Last Monday, I started a new character in Warcraft. Today I hit level 21 with her - which took me at least two weeks to do the first time around. I’m not sure whether I did it so much faster this time because I know the game better, or whether it’s because I’m in a kick-ass guild that helps me out with armor and weapons, but either way it’s nice to be back in the twenties. Now I just need to get out of them again.

I guess I forgot to mention it, but a while back I got sent an N-Gage QD and a copy of Sega’s Pocket Kingdom. Fortunately, my box was free of deadly hobo spiders, but neither the game nor the N-Gage (which they insist on calling a “game deck,” much to my dismay) is really anything to write home about. The game is okay, but I guess I don’t know why I would devote my precious commuting time to playing an okay game when I have excellent games to play, like Pokémon. For my GBA. You know, my real handheld console.

I figured that I’d keep the N-Gage around as a phone since I haven’t owned a cell phone since 1999, but while I do still have it, I didn’t bother to get service for it once my free month was up. But now I’ve just been supplied with a work-related Blackberry. So I guess my question is: given that I have a GBA and a Blackberry, is there any reason at all to keep my N-Gage? Is the QD better as a phone than the Blackberry is? I know it’s definitely crappier than the Blackberry when it comes to email, but I guess there’s no reason apart from bag space that I couldn’t use both.

I’ve been listening to a lot of Rasputina lately - bit of a switch from Skinny Puppy, but I’d forgotten how good most of their songs are. Plus, I mean, cellos.

2005 is treating me well so far, and I think I’m in a good place compared to January 2004. I still have Chris and I love him even more now than I did last year (or the year before that). Both of us have good jobs that we like, and neither of us lives in a hell hole anymore because we live together in a new apartment that we adore. Now if only we could tame Tigger the Hellcat From Hell.

It was a bit of a shock to go back to work after a week and a half off. The jolt to my sleeping schedule was nothing compared to what I used to go through at the start of every spring semester, but still. I get up at 5:30am when I’m working because of a secondary part-time gig I like to take care of in the morning, and I just don’t think that’s a good time to be awake by anyone’s standards.

It’s probably good that Chris and I have had to scale back our WoW time since we’re both back at work - it was to the point where our blinds were constantly closed to avoid glare on my monitor and there was definitely at least one day last week when I didn’t get dressed at all. We were probably farther down the path to Shut-In City than either of us would like to admit. Now I come home from work and get in an hour or two, then eat dinner and let Chris play. In theory, anyway.

Because I work in the financial district, I’m not far from the Borders store on Wall St. Since one of my Christmas presents was a Borders gift card, I went by today during my lunch hour to pick up the WoW strategy guide. I thought I’d be smart and find out whether or not they had it first, so I used their store inventory search before I went and confirmed that it was in stock (although the limited edition wasn’t).

I got there and found the games section in the store and spent about ten minutes crouched on the floor trying to read all the titles (I guess they assume that only dwarves and toddlers buy strategy guides) before concluding that it wasn’t in that section after all. When I went to the information desk and they couldn’t find it either, I asked why it had shown up as in stock when I searched their inventory. “Oh,” says Captain Fucknuts, “Those results aren’t real time!”

So here’s my question: I’m told that the inventory search on the Borders Stores website and the inventory search in their stores are one and the same, and if neither is real time, then what the hell good is it? What possible use could an inventory system have if not to tell you what is in the store’s inventory?

They helpfully offered to order the guide for me and told me it would arrive within two to three weeks. I told them I’d rather get ten bucks off at Amazon if I’m going to wait two to three weeks, and then I left. But I’m still irritated that I wasted my lunch hour in a store full of humans when I could have just ordered the fucking thing on the web in the first place. I should have known better than to choose real world interaction over the Internets - that’ll learn me!

It looks like a lot of you used my Amazon referral code to buy Christmas presents, and I’m pleased to say that the sum of my Oxfam donations for 2004 will be over $400. It’s not a lot, and I haven’t sent in the money for Q4 yet because I don’t have it from Amazon yet, but it’s more than I’ve made in referral fees in previous years and I’m glad it’s going to a good cause, especially given the timing.

I think I’d like to do pretty much the same thing for 2005, so please feel free to keep using that link generator.

So: 2005, and everything. I’m ashamed to say that Chris and I bailed on each and every one of the New Year’s parties to which we were invited. We were sitting around on Friday thinking about which one we should go to when we realized that for the first time in recent memory, we live in a quiet apartment building and could really just ignore the whole holiday as we’ve wanted to do for years. Last year we were driven out by the god awful music from our god awful neighbors in Manhattan, and the year before that we suffered through god awful music from my god awful neighbor in Brooklyn, but this year we stayed home and didn’t hear a peep from anyone until midnight, when cheering could be heard from the air vent in our bathroom. I love me some concrete construction, I tell you what.

So I’m sorry for ditching all of you, but I promise we’ll be a little more social once the novelty of being able to enjoy our apartment wears off. Which I’m sure it will. Eventually.

As for the cat scratching stuff: a number of you suggested those little plastic tips that go over trimmed kitty claws to keep them from mauling everyone and everything. We’ve considered it, but trimming the cat’s claws is itself quite an undertaking, as he’s a demon hellcat from hell and would probably disembowel us if we tried it. But we might anyway. The scratch mat seems to be the most effective thing so far - he absolutely loves it and hasn’t touched the couch since we bought it. He sits on his mat constantly, and scratches it whenever he thinks of it. We’re thinking of getting a couple more for other rooms. Maybe it will break him of his habit of eating my hair in the middle of the night.