I don’t know about you, but the last thing I would expect upon entering a food court is guerrilla opera. The Dungeon Finder and Raid Finder are much the same way — you never know what you’re going to get. Sometimes, it’s a group of smooth professionals who work together like clockwork even though they’ve never met before, and sometimes … well, sometimes you really wish you’d never clicked the button.

Today, we’ve got a few posts from around the blogosphere regarding these tools of randomness.

Man, I love Winter Veil. It’s the best time to stock up on snowballs to throw at unsuspecting players. I always wondered about the physics of snowballs — you can keep them indefinitely. You can stick them in the bank for a rainy day. You’d think that would soak all the precious loot you’ve got stashed, but nope!

This Sunday, players can nab Winter Veil gifts from under the tree, but how about I share a few posts from around the blogosphere for some fun holiday reading? It’s my Winter Veil gift to you — no snowballs included, I promise.

Man, when achievements first came out, I was absolutely hooked on the things. They arrived just before Wrath officially launched, so those last few days of The Burning Crusade were spent completing as many of them as I possibly could. These days, the fervor has died down quite a bit, and most achievements I have left are of the PvP variety — something I’m not too keen on doing.

Today we’re got a few interesting posts from around the blogosphere, including one insightful look at achievements, among other things.

• Heavy Wool Bandage offers some helpful advice on tanking the Greench from a bear’s perspective.
• Tree Heals Go Woosh has a fascinating post about the proverbial ethics of Raid Finder loot.
• Cynwise’s Field Notes takes a good, long look at achievements, accomplishment and … merit badges?

Nostalgia time! This old song by Myndflame, featured at the end of Illegal Danish: Super Snacks, brings back all kinds of memories — horrifying memories of eternal frustration with having to summon roughly 34 people to Molten Core because they were too lazy to get there on their own. Really, guys? Really? You know the locks have to burn a shard for each of your lazy butts, right?

Speaking of raiding, let’s take a peek at some posts from around the blogosphere on that topic, shall we?

• Priest With A Cause killed Deathwing and shares some thoughts on how she feels about that.
• Boozekin has the classiest guide ever to jumping into the Raid Finder and clearing Dragon Soul.
• Glow’s Branches offers an excellent post all about examining those pesky World of Logs parses.
• Lastly, hey! MMO Melting Pot is now taking nominations for what you think are the best blog posts of the past year.

The thing to remember when you’re watching Freakazoid is that trying to make sense out of the nonsensical is an exercise in futility. The thing to remember with the new Raid Finder is that expecting organization and efficiency is also an exercise in futility. Embrace the nonsense and you’ll love Freakazoid; embrace the chaos and you’ll love the Raid Finder.

Today, we’ve got a few more posts from around the blogosphere discussing the joys of the Raid Finder feature.

• Rank 4 Healing Touch has a wonderful guide on guiding your PUG to victory.
• Priest With A Cause tried out the Raid Finder and shares some thoughts on the experience.
• World of Matticus throws out an amusing list of 11 Raid Finder personalities you will never escape.

One week into patch 4.3, and my raid guild is already 7/8 in normal mode 25-man content. Keep in mind, we aren’t really one of those hardcore progression guilds; you could probably get away with calling us semi-hardcore. Three nights a week of raiding isn’t a lot in the grand scheme of things. It seems a bit odd that we’re so far through the raid already, but at the same time, it’s normal mode content.

Speaking of Dragon Soul, today we’ve got a collection of posts from around the blogosphere discussing the latest raid to hit the world of Warcraft.

• Dwarven Battle Medic shares some first impressions with the Dragon Soul raid.
• Jinxed Thoughts has some thoughts and impressions of every encounter in the raid.
• Falling Leaves and Wings dispels a few myths about raiders and offers a brief and simple guide to killing Yor’Shaj in the new Raid Finder.
• Blessing of Kings thinks that Dragon Soul is correctly tuned, at least from the 25-man normal mode perspective.

Let’s take a break from all the patch 4.3 commentary. Well … sort of. Today I’ve got three very different sort of posts from around the blogosphere that talk about an assortment of subjects. While two discuss 4.3 in a roundabout kind of way, the third is a long look into the nature of corruption and the various corruption-themed story arcs in WoW. All three are pretty insightful, that’s for certain!

• Sheep the Diamond discusses the nature of time travel in fiction, particularly in WoW.
• Herding Cats talks about the fine line between too easy and too difficult when it comes to heroics.
• Parallel Context takes a look at the Burning Legion and the cycle of corruption in WoW.

One of the highlights of the new 5-man heroics was hearing Illidan affirm the fact that yes, I was prepared. It was a nice little wink back to the Burning Crusade trailer, and it made a heroic that was already wildly entertaining even more fun.

So how are you liking the new patch? We dug up a few posts from around the blogosphere with some first impressions of the patch, the raid, and more.

• Priest With A Cause shares some first impressions of the new heroics, void storage, and transmogrification.
• The Grumpy Elf is actually not grumpy at all about the new Raid Finder feature.
• Cannot Be Tamed has a first look at the Dragon Soul from a healing druid’s perspective.
• Big Bear Butt did not have everything go as he expected.

Unless you’ve been living in a cave for the last several months, you ought to be keenly aware that Blizzard is just about ready to unleash patch 4.3 upon us all. With transmogrification, void storage, a new island to explore, three new heroics, a brand new raid boss, a multitude of class changes, a new legendary, and a new level of raid difficulty, patch 4.3 has something for just about everyone! Except for those living in caves. You can pretty much continue your cave existence, if that’s really up your alley and all that.

Today we’ve got a few more posts from around the blogosphere with guides and discussion for the upcoming patch.

• MMO Melting Pot has a guide to everything you ever wanted to know about the new Raid Finder feature.
• Achievements Ahoy has a lovely list of patch 4.3 gear for holy paladins.
• Orcish Army Knife has been busily working away on a list of non-raid weapons that look suitably cool for the new transmogrification feature.
• Lastly, Gauss’ Adventures in World of Warcraft has a delightful list of tongue-in-cheek reasons you might fail at knowing what is happening in the upcoming patch.