FanFiction

I'd like to write a little bit about fanfiction tonight. I have some time on my hands while I wait up until the new episode of Doctor Who airs on BBC America.

I have been reading fanfiction since high school, which is half a decade in my past now. I have seen how technology on the internet has allowed fanfic to grow. When I started reading fanfic the options were fanfiction.net and private sites where authors posted their work (usually in addition to fanfiction.net). FF.net is where I read all of the fic in my Stargate SG-1 days. When I got into Stargate Atlantis fanfic had expanded and LiveJournal had become a place for fandom. Communities and private journals alike were filled with fanfic (and the SGA fandom has amazing fanfic). LiveJournal was my fanfic treasure trove for many years.

Now that I'm reading X-Men: First Class fanfiction I find that most of the quality fic has migrated to Archive of Our Own (AO3). FF.net and LiveJournal still have good fanfic, but most of it also ends up posted on AO3. I really like this because AO3 has the option to download fic. This is my favorite feature. I love that I can download a fic in the correct file type for my Kindle and just drag it over there. In addition to the many books I have on there to read, I also have around 20 fanfics ready to read. They have their own fanfiction collection. And then once I've read them they move to a read fanfiction collection. This, paired with the stories that I keep track of on my iPhone's reading list, means that I always have some spare fic to read even when I'm not at my computer. I found it especially nice during my trip to Boston in early August. I downloaded several of the X-Men Reverse Bang stories to my Kindle and read them while I waited to trains and on longer trains. It made the commute from my home to Boston (and then from my hotel to the city each day) much more fandom filled.

And now I'm off. I've still got an hour and a half until Doctor Who, and there are fanfics on my Kindle just waiting for me.

Back to Blogging

I had a conversation with a friend of mine a couple days ago. We both like to write, but seldom find the time to do it, even though we both have blogs that we could be updating. And that got me thinking about this place. Obviously it's been a while since I posted, but I do really enjoy blogging. With the amount of interesting things that I find on the internet everyday that I just really need to share with someone, or even just put somewhere and talk out my feelings about, blogging could be really good for me.

So, I guess the point of this is that I intend to start posting here more. I do not promise high quality everyday. And it won't always be one thing or another. I hope to post a mix of videos, my writing, pictures and just talking about links or something happening in my life.

I'll start right now with an update on my life. I have the same Dunkin' Donuts job that I've had since I graduated high school. Except now instead of working nights, I'm the Assistant Manager and I work a dark o'clock early in the morning. It's been an interesting transition for this night owl, but I still enjoy it. I am still working my way through college with online classes. I do participate in NaNoWriMo every year (I think I'm pretty good at keeping my sidebar updated with that). I tried Camp NaNoWriMo in August this year and didn't even break 7k. I am still very much a James McAvoy fangirl. I would appreciate it a lot if TPTB would release one of the three movies he filmed last year and early this year (or even Arthur Christmas! Give me anything.). I am still in love with X-Men: First Class. I have grown this love by attending a fan meetup for XMFC and starting to read X-Men comics. I am of legal drinking age (I was the last time I posted, but now I've found people that I can be around and drink and just have a good time). I like drinking, but I'm responsible about it. I saw Train in concert on Saturday. It was fantastic.

I think that's it for tonight. I've got comics that I really want to read. Expect the layout and design to change.

Nice to talk to you again, blog people. Have a good night!

New Found Love, WoW, NaNoWriMo 2011, Work

I have fallen in love...again. It happened when I bought the X-Men: First Class DVD and watched it for the first time in the living room with Mom. See, there's this actor in it (a bunch actually) and he caught my eye. His name is James McAvoy, and he played Charles Xavier. I have liked the previous X-Men movies (though I think I've blocked out 3 and never watched the Wolverine one) and have quite the crush on James Marsden (yes, it is tiring being in love with this many men at once). But First Class... Oh man, I've never been so keen on Professor X. Yeah, Patrick Stewart is cool (he's got a 'sir'), but I mostly watched the first too for Cyclops. I absolutely adore the relationship between Charles and Erik in this movie. It's like the tragic love story of Charles and Erik, and there are some other people there too. I love how McAvoy played Charles. It's very fun, but the character still seems wise beyond his years. The flirting and partying was great (very funny and made the character feel more real), but he's also very adept at filling this role of mentor (parent?) that all the kids (and Erik) truly need.

