New Year's Resolutions

It's New Year's Eve and I find myself thinking about my WoW goals for the upcoming year. Even though it's dangerous for me to post my intentions...you know, that rebelliousness thing of 'I'm not gonna do what I'm supposed to do'...I'm gonna post them anyway.


Gear Goals

1. Finish enchanting my new Bear gear items.
2. Get enchants on new gear within a couple of days of acquiring it. (I'm really bad at this.)
3. Finish upgrading my Kitty gear.
4. Assess my healing gear and begin upgrading those items. (Resto bloggers, please post a list of good healing gear from badges, heroics, and Kara for me!) :)

UI and Interface Goals

1. Clean up my UI.
2. Better organize my Bongo Bars.
3. Get the shift key on my Saitek game controller thing to work.
4. Get rid of add-ons that I'm not currently using.
5. Actually make and use macros.

Organization Goals

1. Clean out my bank.
2. No, I mean, really clean out my bank.
3. Get bigger packs.

Pet Goals

1. Get a Disgusting Oozeling.
2. Get a Hyacinth Macaw.
3. Get Peanut.
4. Get Peddlefeet.
5. Get a Rocket Chicken.

Content Goals

1. Finish all the instances in Heroic mode.
2. Finish Zul'aman.
3. Finish Tempest Keep.
4. Finish SSC.
5. Finish The Eye.
6. Finish all the end game raiding content before the expansion.
7. Finish my Netherstorm quests.

Blogging Goals

1. Make and remember to use labels for posts.
2. Put labels into old posts.
3. Update my blog role once a month.
4. Have at least two informative posts per week.
5. Get the item pop-up thing to work.
6. Get the 'Featured Posts' thing to work.

There ya have it! My goals for next year. I'm feeling overwhelmed already! ;p

Busy Time of Year

I just thought I'd let you know that we're approaching my busy time of year. I do accounting and all my clients are on a fiscal calendar year. So, January will be spent closing the books for all my clients as well as getting out 1099's, 1096's, Sales Tax reports, etc.

Bleh.

I will try to post as much as I can, but it most likely will not be very consistent or with lots of uber analysis...or even un-uber analysis, etc. I will probably just post 'story' type posts about what I'm up to as those are usually quick and easy to churn out and save the more informative and, therefore, more time consuming, stuff for February when things slow down.

I'd also like to thank you all for reading and commenting on my blog. I've really enjoyed blogging and look forward to being able to avidly blog again in a month or so. Please be patient and don't give up on me!

Christmas Pictures!

I had a good Christmas! I got lots of pets and toys, including the awsome dragon kite! So, I'm going to try to post pictures for you all to see.

I'll first post pictures of the pets Pk and Hags gave me which I told you about a few weeks ago.

Here is me with my Snowman that Hags gave me.

Here is the Firefly Pk gave me along with the Yeti that Great Father Winter gave me. Also, Zen gave me a Yeti he made with his own two virtual hands!

Than Balrokk gave me an Azure Whelpling that he farmed for all by himself!

And then of course, the Rock 'em Sock 'em Robot from under the tree!

Then my wonderful hubby gave me the Paper Airplane Manual card from The Trading Card Game loot cards. Here are a couple of pictures of me throwing my airplane around. You can see it in the upper left corner.

And now, for my favorite gift of all and from my favorite hubby! The Dragon Kite which came from a loot card as well. This picture is the green kite.

Each time you bring it out, it has an equal chance to be green, blue, or red. Here is the blue version.

And now for the red version of the dragon kite.

The kite also gets struck by electricity...which travels down the string and electifies me...every now and then, but unfortunately, it shorted out my camera when I tried to take the picture of that. ;p

Merry Christmas!!!

