05.47 pm
Here I am finally – Julian has just come back from taking my very favourite eldest daughter home, and I’ve just finished ploughing through all my email… I made the probably rather silly decision the other day, to sign up for a fantasy/science fiction author’s list… They’re all ambitious young (and some not so young!) authors, mostly “self-published” via Amazon, I think – and perhaps the best way for them to become “household names” is for them to offer “free monthly books” to everyone who signs up for the list! They’re hoping to get people curious and excited after reading a free “Book 1” of a planned trilogy, or just one book from a themed series! And I tell you what – there’s no better way to get a true bookworm hooked than to dangle the prospect of a free book once a month under their noses! Well, I said that it was probably a “rather silly decision” of mine to sign up for all these free books – my “To Read” list, on my computer here, my “To Read Next” list on Amazon, and a similar list on Goodreads is now longer than I probably even have to live (and I’m hoping against hope that George R. R. Martin will hurry up and finishes off his Game of Thrones series before either of us dies from old age!) Anyway, the email started pouring in today – all the “Thank You for subscribing to my list” notes from all the authors, and their instructions as to where to download all these ruddy free books! I’m starting to feel just a trifle swamped! (or perhaps “drowned” would be a better way of putting it!) Of course, I can always “unsubscribe” from the authors individually, or from the list in general – but this is books we’re talking about here! To me, books occupy the same level of emotion as a basket full of cute little kittens – I want them all! 
Anyway, I’ll try to remember everything that’s happened over the past couple of days. Sunday, of course, was our first day of playing Wynterthyme and Demelzae from Saurfang. It was a good day all round, even though I eventually lost count of how many times we died! It was very tough going – that’s fer sure – and three times (three times!) we died when Demelzae lived up to her old name and did a “Demelza” in truth, jumping us – Thelma and Louise style – from a very, very high cliff, into what looked like a nice, deep river at the bottom! The first time, there were more rocks at the bottom of the cliff than we’d noticed at first… we hit the rocks, and died. The second time, well, the water looked deep – but it wasn’t, and… we died. The third time, the water was deep enough, only we hadn’t jumped out far enough, missed the deep water, and ended up on rocks in the shallows… where we died. We didn’t go up at all – at level 110 we’ve finished with all of that sort of baby stuff, and our object now – I think! – is to scrabble for Artifacts that will boost the potency of our special Hunter’s Weapon! It’s a bit complicated, but your weapon can now score points and abilities which improve your overall attributes… One thing I do have to say for the Broken Isles is that the quest chains are very long, very convoluted, and extremely onerous, and it’s no longer a matter of just saying “Well, I think we’ll finish off here and go back home to dust down and quit!” – because where the “go back home” is always extremely easy to do – just use your Hearthstone – it’s not an easy matter to get back to where you finished your questing for the day, without having to do everything except the original quest content, all over again – and by the time you do that of course, it’s time to head home, dust down, and quit – all over again – a vicious circle! There are very few Flight Points, and we can’t fly in the Broken Isles (Blizzard’s weird idea of getting us to have more “fun”) so everything has to be done via “shank’s pony” – time consuming, and a true invitation to the state of rigor mortis! Oh, and another little “fun idea” of Blizzard’s! Split groups up, and make them do the full bloody quest solo! That particular little trick really made us mad on Sunday! We play as a group for a specific reason! We have more fun that way, we can both get the quests done in “a timely manner”, and without having to spend all the money in the Guild Bank on repairs, because we’ve died so many times that our armor is ruined! For some people, having to play solo like that is a damn good way to make them quit playing the game altogether, because they’re not fast enough, brave enough, or stupid enough to attempt some of the scenarios that we were forced to participate in on their own. A couple of times, Julian had to do the quests twice, because I wasn’t fast enough to get through them in the time allowed for it! You can’t even say “well, I think I’ll give this quest a miss – I can’t handle it on my own” – and just go on to the next quest – because you can’t get the next quest until you’ve finished the one before it! Anyway, apart from Blizzard’s idiocy – or perhaps in spite of Blizzard’s idiocy – we had a good time, and we’re both looking forward to next Sunday!
