Skully Squeak

Books I've Read

2008-08-27T11:44:00.005+10:00

Two and a half Orcs posted the National Education Association’s Top 100 books. He was responding to other bloggers who had done the following:

Look at the list and bold those we have read.
Italicize those we intend to read.
Underline the books we LOVE - since I can't underline (I don't know how), I didn't do this.

I present to you my own list. I used to love reading books so much, especially as a child. At present, I tend to read more specialized stuff. Currently, I've been going through a Terry Prachett phase.

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveler’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger - read 30% of this
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo (abriged)

So far, I've read 36 books from the list. I look forward to going back to our local library and reading some of the others that I'm interested in.

Mini Pets

2008-08-20T11:33:00.007+10:00

As soon as I learned that players could go around the WoW with a little furry companion of their own, I wanted one. Around February 2007, my husband went to his first successful Deadmines run and got me this sweet cat who was with me throughout my Azerothian adventures.

Hehe, she really hated taking baths.

Today, Wow Insider featured Breanni and his website. He actually has 82 vanity pets! That got me curious so I checked out the Warcraftpets site and ended up making my own profile. Tada!

http://www.warcraftpets.com/account/profile.asp?user=skully#col

You can actually keep track of what pets you have and make a wishlist. The ones I really want to get are the Phoenix Hatchling and Mojo. But current favourite mini-pet is the fairy tale-ish Sprite Darter Hatchling, the loyal companion of my mage.

In case you want one of your own, here is a walkthrough by Dianius.

War Song

2008-08-14T15:00:00.022+10:00

Druids are renowned flag carriers in Warsong Gulch (WSG). Proof is in the t-shirt.

Dwarrow was a level 30-ish druid when our resident moonkin suggested I go into WSG and get my paws dirty. She said it was particularly fun to get the flag and run with it. I had serious doubts about that because from my pally experience, WSG and fun didn't go together.

Stealth, stealth, stealth to the flag room. Get the flag. Die, die, die before making it out the room. After one agonizing game of that, I decided that I sucked and would just defend our flag. But then I got whispers from team mates telling me that I should try and get the horde flag. Sigh. I tried to defend well but felt like a balloon that was scared of stabby and pointy things that hurt. And so I said goodbye to Warsong Gulch. Other druids may know the rush of flag carrying but it wasn't for me. I was also secure in the knowledge that I wouldn't do a lot of PVP even as a level 70 moonkin.

Then level 70 came and the boomkin turned into a tree! Suddenly, the thought that maybe it was better to have a druid healer rather than a holy paladin for 2v2 and 3v3 arena entered into my team's mind. Squeak! Uh-oh, do I have to go into battlegrounds to get gear? Of course I had to so I went back to WSG and the other BGs for honor and medal turn ins. Ae always went with me and I was able to rope in guildies to go on the "pain train"! But as I am now guildless, I had to go alone. I stuck with the same game plan, defend the alliance flag. However, I found that the stabby things still hurt and the warlock fear is still infuriating. Things also seemed to go on for an eternity.

So I told myself, might as well have a bit more action and go with the offensive team. And it was good. I kept pace with the flag carriers, healed them and tried to root and cyclone whoever was trying to hurt them. Along the way, I saw that druids turned to bear form as soon as they got the flag and turned to travel form when they got out of the tunnel.

Yesterday morning I went with the offensive team again and was one of the first in the flag room. No one was touching the flag though so an unlikely thought insinuated itself into my brain, "Maybe I should get the flag?" I looked around, there was still no one going for it. Blink, blink, blink, swallow. So.... I .... took... teh.... flag. Turned bear, went to the little alcove that had the speed boost thingee and ran and ran and turned cheetah and ran and ran and ran. I could see that someone had taken our flag but I forgot how to go to our roof to hide. But during the final sprint, this message flashed:

The Alliance Flag was returned to its base by Nubcakee!

So my furry feet jumped straight into flag capture one! Phew.

