Look who blew into town
Our Shadowrun Game Night rolled around last night. We’d missed the last few due to various logistical issues, but finally we had everyone except Lewis and Amy. So what did we do? Spent the evening catching up with each other.
Heh. Can’t say I minded too much. It’s good to hang with one’s friends for whatever reason.
Of course, the tornado warning last night added a little drama – apparently the center of the ‘red zone’ passed right by Jesse’s house. no damage done, though, and she was able to relax a bit after the worst passed.
Well, we’ll just have to get together again in two weeks!
Cold and wet and just plain hungry
“Very much what I imagine a small college town with crappy weather would be like, back on old Earth.” – Captain Vanderdecken, Space Rogues
Yes, we’ve got nice thick fog, accompanied with that fine, voluminous rain that coldly soaks everything in no time.
I may not find my way to the con without leaning out the car window and yelping sonar pings into the blankness.
At least I feel pretty decent this morning. Yay getting up just before the end of the continental breakfast.
Brief updates
- 07:41 Mythbaby: “Mythbusters” Build Team member Kari Byron is pregnant! Congratulations! Guess she’ll be missing some of the rougher stunts. #
- 14:50 Walked to client and back, about 10 minutes each way. Great day for it, 70 degrees out. #
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Rain delay
Yes, it’s raining this dark morning, and I commend your decision to drive several miles under the speed limit. Your caution and knowledge of your limitations as a driver are an example more people could stand to follow.
Now get out of the bloody passing lane!
Lots going on
Langley is closed for the day, which surprises me. There’s a dusting of snow outside, but it sure isn’t anything I couldn’t drive through. Perhaps the bridge-tunnels are unsafe. Our e-mail notification system is a tease, though: “Check Sunday at 7pm.” 7pm Sunday: “Not sure. Check Monday at 5am.” 5am Monday: “We’re definitely closed until Monday at noon. Check at 10am for more.” 10am Monday: “Yeah, okay, we’re closed.”
The upshot is that I have a day off, and for once Starr’s not working today either. We didn’t see much of each other this weekend, so this’ll be nice. We might hit the Y together and get some exercising in. The cats are thrilled to have us home, which means they are all over us every second. I’m thinking of getting some kitty restraints. (Cue Steve Martin’s “Cat Handcuffs” routine.)
I made my hotel reservations for Technicon this weekend. Went nuts and got a suite, since a suite at the Microtel costs less than a twin bed other places. My plan right now is to drive up Friday after work, chill Friday night, do the con and some local socializing, and drive home Monday. I often miss everyone up there. You guys need to all come down to MarsCon or NekoCon or something now so we can hang out.
Mom tried to move back into the house at Kentland this weekend. With reservations, I support this – her plan sounds workable, and she’s going to have outside help. But we learned that a pipe was broken, necessitating shutting off the water, and the gas was also shut off for some reason. I have to get her and Whitney together to get that fixed, as there’s not much I can do about it from here.
And speaking of houses… Starr’s parents have made us an offer to buy this house from them. Without going into details, it’s a deal we would be complete fools to pass up. We’ve agreed to their offer, and are setting up the money now. Nothing’s been signed yet, but it looks like we are going to be homeowners.
I’m going to own a house. A four-bedroom, 2.5 bath house in a nice neighborhood, with a garage, a swimming pool, a fireplace… and this from a guy who was amazed he could afford a three-bedroom apartment. I’m still a little dazed at the prospect… this is awesome. Starr’s right now looking at mortgage rates from her USAA membership, we might even get a good rate. Whoa. *deep breaths* Please send good thoughts my way if you can spare them. This means a lot to me!
Brief updates
- 09:31 @meiran Awesome! Very well done! Are you going to shoot for “Elder” in the last couple days you have left? #
- 09:44 A 32-degree morning seems much balmier compared to the 12-degree ones last week. #
- 10:05 Dangit, I have just accidentally spammed Starr’s work address with the invite to the Shadowrun tonight. Hurr, me use computer good. #
- 11:47 @meiran I picked up the coins for all of Kalimdor yesterday (not counting capital cities). The Horde outposts were a bit exciting 🙂 #
- 12:01 I think the guy two people ahead of me in the lunch line was trying to pay in Euros or something. #
- 13:15 Wish I could leave early. I still have dishes and laundry to put away before gaming. And the Xmas tree should come down someday too. #
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Endlessly Mining for Fish
This morning Chesapeake got its first real frost of the season. Combine that with a very light fog, and the drive to work was just generally washed out a bit. Just a little bit dim and faint, as though the world was fading in around me and had gotten stuck at 98% complete.
On the other hand, at least I got to make the entire drive with the sun up. This has nothing to do yet with the longer days, but with the fact that the new kitten fall asleep on my chest this morning as I read the night’s email. I can’t blame it on the kitten – she weighs substantially less than a pound – but she was certainly a contributing factor.
Did you know you can program your computer to play World of Warcraft for you while you’re not there? Pretty pointless of course, and Blizzard and the rest of we players would like it to stop because it messes up questing and the economy, but it can be done. I decry the practice – decry, decry – but the one place I’d consider it is the Fishing hobby.
You can level up your character’s Cooking skill by standing in front of a stove for a few minutes with all those critter parts you’ve been collecting while you killed everything. You can do the same for your First Aid skill by spending five minutes making bandages from all the cloth the bad guys dropped. But leveling up Fishing takes hours and hours and hours and hours of staring at the little float on your fishing line. The higher Fishing level you reach, the larger number of hours you’ll be spending for the next 25-point gain.
WoW fishing is fairly useful in the game, and I wish I had a higher level in it, but this is just too much realism for me.
EDIT: Just to be clear, I will repeat that using the autoplay programs will get a player banned from the game, and myself I agree with Blizzard’s reasoning on the matter. On top of all that, it’s also lame. You don’t want to be lame, do you?
Brief updates
- 07:51 Woke up this morning on Riff & Magenta’s home planet: Land of Night (and high electric bills!) #
- 13:02 Ozzy Osbourne for WoW: tinyurl.com/6drrfj Guess his race / class. Go on, guess. #
- 19:57 Still unpacking. A bit stunned at the amount of STUFF one can extract from a three-bedroom apartment. #
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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.
