Happy Holidays Horde.....and you little gnomes too.....

Wow...it's only been a little over a month since my last post?! What a slacker! Anywho....I haven't upgraded to Cataclysm yet, so what's the use of posting anything anyway? When you have a newborn added to the mix it really puts a damper on your available time! Everyone enjoying the new crap so far? Hope so. I'll likely upgrade after the holidays when things aren't quite so manic. Happy Holidays to all my fellow Hordies and even a slight holiday nod to you alliance girls. Hope you all enjoy these days that go by much too fast. Be safe. Be healthy. Kill gnomes. Not necessarily in that order.

cataclysm

I understand that it's all part of the lead-up to cataclysm...got it. But, it's really a pain in the ass when I log onto my level 40 druid banker at Thunder Bluff and I can't do anything because everyone is trapped in little cyclones and these damn air elementals one shot me and there's not a thing I can do about it...because I'm level 40!!!!!! I just want to sell some stuff! Where are the auctioneers?!?! SO I jump onto an 80 hoping to port over to T Bluff and put a stop to this stuff. Only problem it takes for frickin ever. I was putting up wind blocking thingies andanti-cyclone totems and fighting off an endless supply of elementals for what seemed at least 30 minutes with no appreciable effect. Guess I need to send banker to another city. Meh....zombie thing was fun....I'm finding this irritating right now...

Life goes on....

Amazing how difficult it is to PvP with a baby in your lap. Even auctions or blogging are next to impossible. Somehow at 4 weeks old, out like a light, the little beast can tell the moment I stop dancing and sit down in fron of the PC. Maybe I need to make a standing computer station. Hey! There's an idea! Anyway, currently working on replacing my furious gear with the relentless gear that is now available without arena points. Hope all is well with you and the WoW worrld!

Random patch thought...

So I finally got everyone specced and glyphed. My shammy and priest were first. Resto-ele and disc-shadow. Healing was great. Mana seems limitless. Even using healing surge on my shammy, I'm hard pressed to run out. As ele and shadow, dps is awesome. That seems to be where it ends though. My MM hunter, arms warrior and unholy DK suck. I can barely generate anything. I did the HH and i was doing under 1k dps on arms warrior. Maybe it's the mechanics of the fight, I did notice that generally dps is atrocious for most party members. But even on the dummy it wasn't easy to get 2.5k dps. On brewfest boss, my arms warrior was doing 3.5-4k easily (moderately geared). My MM hunter was too (low-moderate gear). I can't break 3k on the dummies. Did I miss the patch notes that said the plan was to lower everyone's dps? Now I'm spending all my time trying to figure out how to fix this....

PS- K, enjoy the next chapter, hope to see you around some time. Somebody has to defend those delicious little gnomes.

PVP update and Strand of the Ancients

So, on the excellent advice of Shamrockgirl, I added the glyph of stoneclaw totem and now drop stoneclaw at the intro to any pvp encounter. Generally I follow it with earthbind, but if fears are eating me and the group up I will drop the tremor totem. I'm not sure if I can quantitatively evaluate how it's working, bit a 15 second shield that absorbs almost 4.4k damage can't be bad. In the last couple days, I've been in a few BG's where horde was really getting smashed by a superior alliance force and I was able to keep myself alive and the teammates around me as well. At times I would have multiple opponents on me, but using the stoneclaw whenever cd was up as well as keeping earthshield up I managed to frustrate the hell out of some people! Survivability on a resto sham is nice. It almost makes me want to look into Arenas. Don't know alot about them but I've pretty much maxed the gear available to me without doing them so.....Anyone on Bleeding Hollow looking for a resto sham? Now onto SOTA.
As a healer there isn't alot to do on defense. I usually get on a canon at the beginning and try to take out tanks. I also try to call out tank positions and throw out the obligatory "focus on tanks not individual players!" mantra. If defenders really have the offense locked up somewhere, I'll join the battle and heal, but truthfully the secret to this battleground is the tanks.
On offense it's much the same. I may try to hex someone who is taking out tanks or throw out heals to those who are actually defending tanks. Again, tanks are really the main focus. One tip however is to always have a bomb on you. Whether you are in a tank or not, have a bomb, place it at a gate. Easy.
As far as strategies go, there are a few. Hitting one gate. Hitting both. Which graveyards to turn and when. The truth is I think the primary strategy is to destroy tanks on defense and defend tanks on offense. The team that does this without getting caught up in little pvp battles along the way will win, no matter what.
I'd say for the resto sham, heal when things are under control, focus on tanks and drop totems that best empower your team mates to do the same. SOTA isn't the most exciting BG for the healer, but I seem to get it quite a bit on random, so a comment on overall strategy seems warranted! Any resto sham specific additions for this BG are welcomed!

Warsong Gulch and the Resto Shaman.

So I have read a number of strategy guides discussing how to win at each BG. I have nothing better to add to that. What I'll do is discuss each battleground as it pertains to the resto shaman.
The resto shaman is a powerful BG healer. We have incredible survivability and combined with totems and a great set of healing spells, we are a force to be reckoned with.
Step 1- Sounds silly but make sure you have Earthliving on your weapon. Many is the time I have gone through a battle with flametongue still on.
Step 2- In WG I usually start with earth shield on myself. In WG I always heal the flag carrier. You should too. It should be your sole purpose. Of course throw some heals around as you are doing so, but the flag carrier is your focus. Keeping earth shield on myself until someone picks up flag keeps me alive. Once someone picks up flag, put earthshield on them. The amount of healing from this spell is awesome and it can save you fc's life. As you can only have earthshield on one target, put water on yourself. Mana generation is your friend. If your fc is dead or not in range (and you haven't applied it to them yet) keep earthshield on yourself. A dead healer is a useless healer.
Step 3- Totems. You have a lot of choices. In WG i tend to favor the pvp type totems. Earthbind is usually my first choice. Slowing down your opponents is very useful. For fire I usually go with searing. I don't find myself lacking in healing power so I usually go with searing totem for the disruptive quality. However, flametongue is certainly a viable option. For water you can go with healing or mana. Both are useful. In long battles, mana is very helpful. Don't forget to have your big mana totem on your action bar so you can pop it when mana drops too low. The cleansing totem is a nice alternative too if you have a lot of rogues against you. I typically go with my wrath of air totem for the haste although being able to pop a grounding totem here and there is nice (to absorb enemy spells). I usually keep the totems that I like to pop at opportune moments right there on my action bar. That way I can drop my pre-sets and then change as needed.
Step 4- Spells. For me, riptide and lesser wave are my bread and butter. Riptide is great because of the substantial instant heal and some pretty decent HoT as well. Lesser healing wave I use alot because of the quick cast time. If I'm getting nailed and I need to get out quick relatively potent heals, LHW is the way to go. Particularly in WSG. By the time you cast CH, your flag carrier is out of range already. Chain heal is an awesome spell. And if you can stand back and the other team is foolish enough to ignore you, CH is the way to go. You can throw heals around to multiple people right in the heat of battle. If your opponents catch on to you, you will be interrupted every time you try to cast, so at least LHW is a much shorter cast time. At some point you may be stuck in a relatively static battle (defending your FC in your base for instance) and chain heal works great. But, again as you are healing the FC on the run, riptide and lhw are the way to go. Anyway, keybind all three spells and figure out what works best for you.
Step 5- If you don't already have clic/grid or healbot or whatever healing add-on you choose, get it. Now.
Step 6- Non-healing spells. I keep hex and frostshock close by at all time. They are great to slow down pursuers or to get someone off you FC or yourself. Damage is not your goal, but distraction is nice!
Step 7- Follow the FC. Make sure earthshield is up all the time. Hit riptide when it's up. LHW as needed.
That's all my brain is allowing me to write at this time. I'm sure I have forgotten a number of good tips but...meh. Feel free to add any of your own! Up next...Arathi Basin.

Welcome to the world....

Our new family member decided to show up Tuesday night, September 28th at 6:30 pm. All 6 lbs 2 oz of her. I think she's got my good looks.....

PvP: Some Basics

Here are some basic ideas for someone who hasn't done alot of PvP yet and wants to. Very simple. Very basic. I am by no means a pro. Just some observations as I've continued my PvP trek.

Maybe a brief foray into stats:

Resilience: This stat essentially reduces the chance that your opponent will hit you critically, reduce the amount of critical damage and reduce the overall damage received. You need a lot of this! As far as I am aware, the latest cap is 1414.5 (.5? Yes, .5) So functionally lets call it 1414 or 1415. I think many still think the cap is 1230 but it was increased since 3.3.3. The difference between PvP gear and PvE gear is resilience. If you have high resilience, things are a lot easier. Get as much as you can.

Stamina: In my opinion, the next most important stat. Why? Longevity. The more you have, the longer you live. That’s why PvP gear has so much more stam than PvE gear. Think about it. In PvE, provided your tank does his job, the monsters never seem to clue in to the fact that the fancypants girl in the back wearing the long flowing robes and waving her arms about as leaves and stars and flashes of holy light go off around the party is keeping everyone alive. Note to monster….KILL THE HEALER! Unfortunately for the healer, PvP is a different situation. You have a bullseye on you from the opening shot. Any player worth his/her salt should know to kill the healer. You see it in BG chat all the time. “Kill the healer you *&%$’n noobs!!” The more stam you have, the longer you stay alive, the longer your teammates stay alive. That being said, I don’t do a lot of additional stam. When I have a blue slot, I put a stam gem. The PvP gear has quite a bit already. Just wanted to point out the difference between gear.

The beauty of PvP gear is that it does this for you already. Not a lot of thinking. Your other stat priorities depend upon your class.

