Shhhh! I'm hunting wabbits!

I don't know about anyone else, but for me an eerie silence seems to have descended over Azeroth. Last night I did the Elemental Invasion event on both my mains, and got the "Tripping the Rifts" achievement on Puraa. No doubt over the next week or so, I'll take all my toons through and get both things done. But ultimately it's just another stocking filler - a pair of socks when you know the puppy you are getting is still out of your reach for a few more hours.

So we sit and we wait. Under five weeks to go and little to do to fill the void.

GKP runs aren't happening (why would they?), in fact raiding seems to stopped period. People are very much aware that the gear that drops off the starter quests in Cataclysm will very quickly replace the majority of your 251/264 gear. By the time Cat had reached level 83 on the beta she had replaced more than half of her gear with only the heroic 277 gear still being used.

The Hallows Eve event is over, Day of the Dead was a mere flashing the pan. Pilgrim's Bounty is two weeks away. So other than the occasional earthquake there is nothing to distract you from the mundane.

Of course there are a few players very busy, especially those who want to get the 'Insane' title finished before Cataclysm hits. But those people are in the minority.

Unfortunately I'm not one of those, so just what am I doing to fill my time?

Well on the business front:

1. Firstly I have my shopping list of items I am collecting before the expansion arrives. The list varies, some items I am just stocking up a specific amount (generally one or two stacks), whereas other items I am just collecting whatever I can grab as prices I deem acceptable (hooray for snatch). These items are things I expect to give returns on my investment once the expansion arrives - which are obviously all complete hunches, its just that the degree of speculation that changes.
2. I also continue to try and accrue gold for the expansion, although 'point 1' seems to be costing me more than I am making at the moment, so really I am treading water right now. My total wealth sits around 380K, fluctuating a few thousand either side. My biggest concern is that I am making sizeable purchases horde side to bring across to Alliance, which is eating into my limited resources over there. I was hoping to get 40k on my horde toon, but after two big sets of transfers in the last week, I am down to 19k and will have to make a concerted effort to reach that 40k goal.
3. Glyphs - still around, still observing. Glyphs have settled around the 10-25g range, with some outliers on either side. I'm just taking the cream off the top, and not wasting time with the AH undercutters. 

I'm getting pretty close to hitting a lot of the stock levels I have set myself. The 'need to buy' list gets shorter each day. However there are a couple of items I really need to work on.

It's interesting working with snatch to get your stock levels ready with a deadline all too visible on the horizon. For example, I was stockpiling a specific item, and had decided that I needed around 250 of them. On friday I had only 18 out of the 250 so I made a decision to increase my snatch thresholds on the weekend, which resulted in me now being less than a stack aware from having all I need.

This has left me with the two voices in my head having an argument. On one hand I shouldn't have raised my snatch thresholds so much. Cata is 5 weeks away after all, plenty of time to get everything I need. In all likelihood I have spent more getting my stocks up than I would have done if I had taken a softly softly approach. However, on the other side of the argument, I may well have completely missed the mark and got nowhere near to what I need once Cata arrives. And then where would I be?

So I am comfortable with where I am. Sure I probably spent a few hundred gold more than I needed to, but that's one less item on the list to worry about.

There is still one major purchase needing to be made, which ballpark estimates will cost me another 10k gold to acquire. My snatch price is close to the cusp, picking up dribs and drabs of the large numbers I need. But small snatch changes would still be in gold units (rather than silver or copper), so this is something I have to review carefully because a mistake will cost a lot more than a few 100g.

Outside of the business - I'm still levelling the DK (who is now level 74) with Cat's Priest who hit 70 on Monday. Its been fun levelling them together since Cat hit Northrend. We are limiting ourselves to questing on the weekends, making the most of the rested double XP.

As a distraction I'm amusing myself with a 'Rags to Riches' adventure on another server. The only difference this time is I didn't select enchanting as a profession. Breevok (original name huh?) is now level 11, has around 20g and I'll admit I am enjoying being a Cow Tauren. Sometimes it's nice to get away from everyone, and without Cata as a distraction, this is my own voyage of discovery.

And finally I subscribed to the Remote Auction Hose for a month. The reasons were several, not least because I was intrigued at how it worked. So far I've found it does the job but nothing spectacular. I'm using it to make sure I dont miss out on meeting my stock needs for Cata. It doesn't allow you to find those awesome bargains that Auctioneer does, but it does mean that you can keep an eye on bids made with AA, so you miss out on fewer of those crazy bargains. One feature I admit I do like it that it allows you to sell items from you bags, your personal bank and from your mailbox - and I've put this to good use clearing out a lot of the trash/crap I have in various toons' banks. See? I do sell some stuff!

Whether all this will keep me amused for the next five weeks I don't know. But in the lull before the storm ahead, one has to do something to do. What are you guys up to?