Asara's Mental Meanderings

Epic WoW Marathon! (plus news.)

noreply@blogger.com (Carrie) — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 13:29:00 +0000

That was some weekend. (Warning LONG post ahead. There is some news for the non-WoW-minded down there, if you want to skip to the end.)

We spent Friday night playing Rock Band with hubby's sister, and stayed up waaaay too late. Saturday morning we dragged ourselves out of bed to get the house in shape for Emily's party that afternoon. After the party, the kids went to my parents for the rest of the weekend, and hubby and I buckled down to level our last pair of characters before our Recruit-A-Friend time ran out. It's important to have goals, right? :)

We started questing at first, mostly because our friend had not logged on yet. After a while hubby queued us for a PuG, just to get our Stockades quests done. We ended up leaving before it was done. It started out well enough, it seemed like the tank knew what he was doing, but he just kept pulling, no matter how many times the healer asked him to stop so he could get some mana. So the healer left. We pulled in someone new after a bit, but the same problems continued, so we left. We went back to questing, and finally a different friend of ours said he would run us, so we met up with him outside the instance, and were joined by an alt of our guild leader's wife. We finished that in short order, and then he ran us through Gnomeregan. I believe we called it a night not long after that.

On Sunday morning we were level 31 or 32. We quested in STV most of the day, with a couple of breaks to PuG two wings of Scarlet Monastery and RFD. Hubby got a few nice pieces from his Satchel of Helpful Goods, not so with me. Some "of the Bear", some "of the Bandit", only one "of the Sun". I did pretty well in the dungeons themselves though, so I can't really complain. We had some interesting adventures in STV though. It was Fishing Tournament day, and about ten minutes or so before that started, we headed up to a little island off the coast to discover it for a quest. On the way, we passed the Horde town, and I must have walked a bit too close, because I got flagged for PvP. Oh well, right? It'll wear off and nothing will happen, it hasn't before. Apparently the undead shadow priest we passed not long after had different ideas. He followed us for a bit, and as I was jumping into the water, he struck, and down I went.

I was a little miffed, to say the least. We played our druids for 60 levels on a PvP server and never got ganked once, and here on our "carebear" server... POW. Hubby came to my rescue though. He logged on his level 80 druid and came down to STV to avenge me. I was concerned that the priest's flag would wear off before hubby could arrive, so I went looking for the priest again. I found him, and wandered past like I didn't see him, then "accidentally" encountered a crocolisk and started fighting it. I was hoping he'd attack me again and refresh his flag. Sure enough, down I went again. But this time I was laughing. He was probably thinking, "what a stupid mage!" Little did he know what was in store for him.

Hubby arrived shortly after, and we set out to find the guy one last time. By the time we found him, my flag had worn off, so I was able to watch without fear as hubby tore the guy apart. Revenge was sweet! He waited a while to rez, and took off like a bat out of hell as soon as he did. Not so fun when you're on the other end, is it, Mr. Priest?

The rest of the day was pretty uneventful. We took a break and went out for dinner (steeeaaaaak YUM). When we logged out for the night we were level 45. Fifteen levels to go and one day to do it, as our shared bonus would run out at 7 PM on Monday. We technically didn't have to get to 60 by then, because that account is paid for until some time in March, but we wanted to see if we could do it.

I had Monday off at work, and the kids were still with my parents, so we had the whole day. We got up around 7AM, determined to be 60 in the next 12 hours. We did a lot of questing, and by 2 PM we were 52. We gathered as many quests as we could for BRD (except one, oops), and started talking about getting someone to run us together so we could get everything done in one run and not spend the whole rest of the day in there running each other. But nobody was around. Then it hit me. I read quite a few WoW blogs, and a few people out there have done RAF accounts on their own, and dual-boxed them. So I decided to see if I could do that as well. I put my mage's session in windowed mode and opened up another one to log on Saraabi. It worked, and soon all three of us were in a group. I set my mage to follow hubby's rogue, and clicked over to Saraabi's window and started killing stuff.

It was weird but awesome at the same time. I would clear a room or a path, and then click over to my mage to pick up loot for quests and whatnot. It was awesome because we were getting triple xp for all of the mob kills, AND all of the quests we were able to complete within the dungeon. The most awesome part was at the beginning, when we did the quest to find Kharan Mighthammer in one of the prison cells. So we found him, then we were supposed to head back to Ironforge to talk to the king there, then return to the dungeon to save the princess. Normally we'd trade off summons and take turns doing this, but this time we had my mage, and she had a portal to Ironforge. So hubby summoned me first. Then I opened a portal to IF, and we both went through. We raced to the king, turned in our quest, and then I accepted the summon, which took me right back to Kharan's cell. I summoned hubby back in, and ta-da, quest complete and we still got our triple xp for doing it.

