05.24 pm
Well, I’m starting this a little earlier than I expected to be this afternoon, which is good – but it’ll probably still end up as a two-parter (in other words, I don’t think I’ll finish before dinner time!) We’ve had a good day today, both in “The Black Temple” – the 25-player Dungeon from the Burning Crusade expansion that we ran this morning – and in Draenor this afternoon, starting out on our own personal quests to achieve flying capabilities! Running around the countryside trying to farm minerals, trees, and herbs is a pain in the proverbial, from either Cat or Wolf-back, and running around enormous chains of mountains to find a way up is the absolute pits! We’re actually not too far away from completing the pre-requisite “tasks” for flying in Draenor (“tasks”, because they’re not really quests, per se.) First of all, we had to go through the six zones (areas) and thoroughly “Explore Draenor” [“tick!” √] Then we had to complete all the story-lines for five of these zones, to finish “Loremaster of Draenor” [“tick!” √] Next, we had to complete twelve “Bonus Objectives” – they’re sort-of quests, but they’re not given to you by a quest giver – they usually just pop up when you enter an area – usually an area where you do have a specific quest to complete (though not always!) And they do actually “pop-up” at you! All of a sudden the words “Bonus Objective” will appear on the screen in front of you, with a very brief explanation of what it is you have to do (like “kill 25 Iron Horde Snake Charmers”, or whatever) and there’s a little bar graph thingy under it that shows you what percentage of the task you’ve completed. Anyway, we had twelve of those to do, and we’ve completed four of them – so no ticked box for that one yet! Only another eight to go… 😉 After that, there’s “Master Treasure Hunter”, in which you have to discover Draenor Treasure (excluding the Tanaan Jungle, for some reason!) The first one is just called “Treasure Hunter”, and you have to find five of them. The next is called “Expert Treasure Hunter”, and you have to find fifty of them, and lastly, “Master Treasure Hunter”, where you have to find one hundred treasures… now at time of writing, I don’t know whether it’s accumulative (find 10, you’re a Treasure Hunter, find another 40 (to make 50) and you’re an Expert, then another 50 to make 100, and you’ve finished the task) or whether you have to find ten, pretend you haven’t, and go out to find fifty, and then forget about them, and go looking for 100, making a total of 160 treasures. I dunno… anyway, at least I’ve done the first part, and found ten of the blighters, so I’ve done one-third of that particular “task”. Looking on the bright side though, you can get “treasure maps” – either from “drops”, or I think that you may be able to buy them (for a really exorbitant price, of course!) And last, but not least, you have to gain a “Revered” Reputation with three Tanaan Jungle factions. That should be pretty easy, really – I’m already “Revered” with “Hand of the Prophet”, and in fact only two and a bit bubbles away from “Exalted” with them, and I’m also extremely close to “Revered” with the other two, thanks to all the Dailies we’ve been doing there (and to think! I thought I was doing those Dailies for the 600 Barrels of Oil that I got from doing one of them! 😉 ) And according to the Guide, when we’ve done all of that, we should be able to fly! (I can’t wait!)
And that’s pretty much how we spent our day today – neither of us died, doing the Dungeon was really a lot of fun – it’s really sooo much more nicer, being able to waltz on in and actually see the Dungeon, instead of spending every second fighting for your life! When Burning Crusade was first released, it was the last Big End Battle, against the last Big Scary End Boss, Illidan Stormrage – later on, Blizzard added a secondary Dungeon after it, but it isn’t – or wasn’t – a twenty-five player Dungeon for levels 58 to 70, without good reason! Of course, all the big scary mobs were no match for us Big Scary Level 100’s 😉 and we mowed them down like nine-pins – even Illidan himself! And all of the loot – so precious at those lower levels – was useless to us, and it just goes against all your instincts to just…. Vendor it, as trash! Anyway, that’s another “old Dungeon” done and dusted, and under our belts – and fantastic to be able to see everything in them, untroubled by pesky little mobs trying to kill you all the time! 🙂 I’m not sure what we’ll be doing next Sunday, but there is one Dungeon I’d like to see the inside of – the Temple of Ahn’Qiraj! I’ve heard so much about it, and never even had a peek through the front door, so to speak! Maybe… anyway, I think I should have reached “Exalted” with Hand of the Prophet by then, which will allow me to upgrade my Trading Post to level 3, which in turn will allow me to get a bonus percentage on my Reputation points, so we can get through more of the pre-requisite Flying quests and Achievements!
