~The Best Laid Plans of Mice and Men~

It has been one week since my last confession.

And quite a lot has happened in that week, so let’s break it down!

1) Macclesfield adventure
2) World of Warcraft patch 2.4
3) The Week Ahead


Macclesfield Adventure

Just after Christmas there was a planned get-together of some of the Emerald Guard’s (my WoW guild) key members. We were going to meet up around the 28th December up in Macclesfield where Tom and Rick live, and have a jolly good time. Unfortunately last minute family&friend things prevented my attendance. Nevertheless, they haven’t given up on getting me to go up and visit them, so now, Easter time, I finally found the time to return to the cold North and say hello.

I’ve known Rick and Tom for a few years now. I could say “I’ve known them since they were at school!” which is accurate, but also reminds me I’m 8 years older than them! >_< During the four (?!) years we’ve been in the EG, we’ve guided the guild into a finely honed casual gaming machine. It has (for 99% of the time) been a pleasure to “work” with them on this, even with my 8 month hiatus from the game before the Burning Crusade expansion. But until now, I’ve never met them face to face short of the odd video call on MSN.

However, Rick threatened to come and beat down my door and drag me out if I missed this opportunity to visit, so like the good boy I am, I packed up my bag on Monday — a laptop, the iPhone, some clothes, some toiletries: travelling light (if you could ever say my laptop is light) for once — and ventured on the train to Macclesfield.

Plan was: they meet me at the station, they take me to their friend Brayf’s house which we have commandeered for a couple of days, and copious gaming and drinking would ensue.

The best laid plans…

Upon meeting me at the station, they chuckled nervously and informed me that Brayf had, in a drunken stupor, neglected to tell them that he was in fact moving out of his house on that same day, and was currently in the process of painting the bathroom.

D’oh!

Alternative arrangements were discussed as I was given the guided tour of Macclesfield which is, to be honest, a typical Northern town. Lots of old stone buildings, lots of pubs, cobbled streets here and there, and at least one bloody great hill. Macc is famous for its silk production. Tom reliably informs me that they made parachutes in the War. It was, as is also typical of Northern towns, very cold. This “very cold” quickly turned into “omg snow!” as we walked up the hill and across town to Tom’s house.

Tom’s abode is a cosy affair. Very cosy in fact, as his Dad has just returned from somewhere in the Middle East (I think) and is used to slightly warmed temperatures, so had the heating on high. It was better than the snow mind you, so we thawed quickly.

New plan. Head into town, get booze, drink, get pizza later.

Sounds like a good plan, really. Insert Spanner In Works #2.

I tried to get money out at 2 cash machines on the way through town. When they failed I just figured it was typical Bank Holiday Monday issues and that the machines were out of cash. As we took a detour to Rick’s mum’s house to find hopeful accommodation for the evening, I got a phonecall from someone claiming to be the HSBC fraud department.

Now, I always figured that banks do indeed have these kind of departments, but I never expected to be called from one. And, while I am not particularly racist in any way, I certainly do not expect Mr Fraud Department to speak in a heavy Asian accent so as to be barely comprehensible. It doesn’t fill me with comfort and security, so I pretended to be someone else and said that Jon would call them back.

We were sat on Rick’s sofa and there was this nagging thought in my mind. What if there was a real issue, and that’s why my money had been refused at the machine? So, eventually, as we left Rick’s and went to get booze having sorted out accommodation (thanks Rick’s Mum!) I phone the bank back.

Now, while I am in love with the iPhone, the touch keypad leaves a tad to be desired when it comes to touch phone stuff. After failing to type my security/account/sort number in about 12 times I did finally get it right and was through to a customer service guy. It turns out that they had put a temporary hold on my account and wanted to confirm some things.

Turns out because I hadn’t bought a train ticket in about six months, it flagged on my account, and then when I went to get money out in Macclesfield their fraud department were alerted. It is, I’ll admit, a good system. If someone had stolen my card, bought a ticket to Macclesfield, and then tried various cash machines to empty my account, it is quite reassuring to know that they would have been scuppered.

But it did give me quite a shock, as there is no money in my other account and I was supposed to be in Macc for a couple of days. >_<

Anyways, booze and snacks were eventually purchased (Tom, I left almost a full bottle of rum at your house; don’t drink it all in one go >.>) and we returned to Tom’s house for pre-drinking drinks. While Tom’s dad entertained us with stories about toilets and tanks, Tom got through a lot of cider, Rick drank beer of some kind, and I opened the rum. See previous blog for my thoughts on rum.

We went into town later that evening, after Tom had impressed me with his collection of swords and air pistols and I made some smutty innuendo about why his bed had seemingly collapsed. Macclesfield was dead. Literally. We saw about three people on the way through town, and very few people in the Wetherspoons, our destination.

