Asara's Mental Meanderings

It's almost here!

2009-12-22T09:16:00.000-05:00

CHRISTMAAAASSSSSS YEAH!

I'm stressed out from family plans being continually in flux, all the stuff we STILL need to do to get the house ready to have everyone over, not to mention all the stuff we have to do in between family gatherings on Thursday, but I've decided I'm not going to let it get to me. I could sit and wallow and be depressed and angry, but Christmas is for family and love and happiness, and I need to remember that.

So here's a song that never fails to make me laugh, I hope it brings smiles to all of you as well!

So sleepy.

2009-12-16T10:19:00.000-05:00

The SYTYCD finale was awesome. There were so many amazing dances, I still can't pick a favorite. It was a tie between Jakob and Katherine's contemporary dance, and Russell and Katherine's hip-hop one. Though Russell and Ellenore were great in their paso doble too! I voted for Russell and Katherine... I can't wait to see who wins!

Andy had his Christmas musical last night. Last year every grade got a chance to perform a song. This year they sort of did the Charlie Brown Christmas play. They had five or six older kids playing the parts, and all of the other kids were more or less a chorus. All of the Kindergarten & Preschool kids sang Jingle Bells, but all of the rest of the singing was done by all of the kids together. The first graders all had decorated Christmas trees made out of styrofoam, so they came out and stood in front to represent all the flashy trees at the tree lot when Charlie Brown went to pick one out. Andy had a good time with that, he was dancing and spinning around. That was the only performance part that they got to themselves though, and I was kind of sad about that. There's always next year, I guess!

The scramble afterward was frustrating as well. They had asked at the beginning of the program that only one parent go to collect each child to avoid a giant congested mess in the hallway. So of course, when everything was done, people were leaving the bleachers and heading out into the hallway before the kids had even finished filing out. We waited until most of them were gone before even standing up, and lo and behold, congested mess in the hallway. Leaving the parking lot was an adventure too, people had parked wherever they could find space, and it was hard to get the car out of the lot without hitting someone who wasn't parked in an actual parking space, or was ignoring the flow of traffic to get to the driveway ASAP. Hubby said the parking lot is always like that when he brings Andy to and from school, cars going every which way to get to the driveway before anyone else. It really makes me nuts how selfish and impatient people are these days when they're behind the wheel. *sigh*

After we left, we took the kids to McDonald's for a Happy Meal treat, and headed home for TV time. After the SYTYCD finale, there was a new Gordon Ramsay cooking show. I watched about half an hour of it, but didn't really see anything that made me want to watch it on a weekly basis. Yeah, it's nice to see a side of Gordon Ramsay besides the screaming and swearing one he's shown on his other programs, but he was so rushed, the people he had in the studio were having trouble keeping up with his directions, what directions he managed to give anyway. The thing I like about other cooking shows is that they take the time to show you how to do things the right way. They might not get a whole three-course meal cooked in that time, but you learn how to do each of the steps in whatever it is they're making. He was just "put the oil in, slice the pepper up real thin, put your pasta in, turn it around, go go gogo, how are you doing, ok, quick joke about how his guest celebrity cooks are having problems, put the shrimp in the oil, go go gogogogogo!!" So yeah, not going to watch that again, probably.

Tonight I think we'll be playing a little Rock Band with hubby's sister, and maybe his sister-in-law as well. It's a good way to unwind and have fun, and the kids can play a bit too. Andy likes singing "Living on a Prayer", or "Living on a Planet", as he says. Emily likes the drums, so we put it on No Fail mode and just let them go nuts. Should be a good time!

And the gifts start rolling in!

2009-12-15T08:00:00.001-05:00

We sent through a big order on amazon.com last week, and the first two packages arrived in the mail yesterday! It's like Christmas early, even though I know none of the presents are for me, it's still awesome to get to open them all and see what's inside.

Not much else to report. I did some herbalism on one of my death knights last night. Hubby leveled one of his up to 80, and spent some time running random dungeons. After that, I watched some TV. ABC has a show called "Find My Family" that I've been watching. I missed last week though. They help people who have given kids up for adoption, or been given up for adoption, or just have lost contact with someone important over the years. It always makes me cry. I've been working on an application to be on it, too. I don't know what the odds are that they'd be able to find my birth mom (if they even chose my application), or even that she'd want to meet me if they did find her, but I figure there's no harm in trying. (For information on my search so far, see this post)

That's about all. Tonight is the finale of So You Think You Can Dance, and I can't miss that! Anyone out there who watches it want to venture a guess on who will win? I haven't really picked a favorite, but I loved Mollee and Jakob's waltz last week, I'm so sad she didn't make it through!

Druids are so OP.

2009-12-14T10:05:00.000-05:00

Our WoW time this weekend was dedicated to our horde Recruit-A-Friend druids over on Hakkar. When we started, they were level 38. As of the end of play time last night, they are level 54. All through questing too, we didn't run an instance all weekend. The next time we play them they'll be heading for the Plaguelands and level 60. Once they hit 60, we'll probably be switching to our alliance pair, which are back on Cenarion Circle and in the same guild as our main characters. This will be good, because one of the times I logged on to Facebook this weekend, a guildie from there sent me a chat asking where the heck we have been for the past few days.

