Last night I got into my first Wrath of the Lich King instance; Utgarde Keep located in the Howling Fjord. As a newbie to instances here's a few things I learned. All of these are from a Hunter's point of view.

* Instances really are a different game from questing. To paraphrase a quote from Fight Club, "you don't really know your character or class until you're in an instance".

* You have to turn off practically all of your pet's special abilities except for Cower. Unlike, solo questing you *do not* want your pet generating threat and taking aggro from the main tank.

* Trapping is actually important.

* Massive amounts of DPS will not make up for the lack of other roles. We had three hunters, one death knight (frost), and one priest (holy). The priest was actually a dude playing a character on his girlfriend's account and had never healed an instance before. Our tank was also new the role.

* I need to look into acquiring a headset and getting into vent.

We mowed through the trash without much of a problem but wiped on the first boss twice before beating him. We wiped on the next boss-duo twice before we called it a night since it was getting late. All in all, it was a fun experience and I really enjoyed myself. I look forward to getting through more of it next time.

I got home last night before my family so I powered up the Xbox 360 to run through the update to kill the time before they got home. I was on the "choose an avatar as a starting point" screen when my wife came in the door. My wife had absolutely zero knowledge about the NXE update before seeing it on the TV.

HER: Hey, what happened to our Mii's? They're all different now.

ME: Uh, this isn't our Wii. It's the 360. Notice the crisp HD picture.

HER: Really? Whatever. Those look an awful lot like Miis.

ME: Yes, they do kind of.

HER: Why are they trying to copy the Wii?

ME: I don't know. They want what everyone else has I guess. [I proceed to choose my starter avatar]

HER: You picked a chick.

ME: No way. That's totally a dude. He's got camouflage pants on. And a baseball hat.

HER: It's a chick. Look at the available hairstyles. Those are female hairstyles.

ME: [Looks closer at TV. Realizes she's right.] Ah man. I could've have sworn that was a dude. [Hit's 'B' button a couple of times]

I apologize for the bleeped out swearing but this is just too funny.

My wife and I will be rolling our death knights soon. The question is which race? My wife will go with Blood Elf because they're pretty. There's nothing wrong with that logic. But which race for me? Two things to keep in mind are that I'll be Horde and I care very much about the aesthetics of the character I'll be looking at for hours and hours. Racial abilities don't really make much of a difference in the grand scheme.

Tauren: I'm not really down with the whole Earth Mother thing. And they're big. I'm annoyed enough with always having to look at the big hind quarters on my hunter's bear pet. I want to see the world and not a screenful of back side.

Orc: They're big. They're mean. They're the iconic Warcraft race. They look pretty cool in the death knight armor. But they have a posture problem. Maybe it's just the way they're built but they are always hunched over. Especially the males. Maybe it's not a big deal. I'll keep Orc on my short list.

Undead: Cool except for a few really annoying things. The bones of their elbows and knees are always exposed no matter what armor they're wearing. Most annoyingly, their toes always stick out of their boots and the undead toes look ridiculous. I thought the racial of breathing underwater would be nice but you don't really spend that much time underwater in WoW.

Troll: They look pretty mean. But a Death Knight with a Jamaican accent just seems out of place. Also, their boots never cover their feet. Just the ankles. That's always seemed weird to me.

Blood Elf: They look cool in the armor. I like the artistic design of the Blood Elf buildings. But I already play a Blood Elf hunter. It'd be nice to play a different race.

Look like it's Orc then.

What does one do with a week and half at the level cap before going back to the leveling grind? Solo a bunch of low level instances for the achievements. I had only run a handful of instances before so most of these are new to me. So far, I have to say Deadmines is my favorite. The Goonies-esque feel definitely adds to the appeal.

I also participated in the scourge invasion event as much as I could. I was lucky to have found a really good group my second time out. I managed to get three out of four pieces in the Undead Slaying gear set. Unfortunately, the event ended before I could get the fourth piece. So I feel a bit unmatched in my attire.

I have one more night before Lich King gets installed on my machine so I think I'll solo another instance.

Umm... ya.

I finally hit level 70 last night. I had to kill a metric ton of those bird people in Blade's Edge to get to 99%. Being a hunter with a bear definitely helped with that. After turning in a couple of quests I got my final ding. Then I promptly went to sleep.

