Daniel Bennett is My Hero

I woke up this morning with the intense desire to own a monitor lizard. This happens to me more often than you might think.

Problem is, owning a monitor isn’t like owning a puppy or a kitten. If you don’t know what you’re doing, the animal dies. (Admittedly that can be true with puppies and kittens, too. But because they are domesticated and so much more deeply embedded in our culture, it’s a lot harder. But the vast majority of pet reptiles don’t make it past their first year.)

I don’t like to kill animals. Especially not because I screwed up.

Continue reading

NaNoWriMo

Greetings from NaNoWriMoSo. I appear to be participating in NaNoWriMo – or National Novel Writing Month – this year.

The basic idea behind NaNoWriMo is to write a 50k word novel during the month of November. Because so many people participate, it’s a great way to keep your enthusiasm up for at least an entire 30 days – which is actually plenty of time to get a (very rough) first draft done.

… Or so I am told. I’ve never managed it myself. Which is why I’m participating this year.

Hold on to Duplicate Mini-Pets?

I’m furiously flapping around the world (of Warcraft) right now talking to Candy Buckets to get Tricky Treats to turn in for a Feline Familiar mini-pet – all part of Hallow’s End.

And just now, the Candy Bucket at Splintertree Post in Ashenvale gave me a Sinister Squashling! I would be very excited … except that I already have a Sinister Squashling and the damned things are soulbound so I can’t send it to my up-and-coming blood elf hunter.

I was about to delete it to clear out the bag space when I suddenly remembered that as part of the BlizzCon announcement about Pokemon-style pet battles, Blizzard said that a bunch of mini-pets are going to become tradeable.

Now that may not apply to the Sinister Squashling … but just in case I think I will hold onto it for now. One bag slot is worth the possibility of my blood elf finally getting this slippery squash, I think.

Mists of Pandaria: Ferocity Bears

During the Class Talent panel at BlizzCon today, Blizzard revealed that in the next expansion (Mists of Pandaria, aka MoP) hunters will be able to choose the pet talent tree – Cunning, Ferocity, or Tenacity – for each pet. In other words, you can have a Ferocity Bear or a Cunning Cat or … well, whatever else you like.

Now this came up as an aside while they were discussing the changes to the hunter talents and it’s not entirely clear how this is going to work out exactly. But I guess we’ll find out!