23, one level 18 - and so far I'm leveling them both. Every once in a while, at least. I'd really like to have a plate-wearing character, and the tanking possibilities are appealing. Better multi-mob tanking, you say? Sounds like something for me.

The alliance one is a human female, and I started her with the intention of going prot some day, and the race was chosen because I'm well aware of the pain rep grinding can be - 10 % extra rep sounds like enough to make a real difference. Since I a lot of the time have the attention span of a goldfish, she's been put on ice until recently. When I started playing her again, I respecced her retribution - prot before level 40 is just too slow for me...

The horde one is obviously a blood elf, and a female. She was started because of this fancy site my husband found: RETLOL - The Guide. Seal of Blood, once you get it, is supposed to be the thing to have when doing PVE as retribution, and the blood elf racials (Mana Tap and Arcane Torrent) are by some people considered to be nice alternatives to the regular Avenger's Shield pulling - I have seen that Captain America-thing go off to mobs you didn't expect it to reach, and maybe Mana Tap can be useful in crowded places? I don't know, really, but since the range is the same it doesn't seem completely useless. And Arcane Torrent should be useful when trying to pull casters. But then again, an 8 yard radius - hmm. As I've said already - haven't gotten any pally past level 23, so I can't really have a qualified opinion. Anyway, the belf was started with the goal set to retribution, and that's were she is.

Now, since I can't decide which one to level - easier rep or fancy schmancy seal - I'm going to try and alter between them. The human will probably go prot somewhere around 40, so there's some kind of variation, while the belf stays retri. And yeah, yeah, I'm aware of the Holy tree, but someone would have to pay me a substantial amount of RL cash if I was to level up as holy!

So, there it is. Hopefully I won't lose interest in this project completely now that I've kind of made it public :D

The Nerd in Me

Instead of making that cup of tea, I made some changes on this blog. I got an Entrecard, and little tooltip-thingies for my links. Don't know if there's any real point having the first one, but now it's there, anyway. The tooltip-thingies, on the other hand, I find most functional. Most of all when it comes to Wowhead-links. It really annoys me when I have to open yet another tab for every piece of equipment, just because I want to see and compare the stats.

Now I'm going to make tea. Really.

On/Off

Suddenly it's raining more violently than it's done for a long time - water is actually pouring down on the bedroom window - it's gone quite dark, and there is even a bit of thunder + lightning. I'm very pleased with the fact that I'm indoors, but a tiny bit worried - I have no lunch. No real lunch, anyway. I'm still planning to go out and buy something, but only if the weather changes quite a bit for the better...

Oh well. I'll make some tea, and see what happens.

Smoother, faster, but a bit weird...

Yesterday I did what one could consider a rather full set of dailies for the first time on my hunter. This includes all of the Shattered Sun Offensive ones, except A'tamal Armaments, the fishing and cooking dailies, and two of the three Midsummer Fire Festival ones (I really have a problem with the torchcatching). (Right now, the neighbour is going crazy, singing "Memories". Oh. My. GOD! That woman must have suffered some kind of brain damage at some point...)

Anyway, it went very smoothly, in spite of the fact that some of her gear is from the early 60's (/shame). Something that did bother me, though, was the feeling that people even more shamelessly than usual were trying to steal my mobs. I'm a bit paranoid when it comes to playing my hunter, especially after that time in the 40's when some rogue was convinced she was a bot, in spite of the fact that I used friggin' stings, had a named, rare-ish pet, and was pretty good at talking back, but I honestly think people get ticked off by just seeing a nelf hunter in nab gear. Like "oh, now I can get payback for that time in the Deadmines when a nelftard ninjaed my staff/mace/ring/whatever". If that is the case: Seriously, get over it. I'm a good person, a decent player, and I'm educated enough to know that Plasma Rat's Hyper-Scythe is crap for me. (I once saw a hunter with that one, with Mongoose on it. Another time it was Singing Crystal Axe, same enchant...)

IRL I'm waiting for a response to an e-mail I sent to my professor, regarding continuing the work on my final paper in the fall. Unfortunately he's on vacation, and he seems to be serious about it - i.e. not checking his inbox...

OK...

... I was wrong... No new patch today, no new level 30 mounts yet. Oh well. I still have a new level 70 to play with, a friggin' BM hunter to do dailies with - yay for me! Also, this gives me some time to try and level that pally up to 30 (she's 22 now) - then I'll have two characters to get mounts for when the new patch arrives. Back to the hunter.

1 more hour...

