Fun Times With Friends

Last month I was thrilled to receive an email from a dear friend who I don’t get to talk to very often these days. It was an email addressed to a group of a us that had all ran together back in the day on various servers, in various guilds & even in other games. She was suggesting we pick a night to plan to hang out together and catch up with each other and just have fun. What an awesome idea. To make things simple, after everyone chipped in some suggestions, it was decided we would do some sort of level 1 gnome race through Azeroth because even those of us who had left WoW for good could roll a new toon for free and participate.

December 14th was chosen as the date and Mumble server information was shared. I was so excited and couldn’t wait for the 14th to get here. I missed hanging out with this group of people and the occasional tweets and random gtalk chats with a few of the members just wasn’t enough. Being able to spend a couple of hours in Mumble would be brilliant. Unfortunately, as the date approached, my company holiday party ended up being that same night. Holiday party starting at 7pm, naked gnome race at 8pm. So I had to split my time a bit between the two and I went to the holiday party from 6:30pm (yeah, first one in the door trying to get my time in) to approx. 08:15 pm and then arrived back home and logged into WoW and Mumble to join the gang at about 8:30ish pm.

I had told them beforehand not to wait on me, so when I finally joined they had gotten their gnomes over to Kalimdor and were racing to the Dire Maul meeting stone. Most of them were in Stonetalon Mountains when I arrived so I ended up rolling a Night Elf real quick to sorta catch up and I headed that way.

Yep, I was the last to arrive at the meeting stone but they didn’t have to wait on me more than 10 -15 minutes or so. There wasn’t a lot of screenshots because there were so many deaths and different routes being taken not a lot of us were grouped up together. Especially me, bringing up the rear. But just talking to these guys in Mumble and laughing together and making fun of each other … it was awesome. It did my heart some good. It was a brilliant idea & I am very grateful I got the chance to participate.

Here’s a screenshot of some of us at the meeting stone. It should be easy to spot the beloved brat who initiated the email and was our fearless leader. Just like the old days. She’s so amazing she just hovers above us all. Lol. Good times. Great friends. Loved it.

Then on Sunday evening I happened to be in the right place at the right time and was invited to join my guildies Supp and Ulla for a little time spent working on specific achievements through Heroic scenarios. They were trying to complete specific ones they were missing & needed a warm body to queue. I have done heroic scenarios maybe only a total of 15 times and most of those were on my Troll, so I just followed along and didn’t worry about trying to complete certain objectives. Of course, when you’ve barely done anything and then you’re in a group doing very specific thing, achievements will happen. Thanks again for the fun times, Supp and Ulla. I really appreciate it.

Winter Squid And Other Blasts From The Past

I don’t watch them very regularly, but every once in a while I like to glance through the search engine terms that result in hits on my blog just to see where some of the traffic is coming from. So far, the strangest ones have all involved the word “pedo” thanks to this post which subsequently led me to making it an actual song only because I must fulfill all of Alas’ wishes.

My top 5 search terms, however, are Firelands (likely because of this lame attempt at humor), bunny with a pancake on it’s head (i didn’t actually write a post about this, but I did use the image), the word Elfi (go figure), elementium hammer (i haz one) and rounding out the top 5 – winter squid. Although this top 5 list isn’t truly accurate because most of my search term hits revolve around the mysterious floating cat head in Uldum. It’s just that the phrase is typed in so many different ways, it doesn’t all get counted together.

Back on point, my previous winter squid post is basically still very accurate. I think the only thing that has changed is there are now 2 less fish required for The Oceanographer achievement. But because it’s heavily searched for and because it’s that time of year where winter squid are getting ready to vanish, I wanted to bring attention to it once again.

Sidebar: Going through my search terms got me started reading through some of my old posts. Reading through some of my old posts resulted in following pingbacks to other blogs. Revisiting this post really struck a nerve with me and briefly brought back the memory of how horrible all that drama was. But the pingback on that post led me to this post. I can’t decide if these types of posts are on the pro list or the con list for having a blog. Reading the whole thing now just makes me sad. It’d be nice if there were no record of these types of things. But at the same time I am reading these posts over a year later and not only have Alas and I remained friends, we are even better friends. I would even go so far as to call her one of my bestest friends (I don’t require much :P) and certainly one of my all-time favorite people. So in that respect, it’s kind of cool to have this documented. But it still makes me sad. I think we awkwardly worked through everything at the time it was all happening because it was important we remained friends, but I will be the first to admit I carried some hurt feelings with me for a while and I wish I hadn’t. It’s all gone now, of course. But even leaving me out of the equation, I am sad that any of this happened to Alas. Why am I pointing it out and bringing it all up again? I have no idea. Like I said, I accidentally stumbled across it and it made me very melancholy. I guess I’m putting a spotlight on it here because it’s something she and I have sort of gotten past without revisiting and I would like to just make sure she’s officially aware that I am sorry if any of my words or actions added to the stress and the mess. Alas, you’re the best and I ❤ you. And hopefully bringing this all back to the surface and me being all publicly mushy hasn't embarrassed you.

