Category Archives: goals

goals, thoughts

A Bucket List For WoD

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Study: Medical Cannabis May Have Far-Reaching Benefits for Neurological Disorders-

Research suggests cannabis can improve quality of life for patients who suffer from pain and neurological disorders.

Medical cannabis may improve the symptoms of neurological disorders and pain-related ailments, according to research published in Frontiers in Pharmacology. In the large, online study conducted by Realm of Caring and researchers at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, medical cannabis was found to improve quality of life in patients who did not find relief using traditional treatment.These are the best smell proof weed containers.

Cannabis refers to any product that comes from the Cannabis sativa plant.2 In a 2018 review, researchers looked at 16 studies on cannabis-based medicines for neuropathic pain, finding that cannabis-based products alleviated pain better than the placebo. In a 2015 review of cannabinoids for chronic pain, investigators observed that pain was reduced by 30%.2

Researchers at Realm of Caring conducted a qualitative study in the form of a survey to gain insight on the daily benefits and challenges of medical cannabis for consumers. Among 808 anonymous respondents, 77% reported positive effects from cannabis, 28% had less pain, 18% of respondents experienced improved sleep, and 22% experienced less anxiety.1

Medical cannabis consumers did report difficulties, such as finding a practitioner who could provide patients the proper dose of cannabis. Additionally, they noted issues about identifying the best strains to combat their specific ailments and what the best consumption methods would be.1

However, 12% of participants raised concerns about prohibitive costs. Another 16% of patients expressed concern about limited research supporting medical cannabis as a valid treatment option. Robert Yeilding, a clinical psychologist in Newport Beach, California, affirms these concerns when it relates to cannabis and anxiety treatment.

“A lot of clients are under the impression that there is an evidence base for what they are doing…there isn’t,” he said.3

Kalcheff-Korn concluded thatcurrent research “spotlights several concerns that we actively address,” such as having accurate information available, providing more affordable options through partnerships with quality cannabis companies, and offering free individualized support that can help patients reduce unwanted adverse effects.1

“Realm of Caring will continue to collect and publish data to ensure we fulfill our mission,” Kalceff-Korn concluded in the press release.”1

goals, screenshots

I Was Told I Could Farm at a Reasonable Pace From Nine to Eleven

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I was really casual about it. Did the easy quests when I remembered and didn’t stress if I skipped a day or two. (Or three, or four.)

But it turned out to be a really enjoyable little grind. I would not have wished doing it at 70 upon anyone, though. I mean, all those elites running around and everything, yipes.

But yeah, logged on every morning (I’ve been working evenings), did a few quests, and here we are less than a month later.

Shiny!

goals, screenshots

I Believe You Have My Internet Dragon

15 Comments

Hey guys remember the Netherwing questline and how it was super hardcore back in the day to have one of those netherdrakes?

…so yeah, I never did it. I dunno, just wasn’t my style. I know it was the hip thing to do back in Burning Crusade, but I just never got around to it.

So anyway, the other week I randomly decided, you know what, let’s do that Netherwing quest chain. I mean, at the end you get what I like to call an aetherdragon mount. (Fact: Attaching the word “aether” to any other word as a prefix instantly makes said word several more levels of awesome than it already is.)

Furthermore, I’ve decided to do it on my Hordie rather than on my main. I’m not exactly sure why. Maybe it’s because I hate myself, because it’s on a PvP server and all. Or maybe it’s because I already like my mounts on Tawyn. Who knows. Sometimes I just get the urge to do things on a different character. My Hordie is, after all, also the only one of my toons with the talbuk mounts and the Diplomat title, and I have no intention of ever repeating either of those feats on my main (partially because I think it’s out of character and partially because the grinds suck).

Anyways, I’m at the point now where I’m logging on, doing a few quick Netherwing dailies while in queue for a random, doing the random, and then calling it good for the day. I’m taking it nice and easy and I’m not spending hours hunting around for eggs or anything, so this will probably take a while. Honestly, if I have the drake by the time Cataclysm comes out, I will be utterly shocked.

Oh well! I’m in no rush.

In related news, doing the Netherwing dailies gives you a spiffy male Fel Orc costume, even if you are a female, and I have discovered that using the Darkspear Pride item here will turn you into a male troll. I love crazy gender-bending tricks like that.

