We had a raid of some sort scheduled last night – some instance in Wintergrasp.  But our raid was scheduled for 10 minutes or so before the battle for Wintergrasp began again.  Which meant we had no time to do anything before we were all kicked out of the instance.

We attempted to defend Wintergrasp…but few of us had any idea what we were doing.  I’d never even been in the zone before.  I was amazed when they kicked me off my flying mount shortly after entering the area.  I haven’t done any PvP in months.  A large number of us do PvE almost exclusively.

So, eventually, we lost control of Wintergrasp.

Since we couldn’t raid the Instance we’d hoped to, we did the Obsidian Sanctum instead.  That was fun.  20 of us trying to kill a giant dragon.  It reminded me a lot of the old Onyxia fight…

We wiped on our first attempt, but managed to kill him on our second attempt.  Wasn’t terribly difficult once we got the hang of things.  Apparently that was supposed to be a 25-man fight, which surprised me.  We didn’t have much trouble and there were only 20 of us…  And a lot of us aren’t even very well geared…

Still, the fight was a blast.  It was great fun to actually get to raid again.  And I walked away with a shiny new trinket.

As expected, I hit exalted with the Kalu’ak last night.  I bought myself a fancy new fishing pole and a pet penguin.  Neither of which is going to have a tremendous impact on my gameplay…  I’m not going to be doing any more damage or staying alive any longer…  But I’m happy with them none-the-less.  The penguin is absolutely adorable, and the fishing pole gives me an extra +10 to fishing and lets me breathe underwater.

We tried to do a heroic run through Violet Hold last night, but got our asses handed to us.  The trash mobs were fine, but the first boss was just too much for us.  I don’t know if it’s the entire group that’s too gimp for heroics, or if it’s just me…  Regardless, I’m having a hell of a time getting through heroics.

We did wind up doing a normal run through Halls of Lightning last night, which got me a good amount of faction with Wyrmrest Accord due to the tabard I’m wearing now.  And it was Terri’s first time in that dungeon, which was fun.

I’m feeling closer to human today…  Less stuffed up, less congested, less spacey…  Still not back to normal, but not as awful as yesterday was.  Hopefully I’ll be feeling even better tomorrow, and might be able to enjoy some of the New Year’s festivities.

The holidays are, for the most part, behind me now.

Sure, New Year’s is still to come…  But that isn’t nearly as obnoxious as Christmas is.  Folks stay up late, make a lot of noise, get drunk, make some promises, and then go to bed.  They don’t ring bells incessantly outside of stores…  They don’t insist that you need to be cheerful…  They don’t play annoying music…  They don’t beg you to buy more stuff…

So, as far as I’m concerned, the worst is behind me.

Christmas was relatively decent.  I didn’t get to make monkey bread because the margarine mysteriously disappeared…  But I did make eggnog french toast for breakfast, and we had ham and pie and stuffing and potatoes and all sorts of good stuff for dinner…  We opened presents, and Christopher seemed to like everything he got.  I got a couple days off from work, which was very nice.

Last night we watched The Day the Earth Stood Still on Netflix.  And today we went to see the new remake of it.  Having seen both of them, so close together, I can definitely say that I liked the original much more than the modern remake.

This is not to say that the remake is crap…  I thoroughly enjoyed both of them.

Keanu seems born to play the part of Klaatu.  His vague, wooden, detached delivery seemed perfect for this stranger in a strange land.

The spacecraft were far more interesting in the remake, and Gort was truly terrifying.

I also much preferred the logic behind the aliens’ actions in the remake.

But, on the whole, I found the original to be a much more satisfying storyline.  Largely, I suspect, because if I was Klaatu I would have wiped out the human race as it was presented in the remake.

In the original, Klaatu spends several days on Earth, getting to know the inhabitants.  And he never really makes any kind of judgement on humanity…  He leaves Earth with an ultimatum – peace or oblivion – and then leaves us to make up our own minds.

In the remake, Klaatu meets with some other alien guy who’s been stationed on Earth for years and has decided that humanity needs to die.  Klaatu doesn’t make that decision, humanity doesn’t make that decision, some alien field-agent decides.  We don’t know why or how he comes to his conclusion…  But he’s pretty sure humanity needs to be wiped out.

