I will try not to let the real life anger float into this blog post. I will be nice and happy, I swear (although it is hard after having some 15 year old boys spend an hour swearing at you and being little jerks).

Firstly, a small administrative issue. I was looking at my blog today at school, where they only have internet explorer on the computer (heathens!) and I noticed that all the things in my side bar had bullet points next to them. These do not show on my computer in IE or Firefox, and I was just wondering if anyone else had this issue. If you have bullet points appearing, just email me or leave a reply and let me know. I will try to find a solution, although that could be hard considering I suck at this CSS stuff.

Once again, I am inspired by Kestrel to draw yet another school/raiding parallel. Funny how it works like that! I was complaining in Twitter about the students in my class this afternoon, and Kest asked if they were in my raid. Well… it was kinda like a raid in a couple of ways.

1. Generally one kid is a ‘boss’, the rest are just trash.

Nasty sounding parallel, but it’s true. My class on a normal day has one kid who is the leader of them all, a couple of followers, some kids who are fine if you don’t do something to stir them up, and some genuinely nice kids. If you get the ring leader under control, most of the time the whole class is fine. If you don’t, the rest of them aggro as well.

2. Preparation is everything.

If you aren’t prepared for a lesson, you will wipe. Almost a 99% guarantee there. Especially in a rough class, where they will go nuts if you aren’t 100 % organised. Today was a valuable lesson in point, where I had organised a powerpoint to be projected in the room. However, a crucial cord had gone missing, which meant that the kids had to try and see it on a laptop screen. As some were too lazy to move and couldn’t see, they misbehaved. If you aren’t 100% prepared for a boss fight, he will do something that you don’t expect… just like kids!

OK, so the teaching/WoW analogies might be getting a little old… but it’s all I can think of after a stressful day! /hug everyone!

All must go here and look.  See if you can figure it out before you get to the post with the explanation.  That is all.

So, I didn’t do the blog tv thing today. No one showed up, which is what I kinda expected anyway (it was set kinda late), then my raid went over time and I was just all tired and grouchy and grrrrrrr. Anyway, I do have a rant all lined up for you!

The thing that really got to me today was a couple of druids I came across in Arathi Basin. Clearly it was foolish of me to even try to do AB in the hopes of winning, but since it was the weekend BG and I really do want to get ahold of the Spirit of Competition before it is gone, I decided to brave it. The very first AB I got into, I helped heal at the farm, tried to capture somewhere else, died, and came back to this sight.

While about 8 of us were off actually trying to fight in this BG, these selfish jerks were dancing on the roof. Two of them were in the same guild, which leads me to believe that they both entered with the intention to lose the BG. I’ll admit, I lost my temper slightly (friends and guildmates had to suffer while I dropped several F bombs cursing these morons), and then confronted them about their behaviour, after someone asked the legitimate question “Why didn’t you try to help me when the horde killed me RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU?”

To this they retorted that the roof was an excellent defensive position, which is all well and good if a) you are willing to actually defend the place rather than dance and watch the horde kill other people there and take it, and b) aren’t both resto druids (which they later admitted) who would be much more valuable out in the battle healing people. I was very tempted to name and shame them in here, but I have decided to try and be ‘the better man’. I will certainly be reporting them to a GM if I ever come across them pulling that sort of stunt - they only reason I didn’t today was because I didn’t think of it until it was too late. From what I have heard, people CAN get their honor stripped for this sort of garbage.

I know that many people have blogged before about people who deliberately lose battlegrounds. I really do not understand the phenomenon myself - it is perhaps the most ridiculously selfish thing that people can do in PvP, yet it seems to happen all the time. When there are 10 people in a 15 man battleground who actually want to put in an effort and win, who are you to waste their time with your dancing on the roof bullshit? Alliance in our battlegroup have a horrific reputation for PvP, and when you see the stunts like this that some clowns pull, you understand why. It gets frustrating seeing at least 10 AFK’s in Alterac Valley. People who just screw around in WSG and AB are even worse. There really isn’t that many of us to begin with, and having even one or two people refuse to play and leeching honor off the rest of us is a waste of our valuable time. These same people would not dare to pull this kind of crap in a raid, I can almost guarantee it. Why? Because raiding is serious business! People would get pissed if they sat on their hands for a whole raid! I suggest that these people need to learn that some people take their battlegrounds just as seriously as they take their raiding. I for one am not a big fan of battlegrounds - I am not especially good at PvP, and the general lack of organisation really doesn’t sit well with me. However, when I do decide to go in there, I take it seriously. Not just for myself, but for all the other people who are in there, who MAY just want to actually have a shot at winning.

