I Can Do Frontal Lobotomies, Too

Based on observation, conversation, and personal libation, I’ve reached an important conclusion:

Priests are drinkers.

That’s gotta mean something.

Eleventh Hour Challenge: Blasted Lands

Posted as my response to the Eleventh Hour Challenge:

Bah!

Another season, another senseless war.

It seems as soon as I patch them up, the warriors and knights run headlong into adventure and knives and long sticks with pointy bits on the end and back they come for me to wrap them up again. The ceaseless sounds of battle echo in my head when I sit sewing, as I perform my small enchantments over weak blades- when I’m asleep, even! And in the midst of the noise and dust and fearsome clanging, back my companions come, bleeding and broken and battered as if I’d never ministered to them in the first place.

I’ve had it, I tell you!

My mind, I think, had been made up for some time when I saw it: tucked into a hillside in this place called the Blasted Lands. Red rocks basking in the sun around it, buzzards keening in the air, and always, always the sound of distant thunder threatening from the mountains. Even the occasional crystalhide couldn’t deter this feeling. I had come, at long last, home.

Pink Sky At Night, Sailor's Delight

Brother Mahar Ba at Nethergarde Keep has tried to deter me. He says the swirling portal to the south keeps spitting out weird creatures from Outland’s desert, and that the orcs are most pressing in their desire to keep the sanctum sanctorum of their heathen Dreadmaul Hold.

Mahar Has A Lot Of Explaining To Do

He’s told me the local miners are desperate for medical assistance- apparently there’s some trouble down the mine- which does not surprise me. When I attempted to find someone in charge in the Keep, the place appeared to be all but abandoned! Even their cellar was quite empty of provisions. These people need me.

Who's In Charge Here?

At last I might sit upon the rocks and warm my fragile bones in the blinding sunshine this place has in abundance. I might finally practice my sewing without the frantic hustle and bustle Dalaran offers without respite! Perhaps in time I shall even delve deeper into the art of enchantment.

And then when I stumbled upon my home- well, it was as though the Gods had spoken. Just needs a bit of mucking out.

Baby, If You Ever Wondered... Wondered Whatever Became Of Me...

I love this Blasted Lands place.

It is unchanging. It is immune from the vagaries of the hectic world. It is perfect, and here I shall stay.

Elevated Discourse: Eleventh Hour Challenge

- Cataclysm Zone Change Spoiler Information Follows -

Oh, The Humanity!

WE KNOW THAT multiple zones will be destroyed, remade, or otherwise rendered differently once Cataclysm drops on our delicate little noggins. So far as we know, those zones are:

• Darkshore
• Azshara
• Darkwhisper Gorge
• The Barrens (South)
• Stonetalon Mountains
• Thousand Needles
• Stranglethorn Vale
• Blasted Lands
• Felwood
• Ashenvale
• Durotar
• The Barrens (North)
• Desolace
• Feralas
• Eastern Plaguelands
• Wetlands
• Westfall
• Swamp of Sorrows

We’ll miss these areas when they’re gone, and sit around the Inn in Ironforge talking about how newbs these days don’t appreciate the lushness of Thousand Needles and wouldn’t know Auberdine if it fell on their heads.

With that in mind, I’d like to issue an open challenge out there for all bloggers to visit a randomly assigned area and run with it… with a catch. Your character’s mission, should you chose to accept it, will be complicated by a randomly assigned obstacle, tribulation, and/or dilemma facing you in your exploration.

The List of Adversities is is already created, but I’m keeping it under wraps so that everyone’s approach to their tribulation can be a surprise.

THE CHALLENGE: Visit, on your main or a beloved alt, your given zone. Record your thoughts in a visual, verbal, aural, or any other way while referencing your given obstacle (and any successes or failures with which you meet).

THE LOGISTICS: Email me at disciplinaryaction@yahoo.com or post a comment here to get your Zone & Tribulation. Post your results on your blog!

Aaaaand… go!

Holier Than Thou: A Giant Sucking Sound

Let's Hug It Out.

