Sideshow & Syrana

Seeing as how I haven’t logged into WoW since the first weekend of July and we’re tightening our budget in anticipation of our spawn’s arrival… I decided to cancel it.  For now.

Things are very busy right now IRL.  I’m used to short breaks and hiatuses, but this is the longest I’ve gone.  I’m on a pretty epic real life quest and I’ll resubscribe when I have the time and attention to give to the game.  But right now, I’m just not playing enough to justify continuously paying for it.  My account runs out on Tuesday.  I actually went in a few weeks ago to cancel and thought I might pop in a bit before the end of my sub… but nope.

Will I complete Loremaster of Kalimdor before Cataclysm drops? Who knows.  I still would like to…

Will I be back for Cataclysm? Hell yeah, but maybe not right away.  It depends how it lines up with the arrival of babygirl.

Do I play anything anymore or am I just a fuddy duddy now?  I still play some games.  Once the weather gets cooler I’ll spend more time in the computer room again rather than loungin’ on the couch with the laptop.  Otherwise my gaming staples right now are on my iPhone: Words with Friends, Carcassone, and Civilization Revolution.

Huzzah! Eastern Kingdoms complete.

I didn’t even finish Booty Bay’s available quests, nor did I go into Blackrock Mountain… I have a TON of left over Eastern Kingdoms quests.

Now Kalimdor… I have around 20ish left to complete and I’m struggling (STRUGGLING, I tell ya!) to find them.  It’s nuts.  I’m checking out the listing of hard to find quests on the WoW forums as well as using the addon Everyquest.  I think there are some more Booty Bay quests that will have parts of their chains go over to Kalimdor and count there.

At least I hope so.

*frets*

Hey all, I’m going to just kinda ramble in this post a bit.  Hope ya don’t mind.

This week has been a bit nutso IRL.  Last week was too, but it’s always even more crazy when trying to get as much work stuff done as possible before taking some vacation time around a holiday weekend.  It’s been hectic and draining this week, but now I get to relax a bit before rejoining the rat race.  (And believe me, it will be crazy when I return to work since there’s a lot I could not finish before leaving.  Blarg.)

Yesterday was nice… it was the start of Sideshow’s and my 5 day weekend.  Yesterday was doubly special because it was our wedding anniversary.  A little later today, we’ll be traveling out of town to visit my parents for a few days.  So, it will likely be a bit quiet around this corner of the blogosphere for a few more days.

But that’s alright because I’m sure you have cookouts or projects or something you have planned for at least part of this weekend!

One of the bummers about this past week being hectic is that I haven’t gotten much WoW time… I only need 2 more quests to complete Loremaster of Eastern Kingdoms! Uhh! So close!  ….still need another 30 for Kalimdor.

Funny, I thought Kalimdor would be easy to finish off because it seems filled with so many Horde zones and I’d have to search more to complete Eastern Kingdoms.  But noooo, I’m finding the complete opposite to be true.  Although, there seem to be more dungeons and raids in the Eastern Kingdoms…. which have plenty of quests that count towards Loremaster.  In fact, I still have a TON of Eastern Kingdoms quests I can do – easy to locate ones!

Whereas… I’m struggling to find more Kalimdor ones.  I’m hoping some of these leftover Eastern Kingdoms quest chains will take me back across the sea to count for some Kalimdor turnins.  I mean, it is quite likely since I’d seen a few chains bounce back and forth already… some counting for one continent and some counting for the other.

*Looks around* Ya know what… I think I should log in and finish off Loremaster of Eastern Kingdoms before we hit the road… so I can make sure to have that special screenshot.

Thought I’d provide a brief update regarding the wonderful World of Warcraft.

See, I haven’t been running dungeons, raiding, or even doing dailies.  You might be shocked to know that I still haven’t used the random dungeon finder nor have I ran any new dungeons from Trial of the whathaveyou or beyond.  (Nope, no jousting runs, and no Pit or Reflection or any of that).

Shocking?  Perhaps.  But I’m still having fun and I’m busy.

I’ve been getting some achievements accomplished.  They may look a little odd along the sidebar there (and that widget is not very good at updating promptly, by the way) since there are several old Azeroth lowbie dungeons on there.  See, when I leveled Syrana it was before they first sped it up during The Burning Crusade, but I still leveled her quickly.  She rarely ran with a level appropriate group on her way up and if I was getting a run through for experience/quests or gear, it wasn’t always the whole run…. plus, she was leveled to cap before the achievement system went in and sometimes things didn’t count when they should have.

Anywho… (continue reading…)

It’s Noblegarden time!  A fairly easy set of holiday achievements that is relatively fun to complete.  If you are looking for a guide to completing the achievements and getting your very own Noble title, be sure to check out my guide from last year: Death By Chocolate: The Noblegarden Experience.

Even an undead rogue can become a noble.

This is going to be a bit different than last year’s goal list.  Last year I focused heavily on World of Warcraft goals with a smattering of Rock Band goals mixed in.  This year, I’ve broken down my goals into a few different categories: WoW, Aion, Dragons Age, Sims 3, Blogging, and Assorted.  And my, I look gamerbitious, don’tcha think? (continue reading…)

This weekend, I was an achievement bull dozer. I plowed through a bunch of somewhat rare and hard-to-get achievements through mostly luck. Sideshow beat out the whole server to get one and closer to a title and my Mid-40s Priest got a few that I’ve never thought I’d get on any character.