I'd like to wish you all a Merry Christmas or a Happy Holiday(s) of choice! Whatever you celebrate I hope you all enjoy the spirit of it as well as the joy from giving rather than just receiving. :)

I had fun this year giving out a plethora of pets to my guildies. I think I bought, wrapped, and mailed close to 200 various kittens, cats, moths, owls, parrots, bunnies, prairie dogs, and dragonhawks to my guildmates. I suppose it may seem a bit crazy to some, but it had to be done. :D

If you're on Detheroc server and want a pet, send me an in game mail and I'll be sure to get you one!

Merry Christmas!!!

The Lurker Below Swims with the Fishies

After killing Hydross Tuesday night, we went in Wednesday night to see how we would do against The Lurker Below. It took quite a few tries, but we did finally down him!

Mainly, we had to experiment with a strat that worked for us and with our group composition. It seems that no matter how many strats we read and try, we always end up finding a different way of doing things that works for us.

Now, since my last post about Hydross a couple of my guildies (Warriors, actually...you know how big their egos are. ;p ) have posted on our forums about how they are waiting anxiously for my post about Lurker and what I'm going to say about them. Sadly, the pressure of their expectations along with a 'Christmas To-DO' list as long as Santa's has stifled my creativity in writing amusing boss kill stories.

In fact, I wrote those first two paragraphs Thursday and have sat down a few times to 'finish' it, however it just hasn't happened. So, I'll post what they said and you all can fill in the blanks...

Maulmorr said:

Uh oh...I can't wait to read up on your post about our Lurker attempts "and Maulmorr, unprepared for the onslaught of Lurker questions, decided to experiment..."

Baklor said:

i got yer post covered Nae Baklor stood before the foul beast, sword in hand, and in an act of awesomness tore the soul out of Lurkers slimy scaled covered chest. In the background you could hear the quiet whimper of Gankszor saying " i never got a chance to stab him"

Nae = Mooire and Gankszor = hubby

Nae is my gaming name that has stuck with me since Asheron's Call.

My response to Baklor:

I like to be, at least, somewhat factual in my blog.

Maulmorr's response:

But that is factual! Protection warriors never lie!

Lung replied:

Maul is correct, we don't have the Intellect to lie.

Well, there you have it! You now may fill in the blanks however you wish. :P

Hydross Again!

Tuesday evening, we went in for another go at Hydross. We didn't down him as quickly as we did on Sunday, but getting him on the 8th attempt is still respectable.

One of our hiccups was the adds. This time, instead of having 5 tanks, we had 4. Since one of us is tanking the boss, that left 3 of us to pick up 4 adds. Shouldn't be a prob, right? Well, if you have me giving out directions, it is!

So, we're standing there looking at Hydross. We decide that I'll pick up two of the adds. Darma, our other Feral Druid, will pick up one and the Warrior who isn't tanking his Water or Poison form will get the 4th. I quickly announce that I'll take the two East adds. Darma says he'll take the SW add. And Maulmorr says that he and Baklor will take the NW add depending on who is not tanking at the time.

Awesome! We all know our job and we jump in and start the event!

It's time for the first transition where the tank drags Hydross in or out of the transition area to switch him from water to poison form or visa versa. When he switches forms, he spawns 4 adds. In anticipation of this, I move over to my East side so I'm right there where my two new best buddies will appear. I snag one and move over to get the other and...Darma has my add!! He has good threat, so I go pick up the one wandering through the ranged group. We down the adds with a bit of confusion and carry on with DPSing Hydross.

Then it's time for the second transition. I make sure I'm on my East side so I can quickly get my adds. They pop up and I jump on one and Darma is on it too!!! That's supposed to be my add!!!! Well, ok, I let him have it...again...and run off to get my other East add and the one making new friends with our Warlocks and drag them back to Hydross so they can see what fun Seeds of Corruption is.

Third transition, again, I'm on my East side, ready and waiting for my adds. They pop up and I grab one, then go to the other and Darma has him!!! That's MY add!!! Mine, mine, MINE!!!!

Mooire whines to her hubby, "Why is Darma always on my add?"

Hubby replies, "I don't know. I just stab stuff."

Hubby stabs stuff.

