Spoiler Alert: Wrathgate

I started the questline in Dragonblight for the Wrathgate the other day with Kikidas. I had so much fun, that I diverged a little from my 'let Boon set the pace on the paladins', by gently steering him in that direction.

In part so he could run into Ambo Cash and hear the immortal words of: "Why I'm not wearing any pants isn't important."

Saving helpless, terrified and trapped villagers... the epitome of paladin duties, was right up his alley. Especially after not liking killing the vyrkul prisoner with poison in Westguard Keep. Testing experimental poison remedies is not in the bylaws of paladin responsibilities. In fact, it's probably against our tenets.

But saving helpless, terrified and trapped villagers? Oh yeah.

Then of course, there's driving the giant tank. And the chain gun. Oh yes. The chain gun.

The best part is when we were trying to find the Legion front, we followed the directions, north out of town, hit the road, go west, then north on the Path of Titans. Right? Riiiight. Except if you diverge just slightly too far north before you hit the Path, by going around a hill north instead of south, you miss the camp. Then you ride up the Path, until it very abruptly ends with a death engendering drop into Crystalsong Forest.

Ah, I hear you think, but we're paladins. Such a thing cannot stand against Divine Shield!

You see, there was a short drop earlier. I simply made the leap and took the 1k damage. Boon shielded himself. When I teased him for being a pansy, he said this way he doesn't have to take any damage and saves on repair bills.

When we ran into the end of the road, I stopped because it looked suspiciously like there was no road beyond.

Boon lagged and kept on going. And then fell. And then screamed. Because his bubble was on cooldown. And then died.

And then I bubbled myself and jumped off. And rezzed him. Then asked him how his repair bill was looking.

*giggle*

We find the legion front. Luckily, the phylactery that we need to kill the lich in the Winterguard Mausoleum is right there. So we didn't get to do that part, but we'll do it later, because that quest line is just too good to not do again...

So we ride back and we go and kill the lich. Or rather, the lich makes us PALADINS cower in terror (right. We're paladins. We're so full of the Light we don't feel fear! Some would call that stupidity. We prefer to call it the Light.) and then Fordragon shows up, frees us from the terror *rawr* and we go to town and kick his undead ass back to dust.

And then we go find him at Fordragon Hold and then we go to see the dragons! If you know me at all, you know my three greatest loves are Richard, Dragons and My Little Ponies, and not necessarily in that order. So seeing the Wyrmrest Temple and the dragons and Alexstrasza...

Unfortunately, we had seen the cut scene before. I didn't know what it was a cut scene to necessarily before, but I had seen it. Knowing more of the story behind it and just WHO was dying made me tear up though. :(

Then of course... the meeting with Thrall! The invasion of the Undercity! Jaina putting the smackdown on the King. And then it just ends. Which felt very very anticlimatic.

It makes me wonder, do the Horde see the same cut-scene at the Wrathgate? Does Bolvar lead the charge? Or does Hellscream? Do they get to see the meeting between Jaina and Thrall? Do they also take part in the reclamation of the Undercity?

Any Hordies out there (and I know a few of you are visitors), please feel free to share your experiences with this quest line.

To Northrend I will go...

To Northrend I will go! Ho-ho the merry-o to Northrend I will go!

That's right, with a little over 1 weeks worth of blitz-leveling in Outlands (while working, no week off for me.), my DeathKnight dinged 68 yesterday and I hopped on the boat to Borean Tundra.

Why the Tundra? Because Seraphelia, my husband's DK, started there first and said there were a lot of nice upgrades right away.

I went ahead and respecced slightly. While leveling WITH Seraphelia (Blood DK), I didn't die much. She did the single-target burndown while I kept the massive amounts of mobs hitting me. She healed with Rune-Tap and I tried to stay alive with Bone Shield, Icy Fortitude and Death Strike.

When she left me *sob sob sob*, I discovered I'm a little more squishy than someone in plate should be, at least compared to how I was when I had someone else single-target killing things one by one.

