Captain Exposition's Journal

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Wherein the Author Spews Words About World of Warcraft
So, as WoW continues to occupy my time, I am faced with two new and intriguing situations. On the one hand, I am in the WotLK Beta (for the brief periods of time the world server stays up). I am enjoying it, for the most part, and have come away so far with several distinct impressions:
-The devs are definitely seeking a grander sense of scale in their architecture. Everything feels bigger and more...dramatic? Grandiose? As someone put it, where TBC was sci fi, WotLK is rather gothic high fantasy. A lot less glowing crystal crap (except where dragons are involved, more on that later), a lot more skeletal motifs, rusting metal and gothic architecture, with a heavy emphasis on flying buttresses, steeples and stained glass. It's really quite pretty actually.
- Deathknights are fun to play, to be sure, but they are not the [Insert Class Name Here]-Killers everyone claims they will be. They do not really play like anything else exactly, which is to the devs' credit. Blood spec feels like playing an arms warrior with a heavy dose of shaman-ish instant spells, Frost is a lot like playing a dual-wielding frost mage in plate mail (heavy emphasis on instant-cast DD spells) and Unholy spec is, as one guy doing quests with me put it, "Like my warlock got drunk and started waving a sword around". None of them play exactly like I describe, but it gives the reader something to envision. And drunk warlocks = comedy gold.
- On the subject of DKs, Death Grip, their "taunt" is already getting stale when I am on my rogue or shaman. Running at a mob only to have a DK 30 yards away grab my guy and literally yank him through the air to him is funny the first...okay, no, it's never really funny.
- Rogues would be a LOT more fun to test if any of our new talents worked properly or, y'know, at all.
-Tuskarr all look like Wilford Brimley, which causes some difficulty in taking them seriously, but generates much amusement for other people when I run up to a Tuskarr quest giver and yell "DIABEETUS!" So all is well.
-Dragons. Dragons dragons dragons. The Blue Dragonflight is the new Black Dragonflight, and as such, a large portion of the expansion storyline is devoted to ~~Onyxia~~ Malygos being pissed at the mortal races for messing up magic, so apparently he will be declaring a Do-Over. Which makes PERFECT SENSE after spending the entirety of TBC helping the Blue Dragonflight. Blizz retconning frantically to keep things moving forward? SAY IT AINT SO.
- Lastly, Kel'Thuzad is Doing It For The Lulz. That is all.

On the other hand, with the sudden departure of our last enhancement shaman, I have switched my main to my shammy alt, as we have like 100 raiding rogues, and now have like 1 raiding shaman, and he's elemental. Yay to trying to learn to raid on a new class and gear up for Black Temple with...maybe 14 weeks to kill Illidan, get glaives and beat World of Warcraft. Lol Sunwell. Thank god I have so much SLS saved up, now I can spend it all trying to play catch up on my blue girl. <3

Meatfeast!
I am so there. Many thanks to Kate for pointing this out to me. I convinced my Dad to go with me, because this is definitely his sort of shindig. We likely won't camp out there, him not being a big camping guy, but we will definitely be gorging ourselves on fancy meats. I will try and take pictures to document the luuuuudicrous amounts of tender meats being served.

This Will Make Sense To One Person
OMG the site is down!

Creative In Many Senses
Of late, I have been feeling the creative urge in the most literal sense. The desire to make things, to build, to generate has practically overflowed. It's like, after the long, quiet hibernation that was the last year, all of the demiurgic need to MAKE things that I had lost came back in full force. I suppose I never lost it, I was just storing it up.

It bears mentioning (I think) that for the last year I have felt little motivation to do anything but subsist. Between the new job and the new living situation, I was happy to just still be alive every morning. I am normally grumpy if I am not engaged in some small act of creation on a regular basis, so it felt strange to just have getting to the next morning filling up my mind. This was, I suppose, helped along by the mental anesthetic that is World of Warcraft. Coming home and raiding 3+ nights a week and going promptly to bed was all too easy without the drive to do much of anything else.

Anyway. Over the last month or so I've remembered wanting to create things, and have been. Recipes have been springing up in my mind whole where I usually have to lash flavors together piece by piece. Every weekend I am making some new dish I have never made before, and there is this strange sense of clicking when I get them right, like my brain saying to itself, "okay, I can make THAT on command now". I need to remember to post more recipes, my mussels purgotorio and jambalaya were both fucking spectacular. On top of the cooking I've been lured back into Warhammer 40K by a co-worker and am quietly amassing an army. Befitting my current obsession, I find myself far more excited about assembling and painting minis than I am about playing again. I suppose I will start playing, although I wonder how much of that is out of a desire to justify the large number of tiny plastic men I am buying.

Writing...that was the last creative urge to come back. I thank my D&D game for getting me back on THAT horse. I started writing for the new prestige classes that have been bouncing around my head for however long, and that has got me thinking about my own writing again, enough that I am poking it gingerly with a long stick to see if it's still alive. If it twitches, we'll see what can be done to revive it. If not, it's time to start fresh I suppose. Summer may not be good for much (seriously, fuck you summer), but at least it gets the creative juices flowing.

Current Music: Daft Punk - Technologic

Windows XP Pro Bounty
Due to some ironic problems, I don't have an operating system for my new rig. As such, I am putting out a bounty for an intact Windows XP Pro installation CD. I have my own CD Reg Key, all I need is an undamaged CD for a period of 24 hours. I can return it to you by hand or mail as needed the next day. If you have to mail it to me, I will pay all shipping and pay a bounty to you for the rental of your CD as well. Reply to this message if you can help me.

Current Mood: Thwarted

Wherein The Author Feels Smug About His Cooking
A quote from my guild leader in WoW yesterday: "I forget that you can actually COOK, not just prepare food". While funny, also true. I forget I can seriously COOK as well sometimes. I don't do anything elaborate any more unless its a special occasion, I am just too lazy to do big productions for myself. But with Spring in the air, a young man's fancies turn to cooking. I dunno why either.

Last night, I surprised my parents by coming to their house with a slab of chilean sea bass from the Market and announcing I was making dinner (I was technically there to pick up some computer components I had shipped to them, but why waste an opportunity?). 90 minutes later, the result: Chilean Sea Bass in an Ancho chile and coffee crust with cuban black bean johnnycakes and blackened cream sauce, garnished with wilted spinach in apple vinegar, toasted pecans and fried parsley. Fuck you Andaluca, Oceanica AND Pontis. I do mo'better. Following the cut is the recipe for the fish, if people want any of the other recipes mentioned, holler.

( Hi Fish! )

Next weekend, I plan to make my parents try my Mussles a la Purgatorio. If that works out, I'll post the recipe for that next.

Current Mood: Skilled

Back In the Saddle
I have a new phone, so people may resume calling me. The number is the same, and I still have everyone elses' numbers, so ideally we're back to business as usual.

Current Mood: Nondescript