Year: 2006

Hey ! Milestone time :-). And I want to put this post in now because of the negative one that’s gone before it. Time to look back on what I’ve blogged. That’s really why I’m doing this blog, to remember what I’ve been getting up to over the last few months. Besides, I have something else in mind to blog later today.

November :
This is when I started writing this blog and what do we have … Ahh … saying hello, what I get up to and complaining about my laptop. Which is really slow. Oh yeah – strange positions on the kitchen floor. Shoulda used my gloves to keep the leak under control better. Oooo – this is the month Civ4 arrived. The first and only game to distract my attention away from World of Warcraft for a decent amount of time. I also introduced one or two of the characters I have the pleasure to share the world with, the IT Girl and Miss L. We don’t see Miss L so much lately though and the IT Girl hasn’t been too well.

Bacon sarnies. Can’t beat ’em, can’t get thin on a diet of them. More Molten Core, plus complaints about my ISP. Also managed to cheat something into telling me that my blog should be the colour it is. Result !

December :
I’ll come clean here and say that December wasn’t a good month for me. I had a lot of things building up on me, stress with the mortgage and more stress from being very overtired. So I said a few things I wish I hadn’t. Back to seeing what I did post …

Yey 🙂 New toy – webcam. Haven’t used it as much as I could have. Xmas party – always good for a laugh and this one was no exception. And I managed to tag along wherever Miss L went all night. Wasn’t looking for sympathy honest, even though I did damage my back that morning due to the bitter cold. Hmm. Commenting about the outfits that the WoW people have given the girls. I have an even more revealing one now for my main character … Darn good item too. Fire, poison, magic, frost proof hanky. Toast. I love toast. Must remember to get the butter out the fridge before going to bed.

Uhoh – I just saw the first of my world hating posts. Ah well. I said what I said back then and probably agreed with it at the times. I still agree with it but for different reasons. At the time, I hadn’t seen the need for tightly controlling who goes on raids but after seeing the passengers we have at the moment ? I’m all for it again.

Christmas and the tree. Don’t tell my partner – she forgot to pick up that tree when she left. Mine now. Muahahaha ! Had two Xmas’s this year, up norf with the family and with CQ for the second family. You’ll know most of them from the blogroll. Hmm. I quit WoW around this time. That didn’t last long.

January :
Star Wars Marathon. I like Star Wars but it could have been rather better. Well made but doesn’t really satisfy the scientist in me cos of the universe it’s in. It works well for stories though. First Old Game Appreciation Society post here, although it was a kinda pre one. Massive ‘who am I’ meme and another ‘who am I’ about university. A flirtation into a couple of other games (didn’t last long). Back into WoW, with some good, fun, successful runs with the guild. First match report and this time it’s a good one. We buried the opposition. Birth of Flameberry in WoW, a character who I’m highly unlikely to play much more because of stuff that happened in game. She was named in honour of Cloudberry, who stabbed Guildlink in the back.

Ha ! Celebrating a diet milestone by going out and getting a pizza. That’s sensible.

Shopping is dangerous … And hunting dragons can be too. Visited the parents, which doesn’t happen often enough. Showing off my wish list for a pc. Did I mention that shopping is dangerous ?

February :
Wowser – first day of the month and we’re up to Scotland to see the launch of 7000 tonnes of pride and hard work. And then a complaint about a credit card … Still not got a Chip and Pin card from Halifax. That’s ok though, I defected to Marbles and I’m highly unlikely to use the Halifax card again. Cricket again, our turn to get swept away by the Drifters. Olympics started – good on ya Shellie Rudman ! History repeating itself part one this month, with people moaning about not being picked for raids. Haven’t I put something about that below ? Oooo – finance. (makes sign to ward off evil eye).

Miss L moves on ! Boo hoo. And I exposed my personality to an unsuspecting world. Learn anything people ? Posted my first Thursday Thirteen and we had the earthquake schism in Guildlink.