TAG! I’m It

There’s a meme going around right now involving grabbing the 6th screenshot from the 6th subfolder in your images folder and I have been tagged by Mia from Chronicles of Mia. I am happily participating for two reasons: 1. I’m in a blogging slump at the moment 2. I’m nice and I enjoy being a part of this community so I’m glad for these opportunities

That being said, I have seen this is currently making the rounds to all the bloggers I follow so I am not going to tag 6 additional people since I can’t think of 6 people that likely haven’t already been tagged. Also, I don’t have 6 subfolders, so this is just the 6th image in my WoW screenshot folder.

It happens to be an old one. I was in my first guild, War Within A Breath, and I happened to be standing next to the GM’s husband in Dalaran at lvl cap 80 when he got an achievement and broke out in a random celebratory dance. We weren’t next to each other on purpose, he had no idea I was there. Pretty funny random capture. Brings back memories of the old days. I’m lucky that I am still around this guy and his wife because I love them so much.

The One Where I Tell You Things. Important Things.

Do you know what I remember most about RIFT launching earlier this year? I remember how pissed off some people were that the WoW blogs they were following suddenly became inundated with posts about RIFT. While I’m not one who gets angry very often, I did understand (and mostly agree with) how annoying it was. Which is why I will be doing my Star Wars: The Old Republic blogging on a completely separate site. A site that will not be mentioned here, or linked to in any way. If you want to find me, you’re just going to have to stumble across me and hope you recognize my writing style. Hint: I will NOT be using “The One Where…” to start the majority of my posts, so don’t look for that. If you do find me, I may or may not confirm that you found me. Ha, this is fun already.

So why did I bring it up at all? Because I am not playing SWTOR in secret. I’m also not abandoning World of Warcraft or Elfi’s World because of it. But it is highly likely that between checking out a new game and the holiday season being upon us, things will slow down around here. I am not planning on cancelling my subscription to WoW (obviously i can’t promise that won’t change, but it will be a ways off if it does) and I know I’ll log in for some Winter Veil fun, so there will still be a few screenshots and observations going on here. I just wanted to give you a preemptive explanation about the cobwebs which you may soon notice gathering in the corners. Maybe I’ll play Star Wars for several weeks and decide it’s just not for me. Or maybe I’ll decide it’s all I ever wanted and I have lost interest in WoW. Hopefully, everything will go as I want it to and I will just be happy as hell with both games and split my time between the two. Whichever way it goes, I promise to make a statement about it here so that you all know what’s up. It always bothers me when a blog just stops abruptly and the loose ends aren’t tied up, makes me imagine bad things have happened.

Okay, we got that out of the way. Now onto other things. This just in – Elfindale, who has spent her entire life believing she was born to heal, is now officially a full-time laser chicken. It’s slightly disappointing, but necessary. There were a lot of factors involved. For one thing, I have been very unfocused while in-game for quite some time now (insert SWTOR here) and as a result I’m doing even more standing around Stormwind and simply chatting in guild chat than ever before. I have not been running dungeons so my gear is rapidly becoming outdated. My ability to heal is getting really rusty (insert recent story about wiping repeatedly and failing hard). And the most recent thing, the thing that actually caused me to have a meltdown Saturday morning and go off into a very rare rage (which lasted all of about 30 seconds)… I finally got all of the Darkmoon cards I needed to make a deck and get my Darkmoon Tsunami Card. Wait, why is that a bad thing? Maybe because when I combined them into a deck I got a Hurricane deck and not a Tsunami deck. INORITE? I COULDN’T BELIEVE IT EITHER. That’s probably the closest I’ve ever came to crying as a direct result of the game. Not counting that one time when my GM abandoned me like last week’s garbage.

So what do you do when after weeks of stress and frustration you end up with the wrong damn item? You take it as a sign. I suck at healing, my guild doesn’t need a healer, I don’t have a fucking Darkmoon Tsunami card trinket and at this point I hope to never lay eyes on one EVER. Ding! Switch to dps and enjoy a new laid back lifestyle. Luckily, our resident serious raider Boomkin was online at the time, so I asked her if the Darkmoon Hurricane trinket would be good for me to use for dps. She actually suggested the Volcano card instead. I immediately went to the AH, threw that damn Hurricane deck up for sale and purchased the Volcano trinket for about 7k. Done and done. I’m swearing off Darkmoon cards for good after this mess. But again, thanks to my guildie who put so much time and energy into crafting for me.

Let’s see, what else? I’ve gone another year without completing the Terokkar Turkey Time achievement during Pilgrim’s Bounty. How disappointing. I’m normally pretty OCD about completing holiday achievements, but just can’t seem to make myself complete this one. Maybe because a couple of years ago, when it was still a decent fight, I killed they guy but had forgotten to wear my stupid pilgrim hat and now I’m subconsciously avoiding the whole situation? Who knows. That’s just the way things seem to be going with me lately. If it ain’t one thing, it’s another. Good news is, as long as I have plenty of stupid stories about myself to tell you, I’ll just keep posting them here. Until then, may the force be with me.

Guest Post: D.E.R.P.

