“But war is a bitter bugle”

Out of the corner of my eye I caught sight of the glowing globe of flame heading straight for the beachhead. Somehow the juxtaposition of the elegant ship, it’s sails furled sliding across the moon with the harsh bolts of the tower and the spiked defenses made me think of a few lines by Charles Causley.

But war is a bitter bugle
That all must learn to blow
And it didn’t take long to stop the song
In the dirty Italian snow..
O war is a casual mistress
And the world is her double bed
She has a few charms in her mechanised arms
But you wake up and find yourself dead.

from his poem “A Ballad for Katharine of Aragon“

Almost at the end of the quest line for the Operation: Shieldwall, I find myself wondering “What is worth fighting for?” Also I have to admit I preferred Anduin in the days of Lady Prestor when he just stood there as a small but quiet child to his current teenage brat behavior. Constantly running away from his protection detail… pff Jaina should turn him into a sheep for a bit.

 

Somehow from there, I ended up contemplating Sky Admiral Rogers, Sprout’s new role model (possibly because my wandering brain swapped her name for war in the previously mentioned lines). Not only did she tell Admiral Taylor to put his “big boy pants on” but her desire to weaponize everything and anything which might help turn the tide of war speaks volumes to a Gnome!

Plus she’s a bit genocidal, which probably means she’s going to die at some point in the not to distant future so we should revel in her whilst we can.

Those green dirtbags down there plagued your homes in Southshore, laid siege to your children in Redridge, and massacred every man, woman and child in Theramore.

It. Is. PAYBACK TIME! (from the quest text)

Although Thrall did something similar to unarmed Alliance in the Goblin start zone and he’s still alive and kicking so who knows.

20 Days of Blogging – Your first day playing WoW

Today’s random number is 3.

Day 01 – Introduce yourself
Day 02 – Why you decided to start a blog
Day 03 – Your first day playing WoW
Day 04 – Your best WoW memory
Day 05 – Favourite item(s) in game
Day 06 – Your workplace/desk (photo and/or description)
Day 07 – The reason behind your blog’s name
Day 08 – 10 things we don’t know about you
Day 09 – Your first blog post
Day 10 – Blog/Website favourites
Day 11 – Bad habits and flaws
Day 12 – A usual day in your life/online time
Day 13 – People (players/bloggers) that you admire
Day 14 – This upsets you
Day 15 – Your desktop background (on your computer) and why you chose it
Day 16 – Things you miss (post Cataclysm)
Day 17 – Your favourite spot (in game or outside it)
Day 18 – Your favourite outfit
Day 19 – In your bags/bank
Day 20 – If this was your last day playing WoW, what would you do?

I have to admit I wasn’t convinced when Mr Harpy pointed out World of Warcraft on the shelf. Prior to that point, the only computer games I’d played seriously were first person shooters and I had mixed feelings about the multi-player aspect of the game*. We picked up one copy and brought it home and got it installed. In fact at first I wasn’t convinced at all, we died to owls, spiders (lots and lots and lots of spiders) and cats. We got lost in caves and fell off things. There were other people with weird names running around and everything seemed dark and depressed. Oh and did I mention the dying to random things. In fact I think I gave up between levels 4 and 10, by which time Mr Harpy had found a guild, a boat to Auberdine and discovered sea monsters. In the end it was the baby Loch Ness monsters and the sheer size of the world which dragged me back in. At first we thought Teldressil seemed huge and so finding it out that it was just a tiny acorn compared to what else existed out there for us to explore…. well that took our breathe away.

It didn’t take long until sitting sharing a character wasn’t good enough and I went out and bought my own version of the game. I promptly rolled a Warlock and then discovered PvP….. the rest as they say is history.

*In fact thinking about it, I still do have my reservations about that area of the game. In many ways my comfort zone is playing pretty much solo because that way if I screw up, there is no one there to see it. Plus in what I’m doing now which is primarily random battlegrounds, everyone else seems to be doing the same, i.e playing “interestingly” or worse. Sure I miss raiding, or rather I miss feeling like part of a team but then I’m too insecure to play well with others because at the slightest hint of a mistake, I’m fighting the urge to delete my character. It’s weird because in real life, I’m actually far more confident or perhaps I’ve just got a whole lot better at hiding it. I deal with confrontations on a daily basis, people screaming abuse in my face, crying, screaming and throwing blame around like candy but that’s fine, it’s roughly what I get paid for but switch that to an on-line situation and I struggle to cope. Maybe it’s because I know I’m good at my job but less convinced about WoW or perhaps it’s because I know I suck at WoW and I hate having it pointed out. Who knows, maybe I’m just weird..