March :
Woo hoo ! One chapter of my life gets put to a close here, with the removal of my ex’s name from the house deeds. Time to move on properly. Started the saga of the garden. Originally I got promised I’d have 6 months to pay the guy but I’m getting daily phone calls at the moment asking for money. Waiting for a couple of loans to come through. Started feeling grotty, haven’t really stopped feeling grotty due to bad ear. It’s improving though, I’m back to about 50% in my right ear, so at least I can navigate.

Heh heh heh – more WoW frustration. It’s amazing the difference a quality team makes. You can sometimes get away with that but not when half the team is incompetent or a waste of space. Mixed month for WoW, we’ve had good runs and bad runs. The good runs have made it worth it. As has the chance to listen to the Overqueen. Always a pleasure because of the tone she sets.

And that takes us up to today ! Blimey this is a long post, I’ll have to do the next one of these at 150 posts.

After the demolition that happened last Monday in Molten Core, we had the mistake of underestimating it again …

Or rather, we had a few too many passengers again. You can normally get around those in a 40 person instance but not if they’re doing stuff like distracting mobs away from the tanks or not giving the tanks the healing they need.

But that’s not the worst of it, right at the end, we had some idiot look at the loot that the boss had at the end. That shouldn’t happen because of a system called Master Looting, which means that only one person can see what loot the boss has. That’s a really big sin that, as the loot in the Molten Core is hot stuff, with strict rules on who gets it and who has to wait. Basically, you earn points the more times loot drops and only get loot if you have more points than anyone else.

Ok, that’s cardinal sin number one. Cardinal sin number two is that the guy put “need” on an item he couldn’t use !!!!!

1 – I think that fella will not be invited to raid with us again. New person, should have picked up on the rules because we were a few hours into the run. Plus, he looked like one of those people who bought his character on Ebay.
2 – Someone else probably won’t be invited to raid with us again because he threw his teddies out the pram over not making the team. What’s he expect if he doesn’t sign up ?

I imagine poor Sarai (raid leader and Overqueen) is banging her head against the wall at the moment. Think I might be getting my hunter to the standard needed for these runs rather quicker than I’d like … We’re running out of trustworthy hunters ! (got two, hopefully three in the guild though)

PS Bugged, think I got the cold that’s going around. I’m currently bouncing between hot and cold and my muscles are complaining (partly due to yesterday). Fingers and hands are freezing though.

Bah – enough complaining. Will get some sleep in a bit when the effect of Mini Eggs & coffee has worn off.

Thirteen Things about The Game 1…. The two sides were Small Swings and Leather On Willow. 2… Team Selection leading up to the game was fun … 1 player dropped out, the reserve had to disappear, so I needed to call in the second reserve. 3… We lost the toss and were asked to bat first. 4… We scored 93 and were probably 20 runs short of a good target. 5… I had trouble coming to terms with the ball again … (I either hit too straight or too square) 6… Different tactics by the opposition meant my normal sharp stumpings were taken out of the game. 7… But I did get 3 catches from behind the stumps. 8… We got hammered by their star player. We just couldn’t stop the guy scoring … 9… I got two miracle catches off the walls that I had no business whatsoever taking. (I need new glasses) 10… I bowled a bit better and only did one beamer. Improvement … 11… They scored 108 to win the game. Boooo !!!!! 12… I pretty much got away with injuries, although my calf muscles did try to explode on me afterwards. 13… We had fun 🙂 Links to other Thursday Thirteens! 1. (leave your link in comments, I’ll add you here!)

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The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!