We have yet to run the new dungeons that were released with the last patch. It seems strange, but I'm not really in any hurry to either. The day after the patch dropped, one of the guild death knights ran random heroics ALL DAY. When we logged off for the night, he had accumulated over 80 Badges of Triumph. Call me crazy, but I am just not that into the whole rush for the best gear RIGHT NOW thing. I am certain that within the next couple of weeks I will have accumulated enough badges through heroics to keep my gear up to date. From past experience, I know that the only thing that you get from that kind of badge mania is burnout. Besides that, I've been having too much fun running around Feralas with my hubby.

On the "druids are OP" comment, I have to cite an example. We both specced feral for leveling purposes. Hubby's spec is a bit more "bear", mine is a bit more "kitty". So if we end up in a bad spot, he can switch forms, and I can keep up the DPS or pop out to give him a few heals. We've also got two points in improved stealth. So yesterday we had pretty much run out of quests in Feralas, at least to the point where going back after getting our new class skills would be a waste of time better spent in a more quest-rich zone. So we hopped over to the Hinterlands and picked up every quest we could possibly find, and there were quite a few!

One of the quests we got was to kill Vile Priestess Hexx, who sits at the top of Jintha'alor. Jintha'alor is a multi-tiered area, and each level is crawling with trolls of all shapes and sizes. We stealthed through the whole place until we got to the mobs we needed to kill. Just getting that one quest done would have taken three times as long if we'd had to fight our way up there. And we knew when we got to the right level because druids in cat form can track humanoids, so we just had to check our mini-map to see what sorts of trolls were around. We killed what we needed to kill, re-stealthed, and hopped our way down out of the area, then headed back to turn in all the quests that we had done. No other class could have done what we did. A pair of rogues could have handled the stealth part, but a rogue can't heal another rogue through an accidental pull of five or more mobs. Crazy OP. And don't even get me started on flight form herbalism. Where does the bird put the herbs after they've picked them? I don't see any pockets underneath all those feathers!

Conundrums.

2009-12-10T12:46:00.000-05:00

There's a bit of wondering going on in this battered old brain of mine, but before I get into that, can I just say CURSE YOU, Random LFG, for giving me Oculus as the first flipping dungeon? *shudder* We got through it without too much difficulty, just one wipe on Eregos due to losing both DPS dragons to the first phase shift. Saraabi got her Northrend Dungeonmaster achievement out of the deal also. But STILL. I hate that place. It was a good thing I had hubby around to guide me through, because I've only been there twice before. He's got much more situational awareness than I have. A good portion of my miraculous tank saves have been in large part due to him pointing stuff out to me. So thank you honey! :)

On to the conundrum.

There was a Ventrilo meeting of the "officers" of our guild last night, of which I am one, and hubby is now another. There are a few of us with gear that's a level above the sort of raiding we do on a regular basis as a guild. Quite a bit of our lack of "progression" is due to new 80's wanting to come along on raids, so we zerg them through Naxx, or the first few bosses in Uld, so they can see raids and feel accomplished to have been there.

That's all well and good, but some people are getting tired of doing the same thing over and over, and feel that if we put together a solid team, we could probably venture on into bigger and better raid instances. All of us have alts that are at 80 as well, so we'd be able to use them to continue running Naxx and the like. They want to have a dedicated night (not always the same night, but just say one night a week) when those of us on the "raid team" would get together and work on some solid progression.

I'm not sure how I feel about being part of this.

On the one hand, I'm flattered to have been included. It's nice to be recognized as someone who knows more or less what they're doing, and can be a solid contributor to the guild. I like the opportunity to see more content, even if it means bashing our heads against a boss over and over again until we figure out what we're doing. I want to improve my characters, without having to run random heroics all day every day to grind out badges.

On the other hand, part of what got in the way with my last guild was the hardcore progression mindset. For the most part, I enjoy raiding. But I don't like feeling like it's a job, or, at the very least, obligated to be there each and every week. I'm concerned about the schedule as well, they're looking at running until 8:30 server, which is 11:30 here. Granted, it's only one night a week, but that's still pretty late in Carrie-land. I like to be in bed by 10.

I guess the best thing is just to wait and see when the first few get scheduled, and join in or not as my schedule allows. If they run some on the weekend, and some during the week, and there are enough people to cover the ones run during the week, it might work out. As long as I stay conscious of my personal priorities to my family and my job, and don't let myself get carried away... we shall see.

How's THAT for Loot-Fu?

2009-12-07T10:54:00.001-05:00

Not one, but TWO Swift Razzashi Raptors!

Hubby's dropped yesterday afternoon. But still no luck with Anzu, and no Swift Zulian Tiger yet either. We'll get there! I think from now on we'll invite some guildies along with us when we go to ZG, in case we get more raptors. :) I've also stocked up on Mudskunk lures for Gahz'ranka. Maybe we'll get a book of Polymorph: Turtle or two! If we do, I hope hubby won't mind me sending one to my horde mage. He already has a couple of different polymorph spells, but the turtle has always been my favorite.

