TGIF!

Fridaaaaaaaaay!

Yahoo! :)

Let the countdown to the weekend begin, woo!

Post me a post...

Maybe.

I'm coming up strangely blank today. Sick coworker is back today, but my boss is on vacation, so I still had to get up sort of early. Same goes for tomorrow and Monday. At least I have my computer time back, for the most part. I'm a bit sleepy, I woke up at 1:30 in the morning for no reason whatsoever, and couldn't sleep again until after 3. This is bad because I'm not concentrating so well now, and I have a lot of things that need to get done today. *sigh* Let's ramble on a bit about WoW then, eh?

I put in some time on Saraabi last night after I got home from work. She is now 76 and about a half, from questing in Sholazar. I didn't really intend to quest there, because I wanted to keep neutral with Oracles and Frenzyheart, but in the end I couldn't resist. The amount of Saronite there is a beautiful thing. In a couple of hours of questing, I had three stacks of it, as well as some Titanium, two eternal Earth, one eternal Shadow, plus half each of Air and Fire. So not only am I supporting my own Jewelcrafting, I'm able to provide hubby with some mats for his Blacksmithing, which in turn he uses to make gear for me.

Can I just say here that I love my Tempered Saronite set? It amazes me how different things are from when I first started running around Sholazar just mining. Even at 73 I was running away from Dreadsabers because I knew it would take me forever to kill them. Now? I am pulling packs of rhinos and dreadsabers and AOE tanking them like it was nothing. It's a beautiful thing for me.

Speaking of rhinos, I'm very sad that they're making Stampede a single-target thing. I don't bring Rocksteady out so much now that Chompy is 80, but it was fun to be able to pick up a group of mobs and scatter them to the four winds. Still, according to BRK's post today, he'll be getting Thunderstomp, so he'll be better able to AOE tank. Good thing too, I'm not so fond of Gorillas. They're also taking away any reason I'd have to bring a wolf to raids, so it looks like I'm going to have to find another "normal" pet for any jaunts I have into Survival or Marksmanship. I still have Leshya, anyway. The wolf was just the only 80-ish Ferocity pet available at the time. I do like that it color-changes like my rhino, but perhaps it's time for another cat or raptor. Or maybe even a ravager, just to be different, seeing as there are three other hunters in my guild, and between them they raid with two cats and a raptor. Perhaps if I do get a ravager, I will name it Pookie, in honor of Breana. We shall see.

Filler Post!

"That's What You Get" by Paramore. For the hubby, who always thinks of looking up the video when we're playing Rock Band 2, but hasn't actually done so yet. Love you sweetie!

We apologize for the inconvenience...

And the lack of posts. Hopefully I'll have something decent tomorrow. Someone is sick at work, which takes me pretty much completely away from the computer. Be back ASAP!

I can quit whenever I want.. really...

Raiding, that is.

I did ask my guild leader to demote me last week, and he did. I am now officially a non-raider. The first thing I did? I re-specced to Beast Mastery and got my poor Chompy out of the stable. He was so happy, he went frolicking all over Ironforge. It took me an hour to track him down again!

We ran some heroics and whatnot over the weekend, and I've still been doing decent DPS, so I'm not going to be speccing back to Survival before dual specs come out, whenever that might be. I ran Occulus for the first time yesterday (on Heroic too), and odds are it will be my last, unless I get really achievement-crazy, and try to do the ones where you have to beat the boss with everyone on the same color drake. I also got some things done in H. Nexus, with a guild rogue who really IS achievement-crazy. We went in for the Telestra achievement, when she splits, you have to kill all three of the split versions within 5 seconds of each other. We were all guild, except for our healer, which was a PUG tree in pretty good gear. Like several pieces of 7.5 good. He also had all but three of the Heroic dungeon achievements done. We thought it would be cake, but no dice.

The tree didn't seem to understand what we were trying to do, even though he'd already done it. We would get the first split in time, but we were having trouble with the second, so we kept resetting the encounter. After the third time, the tree starts saying, WHY NOT JUST KILL HIM? He did that several times, in all caps like that. We started wondering if the player behind the tree really understood the point. And the healing was.. ergh. It was like someone gave the toon to their friend who's never played before, and said, oh, just hit these buttons. We went through five or six tries, and finally started to get frustrated. So when Mr. Tree piped up, "This is stupid, why not just kill him?" AFTER we had explained twice that we were trying to do the achievement... I finally said, "It wasn't so stupid when you were doing the achievement". He goes, "Yeah, well it didn't take me 15 trieds (sic) either" Hubby says, well, you can leave at any time, so he responds, fine, I'll leave then.

We got a good friend (and kick-ass healer) to come help us finish up, and wouldn't you know, we got the achievement on our first try once she joined us. We went on to also get the achievements for the rift boss, as well as Keristrasza. Awesome time. (and many thanks to Fäith, though she'll probably never read this).

