I shopped smart

I shopped pet smart. Although I like the achievements I haven't been particularly obsessive about getting any of them. I work on them when I feel like it generally. With the exception of the 50 mini pet achievement that is. I have always loved the little pets in game and was always sad that as a hunter with the bag space problems this brings I never had any room for them. With the changes as of patch 3.0 I immediately started collecting the little cuties.

It was fun soloing my way into Black Rock Depths for the Smolderweb Hatchling (who looks like a little brother to my spider Smithers!) and the Worg Pup and it was also fun researching where to get different pets via Breanni's awesome website and creating my own list of all the pets I possess.

I was sitting on 48 pets thanks to the Winter Veil gifts and the generosity *cough* of my druid and death knight alts when Seelyon a fellow guildie who knew I was working on the achievement was incredibly generous and mailed me a Cobra Hatchling from the Oracle dailies which he could easily have sold on the AH. This gift prompted me to finally go and pick up the Ancona Chicken in Shimmering Flats which was the last easily attainable pet on my list to bring me up to 50. Hooray! Stinker, I has him, and for a skunk he is super cute!

Corrupting the innocent

Well the not-so-innocent is what I would opine *grin*

Although I should probably be working on levelling my new pets, continuing my experimentation with the issues some pet abilities seem to have and all those kind of things last night I instead had lots of fun running around on a new toon with a friend from work who is exploring World of Warcraft with a trial account. Typhoon Andrew and I are both hoping that she'll decide she likes the game so much that she'll subscribe, but I think we're both also consciously trying to not push the crack too heavily hehe. Of course if she does subscribe I'll be angling for her to roll a toon on Feathermoon rather than stay on the oceanic server Nagrand where we are currently slaying kobolds. Ugh Kobolds, I think they are even more annoying than murlocs!

I can tell you this - she's a born mage - cackling with glee as she fire balls critters.

Say hello to my lowbie priest Caeri and Kittoug the evil mage.

I can haz bear!

I've been terribly slack about posting lately. I'm afraid that a busy real life (seems like all the birthdays and babies and weddings are all happening at this end of the year) coupled with a sense of ennui has left me feeling a little unmotivated to write, especially when everything is about to change. Yep, the pre-expansion doldrums have finally started to kick in and just like prior to release of The Burning Crusade the question of 'is it really worth doing X or Y' with my toons is starting to rear its' head. There are, however, plenty of things worth doing and with the popular belief that the patch will arrive with the next maintenance the Badgers have been busy.

We've been running ZA for several months now and our once a week extreeeem ZA raid has slowly seen a growing group of people gain their Amani War Bears. As Cynra recently posted we even had an emergency mid week run at a ridiculous time of morning for the Americans and a not so bad but not so early time of night for the Aussies. This Sunday was our last ever run with a chance to get the bear mount if the patch really does hit and yours truly was the only regular raider still without a bear. I'm sure you can imagine how nervous I was! What if we stuffed it up? I wasn't sure what would be worse - if I made a colossal mistake and ruined my own chances or if one of my dear Badgers did and I would be so sad.

I don't think I have suffered such extremes of emotion playing a game since the good old days of blockading in Puzzle Pirates. Firstly one of the people scheduled to come didn't show and we had to find a replacement who would be ok with not rolling on the bear if they didn't have one since this was the final chance for me as a long term regular to get one and was also geared and experienced with the run. Luckily fellow guildie Puppetteer stepped into the breach. The run started really well with everything going super smooth right up until the pulls before the lynx boss. Somehow people got feared and the mobs on each side of the door got pulled and we wiped. We NEVER wipe in ZA any more. I started chewing my fingernails nervously at this point and making strange wheeking noises while Emelin kept chanting at me 'it will be ok, we'll make it' over and over.

