scoreless

We've all seen it. The bright green shirt with the iconic gamer figures in wedding garb and a caption that reads "Game Over". We know it, we love it. Nick got me one for my anniversary.

So, I'm burning "Casual Day" stickers all through my last 6 days in my current position cause they're no good in the corporate offices. I opted for that shirt today. As I'm strollin through the hellspital, I'm thinking how funny the dichotomy of sexes is regarding this shirt. Behold.

A chic sees a dude in this shirt and, barring the freak occurence of nature called a hot gamer chic, she's universally knocking that dude off her list of mates. He's either A) married or B) horribly single and telling the world that he views marriage as a death sentence because he refuses to give up the gamer lifestyle for something as trivial as love/sex/female companionship. A lifetime of save points can not be replaced by the responsiblities of a family (besides, we all know the good parts stop when the ring goes on. Unless you're me.)

Compare that to a dude seeing a chic in the same shirt. He's sees one of two things (after noticing how the shirt compliments her breasts). He sees a married chic that's announcing to the world that she somehow got shackled with the only dude in the land that doesn't get at least a partial stiffy at the thought of his eternal bed fellow whooping his ass at Mortal Kombat. There's potential there if he can work it right, and the best part is, her dude might unwittingly foot the bill... OR he sees a gamer chic that's announcing to the world that no cock can come between her and her magic buttons. The latter's just as good, cause it means you can plop down on the couch next to they honey, grab controller number two, and mash some shit up until she's too wet to win which is when it really gets fun.

Of course, there's the third front, which happens rarely, but paranoid (or realistic) dudes might see a chic that's telling him, "Look, geek. It's gonna happen. Even morons get humpin. Yer gonna find someone, prolly a fatty to match your fattyness, worlds collide, babies are made, you're hitched or paying child support and then, the last game system you'll even own is your right hand in the shower." Those guys are just weird, though.

sj.10.06

No, that's not the IP for sexy japanese. It's this months issue of Shonen Jump, and man did it rock. Let's start at the beginning.

OMFG! Naruto rOxOrs!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yeah, the book opened with Naruto and what has to be the best damn fight in the tourney thus far. Holy shit was there some ass whoopin to be had. I almost feel sorry for the little guy, especially with the touching chat at the end.

Shaman King was decent. Some ok character development for Horohoro, but nothing spectacular.

Same with Hikaru no Go. Good, but not great.

The you get Yuyu Hakusha. Another ass whoopin fight that almost ends in a shocker. Almost. We're batting .500 here on the awesome.

Then, Yugibutt. That drops the average. It could rock. I don't know. Waste of toilet paper in my book, although the thought of having his face on my ass in newspaper ink gives me enough of a chuckle that I'll entertain the idea....

We end with One Piece. Hard. Wrap up the Baroque battle. Or do we? The plot thickens, and I start thinking we need to add some broth to the soup before we need a fork to eat it....

So, yeah, if you read Naruto, Yuyu Whosaidthat, or One Piece, pick up the issue. It pwns so much $ss. If not, u suxors u damn noob. I'm so l33t.

or something

transition

Last night could have been the last dying breath of our Menagerie campaign, but I think we saved it. For now, we'll play on Monday sans Wendy until she gets Monday nights off. That'll prolly change again next semester with John's classes, but in two weeks, I'll be getting off at 4:30, so we can both start earlier and have some socializing time before we begin.

Personally, last night was one of the most enjoyable sessions I've had DMing in awhile. Not sure why, maybe it was the wing nut style of the session, but I felt pretty good with the RP of the three significant NPCs.

That being said, my worry is the session wasn't interactive enough for the group. Not a lot happened to challenge the players. I'd wanted to get a significant encounter in near the end, but there wasn't much time and the audience was waning. I have to say, though, the RP the group was putting out was goin on awesome, too. We had some good group development, some good independant character development (the assassin's eyebrow? hell yeah), the out of character chatter was minimal, and everyone pretty well stayed in character even then. Good stuff. I hope we can keep up that flow next week when it's just John, Nick, and myself.