Also, James McAvoy is adorable. I have a couple videos. I can't share them with the friends that I talk to the most because they haven't seen the movie (for the first one) and I don't want to keep throwing random McAvoy videos at them (the second one, I can only get away with so many before they start to get annoyed).

I advise that you do not watch this video if you haven't seen X-Men: First Class.

This one is from the press for the Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe. I just adore how much he's paying attention while she speaks.

Looking at my YouTube favorites to find these, I realize that I have several more to share.

This one has nothing to do with what I've been typing about. But I love this guy's voice.

And one last thing on the topic of James McAvoy (for now) is a link to a tumblr that has gifs showing James as the 12th Doctor (Doctor Who). This does not yet exist in canon for Doctor Who, but I would love it. http://thetwelfthdoctorandhistardis.tumblr.com/

Moving on, WoW has been going well. New information about 4.3 keeps coming out, so we're in a bit of a slump in terms of staying excited for the content that exists. We have finally conquered the Zandalari heroics. They are still a challenge and we mostly queue up in groups for protection, but we can do them now, and that is fantastic. We gotten some new members. Someone I recruited from the Guild Finder offered to be a recruitment officer for the guild, and it's nice to see another person so excited about us doing stuff as a guild.

NaNoWriMo is coming. I have the 2011 badge up on the sidebar, and I've logged into the new and improved website. I, of course, don't have a plot idea or characters (though if previous years are a sign then my male main character will probably look like James McAvoy).

Work is going well for me. I'm really tired and ready for a day off. This is day 9 of 11 without a day off because I'm spending the weekend with my sister at college. We're also trying to transition to a new way of doing some of the chores and to fall (as opposed to summer), but the weather is confusing people and we're still doing summer business, instead of slowing down for fall and winter. It's making everything quite hectic there, but we're all surviving so far.

Hopefully that is all from me for today. I have one thing I want to look up. Then I have to get my butt in gear and get ready for work.

Camp, Typing and Guild Stuff

If you’ve noticed the new badge on the side of the site (or you know me in real life), then you know that I am participating in the first ever Camp NaNoWriMo this month. It is very slow going as I am learning to touch type Dvorak at the same time. I know where all the letters are now, but my typing speed is around 15 words per minute, and that is hella slow. So my writing is going crazy slow and it probably doesn’t help that I’m not out of the ‘oh god, who are my characters?’ stage of the NaNo writing. My goal for today is to just reach the day two word count goal, which by my math is 3226. I’m at 2729 right now and I am counting this blog post. I figure the easiest way to improve my typing is just to keep doing slow freewrites until my typing improves. I do truly enjoy Dvorak and knowing that I am capable of touch typing, since I’ve never done it before. It’s just very frustrating that typing a hundred takes me so damn long! My problem used to be that I would get stuck with story ideas (that problem definitely isn’t gone), but now the bigger problem is that typing takes forever.

I think I’ve been working on this blog post for at least half an hour. I handwrite things faster than I can type them right now.

However, my characters are cooperating with me when I do get to writing. Which has been in bed with my ‘all things NaNo’ notebook, then I type it the next day. It’s been pretty nice because my main character looks like Matt Bomer. And my main female character, who was the main character before Mark (Matt Bomer looking) decided he was far more interesting, looks like Piper Perabo. They aren’t a bad looking couple for my novel couple, not that they’ve actually met yet. I’m still working on introducing Mark , but I did already introduce Jessica when I thought she was going to be the main character.

