Yeah.  I did it.  I rolled a DK to see what the fuss was about.  They have a very nice DK only mount:

And of course, no need for weapon enchanting when you can RUNE, not be be confused with ruin, RUNE your own blade.  Basically a free enchant.  I find them interesting as a hero class, overpowered at the start (level 55) and then tapering off so that by 80 they are (at least these days) pretty much in line with the other classes.  Kind of a bummer.  You'd think they'd be monsters!  But, I guess that wouldn't really be fair.  Fun, yes, fair, no.  Didn't take me long to figure out On A Pale Horse was faster cross country than my Paladin.  And then guess who became my new miner?  Oh yeah, that's right.

So, I'm mining in Icecrown.  You know, Icecrown:  The Final Destination!

Of titanium that is!  I know, some would argue that Wintergrasp has more titanium nodes and you might be right.  But I dig Icecrown and Sholazar Basin personally.  Anyway, I'm making the rounds, when suddenly I get a hit that looks to be in ICC.  ICC?  Weird.  Inspection and a big circle reveals there is a big HOLE under ICC.  And it has Saronite in it. 

It's a very big hole.  Did I mention that there is Saronite down there?  Now, I didn't get the Explorer title on my mage for being afraid to travel, so in I go.  GEEEROOOOOONIIIIMOOOO...wait.....this is Wow....Leeeerrrrrooooy Jeeeeeeeeeenkiinnnnsss!

Guess what is at the bottom?  One of the prettiest places I've seen in WoW.   The title pops up on the screen:  Nan'azak  The Forgotten Depths.  Of course, Wowwiki says normally a person's first visit here would be through quests.  Or mining:)

There is an altar here, supposed to be used by tailors to make Ebonweave, back in the day.  I always made mine out in Dragonblight, so I'm not sure about that.  Yes, I killed all the NPC's, faceless ones.  They mumble something about Yogg when you go in combat. 

Supposedly, you can fish in here, but I didn't check it out.  Fortunately for me, there is a portal here also. 

According to Wowwiki:

"Some fans speculate that Naz'anak is actually the Icecrown exit of the tunnel which Arthas and Anub'arak used to shortcut through Azjol-Nerub."

And the portal dumps you into a phased area in front of ICC, where you'd normally be mounting up to do those Argent Crown dailies. 

Gotta run now, I hear titanium calling ME!

Into the Wild Blue Yonder

Ok.  It's not the mount from Malygos, or Sarth 3D (25 man), but it is BLUE!  :)  And it's mine, all mine.

It's actually a nice color of blue.  Not the WTF color of the "Violet Proto-Drake", which I took to mean Purple and apparently it came out PINK.  PINK!  And I don't think it's my video either...

And while all I had to do was open a nice little surprise package after completing Occulus for the blue mount, I had to endure such things as dancing drunk in Dalaran, trying not to get shot while dropping bombs from a reindeer, having my bunny pet do the, ah, "bunny dance" many times and in many different public places,  take an orphan in battlegrounds and show them what a killing zone it is, juggle hot, on fire torches (40 of them!),  get drunk and drop myself 65 yards down off of a tall building, eat candy until I threw up, and save Meitzen the Reindeer.  All over the course of almost a year.  And for this I get a PINK mount?  Oh well, at least it's a 310 speed mount:)  Could be worse, right?  I mean it doesn't glow in the dark - yet:_)

Speaking of mounts, I'd like to take a moment to make a public service announcement.  This is a rocking mount.  A sweet ride by any standards:

Yes, indeed, it's the ZA Amani War Bear.  There is a timed event inside of ZA that used to cause many a frustrated raider to cuss, moan or cuss and moan every week for MONTHS.  Then Blizzard announced (after saying that they would for a while) that they were REMOVING THE MOUNT from the game.  Yes, I got one!  Yes, they removed the mount from the game.  Yes, the timed event is still in ZA.  No, the drop rate isn't very low.  It's non-existent.  GONE.  KAPUT.  So please, let me not read one more post on a realm forum begging to buy a run through ZA to get this mount.  Pretty please? 

O Arcturis, Arcturis! Wherefore Art Thou, Arcturis

Ah, Spirit Beasts! The most hunted of the hunted, or so I hear. My husband wanted Loque'nahak from the first moment he saw one. They are very beautiful.

In the days before I leveled a hunter, I was out in Sholazar Basin on my mage. Mining. I love mining. Not the monotony of the act, but the searching for the treasure, the thrill of seeing it and NABBING IT. And you never know what little extra surprises you'll get! Hmm..ok it might just be me then:)
So I was flying around when my NPCScan Addon went off. Bells, whistles and a picture. I love NPCScan. I target the rare and there she is in all her beauty. Friends list UP and my husband - is in ICC. 10 seconds of indecision and a warlock lands a few feet away. One instant ice bolt, the tag belongs to me. And then, on the bright side, I've completed yet another part of the Northern Exposure achievement. Of course, someones not going to be very happy with me. I did wait until after he was out of ICC to explain my dirty deed, head down and sort of dejected as I listened to 5 minutes of ranting and then I swore I would never, ever let a spirit beast get away from HIM again. Never mind that he even if he immediately left ICC and came running, he would not have made it before she got tagged. But hey, I was the one who killed her!

