Mania’s Arcania

At about 11 pm on Friday, September 27 — about a week after we started this move — we unloaded the last box from the old apartment into the new place. The old apartment is completely cleaned out and my husband is going by tomorrow to arrange for a walk-through and drop off the keys.

Of course, the new place is currently decorated in the classic ‘precarious towers of cardboard boxes’ style, but there’s no real time limit on unpacking. Indeed, we have some boxes we never unpacked from the last move. So the urgency is off and I can get back to WoW. This is especially good news for those readers who are thoroughly sick of my whining. *grin*

We now return you to your regularly scheduled pet blog already in progress.

This post contains no pet news. It’s just more of me complaining! So feel free to skip it.

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I’m exhausted. I have 257 messages in my inbox (12 of which I haven’t even read yet), including copious comments from the last several posts here. I have 496 unread posts in Google Reader, including 146 from my own forums. My legs are killing me and my feet have (rather ominously) gone numb. After three nights crammed in a tiny hotel room my husband is barely talking to me, and somehow I still feel slightly hung over from last night’s SOE party (what do they put in those drinks?!) …

… and Blizzard is updating the Public Test and Beta Realms. What, are they trying to kill me?

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So here I am stuck in a hotel a thousand miles from home, desperately trying to catch up with WoW news while my husband is off schmoozing with game developers. To be fair, I spent all this morning ‘networking’, which basically means standing around gossiping bitterly. (And if you are curious, I haven’t seen a single Blizzard person here, although I also haven’t been looking very hard. Blizzard doesn’t seem to do these conferences very much. *shrug*)

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Today is the last day on one of my larger contracts … and unfortunately I’m not done with the work yet. (Stupid recalcitrant build!)

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As you read this, I am on a plane to Boston — one of my least favorite cities in the US!

(Well, unless you read this after about 8pm Eastern time on Sunday, which is, frankly, very likely. But it certainly sounds more dramatic this way.)

I’ll be in Boston until Wednesday night. I have my laptop and I’ll do my best to keep up with posts and e-mail, but I’m going up for work (this is orientation for a new contract) and I may not have much free time. So I may be even less responsive than usual.

Last night my husband and I went to a small send-off for a friend who is moving to Oregon. One of our friend’s friends was wearing a J!nx rogue shirt, so the conversation quickly turned to WoW. The rogue wandered off after a bit, but I was left talking to another guy, a friendly survival hunter who does a lot of raiding. He’d heard of Petopia so I got to show off a bit. (I love that.)

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I don’t know if it’s obvious, but I haven’t been playing much WoW lately — or anything else, really. I need a little break to recharge my batteries … and to prepare for the long upcoming season as we move towards Wrath of the Lich King.

So I’m going to be around just a little less for the next week or so. I’ll continue posting hunter pet news as I ran across it (and feel free to send me tips on anything I miss) and I’ll continue to post Name That Pet features (until and unless I run out of them), but I won’t necessarily be able to keep up with my usual goal of at least one post per day. This slowdown will probably only last for a week or two, but I wanted to let you know what was up.

It’s good to take a break sometimes. I’m particularly lucky in that I can take a break and still participate in the hunter community via you guys.

So I spend most of the day on the phone with my bank trying to straighten out tangled mess of bank accounts and retirement accounts. I spend what’s left of the day on the phone with our health insurance company trying to get the application for our new policy to go through. I finish all that (or at least what can be done today) and the husband and I head out to grab dinner fixings at the grocery store before we settle in for an evening of games (EQII and WoW respectively).

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Forgive me for the hit-and-run posting, but I wanted to share two things very quickly:

1. The 2.4.0 Test Realms (both PTR and TTR) have closed for good, and Blizzard has announced extended maintenance tomorrow. So we’re looking good for a 2.4 launch in the morning.
2. After some extreme finagling on my part, I think I am once again in a state where I can update Petopia. But I’m not certain.

Putting these two things together: I beg your forbearance if it takes me a bit to get updated for Patch 2.4 tomorrow. Luckily, there’s only one new pet that I’m aware of at this point: the Razorthorn Ravager.

Technical details about my finagling follow. Feel free to skip them.

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