Will I Post This?

 

 Hi! It's been FOREVER! I'm still playing World of Warcraft and Hearthstone. Sometimes I poke my head into Star Wars Galaxies and even more rarely dust off a wand and play Wizard 101. Since the invention of the wonderful token, I have found paying for my account by playing the game keeps me from falling asleep in Valdrakken, or any number of main cities. I can afford to play for "free", even though I know that I am spending valuable time doing it. What am I doing in game? The usual things...

 

1. Dailies. Forgive the age of the picture. Bonus points if you can tell me what quest this is from.
2. Achievements. Finally used that stupid Murloc Traders Cloak I've been hanging onto for I can't even remember how long and got the seahorse mount.  
3. Reputation Grind. I'm done with it on Delgada, still finishing Maruuk and Tuskarr on Minya. The rest of my characters can live without it, until they need a recipe or something. I do still have to work on Cobalt Assembly with Delgada. Maybe when I have a weekend free to join group finder.
4. Old Content. I am currently leveling Blacksmithing in Legion with a Dark Iron cutie named Aebhilinn. Why else level a prof but for toys and mounts?.
5.  Alts. Need I say more? I have to have one of almost every flavor. I just can't bring myself to level a shaman or a monk. I got an evoker to 60 and shelved her. I was trying to level a Worgen warrior for the guild achievement, but no one was logging in to the guild, so I left her in the inn. There's probably a death knight rotting away on some forgotten server somewhere.
   
6. Making Money. I have to make about 200k every month to buy a token, and the price is going up. Last time I looked, they were selling for over 235k. that means I sell everything that isn't nailed down, and aim for dailies that make money.
   
7. Being Stupid. It can't all be business. Just don't run with scissors. (photo badly edited to show dangerous scissors with no thought to what it would do to the rest of the image)
   
   
   
   I miss writing on this page. I guess I will hit the publish button. Who knows? There might even be a follow up, right after I make my 235k.
   
   
   

Goodbye, Dr. Boom.

I recently crafted Dr. Boom. I was thrilled to finally have the card that I had been teching to get rid of for so long. Now others would have to pull out their Big Game Hunter to deal with MY Dr. Boom.

Boom Bots EXPLODE!!

Except, the thrill is already gone. Dr. Boom will only be viable in the new Wild format, which is not the competitive format. As much as I want to have a full collection of cards, my focus has turned to getting as many of the cards I can from The Grand Tournament expansion. I am still missing some great cards from the classic set, but since I get a pack a week from the Tavern Brawl and another here and there from the Watch and Learn quest, I feel my gold is better spent building on the most current expansion.

For a late Christmas gift, hubby told me to buy the holiday deal. I gained quite a few cards from the classic set that I was missing, and with the dust I crafted a few more. Before opening the packs, I was missing only some epics and most of the legendary cards from the set. Here is a list of what I have left to collect from the classic set.

• Ancient of Lore x 1
• Ancient of War x 1
• Cenarius
• Gladiator's Longbow x 2
• King Krush
• Ice Block x 1
• Shadowform x 1
• Patient Assassin x 1
• Kidnapper x 1
• Earth Elemental x 2
• Al'Akir the Windlord
• Pit Lord x 2
• Twisting Nether x 2
• Lord Jaraxxus
• Brawl x 1
• Grommash Hellscream
• Hungry Crab x 2
• Murloc Warleader x 1
• Southsea Captain x 1
• Faceless Manipulator x 1
• Mountain Giant x 2
• Millhouse Manastorm
• Nat Pagle
• King Mukla
• Harrison Jones
• Cairne Bloodhoof
• Hogger
• The Beast
• The Black Knight
• Gruul
• Ragnaros the Firelord
• Malygos
• Nozdormu
• Onyxia
• Deathwing

Some of these would be really nice to have, but I think I have done pretty well crafting all the rare and common cards, as they are the biggest part of most decks. I do that with every expansion, so that I make sure to have most of everything I need, then I save up for a legendary. Doing that, if I run up against an epic I have to have, I will have the dust for it, and it only puts the legendary off for a little while longer. Looking at that list, I wish I had just told you what that deal did to better my collection (Sylvanas, Antonidas, Fordring and Alextrasza, oh my!). I dusted a lot of cards, but the results were definitely worth it!

