AND INTO THE CANAL I GO AGAIN

Yes, I have passed the get a ride level and am nearing whatever happens at Level 50…perhaps get an even faster ride I can lose much more easily as I enter the canals in Stormwind City.  Yes, I have been on my first group dungeon and my second and my third.  First one went ok, second I got lost for five minutes going through the wrong instance and getting almost instantly killed by the assassin types waiting on the other side.  The third time — well, I forgot to pick up a rod that would unhaunt the centaur so now the pesky little brother is ahead of me.  2 things I have learned:  fighting is more fun that being on the edge of the group making sure no one zeroes out on the green (not even the people who call this strategy lame when you’re going up against a big boss) and WoW is a lonely thing.  I have no friends I can discuss WoW with.  I just started following a guy on Twitter solely because a friend of his apologized for trash talking about his WoW habit.  Yes, there is the dancing little brother (aka DLB), but there is no group consistency.  And herbing is really boring and I didn’t do enough of it at lower levels and so that bites because all the herbs are 135+ and I’m 93.  So I have to go back and strew daisies through levels where my horse can kill cutpurses with a snort before zooming into the nearest body of water.  

So that’s where we are.  Nearing Level 50, soon to lose out on 3x Recruit a Friend experience, and still too amused by Booty Bay (not the Horde people who ride through to kill everyone; my solution, swim around them — I’m spending a lot of time in the water.  At least there’s no tunnels; I get so lost in tunnels).  And I just picked up very cool intelligence boosting pants, because I guess in WoW, you use intelligence from everywhere on your anatomy (anatomy of other people’s characters and one’s temptation to chat them up because of it is a conversation for another time.)

Here’s the WoWiki reference I’m using for those time DLB isn’t available.

BLINK KITTY LOVE in GREEN

ANXIETY ATTACK starring BLINK KITTY LOVE

REDBRIDGE IS A DANGEROUS PARTY TOWN

So there we are, going from quest to quest, trying to get up to we don’t have to run through everywhere anymore because I’ve got a horse, and standing outside the inn, trying to enchant the splitter axe Beau’s given me with a scroll and once again, drive by dead — or actually trot by…so much fun to be standing there and suddenly the “release now” box appears as your character crumples. So then, you take the spirit swim and possibly be another target again. Or you just go off line for the night.

Have been to IronForge, seen World of Warcraft holiday decorations, am now on a quest for four things to make a magic weapon, had to have our brother-in-law and his high level character escort us through the get the Van Cleef head mission.

Notes so far: I always have a spare weapon and a spare pair of pants and even with 4 sixteen slot bags usually have to ditch something — inventory control is something I need to work on, have successfully auctioned off non soul bound items (see me, I’ll cut you a deal), need to go to Weller’s Arsenal to learn one handed sword skills so I can use the killer shield acquired on a quest and I really really hate the darn Murlock things — but I have learned how to dive and fight underwater.

And how much interest my little brother can attract doing the strip macarena at the Inn at Redbridge. Had to go off line before that caused too many nightmares.

And I would apologize to the random high level Horde type who I thought was attacking my brother and was only dancing with him, but offing me THREE times is excessive. So apology revoked. And yes, my brother dances a lot and bounds and may very well half dwarf and half Warner Brothers dancing frog with the top hat. And herbalism is still a very dangerous hobby.

BLANCHY BAG

Well, last Friday was a lot of bopping around looking for the gold dots that denote herbs and getting offed by bandits for doing it…fun fighting overlarge scarecrowy things, interesting to be on a quest to find recipe ingredients — I think we’re still a few goretusk livers short and maybe a snout or two. Keyboard commands are working so much better for me and now that Beau gave me the map hint, I’m no longer wandering around the Stormwind alleys instead of heading out of town on the next paladin quest. Still need to figure out what to do with all these herbs I’ve been collecting and acquire a new pair of boots — one of the quests will solve that if I solve it. WoW is an interesting mix of the marvelous and the mundane; it’s quite a kick to see all these strange, glowing beasties riding/walking right through you.

Riding a griffin back to the capitol was great — but expensive. Need to sell some stuff to empty out the bags/backpacks that are too too easy to fill — but at least there’s no realistic weight or volume restrictions. Old Blanchy’s bag will help with that — was too broke after trip to afford any training.

In again tonight, in search of bandits and off to deliver serious letters. I think we’re hqed in Westfall at the the moment and I’m going to have to upgrade from the trial account

QUEST FOR PANTS

Well that was tonight’s World of Warcraft theme — and I ended up with Stormwind(guard) leggings, which I needed after the looted pants turned purple and maybe stunned me — still working on what the colors mean…anyway, tries keyboard commands instead of mouse and that worked a lot better; got lost in the capitol — and took a swim, completed an elite quest — goodbye Hogger, hello pants — had a duel interrupted for a leatherworking tutorial and I have learned that although herbalism seems like a profession for the meek and mild hard workin’ lady paladin, it requires a disturbing degree of brutality to pry the fangy forest creatures away from the nicely glowing plants.

But I think WoW might be a keeper — have to schedule the nephews sometime before my trial runs out.  And I’m scheduled for a Friday meet up at the Lion’s Head with the brother, Mr. Walking In Game Tutorial Levels of Helpful — that’s nice to have on a quest.

BLINK KITTY LOVE

The crazy crushing band…

ADVENTURES WITH A KOBOLD SHOVEL

Today, my character only died twice, raised several levels, hacked a whole lot of kobolds to pieces and actually FINISHED 4 quests…it helped that I finally met my little brother there — ok, not so little, 6′1” and bearded. I did start over…decided to not be a night elf druid and switched to a human paladin, the better to hit things and heal. Very reminiscent of D+D questing but not quite the vividness of the imagination, although very richly detailed. Fun to watch Beau’s character jump around like a maniac frog to try to get my attention. He only had to call three times before I figured out the mighty apple mouse is absolutely no good for Warcraft…so I had to figure out how to use the Wacom tablet for the better hacking of goblins. Still need bags of gold, but a much better experience…have mace, will travel, I guess. My character’s at an inn in Goldshire and I think Beau went off to play with one of his 70+ level characters…so the trial continues.

THE SONG

HAT HAIR IN BEEHIVE HAIRDO