Outside of writing, things are going well with my guild. We ventured into Blackwing Descent last week as a guild. We only have 8 interested raiders so we had to pug two healers to help me keep people alive. One of the healers we got was a 15 years old and extremely annoying. We had a shaman healer the first night who was very quiet in vent but seemed to be a competent healer. The second night the shaman wasn’t online so we pugged a paladin healer who we since gotten an alt of into guild. She’s pretty cool. I’m very pleased by how we did in Blackwing Descent. Most of the people from guild had never been in there. Magmaw took three tries to kill, which is not bad for our first Cataclysm raid boss aside from Argaloth. We one-shotted the Omnitron Defense System. That one was surprising and a lot of fun. We really didn’t explain the fight very well, but it was apparently well enough. Maloriak was a one shot as well. After that we went to Chimeron where we wiped for several hours over the two days. We switched to Atramedes to see how we could do on him. On the first night we were winging it and wiped on his trash several times. By the second night I had done some research and we were able to one shot his trash. Atramedes took several tries, but the blind dragon finally dropped! We weren’t able to take down Chimeron but there’s a ton of time for that. For a first Cata guild run it went really well.

The only thing I would like to improve on is my guildies talking over me in vent. It was very frustrating trying to lead a raid with several people talking over me. Or even offering to explain a fight that I just explained “better.” It’s something I can work on with them though.

Well, other things to do tonight! Thank you for reading.

Paladins are Still Fun!

A little over a month after my post about starting to play my level 33 paladin again, she is 85. Not only is she 85, but the game keeps trying to put her into heroic dungeons and I don't think I'm ready for that. I need to be completely comfortable on regular dungeons on her before moving up to heroics. That's why only my priest and warlock have ventured into heroics so far (and excelled) even though my DK and druid are both geared for heroics.
I'll definitely spend a bunch more time in regular dungeons (healing, and maybe some dpsing too) to get rep and justice points (and random drops) for more gear for XxThingXxTwo. then when I'm ready I'll try a heroic (especially because the H Grim Batol that I got conned into earlier ended for me at the first boss when I was kicked (not my fault the shadow priest stood in every Blitz and I couldn't keep everybody up).
Aerialynn, my mage is level 68. I moved her over to Northrend two days ago and left her there. And Brylen, my hunter got two levels tonight and went from 51 to 53.

Paladins are Fun!

Started playing my level 33 Paladin last night after a guildie asked about holy paladin rotation. And I haven't really stopped. I've healed several dungeons and I'm now level 41 (and well on my way to 42). I enjoy smacking things while healing my group...a lot. I'm leveling pretty quickly for being at it a day. Probably has something to do with all the heirlooms she's wearing.

Well, more leveling to do.

CATACLYSM!!

First off: please excuse any horrible spelling errors in this post. I'm having trouble typing tonight. I'm pretty good at catching my mistakes , but it's like my fingers don't want to cooperate with me tonight (5 typos caught and corrected already).

I know it's been a while since Cataclysm dropped, but it you've read this blog you know that I often forget about this blog for months at a time.

So, 4.1 is out now and 4.2 is rockin' away on the PTR. My priest, Zartia (I race changed her to worgen at Cataclysm launch and added an "i" to her name) is 85. Not only did she reach level cap, she's geared for the Zuls (though she's only been in Zul'Gurub and it was terrifying). I switched her to Holy one night after reaching level 85 to try it out and fell in love with Chakra. She has a disc off-spec for PVP and it's alot of fun to mana burn Horde healers and smite them while throwing bubbles and penance at my Alliance teammates. We still lose almost every BG, but it's still fun.

My warlock, Aevelyn, was the first of my characters to 85. It was a death-filled couple of days, but she was the first character in guild to ding 85 (by like a couple hours). And that was cool with me because Aevelyn is the guild master. She's been sitting in wait pretty much since she dinged 85, and I just started playing her again this week. I've spent the last 3 days reading everything I can about destruction warlocks, respeccing a couple times to get talents in the right places. The target dummies have been my friends (though I've beat them up a bunch now). I even downloaded SimCraft to see how far off my 6k dps was from what my character could theoretically be doing. The number that SimCraft spit out for self buffed moving dps was 12k average. I balked for a bit, then installed ForteXorcist and PowerAuras and set back to work destroying a target dummy. With just ForteXorcist keeping track of my buffs my dps went up to 10-11k on the training dummies. Pleased with myself, I took my warlock and her newfound DPS into a random heroic with a guildie. We got Halls of Origination, and I amazed even myself when I pumped 16k DPS into Rajh. Since then I have configured Power Auras to remind me when the Improved Soul Fire buff has fallen off so that I can recast it. It also reminds me if Bane of Doom or Corruption has fallen off my target. Those are the three I noticed myself having the most trouble keeping track of. I feel far more comfortable with my warlock in random heroics now that her DPS has made it to the Cataclysm standard.