By the end of the dungeon we were level 56. Turning in quests got us to 58. So we ran Stratholme the same way, this time with my hunter in the lead so she'd be able to pick up Baron's horse if it should drop (it didn't, of course). We didn't get nearly as much xp from that run, but we hadn't picked up any quests for it either. My mage got quite a bit of loot from both runs, hubby only got one thing. There just wasn't much loot on the tables for rogues back in the day I guess. After Stratholme it was back to questing, because I was getting strung out from maintaining both windows in an instance with a lot of patrolling mobs. We had an hour and a half to get a level and a half. We ran around to cauldrons and through Andorhal time and time again, frantic to beat our deadline. Then suddenly, with about ten minutes to go, I looked at my xp bar, and the two quests we had to turn in, and noticed that we'd only need one to make it. We went back to Chillwind, turned it in, and DING! Total time played, 1 day, 9 hours. I couldn't believe that we made it.

OK NON-WOW PEOPLE HERE IS YOUR NEWS.

I have got a lot of non-WoW stuff going on right now. Not all of it is good, and no I really don't want to talk about it. At all. I need to make some changes in my life, and I can't be here posting like everything is fine when it really isn't. So... cue radio silence. I'm leaving here, Facebook, and pretty much every social on-line thing I have. I'm keeping my weight loss blog up, because I still need the accountability of seeing my weight in print every day to keep me going. But that's about it. It's been a wild ride, but you have to get off even the most fun rides once in a while or you'll vomit all over everyone. I don't like to vomit. I may or may not be back. It has been wonderful getting to know you all, thank you for spending this time with me.

Goodbye!

noreply@blogger.com (Carrie) — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 13:33:00 +0000

Not a whole lot of progress on the rogue/mage last night. They're level 15 now, waiting for a run through Deadmines. A guildmate of ours said she'd run us through, but by the time we were ready it was raid time and she had to go to ICC. They're trying to get the boss down for the weekly raid. Two days so far and no luck. So instead hubby and I queued up for a couple of randoms. I was on Caelatria at first, but the queue was taking quite a while, even though I was grouped with hubby's tree druid, so I logged on to Saraabi. We grabbed a DPS from guild (a warrior) and hit the queue, BAM, instant Heroic.

We ran Nexus and got a hunter and DK, everything went well, no hiccups, though the DK tried to ninja-Need the Frozen Orb. Hadn't been watching the rolls as well as she should have though, because I hadn't rolled yet. I've read too many stories on other blogs about people dropping Need on the Orb at the last second. So I hit Need also, and won. She dropped group, and I offered it to the rest of the group on a free /roll. Nobody wanted it though.

Next up we grabbed one more DPS from guild (a ret paladin) and got Drak'Tharon Keep. The pug this time was a hunter. Who... stopped to drink a few times, even saying in party chat that he needed mana. Odd, considering that Aspect of the Viper regens mana, but I guess he didn't want to hurt his DPS or something. *shrug* At the time I couldn't think of a way to mention it without sounding like an ass (L2Viper NUB!), so I held my tongue and finished the run.

By that time they were done in ICC, but it was too late to stay up and run Deadmines, so we'll see if we can get in there tonight. I chatted a bit with the ret paladin before logging out, because he was doing crazy DPS the whole run, and I was just astounded. Like 4k even on the trash, pushing 5k on the bosses. It turns out he has only been playing for 4 months, which is just nuts. That good at his class in 4 months. Yikes. I'm going to get him to teach me how to play Ret so Saraabi can run as OT from time to time without feeling useless! XD

Pair Two is retired!

noreply@blogger.com (Carrie) — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 13:30:00 +0000

My dwarf warrior and hubby's draenei shaman hit 60 last night. I have a new appreciation for the warrior class, though I have to say the rage thing got on my nerves a few times! If I could get a charge in before starting a fight, I had a good rotation and I could more or less keep threat from hubby's shaman. But if I got hit unawares, it was often quite a struggle. Odds are there are some abilities I wasn't using that would have helped in those situations, but I never really read up on warrior skills the whole time I was leveling.

Once she hit 60, I respecced her to Fury from Arms, just to play around with Titan's Grip. She looks pretty sweet with her axe and sword crossed on her back! But she's going into retirement now, until I can afford to transfer her from the new account to my main one.

We had thought that our recruit-a-friend time was up today, but I looked it up again last night to double-check, and it turns out we have until Monday. What? A whole weekend of time before it's over?

Enter Pair 3, my gnome mage and hubby's human rogue. It's a bit awkward, playing one melee and one ranged, but so far we haven't had too much trouble. They're level 11 already, after only two hours or so of playtime last night. It'll be a race to the finish to see how far we can get them by Monday night. Even then we don't have to stop, my account is paid for until March. We'll just lose the 300% xp bonus. My only problem now is having enough room on my main account to transfer all of these characters over! We're also talking about bringing over our very first pair, Mezzaluna and Rhonson, to Cenarion Circle from Malfurion. They're so close to 80, it just seems silly for them to sit over there not doing anything!

One thing at a time though. All of these transfers won't come cheap!

Happy Birthday to my beautiful girl!

noreply@blogger.com (Carrie) — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 15:22:00 +0000

Happy 4th birthday, Emily! I love you!

