Asara's Mental Meanderings

Work is totally boring.

asaradragon@gmail.com (Carrie) — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 18:00:00 +0000

I know, I know, if it was fun, they wouldn't call it "work", right?

I think most of it is just coming off a long vacation and remembering how little I actually do around here during the day. My work doesn't generally start until 2, until then I'm mostly trying to look busy. It seems to be going around. Today when I went upstairs for lunch, the Whistler was sitting in one of the owners' offices just talking, and when I got back from lunch, he was on the phone with one of his friends. I don't think he has much to do any more either. Or what work he does get, he finishes too quickly.

It was funny though, after he hung up with his friend, he made some comment to me about how hard it is to get some people off the phone. The thing is, nobody he knows ever calls him here except his girlfriend, so he had to have called this person in the first place. If you don't want to spend forever talking to someone, especially from work... don't call them! There's a bit of thinking outside the box for you.

Not much more to report really... we played a bit of WoW yesterday, I tanked Halls of Stone (I really hate the Brann event). Our guild on Cenarion Circle has expanded to include a guild horde-side. Hubby came up with the name, "Murlocs Gone Wild". It's kind of nice, now if we feel like playing our horde characters, we're still able to chat with the same people. The sad part is they let one of the other guild members be the guild leader, and I don't think he really gets the idea that the guild is just for fun. He went searching the internet looking for a good ranking system, for crying out loud. Then just gave us equivalent rank to what we have in the other guild anyway... but with more limited privileges. As an officer, I can invite, but not promote or demote, and I have yet to see what he's done with the guild bank. My rank idea was to look up all of the murloc NPC's and give each rank a name based on them. So the guild leader would be like, King Mrgl-Mrgl or something.

Oh well. :) No idea what's on the menu for tonight. Last night we tried to watch Superbad, which we got from Netflix. It got most of the way through, then crapped out and started skipping. We asked for a replacement, but who knows if it will have arrived today or not. If so, I hope it's a better copy!!

Even More Acetone Free!

asaradragon@gmail.com (Carrie) — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 15:02:00 +0000

So, ladies out there who read my blog and wear nail polish... you are probably also aware of nail polish remover, and how many brands will proclaim to the high heavens that they are ACETONE FREE?

Someday I will look up the reason that this lack of Acetone is so awesome, but in the meantime, I have discovered (totally by accident) an even MORE acetone-free means of removing said nail polish.

I give you...

Scotch Tape!

No, you don't have to thank me, really. It was a fluke even that I found out about it. I was putting a memo up on the lab door and the tape wrapped around my finger. When I removed it, most of my nail polish had attached itself to the tape. Tape is also infinitely cheaper than nail polish remover, and, as an extra bonus, you don't have to stick your finger inside any sort of foam and wiggle it around. Oh come on, you know what I mean. And.. AND, no cold fingers from the alcohol in the damn stuff evaporating the second you remove them from said foam.

If you're the sort of person who buys the liquid stuff and puts it on a cotton ball and actually -wipes- the nail polish off... this post is probably not for you. Unless you have issues with the alcohol smell. In that case, come on over for the Scotch Tape Party!

Vacation's Over.

asaradragon@gmail.com (Carrie) — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 13:19:00 +0000

Waaaaaaah!!!! :(

So I'm back at work. I got lucky though, there's no production today. So I really only have to stay for part of the day. I'll have to come back in the afternoon to take care of the schedule, but other than that, it looks to be a pretty easy day. Yay for that, at least!

My vacation was pretty quiet. Mostly just WoW with the hubby and watching movies with the kids. We did go out over the weekend to the bar for some karaoke. We got there when it started at 9PM, and didn't leave until it was about over at 1AM. It was a lot of fun, there was a good crowd there. There was also a moment of hilarity stemming from a trip to the bathroom. They have a pretty forceful hand dryer in there, and Sara decided that it would be funny to stick her face under it. I wish I'd had a camera, because she was totally right. We laughed for quite a while afterward.

After the karaoke was done, we hit up McDonald's for some chicken nuggets, and headed home. We tried to play a little bit of Rock Band with Beth when we got there, but we only managed about four songs before we pooped out and went to bed.

Our little horde druids are halfway to their goal right now, sitting pretty at level 31 after about 16 hours of play time. We spent some time on death knights in there, getting them to level 60 (for death and decay) to make it easier to run each other through low-level instances. We ran a few heroics on our main characters, and did some questing in Outland on our high-level hordies. I realized not too long into that particular session that I need to set up some sort of standard across all my characters with regard to the abilities they use the most. Characters getting leveled up have the same need of their "oh crap!" buttons as max-level ones, and you can bet that the results of having to search for said buttons are not generally positive.