Sunday also seemed to be the day that the Alliance took off in our battlegroup. I rode a wave of about 10 wins in a row in a mix of Warsong Gulch and Arathi Basin for a few hours. A bunch of them were either 3-0 WSG wins or 1600-0 AB wins. We barely ever win, let alone shut the Alliance out. We also took Wintergrasp in record time on Saturday night, which also usually never happens since we are so outnumbered. I was in the group of about 4-5 siege engines that just tore through the east walls and then into the fortress door.

On Saturday, Sideshow also tripped and fell his way to a cool achievement. (continue reading…)

Much like in the real world (work, family, home, etc.) and in game, you have to define success for yourself.  And this goes for blogging as well.  We can look at everyone around us and try to live up to someone else’s measurements, but it really comes down to how you’ve defined success for yourself.

A lot of bloggers use some form of site statistics to gather information about hits, pageviews, referring links, keywords, etc.  But much like Recount, that information is useful when analyzed and applied properly.

We use Google Analytics here.  I like to look and compare month to month and also seeing a whole year’s worth of data.  What I won’t do though, is hold up those numbers against every other blog’s stats.

Why? (continue reading…)

I’ve hinted for awhile now at a contest being revealed today as part of the celebration of us being around for a year.  I wanted to put something together that not only celebrated us, but also love to the blogosphere.  For, without you, we wouldn’t have made it this far.

Many of the bloggers that are listed on our blogroll are not only readers of Sideshow and Syrana, but have helped spread the word about us.  We truly appreciate that!

We also appreciate each and every reader we have, and wanted to have some sort of giveaway as a “thank you” for reading.

Combining all those things in a cauldron led to the creation of the blog scavenger hunt!

All the answers can be found either within our blog or somewhere on a blog that is listed in our current blogroll.  (Hmm, descriptions might come in handy for this…)

Some will be easy peasy, some damn near impossible, and a whole slew of moderate difficulty.  I want this to be fun, with the right dose of challenge…

Prizes

This is going to take some work.  But let these shiny prizes motivate you!

First Place: 60 day gamecard for World of Warcraft
Second Place: $25 gift certificate for J!nx
Third Place: Your choice of a mini-pet from the Blizzard Store*
Fourth Place: Blizzard Authenticator (Remember, you get a core hound pup if you have one of these babies to secure your account now!)

How to Enter – You Must Play to Win!

The contest will run from 12/21/09 until 1/4/10.
We’re letting it run for 2 weeks since it’s holiday time and this will require some time to poke around a few blogs.

Winners will be determined by the most correct answers, regardless of when they were submitted.
Can’t find all the answers? No worries! Submit what you can answer.  There are 4 prizes up for grabs.

In the event there is a tie for any of the prizes, the winner will be randomly selected.
Either by pulling names out of a hat or /rolls or something random.

Submit your answer via email, subject: Blog Scavenger Hunt.
Sideshow even put together a handydandy contest form you can use!  Or, you may fill in the contact form for moi, Syrana, but his form is supa sweet.

Please do not answer in the comments… others will see your answers! Do post up any questions, comments, or concerns though.

After the cut will be the list o’ questions, sending you out to find an array of answers.  Get those fingers ready!

(continue reading…)

We interrupt normally scheduled posting…

*confetti*

Can’t help it, I’m excited to have reached this milestone.  I have some posts lined up that pertain to a year of existence (hilarious search terms, favorite posts, love to the readers and referrers, etc.) and I hope you enjoy the trip down memory lane with us – whether or not you’ve been reading since we started up there’s sure to be something that you’ll enjoy!

Later today will be a post with contest information, so be sure to check that out!

All my other “normal” weekly posting may or may not occur over the next two weeks, with the holidays and all… just a heads up….

Happy 1st Blogiversary!

That’s right! Today marks exactly 1 year since I posted my first post here. Can you believe it?

I can hardly believe it, to be honest.

When we started this blog, I mostly wanted a place to share my fan fiction… fan fiction that I had started writing over a year ago.  I thought if I got in the habit of posting it, it’d help “force” me to continue working on it.  Seriously, it’s been difficult to have my head so filled with all of Aerissa’s adventures and not let them out.

I’d be lying if I said I posted them purely for myself. In part that is true, but I thought someone else might enjoy reading it too.  Since it’s not a story I can ever go and get published (yes, Blizz, I know very well it is your copyright) there really isn’t much for options if I want to share what I’ve created within Blizz’s world.

So to blogging I would go.

Sideshow and I discussed it and decided from the get-go to have the blog be open for various games, music, etc. even if we probably would focus more heavily on World of Warcraft.

Of course, I pitched myself as a warlock (which I am), but as much as I dreamed of providing useful information… the inevitable occurred.

We focused on entertainment.  Fun.  Humor.

The occasional controversial commentary would leave my brain through my fingers and get published.

But we were us.  We’re a bit quirky and joke around a lot in real life, so why be all serious in text?

The best part? We’ve met and gotten to know some AWESOME people. (continue reading…)