Hey!

noreply@blogger.com (Carrie) — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 15:02:00 +0000

I'm still alive :)

Last week was very, very busy. I was covering someone who was covering someone else's vacation... and I didn't have a whole lot of time to myself while I was doing it. There were many times when I felt like every time I'd have a minute to sit down and rest, I was getting called back out onto the floor for something. But I made it through, and I'm back to a normal schedule for the foreseeable future. There are no more vacations on the schedule until February, and that's mine. An extra-long weekend for my birthday. I'll be 32, which seems kind of unreal. I don't feel like I'm in my 30's most of the time!

On one of the worse days, I came home and started looking up Glee songs to cheer myself up. I was getting frustrated with the fact that none of them seemed to have video from the show to go with them, when suddenly hubby popped up behind me and had the Season 1 DVD in his hands. Happy Early Birthday to me, yay! I was super happy! So the rest of the week we had that on, to catch up on the episodes that we missed, and listen to the songs.

We have also been scrambling to finish out our Recruit-a-friend time in style. We got our alliance characters to level 51 over the weekend, from 32 on Friday. Most of that was done on Saturday, we ran some heroics and did a couple of mount runs on Sunday which cut into our leveling time a bit. We're working on getting all of the quests for BRD, so we can run that tonight or tomorrow. I really hope we can make it to 60 before our time runs out! I'm mostly enjoying my warrior, though it gets frustrating to have to work up rage if I can't charge into battle, instead of having mana or energy already available to do what I want to do right out of the gate. She's leveling Arms now, so if there's anyone out there with playstyle or rotation tips, please feel free to leave them in the comments. Her spec is a bit of a mishmash, but I tried to keep up with talents that would boost her DPS and rage generation. It's hit or miss right now.

That's about all, I'd better get some work done before the day gets away from me, my boss gave me quite the list of stuff to do now that I'm back to my normal schedule!

Edit: OMG I can't believe I forgot to mention this, because I about died when it happened. Guess who won the Kal'uak Fishing Derby on Saturday? You bet your sweet bippy! Camped out in Sholazar a few minutes before it started, and hit up one school in River's Heart, then had to go hunting for a second. The second catch from said pool... BLACKTIP SHARK! I couldn't hearth fast enough, and now have a lovely heirloom ring that I sent to my warlock, Rootbeer. AND... Caelatria is one rare fish away from her "Salty" title. Not half bad, eh?

Happy New Year!

noreply@blogger.com (Carrie) — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 11:05:00 +0000

Yeah, I'm a bit late, I apologize. :)

We had a pretty good New Year, I got a kiss at midnight from the best husband in the world, and ended the night outside making snow angels with my son and my sister-in-law, giggling like a little kid. Yes, I'd had a bit to drink, but it was still fun!

Yesterday was back to work. Bah. I'm covering someone ELSE this week, so I still have to get up early, though not as early as I was last week. Still, things are pretty busy for me, so I hope you all will bear with me until I get back to a normal schedule and can post like I would like to.

I also want to mention, since the New Year is a time for resolutions, that I've decided for the third or fourth time that this year I will be working more to get healthier, if not totally in shape. My weight has gotten to a point that I'm no longer "ok" with, and I need to get something done about it. To that end, I'll be posting more on my weight loss blog (I bet most of you didn't even know I HAD one!) It's been two years since I tried this, but I really mean to stick to it this time. You all can help keep me accountable, ok? :) Seriously, leave me comments and yell at me if I don't weigh in!

I am going to try very hard to weigh myself every day and post it, so I can have a record of how I'm doing right there where I can see it. I'm sure I'll stumble quite a bit on the way, but like I said, I need to do something now, before it gets even worse.

SO... it's back to work now, I'll catch y'all on the flip!

I found this absolutely hilarious.

noreply@blogger.com (Carrie) — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 20:18:00 +0000

Got an email from my hubby this afternoon about the next movie that we're due to get in the mail from Netflix. Through some strange warping of the space-time continuum, I was able to reply before it was even sent!

Spooooooooky email from the future!

I did not miss this one bit.

noreply@blogger.com (Carrie) — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 17:11:00 +0000

Back to work after a lovely 4-day weekend. It was a BUSY weekend, but still lovely all the same! Thursday was pretty much Family Christmas Party day, with my parents and hubby's family, Christmas was Just Us day, at home with hubby and the kids. Saturday was more of my side of the family, we hung out with my brother and his wife. Sunday was "Oh crap, I have to go to work tomorrow" day. The kids went to my uncle's house for yet another family gathering, and hubby and I played some WoW. We finally ran the three new 5-man dungeons, those went by very quickly! They were fun though, and I picked up a couple of purples that I may or may not use. Still pondering that one!

