Today is Day 2 of the Great Rest, which followed the EnWorkening, an 11 day test of mental fortitude.
My schedule today consisted of beating the main quest of Skyrim, visiting my western parents, and that's about it. The Emperor got home at about 9 tonight, so he's here now. However, after a trip to Best Buy to get a new cable modem, we've both been engrossed in the internet.
I have gotten to speak with Woodchuck. He's doing okay, eagerly awaiting Chickadee. We discussed TV. Since I've gotten that in lately as well.
What I haven't gotten to do is see Tea Kettle. It'd be nice to get a chance, but he may be around tomorrow. The Christmas season has roughed up all our schedules lately. There are others I missed as well.
Anyway, thanks for reading. Sorry I couldn't be more chipper, but I'm just still mentally beaten. I'll get better. :)
Today I spent my own time solitary. The remainder of the time I spent at work. The Road Captain brought me a plate of Thanksgiving. I really appreciate you guys doing that. Ironic that for the year that I spent remembering how much I love my family that I spend today basically alone.
At work, I spent the day with some guys who spent today pondering what they are thankful for without the benefit of doing that with their families. Hard times. That's what we're there for, though. We're their {redacted} Family. It gives me a sense of accomplishment. I was able to be there for them when others cannot or will not.
I wrote poetry today for the first time in a long while. Someone out there knows why, but I'm just going to share that for some reason I always write in haiku. Tidbit to know about me, FYI.
I'm going to miss Woodchuck. Chickadee had better take care of him out there.
I am on the road to Cbus this weekend, hoping to beat the blizzard as we set out on Friday. I was reminded that I haven't spent Christmas with her since moving again. It'll be good to get out of town and spend the holiday weekend there.
The West Coast family is getting together in AZ, so the Road Captain's headed west for a while. I'm glad they are getting the time to see everyone. He is having issues with his phone, and hopefully a new battery fixes it. If not, I'm going to go deal with a commissioned sales rep and twist their arm to see if I can get a new one for him.
Hackmaster has been fun recently, with more wackiness per square inch than your typical game. The below postcard is from our most recent outing.
Note that that everything is to scale. That camel is miles and miles away from us.
I am also getting excited for the intrigue in my Shadowrun game. I have a lot planned, and I've got a three point philosophy to making it more fun than other games I've run where plot twists get knotted up and dropped. 1. Trust. Players aren't at odds, helpful NPCs aren't assassins in disguise. 2. Twist. Remember favorable accidents and build on them. Aim where the players want. 3. Payoff. Questions answered, Villains caught. Everyone gets to take part.
We'll see how it plays out.
I'll get some screens from my own DCUO characters and put them up here. They may change in the near future, since launch is only 3 weeks away (Jan 11). There's going to be a special event that leads into the live game that I'm looking forward to.
I'll start us out with a quick recap of Friday's one-shot. Marvel was as fun as I remember it being, with smash-down fun to be had by us all. I rather think that the Emperor's decision that everyone comes up with a character idea and then leaves it to me to manually balance may be a good one for the next time we actually campaign this. My favorite hero of the batch, Diffraction, didn't end up being used, so I can put him into the NPC pool for the future.
Saturday noon led to the beginnings of Hammer's bachelor party. A legen- (wait for it) -dary trip to McD's led to mass consumption of Nuggets. 200 in all, and that was a terrible mistake. Emperor, Jeru, Woodchuck, Bony Hips, Rad Vice, Hammer, Lil Jesus, X-Man and myself consumed way too many. The Emperor went home afterwards, to nurse his deadly pains.
Next was the 'party bus', a redacted rental moving truck with carpet, couches, Christmas lights, music and the dreaded Punishment Chair. This was to be our conveyance to the remaining action. Everyone took a turn standing on the Punishment Chair, although it basically belonged to Jeru.
We stopped at Area 52, a Mackinaw paintball arena. Joined by Sprinkman Sr., we played a few rounds until the principle players were badly wounded. Then, it was onto the bus and off to P-Town, where we spent the rest of our night. Archangel and Weedman showed up, and much fun was had. This is where I'll end my telling. Let's just say I (we) was (were) hung over on Sunday.
Huzzah for some Bears. Maybe we can learn to block a little better so our $30 million dollar quarterback doesn't ride the pony with a concussion again.
