Putting World of Warcraft on hiatus

I canceled my World of Warcraft account this week. I'm very sad, but with Xander's arrival we haven't had time to play. We haven't really played since the Wrath of the Lich King expansion came out a year ago. So busy.

The cancellation is more symbolic than anything, since my account is paid up through April, and even when April comes around, it's not like they'll delete everything. My toons will still be there if I reactivate my account. The cancellation kicks in really quickly for my husband, though. He has about 10 days paid up. That's it.

Lasaire, I miss playing you.

In honor of canceling my WoW account, here's a video by an in-game band, the Level 70 Elite Tauren Chieftain. Maybe they're Level 80 now, I'm not sure. Anyway, I find the song, I am Murloc, highly entertaining.

An overdue ramble ~ totally random

I'm overdue for a blogging braindump, so here we go:

~Twitter~
It's sad but true, but when I want to know what I've been up to now, one of the first places I consult is my Twitter-stream.

~Invisalign~
The new braces are going well. I'm almost two weeks into it. I start my second tray tonight. I'm still lisping a little bit, but fewer people are noticing, so it's getting better. Why the lisp? The retainer hits me across the back of my front teeth, so when I make an S or T sound, my tongue hits the plastic.

~Blogger Followers~
My photo blog has just exceeded this blog with followers. That blog is a little more focused in topic, so I think that helps. Plus, I've been concentrating my Entrecard drops on that one.

~Obama~
Yay! I haven't officially blogged about it, but I'm THRILLED that Barack Obama won the presidential race. I've been closely following him since I voted for him in the senate primary four years ago.
I guess soon I can retire the "Smush Bush" stress doll I bought back in 2004.

~Anonymous linking~
So, I discovered this site, anonym.to that allows you to create links to websites that won't trace back to your site. Not sure why you'd want that, but it's out there. How did I discover it? Through my Flickr stats.

~Flickr stats~
For the most part my Flickr stats are pretty regular. I get about 50 views of photos a day, give or take, with it sometimes spiking up into the 200s or 300s if I've shared an album with family. Over the summer it suddenly spiked to over 1,000 views on one day only, but I couldn't find any apparent reason. No one photo was getting significantly extra views. Today I looked at my stats and found that the photos of my Invisalign retainers are getting a lot of views -- like 75 in one day -- but it's not from a specific source, just Flickr and this Anonym.to site I mentioned above. It's not like I captured the look of my retainers with incredible photography. Make me wonder why so many people are viewing those photos...


~Blog Blast for Peace~
I meant to participate in Blog Blast for Peace earlier this month. I didn't. But let me just go on record now as saying that peace is good. I highly recommend it. Please, can't we all just get along?

OK, actually, I would have put more effort into the post had I written it. Who can argue against peace?

~NaNoWrite Month~
While I'm on the subject of things I wanted to particpate in but didn't, let me throw in National Novel Writing Month. I should have been doing this. But, rest assured, I am back on the writing bandwagon. It's been slow-going. I mean how long does it take to write a 10-page scene?!?! Apparently a couple hours a page. Gah. But I am trying to get it polished up -- this is no messy first draft -- because it's part of a book proposal that Jules and JC and I are working on together. It *will* be in the mail by the end of the month.


~Doodle Week~
For some reason, I didn't participate in Doodle Month last month, either. Don't know why, since I've been involved since the beginning. But, it's coming up again soon and I intend to redeem myself. Maybe on Thanksgiving Day I can get my nephews to help me doodle? Hmmm....

~Smoosh Your Boobies~
Claire and Olga the Traveling Bra had a fun idea for ending Breast Cancer Awareness Month last month. They held a contest for people to put paint on their breasts and smash them against paper, creating art. Another thing I wish I'd done, but couldn't find paint in the house at the last minute. (OK, could have used latex paint left over from our walls, but, really, I didn't want to go there.)

~WoW Expansion~
So, World of Warcraft came out with its expansion set Wrath of the Lich King. We haven't bought it yet. Holding out for over the Thanksgiving holiday when we have some time off (and I'm not otherwise writing). I know it will be a total time suck once I get into it -- a really, really good total time suck.

~Christmas Shopping~
When we were at my sister-in-law's house on Nov. 1, she had all her Christmas shopping done and wrapped. The gifts were stacked in a corner of the dining room, waiting. Inconceivable to me. But, now, I'm starting to think Christmas. I'm putting together my Amazon wish list, which neatly allows you to add products from other web pages not related to Amazon.com. Neat feature. Plus, I'm putting together my own gift-giving guide, where I shamelessly plug my friends' merchandise and other things that strike my fancy. Look for it soon.

