Arthas shows his feminine side. (Image by ValsWife at DeviantArt.com)

Last night as we were kicking Sindragosa’s ass, the 88% of my raid that is male started discussing in vent why it was obvious Sindragosa is “a woman.”  Ahem.  Reasons that they gave amidst their guffawing and chortling were along the lines of her emo outbursts, her Frost Breath ability (they also made up names for her abilities like “Bone Freeze.”   /snort), the fact that she sucks you in and spits you out… I’m sure you get the idea.  Their glee was beyond their power to contain, bless their little, pointed, Y-Chromosome sporting heads.  I suppose they may have had a point or two in there.  However, turnabout is fair play, little men. 

I now present the 25 10 sure signs that Arthas is a man…

10) Super cool Skullz fashion accessories.

9) Whenever he tries to fix something, it ends up inestimably worse.

8 ) Although Sindragosa is ready to sucker punch you the second she shows up on the scene (Hell hath no fury and all that), Arthas has to have a little cock fight with Fordring first. I’m shocked he doesn’t ask if anyone brought a ruler.

7) If NPCs could install an EPEEN meter, Arthas would be first in line.

6) Whereas the furies that hang out with Arthas are efficient and precise, simply picking you up and dropping you off a cliff, Arthas has to play with every toy he has to try and kill you.

5) He has a consuming obsession with being served.

4) His room in the castle is overrun with plague, vermin, and infestation.

3) He spends the entire expansion telling you he’s going to kick your ass and enslave you, while sending every possible minion and employing every possible stalling  tactic he can before getting off his lazy ass and actually fighting you.  (Odds are 1,038,909,831,043:1 that this is exactly how he handles Jaina telling him to take out the trash).

2) Daddy issues.  Big ones.

1) His power is all focused on Frostmourne, his big, shiny, magnificently erect…er… sword.  Frow WOWWiki: 
“Its hilt is never far from his hands; its ghostly whispers constantly ring in his ears.”
Uh huh.

And there you have it.  Don’t let the long, flowing locks of hair fool you.  Arthas is 100% man.  More’s the pity.  =P

I watched the Blizzard Developer chat unfold on Twitter last night and thought there was some pretty good news for us trees coming up in Cataclysm.  Tranquility, for example, will be raid wide, last as long, but gain additional tics from haste.  Hoorah!  The New and Improved Tree of Life On a Cooldown TM (Batteries not included.) will “morph” existing spells making them behave differently, with some possible examples given such as Regrowth being instant cast and Lifebloom applying a 2 stack upon cast.  All of our spells are getting the once over to make sure they have defined niches.  But the one thing that really caught my attention and imagination was this: 

 Tree of Life is getting a whole new model (think Ancients of War)

Now, I’m sure it won’t go down this way, but the first thing I thought of was how HUGE those Ancients are out in Zangarmarsh, and how FUNNY it would be if we got not only something like that shape, but something like that SIZE for shifting into TOL.  Think of the advantages… we wouldn’t have to take any crap for standing in fire because we wouldn’t be able to help it.  We’d get all the best loot because we could threaten to shift into TOL and squash the entire raid if we didn’t get our way.  We’d do MASSIVE boss damage when we shifted and our butt pinned the boss to the far wall like a bug.  Awesome.  Awesome sauce.

Sometimes it doesn’t matter how much you know, how much experience you have, how skilled or talented or team oriented or fan-freakin-tastic.  There are times when you just do something so goofy that no one can save you from yourself.  /sigh.  So let me tell you about my day.

Today in WOW was a day much like any other for me.  I had hopped on to do a couple dailies during a break from some other things that needed done around my house, etc.  I was working through the Argent Tournament dailies when I got a whisper from a guildie. 

“Hey there!  What’s shakin’?” says I.

“Has anyone talked to you about Wild Growth?” he asked.

Alarm Bells.

“Nope.”

“Do you use a macro to cast Wild Growth?”

More alarm bells

“Nope.”

Here comes the embarrassing part… brace yourselves for me.  It isn’t pretty.

He says to me, “Well, I think you are using Rank 2 instead of 4.  Could you check?”

I, in a fit of brilliant eloquence replied, “lol shut up.”

“Not kidding,” says my guildmate.

“That’s just embarrassing,” was my next response, “hold on, gotta respec.  I only have two ranks.  Period.  /facepalm.  I don’t know how or why.”

“Uh,” says the poor guildie charged with approaching the idiot tree with her lolfail, “that’s easy to fix.”

“What an ass I am,” I replied.

/sigh.

