Weekend Update

So another weekend without a post – even though technically I have more time on the weekends. However, there is always this “fun” part. During the weekends I finally get to play with the baby and catch up on the gaming at the same time. Which can lead to silly situations – like the tank permanently switching mini-pets.


I should probably explain that a little bit more – see… technically I don’t use mini-pets. They do, however, give a few achievement points, so of course I collected the basic 75. Our baby, on the other hand, loves the mini-pets. So when he sits on my lap, watching me slaughter my way through legions of … wait… that does not sound right.

So when he sits on my lap while I stroll through Utgarde Keep, laying waste to the undead hordes with sword and fire …

No… not better yet.

So when he sits on my lap, while I lead a fearless group of friends in an adventure to save the princess (see what I did there? See?) and show our superior swordplay to the enemy evildoers in an effort to cow them into giving up, he occasionally demands minipets.

Unsually going something like this: “I want to see the chicken. No the other chicken. And now the cat. No the white cat. And the green frog. And the blue frog. And the orange frog. And the spider. Itsy bitsy spider climbed up the … oooh now the core hound” (we are so proud he can say core-hound at age two and a half. He’ll be a star in kindergarden).

So the fearless tank has the pet window open, blocking half the screen and is following a priority system of “sword and board shield slam > shield slam > new minipet > devastate”. It does have its challenging moments. And I will never understand why calling a minipet requires a global cooldown – would it provide an unfair advantage in pvp?

Anyway. Catching up on gaming was the main topic here. Because it was a rather successful weekend for that. My Sunday morning started with getting up before the rest of the family, making a cup of tea and a bowl of cereal and then plopping down in front of the computer. Sure… I could have painted the walls, but the noise would certainly have woken up the family. So instead it was the quick daily work to ensure my repair bills will always be paid. Log in, do the jewelcrafting daily, grab the Brunhildar daily, then head over to the Argent Tournament grounds. Not my greatest moneymaking scheme, but both have mounts – the blue ladies as a rare drop in their bag of goodies, the tournament people every 11 days of completing their dailies.

Lucky moment – on the way to the tournament I opened my bag and saw the shiny epic polar riding bear mount.

Queue a moment of disbelieving staring and a swift turn away from the tournament grounds. 100 mounts is quite enough, thank you. I did not actually “take” the bear from the bag because no one was actually online in guild – and hey… if you get an achievement like this, you need to rub a few people’s noses in it.

After failing the fishing tournament on Saturday I was seriously considering going to the one in Booty Bay on Sunday as well. After all, the Salty title is a proper rare achievement. Not more than 104 people can get it per year. This one is actually a proper achievement (unlike the 100 mounts one, I have to admit). Turns out this was a good idea (did I just ruin all the excitement? Sorry). I went to my usual fishing spot on Yojamba Isle (that’s the one where the friendly trolls for Zul Gurub reputation turn ins sit around) and found that it was… empty. No one there. It seems the general slowdown in World of Warcraft is also affecting the anglers. I like this area because the respawning pools stay in the same area – once a pool is fished dry another one will pop up either around the islands themselves (all two of them) or in the small fjord leading to the “Gates of Westfall” just to the north. Very little travel involved.

Unlike last week, I got my 40 tastyfish this week without a major incident. I didn’t fall into the water, I didn’t accidentally not loot because I was reading guildchat, I only got two “junkfish” from missing the pool and I didn’t forget to set my hearthstone to Booty Bay before the contest.

When I arrived in BB there was actually no one there. Some poor horde fisher was running up to the hand-in just as I got my achievement spam and my Hook of the Master Angler.

And it was great!

My hands were shaking more than after arena fights. This is proper pvp – entirely fair (*) and with no competition except for other players. Booyah!

And lastly - weekends give me time to actually read boards. It's turned into rather a lot of reading lately - not at all influenced by lots of new things from SAN.

My two favourites this weekend: The Lich King being surprisingly honest in his opinion and something I already knew about my raid groups - but did not manage to put quite so succinctly.


(*) As long as everyone is level 40 or above in my location – no hostile creatures on Yojamba Island. The epic ground mount is required to move quickly between pools.