This continues for a while...both Darma being on my add and my whining to my hubby.

After we wipe and people point out that the adds not being contained quickly enough is a problem, we then go over our assigned adds. After much debate, pointing, verbal direction spouting, left and right and front and back usage it is determined that North is not the direction that Mooire faces.

O.O

It's not?

But, that little pointy thing on the map was pointing towards Hydross which is the direction I was facing, so shouldn't that be North?

Apparently not.

North is...

/points in some random direction that probably still isn't North.

that way!

So, after tossing verbal commands such as North, South, East, and West, we decide to use left, right, front, and back. Which is still risky as I'm left handed and tend to get those confused too.

/sigh

After double checking with my husband that what I think is right is indeed right and not left, we go in for another go. Things go more smoothly with the adds and we eventually down him.

Poor Darma. All that time he was on the add he was assigned and I was the one confused! I just hope he was laughing at me and not cussing me. ;p

/hugs Darma

BBB's 'Judge my Cat Gear Challenge' and Pre-25 man Kitty Gear Choices

BBB has challenged us to post our cat gear and submit our selves to heckling...ummmm...I mean assessment. I'm sure he's hoping for some awesomely tricked out suits all properly assessorized and such. However, as I tank mostly, my poor little kitty outfit is horribly out of date.

Thankfully, as I'm almost done with my badge upgrades on my Bear suit, I'll be focusing on my Cat gear soon. In preperation, I have already looked through pre-25 man raid goodies and picked out items to focus on getting. As I post my current gear, I'll also post my 'to get' items.

Head

Current item - Cowl of Defiance from Netherspite in Kara.
'To Get' item - Grimgrin Faceguard from the last boss in Zul' Aman but, if I get the points for the Vengeful Gladiator's Dragonhide Helm before the Grimgrin Faceguard drops, I will get it...but, must get the Merciless Gladiator's Maul first! (see notes under weapon below)

Neck

Current item - Mithril Chain of Heroism from the Chess event in Kara.
'To Get' item - No better pre-25 man raid item other than Haramod's Bargain from Consortium rep (exalted) and I prefer the Mithril Chain of Heroism as it has stamina.

Shoulders

Current item - Mantle of Malorne from High King Maulgar in Gruul's Lair.
'To Get' item - I'll be keeping the shoulders and hands of the Malorne set for the 2-set bonus. I'll discuss my reasoning for these two items after I'm done with my gear list. But, if I were to switch this item out, I would pick the Shoulderpads of Dancing Blades from the Lynx boss in Zul' Aman.

Back

Current item - Drape of the Dark Reavers from the Shade of Aran in Kara.
'To Get' item - No better pre-25 man raid item available.

Chest

Current item - Vengeful Gladiator's Dragonhide Tunic, Arena season 3.
'To Get' item - None. But, if you don't do Arenas, I recommend Vestments of Hibernation for 75 Badges of Justice.

Wrists

Current item - Bracers of Maliciousness from The Maiden of Virtue in Kara.
'To Get' item - Master Assassin Wristwraps for 35 Badges of Justice.

Hands

Current item - Guantlets of Malorne from the Curator in Kara.
'To Get' item - I'll be keeping the shoulders and hands of the Malorne set for the 2-set bonus. I'll discuss my reasoning for these two items after I'm done with my gear list. But, if I were to switch this item out, I would pick Trickster's Stickyfingers for 60 Badges of Justice.

Waist

Current item - Socrethar's Girdle (quest item)...I don't know why I still have this on when I have a Girdle of Treachery from the Chess even in Kara. I'll have to fix that today!
'To Get' item - Waistguard of the Great Beast for 60 Badges of Justice (I have one for my Bear suit, I'll have to check and see if it's better than the Girdle of Treachery with Bear gems...otherwise, I'll get another and gem that one for kitty.)

Legs

Current item - Clefthoof Hide Leggings from a quest.
'To Get' item - Shallow-grave Trousers for 75 Badges of Justice.