On a personal evalution front, I'd say rather than making the crate big and unruly, I should have simply secured it to the ship in a permanent fashion. I figure a captain holding his estranged lover captive in an interdimensional space warp and utilizing her super manipulative air powers to the benefit of his ship and crew is NOT going to want the secret door to the cell stolen, broken, or accidentally thrown overboard when the ship's being chased by the Black Pearl or Flying Duchtman and needs to lighten the load.... I just need to be less heavy handed about it. Next time. next time.

mother fuckin

This weekend, among other joyous events, Hegs and I caught Snakes on a Plane. I went in expecting crap, and that's what I got. But I think I liked it. It's the kind of movie that's a great rental, especiallywith friends and an MST3K vibe.

Regardless, the movie worked its way into a dream I had, and at one point, I was being chased by a donkey. This donkey was walking bipedal, had no hair/fur, and very very thin skin. It was headless, and its forelegs were actually snakes. Now, in a normal dream, that'd be scary as shit. That's the kind of fucked up thing that leaves you short of breath when you wake up. But after SoaP (LOL, Funny acronym), it was just another oddity....

I'm not sure which part was more annoying; the obligatory sex scene which had some titties and marked the first people to die (gotta keep to the genre roots, right?), or SLJ saying "I've had it with these mother fuckin snakes on this mother fuckin plane," which was a line added in just so he could say mother fuckin. Don't get me wrong, I LOVED both parts. LOVED em. They just felt forced. Which is ok. Cause we caught the matinee and had fun. That's all I ask.

Regardless, I'll leave with this piece of wisdom. "Get off my dick, you fuckin snake."

Around the world in 80 days

OK. So I've wanted to run a campaign/adventure series called Fireball Run for sometime now. It's pretty much a spoof on Cannonball Run set in a D&D fantasy world.

Hence, my interest when I found a forum thread comparing a few different campaign ideas, one of which was a pulp, pre WWII, steampunk/etherscope race around the world. I'm reading the thread, enjoying the ideas, when someone suggests that you'd need checkpoints or some other reason take a certain route otherwise, "someone will just take the shortest distance around the world." Initially, that was the funniest damn thing I'd seen all day. I mean, the world's a big ball. There is no shortest distance. It's not as funny after thinking about it, though. But still. I've got nothing else to post about today.

Nevertheless, it'd be a fun campaign I think.

Dwarves rule the outer reaches

In news that'll make Hegs happy, Pluto's not a planet anymore. The folks in charge of that sort of thing have decided to be a planet you have to be:

Round

Orbit the Sun

And you must have cleared out all the crap in your neighborhood.

Since Pluto shares it's orbit/region of space with other objects, it's a dwarf planet, not a full on planet. So is Ceres and Pluto's cousing UB xxxxxx (whatever the damn serial numbers are on that thing). So now, we've got 8 planets and 3 dwarf planets in the solar system.

My question is - What do we do when the orc planets attack our peripheral defenders?

Slice it down the middle

Today the FDA announced that women 18+ don't need a prescription for the morning after pill. It's estimated that this will cut the 3 million unplanned pregnancies every year in half. Hooray for a step toward intelligent reproduction. Now let's follow in the steps of Australia and base welfare checks on a child's grades in school.....

Dragonlance Movie

Those of us that wanna watch it know it's coming. Here's the link to the semi-official site for it. The confirmed Lucy Lawless as Goldmoon, and it's animated. Fall 2007. Whoot!

You said it was a good size.

http://www.pinktentacle.com/2006/08/tiny-dice/

0.3mm cubed on the sixers. Wow. A set of em cost over 100K yen, though. That's like $870.... Still, Shadowrun, Warhammer, etc.....PWNED on the dice front now.

Deific

At Gen Con, I played my first ever game of Godlike and LOVED it. The game is set in WWII, and the characters are simple grunts in the Allied military. However, each character has a particular "Talent" or super power. Some can fly, some are super strong, some are invisible or bullet proof or both. Talents are only limited by your imagination and the headache the GM is willing to take on.