Later last night, I was spodding around on my paladin (who is now level 76, woo!), spending money on leveling up her Jewelcrafting. I made her some new trinkets, and cut some gems for the sockets in them, and then I was going to head out and do some more questing on her. In the meantime, hubby's getting ready to raid, and apparently a few people haven't shown up. He asked me a couple of times if I wanted to go, and I said no, though I was thinking, oh, just go, what will it hurt? They were going to finish clearing Naxx and maybe head to Malygos after.

Finally my guild leader whispered me, and asked me, "Are you sure you don't want to go? We just need one more DPS". I asked him if I could just come for Naxx, because I'm really not very enthusiastic about trying Malygos. He said sure, I could even just stay until someone else in guild logged on and was ready to go. So I went.

We had the plague wing, and then Sapphiron and Kel'Thuzad left. I stayed for the whole thing, and we finished around 10:30, I think. Got myself a nice little polearm from Heigan, which I'll be putting Massacre on when I get the chance. Sapphiron dropped a lovely little neckpiece, which I won on an offspec roll by virtue of being the only person to do so. I'll be saving that for when I run as Survival again, due to the haste on it. Kel'Thuzad dropped Envoy of Mortality as well. I was sorely tempted to bid on it, as it was a bit of an upgrade from my Final Voyage. But my conscience got the best of me. There was a rogue in the raid, who has been a lot better of a raider than I have been. And considering that I'm technically not a raider any more, I was just there as a warm body, I felt that I really should let him have it, as he'll be getting a greater benefit from the stats on it than I would. So I did.

*sigh* I hope he enjoys it. XD

STOP! Meme time...

I have been tagged over the last week for a couple of memes, and so I figured I'd get those taken care of before it gets too much later. So, without further ado...

First, I was tagged by the lovely Linda with the picture meme that no doubt many of you have seen going around. The idea is that you look in your picture folder, and from the sixth folder, take the sixth picture and post it. Well, I don't really have one set place where I keep my pictures. I actually found two separate folders in two separate locations on my hard drive. Plus I have screenshots. So you lucky people get three pictures from me on this one.

This first one is from Andy's birthday, the year before last. You can see my sister-in-law's foot to the left there, she had borrowed my slippers. :) And yes, that's me on the right, helping him open his presents. My hair has lightened up quite a bit since then!This second one is from a driving trip hubby and I took over a weekend. I believe this was in 2006, but I'm not entirely sure. One of those "hop in the car and see where we end up" things. We actually ended up in Dowagiac, but it was Sunday, and the Wren's Nest wasn't open, so no surprising Mr. Mo that day!
And lastly, my screenshot. I was thinking it would be something completely random, but when I edit and name them, they get stuck at the front of the folder. So the sixth screenshot in there was this one, when I got my Cobalt Nether Drake and took it for a gallivant. Pretty sure that's in Netherstorm.

Next, I was tagged by the wonderful Frigga with a music meme. I'd get out my Ipod for this, but I'm sitting at my computer, so I'm going to use the songs I've got saved to my hard drive. It's a more established set of songs, and so hopefully will be a bit more representative of "me". We'll see!

The Rules for the MEME are:

1. Put your Music Player on shuffle.
2. For each question, press the next button to get your answer.
3. YOU MUST WRITE THAT SONG NAME DOWN NO MATTER HOW SILLY IT SOUNDS.
4. Tag your friends

1. How would you describe yourself? I Remember You (Skid Row)
   
2. What do you like in a boy? World of Warcraft is a Feeling (from Pure Pwnage)
   
3. How do you feel today? Lady Marmalade (from the Moulin Rouge sdtrk.)
   
4. What is your life's purpose? Albuquerque (Weird Al Yankovic)
   
5. What's your motto? High Enough (Damn Yankees)
   
6. What do your friends think of you? The Saga Begins (Weird Al Yankovic)
   
7. What do your parents think of you? Nothing Compares to You (Sinead O'Connor)
   
8. What do you think about very often? RPM (Sugar Ray)
   
9. What is 2 + 2? You (Candlebox)
   
10. What do you think of your best friend? U + Ur Hand (Pink)
    
11. What is your life story? September (Earth, Wind, and Fire)
    
12. What do you want to be when you grow up? I'm so Ronery (from the movie Team America World Police)
    
13. What do you think when you see the person you like? Shoots and Ladders (Korn)
    
14. What will you dance to at your wedding? Come What May (from the Moulin Rouge sdtrk.)
    
15. What will they play at your funeral? After the Rain (Nelson)
    
16. What is your hobby/interest? Stupid Girls (Pink)
    
17. What is your biggest fear? To Be With You (Mr. Big)
    
18. What is your biggest secret? Safety Dance (Men Without Hats)
    
19. What do you want right now? Tsubasa (the intro music from Lunar, Silver Star Story... in Japanese)
    
20. What do you think of your friends? Don't Cry (Guns N' Roses)
    
21. What will you post this as? Silent Lucidity (Queensryche)
    
22. What time is it? Step by Step (New Kids on the Block)
    

Well, some of that is a bit embarassing. XD I'm not tagging anyone because I know these have been around a bit already. But if you'd like to do one, be sure to let me know so I can come visit!

And on that note.. I'm going to Denny's for some Moons over my Hammy. Hope everyone had a great weekend!

