Another WoW Post (Contains Spoilers)

Man, it's been a month since I last posted! Time has just flown by for me lately. I wish I had my stuff together to show you all the neat things I've been making, but I don't, so today you're getting another post about WoW. Last time I blogged, I was excited about patch 5.3 and the continuation of the story of the Horde rebellion. With the Siege of Orgrimmar on the test realms, I had some predictions/hopes for the upcoming coup d'etat. However, after reading Wowhead's latest report on the PTR, it's clear that Blizzard doesn't intend to grant me my silent wishes. (Warning, spoilers lay ahead.)

Let me start by saying that I don't like Garrosh. He's woefully arrogant, brash, and power-hungry. However, that didn't stop Thrall in all his wisdom from naming him Warchief. Why? Surely Thrall saw all that, and he didn't just promote Garrosh because he's the son of Grom and rightful heir of the Warsong Clan? No, I really think Thrall appointed Garrosh as Warchief of the Horde because he saw potential for true greatness and leadership in him.

 WHAAATTT!?

Hear me out; there are several Horde quests where you get to interact with Garrosh and see that he isn't just a mindless warmonger. The first quest I'll mention is The Warchief Cometh, where Garrosh warns Sylvanas, albeit tactlessly, about the dangers of the path she is treading with the Val'kyr. Another quest that comes to mind is To Be Horde in Stonetalon Mountains. When Overlord Krom'gar sends out that bomb, Garrosh tells him that murdering innocents is not honorable, that the end does not justify the means. As a rule, Garrosh is against total war,  as is evidenced by the fact that he forbids Sylvanas to use the plague. He has access to a chemical weapon that would grant complete victory over the Gilneans, yet he does not take advantage of it. Once again, in Breath of Darkest Shadow, he makes the distinction between honorably defeating one's enemies and straight-up slaughter when he tells Ishi, "Control your hatred, Ishi. There is killing, and then there is murder."

Okay, so Garrosh isn't all bad. That doesn't make up for the atrocities he's committed so far this expansion, so what's the point? My point in showing you all this is to set you up for how I believe the Siege of Orgrimmar should end. Garrosh is the son of Grom Hellscream, who as you know, was the first orc to partake of the demon blood that corrupted the original Horde. Along the way, he realized his mistakes, and gave his life to free the orcs from the blood curse by defeating the demon Mannoroth. I think it would be fitting if, near the end of the Garrosh encounter, Garrosh overcomes the hold the Sha has on him, and sacrifices himself to help the raid party defeat the Heart of Y'shaarj. That way Garrosh, like his father before him, could be redeemed and remembered as a hero instead of dying as a villain. It would have some pretty awesome symmetry, I think. However, that's just not going to happen, at least if the audio files from the PTR are to be believed. With his dying breath, Garrosh still claims that ruling the world is his destiny. The audio files seem to reveal that he has no remorse for what he's done. I guess at least I can hold out hope that he's going to drop a legendary Sha-touched Gorehowl or something. That would be spectacular, and it would help make up for the injustice of having Gorehowl drop as a lowly purple in Kara.

Another disappointment that I have about the upcoming raid is that we have to fight General Nazgrim. He turned a blind eye to the secret missives that Vol'jin was sending me during the Dominance Offensive campaign. While he never really gave his consent, he certainly did nothing to stop me from aiding Vol'jin in setting up a rebellion. I'd really hoped that he'd be fighting along side us to overthrow Garrosh, but instead, he stands between us and the Warchief. I've gotten pretty attached to Nazgrim, as attached as I can be to a fictional character, anyway; I've fought beside him for three expansions now. I watched him get promoted from Sergeant to Legionnaire to General, so it makes me sad that he has to die. I'll be honest, I nearly cried when I heard the soundbite from his death, where he tells us that we fought an honorable fight, and that he was glad that he died by our hands. If I ever participate in the Siege, I will surely do a /mourn for Nazgrim.

But anyway, enough with the WoW talk for now, I have stuff to do! TTFN, ta-ta for now!

Escalation

Leah wearing her Darkspear Pride.

Brothas and sistas of the Darkspear: today is the day we come together in rebellion! Let us rise up against Garrosh Hellscream; let it be known that the Horde will not succumb to the will of a power-hungry tyrant! Take up your weapons now, for Vol'jin! For the Darkspear! For the Horde!

Can you tell I'm a little excited? Patch 5.3 launches today, and I'm chomping at the bit to play the next part of the story that is unfolding. I can't wait to see the outcome of the campaign against Garrosh. I can only hope that the culmination is every bit as satisfying as I envision it will be.