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Found out this morning that I might be captaining the indoor cricket side on Thursday …

Well, hopefully I can slope shoulders that off to another fella who is better at it than me. (Still affected by my ear, but return of The Bounce Factor means I’m dealing with it better)

Anyway, Thursday’s going to see the return of The Brain, coupled with the return of the bruised and battered fingers. The Brain can bowl rather quickly. Think there’s dents in the wall still from when we played with a harder ball. It also sees the introduction of The Tall Guy, who I’m eyeing from a crooked neck position (yep – he be that tall !) wondering what it’ll be like to keep wicket to him. We also have the Pitied One playing, so I’ll have to put on my special smiley mask when talking to him. (He’s the Pitied One because the poor fella is going out with my ex). And then there’s the Old Fogey and the Unsung Hero.

And then there’s the Eternal Cripple (me !). I’m hoping that the Old Fogey will take over the reins for the actual game on Thursday as I’ll have enough to think about with keeping wicket.

Looking forward to trying to turn a match report into a Thursday Thirteen …

More World of Warcraft. Gonna have to try and find some alternate subjects to talk about soon but things went rather well for the team tonight. Apologies if I’m boring people with all the WoW stuff !

Anyway, after the trials of the weekend, things started looking up yesterday with the first taming of Onyxia since Guildlink lost two of its biggest guilds. And that taming was probably the most perfect take down yet. We outdid that tonight though, the Molten Core team went through 6 bosses in 3 hours 42, which is an all time new record. We only got wiped out once during the entire session as well … Fantastic stuff. (And I got more loot too)

Being able to do that is a testament to the quality we have in the new team. Sure, we still have one or two passengers but we managed to take down most of the bosses without anyone getting killed, which is pretty special. Even with taking in a lot of new people, or even because of that, we’re fitter, faster, stronger and far more disciplined a fighting unit than we ever were before.

And I got more loot too. Yey ! But we got to hear the Overqueen on TeamSpeak as well, which we didn’t get yesterday due to illness. It’s always better when you’re hearing stuff over TS. I’m going to have to get back into the habit of turning my microphone back on so I can join in with the laughing. And the way we do Molten Core, there is always a lot of laughter due to the tone that the Overqueen sets but at the same time, we’re also doing a good job of professionally demolishing of the instance.

Hmm. Onyxia again tomorrow and around that I’ll be continuing to powerlevel my hunter, Finlay the orc. Level 26 so far, in 32 hours of game time. Hoping to get him up to level 60 quickly, so I can play with the big bombs.

Another World of Warcraft post, this time a happier one.

We took on Onyxia today, which meant a full 40 person raid, with the better players in. That’s the ones who have gone through a rather long quest chain to get themselves the key to Onyxia’s lair.

We struggled a couple of times before with Onyxia but this time, it went down like absolute clockwork. That’s one thing about the newer, shinier Guildlink, people may not have the same initiative but we seem to have got rid of the dangerous wild cards. (We now have people who are a bit too tentative, instead of the suicidal)

Amazing how much smoother it can go with a decent core team … Molten Core tomorrow, that’s another 40 person run. We’ll still have passengers in that, but passengers affect 40 person runs a lot less than they affect 20 person runs.

I’m still trying to figure out what I’ve done to deserve the punishment duty I apparently have.

The group today was better … but we still had about 5 or 6 passengers, which is fatal in a group of only 20. One of those passengers was the third tank, who decided to bounce around like a mad thing, instead of taking up the tanking like he was supposed to. Numerous times. It was noticed …

And then there’s the healing … tanks were able to get the attention of the boss but then immediately died because the healing wasn’t there. That’s not really good enough … Mind you, I can’t really talk about healing because I don’t have the mindset to do that job.

It still feels as if I’m being punished for something though. There’s a team that gets all the best people and then there’s the team that I get put in. That’s starting to get extremely old. I’d like to know what my crime was, who the jury are and how long I have to serve on my sentence.

Nothing too substantial today, or rather I’m going to try and keep it short so I don’t start ranting.