Melaenah, my DPS DK was the second to 85, and is now tanking. She's not a full-time completely confident tank, but it's doable. She's got tanking gear and is okay tanking most of the Cataclysm regualer 5-man dungeons. She's geared enough to get into heroics as a tank (with no dps gear in her bags), but I'm not a skilled or confident enough tank for that.

My druid, Gnavie, is 85 as well. I do not enjoy her. I like leveling her as heals, and even 80-85 healing was super easy. But as soon as I hit 85 it's like all my heals got nerfed. She's always oom and her spells feel tiny. I avoid playing her as much as I can, but I need to get her rep with the guild because she's an alchemist and it's the only profession out guild is missing for a guild achievement.

My next closest to level cap is my mage, Aerialynn (formerly Erylie). SHe's level 65 and I'm playing her right now. Three of us mid-60 level characters are being pulled through Coilfang Reservoir dungeons by a level 85 warrior in guild. It's really nice because I really dislike playing my mage. Mages are like warlocks, but not nearly as cool. Sorry mage people, I don't have a problem with you. I just prefer warlocks. Leveling my mage is annoying and boring. I'm going to try respeccing her to fire or arcane, because she's frost right now and I don't enjoy it at all.

I do have one of every class on my main server, though not all of them are very loved. Some are still waiting to get some attention. My hunter has been pretty busy. She's level 46 now. She's been leveling with four other guildies. We get on at the same time and run dungeons. It's a pretty sweet group and we've been leveling together since level 15. It's an easy way to level the characters, a nice distraction from our high level characters (and sometimes soul crushing 85 pugs) and it's a fair bit of guild experience. We already have Classic Guild Dungeon Master, but it's been really easy for us to get our seven dungeons for the guild challenges.

So that's the rundown on my characters since Cataclysm. I've been pretty busy playing as many of them as I can.

Cataclysm Resolutions

Am I definitely the nerdiest nerd any where if I decide to make a resolution on Cataclysm Day? I have rediscovered the Wii Fit. With Cataclysm coming out today (and being available for play in two hours here in Maine), I want to promise to play the Wii Fit at least half an hour a night. I am not an unhealthy, actually I'm still firmly in the healthy weight and BMI spaces. But I would like to be a bit more fit. I'm talking about having the ability to move around a lot without getting winded. Right now my only source of exercise is my job. Dunkin Donuts doesn't really seem like a place where you'd get a lot of exercise, but that's because customers seem to think thta all we do when they're not around is drink coffee and eat donuts. I spend my whole shift running back and forth between front and drive thru, cleaning machines, lifting ice coffee reservoirs and more. But I would like to play Wii Fit half an hour a night to make up for the several hours I spend in my computer chair doing homework and playing WoW. My goal is to lose some weight and lower my BMI and also tone my body up a bit.

That is all for now. I have to go to bed so that I can maybe play a little WoW before work tomorrow.

4.0.3a Impressions Part One: Mostly the Alliance Part.

4.0.3a Impressions Part One: Mostly the Alliance Part.

NOTE. This post is full of spoilers for the World of Warcraft Shattering. If you don't want to know about the Shattering, or how I feel about the changes, then you probably shouldn't read this. Also, I'm writing this in my NaNoWriMo document and counting it as part of my NaNo word count, so this post is long and in some places uses a lot of words where less could have easily said the same thing. But that's part of the fun of NaNo, and it was very cathartic for me to be able to write all this out. Also, as I am writing this in my NaNo file it's sure to be full of spelling and grammatical errors. I'll probably catch some of them as I skim through it in the future, but I tend to skip entire words when I get typing fast, so there may be sentences that appear to be missing words.