Afterwards, I went back to the horde side flag room. The rogue who was with me took the flag but then died so I had to take it. I managed to get out into the sunshine only to find three horde waiting for me.

I ressed and someone else had taken the horde flag so I went into the middle to try to help the flag carrier. When the warrior saw me, he actually dropped the flag in front of me so I could take it. Oh my! So I took the flag a second time into the flag room. But a rogue and lock were waiting there and I died.

As soon as I was alive again, I rode near the horde building to help the paladin flag carrier. Again, wonder of wonders, I was given the flag. I turned cheetah and we were able to get to the small roof leading into the alliance flag room. Below us we could see a warrior and lock fighting against a rogue. The place where our flag should have been was empty. So I gave the flag back to mister paladin and jumped to help the rogue but by then she had died. I was next to die but the alliance flag was returned that very moment so the paladin jumped to make our second flag capture. We were both in the graveyard a short while after but we were cheering.

We won that game. But more than that, something unlikely had happened. Me, the PVP-hating druid, had earned my stripes. I had become WARSONG FLAG CARRIER.

P.S. If I had the extra cash, I would have loved to get the "doncha wish your girlfriend cast HOTS like me?" tree-shirt. It's cool :D

Guildless and Having Fun

2008-08-13T12:40:00.008+10:00

Here is sad me when I quit Exile last Friday:

Kman and Taeghas said nice things when I told them I was leaving. Ump asked me to explain why I was leaving in guild chat so people won't think badly of me. Here is a response I got:

I cried again that time. But I must say, being guildless also has its perks. Last Saturday, I was able to help Ae do some quests in Stratholme and get his Argent Dawn reputation up. Along the way, he got this new awesome toy Cannonball Runner. Holy Wrath for the win!

I was also able to do a lot of battlegrounds last Monday to work towards some nice shoulders and along the way got the cool Olympic-looking tabard and the pet dragon. Thanks Spirit of Competition!

On a side note, just walking around guildless has gotten me two raiding guild invites. I also pugged heroic Ramps and Slave Pens last Monday with two members of Gankers Inc. Both of them whispered me and told me I was a great healer. One asked me to join them. I know I can't be guildless forever because I love the social interaction in WoW but it's definitely a great ego boost to know that I'm wanted.

I love Jane Austen

2008-08-13T12:37:00.001+10:00

I'm taking a leaf out of the Two and a Half Orcs blog and putting my own quiz result :)

Take the Quiz here!

3 Strikes and You're Out

2008-08-05T14:26:00.004+10:00

I had a full weekend of 25-man raiding. Friday, we went to Serpentshrine Cavern (SSC) and downed Hydross the Unstable, Morogrim Tidewalker and Fathom Lord Karathress. Proceeded to Mt Hyjal to try Rage Winterchill but no dice.

Saturday we went to Gruul's Lair, Magtheridon's Lair and on to Mt Hyjal for more tries on Rage Winterchill. Sunday night we went to Tempest Keep, killed Alar after two attempts then went after Solarian. That was where things really unraveled for me. Solarian has an attack called wrath... if you are the person singled out for wrath, you either run right or left of the raid to safely detonate elsewhere. Otherwise, you blow up all the others who are near you. It is nearly always a wipe. First two tries, I didn't get targeted but others blew up the raid.

Third try, I got targeted and I panicked. I clicked the chat button instead and wondered why I couldn't move. Next two tries, I had my finger on the A button to move left.... kept clicking it and wouldn't move. Fourth and fifth time I was targeted, I had pretty much shut down all my add ons and I was healing in caster, not tree form. I was able to move out but not so far. Umparevoker, the raid leader, asked me to leave after this.