So, on Thursdays, Hegs, Flynny and I are gonna take up a little Godlike. Probably sporadically, cause we like to mix up Thursday game night. So, unless things change, here's what it looks like.

The characters will be Russians defending Stalingrad. Good times. John's first character is a Hyperbody, which means he's super strong. As it stands, he can lift about 6 tons and throw 3 tons or less like a baseball. Good times. We might adjust that with some advantages and fun flaws, but it'll be bad ass either way. Flynn's character is a well educated son of a professor whose power centers around cold. We haven't completely hashed it out, but it sounds like he'll be able to make it really, really fucking cold, then turn shit to ice. Hard to live when yer brain turns into an ice cube.

So, since Stalingrad was a cluster fuck the first few days, I'm starting them off there, as a tentative forward defense to aid the volunteers until the rest of the Russians roll in (trying to be a bit more historic and not make the Russians the worthless yak humpers that Enemy at the Gates portrays them as). In the Godlike setting, several hundred Talents sprung up in Stalingrad, both citizens and soldiers alike. That's giving me fun times on Russian peasant Talent front.

Like the kid with an invisible friend. Or the chic that helps the AA volunteer women keep on fighting the initial panzer push....I won't/can't say much about either of them, cause they're both integral to the opening scenes I think. Good stuff. The real challenge in the game will be playing on the empathy of the PCs when John tends to play characters that are severly lacking in emotional connection to anything. With or without that, it'll be fun to kill a lot of Nazis.

Anyway

Road to Rollin

Here's the mega Gen Con '06 review post. YAY! Hopefully I can get through it all today. We'll start with Wednesday.

Wednesday
We rolled out about 9:30 in the morning heading for Indy. Nick slept for awhile. Somewhere in there we started working up a character to run through some solo on-they-fly adventures on the trip. We came up with Shredheart Twinkletoes. Fighter2/Scout2/Cleric1. He'd use a Scythe dedicated to his deity making it a LARGE Keen Scythe of Throwing and Returning +2. Lots of damage potential there. Quick stop over at Culver's. Nick took a massive shit. Back on the road. Later Nick hid under his sweater and played Battlefield 2.

Total road time:9.5 hours (record)

Hit the hotel, unloaded stuff, fiddled with internet for a few minutes, didn't care much about that, and headed out to the Ram. Parking downtown was damn expensive, so we found a free parking meter about 10 blocks away from everything and stored the car there. Between the Indy police station, and a brightly lit Bail Bondsman. We hoped that would make it safe. ;) En route to the Ram (or maybe wondering around downtown looking for the car later) we scoped out a cheaper parking ramp only 2 blocks from the Dome that would net us a savings of $30 parking there for the week.

The Ram. Was. Crowded. The hosting staff was pretty confused, so it took a little over an hour to get a table, but the good news was they were still serving food long after the menu was supposed to switch over to the bar snacks. Nick grabbed a Tarrasque Burger, I passed on the Hippogriff Havarti Sandwich and had a Sesame Grilled Tuna thing off the not D&D menu, and we both split some Chuul Rolls (of course). Unfortunately, they brought Troll Fingers instead of Chuul Rools, and there was no butter kelp. A quick bite of Troll fingers proved that deep fried pickles weren't our thing, and we got em replaced with the correct food. My sammich was tasty, the Tarrasque Burger was gargantuan, and the Bloody Buccaneer Brew made especially for Gen Con '06 was really, really, really fucking good beer. We vowed to return. Headed back to the hotel and crashed.

Thursday
Thursday started bright and early. I think we hit the alarm at 5:30ish. Shower, get around, rub the sidewalk at McDonalds and head to the Con. Thursday was my WW II day.