Tonight, I'll get my flying mount, fly around for a little bit. Then hit the trainer to bring my skills up to date. I haven't been to a trainer since level 65, I don't even have Kill Command yet. Then I think I'll help run some guildies through some old-world dungeons for the achievements until Lich King arrives.

And maybe finish the Gears of War single player campaign too.

On a completely different note, my wife and I had the chance to play Rock Band 2 with some friends of ours yesterday evening. With a giant high-def TV and awesome sound system it was a very cool experience. Hearing my wife sing The Sickness by Disturbed while she held our baby daughter is not something I'll forget soon. Nor will I forget the four of us barely scrapping through Ride the Lightning (again with my wife on vocals).

In finally finished questing in Nagrand last night and moved on up to Blades Edge Mountains. I managed to reach level 69 as well which means I have less than a full level to go before I'm done leveling. For a week and half anyway.

I've been so focused on leveling I haven't thought that much about what having a flying mount is going to be like. Then again, I'm only going to be able to use that flyer for a week and a half before I have to go back to the ground in Northrend.

I'm somewhat glad the zombie infestation is over. It was kind of cool at first and then quickly got annoying when I couldn't go anywhere in Shat without getting infected.

For those of you who watch Heros here's a Smoove B inspired post.

"Baby, don't let our love die. Come back to me. I know I've wronged you. I want take this moment to deeply apologize for physically attacking you, wrapping you up in a disgusting cocoon and hanging you up in the corner of my loft. I'm sorry for that darling. That was my bad. Please try to remember the good times we had. My transformation into a hideous insect monster can't erase the love we shared, that one time.

I know I've killed a few other people, cocooned them and hung them up on my wall also. But I did that for you baby! That time I killed that drug dealer and dragged his body through my apartment and did the rest of my gross insect stuff on him. I was only thinking of *you*.

Look, we've both made our mistakes. It wasn't that long ago when you killed everyone at your brother's wedding. I know that was an accident. But your body count is much higher than mine. At least for now. But don't think about that. Just come back to me. If the cocooned bodies are bothering you I'll take them out. I'll clean all the blood off of the floor. I promise. Just don't leave like this. Please."

I'm not Onion material by any means but hopefully some of you found that amusing. One other thing that really annoys me about the new season of Heros is Claire's biological mom who just sort of shows up places, holds out her flaming hand and has that "look at me, I'm awesome" expression on her face. Not once have we seen her actually use her powers in battle and she was completely useless against the puppet guy.

I dinged 68 last night. I'm officially eligible for Northrend. This level went really fast since I was able to gain so much experience just by visiting the inns and grabbing candy from the candy buckets as part of the Hallows End event. I'll still have a few more candy buckets to tap in Kalimdor and Outland so there's even more free experience for the taking.

I'm almost done with Nagrand. I have a few more quests remaining that involve killing a bunch of Ogres then I'll be moving onto either Shadow Moon Valley or Blade's Edge. The later has a cooler sounding name so I'm leaning toward that one but I'm not entirely sure how to get there. I haven't really tried yet but just from looking at the map there sure are a lot of big spiky things along the border. I just don't want to waste twenty minutes bouncing along the border only to later learn there's some secret tunnel or portal in non-obvious part of Zangarmarsh.

I also need to take some time and re-install Auctioneer and Gatherer and start up the money machine again. I already have enough gold for my flying mount with a comfortable amount left over but it's always nice to have more.

Blizzard really wants players to be level 70 when Wrath of the Lich King hits next month. Last month during the Brewfest event they gave people a 10% experience bonus for attending a "Tapping of the Keg" ceremony which occurred twice a day.

With the Hallows End event going on now you can get 5,800 experience just by visiting a candy bucket in each of the inns. That's 5,800 xp per bucket! Multiply that by the numbers of inns for your faction and that's a lot of experience. Last night I flew up and down the Eastern Kingdoms collecting candy and gained about 20% of my current level (67) putting me ahead of pace for reaching 68 by Wednesday night. Very nice.

Seeing how Hulu embeds into this blog.

So Wrath of the Lich King doesn't hit stores until November 13 but the changes to the base gameplay were rolled out this past Tuesday. The main login screen is the WotLK login screen. The new profession is in. All the class changes and new talents are in. Barbershops are in. They're more expensive than I thought they'd be. It cost me 6 gold to change my hairstyle. Not that I can ever see it in game. My helm pretty much nullifies my toon's hair.

