/dance

I don't know if any of you are familiar with Jack Thompson. Simply put he's a jackass, a lawyer, and an anti-video game activist. He's also a retard of the highest caliber.
I read this and cried a few tears of joy.

On coming home

"Rarely do members of one family grow up under the same roof" - Richard Bach

So here I am, the prodigal Syll. First I left the guild to try a raiding guild, thinking that I would find more of the fun we had in our Kara runs, but finding many more runs and much, MUCH less fun. Then I left the game altogether because of some personal pressures at home. Much, MUCH less fun than even the raiding guild, I must say. Then after much negotiation at home I was able to comfortably reinstall WOW (holy cats, as Bricco would say! What an awful process that was, especially getting my addons and interface back up. bleh!). Then after just a bit of diplomacy with the raiding guild muckety mucks I quit them as soon as I could and came back home to Solidarity. HOORAY!!! Because, the thing was, when WOW wasn't on my computer it wasn't questing I missed or healing or instancing or raiding. Well, I did miss those things, but more specifically what I missed terribly was doing those things with YOU!!! It really came as something of a surprise to me how heartsick I was to not be able to check in with you all. Here is a definitely abbreviated list of things I was longing for the whole time I was gone:
1) Hearing Bricco say "Yaaaaay!!!"
2) Cuddling T
3) Laughing as everyone stole Crow's lines
4) Hearing Crow say his lines better than anyone else
5) Everyone's whoops of excitement after downing bosses
6) Chit-chatting with Listra about our sexy guild boys
7) seeing my screen light up with purple tells as soon as I logged on
8) Hearing Duh say "yup YUP"
9) listening to Mc work through boss strategies with such easy assurance
10) laughing and chatting with War and Flappy... er... Pansie and everyone else in guild chat
There are many, many other little things that I missed. But more than anything else I missed the people. I missed my friends. I worried endlessly that I'd lose touch with you all (thank you for the emails!!!!!) and that I'd lose our friendships. I cried. A lot. Yep. QQ-festival.

So where am I going with this, you ask? Very astute question! I just want to express how grateful I am to be back, how much you all mean to me, how much I treasure you, and how much better my life is with you in it. Is it just a game? Well, yes. But no. As Humbah said to me in an email when I was offline, the game gets you started, but it's the people that keep you coming back. So to you, my WOW family, I send out my love and appreciation. Just wanted to tell you... it's good to be home.

/love
Sylly

Hey, that's MY shoulders!

Aww, Metasyll fancies himself a resto druid now. Isn't that cute? If you can beat 'em...

"Holy ;ight"

Team Solidarity kicked ass and took names tonight once again. We were the personification of shooting first and asking questions later. In a different setting this time and with many more members, an impromptu raid of Karazhan was started and three events were taken down in record time. Moroes was downed not with 10, but 9 people, and tanked well considering. Also...I think he went down in just under 6 minutes. I think we may be the most constant source of our own amusement and fascination.

In my brief stint in a "Raiding Guild" (I plead insanity) I learned what it was to do a Karazhan run in 4 hours (or at least attempted to. They said with certainty that it HAD been done before, and even done regularly). Brute force and dead bodies make up the gist of their strategy. Often managing to find some of the dumbest people on the planet to be tanks and dps as well. It was quite awe inspiring... The point being I'd rather run with the well oiled Solidarity machine once or twice a week getting half way through a raid than get a 200% durability loss repair bill. It was fun as hell.

Respica Te, Hominem Te Memento

Memento Mori

During a recent Heroic Botanica run T' was often upset that he didn't receive Blessing of Kings from Metacrow. "Why don't I get Kings?" he asked frequently.

Well we all know why but I thought I'd share something that occurred to me.

In Roman times generals returning home after winning significant victories on the field of battle were given a Triumph parade through the streets of the city. Huge affair, lots of cheering people. The general, or imperator, would ride through the city on a chariot with a slave standing behind him holding a gold wreath over his head. One popular anecdote arose out of this tradition: Apparently there was once a general who was so taken with himself that the slave was made to whisper into his ear certain phrases to remind him of his mortality.

"Look behind you, remember you are only a man."

"Remember that you are mortal."

For some reason I thought that Salvation might be T's mortality tapping on his shoulder.

Not sure why I'm sharing this, just thought it was amusing.

Oh how the low have become mighty

Today was one of my favorite dailies, Heroic Botanica. Metacrow, Duh, Traenei, Listra and I went in to take it out. We were optimistic but it turned out...not optimistic enough. To put it flatly, we straight smoked it. Tore it up. Farmed it. Made it our bitch. Every boss we killed died within the FIRST phase. We simply amazed ourselves (not normally difficult to do, I know). I apologize for not having a screen shot of us in action, I'm sure that pic would have been over the top as well.

