‘Twas the night before Cata, and all through the flat
Not a creature was stirring, not even a rat.
While others were waiting outside in the cold,
I knew just after sleep, what sight I would behold

Okay, enough with that exercise. I am giddy with excitement at what is coming live to U.S. WoW servers in a little more than 8 hours. Many of you in the Pacific time zone may be waiting up tonight to get to play Cataclysm as soon as it hits, at midnight Pacific Standard Time, and play through the night — or at least until you can stay up no longer.

Other time zones in the U.S. are less fortunate, and my friends on the east coast must wait until 3 a.m. to log on.  On the flip side, that gives those of you in that situation plenty of time to get to any local midnight release parties, get your grubby hands on a copy of the expansion, get home and get your computer prepped for the coming onslaught of gaming goodness. Or perhaps you’ll take a brief rest and continue with the actual gameplay in the morning.

Living abroad (but still playing on a U.S. account) and 9 hours away from that magical Blizzard time zone, in this case, is a happy medium. Soon, I will go to my bed (while visions of Deathwing dance through my head). And in the morning, I will awaken fresh and prepared to take on a day that is sure to be epic.

Yes, this is how I am preparing for Cataclysm; by sleeping. As far as I can tell, EU players (with accounts that reflect that, unlike mine) already should have access to the game. In fact, as I write this, there are currently two midnight launch parties taking place in this small German city.

If you’re not one of the lucky ones already playing or attending a launch party, how are you spending the last few hours?

Happy Cataclysm to all, and to all a good-night!

Hybrid American-German food FTW.

Hello Lore Hounds, I am happy to report that I am alive and well in Germany. Last we met, I was nearing my departure and preparing to embark upon an adventure abroad. Now, I’ve been here a little more than two weeks and am settling in nicely… for the most part.

I’ll summarize for you.

The first couple of days here consisted of getting keys to the new apartment, securing new iPhones complete with contracts to use them without the ridiculous international fees we would have incurred on our old phones, eating lots of interesting foods, getting over jet lag, exploring the city, and finally coming to the realization that this is really happening. There was no time to spare, and especially no time for boredom. That was the weekend of Oct. 7.

That first week also was lovely. More food, more exploration, a little bit of getting to know the apartment, our doggies arrived (the Lore Hounds you hear in the beginning of my FTH videos — RUFF! Ruff-Ruff. Rfff), a trip to the local Ikea to pick up a few things, lots of bier and schnapps.

By this time, we were ready to be back online and catch up on the Intertubez stuffz we had been missing. But the Telekom Internet service (known as T-Mobile in the states) that was supposed to be ready for us before we moved in already had been delayed to Oct. 19.

Finally, the day before our new installation date, our air shipment arrived. While not nearly as large as the sea shipment that is still 2 to 3 weeks away from us now, it contained a lot of electronics, including our desktop computers that, thankfully, arrived without any damage. Great timing, I thought – we’d get the computers up and running in time for me to help out with BlizzCon coverage, and maybe even get in my WoW fix and keep trying for Loremaster. But that was not in the cards.

Oct. 19 — a Tuesday — came, and late that afternoon we got a call saying our service was getting delayed. We would hear back soon. The next day, we got another call. No new news — we would hopefully have service by the end of the week. The next day, it was an e-mail. Our service was now delayed until Oct. 29. Continue Reading