Thursday Thirteen: Random Morning Musings

Not awake for anything brilliant today. :) So I present the broken thought Thursday Thirteen.

- Over half of my mood icons on LJ aren't working right now. Weird. My webpage server must be having a hiccup.

- The lunar eclipse last night was very cool. Not the coolest one I've seen - that was in college when I saw a huge horizon eclipse loom over Boston from west campus (absolutely astounding, that one - one of those "Star Wars" moons), but cool regardless.

- WoW addiction has officially taken hold again. I'm not sure that's a good thing.

- On the other side, fanfiction addiction is slumping. I'm reading, of course. But not writing. *shrug* I'll get there.

- I miss cross-stitching. My pieces are screaming at me to get going again. That'll be one of the things I'll enjoy when Stitch, Bitch & Who dates kick back off again... whenever they actually wind up starting.

- My goal this weekend is to get all of the stupid little projects finished around the house. I have a lot of things that are half-done. That's my plan for Saturday.

- I learned the other day that my friends Frank & Teresa are expecting their first child. Very early on right now - only about 8 weeks. But they were hoping to become preganant, so it's very happy news. Only thing that makes me sad is they're moving to New York very soon as well (for the extended family support network), so I won't see them that often.

- I did the stupid thing of wearing a new white sweater on the day I'd planned to get Thai food for lunch. *sigh* That plan, needless to say, has been changed. I'd like to wear the sweater ONCE before getting it stained, at least.

- Why did I buy a white sweater, anyway? I should know better, with this boob-shelf.

- Covering reception all day tomorrow again, so I'll be having a fun day on LJ. I apologize in advance for posting spam. :)

- I think I'm developing a bit of a tolerance to my evening allergy meds. I've been waking up very sneezy lately. :( Although I am going to do a wash of the pillows this weekend in hopes that it helps a bit.

- Our cats are retarded. But this is not news.

- My coffee is broken. Need more.

Weekend Wrap-Up

In addition to continuing LJ drama... I was a slacker for the long weekend.

So my ten plus hours of World of Warcraft on Saturday wound up being probably about eighteen or so over the weekend. Included in said WoWing was:

- Two full instances (Shadow Labs and Arcanium), to help scuba_mo, aka Basmon, with his key quest for Karazhan. I hadn't completely run either before, even though I was keyed for Kara - I was pulled into the instances for the key quests both times. :)

- Twelve Netherstorm area quests cleaned out of my quest log with Basmon & Erich (aka Abudiabudie)

- Nine daily quests

- Respecced Tennetty, created macros for her shots, and worked on the timing for said new shots (this will continue this week before I go back into Kara... I don't feel comfortable quite yet with it).

- Resupplied Tennetty after she picked up tremendously good equipment in Karazhan during last week's raids. My personal haul on 2/14 included my new cloak, chestpiece, legs, and boots. Had to buy all new gems for sockets, get new enchants, and upgraded the enchant on my axe. All told, about 550 gold spent, so finishing the quests in Netherstorm to save up some gold was appreciated. I still need to get the supplies for my gun scope, and hopefully upgrade one of the red gems because nothing I was thrilled with was in the AH.

Her spiffy upgraded spec looks like this now: http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Eonar&n=Tennetty

- Rolling up little noob blood elf females on Eonar with the boys late on Saturday night, and just running around the starting area with the quests... mostly nekkid. Absolutely stupid, silly stuff - but fun. And yes, the threesome included a blonde, a brunette, and a redhead. :) We're thinking we should totally make a silly named blood elf female guild for absolutely no reason other than to run around nekkid and tease other players online. If anyone else is interested for shits & giggles, roll up a female BE on Eonar, and then send a mail message to "Quela". :)

- Levelled my lowbie Druid, Silverhoof, up one more level.

Yeah, I'm a geek. Slacker geek.

I did, however, be practical for a bit yesterday and went out to buy new clothes since my old ones were getting... worn (or are ready for recycling/trashing). We went straight to the mall, so I went to Lane Bryant. Bought three new pairs of work pants (yes... blue SIX... friggin' salespeople, I TOLD YOU), two new twinset sweaters, and a new pair of pj's. All costing about $230. There were a few other nice pieces, but nothing that really, REALLY caught my eye. I may look around at Macy's and at the other plus-size stores in the area come next paycheck. My wardrobe needs an overhaul - and a cleanout.