Anyway, the point is that we've come a hell of along way, and it's inspiring to see just how far. We're leaps and bounds beyond where we were when we first started doing Heroics. I don't know about you but it makes me proud.

I'm not sure what the damage meters were like, but but to give you a taste of the action: T' had 1.5 million damage done, topping the charts. I had 1.2 million healing done, a 9.7k crit and a 1003 HOT on Listra. Speaking of Listra: Through the whole instance she was complaining that she didn't have enough time in each fight for her DPS to exceed that of T' and Duh, which she knew she could do. Warp Splinter gave her her chance and she not only gained aggro, she gained it twice, and from Metacrow no less. I've never seen it done.

Bravo Solidarity.

Screenies from Day!

woot! Daylin figured out how to get some screenshots emailed to me! He's got some good ones here! I love the one where he is, as Crow would say, "goin fairy." lol! Enjoy!

A couple changes here

Hi, everyone. We started having some issues with the online guild calendar. Therefore, I have made some changes. You will now find a guild calendar if you scroll down to the bottom of this page. I will be starting a calendar category on the forum, and would ask that if you have something you would like to have posted on the calendar, that you please post it there. I'll get it up on the guild calendar for you.

In addition, I've added a feed so that you can see, access, and post on the guild forums directly from this page. The forum is located at the bottom of this page under the calendar. Of course, you can always go straight to the forum page, as well, which may suit you better. Play around. Decide what you like. Enjoy.

Many thanks!!!

Kara raid cancelled for tonight. Officer's meeting.

F.Y.I. there will be no Kara raiding tonight. Instead, Listra has called an officer's meeting for 9:00 server time. Officers should plan to attend.

Learning to Fly

Is there anything like it? I remember when I first got my flight form and Bricco and I did nothing but play around and fly for over an hour. It's some of the best stuff in the game, imho! I teamed up with Mantisa the other day for some of the utter tedium that is the Nesingwary questing in Nagrand. She was 68 already (69? sorry, Manti, I don't remember) and already had flight form. But the poor girl didn't know how to fly UP yet! So I acquainted her with her space bar and things were off to the highest of heights. As we soared and swooped and free fell in caster form (wheeeeeee!!!) I was reminded of how fun this game could be when you were doing nothing at all goal oriented, doing nothing but fun. I recommend. Grats, Manti! Fly on, sister Dru! =)

Cuddle Time

Yes, cuddle time. Yesterday I logged on in Stormwind and... how lucky am I? Traenei was standing right behind me giving me hugs. Aw, cuddle time. And cuddle we did. And then... things started happening. People NOTICED the dog and the cat all cuddled up. And commented. A lot. We definitely drew a crowd of onlookers. Some comments were appreciative, some not so much. We were heckled and things were not so cozy as people tried to cope with the interspecies cuddles. (We had some real freakouts at one point when we turned into caster form and people saw that both toons were... male. LOL.) So we, obviously being of greater wit by far, heckled back until receded from the scene. Listra came along and lent her support, comeraderie and generally made things better immensely. T built a cozy fire.

And then... different things started happening. Listra hopped on her Dru and laid down with us.

Then we were joined, mind you we made NO invitation, by just random toons. Laying down. In the streets of Stormwind. With us.

I think at my highest count there were five toons outside of us three who were laying down and cuddling with us. It was fascinating, bizarre behavior. They even took ownership of cuddle time in their own way, inviting people on trade to come cuddle.

Which, of course, was our cue to leave. I mean, how cozy is it when the whole world is invited? Cuddle time had run its course. But I surely miss it now that it's over. T puts off tremendous cuddle magnetism, you know. The whole thing has stayed with me, though, and still is a puzzle to me. What drew people invest part of their $15/mo. to stop and watch us, to mock us, to join us in a bizarre monkey-see-monkey-do-fest? I don't know. But clearly, clearly, cuddle time GOT to people. In the constant violence of World of Warcraft, something as simple and sweet as a little cuddle was striking on a large scale. Thanks for the cuddles T and Listra and whoever else you are out there in Duskwood. Thanks for the love.

Gates of Fire

When a warrior fights not for himself,
but for his brothers,
when his most passionately sought goal
is neither glory nor his own life’s preservation,
but to spend his substance for them,
his comrades,
not to abandon them,
not to prove unworthy of them,
then his heart has truly achieved contempt for death
and with that he transcends himself
and his actions touch the sublime.

~ Gates of Fire, Stephen Pressfield

I'd like to thank Vonya of http://egotisticalpriest.omen-guild.net/ for sharing this stirring work.

Let's Begin.

Everyone else: "Crow what are you doing!!!?"
Crow: "Muwahaha/giggle/chuckle."
-In a recent escapade into Strat to get another pally mount, Crow took to gathering up whole cul-de-sacs (4 or so groups of 10) at a time. We could hardly keep up. With him.

