Viva Li Vida Azeroth - But I'm Still Lost

Just like the HAL 9000 is a "one off" from IBM (subtract 1 from each letter, and IBM becomes HAL) that 2001 a Space Odyssey made, WoW took the +1 approach for Lost. (and I assume that Lost's writers were, in turn, making another homage by using the number 42)

Anyhow, I was farming for some saronite and a bunch of crystallized earth last night when I ran across something strange. It wasn't the hatch I saw, but it was the little box with numbers in it that I noticed as I (evidently) moved my mouse around. It took a second to "re-find" the spot on the screen that caused the pop up, a moment to fly down and see the hatch.

The smile, however, was pretty much instantaneous.

I'm not the biggest fan of Lost, and haven't watched it since early season 2, but I can still apprecieate the reference. As I sat smiling last night, I tried to recall any other pop-culture references I've noticed in-game. I know there are a ton, but this is the only one I can remember seeing and noticing without being prompted or reading about it.

OOH! The Shop Smart, Shop "S" Mart achie. (I loved Army of Darkness)

Even all of the ones I've read about, off-hand, I can only remember the Stargate SG-1 reference, where all/most of the folks in SI-7 have names mimicing,/derived from the SG-1 characters. (they used an anagram for Teal'c)

Or, I guess "Good news, everyone!" would also count.

After thinking about it, I googled for WoW Pop Culture references, and (of course) there's a ton. In case you were wondering, here's the wowwiki link LINK

If you want to take a moment to read them, I'm sure a bunch of them will "click" and bring a smile to your face.

I hope that this type of humor, thoughtfulness and such continues in Cataclysm. As much as I, and others, rage about Blizzard, it's still seems that the lunatics are still in control of at least SOME areas, and I would hate to lose that...

[EDIT] - sorry for the fubar formatting - that's what happens when I write it "native" and not in the html screen *stupd stupid stupid*

He Got Knocked Down, Didn't Get Up Again

Yeah, being a RetPal is kinda like that: big, in your face, and moderately disturbing. But it's not without its occasional joy.

per esempio

I had just finished a successful fight in Wintegrasp and was heading over to the vendor by the Mammoth to investigate getting a set of Titanforged Shoulders of Triumph (Thanks for pointing out the guy, Cynwise!) My Carbonite (yeah, I still use it) was flashing that there was a Hordie flying around WG Fortress. I didn't see him, so I flew on.

As I was perusing the wares of Champion Ros'slai, and found my shoulders (I don't have enough WG Marks of honor yet), the Hordie, a Druid in flight form, swooped down.

I mounted up and promptly lost him. However, there was an Ally toon on his helicopter giving chase to something and I foollowed.

Yep, t'was the druid.

The three of us circled around, high above Wintergrasp fortress, and the druid wouldn't sit still. I hoped he would sit still. He NEEDED to sit still.

I had a plan. It was one I had tried before, but hadn't worked yet.

He finally stopped moving, high above the fortress, and I flew another dozen or so feet higher, directly above him.

I dismounted, promptly started falling, and cast Hammer of Justice, and, in passing by him, I meleed him.

Before I hit the ground I cast Divine Shield. I grunted as I landed, but walked away without damage.

*splat*

The druid wasn't so lucky.


[EDIT] after re-reading this, it may not be apparent what happened for those who don't play Pallies:

I cast Hammer of Justice on the druid, which stunned him for a few seconds. The melee/autoattack "dismounted" him so he started falling.

While stunned.

Spamalot! and Lance-a-lot

I have an aversion to ToC (5 man heroic).

Part of this may be due to my getting kicked from a group on this instance, or it may be due to the need to joust at the start. Or it could be that it is one of the most godawful, boring and monotonous instances I've seen.

Most likely, it's a combination of all of those.

Last night, at my usual late log-in time (9:30 or so, server/local time) I start to collect my dailies and grudgingly include myself in the LFG queue.

A new guild memeber that had also started queueing asked me and another guilide to join, so we went in as 3 DPS. (me on Ret, him on an ele shammy and a third as Warlock)

When we got our notice, we all groaned when we saw ToC. The good thing is that it *is* relatively short and usually not too diffficult.

We finish the jousting with a *little* difficulty and then proceed on the the next fight, with the Shaman, rogue and one other.

We're going through, and half my bittons aren't working. *CRAP* I STILL HAVE MY LANCE EQUIPPED!. I open my bags and don't have any luck seeing my weapon, so I open up "C" (character screen, which is where my equipment manager "Outfitter" button is) and switched to my DPS items. *no change* AARGH! So I hit my tank gear, just to get SOMETHING with an actual weapon selected.

I did this in a hurry, without thinking all that much, or even remembering it much.

We finished this fight, and the next group, though I was staggered by how bad my DPS was.

We go into the last fight (Paleetess? the one with the summoned shadow thing) And things go bad. I'm not sure what happened, but from what I understand (from their own description)the tank & healer got out of sync, or lost aggro or something.

Anyhow, I noticed when the first of us dropped, another DPS, but I didn't worry too much. Next thing I know, it's me and one caster (the healer I believe) and the shadow dood is chewing on her face. I taunt and bubble and *sort of* help. The only problem is that with me bubbled, my DPS drops even further and my threat/aggro drops through the floor. (I hadn't thought to turn on Righteous Fury to increase my threat) So the baddie loses interest in me, and chews the face, neck and upper torso off the healer.

Eww.

I sit there clobbering away, well aware it's a lost cause. (the shadow dude still has ~30% health, and the other boss is STILL left after that)

I finally die and we all run back and start buffing. At this point, the HEALER said (right as I noticed something strange about the looks) "OMG, I still have my lance equipped. No WONDER I went oom!!"

I laughed. HARD. And then typed: "ROFL, no worries, I did that for the first part of the first fight too! lol".

We all laughed, buffed and got ready for the re-match.

So the Bear tank pulls, and away we go. And my DPS is STILL crappy. WTF?!?!?!?

We kill the boss pretty quickly this time and in comes the Black Knight. First phase is a breeze, but MAN my DPS is STILL sucking. And then I notice the shield on my back.

ARGH! Tanking gear. I had forgotten that I had done that earlier. /facepalm

So I switch over and the we all do our thing. My DPS is still crap, but this time it's beacuse I'm keeping the adds off the healer, which is slow & bursty. *shrug* Keeping healers safe during this phase is my self assigned task when I run this so that's cool by me.

The best part? I got these:

Vambraces of Unholy Command

It's only an i219 piece, but that's an upgrade (both numerically and "really") from my previous i200 bracers. w00t!

The only downside was "upgrading" them. I smithed on the gem socket with spare mats, so not a big deal. However, the cost of getting the enchant (greater assault) 350 gold, YIKES. I used honor points to buy an uncut gem, then paid 20g to get a strength gem made.

Ah well... Every little bit helps.