In my case today, I’m talking about my resto-sham. The stats I focus on for her are haste then a tie between crit and MP5 (maybe 60% MP5 and 40% crit…). Spellpower is on the gear already and it’s more than enough to heal what I need to heal. I don’t really go out looking for more than is on the gear. Crit is nice because it gives you those big hits. MP5 is nice because even as a resto-sham, you’re gonna run dry eventually (more on that later). How you decide to balance those is up to you. You’ll find out during some drawn out battle in AB whether your MP5 is sufficient! This is simply my opinion and I’m sure others have varying ideas. I gem and enchant haste wherever I can (much like PvE). The point is that I know with my regular gear and no added SP, that I can provide more than adequate healing power without a problem. The key is do my slow spells hit in time. Nothing is worse than watching the cast bar for your slow-as-hell chain heal hoping it goes off before everyone near you dies. Haste reduces that cast time and allows you to get off a lot more healing.

In summary, when preparing to PvP there are a few things you should do. Get appropriate gear. Resilience and stamina are key differences in gear stats for PvP vs. PvE gear. Get what you can. Accept that you’re gonna get eaten alive until you get some more. In my opinion, how you gem and enchant is up to you. Whatever keeps you alive longer on the battlefield is good (just not hit gems…okay?). I think next I’ll go into a little more detail on techniques that I use as a resto-sham and after that maybe look at how that changes with the specific BG’s. Talk to you later.

Resto PvP

So recent changes in schedule and life in general have changed my WOW habits quite a bit. I may be lucky to sit down for even thirty minutes a few times a week. Unfortunately, this is not all that conducive to playing WOW in general. Certainly it allows for some grinding/farming. Instances are pretty much out because I don’t like to join a group and leave half way through. Dailies have gone the way of the dodo as I prefer not to waste the few minutes I have on them. I usually jump on my bank alt real quick, check auctions, buy supplies if the price is right, send them to my more creative alts, make stuff, send it back, put it on the AH….you know the drill. That leaves about 20-25 minutes now. What’s a bored resto shammy to do with 20 minutes? Battlegrounds!

Generally speaking I can get into a battleground within about 3-5 minutes and BG’s are usually over within 15 minutes…..usually. Battlegrounds have always been an enjoyable diversion….something a might have done once or twice a week. Leveling my hunter in battlegrounds was a blast. She was covered in heirloom gear and it was great fun topping the damage charts while gaining xp very quickly! I lost touch with that little hunter at 80 though. Admittedly BG’s are way more fun when you have decent gear but getting trashed everytime I rezzed wasn’t the only reason. I just seem to have lost interest. Then I got hacked. Yes that’s right, hacked. How did that change my BG experience? The little bastards took everything but I was left with a decent PvP set for my shammy. I didn’t want to respec my elemental talents, so I decided to go in as a healer, and that was all she wrote.

Battleground healing can be a thankless task. It can also be a lot of fun! Nothing beats throwing out heals left and right, keeping your comrades alive and winning the node….awesome! In future posts I’m going to start talking about strategy, specific BG’s, gear and spec basics, etc. As of now I’ve only healed as a shammy and recently as a disc. priest (yes Miss Medicina, I finally switched!). I’m planning to work on my drood, but that takes time (which I have little of!) so for now I’ll have to be content with resto sham and disc. priest!

Not Dead......yet

Greeting all! Yes...it's true...I am not dead. Actually some changes at work, some changes in the jobsite's internet policy and a new little monkey due in just a few weeks have left my blog at just about the lowest peg on my priority board (one notch below dailies). I do log on to my toons a couple times a week for 30 minutes or so but that's about it. I'm off of work this week and once my little beast hatches (mid-October)I'll be on family leave for 4 weeks. I plan on getting a little more playing and blogging done. Of course posts will still more than likely be few and far between but I'd like to shoot for at least one per week. The majority of my time has been spent healing battlegrounds on my resto-shammy so I'm thinking a focus on battleground healing may be in order, but we'll see. Anyway, glad to be back and hope to get through my feedreader within the next year or so! Adieu, adios, sayonara, aloha! for now

Restored

As of yesterday, everyone is dressed. Of course I got so used to seeing my tauren bankalt in his undies that I left him like that. Don't be startled if you're in TBluff and a half naked tauren runs past you...it's just me! During this whole ordeal, I spent a little time playing an alt I have over on Terokkar. My orc shammy. Had a blast doing some pvp. Enhance shammies can kick some bg butt! That renewed my interest in PvP and I've been having a great time healing on my resto shammy. If you're a PvE healer and you're tired of the grind, go heal some battlegrounds. Every bg is different. Loads of fun and terribly under-appreciated! Battlegrounds can be awesome and painful one after another. Nothing sucks like getting owned. But nothing rocks like stomping the other team. I would enjoy bg's alot more if I could get the target off my back, but hey...such is the life of the healer!

Hacked Haiku

A naked Tauren
Sits on my computer screen
Nice bikini dude

Day 8. Still nothing. Gotta call Blizz today to do some prodding. The hacker didn't fully strip my shammy, so I've been able to have some fun as a BG resto shammy. Been doing the faster easier dailies as well to get a little gold. What a pain in the ass!

Saturday Morning

Well, it's Saturday morning and I'm still not playing WoW. I still have a bunch of mostly naked, broke-ass toons. I've run out of home projects. Teenager and wife are still sleeping. Little one is engrossed in Saturday morning cartoons. I suppose I could go over to one of my other realms and play one of those toons. Or I could start a new toon. Or I could go surfing...See ya, have a great weekend!

I've joined the leet...

Yep it's true. I am truly elite now. I got hacked. Logged on to my account and their stood my banker wearing nothing but bikini underpants and his BOA shoulders. Actually a big tauren with wing shoulders and bikini underpants is pretty frickin funny. It took a second to realize what had happened. Hacked. Checked everyone. All naked except for items that couldn't be sold or disenchanted. My ork DK was standing there with only his upper half in armor. Reminded me of a scene from Excalibur. Anyone? Anyway, we're about 3 days out now. According to Blizz it should take about a week. Blech. As well, I'm no longer able to post or even use the feed reader. Apparently you can read a paper or a magazine on your break, but web browsing is the work of the devil. Not sure how this will affect my ability to post or read with any regularity. But, if the three of you notice that I haven't posted in days....now you know why. Have a good day!

Elitist players are like Arizonans

Think about it. Elitist WoW players are upset that Blizz is dumbing things down so that everyone can enjoy the game. Changes that give everyone a taste but still only the elite few have the best. But those elite few still like to complain because they want to be special little snowflakes who can get the best gear because they are leet! Obviously economically, Blizz would like as many subscribers as possible, so they have to appeal to a wide market. They do that by making things accessible to all, but still some rewards that only the truly dedicated can get. Somehow, WoW elitists have forgotten that at some point they were noobs who had not idea what hit rating was and had no add-ons and bought overpriced water from the AH instead of the vendor. "Oh no!" they exclaim, "the difference is we learned our class!" We dedicated ourselves to maximizing our dps and hps and learned every boss fight there was. We mathmatically deduced what upgrades would be best and min/maxed everything....everything! Well....congratulations. That's very nice.
In Arizona people are squawking about immigrants. "Keep em out!" they yell. "They have to come in the right way". "They're just looking for handouts" or "they're all criminals". Arizonans are the elitists who have forgotten where they come from. As far as I know, unless you are Native American, your family immigrated. And with each wave of immigration people cursed and spat and looked down at the new wave. Then they pretend it's all about the legalities of it, forgetting that even up until the 1900's, immigration was simply getting here. You got to our shores and you were in. No complex processes. 99.9% of those new immigrants, legal or not want only one thing, a better life. They're not selling drugs, or raping white girls, or looking for handouts. They're busting their asses for a better life.
Now is comparing these two things ridiculous? Yes. I'm being totally facetious. All I'm saying is that people tend to forget where they come from and that at some point in history, they were the new kid on the block. Yep, there are some rotten apples, but give the benefit of the doubt, think about the other guy and relax a little.

Theme songs

I've seen other posts about songs that are appropriate for certain fights, but what I'm wondering is if anybody else has songs that stick in their head while they're playing. To be more precise, are there certain songs that stick in your head while you are doing a specific thing or in a specific area? Does you toon have a theme song? Like, Gnomer's theme song would be "Short People" or maybe even something cool like "Cold as Ice"....or if he's really cool...."Ice Ice Baby" (it occurs to me after writing this that Gnomey may be a fire mage...but I can't think of any fire type songs at this time, so please respec if you are fire). Keredria's theme song would be some kind of loving healy song like "We are the world", or "People who need people" or something sweet like that. Riv's theme song would be any metal or punk song..."Screaming for Vengeance" or anything by The Sex Pistols. The second I drop into Orgrimmar, "The Mob Rules" starts running through my head (come to think of it, that song plays in my head at the initial rush in AV!). I always hum "Working in a Coalmine" by Devo while in IF. Nothing specific in TB or UC though. I'm sure if Silvermoon had a theme song it would be by Erasure or something. I suspect Zelmaru and TinkerTank have some kind of together, lovey dovey song like "On the Wings of Love" or "Muskrat Love" as their them song but not sure. Marcko's theme song would be "Money" by Floyd ( uhh duhh...that was a gimme). Gevlon's? Probably "What the World Needs Now" or "You've got a friend". My theme song is one I wrote myself and It fits all of my toons. I call it "I'm a special snowflake and I'm awesome!".
By the way....just in case anyone was wondering, I'm mostly kidding about the song choices. Riv's and Gevlons are pretty damn close though...so is Gnomey's.

