Disappointed
After hearing over and over how good a book it is, I decided to pick up George R.R. Martin’s “A Game of Thrones”. I was wary… when the first book of a series is 800 pages, it’s generally a bad sign. Not always, though, so in I jumped.
I’m 120 pages in. Can someone tell me why I should finish this thing?
The Borgus MarsCon Report
I had the first glass of wine I’ve had in years. Honestly, probably the best-tasting, to my preferences.
The dealer’s room had the Callahan’s Saloon softcover (“Lady Slings The Booze”) I’d been missing, and the next Miles Vorkosigan I needed. I also discovered that FanPro’s Shadowrun supplements are a lot more expensive than the old FASA stuff.
Stayed up till 3am Friday for a dot/Hack//Enemy demo. I won, but then the newbie is supposed to win demos, so they’ll get hooked on the game. I’m very cautious about getting hooked on collectible games.
Only ate one meal Friday. I thought I’d outgrown that kind of con behavior.
Rain and I gave Jesse Braxton her Xmas present – a set which included figure of Lucy Lawless, as Xena, in the style of “The Simpsons”. It went over very well.
Spaz-quested for 30 minutes Saturday trying to remember where the nearby Wal-Mart was. (We never found it.)
Learned to play “Button Men”. Discovered that the game has a few game-balance issues, but at least I ended up with a pair of Dork Tower Button Men (my entry requirements) and another pair of general fantasy ones (a fellowship prize for not throttling the little kid I played one round against).
Had a lousy dinner in the hotel restaurant. That place is just cursed, I swear.
Won two starter decks and a box of boosters for dot/Hack//Enemy in the auction. Now I can build a few decks at a bargain price, and play some before I decide if I’m really going to get involved in this.
Enjoyed another good Caprizzio show – the vibrating duck was good for a laugh, though it got a bit overused.
Managed to order pizza at 2:30 am, thereby avoiding going another 24 hours between meals.
Drove home earlier Sunday than I really wanted, but not early enough to miss the snow. We counted 6 or 7 wrecks on our side of 81 alone, and there we a couple juicy traffic-stoppers on the other side.
Overall, a good weekend – I hope more of the folks around here can make it next year.
Black Rose isn’t answering
You know you’ve been playing (or watching someone play) a lot of dot/Hack when you get someone’s IM screenname, and immediately think, “Good, I can add them to my party from now on!”
Boy, I’m tired 🙂
Bowling for Chocobos
Dug out the sketchpad Wednesday night, and worked on that character some more.
There’s an Eddie Izzard joke where he drops into the role of the young Hitler in painting class, muttering to himself, “I can’t get this tree to look right… wait… dammit… fine! I’ll just have to kill everybody!”
That gives you an idea of how well the drawing was going.
Saturday night was a birthday party at the bowling alley for one of Rain’s work friends. I knew a bunch of people there from her work, including the one guy who begged off and just played Final Fantasy Tactics all evening. I bowled well… which is not to say I got a high score, but that I actually hit pins most of the time and got the rare spare and strike. Next time we go for ourselves, I think we’re putting the bumpers up. We had them for one game because of a youngster’s presence, and the score sheet’s a lot less embarrassing when there’s no gutter balls.
Back to the gym today, finally. (The holidays played hell with our gym schedule.) I was hoping the new mini iPod would be a lot cheaper, because it’d make an excellent gym companion, but no joy.
In the last week, I’ve read Diane Duane, Frank Herbert, Tom Clancy, Robert Heinlein, and Arthur C. Clarke, among others. That, and madwriter‘s posts have reawakened my writing urge. We’ll see if it goes anywhere… the nice thing about 15 years of abandoned projects is that I have a lot of source material to mine 🙂
I’m in the mood to link
The previous post dates from Saturday… I started writing it about 1 am, and forgot about it; it was still in my journaling app this morning 🙂
Managed to wake up this morning not feeling like death warmed over, but in fact a little optimistic about the day. We’ll see how long it lasts, especially on a work Tuesday, but it’s a nice change.
Pulled out my new Xmas present sketch pad for the first time last night, and started drawing a character I’ve been thinking about for the last few weeks. I mainly managed to prove to myself how out of practice I’ve become, but I’m not giving up. Drawing and painting have been on my mind a lot lately, and there’s a piece I wanted to do for last year’s T-con that I’d love to have ready this year.
w00t_comic‘s been funny this week… a good “gaydar” joke in the previous comic, and a Harry Potter in-joke on a t-shirt in the most recent one. I think that joke has custom-button potential for the early-year cons.
Waahhh
Douglas Adams’ last finished computer game, “Starship Titanic”, won’t install on my OS X system. Searches on the web reveal that it also doesn’t install on many of the Mac OS 8-9 systems it was intended to. Further searches mention that many people who got it to install wish it hadn’t; it may not have been the pinnacle of his work. Maybe I’ll put it on the back up machine, but maybe not, now.
