Still Hearting Seki, 2010

If you see text overlapping images, refresh the page. Dunno why it's doing that.
I actually don't have a lot of pictures of Seki himself in this blog; I think these from the Gulch might be the only ones. He kind of disappeared in the last month or so. He does that.

The first half of 2010 has been mostly about Ice Crown Citadel. We've BG'd, but not a whole lot. Although Tako, Kelson & I had some decent progress in 3v3s we haven't really pursued that, I think mostly due to scheduling issues. Tako's hardly been on in the last month because of work. I have a lot of fun listening to Kelson & Phil on vent doing their 2v2 though. Their druid/DK combo seems to be working out well. It's even more entertaining when they use their spiffy new headsets to speak to each other in Female Gnome or Mal'Ganis voices.

My attitude toward pvp has changed somewhat since Tichondrius days. I'm so lazy now. I can't even imagine leveling up on a pvp server. And I think that's sad.

Of course, leveling up on a pvp server now wouldn't be anywhere near as fun as it was 5 years ago. Now everyone is 80. If you're leveling up an alt in STV you might see another player in the zone once in awhile, & half the time they will be accompanied by their level 80 friend or level 80 other account to speed it up, since they're someone's alt.

So the only pvp I really see is in Battlegrounds.

I got my pally/shammy duo to level 60. Finally. That was torture. I was so sick of dual boxing that leveling Mining looked like fun.


Mining got really tired after the first few hours. I ended up working on less miserable professions. Drunk Kato kept me company.


Logan took me joyriding on his bike:


And then there was Kelson's mammoth. And Birdy's mammoth. I didn't realize how handy these things are in BGs. They're like a clown car. You still take damage as a passenger though, & not just to your crotch.


More goofing around in Dalaran.



And some goofing around in Wintergrasp.


In April there was Easter & Keegan's birthday. I'm still trying to think of some kind of witty statement about what they have in common, but nothing is coming to mind.



One day Keegan was running around on his level 63 hunter, & since I have always liked Keegan (I'm a bartender. He's an alcoholic. There's an affinity there.) I asked him if he needed help with anything. Did he need Ramparts? Did he have any elite or group quests I could help with? He hadn't done Ramparts yet but didn't need to right now. No, he didn't really have any pressing quests he needed help with. Oh ok. So I switched to my pally/shammy duo (oh, the DRUDGERY) & began chatting him up.

"The nice thing about playing an alt is that I don't have to deal with anybody," he whispered me.

Doh!! "Oh ok, I understand," I replied. If this had been IRL I think I would be crying. Holy shit, I had no idea he didn't want to be bothered! I mean, I just ASSUME people like talking to me. Well, except for Nasai maybe. But you know, I have days when I don't really want to do a lot of chatting. Those days when I'm feeling the Zen of WoW. That's why I have unguilded alts. Of course, I end up messaging Tako or Phil or Todd anyway. Meh.

"Not that I don't like talking to you," Keegan whispered. But I knew what he meant. He liked talking to me. He really did. Just not right now. It was just mortifying because I had just thoughtlessly chatted him up in the last several minutes. How could I be so oblivious? "It's ok!" I assured him. I made a happy face to show I wasn't a sobbing mass of wounded rejection.

"It's an honor to talk to you," he said.

lol

When Fique told me on a Sunday night at the bar about Keegan's impending birthday get together at Kanpai the following Monday night I made it a point to go. I never get invited to anything. This is partly because I don't go out much & partly because everyone else grew up together. I grew up with all these people that I have no idea where the hell they are today. I didn't really like most of the people in my high school. No, I was not a goth chick.

The get together at Kanpai was really nice, & Keegan did talk to me (since he was not on his alt, obviously). I skipped out around midnight but I understand that Keegan did not even deign to lean over when he vomited all over the mens room at Evergreen. He just geysered, in a practically horizontal arc. When we did Festergut a few days later I made sure I was within screenshotting distance.