Girls and WoW

So Rivs and Bee had a discussion today about whether tis easier to be a male or a female in WoW. I can honestly say I don't think it makes a difference. Now, this may be due to the fact that I am over 18, married with children. I have seen boobs and vaginas before (sometimes even at the same time!) and don't get wood at the sound of a woman's voice. I honestly could care less about gender. I am at best a decent player, PvE and PvP. There are a crapton of male and female players who make me look about as competent as a chimp smashing buttons. I have two female toons. My belf hunter is hot. But I still get ganked. I haven't really noticed anybody flirting with her, but I haven't run all that many instances with her. The last time someone shamelessly flirted was a Kuwaiti guy in some lowbie instance (yes, he was Kuwaiti because he was shabbabing with his buddies in party chat the whole time). Does this mean Kuwaiti guys are more likely to flirt with "females"? Probably. Because come to think of it the most flirtatious anybody got with my cow was also a Kuwaiti guy. I do find that generally....and this is odd if you think about it, the only guys who do flirtatious things with my cow shammy are guys playing Taurens. Think about it. It's weird. Have I had an easier time levelling or anything else on the female toons? Not that I noticed. So old, married guy doesn't think it matters whether players are male or female. What the hell do I know. Yes, there are less females playing WoW. Yes, guys flirt. What was my point here? Oh yeah....no wait, that wasn't it....ummm.....what is this place?

Monday Haiku

I must say I was a little disappointed when I couldn't condense "Gnomes, gnomes, the musical fruit" into 5 syllables....

Disc. priest tried to gank

My fair huntress and her cat

Eat lead ally dog

It's been awhile since someone tried to gank my leveling hunter and I was surprised that it was a non-shadow priest who tried it. For some reason every time I get to the borean tundra series where you talk to the tuskar who sends you to kill x number of vrykul and then to help the naga lady and kill the sea monster I get ganked. On my DK, my enhance shammy and now my hunter. I hadn't considered this a prime ganking spot, but I spose Tuskar are neutral so i think this quest line is open to both factions. I am glad to say I have won all 3 encounters. Of course hunter vs. disc. priest (at least I think she was disc. cuz she kept throwing bubbles and I can't imagine a holy priest actually trying to gank someone!) wasn't all that scary, but then again, a long time ago as a priest I humbled a warrior in Ashenvale who was a few levels above me and thought I'd make an easy target. I never attacked anyone as a priest, but scream and DOT's can actually win a fight if it comes down to it. What the hell am I talking about? Anyway, priesty tried to gank me and she ate black-powder death. My pleasure would have only been greater had she been a gnome, but hey as The Stones say, "you can't always get what you want".....

Gnome Olympics

So I’m thinking about starting some form of gnome olympics. The idea came to me as I destroyed one after another in a particularly lopsided Arathi Basin the other night. Did I mention that hunter PvP is a blast? It is. Battlegrounds with my ele shammy are awesome as well. There truly isn’t much better in life than blasting allies off the cliff at the Arathi lumber mill or into the twisted nether of EOTS. But back to my brilliant idea. I was thinking that we could come up with some sort of gnome olympics for Hordies to participate in. Gnome punting would be an obvious event. Gnome target practice, again obvious. What about other things? Like how many gnomes can you jump? You could stack them for vertical jumps and lay them down for long jumps. Gnome wrestling would be cool. Who can take on the most gnomes hand to hand. Could you see like 10 gnomes hanging off a big stinky tauren? A gnome eating contest? Gnome skating (this is where you strap gnomes to your feet and glide around on ice) would be fun. The possibilities are really endless. Any other suggestions? And btw for you gnome loving trees, “not having gnome olympics” is not a valid suggestion.

Monday Haiku

Where does the time go?
auctions, dailies, leveling.
What? Write my blog too?

Anyway, real life has been getting in the way of things. While I still have been reading blogs, I have had little time to write. Sorry Mom....I'm sure you've missed my witty daily comments.
Between kids, pregnant wives, and work craziness, there has been little time for WOW. What time I do have has been spent on the hunter, who is now level 68. PvP is a frickin blast. I'm in northrend now and looking forward to hitting 80. Couple weeks probably. That's all for now. Catch you all later.

totally and completely off topic!

So yeah...this has absolutely nothing to do with WoW. If you were looking for helpful tips and analysis of instances and raids you were at the wrong place anyway because I have no idea! If you were looking for helpful and sage advice about playing your character you have again come to the wrong place. Being that this is the wrong place for any helpful WoW information, I suppose I shouldn't worry about being off topic anyway. Now, if you were looking for advice on eating a gnome you'd recently caught or beautiful haiku poetry from the various denizens of Azeroth you have come to the right place on the wrong day. On to my totally non WoW topic.

I'm currently putting together a ppt presentation about alternative medicine (CAM). I am in occupational medicine and work for a very large company. On occasion they let me out of my cave and ask that I give informative presentations to our employees. I have done diabetes, cardiovascular health, cholesterol, health maintenance, cancer and more.

My intention is not to endorse CAM, but to discuss it. To make our employees aware of what CAM is and how it may affect their health, particularly if they are taking medications or treatments for a chronic or acute condition. I was hoping to write a balanced, non-judgemental presentation that left people with an understanding of various theories in health as well as an awareness of their own health and that just because something is "natural", it doesn't mean it is automatically safe. The problem I'm having is the non-judgemental part. I am a raging empiricist and generally view CAM as a bunch of crap. I was telling friends and family that zinc for colds was a load of crap long before studies came out confirming that. Magnet bracelets are a bunch of crap. Colon cleansing is a bunch of crap. Alkalinated water is a bunch of crap. Those things that suck impurities out of your feet are a bunch of crap. Titanium bracelets and necklaces are a bunch of crap. Chiropractics.....crap. Yep you heard it here. The problem is that I think most CAM is a bunch of crap. If traditional Indian (ayurvedic) medicine worked, why do people not live as long. Why are lifespans up in nations that practice western (allopathic) medicine? Why have lifespans generally increased as western medical science has improved. Traditional medicine/treatment has been around for thousands of years, yet it has been with the advent of allopathic medicine that people live longer.
Does this make me a judgemental bastard? Probably. Does it make me a less effective medical provider? Maybe. Mind you I am never judgemental with my patients. I need to know if they are using any CAM and if they think I am going to scold them for it, they would certainly not reveal anything. I do try to be open minded and generally my feeling is (and me response to patients is) if something works for you, go ahead and use it (provided it's not bad/negative). If your chiropractic treatments are making you feel better, why would you stop? As long as it doesn't interfere with the successful treatment of other conditions, I'm okay with it. Hell, even placebos have a relatively high success rate!
So, I don't believe in most CAM therapies, but I understand the importance of being non-judgemental and keeping an open mind. How do I close down the pessimist long enough to create and give a successful presentation? Any advice on doing things you don't agree with or believe in? The topic is importance enough (about 38% of ppl report using CAM therapy) that it needs to be done, but I need to do it well and without alienating those that do believe!

A shameful admission...

Yes, it's true I'm a huntard fan. I am enjoying the hell out of my hunter. I can take on 4 mobs, solo elites and destroy people in battle grounds. It's like being an enhance shammy (except for the destroying people in battle grounds part!). Actually when I was leveling as enhance, I kicked the crap out of people who tried to gank me. But my battleground survivability sucked at 80...or maybe it was my skills. But I digress. I am loving my hunter! I'm at 46 and starting to battleground in the 40-50 bracket. I prefer not to enter until 46 because I don't want to handicap my team too much! I do have 5 heirloom items, so that could be one reason for feeling powerful, but I must assume that people get upset at hunters because things are easier for them. Tank pet and fire away. Easy. Fun. Fast.
That being said, I still have alot to learn. In PvE and PvP. I have so many things I forget. Cooldowns, traps, tricks, etc....hopefully by 80 I'll be ready to get into one of your random heroics and get labeled a dumbass and put on your blog!
Making money is nice too! I had mentioned before that money is coming in quite well. My LW is bringing it in quite nicely, as is my cook. SP and AP foods sell quite well in stacks of 5! Food alone brings in 200-400 gold per day. I'm not all that much into making gold and I'm quite sure that I'm sucking at it quite powerfully, but for now I am happy with the amounts. I will have enough by the weekend to pay for artisan flying on 2 of my toons. Either that or I'll put it into an IGA (individual goblin account) and see what happens.
Depending on wait times, I'd like to level to 50 in battlegrounds alone. We'll see how that goes. Any suggestions for glyphs? I'm using the mark of the hunter and the ice trap one. Didn't seem to be any others that compelled me to purchase them! Yes, I could look it up but I'm a hopeless, useless social who relies upon others to help me. Must be one of those damn ape sub-routines.

ramble on

Yes, it's the title of an outstanding Led Zeppelin song. No, nothing about this post will relate in any way to Led Zeppelin. I'm just rambling....verbally. Or not really verbally..as I'm actually typing....rambling thoughtfully? Not sure. Anyway.

Who watched "Lost" last night? I had the feeling after that episode that they had no idea where things were going and were just looking for filler content. It's not that I wasn't interested in the back story of Jacob and the man in black aka the smoke monster, but explaining where they came from created the same set of replacement questions. "okay, that's where Jacob came from, and the man in black is his brother, but where did the lady come from and who put her there and what is the light????". Answering a question and simultaneously creating more does not clarify things. Anyway, we shall see. It was fun to see how Jacob's brother became the smoke monster anyway!

Klepsacovic loves to respond to Gevlon's ridiculous ideas (don't get me wrong, I love reading Klep's responses!). In Gevlon's world, it is black and white and there is no inherent right or wrong so you do whatever works best for you regardless of the effects on others. Obviously wrong. Many examples in nature show animals working together for the betterment of the group. I still read Gevlon for laughs, but his thoughts are so inflexible and theories so fundamentally wrong at their core that they have little effect on me other than making me chuckle. I think in today's post Klep was saying that you can't tell a person's RL "self" by looking at their "in-game" self. True to some degree says I. However if someone is a racist, sexist asshole in game, I can assure you that they are that in RL. My understanding of Klep's comment is that he feels this way as well. A hardcore organized raider could be a total spaz in RL. A stand in the fire guy could be a brilliant astro-physicist. But again, if you're an ass in RL, you will be an ass in game and vice-versa.

