Know where to run

IRL
Yes, it's an Orbital tune, but what a blinder it is too. It also seques in nicely to my Archaeology post in the WoW section. Christmas is over, unless you work for Epic Fail and National Disgrace, as they're still running a revised schedule meaning a somewhat Spartan one (without the 300 sausagefest or the activity for that matter) so I'm on my train in after the Chrimbo break. It's dragging it's fat bleeding jacksie along like it's not sure whether hiding or flight is the best way to survive. Anyhoo, Christmas was a blast, my Mum and Dad came back from France, and had some quality time with my son, and the rest of us. It was brilliant. Sort-of Mother-in-law, or SMiL for short, was on good form. All in all, best Christmas yet. Daniel got spoiled rotten, surprise!, but was a pretty good boy.

WoW
It's been fairly intense this holiday period, I've been driven to get my Worgen Druid to 60 and the much cheaper flight form. So cheap, in fact, I bought flight master's license and can now fly in Azeroth and Outland. Which is brilliant for Archaeology, I have taken this new profession and am literally running with it. It's been awesome, but so far I've been turning up rubbish. Like all professions this should change as I progress. I'll look it up when I can get to proper Internet. I'm on my iPhone but this might be more to do with T-Mobile's patchy at best 3G coverage of my train route. Believe me, 'patchy at best' is me being generous, and polite. Anyway, back off me soapbox, back to the topic at hand: archaeology. The title is linked to this by the little shovels you see on the map. These shovels and my beloved Carbonite add-on mean I can place a 'Goto' on the site and fly there. I discovered one thing though, the dwarf keystones sell for about 80G on my server, I kept two and auctioned two, so that's another 160G my Druid has for training and gear. Niiiiice! Loving the flight form. To be able to swoop down and skin carcasses without aggroing the local fauna is awesome.

In other news my Frost Mage is now my auction bunny, and has made hundreds of gold buying cheap items and selling them again at more acceptable prices. Throw in the suddenly very valuable leather, stone and ores she sells and you get the idea. These are gathered by Gwyllt, my new Worgen Druid, so everyone's a winner! I did this using tips from Zuggy's Dominate WoW gold and suggest you could do a lot worse than to look at his guides.

Remember - if you came here looking for gold tips, then I have a hand full, but get them 'from the horse's mouth' -See Zuggy's guide to making your own gold. Follow his link on the right to buy his guide-->

I'm sorry

IRL
Dear readers, I'm sorry I have been neglecting you. The Christmas thing, Cataclysm dropping and work commitments, fitting in quality blogging has been tricky, line this up with my iPhone blogging app wiping every time I take a phone call, which is the icing on the cake as the train ride to and from work is the only real time I get to think and write. Meh!

Woooooooooow!
Yep, I rolled a Worgen. Those who know me well were not asking if I would roll one or would it be from day one but simply which kind. I went with my one major gap in my line up, bear tank. Or is it fat bottomed dog now? Hmmm... Anyway, Gwyllt (Welsh for feral) is an absolute blast. I level as a cat and instance as a bear. We pugged the newly revamped main gates Stratholme last night, all went smoothly. Got some nice boots and a nice cloak into the bargain and completed all the quests given to me at the front gate. Looking forward to hitting 58 and loading myself up with the crafted sets for casters and rogues as my bear tank is also specced as Resto because Dual spec is 30 not 1K gold.

One day fast flight will be cheap too. One day.....

I did have a quick stab at taking my ickle 'lock to Vash'jir, whilst fun, it will be better once I can use my manatee torpedo of death.

Also, big shout out to bigbearbutt for helping me understand the concept of bear tanking, which would explain why I was such a singular failure at it before doing my research.

Which brings me onto my next point, there is loads of info out there, although thottbot has been shitcanned, more's the pity, the database search tool in Thottbot was intuitive, the wowhead one is not. Wowhead's info is good, but the search tool should be resurrected from the Thottbot site, but with the gloss of the wowhead site. Best of both worlds.

Anyway, keep an eye out in January for another Zuggy blog carnival, and of course, please go and buy his brilliant gold guide ( see link on the right --> )

Have a lovely Christmas or Winter Solstice and I'll see you soon.

Coming up for air

IRL

Chores. Meh! I know they need doing, but didn't Blizzard think of this when they released Cataclysm only a handful of weeks before Christmas? Oh well, most gamers will be happily missed by their families, but when you're the Beta male to and Alpha female in the pack, what do you do? The simple answer is you do what she asks of you, of course, it's the group dynamic and it works in all our favours. This is a problem when you're trying to level a Worgen Druid to 85. I hope to have him raid ready for Christmas day, when it's the least likely time I'll get him out to play, of course.

Weather, that great British obsession. When other country's public transport is as vulnerable to minor changes in weather as ours, we'll watch other countries get twitchy about it too. The temperature plummeted and it snowed for a couple of days. The snow has now gone, but it's been fairly hard work not knowing if you'll get to work and again if you'll get home afterwards. It fair puts a dampener on your day. The trains basically went to hell in a hand basket. The roads were terrible, and due to fear of litigation, they don't grit the pavements. (For those across the pond, they grit the road and not the sidewalks) This is because if you slip on a gritted section, the council are liable. So people walked in the roads instead. /facepalm

I wrote a delightful and pithy diatribe on the subject and then the phone rang, wiping my iPhone's blog entry. Witty and pithy became blank, and sarcastic me became seriously narked me.

WoW

Wow! I love my Worgen Druid. I went Feral on the name and the role. Gwyllt means wild or feral in Welsh, which is appropriate due to my heritage and him being a druid. Also, decked him out in Heirloom leather from my rogue and the balanced heartseeker and he's good to go. So far, he's 27 and has done the new SFK and DM, he has his first lot of Glyphs, and once he gets to 30 I'll dual spec him as either Feral/Resto or Feral/Balance.

He's been highly enjoyable and playable, apart from one thing - rested. He never seems to show a blue bar apart from the first 10 minutes I use him. Meh! However this does point to the fact I've used him non stop for 4 days - lol

Zuggy's Dominate WoW gold

I've had a good look through the guide, and I must say I'm impressed. He explains simple principles in a clear manner, no patronising, and clearly stated. This is refreshing. Head on over now and pick up a copy. At the time of release, there were still some discounted copies available.

As per usual, you can click on the picture below to go to the brilliant Zuggy's WoW Domiate Gold to get a copy of his great guide.

Cataclysm: Day 1

WoW

The first day of swimming around Vashj'ir is over. Got the seahorse, all the flight paths, explored the area, got a little freaked out by the things down there (The Whale Shark being one of them. I have always feared large bodies of water and the sensation transfers to Vashj'ir. This says a lot about the immersive quality of the place.) but generally loved it. The scenery is pretty, but still WoW familiar. Was surprised to see undead vrykul chaps wandering around, but I suppose the Naga have competition there then.

The giant limpet creatures were a little unnerving, especially as I thought they were Old Gods.

Got the Making History Achievement for the guild last night. Looking forward to grinding the guild up to Level 5. More to follow

Cer Cer cold

IRL
Iesu Grist it's cold. I love cold, but when my toecaps are still frozen 20 minutes after I get on the train, then we've cruised past my comfort zone into the 'holy crap' section

What adds insult to injury is that the boiler's not running the heating, again. We have hot water, but no heating.

It's not all doom and gloom, had a brilliant day out with Charlie, boy free, at the 'Taste of Christmas' show on Sunday. We have chocolate wine! It tastes as good as it sounds. There was also a dazzling array of spicy things, many of which I bought. Charlie got to see her 'other man', a man who, thankfully, never heeded warnings about playing with food - Heston Blumenthal. What a nice chap. Not as tall as I imagined, but I want that blue velvet jacket - damn I hate being broke all the time.

WoW
On the subject of food - I'm loving the new cooking and fishing dailies, and can't wait for the full gamut of Cataclysm gold. Why can't we involve alchemists in our food quests, then we could capture some of the Blumenthal spirit.

Blizzard, if you're listening, why don't all professions have dailies? Tailoring clothes for the king and prince could be valid Alliance tailoring quests. Making swords for the front line, or parts for a submarine, or fertiliser for Nordrassil could be feasible for blacksmithing, engineering, or alchemy respectively.

I'm going to buy one of Zuggy's gold guide for two very good reasons: firstly, I should be able to recommend what I'm selling; secondly, I could use the help with accruing gold, and it would appear this guy's an expert in this field. I'll feedback more about them once I know. What I do know is 10 alts need a lot of gold-related love.

My huntard is progressing up 71 nicely, looking forward to later on when the choice of dungeons will be better.