Feet

Current item - Edgewalker Longboots from Moroes in Kara.
'To Get' item - The Footwraps of Wild Enchroachment are a minor upgrade, but I'm not sure it's worth another 60 badges as it's very minor. I have them for my Bear set, but I believe the bear gems keep them from being better than the Edgewalker Longboots.

Ring 1

Current item - A'dal's Command
'To Get' item - Ring of the Overseer from Shartuul in Blades Edge.

Ring 2

Current item - Garona's Signet Ring
'To Get' item - Garona's and the Ring of the Overseer are the two best pre-25 man rings available.

Trinket 1

Current item - Hourglass of the Unraveller
'To Get' item - Bloodlust Brooch, 41 Badges of Justice

Trinket 2

Current item - Alchemist Stone (Why am I wearing this? LOLWUT?)
'To Get' item - Skyguard Silver Cross for exalted with the Sha'tari Skyguard.

Weapon

Current item - Terestian's Stranglestaff
'To Get' item - Merciless Gladiator's Maul season 2 Areana weapon.

Idol

Current item - Everbloom Idol for raids for the bargain price of 15 Badges of Justice and Idol of the Wild from a quest reward for everything else.
'To Get' item - I think those are the best, but I'd have to do some research.

Malorne 2-Piece Set Bonus

The Malorne 2-Piece set bonus is just too good to give up:

Your melee attacks in Bear form and Dire Bear form have a chance to generate 10 additional rage. Your melee attacks in Cat form have a chance to generate 20 additional energy.

Using Emmerald's 2.3 gear lists draft beta 2, the best Malorne items to keep are the Shoulders and Hands. This was determined by assessing the delta between the Malorne items and the best pre-25 man upgrade item available.

Item	Head	Shoulders	Chest	Hands	Legs
Upgrade Item*	240.04	156.84	240.80	157.54	219.55
Malorne Piece	198.17	148.28	189.92	119.52	157.99
Delta	41.87	8.56	50.88	38.02	61.56

*Upgrade item used is the one referenced in my list above.

As you can see, based on the Sustained DPS points that Emmerald's calculations assign, the shoulders and hands are the items closest to the upgrade items I have listed above. The head item isn't too far behind, so keeping this piece for kitty rather than the hands wouldn't make too much of a DPS difference. However, keeping the chest or legs is not viable as there are other items which will significantly boost your DPS in raids.

Hydross Down!

Last night was our first plunge into Serpent Shrine Cavern! All in all, it went well. It was not a planned raid though...every time we planned it we would not have enough people sign up or show. So, we decided that before our regular Gruul's run, we'd try Hydross and not tell anyone until we had the raid full. Sneaky, huh?

Well, it worked! We had our usual 28+ people wanting in for Gruuls...odd how they show up for runs that are on farm, but to go in and learn something new....nope! Where is their sense of adventure? Where is their sense of accomplishment? Yeah, yeah, yeah, repair bills. Pfffft. Go do a few dailies and you're all better. Ooops, sorry, had to rant a wee bit.

So, we go into SSC and clear the trash up to Hydross. We briefly go over strat and jump in to see how it goes and on our 5th attempt, we finally downed him. Honestly, to me it seemed like a fairly easy fight...granted, all I did was tank adds and then DPS Hydross once he was down, but, overall, it was fairly straight forward and easy.

I don't recall what he dropped. I was just happy that we'd finally gotten over our 25-man hump!

If you wanna see a pic, it's on our forum home page here. I'm the female cow in the middle!

Beware teh Hackrz

A few weeks ago, one of our healers had his account hacked. Thankfully, after about a week, Blizzard restored his character, items, enchants...everything except his non-combat pets...which I restored.

Last night, I checked our forums and one of our Shadow Priests reported that his account had been hacked. :'( He has contacted Blizzard and is awaiting his outcome. Hopefully it will be as good as our Healer's.