So I went ahead and respecced with some points in blood for some single-target DPS goodness, and Rune Tap.

I don't have the Rage of Rivendare anymore or Unholy Blight. I will likely get them back, but I deemed it more important to have an 'eek, need health!' button and 'do more DPS with my big two hander' ability than those.

And I'm enjoying it. My Death Strike's heal for far more than they were doing, which is very nice.

I still have Beetlecrunch or Eyedrinker or Tombbreaker or ... oh, they change so frequently, who can keep up with their names other than to eagerly wait for them to spawn so you can laugh.

I... like... shiny.

Anyway... I also find myself at a quandry. People expect me to level fast. Hench the stable of 70's. But in reality, the first time through, I'm slower than expected. Because I read the quests and I have to discover where to go for the first time. Second time 'round, much much faster. No quest reading, go straight there, know what quests to have active all at the same time to increase the quest complete/time/area faster.

Not SLOW, but not as fast as I am the third, or even second, time around. The more times I do it, the faster I get.

But here I am, with 9 classes out in Northrend (I can't say 9 level 70s, not just yet. And my poor mage is still in Zangarmarsh. She's so much fun to play, I need to get her leveled up. I can do it, I just need the time.) and I can't settle on which one to level except for the DK. Because my goodness is she fun.

Boon says, "Just pick your main."

Yeah, that's an easy one. Resolve, the raiding guild that Kikidas is actually in, wants their members to be 80 by December 1st. Kikidas is only level 71. Why? Because I'm either leveling with Seraphelia and Keiji, or Boon and Kvasira.

Maybe I should level Kikidas with Boon.

But Kvasira is so much damn fun. Though honestly, sad though it may be, Kvasira solo's better than Kikidas. Which is not to say that Kikidas doesn't hose through things just fine, but she's a teensy bit squishy, and can't heal herself as fast as Kvasira can, and doesn't have a bubble...

And then there are my other 'mains', namely the priest and the druid. I haven't done anything with them, other than to get Kiljara out to Howling Fjord.

I feel like I'm letting both my guilds down by having fun with my new character. I'm not leveling Kikidas. I'm not leveling Kathe. I'm not leveling Kiljara.

I am leveling my Retribution Paladin and my Unholy/Blood Deathknight. Because the game is short on Ret Pallies and DK's. Really, very rare classes.

Yet as much as I feel like I'm letting down my guild... I also sit there and say, 'Damnit, it's my game too. I should be able to play what I want to play, instead of having to play what I feel I SHOULD play.'.

The evil giggle inside says, "Play your DK and laugh and laugh and laugh." -- besides which, Death Knight has so many neat party buffs and mob debuffs that they will be a nice addition to a raid/party group. Unholy mainly debuffs the mob so that everyone does more DPS to it, and Blood mainly buffs the party so that they do more DPS to the mob, as well as Blood Presence which heals people and their Rune Tap/Blood Tap?/Heal-Party abilities. Why can't this be my new 'main DPS'? Soooo much fun.

The contrary elitist inside says, "Play your Ret Pally because you were good BEFORE we were buffed/nerfed/buffed/nerfed. And it's fun to irritate people by being a good Ret Pally and snub your nose at the people saying, "go holy nub", by outDPSing them.

The good-little-guildie says, "You really need to focus on leveling Kikidas and Kathe, because Resolve needs their DPS and KoU needs their tank."

Now, some of this is also 'teh new', when I hit 70 with Kvasira, she's all I wanted to play. Because it was something 'new'. It tested my abilities and skills. It was so wonderful.

Now the DK is 'teh new', and now it's all I want to play, with Kvasira a middling second and my others a far third.

Arrrgh, rampant Altisms really IS bad for your health!

Things that make you go 'WTF?'

So, there are these poor hungry tuskarr people in Howling Fjord. Starving, in fact.

So hungry, they're willing to eat red meat instead of fish. Which is much less healthy for them, but healthier than starving apparently.

So they ask me to go out and find them some Island Shoveltusk Meat. Not any ol' Shoveltusk, they need the lean low fat Island Shoveltusk Meat.