In other news, Christmas shopping is almost done! Just have to send through the amazon order, and pick up a couple of things for the nephew and one of the nieces and we're set. The kids were real troopers this weekend, they did a good job of keeping up with us as we store-hopped. We took them to Chuck E. Cheese as a treat afterward. We also played a bit of poker with my brother-in-law and his wife, plus two of their friends. Good food and good times were had by all, though our pockets are considerably lighter! We have done this before though, and hubby and I made out like bandits, so I guess in the long run we're just making things a bit more even. Also, Andy got his hair cut, and it looks adorable.

Finally, hubby and I helped finish a guild run of Naxx-10 last night. No upgrades for either of us, but I got enough badges together to finally get Saraabi some purple bracers. She pulled off quite a good bit of tanking too. She was OT for a good bit of the run, well, almost all of it actually, and didn't have a whole lot to do. I was letting the MT take all of the trash, and basically playing melee DPS in prot spec, just in case the poo hit the fan. It didn't, so I was pretty bored. Near the end of Military I was taunting a mob or two out of the trash packs just to have something to do, as the MT bragged about his damage taken and how much greater it was than mine. Got my competitive hackles all up, which is never good.

I got my chance to shine at the end though. Sapphiron only needs one tank, and when asked how my DPS was, I simply responded with "it isn't." Saraabi has a DPS spec, but I never use it, so I wasn't going to be doing the raid any favors by switching. So they let me tank Sapphiron, and we one-shot him. Kel'Thuzad was interesting, to say the least. They put me on KT, and the MT took the adds. Things were going well until my hubby got ice-blocked. He was playing his tree, and healing the bejeezus out of anyone he could get his HoTs on. Unfortunately, nobody managed to heal him, so down he went. And people started dropping like flies. KT was at around 8%, and suddenly hubby said the MT went down. So I did what any tank would do, I grabbed the adds ASAP and kept on tanking.

And Kel'Thuzad fell, and there was much rejoicing, and gratzing me on my excellent tanking skillz. I probably could have been more humble at that point, but like I said, my competitive hackles were up, and I was honestly proud of what I had done. At the same time, I feel bad for basically showing the other tank up in a pretty spectacular fashion. He's been working very hard at tanking and he is doing a good job, he really is. The only real difference I can see is that he's a DK, and I'm a paladin, so while he's got avoidance that's better than mine, he's got no mitigation, so when he takes a hit, he really takes it hard.

Ah well. What can ya do?

Christmas Shopping mode is GO!

2009-12-05T00:44:00.000-05:00

I am a zombie... hurrrrr..........
Not really. It's just like going on 1AM and we did quite a bit of shopping today. A good portion of it was online, but there are some things that even amazon.com can't sell cheaper than Wal-Mart. Sorry amazon.com. I love ya, I really do, but that extra two or three dollars will really come in handy when all the presents are bought and we actually need, like, food and stuff.

We're actually almost done too. There are a niece and a nephew who still need some rounding-out, but if it's not in the amazon shopping cart, it's in the bedroom waiting to be wrapped. Oh, except for one thing that we have to go back to Wal-Mart for. We also did grocery shopping tonight. On the way out to the car, hubby kept saying under his breath, "Christmas only comes once a year."

Earlier in the day he was a bit more in the Christmas spirit, and he put together the following video. I made the background image. :) I'll leave you with this, I hope it brings a bit of the spirit to you also!

Oh. My. Gosh.

2009-12-03T13:37:00.001-05:00

I am still in shock, seriously.

A few weeks ago, wow.com held a contest to give away 25 wireless headsets. It was like a screenshot scavenger hunt. They gave clues to five locations, and the entrants had to take screenshots of their raid/group at each of the locations. Then they would do a random drawing from the entries who had their screenshots taken at the correct locations.

They announced the winners publicly yesterday.

You can read about it here.

And if you couldn't tell from the post title...

That's my devilsaur in the foreground of the picture.

THAT IS MY GUILD AND WE WON.
/dance

Ahhh, back to "Normal"

2009-12-03T08:31:00.000-05:00

The past three days I have been getting up at 2AM to go to work, thus the lack of actual posts. I barely recall what I actually did on those days. I think there was some WoW, and dinner, but the rest is a fog.

I remember last night though! Last night after dinner we put up our Christmas tree. I wish I had pictures, but our camera had gone missing, and when we finally found it, it was broken. So I think that's where my Christmas bonus will be going this year. It's not right to have kids and no way to take pictures of them when they're decorating a tree. Hubby kept saying "spread the decorations around, so they're all over the tree", and Emily kept putting every ornament she picked up in the same area, or right next to one that Andy or I had put up. A little sneaky reorganization left us with a relatively balanced ornament distribution. :D

We bought new lights this year, after discovering that both of the strings we already had did not fully light up. One was half dark, the other was dark in the middle. I managed to fix one of them, but we decided to just get two new strings, and use the one that I fixed around a window or something. Yay new lights! We have a nice compromise when it comes to the lights. I like blinky ones and hubby likes the steady light, so we have one string of each, and they both wrap fully around the tree. It looks a little sparse when the blinky ones are off, but it makes me happy to have blinky lights on the tree. We also put tinsel on, which begins the month-long struggle between us and the cat, who thinks we just covered the tree in sparkly cat treats.

