Weekend Blitz (Part 1)

So much going on. Gonna categorize it and you're gonna like it.

1. Guildies find my blog
2. Ooo Mag/Gruul & hawt loot
3. Regular Magister's Terrace: the 2 hour run
4. Indian food me

Guildies find my blog
I grew up in an Asian household that put down any sense of individual achievement (i.e., outsider commenting on something I've done; my parents would point out what I did wrong which would sometimes be a white lie, to diminish my accomplishment) . Hence, I've struggled with modesty and the denial to believe that something I write isn't as interesting or insightful or particularly unique as anyone else's. If I am to mention something that is readily accessible to anyone in the world, there is a chance that people will look out for it.

That being said, it's hard to acknowledge that those people whose opinions I listen to, may be skimming the thoughts that play in my mind when I have been content with sealing my lips. Perhaps, it's a exhibitionistic/masochistic/humiliation-loving streak that allows me to blithely mention that I've been jotting down some stuff about tanking in a blog on officer chat. Or maybe I just didn't think of the consequences through :P

Oh well, I'll continue to write as un-self-consciously as I can or I'll write in another blog site. If you're someone I know, I will still bitch about you. If you got a problem with it, come to me and I probably won't change my mind but I'll listen up to a point.

Ooo Mag/Gruul & hawt loot
Late Sunday afternoon, after much wiping in regular Magister Terrace with my shadow priest(good lord), our GL whipped together 25 guildies who readily signed up to gear their alts. It has been some time since we've done this content; we got the job done and messily. I believe in addons. But I pity that poor Omen editor who seems to have an update every hour. I wonder if he got any Sunwell time.

High King Maulgar: I was to tank the lock and even though I wrote the guild guide that I edited for days, I blanked who the lock was. Oh duh, Summoner. So druid tank and I handed him with all of his annoying fears. I think it may be out of jealousy that I giggled at the two rogues who collapsed during the whirlwind; I have my own rogue whom I've been neglecting. Nothing good dropped for them anyways so blah! I need badges for my tank anyways.

Gruul: I was the tank. I smirked when Gruul went down, reminded of a time when the GL said that pally tanks aren't the best at tanking Gruul, something about not being able to handle the silences/growths? Well, Minju's developed a bit, no?

Loot: Not Dragonspine Trophy. 3 tokens seem like over-kill but who am I to complain? I got the shield from Gruul which would have been sharded.

Mag: I forgot I left stuff in the oven which was burning during the trash pulls. Ughh I should never cook while on wow. Anyways, it was so much easier with the trash pulls but Mag is still the same mean hard-hitting bully he's always been. For the Mag fight, I handled 2 mobs (I really could have taken on 4-5 in my boss gear but that would have been all of them, now wouldn't it :P). With Mag, I judged Seal of Light to help with spikes of damage for the tank and kept Seal of Wisdom on me. I made sure to not blow my wings in order to save my bubble for a critical time like when the ceiling drops and stuns. We wiped a number of times but we got it.

Loot: Three T5 Chestpieces, a mail something, a 20 slot bag and a bag of jewels. An officer won the bag; the fella who chides me for having full bags :P I even saw his setup in person. Empty bags. Don't get me wrong, I'm very happy he got it over some of our less frequent raiders whom I'm not too keen on but... the irony. If he teases me again about that, I'll tell him to hand that bag over to me, thank you very much. And the Bag of Jewels is very cool, 3 epic gems and 2 blue gems. Alot of people got something, at least. Though I can't understand why the freaking younger kids kept rolling on stuff, even though they already got an UG. Do you understand what the honor system is and when an officer explicitly states to use it?

