Internet down again....

Well, no internet until at least Sunday (again). So, this post'll be from the hellspital and disjointed as hell....as usual.

Christmas Haul
Wrapping up the holidays, this weekend saw the arrival of some of my family from So. Ill. We spent Saturday together at my place and Sunday pulling our hair out at the Mall of America. Man I hate that place. Regardless, twas a good time and made for a great Christmas. Props again to Wendy for cooking an amazing Christmas meal and maintaining her sanity in the face of my family's usual chaos. We're all very strong-willed, making for hard decisions about trivial things like dinner...

(I hate people at the hellspital that aren't really sick enough to be in the ER, specially when the clinic is still open....but anyone that knows me or reads this knows that.) (mmm, cold coffee)

Anyway, continuing the mega pull this Christmas, here's the run down for the weekend.

From mi familia, I scored a sweet little dragon statue from my little bro that completely balanced an ornament shelf mounted in our hallway. Props to him, even though he doesn't read this. Mom and Dale set me up with a wad of cash, socks (which I always ask for) and a perfect thin tie. Also nabbed a couple mega boxes of fudge, and Wendy and I got a box with our name on it containing a kick ass cooking stone....kind of like a cookie sheet, only a thin rock that you don't wash.

Wendy hit me with some bad ass pants from the Gap. Now, normally, I'd say that's not my style, but having been gifted with three pair of pants from that place, I have to say they make the most comfortable damn pants in the world. They better for the price. Still, I may shop there myself now... On top of that, she smacked me hard with some store bought quality time in the form of Mortal Kombat: Deception. And unlike Phil, I don't let her win, meaning she doesn't throw a fit and break the PS2 when company comes over and whoops her ass.

On Sunday, her sis showed up with her boyfriend for dinner at Khan's, then loaded us with more gifts from her family. Booty.

The mom-in-law-to-be dropped me San Andreas and cash. Future Pops hit me with a Best Buy gift card AND a coupla black powder pistols. Bad ass. And Wendy's gramps sent me the usual undeniably large wad of cash. With all that cash, I scored an MP3 player, with enough left over to do some damage at the wedding....

I really think I got such a good haul this year cause I spent a lot of time figering out what to get people, and a decent amount of cash getting it for them. It's the whole kharma thing. I mean, I spent several months trying to score Wendy the major portion of her gift, and the candy basket I made for my mom was nothing short of genius. The boys down south kind of suffered from brain fart, as I just got them stuff off their lists. Still, it was a good season of giving as well as getting (I'm not at liberty to discuss many of the gifts, as I'm a bad friend and have yet to mail a package or so).

A New Calendar Year
Since I doubt I'll be able to post again before New Year's, I'll wrap that up too....

It's still up in the air where the party will be, but hopefully I can wrap that up tonight, so I know how much alchohol to buy and how much to advise others to buy/bring. Regardless, there's a gonna be a big ole party somewhere, and I's gonna be there.

As for New Year's Resolutions, here's what I got, and it's gonna be a busy year. No more resolving to get a new job, as that's too dependant on things out of my control (although I did get a new job...just not the one I'd resolved to get).

1-Send out 30 animation applications. Of course, if I get an animation gig on app #3, I aint sending anymore out.
2-Finish the Shafatar Comedic Piece. This'll enhance my reel/application.
3-Sort out some plan for either a short film or a PBS-esque animated series.

Now, all but the latter depend solely on me. Number three is mainly on me, as it's just a plan. Acting on that plan, however, depends somewhat on what kind of team I can put together... which is why I'm only resolving to sort out the plan. I'd also add working on stuff with Wendy, but since that'd be dependant upon grad school and her novel(s), I won't. That way there's no excuses for not finishing this shit.

The Boolies, or The End of Boolah's Blog?
So, Boolah's announced a lessening of his blog rate. This saddens me. Both the Bman and myself are rather lax in emailing each other, and his blog has been a window into the miniscule things I miss out on living 600 miles away. So, if, like me, you wanna see the Bman continue to Blog about mundane shit that only those close to him care about, post here, mainly cause I won't be so brash as to give out his email address. (side note, I've had three pointless patients in the length of this post) Regardless, he's posting the Years Best Boolah Awards, known as the Boolies, pretty soon, so keep checking out his site to read those.

Oh yeah, a brief review of language

So, awhile ago, I said something like "Fo Shizzle", and Nick promptly replied with a "Dude, if you say anything containing 'izzle' other than 'frizzle' again, I'll eat your gizzard." Or something like that. Interestlingly enough, a light rain would have to be a 'mist', but I could still 'buy 1, get 1 frizzle'. After a couple of days, the fun in annoying him with 'izzles' wore off....mostly cause I still have my gizzard.

