Blogger Master List

At the Blogmoot a few weeks ago I volunteered to compile a list of all the LOTRO blogs out there, sort of a replacement for the Featured Bloggers list that the main page of my.lotro used to have. But alas, I’ve been able to find neither the time to work on this nor the platform to set it up as I’d like…i.e. some sort of easily maintained database from which to generate a searchable/sortable list of blogs, with a picture to go with each link, and maybe with a Featured Bloggers list at the top and even links to the interviews of bloggers done by Tuiliel as well as Turbine’s featured players. I am nothing if not ambitious when it comes to html…and I just haven’t the time to set this up properly, so I am afraid it’s fallen by the wayside. Maybe a wiki format would be best? I thought about setting up a rss bundle in Google Reader too but…no matter *how* I would do this project, I just don’t have time to, what with the Ales and Tales podcast starting up and soon the school year too.

So, if perhaps there is anyone out there who would like to take on the project…please do!

In the Interim…Or longer?

Alas for the strange fate of My.LOTRO! While many are dealing with broken navigation, clunky formatting and numerous other annoying quirks with the new community site, I logged in to find that I now have a grand total of “0 posts.” Everything I’ve written on My.LOTRO in the past couple of years has disappeared, though Turbine web dev Bracket suspects that things were not deleted, just de-linked, and so there’s hope I will get my past posts back again.

In the meantime, Linett’s Lore takes refuge here, because I need a place to post Ales and Tales writeups!

I just really hope the old posts do turn up soon, because it’ll be hard to continue Linett’s back story if I can’t refer to the old chapters.

Golden Summer

Early in Lennidhren’s career and character development, I determined that gold must be her color. From the orangeish-gold Frayed Elven Robes that she started out with as a level 1 lore-master to the Elegant Dress dyed gold that she now wears, it suits her well and goes nicely with her almost-golden shade of hair. But her attachment to the color is not driven by vanity, as a matter of fact: She is, after all, an Elf of Lorien – the Golden Wood. So she surrounds herself with the color that reminds her most of home.

And that is why, having just this morning passed her driving riding test at Hengstacer’s Farm and been granted the right to buy a horse of her own, she CANNOT WAIT to acquire the latest model, the Pale Golden Summer Steed.

Someone was riding this horse of that breed at the Taste of Hobbiton race today, and Lennidhren was quite impressed. So now she’s been fishing all over Middle-earth to save up tokens for her horse, and all that’s left to do is to win the tricky little race and pick up a token for the horse. So far I’ve tried once at each race course and managed to fall in the mud every time. Argh. I did manage to complete the race on Linett in the Spring festival, so I know I can do it…just hope it doesn’t take too many more tries!

Because Linett is going to need that horse too. And it may not stop there. Vanita and Alduine know how to ride a horse too…

But once that goal is out of the way, there are so many other lovely things to collect from this festival! Linett has been eying the hammock and wicker chair, and most of all, the new cosmetics! The dress and tunic are both just gorgeous. Wonder how they would look dyed gold for Lennidhren?

Like the Gods

Following various links today I ended up at a site dedicated to the Elvish languages, which not only has information for learning them but (what caught my attention most) several poems and things in Quenya or Sindarin. And guess what someone there has translated to Sindarin?

Sappho.

How Do You Say…

Pronunciation. I teach two quite differently pronounced languages, Latin and French (well, three, if you count English, but MOST of my students can pronounce that okay). I also studied a bit of German, which is quite different from Romance language pronunciation, and have a working knowledge of Greek pronunciation through teaching Greek roots in Etymology class. Plus outside of school I dabbled in a bit of Welsh and Hebrew and…I suppose you could call me a philologist! I like being able to pronounce a language well; “French Diction” was my all time favorite class that I took towards my French minor as an undergrad, and I am one of the steadily growing minority of Latin teachers who insists on working some conversational Latin and oral recitation into my curriculum, just so the kids learn to pronounce it correctly – in at least two (classical and ecclesiastic) different pronunciation systems.

As such perhaps I’m hypersensitive to the correct pronunciation of words. For whatever reason, though, as I play LOTRO or read My.LOTRO blogs, I often find myself wondering -

Just how in the world do you pronounce that?

