LotRO: Seige of Mirkwood

I am very, very excited about this new expansion for Lord of the Rings Online. There are so many great things about it and so very much for me to do, especially over the next few weeks, that I consider it a moral victory to do things like sleep, go to work, and perform at concerts. Those people you read about who take time off work on update day - I get it now - I wish I'd done the same, but I know better *sigh*. Here are some of the attention-grabbing features of this update:

Skirmishes!
These puppies are the ultimate in customizable game-playing. You can scale the size, the difficulty, and the levels of the baddies you're fighting (rewards will vary according to your selection). You can start them wherever you want - no more travelling for 15 minutes to get to the battle site. You get your own soldier companion who definitely has a mind of his/her own. You can customize your soldier's race, gender and 'class', and you can control how they get stronger - skillwise, levelwise, and attribute-wise. You can pick from a variety of instances, and there are oodles of things to spend your reward skirmish marks on.

Mirkwood!
I have not paid much attention to this yet, considering the presence of skirmishes in combination with all these obligations (sleep, work, concerts) hogging my time. However, it's a new region, with new monsters, a new rep faction, new quests, new places to see and explore, and new raid content as well.

Crafting!
With the inclusion of 5 more levels to gain comes the need for shiny new gear, and shiny new things to stuff into your shiny new legendary items. This expansion features more than just new recipes - it comes with a few new kinds of recipes. Now you can craft a 4th type of relic for your LI (some tradeable, som BoA). You can also craft new armour that comes out in different ways (I will have to check this out sometime soon!).

Item Management
This update comes with an optional adventure pack, which comes with new shared inventory of up to 20 items (I think?) that you can share with all your alts. Even if you didn't purchase this adventure pack, you can still take advantage of the new mount system to gain a free bag space slot or two (or in my case, 6) by converting your mount token to a mount skill. Each horse token becomes its own skill! You'll probably need this space too, for your different types of skirmish marks. Aside from inventory, you will also have to re-spend your legendary points on each of your legendary items, because they all got a make-over as well. And, while you're fiddling with all this, you can also customize your toolbars so that your choice of buttons display.


Along with this expansion, the website utility known as my.lotro.com has also been revamped to accomodate skirmish info as well as a host of other tweaks. It's all very neat to see. My.lotro now keeps a skirmish log for you, with all kinds of stats and even some charts. One thing it came with was a big reminder of all the characters I've made over various servers. Their new lottery feature includes a list of all your characters that are eligible for the lotteries, and today's lottery looks like it is available to every character. Seeing this, I looked over at my character list, and I have an even 30 characters, including monster characters. This number is about to change to 31, as I am planning on taking advantage of my new character slots that came with the adventure pack I purchased.

I think I will be verrrrrry busy over the next little while!

Musings on 'Socialism'

Socialism is spoken as though it were a dirty word in the US, and this sentiment is spreading northward into Canadian territory as well. I'm not sure quite why that is, really. This is a continent that has a very large percentage of Christians (of various stripes). Christian institutions, on the whole, seem to advocate socialism, in a sense, in that they often organize charities and emphasize helping those in need. In the bible, you come across stuff like this all the time:

Proverbs 31:9 (New International Version)
Speak up and judge fairly;
defend the rights of the poor and needy.

So where's the political disconnect? I will confess to being largely ignorant on the topic, but it seems to come to light mostly with the public healthcare issue. The have-nots want it, and the haves don't want it. And before it gets seriously considered, before too long, someone spits out the dirty s-word and all thought on the topic ceases. The problem is that just like other public institutions such as road infrastructure and schools, policemen, firemen, television, and many other things, public healthcare helps everyone and it helps the population as a whole.

Yes, there's the issue of how to make healthcare work, what exactly the nuts n bolts of such a system would be, but people have a hard time thinking about it because the word 'socialism' pops up and people's brains shut down. I live in a country that has public healthcare and I'm glad we have it. Could it be better? Sure. How? That's a difficult question. Would I give it up completely? Not easily. Does this make me biased? I suppose it well could, but even so, we're also still a capitalist country. Just, we seem to choose tenets of the socialist philosophy that enrich our lives, and the tenets of capitalism that help us excel as well. I think the key is balance. I don't think 'socialism' should be a show-stopping word, and I don't think 'capitalism' should be, either.

Road Trip - Day 7 and 8

Well, it sure looks like I've procrastinated quite a lot on this road trip report...