~Weight Watchers~
I went back to Weight Watchers last week. So, because I'm counting points, I'm looking at the nutrition information on food, especially at the restaurants I like to frequent. I had the nutrition info from the website of my favorite lunch spot that I'd printed out two years ago. It showed my favoite flatbread pizza as having 9 points. Doable. For some reason I reprinted it last week only to find that they'd updated the flatbread pizza section. That same pizza is now 15 points! What makes it especially hard is that I'm allowed only 21 points a day, plus the 35 anytime points for the week. Well, as you can guess, that pizza is now right off my menu. Gah!

~My stupid emo baby name~
In the spirit of the newly born Bronx Mowgli, my Simpson-Wentz Baby Name is Harlem Cruella.

What's yours?

World of "Wifecraft"

LOL. Thanks Eric for sending me a link to this.

It's all about teaching your power-gaming husband how to put as much effort into your marriage as he does into playing World of Warcraft. (Of course, I play as much WoW as my husband, but it's still funny.) Someone even pulls a Leeroy Jenkins at the end. :)

Unfortunately, I'm having trouble embedding this video, so, instead, I'll send you to the link on Kontraband.

Or wait! I found it on YouTube. It's a little bit raw, but those raw bits are bleeped.

A Steamy Romance Novel

My DH's rogue, Ghidoraah, found this as a world drop on World of Warcraft and sent this in-game to Lasaire, my hunter.

Lasaire found it humorous, but was disappointed in the ending.

Being a romance novel and all, I had to share it.

Storytime with BRK

It's bright and early Monday morning. How about a few funny stories to wake up to?

No. Not my stories. (I don't claim to be funny.)

These stories belong to BigRedKitty, who is one talented blogger, storyteller and World of Warcraft hunter. Yeah, I started going to his site BigRedKitty.net to learn how to play my own hunter character better, but I find myself coming back every day just because I love his humor and his distinctive voice.

He's had a few posts that are not at all WoW related that had me laughing out loud. Check them out:

We Haven’t Used a Chainsaw Since (a summer as Billy Joel's houseboy)
and
The Story Where We Use the F-Bomb (Air Force nuclear payload?)
and
Story Time - Non WoW, But We Promised (Air Force ORI in Japan)
and
Do Not Read Before or After Eating (Air Force dentistry)

Watch The Guild

I've been meaning to post this for a while. The series is already at episode 6!

Anyway, The Guild is an internet-based, original program detailing the life of a fictional group of people playing a World of Warcraft-type game. The main star is Felicia Day, who played a slayer in the Buffy television series (and is currently in a Cheetos commercial).

The episodes are short (only 5-6 minutes) and play off of stereotypes to hilarious (I think) effect. No special knowledge of World of Warcraft is necessary to appreciate them. :)

Here's episode One:

Where I think I'm a 13-year-old boy...

First I start playing World of Warcraft, then I take up Guitar Hero III, and now I try snowboarding. What am I, 13 years old?

Snowboarding! What was I thinking? I have a sore tail bone that's been reminding me all weekend that it's been 25 years since I was 13.

Let me back up. We're planning a week-long vacation in Colorado. Doing the whole rent-a-chalet-for-a-week-with-friends thing. So, Kyle says: Why not snowboard? I'm thinking that it's been 20 years since I tried skiing, and that didn't go so well (big dramatic wipeout on an intermediate slope, which I only tried because it was the easiest way to get back to the lodge), so why not snowboard, indeed?

Kyle has been snowboarding half a dozen times. Dave has been twice. Both warned me that learning involves lots and lots of falling. It's just the nature of the beast. I'm prepared for that...

Friday evening after work, we head up to Wilmot in Wisconsin. I rent my gear, and because the last classes have finished for the night, Kyle takes over the post of instructor. We head to a mini hill in the beginner area (really, nothing more that a mogul, at best) and Kyle teaches me how to stand on the board and how to slide down the "hill" on the board. Evidently, all the workouts I do with a personal trainer are working, and I have excellent balance. I don't fall. Dave and Kyle say they are impressed.

Then Kyle shows me how to turn to the right. Gulp. OK.

