Burning sensations
Strange dream last night. I was at a USS Yeager meeting circa 1994, and in charge of getting everyone together for a group photo; however, every time I hit the timer button on the camera and stepped over to the group, people started chatting and wandering away before the shutter fired. I would have to badger them back into position, and try again. Iron Chef Morimoto, who’d graciously agreed to pose with us, was getting fairly impatient with the whole thing.
Can’t say that I think there’s any deep meaning in that dream: since I was gamemastering last night, I already was in ‘herding cats’ headspace, and I’ve recently been taking more pictures. I think I’m more excited about pictures these days, since the Web’s been giving me more places to show them off. I don’t know what Morimoto was doing there, though.
Then I woke up with heavy coughing caused by a combination of pool chemicals and last night’s GM oratory. Got back to sleep, eventually, but my throat still burns a bit this morning. I’ll be so relieved when I can put the super-bleach away, I’ve been dosing that pool with this and that for weeks now trying to get it usable for what remains of the summer. Next year, I’m starting in March.
We’re finally on the new Shadowrun adventure, but we got rolling a little late, so the evening was spent in negotiating the job and traveling to the site. Our heroes are investigating the disappearance of a Draco Foundation science team that was researching Crater Lake; the GSSC had been providing security, and needs some deniable assets to cover their butts. I’ve got an action sequence ready to start the next session, and some curious plot points prepared.
Tonight: moving stuff into the attic. And more pool work.
Tiny tiny tsunami
Once again, utility appliances strike cruelly. Not an oil furnace this time, but my hot water heater, choosing to burst and fill the downstairs apartment with water at quarter-of-six this morning.
The maintenance person shut off and vacuumed up the water, and left to fetch a new heater. Wanting to stick around in case there were further issues, I called in to work and stretched out on the couch. I woke up on the couch at my mom’s house 300 miles away, very disoriented and wondering how the heck that had happened. Knowing I needed to head back to the apartment, I found my keys and wallet and went outside, but while there were strangely dozens of cars in front of the house, none of them were mine.
Then, of course, I woke up for real on the couch in my apartment, doubly disoriented for a few moments. The dream of being awake had been very convincing, even though my mom’s house hasn’t looked quite like that in years.
Shortly thereafter, they came back to work on the water heater some more. It’s noon, and I still have no hot water. Ahh, well.
Next box has the Ark of the Covenant
Local weather is trying to be obliging. “You don’t have a light jacket right now? Okay, we’ll just drop the morning temp to 45 degrees so you can wear your winter coat, does that help?”
Had a very weird dream the other night where I climbed down a narrow drainage pipe to find myself in a secret underground studio where they were filming the return of “Mystery Science Theater 3000” to the cable channels. I was privileged to sit in on one of the sessions where they watch the movie and write the jokes; I started ad-libbing along, and they hired me on the spot, causing me to draw the wrath of one of the other writers for some reason. Any dream interpreters wanna take a shot at that one?
In the ongoing Stuff Reduction Plan, I did some heavy game materials archaeology yesterday. I found my copy of Amber Diceless, a fascinating take on RPG mechanics that uses no random chance at all; Star Warriors, a fast-paced, careening tactical game of Star Wars fightercraft; and Ogre, light infantry and vehicles against a robot tank the size of a small city block. I’m keeping those. (Actually, I fear the Ogre set may belong to rattrap.)
Going away is the stack of official Star Trek fan magazines, which will be probably be trashed; and raininva has dibs on the bigger stack of West End Star Wars RPG and Indiana Jones RPG books. Battletech 3025 scenario and source- books are going; Battletech ‘Mech listing books are staying. I’m not sure whether I’m keeping Castle Falkenstein, or the hardcover first-edition copy of White Wolf Mage. (Starr, a onetime Vampire LARPer, may give me permission to keep that.) However, I will divest myself of the two Last Unicorn Star Trek RPG hardcovers, and the Traveller: A New Era core book. I have a lot of gaming stuff.
Last treasure unearthed: my Wireframe Babylon Project books and GM screen. The savvy fan will find the names of jsciv, yubbie, and impink within; and down in the playtesting credits, a listing for some doof that goes by mikailborg online. Yeah, I’m keeping that one.
