Category: Real Life

James Blunt in Toronto? I’m SO There!

 

Shadowgeist is pretty bad at keeping secrets from me (as much as I am from him I suppose, I’ve never been good at that sort of thing) so when he started hinting in on a Valentines day present I knew it was only a matter of time. NOT that I’m complaining! Turns out that at the end of this month I’m headed to Toronto for a few days to catch a James Blunt concert.

I love his music, and I’ve never been to a concert before aside from 2000 Summersault where I saw The Smashing Pumpkins play their last touring appearance before they reunited in 2007, Our Lady Peace, Foo Fighters, A Perfect Circle, Eve 6, The Catherine Wheel, Treble Charger, Sum 41, and Finger Eleven. Most of that concert was spent trying to avoid the sun though and getting a horrible burn all along the back of my neck, and my taste in music has changed drastically since.

Anyhow, I’m excited. Exceptionally excited at that. I’m sure it’ll be a lot of fun. I’m not sure if I’m going for two nights and three days yet, or just one night and two days. Toronto is not that far away (about 6-7 hours) and hopefully the weather will be nice. The only down side of course is the drive, lots and lots of traffic through that city, but I believe the hotel will be smack dab down town, so we won’t have to worry about having to drive everywhere, and can just leave the car parked. Toronto is one of those cities I love to visit, but would hate to live due to all of the people. I’m more of a country type person, heh.

Today in EQII is the five (at least) hour patch that brings epics to people. No doubt everyone is mighty excited over that, and I can’t blame them. I haven’t decided if I’m even going to bother working on mine, EQII has sort of been on the back burner for me (again) as I flounder about. We’ll see how it goes. In Vanguard I managed to get my baby bard to level 13 (have I mentioned just how much fun they are? They are SO fun!) and did a little crafting, not too much though. At least it gives me something to do while EQII is down for their massive patch.

Hey, what’s down Heeeeerrrrr-splat!

 

Ever wonder what’s at the bottom of that pit in Korocust? You know the one, with the dead guys way at the bottom that you can target from above? Well, I wanted to get a closer look. I assumed, that you could just jump down, and you’d be able to walk among the dead. Needless to say, I was wrong. You end up going splat in a big way.

So that’s Goudia laying dead on the ground among all her di’zok friends. It’s a good thing this instance is persistent (even though there’s no real need) because your revive point is outside in Chardok. Good thing we all got those sokokar posts, right?

Ishbel got level 71 last night, finished up her Kylong Plains quests. I started questing there with her at 65, so it was nice to get so many levels in such a small zone. Now I’m onto the Fens quests, which I hated with every character and I doubt she’ll be any different. The quest experience also drops drastically. She’s too small to head anywhere else yet though, so I’ll tough it out. I adore having a m1 of her charm, it’s made all the difference in playing a coercer.

A few pets I’ve found that are fantastic, are basically anything that nukes. In Kylong Plain that would have to be the Di’Zok Diviners I found in the scar next to the highton. These little guys are necromancers, so they have their pets, they life tap for 4k+ they DoT for 1.5k AoE, have a spell called Deter that hits for 5k, and cast devastation for a 1.3k tick. They heal themselves with their life taps, and are just wonderful to drag around the zones. In the fens I’ve been charming the little enchanter fish guys down by the water, they have some pretty hefty nukes, and like to mez your mobs for you. Crowd control for the win heh.

Aside from the in game stuff – I’ve been having a blast with my new camera. I’ve been doing photography challenges with my friend Benjamin once a month (or so) and posting artwork and other randomness on my DeviantART site here. I bought a new backpack for the camera, a tripod is next *drools* and maybe a new lens in April when it’s my birthday, a 150-200 zoom. The 10 megapixels is a huge change from my last camera, which was 4. There’s a huge difference. I love it. I talk about it way too much, I know.

Terry Goodkind also (finally) released the finally to the Sword of Truth series. I’ve been reading these books for years now, own them all in hardcover. Waiting frantically for this book to come out. I’m not usually one to spend so much on books, but $40 for a hardcover by this one author is a nice treat. I’m about half way through the book so far, trying to make it last a little but staying up late at night to read anyhow. Book is called ‘Confessor’ and while I know some people don’t like the author (in fact a few days ago 70-79 went on a huge ranting tangent about how horrible an author he is, who only delves into sex and other messed up issues of society etc) I still love his work. Once I’m done that book I’ll get back to the ‘Kushuel’s Dart’ that I’m reading (and still haven’t managed to get fully into because it’s a little drab starting).

Happy Gaming!

Happy New Years!

Thanks to everyone who posted about my domain being missing, I had paid my host, but they didn’t get around to getting my domain back for me until two days after the expired date. I’m back though! *cheers*

So, a quick post tonight, as I’m stuffed full of holiday goodies, and don’t particularly feel like writing. I’ll write tomorrow.

New Years Resolutions! I have a few. I know they may just be silly, but I work great with goals and lists and what not. So here are mine.

  • 1. Be happy with me. That means taking care of myself, be it physically, emotionally, or whatever. Just little things that make me happy. I spend so much time taking care of everyone else, I want to take care of me too for once.
  • 2. More art. Self explanatory.
  • 3. Wear socks and slippers. Ok, this sounds like a really weird one, but I HATE socks. I hate wearing them with boots, with shoes, around the house, always. But it’s not exactly good for my feet to be walking around without socks. Especially not when we have 8 feet of snow on the ground and I’m wearing boots. I should probably wear socks too. So yes, this made the list.

