Worst. Mothers Day. Ever.

IRL
We totally fluffed it. Daniel and I put in a shocking performance for Mother's Day. You need to understand the lead up: Daniel was an absolute angel the day before, all of my Charlie's family came over, (sort of) Mother in law, (sort of) Brother in Law, his wife 'Aunty Doon' (June, as delivered by Daniel's cutespeak) and Charlie's darling granny, who I've adopted as my own. She's lovely and little and sweet, and has been nothing bar brilliant to me since I first started dating Charlie. Everyone's having a pretty good time, Charlie's chucking out great food at a rate of knots, and getting a bit stressed (She has performance anxiety, which is mildly amusing as she is a cracking cook and has the ability to organise me and our son, so how hard is a bit of lamb, beef, salad, veg, and 3 puddings? - I'm not going to go on about the food , OK, maybe a little. Charlie's cooking is awesome. OK, done!) and I'm on clear up, so we've spun the dishwasher up at least 4 times, I've washed every large pan we have about 3 times, hard work but fun. Then 'Just Dance' for Wii comes on, we all shake our thing, and have a chuckle. Daniel charms everyone, we wind down, everyone goes, super smashing great.

So that's the lead up, and so we expect good things for Sunday. I have a bottle of CK in2u (CK representatives, excuse my potentially wrong capitalisation etc) for the chief, and a nice card. Daniel's drawn spirals in the card by way of making his mark. Cue Sunday Morning.....

Wake to very loud crying. Daniel's got faceache (For those not familiar, this means he's woken in a very bad mood) and is being a bit of a bumhole. Charlie's unhappy, she was expecting breakfast in bed, flower in glass, lie in. Instead she gets screaming child, sinus-infection other half (me) now with faceache also (Due to screaming child and some poorly chosen words from Charlie) I then go downstairs, Charlie crying into tea 'she had to make herself -sob-' so I send her back to bed, make breakfast with Daniel (Which cheers her up as she can hear it all) I look after the boy, Charlie doesn't sleep. Daniel still bumholesque, but doped up on Thomas the Tank Engine and Brum (The makers of I should personally thank for services to parenthood) The rest of the day is better, but due to wrong start never fully recovers. I agree to surprise Charlie at a later date by dedicating a whole morning to her pampering in the style of Mother's Day.

I would like to say in my defense my take on Mothers Day is somewhat askew as my memories of it were Mum and Dad appeared at my boarding school and I would scowl at them for sending me there. That and not enjoying the irony of being a child visited at the place in charge of his care by his parents on a day dedicated to celebrating their effort to that end. After that, Dad would ring me to remind me to send a card. Yes, I was a brat, a vitriolic, angry, and ungrateful one too. I want to get over all that before I, like my hero Mr John Ravenscroft (AKA Peel), realise my parents are the good guys and I don't remind them I know this and how much I am grateful now I'm finally the adult they formed me into nearly often enough.

On the subject of John Peel. Reading the autobiography, just got the bit where Sheila (John's widow) tells of John's death. Couldn't read it on the train, didn't want to sob openly on a crowded commuter train, doesn't go down well). I worked at a newspaper at the time, and I cried when they announced it. Thanks for so much, and so much brilliant music.

So, to Charlie, and to my Mum. Thank you, you are, and have done, a great job. I love you both very much. (Soppy sod that I am)

If I had hair I'd actually tear it out!

IRL

Trying to find a touchscreen tablet form factor PDA/laptop. Not having much luck. Lots of lovely Sub-£100 Andriod models at CeBit and so on and so forth, unfotunately due to the increased interest in this form (I love you, I hate you, Apple) thanks to the iPad, I basically can't get hold of a cheap and yet decent internet/wifi capable unit for under a ton. Arrrrgh! Worst of all, I have the unit I want, the HP tx1100 tablet, dead and unwilling to boot without blue checker pattern.

I'm Brilliant!!

WoW

I've cracked it! the gate of levelling, a portal to higher levels in very small amounts of time. Actually discovered this with my Paladin, Myfanawy. Sent her forth to kill 12 Vrykul in Valgarde, and discovered she could rack up 2K XP on almost every mob she killed, with NPC support in the area, it's a relatively quick process. I actually discovered it when all the mobs aggro'd and I had to dispatch about 5 of them and noticed my XP bar going up FAST. 8 bars from 69 is now 4 bars up from 69 in about 20 minutes. Sweet!

IRL

Due to having some residual self image issues which crippled me through school and especially as a teenager, I thought I'd try to help my son to avoid my Achilles heal. I've taught him to say "I'm Brilliant!!" to help boost his self esteem. I don't want to create a raging egomaniac, but a little chunk of confidence won't do him any harm. Being a cute 2 year old with flaxen curls, he does make my throat constrict with pride when he does it, too. Soppy sod? Guilty, as charged :)

Reconcile your family, they're yours as much as you are theirs, make the best of it.

The race to 70 (Or thereabouts)!

WoW

I'm a bit of a sucker for a challenge. This weekend I realised that my old 65 Pally had almost all the boxes ticked for the 'Elder' achievement. So now the challenge is to get my Pally into all the dungeons and to all the Northrend elders by Saturday. Hmmm, wacky races, anyone.

Step one, flying (Outland) - sorted, lowers the cost and turnaround of quests

Step one point one - Riding crop (Jimaeth! Help!)

Step two, level to 68 - A biscuit away from 66 now

Step three, Northrend flying (I'll need to check if that's 68 or 70)

PS I love Wowhead holiday guides, they're brilliant

IRL

My first proper weekend off after moving the company I do IT for from one building to another, leaving the servers in the same place but linking them to the new site with fibre optic, and setting up all the users, printers etc. 'Busy' and 'Headache' are two words that spring to mind (British understatement there, lol) Did some stuff around the house, reloaded an old PC and got a USB monitor working (7 inch Samsung Screen without a graphics card - Can I hear an Awesome!)

Speaking of which, must find out when Chuck is back on TV, loved that show.

Approval

IRL

Approval is a strange thing. I was given a small measure of approval from someone who hadn't shown me much recently. How strange it was to bask in that tiny glow as if the sunny beams of a warm summer day.

On another front, I got another sort of approval, my fiancée suggested we plan for a wedding next year. Again, a warm fuzzy feeling.

Yes, I must be pretty needy, or just emotionally exhausted.

WoW

Aproval is the name of the game there too. My Shammy, Codnor, is now 80 and grinding rep with the alliance factions, seeking their respect and approval. At the same time, our guild, the Lions, is being wound up and another guild, Chilled, put in it's place. I am finally the quartermaster. w00t!

Next stop, Jimael gets flying lessons and a mount!

Be good, if not, be careful!

2010 - Where's my flying car FFS?

Well, I've waited this long, where's my clean free power, 2TB broadband, and the flying car (Although I'd definitely settle for a flying Kawasaki)

Remember: The cake isn't so much a lie as a useful fable

I [Heart] Spiceworks

Yup, I do

Just a bit of plugging for the software that makes my life that bit easier.