I started off with the Savage Worlds game. We were archaelogist/explorers with a rich patron. It's just a year or two before WW II. Uncle Sam needs us to find a German scientist and protect the Fountain of Youth. There was quite some railroading here. A little bit of creativity netted us pulling ahead of the Germans, at which point, the scientist sent one of his men to offer that we join him. How'd he find out we had the "key" and a snazzy conquistadors hat? I don't know. But when we skipped town early rather than meet with him, he still showed up at the Fountain with a unit of Nazis. Even so, the game was fun because the GM did good impersonations, the crew played tight, and I got to start Gen Con off with my bad southern accent. (As it turns out, Johnny Knoxville was the only character I played that DIDN'T almost require I use that accent. Everyone else was either from Texas, the South, or a sci-fi equivalent.) Game Highlight: My greaser avoided a catastrophic boat failure by taking a little pre-emptive action, and I got offered a wrenching job that paid "a duck a day." Damn rednecks.

I spent a little time in the dealer hall, but didn't by anything, then it was on to Through the Desert with Nick. Play the game with a kid under 12 and it might be fun. Play it with Nick, me, some other dude, and a 15 year old bored girl, and there's little enjoyment other than cock blocking the other dude.... Game Highlight: Only took 45 minutes and left me with a few hours to kill before Godlike.

From TtD, we headed over to a Japanese restaurant near the Con for some sushi, Sapporo and saki. As usual, the saki Nick wanted was unavailable. Weird, that. Regardless, the sushi was good, and it's a spot we'll probably eat at again next year.

At 6, I hit the Godlike game. We had to make it to Bastiogne, relieve the 101st a bit, cause havoc on the way and get as many supplies as we could. Not only did we have a great crew, but the game rocked. The GM was a bit abrasive, and one couple left halfway through because of that. I think part of their gruff was that the wife had picked the character in the group to see the least action. She was the healer an no one really got shot til after they left. That made for a boring game for her, added to being late, and I see why the split. The rest of the party (aside from the healer) was a flyer (little Mexican dude that new more about WW II than the GM), Captian America (played by a British dude), our super strong man (played by medic's husband) that carried an MG42 all by himself, a radioman that could intercept radio signals WITHOUT a radio, a sniper that was bullet proof, a Jewish German resistance fighter with the Zed ability (could 'turn off' other people's powers), and me, a professional soldier that could regenerate everything but decapitation.

We started off with a quick "learn the rules" combat. Among other things, it set the stage for the sniper failing his stealth rolls, taking aim, and then having his target mowed down by machine gun fire or grenades. Bottom line, if you're playing a sniper, make sure the group plans accordingly and picks targets. Sniping doesn't work in the chaos of storming a defense very well. My favorite part about this combat was the Han Solo moment. Turns out, the Krauts were on the radio getting directions when we mowed em down. Our radioman intercepts the signal, they ask "What's going on?" and he says, "Umm, I don't know. Just some weapons misfiring. I think the radios broke." Disconnects and says, "I didn't like that conversation much anyway." Then we find a German code book and things get better for the radioman. Too bad he didn't have any bluff skill....

Later, we roll into a checkpoint loaded with Nazis and a couple of Tiger Tanks. We don't expect our stolen papers to get us far, so our Captain quick learns how to say, "Shut up, I have to pee," in German. At the checkpoint, the radioman passes over the papers, argues with guard, the Captain "wakes up" jumps out of the half track, gives his speech and heads for the tanks. In the meantime, one guard heads to get the colonel. The colonel approaches the captain, cap drops his charge with a 10 second timer, heads back to the half track and starts a count down over his head while faking a big, yawning stretch. I yell to the crew in back (I was the driver), one tiger tank blows up, and we fucking go into Nazi blasting action. Strongman leaps from the truck to other tiger tank and flips it over, while the rest of us shoot Nazis heads off. The captain gets into a round of fisticuffs with the colonel, most of the Nazis run away, we knock the colonel out, grab two trucks, tons of blankets, gas and ammo, and start interrogating the colonel. He won't bow to intimidation from the strongman, so the captian says, "You're right, brute strength won't do the job here. Let me show you what we do to prisoners that won't talk," and proceeds to stab me in the fucking lung repeatedly. Kraut told us everything we wanted to know. He didn't know much about troop movements, but we learned a lot about the artillery surrounding the town.