STORMWIND. Stormwind is beautiful. It looks like it's been hit pretty bad, but the people inside have adapted to the change and rebuilt. I love the area north of the Dwarven District. Olivia's Lake is beautiful and little Olivia is cute as well. The houses, farms and fields there are very cool, and that little house with a clearing in front is a lovely place to put the druid trainer with the demolition of The Park. The fountains around town are lovely, but there are so very many of them. It's like everytime they had some free space they decided to throw in a fountain. "Hey we've got some space here, what do we do?" "Put in a fountain." "Nah, man. That's getting old. We have far too many fountains as it is." "Alright, then put in a half fountain with a lion's head coming out of that wall there." "That's awesome. Great idea."

Adding the fishing and cooking dailies to Stormwind was a great way to really cement Stormwind as the new Alliance hub. There are certainly people that prefer other cities better, but Stormwind has the access to Northrend, Outlands, Kalimdor (maybe because I haven't explored enough to really know what they did to Auberdine/Darkshore), and the tram to Ironforge, as well as trainers for all classes and professions (I didn't check on Jewelcrafting though). With Stormwind as the new hub, I do expect it to be a bit more laggy than usual, but hanging around there tonight around 6pm server wasn't really any laggier than usual. Which is very nice. I love the addiction of a second bank and auction house in the Dwarven District. That will definitely be helpful for people who do have lag problems in Stormwind, as they will be able to head there instead of trying to get anything done in the Trade District.

The Hero's Call Board is also a cool addition to the Stormwind Trade District. I'll have to do the quests and check the board again to see if they are one time quests or low level dailies. The two quests that I got tonight on Hiromimmi looked to me like they were specifically to get low-level characters re-exploring some of the regions that have been hit hard with the Shattering.

Overall, Stormwind is looking to be a pretty great Alliance hub. The lag is bearable (and today was patch day. Patch day lag is always the worst), though time may prove me wrong on that and the city is close enough to it's former layout that people who have been playing for a long time can still get around. It's really nice to see so many people hanging around Stormwind, fishing and generally going about their business. It really sunk in when I saw people posting in Trade Chat offering services such as Jewelcrafting and Enchanting to the public in Stormwind instead of Dalaran. My only regret is that fishing up the coins in the Dal fountain is almost going to be creepy with no other people around the city.

DALARAN. While I've started on Dal, I may as well continue. I love Dalaran. It's small, neat, beautiful and I know my way around it. I'm going to miss it. It was nice to have a place where both Horde and Alliance characters hung out. It made the world really feel whole. In the major Alliance cities you only see Alliance characters. In Dalaran, you'd get to see Horde characters as well. Enemy faction or not, they are the other half of the same world, and it was cool that Dalaran (and Shattrath before it) provided a place where the two factions could interact with (mostly) the same NPCs and go about their business in peace. The fact that the city had a sanctuary for each faction was nice as well, because it pushed the idea that while the two races got along in the city they were still enemies and don't get along outside of the city.

I speak about Dal so fondly because I didn't play before Wrath of the Lich King, and I never saw Shattrath in it's glory days. Dal provided fishing, cooking, and other profession dailies, as well as the test of trying to fish in the fountain. Fishing in the fountain was etiher a test of luck, trying to get all the coins, or a test of patience, trying to fish while some idiot on a mammoth tromped all over the fountain and blocked your bobber. It was also the main place to spam trade for people for lvl 80 raids. I feel that in the coming weeks Warlocks (and people willing to meet at the stone and summon) will be more needed and loved. IceCrown Citadel is a bit farther from Stormwind than it is from Dalaran.

Also, I need to continue to run my warlock around Dalarsn to find the last couple of those Higher Learning books. The transporting book that comes from the achievement isn't very excxiting now, but I still want that cute little voidwalker pet for my warlock, because come on! She's a warlock. And I already have it on my DK and my druid, of course.