Only mere hours to Cataclysm, hoping my collector's box will arrive today.

Have fun, but watch out for ice on the pavements

Come get yer gold!

WoW and IRL

Due to an offer I can't refuse (No, I'm not in FIFA) I'm going to be placing a link to Dominate WoW gold (As brought to you by the brilliant Zuggy) and acting as his affiliate.

Please (feel free to) buy his gold guide!

Bored with now

IRL

As the regular calendar year winds down to massive shopping, organising feeding the fifty thousand (My family, my sister's family and Charlie's family all around one table) and close, I'm wandering what's left to do. With Charlie being pregnant, we're both very much looking forward to May, with my job changing in March I'm looking forward to that, and with the Cataclysm launch I'm looking forward to next Tuesday. This however leaves me in a vacuum. I'm looking forward to, counting down the days to, etc etc. Nothing seems to be happening now. Yes I have the weekend, a Saturday without the boy (Over at his Nan's) and a trip to Taste Of Christmas.

I just really want Cataclysm to come quicker, and I'm nervous that Amazon won't deliver to my building on the 7th due to snow, or a credit card screw up or something.

WoW

Really just logging on and tooling around. I rolled a Troll Druid last night, and I must say the experience was....alright. The starter zone was more polished than the old Troll and Orc crater. There is always going to be one issue here though, I'm not Horde. I like their moxy, their logo is superior, they have the most varied members and complex politics. However I'm not feeling it. I'm all about the more stable, and yes a bit duller, Alliance. Largely this is because I like playing Gnomes, Dwarves and Night Elves. Even humans are fun! I don't like the Forsaken, Orcs strike me as two dimensional, Trolls feel like a caricature, and Blood Elves feel like a cheesy slice of Manga. Taurens I do like, I have time for a race with Shammies, Pallies, Druids and Hunters in, and I like their generally less stupidly warlike stance. This could also explain why I dislike Wrynn the Chin. Vengeance blows, it eats away at your soul, and in the case of most of the Horde (Except the Tauren) and the Alliance's current leader, it eats your credibility with me. I'm probably not alone here.

I'm hoping the Human King can start acting more like a real King, warfare follows failed diplomacy, and so you try to avoid failing the diplomacy part. As a boy groomed in statecraft and swordsmanship you would expect the man to not just get angry and get his people killed engaging in foolhardy jingoism to cover for a personal vendetta against Orcs. I notice in the post cataclysm Azeroth there seems to be more visible clashes between the Horde and the Alliance. I know with the change of leadership, there could be a different attitude prevalent in the Horde, or just more of the same one I dislike.

We will soon see. See you next Tuesday

The Mo' is dead, er, long live the Mo'?

IRL
It's the last day of November, and the last day of Movember. For those of you that don't know, Movember is a charity push for funds for Prostate Cancer, which kills one man every hour in the UK. To achieve this, kindly sorts, like yours truly, grow a moustache or 'Mo' from scratch on the 1st of November. In my case this meant shaving my trademark beard off. I haven't been entirely clean shaven for about 8 years. It felt odd. Many reacted to it, mostly negatively. However here I am at a paradox of sorts. Most people will shave theirs off tonight, and gain a sort of closure. I however will be leaving mine in place and simply allowing the rest of my old beard to return. This doesn't really give me closure, but it does remind me to go after the last few sponsors with my 'tache intact. Still, it's a good thing to do for charity, but it's ended on a damp squid.

WoW
Are you in the same void I am? Apart from a crazy pet taming push on my hunter, I've not done much. Ah, there wa the total waste of time that was recruiting for Malygos weekly, only to hbe the whole raid fall apart before the first spell was cast. Damn you unreliable tanks!!

Anyway, due to the Mrs working tonight, I'll log on for a bit. So looking forward to Cata now. I'll need to race change my Shammy to dwarf, and maybe RC my Druid to Worgen. I could do the former now, but I'm broke until the 7th. I may have to wait until the 8th as I suspect the Blizzard techies may be snowed under on the 7th - lol

I wish them well

Pre-Cataclysm Void and Comedy Legend Dies and Arrrrgh Sunday Trading laws

IRL

Comedy legend Leslie Nielsen has died. What a loss! This man has made me laugh until my stomach muscles hurt and tears have run freely down my face. Such classic moments as pushing OJ Simpson down the steps in The Naked Gun; great moments of his trademark deadpan delivery: "Cigarette" "Yes, I know"; "Run him down to the station!", and "Al, you have something between your teeth" and the end credits to Police Squad with Leslie and Co pretending to be in a freeze frame shot with hilarious consequences. I've even had trouble writing this due to having fits of laughter.

Chrimbo Shopping - Had a spot of this at the weekend, and a shower of s**t it was, too. Olly Muirs, local boy and X Factor winner, was in Chelmsford turning on the lights. I've had issue with Chelmsfordites over the years, manly due to going through there everyday on the train to work. The train stops and suddenly the horde charge all remaining seats with gusto. I understand it, but I still don't like being aggressively shoved about the place. Their attitude seems one of belligerence, and I know Chrimbo shopping does this to all of us, but it seems to just make them worse. Throw in the Olly fans getting all over excited, and you have a recipe for a ruck. Add to that my good woman and our bored 3 year old boy and I'm blowing steam out of my ears and looking for exit strategies. The great foot note to this is not the people of Chelmsford, they are what they are, but the Sunday trading laws that mean the only decent exit from the scrum, M&S, was trying to lock it's doors onto a crowd trying to go through them. People pushing from behind and escape routes getting blocked makes for a powder keg. No, I'm not in favour of keeping the outdated Sunday trading laws in place. Yes, I think they should be repealed. It's the 21st century, get over it, Sunday is a day for B&Q and M&S, not CofE. I need to work 7 days sometimes, why can't everyone else man up and grow a pair.

WoW

Still pre-cataclysm, everyone seems to be in free fall waiting for Cataclysm proper. We've had the cataclysm itself, now we need the actual expansion to start kicking in. 8 whole days to go! Might go to the launch do in Leicester Square, just for fun, and no, not in costume.

Used the latest patch to go tame a vast menagerie of beasts for my 71 hunter. I especially like the colour changing spiky crab I got from a cave in Swamp of Sorrows. He's called Bowie because he ch-ch-ch-changes. Got Tyrantus, the Devilsaur from Outland, a green and black felboar, the green and Orange Winta's Kitten, Soriid the Devourer, and 'Damaged Hive Controller' complete with icky pulsating brain. Next stop, level and get all the Spirit Beasts once Northrend becomes like Outland (i.e. Empty)

A big shout out to Petopia for all their brilliant hunter pet data.

To sum up, I wish I'd shopped online instead, be a little nicer to people you meet, and enjoy December, it's the last month you'll get this year*

*You know, If you follow the regular calendar, not everyone does.

Think you can make it, Pilgrim?

WoW
I love to paraphrase the Duke. Are you going for your Pilgrim Achievement? I would recommend this greatly, the quests are easy and reward xp and gold, but the real juicy reward is the cooking boost.

Have you ever tried to level cooking? It's easy apart from a nasty flat spot around 225 to 275 made up of salmon based food and the (several expletives) bear flank based recipes. The holiday allows you to level 0 to 350 without breaking a sweat. This kitchen involves no sweary glaswegians, and you don't to shout Yes, Chef! all the time. Double Cheggers!

Get your hearth stone set to Dalaran or Shattrath (I use the underbelly tavern in the former for load speed which works except for Jewel of the Sewers days, and the latter for peace and quiet) and you can hop back and forth to deliver much needed vittles to the various cities, reaping the rewards and acing our cooking to grand master as you go. Your main focus will be Stormwind. You get turkeys and pumpkins here. Stock up at all three cities. The Exodar you should do last, there is no material there, and it's in for the Pilgrim's Paunch achievement.

As for the Pilgrim's Peril part, I'd suggest a lot of /smile and /wave emotes, it suggests you're friendly. If you get killed, res, and return but do not retaliate. Remember you're in unfriendly territory, don't expect them to be friendly. It will work in your favour eventually. It's a good season, and segues nicely into the Cataclysm update and Winter Veil.

Elementals: go to Stormwind, and nuke the elementals, go to Ironforge and do the same. That should take care of the tripping the rifts achievement. Then go to the LFD tool and go farm iLevel 251 bits, enjoy!

IRL
My boy was 3 on Saturday. He's grown up a lot in a very short time. My parents came over from France, so the boy got to see his Ninny and Tiddy, which is lovely, they miss him. His friend's little sister was there, and she's 18 months old, I'd forgotten how small and sweet Daniel was at that age, so I'm looking forward to our next baby. Work progressing as it should. All in all, going nicely.

