As you can see, the blog has undergone a very slight colour change 😉 Whilst I did like the yellow – so different from anything else I’ve ever used, (a) it could only display “smilies” as two dots and a curved bracket (only up the right way, not on its side), and (b) it was a trifle harsh on the eyes 😉 I had the devil of a job with this new header though – I didn’t want it to be exactly the same as the body of the blog, but I didn’t want a clear demarcation line between the two, either. I thought of using a gradient, and that worked well… except for one teeny thing. As usual, the header size, as given by Word Press, is again totally incorrect. The width is fine… the height is wrong! I have no idea how high (deep?) the header actually is – normally, I’m really good at judging distances – I can judge images to within one pixel – so why couldn’t I with this? Because what you and I see on the screen here in the blog is not the same size as the header images I make. For whatever reason, Word Press alters the aspect of the image – you can see it if you look closely at the text edges on the header – there’s an ever so slight blurring effect; it’s no longer crisp and knife-edge sharp, as it is in the original image. This tells me that the aspect ratio has been changed – made smaller, actually. Yes, I could fiddle around all day for a couple of days, and still not get the header size right – it’s a bit like sawing a random bit of a table leg off, to try to get it to stop wobbling – in the end you end up with a useless table, that still wobbles! Well, the gradient idea was a good one – it just didn’t work properly. In the end, I used a gradient that went from darker colour on the top, to transparent on the bottom, allowing the blog background colour to show through. Well, it seems to work from my side of the screen, anyway – but as Julian and I have found, time and time again, sometimes different browsers display the exact same colour, differently. Go figure! 🙂 However – I hope it meets with everyone’s approval 🙂

Another good day in Dusken was had by all – even though I died three times! Julian didn’t die at all – he took a leaf out of my “Cowards Book of Excuses”, and ran away a lot I was the bunny left holding the bag… What happened was that we foolishly allowed ourselves to be talked into doing a Rift quest*, by a cowardly little quest giver in Tempest Bay (why these lazy little quest givers can’t go off and do their own dirty work, is what I want to know!) We had to buy (with out own gold!) a special Rift “lure” – this means that when you find a Rift forming, you can poke this lure into it and turn the Rift into the sort of Rift you want or need it to be. In this case, a “Hunt” Rift. I had the bright idea of opening it up in Freemarch, a “baby” area, so that the Rift would be low-level and easy to close. Unfortunately, it had to be in either Dusken or Brevane. We went back to the Dusken “training” area, found a “tear”, and opened our Rift. The first part wasn’t so hard – we had to establish a “conduit” or something – that was the easy part. Then we had to defend it for an unspecified length of time. Wave after wave of nasty mobs were rushing towards us and the conduit. I raced in and got as close to the conduit as possible – I have two AOE spells which are very effective at dealing with hostile mobs (AOE stands for Area Of Effect, and they affect an entire area, not just a single target, with devastating results) So I’m standing in close, more or less spamming these two spells, himself is standing outside the area, blasting away at individuals. This worked really well until one very nasty individual also decided to stand outside my sphere of devastation, and zap me! It didn’t take him long to wipe me out. But I got better! 🙂 I came back and continued my defense of this stupid conduit. By this time, the Big Bad Boss that we had to kill had arrived, and we had him almost dead! Almost! He was “slivered”! But then I died again, didn’t I! Exactly the same was as I met my doom the first time, too! (you’d have thought that someone would have noticed the pickle I was in and zapped the zapper, wouldn’t you! 😉 ) The thing is, when you die, the surviving mob you were fighting returns to full health.  Not a good look. That Boss was so very nearly dead! (*shakes head in dejection*) We were beginning to think that we wouldn’t be able to get this Boss down with only the two of us… But we tried again. And once again, we got him slivered. Once again that wretched, evil, no-good mob zapping me stood there, outside my circle, and zapped me. It was a race to see who’d die first – me, or the Big Bad Boss! I’m happy to say that I didn’t die that time, the Big Bad Boss did! The rest of our adventures in Dusken were pretty routine, after that – we mowed ’em all down, no problemo – and we went up. not one, but two levels! 🙂 Mainly because I insisted on doing every possible Carnage quest available. They don’t take long, really, and it’s certainly worth the extra experience points you get from them. When we finished up for the day, I went straight off and did my evening Stair Walk so that I could concentrate on this…

Weigh-in this morning. Was not good! I didn’t go up, but I almost wish I had… I stayed the [heavily censored] same! 😦 I am not a happy little vegemite today! I hope I do better tomorrow – the day of the dreaded fluid retaining pill is creeping steadily closer…

And so that was our day that was – I thought that my favourite eldest daughter would be coming over tomorrow, but she’s not – she’s coming on Tuesday – so I think I’ll wash my hair and start work on Asima tomorrow – see how far up the ladder to level 40 I can get her (she has a Trove of experience boosting pots, too! 😉 ) I came across (yet another) name that I liked for a Rift character today, too – I’ve already created a character – just to see if I could get the name (which I did) “Hepzabeth” – a combination of Hepzibah, and Elizabeth – I think it’s nice – and it sounds unusual 🙂 I don’t know what I’ll do with this new girl yet – probably nothing, but at least I’ve put a “place holder” on the name 🙂 And that’s about all from me for tonight – see? I told you last night that there’d be heaps for you again tonight, and I was right, wasn’t I?! 😉 And I can promise you that there’ll be lots of goodies for you here tomorrow night, too – so call back and see if my weight has started behaving or not, and if I’ve really started working with Asima, or if once again I’ve abandoned her for yet another Defiant character – maybe one of the boys, this time… who knows? (I just can’t seem to get a handle on Asima – even if she is me – maybe I should “re-roll her…) Anyway, you’ll find out tomorrow night 🙂 Now all that’s left for me to do is to tell you all to bee good, don’t let the bed bugs bite, and above all… stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂

*Regarding Rift Quests: *makes note to self: remember to decline any and all quests that even hint of Rifts, or Dungeon!*