I can tell you with perfect certainty that I HAD trained all levels of Wild Growth at one point.  I still do not know how or when I lost two of them.  I don’t know if it happened during one of the patches when we had our talent trees wiped over and over again, or whether (dear God I hope not) I’ve been casting this spell at half level since the last time I specc’ed boomkin and went back to resto before dual specs became available, but it could be that I’ve been doing this for a very, very long time and had no idea.

/long, protracted, wilting, defeated sigh.

I sure wish I would have noticed.  Then I could have a) spared myself the embarrassment of having my guildies know and discuss my stupidity (they’re totally sweet and supportive, but GAWD how embarrassing!), and b) not been gimping my raid for… who knows how long?  That’s the worst part.  We’ve been knocking our heads against the same encounter for a couple weeks looking for any edge and here am I… doo de doo de doo strolling along oblivious to the fact that I could be doing a hell of a lot more healing than I am.

It does, however, explain a lot.  lol.  You betcha.  I could NOT figure out how the other druid I heal with was outperforming me so consistently when my gear is actually a bit better than his.  mmhmm.  Now I have an idea why that was.  It was because every time I cast my group heal HOT it was healing at about half of what it should have been healing… on six people at a time.

I think I may have to retire and go play Hello Kitty Online.  I might be more prepared for that one.  lol!

On the other hand, at least the Innkeeper in Dalaran coughed up a toothpick for me today.  Sylly the Hallowed at your service.  Also, Sylly the Jackass.  /facepalm

I’ve been doing some thinking about how to make a bazillion dollars and never have to work or worry again.  Sometimes I do that.  Generally I’m in charge of inventions, while my husband is ostensibly the research and development/marketing guy, but between you and me and the wall… he doesn’t live up to his full potential in these areas.  That’s why I’m bringing my latest brain child to you all for feedback. 

I have developed a board game designed to simulate the Wrath of the Lich King raiding experience as closely as possible.  I believe that this game will serve multiple audiences, from WOW players wanting to get a feel for what raiding is like before commiting to it, to the seasoned raider who just can’t get enough on raid nights, to the average nuclear family just wanting to spend some quality time together on a weekend.  I think if Blizzard will license it I can sell it for $49.99 for just the board, while a collector’s edition with game pieces and dice should go for $69.99.

Feedback is welcome.  I’m most interested in hearing how closely your experience playing the board game mirrors your raiding experience in game, as I am striving to make this as true to life as possible.

Click here to see the game.  Enjoy!  /snicker.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hd782_F0vNU

Someone named Anik did a little work giving the new NELF cat forms a little more pizazz, linking from the official forums to the above pic (click on pic for full sized view).  He posited that these more “effeminate” cats more closely “captured the essence of the night elf race.”  Made me laugh.  Thought I’d share.

Meet Mini Me!!!  I finally got the little pet that I’ve been drooling over ever since MMO Champion posted the pics of the Argent Tournament pets!  I have to thank my readers for offering so much good advice about jousting, and I mostly have to thank Hummy for all of his help!!!  I’m tickled to death to have my very own baby tree!  Maybe it’s the Mommy in me.  At any rate, I want to warn all of you out there working on this pet that it needs some special attention. 

The first thing that you should know about your baby tree is that growing is hard work!  In a manner that I can only describe as “entlike,” you will find that your little tree falls asleep.  A lot.

In this screenshot I have actually fallen asleep waiting for my sproutling to wake up.  I guess the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.  (How is it that I can never resist going there with the tree jokes?)  At any rate, the good news is that even when your lil fella falls asleep, if you go far enough away from it, it will wake up and run after you!

The other thing you should know about your little tree is that sometimes it will get the joy, joy, joy, joy down in it’s heart and… burst into dance!!!  If I wasn’t in love already with this pet, that would most certainly have done it.  The best thing you can possibly do, of course, when this happens is to drop whatever you are doing and join right in.  =)

Other tips: 

• avoid players who wield axes.  If your baby tree becomes too frightened it will shed all its leaves and come to believe that its future largely involves becoming a table leg somewhere. 
• Beware of critters in the world.  While they may certainly have never seemed threatening to you in the past, they would like nothing more than to go around behind your Teldrassil Sproutling, raise a leg, and water it.
• Beware the cuteness factor of this pet.  Only take it out when you are sure that being distracted by it will not cause a raid wipe.
• Try not to lord it over other classes who can’t have a Mini Me too much.  It’s not their fault that they are just not as inherently cool as we are.
• Take your other pets out once every couple of years or so, just so that they don’t get so dusty that your bags become an allergy hotspot for you when reaching in to take out your baby tree!
• Have fun!  =)

