Well, Master Craig is seeming to go from worse to worse walkwise etc. - we haven't seen the outside of the compound for a week. Admittedly, there was the Young Elliot scare - the doctors diagnosed it as "a failure to thrive" - very clinical those doctors. Well, Young Elliot had lost 100g over a month rather than putting on any weight. It seems that he doesn't demand feed all that well - in fact he doesn't demand all that much at all yet. Ellie and I have it in mind that Young Elliot may come in very useful if he's a bit shy - after not too long we'll have him trained:
It looks like we'll get on very well. Anyway, feeding has been stepped up for him and he's now partly on formula - so the little slug is doubling his weight each day. Current artist rendering:
So, it's dogs outside, fatboy et al. inside.
So, Ellie and I have been sitting around the fire telling a few yarns with Rusty 1 and Rusty 2 (Ellie nicked Master Craig's matches he uses for the fireplace). We hide right down the back of the yard.
Ellie's a bit naughty, she gets bits of grass and flowers and smokes them in a crudely fashioned pipe. I keep telling her that nice girls don't hang out around fires smoking their pipe - but she's a modern dog and doesn't care much about what people might say about her.
Well, back to the fire, the Rusties don't tell very good stories. Rusty 2 (a weird looking "rusty-colured" sheepdog) can tell you about how many near misses by cars he's had out the front of his place that morning - he says that he has 81 lives since he's already eaten 9 cats (I suspect he may be stretching the truth - I suggested that squaffing furballs doesn't count as a cat eaten). Ellie reckons she should have a couple of extra lives since she's caught and eaten families of mice, birds, butterflies and moths, but again I keep reminding her that those animals don't have extra lives that they give away to just anyone.
Ellie was telling stories about how she'd design computer games. She's spent a bit of time playing Cannon Fodder recently (using the cheats, I might add) with some minor success. But she reckons it's all a bit tame - your little icon warriors wander about disembowelling screaming victims but when an icon dies, there's almost always another one to replace it. Ellie is designing a game where the consequences are a bit more serious when you die. She says that there is no real "detriment" in dying and that the games are nothing like in real life.
I suggested that we could rig up a cattle prod so that she received a shock each time a bullet hit her, but as a natural coward (who I might add is still afraid of lawnmowers, blenders, hair driers etc.) she didn't like the sound of an electrical discharge into the back of her neck.
Instead, Ellie has in mind that the loss be through the computer itself. For example, each time you die, you might randomly lose 10 meg of disk space. Or for each bullet you take, a pixel might give up its life. Each time you save your player, you'd lose a megahertz of speed....
I then suggested that this was no new suggestion and that it had all in fact been done last year - Windows 95 does exactly what she's looking at.
Rusty 1 (a Jack Russell terrier) often pipes into the conversation at different times with some strange view of the world. I think that he's so warped due to being only about 15 cm (6 inches) tall. The furthest he ever seems to get is the knees, unlike Ellie who makes it to the groin region, Rusty 2 to the stomach region and me to the shoulders. This doesn't mean that I'm always the most fun to be with, though. Ellie always reminds us of the time we were walking with friends of Mistress Liz and she managed to actually spring up and get her tongue inside the mouth of one of the friends. Needless to say, it didn't add much to the relationship between Mistress Liz and the lickee, but it has certainly given a memory of which any dog would be jealous.
It's strange since Master Craig used to get caught by Ellie quite a lot (orally speaking) when she was younger - I guess with me (before we got Ellie) I was not quite so forthright and tend to keep my tongue inside my mouth on most occasions. Master Craig just wasn't familiar with a dog with a roaming tongue - but it's now very rare for Ellie to be able to inflict that on Master Craig (certainly he's learnt to be able to smell her mouth coming - her oral hygiene has not improved since earlier diary notes - and has quickened reflexes as a result of the memory of the immediately preceding lick).
Well, it's off to the mail (well, the first one at least was passed on to us by Master Craig):
Hi Craig,Thanks for your email.
I am currently studying the Master of Taxation course at University of New South Wales via the Box Hill ATO office where I work. Yes I work for the "Dark Side".
I finally got round to Dogworld - at last I fully understand the "Great white color background mystery" and also who is Mistress Liz. Another great mystery resolved. Now if only I could work out why my friends say I work for the "Dark side" of tax? Hmm...
Pass on words of support to Roger and Ellie against Mistress Liz's technologically oppressive conduct and let Mistress Liz know the world community is watching!
Hoping to have my own Web site up in early next year and Roger and Ellie's plight will figure prominently.
Regards
Jason
Ps: Sorry for my late email, I was held up with study."
Well, I might say that I'd be happy to welcome old Jase aboard the protest wagon! Ellie and I are thinking of taking more serious measures shortly if the problem isn't soon remedied.
And next:
"Hi all just a short note to say that April and I are doing fine. The weather is getting cold now and there are lots of leaf piles to roll in. Soon it will be winter here in North Eastern Ohio. Talk to you soon.Bear and April"
The leaf piles sound like mighty fine eatin'.
Take me to the next diary entry or show me the complete calendar!
I'd be very happy if you'd sign Master Craig's visitors' book before you leave (he won't create one for me).
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