Speaking of legendaries, I saved up enough dust to craft Justicar Trueheart last night, which seems to be a pretty formidable legendary to have put off making for so long. Curse you, Dr. Boom, and your cute little boom bots!

So, the task ahead of me seems to be returning to The Grand Tournament and fleshing out my collection, then reworking any decks that do work for me to make them ready for the Standard ladder. I am missing some rare class cards and a slew of epic and legendary cards. Do I use my gold or do I splurge and buy twenty bucks of fun? I'll probably use my gold, and when the Spring 2016 Expansion goes live I will do better than I did with TGT and buy the special pre-order deal when it is available. I might even think of dusting some cards to help beef up the expansions I'll need to be competitive.

(What, are you crazy? *smacks own face* You don't dust cards you could use to make a deck!)

(Just let me dust Iron Juggernaut and Gahz'rilla. Oh, and maybe Gazlowe. I won't really miss them...)

 (You won't miss them until you need Gahz'rilla for a Tavern Brawl, then you'll be sorry!)

(But I want new cards! You're right, I don't really want to dust them. They can stay, for now...)

So, what do you all think of the changes headed our way? I'm excited to see if I can compete!

Something To Do.

I rarely kill the last boss of an expansion. I was about to say never, but I seem to remember finishing at least one Garrosh fight in the midnight hours of Mists of Pandaria. I lose momentum a month or more before the big announcement, due to whatever life has placed in my path, and I just don't rejoin at any meaningful pace. It's like I dropped the baton, looked at it sitting on the ground, then meandered off the course to pick a flower, then take a swim, then run back to the starting line to chat with the spectators.

I was sitting here (ok so I still am, but go with it, ok?) playing with the WoWhead quest inventory thingy, and I notice there were a lot of things I haven't earned yet.

Get it, behind? *giggle*

I know, the image is a little distracting. Just look at the tiny number above the line of armor icons that says "missing". I'm missing roughly 1/3 of the quest rewards available to me to wear. This is bad. Delgada got everything done so long before Cataclysm that she has to do a lot of zones over, despite having the Loremaster achievement. But, (giggle) this number is a little faulty.

I have the tiara, and I know I did Nat's quest line. I must have that hat somewhere...

The Tiara of the Oracle quest is repeatable so that if you ever throw it away, you can turn in the items and get another one. The game never counts it as complete, I guess. Del has the whole stinking Oracle set in void storage.I guess she will have to take them out and put them in the bank, just in case void storage disappears. As for Nat Pagle, I swear if he makes her fish up more fish for a stinky hat, I will make sure she always fishes over open water so that he joins Delgada in undeath permanently.

What's wrong, Nat? Can't swim?

Another problem with these numbers is that it doesn't hide things that you cannot possibly get. I have been twiddling with this tool while writing this, and I found a staff that Delgada would use almost exclusively, except for one little problem. The quest giver won't talk to her. He would rather shove a sword between her rotting ribs and call for reinforcements, then run away screaming. Oh, and there is a cool mechanical looking mace from a quest in the Jade Forest that she can't have, either.

I decided I needed to know about the new rules when it came to the improved wardrobe in the next expansion, so I asked my friend Google. I'd ask Siri, but she just doesn't get it. I ask her where the nearest 7-11 is and she tries to send me to Nottingham. I ask her for cheap gas and she sends me to the 76 station. I ask here where the closest McDonald's is and she sends me to their museum. At least Google understands me. The first link after I asked about "new wardrobe rules Legion" was on the Blizzpro forums, and it was helpful. I guess I won't have to worry about things disappearing, but those really special, no longer in game items I will make sure end up in the bank, just in case. I understand it says anything that has ever been soulbound to my character, useful or not, will be available to all the characters on my account, provided they can use them, as a cosmetic option. I just don't want to take the chance! Delgada has really nothing to lose (I don't think she'd mind losing those zandalari bracers, since they're not really a desirable transmog item) But Halinka has her main robe that she would hate to lose (and I would love to gain access to, because va-va-voom!), so to the bank with those not-found-in-game-files items.

