Juicycrunch Carrots, I Hate You

OMG! I know, your poor eyes! Okay, it’s not quite as bad as the BC era but it was still a shock to be throwing on anything that came your way. You can even tell the boots are still Cata. Cat doesn’t come out of Cat form at all right now if she can help it.

Yes, the servers came down just as I was going to recoup all the money I stupidly spent on those Juicycrunch Carrots. I wanted to get started on my cooking and the first agility food requires them. I think the questgiver told me that the Verman in the area might carry them. I don’t know where she got her information but it’s bad. No carrots anywhere. I soon tired of that and paid 200 gold for five carrots.

After that I then realized that I’d been given a token just for saying hi to her when I arrived at the Halfhill Market. I checked, and yes, you can buy a giant bag of carrots with a token. So anyway, I hope everyone isn’t reading up on carrot buying techniques while the servers are down because if they are, I’m not going to be able to make a killing in the carrot market.

Yes, Navi and I have it bad. There we are searching for Spirit Crabs, and not just ANY Spirit Crabs would do, no, we want rare ones. I think it was some ungodly hour of the night for Navi and my husband was waiting for me to pick him up from the repair shop. In my defense, it’s also a Harley dealership and I thought he might enjoy the time to look around, right, don’t you think? I finally came to my senses and left to get him but I was happy to hear Navi didn’t give up and got a rare crab. Pet Battling’s no joke, you must search all corners of the world getting just the right pets!

So I was stealthing around looking for quest items to collect. I see this sparkly thing right next to this guy so I’ll have to kill him. Only then did I notice he had a name and was a rare! Yay! He didn’t drop anything I needed but I did get an achievement,  A Worthy Opponent. Morgrinn was a rather easy opponent, so thanks for standing in the way there. Turns out it wasn’t even my quest item.

Been having a great time. There is even an upside to the masses of people killing all the quest mobs. My skinning and leathercrafting is leveling effortlessly because they leave great heaps of beasts to skin, so I don’t mind waiting for the respawns.

Servers are supposed to be up in 12 minutes, I’d better prepare. Want to be the first one on listing my overpriced carrots. Hey, do me a favor and don’t tell anyone they can just buy a bag of them with a token. It will be our little secret, okay?

Pandaria — The Cupboard is Full Again

I don’t know if anyone else does this, but sometimes I put off grocery shopping too long. I mean it would be fine if I could buy whatever I want, but it’s tedious avoiding fun food and trying to only bring home healthy stuff. So I procrastinate. What results is constant checking of cupboards. Maybe I missed some lone box of cookies stuck in the back. Maybe there’s a forgotten ice cream sandwich in the bottom of the freezer.

That’s what Cata had become for me, endless searching for one stale old twinkie, although I’m not sure twinkies get stale and they could be classified as food, but never mind you know what I mean.

TA DA! The cupboard is FULL again! I have vegetables, fruit, and ding dongs! I don’t know how long all this is going to last, but right now I’m eating it all! I mean I tripped over a log yesterday and got exalted with the Pearlfin Jinyu! Fifty exalted completed! And I know, I said I wasn’t interested in pet battles, but yeah … pet battles!

Yeah rabbit … you feeling my chicken … come at him … I dare you.

Okay, got to go. Just wanted to say hi, I took some pictures of me eating my veggies and Ho hos!

Note: Sorry Hostess, didn’t mean to pick on you. Really, I have fond memories of you from my youth.

Ask The Ancient — Males in Peril

I hadn’t planned on an “Ask the Ancient” at a momentous time like this. We’re on the verge of entering a new world for the first time but considering the gravity of the situation, it must be done.

I was totally unaware that a situation even existed, but exist it must. Search terms do not lie. I speak of embarrassing male deaths. Really? Is this happening? I’m sure I had no hand in it. But I decided to look into it, maybe I could find a clue to what might be causing it.

scary as hell ponies? No, I don’t see how those would be dangerous, or embarrassing, moving on. Okay, now I do see a pattern emerging. Hmmm,  phosphorescent underwear, I don’t know, what kind of chemicals would they use to make them? Could cause a rash I suppose. Could they ignite? Spontaneous combustion? Just saying.

Oh, here we go, my husband likes to be nude. Yes, what can you do. Those males like to get up to silly hijinks like that. Well seriously, that’s why you have to love them. And most popular nude accident. Popular?