Let's see here...

Firstly, a big Happy Birthday goes out to my buddy Mo!

Secondly, the answer to yesterday's question was Abe Froman, the Sausage King of Chicago. Good job Mags, you were ALMOST right! :)

Thirdly, the Whistler is grumpy today because his trip is only supposed to be good Monday through Thursday. He called when he won it last year, and they let him use it on the weekend, but this year they want $50 to let him do that. He thinks that's totally unreasonable because if he were to go, he'd bring 5 or 6 friends (plus his girlfriend.. 8 people in ONE hotel room? eeergh), and the money that they all would spend together would make it more than worth it for them to let him go on a weekend. Then he goes on to say that they really wouldn't spend that much, because they'd bring a lot of their own food, and not all of them ski, so they'd probably sell one of the free lift tickets, and on and on and on. So I guess he's supposed to call their marketing people or something now. *shrug* I say that $50 is still a lot less than he'd pay if he paid for the room and tickets himself, so why not charge each of the people that go with you $5 or $10, and make it back up that way?

Fourthly.. I'm still sick. *sigh* I think I may have some sort of sinus infection or something. All I know for sure is that if I don't feel better by tomorrow, I'll probably be calling the doctor. A week is my limit on being sick before getting a professional involved.

---Break for RL vs. WoW---

Fifthly (is that even a word?), I'm thinking about quitting raiding. I haven't been doing that much of it lately anyway, what with being sick and all, and really not wanting to run Naxx again. In the later parts of BC it was fine, because there were two raid instances for each level of content. Get tired of SSC? Well, we'll run some TK for a while then. Trash got you down in Hyjal? How about a few days in BT? Always something different to do.

Now it's just Naxx Naxx Naxx all the time. Yeah, there's Malygos, and Sarth +drakes, but that just doesn't feel like raiding to me. No matter how complex the encounter is, if it's just one boss, it's not the same for me. Can you imagine if they made a 5-man dungeon with only one boss? People would keel over laughing!

For the record, I'm not trying to belittle people who have conquered Sarth +3. I've seen Sarth +2, and it looks crazy. I can't even imagine what +3 looks like. But from where I sit, it feels like Bigger and Better Onyxia. Standing in a Void Zone? Hit by a Flame Wall? Minus 50 DKP!

Raiding for me is an epic journey, fighting your way through the monster's lair, defeating his minions and henchmen, until finally you face the big baddie himself. To walk in the door and have him staring you in the face... I don't like it.

Maybe when Ulduar comes out, I'll feel differently. I guess I will just have to wait and see. Unfortunately, I'm already leery of the whole place because of what they're saying about seige vehicles being part of the very first boss fight. Not a big fan of that whole thing either. I like riding on vehicles (read: my motorcycle), but I don't like having to use the limited abilities of one in a certain way to defeat a boss. My character is a hunter, I want to do huntering things.

Goodness I'm whiny today.

I'll leave you with another question.

How much wood could a woodchuck chuck, if a woodchuck could chuck wood?

/ponder

Useless information is not so useless!

I made the Whistler's day today.
The radio station he listens to does trivia every morning, and they give out different prizes each week. This morning they were giving away a night's stay at a ski resort here in Michigan. He won it last year for himself, and was hoping to get it again this year, because he really likes to ski.

This morning's question was: "What was the name that Ferris Bueller gave when he took Sloane and Cameron out for lunch at the fancy restaurant?"

I knew it, and I had him call, because I heard that they were giving away that prize again that he wanted. He got it to ring, and tried to give me the phone, I'm like NO, it's the prize you want, you do it! So he waited, and when they answered, he told them what I said, and he got it right, so he won his prize.

We listened after, and three or four people had gotten through before him, and they were just guessing. One person said James Bond, another said his dad's name, and the last one before the Whistler said Tom Cruise. Silly people. Of course, the people that listen to this station probably haven't seen the movie as often as I have, it's one of my favorites.

What about YOU guys? Do you know the answer? :) No sneaky looking it up, now!

Sore throat, Day 3

I'm still not sleeping well. I can remember I had some weird dreams, but not what they were about. I also remember waking up quite a few times. So it's another zombie day at work. Hopefully it will be a short one. Saraabi is very close to 75, and I'm anxious to get home and get her there. She got through the Wrathgate chain last night, so I'm just about done with Dragonblight. I think I'm going to take her to Grizzly Hills next, because I didn't quest there at all with Asara when she was leveling up. I don't want to take her to Sholazar, because I like being neutral with both the Oracles and the Frenzyheart, for mining purposes.

Let's see if I can talk about something other than WoW for a bit...

I watched a couple of movies over the weekend. On Friday night I watched Sweeney Todd, with Johnny Depp, and on Saturday hubby and I watched P.S. I Love You, with Hillary Swank and Gerard Butler. On the whole, I'd have to say I preferred the second one. Sweeney Todd was all right, but for all that I heard about it being gory, I was sort of disappointed. The blood looked like Kool-Aid, even though there was a ton of it. I felt like the one scene where he's just killing people over and over was longer than it needed to be. After three or four, I was thinking, "OK, I get it, can we move on please?" The story itself was not bad, though I would have liked to see more development of the relationship between the sailor and Todd's daughter. I know it probably wouldn't have fit the overall story, but it bothers me when two people in a movie are just suddenly head over heels in love with each other. I feel the same way about Padme and Anakin in the newer Star Wars movies.

