Emo Boss

Laura Highcove

This boss is the embodiment of the emotions of our good friend Illidan. As such it’s not hard to understand exactly why it’s so emo. The guy [Illidan] made some poor choices in life, and even if he had the best intentions in mind to start, he is just seriously messed up now.

RoS also did an extremely good job of making us emo. This is the first boss I can say that we should have had down a week earlier. And not because it’s an easy boss/strat and people are just being stupid, but because it seemed like the game was conspiring against us. We worked through the first two phases, got them down pretty well last week, and then we had a rush of mass disconnects (like three people at the same time as soon as phase 2 started) and lag for people who never have trouble with lag.

We came back this week and one shot his multi-face.


There was a healing wand and some leather gloves. I don’t feel like looking up the links and such right now. /emo

Untitled

Laura Highcove

Anime I’m downloading:

Spice and Wolf
Clannad
Shugo Chara!
Rental Magica
Shion no Ou
Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS
Shakugan no Shana II
Gundam 00

Spice and Wolf is the tale of a traveling merchant, Lawrence, who makes a promise with a harvest god, a wolf named Horo (or Holo, those silly Japanese) to take her North, and their resulting journey.

Impression: Actually, this is one of my favorite series to date, and that took me totally by surprise. So much so that I was thinking of putting together a Horo costume for the upcoming con. Horo’s character is just amazingly well done. The chemistry between the two main characters is just perfect. All storylines revolve around being a merchant and buying and selling goods, but it never gets boring. My only regret is that it’s only 13 episodes long.

Clannad is the story of a high school delinquent, Tomoya, who in his free time starts helping out a lost looking girl, Nagisa, who wants to restart the school’s drama club but lacks the confidence to do so.

Impression: After Air, and attempting to watch a few other dating sim games, I was sort of turned off by the general classification. But I saw Dom’s review of Clannad on Megatokyo.com, and I decided to give it a shot. I’m very glad I did. Once again watching the relationship between the two main characters evolve is a joy, and the supporting characters are lively, friendly, and in general everyone just wants to help everyone else. Just stay away from the movie. Usually I like movies like this because they kind of take the plot and condense it, and you get a nice quick trip with the characters from the series, however, this movie sapped the life out of Nagisa. She didn’t feel like Nagisa at all, and I just hated it. Plus it puts the supporting characters into nothing more than brief cameo roles, which isn’t fair to them.

Shugo Chara! follows a girl, Amu, who is seen as ‘cool’ by everyone at her school, but who really just wants to fit in. She then finds a trio of guardian eggs that tell her she can be anything she wants to be.

Impression: Just a fun magical girl show with everything you’d expect from the love interest, the rival, the friends, the enemies who aren’t really so bad, and of course the magic.

Rental Magica is the story of a boy who inherits his father’s mage renting company, even though he knows nothing about being a mage himself. It follows the small company and its employees, as well as the young leader of an impressively powerful mage renting company who befriends them.

Impression: Having a lot of fun watching this series. It’s nothing that I would end up watching more than once, but it’s entertaining the first time through. Hm, I make it sound more underwhelming than it is, but I can’t go into much detail without spoilers.

Shion no Ou is about a young girl, Shion, who is unable to speak since seeing her parents murdered in front of her when she was a child. She grew up raised by her next door neighbors, while learning to play Sougi.

Impression: I figured it would try and be some sort of Hikaru no Go rip off, but the murder is front and center in the plot of the series. It also goes into a lot of detail about the differences between men and woman’s shogi. (I’m almost positive there was no such distinction in Hikaru no Go.) Shion is adorable, and she acts like a perfectly normal girl except for having to write things down to communicate. Plus she’s falling for a bishie, and we all know how much I like those.

Shakugan no Shana II is more of the same as the first season. Still good, but you’ll be lost without the first season. Gundam 00 is extremely underwhelming right now. I think I got through about seven episodes. I’m still downloading it, but saving it for when there’s nothing else to watch.