For example, I was flying past Telredor, and one of the guards decided they didn't want me there, and proceeded to shoot lightning on me and dismount me. I freaked out trying to find my Slow Fall button, and of course, located it just as I hit the ground. Thankfully I wasn't flying too high, otherwise the results would have been a bit more messy than they were. There was also a portaling incident... hubby says, let's go to Orgrimmar now to get our next level skills. So I hit the button with the orange circle, and find myself in Orgrimmar... alone. Oops. There was much muttering and sighing coming from hubby's computer as he hoofed it over to Shattrath to take the portal from there. As a result, I've put another bar of skills in between my portal and teleport buttons, which will hopefully keep that from happening again!

That's about all of the news I have for now... I'm sure there are things that I'm forgetting. Oh, hi to everyone who is stopping by from google regarding the lucky couch commercial. Sorry if my blog didn't have what you were looking for! :)

Ahhh, vacation.

asaradragon@gmail.com (Carrie) — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 17:59:00 +0000

Life is good. Just spending time hanging out at home with my family, can't ask for much more! Watched some TV and did some coloring with the kids last night, which was very fun. The only down side is the blister I gave myself from sharpening too many colored pencils!

Yesterday while Andy was at school, hubby and I did the grocery shopping with Emily, then came home and got started on hubby's birthday present, which was a pair of druids on a new recruit-a-friend account. Not just any druids, but -tauren- druids. On a PvP server, no less! We really wanted to challenge ourselves this time, that's for sure! Most of our characters are alliance, so the quests aren't so familiar, and once we get to higher levels, we'll see how much we have to deal with gankers. Definitely new and exciting!

That's about all the news there is to share, I hope everyone is having a great week so far!

One for the road

asaradragon@gmail.com (Carrie) — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 11:29:00 +0000

Anyone who has known me for any length of time will tell you that I have a very... unique sense of humor. I'm the person in the movie theater who's cracking up at some obscure reference that nobody else gets. A perfect example was the time I saw Finding Nemo in the theater. I laughed my fool head off when Marlin finally told the punch line to his joke. (For those who haven't seen the movie, he says, "With fronds like these, who needs anemones?")

So in that vein, here are some jokes that my sister-in-law sent me. She wrote at the top when she forwarded it, "I think this is right up your alley". She was right. (I don't know where #12 is, sorry!)

1. Two antennas met on a roof, fell in love and got married. The ceremony wasn't much, but the reception was excellent...

2. A jumper cable walks into a bar. The bartender says, "I'll serve you, but don't start anything."

3. Two peanuts walk into a bar, and one was a salted.

4. A dyslexic man walked into a bra.

5. A man walks into a bar with a slab of asphalt under his arm, and says: "A beer please, and one for the road."

6. Two cannibals are eating a clown. One says to the other: "Does this taste funny to you?

7. "Doc, I can't stop singing The Green, Green Grass of Home .."
"That sounds like Tom Jones Syndrome."
"Is it common?"
"Well, It's Not Unusual."

8. Two cows are standing next to each other in a field. Daisy says to Dolly, "I was artificially inseminated this morning."
"I don't believe you," says Dolly.
"It's true; no bull!" exclaims Daisy.

9. An invisible man marries an invisible woman. The kids were nothing to look at either.

10. Deja Moo: The feeling that you've heard this bull before.

11. I went to buy some camouflage trousers the other day, but I couldn't find any.

13. I went to a seafood disco last week... and pulled a mussel..

14. What do you call a fish with no eyes? A fsh.

15. Two fish swim into a concrete wall. The one turns to the other and says, "Dam!"

16. Two Eskimos sitting in a kayak were chilly, so they lit a fire in the craft. Not surprisingly it sank, proving once again that you can't have your kayak and heat it too.

17. A group of chess enthusiasts checked into a hotel, and were standing in the lobby discussing their recent tournament victories.
After about an hour, the manager came out of the office, and asked them to disperse.
"But why," they asked, as they moved off.
"Because," he said. "I can't stand chess-nuts boasting in an open foyer."

18. A woman has twins, and gives them up for adoption. One of them goes to a family in Egypt , and is named 'Ahmal.' The other goes to a family in Spain ; they name him 'Juan.'
Years later, Juan sends a picture of himself to his birth mother.
Upon receiving the picture, she tells her husband that she wishes she also had a picture of Ahmal.
Her husband responds, "They're twins! If you've seen Juan, you've seen Ahmal."

19. Mahatma Gandhi, as you know, walked barefoot most of the time, which produced an impressive set of calluses on his feet.
He also ate very little, which made him rather frail and with his odd diet, he suffered from bad breath.
This made him .... a super-calloused fragile mystic hexed by halitosis.

20. A dwarf, who was a mystic, escaped from jail. The call went out that there was a small medium at large.

21. And finally, there was the person who sent twenty different puns to his friends, with the hope that at least ten of the puns would make them laugh. No pun in ten did.

Have a great weekend everyone!

AUGH! Heebiejeebies are GO!

asaradragon@gmail.com (Carrie) — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 17:23:00 +0000

A few minutes ago, I went to the bathroom. (and no, there is no Turd Tape in our bathrooms!)

I come out, and walk over to the sink to wash my hands. And I look into the mirror to see a WASP on my COLLAR.

