Of Tanks

Good evening, everypony! Today is the third day of August, and that means only one more week until my fantabulous vacation starts up! Surprisingly, I was given the day off (A Friday off? IMPOSSIBRU!), but unsurprisingly, the last few days at work have kicked my ass up and down the store.

When she's not fighting evil by moonlight or winning love by daylight, Usagi Tsukino does the one thing she does better than whining: sleeping.

I needed this time to rest, recuperate, and get myself ready for the grueling six days that stand between me and this amazing session of time-off days. So, I decided to take a personal day to loosen up, relax, do nothing, and enjoy the day off the way I want to: the way I want to. Nothing better than lying back, kicking your feet up, casually sipping down a cold one, and thinking, "Today's great."

Contrary to the picture shown above with this opener, I did not spend the time catching up on sleep. Rather, I - *doorbell* Oh, snap! That's the pizza I ordered before I started typing this up! Gimme a second and I'll be riiiiiiiiiiight back! *runs off to answer the door*





CURRENT MUSIC
Russell Brower - "Wrath of the Lich King (Main Title)"
World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King Soundtrack

As it's been a while since I've played World of Warcraft for any serious length of time (last login stated that I was on at the start of June), I figured I'd go ahead and play something from the soundtrack. Hell, it's been a while since I've mentioned the game's music on here (the last time the Current Music section played host to any of the music was back in the middle of May).

Backstory aside, let's get to the music. "Wrath of the Lich King (Main Title)" is the opening track for Wrath of the Lich King's official soundtrack, and as the title indicates, it's also the main title music. Heard on the login screen back when Wrath was the latest expansion, the track offered almost nine minutes of musical goodness. It definitely set the mood for exploring the icy reaches of Northrend as adventurers prepared themselves to face the might of the Lich King and the Scourge armies under his command.

There have been times where I would load up World of Warcraft just to listen to this piece over and over again - it was that memorable and epic, and as a "Wrath baby" this was the main menu theme that I came to embrace as a musical representation of my World of Warcraft days. That's how you know when a piece of music stands out - it's able to represent more than just a motif or theme... it's able to represent a part of your life.


Martin O'Donnell and Michael Salvatori - "Overture"
Halo 3: ODST Original Soundtrack

It's begun to rain. I mean that both in a metaphorical sense and a physical one. As the pressures of life begin to take its toll on me, I have to hold down the fort and keep myself sane and ready to look upon the sunshine or moonlight that awaits me when the skies clear up. At the same time, thunder roared as a brief shower fell around the city. This occurred as I was typing this entry up for a whole ten minutes. Perfect - my car could use a wash, and I haven't heard the dreadfully exciting crash of thunder in ages.

As this brief rainstorm happened, my thoughts drifted towards this particular track. You might remember when I first mentioned "Overture" back at the end of June and how particularly fascinated I was with the track. To this day, I still am - but playing this during rainy weather just seemed to make it perfect.





The rain has stopped and now there's a bit of leeway in my schedule. I think it's time I get this entry belted out. Now, there's a few reasons why y'all are getting a big one today.

1. It's an off-day.
   As mentioned above, I need this time to rest and recuperate. However, that doesn't mean I'm just going to sit on my ass and do nothing all day. (It hurts after a while, you know.) I gotta do something to help tide me over, and as such, I actually have the time to compose something decent on here. Plus, I like writing. True, this is more of a personal write-up than anything formal, poetic, or educational, but it's writing all the same.
2. I needed a break from playing World of Warcraft today.
   As I've started playing the famed MMORPG again (thanks again to the friends of mine who chipped in to get me a time card), they wanted me to go and level with them. It's been a while since I've dedicated any time to a game like this, and as such my eyes (and my bum) are a bit strained. I'm taking this time to write and move around.
3. My girlfriend wanted me to post something "decent" today.
   And I don't blame her. Frankly, July didn't turn out as well as I had hoped - what, with roughly two-thirds of the month consisting of short entries and what not. (And I thought that June was bad!) Thus far, August consists of one meaty entry and one entry that I guess I can call "passable" (but not really), and seeing as how this is my birth month, I'm pretty sure I don't want to make this look bad on myself. Besides, y'all like my decent entries - they're juicy and filled with words that you (hopefully) enjoy reading.
4. I don't feel like doing anything else due to a food coma.
   Yeah. It's that pizza I ordered earlier. It's hitting the spot a little too well and now I'm paying the price. Damn you, Past Josh, for ordering something soooo delicious and filling...!

And as such, y'all get to read all of this. Whoo-hoo.

This is what my lunch and dinner looked like. And it was delicious.

But since my delicious foodstuffs are causing me to shut down due to a massive food coma, I'm afraid I'm going to have to cut this introduction short. Let's just cut to the chase and get to what I was talking about before I go all sweepy-bye on y... *yawns* ...y-y'all. Aw, frak it; I'm yawning already...!





