Brewfest Event & Phat Epics

ZOMG it's that time of the year FREE epics from blizzard!! lol I think i'm gonna try for a kodo mount. Ah well no kodo but I picked up 1 brewfest ram on me shadow priest. Oh well its better than nothing

Food for WOW Addicts.

I'm on a tangent of eating goodness. As much as its a distraction and annoyance I need to eat 3 meals a day with 2-3 snack breaks built in. There are a few requirements for eating and WOW. After writing the drinks part I just realized that wow eaters are basically eating like babies .. spillproof, bite sized, boneless, nongreasy, single handed. ... but we is limited by 1 hand, zero attention to eating. Well gotta eat 3x a day or risk

Ideally you want to be eating healthy meals, with fruit veggies and not fastfood, junkfood vs. hot pockets, chips and cookies, icecream because it's bad enough you're sitting on your butt and not burning calories.

PRE-FOOD Prep
1.) napkins or a roll of bounty paper towels nearby
2.) 2 sheets of white computer paper as a make shift placemat to catch any crumbs, splatters, grease spots
3.) 2 water bottle or mug with water for drinking and post lunch clean up

FOOD REQUIREMENTS
1.) Eeaten single handed
2.) Bite sized morsels or cut it into bite sized ones
3.) Portable or in a bowl big enough to not spill anything.
4.) Boneless
5.) Nothing messy, greasy or that falls apart think hard tacos, pizza
6.) Easy + fast to make (5 mins tops)
** multivitamin: take 1 aday this should cover anything you missed eating if you were slacking

DRINK REQUIREMENTS
the goal is spill proof drinks so use lids, adult sippy things "waterbottle with mouth pieces" or mugs.

1.) water bottle with a closeable cap or mouthpiece, heavy mug.
2.) other beverages either finish it, put in water bottle or put it far out of reach
3.) icecream: eat it in a cup
4.) Coffee: use a lid

SNACKS
again bite sized, preportioned, healthy choices over junk food eat these between meals. I eat a mix of healthy snacks and junk foods so i wouldn't recommend following my snack ideas.

CONCLUSION: eat 3 balanced meals using the above ideas.

Brunch Recipe: Asian Noodles with Grilled Shrimp

Hi hi,
well i've been doing alot less wow and more other things like catching up to anime, explore new anime, work on my artwork skills, learn new software and make yummy brunches. I admit it's still rare that I would go all out creative with lunch so today's an exception. I used a lot of subsitutions so it was actually surprising that it turned out so good.

Issues: recipe called for lime I only had lemon so used it and forgot how much bigger my lemon was to a lime so sauce was a bit sour. I offset the sour peanut sauce with 1.5 tablespoon of sugar :)

Today's "Brunch" was Noodles with grilled shrimp, garnished with celery bits, carrot shreds and peanut sauce. I came up with this idea while staring at the fridge for what to eat .. either something fast and boring or something fast exotic and tasty. I was limited as to what i had in my fridge there's no way i'm going food shopping just to make brunch so at worst i'll eat oatmeal to keep my stomach quiet.

RECIPE: Noodles with grilled shrimp, garnished with celery bits, carrot shreds and peanut sauce. (prep time 10-15 mins)

1/2 pack of *Instant noodles
1/2 stick of carrots shredded (used potato peeler)
1/3 stick of celery cut in very thin slices
1 thin slice of onion (coulda skipped)
5 pieces of shrimp grilled and sliced in 1/2 (can sub in any meat)

Cook noodles only until "Al Dente" - firm to the bite. Drain put in your bowl. *shrimp: wash, peel, devein, grill until just cooked. Then add all the other ingredients on top and lastly spoon some peanut sauce & soy sauce on top of it. put as much or little as you wish. Noodles you can use 1 full pack or more depending on how much you can eat. Anything past 1 pack you need to up the ingredients. which is fast.. becareful not to overcook that's what ruins the flavor and texture

RECIPE: Peanut Sauce (from http://www.chow.com)

* 1/2 cup natural-style creamy peanut butter
* 1 tablespoon granulated sugar
* 2 tablespoons hoisin sauce
* 1 tablespoon soy sauce
* 1 small garlic clove, mashed to a paste
* 1 teaspoon chile-garlic paste
* 1 tablespoon dark sesame oil
* Juice of 1 lime
* 1/4 cup water

Gold Farming -- 87 page thesis

Gold farming! btw dont buy gold it's against TOS and my own rules as well.