Have fun out there!

We are with child

IRL: Yes, it's official, my other half is pregnant. We hope to be able to expect the arrival of our second child in late May. No, we don't know what it is, and intend to keep it that way. Only hoping for healthy and happy and whole. Anything above that is a bonus.

WoW:
Typically, just before a major expansion, I'm trying to sort my wrath endgame gear out. Got Belt of Omission and very pleased I am with it too. Next stop, decent 1 hand caster weapon and nice offhand for the bonuses.

Be good, and if you can't, be careful!

Making Gold in Cataclysm - Zuggy special edition

No IRL this edition, it's covered nicely in my previous post.

WoW
OK, the possibly most covered topic in WoW ever since, like, July. So I'm going to take a different tack. I work by day in a banking/investment firm (Boo hiss you say, I'm sure, but hey, I'm not biting the hand that feeds). One thing I've noticed, money makes money, so I guess gold makes gold. If there's something on the AH that can be sold for more, chances are it's already quite expensive. Do you have 12.5K to buy chopper parts? If so, I'm sure you'd sell the chopper for 15K, right? Not possible if you don't have the initial outlay, or a very understanding guild. So let's take this to Cataclysm. You're 80, wandering around the new zones, you can't fly in Azeroth until you purchase the license, so therefore, if you're a gatherer you're a step behind the ones that did get it. This means you miss the crest of the wave. When TBC hit, new materials cost a king's ransom, but undercutting worked in the buyers' favour and prices normalised at a high point, then eventually the true prices became commonplace. If you want to take advantage of other people's gold reserves you need to supply their needs before another seller does. Remember the old maxim: If you don't look after your customers, someone else will.

So, my first gold making tip for cataclysm is something of an oxymoron - Make Gold in Wrath and stockpile it. You'll need it to get your flight license, train up gathering skills and simply for stamina. Do you want to have to go back to the Argent Ren faire for gold while others are cruising around new and knackered Azeroth mining all the nodes? Didn't think so, either.

Second tip: Go get things now you can't have in Wrath - The Razzashi Raptor pet, for example. There will be a number of things discontinued by the Cata update 4.0.3, so go read Zuggy's brilliant tips and other sites that list what's going away. Thanks to Breanni for his brilliant site on pets.

Third Tip: Pets - People pay damn good money for them. The Pet Mini Tyreal is going for $985.00(!!!) on eBay. I'm not suggesting you break Blizzard rules, but look at that in gold terms, people will pay good gold for pets in game. With a little travelling (And you can use this time for some archaeology, and XP from travelling - my favourite thing ever - lol) you can amass a decent collection of pets and flog them on your faction's AH for a tidy profit. Part two of this is to organise with a friend to sell pets, roll an opposing faction toon, and visit the independent AH and sell Alliance pets to Hordies and Horde pets to Alliance bods. The secret is to have your friend on Ventrilo or Mumble or somesuch similar. You then sell your friend a grey item for 150G, he uses this to buy his faction pets, he puts these on the independent AH for a tiny amount (With you there on Vent, Mumble etc ready to snap them up before someone else does. You then sell them on your Faction AH, and reverse the process, dragonhawk hatchlings were very popular at start of TBC. Your hordie can farm Black Cats from Hillsbrad Fields. To sum it up: I sold moths for a tidy sum from the Exodar AH, the buyer was a Draenei in the Exodar. This was exploiting one great virtue of WoW players, sloth. (I know it's a sin, but if you're selling to a sloth, it's a virtue)

Fourth Tip: Buy the stuff levellers will need when it becomes cheaper in WoW. When the new ores and cloths and leather hit, the old ones will probably nose dive. People slightly behind the curve (And remember, new expansion means new players, not everyone will be 80 on launch day) will need these things that no one is gathering to level. You could always go gather these things and corner the market, too. Case in point - Wool Cloth. End of the argent ren faire cycle, 5th alt to 80, bored of questing for rep, go to the AH, spend silly money on Wool cloth and get a rep hike with the NPC's outside the tailor trainers in the capitals. Wool Cloth is easy to get for an 80, as in every cloth, ore and leather.

Fifth Tip: On the subject of ore and leather, if you have the slots, or are planning to level a Goblin or Worgen or other alt, roll two chars. Get one to do Mining, First Aid, Skinning, Fishing, Archaeology, and Cooking. Get the other to do Herbalism, First Aid, Skinning, Archaeology, Fishing and Cooking. The reasons are thus: Mining and Herbalism are on the same minimap. This means you can't use the minimap to locate both herbs and mining nodes. The rest of the professions are to gather needed materials, mainly to sell, but some to level your alt and gain access to better materials to sell, level and so on and so forth.

Sixth Tip: (Although you've probably already done this already) Form a Bank Guild. Roll a toon (one of the above ones), go to your nearest capital, and get a guild charter with signatures (You'll probably need to pay people to sign as un-guilded toons are something of a rarity, and they're all trying to make gold too) and get one of your toons to supply your bank toon with bags and gold. Buy all the slots in the guild bank and bags slots in your toon's bank. Use this to store your crafting mats, selling mats, BoE drops for auctioning etc. etc. You can post all your greys to this toon too, because if you leave them in a city, they can vendor all the vendor trash, and use the money for auction fees for the other (decent) stuff you send them. One fun thing to do with Bank toons (And why I recommend Warrior alts as bank toons) is to clad them in interesting garb (I love my warrior wearing the Unadorned Chainmail from the Belf starter area, looks really cool on a female dwarf with a red plait, which is another reason to get a friend to do the honours with an opposing faction toon)

All in all, keep your eyes open, save your gold and spend it wisely. And of course, enjoy :D

Movember!

IRL:
I've shaved my resplendent beard off for a charity event called Movember, it's to grow a Moustache (a 'Mo') for the whole of this Month ('November'see what they did there?)

It's for Prostate Cancer and men's health issues. I have a son, and I have nephews, so it's not entirely selfless :D

Please help us by clicking this link - Movember

WoW:
I hate failed raids. Went on one last night, had an hour to play, spent 20 getting people together, spent 20 playing, then the raid wiped and they spent 20 minutes bitching about it. Meh!

Greek Yoghurt!

IRL:
Greek yoghurt with honey is delicious, with a bunch of granola and a bit of cinnamon. Crank up Joe Cocker's rendition of 'The Letter' (Live) from his Ultimate Collection Album and I get a glint in my eye and a grin on my chops.

See you all soon

I love ThinkGeek but customs costs and delivery systems blow

IRL:
I love ThinkGeek.com and no, they're not paying me. I am awaiting a small order of geekish goodies from the states. Being in Blighty (Britain) I expect this will take some time to arrive, but NO! it crosses the Atlantic in one day and is delivered to my office the next day, where apparently I'm not available (the 20thOffice hours, week day, I'm there) and I've 'refused' to pay the customs. Day two, I'm given a slip from the post room, from UPS. I call them, I pay the customs, super smashing great, next day? NO! On their site I'm tracking the package, I'm not available again and I'm still refusing to pay the charge (The one I paid the day before) I ring up UPS, they apologise (ofc) and say next day, which again turns out the same. I phone them back with that 'I'm so angry I'm now scarily calm' voice (Are the lambs silent now, Clarice?) and they explain they didn't have a reference for my payment (Thankfully I did) so got that sorted and they'd organise it for the next day (Today)

The tracking site says 'Destination Scan' at 5 minutes to 4 this morning. Here's hoping! I will also find out if it was the post room being arses, the loading bay being difficult, or UPS being numpties. All in all, I'll be getting them sent to my sister in Milwaukee next time, she can post them to me and avoid all the shenanigans.

UPDATE: I spoke to the post room, they confirmed they'd sign for anything that comes in, which they have in the past, loading bay simply refer people to the post room, so it's not looking good for UPS at this stage.

Hallows End\Hallowe'en\Samhain\Divali

IRL:
The End of October is upon us again, so whether you're celebrating it with trick or treating or as a festival proper, have a good one. I will be celebrating in two ways, trick or treating with my little boy in his vampire costume (Very cute), then afterwards, I'll be having a small bonfire and a bottle of mead to celebrate Samhain and see my new year in.

WoW:
Still milking the headless horseman for all he's worth. Is it me or is this one less rewarding than last year. Last year my DK cleaned up, helmet, trinkets, mount, the works. This year, the same trinkets over and over, a Squashling, a mount. I suppose it's been balanced by the ease of going there, but it just feels a bit tight this year. An 80 version of the Horseman's Blade wouldn't go amiss.