We rolled into Bastiogne, delivered our supplies, were treated as heroes, got some sleep and went out to bust up some artillery. That's when we met our first talents. Zed is real effective against flyers, and our little Jew took out the Nazi human jet real quick. Our armored man took out their armored man by being smarter than him and using a rifled grenade rather than going toe to toe. Knife to a gun fight and all of that. They also had a human torch type character. He didn't like me much after he'd watched me get mowed down by an MG42, lie there for a round or two, crawl for a round or two, then get up and starting fucking Nazis in the eyes again. He came straight for me. Too bad. Being the point man, it was my original task to set my stachel charge at the optimal point to destroy the artillery.

Instead I played hot potato. With the torch. "Catch!" as I tossed him the charge. He did.

Good thing I could regenerate.

The final fight was a bit more anticlimactic, but still fun.

Game Highlight:Tough call.I think the players were the highlight of this game. Wish I could have got the contact info for the British guy. He was purty cool. Unfortunately, there wasn't an opportunity to do it without also trading info with the GM OR looking like i was hitting on the Brit.

Friday
Friday I opted to skip my 8am Blue Rose game so I could make it to the noon Serenity game on time. Too bad. The dealer hall didn't open til 10, so I had a couple hours to kill doing jack. Can't remember what I did, cept wonder around talking to Wendy on the phone. In the dealer hall, I hit the OOTS booth and the Paizo booth, then grabbed as many freebie things as I wanted thanks to the Gen Con coupon book. Decided EVE Online looked fun and grabbed a 20 minute free online demo of it for later. Thinking about getting into the Pirates of the Burning Sea demo, too. Demoed Anachronism, which I love, just for another free character. I'm up to three now, and I've spent no cash on the game. Demoed something else, but it was lackluster and I've forgot about it.

Headed over to the Serenity game, and the DM was a half hour late. Coulda caught my morning game. :( Serenity was fun, but the crew was pretty well crap. Out of the five other players, I like two of them and the DM. The other three were confused about roleplaying in a cooperative game environment. I had just enough fun not to leave because of the Firefly fanatic. I really would like to play this game again with people I like. Game Highlight: Getting plot points for a far too subtle jab at Captain "Look at my mudder's milk t-shirt" (the annoying guy) that only the GM caught, and getting plot points for the sweet in-game rant I made at the character that was allergic to everything. I basically just said everything funny I've ever said about my own allergies while calling him Snuffles, Snufflestupidus or some other variant. It was all planned, as our goal was to start a brawl. We did.

After Serenity, Nick and I hit True Dungeon. Damn was it fun. Combat is a shuffleboard system, spell casting is all about memorization, and picking locks is close to the game Operation. My advice, don't be the rogue. First, to utilize your sneak attack, you don't make an attack for the first round. Most combat in our group lasted 2 rounds, with the one going longer than that being the one that I died before doing anything. Second, "I search the pillar for traps," always met with "You find nothing," even when it was trapped. Third, when you opened the treasure box, you could either get a clue for the room or grab one treasure for yourself. None of the clues were useful. So, don't be a rogue. Despite that I had a blast, and I only wish the chubby hermetics would have got the fuck out of the way instead of standing around like cattle. Game Highlight: It's a toss up between solving the web trap puzzle or watching Nick get reamed out and then hung inside out by the drow priestess at the end of the dungeon. He was looking for a potion to revive me with instead of paying attention to her. Good times. She was hot, too.

We ended Friday night with another visit to the Ram, where they made us twice the drinks we ordered but didn't charge us. So actually, we ended Friday night milling around the Con for a couple of hours after dinner while I sobered up to the point of legally driving.