Our time in ‘Spoons was spent discussing many and various topics. Much of it was WoW-related, as you would probably expect, though a considerable time was spent discussing Tom in hats (“I made Cat’s beret look good!”) or Rick’s taste in women (“Gief DD or bigger please!”). It was genuinely excellent conversation, and Tom especially was not quite what I expected. Seems he thinks a lot more before ‘opening his mouth’ in game. xD

Later in the evening, Fintan arrived. I’d been looking forwards to meeting Fintan, as I’ve only ever seen one photo of him and, quite frankly, he’s a big, scary guy. Fortunately he has a good sense of humour — he has to put up with Rick so I guess it’s a must — and we got on quite well.

It was getting late by this point, and in a panicked state we realised that the pizza place would soon be shutting. Erk! Three pizzas were hastily ordered and we retreated to Tom’s house, which was closer. I paid for the pizzas as a treat for the hard-off students, and we got free garlic bread too. The pizzas were fucking HUUUUGE and, I must admit, I only managed about 1/3 of mine before being totally full. Mind you, WHO puts green peppers on a pepperoni pizza?! I shall have to ensure I have a) a smaller one, and b) ask for no green peppers, should I ever go back there.

After pizza we headed to Rick’s for sleep.

The second day started in the early afternoon as Tom had to sleep off a lot of cider (bless him, he’s only little!). We spent the day in Manchester, went to see a film (The Bank Job — not the best film I’ve seen at the cinema this year; just the only one :( ) and then indulged in the highlight of the day. Buffet City.

When Rick and Tom first mentioned Buffet City with odd gleams in their eyes, I wondered what I was being gotten into. When Martin and Alex, their two friends, held similar gleams, I started to get scared. I have eaten out in Manchester before, and I can’t say I was impressed. “All You Can Eat Chinese” sounds great, but our local Chinese, the San Wu House, really does spoil me in terms of food quality.

But I have to say I was impressed. Buffet City was excellent, with a huge variety of dishes available for sampling. I was a bit disappointed that the squid was undercooked, but everything else I tried was really rather excellent. And we finished the meal — only Rick managing to push his way through the 2 plates barrier — with that traditional Chinese dessert: Strawberry Jelly?!

We returned to Rick’s full and content. Tom left for an early night, and Rick and myself walked through the tutorial to Warhammer: Dawn of War, which they had cajoled me into buying ‘cos it was cheap. Now I just need to finish other games to make space for it >_<

And thus came the third day, which handily segues into my next topic in a moment. The Wednesday was WoW 2.4 patch day, so we spent the best part of a couple of hours before my departure reading through patch notes, discussing various changes, and finally trying out some of the new daily quests when the servers came back up.

At 15:16 I got the train home, quite tired having not slept properly for a couple of days (I rarely do when staying with other people, and I have a lot on my mind anyways). A thoroughly enjoyable stay, and one I hope to repeat summer time.


World of Warcraft patch 2.4

If you are put off by geek talk, skip to the next section. :P

So yes, patch 2.4, the final big patch before Blizzard released the Wrath of the Lich King expansion sometime….when it’s ready. It features a 25-man raid instance — the Sunwell Plateau — which looks pretty funky, as well as a new 5-man instance (with heroic setting) which is, currently, a little poorly tuned and too hard without at least 2 CC people. But nvm. There’s also a whole host of fixes, minor class tunings, new daily quests, particle system enhancements, new Badge of Justice loots, and much more.

I’m not particularly sure what I was excited about with this one. I knew I’d have to spend a couple of days trying to fix all my addons, getting used to the new instance, and probably working through the daily quests to help with the new world event. Maybe it was the event that was the most interesting thing. Taking back the Isle of Quel’Danas from the blood elves and demons in the service of Kael’thas Sunstrider bit by bit sounds quite cool, even if it is done purely by the repetition of daily quests. The quests themselves aren’t particularly hard, and there are enough mobs to go around for the kill quests, so they aren’t too infuriating either.

I’ve had a couple of goes at the new 5-man, The Magister’s Terrace, and I must admit I liked it. Its quite challenging, but it could do with a bit of fine-tuning. Without a bare minimum of one crowd control party member, most of the packs of mobs are just horrible, and even with two our team last night really struggled — especially on the third boss. And these are people in T5+ gear, on a normal mode instance. I don’t want to speculate just how horrific the Heroic mode is, though I need to do it to get some nice loot for my Priest and Moonkin.

So anyways, 2.4 is, overall, a pretty decent patch. New gear for the raiders, new PvP tweaks for the PvPers, new badge loot for the casual players.

I’m just waiting for the expansion really. Give more levels!!

Geek stuff over. ^_^


The Week Ahead

We’re halfway through the Easter holiday, and I’m looking towards the week ahead. I’ve promised Dave I’ll try and organise some kind of meal or get-together, as well as some rounds of badminton playing to continue our not-going-very-well fitness regime. I also need to get some writing done, find out what happens supply teaching wise for me next, sort out some money stuff, and generally enjoy the last week before the work rolls in again. A fairly busy week unless I’m feeling lazy. As if that’d happen eh! >_>

You are now up to date. Sorry it’s a long one. No sniggering you!

~Jon