The Clan of the Cave Bague

The human campaign is finished and it’s the Undead campaign next. The FMV at the end of the campaign was pretty amazing – there’s a World of Warcraft movie on the cards and I think it would be madness to have some live action abomination when Blizzard have been producing consistantly incredible FMV for years. Anyone who hasn’t seen the intro movie for World of Warcraft really needs to.

Anyway, Warcraft III is a really amazing RTS – it’s easily up there beside StarCraft. I’m nowhere near ready for multiplayer fun on battle.net though – still mousing my way round the interface. One problem I’m having at the moment is I’m treating it more like an Age of Empires type of RTS where it’s really all about the numbers, rather than treating it like a squad based RTS with small tight (largely autonomous) squads. Anyhoo, I’m sure I’ll get there eventually.

Now this is a bit more like it. I think we can expect to be allocated a case officer in the next week or two. So at least we’re getting somewhere. I’m sure the Australian government make the migration process deliberately painful to cut down on timewasters

I wish the same could be done with house sales. Yes folks, we’re back on the market today. Still, it’ll probably be a bit easier to manage this way. Or something.

Anyone would think we never actually do anything cos the only time I ever post on here is about video games. Fair enough, we don’t do an awful lot, granted, but we do occasionally do some stuff that involves actually being outside and things.

For example: This weekend, we mainly worked on the garden. Our house is going back on the market this week, due to problems with an earlier sale, so we’re giving it another light going over to make it all shiny and sellable. So, working on the basis that outside is probably cleaner than inside, that’s where we started. Did a good deal of grass cutting and edging, while Debbie did loads of weeding and poking about. Little Matthew, as ever, was a great help and got the pathways all sorted out.

It’s kinda hard to believe that we took the house off the market in January. That’s five months we’ve been essentially hanging in limbo. Still, it’s done now and there’s no point in dwelling on stuff.

So – the kids are out of school at the moment, so it’s going to be full steam ahead for tidying up, spit and polish, and general rushy-about-cleanyness.

Anyhoo – I think this weekend is going to involve a barbeque of some description. Cos I fancy some yummy roasted animal out in the open. Hrrm.

Anyone would think we never actually do anything cos the only time I ever post on here is about video games. Fair enough, we don’t do an awful lot, granted, but we do occasionally do some stuff that involves actually being outside and things.

For example: This weekend, we mainly worked on the garden. Our house is going back on the market this week, due to problems with an earlier sale, so we’re giving it another light going over to make it all shiny and sellable. So, working on the basis that outside is probably cleaner than inside, that’s where we started. Did a good deal of grass cutting and edging, while Debbie did loads of weeding and poking about. Little Matthew, as ever, was a great help and got the pathways all sorted out.

It’s kinda hard to believe that we took the house off the market in January. That’s five months we’ve been essentially hanging in limbo. Still, it’s done now and there’s no point in dwelling on stuff.

So – the kids are out of school at the moment, so it’s going to be full steam ahead for tidying up, spit and polish, and general rushy-about-cleanyness.

Anyhoo – I think this weekend is going to involve a barbeque of some description. Cos I fancy some yummy roasted animal out in the open. Hrrm.

Ok, so those counters at the top of the page there are quite scary. Over a year since starting out and almost seven months since actually lodging the application. What this means, in real terms, is that we’re only a couple of weeks away from a decision being made, one way or the other. Sure, we’ve yet to be assigned a case officer, they’ve yet to ask for further information, they’ve yet to ask for medicals, assurance of support, and so on. Thing is, though, that once you’ve been allocated a case officer, all that happens in two or three weeks.

So, while we’re moaning and complaining about the waiting, there really is very little time left. We still need to finalise our house sale (and if the guy attempts to move the entry date again, I swear I’ll swing for him), we need to organise temporary rented accomodation, we need to get the stuff we’re shipping put into storage (fortunately, we’ve organised shipping, so that’s one thing off the list), and so on. So it’s frantic. In the extreme.

Ok, so I didn’t end up sneaking into Baron after all, but instead managed to get all my mates eaten by Leviathan and washed ashore on the shores of Mysidia. The people of Mysidia aren’t too fond of me but have loaned me two tiny wizards and sent me packing up to the top of a mountain to become a Paladin. Which, presumably, means I’ll be able to do some Righteous Smiting With My Sword Of Wootness. And that’s always good.

It’s not the dates I was expecting :-/ Of course, it’s the number of applications being processed that matters and not the dates – for all I know, 90% of Novembers applications went in on the 1st. Anyway, at least they’re now allocating applications lodged in our month so that’s a definite milestone.

The main problem with all this hanging about is that there’s really nothing at all we can do except wait. Because it’s such a life changing event we’re planning, there’s really very little we can do in the meantime to keep ourselves occupied. It’s just a case of ‘grin and bear it’. So, I’m grinning and I’m bearing.

After my humiliating defeat on Mount Hobs, I thought it an idea to warp out of the dungeon and do a short bit of random-encountering before going back up the hill and over to Fabul. Just getting another level on every made it all a bit easier and set me up well for the siege that lay ahead. So, those pesky evil Baron people have bombed hell out of another city and made off with the crystal again. Except this time there’s been a bit of nasty betrayal and they’ve carried off Rosa. This is a problem because her Life and Cura abilities are a bit essential.

Anyhoo, I’m off to get her back – probably by sneaking into Baron itself, so I’ve wisely stocked up on Phoenix Down and Ether. Should make things a little less problematic.

Everything seems to be going as expected – I think the speed increase towards the end of October is caused by the bulk of applications being made at the end of summer after the DIMIA’s big migration push on TV. Well, we’ll wait and see. This means that our month should begin processing next week and they seem to be covering a fortnight at a time. Wait and see, I guess.

Why is it that I always underestimate the first few dungeons in a new Final Fantasy game? Here I am, as ever, in the antlion dungeon with no Phoenix Down, no Ether, and hordes of Zombies who can only be killed with magic. You’d think I’d know better by now.