Saturday
Saturday started with 8am Cthulhu. Call of Cthulhu that is. My 2nd favorite game of the weekend, it only edged out Godlike because the GMs were cooler and had a ton of props. Not kidding, we packed into a van at one point, and the made all 8 of us squeeze into the space and seats of a small van. While driving down the road, the deputy found a snake on him. He actually had a rubber snake, so when he screamed and threw it behind him, several of the other players reacted to snake as if it were real. Great, great stuff. There was a lot of splitting the party, so the two GMs were pulling us out of the room, comparing notes, etc. they had a powerpoint presentation, music, stayed in character for ALL of the characters, and all of that combined to help all of us players do the same, so there was a lot of redneck Tennessee county officials hitting on the hot intern (which was a skinny Arabian man), while she complained about her dad getting her this job and alternately took a lot of picture with his/her cell phone and disposable camera for real. We were all rewarded with a free book at the end and most of us lived, except one. Only one person went crazy, too. Not a normal Cthulhu game. Turns out, though, the ritual we stopped was beneficial and would have destroyed Yigg. Instead, we let him live on forever. Whoops. Game Highlight: The snake in the van.

More vendor hall while killing time for the next game, and I scored some mad loot at the Goodman Games cheap table. I'm talking a hardback, three softbacks, and a little spineless number all for $10. Hit Paizo again and resubscribed to both of their magazines, hoping that would again be the impetus for me to hit the writing solidly... Scored another round of freebies with the Gen Con coupons, then headed over to the next game.

The next game was a board game with Nick called Collateral Damage. Turns out it's not published yet, so we had to sign NDAs. Can't talk about it much, but the game itself is damn fun. You're basically an anime gang boss and your thugs, all drawn from various anime shows like Tenchi, Lupin III, and shit with high sexual tension, continually beat the shit out of each other and the cities of Japan while falling in love, having sex, and beating the shit out of their rivals. Fun stuff. Game Highlight: One of Nick's characters grenading the fuck out of everyone in one of the cities. I didn't do shit, cause I kept getting craptacular characters and had very little notoriety. *shrug*

After that, Nick and I had time to kill, so we hit the vendor area a bit more, then headed out to find food. My next game wasn't til 11pm. Rather than polish off a round at the Ram again, we opted to explore. Across the road. We hit Alcatraz, which was a restaurant/brewery in the same vein as the Ram only from San Fransisco. I ordered up a Pelican Pale which was described as lightly golden and gave me images of Amstel Light. Turns out it's a red that's somewhere between Killian's and Guiness to my pallette. Opted for a different beer, but everything they had was described as being close to Heffweizen (not my cup of tea). Passed on the beer and we went for the food. Nick ordered an appetizer that was prawns cooked in a caramel apple thing and wrapped in bacon. Too bad it was just three prawns and the bacon overpowered all the flavor. Nick had jumbalia and I had fish and chips. Neither was bad, but neither was good enough for us to go back. The only advantage the place had over the Ram was a 15 minute wait vs. the Ram's 1 hour+ wait if you couldn't sneak into the bar.... Needless to say, no Alcatraz next year. Food was a bit more expensive than the quality.

My final game of the evening and the Con was Midnight Zombie Show, a freeball, ham it up, annual event based off the All Flesh Must Be Eaten rules. The guy's been running it for 8+ years I think, and it's usually the biggest game of the Con. This year, zombies attacked the Oscars. I was Johnny Knoxville. I sat at a table with Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jackie Chan, Vin Diesel, Denzel Washington, and Simon Pegg. We were an ass whoopin table. Unfortunately, it wasn't an ass whooping game. It was really more of a have a good time/do stupid shit game. Coincidentally, the best part was when Jenna Jameson, Britney Spears, and Drew Barrymore made out (the players did too). OK. That wasn't the BEST part, but pretty damn hot nonetheless. Bottom line, Midnight Zombie Show scored my vote for best event at the Con and I'm definitely gonna be there next year. Mel Gibson turned into a zombie and ate Jennifer Lopez, because Cristina Ricci wasn't meaty enough. Katie Holmes died. Twice. She kept coming back because Nicole Kidman enlisted her in the Destroy Tom Cruise quest. Tom Cruise turned several zombies into scientologists. I think Lindsey Lohan died, I know she got used as a battering ram. Vin Diesel prayed to Pelor (D&D deity) to strike down the evil at Neverland Ranch, because Britney Spears and K-fuck were breeding a new worker class. K-fuck used his cell phone douchebag power to live, but Britney Spears died despite Jenna Jameson's best efforts...thanks to half of the damage being divine. The Olsen twins grew their dark empire. Joan Rivers saved the world thanks to help from Sigorny Weaver, Samuel L Jackson, Elijah Wood and a few others. Too many funny moments/stories to recap..... I'll save them for later.