Yesterday, Monday… no doubt some of you will recognise the name “Mouselet”, Julian’s once super-powerful Draenei Shaman? Well, the changes that came in with “Legions” decimated his powers to the point where Julian retired him completely. I’ve never played a Shaman – I’ve played Hunters, Priests, Mages, Warlocks, Rogues – even a Warrior and a Druid! But never a Shaman! So yesterday I decided to try one – just for a change. Would you believe, I actually managed to get the name “Shamena”! I was amazed! Anyway, I didn’t get as long to play with her as I would have liked, so she’s only level 14 at the moment – but… so far, so good! I’ll let you know how she goes! 🙂
Today my very favourite eldest daughter was over – and we watched alternating episodes of “Arrow”, and “The Flash”, and a couple of episodes of “Legends of Tomorrow“, incorporating a few of the characters we’ve grown to love in “The Flash” 🙂
Sorry, dinner’s yelling at me – back later! 🙂
09.37 pm
It’s later, and I’m back… again!
“Legends of Tomorrow” – looks like being a reasonably good show – as I said earlier, it incorporates quite a few of the characters from “The Flash”, and also stars Arthur Darvill, who played “Rory Williams” to Karen Gillan‘s “Amy (Amelia) Pond”, as the Doctor’s Companions in the 5th Dr. Who series. It’s about time travel, and altering the time lines and what can happen when you do, so I’m looking forward to seeing more of it, maybe next week.
And that’s been my “last couple of days” – so now I expect that you’ll all be wanting me to get on with all the “good” bits, right?! 😉
Food stuffs. For dinner on Sunday night of course we had omelets – delicious as always, with yummy Cheddar/Tasty cheese, almost (but not quite!) melted in the frying pan before the rest of the ingredients were added – eggs (duh!) diced tomato, diced red capsicum, and some pieces of very nice smoked bacon along with some diced onion (both of which Julian pre-cooked before adding them to the rest of the filling) For dessert I had one of my Corella pears and an Apple Le Rice. Lunch on Monday was a sandwich made with sourdough bread, a leetle bit of butter, sandwich-sliced processed corned beef, Beerenberg Hot Tomato chutney, Halloumi cheese, and chopped lettuce – yummy! For dinner on Monday night we had pan-fried Veal steaks, chips, broccolini, and our usual half a tomato, and for dessert I had my last peach, and a Vaalia Lemon Creme yoghurt. Today for lunch we had wraps – basil-pesto hummus, sandwich-sliced processed roast beef, Cheddar/Tasty cheese, red capsicum batons, and chopped lettuce. Messy to eat, as usual with wraps, but very delicious! For dinner tonight we had some more of the “Tuscan Pork *Gourmet Pork Sausages* -gluten free- 100% Australian Pork with Fennel, Parsley and Parmesan Cheese”, with mashed potatoes, our usual half a tomato, tonight with a tiny bit of peri-peri spice sprinkled on it, and delicious steamed green beans, tossed with almond slivers that had been toasted with a teeny amount of olive oil to prevent them from burning or scorching – an absolutely fantastic meal! (thought there might have been just a wee bit too much mashed potato) Almonds go so well with beans – if you haven’t tried them, you really should! For dessert I had the last of my Nashi pears, and an Apple Le Rice.
Weigh-in on Sunday morning: a bit better, though the same as Saturday – 66.3 kg
Weigh-in on Monday morning: aarrgghhhh! back up to 66.8 kg again! WHY??!! I didn’t do, or eat, anything different!
Weigh-in on Tuesday morning: reprise “aarrgghhhh!” I stayed the same as yesterday! 66.8 kg! For various reasons wot I shall not divulge here, I should have gone down, but I didn’t… and neither did my balloons feet! 😦 I are not a Happy Little Vegemite! 😦 (and neither are my balloons feet!)
We’re very worried about Flipper – she’s not eating her dinner properly, and as a result of not getting the right amount of medication, is getting very stiff, sore, and unhappy – we also think she’s getting a tad dehydrated. We’ve both “pilled” lots of cats in the past and we’re quite expert at it, but there’s no way known we’d attempt it with Flipper – it would be a blood-bath! She hates being held, struggles like mad when you do (and her claws are extremely sharp!) I think she’d rather struggle enough to snap her own neck, than let anyone poke a pill down her throat We know her kidneys are pretty bad, and we suspect they’re getting a lot worse. We’re just taking it a day at a time, and doing our best to keep her happy and as comfortable as possible… Auric and Dapple are both well, and their new aquarium “decor” has been ordered – although there’s been a small hiccup about that – but hopefully it should arrive some time early next week. And that’s about “it” from me for this evening! Do drop in again tomorrow night to catch up on all the latest – how Flipper is, what my stupid weight has gone up to, and how I’m coping with my new Shaman! Until then though, do try to bee good, don’t forget to never let yourself be limited by other people’s limited imaginations, and remember to always drive carefully, to look after yourselves, and to keep warm and dry in this uncertain Melbourne weather… but most importantly, please remember to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂
My Word! 