Whereby I describe my on again/off again time and playstyle with WoW over the years, and finally get a WoW character to level 70.

I am what I’d call a hardcore player of video games in terms of task/tinkering obsession, but a casual player in terms of game-goal orientation. That is, I might spend hours and hours leveling up every skill/profession on multiple characters to check them out, but I don’t care about game-titles/awards, game-story-plot/factions, doing what it takes to acquire the “best gear”, racking up PvP scores, or even winning/finishing the game. So for a single-player strategy games and RPG’s I might spend months on certain aspects of the game, but never quite finish the game.

WoW, for me, has been no different. When this online-RPG first came out, I spent about 3 solid months obsessively playing. I loved leveling the profession skills and running around looking for resources in what felt like a gigantic endless game world. I loved Hunters, because I could have a pet kitty, and because I like to play alone and a pet is good for solo-Wow. I avoided other players, I didn’t accept party invites, I didn’t duel, I never had a character that reached lvl 60 (the max at the time) and I never saw the inside of a dungeon instance until it was useless to do it for anything but exploratory knowledge. Still, I was happy and had a blast. One of reasons I prefer WoW over other on-line games I’ve tried is that it’s fairly friendly to people like me - people who like to play mostly alone - or maybe with just a few friends - and don’t care much about the things that supposedly make an online game an online game. I’ve always said I’d kill for a complete single-player version of WoW.

But like with any game, I eventually I got a little bored of the repetitive “grind” and I stopped playing for a long, long time. Then I picked it up again for a couple months, then stopped again. Then I picked it up yet again. Only this time, I started completely over again on another server, instead of going back to my old characters. Things had changed a lot…the first expansion had come out by then….but my style of playing hadn’t changed - I still largely run around collecting resources, and I’ve become an Auction House/make gold addict. If you don’t know, the Auction House is where WoW players can buy/sell items they find to other players - without having to actually talk to other players. I love this aspect of WoW - it’s kind of like a mini-game. The challenge of acquiring the stuff to sell and the timing of when to sell and what to sell and so on.

Currently I have one main character (hunter) and several 25-40-ish “alts” - alts are characters you play when bored of your “main” or for other various reasons. Most of my alts exist largely to have access to the max level of non-Outland lvl profession skills, such as enchanting, but it’s also just nice to play another class now and then. Anyway, this time around I reached level 60 and beyond w/my main - wanting to see the new Outland expansion areas was a strong incentive. After that, I’ve been playing off and on (mostly off), obsessing for a few days or a week at a time and then ignoring the game for 3-4 months. When I did play, I hunted resources to make gold. Obviously, this isn’t a great way to level up a character, so my main has been “stuck” at level 68 for over half a year.

Now the new expansion “Wrath of the Lich King” is supposedly going to be released semi-soon, so I determined that I had to get to lvl 70 to be ready for it. Much agonizing and horribly, horribly annoying monster-grinding later, I got there…and since I had so much gold already saved up, I immediately bought the Epic flying mount. It did make me sad to part with so much of my hard-earned gold (I’m even more miserly in WoW than I am in real life), but the Epic flying mount is much much faster than the ground-mount that I’ve been using forever. And I must say - if I’d know flying around Outland would be this cool, I’d have done it a bit sooner. It really is awesome. Too bad you can’t use it in the old pre-expansion lands, too.

My only problem now is that I don’t know what to do next. I mean, you’re supposed to do all this instance-goal-oriented stuff once you reach lvl 70…but that’s not my bag. I don’t want to play with other people. And most of the great items can’t be had without doing that stuff, so I doubt I’ll ever be equipped with anything much more than I already have. Besides, what I have allows me to survive/do ok in the surface areas already as it is. I’m not powerful, but I survive. So I guess now it’s back to the Auction House game to restore my depleted gold reserves as I wait for the 2nd expansion…I wonder how long it would take me to collect 100,000 gold, for instance…why, you ask? Because I can. And now that I can fly, it should be a lot more efficient.