Anyhow, so I have spoilered myself a little and looked at some Legion stuff. I'm really looking forward to seeing what I have available that long ago was vendored, disenchanted, or simply cast off to make way for something more valuable. And think of all the extra bag space! I'll leave you all here thinking along with me as I wander off, dreaming of items I can stash in my bank in place of all those tabards! See you in Azeroth.

Playing With Brann Bronzebeard.

What does this button do?

I have finished all that has been released for The League of Explorers adventure, and am playing with a few of the cards. Both Reno Jackson and Brann Bronzebeard seem to be used a lot on the ladder.  I don't want to commit to not getting the tools I need to play successfully, so that means Reno is not my kind of card. Brann, however, is my kind of man. I reevaluated my Dragon Priest deck to include him and the Jeweled Scarab, and I like how it is working. Here is my revised deck list.

Not a typical dragon priest.

To add the scarabs and Brann, I removed two Dark Cultists and a Northshire Cleric. During my play before the change, I had noticed I usually didn't get any value from the cultists, and I already had Power Word:Shield and Azure Drake for card draw.

Maybe I'll discover another Brann Bronzebeard, or a murloc.

The strategy here is to get keep a dragon and hope to get a whelp and/or a technician in your opening draw. Other cards worth keeping on opening are the Twilight Drake and Power Word:Shield, though I have been known to toss back the latter, depending on who I am facing.

Brann gave me health, but Earth Shock killed me.

In my opinion, this is a control priest deck. Big bodies that can clear early drops, with late game solutions like Shadow Word:Death, Rend Blackhand, and Vol'jin/Holy Smite. Board clear for swarm decks with Holy Nova, and taunts from Defender of Argus to hold back the tide while you recover. Oh, and there is the fun factor of the Jeweled Scarab and Ysera.

My work is paramount. Leave me alone!

What does Brann offer? First, know that if you drop him on turn three he will be removed. Turns three and four for most players have something that does at least that much damage. For best result, pair him up in a turn to get at least one charge out of him. Turn seven with a nice sized hand can net you a Twilight Drake with quite a bit of health, or turn six a tech with 4/6. Even turn five can give you a whelp with 2/5, which isn't horrible. Other things that are fun are if you already have your whelp and tech up and slap Brann down on turn 7 with your defender to give your minions 2/2 and taunt. Turn 8 with Azure drake gets you two cards. Turn five with the scarab lets you choose a card, then from a new set choose another card.

The only combo I can see as being bad is Vol'jin, as he will swap health twice with the same target, negating the combo with Holy Smite. I have yet to try Brann out with the Corruptor or Rend. I'm sure with Rend he will just work on one Legendary (I'm taking volunteers to test him out!). With the Corruptor, I imagine it will have him shoot twice, but not sure if I will have the chance to target a different target after the first charge.

What other fun cards could I use? Keeping with the dragon theme, I could use the Wyrmrest Agent on turn five, making him 3/4 with taunt. I could use Nefarian to gain 4 random spells from the opponent (but Brann would have to have already been played and still active). If I had the Twilight Guardian (one of the reasons my dragon priest is so different) turn seven would make him a 4/6 with taunt. There are, of course, the vanilla cards like Abusive Sergeant, Shattered Sun Cleric, and Dark Iron Dwarf that could buff up the damage. How about Stampeding Kodo for those annoying Paladin token murloc decks? I think I'll keep my deck as is for now, but I am having some thoughts on pirates capturing Brann, especially after being killed by a charging 24 damage Bloodsail Raider the other night.

Have you been playing around with Brann? What's your favorite combo? I'd love to hear about it. See you in the tavern!

My Adventures in the Temple of Orsis.

I bought the new solo adventure for Hearthstone today, and I have managed to work my way through the Temple of Orsis pretty quickly.

He rubbed the lamp. *sigh*

This was pretty easy to beat with my current favorite mage deck. I'm not good at telling what kind of mage it is (I know it's not a freeze mage!), so I'll just show you my deck list and you can tell me what type it is, ok?

Maybe a new name is in order. One shredder?

Anyhow, I managed to pump up one worm to 7 damage before he finally destroyed it. I got another worm out a couple turns later and finished out his last 11 health with the small spells I had saved up. What a maroon! Giving me gifts as I was stuffing him back in his lamp was clearly a bad idea.

