Winter’s log, earthdate 201510.27

Well, it’s been a pretty quiet day today – I Rifted for most of it, while Julian went out to organise all the mail-forwarding thingies, and finally, a brush for Flipper… He got it from the pet shop upstairs at Doncaster, the one that used to be a Pet’s Paradise shop, but is now something else wot we can’t remember. It’s a silicone “Zoom Groom” brush made by Kong; it’s a roughly rounded diamond shape, and has the big, fat, conical “teeth” that Flipper likes so much – it’s supposedly for a dog (well, it’s got a dopey doggie image embossed on it) but it can be used for cats too. I’m glad I was sitting down when he told me how much it cost though! It was thirty dollars! ($30!) Shoot! There wouldn’t even be one dollar’s worth of silicone in it! They used to be so cheap – a regular dime a dozen – and they were everywhere! Supermarkets, mixed businesses – even some enterprising newsagents sold them! From memory they used to cost a couple of dollars… back in the days of the cave-men! Anyway, Flipper has her brush, and Julian had very fluffy, woolly, trousers on, by the time he’d finished brushing her – but Flipper loved every second of it! I also started working on a new desktop wallpapery thingie this morning – I like the one I’ve got, but I’m getting a little tired of it, and it’s hard to make new Windowblinds skins match it because it’s a soft mint green… but this one will be in soft winter greys – I’ve done most of it, now I just have to find a nice font, and that’s proving to be a bit of a problem. I periodically go around checking all my font sources, to see if there’s anything new, or worthwhile getting if it isn’t too expensive. Last night I went on one of my font checkups, and I saw that one of my favourite font makers is back from a bit of a break – so of course, I just had to go and look, didn’t I! 🙂 He specialises mainly in Art Deco style fonts, which I love, and he only charges $10 per font. He sells them through MyFonts, and truth be told, I spent a lot of last night, and a great deal of this morning, drooling all over my keyboard, wondering which one(s) to get! I just can’t decide! I’ve already got quite a few of them, but I’d like a new one for the text on the desktop wallpapery thingie wot I started making this morning *sigh* Decisions, decisions, decisions! At the moment I’m torn between Cleveland Litho NF, Babes in Toyland NF, Boxcar Willie NF, and Chiselle. Which one should I get? They’d all be great…

On the Rift side of things this morning, I didn’t really do all that much actual “playing” – I’m still basically “tidying up” the shards and the Guild Banks. Once upon a time in Rift, you’d pick up garments and other types of gear as you went about, happily slaying left right and centre – either as quest rewards, or mob “drops” (what the mob drops as it dies!) Some of them looked pretty cool, so you’d jealously hoard them in your bank to wear as a “wardrobe costume” – you were still equipping your ordinary armor, but the wardrobe function gave you the ability to “disguise” it with the much cooler looking gear that you weren’t able to use normally. This used to really clutter up your bags and your bank – once you used it, it became “bound” to you, and you couldn’t even pass it on to any of your other characters – so if you wanted that particular look for any of them you had to go out and find, or buy, another version of that piece of equipment through the Auction House, often at truly horrendous prices, because the item was either a rare “drop”, or cost a lot to make… and of course it was very popular! Supply and demand, folks! 😉 Then Trion went and changed the wardrobe “rules”. Once you’d “collected” a piece of equipment, it went into the “memory banks” (for want of a better term!) of your wardrobe, and became available for anyone on your account to use. What’s more, you could dye it any colour you liked, and you didn’t even have to buy the dyes! Your wardrobe remembered those too, plus a lot of new colours as well! So you no longer needed to keep these precious and desirable items in your vastly overcrowded bank vaults, you could now sell them, throw them away, destroy them… Anyway, such is the ingrained habit of hoarding, and not throwing “useful items” away, that I had (and in fact still have!) an awful lot of these once expensive and desirable garments and weapons floating around my banks… and that’s mostly what I did this morning – selling them off for a pittance, destroying them – and just generally making spaces. I have a feeling that tomorrow morning is going to be similar, as Julian will be busy ferrying my favourite eldest daughter and her husband around for this “Day Procedure”, and I’ll probably be left “minding the store”… (it’s a tough job, but somebody’s got to do it! 😉 ) Still no word from Clarke – if we don’t hear anything by tonight we might have to give him a call… He was supposed to be emailing me the dimensions of the glass brick window in my new bathroom, so that I could “map out”, or design, where I wanted the wavy lavender glass bricks amongst the wavy clear ones, but I don’t think it really matters – they’re just supposed to be “scattered carelessly”, no rhyme nor reason, amongst the plain ones. “Cazule-like” 😉  Tomorrow night, of course, is the dreaded “Going Away” party for us at our old apartment. I don’t really know why I’m dreading it as much as I am… It’s not that I don’t like the people – I do like them, they’re all really, really nice, and it’s not as though I’m going to be standing around for hours making small-talk while my back starts screeching at me to “sit down!”, because I’ll be sitting very comfortably in my wheelchair, sipping mineral water and smiling a “No thank-you” to the elderly ladies passing around plates of beautifully home-made cucumber sandwiches and little savouries. The “do” starts at around 5.30pm, so hopefully we’ll be home around seven-ish. It’s really and truly not a great big deal… it’s just that… I don’ wanna go! 😦

Weigh-in this morning. Hmm… should I call for a drum roll? A trumpet fanfare? I went down…. one whole damn cotton-pickin’ point! Hallelujah, an’ all that! From 69.3kg to 69.2kg! Big Deal! This is the time where I want my weight to be going down in those great big four-point clumps, for crying out loud, and what does my wretched body give me? One measly, lousy little point! Goodness knows what it’ll do tomorrow – probably go up four ruddy points, or something! I am not happy…. 😦 Only two weeks to go…

Oh well, at least I hope my hair will look nice… I’m having it coloured on Saturday morning. I told Elliott that I didn’t want more pale or pastel colours, I want “in your face!” colour! He looked vaguely surprised… but I’m not a subtle person – I don’t think I know how to be subtle – I even used to have somewhat of a reputation on some of the forums for  being “a little harsh” for some unknown reason… I mean, I can be blunt sometimes, but harsh? Nevah! 😉 Anyway, Elliott seems to think that I should stick with the red colours, but I’m going to try to persuade him to maybe try a couple of foils of blue, or purple… I know they’ll fade quickly – those colours always do – but if the red is vibrant enough it should offset the rapidly fading blue or purple – or if the blue looks really nice, maybe I could have it touched up a bit more often? I dunno – in the end, I have to leave it up to him… And here I am at this point in the evening again! The time when I say “and that’s about all I have for you tonight” Don’t worry though, I’ll be back with more news, stories, “tall tales and true of the legendary past” tomorrow night 🙂 (anyone out there remember the old black and white “Disneyland” on Sunday nights, or am I dating myself?) Find out if my stupid body did what it was told for once and lost a few pounds – or gained them, if it was feeling particularly wicked – how my favourite eldest daughter’s husband fared, and how our Farewell “do” in Doncaster went (please don’t expect photos!) Oh, I should at this point mention that tomorrow night’s episode will be late – probably very late, and possibly short, too – but it will be here before midnight tomorrow, I promise! K? 🙂 Until then though, please try very hard to bee good, remember that if you can’t amaze people with your intelligence, confuse them with your wisdom 😉 and don’t forget to drive carefully, to keep warm – or cool, depending on the weather, and to look after yourselves – but above all, don’t forget to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