Personal

What’s in a Name, Pt. 2

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Who's that rogue?

Some of you who’ve followed the blog for a while (and remember when I posted regularly enough to qualify as earning the spot down there on the footer…..) may remember that my guild transferred from a vewwy, vewwy small server to one that had an actual population. When that happened, there were some…. sour grapes, shall we say, from the #2 guild on our old server. (I’ll make a long story short: to read the longer version, please check out my QQ post.) As a result, I had to use the name “Wynthia.” A small change, to be sure, but given my association with this blog, my twitter account, and my email address….not to mention my VERY IDENTITY, I was upset.

Enter my savior, a WoM reader named Corgii. (Shout out!!!) Corgii let me know that I could ticket a GM, tell them about the never-logged-on lvl 1 bogarting my name, and take it back. This had honestly never occurred to me. Oh, sure, I had the little usurper on my friends list… I even sent them 1 gold in the mail to see if they ever, EVER logged on… (they didn’t. My gold came back twice.) But actually asking Blizz to fix it? Hadn’t crossed my mind.

So I did.

And it worked!!!!

I got a free name-change back to my old self. The GM even stayed on to make sure it all worked properly. (Say what you will about Blizz customer service, I’ve only ever had STELLAR experiences with my GM’s. One even gave me a cookie!)

The only downside? Since UI settings are stored by character name, my UI ‘sploded a little, and took a few minutes to sort out.

But now I have a question: I used to be the only Wynthea on the armory. (There was a lvl 11 druid, but that was one of my alts.) Now there’s a rogue. Troll Female. Where did she come from?

Luv,
Wyn

Blizzcon Bound!

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Matticus, Lodur, and Wynthea will all be attending Blizzcon ’09! We’ll be divvying up the con to make sure we get to see and hear everything, so here’s what we need from you:

1. Will you be there? We want to meet you!

2. If you won’t, but you have questions for us to ask on your behalf, we’d love to know!

3. There may be some schwag-related giveaways, so keep your eyes on WoM for upcoming contests!!

See you there!

Luv,
Wyn

The Matticus Command Center

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matts-dtop

After Kestrel posted his deskspace when I asked him to, I felt it was only fair for me to do the same.

My left monitor is a 24” Samsung T240 and my right’s a 22” BenQ FP222W H. My macbook takes up the right side. Conversations on Twitter have revealed to me that there are players out there sporting dual 30” screen setups.

That is some real real estate.

A closer look at the picture shows that I have two keyboards: A Mac keyboard on the table (which wires to my Macbook) and one in the tray right below that’s plugged into my PC.

My Steelpad is holding my black Razer and my Mac “Egg” mouse. I configured my right monitor to also plug into my Macbook so that I could mirror the display there.

Anyways, with a setup like this, it allows me to raid on my left screen and look up valuable information on the right (such as hockey scores).

I may have to take a page from the Kestrellian one and pick me up a new backlit keyboard. The characters on mine have all but rubbed off. Can’t see when it’s late at night and sometimes I end up hitting the wrong key.

There’s an ongoing thread on Plusheal where I asked players to share their setup (attachments are enabled). I would love to take a look at yours!

Happy Holidays and Thanks

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matticus-xmas-08 Merry Christmas everybody! 

After grinding out around 50000 honour yesterday (that’s honor with a U), I snagged an epic PvP ring and an epic PvP cloak. This brings up my resilience to around 450 and bumps my health to a staggering 22000+.

I am officially a raid boss.

The rare number of you that have stuck around for over a year will remember what type of blogger I was like then.

Disjointed. Bumbling. Disorganized. Unknown. Difficult. Inaccurate.

I didn’t know what I was getting myself into when I started blogging and hitting the publish button. But I knew I loved writing. Over 600 posts published. Over 5500 comments. Almost 1500 subscribers (and I was so hoping I’d hit 1500 by New Years).

This blog allowed me to meet other WoW players and bloggers who were just as interested in the game as I am. Many of them I became friends with. It has helped support my hobby and my studies financially. I learned a lot about how to communicate my ideas with clarity. I learned how to manage a community. And I had a lot of fun doing it.

Along the way, I picked up two wonderfully talented bloggers. Their brilliance continues to astound and to amaze.