So I go out and kill some Shoveltusk for them. And I'm evaluating the carcass...

And 'lo, the Island Shoveltusk .. has no meat. It is apparently, fur, skin, bones, fat and organs. But no skeletal muscle of any sort!

I find this oddity in several of the Island Shoveltusk, and wonder if maybe the Tuskarr would be better off eating the worg that are killing the Island Shoveltusk. A diet rich in fat, bones, organs and skin should make the worg have some high quality worg meat.

I am somehow reminded of when I was asked to kill murlocs in Southshore for their heads, and though it seems logical to assume that every murloc that I kill has a head... some of them apparently did not.

Makes you wonder, doesn't it?

OutDPS'd a Warlock...

Granted, I don't know what spec said warlock was, or what gear he was wearing (though Boon says high Tier, maybe a Helm of Bloodshed?) ...

But I out DPS'd him. (Granted, by 2%, but getting over 1100 DPS for my overall Utgarde Keep DPS... nummy)

It's a sad day for warlocks and a day of triumph for Retribution Paladins.

Unholy Deathknight: I can haz tank? I can be tank!

Keiji is unholy. Those that know me, should know how much giggling I've been doing since the expansion.

Tonight we went into four instances, the two Hellfire and the two Cenarion instances for low level 60's.

In the first two instances, we had a decent tank. I have discovered however, that being all I can be... equals aggro. Now, I love aggro. Healers hate it when it isn't focused on the tank. So my tank gave me 5. That is, 5 heals before he stopped healing me. :( No love, I tell ya...

So I had to turn down the pure evilness a little bit. Just a smidge. Sad Deathknight. :(

In our next set, we got another DK tank ... who ... really ... uh.

Held aggro... okay. Pulled oddly. And without the healer sometimes. And had broken armor. And didn't know the boss fights though s/he said, "I have three 70's, I know the fights."... yet stayed right next to Hungarfen when he spawned his mushrooms and when he covered himself in vines.
(I so had to bite my tongue and not say how many 70's I had... it was a heroic effort, really. You all should be proud.)
...
Yet pulled the hydra boss lengthwise down the side ramp where everyone was. Finally I taunted the damn thing to get it's head into a wall and it's ass away from the group of melee DPS that we all were.
...
Yet managed to aggro both the Bog Lord and the hunter-boss at the same time. We burned down the hunter, then I picked up Claw and Boon's DK picked up the Bog Lord.
...
And didn't know where to go to the last boss.
...
And lost aggro to Boon's DK on the Stalker, and then reset the boss on accident. When we asked why s/he reset it, when it was ALMOST dead, the response was, 'how, you can't reset'.
...
So we dropped her from the group, and I donned whatever stamina gear I had on me and proceeded to tank Slave Pens.

And O.M.G. *gigglefest*

So, you prepare the ground first with Death and Decay. Then you Death Grip the first mob to you.

While the other mobs are coming towards you, you prep this first mob with your two disease-generating attacks, Plague Strike and Icy Touch.

If you have enough rune energy for Unholy Blight, pop it.

When all the mobs are clumped around you, hit Pestilence (which spreads your disease to all of them from the first mob), then if you have enough rune energy, Blood Boil.

As always, Scourge Strike, Blood Strike or especially if you're tanking, Death Strike.

When the first one goes down, Corpse Explode if you have it. Blood Boil as often as you can.

Keep your diseases up. Keep Death and Decay up. Desecrated Ground should have proc'd by now.

Blood Boil. Corpse Explode.

They stay glued to you. We had a moonkin AoEing and not budging them.

Don't forget - Frost Presence. We don't have the group buff version of it, but it'll jump not only your health points, but increase your threat generated.

Also don't forget Bone Shield when it's available. And Icebound Fortitude.

And have fun. Because ... *giggle*

Where I am at the end of BC...

I'm stealing this idea from Hydra over at Almost Evil, in part. I'm not going to list all my gear, because there aren't enough hours in the day! However, I am going to list my played/time spent @ 70.

