I have a new GARDENING Blog

My new Gardening Blog is at the Centre Daily Times, our local newspaper.

Great new raiding site

Everything I ever wanted to know about raiding and was afraid to ask. Woo Hoo!

The Raiding Wiki

Bye Bye BRK

It was with great sadness that I read Bid Red Kitty's announcement that he is leaving the World of Warcraft. It is wonderful for his family, but sad for those of us who have come to rely on his wit and wisdom. Even my kids loved his hunter guide movies. Noob or raider, there was something for everyone at BigRedKitty.net.

As sad as it to lose yet another top notch player who is willing to share his/her knowledge with the rest of us, it is sadder still to think that a really great writer/blogger is giving up the medium. I sincerely hope and pray that Big Red Kitty as Daniel Howell will find another outlet for his wonderful writing. Both my parents are writers. My mom's book Women of the West, is still in print and is a recognized classic in its field. My husband has a wall full of journalism awards. And I write. For years I had a monthly gardening column. I blog here and other places on various topics. And I'm hard at work on my book (it's for kids). So Daniel, if you read this, Please Please keep writing. If not about Wow, then about something. Your military stories are wonderful and deserve their own book.

Of small pets and guilds and gold.

It has been a while and there is much to report.

Guild news first. Our leader has tackled his RL challenges and is back in the game, although it has been a few days since he's been on. We are rebuilding. And I am now number two. Just call me the "The New Number Two." (Any one remember The Prisoner?


Anyway, I am the New Number Two, able to do anything that needs doing while the GM is away tackling RL issues. And Let me be the first to say that RL is more important.

I have found my old guildies in a new guild and have join them with my own number two, Sampeaire the Shaman. Who is really my/our first toon. She a few levels away from the Outland and leveling inscriptions.


Small Pets
Since Theo hasn't been doing anything other than a few dailies and trying to salvage the remains of the guild, we're going for the pet achievement reward: Shop Smart, Shop Pet...Smart. And we now have 47 little pets.

I got the Alliance chicken quest pet last night. And a new guild made me the Yeti. I farmed him a White Kitten. He needs five more pets. I grinding on fireflies, and working on my rep for Sporeggar for the Tiny Sporebat, and also on my rep with the Sha'tari Skyguard for Nether Ray Fry. And checking the daily fishing quest for the the Crocolisks in the City quest for one of the rare baby croc pets. But true be told, I will probably have to wait to get the Children's week pets to get this achievement and the skunk pet.


And now for Gold

People on the Auction House are STUPID!

Don't flood the market. Put up 1 to 3 items, not 24.
Don't undercut the competition.
Playing the AH is perfect for someone who can only be on for a little bit here and there. So I buy a bit and sell a bit. Nothing is sadder than watching players cut into their own profits.

So how can you make money if you don't flood the market and don't undercut the competition?
For trade goods, just remember they will sell...eventually. And people ALWAYS need them. So instead of putting up your lots of Goldclover or Wool Cloth or Nether Essence at a lower buyout price than the lowest buyout price listed, put yours up a bit higher. The lower ones will sell, and then yours will. It might take an hour longer to find a buyer but you will make more gold instead of less. Setting odd and lower bid prices and a shorter auction time along with just a few stacks works, especially if there are relatively few items posted.

When happy guilds die

Sigh!

It's been a long winter.

We hit 80! Hurray.
We joined a really nice guild with two great guys running it! Hurray!
We became an officer in the guild. The guild had a 4-tab guild bank, a website and Vent and great people. We were running instances together and talking and laughing and helping each other. I was able to complete the meta-achievement for Winter Veil with their help.

The holidays came and everyone had a lovely Christmas. My son got Spore, which had to be played at the expense of WoW, but that's okay. And then we left for a long, internet-less, visit with the in-laws.

When we got back, everything had fallen apart.

My character was still at level 80, but the guild was dying.

Today I am the only officer. One leader quit playing altogether. The GM has been AWOL for weeks. All my favorite people /gquit. Our tank is gone. Our awesome mage is done. Druid gone. All gone. There are a handful of people still in the guild with a couple of 80s, but most left for raiding guilds or just to get away from whatever bad vibes were happening while I was away.

So here I am with a guild and a 4-tab guild bank and a handful of players to take care of.

I love a good challenge.

Level 75 here we come...sort of.

The first round of holidays are over. But we are firmly in the holiday season.
Dec. 1 we had a birthday party.
Dec. 6 is St. NIcholas Day, and free cartoon day at the local theater.
Then there is a play the boys are in, and then a Christmas pagent. And then the in-laws are back for the weekend before Christmas. And we have to go get our tree and then put it up. And mom has to shop for stuff.

