Office Egg Hunt

Last fall, when BTH & I found out that we would be adopting, I negotiated a parental leave agreement for this semester that involved me teaching just one class — organic chemistry — instead of my usual load. I would take two weeks completely off when the baby arrived, during which time a colleague (who is also my Dean) would teach the class. For the once-a-week three hour lab component of the class, I would attend the first half-hour and get the students going, after which my Dean would “babysit” the students for the rest of the course.

Yesterday afternoon, for their Lab Final, I gave my students an assignment to use the chemical knowledge that they have developed over the past two years of studying chemistry to a) extract pigments from spinach, raspberries, and blackberries and b) use those pigments to dye hard-boiled eggs. I told them that I wanted to see pretty pictures of the results in their lab reports.

My Dean joked that instead of taking pictures, they should show me the eggs by hiding them in my office — with each student’s grade being dependent upon how cleverly they hid their eggs.

This morning, I walked into my office and saw this:

I burst out laughing. They actually DID it!

The rest of my morning was lost to finding the rest of the eggs:

I remembered that there had been sixteen eggs, but after I found these fourteen, I searched and searched all over my office and just could not find the last two.

When I went to class, my students were amused at my tale of how they had caused me to thoroughly waste my morning. They told me where to find the fifteenth egg:

The sixteenth egg wasn’t actually in my office. It was still in the lab because the student was trying to intensify the color by soaking it overnight in the dyebath he had prepared. He went and got it, to complete the set:

The eggs dyed with the natural pigments really quite nicely, especially the ones dyed with the blackberry pigment mixture. The really brightly colored eggs, however, were done with standard food coloring, which we keep in the lab for a handful of lower-level experiments.

I love my OChem students (and my boss)!

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minipost: Nomi makes the NYT

So, the headline for the food column in the New York Times today is “Charred, Browned, Blackened: The Dark Lure of Burned Food”.

And the first thing I thought of was Nomi.

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if you go down in the woods today, you’d better go in disguise

I hadn’t originally intended to acquire all the Artifacts because some of them are downright evil… as in, Shadow Priest, all the Death Knight, and all the Warlock. I don’t want to be carrying those things around, let alone using them. In the case of the Death Knight and Warlock, the Artifacts that I consider to be the least of three evils fortunately align with my favored specs for those classes.

As I’ve been beginning to acquire Artifact weapons for multiple specs for each class — and have completed “Arsenal of Power” for Shaman, Mage, Hunter, and Demon Hunter — however, my Collecting bug is starting to itch to get all the Artifacts.

It’s been fun to see all the little stories — though some are certainly more interesting than others. Although I know that some of the Artifact quests revisit the same places and even, in some cases, the same bosses, I’m beginning to want to see them all… even the downright evil ones.

Additionally, I’ve read that in most (if not all) of the Order Hall Campaigns, a quest to begin one of the later stages of the Order Hall Campaign is given by the same NPC who gives out the quests to go get the other Artifact weapons. If you haven’t gotten the other Artifacts and are stubbornly ignoring the quests to do so, you might miss that Campaign quest and then find yourself stuck in your Campaign. Thus, it is to your advantage to just do all the Artifact quests, even if you don’t plan to play as any of those other specs.

I can kinda-sorta make an in-character rationalization/justification for picking up even the Artifacts I don’t really want in-character from the evidence I’ve seen so far that there is often another person or group — and usually a bad one — either in possession of or trying to obtain the Artifact, so it wouldn’t be the responsible thing to do, as the leader of my Class Order, to leave those Artifacts in the hands of those other persons or groups. I should at least bring them to the relative safety and protection of my Order Hall.

