Keiko & WoW

Keiko makes her debut in WoW after the recent release of the new Calico vanity pet.

Here we have Keiko and Pirjo taking a moment for a nice holiday photo-shoot in Dalaran during the Winter's Veil celebration.



Pirjo has nearly 70 pets to care for now! Sometimes she just doesn't know what to do with them all!

Obsessive Activity Circle

Reading obsessively --> knitting obsessively --> WoWing obsessively --> repeat. I'm now in the WoWing part of the circle. My elbow hurts, but I'm having fun. :-)

I start my new job Monday. Already have projects on my list, plus the task of having to transition my replacement.

And please do check out KP's blog: http://saywhatkp.blogspot.com/. She's doing it for her class, so show her some support by reading and, if you are so moved, please post a comment, too! I know she'd appreciate any comments.

I'm Not Admitting Anything...

... http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/833751/how_i_overcame_world_of_warcraft_addiction.html?cat=19

One More Reason for WoW...

For some of you it is hard to understand why I enjoy playing WoW. But it isn't always just about running around killing things. Blizzard did a beautiful job with the graphics for this game. Sometimes I'll just be wandering around on a quest and I'll come across something just lovely and have to take a moment to appreciate the moment. So it was tonight, as I was trying to find my way back to an Alliance base in Azshara, where I could catch a gryphon to Tanaris. A lovely waterfall in the distance. So, I wandered up the rocks a bit for a better view and then sat down to just enjoy the falling water. I could very nearly hear the roar in the distance and I imagined how lovely it would be if I could be in that place, smelling the fresh air, feeling the cool breeze through my hair. Don't get me wrong, this doesn't replace the real thing. But in a world where we work more then we play, even a moment of peace found in an online game environment can be worth a lot.



Granted, if I was on a PC I probably would have had better graphics, but I'm happy to have my gynormous iMac.

On a separate note, today was the 2nd Annual Business & Finance / ITS Chili Cook-Off. I spent Sunday preparing my chili with as much love and experimentation as possible and ended up with what I thought was a particularly excellent batch of turkey chili. I ended up getting 3rd place again this year (2 green ladles now). A fun and tasty time was had by all and I look forward to next year's event. Here's Mr. B helping get the chili samples out -- once again patiently working with a bunch of perfectionist women.



Also today, a visit to the physical therapist. We had a two week hiatus while she was out of town, so I was a bit apprehensive about going to see her, feeling like I had slacked off a bit. But things weren't too bad. While it seems like a didn't improve much, she noted that she wasn't having to work that hard to stretch it out. She thinks we may be able to move soon to just twice a month. Tomorrow I have a check in with the orthopedic surgeon. I'm sure that will go well.

WoW Valentine's Celebrations

My new Blood Elf Warlock, Sorean, has been grinding away at the Valentine's Day activities. Today she acquired several achievements, including completing the special quest chain which led her into the dangerous foothills above Hillsbrad. Luckily she has many lives because otherwise, well, it wouldn't have been pretty. Instead, she ended up just lovely in her new sexy blue party dress. She also has one in black because you never know where your sweet green Orc might be taking you.



While you may not be able to see it in this pic, she's also sporting some pink polish on her toes!

Another Day...

Supination still only 5 degrees. It seems certain now that I will have to use some sort of rack-like torture device to push the arm further. My PT doesn't think it's the muscle but more the bones. Sigh.

I took cabs to and from PT today and had nice conversations with the drivers - the ride there was about politics, and the ride back was family and health. Nice gents. PT not so nice, but I just breathed deeply and let her do her thing with my arm.

Decided to give a different book a go. This time I'm trying "Size 14 isn't Fat, Either", by Meg Cabot. I read her first one, "Size 12 isn't Fat", which was a lot of fun. The series features Heather Wells, a former pop singer who's now working as an assistant hall director at a NYC college in the Village. She finds herself in the center of some murders and, in a charming and sweet manner, ends up working to resolve the crimes. So far it's keeping my attention and making me laugh, which is a good thing! In case you don't recognize the author, Meg Cabot wrote the Princess Diaries series.

Finally got my new computer speakers and managed to get them and the subwoofer all hooked up. Sounds good. I'm glad I got them and they weren't that expensive.

Gave WoW a try today. I could probably do some low level stuff, but anything my level will be hard because I can't really move that fast on the keyboard yet. Might have to play with the Slacker Bro for a while or expect to die a lot.

Waiting on my dinner... Chinese from "Joe's Excellent Chinese Cuisine". Think I'll watch some movies.

Fresh Bedding... Yum

The girls revel in clean linens. Chop Suey and 'da Moose concur.

I've been putting too much WoW time in and not enough schoolwork or reading. And speaking of reading... I am in the process of reading, count it, 5 books! I need to just put 4 of them down and finish 1, but they are all so good...