Anyway – as I suspected before I started writing this afternoon, tonight’s blog will have to be a two-parter, as dinner is almost ready! Back soon! 🙂
09.48 pm
Right – back again, and it’s time to move on to the important bits of the day’s doin’s!
Food stuffz: last night we had Lamb & Harissa Lasagne with Feta and Oregano – a recipe wot I found in the latest “Delicious” magazine, on an Ardmona ad page, of all places! It was really delicious, and there was tons left over, which Julian put in the fridge overnight and has now carved up into portions which he put into the freezer this morning – there’s enough for at least another two meals out of it! I’m going to transcribe and print the recipe (it didn’t scan very clearly!) and we’ll laminate it, as the recipe is a definite “keeper”! It does call for an awful lot of Harissa, which can be pretty fiery – but just like the Persian Lamb Pilaf, which called for so much cinnamon that we were a bit dubious that the Pilaf would be edible, there’s so much of everything else in the mixture that you really don’t notice it – in fact both the Pilaf and the Lasagne would have been pretty boring without it! Yes, it was a bit spicy, but not overly so – I really don’t like over-spiced food, but that Lasagne last night was just about perfect. For dessert last night I had a slice of my cake, and my last Corella pear, which as it turned out, did benefit from me leaving it to ripen for another day. I’ll have to get some more in on Tuesday, seeing as tomorrow is a Public Holiday! 
Today for lunch I had another sandwich made with Baker’s Delight whole-meal bread, this time with basil-pesto hummus instead of butter, tandoori chicken sandwich chunks, and slices of Halloumi cheese – most delicious! And of course, tonight being Sunday night, we had omelets for dinner – vegetarian ones this time, as we’d run out of ham and bacon, and I didn’t really think that sandwich sliced cold roast beef was really “omelet-y”! As a matter of fact, I thought that the plain, “vegetarian” version was maybe a bit nicer, with the taste of the Halloumi cheese a little more noticeable. For dessert, I had another slice of my cake, and a small dish of the totally yummy Coles-brand, very low-calorie Rice Pudding. Alas – there’s only enough cake left for a small slice each tomorrow night – and then it’s Julian’s turn to make the cake again, as I’ve made the last two! 🙂
Weigh-in this morning. Was quite surprising! I was really quite worried as to how much weight I might have put on, after the caramel slice I’d eaten on Friday, and the Lasagne I’d consumed last night – so my eyebrows shot up a bit when I got on the scales this morning! I reiterate – I don’t seem to have any control over what my weight does anymore – I went from 63.3kg to 63.2kg – down one point! Not that I mind, of course, it’s just that I don’t understand it! So, here I am again, bobbing around in the choppy waters of the weight and see, in the bottom half of the 63kg zone… I wonder what it’ll be tomorrow morning!
Tomorrow should be a fairly quiet day – I’d like to get some more work done with Wynterthyme, but I suspect that Julian will want to take advantage of the Public Holiday and get a bit of -hopefully uninterrupted, for once – office work completed – in which case, I shall continue to work on Arisnoë, and try to get her a bit closer to level 98. And that, gentle readers, is about it from me for this evening! 🙂 Do call in again tomorrow night to find out how our day went, and what my weight decided to do, as well as lots of other bits and pieces of both interesting and boring trivia! Until then though, please do try to bee good, remember that the most important things in life aren’t things, and don’t forget to always drive carefully, to keep warm – or cool – depending on your mood, and to look after yourselves… but above all, please don’t forget to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂
My Word! 