We Pwned Anub!

Laura Highcove

Get it…cause his name sounds like ‘a noob’? It’s punny!

So exciting week. Patch 3.3 came out, bringing with it the new Icecrown Citadel (ICC) instance and in a few months Arthas will be unlocked! People have been busy with the new LFG system which works fabulously, as well as the three new ICC 5-man heroics which bring some new lewt, rp!!!, and the chance at Quel-delar’s hilt (Yay 251 weapon for casuals! I want one!).

So we’ve been working on Anub for a long time…like a long long time. We’ve been consistently getting to p3 for a few weeks now. I admit the entire raid’s skill with kiting Anub’s spikes surpassed my expectations. I was expecting another repeat of Gorefiend and ‘that guy’.

That being said, the thin ice that is walked in p3 between healing the boss too much and people dying is ridiculous. I know all of the healers ended each night of attempts with progressively worse ticks. Koi is more stressed than I’ve ever seen him before and all around a fight that I enjoyed so much, and was so cleverly put together by Blizzard is now on the same level of hate with Archimonde. It’s a shame it’ll be January before we even have nearly enough of ICC out to keep us away from TotGC.

Oh! But we did manage to down him with 26 attempts still left, so we got that cool chest thing with the heroic tier gear inside and a nice spell power sword. It’s the little things sometimes.

Finally beyond the nightmare of ice, we headed over to ICC even though it was raid end time, and got a bunch of people friendly with the Ashen Verdict (after 10-man clears) and downed Lord Marrowgar and Lady Deathwhisper (No picture cause all that’s left of her is a stupid ball.). And at that point we called it for various reasons. Mostly so everyone will come back tomorrow for the really cool gunship fight!

NaNoWriMo Win!

Laura Highcove

The month was long but I ended up making it. 50,000 words in 30 days and the story isn’t quite finished. It’s really a messy bunch of words, but all the ideas are there. Well except that I’m still not sure exactly how it’s going to end.

Either way, this seems to be the way that I would be most productive writing. Some people (like my husband) have to have a plan before they start, have a nice outline and characters all planned. I think I do better just writing down whatever and then editing once I’ve finished. Perhaps if I try this again even if not for nanowrimo, I might get one of my other stories finished some time.

Movies

Laura Highcove

Generally when I leave the theater after seeing a movie, I regard it as one of three things. Good, bad, or entertaining. The first two speak for themselves, ‘entertaining’ generally means I don’t think I wasted my time/money, but I probably won’t go out of my way to see it again.

Every now and then, however, I see a movie that leaves me with a sense of…epicness. Batman Begins was one of those movies. Star Trek another. Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (Probably one of my favorite movies of all time.)

Speed Racer is another ‘epic’ movie in my book. Now I never watched Speed Racer, the original anime, but as any good anime fan, I knew what it was. When I saw the commercials for the live action movie it looked unreal and both SD and myself were very excited about it, knowing it would either be beyond awesome, or a horrible train wreck.

When the movie came out people said it was awful. Not wanting to disappoint ourselves, SD and I never went to see it. But last week, somehow the topic came up and one of our D&D pals, Evan said that it was really good if you don’t go into it expecting an amazing movie. He said they did a really good job translating anime style into live action.

I was intreagued. I downloaded it. I loved it.

The movie itself was so beyond amazing. The story, of course, is rather typical of anime but not bad, and the way they told it and the style of the movie will have it forever etched in my mind as one of my favorite movies of all time.

The reason the movie did poorly, however, is pretty obvious. The style that I love so much is a cross between Pushing Daisies (A TV show which got canceled.) and anime put to live action. Unfortunately the people who like both are probably a small portion of the population. SD and I just happen to be two people who love it.

Even now I have that ache that I always get after reading a superb book or seeing an epic movie.

Horse Clinic

Laura Highcove

So I’ve been calling all my horse posts ‘horsemanship’ for some odd reason even though I know it’s showmanship. Ah well, I will admit my mistake. Life goes on.

The past weekend we had a clinic at the barn. Two days of riding and showmanship. (Though I didn’t ride.) I learned a lot just by watching. Things to be tucked away until I do get to the point where I can use them. I hope that when Carol comes again in February, I’ll be enough of a rider to be worthy of her tutelage.

In showmanship I learned about backing up, which is rather hard all things considered. I also worked more on my turns and learned about moving when a judge inspects the horse.

I am also tapping in my ‘Near’ persona when working on showmanship. Thus I can set aside the part of me that kind of lounges along and lets the horse do whatever, and become a person who knows what she expects, and expects it out of the horse as well. I don’t have it exactly. I felt rather guilty after one session when I most fell into this persona.