Kill him and take the staff.  No sweat.

The whole idea here is to take the staff and keep it. I decided the best person for the job was Andy Wrynn. I pulled out all the stealing spells and minions I could find, added some dragons for good measure, and started swinging.

I'll take that minion, and that minion, and that minion!

I ended the game with using Inner Fire to smack him with the artifact piece before I turned it in to the team. Fitting end, to be destroyed by the very thing you were dying to keep (cough cough).

Run Away, little girl, run away.

I decided that Andy needed another go at this one, but this time because of his healing prowess. Here's the final revision I made to the deck. I did have to run this three times to get it right, but I learned from my mistakes!

More like rev.5, but I got lazy.

Healing and taking the least of the risks seemed to be key. One try I converted the 7/7 that spits out 1/1 taunts and used it on the same turn ( I didn't win that round), which might have been a good idea if I had more health, which brings me back to healing. You still need removal, be it spell or minion, so that is why I added a bit of draconic flavor to the mix. Any spell that steals from cards not seen won't work, as this one has no deck or hand.

I'm so excited to work my new cards into my decks. I think I'll wait until tomorrow to venture into Uldaman. The last expedition was very tiring and I think I caught an ancient bug (cough cough)!

Uhhh, Hi There.

I've been gone a while. Sorry about that. I'm tired, in pain, stressed out, and worried. My house is destroyed, plumbing is breaking, appliances on the fritz, flooring worn out, paint peeling, and the yard is overgrown with weeds. There are too many bodies in this teeny house, and many of them are not contributing at a meaningful level, monetarily or through routine maintenance. My body is broken, too tired from fighting an illness I did not know I had to take care of the myriad things needed to fix the problems in this household. Hubby is working odd hours and contributes when he can. I'm playing hooky from work today, because even though  I could have probably managed to put away all the stock coming in today and serve a holiday meal, it would have laid me out for the rest of the day. (Yes, I wrote this last month, so sue me.)

So great!

I had big plans for going to Blizzcon and meeting up with people I only talk to in game, but life yanked that out from under me. I told the guy I sold the ticket to that I needed a new washer, which was part true. I would have gone anyway, packed pb&j and other cheap foodstuffs and refilled water bottles and such, but I was given some rough news a few weeks ago and rethought the intelligence of exposing myself to exotic strains of crud from all over the planet. So, I took the lighter risk of attending the Con Before the Storm (which was a bunch of fun!) after I sold my ticket, then went home and got a little sleep before putting in a day at work.I talked to Freckleface from Hearthcast for a bit before their show, said hi to Rewt, and I ran into Scott Johnson as he was leaving the WoWhead party, trying to find a faster way back to the other party to do his cast. Words were exchanged, but no selfies were taken. I also ran into Lilulicious (if you twitter with WoW players, you probably know her!) and again, no selfies. Maybe I should put hubby in charge of them, because I forget I have a camera.

Old lanyard, so I would blend in, sorta? But look at that arm candy!

Anyhow, I'm logged into WoW with my alliance banker sitting in the middle of the Exodar auction house. I just remembered that I logged her in to process a bunch of garbage from Halinka's sight seeing tour in the Ahn'Qiraj raids, plus some extra material from her bank. If I remember to run both bankers regularly, I might be able to get ahead enough to help friends out with game time. I've got a 2 month cushion now, with enough gold on my horde server to buy at least 2 more. If it weren't for the friends, I wouldn't play at all. I am bored to tears of my garrison, even festooned in webs and the air heavy with ghosts and spiders crunching underfoot.

Tuesday I meet with a surgeon to find out when I'll be having a thyroidectomy and how long I'll be out for. Timing is pretty clever, as it seems to be falling over Thanksgiving and possibly Christmas breaks. Good for the paycheck, bad for the festivities.

I keep putting this off, so I'm hitting the post button now. Mispellings, grammatical errors, and punctuation be damned, if I don't do it now noone will know, and I'll post some goofy story instead that makes people think I'm having plumbing problems  (which for once I am having, but that is a story for another day).

Keep It Secure!