Awesome there's some really indepth analysis on this WOW gold farming business. Oh it's a $1 billion + dollar business so very profitable. http://www.sed.manchester.ac.uk/idpm/research/publications/wp/di/di_wp32.htm

Trade channel -- WTF Chuck Norris?

Ok trade channel WTF is everyone talking about Chuck Norris? This guy is ancient!! I vaguely remember him from old movies from when I was a wee toddler .. yet everyday trade chat is spammed with people going CHuck Norris!! this that and whatever. Those peoples probably haven't even watched a single chuck norris action movie but think it's a cool way to spam.

PvE-to-PvP Paid Character Transfers

So yah this pve = pvp server transfer is way over due but being that everyone has a max level character or more the gear is semi balanced. I think this is just another way for them to get more monies by attracting inactive people who's guilds, friends have rerolled and the only reason they haven't played is because they can't bear the grind from 1-70. Everything has to do with monies so yah this is a hefty untapped market so why not make it easier. Blizzard makes monies from the xfers, new accounts, reactivated accts etc.

Me? I dont care either way as I only have 2 high levels on 1 alliance rppvp server and 1 horde on rppvp server then 2 very low level horde alts on an pve normal server so even if i wanted to I dont have spare toons to transfer :) oh i'm cool with that btw I dont like leveling so you wont see me leveling the same classes across servers. The one exception was this one .. as I am rather fond of my guild, GM and some friends so priest + warlock it is again.

BTW people who pvp well are better players overall because they have faster reaction times, better situation awareness, and knows both thier own class and all other classes very well so they know the capabilities of each class. To top it all off all this is done in split second decisions. So anyone QQing that PvP servers/poeple sucks are just the losers who can't pvp wont learn how to pvp then spends all thier time QQing. Hey I suck at pvp but you know what? I learned some pvp self defense things.
------------
PvE-to-PvP Paid Character Transfers Now Open

Do we need to say more? You can now transfer your characters from a PVE server to a PVP server if you pay for it.

Providing a smooth and enjoyable experience for all players is always a priority for us, and we are continually re-evaluating our policies and programs to do so. As the state of the game has matured substantially since the inception of Paid Character Transfers, we will now be allowing PvE-to-PvP transfers on a full-time basis to provide players with more mobility and freedom to easily play with their friends.

Keep in mind that all of the other standard cooldowns and restrictions will continue to apply; we’re just opening the option to transfer characters on Normal realms to Player-vs.-Player realms. Please review the Paid Character Transfer FAQ (http://us.blizzard.com/support/article.xml?articleId=20558&rhtml=tr...) if you have any questions on how this service works.

You can use this service at any time by visiting your Account Management (http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/account/) page and selecting the “Paid Character Transfer” button.

Happy news for everyone wanting to move their characters from a PVE server to a PVP one, that's for sure!

Thoughts?

Duel Boxing & Casual players!

So i've decided to become a casual player .. by cutting down the total hours of play time per week. What this means is that I need to be efficient in my play time and get as much leveling in as possible vs. losing time farming or chatting. Solution: duel boxing! http://www.dual-boxing.com

These days as I make sure to log out at an inn that's in my quest zone and do a shattrath hearth only when i need to move between continents vs. boating. Farming is a time sink so what i do is log in my 2 boxing twins at the same time and plow through my quests based on what it is and location so if i can't find the quest spot because of it's geography think barrens great lift area I will skip the zone and move on the next zone because spending 30 mins to look for something then guess maybe you need to double back or figure how how to get to the top part is a waste of my time.

So if it's a kill quest or red i'll tackle those first. one of the benefits of duel boxing is that I can easily clear the red quests because I have synchronized dps due to me linking the spells by cast time, spell damage type. While both toons are clothies that means niether of us can tank but with focused dps even higher level red mobs go down very fast. The alt is always dpsing the same target the main is due to the /assist macro and life tap is both an auto follow command, asks for a renew and also turns the alt in the right direction for dpsing mode so it's facing the mob.

Mods: I use hotkeynet its a 2 boxing software that passes commands from the active wow window to the second wow window int he background so when i press button 5 both toons are pressing #.