DUNGEONS. My dungeoning experience since the patch is pretty slim. It's only been a day. But I did run Gnomeregan a couple times and Scarlet Monastery: Graveyard a couple times. I love that quests have been moved inside the dungeons now. It's much easier than sharing quests and trying to make it to a zone you're not questing in to turn in it. The Gnomeregan quest chain took me two runs to complete, but that's only because I missed the Face turn in, and had to run back and turn in his quest after we killed the final boss. So I didn't complete the boss killing quest until the next run. The Scarlet Monastery: Graveyard quest also took me two runs: one to complete it and one to turn it in at the beginning. It's nice that the quest rewards are still pretty awesome. The gear looks pretty good, the money is nice (at level 30 I got a little over 1 gold), and the experience is awesome (Over five thousand experience at level 30).

I also like that the bosses have been buffed. They have more health than I remember them having, which was good when the rogue in one of the Gnomer groups stealthed off presumably to try and solo the boss. If the bosses in all dungeons really have been buffed, then soloing low level dugeons is going to be harder than before at level 80, though maybe it will be back to the same at level 85.

GNOME STARTING AREA. New Tinker Town is very cute. It's nice that the gnomes (and trolls) are finally getting a place of their own. Gnomes start inside the same building where the Gnomeregan instance is. The quests are pretty close together and very easy to follow. When one chain ends a new quest can be seen on the minimap. The quests level you quickly. I think I got to level 4 withing 20-30 minutes. And they quickly take the new character from New Tinker Town and out further into Dun Morough to fight against "red" creatures (creatures that will attack the character). As much as having starting zones have all "yellow" creatures is easy and a nice way to introduce new players to the game, it makes leveling slower (because you can chose not to attack all the creatures around you) and it really doesn't fight in with the idea that someone in town needs you to go attack them because they are super dangerous.

Gnomish buildings.

I like the New Tinker Town's look. It's very much Gnomish. It's all Gnome buildings, like the one's seen at the airstrip in Borean Tundra, and spare parts lying around. And the NPCs around town are creating crazy devices (some of which make you explode), and watching holoscreens. In one of the first quests as a new gnome, you are asked to "rescue" the survivors by beaming them out. So you get to run around the area and cast the beaming technology on the survivors of Operation: Gnomeregan.

Me and my robot for one of the early Gnome starting quests.

Beaming out the survivors.

It was also fun to watch a hologram projection of the final events of Operation: Gnomeregan after participating in it on all three of my 80s. It's like "hey, doing those quests made a difference because now the gnomes have this great new city that they're building and growing and protecting."

Another thing I noticed was that the slimes in the Gnomish starting area have faces. They're some where between cute and really "Fern Gully" creepy.

The slimes are kinda scary.

DUAL-BOXING. Blizzard wants me to get a second account. They've discounted the prices for the base game (Vanilla) and both Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King. Instead of paying around $90 for the game (all the way up to Wrath of the Lich King) and the extra $15 a month for the second account I could buy all three (Vanilla, Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King for $20 and then only have to worry about the $15 extra a month for the second account and my social life and nerd status.

I'd really like to try dual-boxing because having a second account would make leveling easier and give me more options for race/calss combos on Shadowsong. Having these ten extra character slots on Shadowsong would also mean that I would be able to experience all the Eastern Kingdoms/Kalimdor quest and zone changes through questing.

I can see leveling being much nicer if I always have a healing class to keep the dps (or maybe even a tank, gasp!) alive. It would also make dungeon queues easier for my dps characters (not that I have many low level dps toons right now; they've all been abandoned for healers.

I think the biggest cons to getting a second account are macros/extreme multi-tasking and the nerd factor. I'm worried that I will have trouble controlling two characters at once, and a large part of my play style really is how much I connect with my characters personalities. I'm not all that good with macros, and I don't want the whole game to become a large set of macros that make multiple characters do different things. It may force me to learn more about things that I have so far avoided, like tanking and aggro handling, and group dynamics (how different classes work well together or don't). The nerd factor is more about real life and less about the game. I'm already a huge nerd that writes a novel every November, works at Dunkin Donuts, takes nerdy web design art classes online and plays WoW all the time. It really won't help if I decide that not only am I going to play the characters I already have at level, but I'm also going to get a second account so that I can play even more characters at the highest level. Nothing's nerdier than playing WoW, except playing two versions of WoW at the same time.

