Playing Catch-up Today
Much too long since I’ve posted anything of substance here. I need to slow down my life a bit, take the time to catch a breath and write about what’s in my head… that was one of the big things I’d planned to do with the Newton, and I’m not taking the opportunities I might with it.
This weekend I played the first game of Dungeons & Dragons that I’ve played in what I think is 20 years. Kinda funny, too, since (due to slightly confused, over-experienced players and GM) at any given moment a roll might be decided by a 1st, 2nd, or 3rd edition rule; and, since most of the players knew more about Jackson’s Lord of the Rings movies than they did about D&D, we tended to be playing our elves and dwarves Tolkien-style instead of TSR-style. I had a good time though, and the other people in the group seemed to also.
Last weekend I raised my heart rate by playing Laser Tag in an arena in Salem with raininva, rhaps, and shrewlet. We wanted to play against each other, but ended up on the same team with about 8 kids against about 12 other kids. My laser tag gun was doing terribly at range, so after a while I hunkered down and ambushed the opposition repeatedly until they learned what I was up to… then I moved to the other end of the field and kept doing it. Still, I wasn’t that happy with the game until we got out; then the scoring computer reported that I was the top scorer for both teams. Rhaps was heard to remark, “Old age and treachery over youth and vigor, every time.” 🙂
I’ve found an exercise machine at the gym that gives me natural movements (protecting my Borg hip) while giving me a real workout. Three-quarters of a mile in 10 minutes burns about 130 calories; I’m down to 188 pounds now. Now if some of what remains will just move to more asthetic locations… on the other hand, a girl in a passing car shouted that I had a “nice ass, there” yesterday, so I suppose I’m not doing too badly.
Shrewlet and I are going to DC this weekend to spend time with a good friend. I only wish I had time to drop in on some of the VTSFFC people I know up there!
My ongoing fame
I am now a star of stage, screen, and webcomic 🙂 Check out Fragile Gravity today (April 23rd comic). For those unsure, I’m third from the left in panel 4. Yep, that’s raininva next to me.
Thanks for the guest spot, guys!
Technicon prep underway
Gonna be a busy night tonight and tomorrow night – lots to do before Technicon. Last night, raininva and I assigned stats to all the Badge Wars characters, so progress is being made on that front.
- Run more laundry tonight.
- Rain and I need to make sure that the BattleBots are ready and that we have good batteries for them.
- Burn a CD for Dwight (with the dance cuts he wanted).
- Contact trenn to see if he has duplicates of the last two XXXenophile cards I need for a complete set. Offer trades.
- Build actual badges for all Badge Wars characters and enter assigned stats.
- Design Badge Wars rules cards.
- Rebuild my Junkyard Geeks video-capture system to get badge photos for several characters. Still not sure what I’m going to do for art for a few characters such as The Vile One.
That’s everything I can think of off the top of my head, though I’m sure there’s more.
Early Wednesday afternoon
It is 60 degrees outside… and I am stuck inside. There’s got to be something work-related I can do outside… maybe the newspaper racks all need painting, or something.
Here’s a belated welcome to our little LJ community for rhaps and shrewlet. Now they’ll discover we have an entirely new way to pester them.
Yesterday, I did 21 hours’ worth of work in 13 hours. My head hurts, and my stomach’s upset, but I’m so happy it’s over and that the sun’s shining that I don’t really care.
raininva got me the cutest set of Lego Star Wars models last night – 4 small packs of two models each, each one about 2 inches long, of various vehicles from the 5 movies. I put together the mini X-Wing last night… and if you have all four, you can make the mini TIE Bomber model. I’m happy 😉
Thoughts on a Tuesday morn
My head killeth me. I’ve had a cough for days, and though all the other symptoms of my New Year’s cold are gone, the nagging cough burns in my chest and sets my skull pounding. Concentration today is an interesting challenge.
I think vond and kittenchan should come back to the USA, but that has nothing to do with what’s good for them; I just like having them around 🙂
I’m beginning to understand the attachment Amiga users have to their unsupported, out-of-date machines. I was given an old unused Apple Newton for Xmas, and I’ve become quite fond of it. Not only do I finally have a digital address and date book, but the other day I passed an afternoon with it reading Jules Verne’s “From the Earth to the Moon”, writing a journal entry or two, and playing a version of the old mainframe Star Trek game. Sure, it doesn’t slide invisibly into my hip pocket, but I don’t lose it at the bottom of a bookbag either 🙂
raininva has done an incredible job with the apartment this last week, the living room is unrecognizably nice. We’ve already got two discrete gaming areas worked out. Looks like we’ll be up and running this Friday night – MechWarrior for sure, possibly Settlers of Catan, Chez Geek, Illuminati, or selected PlayStation 2 games as well. If you’d like to come by, we’d love to see you – drop us a note so we’ll be able to estimate a number of warm bodies.