Then, when checking the boards this morning, another or our members reported that he just tried to log on and his password has been changed. O.O He's currently waiting for 'password retrival' and hopefully he caught things in time.

Along with his post one of our mage's posted that he had been hacked recently as well, but all they got was his Shaman which he didn't like or play anymore anyway.

So...4 people...in our guild...in less than a month. That's damn scarey.

A couple of people offered some tips, one of which was the guy who's Shaman was hacked:

I got hacked recently too. thank god it was just my shaman though. If it was my mage I'd have a heart attack. One thing you should do is download AVG 7.5 (free anti-virus), which was recommended by someone on the blizzard forums in regards to hacker trojans. The second I installed it, before I could even run a scan, it found the trojan instantly and got rid of it for me. I'm not sure if its the same one going around or not but the name of the trojan i got was called "PSW.OnlineGames.TYK" in my system32 folder.

Another of our members, who surfs the WoW official forums, was asked if he's seen anything reguard excessive hacking of late, here is his response:

sorta, i browse at work from time to time (they have paranoid anti-viral so i dont have issues). There are several sites people link to that take them to sites that mimic others, like ph0tobucket.cn and similar. The " .cn " doesnt always stick out, but avoid those sites. The anti-virus thing is a good idea to get as some items can be brought in through popups on image sites (like the .cn thing i mentioned).

Basically, anti-virus is always good, im using AVG atm. And check every single link you use as if you are sleeping with it.... if you dont know where its been, dont touch it.

All this makes me thankful that all I do on my gaming machine is game. When I surf, I use my older machine...actually, I use a very old laptop which terminal serves onto my old gaming machine. LOL I had told my husband that I wanted a new, but cheap, monitor so I could move my old machine downstairs which is where I surf, blog, research, do my accounting work, etc. and not have to terminal serve anymore...along with this idea, I had thought..."Oh, I could do basic farming, etc. on my day off without being secluded upstairs in our computer room." I don't think I'll do that now...

If any of you know anymore about what anti-viruses work or don't work or files to looke for, etc. Please comment!!!

Collector's Edition Pets are Obtainable Again!

For those of you who didn't get the original Collector's Edition of WoW or the Burning Crusade Collector's Edition, you will now be able to get these once again and all for the cost of $4500!!!

Oh, you'd also get an awesome Dell Laptop too. As well as a bunch of extras...one of which is a Golden Ticket FigurePrints and much, much more.

So, for those of you that have a new lap top, a figurine, and wish you'd gotten the original Collector's Edition for the cute little narcaleptic Panda...you can now do all that at one place!

Kudos to Warcraft Pets which is where I learned this from!

One Tanking Kara (the Front Half)

Last night, one of my favorite healers wanted to run Kara for badges, so I told him I'd help. Our guild had already run a couple of Kara's this week, so the group ended up being a hodge-podge of those that hadn't yet run it and alts. Our composition was:

1 Feral Druid
1 Resto Shaman
1 Rogue
2 Elemental Shamans
2 Hunters
1 Mage
1 Holy Priest
1 Shadow Priest

Interesting make up...1 tank, 2 healers, and an odd mixture of DPS. But, we made it from the beginning to Curator (skipping Nightbane) in under 2 hours with no wipes...so not too bad.

Since I was the only tank available, I had to 1 tank everything...except for 2 times when one of our Elemental Shamans brought in his Fury Warrior to off tank. So, this post is going to focus on tips for 1 tanking with the assumption that you already know how to run Kara with 2 tanks as well as general tanking and threat generating skills.

1 Tanking Attumen the Huntsman

One tanking Attumen really isn't any more trouble than double tanking him. You start off tanking his horse, Midnight, and once Attumen spawns, you pick him up. It's best if you set up a target macro as follows:

/tar attumen

Once you get aggro established with Midnight with a Mangle and 3 Lacerates, cease to use Mangle (you don't want it to be on cooldown when Attumen pops up) while continuing to Lacerate and Maul to keep threat. Attumen spawns when Midnight is at 95%, so once you get him to 97%, start spamming your target macro as you Lacerate and Maul Midnight. As soon Attumen spawn, hit your Mangle to get his attention then follow it up with 3 Lacerates. After that, switch back to Midnight and burn him down while using Swipe liberally to keep Attumen glued to you. Once Midnight is at 25%, he and Attumen will merge. At this point, you will need to re-establish aggro and tank and spank as usual.