Speaking of Cataclysm, I’m rather apathetic about it. Not in a emo/ragequit/etc. way, but more in a “Well Cataclysm probably isn’t gonna affect my silly Netherwing grind or my newfound addiction to battlegrounds as a gnome rogue, so I’ll take it or leave it” way. That’s not to say I won’t go nuts rolling ten thousand goblins when the game comes out, but you know.

Though now that I mention it, reserving a copy would probably be a smart idea…

(Edit: Just occurred to me: flying around Orgrimmar on a netherdrake is gonna be boss)

goals

The WoW Bucket List, or, Do Not Stand At My Blog And Weep

51 Comments

Alright guys, here’s the deal.

My World of Warcraft account expires in a week. And unless I’m hit with a non-paladin Divine Intervention between now and then, I’m… not resubscribing, probably for a while. I hate to use the term “quitting” so I’m using the term “on hiatus” instead. (Plus, it sounds better if you sing it to the tune of “Rock Me Amadeus”.)

So, lemme clear up some confusion that people may have. This isn’t because I’m dissatisfied with the game. This isn’t because I had some sort of epiphany. This isn’t because I stopped loving WoW. Au contraire, I freakin’ love this game. I’d love to play it and blog about it forever.

But.

There are only twenty-four hours in a day and between my full-time job, looking for a second job (I’d like to pay off my student loans sometime in this lifetime), art commissions, my rediscovered love of drawing/writing/creativity in general, and working on publishing this NaNoWriMo novel of mine (yes, I’m serious about it), my time spent WoWing has dwindled and dwindled and dwindled and this blog has been sorely neglected and after doing a lot of thinking about it, I think that this is the best thing to do.

I like to think I’ll come back later when I have more time. Cataclysm, maybe. Or maybe before that. Or maybe after that. Who knows, really? Now is just a rather busy time in my life and I’ve gotta re-focus for a bit.

Before you ask, yes, I’ll keep blogging. Just not about WoW. I’ll write about Linux, and fish, and… uh… more about fish… *watches subscriber numbers plummet* … ANYWAYS, I’ll talk more about that when the time actually comes.

That’s not the point of this post.

The point of this post is that I almost decided to just go about my business and blog as usual and then sometime next week make my super-dramatic “Bye guys!” post. But that would feel too– not really dishonest, I guess, but I dunno. It would feel like I was keeping up a facade and pretending things were all honky-dory until D-Day. That doesn’t seem very Pike-ish.

Instead, in the vein of people who think funerals are too depressing and do “life celebration” things instead, I want to share my last days of WoW with you guys, and keep blogging about it as long as I can.

So, I’m making a WoW Bucket List. A list of things I want to do before my WoW sub kicks the bucket. In no particular order…

  • Get my warlock to 40 and nab my epic mount. This shouldn’t be difficult; she’s level 38 and pretty much completely rested.
  • Run said warlock through Orgrimmar and do RFC.  See, she’s well on her way to having the Classic Dungeonmaster achievement, but the new LFG wasn’t introduced until she was past RFC level, so it’s conspicuously missing and it bugs me.  This must be remedied.
  • Make an attempt to solo Attumen again.  Last time I tried, I didn’t have a turtle (for Shell Shield) and I didn’t have the three extra pet talent points that I previously had to stick into Avoidance.  Also I didn’t have the new and improved Misdirect.  I still don’t know how well I’ll do since I lack 2-piece T5, but it’s worth one more shot.
  • See the world.  In the event that I don’t come back before Cataclysm, I want to re-visit the Azeroth I fell in love with almost three years ago.  I’ll bring my camera– er, Print Screen button.  Maybe I’ll go for the Explorer Achievement or something.
  • Do something about my poor druid’s gear.  She still  has the mace from Heroic Nexus.  And a level 77 blue offhand.  You know, next to her ToC25 epics.  I dunno if I can give her a complete makeover in seven days but who knows?
  • Do some good ol’ Burning Crusade dungeons via LFG on my level 61 hunter Althalor.  I would’ve liked to get him to level 70 before the Final Log-Off but I don’t think I have enough time, so I’ll do a couple of old favorite instances and call it good.
  • Make some pocket change on various characters and dump it in their respective guild banks. Also, make sure I don’t have anything laying around in the AH.
  • Run Molten Core, get the Leaf, and do the Rhok quest.  …okay, so that probably won’t happen.  I can dream, though.
  • Kill Arthas?  …nah, this probably won’t happen either, but I won’t lose sleep over it.  I’m content with my WotLK experience.
  • Comb through all the billions of drafts I have laying around in the WordPress dashboard and publish the good ones.  (I probably have enough of these to continue “blogging about WoW” for a good few weeks after the subscription expires >.>) …okay, so that one wasn’t exactly game-related.

