Random Coherency

One Last Thing

2008-07-29T11:10:00.001-06:00

I'm biting the bullet and making the move to wordpress.

http://randomcoherency.wordpress.com/
pardon the mess, I'll straighten up more when I get home from holidays.

I had to immortalize this somewhere.

2008-07-29T09:43:00.002-06:00

Stayin alive

2008-07-29T09:10:00.002-06:00

So, I'm still here, I promise.

It's been a fairly crazy month or so, and as such, apologies for my extended absense.

Remember almost a month ago when I said I had some crazy stuff to tell you guys? Well, I can't remember what it was, because I became consumed with getting my account back to normal after I got hacked.

My account was hacked on 30 June, probably at approximately 0400-0430 hrs.
Kelektra was stripped of everything that was sellable (including a full 28slot enchanting bag full of materials), all her gold, gear, badges, even her hearthstone and mounts were destroyed.
Hyria and Kaeras were stripped of any pve gear, all their gold, and badges, and anything sellable (for Kaeras this was 2 Herb bags worth of herbs and a LW bag full of skinning supplies, for Hyria it was an entire engineering bag full of goods and a mining bag full of goods). Then Hyria and Kaeras were transferred off server, to two different servers. Kaeras was also unlucky enough to have her skinning unlearned, poor girl.
My bankers, oh my poor bankers... The only thing that got left on them were items like snowballs and small eggs (yes, I was saving for Christmas, okay? :P)
My paladin Kaeci and my Twink Tschida were both also stripped of everything sellable and all their gold.

A big thank you goes out to Alpacaa (yes, that Alpacaa) for noticing odd happenings with my toons and getting in contact with a GM right away. I can't imagine how much worse it could have been if it had continued to go on.

They were able to start preliminary restorations next day, Kelektra got her PVP gear back, and some random items from her bank, The bankers got a lot of the items they were holding back, and Kaeci and Tschida were pretty much fully restored. My case was forwarded to a specialist, and I heard nothing for close to a week, when all of a sudden on that Saturday the rest of Kelektra's gear and items returned (except her badges and mounts, boo!), and the bankers/my lowbies were fully restored. I was told they were still working on restoring Hyria and Kaeras to this server, and as such I continued to wait (not so) patiently. The Saturday following, Kaeras and Hyria were restored to Drenden with all of their gear/items/badges/gold intact/professions.

Everything is back to normal-ish now, I had a friend send me and Hubby authenticators (since we cannot buy them in Canada) and I attached mine to my account immediately. (Even tho, as has been reported/incident happened in my own guild, you can apparently still be hacked with an authenticator, I still feel a lot safer).

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

What else has been keeping me crazy busy? Well, the staff at my store usually numbers anywhere from 10-12 people. In the last two weeks, we've had 4 people quit/resign off of our 10 man staff, which means, of course, there are 6 of us left. Six people to run a store that's open from 1000-2300 weekdays and 1000-2400 weekends. Last week alone I worked 42.5 hrs, and I'm an hourly employee. This is a huuuge jump from my normal work schedule of about 29 hrs per week. So I've been getting home, exhausted, logging in to WOW to check my mail, and falling into bed.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Lastly, I've finally updated my AC's Progression list, a HUGE congratulations to AC for downing Azgalor in MH and Na'Jentus in Black Temple, ON TO SUPREMUS AND ARCHIMONDE!!!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I'll be leaving on holidays for 10 days starting Aug 2, so I'll be back with another update after that, I've got too much to do between now and then to even think about spending more time than necessary on this silly computer.

Oh boy do I have stories to tell you guys

2008-06-30T08:13:00.002-06:00

But they'll have to wait till later, I'm currently trying to rebuild kel/hyria/kaeras after a hacking incident.

Anetheron DEAD!

2008-06-23T20:54:00.002-06:00

And I tanked him from 7% to death!!!! (sorry you died, Laguna!)

We've been beating our heads against this guy for WEEKS, and we finally defeated him tonight.

We tried a bit of a different strat tonight, we had Anetheron pulled back to beside the Ballista near the back of the camp, melee and the tank were there, then we had the ranged in two lines along the sides of the road, and the infernal tank stood in the middle of the two lines, it worked really well till our MT's healer bit the dust. (sorry Shmily!)

But we GOT THE SUCKER!

and then we ran blindly and started the trash for Kaz'Rogal. We lasted till wave 7. Gratz us!

Answer: I DID!!

2008-06-23T10:23:00.002-06:00

Question: WHO GOT 8 TICKETS TO ELTON JOHN, BABY!

Woop Woop!

Whee updates

2008-06-17T09:51:00.002-06:00

I'm busy playing my paladin right now (need a break, hoooboy, so much rep farming)

But! Exalted with Exodar and Cenarion Circle, so, that cuts one option out of the poll over there. You ppl think Zandalar next, huh?

New WotLK Druid ability(s)!!!

2008-06-10T11:35:00.006-06:00

Tame Beast!

Portal: Shattrath!

more to come!

A Few Things

2008-06-10T05:21:00.003-06:00

Firstly, I'm sorry if this seems jumbled, I'm on my 5th day this week of waking up before 5:00 am with no reason or rhyme as to why. Just - dead asleep to wide awake, no going back. It's starting to get really annoying and, I think affect how I am reacting to everyday things. I've probably drank my weight in energy drinks the last few days, and yes, I know they're not really all that helpful, but my mind is clouded right now. Sigh. Help?

Secondly, AC went into Black Temple for the first time on Sunday night. I thought the trash before Naj'entus was laughable. Really I did. People say that the first few bosses are easier than Vashj and Kael; and while we only saw the first boss (repeatedly, a lot of the time from the floor) I'd say they're probably right.
Some things I noticed:
Tank druids, you're pefectly suited to trash tanking, and even, though some might disagree, to tanking Naj'entus himself. He doesn't do a lot of damage, it's the stupid spiky frost damage we've got to worry about. Given the chance, I think I'd like to try tanking him, just to see, but that'd mean I'd have to fight off the warriors, and... hmmm.
We learned that shaman chain heals are awesome in here. Amirite?
Kitty druids, yeah, that frost damage hurts, doesn't it. Unfortunately for kitties we're stuck right up in fish-tail and really can't see a lot of what's going on. Really watch for those around you that are getting spined, the spines are huge. Grab it and get back to dpsing.
Something I found useful. Right before the person with the spine goes to break the shield I would hit regrowth (you've got healing spells out on your bar even in cat form, right? right?) and it would insta-shift me out of cat and cast insta-regrowth thanks to my 2pc T5 bonus. This fight and Zul'jin are the only two fights I've found this to be REALLY useful for. Anyways, if timed correctly, you really don't see a drastic drop in your health after the shield breaks and you can drop right back into cat and keep dpsing.
We also tried putting the five druids in the raid all in different groups for the spread out Tranquility spell. Can't say it was TOO successful, but it didn't hurt, either.
We figured after 8 tries and a complete trash respawn we'd just come back another day. 14% tho on one of the attempts, I'm pretty impressed.

Oh, and Anetheron kicked our butts in MH again last night, but we're not gonna go there.

Thirdly, if ever you've played WoW with me you'll have seen that sometimes, I go a bit crazy about certain things, like, oh, farming. I love farming. Don't get me wrong, it's tedious as all get out, but I love it, I'm weird. My latest farming kick - rep. I'm currently working on Kelektra's 2oth Exalted faction.
Currently, I'm Exalted with the following: Darnassus, Ironforge, Stormwind, Cenarion Expedition, Honor Hold, Kurenai, Netherwing, Ogri'la, Sporeggar, The Consortium, Lower City, Sha'tari Skyguard, Shattered Sun Offensive, The Scryers, The Sha'tar, Argent Dawn, Keepers of Time, The Violet Eye, and Timbermaw Hold.
I'm working on Exodar now (3.5k to go!) and then, then I don't know. SO! Here's where I put it to the internets for questioning. Everybody loves a good poll, right? Check it out over there --->>

I have training tonight from 6pm till 10pm, am I gonna make it, or will I need to down approximately 4-5 more energy drinks today. We shall see...

Edits: The poll is really hard to see, but I don't want to change the text colour of the whole blog, so, your choices: Zandalar Tribe, Thorium Brotherhod, Cenarian Circle, Gnomeregan Exiles.

Beat the Game

2008-06-02T22:01:00.004-06:00

Got Kel to Exalted with Timbermaw Hold this evening:

Immediately followed by a multitude of whispers, ranging from "wtf was that" to "omg did you beat the game".

Bit of a different response from a guildie, tho.

Maybe I didn't make myself clear?

Hmm...

Defender of the Timbermaw is pretty darn awesome tho

Gonna havta choke a B!tch

2008-05-20T07:12:00.002-06:00

So, I know she's Ratshag's girlfriend and all, but last night I wanted to KILLMAIMMURDALIZE Lady Jaina FOOKING Proudmoore. And here's the story of why *deeeeeep breaths*

AC has, for the last 4-5 months or so been going into Tempest Keep and beating up on the loot piñata(s) that are Void Reaver and High Astromancer Solarian, We've recently in the past 6 weeks or so also started taking down Alar, but we're just not all the way there yet to even go look at Kael'thas, SOOOO, whaddaya do?