I head down, try to turn to the right, overcompensate and fall backward. Straight backwards. Both feet strapped to a plank of wood, back straight, tail bone and head making contact at almost the same instant. It's a bone-jarring, knock-the-headband-off-my-head, hurts-like-the-dickens fall.

I rest for a minute, then a minute more. Shake it off, stand up, fix my headband, climb to the top of the "hill" and try it again.

My next two falls are a little better coordinated. I remember to bend my knees, at least. And these are in the forward direction, so I don't really hurt myself.

Now it's time for the tow-rope up to the beginner hill. I hate tow-ropes. They suck. Wrench your arms out of their sockets and all that stuff. I somehow make it to the top without wiping out on the tow-rope. Even better, I manage to snowboard to the bottom of the hill without falling, although I didn't do much turning at all.

Second trip up the tow-rope, again I manage to make it to the top without falling (although a few kids on the slopes seem to be having issues in that area). Amazingly, the second trip down the beginner hill goes better than the first. I don't fall, and I manage to turn myself a little bit. The guy operating the tow-rope politely agrees with Dave and Kyle that I'm doing really well for having been on a snowboard for only an hour. I think I fell all of four times total (another one snuck in there when I was just walking...).

At this point, Dave and Kyle decide they want to try the bigger beginner hills (which actually involve a chair lift), and I decide that it's best to quit while I'm having "fun". The place closes in an hour anyway.

So it's back to the lodge to turn in my gear and fortify myself after this grueling workout (it *was* hard work). After a while Dave comes tottering in, ice packs in hand. Turns out he had a major wipeout (lots of air and rolling involved) and his neck and wrists hurt big-time. Evidently, he needs to work on his turns also.

Somehow, we manage to make it home. Both of us feeling decidedly old and achy.

So, all weekend, Dave and I have been popping the Advil at regular intervals. I can't sit in any position that involves lounging (it's either perfectly straight in the chair or totally reclined, no in-between, because that hurts way too much). Dave keeps complaining about tingling in his fingers.

What happens when I walk into work this morning? Kyle asks when we're snowboarding again. And what is my answer? Well, it's not the resounding "No" you would expect.

Um. I think we're busy this weekend. And the next, too. But after that, maybe. By then the aches and pains may be gone, and I might be back to thinking I'm 13 years old again...

Pray for me. :-)

As for my other 13-year-old passions?

In Guitar Hero III, I've finished 14 songs on hard level, with my 11-year-old nephew informing me just this weekend that he's quickly catching up to me. Time to start practicing again.

In World of Warcraft? Lasaire is now a level-70 beast-master hunter on the Proudmoore server (Alliance). I'm saving gold to buy my epic flying mount, trying to get my leatherworking to 375 so I can make nether armor, plus working on getting keyed for Kara. Oh, and Kitty is still my best friend (the pet I first tamed at level 10). I've got alt-characters that include a level-10 mage and a level-10 druid (Alliance side) and a level-19 priest (Horde side). Unfortunately, I've decided that the next character I'd like to level is a priest, but I want to go Alliance, so I have to start over...

Confessions of a WOW addict

WOW: That's World of Warcraft for the uninitiated. One of those massively multiplayer computer games that teenagers and computer geek recluses like to play. Think virtual-world, Dungeon-and-Dragons-type universe.

Speaking of Dungeons and Dragons, I might as well confess that I played that, too, in high school and college. And I like Star Trek, and I like Star Wars, and I work in the computer industry.

Does that make me a geek?

No, I don't think so.

I think that what will make me a geek is this: a photo of my player in World of Warcraft. Posting this makes me a geek. Merely playing the game is normal. Millions of people do it around the world.

And it does become an addiction. Hours spent on the computer. If I can kill just one more rabid thistle bear, I'll complete the quest and go up a level. Oh, but then I have to take my character to get her armor fixed, and train her in new hunting skills, and feed her pet moonrake giant cat, and, and, and... oohh, a new spell! How does it work? Let's go try it out on another rabid thistle bear, and maybe I'll "discover" a new territory and get some experience, and pick up some more quests and, and, and...

It's like reading a good book that doesn't have an ending. Until eventually your character reaches 60th level and there's not a lot left in the game to keep you entertained, so then you start a new character of a different race in a different part of the virtual world and, and, and...

And that is why they call of World of War"crack".

P.S. And anyone looking for me online, that's Lasair on Thrall. (Lasair, gaelic for flame, also a name used by a character in Prairie Fire.)