By the time my birthday came around at the end of April we still had not killed Professor Putricide. Having reached the age where shots are no longer necessary to prove that I am a year older (I think it's just called "Old."), we had a nice, tame dinner at Ruth's Chris. In the last several years that we've planned birthday dinners for myself or others, everyone at the dinner chips in to pay for the birthday person's dinner. Since we were inviting a pretty large group of people, we figured I could get away with Ruth's Chris this year. =)

It's always been hard getting 25 people together to do ICC25 on Thursdays. The days of Raid Sign Ups on message boards & 40 people repairing, buying reagents, & traveling to the outside of the instance PRIOR to the raid start time are long gone. When I first transferred over here Chad folks were doing 10man Ulduars but only sporadically. When FTM guys started transferring over a lot of the 2nd Gen IHS guys seemed to disappear, but of course this was the time of faction transfers so a lot of things were changing for a lot of people. But at any rate we've never seemed to have a solid, consistent 25 raiders. It always looks like it, & then someone gets married or gets a girlfriend or whatever (fools) & then we are short people again.

Because of bad experiences picking up random, if geared, players we've had to make some rather stringent loot rules. It just hurt too much when some PUG who was coming along with us for the first time, & was bobbing around on the bottom of the DM, won the roll on an item that one of our faithfuls had been waiting weeks for to drop. So now we tell any 1st timers that they will be unable to roll on weapons or trinkets if we have one of the faithful along who needs that trinket. If they do a good job they may get invited back next time. And next time they will have roll privileges. It may sound mean, but hey --- it's our raid.

One such faithful was our friend Ryan1 (since there were 2 Ryans when we were playing on Onyxia, I gave them numbers). His hunter is one of our top DPS & had lost the roll on a rather important bow to another hunter who was there for the first time, & who rarely showed up to other raids later on. This burned.

Ryan1 still hasn't gotten that bow, but now this is somewhat his own fault, because he has been absent from raids for several weeks. Every Thursday we'd be calling & texting people because we were trying to get everyone on to raid, & we'd hear, from whoever was at Ryan1's house at the time (I think he & Logs are renting together, & their other friends, also guildies, are often at their place), that he couldn't raid because someone named "Courtney" was there.

"Where's Ryan1?" we'd ask on vent.

"Courtney's here," would be the answer, & we'd know he wasn't going to be logging on.

Naturally this led to feelings of resentment. Ditching us for a girl?? Something like this would be relatively understandable if she was his wife or even just girlfriend... but she wasn't. She wasn't even his sex partner. She was his Bubble Bobble opponent. Group discussion (over drinks, of course) on a Sunday night led to the conclusion that if Ryan1 wasn't boning her but he wasn't showing up to raids either then he was a FAG.

That's right, Ryan1. A fag. No offense to any gay people. We know you'd be right there in ICC25 with us if you were in IHS. I mean, there's Brent. And Craig. Anyway.

At Ruth's Chris Ryan1, faced with a room full of middle fingers, agreed that he would join us on our Thursday raid, & true to his word, he did. Possibly because he had shown up, a lot of other people showed up as well, & we only had to bring along 2 non-IHS. He also blew me away on the DM. And, we finally killed Professor Putricide, for the first time. A guild first. So let me say it in this blog:

Ryan1 is no longer a fag.

At least not this week.



Anyway, I am having fun. When I first started playing WoW, I had no concept of playing in a guild. I'd been in a guild in EQ - a raiding guild, even - but I had never leveled high enough to go on raids. I got to go on a Naggy raid once, back when Nagafen was a big deal, but all I was allowed to do was conjure mod rods for the healers. In From Chaos I was among friends but I never really did much raiding, & even in FTM I was always so terrified of screwing up that any time they needed someone to drop so they could being in another healer I would volunteer. It's nice here in IHS. We're not hardcore so I have plenty of time to do all my little OCD things, but twice a week I get to see raid content, & learn how to raid (still learning!), & in great company with people I trust & genuinely like. So thanks guys. Also, I think my Bloodmage shiet looks pretty hawt.

And I still have time for fishing.