Day 7 involved on of the weirdest 'enter a building' procedure I've ever encountered. We woke up in our ginormous hotel room, ate a buffet breakfast, and headed for downtown Detroit in search of information on a particular rent collection/payment program. The building we had to go to was a government building, and it must have been a pretty important one, because we had a hell of a time even getting inside, due to the building's security. Most public buildings involve entering the front door, but not so for this building. We tried it, and right away people from inside the bulding were running toward us yelling, "Not this way!" They shooed us out right quick. People outside the building helpfully told us we had to go around to the side to enter. So, we tried this, and again, people ran toward us yelling, "Not this door!" and "Not this side!" So, back outside again, and thoroughly perplexed, we looked for another entryway.

We did eventually find a way in, and, once inside, we had to wait in line to go through security. This is not really an issue for us since we don't carry weaponry or illegal stuff or the like. However, this time, we had with us every shred of electronic equipment we had brought on our road trip, since it's foolish in the extreme to leave that kind of thing in the car. As everyone there says, "This is Detroit!" So, the security guys who had to x-ray our bags had a really fun time taking out each and every item, including tangles of cords and wires, papers, and quite the assortment of other knick-knacks. Then they very sloppily put everything back in, so that papers were crumpled and things protruded in a badly balanced and uncomfortable arrangement.

Getting to where we needed to go once inside the building also took us a while, considering that after the strict and unadvertised entry procedure, they just sort of turned us loose. We did eventually find a listing someplace for the general block of floors we needed to head to, with the obvious first choice turning out to be under construction - no offices were open on that floor and we probably shouldn't have been there, but we didn't know that at first. We did find the office we looked for, did what we had to do, and then on our way out, the woman helping us realized I wasn't my boyfriend's kid sister but an adult in my own right, and then she spent another 5 or so minutes gushing about how young I look, which totally made up for the rest of my experience in that building.

After this escapade, we decided it was probably time to head out - out of the city and out of the United States. We headed for the border, which featured a lot of signs pointing us toward the 'Bridge to Canada'. The bridge, called the Ambassador Bridge, is pretty impressive, and so even if the signs hadn't been there, it would have been relatively easy to find. At the border, the border crossing agent almost didn't believe us that our total declaration after a week of travelling through 10 different states was $9.00 (fridge magnets for every state we went through, except I forgot to buy a Minnesota one). As well he shouldn't have, as it turned out we also had an $8.00 map that we'd forgotten about.

Once in Canada, we stopped for lunch at a McDonald's that had a recycling program (which was nice to see and something I totally wish we had in our city's fast food joints). Then we headed for Hamilton, which is where our flight the next day departed from. We found the airport, made arrangements for dropping off our rental car the next day, and then continued onward to... Niagara Falls! This was somewhat spur-of-the-moment, in that we'd just decided we should go there the night before, in our hotel room. The conversation went something like this:

Me (to myself): I wonder if that place is close to where we're going...
My bf: What place?
Me: That really famous waterfall... you know, really big, popular, Canada side is totally better...
Him: You mean Niagara Falls? o.O
Me: Yeah! We should see if it's near where we'll be!

...pause while I look it up...

Me: Yes, yes it is. It's practically right next to Hamilton. Looks like it's about an hour past it.
Him: We are going there.
Me: Woo-hoo!

So, we got to Niagara Falls in the late afternoon and, since we had to pay $20 just to park there, spent some time looking around and signing up for a tour through some tunnels behind the waterfall. It was quite a nifty experience, and very... damp. We were given rain-covers with our tickets and it's a good thing, too. Water was spraying everywhere, which made for quite a nice rainbow. The town there is very touristy - it reminded me of Vegas, with all the tourist attractions, lights, restaurants (with views, of course), and fancy hotels. And of course, there were people all over the place.



After that, we went back to Hamilton, searched for a restaurant that was open for us to eat at - it was about 9:00 pm, and due to the economy or something, half the businesses downtown, where we were, were closed down. Two Subway sandwiches and a nice walk later, we bedded down for an early wake-up the next day.

Day 8 consisted mostly of just flying home. We returned the rental car with over 5000km more on the odometer than when we picked it up initially. Waiting for us at home were two lonely cats and a LOT of veggies in the garden.

Road Trip - Day 6

Haha, I totally dropped the ball on this, didn't I?

Day 6, we woke up in Kalamazoo and continued on our merry way. We got to Detroit, which was our 'business' part of the trip. By now, it's been two months since I was there, so the memories are getting fuzzy. The city is very large, and the houses are very cute. They are mostly made of bricks, and they are packed together all cozy-like. Every lawn seems to be meticulously kept. We went there to see about potentially buying property there, so our day was spent looking at all the houses.

I don't want this to be too much of a socio-political commentary, but from what we observed, there is a very clear line across the city, and on one side, that's white people territory, and on the other, it's black people territory. Home is nothing like that, so it was weird to see. What I am happy to say we did not see was disrespect between people with different skin colours.