We go take a look a few weeks ago at Mount Hyjal, they've taken the attunement out, you see. We got Rage Winterchill on our very first try of our very first night in MH, and we called it a night. We went in again, took out Mr. Rage, and called it a night. Last night was different. Last night we went in, took out Mr. Rage on the first try, then decided we were going to attempt Anetheron. So, we get through all 8 of his waves without a single death, start the encounter, and (now here's where I raise my ... typing ... cover your eyes!) GET HIM TO ONE FRIGGEN PERCENT WHEN ALL OF THE SUDDEN HE'S JUST F*ING GONE! POOF! NADA! No more! What happened!!!?!??!? everyone yells. Then someone pipes up with ... uh, Jaina died. Yes, she died at ONE FRIGGEN PERCENT!

So, we set up, we start the event again, and there are deaths, many many deaths. We just couldn't hold it together. 3 attempts later we're too heartbroken and we call it a night.

We could have had Anetheron on our FIRST ATTEMPT at trying him, could have been 2/5 in MH, but NOOO! Jaina and Anetheron decided to sneak off and have a quickie and leave us all standing there with our hearts in our hands.

Sorry Ratshag, I didn't wanna have to tell you this way, but it looks like Jaina's found someone else....

to borrow a phrase

2008-05-18T20:49:00.002-06:00

*SQUEE!*

So while I was off enjoying a nice Anniversary dinner with my wonderful Hubby (BEST SALMON EVER, BTW!), AC was busy in SSC git'n 'er dun.

Yep, AC went in to SSC with only one goal in mind. Killing Vashj. We'd done a 5 clear of all the lesser bosses on Wednesday, with yours truly tanking one of FLK's adds and then tanking Tidewalker. So AC was on a mission tonight.

We've been bashing our heads against Vashj (or Vag, as she's known) for approximately 2 months, she's been pretty bishy, but we've gotten better and better at getting her shield down, and we got her to a heartbreaking 5% last Sunday.

Tonight, 6 tries later, the sea-witch finally ate floor.

Congratulations to AC, and to the winners of phat lewts, I promise I'll be there next time.

In Error

2008-05-06T09:10:00.004-06:00

We here at YouHeardItHereFirst News would like to extend our most sincere apology to the wonderful people at Egocorp. A few days ago we reported that Egocorp was involved in a high profile bearnapping, only to find out last night that this is not, in fact, the case. The bear in question - Kelektra, has been recovered; shaken and smelling strongly of fish, from the cave in which she has been hibernating for the last few days.

We contacted a representative of Kelektra early this morning to attempt to get an interview only to be told that she is still slightly addled and may be out of it for a few more days. Her representative did say that Kelektra had been very hard at work attempting to make things perfect for a commemorative event for a dear friend, a fellow druid; though one not of the bear persuasion. [For more information regarding this event, please turn to pages A4 and B11]. It was also inferred that Kelektra has; to put it simply, just not been feeling well, and felt she needed to take some time and get well.

Rest assured that we will have a more full interview with Kelektra as the story is uncovered.

We thank you for your continued patience, and again apologize to Egocorp for our egregious error.

For related stories, see: Shumei, Mage, Teleport, Egocorp, Bigredkitty, Ratshag

This just in

2008-05-04T17:23:00.002-06:00

The following report has been forwarded by an anonymous source:

"Late Friday night the mage known as Shumei was spotted outside the Darnassus bank, muttering to himself excitedly. Among the overheard phrases were 'Jaina,' 'new portal spell,' and 'Where did I put that box of chocolates?'. He was then seen making strange gestures, after which he vanished in a flash of violet light. Our tipster speculates that he was attempting the as-yet-unproven 'Teleport: Theramore' spell, apparently to attempt some sort of romantic liason with Lady Proudmore herself."

Due to the untried nature of the spell that he is presumed to have used, it likely that he sent himself to some unknown location. When several members of EgoCorp were contacted, as they were among the last known associates of the missing mage, they denied mentioning any new spells to Shumei, saying that "Anything he gets up to is his own lookout," and "We only asked him to come to the Botanica with us for his polymorph spell and his biscuits, but he barely used those all night. We haven't seen him since he made the portal after we killed Warp Splinter."

Any information leading to his whereabouts would be greatly appreciated! Those of you with tracking and tracing abilities, please be on the lookout for the misplaced mage-- unproven portal spells are particularly dangerous, and could send their users virtually anywhere.

At this time we are unaware of any correlation between the bearnapping of Kelektra and the unforseen disappearance of the mage Shumei. We shall continue to receive communications regarding possible sightings, but would urge you to please contain the information in your tips to what is needed to solve these two mysteries.

{Bear}nap in progress.

2008-05-03T00:21:00.003-06:00

Breaking news! First it was BRKWWA overtaking Egocorp, then we see Egocorp denying such allegations, but what no one deems necessary to mention is that there was a bearnap, an atrocious, underhanded, quaintly planned and quietly brought together bearnap.
That's right folks, you heard it here first. Bearnap in progress. Your friendly neighbourhood Kelektra has been stolen by the group of hooligans calling themselves Egocorp. If you should have any information regarding the whereabouts of Kelektra, please inform the proper authorities, which may or may not include Smokey the Bear, Ranger Joe, Tarzan, or KimPossible.
It has been brought to our attention that the mastermind behind Egocorp is unwilling to let Kelektra go without a fight, though we have no idea what Egocorp plans for our cuddly ursine companion. We urge you, please, if you know anything, anything at all that may help, our tip lines are open 24/7.

Sadness

2008-04-24T08:15:00.002-06:00

I am sad to say that Aetherial Circle lost a great friend today. One of its founding members, Sharvan, passed away some time between Tuesday night and Wednesday morning.
Sharvan was a wonderful, happy, bubbly person; each and every time she logged in to the game she'd greet the whole guild with her standard "Moooo!" She was an awesome friend, and she will be missed.
Goodbye, Sharvan, AC's BOOMkin crusade will not be the same without you :(

/Moooooooooo!

I'm Chilled!

2008-04-21T20:51:00.003-06:00

But that's okay! Aetherial Circle is now officially an Hyjal Summit raiding guild!

That's right, we went into Mount Hyjal for the very first time tonight and downed Rage Winterchill on our very first try. Congrats to all the loot winners.

AC, you RAWK!

Moo Tipping!

2008-04-12T18:35:00.003-06:00

So by now, I'm sure, most of you have heard of the RoDB!!!. The RoDB!!! you say? What's that?? Well, if you'd follow the links, you'll find out. Go on, I'll wait....

...

.....

*taps foot*

.....

...

Are ya back? Ok, good

Well anyways, BRK relied on my help so much last time that I decided to just save him the trouble of asking and I've created a character over on Cenarian Circle, a Tauren Druid called Kelektabull. She will HOPEFULLY be big enough by the race to be of some support for wherever Ratshag decides to send all of the victi... I mean... the roadki.... I mean Taurens...

Yeah. Check back for future updates :P

edit: I said She.. but... Kelektabull's a he...

ZOMGZORZ

2008-03-31T19:53:00.001-06:00

Tidewalker dead in 1 shot. That is all.

Mr. T (and his night elf mohawk?)

2008-03-25T23:16:00.002-06:00

Well, I didn't get my baby crocolisk pet today. Guess that's not to be expected on the first day of a new patch, anyways.

I did, however, run Magisters Terrace (the new 5 man instance) not once, but twice today. The first time as kitty dps, the second as bear tankage. Coming in the next few days will be my thoughts on the two different roles inside the instance.

Quests leading into MrT (as it's called on my server, at least) award an epic gem, and grant access to the ability to run MrT on heroic. I picked up a Bright Crimson Spinel as my quest reward. The last boss, Kael'Thas Sunstrider, also drops epic quality items, even on normal mode. My first run through, he dropped Cloak of Blade Turning which my party graciously let me have. I'll use it for tanking, along with my Gilded Thorium Cloak as well as PVP when I do arenas/battlegrounds.

I also did the fishing quest today where you have to go catch a baby crocolisk, I cought him on my second cast, which I've heard is pretty good. A fellow guildie cast over 50 times unsuccessfully. Didn't get my baby crocolisk pet, did however pick up a Weather-Beaten Fishing Hat which is quite lovely. Will be nice to not have to pack lures with me when I go fishing.

All in all, a good day.

Also...

2008-03-25T12:27:00.001-06:00

The baby crocolisk pet will be mine. or else.

The Intarwebs will never believe this!

2008-03-25T12:18:00.002-06:00

Heeeere we go!

Ratsy, plz talk to BRK to collect your cool points :)

The change was, in fact, an updated kill list for AC, and a BIG CONGRATS on downing Doom Lord Kazzak it is! AC's movin up the progression ladder again!

I know I promised you all some more top 10's lists, but, I've been feeling kind of blog-listless lately (haha pun, did you see that? FIO BEWARE! LOL, list-less) {also, apparently I need sleep, because *groan* I'm starting to LOL in my blog, sigh.} So, anyways, here's your chance (Yes, again, Ratsy, this means you, since I think you're the only one that reads my drivvel). It's readers choice week, you email me and tell me what you want me to write about. WoW related, RL related, whatever the case might be, and I'll do it.

