Celebrating my WoW Anniversary, fun loot and Cataclysm!

Just the other day, I realized - it's been 5 - FIVE! - years this month since I first started playing World of Warcraft. Now I know, I haven't done any giveaways yet, but I thought, in order to celebrate this anniversary, I'd do so you guys (the readers) can celebrate it with me!

I am giving away a $25 Gift Card to Amazon.com!

Everyone should be familiar with Amazon by now - you can buy tons of neat stuff on there from video games and systems to movies, books, and most anything else you can think of - even some rare obscure items!

If you'd like to use it to purchase some WoW-related items (no obligation though), they have plenty to choose from, including:

• The Original World of Warcraft (aka Vanilla WoW) which comes with a 10-day free trial, for those who read my blog but have never actually played it before.
• You can also put the gift card towards your pre-order of the upcoming expansion Cataclysm!
• Various WoW-related books, including the artsy Atlas books for each version of the game, or the official strategy and dungeon guides among others - you could also get a few of the fiction books too!
• The Official Wrath of the Lich King z-board computer keyboard
• Some neat official WoW action figures, such as this hunter
• Fun novelty items such as WoW-related t-shirts, mana potions (see below in this post for more on these), and other fun little stuff like this Lion Heart Executioner sword!

The stuff you can find on Amazon is endless!

So how can you enter in this $25 Amazon Gift Card giveaway? 

Several ways:

• Follow my blog (if for some reason you aren't already!)
• Mention this giveaway on your blog
• Follow me on Twitter
• Tweet about this giveaway on Twitter
• Ask me a question on Formspring (only 1 question will count towards the giveaway though)

So that's 5 ways to enter in my giveaway for a $25 Gift Card to Amazon.com to celebrate 5 years since I started playing World of Warcraft (notice a theme here? hehe). For each way you enter, please leave me a message in the comments here (even if you already follow me), letting me know so I can count your entry - if you Tweet or Blog about this giveaway, please provide a link!

I will be choosing the winning entry via www.random.org next Wednesday, May 26th, so all entries must be received by NOON (central time zone) on Wednesday, May 26th. 

The winner MUST have a valid email address in order to accept the giftcard. 

Happy Entering and thanks for celebrating this anniversary with me!!

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Now as for today's Warcraft Wednesday post...

The other day a friend post a link to these babies on my Facebook wall.

I had a good laugh, but since hubby and I play both horde and alliance we'd have to get both banners and $30+ for one is just too much for a silly banner, not to mention we have nowhere currently to hang them, so it'd be better to wait til we have a house and a gaming room to get those and hang em up!

Also, while browsing around on the site (ThinkGeek.com) I found these and about died laughing:

Yes, that's right - actual mana and health pots!

Apparently they're like energy drinks, but the concept is actually pretty amusing, that someone thought to make these a reality. I'm tempted to order 1 set of each just for posterity! As mentioned above, I found you can also purchase the mana ones on Amazon.com.

Have you opt'd in for the WoW Cataclysm closed Beta yet? I did!

From a Blue Poster on the Cataclysm WoW forums:

Get those opt-ins ready for the World of Warcraft: Cataclysm closed beta! The sundering of Azeroth is nigh, and you don’t want to be left out in the cold of Northrend when you could be enjoying the sun-drenched beaches on the goblin isle of Kezan. To ensure you’re opted-in and eligible as a potential candidate, you’ll need a World of Warcraft license attached to your Battle.net account, have your current system specifications uploaded to the Battle.net Beta Profile Settings page, and have expressed interest through the franchise-specific check boxes.

So get your opt-ins set up, updated, and ready; we're worgen real hard to get the beta going soon!

It honestly took a whole 30 seconds and that was because I was distracted by something on TV so I didn't click the boxes as fast as they popped up, lol...

Hubby told me the other day that it's currently in Alpha, so Beta should be this summer which means that the expansion should be in the fall - plenty of time for us to set a little money aside each month to get me a spanking new laptop to play on!

My roommate in college got into the Beta for Burning Crusade and let me play on her account a few times just to check it out and then hubby and I opt'd in all of our accounts (1 in my name, 3 in his although one of his brothers primarily plays the 1 account but was a minor when hubby set it up for him) and hubby got 3 - 3! - Beta invites for Wrath! Of course he kept one for himself and gave me one. He toyed with selling the third on ebay but decided to give it to a WoW friend of ours that we meet up with in person from time to time as he's from nearby (and was in our wedding).

I never do *that* much in the Betas, as I'd hate to level up all the way only to have to do it all over again, but it is neat to roam around and check out all the new zones and get a feel for the starting quests so you're a bit ahead of the rest on launch day when it comes to knowing what you're doing and where to go. Also, with the Wrath Beta it was fun to finally try out the Deathknight Hero class too! 

I'm hoping at least hubby or 1 get into the Cataclysm Beta, as I can't wait to check out the new Goblin and Worgen races and see for myself how all the original zones I loved so much in Vanilla have been altered!

There's also going to be some major changes to professions in Cataclysm, one of which includes that they're getting rid of the specialized professions (for example, in alchemy you could do a quest to gain either Transmute Mastery, Potions Master or Master of Elixurs). I'm kind of annoyed by this, as the specialized alchemy quest chain required a lot of time farming mats and spending money on some of them too.

This sound kind of cool though - adding a friend through Real ID (aka email address)

To add a Real ID friend to your friends list, one of you will need to know the others email address. When you add someone as a Real ID friend, a request will be sent to the person you invite and they'll need to accept the request before you can see their information (character, server, etc.) in your friends list.

Your email address is not displayed in the friends list, and not visible to friends of people you are Real ID friends with. 

Just think, by the end of the year, it'll be here!