Dream of Reality

Laura Highcove

There is a certain intersection on the way to my fiancé’s parent’s house that we pass at least once whenever we travel up there. I have a very strong memory tied into that intersection, such that every time we pass it, no matter what else is going on, I remember this particular conversation.

SD is telling me about a book he read sometime in his past while we were waiting at a stoplight. It is a mystery book, in which a dog is a detective. He has a particular device on him that makes his inner thoughts audible, and in this way he communicates with humans. The particular scene he was describing to me is where the dog is trying to solve the mystery, and the clue he is currently looking at is a huge, complex painting. It has a whole bunch of things painted on it. And the dog is discussing how he came to ‘solve’ the painting to a girl. At first he was confused by the number of things on the painting, until he realized that anything that had the number zero on it meant absolutely nothing. Front and center in the painting are some of Jesus’ disciples, depicted with holy haloes around their heads. The dog says that the disciples really confused him until he realized that the haloes were actually zeroes, and as such they did not matter either.

We’ve gone past this intersection several times, and I have this memory, but only the most recent time we were there (Easter) did I actually bring it up with a: “Do you remember when…?”

And SD swears that, that conversation never happened, and he’s never heard of a book with any plot anything like that. The really strange thing is how tightly that memory is tied to that intersection. The only reasonable explanation (besides that SD has just somehow completely forgotten the book.) is that I dreamt the whole thing at sometime in the past, somehow choosing that intersection as where the dream took place, such that every time I pass it, I recall this memory. Not only that, but I remember it so vividly that there was no doubt in my mind that it had really happened until SD denies remembering it. Even now I’m more convinced that he just forgot than that I dreamt it.

Memories of Middle School

Laura Highcove

Let me start off by making one thing perfectly clear. I love SD’s (My fiancé) family. They are all wonderful people who have welcomed me with open arms. That being said, my post:

I was never popular in school. I wasn’t lucky enough to be a nerd, but instead I was just decent at school and weird. Middle school in general was not the favorite time in my life. Barring band and track (which helped me find the friends I did have during my last years of mandatory school) I spent all of my time with my nose stuck in some book or another, trying to be as unobtrusive to the outside world as possible.

Those days are thankfully gone. I have since garnered another layer of self-confidence that I often wish I could have had during those dark days. However, this past weekend, I was reminded of such days in the most unexpected of places.

SD has a mother. SD’s mother has a sister. SD’s mother’s sister has a daughter. Which would make her my…cousin-in-law-to-be? She’s eight years old. She’s always been somewhat of a brat, as kids are wont to be at that age. So we’re at the Grandparent’s for Easter. We’re all hanging out in the living room, and in comes in my cousin-in-law-to-be. She immediately begins showing off her new outfit and Tinkerbell necklace to Kelsey (SD’s sister.) and then describing the other Tinkerbell items she has acquired. She makes her rounds, and as a normal female when presented with a young child showing off a possession, I appropriately gush over said item.

And she gives me this look. The look that says, “Oh my Gawd, why are you talking to me, do you know who I am?” If you’ve ever been an unpopular kid in school, you probably know this look. Perhaps you’ve been on the receiving end of said look. That one look, however brief, given to me by an eight-year-old child, immediately took me back to those days in middle school when I was a self-conscious of my lisp and so desperate to be accepted yet shunned by nearly everyone in the popular crowd for not being ‘cool’ enough.

I brushed it off, telling myself that I’d just imagined it. We go on with the Easter proceedings. Both cousins-in-law-to-be (being the only children young enough) go out for the easter egg hunt. Once that’s done we all gather for the meal, and the cousin-in-law-to-be sticks her finger in something or other being set out on the table and licks her finger. She is immediately reprimanded by her mother, (Who is amazingly nice, and funny and a pleasure to be around.) and I see the look again. Not exactly the same, more of a, “You are going to regret talking to me like that.” look. I was completely shocked.