I don’t want to do the [Shadow Priest, Affliction Warlock, Demonology Warlock, Blood Death Knight, Unholy Death Knight] quests “in character” as my characters, though, if that makes any sense at all. I’d want to do them as, well, someone else. Some sidekick, a lesser champion of the Order, rather than my actual character herself. For my Priest in particular, I have been thinking that if I do go get the Shadow Priest Artifact with her, I’ll temporarily change her entire appearance at the Barbershop — with a Mog to match, of course — to be my short-lived Shadow Priest alt, Kazithra (Kregga’s mom), while I do the questchain. I’d also temporarily change the appearances of my Death Knight and Warlock to go get the other Artifacts for their classes, though I have less concrete ideas about what alter-egos I want to create for them.

But then once I have those evil Artifacts that I don’t really want to be carrying around with me, what do I do with them? Can Artifacts be stashed in Void Storage?

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Aluneth & Ebonchill

Kaelinda dinged 102 last weekend — again from Fishing dailies — so when she returned to the Hall of the Guardian, Meryl sent her off to get the Arcane and Frost Artifacts.

I got the Arcane Artifact right away.

Going into the Nexus to get it made me wish I’d done the Dragonwrath quest chain. Maybe I will do it with Kaelinda, at some point, so that after Legion is over, Aluneth and Tarecgosa can argue with each other in her closet at night.

Then I got busy working on the Quel’Delar story and didn’t go get the Frost Artifact until today.

I find it interesting the way the surroundings of the Frost and Arcane Artifacts are reversals of each other. To get the Arcane Artifact, one goes into the frozen halls of the Nexus; to get the Frost Artifact, one needs to deal with various arcane wardings.

I like both the base and upgraded appearances of Felo’melorn and Aluneth. Ebonchill, not so much — though I like the upgraded appearance (and the red tints) a little better. My top two choices to mog over it are the Ethereum Life-Staff, which I already had, and the Apostle of Argus, which I didn’t. Luckily, it only took me two attempts at Hyjal Summit to acquire it. It’s not that Hyjal is hard, of course, just that the trash in the Horde encampment is so spread out that it’s really annoying to solo.

Meanwhile, Kamalia finally completed “Nightfallen but Not Forgotten”. Oculeth is my favorite of the Shal’dorei whom I’ve met so far. Kamalia also reached Revered with the Nightfallen and the Dreamweavers. That puts her at 4/6 for Broken Isles Diplomat. She just has the Valarjar and the Wardens left. I had been choosing the Nightfallen whenever Kirin Tor was the faction-of-the-day; now I’ll be choosing the Wardens — at least until I’m Revered with them, then I’ll probably go back to choosing the Nightfallen.

At this point, though, I’m debating whether or not to continue doing the Nightfallen storyline with Kamalia. I’m a lot more interested in following that complete storyline with Kaelinda. Kaelinda is more personally interested in the Highborne and their magic, and she actually wants her Order Hall shoulders for their appearance — unlike Kamalia, for whom her Order Hall shoulders would certainly be a stats upgrade, but she doesn’t particularly care for their appearance.

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a Demon Hunter’s priorities

So, that Demon Hunter starting experience was really quite enjoyable.
There are a few places where you are offered a choice between two options, and although the only one that really seems to matter is whether to spec Havoc or Vengeance, I think it might be interesting to roll another Demon Hunter someday and take the other choices at all of those decision points, just to see how the follow-up dialogue is different.

Upon returning to the normal world, Kiralaira had a few things she wanted to do right away.

First, she needed to go punch Kael’thas in the face —

— TWICE —

— for being a traitor and selling out to the Burning Legion.

Then she went to ask Illidan if, um, given that she’s, um, apparently the “alpha” Illidari, she could, um, “borrow” the Warglaives of Azzinoth for, um, “safekeeping” while he is, um, “indisposed”?

(This would feel significantly less awkward if she had chosen [this guy] instead of [that guy] at a certain decision point in the starting experience.)

Illidan replied, no, not right now, ask me again next week.

Next, she went to Tanaan to take a selfie or two with Yrel.