That's turkeyfroggy AT gmail DOT com. Alternatively, drop by the Drenden server and send in game mails to Kelektra. That way I can post screenshots of your questions, HAHAHAHA...

Plz forgive me while I go gorge myself on 2.4 info/quests/yada.

giggle

2008-03-19T18:34:00.001-06:00

10 BRK cool points (yeah, i'm giving out brk's points now, so what? :P) to the first person who can tell me what's new over there >>>>>

Turn off that racket you damn kids!

2008-03-18T08:06:00.004-06:00

Firstly, Happy Belated St. Patricks day :)

Secondly, it's Tuesday, I'm off, and WoW is in maintenance. sigh.

Started my new position at work yesterday. Think I had four customers over the course of my 5 hour shift. Oh well, business should pick up shortly once it becomes common knowledge that there is a wireless specific sales agent in the store. Oh, and once I get my business cards, too, I suppose. At least my manager is letting me juggle the systems and paperwork into a system that will work better for my OCD filled brain, hehe.

Hubby's happy to be back at work, still really sore and swollen now that the cast is off, but at least he's not stuck in the house anymore. And there was supper ready for me when I got home from work last night. Oh happy day.

In other bits of cool news, finally FINALLY sold the Camaro, so, now we don't have any vehicles at all, but we're also freed up of a lot of debt to go ahead and get something new. We'd been looking at a 2008 Toyota Tundra, but I think we're going to have to re-budget a little and maybe find something a little less expensive.

Make sure you all stop by BRK's blog and wish him a Hippo Birdy. He's old, you know, so make sure you yell.

And now, oooh, pretty pretty WoW bits! lol

10 WoW Items I love to bits

Dimensional Ripper - Area 52
Badge of Tenacity
Orb of Deception
Festive Purple Dress
Sheen of Zanza
Mojo
Terestian's Stranglestaff
Tome of Arcane Domination
Enigma Robes
Dartol's Rod of Transformation

The above are in no means in any order of preference, I love them all, and I love them all equally, whether it be for looks, for purpose, for fun or for otherwise.

Edit: to avoid confusion, yes, I have had (or still have) all of the above items :)

Many Apologies

2008-03-11T19:00:00.002-06:00

I know my posts have been short and to the point in the last few days, I've been working a lot, as per usual.

Lonn got his cast off today, 80 days after the accident, he's happy, he gets to go back to work tomorrow! I'm happy! I don't have to cook supper anymore!

Monday Mar 17 I'm starting a new position at work, so I'll be doing some homework in the next few days to prepare for that. Huzzah for promotions :)

Coming soon to a blog near you: More 10's posts.

G'night folks.

WOOHOO AGAIN!

2008-03-10T20:54:00.001-06:00

2 in 2 days people. AC downed High Astromancer Solarian tonight for a guild first :) Congrats on AC for now being 2/4 in Tempest Keep!

WOOHOOOOO!

2008-03-09T19:54:00.001-06:00

AC downs Fathom-Lord Karathress! Congrats on being 4/6 in Serpentshrine Cavern! WOOOO!

Oh you did NOT just do that.

2008-03-09T09:04:00.002-06:00

Pet Peeves and How I Hates Them

1) People who tell you how to do something and then, just minutes later, do it incorrectly (according to their method).
2) Parents who let their children run wild in public locations.
3) When people call me by my full first name.
4) Being called babe, baby, hey you, or 'girl'
5) (here's your typical pet peeve) Old granny drivers! (especially my own grandma... oi)
6) IF I allow someone to borrow a book from my extensive library, and it comes back dog eared, with a broken spine... OMG that bothers me.... all of my books are in pristine condition and I EXPECT them to stay that way... I don't lend out my books very often.
7) People who play favourites.
8) When I ask for no ice in my drink, I mean: When you bring me my drink, it had best not have ice. SO many times... grrr...
9) When I ask a question to someone, specifically, and they do not answer. Even tho they were looking directly at me when I asked them.
10) People who will use any excuse to get out of doing something when they know it is their responsibility.

Yay! You like me!

2008-03-09T08:46:00.002-06:00

10 Factions I'm Exalted with

Going to split this up by character, because, even though I'm exalted with more than 10, I'll just list them all, for fun.

Kaeras:
1) Exodar
2) Stormwind

Hyria:
3) The Aldor

Kelektra:
4) Stormwind
5) Cenarian Expedition
6) Honor Hold
7) Kurenai
8) Netherwing
9) Ogri'la
10) Sporeggar
11) Lower City
12) Sha'tari Skyguard
12) The Scryers
13) The Sha'tar
14) Argent Dawn
15) Keepers of Time
16) The Violet Eye

Makes me feel bad for poor Hyria, actually. Since she's been with me since pretty much day one of my serious playing. Yet, she's only exalted with one faction, the Aldor, and that's only because Kelektra did all the farming for the Marks of Sargeras and Fel Armaments.

Then again, Kaeras is only exalted with Stormwind because I wouldn't have her riding around on an elephant. Draenei or not, broken looking legs, or not, there was not going to be an elephant. So, she got a horse.

And Kel? Kel just kinda went crazy with the rep grinding... And still is. My next goal for her is to finish up Consortium ( about 4k till exalted) and ALL of the Alliance factions (various reputations here ranging from honoured to revered). Then she'll move on to Timbermaw Hold and Zandalar Tribe (both of whom she's revered with). Crazy? Probably.

I Thought it was Interesting

2008-03-07T10:10:00.002-06:00

When I was a little girl, my mother used to read to me when I was getting ready for bed, much like a lot of mothers might do, I suppose. The difference is, when I was about 3 years old, I started reading to my mother when it was time for me to go to bed. Not kidding, either, there are those kids who will have a book read to them so many times that they memorize what's going on. This was not the case with me. Mom would pick up a new book I'd never seen before, and I'd start reading it to her. Not the dictionary or Grey's Anatomy or anything fancy like that, but those old hardcover Disney books, stuff like that. Easy words needed for a three year old :P

10 Books/Authors I've read that I absolutely love

1) The Lord of the Rings Trilogy (and anything by Tolkien, really)
2) Anything by Patricia Cornwell (it's hard to pick just one!)
3) Little Women - Louisa Mae Alcott
4) I'm lumping these all into one entry, because they're all related - Warcraft: War of the Ancients Trilogy: The Well of Eternity, The Demon Soul, The Sundering - Richard A Knaak. Also, Warcraft: Day of the Dragon (Richard A Knaak), Warcraft: Lord of the Clans (Christie Golden), Warcraft: The Last Guardian (Jeff Grubb)
5) Anything by John Grisham
6) Harry Potter[s] - JK Rowling
7) Anything by Terry Pratchett
8) Anything by Mercedes Lackey
9) A new favourite of mine is to find any book under the title of "The Gospel According to", recently I've read "According to Disney, According to Harry Potter, According to Tolkien, and According to The Simpsons" all are fantastic reads. I recommend them highly.
10) And okay, I know these technically aren't books with lots of words in them, but I LOVE the Magic Eye books. I don't know if many are being published anymore, but you can find knockoffs in lots of different places.

Well there ya have it. Can you tell what kind of reading interests me most? Also, I'm always looking for new stuff to read, so if you've got some suggestions, let me know!

Why do I do this to myself...

2008-03-06T17:32:00.002-06:00

10 Things that Scare Me/Worst Fears

1) Spiders
2) Wasps/Bees
3) Gunfire
4) Dentists
5) Rickety Carnival Rides
6) Needles
7) My Mom dying
8) Being in a car accident
9) Physical pain (a.k.a. agliophobia)
10) Making a fool of myself in front of lots of people

Heeeey, I've been here.

2008-03-05T11:31:00.004-06:00

You've all got at least one instance in WoW that you'd run over and over again because you love it so much, right? Me too, but if this were just going to be about 1 instance, I couldn't exactly make a top 10 list, could I?

My top 10 Favourite Instances in WoW

In no particular order of favourite, yet going in order from lowest level to highest.

1) Wailing Caverns
2) Shadowfang Keep
3) Scarlet Monestary
4) Zul Farrak
5) Upper Blackrock Spire
6) The Underbog
7) Sethekk Halls
8) The Steamvaults
9) The Botanica
10) Zul'Aman

Oh, and also, I'm not including 25+ raiding content in my list, just because :P

What in the World is That?

2008-03-04T11:39:00.002-06:00

10 Random Items Strewn About My Computer Desk

1) Whiteboard Markers
2) A large canister of Hot Chocolate
3) A toy car from inside my Kinder Surprise Egg
4) A box of Bandaids (which really aren't bandaids, but Q-tips...)
5) A pair of Scissors
6) Rechargeable batteries
7) SkullCandy stickers
8) Half of a bag of BBQ Munchies
9) My day planner
10) An eyeglass cleaning cloth

Come to think of it, I really need to clean off my computer desk.

Huh?

2008-03-03T09:40:00.002-06:00

Today's 10's list is brought to you by the number 4, the alphabet, and the number 6. Wow.