The Plans of War, Both Real and Far
(Or: How Valkyria Chronicles is helping/hindering my vacation planning.)

It's not uncommon for me to liken my life to something. Far too often have I associated parts of my life to something from somewhere, and far too often do the similarities lack in commonality. That is to say: I compare my personal current events to the events of a movie, television show, or video game.

Now, if you read the subtitle for this section, please take it with a grain of salt. While the game's been helping me concentrate on figuring out what tasks to perform in-game and in real life, it's not deterring me from reality by any means. I just wanted something catchy as the subject header - and what better way to make it catchy than by rhyme?

Recently in Valkyria Chronicles I ran into a snag during one of the campaign missions, and its complexity and sudden change of pace felt similar to a far-less stressful ordeal of mine: this whole "planning my vacation" thing I'm convulsing over. I know some of you are pondering over how a military battle can be likened to mapping out a vacation. They surprisingly share a few similarities, but of course, your mileage is gonna vary on this one.

(Author's Note: I've done what I can to ensure that no game spoilers are leaked for this section. Those of you who've yet to play Valkyria Chronicles can now read this part with no worries.)

It starts off simple.

In this particular mission your squad is sent to occupy a lightly-defended enemy encampment. After taking out a tank destroyer and some heavy weaponry, the base is pretty much yours. The moment you capture it, however, is when the mission's fun truly begins.

At that precise moment, enemy reinforcements start pouring in. Depending on the shape your forces are in at the time of the capture, you either are in for a rough counter-attack... or a rough beating that'll force you to start the battle over.

And then it gets ugly.

So how does this relate with the whole "can't plan my vacation" ordeal I'm going through? Simple. I placed my vacation request for the 10^th through the 19^th a while back, and that was when I first started to charge the field. It took a while for them to look it over, and by that time I had eliminated any potential problems I could've had with scheduling issues. When I received the news that my request had been approved, I captured my vacation and had it secured.

Or so I thought. Like I mentioned yesterday, I didn't think it would be possible to stress out over vacation planning. There's multiple ideas cycling through my head and there's certain days that some things have to be done. The realization that I had secured my vacation without planning anything in advance should it get accepted caught me completely off-guard.

Whoo-hoo for thinking way too hard on something so deceptively simple.

And now it's left me helpless and somewhat panicky. Yay, me. Maybe I should get a tank or something to help me get through this?





Kickstarting a Tankadin
(This is what happens when you let me play as the tank.)

Speaking of tanks, I should probably play mine again soon. As it's been mentioned before, I've recently started up World of Warcraft again. It's been a while, and it feels great to be back in the saddle. (It doesn't feel great to just sit there on your ass for a while - it hurts like hell.)

In a way, the picture matches perfectly. Like Applejack, I facehoofed when they gave me this.
(Took me a while to track down where their picture came from. Image was originally created by "Blayaden" and can be found on DeviantArt.)

A few days back some of my friends decided to pool up some money and buy me a time card for the MMORPG. They had wanted me to come back and play with them, because we all had great times when we did. I complied for a few reasons:

• Because it's fun.
• They apparently wanted a tank they were familiar with, and since I'm a good tank that they're familar with...
• I haven't played in a while and had been itching to for some time.

Of course, the problem with that was that I didn't have any time on my account. After getting my account hacked, I disabled the auto-pay option and re-focused my financial priorities on some other things. Fast forward nearly two months to now, and you get me with a sudden time card. I didn't activate it until about two nights ago and got things ready for a transfer.

"Transfer," you ask? Well, my friends who wanted me back currently are playing on US-Ravenholdt, a Role-Playing PvP server. Those of you who know my gaming history know that Chariselle hails from Ravenholdt. The problem is that they all faction-transferred their characters over to the Alliance, and that left me with an interesting problem: how do I tank for them? I had three options at my disposal:

1. Level a new Paladin from scratch.
2. Faction-transfer Chariselle.
3. Transfer Erfrischen from Tichondrius.

The first option was an obvious "no-no" for everyone. They wanted me to tank for them as soon as possible. For me, it takes a loooooong time for me to level (because I get easily sidetracked on other things, like playing the Auction House).

Option B was a "no-no" for me, because I don't have the heart to make Chariselle anything other than a sin'dorei. I can't picture her as anything else.

Erfrischen tackles her latest adversary: a massive great white shark named Gnaws. *cue Jaws theme*

Which leaves us with the last option. I shelled out the $25 for the character transfer and had some fun leveling her to 81 with some of my friends today. It feels weird having her in a different server than I had originally intended her to be on, but it's still fun all the same.





Now if you'll excuse me, I need to get back to gaming. There's tanks that need to do some tank work... and I mean that both in the vehicular and the RPG senses. Until the 'morrow, everyone!