Busy busy busy.

Meanwhile, I've been able to get our main character, Theothana of Kilrogg, up to almost 75. No else is doing anything these days and I feel bad for them. But that's the way it is.

Loved just about everything in Howling Fjord.
And we're now working our way through Borean Tundra. I don't care that most of the quests in our log are green. It's too fun. The story line is great. Best quests so far were the Murloc quests. Loved the baby murlocs and the Night elf in the murloc suit.

Mom can't play much, but the boys sure can!

Goodness, my little Jem likes playing warlocks. He's got his main lock almost to 10. And has started a second one, a human female this time. Like any "good" mom I try to restrict his play time. 20-30 minutes after school, or maybe after dinner. His brother's mage is doing well also.

And the brothers together the other day completed their first quests ever solo. Which means they did them together, but without mom's help. Both quests seemed to involve killing Boars in near the village of the dwarves near Ironforge. Mostly they run around following each other, killing yeti things, and screeching at each other from across the room. And then they go outside and play in the snow. Life is good.

Taking a Holiday break

I am Thankful at this Thankful time of year, for a wonderful family. And wonderful in-laws. Who are coming on Wednesday to spend the holiday weekend with us. The guest room hasn't been used since their last visit, a year ago, as a guest room. It's a storage room. So I've been working on changing it back into a guest room. Likewise the dining room hasn't been used as a dining room for a year. Instead it's been sort of an office/homework room. So next up is that room. And then my husband REALLY wants to paint the sun room, which has been used as a playroom, before his parents come. So....

No soup for me...until next week!

I love you all.

Have a happy Turkeyday.

Theo and the gang.

Sure is pretty here

I'm not even sure where this is, some town on the way to Venomspire. But it sure is pretty.

I love the north. I love the look and feel and quests and story. I love how leatherworking has been simplified. Most things just need leather. Lots of it, but no more running around looking for a vendor selling thread. I adore my new guild. The leaders are just delightful.

The only thing I don't like are the crowds and the queues.

So when it's crowded I have to play elsewhere. On our new realm of Grizzly Hills.

But it's so full of real actual noobs. I try to help people, these new and young players. Like the 11 year old Tauren warrior, who at level 6, didn't know how to charge or even how to train up his new abilities. Or the 17 year old Tauren hunter, who at level 6, politely asked me, at level 10, to escort him all the way to Orgrimmar. At level 6? Or the teenager playing another level 6 Tauren who wanted to know if I was really "a girl". So no more Grizzly Hills for me until after these children are in bed.

Grizzly Hills

No, not the area, but the brand new PvE server. Yesterday afternoon I was questing along in Howling Fjord, just hit lvl 72, and had joined a group to do a group quest when the lights flickered and then everything went dark. A power outage had swept our neighborhood. For the next few hours we huddled around candles and then went out to dinner.

When we returned, the power was back on and Kilrogg had a Queue of almost 900. Darn. Darn. Darn.

And every server where we have made alts had a Queue as well. Darn. Darn. Darn.

But here was a realm that was "recommended": Grizzly Hills. Nice name.

So mom and her little guy rolled a Tauren Druid and named her Thanahoof (Thanatos is greek for death, so this means — what? Hoof of Death?)

Wonder of wonders, the Tauren starting area was packed. Lot of trial accounts. And folks questing together (Recruit a Friend?). I just had to play. And this morning I got back on our newest addition to level up fishing. What a kick to have fishing buddies.

The Queue

What a great word: Queue. Good word for Scrabble.

Anyway, we're in one this evening at 9 p.m. est (6pm pst).

It was at 600 and now it's only at 337 with an estimated 31 minutes to go. /sigh

The mother in me thinks I should get out of line and either go play with a character on a low population server or jsut go to bed and then play early in the morning. All those kids who had to wait until the weekend to play their new expansion weighing on my mind.

Okay, how would this be... what if I just did a lower level character so as not to add to the insanity in Northrend. I do hate crowds.

update: I got in, finally, but went to the Outlands to avoid the crowds in Northrend. How pleasant to farm those last few motes of air in the Throne of elements with no stupid Night Elves around. I hate Night Elves, even though I have a few.

Enjoying the ride

We had some technical difficulties yesterday. The new iMac, the machine that gives us Northrend is glorious color and scope and dimension, refused the launch the game. Somehow the file for the the game had been corrupted. So we had to delete and reload everything. And I mean EVERYTHING. That took most of the morning. The afternoon was spent being the "soccer mom" chauffer, except in our case it's piano and acting, plus groceries and a trip to the bank. Then time to make dinner. Somehow I found time to reload the addons I can't live without.