Notations:

• Don't read tells right when you run in for the pull. Even if it's advice of how to tank better. Like, "Blow everything you got...I had to say it." Thank you, DPS, thank you. That's the thing about the pull; it can occur at anytime once you enter a boss room. Once the raid leader does that scan to see if everyone's ready and says, "Go.", I go.
• Love your /cast Judgment /cast SoR macro. It judges a half-sec faster than conventional keypushing which gets the mob back on you so much quicker. Now if I can only stop sleeping with my hands curled up under me, then my hands wouldn't feel as arthritic.
• Blow your wings when you get into Melee Range but don't be afraid to ask for Heroism from a shammy to get that extra boost of threat. Probably ideal for 15 seconds in the fight when everyone is pretty much established.

Regular Magister's Terrace: the 2 hour run
So I ran instances from 2 pm - 11:30 pm straight with an hour to run out to grab food, like a work day Woo. I need to pace myself because I become kinda slow. Who am I kidding, I become very slow. Like the slow where I take instructions too literally or scream "FUCK!" on vent or take 5 minutes to figure out the priority list of a roll for Marks of Illdari.

My ideal routine before a raid is to eat ahead of time, to log an hour before invites, to make certain that all my consumables are at hand, to grab a cup of water, to mentally prepare myself for the task by killing a few mobs to test my gear and my sequence, and then calmly start a raid.

2-4: Regular Magister's Terrace with my shadow priest. We were shaky.

• I admit it freely: I didn't equip my weapons because of Kael/TK earlier that week. I didn't see this until the final mob before Kael where we were multiplily wiping. GO ME.
• Our healer who was the one who whispered us all, decided to go make breakfast for his fiance once we've grouped and buffed. I told him he was a BAD MAN. BAD MAN.
• The CCing was fine which was great because the first time I've ever been in the instance, a hunter told me that he didn't know which one to trap so he let them go free, thus killing us all. I rather have a CC go bad, than have no CC at all. But this place must be a warrior's nightmare. You can't freely tab through the mobs to get threat. As a shadow priest, I just dot them up and pray I don't get threat. Which I do, sorry man.
• I love me my Mind Control, it's so much fun! PEW PEW, LOCK DAMAGE YO. And what are they talking about, regarding Incinerate, the Rainbow of Death. It looks nothing like a sparkly rainbow!

Was happy to get it over with. Even with a bunch of good raiders, it's not always going to be smooth.

One thing that did make it worth it was that another guildie was struggling with the multiple add fight and asked me for advice as a pally tank. What helped me was:

• Thinking of it as an Arena Match.
• CC is king.
• Having enough space to spread out.
• As a pally tank, you should really really heal this. Your dps isn't going to matter.

He got them down. Go guildie!

Indian food me
Just received this recipe in the mail ( http://www.101cookbooks.com/archives...ad-recipe.html ). I was dreamily thinking bout one day when I was craving chunky peanut butter, kimchee (spicy fermented Chinese crunchy cabbage), and brown rice. I think I may gag if I had that combo right now.

Having no breakfast and no umbrella for the rainy, "mucky" (as quoted by my co-worker) day, I ordered in as much indian food as I could and saving most of it for tomorrow. Let's see the damage:

1. Mango Lassi - A yogurt/mango smoothie. Since the delivery took an hour, I suspect the smoothie melted a bit. It was okay.
2. Indian Chai Tea - Black tea which is heavily spiced if you get the real deal, with sugar and milk. Creamy with bits of spices on the bottom. Not having it as hot, dimmed some of the creaminess but still gets me going.
3. Aloo Paratha - flat bread with flattened potato. Honestly, this sucked. I'm used to a wrap deal, with chunks of potato in a chewy, oily bread. This was not that flavorful, I end up using it as I would with roti which is unleavened. Plus it was blackened a bit.
4. Garlic Naan - This has alot of garlic and parsley bits right on top, flavored with butter. It was cold but still chewy and fluffy, except where the bread was thin. Damn cold bread.
5. Aloo Gobhi - Peas, cauliflower, potatoes, carrots, cooked down in a delicious, chunky, oily mess.
6. Chicken Tikka Masala - Not used to the sauce being this oily or chunky or non-buttery but it's fine. Chicken is surprisingly dry.

Total: $25, plus delivery tip. Next time, I'll walk for myself :P