A solid week of trolling SB later, (and about 3,ooo gold richer thank you very much!) comes along Christmas morning. What? I was up wrapping presents:) Might as well make a pass around SB, right? And sure enough, almost right "behind" where Pitch hangs out (behind being towards Wintergrasp), there she is! It's only 4am here, but my husband is going to get some wake up call! I don't think I've ever seen him come alive so quick. I had him logged and and flying to SB before he got to his computer chair. Luckily, he had BM as his "off spec" still, so it was just a matter of him stabling his wolf while I fidgeted, and then drop the frost trap and heart away!

So all was forgiven. After seeing him with the spirit beast, I decided to try a hunter. OK, not *just* for that reason alone. I had tried a hunter as my first WoW character, and she made it to level 5 before the evil Ironforge incident:) But now, I seriously wanted to give a hunter a try.

And, my husband wanted to do the refer-a-friend thing, due to the new rocket mount. So, easy leveling here I come! Presto, almost instantly, a new level 80 hunter for ME. So shiny, so new!

A week and a half of puttering around SB and not one sighting. Depressing. Where the heck had she gone off to? So I decided to work on some quests in Grizzly Hills and try to locate Arcturis. Day two of questing and I'm working on collecting bear butt flanks. Weird, but true. I'm standing near the water shooting said bear butts, when a blood elf races by on a log in the river. WTF? Giggling, I turned to shoot another bear and a SECOND blood elf races by on a log, IN THE RIVER! Very funny, too bad I wasn't quick enough to get a screen shot. I'm sure it's part of some quest, but holy cow, it was good for some giggles. As I aimed at the next bear, NPCScan goes off. I turn towards Amberpine Lodge and there he is - Arcturis. I swear, he spawned right on top of me. Shaking hands stabled my wolf, and I fired off an ice trap then sent out some loving to my about to be new best friend!

Fattened him up on some caribou, popped in to Dalaran to show him off to the hubby, then off I went to Zangarmarsh. What? I'm chasing achievements and I need Sporeggar rep:) First few pulls I thought I had a druid helping out on the kills. The Spirit Strike ability he has looks suspiciously like a balance druid hit. Very cool pet indeed.

The King is Dead, Long Live the King

So I downed Arthas, King of the longest RP before dying in the game, second only to the last boss in Magister's Terrace (IMO), in the last raid week. In. A. 10. Man. Pug. With my husband! What an unforgettable WoW moment. Yes, it was with the 30% buff. No, I don't care because I killed him. Well, actually I healed other folks and they killed him, but that's beside the point. He died, I witnessed it, and I have the title AND screenshot to prove it.

Makes me feel weepy happy to bring full closure to the Wrath XPac prior to Cata being released. I've come a loooong way from the noob level 5 hunter (over four years ago) that cried when my husband and his co-worker thought it'd be funny to summon me to Ironforge from Teldrassil. In a fit, and having no clue where in the heck I was, I deleted that toon. Monsters! Hehehe...there was SNOW everywhere? How was I to know:_). I've been a loyal WoW player since my husband introduced me to the online game his co-worker (the evil warlock in the story above!) introduced him to right after Christmas of 2005. I've tried hardcore raiding and casual raiding, and I've finally settled somewhere in the middle. I don't have to be among the first to kill a boss, I just want to clear and see the content in one expansion before the next one comes along.

Back to my story - We found the pug in Trade, with an extended RaidID and only the LK up. I rolled on my Resto Druid and the hubby came along on his Warlock. After about two hours, getting him to 13%, and having one dps get called away from his computer (RL aggro is such a hard thing at a time like that). In comes a replacement dps, another Warlock. Two wipes before P1.5 later, with everyone explaining to him that he need NOT AOE DPS THE adds, and we made it back to 18%. I'm starting to really believe that we can do it. The Resto Shaman and I are commiserating over the tremendous LACK of mana as the fight winds down from 20% to the 11% health range for the LK. The Feral Druid tank is innervating every chance he can drop aggro for a second, and I'm pretty sure most of us are doing the fight with at least toes crossed in hopes of a kill. So, we are at 14% and my husband is chanting, "Don't die, don't let the tank die!" over and over and I'm having a flashback to the end of Season 3 of "THE GUILD", except I didn't really zone out and talk to my character. BUT, three dps are dead and you can tell the adds smell BLOOD! The hubby drops a soulstone on me and I'm yelling, "NO! Drop it on the tank!" Tension is in the air, and and hope is running at an all time high. I'm throwing out heals so fast I can hardly breathe and the next thing I know, POW, we are all dead. Even reading the strat and seeing the video doesn't prepare you for the moment when you are fighting so hard and then POOF. I turned to my husband demanding to know, "Did we do it?". He's sitting there with a stunned look on his face. Finally he turns and says, "On my least geared toon?!? We killed the Lich King!" Oh. My. God!

Now, I've leave you with my noob moment of the day. It being Tuesday, (well it was when I started this post anyway!) and the new weekly being out, I wanted to get it done. Found a group, got myself headed out there, when the DK tank asks for a summons. "You're in Dal, you've got time to fly out", says the Raid Leader. "Um, I don't know where Ulduar is." A few seconds of silence, while I figure the majority of the raid is either biting their tongue or trying to think of something nice to say, and out comes, "Also, I don't know how to tank Ignius." Yeah, gonna be another fun-filled Ulduar outing:_). Thank goodness for out-gearing old encounters!