I have been spending about a third of my gaming time in Minecraft. I like it so much, I decided to spend 5 dollars a month at Beastnode and set up a server my friends and family can play on with me. I stepped into my newly generated world and my heart skipped a beat. It's like they knew I was a girly girl at heart!

Blues skies, green grass, water, and flowers!

 This is, of course, a picture of my world now, because back then I could have taken the shot of the full lake with flowers all around and trees and, sigh, I can't now because all those pictures went poof, along with, hopefully, the malware that my daughter found for me on a Minecraft fan page. Ugh.

My friends joined in, and we built a town near the lake, walled in, with gardens and pens of animals and houses, a roller coaster, a water slide, a wishing well, and houses. It was beautiful. Then, two nights ago, we were invaded.

To the right, my small house completely buried in random blocks.

To the left in the picture, under the gravel, is a nether wort garden. Behind that pillar of wood planks? This.

I think I may have started clearing before I realized what this was.

Of course, those blocks of redstone were not there before, or the window panes (what a waste!). My whole town was buried in the contents of all of our chests. Well, not the ender chests, thank goodness for that, but we had a lot of random resource blocks and made items laying around, and this guy used them all. Oh, and he used all my saplings, too. See?

The saplings next to the house didn't get enough sun?

The trees surround the house. They were at least 5 blocks deep behind the houses!

So, set to me is the task of locking down my little server. I started with whitelisting, which was rather easy to do. Still, my kids and husband say I need to add a password. Do I really need to? We are on day one of a very short whitelist. Clearing is taking forever because before I made the list the guy filled in more garbage in more areas, this time letting the animals loose in my gardens. Gah! I'm fortunate to still have the items to replant, but the fact that I have to is enough to make me want to cry and stomp off to play something that makes me happy!

Several days after I started this post, I decided to finish it. I haven't had enough time to do much of anything, with kids and work and school and all the other little things that have to be done. My little server is safe and cleaned up. No password protection was needed. Take a word of advice, if you have or will have a small, seemingly unknown server, someone will find it. Set up your walls not only in game, but outside it!

Scatterbrained.

I have had so much free time this summer. I started back to work today and I was happy to go back, because my house feels like this.

How'd it get so small?

I would post all my fun screenshots of the games I've been playing. Trouble is, I let my youngest play Minecraft on my computer. I now have a shiny new installation of Windows 10, a fresh installation of Hearthstone and World of Warcraft, and nothing else because of malware and nine year old girls who don't follow directions when parents aren't looking. It's a shame, really, because I had great shots of my houses in Minecraft, a few great transmogs in World of Warcraft, and some amazing plays in Hearthstone. Oh well, more room for new pictures, right?

Oh, the title. I'm more scattered and brained than scatterbrained. I should be back to posting right after I find my headphones. I think I saw them under my bed, right there out of reach. Hey, little girl, will you go get that for Grandma?

Thpppptfffttt!

The 19 Twink: A Tool That Works.

On my last post someone called me out for what amounted to laziness on my part. I wanted all the fun, but I didn't want to do the research. In leaving the research up to a random website with no commenters(!), I was leaving my sad little windwalker in the dust where it came to quality gear planning. Following up on advice, I went to WoWhead and used their item search and comparison tool, just on gloves.

Oops.

The Metalworking Gloves I have been salivating over are not the best for my girl, the Foreman's Gloves are. But wait, where do they drop from?  Foreman Thistlenettle, an undead guy in the depths of the caves near the entrance to the Deadmines instance. WoWhead says he is no longer in the game, but I have news for them, he is.

Proof of undeath.

He spawns near the back corner of the Deadmines caves, behind almost all the undead, and his respawn time is between 5-10 (but usually 6) minutes. On my low pop server, there was only one other in our cross realm zone that was trying to camp him, and either he got what he wanted or gave up.

Right here!

Racy, the patient assassin, was sent to do the job.  9:35:37 AM, Friday the 26th, just one day after starting to farm for the Foreman's Gloves, they dropped, along with at least one valuable blue item. Not enough to justify the time spent, to a goblin, but enough to make it almost OK to this gal. Silly Bryonia was so excited she slapped those gloves on right away, making it impossible for me to enchant them for her! I think it can still be done through the trade window, so I will be employing a guild mate to help.