Anyhow, we saw a few business prospects while we were there, but after two months of mulling it over, we still haven't decided whether we're going to do anything there. It's difficult to know precisely what we can expect out of each potential venture, and so we haven't acted on any of it at this point. Plus, we're not even from that state/country, so even if we knew what to expect out of the transaction itself, we are still not sure how international laws/taxes apply.



The hotel we stayed in that night was absolutely enormous. It had 2 big beds, a couch and accompanying sitting chair, a coffee table, a tv, a massage chair, a fireplace, another coffee table and four more accompanying chairs, a desk and accompanying office chair, a wardrobe, a small kitchen with accompanying bar and stools, a jacuzzi tub in its own little room, and of course a bathroom. This room was also the cheapest room we stayed in on the trip, and the price included a buffet breakfast. We of course tried to make use of everything the room had to offer (except the fireplace, as it was July).

Road Trip Day 5

I awoke to Day 5 in a nice comfy bed at a friend's house. After a delicious breakfast of fresh cinnamon buns, we made our way over to another friend's house, along with the couple we'd stayed with, and the five of us began our journey to Chicago. We stopped along the way at a food court place that was built over top the highway, which is a neat idea. We had Taco Bell, which was fun because the boys usually tease me that they're going to Taco Bell at around midnight their time, and I quite frankly cannot do the same, nor obviously join in the fun. Oddly, the menu item I usually order here is not the same in Wisconsin. There's a bean paste in there instead of rice (bean paste is, I will admit, the more normal thing to expect in a burrito, but rice is more interesting and also the reason I choose this particular menu item in my own city).

We continued our way to Chicago, where we went to the Museum of Science and Industry, which was a lot more like a learning center than an actual museum, though the place was home to several artifacts, which were cool to see. There were some old cars there, including a model T. We took several pictures, but mostly they turned out too dark to see much of anything. We saw a giant model train set up, which was cute. We saw baby chicks hatching, which kind of broke my heart, really. Those poor little creatures were hatched with no mama chicken around. Those chicks came into the world utterly alone, save for the other scared, alone chicks hatching near enough the same time. Anyways... *hrmph* One of the displays was a cool submarine, which was captured by Americans during WWII. That was pretty neat to see. There was also a working coal mine, but due to line up sizes and the fact that the museum closed an hour early that day, we did not check it out.

When the museum closed, we parted ways with my friends and took off to find a hotel. Unlike most of our trip, we didn't se any hotels off the side of the highway while we were in Chicago, so we stayed on the main drag for a while before deciding to just continue onward, so we ended up just going around Lake Michigan and onward to... Kalamazoo! Kalamazoo is the friendliest place ever, I think. Everyone was genuinely friendly, not just service-friendly. We told the clerk at the hotel lobby that we were staying in Kalamazoo that night purely because of the name of the city, and he was so delighted, he gave us a discount. As we settled into our room, dusk fell upon us, and brought with it fireflies. This was our first time ever seeing fireflies, and they were very neat. It's hard to believe there's a creature whose butt lights right up, but we've seen them with our own eyes. That night we watched Harry Potter, which was the opening night, and we watched it for $5 each, no line-ups, and we strolled in about 6 minutes before showtime. That was interesting. We scrutinized the tickets after the show and found they'd given us student pricing (hehe).

Doing the Dirty Deeds

In LotRO, there are certain things you can do that earn you titles, traits or sometimes other things, such as xp tokens for your legendary items. These things you can do are called deeds, and as of last November, when the expansion for LotRO was released, for every 40 deeds you do, you can raise the maximum number of quests you have open by one. When this new quest maximum bonus was implemented, my character had 5 bonus quest slots, meaning she had already done over 200 deeds. I have a new mission, which is to double that. I adopted this goal when I opened up my 49th quest slot, so I decided 40 more deeds wouldn't be too bad, and it's fun to make goals. I also decided I should document which 40 deeds I do to open up that magic 50th quest slot, mostly for the purpose of sating my own curiosity later.

There are different kinds of deeds you can do. There are the dreaded slayer deeds, which I have plenty of to do, since I don't particularly like doing them. There are also exploration deeds, which I quite enjoy. Needless to say, there aren't many of those left for me to do. Another kind of deed rewards you for doing a certain number of quests in an area. There are also hidden deeds, several of which I have done. I may solicit my friends to help me a bit with this kind, as these hidden deeds tend to be unlocked by other people doing certain emotes at you (such as bowing, cowering, saluting, kissing, cheering, and mocking). Others are gained by eating a certain amount of certain foods, which I would like to work on also. The hobby system also rewards you for certain accomplishments (currently there is only fishing, so the deeds are things like, gain a certain fishing skill level, or catch all 9 kinds of trout - that sort of thing). There are also event deeds, for such things as participating in festivals. Finally, there are adventure-based deeds, which reward you for completing instances, often having with them associated exploration and slayer deeds. These are some of my favorite, since you can often get several, just for having an adventure.