I do hope it wasn’t one of your relatives who gave me these horns, dearie

After not having gone through the Tanaan Invasion experience for so long, it didn’t seem all that tiresome or tedious. I found myself just zipping right along, all the way through to the end, and even having fun doing it. Imagine that!

Then she went to Pandaria.

Wait, what?

I thought I was done with the Shado-Pan, I really did. After I got the Shado-Pan Helmet with my Human Mage, I remembered that I’d never gotten one with my Draenei Mage, either. So I took Kaprikka out to Townlong Steppes, but after a day or two… nope, didn’t want to do that, after all. She went back to camping Onyxia, and I added “don’t want to do any given rep grind with any given Class more than once” to my list of reasons for Retiring my secondary Tauren alts.

(Because a) I don’t like the Felstalker and b) the Shado-Pan rep mounts don’t require the rep to use, the red Shado-Pan Riding Tiger is already her mount of choice.)

But Kiralaira insisted that because she is a new and different Class, she needs a Shado-Pan Helmet (and Transmogrification kit) — and, furthermore, she wants to make a Shado-Pan Helmet kit that also uses the Shado-Pan Tabard — something I haven’t yet managed to do.
And because she is level 100 and Fel Rush and Eye Beam are fun and powerful, she might even actually do the Sra’Vess (mantid) Shado-Pan quests, which I ignored on all my other characters…

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Millhouse is mine! Muahahahaha!

I have wanted Millhouse Manastorm for my Alliance Mage’s gathering of Follower Mages basically forever. I had given up, though, on ever actually getting him for her, because, quite frankly, I was too lazy to push her through Silver Proving Grounds — and it didn’t help that getting Millhouse requires running UBRS, one of my least favorite of all the Warlords dungeons (probably the only one I despise more is Grimrail Depot). I had even reactivated Millhouse in Kamalia’s Garrison, figuring that Kam was the only character who would ever recruit him.

Then when I was reading through the latest hotfix notes at Wowhead the other day, I noticed this lovely bit of news:

Removed the requirement to have completed Silver Proving Grounds in order to queue for Warlords of Draenor Heroic Dungeons.

I’d been thinking that Blizzard ought to do this eventually, to make farming Warlords Heroics for mogging and stuffs at level 110 easier to do — I’m glad that they did it now and not in a later patch!

So I hopped in LFG and managed not to get kicked for my incompetence, and here we are!

Now Kaylynda will be able to leave her Garrison for the Broken Isles without feeling like she has unfinished business on Draenor.

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the Underpowered Death Knight and the Doomsayers

A day or two after the new Wardrobe system was released, Kaelinda got a message from one of her Mage friends, a Troll named Kikimaia who was living in Orgrimmar:

Hey Miz Kae, I thought you should know dat I been seein’ some strange folks standin’ around in Orgrimmar. Dey’re wearin’ placards and givin’ out pamphlets. Dis makes me uneasy, mon, becoz de last time I saw strange folks wit placards, it was right before de Cataclysm. What’s more worrisome is dat dese “Doomsayers” seem ta be inspirin’ some kinda suicide cult. I’m no Soothsayer, but I tink dere be dark days ahead.

The Demon Invasions may yet be a few weeks off, but the pre-expansion Event has already begun!

Apparently the Doomsayers hand out twelve different types of pamphlets and there’s a Feat of Strength for getting them all — hence the craziness. I’d like to get the Feat of Strength, but I don’t need it RIGHT NAO!!! I think I’ll just send an alt to camp out by one of the Doomsayers and log in at the beginning and end of each play session to pick up a pamphlet. I’m sure that if I’m patient and don’t forget about it, I’ll manage to collect all 12 pamphlets by the time the Legion comes.

When Kaelinda told the rest of the guild about the message, the Underpowered Death Knight volunteered to keep an eye on the Doomsayers. She is, after all, very good at being Patient…

Previously: the Underpowered Death Knight in Patch 7.0

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