Game Highlight: This one gets two: Everyone's fun addictions and stupid "powers." I was addicted to Stupidity. Johnny Depp was addicted to Malaysian porn. Samuel L Jackson was addicted to saying "Mother Fucker." Nicole Kidman could use Voodoo magic, but only on Tom Cruise. She made it her mission to destroy him.

Also, a LOT of the people stayed in character. Some just went over the top, but the players of Samuel L. Jackson, Johnny Depp, Robert Deniro, Michael Jackson, Joan Rivers....those people were good. My favorite line - A zombie chicken truck is jacknifed in the road in front of Deniro's cab. Deniro pulls out a grenade and tosses it at the truck. The DM had said you could have whatever gear you might take to the Oscars. He asks Deniro, "Robert Deniro, you brought a grenade to the Oscars?" In full on Deniro accent, the player says, "What the fuck you talkin about? I didn't bring no fuckin grenade to the Oscars. No way I brought a grenade to the Oscars. I brought two goddamn grenades to the fuckin Oscars!" Good times.

Sunday
Sunday I slept in and Nick took a cab to the Con to watch a lot of anime. Spent a few hours in the vendor area wrapping up purchases and headed out. Great time all around.

All told, my cheap swag booty ended up being over $150 worth of books for $15. Love it. Grabbed a few new items, the aforementioned subscriptions, an adventure complete with minis, a few more minis, but failed to find a thri-kreen, satyr not eating pizza, and a kenku. Hopefully I don't fuck up the mods for Wendy's kobold mini. First time modding, so that'll be interesting... Watched a few new online games coming out. Check out EVE online and Pirates of the Burning Sea if you want space or sea based piracy and trading. Decided All Flesh, Godlike, and Call of Cthulhu are all games I'd like to get going. Didn't really meet as many people as I'd have liked. Really only walked away with one email address, and I know I lost that. :(

Can't wait til next year. Hopefully the crew will be bigger, and I'm definitely going to try to get more well known on ENWorld and hang with those guys. At the very least, I'm gonna try to avoid 8am games and replace those with sleeping in because of late night pick up games. There should be way more, "Hey, let's go to X and get a game of blah blah blah going while we drink heavily." That's all contingent on getting butt-raped over a hotel closer to the Con. Walking distance would be nice.....

C minus 4 days

Well, with Gen Con 4 days away (and two of them weekend days, hoorah), here's what I think is left. I'm sure I'm forgetting something.

1. Nick's making jerky. I'm making Chex Mix. Gotta get stuff for that.
2. Need to make a Target run today. Hope they have backpacks. Don't want to take the satchel I have right now, as it's easy to slide a hand into without opening. I'm not carrying much, but what I will have must not be stolen (mp3, camera, etc).
3. Pack. That can wait. Or not. None of the clothes I'm taking are work appropriate, so I could start packing now.....
4. Hit the Source/B&N and try to study up on a few of the games I'm in. Don't really want to be the guy that's like, "What's a Carthuvian Death Dance do again?" Plus, with Savage Worlds, which is the first game I play, if I know how, I can hopefully swing by a dealer's booth first thing and try to score some limited swag. Otherwise, I'm SOL on that front.\
5. Find all the damn batteries Wendy's absconded with and charge them. Those bastards owe me back rent.
6. Maps. Maps to the hotel. To the convention center. To parking. I really, really, really want to find maps of the area around the convention center. True Dungeon is in the Marriott ballroom, which means that's where the Tavern is. The TD Tavern is a hangout place with a cash bar and other TD esque games you can play while chillin. It's free to get in on the day your in the TD event. Whoot. But anyway, MAPS.

