TV, WoW, plants, cat

[thistlechaser]

How fitting is that sign for my LJ? :P

TV: Confession time! I wasn't in love with the first season of Game of Thrones. Sure I watched it, I even sometimes looked forward to it, but at least once per ep I got bored in the middle of things. I have no idea why, I loved the books, but the show didn't hook me.

I'm happy to say, this season is different. I've been looking forward to the new eps ("Hey, tomorrow is Sunday, yay!"), and they seem to be over in the blink of an eye. Was I expecting less of the show this season, since I didn't really love it last season? Or is it actually better now? I'm not sure.

However, it's not my favorite show currently on TV. That honor goes to Korra. Seems like my entire friends list wrote about it this weekend, so I'll keep this brief: The show is perfect in every way. It's a children's cartoon, yet it treats the audience like an adult. Even just a few eps into the series, and it's endlessly cool and has had honestly creepy moments. So nicely mature.

WoW: I love you, Darkmoon Faire. I bought yet another Crimson Deathcharger yesterday (gotta catch 'em all?), so my money fell below a million again, which made me flail. Stupid, stupid brain, that's no reason to panic. The horses are an investment at this point. With account-bound mounts coming for sure in MoP, I expect the price of mounts to go through the roof (you're basically getting up to 10 of them for the price of one! Or is it across servers, too? Even more, if so!). I'm hoping to sell each of them for at least 500K, when MoP drops.

So anyway. DMF. I had about 300 quest items saved up. I was certain I would never move them all, I stopped buying about two weeks before the faire, but amazingly they're almost all gone now, on the first day. I have no idea how much money I made, but I bought them all for 20 gold or less (with a few exceptions, some of the rarest ones I bought for up to 50), I've sold them all for 50-200 (with the rare ones for 200-300). It boggles me, flat out boggles me, how many people do not buy these items ahead of time. But hey, I'm willing to take advantage of their lack of planning.

I think I need to start adding 'liquid' to my amounts, when I speak of my money: Liquid gold and goods. I easily have a million in mounts, pets, Lich King drops, mats, and other assorted things waiting to sell. (Or in the LK items, just holding onto.)

Plants: Alas, my basil went the way of tersa's. I brought it home, planted it, and right away the adult plants started to die. I saw younger ones were just growing leaves, so I thought maybe the young ones would replace the older ones, but as soon as the young ones got to adult size, they all fell over dead too. No idea why. I guess it just doesn't like growing in this area.

Everything else is growing well, though the poor sunflowers are running flat along the ground. They're still so small and thin, it's really hard to stake them up.

Ellie New Cat: I got her a new carrying case (case #4... sigh). But I finally got one she's not afraid of! As in she's willing to be in the same room with it without fleeing. So I've been working with her, putting her in it (without closing it), then giving her all the pats. It's backfiring though, I'm going too fast, now she's back to being afraid of being picked up by me. :/ Sigh. Poor kitty.

It's got to be hard for her. She wants to be brushed, she seems to very much like it, but she's afraid of both the brush and being in a position where I could easily keep hold of her. She's so clearly torn between wanting to be brushed and afraid.

I feel guilty, but even now, more than a year later, I think about how things would have been if I had gotten a different cat. I'm glad to have given Ellie a home, her foster mother said she wasn't happy living with so many other cats, but a loving, not scared cat would be so nice. I know she's made lightyears of progress, and she'll still keep improving, but... :/

Comments

[firebyrd.livejournal.com]

People don't buy the DMF stuff beforehand because they're waiting to see if they'll pick it up themselves. Or at least that's why I wait. Some months I get most of them, others I don't based on how bad my luck is and how many dungeons I actually run.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Oh! That's a good point. Silly me, since I don't PvP or PvE, I forgot where they originally come from.

[veloxe.livejournal.com]

But...why would you buy them ahead of time? Unless you're trying to farm up with like 10 characters (WHY!!!!!) it shouldn't be a problem to get all of them ahead of time for DMF just by, you know, playing the game... Not that I'll complain, I sold one of those rare ones for like 300g a couple days back so that works for me.

I know our cat that is scared of everything loves being brushed while you are brushing her but everything before that is like "THEY ARE FINALLY GOING TO EAT ME! AHHHHHHHH!". She doesn't claw though so usually you can just pick up her, sit her down, then start brushing and she remembers how awesome it is to be brushed. I would suggest that but I have a feeling it would end in a very painful and claw-filled end of you...

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Wow, do they drop that commonly? I only saw one ever, on a lowbie character doing a dungeon. (But you know me, I don't PvE or PvP much, so...)

Ha! That's how she is, yeah. Before actually brushing and after it's done, she's all NOOOOO!, but while it's going on? Purring kitty.