 Oh well, complain away, why not check the other non-heirloom slots? I checked the wrist slot, and my Black Wolf Bracers are the best I can get. There was a pair a little higher, but the quest to open the vendor requires level 24, even though they had no minimum use level. How about my belt?

Still some farming to do here.

Raw stats win out over secondaries in this comparison. Bryonia is wearing the Vigorous Belt of the Wild, which is third best. Since I can't enchant this slot anyway, she'll have to make do until she finds one. On to the boots!

Not surprised, really.

Feet of the Lynx have been prized by agility twinks since their first drop. Poor Bryonia was wearing third best again. I think I've seen the second best on the auction house, and I lost a roll to someone who oopsed in a dungeon on the best in slot just last week. She was incredibly luck to find them on the auction house tonight. The ring slot is already occupied with the best. For fun, why don't we look at the leg slot? This will give me a chance to compare armor addons. Did you know this tool did that?

The heirlooms are still the winner.

The Smelting Pants look like a solid winner until you look at what enhancements can be added to them. Being soulbound, the highest she can put on herself are only armor modifiers. I believe she can have someone put a Heavy Knothide Armor Kit on them, which adds 3 stamina, but it's not enough. With Shadowleather Leg Armor applied, the heirloom pants win, with the Defias pants coming in second, but not close enough to matter. But look at the set bonus! Would it be enough with the set bonus? Until I can round them up and enhance them, the world may never know (mostly because, math). Bryonia is holding onto the pants, already modified, just in case.

Window shopping.

For the chest slot, there is a better alternative than the heirloom piece. Gloomshroud Armor, a drop in Shadowfang Keep, is the best of the best. WoWhead lists the drop rate at 0%, but there are some confirmed recent sightings in the comments. Guess Racy will be in there next. She might even get lucky and have a Shadowfang to sell for her trouble!

I haven't examined every single slot, but I am exhausted. Bryonia will be set in her best in slot items as soon as can be, and I will share the finished product with you. Until then, here is a picture of her finished transmog. If she can't be perfect in her gearing, at least she can look dangerous!

Snakes!

The 19 Twink: Then and Now.

I used to enjoy the odd level 19 battleground with my bank alt Rowena when I had the time. Battlegrounds are easier when there are less spells to worry about, and the hunt for gear was so fun! Feeling a little nostalgic, I decided to bring Bryonia the savvy businesswoman to 19 and twink her out in the best of the most current gear and enchants. I decided that I wouldn't do the theorycrafting on my own, so I went to Google, and they sent me here.  Looking at their list, I cried a little inside. This was more about how much gold you had and less about what you could farm or quest for. Gone are the days of the fishing twink with engineering and maxed first aid. Say hello to heirlooms and bind on equip blues, with a couple of dungeon quest and random thrillseeker rewards tossed in. There wasn't even the danger of dinging looming over me with the tip I put in Slahtz' pocket. Here, take a look at Bryonia, missing one item (two if you count the Feet of the Lynx I must have).

Just missing her Gloves (of the fang or Metalworkers)

The biggest challenge I had was finding a transmog for such a low level character that covered all the slots. Experience locked, Bryonia did a few quests in Silverpine to cover her shameful heirlooms with something a little less, dirty. She looks ferocious and stylish. Here, for comparison, is sad little Rowena, in her way back machine twink gear.

The profile of the almost perfect 19 rogue twink, with vanilla and BC influences.

There was a time when many of Rowena's enchants were in red text, not even counting to her total. They worked when they were applied, but there was the nerf bat, then they removed the problem recently when they made enchants level appropriate. Is dodge even a stat anymore? I looted a cloak with dodge, and Rowena has her dodge ring, which I remember spending quite a large chunk of change on. I wonder what it would take to fix Rowena? Here's the link. I'm sure this site isn't the end all of twinking, and I am sure Rowena is still competitive, but let's face it, even her awesome Shadowfang can't compete with a Venerable Dal'Rends Sacred Charge. The difference with wearing what she has and switching to heirlooms would mean a large boost to her secondary stats of critical strike and haste. Here, I will post the extended stat weights for Bryonia first, then Rowena.