But by this time, given how little sleep I had the night before (none), I went to bed. I did try to log on, but there was a queue of almost 400.

Sleep is good.

But I was awake at 3:30 a.m. And there was no queue. I hopped right on and did a few more quests while baking some muffins for the family. The boys got up and watch as Theothana avoided some orcas, caught a few manta rays, snuck onto a pirate ship and grabbed some treasure. I've got a pilates class this morning, and then I'm going to try to get to level 71.

I want to stay up with the pack so there will be lots of chance to run instances and see end game stuff. But I really don't ever want to level the coastal area of Howling Fjord. It is so lovely.

North, Miss Tessmocker...

Last night I was feeling crappy — sore throat coming on, aches and chills. So I went to bed early. Then I was wide awake at about 20 minutes to 12...midnight. Oh No. What should I do?

Well, this mom quietly got dressed so as not to wake the sleeping husband and kids, and slipped out of the house and into the car. Thirty minutes later I was back, sipping hot tea, and upgrading one of our accounts to Wrath of the Lich King.

WooHoo. Then I stayed up all night playing. I love, love, love it. I started Theothana in Howling Fjord because she could pick up skinning and leatherworking there. I think she was pretty close to getting a server first in skinning. And she got invited to run Utgarde Keep. Very nice. Not much loot in there if you have stuff from Kara and so on.

The place is beautiful.

And not too crowded.

The only issues came when a bunch of folks were all waiting around for the same NPC to spawn. But we formed groups so it wasn't too bad.

People came in waves as midnight hit each time zone. Kilrogg is a west coast server and I'm on the east coast. So it was really uncrowded at first. Although I guess people could all start playing at the same time (12 a.m. e.s.t), stores on the west coast weren't going to sell the game until midnight. Or at least most of them weren't.

Anyway, mom had fun, but I'm a little beat now. I'm going to need some time to recover before I plunge back in. But it is just lovely.

Two 70s and an 8!

By working nights into the wee hours Mom has managed to get finally hit 70 on our second Hunter, Danishu the troll hunter. And by playing a 20-30 minutes after dinner, our little guy (age 6) has leveled his male Gnome warlock, Bobositous, all the way up to level 7, and getting close to level 8. His side-kick, Weslinn, the female gnome mage, is at level 6. Weslinn is played by the big brother (age 8). Watch out for this killer combo on Cenarion Circle. In the middle of the push to get to 70 before WotLK, Mom made and level a dwarf priest named Thrayan up to about level 10. She took up mining to earn a few gold to buy her kids some bags and a couple of wands. See Dad's off in the war, so she had to go off to work to support two adopted gnomelings in their magical undertakings. Hmm, think I could get into this Role Playing thing.

The Moms who love BRK fan club (TMWLBRKFC ?)

After reading about Unsafeturtle's Mom on BigRedKitty's blog and reading comments from other moms who love this guy I got to thinking about why.

Well first of all moms who play Warcraft are special. I remember when we first started playing our first toon, we teamed up with another toon right outside the Valley of Trials in Durotar. An orc and a troll, who were both moms. We made our toons wave to each others young kids who were watching. The squeals of delight had me hooked.

Moms have limited time play what with all the mom stuff we have to do. For example with the expansion coming out, I'm not going to get to play much at all because Thanksgiving is coming too. This year we are having the whole family here for the holiday. So instead of playing, I get to clean out the guest room, shampoo the carpets, scrub down the kitchen, and then get to baking. After that I really need to clean out the boys' playroom so they have some place to put their phat loot from Christmas. Every day it seems that my 6-year-old adds a new item to his list: Webkinz, Bakugons, Star Wars lego set video game.

In a game dominated by young men, being a married lady with kids is a challenge. At certain times of the day the trade challenge is just disgusting. Are these guys even conscious that their MOM might be reading? Apparently not.

Or would you ninja loot from your own mother, or anyone's mother? Especially considering that if you asked really nicely and said how much you needed it, she'd pass on it and give you a nice stack of Fisherman's Feast to boot because, after all she was in labor for 23 hours with you, then changed your stinky diapers and bandaged your scraped knees and all the sleepless nights when you were sick and intervened with dad when you wrecked the car. So if your rogue needs the epic bow, then take it honey. I'll make do with this old green thing a while longer.

So why do we love BRK? Because he makes us feel like we aren't idiots for trying to play this game dominated by the testosterone-and-stinky-socks crowd who grew up playing Atari or Xbox or whatever. Anyone else remember brothers hogging the Atari or the computer when a new game came out?

So thanks BRK for everything from the lowbie movies to the analysis of the new talents to the server crashing fun runs for charity.

Now does anyone know of a nice guild for moms?

Waiting for the new talents

We've taken a bit of a break. The boys have discovered Webkinz. All their friend play Webkinz online so, of course that's what they want to do. None of their friends play WoW. Webkinz is basically old Atari games meets cuddly stuffed animals.

Mom did get on to the PTR and copied our 70 hunter to check out the new pets and talents and everything. After messing around for a bit, I decided that there is absolutely no point to doing anything other than occasionally check the AH until the new talents come out. Oh Boy! It's going to be a whole new game. I am looking everywhere to read up on everything I can about every talent and every build for everything. Plus inscription.

I'm spending today doing laundry and updating addons. We have tap dancing and acting after school. But as soon as I can, I'm off to Un'Goro Crater to tame a Devilsaur. I may not keep the Devilsaur, but I want one. And then a Gorillidan. And maybe a Worm or a Wasp or a Moth. I'll keep my old kitty because she's been with my since STV. And I love my two headed black and white bird. But I get three new pets. Yippee!

Racing Rams and other things

Theothana has a nice new guild, The Knights of Gilead. They seem very laid back and casual, but plan on raiding once we get enough members. Nice. And right now they're all doing Brewfest, so I guess I should do it, too. I don't care much about getting nifty mounts, but it would be nice to give it a shot.

And the other race, the race of characters, is off to a good start I think. Here are the standings:

Orc Warrior Tedaloo is still parked in Thunder Bluff at 29.

Troll Shaman Sampeaire just picked up her level 42 training in Orgrimmar after finishing Scarlet Monastery and Razorfen Downs.

Troll Arcane Mage Sheeshuu is a couple bars away from 34 and finishing up quests in Thousand Needles.

Undead Affliction 'Lock Rosishu is rocking along in Desolace at 38.

And I haven't even looked at Troll Rogue Terishu.

So when Next I check in, I plan to have both Ted and Teri up to 30 at least so they can get their first mounts. And maybe a new mount for Theo as well.

BRK Podcast: Gorillas!

I just listened to the Big Red Kitty podcast for this week. And watched his gorilla movie. It's not "Gorillas in the Mist," but no one has to tell me about how nice an AoE pet is for certain things. Our number two hunter at 62 has a gorilla at 62. We send Fosse, the ape, into a big ole pack of mobs. Then wait for the Thunderstomp and unload everything we've got, including multishot. Never pull aggro.

So a slight change of plan. Hunter number two is going to 70 with her gorilla in time for the expansion.

Here's the issue. I love playing Beast Master. But I did level our Theothana part way as MM. I think I switched her to BM at about lvl 45. And it's been BM all the way to 70. But I'm thinking that I'm going to respec Hunter 2 (Danishu) to MM for the final push to 70. So I can get a feeling for it. But how different is it going to be once Wrath comes out? Need to think.

On Seeing Old Content in a new way

My newest "old" friend was telling me that he has four level 70 characters and is working on number five. We have one at 70, one at 62, and then 42, a couple in the 30s, several in the 20s and that's enough.

I need a plan.

One thing I have realized is that doing the same content we've done before, but with a completely different character is, well, fun. I love our hunters, but I just can't face going back to 62 and redoing everything.

So here's the plan. We're going to cycle through five characters: Warrior, Mage, Rogue, Shaman and Warlock this week, using up their rested experience, and focus on content we either skipped last time, or did at a ridiculously high level. And see how we like it. For example doing Swamp of Sorrows green quests and mobs with a hunter is a radically different experience than doing them with a warlock when they are all yellow/orange.

Each one will have their day, and then we will decide which one to focus on.

Here they are:
Tedaloo, the 29ish orc Arms/Fury warrior.
Sheeshuu, the 32ish troll Arcane mage.
Terishu, the 28ish troll Subtley rogue.
Sampeaire, the 42ish Enhancement Shammy.
And Rosishu, the 38ish Affliction 'lock.

May the best toon win!

Senior Citizens

I met another "old" person today. An Aussie dad playing a lvl 65 druid. Someone else who remembers 33rpm records, dialing a phone, and a time when a computer filled the entire basement of a university building. Ah, those were the days.

I wish there was a guild for us senior citizens. When I see a guild recruiting "mature" members it means they don't want eight year olds.