Edit:  I realized I hadn’t named this wonderful little pet.  I’m going to call her Splinter.  =)

Although I’ve been playing Warcraft for almost two years, this year marks my first participation in Noblegarden.  I don’t know how I missed it last time around, but it completely slipped past under my radar.  I’ve always been sort of hit or miss with the holidays, really enjoying some, while finding others to be boring at best, and obnoxious at worst.  Noblegarden, however, I find to be so lighthearted and fun that I suspect that Bugs Bunny may have personally scripted it!  There are some aspects of this holiday that have just made me giggle right out loud.  Here are some of my favorites:

1)  My… er… prolific Spring Rabbit.  Don’t let looks fool you.  This sweet, innocent looking pet is more amorous than a frat boy at a strip club with a fake i.d.  I’m considering calling a vet just to make sure it’s healthy for her to keep reproducing so much.

2)  Big, burly male toons donning Elegant Dresses to be kissed so that someone can get the Blushing Bride achievement.  I saw one this morning in Stormwind yelling, “Kiss me!  Kiss me!” and almost wet my pants laughing.

3) Orc chicks in bunny ears.  There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that bunny ears are now the best fashion accessory for female orcs, ever.  EVER!

4)  Laying eggs – I logged on this morning and my guildie Dwyn immediately whispered me to come look for eggs.  Delighted, I hightailed it down to SW.  I was promptly turned into a rabbit and, to my utter surprise, started laying eggs.  Wonderful, tiny, colored eggs.  Added bonus that there is an achievement for making a journey to Un’Goro crater with a friend to lay eggs there.

As a side note, I thank Blizzard for making some of the items needed to complete the achievements available on a vendor, so that eventually you can get what you need to complete them in a non-random way, even if it takes you a long time to do so.  I personally am not trying to complete the What a Long, Strange Trip It’s Been achievement for the protodrake, but I do get weary of the understandable frustration of others when the random number generator goes against them.  The added vendor for this holiday helps the whole atmosphere to remain as it should be, light and fun.

So get out to the starting areas and take a look around if you haven’t yet.  Even if holidays aren’t high on your list of things you enjoy about playing, you might find that this one brings enough chuckles to make you glad for participating.

As some of you may recall, I was very excited before the patch about the goodies coming out of the Argent Tournament and couldn’t wait to get started.  More than anything in the game right now I really, really, REALLY want the baby tree pet.  Because of my enthusiasm, I thought that The Argent Tournament was going to be something that I just adored.  I was wrong, so very, very wrong.  Therefore, I now present to you the 10 reasons I loathe the Argent Tournament…

1.  Vehicle combat can be fun.  But when you get it, you get it.  When you don’t you don’t.

2.  Although I understand perfectly what I am “supposed” to do, I am simply not dextrous enough to do it.  My left hand does not speak “WASD.”

3.  No amount of practicing has improved my ability or my mood.

4.  No amount of helpful advice from guildies and friends has improved my ability, although the sweet encouragement of others has momentarily lifted my mood.

5.  Returning to jousting with temporarily lifted mood from the support of others has only set me up to fall from a greater height, as my mood again crashes down over and over because of my inability to freaking joust.

6.  One daily that doesn’t require me to challenge jousters and joust them still requires me to go out and joust in Icecrown, where dozens of asshats wait for me to wipe out the guys on foot so that they can swoop in and joust the guys I just cleared a huge area to joust, leaving me not only incapable of jousting, but with no one to joust.

7.  I fail at jousting at an intermediate level.  I am a Valiant.  It is inconceivable that I will improve my jousting enough to reach the next level to even get to the dailies that I would need to do to get the stupid currency I would need to buy my baby tree.

8.  Those NPCs snicker about me openly amongst one another.  I do believe that one called me a pansy yesterday.

9.  I have had to bribe my husband, who loves me but hates WOW, to try and joust for me, thus sucking him into my dimension of utter fail.

10.  My Draenei friend, Hummy, has already told me he’s going to get a baby tree before me.  He taunts me.  Plus he already has a little squire to follow him around and announce his greatness.  What follows me is a little rain cloud of fail.

Suck it, Argent Tournament. /sob!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XPnIUtcANg

“Some new things that you’ll get to see as a part of the Argent Tournament are things like: Banners for the city you represent, a Squire to hold the banner for you, new shirts (Doublets) for each of the city factions.”

All I need are some coconuts.  Do you think they migrated?