We managed to keep him away from it while we were awake, but first thing this morning when I was getting ready for work, I stepped in a sparkly puddle of cat vomit. This perpetuates the opinion that we all share, that the cat is a moron. He KNOWS he's not supposed to eat the tinsel. We know he knows because while I found the vomit, the cat himself was nowhere to be seen. He ate the tinsel, and he knew he wasn't supposed to, and sure enough he threw it back up, and so he hid in the vain hope that when we found him we'd have forgotten about it. I expect this scenario to play out at least three times a week until Christmas. We try every year to hang it so that he can't reach it, but every year he manages to find some to eat anyway. I guess I shouldn't expect more from him, he thinks plastic bags from the grocery store are the greatest thing ever too. He'll chew on any bit of plastic he can get his teeth on, no matter how many times he gets yelled at for it. *sigh*

Because it's early and I am less than coherent

2009-11-30T04:52:00.002-05:00

Time to be Thankful!

2009-11-29T10:00:00.000-05:00

Various things I am thankful for, since I haven't managed a post since the day before Thanksgiving!

1. My Family (that goes without saying, I'm sure, but I wanted to say it anyway)

2. My Friends (online and irl)

3. My Life

4. My job and all the things it helps to provide for my family

Also, one thing I am very excited about. Hubby and I did our usual mount-farming when we got home from dinner with my parents on Thanksgiving. The result?

Swift Razzashi Raptor!

Wired and Wireless

2009-11-25T08:45:00.000-05:00

I got out of work a bit early yesterday, and was able to surprise Billy and the kids by showing up at Andy's school in time to give them all a ride home. We did some questing on our druids, and got another level for them. I also started my rounds of the Horde capitals on Caelatria. I only managed to get to Orgrimmar before dinner, but I did most of the traveling to get to Thunder Bluff before I had to log off.

We had barbecued pork chops and stuffing for dinner, yum!

After dinner, I thought it might be nice to watch some tv, and color with the kids. Billy just bought a wireless router, so that we could have internet on our computers and not have to run a cord from the modem out into the living room to stream movies or tv shows from Netflix. He was having some trouble getting his computer online with it though. My computer was fine, the laptop was fine, but his computer wouldn't connect. He fiddled with it for quite some time, while I watched So You Think You Can Dance and colored in my Tinkerbell coloring book. He finally got it online by connecting our old switch to the router and his computer to the switch. I can only assume it was something to do with IP addresses. Either way, it works now.

Of course, by the time everything was situated, it was a bit too late to watch anything. The kids went to bed, and he fiddled with the DVD player, which had also been acting up, and got that working as well. The two of us watched a bit of Eddie Izzard's comedy special, Dress To Kill, and headed to bed. Tonight will probably be much the same, though we might have some shopping to do. The kids still need holiday outfits!

I found out what our next Netflix movie will be, Billy picked the GI Joe movie that just came out. My brother used to watch the cartoon on TV all the time, and he had lots of the action figures too. I hope the movie is good!

Short post today.

2009-11-24T10:31:00.000-05:00

I'm feeling like quite the zombie. I woke up with a pounding headache after a night of crazy dreams. I don't really remember them now, just that they were totally odd. Ibuprofen took care of the headache, but I haven't felt really conscious all morning. When I got in I found that I'd forgotten to make copies of the schedule for today, so everyone was all kerfuffled. No clue why I forgot either, it's something I do practically every day, and have done for several years now. I just... didn't do it.

We got in some WoW when I got home as well. I'm 2/3 of the way done with the holiday achievements, I think I just have to do the horde city one and the "turn rogues into turkeys" one. I'm tempted to dual-box that last one, once I get enough shooters. Just make level one rogues on one account, and shoot at them with the other. It would involve some traveling, but I have to do that for the horde capitals anyway. Hubby and I ran the heroic daily, then spent some time working on our alliance RAF characters. I believe they made it to level 13 before we quit for the night. Hubby's gnome did most of his leveling in his underpants... I wish I had a screenshot of that! He sold all of his gear in the starting zone to be able to afford his skills, and vowed shortly thereafter that he wouldn't wear any until he got some greens with stat boosts on them. He finally got a shirt around level 11. Crazy boy.

Tacos for dinner last night, and we finally finished off the pumpkin pie. I'm sure there will be plenty more later this week though, so I'm not too sad about it. Tonight or tomorrow our next Netflix movie should arrive, I'll let y'all know what it is and what I think of it once we watch it. :) Hope everyone is having a great day!

Poor Toaster.

