Louisa Parry's Three Beautiful Things » World of Warcraft

3BT – snow day, elastic, killing is fun, same soup

louisa — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 21:00:07 +0000

1. Even without my glasses or raising my head from the pillows, I can tell the world’s gone white again. Our plans are abandoned and we give ourselves a snow day of relaxation.

2. The cheese stretches between my teeth and the toasted bread shell.

3. I rarely play PvP battlegrounds and forgot how much fun killing other people can be. Fighting NPCs is rarely as exhilarating – it’s often just a case of going through the motions – but my half-hour in Warsung Gulch is electrifying.

4. Katherine & I discover we’re having the same soup for dinner. Katherine types “smiling now” and I am too. For all our differences, we’re so alike.

Six Beautiful Things from the weekend

louisa — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 09:00:48 +0000

1. “This wood will keep you warm next winter,” I tell Carla as she watches me pull thick branches from the giant pile and stack them on the dormant flower bed. Further down the garden, John is building a platform where the wood will season while I’m sorting it from the twigs (which will be chipped and used under our chicken run) and the ivy (which had been strangling the tree and will now be composted). The garden is so much lighter without the sycamore’s shadow.

2. The giggles and screams as John tricks people on ChatRoulette.

3. The worst thing about World of Warcraft is all the travelling about so I like it when I have a string of quests to complete on the way. I loop through the Hinterlands with perfect efficiency and level up twice when I cash in all the completed tasks at Revantusk Village. The game’s combination of micro tasks and multiple possible paths is deeply rewarding and I wonder how I could organise projects in my real life to be as pleasurable.

4. I finish reading ‘All my friends are superheroes’ by Andrew Kaufman. I enjoy the physical book as much as the story – super smooth ivory pages and a lovely choice of font.

5. Another day sorting and stacking wood. It’s pleasing to sweep up the last of the sawdust when the giant pile has finally gone.

6. The sieved flour disappears into the liquid almost instantly, leaving behind just a ghostly trace.

3BT – racing, productive, post office, cheese, wowed by WoW

louisa — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 22:00:51 +0000

1. A few people have suggested we have a second bathroom installed on our lower ground floor – near the area which will be our office – but if we did, we’d have no reason to race up the stairs, pushing past each other, pulling back on jeans’ waistbands, when we both realise we need to wee at the same time.

2. I work hard all day – nothing from my to-do list and hardly any billable hours – but I tick off a range of things that have been nagging at me for weeks, perhaps months. For the first time in a while, I feel like I’m making progress on my life rather than just treading water.

3. The walk to the post office is delightful – until the very end, it feels like a walk through a country village and it’s just far enough to warm me up without being an over-exertion or taking all day.

4. We eat enchiladas for dinner, the second helping of a batch from earlier in the week. “Is there anything better than baked cheese?” I ask John as I chew on a perfectly browned piece. He replies: “Twice as much baked cheese.”

5. I have a fantastic evening’s play on World of Warcraft – I complete some quests that had been bugging me (because they’d been too hard before) and successfully sell some items at auction so I won’t have to worry about game-money for a while. The interface overlays my dreams though, so possibly played it a little too much…

3BT – phezoo, gummy wisdom, it is quite social you know

louisa — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 21:00:56 +0000

1. We have a phone conference instead of our weekly in-person meeting. Restricted to just our voices, we’re more stilted and business like than usual but the phone service makes us smile with a comedy “phezoo” noise whenever anyone leaves. In our text-based chat later, Caius announces a sub-set meeting is over, saying “Participants dispersed in a hail of alien gunfire”.

2. My first wisdom tooth has finally made it into the open. The gum around it feels spongy and soft. I can’t resist tonguing it because it reminds me of losing teeth when I was a child.

3. I talk to a Romanian guy living in Sweden about life in the UK (and how it’s a balmy -6°C compared to his -25°C) while killing mutated turtles in a mythical land.

3BT – snow again, spices, snow again again

louisa — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 22:00:49 +0000

1. We wake up and the world is freshly white again. After more than a fortnight, it feels like we’re living in the perpetual winter of Narnia. Later, colourful coated kids trek along the hidden path to go sledging in the distant meadow.

2. For the first half hour of cooking, looking at the dry spices on the meat makes my throat hurt in anticipation but then the juices conquer them and we’re left with a delicious moist crust.

3. Looking from a dark room into the dark world, the branches of the trees seem ghostly and unreal. Or perhaps I’ve been spending too long in the Undercity…

3BT – squirrel spiral, selfless attack, cake

louisa — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 22:00:34 +0000

(One from last night first)

0. I cleanse and moisturise my face before going to bed. When I look in the mirror, the cream has replaced the pallor of the day with healthy pink.

1. Two squirrels spin a spiral around the silver birch tree.

2. Considering it’s supposed to be a World of Warcraft, people are generally generous and considerate – helping each other out without being asking or without expecting reward.

3. The chocolate cake is deliciously rich and heavy. I have a second slice.

3BT – nice’n'easy, welcome home, food for you

louisa — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 22:00:14 +0000

1. Tuna bagel melts. Sometimes easy food is THE BEST.

2. I finally decide to give into the thing I’ve been craving for the last six months or so – World of Warcraft. I played it a lot, too much, four years ago but stopped when I left the uni because I worried it would suck up all my time (plus, I’d played as far as you can on your own and I wasn’t sociable enough to get together with other people to do the level 60+ dungeons/instances). My six months in Azeroth left a permanent mark on my soul and I often found myself recalling a place – most commonly, a particular path in a wood – and it would take me a moment before realising it was in the game rather than in real life (our game manual sits on our guidebook/languages bookshelf – a fitting coincidence). So, anyway, on Tuesday night I finally gave in – John found the game installation discs and dragged our old Windows machine out of storage for me, then I began the installation process – it took 11 (eleven!) hours in total to install and apply 4 years of updates & patches. And you know what? it was worth the wait. My character is a nature-loving Night Elf – a hunter so I can have a pet/animal friend, and I’m going to be a herbalist & a tailor (the equivalent of my real life hobbies). This is going to be fun.

3. We go for our second major late night shop in just over a week – food and supplies for our party tomorrow night. The shop is quiet and we laugh as we stroll up and down the aisles. I pick things with different friends in mind, hoping they’ll enjoy eating them and seeing in the New Year with us.

3BT – too tight, warm, discussion and snow