But yeah - total slacker weekend. Which I honestly needed. I feel much better now, and feel up to tackling things again.

WoW quest weirdness

*gasp* Not fandom! Well... perhaps it is. Just - alternative fandom.

And because it's going to be Greek (Tauren? Orcish?) to anyone who doesn't play World of Warcraft... I'll be a bit careful to explain things as necessary.

So my first character ("main"), Tennetty, is a happy level 70 Tauren hunter - max level you can have. But there's still plenty of stuff to do once you HIT that level. Literally it's like playing an entirely different game - the one to get you there, and then all of the stuff you do once you're there (group battles, advanced quests, daily quests, etc.).

Said level 70 game was put on hold until after the wedding because I just didn't have time to devote to it. Now that the wedding is behind me, I've been thoroughly enjoying blowing off steam and just killing time playing WoW. Got through all of my required quests that unlock some of the advanced stuff - and now I'm happily doing the 10-man raid instances with my guild. Until this week, my current weaponry/armor really only allowed me to do the first half of our current raid instance. This week, I was able to join the group for the latter tier. So I'm having a blast - getting some good gear, discovering gorgeous new places (really - one of my favorite things about WoW is just how beautiful the game world is... I can just go exploring and have a great time sight-seeing!)

This week, I was scheduled to run Karazhan both last night and tomorrow. Had some problems with my login, so my spot last night went to one of the other hunters in the guild - someone who hadn't been to Kara. People were all worried when I logged on, and I said no - it's cool. Get someone else geared. I'll bring Tennetty over to the front gates and leave her there in case someone needs to leave and you need a spot filled. But it was seriously no problem. At this point, I'd honestly prefer to be able to try the Thursday night session, since it's almost all new to me.

So I park Tennetty, log onto one of my lower-level alt characters, Kelima - a Troll Warrior - to do some questing/levelling. joined me on a hunter alt alt of similar level, and we cleared out a couple quests. I emphasize couple, because one specific quest took us nearly an hour because the drop rate on the items we needed to collect was so bad.

and here's where the WoW experienced will know what I'm referring to a bit better...

So bad, in fact, that even with the two of us sharing the kill XP, I managed to completely wrap around my XP bar 1.5 times. DURING THE QUEST. I started at level 23 last night. Levelled upon turning in a quest to start the evening. Then we go do this quest in the Barrens (collecting three weapons, killing three named Quilboars in the Barrens... mid 20's level). I wrap around, level, run out of rest XP as I'm still gaining XP - and then upon turning in the other completed quests in my log last night (I hadn't turned in for a while - I had nine to turn in!) - I'm now 3/4 the way to the NEXT level.

IN ONE THREE HOUR SESSION OF WOW.

All the while both of us are having to constantly throw out food, grey items, etc. out of our bags because they're now constantly full, but we're far enough away from town that neither of us really wants to run to just clear out bags.

Seriously... WTF? Not that I'm complaining (other than regarding the drop rate of those effing weapons)... but insane.

So yeah, with really only about 5 hours of play time, i've gone from level 21 to nearly 26 with Kelima this week. Not too shabby.

Of course, now she's out of rest XP, so I'll have her parked at the inn for a couple days to recharge. I need to work on my pet with Tennetty - I've been neglegent about feeding Mousedeath lately. I've had him since level 28, and recently his loyalty is back down to 3. Not good.

Never piss off a cat. Even in WoW.

*sigh*

Thus ends my geekdom for the day.

Looking forward to the weekend

I'm a bit off-center this morning, mostly because Erich's cough sent him into the guest bedroom last night so he didn't have to feel paranoid about being restless (and allowing me to get some sleep). Very considerate of him, particularly since I am such a shitty sleeper as it is.

I did sleep, but I swear, even while asleep, I had this weird sense about being alone in the bed. Marriage is clearly getting to me. :) Not that we haven't slept in the same bed for six years now, of course... but still... there's a LOT of room for one person in a king-sized bed.

The extra room, of course, promptly filled up with cats. I woke up with three balls of fur in various spots on the mattress. I imagine at least one of the additionals was with Erich, playing nurse kitten. Hoodsie was undoubtedly downstairs on his ottoman. Cat #5 (whichever it was) was... wherever.

