kayray.org

Boy, you don’t fully appreciate your WoW add-ons until they’re gone. This morning I went hunting and found that, although they won’t release a stable version for another two weeks, the developers of Auctioneer and Informant have an alpha version that works with WoW 2.0!!! I backed up my accounts and installed them, along with Enchantrix, which is handy for enchanters. Informant is possibly even more useful than Auctioneer.
Here: http://auctioneeraddon.com/dl/AuctioneerComplete/

Please back up your accounts before installing!

I’m headed to the IF auction house now, to see how this Auctioneer alpha works. But even if it’s buggy I’m still happy to have it.  Informant seems to be working perfectly so far.

051 – The Battle of Shrewsbury

052 – How Prince Hal was Sent to Prison

053 – The Battle of Agincourt

054 – The Maid of Orleans

This ends the first half of Our Island Story.  I’ll begin podcasting a different book soon, but if you’d like to hear the second half of Our Island Story (another 56 chapters of crazy princes and evil bishops and noble knights!) please visit the LibriVox catalog page here: http://librivox.org/our-island-story-part-2-by-he-marshall/

I wasn’t happy with the new collar I knitted onto my red sweater, so I ripped it off and tried again.  Still not happy.  But I have another idea…

I sat on Henry’s bed and knitted while he cleaned his room this morning.  He got rid of a lot of cruddy old junk, yay Henry!  Then we started all the computers downloading the most recent WoW patch, and then we went to Margaret’s ranch for one of her Christmas Craft Days.  She sets up tables outdoors with a variety of high-quality craft kits on them, and charges a dollar or two for each craft.  It’s a lot of fun and a great way for  Henry to make gifts for his friends and relatives!  We had a RIOT making a tiny little nativity scene together.  :)

Then we came home and I fixed lunch while Henry filled in a few more squares on our big multiplication chart.  After lunch we settled down to play a little WoW.  The patch broke ALL my add-ons.  I found updated versions of Monkeyquest and EquipCompare, but nothing else, groan.  I need Titan Panel!  I need Auctioneer!  Anyway we played together for a long time.  Went to Aerie Peak and found a new Draeni NCP questgiver!  He gave us three quests so we worked on those. Henry’s character, ZInny, hit level 50 last time we played, but it took all his gold and lot of mine for him to train, so now I’m going to help him grind and make money for a while.  But I depend on Auctioneer to help me make a killing in the Auction House, so I do hope that developer will update his add-on soon.

Christmas crafts at Margaret’s
multiplication table
Karate
science podcast (light)
grammar (prepositional phrases)

I felt better today, a bit less tired, and I got a lot done!  I faded a bit in the afternoon and I’m very tired now, so this might not sound very enthusiastic, but I really did have a nice, fun day.  Henry and I went to  karate first thing.  There were three new little Tiny Tigers in class.  They’re soooooo tiny!  They only come up to Henry’s elbows.  He’s got a belt test coming up on Saturday, so we asked if he could come in for a little extra help brushing up the three Katas that he needs to know.  Sensei Michelle made time for him on Friday, very nice.

Then we went to the dentist for his cleaning and appliance-check up.  He’s doing fine. He is to start turning the bottom front crank at the same time as he turns the top cranks.

Then grocery shopping: TP, Lunesta, dental floss, and baking supplies at Stater Brothers, and everything else under the sun at Trader Joe’s.  Henry carried everything in for me, and then ate french break, garlic and herb Boursin cheese, and applesauce for lunch while I put everything away.  Then I took a 15-minute email break (for the first time today).  Then I helped him bake his fabulous lemony cheesecake.  While it baked, we played music together.  He showed me a cool rhythm to play on the drums while he played the bass.  We sorta re-created “Drive My Car” a little bit :)

Then it was off to the passport office. Then I dropped him off at his dad’s house and did a little Christmas shopping.  Then home, internet, and dinner, which was rotelli with about half a bag of wilted spinach and some red bell peppers in the sauce. And Henry’s cheesecake for dessert!
I’m trying to finish my re-worked sweater collar tonight so I can wear it again tomorrow.  Brr.

Hilarity:

Mary Poppins Re-Mix

Karate (Tiny Tigers)
Grocery shopping
drum and bass practice
baked a cheesecake

The Grey King
started lego castle
Karate
verbal math drills
grammar

Slept until 10:30, amazing! Dan and I sat on the sofa in our jammies with our laptops for hours and hours today, very lazy and relaxing. We went through the 300 photos he took at the gig last night, separating out the interesting ones, and I did LibriVox work and started editing my recording of Barchester Towers, chapter 11.

This evening we watched the first episode of “The IT Crowd” but it was just stupid so I don’t think we’ll be watching any more of it. I heard a lot of good things about it, but I guess that “Green Wing” and “The Office” have spoiled us and we can’t watch stupid sitcoms anymore.

Our reader Mark has completed another Jeeves and Wooster book — this time a whole novel, rather than a collection of short stories. Download it (for free!) here: http://librivox.org/right-ho-jeeves-by-p-g-wodehouse/

It’s a classic, featuring Madeline Bassett, Tuppy Glossop, Cousin Angela, Gussie Finknottle, and assorted Aunts :) I think Mark does a great job reading Wodehouse. Henry and I will be listening to this one tomorrow, for sure.