Regardless, I'm making my own Snoop-esque language. Mine, however, requires no addition to any English word at all. It's all about poop. Poop is the center of my being. You're no longer dude, although I'll still use it. Now it's, "What's up, poop?" J-Dogg at BN is now J-Poop. Although C-Dog's still C-Dog, cause he'll always be C-Dog, unless he's Big Country, Countrynator, the Cunt Master or some variant thereof. My boss at the hellspital is now K.D. Poop, cause her intials are K.D.

It pops up in conversation, now, as well.
Good at bullshiting? Thanks to homestarrunner.com, you're now a poopsmith. I'm the king of poopsmiths.
You're shitting me? Nope. 'You hittin me from the poopsmith?'
We no longer rock.
We poop.
If we 80's metal rock, we now poop metal.

But, my personal favorite. Anal sex. No longer shall we try for butt sex, anal sex, ass sex, or even ramming the poop chute. From this time forth, we will

Poke it in the Poop Forge.

Cause there is nothing fucking funnier to me than the term Poop Forge.

I'd like to emphasize that I made that up. Poop Forge. That's damn funny.

Hell, if you're feeling particularly randy, you can probably poke it in the Poop Forge and break it off.

Yes, the Poop Forge is indeed a good place to temper your rod.

But my Poop Forge knowledge is purely theoretical.

*Please note that I said Poop Forge 6 times, not counting this poopnote at the bottom. Cause Poop Forge is some hard metal poopin'. And yes, I'm easily amused.

Creamsicle Christmas

The Haul

Well so far, the Christmas is one to spooge over. We'll recap, first. Friday was a big score with a Uni Web of Lies starter from John, fleshing at the already bad ass Uni Khol Wall deck. Monday brought the Erotic Role Player's Handbook from Nick, opening a door for some fresh porkin (not with Nick though).

Today, the care package arrived from the boys down south, aka The Watchdogs, and the jizz fest began anew. In order of unwrapping, Boolah opened with some D&D swag. Fiend Folio and The Complete Divine, unwrapped, and I'm already halfway through Fiend Folio, sparking at least two adventure ideas, one of which meshes beautifully into where the campaign will be shortly. Big up B-man.

Joe Joe was next with some funky fresh Spiderman paper and a super fly Sped drawing on the name tag. Popped open to reveal Chobits 1-4, which I've been interested in and stealing sneak peaks at the manga since B&N started in October. He followed it up with the ever swank G-Taste: Vol 2. Boobaliscious and for some reason I'll NEVER complain about, I can generally score with anime porn.

C-Dog Big Country finalized the deal with two wrap jobs made of tissue paper and duct tape. Taint nuffin more redneck than that...cept the Redneck Mobile, which I hope makes it through another harsh road salt winter. First tissue monster opened its maw to reveal the classic, ever-popular Akira anime, one of the great classics which no anime fan should not own. Following that came the spunk master of all gifts, The Complete Collection (all 36 episodes) of the first anime I ever saw, the one that started it all; Robotech:The Macross Saga.

Truly, my friends are challenging the gift I got Wendy for the title of Most Awesomest Gift Ever. My gift gets points for being decided upon in August, requiring a mad quest, and not coming from a list, though. Still, kudos to the boys. Hope they dig my gifts nearly half as much as I dug theirs.

A Few Minor Rants

Traffic. Specifically Holiday Traffic. Now, I'm not gonna go into parking lot ettiquette, cause it's been overdone to no avail. I'll just touch that briefly to say, find a spot and park there...walk to the door from the last fucking row of parking and get yer shit done. Don't hunt for the elusive door spot. Don't follow me to my car. If you follow me, I promise, I'll either shoot your tires out, or simply conveniently remember I forgot to get my receipt, meaning I have to go back inside....but ONLY after sitting there for at least 3 minutes "letting the car warm up".

My holiday traffic tale is thus. On my way to work, I was on the on ramp to the two-lane west bound lanes, ONE other car on the road. The left lane was open. When I sped up, this bitch sped up. When I slowed down, she did too. She would not let me on the highway. My lane ended, I still hadn't merged. So, what did I do? Same thing any good Nascar fan would. Got my nose far enough ahead she'd see what I was doing and merged. Completely faithful of the fact that she'd move. She did. Now, if some jack ass had virtually body checked my car over into the next lane, I'd either A) speed up and get the hell away from the fucker or B) slow down and let the maniac get the hell away from me. She did neither. She maintained the exact same position she was in, regardless of my speed, until we reached other traffic, which forced her to drive like a normal person. What the fuck possesses people to drive like that? I paid just as much for that road as her. Bad day? Don't drive.