So we regrouped, and cleared all the trash and had about 30 seconds to mana up and prepare for the pull. Until that is Puppetteer our dear lock, wandered a little too far into the room and face pulled. Eeeek! Galvanised into action I let rip with a Misdirect to our main tank, everyone sprang into position and the healers out did themselves keeping Mogri (the MT) up while our pally OT Cliff got into cleave sharing position. It was on and everyone unloaded as much firepower as we could muster. Never has a fight seemed to go for so long! We made it with literally seconds to spare and I was the closest I've ever been to a heart attack. The elation after the tension was exhilerating! I got bear! Huzzah!!
To celebrate what is likely the last bear run naturally we had to pose for a photo moment mounted on our bears and then our Moonkin made the excellent suggestion of converging on Ironforge in all our bear-y glory to preen and strut and generally be idiots. This idea met with much acclaim and we hot footed it over there to crack some pony kegs and have a good time doing bear conga lines while people either laughed, cheered or mocked us.
After we'd had our fill of being blithering idiots it was on to Mags. I for one decided that since I'd actually been there and done that I wanted the title to go with it and several Badgers felt the same so Cynra had put in motion the plans for a run. We ended up having to pug it unfortunately which was pretty much full of fail until some people left and we were able to pull in some more guildies who had since logged in. Once we had a higher Badger quotient things went much more smoothly and I'm now the happy owner of at least one BC title. Sadly no Hand of Adal as we were unable to down Kael on our Saturday raid, but still, it's been one awesome weekend for Jez!

Special edit: our irascible rogue recorded our jaunt in IF and has added a very fitting soundtrack, it made me giggle like a loon all over again watching it.

Brewfest! Hic!

The many festival events that occur throughout the year are a really fun aspect of playing Warcraft. Being a Drunken Badger one festival that definitely appeals is that of Brewfest. We've been having a lot of fun doing the daily boss in Blackrock Depths and both Jez and Seph have walked away with some 'lawl' items such as the Direbrew Shanker and useful items such as for Seph the sweet stam trinket Brightbrew Charm. Best of all though both Jez and Seph are now running around on their own Great Brewfest Kodos! Hooray!I also discovered to my immeasurable delight that if you drink enough you really DO see pink elelphants roaming Shattrath! *grin*

Just before Brewfest arrived Blizz also gave a nod to Talk Like a Pirate Day which I took advantage of by turning Jez into a pirate for a while. It was very amusing to me to run around in pirate costume due to my history of playing Yohoho Puzzle Pirates. Poor Jezabella, I haven't logged in for a while now. She's just sitting in her villa counting gold these days. Last I remember she was sitting on about 2.5 million, imagine having that much gold in WoW!

Retro Raiding

It seems that the closer the expansion looms the greater the vogue for 'retro raiding'. Prior to TBC the only end game type raids that Jez participated in were ones for Zul'Gurub, Molten Core and Ahn'Qiraj 20. Even though I never got a chance to see them I did complete the quest lines for attunement to Onyxia and Blackwing Lair. Probably because I'm an incorrigble completionist.

I have been very pleased of late therefore to be able to see both of these instances as part of the retro raiding frenzy that has gripped Feathermoon. Nax has been seeing a lot of action too but as I never managed attunement for this old world version of The Burning Crusade's Sunwell I haven't been able to see it and I doubt I will be bothered getting attuned before Wrath hits. These three are the only remaining old world instances that require attunement still.

Blackwing Lair's dark environs. Poor dragons, reminds me of Blades Edge.

Visiting Blackwing Lair was an absolute thrill, remembering as I do the tales of trial and tribulation of the then lead raid groups going through this content back when Jez was just a young huntard drooling over the big bad hunters walking around in their uber Tier 2 gear.

Compared to the open spaces of Mount Hyjal, my current raiding location, the decor of BWL was quite gloomy. Lots of dead dragons and stone halls. Quite Dwarven in style really. As our normal raid's main tank commented to me (as he too had come on this adventure), he wouldn't have relished hours and hours grinding this dungeon back in the day and I agree. At least in Hyjal we're out in the fresh air *wink*

You might think that seeing BWL as level 70 would be a walk in the park, well I can tell you now it certainly wasn't that. I was part of a group of about 25 composed of end game raiders from several of the most high end raids on the server and we still had to be careful. My greatest challenge was throttling back my DPS as the amount of damage I was doing was insane. Also as the only hunter I was responsible for several of the boss pulls by Misdirecting to the main tank. Being completely new to the instance and having no idea of any of the fight mechanics made this quite nervewracking!

I need to remember to turn off names before taking screenshots.

