A long time ago, in a galaxy far far away…. the Death Star exploded and took my poor blog with it. You see, I did something extraordinarily stupid – I did not back up my site (self-hosted), made a major change, and destroyed it. Completely obliterated it. I felt terribly guilty because I had JUST posted last years Blog Azeroth Secret Santa post only a few days prior and it was three months before I got my blog up and running again. Since it’s that time of year again, I decided to repost that Secret Santa post from Sionel of Eight Paws.
So enjoy the Secret Santa post from 2010 until I receive my 2011 one!
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….and a Happy New Year!
It’s that time of year again, when bloggers from Blog Azeroth write guest posts for one another in a sort of geeks’ Kris Kringle. My name is Sionel, normally from Eight Paws, and this season I have the distinct pleasure of wandering over to say hello to Rilandune and everyone else here at Heroically Random. While I can’t vouch that this will be a heroic post, I think I can say with confidence that it’s likely to be random…
On to more pertinent things. Depending on where you are, Christmas may or may not somewhat dwarf the New Year celebrations (depending on whether everyone is too exhausted by the 26th to even contemplate another party or not). But anywhere and everywhere, just about this time, the New Year’s resolutions start crawling out of the woodwork. A bit battered perhaps, a trifle wary from having been out in the open for two weeks last January and then shoved ruthlessly out of sight when they got broken beyond repair, but once again bandaged up and venturing into a hostile world. And this New Year’s, it’s time for the light of day to shine on some Azeroth-related good intentions. Any of these sound familiar?
- “This year I’m going to keep it fun.” Oh boy, have I heard (…said…read) that one once or twice before. And, as we all know and will dutifully repeat to one another when called upon, WoW is in fact a game and should be fun. Somehow, though, with the focus on progress or raiding or achievements or (now) guild levels or any one of a dozen other things, it seems to be easy to lose the fun without quite realising it. Maybe it’s worth making a note to self to step back at some point or points this year and do a mental reboot; am I pursuing this because it’s fun, or because it’s just what I do?
- “From now on, I’ll stay out of the fire!” Forget New Year’s, I make that resolution roughly three times a day. Maybe, though, now is a good time to have a think about weak spots in our personal playstyles and what we can do about them. In my case it’s more like ‘make a list of weak spots’, but for most of us there’s likely to be something that jumps out as a bit suboptimal…especially with Cataclysm turning everything we thought we knew upside-down!
- “I will pick specific goals to work on.” Maybe this is just my problem (that’s likely enough), but with so many new toys to play with and new things to do, it’s easy to just drift around doing a little of this and a bit of that. And of course there’s nothing wrong with that…unless you actually want to get to a specified gear level or start raiding. Being a list person, I usually find myself trying to write down my priorities (and then doing other things anyway), but regardless of method, I do find this is a good time of year for a bit of forward planning. And speaking of that -
- “Someday I’m gonna climb that mountain…” Are there challenges out there that you’ve just never got around to really trying for? Something you think is probably too hard or a bit inconvenient, but you’d really like to do anyway? The beginning of the year and of a new expansion is the perfect time to decide to do it anyway. Whether it’s collecting every mini-pet in the game or getting into PvP (or raiding) for the first time, Azeroth has a ton of ‘scope for imagination’ right now. Or if current endgame isn’t your thing, there’s always older content to play with!
- “<Insert yours here>” Made any Azerothian (or real life) New Year’s resolutions this year? Feel free to share!
