My mouse just died! 😦 It’s been a little on the “fussy” side for a couple of days – clicks didn’t always register, when I was playing WoW, and running along (or flying along) and I had to go around a wide bend, or change direction suddenly, sometimes it would just make me go straight ahead instead of turning – annoying little things like that. Then this evening, just before dinner, it suddenly stopped dead in its tracks – erm – quite literally, actually! I was most displeased! I really liked that mouse too – it was a lovely little white Toshiba mouse – definitely a cut above your common or garden-variety Logitech and Microsoft mice – and now it’s deadiebones! At the moment I’m using a makeshift Logitech mouse with a red sports-stripe, and I don’t like it very much – the wheel is so “loose” you could almost say it was “freewheeling”! It seems almost reluctant to position the cursor quickly and accurately (I hope I’m never asked to do any graphic work with it!) and it feels heavy and unbalanced, compared to the little Toshiba mouse. It’s rather strange really – because during the many, many years that I’ve been working with computers and their associated hardware, I’ve never really had any mechanical problems with either corded or the optical cordless, mice! But all of a sudden, in the last ten months or so, I’ve had nothing but problems with my cordless mice, no matter what brand they were! I haven’t used a corded mouse for years – I find that the cords are awkward, and get in the way when I’m gaming, or if I need to clear away my desk for anything. The cords are always horribly black, chunky and thick, clumsily unwieldy, and somehow always manage to get themselves caught up under, behind, or on top of, items on my desk, and… well, I just don’t like them! 😛 I might see if I can find yet another new mouse on Tuesday, though I doubt that there are any left that I haven’t already tried – and found wanting! 😦

Today being a Sunday, Julian and I teamed up in Draenor to go questing. The first part of that went alright – we managed to knock over quite a few quests that had been sitting in my quest log for a while, and we decided that we’d go looking for the Petrified Ancient (a sort-of Tree Ent, if you will!) in order to get a particular item from it which would start us off in our bid to get the Achievement “Legacy of the Ancients”, the Achievement needed to get the plans for a Level 3 Lumber Yard, and the ability to cut down really big trees, as well as small and medium-sized ones! Julian had seen one of these Petrified Ancients just last night, so we took off for the area in which he’d seen it – only to find that it was no longer there – either because someone else had already been there, killed the Ancient, and made off with its book-thingy. So we went around for ages, looking for this ruddy petrified tree, and eventually, we were able to find another. We did all the right things. We killed off anything that might attack us in the area, and then set to work on the Petrified Ancient itself. So we killed it. It didn’t drop a brass wazoozie! So, after much grizzling and complaining, because we were sure we’d done everything properly, we plodded on to see if we could find another Petrified Ancient to kill. Well, we didn’t exactly plod along – it was more like a mad scramble and dash to outrun and outwit the hordes of mobs and monsters that chased after us, trying their best to turn us into pulped tree fertilizer! We both died quite a few times during the course of the day – mostly from leaping off very tall cliffs in a flimsy motorbike (with me and Swipe belted into the sidecar!) and another time, Mouselet had kindly and thoughtfully provided me with a set of Goblin-made glider wings, in which I was supposedly going to be able to glide gracefully from the top of a very high cliff, gently down to the ground – unfortunately, I clumsily managed to fumble their deployment on my way earthward – because they cannot be opened up while you’re on the ground, where it’s safe – they can only be activated while you’re in the air, falling astonishingly quickly to your death! (Julian, despite being a bit of a klutz in real life, managed to use his Goblin-made glider wings just fine, thank-you-very-much!) However, we did manage to find another of these extremely rare Petrified Ancients, and after carefully reading the printed out instructions several times, and thoroughly memorizing the text, we killed this one too… and… would you believe… the item we needed still didn’t drop? Whaaat?? This item is supposed to have a guaranteed 100% drop-rate! I just said “extremely rare Petrified Ancient”, didn’t I… that’s because we spent the best part of the afternoon running around two different zones, where they’re supposed to live – and we only found two, both of which failed to deliver the 100% guaranteed drop! Julian decided to “Raise a Ticket” – that is, send a polite in-game message to the Moderators, asking them what the hell was going on! We’re supposed to get a response in 24 hours (but it could be longer!) Look, I really do realise that Achievements shouldn’t be too easy to get, but this was just damned ridiculous! The mob density around those areas would make each sardine in a tightly packed tin think that it was all alone on a desert island, and whereas you could be excused for thinking that most of the mobs on World of Warcraft were both blind and deaf, in that you can generally run around only a few yards away from them, and they don’t notice you, these ones were so sensitive to your presence that they’d try to attack you, even when you were half way up a steep hill, about a quarter of a mile away! Julian’s going to try again tonight, to see if he can get the item to drop – because there’s only one thing we didn’t do – allow the lumberjack who attempts to fell the Petrified Ancient to get killed for his temerity, before we start attacking it. I dunno – it might work – I only read that in one of the six or seven discussions that I found when I was looking for clues on how to complete this Achievement – none of the others mentioned this one tiny fact, so maybe it won’t work… who knows! But first, Julian has to find another one of these stupid Petrified Ancients!