Hmm, that looks like a good start. Toss me some others that you think I should add!

Dang.

So now I’m sitting here feeling like this cartoon, wondering if I should post this or not. I can already feel myself starting to get all sappy and this isn’t even the sappy post yet.

Ah screw it *hits publish, then runs away before she starts to second guess herself again*

gear, goals, screenshots

I Like Shinies

22 Comments

So I didn’t mention this in my last post because I didn’t want to stray too far off-topic, but in my latest Naxx run Heigan decided it would be really funny to mock my inability to live more than ten seconds on his phase two by giving me a present that was loaded to the brim with stamina.

Heigan

“Ya know what stamina lets you do? Stay alive! Oh wait, you’re Pike, my bad. /snicker”
“Die in a fire =(“

To be honest, I was willing to pass on this thing to anybody who wanted it. I woulda given it to a feral druid in a heartbeat if there had been one in the raid. And besides which, I have this personal quirk where I always hate to roll on an item that dropped from a boss that I was dead for more than 50% of. I think said items would better go to someone who was alive for the duration of the boss fight. Just a personal thing of mine.

But nobody else was even remotely interested in the thing, so to me it went. You’re a laugh riot, Mr. Unclean.

tawynstaff

It is shiny, though. /strut

Now aside from being loaded with stamina it’s also loaded with Attack Power. However, this comes at the expensive of two little things: Hit, and Crit. I can live with giving away some of that precious Crit for a bunch of that delicious delicacy that is AP, but the Hit is something I can’t afford to lose right now, especially since I’m already scooting around a little under-cap. Remember, Hit is pretty vital for a BM hunter cause we pass it along to our pets now, too. As such, while I’m holding on to this beauty in my bags, it’s not gonna replace my twin Broken Stalactites until I’ve done some more re-gearing. I’m working on the chestpiece outta Argent Crusade (about 75% through Revered!), and trying to weasel my way into Heroic Violet Holds for that cloak.

Have I mentioned lately that my cloak luck has been atrocious? Ya know what I’m still runnin’ with?

…

…

Shade of Aran

“Such a comfy cloak, isn’t it?”
“Yes but that’s no excu–FLAMEWREATH DON’T MOVE”

The moral of the story? Be sure to check all your stats before equipping that new shiny. It might be better to hold off for the time being.

Oh, and Heigan can still bite me. Nielas Aran can stay though, he’s a nice guy. And I totally have a crush on his son. /blush (I’m weird, okay?)

blogs, goals, screenshots, specs

Irony

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The other day I was in the middle of a Steamvaults run (which we ended up scrapping halfway through because the tank was disconnected and then apparently the login server went down), when somebody said something to this effect in guild chat:

“Ugh, I’m grouped with another huntard. Tawyn, you need to start writing guides on how to be a good hunter and post them online so we can send all the huntards there.”

…I giggled.

And I told her that as a matter of fact… I sort of already try to do that. I said that there’s a rather expansive online “hunter community” of people that want to lend their advice and experience to newbies, and that I’m a part of it.

Now what you’ve gotta understand here, is that very few of my guildies know about my blog. It’s not because I’m hiding it from them or anything. It’s mostly that I don’t really like tooting my own horn. Somehow, for some crazy reason, this site is currently getting over 130 hits a day. Now I dunno about anybody else but I consider that to be a resounding success. But I can’t help but fear that it might put me in a sort of weird authoritative position in the guild that I don’t find myself to be deserving of, considering how awesome my guildies are. (Though to be fair, you could argue that I’m already in an “authoritative position”, since I am an officer and probably unofficially the “hunter class leader”, considering the “I need advice” whispers I often get from various lower-level hunters in the guild.)

Anyways while I’d love for more of my guildies to see this blog at some point, I’m holding off on it because I’m waiting for a time when it’s less awkward for me to bring it up. So when the aforementioned person asked for a website to refer the huntards to, I said BigRedKitty.net. Because there is no denying that not only is BRK probably one of the best hunter resources on the net right now, but he also holds the position of being sort of the “central hub” to this hunter community, and as such his site is a really good starting point– if you spend enough time at BRK, you will eventually find a lot of other good sites too.

