Year: 2006

Ok, not done one of these for quite a while so here goes :

Thirteen things about people …

1. Some people you love, some you adore, some you trust, some you hate.
2. We’re lucky to have the communication abilities that let us find friends.
3. Friends pick you up when you’re down and share in your successes.
4. People can do horrible things, I’m so glad that the terror plot of today did not end up in deaths. World 1 : Terrorists 0. Sure there’s been inconvenience but there’s been no martyrs. And that’s a sure sign that sanity has won.
5. People make you laugh or make you cry. Sometimes both, depending on the joke.
6. Friends let you talk things through. And we often need that.
7. A person can be very smart but crowds can be incredibly stupid. (Got that from Men In Black)
8. People can surprise you by doing wonderful things for you. Why should that be a surprise ?
9. Things are less fun when you’re on your own. Maybe that’s why I’m so addicted to an online game …
10. People are the reason for celebrations. I had 3 donuts today ! (Someone’s birthday)
11. People can be very cruel (pictures of the Middle East conflict just came over the telly).
12. People can cheat you, I think the garage where I took my car did stuff they didn’t need to, plus there’s a bit of money missing from the car. (I’ll get my own back by letting the work’s forums know)
13. Without a group of friends, there would be no place for love. And no love would mean this world would be a very empty and dull place.

[chuckle] This Thursday 13 partly inspired by the events on Guildlink earlier, where a couple of people have been thrown out because they complained very loudly over how our loot system works. Some unacceptable comments getting thrown around … We don’t need those people but they definitely need us.

However, it’s more inspired by me reading Craziequeen’s Thursday Thirteen and me thinking that she needs a hug. So if you read this (I know it’s not too many from my hit counter), then go to Craziequeen’s Blog (link on the right) and give her a BIGHUG! Because she deserves it and always will.

They’re important, they give people a sense of identity. I always know who I belong to when it comes to the England flag or the Union Flag and I also feel a bit of a lift when I see people running by on WoW videos with the guild tabard on. It’s part of the identity we’ve got for the guild. Here’s an example of what it looks like :

Mine’s the character in the middle and you can just about make out the gold coins that make up the pattern of the Mercenaries’ tabard. That’s Iceangel, the frost mage who has recently expanded her repertoire into having a bit of fun with fire. We’ve had that design for well over a year now and we’re getting a bit bored of it. We’re needing a bit of inspiration though on what we’re going to use, here are a couple of ideas so far :

That’s my warrior in something close to her latest thumping things outfit. Maybe it needs a different colour for the symbol there, although one theme we’re trying to bring out is “darkness”.
One from the guild leader :

Not bad … There’s been a couple more ideas done but I think we’re starting to lack inspiration. If you’d like to help out, there’s a handy tabard designer … However, to get the image on a character, you’d need to have World of Warcraft on your PC.
Oh, here’s my final effort as a bit of fun that will never happen :

Last week I had a week off to get a bit of sleep and relaxation in away from work … I also saw it as a good chance to get an overdue service and MoT in for the car.

Lesson number 1 – get things done in plenty of time.

Phoned the garage on Monday to book it in, earliest possible date was Friday. Fair enough … I’d be able to get it in on the morning and out and taxed on Friday afternoon.

Lesson number 2 – never take things for granted.

I’d made the fatal mistake of assuming because my Puma is pretty solidly reliable, there wouldn’t be much needing to be done outside of the exhaust needing fixing. WRONG ! Here’s the list :

70k service (expected)
Wiper blades (not expected – must have been sold rubbish ones 18 months ago)
Alternator belt – split (not expected, no funny red light signs)
Air con service (definitely not expected – was done 30 months ago)
Brakes replacement front (not expected but fair enough)
Exhaust (expected – it’s been noisy lately)
Power Steering pump (definitely not expected, although hindsight tells me I should have)

Lesson number 3 – Keep a reserve cash supply handy …

I was thinking about changing my car pretty soon but I think I’ll put that on hold in order to a) Pay off the credit card I used to pay for the repairs ! and b) Pay off a couple of other loans I have. It’s not quite that bad but it’ll take a couple of months to pay the £1150 repair bill and I want to get some mileage out of it.