3 Cheers for the guy with the athletic mount!

Everyone, please welcome Humbah as a new blogger here on the guild website! He doesn't know he's the new blogger yet, but after, yes AFTER, I make this announcement here I'm emailing him to tell him so. See, Humbah keeps sending me all this wonderful stuff to put up here. So... he can post it himself! =) I'm sure he's going to be a wonderful addition to the blog. Healer power ftw!

p.s. if any other officer wants to sign up as a blogger to keep the latest news up to date here, please send me an email at syllysyll@gmail.com. =P

Beware out there!!!

F.Y.I., guildies... My husband is active on a gaming message board and told me about a post there that there are viruses flying around WOW sites. Specifically named were Thottbot, Wowhead, and Alakazham. The post said that you don't even need to click on the ads on these sites to get the virus, you just have to mouse over them and can get infected. So if you go to these sites, be super careful about where your mouse pointer is at!!!

Is Bry buying dinner for us all?

Cause she's going to be RICH! Congratulations to Bryandra, who won both the forum posting contest AND the Kara raid group name contest! She'll be receiving TWO primal mights, farmed by the Solidarity officers. Bry posted the most on the forums of all the members this week. And, although we are going to vote on the winning name for the raid group, Bry's was the only entry from a non-officer, so we decided she is the winner of the contest! Voting for the raid name will take place on a poll in the contest category on the guild forum through Wednesday, March 19 at 9pm server. Make sure you vote, or Porche is going to stack it so we're called the wall eyed pikes. lol!

Grats to Remie!

Grats to our newest Kara warrior, Remie! He helped us kill Curator and Illhoof tonight. woot! =)

blog roll

Hi, guys. I just added a new feature on the right hand column here on the blog page, a blog roll. Just some blogs of note that you might enjoy reading. I, of course, frequent the dru blogs and am not as familiar with other types, although I found many that I thought you'd like. However, any blogs that you adore that I didn't add, email to me at syllysyll@gmail.com. I'll get em up for ya!
Smoochies!

Screenshots from Humbah

Ok, y'all... Humbah hooked me up with a treasure trove of screen shots for your enjoyment. Below are his shots and his descriptions... enjoy!!! =)

"I'm an avid Screen-Shotter. So I went through the hundred or so and picked out a few I thought you might like.


A Screen shot of what NOT to be.

Bric and Metacrow two-manning a boss in Stratholme (or whatever that instance is in EPL, the big burning city). Good stuff.

a shot of Daylin kicking the piss out of ZF. You know that stair sequence, yeah, he did that all at once.

The two elekk shots are good times with Trae..or was it Tel? I can never keep it straight. Anyway, fountain, SW, lots of elekks.

Figure it out...I can't remember that one, guess you'll have to figure it out. Oh, that's right, figure out WHERE I am.

Jerry Garcia's 'shroom in Zangarmarsh. I was tying to think up a witty chat bubble to have over my head when I took the pic, but coldn't think of one. I have the coordinates for it so I can take a new pic if you want.

a shot of just about the coolest debuff ever. It was....in BEM I think....

A pic of what happens when Porche gets pissed at RFK? SFK? that one in the barrens, on the left side of the path as you come from...ratchet?"

Awesome, Humbah!!! Thanks so much!

One thing... isn't the hookah on the mushroom an Alice in Wonderland reference, rather than a Jerry Garcia one? Or maybe a bit of both? .....

"For some minutes [the Caterpillar] puffed away without speaking, but at last it unfolded its arms, took the hookah out of its mouth again and said, 'So you think you're changed, do you?' 'I'm afraid I am, sir,' said Alice: 'I can't remember things as I used - and I don't keep the same size for ten minutes together!' 'Can't remember what things?' said the Caterpillar."
Lewis Carrol Alices Adventures in Wonderland

Talk about too much to drink....

don't tell bricco... he'll be so crushed. rofl!

Officers Meeting Notes 3/9/08

wow, that's a fine looking shot of the guild officers! lol. Not everyone could make it, but Mcmanager, Bricco, Daylin, Porchelynn, Listra, Traenei, Syll, and Humbah are in the pic. Missing are Duh, Naurah and Telroon.

Hey, hey, guildies! Listen up!

The officers had a meeting today to discuss some organizational issues, raiding issues, and ways to further strengthen and unite the guild. Here are some of the things we decided to put in place:

1) Officers on call:

The officers are going to try to sign up to make themselves available to guildies for help with quests, instances, etc. Officers will try to sign up for this on the guild calendar (look to the right on this page for a link to the guild calendar) and will also try to change the guild message of the day to let you all know that they are "on call". If you need help questing, getting gear, instancing, whatever, just send a whisper to the officer on duty and we'll help you to get it done!

2) The officers are working on building and implementing a second Karazhan raid group. If you are interested in being part of the second group and are nearing or at level 70, please let us know, as we are trying to plan for the future.

