Identity Crisis

Hubby and I were talking last night about character names. I mentioned in my last post that Asara had to change her name when she was transferred to Cenarion Circle. I have adjusted to that surprisingly well, I'm right on top of things when people say "Cael" on vent. Or Saraabi. Many of the people in their new guild consider Saraabi my main because they knew her first. Which is fine. There's actually someone else who is a friend of some people we run with often (yeah, that's confusing) whose main is named Cayle, so they call me Saraabi to avoid misunderstandings. It's still hard to hear "Cayle" over ventrilo and not go, "Yes?"

I suppose this is probably partly due to the fact that I've had many alts, all with different names, so I'm used to adjusting to people calling me different things. Still, it's a bit odd to me that I shrugged off the "Asara" identity so quickly. I still catch myself calling her Asara when talking about her to my hubby, and sometimes I have to remind myself what to type when sending mail from my bank alt, but other than that, she's Caelatria now. It makes me wonder if it's time to redesign the blog. After all, it's my WoW Asara that dominates the header, but that Asara no longer exists.

When I did the transfer, I decided that I wanted a new name. I wanted a fresh start for her, I didn't want to give her some odd spelling of the name she's carried for the past three years. She was stepping away from everything she'd known, I didn't want old baggage carried along, and I knew if she continued to be "Asara", it would be hard to get away from that. I didn't want to give her any name that I had ever given another character before.

Maybe it's time for a new blog. A new life, a new internet "identity".

What do you guys think?

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

Some sober postings.. XD

WoW stuff first!
I'm not completely out of the game when it comes to raiding, it seems! Over the weekend I ran Hyjal with some guildies and some puggies. Yes.. I pugged Hyjal. We got four out of the five bosses down (three of them one-shotted), and there was a serious mess when we tried Archimonde. It doesn' t matter how many hp's he has when half of the raid is already dead due to fire or not using their tears properly. BUT I got some new gear.. a Blade of Infamy and (woo hoo) my T6 gloves! And nicely enough, I had 3 pieces of T5, so I still get to keep my set bonus. I also got some random leatherworking pattern, but it makes BOP Shammy gear. They just didn't want it to get wasted.
Then yesterday there was a massive horde raid on IF which crashed our server. I missed that, but I did get in on the retaliation raid of Thunder Bluff. Which, unfortunately, was very full of fail. The hordies at least got into the king's chamber in IF.. the pile of skeletons on the floor in there was hilarious. We got to TB.. and the person in charge says.. "OK, anyone know where the leader guy is?" /facepalm Seriously, dude? But I got 21 HK's, and two achievements, so it wasn't a total loss.
Tonight we're going with (more or less) the same group of people from this weekend to BT. Maybe. If not, I'll probably be working on my druid, who is now almost level 44. I had three level 40 characters, and she's the one who got picked to level farther. I still need to put in some time on my mage, but since hubby is leveling an ally warrior, the hordies have been on the back burner for a few days. Not a big deal.
We're not going to be first in line to pick up the expansion this year. Besides the fact that we want to take our time out in Northrend, we also don't want to be around for the massive lag and craziness as several thousand people try to do the same quests at the same time in the first area out there. So we're waiting a week or so for that. We'll probably work more on the hordies then, because we'll basically have Outland to ourselves until the first batch of Death Knights gets to level 58. That's the plan, anyway :D
And RL stuff.. as for the bar we went to (since someone asked), I will just say that it is the kind of bar that only adults can go to because not everyone in there is wearing all of their clothes. And I spent just as much as hubby did while we were there too, not all on drinks. Oddly enough when I woke up on Sunday I didn't have a hangover either. I think I have a new bar drink! But that's all I'm saying about it on my blog. XD
In other news, our tickets arrived this weekend for the Lion King! We're going to see the Broadway musical over in Lansing in March. I'm already looking forward to it, too.
And lastly, the Manic Monday word for today is BOUNTY, so here is a joke.
A pirate walks into a bar with a piece of paper towel tucked into his hat. The bartender says to him, "Hey, why do you have that paper towel in your hat?" The pirate says.. "Yarrr, there be a Bounty on me 'ead!"

Rambling

Nice druids are nice.

I am trying to decide which is better.. a boring job where I can basically mess around on the internet all day, or a more interesting job that actually keeps me busy.

A guy I work with plays WoW. He has a hunter (like me, except MM) on a different server, and he is going on his very first Kara run tonight. It's his Very First Raid (tm), and I tried to give him some advice. I hope he manages himself ok. He zerged to 70 running instances all the time, and I worry that it didn't teach him enough in the way of class mechanics, especially if his guild isn't overly experienced. I'll find out tomorrow I guess.

My Very First Raid (tm) was UBRS. I had never kited anything in my life, and I got to pull Drakk. He conflagged me, but my group was on the ball and made it through anyway. I got my first piece of T0 as a reward, lol!! Never did get that danged hat from Scholo though.

I'm a bit sad that the next WoW expansion is coming out relatively soon. It looks like a lot of fun new stuff is coming, but I'm not done enjoying the stuff that's out NOW! Maybe I'll feel better about it once we get Vashj down. And if I can get my pally up to 70 before it comes out too.

I'm really curious about what new skills are going to be available as we all level up to 80. 10 more talent points is a big deal!