05.10 pm

Grr! I’m starting late again this afternoon, which means that I probably won’t get this finished before dinner! I’ve been playing WoW all day – oh, and working on a few graphics too, for a brand new Bookmarks Desktop Wallpaper – anyway, this afternoon I finally got completely fed up with not being able to use Arisnoë, because she was busy twiddling her thumbs in the middle of an empty paddock in Grizzly Hills – well, not entirely empty, really – it was full of Hunters, all hanging around and waiting for Arcturis, the Spirit Bear, to appear – for either shooting, or Taming – depending on their reasons for wanting to find him – and with that sort of competition, I felt that there was very little chance of Arisnoë ever getting to Tame him… The fact that Wynterthyme managed to get him was pretty amazing, and I was incredibly lucky – you see, we’re in Australia – most of the players on Quel’Dorei are in America. So not only is there the actual time difference – we’re seventeen hours ahead of them – there’s also a certain amount of “lag” time involved – a bit like when you see a news report, or Current Affair program on television – the news or current affair anchor will ask a reporter overseas a question, and there’s always a very noticeable “gap” or “pause” between the end of their question, and the reply from the correspondent overseas (this time is usually filled in with the overseas reporter standing there staring at the camera and nodding their head, for some reason!) So there’s a “time delay” between us and them – not a big one, but certainly enough to make a difference in game play. F’rinstance, if you’re playing WoW in Australia, and you go to pick something up (or to “Tame” something!) and someone from America is going for it too, even if you get there a split second sooner than they do, and you’re gleefully thinking “Yay! I got there first!”, you actually don’t. Thanks to that noticeable time delay, they get whatever it was that you were trying to get, first – every time! That’s why we were all so happy when Blizzard started up the server in Sydney (Nagrand) – now the tables would be reversed, and we’d get things before they did, for a change! And although we do have characters – a lot of characters – on Nagrand, we still always seem to stick with Quel’Dorei. When we first started playing WoW, we joined a Realm (server!) called Scarlet Crusade, because that’s where my favourite eldest daughter and her husband played – but we left there and migrated to Quel’Dorei because (back then) it was a smaller, less populous and much friendlier Realm (server) and we’ve pretty much been there ever since – it’s “home“! It’s also where all our best and favourite characters are, it’s got the biggest Guild Bank, and the most money. Sure, we could transfer the characters, the Guild Bank, and all the money, across to Nagrand, but unlike Rift, character transfer on World of Warcraft isn’t “Free” – and there are a lot of characters to transfer! So, we sit at “home” on Quel’Dorei, and curse and bitch at the time delay, but put up with it, the same as you put up with a squeaky floorboard in your comfy loungeroom! 🙂 So I grizzled and growled about Arisnoë not being able to get her Spirit Bear, and took her off to look for a different pet. But you all know me, I wanted something different, something unusual – something that not too many other Hunters would have… Unfortunately nearly all those sorts of “unusual” pets are either Rare or Elite, or both – and Arisnoë needed something under level 92. Once again I went and looked on Petopia, and found lots of nice pets, but… Wait a minute! That one wouldn’t be too bad! I’ll get one of those! It wasn’t a Rare, it wasn’t an Elite, and it looked – well, if perhaps not “pretty“, then certainly downright different and unusual! I wanted a red one… I talked Thuglet (Mouselet in disguise, i.e. Julian) into flying me around Pandaria to look for one, but… guess what! They’re invisible. Only Hunters can see them – sometimes – or even see their tracks! Air travel wouldn’t do me any good. Neither did running around in the wilds of Pandaria, because I got killed, while trying to follow the handy-dandy map of the Red Quilen path! Arisnoë decided to give up and just go home to her Garrison, but she really needed a Pet! Then Julian discovered that there was a Dungeon entrance close to where we were, and we thought we’d just poke our noses in and have a look-see what it was like – I mean, what could go wrong? If things started getting dire, we’d just duck out again, right? So in we wandered… and the first thing I saw was a lone Quilen, so I quickly started Taming him – while Julian started trying to kill him! “Don’t kill him! Don’t fight him! I’m Taming him!” I yelled! “What?” said Julian, still fighting my Quilen “I’m Taming him!” I explained again – but of course, fighting the Quilen had grabbed his aggro (the Quilen was now mad at Julian and wanted to bite him to death!) so Julian jumped out through the Dungeon “Portal”, and broke the aggro tie and I started Taming him. There was only one danger – to me – and that was that I was still suffering from “Rez sickness”. I told you that I died while trying to follow a path to a red Quilen, and I had run back for my body – but there were so many roving mobs milling around my poor little carcass that there was nowhere I could have reclaimed my body and resurrected myself that was even remotely safe So I returned to the Graveyard had got the Angel of Death/Spirit Healer to resurrect me – and paid for it by suffering from “Rez sickness” – 50% less health – for ten minutes. I wasn’t even half way through my Rez sickness when I started Taming my Quilen, but luckily for me, at level 92 I was still strong enough to withstand the Quilen’s attacks while I was Taming him (or her!) I’ve called him (or her) “Grog” 🙂 I then Hearthed back to my Garrison, stuffed around for a few more minutes, then quit, and started writing… rather later than I had initially planned!

