Done for now

Well, that didn't last long, did it? LOL

I just don't have the energy, the attitude, or enough interesting things to share to continue to update a blog. As a writer, I fail to make time to sit and think about writing and I think until that day comes when it's a priority in my life, my writing will again go into hibernation. There was a time last year where I decided I'd written the last decent thing I ever would, but then my countenance and outlook on things changed and I thought I might still have it in me. I won't say I was wrong about that, per se, but I'm not ready to pursue any feelings other than the negative ones I'm feeling right now.

Good luck.

Survival Reprive and the Joys of Leathercrafting

Okay, so Blizzard has apparently pulled back a little on the Survival nerfs (25% damage reductions dialed back to 15%) which is heartening to say the least. It even looks like they (for now) removed the total decimation of my AoE ability! I may not have to cahnge things up so dramatically BUT of course, this is still only on the PTR. Waiting until 4.0.6 goes live will still be my plan of action.


Spent a couple hours last night just doing dailies for gold and famring Savage Leather. I'm only 5 points now from maxing Leatherworking (Yay!) and then I can finally use those 3 stupid patterns I bought that had the wrong skill listed on the tooltip. I have been trying to sell the blues I've crafted but they're not moving yet. Would be a BIG boost to my wallet if they do sell. I think I've figured out I need 40-50 Heavy Savage Leather still to max out my skill, and that translates into 200-250 Savage Leather, so 10-12 more stacks and I'm golden.

Let's hope Horde can keep control of Tol Barard as that's been by far the best farming spot AND as I learned last night, raid groups may pay good gold for croc tails or the food you make from them. I actually sold some Grilled Dragon for nearly 200g last night! Hope that market is still viable as I get a crapton of Dragon Filet from farming in Twilight Highlands. FINALLY found the sweet Volatile Fire farming spot there too, though it's heavily camped. Not so badly though that I can't pretty much get whatver I need for crafting in a hurry. TO HELL with paying the insanely steep prices on the AH for that stuff ever again.

I've agreed to make a guildie his Dragonkiller Tunic when I hit 525, which would use up the only 3 Chaos Orbs I have :( BUT if he holds to his word of making me my BiS bow, it will be worth it. Whether I make the Tunic for him or for me, I'm still left with the unappealing prospect of running more heroics to get more Orbs :( Has to be done to continue crafting the epic gear.

On a slightly different, fantastical note, have you seen this stupid new astrology bullshit? I don't give a lot of weight to that stuff in general, but I do sort of take pride in being a Capricorn. Now I'm supposedly a Saggitarius all of a sudden? No. I'm not buying it and I'm not accepting it.

Times are a Changin'

Changes are afoot at my company. We're going to be moving in a couple months, a little further northwest from our current location. Yay for a slightly longer drive to work and for a convoluted drive home in rush hour traffic. I'm sure now I'll be running late on the mornings I have to drop my daughter off at school. Oh well, I wasn't consulted when they were scouting the possibilities.

We're going to have a new website soon too, one that's more user friendly and one that might (hopefully) tie in with our computer systems, which are also getting an overhaul soon. We'll be trying out a new database system and wont that be fun!

I've managed to get my Leatherworking skill up to 519- no easy feat when I need (10) Volatile Fire for each craft. I'm just hoping I can sell a couple of the items for 1k or so. So far there've been no takers.

I'm looking forward to raiding though I'm not sure what the future holds for my current spec. I'm not chaging anything until 4.0.6 goes live.

I'm not really having anything else to say so that's all for today.

Uh Oh, Here it Comes

Just reading up on the latest patch notes from the PTR and it looks like Survival Hunters (Oz) will be getting bent over and fully reamed, big end first, with the Nerf Bat. The overall reduction to SV DPS is currently about 25% in theory, though possibly less in practice. I don't crunch those numbers or theorycraft, I get info from the expert hunter Bloggers like Frostheim. They're also nerfing SV's AoE usefulness, making the spec wholly unattractive for raiding imo. Of course, these changes are only in testing and until they go live I'm not planning to change anything.


If they DO go live as currently stated, I'll likely be switching to BM as my main raid spec, mostly for the exotic pets. BM & MM DPS have been buffed slightly so they shouldn't be noticeably lower than SV. Hell, I might even switch to MM, though the rotation is SUPER clunky and from what I hear not very fun to maintain. So Blizzard is basically ruining my favorite class, but I'm not going to ragequit just yet.

I do NOT like raiding (or even running 5mans) as BM, the DPS just feels slow and low. I think we'll have a Shaman in most of our raids so I wont need the BL from the Corehound, but I'll just have to reevaluate the buffs we DO have and see what else I can bring. The Devilsaur buff might be worthwhile, or even the Shale Spider stuff, or the Spirit Beast heals, though I'll have to look deeper into it. I haven't done *aything* with BM lately.