We have two kitchen windows in our house. The bigger one on the side-wall is covered by long, cheap blue curtains I bought at Wal-Mart. The smaller window over the sink, that looks out over the backyard, has been uncovered since we moved in. It doesn’t bother me much to have that one open to view, but since I tend to leave a kitchen light on all night, I wondered if it was possibly annoying to the neighbors…to see a light in the window all night. Or at least, so much of a lighted window. So I decided to cover it a bit. Being the cheap “I hate paying to decorate a house” person that I am, I just used an old pillow case to cover part of the top of the window and an old bedsheet to cover part of the sides. I didn’t try to do anything special with the hanging - only just stuffed it over the curtain rod. LOL

Thus you can still see outside w/out having to open curtains, but the amount of light the window casts outside at night is reduced. It looks chintzy, complete with scissored cloth edges at the bottom (hehe) but I don’t care. I was, however, kind of bothered by the fact it was all white. The kitchen itself is white enough as it is, all-white window coverings makes it even worse. But I had this old long cloth/table covering of my mother’s - she used to use it on her buffet table - and I thought, hey, that’d work. Plus it’s just cool, with it’s retro pattern of daises, white leopards and peacocks. I mean, if it has cats on it, I’m bound to think it’s awesome, since cats are, y’know, awesome. My “window treatment” isn’t something any Home Decorator is going to recommend doing, but it works, and I kinda like it. So there.

Btw, when did “curtains” become “window treatments” in home-decoration vernacular? It’s kinda like when they started calling used cars “pre-owned.”

Of the two mourning doves that I’ve seen hanging around our yard, one of them is amusingly fat. I keep thinking maybe it’s pregnant with eggs, but I have no clue. I’m not sure this picture really does justice to just how rotund the bird is, but I tried.

Btw, why are doves doves and pigeons pigeons? They’re essentially the same, right? I tried to Google it, and all I could come up with was that doves are generally smaller. Whatever.

My husband and I rented “National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets” last night. We had thought the first movie was passably entertaining despite it’s flaws, and thought we’d give the sequel a shot. It wasn’t long before I’d formed the opinion that Book of Secrets contained most of the same flaws, and maybe some new ones. The film was watchable and even made me chuckle here and there, but it was, as I often like to say, nothing special.

Small side characters like Harvey Keitel come and go like the wind, appearing when necessary to the plot (such as it is) and nothing more. Which is a bit disappointing since I like/admire many of the big names in the movie. I mean, Helen Mirren, Jon Voight, Ed Harris, for goodness sake - all largely wasted in this fluffy adventure film. The action is swift and frequent, but the plot and circumstances surrounding it only makes you shake your head. The “bad guy”, played by Ed Harris, doesn’t come off as scary or dangerous, for one thing - he’s just a little kooky and determined to be written about in history books. Poor Ed. Now, one doesn’t typically expect realism in this type of film - but characters are so thin that there’s no excitement, no emotional drama, to any of the action. Another big car chase, will our heroes get away, ho hum. Still, despite all this, Book of Secrets would satisfy those who liked the first film, and it’s watchable enough to pass the time on a Sunday evening with.

The best part of the movie is the segment dealing with the kidnapping of the President of the United States. The President is played by Bruce Greenwood, and some of the brief script exchanges between him and Nicholas Cage as they explore a hidden tunnel/rooms are priceless. Bruce Greenwood is a wonderful character actor, and watching him in Book of Secrets made me want to watch “Thirteen Days” again…where he plays another US President: JFK during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Thirteen Days is an awesomely entertaining political drama/suspense movie…like most historical-drama films, it takes some liberties with history and characterizations, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a fantastic flick. Bruce Greenwood is (or was) an oft underrated actor who’s been in many films - one of those actors where you might recognize his face but not remember his name. In case you’re one of those who can’t place a face to the name, here’s a small picture:

He’s most excellent - if you haven’t seen Thirteen Days yet, go rent it. You’ll have to ignore Kevin Costner’s bad Boston accent, but other than that, it’s an A+ movie in my book, mostly because of Mr. Greenwood. So yeah, as you can tell, I think he’s awesome….and best of all, I hear he’s been slated to play Christopher Pike in the upcoming Star Trek movie. I haven’t been too eager over the prospect of a new ST film, since I think Paramount has just about bled that franchise to nothing, but now I have a reason to go see it.

