And now it’s Wednesday. Wednesdays are good, as far as Rift is concerned – on Wednesday nights we get two Patron’s gifts, instead of  just the one nightly bag of goodies, which usually consists of one Artifact (which I immediately pass on to my two main receivers of Artifacts, Satai on Hailol, and Jademoss on Laethys) and a couple of useless (to me, anyway) tokens towards the obtaining of better PVP gear. What is PVP, you ask? It stands for “Player Versus Player”, and it’s where some very strange players don’t think that it’s fun enough to run around bashing computer generated monsters, and getting experience, earning platinum, and gaining Reputation by doing so… Oh, dear me no! They think it’s much more fun to run around bashing each other to pieces, and getting experience, earning platinum, and gaining Notoriety by doing so. There is a dedicated shard, just for PVP players, called Seastone, but anyone can turn their PVP flag on whenever they like and whichever shard they’re on, but it’s usually regarded as a bit…. uncouth. So anyway, that’s what’s usually in the “nightly” Patron’s gift box. The weekly Patron’s gift box is usually just a little bit more exciting. In that, we generally get a piece of either blue or magenta gear (much, and much, much better enhancements than “normal” gear, respectively) which is “Bound To Account”, so if you don’t want or need it, you can pass it along to another one of your characters, who might appreciate it a bit more than you didn’t 🙂 There’s also a special key, which can be used to open extremely rare and hard to come by “Locked Boxes”, but in all the years I’ve been playing Rift, and with all the hundreds of characters that I have, I’ve only ever found a Locked Box…. once! I think Julian’s found one twice…They are, as I said, extremely rare – and yet here we are, being given keys for them, once a week! – go figure! 🙂 The third item in the weekly gift is…. a chest. No, not one of the exotically rare “Locked Boxes”, a locked chest, or crate. Trion make a big deal about how you could get the current, fancy Mount out of it, or Dimension keys, or a new Pet…. or… or… something fabulous, anyway! The most noteworthy item I’ve ever received out of one of those chests has been a Soulbound (so that I couldn’t give it to anyone else!) piece of pretty ordinary armor that I wasn’t able to use anyway Julian’s had some interesting finds though – he’s had a couple of nice Mounts, some actually not too bad armor, and I think he got a rather fancy Mace out of a chest at one stage, too…. So there is good gear to be had from the chests – it’s just that sour grapes me never seems to! 😉 These little presents are doled out from the Rift store after nine o’clock at night, so this morning I just Rifted. Chrysanthemum could have finished off in Stonefield last night, but it was dark, and there were Rifts all over the place – and I didn’t much like my chances of completing the quest under those conditions. There’s this great big giant of a Titan, who looks like a vastly overgrown Darth Vader (complete with the black, Darth Vader helmet, too!) that you have to locate, and then “lure” him in front of some magical cannons which will weaken him enough so that you can finish him off. I much prefer to do it in daylight, so that I can keep an eye on roaming mobs, and I also prefer it if there are no Rifts pouring out all sorts of nasties that you really don’t want, or have the time to have to deal with, when you’re busy playing Delilah to a gigantic Darth Vader! So I did that this morning instead 🙂 I was then supposed to go on to Scarlet Gorge, but I really don’t like it very much – I always get lost, and I’m not terribly fond of the end Rift that you have to close. The only other choice I had was Iron Pine Peak, and I don’t really like that place, either! It’s always snowing! It’s always snowing so hard that half the time I can’t find my own cursor amongst the snow flakes! However, it was a change from Scarlet Gorge, so I went there. Well, actually I spent quite a long time trying to find out how to get there, without having to go through Scarlet Gorge. After wasting more than half an hour on Google looking for a way in, the forums (plural) consensus was that you do have to run right through Scarlet Gorge, through the Guardian settlement in the north, dodge all the guards on the way to the rickety wooden elevator, ride up it, accelerate your Mount hard, and just bowl your way through the Guards at the top, where you can then charge off into Gloamwood, a Guardian occupied territory. It’s a barrel of laughs, if you’re a Guardian, but not quite so much fun if you’re a Defiant. Which I am. This time around.

This afternoon I waded through 94 pages of Brusheezy Photoshop brushes, looking for swirly brushes for my Bookmarks wallpaper. The styles were just not cooperating, and I was starting to wonder if it wasn’t the styles that were the problem, but the shape of the element (in this case, a font) that I was using… I finally got through all 94 pages about an hour and a half ago – and ended up not having enough time to play around with my new brushes I had just acquired, so I’ll have to leave that until tomorrow. I’ll let you know how they go… 🙂

Weigh-in this morning… Pretty good, actually – well, a start, anyway. Down two points to 94.9kg. I need to get down below 90kg by July 21st, and I fear that time is running out! Perhaps I should graft that fourth Stair Walk in on the way back to the Den after watching TV in the evenings… I’d jump up and down, but I don’t want to damage the building (or give any of the older denizens a heart attack!) but I gotta get rind of more than 4kg, in 97 days! Please wish me luck! 🙂

So, I’m not quite sure what’s happening tomorrow – I’ll probably be doing what I seem to be doing every day – Rifting in the morning, graphic-ing in the afternoon, with a bit of letter writing in between – though next week, I might switch it around, and graphic in the morning, and Rift in the afternoons, but still with the bit of letter writing in between – just for a change! 🙂 I was looking at my fingernails a few minutes ago – you know, I just might be able to get away with painting them next week! Wouldn’t that be cool! 🙂 It can’t be that long since I last did them, but it feels like months! Anyhoo, tomorrow it’ll be Rifting, Writing, and Graphic-ing – same old, same old. I sure hope my weight continues to drop! Oh, I forgot to mention! I did manage to get myself to Iron Pine Peak this morning – just as well I have an extra fast Mount though! I squeaked through, made my way to the elevator, went up it to all the snow, talked to the guy up there who gives you your first quests… and an Invasion Event started! The first thing I did on Iron Pine Peak was die! Three times! Looking at my Soul Tree (where I put my experience points!) to see if I’d done anything wrong, I couldn’t believe that I’d made such a stupid, fundamental mistake as to not give myself Feign Death as soon as I possibly could! I usually sacrifice Crowd Control abilities for a stronger pet, and Feign Death! Arrrggghh! That shall be rectified first thing tomorrow morning! Time for my evening Stair Walk – back shortly… Ecco mi! Sono ritornato! 🙂  (Here I am! I’m back! 🙂 ) Now, where was I? Oh yes (*dark look*) That was a truly unforgivable mistake on my part! I think I was so intent on getting a very nice Crowd Control ability that I lost sight of the really important things about being a Warlock-Necromancer Mage! Being able to Play Possum! Oh well, we live and learn! 🙂 (but I should have known better!) Anyway, drop by again tomorrow night – see if I’ve shed any more weight (or gone back up again!), and if I’ve managed to fix the problem with my Soul Tree! Hopefully I’ll have managed to get somewhere with these new Photoshop brushes that I picked up today (preliminary tests look… interesting?) and with a lot of luck, I might even have managed to incorporate them into my blog theme (but don’t count on it! 🙂 ) And that’s about it from me for tonight – all that’s left for me to do now is to tell you all: Bee good, remember to take the garbage out tonight, and, above all…. stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