P.S. I Love You, now, that had my name written all over it. I think I cried five or six times, if not more. Hillary Swank's Irish husband, played by Gerard Butler, dies of a brain tumor. But before he dies, he sets up an elaborate scheme to deliver letters to her over the next year, to help her cope with his passing. It's an amazing journey of self-discovery for her, he reminds her of the day they met, and the wide-eyed dreamer she used to be before Real Life and Responsibility intruded. The most touching moments are the memories she re-lives, and the way they're portrayed, as though he's standing next to her telling her all the things that she's reading in the letters. It was a gorgeous movie, especially the parts set in Ireland. I could watch it several times over and not get tired of it, though I don't think my tear ducts would be very happy with me. I highly recommend this movie, if you like romance at all, I think you'll like it too.

Older and Tireder

Yes, I know tireder is not a word.
I'm getting sick again. I've had a sore throat for two days, so the past two nights have been anything but restful. I swear, I'm not going to take vacation any more, if all that's going to happen is that I get sick!

Other than that, though, I had a nice weekend. Hubby got me some awesome presents for my birthday, and took me out to Olive Garden (which was absolutely delicious. Mezzaluna with shrimp = <3). Yesterday we all went over to my mom and dad's house for pizza, and they got me some new earrings and a knitting pattern book. I really need to work on that some more. I'm sort of getting the hang of it, but I need more practice. So far I've just been making little swatches to get used to knitting and purling. It's amazing how much measuring and stuff goes into actually making a sweater or some mittens or something.

WoW-wise, I didn't play as much this weekend as I thought I would. Friday I worked on Asara some, and finally got her "Love Fool" title. Then yesterday afternoon I played Saraabi some, and got her about halfway to 75. I wanted to get her all the way there, but I had to go to my parents' house, and I didn't play at all when we got back.

Hubby and I have started over on our Recruit-A-Friend characters. We decided to do a tank/healer combo, so I deleted my Warlock and rolled a Priest. Her name is Mezzaluna. :) I think they're level 12 or so now. Maybe we'll play them some tonight, though I still want to work on Saraabi as well. Hubby's got his resto druid sitting at 78, and he wants me to tank instances for him. So she needs some work yet.

Busy busy busy!! :)

And a belated Happy Valentine's Day to everyone!

Thank you all so much :)

Yep, it's my birthday. 31 today. Phew.
I want to thank everyone for all their birthday wishes, on Facebook, here, via email, everything. You all are wonderful!

<3
--Asara/Carrie

I'm glad I wasn't drinking anything at the time.

Working my way through my feed reader today, I found a post that surely would have made me spit soda, had I been drinking any. It's from a WoW blogger, but I think the gist of it will come through even for those who don't play the game.

Awesome Post of Thursday

Thanks for the laugh Arrens! :D

Keep On Keepin' On...

Bit of a blathery post today.

Emily's got pinkeye. It's finally getting better, thanks to some eye drops from the doctor, but for a while there she was looking pretty pathetic. Hubby said when he went to wake her up yesterday morning, her eyes were stuck shut. Hopefully that won't happen again this morning, poor thing. Our doctor was nice enough to give us a prescription big enough for both kids, should Andy come down with it a little later.

Hubby took us all out to Olive Garden last night for dinner. I had mezzaluna with shrimp, and it was absolutely delicious. I love that restaurant. We had a bit of wine too, which went right to my head. Wine always does that, I have no idea why. I can have four or five glasses of rum and coke before I feel it, but half a glass of wine and I start getting silly.

When we got home, I sat down and started trucking through quests on Saraabi. She had eight bubbles to go until 74, and I finally knocked that out around 10PM. I did a bunch of quests in Dragonblight, starting with the Wyrmrest ones and ending with the Wintergarde Keep ones. I also have to give a shout out to Soullock, for helping me out.

I was doing the Emerald Dragonshrine quests, and got the one for the Plume of Alystros, which is a group quest to kill a huge green bird. Well, I went over to where Alystros is, and Soullock was there soloing it with his felguard. I was content to wait, and maybe haul hubby out of the living room to help me out. But since I was there, I buffed him and his felguard. I also gave him a hand with a couple of heals on the felguard so he could knock out a bit more dps and not have to health funnel, since he had the bird almost dead already. He was nice enough to invite me to a group, right before Alystros died, so I could get the quest item from it. So thank you again, Soullock, for making my road to 80 a little smoother.

The Obsidian Dragonshrine was a completely different animal, there were four or five other people there, and quite a bit of "me first" attitude going on. I spent a lot more time there than I should have had to, thanks to having to wait for kill quest mobs to respawn. So I guess it evens out.

