Brief updates
- 08:29 Having the sort of day where the Armageddon asteroid sounds like a fine idea. Sorry, other 7 billion people on thje planet, but I’m grumpy. #
- 11:57 Don’t know what’s up with my brain chemistry this week, but that insane “Yatta” song just cheered me up a tiny bit. Eeek. #
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Brief updates
- 10:30 Amused that Facebook thinks I may know random people that also work for NASA, somewhere. #
- 10:57 Lots of Wachovia phishing spam in the last 48 hours. No click from me, impaired-grammar scammer. #
- 11:44 I *heart* dailycostume.com for all the masquerades I don’t get to attend! #
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Fools! I’ll Destroy You All!
Mad Scientist University: Apples to Apples meets Mad Science.
I think I need this game. Apples to Apples is a proven, repeated winner at any party I’ve seen it appear, and the additional mad science elements seal the deal. Games like these are absolutely perfect for most of the groups I’m in: minimal setup, simple rules, and more focus on playing the game entertainingly than actually winning.
Won’t be buying it before Xmas, but I may put it on my Xmas list 🙂
Movin’ Right Along
Still in the midst of moving. We want to be out of here by the second weekend in November, and this time there will be much less last-minute work. Already, bankers’ boxes full of gaming material, paperbacks, and videotapes have made the journey to the new digs. Most of the living-room furniture has been moved or Freecycled, and it’s a bit bare and echoey in here: mildly unsettling. Meanwhile, we’ve been folding boxes, packing boxes, and toting boxes. Fold and pack and tote. My hip’s fine, but my back is a freakin’ landscape of pain, and I haven’t even matched the amount of labor Starr’s put in while I was at work.
Her parents are leaving the area for the next year or two due to military commitments. They want to hang on to their property, though: a nice 4-bedroom, two-story house with a garage and pool in a nice neighborhood of southeast Chesapeake. So, they asked if Starr and I would be willing to rent the place from them, at less than half what we’re paying for the apartment.
Neither one of us really had to think long about it, especially as we’ll be allowed to treat the place as though it were ours (within reason). Unfortunately, some of the rent savings will be eaten by the gas for the additional commute: another 20 minutes added to the 40-45 minute trip I have now. Sigh. Starr’s got the same problem. But nevertheless, we’re moving, and I have to say I’m looking forward to it. Or rather, I’m looking forward to the move being complete.
Ow.
In A.D. 2012 Magic Was Beginning
Oh, yeah, Sunday night I found all my old Shadowrun 2nd Ed. sourcebooks, adventures, and rulebooks. That pretty much decided me on the upcoming campaign.
I think I’ll run 2nd Ed, with a version of the 4th Ed. hacking rules spliced in, and the world timeline advanced to 4th Ed as well. That means people in my group who want to can obtain 2nd Ed. used on eBay (they’re going for $7-$8) and I can just do a handout or something of my new hacking rules.
Man, paging through all the old TeeFive characters really takes me back, though I figure we oughta start a new group. If only Tom was still gaming with us, maybe I could bribe him into a new t-shirt design. I do think I’ll be taking a page from ptownhiker‘s notebook, and worry a lot less about game mechanics and a lot more about story and character interaction. Shadowrun’s well-suited to that anyway.
Tetris Achievement
Nice, nagging back pain today, the result of moving boxes. I’m packing everything into those folding white “banker’s boxes” so that they’ll fit easier in the cars, and so there will be more of them safe for me to lift; but it doesn’t mean my body’s used to it, oh no. The funny thing’s that I didn’t do any lifting at all yesterday, because I was simply out of energy. Why does my body keep waiting 24 hours to start announcing muscle pain?
Also, sore throat. Yay weather changes.
Starr and I continued to run around Azeroth for a while last night hitting the candy buckets at the inns. I have the feeling we’ll be spending more time before the expansion collecting Achievements than attempting to level, which is absolutely fine with me. The more ‘ways to play the game’ Blizzard can add, the happier I’ll be to keep forking over my subscription, especially since I’ve never exactly been a speed leveler, and just am not really sold yet on the whole raiding thing.
After I went to bed, Starr got recruited by a group shooting for the Leeeeeeeeeeeeeroy! Achievement. Seems it didn’t work out; but I’d have been mightily amused if it had.
Surrounded by boxes
On Friday, one of my co-workers walked into the room looking for another of my co-workers. Seeing him at his desk, she said, “Hey Dave, it’s Joan. I have a question for you…”
I thought to myself, “Errr, Dave probably knows it’s you, seeing as you’re standing right here.” Of course, the next thought that flashed through my head: “Harriet Jones – Prime Minister.” “Yes, I know who you are.”
Bummed to have once again missed Rising Star. I had a nice streak of attendance, reaching past the first RS in 1992 to 1982’s RoVaCon 7. It sounds like the convention’s doing incredibly well these days, but I just can’t swing the travel (seven hours one way). Yes, I feel guilty about that. Hope everyone who went had a good time.
I myself am packing up for another move. This has a lot to do with the Stuff Reduction Plan – at least this time, there is noticeably less stuff to pack, and I’m Freecycling / eBaying / giving away even more stuff in the next week or two. Weirdness. Didn’t change living quarters for decades, and now I’m in my fourth move in 5 years.
Tunnel drive
In general, I like living in Hampton Roads, I honestly do. Last night did not provide a good example…
There are three bridges in my Metro area that can take me from work to home. Assuming no heavy traffic, the Monitor-Merrimac bridge-tunnel does so in about 40-45 minutes; the James River bridge adds about 20-25 minutes to that; and the Hampton Roads bridge-tunnel adds about 20 minutes to the MMBT. (I have a bad tendency to refer to them as the Mimbit, the Jerb, and the Herbit.)
Unless it’s 1am, though, there’s probably going to be an additional 10-30 minutes of heavy traffic on the Herbit, and the Mimbit is a crapshoot: sometimes I fly straight through, and sometimes I sit waiting an extra 15-20 minutes. We have handy electronic signs alerting us to congestion on the Mimbit and Herbit, but because of geography, by the time I see one, the Jerb is already out of the question.
Yesterday, the signs warned me that the Mimbit was blocked by an accident – based on reports I’ve heard, an idiot trying to cut off a fellow driver. I had a quick decision to make – wait in blocked traffic there, and hope the accident is cleared within an hour (it usually is) or join all the additional traffic to the Herbit, probably incurring a 90-minute delay. I joined the queue of blocked traffic.
I took 2 hours to reach the tunnel entrance for the Mimbit, only to find that the tunnel remained blocked and that traffic was being forcibly rerouted back to the other two bridges. I don’t know the Jerb route well enough to ensure I wouldn’t get lost, so I joined the crowded line for the Herbit. 90 minutes later, I was finally home. 3.5 hours to make a 45-minute commute. (Turns out that the Jerb was just as bad.)
Starr, aware of the situation thanks to cell phones, had pizza and chocolate waiting. I love this woman.