1 Tanking Moroes

For Moroes, one of our Elemental Shamans logged and brought in his Fury Warrior to help off-tank. But, and no offense to him as a player, he just couldn't hold aggro, so the fight was closer to 1 tanking than 2 tanking.

Honestly, 1 tanking and 2 tanking Moroes is basically the same, except if the 2nd highest threat is a ranged DPS or Healer, you will need to Charge and drag him back to the 'tank spot' as soon as your Blind or Gouge wears off. Other than that, it's normal Moroes tankage.

1 Tanking Maiden of Virtue

Well, since the Maiden is always a 1 tank job there is nothing different here...move along people.

1 Tanking the Opera Event: Wizard of Oz

When we got to the Opera Event we discussed the various ones we hoped we'd get and hoped we wouldn't get...Big Bad Wolf is what we wanted, Romulo & Jullianne was our second choice, and the Wizard of Oz is what we did not want...guess what we got...

If you find yourself faced with the Wizard of Oz event and only 1 tank, just know that it is doable. In fact, we did it on the first try. Typically, I, as OT, would tank Rawr and pick up and hold Tito and our MT would tank the Tin Man. However, last night, I had to manage all three.

I first picked up Rawr and tanked him as I normally do. Once the Tin Man was up, our two Shamans Frostshock kited him around until Rawr was dead. After Rawr died, I picked up the Tin Man and Tito. Our Mage tanked the Stawman as usual. Once the Stawman and then Tin Man were dead, I dragged little Tito over to Dorothee and we began working on her. When we got Dorothee to about 40%, I noticed Tito was almost dead! And, before we had a chance to tell the raid to not DPS him he was lying on the floor, lifeless. Ooops. Oh well, we burned down Dorothee before we encurred her wrath...and who wouldn't be pissed off if their dog was killed before their very eyes? Then the Crone spawned and it was the typical tank and spank on her.

1 Tanking Curator

Curator was pretty easy as well. Basically, we picked the person with the 2nd highest hit points to be the 'off-tank' of sorts to take the Hateful Bolts. That person was one of our Hunters who had about 13k hit points. I think anyone with 12k or more hit points who can generate a resonable amount of threat can off tank Curator. The key here is that the other DPS need to watch their threat and stay below him. Now, since DPS should be focusing on the sparks and only DPSing the Curator after they are down, it shouldn't be too much of a challenge.

As far as the MTs role here...normal tank and spank as you'd typically do.

1 Tanking Trash

Most of the trash was not an issue. We had 2 priests for shakles on the trash before Attumen reducing the number I would need to tank. We had a Mage for AoE pulls, so I did the 'initial' pull on those with a Moonfire, followed by Barkskin and Hurricane so I'd take most of the damage. Any pulls with 2 elites such as; the 4-5 group pulls right before Attumen, the Philanthopist pulls, etc., I would Starfire and Moonfire target X (our 2nd target on the kill list), then Moonfire Skull (the 1st target on the kill list), switch to bear and proceed with Mangle, Lacerates and the liberal use of Swipe. If I was tanking 3 mobs, I'd Starfire and Moonfire the 3rd on the kill list, Moonfire the 2nd, switch to Bear form and proceed as above.

The only problem on trash were the Skeletal Ushers before the Philanthopist hallway. These mobs ice block the tank and typically an off tank is needed to take over when this happens. This is the other area where our Elemental Shaman logged on his Fury Warrior to off tank. However, we still had the problem with him not being able to maintain aggro, although letting him make the pull did help a little bit.

