The Game Dame

The good news:  Patch 2.4, Fury of the Sunwell, is live today!  Woot!  Lots of good new stuff, including UI improvements.

The bad news:  UI improvements mean that 100% of my add-ons are toast.  It’s almost impossible to play a high level shaman without Totemus.  Even if you wanted to, there aren’t enough button slots.  Sigh.  So instead of playing WoW before my vacation, I’m going to have to spend time tinkering with my UIs until I can make them playable.

On the plus side, my first attempts at messing around with the new totem timers that Blizzard added were quite fun.  It’s VERY nice to be able to dismiss only one totem instead of all of them.

Overheard at McDonalds

Grandma to Grandson: “Someone at church said you might like to try something called Web Kim’s. What is that? Some kind of web camera?”
Woman, explaining: “Webkinz. It’s a website where kids can adopt virtual pets and get stuff for them.”
Grandma: “Ohhh. Like pet rocks?”
Grandson: “Webkinz? My cats are better.”

Movie Recommendation

I watched Idiocracy last night. I had low expectations of it since I knew it had only been in theaters for a nanosecond, but we DVR’d it during a free HBO weekend, so it was a low risk proposition.

You can read reviews of it on Rotten Tomatoes, but all you need to know is this: if you like Office Space, The Simpsons (in its heyday), Futurama, anything done by Mike Judge, Trey Parker, or Matt Stone, you will find this movie HILARIOUS!

I loved it. It’s a brilliant combination of just stupid silliness overlaid upon biting, intelligent social satire. You can enjoy it on either level or — as I did — both at the same time. I won’t say it’s for everyone (it’s clear why the theater release was so short: it takes no prisoners with corporate America), but if you liked the list above, you’ll enjoy this movie.

Welcome WoW Insider readers! Please don’t break my intarwebz. Also, under no circumstances should you ever, ever read my post about WoW Insider. (Heh.) And now for the meat of today’s post…

The Voting Has Ended

I’m going with the brown tauren icon that I asked you to take a look at the other day. You can still continue to vote, but I doubt it will change my mind. I will, however, admit to making some ITSY BITSY changes to the brown one for the final version (not done yet). And, as promised, Kestrel’s night elf is up next…

Crowd Control? Wait… what?

Alright, I’VE HAD IT! I have HAD. ENOUGH. I’m soooooo over everyone saying (in high squeaky voice), “I don’t play a shaman cuz they have no crowd control. Waaaahhhhh!” I’m calling you people out! Especially when it comes to leveling.

You see, I’ve been playing a frost mage on the q.t. lately, just to see if those shammy-bashers were right. Um. Okay. WRONG. I find it MUCH easier to level a lowbie shammy than a mage. Case in point: There’s no way, at level 17, my mage can take on more than 2 mobs at once and sometimes not even 2 if they resist my Frost Nova or are undead and can’t be sheeped. If I pull a third mob accidentally, I have to run like the dickens and hope my potions can bail me out because (1) I HAVE NO ARMOR; I might as well be nekkid. (2) I CAN’T HEAL MYSELF. And (3) I have to stop and drink practically while running away. I mean, dude, these guys can put away some liquids!

I use my sheep when I can — which when leveling a Forsaken is almost never due to the high amount of undead in these here parts. (”Parts?” Was that a pun? God, I hope not.) I use my Frost Nova whenever it’s cooled down — and yes, I invested talent points in lowering the cooldown. I use Frost Bolt almost exclusively instead of Fire Blast because it slows everyone down and I’ve shortened the cast time with talent points. Yet despite all these crowd control efforts, I still get my booty kicked regularly, do corpse runs as if my life depended on it (uh… wait…), and pay so many repair bills that I often can’t afford to buy my new spells.

My shaman? Well, my elemental shaman (not even enhancement) could easily take on two mobs and quite often 3 at a time. Why, you mage-heads ask? Take numbers (1) through (3) above and then assume the opposite of each. Yeah. I have armor, I can heal myself, and I use mana wisely.

So three words, shaman haters: IN. YOUR. FACE!