Bryonia is FAST! 75% haste?!

Rowena is slooooow. Almost 2% haste :(

The raw stats are comparable. They are both agility based classes, and their agility levels are practically the same. Rowena's attack power is higher, but look at all the fun critical strike chance and haste she is missing out on! Let me see if I can find the armory for a current level 19 rogue twink.

Just the stats, ma'am. You can find Unholytterro on Youtube.

The enchants this guy has are not what I would have thought to use, and means that he has put some thought into this character. His spec is Assassination, which is different from Rowena. That big chunk of critical strike chance looks like fun, doesn't it? I think Rowena may be up for a makeover. Some enchants can be done by Delgada, thanks to heirlooms. The hard ones will be the non heirloom slots, where I may have to make do with lesser enchants. Her look will remain unchanged. I plan on using her current gear to cover those nasty heirlooms.

I get an itch every once in a while to play the PvP side of the game, and this is the only way I want to play it, at low levels so that I have less spells to twiddle with. Did you know there is a tournament coming up for this bracket? I'm not competitive in the slightest, but I plan on watching this! What do you think? To me, this helps refresh my love for World of Warcraft, changing things up, making things new again. Tell me, what do you do when WoW starts to get a little stale? I'd love to hear from you!

Is This The Real Life? June Update.

No, it's just fantasy. I've been caught in a landslide, with no escape from reality. The whole song the last few sentences come from really are my life right now. I seem to be playing a lot of fantasy , but I am pulled away more by life. I want to be here, but reality keeps pulling me back in. It's summer break. Where's my "me" time?

OK, it's not me, but one of them is closely related. 

In the real world, there has been swimming and taxi service. That pretty much sums up the whole of my busyness in the real world. In my fantasy worlds, there has been a dab of WoW, a splash of Hearthstone, and a hefty scoop of Minecraft. I did manage to play about an hour of Fallout:New Vegas a couple of days ago and I plan to get into Fallout 3 as well, just to ready myself for the story of Fallout 4 when it hits. It sounds like a lot of escaping, right? I'd say roughly a third of my gaming time is actually spent away from my computer, checking on chore progress or tending to the needs of one of the other residents of this cracker box. Summer break is really only a break from the paid job of feeding kids. I'm still doing all the same stuff here, on a smaller, more demanding scale.

Stopping to smell the flowers.

In WoW, the pace has been rather slow. During the year I have little time to raid, and that leaves me behind everyone else. Sure, my garrison kept me in gear, but I've lost out on practicing fights, so I haven't asked to join in the raiding fun yet. Delgada has been lazily running dungeons for transmog and mounts. I have found a new project, which I will be posting about at length (2-3 posts) after this post. I've been slowly working on my newest 100, Racy, and Carlatta is still sitting at 98, collecting experience points from garrison missions when I remember to log her in. Bryonia is still raking in the gold, and I have bought one token, extending my current subscription to October. I figure that I will invest in one a month, that way I stay way ahead of my paid end date, leaving me a cushion in case my gold supply dwindles.

Angry chicken!

In Hearthstone, I have hit rank 13, but keep falling back below 15. I'm about halfway to having a golden hunter. I've managed to collect all the common and rare cards, and am slowly working my way to having the rest. I was crafting the epics as I had the dust, but I decided I might as well save my dust until I could make a legendary.  I crafted Ysera about a week or so ago. Which one should I craft next? I still don't have a Dr Boom, Ragnaros, Alexstrasza or a Sylvanas. I have collected all the monthly card backs, and the next one I need to get is the one from Heroes of the Storm. That would mean I would have to actually play, though.

A rollercoaster. My kids have been busy.

In Minecraft, I have rented a server. The kids and a few guild friends and I have been building a village and exploring. Too much fun! Well, until I go off on my own, get lost and die to a million zombies and a creeper. Then, lost and confused, I cannot find my things, like that cool diamond sword I crafted, and I cry for all the lost experience points. Then, I get to level 35 with a new sword, and someone opens a pit into hell in my yard and I lose everything, again. I am so frustrated, but I'm having fun! This game is brutal.

That is what I have been up to. I hope your summer is less hectic than mine! Tell me, have you explored new worlds lately? I'd love to hear of your travels!