I hate bees. Bumblebees are ok, because they're big and easy to avoid. Wasps, hornets, whatever, they all look evil and they creep me out. Especially because they seem determined to build a hive on our house. I want them as FAR away from me as possible.

But this one was on my SHIRT. I have no idea where it came from, or how long it had been there, or ANYthing.

I'm still trying to calm down, even though it is now safely dead.

One of the druids in our guild used to have a macro that he would use when tanking instances. He'd sneak up on the boss in kitty form, and then pop out into bear form and yell "Surprise Bear!"

This was Surprise Wasp, and it was not -nearly- so cute or so clever. Blech! *shudder*

Why, Google? Why??

asaradragon@gmail.com (Carrie) — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 13:11:00 +0000

So I was just checking my gmail account, like I do every so often during the day, checking to see if I've got any new comments or anything like that (by the way, thank you Linda for stopping by so often!). At the top, they usually stick a link advertisement for something they think I might be interested in, based on the subject lines of the emails I've gotten recently (that's a guess, but I think it's pretty accurate). I always have to laugh when I open up my spam folder, because I almost always get a link to a recipe that uses Spam.

Today though, I was just in my regular email folder, and this was at the top.

Turd Tape - turdtape.com - Measure that turd! Sticker for inside your toilet only $2.99.+s.h.

Yep. I had to click through, because I'm morbidly curious that way.

Their slogan? "Sh*t happens, so why not measure it?"

And, even better. "Coming Soon: Stool Stick!"

I have no idea why I got targeted with this particular ad... but it's one I'm not likely to forget!

After these messages...

asaradragon@gmail.com (Carrie) — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 16:20:00 +0000

I was listening to the radio this morning and a commercial came on that makes me chuckle every time I hear it. There are actually two of those going around right now. This one was for AT&T I think... it's the one with the guy who's sitting on his "lucky couch" to watch football and his wife is trying to get him to watch the game in the basement. He starts singing when the football music comes on, and it just cracks me up. "Game's starting now... have fun in the basement! Sitting on lucky couch!"

The other one, I honestly don't know what company it's for, but it's about a girl blogging about hanging out with her ex-boyfriend again. "What are you looking at? uh.. hermit crab! That hermit crab next to that hot girl? ...I didn't put it there!"

It just got me to thinking about all the other commercials I've liked in the past, and how I miss hearing them sometimes. I feel like a dork, missing commercials. But there have definitely been some good ones.

In other news...

Andy came out very well at his conferences last night. I managed to get out of work with time to run home and change into nicer clothes too. His teacher said that he's such a sweetie, and she's very happy to have him in her class. We had pizza for dinner to celebrate his good report. :)

Poor hubby is still sick, coughing his lungs out. So far I've staved off the sickness monster. I was planning on getting a flu shot at work this morning, but they ran out before I could get up there. Oh well. If I get sick, I get sick. There's not much more I can do about it except keep my fingers crossed and hope that if it happens, it happens during my week off. I don't want to miss any more work this year!

I'm no good at clever titles.

asaradragon@gmail.com (Carrie) — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 11:12:00 +0000

This weekend was pretty quiet, as weekends go. Andy is feeling better, and went back to school last Thursday, but come Friday morning, hubby was down for the count. He spent pretty much the whole weekend in bed, the poor guy! I stayed home on Friday to make sure that Andy got to school, but my boss is out for the next three days, so I had to come in this morning. I only hope I'm out of here in time for Andy's conferences tonight. I'm supposed to be at the school at 6, so we'll see.

I did have a bit of fun this weekend though, I went out to a local hibachi place for dinner with Bob and Sara. It was a bit expensive, but very tasty, and fun too! The chef that was at our table was very funny, in a punny, deadpan sort of way. He'd toss butter onto the grill and say, "butterfly!" See.. it's butter, and it's flying onto the grill... yeah. I was laughing my head off. When he had finished grilling everyone's food, he had a few pieces set over to the side, and he asked who wanted them. I said I'd take them, and he told me I'd have to work for it, and started tossing them at me to catch in my mouth. I did pretty well at first, but then he started throwing them faster, and I couldn't keep up! I was so stuffed when I left, and still grinning, so overall I'd say it was well worth the price.

Other than that, I spent the weekend at home, taking care of hubby and the kids. I stayed up a bit later last night than I should have, so I'm pretty sleepy today... I really hope the day passes uneventfully!

I'm pretty damn funny.

asaradragon@gmail.com (Carrie) — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 13:13:00 +0000

A week or so ago I went back and started reading some old posts of mine. Just looking to see what in the heck I was writing about a year or so ago. Also trying to find some pictures that I'd posted, like Andy's birthday cake.

For the record, in 5 days, this blog will be three years old. THREE years I have been writing on this thing to nobody in particular. Hard to believe that it's been three years since I wrote this story, or answered this meme. I'll have to see if I can't come up with something special to write next Tuesday, on the actual anniversary, or bloggiversary, as I hear these things are called. Looking back, I have yet to celebrate one. The past two years were just blogging as normal.

