A man's pride vs. A father's pride vs. Priest gear

IRL
My job has changed. I'm now answering the phones and logging calls for the team I used to be a full member of. This is a weird transition for me. It's definitely a drop in position, and it's made the group dynamic a bit odd. The money's unchanged and they've signed me for a year's contract. I'm in an odd position because of an internal conflict. As a bloke and an IT engineer, my pride has taken a dent. I'm doing the job I shouldn't have been doing 6 years ago. I love going to see people and mingling on the floors. I'm trying to lose weight, and this sure won't help. On the other hand my pride as a father and the main breadwinner is telling me it's all good, and simply endure. I'm soldiering on, keeping myself in a job and the wolf from the door, the money's the same so no loss there, we have a home and it's still being paid for and I'm the one doing it. The issue I have is after the recent change, I wanted the option of saying bollocks, no! but I don't have that anymore, not without some olympic jobhunting. It's making me quite unhappy at the moment. I have to do my bit, but I still resent getting dumped on. It has eased in the past week or two, but it depends on how much sleep I get, and if my boss is still trying to stop smoking. I empathise, I did it, and I was a monster when I gave up. But it's still a situation with a glaring dichotomy.

One thing I'm not split on though, The Experience by the Prodigy. Finally went ahead and bought the mp3 of the 'Experience: Expanded' fully remastered album with extra tracks. It is beyond awesome and has made up most of my listening for the past 3 weeks.

Other news
I love Steam. (The system where you can buy games online, often at silly discounts, download and then play them; Not the fluffy hot stuff, that is still nice during baths but annoying otherwise)

WoW
2012! Ellyllaidd is now a full blown 5 man tank blood spec Deathknight. 'Tis awesome, I tell thee! Loving tanking. No funny comments, not amazing performance, but ticking over nicely, barely ever wiping. Also, Love is in the air/Lunar Festivals have made for some nice doodads. So far I've done the hour of Twilight 5 mans, if not entirely (Joined a group last night mid-wipe. Tank bailed. Why are most tanks such arseholes?) So far, only 3 heroics, but not one funny comment even though I know I'm not special. Disciplined maybe, but not special. I shall have to check my threat, but I pride myself on not letting it get crazy and letting the DPSers and healers get directly attacked through aggro. I like collecting the mobs and keeping them occupied. The little satchels of goodies are nice, too. Tanks get rewarded if there are a dearth of them online, which is AWSM!!

December I was mainly grinding away at my priest. Still fairly sad DPS, keep being the butt of jokes in PUGs. Been Shadow almost all the way but considering learning how to heal as Discipline spec. Enjoying the new Hour Of Twilight (4.3) 5 mans. The drops seem to favour plate and mail wearers if my last few sorties are anything to go by. I did roll need on the awesome Mallet 'Scepter of Azshara' from the Well of Eternity instance but didn't get it. Every time I roll I get the instance with the traitor Benedictus at the end. No problem with that per se, but it's a low chance of any desirable goodies run. Want me some Well of Eternity lovin'. Cloth and caster gear central! I'm slowly working my way towards shiny new weapon and trousers. My current selection is roo-barsh (As we say at home) The PvP cloth trousers have the appropriate level but do not have gem slots, or count towards being epically geared, and earn you scorn from other PuG members.

Twitter! vs. Therazane

IRL
I am now @jimaxyn on the popular micro-blogging site Twitter, which then posts onwards to my Facebook page. Come say hello.

Otherwise, I'm mind-numbingly tired. When 5 hours sleep a night is considered a good night, you know there's an issue. M y youngest is fighting off a cold, and grizzles contantly, so no one in our house gets any sleep. Starting to go a little tiny bit crazy.

WoW
Griiiiiind. I'll be using the holidays to grind rep with Therazane and the whole Hyjal Mullarkey. It's slow going, but I'll get there. Add in the Greench daily, I shall be otherwise engaged for most of the holiday.

Slim Jim vs. Patch 4.3

IRL

Little man is 6 months old! Holy crap, the small green thing that Charlie pushed out is now a far less chunky little grinning thing of 6 months (He was nicknamed the chuckling doughball when he started smiling) and of course he's not green anymore. Can't believe it's been that long. Downsideis though, he's started teething. We're not getting a lot of sleep. I've had recourse to the sofa a couple of nights.

I haz Skinny! Dieting, normally an area for others to point out 'advice' to me, is now my area of expertise. I've been on Slimming World, and I've lost over 2 stone. My former 16 Stone 4 is (hopefully) going to break the 13 stone area tonight at my weekly weigh in. It's weird, I've been relatively successful at it, and it's been relatively easy. Those of you who know me know I can't resist snack food, and that 'All you can eat' was always seen as a challenge, not a type of buffet.

