So my Sitemeter tells me that I’ve had like 100 new visitors just in the past few hours thanks to a link on Big Red Kitty. To coin a term, I have been BRK’d. Wow! Thanks BRK! And welcome to any new visitors. Please feel free to browse around my little blog, and pull up a chair and make yourself comfortable if you so desire. *passes out cookies and tea for the readers, and a variety of pet foods for their pets*.

(Edit: And a link on Mania’s Arcania too? Wow, thank you!! I might just have to make another “shout-out” post sometime soon.)

Now then, Outlands:

This screenshot was taken shortly before heading through the Dark Portal to get to Outlands. Yes, I’ve had my hearth set to Shatt since level 50 or so, but there was no way I was going to miss out on going through the portal.

The irony is that the screenshot is already “outdated”, so to speak, since in the short time between then and now I have already managed to replace two pieces of gear as well as my ranged weapon, all with stuff that is better than my old-world gear to a ridiculous degree. I already love Outlands though– it’s fun, it’s challenging (the “yellow” mobs are more like “orange” mobs, and I love that challenge), and of course, there’s all the new gear!

So here I am, on the fast-track to level 60 (ooh, remind me to do more farming… need epic mount cash) and enjoying every bit of it.

Other bits of interest: My teal kitty has been christened Locke. This name has a double meaning for me; firstly, John Locke was a 17th-century English philosopher, just like Thomas Hobbes… so there is an in-joke there, a nod to both the Calvin & Hobbes comic and to BRK. Secondly, Locke Cole is a character from the Super Nintendo game Final Fantasy VI, which is one of my favorite video games. Locke the kitty and Tux the owl have been taking turns playing in Outlands with me, all the while being lavished with roasted quail.

Also, I have decided that I’d like to improve upon my PvP skills. I’ve been doing a lot of battlegrounds recently (since once I hit a level ending in 8 or 9 I hightail it over to the battlemasters… you might say I have a bit of an addiction) and while I would call my self an “okay” PvPer and I tend to be towards the top of the damage charts at the end, I still am not a “good” PvPer. A lot of times in PvP I’ll get caught of guard or people will sneak up on me, and then I seem to spend the duration of that duel trying to get back to range and doing very little non-pet damage. It’s definitely time to practice my technique here.

I do have an interesting PvP story to share. I was in Alterac Valley the other day, and was somewhere out in the middle of nowhere when I ran across a lone orc warrior. He was level 51, and I was level 59. Now I know it’s battlegrounds, I know player-vs-player combat is the whole point here… but I couldn’t bring myself to attack him. Not with eight levels separating us. Besides, since we were both out in the middle of nowhere I figured he must have been doing a quest or something. So I hopped on my mount and rode right past him. Not long after this I paused to catch my bearings and decide where I wanted to go. And who should come jumping on me but that level 51 warrior! We fought, and obviously Tux and I triumphed. But I have to say that little incident left me admiring the orc player’s courage and mindset. He knew what PvP was all about. He was willing to try taking on a player that was eight levels higher than him. Whereas I, well, I love a good battlegrounds game but I’m really just a carebear at heart. It was an interesting juxtaposition of two different playstyles and I /salute that orc warrior, wherever he is.

Alrighty, enough pseudo-philosophical rambling. Back to Outlands!