Twenty-Fourth

Guaranteed no whining in this post

I've been quiet the past few days. You may have noticed.

We drank too much on Sunday night, and I was massively hungover on Monday morning. Wait, let me clarify - I drank too much on Sunday night, my girlfriend showed more restraint as was only a little rough, though still rough enough to dodge college, despite the loss it will incur on her bursary. However, I had trouble pointing both eyes in the same direction, and it was a clear 3 hours after waking up before I was able to put solid food in my mouth. I win.

I recently discovered Violent Acres it is not new, by any stretch of the imagination. From what I've read it has been around for some considerable time, and has already generated enough controversy that you may have heard of it before now. Regardless, I have only just discovered it, so therefore, its news.
Have a look if you haven't already. Have a look if you've looked in the past, but haven't looked recently. You will be rewarded. Many of the things posted up there are pretty close to the bone, and some have even raised my hackles momentarily before I realised that I agree with most of them, and just don't like admitting them. Many of the things posted there resonate with me, and make me wish I was as brave - in many ways - as she appears to be. Without doubt everything posted there makes me wish I was a better writer. Still practice makes perfect, and until I have made more serious inroads in my novel, this blog will serve to suffice as a testing ground.

You may have heard of a game called World of Warcraft. You probably have, there are around 8 million of us subscribed to it at the moment. Blizzard have taken some serious steps recently to stamp out gold sellers, so you'll find that a good 4 of the 8 million are actually playing the game, and not lining the pockets of some Scrooge-like figure in a dim, nicotine stained back room in the Far East. There's an expansion coming out on Tuesday, again, you may have heard about it.
I'm not what you would call 'hardcore' and for a while I actually considered not getting the expansion and just cruising along, doing my own thing. That phase passed, and I have a copy of the Collector's Edition reserved at HMV in Edinburgh for collection on Tuesday morning. Lady Luck may not be kind, and I will possibly have to make do with the 'normal' version of the game, but at least I've made the effort. In a post or two, I'll detail the tribulations that have hit my guild of late, and how I stand as regards the future of the guild, but suffice it to say that even when I succumbed and decided to buy the expansion, although I was excited, I was still restrained. I looked forward to it the way one might look forward to a new game that you've read a great review for, and are pretty sure you'll buy - you're looking forward to it, but you're not hopping around waiting for it. Well, I am currently lambent with anticipation. This weekend will be torture - so near, yet so far. I'll probably be taking a long weekend next weekend, so that Outlands and I can snuggle up and get intimate. I won't feel guilty about this; my colleague has just been encouraging me to do so. He's probably sick of me trying to explain the game to him in layman's terms.

I spent most of yesterday torturing myself by looking, nay, poring over data on items, quests, bosses and locations in the expansion, which have served to ramp my excitement to fever pitch. I probably dreamt about it last night, but the atrocious weather in Scotland has kept waking me intermittently through the night, leaving the memories of my dreams (usually impeccable) patchy and imprecise.