The Nefarian fight out on his balcony was definitely the highlight. That was an extremely fun fight, everyone was giggling and exclaiming over vent about the different animals they were getting turned into. I was turned into a giraffe! I didn't think they even existed in the Azeroth universe! Nefarian sure has an active imagination *grin*

Is it just me or does the tunnel leading down to Onyxia's lair look like a giant gaping dragon maw?

Just yesterday I joined a band of adventurous types who desired to seek out Onyxia in her lair. I jumped at the opportunity to go when Csilla the perky priestess mentioned that more DPS was being sought. It was quite amusing to arrive at the instance entrance and get the 'Discovered Onyxia's Lair' dialogue. As we moved inside it was only natural that many jokes about MOAR DOTS and 50 dkp minus were made. Again being almost completely ignorant of the fight I was a little worried about doing something huntard-like and demonstrating major fail. As it was the fight went very smoothly. This was a much easier encounter and our group of ten or so featured a motley mix of gear levels and some people not yet 70.

Dead Onyxia huzzah!

I'm very happy that my efforts to get attuned all that time ago did not go to waste even if I have not been able to experience the 'full flavour' of the instances. The opportunity to see the content at all is definitely a win in my book.

Has anyone else had the opporunity to do some retro raiding? If not where which of the pre TBC instances would you most like to see?

Banking attire is very important

I've heard others talk about how they dress their mules in special outfits and thought this adds a bit of fun to that poor overworked toon. In my case a female dwarf paladin who never saw beyond level four. Fittingly for a dwarf she hasn't seen daylight outside of Ironforge in months. I started playing her in the early days of my WoW career when a friend had just started and also rolled a paladin. Myself and another friend thought we'd help him along with some companionship. However the two guys soon outstripped me in levelling and I found Dwarfs altogether too short and slow after playing a Night Elf hunter and returned swiftly to my beloved Jezrael.

Recently an enterprising individual was advertising over trade chat all of the items they had for sale including a COD delivery service. They were using a clever mod that allowed you to query different items. I promptly ordered up an outfit to dress my dwarfikins in, I present to you Serenla, Dwarven banker.
As you can see I've added rounded corners to this image. Inspired by a recent post from Aurik of /hug I decided I really wanted to learn how to treat images in this way as I think it looks really attractive. When I have a moment I'm also going to look into getting the model viewer and using masks so that I can present images within posts in the attractive way that Aurik and others do, but for a Photoshop noob like myself I was pretty excited to work out how to do rounded corners heh!

What have YOU read response

Mr Kestrel over at the Aerie has a list up responding to a question picked up by JustOneAnna of the books listed in the National Education Associations top 100. The idea is to

• Look at the list and bold those we have read.
• Italicize those we intend to read.
• Underline the books we LOVE
  

So here's my list:

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveler’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo (abriged)

The only reason I've read a lot of these is because I studied English Lit and University. Only four books on there rate as loved. I'm not really a fan of 'canon' literature. It's good to see a lot of modern authors on the list though.

I WoW in RL

Last Friday night Em and I got to meet up with our guild raid main tank and RL friend Mogri. We hadn't caught up in person with him since back in December so we were excited to catch up for a few beers and yes, you guessed it, a lot of in person WoW talk.

We arrived at the airport to discover his flight was delayed, gah! So to pass the time we got creative *grin*. You know how you'll see those chauffeur dudes with the signs with people's names on them waiting at the arrival point? Well we borrowed some paper and a text from the currency exchange lady and made our own sign for Em to hold standing with the group of dudes (he was wearing a suit so he fit right in). Mogri got a good laugh coming down the escalator to see Em standing there holding a sign saying 'LF1M TANK'.

Hehe

We then all went into the city to a pub and proceeded to have several drinks and lots of game talk. I was the responsible one who was driving so I didn't get shickered like Em and Mogri, but that meant I got to remind them both of the silly drunken things that were said the following Monday night on vent. Meeting up in RL with guildies is great fun. I hope I one day get to meet more of them. We're planning a trip to visit Mogri in Melbourne soon and our sneaky rogue friend Chia is coming along too so that's something we're looking forward to. And I won't be driving this time! Woohoo! Knock one back for a Drunken Badgers RL meet up, even if it's only four of us heh.