I just wanted to say thanks for sticking around and continuing to have faith in what I do. Many bloggers start out strong but burn out after a time and it’s a miracle I’m still here.

I’m happy and grateful to be surrounded by a crack team of WoW players along the likes of Lassirra, Amava, and Lakland who’ve taken the plunge to join me even though there was no guarantee of success. Kimbo, Ice, s13, Dog, your efforts are much appreciated in your roles in the guild. Thanks for helping me make this work.

Upcoming

Blog’s going to be on autopilot for the next few days. Here’s what to expect:

  • World of Matticus retrospective: A look back at 2008
  • Minimum Requirements for Naxx (Friday)
  • My first commenter (Hint: It’s a bird), a meme started by One Among Many
  • A plea from Amava for us healers to not ignore hunter pets
  • More guest posts
  • The elusive search for a Holy Paladin blogger and Resto Shaman blogger to add to the Matticus ranks

Canada

There’s about a foot and a half to 2 feet of snow in my area right now just looking out the yard. I suspect I’ll need to help dig the car out of the snow just so we can make our way down to the home of a family friend where we usually spend our Christmas dinners. There’s always an annual poker tournament. And I always lose. After a big delicious dinner of lamb, ribs, and other assorted Chinese cuisine, I’m off to hang out a friend’s place before we make our annual trip to lineup at Best Buy to pick up Boxing day swag.

Mental note: Next time I get pocket Jacks, I’m auto folding.

Take this Survey: Your Character Strengths in 15 Minutes

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I found this interesting survey on Psyblog a few days ago and meant to try it out myself.

Psychologists Christopher Petersen and Martin Seligman devised “Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Positive Strengths and Virtues”. It’s a simple questionnaire that identify your strengths as a human being.

Officially, it’s known as the VIA and it consists of 6 virtues and 24 strengths. They are:

  • Knowledge (virtue)
    • Creativity (strength)
    • Curiosity
    • Love of learning
    • Perspective (wisdom)
    • Open-mindedness
  • Courage (virtue)
    • Bravery (strength)
    • Persistence
    • Integrity
    • Vitality
  • Humanity
    • Capacity to love and receive love
    • Kindness
    • Social intelligence
  • Justice
    • Citizenship
    • Fairness
    • Leadership
  • Temperance
    • Forgiveness/mercy
    • Modesty/humility
    • Prudence
    • Self-regulation
  • Transcendence
    • Appreciation of excellence and beauty
    • Gratitude
    • Hope
    • Humour
    • Spirituality

What did Matticus get?

Your Top Character Strength

Judgment, critical thinking, and open-mindedness
Thinking things through and examining them from all sides are important aspects of who you are. You do not jump to conclusions, and you rely only on solid evidence to make your decisions. You are able to change your mind.

Your Second Character Strength

Creativity, ingenuity, and originality
Thinking of new ways to do things is a crucial part of who you are. You are never content with doing something the conventional way if a better way is possible.

Your Third Character Strength

Perspective (wisdom)
Although you may not think of yourself as wise, your friends hold this view of you. They value your perspective on matters and turn to you for advice. You have a way of looking at the world that makes sense to others and to yourself.

Your Fourth Character Strength

Leadership
You excel at the tasks of leadership: encouraging a group to get things done and preserving harmony within the group by making everyone feel included. You do a good job organizing activities and seeing that they happen.

Your Fifth Character Strength

Social intelligence
You are aware of the motives and feelings of other people. You know what to do to fit in to different social situations, and you know what to do to put others at ease.

That’s just the top five strengths that I apparently possess after taking the VIA test. I definitely agree with the second and the fifth. Not too sure about the other three =).  You can expand the results when you finish as it lists more traits and qualities from your strongest to your weakest.

Interestingly enough, my weakest point was spirituality.

Try it now

You’ll have to register first, but it’s very painless. There’s three different survey versions: The full (240 questions), the full for kids and teens that are 8-17 (198 questions) and a brief versions (24 questions).

I spent no more than 12 minutes taking the full survey. You’ll get better results that way.

Go ahead and try it now!

I’m curious to hear what your top character strength is and if you believe that’s accurate!