Cold. I don't think we've hit 10 degrees or more all week. Why do we live here? Sure, it's cold back home, but there's 2 feet of snow. That's a reason to be cold. We got Jack in Minnesota, and sub fucking artcic temperatures. That's Poopsemort if you ask me. Worse, in Embarass, MN, it was -42 F BEFORE the wind chill was figered in. Witch's Tit? A Witch's Tit's a fucking day at the beach compared to that shit my friends.

ER. The day before the day before Christmas is busy as shit in my ER. Nope, nothing tragic and only one potentially fatal illness. The rest? Toothaches and diarrhea. Fucking people. Stay home, make some ham for the family tomorrow, pray and get ready for church, or pray and get ready for the Vikings vs. Packers game tomorrow. If you ain't sick, pretend you give a damn about the holidays and enjoy your family. Christ. That's what it's about after all....Christ. Some tell me he was the original Poops McGee. Of course, I'll prolly burn in hell for not capitalizing 'he'.

Gotta go, gotta a diarrhea baby.

Finally, I can blog.

Of course, now that I'm finally successful in loggin in after over three hours of trying, I've forgotten most of what I was going to write about.

First, a quick review of the time missed due to downed internet.

I believe on Monday, my wedding ring arrived. Unlike Wendy's reaction of fear, I'm happy as a puppy with two peters. The thing is frickin sweet. White gold ring with rose gold rails, shaped with a celtic knotwork pattern containing mega old school celtic dragons. Bad ass. Nick said it best with something like, "Now that looks like a ring made by dwarves."

Also on Monday, did a little gift exchange and some L5R. Friday night, John passed out L5R cards to Nick and I for the holidays, and Tuesday I kicked him back with some D&D mini's. Turns out some decent stuff was in the pack, AND that particular expansion is no longer available. Go me. But back to Monday. I hooked Nick up with some hand-me-down books and a most awesomest Spiked Club. I'm talking spikes you could put an eye out with. Pop a few melons to boot...not some piddly ass stick with nails in it. Wendy hit him with a plate. A french goat plate to go with his collection of french goats. That boy's got some weird tastes.... He returned the favor with the Erotic Roleplaying Handbook. Forkin awesome. Uses the 3rd edition (d20) rules, so it's easy to figer out, since we're playin D&D. It's a good Christmas so far.

Oh yeah, I gave Wendy part of her most awesomest gift the other day, too....but not the most awesomest part of it. She scored the biography of Betty Page and "Hollywood Nudes in 3D". The latter is a photobook of 60ish era nude photos, many with the red/blue 3D effect and complete with classy lookin 3D glasses. A must have for any chic that digs women with real bodies and not the porn star looks that get their man's Christmas package goin....

On the L5R front, I'd made a Unicorn deck with the new Khol Wall stronghold. For Nick's B-day, which is today, the solstice, I hit him with a Phoenix starter from Web of Lies, so he just pretty much mixed a little extra in (I think) and played that. Needless to say I owned him. He'll say a different deck of his would have done better. Better yes. I've gotta say, though...the whole region thing, combined with the peops that power off of regions are bad ass. Give Uni's the extra mobility and battle actions they needed.

Just to test the deck, I whipped up a Pirate Arimasu's Pride deck, too. It held the Uni off for awhile, but couldn't keep the pressure up, proving once again that PK and control still take a back seat to sheer overwhelming force. Or does it? Cause that doesn't explain how my rats can beat Crab....

Umm, what else?

I think I'll call it good for now. If something else comes up, I'll let you know.
Shafe

that damn rock 'n roll lifestyle

Well, a late night of partying and D&D took its toll. Woke up this mornin dehydrated as a mofo. Much tea has remedied that. Hooray for tea.

So, the night started late (7:30ish) cause Wendy and I wanted a dinner other than the turkey I knew Nick had to offer, and I need leftovers for the weekend's work schedule. Didn't figer it'd be that big a deal, since we've not started before then any other time, but I guess it was. Oh well.

Once it began, there was much rum and coke. Some would say I got a bit drunk. No hangover, but they may be right. Regardless, we spent too many hours goofing off and not playing, so the game ran late. On top of that, despite Matt driving 2+ hours to play, his character didn't join up til the end of the night, leaving him frustrated. Rather than dwelling on that, let's recap the game.

Briefly, we're on a quest to ascertain and stop the massive wind storm blowing over our continent and grounding the allied air forces. We have a guide, that's turned out to be quite the bad ass...possibly more bad ass than the entire party, yet he's ordered not to do anything other than guide us to our goal... Of course, a lot of actions along the way can be construed as self defense, so he's done his fair share of killing.