Anyways with synced dps every spell is a double cast so as long as I can get 1 cast off you're actually getting hit with double the damage, twice the dots, debuffs, and fears. ZOMg i just try this out in pvp! Anyways sadly it's on a pve server so leveling it's just mobs and me vs. real people. for kill quests I let my pet find mobs to kill and leave it on agressive I just follow the pet and dps whatever it's targeting.

This 2 boxing can be interesting but as soon as people realize that the priest is an alt on auto follow it's probably fairly easy to quickly disable the priest as I am a soso pvper to start so add in the alt i can't switch fast enough.


My spell set up is: VW tank or if easy mobs Succubus dps.

MAIN: Warlock ALT: Shadow Priest
#1 life tap /tar main /fol main /cast renew
#2 shadow bolt (2.5 sec) mindblast (1.5 sec)
#3 corruption (1.5 sec) mindflay (channeled)
#4 curse of agony (instant) shadow word pain (instant)
#5 immolate (2 sec ) vampiric embrace(instant) or smite (1.5 sec)
#6 searing pain (1.5 sec) smite (1.5 sec)
~ (orders alt to cast a fast heal on me) for emergencies

S. Priest (alt)
#1 /tar main /fol main /cast renew
#2 /tar main /cast flash heal
#3 mind flay
#4 shadow word pain
#5 mind blast
#6 smite
#7 holy fire

WOW Space

What's my WOW space look like?
heh well it all depends on which day of the week and what i was doing before WOW.

There are things that will always be on my desk even after a clean up:
2 mugs with water and something else: If it's on hand i'll drink it so my way of staying hydrated
Calculator: for calculating AH prices
white paper: for quest coordinate scribbles
2 reference books: non wow related left overs before i switched to wow.

My desk is glass which makes for an easy clean up post artwork or spills or post lunch. Hehe previously i had a wood desk and by the time i was done with it it was multicolored .. accidental ink spills, splashes.

Okies that's it. pictures will come as soon as i find it ..

Life of a WOW Addict

Ok this was written 1 year after the event .. I was the wow addict in question in case you wasn't too sure. Wow enough and you will see a pattern either in yourself or people you know. This applies to raiders and altoholics who level alt after alt across servers.

Raiders who raid because they're trying to avoid RL responsibilities .. then their RL falls apart and they raid more to avoid feeling pain and the negative thoughts that go with it. Family life goes to hell because someone isn't pulling their weight. Next thing you know that WOWer is clocking in 16-20 hour wow days raiding up instances, then farming to pay for raiding and more times to socialize with their wow friends whom they couldn't' talk to because they were raiding. In order to raid this much you'd be on the computer the moment you wake up, eat breakfast at your desk while you check you wow mail, toons, dailies, then lunch then dinner and take very fast breaks for bio break aka toilet break. Food is eaten in front of the computer leaving crumbs all over the places along with accidental spills therefore attracting roaches and other vermin. Shower becomes optional and you can't remember if you showered or not and if you did was it yesterday or a few days a go. You ignore your phone, email, aim, skype, real paper mail because you're always busy instancing. Family .. they' soon become annoying background noise as you no longer join them for meals since you're too busy with wow to notice that you are the one acting weird being holed up in your room glued to your computer nonstop

Weird? oh definitely you live to wow from wake up until sometime in the early am hours when everyone's finally logging off and then you remember oh .. maybe I'll see what everyone else is up to but then they're asleep and you're too tired to give it much more thought.

when you are exhausted and pass out to sleep either on your bed or at your desk. After a while your RL friends forget about you because every time they call you can't talk, when they make plans you forget or don't respond .. all because you're busy raiding or wowing something up. God forbid you have a significant other .. soon you'll be a singleton cuz he' or she would have had enough of being ignored for pixels and dumped your ass. Work if you had a job you'd have been fired or no the way because wowing 10 hours after work means you're putting in 3-4 hours of sleep and have poor work performance and hopefully you're not also surfing the web on work time looking at wow sites.

Oh i forgot to mention mail. Your real life paper mail piles up which you can't get to anyways, bills don't get paid unless they're on auto deduct from your checking, Late to work, poor work, get fired, you're actually relieved now you can wow a bit, if you're lucky you'll have unemployment checks which is bad now you have no reason to work until one day the bank calls to say you've not paid your credit cards in a while and can you make a payment now otherwise they will be forced to send it to a collections agency. Oh yah and need i say you ignore your phone because it cant be good if people are calling can it? either you owe monies or possibly friends or family trying to get you to log off?

