09.59 pm
Well, I’m here, at long last… I’ve spent all day – apart from a couple of hours while Josh was here and while we had dinner – all day, stuffing around with different free Themes/Templates – does this one do what I want? Yes? No? Move on to the next one… and then the next, and the next. I didn’t even log onto WoW to check my Auctions! (well, it might not sound like a big deal to all of you, but it’s a fairly big deal to me…) Some of the free Themes/Templates were good enough for me to waste spend time creating a series of different Headers for them, but ultimately 99¾% of those free Themes/Templates were discarded as not being quite good enough… The one you’re looking at tonight is, I suppose, about the 40th one I tried? I’m thinking that I must have used it before, as it already had the Header in place – I simply changed the colours around it a bit – and at this stage, I don’t know whether I really like it, or if I just got tired of spending the whole day moving from Template to Template. We’ll see how it goes, for a day or two, anyway, as I’ll not be able to do any more Template fiddling for a couple of days. My very favourite eldest daughter is coming over tomorrow, and on Wednesday morning I have another Warfarin blood test…
In the meantime, let me catch you all up on my last couple of days! 🙂
Yesterday – Sunday. Well, Xãnthe and Jemimah spent a rather hectic day in Pandaria, after having finished off their last half a level to finally ding level 85. It’s quite amazing, the difference between the Alliance and Horde quests! I don’t suppose it’s something that very many people stop to think about – I know I don’t, usually – but as I was writing that, about the Alliance and Horde quests being so very different – it suddenly struck me that it would have taken quite a bit of working out and planning! OK, you have “a” country, populated with various “citizens” and monsters, and you have two factions – each made up of about four different races – both vying for control or dominance in that country. They compete, but neither ever really “wins” – the struggle is pretty much eternal, I suppose, because neither side is “bad”, or “evil”, they’re just… different. However. They “compete” with eachother by completing quests to get or find something, or to kill “x” number of a particular type of monster, or in some cases, to run off with the other Faction’s flag! But here’s the part that had me so – I suppose startled, when I stopped to think about it – and that’s that each set of quests for a particular area have to be (a) finely tuned to experience levels, (b) geared to a particular Faction’s beliefs and orientation and (c) complement eachother in complexity and difficulty. In all probability, I don’t suppose very many gamers stop to think about the work that goes into a game like World of Warcraft, or Rift, or any of the massive, interactive multi-player games – sure, people notice the graphics, and the music/soundtrack – which are in themselves extraordinarily superb – but the amount of effort and thought that goes into working out the game-play itself – let alone the programming involved – I’m not too sure that many people stop to think about it, really… I dunno – maybe they do, maybe it was just me that took so long to suddenly think about it – I can be amazingly dense sometimes… 
Anyway, back to Xãnthe and Jemimah! They got to Pandaria, and have started to settle in there – I think we died once – before we got to Pandaria – because we thought we’d try for a five-person Dungeon in The Caverns of Time – well, it wasn’t really a “Dungeon”, it was more of an “Scenario” (er… mini Dungeon?) We thought that we might be able to manage it, but, umm… nah! We got deaded in very short order, and decided to run back in, collect our bodies, and then turn around and run away – very fast! Which we did! And then we went to Pandaria! We went up almost two levels, to level 86, so we only have four more levels before we can go of to Draenor! I’m really looking forward to next Sunday – we should make it to level 88 next week, and with a bit of luck – and maybe a few evening sessions in between – we should get to Draenor – and our Garrisons – the week after! 🙂 And then we’ll only have about a month and a bit before “Legion”, the next expansion, is released, and according to my very favourite eldest daughter, Garrisons will be a thing of the past, and won’t matter any more! 😦 *sigh* Oh well, I guess that’s just life in the ever-hectic world of WoW! 😕
And as I’ve already told you what I did today, I suppose I should get on with the “good bits” now…
Food stuff: last night, being Sunday night, was omelet night. As usual, it was one of the best omelets that Julian’s ever made – it had tomato, shallots, Halloumi cheese, pickled mushrooms, bacon, and sort of little baby red capsicums, called “Vine Sweet Minicaps™”, as well as the usual seasonings and herbs – and it was really delicious! For dessert I had a Corella pear, a small bowl of Coles-brand, very low-calorie, exceedingly yummy, Rice Pudding, and a slice of cake. For lunch today I had a very nice sandwich, made from that nice whole-grain bread which has the lovely sesame seed and poppy-seed crust, with garlic and herb sandwich chicken chunks and my favourite butter substitute, the basil-pesto hummus. Dinner tonight was pan-fried chicken breast on steamed rice that had been mixed with finely chopped home-grown spring onions, and dessert was a reprise of last night’s – unfortunately, that slice of cake tonight was the last one 😥 until one of us makes another one!
