Free Candy For Everyone

I mentioned that I started a new character recently. Again. For the 15th time. This one lives on a PvP server. I long ago abandoned my one other attempt to play on a PvP server, Raelle my level 29 priest on Dark Iron has been sitting lost and along for many months now. I got to a level where I had to venture out into the big bad world of contested territory. You see, on a PvP server, your starting zones are safe. No one can attack you there unless you agree to be attacked, basically. But once you get out of those starting zones, it’s come and get me time! Anyone opposing faction member who wants to can attack you. And as a priest, I was getting attacked way too much for it to be any fun. So she’s abandoned and alone in limbo.

But my co-workers were playing on this PvP server so I thought I’d give it another go. I rolled a shaman and it’s been smooth sailing. But today I got attacked while questing for the first time. Well, ok. Some total jerk level 60 rode me down and one shotted me while I was running through Hillsbrad Foothills to get to Tarren Mill for a shaman quest. But other than that, I’ve kept to quiet zones and stayed out of the way of the big boys. And as a shaman I’m way less prone to instant death when someone looks at me funny. Leather armor is way better than that flimsy cloth stuff.

I was questing in Ashenvale which is a contested territory and where most young night elves go to level. And most young night elves are n00bs, as we all know. I was just roaming through and minding my own business, killing some quest mobs when I spotted a level 23 Night Elf Warrior. I wasn’t too concerned. I wasn’t going to attack her because I’m not a jerk, and if she attacked me I’d smush her into the ground, so I didn’t worry about it. I continued killing mobs. So of course she waits until I’m well into combat with one of them and charges in. Haha. Here’s how that ended:

I easily finished off my mob, threw down a few more totems and killed her in about 3 hits. Did one minor heal on myself and yawned at the ease of it all. Silly n00bling, try again when you’re not quite so many levels behind your target.

This weekend I took advantage of some of the interesting events going on around the city of San Francisco. It’s one of the first times I really could see that I was living in a vibrant and exciting city. It was pretty cool.

Last week was Fleet Week. The Navy had all sorts of stuff going on, with big boats and planes all over the place. Their Blue Angels do an air show over the water on Saturday and Sunday. They were practicing last week and were practically buzzing our office in the Presidio. It’s impressive how close they get. I met up with some friends and we went out to a prime spot in Crissy Field to watch the planes fly overhead on Saturday. There were an incredible number of people there. I meant to take pictures, but forgot my camera on the counter as I was walking out the door. Sorry! But I’m sure there are much better pro shots of the Blue Angels in action all over the place. Not quite the same as my homey poorly focused efforts, but still!

Sunday, I went and experienced some of the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass music festival. My friends had been talking it up, but a cursory glance over the lineup didn’t have me all that excited. I just wasn’t looking closely enough! Sure enough, I took another look on Sunday. Turns out one of my favorite acoustic artists was playing, a guy by the name of David Berkeley. I saw him as an opener about two years ago and I’ve been listening to his album ever since. Oh, and the whole music festival is totally free. Now that’s pretty darn awesome.

So I headed on over, wandered around and listened to some Hot Tuna (my mom was so jealous, she loves Hot Tuna!), then settled down at the Rooster Stage for a bit. Had no idea who I was listening to, so I asked the guy next to me. “Oh, it’s the Coward Brothers with Elvis Costello.” ! Yeah, Elvis Costello. I should have recognized his voice. He’s pretty distinct. Very cool! I had to cut out of there a bit before they finished to make my way over to the Porch Stage to see David Berkeley.

This was definitely the boonies. The stage was small, the crowd was sparse and … well, not a crowd at all. But I didn’t care. It meant I was able to just plop myself down right in front of the stage with a clear view. I got a few pics - click on the image to see them all.

It was really casual. He was only allotted 30 minutes which was so not enough time. But I really enjoyed the set he played. He was fun. He made a joke about how he was driving with his bass playing partner down to LA for some gigs in a mid-sized vehicle so anyone who wanted to could come along. Heh. I wish I could have. But work beckoned. And who am I kidding? I’d never hop in a van with a strange musician!

Anyways, it was a good weekend, and it was pretty great to see one of my favorite artists. I hope he manages to pick up some steam. So far, his claim to fame is his song Fire Sign appearing on an episode of some show. But he’s got such a lovely voice, I hope he continues to make music for some time to come.

Finally got around to updating my guild website. We’ve still been running instances every Sunday night but I just haven’t been keeping up with the posts like I used to. It can be a bit tough to find time to write in both blogs. Anyways, that’s why all this site is getting is a lousy pointer to the other one. Some cool stuff from the weekend to add later on in non-WoW news. Check out Crazy Cattle!

I started up a new page here at Free Candy. It’s my Must-List. This is the list of things that I think you, yes YOU, should read, watch or listen to. Right now I just have some books on it, but it’ll be growing over time. There’s a link in the sidebar. Check back!

Tara’s Must List

Tonight I ran through Arathi Basin a few times with my mage, Aynaka. She’s at level 47 which is a good level for massive amount of Alliance killing. I went in with my buddies Fornjot, a 48 priest, and Dizcordia, a 49 mage. We were all on Ventrilo talking to each other for extra fun with coordination.

We ran through two times. The first time, we played it like you’re supposed to. There are 5 nodes in AB. Every few seconds, your team gets points for the nodes they control. To win, you need to control 3 of the 5 nodes for the duration. The usual strategy is to take three right at the start and leave people to defend each node. Just hold. It works, but it’s not all that exciting.

Our first time in we played it the right way. I ended up hanging out at the lumber mill node for most of the battle and getting a measly 14 kills in. It wasn’t very thrilling. There was very little actual combat going on where I was out. So we all agreed the second time that we’d just have fun. So the three of us grouped up and just went crazy. First, we took lumber mill. There was a good number of Alliance there. We had a little battle but managed to take everyone out. Then, instead of staying there like good like soldiers, we mounted up and stormed the Stables. This is not what you are supposed to be doing. The Stables is the closest node to the Alliance start location. If you assault it, they’ll keep coming and coming until they get it back. Well, we didn’t care. We wanted to KILL. We wanted to have FUN! So we assaulted it and held it. We held off waves and waves of allies. We held and until we noticed that we were losing. So, even though we had that node, we abandoned it and took the Mine. Which we took and then left for the Farm. We just jumped around and took nodes as needed. And we came back from a 200 point deficit to pull ahead and win. And we got an insane number of honor kills in the process.

A lot of the time I go into Arathi Basin I just don’t have fun. It’s too much like a job. You have to do this, you must stand here. I want to run around and reign destruction on my enemies. This was fun. We didn’t care about “shoulds” and played it like it was a game. Which, hey, it is!