More Loose Ends

If you'll indulge me, I have some more uncategorized thoughts to spew before I can get back into the groove of planning posts.

First is a minor rant about Blizzard's new blog. It's not about the blog itself - I love the concept and I'm glad they are trying new mediums to use to communicate with their players. WoW is an internet game, made by people who I'm sure are very intelligent simply because they are part of making a very complicated game. I also assume that, being involved with an internet game, they know a fair amount about the internet and it's most common subcultures and jargon. So why, oh why, do they keep referring to posts on their blog as new blogs? Every time I see that they have "written a new blog" my first thought is: why did you change your url? You're going to confuse all of your readers! So, let's be clear. A blog (a clipping of ~weblog!~) is a website maintained by one or more contributors who release content in the format of distinct posts. Many posts make up the content of one blog. When Ghostcrawler releases his musings about WoW to his readers, he is making a post, or posting. This post then becomes part of the whole blog. So aarrrghhh please just...get with it! This is not a new thing! (You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.)

I vacillated between posting or not on this week's Blog Azeroth's shared topic. At this point I am too scatterbrained to pull together a post I'd be proud to submit for the roundup, but never fear! Kamalia has basically channeled my thoughts in a wonderful post about Tauren. Who are, of course, my favorite race. So go read her post, and imagine that I'm standing behind her going "yes, exactly, yea totally, I agree, good point" after every sentence.

More game stuff that I neglected to mention is that I've been doing Tol Barad as time allows, and last night I even managed to get accepted before I had changed into my feral gear! I've been wanting to get back into healing in PVP situations but tend to just go as feral since I'm questing while I wait for the queue. Not being able to shift out of roots is driving me up a wall. I'm secretly pleased that I had developed that habit despite being an extremely casual PVPer, but openly frustrated that it's no longer usable. Curses! Also, I may be a huge not-fan of the new tree form, but I had to admit that it's SCARY AS HELL to have one hunt you down in Slagworks to root and wrath you. Those things are huge! Interestingly enough, I always tend to be in Tol Barad when my mom calls me on Skype, which works out well because I don't need to focus on any conversation in game or vent and because I get a kick out of being chain-stunned and explosively killed while telling my mom about my day.

My next point is wtf do I do with all of my points. I have a pretty consistent supply of JP and honor, but don' know what to buy now that I don't have any more druid gear upgrades to get! I've been getting a few +resil heirlooms just to get rid of honor, but is there a better way to spend? Maybe I should get a dedicated resto PVP set? With JP I could theoretically buy those point-sinks they added to get a head start on herb gathering, but that just feels dirty. Is there any other option with JP?

In guild news, we are level 22 and organizing a concerted effort to be realm first level 25. There are three (I think?) other guilds who are ahead of us, but the hope is that sheer number of alts will be enough to overwhelm them when we hit level 23 next week. I'm really excited for the plunge, but will be away that entire weekend getting drunk looking at cherry blossoms. I don't know how long it will conceivably take, but maybe I'll be able to help some when I get back Monday.

Last, stress about my own job future (it's relevant, just meandering) and the recent slew of players and bloggers announcing their distaste for WoW and quitting has put me into an introspective mood about both the community and the purpose of writing. It got kind of long so maybe I'll crit you with that sometime in the next week.

I am putting some pictures of my Vietnam trip behind a cut (no such luck for those of you using feedreaders) for all two of you who are interested :)

Ingredients for banh mi sandwich

Delicious Durian

Service at the Cao Dai temple

Handicraft vases

The Cu Chi tunnels

Meeting room at the unification palace

Dried fruit at the coffee shop

Scooters on the street

Want some seafood?

Delicious donut-like pastries

Snake wine

Delicious elephant fish

Yummy fruits