Ubuntu One has been odd recently, but maybe I'm just not syncing long enough to make it work properly. Probably the latter. But hey, when it does work it's awesome. Looking forward to two Queen Adreena tunes hitting my cloud and then my phone so I can enjoy the delights of their interpretation of Jolene (It's fantastic, go check it out)

WoW

Patch 4.3 has arrived, bringing with it the end of Deathwing. I'm sure I'll get a crack at Neltharion at some point in the near future due to my awesomeness (And the Raid Finder) and by awesomeness I mean I'll sell that damn Mekgineer's Chopper and go buy me some purples, and the daily random Cata Heroics give me other options for buying shinies.

One thing the patch has brought is the new revamped Darkmoon Faire. It now exists on an island, which can be reached via a portal in Elwynn and near Thunderbluff. There are loads of new and interesting quests and the monthly quests of note related to professions, each rewarding +5 professional skill. Let's say I'm pleased there's a fishing quest as 5 points in a month is probably triple what I'm getting currently. All my toons have hit flat spots in their fishing. Let's also be candid about the profession itself, it's pretty dull. The fountain part of the achievement is pure grind, and the turtle is just plain mean, like that F*&king chocolate cake in cooking. Some people pay perfectly good money to be tortured, and good for them, glad they've found something to get their juices flowing, but I am not into that sort of a dungeon, I'm into dungeon instances so why is Blizzard being spiteful. Anyway, I reckon there's some grand design, and they have provided me with thousands of hours of entertainment, so go figure, eh?

Anyway, get out there and do quests and stuff.

Have fun

Brewfest!! vs No sleep 'til .....ever

IRL

All work and no sleep make make James flake out.

Xander hasn't been sleeping, and so neither has anyone else in the house. We are all poorly with cold, but none so much as Charlie, she doesn't have a cold, she's just looking after the rest of us. Daniel, being a toddler, has formed a brittle composite of clothing and snot by simply wiping his nose with his sleeve, which is endearing for all of 5 seconds, Xander just dribbles from his nose and grins, which is a lot cuter, and I just sniff a lot, which is starting to annoy even me. I wish Xander would take to a bottle, so I can give Charlie a day off. This would be handy as we could go somewhere and leave the boys with the MiL. Me, I'd just be happy with a good couple of hours left alone in the house, then off to the pub with Charlie, who is due a pint in peace, and time away from the house.

Work is becoming more stressful with the lack of any news on the contract front. We've all had our contracts shortened to December the 30th. This could make for a really shitty Christmas. I REALLY hope not, but the CV's been updated and we live in hope.

WoW

Brewfest is here! As usual, the loot table has been shined up and rolled out. A chance to farm one trinket, and maybe a mount and a pair of awesome one hand maces is upon us, dressed in the thin veil of a WoW holiday. I love these farm runs, especially when you get a group that will farm it 'til the cows come home, occasionally swapping one member out for another treasure seeker. I've been levelling my toons like crazy to get them in for this. It turns out it level 84 only, so it's been nce to get Jimbelle into the Coren Brewfest encounter by her cute button nose. Next, Elly (Ellyllaidd) and Muffy (Myfanawy) are getting the levelling treatment. At the very least I want them all at 84 for the Headless Horseman at Samhain/Hallowe'en. It's not a million miles away

I bought the WoW Scalper guide, and am starting to collate the AH data necessary. We'll see what fruit are borne by this in time. As always, go to Zuggy's site for a great gold guide. --->

Job-based uncertainty vs. No play time

IRL

Work is getting interesting, but not in a good way. The firm I work for has gotten rid of their central European helpdesk, and now we have local helpdesks. Good on a couple of levels, we have control, if you want a job done properly... etc, but it's an uphill climb with new and dull and (in some cases wildly inaccurate) procedures. The added cheek of all this is there have been hints that the bank will be cutting staff. Other banks are doing it, and so like sheep, our bank has to too. I have two kids and a mortgage, so I hope they're not cutting staff, but I also think it's time to start looking for something else, as I suspect it's going to be a fairly unpleasant process for the IT department to be slowly hollowed out by the parent bank homogenising the investment arm.

We will all be singing the company song (In French) soon :(

Family, volatile things aren't they. I've been getting lectured about how I deal with my eldest. In fairness, I do tend to expect more than a little from him, and should just let him be 3. However, I do become hostile when my MiL starts chipping in when I comment on the housekeeping in my house. She's got a flaming nerve. However, she's unlikely to apologise, so that won't ever get redressed. It's back to treating her in a manner fitting her behaviour. My parents are in town for a week, and it's been lovely catching up with them, although can't enjoy the Pineau they brought with them (Damn diet) for a little while. If you ever get the chance, go to the Charantes region of France (West coast, half way down, where Cognac is from) and get a bottle of Pineau, it's GORGEOUS. No other words for it.