Speaking of assholes, when did everybody get so F'n rude? Was I sleeping for a decade and woke up in a-hole land? Turning on your signal to change lanes is an invitation for the driver next to you to speed up and close that space you were hoping to move into. Apparently it's okay to spit wherever you want. Apparently just because one car is waiting with turn signal on, it doesn't mean you can't slide in and grab that space for yourself. Used to be that whoever was closest to the curl of the wave had the wave. Maybe a gentle "going left!" for the guy trying to take off ahead of you. Nowadays every asshole within paddling range takes off on the wave. All that seems to matter now is that I get mine and screw the rest of you. Sounds like a goblin world.

Gnomochi-a delicious dessert

In honor of Keredria, I thought I would offer you this delicious dessert that gets it's name from the flour(mochiko) used as well as the flavor(gnome extract) that provides it's unique and delicious taste. For our non-gnome munching friends, the recipe can easily be changed by removing the gnome extract. I had previously introduced you to a recipe that used gnome extract. Again, it can be purchased at better vendor stands and inns, but an industrious orc can go out and find his own with a little work. Again, remember that as you twist the gnome to get the extract, you must hold the gnome by it's legs and shoulders. If you twist by the head or feet, they may pop off quite easily as gnomes are quite fragile. If you are Forsaken or Blood Elf, you can find a Tauren friend to help you get the extract. Now, on to the recipe!

Ingredients
1 pound mochiko (glutinous rice flour)
2 1/2 cups white sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 cup butter, melted
3 cups whole milk
5 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup sweetened, flaked coconut
2 tablespoons gnome extract

Directions
1. Heat your hearth to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease a 9x13 inch baking dish.

2. In a medium bowl, whisk together the eggs, vanilla, gnome extract and milk. In a separate larger bowl, stir together the rice flour, sugar, and baking powder. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients, and stir to blend. Mix in melted butter and coconut. Pour into the prepared pan.

3. Bake for 1 hour in the preheated hearth. Cool completely, then cut into squares to serve.

A relatively simple recipe that yields a delicious culinary treat that will have your tastebuds
dancing! Enjoy!

Monday Haiku

Today I was going to present a haiku of my own invention, but I came across this lovely piece attributed to a kobold named Snigglesnot. Now I had no idea these interesting creatures possessed the ability to think on an artistic, creative level, but I think you'll find after reading this that they do. This piece provides a fascinating glimpse into a creature many of us have encountered but few have stopped to consider.

Dig dig dig oooo gold!
Dig dig dig dig ooooo silver!
You no take candle!

Amazing. Inspiring. Looking into the mind of a creature full of hope and dreams.....just like you or I.

Weekend is coming!

Addendum-Don't eat the gnomes you find near Gnomeregan. They taste awful.

So this weekend I'm planning on continuing my hunting ways. She has hit 40 and I really had a blast leveling the last few levels in BG's. I did some questing too, but alot of my xp for the last 3 levels was through BG's. I got the next level of riding, so it's nice to be a little faster. Not to mention her war chicken is very sexy!
One piece of advice I can offer to all new players, is, don't bother buying new gear as you move up. Save your money. I remember doing this with my first toon. As soon as I'd level I would be off to the AH to find out if there was some new item I could get. Leveling in PVE, upgrades are negligible. Of course I'm not saying you should be wearing your level 12 crap at 40, but just that quest rewards and maybe a few AH items should get you through no problem. Generally speaking, I may pick up a few items during each 10 levels. If I'm at 40 and still wearing a level 30 chest, I may check the AH. The truth is (in my world anyway) that those upgrades don't make a huge difference. Now, in PvP they do. If you plan to PvP, you should have some upgraded gear. I generally have travelled to the AH around level 17/27/37 for some upgrades. I usually don't PvP until then anyway.
Anywho. I finally got my LW cow at max skill and am making some decent money at that. I'd like to get artisan flying for her. PLan for the weekend is daily LFD for everyone, make some money and level that hunter. Time is limited, but I'd like to get 5 levels on the hunter before Monday. Fat chance, but I shall try! I'd also like to drop by my SAN toon and see what those monkeys are up to, but we'll see. My guild is setting up an ICC 10 on Saturday which I'd love to do but their raid times are like 2-3 pm my time. Not so great for a parent/husband/homeowner. Kinda peak responsibility time! Maybe I'll give wife my debit card and send her to the mall with the kids. I live on the edge! Anyway, hope all have a good weekend and get to work on those Haiku's for Monday!

Are gnomes evil?

Well? Are they? Yes. Quite simply....gnomes are definitely evil. And this is how I know.

First, they are very short. As we know, there was a study written many years ago by a brilliant scientist and philosopher, Sir Randolph of Newman. After months of exhaustive research, Sir Randolph came up with some very interesting conclusions. In reference to gnomes:

They got little hands Little eyes
They walk around Tellin' great big lies
They got little noses And tiny little teeth
They wear platform shoes
On their nasty little feet

This very clearly demonstrates the perverse little abominations that gnomes are.
Sir Randal then continues...

They got little voices
Goin' peep, peep, peep
They got grubby little fingers
And dirty little minds
They're gonna get you every time

It's now very clear that through his studies, Sir Randolph has revealed that gnomes are the real scourge upon our world. Once punted, they should be consumed (or weighed down and placed in a very deep body of water) immediately.

Some observations I have made in my travels. Gnomes waddle. Skunks also waddle. Skunks are smelly and bad. Therefore gnomes are also smelly and bad. Sarah Palin (of Stormwind...) has a high pitched, highly irritating voice. Sarah Palin (of Stormwind) is bad. Gnomes have high pitched, highly irritating voices. Therefore, gnomes are are bad. Gnomes shift around alot on their feet as the stand. This is a sign of sneakiness. They are hiding something.

Now that we have established how horrible gnomes are, let me clarify one thing. They are delicious. Please do not be confused on this point. Gnomes are not good alive, but quite fantastic when thoroughly dead (and cooked...or raw if that's your thing).

Pro Tip: When preparing gnome, try using a spice rub. Kneading the meat once you've covered it with your rub allows the spices to work into the flesh and softens it up as well. Let it sit for at least 30 minutes with the rub as you knead intermittently. Enjoy!

Hunters and Gold.

Yep, Thats pretty much been my focus in recent days. My poor warrior has fallen back into disuse. My shammy and spriest still get almost daily attention. My dk gets a little something a few times a week. Most of my time is going to the hunter. She's sitting just below level 40 now. I've risen a few levels just through battlegrounds. PvP is really fun with the hunter. Concussion shot is my best friend (that frickin' thing used to drive me crazy in PvP on other toons!!!). And ice traps! It's amazing how many people will stand and fight your pet. It's also amazing how many people will continue to follow you despite seeing you place something "invisible" on the ground. I have a ways to go in terms of skill, but it feels nice to see my name at the top of the list for damage! Often times I'm having enough fun just fighting that the outcome is secondary. I'm sure Gnomey would kill me with his little bare hands if he could. Which brings to mind this question. Female blood elf vs a gnome....hand to hand. Who wins? I say the belf.

I'd like to get back on my revolting little gnome and see how everyone in SAN is doing. It's been over a month since I logged on. With limited time and an inability to stay focused for very long, I'm afraid I have neglected that part of my WoW world. Anyway, hello to the three of you who read my senseless musings.

Did I say gold? Yes! I'm finally making some. I've struggled somewhat finding a way to make money. I'm not poor or anything, but training another artisan flying would wipe me out. I'd like to hit at least 10k gold at some point here! Then I'll get artisan flying for my cow. Borean leather has been so cheap lately that I've been buying it up like it was going out of style. I turn it to heavy leather and trade it for arctic furs to make the leg armors. I have a ton of frozen orbs from LFG. Leg armors usually sell for 160-170 gold. My spriest also makes up batches of the dragonfin and firecracker salmon dishes (AP and SP) for sale. 5 usually sell for an average of 45 gold and they're quite cheap to make. I haven't really found a niche for my enchanter or tailor (both leveled). My JC and inscriptionist aren't leveled yet. Either way, I'm making close to 600-800 gold per day with 10-20 minutes effort. Any suggestions here?!

Tuesday Recipe- Pickled Gnome

Hello all, time for another delicious recipe! Of course, as you expected gnome is the dish of choice here. There are so many ways to prepare gnome. All of them delicious. I really encourage you to try different recipes. Explore! Let your taste buds soar!

So, for today I have decided to treat you to a popular snack beloved by the trolls of the Eastern Kingdoms. Pickled gnome is a tasty treat that children love to munch on after getting home from school and adults love equally well as a yummy pick-me-up after a long day of punting gnomes.

On to the recipe!

Pickled Gnome
3 cups gnome slices (I prefer thin cuts from the thigh, flank, or butt!)
10 li hing mui (optional)
1 cup rice vinegar
2 cups granulated sugar
1/4 cup coarse salt

Place gnome slices in a clean glass jar with li hing mui, if using. Combine vinegar, sugar and salt in a non-reactive saucepan and bring to a boil. When sugar and salt are dissolved, remove from heat and cool to lukewarm. Pour over gnome slices. Cover and let stand for 24 hours, then store in ice box.

Now, many may be aware that some humans love this dish but using green mango instead of gnome. If you are a fruit eating freak who enjoys the taste of a pickled slice of green mango over a thin, fresh slice of gnome thigh….that is up to you! Either way, enjoy!

Next week I will continue honoring our Eastern friends with a delicious dessert using gnome essence and a sweet rice flour! See you then!