Still looking for a place to stay. I'm leaning towards a dirt-cheap efficiency someplace. If a friend or friend of a friend needs someone, I would consider that. However, I haven't heard of anything yet, so I don't know if I will.
Smallest Niece was over this morning. Since it is the day of Columbus, she is spending the day off with her grandma. She finally got to play with those Silly Bandz I had for her.
Explosively complete! Well, in what was I think one of the best ever 40k sessions, RT came to a close. I accidentally maimed/ruined/killed Woodchuck’s Rogue Trader, Radio Assassin. I’m expecting his revenge to cross genres. Otherwise, it was a fun mix of rule-combat, style-combat, ship-combat, roleplaying and dicking around. Next time this world comes our way, we’ll be Space Marines. I’m sorry, I mean SPACE MARINES!!! Good show, Dwarflord.
I finished the solo mode of War for Cybertron this weekend. I spent a lot of time backtracking to pick up trophies. Bumblebee is the fastest Autobot in that last fight, so he was it for the win. Unlike Awesome’s maniacal laughter at my deaths, Radical was on board this time. He was jumping on the couch, yelling, “Go Bumblebee!” in addition to singing the Bumblebee song.
It goes like this:
Bumblebee, Bumblebee Bumble Bumble Bumblebee. Bumblebee, Bumblebee Bumble Bumble Bumblebee. Bumblebee, Bumblebee Bumble Bumble Bumblebee. Bumblebee be be be Bumble Bumblebee. Bumblebee be be be Bumble Bumblebee. Bumblebee be be be Bumble Bumblebee.
Bumblebee the upgraded new negro Bumblebee the average brother with soul Bumblebee world wide international Bumblebee in Reo rockin' Tokyo Bumblebee brilliant with my millions Loanin' out a billion, I get back a trillion Bumblebee a brother, but my name ain’t Lemen Bumblebee your banker I'll be loading out semen Honeys in debt, we be bouncin' them checks but I don’t really mind when they bouncin' them checks Bumblebee, Bumblebee Bumblebee I'm... Bumblebee Rich baby Bumblebee, Bumblebee I'm... Bumblebee So sick with the flow When the goal is to rock the whole globe Bumblebee the future Bumblebee the whole... reason why you wanna come to a show You can see what I’m rockin' and I’m pickin out a golden.
(It used to be a Black Eyed Peas song, but Ryan stole it for his favorite Transformer.)
Little Miss Trouble and I sat on the lake to view the $10,000.00 display. It was a great place to be. We bought a little charcoal grill and cooked some brats and sweet corn. The gentleman weren’t around this year, but it was sweet nonetheless.
Stoplight much? Animal-themed discs go in Head, Chest and Legs slots to give him way too many forms. 27 so far, but since we’ve seen a black set of legs and a silver chest, that may mean as many as 45… and that’s just to start. Radical is going to love it, since it will remind him of Jungle Fury, especially because the same animals from that show are used here. Lion-Jaguar-Cheetah form…
So, you may have heard by now, my obsession with Goseiger is not because I like the story or characters, but with how odd the mecha are. They are so dumb, but so interesting as well. Catching up on it the last few days has ratcheted up the insanity. Their mecha are ‘Headers’ that turn vehicles into their bodies. Well, their sixth member is a Header that turns into a senshi. It’s insanity. That’s why I’m still watching. And what the heck are his companions supposed to be? One’s obviously a seal/boat, since his name is Sealeon. The other? A ?/Blimp called Skyon. A flying lion? I have no firking clue.
Last night, LMT, Awesome and Radical went to see Toy Story 3 with me. It was free popcorn night, Woodchuck. It was free. It was more for us adults, but the kids loved it. I personally thought there were too many ‘death’ situations. LMT calls it a symptom of reduced attention span in kids since the first two came out. Either way, I give it a good review. It gave us the old gang in their last hurrah, and it was worth the watch.
I just finished Hero of Ages last night. It was awesome. He takes standard storytelling in fantasy situations and turns it on its head with a unique situation, twists that aren’t stupid and internally consistant/interesting magic. I really think that anyone loving fantasy needs to go out and read every firking book Brandon Sanderson writes. Check the links on the right for his site and a fansite for him. I won’t spoil anyone, but Emperor is reading it, too. Once he’s done I want to talk more.