And a special thank you to healerkou – this week, you did something that made me a little happier about a personal project. Too bad I can’t ask you to sign up, but it’s a bit of a drive from your digs to southwest Virginia. BTW, is the last syllable of your screenname pronounced “coo” or “kau”?
A major Thank You
I plan to post about Rising Star shortly, I really do. One of the first things I’ve noticed is that rubinpdf thinks raininva is much more photogenic than I am. Guess I can’t fault him for that. 🙂
In the mean time, the purpose of this post is to thank tzel for the absolutely incredible Masquerade prize she made for us, and on very little notice, as well. I can confirm that it was already being put to good use before the evening was done – rainbowsaber was using it to take of her Zannah makeup in the staff suite! Thank you tnhank you so much, wonderful job! Now we just have to get some money to you!
Scary clothes day
Was an interesting weekend… it was fun Friday night, standing in Wal-Mart with limited funds and wondering what in the heck raininva and I were going to wear to VTSFFC Halloween the next night. Not sure whether it was loopiness or creativity, but we ended up building props and going as ‘click-system’ figures that had broken off their bases. You can see us in some of the party pictures that yubbie has already posted. (If you’re not quite sure what a ‘click-system’ figure is, you can see them at the Wiz Kids Games website. There were enough gamers at the party to get the gag.)
The party itself was good fun… nius did an excellent job arranging everything. plenty of munchies, good music, some fun costumes, and all sorts of gaming downstairs. Rain introduced meiran and markush to click-system MechWarrior, and I got to see Kingdom Hearts, Frequency, and Armored Core 3 on the PlayStation 2. (They’re all on my wish list now.) We stayed late and had a good time.
Sunday, we forced ourselves out of bed to play more click-system MechWarrior for prizes at a local venue. That wasn’t quite as pleasant an experience; while the players were skilled and sportsmanlike (which isn’t always the case), the scenario was horribly skewed; a smart player could easily win by making sure to play the ‘weaker’ of the two sides. The house rule we created to try to fix that favored the other side automatically, and it just didn’t work well. On top of that, each prize comes in two parts, a figure and an enamel pin in a collectors’ box… well, the venue had removed the pins from the boxes for some reason and had to be reminded to give them to the winners. Not cool.
Still, the weekend was good… if a bit tiring. Also, Rain and I need to remember that going 24 hours without food is bad. Very bad.
Very Personal Stuff
Well, we all have a face, that we hide away forever
And we take them out and show ourselves when everyone has gone
Some are satin, some are steel, some are silk, and some are leather
They’re the faces of the stranger, but we love to try them on
— Billy Joel, “The Stranger”
So often, I want to bring my stranger out into the open, and just openly be that facet of myself. I repress him and keep him locked away, but he won’t stay there, and I can always feel him rattling the bars of his cage. Sometimes, he gets loose for a bit and expresses himself – in fact most of my self-expression comes from my stranger.
I dream of just breaking the lock, showing everyone I care about my bare naked self, and being free of the pressure. In my fantasy, this makes everything in my life okay, and we all live happily ever after. I rather doubt that reality would work that way.
Over the years, thanks to my friends and the semi-anonymous means of expression that is the Web, I’ve been able to let the stranger roam farther and for longer periods of time before he’s locked away again, and I’m thankful for that. Half a loaf really is better than none, and I can accept him a little easier than I once could. Rain, of course, has had a great deal to do with this.
My stranger is, of course, mainly responsible for this post. It make my heart race and my body tense simply to write these words, but I hope he’ll be satisfied for a while.
Blackmail possibilities?
Blast from the past… while I still haven’t found my photo album (packed away during the last move), I did find some old black-and-white scans of some of the costuming pics. I’ve added them to my Costuming page. Sharp eyes will find lekythen, snidegrrl, yubbie, jdunson, and markush in some of the pics. The last one also has rubinpdf, but you can’t tell ’cause he’s in a silver helmet. “Cyberpunk”, “Cyberman”… close enough, right?