Also on the WoW front, my little one has informed me that she wants to be my bird. Leah's current pet is Ichabod, a Wandering Greenback Crane from the Jade Forest, and that's what my little one wants to be. I'm thinking of putting together a crane costume inspired by Uma Thurman from Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, but of course with my own little twist. As long as she doesn't change her mind, I'll finally get that mother/daughter costume opportunity I've always wanted. Oh happy day!

In other news, I've got some lovely pictures to share with you just as soon as I upload them to my computer. My nephew recently had his fifth birthday party with a How to Train Your Dragon theme, and all the dragon training games were a smashing success with our little Vikings. My mom-in-law's crafty brain is responsible for all of the festivities, but I'm proud to say that I did have a hand in drawing the Hideous Zippleback for the bean-bag toss. Check back later for the full report.

Sleepy Posting

I'm drowsy blogging today, folks. I stayed up a whee bit too late while gaming last night, then got up a whee bit too early to take my little one to preschool. Bare with me.

A little while back I mentioned sprucing up my front porch, and today, I'm sharing the pics with you. This is what my porch looked like before:

Cute, but not a lot going on. There was only seating for two, and that seating kept blowing over in the wind. Behold, the after:

There's now comfortable seating for at least four, maybe more if people don't mind getting friendly.  Best of all, I now have more storage space, because all of the benches open up. The folding Adirondack chairs have been relocated to the fire pit so we can have a place to sit on bonfire nights. Magically, they've stopped falling over; I guess they didn't really want to be on the porch. I stole some ideas from Pinterest - namely, spray-painting over my old green pillows to match my new blue color scheme, and that little plant stand made from a tomato cage. I also made my own version of that adorable pillow from Etsy using burlap, acrylic paint, and plastic grocery bags as stuffing. See a closeup here:

Now my porch is all ready for lovely spring and summer days. That is, after I wash the pollen off everything!

Forming Rhok'delar, Longbow of the Ancient Keepers - Part 1

Today, we talk about how I'm making my bow. I'm not finished with it yet, but I thought I'd share the early steps now because yesterday was Earth Day, and this is really a green project.

Originally, I was going to make the Ancient Amani Longbow. Leah doesn't actually have that weapon or its lookalike, the Restrung Voodoo Bow, but it looks nice and "trollish," and I thought it would match my outfit nicely. The more I thought about it, however, the more I was  convinced that I should make my bow Rhok'delar, Longbow of the Ancient Keepers. Leah has this weapon in the game, and it holds great sentimental value for me because it is the only pre-Burning Crusade epic she has. I took the time and completed the quest chain to get all the materials needed to create the bow. That was back when all of my real-life friends also played WoW, and I would have never raided Molten Core or Onyxia without them. And I'm so glad I did, because the quest chain isn't available anymore, so I got it while the getting was good. Plus, it really is a gorgeous looking bow. Seriously, follow the link above and then click the "view in 3D" button. You can't really find a weapon like that anymore in the game. Armor and weapons in game now are missing something. Some of the new stuff does look completely bad-ass, but there's something to be said about the elegance of the early epics.

Anyway, with a picture of my bow handy, I took a piece of cardboard and cut out the outlines:

I used a paper towel roll for the handle. Then I began to crumple up old newspapers and attach them with with masking tape to give the bow its basic shape. For added stability, I glued a wooden inside the paper towel roll and attached the other pieces of the bow to it.

This is the basic shape of the bow once all that was finished:

After that was done, I strung the bow to get the curve the way I wanted it. Then I made a glue/water mixture, dunked in newspaper strips, and began layering them on. Once they dry, they'll give the bow a nice rigid structure.

 And that's where I am now, waiting on things to get good and dry. So far, the only materials used have been those I already had lying around the house. So there you are, my green and soon-to-be awesome bow. Stay tuned for Forming Rhok'delar - Part 2!

Update - Forming Rhok'delar - Part 2 now finished!

Quiver

The quest to make my Halloween costume continues. I finished my hands and feet (which I'll talk about a little later), I found fabric for a tabard, and I'm on the hunt for the right color face makeup. At any rate, a little while ago, I showed you how I made my arrows. This week, I'll show you how I made my quiver. Hunters no longer use quivers or even arrows anymore in World of Warcraft; they just kind of fire magical ammo, I guess. However, I opted to make a quiver for a couple of reasons. One, sometimes I get nostalgic for the earlier days of WoW. Two, I felt it would add a little to my costume to make it more complete. The third and most important reason, I needed somewhere to put my keys and phone and whatnot while we're out and about trick-or-treating. So, without further adieu, I bring you "how to make a quiver."