Okay, as far as I can make out there must have been a bad shipment of phosphorescent underwear that human males wore while riding hell ponies. They must have spontaneously combusted, leaving them nude and somewhat singed at the very least, which would be a nude accident for sure. There, I solved the mystery. Human males! Stay away from those sparkly undies! Very dangerous! Go au naturel to be safe, avert disaster! We don’t want to lose you! And stay away from hell ponies too, just in case.

Whew, there. Duty done. WHAT? You expected something that made sense TODAY? Oh please, not happening. Not even a chance. Anyway, search terms don’t lie. Be careful out there.

Shared Topic — Three Must-Haves

Matty of Sugar & Blood asks:

With the new patch, and all the new things coming, what are three things that you will absolutely not leave behind? Consider these three objects your virtual backpack- the twist is, a tiny story to go along with each item.

This is harder than I thought, apparently I have a lot of must-haves but I finally narrowed it down.

Haunted Memento is definitely in the top three. I loved the Scourge Invasion event, while many didn’t my bank alt saw it as a challenge. She skulked around Darnassus at odd hours attempting to keep trade flowing. As it turned out no one was buying so she finally succumbed. Catwynn went out in the world  searching for Necropolis invasions and obtained some nice armor that she now regrets not hanging on to. Luckily she’s still got her creepy sidekick for hanging around on street corners frightening the unwary.

Essence-Infused Moonstone was part of the Druid flight quest line. After you received it you could summon Anzu back when he wasn’t just standing there undefended.  Anyone who wanted a shot at Anzu needed to find a Druid for the group. I carry this to remember the people who helped me complete the line and also because after 158 tries I GOT YOU BIG BIRD! After reaching an appropriate level, I used to go in there alone and get ping-ponged around and beaten to a pulp before I even got to Anzu. He’s paying for that now. I never let him rest. All those mounts I have, do I give him a day off? No. Revenge is sweet, run, Anzu, run!

Iron Boot Flask I carry around as a reminder of Storm Peaks, I loved that zone. I loved The Drakkensryd quest, even my Ironman did it. Another important function it performs is forcing me to fish at least five minutes, although I like to fish I don’t like to fish very long. So it’s my fishing egg timer, while transformed I must fish. It is the rule. No exceptions.

Er … A Small Miscalculation

Yeah, this again. Look how she’s matured. No more showing her garters, she’s just a lean, mean, killing them slowly while sometimes successfully staying alive machine. I do not have a handle on her skills but don’t really seem to care because I’m having fun. I thought it would be something enjoyable to do while waiting for the expansion. I may have miscalculated here.

I may have to start staying up nights so I can be in three worlds, and sometimes, I’m really phoning it in in the real one. I had no expectations as I wasn’t familiar with Guild Wars. Time will tell, as I have a track record of taking a three or four month break on a new game and then losing interest, but so far GW2 has done so much right, at least for me.

Dynamic events rather than quests, remind me of what I liked about Rift. You’re wandering around out in the wilderness all alone, minding your business, chopping down trees. A call goes out! A location is under attack! You rush off to help, you’re outnumbered, doesn’t look good! By the end you’ve got twenty people helping you take down the big bad whatever. So far these impromptu groups have been fun, polite and stress free.

Grouping with strangers in WoW is not stress free for me. I’m always scrunched up waiting for the insults and accusations to fly, so much so that I avoid most groups of strangers other than quick holiday bosses. For whatever reason this doesn’t seem to happen at these dynamic events. I’m not high enough level for the first instance so I don’t know if this will carryover in dungeons.

There seems to be more of a spirit of cooperation rather than competition. If you help someone out you both complete. The big chest at the end of a boss kill, everyone loots. I don’t know if the quality of the loot is determined by contribution but I love the idea. Same with nodes. If you see a silver node and someone arrives before you and mines it, no problem. It’s still there for you, it doesn’t disappear until YOU mine it. This is so wonderful it’s indescribable!

I haven’t seen much of the world, but what I have is beautiful. I got visually drunk in the The Grove, the Sylvari Capital City. I just sat here irl awed. There appears to be a very vast world to explore and when I go to the areas I’ve outleveled, with level scaling I won’t be running through bonking level 5s on the head. I’ll be scaled down too!