Because I can can can! Keep in mind that all my NE's and my Human were 60 for some time before BC came out, so their time played is elevated slightly.

Kikidas: 49d, 10h, 48m. @70: 34d, 5h, 15m
Kava: 32d, 22h, 56m. @70: 5d, 4h, 43m
Kathe: 30d, 9h, 27m. @70: 15d, 16h, 7m
Kiya: 29d, 2h, 12m. @70: 5d, 18h, 21m
Kiljara: 26d, 20h, 28m. @70: 8d, 11h, 2m
Keyami: 24d, 18h, 51m. @70: 3d, 16h, 41m
Kvasira: 19d, 19h, 51m. @70: 8d, 23h, 25m
Karika: 10d, 0h, 0m. @70: 0d, 11h, 15m
Karitei: 6d, 15h, 16m. @62: 0d, 1h, 16m (1/2 level)

Spoiler Alert: Do not read if you plan on being a DK

DO NOT READ IF YOU PLAN ON DOING THE DEATHKNIGHT QUESTLINE

Was that clear enough? Good, if you read further than I will assume that you understand that I will be talking in specific about some Deathknight quest lines and cool things. And you lose all right to complain about spoilers.

So. DO NOT READ IF YOU PLAN ON DOING THE DEATHKNIGHT QUESTLINE.

Unless you want spoilers.

The entire area was beautifully done, and the questlines made me want to drink puppy blood and brought back happy memories of being a warlock. Only more evil. It was grand.

The thing I liked best about the overall area was that as you quested, things CHANGED. People weren't where they were anymore as the quest lines had them moving forward to do other things. The town changed. As you finish one quest and turn it back in, you then go back out and things CHANGED according to where you were in your particular quest line.

I went back out to the beginning town and after I got my Deathcharger, noted that the place where there used to be horses and citizens and soldiers was now an area populated by ghouls and Deathchargers and lots and lots of dead bodies.

Likewise, in New Avalon, the area goes from being populated by a few crusaders and citizens, and then you discover that the armies of the Scarlet Crusade were approaching, you fly back out on the back of a giant frost drake, which was an awesome introduction to mounted, mobile combat, by the way, and suddenly New Avalon is populated with siege engines and roving bands of crusaders. That you can EAT.

Other eye-popping moments! Baron Rivendare. :) Mograine. :) I presume the same Mograine that we kill in the Scarlet Monastery? You're greeted by the Lich King. The flying Valkyrie battle-maidens, even though they're called not quite Valkyrie. It fits in with the whole Norse-theme of Northrend.

I was beginning to worry about how the story line would explain how my DeathKnight could be allied with the Alliance? I mean, DAMN. I go around killing running citizens who are pleading for their lives and I'm supposed to just meander around the world partying with paladins? Huh?

And then I worried, if we turn traitor or somesuch, how can we return to Ebon Hold to use the Runeforge and the trainers? I was quite worried.

And then comes the battle at Light's Hope Chapel. I saw Tirion Fordring and went, "Uh. That can't be good. We can't kill Tirion?! I SAW HIM IN NORTHREND NOT 10 MINUTES AGO ON MY PALADIN!"

Boon had to explain it to me, that even though we had 9000 Scourge units and only 182 Lights Hope units, we lost because Tirion TURNED OFF the Ashbringer that Mograine was carrying. I'm not that big into lore, but apparently the Ashbringer is a big deal.

And then a kodak moment happens where Mograine's father appears and the two hug and talk about how good a man of the Light Mograine is. And then the Lich King appears and Mograine tries to whack him, with the results you'd expect. *THWAK*.

And then LK tries to take out Fordring. And Mograine gives Fordring the Ashbringer and Fordring THWAKs LK! And LK runs away like the little girl he is to Northrend.

And Mograine says that the Knights of the Ebon Hand (that's us DK's) are now against the LK! We'll always be Deathknights, but no longer do we have to be murdering psychopaths (aw... shucks.)... now we get to be slaughtering psychopaths in alliegance to the Alliance. And we go and take over Ebon Hold. It's ours. Rawr.