Art and Job Stuff

I added a portfolio tab to the blog, so check it out if you want to. My plan is to use it to both push and pull design work (as well as writing and marketing work when I get the resume portion finished).

Also, when I get back from vacation next week, I’m going to start a video blog (with an eye toward making it a documentary) about how I’m going to go about starting my own business. So keep an eye out!

Another Goody for WoW Insider Readers

Did you get down this far? If so, please go check out our anti-PuG experiment at Pox Arcanum!

Yesterday I came across two Brightly Colored Eggs for Nobelgarden in Tirisfal Glades. Each contained a bit of silver and candy along the lines of what we got at Hallow’s End.

I wasn’t entirely happy with the last icon, so I tweaked it a bit. Please vote for the one you like best! Once I determine the overall style (based on your votes!) I’ll make a Night Elf for Kestrel, since he can’t abide Tauren. Hee hee!

Choice A click for larger versions!	Choice B click for larger versions!

Also want to create a poll? Click here.

I’ve been wanting to make some WoW icons for my toons and also for some ideas I have to sell on CafePress. (It’s a secret! More to come!) I haven’t made them class-specific, only race-specific for now. Of course, I started with a tauren. Let me know what you think. If it stinks, I’ll take another track. (Click to see it larger.)

Do you have words that you frequently use to mean something other than the generally accepted meaning? You know what I’m talking about. Not pet names or made-up words, but words that mean something to you (or your close friends and family) that an outsider would completely misunderstand? I know you do.

So, to honor the versatility of this amazing language we call English, I’m starting a new (non-daily) feature called Today’s Word. Today, the word I feature from my own idiolect is “stinky“. For whatever reason, I find this a very flexible word. I present some of the meanings I use it for:

• Cute. Talking to my cats: “Oh yer such a stinky doodle, I love ya.”
• Bad. “No fighting! Don’t be stinky!”
• Ornery. Must include the suffix “-pete”. As in, “Stop teasing me, you stinkypete!”
• General term of endearment. “Mommy’s home! Where are my stinky kitties?”
• Mild perjorative. Must include the suffix “-bait”. Weaker than calling someone a jerk. More of a loving razz, really. “I see you changed the channel while I was in the bathroom, you stinkbait.”

I have no idea how all these meanings came to be.  I just find it extremely amusing how English continues to evolve and thrive.  Do you have personal words to share?

Ever since I quit my job, I haven’t been able to sleep. Not for lack of being tired, either. Just can’t sleep. Part of it’s probably subconscious anxiety about money, but I think the biggest part of it is that I have SO many things running around in my head that I want to do that I just can’t get them all done fast enough. Or even get them down on paper. I’m too excited about being able to do all these things that I can’t sleep.

I’ve had bouts with insomnia before, but it was always stress related — negative stress. What I’m feeling these days is more akin to what you used to feel when you were a kid the night before Christmas, or the night before you were driving to Disney World.

Don’t worry about offering cures. I’ve tried everything and am actually quite well educated on the topic. A while back, during my last stint, my doctor gave me Ambien. Sweet, sweet Ambien. (Cue Homer drooling.) Works brilliantly. I slept the whole night and woke up refreshed and non-groggy.

There’s just this one tiny, itty, bitty problem with it: I do things in my sleep. Yep. Remember that congressman who claimed he wasn’t drunk driving but sleep-driving on Ambien? I totally believe him. In fact, I usually make my husband hide the keys to the cars when I’m taking it. I have never been a sleepwalker prior to taking Ambien, only been known to mutter in my sleep from time to time. (College roommates used to mess with me and try to talk to me in my sleep until one night I woke up in the middle of a sentence about Fat Albert and caught them. True story.) I haven’t tried to go outside on the Ambien. It’s just been little things like waking up walking into the lamp, coming out to the kitchen in the morning to find things used that I don’t remember using, talking to my husband about a half hour before bed and remembering none of it. Truth be told, it kinda freaked me out to be so NOT in control of my actions. (Hubby says I act normal during these times; he doesn’t know till later when I can’t remember what we talked about that I was “asleep”.) I also wondered, besides the obvious safety and mental health issues, if I am doing all this stuff, how much of a good night’s sleep am I really getting — despite how good I feel in the morning?