There’s a lot here to like. I’ve downed the Kool-Aid, ate the brownies … whatever … I really like it. I may have to come up with a schedule. Even days there … odd days here … mornings in Azeroth, or no maybe … oh boy, this could get complicated.

Scenarios and Surprises!

OMG! OMG! Theramore’s burning, quick get … what? What do you mean that’s so five minutes ago? Yeah, so I’m a little late to the party. And that I managed to survive the party at all was thanks to JD at Amateur Azerothian. He has the patience of a saint, being Saintvache on occasion that’s no surprise. Yesterday we got in the scenario and then the server restart message appeared. I think we got to the end of phase three and poof.

This morning we queued once again. Success! Okay, you 400+ iLevel wearing people won’t get this but crap, what would happen if three iLevel 353 dps showed up for one of those? I don’t think it’d be pretty. No seriously you guys, take a bunch of your clothes off, about 45 iLevels, you’ll see what I mean. What? No, it’s not a devious Catwynn plot to get you all naked! Of course not!

Anyway, thank you Tum! I wouldn’t have made it without you! I think part of my problem is that Cat is my favorite character by far but I hate melee dps. Quite a conflict, I guess I just like her personality. Maybe I should try it with my Warlock who squeaks by with an iLevel 358 and see how it feels.

So while waiting in the queue I got a whisper! It was from Kallixta of Kallixta’s Notes! She he was here! I never know the proper etiquette, should you use the character’s gender or the handler’s? Anyway, this was so exciting, I was Kallispammed! It’s like it’s spreading! Yay! I didn’t get to chat long but I was thrilled to learn of Kalligrafi, Horde side. So hopefully Sasche and Kalli will be able to get together later. All this excitement before the dog walk even! So a red letter day! I’m going to go check the mail, maybe I won a sweepstakes or something too … hey … it could happen!

Madness Has Set In

Yes, I seem to have come completely unhinged.  I was doing so well waiting for Mists but now I’m just getting squirrelly. While I love companion pets I’ve been happy in the past to just let them accumulate slowly. I’ll occasionally go farm for one of the rare ones with little success, it’s okay though I like Feralas.

I recently realized I hadn’t bought the Hyjal Bear Cub so added him to my collection, then The Godmother had a post mentioning Mr. Grubbs who I had not known about. That made 146, apparently that’s my tipping point. Cat contacted Sasche and asked her to purchase anything she could afford which wasn’t very nice. The Horde characters aren’t rolling in money like Cat is. Sasche could afford one so that made 147.

OMG! Only three left! Checked the AH and the bank alt said it would cost me … a lot. MUST HAVE my Celestial Dragon right now! Here’s the lunacy part, I immediately bought three pets from the Blizzard store. I’m keeping this to myself, I don’t think my non-gaming husband would understand. I spent real live money so my virtual characters wouldn’t be inconvenienced by having to spend THEIR virtual money on their virtual pets.

Yes, I know! It makes sense to me too. But still, I’m not telling him. Pretty sure he wouldn’t get it. Probably should go back to Tyria and stay out of trouble there until Theramore. Yeah, how much trouble could I get into there.

Tyrian Vacation

Pssst! Over here. Yeah … it’s me. I’m a strapping young Norn Necromancer who’s … wearing a garter on one leg? Yeah, I’m not sure what that’s about either, kind of came with the outfit. Personally I don’t really think a Necromancer would use a fashion accessory like that, but that’s just me.  I think she’s more the necklace of dead kittens type.

So anyway while I wait for next Tuesday I’m going to investigate Tyria. Seems a lovely place for a vacation. As usual I didn’t want to wait to actually learn anything about GW2 before playing, so there were some head-scratching moments early on today. I mean I got that you could use those portal thingys to move from place to place but I kept standing on them wondering if I had to say a magic word or what. OH! Use the map! Okay, got that.

Became concerned when I changed my weapon and then realized all my spells seemed to be gone. At this point I did break to look that one up. Working as intended. That means I’d been spamming a stun at them, no wonder they wouldn’t go down.

Anyway, just wanted to send a postcard from my vacation! Having a great time! Wish you were here! I’ll be back.

Starting Fresh … Wait … How?