Monday Haiku

As many of you know, Gnomes are not high on my "most loved beings of Azeroth" list. I suspect that very few of you knew that I had a "most loved beings of Azeroth" list. Well, I do. It is a work in progress (and it is, not surprisingly, quite short). Gnomes are not in the top 10. Neither are pig-men or plainstriders. As you may have guessed from some of my posts, blood elves are not particularly high on said list either. However, in the name of art and education and fairness, I have decided to submit this weeks haiku from a self-described literary genius from the too clean city of Silvermoon. A blood elf by the name of Alistair "Snootypants" Goldenlocks. And yes, I added the "snootypants" part...heh heh heh.

Golden light sparkles
From skin so magnificent
My word, I'm gorgeous

Some have at times suggested that blood elves can be a little arrogant and self absorbed. I try not to spend too much time around them as the perfumes that the males of the species smother themselves with makes me retch, so I'll refrain from commenting on that. Here is Alistair's piece anyway. Read it. Take from it what you will. Until next week, I remain.....green (cuz I'm an orc see).

Brain Block

So yeah....I was going to write this really awesome something today. It was gonna kick ass! I hadn't decided whether I'd write a shaman healing guide, a heroic instance guide, a "how not to raid" guide or a "how to kill gnome mages in battlegrounds" guide. But seriously....take my word for it, any one of those would have been awesome! Anybody reading them would have been totally amazed and enlightened! But....I couldn't think of anything. I had nowhere near enough knowledge to create any sort of useful post. Nor did I have the organizational or writing skills to put such knowledge to good use. I have no graphs, links or pictures.

So instead, I've decided to make a noob guide to WoW. This would be good for someone who has no WoW experience, no video game experience, no fantasy/sci-fi movie or book experience, comic books or anything remotely imaginitive.

1. Okay, so its The Alliance vs The Horde- They're 2 teams who fight each other. Why? Because if they didn't the game would suck...now shut it and hold your questions till the end. The Alliance are the gay looking guys and the midgets, oh and the blue guys. They suck. They're the weaker team. The Horde are the cool looking guys with horns and tusks and sharp teeth and stuff. What? Those gay looking guys? Yeah...those are blood elves. They are gay but for some reason they got put on our team. I think to even things out. Only pre-teen boys and chicks play them, so don't worry. And I said to hold your questions till the end.

2. Choosing your guy.
If you suck and are a weakling and you chose Alliance, it doesn't really matter what race you chose. Humans, dwarves, gnomes, night elves and the blue guys. Doesn't matter which you choose, they all suck. Now they are going to get these cool werewolf guys pretty soon, so even though they're Alliance, they are pretty cool and I can accept you making one of them. What? Are we getting a new race? Ah...I don't want to talk about that right now.

Now for Horde:
You can be the green guys...orcs...who are awesome.
You can be the blue guys....trolls, who are also awesome.
You can be one of the big hairy bull guys....who are awesome.
You can be one of these cool flesh munching zombie guys too...they are awesome.
What? That pretty blond guy? No....you can't be one of them. I told you, those are blood elves. They're not even full members of the Horde. They're like conditional members. They're on probation. Why? Because! Look at them! You ought to see them dance! It's awful...awful! Just never mind. On to classes.

3. Choosing your class.

Warrior-you get to run up and smash stuff.
Rogue-you get to sneak around behind stuff and then smash it.
Shaman-you can smash stuff, heal stuff and shoot stuff with lightning bolts out of your fingers. Yeah I know...cool.
Mage-you wear a dress.
Priest-you also wear a dress but later on you get to turn into a dark, shadow guy and melt stuff. In a dress.
Druid-Sorta like shaman. You can smash stuff from the front, the back, heal stuff and shoot stars and leaves and nature crap outta your hands. Yeah...pretty cool. And, you get to turn into animals....like a mutant sea lion.
Hunter-You have a big mean animal pet that does all the work for you while you shoot stuff from a safe distance.
Paladin-no, these suck...these are what the gay guys are. If you chose alliance, you can go ahead and make one of these guys.
Death Knight-You get to run up and smash stuff and have everyone tell you that you're overpowered and retarded.
Warlocks-Also wear a dress, but you're evil and get to curse alot.

4. Now to start.
Use the keyboard or the mouse to move around. Find guys with yellow exclamation points floating above them. Do what they tell you to do. When you're done, go back. They should have a big floating question mark now. Talk to them. When you see things with names in red, kill them. You can smash them or pew pew them with your laser/lightning/gun/bow/explosive nature crap. Keep doing this for hours a day.

5. End game.
Now you can join raids and dungeon groups and get lots of cool stuff and pretend to be super cool riding around on your gay sparkle pony and have people tell you that you suck and should learn to play. Enjoy!

Disclaimer-this is tongue in cheek. In no way do I actually believe that all alliance members, paladins and/or sparkle ponies are gay (although I'm pretty sure blood elves are). And even if they were, there wouldn't be anything wrong with that.

Fishing

So I've never leveled fishing on a toon. In fact I've never even learned it. Apparently I would have been at the gold cap on all of my toons by now had I been a fisherman....orc...cow....troll....elf.....you know what I mean. Anywho, as I logged into WoW last night to try and level my hunter, I realized I wasn't going to get much done. It's very difficult to focus on quests while I'm trying to pretend to listen to my wife. You see, the trick is that you have to listen enough to know when to say "mhmmm" or "yeah" or something timely like that. Feigning interest can be very difficult. Many times I've been caught by the "are you listening to me?"...."yes"...."what did I just say?" thing. Even after 18 years together I still get caught every now and then. I'm good, but everyone gets caught every now and then...everyone!

So anyway, how to I play WoW and pay fake attention to my wife? Can't quest. Instances are definitely out. Fishing! I'll learn fishing! I'm sitting here at Shadowprey Village anyway. I'll learn fishing! I can level while I listen (sort of) and I'll be at the gold cap by the weekend. Anyway, by the time I got the 25 fish achievement, I hadn't caught a single fish. Not one. Some weeds, and string, and driftwood and cloth. Not one fish. But I got the achieve anyway. Then on to 50. Got that achieve too. I think by that time I may have caught one sickly fish, but literally that's it. Funny. Bought the next level training and pretty soon hit 100 fish. Got the achieve again, but most certainly had not caught 100 fish. People talk about welfare epics and handing badges out like crazy. You should try fishing. I caught a bunch of crap. Maybe about 20 fish total. Leveled to 130. Got 6 total achieves I think.

So I suppose I need to move to another more advanced body of water to continue leveling, as around 120, I stopped gaining a level with every piece of crap I snagged. We shall see. And before everyone starts griping, I'm mostly kidding. I don't mix WoW and family. Not only is it virtually impossible, but it's not fair to my toons. They deserve my complete attention. So, once I've fed my children uncooked pasta with ketchup packets over it, I'll get back to it.

Nothing specific

I'm not sure if Wednesday has a theme. Wasn't there a whiny Wednesday? Anyway, guess I'll do a rambling Wednesday post. Do you say "wed-nes-day" as you spell it out or is it just me?

I got a random oculus the other day. Somebody wanted to do the achievement (think you kill final boss without red or green drakes???). The all-powerful dungeon guide/tank said "No, our dps isn't geared enough". Does the bronze dragon's power scale with the players gear? I thought not. Nobody else said "wtf" so I just continued on. I was on bronze anyway and have the achieve on that toon already.

Do you think the Horde has immigration laws? Doubt it. Alliance, for sure. They're conservative republicans. That little human kid king guy is their version of "W".
I can see the human soldiers walking around Stormwind asking gnomes and draenei for the proof of citizenship. "Oh crap officer! I left it on my nether ray!". "A likely story you blue space goat bastard! Now turn around and put your hands on the wall!".

I got an anonymous response on my racism rant. Someone wondered how my irl views related to my shoddy treatment of gnomes in the game. An interesting thought. We could certainly draw parallels between irl and the basic WoW storyline. But, can we actually be racist (or gnomist) by mistreating an imaginary being. Does my gnome-munching suggest that I may be equally evil to beings that inhabit planet Earth? I don't think so. Mistreating imaginary critters in game has no relevance to real life. I shoot snakes and squirrels and rabbits in the game all the time. But I can't stand hunting (now go out and hunt bears and such with just a knife or spear and we'll talk). Discuss.

We have several examples of cross species mating in WoW. Ogres and orcs come to mind.
What pairings would you like to see? Draenei and gnome? Tauren and troll? Hunter and pet? Ewwww. (Reminds me of the joke where the guy moves to a deserted island. The resident hermit who he is trading places with for a year tells him to fulfill his urges with one of the many sheep on the island. The man is disgusted. As the year wears on and his loneliness increases, he finally can't hold back. Just as he is putting the moves on a sheep, the old hermit comes walking over a hill to let him know his year is up. "Oh disgusting!" exclaims the hermit. "What?!?!" says the man. "You told me to do this!!!" "I know!" says the hermit, "but you picked the ugliest frickin sheep on the island!")

And with that...I bid you adieu.

Murloc cooking

I've decided that I'd continue the murloc theme that I started this week by offering a delicious gnome recipe that is very popular among rural murlocs. A little known fact is that Murlocs have a very sensitive palate. In fact they prefer to taste the meat as opposed to covering it's flavor with spices and sauces. Their use of additional flavors is very limited and only when it enhances the flavors on the plate. So, on to the recipe.

Urgglllurglll Gnome (translated: yummy gnome)

1. As much gnome as you got. Preferably thighs or flank.
2. Gnome meat may then be cut into thin fillets (sashimi style) or minced (tartar style).
3. Place artfully on a bed of shredded cabbage.
4. Sprinkle with mrrgshburggl (a relatively hard to find murloc spice that brings out the delicate
flavor of gnome)
5. If you don't have mrrgshburggl, don't worry. Eat as is.

So there you go. Urgglllurglll gnome. Certainly an acquired taste, as the murloc palate is quite different from the usual Hordie. But, with an open mind, you may find that you quite like the taste of raw gnome. Delicate, tender.....delicious.