I had been waiting for a chance to raid 25-mans for a while. But I found since SSC that I pretty much go down to 1-2 frames per second. I try to cast instant healing-over-time spells and find that I keep getting the message "spell not ready". I am pretty much always the last in the healing list by a large margin. I keep disconnecting during the raids as well and when I try to log back in, I wait an eternity for the loading screen, only to get the disconnected message again. Yesterday, my husband tweaked some video settings and I took out add ons again and tried it out in AV, same result. Snail crawling pace when I get to the place with a lot of players. It's time to face facts - my PC isn't good enough for big-time raiding. And we can't afford to buy a new computer. Any attempt to continue raiding SSC, TK and Hyjal will just end in misery. Pretty much means I'll have to bow out of Exile. There's no point staying in a serious raiding guild if I can't raid. (Yes, despite what my friend told me, there is nothing casual about this guild).

Oh and I'm not actually crying, that's just some water that accidentally got splashed onto my face.

Wonderful Husband

2008-08-01T10:48:00.002+10:00

My husband and I are now feeling free! Trying not to feel guilty for leaving the guild into the hands of our friend the pally tank. We're trying to remember that he wanted to leave to start a new guild of his own, so he's actually in a better position than if he had to start from scratch (4 bank tabs and a guild with a good rep).

But back to the topic at hand. Hubby the hunter told me last night that he realized after reading my first blog entry is that one reason he didn't want me to raid is because he wasn't able to raid. That he was holding me back because he felt held back from doing those raids he had been reading about way before we gots us some WoW. That's what makes him such a wonderful husband, he recognizes when he is wrong and apologises for it. /hug

(Photo idea shamelessly stolen from best girlfriend ever blog.

Last week, I took Dwarrow out of the guild and joined Exile. I was looking for a casual raiding guild so first I made an application to The Fluffy Bunny Gang. Their rules and whole philosophy just jives with my own. Only drawback is that I don't really know anyone. By chance, I had a whispered conversation later on with an ex-guildie who said I should give his new guild a go. That they are just as friendly and casual as V but are progressing well.

So I officially became part of Exile last Friday. Ae and I raided with them during their Gruul's and Mag's runs last Saturday (they usually open this to non-guildies). Sunday they wanted me to go with them to Tempest Keep but I declined as our account was already reaching its limit for the month which means we get speed limited to a crawl. Tonight, I might get a chance to go to SSC. It's all so exciting but I'm scared as well. I kept dying during Gruul's and once in Mag's so I'm very anxious about doing well.

For the Droods!

2008-07-31T13:33:00.001+10:00

Been catching up on reading some of my favorite blogs. Because my husband is a hunter, I have grown to love BigRedKitty, the god of beastmasters. However, I think that he has crossed a line he shouldn't have crossed. To find out what the whole shebang is, check here, here and here.

I wave my Dwarrow's leafy branches in support of BBB!

Update

2008-07-31T09:59:00.002+10:00

I posted that last diary article I wrote in mid-July just so I know what the state of things were at that time. A lot of things have happened between then and now. One thing I didn't write about was the increased number of difference of opinions we had with our guild leader. Just before I wrote that post, my hunter husband had a long argument with him about his DPS. In the end, our GM wanted him to respec beastmaster from marks so he could increase his DPS. That was the whole other can of worms that led to my hubby's wanting out of the guild that we have been part of since March 2007. The other thing is just the burn out, the not wanting to log because of guild responsibilities. So we took our alts out, I wanted to take our mains out too but we were scared that a whole other swath of quits would follow so we decided to take it slow.

Another issue came up during the weekend, husband had another discussion with our guild leader. At the end of it, he simply said, "You know what, I'm tired of leading this guild." Soon enough, the gquit followed and my husband found himself the temporary guild master. After a while of soul searching, we decided that we would still go through our plan of leaving. I tearfully typed up the following letter that we posted on the guild blog:

Dear Guildies,

We have received some questions about why K left. I know I've answered it in different ways but I just think that K's leaving, although shocking, was inevitable. He had taken a lot of things onto himself and the burn out was sure to come. The straw that broke the camel's back was when there was discussion about the requirements around the Zul Aman raid. One guildie questioned it in guild chat. K responded correctly based on the rules that had been set but not diplomatically. When we discussed the manner of his response, he eventually simply said that he had gotten tired of running the guild. So it was not just this one event, it was just the last in a series of things.

