I need some opinions!

I think we can all agree that I need to work a bit on visual side of my blog. Unfortunately, I lack any sort of eye for judging visual appeal. I’m the kind of person who gets dressed in the morning and has to ask my (male) housemate if my clothes match. So you can imagine how lost I am when it comes to making websites pretty.

Fortunately, Faith, the daughter of a guildie of mine, came to my rescue and offered to help me with my banner.

She drew this amazing picture of my character :

Isn’t it gorgeous? And I’m still in awe over those boots. Those are so me.

What I need is an opinion on whether or not it would fit well in my heading banner. Does it have the Bossy Pally feel? Does it suit my writing style?

(Note that it’s not coloured yet, but will be if I choose to use it in my banner.)

While I know I absolutely love the drawing, it’s difficult to tell from the inside if it really represents my writing.

An alternative position for my character would be to have her on her side, ankles crossed with the spoon laying about the whole length of the body. She’d have one arm resting on the spoon and her head resting on the other hand.

Which also sounds amazing.

So…what do you guys think?

Thinking back on this blog: 2009 Edition

I say “2009 edition” even though it’s really a first edition. First of several, I hope! I’ve been wanting to do a meta post for such a long time but never dared. After all, this blog is still very young, too young to deserve a deep, thoughtful meta post.

BUT! I’m going to use the changing of the year as an excuse to pretentiously write about my blog. I wanted to follow the trend set by Matticus by going over my favorite posts of 2009. However, it would really be my favorite posts of the past three months. Which would be silly.

So instead, I’ll do K’s Pretentious Blogging Meme. I have a lot to say, so my apologies to those of you who’ll be reading this via reader. For everyone else, I’ll use a cut.

Secret Santa Guest Post: What to get a Bossy Pally for Christmas

Guess what was waiting for me in my email when I woke up on Christmas Eve! Yep, yep! A wonderful Christmas guest post all for me! I’m so excited! And the topic? Best choice EVAIRE!

My Secret Santa was none other than the excellent Phoenix from Azeroth Metblogs. Thank you so much!

Look – I know how you feel. You’ve been reading the musings of a certain bossy pally for a long time now – I have too – and you still don’t know what to get her for the holidays. Let me help you out, as someone who even has a pretty pally damage machine waiting just for those times when I want to haul off and hit something with a hammer.

But before I get to that, you need to understand how you relate to Paladinica Bossifica Spoonula. I’m a hunter by trade; the way we handle things is to be as far away from the Big Nasty as possible, steady our gaze, and pew pew pew to our heart’s content – if you spend more time looking at the pretty graphics than you do looking at your cooldowns and making sure you’re on top of when your next shot is ready to proc or that your AP trinkets are up, you’re doing something wrong.

The paladin, on the other hand, is a different, strange, bewildering beast. They hit things up close! They shoot a cloud of righteous fire out of the ground around them! It’s madness! Seriously, the quickest way to a paladin’s heart is to treat them right: understand the class, don’t start shooting until the consecrate goes off, don’t make them heal if they don’t want to, remember that as long as a paladin has mana it’s on, if your pally friend is of the holy variety make sure you give them plenty of room (but don’t go so far as to be out of their healing range!), and then you see them pop their wings, you’ve got some serious competition for the top of the damage meters, so turn up your game.

Okay, is that settled? Now that you understand the heart of the paladin, you may be wondering, what could I possibly get my dear bossy pally for the happiest of holidays? I have the perfect gift: Her very own brand new shiny hunter!

You think I’m kidding, I’m not! A paladin and a hunter? Killer combo when it comes to damage, rep grinding, dailies, leveling, anything! You don’t even have to worry about spec, regardless of your spec or the pally’s spec, you two are destined to make an awesome combination – no foe will stand in your way.

That being said, someone help me tie this bow around my waist? What!? Go find your own pally!

Ophie’s note: Yessssss! I get my own awesome hunter! Phoenix is MINE MINE MINE now! I bet he didn’t know this, but for the longest time in my WoW playing career, my partner in crime was a hunter. And he’s right, a pally/hunter team rocks. My teammate has long since been forced to leave the game and I miss him a lot. (I can’t help myself: “A new hunter? For me? I hope I don’t break him this time!”) Thank you again so very much, Phoenix!