I wonder if they've juiced up day of the dead this year? A big papier mache skull helmet would be ace, and pure comedy gold for my Gnome Warlock. The event is now 2 days long, which seems a bit odd for a 'Day of..' type arrangement.....

Well, I may blog beforehand but if not, have a great Hallowe'en/Samhain/Divali

Back in the loving busom of my guild

WoW
I'm back in Civil Society! Yay! Due to my good woman being sick, and my boy howling his head off, I had to bail on an ICC10 man run. Unfortunately, it was right after I read a tool tip wrong and asked for an AP trinket. It was seen, understandable, as loot roll, fail, log off and sulk. I came back on the next morning to find myself without a guild.

I took time to explain myself in a calm and reasonable manner and was invited back. w00t! It's nice dealing with reasonable people.

IRL
The nights are becoming longer and the mornings darker, soon we'll be turning the clocks back/forward (I can never remember which) and the days will be practically non-existent. I like twilight best, so I'm laughing.

I got invited back for next month's ZUGgaming blog carnival, so I'm flattered.

Hope you're all well, and I'll see you all soon.

Making Gold in Cataclysm

WoW
OK, the possibly most covered topic in WoW ever since, like, July. So I'm going to take a different tack. I work by day in a banking/investment firm (Boo hiss you say, I'm sure, but hey, I'm not biting the hand that feeds). One thing I've noticed, money makes money, so I guess gold makes gold. If there's something on the AH that can be sold for more, chances are it's already quite expensive. Do you have 12.5K to buy chopper parts? If so, I'm sure you'd sell the chopper for 15K, right? Not possible if you don't have the initial outlay, or a very understanding guild. So let's take this to Cataclysm. You're 80, wandering around the new zones, you can't fly in Azeroth until you purchase the license, so therefore, if you're a gatherer you're a step behind the ones that did get it. This means you miss the crest of the wave. When TBC hit, new materials cost a king's ransom, but undercutting worked in the buyers' favour and prices normalised at a high point, then eventually the true prices became commonplace. If you want to take advantage of other people's gold reserves you need to supply their needs before another seller does. Remember the old maxim: If you don't look after your customers, someone else will.

So, my first gold making tip for cataclysm is something of an oxymoron - Make Gold in Wrath and stockpile it. You'll need it to get your flight license, train up gathering skills and simply for stamina. Do you want to have to go back to the Argent Ren faire for gold while others are cruising around new and knackered Azeroth mining all the nodes? Didn't think so, either.

Second tip: Go get things now you can't have in Wrath - The Razzashi Raptor pet, for example. There will be a number of things discontinued by the Cata update 4.0.3, so go read Zuggy's brilliant tips and other sites that list what's going away. Thanks to Breanni for his brilliant site on pets.

Third Tip: Pets - People pay damn good money for them. The Pet Mini Tyreal is going for $985.00(!!!) on eBay. I'm not suggesting you break Blizzard rules, but look at that in gold terms, people will pay good gold for pets in game. With a little travelling (And you can use this time for some archaeology, and XP from travelling - my favourite thing ever - lol) you can amass a decent collection of pets and flog them on your faction's AH for a tidy profit. Part two of this is to organise with a friend to sell pets, roll an opposing faction toon, and visit the independent AH and sell Alliance pets to Hordies and Horde pets to Alliance bods. The secret is to have your friend on Ventrilo or Mumble or somesuch similar. You then sell your friend a grey item for 150G, he uses this to buy his faction pets, he puts these on the independent AH for a tiny amount (With you there on Vent, Mumble etc ready to snap them up before someone else does. You then sell them on your Faction AH, and reverse the process, dragonhawk hatchlings were very popular at start of TBC. Your hordie can farm Black Cats from Hillsbrad Fields. To sum it up: I sold moths for a tidy sum from the Exodar AH, the buyer was a Draenei in the Exodar. This was exploiting one great virtue of WoW players, sloth. (I know it's a sin, but if you're selling to a sloth, it's a virtue)

Fourth Tip: Buy the stuff levellers will need when it becomes cheaper in WoW. When the new ores and cloths and leather hit, the old ones will probably nose dive. People slightly behind the curve (And remember, new expansion means new players, not everyone will be 80 on launch day) will need these things that no one is gathering to level. You could always go gather these things and corner the market, too. Case in point - Wool Cloth. End of the argent ren faire cycle, 5th alt to 80, bored of questing for rep, go to the AH, spend silly money on Wool cloth and get a rep hike with the NPC's outside the tailor trainers in the capitals. Wool Cloth is easy to get for an 80, as in every cloth, ore and leather.

Fifth Tip: On the subject of ore and leather, if you have the slots, or are planning to level a Goblin or Worgen or other alt, roll two chars. Get one to do Mining, First Aid, Skinning, Fishing, Archaeology, and Cooking. Get the other to do Herbalism, First Aid, Skinning, Archaeology, Fishing and Cooking. The reasons are thus: Mining and Herbalism are on the same minimap. This means you can't use the minimap to locate both herbs and mining nodes. The rest of the professions are to gather needed materials, mainly to sell, but some to level your alt and gain access to better materials to sell, level and so on and so forth.

Sixth Tip: (Although you've probably already done this already) Form a Bank Guild. Roll a toon (one of the above ones), go to your nearest capital, and get a guild charter with signatures (You'll probably need to pay people to sign as un-guilded toons are something of a rarity, and they're all trying to make gold too) and get one of your toons to supply your bank toon with bags and gold. Buy all the slots in the guild bank and bags slots in your toon's bank. Use this to store your crafting mats, selling mats, BoE drops for auctioning etc. etc. You can post all your greys to this toon too, because if you leave them in a city, they can vendor all the vendor trash, and use the money for auction fees for the other (decent) stuff you send them. One fun thing to do with Bank toons (And why I recommend Warrior alts as bank toons) is to clad them in interesting garb (I love my warrior wearing the Unadorned Chainmail from the Belf starter area, looks really cool on a female dwarf with a red plait, which is another reason to get a friend to do the honours with an opposing faction toon)

All in all, keep your eyes open, save your gold and spend it wisely. And of course, enjoy :D

Cata is coming: run like £&@k

WoW
Yes, World of Warcraft's next expansion is nearly upon us, and yes, I want the ZG raptor mount like never before. I hope today's 'scheduled' maintenance doesn't include this getting itself disparu'd.

Jimbelle joined a new guild, they're fairly big but they are based on the credo that people have lives and jobs and stuff. I must say it's very refreshing, although did manage to do Sarth 3D on second day with relatively mint 80 'lock, so quite impressed.

IRL
Talking of maintenance, my shelves will arrive today, with a smudge of luck, so I will spend the weekend rebuilding the computer room. I have pro arms to mount my monitors on, the old telly (36" LCD) so I can stick films on while the Mrs is working (she works from home taking orders and stuff for a large mail order firm most nights, and she can't be disturbed) and the oft-put off PC maintenance including multiple monitors and card to my server, the usual round of updates and defrags. On top of that wiring a sizeable chunk of the house with cat6 cable to avoid trailing wires that have plagued us for months.

WoW and IRL: been invited back by Zuggy to contribute to the next blog carnival on gold making in/for Cataclysm, so watch this space.

Be good, or be careful!

Cataclysm - The Meh!

WoW
Yes, I'm meh-ing Cataclysm. Two valid reasons:
1. I'm now officially bored of Wrath. I could probably write a guide on alternate levelling methods. This is my own fault for taking 7 toons to 80, one to 79 (Later today, Ding! in advance) and one to 5 (A bank char!), having killed off a 40, a 20, and a 10 (This'll probaboly 9 to 80 and one to 40 by the time Cata Collector's edition lands in my grubby paws. Also, having my fault for having done them all as Alliance, I've seen the same content over and over. Hell, I've even started trying to do it differently this time. Barely any Grizzly Hills PvP (Got the Grizzled Vet Achievement just for gits and shiggles) So the actual reason I'm meh-ing Cata is that I can't wait for it. I'm actually bored of waiting for it, just want it to happen now.

2. Secondly because Wrath has no new content, and that is Cataclysm's fault. It will also mean that Northrend will become as empty and dead as Outland. I flew through Outland last night. It's gorgeous. It's now also completely wasted. When I started levelling my 60's to 70, it was full. When I levelled the last of my alts to 70, it's was starting to feel a little spooky and empty. Northrend is starting to feel a bit empty. From my WoW friends on Facebook I've twigged that most have let their WoW accounts lapse and will only renew once the expansion hits. This means I'm filling my time until that happens, grinding money and rep etc that won't really be much use until December.