All in all, a FUN FUN FUN beginning. The saddest moment was when I had to kill apparently my old friend in the prison in New Avalon. He recognized my face tentacles.

Spoilers are called spoilers for a reason...

When we have, time and again, gently dissuaded people from telling us what cool new thing they saw on the beta forums, by saying, "We're wanting to wait for the xpac to come out so we can see it for ourselves.", it isn't just polite nonsense.

We really mean, "We're wanting to wait for the xpac to come out so we can see it for ourselves.".

When we say this, almost every day, to the same few people who seem to insist on telling us what new cool thing they learned about Death Knights or Northrend, we continue to say, "We're wanting to wait for the xpac to come out so we can see it for ourselves."

You would think the hint would be taken.

I don't know what spoiler Boon was given today, but I came home from work and he was LIVID. After telling someone that he didn't want to hear about what cool new thing the fellow saw, the fellow proceeded to then TELL HIM anyway.

They're called SPOILERS for a reason. They SPOIL the fun and excitement.

Guess what?

If we wanted to know what cool new thing was on the beta forums today, guess what we would have done?

Bingo, we'd have gone to the beta forums ourselves! Or we'd have encouraged your 'Guess what I saw on the beta forums?!' with 'Oh, what did you see?' as opposed to, 'We don't want to know, because we want to wait and see for ourselves.'.

The next person who disregards my and Boon's wishes in this manner is going to have 'Mean K' unleashed on their head.

Likewise... the next person who bombards Boon with 'Hey, Boon! Come do this!' 2 seconds into his logging in will also get a nasty snarling at.

Boon logs in to play himself. To play what he wants. To do what he wants. If he's on and asks, "Does anyone need anything?" or being Boon, he knows people are looking for something in particular and he organizes with them to do something, that's one issue.

If he says, "No thanks." and then you wheedle and poke until he finally gives in, that's something else entirely.

In the span of a single day, he had to respec TWICE. He went Ret to play around with and have fun. No raids were scheduled. He wanted to do dailies and get a feel for the OMGWTFOPness of Ret Paladins (*sob*) and then got pestered into healing for someone, after he said no.

Enough is enough people. Play your game. Let us play ours. If you push too far, you're going to notice that Boon no longer logs in. This is already happening. He logs in, gets pestered, and logs right back out and goes to the XBox.

Stop. It. Or. I. Keel. You.

Shadows of Doom

The Scourge Invasion is still ongoing. And with the chance for the Shadows to drop not only epics, but 30 stones, competition for the Shadows can be tough when there are multiple groups running the same invasion point.

However.

As the event goes on, there is becoming less and less competition for the invasion points and for the shadows themselves. People have their gear and their trinkets and their tabards.

So.

If you see that one group has pulled a shadow and is killing it, and you say to yourself, "This would be a great time to spawn my OWN shadow!", think again.

Because invariably, group 1 may have issues (and if you spawn a second shadow, it's guaranteed that they will have issues, because that is the way the universe likes to laugh at us) and not kill their shadow, and then that shadow will reset and because the shadows are linked, it will reset and come STRAIGHT for you.

And then there will be two shadows sitting around and keeping people from either spawning their own OR killing one of them.

Now, the smart thing to do would be to help group 1 with their kill to ensure it's dead before starting your own spawn. And maybe group 1 will then help you. Even if they're not on the same 'side'. (It's all us vs. the Scourge though.)

The stupid thing to do would be to spawn a second shadow when the first group is having an issue with theirs.

An even stupider thing to do would be to spawn a THIRD shadow when the first two go hightailing it off after someone trying to pull just one of them. Because in a short while, you're going to have THREE of the damn things on you.

You don't want to know what I think of spawning a fourth shadow. But I have seen it happen. And they're lucky there is a computer and the internet between me and them, or they'd have a coffee mug thrown at their heads.