10 Quirky things everyone needs to know about Me

1) You will never, ever see me wearing 2 socks that match, ever.
2) I'm right handed, can't do anything at all that is left hand dominant, however, when playing cards, I hold my hand in my left hand.
3) I have to sleep on the left side of the bed.
4) I'm a vegetarian
5) When preparing a plate of food, I take absolutely forever, because I will not eat something if it's touched another thing on my plate (sectioned plates ftw here, ppl!)
6) I have been known to buy/receive a new novel and read it upwards of 3-4 times in a row, just to make sure I don't miss anything.
7) I'mhay uentflay inhay igpay atinlay
8) I've got mild O.C.D., this applies mainly to the food thing, and to organizing my pencils and pens so that all tips are upwards, in colour coded order, also, all cups in my cupboards must be facing the same direction. There's more... but...
9) I used to be into graphitti, and pretty darn good at it too.
10) I absolutely abhor the colour pink.

Lodging

2008-03-02T09:13:00.002-06:00

There are many places in the world of Azeroth, and Outlands, that will put a character into a rested state. Most of these are major cities, like Ironforge, Stormwind, Shattrath, etc.... When logging out of the game, it is best to log your character in an Inn, which can also be found in any major city, as the act of logging out in an inn will provide you with more "rested bonus" than, for example, logging out on the bridge between the bank and AH in Ironforge.

However, once your character hits 70 and doesn't need to worry about logging out in an inn for rested bonus, your possibilities become endless. Here is my list of the 10 places I always seem to find myself logging out of the game.

1) Scryer or Aldor bank mailboxes; usually on the right-hand side.
2) PVP battlemasters.
3) Ironforge Auctionhouse; also usually the auctioneer off to the right.
4) Stormspire Spare Parts Dealer Najeeb
5) on top of the fountain in front of the bank in SW
6) Stormwind Auctionhouse attic (requires some wall walking)
7) In the air on my Gryphon wherever I'm farming
8) the return portal location in Shattrath
9) Ironforge bank mailbox
10) Hearth'd back to whatever location I've set my Hearthstone to.

March Madness

2008-03-02T09:07:00.002-06:00

Back in February I made a promise to myself that I would post at least once a day in March. This promise was made when I was only working 15-25 hours a week. Now, at the end of February, I'm working 35+ hours a week, and just yesterday pulled an 11 hour shift... IN RETAIL. WTF. Hence why there was no March 1'st post from me.

So hopefully what is to come in the next month will be a once a day post of a 10's list, with other, less drab, more relevant to randomness posts intersperced in between. Or, who knows, you might all find yourself going "I wonder what she's gonna 10 about today!" Probably not, I'm really just kidding myself, but there ya go; it's early and I have another 9 hr day in front of me.

Because I've already screwed up and missed my March 1 deadline, I'm going to put today's 10 list in a different post. HAHA! beat the system there, didn't I, that's two posts today :P

New Progress Card!

2008-02-25T22:44:00.002-06:00

Karazhan ~~ 11/11 ~~ Cleared
Gruul ~~ 2/2 ~~ Cleared
Zul'Aman ~~ Eagle, Bear, Lynx boss dead ~~ 3/6
Serpentshrine Cavern ~~ Hydross, Lurker, Leotheras dead ~~ 3/6
Doomwalker ~~ 1/1 ~~ Cleared
Doomlord Kazzak ~~ 0/1
Tempest Keep ~~ Void Reaver dead ~~ 1/4
Magtheridon ~~ 1/1 ~~ Cleared

Yes, congratulations to AC on our awesome Leotheras the Blind and Void Reaver kills.. You Rock AC!

Sometimes it all seems so pointless

2008-02-24T09:59:00.005-06:00

Sorry that I haven't been around much these last few weeks; January-March is a very busy, emotional time of year for me, this year even moreso.

Today, I'm going to take the time to sit down and write this post, however, so that you, the reader(s) I have, can get a glimpse into the real life of the girl behind Kelektra, Hyria, Kaeras, and all those other toons, and what's been keeping me so busy.

-----------------------------------

On Dec. 21, 2007, at 8:00 am, I received a phone call from my husband. He had been involved in a collision on his way to the optometrist, and was waiting for an ambulance to show up, to take him to the hospital. Without any other vehicles, I called my mom and got her to pick me up and meet him there, because I had his health card. When we arrived, he'd already been admitted and taken for X-rays. He broke his ankle in two places.

Apparently he was driving down one of the highways running through our city; so I'm assuming he was going about 90 kph; when a minivan turned through a red light in front of him. He swerved to try and get out of the way, was clipped by the minivan on the drivers side front quarter of our GMC Yukon, and forced into a light standard (one of the big ones that has the arm that overhangs the street). He told me that the front end of our truck looked like it had been sheared off. The airbags went off, but he suffered only minor scrapes and bruises from that. The driver of the minivan was found at fault, and got a ticket. We've only recently found out due to some phone tag that the damage to our vehicle exceeded $18,000.00 and it was TL'd.

Lonn's been working at home as much as he can, since then, and only 2 weeks ago was given permission to partially weightbear on his ankle, the cast comes off on Mar 11. nearly 3 months after the accident. I feel so bad for him, he missed Christmas and New Years, and many other family events we've had since. But I'll sure be glad when he can help out more around the house again, let me tell ya!

------------------------------------

The second thing that's kept me so busy in the last little while is that on Jan. 22, 2008 I finally got a job, yay me! Since then I've been working about 30 hours a week, mostly shifts from early afternoon till late evening, so a lot of nights I come home and just fall into bed without much pretense. I love my new job, and there has recently been an opportunity within the company for me to move from the position I'm in now (part time Sales Rep) to a full time 11-7, 5 day a week, salaried position. I'm really hoping that I get that position, and my manager says it's pretty much a shoe-in since I have previous knowledge in the field, so we'll see!

------------------------------------

The thing that's kept me most busy, has honestly not really kept me busy at all. This is also the most emotional story for me, so please forgive the lapses that I'm sure are to come with regards to my grammar, and probably train of thought...

When I was 11 years old, and my brother was 8, my parents sat us down one afternoon and told us "Mom and Dad won't be living together anymore.". Well, I was young and naive, so I asked why grandma and grandpa were getting a divorce... To which of course my parents responded that it was them, not my grandparents. I wouldn't hear of it, blew them off, and ran to my room and slammed the door. The next day, my father moved out.

My father and I had always been close, he'd taught me to play baseball and was the coach on my team. He'd always be there when I needed something. He was willing to let me be the tomboy that I was. He'd take me to, and pick me up from all sorts of sports camps, Girl Guide camps, school and extra-curricular events. And on that fateful day in August, when I was 11 years old, it all stopped.

I don't know what changed him, and to this day I really still don't care to know, but I do know this: the man came to my elementary and highschool graduations wearing a suit jacket, nice shirt, pair of shorts, sandals, toe rings, painted toenails, and anklets... I will NEVER live that down. Don't get me wrong, I love my dad, I mean, he's my dad, even if he's eccentric. He's the best grandfather to all his grandkids that I've ever seen... So I don't know what happened that he had to skip his own children... but meh. that's not part of this story...

Anyways, when my dad moved out, the only real male influence in my life became my maternal grandfather, "Willie". He was a quiet, reserved man, but was the biggest jokester you'd ever meet. He was a season ticket holder for our football team, and if you got in the way of his hockey, you'd better watch out! He was sensitive, he'd cry when the National Anthem was played, when one of his grandkids was in a school play, concert or musical, there were always tears in his eyes.

The autumn after my parents divorced, grandpa let me come work at the Curling Club he and my grandmother managed, just small jobs, peeling potatoes for french fries, taking people's food orders, even letting me handle the cash register and some small sales. I'd spend quite a lot of time there after school.

My grandfather taught me to curl; he taught me to play cribbage, and to this day I still have his luck. He taught me the importance of caring for a garden. He also taught me about stirring your tea until your spoon was nice and hot, and then sticking your spoon on the back of someone's hand when they weren't looking. He always made pancakes on sunday mornings, and he'd make mine with mickey mouse ears, or bunny ears, and would give them licorice whiskers and smarties for eyes.

Every year at Easter my grandpa would spend hours writing little rhyming poems, then cut them up into clues, and we'd have to find each part of the poem before the next, and finally the last piece of the poem would lead you to your easter basket full of treats. This was always a favourite of mine, and my brother and little cousins as well.

My grandfather wore pants, socks and shoes in the middle of summer, and when he'd wear shorts instead he'd still wear his white socks pulled up to his knees. We'd sit outside for hours, shucking peas and corn that we'd grown in our little garden, but the peas would never make it inside the house, they'd be gone as we'd sit out there, shucking the corn and giggling.

One summer, we were all out camping, and it was supper time, grandpa sat down on one side of the picnic table, and a friend of the family, without thinking, sat down on the same side as him. The picnic table flipped, and grandpa's plate ended up on his chest. He didn't even miss a beat, just kept eating his food, lying there on the dirt.

I have so many great memories of my grandfather, and I'm so very very glad I do. My grandfather passed away 8 years ago.

He'd been getting weaker and weaker, instead of taking the dog for an hour long walk, he'd come back after just having gone around the block, he slept more, and wasn't as hungry. On Dec. 25, 1999, we learned that he had inoperable cancer. The cancer developed in his bowel, and spread to his liver, kidneys, and lungs. At our New Years Eve party for the new millenium, grandma had to take him home at 8:00 pm. Through all of this, though, he kept promising me that he'd be there when I graduated Highschool in June.