In honor of today marking my 1 year anniversary of being a WoW blogger, the following guest post was graciously written for me by my dear friend, Alas from Kiss My Alas. I appreciate her and her guest post soooo much, but honestly she still owes me cookies and this doesn’t make up for that.

Elfi asked me for a guest post for her one year blog anniversary and I figured I probably better humor her since

1. She’s written me a number of guest posts over the years and
2. She has my address.

I’m not going to lie; I had a hard time coming up with something that seemed like a good fit for this guest post. I’m having trouble writing anything in general for my own damn blog, so I hope Elfi reads this closely and realizes what a hardship this is for me. (I bet she won’t. I bet she’ll say something like: “It’s about time you got this to me. Where are my fucking cookies?”)

Anyhow. Elfi usually takes some time to point out variously my flaws or my virtues when she does something guesty for me. It was thinking about that which led me into my topic for her. See, I was fairly certain I had written a guest post here before and sang some praises, so I thought I might turn the tables on her and write a post telling you all how rotten and evil and mean she could be. But then it struck me that not only would that be phoning it in, I really don’t have any reason to make up vicious lies about Elfi.

So instead I’m here to tell you about a terrible disease that I am pretty sure Elfi has.

D.E.R.P.

Not to be confused with H.E.R.P. (Hunters Effing Raids Perpetually), D.E.R.P., or Dementedly Exhibiting Random Personalities is a serious disease that mostly affects Druids because they are the champions of being jacks of all trades. Think about it: No other class is capable of filling every possible type of role the way Druids can. Some other hybrid classes are susceptible to this horrible disease, but my Recent Scientific Studies show that there is a much higher percent rate of this crippling illness in Druids; more than twice of what the second most affected class, Paladins, has displayed.

Studies suggest that Druids are affected to the extent that they are precisely because of their propensity to be constantly changing forms. In many of the worst diagnosed cases, sufferers of D.E.R.P. will often wake up in forms they don’t remember shifting into.

Fortunately, Elfi so far seems to be a somewhat mild case, exhibiting only an inability to speak with consistency on any given topic (as is demonstrated by the way she either praises or abuses me) and in other erratic behavior, such as running into walls when she should be healing and then blaming the erratic behavior on outside causes, such as lag.

One cause for concern is that Elfi has also demonstrated an unhealthy addiction to the ability to shift into multiple forms. While she claims most often to be “Elfi,” there has also been a disturbing trend where she would insist that her name is Morena. Never mind that she still looks like a giant, deranged chicken.

Right now there is no known cure for D.E.R.P., and those afflicted with the disease have shown a disturbing tendency to only degrade over time, becoming more DERPy, if you will.

Because my friend is being slowly overtaken by this crippling disease, I plan on creating a foundation in her name. If you have any gold to spare, please consider donating to the Elfindale Stop the D.E.R.P. Foundation. Only you can help prevent more deranged and overgrown chickens.

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.

Sometimes It’s Good To Have A Plan Fall Apart.

My favorite WoW holiday kicked off last night and I made sure to get all of my housework done quickly and get things prepared for work in advance so I could settle in at my desk and spend a few hours before work posing with pumpkins, puking up candy and putting out fires. That didn’t happen (I’ll explain why in a minute) exactly as I had planned, but I did get a chance to heal the Headless Horseman fight (no mount yet again, but I’m still hopeful) and I did do a couple of quests. I also made my way to Goldshire to help put out some fires and it was there I realized that thanks to old world flying, I now have the ability to chase that pesky headless horseman around in the air. Being able to fly over a bunch of places we weren’t able to last year is also really gonna get me some new screenshot angles of all the decorations. I am so glad this is a 2 week celebration because I am going to have me some major fun.

The reason I didn’t get much holiday stuff in last night is because I logged in just in time to luck out with an invite to help Alas complete part of the quest line for the legendary staff, Dragonwrath. I was so freaking excited and thrilled and honored that I got to be even a tiny part of it all. What we accomplished last night was completing the 8th part of the chain, the quest Nordrassil’s Bough. It was a lot of fun. We started the whole adventure off by meeting up with Shannox, Beth’tilac, Rhyolith, and Alysrazor so that Alas could get some sort of charged fragment loot that was required from each of these bosses. Once all of those had been collected, she was able to activate a special portal (the name escapes me) to get us access to the Anvil of Conflagration where we fought Volcanus so that she could gain the Branch of Nordrassil. Near the very end of the fight with Volcanus I decided to stop healing and do some floor tanking. And while I was doing that, I grabbed a screenshot of Alas in pedo tree form fighting for the branch. Just seconds after this shot was taken, it was all over and victory was ours.

Flowchart Fun

Okay, since I seem to always be in the blogging mood at work and I am now unable to blog at work, I thought I’d give the free WordPress for Android app a try. I won’t really know how well this does or does not work until I can get home in 4 hours and see for myself. Here goes nothing.

I now present a flowchart of a typical day in Elfi’s World. It is a hand-drawn flowchart and for some stupid reason I titled it about Elfi’s inner thoughts. But that’s not accurate. This is actually an account of what I do with my time in-game. I drew it up & then took a picture of it with my cellphone. Lol. It’s like redneck high tech around here.

click to embiggen