Right in front of me was a budding “popular girl”. Not one of the followers. She will be one of the leaders. One of those who people makes everyone who doesn’t make the cut’s lives miserable for as long as their hormonal insecurity allows them no self-respect. One of those people who believes she is entitled to things simply because she exists, and that the rest of the world are simply peons that exist to serve her. I saw all of this in an eight-year-old child!

And I immediately wonder on the Nature vs. Nurture argument again. Thinking on the article I read on Penny Arcade. I mean really, what do you do if your child turns out like that?

Apologies

Laura Highcove

So yesterday two things happened. First off, I put off updating because I thought I had a portion of the next section of Estrella written on paper at home, and I was going to go home and type it up and post it. Truth be told, it is there somewhere, but I can’t find it. As such I have to rewrite that section, and I’m sorry for the delay.

Secondly, it came to my attention that in my attempt to make the blog look as similar to my original website as possible, there was no way to go to older posts. I took the basic theme from the minimalistic one Koi made for our guild website, and that removed all of the archive and “older post” links. As such, I spent most of yesterday adding the bar on the side with the archives…which brings me to the second apology. For those of you using Firefox (as I do at work) you’re good. You can see the new bar, it’s pretty, and you can click on it, and the world is a wonderful and happy place.

For those of you who use Internet Explorer (as I do at home) some unknown, hidden option is making the body of the post wider than the space allotted to it, (Or perhaps IE is just interpreting something wrong. I wouldn’t be surprised.) thus covering over most of the bar on the right. After discovering this odd behavior or IE, I spent about an hour tracking down what controlled that bit of my website and trying to fix it to no avail. As such I am deferring to Matt, as soon as he gets his lazy butt out of bed. For now, I just wanted to explain wth is going on.

Edit: And once again, Matt saves the day. But now I see other things I’d like to ‘fix’. I know it’s silly to work on a live site, but I’m just a silly person. I’ll try and make sure nothing stays aqua, or hidden for very long.

Edit2: Learning many things. Once of which is to look-up stuff sometimes rather than trying to figure it out through trial and error. Another being that IE is like an annoying conservative when it comes to tables. If an item is in a table IE believe that it should be in that position, and no other, and that the entire table should follow that no matter what any css or anything else in the world might have to say. Firefox kinda looks at it as a suggestion and goes from there. As such, I will probably go on a crusade to get rid of all tables from my site at some point in the future. It wasn’t viable until I learned more about css, but I think I can handle it now.

Melting Pot

Laura Highcove

So today is March 11th. Meaning that yesterday was March 10th. March 10th happens to be my birthday. I’ll give you a minute to catch up. I usually have trouble putting such facts together, explaining why I haven’t called either parent for a birthday in over two years.

So this year, oddly enough, when people asked me what I wanted for my birthday, I actually had answers for most of them. SD’s instructions were and arcanine plushie that came out recently, and tickets to The Lion King at the Kennedy Center. (A show I’ve always wanted to see, and that is coming to the area in June.) My sister went on a Caribbean Cruise, and while that would’ve been a nice birthday present in itself, I asked for some sort of odd object painted with a pretty picture to hang on the wall. (Akin to those saws with the turkey painted on them, only decidedly more ‘tropical’. Maybe a shell with a palm tree on it or something. I dunno, I’ve never been to the Caribbean. I left it open ended for just that reason, and maybe to annoy my sister slightly. I mean she’s going on a cruise, she should have to do some thinking…but I digress.)

To my mother, I requested a gift certificate to The Melting Pot. Read More

CLAMP

Laura Highcove

I have been a fan of CLAMP since before I even knew what they were. My first introduction to them was a manga volume my friend Anne brought to school. I read it with no idea what manga was, or anything about the story, and simply marveled over the drawings, and what I could get of the plot. It was not until much much later (ie years) that I now know what I read was the second volume of Magic Knight Rayearth, which incidentally became the first of CLAMPs works that I read in full. Avoiding spoilers, (well immediately) the ending to MKR was one of the most interesting things I had ever come across.