Haiku Monday

In recent posts I have introduced you to the poignant poetry of a lesser gnown gnome gnamed Gnomoichi Gnakamura. I have decided to introduce you to some other equally brilliant minds. Today, for your pleasure....I would like to introduce you to a rare talent, Mrrglburlgl the Murloc. Of course I am sharing the piece in Nerglish. Translated to our tongue, the meter will be lost, as well as some of the feeling, but in it's native tongue, it is a thing of beauty.

Nurglburgllnrgggg
Murglshburrgglllshhnrgggburglllle
Burgllmrrrgnurgllle

*Translation
Fish good
Me like eat fishy eyes
gnomes tasty too

As I said, there is something lost in the translation other than the mechanics of the poetry form.
That being said, one still feels the longing this Murloc feels. The depth of his desires are apparent for all to see and share. A rare talent and a beautiful piece. Don't you agree?

Finally Friday!

The weekend is upon us once again. It's funny because I look forward to the weekend thinking I'm going to get some rest and relaxation or something totally crazy like that. But, the truth is, weekends are busier than work! You homeowners know this. There's always something to do from lawns to cleaning to broken appliances or little fixer-upper kinds of things. You parents also know this. Particularly as children reach school age. Driving them all over for various sports and lessons is a full time job! So yes, I face every weekend with a relieved smile, convinced I'll get to sit back with the tv and a beer or something totally unrealistic like that. Well, I do get a couple hours of WoW in anyway. One before they wake up and one after they all go to bed!
On to WoW. Got my hunter up to 30. I put +15 agility on her weps. I got her dual AP daggers (the heirloom ones). Not sure if this was the thing to do, but as I understand it I need AP. Either way, things die fast. I'd love to hit 40 this weekend, but we'll see. I'm going to put stats on the heirloom chest. If I remember correctly, the shoulder inscription isn't available for lowbies, but I'll have to see. Is there anything I can add to the ranged weapon? I think there's a scope or something. I'm using the mark of the hunter glyph, but that's only because I didn't see something that sounded better in the AH. I'll have to look into that. I'm not all that worried about min/maxing everything while leveling, but anything that makes killing go faster, in turn makes leveling faster so.....
Why do I always get VH as my random heroic on my shammy and HoR as the heroic for my spriest? Seriously. It's very odd. I feel like I get VH almost every other day(or more!) and recently for the spriest I've gotten HoR 4 out of 5 times. I like HoR. I just cringe when I get it because I know others will be dropping at the first sign of a wipe. Nobody wants to do HoR because they don't want to work. Maybe Blizz can just mail 3-5 triumph badges and 2 frost badges to us daily and we don't have to do anything else. The HoR run was fun though. Tank dropped as soon as we zoned in. Replacement was a DK who did a fine job. Everyone had a good time. We wiped once when the healer and one dps ran too far during the gauntlet and got separated from the rest of us by the wall. It was mildy funny, and it was only one wipe, so big deal. Nobody bitched. We laughed and finished the run. Good times.
So that's about it for me. Looking forward to continuing on the hunter. Any input is welcome. Have a good (and safe!) weekend!

So when is haiku day?

So the vast throngs of insatiable readers who devour my blog on a daily basis....Okay....okay....the three people who read my ridiculous thoughts are clamoring...well, maybe not clamoring, but could have mildly suggested.....okay, the truth is nobody cares damnit. Fine then!
Zelmaru noticed yesterday that three bloggers posted a haiku yesterday. Was yesterday haiku day? Not that I know of. I propose that we make "Haiku Monday". Mondays require a certain amount of zen-like presence, so a haiku seems to fit well there. So from now on I'll be trying to post my haiku on Monday. If anybody else sees fit to join me on this useless scheduling of haiku that would make the masters barf, please feel free.
On to some actual fun. I got some nice heirloom pieces for my little belf hunter. She's wearing the heirloom chest, shoulders, daggers and gun. PvE is quite easy. I send the pet in and then fire away. It's really nice being able to handle 3-4 mobs without much problem. She's as 29 and a half right now. I think I'm going to level the rest of the way in battlegrounds. It's an odd feeling being at the top for damage. One WSG I was having so much fun I did what that little gnome mage hates! I fought midfield for 20 minutes and ignored the flag! *slaps own wrist
I still have a hell of alot to learn about PvP with a hunter, but for the most part it's been pretty fun! I think for 30-40 I'll start using the LFG tool. Anyway, that's it for now. Have a great Earth Day, eat some processed cheese, some farm raised beef and use some spray deodorant!

Gnomoichi

I run from the orc

Who is also with a troll

Run fast, they are large

One can almost see the large hungry horde-mates chasing down the frightened little gnome. It brings to mind images of the wolf chasing the frightened rabbit. The rabbit leaps, dodges and changes direction in hopes of shaking his pursuer. It must be difficult to be a pink or green haired gnome and try to hide when you live in the snowy terrain around Ironforge.
It's quite remarkeable such frail creatures have been able to scrape out an existance, miserable as it is, in such a tough world. Now, I'm hungry....fried gnome cakes anyone?

Happy Birthday Robert Nesta...and other thoughts.

Happy Birthday to Mr. Robert Nesta Marley. A truly amazing individual.

On to WoW. I have been feeling a little burned out on my toons. I have 4 80's and they are all basically as geared as I can get them (except for alt specs) without raiding. I have essentially avoided raiding intentionally. I don't want to deal with the drama. People complain about behavior in pugs, but sorry, that behavior is amplified in raids. Even guild raids are full of drama. People yelling at each other over vent? No thanks. I don't need somebody being a douchebag because I didn't pew pew at the right time/right rotation, or didn't heal an in-the-fire-standing mage in time. I would really love the challenge, and would love to see the content. But I'd leave group/guild at the first sign of douchiness.

Solution? I've been fooling around with some of my alts. I have a hunter, lock and mage in the 20's. I was having some fun yesterday on the hunter. She's been sitting idle for almost a year now and it's amazing how much better I can play her now that I have a better understanding of game/fight mechanics, damage, stats, cc, etc.

I also have a druid in the upper 40's. He's currently my bank alt due to his incredible foot speed from mailbox to auctioneer! I am thinking about playing him again. I had him specced moonkin, and then switched to resto with some crazy idea of leveling him through lfg. Not sure now.

I was also thinking I wasn't going to level anymore till cataclysm, but truth is I could probably get one more to 80 easily before it drops. What to do......

If I choose one more to level, who should it be? I actually enjoy them all, but would like to have one pure dps class. Mage, lock or hunter? I would like to get whichever toon I choose set up with some heirloom pieces though so I may need to lfg on my current 80's a little more. But having those heirloom pieces would be nice. For speed and ease of leveling, I'm thinking lock or hunter. Suggestions? Oh yeah! My little girlie hunter ate a gnome yesterday...well, her cat did anyway! Poor gnome :(

Celestial steed and other thoughts

I don't like the celestial steed and not because it's so sissy looking (which it is). I just think it's ugly. Apparently I am the only one. Zone in to Dalaran and the things are all over the frickin place. It's kind of funny actually. "Hey everyone! I had 25 bucks!". I can see the mounts earned through a certain accomplishment, but it's just sorta funny to see everyone parading around on their rare mount that they earned through.....payment.

I got almost nothing done in the WoW world this weekend. Kids really get in the way! It's hard to get into a group when you have to run off to ballet lessons in 20 minutes and then back home to take the other to tennis. "Honey can you drive the girls to their appointments so I can play Warcraft?" Yeah...that's gonna happen.

I'm working on leveling leatherworking on my shammy and jewelcrafting on my DK. I'm a cheap bastard, so I try to farm as much as I can to keep costs down. Of course that results in a much slower ascent! I have gotten up to the final level however, so at least I can make a little money on the crafted items.

On a side note....why is it when someone says "Looking for JC" in trade chat I still can't resist a wiseass comment? "Try a church". "He's everywhere." or something equally dumb. Damn godless bastard.

Maybe gnomes aren't that bad.

Had fun in battlegrounds as ele shammy this weekend. I didn't respec as pvp elemental though so I don't have the knockback (thunderstrike or thunderstorm?) spell. That makes it a little tougher. It's tough enough as a shammy in pvp. But if I can get you hexed, then an insta lava burst....adios (unless you're a filthy pally).

No....no.....gnomes are awful. But they taste delicious.

Last rant of the week...probably.

Ahhhh…the rant. The lovely, spirit cleansing (unless you’re a shaman in which case you can no longer cleanse that) rant. Get it all out. Feel better.

What the hell is with birthers? The next person I meet who claims that Obama is not a natural US citizen is gonna get a throat punch. First stages of healthcare reform are through. Economists say things are on the upswing. The Dow is at it’s highest since 2008. What can we grief Obama for now? Oh yeah! Let’s go back to the birth certificate. Why is this such an issue? Racism. No president in my lifetime has had their birth so scrutinized. Why? Because he’s not white and he doesn’t have a white name. Racism. The Hawaii State Department of Health (Dr. Fujino, a woman I know personally) has verified that Obama was born here in Hawaii. ‘Nuff said? Hardly. Birthers continue to go after this ridiculous accusation. We even have a marine who is refusing orders because he claims said orders are illegal due to the fact that our President is not a natural US citizen. Just admit that you can’t stand a black man in a position of power. Quit hiding behind your bullshit excuses.

A recent NYT poll states that, oh revelation, most tea partiers are white, older men with above average income and above average education (NOT intelligence….education). So we have a bunch of white guys who were lucky to be raised in upper middle class families and blessed with an education most Americans don’t get. What? They don’t want to pay taxes? They don’t want to contribute? Yeah, screw the have nots. Don’t use my money to help them. WIC, healthcare, welfare. Screw ‘em. I got mine and you can get your stinkin’ hands off it.

