Three things, doods:
1) Dinah dinged lv. 80. Awesome! And… literally the day after? The aging laptop she was named after was replaced by a MacBook. Now, before you Apple haters get all up in my face, I’ve had the Apple taint on me for quite some time— since junior high school, in fact— and this was bound to happen at some point. I’ve used ‘em off and on since then and had wanted one of my own, it’s just that until now they were either ridiculously expensive and couldn’t run everything I needed to. I just happened to pick a really good year to make the jump since the ‘10 refresh is several hundred kinds of win. (I originally wanted a MacBook Pro, but the only difference between the 13-inch MBP and the MacBook of the same size was… oh, $300, a firewire port and a card reader. (2gb RAM, too, but I can fix that on the cheap later.) Once you get past how MacBooks look like toys— and I promise you that thought lasts less than five minutes— you would agree that they are stupidly adorable. Of course, this means I will have to overhaul her “Avatar Dinah” design to give her white ninja gear… :D
Really, to get a Windows machine with everything I wanted would have cost just as much (many of the so-called “cheap” laptops have crap for graphics chipsets… lol Intel “integrated” garbage). So… why not? I’ve been able to get Mac versions or suitable replacements for just about everything I’d pack on Blastoise or Yggdrasil (though Painter proves to be a little… elusive *cough*).
Dinah’s new body can run WoW VERY well… in fact, she can go to Ultra with almost no lag, but I keep her at the next notch down since I tend to have podcasts and such playing in the background.
2) I am… amused by how Blizzard has been rolling out Cataclysm— dripping it out in small glops rather than one huge hammer to the face. INTERESTING. To this end, and because I love space goats…
Enter Hynderia, space goat warrior!
That name had been bugging me for weeks. As you can tell by the post title, it sounds like something out of a “Tales of” game. But it isn’t… I’m not sure if she’s supposed to be a Draenei port of Hikaru or a WoW-exclusive, but she’s a badass freaking space goat who will smash you in the FACE. >:} She’s using Rei’s old BoA shoulders for now until I pile up enough tournament seals to get the plate versions.
Sitting at level 28 as of this writing, playing the new lowbie quests… strangely reminds me of the earlier parts of the very first Breath of Fire, in which HOLY CRAP you actually had to solo a couple of dungeons, and afterwards you’d get this hokey-yet-cute little party in your honor before moving onto the next city. :) Hynderia is very much a “I chop things and we win? I can handle that!” sort. While she’s not like Leslie in that she can’t quite heal herself (well, outside of Victory Rush and Gift of the Naaru), I’m hard-pressed to recall how many times I’ve faceplanted so far.
3) I never did get Kingslayer. Booooooo. It’s possible that after the expansion drops, provided enough people come wandering back we might be able to try a 10-man ICC as a guild… I’m not holding my breath though.
I got very very close through a “friend of the guild” run, though… but it wasn’t meant to be, on several fronts. Turns out they were secretly “auditioning” me and two other guildies who were coming along so they could draft us. I want Kingslayer, but I don’t want it bad enough to ditch my brother’s guild over it, even if I knew that I could go back. It just feels evil that way. :( (Plus, it would totally bork up guild rep when that gets switched on.)