Anyway, reading through old posts, I found myself chuckling and giggling at things I said. Nothing major comes to mind, although I did just stumble across something I posted while I was drunk about being a grownup and doing grownup things. There are a couple of things over in the "favorite posts" section of my sidebar that I find pretty hilarious too. But I'm not going to re-link them here, you'll actually have to come visit if you want to read 'em!

I don't really have much else to say, except that I think I'm pretty damn funny sometimes. Too bad I'm just about the only one who thinks so!

Keep On Keepin' On...

asaradragon@gmail.com (Carrie) — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 13:44:00 +0000

So let's see here...

Andy's got a "mild" case of bronchitis, according to his doctor. All I know is the poor little guy is coughing his head off, especially at night. He stayed home yesterday, and he'll be home again today. We don't want to chance that he'll make himself worse running around in the cold at recess, especially considering it rained last night, so everything will be wet. Not much else going on at home, hubby made some very tasty chicken stir fry for dinner, and tonight he's going to make tacos. Yum! I am soooo lucky to have married such a good cook! If I was in charge of dinner, we'd be having either spaghetti or macaroni and cheese every night. I'm good at pasta, that's about it.

Not a lot of WoW news either. We're switching around our non-playing days a bit so that we can be somewhat involved in the raiding schedule the guild leader just set up. Last night we scrounged up 24 people and took on Sartharion. We tried one drake up, but so many people were new to the fight that after a couple of disastrous attempts, we decided to take the drake out and run as normal. Even then we had a wipe before we successfully took him out. Someone in the raid was incredulous, we'd wiped three times and we were going to try AGAIN??!

Um, yes. Three wipes on one boss isn't much, really, when you consider that most of the people in the raid are not "raiders", per se, in that they're not always reading strategies and watching videos and learning the fights beforehand. They're depending on the raid leader to explain things once we're there, and half the time they're not listening even then. Truly told, I'm amazed it only took four tries to take him out, all things considered.

I took my hunter, so of course no hunter loot, and two pieces of paladin tier. I wish I had a screenshot of the recount though, at the end of it all I was 3rd on damage, running with my beast mastery spec. I think I hit about 3200 DPS. Not too shabby, if I do say so myself. We're looking at Ulduar possibly on Friday, we'll see how that goes.

In the meantime, we'll be trick or treating and running the Headless Horseman whenever we can, and on our days off, keeping up with our Netflix queue. Life is good!

I didn't think this was possible...

asaradragon@gmail.com (Carrie) — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 10:27:00 +0000

I'm almost more tired and worn out than I was on Friday. We had a busy weekend!

On Friday night the kids went to my parents' house to get them out from underfoot, because like I said on Friday, we had a lot to do to get the house "party-ready".

On Saturday morning, Sara and I participated in a walk that we do every year, "Making Strides for Breast Cancer". I'm still sore from that.. it was a 5k, and I never walk that far these days! Still, it's for a wonderful cause, and hubby didn't want me to miss it. My mom had breast cancer when I was little, so it's something that's near and dear to my heart.

When I got home, hubby was already cleaning, so I joined in. We got everything done that day (including a mountain of laundry) except the kids' bathroom. We also took a bit of a break in the middle to get groceries, and get Andy's cake in the oven. He wanted the same sort of cake that he had last year, so we picked up some extra decorating frosting.

The kids came home early Sunday morning, and we all went off to church for the first time in quite a while. We tried a new church that's closer to home than the one I used to go to, and it was pretty nice. A lot smaller, but the pastor seemed nice, so I think we're going to go back again next week.

After that, it was back home to finish cleaning and get Andy's cake ready. There's a picture of last year's on this post, if you want to see (more or less) what this year's looked like. I made the road a bit more curvy, and used a smaller car. It came out pretty well.

Finally, people started arriving for Andy's party. My parents came, as well as Bob and Sara and Billy's dad. We had pizza from Little Caesar's, then Andy opened his presents. He got quite a few toys, and Billy and I got him a bike. For the record, I never want to put training wheels on anything again. That was a very frustrating experience.

After presents, it was time for cake, and then everyone went home. Andy spent the rest of the night playing with all of his new toys. Hubby and I got to figure out how to transform his Transformers, while he played with his Bakugan and colored some pictures with the crayons and paper he got from Aunt Sara and Uncle Bob. If the weather holds, he'll probably get some time to ride his bike this afternoon, as he doesn't have school today, the lucky kid!

And now it's back to work for me. My boss is still out today, so it will probably be a bit of a long one. I've only been here an hour, and I'm already looking forward to going home and having a hot bath or something to relax. How was your weekend?

Apparently I'm the only Bill Nighy fan I know.

asaradragon@gmail.com (Carrie) — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 11:37:00 +0000

Or else every one of you is a Bob Dylan fan and now categorically hates me for making fun of him.

Hey, I SAID I was sorry!