Food stuffz: last night we had lamb backstraps, pan-fried, with half a tomato, Brussels sprouts, and a reprise of the steamed rice with finely chopped spring onion in it. The lamb backstraps weren’t quite as good quality, or as thick, as we usually get, but they still tasted good, and I really do like having rice for a change! I had another of the bought figs for dessert – they’re nice, but not quite as red and “jammy” inside as the ones that hang over our back fence (maybe there’ll be some more ready for picking tomorrow!) and I had some yummy Coles Rice Pudding – I hope no-one at Coles ever finds out how much we like them, because they’ll become a “Discontinued Item” by the following week! Today for lunch I had a very nice whole-meal ham, cheese, tomato, and sliced red and yellow peppers sandwich – and instead of the usual low-fat Swiss Cheese that Julian uses, today he used the low-fat Halloumi cheese, which is my favourite! 🙂 Tonight we had Julian Omelets – some of the best he’s made so far, I think – ham, low-fat Halloumi cheese, tomato, chopped red and yellow peppers, and spring onions – there’s a bit of a story to these omelets, actually – Julian had noticed that the fridge had been smelling a bit “off” for a couple of days, so he cleared it all out, and threw a lot of stuff away, but the smell persisted. This morning, he pulled out the new carton of eggs that he bought only a short time ago – they were well and truly within their “Best Before” date – and just checked to see that we had eggs for the omelets tonight. The smell had been coming from these so-called “fresh” eggs! Needless to say, they were disposed of, and he made a special trip out this afternoon to get “safe” eggs for our dinner! 🙂 For dessert tonight, I had the last of the bought figs, and a reprise of the Coles Rice Pudding… psst! don’t tell anyone at Coles that we both really like it! 😉

Weigh-in this morning. Getting better! 🙂 I went down another three points this morning, from 63.2kg to 62.9kg! Personally, I’d like to lose a bit more of this fluid – my feet are still very puffy, although my fingers have gone back to their normal size again. Let’s just hope that we don’t get any more really humid weather again until next year! Anyway, with a wrap for lunch yesterday, and a sandwich for lunch today – I may just be a bit up again tomorrow, and unfortunately I won’t be able to say “It’s just fluid!” 🙂

And so to tomorrow – Monday.  I think Julian is planning on having another go at tracking down this Petrified Ancient, and press-ganging my favourite eldest daughter into doing fly-overs to search for these rare beasties for us – because she’s able to fly in Draenor, and we’re not – but as I said to him – it all depends on what she’s doing tomorrow! Anyway, we’ll see… I’d like to clear out a few more of the quests on my quest log – one’s been there for almost two weeks! I’m also rather anxious to get back to Arisnoë, and her personal quest for her Spirit Bear! I wasn’t able to get back to her last night, and I haven’t been able to get back to her tonight either, so hopefully she might get her Bear tomorrow night! But until then, I think that’s about it from me for tonight – it’s well past midnight, but – better late than never, eh?! 😉 Do drop in again tomorrow night to see if we’ve managed to get our drop from the elusive Petrified Ancients, whether poor old Arisnoë has been able to get her new Pet, and what my weight’s doing to annoy or please me! In the meantime, please do try to bee good, remember, if you think you are too small to make a difference, try sleeping with a mosquito, and don’t forget to always drive carefully, to look after yourselves, and to try to keep cool – or warm – depending on what you prefer… but most of all, please don’t forget to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