Fruit Salad

I like it. Strawberries, Kiwi, Banana, Seedless Grapes (Green), Pear, Mandarin Oranges, Pineapple, you name it! Fruit Salad is yummy. Today I'd like to take some time talking about a variety of things, just like varied fruits in a fruit salad.

Bananas
This tasty fruit is long, yellow, and has a skin you need to peel away to see the actual fruit. But until you peel that skin away you don't really know how good that banana is.

The same goes with reclusive wow players. Those that sit on the sidelines and don't disturb anyone. They don't start a group but are always looking for one...silently. When they see something they like they may jump at it. So let's say you're forming a raid and you go into chat to LFM. There's a good chance that a Banana is there waiting.

That long awaiting soul, a bit too scared to get something going, needs encouragement to peel away their facade, but only when that player joins your group and you actually play with him/her do you know if they were worth bringing in the first place.

Are you a banana?

Strawberry
Over the past month or so Blizzard has been forthcoming about upcoming changes that will occur once Cataclysm hits, or shortly before. The blue posts have been many, with even more responses. But I can't help but think it's all kind of like a Strawberry.

What do you see when you see a strawberry? The red coating and the seeds on the outside, right? Seeds are the beginning, the genesis, the motive. We've received reasons for the changes in Cataclysm, we have even seen the color and shape of the game, but there is something that is still out of reach, it seems, which appears to be caused by the fact that we don't have all the information nor can we see the end result of those changes in front of us on our monitors.

I know I've gone to the store and purchased strawberries, but it's not always easy to tell which ones may not be as filled with as much sweet juice as I think, or maybe it's a particularly bitter patch of strawberries, or maybe the inside isn't quite ripe. I think I can see what it will be because I can see the seeds, the reasons behind, but I'm convinced that I won't know how that strawberry will taste, how Cataclysm will actually play out, until I have it in front of me. Still, it does seem mouthwatering.

Pineapple
A most welcome addition to my fruit salad today, and in honor of my wife's love for pineapples, I'd like to say a little something about raiding. Pineapples have some of the sweetest juices and captivating fragrances of any fruit I've tasted in my entire life. A truly ripe, sweet, and perfect pineapple has few rivals anywhere in the world. Versitile as it is it's found by itself or on pizza or part of exotic recipies in some of the most well known restaurants. But there is an evil side to pineapple, one that my wife knows only too well, and that it can be extremely painful to those who are allergic to it.

Raiding, at least in my own experience, I can't speak for you, has provided me with some of the most varied experiences in my gameplay. My sweetest victories have happened with my fellow raiders, conquest filling my mouth with pure satisfaction. I have danced, dodged, jumped, twisted, and willed myself with others to triumphant ends from Naxx to Ulduar to ICC. But often an allergic reaction will surface, tempers flare, and raids can utterly fail. Often all it takes is one to catch the allergic symptoms and it can become contagious.

Hopefully you taste the sweetness that comes from raid success more often than feeling the affects of an allergic reaction. But don't let those allergies keep you from Pineappling!

Watermellon
I know, it's not in my original list above. Deal with it. The other day I bought a watermellon at the store that was about 5-6 inches in diameter. They are larger most of the time, true, some can even engorge to county fair blue ribbon sizes of 4-5 feet tall.

The AH prices for small, nearly obsolete items on my server are county fair sized. Inflation is a natural side effect of the creation of an economy, but so is deflation. My point is that there are various factors that cause a price to move up or down, I won't inflict the tedious reasons upon you here. But lately I've noticed that I can't get an axe for my level 14 whatever without paying 26 gold for it. When I first started playing wow and learned of the auction house I could get the same axe for 1-2 gold, now it's either crap or grind for some heirloom items so I don't have to worry about spending that much gold.

But what about the new players that are still coming into the game? There's little reason to expect that they are carrying around 300g in their backpack at level 15, but that's what they would need to buy any gear upgrades so they don't have to enter dungeons in grays. I always try to keep it reasonable, if I put a weapon for a level 15 at auction, it's going up for just a couple gold, maybe 3. Call me a softie, but I cannot gouge the new player, I feel like I'm doing something wrong.

Don't "free market" crap me, I work in accounitng and finance and economics in real life so I understand all that, but this game ain't the real world, fatty, so listen to what I'm saying. If you charge 25 gold for a weapon with +1 Strength and +1 Stamina, I think you suck. You probably have a low self-esteem that you'll never admit to, and you'll defend yourself by using big words such as supply and demand, but the fact is that you're trying to compensate for not having something else in your life and gouging people with unnecessary inflated prices simply means that you're a jerk...ergo you suck!

Enough with the Watermelloning!

Well that's all for today, I always enjoy ending on a tirade. Hope you take it personally, that means that I'm right and you suck. If not, I hope you laughed. Thanks for your visit, as always!