Orcs are amazingly virile

I'm a self contained person generally. I think it's due to spending all that time out in the wilderness. Just my faithful animal companion and I, stalking our prey through a landscape devoid of the trappings of civilisation.

I'd like to use unfamiliarity with the ways of town folk to try and explain my naivety, my gaucheness perhaps. I don't think I can though. I can't find any real reason to excuse my recent behaviour and I'm not one to accept paltry excuses, Sephiroh knows that very well. Oh dear, I wonder if she has heard. The speed with which insidious rumours spread throughout the city is almost incomprehensible. I need to shield her from such perfidy. Hah, there I go with excuses again, truly it is myself I wish to shield and my good name. If I have such a thing anymore.

It all started with what should have been, as is usual for me, a brief visit to Shattrath to replenish my supplies. As is my wont I had stepped into the Worlds End tavern to meet with my, well I shouldn't call him a fence, but let us just say a person whom I know that has connections with many of the powerful denizens of the city, shadowy figures who will pay well for my gem cutting skills in order to retain their anonymity. While I disapprove of such underhanded behaviour my purse is often grateful for it.

I had taken my usual seat in a dim corner of the tavern, sipping the ale I had been served and quietly observing the behaviour of the wretched regulars as I waited somewhat impatiently for my contact to arrive. He was late and I was feeling out of sorts, perhaps that was why I had drained my drink before long and ordered another which rapidly arrived at the hands of the grinning barkeep. I intended to nurse this one but for some reason the tavern was filling, and the heat of many bodies crushed into so small a space only increased my thirst. I believe the somewhat ripe Tauren warrior at the next table over increased my interest in keeping my nose deep in a pot of ale. There really is nothing like the taste of a good beer. The other kal'dorei may turn their noses at what they consider my uncouth tastes but they have clearly never enjoyed a refreshing pot of dwarven stout after an arduous journey. But I digress.

I was still waiting but the beer had relaxed me somewhat and I saw little harm in one or two more. After all if I can hold my own against ogres surely there would be nothing to threaten me in a crowded bar. Foolish! The greatest threat to me was surely myself. Sometime later, I'm not sure how long I admit, indeed the events of the rest of the evening are increasingly hazy in my memory, I noticed a commotion around the stage like area against the back wall. Curious I made my way, a little unsteadily, forward. As the lights dimmed the crowd hushed; a sense of excitement was palpable in the air. I pushed my way further foward, apologising absent mindedly to the gnome I had inadvertently almost stepped on.

Suddenly there was a terrific burst of light and a loud explosion and the tavern building itself began to vibrate. The stage had suddenly become occupied by a motley group who were the creators of a wall of sound that simply overwhelmed me. The people around me began to dance and cheer and I found myself swept up in their excitement, dancing and cheering myself in a most unbecoming fashion, all my inhibitions swept aside in the wake of the many draughts I had consumed.

I remember little from this point onwards. I'm embarrassed to admit it. Certain moments stand out with startling clarity. I seem to recall dancing on one of the tables, of calling for more beer. Of being caught in the embrace of the orc leader of this band who almost crushed me with the strength of his arms. I remember that the green of his skin was closely matched by the green of his eyes which crinkled in amusement at me. Everything else is a blur. The next thing I remember is waking with pounding head and parched throat. I must have made it back to the lodgings I share with Sephiroh but I have no idea how! Oh I am so ashamed. What would my mother say.

Standing up for Druidic rights

*whispers* Hey everyone, it's me Sephi. I have to be really really quiet because I don't want to wake Miss Jez up but I heard about all the como...coma.. all the stuff going on and I think it's just really important to support my brother and sister druids out there. We can't let the big meanie corporate types oppress us! I'm just a bit worried that Miss Jez wouldn't understand, I mean, she's well, she's one of them. But I can't be quiet. I have to be brave and stand up for druids everywhere. So... *looks around carefully and takes a deep breath*

FOSHIZZZZZZZZLE!!!!

Uh oh. I think that was a bit loud *gulp*

Raiding at the right time?