If there are two shadows out, try to COORDINATE (such a hard thing to do, it involves typing, I think) with the other team so each of you grabs one at the same time. Or group up and see if you can take both together.

Be kind. Be courteous. I'm not saying don't TRY to spawn one and kill it, but if you see that one is spawned and it isn't going down very fast, maybe instead of rushing to grab your own, see if you can lend a hand.

Because yeah, maybe you'll miss out on a shadow of your very own, but guess what? You aren't going to get ANY if the shard has four unclaimed shadows of doom guarding it.

Just sayin'.

Shamanistic Healing

As a birthday present to me, my wonderful husband put aside his dislike of the leveling grind and he leveled two levels with me to get my shaman to 70.

I have been a restoration shaman since Hellfire. During that time, I discovered that ... I could hardly be killed. Earth Shield + Totems = Longest Fight Ever but at the end.. I'm alive, have mana and life, and you don't. I win. And by that I mean I'd regularly pull four or five things and just plug away at it.

Was it the fastest ever? No. Was it as slow as leveling my holy/disc priest? No.

I discovered I could keep someone alive and we could duo at level 59-60 the Drillmaster.

I discovered that I could keep someone alive and we could duo the Colossals.

As I started to instance, I discovered that shaman healing is ... kind of boring. *yawn* Until the fit hits the shan, then it's crazy healing time.

When the patch hit, I discovered that shaman healing is ... even more boring. Riptide, the healing weapon enchant whose name I cannot remember at this time, improved Earth Shield.

However, I am enjoying myself. You may be saying... 'but you just said it was boring!'.

Well. Yeah. But so is healing in general as anything but a paladin or druid. Paladins are almost always casting, due to the nature of their method of healing. Druids are also almost always casting, due to the nature of their method of healing.

Disc/Holy priests aren't always casting. At least not anymore thanks to the nerf of downranking. And neither are Resto Shaman. So I have two healers that spend a lot of time wondering if maybe they shouldn't do some DPSing instead.

This suits my personality just fine. :) I likey the DPSy.

And for the people out there who tell me to respec my ret paladin as something 'useful'. Shut your faces.

I have two tanks. Two healers. Multiple DPS.

So shut it. And let me play.

Er, but that was a bit of a sidetrack!

My leveling fight! It was epic. It was grand! I was trying to find Ashgar, in SMV. I knew where he was and I was hoping I could just zerg through the undead and find him, have most of them reset and be able to just kill him, maybe one or two more.

I wound up fighting EIGHT at once. I started with four, because you hit a mountain wall and can't reset them, stupid mountain. And then I got feared into another group. After that, I put down a tremor totem.

And Ashgar healed himself three times because my cooldown was always up because I was usually just done healing myself.

But I downed him. And then I downed another. And another. Searing Totem = Love. Mana Totem = Love. Earth Shield = UberLove.

I was running low on mana, needing to keep Earth Shield up rather than Water Shield. But I persevered. And you'd think that sometime between kill #1 and kill #8 I'd have leveled, since I was really THAT CLOSE. But no...

#8 dies, with me at no mana, and half life and what do I see? DING. Full mana and life bars. Because it couldn't have come EARLIER.

And then I went and healed Steamvaults. The only problem I had was with the first naga boss. I lost two of our three DPS to the elementals and the lightning storm that none of them moved out of. But I kept the tank up (barely in some cases) and we survived.

The other shaman I was with who shall remain nameless... didn't have any ankhs, so couldn't reincarnate. He was teased mercilessly for that.

After that, it was a cakewalk. The only time it got close to losing someone else was when I the mage pyroblasted herself (or something else that took half her life) on Kalithresh.

My current conundrum is, with as rarely as I cast Healing Wave, is it better to just use Lesser Healing Wave as needed? The buff Healing Wave gives to future healing waves doesn't last long enough for me to wait to get another heal in. It hardly seems worth it. What with Riptide and Earthshield...

I use Riptide on the tank because this way, splash damage to the other melee can be quickly healed with a boosted chain heal.

