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.

My sense of time passage has become very skewed.  The hours at work seem to drag on forever.  My evenings during the week are gone before I know it, as are my weekends.  In the back of my mind I think need to get a post up, been a few days.

And that’s where the problem is.  I keep thinking it’s only been a few days or a week.  When I sat down to write the Sims Saturday post yesterday, I was honestly surprised that I hadn’t posted anything for almost a month.  But, with my body running hotter than normal due to my 24/7 bun oven, it’s often difficult for me to spend much time in our computer room.

That means less gaming and less blog posting.  Yes, yes, we have a laptop, which is what I’m typing on right now.  But then I don’t have access to all of my screenies and such.  Plus, there was something about physically sitting in front of my computer desk that tied to my motivation and muse.

So, anywho, here’s a bit of an update.

I haven’t played very much WoW since I completed Loremaster of Eastern Kingdoms.  I really want to finish Kalimdor before Cataclysm is released, so I keep hoping I’ll have enough time yet.  I even missed out on my favorite in game holiday, Midsummer Fire Festival.  My baby draenei priest alt got to complete the fires of Eastern Kingdoms thanks to Gertbee’s chopper and patience to drive me around.  I still had to split that up into 2 separate sessions… and I procrastinated until the last weekend of the holiday before finally going on.

I had planned to take several characters around to honor/piss on fires.

I’ve also been playing some Sims 3 Ambitions.  I like it and find the new professions fun: ghost hunter, tattoo artist, stylist, firefighter, architect, etc.  Again, haven’t been able to play as much as I’d like due to being hot (only so much the A/C and fans can do for that room, I’m afraid), but it’s been entertaining.

Then there’s Facebook “games” again.  After a 5 month hiatus from touching any of them, I started playing FrontierVille and Family Feud.  I was playing them daily.  Recently it’s slowed down again.  I haven’t touched Family Feud for a couple weeks and it’s been about a week for FrontierVille.  I must say though, FrontierVille is a huge step up from FarmVille and is moving in the direction of being more of a game than just clicketyclickclick.

At some point I’ll be able to spend more time in front of my desk again.  But for now, most of my internet connectivity is via my iPhone or the laptop… that way I can lounge on the couch, put my feet up, and have a fan blowing on me.  Ahhh, bliss.

(Sidenote: And of course, you are always welcome to find out what’s going on IRL with the spawn-on-the-way.  Although, I don’t write on that one nearly as often as I’d like to, but it’s more frequent than around here lately.)

I started a new alt blog for those who may be interested.  Ok, ok, so I started Yet Another Alt in WoW, too.  But this post is to tell you about the new blog.

Remember how I said I wasn’t going to turn this into a mommy-to-be blog? Well, that’s why I ended up talking Sideshow into setting up this one for me!  (It’s even got an honest-to-goodness REAL “about” page! *gasp*)

Couldn’t help it…the urge…. it overtook me.  No, we won’t be closin’ up shop here.  Yes, I know my posting has been a bit erratic and it will likely remain that way for …. who knows how long.  But sometimes… isn’t it nice to not have a major bombardment of unread posts in your feed reader?  That’s what I thought!  Yes, you are welcome. 

Anywho, check out the other one if you want.  I don’t forsee gaming crossing onto the baby blog very much.  It’ll be more likely that some “how having spawn affects gaming” will continue to crop up here.

But I’m an emotionally charged woman who needs more baby outlets right now.

I need to go drain some souls to gather my sanity…

Here’s a random collection of some posts I starred in my reader over the past month or so.  Ya know, in case you hadn’t seen ‘em.

Ravious of Kill Ten Rats poses the question of what makes one unsubscribe from a blog.  Even I tossed up an answer in the comments.

Tobold reminds new and veteran bloggers alike that reader quality is more important than quantity.

Klepsacovic of Troll Racials are Overpowered shares why blogging needs to be more accessible to casuals in his usual, brilliant, tongue-in-cheek way.

If you haven’t seen these sketches by Tami, you have to… and all the other sketches she posts up.  They are adorable and she has incredible talent.

Gnomer of Armaggedon’s Coming is running a contest for saving souls… either by polymorphing a warlock or creating a rehab program.  Although I don’t quite understand why Illidan is the poster boy for soul rehab, it’s Gnomer’s show and his rules.  I will definitely be submitting a rehab program.  I only have a few more days to finish it up!

Fulguralis of Killing ‘em Slowly shares his displeasure over Illidan being the warlock rehab poster boy.  Oh, and the reasons he’ll never enter treatment for his soul addiction.

Saresa of Destructive Reach shares reasons why it’s for the best that our toons cannot reproduce.

Player Vs. Developer takes a look at privacy implications of using RealID.

You may have noticed that the internet has been just a little quieter the past few days.

And you are right.  I’ve been a bit absent from much of anything related to the internet since Tuesday.

You see…this game that I’ve been anxiously awaiting has been released.  It’s very important for me to moonlight as a detective and catch the Origami Killer.

I’m closing in on him too… I think.

I hope.

Anywho, first playthrough should be complete soon, then I might hit up a second one this weekend.

We’ll see, because I have to play nice and let Sideshow get some time in too.  (And not spoil things.  It’s really hard for me to keep quiet ’round him, but I’m doing it so far!)

Expect clear skies with scattered tweets and posts next week.

In the meantime, if you would like some Sideshow & Syrana-y goodness…

We got the opportunity to hang with the /2 Podcast crew last Friday and it was a blast!  Sideshow and I let loose on Episode 26.  Or at least, I let loose after I stopped trying to censor myself and remembered /2 is full of mature language, hehe.

