Squeaky Surprise

I got an email the other day that said I had a new mount, and I recognized it as the 6-month subscription mount I'd seen advertised on the launcher. I was confused because I'm normally on a monthly subscription, but I looked up my account and saw that apparently in September I'd bought a 6-month subscription, and since it was still active for another month, I'd earned the new mount, Squeakers, the Trickster!

When I tried out the mount special in Orgrimmar, I was surprised to see that it sprouts wings and flies. I guess that makes sense but I hadn't thought about whether it was a flying mount or not. I love the way its little paws hang uselessly while flying. I also love its little hat. But the best part is the mount special. It floats up in a whirlwind, sprouts its wings, and flutters back to the ground. I'm so glad I unknowingly earned this mount, I think I may stick to the the 6-mount subscriptions from now on.

Third Time's the Charm

I am really inordinately pleased with this, although I didn't get my first or second choice of spelling. I am also incredibly pleased with this...

...because I'm surprised I actually finished the quest to get my Deathwing mount. When I found out the anniversary events went on until January I laughed at what a ridiculously long time that would be. But over the next month I barely logged on, aside from a couple tries queuing for the raids and opening my gifts from Greatfather Winter. The outland raids were over and done in no time and I thought the whole thing was going to be easy, but then I ended up wiping on the Lich King more times than I could count. I did enjoy the novelty of the tier gear and taking screenshots the first few times around:

but it quickly became tedious and I didn't bother getting screenshots of my last (several) attempts. Oh, well, it was all worth it in the end! Other screenshots I took but didn't end up posting include buying the Shadowlands expansion with the hearthstone and pet (naturally): 

And circling Orgrimmar in Greatfather Winter's sleigh:

I can only conclude that my shaman is now Greatfather Winter. 

The quest to allow Vulpera into the horde took a lot more time than I wanted to spend, because I couldn't wait once I realized what I needed to name my new Warlock. I was also disappointed that I couldn't use Nomi's useless carcass to smash grapes, even though I tried my hardest to offer him that position. Apparently the UI wanted me to realize that Nomi was best suited to come up with a new recipe for wine. 

These are the results of my administration over the process, supposedly working out perfectly:

Did anyone else notice that the vat of grapes seems to be on fire? Because obviously this is fine. I can't wait to taste Nomi's dumpster fire wine. It sounds delicious. I'm just gonna keep it here in my toy box and let it age a couple years, or centuries.

The Model of Perfection

I finally got around to seeing my Goblin's new model, and she is freaking GAWGEOUS. I love it so, so much. The S.E.L.F.I.E. cam emotes are amazing, with no clipping at all. I don't know if the Worgen models turned out as good, but I really don't care, because the Goblin models are just so fantastically superb. I may not be able to play much now, what with all the emoting and screenshotting I have to do.

Neoclassical

I started Classic WoW knowing that it would be old and new to me. Old, since I've been playing for 8+ years, and new because I started playing in Cataclysm and had never seen Vanilla. I expected to be surprised by the way things looked, familiar yet different, and by some UI changes. I was around for a lot of the big changes: character-wide mounts and pets, transmog, the wardrobe, faction-tagging mobs, etc., so I figured it would be more nostalgic than drastic differences. For the most part, it is as I thought it would be, but I have been delighted by all of the minor differences that I hadn't known about, like the scrawling of the quest text as it appears and waiting until the text all appears before the
"Accept" quest button is interactable. But the thing that really made me laugh was when I opened my map:

...and realized that full-size was the only option. I didn't even realize I was taking that little arrow in the corner for granted! Besides turning on Auto-loot (available in Classic, thank goodness!), resizing my map was one of the first things I always do on a new character, I feel claustrophobic when the map is full-size and I can't see where I'm going (because, of course I'm running with the map open). Classic is a hoot so far and I haven't even reached level 2 yet. I'm not really eager to really level a character and see how weapon leveling works, among other surprises, but it is fun to see and I'm glad they brought it back. I didn't stay up late enough to see the night sky in Orgrimmar, but I did catch the sunset and my brother was right, the Drag is amazingly dark.

On to Mechagon!

I feel so behind after playing only sporadically so far this summer. I logged on to go to Nazjatar to get started on rep grinds and found that other players were already flying. So, needless to say, I am a little behind on part II of Pathfinder, but I am getting there. Eventually.

The Cycle of Life Can Be Cruel...

A water turtle was on our sidewalk in front of our house for quite a while recently and the next morning we found a hole with broken/torn egg shells scattered around it. When my brother heard about it he said "So, the turtles didn't make it to the water, I guess.".
While seagulls would be the obvious culprit based solely on my World of Warcraft experience (crabs are too slow and awkward) my dad says raccoons are likely responsible, which does make a lot more sense for this area.

Well, Color Me Delighted

I can see the fish head in Ghost Raptor form -albeit slightly askew- now! I did also catch the Severed Azurefin Head this time, but the red one matched the new transmog better. I like the forward-facing appearance of the fish head when the character is looking down in the "working" animation.