More Spring Riders! Epic Lottos and Epic Flashbacks

Apparently the Valar of spring festivals loves Vanita and Linett just as much as Alduine, for several Springfest lotteries later…they too are riding cute neon-green-blanketed Springfest mounts! That makes one for each of my characters who are high enough level to ride it, so I’m done entering that lottery now. I highly recommend trying it if you don’t already have last year’s spring mount!

Spring Rider

Alduine must be high in the favors of whatever Valar has charge of spring festivals, for the Lottery gods presented her with a new Springfest mount today!

Yay, free horse! I was hoping it was the new spring design, but this one’s pretty too.

Floating Vegetables Follow Vanita, While….

[rest of title that wouldn't fit in the editor:...While Lennidhren longs to dance.]

Unfortunately however, this floating bunch of blueberries was not quite the right height for Vanita to add it to her novelty hat collection. It would’ve fit Alduine or another of the tallfolk though!

More Fun with Floating Vegetables

Vanita picked up a new title today in the Lone Lands. An unofficial title, though, as you will never see it displayed on screen. But unofficially, you may refer to her as Vanita the Cabbagehead, thanks to her fancy new hat:

Hehe.

MMX

Happy New Year to all! Here’s to another year full of adventure, exploration, and the beauty of Middle Earth!

Also full of fireworks, if the lotteries won by my characters mean anything. They ran every other hour, it seems, and I entered quite a few of them once I noticed that, so nearly all my characters have won at least one multicolored set of fireworks! They made merry with the winnings…

Yeah, I have an abundance of alts…

Meanwhile, back in Thorin’s Hall, Mireleth continued to do well in the quest for the Glorious Beer.

Isn’t it a glorious looking arena?

She finally lost a round by being flung out of bounds before she could grab the coveted drink, but still managed to collect enough of it that she is now known as “Bruised, Battered and Contused” for her rough-and-ready efforts.

Worn out from a long day of brawling for the glorious beer

She also discovered that one way to lose the beer brawl is when no one else shows up to fight for it. You can’t win that quest unless you can smack your fellow players around three times. If you’re the only one in the arena, grabbing the beer is easy but you can’t finish the quest. Alas!

Where is everybody? Come play with me!

Proceeds from Mireleth’s (and Alduine’s) festive competitions have gone toward a set of the classy cosmetic gear, which they shall share, because it was expensive (and is not bind on acquire).

I love that red!

She and Alduine have also been stocking up on the Yule gift boxes and those kind Dwarves, Elves, Hobbits and Men gifted them with a few lovely items to give Linett’s home at 3 Haven Way a more festive look.

A Yule wreath and candle

Yule trees – two of ‘em – collected in past festivals

We decorated this wing of the house Hobbit-style with garlands and bows; a mountainous snow globe from Thorin’s Hall takes center stage and a brightly wrapped present is waiting to be opened

Alduine is eager to open this present!

The table is spread with a holiday feast

Garlands in the Elven style deck this wing of the house, and if I had a third wing, it’d be decked in the Dwarven style…

Ah, the infamous Glorious Beer…the Dwarf Gisli sent home a souvenir stein with Mireleth.

Mireleth and the other alts have not been entirely idle during the festival season. Mireleth advanced to level 21 in the past few days and acquired a cute little horse.

Not the horse, sorry. I failed to get a picture of that.

She also learned to manage heavy armor, so my armoursmith Trumpkin made her some of the best.

On her, though, it doesn’t actually look that heavy!

But she still found time to learn a few new dances at the festival…

Dancing like a Woman

Some of my other newer alts advanced a few levels due to winning the fireworks lotteries, particularly those whom I’d created for whatever reason but not yet gotten out of the introduction instance. They had to finish the instance to have access to a mailbox and collect the fireworks, so…now I am tired of the starter instances for a while. But Cindella and Corella et alii are no longer stuck in them.

So, on to another year full of promise! In fact, a whole new decade. Make the most of it, whether in game or in life. Bonne Année, Annum Novum Faustum Feliciter, and however one says “Happy New Year” in Sindarin!