EDIT: Forgot to add the links! Sorry about that! Fixed now!

Players love the Random Dungeon Finder, the Random Dungeon Finder loves me

I was being a bit too efficient in my work, so I figured I’d screw it all up by putting it back on /ignore for some time. After all, reading blog post after blog post about how random PuGs will show up with grey bows, drag you through mud, smack you around and ruin your self esteem, I was getting antsy. I haven’t had some good drama in ages and there’s nothing like strangers making me cry to wake me up after spending hours sorting through and answering pages of school-related emails.

And this is me in HoS, not healing.

I have run a few random dungeons already, but I’ve always been under the warm, fuzzy security blanket provided by my caring guildies. This time I was flying with my own wings. I excitedly queued up. I barely had time to close the tool that a “your group is ready!” message pops up. OMG OMG OMG! I hope that they’re mean and I hope they suck!

Nexus!

The group greets each other with some hi!s. Not starting off well for a mean group. I mouse over my PuGmates. Oh look, the druid tank has the Starcaller title. Oh look, so does the ret pally. And the rogue has the Undying title.

15 minutes of not having to heal anyone later, they’re warmly thanking each other as we receive our frost emblems.

So much for a mean, sucky group.

I still had loads of time to procrastinate, so I queued up again. This time it took me a little longer. 3 whole minutes of my time wasted as I browsed the Auction House for something to do.

Utgard Pinnacle!

I’m teleported inside the instance and I’m….alone.

Me: Um, where is everyone?
Tank: We’re on the last boss, hang on, we’ll summon you.

Two minutes later, I finally got the King’s Bane achievement I had missed every other run, received some triumph badges and made off with some gold.

No matter how hard I tried, the worst I could find were the one-night-stand PuGs where everyone goes matter-of-factly about their business and doesn’t make you breakfast the next day. Oh, there was this one tank who quit after needing a ring off of Maiden of Grief in Halls of Stone. That was annoying. The 3 seconds it took to replace him were excruciatingly long.

Next instance, Gundrak!

Someone says something about my GS. Embarrassing amounts of cooing follow. Oh finally!, I think, A potentially sucky group!

Well.
The tank held aggro.

Stuff died at a decent pace.

The dps didn’t stand in crap.

And the entire time, they’re singing my praise, complimenting my heals, stroking my epeen with both hands. Seriously. It was awkward as heck. I don’t know how to respond to strangers being overly nice to me. What happened to these nasty, ruthless PuGs?

So apparently, RDF an’ I are best kind. Gonna have a time on George and everything. And I just have to rub in your faces. I’m the luckiest pugger ever. (But I am missing out on that authentic, homemade PuGing experience.)

EDIT: I just got the Make It Count achievement. With a PuG. I’ve never even been able to get that with guildies.

On completely different and happily festive note

Yay male naked dancers!

Gnomeaggedon came up with an idea to have some WoW Blogger Kris Kringle/Christmas blogging fun over the holidays, Secret Santa style. Going by who’s signed up so far, it’s bound to be quite a time. The more, the merrier so everyone head over to the thread on Blog Azeroth and join in on the festivities!

Life Does Have a Sense of Humour

Classmate (who plays WoW): You can recite the entire paladin talent tree but you can’t remember your student number, you know, the one you’ve had for every exam for the past 3 years?
Me: It’s all about priorities, dear.

I tried to find a picture with a guy, but apparently Games > Boys is still a new and controversial idea.

Ah yes, priorities. Two summers ago, I had a nasty fall about two hours before a raid. I was absolutely furious! Not because my left arm had gone numb with the impact, not because I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to walk, not because the ambulance was taking its sweet time getting there. Nope! I was angry because I had finally convinced my guild to take down Magtheridon to get my Naruu title and there was no way in heck I would be back from the hospital on time.

On the bright side, raiding again the day after I got back from the hospital was the best rehab my left arm could have gotten. I didn’t even need physio. Who says video games are useless?

Look! A picture of my last three weeks! Except I don't look like that.