Lesson number 4 – Never assume …

The most expensive my Puma has been before now was about £500 for an earlier service … It’s been far better and still is better than my last car, a Rover 420. That was terrible … The sheen of the Puma’s been dented now but it’s still the best option for me at the moment. The bodyshell has the flexibility I need, I don’t need the extra seats, it has the performance I like and it has excellent economy.

Lol – nearly a month since I last put something in here … I’ve been up to a few things,

Been raiding lots
Been playing cricket
Been to see my mum & dad
Been bouncing off things I shouldn’t have been bouncing off
Been told that it looks as if I’ve lost weight
Been told that it looks like I’ve lost weight by attractive young ladies

Had to mention that last one twice. Hey ! It made me smile for the rest of the day after they said it :-).

Before I go to the Mall to raid shops and see what the girls are wearing, here’s a nomination for the “it’s not me!” award :

The people behind World of Warcraft (Blizzard) blamed the users last week for lag that’s been crippling the servers … Lag means every few minutes, there will be about 30 seconds where you just can’t do anything. Things are still happening around you but you can’t see it on your screen and you definitely can’t affect it. That’s lag. Well, seems like that was the fault of several thousand (million ?) users over about 30 servers … It didn’t have anything to do with the restart of servers Blizzard did on Sunday. Oh no … The restart that has coincided with the lag all but disappearing !

Hmm. Time to hit the Mall. I doubt whether I’ll pick anything up but I’ll have fun looking ;-).

Waiting for the England game to start at the moment and couldn’t resist commenting on the crowd. One thing that always makes me grin is the sheer noise that an English crowd can put out at anthem time. A few years ago, we had distortion over the radio cos they were so loud and today at the Paraguay game it was :

Big Noise for God Save The Queen
Almost silence for the Paraguay anthem

Our boys like giving the anthem a good singing :-). You could almost see on the faces of the Paraguay players an anticipation of all the crowd support being for England. Now hoping for a good game.

Had my second game of the cricket season tonight. I think I was looking forward to this one a bit more than the last as I had a decent idea of what I’d be able to do. And I was reasonably fit and able, which I wasn’t for the last game I was picked for (rained off).

Word of Warning – this isn’t a victory dance post ;-).

So how’d it go ? The other guys batted first and proceeded to cane our bowlers all over the place. I think they piled on about 150 in their 20 overs, which is a tough ask. My fielding did its job but was still pretty ragged. I had one run out chance but didn’t hit the stumps with my throw. I did however succeed in my Intimidation Plan, which is basically : Be hyperactive in the field and make the batsmen think you’re a livewire that you don’t want to try running to. I enjoy doing that and when I’m on form, I’m rather good at it. That’s the good thing about this season, I have my running speed back to how it used to be. Losing 1 stone over the winter has done me a lot of good.

I technically had a chance for a catch but got nowhere near it – it was one of those over the shoulder catches that I had no business getting anywhere near. And unsurprisingly, I missed it ! Still, I saved runs in the field and think I did ok. I reckon I’m getting my throwing action improved as well. I need to learn a good throwing action to preserve my weak shoulder.

We didn’t do so well with the batting, although we did make a good effort. I opened the batting with our captain and my 3 tests went like :
1 – Did I get out first ? Nope !
2 – Did I get lowest score ? Nope ! Other guy got just 1 run, I got 27.
3 – Did I hold up our scoring ? Not so good here, I started well but was having trouble scoring later on.

We lost in the end by about 30-40 runs but we genuinely had a fun game, which is what it’s all about. I picked up the bruises though, I’ll have a shiner on my shin from practice before the game and probably a bruise on my thigh where I got pinned while batting. More seriously though, I have a bright red line on my right hand middle finger that comes from the seam of the cricket ball impacting my finger through my batting gloves … I reckon the gloves did their job though, I’m pretty certain I don’t have the broken finger I probably deserve.

Now watching The Matrix off DVD :-).

Gosh – it’s weird watching telly from several months ago. I’ve caught up on a couple of ER’s today. I’m about two or three months behind on those and they are backing up pretty badly on the Sky plus box. Haven’t got to Lost yet ;-).