“It’s not my fault, I’m not to blame”

I’ve been toying with the idea of entering Matty’s Oscar competition for a while now, considering first one film and then another but nothing seemed right. Then I started listening to the Hunchback of Notre Dame audio book on my phone.

So without any further ado I would like to present my take on Disney’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame.

Esmeralda

Clutching flowers from Quasimodo.

Judge Claude Frollo

Feel free to pause here and sing a couple of choruses of “Hellfire“.

Phoebus

Gear lists to follow – as this is a bit of an eleventh hour entry (although I’m not 100 percent cartoons count) anyway but the Hunchback of Notre Dame is an awesome film , it has goats after all!

Twiceshy and the Big Green Bug of Happiness

Large green bug finally acquired! That’s one thing less to achieve before the patch comes rolling around. Now I just need to take him into a few battlegrounds and feed him Goblins.

Mentzelia: The Harvest Witch

I’ve never been a great fan of titles in-game but there are a couple of NPC only ones that I’d jump through hoops for.

Both belong to Worgen Druids and both have a decidedly seasonal feel to them.

I love the idea of a Harvest Witch (or Druid), in tune with the earth and fully understanding the need to reap just as much as to sow. A herbalist by nature, bags full of flowers dried and fresh. Naturally she prefers the wild places, those quiet groves and silent forests.  Her constant companion is a raven, shiny black feathers and curious eyes.  Thus Mentzelia was born, named for a plant otherwise known as the Moonflower.

Of course, being ever so fond of planning, making her wasn’t enough, I needed to create some outfits for her too.

Sowing  or Restoration

• Helm: Conqueror’s Nightsong Headpiece
• Shoulders: Mantle of Wild Feathers
• Chest: Living Breastplate
• Hands: Shardtooth Gloves
• Off-Hand: Dreamseeker Dandelion
• Main-Hand: Ceremonial Kris
• Legs: Forestwalker Kilt

Reaping or Feral

• Helm:  Conqueror’s Nightsong Headpiece
• Shoulders: Pygmy Shoulders
• Chest: Cosmos Vestments
• Hands: Gloves of Northern Lordaeron
• Weapon: War Scythe

So if you come across a garden nestled by the hedgerow or blooming in a forest, be careful what you take for two sets of eyes may be watching. Then as you wander home, your arms full of stolen herbs, would you see the raven soaring above you, tracking your every move or would you notice the rustle of the long grass as something stalked towards you, perhaps not, at least until it was too late.

Pre Patch Panicking

Time scales and deadlines always make me nervous, suddenly I feel that I have so much to do before Blizzard roll out the next patch.

Sprout

• Finish up her remaining reputations (Shado-Pan and that pesky Alliance one in the Wilds)
• Farm as many Conquest and Valor points as I can lay my sticky little mitts on
• Finish up beating the Pet Tamers
• Hit 480 item level for the new LFR

Twiceshy

• Tame a giant worm

I would also like to level a couple of my alts past their respective starting zones and tick off a few achievements which have been sitting around half finished for ages.

It may not seem like a massive list, but with my limited play time, I’m definitely a bit concerned.

20 Days of Blogging – Your desktop background (on your computer) and why you chose it

Okay, it turned out that doing this in order doesn’t work for me so today I’m doing number 15 – My Desktop background. (from Saga’s 20 days of Blogging).

Day 01 – Introduce yourself
Day 02 – Why you decided to start a blog
Day 03 – Your first day playing WoW
Day 04 – Your best WoW memory
Day 05 – Favourite item(s) in game
Day 06 – Your workplace/desk (photo and/or description)
Day 07 – The reason behind your blog’s name
Day 08 – 10 things we don’t know about you
Day 09 – Your first blog post
Day 10 – Blog/Website favourites
Day 11 – Bad habits and flaws
Day 12 – A usual day in your life/online time
Day 13 – People (players/bloggers) that you admire
Day 14 – This upsets you
Day 15 – Your desktop background (on your computer) and why you chose it
Day 16 – Things you miss (post Cataclysm)
Day 17 – Your favourite spot (in game or outside it)
Day 18 – Your favourite outfit
Day 19 – In your bags/bank
Day 20 – If this was your last day playing WoW, what would you do?

This is my current desktop background, a picture of Dorrie the little witch and her cat sitting reading in a library. When I was small, I loved these books by Patricia Coombs both for the stories and the pictures.

Before that, I’ve had a mix of things. Some WoW screenshots like this one:

and proper photographs like these two:

Basically I pick images I like either from my own photo collection or from the random images on the internet I have access to.