Labyrinth: weird historical time/space confusion holy grail type book.
The Last Good Kiss: noir reading in the modern day -- private dick out of Montana.
The Story of Edgar Sawtelle: sorta like a coming of age novel.
A Dangerous Man: just goes to show how a good man can just saunter down a very bad road.
Watchmen: reading again... and again... and again...

And then in Wow, we've got Ute who's grinding Ironforge rep because she just wants a mountain goat to ride; Pirjo who doesn't know what to do with herself out there in Northrend; and poor Tytos, who just wants to redeem his Death Knight corrupted soul.

I'll say it again, working for a living just takes all the fun out of life...

And boy is it nice to come home to a clean apartment. It is worth every single penny!

The Horror!

I've installed Vista on my precious Mac. It is sacrilegious and I feel as though I have violated my beautiful iMac. But I do this in the name of gaming and the playing of Warhammer, a new game my Slacker Bro is trying to get me addicted to. Of course, between installing Vista and then doing all the patches and updates and installing Warhammer getting all the other stuff set, well, like 50 years have passed and I'm now gray and wracked by arthritis and won't be able to play after all.

Warhammer vs Portfolio Management

One more class session down, though it was a particularly boring one -- on resource allocation. The topic is important, but I didn't find the session very useful in helping to understand ways to better determine and manage. But then, I suppose we still remain pretty far away from being organizationally ready for this type of effort -- not to mention that there just isn't enough people to even develop and manage such information.

Now I just have to decide... do I want to do another session and be all productive and one step closer to being done with the class and ready for the next one? Or do I install Vista on my mac and set myself up to play Warhammer, which my Slacker Bro bought for me the other day? And how can I cheat on WoW in such a way? It just seems, oh, dirty to contemplate it!!!!

UPDATE: doing another session... at least 1/2 of one. Not sure I'll have the attention span to do the whole thing now. Maybe finish after I watch today's episode of Trueblood later on...

Cleaning/Purging is so lame...

SP took took over 10 bags of books away today. She is going to attempt to sell them and make some cash for herself. I hope so gets some good cash back. I have done a lot in the bedroom though it seems I still have a long way to go. I cleaned up the hall closet a bit so I could put the craft boxes in there. Not enough room for the comics so for the last few hours I've been working on the bedroom closet. I've thrown out a bunch of crap I was keeping for no good reason, dumped some clothing I haven't worn in ages and put the comics on the shelves. I'm now cleaning the walls with bleach to help with some of the mildew that seems to always grown in there. I even swept the closet floor. Sheesh. I feel just a bit too productive.

But today has not been all work and no play. SP, Gabe-ish and I went out to the cafe by the beach for breakfast in the a.m. Then, in between spurts of cleaning, I was playing battlegrounds in WoW so I could get a better weapon, which I have now acquired! It's a very lovely longsword. My pally is quite happy. I shall continue in the battlegrounds until I get some better armor, as well.

My final goal for the day will be to finish the closet and throw out some more crap in the bedroom before I go to bed. Marc will come over tomorrow night to help me dismantle the futon frame and get it down to the garage.

Turkey Day Passeth

Thanksgiving went well. Andreas, Esther and I cooked dinner and then Thomas and Ben came by to eat. We all got to sit at the table, eat tasty food (turkey breast braised with burboun, mashed potatoes, green beans, stuffing, salad with pomegrante), drink lots of wine, have entertaining conversation. Then we watched The Jungle Book, with Andreas translating the whole thing to Ben (that was entertainment in and of itself). Around 7:30 the rest of the gang arrived for pumpkin and apple pies and more wine. By 9:30 people were gone and I was passed out from food and wine overload. All in all a good day.

Today, well, I didn't do anything! Watched some TV. Played WoW for far too long -- lvld my new character to 17 (I created a human pally, Pirjo, on another server and joined my friends guild). Went through Deadmines in a flash of an eye -- so fast that I couldn't even keep up with the bodies. I suppose that's all I can expect when a lvl 70 is along for the ride. Managed to get some nice weapons, though, and Pirjo is now sporting a blue mace that she will do serious damage with. Plus, lots of items to sell in the AH and lots of extra cash! Ah, the benefits of a guild!

New TV

My slacker brother finally decided to buy a bigger flat screen t.v. so I have opted to buy his old one from him. It's "37. Nothing fancy -- no high-end Sony or Phillips, but it should be cool. I'm really hoping to get my mac mini hooked up to it and perhaps even hook my laptop up to it so I can play WoW on a bigger screen. If it looks good, that could totally addictive. I'm not quite sure yet how I'll get it out of my car and into my apartment, though. It's heavier then I thought it would be. I'll find someone to help, but still, I really want to get it hooked up TODAY! Know what I'm sayin'? It's that need for instant gratification. Maybe if the Germans are home when I drive back to the city I can convince Andreas to come by and help me.

