@Garrett, methinks your problem was not swimming when the tide was coming in, but swimming too close to jelly fish .
@Nial, Good luck with the English teaching. I know some people have done that, but like anything else it depends upon where you end up and how things work out, since Japan like anywhere else in the world has good or bad parts and indeed good or bad schools to work in, but if your going as far as wrenting rooms over there your probably aware of that.
Mud wise, I'm loving alteraeon right now, and not really noticing the grinding because I'm totally focused upon doing quests, and also because I so much enjoy all the nifty little activities and things that druids and mages can do (my char is a druid mage), such as brewing salves and tinctures (some of which rock), experimenting with potions, making spellstaffs, maintaining liveoak minians etc.
I'm also having fun with the leather armour crafting skill, though haven't made anything particularly good yet, and I'll be interested to see what happens when cooking gets added into the game.
If your looking for none grindy muds, three I can very much recommend are clok, frandom and avalon the legend lives.
Frandom is essentially a giant interactive fiction game built as a mud, albeit without complex guess the verb parsers. You progress not by fighting, but by wandering around, examining things, exploring, talking to people and doing many questes. It's a very cool game and one I do want to get back to.
Then there is Clok, which has some of the best crafting I've seen, very much the thing if you want to really feel like your part of another world doing wilderness ruvival, ---- I've also heard good things about lament on this score but not played it yet.
Lastly Avalon the legend lives is the thing if you want a truly huge and immersive game world with a lot of stuff to do. The only thing with avalon is most of what you do in terms of activities revolves around other players and organizations, still from what I gathered while I was there other players were pretty nice.
all of these have db pages so feel free to check them out, also as I said I am enjoying alteraeon quite a lot at the moment myself, I'm Thelok on there if you want to give me a yell (I'm not a one for grouping but I'll e glad to gift you some xp or carve you some runes).
@Guitarman, hope your dad is okay, my dad had a bypass last year after a heart attack. He's okay now, but it was definitely worrying, also thanks for the words about my lady's dog.
Dulcimer and mandolin? that is cool! I love the sound of both, indeed I've sung with a lute player before myself which was definitely an experience.
I'd agree with you about stormlight being like the best of WoT, though not too loudly since my lady ias a huuuuuge! WoT fan, I want to get her a replica ais sidai ring for our wedding aniversary. We even have arguements about what Aja she'd be, she fancies yellow for the healing but personality wise she's definitely a green, especially with how angry she gets about injustice, sometimes if she sees something upsetting about the news and gets justifyably irate I'll say "You are so a green!" and people think we're weerd .
anyway digression aside, you'll like the stormlight story in arcanum unbound, actually it was my favourite one of the lot.
Dark tower did have an odd ending, and I want to reread the series myself since I wasn't in a good place when reading the last three books. My lady has just finished reading cell which she liked, though she said was most distinctly a horror.
Doosmday book is good, I can recommend it, though check the link for the review over on fantasybookreview.co.uk for details.
Hopefully
Well it's nearly seven in the morning and I've had a rather sleepless night doing doctor who, so I'll probably go and see if I can get another quest or two done this morning before I crash, though i would finally! ike to sort out the amazon ecco today if I can, and now this post is getting waaaaay too long so methinks I'd better stop .
With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)