Initially, we were jumped by an earth elemental while we slept. I could have sworn it was large, but it would have had to be huge to not take damage from our weapons as it was. Regardless, we ran like scared bitches, leaving it quite literally in the dust.

The next day, a labia (lamia) jumped us outta nowhere. Ollie and Durbik (the dwarf) cut that bitch in half, quite literally. I believe the day after that, a powerful group of bandits jumped us. Nick let Matt play them to alleviate some boredom. Harrier turned out to be a suitably bad ass druid spell, and was effective enough agains an opposing wizard that I didn't have to summon a Thoqqua....bummer. Ollie and Durbik hacked some shit to death again, although mostly Durbik, and Tren played pin cushion with a lot of the baddies. Good stuff.

We reached the village we were supposed to meet Shamus in after that. Sold some loot, I tried to make a nice amulet, but failed and wasted about 700 of our gold. Turns out, Shamus is a doof and insulted our guide pretty heavily. Thanks to Tren's stalling, Durbik didn't kill Shamus, and G-leaf dumped the halfling's ass invisible. Durbik turned himself in, and spent three days in jail. In that time, some scrolls were made, wounds healed, and Shamus left us again to seek out a means of not being killed by Durbik. We don't know yet, but he's been replaced by Patty Mushmeat in the party. That's a permanent sex change to keep a character alive. Ahh, the power of modern magic.

I believe the next time we play will be about the 14th of January, thanks to the holidays. Then we should get to the meat of the adventure...

Tonight, we game

Well, hopefully today I'll wrap up the gift purchases after work, as I still need stuff for me mummy, Big Country and Billion Dollar Braxton (technically he's only worth a mil or so, but being considerably premature will do that to ya. poor kids gonna have more health problems than I). Prolly Monday or Tuesday we'll get with Nick to exchange gifts (next year I'm sure the MN equation of Christmas we'll be a lot larger, but this year, it's just Nick), hopefully I'll have the care package sent to So. Ill., and Christmas day see's the introduction of me madre and co to the frigid north. Gonna be a good Christmas. Specially when Wendy opens the Most Awesomest Gift Ever (sure to still the title of Best Gift Giver Ever completely away from Boolah). Hell, since I scored such awesome gifts for everyone, I may fly without a list for the boys down south next year. It failed this year. I'da got Joe One Piece he already had, and while I'm sure Country would have got a chuckle out of the Life of Dio DVD I could never find, it'd prolly sit on the shelf with the prolly unopened Poison DVD Boolah got him last year....lol.

But this post isn't about that. It's about gaming. And tonight, we game.

We're gonna continue from where we left last weekend, which was a near a dead pile of orcs or something we thought were Yuan-ti. Matt's gonna make it this time, so yay, for Shamus Potts will be traveling with us, and since we're pawing along on the ground, his Flaming Fists of Halfling Doom kung fu fighting style will be much more effective. Hopefully, G-leaf can add to his army a bit, and Ollie might find the benefit to befriending his own personal arsenal of warm and fuzzies. In game terms, the gnome has about 2 5/6 worth of HD floating around in his animal friendship pool, and the ranger has a full 5HD. Plenty of room for a bear or something. G-leaf's torn between getting some better aerial combatants and not making Bill & Ted jealous. Granted, there's not much a hawk or eagle's gonna do against the likes of a manticore.... Maybe he'll just start befriending a poop load of smaller birds to act as a spy network.... or maybe just a cheetah.

Regardless, look for a full report tomorrow, as I work all weekend at FV.

some adventure ideas

So, I got nothing spectacular to blog about, so I'll just run some adventure management ideas out here. Since both Brucilus Ar'Wayne and Ollie Queen are running together, I's thinking of picking up some apropriate trade paperbacks and converting some of those story arcs into adventures...

Trouble is, once John and Nick catch onto which arc it is, they'd know how things are supposed to go and have easy solutions..........

Any ideas?

I just had a long long discourse with myself on some other ideas, but they're too cool to post where the players can see them. I wonder if there are any DM only Yahoo Groups or forums anywhere that the web blocker at work doesn't kick out. Unfortunately I can't hit diamond comics at work to see what's coming out this week, cause it's rated as "E/Humor" and gets blocked. Dumb.

The rest of my weekend

So, I put the brief review of the horrid Blade movie first, so it'd be at the bottom. Cause I didn't want ya to have to read about that ass before reading the good bits of the weekend.

First, we'll start at Friday. Some sweet ass D&D. Brucilus got promoted to Sky Captain and was awarded a Red Badge of Courage for valor and taking injury in combat. As such, he's privvy to advanced healing and won't be out of comission as long.

