Way back in 1997, a then 13-year-old girl stumbled onto the Internet. She called herself “Pikestaff” after a character she’d invented based on the “Redwall” series of books; a hare with a penchant for causing mayhem.

Over ten years later, Pike still lives…

“Pike” has been the longtime Internet moniker (heck, offline moniker too sometimes) of the author of this blog. She is in her mid-twenties and she lives in the town where humans and Vulcans will make first contact according to Star Trek lore, and she is very proud of this fact. she has recently moved away from the town where humans and Vulcans will make first contact according to Star Trek lore. She misses the mountains but the ocean is pretty spiffy.

Pike likes robots and bunnies and robotic bunnies. She also likes ice cream.

She has a tendency to fangirl obsessively over GNU/Linux, her operating system of choice. In fact, she has a tendency to fangirl over the Open Source/Free Software movement in general. Be warned.

She wears a trenchcoat and either a fedora or bowler hat most everywhere she goes. Goggles are another frequent accessory. She listens to The Safety Dance on loop on her way to work every day. The works of Fyodor Dostoyevsky and her binder of Pokemon Cards bump elbows on her bookshelf, oh, and she’s completely serious with everything she’s said so far and not afraid to admit any of it.

She likes tiny mechanical things. In a perfect world, she’d be a watchmaker, but she figures she’s not talented enough for that so instead she fangirls over and writes about 19th century technonerds. Gotta love a geek in a waistcoat.

Lastly, if you are anywhere in the vicinity and happen to have peanut butter cookies with you, Pike would appreciate a donation. Of cookies. /cough

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Frequently Asked Questions:

Can I link to you? Yep! =D

Will you link to me? If you are an active commenter and your name links to your blog, chances are I will pick up on it at some point and add you to my blogroll. If I do not, feel free to send me an e-mail and if your site seems to have some decent content and is regularly updated, I will link to you. (Note: if your blog is brand new I probably will not link to you right off the bat. Check back with me later though!)

Would you like to hook up for some advertising/moneymaking? No thank you.

Can I guest post for you/will you guest post for me? I don’t do guest posts, I’m afraid. I’m just not a big fan of the idea, since I tend to read blogs for the blogger and I assume that other people do the same.

Will you mention my product on your site so I can get some publicity? If it is specifically hunter and/or Linux related, then possibly. No guarantees though. Otherwise, no.

Speaking of Linux, do you really play WoW on Linux? Yes, via a program called Wine. Sometimes I write about WoW on Linux and you can generally find posts about them marked with the “Linux” tag.

But isn’t playing WoW on Linux with Wine wrong/bad/not allowed/[insert story you heard somewhere here]: I’ve done a lot of research on this and my official answer is “not to my knowledge”. Besideswhich, to quote the trolls, “If it’s wrong, I don’t want to be right!”

I want to raid as a Beast Master hunter but I have no idea where to start! What do I do?? Click here for the best advice I can give! The only thing that’s changed since then is that Beast Mastery has been buffed and is much more competitive than it was when I wrote that article.

I saw a “Tawyn” on [insert non-Silver Hand server here], is that you? Nope. I tend to view my characters as all having distinct personalities and so as such I generally do not share character names across servers, though I have made exceptions. Tawyn is not one of those exceptions. (At one point, though, I did have a “Tawyne” on Dark Iron, but that character is now retired, aka BALEETED.)

How do you pronounce Tawyn? Say the two words “Saw Win”. Now blend them together and replace the “S” in Saw with a “T”. And emphasize the first syllable. ^^

What is the cool add-on that makes you and your party’s name plates appear in 3-D? X-Perl Unit Frames.

“For the Horde” or “Glory to the Alliance”? Both! No really, I rather enjoy playing both factions. Alliance if pressed, though I am often more prone to be found Horde-side due to circumstance.

PvE or PvP Server? RP and RP-PvP! =P

What servers do you play on? I play Alliance on Silver Hand – US and Horde on The Venture Co – US. If I mention in passing that I have a character on another server, rest assured that said character is rarely played and not above level 15. /cough

I love your art! Can you please draw me one of your cute pictures/avatars? I’m very glad that you like my art, but here is the thing. Every one of those little pictures takes an hour or two to make. Combine that with my full-time job, writing the blog, and WoWing to power the blog writing, and as you can see, as much as I would love to be able to make cute pictures for everyone, it’s largely not feasible unless it’s done as a paid commission. So my answer to this one is probably “I’m very sorry, but alas, no.” I try to make exceptions when I can, but as I tend to be very generous in my exceptions (I’m a sucker like that), I’ve already got a backlog of pending cute-picture requests. =( I wish I could make them for everyone, I really do.

Is your guild on Silver Hand recruiting? Order of the Rose is a casual-ish raiding guild that is full of lots of very nice people. I would advise checking out their website here and setting up an application on the forums if you are seriously interested… that’s what I did!

Warning: Order of the Rose is currently glutted with raiding hunters. Doesn’t mean we’ll turn you down if you’re a hunter, but it does mean you better be prepared to be raiding alongside six or seven of them. No joke.

Is your guild on The Venture Co. recruiting? No, because that guild is a small personal guild for me, my alts, and my friends and family. That may change in the future, but for the time being, no, Lunapike’s guild is not recruiting, and no, I’m not interested in leaving my mini-guild for a bigger one.

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Donations:
I have on occasion had people ask if there was a way they could drop a few dollars in my tip jar to help offset the costs of site maintenance and WoW subscriptions. Although I never want anyone to feel pressured into it, it does help, so here is the donate button if you feel so inclined: