Midnight: Silvermoon City

Not many people wandering the streets of Silvermoon at any time of day, especially near midnight.  Still, the Chamber of Commerce tries hard to entertain those who happen to be there on a holiday.  The fireworks spectacular began right on the stroke of midnight, and ended twelve minutes later.  Here you can see a lonely shopkeeper watching part of the finale.

Cerisse Watching Fireworks.

Thank you, warriors, for fighting the fight that keeps us free.  Happy Fourth of July, America!

Moo.

Danger To All Who Pass These Signs!

My time has been pretty much filled with kids who need stuff, parents who need stuff, trips to exotic locations, and family trips to fun places like Knott's Berry Farm and the movies.  So, Lulubelle is all I have really had time for.  Well, her and a few shots at Ahune on Delgada (trip #2 got the Ice Chip), and several hours, afk and not, in  Minecraft.  I thought I would have more time for some end game raiding over the summer, but it looks as if that is a thing of the past for me.  As much as I would love to, and hubby would let me, it just takes too much time.  So, here is Lulubelle, fresh from Outlands in matching (shockingly!) armor, ready to take on Northrend.

Goodbye Nagrand!

Lulubelle has been running around Northrend for a while now, and is just into her 78th level.  I got a fishing bug, and decided she needed to level her secondary skills a little, so today all she did were the  three fishing dailies and one cooking daily. She's been a good little dungeon healer, healing all the regular dungeons she can, and got to run a few with her guild master's alt death knight tank, who helped knock out most of 77 with his fast queues.

At Home In Dalaran.

As for Minecraft, I know someone latched onto that and wants to know what I am up to.  KNR has a server, and I have managed to dig in pretty deep, found a big bit of redstone, a small amount of iron, gold, lapis, and diamond, and enough cobblestone to build skyscrapers. Here are some recent (I opened up the game to grab them just now!) screenshots of my corner of the KNR Minecraft Server.  The other guys are far more talented than I, and have huge greenhouses and above ground pleasure palaces.  I'll settle for my little Barbie Dream Bunker.

Kitchen And Den.

Mining Operation AKA Back Yard.

Chateau Shawndra.

Shawndra's Greenhouse.

That's all I have for now, as I am being whisked away to Sizzler.  More later, hopefully sooner than later!

My First Gaming Computer

http://cgi.ebay.com/Leading-Edge-DC-2011E-Vintage-IBM-PC-Clone-8088-CPU-/370504191483?pt=Desktop_PCs&hash=item5643c54dfb

There she is, in all her glory. A Leading Edge 8088 IBM clone.  All that is missing is the amber monitor.  I had the worst keyboard ever to go with that, too, one that clicked with every keystroke so loudly that I couldn't stay up and do stealth sessions after everyone was in bed.

I put in several hundred or more hours of prime time chat and text gaming into that box, with my shareware dialer (anyone remember Telix?) and a 4800 baud modem a friend of a friend sold me for 20 bucks.  I always got a little thrill when I connected and the ANSI graphics started to slowly scroll into place on my screen.  What if they were new?  Maybe there was a new door game!  I wonder if Drumgirl or Ledzeplin are on tonight? 

I was such a nerd.

Sorry!

I have been gone far too long.  I'm still playing games, just not as seriously.  Delgada got out to finally finish School of Hard Knocks, which resulted in finally finishing What a Long Strange Trip It's Been.  (digging through screenshots) Sorry, didn't even think to catch her on her pretty new violet protodrake. You'll just have to trust me on that one.

I do, however, have pictures of the gal who has stolen me away from playing Delgada.  Meet Lulubelle, seer of An'she.

Bunny Ears?

Alright, so the ears don't quite convey how seriously she takes herself.  Here is a better picture.

Bad Dog!

So now we know who really burnt Stratholme down.  She really isn't as bad as that, though.  Here's another picture.

Consorting with goblins...