New toys!! Got the HP N36L microserver, it's a wee stubby cute cube of black plastic. At £250 and then a £100 cashback, it's worth getting as a PC, or media centre base. Give it a butchers.

WoW

Not been up to much recently, made Jimbelle my main, and trying to get back into the swing of playing as a Warlock. It was a relief to run Throne of the Tides without a single clue what I was doing - lol. Tailoring is providing decent revenue stream, but need to get my enchanting up to spec, although one thing hasn't changed since Vanilla WoW - Enchanting is difficult and expensive. I hope the Firelands recipes can provide some decent gold, or at least some nice bits of kit. So far, nothing for my Engineering Gnome Mage worth a look in, but Jimbelle's an enchantress and tailor, so I hope she can whip something up from all this.

Anyway, usual stuff, see Zuggy's gold guide for gold tips worth paying for (Link on the right)

Be good, or be careful.

Children's Parties vs. Guild Runs

IRL

Little people parties are fun. The food is great too, but not if you're dieting. Yes, this will be my 5th meeting of Slimming World. I'm loving losing weight, but I can't shake the image of Marjorie Dawes in Fat Fighters on the Little Britain sketch show. "Dutht!" I'm just short of a stone in weight lighter, and my knees seem happier. Old trousers fit again (Huzzah!) but back to the party. My eldest went as a rogue (The cad/scoundrel sort, not the dual bladed sort from WoW) and he looked every inch the rockstar. He played with the birthday girl and others for the whole time he was there, was a barrel of laughs, and I had a lovely time chatting with some of the parents.

Boblbee: The hunt is on. I'm after a Boblbee Megalopolis backpack. I first saw one in Dark Angel, and I've wanted one since. Now I've been given the go ahead to get one, instead of trying to build my own in the style of Jorge from Halo: Reach. Either way, it's winning! Bidding on one, and watching the others, we'll see.

WoW
Grinding the crap out of the Firelands now, I wants me the Marks of the World Tree tokens for rep and goodies. Dull, but at least rewarding. Otherwise, got my Firelord robe and gloves and now working towards improving my trade skills with my other toons. Dreamcloth is in short supply :)

I'm thinking of giving up doing guild runs, they never happen, there's always a problem. So I'm pugging it from here, methinks.

As usual, buy a gold guide from Zuggy, link on the right. -->

And be good, or if not, be careful

Manalicious vs Manalicious

IRL

Bikes. When most people think of me and bikes they think of motorcycles. Last weekend I was in Halfords buying Daniel his first proper bike. I've lost patience waiting for him to give up pushing himself along on his little front wheel driven trike, and so it was time to sort him out a proper bike, with stabilisers.

This weekend gone, I realised something, I hate sand, not as much as I used to, but it's still on the list. How I ended up at the beach in Frinton and Walton this weekend is a mystery, but had a lovely time just wandering up and down the sea wall and making sandcastles with my eldest son, while the other one slept in his pram like he had an 80 quid bar tab the night before. That wasn't a mystery, as I'm really starting to enjoy time with the family.

IRL & WoW
On the train this morning, I went looking for the brilliant Manalicious site. I've currently 'Maining' my Frost Mage, Nubbin. I went to http://www.manalicious.com, looking for the Mage blog site http://manalicious.wordpress.com . Here's a tip, if you're straight, and on a packed train with a big-ass laptop screen on full brightness, don't go there. The lady next to me was quite shocked, and I was trying to subtly and tactfully employ the tried and tested "F*ck-f*ck-Alt-F4" method of getting away from that site. For the few seconds I saw it it appeared to be a site for transsexuals and those who enjoy their unique mix. Good on 'em, I say, but a bit embarassing on a packed commuter train. Learn from my mistake, got to the very nice manalicious blog if you need to scratch that Mage itch when you can.

WoW
Currently grinding rep with Hyjal Avengers/Earthen Ring/Guild to buy new goodies. In fact I got the Valor point bracers from the vendor last night. Bracer enchants seem t be getting more expensive, so it may be time to start sending disenchantables to a suitable alt. My long suffering Warlock is my enchantress of choice, but I also have a serviceable shadow priest dwarf, and he helps me out every now and then. My other alts aren't just sitting around, my jewelcrafter and blacksmith Myfanawy is making up plate sets for disenchantment and/or selling, and collecting gems from, and generally ending up back with, Nubbin. I've been considering getting Gwyllt back out of mothballs, as there seems to be a glut of dead spiders being left lying around the Molten Front, and I hate to see good leather going to waste. It's the same with Tol'Barad, dead spiders all over the shop, but others have got wise to this, so you have competition.

Find yourself somewhere where many beasts are killed over and over. Near the southern island in Twilight highlands is a spot where many dragons get killed as part of a quest, so worth passing every now and then to see how're tricks.

Anyhoo, be good, or be careful. Usual Zuggy link on the right. Enjoy.