Tonight is raid night, I'm not sure what's on the menu, but probably a wing or two of Naxx. We've done some recruiting lately, and actually had more than enough people for raid on Sunday. It looked like the same thing happened last night, which is great. Hubby and I volunteered to sit out on Sunday, but I think if it comes down to that tonight, I don't want to. I don't want to get too far behind people gear-wise, because who knows when Ulduar is coming out, and I want to be geared enough to go in and not have to be carried through. Plus I took tomorrow off at work because it's my birthday, so I get to sleep in!

That's about it for now. I hope everyone is having a great day, and if I don't post over the weekend, have an awesome weekend as well!

I Like This Blog.

One Among Many

Go read it.

Get to the Choppa!

I think I make a pretty hot biker babe, what do you guys think?

It's been six years...

And I've loved each and every one.

Happy Anniversary honey!! I love you!

New WoW stories

Last night was an off-night for official guild raiding. But on the schedule was a night for BC raids, just to get some achievements, and have some fun.

And fun we did have. We started in TK, and took out Al'ar, then moved on to Kael'thas. It was ridiculous how fast we got Al'ar down. We got through the first phase after he had only moved over one platform. Then the second phase, he meteored once, and died shortly after. Then Kael'thas, well, he was a little more difficult, but we took him out without too many deaths. The hardest part was phase 3, when all of his buddies are up and around. We didn't really arrange them around the room, so there was quite a bit of chaos. Superior DPS eventually prevailed, and Achievement 1 was ours. I walked out of there with the Thalassian Wildercloak.

Next up was SSC. We took out Hydross without moving him even once, and I got the Ranger-General's Chestguard, by virtue of being the only hunter in the group. We zipped through the trash and headed over to Lurker, who died before he could ever summon his adds. Our priest CL got the achievement for fishing him up. Vashj was next on our list. This one took a while, due to having less than 25 people in the raid. We got through phase 1 in short order, and managed phase 2 on the first four tainted elementals that popped up. Phase 3 was just as short as phase 1, I don't think we ever got any sporebats, or whatever it is that drops the poison spots down onto the raid. She was nice enough to drop the Serpent Spine Longbow for me.

At this point, had I been 70, I would have been just rolling all over the floor in happiness. These were great drops back in the day!

After Vashj was down, we headed out to Tanaris and Mount Hyjal. This took a bit longer, due to having to get through all of the other bosses before we could fight Archimonde. But fight them we did, and they dropped like flies. Including Archimonde. Thankfully I never got punted, so I didn't have to use my tears on that fight. No loot for me out of Hyjal, I lost the roll on the one Leatherworking pattern that dropped that I didn't have, and the only Hunter tier token that dropped was for the gloves, which I already have.

Three achievements down, we headed for our last stop, BT. We would have hit up Doomwalker had he been up, but he wasn't, so we headed in to work our way to Illidan. Naj'entus was a joke, one shield, and he was down. Supremus, same thing. We downed him shortly after he entered his first kite phase. Shade, again, simple. And on to Teron Gorefiend. Where I became That Guy.

My Deadly Boss Mods had not been working properly the whole night. I didn't quite realize it because CTRaid was working, and apparently some of the functions I thought were DBM were actually coming from CTRaid. So we're pounding away on Teron, and he dies. And suddenly, there's a ghost in the raid group. I move, and the ghost moves. Oh dear.

I start frantically pushing buttons, as I'm out of practice, and I'm just trying to get the constructs to stop, because people are yelling on vent "Who's dead? There's constructs, what's going on??" I finally get the hang of it, but too late, as my time is about up. I die, and there are still two constructs running around in the raid group. Whoops. Everyone eventually had to die, because there was not going to be a second ghost, the boss was dead, and they had no way to kill the constructs.

I started apologizing over and over, and hubby's trying to tell me, it's ok, honey, it's ok! Finally my GL goes, it's FINE, Asara, we're having fun, really, it's ok! So I felt a little better after that. I don't even remember if they did loot on him, because of all the confusion. A few minutes later I was laughing about it, because I suddenly got the image in my head of Jeff Dunham and his puppet Akhmed, the dead terrorist. Whose catch phrase is, "I KEEL YOU!"

We finished up the rest of the bosses in short order. We blazed through Gurtogg Bloodboil, Reliquary of Souls, Mother Shahraz, and Illidari Council. Finally we got to Illidan. At this point it was almost 1 in the morning, and we had started at 8:30. I'm tired, hubby's tired, we're ready to call it quits, but we've just got this one boss to go.

Apparently Illidan is a complicated fight. Three separate people start talking about strategy, and what to do during what phase. The GL calls for silence on vent so one person can explain what we're supposed to do, and one of the officers keeps interrupting, adding on things, so I still have no idea what's going on. There's something about parasites and standing on top of certain people with fire elementals.. I'm totally lost. Finally I said in an off channel, where the GL and some of the other people in the guild talk to old friends (people who used to be in the guild but have moved on, on good terms), "This is all fascinating, but it's almost 1AM and I'm really getting tired."

So finally the GL jumps in and says ok, let's just try this and see what happens. So we try it, we get to the elementals, and because (even in the 20 minutes of explanation) nobody had explained to the people tanking the fire elementals where exactly they were supposed to kite them, we wipe during that phase.