Somebody at my clinic is stealing money from people’s purses/wallets. Unbelievable. Someone I work with is actually going into people’s desks/purses and stealing money. This truly baffles me. There are only 10 people in my office. Holy crap! In a way I want to know, but in a way I don’t.

Now, if I can get all the birthers, tea partiers and office thieves together in a really big room…..

Spicy garlic gnome....yum!

Greetings fellow gnomemunchers! I have a special treat for you today. A recipe from a fantastic troll chef. I met Nesta Longtusk on a trip to Sen’Jin Village. While relatively unknown outside the troll community, his skills with spices and spatula are sure to make him a culinary star! I give you this recipe with his blessing. Please enjoy!

Spicy garlic gnome steak
· 2 (10-ounce) boneless gnome top loin steaks, 1 inch thick, trimmed of fat
· 1 cup(s) (loosely packed) fresh parsley leaves, finely chopped
· 2 tablespoon(s) olive oil
· 1 tablespoon(s) red wine vinegar
· 1/2 teaspoon(s) dried oregano
· 1/4 teaspoon(s) crushed red pepper
· 1 clove(s) garlic, crushed with press
· 3/4 teaspoon(s) salt
Directions
Heat grill pan on a medium fire until hot. Evenly season gnome steaks, on both sides, with 1/2 teaspoon salt. Sautee a tablespoon of minced garlic in 1 tablespoon of butter. Place gnome steaks in grill pan and cook 16 to 18 minutes for medium-rare, or until desired doneness, turning steaks over once.

While steaks are cooking, prepare sauce: In small bowl, with fork, mix parsley, oil, vinegar, oregano, crushed red pepper, garlic, and 1/4 teaspoon salt until blended.

Drizzle sauce over thinly sliced gnome steaks. Serve over beans and rice prepared as you like.

Hope you enjoy, and feel free to play with the spice mixture. Gnome is delicious in so many ways! Make this recipe your own! Good luck and good eating!

What's worse than a mage? A gnome mage.

Ha ha...just kidding. I have nothing against mages. Just with all the bitching going around I figured I should write something inflammatory. And boy was that title inflammatory...whew!
I keep seeing mage blogs going off about shaman complaining. Mages yelling here, mages swearing here...damn shaman, quit crying about your loss! One time we were underpowered too!
But I haven't seen all that much complaining on the shaman blogs. So....I'm wondering where this "suck it up and quit complaining" attitude is coming from? Is there endless complaining on forums or something? I don't read the wow forums, so I wouldn't know. The shaman blogs I do read have briefly lamented the fact that shaman will be losing utility. Losing utility kinda sucks for a class that sacrifices dps for utility. I think a little bitching is expected and deserved. I mean, we still have bloodlust, we haven't lost it, but we have lost our unique ability to provide it.

The argument that this group sucked before so now it's another groups turn is lame. People shouldn't complain, because one time, other people sucked too. I was beaten as a child, therefore I should beat my children. Makes sense. One time, people lived in frickin caves and had to fight cave bears with wooden spears and died in their 40's. Guess nobody gets to complain.

Anyway, just wondering why all the QQ. To complain about losses or changes that a class sees as negative is normal. I think the complaint of shaman is very understandable. If in fact mages sucked at one time, they should be understanding of changes that reduce another classes effectiveness. This is not a college fraternity or high school. I paid my dues, now life will suck for you!

Now I better get to leveling my overpowered mage so I can get into a raid group when cata hits.

The Orc (a haiku)

The orc carries me

In his mouth, sharp teeth bite me

Please sir, let me go

A haiku, by Gnomoichi Gnakamura

One can almost feel the orcs teeth poking the tender flesh of the helpless gnome.
The pain and fear is expressed so clearly. Being such a fragile and fearful race, normal
beings can truly empathize with the gnomish plight.
Not that I condone the release and non-consumption of gnomes, but the next time
your axe is bearing down upon a gnomish skull, or you prepare to fire a lava burst that
will burn gnomish skin to a crisp, just remember. Feel the pain. Take a moment to recognize this tiny, helpless creature. Exquisite.

My WoW weekend (well, WoWish anyway).

Okay, so I was looking forward to doing alot more than I actually did this weekend. I did do a little farming. profession leveling, daily heroics and even the weekly raid. Overall however, my grand plans gave way to real life. Leaking faucets, long grass, smelly dogs, tennis and ballet lessons....never ends.

So raiding...yeah. Finally did a raid. Ulduar 10. First time in a raid. I've been playing WoW for about 2 years no I believe and I've never been in a raid. I'm mostly a solo WoW player so the guild thing took some time to happen. When I finally did, it was a very casual guild. No serious raiding. A few members PUG every now and then, but no guild raids. I don't PUG raids because people just seem like such douchebags that I just can't bring myself to do it. Even in this raid, the PUG players were being jack-asses. Four of us were guildies. Two tanks, two heals and two dps were PUGS and they were bitchin' from flame leviathan (or whatever the first encounter is). And they continued through razorscale. Bitch, bitch, bitch. Learn to tank, learn to dps, learn to heal....awmahgahd!!!!! Shut your pieholes! One dps died, and we finished. Relax.

On a lighter note, I have no idea what happened in either encounter. I was late zoning in for flame leviathan, so no vehicles were left. I didn't think I could just run through the place where the dwarves and their helicopters are so I just cruised at the starting area. Of course nobody bothered to tell me what to do, so I don't care all that much. Then I found a teleporter, asked where I should teleport to. They had already started razorscale, the one dps died. I got there and started healing like crazy. I was just slightly below the priest and above the pally in performance so I was pleased. I must say I have no idea what happened during the encounter. Apparently there is a dragon there that eats you. I wouldn't know. There are also apparently some dwarves that come out of the ground and also try to eat you. I wouldn't know. I just looked at boxes and tried to keep them full. I also tried not to stand on or near anything that did not resemble the ground. I also tried to stay away from the dragon. In general that is good advice anyway.

So... there is my first raid experience. It was a little anti-climactic as I have no idea what really happened. It was also kind of what I expected as people bitched and moaned throughout. That is the primary reason I don't raid. I'd love to, seems fun, and challenging. I just can't stand assholes. Is it possible to find a group of non-assholes who play for fun and don't get all bent and serious about raiding? I'll let you know.

Anyhow....that's my WoW weekend in a nutshell. Exciting. and there was much rejoicing....yay..

Weekend is coming

Well, as I said before, for seveal reasons I've had very little WoW time lately. Lately I'm lucky to get 15 minutes on any given weekday. However, as my wife loves to sleep in on weekend mornings, I should be able to get in some quality WoW time very soon!

So anyway, after running around Dalaran on your mammoth, do you have to clean the gnome out of the mammoths toes?

Speaking of that, who cleans up after all those beasts?

They should have signs out. "Please clean up after your mammoth." That would suck.

When mobs "run away in fear", how come they never actually run. They sort of casually amble off. Then, for some reason they get their courage back and come back at you.

Okay, I saw Yoda fight with the lightsaber and all, but melee gnomes are just a little silly.

Hunters have to feed their pets but thank goodness we dont have to feed our mounts.

So I'm getting over the loss of my dispels and starting to feel excited for some of the changes in cataclysm.

Goblins? Really? Bite me Blizz.

Priest changes for Cataclysm....half yawn...

My initial thoughts on the priest changes? I’m still out. I don’t really heal much on my priest. I have a pretty decent set of mostly ilevel 232 gear, some 245. I just never really got into the groove. Healing with the shammy was different. I enjoyed it. Not so much with the priest. Most likely due primarily to comfort. Just didn’t spend enough time actually healing instances to get with the program. That being said, I love dps as a spriest. It’s fun!

Okay, so the proposed changes (focus on spriests here…). As many have noted, these aren’t written in stone. I’ll wait to really decide when it actually happens.

Heal-The new go-to spell for priest. More heal than lesser and less heal than greater. Yawn…okay.

Mind Spike-I’ve been dreaming of another spell that will give me some quick damage without having to get all my DoT’s and mind flays going. Half the time, mobs are dead before I can get anything done. Apparently this should do about the same damage as mind flay and provide a debuff which will increase damage of subsequent mind spikes.
Sounds good to me!

Inner Will- An option to Inner Fire. This will provide a movement speed increase as well as a mana cost reduction for instant spells. The priest will have to decide which self buff is most advantageous. I don’t foresee using this all that often, but okay.

Leap of Faith (life grip)- this can pull dumb people out of harms way. So now, I not only have to heal and dispel, but I would also have to grab people who can’t control their aggro or are not able to see where they are standing. No thanks. But, might be fun to screw with people (assuming you can use it on a friendly target whenever you like!).

Other Changes:

HoT’s and DoT’s will benefit from haste and crit innately. Sounds good to me.

Divine Spirit and Prayer of Spirit removed. Okay, one less thing to have to worry about.

Change to Shadow Word:Death…as long as it still kills things…okay by me.

Improve shadow for short fights. Amen!

Changes to passive damage boosters and hit modifiers.

Orbiting shadow balls of death. Yeah...okay.

Anyway, we’ll really have to wait to see how this all pans out. Nothing seems horrible here (like getting rid of cleanse spirit and cleansing totem!!!!!). Nothing seems awesome either, but I am excited to see Mind Spike. We shall see….yes we shall.

Shaman changes.

While nothing is written in stone, some of the potential changes for shaman sound very interesting. Others I am not so excited about.

Unleash Weapon sounds pretty cool. Some additional damage for flametongue, and healing for earthliving. The thought of some kind of "wind weapon" flying out of my weps for the windfury spell almost makes me want to switch to enhancement...almost.

Healing wave....jury is out on that one. I suppose having another healing spell in our small but awesome arsenal couldn't be a bad thing.