Our David in England found a short and hilarious public domain Cornish Christmas Play (published 1833, but it feels a LOT older). He posted the project this morning, had it fully cast within 5 hours, and I think almost all of the parts have already been submitted. I grabbed the role of The Dragon (I speak about 4 lines and am then slain by Saint George) and David asked if Henry would read the role of Father Christmas. I asked him when he was here for a while this evening, and he said yes so we worked on our lines and took turns recording them. It’s going to be so cool when David gets it all pasted together!

I had lots and lots of Alone Time today — Henry was at his dad’s house all except for a few hours in the evening, and Dan was out helping with a Rockola gig all day. I did luxurious things like reading, uninterrupted, and knitting while listening to audiobooks, uninterrupted, and recording for LibriVox, uninterrupted :) But it was kind of weird, too, so I’ll be glad when everyone is home again tomorrow!

I made the knitty.com “bpt” sweater a couple of years ago. I wear it constantly, but the hood kind of bothers me. I almost never use it (’cause I’ve made myself an assortment of cute warm hats) and it’s lumpy when I lean back in my seat. So today I RIPPED it off while listening to LibriVox’s lovely free audiobook of The Awakening. Ripped it all the way back to the neckline, picked the neck stitches back up and started knitting a little standup collar. The sweater is rather poorly designed at the neck — the front is as high as the back, so it rides down in back and is too high in front. In an attempt to make it fit better, I’m doing the collar with short rows in back to make the back higher. Let’s hope its a success! I took a “before” picture which maybe I’ll post tomorrow.

Oh, and here’s an old photo of the sweater in its still hooded state:

I’d also like to make it longer and less tapered, so I might be doing some more alterations after I fix the neck.

Ice Skating
reading
Story of the World
World of Warcraft
drumming

Took Henry to his classes at Bayshore in the morning, and spent my free time shopping for black jeans and shoes for Dan (Do you have any idea how hard it is to find good supportive ALL BLACK sneakers?) and I picked up a replacement power supply at Guitar Denter and, while I was out in San Marcos anyway, bought him some helicopter fuel. Picked up Henry, got the mail, came home, vacuumed and mopped all the floors, and then collapsed, pretty much… I had planned to make stuffed peppers for dinner and started a pot of rice, but when it came down to it I decided I didn’t have the energy, so I opened a can of black beans, mixed them with the rice (first setting aside enough so I can make the peppers on the weekend) and served it with sour cream, homemade salsa, and shredded cheese. Easy, fast, and tasty.
Sat in and watched Henry’s karate class tonight and he got his belt-test form! When he passes, he’ll be 4th kyu — purple with a black stripe. He’s been longing to test, so we’re really happy that Sensei thinks he’s ready :)
Henry played on the electric drums for a couple of hours today in the afternoon and had a ton of fun!

Bayshore Science (digestive system)
Bayshore Art
Bayshore Spanish
drumming
math
handwriting
karate

The roofers woke us with much incredible banging and stamping at 7am.  Henry played with Nathan and Laura, and then we went out to do errands.  Too tired to do much else.  Oh we played a bit of WoW together — Zinny helped me find the Witherbark Cages in the Hinterlands.

Grammar (prepositions)
assembly of electronic drum kit
A Way With Words (food terms)
recorded new releases list for LibriVox
reading
guitar practice

Are you tired of hearing about how tired I am? Still worn out from the weekend, plus I woke up way too early ’cause my stomach hurt.  Bah.  Basic Tuesday: Karate, groceries, home, mythology class, musical theater, home, muppet show, dinner, bedtime routine.   I had planned to get a little bit of LibriVox recording done during the hour and a half of quiet I had this afternoon while Henry was in class, but instead I had to fix LibriVox problems, and I was too tired to record well anyway.  Maybe tomorrow.

Karate (Tiny Tigers)
Mythology class
Musical Theater
Math-U-See (multiplication)
Grammar (prepositions)
The Grey King

Creative Writing (novel)
The Grey King
A Way With Words (Cooking and food terms)
Karate

I was too tired today to do much of anything. I dumped the concert photos out of my camera and got them sorted and cropped and uploaded to my gallery. And I cleaned Henry’s computer area. But that’s about it, productivity-wise. Lay around with Dan and watched a lot of TiVo: Survivor (merge!), House, The Soup, and two episodes of season two of the Office (USA version). And two episodes of The Muppet Show with Henry before bed. I love the Muppet Show. We watched the first two episodes of Season One, which I’d never seen. I probably saw later seasons. I remember Loretta Swit, Harry Belafonte, Debbie Harry, Alice Cooper, Senor Wences (I think), Johnny Cash…

Oh yeah… I took a short video of Henry and Celia dancing on stage during Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da. If you are a family member and want to see it, drop me an email and I’ll send you the link. My camera takes video in some funny way that separates the audio and video (I think it’s called muxed) so when I try to export the .mpg to a smaller, web-friendly .mov in Quicktime (or any other video program) I lose the audio. It’s really delightful, I’ll tell you. But there is a way to get the audio and video glued together.

Run Toast Titanium, tell it you want to make a video cd, and add the video. Then click that file in Toast’s window and tell it to export to .dv, which will take approximately 100,000 years. When it’s done you’ll have a HUGE .dv file – but this file can then be opened in Quicktime and exported to a small, web-friendly file without losing the audio. Why can’t Quicktime do this on its own? Why why why?