What Bear? I Don't See Any Bear

Other than an irritating case of insomnia, I'm not really sure what posessed me to do this, but for some reason I'm in the mood to make a blog post. I don't know if anybody actually still subscribes to this (as I sincerely doubt anyone would read this if their feed reader didn't pull it in for them), but eh, what the heck. And to ensure nobody ever checks back here ever again, I'll write about the most boring topic I possibly can. . . what's been happening these last 6+ months.

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Well, first of all, the reason it has been so long since I last posted. I primarily used this blog as a way to keep my mind busy while at my mind-numbingly secluded and boring job. This job, as I'm sure I mentioned at least once, was as a research engineer for General Motors. Well, anyone who knows how to turn on a TV or read a newspaper headline knows, american car manufacturers (and in fact the economy in general) are in the toilet right now. And as a result of this, I, and about a third of my fellow contract employees, were flushed as a result. And as of right now, I still don't have a job (and bonus points, my wife lost her job about a month later. We have Gov. Patterson's crack economic decisions and education budget slashing [that is, decisions made while ON crack] for that one), but I'm forever looking, with renewed vigor every time the bill collectors get more aggressive (like, for example, the power company employees I chased off today as they tried to shut off our power). And as a bit of cruel irony, a large part of our current budget woes comes from the car payments we are making for our GM-built car we bought last year.

Anyhow, one plus side of being unemployed is that when I've exhausted my job search options on any given day, I have LOTS of extra time for WoW. As it turns out, Jasminne won the "election" for WotLK main character. The deciding factor? I also left Prophecy, opting to fully dedicate myself to The Ugly Future. Alas, that guild kinda fell apart as people got burned out on the game, but just before that happened, I reunited with some of the folks I really enjoyed the company of in Prophecy, so when the call was made to disband, I already knew where my new home would be. It wasn't long before I found myself in an officer position again (despite having promised myself I would never be a guild officer again, given some. . . unpleasant experiences with guild leadership), and we're now well on our way in Ulduar, having defeated everything on the way to, and including, Auriaya. And bonus, our small 10-man raiding guild is growing well, and we're just about big enough to become a 25-man raid guild. I must admit, I personally enjoy the 10-man runs much more (and my computer has MUCH less of an issue rendering them), but I am a bit of a gear whore (really, you have to be if you're a tank), so still look forward to being able to get the higher quality 25-man gear.

As for my other characters? Well, after getting Jasminne to 80 and geared, I figured it would be a good idea to have a healer ready for when tanks are abundant, but healers are in short supply (you know, the days ending in "Y"). So I cranked Kornaq through Northrend, specced him resto, and, while I much prefer tanking, I have to admit he's kind of fun to heal on. I just wish boss' hit boxes weren't so big in ulduar, whenever I try to chainheal the tank to get some heals on the melee, nobody is actually in range of the jumps! I also levelled up Kibler, my hunter, to have a DPS toon, but mostly because he also became my only miner, as I dropped Jasminne's mining to pick up blacksmithing (yeah, I'm one of those min/maxed profession tanks, so sue me). As such, I just finished levelling up my warlock, Kirari, and have just started trying to gear him up to be my new primary DPS toon (Yes, I could dual spec Jasminne to ret, and I HAVE dual specced Kornaq elemental, but I really enjoy the affliction warlock playstyle, and I HATE melee DPS).

Unfortunately, I just can't drive myself to gear up my little gnome. I just haven't been able to get my heart into PuGging heroics. Part of it is that I've already geared out 3 level 80s, and was already working on a fourth, my wife's priest. But more importantly, I'm feeling more and more like an emo kid each day, and ironically, depression does NOT make me want to play a class that cuts itself on a reglar basis. Go fig.

Anywho, I guess this was the part where I wrapped up my typing, hunted down a semi-topical image to put on the post, and filled in some keywords. I'll go ahead and get on that. And who knows, maybe I wont take half a year to post again next time. Maybe.