But, my shaman looks COOL too. I mean, seriously cool. As in droolworthy cool.

As does Kikidas, who is wearing the Robes of the Sin'Dorei and has a new 'do, though she kept her red tresses. But she looks less like she has helmet hair and more like she's a runway model. Heehee.

Non WoW: An epiphany about aging...

I try to not post non-WoW related things in this blog. But this one, I want to share.

My epiphany came about because my birthday was this last November 5th.
****
I'm never going to get younger.

Every year, I'm going to get slower, heavier, weaker and less flexible unless I do something about it NOW.

My metabolism is never going to be what it was when I was 16. I can't count on some nebulous internal fat-burning machine to do it for me anymore. If I don't get off my ass, soon it'll be too big for me to get out of the chair.

I will never be my mother. Which is something of a shame because my mother is AWESOME. She somehow manages to clean the house, walk the dog, feed my father, work, do the laundry, clean the SPARE ROOM THAT NO ONE EVER GOES INTO but needs to be cleaned anyway because it's there, make extra food to freeze for when she won't be home to feed my father, make the bed, walk the dog again, clean the kitchen, vacuum the house and have a glass of wine after dinner... all in one day. And she still has time to do sudoku and sit outside and smoke (bad mom, BAD!) and watch soap operas.

She's SuperMom.

I can however, strive to be a bit less like a pre-teen in my habits and my house-hold-cleanliness. I won't ever be UberMom. I should stop feeling like a failure when I can't do what my mother does. My life is different.

I should however, not use the 'I can't do it! Wah' as an excuse to stop trying. It didn't work when I was a pre-teen, it should not hold true now that I don't have my mother pushing me to finish what I start or do something time consuming but important, like filling the dishwasher rather than putting the dishes in the sink.

FlyLady worked for me once, then I got overwhelmed with life, cancer, school, and etc, etc, excuse, excuse. I can go back to it and make it work again.

And if I don't do it NOW. I won't do it. So I start NOW.

People shouldn't make New Years resolutions. Because it's just a day. It's just another year. So many of those pass on.

We should make Birthday Resolutions. Because I am 29 years old now.

So what if it's 2008, 2009.. whatever. But I'm almost 30. Holy shit. I'm almost 30.

My mental projection of myself is that I'm still in my early twenties. If I make a character in a tabletop game, she's invariably 21, 22 or 23. So, I see myself. But I'm almost 30.

I theorhetically should have spent the last 30 years building up good habits about life and how I live my life that I don't have to think about it anymore, I just do it. Unfortunately, I didn't. So I have to start now.

FlyLady is a great resource, not just for how to keep your house clean and get it clean without burning out on cleaning or looking at the radioactive danger zone your house is and saying, "There's no way I can clean all of this!". You do it in small steps. You start small. You grow step by baby step. You don't try to do TOO much in one day, because you'll become discouraged.

I won't get my house clean in one day. I won't get into a work out routine that I can stick to in one day. I won't lose 10 pounds in one day.

I can clean my kitchen sink today. I can do the Sun Salutation today. I can drink plenty of water today and stay away from the CupCakes that some well-meaning but horrible person brought into work today.

Today I woke up, 30 minutes later than I wanted to, and had to force myself out of bed. Not because I was TIRED, but because I didn't want to get up. Because I had told myself this morning I was going to START.

As a result, I got up, showered, got dressed and then still made myself do the things I told myself I was going to do.

I wiped down the bathroom surfaces and floor. Wet pet fur, yuck.

I emptied the dishwasher. I put new dishes in the dishwasher.

I put things that needed to soak off caked on crap full of hot water and set them on the newly cleaned off kitchen table, so that when I get home from work, I can rinse them out and either put them in the dishwasher, or wash them and put them away.

I partially cleaned out the sink that all that stuff was sitting in, but had to leave for work. (The reason I didn't want to wake up at 7:45, but rather wanted to wake up at 7. Now I have to do that when I get home, yet.)