Wednesday equals patch day in Europe, or, well, maintenance day. Anyway, today they're presenting us with the fancy schmancy patch 2.4.3, and I'm quite excited! In spite of the fact that I haven't been grinding honor at all! My druid has somewhere around 6000, and the rogue a tiny bit more than 2000, so far from enough to buy anything, but there's a whole bunch of other things happening:

• Level 30 mounts - yay!
• New non-combat pet - Nether Ray Fry
• New, roomier herb bags! Time to get Sporeggar rep with the mage, I guess...
• And probably a whole lot of other changes I'll appreciate in time.

While I'm waiting for the extended maintenance to end (usually it ends at 11AM, now it's been pushed forward to 1PM...), I'm typing this, and listening to the neighbour arguing with someone over the phone. She does this quite frequently, and she is impressively loud. Needless to say, I'm very pleased with the fact that I don't know her.

Last night my sweet hunter finally reached level 70! First thing I did was go to the trainer, and get that sorted, then a quick trip to the bank, to get the Valano's Longbow I got for almost nothing around level 45, and the Flying Machine Control I bought off the auction house the other day (I couldn't be bothered trying to find someone to make me elemental seaforium charges, and the hunter's rep with Consortium is way too low for me to bother speed grinding it). Then I went back to Shattrath, onward to Shadowmoon Valley, and then I finally got her the new riding skill. Hopefully it wont take too long to grind the 5 K gold for swift flying, 'cause her little aeroplane is slooooooow... At least compared to my rogue's speedy Nether Ray. Luckily, most dailies since some patch aren't built around flying mounts. I love the Shattered Sun Offensive.

My Flaming Friend

I finally (ooh, it was a pain, took from 8-ish last night until about an hour ago... I did get a good night's sleep, though ;) ) got my Captured Flame! Behold:
Yes, it's that orange-pink-thingie next to my sexy huntress. Nvm the quested greens, I'm only hardcore when it comes to small pets ;) Also, she's 67, dammit! All that running all over the world, honouring or putting out fires got her well on the way to 68, though. About 70 % of a level, I believe. And I'm going to keep doing the Midsummer dailies - not only do they give gold, you also get xp - a bit more than 11000 a quest! And with three quests a day, it's not bad at all! Dailies before 70 ftw!

Pre-pizza post

Still having a cold, yes, but took a shower earlier, and even if my throat is still painful, I'm dressed, and planning to go to the store for something edible.

Today is the first day of the Midsummer Fire Festival, and I'm planning to complete as many quests as possible, so I can get at least one character a Captured Flame. And no, I can't ever get enough small pets. 350 Burning Blossoms is a lot, though, and they're soulbound.

Anyway, off to get some food.

Oh, crap.

Woke up about an hour ago, with an annoyingly sore throat. It's past the middle of June, it's Midsummer Eve, the husband's away on a work trip, and I've caught a freakin' cold. "Sucky" is just the beginning of the story. Anyway, I'll make some tea in a bit, and luckily I did my shopping yesterday - I'll be having smoked salmon for dinner, and ice cream with pieces of ginger for dessert.

Last night I managed to get the warrior to level 14, and I love the whole "hey, there goes 75 % of the mob's life in one hit!"-thing! The reason for slow levelling yesterday was a trip to Darnassus, to learn how to use throwing weapons. I really don't like having to carry around bullets or arrows when I'm not playing a hunter, so while levelling she'll be using whatever throwing weapon I can find for pulling.

Right. Painful throat. Time for tea.

Cheaper Traveling :)

So, patch notes for 2.4.3 are here, and I'm kind of loving it. Mounts will be available at level 30, and riding skill will cost a mere 35 gold! Very nice in deed. I do have one character who's in her 30's, so I guess she'll be getting a mount as soon as the next patch is here. Of course, she is a warlock, so she wouldn't have had to pay 90 gold for training, but still - mount at 30 is so wonderful. Desolace and Badlands will probably not be the pains they've always been before. Ah. Hold on. I'll still despise them. Over all, I think this will boost the leveling of alts quite a bit - I usually start to get frustrated by how slow a character is when I get to level 25-26, which has meant 14-15 levels of frustration - now I'll only have 4-5 levels of "ohmyfuckinggodarewethereyet?".

I'm also very much looking forward to the new mini pet, the Nether Ray Fry! MMO-Champion has a picture. Not as cute as the Tiny Spore Bat, but I'm so going to get one, on the druid and on the rogue!

At the moment I'm trying to decide whether I'm going to go grocery shopping today, and get whatever I'll want to eat tomorrow, or tomorrow, when everyone else is there, and the store closes at 3pm. Decisions, decision...