So I got in this morning at 3AM and have been slowly getting through the day. I brought 3 cans of Coke with me, and it looks like I'll need every one! Two are gone already, and I'm about to crack into the third to help me get through the afternoon. The Whistler is in fine form, cursing at a caulk gun he borrowed from Maintenance to repair his scale with. He was struggling with it when I came in a few minutes ago, trying to get the end clear so he could use it. That done, he started squeezing the handle, but nothing was coming out. Somehow he punctured the back of the tube, and all the caulk was leaking out there all over the plunger. Now he's dashing back and forth from the scale to the sink trying to clean things up. I don't think I'll tell him about the stuff he's got on his clothes. See how long it takes him to notice. :)

And with that... it's back to work. I'll be working super-long days all week this week, so I apologize in advance if I don't have a whole lot to say!

Yeah, it's another video.

noreply@blogger.com (Carrie) — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 03:58:00 +0000

I was going to post a video of Peter Griffin doing his "Ding, Fries are done" thing, because I'm still stressed out and am doing my best to preserve both my sanity and the reason for the season. I even had hubby look it up for me while I was at work to make sure it had the audio and everything. Then I didn't get it posted while I was at work, and I've been "helping" get the house ready by folding laundry pretty much since I got home. With the exception of dinner and a couple of random heroics.

ANYWAY.

I heard this on my way home, and it almost brought me to tears. Michael Crawford (of Phantom of the Opera fame) singing O Holy Night. If I had to pick a favorite Christmas hymn, it's O Holy Night. My church growing up had a liturgical dance group who would traditionally perform a candlelit dance to this song on Christmas Eve, and for 15 years or so, I was up there with them. There is something eerie and just beautiful about his voice, and to hear him singing this song... like I said, I was almost crying in the car.

If you need a bit of "reason for the season" yourself, I highly recommend this. HIGHLY.

Watch Michael Crawford - O Holy Night (1993) in Music | View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com

It's almost here!

noreply@blogger.com (Carrie) — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 14:16:00 +0000

CHRISTMAAAASSSSSS YEAH!

I'm stressed out from family plans being continually in flux, all the stuff we STILL need to do to get the house ready to have everyone over, not to mention all the stuff we have to do in between family gatherings on Thursday, but I've decided I'm not going to let it get to me. I could sit and wallow and be depressed and angry, but Christmas is for family and love and happiness, and I need to remember that.

So here's a song that never fails to make me laugh, I hope it brings smiles to all of you as well!

So sleepy.

noreply@blogger.com (Carrie) — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 15:19:00 +0000

The SYTYCD finale was awesome. There were so many amazing dances, I still can't pick a favorite. It was a tie between Jakob and Katherine's contemporary dance, and Russell and Katherine's hip-hop one. Though Russell and Ellenore were great in their paso doble too! I voted for Russell and Katherine... I can't wait to see who wins!

Andy had his Christmas musical last night. Last year every grade got a chance to perform a song. This year they sort of did the Charlie Brown Christmas play. They had five or six older kids playing the parts, and all of the other kids were more or less a chorus. All of the Kindergarten & Preschool kids sang Jingle Bells, but all of the rest of the singing was done by all of the kids together. The first graders all had decorated Christmas trees made out of styrofoam, so they came out and stood in front to represent all the flashy trees at the tree lot when Charlie Brown went to pick one out. Andy had a good time with that, he was dancing and spinning around. That was the only performance part that they got to themselves though, and I was kind of sad about that. There's always next year, I guess!

The scramble afterward was frustrating as well. They had asked at the beginning of the program that only one parent go to collect each child to avoid a giant congested mess in the hallway. So of course, when everything was done, people were leaving the bleachers and heading out into the hallway before the kids had even finished filing out. We waited until most of them were gone before even standing up, and lo and behold, congested mess in the hallway. Leaving the parking lot was an adventure too, people had parked wherever they could find space, and it was hard to get the car out of the lot without hitting someone who wasn't parked in an actual parking space, or was ignoring the flow of traffic to get to the driveway ASAP. Hubby said the parking lot is always like that when he brings Andy to and from school, cars going every which way to get to the driveway before anyone else. It really makes me nuts how selfish and impatient people are these days when they're behind the wheel. *sigh*

After we left, we took the kids to McDonald's for a Happy Meal treat, and headed home for TV time. After the SYTYCD finale, there was a new Gordon Ramsay cooking show. I watched about half an hour of it, but didn't really see anything that made me want to watch it on a weekly basis. Yeah, it's nice to see a side of Gordon Ramsay besides the screaming and swearing one he's shown on his other programs, but he was so rushed, the people he had in the studio were having trouble keeping up with his directions, what directions he managed to give anyway. The thing I like about other cooking shows is that they take the time to show you how to do things the right way. They might not get a whole three-course meal cooked in that time, but you learn how to do each of the steps in whatever it is they're making. He was just "put the oil in, slice the pepper up real thin, put your pasta in, turn it around, go go gogo, how are you doing, ok, quick joke about how his guest celebrity cooks are having problems, put the shrimp in the oil, go go gogogogogo!!" So yeah, not going to watch that again, probably.

Tonight I think we'll be playing a little Rock Band with hubby's sister, and maybe his sister-in-law as well. It's a good way to unwind and have fun, and the kids can play a bit too. Andy likes singing "Living on a Prayer", or "Living on a Planet", as he says. Emily likes the drums, so we put it on No Fail mode and just let them go nuts. Should be a good time!