Meme time ! This one is grabbed from CQ’s blog …

1 I am sleepy !
2 I want Mini Eggs to be sold all year round.
3 I wish for a period where I can be injury free.
4 I hate being left out of stuff.
5 I love pizza and interesting Irish girls.
6 I fear injury and the potential to be permanently disabled.
7 I hear News24 repeating the news again. (Alisha’s Attic soon before raid)
8 I wonder why people are sometimes really stupid.
9 I regret acting too much out of instinct and emotion but only when that emotion is irritation.
10 I am not superhuman (stolen that line from a book).
11 I dance really, really badly….
12 I sing and then I know I need to replace the milk that just curdled.
13 I cry rarely, the last time was during an exam season.
14 I make people remember me, which scares me.
15 I write to express what I find difficult to say.
16 I confuse everyone as often as possible.
17 I need to feel I belong.
18 I should look after myself better.
19 I start books but have a bad habit of getting bored with them…..
20 I finish … ermm … what does the word “finish” mean ?
21 I would tag Craziequeen but she’s done this one already!

Hmm. I need to get back into the habit of making Blog entries !

Work’s cricket 1 : Summer Weather 6

We’ve had one game so far but have had 6 rained off so far. Ah well. I changed my MSN suffix to “The sun is taunting me” on Thursday after the latest game got called off … Dark and dismal up until lunchtime, which is when the game got cancelled. 5 minutes later, bright sunshine !

Also in the new – got a new monitor. The new PC bits made World of Warcraft look gooood … the new monitor turns good into spectacular. Me happy :-).

Chuckle – After the frustration of Friday’s and Saturday’s runs, I had a lot more fun today.

In the morning, I had the chance to let my warrior off the leash, this time just seeing how much damage she could do. So out came the pole that had previously only been used for dancing with. The pole hits harder than the weapons usually used, which helps when you’re hitting lots of stuff at once.

Then we hit the Ahn’Qiraj instance, where we weren’t totally invincible but we did manage to get three tough bosses down. It’s a fun place is Ahn’Qiraj. The encounters are all “interesting”, instead of just being a slugfest where the ranged people hammer the boss, the tank keeps the boss’s attention and the healers keep everyone alive.

Nah – today it was Buru, Rajaxx and K Bug (can’t spell the full name). Rajaxx hides behind something like 40 bad guys, so you have to make sure you have the endurance to get through. Buru ignores the tank until he’s at about 20% health but then he does nasty things. Instead of following the tank, he picks one person who then gets chased. The person who is “IT” then tried to get Buru over an egg, which is exploded when Buru is over it for lots of damage to Buru. Challenge is to stay alive to get ‘im :-).

Anyway, fun times – including the pvp battle I was involved in late. Thought about quitting because it appeared to be stalemate but good tactics broke the allies’ hold on the place they were defending and we rolled them up from there.

Is of course referring to the visit by one of our bosses yesterday. This is the fella in charge of the person in charge of the team I work in at the moment. Seems pretty sharp or well briefed. He was asking all the right questions at least and appeared to understand the answers. Promising … At least it didn’t feel like a jolly little “it’s all going horribly wrong and we’re going to blame you for it” speech like the old one used to do.

2 frustrating evenings in WoW over the last couple. First up was a visit to the Molten Core last night, which showed exactly why you cannot afford to have passengers in raids. And we had plenty of those last night. It came to the point where even though I did take up mobs like I should have been, I didn’t particularly want to because I knew incompetent healing wouldn’t keep me upright while I did my job. More often than not, the only healing I got while keeping a mob’s attention was from my own efforts.

Very frustrating.

And then tonight, I got saved by a phone call from the parents. We got taken into Black Wing Lair, which is the 40 person instance that’s harder than the Molten Core. We went in short of people. Knowingly short of people. What’s the point ? We’re still learning the instance and we hadn’t got the team that would have given us a chance. I think someone is losing the plot and it’s causing wasted effort for the people who get dragged along. Anyway, I got saved by the phone call.

Ah well – at least England is doing well in the cricket, Go Monty ! and we got some medals from the karting to show off at work yesterday.