Can’t believe it’s been that long since World of Warcraft came out and, in fact, even longer since we first started playing it thanks to the open beta. I tried a warrior in open beta and enjoyed it, but picked a female troll rogue to play when the game went live. Poor Kyllikki is now languishing at 60 thanks to a rash decision to take advantage of a free server transfer, and many other characters have come and gone since.

My current main & miscellaneous alts got their birthday presents today - a Baby Blizzard Bear. Very cute, adorable in fact, and very suited to life in Northrend when I stop simply dipping my toe in it and then running away. It seems to take me ages to warm up to new areas it seems. I did the same thing with Burning Crusade. I venture out into the new places and then bolt quickly back to my nice, cozy old areas that I know and don’t get lost in. I’ve just got to stay in the new zones long enough for them to start to feel familar and then I’ll be fine.

So anyway, happy birthday to World of Warcraft and thanks for the new pet!

I really, really hate Canberra.

Good God, how much do I hate Canberra!

This place is the absolute pits. I’m allergic to it (quite literally), the services are useless, there’s barely any mobile phone reception at our house, can’t get ADSL2, there are crazy people on EVERY BUS you catch, homeless people at every bus stop (also usually crazy), EVERYBODY smokes (usually at bus stops and in your face), the doctors here seem to all be conducting their own experiments on how much they can rip off Medicare while providing you no service whatsoever, and even if there was anything to do in this stinking town it would take 2 hours to get there by bus!

I <insert expletive of choice here> hate this mockery of a capital city.

And yes, I’d be out of here and not whinging so much if I could, but sadly it’s not possible right now. Christ in a cream cheese sauce* how much do I want out of this hole.

There now. That’s off my chest. Now why don’t I feel better?

* Thank you Catherine Jinks for a phrase I fell in love with the moment I read it.

Halloween in World of Warcraft

Apart from the usual shrieking (both from the children and the harried sounding mother) I overheard this gem from the little girl:

"Mummy, David’s peed all over the bathroom floor!"* (Multiply this by 10, with each repetition of the sentence louder each time - I’m sure office workers heard her in Civic.)

As I prepared to do my repetitive (and oh so peaceful!) ironing, I couldn’t help smiling to myself. Motherhood may truly be a wonderful thing (despite all the screeching and crying going on next door), but I’ve never been so relieved that I haven’t embarked on that particular adventure in life.

* Name changed because a) you’re supposed to and, b) little fuzzy on the kid’s actual name.

So I have one row or something cast on and tonight I’ll have a go at umm… binding it? Sealing it? Making it neater anyway - Mum didn’t know what it was called, just that it makes the initial stitches stronger and you do it before you start the actual knitting. Either way I’m pretty confident I remember how it went so I’m not anticipating any problems. Then I can start knitting my very boring beginner scarve in the strange multi-coloured wool I have that I suspect all beginner knitters use in the beginning because it makes the stitches stand out from each other. Eventually I’ll have to ask Mum to show me how to stop I suppose!

Many moons ago (my birthday probably) Mum & Dad got me a "how to knit" kit and a big ball of wool (or is it yarn? who knows?) because I’d said often enough that now that I’m living in a colder climate I really should learn how to knit. Seemed like a perfectly reasonable idea and my grandmother had taught me a little when I was young after all. Arthritis stopped her knitting almost completely not long after she’d taught me a few basics and it was so long ago that I’ve forgotten most of it. But still, I’d learnt once and surely I could learn again.

Apparently not. The instructions came complete with diagrams that made me quite cross-eyed, and the written directions weren’t much better. So after a few attempts, with each one leaving me crankier than the last, I finally turned to YouTube for assistance which helped me at least master the slip knot. No, I’ve never had occasion to make a slip knot before except, presumably, for the last time I learnt how to knit.

Encouraged by how quickly I got the slip knot down, I turned to the next step: casting on. Found another great little video and, much swearing later, thought I’d worked out how to do it and was feeling quite proud of myself. That is until I looked at the video again and saw I was doing one step the wrong way. Trouble was when I did it the way the video said to all I got was a big mess.

Clearly knitting > me.

It’s still so cold! Somebody hasn’t told the weather that it’s been officially spring for a few weeks now. Kali has taken to not getting out of bed until well into the afternoon. I’ve been feeling so sorry for her that I don’t make the bed until much later in the day just so she can keep snuggling under the blankets and staying warm. Wish I could join her!

Yeah right.

For the first half hour (probably more really) we caught glimpses of the lake. For some reason that was completely inexplicable the bike/walking path doesn’t follow the lake all the time. Instead it meanders (my hated word for the day) casually over towards Black Mountain and has strange curves and loops in it that make no sense. There’s no tree, giant rock, sleeping politician to avoid and yet every so often it has a completely pointless U-shaped bend in it. For ages we saw more bikes whizzing past than water views. Eventually the path made it to the lake, but it turns out the lake was also designed with strange little bends in it. I think the man-made lake suffers from river envy or something.

We eventually made it to the city after many more meandering paths and pointless turns. You know the path was put in first and the trees that it appears to wind around put in later and when your legs are already threatening to fall off it doesn’t seem all pretty and countryish, it instead makes you want to find who designed it and strangle them with the last of your energy.

So yes, it took roughly 3 hours and many a rant from me before we dragged ourselves down to the food court in the Canberra Centre and tried to undo all that exercise with some Hungry Jacks while we waited for our bus which we had, inevitably, just missed. I crashed into bed as soon as we got home and slept until dinner. Luckily Ben likes cooking and wasn’t as tired since he usually walks around the city in his lunch breaks at speeds you usually only see when watching those funny, walking races you see in the Olympics.

I’m back in bed again and will probably only drag my carcass out of bed long enough to take off my makeup. On the plus side I do appear to be getting overall fitter in that I wasn’t out of breath for any of the walk. It seems to be just that the muscles in my legs weren’t used to quite that much exercise so that’s where all the tiredness/soreness seems to be. As I said, they’re definitely going on strike.

Ben brought home these gorgeous flowers for me the other night, not to mention the vase they came in. Thank the gods! A vase is one of those things that you keep meaning to buy, but never get around to it and usually forget until suddenly you need it.

I took heaps of others, but my camera is just completely unable to cope with the shakiness of my hands so they were all blurry. This is the only one that was clear enough. I think there are new ones that will compensate for it though.

Anyway, back to the flowers. Aren’t they pretty? :) Lillies are pretty much my favourite flower, and Ben got them to put in a couple of those purple flowers which I believe are Irises. “Just Because” flowers are awesome; I’ve felt warm and fuzzy all week… which is lucky since winter is having it’s last hurrah down here.