The Habit

So, yesterday, around this time, actually, I - once again - started a new character. Inspired by Incompetent Warrior (yes, we do play on the same server, don't know the guy, though) I rolled a warrior. Human female with red hair, goes by the name Swirly. I don't really know what the main focus will be in the long run, but I do hope I'll get a chance to learn how to tank for real. I did try some tanking on the druid, last year, but Oh. My. God. The chaos. The frustration. First time was alright - Sethekk Halls is easy enough - but my second run as a tank was Arcatraz, with a trigger-happy, pugged enhancement shaman. Enough about that, though.

Point is, I leveled as moonkin, and hadn't really taken the time to grow into my feral abilities until I'd been level 70 for about 6 months. I'm hoping that when one plays a warrior, one more frequently ends up in situations where protection abilities get used. See, if I'm in moonkin form, I don't have access to growl, but I should be able to use taunt even if I'm arms or fury. (Right?)

Now, why was I inspired by Incompetent Warrior? Why will it be different this time? Why will Swirly not be stranded somewhere between level 10 and 15 like all my previous warrior alts? The answer is kind of the following: Stuntyone, or the Incompetent Warrior, has a quality that is quite unusual among people who play warriors, or even World of Warcraft. He seems to actually play for the fun of it. Now you're going "What does she mean? Don't we all play for fun? She's deluded or had way too much pie last night", but I'm serious.

What I mean is: He seems to find a lot of pleasure in the MMO part of the game, which is something I've found to be very rare among warriors who actually express their opinions on the warrior class. People call for nerfs, mock everyone else's talent build, hates the itemisation and yadayadayada... The class forum at wow-europe.com is always more or less depressing, and the moment I've tried to find some info there, has in the past been the moment when my latest attempt at the warrior class has halted. Now I have a new strategy: Don't even go there. I've found some builds, and I have them bookmarked, and I've decided to just go for it, and put some trust into my general knowledge of the game. If I get to some kind of high level, 60+, I'll look up ElitistJerks, but for now, I'll try and have some fun :)

And so, that's what Incompetent Warrior does for me: He makes square 1 a happy place, shows the fun in being a warrior, without whining and calling for nerfs for other classes. Kudos to Stuntyone!

Time for breakfast - bought yoghurt yesterday, when I've had some of it, I'll make tea.

A Week of Vacation (of Sorts)

So, I'm spending the week by myself, since the husband is on a work related trip to Rotterdam until Tuesday next week. When I spoke to my parents a couple of days ago they found out about my being solo for a few days, and insisted that I come to visit them, especially since this Friday/Saturday is Midsummer, which usually means party/fun dinner/general silliness in Sweden, but since we're going to visit them in the beginning of July, and since I feel that celebrating Christmas, new year's and birthdays are enough holidays for me, I'm staying put. Also, I don't really feel like spending a week(!) without internet, and without the freedom to choose to watch anything but nature related TV-shows.

So far I've gotten a lot of sleep, something I believe has helped mending my sore shoulder (silly me, spent last Friday walking around town, not wearing a sweater/coat/jacket, and the wind decided I needed a stiff shoulder - haven't been able to look to the left for days!), and last night I watched a movie, White Nights, starring Michail Baryshnikov and Gregory Hines.
I have a soft spot for dancing movies, and for Baryshnikov, so double fun!

Late last night I got around to questing a bit with my hunter - getting ogres drunk and then killing them, what more can one need? She's inching towards level 67, and I'm really looking forward to have her kick ass in Netherstorm. Tonight I may give Area 52 a shot - as I recall it, their quests are fun.
Most of all I'm looking to get Consortium rep, though - I plan to get a Flying Machine Control as soon as she dings 70, and I have yet to see an Elemental Seaforium Charge on the AH - so I guess I'll have to grind a huge amount of ogres in Nagrand, and then a huge amount of ethereals in Netherstorm. There are quite a few quests to do for Consortium rep, but somehow I felt I ended up short when doing them on the druid. I did go about it the wrong way, though - handed all my war beads over to the Kurenai, to get that sweet talbuk... Back then, about a year ago, I had most of the ogres to myself, though - less people had made it to Outland, and even fewer had discovered the "grinding ogres"-thing - but now everyone is there! Hmm. Maybe I should stay up late tonight, to do some serious grinding, when all the kiddies have gone to bed.

My plan for now: Getting some late lunch, probably the two remaining spring rolls I have waiting in the freezer, followed by some well needed washing of dishes (endlessly boring, but necessary). I should also go for a walk some time before it gets dark - probably around the park, 'cause it's so much fun avoiding to step in bird poo.