And the gifts start rolling in!

noreply@blogger.com (Carrie) — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 13:00:00 +0000

We sent through a big order on amazon.com last week, and the first two packages arrived in the mail yesterday! It's like Christmas early, even though I know none of the presents are for me, it's still awesome to get to open them all and see what's inside.

Not much else to report. I did some herbalism on one of my death knights last night. Hubby leveled one of his up to 80, and spent some time running random dungeons. After that, I watched some TV. ABC has a show called "Find My Family" that I've been watching. I missed last week though. They help people who have given kids up for adoption, or been given up for adoption, or just have lost contact with someone important over the years. It always makes me cry. I've been working on an application to be on it, too. I don't know what the odds are that they'd be able to find my birth mom (if they even chose my application), or even that she'd want to meet me if they did find her, but I figure there's no harm in trying. (For information on my search so far, see this post)

That's about all. Tonight is the finale of So You Think You Can Dance, and I can't miss that! Anyone out there who watches it want to venture a guess on who will win? I haven't really picked a favorite, but I loved Mollee and Jakob's waltz last week, I'm so sad she didn't make it through!

Druids are so OP.

noreply@blogger.com (Carrie) — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 15:05:00 +0000

Our WoW time this weekend was dedicated to our horde Recruit-A-Friend druids over on Hakkar. When we started, they were level 38. As of the end of play time last night, they are level 54. All through questing too, we didn't run an instance all weekend. The next time we play them they'll be heading for the Plaguelands and level 60. Once they hit 60, we'll probably be switching to our alliance pair, which are back on Cenarion Circle and in the same guild as our main characters. This will be good, because one of the times I logged on to Facebook this weekend, a guildie from there sent me a chat asking where the heck we have been for the past few days.

We have yet to run the new dungeons that were released with the last patch. It seems strange, but I'm not really in any hurry to either. The day after the patch dropped, one of the guild death knights ran random heroics ALL DAY. When we logged off for the night, he had accumulated over 80 Badges of Triumph. Call me crazy, but I am just not that into the whole rush for the best gear RIGHT NOW thing. I am certain that within the next couple of weeks I will have accumulated enough badges through heroics to keep my gear up to date. From past experience, I know that the only thing that you get from that kind of badge mania is burnout. Besides that, I've been having too much fun running around Feralas with my hubby.

On the "druids are OP" comment, I have to cite an example. We both specced feral for leveling purposes. Hubby's spec is a bit more "bear", mine is a bit more "kitty". So if we end up in a bad spot, he can switch forms, and I can keep up the DPS or pop out to give him a few heals. We've also got two points in improved stealth. So yesterday we had pretty much run out of quests in Feralas, at least to the point where going back after getting our new class skills would be a waste of time better spent in a more quest-rich zone. So we hopped over to the Hinterlands and picked up every quest we could possibly find, and there were quite a few!

One of the quests we got was to kill Vile Priestess Hexx, who sits at the top of Jintha'alor. Jintha'alor is a multi-tiered area, and each level is crawling with trolls of all shapes and sizes. We stealthed through the whole place until we got to the mobs we needed to kill. Just getting that one quest done would have taken three times as long if we'd had to fight our way up there. And we knew when we got to the right level because druids in cat form can track humanoids, so we just had to check our mini-map to see what sorts of trolls were around. We killed what we needed to kill, re-stealthed, and hopped our way down out of the area, then headed back to turn in all the quests that we had done. No other class could have done what we did. A pair of rogues could have handled the stealth part, but a rogue can't heal another rogue through an accidental pull of five or more mobs. Crazy OP. And don't even get me started on flight form herbalism. Where does the bird put the herbs after they've picked them? I don't see any pockets underneath all those feathers!

Conundrums.

noreply@blogger.com (Carrie) — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 17:46:00 +0000

There's a bit of wondering going on in this battered old brain of mine, but before I get into that, can I just say CURSE YOU, Random LFG, for giving me Oculus as the first flipping dungeon? *shudder* We got through it without too much difficulty, just one wipe on Eregos due to losing both DPS dragons to the first phase shift. Saraabi got her Northrend Dungeonmaster achievement out of the deal also. But STILL. I hate that place. It was a good thing I had hubby around to guide me through, because I've only been there twice before. He's got much more situational awareness than I have. A good portion of my miraculous tank saves have been in large part due to him pointing stuff out to me. So thank you honey! :)

On to the conundrum.

There was a Ventrilo meeting of the "officers" of our guild last night, of which I am one, and hubby is now another. There are a few of us with gear that's a level above the sort of raiding we do on a regular basis as a guild. Quite a bit of our lack of "progression" is due to new 80's wanting to come along on raids, so we zerg them through Naxx, or the first few bosses in Uld, so they can see raids and feel accomplished to have been there.