Needless to say, this took the shine off the Ambien for me. I haven’t refilled the prescription. Yet. However, I am going on 7 nights in a row without sleeping well and I’m starting to feel desperate enough to call my doctor. There comes a point where you’re tired enough that you think you can live with the side effects.

Oddly, one thing I do NOT do when I can’t sleep is play video games. I know too well that (a) they will rile me up, excite my imagination, and generally make it harder to calm myself down and (b) being sleepy, yet awake, makes for a very bad player with poor judgment. Bad decisions = corpse runs * 10. Not fun.

So my insomnia project tonight is to update the blogroll, which I’ve been meaning to do for a long time. I’d also like to highlight some of my recently added favorite blogs. All the blogs I’ve listed are on my own RSS reader, just so ya know.

First, I’ve added quite a few shaman blogs. So if you’re looking for that type of information, I’ve separated it out for you on the right hand menu, or on the brand new “Blogroll” tab at the top of this blog! (Note that eventually the right hand blogroll will go bye-bye.)

Must Reads

I read these blogs every day, without fail. I offer no commentary on these, just subscribe to them and you’ll see what I mean.

• Big Bear Butt Blogger
• Big Red Kitty
• Kestrel’s Aerie
• Kinless’ Chronicles
• Musings of a Nut Job
• Mystic Chicanery
• Need More Rage
• Outland Bound
• Pox Arcanum
• Temerity Jane
• The Rabbit and the WoW
• Two and a Half Orcs
  

New Reads (since the last update)

• Feminist Gamers
• game girl advance
• Girl Meets WoW
• Girls of Elune
• Gun Lovin’ Dwarf Chick
• Hooved Shaman
• Hud’s Hideout
• Keine Ordnung
• Klaki’s Klouded Thoughts
• Kung POW!
• Lady Jess
• Liquid Silver
• Resto4Life
• Resto4Now
• SlashHug
• The Elementalist
• The Enhancement Shaman and You
• The Pensive Harpy
• Windfury
• Wulf’s Warcraft Weblog

Non-Gaming Reads

• Good Food, Good Fun Well Done: Cooking website, for newbs and experts
• I Can Has Cheezburger?
• LOLCats.tv
• Junkfood Science: What you need to know about how the press covers health issues, brilliant analysis

More Intense Reads

I’m not an overly-studious WoW player, meaning that I don’t calculate crits and stats the way I probably ought to if I was a better-committed player. Still, I subscribe to a lot of those types of sites in my RSS reader in case I can learn something from what they have to teach on any given post. Some of these are also not about WoW, but gaming in general.

• Amava Knows Aggro
• Aspect of the Hare
• Broken Toys: general gaming commentary
• Less QQ, More PewPew: Very intense WoW analysis, extremely insightful and intelligent
• Se7en Samurai
• Shadow Puppets
• The Bronze Kettle
• Vector Vixen
• World of Matticus: WoW blogger and blogging blogger, very sharp mind
• Yet Another Warlock Nerf

Okay, well that did it. My eyes are too tired to be typing any more so I’m going to try to hit the hay.

…plus one burly moo-cow. Slig finally crossed paths with Beowulfa and Dammerung on our new server, Drenden. They had the most excellent suggestion of plowing through Scarlet Monastery tonight. It was a moiderin‘, I tells ya! Those red abbot dudes did not see the flurry of Enhancement knives chopping them like a Ronco veg-a-matic. Nor did they realize how tasty they would be to Beowulfa’s little kitty, Twilight. Both orcs got a blue, about which I was most pleased. Unfortunately, neither of them got the phat hat that I’d gotten back in the day, but whaddaya gonna do?

As you do, we celebrated with altar dancing and some leftover wine. Over the bodies of our enemies. Heh. Good times.

PS: Uldaman? The calendar called and said your days are numbered.

I’ve written up my version of this week’s Green adventures on Pox Arcanum.  Lots of photo ops!  Please read!