This afternoon, before I log into WoW or do my NaNoWriMo for the day, I'm going to do at LEAST 5 minutes of stretching and yoga.

I am 29 years old. It's time to start living.

Dungeon Extravaganza!

Who says my husband doesn't listen to me?

My concern that I won't get to see the inside of some of the dungeons in outlands with my shaman and mage was indeed heard!

Yesterday, a group consisting of Vialora the 69 retribution paladin, Diathim (Boon) the 67 enhancement shaman, Merlaina the 67 fire mage, Balendin the 67 protection warrior and Karika (me!) the 67 restoration shaman went on a dungeon slaughter-spree.

We zerged Underbog and Slave Pens. Then we hit Auchenai Crypts... then Mana Tombs... then Sethekk Halls.

All with no CC. Due in large part to the nerf of the game and the boost to tank threat. We waltzed through the instances. Part of it was awesome DPS. Part of it was awesome tankage. I'd say part of it was awesome healing, but really? Restoration shaman, unless the fit hits the shan, is *yawn*. Earth Shield.. refresh Earth Shield. Riptide maybe. Maybe a lesser healing wave or chain heal. Refresh Earth Shield.

The only time I was having problems was at the very end, when everyone was dead tired and people weren't waiting for the tank to have aggro or for me to even mark the kill order! Thank goodness for Reincarnation. :P

The Nerfing of Burning Crusade (rant)

First of all... I want to apologize in advance because the tone of this post is going to seem elitist.

I am frustrated with the nerfing of the Burning Crusade. I understand the reasons they had to do it, to get rid of crushing blows, reduce the need for chain-potting, etc.

But I am frustrated. I worked really hard on some of my characters for some of the gear that I have. Do I want to be the only one to get the gear? No. I'm happy for people who get upgrades! It's exciting for everyone involved!

But the other day a new 70 retadin in my guild got into BLACK TEMPLE.

BLACK F-ING TEMPLE.

Wearing blues and a few epics.

He got upgrades, which is great for him! I'm happy. Part of it was that he's friends with people who raid BT. But without the nerf... he'd not have gotten to go until he did the whole dance routine of upgrades. Even in a guild that raided BT regularly pre-nerf, he'd have to have a certain minimum of gear before they'd take him in, right?

Maybe not, because there are people who have always gotten into raids they did not have the gear to compete in.

But I look at that and something inside dies just a little bit as I look at Kvasira and I think of all the work I did in upgrading her gear to compete in a raid and make her raid viable in terms of DPS, not just raid saving or buffing.

And then I look at the gear level of people who are in Karazhan, and SSC and BT and ...

*sigh*

Normally, I could care less about it. It's just that I worked so frikkin hard to get Kvasira geared up... and all my work... I should have just waited for the nerf bat to hit BC and paid some guild to let me run with them in BT. I'd have gotten better gear for less work.

Now, I do NOT think that PvP gear or badge gear are 'welfare epics'. You work HARD for that gear, both in terms of running heroics (or even Karas) until you have the badges you need to upgrade a single piece of gear, as well as running countless battlegrounds (and if you're Alliance... losing countless battlegrounds) to upgrade a single piece of gear. Even if it isn't 'hard' in terms of skill (face it, we've all run with people who can't tell their ass from their elbow in a heroic or a battleground... they get the same amount of badges and honor (not quite, they changed honor gains in BG's) as the people who are doing their jobs...) - it's still a lot of time dedicated to running heroics and battlegrounds.

(And yes, yes, yes, I know, people dedicate a lot of time to raiding and just because you're in a raid doesn't mean you'll get every single drop that would benefit you, don't try to trip me up with the nittygritty details. This is a rant, damnit, logic has no place here!)

I guess I have a problem with the perception that people don't have to work as hard as I did to get to the same place.

Because people look at my gear, be it badge rewards or pvp rewards, and know exactly what I had to do to get that.

Someone carried (or not carried with the nerf bat) through BT or some other insane place like that and gets the gear... people look at that gear and say, "Woah, that guy raids BT!".

*sigh*