Upon the return of the original air wings attached to the army we're with, they challenged the heros to some Texas Hold 'Em. Tren and Ollie played for our team, versus Tani Brasstags the leader, and Bomph, a one-eyed 1/2 orc cleric of Kord on the other side. Bomph, played by Nick went out purty quick, partly due to playing pretty shitty. Sorry Nick, but it's true. Ollie got a pretty good lead, but Tani managed to whittle a good pile away, and in the end went all in and won with a full house (three aces, two 8s).

Then, since it was so early, we decided to hop into Nick's adventure. Tren, Ollie and the newly recruited G-leaf had to fly overnight to rescue a couple of spies. Along the way, a young copper dragon bugged the piss out of us, but G-leaf's insanity sent the plucky chap off after a black dragon. C Dragon might have been a little pissed to learn it was an illusion, but G-leaf didn't know that.

Upon arriving at our destination, we were set upon by a couple of mounted wyverns. A quick sting to Ollie's mount sent him to the ground with a nearly dead hippogriff. Tren landed to support him and the two of those went berserker arrow on the bastard, eventually taking it down. In the meantime, G-leaf went flying after the other wyvern, which had located our endangered spies. A flurry of flaming sling bullets, a couple of decent diving hippogriff attacks, some MAJOR distraction by a couple summoned giant eagles, and one slash from Tren's mount near the end netted another dead wyvern, but not before it managed to kill one of the spies, and almost lay out the other. (I personally think the other was toast, but Nick kept him alive to keep the adventure going....like a good DM should).

Tren takes the poisoned spy back to camp, while Ollie and G-leaf heal Ollie's mount, intent on returning the next day. However, a huge fucking storm erupts across the continent and it takes us 4 days to get back. Once there, we discover the storm is a massive spell summoned by the bad guys to ground our air force and disrupt some of our magic, and somehow, they managed to break our encoded telepathic communications, laying bare the plans of our armies and allies...

So, we set forth to remedy that. On the way, we got jumped by some Yuan-ti, but General G-leaf's army laid some smacketh down...only to discover that they Yuan-ti were really just illusioned orcs or something, cause we fucked em up fast. And then the DM was tired.

So, last night, we were gonna catch Blade, then hit Ground Zero, a local goth club for some hardcore B&N rocking. But, Blade sucked my will to do anything, and Wendy hated people when she got home. So, more Texas Hold 'Em. I won again, with a straight, this time, I think...or maybe another full house.... *shrug*

Anyway, it was a good weekend, and if you read this Monty, sorry...it's my fault we didn't make it to Ground Zero.

Today I wrapped it up with football at Phil's, ending the night with the new MK....Deception I think. Bad Ass game.

Review of Blade:Trinity

Craptastically Craptacular. Only two good things to come out of the flick are good mental images of Jessica Biel and "cock-juggling thunder cunt". Seriously, aside from Van Wilder's character, which was probably improv, most of the dialogue sucked horrid ass. People just don't interact like that. Felt I was reading a teen romance. Then, there was the acting. Sorry Mr. Snipes, the career is over. Save the cost of a movie ticket. Hell, when it's on USA, save the 106 minutes and watch an infomercial.

kinda worried, but there's 20% off

So, I haven't heard from either of the fabulous Morris boys since late last week. I saw The Mighty Boolah online early this week, and my dad is floatin about from time to time, so I know there's not a county wide internet outage back home. In the past, it's just meant their computer got screwed up somehow. That could be the reason, but that doesn't mean I'm not worried.

On a lighter note, cafepress is kind enough to offer 20% of base price to all of the vendors for Christmas. So, check at my store at www.cafepress.com/watchdogs and check out Joe's store at www.cafepress.com/torcpress and let me know if you want anything. I'll cut ya a deal. I'm definitely hooking up with a Pengy Christmas Special Clock and prolly a Cactus Joe Apron. Nick should consider getting a Nick and the Flaming Phoenix Sticker.

disjointed L5R takes two

To recap, busy. Explorer just killed my post. Not sure if Microsoft hates me, Blogger hates me, or God hates me. Someone does.

Anyway, so last night we got some L5R in. One game just Nick and I, one game Nick and I with John watching, and one three way dance with John, Nick and myself. Unfortunately, Nick took my ribbing about his ancient cards a little too seriously. While I do hate those cards, and I just posted a frickin encyclopedia of why on his blog, I wasn't at all serious about them last night. After all, one of those gold edition cards in his Crab deck allowed John to bitch slap Nick with a pretty sweet combo and go on to win the game.

So, both duels were my Unicorn against Nick's Shadowlands. The Uni deck is meant to produce power mad pony boys with lots of followers and weapons. I pulled one follower all night, and got maybe three weapons in play, two of which were on the Khan during battle. Which begs the question, is it just a bad deck? Prolly, since most of the choice cards go into the Nezumi Boomstick. Well, I'd say it's just mediocre. Still.