I have been a giant ball of stress lately. I still am, in fact, which is in part contributing to the lack of posting this week, right after I was starting to get in a groove of boring you all with my day-to-day life again. It's just difficult to write a coherent post when you've got Tourette's of the brain and you're scared to type anything because the pent-up stress might escape and take over your hands for a moment and post some ranting raving crap that will offend anyone who even has my blog in their feed reader, regardless of whether or not they've actually read the post.

Ugh. The Whistler just adjusted his pants in my line of sight. Why can he never do that shit while he's facing into the corner? How many times do I have to deal with the potential sight of his underwear before I just go blind from the fact that my eyes refuse to take the chance any more? It could be worse though. Yesterday he was talking to the new guy in the department (he's been working for me for like a year, but he's still the new guy), and he got excited about something, and spit flew out of his mouth and landed on the poor guy's lip. ON HIS LIP, people. He told me he washed it three times, but he still felt like he needed a shower. I don't blame him.

I hate this damn place sometimes.

The mantra for today is "Thank God it's Friday". We've got a busy weekend ahead of us, considering that it's Andy's birthday on Sunday and we've still got quite a bit to do to get ready for it, but at least I won't be here. And in two weeks I get an entire week off. We're not going anywhere because Andy will be in school, but again, I won't be here. That's the important part.

Friday.. Friday.. Friday...... ommmmmmmmmm

If you really love Christmas...

asaradragon@gmail.com (Carrie) — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 12:04:00 +0000

We're listening to the Bob and Tom show this morning on the radio, and a little while ago they started playing clips of Christmas songs. Now, it's way too early for Christmas songs (if you ask me), so I listened closer to see if I could find out why. Apparently Bob Dylan is releasing a new Christmas album this year, of him singing Christmas songs, and the clips were from that. I'm sorry, but the first thing that came to mind upon hearing this is this song from Love, Actually. Except Bill Nighy is way cooler than Bob Dylan, IMHO. (Apologies to any Dylan fans that read this, it's nothing personal, honest!)

Back to work... again??!

asaradragon@gmail.com (Carrie) — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 12:19:00 +0000

Blech. I feel like poo this morning, mostly because I took a shower right before bed and even though the water was nice and warm, it woke me up. I didn't fall asleep until about 1AM.

We had a very busy weekend, so I apologize in advance if this runs long. Like you guys expect anything else from me, I'm sure.

Friday night the kids went to my parents so we could go present shopping for Andy. Once that was done, we decided to make a night of it ourselves and found a hotel across town to have a mini vacation at. We got a poolside room, and invited Bob and Sara to come swimming with us. We had an awesome time, and when the pool closed, we went to Steak & Shake for some food. It seemed to me they were a bit understaffed, or perhaps they were just ill-prepared. The girl who waited on us was also doing hostess duty, and her tables seemed to be scattered everywhere. At the same time, there were people hanging out doing nothing over by the counter the whole time we were there. My food wasn't that great either. The fries were fine, but I got chicken tenders and they were more chewy than tender. Still, it was a fun night.

The next day we picked up the kids and a rental car and headed across the state. We planned to visit my mother-in-law, as her birthday was yesterday. So we did a little vacation with the kids, driving part of the way there and spending the night in a hotel, again with a pool. They're getting very brave in the water, though they're both still scared to jump in.

Sunday morning we had our continental breakfast and drove the rest of the way to hubby's mom's house. We brought her a coloring book, a card, and a balloon. Her husband entertained the kids (or was it the other way around?) while she entertained hubby and myself with old photo albums from when hubby was young. He has changed a lot since he was little, that's for sure!

After that, it was time to head home. There are a couple of restaurants on that side of the state that we don't have by our house, so we went on a food hunt. We had a bit of an adventure, but eventually we found Tim Horton's, and I got a little box of Timbits (donut holes). The kids each got a donut as well, and hubby had a cinnamon roll. Then on our way home we stopped at the White Castle in Lansing and picked up a Crave Case and a sack of chicken rings. We had to wait for a while for that one, but it's to be expected, considering there are 30 burgers in a Crave Case, and the car in front of us ordered the same thing! Those little burgers are super tasty though, I must say! Between the four of us, we finished about half of the box in the car, and we had the rest for lunch yesterday.

We didn't have production running at work yesterday, so I took advantage of that and spent most of the day at home. Played a bit of WoW, some games on Facebook, generally just relaxed. I did have to go in to work for a bit, but I just had a couple of quick things to take care of, and then it was back home!

And now I'm back at work for the next four days. The Whistler seems to have gotten the memo about his clothes, hopefully he'll get his hair cut some time soon as well. We shall see!

Fridaaaay!!

asaradragon@gmail.com (Carrie) — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 13:24:00 +0000

Finally!

It's another busy day for me today, sending around tons of emails, trying to get things organized for Andy's birthday next week. He wants the same cake as last year, so I'll be having fun trying to re-create it this year! On top of that, we need to make cookies for his class and cupcakes for the party he wants to have with some of his classmates. Lots of baking to be done next Saturday! I have fun with that, though.

