The Clan of the Cave Bague

Its the nothing-ness
The whiteness
The endless-ness
Stretching on beyond the human imagination
Desolation of the soul

OH MY GOD

Ice flow – nowhere to go
Ice flow – nowhere to go
Lost in the blinding whiteness of the Tundra

Check him out
They call him the shrew
Arms in short then with the claw

I’m little Johnny Frostbite
Moving around
Freezin’ you up freezing you down
Like an icicle
Coming in your tent in the pink light scissor bite
Arctic death
Infinite night

They call me Tundra boy
Because I move like an Arctic – lizard
When the Blizzard strikes I disappear like a pipedream
All that’s left is the gleam – on a tent peg

Boosh Boosh – stronger than a moose
Don’t lock your door or we’ll come through your roof – top
Stop look around take your mind off the floor
Because the Boosh is loose and we’re a little bit raw

Ice, flow, nowhere to go
Ice, flow, nowhere to go
Lost in the blinding whiteness of the Tundra. Ooooowwwww!

He’s only level 14, but you really wouldn’t want this charging across Warsong Gulch at you would you? Warriors are dull until level 10 when you suddenley find more inventive ways to munt people about the face and neck. I’m currently swithering between using a two handed sword or sword shield combination. So I’m keeping both trained up so I can switch between them depending on the situation. Fun and games.

I’ve just done a BACS transfer of a substantial five-figure sum to our currency broker. It was sore. Still, it’s done now and it’s still ours – it just isn’t in pounds any more.

Other than that – not much happening. It’s all likely to kick off next week, so we’re enjoying a relatively sane weekend while we can. We’re organising a late-September leaving party as well, so lists are aplenty. That’s what migration is about really. Lists. Lots of them.

Yup – apparently so. There’s been no movement whatsoever, of course, but then we expected that. We’re very much in limbo at the moment.

I’m having various conversations at work about handovers and we’re looking around for flights and planning a leaving party, but there’s nothing we can actually commit to at present.

It’s looking like I’m going to have to continue working right up to the last week, which means we’re not going to do much of the sightseeing we had planned. We’ll still be visiting relatives and popping into LegoLand for a day or two, but certainly not the extended break we originally envisioned.

Anyway, it’s actually been a bit of a relief that there’s been a slight delay caused by Centrelink, because if that hadn’t happened we’d have no time at all at the end.

Or at least I have it on good authority that we do. Debbie has been in a mad surfing frenzy this morning, but as I’m at work I haven’t had the opportunity to witness its bandwidthy goodness first hand.

So, importantly, this means I can continue Trollbert’s long march to level 40, get my podcasts back up to date, and do all those other time-wastey things the internet expects of me.

Second single, “Operation Ground and Pound” from the Inhuman Rampage album is out and, for those who don’t already have the album, it’s a beaut. As ever, they’ve punted the video for the single on Youtube, so here it is.

So, have a look up top there. See that bit that says fifteen months and one week?

Well, let me enlighten you. The first fourteen months and three weeks of that are a cakewalk. Sure, you hop from panic to panic – first you worry about getting stuff together for the skills assessment, then you have to rummage frantically for birth certificates, then you need to get sponsorship info, then you need to plan medicals etc etc etc. So it’s busy.

Once all that’s in? Nothing. There is nothing whatsoever we can reasonably do. There’s tons of stuff we need to do, of course. Can’t complete money transfers, can’t open bank accounts, can’t book flights. We just have to sit and wait.

As a result, it all just drags on interminably. Still, there’s good stuff happening behind the scenes – looks like I may have a job sorted out, depending on whether the employer and I get on, so that’s one worry potentially out of the way.

Anyhoo, the phrase Real Soon Now(tm) springs to mind. We’re in the throes of it. I just wish they were a bit quicker.

Project Rub was, I believe, one of the DS launch titles – it’s been around for a while. It never particularly appealed to me but it was £3.99 in blockbuster and I can always trade it in. Anyway, it’s a bit wierd. Basically, you play a little bloke who sees a nice girly and immediately falls in love. The aim of the game is to get her to love you back. You do this in the traditional japanese way of joining a troupe of performance artists known as “The Rub Rabbits” (who, incidentally, enjoy walking around with bunny ears stuck on their heads) and do loads of bizarre mini-game challenges.

So far, I’ve managed to impress the girly by clearing a path of mines so that people can dash down a hill in a shopping trolly; I’ve rapidly tapped a series of numbers to allow the safe opening of a parachute; I’ve defeated one hundred raging bulls by poking them with the stylus; I’ve blown out candles, helped people escape from giant rampaging ants, and hurled myself bowling ball-like at a queue of people at a bus stop.

It’s wierd, but it’s pretty – everything is done as silhouettes, the music is funky, and the minigames are fun. It’s still a bit “errrr”, but it’s different.

Had a phonecall from the panel doctor who conducted our medicals. When they said “they’ve been sent off today” they didn’t mean the medicals had been sent to Sydney. They meant the HIV tests had been sent off. Anyhoo, I received a call yesterday saying that everything had come back from the labs clear and that the medicals were being submitted to Sydney yesterday.

Doesn’t make much of a difference of course – it just means the submission from the agency, the meds, and the centrelink stuff will all hit Adelaide at about the same time. In the grand scheme of things, when you’ve been sitting in limbo for the better part of sixteen months, another few days really makes no odds.

One thing that is a bit of a concern, though, is the UKs recent upgrade of The Status Of Doom to critical and the resulting ban of hand luggage on flights leaving the UK. I don’t know if it’s only British Airways affected or whether it’s flights to everywhere, but the thought of taking the kids on a plane for twenty hours without their gameboys and teddies fills me with horror.

Once again, nelefa.org suffers from net withdrawal symptoms. I really haven’t been doing much in the way of gaming because of the amount of annoying real life stuff that’s being organised. We’ve moved house, now, so things are a little more settled and a lot less stressful, so that’s always good.

New Super Mario Bros on the DS has been getting a bit of a play, but other than that it’s only really my lunchtime Warcraft sessions that have kept going.

Trollbert is now (wait for it) level 36 and romping up through the ranks (he’s a Sergeant now!). Poor pookie has been abandoned, so he may need a little bit of attention. As for Mooriel, well to my shame she’s still level 19.