If anything, this prolly means I'll spend some time soon getting my Protadin up to 85 and then start (again) the long painful task of raid gearing him, which sounds even more like work than what I currently do, which makes it even more likely that I'll burn out on WoW at just the wrong time, when the guild is finally starting to raid on a regular basis.

Raiding will be much different because we've just had our main tank leave the guild. He *claimed* to be burnt out on WoW but in the same breath decide to join another guild and will be undoubtably running raids with them instead. What a joke. At least be man enough to be honest about why you're leaving, ya know? Maybe there will be less drama now- I can only hope. With the pending changes to Hunters, other ranged DPS will be much more desireable, so maybe being a tank again is jsut what the guild needs.

Missing Me?

Doubt it, as there are likely no readers here yet. At any rate, I've been slacking the last week or so which is apt to happen when my attention is on my daughter. I'm not giving up the blogging, but as I really don't have anything worthwhile to say right now, things my be quiet.

Another Year Older

Wish I was wiser, too! And thus (as of approx. 6am this morning) I have now been alive for 38 years. Meh, I feel no different. I've gained back probably 10lbs that I lost this past year, thanks mostly to the holiday feeding frenzy, and I've lost much of the willpower I had in going to the gym regularly BUT, I vow to start again and lose it again and keep it off this year!

I'm the youngest member of the sales team here at work, though there are some younger than I in the company. I'm younger than many of my friends from high school, though oldest among the friends I'm closer to now. I'm older than most of the people I play WoW with, though younger than the new good friend I made there, Bullshark (David.) What does age matter, you ask? Well, I have thoughts about that.

Age is NOT a measurement of maturity, not even close. Age CAN be a good way to place a person's social generational entertainment genre. That makes no sense to me, but you know what I mean- a person of a certain age more likely than not will recall a certain group of TV shows, songs/groups/albums, movies, and historical events with more clarity than others might. Non sequiter- I HATE those new commercials for Television, "It's not where were you when, it's where were you watching?" and "More for the rest of us." Gah, what a crock of shit and who let them put that crap in an advertisement? It makes me want to watch even less TV than I already do.

Speaking of Mormons, what in HELL is up with the "I'm a Mormon" radio ads these days?? I have nothing against Mormons, I just don't understand the commercials. When are we going to have "I'm a Methodist" commercials? It doesn't make sense to me.

Anyway, Age is overrated, I think, and I believe unfairly labels or pigeonholes us. I'm 38, I SHOULD have blah blah blah or I SHOULD be etc etc etc. It makes me feel like when they were handing out the instruction manuals, my 3-ring binder was one of those used, doesn't close all the way kinds, all beat up and second hand, and many of the pages slipped out without me noticing. I didn't get to read them and now I find myself in a place I wasn't supposed to be. You know, living paycheck to paycheck, struggling to provide a healthy lifestyle for my daughter as a single, divorced dad, dying inside because I feel like I should be a homeowner and want to buy a ring for the woman I love and ask her to marry me but I can't afford it...

That got a little away from me, sorry. In closing, let me just say that I'm not excited about my birthday, I wont be doing any major celebrating, and while I pretend I don't care, I'll be secretly counting the number of times I talk to certain people today before they finally wish me happy birthday, and making a mental note if they should forget altogether. Ha. Am I shallow or what?

Ouch, that hurts!

Do you ever feel taken for granted? I did last night, and it hurt. Not fun. Have you ever taken someone else for granted? I know I have, and I'd wager to say that we all have at some point in our lives, like it or not. I don't believe I've ever intentionally taken people for granted, and I don't think I was taken for granted intentionally either. As I said, I think it's more common than we'd care to admit but we rarely (I hope!) do it on purpose. We realize it after the fact, usually after the other person has told us how hurt he or she was, then we feel bad (I hope!) and apologize and hopefully our relationships are strong enough to carry on. Ever since it was made clear to me, in the past, that I have done that I have made a conscious effort in my life not to do it anymore, especially to the people I love. I know it's hurtful and it can really ruin some one's day, or night, or whatever.



Stop and think for a moment about the people you interact with in your everyday life. Friends, coworkers, family, the paper guy you walk past every morning, the mailman, your boss, the clerk at the grocery store, etc ad infinitum. This has been part of my thought process lately: Do you look people in the eye when you casually greet them? You know, that tossed out "Hello" to random folks with whom you cross paths. Do you think it matters? I do, or at least, I try to every time.  I Think it means a lot more if you look at someone in the eye when you say hello or smile as you pass. I think it's appreciated and I know I appreciate it when I'm on the receiving end.