Healing rain- this sounds cool. An AoE HoT...sounds like fun. Can't wait to see how it works.

Spiritwalker's grace-Anything that allows a shaman to move and cast sounds great to me! I suppose a shorter cooldown would be too much to ask wouldn't it?

The totem changes...bad and good. Making ToW the goto fire totem for all is cool. Simplifying things is usually a good thing. Allowing ele shamans to get that SP bonus from any fire totem....awesome. SP boost plus a damage totem....nice. Getting rid of my cleansing totem? Sucks.

Losing my cleanse disease and poison and gaining the dispel magic? Not so great. Yes I'm crying about it because it sucks. Cleanse spirit is a great spell. I don't see dispel magic as an even trade. Of course who the hell said things needed to be even, right? It just seems stupid, lore-wise, that a shaman can't cure poisons or diseases....a shaman...a frickin witchdoctor....whatever.

I haven't had the chance to look at the warrior, DK and spriest changes yet. Hopefully there will be some nice additions. We'll see.

Tuesday thoughts-screwing shaman world-wide

Getting rid of my cleasing totem?!?! No way! I love my cleasing totem! Getting rid of my cure disease and poison?!?! What the hell kind of nature loving shaman can't cure a frickin disease or abolish poison? Anyway...whatever. That is stupid...and yucky...and junk. Make mana cost higher. Makes sense. No problem. But the other changes suck.

On a totally different not....Facebook. When I started my page I decided that if anyone that I "friended" were to post, or advocate, or condone anything I found offensive, I would "unfriend" them. I'm not unfriending them personally. I'm just removing them from my facebook. If I allow someone to remain on my friend list and they have nazi propaganda on their page, I am condoning and indirectly supporting their crap. Am I right? A very dear friend of mine, who has been a friend for most of my life is also a drama whore. She also loves to say offensive things. Inflammatory things. Racially divisive things. Things I don't agree with. By leaving her on my friends list, I am condoning those thoughts. I am leaving those negative, offensive things up for all my other friends to see. As if I'm saying "hey, take a look at this".

Getting rid of my cleansing totem?!?!? That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. Okay, not ever...but it's pretty damn stupid.

Monday Haiku

Last week, I had mentioned that I'd discovered a little known, but brilliant gnome poet by the gname of Gnomoichi Gnakamura. Gnow, knoming how much I despise the little bastards, it pains me greatly to recognize his genius. It tears me...deep inside....my heart.....my very soul. However, I would be a small man if I couldn't get past my visceral hatred to at the very least mention the existence of such a gnome. So any way, here is a brief introduction to the inner working of Gnomo.

I am not dinner

And certainly not breakfast

Please do not eat me

Can't you just feel the pain and angst inside the soul of this little nugget of tasty flesh? I'd almost hesitate if he sat upon my plate and spoke these words. "Don't box me in" he seems to plead. "Are we not more that morsels of deliciousness?". The sentiment is so raw and honest I'd almost consider not eating the next little bugger I see.

Well anyway, I'll bring you some more of his hauntingly touching work another day. One perfect haiku is really all I can do in a day.....

Happy Easter

Well, to all you religious nutcases and godless heathens, enjoy this holiday for whatever reason you enjoy it. I personally enjoy watching my evil little minions (children) mill about the house in a mad dash for easter eggs. The older one collects out of duty and the desire for candy. The younger one still holds onto the hope that a six foot tall bunny has entered our house while we slept and hidden eggs about our property. I enjoy sit on the couch and wait for the monsters to give me the candy they don't want. Usually works out pretty well for me as the older monster doesn't like peanuts!
On the WoW front, things are going well. I've been tanking more with my warrior. Gear is improving. I forget who it was (sorry!) who wrote about not just powering thier way through 5 mans, because we can still die on Xevoz in H VH. Well guess what? Xevoz came out and before I could grab aggro, dps starts unloading. Now if you're dps and you notice you have aggro it is your responsibility to stop damage and move towards the tank....okay? Got it? We have to get Xevoz moving or we're all going to die. If the tank does not have aggro, please stop damage and allow him to get it. Okay? Xevoz bites the mages face off. As the dps did not move and I did not have aggro, we were still standing right there when the sphere thingies started forming. I got aggro, started trying to kite. Too late, healer wasn't able to keep me up. Deathtard and Boomkin die right after me. Goodbye healer. Of course, it's my fault. "tank sucks ass". Well thank you very much. How absolutely classy of you. By the way, I can't kite him if I don't have aggro and you guys with gearscores over 5k are opening up a can of whoop ass while standing still. "Oh so it's our fault?". Yes, I would say so. WHen you have aggro on a boss, stop damage. I'll get aggro, just give me a second. Then we can start moving this bastard so we don't wipe in heroic VH. And yes, it does happen. Whenever people think they can just open up on Xevoz without kiting him. I see it happen a couple times a month. Your GS doesn't stop that from happening. Thank goodness for short tank queues, later folks, enjoy your dungeon in progress.

Balancing act

Not sure why, but seems that lately I haven't been able to log onto WoW as often as I'd like. I haven't had much time to write either. It doesn't seem that things are a whole lot busier, it's just that my time is tight enough that small changes/additions result in lost time.

So how do people do it? I don't think I'm ahead of the curve in having 4 80's and a few other toons at various levels. It seems that is a pretty normal number from what I can tell. I have been having alot of trouble getting anything done though. It seems I had previously been able to get dailies done for everybody, a little AH time on the bank alt and done. But lately, not the case.

How do you juggle your WoW time? Are you an equal opportunity player? Do you play mostly one toon and get on the others when the mood strikes? I try to get dailies done for everybody. I feel like I'm losing badges if I don't!

My normal procedure is to log onto my shammy, queue as heals and run one heroic. Then log onto spriest and run one heroic as dps. Get on DK and run one heroic as dps and finish off on warrior and tank one random heroic. This usually can be finished in an hour. Assuming I remembered to mail all my phat lewts to my bank alt, I then log onto him and do my boring AH duties.

On weekends when there's a little more time, I'll generally choose one or two toons to focus on, farming, professions, instances, etc.

I think the potential solution is to quit my job and sell my wife and children to the gypsies...although I'm still looking into the legalities of that.

You?

Off-topic rant

It's interesting how so many people can be thinking along the same line. I didn't have any idea what I'd write about today. I've barely played since Wednesday of last week. Big Bear and Eda both talked about the power of words with Bear specifically commenting on racism. Which leads me to my rant.
I am married to a gorgeous woman who is a textbook example of how beautiful people of mixed ethnicity can be. My wife is Half Japanese and half African-American. Quite a stunning combination. My two daughters as you may imagine are a spectacular combination of Swedish, German, English, Japanese and African-American. They are breathtaking. Literally. Not just being a proud Daddy. When we go out people stop me constantly to tell me how gorgeous my girls are. Ladies, men, elderly, kids, 20 and 30-somethings, everyone. It never ceases to amaze me.
We have always embraced all of our ancestors. We love talking about all of the different lands that our distant relatives come from. We speak about our ethnic history with pride. Unfortunately, many people in out world are not proud, or respectful. They feel that people of certain ethnicities are below them, or inferior for the simple fact that they are different. I found out this weekend that my older daughter is catching crap from some kids in school for being of African-American heritage. Comments about stealing, or guns are thrown her way. When discussing "to Kill a Mockingbird" (which they are reading right now) certain words and comments are purposefully directed at her or accentuated. While kids have not specifically called her the "n"word, she says she hears kids using it around her intentionally so she'll hear. These are not friends of hers nor are they in the majority. It's a few punks (who ironically are non-caucasian minorities!?!?!) who don't have a clue how powerful that word is.
It makes me so incredibly angry, like frothing at the mouth angry, that people would do that to my child. It also makes me so angry and sad that people still continue this crap generally. I am so saddened every time I see some jack-ass kid on WoW use racist slurs or just racist/predjudiced crap of any sort. My mom would have smacked me so hard it would have inverted my skull if she heard me saying that kind of crap. Of course I was raised so it wasn't even an issue so she never had to worry about it. Thanks to Bear for calling out the jack-ass he partied with who threw that filthy word around like it was nothing. Not much will move me to violence anymore, but if I actually hear you use that word in my presence...particularly around my family, I am going to beat you.
Anyway, rant done. I think most understand that racism is total bullshit. It's weak and cowardly. It is fed by ignorance and nastiness. I suppose I am shocked how often I see racist crap on WoW. It makes me wonder sometimes if it really is a minority who feel that way. I had so little exposure to racism growing up that it still shocks me to witness it. I can feel my blood boil, even seeing something in trade chat. Thanks to all those who don't stand for that kind of crap. Sorry for the rant...just been bugging me for the last few days!!!!

Chewy Gnome Bars- a delicious treat!

Okay….so I’ve decided that rather than find another well-known innkeeper who cooks up a mean gnome, I’d give you one of my own delicious gnome recipes. This is a relatively simple recipe, but the key ingredient can be difficult to find.

So, without further delay, Chewy Gnome Bars.

Ingredients:
1/2 cup melted butter
2 cups brown sugar
2 eggs
2 cups flour
2 teaspoons gnome extract
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt

Procedure-Melt butter, add brown sugar and blend. Put mixture into bowl. Add eggs, gnome extract, flour, baking powder, salt and mix well. Pour into greased pan and bake at 350 degrees for 35-40 minutes.

The trick-Gnome extract can be difficult to find and quite expensive. It can be found at specialty shops. If you choose to obtain your own, be sure to hold the gnome by its feet and shoulders as you twist. If you hold the gnome by the head, it will pop off as quite a bit of wringing is needed to extract the essence. It is my understanding that a similar treat is prepared in some alliance cities substituting vanilla for gnome extract. I can’t imagine why one would want to do that, but thought I’d mention it.

So there it is. The recipe for Chewy Gnome Bars. Enjoy!