Anyway, after about two weeks of WoW starvation due to finals, I can finally play freely again. It’s sad that I felt extremely guilty for not religiously doing my daily random dungeons. As guilty as I felt for taking study breaks longer than a half an hour. So, in my new found freedom, I settle down with my junk food, my beer, my headset, ready to spend the entire evening goofing around… Then my mouse dies.

Oh, it had been on and off for awhile, but this time it was really dead. No amount of fiddling with the wire, hitting it, unplugging it and replugging it brought it back to life. I yelled at it for awhile (we all know that yelling doesn’t fix things, but it does make you feel better), then looked more closely at the wire. Teeth marks, chewing. A mouse had gotten ahold of my, um, mouse. My poor, lovely Logitech G5 had been cannibalized!

So instead of a relaxing evening with WoW, it was a hectic evening at the mall. WTB an electronics/computer store near my house. I did come across a paperback copy of Kushiel’s Mercy so I guess there’s a little blessing in everything. (I seriously hope mouse cannibalism is covered by the warranty though because it was a birthday present and I haven’t had it long.)

I get two days of freedom before my practical exam. And by two days of freedom, I mean two days of answering angry CAPSI council emails I’ve had on /ignore since the pre-finals sprint, two days of applying for summer hospital internships (hmm, what regions should I apply to? I’m thinking Edmonton, Toronto and Victoria… as in love I am with rural medicine, I want something crazy for once!), two days of writing thank you cards, two days of cleaning my room to get rid of mice…

Oh, and sometime in there I want to add something colourful to my blog sidebar. I like how I have the links now (except for that I need to work on my blogroll) but I’m so clueless with pictures. I know when I see something that I like and I’m getting better with Gimp, but I never know where to start. Any kind of suggestions are appreciated. Yes, any kinds. I’m open minded. Most of the time. And I moderate my comments.

EDIT: Corrected a lot of mistakes. Could tell that I wrote this while my brain was still fried from excessive cramming.

Coming up to the end of the year

This is actually flagged as a Shared Topic for December 21, but pretty much everyone is answering it already. I’ve been thinking about my answers to the questions a lot (because it’s way more interesting than cramming for finals) and I can’t wait 2 weeks.

What did you do in the World of Warcraft in 2009 that you’d never done before?

Oh my! 2009 was such a busy WoW year! At the beginning of the summer, I took the game to the next level and worked on my 10 man leading skills for a few months. Which is a funny story for another question. I also started a WoW blog! And, if anyone reading this has followed my adventures over the past month they’ll be very surprised to hear that, I switched guilds in early November, which, for me, IS A HUGE DEAL.

What was your favorite new place that you visited?

The beer garden in Dalaran. I mean it. My first reaction upon stumbling upon it was: OMG WHY DID NO ONE TELL ME THERES A BEER GARDEN IN DALARAN??? (Because, clearly, if I’m not aware of something, it’s someone else’s fault for not informing me.) Since that fateful moment, it’s been my logging out zone for most of my characters. I take all my gimmicky screenshots there. I go there when I’m waiting on something. If a /whois Rykga query shows me in Dalaran, I’m most likely hopping on tables in the beer garden.

Sure, Ulduar was lovely. Sure, the penguins near the Argent Tournement area make good buddies. But the beer garden is my quiet little corner of WoW and I almost always have it all to myself. Which is good because I hate sharing.

What would you like to have in 2010 that you lacked in 2009?

I don’t know! 2009 was such a good WoW year that it’ll be hard to beat. I kinda wish Dragons would be a playable race though. I want to be a Dragon!

What was your biggest achievement of the year?

Eh… I could be a bitch and say “Well, it would be Loremaster but I’m so obsessive when I level that finishing up those last 50 quests I missed really wasn’t a big deal, teehee.” Oh wait, I just said it. Oops.

Awkwardly, I have to say this blog was my biggest WoW achievement. I started blogging because writing stuff was my weakness. Not that I was a horrible writer, but I hated writing. As much as I love narrating stories to myself, words don’t come easily to me. In school, any class that included papers was doomed to be a nightmare. I can’t tell you how many papers have triggered epic sobbing fits. So I thought to myself, hey you like to talk about WoW, how about you practice writing about it?