He went into the hospital in early January, and each and every day I went there after school, to spend time with the man who'd become more like a father to me than my own. We'd play crib when he felt up to it, or watch TV on that tiny thing they have in hospital rooms. And my grandpa, always the jokester, was still making us smile. One day his hospital room door was left open and a nurse walked by with an empty IV pole, grandpa called out in his weak, cracking voice "Hey lady, I think you forgot your flag".

Grandpa got to go home on Jan 26th, he didn't want to die in the hospital, so grandma took him home. He died early in the morning on Friday, January 28th, while I was asleep.

The hardest thing I've ever had to do in my life, was lay my grandpa to rest. I read the Eulogy at his funeral, at 17 years old. I sang two songs at his funeral. That June, I graduated Highschool and was given an award that had not been presented to any student in more than 15 years. I'm sure, up in heaven, my grandfather was crying.

It's been 8 years since my grandpa Willie died, and, while each year gets a little bit easier, there are a lot of days, especially around this time of year, when I just want to climb into his lap and play crib with him.

And to this day, whenever I hear our National Anthem, I start to cry.

-----------------------------------------

Sorry guys, I'm not really feeling much like attempting to end this post on a high note, so, I'll leave you with this: one of the songs that I sang at grandpa's funeral.

The Greatest Man I Never Knew

The greatest man I never knew
Lived just down the hall
And everyday we said hello
But never touched at all

He was in his paper
I was in my room
How was I to know he thought
I hung the moon

The greatest man I never knew
Came home late every night
He never had too much to say
Too much was on his mind
I never really knew him
And now it seems so sad
Everything he gave to us took all he had

Then the days turned into years
And the memories grew black and white
He grew cold like an old winter wind
Blowing across my life

The greatest words I never heard
I guess I'll never hear
The man I thought would never die
S'been dead almost a year
He was good at business
But there was business left to do
He never said he loved me
Guess he thought I knew

© 1993, Reba McEntire

2008-01-30T23:40:00.000-06:00

update to most recent post:

MAGTHERIDON IS DEAD! WOO AC!!!!

unfortunately I was at work, so I missed it, and I'm still just plain ol' Kelektra... but I'll be Kelektra, Champion of the Naaru, one day... one day d@mnit.

how hard is it to find comfy black shoes!

2008-01-24T21:08:00.000-06:00

So, AC attempted Magtheridon last night. The squiggy little bugger just won't die tho. So back we go next Wednesday.

Just a quick recap of AC's awesomeness:

Kara - all bosses dead - 13/13
Gruul - all bosses dead - 2/2
ZA - Eagle, Bear and Lynx bosses dead - 3/6
SSC - Hydross and Lurker dead - 2/6
DW - dead - 1/1
DLK - 0/1
TK - 0/4
Mag - 0/1

Completed all of my Trial of the Naaru quests now, so Mags, when you fall (not if, buddy, but when) I'll be Kelektra, Champion of the Naaru. Woot.

Big huge congratzes go out to Council of Elders, my old Khadgar guild of awesome, on their first downing of The Lurker Below. I'm proud of you guys! Keep it up!

... Comfy black shoes - 0/1....

blink blink

2008-01-18T14:25:00.001-06:00

Man those RL lights hurt sometimes, you know?

Anyways, in other news: I GOT A JOB! woot! Gonna be so much fun to get out of the house again! Absolutely cannot wait!

W00T!

A small update

2008-01-16T11:50:00.000-06:00

Nothing really new on the Kel front. Might get her some more S3 gear today, think she's got enough points for it. Then I need to get her doing dailies and farming again, Kaeras is gonna need her epic pony soon.

Hyria got her S2 pants yesterday, HUGE upgrade over the Incanters Pants she was wearing, so W00t. Even if there is no spell hit on them. We'll fix that soon. Nathrezim + S2 pants has her pushed up to about 950 fire damage. Still a lot of work to do, but we're getting there.

Kaeras is now 59 and has traversed her way across the world to the gates of Outlands. Replaced two level 30 items already. I knew this was going to happen, that's why she's stuck with her SM blues till level 59. Sad but true. Time to get her cooking, Skinning, Flower Picking, First aid... and weapons skills... all to 375... well... a.s.a.p. anyways. Finally got her Rak'shiri yesterday, after three days of wait, so now the arduous task of level and loyalty dinging "Toopy" will begin. Don't ask me why Toopy, it's a character from a kids cartoon on like... Nickelodian or something... but when my nephew was here for three days, I absolutely fell in love with it, it's just a really cute cartoon.

Tschida is still waiting, not so patiently, for the rare fish catches in the Stranglethorn Vale Fishing Extravaganza.. that extra 24 stam will push her to 1500 health, imp out. Then she'll really tear up WSG.

As I wandered weak and weary

2008-01-15T10:47:00.001-06:00

HA! Take THAT. Take THAT you grumpy box o' bolts.

Mega oober huge congratz to AC on downing Doomwalker. And silly me for taking a night off raiding, I wasn't there! That's ok, I watched over Hubby's shoulder. Kinda like Cay hadda do (I'm sorry Cay, that's gotta suck major hardcore).

AC hit some major milestones last night, folks. We had DPS at over 9.5k the whole night. First stop was Gruul's Lair, for a bit of polite conversation with the Gronn Lord himself. (One shot High King, two shots Gruul, it's like a bad cocktail...). After that, AC's intrepid raiders paid a visit to Doomwalker, whom, as Cay states, was already dead. He just didn't know it yet. Their first try, AC got Doomwalker to 5%, congrats to them, that's still awesome for only having tried him once before! W00t! After collecting themselves and waiting for the DeathWatch (woot, WoW version of Baywatch anyone? :P) to wear off, they engaged him again. Due to some unforseen circumstances there were a few disconnects during the night, one of them being the Squeekie Priesty herself, and a few people bit the dust. Lucky for us, along came Insurrection, doing their BT attunement after finally killing Kael'Thas (second guild on the server to do so, congrats to them!) and helped beat Doomwalker down from about 20%.

And there was screaming... Lemme tell ya, I'm sure Fio went deaf with Cay standing right behind him. BRK got his UBER GUN OF AWESOMESAUCENESS, and TJ got some really neato gloves. Congrats to you both!

New Toys

2008-01-12T12:35:00.000-06:00

After holding on to my Blessings Deck for a while, to really see if I wanted the trinket rather than the cash for selling it, I finally decided that I should PROBABLY get rid of that final Uncommon Green Trinket - Core of Ar'kelos. So, I hopped on a couple Gryphons, a boat or two, and my trusty Talbuk Steed, Bob, and wound my way down into Mulgore. Talk to a few people, start the quest on my Blessings Deck, talk to a few more people, and eventually I end up with this beauty:

Isn't it pretty? I tested it out matched with my Skyguard Silver Cross, and unbuffed I was putting out 3300 AP when stacked at the full 20. Yum! I plan on working towards collecting all of the cards in the Furies Deck next, for my tanking gear.

In other news, took Hyria into Karazhan last night with a bunch of intrepid explorers, took down Attumen, Moroes, Opera (Oz), Curator, Illhoof, Aran, Chess, and Prince. Don't know if we're going to head back in for Maiden, Netherspite, and Nightbane. The only thing I saw all night that I wanted (and was outrolled on) was Shadow-Cloak of Dalaran... That is, until I saw this..The roll was called, I typed /roll as fast as my shaky fingers would let me, and then held my breath. I don't know if it was holding my breath or not that did the trick, but it's mine! *cackles maniacally*. I scrounged up the mats for the Sunfire Enchant, ventured into the scary world of the trade channel, and there you have it folks! Cay, this means I won't be begging for runs into BM anymore for the staff, kk??

Hey, it's January, when did that happen.

2008-01-08T09:58:00.000-06:00

Lemme tell you something, something you may already know, something you may have yet to experience. This is the pain of the 1%.

Last night, our guild of awesome one shot the entirety of Gruul's Lair, it was well done, very few people died, and there was loot to be had. I started the night off for us by providing a sacrifice to the WoW Gods, just a teeny tiny bit of gnome flesh will do it; preferably stuffed right down the throat of High King Maulgar himself. I succeeded, to much wild applause (oh, okay, some uninterested muttering). So, in case you're wondering, here's the procedure:

● Take one Mage (It doesn't matter the race, as long as it's a Mage; last night was a gnome), and disrobe said Mage until all that remains are flesh, and possibly tabard.

●Insert Mage into Gruul's Lair, positioning as close to Gronn Priests and Lair Brutes as possible.

●Have Mage use their skill of invisibility, and wait 5 seconds. At the end of 5 seconds, have Mage run forward as fast as possible, without using any other spells, until Mage hits the wall on the other side of the Cave.

●By now the invisibility should be wearing off, or will have worn off, and your sacrifice will again become visible to High King Maulgar and his band of lemmings. If your Mage is fast on the draw, and wants to get a last shot at life in before being horribly and cruelly torn apart, they can /dance. If not, it's goodbye cruel world.

●The Mage must then release their spirit to the winds, and your raid may now seek audience with the High King.