The second of CLAMPs works that I really got into was Cardcaptor Sakura. I watched the anime first, and it wasn’t until later that I was able to read all of the manga, but it became another of my favorite series.

I continued along in my otakudom, reading other CLAMP works Angelic Layer, X, RG Veda, Clover, Chobits, CLAMP Campus Detectives, and I enjoyed all of them (except Chobits). Magic Knight Rayearth, Angelic Layer, and Cardcaptor Sakura were by far my favorites.

So one day I was in the Waldenbooks down in Blacksburg for one of SD and my’s trips to town, and I spotted a manga on a display. It caught my eye because at a glance it looked like Sakura and Syaoran. Well suffice to say I was shocked when I read the back to find out it *was* Sakura and Syaoran. It was a new series Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles. I was thrilled. Two of my favorite characters of all time were back, and whats better, the world they were going to were going to be filled with tons of CLAMP characters.

So I read it, and it was pretty good. I eventually got the XXXholic which is seperate, but runs alongside Tsubasa’s story. Eventually the anime was announced, and I was even more thrilled, but eventually…I dunno it became monotonous? I stopped getting the anime episodes the day they came out, and I actually looked forward to new XXXholic manga and anime releases than Tsubasa, and basically it dropped into the background. I still read it, it was still good, but it wasn’t great, and I wasn’t sure why.

Well I was surfing the Internet, and stumbled across someone’s blog that pretty much summed up the problem I was having with it. Syaoran was a horrible one-dimensional character. At the beginning he was the endearing Syaoran that we all knew and loved from Cardcaptor Sakura. Blushing glances thrown at Sakura, stumbling over words between them and such. When she was in trouble he did not hesitate for a second to help her…but that was just it. He started out on his quest with her, Fai, Kurogane, and Makona and all he cared about was the feathers and we were like ‘Awww, he’s giving up everything for her.’ but he never stumbled, never faltered. His one and only focus was getting her feathers, and while there were the occasional blushing glances, there was nothing else going on. That was why I drifted away. I felt like nothing was happening, and that there was no room for anything to happen.

Below here are spoilers. So don’t click unless you’ve been keeping up with TRC, or don’t particularly care about spoilers.

Read More

New items

Laura Highcove

I did indeed get the [Rift Stalker Hauberk] the other night when we downed Kael. First time it’s dropped, and it only cost me about 16k…which is actually a lot, but since I had about 53k, it didn’t seem like much in comparison. I also got [Rift Stalker Mantle] and [Netherbane] both for much less than I was expecting. Now, Nabith really doesn’t need anything else from Tempest Keep at all, so next time we go there, depending on class composition, I might ask to bring Near to get her vial.

Saturday was another run through ZA on Nabith. [Dagger of Bad Mojo] dropped, but I insisted Therk roll on it too, and he ended up winning it. Still no trinket.

Sunday the session unfortunately didn’t happen. (I was going to get my Pegasus too…) so SD and had lunch and went shopping. When I logged onto WoW, they had not done the ZA run Therk had scheduled. They were looking for a priest for Hex Lord, but needed a healer, so I respecced holy and jumped in with my little 1200 + healing. Unfortunately Drego disconnected as soon as we started, and Lesia and I were unable to keep up the raid as only two healers. We ended up only getting the first chest, but eventually worked our way through the rest of the bosses (with a huge burp on Hex Lord, during which I specced back to shadow). I ended up taking three new healing pieces home, nullifying the money I had spent just earlier that day to boost my healing. Still a little bitter about that, but life does go on.

[Brooch of Nature’s Mercy]
[Hood of the Third Eye]
[Two-toed Sandals]

“That Guy” Fight

Laura Highcove

Well the title on this one is just not coming to me. In all truth, I spent much of the fight terrified I would be chosen, screw up somewhere in my killing of the constructs, thus causing a 1% wipe. The looming ridicule really doesn’t help either, even if it’s all in good fun, but then I’m a hunter, what do I know? Hm, I seem to be extremely bitter for some reason. As such, let’s move on.