Well, this semester I had a class with a paper to write: in 2000 words, criticize the accessibility and readability of a drug information patient handout of your choice. I’m proud to say that after barely an hour, I had a draft submitted to my shocked teammate. I had so many ideas and the words were flowing. The feedback we got on that paper was glowing. Even though it has very little to do with page layout and wording of Reactine information leaflets, I totally blame WoW blogging for my success in that course.

Another ah-ha moment was when I wrote my Insecure Nervewreck post. I was really worried about publishing it. Super personal posts are hard to pull off. Too much goofing around distracts from your message, but seriousness gives an impression of woe is me. Would people “get it”? I buried the post with a theory-oriented paladin post as fast I could to bring attention elsewhere. Oh, but they got it. The feedback I received was incredible, both from people who could relate as well as from people saying “I can’t relate but I understand”. I can’t think of anything more flattering.

What was your biggest failure?

Someone once told me that the difference between people who get far in life and those who don’t isn’t necessarily how many successes they’ve had, but how they view failure. I don’t know if that has anything to do with video games, but I don’t take chances. I’ve trained myself to erase the notion of “failure” from my mind, regardless of context. I wanna get far in life dammit!

I replaced “failure” with “things I can learn to do better”. Since I enjoy learning, I figured it was a more productive outlook. And the WoW thing I can definitely learn to do better is raid leading (SEE! this is the question that story was for). I had no problems with the logistical nightmare it was to organize two nights of 10 man raids in a guild of people with extremely limited schedules, but I’m way too nonchalant to have any authority once we’re inside an instance. “Um, kill stuff, don’t stand in crap or we’ll laugh at you. Um. Um. Pay attention to DBM.” I answered questions with “use your common sense”. Yeah. It was still fun, but thankfully I don’t think I’ll be needing to raid lead any time in the near future.

What did you get really, really, really excited about?

Um. Cheezy to say, but the guildie meetups I had this year were amazing. (As those I’ve had in past years have been as well.) I know I’m weird, but I love meeting people off the internet. I get crazy excited whenever I’m traveling near the hometown of an online friend. I think there were only two this year, one in San Francisco and one in Toronto, but both were exceptional. Yes, I know I’m supposed to get excited about game stuff, but what make the game so much fun are the people you play with. (Awwwww )

What do you wish you’d done less of?

I don’t know! I don’t think I overindulged on anything in game this year. I’m a very disciplined person, I am, I am.

What was your favorite WoW blog or podcast?

I don’t like “or”, I’m going to say “and”.

I read so many WoW blogs for so many different reasons. Since I discovered the WoW blogosphere, I’m continuously amazed by the quality of writing that is out there. I hate to play favorites (which you can tell by the outdated blogroll) and rarely give link love or participate in circle jerks because I feel bad for the 4953489723 other blogs that I adore.

I do have to say Snottydin has a dear place in my heart because I can, like, totally relate. I’m, like, totally a grl irl lol n i can, like totally solo heal wow lol w/ my like holy pala lol rofl. I believe Tamarind is the initial mastermind behind Snottydin, but it seems that every post is contributed by a different person. I hope to see much, much more of Snotty!

If I was to name a non-parady blog that gets me giddy whenever there’s updates, it would be Forbearance. And not just because they were one of the first blogs to send me traffic (I’ll admit I squealed like a little kid the first time I noticed incoming traffic from dpspaladin). Jong and Megan have given me writer envy since the very first day I discovered their respective blogs. Them working together is just OMG. They’re both brilliant in their own way and the chemistry they have when they share the scene is second to none. They have this clever knack for covering up wisdom with hilarity and I know I’m in for some thought provoking laughs whenever I notice they have a new post up. While they don’t really cover paladin information per say, they capture “the essence of paladinning” so well (in my opinion of course) that Forbearance should be required reading for any new paladin.

Podcast, Twisted Nether Blogcast, hands down. I don’t think I would have caught the blogging bug if not for TNB. I try to make it to the live shows, but they usually record in the middle of the friggin night, which makes it hard to be in the chatroom. While the large scale podcasts are great too (and I’m a podcast junkie, I listen to all the ones I can find), I love hearing the voices of people I read every day. I’m also way more interested in the people behind the blogs I read than the actual subject matter of said blogs (yeah, I’m creepy that way). To me, a good blog post is like a letter from a dear friend and listening to TNB is like listening to dear friends telling you a story.

