The One Where I Got An Amazing Surprise!

Okay, the most amazing thing happened on Saturday. Well, I suppose technically it happened on Thursday, but since I didn’t login to Elfindale on Thursday or Friday, I didn’t know about it until Saturday. However, none of the technical details are important. What is important is that when I did login to Elfi on Saturday and checked my mail, I found an in-game mail had been sent to me from someone named Keevy and attached was a Festival Lantern, the Horde side version of the Lunar Festival pet. Squeee! How freaking cool is that. It had been sent on Thursday, but I had been so busy running alts around all over the land to collect coins and gain experience from the elders, I just hadn’t been logged in on Elfi for a couple of days. The letter accompanying the pet simply said “From someone who has read your blog. <3" and of course, when I looked up the toon name Keevy with the Battle.net armory, it was a level 2 toon. So I have no way of knowing who sent me such an amazing gift.

I had mentioned in my last post that I wasn't enjoying tracking down the elders very much, but trying to get the pet was why I kept going. Then I closed with a mild, mostly sarcastic complaint that I would also have to repeat the painful process on the Horde side so I could get that version of the pet too. I had no idea such a silly little statement would prompt someone to actually purchase the Horde pet for me and roll an alt on my server to get it to me. What a great bunch of people we have in this community. I am so shocked/flattered/excited and very appreciative of such a gesture. I do wish I knew who the anonymous gift-giver was, but if they don't want to reveal themselves then that's their prerogative. But whoever you are, Keevy, you should know 3 very important things:

1). I am very, very excitedly appreciative of your kind gesture and I thank you very much
2). I have replied to your in-game mail and attached a Lunar Lantern (Alliance side version of the Lunar Festival pet) for you to have. If you already have one, you're welcome to sell this one for money or send it to someone else as a gift and make them as happy as you made me.
3). I named my lantern Keevy in your honor and if you wish to reveal yourself to me by another name, I will gladly rename it to that.

Lunar Festival Madness: Why Am I Doing This Again?

In-game holidays are fun, right? (Sidenote: how the hell is that dude riding his wind serpent upside down? [not an innuendo])

When the achievement “What A Long, Strange Trip It’s Been” went live in September 2009 I immediately began doing all the things. I actually got the achievement pretty quick, though if I remember right I had to wait for the second Love Is In The Air to roll around because I missed one of the elements the first time. I was actually trying to verify the dates a few minutes ago by viewing my achievements, but I don’t believe they’re displaying correctly. If they are, then I actually completed this the first time through each event.

EITHER WAY, the point is I haven’t done the Lunar Festival in it’s entirety since then. I mean, if I happen across an Elder I will stop and get free xp or gold depending on my character, but I haven’t bothered to fly all the places and track them all down in years. However this year the Lunar Festival happens to coincide with me making a big effort to level up my DK. She’s around the lvl 64, 65 mark so when the event began I thought to myself “self, you should fly around the lands and get that free xp. It will be easier than leveling and will fit right in to your lazy lifestyle.” Of course, I still have other toons to take care of, so I’m not devoting all of my time to it but I’ve been chasing down Elders for a few hours a day the past 3 days and I’m really starting to question if it’s worth it. I mean, I’m not max level so in enemy territory the NPCs are kicking my ass. In the higher level Northrend and Cataclysm zones, any old regular mob I get too close to is kicking my ass. As a DK I basically went from Eastern Plaguelands to Hellfire Peninsula so even though we start off with a lot of flight paths already known to us, most of my maps aren’t opened up to show location names. This means I’m spending a lot of time tabbed out to look up coordinates for the majority of the elders. So between the repair bills and all the wasted time running back to my body, flying across the land and tabbing out every 3 minutes I’m beginning to wonder why I’m doing this. I am pretty sure if I had stayed in Nagrand and continued questing this entire time, I’d be leveling much faster. Although I will say I am enjoying grabbing all of the mining nodes I come across.

Oh that’s right. I’m doing it for the Lunar Lantern. Never mind the rant, totally worth it.

image credit goes to WarcraftPets.com http://www.warcraftpets.com/wow-pets/magic/lanterns-and-lamps/lunar-lantern/

Also, I am now realizing I should do this on one of my Horde toons to get that pet as well. But I can guarantee I will use the level 90 for that adventure.