I began with sheets of brown craft foam. Craft foam is inexpensive and pretty easy to work with, but it's limited in size and looks like, well, craft foam. Fortunately, Pinterest came to the rescue, and I found this craft foam armor tutorial which in turn led me to this video tutorial on making craft foam look like leather. The size issue I overcame with my clever quiver design, which required the pieces of foam to over lap and be laced together. I started by hammering out the lacing holes in the foam with my M'bellish hammer and hole punch. Then I proceeded with making the craft foam look like leather as per the instructions in the link above. In hindsight, I should have done the leather treatment then punched the holes, because heating the craft foam can cause it to shrink, and I ended up having to re-punch some of the holes because they no longer lined up. In the end it all worked out. When I was ready to put together my quiver, I used a natural-colored lace and a plastic craft needle. While masking tape held everything together, I laced a whip stitch around the top, and then crisscrossed down the sides like you would do with shoe laces.

Now I needed my quiver to have a sturdy bottom since I'm planning on using it to carry stuff, so I recycled an old oatmeal container that, conveniently enough, fit inside the quiver famously. I simply placed the oatmeal container on a piece of craft foam and traced around it. Then, I drew and cut out another circle about an inch larger around the outside of the original circle I made. After that, I cut from the edge of the foam to the inner circle at several spots to help me form the foam around the bottom of the oatmeal container. Just so no white would accidentally show through, I painted the bottom edges of the container brown. While the paint dried, I gave the foam the leather treatment. Then, I hot-glued the foam to the bottom of the container. Finally, I inserted the container into the bottom of the quiver and secured it with glue (although it fit tight enough that I doubt it would come out). I'm pretty pleased with how it looks, and I'm confident that it will hold my stuff just fine come trick-or-treating time.

The final thing I needed was a strap to make the quiver wearable. I measured how long I needed it to be, then I cut out the right amount of craft foam and gave it the leather treatment. This required two pieces, so I had to devise a clever way to disguise the seam. I thought that it would look cool and be appropriate to display fangs as hunting trophies on my strap, so that's what I did. The fangs are handmade from Sculpey and painted with acrylic paint. I hot-glued then hand stitched them onto the strap, so they look great and aren't going anywhere. I added two D-links to the quiver for attaching the strap, one on the bottom and one on the top. Using the hot glue and hand stitching method, I attached the top of the strap to the top D-link on the quiver. I then added a leash clip to the bottom end of the strap so I could put the quiver on and take it off without lifting it over my head and shoulders.(You can see in the picture to the left how I stitched both the trophy strip and the strap to the D-link.) And that's that. 

So what do you think? Here's a photo of the quiver holding the arrows. I feel it will complement my costume nicely. Well, guys, until next week, see you later!

Cookie Dough Yogurt

So I'm trying to convince myself to that I need to eat healthy again. I got pretty good at it a little while ago, but I let that slip by the wayside, and I gotta tell you, it's tough breaking bad habits. Anyway, I was browsing Pinterest (big surprise, right?) when I ran across this link for healthy, natural, cookie dough-flavored yogurt. I'm thinking "Nuh-uh, there's no way it tastes anything like cookie dough." However, my local Harris Teeter was running a meal deal that included Greek yogurt, so I thought that I might as well give it a try. It's very good! It actually tastes a good deal like peanut butter cookie dough. And it was so simple to make! You guys really have to try this stuff.

You and I or You and Me? A Short PSA

Hey, guys! It's the week before Easter, and I'm busier than a one-armed paper hanger, but I decided I'd take a minute while my lunch is cooking to bring you a little grammar lesson. I've been seeing the improper usage of "I" and "me" going around quite a bit, so I want to share with you a hint that is very helpful. In situations involving multiple people where you want to know whether you should use "I" or "me" in a sentence, always think of how you would answer the question if you were only answering for yourself. In cases where you're alone and you'd answer "I," use "I" when including multiple people also. The same goes for "me;" if you're alone and would normally answer with "me," then use "me" when referring to multiple people. Let's clarify with a couple of examples:

Example 1, Using "I":
Kim asks, "Who is going to the store?"
You reply (when speaking for yourself alone), "I am going to the store."
OR
You reply (when speaking for yourself and someone else), "Jan and I are going to the store."

Example 2, Using "me":
Kim asks, "Whose dog is this?"
You reply (when speaking for yourself alone), "It belongs to me."
OR
You reply (when speaking for yourself and someone else), "It belongs to Jan and me."

Pro Tip: Always include yourself last in these situations, it's just plain polite (e.g., "Jan and I," not "I and Jan").

There you go. My grammar may not be perfect, but I do try, and now you can try a little harder too!

Happy Easter, everyone!