I Am The Warrior

A quick little update about World of Warcraft, because it's been at least ten minutes or something: as of this morning, Roxxii the super-fantastic arcane/frostfire mage is now an Exalted Champion of Gnomeregan and she does not wish to hear any more of anyone's shit.

Yes, that's right -- I now have a "pet" who is bigger than I am and if you piss me off and my nuclear Arcane Barrage doesn't kill you, I'll send Petey in to kick your hairy Tauren ass. (Yes, I have named my Argent Squire "Petey" ... got a problem with that?)

Of course, that assumes that I am not wearing some kind of ridiculous outfit involving rabbit ears, a tuxedo, flowers, and an Easter basket because I am working on some sort of seasonal achievement that grants a vanity title -- although no one I know would ever do such a thing.

If you're looking for me, I'll be herb farming in Icecrown or trying not to die in battlegrounds while I'm trying to figure out how to complete that damn Children's Week achievement so I can work towards my violet proto-drake. I need to have it, because purple is my favorite color.

Thank you for visiting the World Headquarters of Magic Roxxii Airlines. Please enjoy your travels! Good day, and good luck.

All images © Blizzard Entertainment.

Revenge of the Nerds

Fair warning: this entire blog post, except for the picture that will appear at the end of this paragraph, is going to be interesting to exactly ONE of my regular readers, and even then, it's only of interest tangentially, because it's about World of Warcraft, which her husband also plays -- hi, Uelander! (Incidentally, I just felt all your eyes roll back in your heads.) Today's WAB-fest is about how I spent the entire weekend dying repeatedly on a 25-man Naxxramas run, and how this has caused a nervous breakdown / midlife crisis. Again. So feel free to skip this mess, after you check out the photo of the Cupcake below, which I managed to work into this entry because she is wearing my new gaming headset.

Minimage the Pwnstar - "Less QQ, more pewpew!"

Meanwhile, back in Azeroth: recently I have been bored just questing and farming and working on achievements, so unless I knew I had something going on, I haven't been spending a whole lot of time in-game. I hit level 80 back at the beginning of February, and my guild was pretty casual, so we weren't really going anywhere, and there wasn't a whole lot for me to do. I worked on getting some vanity pets, and made some gold, and grinded some reputation, but mostly I loitered.

And then a week ago, one of my guildmates (who was also something of a mentor to me) left to join another guild, one that was more active in running heroic dungeons and raids, and which had actual healers and stuff. When he went, two other of our active high-level players went on to other guilds too. In all of my life -- or at least in the game, anyway -- I had never felt so alone.

The thing about MMORPG's is, they're very social, even when they're also very competitive. Which is pretty much me: friendly, yet competitive. (Ask anyone who's ever played Trivial Pursuit with me.) And as much as I love the people in the guild, I also needed a challenge. Sitting around in front of my monitor for hours at a time, virtually shooting the shit, was not worth the however many dollars a month I am paying to play the game.

I needed to see new things, do new things, blow up new things with my (relatively) new talents. So with the gentle prompting of my mentor (and "game husband"), as well as a fellow guildmate of his who is so many kinds of awesome, I left one guild and joined another.

And suddenly found myself completely over my head.

For the last three nights, I was part of a 25-man Naxxramas ("Naxx") run, which means that 24 other people, most of them complete strangers to me, spent approximately 12-15 hours killing big bosses and getting "phat lewts" and gaining honor and tokens and prestige, and I spent that time trying not to look like a complete asshole and occasionally setting out a Fish Feast.

Great success on the food front; not so much with the "not looking like an asshole."

Which -- as World of Warcraft so often is -- is a total metaphor for my so-called life. I jump headfirst into things without being completely prepared. I fail at first, or come close to it, and feel like a yutz. I wallow for a day or two, cry and scream and gnash my teeth and rend my garments, and then ... I pick myself up, dust myself off, start all over again. That which does not kill us makes us stronger.

Except Patchwerk. He's a badass.