Well anyways, then our normal Mage tank came online, and I switched to my other role: Tank for Kiggler the Crazed and dps for Gruul himself. As I said, we one shot both bosses. Now, here's where the kicker comes in. High King Maulgar drops T4 shoulder tokens. Can you guess which one dropped? DRUID/WARRIOR/PRIEST you yell, fully expecting that to be the answer, since that's the class I was playing. But NO, dear reader, in full mockage of my poor, pitiful, now dearly departed Mage, not one, not one but TWO of the Mage/Warlock/Hunter T4's dropped, and EVERYONE who was there of that class already had them. *insert heavy / le sigh in ventrilo, and much wailing*. What does this mean for you? It means two T4 tokens were left lying in the dirt, and somewhere out there, a Mage is crying.

the end....

Ok no, not really the end, cuz yeah, after we totally annihilated Gruul's Lair, we were feeling a bit ambitious, so we decided to take a shot at DOOOOOOOMWalker. Doomwalker is a relatively easy fight, he's got 3 abilities you have to watch out for: Earthquake, Chain Lightening, and Overrun. Earthquake is really just annoying, it's nothing we can do to stop, so you just kind of have to deal with it. 2k damage every 2 seconds for 4 seconds, a total of 8k damage. Chain Lightening is a random damage spike that acts just like a normal chain lightening spell, chaining to anyone within approx 10 yards of you, doubling its damage every hit. So, for this ability, make sure you're not standing too near a lot of people. It almost would be handy to have a proximity meter here. And finally, Overrun; Doomwalker will randomly charge at people, knocking them back, and wiping aggro, so you better have a tank to pick him back up again, quicklylike.

Oh, one other thing, if you die during this fight, you're down, there's no rezzes, no running back to help out, no nothin, nada, and this is because he puts this crazy Mark of Death debuff on you that lasts for 10 minutes, and basically causes you to die, over and over again, if you get anywhere in the vicinity of Doomwalker himself. Why? Because it's to prevent people from utterly zerging him, it basically makes it so that your raid can only attempt him once every 15 minutes if you wipe.

We had three tanks for Doomwalker, one of each available tanking class, a Warrior, the guild's MT and RL, a paladin, and myself as the bear tank. Our warrior would be tanking him during all three different abilities, it was the paladins job to grab him once he did his Overrun ability and bring him back to the warrior. My job was relatively simple during this part of the fight, just dps in bear and build rage/aggro on him.

My time to play came in when Doomwalker hit 20%. This is when he enrages, during this point he does double damage, so, it's best to have a tank with really high hit points and armor. I never did check to see what my armor was at (I wasn't wearing badge of tenacity, due to the need to have my dodge trink from kara and my Netherwing badge for the stamina equipped{yeah shush about the Netherwing badge, I'm working on DMC:Vengeance, alright! sheesh}), so I couldn't tell you on that front, but I do know I was sitting around 18k health.

He still squashed me flat.

How did you do!!! you scream! Well. Our sadness, let me show you it.
attempt #1 ..... 1%.
attempt #2 (15 minutes later) ..... not even worth remembering.
attempt #3 (15 minutes later, yet again) ..... 17%
Alas, it was close to midnight, and people had to leave, so we had to stop :(

ONE. FRIGGEN. PERCENT! OMG. I died when he was at about 12%, so our MT picked him back up, but he didn't last long either. so all the dps that was left in the raid took him from about 10% down to 1%, and finally, it was just healers remaining... and then nothing. I'd even taken my headset off to avoid the shrieks and OMGS and SCREAMING that I knew was going to be forthcoming (yes, this means YOU!)

You can also read about the travesty here: at BRK's site, and here: at Brigin's site. Apologies to any of the other million bloggers we have in our guild if you've written about it too, and I missed it, but these were the only two I'd seen.

1%....

sigh.

Are they INSANE?

2007-12-28T09:31:00.000-06:00

Nablopomo has gone crazy

Seriously, a blog post a day for the entirety of 2008? Ouch. I could barely manage (and I didn't succeed) to write a blog post a day for a month, let alone the entire year. Oh well, all the power in the world to those who try.

In other news: Christmas this year sucked some serious butt. Lonn got in a head on collision on the Friday before Christmas, totalled our Yukon, and totalled his ankle. Whee for being casted for 8-10 weeks. I feel so bad for him. Good thing tho that the accident wasn't his fault. Whew. So, he spent Christmas at home, alone, because he was too sore to move around too much (and really, he didn't feel like being around ppl, which I totally understand), and basically spends his days in a wheelchair, because it's easier than attempting to hobble around on crutches, when you've already got balance problems to begin with!

On the plus side tho, my brother finally proposed to his girlfriend (13 months too late, isn't it!) and they're gonna get married in early 2009 in SPAIN! She's got all her family there, you see, so it'll be easier than attempting to bring them all to Canada. So yeah, gotta get svelte so I can lie on the beaches in Spain for a few weeks afterwards :P

Did you come here for something WoW related? Not much on that front. Finally getting Kel some good gear, she's got 3/5 Tier 4 now, just waiting on the shoulders for the 4pc set bonus. I picked her up some welfare epic S1 arena shoulders for now, and she's got the s3 VGD Chestpiece. She was also lucky enough to be in an amazing group of people who all passed on an opportunity to make 1-2k gold when the depleted badge dropped, so she's finally got her Badge of Tenacity, and didn't have to pay a thing for it!!! Her new stats for tanking with all of this? 13k health, 32k armor and40% dodge, still uncrittable, and now some resilience to boot. (these are self buffed numbers). When the fair hits Mulgore in 2 weeks, she'll also have the blessings deck to turn in for a new kitty trinket (she's still using a quested greenie, because the whore hourglass still won't drop for her...)
Hyria's waiting patiently and sticking it out in arenas for the s2 staff. I respecced her to something of a mishmash fire/frost build for more survivability, hated it, and respecced her to arc/fire within a day.
Oh, and Hubby and I created some twinkies, just for fun, and those times when there is no raiding/instances happening. I've got a warlock, he's got a rogue.

Friggen crazy NoBloPoMo'ers... eeps.

This post brought to you by:

2007-12-06T08:04:00.001-06:00

Aetherial Circle's official downing of .....

The Lurker Below!!!!!

It was an amazing amazing night. It started off a little shaky, though. We lost our offtank during the trash pulls before Lurker due to his internet being shitty on him and not letting him stay connected while inside Serpentshrine Cavern. So what'd we do? we called in UBER DOOM to come save us!

We had 4 attempts on the big bad fish; the first three, we lost people early to spouts and whirls. The fourth try tho, as Doom puts it, just felt right. AND WE DID IT!!! WOOOO!

Congrats to Brigin on his new Shrimp on a Stick hammer! Lurker also dropped Boots of Effortless Striking which went to Marigan, and Velvet Boots of the Guardian. (Sorry, I kinda forget who got those *SHUUUUN*)

So what'd we do to celebrate this momentous event? Well, we had a little nostalgic moment and paid a visit to Molten Core. It was Cayleigh's first time there, can you believe it? Hehe.

We downed Lucifron, Magmadar, Gehennas and Garr, and plan on going back tonight to finish the place off! Some of that "old style awesome" gear dropped, tho I can't remember it all.

Again, CONGRATULATIONS to Aetherial Circle on teh awesomeness that is now being a "Serpentshrine Cavern Raiding Guild" I's so proud.

mmmm mmmm good.

2007-11-15T09:56:00.000-06:00

Here's just a little slideshow of my aquisitions since the patch :)

2007-11-13T23:43:00.001-06:00

home. trip was uneventful. hubby got food poisoning.

ZA and the patch are awesome. screenshots and more tomorrow. for now. sleep.

le. sigh.

2007-11-10T05:21:00.000-06:00

emergency trip out of town for the weekend. will be back monday evening. don't stop blogging!

How's this for Random?

2007-11-09T20:51:00.000-06:00

So I logged in to one of my banker characters today, and the next thing I know this has popped up onto my screen:

