Bewitched, Bothered, Bewildered

With the new expansion for World of Warcraft sort-of-vaguely-possibly-maybe ramping up for Beta in the form of a competition for those with art skills (the prize being a replica of the Lich King’s Frostmourne sword and a guaranteed Beta spot) I’ve been delving in to the sad world of the World of Warcraft beta testers.

I’ve tested games in the past, including a good twelve months spent in Vanguard: Saga of Heroes prior to release which was sadly the most exciting twelve months of my whole time in the world of Telon. Every game community differs in it’s approach to Beta, some of them are well implemented, some communities consider it to be an elite club that only they should be a part of and some are for the most part free-for-alls. I’m used to the WoW community so had a fair idea of the stupidity to expect from it’s possible Beta testers yet my expectations were far exceeded.
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Doctor Who lately has put me in the mood for a bit of full-scale-nerd activity in the form of spotting little hidden clues which may mean nothing or everything and I do have a huge list of little things which could tell us something about the finale for Series 4 of Who. However what I didn’t expect was to find myself getting drawn into the same thing for my other favourite show of late, How I Met Your Mother.

You see the ongoing premise of the show has been exactly what the title says, our hero Ted in the future of 2030 is telling his teenage kids just how he met their mother, except that for the last four series he has never actually said who the mother is. We had the opening plot twist where we are led to believe that Robin is the mother, until he ends with “And that’s how I met your Aunt Robin.” Bear in mind he calls all of his friends Aunt or Uncle, so the mother isn’t Robin’s sister before you think that. From that moment on we were given clues to her identity, subtle details such as a montage of photographs all with her face blurred out in series one, then of course the appearance of that yellow umbrella which is now used as a representation of her (For those who don’t watch, in all of Ted’s flashbacks during the telling of his story, all we ever see of the mother is a yellow umbrella she carries with her.)

This came to a head recently when Ted went out for St. Patrick’s Day and ended up at a bar, making it clear to us that the mother was also at the same bar. The episode ends with him returning to the bar to try to find his lost phone, only to find it pouring with rain when he goes to leave. He picks up a yellow umbrella that’s been discarded by the door to keep the rain off.

Now a blogger has come forward claiming to have irrefutable proof as to the identity of the mother. We already knew that Ted’s current girlfriend Stella (Played by Scrubs‘ Sarah Chalke) was apparently at the same bar as Ted on St. Patrick’s Day however Sian and I had discounted this as a red herring of a clue. However Seat42f who has been watching far too much Lost lately spotted something rather telling when we were introduced to Stella’s daughter. He has a screen shot of the scene from 2030 of the kids sat on that sofa and has highlighted a framed letter behind them, then another shot of Stella’s apartment with what he thinks is the same framed letter. I’m rather sceptical myself, the framed letter behind the children appears to be two sheets of paper side by side rather than the single sheet in Stella’s apartment, as well as the fact that I simply don’t believe Stella is being set up as the mother. My gut tells me otherwise.

I’m still holding out hope that it’s Victoria.

Side Note: This article is set to publish after 2am.

Not wanting to tempt fate at all but I’m rather pleased to be having no issues at all with my copy of Grand Theft Auto IV, touch wood. In fact when I got the game on Tuesday I was unaware of the epic problems now plaguing Playstation 3 owners (as well as a few XBox 360 owners apparently) or of the queues and organisation required to distribute it just nine hours earlier. I arrived at Game early, intent on doing something mindless with my recoup day and queued with just a couple of harangued looking father’s on their way to work, all with orders of exactly what to get on pain of death. Five hundred free Microsoft Points and a bundle of free XBox Live userpics were my reward for pre-ordering so I headed home.

I should warn you now, there will be character related spoilers at points.
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So I’m ill today which is never a huge shocker yet this one has brought me low. There comes every now and then a virus or whatever that my body seems to take extreme pleasure in obliterating much to my discomfort. This unnatural twenty-four hour warfare tends to leave me unsurprisingly quite short of energy, which I can thankfully regain now that I’m safe in the knowledge that my raging temperature has been doused, however regaining energy tends to mean a little less work is required for food.

Checking the fridge led me to the unexpected discovery of a quick snack with all the filling power of a Sunday roast…unfortunately. Yesterday’s leftover grilled chicken with yesterday lunchtime’s leftover Rice, mixed in a bowl, heated and drowned in Tamari sauce will give you a meal that strangely tasty with so few ingredients, incredibly salty so you’ll need to order a water tanker before you start eating and it will inevitably expand in your stomach and make you equally wish you hadn’t even attempted it while pleased that you won’t really have to cook again for a long time.

This won’t be a huge discovery for anyone else but me, especially those of you who were students. Yes, I’m talking about you, you and you in the funny hat.