Thread:Nugu54/@comment-33437691-20171113214449/@comment-33437691-20171115175952

It is so nice to be warm, isn't it? When we first went to Tasmania, there was no central heating of any kind (except in offices: even the schools had only floor heating and many students wore fingerless gloves. They relied on fireplaces (if you were lucky to have one), otherwise it was small electric bar-heaters or fan heaters--which only ever heated a small area (like, your feet, if it was under your desk. Or running them for hours, but they tipped easily so it wasn't safe to leave them on without supervision. Sometimes it felt warmer outside! Coming from Canada with its universal central heating (excepting igloos), it felt like we'd stepped into a time warp back to Dickens' period.

I actually have no idea what's coming in the Christmas challenge; a more experienced player just suggested I save my time machines for a better reward. I construed that to be some kind of desktop icon. I really admire some desktops. One friend's sphere is a star sapphire blue and sits in a gold case (like yours) but then also has a silver crown around it. Yours is a deeper blue than mine (and I have a brass base LOL--might as well be wood) but it doesn't have the star (i.e. a flash of white in the centre). She's at level 440... These things add an incentive to complete some challenges, but I'm grateful for those more experienced players who alert us newbier (me, not you) about worthwile or time-wasting challenges. The Hallowe'en challenge was the first I completed, and I didn't know that if you finished all three challenges that you lost access to the lanterns. I won't do that again!

Surely they have to offer the desktop icons so new people can acquire them, too. It must be like reaching Grand Magistar: you get the rewards, but you don't get any more embellishments. Or something. I will keep my fingers crossed.

There is a private area in the chat room, so no one can see what you're texting. You enter the live chat room with your friend and when you click on their icon, a drop-down menu appears; one of the options is private chat. The other person responds and then you're in the private area (and the public area remains blank--which is what I found so disconcerting when supposedly 5 people were in the chat room and it was static (while 2 private convesations were going on). Then one person would hop back in... it got quite funny at one point, but ...I'd rather one on one.

We can arrange a time if you want. It was 2 pm here when you wrote once that it was 10 pm there and that you were off to bed, so at least we'll have an idea when we're both awake! I have to go out for a couple of hours now, but I will be back after 1 pm my time. Or you can suggest a time. I really must go (I type far too fast, sorry! I get carried away.)