Been, and is almost gone. Rift: You’ll all be pleased to know that I finally collected the last of my Cuthberts this morning, while waiting nervously to go to The Appointment with Dr. Y. I also did a bit of questing with a male character wot I created the day before yesterday. It’s a bit of a long story, but basically I wanted to see what I could do with a Kelari male – I’d created (and de-created) a male of every race, and so far, only three of them are still standing. I’ve actually managed to not only get this one to level 14, but I also got him his “Merchant of Death” title, so maybe I’ll let him stick around for a bit 🙂 I’m contemplating moving him to a shard where we have a Guild in which I can put him, so how’s that for a surprise, eh?! Oh dear – I just tried to log into Rift, and it’s down… for “extended maintenance”! Eleven hours!!! It seems that a biggish sort of patch (!!), Rift 3.1 Storm at Sea is going live on January 28th – well, it’s the 28th here in Australia today, and in eleven hours it’ll be January 28th in the States as well – I guess that’s what it’s all about, so hang onto your hard drives folks, because it’ll probably be a big update! *sigh* there go my Dailies, and my two middle of the week Patron gifts – hope they’re still there when it comes back online! You know, as good as Rift is, there are still a few things that World of Warcraft has that Rift doesn’t, and I wish they’d hurry up and get with it! For instance, “Addons”. Small programs that run in conjunction with the game and make life easier for you, the player. One favourite that we relied on a lot was called “Altoholic”, where you were able to search the banks and bags of all your other characters, or “Alts”. You couldn’t interact with the items in someone else’s bank or bags, but at least you could see who had what – and when you’re an altoholic like me, it really is a most necessary tool – at the moment, if I’m looking for a particular item and can’t remember who has it, I have to log out of the character I’m currently playing and systematically go through each and every other character on that shard until I find what I’m looking for… and I have twelve characters to go through on most shards! It really sucks, big time! Another handy little Addon, whose name escapes me at the moment, was one that allowed you to add sort of “sticky notes” to the map, saying things like “This is where the stairs to the dungeon are!”, and things like that. *sigh* I really miss a lot of those “Addons”… The other thing that I miss is the World of Warcraft “Armory” – apparently it’s been reduced to an App for phones now – but with the Armory you could (and still can with the App) view not only all of your characters’ gear and stats, etc., or see a 3D model of them using the app’s built-in viewer, but you can also check out any other characters you might want to have a look at, as long as you know how to spell their names! C’mon Rift, how about it!  I dare you to create a similar “Armory” for Telara! 🙂 Unfortunately, nearly all the Rift “Addons” are written by enthusiastic young players with absolutely no imagination (I mean, like six million different Addons to check a Raid Boss’s stats!? How imaginative is that!? Give us something useful, for a change, something like the WoW Altoholic addon, Please!) and a lot of these writers don’t display much stick-to-it-ivity – in other words, it seems very seldom that a Rift Addon author sticks around to upgrade his or her program so that they keep on working when the game is upgraded – the sadly missed and much lamented Dimension Toolbox is a prime example…  Enough complaining for tonight – I shall keep you all updated on this new “Storm at Sea” patch – I think it’s the one where we’re going to get the ability to “fly” around our dimensions – well, not really “fly” fly, but move around (and up!) so that we can build second stories on our houses before we build the ground floor! 😉 I’m also told that we’re going to be able to “shuffle” Adventures for our Minions, instead of having to take “pot luck” with whatever comes up. Anyway, as they say in the classics, “News at 10 tomorrow night!” 😉

Now, my big afternoon. We got to The Appointment with Dr. Y., just as he was leaving – some sort of emergency or other, but he was back very quickly. He’s very pleased with my weight, but wants me to lose more (I want to lose more, too! I’m not done losing weight yet!) He says he can “live with” 90kg, but it would be better all round if I could go lower… remember the other night I muttered something about going lower than my current goal weight of 90kg? Like maybe 85kg… or 80kg.. maybe even 75kg? – he also mentioned 75 – 80kg today… and seeing that I’m not seeing him again for another six months, and seeing that I’m shedding approximately 4kg a month, I should, hopefully, be around 82kg when I see him next. He told us that if I can get down to 90kg (or lower), we’d start conferencing with Dr. D., another of my doctors when I was in hospital with the multiple PE’s (Pulmonary Embolisms, or blood clots) in my lungs. I did discuss this surgery briefly with Dr. D. while I was in hospital, and the theory goes something like this (only it’s much more complicated) Put me in hospital. Take me off the Warfarin, and put me on to another drug, which hopefully will also stop my blood from clotting in the wrong places. Get me stable on that, do the surgery, put me back on this second drug until I start healing properly, and then take me off that and put me back onto the Warfarin, then when I’m stable again on that, I can come home again. Sounds simple, but it’ll probably be a bit of a nightmare all round for the duration. Still, the end is finally in sight! 🙂 All of my results so far have been good – I had another blood test today and should have the results late next week, and hopefully they’ll be good too. I’m starting to feel quite excited, now that I can actually see the light at the end of the tunnel – I only hope it’s not an oncoming train!

Weigh-in this morning saw me clocking in at 105.9kg I weighed myself twice, just in case I was seeing things – so thank you, body, for at least getting me into the 105kg zone for today – I expect you’ll be back into the 106kg zone tomorrow, but listen, kiddo, we have six short months to come up with the goods! So help me to help you! No more stuffing around with simmering on the same weight for four days, and no more high rises in the weight results, OK?! If you behave yourself and get me down to 81kg or lower by July 21st, I’ll buy you an ice cream, how does that sound? 🙂 So, in the end, all’s well that ends well… (hopefully! 😉 )

So tune in again tomorrow night – don’t miss out on any of the interesting bits – my favourite eldest daughter will be over tomorrow because we’re off to buy her her Birthday present, shoes! (please don’t ever get me shoes, or slippers (some nice leather thongs might be alright though!) for my Birthday, I beg you! With tears in my voice! I hate shoes!) We might even stop in at Autograph and/or My Size for a smaller pair of slacks for me, if we have the time…  and I’m sure you’ll want to find out all the latest on the Rift front.. and whether my weight is still behaving itself and going down (it probably won’t!) Thingz will be happenin’ over here tomorrow, so until then, bee good, and stay safe! ciao, all! 🙂