My WoW Secret Santa Gift Has Arrived

Hooray for getting packages in the mail! Granted, I only check my mail about once a week so it’s very likely this package had arrived days earlier, but that’s neither here nor there. On Monday I got my WoW Secret Santa gift! I have no idea who it’s from AT ALL. Either it’s someone on Twitter I’ve not yet stumbled across or it’s someone who I do follow but clearly have no clue where they live because the return address didn’t ring a bell to me. In fact, the return address thoroughly confused me because it only listed a first name and an address and the first name was the exact same as mine. Even spelled the same, which is not the most common spelling. So I don’t know if my Secret Santa shares a first name with me, or just threw mine in there to stay a secret for a while longer. I didn’t spend too much time pondering about the address though, I jumped right in and started ripping it open.

Once unwrapped I quickly discovered I had NOT been sent a cake:

But the box was filled with goodies much better than a coffee cake:

Aside from the adorable, glittery mouse on the Christmas card, I got a handmade SpongeBob SquarePants ornament. Because he’s my fave cartoon ever. Here’s the front and the back:

And I got two AMAZING origami ornaments. I am so impressed with people who can do this. I love them so much. One is Alliance colors (awesome!), the other is my favorite color (even awesomer!) and I suppose Horde colors

And here’s the whole bundle of wonderful all together. Thank you Secret Santa! I love the gifts so much. I can’t wait to learn who they’re from.

IntPiPoMo 2012: Day 22 – Happy Thanksgiving

May your day of feasting go better than my did, and may you not be interrupted by undead priests dancing on the table and slobbering on the turkey.

Happy Halloween

Nothing WoW related here today, just an epic video. If you’ve never actually watched the Thriller video in it’s entirety, or simply haven’t seen it in years, you should take 14 minutes to do so now. It keeps going even after the credits start rolling. It’s a truly big deal.

This Post Interrupted By Noblegarden

Can’t write a real post today because I’m too busy gathering eggs. For one thing, this character has no holiday achievements and doing the quests is easy xp. For another, as a self-diagnosed mount addict, I MUST FIND MOUNT.

Of Course I Couldn’t Miss Winter Veil

I spent a few days out of town and offline for the holidays and when I finally got back home late Christmas evening, I was exhausted. I was also anxious to get back to leveling my character up in Star Wars: The Old Republic, but I knew I was too tired to spend very much time at the computer and I had my priorities. So I put SWTOR out of my mind and I logged into WoW and made sure Elfi got her Winter Veil presents. I even put on my Gaudy Winter Veil Sweater and sang some carols in front of the tree. It’s such a fun holiday and I’m glad I was able to get home in time to login on Christmas day. Happy Winter Veil to each and every one of you. Whether you are celebrating a holiday this week or not, I wish all the best for you and your families.

Thank You WoW Bloggers – I Love You All

This is my Blog Azeroth Thanksgiving post. It was a great idea for an event and I really enjoyed participating.

What I decided to do is write a poem, but the thing about my poems is … when I write them, I hear them in my head and they all have a specific cadence to them. I’m always worried that a reader may not find the same cadence I find in them, and then the rhyme won’t sound the same to the reader as it does to me. So I’ve taken the liberty of making a recording of me reading it the way I hear it in my head. Or something. And just in case it’s not easy enough to understand what I’m saying, I have included the entire poem below the recording. But I do recommend you listen to it before reading it, if at all possible.

My Thanksgiving Poem

This is a story all about how
My life got flipped, turned upside down
I’d like to take a minute, just sit right there
I’ll tell you how I became the author of a blog called Elfi’s World.
…

It wasn’t by rhyming for a living, that’s for sure
Although I really can rhyme and soon you’ll concur
In fact, maybe I’ll just make this whole post a poem
And school you on rhythm while I talk about Gnomes

It’s Thanksgiving today and I’m doing my part
To be grateful for others and spill my heart
There are so many bloggers who I’m thankful for
Who have inspired my writing and who I simply adore

I’m thankful for Amber and her Friday Flow Charts
I’m thankful for Vid and all of her arts
There’s Miri and Jamin and Rades and Cynwise
With their lore and their humor and their pretty blue eyes (I’m assuming)

I love Windsoar, Angelya, and Restokin too
And so many others like Rhii, Zinn and Beru.
I can’t name them all, there’s too many to name
But I can’t forget Zel cause that’d be a shame.

But my favorite blogger is the one called Alas
Even though she pretends to be such an ass
I know it’s not true, I can see through her act
I love all her posts and that is trufax.

So to all of these people and to so many more
I give you my thanks for your words, wisdom and lore
Reading your blogs has brought me such joy
And that wraps this rhyme up, see you later home boys.