The Obligatory Holiday Post
I can think of several things for which I’m thankful today:
Everything is out of the apartment now except for some random cleaning supplies, and a couple of lamps and a vacuum cleaner that wouldn’t fit in the car last night. This will be taken care of this weekend when I drop off the keys. For this I am very thankful to Starr and, well, me. We’ve both put no small effort into all these boxes.
I am thankful to Starr for many things, in fact; but they’re all mushy and I’ll save that for some other time.
I am thankful to Starr’s parents for allowing us to use their house for the next year or two. We’ll be very comfortable here, and we’ll be able to save up some money which we’ll need to get our own place. (Midori is thankful to them for the gas fireplace, which is one of the best things the furless monkeys have invented since domesticated catnip and the chewy kitty treat.)
I’m thankful to NASA for giving me the opportunity to show me what I could do for them, and to rattrap for encouraging my developing Macintosh skills in the first place. I’m also thankful to the designers of the Apple Newton, whose long-cancelled product inadvertently provided me with some “hardcore Mac expert” cred in the most recent planning meeting.
I am thankful to the grocery store owners and workers who allowed their stores to be open this morning, so I could acquire the remaining bits of a quiet Thanksgiving surprise dinner to serve Starr, who once again works a holiday.
I’m thankful to the creators and operators of LiveJournal, without whom I’d never be able to keep track of what’s going on with all my friends. My peeps are a complicated, intelligent, opinionated, goofy bunch – which is exactly how I like it, and my life would be horribly diminished without them.
I’m thankful to all the people that I like and love that my emo side is awfully disappointed this holiday. I’m supposed to be, and fully expected to be, horribly dissatisfied with my life at this age. Problem with that is, there’s so much good in my life right now… how can I let the few speed bumps slow me down?
Effort and Reward
First, let us get the day’s whining out of the way. I am in very great pain: as in, I’m hoping to avoid standing up until it is time to leave for the day. My legs and back are screaming at me, wanting to know what kind of idiot I am.
The good news is that almost everything is out of the apartment – one more evening’s work, tonight, should do it. We’ve made a deal with a friend to give the place a professional cleaning tomorrow, and this should leave me clear to turn over the keys on Friday or Saturday. I’ll be relieved!
Last night, my gaming group threw me a late surprise birthday party. Two separate awesome cakes, and some excellent clothes from Jesse. (Starr’s reaction to the clothes: “Squeee!”) Everyone did insist on wearing black to this little event, but heck, that’s hardly unusual for my friends anyway! Thank you very much, guys!
Racing around
Okay. I have owed my sister a phone call for several days, and perhaps if I post it here, I will be looking at it tonight and go, “oh yeah, I really need to do that”.
We actually managed to get out of the house for a bit on Friday night – we’ve not been good at that for the last couple of weeks. It’s so easy, when one of us doesn’t get home until 7:30 or 8, to say “screw it” and vegetate for the rest of the evening, but we made ourselves go out with friends, and had a sorely-needed good time.
After a Saturday full of more moving and cleaning, Starr and I got our WoW characters each halfway to level 67, at which point they will have passed my poor gnome mage I’ve been leveling since long before The Burning Crusade. There was debate over whether we’d stick around Outland once we hit 68, and quest a bit in Shadowmoon or Netherstorm; but the urge to take off to the Great White North is strong. We’ll see.
Along those lines, I need to contact my gaming group – our session three weeks ago was cancelled due to host illness, and I never even heard whether or not we scheduled a session last week. I was prepping to start a Shadowrun for the group, and I assume there is still interest. I’ve also got a box full of giveaway gaming material from the Stuff Reduction Plan, and I’m hoping that they’ll want some of it.
Tensions are still cooling slowly on the cat front. Early this morning, Midori and Precious repeatedly chased each other up and down the house stairs, which I think may actually have been play instead of attempted murder. The welcome absence of hissing and yowling is the peg I’m hanging those hopes on.
The 45th anniversary of the Doctor Who TV show passed this weekend. I had to check out a YouTube video of the days when the Doctor was a cranky old man with a hyperintelligent granddaughter, and certain walls of the TARDIS control room were simple photographic blowups. Dig the 1962-era special effects:
Classic stuff.
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 🙂
Time to update the firmware?
Speaking of gaming, the WWII superhero game is over in an appropriately cool Big Boss finale. Kudos to ptownhiker for running a great campaign! But he justifiably wants a break, so we tossed around some ideas.
Next game night we’ll be sticking to quick card and board games, but after that we want to start another RPG campaign, and because I’m a crazy crazy man, I volunteered to run some Shadowrun if people were interested. (After all, I ought to do something with all these gaming books, otherwise they’re just dust catchers. Someday I want to run more Paranoia and Deadlands as well.)
Several of our group liked the idea, so now I need to return to an earlier concern from my last failed campaign attempt: which edition should I use?
2nd edition pros: I have almost every sourcebook available. I know the system backwards and forward, and could practically run it in my sleep, plus I have a raft of adventure modules from which to steal elements. Cons: This edition is long out of print, and people would be dependent on my books. Hacker characters, an integral park of cyberpunk settings, are awkward to run.
4th edition pros: This edition’s currently in print, so people can acquire rulebooks and sourcebooks simply. Hacker characters are much better integrated. Cons: I have only the core book, and might desire to add sourcebooks (they’ve gotten more expensive). I have some issues with the new rule system, it’s a tiny bit less cinematic and flexible than it once was. (OTOH, perhaps I can house-rule that.)
Hmmm, decisions. I’m really glad to be back in a gaming group; I worry that I’m getting a bit anti-social these days, not because I dislike spending time with my crowd, but because it’s just easy to slip into a constant state of being tired and busy. I don’t want to go there; the best parts of my life have involved my friends. When I look back on all the crazy stuff I’ve done in fandom, the memories inspire me: I’m determined to keep making more!
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.
Back when I apparently didn’t eat
If someone’s Twitter profile page says that they are following 35,000 people, than I somehow doubt that their ‘personalized’ request for me to follow them back means much. It doesn’t help that all their tweets are private. How do I know if you’re interesting if I can’t read your tweets / journal entries / etc.? This is also why I don’t have a MySpace.
Spent all night last night trying to catch up on e-mail correspondence, and in the process, forgot to call my mom and check on her, which I am not especially proud of. I did get the gerbil cage cleaned, though, which I’ve been promising to do for a couple of weeks.
cynical_prophet sent me this picture of myself from 1988. I was kind of down that night, and the pic was a surprise, so I don’t have the best expression. Starr had a fairly amusing reaction: “Is that you!?”
“Yes, it’s me, about 20 years ago.”
“Wait… you still have that shirt!”
“Not that it fits, it’s a size medium or so.”
“More like size Tiny!”
Temperatures are down a little, so I am walking again. Missed yesterday, but I aim for a mile today!
EDIT: Hokey smokes, they are sending my mom home from the hospital on Friday. Now that, boys and girls, is a solid recovery. I know she’s going to love getting to see her kitty again!