Conclusion

One tanking Kara is doable even with a Feral Druid. It makes it a bit more challenging and lets us use our full arsenal of tricks...which always makes things more fun. However, one tanking is not for those new to Kara. If you're still gearing up from Kara, Heroics, and Badges of Justice, then don't try this at home. ;p It's also is a must to have good healers as well. Honestly, I'd like the chance to one tank the later half as well just to see how much of a challenge it is and see if I can tank Nightbane and Prince which are the only bosses I have yet to tank myself.

Pet Karma

So...this weekend two of my guildies gave me pets!

Hags, who has been a member of Rogue Angels for forever and played Asheron's Call with us, gave me a Snowman Kit after finding one of an alt and asking if I had it yet. He's been working on Alchemist Rep and, knowing that I'm an Alchemist and love pets, knew that this was a surefire way to earn it!

Hags is now revered with Mooire.

Then, last night when I logged on and checked my mail, I saw that Pk (she's been with us since DAoC) had sent me an early Christmas prezzie wrapped with a festive red bow! Not being the kind of girl to wait to open prezzies unless physically forced, I opened it immediately and out flew a Captured Firefly!

Pk is now exalted with Mooire.

The Firefly is one of the few pets that I have actually farmed for...with no luck, of course. Now, I'm sure that my long time readers who have taken the time to read all my goofy pet blogs are stunned by this admission...but, then again, if you also consider that I'm a bit ADD sometimes, it makes perfect sense. I seem to only be able to farm stuff for about 30 minutes before I feel the need to poke my eyes out and scream. So, when it comes to pets that are dropped off of mobs, well, other than the Firefly Pk gave me last night, I have none.

Now, I'm sure that some of you are wondering why Hags is only revered whereas Pk made exalted...well, when Hags gave me the Snowman Kit, my guildies joked that he was now exalted with me and he pointed out that he was only revered as he'd have to get me a Firefly to become exalted. How can you argue with that?

For those that would like to earn Mooire rep, pets I currently do not have and want are listed below:

Azure Welpling
Disgusting Oozeling
Dragon Kite
Hyacinth Macaw
Rocket Chicken

So, it seems that my Karma from all the Alliance pets I've given to my guildies has come back. Even though I haven't been able to give pets as gifts in a long time as my step-son deleted my pet mill characters a few months ago. /cry. I'd been planning on making a silly post about it, but now that I've mentioned it, I guess it would be silly to do it now. It was going to be jokingly styled as a news article about a pet mill bust....oh, well.

I had set the Pet Mill up on his account as he had not played in....oh....about a year. But, he decided to start playing again and when he logged on he saw all these goofy named characters and deleted them so he could transfer a Horde character to our sever (PvP server). /sigh. And I had 6 white kittens that I hadn't yet transfered to the Horde side too. But, while I was working hard with the girls making cookies yesterday, my husband got me another account specifically for another pet mill. :)

Hubby is now revered with Mooire.

He's probably wondering why he isn't exalted as he reads that...but, well, he would have needed to set the pet mill up to get that. ;p But, revered does earn him cookies. ;)

Cookie Fest 2007

Ok, so, we had the beginning of the month where my work tends to take up my blogging time then, once that was done, I realized that Cookie Fest 2007 was this weekend! So, instead of getting back to blogging, I had to clean the house and put up Christmas decorations.

Cookie Fest is a baking extravaganza that my husband's step-mom's family does each year. I guess that makes it my step-mother in-law's family. Anyway, all the girls (there were 6 of us) each pick a cookie recipe and then we all get together and help each other bake them. Once we're done, we divide them up between us and we all have a variety of cookies for the Holidays.

Cookie Fest (that is my name for the event...I don't think any of them has named it, but I felt it needed a name and I like Cookie Fest) began 6 years ago when Liesel, my step-grandmother in-law told her 2 daughters and 1 daughter in-law that they needed to learn how to make her family famous pecan cookies. This first cookie fest was held at her home. The next year, it was held at her daughter's home (my step-mother in-law) and I was invited to that one. After, that year, they decided that since my kitchen was the biggest, we should do it at my house. So, with the exception of one year (we had a flood) we've been holding it here ever since.

