Surprise!

I’m not dead!

Not much going on around here so I’m not sure why it never seems like I have enough time to write… I keep getting these great ideas and sometimes I forget them and sometimes I toss them on Twitter and sometimes oh look a squirrel!

Speaking of squirrels, I have stumbled upon a secret monk ability.

I haven’t played much of a monk yet, but a quick perusal of their ability list shows items such as Tiger Palm and Flying Serpent Kick.

No where is there mention of this ultra-super-secret skill.

I have dubbed it Squirrel Stance.

We haven’t been raiding much, and I don’t really pay much attention to what other people are doing until it starts directly impacting me – like when I’m sharing Jasper Chains with someone.

Imagine two scenarios:

Achievement Unlocked: 50,000

That’s right, I finally hit 50k words in that damned NaNoWriMo thing.

With work as nasty as it was I didn’t think I was going to make it, but I made a good push over the holiday weekend. Then I go and get sick yesterday and easily put the last 2k in to get my winner status. Still have another 2-3k I think to tie in the loose ends and it needs editing. Holy fuck does it need editing.

But I enjoyed it and learned a lot in the process.

So here’s my obligatory web badge:

…

First a story of my stupidity, then a rant about chickens.

My guild has been slow to take a seat at the raiding table. A lot of shit went down and we were just enjoying taking some time to level our characters as the roster refilled.

Friday was a dry run, just because we had 10 people on. Things didn’t go terribly well, got Stone Guard to 60-some-odd percent. But our tank was never intended to be a tank, our hunter needed another week to gear, and the monk… well, he’s on crack. That’s the only thing I could think of to explain it.

Raiding Excitement – Not as Anticipated

Last week was full of raiding excitement!

Just not on Arioch.

Log in Tuesday and mill about Org, waiting for an invite.

(Actually, I stood around and made cloth bolts, Arioch isn’t a scribe. OK, bad joke is bad.)

The roster looks a little thin… only a handful of people are on.

Word finally comes down that it’s postponed to Wednesday.

No problem, just level that pally up to 79.

Log on Wednesday.

Again with the waiting.

Postponed until Friday.

No problem, just crush out some dailies.

And then Tir looks at me and says they need a 10^th for an alt DS run.

Another night of farming

Interrupted by a raid!

That’s right, folks, I got to raid Tuesday night.

Drumroll please…

I went in to Kara and tried to get that stupid mount again.

That counts, right?

Actually, I really did get to raid current content – full clear of DS.

I log in and am greeted by a whisper from the GM asking me to talk with her new raid leader about my raid spot.

Once is a fluke

(This post was supposed to go up about a month ago, right after the post about me falling to my death… but I got sidetracked…)

Twice is a coincidence.

Three times is a trend.

Remember my dumbshit moment the other week?

Well, I didn’t plummet to my death this time, but I’m one step closer to a trend of stupidity.

Getting back in to raiding and I’m told that the raids are starting at 8:30 server on Tuesday.

So Tuesday I show up at 6:30 local. Get an invite almost immediately and chill in Org while we fill in the remaining spots.

Kill shit. Run out of time.

Easing back in

I got to raid!

I sucked ass, but I got to raid!

Even got a Heroic Yor’sahj and the Taste the Rainbow achievement.

Look at that… 4 months with no achievements. /shame

As expected, the atmosphere was different due to the change in roster, much more relaxed.

So relaxed that I think half the raid was drunk.

My bad

I missed a raid.

For what is I believe the first time since I started raiding (years ago now), I completely forgot all about the raid.

I’ve missed raids with warning, letting people know in advance that I would not be available.

But this one was just *poof* gone.

Work has been hectic and playing parent has eaten up a lot of my time (brain cells, too, I think).

So Friday morning I wake up and go to work. (That means crawl to the dining room where my work computer is set up.)

I remember that it’s raid day.

I remember that it’s a 3-day weekend.

Where you stand matters

As I’ve mentioned before, our Group 2 raids on Tuesday/Wednesday and is currently only raiding on Wednesday to alleviate lag issues that plague some members on the higher-population start of the raiding week.

So we’re trucking along Wednesday night, downing H Morchock in 2 pulls (even with the additional nerf, everyone needs to take stomps appropriately on the side with one healer).

We’re clearing trash on Yor’Sahj and two things come to mind.

The first is something I think about every week, regardless of the toon or group I’m with: The trash gets cleared in a circular path around the boss, starting at the portal entrance.

Actual WoW Update

Taking a quick break from the 20 Days of WoW Blogging Challenge (which really should be called 20 days of FREE CONTENT IDEAS!!) to insert a post that is actually about WoW.

My guild’s second group has altered our raiding schedule. This is the group that I raid in on my priest and used to be Tuesday and Wednesday. Since we’re regularly doing a 1-night clear, Wednesday ends up being open.

Apparently quite a few people in the group are experiencing excessive lag on Tuesdays so we’ve shortened the schedule to just raiding on Wednesday.

Until we’re ready to go “hardcore into heroics”…

5% is the end of the World (of Warcraft)

Ah nerfs. Maybe that should look something like this:

“@)(*$)@*_@!_@# NERFS!!!! WHY U NERF MY CONTENT BLIZZ?!?! YOU SUCK!”

Or at least that is what most of the community thinks. Personally, all I have to say is this;

“Welcome to the end content patch of World of Warcraft.”

I want to preface the opinions that are about to be expressed in this post. These are not the opinions of Arioch of Clearcasting. These are the opinions of Tirael the DK of 1337BOHICA (which I lost my password to, because I had to shut down an email account linked to it.) Some of you know who I am, some of you don’t. I will give you some background on me, since some of the new readers out there don’t know who I am.