I think that's it.

*sigh*

Well, they good news is it isn't strep. No way it could be with the gallons of snot my body produced yesterday. Hell, the sore throat went away by yesterday afternoon and just got dry and rough feeling instead. This morning, even the congestion seemed to be leaving, but it's come back. Along with a mean cough. Bastard. Guess I'm taking it easy this weekend. :(

Curses

Con's a week away. Yesterday I started developing the symptoms of strep throat.

NNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Think I'll try to hit the doc in the AM tomorrow.....

Swag list

We leave for Gen Con a week for tomorrow. Hooey is it gonna be fun. Nick's talking a return to the days of my bachelor party, cause he "accidentally" saved too much money. Me, I'm faced with a dillemma on both the timing front and the fundage front. See, with the car purchase, then the car smashy, Wendy's ward going to summer camp, and the menage-a-treas (spelled that wrong, didn't I?) of weddings we had this summer, my Gen Con savings has been stunted. But here's the swag list I hope to grab, nonetheless:

Order of the Stick swag - Both books I don't have, maybe the game. If I get there early enough, I get tons of free crap. Trouble is, I have an 8am game on Thursday morning that I really want to play, but I think the dealer room opens at 8am. Hmmm. Oh yeah, I need to make up a story and a couple of children's names so I can get some OOTS coloring books, too.

Game swag - D&D wise, I'll be looking for cheap versions of Oriental Adventures, the Expanded Psionics handbook, and I think that's it. Nick's got most of the new stuff I've been considering, so I'll check out his pile tomorrow night to see if I should get any of it for myself. Other game wise, if I like the games I'm playing at the Con, I might try to pick them up. Most likely Serinity RPG is in, as well as Call of Cthulu, easy peasy. I'll check out Cold Steel Reign on Boolah's recommendation if I can find it, too. Oh, and of course, Sunday I'll cruise the dealer room looking for bargains. Any game I might consider playing that's 75% off is a possibility. ;)

Other stuff - Well, I've failed thus far in finding Record of Lodoss Wars on DVD. Might grab that if I see it cheap. Also, wardrobe wise, I need to get 4 new t-shirts (was five, til my anniversary, thanks Nick). I know OOTS will have a couple I want (still waffling on the "I prepared Explosive Runes this morning." shirt) I don't necessarily, and probably shouldn't, get all four of them at the Con, so maybe one or two. Oh yeah, at Wendy's request I have to go find Carrie what's her name from Mythbusters and get my photo taken with her, too. It'll set with the Shafe/Ray Park photo. You Illinois boys remember the Asian man lubing up the light saber in that line? Can't think of much else. I'm sure that's more than I can score, though. I have several 2 hour slots open for shopping and eating and a few board/card game sections I don't mind skipping. (I need to go back to the Source with a list of those games I'm playing, look at them, and decide.) For instance, I'll prolly skip SPANC to go the Ennies. John has it now, so why do I need to play it at Gen Con? Not to mention the Ennies is possibly a chance to hob nob with the pros over dinner. I think the dinner might be private, though. I thought about bidding at the charity auction for a seat at the Dog Soul table just to get in closer with those guys, but didn't. Limited funds strike again. Oh well, the Necromancy Games table seat went for over $500.

Speaking of Necromancy, prior to playing this Dread Necromancer in our PIA campaign, transmutation was my favorite wizard school to specialize in. Had the most versatility, creativity, etc. But now, I think the necro is pulling me in. There's just something to be said about being an enchanter/summoner of the DEAD. Good times. And you're never lonely.