I've also moved into Nagrand and have been busy with the Nestingwary ("They're coming right for us!") quests. I'm now level 67 (4%). Just three more to go. Given the leveling speed improvement for 60 - 70 I don't think I'll have a problem at all reaching 70 in four weeks.

Hit level 66 while waiting for my brother at the airport. Alright Kim, time to get leveling!

My armory profile doesn't show me at 66 yet, but it will soon.

My five-year old son has been playing a lot of Lego Star Wars lately. Even though he can't really read he's learning how to navigate the menus to load my save game so he can play with everything unlocked. He knows how to exit a level and go back to the cantina if he gets stuck in a level. If he's playing with a friend he knows how to drop-out and drop-in to get the AI to do some jumping thing he can't do.

And apparently, he's learned how to play online with others, although I don't think he's entirely aware of what he's doing. I walked into the living room the other day and noticed him playing by himself but both characters were active on the screen. I thought it strange the second character didn't have 'Press Start' under the portrait. The other character was doing things that AI never does. I checked my Xbox Live profile on the web and learned that this was his third online game in less than an hour!

How did he know to go all the way out to the main menu to get into an Xbox Live game. I suspect he picked up this trick while playing at his friend's house across the street who sometimes has older kids over there as well. But his friend has a PS3 instead of a 360 so I don't know how similar the menus are for getting into an online game.

Anyway, I imagine the other players were wondering why this 'MichaelLuton' guy was just running around, throwing thermal detonators all over the place, and not really trying to accomplish any of the level's goals. The other dude eventually dropped out of the game and my son managed to finish the level thus unlocking the 'Online Player' achievement for me. Other achievements my 5-year-old has unlocked for me include 'Shoot First' and 'Follower of Fashion'. Go Tyler! Now, time to take a look at those parental controls...

I don't want to repeat myself too much so I'll probably reserve posting only when I level or enter a new zone. Right now I'm still on pace to hit 66 by Thursday morning. Of course, when I hit 66, the race with kcuartero is on.

Oh, last week I saw Level 70 Elite Tauren Chieftain playing at the World's End Tavern in Shattrath. That's the first time I've seen them in-game. Pretty cool. This weekend I'll get to see Level 80 Elite Tauren Chieftain playing live in-person. Ultra cool.

Level: 65 (2%)

Loving the "what killed all the druids?" quest line. Not so much any quest involving the bird guys. And there's a lot of them. I'm trying to stay out of Bone Wastes until I can finish with upper Terokaar. That's like a whole other zone down there.

Level 64 (72%)

Forty-four more days to go until Lich King hits. If I can maintain the one level per week grind I'm on now I should have no problem reaching 70 before then. I do worry about running out of rested XP eventually though. Since I'm gaining more than 3 bars a day that's very likely to happen during the back half of the 60's. Hopefully, by then the leveling improvements in the 3.x patch will be live and will make up for having to kill mobs on non-rested XP.

Speaking of mobs. It's all about those bird guys in Terokaar Forest now. How many quests involve those things anyway?

Level 64 (42%)

I bid farewell to Zangarmarsh to headed over to Terokaar Forest. So far I've been working through the "dead druids in the green place" quest line.

The iTunes Genius came through with flying colors when I asked for a playlist based on Rebel Yell by Billy Idol. Anyone who's a child of the 80's can't deny the awesomeness of this playlist.

I don't really understand know how All Right Now snuck in there but everything else is awesome.

Rebel Yell (Billy Idol)
Sharp Dressed Man (ZZ Top)
Hungry Like the Wolf (Duran Duran)
Juke Box Hero (Foreigner)
You've Got Another Thing Coming (Judas Priest)
Call Me (Blondie)
Addicted to Love (Robert Palmer)
Just What I Needed (The Cars)
Hit Me With Your Best Shot (Pat Benatar)
Dude Looks Like A Lady (Aerosmith)
Eyes Without a Face (Billy Idol)
Working For the Weekend (Loverboy)
Heat of the Moment (Asia)
You Really Got Me (Van Halen)
Roxanne (The Police)
I Wanna Rock (Twisted Sister)
All Right Now (Free)
Gimme All Your Lovin' (ZZ Top)
Rock The Casbah (The Clash)
Radar Love (Golden Earring)
Love Is A Battlefield (Pat Benatar)
Born In The U.S.A. (Bruce Springsteen)
Round & Round (Ratt)
Money For Nothing (Dire Straits)
I Ran (A Flock Of Seagulls)