This week I offer you some gaming, writing, and movie link love.  Enjoy!

Do you want to be a writer? Then check out this job posting for the position of being an unpublished writer.  (A fantastic guest post from Tami!)

Also, if you haven’t been to Tami’s site… just… go.  I starred several of her posts, but really I  need to star her whole blog.  So instead of linking every wonderful post – I am just going to urge you to head on over there!

Mutant Reviews From Hell have a list of the 10 romantic comedies worth watching.  Personally, I usually don’t watch many of those, but this is a good list.  And it has one of my favorite movies on there!

Check out Polygamerous Episode 12: Russell and the Mothman! Not only was it a fun show, there’s this awesome interview I did with CCP Games…

Darcy and Russell had the opportunity to talk with CCP Manifest (PR Associate) and CCP Jasonitas (Content Team) from CCP Games, the developer of EVE Online.  They provided us with some great information regarding the unique sandbox game world of New Eden as well as some of the challenges of running the universe on a single shard.  CCP Manifest and CCP Jasonitas discussed their current roles and how they got started with CCP Games.  CCP Jasonitas shared which mission he wrote is his favorite, and what their favorite aspect of the game is.  We also took a look at the relationship between the developers and the player community, especially in regards to the Council of Stellar Management (CSM), which gives elected players a chance to meet face-to-face with developers to discuss issues, concerns, and suggestions.  We lightly touched upon the highly anticipated Incarna expansion and the console MMOFPS DUST 514 which are currently in development.  Of course, we confirmed they have been Polygamerized as well.  Oh! And we even asked CCP Jasonitas about the Mothman.

Also! Make sure to listen in to Slash 2 Podcast this Friday at 7pm CST, where Sideshow and I join them for an evening.

Euripedes of Critical QQ reminds us that gaming is a hobby and ponders why it isn’t always viewed that way by outsiders and even some insiders.

Miss Medicina shows us her geeky nerd side.  Or is it nerdy geek side?

I love a good song parody, and there’s one about the new dungeon finder tool set over at Kill Ten Rats.

Speaking of Kill Ten Rats … Ravious has been working with Massively on how bloggers can build relationships with community managers.  I found it pretty informative – check out Part 1 and Part 2.

Formspring.me is still relatively new and I thought I’d share why I think it can be valuable to use.  I know several people aren’t interested in it or don’t really know what it is.  Even if you don’t end up using if for yourself, maybe this post will at least help reveal some of its appeal.

Ease Of Use

Formspring.me is not particularly amazing in terms of it’s look or innovation.  However, it is easy to use.  Signing up is pretty straight forward.  After you sign up, you can choose to connect it to other social media networks (i.e. Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr).  Once you do this, you are able to let your followers and friends know about your link.

You can also choose which networks (if any) you want to send out per question. There are check boxes allowing you to be selective.  Contrary to popular (negative) belief, using formspring.me does not equal auto spam of every question.  While I still stand by my rant the other day, I personally choose to only tweet a few questions and answers sporadically (but even that can annoy some people). (continue reading…)

It is now time to reveal who I’ve been admiring over the weekend as part of the Secret Admirer project.  I will also include how I concluded who my secret admirer was…

Capturing My Admiration

My attention and affection was directed at Miss Jaedia of Lazy Sniper.  It was almost like a cruel twist of fate to match this warlock up with a hunter.

Here are the notes of adoration I left for her – filled with tiny clues as to who I was:

And gazing upon your huge… walls of text.

It’s not quite spring yet, but some of us bloggers are getting twitterpated and signing up to secretly admire another blogger.

This will be interesting… oh yes, it shall be.

P.S. I like chocolate.

P.P.S. And souls.

First part of this is… full of superawesomeSyrana-y goodness.

• Syrana received some in character mail over at Diabolical Minds.  She has now shared her thoughts on Sylvanas and Thrall.  She will be expressing her (not mine – HER… ok a little bit of mine) opinions of the faction leaders over a series of posts.
• Polygamerous celebrated its 10th episode this week! This show was a lot of fun – you don’t want to miss it.
• Syrana takes another step up the ladder towards becoming a professional last minute guest.  Check out TNB’s 75th episode: Need More Guest as I join Fimlys and Nibuca to talk about the latest WoW news.  I had a blast, again.  Anytime you need me, you know where to find me.

The second part is… making up for the lack of TLC Thursday posts and bringing you up-to-date on posts I starred in my reader as excellente.  (Of course, this does not mean I am caught up on my reading… this is merely an array of posts I’ve wanted to include in TLC Thursday for… um.. since the last one was posted! And… you’ve probably seen these already, but I still love to give my, um, love.)

• Player Versus Developer has an interesting and thought provoking post about the differences of difficulty and how they scale than in say, Mario, versus the difficulty of Wrath of the Lich King.
• The 7th Annual Women in Games Conference is coming up in March.  I wish it was near where I live.
• The ever amazing Pike illustrates a great Weezer song – WoW style.
• Talented Tami (I know she likes alliteration ) shares the secrets of writing in a guest post over at Too Many Annas.
• Miss Medicina wrote us a prescription on how to make it through the least favorite random dungeon.
• Arioch uses a great analogy for the various levels of ‘core when it comes to playin’ WoW.

Psst – there were actually more, but I had to make a cut off.  Bad Syrana shouldn’t compile links more than a month old in a links -OMG GO READ- post.  (I still <3 you though.)