We've sometimes had our differences with K but he has been a good friend and mentor. He took us (Ae and Sküld) under his wing at around level 38 and we have been through a lot of adventures with him in game and that's something we will always treasure. I'm sure most of us have had the same experiences with him. So although it may be late in the piece, we'd like to thank K for everything.

But before last weekend's events, we had also determined to leave the guild. This is not because we felt neglected, or that we had no friends, or because we didn't like someone in the guild. We decided to leave because, even though we didn't want to be officers, we were appointed as such and, although we tried to do the best that we can, it came at a price. We may have not taken on the level of responsibility that K did, but people still looked to us to organise events, for guidance and encouragement.... it was getting a bit much. We just wanted to get back to enjoying the game in our own way.

We had already taken out all our alts and were just waiting a few weeks before making the final transition—we are doing it this way because we didn't like the sudden /gquits that happen and we want to make clear that our leaving doesn't mean that we have stopped loving V and it's guild members.

But why leave the guild, you may ask. We have expressed that it was unnecessary for K to have left the guild, that we wished that, even if he had stepped down, he didn't have to /gquit. In the same vein, it can be reasoned that we don't have to leave the guild either... just stop being officers and be regular members. It is a very attractive scenario, but right now we just want to be able to adventure together again, just us, nameless and (probably) guildless for a while or (if we do get into another guild) still anonymous. Think of it as something like a 2nd honeymoon in Azeroth that we needed to have for a long time. The game is not just about a guild but going out there and maybe killing some crazy NPC like Don Carlos just to get his hat, something that we didn't do together for a very long time because we were busy with the guild. Maybe even just watch television, instead of logging in. We'd like to keep it that way.

So, we will still have to leave... and I hope you respect and support our decision. We are planning to stay until the transition this Sunday (3 August) when a new GM is selected.

But it doesn't mean we are burning our bridges... far from it. You guys are still our friends, a friendship that has developed under fire and forged in the most dangerous dungeons of Azeroth and the Outlands. We are still members of some of your arena teams and, if there is a need, the occasional spot in your raids or the BG Pain Train. But that is also one reason why we need to leave—that is two more spots available for guildies that, so far, we had been monopolizing.

Change is inevitable especially in a gaming community like this and it's both good and bad. Hopefully, K's move will enable him to do more of the raiding that he really wanted (and deserved) to do. V can hopefully move on into better directions, have more decentralised leadership while at the same time continue being the wonderful guild it has been.

So I hope you guys don't feel like we are also abandoning this guild. This has been coming on for a while. We have no hard feelings towards anyone but for us, it's time as well to move on.

Thank you all for the friendships. You guys have helped us as we adjusted to our adopted country, through A's dad's death and our search for a new place to live among other things. If and when we quit WoW, we will always look to this time with fondness and great shared memories.

Cheers,

S and A

1% on Akil'zon Brings on the Whine

2008-07-14T16:15:00.002+10:00

I guess it's envy... I guess it's selfishness...

During the previous months, I haven't been working full time. I just took a light on course where I didn't really need to do much. So I had a lot of time to play Warcraft.

My main is a pally healer and after running a lot of heroics to gear our main tank (who also happens to be our GM) as well as Karazhan, I have pretty much gotten most of the gear at this level. Except for the bracers, I have bought all the badge gear I want. I thought it was useless to gear even further since healing in Kara had already gotten comfortable and our guild is just starting ZA. The only thing to break the monotony was the weekly arena matches I ran w/ my husband (Ae, a marksman hunter) and a guildie (a survival hunter).