So just for the record the post title is a play on Paul Simon's song 'Born at the right time' not 'Bjorn at the right time' which is a travesty of nature. Ok Euridipes? :P

Down amongst the mobs
A drunken guild is found
Their eyes are red and bleary
For there are beers being downed

Never been hardcore
Never been leet
Never had to face burn out fear
Nothing demanded
Of the player who tries
The raid warning chimes
And the whole group whispering
Raiding at the right time

Me and my guildies we are relaxed people
We like to raid when we want
See all the content
All the way from Kara to the temple
I see them in Shattrath
Getting those enchants
They ask me for gem cuts
Their Jewelcrafting friend

Never been hardcore
Never been leet
Never had to face burn out fear
Nothing demanded
Of the player who tries
The raid warning chimes
And the whole group whispering
Raiding at the right time

Too many people on the pre-lich king down
Too many raiders say they can't find the time
The Outlands groan
Every time another raider gives up

But down amongst the mobs
A drunken guild is found
Their eyes are red and bleary
For there are beers being downed

Never been hardcore
Never been leet
Never had to face burn out fear
Nothing demanded
Of the player who tries
The raid warning chimes
And the whole group whispering
Raiding at the right time

Ok so that's, I'm pretty confident, a fairly sucktacular parody of the song. Oh well, you can all tell me how lame it is in the comments and I'll have a good giggle *grin*

But amid the lameness there is a topic I want to address. I've read in my many locations recently of guilds with recruiting woes, of people feeling burnt out with lich king looming and current content staring to pall, of leadership problems within people's existing raids and people who want to raid but can't seem to find their niche. I feel for the people experiencing these issues but I can't say I'm one of them. So I ask myself why?

Right now recruitment has never been better for the Drunken Badger raid. We have plenty of people applying to raid with us and a pretty solid regular roster. Why is this? I think it boils down to a couple of things:

Word of mouth
We've been successful (some might say very successful) in T5 and the word has got out. We went to Mt Hyjal for the first time this week and although we had quite a few undergeared subs due to the fourth of July holiday we downed both Rage Winterchill and Anetheron and came within decent distance of Kaz'rogal.

I could be ungracious and say that the Sunwell/T6 raiders are now seeing us as a good group to 'slum' with and do some raiding on their alts who aren't committed to more hard core raids. But there is actually at least one T6 experienced raider I know who has joined us in preference over their previous raid. Why?

Relaxed Attitude
Don't get me wrong - we take our raiding seriously. We're prepared, we address performance issues and we do our research, but we also enjoy a drink or two while we raid and have a good time, bringing our sense of humour to the raid as well as our consumables and etc. There has never ever been a situation where the raid leader has bawled anyone out on vent. We don't roll that way. If we wipe we assess the situation and tweak our strategy. We don't play the blame game and we don't call people out in a negative way in public channels. It's the whole group too, we don't tolerate total asshats no matter how well they're geared - everyone brings their A attitude with their A game. Which is not to say that I'm not sometimes gnashing my teeth by the end of the raid because we're all getting tired - but there is a strong level of mutual respect and maturity amongst the group so no-one freaks out. Well, really freaks out in a long-term bad affect on everyone kind of way hehe.

Raid scheduling
From what I can tell we are one of the few raiding guilds at the T5/T6 (we've just started T6 last week) level who only raid this content once a week. We have other Kara/ZA runs during the week and might throw together a random Gruuls/Mags but just the one T6 25 man raid. This makes it easier for a lot of people who can't commit to heavier schedules, which from what I read of the woes of those people who want to raid this content but are time poor, makes us a pretty attractive proposition.

Leadership
I've been reading Chick GM and Lume the Mad lately - two excellent blogs written by guild leaders, and their ruminations on leadership have got me thinking about the leadership within the Drunken Badgers. We don't precisely have an extremely structured hierarchy. We have 4 to 5 people who have been willing to take on leadership roles and they coordinate loot, raid strategies, performance issues and recruitment. But from where I'm sitting I feel that the guild, and the raid are run on reasonably democratic lines. We generally come up with a plan and then raise it with the guild/raiders where it affects them for discussion (although at the end of the day the leadership team will make a final call if required). An example of this approach is the way we moved to T6 content. It was stated that once 17/25 regular raiders voted to move to T6 then we'd do T5 for 2 more weeks and then move to T6. A thread was maintained in the forums and people who didn't post were polled in game. Once the requisite number was reached we moved. I believe this is a successful approach because people feel empowered - they are part of the decision making, there's no arbitrary ruling handed down from on high, the process is quite transparent. However - there are structures put in place by the leadership to facilitate this.