3) In the meantime, we will be rotating eligible players in and out of the current Karazhan group. This mostly applies to dps and possibly tanks right now, as we are short on healers in the guild. We will be starting a thread in the guild forum (there's a link to the right on this page for the guild forum) where each week you can sign up if you want to run Kara, and let us know which bosses you need drops from. We will do our best to get people in to fight the bosses they need. However, a couple of things need to happen for this to work.

a) if you are scheduled to go to Kara, you need to be up and ready to go at the raid start time. Gear fixed, potions in your bag, ready for a summons. If you are scheduled to go but are not on within 10 minutes of the start time of the raid, don't be surprised or upset if we have to give your spot to someone else waiting to go.

b) if you are scheduled to rotate in for a boss in Kara, you need to be standing by outside of Kara. It's fine if you park your toon outside of Kara and jump on an alt or something, but you need to be ready to jump in at a moment's notice so that we can keep the run going. Many of us are parents or work, or whatever, so we can't have the runs drag out or not much will get accomplished.

c) if you are interested in running Kara but are not sure about your gear or abilities, check the forums for posts there on Kara requirements. We're not drawing a line in the sand anywhere, but there are links there to threads in the world of warcraft forums that should give you an idea of what you will need to get started. If you want to run and you're not ready, go to the WOW armory, find out what gear you need and where it drops, and let us know and we'll set up runs for you to work on your drops on non-Kara days.

4) We're running not one, but two guild contests! wooties! One will be a forum posting contest, and the other will be a contest to choose the new name for the Kara raid team! Prize is a Primal Might for each contest, so make sure you check the guild forum for rules! (again, there's a link to the guild forums on the right side of this page.

Grats to Wishful!

Grats to Wish on his (her? damn tranny toons... who would roll one?) first Kara run tonight! Forgot to get a screen shot but Wish was tearing it up. Helped down Atunemen and Moroes. Warlocks represent!

Curator? DEAD!

Woot! tonight the guild killed Curator AND Ilihoof in Kara, both for the first time... That's us standing at Curator's dead feet. For those keeping track, that's 6 of 10 bosses we've killed in there so far. Can you say ftw??????

Screen shots! Bring em on!

Listra sent me this pic of the guildies in a HUGE pile of dead gators in Black Morass... all I can say is where was I with my skinning knife? /sob!

Send your screenshots to me at Syllysyll@gmail.com and I'll get them up! wooties!

Newly Freshly Webified... again

So I decided to surprise Listra and get us going on the web again. shhhhh don't tell her. It's a secret. We had an attempt at a guild forum when we were all in the pre-Solidarity guild, but that forum was not run by guild officers. And then that guild didn't exist anyway. So then we had another attempt at a guild webpage. A really smokin' attempt by another guild member who wasn't an officer, Sylarel. But then, much to my chagrin, and sorrow, Sylarel had to leave us. I thought about this muchly for some time... did I care? Should I care? And then I thought well, yes, I did care. It would be lovely for us to have a home on the web where we could go to check in, post in our own forums, check our own online calendar for guild events, and otherwise distract ourselves during the long working hours while we waited to go home and hang with the guildies!!! (God, but I love you guys!) So I decided I'd take it on and surprise you all with a pretty highly functioning set of web possibilities and hope that we could all keep our poop together enough to keep it going.
I was going to make a more conventional website, but I had some hosting issues that seemed best resolved with a blog format. Anywho.... here's what I've got set up for us...

1) the blog. you're looking at it. I'm hoping that you all will get in the habit of emailing me goodies to post here. Got smokin gear? send me an email (SyllySyll@gmail.com). Screenshot that must be seen (waiting for all the pics of you dudes dancing nekked)... send it on over. Guild news? events? new members? new 70s? newly keyed? let me know! I'll get it up here in a sort of report style and you can also talk about it in the forums. Also I'd love to get emails of you tube vids, helpful WOW links, anything at all that should be shared. We'll put it up here. and discuss it. at work. ::snicker::

2) the forum. Check the important guild links toward the top of the column on the right on this page. One link is to a guild forum I set up for discussions. REGISTER! POST! ENJOY!

3) the calendar. Again to the right under important guild links is a link to an online guild calendar. Anyone can see it. Officers will be able to post on it and/or edit it. So if you're an officer, get signed up on the forum and I'll get you access to the officers quarters forum, where you can pick up the usernames and passwords so that you can edit the calendar. If you are not an officer, email me and I will get your events up for all to see!

My hope is that these new web tools will be embraced by everyone and help us to become an even more tight, loyal, fierce, pwning guild than we already are. Please let me know any suggestions, comments, or thoughts you might have. Direct all criticism at Porchelynn. Mwah! j/k j/k! Enjoy!

Sylly Syll thinks you are a sexy devil...