The AFK

I apologize for my absences of late. Really, I have no excuse, except to say that I didn't have much to say. Course, I have been trolling other people's blogs and posting, but nothing worth creating my own topic about.

So, what have I been doing? Other than trolling?

Well, I've managed to get my Paladin past 70 and into a sizable amount of Lich King content. Now, I had traversed a bit of Northrend previously with my warrior and gnome mage, but I wasn't really feeling it. I think a lot of it had to do with with how cluttered the Borean Tundra and Howling Fjords feel. The zone is pretty packed with animals, diverse terrain and other obstacles that tend to just annoy me. But, I decided with my paladin, the goal was to quickly level through those areas and head on, which I did, and I'm really enjoying the game much more.

There are areas of the new expansion that are just a visual delight. The art design for Lich King is very different than those of the core and BC. It seems to take on almost a graphic novel type of look with the shadowing and shading of the ground, trees and buildings. I'm just saying that I'm really digging the art work this time around.

The questing isn't much different than before. Lots of collection and kill quests. They have created a few themed quests that go along with certain areas you are questing in, like the D.E.H.T.A line of quests, which I won't go into here. They are fun to do maybe once, but after that they get annoying. Course, getting to ride a woolly mammoth is lots of fun. I just wish that Blizzard would stop making us look through animal crap for part of a quest. Bat quano and wolf droppings have no business being in a quest chain.

Getting a 5-man group as a retribution paladin seemed like it might be an issue. I figured most people would prefer a mage, warlock or Death Knight to a dps paladin, but I'm here to say, I've not had one problem. I've been inside the Nexus, Utgard Keep, Azjol- Nerub, Ahn'jahet and Drak'Tharon Keep. Everyone was pretty much a Pug, with a few guild members through in at times. We didn't have any problem getting along or getting the instance handled in a reasonable way and I had a blast doing each and every one. A lot of this new found ease is attributed to the way Blizzard created the instances in Lich King. They aren't very complicated and they are very very fast. Each instance took maybe 30 min to 40 min from start to finish, sometimes even less depending on your particular group make up.

Now here is the real problem, for me and my paladin anyway. There are 3 types of plate armor that drops in the game. Straight up paladin, mana regeneration, intellect and stamina heavy armor, protection warrior or paladin, stamina and strength heavy with defense thrown in for good measure. Then lastly they have some dps centric plate armor that's mostly designed for fury or arms warriors, but looks pretty good for a dps paladin at times, especially if nothing else is better.

So now I have to shift through what I have, whats dropped and who is in the party to decide if the item I'm looking at is worth rolling need for. I want you to know, it's getting pretty hard. I rolled need on two weapons over three days. Both looked to be better than the other, but upon closer examination and some attack dummy practicing, they are in fact, the same. No real problem because I didn't have any competition rolling on either item in the group I was in, but still. I don't want to hose someone out of a nice upgrade, especially if I'm not sure if the item is a true upgrade for me. I do have a mod that compares stats, but even that isn't 100% correct at times and I don't have the luxury of having the group hold up a roll just to make sure I'm doing the right thing for me.

Oh well, enough of that little bit of internal conflict.

Besides WoW, I've picked up two new DS games, Big Bang Mini and Henry Hatsworth and the Puzzling Adventure. Both very different and very good games. I've enjoyed both of them immensely, especially when away from my computer due to work. I still need to finish Final Fantasy 3 and Chrono Trigger, but I needed something light to play while I was working out of town. I don't want to be caught playing my DS the next time we have someone important on the stage.

I've also become addicted to Starbuck's coffee. I'm not going to link them in my blog because they are extremely evil and if you've not already heard of them, which would be a miracle, I'm not going to go out of my way to help them aquire fresh blood for their army of caffinated zombies. Needless to say, every day I have at the very least one large cup of their highly addictive coffee, if not two. Yes, it does tend to be a bit expensive, but I don't smoke nor do I go out and drink beer much, so I don't see a problem with a coffee addiction.

On a good health note, I've joined Weight Watchers with my wife. I've been on it a week and I've already lost a little over 8 lbs. Hopefully the progress with continue. Being a diabetic it's important to me as I get older to get better control over my blood sugars and with my weight being a little out of control these days I'm hopeful that Weight Watchers can help. The trick is to attend the meetings and write down everything you eat during the day. Make sure you excercise and eat foods that will fill you up but aren't fattening. Ok, no more Weight Watchers commercial.

That is about it.

I would like to recommend a new podcast. I've been a fan of The Player One podcast for over a year now and recently they recommended The Fanboys. I've listened to three episodes so far and it's very entertaining. They converse mostly about movies and games, but they do tend to go off topic a great deal and some of it can be disturbing, but so far it's always been funny stuff. It won't be for everyone, but if your into entertaining podcasts, then give this one a try.

I'm too lazy to edit this or check my grammar so if I screw up something, please forgive.