Last night was pretty quiet at home. I got home a little early, so we spent some time playing our low-level alts on CC. I have a druid and hubby made a hunter. He's so cute, he named his hunter Calvin, then used Cael and her motorcycle for a ride down to Durotar for an orange tiger to name Hobbes. After dinner we did finish the Clone Wars DVD. It turned out that there was only like half an hour left, so that didn't take as long as we expected. After it was over, I popped in Drop Dead Gorgeous. We've watched it several times (so many that Andy said "this movie AGAIN?!"), but it's still funny... there are so many little one-liners that make us laugh even now.

We'll be out and about quite a lot this weekend, hopefully we'll be able to get Andy's presents, plus we're going to do a bit of driving. No particular destination in mind, hubby's just got that itch to be out on the road again. With luck the weather will be nice, and we can enjoy the changing leaves a bit. I'm sure the DVD player will come along to keep the kids occupied too.

I hope you all have a great weekend as well, I'll see you on the other side!

Waffling

asaradragon@gmail.com (Carrie) — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 14:57:00 +0000

So yeah... I think I'm going to give up on the whole "starting a new blog" thing for now. Instead I'm going to put a little more... me into this place. Starting with the smiling face over on the sidebar. I'm putting my own picture up there instead of Asara's, with my own name. Not going to hide behind an avatar any more. :) Of course there have been pictures of me and my family around before, but that's not quite the same, in my own little opinion.

Last night we did spend some time playing Mezzaluna and Rhonson after dinner (hubby made stir-fry, it was super tasty!). It was nice, barring the slower mounts. I was almost tempted to suggest that we transfer them over to Cenarion Circle as well, in order to take advantage of the gold I've piled up over there and get them moving a bit faster! It wasn't bad though, not nearly as bad now that regular flyers are 150% instead of 60%. Still, the difference was noticeable! We put in some good progress toward level 76, and zipped through quite a few quests in Zul'Drak. Around 9 we decided to call it a night, and put in a movie.

Hubby is a big fan of Star Wars, and back when we had cable, he watched the animated Clone Wars series a lot with our son. So he put the movie version on our Netflix queue, and that's what we watched last night. We didn't finish the whole thing though, because after about an hour, I started falling asleep on the couch. I had been hesitant to watch it in the past, because of a review I read of it over on BBB's blog. He had said something about how it didn't quite fit that Anakin would have this fond relationship with a Padawan and then somehow turn into the baby-killing monster depicted in the third Star Wars movie. Hubby suspects that this might be explained as the tv show concludes. There were some previews of another Clone Wars season that included clips implying that Anakin's Padawan had turned into just as much of a problem as Anakin himself. This leads us to wonder if something will happen to her that could account for the violent shift in his behavior. Perhaps one of these days we can see the whole series and find out!

As far as being sick goes, it looks like I dodged that particular bullet. So far no new symptoms of anything, and the sore throat has gone away. Yay for that! On the down side, my wrist is hurting again, so boo for tendonitis there. I've been taking some ibuprofen and I put ice on it yesterday, but it still hurts. It's mostly a dull pain, but it's always there, and I'm getting sort of tired of it. I think I might have to haul out my wrist brace for a week or two on top of the other stuff I'm doing for it. I hate doing that though, because it makes it very awkward for me to use the computer and write. I feel like I'm hurting it more by doing those things because I have to stretch my hand around in ways I usually don't in order to click the mouse button or move a pen. Still, that's what the doctor told me to do last time, and it did actually work, so I guess it's worth a shot.

Regarding the Whistler, the HR guy did come down to the lab and he said he sort of talked about the pants issue with him, but he wasn't sure how much good it would do. It must have done something though, because he's wearing some new pants today. There was talk of getting him some uniforms again, which I would not have a problem with at all. I wouldn't have to wear one, at any rate! Plus it would save me from some stupid conversations about where he got the t-shirt he's wearing for the day. Extra bonus there!

That's about it for today, tonight we'll probably be finishing up the Clone Wars DVD and maybe watching a bit of TV or maybe another movie. I'm sure there are quite a few around that we haven't seen yet, and having the ability to stream movies from Netflix online right to the TV is pretty sweet!

Wednesday already?

asaradragon@gmail.com (Carrie) — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 12:32:00 +0000

It's nice to see that my work week is already getting on toward half over. Yesterday practically flew by, I had a lot going on for a change. I still have quite a bit to do today, it feels good to be gainfully occupied at work! Not that I mind getting paid to surf the internet, but I feel better doing actual work when I'm at work.

The only thing I could do without today is the Whistler. He's wearing a pair of jeans that I know I've told him to get rid of at least twice before today. They're ripped and worn out, and the back pocket is hanging off in such a way that if his shirt wasn't tucked in, his skivvies would be hanging out for all to see. He said something yesterday about how he used to have a uniform and he wishes he could have one again because he ruins so many clothes here. I always have to bite my tongue when he says stuff like that, because if he would be a little more careful about what he's doing, he wouldn't have nearly the amount of mess on his clothes. But he's always in such a hurry, there's stuff flying everywhere.