Near is a character that developed from my WoW character. When I leveled her, I already had the plans laid out for her to be my main. When she reached 70 (max at the time) she had gear, rep, and a epic mount waiting for her. So she’s rather spoiled. Though she worked hard to get where she is, she’s not one to act modest. She knows what she wants and she takes it. She’s actually an evil character. The first I’ve created that was not meant to be a villain. But she is Lawful Evil. She makes her own set of rules and she follows them. And because of her collection of mounts in WoW, she, the character, is very knowledgeable about them. Though she does not treat them as companions, but as the mounts they are. Thus why she’s a good persona for when I need to be firm handed with horses.

Horsemanship: Setting Up

Laura Highcove

So my next step with Maggie has been Setting up, which is when you move a horse’s hooves so they are in a box. This shows off a horse in their best position and is apparently when, during a horsemanship routine, the judge comes over to look at the horse? Not perfectly clear on what the judge is doing the rest of the time yet, but I’m sure he/she knows, so I won’t worry about it.

This is actually something I learned way back when I started, but my first few (failed) attempts I was trying to make Maggie move her feet with only the little movements that Morgan and Deb can make, and of course Maggie would just ignore me. Once I was reminded that, as a beginner I should over exaggerate my signals I began getting a response, and am slowly working my way down to smaller signals. Though it it worth noting that Morgan told me to avoid ever trying to move the back right leg (on my left) unless the other three were perfect because it’s the hardest to move. I had noticed that by trying on several occasions. I think I will take her advice. 🙂

In other news, Becca rode Homerun today. She is thinking of buying him and wanted to try him out. Also, Nora has gone MIA to New Jersey. Not sure exactly what’s going on there, but I expect to be doing MWF mornings on my own for a while. Blah.

NaNoWriMo 2009

Laura Highcove

It’s that time of year again. NaNoWriMo is once again upon us. This year I am full intending to win. I’m going to be writing the rough first draft of Candidate that I failed to write for this site. Then hopefully I’ll be able to edit it into something I feel I can post (though still not a final draft) here.

This year I’ve even gotten a few other friends involved. Hopefully that will help keep me motivated. The challenge of keeping up (or beating) them.

For right now, this is my page: PyroPawz

My husband: Mssngrdeath

And one friend: PhoenixAscending

Writing starts tonight.

Rocky Mountain Horse

Laura Highcove

So recently we got a new horse in the barn named Scarlett. She’s solid brown with a flaxen mane and tail. She’s rather skiddish, and I’ve heard that several people had her charge past the wheelbarrow to escape the stall when it was being mucked out.

Today after I watched Rachael, Najerri (I know I spelled it wrong, but at least I know what her name is now.) and Morgan ride, Deb did some training with Scarlett in the round pen.

She ran her around and used a long rope (I forget what they called it.) to have her halt when she called out ‘ho’. After that Deb tried to join up with her, but Scarlett seemed to be too unsure of it. She stood and watched Deb, but didn’t make any attempts to go to her. Deb ended up eventually making her way to Scarlett, moving up whenever the mare looked away from her.

When I got home I did some research on Rocky Mountain Horses, which are an extremely hardy breed that was developed in the mountains of Kentucky. They are gaited horses (have an extra gait from the time they are born.) and apparently the “silver” gene is a trait, which is why they almost all have the flaxen mane and solid body.

Apparently poor Scarlett has trust issues because the the breed is supposed to be extremely loyal, like dogs. Thus the fact that she didn’t join up with Deb is unusual for the breed and is probably attributed to something that happened in her past. Hopefully she’ll feel better with some good, solid training.

>.> Ballz /giggle

Laura Highcove

(Fail not actually posting this once I wrote it.)

This fight was a pain and a half to learn, but I ended up still liking it by the end, which is saying something. Don’t know how I’ll feel after next week when we have to down it again to get to Anub, but one thing at a time.

We followed the standard strat of melee/healers in the middle and ranged around the outside making sure the wrong color ballz didn’t go into the middle and kill everyone. Once we got ranged to realize that picking up their ballz was more important than any dps they could do, we made much more progress.

And again there is no real kill shot, but here’s one I took of the bids for Death’s Verdict, heroic version. Alt ended up winning and has the non-heroic version as well.

Twins Vid

Horsemanship: Practice

Laura Highcove

Still having problems with Maggie just being ahead of me when I stop. She’s been doing pretty well stopping exactly when I do, but I’m still ending up behind her neck. It’s frustrating me, so today I did some laps without a horse seeing if I could figure out why I kept ending up behind. I didn’t come up with much.

In a month Carol (I realize now I never asked for a last name.) is going to be coming to give a clinic at the barn. Since I’m not riding yet, I would only be in the horsemanship part. I’m rather excited about the prospect, and the cost isn’t totally prohibitive, though it isn’t a nominal amount either. Plus even if I’m not in everything, I can still sit and watch. I’m learning tons around the barn just by doing this, so I’m actually still excited to just watch as well. I wonder if she’d let me tape it. I guess I could always ask. Worst thing, she just says no.

I also finally got my camera to the barn. Got some pictures of the horses who get turned out every day. It was a beautiful day, so I hope they turned out. I’ll see if I feel like posting them later.