If I remember right, the first game started pretty close. In the end, I'd dropped Nick to two provs, and he had me to one. I made a bonehead play, twice, which cost me two battles, but not any provinces. I think if I'd flipped a decent personality, I could have held one...no wait, if I'd drawn any kind of battle action at all, but I drew a retribution. I could have defended and lived through his next attack, but I'd lost all my peeps. I bowed.

Second game was when we had the most "can I take that back" moments, as we were both trying to explain what was going on to John. My first turn Chrysanthemum Festival and slow gold build gave Nick an early hoard lead, and again, I wasn't drawing crap. For some reason I wasn't thinking about the game much either. In retrospect, without knowing what cards Nick didn't get a chance to play, I should have done better. Best play I had was letting him take one province with no D, using all his peeps, then using retribution with Chagatai and killing the prov holding Iuchiban. I think this game had the most bitching, cause Nick had a beyond old Jade edition holding that lets you bow a personality (may be a shug, can't remember) in order to bring a dead human, into play with the only penalties being a -2c and gaining shadowlands trait. Thing is, he can do that EVERY TURN as the holding doesn't need to be bowed. Considering how cheap the holding is, you can see why'd I'd crack bad jokes about him cheating. ;)

Final game saw John using Nick's Crab follower deck, with Nick and I both playing Phoenix. Now, my Phoenix deck blows hard chunks. Last deck I made, meaning it's got the leftovers of the leftovers of the leftovers for cards. And I forgot how to play it. Ideally, I would have got out Walking the Way, used that to grab Iron Citadel and just built a fort. But I forgot that til the game was over. Then, in an entire game, playing Phoenix, I got out four Shugenja and three spells. Not good with the Open spells box as your stronghold. Oh yeah, started with some heavy gold screw, too.

So, John attacked me once, I defended with my one person and didn't lose the province, cause he attacks very carefully, being sure to leave someone on defense. Then, John attacked Nick once, and Nick sent his peeps home. Next John attacked Nick again, and asked me to help. I did, with my two shugs.

Two battles. First, Nick sent John's beef home, and I bowed my Shug to off his unbowed guy. We tied with 0F. Second battle, Nick again sent John's beef home, and I blew up my Shug with Fires of the Phoenix to kills his bitch with the Phoenix sword. After that we all built for a round, then John attacked me, and Nick asked to help. With shit in my hand but Kihos and my one Shug bowed, I let it through and lost 3 provs. I coulda blocked and saved one, but woulda lost me whole army. Nick and John had both commited their whole fighting force (Nick had a utility shug held back to retrieve cards).

My turn I flipped Seruma and decided to gamble on her flipping another perons. So, I kept one shug heavy hitter back for D and attacked Nick. I coulda took 3 provs, but that woulda left me relying solely on Seruma and whoever else came into play after her, so I just took two provs. Buy Seruma, and flip a damn holding. That wrapped it up for me.

So, on Nick's turn, not having enough to take my last prov, he opted to bust down one of John's. Too bad for him, John had been holding a Call to Arms all game. He unbowed all of his peeps and blocked Nick. Now, Nick could have taken some of John's peeps with him, which woulda have meant I could have prolly blocked him for one more turn, but he didn't. So, he lost his army. Then, John played one of Nick's Gold edition cards I always rag him about (counterattack) and wiped Nick out on Nick's own turn. So, on John's turn, he had 20+ total force to my 7. He won. Great job for being his first game, too.

Tune in this weekend for a report on the first ever D&D Air Corps Hold 'Em Fighter Pilots vs. Military Intelligence/Spec Forces Poker Tournament. And possibly the game time introduction for G-leaf. Maybe I'll finally memorize all 6 of his damn Common language names. I don't even wanna try the gnomish shit.

and we're all going to bug city for the night.

Well, I was gonna blog, but realized in my present haze of hunger and allergies, it'd be nothing but complaining. So I'm just gonna poor out a bit of my 40 here on the ground, and give a big up to Buddy, John's depearted leopard gecko. Never met him, but the little dude helped pull John outta depression, so I'm cool with him. Here's to hopin leopard gecko heaven is full of bug feasts and gecko women.

checkin off the list

Man, it's gonna be busy today. :( Fortunately, that means I'll just be mildly annoyed with all of the patients and not homicidally angry with a select few. :P to them. Stay home, watch football, it's Sunday in America after all.

Anyway, this weekend I managed to check off three things from the months goals, and take a big chunk out of two of them....although two of the check offs just refill after Friday.