This isn't a direct criticism. Blizzard have done a fantastic job of their expansions, and this causes them problems. Namely (Words to the effect of, as I'm paraphrasing) 'We'd like to release an expansion every year' 'Dance Studio' 'Path of the Titans' etc etc

I'd especially like to say that Greg Street, he of the Ghostcrawler variety, deserves your respect. Can you imagine how much crappy comments he gets? I take it personally when someone looks at my work even slightly askance, this bloke has rhino skin. Respect due.

Hell, I'd like to be able to grind Nerubian rep. Those two dungeons are fantastic, challenging, clever and beautiful. Everything you could ask for in content. If they could have made the Nerubians a faction, it would have been brilliant. Maybe now the Lich King is dead(-ish) you can help them reclaim their home etc etc as part of revamped 70 to 80 content. It would be nice to do something that worked vertically instead of horizontally. Like Sunken Temple for complexity.

I worry that you won't step into Outland or Northrend with all the new content in Azeroth. I would really like Blizzard to make these two zones newly relevant in the expansion. I appreciate that if wishes were fishes we'd all eat well tonight (Unless you don't like fish, or can't ingest too much Mercury)

Also, a big thank you to Totalbiscuit of The Cynical Brit for his Blue Plz podcasts. I might take his advice on the ISP he openly rates.

IRL:
Neeeeed sleeep, and braaaaaaiins

Jimbelle's all grown up, and my leg bloody hurts.

IRL:
Back pain - Meh! It feels like the tendons in my left leg have become shorter, and yes, it's damn painful.

On a lighter note. Life is pretty sweet. My son doesn't listen to a damned word I say, the Mrs is working too much (Which is good for WoW but a pain for housework/seeing her time) but work is going OK and my WoW-life is awesome.

Could really use more sleep though, but as a parent to a toddler, realistically expecting to not get any. Just been informed the little man may have chicken pox. I need that like a hole in the head.

The computer room is an absolute pig sty, but I now have all the necessary parts to build my ultimate super-dooper computer room. Unfortunately, I'm actually quite lazy, so it's not as likely to happen as soon as you'd think. I really want to fix it up, but I'd like it to fix itself up more. Yes, I'm praying for faeries to come sort it out.

WoW:
This past 2 weeks have all been about Jimbelle. My pint sized girl Warlock, has hit 78, and is participating in Brewfest, that wonderful frost emblem farming...oops....seasonal celebration of beer. I even had to speak to the lovely GM's last night, my Keg-Shaped Treasure Chest vanished in the ether. I had a wonderfully upbeat and chipper GM reply and get it posted to me. w00t!

Help a Noob day! October the 2nd 2010

WoW
Finally tested the new AMD X6 rig properly, went through Old Strat, clocked 59 degrees on the GPU, and I'm told this is OK, but I can't shake the smell of melting plastic, so further tests are required. On another note, levelling Jimbelle, my 'lock next.

Help a Noob day, 2nd of October. Saw this on ZUG gaming, and am quite keen to endorse this. When I first started, my new shiny Nelf Huntard. I couldn't tell my arse from a hole in the ground, wow-wise. Luckily a very nice hunter called Brunhilda took me on a tour of Azeroth, where I levelled quickly and got an understanding of playing WoW far sharper in that day than I had in a week of wandering around Teldrassil like a fart in a breeze. I was level 10 and in Gadgetzan, FFS. Brunhilda of Moonglade, wherever you are, thank you, and because of that I'll give people boosts and stuff, and pass on my 5 years of accumulated knowledge, which I never would have got without your help.

(I)Travel to level. It's not tricky, just takes a little bravery, and hey, it's not like you can permanently die! (FYI - Never played a Hordie, so no idea what they do for this type of thing)
-
1. eg. If you start in the Nelf area, run to Darnassus, through the portal thingy, grab the Flight Path (Get these whenever you can) get the boat to Darkshore
2. Get a boat to Azuremyst, have a wander around the Exodar (The Dranny City) get back out, grab the Flight path, get the boat back to Darkshore, grab the flight path, come back out to the boats, find the one to Stormwind, go there. Get the flight path
3. At Stormwind, go to the tram (It's in the dwarf section) get the tram to Ironforge.
4. By now you should be at least level 5. If you're feeling really brave*, run east out of Dun Morogh (Get the flight path, see a pattern here?), north through Loch Modan, north and then west through Wetlands, and get to Menethil Harbour. Get the...? yep, flight path.
5. Then get on the boat to Theramore. Get the Flight path, (FP is an often used acronym) Swim all the way north to Ratchet (Get some water walking potions if you can) FP, etc etc. Then get the boat to Stranglethorne (Booty Bay). Once you have the FP there, you should be able to fly back to Stormwind.
6. Go back to Ironforge through flight paths and the tram (It's free), fly to Menethil again, and swim pretty much directly north to Southshore.
7. From there, run west and then north up to Silverpine Forest and Tirisfal Glades (And come Cataclysm you can visit the Worgen start zone).
8. Once you've done that, go back to each of the starting areas and do all the starter quests. By now they should be easy, and you'll get loads of rep with the home factions (useful when you do the Argent Tournament much later) and because of your efforts, you can visit all sorts of places if you get bored doing starter quest chains.

(II)Also, get the Carbonite add-on (like GPS for quests, because you WILL get lost) and grab every quest in a given area, they tend to cross over saving you time and effort for later.

(III) Be polite, others may not be, but these early days shape your experience of WoW, and you'll get out what you put in.

Bognor Regis - It's actually quite nice

IRL
Coming to you live from a challet in Butlins, Bognor Regis, it's....well, me!

Yes, I'm on holiday with the chief, the boy and the Sortof-Mother in Law (SMiL)

I come from a background taught to sneer at Butlins, mainly because my Mum aspired to leave the social bracket that has kept it in business for so many years (And drag my Dad along for the ride) I, however am here, and enjoying it thoroughly. It has entertained my son and the chief for over a day. I sang Depeche Mode - Personal Jesus at Karaoke last night, and went out for a pint, due to SMiL's presence as baby sitter. We're all here due to a very generous moment from SMiL paying for the whole affair, which is great what with my 3 year wage freeze and everything else going up in spite of it.

The other thing that is going up is my estimation of the SMiL. This is a hard-won battle with me. She still can't park. She still puts her 3 hectare handbag in the narrowest section of my hallway. She is still prone to potentially life threatening outburst (Criticising a large chap with some sort of cage-fighter logo on his huge chest about his parenting skills, when I'm obviously the bloke (And therefore duty bound to defend her) in her group. It's part of her charm (Keep saying it over and over and it becomes true) - Just kidding, she's been good to the clan since Mum and Dad can't be about, what with being in a foreign country and all that. Anyway, enough blowing smoke up her ass, the holiday is great so far. I have a gut full of salty pretzels and a couple of cold Heinekens, and have no work burdens, the Chief and the SMiL are out having a mother-daughter drinky, the boy is asleep and snoring lightly. Life is sweet!

WoW
Due to having to rely on an OK laptop, and a pesh-poor 3G dongle. I'm doing the 3 Kalu'ak Dailies only this week. lame, but the bandwidth blows. Live long and prosper, but still do a week in Butlins.

Meh!

IRL
New games rig!! Hoorah! Trying for another child! Hoorah! Kick-Ass DVD! hoorah! (Loved it!) Olecranon Bursitis! not so good :( I had no idea what it was either. Turns out it's an infected elbow tip. I'll tell you what I do know though, it hurts like feck! And no, I can't put my left elbow on the desk.

WoW:
Hit a bit of an impasse, did the tournament thing, got Northrend Dungeonmaster, got exalted with everyone except Kalu'ak and yes, looks like I'll be fishing this Saturday, and the Ashen Verdict. The latter though is due to not really being geared for ICC yet, never did Ulduar or Naxx, so kinda 'legacy un-geared' however this does make me a bit of a chicken. The other downside is every time I get to roll on a decent bit of tank gear, someone else wins it. I still have my Red Sword of Courage and my Titansteel Shield Wall from back in the day I decided to go tank.

I'm really looking forward to the expansion now. I have the hardware to run it (Phenom II X6!!! ATI HD 4750GS!) and I copied WoW to it last night. Once I've checked I'm not melting cables on the GPU heat pipe, I'll fire it up and crank all the video settings :D

See you out there

:)

Lethergy and Justin Bieber

IRL:
It turns out Justin Beiber can perform a great track. Unsurprisingly, it requires a lot of production. Click the link for a classic stoner tune.