That's all well and good, but some people are getting tired of doing the same thing over and over, and feel that if we put together a solid team, we could probably venture on into bigger and better raid instances. All of us have alts that are at 80 as well, so we'd be able to use them to continue running Naxx and the like. They want to have a dedicated night (not always the same night, but just say one night a week) when those of us on the "raid team" would get together and work on some solid progression.

I'm not sure how I feel about being part of this.

On the one hand, I'm flattered to have been included. It's nice to be recognized as someone who knows more or less what they're doing, and can be a solid contributor to the guild. I like the opportunity to see more content, even if it means bashing our heads against a boss over and over again until we figure out what we're doing. I want to improve my characters, without having to run random heroics all day every day to grind out badges.

On the other hand, part of what got in the way with my last guild was the hardcore progression mindset. For the most part, I enjoy raiding. But I don't like feeling like it's a job, or, at the very least, obligated to be there each and every week. I'm concerned about the schedule as well, they're looking at running until 8:30 server, which is 11:30 here. Granted, it's only one night a week, but that's still pretty late in Carrie-land. I like to be in bed by 10.

I guess the best thing is just to wait and see when the first few get scheduled, and join in or not as my schedule allows. If they run some on the weekend, and some during the week, and there are enough people to cover the ones run during the week, it might work out. As long as I stay conscious of my personal priorities to my family and my job, and don't let myself get carried away... we shall see.

How's THAT for Loot-Fu?

noreply@blogger.com (Carrie) — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 15:54:00 +0000

Not one, but TWO Swift Razzashi Raptors!

Hubby's dropped yesterday afternoon. But still no luck with Anzu, and no Swift Zulian Tiger yet either. We'll get there! I think from now on we'll invite some guildies along with us when we go to ZG, in case we get more raptors. :) I've also stocked up on Mudskunk lures for Gahz'ranka. Maybe we'll get a book of Polymorph: Turtle or two! If we do, I hope hubby won't mind me sending one to my horde mage. He already has a couple of different polymorph spells, but the turtle has always been my favorite.

In other news, Christmas shopping is almost done! Just have to send through the amazon order, and pick up a couple of things for the nephew and one of the nieces and we're set. The kids were real troopers this weekend, they did a good job of keeping up with us as we store-hopped. We took them to Chuck E. Cheese as a treat afterward. We also played a bit of poker with my brother-in-law and his wife, plus two of their friends. Good food and good times were had by all, though our pockets are considerably lighter! We have done this before though, and hubby and I made out like bandits, so I guess in the long run we're just making things a bit more even. Also, Andy got his hair cut, and it looks adorable.

Finally, hubby and I helped finish a guild run of Naxx-10 last night. No upgrades for either of us, but I got enough badges together to finally get Saraabi some purple bracers. She pulled off quite a good bit of tanking too. She was OT for a good bit of the run, well, almost all of it actually, and didn't have a whole lot to do. I was letting the MT take all of the trash, and basically playing melee DPS in prot spec, just in case the poo hit the fan. It didn't, so I was pretty bored. Near the end of Military I was taunting a mob or two out of the trash packs just to have something to do, as the MT bragged about his damage taken and how much greater it was than mine. Got my competitive hackles all up, which is never good.

I got my chance to shine at the end though. Sapphiron only needs one tank, and when asked how my DPS was, I simply responded with "it isn't." Saraabi has a DPS spec, but I never use it, so I wasn't going to be doing the raid any favors by switching. So they let me tank Sapphiron, and we one-shot him. Kel'Thuzad was interesting, to say the least. They put me on KT, and the MT took the adds. Things were going well until my hubby got ice-blocked. He was playing his tree, and healing the bejeezus out of anyone he could get his HoTs on. Unfortunately, nobody managed to heal him, so down he went. And people started dropping like flies. KT was at around 8%, and suddenly hubby said the MT went down. So I did what any tank would do, I grabbed the adds ASAP and kept on tanking.

And Kel'Thuzad fell, and there was much rejoicing, and gratzing me on my excellent tanking skillz. I probably could have been more humble at that point, but like I said, my competitive hackles were up, and I was honestly proud of what I had done. At the same time, I feel bad for basically showing the other tank up in a pretty spectacular fashion. He's been working very hard at tanking and he is doing a good job, he really is. The only real difference I can see is that he's a DK, and I'm a paladin, so while he's got avoidance that's better than mine, he's got no mitigation, so when he takes a hit, he really takes it hard.

Ah well. What can ya do?

Christmas Shopping mode is GO!

noreply@blogger.com (Carrie) — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 05:44:00 +0000

I am a zombie... hurrrrr..........
Not really. It's just like going on 1AM and we did quite a bit of shopping today. A good portion of it was online, but there are some things that even amazon.com can't sell cheaper than Wal-Mart. Sorry amazon.com. I love ya, I really do, but that extra two or three dollars will really come in handy when all the presents are bought and we actually need, like, food and stuff.

We're actually almost done too. There are a niece and a nephew who still need some rounding-out, but if it's not in the amazon shopping cart, it's in the bedroom waiting to be wrapped. Oh, except for one thing that we have to go back to Wal-Mart for. We also did grocery shopping tonight. On the way out to the car, hubby kept saying under his breath, "Christmas only comes once a year."