Melawe's list of dirty deeds:

1. Kill dunlendings in the school of Tham Mirdain (Eregion)
2. Kill dunlendings in Eregion
3. Kill half-orcs in Eregion
4. Kill harvest-flies in the Shire
5. Kill trolls in Sarnur (Ered Luin)
6. Kill Angmarim in Forochel
7. Find the deep-fires in Goblin Town (Misty Mountains)
8. Kill orcs in the 16th Hall (Moria)
9. Drive evil from the 16th Hall (Moria)
10. Kill Globsnaga orcs in Moria
11. Kill merrivail in Lumul-nar (Hall of Mirrors - Moria)
12. Kill Ergoth (Hall of Mirrors - Moria)
13. Kill goblins in the Grand Stair (Moria)
14. Carnivore! (eat 3 each of lots of different meat dishes)
15. Kill kergrim in Evendim
16. Pork-chopper! (kill a boar in each of the original zones)
17. Kill giants in Evendim
18. Kill barrow-wardens in Haudh Iarchith (Bree-land)
19. Executioner of the Wicked (slay 6 bosses in Haudh Iarchith - Bree-land)
20. Kill the bosses in the Hall of Crafting (Moria)
21. Collect 5 crates in the Hall of Crafting (Moria)
22. Do 40 quests in Lothlorien
23. Find the Duvardain Quarters in Carn Dum (Angmar)
24. Kill trolls in Carn Dum (Angmar)
25. Kill Angmarim in Carn Dum (Angmar)
26. Explore Caras Galadhon (Lothlorien)
27. Kill orcs in Lothlorien
28. Wanderer of the Golden Wood (explore Lothlorien)
29. Kill worms in Moria
30. The Circle of Despair (explore the area around Barad Gularan in Angmar)
31. Hall of Crafting
32. Hall of Crafting
33. Shire Brewmaster (help the tavern keeps in the Shire)
34. Kill lizards in the Water-Wheels (Moria)
35. Collect flowers in the Water-Wheels (Moria)
36. Kill harvest-flies in Bree-land
37. Lorien Lookout (Lothlorien)
38. Flet-runner (Lothlorien)
39. Kill beasts in Lothlorien
40. Doer of Great Deeds (complete certain deeds in Lothlorien)

Well, that was an experience. I like how that last one worked out - it seems appropriate!

Road Trip Day 4

Day 4 of our road trip made its beginnings with us leaving Albert Lea and heading off toward Wisconsin. On our way, we saw lots of wind farms:



After a while, as we got closer to Wisconsin, and also once we were in Wisconsin, wind farms turned into dairy farms with windmills on them, and then dairy farms with no windmills:



We stopped in Wisconsin Dells to look for a place called Witches Gulch, but alas, we did not find it. We drove all over town looking for it. I've seen pictures of it, so I know it exists; it must have been hiding on me. We finally gave up and stopped for lunch at an IHOP, which we had been thinking about doing at some point during our trip. Wisconsin Dells is a very small town with a very small population, and a large amount of tourism. It's kind of what I imagine Banff, Alberta would be like if you took it out of the mountains and traded in the moose/elk for waterslides and the like. All the appropriate elements are there: quaint but touristy downtown, pedestrian crossings everywhere, people everywhere, out-of-towners working at the service places, and, where there isn't a bunch of buildings, nice roads with trees and nature.

After that, we continued to Milwaukee, where we met up with some friends of mine from Lord of the Rings Online. Now, that was really neat. I already knew these people, but I didn't know their faces, their families, their homes, their day-to-day lives. It was a treat to see them, a lot of them all together at once. My mother worried a lot when I told her I was going to be staying at a friend's house - she told me all kinds of horror stories of people meeting up with people they'd only met online. I told her if he was creepy, we didn't have to stay there. She told me if he was an axe-murderer, I wouldn't know until it was too late. However, as I suspected, there was no need to worry. There was about as much chance I'd mis-gauged my friends as there was I'd mis-gauged my coworkers, classmates, relatives or other friends whose houses I'd been to after only being their classmates. There's always a slight chance anyone you know could be a bonafide psycho, which is why you sort of test the waters before jumping in. Anyhow, it was nice to see my friends, healthy and happy, and meet their families, who were also wonderful. We had a barbeque feast, complete with such wonders as colby-jack cheese and lime chiffon (which I will have to learn how to make), neither of which I'd ever had before. All in all, this and the following day were my favorite part of the whole trip.