First, finished Wendy's story. I say finished. I finished reading the first part of it she gave me. I've read other parts out of time with this one, so I know where it's going, but this part is the beginning, so it was more like reading a book. We had a good critical discussion about it last night, so she knows my thoughts on it. It's one of those stories I can't wait to see finished, and I can't wait for other people to get into it, too.

I think for the most part, I've got next week's adventure wrapped up, too. I still gotta figer out how I'm gonna handle pc's bluff skills in a real life poker game, but I've got a rough idea for that.

And finally, I finished knockin out my character for Nick's adventure after the poker tournament. Gotta tell ya, I can't wait to play this guy.

He's a little crazy, for the reasons listed in yesterday's post, so he'll be fun. 3 illus/3 druid/2 geomancer. He goes by G-leaf, although his name is much longer. As a geomancer, he's grown a white, downy fur all over his body, complete with leopard spots. It works, cause one of his druidic animal companions is a snow leopard, but I forgot her name. Along with her is an Irish Wolfhound named Granite, trained to carry our little gnome friend as a mount (complete with special saddle), and a female lemur named LeLe, which rides the hound when G-leaf is hoofin it himself. As an illusionist, he picked up a familiar a little late in the game. I'm saving that one for the game as a bit of a surprise. All I can say is "Thank You, Savage Species manual."

Interesting items our addle-brained hero carries include a golden sickle of throwing, a couple of magical collars for the leopard and hound, and an extensive array of wands, scrolls and defensive magical items. He should be a fun one.

And if Nick makes us start at lvl 1 for his campaign, I'm gonna try to play a tauric monster (think centuar). I'm thinking maybe the upper torso of a pixe, with the hind quarters and body of a weasel. :) Or maybe I'll play a gay elf with a simbiotic Republican dwarf attached to his back....

Anyway, here's hoping this post posts, as it took me 1.5 hours to type it between patients.

Like Breeds Like

When you're at work, and it's dead slow, if you're doing absolutely nothing, you want to continue doing absolutely nothing. Therefore, if you're like me, you get inexplicably angry when a customer/patient comes in and makes you do something. Even if the extant of your job takes maybe 4 minutes per patient. 8 minutes is the national average, but I shoot for 2.

So, Nick's gonna be running a little adventure in a couple of weeks. For simplicity on this one, everyone's gonna be using their characters in my campaign, and this adventure's just going to be a part of my campaign. Sounds like later he'll run a campaign of his own. Here's the trouble with that, which I just now realized... For this one adventure, I have to make a character. I've spent maybe the last week or so mulling over possibilities and finally came up with a guy I really dig. (more on him in a minute) From the sounds of it though, Nick's real campaign is gonna be level 1, which means this mid-level guy I'm making now is gonna stay in my campaign. See what I'm getting at.... I'm gonna have a character I like a lot that I get to play maybe once or twice, cause I'm the DM in this campaign. Granted, I can run him from time to time if the party needs extra guns, but that's still not the same. :( I sad.

Wanna run down on the character? Hope so, cause it's coming anyway.... I had to leave for work in the middle of making him, but a lot of the big stuff is done.

Being a gnome, from a family of illustrious illusionists, our boy of course went to an illustionist university, despite a barely above average intelligence. During a "refined casting" test, the young gnome misfired a spell, which left him and his professor in a state of siamese twinness. Modern magic being what it is, this embarrassing situation was quickly rectified. However, our unfortunate miscaster was quickly ostracized from the school. His family being very proud of its heritage, he was even more quickly ejected from the family residence. A young gnome, with no family in a city he'd barely spent time in, he went a little crazy and set forth to find himself in the wilderness.

(fuck I inexplicably hate people all of a sudden)

He discovered an affinity for two things. Dirty fighting and nature. He became a druid. As his druid powers grow, he becomes closer to the land.

In game terms, that's lvl 3 illusionist, lvl 3 druid, lvl 2 geomancer.

But, a ton of fucking sick and snifflies just came in, so I gotta cut this bastard short. And somehow, I gotta get unangry, cause I shouldn't be this pissed. Although this bitch that just walked in is gonna drive me nuts with her complaining about how sick she is. She's vertical, not puking, not bleeding, and not shitting her pants....I've seen sicker. And a nurse from upstairs just called to ask me how to put a sticker on a name band. These people save lives?

First step is to change the retarded channel.
Shafe the Angry, off to change the world. Or cage it, as that's what I typed first.

!Goalas de Deciembre!

Yes, I know 'goalas' isn't a word and doesn't mean goals in Spanish. El Eat Me. And yes, I know I'm bloggin a lot today. I just didn't want a super long one. Well, I do, just not a super long blog, and Wendy tells me no whenever I try to call one of those natutral male enhancement numbers anyway. Maybe I'm long enough.

