Official blog post with proof and stuff at http://blog.plurk.com/2009/12/14/microsoft-rips-plurk/.

This is crazy, and bad, and wrong. I can’t believe Microsoft, with all its resources at its disposal, has resorted to such blatant stealing. Go read, and if you have any idea how Plurk should go about sorting this out, let them know.

One of my recent mad ideas was to blog weekly about both World of Warcraft and Second Life. I’ve decided to blog about World of Warcraft on a Wednesday (which is today ) and about Second Life on a Saturday.

Anyway, today’s post.

Main character: Caitlynisha (Night Elf Shadow Priestess)
Realm: Quel’Thalas (Europe)
Guild: Broadly Offensive
Level: 76
Professions: Enchanting (325 of 375) and Tailoring (346 of 375)
Achievement points: 1255
Achievements earned: 123/931
Most recent achievements: Magister’s Terrace, Into the Nether, Explore Netherstorm, 1500 Quests Completed
Current location: Wildhammer Stronghold, Shadowmoon Valley, Outland

Secondary character: Dannilion (Draenei Paladin)
Realm: Quel’Thalas (Europe)
Guild: Broadly Offensive
Level: 11
Professions: Alchemy (11/75) and Herbalism (55/75)
Achievement points: 10
Achievements earned: 1/931
Most recent achievements: Level 10
Current location: The Crystal Hall, The Exodar, Azuremyst Isle, Kalimdor

Tertiary character: Merrilee (Gnome Rogue)
Realm: Quel’Thalas (Europe)
Guild: Broadly Offensive
Level: 10
Professions: None
Achievement points: 10
Achievements earned: 1/931
Most recent achievements: Level 10
Current location: The Forlorn Cavern, Ironforge, Dun Morogh, Eastern Kingdoms

These are my main characters. I do have others (two more on this server, two on another) but these three I’ll be concentrating on.

Caitlynisha (Cait) is my main, and current aims for her are to finish questing and exploring Outland, get to level 80, gain dual talent trees and cold weather flying, and max out her professions. She’ll also be grouping up with my guild to run instances and do occasional raids. As she’s specced shadow, she is mainly used for DPS, but often takes a healing role for groups. I actually find healing easier than DPS in groups, so the dual talent trees will be extremely useful.

Dannilion is my Paladin. Her current aims are to continue levelling, and increase her professions. I’m not sure what direction to take her in, or how to use her talent points. Luckily Tierna in my guild is a level 80 Paladin, so I’ll be asking him for advice.

Merrilee is my Rogue. I created her because they seemed fun, being able to sneak around and lockpick and things Again, her current aim is mainly to continue levelling. I want her to learn skinning and leatherworking, as she can wear leather armour. As a Gnome she’s very cute.

My guild is called Broadly Offensive. It was created by Kitty and Tie, and it was named by Kitty after a rule banning anything “broadly offensive” from Second Life. She also has a blog of that name, which is often not suitable for work, children or college The guild itself is very friendly, comprising only of people who are friends from Second Life and Plurk (and some of their kids). To get in, you have to know a current member well. We’re a casual guild, mainly in to socialise and have fun than to take the game too seriously. All the members are very supportive, and I’ve met many of them in real life (Johan’s a member, too).

I’m on the Quel’Thalas realm on the European servers, and because everyone else in the guild is, I’m Alliance. The realm is a normal realm (PvE, non-roleplaying) and is heavily Alliance biased, from what I can tell. The trade chat can get interesting when the server’s about to be restarted or a patch is coming out

My favourite things to do in the game are to gain achievements, explore, chat to my guildies and run instances. My least favourite things are doing long drawn out quests, grinding, and getting killed by mobs 6 levels below (it has happened more than once).

I have a raid to do on Saturday (one of the lower level ones, for the achievement mainly) and an instance run tomorrow. There’s an inworld event starting on Saturday also, so that will be fun. Hopefully I’ll have made some progress before next week on all three characters.

My sleep patterns are rather unusual at the moment. This is because I’ve been prescribed medication to help with my mental health problems, and now I basically have a 44 hour day (24 hours asleep, 20 hours awake). I’m only getting the awake time by not taking the medication every other day, which is not ideal.

Anyhow… I have college next week. Apart from trying to work my sleep so that I can attend and be awake and stuff (luckily I see the doctor on Tuesday, before college, so I’ll speak to her and see if we can sort it), I need to start revising for my C2 and D1 exams (AS Maths). I just don’t have the motivation to do it, even when I’m in a hyperactive mood (like now). Instead I’m bouncing in my chair, and occasionally getting up and dancing badly around the room. I’m still regretting not quitting.

I also have an interview about the BTEC National Diploma for IT Practitioners course I’m thinking of doing in September. I have a ton of questions, so should be interesting (not least because I’ve done at least 3 units of the course before). It’s worth 3 A Levels, and three merits on it would get me on the university course I’d like to do, so it would be ideal from that point of view. My main issue is whether I’ll be able to deal with the coursework and the timetable (from a motivation/energy point of view, rather than an ability point of view).

I am also trying out the CPAP (continuous positive airway pressure) machine from the sleep clinic. It’s not going all that well (I can’t get to sleep when I’m wearing it, and then keep pulling it off in my sleep) so I need to contact them about it. Only thing is I’m meant to phone them, and that’s just not going to happen. I’m going to try and get that sorted next week.

I’ve been playing a bit more World of Warcraft during my awake hours. I missed a raid on Tuesday but Johan was still here at the time so he played Cait for me, and learnt rather quickly how to heal with a shadow-specced priestess He apparently did well. Our guild has a couple more members (that I know from Second Life and Plurk, and both I’ve met in real life) so it’s getting even more fun.

I’m permanently on vacation mode on Plurk. I don’t plurk enough to keep my karma up, so went on a plurking spree until I got back up to 82.01 karma, then froze it (it costs 1 karma point to go on vacation mode). It means I don’t feel the same pressure to plurk, and means my 24 hours of unconsciousness aren’t affecting my karma anymore

Oh, I am being really geeky and I’m adding my WoW characters onto my blog. Makes them easier to keep track of when I’m not actually logged into the game, and I just think it’s cool that I can do it

Aims before bed: quick clean up of the living room (it’s mostly tidy already, so it’s just taking my plate and empty ice cream tub into the kitchen, and putting the toiletries I bought into the bathroom) and maybe make a start on cleaning the bathroom. Oh, and put away the dishes now they’re dry. I’m also going to go back into WoW and do some of the Nagrand quests I missed when I didn’t complete Outland. They’re mostly easy (if I don’t fall off the world).