Chilly elbows
Well, fall has arrived in Hampton Roads. We’re getting our usual ration of violent, brief evening thunderstorms; and the leaves are beginning to give up the struggle and drop from the trees. The change I found most notable is the 55-degree morning I walked out into; especially since my White Plectrum jacket has finally given up the ghost, and my Starfleet denim jacket isn’t quite what I want to wear to work. (Oh, and the Starfleet jacket’s falling apart too.) Looks like this weekend will include shopping for something to keep my arms warm.
After reading my tweet about last night’s dreaming, tango suggested a nice white canvas jacket with really long sleeves that buckle in the back. Sounds good for lots of reasons, but it would make the morning commute a bit trying if I had to steer with my teeth.
My brain hurts
Eight hours of sleep…
… didn’t help a bit last night. I woke up this morning with a thickly fogged, achy head, which only a lot of liquid did anything for. I also had a bad dream last night that I threw panels for Technicon and nobody came 🙁 Or maybe they just sucked, I can’t remember the dream that well.
Starr has jumped right back into her work. Her co-workers attempts to take it easy on her first day back failed miserably – such is the nursing profession, I guess. We had a nice couple of hours last night before she succumbed to the lure of sleep.
I found a nice sentence on a link from Tobold’s blog about certain types of gamers, WoW hardcore raiders especially, that relates to my ‘poker deck’ post: “For some people it isn’t enough to have achieved something first, they must also make sure that nobody else gets there, or it tarnishes their leet shine.”
Primate Engineering
Slept reasonably well last night, but for some reason I am sluggish and foggy this morning. I remember bits and pieces of the dream I had… something about gorillas loping calmly out of the old General Electric plant back in Salem. In my dream, it was 3am, and rattrap and I had been tasked to do something about the gorilla situation, which I protested because I’d been up all night and had work tomorrow.
These are my dreams, folks. They don’t get any more coherent.
Despite, or because of, my mental fog this morning, my brain was quite creative on the drive to work. I fleshed out some more concepts for the webcomic I’m never going to have time or skill to do. I really miss plotting out Artificial Intelligence with Tom Monaghan. If I ever fix or replace my scanner, those old comics really ought to go on the web while I can still find the old print collection.
Midori-kitty has been a lot more affectionate to us the last few weeks, but she’s been quite hostile to visitors at the same time. We’re thinking it’s a territory issue, but she really needs to quit it. This remains our place, not hers, until she’s willing to pay rent for it. And she doesn’t make much money.
Must. Clear. Head. And. Get Work Done.
Tweets for Today
- 09:29 Too much Food Network last night. Dreamed that pastry chefs were building meiran’s new car out of layer cake, fondant, and icing. #
Automatically shipped by LoudTwitter
My dreaming has been way over-active these last two weeks. among other things, I dreamed last night that I went to see a movie and caught the trailer for a new Buckaroo Banzai movie… also, that someone saw me in the lobby and shouted, “Hey, I know you, you’re ‘Ambercritter’!” And I seemed to agree with them. I wonder if this is a premonition that I’m going to be playing in a furry Amber RPG where I use my Jet Car to Hellride?
Or not.
Uuuurgh
Finally woke up about 10:30 this morning… bad enough, except I’d already been at work for 2 hours by that time. I slept very badly Saturday and Sunday nights; considering that I was very busy both days, that means that by yesterday afternoon, I was pretty dead. The dreams have been many and interesting, as well; one of Sunday’s involved, myself, raininva, jdunson, and other local fen being chased from Hogwarts by bad guys. Eventually, when they couldn’t find us in the room in which we’d holed up, they just stole the whole room.
One good thing happened to me on Sunday; I reluctantly entered November’s first MechWarrior: Dark Age sanctioned scenario, and walked off with second prize. (Rain and I were supposed to compete for first and second, but I got hit with a clue round, and offered her first place before we began, thus saving a lot of useless bloodshed. *grin*)
Rising Star 11 starts in three days. Am I ready? (Insert maniacal laughter here…)