2009-11-23T08:05:00.001-05:00

All that anticipation, and a whole weekend, and I never watched the whole movie. I guess this was one of those times when the actual thing doesn't live up to my memories of it. I watched the beginning, and it was cute, but it wasn't enough to hold my attention like it used to. The kids weren't overly excited about it either. Oh well, back in the mail it went, and we'll see what comes next. :)

On Saturday we had a birthday party for one of my nieces, which turned into a night of Rock Band after most of the family left. We downloaded some new songs, and played until we couldn't play any more! Yesterday was a quiet day at home. I sat in the living room and watched hubby play Fable 2, and we let the kids play around on our computers. Then after dinner we played a little WoW. We started up a couple of new characters on our RAF account, alliance this time, on Cenarion Circle. I have a dwarf warrior, and hubby has a gnome mage. We got them to Thelsamar, and I hope they will continue to level past that zone. I have been trying to level a dwarf for quite some time now!

We got a raid together after that, to take screenshots for the wow.com headset contest. I doubt we'll win, one person went afk before we even took the first one, and stayed that way until after we were done. But it was fun to chase around to all the different places and whatnot. It was a good guild event. When that was done, hubby and I headed out to Outland in another attempt to capture an Anzu mount for me, and also to get an achievement for a few guildies for the latest holiday. We also headed over to ZG, but no mounts from there either.

Then I stayed up too late working on the quests for the new holiday... and I'm paying for it today. I've only been at work for an hour, and my bottle of pop that's supposed to last me all day is already half empty. I think this calls for early bedtime tonight!

How were your weekends, dear people who read my blog? :)

I Got a Feeling...

2009-11-20T05:53:00.000-05:00

Yeah, so it's Friday and I'm feeling lazy. So you get a YouTube video. This song was on the radio on my way in to work today, and it never fails to give my mood a boost. The video was made by a bunch of film students in Quebec. They all got together and made this lip sync (or lip dub) video in like an hour or something. I hope you all enjoy it as much as I do!

Oh yeah.

2009-11-19T12:41:00.000-05:00

The reason for the medicine is that I've got a cold. Yippee yay hooray for that. Symptoms seem to be staying at a minimum though, thanks to the DayQuil people.

Last night is kind of a blur. I remember we ran Sarth-25 with 19 people and got an achievement for that. I even got to bring my hunter, and was only like 200 dps behind the resident MM hunter. Go me :) After that, some of the group stuck around and worked on Sarth-10 with a drake up. We hadn't managed it last week, but hubby said that not long after I went to bed, they finally got it down. Yay for the guild!

Just before that, I'd managed to ding exalted with Honor Hold and picked up the tabard for my 25-tabard achievement, which gave me... another tabard.

Tonight is going to be a non-WoW night. I have to go to work early tomorrow to cover the "new guy", who is having his wisdom teeth out this afternoon. So I'm hoping there will be a new movie from Netflix in the mailbox when I get home. Hubby says that one of mine is next in line, "The Brave Little Toaster". I am excited, I haven't seen that in forever. I used to watch it on TV all the time, and it's a good one to watch with the kids. Things are crazy here at work today, so a nice calm night at home is definitely what the doctor ordered. Yay!

Has anyone seen my brain?

2009-11-18T13:11:00.000-05:00

My dad likes to say, "Of all the things I've lost in my life, I miss my mind the most".

That's holding true for me today. I took some NyQuil before bed last night, and had a very tough time getting things going this morning. I woke up at 6:30 for work, and decided I needed another hour in bed. That helped, a bit. I got to work around 8:30, and of course everyone and their brother had been looking for me. When I'm here, nobody cares, when I'm not, they all need to talk to me.

I'm going to conduct an experiment. I just noticed that the tape dispenser on the desk is empty. Normally I'd be the one to go get some tape and refill it, but I don't think I will today. I want to see how long it stays empty before the Whistler says something implying that it's my job to go get some more tape for it. He does that with pens, when all of his go dry or get lost. He asks me for one, instead of stopping by the office supply cabinet after his break and grabbing a few. You're already up there, you dipstick, get your own damn pens.

Played a bit more WoW last night. Hubby wanted to run ToC, which was the heroic daily. A group was getting put together, but they only needed one more person, and we always run things together if I'm on. So we let them go, and put together our own group about half an hour later. We were finished about twenty minutes after that, and the first group was still in there. I think they spent about two hours in there trying to get the last boss down. People kept leaving the group because they were having so much trouble. I'm not sure if they ever actually finished or if they just quit trying. I felt bad, because if hubby and I had been along, they probably wouldn't have had so much trouble. Hard to say, but still. After that I just did some dailies, and hubby ran with me through Sethekk Halls. I'm trying to get an Anzu mount, but so far no luck!

I'm not sure what we've got planned for tonight. The guild is going to run OS-10, and probably do a few tries with one drake up. I might just watch the results show for So You Think You Can Dance, since I missed the actual show yesterday, and maybe Glee after that. And then bed. Rest is always good!

What day is it?

2009-11-17T07:52:00.001-05:00

Oog. My brain is mush this morning. I just went to check on the fantasy football page that my brother-in-law is running, and got completely confused. I thought to myself, weird, there wasn't a Monday night game? Then I realized that it's Tuesday. We didn't run production at work yesterday, so it felt like a weekend day. I didn't go in to work until after dinner to take care of a few things with the schedule. I probably should have gone in earlier, but I was playing WoW and doing things at home, and the day just got away from me.