Tell us a valuable WoW lesson you learned in 2009.

It’s not exactly a WoW lesson, but I learned it while playing WoW. When it’s time to leave, it’s time to leave. I’m sure I’m not the only one who’ll stick around somewhere they don’t belong because of the familiarity. Being stressed out, whiny and miserable feels like a small price to pay to avoid a change in scenery.

I’m not going to lie, it was hell for about a week. I don’t do well with goodbyes, with new people, with new situations. But I’m my own worst enemy. When the whirlwind died down, there was only relief. Had I known I would have felt this great afterwards, I wouldn’t have thought twice before jumping.

AND ON THAT NOTE

I’m not going to tag anyone by name because I’ve played enough favorites for tonight. If you read all my answers to all these questions, then clearly you are awesome and so I tag YOU!

I has a linky to share!

So after I complained about how attention makes me nervous, Matticus kindly gave me some link love, tripled my blog traffic and asked me if I’d like to write a guest post. You’ve gotta appreciate his sense of humour.

The result was posted today: http://www.worldofmatticus.com/2009/11/26/case-study-anub-10h-vs-holy-paladin/

Descriptive boss fights are a bit out of my genre and I was worried about how my weird writing style would be received, but, contrarily to what my nightmares predicted, the feedback I got was very kind. I want to point out that I made the picture at the top of the post all by myself, like a big girl. Graphic art and I are bitter enemies, so when I do produce something that doesn’t make my eyes bleed I have to shout it out to the world.

Now that I have all this extra traffic, I kind of feel bad for not having lots of witty posts lined up, ready to be published. I do have some things in the draft bin, but I’ve been so busy this week that I don’t have anything I’m satisfied with on hand. Finals are just around the corner and I’m thinking I should dust off those schoolbooks and start cramming. I do plan to join in on the shared topic again and I think there is a huge need for a talents discussion but it’ll have to wait until the weekend.

On a separate note, happy Thanksgiving to those of you who celebrate it in November! I thought of you all as I was dosing off in my early morning class today.

Introducing the Insecure Nervewreck

Friend: So, how are you liking your new guild.
Me: I love it! Exactly what I was looking for! I’m super shy though.
Friend: You? Shy?
Me: OMG yes, I can’t bring myself to talk in gchat or vent.
Friend: Meh, in a few weeks, they’ll be missing your quiet days.
Me: Yeah! I- ….Hey!

We all know the arrogant bastard. The big mouthed guy (or girl) who puts down others, genuinely thinks they’re better/smarter/more useful/prettier/better in the kitchen than they really are. The person that make Type B personalities politely smile and look away and that make Type A personalities blow a gasket. We come across them all the time in the offline world as well as in WoW. Bloggers of all types feed their readers with lovely tales of the arrogant bastard.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, is the insecure nervewreck. Due to the insecure nervewrecks’ quiet demeanor, he (or she) is not noticed as much. Subtle signs of mild insecure nervewreckness may include over apologizing, slow typing due to erasing and retyping multiple times and making really stupid, obvious mistakes. Still not sure what I mean? Lets have some examples!

New friend: Hi! How’re you doing?
Me: *starts typing then erases*
Me: *types than erases*
Me: *types than erases*
*5 minutes later*
Me: Doing good.

There’s a reason I don’t do twitter.

In a raid setting this slow communication can be problematic.

Raid leader: Who has an aura mastery available?
Me: *has an aura mastery available* ….
Raid leader: No one?
Me:….
Me:….
Me: *croaks* I do.

Of course by then it was far too late. Ok, note to self, call out available aura mastery earlier.

One week later

Raid leader: Who has an aura mastery avail-
Me: I DO!
Raid leader: Ok, use yours next.
Me: *hovers finger over button, oh boi oh boi oh boi*
Me: *accidentally hits aura mastery far too early*
Me: I give up.