For now I think I'm going to stick with my one account. I love the characters I have, and I still have seven slots on my server to get to 80 (soon 85). If I come to a point in the future where I have ten level capped characters on Shadowsong, then maybe I'll revisit the idea of a second account and dual-boxing. The recruit-a-friend is still very tempting though.

LEVELING, QUESTING, DEATHWING'S DESTRUCTION AND THE TROLL STARTING AREA. It's getting very near to my bedtime, and I only got to play a couple of hours tonight after getting my homework finished up. However, I look forward to playing more tomorrow and getting a look at more of the world. I'll have more impressions tomorrow night and hopefully they'll be as productive as tonights because up to this point this has added almost two thousand words to my very behind NaNoWriMo word count. My WoW plans for tomorrow include creating a troll of some kind (I'm thinking druid right now, but I'll see what my other options are tomorrow) and exploring the troll starting area and checking out Origrimmar. I won't have nearly as much to say about Org as I did about Stormwind because I am an Alliance player at heart and Org confuses me. I know a bit of my way around, but not like I do Stormwind. I also plan to get in some questing on one of the many characters that I have stuck between the levels of 28 and 80 (my highest non-80 is actually my 45 priest). As well as some exploring (either with one of my leveling characters or with one of my 80s). My shaman has quests from the Hero's Call Board for the Barrens and Stranglethorn Vale (both of which have been changed drastically I know).

Azeroth is a whole new world, and so far, I am loving it. I'm torn between trying to explore and do everything as fast as possible and trying to slow down and pace myself so that there's more new things for me to look forward to in Cataclysm.

I just hope that most everyone else is enjoying the Shattering as much as I am. And I still need to finish my Pilgrim's Bounty stuff because I love how fast it is to level cooking with this holiday.

Bargaining Already?

It's day four of NaNoWriMo, and I am already resorting to bargaining to get myself to do my writing. As of right now I have written 4,540 words. I promised myself that if I made the day three word count goal (5001 words) and did my homework before going bed tonight I would buy myself the Celestial Steed for WoW. I will finally have my sparkle pony. I submitted my homework over an hour ago, and I've been writing pretty steadily since (except for the break I'm taking to write this).

I was directed to this forum thread by a friend and I think that it will be what gets me through NaNoWriMo this year: http://www.nanowrimo.org/eng/node/3737543. I've scrolled through the first two pages and owe over 7k words. It's helped me write 1-2k already tonight. Writing 100-200 words at a time definitely makes it more managable.

This thread is also very cool: http://www.nanowrimo.org/eng/node/3821427.

EDIT (12/16/2010): I did do the writing and but myself the sparkle pony. My priest rides it everywhere because it looks so cool in shadow form. My warlock chooses to ride her Dreadsteed instead and I haven't played my druid or death knight to see if they'll be riding it.

Loremaster Update 01

Gnavie completed the achievement "Loremaster of Northrend" last night.

I also remembered my great disgust for Icecrown. So many group quests. I got my ass kicked several times and I had to pick carefully to avoid as many group quests as I could (because there were so few people willing to help).

NaNoWriMo 2010 Version and Loremaster

The NaNoWriMo website has been reset for 2010. The forums are new (but definitely not neglected, it's only been aday or two and already there are threads everywhere) and everything looks all shiny and pretty. It's almost NaNo time!!

I've decided to attempt the Loremaster achievement on Gnavie. She's completed two zones in Northrend and will work through the rest of Nothrend and all of Outlands before heading back to Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor to finish up the achievement. I will post updates on her progress as I go.

