Geralin the Diplomat

It took me a while but I finally finished the rep grinds for The Diplomat title. Since I’m bored with running heroic dungeons and we’re only raiding a few nights a week, I spend my days doing dailies and rep grinds. I’ve managed to get exalted with 29 factions (currently working on Consortium now). I’m debating going after “The Insane” title just because it describes me so well.

And, I’m finished with this week’s updates. 🙂 Yay! That means I can get some extra pages in for next week.

Lastest Update Added

I’ve just posted the latest update to Alayne’s Story over on the WoW-Europe RP forum. Now that the Battle for Undercity is over, it’s time to start looking at the ramifications of the Forsaken’s choice to fight in the battle without calling on their allies. Some of the things that come about as a result of this decision and of the battle itself will play out through the entire rest of the story.

Also, we get to see Callie’s last name for the first time (Morton). 🙂

And now to get cracking on the rest of this week’s work.

Raid Drama Redux

Well, our PuG managed to clear Naxx 25. We one-shotted everything up to Kel’Thuzad, wiped twice on him but managed to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat on the third attempt. Thanks to everyone who came, was on time, and helped us clear this dungeon.

And, speaking of being on time: if you /w me at 13:59 for a raid that starts at 14:00, don’t bitch when I tell you “the raid is full.” Even if you did come on Saturday, if I looked for you up until 13:45 and you weren’t online, I’m going to assume you couldn’t make it. Especially if you did not tell me you were coming. Now, once I’ve told you “I’m sorry, the raid is full. We looked for you but didn’t see you and you didn’t say anything to us so we went on,” don’t keep /w’ing me QQing about it. I will ignore you for a while but if you keep it up, I’ll add you to my /ignore list and put your name down on my “don’t invite” list. Seriously: if we say “the raid starts at 14:00,” that means you need to be logged on before then.

Meh. Stupid people are stupid. I probably would have been better about the whole thing if that guy hadn’t kept it up and if I hadn’t managed to pull a whole friggin’ shelf down on myself while cleaning my apartment this morning. I managed to bruise myself up pretty good, twist my ankle, bang my head, and create a bigger mess than the one I was trying to clean. Go me. It scared the shit out of my downstairs neighbors, too. He came running up the stairs and started buzzing the doorbell and banging on the door, afraid I was being attacked or something (there’s a “zone sensible” not too far from us). I managed to crawl out of the mess and tell him “no, I’m a klutz.” He stayed and helped me get the shelf back up and offered to take me to the hospital if I needed it. Since nothing was broken or bleeding, I told him I’d be fine, finished cleaning, and then dug my painkillers out of the medicine cabinent and proceeded to go raid lead my Naxx 25 run. Now I’m relaxing on the couch, comfortably buzzed from pain-meds, and am working on the next updates to Alayne’s Story and The Unexiled. If I can keep up the workload, I might actually finish The Unexiled by the end of the fall. I hope I can find an agent to help me get it published. I’m pretty excited about it.

Stormcrows Naxx 25 PuGs and Loot Drama

I’m one of my guild’s raid leaders. Okay, actually, I’m the one who generally has to organize the 25 man pugs we run in Naxx on Saturdays and Sundays. I enjoy doing it but it is a lot of work. Yesterday, we had these two morons in our group who acted as if the dungeon were going to disappear after the run and they’d never get their lewts.

Fastest way to get on my nerves? Loot drama.

I run the pugs because I enjoy giving people who might not get a chance to see the 25 mans a chance to get in there. I’m there to have fun and see the encounters. Getting nice gear is a bonus but it’s not the primary goal. I cannot stand people who come on these runs and ruin it for everyone by trying to get every last piece of gear for themselves. That’s not fair to the others who come. That’s why we have a rule: one need roll per raid. If you’ve won something and someone else wants something you’re rolling for afterwards, it might go to the other person if they’ve not won anything. The goal is to let everyone get a chance to walk out of the run with a good drop. The goal is NOT to gear up one or two characters in full 25 man gear in one go.

The end result of yesterday’s drama was two names added to our “never invite” list. That list has several names on it now. Those people will not be coming on anymore of our runs. And, since our runs are getting to be fairly well-known, it’s just going to work against them in the long run.

Ah well. Just needed to vent about that for a bit. Now time to grab some lunch before I have to log on and put together today’s run.

The Battle for Undercity Posted

I posted the latest update to Alayne’s Story over on the WoW-Europe Role-Playing forum. This update covers the last part of the Battle for Undercity quest. This is one of the turning points in both the story and the game. That’s all I’m going to say. 🙂 Check back Monday for another update showing how the battle affected the characters.

In other words, Ulduar is still hard. My guild just spent the entire evening wiping on Kologarn. The RNG was not on our side tonight. Healers kept getting beamed and gripped. I was lagging a good bit and would get two or more stacks of the debuff and couldn’t call out for a taunt so I would keel over. We’ll be doing Naxx 10 tomorrow night to relax, do something easier, and get one of our healers some much-needed upgrades.

Well, off to do some work on Alayne’s Story and The Unexiled.

Update Later Today

Normally I post the updates to Alayne’s Story during my lunch break. However, today, I was swamped with work and did not get a chance to post it then. I will be posting it tonight before I head into Ulduar (yay!) So, if you’re looking for it, it’ll be up late this afternoon/early evening.

Latest Update Ready

Whew. I met my weekly goal a day early for Alayne’s Story. I try to target 10 pages a week if I can and I’ve managed to pull that off this week. I’ll be posting the next bit on the WoW-Europe forums tomorrow and will get cracking on next week’s update as well. However, I’m raiding a lot this weekend and may not meet my 10 page goal.

10 pages may not sound like much to you, but when you’re doing that + working full-time + trying to add at least 5 pages to an original novel + raiding, it’s a lot.

Ah well. At least I can go curl up with “Arthas: Rise of the Lich King” before I go to bed. That book is turning out to be pretty good. But then, most things by Christie Golden are. I wish I had half her talent. She’s really a good writer.

Migraines suck

Yesterday, just as I was getting ready to leave work for home, the pressure dropped. That cued an all-night-long-no-holds-barred-let’s-torture-this-woman migraine. Migraines, for those who don’t know, suck. I wound up not being able to go to Ulduar last night because all I could do was think about how much my head hurt. I was asleep by 8:30 pm, praying that when I woke up this morning, the pain would be gone.

So, 7 am this morning and a glass of aspirin down and I’m considering filing a report on God for being a lazy sod. 😛

At least it’s gone now. I just hope the weather stays calm and we don’t have any more violent drops in pressure like we had yesterday. I really hate spending my evening in bed with a cloth over my eyes contemplating whether or not I really need my skull. I’d much rather be writing or raiding or reading my new “Arthas: Rise of the Lich King” which arrived yesterday! I’ll post a review once I’ve finished devouring this book.

Latest Update Posted

I’ve just posted the first of this week’s updates to Alayne’s Story over on the WoW-Europe Role-Playing forum. Now to get cracking on The Unexiled this evening and to try to get another five pages added to Alayne’s Story this week. This update starts the Battle for Undercity and is a part I’ve really enjoyed writing.

Now if only I could find time to go back and do the edits/rewrites to Parts I and II I want to do. 🙁 Gief 48 hour day already!

Oh yeah…

It’s Mother’s Day today in the States. I just called my mom to tell her Happy Mother’s Day. Yesterday, she got the flowers my husband and I sent to her. She and my dad are going up to the lake to do some skiing, jet-skiing, and swimming. I’m really looking forward to going over there this summer and visiting them (not to mention getting to fish, ski, and swim in the pond myself).