So I find myself in a good spot. I'm not feeling disillusioned with the pre-expansion blues because I'm working at and achieving things I want to within the game - seeing new content. I'm hoping to get a bear mount before the expansion simply because it's a goal to aim for. I think this comes down to being part of a group that's doing things successfully right now. I remember that pre-TBC I was subbing every week with a group doing MC/ZG/AQ-20 and that was kinda cool - but I was just a sub. I spent most of my time doing BG's because there didn't seem any point doing anything else. I think that's perhaps where a lot of people are at now. To be honest I kind of feel the amount of hype and overload of information about the expansion is partly to blame for people's growing feelings of ennui. I tend to ignore the flood of information out there, nothing is completely certain yet and I'm busy enjoying the here and now, the future will take care of itself.

Lassira over at The Hunter's Mark has made a couple of posts recently about being casual by circumstance and in the most recent post talks about leaving a guild if it's not going in the direction you want to be. I couldn't agree more. When TBC came out I was a member of a small guild of RL friends, we barely had enough toons to run instances let alone raid. I knew that I wanted to raid and the whole 'reset' of TBC was a good chance to start putting the wheels in motion to achieve that goal. A chunk of the guild had disappeared horde side and weren't interested in raiding really anyway so I convinced Emelin that we should leave, and leave we did, joining up with the Badgers who at the time had a grand total of 5 toons in their guild but had the same goals we did. It was the right choice to make. Be proactive in attaining your goals - you can make it happen I promise.

A few of my favourite things

Some of you were possibly tortured with The Sound of Music as children and may remember the tune for this little ditty


Serpent on rogues and viper on healers,
throwing a flare on those sneaky flag stealers.
Kiting those warriors and keeping up stings,
these are a few of my favourite things.

Snake laden traps and daze-dealing shots,
firing an Aimed to decrease all of those hots.
Keeping ahead of those Mortal Strike swings,
these are a few of my favourite things

Angry red Sooty all up in your grill,
fear doesn't work, so swallow that pill.
Fail to escape as my DPS sings,
These are a few of my favourite things

When the death coils, when the stun locks,
when I'm failing to kill.
I simply remember my favourite things,
and then I still feel the thrill

Fighting on nodes, defending those towers,
trapping and flaring for what seems like hours.
Thanking the pally for buffing with kings,
these are a few of my favourite things

Cookies from locks and tables from mages,
saving a healer from a warrior who rages.
Tracking the flag thief and using map pings,
these are a few of my favourite things

Destroying your totems and gimping your damage,
Sooty and I are on a battleground rampage.
Enjoying the rush that a critical shot brings,
these are a few of my favourite things

When the death coils, when the stun locks,
when I'm failing to kill.
I simply remember my favourite things,
and then I still feel the thrill

Will you blog about this song?

Yes. I couldn't resist.

Anyone who works in an industry that deals with the interwebs or just keeps across the happenings throughout the series of tubes should find this hilarious.

I give to you Here Comes Another Bubble v1.1

I'm quitting WoW, srsly

Yep you read that right. I'm quitting WoW because finally after so long a wait Hello Kitty Online is a reality! Fingers crossed I get into the closed beta which I've just signed up for.

Hehe ok I'm joking. Well about the quitting part, not so much about the signing up for the beta part.

Why do I find this so humourous? After years of participating in online gaming forums where the common response to a request for something perceived as extraneous or 'carebear like' was often 'What you're looking for are Hello Kitty Adventure Islands' (that's the Puzzle Pirate flavour). Now you really can link to the actual MMOG when making those kinds of responses!

My thanks to Typhoon Andrew for notifying me of this extremely important piece of breaking news ;)

Viva Le Ratsburgh

As a periodic Sims City player I couldn't resist providing a little help to the mayor of Ratsburgh.

Go here and help them get a tram or something!