Apparently the dj on the radio station is not having a good morning either. We're listening to to commercial breaks at once right now. Maybe he fell asleep? Who knows.

So... what happened this weekend? Most of the news is WoW-related. We spent the majority of the weekend just hanging out at home, though we did some shopping also. We got the kids some new clothes, and picked up a copy of Up. Emily is growing like a weed all of a sudden. The clothes we bought for her are 4T, and they just fit. When I picked them out, I thought I was getting her some things to grow into!

I don't even have a lot to relate in WoW-news. The big thing is an Ulduar-10 run we did with the guild on Saturday night. They had cleared a few bosses the weekend before, and extended the raid ID to work on some that we didn't have a lot of experience with. Saraabi came along to tank, and hubby brought Lumae. We started with Kologarn, and one-shot him. We had a couple of hiccups on Auriaya, but got her down as well. After that we decided to hit Iron Council, a fight I had never seen. The first few tries we had three tanks, one for each boss. That turned out to be too much of a strain on the healers, so I offered to tank the two spare bosses myself. The idea being that the spare tank could go dps, and then I'd have hubby in the back healing just me, and the other two could handle the other tank and the raid.

It took a few tries, and a couple more tweaks (courtesy of my awesome hubby, who reads strategies and watches videos and stuff), but before we called it for the night, we did get them down, and Saraabi got a new cloak for her efforts. That was definitely an interesting fight to tank. After that, it was almost time to call it a night, so we wandered down the hall to Hodir. We had a heck of a time with that, worms everywhere, and elementals... it was crazy! We made it through, and after a quick explanation of the strategy, we barrelled into the room. Saraabi got two-shot, and the rest of the raid followed shortly afterward. It was a fun, kamikaze-style way of ending the raid, and I was giggling my head off.

The only other thing I can think of is that hubby and I finally built another chopper, this time for him to have. So now Caelatria can chauffeur Alainds around, and Lumae can chauffeur Saraabi around! It will be nice to be on the riding end for a change. :)

Woo! Weekend's almost here!

2009-11-13T09:07:00.000-05:00

Just have to get through work today. And at least I get to do so with no danger of an underpants sighting. A small blessing, but a blessing nonetheless. If those pants EVER show up here again, I'm sending him home to change.

A random quote from the radio this morning that made me giggle. "A hot dog made of bacon is like a vagina made of Playstations". We're listening to the Bob and Tom show, and one of the comedians they had on this morning said that. I tried to look it up, he said there was a place in Chicago that sold hot dogs made of bacon, but all I could find was bacon-wrapped hot dogs, which aren't quite the same. Still sounds tasty though, perhaps one of these days I'll give it a try. I mean, they wrap steak in bacon sometimes, why not a hot dog?

We finally got to finish Superbad last night, as the new copy came in the mail from Netflix yesterday. It was funny, but the end was sort of anticlimactic and awkward. There are several other Judd Apatow movies that I like better, we'll put it that way.

Time to get back to work, bah. I'll see you all on the other side of the weekend, I hope yours are full of awesomeness! :)

Buy yourself some new pants, man!

2009-11-12T10:35:00.000-05:00

Yep, that's right, the pants have made yet another return to the workplace. And this time, his shirt was NOT tucked in well enough, and I had full view of his underwear. So, I got him a long coat to wear from the Shipping department, which he wore for all of five minutes, if that, because "it made him hot". Now he's got his shirt tucked in better. This is still inappropriate. If I was wearing pants that were ripped like that, I'd probably get written up and sent home. He says that he put them on "by accident". I call shenanigans on that one. How can you "accidentally" not notice what pants you put on? The front is a mess as well as the back, just looking down at yourself, you could see what pants you put on, for the love of pete.

Blech.

On to happier things.

Saraabi has a new tanking spec, and I tried it out in Heroic Gun'drak last night. Hubby was healing, and he kept popping out of tree to dps because he said he didn't have anything else to do! I can't believe I used to be scared of tanking! After that we did HCoS and HVH, which I ran on my hunter. I was pretty proud of her performance too. It feels very good to be good at what I do, no matter what that may be.

After those, hubby made some popcorn (which was absolutely delicious) and we watched a bit of TV. The results show for "So You Think You Can Dance" was on, and after that was Glee. I haven't really kept up with Glee, but it was easy enough to figure out what's been going on. I'm kind of on the fence with the show in general. There are some parts I like, but others just seem a bit too contrived. The love... square? going on with Rachel, Finn, Quinn, and Puck is just nuts. I'll probably still try to keep up with it, just to see what happens. I'm nosy like that!

Tagged, and he didn't even know it!

2009-11-11T13:12:00.000-05:00

So, as I've been catching up in my feed reader after vacation (over 500 posts, you crazy people), I've seen this meme popping up here and there. The most recent is my sometime-realm-if-not-faction-buddy Arrens. I am using him as the person who tagged me because he said he'd read it and chortle... and I am a fan of the chortle. I mean, it just sounds fun, doesn't it? So here we are, the DPS Meme!