Now, I've had some weird stuff happen to me while playing WoW, but, I think to date that this one actually takes the cake. Jado, I'm sure you're a nice person; and while I appreciate the proposal, I'm sorry, I have to decline, see, because I'm already married (and I don't live in Utah :P)

~~~In other News~~~

Patch 2.3 comes out on Tuesday, that means Engineering Flying Mounts, and Ritual of Refreshment, and SPOREGGAR PETS!!!

I'm so excited!

A Message from the Masses

2007-11-08T21:57:00.000-06:00

Mika Rawks. That is all. More tomorrow.

apologies

2007-11-07T18:10:00.000-06:00

i'll hopefully be back up soon, i'm messing with the blog because someone told me i had to. in order to find a happy medium, i'm doing some template searching. i will still attempt to put up something of a post a day, but i cannot guarantee. as this makes 2 posts today, i think i'm covered till tomorrow. nyah.

7:11

2007-11-07T07:11:00.000-06:00

mmmm coffee...

so anyways, it's early, i'm awake, and whoa, i'm not caring about punctuation right now. i'm only here for 1 reason. you all need to head on over to The Egotistical Priest and read the awesomeness that is her posts on New Kids on the Block (Parts 1, 2, and 3). great stuff Ego!

A Fel Reaver in Rabbits Clothing

2007-11-06T22:49:00.000-06:00

You know, when you're in a guild full of people who blog, you oftentimes end up blogging about the same things as they have, albeit possibly not on the same day. Here are some examples: I post about BRK wiping us during Gruul, BRK posts about wiping us during Gruul. I post about Doom posting about cooking skill guides on the AC site, so does Squeekie. Not that I mind, of course, being in such esteemed company as Doom, Cay, TJ, BRK, Fio, etc etc.

I keep inching closer and closer to Exalted with the Spore People (17120/21000), which is good, because with 2.3 in a week, I want to have Exalted so that I can get my pet! Whee for Mini Spore Bat! Then I'm gonna go farm the Azure Whelpling, too! I guess you could call me something of a Non Combat Pet collector, I have a few of the rarer ones, including the Captured Firefly of TJ fame. I'm still hunting for the Magical Crawdad, and the Hyacinth Macaw, tho. I won't ever give up on those!

Happy farming!

Obligatory "OMG" Post. for Cay.

2007-11-05T23:16:00.000-06:00

I've been warned, upon pain of death (and Pacman, says Cay) that I must write about AC's Gruul's raid tonight. Or rather, my participation in AC's Gruul's raid tonight.

Firstly, I gotta say, it was my whisper to BRK that nearly wiped the raid when he decided to pay more attention to what I was saying than what he was doing, and he ran in the wrong direction and nearly pull two Gronn-Priests onto our butts. That was great, I got an "OMG YOU ALMOST MADE ME WIPE THE RAID!" whisper/yelled at me :P

Ok, so, Gruul's Lair. There are only 2 boss encounters. There's High King Maulgar and his entourage, and then there is Gruul the Dragonkiller himself.
My job for the HKM fight was to tank one of his council, Blindeye the Seer. He's a healer, so he was kept stunlocked by the rogues the entire time, this left me able to tank him in bear form in my cat gear. Then, all dps (including myself, now in cat form) move to our next target, Olm the Summoner. Once he is dead, all melee dps will switch to Kiggler the Crazed, and all ranged dps will take down Krosh Firehand. It took us a few tries, due to LoS issues on our main tank, Celli, but we got him down, and he dropped phat loots, and good times were had.

For Gruul, the idea is for us melee to stay out of the cave ins, and avoid people as much as possible during the ground slam, gronn lord's grasp, and shatters, it's more difficult than it sounds, trust me. Our first attempt wasn't so great, so we switched things up a bit, instead of Celli, Brig, and Jace tanking/taking hateful strikes, Celli, Brig, and I tanked. Tanking is a different story than melee simply in that you NEED to be the top three on the aggro meter at all times, due to the hateful strikes (we're talkin 18,000+ damage here). Unfortunately, I died early in our second attempt, so we wiped again (I'm sorry peoples!). Our third attempt, it was Celli that died early, and who ended up main tanking Gruul but me! OMG it was scary, having never been in that role on that fight before. You know, people say that healing is scary, because you're responsible for the safety and wellbeing of so many people, well, tanking's just the same, kinda (ok, don't yell at me, it's just what I think!). Being the main tank in a raid is, well, it's definitely an experience, and I'm glad it's not me, truthfully, just like healing you've definitely got to have nerves of steel. Well anyways, then I died, and Brig was the only tank left, so you just know that your melee is going to start taking hateful strikes... but the amazing dps that is AC absolutely TORE the last 14% of Gruul's life out of him, and we got him down, and again he dropped more phat loots for us, including Celli's T4 Legs, yay Celli! Rejoicings were had all around!

Then our three crazy mages conspired against us and all stood on top of one another and opened portals to three different locations. I feel sorry for those people that ended up in Exodar, really, I do. I managed to make it back to Shattrath, so yay!

THEN! (aren't you glad I had more story? cuz I KNOW you weren't getting sick of me yet, were you!) Kara grp 1 ventured back in to Kara with the express purpose of killing Prince, since he eluded us on Wed and Sun nights. We proceeded to one-shot the bugger, and MORE phat loots were had. Nothing was sharded, and all was good!

Ok... so there're enough !!!!'s in this post to keep a newspaper in business for a week, I guess that means it's time for me to go. And with 13 minutes to spare till midnight, too!

Headaches and Loot Reaver and Sleep Loss, Oh My!

2007-11-04T15:10:00.000-06:00

Thursday night Aetherial Circle made its maiden voyage into Tempest Keep: The Eye, and set our sights on Loot Rea... oh, excuse me, Void Reaver. First impressions? BRK's right, it's very pink. AC requested that I switch Kel to a resto based spec for this, which I was only too happy to do, it's fun trying different specs every once in a while. My main job was to keep lifebloom up on our three tanks, and toss heals where I could when I could.

The first few sets of trash pulls (6 mobs at a time) were... interesting. CC is difficult in a new place, I don't envy our rogues or the one mage that was there, at all. I think now that we've seen them once it'll be easier next time, we sort of know what to expect. WoWWiki has great information on this raid instance, I suggest you reads it if you're planning on heading in there.

A'lar, the first boss in The Eye, is a giant Phoenix, he's absolutely gorgeous, and later on in the instance, the main boss, Kael'Thas Sunstrider, actually drops "The Ashes of A'lar", which is a flying mount modeled after the phoenix. It's extremely rare, and I've only ever seen one person with this mount, a warlock on the server I was on before I transferred to Drenden. We skipped attempting A'lar due to time constraints on respawns and headed up to Loot Reaver. This boss is a huge Felreaver, like those ones that used to stomp you silly in Hellfire Peninsula. I probably should have paid more attention to what he does to melee during the encounter, but what my main concern was, again, was keeping lifebloom up on the tanks and avoiding the zomghugeblueenergyballflyingatme. There is a mod that you can get that helps with this, but I'm lazy, so I'm gonna make you go look for it, you can also find a link for it on AC's website, or on BRK's blog, here. We wiped twice, got him down to 73% on our best try, but had FOUR purple items drop from trash, it were awesome, I's so proud of how well we did! And hopefully this week we can go back and do it again!

But for now, I need to go take some advil if I'm going to be ready for Karazhan tonight!

Tired of these wake-up calls.

2007-11-03T08:18:00.000-06:00

--Steps out into the bright sunlight of real life--

Today's post is more of a rant and a cry for help than anything else. So bear with me, and if you're still here at the end, some words of advice, maybe?

2 years ago Lonn and I adopted a dog, his name is Happy, that's the name he came with, and we couldn't think of anything that suited him better. Well... until now. Henceforth his name shall be called shitface. You wanna hear the story why? SURE YOU DO!!!!

So anyways, I don't know what happened to this poor dog before we got him, but he was just a mess. He's a Keeshond, and if you follow the link, you'll see pictures (cuz I don't have a good one of him, right now) of what Keeshonds are supposed to look like. See all that nice long silky looking fur? Well, when we got him, he was so matted up it looked like someone had coated him in oil and left him to roll around in the mud. He was wearing a collar that was so tightly matted into the fur around his neck that we weren't sure the groomer was going to be able to get it out without sedating him. So, we got him all cleaned up at the groomer, and he was left looking seriously hilarious (I'll see if I can find a picture and scan it in later) with a big fluffy head, and a big fluffy body, and a shaved to the skin neck.

But, all that is beside the point. Happy is... well, he's a difficult dog. He loves to be cuddled, he'll climb right up into your lap and flop over so that you have to rub his belly (cuz it's just too darn cute to do otherwise), he knows EXACTLY when supper time is, and he'll sit by his bowl and whine till you come feed him... but there's one thing about him that everyone must know: if you're not paying attention to him at all times, well, lets just say he gets into trouble. We've tried ABSOLUTELY everything to break him of his habit of getting into the cupboard to eat the garbage, including child locks (he'll eat thru the plastic ones and knows how to work hook/eye metal ones.) If we ONCE forget to close the bathroom door, he'll be in the hamper in a second flat, we have to lock him in his kennel when we leave the house, because otherwise he'll dig in the furniture.. you know, just crazy difficult dog. All of these things are easily dealt with, tho, just close the bathroom door, put baby gates around the kitchen, yada. But the one thing I can't break him of just started recently...

We have a baby gate on our bedroom door so that we can still get some airflow through the house when the furnace/air conditioner is on. This never used to bother happy, but recently, due to my not having a job, I've been sleeping in a little later than Lonn, so he'll get up, let the dog out, bring him back to the bedroom, leave the bedroom, close the baby gate, go get ready for work, etc etc, and when he comes back upstairs to leave the house; Happy will sit at the baby gate and GROWL at him, like he's some sort of intruder. This, of course, wakes me up, because most days he takes a flying leap off of my chest to get to the door to growl at Lonn. We've tried closing the bedroom door, to muffle Lonns footsteps, we've tried leaving a light on in the hallway when Lonn wakes up so that Happy knows it's him, we've tried (and I cried and cried and cried when we did this) putting a bark/growl collar on him at night, I've tried spanking him and yelling NO! at him, I've tried holding him down in my arms when he starts to growl and cupping his jaw so that he can't bark... I've tried EVERYTHING, and he still does it, morning after morning, for the last month or so. I just don't know what to do anymore :( (and I can't keep losing an hour of sleep every day, either). We can't just let him out in the morning because with Lonn in the bathroom, or wherever the hell he goes in the morning, we can't risk letting Happy roam the house. We've tried this in the past. Trust me.