Learning experience, let's try this again. We go back, and someone shows the tanks how to walk, and we start over. A few minutes later, Illidan is dead, I've got a new achievement, and a quest done. So I and a few other people walk back downstairs to turn it in, and I get my Blessed Medallion of Karabor.

All in all a good night. Until I went to bed and got woken up five or six times by a hyper cat who thought my face was a punching bag.

Can't win 'em all, I guess!

Whistler Quote of the Week

I think enough time has passed that I won't feel like a total jerk for posting this.

Background information: My boss is lactose intolerant, so he generally doesn't eat chocolate cake, or anything with milk chocolate in it.

Today the Whistler brought in brownies that he made last night. Of course he had to mention that he made them with Ghirardelli chocolate, but he had added in a lot of chocolate chips, I think they were Nestle milk chocolate chips. So he's been offering them to everyone, and our newest coworker walks in, and of course, "hey, there's probably three brownies left, better get one while you can!"

As he's eating the brownie, he has the following conversation with the Whistler.

Whistler: I thought about offering one to the boss, but I don't think he'd be able to eat it.
Other Employee: How come?
Whistler: There's an egg in there. He doesn't eat dairy.

I didn't know cows laid eggs.

I'm such a waffler.

I'll talk about that in a bit though. First I have a story to tell you all. I debated about writing this here for a while, but the subject totally fails at computers and the internet, so I doubt he'll ever find it. So I'll share it, but I'm changing his name, just in case.

We had a guy who worked here, I'll call him Woody, who was, let's say, not the sharpest crayon in the box. There was open speculation at times about how he got and kept his job. He didn't just work here, he had a number of companies he would visit throughout the course of his day.

He had been having problems with his phone at home, getting other peoples' calls and whatnot, so one day he decided to call the phone company and get his number changed, in hopes that would fix the problem. He called them from one of the other companies that he worked at. So keep that in mind, he was NOT at home when he called.

He was talking to the customer service rep, and gave them his address, and told them what the problem was. The rep asked, "Are you calling from your home number?" Woody replies, "Yes". So the rep does what is asked of him, and changes the number.

The employees of this company started getting emails. "Hey, we're calling you, trying to put through an order, and nobody is answering the phone." People were confused, nobody understood what was going on. This went on for four days, because they knew the number had been changed, but they couldn't figure out how. Finally someone said, "I'm going to get to the bottom of this." They called the company's number.

Woody answered.

"Yeah, I'd been getting calls on my answering machine for a few days now from people wanting to order stuff, I didn't know what was going on!"

Somehow, when he called the phone company, they directed the number of the place he called from to his house, because he had said he was calling from home, and gave that company a new number.

True story.

And as for the post title... it's WoW stuff :)

I did respec to Beast Mastery when I logged on last night. I got my Chompy out of the stable, and I was happy. I missed that little guy. So we ran around getting things situated, I bought a new glyph of Bestial Wrath and stuck that on, grabbed the arrows hubby made me from the mailbox, and went out fishing for hubby and I.

As it got closer to raid time, it turned out that we were short healers, which is happening more and more often. So the GL picked out 10 people to go work on 10-man Malygos, and said he'd try to put together a 10-man Naxx, depending on who was online at raid time. Hubby and I weren't in the Malygos group, as usual. But I stuck around, because I wouldn't mind heading to Naxx either.

We ended up only having two healers, but we decided to have a go at it anyway. There were two hunters in the group, me and one other. Before we headed out, one of the priests asked if either of us was Survival. Both of us were BM, this other hunter hasn't respecced out of BM at all, even with all the changes going on. So the priest was all :( Boo for non-Replenishment-bringing hunters. I offered to respec, but he said no no, play the way you like playing.

Cue crisis of conscience. I know where to get a quick SV spec, I'm in town so I can switch out glyphs again, and get my wolf out. I had a bit of practice with a shot rotation, I figured I could pull it off respectably. All it would cost me is 40g for a respec.

So I respecced. I am Survival again. I rationalized it as I had wanted to try it out in a raid anyway, and I could bring something to the raid that nobody else was able to bring, since we had no pallies or shadow priests.

We managed to clear Military and Spider wings, with very few problems. We had a bit of trouble working through Four Horsemen with only two healers, but they finally worked something out with lightwells that got us through Rivendare and Korthazz, and once they were down, the other two were just a matter of time. Out of all the bosses, none of them dropped any hunter loot at all, except for... um... I think Gothik dropped a belt, but I've got the Torn Web Wrapping from Maexxna, which as far as I know is currently best in slot. The other hunter has the badge belt, so he didn't want it either. So no upgrades for me from there. Hubby won his T7 robe, but found out when he went to turn it in that the one he had from Heigan was actually better.

I am happy to say I did pretty well on Recount. Especially on the boss fights. Of course with all the confusion over speccing and whatnot right before the raid I forgot to log it, but WWS has been acting up for me anyway, so it probably wouldn't have done much good even if I had. So, in the interest of saving gold for our motorcycle, I'll probably stay Survival until 3.1 comes out.