I have a lot to do this weekend, but I'm intentionally forcing myself to take as much of Saturday as possible to curl up in my office and do some brain-dump style writing. Whether on my OSK fic, other fic ideas, or just random schlock writing. I need to get myself comfortable with my own thoughts, and I just need to make the time for it. As I told Erich last night - what I really need to do is just set aside a day, dump off all of my chores and errands as "will do later" and just let myself go for it. If I plan other things to do, I won't be able to relax and write. It just won't happen at all.

So that's tomorrow's plan. We'll see what comes of it. I do have a lot of little snippets of ideas churning, so it literally may just be writing 100 word images in my head that have absolutely no coherancy beyond the immediate images. But hey, they'll be down in print. And I can see later if something comes of any of them. I just need to get them OUT. If I'm getting too distracted at home, a trip down to Borders for a pot of tea may be used as well.

Speaking of tea...

The sorority Tea is on Sunday afternoon for the potential new class of pledges membership candidates, so I'll be going up to Boston for the afternoon. Should be fun. Hopefully goes well. Need to remember to go buy a car battery beforehand so I can actually get to Boston, though. That may have to kick off Saturday pre-writing.

I read last night that next week's Torchwood is a double-bill. Eps 5 and 6 will be shown back to back on BBC2. Six is the first of Martha's run on TW... we'll see if something's actually done with her character now that the dreaded unrequited love crap on Who is over.

Hmmm...

Weird Week

This week was rough in a lot of ways - some of it mine/Erich's, but also with friends of mine. 2008 just doesn't seem to be off to a good start, and I'm already in that "do I need to keep my head down?!?" mode.

The me/Erich stuff is the final real battle in dealing with his mom's estate. As part of it, Erich inherited half of his grandparents' house in the town where he grew up in Massachusetts. Apparently his grandmother's name was the only one on the title, and she willed half to each of her daughters, and with Debbie passing, one half has passed to Erich. His aunt lives in the house, but does want to get out of it because it's too much for her to take care of, both size-wise and financially. And this house is NOT in good shape, nor has she even managed to maintain it.

So last week, Erich finds out that back taxes are owed. Next day, he finds out that it's two YEARS of back taxes owed. I can't fathom how his aunt lets TWO YEARS OF HOUSE TAXES slip. I really can't. Seriously... W.T.F?!?

Mind you - we've already dropped a decent amount of money to bail the aunt out here - a sizeable amount of our wedding gift money went towards this. Once I find out about the tax bills? I flip a gasket. Because now I see our tax refund immediately going to this thing - the tax refund that was going to be a sizeable amount of our financing toward the trip to England. And with the house now in that limbo between ownership and foreclosure because of this, I'm even more upset - because the house COULD be lost over this, and said money just disappears.

So Erich and I had a decent row over it. A "go to bed angry" sort of row.

Thankfully, he's pushed forward to get things going on this house. Met with a real estate agent, talked to the town tax board. Got all of his documents regarding the house from the worthless lawyer his aunt had hired up in Massachusetts so he could transfer them to our family lawyer here in RI.

Just a mess. BUT... the house is going on the market next week. Price lowered to be sold "as is." And hopefully there's a buyer out there looking for a project. *shrug* It's in a good town, and the lot itself is lovely (wooded 1/2 acre with wild grapes and such growing on it) in a nice neighborhood. It's just the *house* that needs serious work.

So we'll see.

The other thing this week is that one of our friends, Rob, who I went to college with (and was a roomate with just after college), is very ill and in the hospital. He went in with viral pneumonia last weekend. Took a downturn early this week, and the doctors were forced to intubate him. His heart is enlarged and working at 25% capacity. It's just a nasty situation. Since then, it's been one of those "he's showing some signs of improvement... but..." situations. His heart now is the big focus. They're not sure whether it's due to the pneumonia or due to a pre-existing condition (or a secondary infection), but it's being considered Congestive Heart Failure at the moment. He's going in for a CAT scan and a biopsy in the next couple days, but it's scary, scary stuff. And a lot of it just involves having to be patient, rest, and leave himself up to the doctors who are caring for him.

Mind you - he's 31.

Dealing with one of those "so... how exactly do I recover from this?" situations. The doctors can't say exactly what the long-term damage will be.

Erich and some of the guys went down to New Haven to visit him in the hospital today - they're on their way back at the moment. Hopefully some friends visiting will cheer him up again. He's not so far away that we can't pop down there for a few hours as needed. And thankfully Rob's brother is a nurse at the hospital where he's staying... so at least he has family with him, too.

But it's just so terrifying, these reminders of mortality.

It makes all sorts of stresses pale so much in comparison.