Mend Pet

Looks like I have been tagged!  And I’m glad for it, because this meme looks like a lot of fun

Thanks to Animagis at Tree Stand for the tag!

You can see some others previously posted by Softi, Faulsey, Kestrel and Ratters.

Here’s how it goes:

1 – Go to “wikipedia.” Hit “random… Read More”
or click http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
The first random wikipedia article you get is the name of your band.
2 – Go to “Random quotations”
or click http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3
The last four or five words of the very last quote of the page is the title of your first album.
3 – Go to flickr and click on “explore the last seven days”
or click http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days
Third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.
4 – Use photoshop or similar to put it all together.

I took it one step further and used whatever font and font colour I had last used in Photoshop (well, I changed the colour for the album name).

The quote was actually a Ghandi quote too, that was pretty cool.   I was kind of surprised how well all 3 fit together!  Fish… ocean… water… nice.

(image source)

Tag… you’re it!

• Anea @ Holy Discipline
• Jezriyah @ When Enraged (post more!)
  
• Neggles @ The Angry Butterfly
• Nassira @ Diaries of a Marksman Hunter (no cheating!)
• Tigerfeet @ Secret Agent Cat

Ghugh finally pushed through the last 15% and hit level 60 last night!  I’m so proud of him… *tear*!

I am determined to do the epic mount quest.  Why?  Because it’s EPIC!  Yes, I know I can just buy the darn thing at 61.  But I had most of the mats I needed to get for the quest on me already from mining, and the boyfriend needs to run the instances on his 80 anyway, so it’s really no big deal.  The only big deal is trying to find time to run them

Ghugh has developed a nemesis though – a creature known as the Nerubian Overseer.  Nasty little bug, he is!  I was determined to kill this rare and take his pretty loots… but he does this horrible web that prevents you from attacking, moving or casting spells for 8 seconds, and he casts it over and over again.  He killed me no less than 3 times while I was on my way to work on my Paladin quest.  What a jerk.

Once I finish up my mount quest, it’s off to Outlands!  I was going to head out right when I hit 58, but I figured, I need some Argent rep for my paladin quest anyway, and I was moving along very quickly with the quests I had, so I just hung around in Winterspring and Western Plaguelands.

I’m thinking of buying dual specs for Ghugh.  I want to try my hand at tanking.  As you can see from the screenshot… my Mining/Skinning combo and my not having to pay a lot for mounts has put me in quite the advantageous position, as far as gold goes… so I can certainly afford it. But I really don’t know anything about tanking!  HALP!

Lately I’ve been doing a lot of character jumping.  Raiding on my Hunter, leveling my Paladin and my Mage too.  These three classes do not have very similar playstyles.  In fact, they are almost as far apart from each other as you can get. Ranged with a pet, melee with heals and spell casting clothy.

This makes it difficult for me to switch between them smoothly.  Last night I played my paladin for a bit, then switched over to my mage, who I hadn’t played in a couple of weeks.  It was… a shock.  I was too used to my buttons and keybindings, expecting different things from different abilities, quite a disaster! (Let’s just say Polymorph != Holy Light and Pyroblast != Exorcism)

I realized I need to adjust my alts to follow a similar keybinding strategy to my main.  I need to know where everything is in a pinch.  So I need to decide what abilities I associate between each class.

So here are the major categories of situations/abilities and which spells and abilities I associate them for each class.  Hopefully this will help me sort my keybindings out so no matter which class I’m playing, the same button will have approximately the same effect.

OMG I’M GONNA DIE, GET IT OFF ME! (Aggro drop/damage protection)

• Hunter: Feign Death
• Mage: Ice Block or Mana Shield
• Paladin: (What are you talking about?  My paladin NEVER dies.) A.K.A. Divine Shield or Lay on Hands

Crap, he’s a runner!  Get him quick before he pulls adds! (Intant ranged cast)

• Hunter: Arcane Shot
• Mage: Fire Blast
• Paladin: Hammer of Wrath

You’re trying to heal?  I don’t think so! (Stun/Interrupt)

• Hunter: Intimidation (when BM-spec’d) or Silencing Shot (when MM-spec’d)
• Mage: Dragon’s Breath
• Paladin: Hammer of Justice

They’re EVERYWHERE!! (Area of Effect)

• Hunter: Volley
• Mage: Flamestrike or Blizzard
• Paladin: Consecration

YOU! Stay there while I kill this guy.  kthx! (Long-term Crowd Control)

• Hunter: Freezing Trap or Freezing Arrow (depending on mob/location)
• Mage: Polymorph
• Paladin: Repentance

Any other situations that you need to be readily accessible instinctively?