[firebyrd.livejournal.com]

This comment made me start looking to see how often these things actually do drop. It's hard to get a truly accurate idea because most of the things that drop them have existed for long before this version of the DMF. Additionally, not everyone carries the books around, so the WoWHead statistics get skewed. Looking at just bosses that came with 4.3 is the closest to "accurate" one can get, but even that's not perfect since it was a couple of weeks after the patch before the first DMF happened, and again, not everyone carries the books in their inventory. From the various 4.3 bosses that drop them, though, the dungeon bosses have a 22% and 23% drop rate and the raid boss has a 45% drop rate. So I'd guess the dungeon ones are around a 25% drop rate and the raid ones are maybe 50%? I certainly pick up Soothsayer's runes every week and there actually aren't that many bosses that drop them.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Wow, that's not bad at all. It also explains the prices of the Soothsayer ones.

[firebyrd.livejournal.com]

I should finish reading before commenting. :) I wouldn't do anything to force Ellie into the carrying case. Just keep the door open and put a blanket or towel inside it. Maybe even toss a treat or some catnip in there. Even if she's a skittish cat, she is a cat. She'll start sleeping in it eventually. Then, when you do have to go places, she won't be happy, but she won't be terrified of the carrier either.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately we have a deadline. In less than two weeks, she has to take a trip in it. :/ But I'm going to give her a break for a while, let her just see it sitting there, and then start over slower again.

[firebyrd.livejournal.com]

Oooh, for a health check due to the cruise or something?

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

I wish I could take her with me! But she'll be staying someplace else while I'm gone, so I'll need to be able to move her there.

[firebyrd.livejournal.com]

Well, yeah, but most boarding places require a health check before they'll let the animal in, which would generally need to happen before you take her to the boarding place. ;)

[priestpluswolf.livejournal.com]

Expect DMF book prices to skyrocket soon. Those darkmoon pets will be account-wide, and the only way to get them is by doing a ton of dailies, or those books. And there's something like six to get - and two mounts.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Good point! I stopped doing the quests/turn-ins myself, but I really should get the pets/mounts on one alt before MoP. :/

[priestpluswolf.livejournal.com]

I pick at it now and again. Some of the pets are terribly cute. 8D The mounts not so much but I'm a pet collector. A lazy one! If you have all the books that's ... 80-85, I think, free tokens a month. At least one free pet, if you do one profession quest too!

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Yeah, same. I'm a pet/mount collector, but I'm really lazy about it. Especially for things like mounts, it just doesn't seem worth it anymore, when I won't use them at all. You're right on the pets though, some of them are really cute.

[firebyrd.livejournal.com]

I'm a little skeptical of this claim, to be honest. The big mount and pet collectors have already been working at this for months and are about done. If anything, the prices might very well go down since people won't feel the need to get the mounts and pets on their alts (I only ever do this stuff on my main, but I know people that do it on 5-10 characters).

Extremely difficult to get mounts and pets like stuff from the TCG? Yeah, I'm sure those are going to go up. Stuff that anyone can get with very little effort? Doubtful. I've got 700 tickets between my alts just from turning in Soothsayer's Runes and doing profession quests most months because it's so easy and I can't figure out what to do with them (since it's pointless to buy multiple versions of the pets and mounts!).

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

The big mount and pet collectors have already been working at this for months and are about done.

Except the new/returning players who are coming back for MoP. I suspect the new/newly returning people will balance out those who are just finishing up, if not outnumber them.

I've got 700 tickets between my alts just from turning in Soothsayer's Runes

I wish I had thought about turning those in myself. They sold for as low as 4 gold each in past months (this month they're in the 20s). I'm so outside of all parts of the game other than the AH, I sometimes forget all these items have actual use. I know that sounds odd, but I spend probably 98% of my time on WoW in the Dalaran engineering room AH.

[priestpluswolf.livejournal.com]

You vastly underestimate the laziness of even determined pet collectors. It's the end of the expansion and there's a lot of burnout going around. I know an alarming amount of people who've put their accounts on hold til MoP, and some of them are the aforementioned collectors. You might have farmed everything enough to get 700 tickets, but I doubt you're the average player.

Nothing's guaranteed of course - but I suspect, like the occasional BoE mount you can get, the prices are going to rise, and significantly, for the first month or two of MoP as people try to fill out their lists ASAP.

[prettyredeyes.livejournal.com]

LATE ON THIS.

Game of Thrones IS better this season. The pacing of the story was a lot slower in the first book/season. It was a lot of character exposition and a lot of chat and a lot of things the audience knew but couldn't wait for the characters to find out. People only started turning into a mess at the end and this season is a MESS and exciting things and massive flux happen in every episode.

Because I'm a nerd who lives alone, I have POWERFUL FEELS and find myself going OHMYGOD OHMYGOD in the middle of episodes and yes, they end too quickly! This season is incredible so far.

Also, I think Joffrey needs to be slapped in every episode. That's the only way it could be even better.

As to Korra.. I can't watch it yet. D8 I tried, but I couldn't allow myself to perhaps spoil the ending of the original Avatar series, which I've been working on. I'm finaaaally on Book Three so hopefully I'll be done soon and can catch up to the rest of the Korra fandom. :[

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Don't rush on Avatar! Enjoy the series you're on, you'll spend less time waiting impatiently for the next Korra ep. :D

Also, I think Joffrey needs to be slapped in every episode. That's the only way it could be even better.

He's sooo horrible! The actor does such a great job with him.

And I'm glad it's not just me thinking this season is better! <3