What is the name, class, and spec of your primary dps? Caelatria, Hunter, Beast Mastery (with a secondary Marksman spec that I rarely use. I love my Devilsaur too much, yanno?)

What is your primary dpsing environment? (i.e. raids, pvp, 5 mans) Heroics when I can get them, 10-man raids when Saraabi isn't needed to tank.

What dps spell do you use least for your class and why? Probably Rapid Fire. It boosts haste, so it doesn't seem to add all that much when my haste is already boosted through talents. Other hunters out there, feel free to correct me on this one if I'm missing something important here. I try harder to remember it when running as Marksman because I know my gear doesn't have nearly enough haste on it to maximize the potential of the spec.

What do you feel is the biggest strength of your dps class and why? We're unique snowflakes in that we're ranged physical DPS.

What do you feel is the biggest weakness of your dps class and why? Hunters as a class... we're useless unless we've got range. The DPS put out by a Beast Mastery hunter's pet sort of makes up for it, but other than that, we suck in close quarters. Nobody else has this sort of a problem, a caster can sit under the boss' nose and still cast, while I'm stuck waving my polearm around at him every 2-3 seconds.

In a 25 man raiding environment, what do you feel, in general, is the best dps assignment for you? Let me stand still and shoot a single target please. I don't care if it's the boss or an add, I don't want to be running all over hell's half-acres trying to get at what I need to hit.

What dps class do you enjoy dpsing with most and why? Anyone with access to Replenisment or the equivalent. And enhancement shammies.

What tanking class do you enjoy dpsing with least and why? Death Knights. Too many bad experiences with ones who don't know how to use their abilities to keep threat. I understand you maybe need more time to get a handle on an aoe pull, but I shouldn't be pulling a boss when I've already given you a misdirect with the most powerful shots I have at my disposal.

What is your worst habit as a dps? Tunnel vision. I have to keep right on top of my steady shot cooldowns to squeeze as much DPS out of my spec as I can, and sometimes I forget to look at where I'm standing and if there's anything Bad around me.

What is your biggest pet peeve in a group environment while dpsing? Chronic AFK'ers. If you can't focus on what you're doing, why did you even join a group in the first place? It doesn't matter who it is, we all put together the group to do something, and not to sit around to wait for you to catch up after every single pull.

Do you feel that your class/spec is well balanced with other dps? Nope. Hunters as a class can more or less hold their own in the right situations, but Beast Mastery as a spec is still considered a joke. I haven't been kicked from a group for it, but when I'm grouped with another hunter, I can't help but feel a lot of competitive tension and a need to prove that I'm not a total loss as a DPS even though my spec isn't the current BEST spec.

What tools do you use to evaluate your own performance as a damage dealer? Pretty much just Recount. I tried that whole log thing, WPS or whatever, but never really understood how to evaluate my performance except comparing numbers, which Recount does with a lot less hassle.

What do you think is the biggest misconception people have about your class? That hunters are EZ-mode. Granted, the playstyle isn't complicated, but you still have to know what you're doing to put out any sort of good DPS.

What do you feel is the most difficult thing for new dpsers of your class to learn? Sometimes just how to play. I still remember in my early days, shooting something until it got into melee range and attacked me, so my pet would attack it back. I had no idea that I could tell my pet to attack something first.

What dps class do you feel you understand least? Shaman or DPS warriors, just because I have very little experience with either.

What add-ons or macros do you use, if any, to aid you in dps? I have Recount and MIK Scrolling Battle Text. The first just to keep track of how I'm doing overall, and the second to help keep track of my cooldowns. I have Omen also, but I generally only look at it when I'm playing my Paladin. It's very rare that threat is an issue for me these days.
Agility over other stats or balanced stat allocation, and why? As long as I'm hit-capped, it's agi agi agi! Attack Power and crit all rolled into one, how could you go wrong?

Work is totally boring.

2009-11-10T13:00:00.000-05:00

I know, I know, if it was fun, they wouldn't call it "work", right?

I think most of it is just coming off a long vacation and remembering how little I actually do around here during the day. My work doesn't generally start until 2, until then I'm mostly trying to look busy. It seems to be going around. Today when I went upstairs for lunch, the Whistler was sitting in one of the owners' offices just talking, and when I got back from lunch, he was on the phone with one of his friends. I don't think he has much to do any more either. Or what work he does get, he finishes too quickly.

It was funny though, after he hung up with his friend, he made some comment to me about how hard it is to get some people off the phone. The thing is, nobody he knows ever calls him here except his girlfriend, so he had to have called this person in the first place. If you don't want to spend forever talking to someone, especially from work... don't call them! There's a bit of thinking outside the box for you.

