Monday 27 July 2009

Ow!

A tip to all of you out there post-arthroscopy. Don't bend both legs so your bum is practically on the ground 4 days after surgery. About 80% of the way down you realise this is going to hurt. A lot. At this point it is exactly a lot too late.

Just thought I'd warn you

At work, but at home

IRL
Hey all, going back to work today after having my Arthroscopy (A surgeon cuts two opposing holes in my knee, has a look around, and trims the dodgy cartilage a bit with the hopes of improving the use of the knee)

Work have been kind enough to let me work from home. This means no commute with crutches, which is a good thing considering how awful the commute is without them.

The house still looks like a before and after shot, depending on which room you're in. Some of the house looks lovely and civilised, and some of it.... doesn't. Spoke to our friend, who's a builder, about converting the garage. It's going to cost slightly more than we thought, but what building project doesn't, right?

WoW
Dinged 80 yesterday with my Druid. At bloody last. Now I can get all the end game armour and do heroics. It'll be nice to be able to accept invites for runs from my guild. Happy days :)

Tuesday 21 July 2009

National Express and Network Rail make my commute a misery

I hate National Express and Network Rail.

I'm on a train with seats designed for a size zero bolemic, hemmed in by my many, many peers. We've travelled 30 minutes from Liverpool Street and only managed to get as far as the Ilford train yard (That's fairly crap, even by their normal standards)

The ticket goes up every year, and the trains gets more cramped and the lines/signals seem to fail more often, the air con isn't worth having, and there seem to be very few trains that actually go my way during rush hour. It's just getting worse. Funnily enough, my wages aren't going up, inspite of working harder and for longer hours.

I've been around Germany on trains, so I've seen how good trains can be. I wish ours were that good.

When will National Express lose the Franchise? And, assuming the pattern will continue, which group of profiteering buffoons will get it next?

Tuesday 14 July 2009

IRL
I hate boxes. The last couple of weeks just involves boxes, pulling flatpack out of them, cutting them up, recycling them, packing them, stacking them, moving them, trying to move around them.....aaaarrrgggh! (sound of carnage in background)

WoW
Finally capped out my Drood's alchemy skills. Not getting any quality WoW time until we've moved, and probably only once the garage is converted.

Sorry I'm not updating so often, my life is mental at the moment.

Have fun, speak soon

Friday 10 July 2009

W00t!

IRL
We won the 'Charity event involving rowing'. What a cracking evening! Large percentage of company raised a bunch of cash, bundled down to city airport, row like the possessed, come second in rowing but get overall winner status by raising over £1600.

Due to very good luck, got one sponsor who's mother was afflicted with leukemia who gave £500 on his own. He wanted to remain nameless, so thank you very much.

A good night was had by all, but there were some issues with the catering. Aparently you can't have a BBQ at that site, which was only found out at the end, as we all got off the boat at the end looking forward to meat and beer (and to be fair, we'd earned it) but our hopes were crushed.

A trip to 'The Hut' was in order.

A brilliant night was had by all.

WoW
Nothing to report, literally didn't go on yesterday.

Wednesday 8 July 2009

Of waste traps and updates

Morning, morning!

Another lovely Wednesday morning. Lovely how? My nose feels like there's another infection on the way, and it's an update to WoW day. On top of that I have to do a follow up job on a colleague's visit. A colleague who does really bad notes. Oh well, it's all a learning curve, I suppose.

WoW
I'm up bright and early, ready to shave the last half a bar from hittin 78 and...... bloody updates!! Typical.

Otherwise good, doing the argent tourney, now at Valiant status and looking forward to notching up kudos and goodies. I've also been getting into exploring. I've done Northrend and Outland (Yes, I still love my Swift Flight Form) and now it's just mopping up the bits of Azeroth I haven't visited before. Today, the northern half of the Eastern Kingdoms. I might drop back into Kalimdor to do a few zones, we'll see. Still not sure about the guild thing. Although got my main, 80 DK in to my mate's guild. We'll see how that pans out.