And once again I find myself vouching for the help that the WoW-blogging community offers. I’ve been having more and more people recently asking me how I learned to play my hunter competently. And really my only answers are “lots of reading online” and “lots of practice.” Others in my guild, after hearing me mention this, have started doing their own research and reading on their class and I think it’s showing. We are developing a really strong group of players and it’s really exciting.

Anyways, blog-talk time over. I met one of my goals this weekend:


That is my new Gladiator’s Heavy Crossbow, which was promptly equipped with an Adamantite Scope. I was hoping to have it a day earlier, but it turns out the Estimated Honor was even more inaccurate than I’d assumed and I wound up about 180 honor short. But a few AVs and 24 hours later… yes. I am a happy hunter.

I went and tried it out on the level 70 elementals in Nagrand, and the improvement over my last bow is just insane. I’m so excited to try this out in an instance. I also need to get my crossbow skill up, so I can bring my crit back up.

Speaking of crit, my unbuffed agility is now over 500. At this point, I think I could probably decently pull off a 0/31/30 spec. It’s difficult for me to imagine life without the Big Red Pet and all the benefits that 41/20/0 comes with (like Serpent’s Swiftness, oh how I love this talent); but I feel like I have left hunter territory unexplored if I don’t try out a lot of different specs. Besides, I’ve noticed lately that my crowd control is pretty critical in instances; now I think I’m a decent trapper as it is, but I often feel like I could be bringing more to the table and improved traps would help with that. I know I can think of more than a few times lately where I’ve wished, mid-instance, that I had better traps. So I’ve informed my fellow-instance’ers to let me know if they ever feel like they need improved traps, and if so, I will respec post haste.

*glances up at wall of text*

…I really do talk too much, don’t I?

goals, lists

Wow.

11 Comments

Somebody made a character on Silver Hand to say hi to me (and give roleplaying a shot)! I’m quite honored. I’ve gotta thank you all again for your comments and support. It never ceases to amaze me that I’ve got an actual readership, especially because I started this blog mostly to have a place to ramble to myself and provide occasional advice to newbies.

Speaking of which, I’m going to try and provide more guides and “newbie advice”. I’ll definitely keep posting stories and anecdotes though, since a lot of people seem to enjoy them. But I’ll try to sprinkle some guides in here and there too.

Anyways! Level 70. I have to admit, the first few days I actually seemed to come down with an odd case of a Post-70-Funk; that is to say, this whole time I’ve been looking forward to 70 and I had all this stuff I wanted to do at 70, and then I got there and after the initial excitement wore out, I thought about the stuff I’d wanted to do and none of it sounded appealing anymore. However, I think it might have just been some exhaustion over the whole thing; because now after some rest I’m quite happy about being 70 again and I’ve made some goals to work on:

– Grinding marks/honor in PvP: For the Gladiator’s Pursuit set. Yes, it’s just the infamous “welfare epics”, but they are definitely not a bad start to a good set of PvP gear. I’ve already snagged myself Gladiator’s Chain Helm and I’m working to complete the set and get them all gem’d and enchanted up.

– Karazhan Key Quest Line: I’ve started this one already, got some instances ahead of me though.

– Getting Enchants and Stuff: The ever-so-illustrious BRK posted a list of good post-70 pre-Kara gear and enchants. Now I’m probably not going to follow this list 100% to the book but it’s definitely going to be my guide for the time being– and yes I want to work to get the enchants even on my fresh-out-of-Outlands-greens, because I want to be prepared to do my best if asked. First on my list is Glyph of Ferocity, which requires Revered with Cenarion Expedition. I lucked out here in that a.) I loved Zangarmarsh and spent huge amounts of time here; b.) I ran Underbog more than any other Outlands instance; and c.) I still have a lot of Cenarion Expedition quests to do in Blade’s Edge and elsewhere. And I’m already halfway through Honored. So hopefully this one won’t take too long.

– Work on getting Sonic Spear: My Survivalist’s Pike with +25 agi has served me long and well but it’s about time for an upgrade.

– Last but not least, Leveling the Pets: Tux is level 66 and Locke is level 68. I’m rather proud of my ability to at least keep them decently close in level with me in the final stretch, though obviously I’d like to get them both to 70. I figure I can do a lot of pet leveling while working on some of my other goals, such as the rep grinding/quests.

I’ve probably got some other stuff to do, but this is the list for the time being! Posted here so I can keep track of them… =P

Do any of you have any other advice for a newly-minted level 70 hunter? Or a newly-minted level 70 in general?