I’ve had my site for a year now at this domain / host. I’ve been blogging about various Mmo’s in general for 3 years now, almost four, starting with EQ1 and then evolving to EQ2, WoW, and Vanguard. I’m hoping to continue that of course. I love the readers I have, and I enjoy reading their blogs in return. I doubt this site will sway off of the path that often, I’ve thought about branching out – but then I realized one of the things I love, is how very specific my site is.

Anyhow, enough sentimental ranting. I’ve been switching crafts around on characters, and switching harvests around – and sticking with the bard (who is now level 10.. SO much fun to play!) I’ve got Satia running around learning the Thestra style of novice crafting so that she can make a particular cut of gems to make jewelry with, and I think I’ll go dive back into VG for a little bit tonight.

Hugs and safe travels to all!

Just Watching the Sunset

 

I know I’ve mentioned it before, but the one thing Vanguard does have going for it, that EQ2 does not – is the sense that you’re a part of an entire world, rather then just bits and pieces of zones. Those trees in the background arn’t just some flat landscape, those hills are actually real. So if you were to head out that way, you could walk up them, maybe find some little hut with evil things scattered around or whatever. The game feels like an actual world, and I wish EverQuest had that going for it. I hate zoning to and from everything. Vanguard has no instances. There are ‘dungeon’ type areas, but they’re contested. Typically the overland has a mixture of both heroic and solo content and they’ve done such a wonderful job of things (despite the bugs).

Arysh hit level 16 warrior, after running around Veskal’s Exchange. She did an interesting quest from Orchau Livom who wants to make some turtle soup. You head out and painstakingly pick out only the best of the best as far as turtle shells go. That crossbow I was using must have damaged some of them, since not all turtles dropped a shell, go figure.

You bring them back and she makes a soup, and all proud and happy she asks you to deliver the soup to Veskal – who promptly spits it out and says (literally) “Thanks, but no thanks”. Which is a quest for you to dump the soup out in the river. Off you go (Randolph the Reindeer in tow) and dump the substance, glancing around to make sure no one saw you. Head back to Veskal who doesn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings, so he asks you to lie to Orchau and say the soup was delicious.

Which you do, of course, because you’re getting paid quiet well.

In the end everyone wins out, Orchau moves on to other recipes (maybe picking up a good cook book along the way) Veskal doesn’t have to eat the disgusting soup (hey, I TRIED to pick the best shells for that!) and you make out with a good pocket of change in the mean time.

Oh yes. I’m certainly enjoying the break from EQ2. No doubt I’ll be back, but Vanguard (despite the bugs, again) is a lot of fun.

Off to watch Jojnny Depp (drools) in Sweeney Todd!

Carving the Roastbeast..

 

Happy Holidays to everyone, I hope Santa was good. As for myself, well, wow. I got a brand new camera (which was exactly what I asked for) from Shadowgeist, and we’re not just talking your everyday digital camera here, we’re talking an Olympus E-410, 10.0 megapixels of gorgeousness. My folks also gave us a new set of dishes (nice ones, with dark blue insides and black outside in a non-gloss finish) a new set of knives as well (the old block was starting to look a little rough around the edges). We all (myself, my brothers, Shadowgeist) made out like bandits as far as the stockings were concerned too. I also got a very cool dragon statue from my folks, and my Aunt and I did our Christmas Art exchange which was a lot of fun. She painted me a beautiful landscape in blues and whites with some green, a fantasy type setting with a dragon wrapped around the moon. Put my piece to shame, but we both worked really hard on them.

The 20 pound turkey (pictured above, with my Aunt (mom’s sister) on the left and my mom on the right) was delicious, after sitting in brine for two days prior to ensure it would come out nice and juicy. Of course I took enough home that I can probably live off of it for the next month.

The best part (by far) was getting to see everyone. My grandparents on Dad’s side and his sister / husband drove up from a few hours away, and my Nana and Aunt / cousins on mom’s side also drove up. We had a blast just catching up, and that was the most important part. My brother (the youngest one who’s 17) did get guitar hero, which was the hit of the party as we gathered around watching him strum away. Since he plays guitar (very well might I add) in real life, it was exactly what he wanted.

I did get a new headset since the right ear of my previous one broke, very nice logitech series from my brother. Though chances are I won’t be raiding for a while now (long story, lets just say I’m back in my old solo guild).

Game wise, I did make a handful of new alts on Vanguard. I’m still enjoying my time there, and trying to figure out if there is a class ‘just for me’ though no MMO has ever managed to make me think that before. I explored and did lowbie quests on the blood mage that was a lot of fun, then also managed to get a druid to level 8, and a psi to level 12. My warrior is also at level 12, and I started a rogue just for fun (they’re very difficult to solo, or so word on the street says). Aside from making bags, I haven’t been crafting too much, I’d like to get my artificer a few more levels, but who knows.

So again, Happy Holidays to all, and I hope the next year brings nothing but happiness and great gaming!

Oh, P.S. One of the least enjoyed activities I have ever done, would have to be – JUST – crawling into bed after a long two days (in my own bed at that) and having the building fire alarm go off. Spent 5 minutes tracking down the cat (who was hiding) another 1 trying to stuff her into the carrier and find some clothes, then trucked down the 11 flights of stairs to wait in the freezing cold (Canada, remember) to find out there was no fire (which was great at least) and waiting 20 more minutes before we could be let back inside. Needless to say Princess hates me right now (that’s the cat.. dur.. )