IRL
The house progresses anon. The last couple of days have seen the wallpaper entirely stripped from the main bedroom. The Mrs having an epiphany and painting over the wallpaper in the lounge to create an effect far better than my idea of removing it. The skirting boards in the front room getting a much needed lick of gloss. The previously-thought repaired sink still leaking, and it''s removal and rebuilding in it's entirety (:D Quite proud of that particular feat) The house doesn't stink of dogs anymore which is a relief. The next major step comes once the carpet is fitted. Then we can build the furniture and so on and so forth. After that it's only a few days until the move proper. Oh Goddess, not looking forward to that. It'll probably go fine as we don't have to worry about the box-lifting bit, but we'll see.

Note to all parents, don't paint the skirtingboards with an inquisitive toddler in the room. Trust me, don't go there.

Broadband back on the 14th (Yay!) Hopefully won't be as flaky as last time.

Remember, if you can't be good, be careful. Have a good day.

Sunday 5 July 2009

Yet another home for me and mine (Real and otherwise)

Where to start....?

IRL
Got the keys to the house, it's great!!! Carpet-washed most of the smell of dogs out, and destroyed the bedroom carpet. Stripped the bedroom walls of the old paper. Slowly starting to look like our home. I even attacked some of the old cracks with filler, and for my showpiece, I fixed the sink myself :) DIYer!!

The Boy slept there today, so he was the first. Curled up in his travel cot and snored aparently. Going back there today for a takeaway, more work, and test the route to the station. The Mrs has a surprise for me, which is slightly scary. Hopefully her friend the builder's been around and the garage conversion will cost half of what he thought.

Just itching to get the garage devided up into my playroom and the Boy's playroom. I'll be putting CAT5 around the house, and a couple of access points, WEP and WPA. It'll rock.

The garden is huge!! The Boy is like a kid in a sweetshop with all the space to run around in.

WoW
New guilds - I leave with a couple of chars, move back to 'Old Guild A'. An IRL WoW playing friend has set his own guild 'New Guild B' and I'm keen to jump ship. So I move my one 80 over. My 77 Druid is coming along fast doing the Argent tourney and Shadowvault dailies, so he'll be 80 soon, however he's in 'Raid Guild C'. The guys there are great, but I suspect I will need to be a better raider to keep up with them. Also, once everyone leaves 'Failing Guild D' I'll have a 3 tab guild bank and I can sell as one of my chars is the only one in it. Mercenary, sure, nasty, not sure. I put a lot of effort into that guild and then everyone slowly left, so sod it, let them leave, and I get a nice big bank to stash my gear in. My Rogue is a one man band in 'Bank Guild E'

So basically I'm in 4 guilds. E's a bank, fair enough A's a group I've played with since day 1, but they're not about sub-80s and are a bit cliquey. I do feel a bit guilty about possibly leaving them. B could be very good, the two main players are seasoned raiders, and good guys IRL. C could have potential, but don't know them THAT well, so considering the jump. D is dying fast, it'll be a bank 'guild' soon enough. Got a placeholder char I use once in a while to keep that. Then I can sell Guild E

What to do?

And after all the effort, my frost mage didn't get Lord Ahune's Staff

Thursday 2 July 2009

Swift Fliiiiiiight!

...sung in an opera styleee.

Last night, after much gnashing of teeth and girding of loins, I finally got my swift flight form. How? Simple, bribery.

I offered the raven lord mount to anyone who would accompany me to destroy Anzu if it dropped. Sithis was kind enough to help. It didn't drop, which is a shame as Sithis was a top player and realy cool.

Thank you Sithis, I still intend to help you farm that mount when you want it.

Swift flight form is like having a sports car, and you can do my favourite trick of turning it off and on mid-flight. (You drop like a stone, freaking out other players as you shoot past them - lol)

I jumped guilds with my Druid. My old guild, which I briefly returned to, were their usual apethetic selves, so after asking for help and getting nowhere, I joined a raiding guild. They seem like a nice bunch, and the only reason the haven't helped is the one guy on didn't have the Auchindoun heroic key, so he couldn't.

Next, earn 250 gold to get Cold Weather Flying and tour Northrend at my leisure, and grind some Wyrmrest rep.

IRL - getting the keys to the house tomorrow, so I may be previously booked for a bit. First job, remove old carpets, paint two rooms and remember to take the kettle :)

Be good