So what to do? I rolled an alt. But before that I rolled several alts. I made a shammy, a gnome mage, a horde warlock... but I found I enjoyed playing druid, especially during levels 1-10. I could be a caster but not be as vulnerable as a mage. Fast forward to some months later... the druid is now level 70. She was a moonkin from level 57 but I found that I wasn't that happy with the mechanics of the boom. I realised that all along, what I had wanted was a mage. Aside from that, I missed being wanted in dungeons, something I had as a healer. Everytime I would try to go and pug something, people would ask me first whether I was a tank or a healer. So when our GM asked me to go resto for one Kara run, I agreed. I was curious as to how the healing mechanic on a druid worked. It turned out to be fun so I've kept the resto thang. And now I'm doing a lot of instances on the drood as well as pvp to gear her up. But I know once she is geared I'll be faced with the same frustration.

It doesn't help that I've been reading a lot of blogs lately, especially Resto4Life, Banana Shoulders and World of Matticus. All of them are healing 25-man raids like SSC, TK, Hyjal and BT. I'm stuck healing two rounds of Kara on both my pally and druid and ZA. So far ZA has been a disaster. We have no class balance so we're bringing two pally tanks, two pally healers, four hunters, one warlock and a holy priest. Last Sunday, we wiped on the mobs leading up to Nalorakk four times. On top of that, we were short one healer so I had to advertise on the LFM channel. Two healers came on both tauting that they had 1700 heals. Now this is well within the parameter to heal ZA so I chose the priest to augment our two-pally heals combo.

Anyway, that run was so stressful to heal. Twice we got the Akil'zon down to 1% and still wiped. And we generally find the eagle boss easier to down than the bear boss! Afterwards I keep asking myself why. I am more than geared for ZA, having 2K heals on me, but why is it so hard? How can other healers be going around (incidentally that priest told me he's healing SSC now) with less heals and stats than I am and be healing 25-mans and other things comfortably? All I can think about is the lack of class balance. >.<

So brought up my complaint with hubby, that I wanted to raid 25-mans starting with Gruuls and work my way up. That I want to learn to heal 25-mans. But he just kept telling me the sooner I got over my sense of entitlement, the better. That he had wanted to go to Molten Core too, Onyxia and other pre-BC raids but no one was interested in going. He had been hurt too. (Note: We rolled our first characters well into the Burning Crusade expansion). And he also told me, all these raids and content I want to see will soon be passe when the expansion comes out. No one will want to go to them either. His recommendation was that I get over the feeling that just because I have the gear, I'm entitled to go to 25-mans.

Second thing he pointed out is that it's difficult to find a casual raiding guild. I will have to be on call during raid times and would not be able to say I can't go as easily as now (note: I rarely miss raids, even then it's usually at the husband's insistence). I would have to be the best at my game because raid spots are limited and there is the pressure of constant scrutiny. But I'm thinking surely there must be a guild out there that does progressive raiding and isn't that full on. Anyway, he ended up saying that if I was going to leave the guild just because I wanted to go to a progressive guild then it's a mistake. The expansion will feature more five-man teams and a 10-man raid version for every 25-man. Where would I be left if I burned all my bridges and left all my friends just to go on my own quest?

There is the option of waiting it out and seeing how far my current guild can go. But I doubt we'll go far because as it is, our GM has put a really big set of requirements for raiding progression content (and yet we barely have enough people for ZA). It's also been agreed by the officers, myself included, to keep the guild casual. And the GM wants "selective recruitment" (whatever that means) rather than a normal recruitment thing over the channels or forums. Oh dear, this means we won't get the people that we need for 25-man raiding or even 10-man raiding.

My husband's whole point is that I'm being selfish and I should just accept the state of things so I wouldn't be unhappy. But I have a lot of time on my hands currently and I think I should use it for raiding and getting as far as I can in WoW. Is that so bad? Is it impossible to find a casual raiding guild that won't take up my whole week?

P.S. Recently read Wynthea's article "Myth: It Doesn’t Matter As Long as the Boss Dies" from World of Matticus. Ha! There is an explanation for the frustration I felt here.