I feel like I might be coming down with something. :( My throat felt really scratchy when I woke up this morning, and that usually means a cold is on the way. I hope I'm not getting sick, we were talking about doing a little road trip this weekend, maybe going to visit my mother-in-law at her new house. Just have to keep my fingers crossed, I guess!

Not much else to report today, hubby made us some delicious tacos last night, and we watched the Dark Crystal with the kids before turning in. Tonight we'll probably play a bit of WoW, hopefully we'll be able to dust off Mezzaluna and Rhonson for a while, we haven't played them in quite some time! I miss my little priest. :)

For Someone Special

asaradragon@gmail.com (Carrie) — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 13:00:00 +0000

(I couldn't find the one I wanted, but hopefully this one will do!)

Bonding is good.

asaradragon@gmail.com (Carrie) — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 20:16:00 +0000

Let's see what there is to report today...

We spent most of the weekend offline. The kids went to my parents' to get in some quality time with their cousin, and from what I hear, they all had a great time. My dad said that my niece practically couldn't stop hugging my kids, which is adorable.

We got a call on Friday from my brother-in-law and his wife, who invited us over for some Mario Party. The batteries in their Wii remotes were running low, so we hauled out an older version and played on the GameCube. We had quite a lot of fun, as it turned out that we had an unfinished game hanging around that we decided to finish playing. Hubby won that one, and then his brother won the quicker game we played afterwards. By that time my sister-in-law was getting tired, so she headed off to bed, and hubby, his brother, and I watched a movie before we came home for the night. It was called Bully... and I kind of wish we'd picked something else. It was just long and drawn-out and had very little point, when you got right down to it. It was based on a true story, but that didn't make it much more movie-worthy in my little opinion.

On Saturday we slept in quite a bit. I don't remember much about what we did during the day, but that night we went out to the bar for dinner and some karaoke! There was a pretty good crowd, but I still got to sing four songs. I had a good time, but hubby wasn't feeling very well. We left around 11:30 or so and headed out to a hot tub place not too far away, which was very relaxing. :)

Sunday was spent hanging around the house, playing a bit of WoW, doing a bit of laundry.

It was nice to just stay home and spend time with my hubby. Life can get pretty frantic around here at times, and I definitely appreciated the time to just be together. All told, it was a weekend well spent.

Feeling pretty RAWR.

asaradragon@gmail.com (Carrie) — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 12:33:00 +0000

So, I've been raiding quite a bit this week.

On Monday, we ran Ulduar-10. I brought my hunter, and she got... zero upgrades. Everything was plate or cloth, no dps mail at all. Sadface. However, we did have a very successful run, we got through Kologarn, which is farther than I've ever seen. The last time I was in there, we had a wipefest on Ignis and never managed to kill him.

I've dual specced my hunter to Marksman. Sigh. I never thought I would, but I had the extra money, and I won a gun from heroic TOC, so I figured I'd give it a try. Stuck a haste scope on there, and I have been doing better DPS. The problem is, now I have trouble switching back. The haste scope is useless when she's using her Beast Mastery spec, and the non-haste scope is on a crossbow. So every time I want to switch, I have to restock arrows, and it's a general pain in the arse. I want a bow, dammit. Then I wouldn't have to worry about it. Still, Leshya is getting a lot of play time, and I'm still having fun, trying to learn a rotation for the new spec is amusing, especially because I'm not geared quite right for Marksman. I'm managing around 4k dps, which is nothing to sneeze at, at least I don't think so.

Then last night Saraabi got her turn. There were two 10-man runs set up, one for OS and one for Naxx. We got OS down with no trouble, and Saraabi got to tank the big dragon again. We did very well in Naxx as well, we cleared all four quarters, and just have the last two bosses to clear out some time this weekend. We had only two wipes the whole time. One was on Anub'rekhan, breaking in a new healer... he was too close to the boss on locust swarm and got silenced. And once Saraabi went down, everyone else followed shortly after. The other was on Four Horsemen, and possibly the same healer. He was put in the back, and wasn't close enough to Lady Blaumeux. Or however you spell that. We cleaned them both out on the second try though, which is a great learning curve for someone who had never seen the encounters before. Saraabi main tanked the whole thing, and had an awesome time doing so.

I think Thaddius is my favorite, with the whole tank throwing thing. It's just fun to go flying back and forth across the room. Grobbulus is probably second, and Heigan third, just because the dancing while tanking is a bit nerve-wracking. I like bosses where I actually get to do something more than just stand there and hold the boss for everyone else to pound on. Some of the standing still bosses were fun too though, I sat there and watched my TPS on Omen climb up over a million. I felt very RAWR!

On Friday is supposed to be another Ulduar, then on Saturday we're going to have another go at ToC-10. We have been in there once before, but we didn't really know what we were doing, and just barely got to the second part of the Northrend Beasts. However, we're all a bit better-geared, so perhaps we'll have more success this time around. We've also tried Onyxia once, but wiped to the flying phase every time. One of these days we'll take her out too, I'm sure!