Those classes in grade school where we sat in circles and talked about our problems came to mind. You know, the ones where the teacher would tell us how important it was to talk about our feelings. “Talking about the things that bother us makes us feel better”, she would say. So I thought about it.

Me: I wonder if I told people exactly how nervous I get, I would feel better.
Myself: No wai! They would think you’re crazy, you’re a drama whore and no one will want to be around you.
Me:
Me: …
Me: What if I blogged about it?
Myself: Blogging about it is fine.

Oh, but I still die a bit inside whenever I get a spike in traffic. I’m pleased that some people appreciate my lose screws but it’s like everyone staring at you while you’re naked. Maybe I’m half exhibitionist?

Also, this gem of a conversation I had today.

Guild Master: LF a holy pally blogger.
Me: Codi from Moarhps is really awesome.
*awkward silence*
Me: /facepalm self

It’s not a secret, I just hate advertising myself. I didn’t lie though. Codi does know her holy pallies.

EDIT: Added another scenario! Oh, and after two weeks or so, I’ve gotten way more comfortable. Now just seems like a better time to write about nervous screw ups.

Well hello healing non-meme traffic

So here I was in my quiet corner of the internet when my hit counter went nuts. “Uh oh, I must be overwelmed by spam bots or something” I panicked for a second. A little bit of research lead me to discover that Miss Medicina’s Healing Questionnaire got featured on Wow.com.

Geez, had I known that my answering the survey would cause the internet to show up at my doorstep, I would have tidied up a little bit!

I’ve been enjoying going around reading all responses. The diversity of answers is really beautiful. Out of all the roles in the game, I’ve found healing to be the one closest to an art, where there are basic rules, but different formulas work for different people and each healer has a unique style. There is one thing that I’d like to emphasize, though. I have seen some reactions I didn’t exactly approve of. We are bloggers. Blogging isn’t about writing black and white systematic reviews. It’s highly personal and opinionated, but it also provokes discussion. While some bloggers who partook in the survey are hardcore, farming heroic Anub’Arak healers, others heal exclusively in 5 mans and the rest are somewhere in between. As well, there were replies from seasonned bloggers alongside replies from very new bloggers. Anyway, my point is, or points are, we each come from a different healing and writing background and we are sharing our experience. If any of you read information that you disagree with or that is “false” or you read something that isn’t clear, then please please please do say something, but do it in the form of a comment on the post in question. Don’t secretly do it on your own blog, don’t do it on wow.com. We are bloggers, we welcome discussion.

Same goes with any post. I look at where my incoming traffic comes from, which posts they read and I think “oh boy!” If the information on a blog is inaccurate, debatable, offensive or has room for improvement, sparking a bit of discussion does everyone a favor.

Doing a little tidying!

Quiet little me decided to come out of the blogging closet and openly admit to writing a blog. Ever since then I’ve been feeling a little naked, but no worse for the wear! To my greatest relief, I’ve been treated very gently. Until now, I had been holding off commenting on other people’s blogs out of fear that they would find mine (shyness isn’t logical, okay?) and I’m really looking forward to being more vocal in the future. I added a couple of blogs to my blogroll, the more informative paladin ones as well as the ones that I find would interest anyone who happens to pass by my site (including those who are just looking for my giant spoon picture). Eventually I’ll have to make a links page, since I tend to have a blog and an article to link to for every occasion, but that will be a project for another day.

Based on kind feedback, I changed my theme to one that would let me personalize my heading a bit. My experience in graphics editing is limited to drawing clumsy circles in MS Paint, so after many, many hours of tampering, I managed to produce something I’m rather proud of. Sure, it screams amateur, but at least I managed to do it.

I’ve been having so much fun with this whole customization thing that I’m even considering private hosting so that I can mess around some more with the layout… Originally, I started blogging to get some writing exercise as my every day writing consists of summarizing textbooks. But between then and now, I’ve learned to flex more than one side of my creativity. Which is great because I’m all about learning.

And now back to our regular programming!

[EDIT] Ok, maybe the dress in the header wasn’t the best option for a chilly day (it’s either the spring dress or the summer one, I can’t remember) but lets face it, 1) none of my gear covers my belly any better 2) my gear changes all the time, I keep festive clothes forever 3) the colour is pretty