Yesterday on Em Wippa and Ollie's breakfast show, the topic of "what does your partner love more than you" came up. It was hilarious listening to what the listeners had to say - some love their cars (obviously), some love their backyards, some love their sports..

The common theme was that for years, their significant others have long chosen to adore something other than their boyfriend or girlfriend at a level that has induced either tension, heartache, suffrance or just plain humour.

Well, I (and no doubt plenty of other girls out there) have had to endure having their partner love something equally or even more than me (actually, sometimes it's just more laughable than anything else).

The object of my boyfriend's affections? World of Warcraft.

Yup, that oh so simple game that reduces grown men to forget to sleep, forget to eat, and really, forget to exist and live in the *REAL* world. Nope, for these boys (and inevitably, some girls), their everyday lives consist of instances (these can last anywhere from 15 minutes to hours), raids (when this occurs, dont expect to talk or see them for the whole day), grinding honour (whatever that means), and botting (that is, when you're doing something else but you still want to gain experience or honour or whatever it's called, so u have to sit and move your character every 2 minutes - tedious and disturbingly obsessive really)...

There was a time when WoW (as it is affectionately known) took up most of his time. There was a time when I would wonder to myself "will he choose wow, or will he decide to come see me".. and there was even a time when I joined up the now infamous "World of Warcraft Widows" club. The club was supposed to be a forum or outlet for people whose significant others have neglected them for gaming. However, after a day of being part of the widows club, I quick unsubscribed as I came to realize they had:

1) serious issues ie. divorces, forgetting to pick children up from school, telling people who needed to go to hospital that they would have to wait until the instance was finished. Nope, these were serious crazy issues which were very unlike the little funny ones I was dealing with. And;

2) way too much time on their hands. I think rather than being WoW addicts, these widows became ... widow addicts. In the one day that I was subscribed, I received something liek 100 new messages... ARGHHH... time to get out...


Luckily for me, my boyfriend is no longer *that* addicted to the game. He does still play quite a bit, and when I'm at his place, I am sometimes asked to do the "botting" for him, but at least I no longer have to wait patiently for Tuesday nights when the server was down - which was historically, the one day of the week that you could guarantee yourself some love and affection.

Yup Yup we all know how derby weekend went... a day at trev's place for a derby bbq turned into a day by the quarters:

1st quarter : everyone gathered around and watched the game in excitement, eating hello pandas, even naomi and jess were in the room watching (or half watching)

2st quarter: sheer frustration, a little disappointment. The boys started to gather around the table tennis and foosball tables instead... they intermittently came in and out, screamed at the teevee and went back to being distracted. Naomi started to read the newspaper around now, and jess half disappeared.

3rd quarter: all hope was lost. We went home.

There's something strange happening in the world of work and shopping. I'm not sure if it's just me, but i find that now that I am working, I spend half as much time shopping and thinking about shopping as I did when I was in uni.

Back then, I could easily have spent enormous amounts a pop and be extremely gleeful about how fabulous my purchases are (even though inside, I know I might never wear it). I would go shopping about 3-4 times a week (Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday were mine and Jess' designated shopping days), and in between that time, I could've easily ordered a million things from online stores, browse at new catalogues and dream about what my next purchase would be.

When I first started working, I would treat myself to either a designer bag, electronics, furniture etc with my paypacket. Nowadays however, I don't. I dont know if it's because

... the amount of time that I actually have for shopping includes 1 hour during lunch, half an hour after work, a few hours on late night shopping and well, dont even think about the weekend cause im too lazy to devote shopping time to that especially after a week busting my ass at work

... or perhaps it might be the fact that I actually know how much I have to work to earn that money and therefore know the work/clothing value

... or perhaps it might be that I don't have any time to really wear any of the clothes i love? No longer can I make an excuse to have more two hands work of jeans, sneakers, ballet flats etc... nope! Now it it all formal wear, blouses, pencil skirts, smart looking pointies.. sigh.

A year ago, I would've been devastated at my lack of shopping and lack of new clothes/shoes procurement.. But now, I think i'm at a stage where I just buy things maybe once a week (maybe a few things at once), but really think about what i'm buying rather than "don't worry, i'll sell it on ebay!".. hehe

Today, Mei-Yan and I were in total and utter dress heaven. Whilst she drooled over her beautiful stella 50s wrap, i drooled over the gorgeous things that is nicola finetti, country road and stephanie conley..

Meanwhile, i was faced with a challenge that many girls face. The horror of buying gorgeous items, only to have them hang in wardrobes for years, collect dust, and later sold on ebay with the caption "brand new with tags, never worn"..

