It finally happened. I didn't think it would, but it did.

Eternal Keggers will no longer be raiding.

Why? Lots of reasons. Many of our officers could not handle the abysmal end-game raiding scene and have quit the game to play another MMO. Many other members have returned to our home server of Terenas. Some have rerolled on Mal'Ganis as Horde and created a new raiding guild, one that will play alongside the like of Elitist Jerks. Others have outright quit the game in general.

I do not plan to stop playing World of Warcraft anytime soon. My interest in the game is still very much alive. I look forward to the new content patch and future expansions. I like raiding and enjoy defeating new bosses.

Nataliah will remain in the guild and the server for the time-being. I have simply spent way too much time progressing her to give up. I have been offered a spot on Mal'Ganis and although it is tempting, I cannot fathom starting a new main.

It's odd, though. As depressing as the news is, I am not completely bummed out by it. I see it as a new start for, not just World of Warcraft, but life. I am no longer bound by raid times and guild responsibilities (not that I had any in the first place). I can focus on my studies, pick up a job in the summer, and return to my first love: Nintendo.

Speaking of Nintendo, I picked up Pokemon Pearl this past Monday. My team so far consists of Graveler, Machoke, and the evolved form of my starting pokemon, Plinplup (oh my god, why didn't I learn the starting water pokemon was a penguin sooner?). My team is in the low thirties. I have three badges. My playtime is approximately ten hours.

The game is a lot of fun, but I would've loved to see more touch screen functionality and speeding up of monotonous tasks. Watering berries is still a two-step process - you need to plant the berry and then bust out the watering pail, which doesn't seem like much work, but it made annoying because it is ten dialog messages long. Organizing items in your bag is still cumbersome as well - the touchpad can be used to skim through bag types i.e. potions, HM/TMs, battle enhancers, but it'd be great if you can click and drag to sort instead of using Select and scrolling. It's better than no touchpad functionality, like if it was released on the GBA instead, but come'on! What makes the DS unique is the controls and it could've definitely been enhanced.

Oh well.

I hope to have the game completed in a week or so, then have a full party ready to go online and battle some players around the world within the month. This'll be a great way to fill the gap of my online gaming.

I always enjoyed the complexities of raising the perfect pokemon. Setting up your team has never been difficult. It's catching the right pokemon with the right personality, traits, and IV stats that makes it challenging. I've attempted making a perfect team of (near-)perfect pokemon before on GBA versions, but without online, my opponent base was very small. Now I have the world to challenge and I can't wait.  ^_^

Even though these pictures have an annoying tag stretching across them, Ashley Tisdale looks insanely gorgeous. My jaw broke when it hit the ground.