/end rant

Today Arcis continued their plunge into Mount Hyjal. While I must admit I was somewhat dubious (and disappointed) about heading in there rather than venturing further into Black Temple, it was an interesting experience to have our first go at Kaz’rogal. While we didn’t get him down, he seems to be a fairly easy boss, and I found that the trash before him is actually much more difficult. We got him to less than 20% on our first and only attempt, with three people blowing up the raid (which I found to be both stupid and disappointing).

The trash is an absolute nightmare, especially when you have not experienced it before. We had some difficulty killing waves fast enough, which resulted in prolonged periods with no drinks. This wasn’t so bad for me - life tap FTW! - but the healers were getting pretty antsy by the end of it. I found gargoyles difficult to AoE as well - only once did I manage to get them all together, and let me tell you, I was taking a heck of a beating from them! Sure, one gargoyle may not hurt much, but 8 of them all at once is nasty. We wiped a few times on the fifth wave, but eventually made it through with some well organised CC, and got to the boss.

I honestly believe that this boss is fairly straight forward. I don’t have any of the shadow resist gear yet, but with Prayer of Shadow Protection I managed to successfully resist between 50-80% of the damage from other people’s explosions. Exploding from lack of mana is pretty easy to avoid as a Warlock obviously! The main things I noticed were that people were unwilling to sacrifice some DPS in order to stay alive - rather than run away from the raid if they knew they were going to explode, or ease off and auto attack for a short while, they would continue running through their mana and blow everyone up. One of the paladins managed to do this to the whole melee group. I suggested that he could perhaps not be in the melee group and help heal or something if he felt he couldn’t effectively manage his mana, but people vetoed that idea ‘It’s a DPS race! We need his DPS in there, not him helping with healing!’. Well… sure, his damage would be nice (although it’s not really huge, since he is a Prot Pally), but I can guarantee the damage from the other melee is much better! It would be nice to not have them killed!

Other people also didn’t take the advice to run away from the raid if they knew they were going to blow up, and killed over half the raid in doing so. Thank goodness he goes down very easily - the fastest I have certainly ever seen on a raid boss. Another couple of attempts, where everyone knows what they are doing, and we should be fine. More people are getting some shadow resist gear for the next attempt, although I am far too poor at the moment (as usual). Of course, I will need it for Azgalor, but I like to take these things one step at a time!

Tomorrow’s schedule appears to be Shade of Akama, Teron Gorefiend (uh oh, because I fail badly at the simulation!), and Kaz’rogal if we have time. I will keep you posted

Finally, I made yet another video (glutton for punishment, aren’t I?) answering the questions posed to me by Elf. Currently it refuses to upload onto YouTube - not sure if it is an internet issue or what - but I am testing alternatives. Since I am having difficulties uploading, it may be up tomorrow. Here it is!

Also - thinking I might do a BlogTV thing tomorrow after my raid, which finishes at 10.30pm Cenarius server time (don’t ask me what timezone that is, sorry - hopefully someone knows), which is 3.30pm Australian EST. I would estimate a 4pm start for me. I know thats kinda late for most people, so it’s not like I expect a huge attendance! Just let me know if you are interested by commenting please. It will be at http://www.blogtv.com/People/Saresa . I make no guarantees about my personal appearance - my weekend uniform generally consists of gym pants and a baggy jumper. Yep, I’m a slob!

Succubus? Bat? Demonic Gryphon? What would be the perfect flying form for a Warlock? That my friends is the question posed in this week’s Blog Azeroth Shared Topic! I am a fan of the shared topic, I must admit, since a) it helps me beat the writer’s block and b) it tends to bring some more traffic over here, and when we are sharing the love I do like to get greedy and hog more than my fair share!

I have long had gripes about the lack of a Warlock class flying mount. I had gotten somewhat accustomed to getting my mounts through quest chains, and really hated the idea of riding a boring old gryphon. I’m a lock, I am meant to be above that sort of lowly peon transportation, best suited to Mages and those other pesky people (you know - Hunters, Druids, Warriors, Shaman, Rogues, Priests and Paladins). However, I have often wondered what I should ride, should Blizzard be kind enough to come to their senses and give me a flying mount.

I used to just ponder upon the demonic creatures which have wings, but you know what? Some of them have faces! Most of them have faces! I can’t ride something with a human like face! Can you imagine the jokes? Eeeeeeep. So, that rules out succubi, other random winged demons, and also Illidan, despite the fact that would be kinda cool.

So… something winged and not with a human like face. Well, after seeing the absolutely laughable skeletal gryphon, I don’t want anything gryphon related. I want it to be memorable, or distinctly warlock-y.