I seem to have been infected with some sort of OpenSource parasite. Suddenly I'm installing 'X'Buntu on everything (Substitute X with your Ubuntu derivative of choice) and I have to say, so far so good. This means I've spent very little time on WoW

WoW:
Apart from running the weekly last week (Lord Marrowgar must die) and finally breaking Marrowgar, Deathwhisper and then lootship, I've been mainly away from WoW of late. However, did finally start sorting my gear out, the latest decent addition being Breastplate of the White Knight. The gems suck at the moment, but more to follow on that score :)

SO looking forward to cataclysm. Judging by the mood I'm perceiving on the server, so's everyone else. When are they going to announce the relase date and collector's edition?

Ich bin eine Panzer!!

WoW:
I am a tank, and it rules!! - I recently rerolled (Rick rolled?) my ret pally
I am loving being a tank. 5 second random waits are a special favourite. It's a tough learning curve, and I had trouble with crap gear to start with. This meant I took a lot of abuse, especially from rude Greeks on Trollbane EU. I am reliably informed that this is a server almost solely for immature, stupid and angry people (And in some groups I've been in, all three.) Obviously apologies to the one brilliant, supportive person on Trollbane who I grouped with recently. You seriously rock.

Now I have all ilevel 200+ gear (Barring one crap trinket) and I will be randoming every night I can. Being a tank means that when +Def gear drops, no one argues when you roll need on it.

IRL:
Charlie's training rolls on. This means I'm solely in charge of our son while she trains. This is good when he sleeps (Which he's getting better at) but friction when he doesn't. Summer seems to have taken a nosedive here in Britain, where I am in The City is overcast and foreboding. It's good for the lawn back home, so I can't complain too much.

Payday and the weekend beckon. Not long now.....

Time and Tanking

IRL:
Charlie's training for this job (Training my peachy ...! 8 weeks unpaid work) is becoming a grind. We've been 'upgraded' to unlimited broadband with Sky, which in real terms means LOADS of reconnects. Turns out the numpties set us to half a meg broadband. Half a meg!! FFS I play games, and Charlie does online support. Half a MEG!! Now this has been put back to a pesh-poor 4Megabits per second (I hate living in the country sometimes) I might be able to play games, or even see Google in under 5 minutes.

WoW:
I tanked. Not like Dollhouse. I respecced to a Prot Pally and tanked my first instance. I wish I'd read this first. Big repect to Captn's Blog which should be compulsory reading for all pally tanks, preferably before they do their first instance.

Tonight I shall play WoW like I haven't played in a week. Because I practically haven't. Meh!

Seany's fantastic party

IRL:
Not been WoWing much this weekend after a fantastic party practically free of drama, but certainly not free of fun. The Mrs and I went to our dear friend Sean's 22nd birthday party and were greeted by a very obviously Irish young man in shiny red hot pants, a denim shirt tied around his midrif and a pair of spike stillettos (How he can walk in those? I have no idea!) with a ciggy dangling from his mouth and a can of Fosters in his paw. That was our beloved host, half changed into this alter ego, Noleen Colon. Laugh? I nearly shat.... (To quote Pete and Dud)

Sean was in fine fettle despite his more fickle friends not attending, but this only enforced that his good friends did attend, amongst them, Fiona (An old mate from Walthamstow, where Sean, Fiona and I lived at one point). My Charlie made him a lovely cake, which I think delighted him beyond words, especially as the sponge was green (something to do with a Donna summer song about a cake in the rain) and of course we got the live rendition by Donna Summer about 10 minutes later. I'm delighted that Sean has a good other half and circle of supporting friends.

Thanks for a fun party Sean/Noleen

Apart from a distinct lack of sleep, and a fuzzy head the next day, it was a fantastic evening, bolted onto a day including a smidge of overtime (Which is always nice) and followed by a lovely lunch in the country.

WoW:
Finally respecced my Rogue, seems like an improvement, will have to see how he handles in a live test (Randoms, anyone?) See you all out there.

Fatigue

IRL: With overtime, team drinkies and long days I'm shattered.

This has carried over into my virtual life...

WoW: Also shattered. With trying to do dailies for Benedictxiv and my newly 80 rogue Jimaeth, I am losing my motivation with WoW. I suspect the worst random instances I've ever done (With Jimaeth) could have a lot ot do with that. I'll be respeccing him to assasination presently, and I hope this can lift his malaise.

As for me, I'm off to get free Cat5 cable and see some friends. Have a great weekend.

3, 2, 1 and you're back in the room!

Yep, back from Holiday.

Best. Holiday. Ever.

IRL - We went through Stansted with little or no fuss. Still annoyed at practically having to strip to my duds because some loony fanatic might use a belt as a weapon. Grow up, if someone wants to injure/coerce/threaten the crew of an aircraft, they can and they will. It's just a PR stunt. You can injure some with a broken bit of plastic, I know because I have (I had some 'anger management issues' as a child. Sometimes you just pick on the wrong nerd)

Our 2 and a half year old toddler slept on the flight over to France, it was a thing of beauty and a joy to behold. He slept like a little lamb between my other half and I, and was desperately cute. All this in spite of the deadpan east european monotone of the air hostess blaring out at about 90 decibels over the crap internal tannoy system every 5 seconds. We arrived at Limoges airport to a warm showery day with none of the usual headaches associated with air travel.

WoW - Holiday is always a great time for some great WoW. My parents have a lovely iMac 20 inch so getting to play in glorious technicolor is nice. My Rogue just hit 80 and is doing randoms now - w00t! his DPS isn't great but I can work on it, with gear and a possible respec, he'll be carving a path of destruction soon enough. Assasination-spec here I come :D

My other alts are progressing nicely, Myfanawy is nearly revered with Kirin Tor simply by doing loads of JC dailies. In fact, apart from the odd withered troll, elemental or Proto-drake, she doesn't get XP any other way at the moment.

Anyhoo, have fun

Holiday beckons

IRL:
Work is a drag, the IT project has been mired in mistakes made by a third party that we on the IT team are having to wear in front of the users. The users are either showing a lot of sympathy, or none whatsoever. It shows who your friends are.

Mostly, it's been a kick in the teeth. Not a happy bunny, thankfully I'm in Cognac next week, where I will be enjoying the hardest-earned holiday of my life, and plenty of the local speciality

Looking forward to swimming in the pool, and spending time with my girlfriend, my son and my parents, and of course French food and drink.

WoW:
My dual spec Shadow/Holy Priest is going from strength to strength. Achievements roll in, and randoms are becoming a regular occurrence. All in all, not a bad couple of days. The holiday will be good, not having work interupt my family and WoW time.

The big migration is over (ish)

IRL:

Just about to start my second full week in my new role. Whilst I am still employed by the same people, this week is the beginning of the end of my 3rd party capacity and the beginning of the countdown to going full time. The migration to move my former client to my new clients IT infrastructure is nearly over. Now it's just paperwork.

It's like what I call 'The legend of the Chinese.' I get paid on the 7th of each month, and every 6th of every month, I want a Chinese takeaway. I am invariably broke at this stage, so the pain of wanting paired with the inability to get it makes for a tantalising frustration.

So looking forward to a fresh start, and leaving my baggage behind. Next March I will sing "Free at last, free at last" and mean it.

WoW

What a great week of WoW, levelled Benedictxiv (My dual spec Shadow/Holy Priest) to 80 and began kitting him up with a vengeance. I've been hitting randoms and using the emblems for rep tokens. However phase two next, use the emblems for gear. That and undo my mistake and kit him with Ebonweave gear for the hit boost.

This week, fish up Ghaz'ranka and The Lurker Below to tie off some fishing achievements.

Well, once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more.

Confidence

IRL

I worry about my boy. He's a bright and happy and cheerful and I'm scared he'll end up cynical, vulnerable and lack confidence. I'd rather he had a quiet, dignified confidence borne of ability and wisdom, than be brash, loud and blasé. I assume I'm not alone in this. I also worry because I suspect he may inherit certain traits from me. I hope my lack of confidence is one that he does not get.

WoW

On a particularly low day, I was found wanting. It turns out Nubbin is nowhere near geared or specced highly enough for ICC10. With a paltry hit rating of 170, frost spec, some sub-200 armour pieces and MP5 gems and no idea of the tactics, I've slewed wildly around while Lord Marrowgar used me as a football during our first and second meetings. Not auspicious. Guildees were really good about it, which almost makes it worse.

I have since had to grind all my alts to make money and mats to respec, regear, regem, and re-enchant Nubbin. She is effectively reinvented. I look forward to taking her out for a spin soon, once I've made a bunch of Veiled Ametrines for her gem slots. Hit rating stands around 230, so as long as we have a Dranny in the group, I should be OK.

Didn;t realise there were good things available from vendors in WoW. Looks like a rep grind with the Wyrmrest mob will get me some nice new shoes, see the Hodirs for shoulder enchant and get Bene to run a bunch of enchant scrolls.