After the raid, someone was asking in guild if anyone wanted to go kill Omen for the achievement. I was the only one interested, but the two of us headed out there anyway. I picked up the quest, and we looked around to see if there were enough people out there already to get a group together. There weren't. It was pretty empty out there, actually. But I rode out to where Omen is summoned, just to see, and there was a group of Horde there who had just killed him. He was laying there dead with a big spotlight on him, and the other person in the guild came over too, to see. They walked over his corpse, and got a quest completion message. Apparently just walking through the light was enough. So I did the same, turned in the quest, and voila, achievement!

I still need quite a few elders before I've got my title, but I'm really hoping to have the time this weekend to knock some more of them out. Tonight the guild is heading out to do some BC raid stuff, here's hoping we go for SSC and I can fish up Lurker. That'd be one more step toward Salty Asara! XD

Happy Friday everyone, sorry for writing so much today, I guess I just had a lot to share. :) Hope you're all having a great day!

Oh, what a night.

Late December, back in '63...

Oh, sorry. :)

I did NOT want to get out of bed this morning. Hubby and son are both sick, and apparently that translates into talking in their sleep. A lot. I had to get up twice for Andy, I don't know if he was having bad dreams or what, but he was making quite a lot of noise. I finally got him a glass of water, and he was quiet after that. Then some time in the middle of the night, hubby must have been having a WoW dream, because I woke up to him saying "Honey, I made the chopper, but I can't find it in my bag!" Then he asked me for a hug, so I gave him one, and that woke him up. He was a little surprised, to say the least.

I fell back asleep every time, but I remember waking up a few more times after that too, for no reason. So needless to say I'm pretty tired today!

Not much else to report really. We're still saving up for our WoW motorcycle, we've got almost 8k saved up, plus 7 out of 12 titansteel bars. If I can make one every day, we might be able to make it by this time next week. Hubby is talking about trying to sell it on the AH once we get it made, for enough that we could buy everything we'd need again and make a second one, plus have money left over. It sounds nice, but after all the time we've spent getting things together to make the darn thing, I'd almost just rather keep it! We'll see. Other than that, I got Saraabi halfway to 74 last night, doing some questing in Howling Fjord. That's about it... how's everyone out there in blogland today? :)

I have had it.

Seriously.
Next time I log onto Asara she's getting a spec back to Beast Mastery, and staying there. I never even got a chance to see what sort of DPS output I could do as Survival in a raid thanks to RL interference, and I find that they've hotfixed Explosive Shot to do less damage. People are saying that it's not that big of a change, but I just don't know what to believe now. Ghostcrawler says in the same post that a fix to BM to bring it back up to par is coming "soon", and that's good enough for me. I'll settle for sub-par DPS for a while if it means I get to play the spec I like, the way I like to play it. I am putting my faith in you, GC, that Blizzard will follow through on this, and not leave me hanging like toilet paper stuck to someone's shoe. Seriously though, this is too much change too fast for me. I don't remember things being like this when BC came out, but then again I really wasn't on top of my spec and all that back then either. *sigh* Either way, I am retreating back into my Beast Mastery bunker, and nothing is getting me out. I'll be the lone BM hunter in the raid, providing Ferocious Inspiration, just like there was a lone SV hunter in the raid in BC, providing Expose Weakness. I'm OK with that.

Amazon.com = Psychic?

I was going through my wish list at Amazon.com a short while ago, taking off things that I got for Christmas that weren't actually purchased through the site, and adding in a few more things, just for fun. I found a towel set that looked nice, and I swear I clicked the "Add to Wish List" button.

Suddenly I found myself on the "Create a Baby Registry" page.

What is this, Amazon.com? Do you know something I don't? Because seriously, I remember signing the forms for the whole tube tying thing after Emily was born, and I remember the doctor saying she was going to do it. Which means there should be no more babies coming out of my womb, and no need for a Registry. Right?

Right??

I'll be so glad when tax time is over.

For one, because mine will be done, hopefully with a nice return from the feds.
For two, because I drive past a Liberty Tax every day on my way home from work. For those of you who may not have these in your neck of the woods, I'll explain a bit. Liberty Tax is, of course, a tax prep place, like H&R Block. But instead of just having a sign out front, they pay people to stand outside of their buildings dressed up as either Uncle Sam or the Statue of Liberty, or sometimes both. Their job is to wave at people and get their attention, in hopes that the people driving by will come in and have their taxes done.

Now, hubby and I go to H&R Block. So there's no chance that these people waving at me is going to have any impact on where we go to get our taxes done. Which means that every day when I drive by these poor people standing around in the snow and waving at people, my first reaction is to squinch down in my seat and pretend I don't actually see them. It makes me very uncomfortable, because I feel bad for them, having to freeze their butts off, and probably not getting paid very well for it, while at the same time I know that their efforts, at least in my case, are futile. My second reaction is to roll down the window and apologize for not getting my taxes done there, because I know they can't be having a lot of fun out there, and I feel even worse for them, but I know there's nothing I can do about it either.