Weigh-in yesterday morning. Was not good! I seem to be going through another “upswing”, for reasons known only to my wretched body – why it’s punishing me, I have no idea! I went from 64.4kg to 64.8kg! Maybe it was the yummy fruit and white chocolate scone, but if it was, I don’t care! The scone was worth the small weight gain! 😛
Weigh-in this morning. Was even worse! I take it all back! I take it all back! I was only kidding! I’ll never, ever eat another fruit and white chocolate scone again, I swear! (said with my fingers firmly crossed behind my back, of course! Wot, me?! Never eat another fruit and white chocolate scone again, ever? Not going to happen! 😉 ) Oh dear… I’m afraid my gluttony will be my downfall! I went from 64.8kg to 😥 65.0kg! Oh well, back to the treadmill! Not that I ever left it mind you….
Which brings me to tomorrow, when my very favourite eldest daughter will be over, and we can catch up on all our favourite TV shows – “Orphan Black”, “The 100”, “Person of Interest”, “Arrow”, and “The Flash”! It’ll be good to see her and catch up on all her doin’s – last week she had a lot of uni assignments and stuff to get done, so she didn’t come over, and I just had to sit around and twiddle my thumbs and play WoW instead 😉 Oh, I forgot to tell you all – Julian tested the water in the Fish House this afternoon, and the Ammonia content is a little down on what it was two days ago, which is very good news! Auric and Dapple seem to have been doing very well for the past couple of days, but tonight Auric was showing a bit of his old “floaties” problem again, which is a bit concerning – we thought that he’d got over it, especially with 30% of the water getting changed out regularly. They do seem to have one strange – “habit”, it almost seems to be – I’m not sure if it’s a “goldfishy” sort of thing that all goldfish do, or whether it’s a “thing” they picked up when they lived in that dreadful little mud puddle outside – it just strikes me (says she who knows absolutely nothing about goldfish in general!) as “not natural”. They both swim up to the surface and swim smartly along, with their mouths up on the surface, seemingly “eating” the surface of the water! If they only did it after they’d been fed, I’d be inclined to think that they were still finding a few teeny flakes of food still floating around – but it seems to be every few minutes or so, all day! They get fed twice a day, the water is very well oxygenated, 30% of the water is changed out every two days, and their water is tested every two days, the results of which are good, apart from the Ammonia content being a bit on the high side – so why do they do that? Did they get into the habit of swimming up and gulping air when they lived in their little fishy hovel outside? They also seem to like swimming up, gulping air, then swimming down and blowing out the bubbles! They do that for up to five or so minutes at a time, and it seems to be a bit of a game with them – so, unless someone out there in Reader Land can tell us whether it’s “normal” goldfish behaviour or not, or give us some advice, all we can do is watch, test and change the water, and do our best… Anyway, that’s about it again from me for tonight, but do drop in again tomorrow night – if only to see if I’ve stuck up yet another Template or not 😉 as well as to see how much my weight went up again, what my favourite eldest daughter and I watched on TV, and how Auric, Dapple and Flipper are getting on. Until then however, please try to bee good, remember that courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen… and don’t forget to always drive carefully, to look after yourselves, and to keep warm and dry in this terrible weather we’ve been having… but above all, please don’t forget to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂
My Word! 