Poor Julian had to go to the Dentist today, to have three fillings! Not because he had holes in his teeth, but because the Dentist wants to replace all his old, grey amalgam fillings with nice, shiny white composite resin ones. Apparently when amalgam fillings gets old they can start slowly releasing the mercury that’s in them into your system – which is not a Good Thing! He taxied there and back because I didn’t think it would be a good idea to drive back from The Pines with a mouthful of Novocaine, but he seems to have survived it all fairly well – and we’re having pasta for dinner tonight, so he won’t have to chew too hard 🙂

Must go – dinner’s almost ready… back anon…

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09.43 pm

Back again… where was I? Oh yes, Julian going to the Dentist… He seems to be fully recovered now, which is just as well – my next Warfarin blood test is due tomorrow, so if we go early enough, we can go and do some shopping afterwards! 😀 I think we ought to head off, straight after breakfast! 😉 I’ve just noticed something annoying… the air conditioner and heater in this place are fantastic… but as I’m getting older, I find that I get colder in the cooler weather – or maybe it’s because I’ve shed so much of my insulating “blubber” – but anyway, the heater, of course, is on. Sitting at the dining room table, I’m cool, but not cold, but sitting on the couch watching television, I was shivering with cold, and most unhappy. Now I’m in the Den, with all the computers and what-have-yous, and I’m [please insert rude word here] very uncomfortably hot! The bedroom is coolish to warmish, but my side of the bed is very warm, because it’s directly under one of the air conditioning ducts. My bathroom is reasonably cool in summer, but struggles hard to stay warm in this cooler weather. I think we may need to adjust some of the air conditioning ducts… why can’t it be 24C all the ruddy time! (*disgruntled look*)

Food stuffz: last night we had pan-fried chicken breast on a bed of steamed rice, through which Julian mixed some finely chopped spring onions, which I suppose could be counted as “greens”, sort-of, and a half a store-bought Roma tomato. As I’d already had my slice of cake when Kate was over in the morning, I couldn’t have another one for dessert, so I had a Corella pear and a burnt fig yoghurt thingy. Because of Julian’s visit to the Dentist today, we had a late-ish lunch, which was a sandwich made with the extremely nice Coles-brand multi-grain, seeded crust bread, a bit of butter, and “plain-jane” sandwich chicken chunks. Quite delicious! 🙂 And for dinner tonight we had pasta with tomato sauce, and a small amount of parmesan cheese. For dessert, I had another Corella pear, the tiny “over-the-fence” fig that Julian picked for me the other day, and a slice of cake with a tiny bit of low-fat cream. I suspect we may have lunch out tomorrow, if we go shopping after my blood test, which although I love the sandwiches we’ve been having, will be a nice change.

Weigh-in this morning. Was a lot much more betterer! 😉  I went up to 63.9kg yesterday because I stupidly forgot to take my second anti-fluid tablet when Kate was over on Tuesday, but today I went down to 63.3kg – down 6 points (over half a kilo!) Innit amazing what a difference one teeny little pill can make! Ackshally, I’m a little bit anxious this evening – I hope I’m not starting to get Alzheimer’s! I forgot to take the ruddy thing again today! Mind you, I was a trifle distracted with Julian off at the Dentist an’ all – I’ve just taken it now though, even if it does keep me awake tonight – I just don’t want to balloon up to 63.9kg again tomorrow!

So there we are – in a minute I’ll go back and rescue Arisnoë and Grog – I left them in a very unsafe crater trying to get to a place that should have been a “given” Flight Point, but wasn’t. I’m not terribly good at reading half drawn maps, and I get lost easily in mazes of twisty little passages that all look just the same… and then I shall go see if Mouselet and Wynterthyme can get their evening Oil Dailies done – so that’s about it from me for this evening – do drop in again tomorrow night and find out if I got any sleep tonight, and what happened with my weight, how Arisnoë is getting along with her new Pet, and how my blood test went. Until then though, please bee very good, don’t forget that logic will get you from A to B, but imagination will take you everywhere, and remember to look after yourselves, to always drive carefully, and to keep cool – or warm – depending on your preferences… but above all, please remember to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