So, I just don't know what to do, and I'm out of ideas. I've asked family and friends, I've asked experts, I just... don't... know.

Oh, I should also mention that Happy's vet seems to think he's about 4 to 4.5 years old, but we can't get a proper number since we adopted him and they didn't know when he was born.

help

Sometimes I think I've gone Crazy

2007-11-02T08:56:00.000-06:00

So, by now, because you read a lot of blogs, you've probably heard of NaNoWriMo. If you haven't, NaNoWriMo is a challenge which is placed every November, which is (direct quote from the site, here, cuz I'm lazy and upping my word count by doing this!) "a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to novel writing. Participants begin writing November 1. The goal is to write a 175-page (50,000-word) novel by midnight, November 30."

Well, I didn't start November 1, I'm starting November 2, so sue me. I'll stop on Dec 1 if I have to. But, unlike Teh Squeekie Priesty, the crazy one who is actually attempting NaNoWriMo, I'm going to follow something a lil bit easier, since this will be my first year attemping this monstrous feat. I'm going to, instead, join NaBloPoMo, like TJ (who is awesome, by teh way!). NaBloPoMo is a less serious version of NaNoWriMo, wherein you post on your blog at least once a day for the entire month. This, I think I can make happen.

So, if you want to be crazy like Squeekie, or just semi... off their rocker, like TJ, Ratshag, and myself, head on down to either NaNoWriMo, or NaBloPoMo's website (do you people seriously know how hard it is to type those nonsensical words?, seriously!) and sign yourself up! If you choose to sign up for blogonceadaytillyourbrainexplodesoutyourleftear then you'll find me signed up under Kelektra. If you're crazy and sign up for omgsomanywordsithinkimactuallygoinginreversebacktosanehelpmegod.... Well, you won't find me. but you will find Squeekie!

/boggle

2007-10-31T08:47:00.000-06:00

Okay okay, I know I promised a post about addons, and I'm working on it! I even added a link list to my favourite addons over there --->> looksee! But today, I wanna talk about something that just completely made me /boggle /headdesk /faceslap last night.

Ok, so theres this guy in my guild... we'll call him Q. Now, Q's always full of questions, ideas and thoughts that make a lot of us /boggle, but that's beside the point. Last night was different. Last night we found out that Q doesn't have the secondary skill of cooking on his LEVEL SEVENTY (that's 70, folks) CHARACTER. Zero, zilch, none. No cooking. For why? We (not the collective BRK We, but as in the whole friggen guild We) ask, it's so easy! and it gives you 30 min buffs to boot! Q's excuse? He doesn't use buff food because a) it only lasts so long, 2) because he has to buy it off the AH, iii) it doesn't count towards stats when trying to get into raid groups. Well of course it does, fool! And you wouldn't have to buy it off the AH if you'd just TRAINED THE DAMN PROFESSION IN THE FIRST PLACE! Most people even level up fishing at the same time, so you constantly have a stream of food available at your beckon call! Heh... stream of food, get it? Oh, nevermind.

I have to admit, I don't have cooking to 375 on Hyria... /shame. I do, however, have 375 fishing and 375 cooking on Kelektra, Kel supplies Hyria with everything she needs in terms of buff food, which means (omg, revelation coming here folks) NOT HAVING TO BUY THE STUFF ON THE AH! ... Wow. Whodathunkit.

If I had a bigger reader base than just... me.... I'd ask you all what you thought of secondary skills like Fishing, Cooking, and First Aid, but since it's just me, well, my opinion is simple: WTH wouldn't you have them? SRSLY! Everyone. EVERYONE should at least have First Aid maxxed out, am I right? Hey self, am I right?

....

Oh well.

Oh, and Q? The answer is RATING BUSTER!

Addendum:: If, for whatever reason, you do NOT have your cooking maxxed out? Doomy has posted a link to a cooking guide at AC's Website. Here.

Coming Soon to a blog near you

2007-10-18T15:00:00.000-06:00

A post about addons! whee!

Standing in the rain (or, alternatively: Asshats beware, I have backup)

2007-10-09T15:00:00.000-06:00

She never slows down
She doesn’t know why
But she knows that when she’s all alone
It feels like it’s all coming down

She won’t turn around
The shadows are long
And she fears if she cries that first tear
The tears will not stop raining down

So stand in the rain
Stand your ground
Stand up when it’s all crashing down
You stand through the pain
You won’t drown
And one day what’s lost can be found
You stand in the rain

She won’t make a sound
Alone in this fight with herself
And the fear’s whispering
If she stands, she’ll fall down

She wants to be found
The only way out is through everything
She’s running from
Wants to give up and lie down

So stand in the rain
Stand your ground
Stand up when it’s all crashing down
You stand through the pain
You won’t drown
And one day what’s lost can be found
You stand in the rain

To make a long story short, about 3 months ago, one of my toons reported a group of about 5 players on my server for botting/running a power levelling service. These players had their accounts banned from WoW indefinitely. I wasn't told for how long, neither did I care... or so I thought. Somehow one member of this intrepid band of lawbreakers found out that it was my character that had gotten them banned. This player then took it upon himself to make my WoW playing time a living hell. How?, you ask? From what I understand, this player purchased a large quantity of the 14 day game trials and logged in on a variety of different accounts with the express purpose of finding my character and verbally abusing me, as a person, as a character, with connotations for in game and out. Each time I reported a character, another would pop up. This person would use in game chat channels (yell, say, whisper, zone, etc etc) for this, so whatever falsehoods they were stating were widely spread.

On Tuesday September 25 the harrassment got so bad that I was forced to make a choice. Do I continue playing the way that I am, and just deal with the horrid things this person was saying? Do I quit the game? Or, do I leave everything behind, and start on a new server? I chose, rather blindly, the third option.

So, Wednesday September 26 I transferred my two high level toons to a new server. My one error, one mistake, was to not create placeholder characters with my two toons names, so that I would have been forced to choose new names. I've been fighting off and on with a variety of GM's (game masters) for nearly three weeks to be given that one small thing. No more, however. Kel and Hy are here to stay. I've had enough of running scared.

To the wonderful, hardworking people from Council of Elders, I thank you for being my friends, you truly are an amazing bunch of people, I wish you all the luck in Azeroth and beyond. To Kim, Dan, Matt, Ryan, Kyle, and the rest of the officers, I thank you for letting me be a part of your cadre, I learned so much from all of you. To you five especially, I wish I could have told you what was going on, I know you would have understood, would have helped me walk through it, but I selfishly kept it inside, not wanting to bother you with my pain.

To Aetherial Circle, my adopted family, thanks for taking in a broken shell. Thanks especially to the two people who have made me feel so at home in a strange world, you know who you are.

Thoughts and Beginnings.

2007-10-08T14:30:00.000-06:00

Whee, it's my first real post.

I guess I should warn you that my thoughts jump around a lot, I may spend an entire paragraph writing about one thing, only to write about something else completely separate, and skip back to my first topic later. Consider yourselves warned. Here we go then.

For those of you who know me well, you know that I spend an absurd amount of time playing World of Warcraft (WoW); as a result, I spend an equally absurd amount of time reading information regarding WoW. So that's what we're doing here, I'm going to introduce you to my two WoW characters, and give you a compilation of some of the better WoW blogs/Sites/Reads out there.

I started playing WoW in March 2005 for reasons that I can't even remember now. It may have been because it was something to do while hubby was working and I was in school; or it may have been because I'd seen hubby playing and had decided that enough was enough, I wanted to play as well, I can't honestly tell you for sure. My first character was a Druid whos name eludes me now, though I do remember that I got her up to level 13! Go me!

It was at this point that we decided that if I were going to keep playing, using his game card and his computer, it might just be a better idea to buy me my own computer and copy of the game (insert Gnomish giggle as I remove my mind control cap!) So that's what we did. I deleted my poor level 13 Druid and started anew on a different server. This time, however, I started a Gnome Mage. Hubby started a new character on the same server so we could play together. He chose to create a Night Elf Rogue, and we dinged 60 within a week of each other.

My next character I again chose to level a Druid, she was tall, she could see around things, and she could shapeshift, what could be better?! My poor Mage was quickly and quietly set on the backburner. In a matter of weeks I had a second level 60 character, and had discovered the joys of being a melee class. My Druid was also the character that reached level 70 first, having done so a mere 12 days after the Burning Crusade Expansion was released.

Anyways, enough about me! What you're really here for is the list of links to the right hand side of this post. These are the things you should be reading! Want to know anything and everything about crafting in WoW? Check out Crafter's Tome. Are you a hunter, looking for some tips and tricks of the trade? I'd suggest Big Red Kitty. Rogues, Druids, Warlocks, Priests? yep, there're links there for you! Finding it hard to stay on top of what's going to be coming soon to a patch near you? World of Raids is your best bet there. Stay tuned for the addition of even more helpful links!

See ya all around, it's time to go farming!

Good Morning

2007-10-08T08:02:00.000-06:00

So here's the deal. I haven't written on my old blog since *thinks* maybe three years ago? Inasmuch I figured I'd start a new one. Who knows if it'll ever be updated, couldn't tell you offhand. But anyways, here it is :)