Earlier in the day he was a bit more in the Christmas spirit, and he put together the following video. I made the background image. :) I'll leave you with this, I hope it brings a bit of the spirit to you also!

Oh. My. Gosh.

noreply@blogger.com (Carrie) — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 18:37:00 +0000

I am still in shock, seriously.

A few weeks ago, wow.com held a contest to give away 25 wireless headsets. It was like a screenshot scavenger hunt. They gave clues to five locations, and the entrants had to take screenshots of their raid/group at each of the locations. Then they would do a random drawing from the entries who had their screenshots taken at the correct locations.

They announced the winners publicly yesterday.

You can read about it here.

And if you couldn't tell from the post title...

That's my devilsaur in the foreground of the picture.

THAT IS MY GUILD AND WE WON.
/dance

Ahhh, back to "Normal"

noreply@blogger.com (Carrie) — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 13:31:00 +0000

The past three days I have been getting up at 2AM to go to work, thus the lack of actual posts. I barely recall what I actually did on those days. I think there was some WoW, and dinner, but the rest is a fog.

I remember last night though! Last night after dinner we put up our Christmas tree. I wish I had pictures, but our camera had gone missing, and when we finally found it, it was broken. So I think that's where my Christmas bonus will be going this year. It's not right to have kids and no way to take pictures of them when they're decorating a tree. Hubby kept saying "spread the decorations around, so they're all over the tree", and Emily kept putting every ornament she picked up in the same area, or right next to one that Andy or I had put up. A little sneaky reorganization left us with a relatively balanced ornament distribution. :D

We bought new lights this year, after discovering that both of the strings we already had did not fully light up. One was half dark, the other was dark in the middle. I managed to fix one of them, but we decided to just get two new strings, and use the one that I fixed around a window or something. Yay new lights! We have a nice compromise when it comes to the lights. I like blinky ones and hubby likes the steady light, so we have one string of each, and they both wrap fully around the tree. It looks a little sparse when the blinky ones are off, but it makes me happy to have blinky lights on the tree. We also put tinsel on, which begins the month-long struggle between us and the cat, who thinks we just covered the tree in sparkly cat treats.

We managed to keep him away from it while we were awake, but first thing this morning when I was getting ready for work, I stepped in a sparkly puddle of cat vomit. This perpetuates the opinion that we all share, that the cat is a moron. He KNOWS he's not supposed to eat the tinsel. We know he knows because while I found the vomit, the cat himself was nowhere to be seen. He ate the tinsel, and he knew he wasn't supposed to, and sure enough he threw it back up, and so he hid in the vain hope that when we found him we'd have forgotten about it. I expect this scenario to play out at least three times a week until Christmas. We try every year to hang it so that he can't reach it, but every year he manages to find some to eat anyway. I guess I shouldn't expect more from him, he thinks plastic bags from the grocery store are the greatest thing ever too. He'll chew on any bit of plastic he can get his teeth on, no matter how many times he gets yelled at for it. *sigh*

Because it's early and I am less than coherent

noreply@blogger.com (Carrie) — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 09:52:00 +0000

Time to be Thankful!

noreply@blogger.com (Carrie) — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 15:00:00 +0000

Various things I am thankful for, since I haven't managed a post since the day before Thanksgiving!

1. My Family (that goes without saying, I'm sure, but I wanted to say it anyway)

2. My Friends (online and irl)

3. My Life

4. My job and all the things it helps to provide for my family

Also, one thing I am very excited about. Hubby and I did our usual mount-farming when we got home from dinner with my parents on Thanksgiving. The result?

Swift Razzashi Raptor!

Wired and Wireless

noreply@blogger.com (Carrie) — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 13:45:00 +0000

I got out of work a bit early yesterday, and was able to surprise Billy and the kids by showing up at Andy's school in time to give them all a ride home. We did some questing on our druids, and got another level for them. I also started my rounds of the Horde capitals on Caelatria. I only managed to get to Orgrimmar before dinner, but I did most of the traveling to get to Thunder Bluff before I had to log off.

We had barbecued pork chops and stuffing for dinner, yum!

After dinner, I thought it might be nice to watch some tv, and color with the kids. Billy just bought a wireless router, so that we could have internet on our computers and not have to run a cord from the modem out into the living room to stream movies or tv shows from Netflix. He was having some trouble getting his computer online with it though. My computer was fine, the laptop was fine, but his computer wouldn't connect. He fiddled with it for quite some time, while I watched So You Think You Can Dance and colored in my Tinkerbell coloring book. He finally got it online by connecting our old switch to the router and his computer to the switch. I can only assume it was something to do with IP addresses. Either way, it works now.

Of course, by the time everything was situated, it was a bit too late to watch anything. The kids went to bed, and he fiddled with the DVD player, which had also been acting up, and got that working as well. The two of us watched a bit of Eddie Izzard's comedy special, Dress To Kill, and headed to bed. Tonight will probably be much the same, though we might have some shopping to do. The kids still need holiday outfits!