So i ummed and hmmmed for what seemed like eternity, then cara asked if perhaps i had any weddings to attend. And *voila* the impending sum+wong wedding has given me the perfect opportunity for pretty clothes buying. It doesnt matter that i will only need one dress... i will use the wedding as the perfect excuse to buy a million and one dresses.. *just in case*.

Oh miss tingy, how i love thee for giving me the perfect excuse to shop ;)

[div align=justify] For the last few days (since Monday 3.30am to be precise), I have been suffering from a really bad stomach bug which has resulted in me failing to keep the majority of my food in and my energy levels down.

Given my many previous experiences with food poisoning, I know that this certain bout cannot be just that... So, being the researcher that I am at heart (market research, psychology, health and safety), I decided to do some googling of my symptoms... *bad idea*.

I went from diagnosing myself with gastroenteritis, or more commonly known as the stomach flu or stomach virus which in itself is a rather tame little condition, to having complications due to meningitis, and then to an intestine infection, to having a tumour, and then to having rare infectious blood borne diseases from Africa!

Each time my condition got worse, I panicked a little more, until i actually convinced myself i was dying :S Luckily for me, my workmate was there to put some perspective, otherwise I'm sure i would've induced a panic attack and died anyways...

Moral : Leave the diagnosis to your doctor

In the last week, I have discovered a few thinks

* Being a girl is very expensive:

Between clothes shoes haircuts , facials, beauty products, sanitary products and all that jazz, being a girl costs a lot of money!

You know how we all think little grannies are sweet, baking, knitting types? Well, I have discovered that many grannies are indeed not of that stereotypical view. In fact, in the last week, I have discovered that many grannies are pushy and rude, and often will snap back at you when you get up and offer them a chair..

"I can do it myself - I dont need your chair" snaps a granny

"Im not old" snaps another granny

"Get out of my way" snaps the third..

My brother recently went on a camp from thursday-sunday and took my car with him. On this particular weekend, I needed to head up to Osborne Park, so I decided to catch the bus. Amongst my 5 buses there and back, I discovered that people on weekend buses stink of alcohol (possibly remnant odours from the night before), body odour (same excuse, and probably hadnt taken a shower since friday or saturday night clubbing) and salt (I had to catch the beach line, so many smelt very salty)...

The other night, I headed out to metros with "oldskool" crew, and discovered that despite not liking hip hop music, despite not enjoying being in a 100% asian crowd, and despite being old and tired, friends make the night all the better.

For the first time in ages for many of us, we stayed out till 4am at karaoke and clubbing. At any other given time, I probably would've whinged and whined by 1am that i should go home, but that particular night amongst the oldskool crew, I could've stayed out all night and even become the subject of someone elses' post on weekend smelly people :)

Last night I went to have dinner at Joe's Oriental Diner at the Hyatt Regency Hotel - it was a little dinner that my workplace decided to throw. At the end of the night, I caught a taxi from the front of Hyatt who proceeded to turn on his meter, and head towards my home.

At about wellington street (and most people in Perth will know wellington street is VERY close to Hyatt), my taxi driver received a phone call from someone who wanted him to pick him up at James St in northbridge. Unfortunately, I was already his passenger, so in a sneaky way, my driver started to mutter about the dilemma he was in and how it would be really inconvenient to come all the way back to northbridge to pick up his next ride.

A little shocked, I sort of mumbled back at him that he was obligated on accepting my request to drive me to my destination. Again, he started muttering about how inconvenient it was. So, being polite, I asked him to drop me off at the taxi rank (and not request payment) that was at the Wellington St Train Station.

The stupid guy had the nerve to say that it was inconvenient for him to drop me off at the taxi rank because he had to do a U-Turn and asked if he could drop me off in northbridge. Being 9.30pm at night, and a sole girl wandering the streets, I said no - I would really appreciate that at the very least, he could drop me off at the taxi rank so I could just hop into another Taxi.

The stupid guy again muttered how inconvenient it was, and then dropped me off in JAMES STREET NORTHBRIDGE at 9.30pm at night ... and left me to walk from there through both the bus station and train station. Perthians will know that northbridge and the train station is feral at night, with druggies and all kind of bad inhabitants, and there I was stomping through it all to find my taxi.

I have never had that happen to me, and the next taxi driver even expressed his shock and disgust as it gives all taxi drivers a bad name. So next time people, make sure you get your taxi number for complaints just in case!