THIS PAST WEEK, I’ve seen a truly staggering number of WoW blog posts on the subject of WoW burnout. Three blogs I love- Altoholics Anonymous, The Angry Healers, and Wildgrowth- are on extended hiatus, if not mothballed for good. The phrases “pre-expansion malaise” and “I’m just trying out LOTR Online for a bit” are bandied about with abandon. Larisa is saying it, Linedan is saying it, Jaedia is saying it.

It’s all getting me down, man.

Instead of letting this deluge of sad wash us all out to sea, I thought now would be a good time to link to some of the people whose posts and activities of late have kept me interested in WoW, inspired to do new things (or old things I never got around to), and generally are cheering me up no end:

• Pilfkin at Moar Alts is doing her priest quests, a thing I never finished. She’s killing Ragnaros. She’s RPing in a new and fun way.
• Dreambound sets out some seriously good strategies for building your new badass ten-man raid team (something we’re all going to wish we had in place when the dragon hits the fan).
• Murloc Parliament is fun in general, and a resurrected piece of fine healer bloggery, but I particularly like her Monday Morning Haikus.
• OstensiablyWoW takes great screenshots and then tells you how to take them, too! Much joy.
• Big Bear Butt is turning into a Blizzard Kool-Aid drinking fanboy, and it tastes so right. He’s getting me all excited about Cat’s changes, and even excited about Wrath raiding. Plus he quoted the Wonder Pets for super secret bonus points.
• Dawn Moore at WoW.com plays Azerothian tour guide to check out all those soon-to-be changing areas in a nice round-up of Screenshots We’ll Wish We Had Later.
• Shayzani at 2fps takes a really cool look at DKs… and all the changes they’ve gone through before all this recent hubub. A good read.
• The Fridge is a new blog, a new blog! I always like to happen on them, especially after reading a few “So long…”s, and hers is a good one. This week, guild drama FTW!
• Safrocentric, a big, gentle cowgirl with a penchant for picnics in dried-out gulleys, never fails to lift my spirits. She actually has me dusting off my picnic basket and haul it around Azeroth with me, leading to many amusing moments. I like the Saf worldview: Slow down. Enjoy the view. Pick some herbs.
• As always, View Through The Branches‘ tourism posts remind us of those little leveling nooks and crannies we haven’t seen in ages (or at least since we tried to visit all the Elders) with a fun spin.
• And finally, Sounds of the Universe by Ercles over on Barrens Chat is a fantastic post about the music of WoW and the appreciation thereof.

So no more sulking, no more qq, no more Pre-Cataclysm angst for this priest! To the Picnic Tables of Booty Bay!!

PUGtales: Snap Judgements

Just Another Day In Paradise

Lately I’ve been racking up massive numbers of PUGs with the LFD tool in order to keep my alts in the heirloom style to which they have become accustomed (the ungrateful bastards! Why, in MY day, I leveled as a holy priest with a broken dagger and half a cape, and was damn grateful for it! Uphill both ways to Molten Core through-… ahem, excuse me).

But my point, and I do have one, was that I realized last night that I’ve been creating a mental list of Instant Tank Judgements. We all know that someone with a name like ‘Ipwnulolz’ will likely require the patience of a saint, but there are more subtle signs.

There’s that inescapable, thoroughly subconscious, internal checklist that makes us think, Oh, God, I should just drop now and get it over with that we run through before anyone even opens their mouth. I’d be totally interested to hear someone else’s, but without further ado, here are my own:

Good Tanks

• Dwarves (usually)
• Gnomes (always)
• Females (unbelievably good, unless they’re a DK named ‘Sexxorz’)
• Any tank who’s running with his ‘Display Helmet’ turned off (???)

Bad Tanks

• Any retarded name (always)
• A tank grouped with only one other DPS from his guild (Always, always means a sprinter who will not stop to let you drink; something about not wanting to be seen as weak in front of the DPSer, maybe?)
• Human males with facial hair (This makes no sense!)
• Any tank who’s running with his ‘Display Cloak’ turned off (??? x 2)

DKs are emphatically not on my list; certainly Outland runs they tend to be much hazier on the mechanical details, but they don’t seem to be any more or less personally obnoxious than any other tanking class. Man, they sure do get a bum rap, though.