Feeling appreciated is just very nice in general, even more so when someone takes a moment to stop and tell you, "I really appreciate what you do." It's a warm fuzzy feeling, of course (doubtful you'll EVER hear me say "warm fuzzy" again here, just sayin.) I think what we need to be careful of as social beings though, is saying things like that and then using them as a "free pass" to do thoughtless or hurtful things. I believe this is another common though unconscious act and as such it's tough to self-police, but we need to try.


To bring this back down to earth- I ripped the young woman driving in front of me on my way to work this morning a new one because she was the worst driver I've ever seen (since yesterday) and yelled and pointed at her. She probably (if she even noticed) thought I was having a seizure or something! I'm embarrassed to admit it. Being upset does NOT give you the right to say whatever you want, even if the person can't hear you! Oh well, make the rest of the day better.

Hurry Up I'm Road Raging Over Here!

It feels a little like Monday again. >.<


I consider myself to be a much calmer, more laid back version of my former self, yet this morning driving to work, feeling a little rushed (my own fault) made me irritable and while things would've been just fine had everyone around me realized this and driven accordingly, I was lucky enough to get behind the one asshole who (apparently) had nowhere to be at any specific time. As he poked along I drove way too close to his back bumper, yelling and gesturing at him, sure he could see my wrath in his rear-view mirror and certain my anger would make him adjust his speed and get the hell outta my way!

Wrong. I think the guy actually tried missing every green light on purpose, just to spite me.

I didn't bring the camera today so the photo accompaniment will wait.

I have all these thoughts about WoW during the day while I'm at work- what enchants I need to perfect my gear, that I should make a point to do ALL my dailies to make more gold, that I really should make an effort to finish at least the one random Heroic each day to get the extra JP, and also that I want to stop thinking so much about WoW at all and concentrate more on work! LOL?

I have made myself a list of the enchants I still need and the materials necessary for them. I have a feeling that TEN (10) Maelstrom Crystals are going to be SUPER expensive right now and I might as well wait until I replace the pieces- the gear I have right now is decent enough to start raiding. I'm going to miss the first (second?) officially scheduled guild raid this weekend, but I made a decision that I wouldn't raid when I have my daughter with me, and I feel good about that choice.

I went to the gym for the first time in a while last night and forgot that it woul be overcrowded with all the Resolutionites, being right at the start of the New Year. It was too crowded to do what I wanted when I wanted so I cut the visit short. I'll go again tonight and try like hell to stay on my schedule, I need to drop the holiday weight, and fast. I feel like a cow again.

Ok, so I'm a little behind schedule, already.

Yes, I realize it's now January 3rd, and I'm just now making my first post of the New year. I can only attribute that to my extreme proficiency at Procrastination. Well not only that, I actually did stuff over the holiday weekend, but mostly that. Never mind that become less good at putting things off is sort of one of my personal Resolutions for 2011. I'm not necessarily proud that I've excelled at for the majority of my life, but we all have to be good at something, right? OK, we don't have to be, but we'd like to be, yes?

Anyway, as I've struggled with keeping up on this blog for a couple years now, I'm going to lay out the basics of what I aim to accomplish here this year. I often wonder what in the world to write about and what other people could possibly care enough about to read, when really it doesn't even matter. I'm not even sure I care about most of it that much, so why should you? I'm no longer going to worry about it.

I'm probably going to steal certain ideas and topics from the other blogs I read. I suppose I could say instead that I will likely be "inspired" by those entries but if I'm honest, it'll just be stealing the ideas. Obviously, my observations and opinions will differ, but the topics may be the same. I'm going to talk quite a bit about an online, computer game called World of Warcraft. Some of you will be very familiar with it as players yourselves, and others of you may know of it only peripherally, or not at all. It doesn't make any difference to me. It's something I spend a lot (relatively speaking) of my free time involved in and for the most part, I enjoy it, so I'll be talking about it.

Yes, I'm still a bit of a cynic, a doubter, and kind of curmudgeonly, despite my best efforts and the decidedly joyful things I have in my life. I will therefore most certainly be talking at length about things that I find irritating, things that bug me, and things that piss me off. That was redundant and I said the same thing repeatedly but using different words. I know this, and I think it's funny. You might not, but again, not really as much much concern as it would be if my enjoyment of writing this blog depended on your enjoyment of reading it.

That said, please read and recommend me to your sarcastic, dry-witted friends! I've convinced myself I will no longer worry about who reads this or why- it's for me that I do it- but I welcome comments and the opportunity to engage in discussion or debate about a great many topics. Share your thoughts and my link and let us all enjoy our 2011. I also plan to incorporate more images this time around as I received a very nice, portable, digital camera for Christmas and would like to record more of the world as I see it.