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Well, over the past few weeks I've tried finding a flyswatter to no avail. First I tried the Fry's Marketplace and Albertson's near me. Neither carry flyswatters anymore. Next I tried the local Walgreens, Osco, and 99 Cents Only stores. No avail. Fry's Marketplace, Fry's Food and Drugs, $.99 Store, Basha's, Home Depot, and Seven Eleven, and several Circle Ks have also proven useless. Has American society become so politically correct that flyswatters are now a thing of the past? Does no one sell flyswatters any more?

Anyway, back to a more orderly recap starting with Friday the 23rd of May 2003. Our kids and adults finished the battle at the Three Goose Inn and fled together into the forest during Tom's D&D campaign. Once again, there were so many characters that the combat took most of the night.

Saturday Rusty ran his Blue Planet campaign again. The deputy marshall shot down a stick monkey that was throwing fruit at him during construction. When we finally convinced him to clean up his mess before carrior feeders showed up, he went out to it and arrived at the remains at the same time as a land lizard. Hobbs talked him into killing the land lizard without the benefit of any weapons. He took the challenge, and Adam started taking bets against the deputy. Neopolina, Igawa, and Slam all bet against the lizard and ended up aying out big time. This despite the fact that the deputy is a transhuman with the ability to increase his physical attributes to Strength 3 and Thoughness 5. Once he was unconscience and being fed upon by the lizard, Hobbs came ove and capped it. We all ended up having land lizard for dinner.

Rusty had run a Blue Planet game at LepreCon XXIX which featured a team of dolphins doing a sidebar adventure within our campaign world. Our characters met these dolphins the next day when they swam into our harbour during contruction of the island's jumpcraft landing pad. They made a comment about about the nearby glass coral reef. We, having done many recons of the area over the months, knew of no such reefs. So we had them lead us to it. It turns out that the reef was atop the once-cave where we "liberated" the longjohn. The oddest thing was that there was an anomalous patch within the glass coral that the dolphins hadn't noticed earlier. We broke off a piece of regular and anomalous coral and went back to our base cam to furthe investigate. We found out that the anomalous coral was oppositely polarized, a unique phenomina never seen before in the history of Poseidon. Luckily, the dolphins agreed with us that such a discovery need not be made public, otherwise the area would be flooded with visitors.

Sunday, Mom stopped by to go to mass with me and treated me to the new In and Out Burger at Desert Ridge Mall. Afterward, I attended the Hogwart's Live Action meeting, watched SG-1 and X-Files, and had a good long chat with Jess.

On Memorial Day Bill and Dai came up with Angie and Meen(sp?) so we could have dinner and a movie. Bill treated us all to Outback Steakhouse, before we went to see Reloaded at the AMC Desert Ridge. $8.50 for a movie these days! How do people afford it? I kind of felt like Bill and Angie were trying to set me up with Meen(sp?), which was weird, but at least it was less weird with Dai around. I mean, she's attractive in some ways, but totally uncompatible with me in others. I'd be fine with developing a friendship, but nothing else. Afterwards, I went home and chatted online some more.

Tuesday I had the day off (because of the holiday being on my usual Monday off), so Wayne and I went to Arby's, Fry's Marketplace (still looking for that elusive flyswatter), and watched the HP:CS DVD.

Friday the 30th was Tom's D&D campaign again. He pulled all the players with a magic casting character outside, which left Rusty and I by ourselves inside. This seemed odd to us, considering how Tom's campaign is currently set within an anti-magic land ruled by the priests of Garagos. We eventually were able to rejoin the other players where we started the next morning with the magic characters going into the nearby stream and retreiving a statue from under the silt. They kept talking about some dream which had led them to the statue, and how they needed to open it up. Meanwhile, the elven cleric finished up healing people from the previous night's fight and the human bard detected magic on all the items looted in the battle. Denton also tied identifying the items, but he failed his consentration check (required of all spells within this land) and had no other pearls to destroy. Suddenly, the group with the statue lost it. They claimed that the statue had transorted them to the southern border, which then collapsed. The collapse brought the undead trapped inside into the land and across the countryside. Then they returned sans statue. This made no sense, as they never left our eyesight, only the statue which disappeared. But we decided that it was necessary to ignore the current invasion army of Garagos and focus on rescuing the innocents from the undead plague sweeping through the land. Can we say cliffhanger?

Saturday was another Blue Planet camaign session from Rusty. This time the deputy marshall buried himself vertically in the beach sand up to his head for the night (to watch for dangers). Adam took bets on what would attack him first. He was pelted with fruit by the stick monkeys, had a land lizard come close, and eventually was physically attacked by a stick monkey. Luckily, Adam shot the critter off of him (who was monitoring his cash cow). In the morning we returned to the reef for more investigation only to discover that the anomaly was gone, and weirder still, that the whole reef had shifted to the southwest. That was when Ophelia was contacted by a humanoid shaped water eddy asking for help. One team followed it into an opening which it created in the coral, while a back up team stayed atop. The team walked through a constantly shifting labyrinth until they came upon a room of columns which resembled prototypes of them. Then they got into a battle between the water entity which asked for help and another which was shaping the terrain into weapons against it and them. Eventually the topside team noticed some rays glidding on an intercept course at unnatural speed. First the dolphins fled, then the rest (as they lost their will saves). When the spelunkers returned to the surface after their victory, they found the boats desolving in the ocean, and their teammates missing. On the way back home they found the topside team swimming for shore and stripping themselves of all gear and clothing. They spoke irrationally of their desparate need to reach the safety of the island as soon as possible. They didn't even seem interested in the safety of themselves or others. Thus, Adam submitted himself to Neopolina as no longer fit for duty. That's when the game devolved. Kitty and Tom didn't want to let me roleplay an emotionally shattered Adam, while both Mikes seemed interested in the rp opportunities. If its an rpg, I'd expect to have the opportunity to rp. But the computer gamers don't like to have their "rp" to have negative effects. I swear computer games will be the death of gamers yet. That was the end of the session, and it left me very dissatisfied. I wonder if the others all felt the same, as we're not going to be gaming at all this month (June 2003).

Sunday the 1st was mass, another Hogwarts Live Action Development Team meeting, and more SG-1 and X-Files.

Monday I had a lot of yardwork to do. Cassidy stopped by to help me diagnos my computer. Plus I stopped by the TFN boards.

Tuesday, a lot of my coworkers were asking me about the Romley versus O'Brien thing which was all over the front page both days that week. I predicted a letter from the bishop would be read at all masses the next Sunday.

On Friday, Tom, Lori, Kitty, Rusty, Steve, Jackson, and I went to Applebee's where Steve insisted on treating me. Afterward, Steve, Jackson, Tom, Lori, their roommate Russel, and I watched The Animatrix DVD at their place.

Last night the Mikes, Trollgod, and I played thirteen games of Shadowfist (only six for Ken).

Today, Mom came by to help her compose a letter. I'm sure she'd like the specifics left private, so I'll respect that.

We had the foretold letter from the bishop at mass. Father Milt followed that up with an excellent homily. He totally summed up the whole situation and related it to the solemnity of Pentecost.

Afterward, Mom and I went grocery shopping and had dinner from the Albertson's deli. Once she went home I joined the Hogwarts Live Avtion meeting in progress. Then I watched SG-1 and X-Files and typed up this entry. This left me tired so I went to bed. Night!