Whoever thinks wow is not an addiction is wrong it is.. but as with any recreational substance controlled use is required. I will post some signs of wow addiction and if you fit the category then you know what you need to do. Either you make something of your life or you will have spend years if not decades on wow and be living in the basement of your parents apartment. Should one day you wake up .. you'll look in the mirror and go OMG how did I get so old? Why haven't I anything to show for my time, no monies, no job, no good job, career, family.


HELPLINE INFO:
http://www.wikihow.com/Break-a-World-of-Warcraft-Addiction
http://www.squidoo.com/wowaddicts

Solution?
1.) admit you have a problem then go fix it. Come on that's what school was for to teach you problem solving skills.
2.) identify career goals and steps to take.
3.) get into a schedule and stick with it. wake up 7am, work out 8am,

When you do take some time to think about your life .. which mind you has now become a mess it gets very depressing and it hurts. What to do? is it to be dirt poor and play games all day until they cut your electricity and Internet for lack of payment? No? good think again what do you want to do? I'm sure it has an answer because back in 3rd, 5th grade or even high school they'd have asked you what do you want to do and I'm sure you gave an answer and it wasn't to be a bum game player living off other people because he cant' afford to work due to gaming.

bite the bullet go log off, shower, make and eat real meal at the dinner table, sleep 7 hours, jog for 1-2 hours then sit down and really think what do you want to do in life? look at your finances, open your mail, fix up your resume, and lastly go get a job in your career path if not any will do. If you still have unemployment checks left good for you now you can get paid to retrain. If no unemployment checks then any temp or FT job will do. Sure you'll hate the job and that's the point .. and you will work hard in that hated job, do excellent work, get paid minimum wage and while you're working think about what skills do you have that can get you a better job. if the answer is none then think where do i want to be and what do i want to do and how do i get there. The monies from this crappy job is going to pay for schooling or training to get you where you need to be. Yes work hard, do good work, impress your bosses and only leave when you have something better lined up. Keep at your goal and one day you'll have arrived at the goal and can look back and go wow i have come far.

Support system? family and close friends .. WOW friends you'll have to keep at a distance as they are actually part of the problem. Get their off line info aim or what not and chat there if there's nothing to talk about other than wow then that's that.

So in short .. Wow in moderation. ERm maybe I should change it to Blog in moderation too? WTF it's 3:15am and I'm still talking .. i logged off wow at 2am! geez

How many hours do you play?

For this answer to be accurate you need to be brutally honest with yourself. get a mod that tracks your play time by session and total play time and use a stop watch. Then step back and ask yourself what else could i be doing instead of wow.

so my casual wow isnt that casual at all it's pretty hard core if you go by the hour count.
casual 5-10 hours a week
hard core: 15-20+ hour a week

I dont even raid and I just did 4 hours of wow in 3 separate parts. 2 hours checking ah alts 2 hours questing and if you add 6 more hours you'd have yourself a FT job. Geez if i spent that much time on a hobby i'd be a professional.

I will be knocking this down to 5-7 hours a weekbecause this is silly 28 hour of wow a week if we're doing 4 hours a day?

Wow enough and you start to see a pattern either in yourself or others. Sadly but true you as the addict will be the last to see the problem and may even deny angrily it if others point it out to you.

Post Holiday Haze

Okies your slacker priest here went on over drive and in 3 days picked up 2 levels on her mage so it's now a level 65 and also got 1.5 levels on her RP alt twins .. which aren't so little anymore at level.

So yah wow addiction still has its moments. Well the way I see it is that WOW has its purpose and it's to create a safe haven for you to recover from daily stresses and decompress but over use this "Med" and it becomes a vicious cycle of wow to get a

WOW Log: Hours played

Hi hi,
welcome to my wow log -- this is me being accountable to the time i spend on wow. I will update this page every day as it shows how much time i lose to WOW. Whew I forgot this thread even existed!


2/7/09= 3 hours
-----------------------
----------------------
9/4/08 = 4 hours (3 separate times)
9/5/08=2 hours (1 chunk)
9/6/08=?
9/7/08=?
9/8/08=?
9/9/08= 5 hours
9/10/05=2 hour
9/11/08=2
9/12/08=
9/13/08=
9/14/08=