Not that proof is actually required or anything. It’s just cute.
Avocados are too big for squirrels to carry away, but they “roll” them around the yard a lot, from one spot to another…usually close to the fences. So we like to move them around just to mess with the squirrel’s heads. Hahaha.

Hubby and I decided at the last minute to see “Iron Man” instead of Indiana Jones. Mostly because I remembered I wanted to see Iron Man, and I figured that it wouldn’t be in the theater too much longer. While Indiana Jones will likely still be around for a few weeks, at least…even with the rapid cycling turnover of current theater schedules. This was our first trip to the movie complex that’s closest to our new digs…an expansive and modern Century theater in the middle of downtown. The sound system was pretty decent, even for my very treble-sensitive ears. They had the bass so the seats and your heart vibrated with every huge bass note…which was sorta cool, except that to my ears, the bass wasn’t very bass-y. All vibration/shake w/none of the super-deep yet subtle bone shaking. In other words, to me, there’s a difference between bass that makes your pulse beat wildly in time with it and bass that makes your bones resonate but doesn’t make your muscles and pulse feel like they’re being zapped with an industrial vibrator. If that makes sense. No theater yet has beaten the effect of the specific place/sound system/seat rumble effect when I saw Jurassic Park and the T-Rex/watercup scene. So awesome…but alas, that sound system no longer exists in that theater.

We parked in the ‘downtown entertainment’ multi-story parking complex (theater validates your ticket so it’s free), which was the first time I ever encountered/used a soda-like vending machine to pay for the parking ticket. Or in our case, not pay, since we had theater validation. This is a cumbersome automated system…you pull into the lot, grab a ticket to make a bar go up so you can get into the parking space areas. Then when you leave, you have to find a vending-machine like box to push your ticket in - if you owe money for the time, you put in your bills. Then you walk back to your car, drive towards the exit, and put your ticket into yet another machine to raise the flimsy auto-block bar so you can leave. I guess it saves on having to have parking lot employees, but meh.

Anyway….um…hey….what did I think of the actual movie, you patiently ask?

It’s a modern-day, super-CGI, high-tech version of RoboCop, only instead of a sad, tormented soul in the body of a cyborg, there’s a “real live guy” just rattling around inside a hi-tech suit. The suit is powered by something the film calls an “arc converter” power source - wisely, they don’t try to explain how it works, although apparently, when harnessed into a small unit, it glows like radioactive blue lightbulbs. Batman’s cape, Batmobile, grappling hooks/flash powders etc, seem like wooden wagon wheels by comparison. I liked all the character build-up/character conversion and suit-inventing scenes, even if they did go on just a tad too long. The suit CGI effects were awesome. Robert Downey Jr. was awesome.

I guessed who the “real” bad guy was going to be 10 minutes into the movie, however. Plus the ending was weak, since it fell back on the (currently) typical ‘big showdown’ between good and evil counterparts, where our suited-hero and the dastardly evil dude (in a bigger suit) trade unnecessary/delay-device quips and declarations of evil intent at each other between every few blows, while tearing up a city street/buildings during the process. It would’ve been nice if they’d figured out a way to make an ending that was a bit different from the rest of the pack, to go along with the more humanistic aspect of our suited rich-man hero.

But it was an entertaining comic-book movie. For it’s genre, I’d give it 8/10.