Teron himself is pretty small. I did the quest involving him before his real model was in the game, so this was my first time seeing him. I guess it’s nice for the tank to not have to stare at a mob’s feet for the entirely of the encounter every now and then.

So in we went to our little nook-place and started dpsing/healing the heck out of our respective targets. Three brain heals and a heroism for every group was rather nice as we finally got our entire mini army of shamans together in the same raid this weekend. Our first attempt, he didn’t put his little death mark on anyone for the first 30 sec of the fight or so, so by the time the first person died, we already had him near 60% iirc. He wasn’t quite so nice on the rest of the attempts however.

So at an hour past raid end, with respawns at our heels, we went in for our ‘last attempt'(TM). I started fraps just to have a little video so that people could see some of what they were doing. But I’ll be darned if we didn’t go and down him.

So our constructs killers: Blayne, Waldo, and Azurmahn. Gratz to those three for adapting quickly and allowing us to live. For all those who tried and failed, gratz on the experiance. As such, it should be noted that the constructs do not despawn when the boss dies, and waiting for two of them to wipe out the 15-20 people who were left at the end of the fight was annoying and stupid. (And no, I’m not blaming the last person to be ghosted, I’m complaining about a poor design decision on Blizzard’s part.)

Hm, more bitter. I think I’m going to post the kill pic and be done with this.

[Softstep Boots of Tracking] to Ickeris
[Cowl of Benevolence] to Llewyna

Untitled

Laura Highcove

Life’s still going. I’m still fairly content with my current situation outside of work, which is just pretty bad in general. But then I still have no clue *why* I dislike work so much. It’s possible that I’m actually completely crazy, and have just convinced myself somehow that I am normal, but that bit of craziness pops up whenever it’s time to think about or go to work.

As for the good I have:
A loving fiancé
A place to live
A working (and pretty decent) computer
Internet
My health
A Job (even if I don’t like it, at least I have it.)
My parents and siblings all alive and healthy.
Friends who don’t think I’m totally horrible.
A plan for the future, that i’m pretty sure God has specifically laid out for me.

So really, not all that bad. I just have to live through the 8 hours, five days a week that I am at work.

In other news, my writing and posting to my blog has been going really well, and I’m proud of myself. I do find myself a little sort of stuff to post sometimes, but I think getting in the habit of posting something (the fact that it can be kinda short really helps) twice a week means that I’m forced to write *something*. It’s not all great, but none of it is horrible. I think this will allow me to keep struggling forward with my writing, and that’s all I could ask for.

In WoW news, I have Nabith, Near, Pandemonium, and Isrio all at level 70. Isrio now has her epic flight form, and after the discovery that with 375 in both mining and herbalism, you can see both nodes on your map at the same time, I am a very happy panda.

As for the guild, we’re still pushing forward. Mount Hyjal is cleared as of Saturday, putting us as the #2 Alliance guild on the server. (Finally pushed past Reason and SPG, who both stopped raiding.)

Tonight we’re planning on downing Kael again for some vials. I *will* get my t5 chest if it drops, and then I’ll finally have that two piece bonus that will hopefully make Raika a lot easier to keep alive.

Current projects include enough money for one more epic flyer for Nabith, and leveling my shaman/warrior duo Jerelyn and Addendum. No rush on the leveling this time though. My only goal is to get them to 70 before LK, so I have time to play them a bit, in case I want to change my main.

We’re also going to work on making the guild less dependant on Koi. I am assured that he’s not going anywhere, but he worries that what happened to Reason and SPG is a direct result of them losing Arc and Axium, and being unable to go on without that leadership. Whether that’s true or not, it holds some truth for our guild. We have been crazy dependant on Koi since day one, so a little less dependence on him would be beneficial. We’ll sew how it goes though. I think Therk’s leading raid tonight, and he’s pretty decent as long as he doesn’t joke around too much.