PS IRL

Feeling much better now, just watched this which I believe should be compulsory viewing for everyone. Now go outside and enjoy the unseasonable seasonable weather.

Mindless automaton? Moi?

IRL

I reckon that whole voodoo zombie thing only can happen when a person has to deal with a toddler and their 'interesting' sleep patterns. I haven't slept properly for days, that being I'm getting most of the hours, just not all together, and at the same time.

If you get the chance go to the Great Notley Country Park, lots of great things to do and very kiddie friendly. Went there Sunday and loved it, Daniel went crazy on the play equipment and Daddy loved the giant lie-down swing (Nearly fell asleep on it, more like)

I have a gnome! No, I didn't forget to put that under WoW. I have an actual garden gnome on a tricycle. And he's riding free and easy around my potato patch. He was a delightful present from my Charlie (The Boss, She who must be obeyed, my darling (not-quite) Wife)

WoW

It's just been a terrible and grinding...well, grind to get Benedictxiv (My Shadow/Holy dual spec priest) to 440 Enchanting. I could have avoided the hassle and just spent the dual spec money on mats for enchanting. Then some (person) undercuts all I'm selling on the AH, so I can't make the money even nearly back. Hmmph

I'm 3 pets away from the skunk pet for Myffy and the achievement that goes with it, that'll be good. Dustwallow marsh and the Wetlands on the cards for raptor babies.

Been slowly getting Myffy, Jimaeth and Bene up with their respective dailies. It's time they blew up some pirates and went to Amberpine lodge for a taste of what the enemy look like, and how they squeal when injured. For the Alliance!!

Be good out there, or be quiet about it :D

A magical and revoluntionary product at an unbelievable price - Damn right on the last bit

IRL
Just been emailed by a friend drooling over the newly available iPad. She sent me the price, and she sent me the link. So I thought I'd check to see if Apple are making fun of British customers.

The US site lists the 32GB with WiFi as $599, and the British site lists £499. According to this morning's figures, XE.com says 599USD = 399GBP

What do you get for the extra £100? I bet you know the answer? That's right - Nothing. Before you start thinking Apple-Naysayer, wrong, first computer, Mac Plus, then Classic, Quadra 610, G3 B/W, G4, Mac Mini G4, iBook 13 inch, Mac Mini Intel Dual Core etc etc. I have always loved Apple, but hate companies that make fun of the already stupid British market price to basically profiteer from their loyal fanbase.

Apple, give me a good reason why you think it's justifiable to charge that difference in price? Is it because we British would stand for it? If that is so, you should be ashamed of yourselves. While you're at it, support Flash.

'Nuff said

WoW
Fishing - Grrrr! I wish the fishing contest yielded a few more or more likely prizes. Or at least there should be some more fishing enchants or recipes (Like tailors making fishing hats, or smiths making poles, alchemists making lures etc) Basically spent the weekend fishing in WoW, and this could account for my terrible mood today.

While the cat's away, MOLTEN CORE!!!!

IRL
No family in the house from Thursday to Sunday. After an initial wave of glum, followed by a sacharine-like high of 'house to myself, music on all hours' for just under a day, settled back into the marginally unsettling revelation that I'm more confortable with my family around me. Yes I played WoW, and I played a lot, but I also got unnerved by the quiet when the music stopped, and the lack of movement about the house, no little face peering around the doorframe to to ask "What oonupto, Daddy?" and no Chalrie about for a cuddle. Soft sod that I am, I was overjoyed when Charlie and Daniel returned.

WoW

OMFG - Blackwing Lair, Blackrock Depths, Upper Blackrock Spire, and (The icing on the cake) Molten Core. Just need LBRS to finish of the Mountain Saga (That's not an achievement, just my name for it) and a bunch of randoms, and even Zul'Aman. This was a truly awesome run.

Dailies

WoW

Dailies, dailies. It just seems like every day I'm doing daily quests. LOL. Actually, that's true. THe cooking dailies especially now Myfanawy's up to speed with her cooking skill. Benedictxiv's getting into the Dalaran fishing quests (Although I'll have to check he's done all the Outland ones, want the likkle croc!)

IRL

More Dailies, and oddly rewarding too. The garden is proceeding well, work is improving with increased involvement with my peers in the new company. Throw in a packed social schedule including bowling Thursday and dinner at the The Mansion House on Thursday!! w00t! Details to follow. Another daily task I need to pick up, ironing. My shirts have matched my soul of late, clean, but crumpled and a bit shabby (No chic involved, sorry)

Anyhoo, I'll grind exalted with everyone if I put the effort in :) I'll settle for Revered with most people IRL :)

I love Randoms

WoW

Random Dungeons rule - Seriously, I haven't seen this much dungeon action since I was in my twenties, fnaar fnaar - Only joking. I mean I haven't seen this much dungeon action in WoW ever. It's odd, I'm clocking up heroics and achievements like a no job, no life pro. I finally bought the recipe for the Mekgineer's Chopper and yes, I will, when I can afford to, build one.

IRL

Ubuntu wouldn't load - Meh. I have an aged but respectable 1600SC server which I got out of mothballs recently and decided I would host all my music etc on it, using the apparently good Ubuntu Server, and then load the Ubuntu GUI ('Cause I loathe command line interfaces) Install went OK, drives were recognised, Ethernet card and so on and so forth, reboot and -Diddly squat-! happened. Not entirely happy. Say hello to eBay, Server.

Sunshine - My love/hate relationship with the British Summer begins anew. I love summer, wondering about in shorts and a short sleeve T-Shirt (Or most likely no shirt) is great at the weekends, but having to wear long sleeve shirt (Tattoos down left arm mean long sleeve mandatory in banking industry) and trousers in the middle of The City during the week is a sweaty bind.

Family - Mine are still pretty damn good, sure, I could use a little more 'Me' time, but I'd be enjoying a lot of 'Me-on-my-own-only-and-lonely' time if it wasn't for them (And be unwashed, unhappy and surrounded by Pizza boxes, moaning and so forth) so it's a pretty sweet deal really.

Gnomeregan!!!

WoW:
My name's Regan and I'm a Gnome.....

That's partially true. No, I mean Gnomeregan, the Gnome capital in World of Warcraft. Or Gernormaggen as Charlie calls it. I've been playing my Gnome Mage really heavily recently. So, there I was glancing at the goodness that is wow.com when I discovered this

Finally, the Gnomes be going home. Would be nice. In the meantime I'll just look forward to new GR content and the potential mechano-tank driving lessons. (Do I get to put an L-Plate on mine?) As this was happening, and I need GR rep, thought I'd run the old homestead for fun. At 80, there's remarkably little real fun to be had, but I did score a recipe for Li'l Smoky. A small but tangible success.

All I need now is a bit more Valiance rep and I can start building my Chop (Do I have to start wearing a tasselled leather jacket at my PC?) which means lots of trips to Ulduar if my information is correct. Edit - It is, Flame Leviathan, you have been warned (And it's not personal, it's about making savings where I can, sorry mate)

IRL:
We built a picket fence, and it rools! Yes, I've seen the light and now I'm getting my head around taking pleasure from work in the garden. It would be easier if my back stopped hurting for every single task I have to perform out there, but the lovely vegetable patch my better half has envisioned (Envisinged, as she would say) is shaping up nicely. Best of all (For me, anyway) my chillies are germinating, and so will hopefully grow to become lovely great bushes of fiery delight. I plan to make things with the chillies and gift the plants and/or seeds to friends and family. As for the other fruit and veg Charlie is lovingly growing, they seem to be thriving, which is brilliant. Anyhoo, work beckons. Printers malfunctioning around my very ears. Fun fun fun

W00t! Thunder, Deep Thunder and Stormherald

WoW
I finally cracked it. Got the mats for Thunder, from that made Deep Thunder and then finally made Stormherald. Although there are better weapons out there for a Ret Pally, especially a lvl 72 one, this weapon is a bit of an acheivement in and of itself.

Different factions IRL and WoW

WoW
Nubbin is grinding her way through the Argent Tourney. Her Classic rep is appalling, so I'll be trawling the AH for Wool Cloth again :( or going back to starter zones - Meh!

The upside is this time Nubbin has the Turbocharged flying machine so I can get shedloads of Saronite and Titanium on my travels, the downside is oh bloody hell not the tournament AGAIN!
One moment of light relief, did the quest chain for Scholomance, and now I can see the Caer Darrow citizens, something I've been meaning to do for over 2 years.