Had our first trip into the newly opened Ahn’Qiraj instance today, which means learning for everyone. Well, maybe not so much learning because we’ve researched what things do. Or so you’d think …

Instead of learning about what’s inside the instance, it ends up learning how to actually play the character for most people in there. Healers who don’t keep tanks alive, tanks who don’t bother actually tanking, tanks who don’t know that what they’re doing is actually increasing their aggro when they’re supposed to be handing off to the next tank. (The boss does something that makes it impossible for the tank to do his job).

Translation – I was in the B team, the one that has all the people who haven’t been picked for the better team. I don’t know why I’m in there. I have one of the best equipped characters for my class in guildlink and I’m one of the best mages in terms of skill for GL too. I can also figure out alterations to strategy to optimize what we do as well. But I’m still never picked for the top team. I haven’t a clue why that happens when we split into 2 20 player raids. It’s getting to the point where I’m wondering whether or not to bother signing up to the 20 player raids.

And I’ll leave it there.

Before I start tapping, I’m not doing too well at the moment due to my ongoing ear problems … So I might appear a little more waspish than I’d like to. Struggling to think of a theme as well today :-(.

Thirteen Things about Sleepypete 1…. I’m a bit of a loner … but I’ll feel left out if I’m not part of a group. 2… I’m a chocolate fiend. Chocolate and especially Mini Eggs, is not safe around me. 3… But I’m on a diet, so I must resist. (1 stone lost so far, stalled there though) 4… I’ve run 100m in less than 12 seconds, when I was 14. 5… I’ve been constantly afflicted by disabling injuries since I was 14. 6… I like my gadgets but I’m not a fanatic. Why have an MP3 player if you don’t listen to music outside of where you can listen to it in high quality ? 7… I have a habit of upsetting people and I don’t suffer fools lightly. 8… I’ll help anyone who asks politely but I’ll not help people who have made no effort to help themselves. 9… I can see why change is necessary, I really can ! But that doesn’t reduce my natural inertia against change much. 10… I could kill for a KFC right now … (it’s the funny chemicals they put in) but there’s no way I’m getting in the car again tonight. 11… Pushy people irritate me, whether that’s pushy in terms of how they drive or whether they want me to do stuff that they should be doing themselves. 12… Alisha’s Attic music gives me the irresistable urge to sing along. 13… Peace and quiet is all very well but I do miss having company around. Maybe that’s why I play WoW so much. Links to other Thursday Thirteens! 1. (leave your link in comments, I’ll add you here!)

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!

The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!

View More Thursday Thirteen Participants

One of the things they’re going to change in the next World of Warcraft patch is the top end small group instances … These are places that are designed for 5 person parties but which can currently take up to 10. What they’re doing is making them slightly easier but they’ll be enforcing stricter limits on how many can go in.

So, Stratholme and Scholomance join Dire Maul (great names huh ?) as being a maximum of 5 people. Which will up the challenge to make them interesting. Trouble is, it may also make them too hard for random groups to do. Hell – I haven’t got a problem with that, it will encourage people to learn their class better. Sure, it encourages the hard core but you don’t need to be on the game 24 hours a day in order to get really good at it. And the instances were perfectly doable with just 5 as they were before as well.

The place we blitzkrieged tonight is a place called Upper Black Rock Spire, which can currently take 15 people. It’s being limited to 10 after the patch, so we thought we’d see how we’d do with just 10 players with the instance in its harder prepatch state. How did it go ? Errmmm … kinda embarassing. The mobs were dismissed like tatters in the wind as we whirled through the instance. We got through the instance extremely quickly, good profit for little cost. Just shows what you can do with a strong group.

We missed the Overqueen, who was the inspiration behind the run. Things were a bit quiet, apart from the dying screams of those foolish enough to try standing before us that is. There’s a definite bit of fun and laughter that comes in when the Overqueen’s voice comes over Teamspeak. Especially when you come up with a comment that gets her close to dissolving into giggles 🙂 (managed to do that twice now) Ah well, we’ll have to drag her through there at a later date when she’s feeling a bit better.