I found out what our next Netflix movie will be, Billy picked the GI Joe movie that just came out. My brother used to watch the cartoon on TV all the time, and he had lots of the action figures too. I hope the movie is good!

Short post today.

noreply@blogger.com (Carrie) — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 15:31:00 +0000

I'm feeling like quite the zombie. I woke up with a pounding headache after a night of crazy dreams. I don't really remember them now, just that they were totally odd. Ibuprofen took care of the headache, but I haven't felt really conscious all morning. When I got in I found that I'd forgotten to make copies of the schedule for today, so everyone was all kerfuffled. No clue why I forgot either, it's something I do practically every day, and have done for several years now. I just... didn't do it.

We got in some WoW when I got home as well. I'm 2/3 of the way done with the holiday achievements, I think I just have to do the horde city one and the "turn rogues into turkeys" one. I'm tempted to dual-box that last one, once I get enough shooters. Just make level one rogues on one account, and shoot at them with the other. It would involve some traveling, but I have to do that for the horde capitals anyway. Hubby and I ran the heroic daily, then spent some time working on our alliance RAF characters. I believe they made it to level 13 before we quit for the night. Hubby's gnome did most of his leveling in his underpants... I wish I had a screenshot of that! He sold all of his gear in the starting zone to be able to afford his skills, and vowed shortly thereafter that he wouldn't wear any until he got some greens with stat boosts on them. He finally got a shirt around level 11. Crazy boy.

Tacos for dinner last night, and we finally finished off the pumpkin pie. I'm sure there will be plenty more later this week though, so I'm not too sad about it. Tonight or tomorrow our next Netflix movie should arrive, I'll let y'all know what it is and what I think of it once we watch it. :) Hope everyone is having a great day!

Poor Toaster.

noreply@blogger.com (Carrie) — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 13:05:00 +0000

All that anticipation, and a whole weekend, and I never watched the whole movie. I guess this was one of those times when the actual thing doesn't live up to my memories of it. I watched the beginning, and it was cute, but it wasn't enough to hold my attention like it used to. The kids weren't overly excited about it either. Oh well, back in the mail it went, and we'll see what comes next. :)

On Saturday we had a birthday party for one of my nieces, which turned into a night of Rock Band after most of the family left. We downloaded some new songs, and played until we couldn't play any more! Yesterday was a quiet day at home. I sat in the living room and watched hubby play Fable 2, and we let the kids play around on our computers. Then after dinner we played a little WoW. We started up a couple of new characters on our RAF account, alliance this time, on Cenarion Circle. I have a dwarf warrior, and hubby has a gnome mage. We got them to Thelsamar, and I hope they will continue to level past that zone. I have been trying to level a dwarf for quite some time now!

We got a raid together after that, to take screenshots for the wow.com headset contest. I doubt we'll win, one person went afk before we even took the first one, and stayed that way until after we were done. But it was fun to chase around to all the different places and whatnot. It was a good guild event. When that was done, hubby and I headed out to Outland in another attempt to capture an Anzu mount for me, and also to get an achievement for a few guildies for the latest holiday. We also headed over to ZG, but no mounts from there either.

Then I stayed up too late working on the quests for the new holiday... and I'm paying for it today. I've only been at work for an hour, and my bottle of pop that's supposed to last me all day is already half empty. I think this calls for early bedtime tonight!

How were your weekends, dear people who read my blog? :)

I Got a Feeling...

noreply@blogger.com (Carrie) — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 10:53:00 +0000

Yeah, so it's Friday and I'm feeling lazy. So you get a YouTube video. This song was on the radio on my way in to work today, and it never fails to give my mood a boost. The video was made by a bunch of film students in Quebec. They all got together and made this lip sync (or lip dub) video in like an hour or something. I hope you all enjoy it as much as I do!

Oh yeah.

noreply@blogger.com (Carrie) — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 17:41:00 +0000

The reason for the medicine is that I've got a cold. Yippee yay hooray for that. Symptoms seem to be staying at a minimum though, thanks to the DayQuil people.

Last night is kind of a blur. I remember we ran Sarth-25 with 19 people and got an achievement for that. I even got to bring my hunter, and was only like 200 dps behind the resident MM hunter. Go me :) After that, some of the group stuck around and worked on Sarth-10 with a drake up. We hadn't managed it last week, but hubby said that not long after I went to bed, they finally got it down. Yay for the guild!

Just before that, I'd managed to ding exalted with Honor Hold and picked up the tabard for my 25-tabard achievement, which gave me... another tabard.

Tonight is going to be a non-WoW night. I have to go to work early tomorrow to cover the "new guy", who is having his wisdom teeth out this afternoon. So I'm hoping there will be a new movie from Netflix in the mailbox when I get home. Hubby says that one of mine is next in line, "The Brave Little Toaster". I am excited, I haven't seen that in forever. I used to watch it on TV all the time, and it's a good one to watch with the kids. Things are crazy here at work today, so a nice calm night at home is definitely what the doctor ordered. Yay!