Registration Success

Much to my complete joy, we made it through the whole week of registration without any significant problems -- by Friday 5 pm we had registered about 5,400 returning students. Our Registrar got several emails from staff and advisers pleased with the smoothness of registration and then I spoke with a professor who claimed he was thrilled with the simplicity of the system -- and this from a prof who two and a half years ago told me he doubted we could roll something out that would work without problems. Needless to say, I was pleased.

Of course, life on cloud nine was short-lived as our HR folks hit their peak stress level to date and we are now worried they may not be able to go live on January 2. The technical side of things seems to be going well, but the functional and organizational side is having problems with feeling knowledgeable enough about the system to be able to support it at go live. And, of course, no one wants to risk any chance of not being able to have a perfect payroll. Not that I blame them. But at the same time I think the idea of perfection in a new system is unlikely. It won't be my decision, ultimately. If they don't think they can do it, we'll delay. If that happens, though, I will be a very unhappy camper.

On a non-work related note, I'm putting in some good WoW time. Pirjo and Balloch are leveling nicely. I'm enjoying being a paladin for a change. Every once in a while I go in and play Sarilo, but he makes me feel lonely so I tend not to play him too much. I should find a new guild for him and leave Mojo Juju to others.

The last few weeks have been super social and I confess I'm tired out from it all. I've had some nice visits, though. This last Wednesday I had dinner at my friend's new apartment -- complete with a great view of the city -- and celebrated our friend's birthday. This same group will be going to the foothills in a few weeks to cut down our Christmas trees.

Thanksgiving is coming up and I think it will be a quiet one for me this year. The Germans will be coming over, but I don't have much planned beyond that. We shall see. Just a few days to go.

And finally, went to see American Gangster last weekend. It was a good flick. Not great and, despite the hype, not worth an Oscar. Washington and Crowe did good jobs, but I thought the ending was a bit soft. It is worth seeing, though, so check it out. I hope to see Michael Clayton next week.

Busy Week Ahead

This is going to be a busy week for me, both at work and socially. On the work front, we are one week before going live with student registration in our new administrative system. As you can imagine, I'm just a tad bit stressed on this front. Next week I'll be working with the student team in our "registration command center." I can only hope we won't have any major issues, but be prepared to deal with them if we do!

On the social front, except for tonight, I'm booked all week! I hope I will so exhausted that I'll actually be able to sleep this week. Tonight I have to get the house cleaned up a bit for some company. Tomorrow night, my old college roomie comes over for dinner with her 1 year old son, whom I have not yet met. Wednesday I'm having dinner with the Germans. Thursday I'm playing WoW with my slacker bro. Friday a bunch of us are going bowling. Sometime on the weekend I'll probably go to the movies with some friends.

The reason I'm going into such detail of my week ahead? Just in case I don't have a chance to post anything! I don't want you to think I've dropped off the face of the earth!

Addicted Again?

Played WoW with the bro last night. I rolled a Dwarf Paladin. His name is Balloch and he is short, with lots of red hair. Personally, I think he's pretty cute (see below). Oh, and he's Scottish, of course. I'm only playing Balloch with my bro, so I decided to create another character tonight to play on my own. I actually did a few, but dumped them. I finally ended up with a Human Paladin chic. She's pretty hot, too (see below). Named her Pirjo, which I found on a Finnish name website. I think I'll play her for a while.

You'll notice they are both dressed in the same pants. I think they look better on Balloch.

So, the question is, could I be addicted to WoW again? Only time will tell.

Drug Induced Sleep is Still Sleep

Well, I did finally sleep, though I fear it was only due to over-the-counter drugs. But, even drug induced sleep is sleep.

Update on World Without End: a collapsed bridge throws the cathedral-town into chaos, political machinations of a monk bear fruit, and a young woman loses her virginity. Oh, the horror.

I got my little old Mac Mini up and running again and am ripping some of my DVDs for playing on my iPods. I keep them backed up on my external drive, and can then play them on my TV without having to find the DVD in the closet. Very handy. Right now I'm watching Pride & Prejudice, the one with Keira Knightley. In all honestly, this version has grown on me and I can watch it over and over again without getting bored.

Tonight my brother and I are going to create some new characters on our WoW realm. This time, we are going to create Alliance characters and play them together. I haven't played my lvl 60 warlock, Sarilo, in a long time, and I kinda miss him. Blood Elves are just so very cute. I did create a new Alliance character on another realm so I could play with my friend's nephews. It took a while to get used to playing again because after not playing for a while I seemed to have lost all my skills. They came back quickly!

Slowly but surely my energy level is getting back to normal. Today I managed to stay at work to nearly 6:00 without feeling like I was ready to collapse.

And the exciting news: the Germans arrive this weekend! Can't wait!!!