Thursday, July 13, 2006

How NOT to have a WOW Holiday

I rarely get free holiday time. Much of my work occurs during the summer and as such my holiday time is split into occassional days. This means that I rarely get to holiday with my family. Sad, I know, but you have to live with it. So the last two days I took off were a chance to just loaf around the house and do nothing.

Catch that euphimism for playing Warcraft?

So on Tuesday morning I waved my wife off to work and happily logged on, ready for a days adventuring in Azeroth. Sadly, no-one else had decided that this particular Tuesday was a good day to join me. I could have logged in on Gorthaal and done ... something, but essentially he's my Raid character and he was parked at Dustwallow ready for the assault on Onyxia. I could have farmed with Gortessa, but everywhere I want to farm I have to compete with bots which annoys me no-end. So I logged onto Kylea in the hope of pushing my PvP Rank to the exalted heights of .... 3!

Kylea is an interesting experiment - I have decided that I should try PvP, if only to see what I have been missing. I have been missing a lot apparently, because I have been loving it. Very interesting situations and interesting group interactions. Most of the time, now that I have the hang of things, we win 3-0. We lost once on Tuesday because the raid leader instructed our flag carrier (who had the flag in our flagroom, we were at 2-2 and the Alliance had our flag somewhere) to hide, so they could hunt down our flag. Well, you can guess what happened?! However, the problem is that well, the Alliance don't like losing to they don't instantly sign up again, which we do, naturally. So you have to wait and wait and wait. Of course, I can't do anything else because Kylea is a nasty little L39 twink and if she levels she becomes dogfood in the 40-49 BGs. So ..... I levelled my fishing.

Oh the adventure of it all.

And then I was summoned to the ritual humiliation that is Sports Day. Youngest child, Emma, was participating for Yew house. Now this isn't your normal 100m, egg race, sack race style sports day. These are modern grouo-competitive sports like bean bag throwing and other nicities. Lots of happy parents watching their cherubs run around like loons. Lots of kids (including Emma, bless) running the relay and waving as she passed by. In the end, Yew came second and Elm won. Hurrah! Free icepops all round.

Home again and Onyxia got pwned, first time, by 33 people.....which personally, I thought was pretty impressive. It's obviously going to be a while before everyone gets their T2 Helms etc but it is definitely now on the raiding schedule.

So anyway, Wednesday comes and of course, it's maintainence so I do some writing and pottering and then log on again and find...exactly the same thing. The bots come on as soon as the server starts so farming is a nonsense. I cut some leather with Gorth to send to Dave to pass the time as I watch a DVD and then it's off to Sports Day part 2

Eldest daughter, Lara, is not an athlete in any description of the word although she has aspirations as a gymnast or a footballer. Neither, I believe, will come to fruition. Its actually quite hard as a parent to see a child motoring towards that inevitable time when her peers will tell her, bluntly, that she is too big and uncoordinated and no, she can't be on their team - but she can help them with their homework. I was there once and I know how hurtful it can be, especially for one so innocent and trusting as Lara. Anyway, sports day was more advanced with hurdles and relays and such. Elm, Laras house, came second. Hurrah! Free icepops all round.

One thing I did notice was the propensity, even at that young age, for the little buggers to cheat in any way, shape or form. I wonder whether the headmasters much vaunted School Code has anything in it about cheating? Hmmm....

WoW was dull again in the evening. The majority of the guild were in Zul Gurub and once again I had precious little to do. I was tired, I put some shelves up. I ate. Zzzzzz.

So, two days holiday and nothing really achieved? The lesson here? Be more bloody productive with what precious time you have available to you - and avoid sports days!

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