IRL
With all the demands of my various employers/customers and trying to fit in with two different holiday structures, three lots of procedures, and still maintain a smiling facade, I'm knackered. Throw in the threatened train strike next week, and I'm simply not looking forward to the week after Easter.

Today, a legend leaves my company. She will be missed. Chandni, thanks for being a damn good colleague and good luck with the next thing.

"You'll understand when you're married!"

IRL
Sounds like a quote from a sitcom, but infact it's a line delivered in a men's loo in west london.

Before you think too hard about that, imagine the scene: A man in his 30's, is using the facilities dressed normally apart froma flamingo pink wig, boa and tutu. A small boy comes into the loo and looks at him, fairly enough, oddly.

The boy points out that the man is actually a 'girl', his incredulous voice pointing out that girls shouldn't be in that room. The man's reply is "You'll understand when you're married!"

To my best mate Darren, thank you for me being on your stag do, and my best wishes as you approach your impending doo..oops..wedding.

WoW
Thunder eludes me. Khorium is really hard to find, and the stuff on the AH is ludicrously expensive. Yes, I'm making an epic TBC two hand mace for my ret-pally. Mainly to really use my engineers new flying machine, which, with training, cost me best part of 5K. Eeeks!

I'll be getting Myfanawy back out and swatting things with it soon, but so far I am 2 Khorium bars, 7 Primal Water, a mere 1 Primal Air away from Big Heavy Stick paradise.

Awwww

IRL

Cutest thing ever - Meerkat babies. Seriously cute. Saw them at Tropical Wings in Essex, which you should visit. And yes, we paraphrase the adverts. We did actual compare the meerkats.

2nd cutest thing ever - Otter babies. Same place, but the meerkat babies stole their thunder.

And yes, I'm a big old hairy lump covered in tattoos, that doesn't make the ickle meerkats and otters any less gorgeously cute.

Worst. Mothers Day. Ever.

IRL
We totally fluffed it. Daniel and I put in a shocking performance for Mother's Day. You need to understand the lead up: Daniel was an absolute angel the day before, all of my Charlie's family came over, (sort of) Mother in law, (sort of) Brother in Law, his wife 'Aunty Doon' (June, as delivered by Daniel's cutespeak) and Charlie's darling granny, who I've adopted as my own. She's lovely and little and sweet, and has been nothing bar brilliant to me since I first started dating Charlie. Everyone's having a pretty good time, Charlie's chucking out great food at a rate of knots, and getting a bit stressed (She has performance anxiety, which is mildly amusing as she is a cracking cook and has the ability to organise me and our son, so how hard is a bit of lamb, beef, salad, veg, and 3 puddings? - I'm not going to go on about the food , OK, maybe a little. Charlie's cooking is awesome. OK, done!) and I'm on clear up, so we've spun the dishwasher up at least 4 times, I've washed every large pan we have about 3 times, hard work but fun. Then 'Just Dance' for Wii comes on, we all shake our thing, and have a chuckle. Daniel charms everyone, we wind down, everyone goes, super smashing great.

So that's the lead up, and so we expect good things for Sunday. I have a bottle of CK in2u (CK representatives, excuse my potentially wrong capitalisation etc) for the chief, and a nice card. Daniel's drawn spirals in the card by way of making his mark. Cue Sunday Morning.....

Wake to very loud crying. Daniel's got faceache (For those not familiar, this means he's woken in a very bad mood) and is being a bit of a bumhole. Charlie's unhappy, she was expecting breakfast in bed, flower in glass, lie in. Instead she gets screaming child, sinus-infection other half (me) now with faceache also (Due to screaming child and some poorly chosen words from Charlie) I then go downstairs, Charlie crying into tea 'she had to make herself -sob-' so I send her back to bed, make breakfast with Daniel (Which cheers her up as she can hear it all) I look after the boy, Charlie doesn't sleep. Daniel still bumholesque, but doped up on Thomas the Tank Engine and Brum (The makers of I should personally thank for services to parenthood) The rest of the day is better, but due to wrong start never fully recovers. I agree to surprise Charlie at a later date by dedicating a whole morning to her pampering in the style of Mother's Day.

I would like to say in my defense my take on Mothers Day is somewhat askew as my memories of it were Mum and Dad appeared at my boarding school and I would scowl at them for sending me there. That and not enjoying the irony of being a child visited at the place in charge of his care by his parents on a day dedicated to celebrating their effort to that end. After that, Dad would ring me to remind me to send a card. Yes, I was a brat, a vitriolic, angry, and ungrateful one too. I want to get over all that before I, like my hero Mr John Ravenscroft (AKA Peel), realise my parents are the good guys and I don't remind them I know this and how much I am grateful now I'm finally the adult they formed me into nearly often enough.

On the subject of John Peel. Reading the autobiography, just got the bit where Sheila (John's widow) tells of John's death. Couldn't read it on the train, didn't want to sob openly on a crowded commuter train, doesn't go down well). I worked at a newspaper at the time, and I cried when they announced it. Thanks for so much, and so much brilliant music.

So, to Charlie, and to my Mum. Thank you, you are, and have done, a great job. I love you both very much. (Soppy sod that I am)

If I had hair I'd actually tear it out!

IRL

Trying to find a touchscreen tablet form factor PDA/laptop. Not having much luck. Lots of lovely Sub-£100 Andriod models at CeBit and so on and so forth, unfotunately due to the increased interest in this form (I love you, I hate you, Apple) thanks to the iPad, I basically can't get hold of a cheap and yet decent internet/wifi capable unit for under a ton. Arrrrgh! Worst of all, I have the unit I want, the HP tx1100 tablet, dead and unwilling to boot without blue checker pattern.

I'm Brilliant!!

WoW

I've cracked it! the gate of levelling, a portal to higher levels in very small amounts of time. Actually discovered this with my Paladin, Myfanawy. Sent her forth to kill 12 Vrykul in Valgarde, and discovered she could rack up 2K XP on almost every mob she killed, with NPC support in the area, it's a relatively quick process. I actually discovered it when all the mobs aggro'd and I had to dispatch about 5 of them and noticed my XP bar going up FAST. 8 bars from 69 is now 4 bars up from 69 in about 20 minutes. Sweet!

IRL

Due to having some residual self image issues which crippled me through school and especially as a teenager, I thought I'd try to help my son to avoid my Achilles heal. I've taught him to say "I'm Brilliant!!" to help boost his self esteem. I don't want to create a raging egomaniac, but a little chunk of confidence won't do him any harm. Being a cute 2 year old with flaxen curls, he does make my throat constrict with pride when he does it, too. Soppy sod? Guilty, as charged :)

Reconcile your family, they're yours as much as you are theirs, make the best of it.

The race to 70 (Or thereabouts)!

WoW

I'm a bit of a sucker for a challenge. This weekend I realised that my old 65 Pally had almost all the boxes ticked for the 'Elder' achievement. So now the challenge is to get my Pally into all the dungeons and to all the Northrend elders by Saturday. Hmmm, wacky races, anyone.

Step one, flying (Outland) - sorted, lowers the cost and turnaround of quests

Step one point one - Riding crop (Jimaeth! Help!)

Step two, level to 68 - A biscuit away from 66 now

Step three, Northrend flying (I'll need to check if that's 68 or 70)

PS I love Wowhead holiday guides, they're brilliant

IRL

My first proper weekend off after moving the company I do IT for from one building to another, leaving the servers in the same place but linking them to the new site with fibre optic, and setting up all the users, printers etc. 'Busy' and 'Headache' are two words that spring to mind (British understatement there, lol) Did some stuff around the house, reloaded an old PC and got a USB monitor working (7 inch Samsung Screen without a graphics card - Can I hear an Awesome!)

Speaking of which, must find out when Chuck is back on TV, loved that show.

Approval

IRL

Approval is a strange thing. I was given a small measure of approval from someone who hadn't shown me much recently. How strange it was to bask in that tiny glow as if the sunny beams of a warm summer day.

On another front, I got another sort of approval, my fiancée suggested we plan for a wedding next year. Again, a warm fuzzy feeling.

Yes, I must be pretty needy, or just emotionally exhausted.

WoW

Aproval is the name of the game there too. My Shammy, Codnor, is now 80 and grinding rep with the alliance factions, seeking their respect and approval. At the same time, our guild, the Lions, is being wound up and another guild, Chilled, put in it's place. I am finally the quartermaster. w00t!

Next stop, Jimael gets flying lessons and a mount!

Be good, if not, be careful!

2010 - Where's my flying car FFS?

Well, I've waited this long, where's my clean free power, 2TB broadband, and the flying car (Although I'd definitely settle for a flying Kawasaki)

Remember: The cake isn't so much a lie as a useful fable