First, the eternal question, do I get soda or chips with my one dollar? Hmm

Anyway, Joe has a good idea. Not sure if he's gonna stick to it. Not sure if I will either, but for now, here, on my blog, with plenty of commas to spare, and totally out there for the world to see, my goals for December. ,,, <--The comma qeue. 1. TorC Press Stuff. First and foremost, I'm sittin on a wine barrel full of new character bios. I need to get those posted to the site, as well as keeping the Christmas Special Webcomics posting in a timely fashion. Second, I need to get the database set up for the store, so Joe can sell his comics online, and I can stop loaning my copies out to people and never getting them back.

2. Wendy's Stuff. Wendy has a book. I have a copy. I need to read it and critique it for her, so she'll believe that I do enjoy reading her stuff, cause I think the standard "I just haven't had time" is starting to fall on deaf ears.

3. My Stuff. Umm. Well, I haven't posted any WIP images for my avatar. I should do that. Of course, I also want to beat a game or two. I should focus on Leisure Suit Larry, as I'm closest to finishing that. hmm. Of course, there's gobs of D&D in my future too. I wish I could post the kick ass characters I made for the next one, but my players read this. More of my players do than the boys back home I think. Here's a call out to the WatchDogs. I know Boolah reads me. If Joe and Country do, post a comment, here and now. I dare ya.

So, after reading all of that, the short list recap is:

Character Bios
Store
Wendy's book
Avatar
Beat a game
Oh yeah, and Clean My Corner.

Bummer about posting this after all of my other posts for the day is that by now, you probably don't plan on reading the two previous posts. Read them. And view that crazy ass music video. Makes me want some bunny butt.

Thank you. Goodnight. Buenos Noches. Hah. Real Spanish.

Man. I gotta work on contest stuff like this.

http://www.madman.com.au/tism/bunny/

This is a damn funny video, and I give major props to the animator(s) that made this shit.

As to the blog title, there are presently two contest I should be working on, yet I'm not. Hell, one is a quarterly contest at a website I hit occasionally at work, and the winner last time, while being good, was not nearly as cool as the idea I had. If my execution had been as spot on, I'da won. If I'd entered. I gotta get off my ass and work on shit.

Maybe I should avoid Gamestop this weekend with our mega discount from B&N.

So get yourself a cheap wedding ring. du du du duh duh du du

ZZ Top rocks.

So yeah, scored my wedding ring on Monday. Custom made, should be here by Christmas. Wendy's came in the mail Monday too. Hers rocks. Accompanies the engagement ring beautifully, although it looks like a lot of jewelry on her little hands. We'll get matching rings later, when we either A) have a couple G floating around to flip onto jewelry or B) I save enough scratch to propose again with more grandeur. Granted, it's gonna be hard to beat sitting on the couch watching Balto.

So here's some links.

Wendys.
http://www.jewelrybydaoud.com/detail.asp?ProductID=115&cat=2&subcat=18
http://www.jewelrybydaoud.com/detail.asp?ProductID=153&cat=2&subcat=18
Hers is silver, with the main engagement stone being a deep garnet, accompanied by white topaz. The wedding ring is the same, with two garnets and three white topaz. In the utmost moment of smooth, we checked out this guy's booth at Ren Fest last year, and through select probing questions on unrelated subjects, she picked this thing out. Then I just had to sneak back and buy it. Rock.

As for Dao'ud. Or David. Not a bad guy. I still hold a little animosity toward him for being late with both rings *and* ruining the surprise last year. Part of the reason for Balto was that I blew my cash wad on a night of what was meant to be dinner, a play, Christmas lights, and proposal, but the ring was two weeks late, so the night was dinner and Othello. Then, when I called to find out if the ring was coming, he failed to contact me at work, and instead left a message at home something along the lines of "This is Dao'ud, I'm just returning your call about your order." Now, when the company name is Jewelry By Dao'ud, it's pretty damn obvious there's something in the works, and Wendy's too bright for me to have chalked it up to her getting a most awesomest Christmas present from me from the guys....although it was, it just wasn't meant to be a Christmas present.

Regardless, I'm pleased with the craftmanship and unique design of the ring. If you're looking for something a little different, check out his website. Just don't plan tightly around his 12 week schedule. He hasn't made it yet. At least not for us.

Mine.
http://www.raru.com/images/celt/dragon2tone.jpg
http://www.customceltic.com/images/dragbnd2tn9mm.jpg
http://www.raru.com/instock/images/b478.jpg
I went with a white gold center, with rose gold rails. I'm still a little nervous about this company, so I'll review their performance later. They're very nice on the phone, though.