It's really a fun day as they are all really cool. I really like my step-mother in-laws side of the family and the women on that side are not like 'typical women' with all the gossip, manipulations, and competition crap. They're just good people who have fun and don't freak out over stuff....my kinda people.

So...back to the cookies! The cookie I picked this year was...

Pumpkin White Chocolate Drop Cookies

2 cups butter, softened
2 cups granulated sugar
1 can (16 oz) solid pack pumpkin
2 eggs
4 cups all purpose flour
2 tbs pumpkin pie spice
1 tp baking powder
1/2 tp baking soda
1 bag (12 oz) white chocolate chips
1 container (16 oz) ready to spread cream cheese frosting
1/4 cup brown sugar

1. Beat butter and sugar in a large bowl until light and fluffy. Add pumpkin and eggs; beat until smooth. Add flour, pumpkin pie spice, baking powder and baking soda; beat just until well blended. Stir in baking chips.

2. ** Optional ** Drop dough by teaspoonfuls onto wax paper-lined baking sheets. Freeze about 1.5 hours or until firm. Transfer to resealable plastic storage bags and freeze for up to 2 months.

3. Preheat oven to 375 F. Place cookies about 2 inches apart onto ungreased baking sheets. Bake 12-14 minutes or until set and bottoms are brown (16 if frozen). Cool 1 minute on baking sheet. Remove to wire rack to cool. 4. Combine frosting and brown sugar in a small bowl. Spread on barely warm cookies.

Makes about 6 dozen.

If you decide to make these cookies, I recommend using 2 containers of the frosting (be sure to double the brown sugar too!) as 1 didn't seem to be enough...but, then again, I like more than a little smear of frosting on them.

Other cookies made this weekend were (I don't have the recipes for these, just the names):

Liesel's Pecan Cookies
Macaroons
Toffee Sugar Cookies
Snickerdoodles
Chocolate Haystacks (some nasty Weight Watchers recipe one of them was raving about, ick)
Oatmeal Cookies (another Weight Watchers recipe but at least it didn't taste like cardboard coated in chocolate)

I'm It!

BBB tagged me...I could swear I was touching base...

5 things I've learned from gaming:

1. Pets make everything better - The non-combat variety win raids and build morale and, when given as gifts, help to brighten someone's day. The real life variety work well in every situation.

2. Helping others can be more rewarding than... - Canceling what you 'want to do' and doing something for someone else is oftentimes more fun and rewarding than what you had planned. Works in real life too.

3. You can really learn about someone in game - You can learn more about people by playing games with them than you can in hours of conversation.

4. Loyalty to your Guild pays off - I've been in Rogue Angels for almost 10 years and have made a lot of really good friends during that time. They're not just a Guild, they're my on-line extended family.

5. Saying 'No' and setting boundaries is OK - Sometimes you have to say 'No' when someone asks for help or you'll never log out and tend to family and real life concerns. Also, it's OK to set boundaries...such as, I don't do PUGs. Same thing applies to real life as well. If you can't say no and set healthy boundaries, people will take advantage of you.

/runs around frantically looking for people to tag...

/hi

Mooire greats you with a hearty hello.

I just wanted to let you all know I'm still here. It's just the dreaded beginning of the month and work has me otherwise occupied. That's the hazzards of being in the accounting profession, I suppose...if you can call accounting hazzardous. ;p Anyway, things should get back to normal in another day or two and I'll once again be able to post for your amusement. ;p Well, at least I hope you find some of what I write amusing.

Also, I'll respond to the various comments I've received then too. I have read them. I just haven't had time to ponder them and respond. So, for all you procrastinators out there...you still have time to comment! Do eet!! Now! Gogogogogogo!!! ;p