Not much more to report really... we played a bit of WoW yesterday, I tanked Halls of Stone (I really hate the Brann event). Our guild on Cenarion Circle has expanded to include a guild horde-side. Hubby came up with the name, "Murlocs Gone Wild". It's kind of nice, now if we feel like playing our horde characters, we're still able to chat with the same people. The sad part is they let one of the other guild members be the guild leader, and I don't think he really gets the idea that the guild is just for fun. He went searching the internet looking for a good ranking system, for crying out loud. Then just gave us equivalent rank to what we have in the other guild anyway... but with more limited privileges. As an officer, I can invite, but not promote or demote, and I have yet to see what he's done with the guild bank. My rank idea was to look up all of the murloc NPC's and give each rank a name based on them. So the guild leader would be like, King Mrgl-Mrgl or something.

Oh well. :) No idea what's on the menu for tonight. Last night we tried to watch Superbad, which we got from Netflix. It got most of the way through, then crapped out and started skipping. We asked for a replacement, but who knows if it will have arrived today or not. If so, I hope it's a better copy!!

Even More Acetone Free!

2009-11-09T10:02:00.000-05:00

So, ladies out there who read my blog and wear nail polish... you are probably also aware of nail polish remover, and how many brands will proclaim to the high heavens that they are ACETONE FREE?

Someday I will look up the reason that this lack of Acetone is so awesome, but in the meantime, I have discovered (totally by accident) an even MORE acetone-free means of removing said nail polish.

I give you...

Scotch Tape!

No, you don't have to thank me, really. It was a fluke even that I found out about it. I was putting a memo up on the lab door and the tape wrapped around my finger. When I removed it, most of my nail polish had attached itself to the tape. Tape is also infinitely cheaper than nail polish remover, and, as an extra bonus, you don't have to stick your finger inside any sort of foam and wiggle it around. Oh come on, you know what I mean. And.. AND, no cold fingers from the alcohol in the damn stuff evaporating the second you remove them from said foam.

If you're the sort of person who buys the liquid stuff and puts it on a cotton ball and actually -wipes- the nail polish off... this post is probably not for you. Unless you have issues with the alcohol smell. In that case, come on over for the Scotch Tape Party!

Vacation's Over.

2009-11-09T08:19:00.000-05:00

Waaaaaaah!!!! :(

So I'm back at work. I got lucky though, there's no production today. So I really only have to stay for part of the day. I'll have to come back in the afternoon to take care of the schedule, but other than that, it looks to be a pretty easy day. Yay for that, at least!

My vacation was pretty quiet. Mostly just WoW with the hubby and watching movies with the kids. We did go out over the weekend to the bar for some karaoke. We got there when it started at 9PM, and didn't leave until it was about over at 1AM. It was a lot of fun, there was a good crowd there. There was also a moment of hilarity stemming from a trip to the bathroom. They have a pretty forceful hand dryer in there, and Sara decided that it would be funny to stick her face under it. I wish I'd had a camera, because she was totally right. We laughed for quite a while afterward.

After the karaoke was done, we hit up McDonald's for some chicken nuggets, and headed home. We tried to play a little bit of Rock Band with Beth when we got there, but we only managed about four songs before we pooped out and went to bed.

Our little horde druids are halfway to their goal right now, sitting pretty at level 31 after about 16 hours of play time. We spent some time on death knights in there, getting them to level 60 (for death and decay) to make it easier to run each other through low-level instances. We ran a few heroics on our main characters, and did some questing in Outland on our high-level hordies. I realized not too long into that particular session that I need to set up some sort of standard across all my characters with regard to the abilities they use the most. Characters getting leveled up have the same need of their "oh crap!" buttons as max-level ones, and you can bet that the results of having to search for said buttons are not generally positive.

For example, I was flying past Telredor, and one of the guards decided they didn't want me there, and proceeded to shoot lightning on me and dismount me. I freaked out trying to find my Slow Fall button, and of course, located it just as I hit the ground. Thankfully I wasn't flying too high, otherwise the results would have been a bit more messy than they were. There was also a portaling incident... hubby says, let's go to Orgrimmar now to get our next level skills. So I hit the button with the orange circle, and find myself in Orgrimmar... alone. Oops. There was much muttering and sighing coming from hubby's computer as he hoofed it over to Shattrath to take the portal from there. As a result, I've put another bar of skills in between my portal and teleport buttons, which will hopefully keep that from happening again!

That's about all of the news I have for now... I'm sure there are things that I'm forgetting. Oh, hi to everyone who is stopping by from google regarding the lucky couch commercial. Sorry if my blog didn't have what you were looking for! :)

Ahhh, vacation.

2009-11-03T12:59:00.000-05:00

Life is good. Just spending time hanging out at home with my family, can't ask for much more! Watched some TV and did some coloring with the kids last night, which was very fun. The only down side is the blister I gave myself from sharpening too many colored pencils!

Yesterday while Andy was at school, hubby and I did the grocery shopping with Emily, then came home and got started on hubby's birthday present, which was a pair of druids on a new recruit-a-friend account. Not just any druids, but -tauren- druids. On a PvP server, no less! We really wanted to challenge ourselves this time, that's for sure! Most of our characters are alliance, so the quests aren't so familiar, and once we get to higher levels, we'll see how much we have to deal with gankers. Definitely new and exciting!

That's about all the news there is to share, I hope everyone is having a great week so far!