Delicious Chocolate Cake

I was really hoping someone would choose this recipe!  And Guin sure did   I was quite interested once I saw it… mayonnaise and coffee? In my cake?  Huh!  It’s worth a try   Unfortunately, since I don’t drink coffee, I had no way of brewing a cup of coffee… so I took a short walk to the closest Tim Horton’s to pick one up.

I decided to make cupcakes from this recipe, and used some chocolate frosting I had handy instead of making hers, which was probably a mistake, as the frosting I used wasn’t very good.  The cupcakes themselves, however, were great.  And you could taste the coffee a bit, which gave it a neat difference to regular cupcakes!

This recipe caused our guild to develop a new innuendo – because I had to AFK saying: “brb guys, I have to go frost my cupcakes”.

Ingredients:

• 2 cups Simple Flour
  
• 1/2 cup Ghirardeli cocoa
  
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
  
• 1/4 teaspoon Mild Spices (salt)
  
• 1 cup sugar
  
• 3/4 cup Helman’s Mayonnaise
  
• 1 Flask (cup) brewed black coffee
  
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
  
• “Mageroyal” (optional) to taste

Frosting:

• 1 stick unsalted sweet butter
  
• 2 drops of vanilla
  
• 2-3 cups powdered sugar, (adjust for humidity by adding a little milk or extra sugar)

Preparation:

Sift together the flour, cocoa, baking soda, “Mageroyal” (optional), and Mild Spices (salt). Cream together the sugar, mayonnaise, brewed black coffee and vanilla. Add dry ingredients to the creamed mixture; stir until well blended. Pour batter into greased and floured layer cake pans (or a 9- x 13-inch pan). Bake at 350°F. for about 35-40 minutes if cooking in a 9 X 13 inch pan. 25-30 minutes for layers, or 20-25 minutes for cupcakes.

Didn’t get around to posting this on Saturday, so it’s a bit late!

We had a couple of no shows last Tuesday, which caused us to be sitting at 23/25 when it was time to get started.  We probably could have gone in and taken out Flame Leviathan with no towers, but we really aren’t ready to go into Ulduar with anything less than a full roster, so we split into 10-mans.  I volunteered to sit out.

I also volunteered to sit on Wednesday, since I felt it was unfair to take someone’s spot when they’d spent all Tuesday night doing the “non-progression” fights that we’d cleared before.

I really didn’t mind sitting out, I was able to relax and play my paladin.  I’ve had a bit of personal stress these last couple of weeks, and I could really use a break.

I don’t want to go into too much detail, but there are some in the raid who are beginning to get all tangled up in my nerves.  Defeatist attitudes are not welcome in my raid.  I don’t need someone to be telling me that we suck, that we’re useless, and that we’ll never get to Yogg Saron.  I just don’t need and can’t handle that right now.

Thursday night we had several people unavailable, so I was brought in to help move on.  I didn’t feel bad this time as I wasn’t taking anyone’s spot, and it was nice to get a little bit of raiding done last week.  When I got in, several bosses were down – the only kill I’d missed that I’d never been a part of was Freya.  I got to help take out Thorim, Hodir, Ignis and Iron Council.

Ignis was a lot of fun! And we ONE-SHOTTED HIM!  On our first guild attempt! (At least I think it was our first… still, impressive!)

I also got to finally figure out why people keep calling it the “crotch pot”.

I got to be on Construct Killer duty, which was great because I got to make things explode!  Unfortunately I screwed up at one point… my crits are almost always over 5k, and since my crit chance is over 52% when raid buffed, it shouldn’t take me more than 2 or 3 hits to grab a 5k crit.  But there was one Construct I just couldn’t seem to get down.  I was getting crits, but they just weren’t doing the job.  Unfortunately I realized just a bit too late that… I was in Viper.  The only way I’m going to get off 5k+ crits in Viper is if I usually do more than 10k   Well at least I got it sorted out and dealt with next time around.

I hope I get to fill that role again!  It is always nice to have a resposiblity other than my usual “kill everything, except myself” job.

It was a lot of fun, and I was really happy with who I had in my group.  Raiding is best when you can do it with people you like!

This week I am taking an official break from raiding.  I’ve signed up as available if needed for a couple of the nights, but I’m really hoping to get the time off.  I need to get a lot of things sorted out and reorganized, so I can really buckle down.