After this week though, I'm cutting back down on my raiding to one or two days a week. I was up too late last night and Monday night, and I am really feeling it right now. I had fun, but I need to take care of myself too. Tonight is a night off anyway, so all I'm going to do is watch TV with the family and try to put a dent in our laundry. I've decided to wash just about every item of clothing in the house, and it's a big task! It'll get done though, mark my words! :)

Quiet on the home front

asaradragon@gmail.com (Carrie) — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 12:28:00 +0000

Radio silence seems to be the catchword this week.

I have decided on the name for my new blog, but I'm still getting things set up over there, so no link for you all yet! If anyone has any banner-making skill at all, please comment or email, because I have tried and failed to make something good. I know what I want, but my graphics skills are just not up to it.

This week has zoomed by pretty quickly. It seems like it was just Monday! Our evenings have been pretty WoW-less this week. I think we got in one run of the Brewfest boss, and a couple of heroics, and that's about it. Last night we did a run of Heroic Halls of Lightning, and in the middle the guild master started up a group for Onyxia. They were short a couple of people, but Tuesday and Thursday nights are family nights now, so we had to tell them that we couldn't go.

We ordered pizza from a new place that just went in near our grocery store. It was pretty good, though I'm not totally sold on the sauce. Probably because I'm so used to getting a certain flavor from the other pizza places we order from. It wasn't bad, just different. The rest of the pizza was awesome. There was a ton of cheese, the mushroom pieces were huge, and the crust was amazingly tasty. We also tried their cheese bread and some boneless barbecue wings. Both were yummy! I think we'll probably order from them again. It's a nice break, because there is only one other place around our house that will deliver to us.

Once the pizza showed up, we watched Underworld: Rise of the Lycans, which had just arrived from Netflix. It was ok, but I wasn't super impressed with it. I haven't seen the first Underworld in a while, but I remember liking it a lot better. I think the fact that the big scary vampire leader was played by Bill Nighy did a lot for my opinion. The problem is, I had just watched Love, Actually the night before, and he is in that too as an old rock legend doing a crappy Christmas cover song in a last-ditch attempt at a comeback. So every time he was in a scene with his horribly fake-looking blue contacts, I kept expecting him to launch into "If you really love Christmas, come on and let it snow!" I hadn't seen Love, Actually before I saw the first Underworld movie, so there was no association at the time.

The style of the werewolves bothered me a bit too. They reminded me of gorillas with wolf heads. Especially when they were shown running from above. Just overall, it was pretty "meh". I have no idea what's coming next, but it probably won't get here until Monday or Tuesday because I forgot to bring this one to the mailbox this morning, so I'll have to drop it in the mail tomorrow or something. Bummer. At least we can hook up hubby's laptop to the TV and watch movies that way too. The selection isn't the best, but generally we've been able to find something worth watching every time we've set it up. The kids have been watching Voltron, and Andy seems to really like it. I noticed Thundercats on there too, but I don't remember if it's available on the computer or not. I may look into it this weekend. :)

Speaking of which, I think I've rambled on long enough. I hope you all have a lovely weekend. The weather here isn't going to be the best, but I'm sure we'll find something to keep us busy!

Weekend Recap

asaradragon@gmail.com (Carrie) — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 11:21:00 +0000

Good times were had this weekend.

Saturday was Pirate Day, so I had to run Caelatria down to Booty Bay to get her pirate costume and a quick achievement. That's about all that went on in WoW though, the rest of the day was spent offline. We took the kids out to Applebee's for lunch, then did the grocery shopping for the week. We all got new coloring books, and after the groceries were put away, we all did some coloring. Then Bob and Sara stopped by, and we went out to Texas Roadhouse for dinner (prime rib, yum). Afterwards, they came back to our house for a few rounds of Rock Band.

Yesterday was a lazy at-home day. We did some more coloring, and we'd gotten Bolt in the mail from Netflix, so we watched that before bedtime. It was pretty cute, if a bit predictable at times. Some of the plot went over Andy's head too, which was difficult to explain afterwards. Still, he enjoyed watching it, and so did we. I think my favorite character was Rhino, the hamster. He was just so over-the-top, I couldn't help but laugh.

Now it's back to work.. blah. I'm still mulling over what to do with the blog. I probably will start a new one, but I don't know how soon. I still haven't decided on a name. Last time I checked, Mental Meanderings was leading the poll. We shall see :)

Yarrrr! It's Pirate Day!

asaradragon@gmail.com (Carrie) — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 14:07:00 +0000

On a side note..

asaradragon@gmail.com (Carrie) — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 11:49:00 +0000

First, thank you very much to the one person who has voted on my poll thus far. I will leave it up for a few days, in hopes that at least a couple more people will stop by.

Next, I have to say how much it astounds me that people come in here and ask where the paper towel is. We have a sink. The paper towel dispenser sits right above the sink. If you look straight ahead while standing at the sink, you can't miss it. Seriously. One of the managers just came in and asked for some paper towel, and I had to point him in the right direction. These people can find the sink to dump their skunky day-old coffee into, but they can't find the paper towel dispenser. Awesome.