Still Breathing

Firstly, a very happy birthday to the fertile Ephraim. I guess you've already had a pretty awesome early present but I hope that today will be just that little bit cooler for it being the first birthday you can share with three of you.

Secondly, a huge "thank you" to the inestimable Liz_Lowlife for introducing me to Spoon Theory. This is it, this is it exctly. Anyone who's ever wondered what it's like to have M.E. need look no further than this.

Courtesy of the amazing shrinking Caddyman:



From Gizmodo

Disclaimer: The makers of The iSnort accept no responsibility if you end up in the iClink, getting iBummed in the iShowers when you bend down for the iSoap.

With grateful thanks to Greatbigshowoff I have just tucked into my first Graze box. Dropped through my letterbox this morning it was a neat little luncheon of fresh (really fresh) pineapple sliced (with a nifty little wooden fork so my fingers diddn't get sticky), a selection of spicy nuts (wasabi coated peanuts fuhtuhwuh) and some dried cranberries (which were a lot yummier than I expected them to be). All in all, delicious! I suspect that I may have snarfed the lot a bit quicker than the designers intended but it was so yummy!

If you fancy a free box just go to Graze.com and enter the following promotional code: RLQK9MPE

Full-price boxes are cheap enough that they will certainly become a regular feature of my culinary week.

I'm sure that many of you will know that I've been lucky enough to work on the new Odyssey LRP game for a while now.

Well, the teaser website is now up: www.odysseylrp.co.uk.

Given it seems unlikely that mum will make a miraculous recovery in the next two days, I have made the decision that I won't be going to Maelstrom this Easter. I was very much looking forward to this event but the health of my family must come first and Ifeel certain that you will understand this.

If you're going to the event then please have a little extra bit of fun on my behalf.

My my, it does seem like a while since I've dipped my toes into the Livejournal surf, however it seemed only fair to give an update, more excuses, a bit of emo and, y'know, stuff.

First off, mum came out of hospital a while ago having been treated for a urinary (she accidentally called it a "urinal" ... there was some mirth when she realised what she'd done) infection and a lung infection, both of which I hope we've seen the back of. Unfortunately, on her last day in hospital, two women on her ward died and she's been badly traumatised by that experience. In fact, it would be fair to say that mum is currently suffering from a pretty severe bout of depression. She's very anxious when left on her own, I popped out to see Watchmen the other week, and came out to find four voicemail messages with mum in tears begging me to come home. Now we'd spoken about me going to see the film and she seemed alright with it before I left, clearly she had an 'episode' while I was away and that triggered the whole thing off again. Her memory is also pretty bad at the moment, which is a little worrying given my particualr deficiencies in that regard. Anyway, the consequence of this to you is that I shan't be able to spend any significant time out of the house until she feels secure enough for that to happen. So the forthcoming Maelstrom is in some doubt at the moment, as are any overnight visits to friends. This also means that the now-annual trip to the British Museum in honour of my birthday will have to be put on hold indefinately. Needless to say, I am chafing somewhat at this but you only get one mum and there will, I trust, be other years in which I can do stuff again.

In better news, the people at Chichester University have asked me to write a short piece for them on a well-known novel, short story or poem (I've chosen Ted Hughes' Hawk Roosting) which is a very promising move. They've obviously decided that the portfolio I submitted has promise and so are checking to see how deep my academic approach to literature is. Given that I have no academic experience to support my application, this move seems only reasonable and suggests that I may have cleared the first hurdle.

<emo>I find that I'm missing the presence of the (surprisingly aptly named if you're a fan of The Little Prince) Fox through all this. Not for his physical presence, though I miss that too, but for having someone with whom to share these triumphs, woes and events. There is a quality of sharing that, I realise, one may have with a partner that one does not with a friend, however close that friend may be. Still, no use crying over spilt dairy products, I'll just have to play the cards I have, not the ones I wish I had.</emo>

WoW-wise, I've given up, for the moment, on my Undead Mage, Flosoris, who I'm failing to play competently. Despite many generous donations of gear and time boosting him through instances, I just can't seem to get him over the hurdle of 59. Well, doubtless I could but I'm just not having any fun doing it ... and fun is the point of the game neh? So I've gone back to Invidius the Blood Elf Paladin who is currently steaming through the fifties and is well on the way to Outland. It seems that mail and plate are my comfort zones, leather and cloth not so much. The recent(ish) changes to the Paladin class have completely changed the game play; for the most part this is an improvement but the seal/judgement mechanic has lost some of its flexibility for me, although it is now much easier to manage. I know the Bad Eggs don't need another tank but I'm happy to level as Protection and then work up either Retribution or Holy as secondary trees once the dual-spec mechanic is introduced. On the Alliance side, Melqart (my Night Elf Death Knight) has hit 80 and is now geared sufficiently to be able to tank pretty competently in heroic instances ... I'm not sure he's quite up to being a raid tank just yet, but he's on the way. Typical of me to pick the least obvious spec (Blood) to try to tank in, but it seems to work well enough for the moment ... I'm eager to see how it will scale. Tarranis is pretty much on hold at the moment, mostly as I wait for dual-spec to reach us so I can heal in instances without shooting myself in the foot solo-wise. The Shattered Ravens seem more in need of healers rather than DPS at the moment, so hopefully Tarranis can help meet that need. Try as I might I just can't seem to get his DPS higher than 1650, which is really too low for the level he's shooting at. Certainly gear upgrades could improve his situation but I think he's already pretty well geared for where he's at, and I have his general rotations down pretty well so I suspect it's just a case of gameplay (or my lack of competence therein) that's letting him down ... we shall doubtless see in the future.

Also refereeing a tabletop RPG at the moment, in which the players have discovered the medieval zombies and are, I suspect, about to stumble onto the apocalypse bit; they really shouldn't have let two of them get away ... not with a nice, tasty village so close by. I think they've pretty much cracked the plot, which is good; I just don't think they've considered some of the implications of it yet. Things could get messy.

In closing I shall return to WoW and share this short film with you. Even if you hate/don't know the game I urge you to watch, it's a very well-crafted piece in my opinion.


The Craft of War: BLIND from percula on Vimeo.

As some of you may know already, mum's been in hospital twice in the past month as a result of some quite scary bouts of illness. Well, they were scary for me, she was off with the fairies both times and doesn't remember a thing! Apparently she had both a lung and a urinary infection both of which seem to be cleared up now; at least, I hope they are. She's still in hospital but there is hope that she may return home tomorrow.

All this has, I'm afraid left me somewhat incommunicado and also impossibly unreliable in terms of keeping appointments and the like. So my apologies to those of my friends who have been put out by all this and hopefully normal service will be resumed shortly.

... Does anyone else subscribe to the Maelstrom News feed? Or am I commenting to myself?

With many thanks to uncle_john I present to you Dire Consequences.