Caoine

Cats On The Internets

Because at the end of the day my weblog comes down to cat stories and video games, I thought I would give you a Tigger update: he's settled into the new apartment and has begun happily destroying our new couch. Declawing him isn't really an option, so we've been trying various ways of keeping him from scratching. Latest and most effective is a scratch mat I ordered, but we're also trying a cat repellant spray on the couch (and spraying Tigger himself with water when he scratches). Is your cat a scratcher? How do you save your furniture?

Incidentally, he really seems to love the Dr Noys catnip toys. The toys themselves have little pouches so that you can refill them with new catnip sacks when they start to go stale, and the catnip itself is very high quality. We got the hedgehog for Tigger, and it's provided plenty of floor-rolling fun for him so far.

Back

I'm back in New York after a lovely and relaxing week at the folks' house in Massachusetts. We had a lot of snow and a lot of Christmas, but I don't think I touched a computer except to ogle the Moms's new iMac once or twice. I definitely didn't check any mail, and I didn't read any weblogs, and I have to say it was pretty nice to take a vacation from all of the Internets. Now I'm back and pretty behind in all of that, but I don't mind all that much. That's what the weekend is for.

AFK

In a few hours I'll be heading home for Christmas, so I probably won't be posting much between now and Tuesday, when I get back. While the Moms does have a shiny new iMac that I could make use of, I bet I'll be spending more time wrapping presents and making cookies than reading Mac news. And I won't be playing any Warcraft at all. I'm pretty sure I'll live.

Only In An MMORPG

When I got home from work today, I noticed that there was a new Warcraft patch. After installing it, I landed in Ironforge to find that they've added a bunch of Christmas stuff - goblins selling snowballs and candy canes, a dwarf in a Santa costume who gives you a quest to find gingerbread cookies, etc. It was pretty goofy to see a huge snowball fight erupt in Tinker Town, but nobody seemed to mind. And everyone seemed to be drinking a lot of "Holiday Spirits," anyway.

Proud Member of the Alliance

Do I even have to tell you what I did all weekend? You know perfectly well I was playing WoW, with only occasional breaks so I could eat and pee. I'm still with my night elf hunter, who's leveling up slowly since I share my WoW time with Chris. I had been doing quests in Darkshore, but this weekend I made the trek to Ironforge and Stormwind to do some humany quests. Since I play with Zot and his friend Andrew fairly frequently (and hope to play with Mrs Zot this week as well), it made sense for me to ditch my skinning profession and learn alchemy to go with my herbalism, as we were lacking an alchemist and those potions come in awfully handy. So I don't get to skin everything I kill anymore, but I do get to pick pretty flowers.

Unfortunately, I'm going to fall behind level-wise again next weekend as I'll be in Massachusetts with nary a copy of WoW in sight, and the wily Crispy would absolutely murder me if I took mine with me and deprived him of his Warcrack for five straight days.

In non-WoW news, I'm officially done with my Christmas shopping, although I haven't even started wrapping yet. My family will be surprised by this, as I'm usually done something like a week in advance and devote much of my Christmas Eve to doing emergency wrapping for others. I don't think I"ve ever wrapping anything that was actually for me, but I wouldn't be surprised.

Wily Warcraftians

I am sorry that I didn't post anything yesterday, but my hunter just wouldn't let me get away for even a minute. She always wants to do quests and kill beasties and feed her pet! And then eventually the fearsome Chris hijacks my Mac entirely to devote some time to his fiendish warlock. So you can see my problem.

One thing we've both noticed (where "we" is me and Chris, not me and my hunter) is that people playing Horde seem to be more social than people playing Alliance - or at least night elves. Maybe it's just that there are fewer Horde players, but whenever Chris is playing he has other players interacting with him all the time, inviting him to groups and guilds and fights and everything. People bow to him at random in the filth-ridden streets. The elves though - they seem to keep pretty much to themselves. Once in a while I'll help out a low-level player if I see them getting mobbed by beasties, and they rarely even say anything. And it's very difficult to get other people to group for quests, so it's a good thing I have friends to do that with.

If you're playing Alliance on Elune, by the way, feel free to say hi. Email me and I'll send you a list of my character names. Or if you're playing Horde on Azjol-Nerub, you could always say hi to Chris.

I Love The Internets

A few weeks ago I mentioned that I've been reading more sci-fi and fantasy lately, and a reader - nay, a goddess incarnate - who works at Tor promptly sent along a big box of books, mostly ones I've never read and none of which I currently own.

So tonight I thought I'd mention that I really, really like money. And, um, ice cream! If you're fabulously wealthy and/or work at Ben & Jerry's, please don't hesitate to contact me.

View From Our Balcony

Where's The God Damned Snow

So it's the middle of December and we still haven't had any snow yet. I have a feeling that this winter will be like the snowless winter we had a couple of years ago - or if not snowless, at least not very snowful. Snowy. Snowtastic. Chris and I have been waiting to see what Roosevelt Island looks like buried in snow, because we think it will look spectacular.

Next Thursday I'm heading to Massachusetts for Christmas-related family fun, and I'll be there through the 28th, I think. On the one hand, this will be the longest break I've had from work since I started this job in July. On the other hand, I'm used to having a fucking month off every winter. Compared to college breaks, business vacations don't stand a chance. But I'll live, I suppose.

I finally found the box my camera was still packed in, so pictures of the view from our new place are coming soon. Maybe I can even get one of the cat trying to stalk the seagulls flying over the East River.

I Will Never Talk About Anything Else Again

Yeah, I'm still playing entirely too much WoW. I'm glad I started over on a different server, because now that I'm playing with Zot it's a lot easier to do some of the quests. Hunters are pretty good at going solo I think, but it's handy to have a druid around when you're getting mobbed by beasties. Also, I have my very own cat as a pet now, and I love it very much.