Doodlegazing in Azeroth

I've done a bunch of puttering around WoW today. I played a bit on the warlock I started on the PTR. I also tried to play a little on the copy of Aevelyn that I put on the PTR, but I kept getting booted off and having to relog. That got old pretty fast. I ran a random heroic on Gnavie and ran heroic Halls of Reflection. I really want the Shriveled Heart off hand that drops, but it hasn't dropped for me recently. It was a really smooth run though. I enjoyed healing it. I'd love to get Gnavie healing bigger things, like raids, but I get really nervous about my healing ability. I don't want to put her into an ICC (pretty much all that people run now for raids) and suck horribly. My gear score is also a problem. It's below 5k add on, and very few people will take me into raids with that. And getting badges two a day through randoms is going to take me forever to get any t10 pieces.

Back to WoW

It's been a while since I really played WoW. Night before last, though, I ran 25 ICC on my warlock. I did HM Gunship and got Nibelung. I've also been working Brewfest on my three 80s and today I finished it up and got the title on all three. I spent last night doing some farming ad flask making on my druid. I put the flasks on the AH and made about 350 gold very quickly. I did some more farming and made some more of the flasks that sold well, Endless Rage and Frost Wyrm, and stuck those on the AH as well. Now I'm working on leveling Inscription on my warlock. It's been at 100-something for far too long. I'd like to get it up to 450, so that I can use all the spare Adder's Tongue and Deadnettle lying around my banks and make some money. Also, not having to buy glyphs will save me a bit of money.

Old Spice Commercials

Hopefully everyone has seen this Old Spice commercial.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owGykVbfgUE

But before that was awesome, I loved this commercial. It's also for Old Spice.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TusJ8HSLaUs

I really enjoy Old Spice's commercials. I think they're onto something.

Nanolyser

Found this site via the NaNoWriMo website and wanted to share it. It's called the Nanolyser. To see what it does the following is a link to my stats from last year. It'll only be there for a couple more days though (until the NaNo site goes down on the 1st): Leviathan's Nanolyser Stats.

Also I am watching/listening to the following video on repeat while writing this. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yyN7F51g0Rs. I was so excited that they had NPH on Glee.

It Really Is Coming Up Soon

After my post last night about starting to prep for NaNoWriMo 2010 it was surprising to me to get an e-mail today from my regional ML. It reminded everyone in the region that come October 1st, the NaNoWriMo website will be shut down and come back all shiny and new, ready for this year's NaNo. In a little over a week the forums will start to fill with people getting pumped for this year's NaNoWriMo. And I will get even more excited!! And maybe I'll even get a plot or characters or something like that. I know it's not necessary for NaNoWriMo, but it could be fun to try that way for the first time since my first NaNo in 2007.

Mentally Preparing Myself for NaNoWriMo 2010

I'm starting my NaNoWriMo preparations early this year (earlier than a week before, like the past two years, though definitely not as early my first year when I had the whole novel planned out before the month began). I am preparing by reading tons and tons. I'm speeding my way through "The Dresden Files" series. I'm on the fourth book right now, Summer Knight, and I started reading them just last week.

I've also re-found this blog today, jimbutcher.livejournal.com/. It's the blog of Jim Butcher, the author of "The Dresden Files." It has a lot of really good information about writing and I like the way he writes (obviously, or I wouldn't be reading "the Dresden Files" and especially not as fast as I'm reading them) it's fun and easy to read. Just reading a couple of his posts has me really pumped to get a plot, characters and for it to be November.

Small off-topic edit: What was I thinking when I decided to try Compose mode instead of doing the HTML myself? Of yeah, it totally worked, but then I looked at the HTML that Blogger had written and almost cried. It was terrible. The problem is now fixed.

YouTube - Straight No Chaser - Tainted Love [Official Video]

I would embed the video if YouTube would let me, but embedding has been turned off. This video is funny and they're very talented.

YouTube - Straight No Chaser - Tainted Love [Official Video]

Fall Cleaning: Like Spring Cleaning, But Better

Been doing a bit of fall cleaning around the blog. Haven't dropped by in a while and took the time tonight to play around with the new (or newish, it's been a while since I've posted) Blogger design tools. Went through and deleted all the comment spam that's been stacking up. There are really nice features for that now too. I got to look through all the comments ever posted and delete all the ones that were spammy and not related. Very fun. I also set it up so that I can blog from my phone and from my browser. So there may be an influx of posted videos and links in the coming days.