Nah, a demon rabbit makes NO sense. In all honesty, I think a demonic unicorn would be spectacular. I absolutely adore my Dreadsteed, so if he could fly that would be pretty nice. I could also cheat and say that since Druids get to shift into their flying mount, Warlocks should turn into a flying demon - perhaps a weird evil fairy for gnomes hehe. Humans of course would be succubi (yes, even if you are a man!). I’ll leave the horde mounts up to you guys.

As a completely unrelated aside, I have made another vid, despite proclaiming I wasn’t going to until I got a new camera. I won’t put it on here, because it isn’t really relevant - it’s a response to TJ’s video. I took the ‘remove glasses’ advice, and so am pulling weird faces when I try to read. Not to mention it is also super quiet due to bad microphone placement. Next time I may have to wear my headset - scary!

Edit: How about a demonic flying murloc?????

For the longest time I have wanted a T-Shirt depicting me fishing in a moonwell. It all started when Kalf said I just HAD to have a WoW shirt for when we go to pick up our copies of Wrath of the Lich King (apparently it involves getting to the shop RIDICULOUSLY early to be first in line since they give away prizes and things), and I said that I would have to get one made up of me fishing in the moonwell. Why? Because it ticks him off!

Anyway, I really suck at arty stuff, as you all know. Absolutely horrible at anything which involves pictures, drawing, painting, colours… so, I am throwing it out to you guys. Here is my tentative mock up of what I am thinking - feel free to change it a LOT, because my design is a bit meh.

The intention is there, but the execution is lacking. Shame really! The rules are as follows:

- Max size is 3000×3000 pixels (which takes up a significant amount of the front of a shirt)

- Try to make it something which will work well on most colours please! (which is a major issue with mine). Mine looks kinda dicky on a shirt anyway, since it’s on that nasty big square background.

- From what i have read, pale colours will have the colour of the T-Shirt kinda show through.

I also have an idea for a second T-shirt. No mock up, but the theme is “Evil: the person who takes the last cookie!” with a soulwell ;). Well that, but better phrased.

I don’t really expect anyone to buy these shirts except for me, but I will probably put up a store just in case ;). I’m only doing it because I want my Moonwell T-Shirt! I guess the winner can have one as well, if they like. I am thinking a 2 week deadline should be sufficient.  If you have any ideas, email them to me at destructivereach AT yahoo DOT com DOT au please!

OK, I know it is naughty to sit reading my subscriptions when I should be preparing for work, going to work, doing work even.  However, I am sure you will thank me when you clicky on the linky and have a look.  Remember a little while ago I did my usual whining about Spellstones and Firestones?  About how much they suck?  Well, check out this!

I sure am excited - Spellstones and Firestones potentially useful?  No longer taking up a valuable spot usually occupied by my wand?  Yes Please!

So, as I do believe I mention, this is my first attempt at video. After viewing, I noticed a couple of things:

• My fringe is a problem. If I am constantly tilting my head to get it out of my face IRL, I must look bloody stupid!
• The screen is reflected on my glasses. Sorry ’bout that.
• I also mentioned the dodgy looking synching with the sound and the video. If I can ever work out how to fix it, I will. Promise!
• Once again, I mangled a blog name - it’s nicgetlife.blogspot.com Sorry!!!!!!

After doing this, I am much more keen to do the BlogTV thing. I think I would much rather the interaction. The problem with this is, I don’t get home until 4pm here, which is, what… 11pm on my server Cenarius, and I think Cenarius is on Eastern time?? Not too sure on that one. At any rate, it would be a heinous for for you guys. Lemme know what you think anyway!

P.S - I got Hydra’s question a smidgen too late :(. The answer is chocolate, the question was ‘Vanilla or Chocolate?’ Chocolate everything!!!

P.P.S - speaking of bad spelling, look what I just found:

OK everyone, tomorrow is the day where I finally get around to doing my video. I definitely have the house to myself, as my sister has gone to the boyfriend’s for the week and my brother is off on school camp. Huzzah, alone time!! So, I would love to hear any questions you guys would like to ask. As a general idea, I will probably do one in response to TJ’s video (since she asked for it!), but I might waffle on with some other stuff as well. So long as it all fits in a 10 minute timeframe, anyway.

So, shoot… but I reserve the right to dodge

Sorry everyone, been insanely busy, promise to return with a real post soon. Please don’t hate me! *pulls out hair*

I really need to learn to say no. People ask me to do stuff, to go to stuff, to help out with stuff, and my inability to say no is creating many problems. I just worked out I currently do not have a free weekend all internship, which means that I am stressed and panicking all the time. I also am one of those weird people who can not cope without having any alone time, and I wont have any of that at all for… well… the rest of the year, really. The having to do crap for people is really annoying though. So, let’s all say it together -

Just say NO!!!