Mostly I just stare at the road and pretend they're not there. But I have to do this EVERY DAY between now and April 15, because those danged people are going to be out there every day between now and then. I've already been dealing with this for like a month, because they started up right near the beginning of the year. I can't take it much longer, I may have to find a different way to drive home from work. Curse you Liberty Tax!

What can I talk about today?

Let's see...
I worked a bit yesterday, and listened to Episode 32 of the Twisted Nether podcast while I was here. Mondays are the only days I can get away with listening to my Ipod at work, because there's no production, so I'm pretty much in the lab by myself all day. I wasn't able to finish all of my work though. Not because I was distracted, but because the scheduler had been on vacation all last week, and took all day to get "caught up" with whatever it is didn't get done while he was gone. So he didn't get the schedule done before I left, which meant I had to come in this morning at the butt-crack of dawn to get my part of it taken care of before production got going today. So since I had to get to bed early last night, I wasn't able to raid. Apparently they got Sapphiron down on 25, I don't know if they got Kel'Thuzad also though... because I was in bed not long after they got Sapphiron down.

Something I don't think I've mentioned yet, hubby and I have decided to take advantage of the Recruit-A-Friend program. He's started up a second account, and plans on buying a couple of months on it so I can have a zhevra. Plus I get a free month, so that's pretty cool. We've made a warlock (mine) and a paladin (his), and finally seem to be sticking to leveling together. Usually our characters together peter out around level 6, because we get the starting area quests done, then take a break and never get back to them. But last night Faerydust and Rhonson dinged 20. Hubby hopped on his death knight to escort Faerydust out to the Barrens to get her succubus, whose name is Selaith. Not bad, as succubus names go. Our next goal, level 30 and our respective class mounts. Shouldn't take too long, with the triple xp gain!

Tonight will be a short night for me. With production off on Mondays, Tuesdays always end up being very long days. If I'm home by 7, it will be a miracle. So I'll probably put some time in on my paladin, Saraabi, because I am really hoping to raid on Asara on Thursday. So Saraabi will be hopping out to Sholazar to pick up some Saronite so that hubby's lock can engineer up some arrow makers. *sigh* I really need to get that girl to 77 so she can FLY. I'll probably divide my time this weekend between her and Faerydust. I'm leveling Faerydust as Demonology, for those who might be interested. Why? Because half of what I like about Warlocks is finding out what the minion names are, and I get an extra one if I level demonology. Yay felguard!

Ooh, and hubby made some delicious dinner last night. We got farfalle alfredo with meatballs and garlic bread. Omnomnom.. so tasty! On SuperBowl Sunday he made tacos, which were also delicious. I got lucky to find myself such a good cook! Love you honey! <3

My boss is awesome.

He's from Southern Indiana, so he has an awesome accent, and he's in his 60's, so he uses a lot of expressions I've never heard before. Today was no exception.

We keep stamp pads in the lab because we make tags with them to put on equipment that needs to be cleaned or fixed or whatever. There are currently three of them in the drawer. He took them out because he needed to use one of them for some project he was working on or something. He tested them first, to see how fast the ink dried. One of them was dried up completely, and he says, "Well, that one's drier than a popcorn fart..."

I don't know where he gets these, but that's one I won't forget very soon!

Yahoo Steelers!

I'm glad they won. Hubby kept claiming that someone paid off the referees because they called so many penalties on the Cardinals, but there were a few things that really were epic. For example, that interception return by Harrison, the whole frickin' field! I wouldn't have gotten up after that either, that really was amazing. And that last touchdown, by the tips of his toes... I'm glad he got MVP, he deserved it! Good game, even if we didn't win anything on our squares.

Other than that, we just played some WoW this weekend, didn't really go out or anything like that. Hubby has started a second account for the refer-a-friend bonuses. So I've got a new little warlock, and he's got a paladin. They're already level 18. Usually when we roll characters together they get to level 5/6 and never get played again, but this triple xp thing is really kind of fun, so we're enjoying it, and continuing to play past the starting area. We'll be questing in Redridge already next time we log them on. Craziness!

I also spent a lot of time on my paladin yesterday. She was level 71 when I logged her on, and 73 when I logged off to watch the game. I want her to get to level 77 so she can fly around and mine, instead of having to schlep around on her ground mount and get ore-jacked because some stupid cat decided it wanted to try to eat her face. No, I'm not bitter. What??? So four more levels to go, phew. She's already almost got the money to pay for cold-weather flying too. The only problem with that is that hubby and I are still saving up for our motorcycle. 12k gold just for parts from the vendor is pretty steep. We've got a few things, and I've got about 4k saved up across my characters, so we're getting there. The hardest part is going to be the titansteel. Hubby's transmuting Titanium on his druid, and as soon as I get a couple more levels on my pally, I'll be helping to mine some out in Sholazar as well. Then he can transmute up a few Eternal Fires out of the Lifes he gets from herbing (which is also helping with the money thing, herbs are going for crazy prices right now), while I supply the Shadow and Earth from mining up Saronite. We've got the tools, it's just going to take a little more time. *sigh* I can't wait!!!