2017

Finding Scarecrow Pepe

I had a really hard time finding Pepe for some reason. On my priest that used to be horde but transferred to Alliance he was no where to be found – so I relogged to an alt and there he was, on top of a grave. Cutest little fluff ball (as always). I had not gotten the achievement for finding him before, so it was nice to tick that off.

Plus how cute does he look perched up there!

I’ve been slowly going through the Halloween events in WoW. I’ve done them before, but it’s fun and there’s a few things I haven’t collected yet (pets, mostly). I already have the headless horseman mount from a few years back, one of the few mounts I’ve ever actually been able to collect. There are lots that I’ve been trying to get for years now. Aside from that, gaming has been nice and quiet – and relaxing, exactly what I’ve needed.

Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

The Result Of Squirt Day

I have been neglecting my pet collection this expansion pretty severely, I haven’t even collected all of the overworld ones yet let alone any of the special ones. That being said, I did want to take advantage of “squirt day” because it fell on pet battle week. Squirt is an NPC you can find in your garrison, and leveling against her is really easy once you have a set team. I used the Enchanted Broom and a second pet, along with a carry pet. I managed to get about 25 pets from level 1 to 25 with just the handful of games I played. I would have done more, but, well, life interrupted (as it always does). Still, I’m happy with the progress. My collection isn’t that great, but I do have three pets that comes from the WoW card game, and I know if I just keep chipping away at leveling and collecting I’ll do even better.

Did you level up any pets during pet battle week? How’s your own collection doing? Let me know in comments!

 

What To Do With Left Over Pickle Juice

I love things pickled. One of my favourite things to eat pickled (besides, you know, pickles) is pickled eggs but they’re quite pricey. A small jar will typically run about $15 (Canadian). Turns out they’re really easy to make. I had an empty jar of extra garlic pickles (kept the brine) and some eggs and some vinegar.

That’s pretty much all you need, or you can make your own brine from scratch. I boiled the brine along with the extra vinegar, and added some extra spices for a bit of heat. I cooked the eggs in my instant pot (no fuss and they’re done in 5 minutes) peeled them, and put them into the pickle jar. I sealed the jar, let it sit out until it cooled down, and popped it into the fridge for a few days.

Yesterday was the first day I opened it up to see how they came out.

Fantastic.

The flavour is decidedly tart – but not so tart that it makes your mouth pucker, and not in an uncomfortable way. Sometimes you get such a heavy vinegar taste that it makes the food obnoxious to eat, but not in this case. All it cost was the $2.99 carton of eggs, and they’ll last in the fridge for a very long time.

So before you go tossing out that pickle juice – try some pickled eggs (or carrots). Yum.

We’re All Friends Here

People die and it sucks.

I’m 36 at the time of this post, and that’s quite young, but I’m no stranger to friends my own age passing away. 2 year ago my best friend from high school died in the middle of the night unexpectedly. I’ve written here about Jean, a friend from EQ2 who died from suicide.  Over the years people I’ve known, people I’ve loved, have passed on. It doesn’t get any easier to deal with and it doesn’t get any less awkward to talk about but I wanted to talk about it today anyway because it’s one of those things that’s important to me.

It’s important that my friends know how much they mean to me. Even those I have never met in person. On twitter, on facebook, on discord, on G+, any place we may have interacted, I truly do care. I may not always get a lot of time to show it, and you may not even think I know who you are, but if we’ve interacted, chances are I do. I do know who you are. I spent a lot of time quietly observing the happenings from a distance. If you need something I’ll be there to the best of my abilities.

This post is spurred on by learning that Zach Best passed away a few days ago. I didn’t know him personally. I only knew him through his writing as Ravious over at Kill Ten Rats.

Sypster over at BioBreak has a post about it too and how he met Zach back in 2011 at a blogger breakfast, something I have always wanted to do but as of yet have not.

It reminds me again that life is fragile. That we need to embrace the happiness we have. That we need to show people every single day that we care, that they’re important, that their life matters to us.

Just some thoughts this morning.

Duolingo ?

Duolingo is a language learning app that turns learning into a game, which is not anything new, but it has become incredibly popular lately. I see a lot of friends taking on new languages, and I think that’s amazing. I’m typically a fan of anything that promotes learning new skills, I think becoming stagnant with our skill sets is a bad thing, and we need these challenges.

I decided to install it on my phone and see what it was about, refreshing myself in French. I was in French immersion when I first started school, my mother’s family is French, and over the years I have seen almost zero use of it so I’m nice and rusty. I can read it and speak it pretty well, spelling is a whole other can of worms. You do a placement test to see what level you rank at, and then lessons start from there.

It’s an interesting app, but I have one major issue with it.

There are some words that have multiple meanings, or words you can use instead of, or words that have evolved over time, and none of this is taken into account when duolingo grades you. For example, the French word “manteau” is commonly used for jacket, coat, and various other objects. Duolingo wouldn’t accept anything but “overcoat”. As I mentioned to friends, getting silly stuff wrong isn’t fun, and it takes away from the program.

You earn points daily for completing the program, can see your progress, earn badges, add friends and all that good stuff. The app is also free with ads that are blended in fairly well (they have their own screens that you can skip or click but the actual interface blends in well with the basic app interface). You can choose to unlock everything and pay monthly, there’s three tiers of payment plan offered depending on how often you want to pay.

Is this the most amazing language learning app out there? I’m not convinced. I do think it works well as a beginner stepping stone, and I can easily see why it’s so popular, but it’s a lot of memorization, no lessons or explanation what so ever on anything. I think it’s a good tool for beginners to learning a new language or refreshing one you may be rusty in but I’d combine it with other language tools out there, including actual classes and of course the best learning tool which is hands on experience where you’re actually speaking the language with someone else and having discussions.

I’ve personally always been of the opinion that languages are something you can learn that will never go “out of style” and the more you can learn the better. I regret not doing it more as I grew up, but really, it’s never too late.

Have you tried duolingo? What are your thoughts? If you decide to give it a try, which language are you going with? Let me know in comments!

Nomadic Gamer