Kind of a necessary means to the end of getting the skills to pay bills, though.  Tell me you haven't done something for a goblin at one time or another, go ahead, I'm waiting.  While we wait, here is another picture of the highly photogenic Lulu.

She even heals hunter pets!

She is so very kind!  Right after that, she traveled to Silithus, killed a few large worms and Twilight Cultists, and stepped through the handy portal to the Blasted Lands, to report for duty past the Dark Portal into Outlands first horde installation, Thrallmar.  There may be fewer pictures for a while as she is rather keen on looking her best and the clothes that can be had there are well, outlandish.  See, I made a joke...haha!

Lulu is being leveled from scratch with no heirlooms or big sister characters on a new server to me. She is a discipline priest, which I haven't ever tried before, and I am really enjoying it.  I grabbed dual specializations to have a shadow spec, but haven't needed to use it yet, and doubt I'll even change over save to add points every several levels or so.  She is a tailor and enchanter, leveled well past where she should be thanks to the generosity of her guild mates in Integrity. Her leveling has been easy, as the healer queue is rather short.  A few quests here, a few dungeons there, and she is out of a zone not too long after barely wetting her hooves in the shallow end of it.  She is now in Zangarmarsh, looking forward to hitting Terokkar before the week is up. 

Sorry I have been rather absent.  I am thinking about changing the name of the blog here soon, as when I started it I had no idea there was a large site called the Escapist.  that, and some people, seeing my URL, think it is Escapists Crawl.  No, I'm not crawling like a baby, I am scrawling like a teenager who is late for turning in their homework.  Barely legible, but hopefully good enough for a passing grade.  I'll keep the URL until it expires, which is next year, but I may find another to direct here, or just move over to my other blog that I'm not using yet, Seven Kids - One Bathroom, which is much more like me right now.  Either way, I'll post something here when the change is made.  Thanks for stopping by!

In My Comfy Jeans

Everyone has a pair of comfy jeans.  Mine make me feel like I can do anything.  They make my butt look smaller, go with almost everything in my wardrobe, can be worn with my ugly day off flops or with my nice sandals.  I am usually in my best mood when I'm in them.  If I am not, it's because I put them on a few seconds ago and their magic hasn't taken effect yet.

Anyhow, I have some friends I like to play with, that no matter how little I know about what we're gonna do, help clue me in and make me comfortable and successful.  I smile when I am running instances, raids, or just farming reputation with them, because I don't have to worry how badly I am performing.  They'll tell me, helpfully, what needs to be done, and we all set out to do it.  They're my in game comfy jeans.  I'd rather hang out with them than anyone else.

Delgada got swept into raiding without having finished doing the regular instances, or even the heroics.  She is not in comfy jean territory.  She has something to prove, and that makes my game time with her frustrating when things feel off.  They tell me I am doing fine, but I feel wrong.  There are a couple who have the potential of being part of my comfy crew, giving me helpful hints and advice, but there's still an itchy tag, a seam that is just a little off, and frankly, my butt looks way too big in them.

Carlotta is just 83.  Her friends know she can sorta kite, but fails at crowd control.  She is a beast mastery hunter, running around with several underage pets.  Last night, she took out her devilsaur, who was a sad, neglected level 79.  After running Blackrock Caverns and Throne of the Tides, he caught up with her, and was named BazookaJoe.  See, I can show off my bad pets and quirky shot rotations with my comfy friends, because they just shrug it off, knowing I'll get better.

Back to making my point.  The sad part of comfy jeans is, they wear out.    You can't wear them as much because they have holes, then the holes connect and your jeans are held together by thin threads.  You have to break in a newer pair of jeans to replace the other ones.  Sometimes, you can patch your favorite jeans and make them last longer.  Still, they eventually wear out.  Just like raiding and instance groups, right?  You might be able to patch in some new blood, but the patches wear around the edges and you end up in the same place, trying to wear in a new pair, or patching the same area again.

So, I am breaking in new comfy jeans.  How is everyone else doing out there in this post-Cataclysm world?