Contest Winner and Technical Problems

I'm so sorry this announcement came late. I have an excuse, but first: The winner!

This took forever. You guys had such amazing suggestions and it took me quite a while to sort through. But, in the end, the winner was Bittersweet, suggested by commenter Grizadams.

So, Grizadams, if you wish to collect your prize, send me an e-mail at 4haelz AT gmail DOT com (remember to spell it h-a-e-l-z) and specify whether you want me to mail you the card (with a stamp and everything) or you want me to just scratch it off and type the code out for you!

Now, for the reason this is so late:

A week ago, in the middle of a raid, my WoW randomly dropped from ~20 fps to 4 fps, and never got higher than 12 fps again. After checking my firewalls, shutting down all auxiliary programs, running virus scans, finding out my WoW repair wouldn't even connect to the server, shutting off addons...well, nothing worked. I finally had to uninstall and reinstall WoW, and delete all my addons. I'm in the process of redoing my Healbot bindings through muscle memory, and it's just...such a pain.

So, yeah, that was what I was doing this weekend.

Congratulations to Grizadams! And thank you to everyone who participated.

Omigosh Contest Time!

Some of you may have not read/were too excited about his return to bother with such trivial details/etc., but I am BRK's personal assistant. What does this mean? Well, besides jokes about having finally tamed a druid, it means I do his grunt work.

At the moment there isn't much grunt work so I do as much as my salary; that is to say, nothing.

However, I'm needing some help on something of my own, and I have something to give you for it!

You see, not long before BRK told me in secret to start spreading rumors about his return, I was ordered to get on my hunter and fly out to Storm Peaks by the awesome Druid Sonicoom. Apparently, there was a Skoll! And I tamed him and I was so pleased (he will tell you that I was so over-excited I forgot to put down a Freezing Trap and that I nearly died and we had to play an aggro game but anyway).

Now, the problem is...what do I name it? And I had a thought...

I'll ask you guys. 'Cause you're super awesome and I have never done a contest before.

So here's the rules and information!

1) Leave a comment with your entry for Skoll's name
2) Only one suggestion per person.
3) It needs to follow a theme. My hunter's name is "Sugarcake" and all my pets are some sugary treat or addition.
4) I do not repeat pet names. My previous pets have been named: Sprinkles (wolf), Frosting (bear), Coconut (warpstalker), Blueberries (blue plainstrider), Strawberries (silithid), Mint (chimaera), Marmalade (moth), Zebracake (hyena), Licorice (JORMUNGAR), Tart (raptor), Gumdrop (crocolisk, named by BRK himself!).
5) Read the other comments before posting. Do not repeat a suggestion! Think of something else or be faster, sorry!

The person who gives me the name I like best (yeah, you can't really impartially judge this sort of thing) will win a Slashdance loot card! I can scratch it and give you the code or mail it, your preference.

Good luck, have fun, and wrack those noggins!

EDIT: Forgot to say - you have until Thursday at 11:59 PM EST! I'll announce my favorite, and the winner, Friday.

UPDATE: Commenting closed, and now I have the difficult job of choosing the winner. Answer will be up tonight!

Because Pike Did It

So apparently Pike decided that it was time for her to talk about being a Resto Druid. She does a great job (but she's Pike, what did you expect?) and should STOP WORRYING ABOUT IT GOSH.

But Pike talked Resto Druids. My job, therefore, is obviously to talk about my BM Hunter, Sugarcake. Except, well, while Pike actually knows what she's talking about, I'm running around going "OH MAN HOW DOES THIS WORK CRAP MY PET IS DEAD WHY IS MY DPS SO LOW GUYS STOP MAKING FUN OF ME."

Sugarcake has been 80 less than two weeks and probably doesn't deserve all the gear she has. She also needs new pants. I've actually been looking over Pike's hunters' armories to get a basic idea of gemming, skimming through her articles, trying to find a Google search for BM hunter information that isn't a millenia old and adjusting my bars and rotation, but the actual time I can put into her is limited due to also, you know, working on Grad School stuffs. Which sucks, 'cause, I mean, Huntering is way more important than that obviously. I need to get my priorities in order.

As a side note, did you know levelling pets sucks? I'm trying to get Cinnamon, my Devilsaur, to 80. I did every single Nessingwary hunt and kill quest from start to achievement and my Devilsaur went from a bar and a half into 77 to a bar and a half away from 78. Not one level after massacring about 100 animals. And as soon as Cinnamon is 80, I need to get my wolf, Sprinkles, there from 75. Augh.

Until I get this huntard thing figured out and start doing at least 3k DPS consistently, I've respec'd three times, picked up Improved Hunter's Mark and glyphed it, so there's a reason to take me along besides pity, as long as there's another hunter. I'm messing around with FemaleDwarf.Com (how appropriate!) but my inexperience with spreadsheets (you can't really spreadsheet a healer) has me more often than not going "That's great! How come I can't do that..." and scratching my head in confusion.

I have learned a lot though. Like, putting Cinnamon on aggressive when Anub'arak burrows in ToC is hilarious and fun while removing the need to manually target the scarabs while also knocking down frost orbs. I need to tell Cinnamon to "Stay" at the bottom of the stairs in Thorim's gauntlet so he'll despawn when I jump down. Paletress likes to nuke him which, while really sucking for my DPS, is I suppose better for the group as a whole (especially PUGs). Koralon likes to set him on fire? Everyone stop beating up Cinnamon, geez.

I have also learned that someone's hunter is an orb hog. Yes, you. Jerk.

For now, I'll deal with Sugar being on the receiving end of all the jokes (my Resto Druid did 1.7k DPS and I was told "Congratulations, you've out DPS'd your hunter!" Her DPS is not that bad, butt heads). I'll keep working on her when I have time, adjusting her as I go, and trying out these things called "macros" perhaps. Besides my Bestial Wrath/Rapid Fire/Mark of Supremacy smash macro.

That one's fun.

EDIT: Stop is following the crowd as well. I wonder if this is gonna keep chaining? Whatever you do, don't jump off a bridge, Pike. At least two people would follow you!