Having decided not to whine about xrealm servers because of some really nice features, I thought I’d start a character and see if there would be any impact. This is what I found. Hello … hello, human aggressors? Anyone home? THEY’RE ALL DEAD, JIM Zilaah! Okay, Okay, don’t get your knickers in a twist, you already had your allotted rant, just do another quest and come back when there’s a sign of life.

Hello? Burning Blade? I’m here to join your cult, coven, whatever. Where’s the welcome wagon … hallooooo … okay, now I’m getting flashbacks to my first character. I started playing WoW on a Hunter on a server that was a week old. I don’t remember what level she finally got her first pet but she was pretty old. There were so many people around who kindly “saved” her from the animal who was beating her up while she tried to tame it.

Pretty much everywhere I went I arrived to find nothing but carnage before me. Is there some psychotic level 85 rampaging through the starter zones? It’s not the time of day, its afternoon. Okay fine, I’ll go collect Crocolisk Teeth, crocolisk’s are bountiful I’ll have no problem … nope. Yay! They left me some quilboar, there’s one done.

In all fairness I have no idea if the scarcity of quest mobs was due to xrealm servers. My very unscientific study results could have been caused by an overzealous killing machine who lives on my server. The strange thing about it was I never saw them. It was like they were following me from in front of me, no mean feat.

Zilaah soon became frustrated and returned to town. She sat in Razor Hill doing some thinking. It was clear she might have to amend her chosen career path if this situation continued. Last I talked to her she was thinking of setting up shop and leveling by taking in washing and darning socks, poor thing.

And as for me, I’m moping too. I just found out my husband is going to take a few days off. The few days BEFORE his birthday. I think he does this to get out of any possible office celebration. That’s fine and I’m happy for him, there’s only one thing. His birthday? September 27. He will be home on September 25th. He will want to do stuff, stuff that I probably can’t participate in from in front of the computer … OH NO OH NO OH NO noooooooo …

Xrealm — A Visit from Mini Changed my Mind

I had this whole post thought out. I was going to be whinging and moaning about xrealm servers. I was going to say that I don’t want to sound like I don’t appreciate all the company, but I don’t appreciate all the company. I was going to talk about the fact that when I went to Silithus to farm for a Disgusting Oozeling, there was NOT ONE Dredge Crusher or Striker or dredge ANYTHING left. They’d all been slaughtered already. There were people in Silithus! YES SILITHUS!

Enough! Enough with all the company already! But I’ve totally changed my mind. I now love xrealm servers.

Cat received a party request which she accepted, who could this be? Yeah, yeah, work with me here. Pretend I don’t know. Cat meets up with her in front of Stormwind, she’s a beautiful Draenei who I’ll call Mini! Mini and Cat flew across Elwynn Forest, Mini was interested in visiting Tekton so we headed to Agee Tyler’s cosey mountain cabin.

Cat admired the beautiful Draenei Mage’s look so much she decided to copy it.

Aren’t they lovely. They continued on to visit Agee, chatting and excitedly anticipating petting Agee’s Docile Sheep. On arrival they found something amiss. Although all the sheep considered themselves to be sheep, many were actually pigs, although Mini and Cat politely refrained from mention of it. No one called the pigs out over their deception.

They talked and danced and enjoyed the view. Cat’s dog was well-behaved around the sheep but there was an unfortunate accident. Repeatedly.

I would never have guessed Cat had a mean streak, but there’s no other explanation for her behavior. On finding Tekton among the herd of sheep/pigs she immediately dispatched him sending Mini, the dog, and quite a few sheep flying. Agee had a lot to say to her, which she deserved, so I assumed that was the end of it. But no, every time that Tekton respawned she’d send everyone flying again. Really embarrassing, especially in front of company. She said she wanted to see what Agee would do about it, kind of egging him on. Really lucky he didn’t come out with a shotgun and make venison out of her.

If it weren’t for xrealm servers I would never have been able to enjoy a visit from Mini (Navi’s Alliance double agent) in person. I’ve changed my mind, I love xrealm servers, the hell with the Disgusting Oozeling, I’ll be happy to compete. I’ll happily scrounge around with all the other companion pet lovers who don’t want to pay AH prices.

I got a visit IN THE PIXEL FLESH from Mini, that’s priceless. I’ve been Minispammed, which is a Navispam in disguise, so really I’ve been Double-Navied!

So yeah … I’m going to stop being a curmudgeon about too much company.