And why are you still reading this? Are you waiting for another picture? Okay, fine:

Cupcake Jenkins - "GTFO n00b! WTF? BBQ!"

Dorkcraft

Am I the only person Earth who, like, just saw this today?

'Warcraft' Sequel Lets Gamers Play A Character Playing 'Warcraft'

Little Person Update

... and this time, it's not about the baby. Last time I updated anyone on my WoW main, she was a level 28, just a weensy little thing trying to find her way in the world. Now, she is a level 56, practically an old salt, with powers the likes of which you cannot hardly believe. In some areas, I have the ability to kill creatures with my bare hands. My herbalism and alchemy skills are as high as they can get without going to Outland, which will be happening soon -- I just need to get a little bit higher level. I spend a lot of time exploring the map on the back of "Gilda the Robochicken," a/k/a my [Red Mechanostrider]. I speak in "code" so that I know what it means when stuff is in square brackets with blue lettering, and I have not only become an Officer in my Guild, but I am also the Webmaster.

Or, in short, I have become an even bigger nerdo than ever, thanks for asking. And if not for the baby, I'd be a level 70 already: so thanks, kiddo, for saving Mommy some grief.

No News Is Good News

Um, so ... yeah. It's been more than a week since I posted anything, and I'm sorry. I wish I had a good explanation for the dearth of information on these pages, but -- wait, what are you, a crackhead? This is me we're talking about. I've never had a good explanation for anything, ever, in my entire life. Except for that one time when I fell out of the camper, and that was my parents' fault anyway.

Stuff has been going on*, and there is photographic evidence of it, but I can't find the cord to offload the pictures from the camera and anyway, I don't want to. Every time I download photos I end up spending hours making cute little slide shows and movies and stuff and before I know it, it's 2:00 in the morning and I need to be waking up for work in 2½ hours and so what's the point of going of going to sleep now? This is why my Gnome Mage is a Level 50, instead of 30-something, which is probably what it would be if I were actually a normal mother and not, you know, me.

I can give you the short version, though: Started pre-school. Cupcake LOVES it. Mommy and Daddy love it too because "happy at school" = "excellent naps." What we don't love? Is our new goofy schedule, which requires one of us to be up at 4:30 in the morning and the other of us to be at work until 6:30 PM (although sometimes that "one of us" is the same person -- funny how that happens, no?). But the weather's been nice, so it's hard to even bitch about that too much. Not that I won't try, mind you.

Weather permitting, we're planning to take the baby to the Lehigh Valley Zoo this weekend, which used to be the Trexler Game Preserver but isn't anymore, but anyway -- "baby" + "wild animals" = PHOTO OPS, hello! So when I finally do get the pictures off the camera, there will be approximately eleventy billion of them, oh my lands.

Careful what you wish for, people.


(* = Haha, I added the star when I first wrote this and I forgot to go back and add the footnote. See? I've gone retarded. What was supposed to go here was this: "Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans." -- John Lennon)

Progress Report

I don't know when this turned into my officially-unofficial World of Warcraft blog, but since that's pretty much my only hobby these days (goddamned writers' strike!), there you go. According to Xfire, I've spent 22 hours in the past 7 days playing WoW, which is horrifying in so many ways. But I'll be the first to admit that I just love vaporizing giant creepy spiders. Again: surprisingly therapeutic.

At this point I am a Level 28 Gnome Mage. Since my last report, I have joined a guild -- well, actually, two of them. My first guild ("The Yummy Muffins," tee hee) was absorbed by a newer, bigger guild ("Beguile") with more high-level players. My guild leader played "Pimp My Mage" with me yesterday and outfitted me with a whole bunch of improved armor. Of course, I still have 3x as much mana as health, but things are slowly improving.

Oh, and now I have a crown. So I am happy.

Yeah, I pretty much have no life any more, but I am OK with it, for a change. Although I still can't use Flamestrike in real life, which continues to be a gigantic disappointment.

PS -- Yeah, that's a mage with a sword. Because I am that much awesome. Mai skillz, let me sho u dem.