business as usual.

My iGoogle homepage countdown trinket says quite clearly that there’s just six days until “a whole new world”, I’m unable to book the day off work for some bloody reason but will have the weekend and early half of the following week off to enjoy the sights, sounds and, maybe with a Collector’s Scratch ‘n’ Sniff Edition, smells of this Northrend place. The order has been placed, woe betide the mail-order company who shall remain nameless that doesn’t have it on my doormat on the morning of the 13th. But I digress…

For now though, all play time is governed by the denial of anything happening at all and getting on with Those Important Jobs that need Doing Right. It’s either that or standing around in Shattrath really, and just where is the fun in that?

Being exalted with The Violet Eye and not seeing the bow drop from Malchezaar ever, a crazy-fast run of Shattered Halls (seemingly the evergreen heroique du jour on Bloodhoof recently) with a Hyjal-geared paladin tank bagged Anj the Skyfire Hawk-Bow. Similar, but not strictly as nice looking as the Sunfury, it does have the one stat that I really need and have been tragically neglecting in the quest for crazy critical strikes, hit rating.

Add two Great Lionseye gems pushed into shiny new Leggings of the Pursuit and extra space made in Anj’s official Tyrande Whisperwind lunchbox for a stock of Spicy Hot Talbuks, in the short space of half an hour, her hit rating had more or less quadrupled, in fact, with a good ten seconds of eating tasty talbuk meat, the hit-cap is slightly exceeded. Miss something? Not today, sweetheart! Okay, the Stabilized Eternium Scope on top of the gems gave the whole kit’n’kaboodle a total bill of almost 1000g but, hey, it’s only money isn’t it?

I even logged into my orc hunter for a few minutes purely to get a look at the new Lady Sylvanas Windrunner in Undercity and it has to be said she looks incredible. That armour set she’s wearing? Want it so bad. Call it tier whatever the hell you like, it shall be mine. I’d even break the habit of a lifetime and show my cloak if it had the same torn, raggedy edges. It almost makes up for the fact that she’s the leader of a crybaby race with a chip on their shoulder a mile wide, doesn’t it?

it’s not much of a labyrinth…

With our main guild tank back from his week of snowboarding (something about tanks and extreme sports), we finally managed to get one of our healers through Shadow Labs with, wait for it, no problems at all! Ah well, okay, there was a small wipe going into the second room but we’ve passed that area with no problems so many times it counts as a typo rather than an outright spelling mistake, to use a somewhat askew metaphor.

And for the first time I’ve seen, the Sonic Spear dropped from Murmur. Now I’ve been pretty happy with my PvP polearm and had given up on the idea of getting it replaced on account of the “Oh, what? Shadow Labs again?” factor but it came up, the other hunter in the group swears by his dual-wield and, you know what? I’m gonna go right ahead and click need on this one. It’s time for a change of look. Aside from anything else, the PvP polearm is enchanted for +35 agility which you get right from the box with the Spear! Stick another +35 on that and oh! There’s going to be tears.

Ever since getting my first two-hand sword from the Sunken Temple back at level 50 (embarrassingly this one, certainly not what anyone might call an ideal sword for a hunter), I’ve grown to love the fleeting, one-swing damage that a quick Wing Clip/Raptor Strike macro gives on the way to getting back in range, and if a +15 strength sword can lead me down the path of kitey righteousness rather than getting bogged down in albeit fast, stabby melee while at the same time looking a million times more cool then it can’t be that bad, can it? Unfortunately for polearms though, they don’t start looking impressive until level 70 as far as I’ve seen. Prior to that, all you have is basically a dagger with an extra-long handle, which is no good for anyone. Okay, maybe someone, but not me. I crave fanciness!

And so the enchant shopping list starts again, as does the rule of the “If possible, buy in bulk”. 27g rising to 35g for the cheapest eight Large Prismatic Shards in the list? OR buy ten for 255g? Which seems the most sensible? Same kind of saving for the Greater Planar Essences and the twenty handfuls of Arcane Dust were kindly provided by my tailor warlock. She goes through loads of that stuff.

I swear I am never going to see that epic flying mount. Money comes in. Money goes out. Easy come, easy go. Ah well. Life goes on.