Klaatu files his report, kicks off the doomsday device, and goes about his business.  He really doesn’t get to know anyone on Earth…  Sure, he winds up spending some time with a nice lady and her kid…but it’s a matter of hours, not days.  And the humans all around are doing their damndest to kill Klaatu.  They just keep shooting at him, and Gort, and his spaceship, and everything else in the general area.  Not exactly acting terribly civilized about the whole thing.

Ultimately I didn’t see where Klaatu had any evidence that humanity would actually change.  Frankly, I didn’t see where Klaatu had any evidence of anything in particular.

The original movie neither condemned nor saved the human race – it left us with a choice.  We, the human race, had to choose whether we could live peacefully or not.  It seemed to suggest that we, the human race, could use logic and reason to overcome fears and superstition.  It seemed to suggest that we could be more than violent savages.

The remake condemns humanity as a bunch of destructive savages…  The choice is out of our hands, the alien field-agent has already made his decision before Klaatu ever arrives.  And ultimately we are saved not by our own actions…  Not by overcoming our worst tendancies…  But because Klaatu has second thoughts.

So, it’s Christmas Eve.  Or, Christmas Eve day, at least.

It’s snowing again…  Which is pretty, I suppose, but I’m going to have to clear it off the driveway eventually.  And it is supposed to turn into rain and sleet and other crap this afternoon.  Beautiful weather for such a happy day.

And I’m at work.  We’ll be closed tomorrow and Friday, but not today.  Which doesn’t make all that much sense since a lot of our clients are closed today.  It is going to be a long, slow, boring day around here…  Unless something spectacular breaks, which is always a possibility.

We’ve got our tree up at home.  It’s still standing, despite the kitties’ best efforts.  I wired it to the wall so they’ll have a hard time toppling it.  They have, however, made off with some of the ornaments.  We’ve found them scattered around the house every morning.

Tonight we’ll have pizza for dinner…  And I’ll make monkey bread…  We’ll watch Santa’s Slay together, and read The Night Before Christmas…  And then Terri and I will frantically wrap everything and get it under the tree for tomorrow.

I’ve been 80 on my Warlock for a little while now, but I still haven’t run out of things to do.

I’ve been doing daily quests for the Ebon Blade folks.  I’m not really sure what I’m aiming for…  They don’t have a whole lot of gear that I can use.  There’s a nice soul bag pattern, but I’m not a tailor.  I think it’s more just because I like the Ebon Blade quests and storyline so much.

I’ve also been doing daily quests for the Kalu’ak, slowly working my way towards a nice fishing pole and a penguin pet.

And I’ve been doing the daily cooking quests in Dalaran – getting me some Kirin Tor reputation and earning some decent recipes.

Eventually I’m going to have to work on my reputation with the Wyrmrest Accord…  And I’m going to have to pick between the big-tongues and the puppy-men…  And I should probably do something to work on my Silver Covenant reputation…

But, at the moment, I’m still busy trying to finish up everything I didn’t do before 80.  I’ve pretty much done verything there is to do in Icecrown, but I’ve still got a ton of quests in Zul’Drak and The Storm Peaks.  And I’ve still never been through the Halls of Lightning.

All of which means that I still haven’t made any progress on my Rogue, and my Death Knight is still sitting at 64.

We’ve had an absolute crapton of snow lately.

It snowed Friday night, and I wound up having to clear the driveway before we could go anywhere on Saturday.

Then it snowed all day Sunday, and into Sunday night, so I had to wake up early this morning to clear the driveway again.

I’m sick of this weather.  The snow is inconvenient…  It isn’t fun waking up at 6:00 just so you’ve got time to clear all the snow so you can make it in to work on time…  It isn’t fun to have to clear off your car any time you have to go anywhere…  But I can deal with the snow.  What I truly dislike is the cold.  If we could somehow have the snow without the cold I’d complain a hell of a lot less.

I do not like being cold.  And after a couple weeks of cold weather it starts to settle into my bones.  Before too long it gets hard to warm up again.  I’ll wear a sweatshirt…  Thick socks…  Wrap up under piles of blankets…  Take long, hot showers…  And I’ll still feel chilled.  All day long.

To make matters worse, my boss simply loves the winter.  He looks forward to the cold and snow, so he can go skiing.  He’s practically dancing with delight at the news we’ve got another snowstorm rolling in…  While the rest of us are all groaning at the prospect of waking up early in the morning to shovel out.